The Blight of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

  * * *

  Sowe clenched Lia’s arm, walking so close their feet almost tangled. Her voice was soft and frantic, her breath fragrant from the mint leaves Pasqua had given them. She had also tried to tame Lia’s curly hair, but that was always its own challenge. “Tomorrow? You are leaving tomorrow? That is not fair, Lia. You are my sister, not just my friend. How can he separate sisters?”

  Lia kept her voice low since there were so many others crowding through the gate, trying to leave the grounds for the village beyond.

  “The Aldermaston said he would tell Pasqua tonight. But what can she do, Sowe? He is committed to doing this. When has she ever been able to change his mind? Look, do you see Reome over there? Look how she has braided her hair. She is too beautiful. It makes me ill.”

  Sowe squeezed her arm even tighter when the maypole came into view, illuminated by torches and rushlights. “I have never been so nervous. We should have practiced more. What if I stumble?”

  “You will not stumble, Sowe.”

  “What if I do?”

  “If you keep thinking about that, it is bound to happen! Just breathe deeply. This is our first year – no one is expecting us to dance all that well.”

  “Who is that young man who just asked Reome?” Sowe whispered. “His arms are enormous!”

  “The local blacksmith, I think,” muttered Lia jealously. He was a head taller than the other boys. “Ugh, there is Getman. Pray he does not see us.”

  “He is coming our way, Lia!”

  In an awful moment, she realized Sowe was right. They had just exited the gates with the flow of the crowd and Getman appeared from their left and cut a course directly barring their way to the maypole. Lia’s stomach shriveled and she searched the crowd for a sign of Colvin. Where was he?

  “Will you dance with me?”

  Lia looked at him scornfully, hating even the thought of touching his sooty hand. But she realized with some surprise that he was not even looking at her, but at Sowe, who squeezed her arm so tightly it hurt.

  Sowe mumbled an answer, but the crowd was so boisterous that Lia knew he had not heard her.

  “Will you?” he repeated, his eyes blazing, daring her to humiliate him with a rejection.

  Sowe released Lia’s arm and extended her hand. A look of victory filled Getman’s eyes and he snatched her hand and tugged her after him, for the first circle was forming around the maypole already. Looking back, Sowe met Lia’s gaze, pleading with her for rescue, but there was nothing Lia could do but watch them. Watch them twirl and dance. Watch the torchlight glisten on Sowe’s dark hair as they circled around the pole, back again, swirling, dancing.

  Everything seemed to slow like thick honey. It was as if Lia saw her friend for the first time – even though she knew Sowe’s face better than anyone’s. But it was the unforgiving look in Reome’s eyes that spoke the truth. Reome also watched Sowe as she danced – and it was the look of utter jealousy. The look that sprouts from a proud woman’s heart when it realizes someone else is more beautiful. Sowe was completely ignorant of the scathing stare. She was shy with Getman, but that only added to her appealing qualities. They twirled and they danced the other direction. Around the pole and back, weaving the ribbons until the entire maypole was sheathed in silk. Lia stood aloof, with some other girls who did not have partners.

  When the song was finished, the dancers were given a reprieve while the coiled ribbons were untangled. Sowe left Getman graciously and started away when another young man, the Tanner boy, appeared breathlessly at her side and asked for the next dance. He claimed her hand and tugged her back towards the newly gathering circle. Sowe looked over her shoulder, searching, but their eyes did not meet.

  Lia stood there, her stomach twisting into knots. There were learners dancing with learners, their fine cut gowns and gold-threaded tunics dazzling with jewelry, their skin spicy with the scent of costly perfumes. But on Whitsunday, even the wretcheds were their equals. No one was forbidden to dance around the maypole.

  A band of knights emerged from around the almonry and Lia’s heart nearly burst with relief. They were dressed in the same uniform, each wearing a gleaming collar and chain, the same she had seen around Colvin’s neck. She bit her lip, searching their faces. They were young, all of them, and quite sure of themselves. But none of them were familiar to her. They approached a gaggle of beautiful learners who Lia had known and served dinner to and then escorted them to the circle. Lia watched them dance, again on the sidelines. As soon as the round was finished, Sowe was beset again by another youth – this time, a learner in fine clothes who had been watching her. An ugly feeling began to bloom in Lia’s stomach. She crushed it down, unwilling to let the feeling coalesce into an envious thought. It was her third dance already.

