Thornspell

by Helen Lowe

  “Come to me,” the silver voice said. “Don’t struggle against the pain, just follow my voice with your mind.”

  “Thinks ’e’s dreamin,’ ’e does,” said Auld Hazel’s voice, from somewhere outside the white light. “Must ’ave fallen on ’is head, not just t’ shoulder.”

  “Just the one step,” Syrica said softly. “That’s all it takes, exactly like a dream. A dream of my lilac walk and yourself lying on the bricks there, not amongst the roots of Auld Hazel’s tree. Just one step, here to me.”

  The clasp on his hand tightened and Sigismund’s fingers closed round it as he sought to focus on the lilac walk, the pattern of the bricks, and the pale shimmer of a skirt in scented moonlight. One step, he thought, just like following Rue when I was escaping from the Faerie hill.

  Rue, he thought, Rue…. And then he wasn’t lying on roots and earth anymore, but on bricks, and it wasn’t Auld Hazel’s face bending over him, but Syrica’s, with a circle of stars like a halo around her head.

  “Sigismund,” she said. “That was a close-run thing.” She shook her dark head and the stars danced. “But Hazel is quite right, my dear. You have been very rash.”

  Oh, thought Sigismund, and drifted away into a scent, not of lilacs this time but of roses: a familiar scent and comforting as sunshine on a summer’s morning, with dew on the long grass and everything in the place where it ought to be. Safe, thought Sigismund drowsily, and reached out to touch the curtains of his old bed in the West Castle. There was light in the room but it wasn’t sunshine, not yet, just the first hint of dawn turning night into shades of gray—and a deeper shadow standing between the bed and the drawn-back curtain.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, and the shadow shifted, becoming half silver, half rose, like the curtains. The hand that held the fabric back was translucent as a pressed leaf. “Rue?” he whispered, and the shadow head turned. He caught the hint of a smile as the hand reached out, tracing the curve of his injured shoulder and then the line of his sore arm, but without touching either. Rue shook her head.

  “I know,” said Sigismund, “it was silly to fall, even in a dream—although it was more like a nightmare. But soon I’ll wake up. And when I do, I really will ride into the Wood and break that cursed enchantment.”

  Rue shook her head again, lifting one hand and making a sharp cutting gesture across her throat. She held his eyes, then made a gesture that took in the whole room before using both hands to indicate the floor. Sigismund stared, puzzled, as she repeated the gesture, then curled her left hand against her hip. Still holding his eyes, she brought her right fist across to the left and then drew it away again. It was almost, thought Sigismund, as if she was mimicking drawing a sword, but it was hard to think clearly through the pain in his shoulder and arm.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, as she repeated the movement. “I wish you could talk. It would make everything so much easier—that and seeing you somewhere other than in Faerie mounds and my stranger dreams.”

  The bed curtain fell in a fragrant memory of pressed rose petals, and after that there was no more Rue, or anyone else for that matter. If asked, Sigismund would have said that he must have passed into a deeper sleep, but when he woke he was still in his bed in the West Castle. His shoulder ached as though someone had hit it with a battering ram, and there were salves on the bedside cabinet, and Annie dozing in a high-backed chair.

  Sigismund closed his eyes, then opened them again, but the scene remained unchanged. He pinched himself, but to no avail. He was in the West Castle in his old bed, but it was the clothes of his serving man’s disguise, stained and torn, that hung over the back of the chair. He stifled a groan, trying to ease his shoulder, and wondered what had happened to the bay horse and his bundle at the Westwood inn, the precious bundle with Quickthorn hidden inside it. Sigismund groaned again, and Annie sat up and said he should be resting after everything he’d been through. She shook her head when he tried to ask her questions, and gave him a draft that the apothecary had left, instead of answers.

  It must have been a powerful draft, because when Sigismund woke again it was evening, with a sliver of new moon hanging in the open casement. It was Sir Andreas in the chair this time, but the first thing Sigismund took in was not the steward, but Quickthorn propped against the wall, together with the rest of his gear. He frowned, first at the sword and then at the steward. “How did that get here?” he asked. “It should be at the Westwood inn.”

