The Book of Lies

by James Moloney

  “No!” screamed Nicola, as she watched it fly through the air. But her cry came too late. The glass shattered into thousands of glittering diamonds and the heavy silver handle dropped with a thud to the ground.

  Nicola’s scream had snapped the worst of Eleanor’s frenzy, but it had not cooled her anger completely. “Those cowards!” She sneered in their direction without really seeing them. “If I were a man, I’d be down in that valley with a sword in my hand, whether I had an army at my back or not.”

  Then she seemed to collect herself, and only at this point did she properly take in who was watching. She gave a brief start, before the fury suffused her features once more. “Leave me,” she snapped.

  The pair staggered backwards, appalled. “Did you see her eyes?” Nicola whispered, when they had moved a little way from the tent.

  Oh yes, Marcel had seen those eyes, full of black hatred. “She’s upset,” he said, scrambling frantically for excuses.

  “Yes, that’s it. Not so hard to understand,” Nicola responded, just as desperate to agree. “This might be her only chance to win the Kingdom from Pelham. Of course she’s angry.”

  Angry. It had been more than that. How could their mother’s exquisite features burn with such ugliness and rage?

  Her tent was cut off to them now. There was no place for them either among the men, who were still arguing, and Bea and Fergus had wandered off somewhere with Long Beard. But just then Eleanor called after them, her voice full of contrition. “Wait, I’m sorry! Forgive me, both of you. You must be ashamed to see me this way.”

  “No, of course not, Mother!” cried Nicola, rushing tearily towards her and accepting the hug offered by her outstretched arms. Marcel was about to do the same when a cry of outrage rose up behind him. He turned instantly to see what had caused it. The circle of men had dispersed, and Damon, Zadenwolf, Fergus and some of the fur-clad soldiers were crowded tightly around something on the ground nearby.

  “There, in the trees! After him!” Starkey shouted. He hadn’t been standing with the rest, it seemed, and now, with his sword drawn, he was already running into the forest. The others began to charge after him. Only the dimly visible figure of Long Beard remained, kneeling beside something just as hard to see.

  Marcel was already running. In a dozen desperate strides he was beside the Elf-King and staring down in horror at a figure that lay motionless, with arms outstretched and eyes closed.

  Bea.

  Protruding from her shoulder, pointing straight at the sun overhead, was the long, deadly shaft of an arrow.

  Chapter 15

  The Ones You Love Can Be the First to Die

  BEA WAS PICKED UP and carried, groaning, back to her tent and laid on a straw mattress brought from the frontier guards’ cabin. Her agony could be heard throughout the camp as the arrow was removed from her flesh.

  “Who could have done this? She’s just a girl,” Long Beard seethed.

  Starkey had returned from the forest by now. “All I saw was a flash of red. One of Pelham’s men must have followed us after all. He was probably aiming for Prince Edwin.”

  Zadenwolf and the rest returned an hour later. “Whoever it was, he has slipped away. I will stay a day or so in case there are others. How is the elf-girl?” Zadenwolf asked.

  “She is bleeding badly,” murmured Long Beard, distraught with worry. He came away from the grubby mattress where Bea lay grimacing in pain, and began to pace anxiously from one side of the tent to the other. “A king who sends his soldiers to kill children,” he muttered bitterly. “Maybe you will have the elves at your side for this struggle after all…” Then he seemed to make up his mind. “I tell you, if my granddaughter dies, I will bring my army to fight against this King Pelham. You have my word.”

  Eleanor did what she could to staunch the wound, but the bleeding would not stop. “I’m sorry, Long Beard. She is growing very weak.”

  “No!” Marcel cried, sinking to his knees near the girl’s head. Nicola crouched beside him but there was nothing either of them could say.

  “We have an elf-woman who has learned all the potions to heal such wounds. I will go myself and fetch her,” said Long Beard resolutely, and though the light was fading outside and the chill wind smelled of snow, he set out immediately into the forest.

