The next day, the party arose feeling refreshed and invigorated. Erubesco was able to sit and eat some porridge from a bowl, and Ogier’s wife assured Beata the wound did not appear infected, although it would be best if she rested for a while at the Hall. Erubesco was distraught she was going to have to stay behind, and cried silent tears as Beata knelt by her side and told her, but she did not protest and Beata knew she understood why they could not wait for her to get better.
“I have failed you,” the injured warrior said softly, her face still pale from the loss of blood.
“Nonsense.” Beata dismissed her words with a wave of her hand. “It could have been any one of us – I had an arrow whistle right past my cheek. One inch to the left and it would have gone in one ear and out the other.” Still it was a blow to have to leave one of her knights behind. It was possible they were going to have to take the Virimage by force to Heartwood, and as yet she had no idea what sort of person this magician was – he could be tall, strong, powerful, or maybe all three.
“Have you seen him?” she asked Ogier as they walked down the stairs to the stables to retrieve their horses.
“No, although I have had travellers here who have.” His stable lads had already brought out their steeds and her horse stood champing at the bit, impatient to be on her way. The horses had been rubbed down and fed well and rested, and seemed as eager to continue the adventure as the Militis. “They all speak of him as a wonderful trickster. Whether or not his skills are genuine, I do not know.” He sighed as she put one foot in the stirrup and lifted herself up nimbly into the saddle. “I wish you would agree to take one or more of my knights with you. You are on a dangerous Quest across lands which are not as peaceful as they once were, and safety is greater in numbers.”
“I shall have Gavius’s and Gravis’s company until Hicton,” she said with a smile. She had considered his offer, but decided against borrowing his knights, as they were not trained the Heartwood way, and she felt uneasy about accepting the aid of others who may not follow her orders during times of crisis. “Take care of yourself, Ogier.”
“And you, fair knight.” He laid his hand over his heart in the standard salute and she did the same, turning her horse and leading the way out of the courtyard, scattering chickens and goats as she did so, the mare falling into a quick trot through the gatehouse and along the drawbridge to the road.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
It was still raining, if anything slightly heavier than the day before, and Beata drew her cloak closely around her and settled into the saddle for the long day’s ride. She was glad the cloak was well waterproofed, which kept her mail fairly dry. The knights spread out behind her, and although occasionally Gravis or Gavius rode beside her for a while, generally she stayed ahead on her own, left to her thoughts as the countryside passed beneath her horse’s hooves.
That day was a lot less eventful than the previous one, which she wasn’t displeased with. After leaving Cherton, the road wound its way through the low hills, passing mostly terracotta-brown fields of ploughed earth, dotted with scarecrows to frighten away the crows that were tempted to eat the seed. Here and there were fields of sheep, and the occasional one of cattle, the cows chewing miserably in the rain.
At one point they crossed a river, and Beata halted on the bridge to look down at the water tumbling beneath the wooden planks. She felt a distinct unease as she gazed at it, remembering the way the Darkwater Lords had sprung from the green channel, taking shape from liquid, and she shivered as she saw how the river had swollen slightly, the water brown from its violent passage from the mountains, crashing and breaking itself on the rocks under the bridge.
Gavius joined her, peering over the wooden handrail. “I wonder how long it will continue to rain,” he said. “If this continues, we will drown long before Darkwater invades again.”
“Perhaps that is their plan.” She shrugged, shuddering as she thought of such a watery death, imagining how it would feel to have lungs full of water, and be unable to breathe. She could think of nothing cheerful to say and touched the mare’s sides to encourage her to walk on. She wanted to put the river behind her and would not be disappointed if they did not see another drop of water on this adventure.
The day wore on, and the sun remained hidden behind the clouds, which scudded across the sky in a never-ending river of grey. They stopped after a few hours for some lunch, trying to take shelter beneath a group of oaks that stood by the roadside, but everyone was quiet and nobody felt like talking, and after only half an hour or so they were back on their horses and continuing on their journey.
Some time after this, Gavius moved his palfrey up to ride beside Beata, and she could tell from the way his mouth was moving, as if he was chewing something, that he had something he wanted to say.
“Spit it out, Gavius,” she said wryly.
He grinned at her, then looked up at the silent rain and shivered, pulling his cloak around him tightly. “I swear – I am soaked to the very bone. I think you could wring out my limbs and gain a bucketfull of water.”
She sighed. “Yes, it is a miserable time at the moment.”
Gavius nodded and then lowered his voice. “We must be careful not to let spirits slip too low, though.”
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder. The Militis were hunched in their saddles, hoods pulled over their faces, muscles bunching from the cold, and had straggled out in a line a good few hundred yards. She guessed the loss of Erubesco had reminded them they too were not infallible and any mission was a dangerous one in a foreign land, at a time when people were struggling to survive and growing increasingly desperate.
It was very easy to get caught up in one’s own misery, she thought, but she remembered the wise words of a previous Dean, long since departed, who had given her much sound advice when she was younger. “Happiness and misery are diseases,” he had said to her puzzlement at the time. “They infect us as surely as a head cold, or the pox. When one person contracts either ailment, it spreads quickly to the next person, and before you know it, everyone is contaminated.”
