Angel in the Woods

by Rachel Starr Thomson

“It is a stable,” one of the children informed me.

  “On the floor, and we remember what happened once in a stable.” Nora looked down at the children and smiled. “Go,” she said. “You have nearly knocked down every door in the Castle. It is time to go to sleep now.”

  The children filed out, still carefully clutching their candles, still excited.

  “The candles?” I asked.

  “They are carrying hope with them,” Nora said. She drew a deep breath. “Hawk, if you are looking for shelter, you needn’t stay out.”

  I cut her off. “I can sleep in my own room,” I said.

  “All right,” she said.

  I left the entryway and climbed the long stairs to my room. I was tired; confused. What would become of my report to the Widow I did not know. She had indicated that Illyrica’s family were travellers. Perhaps they would not be found again, and nothing would change. Somehow it seemed probable.

  I heard footsteps behind me and saw candlelight on the stone wall. I turned, ready to tell Nora that I was fine on my own. I don’t know why I expected her to try and invite me to be with them a second time. But it wasn’t Nora. Illyrica stood near me, holding out a gift wrapped in paper. Her blue eyes were deep and questioning. I dropped my head and reached out for the package.

  It was soft beneath the paper. I sat down on the top step and slowly pulled away the ribbon that bound it. I pulled out a beautiful green piece of cloth, folded neatly in four. As I unfolded it, a scene came to life before my eyes. The darkwood was stitched in deep, glimmering colours, with the Castle in the center of it. Flying over it in a clear blue sky was a magnificent grey hawk. In its eyes was an expression of might and a protective spirit. The hawk was guarding the castle.

  I looked back to the one who had created the little tapestry. She smiled at me. It was an odd, sad, knowing smile. I could not smile back.

  “Thank you,” I said at last, my tongue like lead.

  She nodded once, slowly, and turned away. Her skirts swished around her as she gracefully descended the stairs, taking her candle with her, leaving me in the semi-darkness.

  * * *

  I was awakened by a pounding at the door. Torchlight bounced on the walls as I descended the stairs, two and three at a time: ugly torchlight from outside the windows. A man’s voice came muffled through the heavy wood.

  “Open up in the name of the law!”

  I recognized the voice. I had worked with the man on my hunts for criminals. He had always been subordinate to me.

  Nora was already at the door, as was the Giant. Her back was against the wood. She was shaking her head as tears streaked down her face. But the Giant’s hand was resolute. With deep eyes full of compassion he motioned her away and opened the door.

  Six of the Widow’s guards stood without. Behind them, in the murk of the starless night, there were others whose forms I did not recognize and whose faces I could not see.

  “What do you want?” the Giant demanded. I saw the guards fall back a little as the Giant’s bulk and evident anger confronted them. I had snatched up my cudgel on the way out of my bedroom door, and I tightened my grip on it now. I had fought alongside these men, but their manner now was one of enmity. I would fight them if I had to.

  The guard in command cleared his throat and stepped forward. He held a long, ugly sword in his hand—unsheathed. “You have something here which does not belong to you,” he said. “We demand that you give up the daughter of these good people at once.”

  The Giant narrowed his eyes as he peered into the darkness. “I see no good people,” he growled.

  One of the others who had been hiding behind the guards now stepped forward, a parchment in his hands, a horrible glimmer in his eyes. I recognized him at once. An iron weight pulled my heart down.

  It was the cowardly gypsy we had once caught skulking in the woods.

  He unrolled the parchment, torchlight glinting off the gold in his teeth. “You can see the proof all here,” he said. “As if you don’t remember… filthy thief.”

  The Giant took the parchment and examined it. Now and again his eyes flickered back to the armed guards, the torches, the waiting Gypsy. He cleared his throat and turned toward the hall.

  “Illyrica,” he called.

  “No!” I heard the gasp escape from Nora, and saw the guards’ swords come up in anticipation.