  Sir Andreas smiled. “Two red-haired louts brought it to me this morning, after an hour banging on the park gates until someone finally let them in.” His brows rose at Sigismund’s expression. “You look surprised.”

  “I am,” said Sigismund. He shook his head. “Fulk and Rafe. I thought they would have stolen anything of value, rather than bringing it here. But the last I saw of them was when the storm struck and I was driven into the Wood.”

  Sir Andreas’s smile faded. “They did have some wild story about a storm and your being lost in the Wood,” he admitted. “But the storm was over quickly for them and they were left on the forest fringe, not knowing what had happened to you.” He shrugged. “They don’t have an overly honest air, so it may be that they did intend to steal your possessions but changed their minds once they found the sword.”

  Or Quickthorn changed their minds for them, thought Sigismund, even if they were unaware of its influence. “Did they say why?” he asked.

  Sir Andreas nodded. “The sword convinced them that you were more than what you’d seemed up until then. The dragons on the scabbard and blade appear to have given your identity away.”

  And, thought Sigismund, they would have known from our time together with the horse copers that I am no thief. All the same, he would have expected them to leave his gear with a message, not beard the King’s steward in his own castle. It just went to show how people could surprise you. “Did they want you to scour the Wood for me?” he asked.

  Sir Andreas smiled again. “They did actually—were most insistent in their uncouth way—until I could reassure them you were already safe here.” The smile faded as he met Sigismund’s eyes. “Fortunately they took that at face value, so I didn’t have to explain where we found you.”

  Sigismund shifted on the bed. “Not in the Wood,” he said tonelessly. “It was in the garden wasn’t it, by the lilac walk?”

  Magic of the high kind, he thought, watching Sir Andreas nod—and I thought I was dreaming. He bit his lip, wondering whether Auld Hazel and Syrica had put themselves in danger, drawing the Margravine’s attention by rescuing him. What had Syrica said? That he had been rash, that was it, and suggested that his rescue had been a close-run thing.

  He blinked, focusing on Sir Andreas again. “Of course,” the steward was saying, “I will have to inform your father that you’re here.”

  “Of course,” echoed Sigismund. It was what he had expected since realizing that he really was in the West Castle. He suspected too that he would not be allowed to leave until some word came back from the King.

  “And you are not to get up straightaway,” Sir Andreas continued. “The apothecary says you must rest awhile longer.” He turned the hourglass on the table and they both watched the first sand trickle down. “Annie will bring you a meal in an hour, and the apothecary will come again in the morning—and then we shall see.” His smile was encouraging. “But you look much better already. I thought we had lost you when I first saw you in the garden.”

  It was pleasant, Sigismund found, to doze while the hour trickled away, and then Annie came with his meal on a tray, swishing the curtains closed against the night and lighting the candles. She brought a bowl of lilacs too, their scent filling the room as she lingered, chatting while he ate. She seemed cheerful but did not giggle as much as Sigismund remembered; he supposed that was not surprising, given that they were both older now. Grown up, he thought, with a slight feeling of surprise. Annie kept her chatter to general subjects as well, avoiding any talk of Wat and whet
her she had received the letter Sigismund wrote.

  Keeping me at arm’s length, Sigismund realized, uncertain how to breach her reserve. He watched her, trying not to frown, as she picked up the empty tray and moved toward the door.

  “He saved my life, you know.” His tone was more abrupt than he had intended and Annie stopped, one hand resting on the door handle.

  “I know,” she said. “It was in the letter you sent.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Sigismund. “About Wat, and for taking so long to write. But you know the reasons for that.”

  Annie had been looking down at her hands, but now she looked up, meeting his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “And we played our part, helping Master Griff keep the young lord Ban safely hidden.” Her smile was a ghost of the old giggle. “The young lord didn’t like it here at first, especially with all the lessons and being lonely for his friends, but I don’t think he minded so much in the end.” She hesitated, the smile fading. “He told me about the hunt…and everything that happened with the boar.”