  Where was Colvin? He had promised he would dance with her. Where was he?

  “Lia?”

  She turned, expecting to see him, but it was Duerden. He coughed, trying to work up his courage. He looked so young and small, even though they were the same age, for she was much taller than him. “Lia, would you…would you do me the honor and dance with me?”

  Anything was better than the agony of standing alone for the third dance. She looked down at him. In the back of her mind, she remembered being teased about his height.

  “Yes, Duerden. Of course I will. I would be pleased to.”

  His hand was sweaty. He led her awkwardly to the maypole ring. Reome saw them, sizing them both up, and could not be bothered to conceal a smirk. Sowe stood across the ring from them, holding hands with the learner who had claimed her.

  “It is lovely this evening…you look…lovely this evening.” It was a gallant attempt, but it felt forced. Everyone in the outer circle held hands, the girls on the left of each boy.

  “You do not need to praise me, Duerden,” Lia said. “We have been friends for a year now. Are you excited to see your family before starting the second year? Are they staying in the village?”

  “Yes, at the Swan. They are over there, actually, by the booth where Pasqua is selling her treats. My father is the one stuffing his face with a tart.” She saw him. He was short as well. His mother was taller, more Lia’s height. She cringed inside.

  “Will he mind seeing you dance with me?” Lia asked in a low voice as the circle began skipping around the maypole.

  “No, Lia. It is not your fault you are a wretched, after all. I have never looked at you that way. I would like…you to meet them. My parents. After the circle is done.”

  Lia closed her eyes, grateful to be dancing, but uncomfortable. Duerden was a good-natured boy. He had always been friendly to her, but she had no other feelings for him.

  “I would like that,” she said, but it felt like a lie on her tongue. She glanced back at Pasqua’s booth which was brisk with business as it was each year. A year ago she had watched the maypole dance with hungry eyes. So much had changed.

  “Have you heard the latest news about Winterrowd?” Duerden asked as the circle stopped and began rotating the other direction. “The old king was killed by hired archers, they say. Pry-rian archers. Do you know about Pry-Ree, Lia? About their mercenaries?”

  Her stomach did flip-flops as it had every time he mentioned the battle of Winterrowd. So much of what he told her about it was untrue, nothing more than gossip. She knew the truth for certain, because she was the one who the Medium had used to loose the shaft that killed the king. She had only told the Aldermaston what she had done – no one else – and how the Medium had commanded her to do it. No one else knew. Not even Sowe.

  “I know little about Pry-Ree,” she said, glancing through the throng surrounding the circle for a sign of Colvin.

  Duerden kept going as if he had not heard her. “Pry-Ree was defeated before we were born, Lia. It used to be its own kingdom, but now it is a vassalage of the Crown. They have always hated us. Some are saying that Demont did not win Winterrowd because of the Medium as the mastons claim. They say that there was an ambush
and a slaughter to avenge the death of Demont’s father and the overthrow of Pry-Ree. They say Demont was in Pry-Ree before crossing with his men. Now that he controls the king’s privy council, we may never know the truth. Strange days, Lia. So very strange. I am not sure what to believe myself.”

  They danced, weaving the sashes and avoiding stepping on each other’s toes. Smiles and cheers and claps heralded them, but Lia’s heart was dark. She knew the truth, but she could say nothing of it. Not of the murderous sheriff of Mendenhall and his death by the Medium’s fire. Of Colvin and his fear of a battle where Demont’s men were hopelessly outnumbered. There were no Pry-rian archers there…except for herself and she was not even trained as an archer. Duerden held her hand and wove the sashes with her, but there was a gulf between them now, of secrets that could never be shared.

