Another idea came to Bea, an idea that thrilled her.
‘My lord wizard,’ she said, showing more respect than she’d bothered with previously, ‘just now I heard a mother speak of her son. My mother died when I was very young, too young to know her. If she’d stayed alive, she could have told me things, things that no one else can.’
‘And you would like to receive such wisdom from Arminsel?’
‘Is that possible, my lord?’
‘Arminsel is not a wishing well and it cannot tell of your future, since the dead bring it only what has passed.’
‘I will choose my own future, Lord Gannimere, but the more I know, the better choice I can make.’
The wizard stared down at her and again the smirk was absent from his strangely made face. ‘Perhaps you are already wise, Bea,’ he replied, using her name for the first time. ‘Do you know your mother’s name?’
When Bea nodded, he said, ‘Then speak it out loud while you stand here,’ and, showing the way ahead to Fergus with a sweep of his arm, he left her alone among the ghosts.
CHAPTER 23
A Hundred Feet Above the Ground
‘ILONA,’ BEA WHISPERED. No, that wasn’t enough. Gannimere had told her to speak the name out loud. ‘Ilona,’ she said with more conviction.
What would happen? Surely her mother wouldn’t …
Of course not. Bea’s mother had died long ago and her body had become part of the earth, so she couldn’t appear in the flesh before her daughter, no matter how much Bea wished to see her. Arminsel was not a wishing well, the wizard had warned.
Still, when movement flashed at the corner of her eye, she turned hopefully only to let out a disappointed sigh. It was a Squirrel Man; no longer a sight that brought fear, but not exactly welcome at a time like this. What was he doing? The creature’s clawed hand motioned towards her; no, towards himself. He was beckoning her to come nearer.
Cautiously, she obeyed until she was close enough to touch the repulsive hide she’d first seen on the mountainside. The Squirrel Man reached out slowly and took gentle hold of her wrist, as Gannimere had done, but instead of placing it against the smooth surface of the tree, he turned her hand over and found the scar at the base of her thumb. Looking into her eyes now, he shrugged and those enormous eyes softened.
‘You!’ she said, snatching her hand away, but the Squirrel Man had touched her tenderly, as though he’d wanted to say sorry. When he backed away, signalling to her as before, what else could she do but follow?
The passage wound its way ahead a short distance then became a staircase, though not one built with hammer and nails. This was formed by the natural growth of the tree. At the top, she walked along a mostly level path for a minute or so, then climbed again, sometimes so steeply she needed both hands. Her lungs and her legs began to complain and she fell back. ‘Hope he stops soon,’ she whispered between gulps of air. At last he turned aside, to an opening in the huge trunk. Following without much thought, Bea found her next step was about to launch her into thin air. She screamed and grabbed tightly onto the first solid wood her hands could reach. The ground was at least a hundred feet below.
‘Are you trying to kill me!’ she snarled at the Squirrel Man, whose claws allowed him to grip safely onto the tree’s trunk.
He made another apologetic sign to show he’d forgotten she wasn’t blessed with claws like his own, then pointed to the thick branch that jutted out from the tree only an arm’s length away.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Bea demanded.
She’d come this far though, and the branch was certainly thick enough to stand on once she’d wriggled her way onto it. Still the Squirrel Man wasn’t satisfied. Going ahead himself, he coaxed her another five paces, to where a smaller limb grew out into the pale golden air. He showed her where to put her hands — a place just far enough out from the precarious safety of the larger branch to make the sweat of fear break out on every inch of Bea’s skin.
She gripped the limb tightly, aware that one slip would send her plummeting to the tangle of enormous roots below. ‘Now what?’ she managed to say, before she was silenced by a voice that spoke not into her ears but directly into her mind.
Elves and humans, elves and humans, it whispered softly.
Bea was both of these within one body and, though she hadn’t told Gannimere, this was the question she wished to ask her mother.
