The Scourge of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

  On Twelfth Night, both Aldermastons were executed on the Tor. They were bound to maypoles and forced to watch the Abbey below begin to burn. From what Lia had heard, the Aldermaston of Augustin had howled and wept and begged for his life. The true Aldermaston had silently faced his death without a word after Seth, his hunter, had been stabbed by soldiers while trying to defend his master. His body had been left on the lawn, but it had vanished with the storm.

  Lia looked up at the charred remains of the Aldermaston. She knelt before the post, knelt in the soaked ashes, and she sobbed. She had lost two fathers in her life and she was not sure which hurt most – the one she had never met or known, or the one who had been prepared for her by her true father. In anguish, she had let the others leave for Pry-Ree, never able to tell them who she really was. Somewhere in the world was a tome, written by her father, sealed with a binding sigil. Until it was found, she would be forever silenced. Her true story would never be known. It was the same for the Aldermaston. He had died in disgrace, accused of horrid crimes he had never committed.

  She spoke out loud, to herself but also to him. “If only I had come sooner, I could have saved you from your fate. Or you could have died and the Apse Veil would still be open. I am sorry for that. I did not know what was happening to you. I was mostly only aware of my own pain. I am sorry.”

  The wind tugged at her hair. She cried softly.

  “There were so many lies told about you. People always believe the worst, even when rumors might later be proved false. I know the truth and so do a handful of others. It seemed sometimes that you never cared what others thought about you. But so many will never know who you truly were. They will never know you as I knew you.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I miss you, Aldermaston. I miss your counsel and your advice. You believed in me. I always felt that from you. I remember when you sent Jon Hunter to rescue me from the Bearden Muir. He told me that I was welcome back. That you said I could come back home. Do you know how much that meant to me? How much your trust meant to me?” She hugged herself, shivering with her emotions. “I wish I had told you how much I depended on you. How much I learned from you. How sorry I was for all the rude things I said. My disobedience and childishness. You were so patient with me. I see now that I was not just a wretched to you. Thank you, Aldermaston. I am grateful I was sent to your care. You helped to mold my faith. I could not have done what I did at Dochte Abbey without you.”

  She knelt there until her knees cramped and ached and her tears finally exhausted. She breathed deeply and swallowed the hiccups that threatened her.

  “I will carry a mark on my heart for the rest of my life. I will never forget your words and teachings. And I will never forget what you suffered because of me.”

  In the stillness that followed the storm, she felt something light graze the back of her head. It was feather-light. She opened her eyes and turned around, but there was nothing behind her. It had felt like a…hand?

  She blinked in the stillness and closed her eyes again.

  “Are you with me, Aldermaston?” she whispered.

  The faint pressure came on her head again. Instead of looking backwards again, she closed her eyes and opened her mind to her thoughts. The Gift of Seering opened up to her again and she saw the Aldermaston, in her mind. He was crossing the Cider Orchard painfully, each step an agony to him. The branches lashed at him, but he walked firmly ahead, his arm cradling something that glinted gold. Then he was moving through the forbidden part of the grounds, his expression writhing in pain. She watched as he made it to the floating stone beyond Maderos’ lair. He clambered down upon the rock, almost losing his balance and plunging to his death. He knelt, exhausted, on the stone, his body trembling with the exertion. He bowed his head and then the floating rock began to move, easing downwards to the base of the hill that was still submerged beneath the waters of the lake. With a mighty heave, he shoved a tome of aurichalcum off the boulder and watched it splash in the waters. It sank instantly, coming to rest amidst the stone ossuaries that she used to play in as a child.

  The vision faded.

  Lia opened her eyes. “Thank you, Aldermaston. Thank you for showing me where your tome lies.”

  * * *

  She buried the Aldermaston’s bones in an ossuary near Maderos’ lair. The tome was where she had seen and had not been difficult to see hidden within the crevices. As she knelt before the sealed box, she raised her arm in the maston sign.

