The Knight, the Harp, and the Maiden

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  He smiled at her when he saw her, and all traces of his gruffness were gone when he spoke. “Here’s breakfast. Come, eat quickly.”

  “What do you want me to do with these things?” She held up her bundle of clothing.

  “Give them to me. We’ll get rid of them when we can—I don’t want to bring any more with us than we absolutely must, but we can’t leave them here.”

  She handed them over to him without a word, realizing that just a few months ago, she would have been horrified by the idea of handing a man a bundle of clothing containing her undergarments, and worn undergarments at that. What would old Neri have said? She started to push the thought of Neri away, then realized as she sank down near the fire and picked up the mug and spoon that the journey she was embarking upon might very well bring her home. Perhaps the Guardians of Eld could find a way to lift the spell and dispel the curse. They seemed powerful in their own way, not that either Cariad or Lona had spoken of it, but it seemed to her that from everything she had heard, there was great magic in Eld.

  Cariad took the bundle. He busied himself with the horses for a few minutes, then disappeared into the same thicket. He reemerged just as she was finishing the porridge. “Ready?” he asked when he saw her scraping her spoon along the sides of the mug.

  “Yes.” She stood up. He took the cooking things. She felt helpless and unsure. She looked around as he stamped out the fire, covering its traces with brush, and retrieved her blanket. She shook it out well, folded it as tightly as she could, and held it out to him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, smiling over at her. “I’ll teach you how to survive out here soon enough. But right now it’s easier and faster for me to do it myself—here, give me the blanket.”

  In less time than she would have thought possible, he had the camp completely obliterated. He handed her a flask. “Here. This is your ration of water for the day. There’s water in the wilderness—we won’t die of thirst—but some of the streams are foul, and I don’t want to take chances.” He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  She slung the strap of the flask over her head as she saw he wore his, and swung into the saddle without assistance. She settled the harp behind her, careful to position it so that it rested against the curve of her back. He said nothing, but nodded approvingly. With a soft cluck to the horses, he flapped his reins. The sky was pale and the first real daylight was soft in the morning sky. “You stay close,” he said.

  Juilene expected that they would go into the brush. Instead, Cariad started off down the road. After an hour or so, the road branched into a fork. He paused and glanced over his shoulder. She reined her horse beside his. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “That’s the way into the wilderness.” He drew a deep breath. “You have to stay close. The trails are narrow, and the land is treacherous. There’s swamp and quicksand, and where the road isn’t narrow, there’re dangers all around. Believe me, if I thought there was a better way, we’d take it. I don’t suppose you have any experience at all with a weapon?”

  She pulled her dagger from the sheath she had placed on the belt. “I have this.”

  “And where did you get that?”

  “I—I thought it wise to have one, after Diago. So I bought it for myself.” She raised her chin. Was he laughing at her? “I can use it. I’ve practiced.”

  He sighed. “That’s better than nothing, though by the time you got a chance to use that, things would be over. Never mind. Come. If my memory serves me, there’s high ground about six hours from here. If we can get there, we’ll stop and I’ll sleep for a couple hours.” He flapped the reins and started off.

  If, Juilene wondered. If? She glanced down at the ring on her finger. It was glowing a bright blue. What kind of place was he taking her to? She followed as closely as she dared. Soon the road petered out into a track, worn by years of use, and the track diminished into a trail, narrow, but clearly delineated. The trees hung low, drooping with vines and overgrowth, and she shivered. The grey hanging forms looked like ghosts. Although the sun rose, the light remained the same beneath the thick overhanging branches of the trees. The silence was thick. Several times, she thought she heard something, something slithering through the branches, and once or twice, the trees ahead of them shook as though with the force of something traveling through the branches. Cariad didn’t hesitate. He pressed on, his mouth set and grim when she glimpsed it, his face resolute. She could see the dark shadows under his eyes and the dark shadows of his beard on his chin. The ground changed beneath the horses’ hooves, and soon each step the animals took was accompanied by a sticky squelch of the mud. Cariad held up his hand. They rode more cautiously, ducking the branches, and Juilene swayed from side to side, forced to avoid the tendrils of the vines that hung low and grasping, and seemed to reach out to tangle in her hair.

