"We've got to make some assumptions now, lad. Whoever came out here had to have walked, meaning they couldn't have come from far away. The nearest settlement is a good two miles or more due south — "
"But that doesn't make sense, because anyone in trouble there would turn to their neighbours first, and the manor is closer than the mile house, anyway."
"Exactly. So if not the settlement, where?"
"The next mile house along the wall?"
The knight shook his head. It was a reasonable suggestion, but there were protocols in place for sending messages down the line from mile house to mile house along the wall. Signal fires were much more efficient — he stopped mid-thought and ran around to the side of the mile house, floundering in the snow that had drifted up against the walls. He waded toward the iron brazier. It was still covered. He pried the iron lid up. What he saw confirmed his suspicions. The logs were still banked up. It hadn't been lit. Had there been trouble at the next mile house Markem would have lit the fire to pass the warning down the chain. Markem was a decent soldier; if they were under threat he would have lit that fire. He hadn't. It was as simple as that. So what else could have lured the men away from the mile house?
By the time Alymere joined him at the brazier they had both arrived at the same conclusion: the wardens hadn't been summoned east because they hadn't lit their beacon. Whatever had drawn them away from their post wasn't a threat — at least not to the wall itself. It was something they believed they could handle alone.
"The threat wasn't martial," Alymere said. He had a quick mind, and was a step further along in his thinking than his uncle. "In point of fact, I don't think there was a threat at all."
"Now you've got my attention, lad. Explain it to an old man who's not quite as clever as you. Why would two experienced soldiers desert their post?"
"There's no sign of a struggle inside, and they haven't lit the warning fires outside. The absence of both of which suggests strongly that they were lured out with honey rather than driven out with a stick. Admittedly they could have been dragged off by an army and we wouldn't be able to tell in this snow, but I don't think so. I think they went out to help a traveller in distress. It's the only thing that makes sense. The conditions make travel almost impossible." He started to run with the idea, extrapolating a story that would explain precisely why the two men had left the mile house untended. "A woman turns up at the mile house begging for help, because her cart has overturned and her father's trapped beneath, with a broken leg and freezing to death. It has to have overturned because that would explain both men leaving the mile house. It would take both of them to right it. It's an easy enough scenario to imagine."
The knight nodded thoughtfully. "Bait the trap with honey," Lowick agreed. "But who in their right mind would be on the road in weather like this?"
"Someone who had to be somewhere."
"Or," the knight said, "or there's no cart at all. Think about it. There doesn't have to be one, does there? You can't see the road from here. The message, along with the damsel in distress, serves the exact same purpose as an actual overturned cart. It gets them out of the mile house. But to what purpose? What would anyone stand to gain from having this place empty for a day?"
"It would give them time to rob it."
"That it would, but there's nothing here worth stealing," the knight said, shaking his head. Something didn't sit right about this whole thing, but he wasn't sure what. Not yet, but he would work it out. For now he would trust his gut instinct. Doing so had kept him alive thus far. "And, think about it, they haven't robbed the place, have they? Whatever they wanted it for has to have happened by now. But there's no sign anyone has been in there since Markem left."
"True. Could their intention have been to pose as wardens for real travellers heading this way?"
"That would make more sense," the knight reasoned, "but that is assuming it was the mile house they wanted and not the wardens themselves. One thing's for certain, we're not going to find out standing around here freezing our backsides off. If we're right, the answer is out there on the road waiting for us."
"And if we're wrong?"
"I don't want to think about that," Sir Lowick said, trudging through the snow toward his horse.
Seven
Alymere rode blindly into the blizzard.
The road took them into the fringe of the forest, the trees providing some small respite from the harsh weather, if not the extreme cold. He found himself thinking how easy it would be to become disorientated and lost, and from that, how easy it would be to stumble, turn an ankle, and fall, and end up freezing in the snow. How long would you last? In a matter of minutes the shivering would become uncontrollable, in an hour the cold would creep into your bones; in two, or three, you'd slip into a drowsy torpor, and you'd never wake up. It would be an almost pleasant way to go, he thought, then shook off the thought. It was an all too seductive idea and once it had a foothold in the back of the mind it would keep whispering away all the while as the world grew colder.
Sir Lowick was a man with a mission. He pushed his huge warhorse on, urging the animal to gallop faster and faster, headlong into the snow. Alymere, more cautious and on a less sure-footed animal, had long since lost sight of the knight in front of him, but he could hear his destrier's heavy hooves in amongst the other sounds: the whistle of the wind through the leaves, the rustle of the snow-laden branches as they stirred, the chafing of the leather saddle against his hose, the crunch of the snow beneath his horse's hooves, and the muffled sound of his own breathing dampened by his fur-lined hood.
It was darker here, beneath the canopy of trees. Sunlight cast silver coins across the road in front of him like an offering over the snow that Sir Lowick's warhorse had churned up. He caught a glimpse of movement off to his right, but even as he turned to get a better look it had gone, disappearing back into the deeper woods.
