“That doesn’t give me the right to lead them there! It is too soon, and Pravik too dangerous a place.”
Libuse set her spoon down and turned so that she was facing the Ploughman. “If you are right, and Zarras is moving against us, what choice do you have? Betray your own cause, leave the Eastern Lands, or fight back.”
“That is only one choice.”
“Then why not make the first move?”
“Libuse,” the Ploughman said, smiling gently, “you are not talking like a general. You are talking like a child who wishes to convince her parent that what is bad for her is really good.”
Libuse laid her head on his chest. He brought his hand up to stroke her hair, his ring shining scarlet in the light of the fire.
“I can’t let him die without trying to help him,” Libuse said. She lifted her head and her face was tearstained. “Can you?”
The Ploughman looked into her eyes for a long moment. He stood abruptly and waved his men out of the room. “Leave us,” he said. “Maggie, stay. Your friends also.”
The men left with a clatter, nearly knocking the table over in their haste. The Ploughman stood and began to pace by the fire. He reached for a quarterstaff near the door and feinted with it as he talked. Once again Maggie felt as though some power was in the room with them, golden power, glowing in the Plowman’s eyes, stirring with his movements. There was heat in his words; heat like burnished gold.
“I will not let the professor be killed as a murderer,” he said. “I will not let his student be slandered as an assassin. They are brave men. They have stood against corruption all their lives. They have inspired others to do the same. They have been father and brother and loyal subjects to the woman I love.”
He whirled around to face the others. “That is what my heart tells me. But what about my men? I can risk my own life; can I risk theirs?”
“Their lives have always been at risk,” Libuse said. “Since the day they determined to stand against Zarras.”
“But they made that decision to defend their children,” the Ploughman said. “Their wives, their mothers, their liberty. Not the liberty of an old man they do not know, though in his own way he has fought for them.”
He stood still, back to the fire, the quarterstaff glowing. “It had to come to this, sooner or later,” he said. “Me against Zarras. My men against the High Police. But never did I anticipate making the first move.”
He sat down at the table and bowed his head so that it rested against the staff. “How can I lead them into this?”
“Ask them,” Maggie said.
Libuse and the Ploughman both turned to look at her. She looked down but continued to speak. “You and Professor Huss have fought to give the people a voice. To give them the freedom to choose their own destinies. So ask them. Let them decide if they will march on the castle or not.”
The Ploughman stood again, slowly. “If they refuse, then I will go to Pravik myself. I will force Zarras to listen… somehow. And if we fight, and we win, then how shall we answer when the forces of Athrom march on us? To defend ourselves is one thing, to attack an Overlord quite another. The Emperor will not look kindly on us. But if we lose, or if we don’t go at all…”
Libuse stood and took his hand in her own. “Let history write the story, my love,” she said. “It is your task to make it.”
The Ploughman’s men were crouched outside the door where their leader had sent them. He threw it open and smiled to see them there, so close that they nearly fell inside when he opened the door.
“Light the beacon fires,” he said. “We hold council in the morning.”
* * *
The scowling farmwife, whose name was Mrs. Korak, cleared away the remnants of supper. Libuse lit a candle and led the visitors out the back of the house to a low-roofed outbuilding full of empty bunks.
“I’m sorry there isn’t anywhere nicer for you to sleep,” she said, ducking through the doorway of the long, dry shack. “The hired men sleep here during the harvest. It’s nothing special, but it’s warm.”
“It’s plenty good enough for us,” Mrs. Cook said. Libuse smiled and set her candle down on top of a rough, low shelf.
“I’ll leave you, then,” the princess said. “I hope you sleep well. If you need anything, I sleep in the kitchen—knock on the back door and I’ll hear you.”
“Well, she’s a rare one,” Pat said when Libuse had left. “What did you say she is?”
“A princess,” Maggie said. “Of Pravik’s ancient ruling family.”
“And she sleeps in the kitchen,” Mrs. Cook said, shaking her head. “She’s lovely, Maggie, just lovely. And to think you saved her life!”
