“I will take the news to my son.”
“The child must be delivered here in three days. Here, not left in the open. You recall what happened the time before last.”
“Yes,” Anna replied. “There will be no repeat of that confusion. Which, I will remind you, was as much your fault as ours.”
“I will be here to receive the child.”
There was something in Sabine’s green eyes that Anna did not like, but the witch did not elaborate.
“Very well. I will tell Philip what must be done.”
There was nothing else to discuss. Anna turned back down the trail and left.
13.
PURPLE.
Ariel’s world, it seemed, had turned purple. She had never thought much about it before, yet now the color seemed to occupy her thoughts to the exclusion of nearly everything else. She noticed it everywhere: reddish-purple leaves on the ground where they had fallen from the trees, bits of purple trim on a woman’s cloak as they rode into Marburg, purple letters on the sign above the door of the inn where Erich chose to spend the night. Now she picked at her dinner and somehow saw purple bits here and there in her stew.
It was worse when she closed her eyes. She saw swirling streams of violet, glowing blobs of aubergine, lilac, and lavender, all throbbing and merging together.
Where was it coming from? It began when she touched the water in the spring, but she did not know why. There was a memory connected to it that she could not keep a grip on, that kept dancing on the edge of her mind despite all her attempts to draw it forth.
It was important. She somehow knew this in her bones. She opened her eyes and stared down her wedding ring, the once-blue sapphire that now twinkled with purple.
Someone was nudging her. Ariel looked up with a start to see Astrid and Erich staring at her.
“What?”
Astrid looked annoyed. “Hans?”
“What about him?”
Astrid glanced at Erich, then back at her sister.
“I said I would never have believed Hans Bergdahl would become a sellsword.”
“Oh.” Ariel nodded at her sister. “Yes. Of all things.”
Astrid scowled at her. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been lost in some daydream all afternoon, ever since we met up with Hans and Wilhelm’s mercenary.”
“I’m fine.”
“But your ring. Look at it.”
She tried to hide it, but Erich caught her hand before she could pull it away.
“First blue, now purple,” he said. “Why would it do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there some significance to the color? For mages?”
Astrid glanced at him. “Purple is associated with mysticism,” she said.
“But you two are not mystics. What is the color of naturalism?”
“Green.”
Erich nodded.
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“Yes. But it’s just the tradition. It doesn’t really mean anything.”
Ariel freed her fingers from Erich’s grasp and hid her ring in her lap. He looked back at her.
“You’re sure you’re well?”
“I feel fine.” And she did.
Other than seeing purple things everywhere.
WHEN THEY retired to their room, Ariel stripped to her shift and lay down in the bed, trying to keep her thoughts focused. Physically, she indeed did not feel ill, but this strange chromatic obsession worried her.
It did not feel wrong so much as it simply felt . . . different. Yet neither did it feel alien. It fit, somehow, with the rest of her—as if she had awoken some previously unknown corner of her mind. It was unfamiliar, yet not unnatural. Not something that had been added, rather something that had been unseen and now uncovered.
It frightened her, yet it also intrigued her. Whatever it was, she wanted to understand it.
The same impulsiveness that had led her to attempt that slightly disastrous test of Erich with her father’s resonance cube now nagged at her. What was she to do with this problem unless she knew what it was?
Stifling her nervousness, she closed her eyes and stopped fighting the purple energies in her head. She let the colors flow across her mind. They quickly settled into the corners of her thoughts, coating everything with a thin sheen of violet.
She felt no different. Yet now she could sense something beyond the colors.
Something in her flow.
She could touch it, whatever it was. But when she tried to grasp it, it simply fell away. It was there, but she could not take hold of it. Something still was missing. It felt exactly like trying to lift a heavy stone with only one hand—it simply spun away from her.
Ariel realized Erich and Astrid had joined her in the bed. She rolled over and laid her head on Erich’s shoulder. This mystery was upsetting her, and she wanted it to go away.
She pressed herself against her husband. If her problems were in the metaphysical, maybe something physical would chase them away for a while.
Except—she knew somehow, after the day they had, that Astrid would refuse her again. And right now Ariel could not bear the thought of the disappointment that would result, hers and Erich’s.
She loved her sister, but this was becoming an annoyance.
Ariel sighed and tried to get to sleep.
SHE FOUND the babe eventually. But it was too late.
She had followed the killcrops back out of the forest, up the path to the river. Her instructions to William had, she thought, been clear enough. Where the path left the main road, there was a copse of three trees, and beyond that a haystack. The babe was to be left in the haystack, in a basket, swaddled against the night air.
But now she saw there was a second haystack, apparently piled up by the farmer since she had been here last. Her killcrops had looked in only one of them, and then—stupidly fearing her wrath—had gone on to Marburg and stolen some random child from the castle instead of continuing the search.
The babe was in the other haystack. But having been left here for nearly the entire night, it had succumbed to the cold. Its green eyes were still and rimed with frost.
