Because it never occurred to me that I could climb them myself one day…
What a peculiar feeling…to realize how narrow her world had been. The city, and not even most of it, just the parts that held the Guildhalls, the homes of the people she visited, the shops she needed, her father’s warehouse. And a little, little bit of Sebastian’s forest. And she had never lifted her eyes past that. How much had she missed?
“Down there, our poacher traps that entire valley,” Eric was saying. “Now, as I told you, the land hereabouts is pretty poor. It’s mostly no good for the sort of hunting that the gentry do except if they want the challenge of a boar-hunt, and it’s been on the orders of the last several Dukes that if the people hereabouts want to take a few fish from the stream, wild goats from the hills, and rabbits and boar from the forest, they may do so. The dwarves mine the tin, so aside from a pen-scratcher or two, and a few mechanical fellows, there’s no wages for a man in the mines, and all the folk here have is what they can scratch out of the dirt, cut down and haul away, and catch. Sebastian said nothing was to change, and sent out word of that when he came of age. As keeper of these forests, I abide by what he says, and this makes sense. I don’t hold with making a man desperate. Purely because it isn’t practical. The most dangerous man there is, is the one who’s got nothing to lose. I can tell when game’s getting thin, I give out a few warnings, people move to another valley for a while for their hunting, and until now, everyone’s abided by the rules.”
She nodded, silently. That was just good common sense, the sort that the King exercised all the time, and encouraged his judges to use.
“But this fellow — ” Eric spat in disgust “ — he’s a disgrace. He’s not a poacher — he’s a butcher. He traps anything, and whatever he traps, he skins and takes only the hide, leaves the carcass to rot. He’s trapped out three valleys so far, and if I don’t stop him, he won’t stop till he’s trapped out the forest, and then what will the folks here do for a bit of extra meat? They’ll say it’s the Duke’s men who took all the game, and never mind Sebastian hasn’t any men.”
She nodded again.
“So, that’s why we’re here. I know he runs these traps just before sunset, counting on me wanting to be back behind the Manor walls by then. I can see three of those traps from here, and when he turns up, we’ll have him.”
“Can he see us from down below?” she whispered.
He grinned without looking at her. “If he could, we wouldn’t be here.”
Well, he’s the Gamekeeper…
“And there he is.”
She looked where he was looking, peering down into the shadows, down through the mist of barren twigs. It was only by the furtive movement that she saw him, if indeed it was a man, slipping through the underbrush and then pausing. The only reason she could see him at all was that he was dark against the white snow. If it had been summer, and all those trees and bushes thick with leaves, he would have been as “invisible” as her servants.
“He’ll be busy for a while. That trap has a mink in it, and he won’t want to spoil a hide that valuable,” Eric breathed. “Now, follow me, but stay a good fifteen lengths or so behind me. If he has friends, I want you to be a complete surprise.”
Eric eased his horse down the hill. When he was far enough ahead that the only thing she could see in the deepening shadows was the darker shadow of the moving horse, she followed.
The mule wasn’t happy about going downhill in such uncertain light, but she picked her way down the slope, anyway. Bella had no real idea of how far down the hill their quarry was, until suddenly Eric’s voice rang out in the cold air.
“Hold, in the name of Duke Sebastian!” His voice crackled with authority.
Which their quarry did not seem impressed by.
“Duke Sebastian ain’t here,” the poacher replied, sounding as calm as if he and not the Duke was the rightful owner of these lands. “And you can kiss my butt, Eric the Gamekeeper.”
“Brave words for a man with an arrow pointed at his heart,” Eric retorted.
“Man doesn’t have to be brave when his partner has a knife to your partner’s throat.”
What? she thought — and that was when something dropped out of the tree above her, landed behind her on the mule with a jolt that shook them both and grabbed her from behind before she could catch her breath
“Be very quiet, laddie,” said a voice in her ear, as she felt the cold edge of a blade press into her throat.
A mule’s reaction to something unexpected was to freeze, with all four legs planted — which, this time, was not in the least useful. Her captor had plenty of time to wrap the arm that did not have a knife at the end of it around her, pinning her upper arms to her chest.
Terror hit her like lightning, and just as in the forest, when the wolf had begun chasing her, she acted without thinking.
Her captor’s arm didn’t quite reach all the way around her; she wrenched her right arm free, but instead of going for the unfamiliar knife at her belt, she grabbed for the quiver. Somehow she got a crossbow quarrel in her hand, and she jabbed behind her with it.
The man screamed a curse as she hit — something, some part of him — with the arrowhead. He flinched away, she felt him start to lose his balance and she shoved harder.
With another screech, he fell off the mule, and she jabbed the point of the arrow into the mule’s haunches.
