Shadows and Light ta-2

by Anne Bishop

  Neall mouthed the question, “Black Coats?”

  Morag nodded, watched his expression turn hard.

  “Neall! Is Ari hurt?”

  Morag looked over her shoulder as Glenn ran up to the garden wall. A hawk landed on the wall behind Neall and Ari. A young stag bounded toward the garden, followed by several Fae on horseback. Within moments, the kitchen garden was surrounded by armed men.

  Merle snarled a warning.

  No one tried to go over the garden wall.

  “Lady Morag?” one of the older huntsmen said.

  “They both need a healer,” Morag said.

  Ari brushed tears from her face, smearing her cheeks with dirt. “I’m not hurt.”

  “Neall is.”

  Ari pushed away from Neall. She paled when she saw the blood on his shirt.

  “It’s shallow,” Neall said quickly, “and it’s already stopped bleeding.”

  “He needs a healer,” Morag said firmly.

  The young stag bounded away, racing up the forest trail that led to the Clan house.

  “Come,” Morag said, getting to her feet. “You should both go into the cottage and rest.”

  “I need—”

  “Young Lord,” the huntsman said. “I think you need to stop arguing with Lady Morag.”

  Morag saw a muscle jump in Neall’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. Mother’s tits! Couldn’t he realize Ari would be calmer with him nearby?

  He didn’t argue, just used his good arm to help Ari get to her feet.

  Glenn cleared his throat. “Neall, if you could give Shadow a whistle, it would ease things.”

  Neall let out a piercing whistle. The dark horse broke off circling the Inquisitor’s body and trotted toward the cottage. So did the dark mare and her foal. By the time Neall and Morag led Ari to the cottage’s kitchen door, the horses were waiting for them. Morag gave them a minute to reassure the animals, then hustled them into the cottage, ordering Merle to stay outside until he’d had a bath. Ari didn’t need to see bloody pawprints on her floors.

  Neall was right. The knife slice on his upper arm was long but shallow enough that even a novice healer could deal with it. Morag let Ari tend it, fetching the things that were needed. There really wasn’t anything to do for Ari, but she worried about what the strain of the attack might do to the young witch and the babe she carried.

  She made tea, using the mixture Ari had made from herbs she’d gathered and had labeled soothing.

  While the water heated, she tried not to pace continually between the table where Ari and Neall were sitting and the kitchen door where Merle whined because he wasn’t allowed inside. In another minute, he’d start howling to let everyone know he wasn’t happy about being so far away from Ari. Which wasn’t going to soothe any of them.

  She made the tea, set the mugs in front of Ari and Neall— and went back to the kitchen door. How long did it take for the healer to arrive?

  This time she saw the young stag—and the horse and rider following it. She opened the bottom half of the kitchen door. Merle streaked past her, but she felt too stunned to grab him. She stepped outside as the black-haired woman flung herself out of the saddle and ran toward the cottage.

  “Morphia,” Morag whispered.

  “Morag!” Morphia shouted.

  So good to hold this woman who was a sister of the heart as well as the flesh. “Merry meet, Morphia.”

  Morphia leaned back, her eyes full of tears, her smile brilliant with joy. “You’re well?”

  “I’m well. But I could use your help.”

  Morphia’s smile faded. “What do you need?”

  Morag leaned close and whispered, “The kind of restful sleep you can give.” She took Morphia’s hand and led her into the cottage, saying, “Come in and be welcome.”

  Neall jumped to his feet, his whole body tense.

  Morag smiled. “Neall. Ari. Do you remember my sister, Morphia?”

  Ari said, “Blessings of the day to you.” Neall remained wary—until his eyes dropped to the lacings on Morphia’s bodice.

  “Why do you have a feather in your lacings?” Neall asked.

  Morphia glanced down—and blushed an interesting shade of crimson. She plucked the feather out of the lacings, and muttered, “I hope it wasn’t one he needed.”

  Neall’s lips twitched. “He?”

