by Glenda Larke
Sick at heart, she lay awake wondering how she could stop the Prince of Ardrone. Only one way: she had to get to Saker first and give him his horse so he could escape.
If he’s still alive. Sweet Va above, she’d been shivering just standing at the window; what state would Saker be in after a night spent naked on the bleakness of the high moors? He might be dead by the time she arrived.
Huddled in bed and rubbing her arms to warm up, she considered all she knew about Ryce. He was a late riser who liked to start the day with a hearty breakfast before he went anywhere. She’d have a head start if she left at first light.
“Why are you doing this, Sorrel?” she whispered, and the question was for the woman she’d once been, so long ago. “Risking everything for a man who hardly knows you exist and wouldn’t care if he never laid eyes on you again?”
She knew the answer. She’d always known.
There were some men who were worth fighting for, and dying for. Saker Rampion, in spite of his asinine infatuation with Mathilda, was one of them.
Still, she had not been so frightened since the day she’d murdered her husband.
“This is it,” Horntail said. “We leave you here.”
Saker looked around at the bleak landscape. In the distance, higher peaks had already disappeared under the grim grey of clouds promising snow. Gnarled vegetation, barely knee high, grew in continuous cover except where the narrow track ploughed a furrow through the heath. The only tree was an ageing oak, already leafless in the cold. He had no idea how it could ever have grown there. It would have taken three men linking arms to encircle the trunk, yet its height was stunted, no more than thrice his own. Branches stretched out in all directions, their deformed goblin limbs intertwining before drooping to brush the soil with crippled fingers of twigs.
There was no shrine building, and no sign of any other structure, not even a shepherd’s hut.
“This is it?” he asked. “This is not a shrine; it’s just a tree!”
“This is all there is,” Horntail said.
One of the younger guardsmen, a man called Mole, spoke up. “This here’s a holy place, witan,” he said. “Witchery-strong. I was born near Chervil, and folk here say this was the very first shrine and the very first oak.” His tone was a mixture of unease and awe. Saker hid his scepticism. They were nowhere near the Shenat Hills where the old religion of the oak had taken its first wobbly steps.
“Get down, witan,” Horntail said. “And give me all your clothes. We need to be far away by dark.”
Saker dismounted and held out his hands to one of the soldiers so they could be untied. He disrobed slowly, handing over his garments one at a time.
“Your shoes too,” said Horntail. His face was grim with distaste. As Saker passed them to one of the men, the Sergeant nodded to Mole. “The shackles,” he said.
Mole dug into his saddlebags and produced iron leg fetters linked by a chain no more than an arm’s length long. Saker’s mouth went dry. “Is that really necessary?” he asked Horntail. “I wasn’t intending to go anywhere. Naked, I’d die out there. My only chance is to stay under the tree and trust in the unseen guardian and Va.”
“Orders, m’lad. And as I got no doubt someone’ll be checking on your corpse, I’ll not be skimping on the shackles. Mole, thread the chain under that loop of root there, before you put ’em round his ankles.”
Saker shuddered. He was going to be tethered to the tree itself, not far from the trunk. He stood still while Mole clicked the leg irons into place. A simple key or a set of lockpicks, neither of which he had, would have opened them.
“Va go with you, witan,” Horntail said. There was compassion there, and sadness. He held no hope of his prisoner’s survival. He patted the lascar’s dagger, in its sheath at his side. “Still got it,” he said, and turned his mount to ride away.
Entirely naked, Saker watched as they left. Mole was the last to depart. He lingered long enough to whisper, “Not Va, witan. Not here. This here’s earth magic. Witchery. In this place, you look to the acorn and the Way of the Oak.” He nodded at the moor. “I know this place. No soul out there. No shepherd huts, no folk, naught. The wind comes up like ice at night, and the cloud comes down like blindness. The tracks vanish in the blink of an eye. Only the unseen guardian can help you here.” And then he too turned his horse and cantered after the others.
