The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 30

I watched her, fascinated. The words were soft, even tender. "You loved him," I said.

She glared at me, and her words were hard again. "What does it matter if I did? He's been gone near twenty years. He was a fool, and what do handsome looks and a kindly way matter then? Why he thought he had to go there that day, why he couldn't leave it to others-to her own people-I don't know. But he took up an ax, and he-"

Her lips pressed together in a tight line. I should have gone, should have left her alone with her memories. Instead, I moved another step closer. "He took an ax-to the tree, you mean. The tree on the green."

For so many months I had lived in dread of Mrs. Darendal and her ire; I had sought always to stay out of her way. Yet at that moment it was her eyes that were alight with dread. She retreated a step.

"Aye," she said in a low voice. "To the tree."

"And others went there." A peculiar energy came over me, like the lightning that precedes a storm. "They brought axes with them, like Mr. Darendal. I saw the ax heads there, rusting in the gra.s.s. They brought torches as well. But why?"

Mrs. Darendal took another step back, but the table was behind her; she could go no farther.

"What happened to Mr. Darendal that day?"

The housekeeper shook her head, leaning back against the table.

"Why did they go to the green in Cairnbridge?" I made my voice sharp. "Why did they burn down the tree?"

The housekeeper struck the table behind her with her palms. "Because the witch had gotten to it!"

A piercing scream rang out. For a moment I thought it a woman's scream. Then Mrs. Darendal glanced at the stove behind me, and I remembered the kettle.

Now it was I who retreated. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up a cloth and used it to pull the kettle from the stove. As its noise dwindled, I lifted a hand to my brow; my head throbbed. At last I dared to look at her. Her expression was hard once more; the knife was back in her hand.

"The witch?" I said. "I don't understand."

"Don't you, Miss Lockwell? You are from the city, but you have read the histories, I am sure. Have you never heard of a Rising?"

"A Rising," I said faintly. Suddenly it was difficult to draw a breath.

She gave a grim nod, then went back to her work. I thought she would say nothing more to me, that our conversation was over. I started to leave the kitchen.

"She was an Addysen as well," Mrs. Darendal said.

I stopped at the door and turned around. "The witch?"

"Aye. Now get your tea, Miss Lockwell, and sit down."

I did, and then I listened as the housekeeper spoke of what had happened on the green in Cairnbridge nineteen years ago.

L OW THUNDER RUMBLED as I entered the front hall. According to the almanac, night would not fall for two more hours, yet I could hardly see to find my way. The only illumination came from the occasional flashes of lightning, which sent shadows scurrying and made the heads of stag and boar on the walls s.h.i.+ft and move as things again alive.

I sank into one of the horsehair chairs. Another flash of lightning cut through the gloom, as sharp as the knife Mrs. Darendal had wielded as she spoke of what happened to the tree in Cairnbridge-the gallows tree, she had called it.

Long ago, the tree on the common green would never have been allowed to grow. That was the first thing she had told me. In the country, it was the custom to plant no tree within four furlongs of a stand of Wyrdwood, and it was less than that from Cairnbridge to the patch of ancient forest that had stood on the hill to the north of the village.

But it was only a little less than four furlongs, people had said-surely very near to four-and the patch of Wyrdwood was small, no more than three hundred paces all around the wall that enclosed it.

Even so, had it not already been a great tree by the time people settled again in Cairnbridge, it would have been cut down. However, the county had been all but devoid of population after the Plague Years. For over a century the village had been empty of people, its fields fallow, and in that time a seed had taken root on the common green.

By the time people returned to Cairnbridge, the tree was already a great thing, spreading its branches across the common field, providing shade on long afternoons and acorns to roast in the cold depths of a greatnight. Nor did people entirely recall the reasons for the old customs. So it was that the proud oak had been allowed to grow until its branches reached over the entire green, and no one ever thought of the little stand of straggled trees that stood on the hill to the north.

Yet the ancient trees of the Wyrdwood sink their roots deep, and over long years the slender fibers might travel far beneath the ground. A few of them must have finally reached the New Oak on the commons nearly half a mile below, twining with its roots, merging with them. All the same, nothing might ever have come of it. Only then...

Where the two men came from, no one knew for certain.

They were drifters. Some who spoke to them at the inn said they had been driven off the land they had occupied when it was enclosed by an earl for his private hunting ground, in one of the counties nearer to Invarel. With nowhere to go, they had gone westward, to places enclosure had not yet reached, and with no good work to do, they had taken to drinking. They had come to the inn at Cairnbridge early on a short day, and by that evening they had been thrown out and told to be on their way.

What happened then no one witnessed, but it could be guessed well enough. As they stumbled from the village in the dusk before a greatnight, they had come upon a young woman riding home. Being rough, and drunk, and full of hatred, they had accosted her. The woman fled, but the men overtook her, dragging her from her horse and away from the village, up a hill to the north. Until they came to an old stone wall.

