He needed to think.
There was much about the day that the knight had no liking for, not least the fact that his guards were still missing. Had they too succumbed to snow madness? Was it some sort of sickness that his ward had contracted in this very room? Was bringing him back here a mistake? Would he succumb to it himself? A thousand thoughts and more raced through his mind, clamouring to be heard, each of them more strained and panicked than the last. He needed to focus. To think. He had not been able to find any trace of the guards out on the road, which, he was beginning to suspect, boded ill for them. For two miles up and down the road he hadn't been able to find sight nor sound of an overturned cart or a wagon with a broken axle or any other travellers in trouble. That didn't discount the idea that the missing men had been lured out exactly the way Alymere had surmised.
Mercifully, he hadn't found any sign of reivers either.
He pulled up the small stool and sat, leaning back against the wall of the chimney breast, savouring the warm stones on his back.
Once, during the darkest part of the night, when the lad had tossed and turned most violently during his fever-dreams, the knight knelt and said a prayer, offering his own life in return for Alymere's if that was what was demanded. A life for a life. It was the old way. He didn't know how he would live with himself if the boy didn't make it. It would be like losing his brother all over again. And it didn't matter how strong he was, how great his skill at arms, he could vanquish every foe he faced on the battlefield and it wouldn't matter, because he couldn't fight disease or sickness. He couldn't save his brother and now he was helpless to save his brother's son.
All he could do was pray, and hope that the God that looked after foolish young men with hearts the size of lions was listening.
The knight didn't move from his bedside vigil until Alymere woke with the coming of the dawn.
Twelve
His dreams were plagued with visions he could neither cling to nor understand. In them, he dreamed he was a blind man battling demons or a demon battling blind men, his focus shifting from one set of eyes to another again and again as the battle raged on. And these were proper demons, devils even, barbed tails, forked tongues and all. Again and again, the Crow Maiden's imprecations that he follow the smoke, find the blind monk and bring her the book, turned over in his mind. Always, as the fight was won, his foe was vanquished in a flurry of wings and feathers as the blind man or the demons transformed into black birds, crows, rooks, ravens, and scattered before him.
He woke sweating and feverish.
His uncle knelt at his bedside, head down in prayer.
Alymere coughed, hard.
The knight looked up, met his eye and said simply, "Thank the maker. You gave me a fright there, boy. What the devil were you thinking?"
Alymere eased himself up onto one elbow, but even as he did the world reeled around him and he sank back into his pillow, groaning. It was no kind of answer, but he couldn't answer, because he had no idea what his uncle meant.
The last thing he could remember was the red hart standing in the middle of the road.
Both Alymere and Lowick flinched as a crow flew up against the window, battering the streaked glass with panicked wings. There was something familiar about the bird: a vague memory that evaded him in the clear light of morning. He lay back in the bedroll, trying to remember how he had got here. "Sorry," he said, finally finding his voice. Meaning Sorry, I don't understand; sorry, I don't know; sorry, I can't tell you.
The knight shook his head, "Not good enough, lad. Words are cheap. You nearly got yourself killed running off into the forest like that. It's nothing short of a miracle that I found you." The words were harsh, but his manner masked genuine concern. Alymere didn't understand what could have happened to warrant it.
He tried to move again, easing himself into a sitting position. He didn't say another word for a full five minutes whilst he gathered his wits. He rubbed at his right eye and temple, trying to get the blood flowing. The horizon slowly stopped canting and settled. He breathed slowly, regularly. It was only then that he noticed the strip of linen tied around his forearm and remembered how he had been given it, and, more slowly, by whom.
And with that memory came the rest: following the hart into the trees, the maiden herself, making love to her, and finally his promise, which had bled into his dreams. But for the life of him, Alymere couldn't recall anything after that. He had no recollection of leaving the Summervale, nor of the fact that the glade itself was not a sanctuary of summer but rather a trick of the mind and that as the so-called summer faded and the sun went down on it he was left lying naked in the snow in the thick of the forest, winter wracking his body. The last thing he remembered was the maiden kissing him like lovers did, her tongue licking along his teeth and lips, and whispering, "Follow the smoke. When the time comes, you will understand. Do not fail me, or the Devil take your soul."
"Do you believe in the otherworld, uncle?"
"Do you mean do I believe in magic?" Lowick asked, his brow furrowing as he considered the question. "There are more things in this life that I can understand or account for. Whether they're magic or not, I don't know. Why do you ask?"
"I think I saw a sign," Alymere said. "A red hart."
"And that's why you took off into the forest?"
"Don't you see?" He reached for the tabard the knight had draped across the chair before the fire. "A leaping hart."
"A white hart, lad. There's a difference. You're reaching."
"Still — "
"Look at the evidence. Discard the fanciful, the wishful thinking, and what have you got? Apply your mind to it like any other puzzle. Be dispassionate, rational, logical."
