by Blake, Laila
• • •
Walking beside her father, Moira’s feet felt heavy as she dragged them up the stairs. She hadn’t slept and the men and horses intruding upon her hazy morning had felt jarring, leaving her body in a state of uneasy tension. It made her twitch her shoulders a little now and then, as though trying to rid herself of a crawling insect on her back or in her hair.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she finally said, and her wide green eyes glanced sideways at the aging lord.
“At least wake someone to go with you.” His voice sounded more exhausted now. He hadn’t had the amount of sleep he’d wanted, either.
Moira didn’t answer. How could she? She knew his suggestion was made out of kindness but it also showed just how little her father understood her.
“It is dangerous out there. Truly dangerous. Do you have any idea how valuable you would be to someone … how much money or influence they would be able to extort for your safe return? And people are talking; they love talking about the eccentricities of their betters, you know that,” he continued, seemingly content with her contrite silence.
“You are forcing my hand, my dove.” He exhaled a deep breath and waited for her to turn around to him. “I have made some inquiries,” he went on once he had her attention. “I am employing a new guard for you.”
Her brows twitched but barely rose.
“I am to be a prisoner in my own chambers?” she asked quietly, but then had to look away from her father’s angry glare. She knew some people were able to obey, to simply do as they were told and she had pondered many a night why she simply couldn’t follow her father’s wishes. Why it was so much easier for her to try and slip out from under people’s eyes and do the opposite. Be free, be outside, be alone.
“Are you suggesting you left me any other choice?” he asked her, his bushy eyebrows rose dangerously. “I have sent for a Blaidyn.”
There was a gravity in that statement that lingered in the air for several seconds. Even the echo of their steps seemed dulled by it. A shiver ran down Moira’s spine.
“Enough is enough, Moira.”
She exhaled and finally turned her gaze on him, eyes wide and glinting in the eerie morning light.
“You can’t be serious … ” she whispered, her full, pale lips open even after she finished.
“I am.”
“But they are … they are vicious. And traitors. And … and … not human.” Moira knew that Blaidyn were employed by other noble houses, mainly in their armies. They were mercenaries, known turncoats, remainders of fabled Fae wars who lived on the margins of society. There had never been a Blaidyn at the Bramble Keep, though; the mere idea made her skin crawl.
“I am sure most of that is prejudice, dear.” He sounded calmer now, knowing that if nothing else, he had gotten to her, had made her listen for once. “As I said, I had someone ask around. Old Brock is just one man; I assume he told you those stories? It has been a long time since they betrayed anyone. They have a good reputation in armies now. Don’t you understand, my girl? I need to know you are safe. And you won’t help me with that. A Blaidyn will find you wherever you are, whoever took you or whatever happened to you. That is all I care about.”
Her eyes narrowed for the briefest moment; she exhaled and turned around to her father when they reached the door to her bedchambers.
“As you wish, Father.” With a small gesture, she loosened the hold of the jacket on her shoulders, slipped it off and handed it to him. Her face was blank except for a certain tightness in her jaw and around her temples; frustration she tried her hardest not to show as another hard shiver made her face and shoulders twitch.
“Would you like me to call for your maid?” His daughter looked tired and white, where he wanted her to be lively and happy, red-cheeked and smiling. She rarely did and her eyes never looked quite alert — quite settled — in the world anymore. It worried him as much as it hurt. He had consulted physicians but to no avail. She just didn’t sleep; not at night anyway and the few hours she sometimes took to lie down during the day didn’t seem enough to keep her mind rooted in the present. “To draw you a bath, help you get dressed, build your fire?”
“No. Thank you,” she answered after a pause, fingers on the door handle. “I shall call for her myself when I have need for her.”
“As you wish.” The lord’s hands were still holding the guard coat, but for the moment he didn’t have the heart to ask her where she had borrowed it from; the captain, he assumed. He watched her close the door behind her and breathed out an audible sigh.
Chapter Three
From one of the Bramble Keep’s tower rooms, through a small window, Brock stared into the distance; the cornfields and orchards, the rivers, the mountains and the plains and always dominating the view; Lake Coru, dark and deep. The fief of Rochmond was vast but mainly agricultural and far to the east of the population-heavy western coastline of the kingdom. The Bramble Keep and the small town of Rochmond — an hour’s brisk walk from the Keep — were the only places the royal map painters usually deemed important enough to deserve little dots in the area between the eastern mountain ridge, Lake Coru and the western borders to the neighboring fiefs.
There were villages — merely a few farms in size, a few woodchoppers’ camps and miners’ quarters in the mountains — but humanity was sparse here, just the way Brock liked it.
He could see farmers bringing in the autumn harvest in the mild sunshine. Clouds in the distance were promising rain, always caught by the mountain peaks to wring out their load in the valley below. It was high time to bring in the wheat before a single storm could flatten the stalks against the muddy ground. So there they worked, tiny figures in the distance with their carts and their horses and their scythes. It was always the same, every season; with comfortable regularity they came about and passed into winter. To Brock, they melted together, commonplace and short. A sleepy village, another harvest, another ship in the lakeside harbor that took the produce, the timber and the ore back into the capital.