  Illyrica appeared a moment later, softly closing the door of the room behind her—keeping the Pixie and all of the children from the guards’ eyes. I could picture the scene before she had stepped out: I could see them clinging to her, pleading with her not to go. Yet she and the Giant seemed to understand. There was nothing they could do.

  The gypsy grinned as Illyrica stepped into the torchlight. She looked at him steadily for a moment, and then turned to Nora. They clasped each other in their arms and kissed one another.

  “Come on,” the gypsy called. “We ‘aven’t got all night.”

  Illyrica stepped away and looked up at the Giant, her eyes speaking more gratitude and love than I had ever heard from the mouth of one who could speak. There was not a single mote of accusation. His eyes filled with tears as she stepped through the doors and into the hands of the shadowy people behind the guards, who clutched at her as if she would run away.

  Would I had thrown myself in her path at that moment and beat the guards back myself. Would I had gone into prison or death to keep her from returning to them. But the sight of Illyrica’s family, the knowledge of what I had done, had destroyed me. In that moment I could not have overcome a flea.

  The Giant handed the parchment back to the Gypsy without a word. The evil little man sniffed, tucked the parchment away, and turned to go.

  The guards stayed a little longer, waiting.

  “Well,” the chief of them said at last. “Aren’t you going to close the doors?”

  “No,” the Giant said. “We are going to watch you leave.”

  Nervously, the guards nodded and turned away. Their torches bobbed across the lawns and faded into the darkwood. I stood in the doorway next to the Giant, while Nora cried behind us.

  As soon as their torches had disappeared in the trees, the Pixie appeared, boots and coat already on, and took a step after them. The Giant put out a hand to stop her. She looked up at him with fiery eyes.

  “They will harm her if we follow now,” he said.

  “They are—they are her family,” I said. Even my tongue felt numb. I could hardly speak.

  Nora did not look at me. “They maimed her once, Hawk,” she said. “They would not hesitate to do it again.”

  The Giant looked down at us. “In a few hours, Pixie,” he said. “In a few hours, you may follow them. Find out where they have gone.”

  Nora looked up, tears still running down her face. “We will go after her?” she said.

  The Giant did not smile. His eyes were still on the woods. “Of course,” he said.

  Chapter 18

  the pixie finds help

  I did not sleep that night.

  When at last the Giant closed the doors, he turned and sat on the wooden chair outside of the soft room. He laid his head in his hands. Nora rubbed his shoulder, blinking back tears, until the Pixie drew her away. Arms around each other, they slipped through the door to the soft room. The Giant and I were alone. The entryway seemed terribly forlorn and barren. The Giant sat, motionless as a statue, and a lone torch flickered against the flagstones on the floor and deepened the cracks between the stones in the walls.

  I turned to trudge upstairs to my lonely room, but the Giant looked up just as my foot touched the first stair.

  “Wait, Hawk,” he said.

  I turned.

  “Stay on guard with me.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but I could not argue with the command in his voice—no, nor with the way his eyes seemed more to implore than to command. I sat down across from the Giant and leaned against the wall, balancing my cudgel on my knees. I looked at the floo
r, and yet I could feel his eyes on me. A confession was trying to beat its way out of my heart, and I was doing everything in my power to hold it back. The pain was almost more than I could bear.

  “The first night I saw you,” the Giant said, “trying to fight your way into my woods, I saw courage and truth in your face. Where is it now?”

  I swallowed. I neither looked up nor answered. I was not without words—but I did not want to give voice to them.

  The Giant’s voice dropped lower. “Tell me, Sparrowhawk,” he said. “What have you done?”

  Suddenly my mind was back in the darkwood of autumn, staff in my hand, sparring with the Giant in the night. It seemed that I heard him again, challenging me, offering me his hand, telling me to lay down my pride. Then, I had continued to resist him. I had thought it a virtue to keep from breaking at any cost. I had laid him low. But I could not do as much now. I sat in the presence of a great and mysterious man who I somehow knew to be full of righteousness’ power, and I had done something terribly wrong. I was not yet sure how I had come to do it.

