by Jo Spurrier
With no stirrups I had to lead the horse over to the walled garden and scramble up the stonework to slide onto his back. Even a horse that hasn’t been groomed in a week or more feels slippery and smooth once you mount him without a saddle. It was awkward at best to ride astride in a long skirt rather than a pair of my brothers’ britches, but with stockings underneath I could at least hike the skirt up to mount without too much shame. I settled myself as best I could and wrapped my hands around the lead-rope that stood in for reins. Then, I looked expectantly at Aleida.
She heaved a sigh. ‘Give him your heels, girl. I’m keeping a hand on him so he doesn’t dump you and run, but you have to ride him still.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and flushed. ‘Sorry.’
With a touch of my heels, the horse set out at a sprightly trot, making me hastily haul on the ropes to try to slow him down. He felt very different underneath me than the old cob I’d ridden on errands back home. That beast was a lazy sod, no one ever took him out without first cutting a switch to use as a crop, but this fellow moved as though he had places to be and no time to waste in getting there.
We splashed across the stream and turned left, just as my mistress had said, and by then we were shrouded in fog, with the cottage and orchard and even the hills above me lost from sight. The air was cool and crisp, the horse warm beneath me, and my hands chill as they clutched the ancient rope. But I felt as though I couldn’t take it all in, not properly; I was too busy, keeping my seat on the horse’s slippery back, trying to hold him back as his spirited, bouncing trot threatened to send me to the ground. Also, in the back of my head, I was trying not to think about what would happen if we came face-to-face with one of the earthbeasts, or the warlock in his black cloak. With my precarious perch and dubious control of the horse, I had no doubts I’d take a hurried fall; and though the grey might be fleet enough to escape, I knew I never would be.
Thankfully, nothing went awry as I found the valley and a snaking dirt track that wound through the trees. It took barely ten minutes to reach the great moss-covered boulders that I took to be the granite Aleida mentioned. Another track wound between jutting rocks, stubby, wizened trees and piles of flat, grey slates before reaching a tiny hut. So that’s what a bothy is, I thought, looking over the stacked-stone walls and slate roof of the hut. There was a shed to one side, and everything was covered with damp, green moss. I heaved on the lead-rope to make the horse stop, and watched the hut for a moment. There was no smoke from the chimney, not even the smell of it; the lone window was shuttered and the stout door was shut — shut, but not locked, for while there was a simple wooden latch to close the door, there was no way to lock it that I could see. A place for hunters and shepherds to shelter.
Aleida had said her gear was around the back. I slithered down from my unstable perch, and tied the horse to a post inside the shed. He didn’t seem to mind the place, though he did stamp his feet impatiently while I ducked around the back of the stone building.
I found Aleida’s gear just where she had said — saddlebags and a felt sleeping-pad and, what I was most glad to see, a saddle and bridle, all of it wrapped up in a sheet of oilcloth against the damp. I carried it all back around to the shed and set about putting on the saddle and bridle, and replacing the old, brittle halter with one that seemed far less likely to come apart at the first sign of trouble. With the girth buckled, I tied the saddlebags and sleeping-pad in place and stood back to admire my work. The horse looked like a proper adventurer now, all geared up and ready to move, and I thought again about the storybook my little siblings had, the one where I made up stories to go with the beautiful woodcut pictures. There was one with a young lad who had a horse much like this, riding off to rescue a princess or something. The lad had a jaunty little felt cap with a couple of bright feathers stuck in the band. I’d spent hours thinking about that picture, when I was scrubbing pots or pounding the washing in the copper tub, imagining what it would be like to be so free, to have adventures of my own.
How strange, I thought, remembering the loneliness and boredom I’d felt on the road up to the mountains; and then the terror of Bennett’s ghost in the dead of night, and the way my heart had pounded when the warlock appeared on the road to the cottage. This isn’t how I expected it would feel, at all.
But as I was standing there, twisting the reins between my fingers, my eye caught a little twinkle of light — another crystal, as long and slim as my finger, nestled into a crack in the stacked-stone wall.