  Morphia nervously smoothed the feather, then stuck it back in the lacings. “It’s a long story.”

  “Which my sister will be glad to share—”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “—after the two of you have gotten a little rest,” Morag said.

  Morphia muttered. But she went over to the table and got a good grip on Ari’s arm to persuade her to get up.

  Morag walked up to Neall and smiled. She could tell by his expression that he remembered quite well the last time he’d tried—unsuccessfully—to deal with the two sisters. So it wasn’t so hard as it might have been to coax Neall and Ari to lie down for a little while. Especially since Neall, at least, realized he was going to sleep and his choices were the bed or the floor.

  A light brush of Morphia’s fingers once they were settled on the bed was all it took for the two of them to fall sound asleep.

  Morag grabbed Merle by the scruff and dragged the whining shadow hound outside. “No,” she said firmly. “You are not climbing up on that bed with them until you’ve had a bath.”

  The whines increased.

  “Hush!” Not that his whines were going to wake Ari or Neall, but there was no reason for the rest of them to have to listen to Merle’s opinions and complaints. She closed the bottom of the kitchen door and watched Merle lope over to Glenn, probably hoping the man might have a different opinion.

  Glenn looked at Morag. Morag looked at Glenn.

  “Come along, laddy-boy,” Glenn said. “We’ll get you cleaned up.”

  Merle hung his head, but he followed Glenn back to the stables.

  Morag turned back to the cottage. Morphia stood inside, watching her.

  “What brought you to Bretonwood?” Morag asked.

  “I came looking for you,” Morphia replied. “I’d rather be with my sister than with the rest of the Fae.”

  Had it come to that? “Morphia ...”

  Morphia shook her head. “Ashk says the Fae in the west are different.”

  “Yes,” Morag said softly, “they are.”

  “I’m guesting at the Clan house, but when word came that a healer was needed here ... The healer was already occupied, so I came instead.”

  “You were what they needed.” Morag hesitated. “Can you stay with them for a little while? There’s something I need to do.”

  “I can stay.”

  Morag walked to the kitchen garden, where her dark horse waited. She stopped when the older huntsman approached her.

  “We’ll take care of the bodies,” he said.

  “I don’t want them on her land. I don’t want them near her. Not even as corpses.”

  He hesitated. “There is a place, deep in the woods, some distance from the Clan house. There are several places in the woods where we give our dead back to the Mother, but this place ... There is good and bad in every people, Lady Morag. Wishing it wasn’t so doesn’t change that it is. So there is a place in the woods where we sometimes bury one of our own. Nothing will grow there but thorns and thistles. It’s a cold place, even in bright sunlight.”

  “That will do.” A place where even daylight was shadowed. Yes, that would do for the Black Coats.

  Shadows.

  “Something else,” Morag said, resting her hand on the huntsman’s arm. “Warn Ashk. Warn the Clan to be wary of the shadows in the woods. If the Inquisitors were here long enough, they could have drawn on the power in the Old Place and twisted it to create nighthunters.”

  “Nighthunters?”

  “Creatures the Mother never would have created. They devour flesh and spirit.”

  The huntsman gave her a long look.
“I’ll tell Ashk. If these creatures are here, we’ll rid our land of them.”

  Morag nodded. Having seen nighthunters, she didn’t think it would be that easy to destroy them, but she wasn’t skilled with a bow, so perhaps he had good reason to be confident of the Fae’s ability to cleanse the creatures from Bretonwood.

  She mounted her dark horse, gathered the Inquisitors’ ghosts, and rode away. She felt uneasy about traveling along the deeper trails in the woods, but was unwilling to take the road up to the Shadowed Veil until she was away from the land that belonged to Neall and Ari.

  When she left the Inquisitors at the Shadowed Veil, she said, “May you find the Fiery Pit you Black Coats seem so fond of,” then galloped back down the road. She let the dark horse set the pace when they were once more following the forest trails, but didn’t breathe easy until they cantered into daylight.

  Death called her.

