“And what are you going to do about it, Scarlet?”
That question startled him, even though he’d been asking it himself for what seemed like an eternity. “I…I don’t know.”
“Come with me, then. Things may not be as bad as they seem. There are rituals we can try, spells we can cast.”
A robin chirruped loudly above them, and Scarlet formulated his refusal. He might have made a fatal mistake with Brien, but that did not mean the sister was any more trustworthy, however much they loathed each other. Indeed he had good reason to be wary of her too.
“There are some pages missing from Old Brigit’s Aeboda,” said Scarlet. “Was that you?”
“You have sharp eyes, don’t you? Yes, that was me.”
“Why did you take them?”
“I wanted to study them. Besides, I couldn’t risk Melmoth getting his hands on them and finding out about himself before I did. He’s done enough damage as it is.”
“So you do know what he is. Is he a true protector?”
“The book is complex, and I am still trying to interpret its deeper meanings. We always knew Melmoth was of the bloodline, but his powers are…well, different from mine. We know he is not faederswica. The forest would have killed a traitor by now.”
“If only!” spat Scarlet.
Jemima hissed sharply between her teeth. “Show some mettle, boy! You’re not some Gothic heroine who is going to weep into her pillow over the man who stole her maidenhead. Don’t you want at least a chance to confront him—or to put things right? I do have the deeds, you know. He will come begging to me very soon, and then he’ll be at both our mercies.”
“I’m hardly weeping into my fucking pillow.”
She shrugged, unruffled by his burst of temper. “You’ve still nothing to gain by moping around here.”
Scarlet glared at her, tongue-tied by her gall. He wasn’t a bloody child, and neither was he a whiny girl. It really was time he sent her packing, yet he hesitated still. He wanted Jemima to answer some questions about the tampered jars and the coney slain by the arrow. And it wasn’t the sister who had fucked him and left him. Jemima might be unpleasant, but she had no reason to harm him, and her only enemy was the man who had ruined his life. She had at least tried to warn him. Looking back, Arya, his only closer ally, had practically pushed him into Brien’s arms.
“Scarlet?”
“Leave me be a moment. I…I need to think.”
“Very well.”
He gripped the door frame and shut his eyes, entreating to Holgaerst. How did he truly feel? Yes, his body still ached for Brien, stretched as it was and slightly sore, and he yearned for the taste of him. But even more compelling than that—damn! He still craved Brien’s company. Last night had been fun. He wanted to hear the confounded man sing again, to laugh dirtily together, even to get drunk on more bedeviled gin and sprawl like a wanton in his arms. And, as striking as anything, he’d not felt a wisp of pain from the mark of the hazel since Brien had touched him there. He could feel nothing even now.
But it could only be a matter of time before the pain became crippling. He had to do something. Would no answer come to him?
“I know you have doubts about me, Scarlet.” Jemima’s velveteen voice penetrated deeply into his troubled mind. “And I apologize if you think I have disparaged you in any way. But I promise you. I will explain everything. Just come with me to Carseald Hall.”
“Very well,” said Scarlet softly. “I’ll come.”
* * *
Brien wanted to smash his fist into the glowing ashes in the hearth and hold it there as the skin reddened and blistered. The agony could be nothing compared to the tumult of indecision that raged within him at that moment.
“Where is Scarlet?” Arya repeated, calmly and slowly, as if she were talking to a child.
“He’s at Old Brigit’s cottage. We…we…”
“You bedded him?”
“Oh, bloody hell! After that I…I thought it would be damned easy to leave him.” The anguish cracked in Brien’s voice, although he knew he hardly deserved sympathy.
“It’s not so easy, is it?”
He shook his head.
“In which case, the answer is simple. Stay in the Greenwood, where you belong. Use your money to buy back Carseald Hall. I’m sure Jemima will share the deeds with you, which can be sold, and—”
“I can’t! Don’t you see, woman? I can’t stay here because I loathe this place. I came back only to take what was mine and say good-bye forever. You want me to move back to Carseald Hall, to rebuild it? I’d rather die!”
