Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1)

by Leonard Wilson

“There was an Imperial fort up there that Emperor Lupus used as his headquarters during his final war against the barbarians. He burned with it on the Night of Skulls, and the rock has been cursed ever since.”

  “No one’s tried rebuilding in all that time?” Keely asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Addie said. “There’ve been three or four more castles up there. They always fall into ruin. The last one just blew up.”

  “It blew up?” Keely raised an eyebrow.

  “It was one of the very first castles to be outfitted with cannons. Earl Jedrick wanted to turn it into a mighty citadel and bring some glory back to this place. They say for weeks you could watch gunpowder being carted up the hill by the ton. Then one day…boom. Farmers still turn up shards of old castle wall in their fields, miles from the Wolf’s Tooth.”

  “Sounds like quite a colorful history.” Keely smiled grimly, shaking her head.

  “We tried to tell the pontifine not to build there, but people from the heartlands always know better than we do,” Addie said, her eyes challenging Keely to come out and declare herself one of those patronizing foreigners—or even sympathetic to them. “And now everything’s going wrong before her cathedral can even be built.”

  “What about this castle?” Keely asked. “It looks too old to have been built after that.”

  “It wasn’t, I think,” Addie said, leaning out over the battlements to enjoy the cool evening breeze on her face. The sky was gray, and the wind smelled of distant rain—no small delight to experience after the long, dry summer. “I don’t know much about its past, but I’m pretty sure it’s been around a good, long while. I think the other castles just weren’t around long enough for this one to ever fall out of use.”

  “Is this one cursed or haunted or anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” Addie answered earnestly. “Just the Wolf’s Tooth and the forest.”

  “I think Earl Haywood made some mention of that.” Keely nodded.

  “So that’s all you really need to worry about. Oh, and the books, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And maybe the Inquisition.” Addie nodded down toward a small procession being led through the streets by a black-robed woman on a courser—black with white markings—that even at this distance and in the fading light of oncoming dusk, radiated an aura of barely restrained power and temper. Flanking her rode another priestess of the Inquisition on one side, and a red-and-black clad knight of the Inquisition on the other. Trailing along after them marched half a dozen footmen in the livery of the Inquisition.

  “Oh, yes,” Keely said, biting her lip as she watched them cut a wake through the thinning crowds of the marketplace on their way toward the castle. “Them.”

  When Keely woke to the pale morning light filtering in through the narrow window of the little alcove, she yawned and stretched, digging her claws into the blanket and twisting this way and that, working the built-up kinks and stiffness out of her spine.

  According to Addie, Sister Shoshona—the inquisitrix—and her entourage had arrived at Weasel Gap a couple of days prior, in the company of Pontifine Augusta. She’d been charged with the business of rooting out whatever “loathsome heretics” were responsible for sabotaging progress on the cathedral, and for the death of a holy woman.

  Previously, that had been Earl Haywood’s responsibility, but the incident in which Sister Petra had died had regrettably been the most recent, not the first. The pontifine had—and most charitably, she seemed to think—decided that the earl was incapable of conducting the investigation and providing proper security for the site at the same time, so she’d decided to free him up to focus on preventing further setbacks.

  Keely had returned to the chapel to find Elissa still lying face-down on the cot, in what could have been the exact same position she’d left her. Satisfied that the Inquisition wasn’t likely to drag them out of their beds in the night, Keely had opted not to disturb the exhausted young woman and save any news that might disrupt her badly needed dreams for the morning.

  Keely had not been so satisfied, however, as to curl up peacefully in her own bed. Instead, she’d folded up her clothes neatly, transformed into a cat, and curled up on a pile of blankets in the corner beneath Elissa’s cot. There, hidden from view from anyone who might burst suddenly into their rooms, she’d finally realized how exhausted she herself had been, and she’d slept.

  And it was there, under the cot, as Keely lazily roused herself the next morning, that it dawned on her that something about the floor beneath the blankets didn’t feel quite right.

  Curiously, Keely poked her nose beneath the blankets, and sneezed at the whiff of mold up her nostrils. She sat back for a moment, rubbing her nose with her paws, and then when she’d quite recovered, held her breath and tried again.

  This time she discovered she’d spent the night lying on top of a small, weathered book. The thing lacked the air of ancient respectability—even in its metal fixtures—that she was looking for in a decoy, but it had somehow arranged for itself to wind up in what might be the only place no one had bothered to look while cleaning up Sister Petra’s personal effects, so Keely liked the odds that it contained some secret worth knowing.

  When Elissa at last stirred in her bed, it was to find Keely up, alert and dressed and sitting, watching her patiently.

  “Ready to face the day?” Keely chimed cheerfully.

  “Maybe,” Elissa grunted, rolling up onto her side. “Will it involve running from anyone or pretending I’m more charming than I am?”

  “Only if we’re lucky. We can start it off with a job I think you’ll actually like, though.” Keely slid the little book across the floor to Elissa.

  “Where did you get this?” Elissa asked with surprise.

  “Never you mind right now. Just have a look and tell me if there’s anything worthwhile in it.”