  “Oh,” said Sigismund. He hadn’t given much thought to Ban being here, but it had been almost two years and it was a small castle. It made sense that he would have come to know everyone who lived here well. Sigismund frowned, trying to think what he wanted to say—how to express what he truly felt. “If I could change what happened that day, I would. And what happened afterward, so that it was nearly two years before I wrote to you. But I acknowledge the debt, even if it’s one that I can never repay.”

  Annie hesitated, her expression troubled. “I think,” she said slowly, “that Wat would have been glad, not that he died, but that he saved you. He always dreamed of doing great deeds,” she added, with a slight smile, “like the heroes in Wenceslas’s stories. I don’t think there’s a debt, and I don’t think he would either.”

  “Why not?” Sigismund asked, puzzled.

  Annie’s smile wavered a little in the candlelight, but her voice was firm. “Because it was Wat’s choice to act as he did. You didn’t compel him in any way. And if he risked his life freely, how can there be any talk of a debt?”

  Sigismund bowed his head, unable to answer her, and after a moment he heard the door close. He mulled over the conversation as the candles flickered, their shadows growing first long and then short again. Wat had been brave, he thought, every bit as courageous as any hero in Wenceslas’s stories, even if he wasn’t a knight on a holy quest. He closed his eyes and saw the huntsman’s gored and trampled body again, and the blood on the boar’s tusks, dripping into the earth.

  The image was as vivid as if he was still standing in Thorn forest, and Sigismund knew that for him there would always be a debt. Anger burned too, deep and abiding, for part of that debt lay at the Margravine’s door. She had made it clear, in her conversation with Flor in the Faerie hill, that she had been behind the boar’s presence in the forest and that it was no normal beast. It had been too large and too fast, with a cunning and ferocity beyond even the rest of its savage kind.

  “She doesn’t care who dies or gets hurt,” he said aloud, “so long as she gets what she wants. Even Flor will be just a pawn, to be played or swept aside.”

  “Yes,” said Syrica’s voice, cool and remote as the moonlight. “She is ruthless.” But although Sigismund peered around the room there was no one there, just the scent of lilacs, heady as summer in the candlelit shadows.

  The apothecary came early the next morning and clucked over the deep mottled bruising on Sigismund’s shoulder and arm, but agreed that he was well enough to leave his bed. But not, the man emphasized, to ride or walk far, at least not on this first day. Sigismund got up as soon as he left and made his slow, stiff way down into the garden. The day was mild, without the fierce heat that would come later in summer, and the castle seemed full of life, with people laughing and calling out to each other over little things.

  This is my true home, Sigismund thought, as he sank onto a sun-warmed bench. There was only the faintest breath of wind, riffling the lilacs, and he closed his eyes, reflecting that it was Syrica’s home as well. She had dwelt at the heart of the West Castle for nearly a century now, maintaining the spells that made it a place where he could grow up in safety.

  “I have doubted you in my heart,” he whispered, “ever since Thorn forest. Wondered about what the Margravine said to me in the belvedere and whether you weren’t the same as her in essence. Just another faie using human kingdoms and players as pawns on some greater board.”

  “Like a spider, sitting at the heart of my web.” The whisper might have been nothing but the wind, stirring leaf and flower.

  Sigismund nodded, still with his eyes closed, thinking about that. The Margravine had been so plausible, retelling the tale so that she was the wronged party, the sleeping princess’s friend, rather than her enemy. Even afterward, when she sent Flor and the earth serpent after him, it had been difficult not to question whether the Margravine’s ill intentions made Syrica’s motives any better. Yet there was a mellow peace in the lilac garden, a kindliness that seemed part of the sunshine and warmth, that was entirely different from the mixture of wealth and shadow in the Margravine’s hill.

  “I do weave spells too, you know that.” The breeze again, a lover’s murmur in his ear.

