Faerie

by Jacobs Delle

  “It’s too far,” he replied. “It’s almost dark.”

  “But soon after, surely.”

  He shook his head. “There’ll be a stream in the next valley,” he said. “Probably a traveler’s shelter too.”

  “If not?”

  “Then we’ll go till we find one, but no farther. They aren’t far apart. Travelers build these small stockades to keep their stock safe when they must stop for the night. It is a custom to leave them for other travelers, and each one who stops tries to leave the stockade better than he found it.”

  Leonie nodded, but even that slight motion hurt her head. And every time she glanced at him, she saw him watching her as if he thought she might faint again.

  She would not. She would not let it happen again, ever.

  Over the hill and down into the next valley they rode. As if at his command, the beck and little stockade appeared.

  The ragged camp was set into the earth not far from the beck in a clearing, much like a stockade wall surrounding a wooden castle. Instead of huge logs set upright in the earth to protect the mound behind, the staves were tall, straight saplings, crudely bound together. It was well sited, with a good grazing meadow and a clear beck, but close enough to a stand of trees for firewood. The gate stood ajar, giving it an abandoned look, but it was stout enough. Some of the poles were so short Philippe could look over their tops, and a few well-aimed blows from an axe would bring it down, but he doubted any wolf could jump those spiked tips without impaling itself.

  “Wait,” he ordered, and he quickly dismounted and rushed to the palfrey’s side to help her down. But when he tried to carry her, she brushed him off.

  “My foot has rested all day,” she announced. “It’s time I try it again.”

  Oddly, it didn’t hurt all that much as she hobbled down to the beck. She splashed her face with the mercifully cooling, soothing water and filled the waterskins while the horses drank. Philippe took the horses from the water and led them to graze until sundown, and Leonie hobbled back to the little stockade.

  She had no choice but to comply with him. She hated it, but she was in no shape to escape now.

  He told her to sit. She ignored him and went off to gather an armful of kindling and firewood. Like it or not, she was beginning to look forward to sitting by a hot fire and eating food that had been cooked. And she’d comb and braid her hair, not caring a whit if he liked it or not.

  With her arms full of good, dry wood, she turned back toward the camp. She heard a hiss and stopped cold.

  Something reared up before her, like a huge rope rising into the air.

  Snake!

  She screamed.

  She stepped back. It dropped to the ground and slithered toward her. She retreated again, afraid to take her eyes off it. She’d never seen any snake like it, huge, long, and black. Enormous fangs showed when it opened its ashen white mouth and struck at her. She dodged, barely in time to escape the snake’s lunge. Hissing, it fixed its slanted red eyes on her and swayed a strange dance.

  She snatched a broken branch from the pile in her arms and threw it. The snake dodged sinuously, its lower coils moving forward as it swung its long body side to side, each move advancing on her. She threw more kindling and more, but the creature evaded each. All she was doing was slowing it down.

  The last log gone, she grabbed a long branch for a club, but the branch snagged on the brush. She yanked it free, swinging it like a sword.

  Behind the beast, Philippe called for her, and the brush and ground thrashed as he ran.

  He wouldn’t see it in time! Wild terror flooding into her, Leonie leaped toward the snake, shouting and flailing her weapon in furious strokes.

  The snake dropped to the ground and slithered away beneath the brush. Leonie gawked at the great length that seemed to go and keep on going into the brush. Philippe leaped into the clearing just as the last of the malignant black creature disappeared.

  “What?” he shouted. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  “A snake. A big one.” Leonie gasped for breath, her pulse still racing.

  He stared at the firewood pitched around the glade. “You’ve scared it off. Adders are usually shy of men.”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t an adder. It was much too big. And black.”

  “There are some black adders.”

  “Not like this. Its head was wrong. It was round, sort of spoon-shaped, and it had huge fangs. And it was about as long as you are tall.”