She cursed William, God, the devil, the killcrops, and anyone else she could think of. Who knew when there would be another? It had been nearly twenty years since the last one had been born, and she needed this one.
She looked up. A few of the killcrops hung around her, fearful but unsure of what else to do. An idea grew in her mind. It was not much, but there might still be some hope of correcting this disaster before it got any worse.
“Where is the other child?”
They quivered, shuffling around. One finally answered.
“We took it to the church as you told us to, Mother.”
She cursed again. Did she dare? The killcrops had already breached the covenant by taking this child, and if word reached William, things would go ill. But she could see little choice.
She stalked rapidly up the road, reaching the outskirts of Marburg in half an hour or so. She needed to move quickly, as the sky was lightening.
A few of the townspeople were already on the street when she arrived, but she cloaked herself in a violet sheath of Flow, and none gave her a moment’s glance. She passed a tavern near the town square, having to avoid the tavernkeeper—who could not see her—as he tossed a bucket of night soil into the gutter. But the church was on the far side of the town, north of the castle, and the sun had started to rise by the time she reached it.
She stood between the shadows of the Gothic spires that the dawn drew across the road. The babe was still there, but as she spotted it, someone opened doors from within. A priest emerged, his white tunic adorned with a black cross, and he saw the babe on the ground.
She contemplated rushing forward, trying to enchant him, and taking the child back.
But a priest, on hallowed ground? Even if the spell worked—which was no ce
rtain thing—she could well be seen, and the covenant would then be at an end. Such a blasphemy would upset something that had begun with William’s grandfather Louis. In her weakened state, she did not dare take such a risk.
She turned back toward the forest, resigning herself to her fate. She would husband her resources and wait for the next child.
She had little choice.
WHEN ARIEL awoke, she was momentarily disoriented. The strands of the dream still clouded her head, and this time she fought to keep hold of them, to fix them in her mind. Bit by bit, she clawed back a few pieces.
She had dreamt of Marburg. She had come up the very same street in her dream the night before. Yet the memories—the dream and their arrival yesterday—soon ran together.
She sat up in bed, seeing that Erich and Astrid were still asleep. Only Shadow was awake, watching her. She slipped out of bed, dressing quickly and quietly. Shadow tried to follow her, but Ariel softly told her to stay. Yet the wolf held her ground, pushing forward against her, and Ariel finally relented.
Ariel descended to the street, Shadow loping along behind her. She remembered the square from the night before, but more vividly from the dream she had just had. She looked around, desperately seeking some clue to what the dream meant.
For a moment or two, there was nothing. Then she saw it.
The tavern she had dreamt of was still there, and she remembered it from the dream, remembered looking up as the tavernkeeper tossed the bucket of offal toward her. There had been a wooden sign hanging from a post over the door, a sign with a large tankard on it. But now the sign was gone.
Ariel walked over to the tavern, which appeared to be still shut up for the night. She rapped on the door several times. In a minute or so, door opened, and the tavernkeeper appeared. But it was not the stout man with a black beard from her dream; instead, it was a younger man with black hair.
“It is barely dawn—what the devil?”
“Please,” she began, “I am sorry to bother you. Was there once a sign over this door? A sign with a tankard on it?”
The tavernkeeper drew back, eyeing her strangely.
“Why?”
“Please, just tell me.”
“Yes. Years ago, when my father ran this tavern. But it was blown off the side of the building in a storm when I was still a child. How did you know that? You are younger than I am.”
Ariel ignored the question. “Your father, did he have a beard?”
“Yes. Who are you? What do you mean by this?”
Ariel stumbled backwards, dizzy, looking up at the wall above the door where the sign had hung. She could see now where it had been mounted, a few rotten holes in the wood, likely empty for decades.
“I am sorry. Forgive me for bothering you.”
She turned and ran down the street, wanting more than anything to get away from this madness. Shadow followed her, keeping pace.
14.
GIANCARLO ROSE early, rousting Hans from his bed.
“Come, my friend. We are unemployed. It is time to look for work.”
Hans awoke slowly but pulled himself together as best he could. The two of them descended to the main room of the inn, where they shared a quick breakfast of bread and cheese. There were three merchants at one table eating quietly, but otherwise the room was empty. Hans looked around, wondering for neither the first time nor the last whether he had made a wise decision in following Giancarlo. He had been on the road with him only a few days and already he had watched two men die, and nearly died himself.
“What are we doing today?” he asked.
“I mean to find the man I mentioned. His name is Lorenz. His band and mine fought together for the Prince-Bishop of Münster for one season. Then most of his men deserted, and he decided to seek work in Hessen. A man I met later told me he had taken service with the Landgrave as one of his captains of the guard. If he is still here, he can vouch for us.”
Hans’s stomach dropped.
“You want to work as a palace guard?”
Giancarlo shrugged. “For now. Winter is coming. I would prefer to have a roof over my head until spring. It is that or freeze along the roadside while guarding a caravan.” The older man smiled. “This is the life you chose, boy. The road back home is still manageable if you prefer it instead.”