  I saw suddenly that the only virtue left to me was that of relinquishment. I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I told her,” I whispered. “I told the Widow that Illyrica was here. I think her spies must have followed me back.”

  I waited for the blow. The Giant had trusted me, allowed me access to the sanctuary he kept so protected, and I had opened its doors to the enemy. I waited now for him to crush me. But he did not. He said nothing. Was he waiting for me to continue? Now that I had looked at him, I could not look away. I was bound to speak whether I wanted to or not.

  “She told me that Illyrica had been taken from her family, and I thought…”

  “We took her to save her,” the Giant said.

  “I didn’t know.”

  It seemed the worst of excuses. I should have known. I had seen the love and care that marked the inhabitants of the Castle. Why hadn’t I known? For that matter, why had I been so quick to trust the Widow? All I knew of her was wealth and power and a title, and I had taken them as surety of character. All I knew of the Giant was character, and I had not trusted it because I did not understand him.

  “I wish you had told me,” I said, as all these things wrestled inside me. It was a weak thing to say: a word of blame, when the blame was all mine—and I knew it.

  “You were not trustworthy then,” the Giant said. “I wanted you to learn to see in the dark.”

  I tore my eyes away from him and looked at the flagstones. My eyes were beginning to fill with tears, but I was ashamed to cry. I was ashamed of everything.

  “I think,” the Giant said quietly, “that you are beginning to see now.”

  I almost looked up at him again. “I do not deserve your praise,” I said.

  There was a long silence. I could not see his face or the expression on it.

  “You will,” he said.

  So deep was my bitterness, I hardly heard him.

  * * *

  The Pixie slipped out before dawn, a thick green scarf wrapped around her head, her hands covered in thin gloves. She knocked on every door in the town, and met with nothing but mistrust and animosity. For the first time she realized that what Nora had always said was true—there was no friendship between the Castle and the people of the town. They had been willing to treat the Pixie as the beautiful curiosity she was whenever she entered their streets, and she had often mistaken their desire to gossip and speculate for friendliness. Now she discovered that they regarded her, and the whole enterprise at the center of which her Angel reigned, with deep suspicion and even hostility. No one was willing to interfere in anything the Widow Brawnlyn might have done.

  Hours passed. The Pixie turned almost in despair down the main street of the town. She had been turned away from nearly every door and venue. Head low, she bent into the wind as she passed by the tavern. Suddenly, she heard a sound she knew… and had not thought to hear for some months. A voice, and the plucking of strings. She stood in her tracks, and then flew at the tavern door.

  A brute of a man appeared at the door and blocked her way.

  “Let me in,” she said, vexed almost to tears, trying her best to duck past him. His brawn seemed to fill up the whole doorframe. “Please get out of my way. There is someone inside I must see!”

  “This is no place for a waif like you,” the man said, stepping forward so that his presence pushed her nearly into the street. “Get off with you!”

  Desperate, the Pixie stood on her tiptoes for a better look into the tavern. Catching sight of the man she wanted, she waved her arms and shouted.

  “Here now, none of that!” the big man said, and he might have thrown her out bodily if there hadn’t been an answering shout from the tavern.

  “By heavens!” the voice said. “Pixie, is that you?”

  In answer, the Pixie dissolved into tears. She stood in the street, crying and wiping at her eyes and nose with her coat sleeve, as the Poet asked leave to pass by the brute in the doorway and made his way out to her, lute in hand. She look at him with glistening eyes and nodded an answer to his question.

  “Oh, dear,” the Poet said, groping about his person for a handkerchief. “Dear child, what can have happened? Surely you are all right?”

  To this, the Pixie could only shake her head. She grabbed at his sleeve and began to pull him down the street. “Come with me,” she said. “I’ll explain everything, only come with me…”

  The Poet followed along, but stopped after a few steps. “Now, this isn’t quite regular,” he said. “Do tell me, Pixie, what is wrong? Nothing has happened to the Giant?”