  “Watch out,” he said. “See those reddish vines over there—twining around those trees? Those are Parmathian sucker vines—we’ve got to pick up the pace.”

  She flapped at the reins. The ground was squelchy and uneven, and she wondered what they would do if one of the horses went lame. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something dip down, searching the air beside her cheek. With a cry she ducked out of the way and urged her horse on.

  The animal responded with a neigh and a grunt. Another vine uncoiled itself from the ground beside the oak, splaying out blindly, just as the horse’s leg went by. Juilene shuddered. The vines behaved almost like sensate beings. More and more uncoiled themselves from the trunks of trees. Cariad spoke quietly but urgently from ahead on his horse. “Juilene.”

  She glanced up. She had been so busy watching the vines from all sides. “Yes?”

  “Don’t answer me yet… but I think we’ll have to make a break to the side. I don’t like the way these vines are behaving.” He glanced back and his face changed. “Behind you!” he shouted.

  She ducked, just as a vine snaked out of a tree and narrowly missed tangling in her hair. She screamed and pressed down against the neck of her mare. The animal screamed and reared, and for a horrible moment, Juilene was afraid she would lose her seat. Cariad drew his sword and gathered up the reins of his horse.

  “Now!” he cried. He bolted through the trees, and Juilene struggled to regain control of the horse. She clutched the reins in both her fists and pulled as hard as she could. Vines were snaking out from every direction, questing like fingers, seeking to entwine themselves around either her or her horse. She glanced down at the muddy path, where traces of the vines were worming their way through the thick mud, erupting from the ground.

  She sucked in a great breath, bent low, and dug her knees into the horse’s sides. The little mare leaped forward just as a writhing mass of vines erupted out of the ground where only a moment ago she had been standing. Juilene plunged through the trees, the vines shaking and shuddering in her wake. She felt the very ends of tendrils brush her cheeks and her head, and one twined swiftly around her neck. With a cry, she drew the dagger from the bosom of her tunic and slashed at the thick, hairy tendrils. The mare shuddered and screamed a warning, as a huge, thick vine dropped out of nowhere from a low-hanging tree. The mare reared and by the grace of the goddess alone, Juilene managed to pull the horse around it, and continue through the wood. She could hear Cariad slashing and cursing his way through the trees. More of them seemed to be attracted to him than to her. “Cariad?” she cried when the sounds seemed to fade.

  “Ride on,” he answered immediately. “I’m all right.”

  At last, the trees opened out into a swampy fen, and the vines no longer pursued them. Juilene paused on the shores of what looked like a small lake, and looked back over her shoulder. Cariad cantered up when he saw her. “By the goddess,” he breathed, “that was close. Are you all right?”

  She nodded and hoped he wouldn’t notice how she was shaking. She had heard all the stories told about the sucker vines—how victims died slowly and painfully over a period of days and week
s, the life blood and soft tissues sucked out of them. The horses whickered and stamped their feet.

  “Forgive me, Juilene. I wouldn’t have taken you through there if I had any idea that those things were waiting. Can you go on?” He was looking at her closely, and she smiled bravely back at him. Now was not the time to indulge in any lady-born hysterics.

  She brushed back her hair, shuddering at the memory of the hairy touch of the vines. “I’m fine.”

  He gave her a long assessing look, as though measuring the truth of what she said, and nodded, finally, as though satisfied. “Then come. Let’s go on.”

  She flapped the reins and slowly followed. The terrain was all low, marshy fens from which grew long-leaved swamp weeds, all of fantastic hues of pinks and reds and purples. Here and there, flowers the color of gold and silver seemed to reflect the sun with a light all their own, and more than once, a scent, sweeter than any perfume she had ever smelled, wafted to her nostrils.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Cariad remarked when the path widened enough for them to ride side by side.

