“They sang a song about you,” she murmured into his neck, lips brushing his skin.
“Oh.” He was trying to not to think about her body.
“They all seemed quite proud of Thomas Rymour.”
He couldn’t think of a response. He felt a nipple against his arm.
“Can I have a kiss goodnight?”
That would be a bad idea. Who knew if there was a fay watching? But before he could speak, she planted her lips on his. Just for a moment. He could smell brandy on her breath. Then she rolled away and blew out the candle.
He felt cold and lonely. As her breath became even, he began to wonder what would have happened if he’d kissed her back.
Brega opened the door warily, casting him an evil eye.
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to Six.”
“Why?”
“I need to ask him something.”
She had no reason to say no and she wasn’t pleased about it. She stepped aside. Draig slept alone in the bed, snoring. Six was sat in a corner, bound at the wrists and ankles and trying to sleep against a wall. Nevertheless, he opened his eyes as Tom approached. His cheek was puffy; Neirin had obviously struck him again.
“Come for a go as well?”
Tom shook his head. “Can I get you anything?”
“A knife?” Six smiled and lifted his hands.
Tom couldn’t help but smile too. “You and I both know I can’t.”
“Hmm.” The elf shrugged as if it was no matter. Tom poured him a glass of water.
“We were told not to give him anything,” Brega growled.
“Let him die of thirst and he’s no use to anyone,” Tom pointed out. He turned back to Six. “My name is Thomas Rymour.”
Six almost snatched the water as Tom handed it to him. He gulped at it like he hadn’t drunk in days. Then he said, “I know.”
Tom nodded but wondered how he knew. “I need to ask you a question.”
“You’re an inquisitive bunch, aren’t you?”
Tom knelt close and brought his voice down to a whisper. “The innkeep told us you’ve been claiming Erhenned will be invaded next. Is that true?”
“To the best of my knowledge,” Six whispered back. He was telling the truth. A liar knows a liar.
“If he invades Erhenned, he controls the coast.”
“He will.”
“So if we wanted to put to sea?”
“You’d be in a dragon’s nest with ‘lunch’ written on your forehead.”
“How long?”
Six shrugged. “I hear the Marches is largely sub-jugated and Idris will not want to lose his momentum. That said, it would take time to transport troops by sea.”
“Two months?” The time it would take to travel around the Whispering Woods.
Six nodded. “Perhaps.”
He could not risk less. “Did you tell this to Neirin?”
“He hasn’t asked. Yet.”
“Is it possible it may be less time until an invasion?”
Six frowned. “It’s possible.”
“Is it possible you might suggest the same to him?”
The frown turned to a smirk. “It is. Though I would need some kind of inducement.”
Tom nodded. “What do you want?”
The elf lifted his wrists. “What do you think?”
Tom nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Is it true that you cannot lie, Thomas Rymour?”
“It is.”
The elf sniffed and nodded with a knowing smile. “Then I shall do my best too.”
Neirin was late down the next day. He kept Six upstairs and, though there were no sounds of interrogation, Tom could only hope that Six was telling him what they’d agreed. He felt only a lingering guilt. After all, they needed to get to Faerie. And while he believed Katharine when she said the Whispering Woods were dangerous, he could not believe the woods he’d known as a boy could be impassable. A story had been whispered into a legend into a myth. That was all.
When Neirin did come down he was pushing Six in front of him, legs unbound but wrists still tied. Barnaby couldn’t do enough for them. He offered them food and water for their travels, on the house. Breakfast, on the house. He’d set out the top table for them again, made it as elegant as he could, with a cloth and his finest cutlery. There was no-one else in the bar, which had been cleaned so thoroughly Tom wondered if he’d sanded a layer off everything. He offered no food or drink to Six until Siomi asked him to. Tom felt sorry for the man. He shouldn’t have been pandering to the elfs, but he had no choice. And Neirin was happy to take what was offered without trying to compensate him for it. Tom wished he had some coin, but the few pennies he’d taken with him would more likely insult the man than reward him.
Neirin had taken only Tom’s old clothes, perhaps not wanting to anger Regent any further by stealing the clothes he’d had made. At first Tom had been pleased to see them and had slipped into his woollen hose and tunic with a smile. But he was unused to them. Now they scratched and itched. He was stood in the stables and trying to rearrange them when Siomi placed a hand on his elbow.
Even her hand was gloved in black. Tom realised he was becoming curious as to what she looked like.
“Master Rymour.” Her eyes were downcast. “I am sorry for what I said last night. It was rude and it offended you.”
Tom frowned. What had she said? Then he remembered. “Oh. Yes. Thank you,” he said. But she did not raise her eyes.
“I spoke without thought,” she said.
“I was tired,” he replied. “I probably overreacted.”
“Still.” She finally raised her eyes to meet his. “I am sorry.”
Her regret was obvious and genuine. She looked like she’d been worrying about this. He offered her a smile. “I’m sorry too,” he said. Thinking about it, he had overreacted. And he’d upset Siomi. She seemed like a good person and Tom didn’t like to think he’d made her think poorly of herself.