  Eleanor made a broth from the remains of a deer caught by Zadenwolf’s soldiers, but Bea was too ill to swallow even a mouthful. Marcel sat up with her as long as he could manage to stay awake, then Nicola took her turn and Fergus too. Bea was still fighting to stay alive in the morning, but each new bandage they applied was quickly soaked in the bright red of her blood.

  Then hope. Early that afternoon, the elf-woman arrived. She came alone, with only a light sack over her shoulder, and went straight to Bea’s side. “I am Remora,” she said humbly when they asked her name. Like the other elf-women Marcel had seen on the mountain slopes, her hair was plaited and pinned in a flattened spiral over her ears. The many lines around her eyes and on her forehead told of her age, but despite her hurried journey she was quickly at work on the wound with an energy that swept Eleanor aside.

  “Where is Long Beard?” Starkey asked when he came to meet this new arrival.

  “He has called all the elves to the mountain for a council. He wants them to be ready – in case they have to go to war.” Remora looked down uneasily at her patient. “He will send a messenger tomorrow to check on his granddaughter.”

  But as each hour passed, it seemed less likely that the elves would have to fight. By nightfall, Bea was sitting up, her eyes open and even the hint of a smile on her colourless lips. Marcel began to spread the word around camp.

  When he reached Starkey’s tent, he found him with a candle in his hand and his face hovering above the Book of Lies. It was open at the last page. Marcel felt his heart leap when he saw it. The Book had been his once, or so it had seemed. If anyone owned it now, it was Starkey.

  But he quickly pushed such doubts aside. “Bea is getting better! Remora says she’s going to live,” he told Starkey joyfully.

  “Long Beard will be relieved to hear that,” Starkey replied.

  Starkey came back to the tent with Marcel to see Bea’s progress for himself. Eleanor was there, of course, doing what she could to help. When she slipped away to eat, Marcel took her place at Remora’s side.

  “Pass me a handful of that lichenwort,” Remora instructed, pointing to a small bag with pale orange fibres spilling from its mouth.

  Marcel had to ask Starkey to step aside so he could do as she asked, then held his palm open while she swept the contents into her cupped hand. She turned away without a thought, but just as quickly turned back. “Wait. Hold out your hand again,” she whispered with an odd look on her face.

  “Why, what have I done?” he asked, offering his hand tentatively.

  Remora opened his fingers, and this time she stroked her own palm slowly over his entire hand. “Magic,” she murmured. “I feel magic under your skin.”

  Marcel relaxed a little. “That’s Lord Alwyn’s spell. He used sorcery to take away all memory of who I was.”

  Remora considered his answer while she continued to caress his palm, her wrinkled eyes closed this time so that she could concentrate on the feeling alone.

  “No, not a spell forced on you by another,” she announced confidently. “Medicine and magic are two sides of the same coin. I have studied the first mostly, but I know a little of the second. This magic resides within you.”

  With a start Marcel snatched his hand away and hid it behind his back in case she reached for it again. “That’s a mistake. What you can feel comes from Lord Alwyn,” he assured her. Looking up, he found Starkey’s hard eyes staring down at him. “Isn’t that right,” he demanded. “It’s Lord Alwyn’s magic, not mine.”

  Starkey took a long time to answer, as though his own thoughts had been distracted by what Remora had claimed. “The old wizard, yes. It must be,” he said finally, but this was no more t
han a vague denial, not at all what Marcel was expecting.

  At that moment Eleanor returned. “I’ve made some more broth for Bea,” she declared brightly, passing it down to Remora.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said the elf-nurse as she accepted the bowl, “but for now, Bea needs my special tonics. She’ll be well enough for your broth in a day or two.”

  “Then perhaps you would like it yourself, Remora. You have not eaten since you arrived.”

  Remora smiled and nodded graciously.

  Marcel had barely closed his eyes since the arrow struck Bea’s shoulder, but with the patient growing stronger by the hour and Remora to sit by her bed, he slept soundly that night. He woke well after daybreak to find Eleanor feeding Bea the broth she had prepared the night before.

  “How is she?” he asked immediately.

  “Come and see for yourself.”

  It wasn’t Eleanor who replied but Bea herself. Marcel threw off his blanket and hurried to her side.