  “No,” the Pixie managed to say. “No, it is not the Giant. Oh, Poet, our own good Poet, it’s Illyrica… she’s been taken away by the most horrid men, and we cannot find out where they’ve taken her, and no one will help me…”

  While she was speaking, the Poet went pale. The Pixie told me that a white fire seemed to light in his eyes, and for a moment she was frightened of him. Never before had the Poet, so awkward and verbose, looked so handsome or been so silent. When he spoke again, there was an entirely new note of strength in his voice.

  “I knew I had come back here for a reason,” he said. “Now tell me everything.”

  Out there on the street, the Pixie told the Poet all she knew. And she told him that it was essential that they learn where the awful little gypsy and his “family” had gone, but the townspeople would not breathe a word to her.

  “Calm down,” he said. “Calm down, child. Here… hold my lute.” She took it. Without another word he turned and re-entered the tavern.

  The Pixie was never quite sure what happened next. She knew that the Poet was gone for a good long time. She stood in the street cradling the lute for an hour and a half at least, and then suddenly a great smashing and yelling kicked up inside the tavern. She nearly rushed in to save the Poet from certain humiliation and death, but in a rare moment of wisdom she realized that involving herself might make things harder on him. Minutes later, the big brute appeared at the door with another man of like size, and together they threw a tousled and bloody-nosed Poet into the street. He picked himself off the cobblestones, shook his white-knuckled fist at the door, and bellowed, “Base, worthless cowards! May your soup always be cold, and may you never be taken for gentlemen!”

  He turned and took his lute gently from the Pixie’s arms. She was, she told us, scarcely breathing for desire to know whether the Poet had been successful. When he pointed down the road to the west her heart nearly skipped a beat.

  “They have gone in a caravan to the west,” he said. “They left early this morning, and cannot be moving fast, for they have several wagons. The drunken poltroons within estimate that a good man on horseback could catch up to them in an hour or two.”

  “We do not have horses,” the Pixie said. She bit her lip. “It doesn’t matter. The Angel will know what to do.”

  And so it was that the Pixie returned to the Castle with the
Poet in tow, looking as though he had recently been dragged by the ankles through a barnyard. She told us the story quickly, her cheeks flushed and her eyes angry as she told us of the town’s reception. Her eyes filled with tears again as she said, “They’re afraid—of the Angel! And the cowards would let those monsters get away with Illyrica…”

  “Hush, Pixie,” Nora said. She began to unwind the scarf from the Pixie’s neck. “We will not let them get away, no matter what the villagers do.”

  “But it’s all right,” the Pixie said. “The Poet found them.”

  The Giant spoke for the first time, from his seat near the iron stove.

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  Chapter 19

  a long night’s wait

  The Poet relayed his information quickly. The Giant stood. His presence dwarfed my spirit as much as it did my body. But for the first time, I felt no challenge in his strength. I was cowed, but I was also comforted; and I waited for him to speak, even as he pulled on his boots and reached for the fur greatcoat he wore in the woods at night.

  “You must follow them,” the Giant said, looking first at me, then at the Poet. “Both of you. Hitch up the pony and drive her as hard as you can. The carnival—yes, it is a carnival she travels with—will make camp for the night. You will catch up to them then, if not before. Listen to me carefully. These people do not care about Illyrica. They are greedy and full of themselves. They came here last night to prove that their power is greater than mine, and for no other reason. Don’t provoke them. I am sending you to be sure Illyrica is safe. Do not give them reason to lash out against her.”

  The Poet and I looked at one another and nodded. The Giant continued. “I will come after you,” he said. “Wait for me. Keep your eye on her; make sure she is safe. If she is not, you will know what to do.”

  Here I nearly protested. I had already destroyed so much by my foolish decisions. More than anything I wanted to make myself right through all of this, but I could not trust myself to do it. The Giant stopped me from speaking when he looked into the Poet’s eyes.