by Sharon Lee
Another shrug. "Likely some artifice involved, in that wise—don't ask me what it is! I'm Wood Wise."
Wood Wise, as Becca had come to learn, were the foresters of this world beyond the Boundary. And if Elyd was ignorant of Altimere's work, he was absolutely eloquent in regard to anything that set roots in the ground and put forth leaves to soak in the benediction of the sun. It was from him that she had learned the names and habits of the unfamiliar plants in Altimere's extensive gardens. She doubted not that the trees whispered to him, so comfortably did he move among them.
"Are you riding today, or not?" His voice was sharp, bringing her out of reverie.
"Yes." She gave him a smile, and extended her hand. "Elyd, forgive me for badgering you! It must be maddening to be required to explain what the least child knows! You must think me utterly mad—and unschooled, besides!"
She had meant to make him smile, and ease the strain between them. But Elyd—Elyd stood as one transfixed, staring down at her extended hand.
"Come," she prompted softly, "cry friends, Elyd, do."
He took a breath, and cast a furtive look into her eyes, seeming in that moment a wild thing and utterly alien to her. Then—
"Friends," he whispered harshly. His hand darted forward, callused fingertips barely brushing her palm, then he turned away, dropping lightly to one knee, his hands ready to receive her foot.
Becca smiled and stepped forward. He tossed her neatly and was astride Drisco by the time she had gathered the reins into her hand and leaned over to whisper proper greetings into Rosamunde's waiting ear.
"Where?" Elyd asked shortly, and she cocked a whimsical eye at him.
"The Wild Wood?" she returned, mischievously.
His eyes flew to hers, such longing in them that Becca felt the heart squeeze in her chest. Tears pricked her eyes—and then he was leaning over to pat Drisco's withers.
"The Wild Wood being out of the question," he said, his voice excruciatingly even, "is there another ride that would please you?"
Rosamunde shifted, stamping her foot with energy, and Becca laughed. That was decided, then.
"The southern field," she told Elyd. "Rosamunde wants to run."
They rode in silence for a while, the horses walking mannerly side by side. A breeze came up, damp against Becca's face, and she looked up at the sky.
"It won't rain until evening," Elyd said, in answer to her unspoken concern.
She shook her head at him. "And how do you know that?"
"The trees," he answered, and gave her a brief, sideways smile. "They are sometimes wrong, but not often. We'll have time for that run the lady commanded."
Becca laughed. "Rosamunde rules us all, does she not?"
He blinked, then inclined his head. "She does, at that," he agreed.
"I wonder," Becca said, as they passed along the border of the water garden, "how you came to serve Altimere?"
The silence stretched so long that she thought he didn't mean to answer her, then he spoke, so low that he might have been murmuring encouragement into Drisco's ear.
"He is one of the last Elders. His House is old and he is awash in kest. Of course I serve him."
Which, Becca thought crossly, was scarcely more informative than his continued silence would have been.
The path widened somewhat, and there was the meadow, ahead and to the right, down a short slope, the fence that kept the Wild Wood at bay a full furlong distant. Rosamunde quivered, her yearning translating into Becca's yearning.
She leaned slightly forward in the saddle, tucking her heels and stirrups up gently, and whispered, "Good girl," before she looked to Elyd and let Rosamunde have her head with the word they all waited for.
"Go!"
Rosamunde ran, outstripping Drisco in the first moment, and the very wind in the next. Meadow grass flowed beneath them like water, and still they ran faster. Where Elyd and Drisco were—Becca neither knew nor cared. The whirlwind of their passage, the exhilaration of speed—that was all, everything. Enough.
Ahead, the fence! Becca leaned, and Rosamunde turned right, running along the barrier, slowing of her own will, until, quite suddenly, she stopped, ears pricked, and nostrils wide, staring across the fence.
Into the Wild Wood.
Biting her lip, Becca scanned the wood, shadows deep beneath the branches even now, at midday. Rosamunde was alert, not alarmed, but—concerned. Yes, definitely concerned.
Beneath the trees, at the near edge of shadow—was that—
What was that?
Rosamunde snorted, lightly, and the thing in the shadows jumped like a squirrel for the nearest tree. Except it wasn't a squirrel. It was—
Perhaps it was a man. A bandy-legged man scarcely higher than her stirrup, with a tufted tail and—
"Are you mad?" Drisco stormed up, driving between Rosamunde and the fence, Elyd blocking Becca's sight of the—thing—as he grasped her bridle.
"We stopped," she said mildly, and pointed over his shoulder toward the edge of the wood. "Elyd, what is that?"
He turned his head briefly, then looked at her again, anger—no. Fear in his face.
"I don't see anything," he said harshly.
"You did!" she snapped. "There was no other reason for you to set Drisco between it and us!"
"You are not to go under the trees!" Elyd snapped back.
"And why not?" Becca took a hard breath, to cool her temper. Elyd was her friend, and truly, he would know the dangers of the Wood far, far better than she.
