The Blight of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

  Fool, fool, fool! she cursed herself. She was a hunter! She should have noticed the signs that something was different. Careless. So careless in her exhaustion. Stopping suddenly, she turned in time to see Colvin reaching out to grab her cloak.

  “Do not touch me!” she screeched at him. She flung her cloak behind her, knowing it was still infected with the sap’s poison. She took two steps backwards and swallowed heavily, trying to find her voice through the humiliation. He stopped, stunned, his eyes widening with shock and hurt.

  “Please…please do not touch me,” she said and groaned at herself.

  His voice was stern. “Show me your face.”

  She shook her head violently and backed away further. “Go. Please go.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I cannot see you. Not like this.”

  “I do not care what you look like! You have seen me at my worst before.”

  She said nothing.

  “Can I see you tomorrow?”

  She nodded lamely.

  Pasqua’s voice bellowed from the doorway. “Lia! Child! Where are you! Lia?” She sounded frantic.

  “We are guests at the Abbey,” Colvin announced. “There is so much I have to tell you. So much to explain. I am sorry, Lia. I truly am. I will see you tomorrow.”

  He hesitated before leaving her, his hand slowly clenching and unclenching. She had seen that gesture so many times during their moments together. Then he turned and walked back to the kitchen, his voice low when he spoke to Pasqua. “She is around the corner. Edmon. We must go. Now.”

  Lia crumpled and leaned against the kitchen wall, unable to stop tears from burning her eyes. She hated crying! She buried her face in her hands and wept, struggling to understand her feelings. For though she was embarrassed and humiliated and undone with tiredness and shock, yet Colvin had finally returned to Muirwood. He had come as he had promised. She was not prepared for how strong the relief would feel.

  That he had not forgotten her after all.

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  Colvin

  Lia wrung water from her crinkly damp hair, regretting that its color was not as fashionable as Sowe’s as her friend began coaxing tangles out of it with a comb. It was always a battle taming her hair. Bryn brought over a tray of bread, cheese, nuts, and a cup of cider. Lia’s body was still wet from bathing, still stung from the scrubbing of the lye soap, but the spare dress was warm and soft and she felt less constricted without her hunter leathers, which were in a basket waiting for her to purge them the next morning. With a thought, she caused the Leering by the ovens to flare hotter, helping fight the evening chill. The other two glanced at the sudden spurt of flames, but were used to her doing it.

  Lia ate quickly for she was starving. She looked up at Bryn and said between mouthfuls, “How long are they staying?”

  Bryn did a bouncy step and a twirl. “A year. Maybe more. What Pasqua said is that we are to feed the Aldermaston’s guests until they leave. They are not going to eat at the learner kitchen. Since they will be staying at the manor, we are to prepare the food ourselves and let no stranger into the kitchen. Ever.” She stopped amidst another twirl. “With the battle won and the old king dead, should we be so worried? Sowe told me that the sheriff stole in here once and hurt you, Lia. Do you think something like that might happen again?”

  Lia gulped down some of the sweet cider before replying. “You should always fasten the doors at night, Bryn, even if I am not back. I can always sleep elsewhere, and I know how hard it is waking up Sowe. Besides, there are still survivors from the king’s army wandering the Bearden Muir, living off the land. Martin and I have seen their tracks, but they have stayed away from the Abbey so far. Still…it is best to be cautious.” She wiped her mouth. “So explain this to me. How did Colvin and Edmon…”

  “The Earls of Forshee and Norris-York,” Sowe said, interrupting her. “They have titles, Lia. You are supposed to use them.”

  Lia snorted before continuing. “They came yesterday, unannounced, and said they would be staying at the Abbey for a year? You said they brought two young ladies with them?”

  Bryn nodded and twirled again. She was always practicing her dancing since it was her first year to attend the Whitsunday festival and she wanted to be sure she had it memorized. “One is the Earl of Forshee’s sister. She’s a second year learner from an Abbey in the north. Not only is she Colvin’s…I mean the Earl of Forshee’s sister, she is also the companion of the Aldermaston’s secret guest – the niece of Garen Demont. The two earls are her protectors. Or maybe more than just protectors.”

