The Wizard's Ward (Queen's Quests Trilogy Book 1)

by Deborah Hale

  He bobbed his head. “Aye, mistress. Kettle’s on the hob. I’ll not be a moment.”

  True to his word, he returned quickly with the water, into which Maura drizzled a pinch of summerslip. Gristel Maldwin sniffed the brew with a suspicious look, but after a tentative sip or two she drank the rest readily.

  When she had finished, Maura took the empty cup and handed it to the tanner. “Now, Goodame Maldwin, we will not hurt you, but I need to know... what manner of questions did the Han ask you about Exilda?”

  Her gentle query brought an anxious look to the woman’s face again. “I didn’t rightly understand half what they asked. I only know enough Comtung to get by. What I could make out was something about a place paper.”

  Behind Maura, Rath murmured, “A map?”

  Gristel cast him a wary glance.

  “It is all right,” said Maura. “This man found you after you went back into your house to hide. He brought you here. You have nothing to fear from him. Now, they asked about a map?”

  “I... reckon that might be what they meant. They wanted to know if Exilda had any visitors... wizardfolk. I tried to tell ’em she kept to herself but...”

  In spite of the draft, the woman grew agitated again, and Maura spent several minutes soothing her. If her questions had not been so urgent, she would have left Gristel to rest, but the protection of darkness would slip away with the passing hours. And the spells she had put on the Han would weaken.

  “Your pardon, goodame, but I must ask you a question or two about Exilda. I promise I will not harm you, no matter what your answers. Though it will be a great boon to me if you can remember.”

  “I’d like to oblige you folk, but Exilda and me did not get on. She kept to herself. Ask Goodman Tanner if you do not believe me.”

  Under his breath the tanner muttered, “Private folk have no use for busybodies.”

  “I understand,” Maura assured the woman, “but you sat with her body the night she died, while Goodman Tanner dug her grave.”

  “Aye. It is ill luck to leave an unburied corpse alone, or do they not know that where you come from? The ghost may linger to haunt folks.”

  It grieved Maura that the rituals of the Elderways had fallen into such ignorant superstition, but this was not the time to quibble over it. “Tell me, when you sat with her, did her voice speak to you?”

  “Nah! She were dead, weren’t she?”

  A sigh of bitter disappointment rose in Maura’s throat.

  “Her lips never moved,” Gristel added.

  Maura swallowed that stillborn sigh. It tingled in her belly like a potent tonic. “But did you fancy you heard her? In your mind?”

  “Aye,” Gristel looked embarrassed by her confession. “It were naught but nonsense. On account of I was wrought up about the fire and all.”

  “Please.” Maura clutched Gristel’s hand almost as tightly as Gristel had clutched hers awhile before. “This could be very important. Can you recall what Exilda’s voice said?”

  “Prattle. Naught but daft prattle. It cannot be important to you.”

  If Maura had possessed a death-mage’s wand, she would have been sorely tempted to threaten the woman. “Tell me, please. What sounded like prattle to you might have meaning for me.”

  A special incantation, perhaps, that would reveal the site of the map. Or some clue to its location in Old Embrian words.

  “Pickles.”

  Expecting the rich, musical cadence of Old Embrian, Maura could not make sense of the simple word. “Your pardon?”

  “Pickles,” Gristel repeated in a wry tone that said she had warned them. “Pickles, preserves, jellies. On and on till I thought I must be running mad. Even if she had been alive and speaking the words, who would care about such things at a time like that?”

  Who, indeed? Maura dropped Gristel Maldwin’s hand.

  It sounded as though Exilda had tried to communicate something as she’d passed into the afterworld. Perhaps the message had gotten garbled.

  Or perhaps...?

  “Your pardon!” Maura leapt to her feet. “I must go.”

  She turned to Goodman Tanner. “My thanks for your aid. It was unlooked for, and all the more welcome for that. I hope someday I may have the means to better show my gratitude.”

  A change came over the tanner’s craggy face. “You’re the one, aren’t you? The visitor Exilda waited for all these years?”

  “She told you about me?”