Not hard, but enough to hurt, and that, combined with the man’s shrieks, was too much for the mule. She half reared, but couldn’t get too far up on her heels — just enough so she could pivot and bolt back the way they had come. She dropped the arrow and the reins and hung on to the front of the saddle with both hands for dear life.
Branches lashed her face, cutting her like whips, until she crouched down and hid her face against the mule’s neck. She cried with pain and fear, but when the mule faltered, she grabbed another quarrel from the quiver and lashed her with it, goading her into running again. Only when she came to a shuddering halt, sides heaving, head hanging, did she let her be. That was when she raised her face from her neck and saw that the forest around them was nothing but a confusing blur of dark blue shadow and the black trunks of trees.
She had no idea where she was.
She slid down off the mule’s back into the snow; scooped up some of it in her glove to apply to the burning welts across her face and listened as hard as she could. She thought she heard the echo of men’s angry voices in the distance, but she couldn’t tell the echo from the original. They could be behind her, or in front of her.
The mule’s sides slowly stopped heaving; she patted her neck, and clambered awkwardly back into place. It would be an hour, maybe more, until the moon rose, but even then, that would be no help —
What had her father said when she first started to visit Granny? “If you get lost, don’t wander. Stay right where you are. The more you wander, the more lost you will become and the more tangled your trail. Wander too far, and your trail will be lost, and by the time trackers find you it might be too late.”
But was that wise advice to follow when there was someone back there who had put a knife to her throat?
What if he found her?
She shook with terror and cold, as the sweat of fear chilled on her body. And when she heard branches cracking behind her just as the moon came over the top of the hill, she had only enough presence of mind to look back, even as her hand reached for another crossbow quarrel to beat the poor mule with.
But the mule stretched her head and neck around and gave a pathetic bray, which was answered by an equally pathetic nicker, and the dark shape that came toward them was far too big to be a man afoot.
“Eric?” she called, her voice strained.
“I don’t know how you got that mule to run like a racehorse, but I’m glad you did,” came the grimly humorous reply. “Clearing off as you did gave me a free hand.”
She didn’t ask him what he meant by that; the mule shied a l
ittle as it scented what she did on him — fresh blood.
“Two untrained curs against me was no odds for them,” he continued. “Though you did half my work for me with the second.”
“I s-s-stabbed him with an a-a-arrow,” she stammered, teeth chattering.
“Good thinking. Or good reacting, if you didn’t think. He was bleeding like a lanced stag when he came at me. He’d have done better to run.” The horse came up alongside the mule, and the two beasts nuzzled each other in relief at finding their stablemates. “Are you hurt?”
“N-n-no…” She gulped back tears. “A l-little.”
By now the moon shone down through the branches, and he reached over to tilt her chin so it shone down on her face. “Ah. Didn’t tuck your head down,” he said with gruff sympathy. “That’ll hurt, all right. Wait a moment.” He rummaged into his saddlebag and came up with a jar. Pulling out the cork, he handed it to her, and she caught the familiar scent of one of her ointments. She took it from him with shaking hands, pulled off one glove with her teeth and dug two fingers into the jar. As she smeared on the ointment, the burning of the lash marks began to cool.
“You need to have a good cry?” Eric asked, in a conversational tone.
“I — I d-d-don’t know — ”
“Then swallow it down for a bit,” he advised. “Or just let it leak as we ride. I’ve got a few scratches to tend to, and you’ll be feeling like you want to faint before long, once all of this catches up with you.” He uttered something like a chuckle. “Hellfire, so will I, or at least sit down on something that isn’t moving.” He urged his horse ahead of her mule, and took the lead. She didn’t have to nudge the mule; she followed without any signal from her.
She shivered inside her fur-lined coat, gulping down tears, mind going numb, and yet, spinning with horrid images. The strange feeling as the arrow in her hand hit something solid — how badly had she stabbed the man? Badly enough to have killed him, if Eric hadn’t? The dreadful feeling of the knife at her throat and the grim certainty that she was going to die. That was twice, now — once when the wolf had attacked her, and now this —
The sick feeling, knowing that Eric had killed both those men. Yes, the men would have killed them without a moment of hesitation, but still, they were dead now, and she and Eric were alive.
She could still smell the blood on him. Oh, God, what if that meant she was getting the senses of the wolf? Had she escaped the knife only to fall to a worse fate?
She shivered and cried silently and clung to the mule as it shoved its way along the trail. She had never felt so cold before. And light-headed. Her fingers dug into the leather of the front of the saddle.
Eric’s voice penetrated her fog. “You did very well back there. No fainting, no hysterics.”
She had to gulp three or four times before she could make her voice work and still it shook. “It w-was by accid-d-dent.”
Again, that grim chuckle. “Either you’re lucky, or you have good instincts. For now, don’t faint on me” came the voice from ahead. “It’s not that far.”