  She couldn’t say more, because Eleanor had slipped another spoonful of broth into her mouth. But their voices had woken Nicola, who sat up in her bed and asked blearily, “Where’s Remora?”

  “She has gone into the forest to collect more ingredients for her potions and ointments,” Eleanor explained. “In the meantime she wants us to change Bea’s bandages and build up her strength with a little food.” She held up the spoon to show that she was following instructions.

  With Bea sipping noisily, there was nothing much Marcel could do. He put on his boots and cloak and went outside for some air. It had snowed heavily during the night and the sudden whiteness of the camp site stunned his eyes. He shivered in his worn boots as they sank into the freezing ground. At least it would delay Zadenwolf’s departure, and give Eleanor and the rest more time to talk him round.

  A clash of swords made him turn sharply, terrified for a moment that Pelham’s soldiers had returned. “I should have known,” he muttered to himself, as the fear subsided instantly. There was Fergus, thirty strides away, wielding a sword against one of Zadenwolf’s soldiers, who parried his blows lazily. Three others looked on, cheering each strike and calling out words of encouragement.

  “Marcel, come here!” called Fergus, as soon as he spotted him. When Marcel joined them, he thrust the handle of his sword into the boy’s hands. “Feel how light it is,” he crowed proudly. “Isn’t it fantastic? Zadenwolf gave it to me. I showed it to my father and he’s promised to have my name engraved along the blade.”

  As if mention of his name had summoned him, Damon appeared in the opening of his tent, and instantly Fergus straightened like a soldier. But Damon didn’t even look in his son’s direction and the boy’s face clouded with disappointment. “I want to fight in the battles against Pelham,” he muttered, swallowing his dismay. “Father just laughs, but I’ll show him what I can do…”

  “There aren’t going to be any battles,” said Marcel, before Fergus could get carried away. “Zadenwolf is afraid of Lord Alwyn, remember? As soon as Bea is better he’ll head back into Lenoth Crag and we’ll be on our own again, without a single soldier to help us.”

  Fergus didn’t seem to be listening. He was busy watching Damon cross the short distance from his tent to Zadenwolf’s. “That’s the third time he’s gone to see the King alone. Old friends from the battlefield, you see,” he added with a knowing smirk. “If anyone can change Zadenwolf’s mind, it’s my father.”

  Marcel had seen less of Fergus since he’d been sharing a tent with his father and couldn’t believe how completely he had come to idolise Damon. For the next hour, Fergus made Marcel reluctantly practise sword drills against him, until their arms ached and the soldiers became bored with watching them. Without an audience Fergus’s interest also waned, and only then was Marcel free to return to the tent where Bea lay.

  “Bring me another bandage!” he heard Eleanor cry sharply to Nicola as he drew near. He saw his sister’s tearful urgency as she hurried to tear off another strip from a discarded sheet.

  “What happened?” he demanded as he rushed frantically to Bea’s bedside. He had to jump aside as Bea vomited violently then cried out as the convulsions sent pain spearing into her shoulder. The wound had opened again, soaking the bandage with fresh blood. Eleanor sent Nicola scurrying away for a clean blanket to replace the one Bea had soiled.

  “But she was getting better!” Marcel wailed helplessly. “Where’s Remora? Isn’t she back yet?”

  His mother was too busy to answer him. The answer was plain enough anyway. There was no trace of the elf-nurse.

  After a while Bea slipped into a fitful sleep. The bleeding had slowed but not stopped, and the sweat beading on her forehead told them a fever was taking hold of her little body.

  Thunder rolled through the mountains, loud and threatening. Marcel couldn’t stay still for more than a moment and told his mother he was going outside, hoping to see Remora returning. The clouds were low and dark overhead and their contents were beginning to fall as large, pelting raindrops that slapped noisily on to the canvas and stung his face. They were strangely warm after the crisp chill of the snowy morning.

  With no sign of Remora, he returned despondently to the tent. As he entered he just caught a glimpse of his mother hastily slipping a handful of bright-coloured berries into a tiny pouch at her waist.