He shook his head. "You are not to go under the trees," he repeated, stubbornly.
"Very well," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "We did not go under the trees—and did not intend to go under the trees. I am sorry to have alarmed you, Elyd." She leaned forward and put her hand over his, where he still gripped Rosamunde's bridle.
He froze, and Drisco under him, the two of them seeming to have been carved of the same vast block of mahogany.
"Elyd?" Even as Becca frowned, her fingers moved, delighting in the taut knuckles and firm flesh. His hand was warmer than Altimere's, his pale eyes fixed in a glazed fascination on her face, like a mouse, frozen under the scrutiny of a cat.
Becca laughed, and leaned back, removing her hand. "Well, you needn't look as if I were going to eat you!" she cried. "You are unhandsome, sir! I only want my reins back."
Elyd licked his lips, and closed his eyes—and dropped the bridle.
"It's time to return," he said, tonelessly. "I have duties."
The breeze was off the land this morning, bearing the scent and the vigor of green growing things. Meri paused on the seaward path and turned his face uphill, filling his lungs; feeling the tug toward home.
The faint, and perhaps wholly imaginary, tug toward home. Still, he needed no beacon to guide him to Vanglewood. He had walked the path so many times his feet surely knew the way. . . .
He winced slightly as the elitch switch in his belt developed a sudden sharp edge and dug into his side.
"I gave my word," he muttered, and resolutely turned his face away.
The path he had chosen to the ocean's edge was the quickest. It was also the steepest, and, unless one had spent considerable time at Sea Hold, was indistinguishable from a goat track.
When he was a youth, it had been Meri's favorite way down, the hungry crashing of the waves upon the toothy rocks below adding a thrill to the descent. He had taken it as a mark of his mixed heritage, for it was said that the Sea Folk thrived on danger. His mother was pleased to express the opinion that dancing on daggers was a folly of youth. Especially those youth with wooden heads.
It came to him, halfway down, and sweating his balance among the treacherous stones, that his mother had perhaps been correct.
Still, he had chosen the path, and he was damned if he would turn about and climb an almost perpendicular hill strewn with shattered rock to find a safer route. Even his foggy-headed younger self had known better than that ascent.
The flat
stone walk which led to the pier was only a half-dozen careful steps distant. Meri, poised on shifting stone, distinctly remembered leaping this last distance, which, given the almost complete lack of footing, was perhaps not as mad as it now seemed.
Except for the probability of landing badly, falling and dashing what might be supposed to be one's brains out, or skidding on the damp walk and plummeting into the sea or—
The rocks with which he had achieved his uneasy truce turned abruptly beneath his boots, destroying his balance. Instinct sent him into a leap, knees high, arms extended like wings, and he hit the walk solid, boot heels hammering the rock, breath leaving his lungs in a shout.
For a moment, he stood there, knees bent, arms half-furled, then slowly straightened and looked about him.
It seemed that his mode of descent had gone unwitnessed, which was, upon reflection, too bad. Perhaps a song celebrating Meripen Longeye's graceless descent of Sea Hold would instruct those who hallowed heroes.
Or perhaps not.
Meri shook his head and looked out over the bay. Only a few ships in; and the tide on the turn. He had come down here to the sea's edge for a purpose, and, as he seemed to have survived the descent, he had best get on with it.
One more deep breath, the air thick and tasting more of sand than salt, and he was moving, down the walk until it met the pier, then another jump—a hop, really—to a soft landing in wet sand.
The sea lapped the shore tamely here at this hour, lulling those who did not know it into the belief that all was protected and safe. He supposed he would be safe enough—and in any case, he did not see that he had a choice. Sian held his word, thereby binding him to this place, among these folk. And while the Sea Folk were in no wise as . . . fierce in their acquisition of kest and of precedence as were the Elders, yet there remained a distinct danger in standing amongst them protected only by Sian's will.
Not, he thought wryly, unlacing his shirt and pulling it over his head, that Sian's will was to be discounted; even as a child she had been noted for her willfulness. It was rather that she could not be everywhere, and even Sea Hold might not consider itself bound to protect one who was empty of kest as a—
Light burst before his eyes, shockingly real. A blaze of hot blues and molten yellows. For a moment, he hung, his will suspended, kest rising, his whole being yearning to merge with—
The vision faded. Meri was on his knees in the wet sand, retching.
He shuddered, and pushed himself to his feet. Deliberately, he shook the sand out of his shirt and folded it onto a dry rock, yanked off his boots and put them up, as well, his belt following. For a moment he stood with the elitch wand in his hand, while he looked out over the turgid ocean.
"It were better," he murmured, "if I might seek the trees. I thank you, Elder, for your care."
He pressed the branch to his lips, then put it atop his shirt, stripped off his pants, folded them, walked to the place where the wavelets lapped the hard sand and the ledge fell away, through layers of shifting blue and green—and dove into the ocean.
