“Mòrag will have ointments and wrappings in the kitchens. Come.”
I pulled away from her. “I’m fine.”
“But those cuts must be cleaned, bandaged . . .”
“I’ll do it myself.”
“Aliza, please. I’m—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you.”
“Then why did you? You knew that creature, and it knew you. Cordelia, for gods’ sakes, you have to tell me what’s going on here!”
She pressed her hands to her mouth, chin trembling, and shook her head.
I pushed past her. She might not be guilty of bringing this haunting on the castle, but if she would not help, she was no longer innocent.
The upper halls were quiet. I shut the door to our chambers and leaned against it, pain nudging panic from the forefront of my mind. An ache was building in my stomach, knotting and twining with the sick red tendrils of anger, impossible to ignore anymore. It’s fine, I thought and forced myself to take measured breaths. This is a delayed reaction to nearly falling off a cliff. It has nothing to do with the baby.
My hands stung and smarted as I washed them in the bath, but the abrasions weren’t deep and the bleeding stopped after a few minutes. There was little in the way of rags in our stately chambers, so I made do. A silk pillowcase, shredded into strips with my knife, made for perfectly serviceable bandages. My conscience gasped at the first slash of the fabric, prickled at the second, and gave up after the third. The Selwyns had withheld too much from us already; they could not begrudge me a pillowcase. I tied off the last knot and stood.
The next moment I was on my hands and knees on the edge of the bath, gasping for breath as what felt like a valkyrie’s talons closed around my insides. I felt hot, and cold, and a slow, deep pain, and then somewhere very close, the warm wetness of blood.
Again I attempted to stand. It took two tries. My legs shook and for a few moments I could feel nothing, see nothing, acknowledge nothing but the pain. It dulled as I straightened. Another few breaths and it disappeared altogether. A cautious step toward the bed and it didn’t return, but the blood did not stop. I saw it staining my undershift when I visited the privy: not much, just enough to worry.
I groped for the door and edged out into the hall. “Hello?” I called. There was no answer. It’s all right. Everything is all right. I repeated the words to myself as I went in search of Alastair, or a maid, or Mòrag, or anyone. A little blood and a lot of discomfort was only natural. That’s what it meant to carry a child, didn’t it? Blood and pain and prayers that it would all be worth it in the end, and Thell, where is everyone?
I’d just managed to make it to the bottom of the stairs when the pain returned. I collapsed in a heap next to the bannister, clutching the stone railing with freshly bloodied hands.
Somewhere in the distance a door opened and shut. Footsteps pattered toward me, mixing with the despairing drumbeat of my pulse in my ears. The footsteps stopped.
“Lady Daired?”
I saw Bretta’s face through a haze of tears as more cramps tore through me. It was all I could do to sit up. “Alastair,” I panted. “Lord Daired. Find—my husband.”
“Aye, milady! Right away, but I can’t just leave—”
“And a midwife,” I said and closed my eyes. “I need—a midwife.”
Akarra had never flown so smoothly. She landed on the slope outside the abbey of a little town on the eastern shore of Lake Meera with hardly a misplaced pebble, apologizing for every sudden movement. Alastair helped me out of the saddle as if I were glass. “Are you all right?” he asked for the tenth time.
“Aye. I think so.” I could breathe again without cramping and no blood stained the saddle where I’d sat. “Is this Morianton?”
He nodded as the short, plump figure of the cantor trotted out from the abbey. “Don’t worry. She’ll know where to find the midwife.” He strode forward to meet her. “Cantor Brigsley-Baine,” he said.
“My lord, you’re back so soon! Is something the matter?”
“We need a midwife,” I said.
“You—oh! You poor dear. How far along are you?”
“Cantor, the midwife,” Alastair said. “Now.”
“Yes, yes. Certainly. Carle!” she cried, and a lanky young man in the robes of a subcantor tumbled out of the garden gate. “Run and fetch Madam Threshmore.”
“Won’t she be out?” the subcantor said.
“Ask around Alchemist’s Alley; the chief goldsmith is due soon. Come now, my lady,” she said, taking my arm. “Carle will bring Threshmore back here in a trice and there’s not a better midwife north of Selkie’s Keep. We’ll make you comfortable in the meantime.”
