The story Hennen always told Levoreth was that he had been hunting deer in the foothills when a stag led him to the country lodge of Rodret Ayn. A young woman had been hanging out the washing on a line, and she had paused, pegs in her mouth and a damp shift in her arms, when he had ridden up. Love at first sight for both of them, Hennen always solemnly intoned.
Melanor Callas’s story, however, was different.
“That idiot tried to set his horse at the holly hedge bordering the garden. Of course the horse balked at the prickles and pitched him over onto his head. Knocked him cold, and blood everywhere. I ruined a good tablecloth wrapping up that knucklehead of his. Wouldn’t be the last time, mind you. Fever took him for two whole days, raving out of his mind. When he came to, the first thing he did was propose to me in a most unsuitable way. I refused him, of course, until he had spoken to my father. It’s best to keep a man waiting, my dear.”
Prompted by meaningful glances from the duchess at supper, the duke broached the subject again. He looked down the table at Levoreth and cleared his throat. She ignored him and concentrated on Yora’s mushroom and potato casserole. The steam rose up from her plate and tickled her nose. She chewed thoughtfully. Garlic, crushed pepper, dill.
“Your aunt and I’ve been talking,” said Hennen, refilling his glass out of precaution. “She feels, as do I, that you’re old enough now to—”
“Thyme,” said Levoreth.
“Um—well, time is a consideration, of course. The fact is, you do so splendidly overseeing this house whenever your aunt is in Andolan.” He gulped some wine.
“Fennel,” said Levoreth. “But it’s not fresh.”
“What?” said the Duke.
“She’s doing her trick again,” said his wife. “Figuring out the herbs Yora used in the casserole. Levoreth, don’t be difficult. What your uncle has been referring to with such delicacy is that it’s high time you were married.” The duchess glanced at her husband, but he was applying himself industriously to his casserole. “Surely you’ve thought it yourself, my dear. How old are you now? Seventeen, eighteen? Don’t tell me you’re nineteen!” Melanor waved her hand. “I can never remember such things. No matter. Your age isn’t important. What’s important is that you’re a grown woman. And not just any woman—you’re lovely, sensible . . .”
“And bake excellent apple pies,” said the duke.
“. . . and can run a household without even raising your voice. I don’t know how you do it, Levoreth. The maids mind you more than they do me.”
“All the stable hands live in adoring fear of her,” said Hennen. “Some of the tales they come up with, you’d think they’d been at the hard cider. Just the other day, that idiot Mirek had the nerve to tell me I shouldn’t be riding the roan, as it’s Levoreth’s favorite. I threw him into the pigsty for his impertinence. Melanor, my dear, do you know the spotted sow?”
“No,” said his wife. “We aren’t acquainted.”
“She bit Mirek. Twice on his hind end, before he could make it over the fence. I’ve never seen the boy move that fast, but that sow was moving faster.” The duke shook his head. “Imagine that.”
“I fail to see your point.”
“The point is, my dear, you’d think a boy would run faster than an old pig.”
“Hennen,” said the duchess, “have some more casserole.”
“Oh, all right,” said the duke.
“Levoreth?”
“Yes, aunt?” said Levoreth.
“Would you at least consider accompanying us to Hearne for the Fair?”
“And miss the autumn here? The walnuts won’t be picked in time and they’ll rot with mildew. The stable hands will pine away for me and forget to muck out the horses. They’re useless on their own. What’s the Fair to me? Cooped up in Hearne and having to put up with dreary balls and teas and oily princes and lords slobbering all over my hand and telling me how beautiful I am while trying to calculate how much dowry I’d be bringing to their bed.”
“Really, my dear,” said her aunt.
“What’s more,” said Levoreth, “Botrell will ogle me shamelessly.”
“Botrell’ll do no such thing!” said the duke, pounding his fist on the table. “I’ll horsewhip him in front of his own guests!”
“Nonsense,” said Levoreth. “He’s the regent of Hearne. He can do whatever he wants at his silly Fair.”
“But if you don’t go you won’t meet Brond Gifernes!” said the duchess, and then her hand flew to her mouth in alarm.