Saker was already shivering. He hauled on the chain, struggling to pull up the root, hoping to break it, but the wood was strong and deeply anchored.
He glanced around again. There wasn’t any shelter, no dip in the ground that might have offered protection from the wind, no rocks either, nothing. He picked up a branch from under the tree and poked at the soil, wondering if he could dig a hole. The branch snapped. He tried elsewhere, with other branches and sticks, with desperate hacking and gouging, and each time with the same result. The ground was as hard as iron.
A bitter wind gusted from the north, not freezing yet, but it would be after nightfall. If he huddled on the leeward side of the oak, he’d have a little protection. He needed more of a barrier, he knew that. The ground under the tree was bare of plants, but the oak’s protective branches – like a mother reluctant to let her children go – had prevented fallen leaves from scattering in the wind.
Desperation growing, he began to pile up as many of them as he could grasp. When he had cleared all he could reach with his hands, he used the longest stick he could find to gather more, and made a semicircle of them against the trunk on the leeward side. He worked in a fury, using precious energy and refusing to think about the cold. And yet it was already seeping into him. His shivers changed to a shuddering he could not halt.
When he had all he could gather, he wriggled deep into the pile, then lay on his side with his back to the trunk, his knees to his chest. He heaped the leaves on top until he was buried. It was damp in there, full of mould. He thought he felt crawling creatures. Worst of all, he was still chilled. The only good thing about that was it dulled the pain of his cheek, where the brand was still weeping blood and fluid.
Even if I survive the night, what then? Hugging himself for warmth, already half crazed with cold and pain, he thought, Well, Va, earth-and-oak, forest-and-field, Mistress Oak, Master Forest, Va the Creator, it’s just us here. If you have any purpose for me at all, this is the time to decide that I’m not going to die yet awhile.
And then, Mathilda, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.
Fritillary, I’m sorry I let you down.
He began to pray.
He observed the ritual forms of prayer, giving thanks for all he had appreciated about his life, asking for mercy. After a while, he found it hard to focus, as the iciness and pain skewered his brain, changing his thoughts into dreams and his dreams into snatches of memory. The shuddering stopped, which scared him. He was weakening. How long had it been since the guards had left? He thought it must be dark already, but didn’t put his head up to check. He stayed as still as he could, reluctant to waste energy in movement.
With every passing moment he grew colder and colder. His life was slipping away and he wanted to grasp it in his hands, pull it back, forbid it to leave him. He heard voices, voices he hadn’t heard for years. His half-brothers mocking him. One of his early teachers telling him he was wasting his talents with his tomfoolery. His father, angry for no reason he could discern, yelling at him. What had he done to deserve that? Left a gate open? Not fully emptied the udder of one of the milch cows? He didn’t know. He rarely did.
And then an older memory: his mother saying, “Don’t ever forget me, Saker. Remember always that I love you and will watch over you.”
And yet he had forgotten her. He wasn’t even sure if she’d really said that. He’d never remembered it before. Maybe he was getting muddled. The cold did that to you.
Biting cold. It was at his centre now, soaking into the chambers of his heart. Placing frosty fingers into every bone, turning him to ice from the inside out. Som
ewhere he heard the Pontifect scolding him. “Fight it, fight the evil. Va needs you.”
Va needs me? That’s a laugh, Fritillary. Va just threw me to the wolves as unworthy. And this place here, it’s the heart of the land, the oak, the natural. The wild.
Something crawled in the wound at his cheek. Several somethings. He wanted to scratch, to bat them away, but he couldn’t move. He could still feel his cheek, feel it crawling with … ants? Oh, sweet Va, if you exist, not that, not that. Not while he was still alive … Hideousness that he could not alter. Or was it just imagination? The cold pinned him where he was, immobile, helpless.
What can I do anyway? I am no one. I will die here.
He thought of Mathilda. Remembered her lips on his. Her unexpected, adult passion.
And wondered if he was made of mist, because he no longer felt real.
