“Just as she betrayed you!” Ivy cried, her voice rising with anguish. “How can she see you come to this? Does she care nothing for your common history, for the years you spent together?”
He stroked her hand with his thumb. “No, Ivoleyn, there is no use in feeling anger for Ashaydea. She cannot be anything other than what she has been made into. Better that you should pity her than hate her.”
“Why?” Ivy said, looking upon his face again. “Why should I not despise her?”
He gave a great sigh. “It would take a long time to explain, more time than I fear we have. But you spoke of our common history, and you should know that, while what happened to her that day at the circle of stones near Heathcrest was Mr. Bennick’s doing, I cannot claim that I had no part in it. All of us in Earl Rylend’s household did.”
As he spoke, some of Ivy’s anguish was replaced by curiosity. She remembered the old elf circle near Heathcrest Hall, and the way the great stones appeared as if they had been cracked and burned. What had happened all those years ago, when Ashaydea was a ward of Earl Rylend, and Mr. Quent was the son of the earl’s steward? That the two had been close friends once, Ivy was certain. Only then Mr. Bennick had come to tutor the earl’s son, and everything was altered.
Yet as curious as she was, her husband was right. This time was too precious to waste it upon discussions of Lady Shayde. Instead she asked him about his treatment in the prison, which though hard and oppressive, was not unbearable. He in turn inquired after her sisters, and she spoke more of what she had learned of Rose’s ability to see light around certain people. This both fascinated and worried him, and he told her to keep her sister away from any others that might be curious about this peculiar talent—a matter upon which she agreed. When both of them were satisfied, he glanced at the door opposite the one through which Ivy had entered the chamber, but still the soldier had not come back for him.
“I wonder,” he said, “if Lord Valhaine has taken any actions against the Wyrdwood yet. I did not have a chance to ask Lord Rafferdy about it.”
“I do not believe so,” she said. “Or at least, no actions that have been made public.”
Ivy thought of the door Arantus in the upstairs gallery at the house on Durrow Street. It occurred to her that she could unlock it, step through, and look through the other portals that still opened onto stands of Wyrdwood to see if they had been disturbed. Though she could not help thinking, if they had in fact been attacked, somehow she would know it.
“But would it not be folly for him to do so?” she went on. “Surely Lord Valhaine knows the reason why the Wyrdwood has been left all these years, and what would happen if it were attacked. No doubt you have told him that the more it is harmed, the more it will rise up and fight back.”
“Yes, so I have told him, many times. I told him what my own father told me long ago, that the only way to win against the Old Trees is to lose something to them. But I fear that, in his heart, Valhaine has never really believed me. He was never a man who could accept any sort of defeat. And now he is greatly influenced by the magicians of the Golden Door.”
“What of this?” she said, gently touching his left hand, and the thick scar where the last two fingers should have been. “Doesn’t he believe this?”
He let out a low grunt. “He thinks it only a sign of my folly and an unnatural fascination with the Old Trees. Valhaine does not know the particulars of what happened.”
“Neither do I,” she murmured, stroking his wounded hand. “You told me it happened when you spent a greatnight in the Wyrdwood. But you’ve never told me what took place that night.”
“No,” he said gruffly, “I have not.”
“But why?”
“I do not know. It was not something I had a wish to conceal from you, but nor was it something I have ever been eager to relate. Perhaps it is simply because, when I am with you, it is not the past and its hard lessons that I care to dwell on.”
Still the soldier had not yet come. Ivy tightened her own fingers around the three that remained on his left hand. “Please,” she said, gazing into his brown eyes. He looked away from her, and for a moment he was silent, so that she thought he would not speak at all.
Only then he did.
“My father gave me a small pocketknife the day I turned twelve,” he said, then smiled fondly. “I do not have the knife anymore, but I can still picture it clearly. The blade was on a hinge, so that it could be folded inside the haft, which was inlaid with ivory he had brought from the Murgh Empire. It was exceedingly fine and was exceedingly sharp as well. As you might imagine, there was not a boy in the West Country who was prouder of a knife, and I used it to whittle many a stick and skin many a rabbit.”
Ivy smiled herself at this image of her husband, not as the hale and powerful man she had always known, but as a boy of twelve, hunting for rabbits among the gorse upon the moors.
“Not long after my birthday came the start of the new year,” he went on, his voice louder now. “It was still the custom then in the country, on the first umbral of the year, to beat the bounds of the village.”
She shook her head. “Beat the bounds?”
“A bit of West Country superstition. Mrs. Seenly would know what I speak of. Beating the bounds is a tradition in which all the men would march about the edges of the village, banging pots and hammers or the like in order to make the greatest racket possible. The idea of old, I suppose, was to scare off any ghosts or spirits that might have slipped through the crack between the old year and the new. Of late, it was more an excuse for a noisy revel. But as I was twelve, I was now old enough to go with the men as they beat the bounds, and I was very excited to do it.”
Fascinated, Ivy listened as he described that night more than thirty years ago. It seemed she was no longer in a dank chamber beneath Barrowgate, but there on the West Country moors, as people reveled in the village of Cairnbridge and bonfires leaped up toward the black sky.