She recognised the need to raise the spirits of her fellow travellers, for depression would cause the party to slow and their reflexes to dull, and she needed them all to remain with their wits about them. Without turning round again, she began to sing a traditional Heartwood hymn, one they would have all learned on arriving at the Castellum, and she knew would stir many memories in them.
As she sang, her clear voice carried back to them, and gradually, one by one, they joined in.
The roots of the Tree
Sink deep into the earth,
They ground us, they anchor us,
They lead us down the path,
Our journey is a mystery
But wherever we may roam,
The Arbor leads us onwards
And returns us safely home,
The leaves and branches guide us
And the sap runs through our veins,
We’ll dream of you, sweet Arbor
Till you bring us home again.
There were several more verses and they sang them all, each louder than the last, and by the time they had finished they had bunched together in a group and were laughing and talking. Another hymn followed, and another, and thus the rest of the journey was spent in song. The miles seemed to pass more quickly, and before they knew it they were nearing Hicton and the light was beginning to fade.
II
For Grimbeald’s party, the journey from Karlgan to Montar was not a picturesque one. The Farmines were so called because the ground was rich in minerals and metals, and the once-green hillsides were pockmarked with quarries and mines, like the face of a beautiful woman who had caught some disfiguring disease. There were no animals, and the villages they passed through looked run-down, the children dirty and thin, the women listless, the men sour and dissatisfied.
Grimbeald saw the looks exchanged between the Heartwood knights. He could only imagine w
hat they might be thinking. Being in the Exercitus, they would be used to the rolling green hills and patchwork fields of Hannon and Barle on the south of the wall, and the tree-crowded Lowlands and windswept fields of the Plains on the north. They would probably never have seen a landscape as bleak and inhospitable as the Farmines, or a people as hopeless and depressed as those who lived there.
Grimbeald didn’t like the Farmines, either. Usually, he made the trip to Isenbard’s Wall by boat, on rivers that cut across the Highlands and down through the Flatlands, avoiding the Farmines completely. But because he had accompanied Fionnghuala and Bearrach to Karlgan, he had no choice but to take the road this time, although he was already regretting his decision.
Several times as they passed through villages he looked over his shoulder to see the men gathering ominously behind them, their spades and pickaxes hefted menacingly in their hands as their eyes lingered on the weapons and bags the little group carried. None of Grimbeald’s party wore expensive clothing or jewellery, but their cloaks were thick and lined, their boots heavy, and their swords – especially the Heartwood ones – well-crafted, with intricate carving on the pommels and hilts. Clearly the party had items worth stealing, and Grimbeald rode all the time with his great cloak thrown back, and his hand resting on his sword, noticing the others did the same.
So far, though, none of the mining Wulfians had done anything but mutter as they passed through, and he began to hope their lethargy was so strong they were unable to bring themselves to rise up against those they saw as having more than themselves. Still, he felt a twinge of sympathy for them as his gaze flicked over the dull eyes of the children, devoid of all hope their lives would consist of anything other than hardship and struggle. These were his countrymen, and yet he felt no kinship to them, no connection with them. They were as alien to him as the far-off Komis.
Suddenly he longed for his home in the Highlands. Although he had spent many days there dreaming of leaving and of investigating the world, the thought now of Calemar and the beautiful view from his bedchamber across the Fallen Isles out to sea made his heart ache. He thought about the lake behind the castle, bordered to the west by the Crest Forest and to the east by a soft green meadow, where he sometimes lingered during the day to compose music, under the shade of a willow that bent gracefully over the water.
“What are you thinking about?” Tenera asked, and he realised she had been watching him. “You look sad.”
He smiled. “Home.”
“You miss it?”
“More than I thought I would.” They rode for a little while and then he said, “Do you miss Heartwood?”
He had thought she would immediately say yes, but to his surprise she thought for a while before answering, “Truthfully? I am not sure. I have spent more years away from it than I did living in it. I used to love it; I could not imagine leaving. Yet now, when I return…” Her brow crinkled. “I find it… constrictive, claustrophobic.”
“That makes sense, if you are used to being on the road.”
“I suppose so. But it is more than that. It is like… being given a sword, and practising with it and getting used to it and thinking it is the best sword in the world, only one day somebody announces it is just a play-sword, and they give you the real thing, all shiny and heavy, and suddenly you realise how lightweight and insubstantial the original one was.”
Grimbeald’s eyebrows rose. It was quite a profound thing to say, he thought, and yet he knew what she meant. He had felt the same, going to Heartwood, but had been unable to put his feelings into words. He had composed a song about how he felt, which was the closest he could come to explaining himself. But it still didn’t express the strange mixture of emotions he had experienced on staying in the place: unease at the unfamiliar rituals, regular bells and rigid programme of the days; excitement at finally seeing the Arbor; awe at witnessing the Veriditas; and disquiet at the realisation that Heartwood was like a stage, with the Militis carrying out an elaborate and well-rehearsed play. It was not real; it was a fabrication, a parody of real life – although he realised those who went into the Exercitus were probably the only members of Heartwood who realised it.
