by Diane Magras
“I could have stopped him, though,” said Drest.
“But you couldn’t have stopped the whole village.” Tig sighed. “You shouldn’t have stayed in Phearsham Ridge.” He raised his hands, then dropped them in his lap. “And now it’s not safe for you anywhere. I’m sorry. I meant to keep my promise to protect you. Remember that from our last journey?”
Mordag was on Tig’s shoulder and pressed hard against his cheek.
Drest leaned forward and wiped her palms on her hose. “I bet that Sir Fergal is going round to all the villages with his tale of the price on my head. I should have called my brothers when I first saw him. I should have led him right to the mill, and they could have done him for me and I wouldn’t need to worry about this.”
“It does no good to talk like that.” Emerick reached out with his boot and touched Drest’s. “I said such words—what I could and should have done—every day for years after my sister died. It doesn’t help. And as for Sir Fergal—he’s a scoundrel, but it’s good no one slew him when he first came to the village. If you hadn’t made him chase you, you’d never have known about the price on your head. I know it’s a hard burden to carry, but it’s better to know than be ignorant.”
* * *
• • •
Drest slept fitfully that night and woke at dawn with the ache in her forehead of a night spent tossing. She sat up and pressed her hands against her face, but the pressure did not cease.
Emerick was sprawled out by the log, his chest rising and falling with a catch. Tig was curled up by his legs, his breath more peaceful.
Drest crept away from them, leaving her cloak and hood behind. She was hot, desperately thirsty, and hungry.
A muddy brook gave her a mouthful of sour-tasting water that she spit out nearly at once. She wandered farther from her friends, searching the ground for traces of damp that might lead to a stream.
Then Drest caught a whiff of the sea.
The crisp, salty smell of home—
It was gone. The marshy reek of the woods surrounded her again.
Why don’t you go home? Nutkin’s voice. You could stop running then.
Drest’s heart quickened. The headland was the one place where she knew how to hide. They could live there, the three of them, on the fish from the sea and the fresh water from the rain and be their own war-band. She would teach Emerick and Tig all that her brothers had taught her. They’d truly be safe.
Your lord is not going to want to live at the headland, Gobin scoffed. Honestly, Drest, are you even going to mention that to him? He’s a lord. He wants his castle back. The headland won’t be enough.
It’ll have to be enough if he wants to heal in peace, Drest thought. And he hasn’t much of a choice if I’m going there.
* * *
• • •
Emerick and Tig were sitting close together when she returned.
“—and that’s its beauty. Its defenses are impenetrable.” Emerick looked up at Drest. “Nothing? We were hoping you’d find food.”
“I was going to go after you,” Tig faltered, “but I thought someone ought to stay with Emerick.”
“Nay, I didn’t find any food, but I have an idea.” She knelt beside them. “Let’s not wait here until any knights find us, but go to the headland. It’s through the woods back there, and it has food and water and caves where we can hide.”
Emerick and Tig exchanged glances.
“But my knights know how to get there,” Emerick said. “Your caves won’t be safe enough. And the castle will surely look for you there, knowing it was your camp and you’ll likely go back for supplies.”
“You’ve never seen the caves,” Drest said coldly. “We can hide there no matter who comes.”
Emerick looked at his hands. “Perhaps.”
Tig nudged the young lord’s elbow. “Tell her what you were telling me about the castle. Drest, it’s magnificent. Just listen.”
A smile crossed Emerick’s face, making him look younger than his sixteen years. “You’ve seen it, Drest. Remember that long, open road that leads up to the first gatehouse? It allows room for no more than two horses abreast. And there are murder holes, and bowmen on all the battlements. It makes a trap.”
“The paths on the headland are like traps for enemies,” Drest muttered. “You don’t know them the way I do.”
“But a castle’s traps—” Tig began, then stopped. “Did your father design all those defenses, Emerick? I remember how beautiful they were.”
Strange word, sniffed Gobin’s voice. I didn’t find any part of that castle beautiful.
Emerick’s smile faded. “My father liked to talk about his defenses, but he never called them beautiful. ‘Useful.’ ‘Necessary.’” He was quiet for a moment. “No, he did call one ‘beautiful.’ That was my sister’s marriage to Lord de Moys, which would have given us a link to the French throne. But my poor sister—Celestria died trying to escape that. If she’d married Lord de Moys, and if my own betrothal had gone through—I was to wed Lady Oriana Harkniss, whose family had ties to the Scottish throne—our father would have had the strongest alliance in the lowlands.”
“Are you still betrothed?” asked Tig. “Have you ties with King William?”
“No. After Celestria died, Lord Harkniss had Oriana married to Lord de Moys and took that alliance for himself. I suppose Oriana thinks there’s beauty in how it ended up: With Lord de Moys and Lord Harkniss dead and her with all that power. As for me, I haven’t been betrothed to anyone for years.”
“I don’t think you will be anytime soon,” Drest said. “No lady worth the name would want you without your castle.”
It came out before she could stop it, from the resentment that had been building at Emerick’s boasts of his secure castle and those alliances his family had almost had.
