Rescue (By Eyes Unseen Book One)

by F. E. Greene

  The king was gone. The pond was gone.

  Shaken, Pearl turned. Everything inside the gazebo had vanished. Beyond it Pearl saw the bower’s low mouth. Above, the wind gusted and leaves tumbled down while silence hallowed the rest.

  Chapter Twenty

  A few strides beyond the bower, Pearl found Carys sitting against a tree. The Illiate woman held a small book close to her nose, and she looked farther away than Pearl had felt with the king at the pond.

  Not wanting to startle her, Pearl offered a soft greeting and asked what she was reading.

  “Old poems,” Carys replied. “Mostly about nature. Seems fitting to bring them out here.”

  After tucking the book into a pocket, Carys stood and brushed the leaves from her seat. While she still wore trousers, the roughest aspects of her appearance had calmed. Her shirt was unwrinkled, and her boots were clean. Tiny clips tamed the waves of hair near her face. A belted jacket thinned her frame.

  “I’m never sure what to say at this moment,” Carys admitted. “Asking about your health seems trite. And we both know the weather is fine.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what just happened,” Pearl said. “I don’t know if I could explain.”

  Carys lifted a hand, the branded one, to stem any attempt. “You don’t have to. The kingsfolk may ask about your meeting, but you decide what to share. No one will force you to discuss it. And they’ll listen if you do.”

  Smiling, Pearl felt herself relax. She imagined herself atop the broch, and Jeron was there also. Eventually she would tell him everything. She might even enjoy the climb.

  Leaving the forchard went much quicker than Pearl expected. As she ducked beneath its drooping exit, she wondered if something odd happened to time within its woods. The suspicion was ridiculous, she knew. Time was one of the few true constants. Whatever else happened, it did not change.

  Halfway across the fosse Pearl halted. “Wait! He didn’t give me a job.”

  Several strides ahead Carys slowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The king forgot to tell me what I’ll do inside the castle. If I don’t have a job, will I need to leave? Can I stay in the castle without one?”

  “Of course,” Carys said with absolute confidence. “He may not have decided yet.”

  Pearl hurried to catch up and walk alongside her. “What’s your job?”

  “I’m the retriever’s second. That’s my title at least. I’m in charge of maintaining the armery. I assist Varrick with patrols and campaigns, chiefly in the planning since I’m no soldier. I do supervise the outriders – which is a lot like corralling rabid badgers. My skills with a bow aren’t bad, but I’m better at keeping things organized.”

  All of it sounded horrible to Pearl. “This is what you wanted to do?”

  “It’s what the king asked me to do. When I first got here, the only weapon I knew how to use was a sewing needle.”

  “Then why would the king give you a job that’s so unseemly?”

  “Unseemly?” Carys’ abrupt laugh was sharp and barking. “Owyn’s going to love you.”

  Pearl didn’t know what she meant. As they climbed the wooden steps leading to the south gate, she realized Carys hadn’t answered her question. Unsure if she should ask again, Pearl decided to use the same tactic that worked on reticent children. Instead of prodding, she waited. Even with its unyielding constancy, time owned the power to change everything around it.

  Her patience met its prize when Carys stopped just outside the gate. She propped herself against the eastern wall, arms folded and legs crossed. “Let’s catch our breath.”

  The suggestion wasn’t necessary – for Carys. Pearl appreciated the reprieve and wished there was somewhere to sit. Instead she leaned against the wall and hoped it wouldn’t dirty her dress.

  From the elevated pathway, the view was incomparable. The apartments soared to Pearl’s right. The forchard loomed to her left. Late-day sunlight suffused the fosse, and among its blushing grasses birds warbled and reeled. Pearl heard other noises also – rattling wagons and braying voices – but those came from the Barrowfield road, and they sounded remote.

  Charmed, Pearl focused again on Carys whose resolve had softened along with her gaze. With the toe of her boot, the Illiate woman scratched at the ground. She was thinking, Pearl sensed, and measuring what to share.

