Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 01]

by The Fire Sword (v0. 9) (epub)

  A AVON

  PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT, DISCUS AND FLARE BOOKS

  PART I

  Candlemas

  I

  The silence woke her. Eleanor sat up in bed and looked into the darkness, listening for something that was not there. The small alarm clock beside her bed, with its friendly glowing face, was simply gone. She reached out for the lamp, and her hand met empty air. A frown, a flicker of panic, and a shiver. The shiver grew, and she knew the room was actually cold.

  It was so quiet that she could hear the thump of her heart, the soft hiss of her own breathing. There were no street noises at all. Only silence. Since this was more puzzling than frightening, she stuck her feet out of bed, groping for slippers that were not there. Cold, bare floorboards met her toes, and she drew back for a moment, then, thrusting the covers aside in a firm gesture, she went to the window.

  The window, all the little diamond panes that were such a bother to clean, and which her house-proud Yorkshire mother insisted be washed once a month, was right there in the wall where it belonged. Eleanor reached out and touched the glass, icy under her fingertips, to assure herself of its reality, then opened the catch and pushed with both hands. The funny wooden hinges gave a creak, and one side stuck a little, warped from centuries of weather.

  Eleanor looked out onto a broad expanse of snow. The houses across the mews, all solid brick, the mews itself, all gone. For a second she just gaped, not feeling the cold air rushing into her face, craning her neck around for a glimpse of some familiar structure. Her hands gripped the windowsill.

  Panic swept over her. She tried to scream and found her throat so tight, she made only a little squeak, like a rabbit being strangled. She balled up her hands and

  banged them down on the sill. The cold and the pain pushed the panic back a little.

  "This isn’t a dream,” she whispered. "I’ll just shut the window and go back to bed.” But she didn’t move. The white landscape seemed to mesmerize her. The moon was just rising, a sickly sliver of silver. A fox raced across the snow, leaving deep holes in the virgin whiteness. It vanished into a small grove of trees, the only object in view.

  Eleanor stared until the cold began to pierce her bones, and she was sure that there was nothing more to see. She drew the windows in and fumbled the catch closed, her hands stiff and clumsy. She rubbed them together and blew on her fingertips, then caught a glimpse of her tiny face reflected in the many panes. She peered at her face almost anxiously.

  It was her own, the straight black hair framing the narrow, pale face. Her generous mouth and wide, green eyes were distorted in the glass a little, so she looked to herself like some bizarre clown. She realized that she had almost been afraid that there would be no features there, that her face would have vanished like the buildings. She turned back toward the bed.

  It was less reassuring than she had expected. When she crawled back under them, the sheets felt harsh under her hand, and the coverlet was unfamiliar. Instead of the rather worn quilt made by Gramma Leighton, there was a rough blanket of wool. She rubbed the material between her fingers and looked around the room.

  The walls were bare wood instead of the cheerful, flowered paper she had chosen herself when they bought the house. There was no furniture beyond the bed and a large trunk. Like the lamp, clock, and nightstand, her desk, chair, and bureau had vanished. Ellie gulped convulsively and clutched the blankets. She looked at the bare plank floor and grieved for the fluffy carpet.

  "I must be losing my mind,” she said. "Or else this is all some elaborate hoax. Someone moved me in my sleep. Don’t be paranoid. Why would anyone do that? They even stole my robe.”

  The absence of that garment seemed to her to be the

  last straw, and she wept a little. She brushed the tears away on her sleeve and sniffed loudly.

  "Damn. Not even a Kleenex.” This made the tears stop, and she almost laughed at herself. Eleanor shook herself all over and got out of bed.

  She opened the trunk and peered at the contents in the pale light. There were garments folded up, and she pulled one out. It was a thick wool robe, a simple tuniclike garment, and she pulled it on over her head. It fell to the floor in deep folds. She fingered it suspiciously, as if it might vanish on her body, then hugged its warmth to her. She saw a long, narrow piece of patterned stuff and she tied it around her waist. The ends dangled onto the floor, so she untied it and crossed it back and forth before retying it.