‘Elves and humans aren’t made to spend their days together, are they?’ she said, though whether the words passed her lips or sounded only inside her head, she wasn’t sure. ‘There’s too much distrust. Can a friendship ever survive when there are always forces that act against it?’
There are human ways that unsettle elves and there are elvish ways that make humans suspicious, said the voice.
‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly how it is. The need to keep hidden, the secrets they crave.’
Such things lived within her yet at the same time they infuriated her. She could feel her heart sink down into her stomach, the blood gone, the flesh too despondent to beat. She looked down at the deadly drop beneath her, felt her arms gripping the branch so precariously. She couldn’t stay like this for long. And what if she fell?
‘Are all such friendships doomed?’ she said.
Oh no, the voice answered, the sudden certainty startling her. Only now could Bea let herself believe she was listening to her dead mother’s voice, even though the hope had been with her from the beginning. Her heart fought back to life as she strained to hear more. Wisdom, knowledge, left here so that lives to follow might share it, that’s what Gannimere had told her. Using a magic of her own, born not of sorcery but simply out of deepest longing, Bea listened to the words as though they were spoken to her alone.
Despite the problems, a deep and tender love can survive. I know this because that was the love that grew between me, an elf woman, and my human husband. It stood up to the objections of his family who didn’t like the way I was so hard to see in shadows. Behind my back, they called me a witch and said I’d put a spell on my woodsman to make him love me, but he knew it wasn’t so. The bond between us would be as strong today if calamity hadn’t separated us. My husband’s family had fallen into debt and he was forced to work on a farm down on the plain of Elster to pay it off. On the way home to us, he was ambushed by brigands who killed him when he tried to fight them off.
Bea knew the rest: that the family had blamed her mother for the death and whispered of her witchcraft until the entire village was against her. No, she didn’t want to hear of that because she already had the answer she sought. Love could survive between elf and human.
In her excitement, her foot slipped from the thick branch. She was hanging by her hands only now. ‘Help me!’ she called. She couldn’t die like this, not now, not with her mother’s words so fresh in her ears.
One hand slipped from the branch; the other would surely follow. It couldn’t be right to die with so much hope in her heart.
She fought to keep her grip until, at last, the Squirrel Man caught her deftly and helped her back to safety. She rested on the thick branch until her heart was beating steadily again.
‘I have to find Fergus,’ she said at last. She had to tell him that she’d heard her mother’s voice; more than that, she’d tell him the wisdom that lay in her mother’s words.
Her next thought was of Marcel. ‘He’s wrong,’ she murmured. ‘He’s been wrong about Baden Dark from the beginning.’
The conviction seemed to grant Bea a fearless agility that surprised her companion. She walked upright along the branch to the massive trunk, swung herself into the knothole and beat him back to where they had started.
‘Fergus, Fergus!’ she called, and found him kneeling on the bank of the shallow brook, as though he had been taking a drink from its clear waters. She told him of her death-defying perch high above their heads and of the good that Arminsel held within it.
‘Then Baden Dark isn’t like Marcel imagined,’ said Fergus once he’d
heard her out.
‘No, and he’s out there determined to destroy it. We have to stop him, Fergus.’
‘Stop him? I doubt we can even find him. I’ll go back to the wood and call his name.’
‘No, I’ll go. Just me. I’ll find him,’ she said.
Fergus made a face that said, you’re fooling yourself. ‘He’s a sorcerer, Bea.’
She put her hand briefly on his forearm. ‘And I’m an elf.’
BEA HURRIED INTO THE wooded landscape that reminded her so much of the mountainside. She might have grown tired of her home in recent years, but she would gladly swap this underground world for the one she knew.
When she reached the clearing where she and Fergus had made their crude bow, she cupped her hands to the sides of her mouth. ‘Marcel! I have to speak to you. Baden Dark is not what we thought. There are things you need to know.’
No use. If she’d expected him to appear, she wouldn’t have asked Fergus to stay behind. This was a game, and one she knew well. She began to move about, careful to make no sound as she moved, and occasionally still called his name. If Marcel was here, as she suspected, he could still see her but wouldn’t guess what she was doing. Patience, that was the key. How many times had she told Frances and Marigold, ‘Listen, feel, see what ordinary eyes miss.’