“It isn’t?” Hope finally made her raise her eyes, and she realized she must have been in more of a fog than she had thought. They were out of the hills, and there was light off ahead through the trees. The mule seemed to realize this at the same time she did; she felt her startle a little beneath her legs, and her weary shuffle turned into a fast walk.
She blanked out a bit then, for the next thing she knew, invisible hands were helping her out of the saddle, and the mule was being led away. Eric’s arm around her shoulder steadied her for a moment as she wavered.
“You were fine back there,” he said in her ear, his arm feeling like nothing but that of a friend. “I was the one who was an idiot. I didn’t check to see if there were any of the bastards lurking in the trees. An amateur’s mistake. If you hadn’t kept your head, we’d have both been in trouble.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze, and chastely kissed her forehead between two of the lines of lashing. “Faugh. That ointment tastes like pine sap, and I stink of blood. We both need baths, food and sleep.”
Blood?
“You can smell the blood?” she asked.
He snorted. “Of course I can. I’m soaked in it. What, did you think you suddenly had a wolf’s nose?” He squeezed her shoulders again, then let go of her. “You lot. Get her to her rooms, get her in a hot bath and bring her a good meal. And a good stoop of brandy with it.”
With that, the Spirit Elementals took over, all but carrying her off to her rooms, where Sapphire stripped her out of her clothing and popped her into that hot bath before she could even say a word.
Bella just leaned back and soaked, feeling the heat penetrate all the way to the chill core she had thought she would never get warm. A touch on her arm made her jump, and she flailed for a moment, her eyes snapping open to see a tray of food being set down on the rim of the bathtub.
It was full of little bite-size things: bits of baked squash, chunks of sausage, pickles, slices of beef, cubes of cheese. For a moment, her stomach churned with nausea, but then the nausea turned to hunger and she reached out and took a bit of cheese. And then a pickle. Then some rare beef…and before long the tray was empty and Sapphire was pressing a small glass filled with an amber liquid into her hand.
She tasted it; it was like sweet fire. She’d had brandy before, but this was different. It went down as smooth as honey, and ended up like a comforting coal in the middle of her, thawing the last of the cold in her center. Warmth spread, and with it, a light and fuzzy feeling.
Sapphire helped her out of the tub; her legs felt a little wavery, as if the bones weren’t quite solid, and she realized that she was just a little drunk. The Spirit Elemental wrapped her in a soft robe, sat her down beside the fire and brushed out her hair, then loosely braided it again as she stared at the flames.
She wondered if she ought to be crying again. After all, two men had died today, and she had been partly responsible.
But she couldn’t make her mind wrap around that, and she felt at once too tired and too drained to care.
When Sapphire was done with her hair, she tugged at Bella’s arm, and Bella rose and let the servant lead her to the bed. She climbed in and lay down, closing her eyes; she felt the featherlight touch of something on her face, and dimly realized that Sapphire was putting some sort of ointment on her wounds, but at that point, the only thing that mattered was sleep, and she let it take her.
She was very glad that the mirror was one-way. Her father would have been horrified if he had seen her face. It looked as if someone had been whipping her, although Sapphire assured her that everything would heal without leaving a mark. She had only told him in this morning’s letter that she had been out on a long ride into the mining country with Eric’s escort, and that it had been interesting to see the hills she had only glimpsed from the city. She knew that since her father was widely traveled, he would have a lot to say on the subject, and that seemed safer than giving him an opening to ask too many questions.
She hadn’t gone down to breakfast. She had written a note for the servants to take to Sebastian, explaining what had happened. A note had come back from him, assuring her that Eric had already told him in detail about the ambush and her part in it, and that she should rest if she thought she needed to. But he added in his note that if she didn’t think she required rest, he would welcome her company in his workroom this afternoon for another lesson. She had expected the former, but not the latter, and she felt a rush of unanticipated affection for him. He wasn’t coddling her, or treating her like a fragile little child. He also wasn’t taking her for granted, assuming that she would simply turn up as expected for her lesson in magic, simply because he was Duke Sebastian and she should be grateful for his tutelage.
Not that she wasn’t grateful…she was. He was a very good teacher; she had to wonder, now, who had taught him, because in her experience, it took a good teacher to make a good teacher.
She watched
her father mime his farewell kiss, as he did when it came time that he had to get back to work, and the image of his study faded from the mirror. She was about to get up and see about a better ointment for her stripes, when the mirror suddenly chimed.
The Godmother appeared immediately in the depths, as soon as she picked it up. Elena stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, as she took in the state of Bella’s poor face.
“By all that is holy! Your face! If either of those men — ” the Godmother began, her face twisting into a mask of outrage.
“No! I mean, yes, but not in the way you think!” Bella said hastily, and explained what had happened. Elena listened without interrupting, her anger calming as quickly as it had arisen, then pursed her lips thoughtfully.
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