  “Not in so many words, mistress. But now and then she would say, ‘She’ll come yet, Boyd Tanner.’ When I asked her who, she would say no more. I am sorry you were too late for her, and she for you.”

  “So am I, goodman.” Maura scarcely dared acknowledge the tiny ember of hope inside her. “Perhaps someday I will return to Prum and you can tell me more about Exilda.”

  The tanner nodded. “This little hidey-hole will be here if ever you need it, mistress.”

  “My thanks.” Maura glanced down at the mattress where Gristel Maldwin was dozing once again. “Can she stay here?”

  “As long as needs.” The tanner did not look happy about the arrangement, but resigned to his obligation. “Wherever you are bound, may the Giver go with you.”

  Maura acknowledged the traditional blessing with a tired smile. “And remain with you.”

  “What was that all about?” Rath stepped aside to let Maura pass, then fell in behind her. “Where do you need to go in such a hurry?”

  “I must go back to Exilda’s house to check something,” said Maura, as they let themselves out of Boyd Tanner’s hidey-hole, then picked their way down the stairs in the dim light cast by the hearth fire. “It may be a vain hope, but I have nothing better to pursue just now.”

  At the foot of the stairs, she turned to him. “Can I impose on you for a while longer? I may need your help.”

  Rath shrugged. “It is no bother. To tell the truth, I have followed you all day to make sure you did not come to any harm. At least I did until you gave me the slip outside the tavern.”

  “So that was you!” cried Maura, torn between wanting to clout him and wanting to kiss him again. “You might have said something. I was afraid I had the Xenoth on my trail.”

  Even in the dim light of the tannery, she could see Rath’s face take on a look of grave urgency.

  “You did. You do.”

  “What?”

  Rath nodded. “After you got away from me at the tavern, I did some poking about the town. I overheard a few of the Han talking amongst themselves. Seems they’re swarming the Long Vale rooting out wizards and healers and folk like that. The Lord Governor has sent Xenoth over the mountains to take charge of the search.”

  A shiver went through Maura. If her guess about Exilda’s map proved false, it would be all but impossible for her to return home to Norest.

  “I cannot think about that now.” Though she spoke the words aloud to Rath, they were addressed as much to herself. “If you will lend me your aid for a few hours more, I will be greatly in your debt.”

  She pulled open the back door to the tannery and stepped out into the night. Apart from the wind, all was quiet outside. That would soon change once her spells on the Han wore off.

  “This way,” she whispered to Rath. “Exilda’s cottage is not far. What is left of it, at least.”

  “We dare not stay long,” Rath warned her, “if this notion of yours does not yield.”

  “I know.”

  A twig snapped beneath her foot. As she stooped to pick it up, Maura chanted the greenfire spell. By the time she moved forward again, the twig in her hand had begun to give off a soft, verdant glow—just enough for her and Rath to see a few feet in front of them.

  “Now,” said Rath when they reached the charred shell of Exilda’s cottage, “what are we looking for?”

  Maura scrambled among the burnt timbers, her glowing twig lowered. “Can you fetch a spade? There’s one stuck in the ground at the bottom of the garden.”

  “
A spade? Are you daft, lass? Do you imagine a map survived that fire? Why, there is nothing left of this cottage but a heap of ash.”

  “There should be one thing left.” Maura pushed away the blackened remains of a fallen beam. “The cold hatch under the cottage floor—where folk store pickles and such. I hope that is what Exilda’s message to her neighbor meant. I think I know where to find the door that leads down to it, but we will need to shift some of this ash and rubble away first.”

  “The cold hatch.” Rath seemed to ponder the idea. “You may be on to something. Let me fetch the spade.”

  It took a good hour of hard, dirty labor between them to excavate the cottage floor, often casting harried glances toward Gristel Maldwin’s house.

  “I think I see it!” Maura cried at last, sweeping away a final layer of soot with a pine branch. “How odd, the boards look as if they have hardly been singed. I wonder if Exilda put a spell of fire resistance on them?”

  The possibility lofted her slender hopes higher.

