There was a silence for a moment, then the woman softly replied, “Yes, my lord. As you say.”
The Estril lord and once general during the great war between the two races turned to look down at the woman standing behind him. His brows were drawn together, his mouth pinched.
“On the other hand, while your people slowly disappear, the Evangeline’s own kind have been wiped off the face of creation. Which begs the question...which of you was the wiser in the final accounting of things?”
His voice did not hide the fact that he despised the Will O’Wisp and all those like her. He knew them for what they were. Spineless, conniving cowards, one and all...yet, they managed to escape what would have likely been certain doom for all of them. The war with the Donglin would have destroyed them to the last one.
Instead, it appeared as though they themselves had simply begun to fade away in number while those few who remained were still as sneaking and craven as they had ever been.
“And if not the Evangeline, why not you, Wisp? Can you drag my wife’s brother, kicking and screaming, back here?”
The soft glow of light that infused the woman’s skin dimmed and she looked down at the floor.
“My lord knows that I cannot. If I could have, I would have already done so when I came to beg your mercy and forgiveness.”
Her voice had softened to barely more than a whisper and Raffiran smiled at that. It was good that she knew her place. It was also good that she knew how tenuous her position remained among the Estril. As it was, she was surely an accomplice to the crimes she had described from the time she had spent with Mesrin. A judgement still awaited her and mercy would not necessarily be the outcome.
“Have you found them?” he asked her.
She lifted her chin to look at him directly, then said, “Yes, my lord. They are in the northernmost donjon. The one with the squared turrets built directly into the mountainside.”
He nodded. He knew that fortress. It had long since been abandoned, its purpose without meaning once the truce had been achieved. At one time a redoubtable bastion meant to break the eventual wave of invasion from the horrid lizards, it had fallen into total disuse and was forgotten to most of the Estril within the city.
But, it would seem, not forgotten by Lest. She had spent a great deal of time there as Raffiran, then general, commanded vast troops against their enemy from that very fortress. She had not forgotten the place in her apparent time of need.
“And there is no one else there with them?” he asked, his own voice softening while his hands tightened into white knuckled fists.
The impromptu spy shook her head.
“No, my lord. There is no one else.”
He turned slowly around to face the feathered beast once more. It keened its horrific song, then shuddered as its master turned his regard toward it.
“Why the need to hide?” he asked, but there was no response from the Wisp. It was well she knew her place and that no answer was required.
“Is it not the guilty who search for hiding places? Even if anything she might do with that pitiful human could never be construed as anything more than an amusement, nothing more than a way to while the hours idly away.”
He took a single step toward the Evangeline, his fists clenching ever tighter and the beast shrieked a high pitched note, its haunting song breaking in its fear as it recognized the raw fury barely contained within its master.
As for the Wisp, she shrank back from Estril lord. The anger welling within him was rolling through the tower top in palpable waves that threatened to tear her to shreds if he should lose control.
“Guilty. Yes, she is. But of what, I might ask.”
Again, the Wisp did not dare answer him.
Suddenly, he whirled around, then rushed toward the Will O’Wisp. Red flames rolled over his shoulders and trailed behind him as the Wisp narrowly slipped to one side, only to see him gain the doorway of the tower and disappear down the long stairs leading to the Estril city below.
The slender woman held herself tightly to the wall, barely risking a breath as she found herself alone with the very reason she had fled from Mesrin and his wanton foolishness. But, the Evangeline did not seem to notice her as it slowly moved forward to again take possession of the dried, severed limb on the stone floor.
The tale of the monster was legendary and oft repeated among the few remaining Wisp. So well known for their merciless, terrible efficiency in carrying out the decrees of death given to them by the Estril...so much so that the Wisp remained frozen where she was, frightened into immobility.
However, it was not long before someone else came to join her, as she knew they eventually would.
A hooded, masked woman came calmly into the room and at last the Wisp dared to take the few sidelong steps that led to the doorway of the tower.
The woman there blocked her way, saying, “And has the fish taken the bait?”
The Wisp did not hesitate to respond as she glanced over her shoulder to reassure herself that the Evangeline remained where it was with its hide covered bone. The beast had since resumed its terrible song, keening for death without end.
“Yes, my lady. As you said he would.”
“Good,” was the response, then, “You have done well, Wisp. I am to assure you that when the day of your judgement arrives, the balance of the scales shall fall in your favor. So long as you continue to carry out the few tasks my mistress sets you.”
“Of course, my lady,” the Wisp replied, “Whatever is within my power, you have but to ask and I shall do it.”
In the guise of a reply, the masked woman stepped aside gesturing that the Will O’Wisp precede her down the stairway and away from the menace of the feathered monster.
The Wisp shuddered then rushed down the steps, her body dissolving to coalesce into a glowing orb that could descend far more rapidly than her corporeal form.
All she wanted was to put as much distance as possible between herself and the stuff of nightmares still singing its horrible song behind her.