He knew what he had been searching for when he spied a solitary figure in the distance. It was a man; distinctly so from his build and walk, even from so far away. He was traveling on foot, fast and in no apparent hurry all the same.
Brock’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward just a little bit. Strangers were rare in Rochmond, but this one was expected. A frown grew on the old man’s face as he watched the figure wind his way down the paths, coming closer with every step.
• • •
Owain had not owned a horse in quite a while. Horses displayed a natural fear of his kind. Smelling the wolf through the layers of apparent humanity with ease, they tended to neigh and rear up. It was torture to put the beast through this when he could simply walk. His legs were strong and fast; he was as fast as most horses anyway.
The only horses Blaidyn could ride were those bred and broken in one of their camps and settlements and he hadn’t been back to such a place in many years. Owain was a wanderer these days, moving from employment to employment, from town to town. He did good work; he was quiet and efficient but not a man to seek approval from humans or his own kind, not a man to ingratiate himself for a better position. Instead, he found somewhere else. He was easy to recommend, a simple man it seemed, without ambition or greed.
He could see the castle looming in the distance; an impressive stronghold. Even now, after a century and a half of peace, it still looked as defensible as it must have looked in wartime, in those bitter last decades when the fight had been contained in this region, battles raging on the very ground upon which he stood; blood-drenched earth. He thought he could smell it still, a copper note in the fertile soil.
Owain knew the fief from the songs of his childhood, the stories murmured in his ear when it was time to sleep. Stories of war, of fighting the good fight, of subjugation and freedom. They had
taught him pride in being Blaidyn, taught him to have belief in the good. He’d grown up since then, still proud but where his beliefs lay, he did not know. He recognized the landmarks, though. There was that mountain ridge that looked like a toothy castle in the sky, the deep forest at its feet. And growing closer and closer, the innocuously named Bramble Keep, Rochmond Castle, built on a rock overlooking the fief.
It was a striking structure, hardly a straight wall to be seen; just circling towers and rounded battlements, sturdily built with no clear front to attack.
As little as he knew about his appointment there, it had sounded like an easy job. A retirement job, he thought, not without a note of wounded pride in spite of the fact that he welcomed a change of pace. He had spent years on foreign battlefields, vicious and bloody fights over boundaries being drawn a few miles to north or the south, over a river or simply a nobleman’s pride. He had seen bodies hacked to pieces, women raped, towns going up in flames and earth salted. He had witnessed friends die as well as enemies and it was time for a break.
This, at least, was what he told himself; that he deserved a quiet assignment, looking after a spoiled little girl for her overly worried father. He would be hired for his nose and his speed, not for his hands that could break a man’s neck without the slightest difficulty. His warrior pride was wounded, but the rest of his soul was aching for just such a reprieve.
Owain did not see the man at a window in one of the towers as he started to climb the path that wound itself once around the entire rock; a street wide enough for supply carts to be driven up and down. It was hewn into the stone but centuries of use had ground it to an almost soft dirt path, slippery when wet.
He took his time, enjoying the last hour as a free man. He could still turn away. Nobody would stop him; he could shift and let the wolf run, he could turn wild in the woods and find a mate who would give him a beautiful litter of pups. Instead, he kept on climbing, enjoying the knowledge of what he could do more than he would the act of breaking free, the state of unencumbered freedom.
Owain had left the company of his own kind, not without thought or reason, and had little desire to return. He would never be human, would always be looked down upon in their world — but it was easier to take that from them than from his own people. He had made his choice years ago. All he had done after was living with that decision.
When he begged entry at the drawbridge, it was only after the captain of the guard was called that the doorman pulled up the cast iron portcullis to admit him. As though that would have kept them safer had he been intent on harming the Keep.
“Sir Fredrick Clifton,” the man introduced himself, “Captain of his Lordship’s guard.” He was older than Owain himself, a man past his prime for humans, but Owain could sense the soldier in him; a brave man who hadn’t seen many battles in his life as a backwater guard.
“Owain,” he said simply, standing at attention.
Sir Clifton eyed him suspiciously, but when he didn’t seem to find anything too objectionable, he nodded and gestured to the Blaidyn to follow him into the Keep.
“You are the first … the first Blaidyn in his Lordship’s command,” the man continued uncomfortably. Owain sensed that there were many things he didn’t say but that was to be expected. He had learned long ago that humans were as notoriously secretive and polite as they were terrible at either. For a race so dependent on smells and gestures in their communication as his own, humans seemed to interact in an elaborate game of play acting, in which thinly coated lies were exchanged as polite interaction far more often than truths were uttered. He was used to it by now, and only gave the captain a thin-lipped polite smile.
He smelled fear; it was a scent he knew well. Not a pleasure by any means, as fear smelled sharp and unattractive.