She led me into the abbey as I described, in as general terms as felt appropriate, my symptoms. I said nothing of my encounter with the Green Lady, wanting to speak first to Alastair. He followed, radiating worry that would have been infectious if I hadn’t had enough of my own. I felt with each breath I was balancing on the knife blade between possible fates. In. No cramping, no warmth of blood. Out. What if next time there was? In. The midwife would see us to right; there was nothing to worry about. Out. Our child. This was our child. Thell, take whatever you want, but not our child.
It was quiet and cool inside the abbey. Lanterns burned on either side of the door, but besides that the only light came from the high windows, which threw the interior into a dim, holy twilight. It followed the typical design of fourfold architecture: square with a sunken floor in the center, its stone walls unadorned save for the tapestries hung out for Martenmas. In the center rose the four-faced statue of the Fourfold God. Low benches surrounded the dais, resting places for the devout as they contemplated the faceted nature of their deity. Or would have, if Morianton had any devotees. The abbey was empty.
“Just through here,” Brigsley-Baine said. She led us through the door to the cantor’s quarters. Austere stone gave way to the warmth of wood and a crackling fire and she gestured to the chair by the window, on the arm of which rested a sewing box and a section of a torn tapestry. “You sit and rest, dear. Lord Daired, make yourself comfortable. I’ll fetch a pot of tea.”
She bustled off. I did not sit.
“How’s the pain?” Alastair asked, hovering at my side.
“Gone now.” It was very nearly the truth. I folded my arms and stared out the window. “And I think the bleeding’s stopped. I’m sorry for panicking.”
He rested his hands on my shoulders and I leaned into him, swallowing the sudden sob that lodged in my throat. He pressed a kiss into my hair. “You’re protecting our child,” he murmured. “You’ve no reason to apologize.”
Don’t I? With one terror past, the first came flooding back, clammy, cold, and tinged green. I pulled away and faced him. “Alastair, I saw the monster.”
“What are you talking about?”
Quietly I told him about what Cordelia and I had seen in the ruins of the abbey.
“This creature,” he said when I finished, and in a much calmer voice than I expected, “she said Lord Selwyn invited her? You’re sure?”
“It seems that way. And whatever he did, Cordelia knows about it.”
“She knew and didn’t tell you?”
“She didn’t seem to be able to. It was very strange.”
He frowned. “You think she’s being threatened?”
“Perhaps. Or she’s protecting someone. You haven’t gotten anything more from Selwyn, have you?” I asked, and he shook his head. “What about the magistrate? Or this cantor?”
“What’s that, dear?” Brigsley-Baine asked, backing in through the door to the abbey kitchen with a tea tray.
“Er, northern lore, Cantor,” I said quickly. “We were wondering if you knew any.”
“Of course! Why, I was just telling some of the stories to Lord Daired. Traders of all kinds come through Morianton on their way down the lakes, and godsfearing or not, you can’t hold a candle to the superstition of sailor-folk. The crews all come tramping through he
re at one time or another asking how best to curry the favor of the Blessed.” She chuckled. “Mind you, some of this town I’d be only too pleased to see the Unmaker take out of the world, but some are honest. I give them what prayers I can. In return they tell me of the world beyond the mountains.”
“Have any of them spoken of a Tekari that can change its face?” I asked.
“No,” she said carefully, “not that I can recall, but as I told Lord Daired there are . . . whisperings. Have been here as long as the town. They say there’s a creature—or creatures, no one can ever agree on that point—that lives in the Northern Wastes, right on the shore of the Great Ice. They say it’s an ancient spirit of vengeance, older than the Oldkind, so old its true name has been lost. The stories call it ‘the Green Lady,’ or sometimes ‘Hag-of-the-Mists.’”
“The Green Lady?” I asked, at the same time Alastair said, “Vengeance against what?”
“Who knows? It’s an old story parents use to frighten disobedient children.” The door to the abbey proper opened and shut and we heard voices in the nave. “Madam Threshmore!” Brigsley-Baine greeted a thin, ancient woman with the hardened features of someone who knew well the delicate balance between life and death. The subcantor stood behind her.