She would have liked to continue her flight, to never stop until she was far away from all of them. For the Estril were just as dangerous as the monster in their keeping, and, as she was finding out, they were as twisted as the being they professed to condemn.
But, she thought, at least Mesrin was direct in his deeds. Cruel beyond belief, but he made no effort to hide his nature and intent, unless it was his penchant for wearing the skins of men. A gruesome habit, to be sure, but an effective one.
In any case, she was now caught up in the clandestine intrigue of Estril nobility and while the female following her continued her efforts at keeping her own identity a secret, the Wisp knew exactly who she was.
The real question, my lord, is why your wife would send one of her own hand maidens to set a trap for you and allow you to believe that it was you who have set the trap in the first place?
She decided she did not care. When the opportunity presented itself, she would flee this realm and go as far away as she could from all of them and their miserable scheming.
Chapter Four: Melisse
She stood on the tips of her toes, the stone windowsill tightly in her grasp, as she peered into the kitchens of House Perene.
Melisse knew she should not have come. Whatever aid she could bring the Marechal should take precedence over all else. She owed him that much after the battle he had fought on her account and the promise that he would help clear her name of a bloody crime.
There were also the words of the old fortune teller along the road. And, it was not because Melisse doubted the old woman that she felt compelled to take the detour leading away from the Urrune and toward her old home.
Instead, she told herself that she would read the book by the author named Bellamere and whatever he had to say on the subject of the alchemist and his assistant. She told herself that she might learn something crucial, something that could be just as important as anything she might discover at the tower itsel
f.
But the anger seething within her as she had heard what the old woman had said about House Perene and Helene only grew with each passing step of her voyage northward.
And soon, her gait had become leaden and slow, until she found herself quickening once again, but only after she was on the road leading directly to what remained of the Perene family.
She leaned close to the window, trying to catch some glimpse of familiar faces doubtless working within, but it was difficult to see for there were cobwebs and dust that clouded the view.
If they had been on the outside, she could have simply wiped them away. But, they were not. And that meant that something was terribly wrong.
Dear, stout Mathilde would have never willingly let the state of the kitchens fall to such disorder.
She was the strict general of her troops, leading them with her soup ladle held high, while she gave orders that kept the household running smoothly. There were others, to be sure, but for Melisse, Mathilde had always been the heart of it all. The hub around which all the rest turned.
Only now the window was grimy from the inside out and she could make out no lamplight or candle that would show her those within.
It was if there was no one at all in the kitchen which was simply not possible. It was the one place in all the manor where the cooking, or the preparations for cooking, never ceased. Where the fires in the ovens never went out.
Never.
Until now.
“Git down from there, girl, afore someone catches you at it!”
The words were hissed and urgent, coming from behind her. She dropped down from the window and turned to see Mathilde standing there and looking for all the world like she had seen a ghost.
“Mathilde. What is it? What’s going on here?”
The plump woman was not quite as plump as Melisse remembered her. Her hair had turned grayer and there were lines around her mouth that were not there before Melisse had been forced to leave House Perene.
The head cook did not answer her, looking from side to side instead as if she expected someone to leap out at them at any moment.
“Come on,” she hissed under her breath, motioning that Melisse should follow.
Instead of the manor’s kitchens, she headed to the stables.
Once inside, Melisse immediately remarked that the familiar odors of horses and fresh straw and hay had turned stale, if not faintly rotten. The place was terribly silent and dark, without an animal in any of the stalls.
Mathilde eased the stables’ front door closed, then simply stood there, looking at Melisse while she wrung her hands.
“Why’d ye come back, Melisse? Oh lordy lord, but it h’aint safe for you here now, if it ever was.”
They were alone. The horse master and the stablehands were as absent as the horses. Mathilde continued to wring her hands, one within the other, then switched to wring them in reverse.
Melisse looked more closely at her and saw that the woman’s eyes were red rimmed and she noted how lost she appeared to be outside her beloved kitchen.
“Never mind me, Mathilde. What has happened here?”
“Oh, it’s all a’cause of that serpent of a Perene woman,” she said, then sat heavily on bail of hay before bursting into sobs.
Melisse went to her and Mathilde’s soft arms wrapped around her more tightly than Melisse would have believed her capable. She put her own arms around the cook and without understanding why, felt her own tears come to answer those of Mathilde.
But the tears of Melisse did not run far down her face. Instead they dried almost as quickly as they formed, the heat of her power never far away.
After a time, Mathilde released her then pushed her backward slightly. She looked Melisse up and down sternly and said, “Ye be fevered, child. Yer as hot as an oven, even through them clothes.”
Melisse sighed.
“It’s nothing, I promise you. The road was long and I am tired,” she replied.
She did her best to be gentle as she said, “Mathilde, I have to know. What has happened here?”
The lord Perene be dead, ‘tis what happened. We’s supposed to believe he choked on a fishbone, but I know better. That harpy daughter done poisoned her own father then sat there while the poor man’s tongue blew up so big he couldn’t draw breath.”