  Her voice was thick with emotion, but grew stronger as she spoke. “By Idumea’s hand, I do not know all the words. I am a young maston still. But I kneel and through the Medium dedicate this ground as the final resting place of Gideon Penman, the Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey. By the Medium I invoke this, that when the time of his reviving has come, at some future dawn, he may be restored, every whit. May all who love truth always remember this final spot that others may remember what he did for us. That we may remember him through our words. Make it thus so.”

  As she crossed the Cider Orchard to return to the kitchen, she heard the snort and whicker of a horse. The trees were skeletal, but there were enough to shield the source of the sound. She stopped, listening carefully and trying to discern the location of the sound. It was coming from ahead, some distance ahead. She could hear the distant mumble of a voice and her heart began to hammer in her chest with longing. Carefully, she set down the Aldermaston’s tome and began to stalk forward, weaving through the trees carefully but quickly. Her blood throbbed in her ears. It was approaching noontide, but the day was overcast, veiling the sun.

  Colvin?

  She emerged form the grove and approached the oaks shielding the kitchen. The sound grew louder, an impatient grunt from an animal followed by a soothing whisper. A man’s voice. Lia’s heart beat wildly.

  She had no weapons, but she did not feel they would be appropriate for her now, as an Aldermaston. She had the Medium to warn and guide and protect her. But still, she craved a blade dangling from her side.

  The sound came from the kitchen, the clang of a pan falling. There was a muttered oath and then the shuffling sound of boots. Only one person and one horse. She had not heard anything to make her think otherwise.

  Lia peered around the side of the kitchen and saw the brown mare, lathered with foam and sniffing and nibbling at the brush and plants outside the kitchen. The beast was saddled and there was a scabbard dangling from the horn, but it was empty. The horse raised its head when it saw her and nickered softly.

  “What is it?” murmured a man’s voice as he emerged from the kitchen holding a maston sword.

  She saw the hilt first, the gleaming hilt with the symbol she had recognized as a child. The tunic was of a knight of Winterrowd. Disappointment crushed her as she saw his face, the curly dark hair and slim sallow cheeks. She had never seen him before in her life. Or if she had, she did not recognize him. He was not as tall as Colvin. He was a stranger.

  The sword was leveled at her immediately. “Who are you?” he demanded hotly, his face full of suspicion.

  “I am the Aldermaston of Muirwood,” Lia replied. “Please, put away your weapon.”

  “You are the Aldermaston?” he said, his face scrunching with irritation. “Is that a jest?” He waved his free arm towards the rubble of the Abbey.

  “I am the Aldermaston still,” Lia replied. “You are a knight of Winterrowd. I recognize your clothing, but I do not know your name. Were you looking for food?”

  The word made his eyes widen with hunger. “Yes! I am half-starved. I have ridden for two days without rest.” His horse validated his words. The mare looked exhausted and worn out. “I have eaten little, not trusting myself into the hands of strangers. I had hopes that Muirwood had not fallen, despite the stories. But I see that I arrived too late. It has already fallen to the Blight.” He ran his hand through his tangled hair.

  “You are a maston?” Lia asked, staring at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see your palm.”


  Only another maston would know to look there for the scar. He lowered his sword and shifted it to his other hand. After tugging off his glove, he showed her his dirty palm, but she could see the mark of the stone where it had burned him.

  “You wear a necklace?” he asked her, his eyes squinting warily. “A charm of some sort?”

  “Not a kystrel,” Lia answered with a nod and showed him the ring she wore on the string. He looked relieved.

  “I am grateful it is not,” he murmured somberly. His eyes glowed with inner fire. “They are powerful. Even the strongest mastons succumb to them. The strongest of us all.”

  Lia looked at him, her stomach lurching. “Where did you ride from, sir knight?”

  “The Battle of Forshee. Though it was not much of a battle.” His teeth grit together. “We abandoned the earl and each rode our own way.” He rubbed his mouth on his arm, his face livid with memories. “I should have left for Pry-Ree when Demont was murdered. I thought Forshee would redeem the mastons, but he could not. Not with her as his wife.” He looked at her blackly. “The earl’s wife is hetaera. I know she is. You could see it just looking at her. I could not serve him. And now he is ill, and…”

  Lia did not mean to, but she started. “Ill? What do you mean? The Earl of Forshee?”