“Nola, take the lad and this young man out,” Threshmore said. Alastair gave me a meaningful look before the subcantor herded him out. “Aliza, is it?” she asked as she took my hand. Her skin was cool and papery, like old parchment. “Very early along, aren’t ye?”
“I think so.”
“Your first, eh? Leaf and Lightning, how well I remember it. Nervous as a filly, I was. Now, tell me what’s happening.”
I did. She listened without interrupting, her eyes never straying from mine. When I finished, she examined me, old fingers gently probing my abdomen.
“Ye can breathe, child,” she said, glancing up.
I exhaled. She continued her examination, lips pursed, muttering under her breath.
“Should I be worried?” I asked after another agonizing minute of silence.
“As I said, ye’re very early along. Mite astonishing ye realized ye were with child at all. Any more pains?”
“Not since we left the castle.”
“I don’t think ye need be fretting yet. I seen wimmen bring bairns into the world after a worse bleeding than this, and I seen them full nine months gone without a problem only to deliver the poor things without a breath o’ life in them. Keep half a mind to the workings of your body and send word if anything changes. There’s naught else I can be doing for ye.”
“Then the baby is all right?”
“Now, now, I said no fretting. Little one’s fine best I can tell.”
I slumped against the windowsill. “Thank Janna.”
“Aye, thank all the ruddy gods ye wish, but mind ye relieve that poor man in the next room.” She nudged me toward the abbey proper. “Nine times o’ ten the mother’s fine. It’s the father keen to wear the floorboards down with pacing.”
Alastair was indeed pacing the floor in front of the fourfold statue when we went out. The tension rolled off him like mist off a mountain slope when Madam Threshmore announced her verdict. His bow when he thanked her would have been deep enough for the king himself.
“You’re all right, khera?” he asked me as Brigsley-Baine showed the midwife out.
I clasped his outstretched hand. “I think so.”
He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to mine, whispering something to Mikla in Eth. Thank them indeed.
As we separated, I turned to the statue. The people of Morianton might not have been the most zealous devotees of the fourfold faith, but there were signs before the dais that spoke of the town’s gratitude. Simple things: an ear of corn, a bunch of moorflowers, a child’s carving of a boat. Thanks for a good harvest, protection from the Tekari, safety on the lake. I knelt before the dais between Odei and Janna. Creator and Provider. Their veiled faces pointed north and east, outstretched hands bearing the lightning shard of creation and the beech leaf sigil. I had nothing on me but a few copper half-trills, which I set before Janna with a whispered promise for something more fitting when we returned to the abbey at Pendragon.
Alastair did the same, kneeling and touching the place between Odei and Mikla. “For your protection,” he said softly and laid three gold dragonbacks at Mikla’s feet.
“They hear you, my lord, my lady,” Brigsley-Baine said from the door. She had a faraway look in her eye. “I’m certain they do. Listen well and you might hear them answer.”
And if they did, could we bear it? For the first time in a long time I looked in the stone faces of my gods, not to admire the sculptor’s skill or the artistry of depiction, but to see if they held any numinous echoes of the deities they honored. Child of one, child of all. Hadn’t I heard the High Cantor at Edonarle say that once? Provider and Protector I could understand. Without Mikla there would be no means to provide, and without Janna there would be nothing worth protecting. But what does Creator have to do with Unmaker? My eyes wandered from Odei to Thell. Of the Four only Thell went unveiled, her watchful stone eyes bent south, her features worn smooth by the weight of years. She held nothing at all.
I glanced at Alastair. He too seemed absorbed in theological musings, for he’d not taken his eyes from Thell. I took his left hand, the ropy scars around his remaining fingers raised and cool to the touch.
“We should get back,” I said. “Akarra will be worried about us.”
“You’re not staying for supper?” Brigsley-Baine asked.
Alastair thanked her but declined as evening was nearing and the sun would be setting soon. In our rush we’d left our cloaks in the castle, and I didn’t fancy another flight in the winter dark. The cantor, though disappointed, said she quite understood and bid us farewell at the garden gate.