Then it was Melisse’s turn to sit down in stunned silence.
She knew what the fortune teller had said, but to hear it the truth of it coming from Mathilde herself made it much more real than the strange words of an old woman leagues and leagues away.
At last, Melisse found her voice.
“But, why, Mathilde? What could have made Helene do such a thing?”
The cook wiped at her eyes with the back of her fists and said, “I’m sorry to have to say it, but I think it ‘twas you, Melisse.
“A messenger rode up a month ago with an official looking parchment for Lord Perene. And when he went and broke the seal, his face turned all shades of colors before he shouted out that it was a message from the Marechal de Barristide hisself, telling that he didn’t think you had a hand in master Olivier’s death.
“Why he was fit to spit, Lord Perene was, saying that the Marechal planned to look into other possibilities.”
Melisse had nothing to say. The Marechal had told her many things over the past two months, but he had never mentioned sending messages about her innocence. Instead he had continued to insist that she go back north with him, saying that she needed to clear her name when he had apparently already done so.
“But the queerest part came later, when Helene heard the news. That smug smile she wore day and night since you left turned itself right over and she didn’t look no more like the cat who ate the mouse.
“Oh no, all a’sudden, she looked like the cat who’d caught her own paw in the trap.”
Melisse shook her head. None of it made any sense.
“Once’t Lord Perene calmed down, the house staff told me they saw him looking at Helene and the pride in her was all gone. They said he watched her and didn’t speak to her no more. Instead he kept his mouth shut so hard his lips turned white as dead worms whenever she happened by.
“A week later, he was in the ground with his boy.
“And a week after that, Helene ordered off almost all the staff.
“Can you imagine that? Those people had nowhere to go. Most of ‘em were born here. They don’t know nuthin’ else.”
Mathilde’s face reddened and Melisse was sure she was about to break into another crying spell.
Instead, she kept her calm and said, “And just after, a fancy carriage showed up, with all sorts of frilly folk coming behind it on colored horses and painted saddles.
“They had a big feast that went on for days, until most them left what with the manor near to ruin.
“Now, Helene is shut up inside with a young trollop, the wife of a broken man who’s been nailed to a wheeled chair since he cracked his spine.
“They say he’s bloody rich and that he had the horse that threw and crippled him butchered. They say he ate it, bit by bit. Then he took that young whore for his wife and the only carnal pleasure he feels is with his eyes as he watches the twisted things she does with our Helene from behind a curtain in their chambers.
“Oh, Melisse. It’s all come undone and I don’t see how it’ll ever come right again.”
Melisse sat quietly for a time, thinking over what Mathilde had to say.
Then, she said, “And it’s my fault because Helene didn’t want anyone to know that there was another heir to House Perene. She had known all along that Lord Perene was my father, too, and she made sure that she would be the only one left so that she would have all of the family’s wealth and influence to herself.
“Oh, the fool. I would have never tried to take it away from her. All I wanted was the proof I didn’t murder her drunken idiot of a brother.
“But, now, all of that has changed, hasn’t it?
“Helene is abou
t to have the surprise of her life, I think.”
She stood up and did not see the look of terror on Mathilde’s face as the cook looked at the young woman’s face.
Melisse strode to the stable door and was about to fling it wide when she felt a trembling hand upon her shoulder.
It was Mathilde and as Melisse looked back at her, the cook jerked her hand back as if she had been burned.
“Melisse...ne’er did I believe for one instant that you had a hand in master Olivier’s dying. I knew from the start that you could ne’er a done such a thing.
“But to look at you now, I’m not seeing the same girl who I knew to be kind and true. A’fore, when I looked at you all I ever saw was your dear mother. And now, all’s I see is your father upon your brow, with the same look he had when all a’ us knew that his fist could let fly over nothin’ at all.
“All’s I see is him in you, right now.”
Melisse paused. The cook’s words shook her, but the anger she knew then was close to overwhelming her reason.
“I swear it, Melisse. You look fit to murder that Helene. I always wanted to tell you about your mother and Lord Perene, but each time I asked myself what good would come of it. And as to that, I ne’er could say except that I shouldn’t put my nose in where your own mother had not.
“Please. If you do what it looks like your fixin’ to do, then there will be no turnin’ back for any of us.
“It’ll be the gallows for you, girl. And the manor will be sold off and....”
Mathilde’s voice trailed off as if the stream of her words had run dry before she had intended.
“And..?” asked Melisse.
The plump woman let out a deep breath, then said, “...and I really will have nowhere to go.”
Her eyes beseeched Melisse as she continued, “It’s the only home I e’er had.”
Melisse’s hand dropped away from the door as she turned back to the woman who had always known how to find time to take care of a skinned knee, or when to give a little girl a flour dusted hug after she had fallen down in the courtyard.
The Marechal Chronicles: Volume IV, The Chase: A Dark Fantasy Tale Page 7