Alymere rode on, alert, his eyes darting everywhere at once. Given the discovery of the abandoned mile house and the suspicion that the wardens had been lured away, a deep sense of unease began to take root deep in his craw.
He saw it again as the road bore to the right two hundred paces on, but no more distinctly than the first time. It moved quickly, whatever it was, with an animal grace. He was left in no doubt that the thing was shadowing them. It seemed to be running parallel to the road — which had become more of a track the deeper they travelled into the forest — keeping itself always just out of sight.
He saw it again twice more before he realised what it was: a red hart.
It was a big majestic creature with ten points on its antlers, making it almost certainly king of the forest. That such a noble beast followed them rather than fled at their approach was curious in and of itself. Even as the thought crossed his mind, the hart bolted, disappearing into the forest.
Alymere drew his travelling cloak tighter about his shoulders and hunched down in the saddle, keeping low.
A red hart.
They were deep into his father's lands, his father who had been known as the Knight of the Leaping Hart, and it had been ten years since his father's death. Ten points, ten years, a leaping hart running alongside them on the road. Could it be an omen? If it was, could he afford to ignore it? Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest.
As he came around the next corner, the track opening up before him, Alymere was surprised to see the hart standing there, head high, staring him down as though in challenge. The huge beast's ribcage heaved, expanding and contracting with the rhythm of heavy breaths. Wraiths of white coiled out of its flared nostrils, conjuring ghosts between them. But this was no ghost or vision, Alymere realised, staring at the hart as it stared back at him. It was very much alive.
He slowed his horse from a canter to a stop, no more than twenty paces between them. The last thing he wanted was for the hart to bolt again, but for some reason he was absolutely sure it wouldn't.
Alymere felt the change in the weather around him;
the lessening of the snowflakes, and the easing of the pressure of the cold in his lungs. The change was subtle but noticeable.
He dismounted, walking slowly toward the hart.
The proud creature didn't turn tail and run; at least not immediately. It watched him curiously. As he neared it pawed at the snow with one of its front hooves, and dipped its head to aim at Alymere's chest. For one heart-stopping moment he thought the hart was about to charge him down and he imagined the agony of those points driving through his father's mail shirt and into him. But it didn't. The hart tossed its head to the left, seemingly gesturing for him to follow as it rocked back on its powerful haunches, turned, shifting its immense weight, and sprung into a flurry of motion. The hart's hooves kicked up snow as it bounded away into the trees.
For a moment Alymere stood in the middle of the road, his horse behind him, the hart disappearing in front of him, trapped in indecision, and then he ran after it, pushing his way through the hanging branches. They cut at his face and pulled at his cloak as he forced his way through them. He didn't care, even as a briar thorn tore open his cheek and drew blood. If he slowed down he would lose the hart, and he wasn't about to let that happen. If pressed, he couldn't have said why, but he knew that it was imperative he follow the animal. It was as though he had no conscious choice in the matter, some unseen force impelling him, and all he could do was stumble and flounder deeper and deeper into the forest, always trying to run faster, pushing at the dragging branches and tripping over snagging roots.
The hart was always there, just in front of him, darting and weaving gracefully through the tangled wood.
It was playing with him. He never gained so much as a pace on it, and it never drew away more than a dozen before it looked back to be sure he still followed.
Alymere blinked back the sting of cold tears from the bitterly cold air and plunged on. The sounds of the forest changed, dampened by the press of snow on the canopy of leaves above. Less and less light filtered through, but the little that did speared down in shafts of golden sunlight. The ground was dusted with snow but nothing like the two-foot deep drifts that lay on the fields. Alymere pushed back his hood, sacrificing the warmth it afforded for some semblance of peripheral vision. The forest was alive with movement.
He caught sight of a flurry of black off to his right: wings. After the initial shock at the explosion of movement and sound, Alymere realised it was nothing more sinister than a bird startled into flight and trapped beneath the canopy, unable to rise into the sky. The bird darted between branches and trunks, finally settling on a thick limb in front of Alymere, halfway between him and the hart. It was a crow, he realised, although it was larger than any crow he had ever seen.
The crow ruffled its feathers as he approached, its beady yellow eyes watching him intently. Alymere felt distinctly uncomfortable under its scrutiny. For the second time since leaving the mile house he made the sign of the cross over his chest. The crow threw back its head and burst into a raucous caw that rang out through the trees. The echo folded back on itself over and over again, making the caw seem to last forever.
As the sound finally faded, the hart bolted.
Alymere launched himself after it again. He glanced back over his shoulder once, to see the crow staring down at him. The bird loosed another mocking caw. Alymere was left in no doubt that the crow was laughing at him on his fool's errand, but he ignored it and ran on. He was lost, the hart leading him a merry dance deeper into the wood. He wanted to stop, to turn back and follow his tracks back to the road before they blurred away beneath more snow, shed by falling branches, but retreat wasn't an option. He was committed. He had been ever since he had taken the first step into the forest. The forest was a primeval place; strange things happened within its sanctuary, of that Alymere was in no doubt. The red hart was a portent, and a powerful one at that… could it be his father's spirit guiding him now? The thought sent a thrill through young Alymere's blood, reinvigorating every muscle and fibre in his body. He pushed himself harder, running faster, ignoring the sting and cut of the trees. He wasn't about to let the hart escape him. Not now. Not if it had been sent by his father.