  She nodded, speechless, entranced by the colors and the scents. The leaves waved languidly in the gentle breeze, tantalizing as feathers. Touch us, they seemed to say, touch us and feel how soft, how sweet.

  “Juilene!”

  Cariad’s voice made her realize that she was leaning half out of the saddle, dangerously close to the ground.

  “Whatever you do, don’t touch those things. They’re beautiful, but just as deadly as the sucker vines. They just kill more easily.” He reached across and shook her hand, as he nodded to the side of one small pool of water.

  Juilene blinked. A bloated carcass of some animal lay on its side, insects buzzing and crawling all over it, so it looked as though it still moved. Another lay a few feet away, and she realized the ground all around the weeds was covered with corpses. The odor of the leaves disguised the stink. Nausea rose in her throat.

  What kind of a place was this wilderness? she wondered. She remembered the tales of the nursery maids, who used to scare her half out of her mind with their talk of ghosts and hags, and sucker vines and the flowers of sleeping death. Neri had hushed them, and banished them from the nursery, and comforted her by saying good little girls had nothing to worry about. But these things must be the basis of the tales, she thought, and wondered what else the nursery maids might have been right about.

  They skirted the pools of silvery water, and Juilene fought over and over again to ride carefully, and not succumb to the seduction of the weeds’ scent. At last, the path began to move into higher ground, the higher ground Cariad had spoken of. The track was less muddy, and the trees, while few and far between, offered no cover for Parmathian sucker vines.

  Slowly, they wended their way up the track. Juilene could see that they were making for the hills. More than once, Cariad held up his hand and paused, as though listening for something she didn’t hear.

  Finally, after the fourth or fifth time he had done this, Juilene looked around, and seeing nothing, asked, “What are you listening for?”

  “The grimmen,” he answered shortly, as though that explained everything.

  “The what?”

  He looked at her and sighed. “You were very sheltered, weren’t you?”

  She drew herself up. She had experienced far more in the last few months of her life than she had in all the time before but that didn’t mean that she had been sheltered. But, said a little voice in her mind, you know that he is right. Now wasn’t the time for ladylike protestations of experience, either. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I was. But are you going to tell me what a grimmen is? Or must I discover it the way I have nearly everything else—by blundering into it, unprepared?”

  At that he chuckled. “Point scored, my lady. Forgive me. I am no more familiar with this wilderness than you are—I only have a few tales to guide me on, as well as a map given to me by Lona. The grimmen are a race of men—I suppose they were once men, just as you and I. But in the days of chaos, they were altered by the thurges, changed somehow. Like most things which remain from the anarchy, they feed on human flesh and human blood, and they are cunning and more like men in that they use rudimentary weapons and make armor out of whatever they have at hand. They are said to inhabit the deepest fastnesses of the wilderness—I believe that we are still too close to the haunts of men for them to be a danger to us. But our trek will take us close to the lands they are said to haunt, and I think it best that we remain alert.”

  “But—but how will you know if they approach?” Juilene glanced around nervously. It was becoming clearer and clearer to her that if she had believed that the road to Eld was fraught with peril, it was nothing compared to the dangers they faced within the wilderness. As the goddess wills it, I obey, she murmured, and then wondered what on earth the goddess could have willed for them to find themselves in the midst of such utter danger.

  “It’s said they make a peculiar whistling sound—they scent out their prey through their snouts, that are so constructed that they make a peculiar and distinctive noise,” Cariad explained.

  “Have you ever heard it?” She eyed him doubtfully.

  “No,” he admitted. “But I know what normal noises sound like—if we hear anything suspicious, anything at all, we ride like demons as fast as we can. They have no horses—it will be our one advantage.”

  Juilene said nothing more. The sun was beginning to fall and the shadows beneath the stubby pines were deepening into dark pools that made her wonder what might lurk beneath them. At last Cariad paused and pointed to a little clearing off the track. “There,” he said. “We’ll make camp there.”

  “Will we be safe?” Juilene asked.