“Brond Gifernes?” asked Levoreth. “The duke of Mizra?”
For once, Melanor Callas was at a loss for words. She was saved, however, by the door swinging open. Yora entered, bearing a platter of blueberry turnovers.
“Something for afters, m’lord?” asked Yora.
“Thank you, Yora,” said the duke. He selected a turnover and bit into it. They remained silent while Yora cleared the dishes. The door closed again behind her.
“You were saying something about the Duke of Mizra,” said Levoreth.
“Yes, Mizra!” said the duke, spraying crumbs onto the table. “No reason why we can’t say things about the Duke of Mizra every now and then. Why, just the other day, I was talking with the miller down in the village and . . .”
“Uncle.”
“Well, the fact is I received a raven from him last week.”
“And?”
“And he’s asked for your hand in marriage, and why not, I say! You couldn’t do much better. He’s a duke and you’re the niece of a duke, and all the traders say he’s got more gold than all the noble houses of Harth put together!” The duke banged his fist again on the table for emphasis and then ruined the effect by looking longingly at the door.
“My dear,” said the duchess. “I know this comes as a bit of a shock, but do consider it. At least come to Hearne with us and meet the fellow. There’s no harm in that.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Levoreth. “Excuse me.” She rose to leave the table. As she walked up the stairs, she heard the duke whisper behind her, “Shadows, why does she always make me feel like a little boy?!”
“That’s because,” said his wife, but then her voice faded and Levoreth did not hear the rest.
She sat on the settle of her window. The moon was rising. The voice whispered again in her head.
You have slept overly long. It is time to wake.
And she knew the voice was her own. It had been so many years. Years of living quietly in the sleepy backwoods of Dolan, days blurring into months and years and lifetimes, all slipping by her. Strange, how time had passed. It was as if she had been asleep for years, drowsing through the days. It was time to wake.
Perhaps for the last time. One last autumn—I can feel it—but not here in this place I’ve come to love so well, but in Hearne at the center of the duchies. The center of Tormay. At least, what man thinks is the center. For there is no center. Only the four stillpoints. The silence of the depths of the sea. The silence of the wind in an empty sky. The silence of a motionless flame. And the silence of the earth.
My beloved earth. I could sink into this loam and sleep forever. Down below root and leaf, below the spine of the mountain range and the stretch of the plains. I could sleep away the centuries instead of refashioning myself into one Levoreth after another. But this one—poor girl—this Levoreth is the last one I shall be. I can feel it in my bones. I’ve grown weary.
The moonlight painted the forest silver, etched with shadows. Levoreth let her thoughts drift out across the yard, through the fields and into the trees. She felt a fox trot by, his tongue lolling over sharp teeth, thoughts of chickens in his head. The oaks were mumbling about root rot and the band of noisy crows that had settled into the east forest fringes. A trader slept by the coals of his campfire, far down the woods road, snoring under his cart. His old horse dozed nearby, but her thought woke the animal and it nickered in question, scenting the air for her. She quieted the horse, and it contentedl
y went back to sleep.
I’m tired. Tired, irritable, and forgetful. I’ve forgotten so many things. How odd. I can’t remember ever having been in the duchy of Mizra.
She turned from the window and gazed around her room. Fresh flowers in the vase next to her bed. A smile crossed her face. Yora looked after her jealously, as if she were the daughter the old woman had never had.
Sometimes I can barely remember who I am.
In the morning, Levoreth walked down the stairs and found the duchess knitting in the sitting room that looked out into the garden. A cat slept in her lap, paws wrapped around a ball of yarn.
“I’ll go with you and Uncle to Hearne,” said Levoreth.
Her aunt glanced up. The cat woke and jumped down. It rubbed its head against Levoreth’s ankles. She scratched behind the cat’s ears and it purred in adoration.
“Besides,” said Levoreth, “who’ll keep you company when Uncle is off talking horses with Botrell and every other half-witted noble?”
“You’ll never get married with that attitude.” But her aunt smiled. “You only have to meet this duke of Mizra fellow. For all we know, he might be missing his teeth.”