Emerick’s mouth turned grim. “I expect you’re right. I don’t think anyone much wants me in this world.”
“Aye, but it’s better to be not wanted than to have everyone in the lowlands after your head.” Drest stood. “The only place where I’ll be safe is the headland. So will you come with me, or shall you stay on the run in the woods?”
“I don’t see how the headland will be safe with all my knights—I mean, all Oswyn’s knights—knowing precisely how to sail there in less than a day. No, Drest, I can’t live like that.”
“Bide your luck alone, then, and I’ll bide mine.” Drest shrugged at Tig, whose expression had become alarmed. “Perhaps I’ll see you one day.”
“You both—” Tig scrambled to his feet. “Honestly, if you two let yourselves part like that, neither one of you will forgive yourself!”
“Part like what? We’re looking at the truth of the matter. I can’t hope for any helpful alliance, being without a castle as I am; and she’s got to run for her life, being a wolf’s—”
“Stop it!” Tig whirled to Emerick. “Don’t ever say those words again.”
Emerick reddened.
She almost marched away. That was her instinct.
But another instinct held her there—and a memory of a journey not long ago.
And it was that which made her walk to Emerick’s side and drop on her knees and wait until he looked at her before she spoke.
“I have to find somewhere to live,” she said. “I can’t be like my da, always running. There’s no other place for me but the headland.”
“And it’s your home,” he said softly.
“If I go and find it’s safe, will you come? I want you to come.”
He hesitated, then slowly nodded. And then he reached over and put his arm around her.
“Be careful, Drest. And be sure you come back.”
She hugged him, and stood.
“Shall I go with you?” asked Tig. “I’ve never seen the headland.”
“Nay, stay with
Emerick. He might need you and Mordag. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And forcing a faded smile at her friends, Drest started into the woods alone.
11
THE HEADLAND
Home, said a voice deep in Drest’s mind. You’re going home.
She hadn’t been back to the headland since she had left with Emerick after the knights’ invasion a week ago. But she knew the way. It was simple: straight through the woods to the shore, then along the water.
Her limbs longed to sprint, but Drest forced herself to stride to keep her pace steady and not tire.
Your home has better defenses than the castle of that squid-brained pig’s bottom. It was Uwen’s voice.
Aye, said Gobin. The dragons’ teeth all over the coves. What does Da always say? They’re always hungry for wood and men.
The cliffs that no man can climb, said Nutkin. No man but us.
The ravine and its river. The rough sea. It’s as fine as a castle’s defense. Gobin laughed. She really could keep her poor lord safe there for the rest of his life.
She could.
Drest’s pace increased into a full run as she pictured it:
The path to the lookout point, Emerick and Tig at her side, the sea stretching vast and gray around them.
The bonfire at the camp, fish roasting on the coals, firelight flickering on Emerick’s face as he told stories of his youth in his castle voice.
They’d sleep in the caves where it was safe.
She’d teach them to dive off the cliffs, and how to swim.
They’d battle with practice swords on the paths.
And Mordag would keep watch upon the wind.
The vast sea.
The broad stones.
Her home.
Her life.
Drest had been in the woods for an hour when the first full breath of the sea wafted through the trees. Water glimmered in the distance, slats of light against the dark trunks. Drest dashed up to the brink of the woods, taking in the rich, briny smell and the sharp feel of the sea air. Waves slapped at the pebble shore below her.
She breathed deep.
Then she returned to the trees. Had she come this way with Emerick? Until a week ago, she’d never been off the headland. She recognized nothing, but her mind flew back to those days in the woods by the headland—when everything had been unfamiliar, and she and Emerick had exchanged hostilities. His sneer, his wince, and his hopeless gaze rose in her mind.
I need you, he’d said. And you need me. And that’s all we must remember.
She continued, following the shore, heading north. Her boots crunched the white shells tossed up by storms. Sea wind cooled her hot, sticky back.
Another hour passed. Her energy waned. She found a stream and drank deeply.
Another hour.
She was starting to wonder if the woods would ever turn familiar when, abruptly, the land before her was gone, replaced by a thundering cove.
Drest marched up to the edge of the cliff and leaned over. Waves crashed below, flicking up foam, speckling her tunic with damp.
This was the start of the ravine, the slash in the headland where she had found Emerick just over a week ago. Beyond it, over the waves, sat the slabs of boulders that were the entry to the headland itself.
The cliff at her feet was ragged—perfect for climbing—and Drest dropped to her knees, about to start down.
But she paused.
The sea below was rich with foam, pitted with dragons’ teeth, and rabid with waves. Such waves on such stones did not bode well for climbing.
Nutkin had once said that there was a way down. But he’d never told her where, or how.
She followed the ravine deeper into the woods, along the cliffs.
A way that Nutkin would make, Gobin’s voice whispered, would look like no way at all.
She examined the ground. Roots, acorns, leaves, and fallen branches scattered the soil, but with no answer to Gobin’s riddle.