  “Is there such a thing?” Rath coughed from all the ash and soot they had stirred up. “Then why did she not put it on the rest of the cottage, and Langbard on yours?”

  “The ingredients for it are difficult to come by in large quantities.” Maura passed him the greenfire twig to hold while she groped for the latch to lift the trap door. “A wizard would only use it to protect small, valuable items from fire.”

  Her hand closed over the rope latch. She pulled the trap door open and scrambled down the ladder.

  “Pass me down the light!” she called back to Rath.

  Instead she had to scoot out of the way when he clambered down after her, pulling the trap door shut behind him.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “There’s hardly room enough for me down here, let alone both of us.”

  “I had no choice.” The greenfire played over Rath’s rugged features caked with soot. “I heard some commotion from the house. I reckon our friends have woken from their nap.”

  Maura bit back a curse. “There is no help for it, I suppose. Thank the Giver we were able to find this place in time. Oh, look! Here’s a candle. Light it, will you, before this greenfire goes out?”

  Once Rath had obliged, and not a moment too soon, Maura lifted the flickering candle to take a good look around them.

  Rath gave a low whistle. “If we have to stay down here awhile, at least we will not starve.” He tapped the toe of his boot against one of several stone jugs arrayed on the lowest shelf. “Or go thirsty.”

  “Exilda was an industrious housekeeper,” Maura agreed, looking around the small space lined with shelves on three sides.

  Every shelf held regular rows of crocks, jars and jugs. There must be hundreds! And Maura’s weariness was rapidly catching up with her.

  “The map could be underneath any of these, or inside one, perhaps.” She tried to keep a plaintive note from her voice. “If you will start on that side at the top, I will start over here at the bottom. That will keep us out of each other’s way for a while, at least.”

  “Fair enough.” Rath set the candle back where they’d found it, tucked in a little hollow high on the wall. “Can we eat as we go? I haven’t stopped for a bite all day.”

  “I do not reckon Exilda would mind.” Maura removed the stopper from a small jug, sniffed, then took a sip followed by a deep draft. She passed it to Rath. “Cherry cider.”

  For the next several hours they worked, opening lid after lid and stopper after stopper of pickled vegetables, meats and eggs, preserved fruits, cider, ale and wine.

  But they found no map to the Secret Glade or anywhere else.

  As her hopes waned, Maura’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Her yawns grew more frequent and deeper.

  “Enough!” said Rath at last. “I reckon the sun is up by now and Prum crawling with Han. We cannot go anywhere until nightfall, so why not rest, then finish up later?”

  Not waiting for Maura’s permission, he removed his cloak and spread it beneath him on the packed dirt floor. Then he settled himself with his back against the one empty wall. There was just room enough for Maura to tuck in between him and the ladder.

  Her head listed against his arm. “I was so sure I would find the map down here.”

  “We haven’t opened every jar,” Rath reminded her. He reached for a crock on the shelf beside him. “Pickled eggs—my favorite. But only the one container of them that I could find.”

  “Go ahead and eat them, by all means.” Maura closed her eyes, savoring the warmth and strength of him beside her. “We might as well get something for our labor. And thank you for the encouragement, even if you do not mean a word of it.”

  His arm twitched in a shrug. “I admit, you had me going, just finding this place after that gabble about pickles. Then the trap door not burnt.”

  Maura gave a drowsy, dispirited nod. Everything had conspired to raise her hopes. But each jug and jar they’d opened to find only the most ordinary contents had eroded those hopes. Now fatigue began to take its toll as well.

  Was it foolish of her to believe she might find the way to the Waiting King here, among pickled rooties and marshberry jam? Was it foolish to believe in any of this?

  In truth, she felt more at home in a cold hatch full of preserves than she could imagine feeling in a grand castle. More at ease in the company of a partially reformed outlaw than she could imagine feeling with a legendary king.

  Beside her, she could hear Rath eating his pickled eggs with obvious enjoyment. She could smell him, too.

  “Ow! Slag!” Rath jumped, spewing a litany of curses in between exclamations of pain. The egg crock shattered on the floor with a pungent splash of vinegar and pickling herbs.