  He paused a long moment before answering. “As safe as we can be anywhere, lady. It’s not to my liking, either, but I must sleep a few hours at least, and so far, it seems that nothing lurks within this wood. When we get deeper into the hills, I won’t be quite so sure.”

  * * *

  They made the camp and built a fire, and Cariad cooked a thin gruel over the fire. He yawned and ran one hand over his rough chin as she sipped at it. “Forgive me, lady, but I must sleep.” He handed her his dagger, which was longer and thicker than her own. “Call me if anything—and I mean anything disturbs you. I will wake at midnight.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “How will you know it’s midnight?”

  He shrugged and grinned. “It’s a trick I have.” He stretched out beside the fire, rolled himself in his cloak, and was asleep all in one motion.

  Juilene stared at his prone body. She tightened her hands on the tin cup. The horses drowsed and grazed beneath the trees, and the fire leaped up, flickering and burning. She drew her cloak around her shoulders, and unbidden thoughts of Diago intruded.

  She shivered and pushed them aside. She wouldn’t think about him, she wouldn’t. She hugged herself hard, as though thoughts of him would somehow call him to them. The wind blew harder and sighed through the pines. Her head snapped up. Was that a sound, like snuffling she heard? She strained to hear it once more, and heard nothing but the horses nibbling at the graze, and Cariad’s soft snores.

  She looked at him. His beard was dark on his chin and he looked scruffy and unkempt. Well, did she look—or smell—any better? She smiled grimly to herself. Her fingers itched to touch the curls that clustered at the nape of his neck. His body seemed slight, almost boyish, but the breadth of his shoulders implied great strength. He was so unlike Arimond, she knew, in every way she could think of. With a start, she realized she had not missed Arimond in a long time.

  She had thought of her father, and her home and old Neri constantly in the last months, and realized she still thought of them every day. A hundred, thousand things reminded her of what she had lost, and yet, it had been days, or even weeks since she had thought of Arimond. What did that mean? she wondered. Had she not really loved him?

  She eyed Cariad, who had risked everything, even his lif
e, to save her, to bring her away from Diago and his sister, who had given her the chance of a better life. He wasn’t rich—the knights of great lords were paid an allowance, and she couldn’t imagine that Diago was generous to his. The money he had given Elizondo had to have been a large proportion of his funds. And yet, he had never mentioned it, never suggested that she should pay it back. He was brave and generous, and so very very vulnerable, lying there, his mouth relaxed in sleep. He looked so very young.

  She shut her eyes and rubbed her hands down her face, trying to fight off the waves of sleepiness that threatened to overwhelm her. Cariad had stayed awake for nearly two full days—couldn’t she at least give him a few hours of rest? She yawned and scraped the last of the gruel from the pot. She wasn’t hungry but eating gave her something to do.

  An errant flame licked out from the side of the pot and burned her finger. She sat back with a little cry and sucked on it, nursing the hurt, and as she watched, the fire seemed to bulge, to grow, and then to shrink. She glanced at Cariad. He lay prone, his eyes shut tight. She opened her mouth to cry out, and instead, felt the air stop in her throat. She narrowed her eyes as a chill went down her spine.

  Something was taking form within the depths of the fire, something black and swirling, as though the fire itself was turning dark. A face took shape, and a pair of eyes, lit with the fire’s reddish light. Juilene made a little sound, more a whimper than a gasp.

  Diago smiled at her, his eyes narrow and glowing. Little sister… there you are… running off to Eld? Your knight keeping you safe? The vision seemed to chuckle, and Juilene bit her fist to keep from crying out. The voice seemed to come from all around her, echoing and reverberating as loudly as a drum, but Cariad slept on and even the horses appeared unaffected. Run all you please, little sister, run as far and as fast as you can. But we can find you, little sister—your knight thought himself so clever by taking my things, but you see… it only gave me a link to find you both… it led me right to you… oh, it took a bit of work, and will take more… but never fear, little sister… find you again we will… if the grimmen and all the other things which live within the wilderness don’t first…