By moving around, she was making him move. Many minutes passed until she was finally rewarded with the sound of cloth brushing against a tree trunk. Careful not to look towards the source, she shifted direction again. Ah, this time she saw long stems of grass pushed aside. It was time to disappear herself.
Shadows were plentiful among the trees and, after one more call of his name, she took her chance. What was he thinking now that he couldn’t see her? That she’d just gone behind a clump of bushes for a moment? He would wait for her to reappear. This was her chance and, employing every skill she had honed in her games on the mountainside, she moved quickly, silently, in a wide half-circle before heading inwards.
Was that a breath? Before she could decide, she had a stronger sound to guide her: the beating of Marcel’s heart inside his chest.
She was close enough to touch him now as he stood, wondering, no doubt, why Bea was taking so long to emerge from the undergrowth. But if she called out to him, he could simply run off, and, warned of her tricks, he would never let her find him again. Even if she touched his shoulder, his arm, any part of him, he would take fright. There was only one thing for it. Before he could move off, she reached up to his shoulder, then tugged him backwards with as much force as her small body could manage.
The tufts of grass behind his ankles did their job and over he went. Bea just had time to get out of the way as he fell. With the same speed, she sat on his chest so he couldn’t run away. Well, she thought it was his chest.
‘Get off, Bea! You’re sitting on my head,’ he protested, his cries muffled by the skirts of her dress.
He let his spell lapse and she discovered that he was right, although when she shifted, it was only to press her knee into his chest.
‘Are you going to talk to me?’ she said bluntly.
‘Well, you caught me fair and square. I guess you’ve earned the right.’
‘You’re impressed, I hope.’
‘Yes, Bea, I’m impressed,’ and as she let him up he even allowed himself a chuckle. Bea wasn’t sure she felt like joining in.
‘You’ve got to come back to the tree and see for yourself what it is. It’s not at all like you think. Give Gannimere a chance to explain.’
‘Gannimere? Sounds like you’ve become rather friendly. He can tell you what he likes, Bea, but how can you possibly know it’s true?’
‘Because of that amazing tree. He calls it Arminsel, as though it was a living creature. When you touch the bark, it speaks to you.’
‘Like the Book of Lies,’ said Marcel. ‘Alwyn made it from a part of that tree, did you realise that? What you heard was the evil at the heart of the Book of Lies.’
‘No! You’re getting it all around the wrong way. My mother,’ she said desperately.
This made no sense to him. ‘What are you talking about. Your mother’s dead, like mine.’
‘Yes, and their spirits came to this tree on their journey into death, that’s what the wizard told us. My mother spoke to me, Marcel, told me things that I’ve wondered about for —’
‘What things?’
Bea didn’t want to say. She felt herself blushing and on the edge of tears. No, she couldn’t explain. When she hesitated, the moments ticking away expectantly, Marcel took his chance.
‘You’ve been tricked, Bea. The wizard’s placed a hex on you so you’ll believe what he wants.’
Bea felt overwhelmed. First he wouldn’t show himself, and now that she’d hunted him out, he was just as elusive. ‘Marcel, do you trust me?’ she asked in exasperation.
‘Of course I trust you.’
‘No, no, that’s not good enough. I ask you a question and you answer it without thinking. You say things, I see your lips move, but I’m not sure any more that they’re what you believe. Sometimes I don’t think you even hear what I’m saying. You’re so bound up in your magic that nothing else matters; nothing else gets into your head — from me, from anyone.’
She grabbed at his shirt, taking a fistful of material into her small hand and holding on tight. His immediate response was to pull away, but she held on doggedly until he calmed down. She felt the young man’s strength in him, knew he was capable of breaking free if he wanted to, and realised that if he did it would be the end of them as friends.
The silence stretched on as they stared into each other’s face.