With a small frown, I plucked it out, and rolled it between my fingers. ‘Why do I keep finding you fellows everywhere?’ I said, and then tucked it into my sleeve. ‘All right, my lad,’ I said to the horse. ‘We’ve got a job to do.’
I thought I’d be happier once I had a proper saddle to sit on and real reins to hold, but once I no longer had to put all my attention into staying on the grey’s slippery back, other thoughts began to push their way into my mind, driving away the picture in my memories. This was no storybook.
Ox eyes in a jar.
The black rider with his crystal-studded wand.
The pendant filled with soul-rending despair.
A dryad in a cage, sold like goods at a market.
Huge beasts made of dark earth, eyes glowing like coals.
The ghost of a dead man, driven to suicide by the cruelty of the old witch.
A demon tree with vines that hungered and raged, twisting and writhing like a nest of snakes.
My hands gripped the reins so tight my knuckles ached, and the horse danced beneath me, head coming up and ears twitching. He could sense my nervous tension, I realised, and I drew a deep breath and tried to let the tightness go. Lord and Lady, what am I doing here? I don’t belong here, I have no idea what I’m doing.
I bit my lip, thinking of the kitchen back home, the floor I’d scrubbed . . . how many times? A thousand? More? The sink I’d filled and emptied, the dishes I’d washed and washed again, until my fingers knew every ridge and warp in the plates, every chip and every dent in every pot. For the last few years I’d dreamed of leaving, of escaping, but now . . .
If Ma appeared on the trail ahead of me, like an apparition, and told me I could come home, what would I say? I remembered clearly how stifling it had felt, like I was a peach preserved in a jar, or an old cup in a cupboard. Not a prized teapot high on a shelf to keep it safe, I wasn’t worth that much. No, I was like our old draught mare out in the barn, there to be worked until I dropped and couldn’t work anymore.
I thought back to the long, dusty road up into the mountains, and the reading Brian had done for me; questions I’d asked without any forethought or any faith in the truth of their answers.
I wanted to go home. I missed it fiercely, every crack in the kitchen floor, the plates stacked in the cupboard, the dim, cool pantry. I hated it and I missed it and I hated myself for missing it. Isn’t this what you wanted? I asked myself. You’re free of it now, and out on your own. Isn’t this what you dreamed of? And you didn’t even have to pay a price for it. It just fell at your feet.
I reined in, fighting the horse to a stop. ‘Such a coward,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Run back home to Ma’s skirts, then.’
Coward. It wasn’t an insult Lem had ever hurled at me. Lazy, slovenly, selfish, greedy — all of those, but never coward. Maybe it was because I was a girl. Or maybe, a small voice inside my head whispered, it’s because he never wanted to stir you into trying to prove him wrong.
Go home? I drew a sharp breath, and with a toss of my head, nudged the horse onwards again. It wasn’t home I wanted, I reasoned. I just wanted comfort. I wanted my ma, to hear her voice and feel her arms around me. I wanted to hear her tell me that it would be all right, that I could do this, that everything would work out. But she’s never done it before. Why would she start now?
The horse snorted, lifting his head and pricking his ears, and with a start I pulled myself out of my slump and back to the present moment.
Up ahead on
the track was a slender figure dressed in green and brown — tall, skinny, with a shock of auburn curls. Kian.
He seemed to hear me at the same time as I spotted him, for he glanced around and veered quickly off the path, vanishing into a patch of brush.
My heart sank, and then I realised he likely had no idea it was me. Yesterday I’d been on foot, after all, just a servant girl with a basket on my back, and here I was on a fine horse, loaded down with travelling gear. I looked like the sort of person he would do his best to avoid.
‘Kian!’ I called, cupping a hand around my mouth, as though it would make the slightest difference. ‘Kian, it’s me! Elodie!’
There was silence, stillness, and then a twinge of pain in my chest. Well, I thought, I am servant to the witch he hates. He took off on me yesterday, for good reason. I can’t blame him for keeping his distance now. I was starting to wonder if it would have been wiser on my part to do the same.