Arya looked as shocked as he had ever seen her; she opened her mouth, then shut it again and lifted her fingers to fiddle with her charm necklace, then her amulet. The implacable druidess was lost for words. Brien downed his ale. It tasted worse than piss.
Now the truth was articulated, it seemed all the more irrefutable. The thought of leaving Scarlet was tearing him apart, but he could never stay here. He knew that as a fact, even as his soul craved to hear Scarlet laugh and his body craved to fuck him.
He still had to move on; he’d always had to move on. That was the kind of man he was. He would be no better than a trapped rat here.
“I once suggested that you were in love with him.” Brien acknowledged Arya’s words with a grunt. “You don’t have to believe in magic to believe in love.”
“That doesn’t help,” murmured Brien. “I can’t stay here. Scarlet will have to come with me.”
“He’s bound to the forest, Brien. And now he’s bound to you.”
He couldn’t deal with those last words, not then. There was too much else to think about, too many reasons he couldn’t stay beyond even the matter that it would drive him insane. The local magistrates might have set the yeomanry on his trail following the incident with Hastings. And he still had debts to pay.
“I will talk to him,” said Brien. “I will ask Scarlet to come with me. He wants to leave too. I’m sure of it.”
“He’ll die, Melmoth!”
“How do you know? Oh, I know what you believe you saw the last time he tried to go, but he could have caught a fever off one of the villagers, anything like that. It was a coincidence.”
Her expression contorting in sudden contempt, Arya flung the contents of her tankard into the hearth. “Why will you still not believe? In this forest, Holgaerst is real! It surrounds us, it fills us, and it influences our every thought and action. Can’t you feel it, man?”
“And that is exactly why I have to bloody well leave!”
He strode from the cabin but did not get far. George Shanks, who seemed as impatient to get out of there as he was, hurried up behind him and clapped him on the back.
“Brien? What is it, old man? Ready to go?”
“Soon. I promise. Why don’t you start back to Winchester? I’ll join you late tomorrow, but I have to speak with my sister.”
“Miss Brien? Why, I saw her the day before yesterday, at the solicitor’s in Southampton. Quite the gentlewoman she looked.”
Brien gaped at George; he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Neither, it seemed, could Arya, who had dashed out after him, apparently wishing to continue their debate.
“Jemima?” asked Arya. “In Southampton? But why? She’s devoted to the Greenwood. She never leaves it…and…” She touched her forehead, clearly struggling to get her head around things.
Frowning, Brien addressed George. “Could you have been mistaken?”
“Not at all. I hadn’t seen her since I visited nearly a decade past, but she’s a handsome woman, your sister. I had called at your mother’s solicitor, that Vernon fellow, to see if they had a clue where you were. I believe she was there on business too. Although, well, I have to say, she was in quite a hurry and seemed agitated. Is Miss Brien unwell in some way?”
“She was in fine fettle last time I laid eyes on her.”
Arya’s exclamation almost matched Brien’s thoughts: What in the name o
f Holgaerst is she playing at?
* * *
Scarlet had never had much affection for the place, but the sight of the fire-ravaged carcass of Carseald Hall still made him feel a little sad. The remaining beams jutting from the soot-blackened shell of the Great Hall were like sticks of charcoal, ready to snap at any moment. Scarlet shuddered. “Why did you want to come back here?”
“Because this is the very heart of the Greenwood, Scarlet, and where the spirits are strongest. I’ve started performing some rituals here, and I think you will find them quite interesting.”
Jemima had talked constantly during the journey, so Scarlet had barely got a word in edgewise, and his questions remained unanswered. His uneasiness mounted as he followed her around the back of the Hall. The stables had been left untouched by the fire, and it became clear that this was where she was leading him. He’d liked it here; he ought to be feeling safer. So why did an icy dread now twist about his heart?
Jemima held out her hand to him. He looked at her long fingers, and then his gaze slid up to the white arrows in her quiver. “Come on, Scarlet. I want to show you something.”