At that time, the elder Mr. Quent had been the steward of Earl Rylend for many years, and the Quents dwelled in Burndale Lodge, in the hollow of the slope beneath Heathcrest Hall. Despite his service to the earl, Mr. Quent had not forgotten his ties to Cairnbridge. While the people of the manor did not participate in such quaint folk customs as First Umbral, Mr. Quent never failed to attend—his duties allowing, of course. So that year, young Alasdare Quent and his father rode down from Burndale Lodge to the village to join in.
The elder Mr. Quent was not game for beating the bounds of the village himself. By then, he was already under the grip of the illness which, though they did not know it then, was afflicted upon him by the curse of Am-Anaru. But the illness was not so severe then, causing only a bit of weakness and palsy, and he was happy to find a chair and a cup of wine near the bonfire. He gave his son permission to go with the other men on their rounds, and young Alasdare eagerly ran off to join them, the ivory-handled knife tucked in his pocket, just in case.
As it happened, the first umbral of the year was also a greatnight, and so it was that the band of village men, having plenty of time and ale as well, roved far and wide around Cairnbridge, over heath and stream and dale, lighting the way with torches and lanterns. Alasdare had little issue keeping up with them, as he was not drinking the ale himself, and he banged on his pot with great enthusiasm all the way.
In the course of their rounds, they did not come upon any ghosts or spirits. But there are other sorts of shadows that slink about on a greatnight. So it was, plunging down a slope and through a hedge, the group suddenly came upon a man leading five horses down a bridle path. The man wore a kilt of ragged plaid above scuffed boots, and a sword hung at his side in a worn scabbard. That he was a Torlander was as obvious from his kilt as the hoo-thar-nows he spoke to the horses to keep them from rearing up at the sudden noise of the men breaking through the hedge.
Back then, the hills between County Westmorain and Torland were thick with bandits and brigands. Many of them were supporters of the Ol
d Usurper who had been driven there by the king’s soldiers years ago, and now they made their living by creeping out of the Grimwolds on long nights to pilfer cattle and horses on either side of the border.
No doubt the fellow had presumed the folk of the village would all be keeping close to the fires and the ale casks that night, and that they would not be roving so far afield. Yet if he had thought the revelry would provide cover for his mischief, he was mistaken. Now he had been caught leading five horses that were known to be the property of Handon Arrent—for Arrent was there in the party, and he recognized the horses at once as his own.
The village men shouted at the thief and made a grab for him. But the Torlander whipped the horses with a stick, sending them galloping at the men, forcing them to scatter. The villagers quickly calmed the horses and rounded them up, but in the interim the thief had turned and fled into the night.
The men quickly broke up into two groups to pursue him. One struck off for the river, in case he had used a coracle to make a crossing, and the others headed for the road to Low Sorrell, as that was the quickest route out of the county. There was only one other direction he might have gone from that place: over the hill north of Cairnbridge to strike out cross-country. But that would take him closer to the village, and treading the sides of the hill would have put him in plain view to all eyes, for the moon was rising by then, and no one thought he would be so foolish as that. With their plan formed, the men gave chase.
“And did you go with them?”
Mr. Quent shook his head. “No, Handon Arrent told me this was no longer a merry jaunt, and that I was to head back to the village. Then they left me there on the bridle path as they headed off into the night.”
Ivy met his gaze. “But you didn’t go back.”
Again he smiled. “No, I did not. I had the notion that if I were the one to find the thief, then I would make my father very proud of me. At that age, there was nothing else in all the world that I wanted.”
“And did you find the thief?” Ivy asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.
“Yes, I did,” he said, his smile vanishing. Then he finished the story.
Young Alasdare knew he couldn’t follow the village men, for if he caught up to them, they would only send him home. While the others had dismissed the idea that the thief would go over the hill, Alasdare wasn’t so certain the Torlander wouldn’t make a go of it. If he were a thief, he reasoned, he would head in the direction everyone least expected.
So it was that Alasdare plunged back through the hedge and headed back the way they had come, climbing stiles and scrambling over stone walls. He ran as fast as he could, not stopping when he barked his shins on stones or nettles stung his hands. Soon he reached the hill that stood north of the village and started up the slope.
Whether his reasoning was right, or it was simply luck, he had gone halfway up the slope when, above him, he glimpsed a man in a dirty kilt pacing before a stone wall. Beyond the wall rose a tangle of black branches.
Alasdare understood the man’s hesitation, for the thief was in a quandary. The crown of the hill was covered with a stand of Wyrdwood. The thief could circle around to either side of the hill, but the sides were bare of all but heather and grass, and the moon was bright above. What was more, numerous red sparks of light moved all around the base of the hill. They were torches and lanterns, for more men had been enlisted in the search. All that one of them had to do was look up at the hill, and if the thief was there, exposed on the slope, they would see him.
So the Torlander dared not go around, but he could not go down either, for that way lay the village, and Alasdare could hear the church bell tolling an alarm. There was only one other way the man might go—over the wall.