“I didn’t do it alone,” Maggie said, lowering herself down on the cot next to Mrs. Cook. “Good men gave their lives for her.” The thought of Jerome came to her, waiting to give his life, and she shut her eyes tightly. She leaned her head against Mrs. Cook’s shoulder. In a moment she found herself burrowed in the older woman’s arms.
Mrs. Cook patted Maggie’s shoulder, a gesture meant to ease trouble as much as it could. “I’m here now, dear,” she said, “and Pat, too. Why, you’re practically home!”
“It’s good to be home,” Maggie said. Pat chuckled.
Mrs. Cook’s arms tightened around Maggie. After a while Maggie sat up and said, “Tell me why you left Londren. You didn’t come just to find me—I’m sure you didn’t. I want to know everything.”
Pat and Mrs. Cook looked at each other. The whole story came out—of Lord Robert’s unexpected arrival, of Virginia and her strange gift, of the High Police, and of their escape over the Salt Channel to the continent.
“And you, Maggie?” Pat probed when they had finished. “You’re not the same person who left us. What has happened to you?”
So Maggie told her own story. It seemed incredible that so much had happened in such a short time. Her life in Londren seemed very far removed from this life of rebels and Gypsies and evil shadows that lived and breathed. When she talked about Jerome, her throat tightened and her heart burned, but she told them only that he was Huss’s apprentice and a brave man.
When she had finished her story, she drew the scroll out from her coat and unrolled it gingerly. The candle burned slowly down to the brass holder while Maggie told her friends everything that Jarin Huss had told her; of the King and the Order of the Spider and the Gifted.
“So,” Mrs. Cook said when Maggie had finished, “it would seem my life has come full circle at last. I never wanted anything more to do with the council, and now here I am.”
“What are you going to do with the scroll, Maggie?” Pat asked. “If those shadow creatures were after it, isn’t it a dangerous thing to have laying around?”
“Huss thought it would be a help to us somehow,” Maggie said. “He said the truth was a weapon. I just wish I knew how to use it.”
“Weapon or no,” Pat insisted, “what are you going to do if the baddies come after it again?”
Maggie shuddered. “I don’t know. I don’t want it. Giving it to the professor was like getting rid of a fifty-pound weight. But I can’t just let the Order have it again.”
“Give it to the Ploughman,” Mrs. Cook suggested. “He can protect it, if nothing else.”
Maggie rolled the scroll back up and ran her fingers along its surface. “You may be right,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
“Well, of course,” Mrs. Cook said. She laid down on her bunk with a sigh. “There can’t be much danger in keeping it for one night longer.”
Maggie curled up on the bunk next to Mrs. Cook. She fell silent listening to the familiar rhythm of the older woman’s breathing. Oh, how she had missed the presence of these two! In their company, she almost knew herself again—but then the thoughts and feelings of her new life crowded in. Only now, Pat and Mrs. Cook had entered her new life, and they loved the new Maggie just as they had loved the old. She was comforted by the thought.
After a few minutes, Mag
gie heard Pat’s footfalls on the wooden floor, and through closed eyes she felt the darkness deepen as Pat snuffed out the candle.
Maggie lay awake a little longer. From her bunk she could see out the window, where far over the brown fields a beacon flared to life.
“Look at that, would you?” Pat asked, her voice drowsy.
“Go to sleep,” Mrs. Cook said. “I’ve no wish to look at anything but the backs of my own eyelids.”
Maggie smiled and rolled over so that she faced away from the blazing signal.
She slept as a child; content.
* * *
The laird’s sleep was dream-plagued that night. He awoke more than once feeling as though he was wrestling with something; as though he struggled with a shapeless enemy. Every trace of the actual dreams vanished when he opened his eyes, and nothing would recall them. Once or twice he went to check on Virginia, and always she was sleeping soundly. Even in sleep a strange light seemed to emanate from her face, and he felt hunger as he looked at her. Deep hunger, gnawing at him.