‘When Mortregis was about to fry us back there in one of the other caverns, you asked me to trust you,’ Bea said finally. ‘I did. I always have, Marcel. Now it’s your turn. Do you trust me?’
Don’t look away, she begged without daring to say it. Her hand might have hold of his shirt but it was her eyes that kept him there, and his eyes that she watched for the answer.
‘Yes, I trust you, Bea,’ he said at last, and this time it wasn’t just sound pushed out through his throat and shaped by his tongue. The truth was clear in his eyes, as she’d hoped.
She loosened her grip on his shirt, though not entirely for what she had to say needed to flow into him and the touch of her hand would give it a path to follow. ‘Then listen to me, Marcel, and believe what I say. Baden Dark is not what you think it is. You are wrong, you were wrong from the beginning, and it’s time you knew it.’
His body stiffened and Bea had to strengthen her grip again to make him stay.
‘It’s your pride, isn’t it? You thought you had found a way to be the most important sorcerer ever born, the one who would save us all from cruelty and pain. What you’ve found instead is something fantastic, something none of us could possibly imagine, not even your Rhys Tironel and the great sages. You don’t want to accept it, but it’s true. You trust me, I know you do, Marcel. Don’t destroy Arminsel. Come with me and use your magic to explore its wonders.’
CHAPTER 24
A Call to War
NICOLA WAS DREAMING OF a face she couldn’t touch when the knocking started at her door. Her chambermaid made gentler sounds than this whenever she needed to disturb her mistress’s sleep. This was a man’s hand thumping at the wood. Reaching for the dagger she kept beneath her mattress in case of attack, Nicola hurried to the door.
‘What is it?’ she called. There was no sense in turning the lock if an assassin was waiting on the other side.
‘A messenger has come, your Highness. Elster is under attack. The king is calling for you.’
With a robe thrown quickly over her nightdress, Nicola was soon standing beside her father’s throne listening to a frightened farmer, muddy after his long ride, coming to the end of his story.
‘They’ve taken the whole village,’ he said. ‘I was the only one to escape.’
‘Your village is by the sea?’ said General
Westly who commanded Elster’s army. The chancellor was there too, of course, working his beard nervously between forefinger and thumb and listening intently.
‘By the sea, yes, General. The invaders’ ship is hauled up on the beach an hour’s walk to the south.’
Westly turned to the king. ‘I’ve despatched a squadron to surround the village, your highness. As soon as we are finished here, I’ll ride to join them and take command of the fighting. We must take the village back quickly. It may be the first wave of an invasion and we can’t allow the enemy to establish a beachhead.’
Invasion! In the many months since she’d been allowed to join such important meetings, Nicola had never heard warfare discussed in this way. The kingdom was under attack, it seemed, without warning, without reason, and already an entire village had been lost.
‘Drive them into the sea, Westly,’ said the king, clearly angry and determined to protect his people. ‘Let their masters see what’s in store if they send more soldiers.’
The general was eager to be on his way. He had already begun to back away, bowing, when the chancellor called, ‘A minute, before you go. I’d like to hear more from this villager.’
Westly nodded to the weary farmer who stepped forward tentatively.
‘You say these invaders landed some distance to the south. Why leave themselves so far to travel?’
‘A storm, my lord. They were driven there by a gale that had been blowing for many days.’
‘If they were driven ashore, perhaps they didn’t intend to touch land at all. Describe the men to us.’
‘Dark-haired, all of them, each with a thin plait hanging down his back. Small round shields and swords with whalebone set into the handles.’
‘Nedermen,’ said the chancellor. ‘I’ve seen Neder’s warriors on the battlefield. The plait is a symbol of war.’
‘What more proof do we need?’ said the king.
‘No, wait, Pelham. My spies tell me the Prince of Neder has been building his forces to send against Madregan where he has a claim on the territory. Elster lies on the sea route between the two. It sounds to me like these men have been forced ashore by a storm, when their true destination is five days’ sailing to the south.’
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