The Wretched of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

  Sowe said she did not feel well, so she stayed in the kitchen while Lia took a cloak to search for Duerden near the duck pond. The day was sunny, though damp. It was clear enough that even the crouch-backed hill known as the Tor was in full view. Many of the learners and helpers had doffed their cloaks and all enjoyed the sunshine. A few children chased butterflies. Most of the learners and helpers used the field in front of the pond as a place to meet and wrestle or play games.

  Lia found Duerden sitting beneath the largest oak with a tome in his lap. He carefully turned the thick metal pages, his finger tenderly tracing the etching as he read. All the learners had tomes made of precious aurichalcum, a metal made from blending copper and gold. The gleaming pages were held together by three sturdy rings mounted into a thick, flat base. She looked at it, wishing jealously for one of her own.

  As she approached, he gave her a mock frown and carefully closed the record. “Treasa Lavender was churlish with me yesterday. For no reason I can name, she came up to me, poked me in the chest, and said that the next time I needed a shirt washed, I should ask her or one of the other lavenders and not you.”

  “She is right, you should,” Lia said. The walk from the kitchen, combined with the sun, had made her very warm, so she unfastened her cloak and used it as a blanket to sit on. She had forgotten to warn him and silently cursed herself. “It is Reome’s fault. She just assumed I was washing yours. I never told her that I was.”

  “What affronts me is that she does not think I, or any learner for that matter, ought to wash our own clothes.”

  “You are all highborn, Duerden. From a Family.”

  “That makes no difference. Aldermaston Willibald who wrote the Hodoeporicon planted his own crops, and served his people instead of himself, and I am quite convinced that he even did his own laundry. It is laziness, pure and simple.”

  “You do not bake your own bread,” Lia reminded him. “Or forge your own tome.”

  “But laziness does not prevent me from learning any craft. Far from it, I arise the same hour that you do. Mundane tasks are equally relevant for controlling the Medium, and I enjoy fresh air before sunrise. Work has a way of cleansing the mind. One does not grow strong unless one works at where one is weakest.”

  Lia yawned. “What did you learn from the king’s men yesterday?”

  “Why do you care so much about it, Lia?”

  “Because Sowe and I are always the last to hear and the war would be over before anyone decides to tell us anything.”

  Duerden laughed and leaned back on his elbows. “Gossip. Fair enough. You probably are still the last to know. Everyone has talked about nothing else all day. Traitors to the realm gather in Winterrowd. They seek those willing to join them in a revolt against the king. And they will be slaughtered. Even with Garen Demont leading them.”

  “Who is Garen Demont? Is that a Family name?”

  “Only one of the more famous ones. Garen’s father was Sevrin Demont.”

  “And who is that?”

  “You do not know who Sevrin Demont is?”

  “I would not be asking if I did.” Sometimes he was feather-brained.

  “How can that be? Everyone knows who he is!”

  Lia shrugged, trying to tame her patience. “I have never heard that name before. Who is he?”

  “He used to be king in all but name. Never lost a battle, except his last. They say he was brilliant on campaign, knew no fear, yet he held true to his principles. He was a true knight-maston in every way that matters most, and though he was only an earl, he was treated like the crown prince. Our last king, of course, hated him. That was our current king’s father. Our good king, our cruel king, our crowned king was the man who defeated the Demonts in the battle of Maseve. It has been said, at court, the battle was between equal forces. But I was told it was five or six men to one. Usually the highborn of Family are imprisoned and ransomed. Not the Demont Family. They were brutally massacred. That was the end of chivalry in our kingdom, I think. There are few knight-mastons left in this generation. It is easier to serve the king, they say, if you are not a maston.”

  “And Garen Demont is the son?” Lia asked, sitting up straight and leaning in.

  “He is one of the younger sons. Gravely wounded at Maseve and imprisoned instead of butchered – which one might attribute to many reasons, some of which may involve the Medium. He escaped after his injuries healed and fled to another country. Dahomey, I think.” He sat up, his eyes twinkling. “There is one story about him that I particularly admire. After Maseve, he joined the service of some foreign king and won many battles. One summer, he was visiting an abbey in a distant land and one of his cousins arrived, for they are cousins to our king through marriage. This cousin had fought against his Family at Maseve. Well, Garen drew his sword and nearly beheaded the man right then and there. Yes, in the middle of the Abbey grounds! Everyone gawked, expecting to see blood spilled. Then he paused, spat on the ground, and said, ‘Though you had no mercy for my father and brother, I will grant mercy to you.’”

  “That was very generous of him,” Lia said, wide-eyed.

  “An act of clemency that made him practically as famous as his father. Rumor has it, Lia, that he is back from fighting foreign wars, that he has come to raise an army to topple the king who killed his father. The thought of Sevrin Demont’s son, like his father revived, coming to our realm has the whole kingdom ablaze with a thousand different rumors. So this may be rumor only. He may still be leagues and leagues away serving a foreign king. But from what I heard the sheriff’s men say, they are not treating it as an idle report. The full host of the king’s army musters and marches on Winterrowd. As I told you before, there will be another slaughter.”