Yet it was clear he was loath to do so, and nor could Alasdare blame him. For as long as he could remember, his father had warned him never to venture into a stand of Wyrdwood. Of course, he knew of a few boys who had done so upon a dare. But even then, for all their boasting, they had done nothing more than to creep a few feet into the eaves of a grove of Old Trees before turning back, and then only in the middle of a long lumenal.
Now it was a greatnight, and the branches of the trees hung over the wall like hands withered by fire.
Alasdare thought for certain the thief would attempt to go around the side of the hill, clinging to the shadows by the wall in the hope he would escape notice. Only then the fellow looked up, and he let out a cry of surprise to see Alasdare standing there below him in plain view, lantern in hand.
That a brawny and coarse-faced man should have been afraid of a boy—one who was short for his twelve years—was astonishing. But perhaps the Torlander assumed that the appearance of Alasdare meant the men were just behind. If so, the fear of being captured evidently outweighed any other, for at once the Torlander scrambled up the stone wall, using the overhanging branches to pull himself up and over. In a moment he was gone, vanished into the Wyrdwood.
“I should have gone back to the village,” Mr. Quent said. “I should have told my father what I had seen. But I was taken with the idea of catching the Torlander—though I confess I had little idea what I would do when I did. And so I climbed up the wall after him.”
Even though she had fully expected this, based upon her knowledge of his history, still Ivy let out a gasp.
“You went into the Wyrdwood,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he said, though he did not seem proud of it. “In my eagerness, all of my father’s warnings were forgotten. I scaled the wall quickly enough, being a nimble climber, then dropped to the dry leaves on the other side. Then, following the Torlander, I went deeper into the stand of trees.”
Now he looked away from her, into the darkness that filled the chamber, as if gazing into that shadowy grove once more.
“Even if I wished to, I could scarcely recount for you what took place after that. I could see little in the gloom, for I had left my lantern, being unable to carry it as I climbed the wall. And if there are words capable of describing such sounds as I heard, I do not know what they are. But as I went into the Wyrdwood, the air was filled with a terrible creaking and groaning, and the trees thrashed as if stirred by a fierce wind, though I was sure the night had been clear and calm.
“Before long, I forgot any desire to find the thief, and I wanted nothing but to make my way back to the wall. But I could not find it. On my way into the grove, I had followed what seemed to be a little path, one that shone faintly in the glimmers of the moon that fell through the branches above. But when I tried to retrace it, the path seemed to bend around, leading deeper in the grove. It was as if the trees had somehow shifted. Soon I was certain I had gone around in a giant circle.
“I began to feel a great fear then. I tried to call out, but the air stifled my voice so that it did not carry. Indeed, I felt an overwhelming surety that my presence in the wood was unwanted. An urge came upon me to run through the grove in any direction. It did not matter which way—to stand still was unbearable. But at that very moment, I saw him in a wild flicker of moonlight: the Torlander. Just past him, between the tossing branches, I glimpsed a rough expanse of gray. It was the wall. He must have seen it as well, for he let out a shout and ran toward it. But then …”
He shook his head, and for a minute he was silent. When at last he spoke again, his voice was very low.
“I could see little, for even as the thief moved the forest grew suddenly thick, as if the trees crowded around him. I saw him draw his sword and try to hack at the branches. But this only seemed to make the trees bend and lash all the more vigorously. After that I could not see him through the branches. But the sounds—what I heard froze my blood. There was a grinding, and a noise like the snapping of dry twigs. I heard him cry out again, and then his cries ceased in a most unnatural manner.
“Still the trees tossed and bent, as if whipped by a wind I could not feel myself. I caught another glimpse of the wall, not twenty yards away through the trees. My ev
ery desire was to run for it, but I knew I dared not, that if I ran, if I fought against them in any way, then the trees would close around me just as they had around the Torlander. So instead I huddled in a hollow at the foot of an old oak, pressing myself against the rough bark of the great trunk, trying to make myself as still and small as the least bit of fungus or mold that clung to it. I shut my eyes and did not move. And in that way, I spent the remainder of the greatnight in the Wyrdwood.
“It seemed an eon. Indeed, I know now it was nearly twenty hours that I crouched against the tree without motion. After a time I felt a pain in my hand, one that grew worse by the hours, but still I did not dare to move. Only when, at last, I detected a light warmer and brighter than moonlight on my face did I open my eyes. Little dapples of sunlight fell upon the mold of the forest floor. Morning had come.
“There was not a breath of wind, and all the grove was still. My father had always said it was at night the Old Trees woke, especially on a greatnight, and that by day they drowsed. Recalling this, I thought to leave the hollow where I had crouched. But as I tried to move, I found that my left hand was caught fast in a crack in the tree. The bark had curled and folded around my fingers during the night, clasping them fast, and no amount of tugging would free them. I cried out, hoping my father might hear me, for certainly he was searching for me. But the listless air in the wood muffled my shouts, so that they did not carry. Nor would my father ever think I would be so foolish as to venture into the Wyrdwood. I would have to find my own way out.
The Master of Heathcrest Hall Page 44