The night was passing and he’d slipped into dream. And in his dream – no, not dream; in this phantasm, one small part of him was aware that all he saw did not exist in any reality, even as another part saw and felt and heard and touched.
His mother spoke to him again, faceless yet familiar, the perfume of her strong in his nostrils. You may be of your lying father’s blood, she said, but it’s my family that’s true Shenat. He lay under the tree, free of the leaves, a child again lying in the warmth, and she was smiling down at him from the past. They were both dappled with sunlight and the false promise of happiness. She said, I’m sorry for what I did to you. Forgive me.
He had no idea what she meant.
When she faded, it was Mathilda who lay beside him, one hand to his shoulder and her lips trailing across his cheek towards his mouth. Just when she was about to kiss him, her face changed. Her blue eyes deepened to a darker shade, her hair no longer fair but a deep rich ebony. The smile she gave him was not hers but someone else’s. Confused, he pushed her away, and her smile – no, Mathilda’s smile – melted into petulance.
He stood up, still warm, still naked, and confused.
Another woman stood before him, dressed in a long, clinging garment of green that danced in the sun. Sun? There was something wrong about that. And the oak above him was green with fresh new leaves. That was wrong too. Nothing was real. She wasn’t real. And yet he heard her words, spoken on the breeze…
A bargain, she said. Your life for your life.
Advice, she said. Look to the twins of Lowmeer. They may be my salvation. Or my destruction.
“I hate prophecies,” he told her. He larded his tone with deliberate sarcasm as he added, “They are always worded so that no matter what happens, they appear to fit.”
I cannot prophesy, she said. I do not know the future. I offer you a bargain, and advice. The advice is perhaps a warning; I cannot tell its truth. I can only weigh all that you know, all that you have heard, all that you have observed from the day you were born.
“How can I bargain when I don’t know who you are?” he protested. “And when I don’t know the nature of your bargain?”
You know, she said. You know both. I can only affirm what you already know. I can only give lucidity to the thoughts and knowledge you already possess, though you may never have brought them to the fore. I have no voice, else. All creation is one entity. You, the land and the sea – you know in your heart they are all one, and therein lies duty and power and salvation.
“And what of A’Va?”
You know he’s real, yet a lie with no entity. He is lies and hate and temptation and fear and greed and indulgence. He hunts you down. You feel his presence. You fear him as you should. He has touched you. One day you may come face to face and recognise him for what he truly is…
He was back buried in the leaves, his body dying of bitter cold. With sudden clarity, he knew he had to make a decision. And he knew what it would mean. This was witchery, and if he accepted the offer dangled before him, he would be forever changed. If…
If he made it through the night.
“I’ve already given my life to the Faith,” he said. “I am a witan. Was. Was a witan.”
This time will be different. This time you will surrender your will, again and again. It is a harder road than you ever dreamed.
He shuddered. There was something implacable in the words, something without recourse to any manoeuvring. He gave it all, or he died.
My life for my life, he agreed. He thought he said the words aloud, but although his lips moved, his ears heard nothing. On his cheeks his tears flowed, warming his skin and washing away the pain of his wound.
Witchery, he thought. The power of the oak. You’ll never be free again.
Just before he slept, he saw Ardhi’s mocking grin. The lascar didn’t speak; he didn’t have to. The grin said it all.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he asked, But why the lascar?
And then he slept.
25
The Hunter and the Hunted
As she’d planned, Sorrel rose in the dark and was on the road the moment there was enough light to travel. She put the dapple grey on a lead and rode the roan she’d hired from the inn’s stable. It was an irascible animal, fully prepared to take advantage of lack of experience. She suspected it would happily brush a rider against a fence or the low branch of a tree if it had the chance.
Fortunately, they left all trees and fences behind when they turned off the main road and began to climb steadily upwards. The track was narrow and rough, criss-crossed with ill-defined animal trails, but easy enough to follow as the mist thinned in the meagre morning warmth.