Sir Clifton led him into a small study on the ground floor. A window looked out over the small moat and toward the mountains, the walls were covered in maps and bookshelves and a floor plan of the Keep was pinned onto the table in the center of the room.
“His Lordship will be with you shortly,” the captain said, as he looked around and then departed. Owain wondered whether his hasty retreat was ordered or fear-induced but didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he concentrated on the floor plan. It really was an interesting structure. He knew little of architecture, nor had he held many indoor positions in his career as a hired sword, but he didn’t like doing anything unless he was ready to do it well. In order to protect a girl in a castle, he had to know the layout, the nooks and crannies, the passageways and shortcuts.
When a while later, the door opened behind him, Owain quickly straightened up and turned around. The speed of his reflexes had the entering man halt in his step, staring for just a moment. Finally, he seemed to remember his station and his face relaxed as he stepped closer, followed by Sir Clifton.
Owain bowed low, his hand on his unadorned leather breastplate. A nobleman was easy to recognize. This one was old, in his late forties or fifties, at least. Owain found it hard sometimes to guess human ages; they passed from youth into old age so much faster than his own kind. Lord Rochmond smelled of good soap, of tobacco and of worries. He was shorter than he had expected, but Owain didn’t cower to try and hide the height difference.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Owain,” the nobleman said after a long moment of mutual appraisal. He then walked over to the other side of the table and sat down without offering his guest or the captain of his guard a seat as well.
“Just Owain, my Lord.” His correction was quiet, the perfect picture of a humble servant and Lord Rochmond, after eying him for a long moment, took it as such with a small nod.
“Sir Clifton will take over your general instructions but I wanted to welcome you personally.” He paused for a long time until the silence grew heavy and the captain stepped from one foot to the other. Owain remained unmoving.
“My daughter, the Lady Moira has a streak of … she is a free spirit.” The Lord’s eyes fell onto the room she inhabited as it was drawn into the floor plan. “She is my only child and I want to ensure her safety. She has a tendency to wander the castle at night — sometimes outside — and you will not leave her side when she does.”
Owain listened, nodding occasionally. So far, the assignment was as he had been made to expect.
“While I want you to try and limit her wanderings, you will never physically restrain her, enter her chambers or act in any other way untoward, understood?”
“Yes, my Lord,” he answered in his deep grumble of a voice that was so typical of his kind. “Of course.”
Lord Rochmond eyed him for a long time until he finally nodded and rose from his seat again. “You may familiarize yourself with the household here. Sir Clifton will show you to your quarters; you will live in the main house so that you may follow her if she gets up. You will eat with the rest of the guards and payment will be issued at the end of each week.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Owain could sense the Lord’s discomfort. He knew the stories that were still told about his race, some true, some not. He was a frightening figure to behold, tall and strong, his features starker than most humans, with a pronounced nose, large, intelligent eyes and a strong jaw. He finally relaxed his utterly motionless stance just a little bit to put the two humans at ease. It seemed to work because Lord Rochmond nodded and walked back toward the door.
“I will summon you to my study to meet my daughter when you have settled in.”
• • •
“Have you seen him?” Moira asked her maid, Bess. She was sitting on a chair, perfectly straight and looking at the wall ahead while the maid was carefully coiling her hair into ornate braids that encircled her head in a simple, adorning crown of flowing red.
“No, milady,” Bess answered distractedly. Her mouth was full of little pins and she carefully extracted one to hold the br
aid in place.
“I heard they have claws instead of hands,” Moira said then. Her frown sat deep in her face, her shoulders pulled up higher than any natural body stance would suggest.
“I heard their eyes are bright silver and that they growl instead of talk like us,” Bess added for good measure. She had long managed to keep up a conversation with her lady while getting her ready. Most days, she was the only soul the ghostly young woman exchanged more than a few words with at all.
Moira shivered a little. Her hands kept fingering the green fabric of her dress, long and flowing. She had seen the fitted bodices women in the capital wore, had seen them dance and move in them, but she herself was happy with the ones her tailor made.
“He wouldn’t dare harm you, milady,” Bess finally said, sensing Moira’s worry. She had served her Ladyship since she was a child and Bess herself not much older. In different circumstances they could have been friends and in a way, they were the closest either of them had to a sister.
“They are strong, but he is but one man. He must know that.”
Moira nodded, gave her maid a tired and half-hearted smile and wet her lips. She held still while Bess fixed the simple headpiece of green leaves and pearl flowers upon the braids and finally stood up to inspect herself in the dull mirror.
“I have little experience in dressing to receive my own prison guard,” she said quietly. Her pale cheeks were colored with a hint of peach and so were her lips. Tentatively she tried a smile but even she knew it never looked comfortable on her face and quickly gave it up.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do something about … ” Bess nodded up at Moira’s face but a look from her mistress made her stop. Moira never looked healthy, not like Bess or any of the other maids in the house. She was sallow and pale and her huge liquid eyes seemed forever framed with dark circles that made her look withdrawn.
“I apologize, milady, I meant nothing by it.”