She held her hands out to him, offering up the insides of her wrists. Tom had thought the gesture a greeting but it was clearly something else. “I hope we can be friends,” she said.
He mimicked the gesture and saw surprise and pleasure in her eyes. “Me too.”
She nodded and the regret was gone. He watched her rejoin Neirin.
“Well done.” Katharine was watching him, grinning. “I’ve obviously been a good influence on you.”
Tom took the sack of food she was carrying. Barnaby had been generous. “What do you mean?”
“The wrist gesture,” Katharine said. “It was a nice touch. People always appreciate it when you make an effort with their culture.”
Tom shrugged. “She seemed upset,” he said.
“You’ll get used to that,” she replied, pulling on fingerless leather gloves.
“What do you mean?”
She fiddled with her horse’s saddle, tutting at this and that. “They haven’t done a good job with this. Check yours before you mount.” She opened the sack Tom was holding and transferred some of the food to her saddlebags. “Siomi spends each morning thinking about what she did wrong the previous day and apologising for it. Any little thing. She must have apologised to me two score times on the way to Cairnagan. Once she apologised for ‘looking at me with ill favour’. I hadn’t even noticed.”
Tom grunted an acknowledgement as she tugged him to his horse and placed food in his saddlebags too. Tom watched Siomi converse with Neirin. He was horsed, looking down at her. She had her hands together, palm to palm, subservient. “Why does she worry about minor slights?” he said to himself.
“Self-improvement, or so she says.” Katharine was checking his saddle herself, making adjustments. “She thinks acknowledging her errors will help her avoid making them again. As if apologies and guilt can make her a better person.”
Siomi was mounting her horse, smoothing her robes and adjusting her veil. “It’s a nice idea,” Tom said.
&nbs
p; Katharine took the sack from his hands. “A nice idea,” she agreed. “But she spends too much time and energy dwelling on what’s passed. That’s no way to live.”
Tom said nothing, thinking instead of his own life. How many things had he done that he should have apologised for and didn’t? He looked at Siomi again. She met his eye and nodded. He looked at Six, bound in the saddle in front of Brega. Six gave him a nod and Brega scowled her suspicion. Tom sighed. Apology had relieved Siomi of her guilt. Tom was stuck with his.
Aeryie was awake despite the early hour, people bustling to and fro down the narrow, oppressive streets. He could hear shouts from market traders and children ran between horses with no fear. Crones watched them balefully from doorsteps and shopkeeps sought eye contact with anyone and everyone in hopes of getting patrons inside. The stench was stirred by a cool breeze which promised fresher air if they could just get out of town. The buildings looming over them seemed to try to swallow them whole. But soon the buildings shrank, losing their third stories then their second. The streets widened, they crossed a river, passed a few scattered houses and then they were free. The stench was gone, downwind of them, replaced with the more reassuring scents of soil, grass and manure.
It was only then that he noticed they were heading south.
Katharine was riding with Neirin and, now that he wasn’t distracted by the town, he could see they were arguing. Tom spurred his horse and rode closer. As he passed, Six gave him a nod and a smile, which Tom returned.
“Last night you called him a scout, a spy and a traitor,” Katharine was saying, words carried to him on the breeze. “Why believe a word he says?”
“Because it is not in his interest to lie.”
“Unless the invasion will happen even sooner and he wants you to get caught.”
“Katharine, I am Shield of the Eastern Angles,” Neirin replied. “Idris would not dare to lay a hand on me.”
“Perhaps not,” she said. “But the Woods will.”
“I appreciate your concern.” Neirin’s words were clipped, tired, restraining his anger. “My mind is made up. We travel south.”
“You hired me to guide you. You didn’t hire me to die for you.”
“Double your fee. Triple it, if you will.”
She wanted to argue. Tom could tell by her posture. But money bought many things and this time it bought her silence. She nodded and tugged the reins. Neirin carried on alone and Katharine fell in beside Tom.
“Guess you got your way.”
He’d gone behind her back and undermined her authority. He thought of Siomi and said, “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
But it was. He’d been devious and underhanded. And when she smiled at him he felt even worse.
The sun was on its way towards the horizon when they reached the Woods and Tom could see Katharine was right. They had been a simple forest when he was a boy, farther south and much smaller, called the Whispering Woods because it sounded like voices when the wind blew through the trees. Now their party stood on a hill and looked down on a sea of green. It stretched so far that Tom could not see the other side.
Katharine had stopped them and rode up and down the line like a general. “While we are in the Woods, I am in charge. You must do as I say.”
“I am not accustomed to being told what to do.” Neirin sat at his full, impressive height.
But Katharine wasn’t impressed. “Become accustomed,” she said. “You chose this path, my lord. You’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
“She’s feisty,” said Six. “I like her.”
“Be silent,” Neirin snapped.
“Peace, my lord,” Siomi said. “Do not let the Westerner provoke you. He takes pleasure in it.”
“I’d take more if I were allowed.” Six winked at Siomi.