After the first hour, she crested a rise and looked back over the view of Chervil and the Oakwood road. There was no sign of Prince Ryce. She smiled grimly. She needed a good start. He was a fine rider with a better horse, and he’d soon catch up if her lead was not sufficiently great.
The track was less steep from there on, and she urged the horses to a better pace. A little later, the guards who had taken Saker from the palace passed her going in the opposite direction. She recognised their sergeant and pulled her mount to the side so they could pass. He nodded to her politely, but no one spoke. All they would have seen was an undistinguished middle-aged man on a horse. She kept the dapple grey close on her off-side, so the roan blocked a good view of it.
She rode on. When she estimated she was about an hour or less from the shrine, her mount faltered. Heart pounding in trepidation, she halted the horse and sat still to calm herself. Vex her toad-spotted luck, the wretched animal was limping. She was so close! And there was no one around to help her. Taking a deep breath, she slid to the ground. Just ahead, lying in the middle of the track, was a dagger.
It took her a moment to acknowledge that its presence must be pure coincidence; the horse hadn’t trodden on it. Besides, it was still in its leather sheath. She picked it up and drew out the knife. It was Saker’s wavy-bladed dagger, the one she’d used that day on the Golden Petrel. One of his guards must have dropped it. She shrugged, stuffed it into the dapple grey’s saddlebags and tied the reins of both horses to furze bushes so they couldn’t wander away.
Her first thought was that the roan might have cast a shoe, but she could see at a glance that was not the case. Then what? A sprain? She wasn’t sure. When she studied the way it was standing, she could see it was favouring its left foreleg. She regarded it miserably. She’d watched other people pick up the hoof of a horse to look underneath, but she’d never done it herself. She had no idea what they expected to find, and this was the last animal she wanted to learn on anyway.
Positioning herself at its neck and facing its rump, she slid her hand down the foreleg as she’d seen grooms do. Its ears went back and its hindquarters sidled away from her. From the way it flung up its head, she knew this was not going to be easy.
In the next quarter of an hour, she had acquired a squashed big toe and a bruised shoulder, but still had no idea what was wrong with the hoof. Exasperated, she decided to mount the dapple grey, leave the roan behind and find Saker first.
&
nbsp; She’d no sooner made the decision than Prince Ryce appeared over the nearest rise, heading towards her.
When he’d started from Chervil that morning, Ryce knew he was likely to meet up with Sergeant Horntail and his men returning from the shrine after having dumped Saker the night before, so it was no surprise when he saw them coming from a distance. He pulled his cloak around him, put up the hood and tucked his neckerchief over the lower part of his face. The horse he rode was not one from his personal stable, and the only thing that might have given him away were the two fellhounds, and he’d taken the precaution of removing their collars of distinctive royal red leather. He just had to hope Horntail and his men couldn’t tell one hound from another.
They rode past at a trot, apparently oblivious to the fact that they’d just passed their prince.
He did not expect to meet other travellers on the track. With winter not far away, the first snows had already fallen on the high country and heavy mists were prevalent. The pass was a dangerous one to choose to travel to and from the coast.
A good place to leave a man you wanted to die of the cold.
How could Saker have done this? How could I have been so wrong about him?
Sometimes, remembering, he refused to believe it. Saker had been so helpful. His advice had always been good. The man hadn’t made his life miserable with criticism of his carousing and whoring, nor had he tried to drag him off to the chapel every day as other clerics had done from time to time.
Yet the witan’s own life had appeared beyond reproach.
Maybe Mathilda had misunderstood … Maybe Saker could explain what had happened. Maybe he should have asked the man, and interrogated Mathilda on the details.
Fobbing damn, why does life have to be so complicated? Despairing, he wondered how he was ever going to manage once he was king. Decisions were always so difficult.
From some distance away, he saw two horses tied to gorse bushes beside the trail, and a man with them. The fellow had dismounted and was attempting to look at the hoof of an unattractive roan. The horse, ears back, was shouldering him away and dancing sideways.