A dream woke him for the last time when the sun was just beginning to fill the world with its rays. The air was cold and crisp and smelled like winter. The laird lay in bed and thought of Pravik. He made his plans before stirring from the bed. They would catch an early train and reach the city just as the sun was setting. Then it would be a simple matter of finding Jarin Huss. Perhaps the Easterner could shed some light on what had happened to Virginia. Perhaps he could make her trust them and tell them more.
An hour had passed when Lord Robert swung his long legs out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and headed down the hallway in search of Virginia. He rapped lightly on her door. She called to him to come in. He began to open the door, then paused as a sound like the beating of heavy wings came from inside. Shaking off a feeling of foreboding, he opened the door. Virginia was sitting in a rocking chair next to her bed, waiting. There was no one else in the room, man or bird.
Still, the foreboding grew stronger. Virginia was sitting straight, her back stiff, her hands folded in her lap. She did not even turn her head to acknowledge the laird’s presence. The sight of her called to mind a hundred visits to the side of the mountain in Angslie, where Virginia’s strangeness had always followed a vision.
The laird swallowed his desire to know. “The next train for Pravik should come through in about half an hour,” he said. “I would have come for you sooner, but the train station is not far.”
Virginia bowed her head and spoke so quietly that Lord Robert could hardly hear her. “Laird,” she said, “must we go to Pravik?”
It was such a strange question that Lord Robert was taken aback by it. Then annoyance flared up in him, and he said, “Of course. What would you rather do, go back to the High Police?”
Virginia’s head remained bowed. She did not respond.
“I’m sorry,” Lord Robert said, suddenly weary—far too weary for first thing in the morning. “Of course we must go to Pravik. I need the help of Jarin Huss.”
“I have seen,” Virginia said. “Last night.”
“What was it?” he asked. The foreboding still hung over him; contesting now with his curiosity.
“I saw you,” she said. When she looked up, her face was pale. “You were falling into darkness, and I could not reach you to stop your fall.”
Her voice broke. Lord Robert could see that she was struggling not to cry.
“If we stay away from Pravik, it may not happen,” Virginia said. “Please, let us go anywhere but there.”
Lord Robert looked out Virginia’s open window at the town that spread below them. He could see the train station just down the street, and the black smoke of the iron serpent waiting to leave. As he looked away from the view, his eyes rested on something on the windowsill. A feather.
With a suddenness that took him by surprise, he turned to Virginia and said, “No. We are going to Pravik. I have traveled too far to turn back now!” His voice gentled, and he knelt down by Virginia’s chair. “It will be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”
He took her arm. They left the room and the inn behind.
* * *
Across the countryside, beacon fires called the Ploughman’s men to him. They arrived with the dawn, filling the barnyard with the sounds of hooves and creaking wooden wheels. Maggie awoke to see pale sunlight filtering over the low windowsills.
Pat was still snoring, and Mrs. Cook breathing deeply, as Maggie slid out of bed and pulled her shoes on. Outside, someone poured water into troughs for the horses. The choir of birds on their way south for the winter was just beginning to sing.
Maggie pulled her coat around her and stepped out of the bunkhouse. A low mist blanketed the ground, blurring the fields and the yard in watercolour shades of grey and green. Young boys, thirteen or fourteen years old, tended to the horses. Men stood in small groups, talking in low voices. No one seemed to notice Maggie.
There were about thirty men crowded in the barnyard. Some of them had perhaps been at Pravik Castle, but they were a different set entirely than the university students who had led them there. These were men with the creases of hardship drawn deep across greying brows. Their shoulders were broad; their hands rough; their faces coarse. They wore hand-sewn clothing, many times patched, mud-spattered from the early morning ride. They filled the barnyard with the smells of pipe smoke and soil and the singed smell of too many nights spent inches from the hearth. At first glance Maggie thought them all old enough to be her father, but as she looked closer she realized that they represented many generations. Here were young men, not much older than herself, with hands as rough and weathered as those of their grandfathers, men stooped and grey but still strong.