  “I grew up in one room,” Carys said finally. “One room with four younger sisters. One room, four sisters, and extremely conventional parents. We weren’t poor, mind you. Poverty was never our problem. Ours was a large room and very well furnished. We wore the best clothes, ate the best meals. Inside that room my sisters and I lacked for nothing. We also had no lives. We simply existed. We studied and slept and did what we were told out of ignorance, not intention.”

  Pearl wasn’t surprised. She’d heard enough stories, most from traveling carters, to know what Illiate women endured. While they were treated with more reverence than those in Orld, where females were reduced to pitiful servitude, women in both anchorlands served the same purpose – as property bartered to strengthen the status of men. The brand on Carys’ palm, while awful to view, was commonplace among Illiates.

  Gold eyes were exceeding rare, however, and Carys raised hers to the sky while she spoke.

  “When I entered the castle and met the king, I couldn’t say what I wanted. So I told the king everything I didn’t. Limitations. Restrictions. Work that kept me indoors. Schooling and cooking did not appeal, and sewing was out of the question.”

  Pearl balked at her bluntness. “You said all that to the king?”

  “Absolutely. And I’m glad I was honest. I think he was, too.” Her assertive gaze returned to Pearl’s. “After a few days the king asked me to second the retriever. Owyn was speechless, if you can imagine it. Even Jeron was shocked, and nothing seems to rattle that man. Varrick was plenty rattled, however. He argued the decision, and he never contradicts the king. He’s more loyal than the rest of us put together.”

  “Varrick argued with the king?”

  “Indirectly, yes. But we both stuck with it – for the better, I hope. I’ll admit it wasn’t a fun beginning.”

  Pearl believed her. “Last night you said you’d been in prison. Is that true?”

  Carys shook her head. “I was just being poetical although I suppose I belong in an Illiate jail. I’ve defied all propriety and broken most laws. Up in Orld they’d snap my neck. But now I’m one of the kingsfolk, and I’ll never let myself be held captive again.”

  Pearl believed that, too. Carys’ words and face were marble-hard, daring anyone to doubt them. One night before, she had used that same voice when she ordered Pearl to stay put at the festival.

  Ashamed that she hadn’t complied, Pearl rested her arms on the wall. She’d known one other woman who spoke with such potent and resolute firmness. Missing her mother, Pearl set her chin atop her sleeve and sighed. She wanted someone to coddle her. She hated the last five years.

  Then her indulgent thoughts dissolved as Pearl saw beyond the pale. Outside the castle, the world had changed.

  Above the loward’s gloomy streets, darkgard swooped and hovered. At first Pearl felt afraid, mostly for herself, until remorse replaced her fear. Within the pale she was protected. The people still living in Castlevale were not.

  “They’re back,” Pearl whispered to Carys. “The darkgard – they’re right outside.”

  “They never left. You just couldn’t see them.”

  Carys pulled herself onto the wall, twisting to view the alleyways lined by moldering shacks. She kept her legs inside the pale.

  “When darkgard travel in a group like that, we call it a ruck. If a darkgard turn grummous, like yours did last night, it often tries to hide in a ruck.”

  “How do they fly without wings?” Pearl asked.

  Carys shrugged. “Mystery.”

  “How many have you killed?”

  “Not enough.”

  Pearl dug for the audacity t
o ask a dreadful question. “And people? How many of those have you –”

  “None,” Carys interrupted. The resolute voice resurfaced. “Kingsfolk aren’t allowed to harm humen, no matter what they do to us. With people, we always yield to conquer. But darkgard are ours for the wasting.”

  “I won’t be expected to hunt darkgard, will I?”

  “That’s for the king to decide.” When the campanile began tolling, Carys jumped down from the wall. “I’ll be surprised if he makes you an outrider. Whatever the king does ask, it will challenge you. Life here isn’t easy, but it always seems to fit who we are. Or who we’re meant to be. If we let it.”

  Relieved, somewhat, Pearl counted the campanile’s chimes until the eighteenth peal had faded.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be at supper?” she asked. “Owyn told me it started at 18 bells sharp.”