But then, after a few more steps, his head popped out from the bushes and his face split into a grin. ‘Elodie? That is you! Lord and Lady, look at you! You look like you’re off to seek your fortune, or find true love.’
It was so close to the thought I’d had just a short time ago that I had to laugh. ‘Maybe if he was mine,’ I said, slapping the grey’s shoulder. ‘But he belongs to my mistress.’
‘Belongs? I doubt it. From what I know of her, she probably stole him.’ He was grinning as he said it, but then his smile swiftly faded. ‘Dee, I . . . look, I’m sorry I took off like that, yesterday. Folk like that make my skin crawl.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Truly. That rider, the one all in black, he makes me feel the same way.’
‘He does? But not the witch, though?’
When the grey reached his side I reined in and slipped down from the saddle so I could speak to him face-to-face rather than lord it over him from my perch.
‘She’s not so bad. I mean, she’s a bird of a different feather, for sure, but she’s not evil like the old witch was.’
‘No?’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘And you’ve known her for, what? All of a day?’
The words could have been snide, but he said it with a faint grin, so I took it for a gentle tease rather than the jab it would have been back home. ‘In my defence,’ I said, ‘it was a really long day.’
‘They always are, with those sort,’ he said. ‘Don’t work too hard, Dee, or she’ll expect you to move mountains every day of the week.’ His smile faded then, and he shifted his feet, winding a hand around the strap of his satchel, hanging empty by his hip. ‘Seriously, though, how is it? I can’t imagine what it must be like, leaving your family and your home, all to fetch and carry and slave away for something like her.’
Oh, it’s fine. That’s what I should say. The words were already hovering on my lips and tongue. Oh, it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.
‘It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s all so strange,’ I said. ‘Everything’s just so strange, and I don’t know what I’m doing here.’
I could have stopped it. I could have kept the words back, but I needed someone to talk to. There had been so many strange things, all in one short day. All of a sudden it was just spilling out of me, all of it — the ox eyes in the jars, the gold and jewels in the dark room, the huge beast that had stomped the black rider’s body into chaff and dust, and then stood sentinel over us while we bathed. The orchard with its gnarled and deformed trees and that one demented growth in the middle that hungered and raged with a demon’s strength. I even told him how she’d dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night to tackle the monster and tear off just one small spindly branch.
We found our way to a fallen tree as I spoke, and sat on the trunk while the horse grazed at the end of the reins. Kian listened in sober silence, letting me spill it all out. In the end I was breathless from talking, and all I could do was look down at my feet.
Somehow I doubted my mistress would thank me for telling him everything, even how weak she was, how unsteady on her feet and how the slightest exertion left her trembling. But, I reasoned, this wasn’t Melly, with a dozen brothers and sisters and friends and cousins to talk to. I’d liked Melly, I truly had, but I knew a gossip when I saw one. Kian was different. There was a certain kinship between us, it seemed to me. We came from very different worlds, it was true, but I couldn’t help but feel that my old life, with its endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and looking after children, was every bit as lonely and isolated as his life of hunting and trapping. I had more company, perhaps, but he had the freedom to come and go as he wished, beholden to none but himself. We each had something to envy, and something to regret.
When I was done Kian drew a deep breath. ‘That’s . . . well, strange is one way to put it. Not the word I’d use. Terrifying, maybe? Petrifying?’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘It’s not that bad.’
I glanced up to find him regarding me steadily with his wide brown eyes. ‘Honestly, Dee, are you sure you want to stay with her? Is this truly better than your home? Or, I don’t know, anywhere else you could go?’
‘I’m not going home,’ I said, firmly. ‘I’m not.’
‘Really? I tell you, I wish I had a home to go to.’
‘Not like mine, you don’t,’ I said. ‘Not unless you enjoy being told every day how worthless and lazy and useless you are. Say what you like about Aleida, she appreciates what I do for her. She doesn’t treat me like something she scraped off her shoe.’