In a split second, he would have bolted, but he must have betrayed too much in his wide eyes. Jemima grabbed his wrist and, with surprise still on her side, yanked Scarlet forward and pushed him through the stable door.
He tumbled to his hands and knees, looked up—and a hoarse scream ripped from his lungs. For a second, he thought the room was dripping with blood. As his eyes focused, he realized it was so much worse. Scarlet gaped up at crimson catkins hanging pendulous from every beam and oozing from every orifice in the stonework.
And then the pain split through his guts, he grabbed at the sign of the hazel, and collapsed forward, senseless, onto the stable floor.
* * *
As he broke through the line of trees and onto the open marshes, Brien fixed his gaze on the dirt track ahead as it wound toward the bridge. Beyond, the road split in several directions.
His hand poised on Smithy’s reins, the temptation hit him instantaneously. He was supposed to be heading into Southampton to wring the truth about Jemima from Vernon, the solicitor—but why didn’t he just keep riding? He could take the open road to Winchester or, even better, head straight through Southampton to the docks. He would not need money then, or need fear the law. He could work his way to freedom, taking a berth on the first ship that would have him. The forest would be a distant nightmare soon enough.
The cry reached him on the cusp of the wind, inarticulate but familiar.
The stallion reared, and ice gripped Brien’s heart. Damn it, it had to be nature playing its tricks again, but…that light tenor sounded like Scarlet calling to him, almost as clear as if the boy were riding with him. He clung to that final thought: wouldn’t that be wonderful? Galloping off to who knew where, with Scarlet behind him on the saddle, those lissome limbs wrapped around him, and Scarlet’s blushing cheek molding into the crook of his neck.
Although that cry had hardly been born of comfort.
With an increasing sense of urgency, Brien rode on into Southampton.
* * *
As his consciousness ebbed back to him, the first thing Scarlet registered was that the catkins were still there, bleeding from the walls and rafters. His stomach clenched with nausea, and he rolled onto his side. He breathed heavily until his fingers prickled, but he mastered the worst of it. He dared then to open his eyes once more.
Lying in what had briefly been his own cot, he saw that somebody, no doubt Jemima, had tidied the stable since Brien let his temper rip through it. Several wooden trunks sat by the door, of the kind that Old Brigit used to store rags in, although these were a lot smarter and looked brand-new.
He took all of this in, bewildered. And then Jemima swept in through the stable door.
“My brother has left the forest,” she said. “I can sense it. No doubt you can too.”
Yes. Yes, he could. Scarlet tried to push himself up, only to sink back onto the cot. The catkins glowed brighter than the plumpest berries on the holly, and his sickness was giddying. The hazel must be acting on him, crippling his strength for its own foul ends, but he could still just about muster up anger.
“What is going on?” he demanded. Jemima sat down on the edge of his bed. Her lips thinned, and her expression seemed sympathetic. “You…you said you’d give me answers. Are you going somewhere?”
She inclined her head in an affirmative. “But you must go before me, Scarlet. Oh, don’t get me wrong, you are a fighter. But you always knew it would be in vain. You have to die now, all because of my brother.”
“I…I thought you were going to help me fight Niogaerst.”
“I can’t do that.”
Scarlet let the breath drain slowly from his lungs, a sense of resignation seeping through his veins. Even his anger with Jemima dissipated, just a little. “So…you brought me here because you feel you must redress the balance. Niogaerst needs my blood to satiate the damage that has been done to the forest. It’s all because of the intruders…then he came back…and I…I…bound myself to him…”
She brushed his damp hair from his brow. “No, Scarlet. You’re quite wrong. He hasn’t left you. For you, sweet one, even my wayward brother will choose to come back, time after time. And that’s the thing. You, I’m afraid, are just the bait.”
She patted his cheek. Scarlet flinched, his confusion tipping back toward a weary anger. Was she mocking him? He made a renewed attempt to get up. Gently but firmly, she pushed him back down.