  After the dance, Lia met Duerden’s family and they were gracious to her. Pasqua embarrassed her by giving her a crushing hug in front of everyone and mumbled incoherently while weeping about losing her again. Sowe was asked to dance every time and had blisters on her feet by the end of the night and a smile on her face that shone like burning oil. As they limped back to the kitchen sometime after midnight, carrying empty platters and trays from Pasqua’s booth, Lia’s heart grew heavier and heavier with those secrets and with disappointment that seemed to mount with each step on the grass and each trip back.

  For Colvin Price, the Earl of Forshee, never came.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  Jon’s Leering

  Lia wrestled with her emotions, even though she had determined in advance to master them. The Bearden Muir was different, yet the same – oppressive, haunting, thick with memories that could not be banished or tamped down. Standing over Jon Hunter’s grave, she fought down the urge to sob, to scream, the desire to undo everything she had done so long ago. It was a year since his death, a year since that awful Whitsunday fair. A year wearing hunter boots, hunter leathers, dealing in a hunter’s errands. She bit her lip, willing the memories to dull, the emotions to fade. Jon had died because of her.

  Leaves and brush choked the small glen where she and Colvin had buried him beneath a pile of rocks. Had he died at the Abbey, his bones would have been interred in an ossuary and laid to rest with the Aldermaston’s blessing. She stared at the Leering stone the Aldermaston had carved, a stump-like block, hewn with a man’s bearded face on it, reposing, silent. She and Martin had finished digging a small hole for it at the head of the rock mound and set it firmly in place, kicking dirt in to fill the gaps. Their mule would have an easier journey back to the Abbey now that its weight was gone. At least the beast was relieved of its burden. Lia wondered if she ever would be.

  “He was a good lad,” said Martin sternly, brushing his hands together. He sniffed and grimaced, controlling his emotions. “We will greet him again, you and I. In the next life. In a fair country where no knaves can do him harm. Where no blood is ever spilt.” He stopped and wiped his nose, but his eyes were dry and full of fire. He brooded with anger constantly, his temper shorter than even the Aldermaston’s.

  Lia fidgeted with the leather bracer tight against her forearm. “I will be ashamed to face him.”

  He snorted. “Did you loose the arrows that slew him? No. Did you murder mastons and spill their blood? No, by Cheshu! There are debts we all owe, Lia. But you owe him nothing for what happened. You paid your fair share in recompense, learning the ways and doing his work, which he can no longer do himself.”

  Lia closed her eyes. The memories were still bitter. “If I had known then what I know now. The mistakes we made crossing the swamp. The risks we took without realizing it…”

  He grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. His finger jabbed near her nose. “It is a cruel fact, child. Wisdom comes after the moment when it is most needed. I have warned you of the doom of Pry-Ree. We failed to learn from the changing times. Failed to act when we should have acted. Instead, we were crushed, our princes butchered like hogs. So what have you learned from this journey? Hmm? If you were Jon in that moment, what would you have done differently? Knowing what you know now.”

  “I do not know, Martin,” she answered, jerking her arm away from his crushing grip.

  The blue fire in his eyes blazed hotter. “You do know.”

  “He trained with you for much longer.”

  He snorted and spat.

  Anger flushed her cheeks, but she kept it from rising to her voice. “What do you want me to say?”

  He pointed at her again. “Only the truth. He was a hunter, yes. He was trained, yes. But you know as much as he ever did. I have never trained a boy or man who learns as fast as you do. From rabbit snares to naming all the little insects in the wood. You know them all and remember it the first time.”

  Lia wanted to shut the door on her thoughts, but she could not in time. The whisper was there. It was always there. The pulsing of the Medium, giving her thoughts and teasing hints. It probably frightened others how quickly she knew things. What they did not know was how the Medium taught her with silent whispers. She grit her teeth, because she did not want to speak it.

  “Say it, Lia!”

  Her body trembled, flushed and overflowing with emotions. She was afraid of the truth. Which was perhaps the very reason the Aldermaston had sent her back into the Bearden Muir to settle the Leering and face the past.

  Martin stepped even closer, his nose poking up at her. Even though she had grown more the last year and he only came up to her chin, his force of personality towered hers. “Say it, Lia. Cast out the shadows you cringe behind. Say it.”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “He was careless.”