  He looked at her like her brain was addled and shook his head. “There are no snakes like that in England. Only adders. It is getting very dark. You must have seen a vine or a fallen branch.”

  She couldn’t blame him. It was impossible to believe. He was right, there couldn’t be such a creature. Was it her imagination once more spinning out of control?

  “Aye,” she replied. “A branch. No doubt.”

  “Come back to the stockade now. The light’s almost gone. I’ve brought the horses in and pulled some forage for them. We need to shut the gate.”

  She mumbled some sounds even she didn’t understand and picked up the firewood she had thrown at the snake.

  “Don’t mind the firewood,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

  She shook her head and continued her gathering.

  “I want you to go back to the stockade and lie down,” he said. “Prop your foot up on my saddle. It’s supposed to be good to keep an injured foot elevated.”

  “Only a few more minutes. And the more wood we have, the better our fire.”

  “And if your leg putrefies and falls off, Rufus will surely blame me and cut off my leg to match. You might want to spite me, but surely not enough to lose your leg.”

  “I might,” she grumbled.

  Philippe shrugged and helped pick up the remaining chunks of wood. Leonie hobbled back to the stockade with her arms full and let the pile in her arms roll off onto the stack Philippe had already begun. Once safely inside the stockade, she gave in and lay down on her cloak, her aching foot propped up on his saddle, while he whittled two sharp sticks and threaded long strips of the boar haunch back and forth. Her heart just kept pounding every time she thought of the evil gleam in the snake’s eyes. Did snakes have red eyes?

  “Do you know how to cook?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Can you roast the pork over the fire?”

  She nodded.

  “Then do your best to keep your foot propped up while you cook it. I’ll see to the horses and our packs.”

  The last of the bread had dried, and Leonie cut it into two long halves to serve as trenchers while the meat was roasting in the flames. She turned the skewers several times, grimly laughing to herself at the impossibility of meeting Philippe’s demands. Her foot didn’t really hurt much. The leftover ache in her head was worse. She promised herself, as soon as she had time when he was not looking, she would make another attempt to heal the cut on her ankle.

  She sighed. That was the worst of the entire situation. If her Faerie skills had not so suddenly deserted her, she might have been long gone through the night while he had slept. But if she regained them now and he saw her using them, he’d leap to the conclusion she was a witch.

  Or was she going mad after all? He was right, there could be no such snake in all of England. She shuddered.

  She watched him tending the horses, quietly currying, humming softly to them. He had not yet taken any time for his own needs, seeing to the animals. And to her.

  So beautiful to have so much hidden malice. A body and face that put all other men to shame. What a waste it was! Why did no one else see the evil in him? Yet she knew why they did not, for just looking at him it was so hard even for her to believe. Even his face, that of a peacemaker, belied it.

  She winced, remembering the dream she’d had the night he’d visited Brodin. She had not understood it for what it really was: feelings, wishes, desires for what could never be, because he was not the man he a
ppeared to be.

  “What is wrong?” he asked.

  She looked up at him. “Nothing.”

  “Does your head hurt? Your leg?”

  “Nay.”

  “Lie down. I will tend the meat.”

  “Nay.” Frowning, she turned the handmade spits, noting the wild pork seemed done, for the drippings sizzled into the fire, tantalizing her nostrils with delicious smells.

  She pulled the spits from the fire and used her knife to push them onto the trenchers she had made.

  “Save some of it for morning, and we’ll have it with the last of the cheese before setting out.”

  She nodded and set aside two chunks, which she wrapped in a cloth.

  If he was evil, what good could there be in this world?

  Yet—could he be telling the truth? What if he was right, and it was the injury to her head that caused her to disbelieve him? Was she imagining all these things? Like the creature she had dug up, but then when she returned, found nothing there, not even a disturbed leaf?

  Yet she remembered—

  “You cannot remember.” No, don’t remember. It hurts.

  The door to memory slammed shut in her mind. Shut out the pain.