  "Swell. Basic early Norman,” she said, looking at the belt. "Just what I always didn’t want. No bathrooms, no aspirin, and no Kleenex. I have to stop talking to myself, or I will be crazy.”

  What do I do now? I would give anything for a marching band playing John Philip Sousa under the window. My feet are freezing. Socks. Find some socks. Keep it simple. Concentrate on real things. What is real? I am, and the clothes are, and the fox and the snow. Somehow that isn’t comforting.

  Ellie knelt down in front of the trunk and removed the various garments. She finally found a pair of woolen hose and wriggled into them, tying the drawstring around her waist. "No elastic,” she muttered.

  There were boots in the bottom of the trunk, beautiful leather things with thick soles. She sat on the floor and struggled into them, hampered by the wide sleeves of the tunic. Much to her surprise, they fit. She sat there wiggling her toes.

  "Nothing like shoes and socks to make you feel right with the world. I wish there was a light. Damn. Talking to myself again. Candle? I couldn’t light it anyhow. No matches. How did they manage?” She sorted through the garments on the floor, folding them after she examined them, one pile on the floor, the other in the trunk. She lingered a moment over a soft, velvety dress, the neck and sleeve edges worked in embroidery, and put it back.

  The pile on the floor consisted of a couple of shifts of very fine linen, two heavy skirts with drawstring waists, another robe, and a cloak. There was also a second pair of hose, a second belt, and a leather pouch. Eleanor sat on the cold floor and looked at the stuff for a long time.

  "Now what? Explore the house and see if I’m really alone. Oh, Lord. Mother.” The thought of her parent both comforted and distressed her. If there was anything Elizabeth Hope hated, it was a lack of amenities. She had spent a lifetime gathering the stories of people who did very nicely without bathtubs or penicillin, but she secretly disapproved of them, and Eleanor knew it.

  Eleanor got up and opened the door of her room cautiously. There was only a wide field of snow beyond the door. She stepped out onto it and walked a few steps, then looked back. There was nothing but a small wooden building, her "room.” The house itself was as gone as the street and the row houses. She fled back inside and slammed the door behind her, leaning against it and panting.

  Her head buzzed, a slight nauseating feeling, as if she had a glass of champagne somehow sloshing just above her brows, within the high bones of her skull. It was a feeling she associated with kneeling and the smell of incense, the chill, drafty feeling of old Irish churches on Sunday mornings, ignoring the giddiness of no breakfast, the drone of the priest’s voice leading her mind into a dizzy trance. She had never cared much for those occasions, not that there were many. Her parents had been fairly casual in their religious duties. There had always just been something slippery about Mass— especially in Ireland—as if she might slide out of her young body into some foreign time and place.

  As she had clutched the peW back as a child, palms sweating and knuckles whitened, she now scrabbled at the rough wood of the door, pressing a moist cheek and a damp forehead against the panels. The smell of old wood filled her nostrils as she made herself breathe deeply and slo
wly. Eleanor kept her eyes closed as the buzzing in her skull subsided.

  Be logical, she told herself sternly. Don’t panic. This is quite impossible. That’s not logical. Now, the room is bare wood, but the window is modem; well, modem for England. When were paned windows invented? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. My room is part of the original house, but that was Elizabethan. No, wait. Why didn’t I pay more attention to Mrs. Bixby when she was talking about the house?

  Eleanor pressed her forehead against the wood of the door and thought. Let’s see. Our house was built about 1875 after fire destroyed the Tudor house. There was another fire, earlier, I think, and that’s when the Dun-cannons built the Tudor place. Philip Duncannon did something nice for Henry VIII, and he got the place. Why would anyone be nice to a nasty poop like Henry Tudor? Before Duncannon, the land belonged to a Randolph Gretry. That bit of open land is still called Gre-try’s Meadow. Not to mention the trench called Dolph’s Ditch. Gretry is a French name, so it’s probably an Anglo-Norman family.