  “Careless? Yes! Can you taste that word? It tastes like ash in your mouth. It should. Have I not taught you this when you first started to train with me? The hunter is patient. The prey is careless.” He stormed away from her, stamping his boot in the muck. He spat. “An elk returns to the same place of water because it is the place of water. A patient hunter waits in the bushes. Waits until the elk is thirsty. That way, he has a clean shot. The closer he gets, the better aim. But a man is not an elk.” He tapped his finger on his forehead then pointed to the mound of stones. “He was careless.”

  Lia sucked in a strangled breath. Her body ached, her spirit suffered. Yet she knew Martin was right. Jon had misjudged the sheriff’s ruthlessness. Instead of hiding the trail, Jon could have waited to catch them by surprise. A single archer with a full quiver and a steady aim was deadlier than charging knights, for he could kill those knights at a distance.

  Martin paced in the woods, waving his arms with his emotions as he typically did. “He could have created false trails with the horse and let you two sneak into the woods on foot. He could have taken another path back to the trail to throw off an ambush. Or he could have waited for the sheriff and his ilk and the three of you fight together. Greater odds fighting alongside a knight-maston than by himself.”

  Lia bit her lip. “He was not a knight-maston then.”

  Martin snorted and waved his hand in annoyance. “We honor Jon’s grave today, Lia. You said this maston dedicated it already, so there is nothing we can do to hallow it further. The Leering is here so that the Aldermaston can pay his respects when he is no longer bound to Muirwood. Let us return home. You know your lessons. Now let this experience be a teacher to you as well.”

  Lia nodded and knelt down by the Leering. She brushed her hand across the face, staring into the silent visage. A year had passed. A year of scornful mocking from Reome for dressing like a boy instead of a woman. A year wandering the woods and valleys and ditches surrounding the Hundred. Of tunnels and passwords, of memorizing faces and messages to be delivered to the Aldermaston’s allies in nearby Abbeys. Her world was a bigger place. Part of her longed to be making Gooseberry fool in Pasqua’s kitchen where life was simpler.

  Looking up at Martin, she reached into the pouch at her waist and withdrew the Cruciger orb, her special talisman – her only bir
thright. She wore it on every journey. She was the only one at the Abbey, other than the Aldermaston, who was strong enough with the Medium to use it. It was found with her when she was abandoned as a wretched and the ball and spindles could be summoned to point the direction of places or people. “I would make one more visit before we go home. There is another Leering nearby. Another memory I need to face.”

  He scowled but nodded to her. “Lead the way, lass.”

  With a thought, the spindles on the orb began to whirl.

  * * *

  Lia gazed down at the bed of grass, thicker now and still clinging to the damp of spring. The orb in her hand tingled and writing appeared across its immaculate surface. She could not read it. This was the spot where Colvin had carried her after the blazing fire she summoned with the Medium had destroyed the sherrif and his men. Nearby, the scorched thicket of trees remained. The wood was dead, black and skeletal. The gorse was thriving again, but the thicket had been ravaged and would take years to recover.

  Take me to my Leering, she thought and the Cruciger orb spun lazily towards the thicket. Martin followed, coaxing the mule again. As she entered the dead place, she ran her fingers across the twisted blackened trunks as she passed, hearing in her mind the jangle of spurs and armor, the chuckling threats of Almaguer’s men. Part of her recoiled at the memory of the soldiers beating Colvin, and how she had flung herself over his body and used the Medium to keep them away from him. She frowned, wondering why Colvin had never returned to Muirwood. No message were ever sent. No explanation ever given.

  She knew that he was alive.

  The Earl of Forshee held great favor with Garen Demont and was known to all. Garen Demont, Lord Protector of the Realm, who controlled custody over the young king and ruled the kingdom in his name. The victor of Winterrowd. Oh yes, she had heard Colvin’s name mentioned excitedly after being elevated in rank as an earl. For his service in the battle, he was recognized and rewarded with additional lands. He was part of Demont’s inner circle, a member of the privy council where only knight-mastons were admitted.