  She turned away from the cottage and followed the summons to the old farmer’s barn. She didn’t go inside, didn’t intrude on the grief she felt there. She simply gathered him gently and went back up the road to the Shadowed Veil. The Inquisitors were gone, and she was glad. The old man didn’t need to see them.

  He raised a hand in farewell before he stepped through the Shadowed Veil to follow the path to the Summerland.

  “Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again,” Morag whispered.

  She was exhausted by the time she returned to the cottage. Even her dark horse was stumbling with fatigue. Glenn took her horse. Morphia heated enough water so that she could take a sponge bath. She wasn’t as clean as she wanted, but it was the best she could do.

  While she ate a bowl of soup, Morphia told her that Neall and Ari had woken up long enough to eat; then, after being reassured that the animals had been cared for and there was nothing that needed to be done, they’d returned to bed.

  Glenn insisted on sleeping in the stables. The Fae Lords insisted that she bolt the doors. She didn’t argue with them. She didn’t argue when Morphia led her upstairs to her room and settled in beside her. She listened while Morphia told her what happened at the farm, but, somehow, fell asleep before her sister got around to explaining the feather that had gotten stuck in the lacings.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Impatient and uneasy, Ubel followed country lanes and crossed open land until he reached a place where he would appear to be riding up from the south toward Breton. None of his men had returned to the meeting place, and he needed to find out why. He’d been firm about the need to move swiftly and slip away again. They were too far away from home, too far away from the united strength the Inquisitors could wield.

  It should have been simple. Kill the witch living in the Old Place. Use the farmer and his family to kill Ashk if she was at the “Clan house.” If she returned to the manor house with the baron’s children, he and the Inquisitor with him were waiting close by to eliminate all of them.

  But the four men he’d sent to the Old Place and the farmer’s cottage hadn’t returned, and when he’d heard that strange horn—the sound of it had made him shiver—he’d ordered the other Inquisitor to go to the village and listen for whatever news could be gleaned while buying supplies.

  He’d waited as long as he could for the man to return, but the shadows in the woods behind the manor house had become too dark, too deep, and it was no longer safe to stay there. Besides, after that horn had sounded, people started stirring all around the manor like hornets whose nest had been disturbed.

  He’d been careful. He’d thought through his plans. His men simply had recognized the difficulty of meeting him near the manor house and had already ridden south to the crossroads posting house, which was their destination after they finished their work in Breton. He’d meet up with the Inquisitor he’d sent to the village, and the two of them would ride south and meet up with the others. Then he’d decide if they should continue traveling overland or take the road to the coast and go back to Durham by sea.

  As he approached a small farm, Ubel saw a man and boy walking beside a pasture’s stone fence. The man looked at Ubel riding toward him, then gave the boy a push on the shoulder. The boy ran to the cottage.

  Ubel reined in. The man stopped walking and shifted the ax he carried so that he held it with both hands.

  “Good day to you,” Ubel said. “Can you tell me how much farther it is to the road that leads to the seaport town?” It pleased him to think of asking for another town so that no one would think Breton was his destination.

  “You passed it a few miles back,” the man said gruffly.

  Giving the man a puzzled smile, Ubel shook his head. “I was told there’s one just north of here.”

  “Next seaport town is two, maybe three days’ ride from here.”

  “Ah.” Ubel paused as if considering that information. “Breton is just ahead, isn’t it? Perhaps I should find lodging there for the night.”

  Ubel noticed a hawk fly toward the farmer’s cottage. Circle it. Another hawk glided high in the air—toward the road. Toward him.

  Sweat trickled down his back. Surely they were just ordinary hawks. Even if there were a few Fae in the Old Place, they’d have no reason to be flying over this farm. Unless the boy who had been sent back to the cottage had been told to give some kind of signal that would draw the Fae here?

  “They won’t be welcoming strangers in Breton tonight,” the man said. “Nor anywhere else around here. If you’re a decent man, you’d best ride south to the posting house. It’s not so far that you won’t make it there while there’s still day-light.”