  “Who other?” he replied with a growl. “He came back from Dahomey with Demont’s niece and said he was bidden to marry her, even though the king had sworn peace if she became his queen. Instead of ending this business, he began it anew. They were married at Billerbeck Abbey on Twelfth Night, and then the Blight struck him. He fell sick two days ago. He was coughing and retching. The Dowager’s forces were closing in when I took flight. They were closing the ring around us, but I made it through. Forshee was too sick to ride. Pareigis hunts every maston now. I heard in Wells town that the king’s army of mercenaries will land now that the storm has passed over, but the Queen Dowager already has the kingdom under her grip. They will kill Forshee for treason, they will. If the sickness does not end him first.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN:

  Fallen Blossoms

  Winter ended with an abruptness that surprised Lia. It seemed as if snow crusted the forlorn Abbey grounds one day and then the next, a warm humid breeze floated in and the ice melted away all at once. For a fortnight at least, she had experienced the stirrings of the Medium preparing her that when spring came, it was time to leave Muirwood. Something would happen – she did not know what. Perhaps the Queen Dowager would send her army. Perhaps the Dochte Mandar would arrive. Something was coming and she felt uneasiness, a warning to prepare. Perhaps Maderos would come and relieve her of the burden he had placed on her. She thought that the ships would not leave during the winter, not when brutal storms lashed the seas with their utmost ferocity. They would have gathered to a safehaven, to a secret place. Spring would bring calm waters and she would need time to track them in Pry-Ree quickly. Without the Cruciger orb, it would make the search more difficult.

  The winter had been sad and lonely for Lia. Every so often, a traveler would appear at the Abbey looking for shelter and safety. Some had heard a warning from a family member to flee to Muirwood. Occasionally it was an entire family, mostly poor and desperate. They brought news she did not want to hear, but she listened to the stories of the world beyond. She listened and her heart died a little bit each time.

  He was no longer called the Earl of Forshee. His titles and lands had been stripped by the young king and given to his sister, Marciana, who was still missing. Marciana was placed under the wardship of the Earl of Dieyre, who would control the lands in her absence. He was by far the wealthiest noble of the realm. His influence with the young king and the Queen Dowager was unmatched by any. It was clear by the reward offered that he would pay handsomely for any information regarding Marciana’s whereabouts. But Dieyre had never come to Muirwood himself.

  The Traitor Forshee, it was said, was languishing in a dungeon at one of Dieyre’s many estates in the north country. Abandoned by the knights of Winterrowd before the invasion, he had been captured by the Queen Dowager’s men and taken. It was said he was so sick that no one wished to be near him or tend him for fear of catching his illness. The very thought of him, alone and ill in a dank lightless place, made her heart clench with dread and misery. She would have tended him to the last, bathing his forehead with cool rags, if she only knew where he could be found. She did not try, though, because it was her duty to remain at Muirwood. She was the Aldermaston of a grave.

  With the spring came a revival of the Cider Orchard. The skeletal branches that had lay dormant during the winter frosts and snows were budding with blossoms. The entire orchard was wreathed in snowy white petals and Lia walked amidst the trees every day, feeling the soft kiss of the petals as they began to trickle down like snow. The air was alive with smells as the grasses and flowers began to bloom amidst the toppled garden boxes. She roamed the grounds, trying to remember where the laundry was. The small shelter had vanished with the winds that night so long ago. The cloisters were gone as well. The only tome that had survived was the Aldermaston’s tome. A tome she could not even read.

  She lingered by an apple tree, pausing to stare up at the trunk and the flurry of blossoms that shook look with the breeze. It was a tree she remembered, and she gazed at it longingly, rubbing her hands along the smooth bark. Memories were things. Dwelling on them could summon feelings as powerful as anything a kystrel could create. It was the tree where she had first revealed to Colvin that she loved him. It was the place where he had spurned her. So much had happened to her since then, but as she stood, conjuring the memory and the emotions, she thought for a moment she could make it real if she just wished hard enough. To hear his voice again, one last time. To see the scar at his eyebrow. To touch his hand. To smell him, close and tight in a hug.