Alymere didn't answer him, but that didn't mean he was not doing exactly that; picking through his memories in search of the truth. He wanted to believe that it was his father's animal totem that had led him to the maiden and the Summervale, because that would make finding the blind monk so much more meaningful, but wanting didn't mean that it was. It just meant that he was trying to find some sort of reason where there was no reason to be found. He didn't argue with his uncle. Instead, he clambered out of the bedroll and, beginning to dress, asked, "Did you find the men?"
"No," Lowick said, but it was the way he said it, part dread, part resignation, that conveyed the full extent of his expectations. That they still hadn't returned meant the missing men had been out in the snow for at least two full days now, but most likely three. Three days out in the bone-freezing cold. Three days with the mile house abandoned and the wall vulnerable. Nothing good could come of that.
Alymere belted his tunic and stuffed his feet into his boots. He felt woozy and light-headed, but more than anything he felt hungry. It had been more than a day since he had last eaten. He looked around the guard room, saw again the dirty pots, but this time realised what he didn't see: food. There was no food in the place. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before.
"We spent so long thinking about what was here we didn't ask ourselves what was missing," he said, rummaging through the pots. "There's no food." The knight looked at him as though he were speaking in tongues. "Think about it. They weren't lured out by anyone; they went in search of food."
"By Christ, you're right," Sir Lowick said, making the sign of the cross over his chest as the blasphemy slipped from his tongue. It was the most telling thing they hadn't seen, and offered one rational explanation why the men had ventured out into the snow. What it didn't explain was why they had allowed their victuals to run so low in the first place? Neither did it explain why they hadn't sent word along to the next mile house to beg rations to see them through until the knight and his squire made their rounds and could send for proper supplies, nor did it account for the fact that one of them hadn't simply returned to the estate whilst the other maintained their watch. There was something that was just wrong about the whole thing.
That was when a second alternative occurred to him; that their foo
d supplies had been tampered with.
It made sense of a couple of the whys. Tampering with the rations would explain why the rations had run out — or rather why they had been allowed to. Simply put, the men hadn't been any the wiser. As far as they were concerned they had supplies to last out the worst of the winter.
"I'll be back," Sir Lowick said. "Be ready to leave as soon as I return."
With that, he donned his cloak and, drawing it about him, pushed open the door and plunged out into the storm. The snow had hardened into hail, which bit into his cheeks as he floundered through the snow to the side of the building. He pulled open the wooden doors of the shed that served as a pantry for the main building. The place was bare. On closer inspection he saw the black shadows of the scorch marks on the walls where fire had claimed the oats and other victuals the men had stored out here in the cold cupboard. Someone had burned the lot. Only the fact that the shed was stone and isolated from the main building had saved the entire mile house from going up in smoke.
Grunting, he threw closed the wooden doors and trudged around to the stables to see to saddling the horses.
Knowing that hunger was no doubt behind their desertion made all of the difference. Without doubt, he had been looking for the men in the wrong place.
When Alymere emerged from the dwelling wrapped up against the cold, without looking up the knight asked him, "If you were hungry, where would you go?"
"The nearest settlement," Alymere said. It was the most obvious answer, and sometimes the most obvious answer was the right one.
"Exactly. We've been looking for them in the wrong place. We assumed they were going to help someone else, not themselves. Saddle up, lad. The road waits for no man."
They rode out, the knight urging his mount into a gallop before they were halfway across the open field. Alymere spurred his horse on. The animal was grateful to be given its head. The nearest settlement was five and some miles south, close to the crossroads where the Stanegate Road met Deere Street, deep in the heart of the valley between the Tyne and the Irthing. Stanegate wound and wandered more than other Roman roads, but offered reivers easy passage deep into the southlands.
The stretch of road from the wall down as far as the crossroads was known colloquially as The Maiden Way.
They rode in silence, heads down, hunched low over the necks of the racing horses, spurring them on to greater and greater speeds despite the treacherous footing the road offered. The wind whipped at Alymere's face. In front of him, Sir Lowick's cloak billowed out behind him like some black wraith looking to snag him and haul him down out of the saddle. The forest raced by on either side, shadows and phantom forms pulling at Alymere's eyes again and again, but not once did he catch sight of anything even remotely resembling the red hart running along beside them.
He knew rationally that his uncle was right; a red hart was a long way from a white hart in terms of symbolism and meaning. White reflected purity, while red equated to guilt, sin, and anger. It conjured images of blood and sex. His mind raced, avoiding the most obvious explanation and the Crow Maiden's parting words, and instead wanting to believe that somehow his father was still with him, watching over him. There was comfort in it. It was as simple as that.
Up ahead, the road widened.
It took him a moment to realise that what he was seeing wasn't snow but rather smoke through the trees ahead, and the maiden's words came back to him: "Follow the smoke…"
"Smoke!" Alymere yelled, his voice torn away from his mouth by the blustering wind. Lowick looked back over his shoulder to see Alymere pointing to the curls of smoke rising from the distant trees, and like Alymere before him, seemed to take an age to distinguish the smoke from the snow and recognise it for what it was, but when he did, he spurred his horse on, urging it to go faster still. Hooves thundered on the road, the two of them riding like the hounds of Hell themselves were snapping at their heels.