  Lia chewed on a handful of nuts, trying to understand what was going on. Pain from the comb made her gasp. “Ouch, Sowe!”

  “I am trying to be gentle,” Sowe said, tugging another tangle loose.

  “More than protectors?” Lia asked. “What do you mean?”

  Bryn twirled again and skirted around the edge of a flagstone. Honestly, the girl could hardly hold still! “At the laundry, they say the girls are each promised to the earls. That the Earl of Norris-York is to marry the Earl of Forshee’s sister. That is so complicated. I hate using all those titles. Besides, they said we did not need to address them as nobles. Edmon is supposed to marry Colvin’s sister Marciana. And Colvin is supposed to marry Ellowyn Demont.”

  For a moment, Lia’s heart raged with disbelief, but she stamped it down. He had delayed coming to Muirwood because he was out wooing a girl?

  Bryn clearly did not see her burning face, for she kept on talking. “Reome says that Colvin is too old not to be married or at least promised to someone. She thinks that he should have found a wife before becoming a maston. Do you think he is too old? He is only nineteen. My father and mother did not marry until they were twenty and five and twenty.” She stopped and turned to Lia. “Tell Lia about the girl, Sowe. About Ellowyn!”

  Lia sat still while Sowe finished with the comb. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but only Colvin knew the answers she sought.

  Sowe’s voice was soft. “She was a wretched, like us. The king kept her hidden in an Abbey since she was a baby and so she did not know who she was. The earls brought her out. Not many know her story. The Aldermaston said we should not tell anyone that she was raised a wretched. We should only say that she is the niece of Garen Demont and that she is to stay for a few seasons.”

  The niece of Garen Demont. Questions like buzzing flies swarmed around and around in Lia’s mind. She had seen Garen Demont following the battle of Winterrowd. Graciously, he had given credit for his victory to the Medium and forbidden anyone to boast of the battle where none of his soldiers had been killed. Such a thing had never been heard of before. Afterwards, he had seized custody of the young king and became Protector of the Realm. Many of the earls and barons revolted against the change and refused to swear homage to the young king with Demont controlling him. Many did support him, so the kingdom was dangling between peace and civil war. Some defied Demont but there were others who had hated the old king and his ruthless acts. It was a tottering pile of dishes that could come crashing down. She remembered something the Aldermaston had told her.

  “Finished,” Sowe mumbled and put away the comb.

  Lia sat forward eagerly. “The Aldermaston said tonight that the Queen Dowager was coming to Muirwood. Did you…?” She stopped, seeing their surprised faces. “I guess you did not know that. She is coming for Whitsunday.”

  Sowe looked serious. “The king’s widow? Why?”

  There was so much happening so quickly. Lia rose and started pacing. “When I left, everything was its usual boring self. Now look at it all. I do not know whose side she is on, but I would guess she supports the side of her son. Colvin would know, if he will speak to me again after tonight,” she muttered. She wanted to talk to him desperately, to apologize for screaming at him and crying.

  Sowe gave her a hug. “Lia, when they came, they both asked to see you right away. That should please you. The Ear
l of Forshee…Colvin…was very kind to me. He said that he still owed me a gift. You remember, for the time when I helped. You did most of the work. But he remembered his promise. I wonder…I wonder if he came all this way for a reason. That his sister is going to study here for the next year at least. He is a maston already, no longer a learner.”

  Lia looked at her.

  “You know…to teach you himself,” Sowe suggested.

  The burning in Lia’s heart nearly choked her.

  * * *

  At dawn the next morning, Lia retired to the laundry to clean her gear. The water gushing from the Leering’s mouth was scalding hot, but Lia kept her mind on the heat and scrubbed at her leather tools using gloves and the wood ash soaps. She cleaned the sap-stained hunter equipment first – her girdle, bracers, shooting glove, quiver, scabbard – and then set them aside and bundled up the damp dress. She heard voices and footsteps approaching. Angry to be interrupted, she willed the Leering to stop. The eyes of the Leering cooled and the water ceased flowing.