  “I know.” But Sigismund was remembering the spiders’ webs in the hedgerows, on the morning he left the capital for Thorn forest. He had marveled then at the delicacy of their beauty, the glitter and sparkle of the dew beading that would have outshone a queen’s ransom in jewels.

  “So you don’t fear being trapped in my threads?”

  It was important, Sigismund thought, to be honest. “I have wondered about your true motivation and that of your allies—Auld Hazel and Rue and even Balisan sometimes. But if you are a spider then you are trapped in your own web, since you are bound to this one place.”

  He thought for a moment that he might have offended her, for there was complete silence along the lilac walk; the sounds from the castle seemed unnaturally loud.

  “I am.” The silver voice was soft. “As are we all, until the larger magic unravels to its end—even the Margravine, although she would deny it.” The silver shimmer could have been laughter, or a wind chime in some hidden corner. “As for allies, I crossed alone from Faerie to try and undo the Margravine’s evil. But I have been fortunate in finding willing friends here, if only because many fear what will come if my opponent prevails. Auld Hazel is one such friend, and your great-grandparents also agreed to help, planting this garden and placing the interdict on the Wood.”

  Sigismund had opened his eyes by now and was frowning at the lilacs, but without taking in any detail of tree or blossom. “And Balisan?” he asked, finding that his throat was dry.

  “Balisan’s purposes are his own, in this as in all things.” She paused, then added softly, “Although I seem to remember him saying that he was here for you.”

  Sigismund was silent for some time after that, reflecting on everything he knew of the master-at-arms. When he spoke again, to ask what she knew about Rue, there was no reply except the wind, which quickened into a little gust before fading away.

  It was possible, Sigismund supposed, that Syrica didn’t know who Rue was. Balisan had not known her either, or had not admitted it if he did. Rue, it seemed, was as great a mystery as the master-at-arms. Sigismund puzzled over her identity for much of the day and even spent some time in the library, looking through the older books there. But he could find no hint of any entity or power resembling Rue. The only thing of interest was a passage in a book titled Dreams & Their Powers that discussed the danger of shadows or sendings controlled by those who kept their identities and purposes secret.

  Could Rue be a sending, Sigismund wondered, and if so, who is sending her? But she had proved his friend in the Faerie hill and he found it hard to believe that she could be someone else’s tool. Despite his memory of Flor’s betrayal, he still wanted to keep faith with her, even if it was unwise to be to
o trusting.

  He was surprised, when he sent for Fulk and Rafe the next day to thank them, to find that they had no intention of leaving. They had, it seemed, decided to attach themselves to his service. Seeing the main chance and grasping it? Sigismund wondered. It was difficult to believe that these two were motivated by altruism or loyal fervor, although Fulk muttered something about service and the Young Dragon. But despite Sir Andreas’s barely suppressed amusement, Sigismund could not bring himself to repudiate them. Instead, seized by inspiration, he sent them out to search for the bay horse along the forest fringe, in the faint hope that it might have survived the faie hunt—and to get them out of his way before he returned to the Wood.

  He still felt that this was the right course of action, despite Syrica’s belief that he had been rash. I need to talk to her about the magic being two-way, Sigismund thought that afternoon, as he cleaned and sharpened Quickthorn with careful precision. The Margravine is almost certainly aware of me now that I have been in the Wood, but she may not know exactly what happened there or how much damage the fall has done me—if she knows even that much. But I need to make my next move soon, before she tries something herself.

  Which she will, he added to himself, turning Quickthorn to watch the dragons ripple and flow along either side of the blade. For the first time since he had returned from the Faerie hill, Sigismund felt the answering stir of its magic, like a tiny shiver up his arm. It seemed like confirmation, however slight, of his determination to act.

  Yet resolve alone did not make a plan. Despite considerable thought, Sigismund could not see any alternative to riding into the Wood again and hoping for the best. As a strategy, it did not inspire him with confidence, and he remembered Rue’s headshake when he first woke and the way she had drawn her hand across her throat. A fairly clear response to the charging headlong strategy, but she had been trying to tell him something else as well, perhaps suggest some alternative—but what?