  “If you want to brush up on scripture, there is,” Elissa said, scooping up the book and beginning to thumb through it. “It’s a copy of the Exemplar Serinitas. If you mean anything other than that, though…” She shrugged, and as she did so, a sheaf of neatly folded papers slid out. Elissa picked up the papers and gave them a cursory scan, then stopped and began to study them more closely. As she did, an odd array of expressions played across her face, such that Keely couldn’t decide whether their sum total meant good news or bad by the time Elissa folded the papers crisply back into the book, snapped it shut, and declared, “We really need to get out and do some ministering.”

  They were most of the way across the main courtyard, headed for the castle gates, when a sharp, stern voice drew them up short. “Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

  The two young women turned slowly about to see Earl Haywood glowering at them from about fifty paces away, where he’d been talking with an inquisitrix. The black robed priestess remained silent, but stared at them implacably.

  “I’m…supposed to be ministering,” Elissa answered. Her voice faltered at first, but she quickly rallied after that first stammer, pulling herself up straight and delivering the rest of the answer with an indignant edge.

  “Not without an escort you’re not. Ulric! Nolan!” The nobleman shouted to the two men who’d been standing by the gate, at ceremonial attention in the presence of the inquisitrix. Excusing himself with a quick word to the black-robed priestess, Haywood stalked over to Elissa and Keely, where the guards joined them.

  “Our honored guests will be wanting bodyguards,” Haywood said, his tone forbidding any attempt at contradiction. “Consider yourselves assigned to them until the pontifine returns. Their lives are worth more than yours and your families’ put together. Don’t forget that for a minute, and never let them out of your sight.”

  “Such a fuss,” Elissa grumbled as they headed out. “Will you please stand back?! Just twenty paces? Okay, ten! Or do you think the weasels are liable to jump out and maul us to death before you can get that far?”

  Keely stifled a laugh. �
�They’re just doing their job,” she said quietly after the men had given them some room.

  “It won’t do them much good if I suffocate,” Elissa said. Then, lowering her voice, she added, “I guess this will have to do for privacy.”

  “So what was in the letters?” Keely whispered.

  “I think the girl was right: Sister Petra’s books did get her killed.” Elissa cast a glance over her shoulder, satisfying herself that the men were almost certainly out of earshot of hushed conversation. “It looks like she was corresponding with ‘Lady A’.”

  “Our Lady A?” Keely asked.

  “There’s no signature, but the wax seals were imprinted with an ‘A’, and they’re definitely talking about Amberford’s journals.”

  “That’s got to be her,” Keely agreed.

  “They don’t come right out and say it, but if I’m reading correctly between the lines, I think they were convinced that Amberford found you-know-what up on the Wolf’s Tooth itself, and Petra had started searching for it up there,” Elissa said.

  “Then it’s settled,” Keely said with a satisfied grin. “That’s where it’ll be found. Add those letters to the history of the place, and you’ve got a story that everyone will be wanting to believe.”

  They quieted down after that, then began to discuss inanities in normal tones, concerned that too much whispering would arouse curiosity in their escorts. When they’d set out for the morning, they’d had no more plan than to get somewhere off on their own where they could dare to make plans. Now, with even that plan spoiled, they floundered a bit, trying to figure out their next move without being seen to do anything that looked too overtly like the scheming that needed doing. Mercifully, the market just down from the castle gates offered an obvious first stop, and casually browsing its stalls amid the morning bustle gave Keely time to process the latest developments, formulate a plan, and whisper enough of it too Elissa that she could uphold the charade of being in charge.

  “I should like to start by having a word with the architect of the cathedral,” Elissa announced to their shadows. “Any reason to think I won’t find him at the construction site?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sabina's Breakdown

  It was mid-morning by the time a rather splendid carriage came rattling along the rutted road toward Weasel Gap, only to make an abrupt, unexpected stop at the fork in the road where Keely and Elissa had found themselves dropped off the day before. Beneath the layers of road dust, which now rendered the carriage various dingy shades of brown, lay paints of vibrant red and white and appointments of shining silver—all of which could probably be restored to their original glory at some point through the auspices of a vigorous cleaning.

  In the meantime, their muted hues only served to hint at the truth that the carriage had been designed with the thought of transporting fine ladies and gentlemen through the relatively clean, cobbled streets of the respectable parts of a respectable town. In fact, much more thought had gone into its construction as to the business of arriving in style than in the business of arriving at all, which might be why—after weeks of abuse, traveling between kingdoms and often along what only the most charitable soul could call roads—the carriage hit one particularly deep rut, and something in the front axle splintered with a resounding crack. The left front wheel sheered away, and the carriage pitched in that direction so suddenly the coachman flew from his seat to land in what would have been mud had the parched ground not been so thirsty to drink up the rains that had come in the night. As it was, the rains had at least softened the dirt, so perhaps he achieved the most merciful landing possible under the circumstances. Nonetheless, he was still picking himself up and taking stock of what damage might have befallen him, when the occupants of the coach began to emerge.

  “So sorry, sir,” the coachman apologized as he hastened to help a handsome, brown-haired young gentleman, who was squirming out the window of the coach on account of the door being wedged nearly shut against a large rock protruding from the ground. The rakishly dressed gentleman gave only a curt nod, neither thanking the coachman for his help, nor venting his displeasure at the situation.