  The morning was cool and misty and the grounds were veiled. Martin was always up before dawn, and she did not want to miss the Aldermaston’s news, so she hurried to gather up her things as the lavenders approached, but the clutch of girls entered the roofed shelter before she could leave.

  Reome had a way of scrutinizing with her eyes that made others feel mottled and ugly. With her voice, she could cut as efficiently as a fruit knife. “Look at your face, Lia,” she said with a tiny smirk. “What disease are you suffering from?” She clucked her tongue. “Right before Whitsunday too. How awful.”

  Lia hefted the basket and tried to walk past without answering, but the other lavenders unfolded like a wall, blocking her path. They all had daggers for eyes and carried their wicker baskets in front of them.

  “Let me through,” Lia said impatiently. “The Aldermaston is expecting me.”

  “What happened to your face?” Reome asked, squinting and looking revolted and delighted at the same time.

  “It is none of your concern. Let me pass.”

  “Are you really so anxious to see the Aldermaston? I doubt it. The new guests must be luring you. Treasa says the Earl of Norris-York is the prettiest man in the Hundred. She has offered to help with his laundry and he accepted. The brooding one said he will not, that he would only trust you.”

  “Me?” Lia asked, startled.

  “Not you, specifically,” Reome said, and Lia could tell she was trying to draw out information from her. “Only that one of the Aldermaston’s girls would do it. You are still the Aldermaston’s girl, Lia. Are you not?” Her smile was sickeningly close to a leer.

  Lia’s cheeks went hot, but she controlled her emotions. Reome was eighteen now. After Whitsunday, she would leave Muirwood and either marry the local blacksmith or have to find work in one of the bigger towns. She was a beautiful girl – would no doubt find little difficulty convincing a boy to marry her. But in Muirwood, and for most of her life, she had been seen as the most beautiful, the most desirable – until the last Whitsunday when Sowe had emerged and taken Reome’s place, without ever trying and without saying a mean-spirited word to anyone. The sudden attention had bolstered Sowe’s lacking confidence and her timidity shrank when she realized that boys would stumble over their tongues just to bid her hello. But unlike Reome, she had not used the situation to belittle others or set the lads fetching things for her or making other girls do her work for her. It was a festering sore to Reome, and Lia could see it pock-marking her soul.

  “Move aside,” Lia warned.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Lia’s patience with Reome’s taunting ended. Gritting her teeth, she shoved her basket into Reome’s – not hard, but enough to throw her a little off balance. “I am the Aldermaston’s girl,” she said firmly, confidently. In her mind, she pushed the thought at Reome: stand aside, or you will regret it. Move aside, Reome, or I will humiliate you in front of these girls. I am a hunter. The tingle of the Medium coursed through her.

  Reome stared at her, shocked. She hesitated. For a moment, Lia thought she would have to fulfill her threat. But then Reome took a step backward and moved out of the way. The wall of lavenders crumpled. Holding her basket with one hand, Lia reached into the basket of another girl and took a bunch of purple mint to hang with her leathers while she dried them. “Thank you,” she said stiffly as she walked past them, heading back to the kitchen invisible in the mist ahead.

  “I hate her,” came the low-throated voice behind her, but Lia kept walking.

  As she went, she realized she was scowling, her heart pounding, and the wicked temptation arose to go back and shove Reome into the trough. She pictured it for a moment, savoring the image of dunking her head into the water. What would the other girls do if she did?

  She caught herself, realizing the danger of her thoughts. Martin had trained her to fight – how to grab a man by the wrist, twist him around, and trip him. How to disarm someone with a dagger. How to hobble someone by breaking their foot. She even knew a dozen ways to injure or kill a man quickly, though she never had the cause to use her knowledge that way. It was locked up tight in her mind, coins she hoped she would never have to spend. But thinking ill of Reome and the lavenders was dangerous. Those thoughts could emerge as actions later, in a moment of weakness when her self-control faltered.