Brega’s reaction was swift and casual. She dropped the reins and brought both fists up into Six’s solar plexus. Six crumpled with a groan. “Keep a civil tongue, Westerner,” she spat. “You don’t need all your fingers.”
The casual violence made Tom uneasy. The Heel had plenty of horror stories of how Easterners treated their prisoners. Apparently they had a famous book called ‘Five Hundred Nights of Persuasion’ which listed torture methods, one for each night. Some veterans claimed that the elfs didn’t always question you. Sometimes they tortured you just because you were a prisoner. Tom hadn’t given the stories much credence until now.
Katharine cleared her throat. He could see she was uncomfortable too. “Do not touch the trees. Do not drink the water. Do not start a fire. Do not talk about starting a fire. Do nothing that might cause offence or upset.”
“You speak as if they live,” Brega sneered. Tom bristled. Katharine deserved more respect.
“For all I know, they do.” Katharine seemed unfazed. “Do not stray from the group. There’s no privacy in there. You take a leak, you take someone with you. Do not, at any point, lose sight of the rest of us. Do you understand?”
Nods, a few grumbles and grunts.
She stopped her horse in front of Neirin. “Lord Neirin, I want you to remember that this was your choice. I won’t take responsibility for what happens in there.”
Neirin nodded, stiff and formal. His efforts could not hide his displeasure. He really wasn’t used to being spoken to that way.
“Tom, you ride with me. The rest of you, find a friend and stick to them like flies on an aurochs.”
The old road, broken and overgrown in places now, wound down the hill and into the Woods. The world seemed to sharpen as they descended and Tom could feel his heart quicken and his mood lift.
His expression must have changed. “What is it?” Katharine asked.
“Magic,” he breathed.
“Magic,” she repeated, looking at him strangely.
“Yes.” He felt like he was waking up, like he’d been tired and groggy for years but now the aches and fatigue were melting away.
“Are you okay?”
The magic grew stronger as they descended. The air was thick with it. “I feel fine.”
Katharine’s lips flattened. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought us here.”
“It will be fine. They’re just trees.”
She shook her head. “There are more than just trees in these Woods.”
They reached the bottom and stopped. The trees seemed marshalled in a perfect line and the canopy above was so thick that the light was green and murky. No sound came from within and no undergrowth marred the ground. Just unblemished soil and the road, which was broken and shattered and swallowed by the ground just a few feet in.
“There’s still time to turn back,” she called to Neirin.
“We go forward,” was his reply.
“Great,” she muttered. “If that damned elf gets me eaten by trees I’ll kill him.”
The Woods were cool without the sunlight and still without the breeze. The magic was thick and exciting, but unsettling too. So much magic meant something otherworldly was in these Woods. Perhaps Katharine had been right?
A noise, a voice on the edge of hearing, brought Tom’s head around. “What was that?” he said.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Katharine replied.
Again, from another direction. Like a laugh. Almost a laugh. Like someone was trying to make the sound by grinding bark together. “Did you hear that?”
Katharine shook her head.
“We need to turn around,” Tom said. “Right now.”
Chapter 6
“No,” said Neirin.
“But we’re in danger.”
“So Katharine has said. But this is the quickest way south.”
“We need to find another way.”
“There is no other way.”
Tom sighed. Neirin was looking at him like he was a child who thought there were monsters under the bed. And Katharine’s glare was burning holes in him, her lips pinched and her jaw set. The others looked confused or con
cerned. Six, in particular, looked uneasy. But curious too, as if he had found a rabid dog that could do card tricks; he wanted to see more but worried about being bitten.
“I told you it was dangerous here,” Katharine said. “Did you not believe me?”
A difficult question to answer. He had believed she’d thought so. He hadn’t believed it would be this dangerous.
“Last night you were convinced this path would be safe to travel.” Siomi spoke with no judgement, just curiosity. “What has changed?”
“I heard voices,” Tom replied. “Katharine didn’t.” It sounded silly when said like that.
Neirin was unimpressed. “And?”
“I have the Second Sight,” said Tom. “It means I can see and hear fay, for instance. Katharine doesn’t, so she can’t.”
“So you think there are fairies in these woods?”
“Fay. Not fairies. And no. Not fay.”
Neirin waved the distinction away with a hand. “Then what?”
“Something else,” he said. “Something unknown.”
“I will not flee from the unknown.”
“But there’s magic involved. That means danger.”
“Why?”
“Because there are rules,” said Tom. “If we were attacked by fay, we could wear iron armour. That would protect us. That’s a rule.” Tom pointed at the trees. “There will be rules for whatever lives in these woods. But if we don’t know what they are, we could forfeit our lives by doing something as innocent as singing out of tune.”
Neirin smiled down at Tom. “We’ll be sure not to sing, then.”
“My lord,” Tom said, but Neirin cut him off.
“The Westerner says we do not have long until Erhenned is invaded. We must finish our work before that comes to pass. Therefore there is no other route for us.” He nodded at Katharine. “Ride on, Pathfinder.”
Katharine tugged her reins. “Do not ride with me,” she said to him before leading them further into the woods.
The Realm Rift Saga Box Set Page 9