  There was a lot more forest then, I think, so a wooden house is right. Castles were for knights, but a wooden room nine hundred years old Is a little hard to believe. Worms and rot should have done it in long ago.

  Except, here I am, in clothes that are new but old, in a room with a glass window but older, with no food and no fire and no map. I don’t even speak the language. Modem French is different. Latin? I couldn’t even manage Chaucer, but Latin I can do. Except it’s modern, too. I’ll probably get burned as a witch the first time I open my mouth—if I ever find anyone to talk to.

  A witch! Didn’t Mrs. Bixby say the Gretrys had a reputation as magicians? Swell. That’s what I need right now, to start worrying about whether magic is real. I can’t see any buildings around. What was around that’s vaguely contemporaneous with these clothes? That priory. St. Bridget’s. I walked over to the ruins once. It’s about two miles, I hope.

  What should I do? Sit here and starve to death. Or freeze. No. First I dress as warmly as possible, and then I walk to St. Bridget’s. Or somewhere.

  Relieved to have come to some decision, Eleanor removed her belt and took off the robe. She put one of the shifts over her nightgown, then the two skirts. She put the tunic back on and redid the belt. The rest of the clothes she made into a bundle with the blanket on the bed. Then she drew the cloak over her shoulders.

  After taking several deep breaths, she picked up the bundle and slung it over one shoulder and opened the door. She stepped out resolutely, the snow crunching softly under her boots. She took a moment to orient herself and then began to walk in the direction in which she thought the priory lay.

  Eleanor began to count her steps, ignoring the cold and the darkness. The moon provided a sickly light, just enough to help her avoid larger obstacles, such as stones and logs, but not enough to let her see depressions in the earth. Several times she stepped into holes, her foot sinking into the snow to her boot tops and even over. Icy trickles ran down her calves into her boots.

  When she had counted twenty-five hundred steps, a generous half-mile by her reckoning, she paused. There was a dark line of trees before her. The moonlight did not penetrate below the twisted branches. She tried to remember what wild animals might inhabit the woods. Bears, she decided, should be hibernating. Wolves, on the other hand, would be awake and hungry. She almost turned back, but that felt wrong.

  Her father had teased her often about her "second sight,” and her mother had regarded those occasional irrational reactions to places or situations with well-bred silence. Eleanor suspected that her very reserved mother was subject to similar sensations. She had asked Elizabeth about it once. "Your grandmother used to do that” was the only answer she had received.

  Eleanor squared her chin and walked into the woods. She began counting her steps again, moving cautiously to avoid tripping over any logs lurking under the snow. The slender trunks of birches gleamed in the pale moonlight, and she followed what seemed to be a trail. Then the birches gave way to oaks, dark and majestic, and the trail vanished. She moved more slowly between the oaks and lost count of her footsteps.

  She felt the panic return in the darkness under the trees and forced herself to continue walking. The cold seeped into her feet and crawled up her legs. A faint breeze rattled the branches and drove bits of moisture into her face.

  I should have waited for morning. But I couldn’t. Maybe it’s the Twilight of the Gods, and there is no morning. Maybe that fox is the only other thing alive in the world. Stop scaring yourself, you damn fool! There’s nothing but trees and snow and moonlight. Nothing to fear. If only it weren’t so quiet.

  The trees seemed to thin a little. Eleanor put down her bundle and flexed her hands. They ached with cold and strain. She rubbed her shoulders and twisted her neck from side to side. She was just about to pick the bundle up again when a faint sound made her stop. She looked up at the slender moon, glad of its light.

  A large animal trotted toward her through the trees. Eleanor froze in mid-movement. A wolf loped up to her, its tongue lolling between shining teeth. It stopped a few feet away from her and sat down in the snow.

  They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. The wolf made no move to come closer but remained grinning at her in canine fashion. Perhaps she was mistaken and it was only a very large dog.

  "I’m not good to eat,” she said in a shaking voice. "I’m all full of preservatives and chemicals that would probably give you a terrible stomachache. Besides, I am not going to grandma’s house. There must a nice rabbit around for your dinner. Much tastier than tough old me.”