  They ate in silence. For once, she had no trouble keeping her usually wayward gaze properly downcast. Everything was wrong now. What had happened to her Fae skills? Was she merely human now?

  She had never minded that Rufus would choose her husband to suit his own purposes. That was the way of the world. It was her duty to accept the king’s choice. But a man who, despite his denials, was secretly determined to rid himself of her—to kill her.

  Her jaw clenched. She would escape. If she lived long enough. But she must appear to be compliant until then. Could she? True, she had been good at hiding her Fae heritage, but she was not so good at hiding her true feelings.

  “What was it, do you think?” he asked.

  “What? The snake?”

  “Nay, there was no snake. The pain, the fainting. Is it the injury? Surely it must be.”

  She clenched her teeth. It was a snake. She knew it was. Yet it was so impossible. “It’s nothing.”

  His brow arched. “Blows to the head can do strange things. I have seen big men develop the falling sickness from a blow, although it usually gets better. You will be better in a few days, I think.”

  “If it was not a snake, what could it have been?”

  He sighed the sound of patience that was not patient. “The gloom of dusk can be deceiving. Things seem to move when it is only the fading light.”

  “It moved. It hissed. It rose up half its length off the ground, and it stood as tall as my shoulder.”

  His brow furrowed with a pained look. “I have heard tales from pilgrims that there are some enormous snakes in the Holy Land, but not here. Haps it was a dragon?”

  She winced. Was he actually trying to be conciliatory? “I don’t know what a dragon looks like. I’ve never seen one. Have you?”

  “Some say they have seen them, but I haven’t. There are many tales. Some say they have legs and wings, and breathe fire, or they are strange colors. I have seen drawings in the holy books. There are huge worms that are sometimes seen at sea. But I have never heard of their like on land.”

  “But it looked like a snake. It had no legs or wings. It had red eyes and long fangs.”

  And the look on his face told her he thought her daft. She sighed. She had said too much. But she knew whatever that creature was, it was evil. It had stalked her. A cold shiver ran down her spine. Something in her remembered feeling that way before. That day in the forest, she had been stalked.

  By Philippe.

  And now? Did the snake lurk beyond the stockade? Could it get beneath the poles that were buried into the earth? She glanced around the inside perimeter, noting heavy rocks that had been placed around it, meant to drop on wolves that tried to dig beneath it to reach their prey. But would that stop a snake? Could the snake squeeze between the occasional gaps between the poles?

  If only she were really Faerie, she would know how to deal with creatures like that. If she were Faerie, like Herzeloyde, she could walk away from this enemy of hers, or fade against whatever was behind her, and he would never find her. She would raise her bow and kill whatever foe attacked her.

  If she were Faerie. She was but a halfling, belonging in neither world. Perhaps her mother had left her behind because she was ashamed of a child so imperfect. Certainly her father had not wanted her.

  Seeing that Philippe busied himself with the packs, she quietly unwound the bandage on her ankle and ran her fingers over the stitched wound. She placed her fingers on each side of the wound and squeezed her eyes closed to concentrate all her thoughts and power on the healing. She pictured the wound knitting together beneath her fingers, felt the warmth of healing flowing through her fingers and draining her of strength.

  Hopefully, she lifted away her hand and looked.

  Nothing. Her shoulders sagged. She had nothing to make her safe. A sudden terror surged through her.

  She squared her shoulders, and her jaw and fists tightened in tune with her resolve. Then she would have to be human. Because that was what she had left. And with what she had left, she would find a way to change her life.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHICH WAS WORSE, the devil she knew or the devil she didn’t know? Never mind. She could deal with either. Leonie wrapped herself in the two cloaks she had brought and sat by the fire, her knees pulled up near her chin.

  “You should sleep,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I’m not tired.”

  “You will be. You got little enough sleep last night, I’ll vow, and this night will be shorter than you think.”

  She shook her head again. “I’ll just watch the fire for a while. You may sleep if you wish.”