The water was like acid along his skin, the salt entering each scar as if it were a fresh wound. Meri's muscles convulsed, his breath locked in his chest, and he was sinking, bound for the bottom of the bay like a boulder. He had a moment to appreciate the irony of the sea's healing before the pain vanished, his muscles warmed and he kicked for the surface.
His head broke water, and he drank air in noisy gasps, raising his hands to skin sopping tendrils of hair off his face.
Eventually, his gasping stopped, his breathing deepened and he lay back upon the water. The sea held him as firm as any comrade's arms. For a long time, he stared up at the sky curving like an egg blue bowl above him, dotted here and there with frivolous, curly white clouds. He thought to lift the patch over his right eye, but in the end he closed the left, and let the sea have its way with him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nancy dressed her simply this evening: a white blouse cut low on her shoulders, and a soft skirt the color of cranberries. Her hair was caught up off her neck with a plain silver comb, which was her only jewelry.
"I do not," Becca said to her maid, "appear to be very well dressed for dinner. Am I to expect a picnic on the grounds?"
Nancy of course did not answer, unless the sharp movement of one dainty shoulder could be interpreted as a shrug. But, thought Becca, even if it were so, was it a shrug of ignorance—dismissal?—general insolence?
It occurred to Becca that Nancy did not care much for her—which was . . . unsettling. The servants in her father's house—Cook, Mrs. Janies, Lucy—had been fond of her in various degrees. Those in the city had perhaps not been quite so fond of a strong-willed, countrified miss who had brought scandal on the house of Beauvelley, but that had hardly mattered, so long as they did their duties—which they did, punctiliously.
Nancy, though . . . Nancy was a device.
Altimere had said that she had no more feelings than a buttonhook, or a quill, or a fork; that she had been created to mime all the motions of a living creature, yet experienced neither thought nor emotion. And that was even more distressing than the notion that her maid might dislike her. As unsettling, in its
way, as the shadow of the bandy-legged, tuft-tailed man shape she had glimpsed beneath the shadow of the trees.
She wondered if she would tell Altimere about that sighting, and decided that she would not. Elyd had been horrified enough of the possibility of her escaping over the fence and into the wood, as if Altimere's estate were some prison that she wished to flee! She was shrewd enough to suppose that the stable boy was under strict orders to keep her upon tame land, and she had no wish to expose her friend to Altimere's displeasure.
In the mirror, she saw Nancy flitting back and forth. It seemed to her that the tiny creature was . . . annoyed, which would seem to put the lie to Altimere's claims. Though why he should wish to prevaricate over such a matter was more than Becca could fathom.
"Yes, I see," she said, standing up and shaking out her skirt. "Thank you, Nancy. That will be all."
"And how did you spend your day, child?" Altimere's dress this evening was a simple as her own: a dull gold waistcoat over a creamy shirt, and long pants in smoke gray.
"Elyd and I went for a ride," she told him, taking care with her pronunciation of the Fey words. She paused, and sipped her wine with trepidation. While most of Altimere's wines delighted the nose and tongue, there were two in particular that she found unpleasant—a red that bore a strong aftertaste of pepper and a white that tasted so much of cinnamon that she could not drink it without her eyes tearing up.
"It seemed a pleasant day for a ride," Altimere murmured. "Did you go far?"
"Only to the south field," she said, finding that the wine this evening was one of her favorites, lightly chilled and tasting of peaches. "Rosamunde wanted to run."
"Rosamunde would run from here to Xandurana," Altimere said fondly, placing the cheese platter near her hand. "She is very much her of her grandsire's line. Try the blue, zinchessa, and tell me what you think."
Obediently, Becca took a slice of the purple-veined cheese and nibbled.
"I think it excellent, sir!" she said, surprised. She reached for another slice.
"Do you? I had been concerned that it were too . . . wild a flavor."
"Not at all!" she assured him. "The flavor is just what it ought to be and the texture is delightful."
"Well, it does me good to hear you say so, child, for your kest never leads your wrongly in such things. Did you see anything untoward, in the south meadow?"
There had been something . . . Becca frowned and sipped her wine. Oh! She had decided not to discuss the day's ride in detail with Altimere! What a strange idea. As if she could not tell Altimere everything and anything! He held her kest and her future, how could she make him free with so much, and not trust him with the simple events of her day?
"We saw something at the edge of the Wild Wood, Rosamunde and
I," she said, setting her glass aside. "Elyd swore he saw nothing, but I think that was because he was angry with me."
"Angry with you? How very odd. I had been certain that he was . . . fascinated by you."
"No, I annoy him," Becca said seriously. "Badgering him with silly questions, and nagging at him to take time from his duties to teach me to read."
"Can Elyd read? You surprise me."
"Well, I own that I found it odd, too. But he can read quite well, sir, and he is very good at explaining—"
"But . . ." Altimere coached gently.
"But, he has his duties in the stables and for the horses. It is not his job to teach me to read. As he rightly points out to me." She paused, suddenly struck by a thought. "Altimere?"