And then she passed an enormous root extending from an oak, reaching under the leaves and over the cliff’s edge, a pale, twining root that she wouldn’t have noticed, only the tip of her boot brushed it—and instead of being solid wood, it was soft.
Drest followed it up to the oak and discovered that it was looped and tied around the trunk.
Not a root but a rope.
Drest grinned. The knot was Gobin’s work and the arrangement of leaves at the base of the oak Nutkin’s. And the groove in the dirt, where the rope rested root-like as it snaked down to the cliff, was the work they’d done together.
Drest knelt and lifted the rope from the dirt, then peered over the brink of the cliff. The rope extended all the way to the bottom. Slowly, taking care, she eased herself over the cliff’s edge.
Her feet found solid holds in the first swath of rock. She descended quickly.
Why does Da call this the cliff no man can climb? Uwen’s voice. It’s an easy climb down, at least for a bug-headed spider like you.
Bits of rocks flew away from her boots as she shuttled down, then chunks of moss. Now heavy layers of moss covered the cliff face, holding her feet nearly as well as pitted stone.
And then—
Drest’s boot slipped.
Her toes scrabbled. For the first time in her life, she found no hold.
The rope was all that was supporting her. Drest clung to it and looked down.
A cliff of slick, glistening stone stretched below, a rock face smoothed by hundreds of years of rain dripping from the moss.
Tentatively, Drest slid her toe down the rock. There were no crannies, no cracks or ledges, nothing in which to gain a hold. She had but one choice: to climb down that rope alone.
It was hard to descend like that, inching along, but Drest made herself do it. Hand over hand, foot over foot, minute after minute, the rough fibers digging into her palms. Rope was not like cliff; it was restrictive to her muscles. She felt like a slithering drop of water.
When the rope ended, four feet above the ground, Drest let go and landed in a crouch on the ravine’s floor.
All around her, a faint mist rose. It was quiet and dark.
But familiar.
It was the world she had grown up in.
With tears in her eyes, she strode toward the seaside bank and climbed up into the foggy sun at the top.
Great stone slabs stretched everywhere, forming a rocky landscape of gullies and hills, the sea a brimming mass of gray-green beyond. To all eyes, it was but a rock for seabirds and seals, nothing else. It was the core of the headland’s defense.
A brilliant defense! Gobin’s voice rang out in her mind. No one will see you here. It’s perfect, lass, just perfect!
And yet—now that she was there, it looked different somehow.
That wide-open sea beyond the stones was not a barrier, but a path on which enemy ships could travel.
The cliff that no one could climb would keep her in as well if the rope were gone.
The paths were bare, without protection, and anyone standing on them would be obvious from the sea.
As she stood on the edge of the stone path, the wind whipping against her face and tunic, Drest remembered how the wind had felt on the road leading up to Faintree Castle.
A wind above cliffs and a road with a massive stone fortress at its end.
The headland feels—wrong.
Has your mind turned into a rotten turnip? Uwen’s voice. How can it feel wrong?
Because this is where it began. Wulfric’s solemn voice. It’s where Da and the rest of us were captured. It’s not safe for you here, lass. Go back.
Drest shook her head. It had been safe until that day. Surely it was safe now.
She began marching up toward the lookout point.
The wind turned cold.
<
br /> Nay, lass, it’s not safe. Thorkill, nervous, as he’d rarely been. Go and fetch some smoked fish, but then go back to your friends. Do it quick and leave.
With a shiver, Drest pivoted—
But not before she caught the glimpse of a movement past the curve on the path toward the lookout point.
And in seconds, he was before her: a craggy old knight in a tree-emblazoned surcoat that flapped in the wind, staring down at her with pale blue eyes like Emerick’s.
She’d seen that face once before, at the top of the battlements of Faintree Castle’s inner curtain wall. She would have known that face anywhere.
Sir Oswyn.
12
THE CLIFF
Drest stumbled back, back, nearly tripping on a loose clump of gorse.
“Crossbows!” bellowed Sir Oswyn.
She bolted down the nearest bank into the ravine. With a shower of pebbles and dirt in her wake, Drest reached the bottom and sprinted toward the cliff.
Someone shouted in the distance. Soil and stones crashed as castle men rushed into the ravine after her.
Drest wove between trees, focusing only on her speed and her direction, trying to remember where on the cliff the rope was waiting.
This was the most important race of her life. She all but flew.
At last, the cliff rose ahead, and the rope—there it was, dangling pale against the stone not far away.
Drest ran at the cliff and jumped, praying she would reach the rope’s fraying end.
Her fingers closed around the tip.
With a grunt, her boots slipping against the slick rock, her arms straining, she pulled herself up, hand over hand, until her boots caught the rope at the end.
“Halt!” cried a thin, cold voice from below, coming near: Sir Oswyn’s.
How had he caught up so quickly?
That old man is fast, mused Gobin.
Climb, lass, climb! Nutkin’s voice.
She gritted her teeth and pulled herself higher, Tancored in its scabbard thumping against her leg, her boots steadying her, though her arms alone carried her weight.