  “Everything’s sharp to Owyn, especially his own wit. Don’t let him make you nervous, Pearl. He wouldn’t hurt a curly worm if it ate half his apple. We have time to explore the bailey.”

  To prove her point Carys led Pearl through the south gate at a languid pace. Sedately she strolled down a gravel path that divided the grounds into unequal halves. Pearl resisted the impulse to rush ahead.

  “We call this the carriageway,” Carys said. “Gate to gate it’s wide enough for a slagwagon. It was built for the carriage of a queen, I think. Beforish machines – the sort without horses – also used it to go back and forth.”

  “Are there any of those in the castle?” Pearl asked.

  “Not that I’ve seen.” Carys pointed at a chestnut tree loaded with leaves and seed pods. Burls swelled from its trunk to form a knobby face. “Here’s the tea tree. Good place for a picnic. Downhill are the stables and horsemaster lodgings. Owyn makes the lads muck the hay when they’ve done something naughty. Needless to say, the stables stay clean.”

  From outside the stables looked just as tidy. Their design was simplistic and façades antique. They were also immense, consuming all of the southeast corner of the lower bailey. Pearl heard, and smelled, the evidence of horses within.

  “How can the lads be naughty if the king doesn’t have any rules?” she asked.

  “Many rules,” Carys corrected. “Believe me, they find a way.”

  As they approached the north gate, Carys gestured to her right. “Last thing to show you,” she announced. “The children’s playfort. It looks like a deathtrap, but we haven’t lost one yet.”

  What consumed the bailey’s northeast corner was nothing like the orderly stables. Stacked against the outer wall, the playfort was made from a craftman’s scraps. Planks of timber braced a rippling canvas roof that stood taller than the pale. It sheltered three levels plus a lopsided turret, and another panel of canvas functioned as a door. Mismatched shutters clung to crooked windows. Rope ladders dangled, and banners caught the breeze.

  As she judged the slapdash structure, Pearl didn’t know whether to be enchanted or alarmed. It was precisely the sort of place that children loved to play. It also displayed items she didn’t recognize, too many of them from Before. While none of the castle’s Beforish spoils seemed put to their original use, that wouldn’t matter one whit to an instable.

  Beside the playfort sat a grounded rowboat doused in yellow paint. A leaning mast and limp flag tilted from its middle. Straining to see in the fading daylight, Pearl read a painted name, also yellow, on a signpost next to the boat.

  HODGE PODGE LODGE

  “Varrick calls it the H.P.L.,” Carys said. “Gives it some official dignity, I guess. You know Orldics. They abbreviate everything.”

  “You both did that earlier. What does H.T.L. mean?”

  “Hold the line. It’s an Orldic battle command.”

  “And D.B.D.?”

  Carys hesitated. “Delay brings death. Orld’s version of a prep talk.”

  Uninspired, Pearl shuddered at the brutal phrase. “Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  “Who, Varrick? Not anymore. Good thing you didn’t find the castle five years ago. Back then he was an absolute menace. A true soldier of Orld.”

  “What changed him?”

  “This place, these people. Serving the king mostly. But that’s his story to tell.”

  As they crossed back over the carriageway, Pearl indulged her curiosity. Unlike the king’s retriever, his second didn’t seem upset by questions. And Pearl had plenty more.

  “What did Varrick mean when he said you were coddling me?”

  “When was that?” As Pearl reminded her, Carys grinned. “That’s just Varrick keeping me honest. He thinks we’re all soft. Compared to him, we are.”

  “How long has he been an inkeeper?”

  “Ten years. For six he’s served as retriever.”

  Pearl lifted the hem of her dress as she followed Carys up the sloping lawn. “Is he entrothed?”

  Peering back, Carys raised an eyebrow. “No. Are you interested?”

  “No.” Pearl felt herself blush. “He’s from Orld.”

  “Yes, he is. Those men have a reputation, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do.” Pearl forced herself to continue. “What’s his sirename?”

  When Carys stopped walking, Pearl worried she’d gone one question too far. Halting, she fiddled with her sleeves while she waited for a reply.