  Lia was desperate to see the armiger, tell him what she had learned. “Why will they be slaughtered?”

  “No one has defeated the king in twenty years of battles since Maseve, although many have tried. His battle flags bring fear to his enemies, for he flaunts the flags of his foes amidst his own standard. No army who has faced him, not even Sevrin Demont himself, has won. From what the soldiers were muttering in their cups last night, only the younger knights and squires are joining Demont. The experienced ones, the ones who have fought for the king all these years, are paid and fed. They know his kind of war. Let me say again that there are but few, if any, knight-mastons among them.”

  “I need to go,” Lia said, gathering up her cloak and shaking the grass off it.

  “Lia,” Duerden said, shifting awkwardly, then rose with her. “Can I ask you something first?”

  “What is it?”

  He fidgeted with his sleeve, tugging it taut. “When you said you would dance with me at the Whitsun Fair…I want you to know that…you realize that I would have told you all this anyway. You need not make me any promises. I would…I should like to dance with you…but I do not want you to feel coerced.”

  Lia stared at him for a moment. “That was not a question.”

  He swallowed. “I guess you are right.”

  “I have a question for you then. Why do you only greet the girls at the abbey?”

  “I…what…you mean…I greet everyone…”

  “No you do not. I have seen you. We can be walking together and talking, and you will greet another girl who passes by, but never one of the boys. Why?”

  He was flummoxed. His face turned red.

  Lia clasped the cloak around her throat. She gave him a teasing smile and then hurried away.

  What she really wanted to ask him, which she dared not, was about the twisted charm she had yanked from Almaguer’s neck during the night. She would save that question for the armiger hidden in the forbidden grounds.

  * * *

  “The power of the Medium should never be compelled. Its power must be coaxed, persuaded, allured, invited. Throughout the generations of Family, a relationship with the Medium has formed. As each generation honors it, the union is strengthened until they gain access to the ultimate
power of the Medium and free their line from the bands of death. But there are those who, because of anger, spite, jealousy, or domination, cannot engender even the briefest flicker of agreement with the Medium. To them, the power is closed because they will not yield their thoughts, their desires, their wills over to it. They think their own thoughts. They desire their own cravings. And they demand obedience to their own will. As with all things in nature, there is opposition. Sun and dark. Sweet and bitter. Courage and fear. And like the Medium, there is a means by which one can force power to obey. A fellow can compel another to serve him. It is my experience and has always proven to be the case that when humans give in to their baser instincts, they discover ways to forge a link to the Medium that is unnatural. This forging is not only figurative but literal. Those who do parade the emblem of this union from a chain around their necks.”

  - Cuthbert Renowden of Billerbeck Abbey

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  Getman’s Scorn

  The face on the waymarker frowned at her, a reminder that the Aldermaston would be angry if he knew she was creeping down into the ruins again. But despite the scowl, she went down anyway. The warmth of the sun on her face and arms calmed her, but her heart was aflutter with thoughts and ideas. Was she a Demont? Was that what the sheriff had hinted? Not just any family, but a famous Family? Did that explain why she could use the Medium so easily?

  She ventured into the gorge and jumped down to the floating stone, gripping a linen full of foodstuffs in one hand. Clambering down each step, she hurried until her breath was harsh in her ears. The wind carried earthy smells of fragrant wild grasses, woods, moss, and dirt.

  After darting inside, she found him sitting on a stone, a golden tome in his hands, his face eagerly reading each word.

  “Where did you find that?” Lia asked, startling him.

  He nearly dropped the tome, but steadied himself, his eyes wide with wonder. “I did not hear you come down. This is…this is beyond belief. This place you found. It is singular. I have heard…but I did not know there was one like this at Muirwood.”

  “Where did you find that tome?” she demanded with a surge of jealousy, for she had searched the ruins for years and found no such treasures.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing to the far wall. Except it wasn’t a wall, it was open now. The door was made of stone. Lia approached eagerly and discovered that it opened up to a deeper cave. There were stone tables, and on the tables, tome after tome with no dust. Scriving tools of all shapes and sizes, tubs of wax, a bone stylus, parchment maps in long leathery rolls, and coins from many realms crowded around and beneath the tables. Just inside the door was an oil cruse, a barrel full of milled grain, and a basket of apples, which was absurd since it was not the right season for ripe apples.

  “This was here all along?” Lia asked, staring in wonder.

  “Yes, but you never would have found it,” he replied, carefully setting down the tome he was reading on the stone table. His face was expressive, his eyes alight. “Only a maston can open that door. It requires more than just affinity with the Medium. You need to know the right words to say.”

  “Can you teach me?”

  He shook his head. “No. That is forbidden. This is the secret place, hidden from the eyes of the world. A Wayfarer lives here, or stops here when he is in this country. Someone who has been writing the history of the land. The record on the table has a final entry – it seems to have last been written a dozen or so years ago. I do not think anyone has been here in at least that long. But there are other records, things I have never seen before. Earlier versions of the Tomes of Soliven, for example.” He shook his head. “There are passages missing from the version I studied when I was a learner.”

  She looked him in the eye and watched for a reaction. “Is your name Garen Demont?”