Hans looked down at the table, but said nothing. Giancarlo was right. He had only just started. He would not give up so soon.
“How did you become a sellsword?” he asked a few moments later.
Giancarlo took a bite of bread and sat back in his chair.
“Ah, now that is a long story. A long story, indeed. I am not sure now is the best time for it. Suffice to say, you and I are not so different, which perhaps is why I allowed you to join me instead of chasing you away. My father intended a path for me I did not want to follow. A path perhaps God would have preferred as well, but my heart was not in it. More than that, we will save for another day.”
HANS FOLLOWED Giancarlo out of the town center and up the road toward the Landgrave’s castle. When they reached the top of the hill, there was a gatehouse built into the curtain wall around the hill above the road. Two guards stopped them at the gate.
“State your business,” one of them said.
“I am seeking a man named Lorenz,” Giancarlo said. “I am told he is one of your guard captains.”
The guards glanced at each other. “What is your business with him?” the first one asked again.
“He is indeed here?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him Giancarlo Attendolo wishes to speak with him.”
The guard called over one of his brethren, and after speaking a few moments, the third man walked back through the guardhouse and disappeared. Hans waited nervously wondering how this would go.
Lorenz appeared in a few minutes. He proved to be a man about Giancarlo’s age, shorter than both of them but far broader and more thickly muscled. When he saw Giancarlo, he laughed, and the two men embraced roughly. Lorenz gave Hans a brief glance.
“What brings you here, my friend?” Lorenz asked.
“A variety of misfortunes and other events. My band has shrunk to what you see before you.”
Lorenz’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. “So many? That is misfortune indeed. A poor turn in battle, or bad luck of another sort?”
“Some of both. I thus find myself in need of more regular employment, at least for the winter.”
Lorenz nodded, understanding now.
“Well, your luck may have turned, then. We are short-handed here, especially with men as experienced as you. I would hire twenty of you if I could.” Then he looked at Hans and laughed softly. “What of this pup?”
Giancarlo laughed in turn.
“He is young, but he can handle himself in a fight. He survived one that took the lives of two much more seasoned men. I will vouch for him.”
Lorenz slapped Hans on the shoulder, hard enough to nearly knock him over.
“Fair enough. Come.”
IN A FEW HOURS, Hans—who only a few days earlier had been little more than an apprentice merchant, with few cares beyond who amongst him and his friends would pay for the next round of ale—found himself dressed and equipped as a guard. Lorenz took him out to stand along the rear wall of the castle, where a large round tower looked out over the local church and the forest beyond.
Lorenz introduced him to the other guards on duty. After some brief conversation, they had ignored him. Lorenz and Giancarlo then disappeared back into the castle.
Hans wore a simple red-and-white tunic over his other clothes and had been given a longsword—now at his waist—a halberd, and a steel helmet. He felt quite silly in his uniform, even if he looked the same as the other guards. With only the brief fight with the creatures in the forest under his belt, he was quite sure he would have no idea what to do if the castle actually came under some sort of attack.
Not that that was at all likely. Hans was more or less certain hi
s winter would involve standing out here in the cold trying not to die of boredom.
By mid-afternoon, he was beginning to seriously doubt his decision to come along with Giancarlo and wonder at his prospects for deserting and returning home. Surely no one in the castle would care, as long he left his new gear behind. Looking over the wall, he tried to calculate if he could simply jump to the ground and run away.
It was at that point that he saw a pretty blond-haired girl emerge from the castle and walk toward the tower. The other guards had told Hans the tower was divided between the castle dungeon in the lower levels—he could see the iron bars—and the chambers of the Landgrave’s artificer in the upper level.
It seemed the girl had some business with the mage. She spared Hans a brief glance as she passed his post, then walked up the stairs to the tower door.
Hans watched, his impending desertion forgotten. The girl was more than pretty—her face had struck something fundamental inside him when he saw her. Unlike Ariel and Astrid, who had occupied his thoughts for years, she seemed much more approachable. Walther’s daughters had an exotic, otherworldly character to their beauty that Hans had somehow known all along was beyond his reach. But this girl, who was short and slim, hair in a long braid, seemed different, more vulnerable.
But the mage, apparently, was not in. The girl finally descended the tower stairs and returned up the path toward Hans, who was frozen into inaction even more firmly than when he had faced the strange creatures that had killed Tomas and Heinrich.
The girl noticed him staring and looked away . . . then back again.
“Hello,” Hans somehow managed.
“Hello.” She stopped. “Did you see Constantine leave?”
“Who?”
“The mage who lives in the tower.”
“Oh. No. I’m sorry, I’m new.”
It was then that Hans noticed the baby around her neck, a little blonde-haired babe with a birthmark on its forehead. His heart fell. Pretty or not, she was taken.
“I didn’t think I’d seen you before,” she said.
“Is he your husband?” Hans blurted out. He then fought the urge to throw himself over the wall in embarrassment.
The Witches' Covenant (Twin Magic Book 2) Page 10