Because smoke meant fire, and fire meant suffering, torment, and pain. Because, like the hart, fire was red.
Thirteen
The thatched roofs of the ring of homes had caved in beneath the heat. The straw had curled, withering, while the edges charred, and finally the entire structure collapsed, the flames leaping higher.
Alymere's horse shied away from the fire and smoke, snorting and kicking as it pranced sideways, refusing to go any closer to the burning buildings.
As he watched in horror, the fire quickly consumed the wattle walls, blistering the whitewash daubed on the facades.
The heat coming off the huts was staggering. It battered him. He felt his mouth dry and the inside of his throat shrivel as the heat intensified and it became progressively more difficult to breathe.
The horses refused to go any nearer to the flames.
Beside him, the knight swung down out of the saddle and rushed toward the closest building. He didn't look back, didn't hesitate. The door hung on one rope hinge, as the other had burned through. He pushed it out of his way and plunged into the fire. Alymere was slower to react, not through fear but because of what he saw lying in the snow a few feet beyond the door of the second hut: a body, though it was barely recognisable as such. It lay curled up, one arm outstretched, clawing at the snow. The entire body was charred, the clothes fused to its back and legs where they had melted into the skin. Licks of steam rose off blistered flesh where the snow cooled it, and blood had begun to congeal. Slain.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Not even remotely.
Alymere swung down from his horse and walked toward the ruined body, sick to the stomach.
As he neared, it became more and more difficult to deny the truth of his own eyes. The body in the snow was that of a child. Alymere caught himself saying the words of a prayer as he knelt beside the body. It was impossible to tell whether it had been a girl or a boy, the damage wrought by the blaze was so complete.
His eyes stung, and not just from the smoke.
He wiped away the tears with his left hand.
The smell, the sickly sweet stench of burning meat, stuck in his throat.
Alymere felt his gorge rising. He turned away from the ruined body, gagging, and retched violently. He dry heaved again and again, doubling up as the spasms wracked his body. There was nothing in his stomach to bring up but bile.
Gasping, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
What he had seen, he would never forget. That small body, broken and burned in the snow, would forever shape his fate, and time and time again affect decisions he made from that moment until the day he died.
It was only then that he became aware of the screams: there were people trapped inside one of the buildings, begging for help.
This time he didn't hesitate.
Alymere pushed himself to his feet and ran toward the burning building.
Every step took him deeper into the heat.
He pumped his arms and legs furiously, driving himself on even as the heat strove to batter him back. He felt it burning the skin on his face and hands as he came within touching distance of the fire.
And still he didn't stop.
He threw himself into the flames.
Fourteen
The sheer heat was overwhelming. All around him the building burned, flames leaping and writhing as they found something else to feed them. He could barely see for the smoke. It clawed at his lungs. Each successive breath became harder to draw than the last. The smoke clotted around the ceiling, rising. Alymere dropped to his hands and knees and crawled forward into the flames.
He couldn't see anything beyond a few blurred outlines.
The shadows were alive, dancing and gyring to the whim of the flames.
He crawled forward, calling out, "I'm here, I'm here," over and over to give whoever was trapped behind the curtain of fire something to focus on. Not that they could have heard him above the roar of the flames, which crackled and spat and hissed, filling the silences ahead of them with their implacable hunger.
The air was so thin that he needed three breaths to swallow what amounted to a single lungful of air. It tasted foul. Bitter. Acrid.
But the noise was the worst of it. It was like a thousand madmen had crawled inside his brain, cackling and laughing, intent on making him one of their number.
Above him, something cracked with a sound like broken bones. He started to crawl back, pushing desperately at the hard-packed dirt, but as a single shaft of light speared through the collapsing roof, he saw them hunched up against the furthest wall — a mother cradling her child in her arms — and threw himself forward. An instant later the ceiling joist gave way, splintering through the heart as a dozen cracks tore through the rings and the dry wood caved in beneath the load it bore.
Alymere threw himself to his left, rolling away from the burning beam as it thudded into the ground where his back had been just a heartbeat before. He didn't have the luxury of celebrating his fortune; breathing hard, he rose to his hands and knees, and then into a crouch, and shuffled forward. The smoke had blackened, but with the roof gone it billowed up freely into the sky. That should have provided some small relief for his lungs, but it didn't. As the roof collapsed the flames leapt higher with more air there to feed them.
Alymere was on the wrong side of the fire now, but there was no way he could retreat. The flames filled the door and all of the space between. They were insatiable. Everything would burn, including him. There was no way back. All he could do was fight his way deeper into the fire. He couldn't allow fear into his mind. It would sear his strength away and finish what the smoke had begun. No. He had to reach the woman. His world was reduced to that simple necessity. He had to reach the woman.
He felt his skin tightening where the heat drew every ounce of moisture out of it.
He licked at his lips. It didn't help.
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