His jaw dropped at that, and he ducked his head. ‘Oh. Right. I guess, I mean, I only ever had my ma, but I never doubted that she loved me.’
‘It must be lonely without her,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine . . .’
He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. His hands, I noticed, were soft and clean, not calloused and cracked like Yosh’s or Lem’s, or like Attwater’s. ‘It is,’ he said. ‘I think that’s why I hate her so much — the witches, I mean. Ma would still be alive if only they could be bothered to help her.’
I felt myself straighten, then. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When Ma died, it was consumption, you see? We never had a proper house, just a little shack with a dirt floor. It was always damp, you just can’t get rid of it in the winter. She got sick one year and never really got better. We got that potion once, and it helped. It helped a lot. But the next winter it came back. Ma was too sick to get out of bed, she’d pass out if she tried to sit up. She couldn’t breathe. I asked them for help, and they just laughed at me. I had no coin to pay them, and no matter what I promised to do to pay them back, they just laughed at me and chased me away. And now . . .’ he scowled, dark as a thunderstorm. ‘And now you tell me they’ve got a whole room full of gold and jewels, just sitting around? I had nothing! Nothing in the world but her.’ He ground his heel into the dirt then, scouring a hole in the soft soil. ‘It’s not just me they’ve done this to, either. I told you about the man she poisoned, didn’t I? He dropped dead in the tavern one night, just took a swig of ale and keeled over. Everyone in the district has a tale to tell about those witches. You just have to ask and the truth about them comes spilling out.’
I felt my mouth hanging open like an idiot, and forced myself to close it. That didn’t sound like the Aleida I knew. It didn’t sound like her at all . . . but then, she’d told me herself that she’d done things she wasn’t proud of. Mrs Sanford hadn’t told me much, but she’d made it clear that she had little in the way of kind thoughts for my mistress. And then there were Attwater and Laurel, and the suspicion they’d brought to that pained, awkward meeting on the green. If there’s anyone here who doesn’t truly know her, I thought, it’s me.
Kian sighed and shook his hair back from his face. ‘Look, Dee, I’m not trying to make you feel wretched. I just think you’ve got a right to know all this stuff. And, honestly, I like you. It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone to talk to . . . and here I am, spilling my guts all over your feet.’
I glanc
ed down, feeling stiff and cold and empty. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Honestly, it’s all right. I kind of feel the same way. I mean, when I set out to come here, it had been two years since I’d set foot out of our place. Two years since I’d talked to anyone outside of our family. And you — it has to be about the same for you, right?’
He nodded, hesitantly. ‘Yeah. Something like that.’
I looked around, swallowing hard against the tightness in my chest — and then I noticed the angle of the light streaming through the trees, casting dappled shade over the forest floor. I jumped up with a start. ‘Oh, Lord and Lady!’
‘What?’ Kian was on his feet just as quickly, reaching for his bow. ‘What is it?’
‘How long have we been sitting here? Good grief, she’s going to wonder where I’ve got to. I’m supposed to be hunting down ingredients for a potion for her, and she wanted them soonest.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and I could hear the concern in his voice. ‘Oh, hells. And here I’ve been taking up all your time.’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault. I needed someone to talk to, someone . . . someone I could trust not to spread it around.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t tell a soul. She’s got a frightful temper, that one. If she heard what you’d said and took anger over it, I couldn’t live with myself. But, Dee, you’ve barely been here a day, and you don’t know anything about the mountains. How are you going to find anything?’
‘Oh, I . . .’ I faltered, then. I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. ‘I . . .’
‘Let me help you,’ he said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t. You’ve got your own belly to fill.’ I gestured to his bow and empty satchel.
‘Never mind that, I can forage as we go along. There’s plenty I can put in a pot that won’t be scared off by us and the horse.’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ I said. I schooled my voice carefully, but inside my heart was suddenly pounding. It had been so long since I’d had a real friend, any friend at all; let alone one who could make my innards quiver with a shy smile. ‘It would truly be an enormous help.’