  Ubel looked around as if confused. He tried not to shiver as the hawk’s shadow fell across the road. “I took this to be a main road. Surely the people around here see travelers all the time.”

  “And most of the time we’re friendly enough,” the man replied, shifting his grip on the ax. “But there’s been trouble here.”

  “Trouble?”

  Grim fury filled the man’s face. “Some of those whoreson bastard Black Coats came to Breton. Killed a farmer and hurt his family. Killed one of Forrester’s apprentices. That’s got the baron’s people and the villagers stirred up.”

  Whoreson bastard? How dare this doltish, ignorant peasant say such a thing about an Inquisitor?

  The man glanced up at the hawk soaring above them. “Word is they also tried to kill Lady Ashk and the witch who lives in Bretonwood. That’s got the Fae riled. I wouldn’t want to be a stranger riding into Breton tonight.”

  “Fae? You mean a few of them actually live around here?” Ubel tried to sound interested. Sweat soaked the armpits of his coat.

  “A few?” The man stared at him. “The whole Bretonwood Clan lives in the Old Place. That’s a sizable more than a few.”

  The forester boy had told the truth about there being a Clan house in the Old Place. How could he have known the boy had told the truth? He’d never heard of the Fae living in the human world.

  “But... Even if someone, a stranger, did kill those peopie, how do you know it was a—what did you call them?— a Black Coat?”

  “The Gatherer said they were. Guess she would know.”

  The reins slipped from Ubel’s suddenly numb fingers. The Gatherer was here? “What happened to the man?”

  “I’m thinking you’d have to ask the Fae what happened to those men. Or the village magistrate.”

  He wasn’t going to ride into that village and ask the magistrate anything. And he certainly wasn’t going to get near the Fae—especially when there was a whole Clan out there and the Gatherer was among them.

  Ubel gathered the reins. “I think you’re right, good sir. I think it would be best if I went to the posting house to find lodgings tonight. And I... I don’t think I’ll continue my northern journey after all.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” the man agreed. “By this time tomorrow, no stranger will be able to step a man’s length anywhere in the west without the barons and the Fae knowing about it—an
d he won’t be able to do so much as unbutton his trousers to take a piss without having to explain himself.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Ubel said weakly. He turned his horse and set the pace at an easy trot. It wouldn’t do to run, to appear afraid. It wouldn’t do to have anyone think he had a reason to hurry.

  He could keep riding. He and his men had hired horses and exchanged them at various posting stations on the journey here. He could do the same on the journey back, riding hard since he didn’t care if the animal was sound when he was through with it.

  But one man, alone on the roads ...

  If the farmer was right and news could travel that fast here in the west... If any of his men lived and were persuaded to talk about the man who was their leader for this task...

  He needed to blend in with other strangers. A seaport was a better choice for that. And a coach. Surely there were coaches at that posting house that took passengers to the coastal road and the seaports.

  Yes. Better to be one among many than a lone rider easily followed.

  It wouldn’t please Master Adolfo that he’d lost the men he’d brought with him. It would please the Master even less that he’d failed his task in almost every way. But the winged gifts he and his men had left in the shadows of the woods were starting to stir.

  Let the baron and the Fae and all the rest of them deal with that.

  Ubel scanned the main room of the posting station, certain that his expression conveyed nothing more than anxious concern, yet uneasy about the amount of silent attention every person entering the room was receiving. If he didn’t find—

  There. That old woman sitting at a table by herself would suit his plans.

  He swiftly crossed the room, shifting his expression to one of relief. Stepping up to the table, he rested one hand on the back of the chair opposite the one the old woman sat in. Seeing the proprietor approaching the table, he changed his expression from relief to confusion, and put all the strength of his Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion behind his words as he said, “Didn’t you order a bowl of stew for me?”

  “And why would I order a bowl of stew for you?” the old woman said sharply. “I don’t know—” She looked up, and as her eyes met his, his gift of persuasion ensnared her.