“Don’t fight me now. Of all beings in this ghastly place, you ought to understand my plight.”
Scarlet tried to lift his head again, but black dots wheeled in front of him. She pulled out a little vial from under her cloak. Scarlet realized it had to be the heamlac—even as she grabbed his jaw with her other hand, squeezing hard.
“You want the truth, Scarlet? You want to know the lore of the protectors? Then hear this. I, too, am bound to the forest. I can’t bloody leave! All us bloodline protectors are bound, unable to leave for more than a day or so without our strength waning unto death—until, once every century or so, some lucky devil among us is blessed to be a wanderer.”
“A…a wanderer? So…a protector who can leave? I thought…you all could.”
“No. Not me. Not my poor father, even though it drove him mad in the end, nagged to death by his wretched, unbelieving wife. Only my damnable brother can leave! He can channel all the powers of Holgaerst and is free to come and go as he pleases, with no ties to the Greenwood…unless he chooses to forge them. Spirits damn him!”
Now Scarlet’s head churned nearly as much as his stomach. How could he take all of this in right now?
“Ah, poor Scarlet,” sighed Jemima, her grip on his jaw relenting a little. “That Brien is a wanderer diminished none of the pull between a protector of the forest and its underling. Oh yes, I was well aware that telling you to stay away would only make you hanker after him the more. The moment I felt the attraction between you two—and by Niogaerst, that was the strongest current that I’ve ever felt pass through the Greenwood—I knew I had him trapped. It was the opportunity I had been waiting for. You see, I discovered in Old Brigit’s book that there is only one way to free a bloodline protector from the bonds of the forest…”
She trailed off. Her face was now poised so close to Scarlet’s that he could smell the herbs on her breath. In combination with her gleaming eyes, the effect was hypnotic.
“For two years, I have been the priestess of Niogaerst, and for two years I stirred and summoned the fouler spirits to little end. It all changed when Melmoth returned. I left my little message on father’s grave, redoubled my entreaties, and the catkins began to turn. Oh yes. Niogaerst needs blood sacrifice. But none as insignificant as yours will free one as tightly bound as I am.”
His eyes stretched wide, this final revelation striking his wits back into action. “You…you need your brother’s sacrifice?”
“Indeed, Scarlet. Indeed.” Jemima paused. Scarlet twisted his head out of her grasp, thrashing and trying to free himself, but the rising power of Niogaerst had sapped so much of his strength that his efforts floundered. She backhanded him sharply across the cheek. A stunning blow, Scarlet momentarily fainted.
The next thing he knew, Jemima was binding his wrists above his head. He’d grown so weak that it was inevitable she would overpower him, although he struggled as much as he could, his acorn charm flickering tantalizingly in the corner of his vision as she restrained his arms. Then she tied a ligature around his neck, explaining as she did so that it was all part of the ritual.
“I know the fucking ritual,” murmured Scarlet.
She pressed the vial to his lips. “As I said,” she continued, “you are no more than the bait, but we might as well do these things properly.”
Scarlet took his first dose of poison with a passive obedience—and then, summoning his very last ounce of strength, he spat it out in her face.
Chapter Sixteen
“It has been a pleasure to do business with you, Brien. And no, I would not concern myself about Hastings if I were you. The Hall is as good as yours again, if you have the funds that you say you have. It’s that sister of yours that you need to be mindful of, sir. Good day to you.”
Brien glowered as he shook Reginald Vernon’s hand, so deeply was he thinking about everything the solicitor had just told him. Hastings and his sons had fled the country, leaving no witnesses to Connor’s death, and thus no hope of any charges being brought. But he could not waste time feeling relieved.
He now understood that Jemima had planned to exploit the capital from the deeds and leave old England for good.
Well, maybe the woman wasn’t so mad after all. As he rode toward the forest, he felt vaguely optimistic that the two of them could, for the first time in their lives, strike a deal that would be mutually pleasing. Nevertheless he was none the wiser about what he would do regarding Scarlet.
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