Lamplight cut a path through the mist from the farmhouse door, and the Ploughman and Libuse, warmly dressed in woolen cloaks, stepped into the barnyard. Mrs. Korak stood behind them with a ladle in her meaty hand, scowling, watching as the Ploughman greeted his visitors. Libuse, too, walked among the men and greeted many by name. They bowed their heads in deference as she approached. They held respect for her as did the people of the city—but not, Maggie noticed, more than they held for the Ploughman.
A young boy led two horses into the yard and stood near the Ploughman, silently holding the reins. The Ploughman turned and took hold of his tall black horse. He mounted, and Libuse mounted the sorrel beside him. The boy jogged back to the barns.
The Ploughman galloped over the field, and the men mounted up and followed. A flock of geese burst up from the field before the horses, filling the early morning with their cries.
Maggie turned to see Mrs. Korak still standing in the doorway. The woman’s eyes looked to Maggie.
“You’ll be wanting breakfast, I suppose?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Maggie said. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Not unless you have ears to hear a meeting five miles away.”
Maggie looked at the elderly woman with a new appreciation. “I wish I knew what was happening, too,” she said.
“Well,” Mrs. Korak said, “there’s a horse in the barn.”
“Do you mean it?” Maggie said.
“Boy’ll show you the way.”
“I shouldn’t,” Maggie said. “They didn’t invite me.”
Mrs. Korak snorted. “They should have. Get going now. You might hear a thing or two.”
Maggie lost no time in mounting a bay mare. One of the farm boys—by now Maggie had counted six or seven youngsters doing chores around the yard—sat behind her in the saddle and pointed the way.
“You see that hill yonder?” he said, pointing over her shoulder.
“I see it.”
“Under the hill is a great meeting room. Just below the oak tree.”
Maggie squinted as she looked across the misty fields. The hill was shadowed.
“Go,” the boy said. “You’ll see it as we draw near.”
The horse made good time across the fields, but when Maggi
e arrived at the base of the hill, there was no sign of human life except for the tracks of horses, mysteriously ending at the base of the hill—which Maggie realized was really more of a mound, man-made many long years ago. She took a deep breath of cold air and looked up at the tangled branches of an ancient oak that grew up at the top.
The boy slid off the horse and cautiously approached a thicket at the base. He crouched low and listened, then, finding things to his satisfaction, he pulled back a thick curtain of brush, opening a dark space wide and tall enough for Maggie to walk through. She dismounted and approached the hole. Just before ducking inside, she looked at the longing face of the boy.
“Can I come with you?” he said. “The horse’ll be all right.”
“No,” Maggie said. “How would I protect you from Mrs. Korak when we got back?”
The flushed look on the boy’s face told her she had hit on a sore note. She grinned. “Thank you,” she said, and disappeared into the darkness.
Maggie found herself in an earthen room with roots growing through the ceiling and walls. The smell of horses was strong, and as Maggie’s eyes adjusted, she saw that she was standing in a stable full of animals. The room stretched to either side and disappeared around what Maggie thought was the curve of a circle. Across the stable was a wall, and in it, a door.
It was standing partially open, and Maggie could hear voices. She made her way past the horses, who ignored her, and slipped through the door into a circular room orange with lantern light on earthen walls. It was a large room, wide enough to seat two or three hundred men, and it was full to the bursting.
The old men sat on rough-hewn benches; the younger men cross-legged on the floor. In the center of the room the Ploughman stood, quarterstaff in hand, his face solemn. He had only just stopped speaking, and now his eyes swept the faces of his men. He saw Maggie and his eyes rested on her for a moment, but he said nothing. Libuse was standing on the far side of the room, against the wall.
An old grey farmer with a hump in his back and strong arms spoke. “We will follow you,” was all he said.
“You risk everything,” the Ploughman said.
The old man smiled, an ironic smile. “We have nothing to risk,” he said.
“Your lives,” the Ploughman said. “Your families.”
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