Akarra hadn’t moved from her perch on the slope above the abbey. Her agitated presence had drawn a small crowd onto the main street of the town, and more faces peered out from windows or stooped in doorways to puzzle at her unexpected return. I wondered how fast it would take the news that the midwife had attended an overanxious Lady Daired to spread through Morianton. Remembering the nature of gossip in Hart’s Run, I guessed it’d be a miracle if every town around the northern lakes didn’t know by the time we’d finished our contract.
Akarra heaved a sigh that set the pebbles cracking in the heat when I told her what Madam Threshmore had said. “Teh-nes an Nymasi,” she breathed. “Thank the Four for that. Are you sure you can ride?”
“Well, she didn’t say I couldn’t and I’m certainly not walking in the dark,” I said.
As we mounted, Alastair shared what the cantor had said about the legends of a vengeful spirit from the Wastes. When I spoke of my encounter in the ruined abbey, Akarra growled. “Selwyn knows more than he’s telling. If this creature was invited, he knows who invited her.”
Her voice was just loud enough to reach the fringes of the crowd. I glanced over my shoulder as the frightened scurry began, everyone intent on pretending they hadn’t heard the hired dragon threaten their lord. She didn’t mean it like—
My stomach dropped. Standing unmoved in the middle of the street, his Ranger’s cloak swirling in the wind, eyes bright with malice, was Wydrick.
“Alastair . . .”
I blinked. The street was empty.
“What?” he asked, glancing back at me. Concern etched deep lines in his expression.
I swallowed and fought back the wave of nausea that had nothing to do with carrying a child. It was impossible. Tristan Wydrick was long dead. “Nothing.”
The lights of Castle Selwyn twinkled out over the darkening waters as we crossed the eastern spear of Lake Meera. Halfway to the promontory Alastair leaned close. “Do you hear that?”
I listened. Over the sound of Akarra’s wingbeats was the sound of bells. “Merfolk?”
He shouted something to Akarra in Eth.
“Yes, it’s
from the western shore,” she said. “There’s—can you see it? The schools are gathering.”
Even as she spoke a cry drifted up from the surface of Lake Meera. Higher than the sound of bells it rang out, thin and keening and cold. First one voice, then two, it grew louder as others joined in. The waters roiled and foamed and dark waves flashed silver as fins hurtled toward the western shore. Shapeless dread curled once more inside me. This wasn’t a song at all. The merfolk were screaming.
At a word from Alastair we banked west. The mountain sloped more gently along the sunset shore, easing toward the lake instead of plunging into its depths as it did near Long Quay. Pines grew thick along the edge. A sharp northern wind rustled the boughs and sent more dark clouds scuttling across the sky, carrying with it the shouts of the merfolk. Akarra slowed as we approached the beach, which was little more than a pebble-strewn shelf gnawed from the shore by the motion of the waves and walled in by piles of driftwood. She landed with a crunch of pebbles and sun-bleached sticks.
I slid out of the saddle. My stomach lurched, and I emptied it in the closest pile of driftwood. Draped over a waterlogged tree trunk was the body of a young mermaid, her eyes open, clouded, and staring. Silvery blood drenched the stones in a circle around her. The mermaid’s chest was cut open, and though I didn’t have the nerve to look closer, I’d bet anything her heart was missing.
Chapter 22
The Lake Laments
Dozens of merfolk lashed their tails in the shallows, stretching webbed arms toward their slain sister. “What are they saying?” Alastair asked Akarra.
“They say her name was Lyii-Lyiishen, spawn-daughter of Lyii and Ooara-Lyiishen, and she’d only lived thirteen winters. They’re . . .” She paused.
“They’re what?”
“Calling down curses on the one that did this.”
Alastair went to the shore. “Translate for me.”
“Khela, don’t. They’re not in the listening mood. You’d best keep away from the water.”
“I have to.” He knelt on the stones just shy of the tide line. The merfolk fell silent. “My name is Alastair Daired, son of Erran, son of Seraphina, daughter of Pietyr, Blood of the Fireborn.” More heads emerged from the water as Akarra translated. Eyes as fathomless as the deepest waters of the lake narrowed as Alastair drew his sword. He placed his hand on the flat. “By Mikla-Protector and Thell-Unmaker, I will find who did this. I swear it.”
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