The crow flew behind him, darting ahead occasionally only to circle back through the tree trunks and up behind him again as the bizarre procession wound its way deeper into the heart of the primeval wood.
The press of the trees began to thin. He saw moss growing on one side of the trunks, and knew from his uncle's teaching that he could use such knowledge to find his way back out of the forest. It was as good as a mile marker and a signpost for charting the passage of the sun.
And then the forest opened up into a grove. The red hart stood in the centre of it, drinking from a crystal blue pool while the crow settled on a dolmen that seemed to form a gateway on the far side of the clearing. For a moment Alymere thought he caught sight of another place through the stone arch, but the illusion was broken as a woman stepped through it into the grove. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a garland of summer flowers tangled in her hair. Sunlight streamed down all around her, bathing her in its radiance.
But it wasn't the woman that stopped Alymere dead in his tracks, nor the sight of the crow bursting into flight in a flurry of wings to settle on her shoulder a moment, but the shift in temperature. It was as though he had stepped out of the heart of winter into the warmth of spring in a matter of a dozen paces.
She wore a simple white dress that hugged her body. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, with rings of daisies woven into the curls. A blush of colour filled her cheeks as she smiled at him. It was a smile to fire the blood and stop the heart at the same time.
Alymere felt a thousand urges welling up inside him all at once, each one undeniable — lust, hunger, adoration, protectiveness — but more than anything, seeing her, being near to her, he felt alive.
The Spring Maiden stood beside the red hart, stroking its glossy pelt, then knelt, cupping her hands in the water and offering it to the majestic animal. The hart drank from her hands. Alymere had never seen anything like it in his life and doubted he ever would again.
Had he not been so taken with her beauty he would have seen the reflection she cast in the water. In the truth of the pool she was anything but beautiful. In the water the flowers in her hair became corpse blossoms, the blush in her cheeks gave way to grey, cracked and withered skin, and her eyes, so full of summer, darkened and became sunken hollows set deep in her pinched skull. Her glossy black tresses reflected back as thin clumps of grey hair and patches of psoriasis-crusted scalp. The beauty mark on her left lip was a wart in the water. Her simple white dress which hugged her like a long lost lover was transformed into the black shift of a crone in mourning. Where youth and beauty gazed into the pool, death looked back out of the water. But Alymere was young, his heart naive. He saw only beauty.
And when the Crow Maiden opened her mouth, her words were every bit as seductive as her borrowed demeanour.
Eight
"Alymere the Undecided," the Crow Maiden crooned, her voice breathy. He found himself taking another involuntary step toward her. She offered her cupped hands to him as though offering him the chance to sup from them as the hart had done, but even as he took a second step the water trickled between her fingers. It splashed on the dirt, muddying the soil between her toes. "Alymere, Destroyer of Kingdoms. Alymere, Killer of Kings. Alymere, Champion of the Wretched. Alymere, Saviour of the Sick. Or will it simply be Alymere, son of Albion? All of these futures I see before you, though none of them are writ on your flesh and bones indelibly. You could be all of these and more, or none of them. So which is it to be, young Alymere?"
He fell to his knees.
The sudden movement startled the crow into flight. It launched into the clear blue sky in a fury of feathers, cawing raucously as it climbed higher.
She laughed then, a beautiful sound, although her laughter echoed the crow's cawing perfectly.
"There is no need to worship me. I a
m not your goddess. Arise, young Alymere. Arise."
"How do you know my name?" he asked. It was the most obvious question, and one he could find no rational answer for.
"I know everything about you, Alymere Orphan-Knight."
"I am not a knight," he said, fastening on to the obvious fallacy in her words, reminded of Sir Bors's jests when first he had set foot inside Camelot so many months ago.
As the Crow Maiden said, "You will be. That is your destiny; to rise and take your father's seat at the Table," he knew she was right. "But more interesting, surely, is the question, what else do the Fates have in store for you? What other days and hardships, what other triumphs and tragedies await the Undecided? Do you want to know?"
Before he could answer, the Crow Maiden's mouth split into a broad smile. Had he looked closer he would have seen her crooked yellow teeth, but he only had eyes for youthful beauty and no time for the decay beneath. She said, "No matter, I couldn't tell you even if you did," and he believed her. "So much is dependent upon so much else. But know this, Alymere: you have been marked. You are an actor on the world's stage. You have it within you to make the world dance to your whim, should you choose. All you need to do is make a decision, set your first foot on that path to any of the many futures that await you."
"I don't understand," he said, looking up at her. She really was heart-stoppingly beautiful. The way the sunlight touched her face; the way her eyes sparkled, so full of mischief and fierce intelligence; the way her rich red lips parted and the blush touched her cheeks; the way her dress clung to the swell of her teardrop breasts and the curve of her hips. What he felt inside went beyond desire. Like the forest itself, it was primal.
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