  He left that to the young woman in rose pink that they together helped out of the coach after him—or at least she handled the part about venting displeasure. Sabina Elettra Marini muttered a string of very unladylike oaths, in defiance of her very ladylike appearance, until they’d made sure she was fit to stand on her own. Then, as they turned to assist a second lady from the carriage, Sabina spied exactly what had happened to the coach, and the epithets began anew.

  “What go’ss-forsaken land have you stranded us in now, little brother?” Sabina asked the young rake sharply when she’d finally exhausted her ready supply of curses, but Baldassare had long since learned not to let his sister bait him. He was not the same rakish gentleman who’d accompanied Sabina at the disconcerting dinner party where she’d been treated to Keely’s ghost story.

  Sabina knew whole boatloads of young, rakish gentlemen. A few of them had even fought duels over her. Baldassare distinguished himself from among those other gentlemen chiefly by being the very least concerned of them about her opinions of him, and by two small-but-noticeable notches in his left ear—one left by a pistol shot, one by a rapier. Remarkably, the scars had been left as reminders of two separate duels, neither one of which had had anything at all to do with Sabina.

  Giving his sister’s question no more acknowledgment than a dark, sideways look, Baldassare called out to one of the horsemen who’d been riding in entourage. “The county market can’t be far ahead, Lanzo. We’re all right here. Ride ahead to find if they’ve someone with the skill to fix this mess.”

  The horseman, who’d been about to rein his horse and dismount to assist, now nodded his head instead, and rode off at a brisk pace.

  “And this go’ss-forsaken land,” Baldassare said, finally acknowledging his sister as he looked about the landscape, “would seem to be the one in the shadow of the Wolf’s Tooth, just as you planned. Though how you hope to find anything here is still beyond me.”

  “No one’s pretending it’s not a long shot, Baldassare,” Sabina said with a smirk, “but compared to the time and money you routinely waste gambling, I’d call the investment in this little expedition both modest and sensible, wouldn’t you?”

  “Slain once again by your rapier wit,” Baldassare answered without any trace of sincerity—but Sabina had already turned her attention to the little girl she’d just noticed watching them from her perch on a nearby gate. Off in the orchard beyond, several other children could be spied darting in and out of view, engaged in some manner of game involving wooden swords and hobby horses. More than half of the children sported hair in various shades of red, but even among them, the long hair of the little girl stood out as the most striking and vibrant shade. A very pretty little thing, perhaps eight or nine years of age from the look of her, all fair skin and freckles, she sat with a little grin on her face as if she were watching a parade passing by. Around her shoulders hung a brilliant red cloak, much finer than the rest of her rough garb.

  Sabina took on a rather bright red hue herself, blushing to think of the language the child would have just overheard her use, but she took a moment to compose herself, and all her harsh edges vanished. Her smile when she addressed the girl, whether it was genuine or not, would at the very least have given the most jaded onlooker pause to think it must be. “Hello, dear. I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re in some need of help. Are we close to the market town?”

  The girl nodded and pointed into the orchard. “Just a quick walk,” she said. “The road goes the long way.”

  “Is there an inn?” asked the blond woman who’d climbed out of the coach after Sabina. Or perhaps it would be better to say she’d “unfolded” out of the coach, for despite her elegant, fashionable attire, her build could best be described as “amazonian”, and she stood at least half a head taller than any of the men attending them. Her face
and figure remained pleasantly feminine, but if one were to put her in the right clothes and put a sword in her hand, she’d have made a very plausible barbarian queen of ages gone by, from the frozen mountains of the north.

  As to the presence of an inn, the girl gave a look that hinted she thought this a daft sort of question to be asked, but the look had vanished in an instant, to be replaced with a more amiable one. “The Golden Crescent,” she said politely. “It’s rather nice.”

  “I do hope so,” the tall woman replied. “After this journey, I’ll not be fit to be seen at the county court before I’ve had at least half a night soaking in a hot bath.”

  “Can you show us the way?” Sabina asked the girl. “I must admit that sounds like an excellent idea.”

  The girl shrugged but hopped down from the gate and headed unhurriedly off through the orchard, looking back after a few paces to see if they were following.

  Baldassare took a moment to advise the coachman that they’d have a wagon sent back for the trunks, and that the rest of the expedition should join them at the inn once the coach was seen to, then he hastened to catch up with the women.

  “We’ve been roaming the countryside looking for old books to publish,” Sabina was saying to the girl. “The older the better. In the age of the printing press, no book should ever have to truly die, you know. Yet every year an appalling amount of scholarship is lost to us forever. Of course, any abbeys about should have their share of books, but do you know anyone else around here who might collect them?”

  “No one,” the girl answered simply.

  “Ah, well,” Sabina said, not having pinned any real hopes on the question to a child. “Perhaps they’ll know at the inn.”

  “Of course they know,” the girl said. “Everyone knows. No one around here would be silly enough to collect books.”

  “Oh,” Sabina frowned, partly at the news, partly at what it implied about the girl’s opinion of her. “What’s so silly about collecting books?”