The cat nipped Levoreth’s finger out of affection and then strolled away. It flopped down in a pool of sunlight and promptly fell asleep.
“To be honest, Levoreth,” said the duchess, “I was beginning to think you’d never leave this place—hiding away here like a hermit with no one at all around. Why, you’ve been here for two years and never once come back to Andolan. The only time we see you is when Hennen drags me out here so he can inspect new colts.”
“I was tired of Andolan,” said Levoreth. She turned away.
“Anyway,” said her aunt, not hearing her. “I’ll tell Hennen. He’ll be pleased.”
CHAPTER SIX: MURDER BY NIGHT
The night lay over the valley. A blanket of darkness was draped over the hills and ravines and stands of pine, over the sleeping houses of the hamlet nestled below the ford. Smoke drifted up from their chimneys. A stream glimmered its way through the valley, down from the mountains and into the larger Rennet valley and the River Rennet itself, which ran for leagues until it reached the far-off city of Hearne and the sea. The air smelled of pine and the scent of heather wafting down from the plain of Scarpe, which stretched away from the top of the rise to the north.
But there was another smell as well. Only the most sensitive of human noses could have noted it, and even then they would have not recognized the scent, thinking it perhaps the whiff of a dead animal, rotting in the thickets that covered the valley slope.
In the valley below, a dog barked, calling a warning to the sleeping villagers. There was fear and anger in the sound.
Wake! Wake! Danger approaches! Wake from your sleep, oh my masters!
But there was no response. No lights flaring in windows, no doors flung open to bloom with firelight and life.
Wake! Wake!
The dog fell silent.
The moon hid behind a cloud. The darkness deepened. It was the third hour after midnight, when the tide of blood is at its lowest ebb, when the soul sinks so low in slumber that the sleeper drifts near to death. The third hour after midnight is the time when dreams and nightmares gain form; the scratching at the door, the tapping at the window, and the stealthy step in the hallway come close to reality.
In the home of the miller, Fen awoke with a gasp. She was nine years old and the miller’s youngest child. She had slept poorly for the past three days. Nightmares crowded her sleep, but they faded whenever she woke up so that she could remember nothing except fear and the horrible sensation of something watching her just out of the corner of her eye. She was more sensitive to such things than others. Even as a little girl, she had known things, such as where the ducks hid their eggs in the rushes, or whether there would be ice on the river in the morning, or the fact that milk turned to butter faster and sweeter if you said its true name as you churned: butere. No one had ever told her that word. She just knew it, somehow, gazing down at the milk. Her grandmother on her mother’s side was a bit of a hedgewitch in her own small way. She wondered about her youngest granddaughter but never spoke of what she thought.
Fen sat up in bed, trembling. Beside her, her sister Magwin stirred in her sleep. Magwin was fifteen and would be married next spring. She never had nightmares. Fen tiptoed to the window and looked out. It was dark outside, but the few stars visible in the sky gave enough light for her to make out the vague, looming shape of the barn and the mill beyond on the bank of the stream.
What had woken her this time? Another nightmare, but something else as well. Something else. A sound. The dog had been barking. That was it. Poor Hafall, cooped up in the barn every night. But he wasn’t barking anymore. Silence. Probably smelled the foxes that lived up in the brambles. The foxes were sniffing around the yard, no doubt, hungry for chickens.
Except—the barn door was open.
She did not see it at first, for the building was only a big blot of shadow. But for one instant, the moon peered out from behind her cloud and illumined the open door and the well of shadow within the door. The moon vanished again, and the barnyard plunged back into darkness.
Hafall will be out, she thought. The foxes will be in. Killing the chickens. Blood on white feathers. Someone forgot to shut the door.
Fear swept over her until it was all she could do to just stand there, shivering. She thought of her bed and Magwin breathing gently there, but then she turned and trudged out of the room, feeling her way through the darkness of the house. She was her father’s daughter, and while he was a kind man, he stood for no weakness from his children.
It was cold outside. Her breath steamed in the air. The night was hushed with a silence, unbroken by anything except the murmur of the stream. The barn loomed up before her.