  “What’s wrong?” cried Maura, jarred from her light doze. “You are hurt.” That much was clear. “But how?”

  “This! Filthy bit of slag!” Rath hurled a pickled egg at the floor. “So hard it nearly cracked my tooth.”

  True to his word, the egg did not smash into a mushy mess when it hit the hard packed earth, as several others in the crock had done. Instead it bounced, then split neatly in two.

  “This is no egg.” Maura scooped up both the perfectly identical halves. Her finger slid over the smooth, rounded surface. “I think it might be a kind of ivory.”

  She turned the object’s flat sides toward her. For a moment she stared in a daze at the fine dark markings etched there.

  “Rath, look.” She thrust one toward him.

  His dark mutter of curses trailed off as he peered at the object in her hand. “Of all the.... Well, I never.... So there is a map, after all!”

  There was a map, two as it happened, etched into the ivory of this cunningly wrought object disguised as an egg.

  Maura wilted back to her place on the floor, her heart so full she dared not answer for fear of bursting into tears like an overtired, overexcited child.

  She had found the map. Her quest could continue with some hope of success. What was more, the very existence of this map bolstered her faith in this unbelievable destiny of hers.

  It might even make Rath rethink his doubts.

  End of Book One

  Excerpt from The Waiting King

  “I AM GOING with you,” said Rath, “and that is final, so do not waste your breath arguing.”

  He had been sitting there for what felt like hours, wrestling with his decision. By the time Maura gave the slightest hint of waking, he could not wait another moment to tell her. Once he had said it aloud, there could be no turning back.

  “Hmm?” A yawn stretched Maura’s pretty mouth wide. Then she rubbed her eyes with sooty fists, leaving dark shadows around them. “Go where? What are you talking about, Rath?”

  “Go here.” He held up one half of the ivory “egg.” He had been staring at the tiny map etched on it for so long his eyes felt a though they’d been burnt by pain spikes. “To Everwood. According to this, it is where you will find the Secret Glade. This half shows all
of Embria. The other half is a map of the wood itself.”

  “Everwood?” Maura stretched her arms high, then peered toward the fine etching. “How can you tell?”

  “See that crescent in the middle?” Rath pointed. “Those have to be the mountains.”

  His fingertip was not much smaller than the map itself. It made him wonder what sort of deft fingers had wrought such delicate work. Or had the markings been put there by magic?

  “The mountains.” Maura yawned again. “I guessed that much.”

  “Those two spots above the upper tip of the crescent must be the North Lakes,” Rath continued. “So that mark just south of Great Forest Lake has to be Everwood. I grew up not far from there. It is wild country and few folk venture far into the forest. There’s a daft old tale that...”

  “That what?”

  A memory made the back of Rath’s neck prickle. “Nothing. Just a yarn the oldlings would tell to keep foolhardy lads from wandering into the forest and getting lost.”

  “What sort of yarn?” Maura pulled a slender jug from the nearest shelf and removed the stopper.

  “Foolishness,” Rath insisted. “I hardly recollect it.”

  “Try.” Maura took a long drink followed by a sigh of enjoyment. “After last night, I could use a laugh.”

  “Oh, very well. Ganny and some of the other old folk used to say there were parts of the wood where time stopped. They claimed there was once a lad from the village who strayed too far into the forest. Everyone gave him up for dead until he strolled back home twenty years later, not aged a day. He thought he’d only been gone an hour.”

  “Oh, my,” whispered Maura. She took another drink. “That would explain a great deal.”

  “If it was true.”

  She turned to stare at him. “After all that has happened, can you still doubt?”

  “I doubt everything.” Rath tossed one half of the egg-map up in the air, then caught it in his hand. “It is my nature.”

  “Then why do you insist on going with me?”

  He had asked himself that same question many times during the past several hours. And he had not been very satisfied with the possible answers.

  “Perhaps because I have a taste for adventure.” That was true enough. “Perhaps because anything that sets the Han in such a stew is worth doing.”