  The grass was soft beneath her feet. Smells from the flowers and grass surrounded her, as well as snippets of sounds as the learners rose to begin their studies. Geese flew overhead, splitting the stillness with honking. Lia approached the kitchen to ask Sowe or Bryn to hang her leathers by the fires to dry so she could make it to the Aldermaston quickly. Another sound caught her ears, coming from the opposite side of the kitchen. Curious, she followed it and went around the corner to the rear of the kitchen, the side most hidden from view. Her approach was quiet as doves roosting. She peered around the corner and there he was.

  Colvin.

  She paused, watching him, for his back was to her. His sword was out and he was practicing with it. He moved through a series of intricate maneuvers, as if he fought off ten different men at once. Each thrust and parry was controlled – precise. Memories flooded her. They were so long ago, but she remembered the details precisely. For months she had fallen asleep each night forcing herself to remember everything she could about the days when he had been abandoned during a storm on the floor of the kitchen, bloody and unconscious. One night, he had practiced with a broom and had misjudged the distance of a table and clacked the handle hard. It made her stifle a giggle.

  He heard the laughter and turned sharply. The expression on his face was pure annoyance and hostility – she had seen that look a hundred times in her mind. Impatient. Demanding. Wary. Petulant. The look melted when he recognized her. He sheathed his knight-maston sword in the scabbard and approached her.

  She stared at him, clutching the basket to her stomach, and wondered if the mist meant it was only a dream. It seemed she noticed every detail. The silver starburst studs on his scabbard belt, the buckles holding the dark leather jerkin closed. The long pale sleeves matching the cuff emerging from his neck. His face, his hands. The scar. Yes, the scar at the corner of his eyebrow. He was close enough now she could see its tiny little pucker and she remembered mopping blood from it.

  “Were you laughing at me?” was all he said in greeting. His voice was warm.

  It had been a long year – a year of pain and worry and sadness. All of that vanished like a drop of sizzling water on a hot skillet. The look he gave her bespoke friendship and admiration. He was glad to see her, not nervous. He wanted to see her. That made all the difference in the world.

  Lia flung down the basket and gave him a fierce hug to prove once and for all that he was real and that she was not stained by poisoned sap any longer. She was nearly as tall as him and could feel his cheek against her hair. He smelled of leather and sweat, but also himself. She had forgotten what he smelled like. That sort
of memory was too much like smoke to grasp.

  “Yes, you idiot,” she said, squeezing him hard and then pulled back, embarrassed a little at herself for hugging him, but unrepentant. She looked at his face. “I was laughing at a memory. There are many of you that make me laugh. Others that have made me cry. You did not come when you promised. I am upset with you about that. But here you are now, and I am told you are staying a season or two, so I suppose I could learn to forgive you.”

  His expression was thoughtful. He seemed a little uncomfortable by her hug, but not displeased by it. “Contrive your best punishment, Lia. I submit to it. But I must be allowed to explain myself.”

  “Of course you can explain yourself, but not right now.” She reached to pick up the basket, but he got to it first and she almost touched his hand. He handed it to her.

  “Why not?” he asked, scrutinizing her.

  “Because the Aldermaston has instructions I must hear, and he hates repeating himself. I am a hunter now, not a kitchen girl, so I have duties to attend to.”

  “When can I see you today?” he asked, taking up the bunch of purple mint from her basket. He smelled it then set it back down.

  “When I am free,” she answered stiffly, looking down at the flowers in the basket. “Where can I find you?”

  “I have been anxious to read Maderos’ tomes and there is little else I am allowed to do apparently while the learners study.”

  “Ah, the forbidden part of the grounds! As the hunter, I could forbid you to wander there. But as the rule is only to prevent other people from finding it, I will give you permission. So, I will bring the apples when we meet?” Lia offered. “The blotchy ones are the sweetest.”