  “Remora must come back soon,” he exclaimed. “What can she find anyway with so much snow covering everything?”

  Bea groaned in her sleep. Her face had become deathly pale now. Such a change from earlier, when there had seemed no doubt she would recover!

  “She’s only small,” he murmured to his mother, fighting back tears. “She doesn’t have much blood to lose. I couldn’t bear it if…”

  “You care a great deal for your little friend, don’t you, Marcel?” Eleanor said in a soothing voice. She put a hand gently on his shoulder and he realised with a start that it was the first time she had touched him since their brief embrace in the door of her prison chamber. “Many people will risk their lives to bring justice back to Elster. Some of them will die before I am Queen, and the ones you love the most might be the first. I’m sorry, Marcel.”

  He stayed by Bea’s bed for another hour, but with each passing minute she was slipping closer to death. Where was Remora? He pushed aside the tent flap once more and searched the fringes of the camp with his eyes. No sign of her. Though dark clouds still haunted the mountain pass, the rain had stopped for now, at least. Zadenwolf’s soldiers were emerging from the makeshift cabin and the handful of tents and looked as if they were beginning to prepare for departure. A horse whinnied and he turned to see Gadfly among the ponies, water dripping from her shaggy mane.

  He stepped out of the tent and discovered that the rain had turned parts of the snow to puddles of muddy soup beneath his feet. He sloshed his way through, avoiding the worst of it, until he reached Gadfly. He knew she was glad to see him even though she feigned indifference. How could you leave me among such creatures? she seemed to complain, nodding disdainfully towards the dishevelled ponies.

  “I know, I know. You deserve better than this and I’ve neglected you badly. I’m sorry, but a lot’s been happening over the last couple of days.” Gadfly relented and offered her nose for stroking. He ran the backs of his fingers down the grain of her hair, enjoying its smoothness, until Gadfly snorted suddenly and tossed her head.

  He looked up to find Nicola watching him silently from nearby. “What are you doing out here?” he said, tugging his cloak more tightly around him. “It’s much warmer in the tent.”

  She gave a weary shrug. “Bea’s asleep and there’s nothing much I can do. I’d rather be out here with you than with…” She couldn’t seem to finish the sentence, as though she was afraid of the final words.

  Marcel thought he knew what she meant. “I can’t watch Bea die either,” he agreed wretchedly.

  “Bea?” Nicola responded, a little surprised. “She’s not going to die, M
arcel. As soon as Remora comes back she’ll start to get better again.”

  This was what Marcel wanted to hear, more than anything, and it lifted his spirits immediately. But he hadn’t forgotten Nicola’s unfinished sentence. She would rather be with him, her brother, than… than whom? The answer was not hard to guess.

  “Do you think Eleanor will make a good queen?” he asked tentatively.

  “A queen, yes. In a palace with lots of fine clothes and servants taking orders. I can see her with all that. Once it was just what I wanted too.”

  “It’s what she wants more than anything,” Marcel declared, and if the Book of Lies had been sitting across his knees he was certain that its glow would have melted the rest of the snow around them.

  “But is she the kind of mother you dreamed of, Marcel?” Nicola asked seriously.

  He didn’t know how to answer. It had all happened so quickly. He hadn’t had time to dream of anything. But Nicola had.

  “I’ve asked her to help me braid my hair three times now,” Nicola went on. “Each time she makes an excuse. She has to meet with Zadenwolf or Starkey, and then yesterday afternoon, she said she had to pick some berries from the forest. How important can that be?”

  “Brushing someone’s hair doesn’t sound very important either,” said Marcel, before he realised how unkind it would sound.

  She rounded on him. “Boys! You’re just as bad as Fergus with his swords and his fighting. Don’t you see, Marcel? Brushing a girl’s hair is what a mother does, even a queen… if she loves her daughter. I wonder whether our mother loves anything, except the crown she wants to feel on her head.”

  There, the word had been said. Love. It stirred Marcel more than he wanted it to. He had heard that word only recently, and on Eleanor’s own lips. “She told me that the ones you love can be the first to die,” he muttered miserably. “She was talking about Bea.”