  His enthusiasm guttered out as if a bucket of water doused a candle. Wariness replaced it. “Why do you ask that?”

  Whether or not he was the man, she could see that he knew the name. “Because the sheriff’s men are looking for anyone rallying to Garen Demont. And you would not tell me your name, so I was suspicious.”

  He stared at her, squinting slightly.

  She wanted to throw something at him out of pure frustration. “If I was going to betray you, I could have last night when the sheriff came sneaking into the kitchen with his black amulet and tried to force me tell him our secret. Can you not trust me still? Who are you?”

  “Where is the sheriff now?”

  “The Aldermaston sent him away. His men left in the night.”

  “And he wore an amulet? Like the kind I warned you of?”

  Lia nodded, then folded her arms and stared at him hard. She was not going to tell him yet that she had stolen it from the sheriff during their scuffle. Not yet anyway, especially if he was determined to keep secrets. “Please tell me.”

  “This is madness,” he muttered to himself. “I do not know why I am even considering it.” He rounded on her. “For your own good, you should not know. It can only harm you and this abbey. You know too much already.” He ran his hand through his hair, clenching his jaw. The scab on his temple was black.

  Lia dropped her shoulders. “I told you that I keep secrets. I will keep yours. I promise.”

  He sighed, deep and heavy, his eyes closing. “Even if they kill you for it? You are nearly as old as my sister. I could not even trust her with what I was doing, and yet you ask it of me?”

  “I am not your sister. I am only a wretched. Yet maybe…just maybe I can help you.” She squeezed her hands in frustration. Why wouldn’t he believe her? “The Aldermaston will not let them kill me. He is not that vicious.”

  “I do not even know where I am going. So how can you help me get there?”

  “I may know where you are going. If what I have heard is true, Garen Demont is mustering at Winterrowd.”

  His eyes blazed, his expression frantic. “This you learned from the sheriff’s men? They know the gathering place?”

  “How else would I have heard it? Do you know where Winterrowd is? If you are not Garen Demont, then you are loyal to him?”

  He clenched his teeth even tighter, fighting to master himself and his frustration. Then he sighed heavily. A haggard look crossed his face. She knew she had won. “I am not Demont. Demont was the Earl of Liester. My father, the Earl of Forshee. The earldoms border each other. In a few months, I reach my majority where I may be invested with the earldom. Right now, my uncle holds it for me.” He sighed again, twitching with dread. “My name is Colvin Price. The king is my cousin.”

  Lia gave him a satisfied smile, but kept her arms folded imperiously. “It took you long enough to tell me. So. You are joining the rebellion?”

  “I am.”

  “Where is Winterrowd?”

  “I do not know. It is a coastal town, west of here. Somewhere in this Hundred. Demont landed in the country of Pry-Ree a fortnight ago. Do you know of it?”

  She shook her head.

  “It borders our realm to the north, separated by a little water, but there are ports on the south side not far from this Hundred. Not far to cross if you have enough boats. Much faster than traveling by land. When I learned about the summons, he had already set sail. His agent, a knight-maston, was to meet me at the outskirts of Muirwood Abbey and lead me there.”

  “The knight-maston that brought you here?” Lia asked.

  “I do not know. I never met the man.”

  “He seemed to know you.”

  “I would not doubt it. Perhaps he was told. Perhaps I misjudged him. When I came, I went to the village first, but did not feel safe there, even with a storm blowing. Too many questions. Too many suspicions. So rather than sleeping at one of the inns, I rode south, and then circled back towards the abbey another way. Someone followed me from the village. I thought I escaped him into the woods during the storm, but I remember hearing a noise, turning around, and something struck my hea
d. I thought I had been captured. When I awoke, I was in the kitchen, sick to my stomach.”

  “Yes, I had almost forgotten that part,” she replied, wincing at the memory. “A knight-maston brought you to the kitchen. You may have been running from him without knowing he was there to guide you.”

  “Indeed. And yet I worry. I have been thinking on it and it makes sense. That when the sheriff arrived in the village, whoever it was who saved me was captured himself.”

  “He seemed a clever enough man to me. Why would you fear his capture?”

  He walked back through the stone doorway and stood facing the sky. “Because they were searching for me at the Abbey yesterday.” He turned and looked at her. “How else would they have known I was here? How would they have known to search the kitchen?”

  Lia swallowed. That made sense. Hope wilted. “Then the knight-maston…is not coming back for you tonight. Is he?”

  Colvin – that was his name – looked troubled. “I fear he will not, and I do not know the way to Winterrowd.”

  “If the sheriff’s men are still looking for you, the road will be watched.”

  “If I stay at Muirwood under the Aldermaston’s protection, then I have risked everything in vain. That is why I do not claim the protection of sanctuary. The Abbey may protect my life, but it can easily become a prison with the Aldermaston my keeper. There is too much to risk trusting him with my identity. I have come this far. I must go on. Demont needs to know that the king’s men are on the hunt and know about Winterrowd.”

  Lia swallowed, feeling worse. “The sheriff said last night that the king was coming. The king himself.”

  “Then it is even more urgent that I leave,” he said darkly. “My horse – where is he? You can help me get it? I could leave tonight.”