“Hafall?” she said. “Here, boy.” Fen whistled softly, like her father had taught her—two fingers angled together between her lips. But there was no response. No sheepdog running up to lick her face and push his damp nose into her palm. Only silence. The girl stepped through the doorway of the barn and immediately stopped. Her toes felt a warm stickiness. She looked down. The dog lay at her feet. Trembling, Fen knelt.
“Hafall?”
His fur was matted and clumped with blood, but she stroked his coat anyway. A gaping hole had been torn in his throat. She touched his face, the muzzle brindled with gray and the floppy ears that had been attuned to so many years of the miller’s children, watching over them with his brown eyes and patiently enduring all the indignations they had lovingly heaped upon him. The eyes were dull and unseeing now. The pain inside Fen was almost too much to bear. It felt as if her own throat had been torn out. She could not breathe.
Something whispered behind her. The slightest of noises. Perhaps it was just the breeze. She turned. The moon peeped out from behind her cloud again and flooded the yard with silvery luminance.
The door!
I closed it!
But the door to the house stood ajar. The moonlight cast the entrance into relief—a thin rectangle of shadow set within white stone walls. And then the shadow grew as the door swung wider. For a moment Fen thought her father was about to step out, but then to her horror she saw that the stone walls were moving. No, something in front of the walls was moving—forms shifting. The moonlight and shadow slid off them like liquid. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. The forms gained definition and color. There was a tall, slender shape that at first she thought was a man, but then it turned its head, and she was no longer sure. The thing’s eyes glimmered in the darkness like veiled stars. A long, thin blade curved from its hand. At its feet slunk two dogs, bigger than yearling calves, with massive shoulders and huge heads.
A word surfaced in her mind unbidden. A word she did not know. Cwalu. Death.
Again, the moon vanished back behind the safety of her cloud. Shadow reclaimed the yard. The shapes at the doorway blurred and vanished into the house.
A scream clawed at Fen’s throat, quivering on her tongue and springing tears from her eyes. But all she could manage was a whimper.
That was enough. The last shadow disappearing through the doorway across the yard halted at the sound. The hound’s head swung from side to side, scenting the air. Two red eyes gleamed and fastened on her with dreadful certainty. Fen turned and ran.
Into the darkness of the barn she ran, heart pounding so fast it was a solid blur of agony, gasping, stumbling, arms windmilling. Tripping over a bale of hay to land sprawling. Palms stinging, blood in her mouth. The darkness was like water around her, holding her fast as if she were trying to run through the creek chest-deep, struggling, desperately reaching for the other side that was no longer there.
She heard the scrabble of claws somewhere behind her and a hoarse breathing that shuddered through her. Memory flooded her mind with a rush. Her thoughts drifted by. I remember now. I’ve been here before. In my nightmare. I wish I was sleeping still.
And she slammed straight into a wall. Wood. Stars burst across her sight. She felt splinters in her face, and her left hand burned with a heavy ache. She could not close her fingers. She nearly collapsed with the pain of it, but her other hand caught on the wooden rungs. She had run right into the ladder leading up to the hayloft. Frantically, she began to climb, clinging with her right hand and hooking her left elbow over the rungs.
Up.
Up. The ladder under Fen shook as the animal threw itself against the supports. The thing made no sound except for the harsh breath rasping in the darkness below. Her body cringed in anticipation of claws tearing at her, of teeth pulling her down flailing from the ladder to fall and fall and fall. She found herself over the top, sobbing and face down in the straw that littered the hayloft.
Fen turned and looked down. Below her, a pair of eyes stared up from the darkness. She could make out the shape of the hound—the lolling tongue and jaws of gleaming teeth, the head, the shoulders bunching and tensing. Tensing to jump! She threw herself backward, scrambling in the straw for anywhere, nowhere to hide. Fire shot up her arm as she fell on her injured hand. The hayloft trembled with the impact of the beast. Splinters and straw flew as claws raked the planks at the edge of the loft, scrabbling to gain a hold. Fen could smell the stench of the thing—a musk of decay mixed with a strange, sour damp. With a snarl, the hound fell away. She heard the thump of its body landing on the ground below.
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