  It was the distraction of her thoughts and emotions that made her fail to hear the approach, until a boot cracked on a branch and alerted her with a startle. Lia turned her head, seeing the man approach. The wind rustled the trees sending a blizzard of apple blossoms, veiling him. Her heart wrenched with longing. Was she dreaming? The gait of the man walking, the height and size of him was as familiar as her own shadow. She began to tremble and clutched the apple tree, afraid her senses were tricking her.

  The petal flurry slowed and she saw him – Colvin.

  Her heart thudded in her chest, her eyes widening with shock. He looked hale, not sickly. He was staring at her, walking purposefully closer. Was he a shade? Had he died in the dungeon and now came to her from the dead as the Aldermaston had done? Tears stung her eyes, but she saw something else.

  She noticed the orb in his hand – the Cruciger orb. The spindles were pointing at her.

  Colvin stuffed the orb in a pouch at his waist and cinched the strings closed with a tug. He ducked past a looming apple branch and came up near her, his face lighting with an expressive smile of pure delight at finding her there, in the Cider Orchard.

  Lia bit her lip, feeling tears blur her gaze. Was it real? Was it a dream? Was she only dreaming? The bark felt real against her hands as she scraped them, squeezing the wood so hard her knuckles blanched.

  “Colvin?” she whispered breathlessly, her legs trembling. Her whole body trembled.

  He stood in front of her, looking deep into her eyes and grabbed her hands so she could feel the flesh and warmth. He was real and his eyes were shining with warmth and love.

  “You are truly Ellowyn Demont,” he said softly and then squeezed her hands fiercely. “But to me, you will always be Lia.”

  She gasped when he spoke her name. “Is the binding broken then? You can speak my name?”

  A languid smile stretched over his mouth. “The binding sigil is broken. It has been broken since Twelfth Night. I know who you are, Lia. I know everything about you now. Your father’s tome is in my rucksack with mine. I know everything, Lia.” His hand strayed and brushed aside a lock of her hair. “You did it.
You did what he meant you to do.” Tears filled his eyes. “I am so proud of you, Lia. Your courage did not fail.” He gazed at her pointedly. “Neither did mine. If I could have sent you word, I would have. Believe that. But I only just escaped and I rode hard and fast.”

  Lia was so startled and shocked, she clutched him, seizing his tunic front and hugging him so tightly, breathing in his smell, the texture of his tunic and shirt. She squeezed him so hard she was afraid she was hurting him.

  “What of Hillel?” she asked fearfully.

  Colvin stroked her hair. “She weds the young king in a fortnight. After all, I am dead now.”

  She looked at him, seeing the humor in his eyes. “You seem very sturdy for a ghost. What are you saying? Please do not jest! My heart is still near breaking. That this is a dream and I will awaken.”

  “I will tell you all,” he answered. “But first, may I kiss you? My darling. My wife.”

  She stiffened.

  He looked at her, gazing at her face, feeling through her wild hair with his fingertips. He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. “Do not fear my touch, Lia,” he whispered. “Your father foresaw it perfectly. I knew who Hillel was truly. Your father’s tome told me what I had to do to bind myself to you forever. When I was at Billerbeck, I shared the knowledge with the Aldermaston since I had broken the binding. I showed him the tome. He saw what was written and he agreed to perform the ceremony, binding me forever to Ellowyn Demont. We are bound, you and I, by irrevocare sigil, the same way your mother and father were bound together while they were apart, she in Dahomey and he in Pry-Ree. The orb works for me now, you noticed, because of you. Because of that binding. I share many of your Gifts. Hillel took the hetaera oaths, but she did not deceive me. I let her believe she swayed me. But I never let her lips touch mine. I am saved from the Blight.” His fingers clenched in her hair and his forehead brushed hers. “You are mine. Forever.”