How strange it must be for those who returned to the Castellum, he thought, for Valens, and Dolosus, after being out in the world. Perhaps that was a better explanation for Valens’s restlessness than frustration at his disability; deep inside, he must be aware of the glamour Heartwood cast. Re-entering its walls must have been like watching a magician’s performance after he’s told you how all his tricks work.
He sighed, looking across at his companions, wondering if they felt the same way about the place they had grown up in. Revoco and Feritas were two typical Wulfians, muscular warriors with thick dark hair and, in spite of their Heartwood upbringing, rather fierce expressions. Born to fight, Grimbeald sensed for them their religion was of secondary importance, although at sunset they joined their companions in the Arbor ritual with the same seriousness and apparent commitment to the tree.
Elatus was slightly different from the other two: Laxonian by birth, he was slender and had an arrogance about him Grimbeald tended to associate with people of the Seven Lands, be they of noble or low birth. He had brown curly hair and sharp blue eyes, and for some reason made Grimbeald feel uneasy, as if he had the ability to look straight into his soul.
Grimbeald watched the three of them and Tenera carrying out their sunset ritual that evening from a distance. Tenera had invited him to join them but he had declined; he felt his was a very different religion, and their complicated rituals unnerved him. He watched them for a moment as they all knelt under a tree and kissed the grass between its roots, then proceeded to sing to it, their left hand clasped around their wooden oak leaf pendant, their right raised in supplication to its branches.
He turned away, staring instead across the pitted landscape, looking up to the stars beginning to twinkle through the dusky sky, the clouds parting momentarily. Up there was the constellation of the Warrior, Animus with his shield and sword, who watched over his people as they lived their lives, reminding them strength was the way, and life is a constant battle, where the winner is always the fittest and the strongest, and the weak fall by the wayside. He had not been brought up to recite long prayers or carry out elaborate rituals, but he did now look up at the stars, close his eyes and send his good wishes to his home town. For the first time he wished he had not left all his followers behind; it would have been nice to have someone from home with him.
It was the fact that he had his eyes closed that stopped him from seeing the armed villagers as they came over the hill. By the time he heard their footsteps he was barely able to leap to his feet and yell the alarm before the first peasant was on him.
Grimbeald was pushed backwards, tripped on a rock and went sprawling, the peasant on top of him. Behind him he heard briefly the exclamations of the Militis as they turned to see the villagers spilling down the hill, and then he had to concentrate simply on saving his own life as a cold blade pressed against his throat. He roared and reared up with his arms and legs, throwing off the peasant, but not before he felt a burning that meant the blade had cut through his skin. Ignoring the pain and the blood gushing down his neck, he got up and released his blood axe from his horse’s saddle, then prepared himself as the peasant struggled to his feet.
A brief glance around confirmed there were maybe a dozen villagers who had sprung this surprise attack. They were outnumbered two to one. But of course, these were unskilled peasants, hungry and desperate to steal something they could sell; they had no idea how to wield a sword or defend themselves against an experienced knight. The Militis were coping capably with the attack, and he turned his attention back to his assailant.
Another had joined him now, perhaps assuming the member of the party not wearing the gold Heartwood tunic would be the easier target. Grimbeald gritted his teeth and determined that would not be the case. Planting his feet firmly, his left hand gripped the blood axe
near to the blade, the right holding further down the shaft, and he gave a nasty smile to the villagers who crept nearer, eyeing the axe cautiously. One of them lunged towards him clumsily, and he stepped back and swung the axe, his left hand sliding to meet his right so he could put his whole weight behind the swing. He saw the movement as if in slow motion – the startled look on the Wulfian’s face, quickly turning to incredulity; the blur of the blade through the air; the low roar of the other villager; the shudder through his body as the movement of the blade came to a sudden halt; the sickening crunch of metal dividing skin and bone as the edge bit into his assailant’s upper arm, severing tendons and ligaments until the limb hung by a thread, the peasant clutching it with his other hand and looking up at him in disbelief before sliding to the floor.
The other villager gave a howl and launched himself at Grimbeald, but by then the element of surprise had passed and Grimbeald was ready for him. He neatly sidestepped the clumsy thrust of the Wulfian’s old sword, dummied a swing with the axe that caused the villager to turn away from him, then turned the axe in a deft arc to double back and completely cut off the peasant’s head.
For a moment he stood and watched the head roll down the hill, bumping over stones and molehills, and then he turned his attention back to the grassy field. The villager whose arm he had severed lay motionless in a huge pool of blood, his face pale as milk, eyes glassy. He turned to look behind him. The grass was littered with the bodies of the raiding party. The Militis moved amongst them, checking for life, pushing the limp torsos with their toes and occasionally crouching down to lift up an eyelid. He looked across at Tenera. She was wiping the blade of her sword on a cloth, removing the sticky residue of blood that had soaked it. She looked up and he saw her face crease with concern.
“Grimbeald?” She sheathed her sword and ran over to him quickly. “You are injured?”
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