  From the dark night beyond the stockade fence, something barked. She jerked around. “Wolf?” she asked.

  “Wolves don’t usually bark. But a dog, perhaps?” Philippe rose to his feet and walked to the fence, his hand resting on his sword hilt.

  Leonie dropped off her outer cloak and stood, picking up her bow and stringing it. “What would a dog be doing here?”

  “Lost or a stray.” Philippe stretched up so he could peer over a low gap in the fence.

  “Or a moor hound. Be careful. They can enthrall you with their eyes.”

  “It’s a dog,” he said. “Moor hounds are huge and black and have red eyes. He’s huge, but he’s not black. And his tail is wagging.”

  “It could be a trick.”

  “Come, take a look.”

  Leonie edged closer to the stockade. She was tall, but not tall enough to see over it. Her curiosity forced her to accept Philippe’s touch as he lifted her by the waist. Stretching her neck, she got a glimpse of the biggest dog she had ever seen, with a grey-brown shaggy coat and perked ears that flopped at their tips. Aye, it was a dog.

  The dog yapped, leaping. Leonie jerked back. It sat, its long, shaggy tail all but pounding its sides as it wagged, then suddenly jumped up and ran to the fence, barking like a yapping puppy hungry for its dinner.

  “It wants in,” she said.

  “Aye.” Philippe set her down and watched the big animal as Leonie found a rock that stood high enough to give her a better look. “Sometimes dogs run with wolves. Could be he wants us to open up to let his friends in.”

  “Or if we leave him out there, the wolves might get him.”

  Philippe reassessed the shaggy creature. “He looks big enough to handle a wolf.”

  “He’s big, but there’s only one of him. Wolves roam in packs.”

  “Aye.” Philippe’s brown eyes were dusky in the depth of firelight and searched her eyes as if he meant for her to decide.

  The big animal leaped against the fence, its deep bark seeming both friendly and menacing. It leaped so high she could see its head over the spiked fence top.

  “Let him in,” she said.


  She could see the relief in Philippe’s eyes as he hurried to the gate and removed the bar. With a brief glance back at her, he pulled the gate open.

  The dog bounded in like a puppy, its great brush of a tail sweeping its hips to and fro. Leonie laughed as it raced up to her, but she let out a yelp as it leaped up on hind legs and swiped its huge, sloppily wet tongue over her face. She staggered back, averting her face unsuccessfully.

  Philippe burst out laughing, but seeing her lose her balance, he glowered at the dog. “Down!” he ordered, pointing to the ground.

  Whimpering, the dog dropped to all fours, and as Leonie steadied herself, it sidled up to Philippe and lay down on the ground in front of him.

  He laughed again and squatted before the dog. “She’s well mannered. Someone has trained her.” He reached out and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “I wonder if she’s one of de Mowbray’s dogs. I’m told he has a pack of big dogs he’s trained to hunt wolves. She could have been lost when hunting.”

  “We could be the first people she’s seen for a while. But she looks well fed.” Leonie chewed on her lip.

  “Aye, but hungry.” Both dog and knight looked at her with soulful brown eyes.

  “We could eat the cheese in the morning,” she suggested.

  “Give her the remains of the trenchers.”

  Leonie eyed the monster dog, who barked expectantly and whose tail wagged her body even as she sat. From what she knew about dogs, she suspected this one knew when her feeding was being discussed. She removed the old bread with its drippings and tossed pieces to the dog, who made a game of leaping after each one to catch it before it touched the ground, gobbling faster than Leonie could tear off hunks. With the last of the bread gone, the dog sat back on her haunches and wagged for more.

  “There’s the boar meat,” Philippe said, frowning.

  “I thought you liked the boar meat.”

  “I’ll have it again. We won’t go hungry. She shouldn’t either. That old boar did us a favor, you know. We enjoyed its meat. And no doubt the wolves will be enjoying the feast we left behind and will be too busy to bother with us. The dog ought to have some too.”