  The animal whined and brushed its tail back and forth on the snow. Eleanor looked at it very carefully, sure it wasn’t a dog, and confused by its behavior. She began to back away slowly and the wolf growled.

  She stopped moving. The wolf appeared to run out of patience and got up. It bounded toward her, whining and wagging. A warm, wet tongue touched her hand. Puzzled, she reached out to pat its head tentatively. The wolf gave a sharp yelp and butted its head against her leg. It was clearly a greeting.

  Eleanor felt sweat dripping down her body despite the cold. The animal tore around her in a circle, sending snow flying, barking sharply, then tore back through the woods in the direction it had come from. It ran a short distance, then stopped and looked back at her hopefully and trotted back up to her. When it had repeated this several times, she shrugged, picked up her bundle, and walked after it. Obviously the wolf had decided they were going the same way. How could she argue?

  "I hope you’re not taking me home for dinner,” she said. "You ought to at least call your wife and tell her you’re bringing a guest.”

  The wolf responded with a sharp bark and trotted on. Eleanor kept up as best she could until she was nearly breathless. The woods thinned slowly until they earner out onto a broad expanse of snow.

  Out from under the trees, the wolf appeared even larger than before. He was as big as any mastiff Eleanor had ever seen, though not as massive. His coat was black with a silvery ruff, and there seemed to be a sort of nimbus of light around him, as if the moon shone more brightly off his black body. She slowed her pace, wiping her face with the sleeve of her robe.

  "Hey, wolf! I only have two legs. Slow down. What am I saying? Wolves don’t speak English. But, then, wolves don’t fawn on people, either.”

  The animal looked at her and appeared to understand. Instead of leading her, it dropped back and paced slowly beside her. Eleanor found this both reassuring and disturbing, but somehow the wolf felt right.

  She remembered her father shaking his head over some old Irish romance. "We Celts are all fatalists. We rush toward our fatal destinies like drunken lovers, cheerful as the waters close over our heads.” He said the same thing many times, but this was the first occasion on which Eleanor felt she understood it.

  Finally, a small building was silhouetted against the darker sky on a small rise. Eleanor could just make out the gleam of a modest cro
ss above the roof. As they crossed the field, she tried to remember everything she could about the early Church. The difference between a monastery, a priory, and an abbey eluded her, but she did remember that one of the first things William the Conqueror had done was to put Norman bishops all over the landscapes. She was thinking so hard, she almost forgot that her companion was a wolf.

  They climbed the rise, Eleanor moving more and more slowly. The building looked dark and uninhabited, and she was almost afraid of what might be inside. Her parents subscribed to a vague Catholicism and went to church on Easter and Christmas, and her knowledge of the Church was mainly from her wide, if somewhat undisciplined, reading of history. She knew that monks stayed up all night praying and wondered if priors did as well. And, unless there was a war, which seemed unlikely in the winter, the chapel should be unlocked. She decided she would just creep in and sleep on a pew until morning.

  "I’ll just be very quiet and I won’t disturb anyone. I don’t think God will mind if I sleep in His house, do you?” The wolf made no answer.

  But when they came to the large wooden door, she hesitated. She was tired and cold, and her legs and back ached. Her stomach growled, and her dinner of steak-and-kidney pie seemed very long ago. She just stared at the door.

  The animal watched her for a moment, then took matters into its own paws. Standing on his hind legs, the wolf reached up and took a piece of rope by the door in his great jaws. He yanked, and Eleanor heard a bell ring somewhere inside.

  All her fears rushed back. She stood trembling as the slap of sandals echoed on the other side of the door. She was too tired to run. The wolf leaned against her body again. She felt the warmth of his breath on her hand. The door swung open.

  II

  "Lady Alianora! You have returned. Praise the Lord!” The man who opened the door said these words, then raised his hand to his eyes as if to shade them from a bright light. He frowned. "Where have you been? Were you ensorceled?”