  Carys didn’t seem bothered, but her composure had hardened. “What have you heard?”

  “Stories from when I was a child,” Pearl confessed. “There was an Orldic soldier. He had a very important title although I don’t remember it. He moved through the Fourtlands unnoticed, like a phantom. He could kill a hundred men barehanded. When he attacked a village, he left nothing behind – not even water in the wells. My parents said he was the deadliest weapon born of Orld in ten generations. Everyone in Rosper was terrified of a soldier named Varrick Slone.”

  “That all sounds less likely than a castle no one can see,” Carys said. “Tell me this, Pearl. Are you afraid of our retriever?”

  Pearl thought first of her rescue and then of her rescuer’s eyes. “I know he won’t hurt me.”

  “Then what do the stories matter?” Carys asked. “Varrick saved your life last night. More than once he’s saved mine. Whenever people see the castle, our retriever is there to protect them. No one in this place is braver or more loyal to the king. Besides, would the Orldic man in your stories accept a woman as his second?”

  Pearl shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

  “And there you go.” Smiling, Carys walked on.

  Chapter Twenty One

  As she crossed the lawn, Pearl kept her eyes down, watching the grass for divots or rocks which might trip her.

  She had seen the castle, and most of its grounds, but that didn’t mean she could stay. She liked its people, what few she’d met, but they weren’t the dignified types she expected. Pearl had even met the king, but he didn’t promise to protect her from the world’s horrors – only to let her see them.

  Like a brief stroke of fever, Pearl felt the cutting urge to go home. She craved the safety of Hollycopse more than whatever the castle offered.

  Afraid she might lose the desire or, worse, forget to feel it, Pearl clung to the image of her parents at ease in the farmhouse’s parlour. They chatted and read while she sat nearby, listening. In that moment it was all she wanted.

  Then she looked up and saw the king’s hall.

  Swathed by the sunset, it beckoned. Dusk anointed the hall’s slanting roof, and nightfall deepened the gleam of its three soaring windows. Behind those, silhouettes drifted.

  Carys slowed to walk beside Pearl. “It doesn’t look like this every night. The king must be glad you’re here.”

  Mystified, Pearl just nodded. She didn’t know how a king could influence a sunset. Or why he would do so for her.

  Rather than follow the gravel path, they kept on the grass. As they passed the austere well, still bucketless and neglected, Pearl wondered if it was built for wishin
g. Later she would check its depths for the glint of metal and perhaps make a wish of her own.

  Although it was too dark to examine the well, the inner court was aglow with the same concave lamps Pearl had noticed the night before. Slowing, she craned her neck to count them.

  “Who lights all these beacons?” she asked.

  Carys waited for her at an unadorned door adjacent to the hall. “No one. They light themselves at the first touch of sunset. They only go black when we’re under attack.”

  “Who attacks an unseen castle?”

  Without responding Carys opened the wooden door for Pearl. “This is the narthex. Through here we can reach the rockery and the watergate where we access the lake. That door leads to the elderward.” She pointed right, then straight ahead. “That one to the mound.”

  Swiveling where she stood, Pearl sighed with exasperation. In one day she’d seen more than her fair share of doors. It would take a fourtnight at least for her to feel comfortable finding what she needed in the castle, even with its copious signs – another of which hung above the door leading north.

  INFIRMERY THIS WAY

  NO SPORTING OR JINKERY

  After her collision with the lad – Paxton – outside the infirmery, Pearl appreciated the warning. At the far end of the narthex, above a western doorway, a smaller sign gave less detailed directions.

  MOUND AND MERE

  To Pearl’s left was the only pair of doors she’d noticed that seemed built for more than function. Crafted from bronze, they rose half the hall’s height, secured to the wall by hinges the length and width of an arm.

  While they were the first priceless effects Pearl had seen inside the castle, age had robbed the doors of their best glory. Patina tinged many of the scored panels, and both handles were scuffed from overuse.

  Dissatisfied, Pearl sighed again.