Again lightning cut through the gloom, and I shuddered. Had the men used her ill? Perhaps they had, or perhaps they had only tried. Either way, the result was the same. The young woman had cried out for help.

And the Wyrdwood had answered.

Perhaps she had not known she was a witch. Or perhaps she had fled toward the wood with purpose. It did not matter, at least not for the two men. By the time people from the village came up the hill with torches, they found the pair swinging among the branches, hung by lithe green switches braided around their necks.

By then the great oak on the commons was burning. However, the tree was not destroyed without terrible cost. In contact with the trees of the Wyrdwood, the oak on the green had heard her call just as they had. It had lashed out with no warning, taking two men as they stepped from the inn and strayed near the green. It had taken three more who had tried to free the first two from its branches. For, in the witch's blind fury, they were no different from the men who had accosted her.

The folk of Cairnbridge might have forgotten the old ways before then, but they remembered them quickly enough that night. The bell on the village church rang out; men answered the call with ax and fire. They hewed at the hard wood of the oak, threw oil against it, and set its branches alight, until it became a column of flame a hundred feet high. Thus the great old tree was brought down-but not before it took two more men and hung them high in the gallows of its branches.

One of those men was Mr. Darendal. Seven men in all were killed in the Rising that night, in addition to the two drifters who met their end in the Wyrdwood on the hill.

And what of her? I had said when Mrs. Darendal fell silent.

What of Merriel Addysen, you mean? She looked at me with hard gray eyes. The witch was still hiding in the Wyrdwood when they burned it from wall to wall. I am certain her spirit now dwells in the darkest pits of the Abyss. For G.o.d knows the doors of Eternum are shut to such a thing of sin.

With that Mrs. Darendal had set down her knife and left the kitchen.

Thunder rattled the windows again, and I rose and staggered up the stairs. There had not been a Rising in centuries, if there had ever really been one at all-so I had always thought. Yet if Mrs. Darendal was to be believed, there had been one in this very county not twenty years ago.

And I did believe her. How could I not? I had seen the burnt patch on the hill north of Cairnbridge. I had seen the looks they gave me in Low Sorrell. Had Merriel Addysen possessed green eyes? I could not doubt that she had, not when I had seen the way they regarded me.

Yet if this had happened here, if there had indeed been a Rising just as in the ancient accounts, why was it never spoken of? Why was it not taught in schools and written about in books? Surely the king would want such a thing widely known, so people might be warned and take precautions.

I could not think; my mind was aflutter. Another peal of thunder shook the foundations of the house. My only thought was that I must go to the children, that they would be frightened of the storm. I hurried down the corridor and opened the door to their room.

It was empty and silent.

"Come out this instant!" I said, certain they were playing a trick on me-some ruse of Clarette's devising.

I peered through the murk. The covers were thrown back on their beds. The door of the wardrobe hung ajar. So they were hiding elsewhere. I was on the verge of turning to go in search of them when I felt a chill draft. The curtains to either side of the window billowed outward. I went to the window to close the sash against the gale. Just then lightning flared again outside. As it did, motion below caught my eye.

Two small figures ran across the grounds behind the house.

I could not move. Dread was a cold metal cage enclosing me. The two little shadows flitted away from the house and vanished into the mist.

The curtain brushed my face like a damp hand. I lurched back. Then, my paralysis broken, I dashed from the room. Stumbling down the stairs, I made for a servants' entrance at the back of the house. The latch was stiff. I pried it open with my fingers, pushed the door open, and ran outside into the dreary air of late afternoon.

"Chambley!" I cried out. "Clarette!"

The fog stifled my voice. I ran in the direction I had seen them go, calling for them until my voice was ragged. There was no reply. The wind s.n.a.t.c.hed at my hair, and the mist dampened my face and slicked the stones beneath my feet so that I nearly fell a dozen times as I ran. Still I did not see them. What had possessed them to go out into the storm?

But I knew. Chambley dreaded to leave the house; only Clarette could have compelled him to leave. And why would Clarette go-unless she had been called?

"Chambley!" I shouted again, suddenly certain that, even if she heard my voice, Clarette would not answer me.

I had reached the edge of the ridge. I turned around, wiping damp hair from my eyes. All I could make out were indistinct shapes. The house was a hazy patch behind me. I saw no sign of them.

Just as the weight of despair threatened to press me to the ground, a gust of wind rushed over the ridge. The clouds broke apart, and a low shaft of heavy gold light fell through, illuminating the moors. In an instant I saw them: two small shapes below, picking their way east across the fields and bracken. Beyond them rose another slope, and the sun caught upon the twisted shapes that crowned the hill, tingeing them red, so that they looked for all the world as if they were afire.

"No," I tried to cry out, but my voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "No, not there!"

I ran down the slope, over clumps of heather and patches of scree, so that it was a wonder I did not go tumbling and break my neck. By the time I reached the bottom, the gap in the clouds had closed again.

The land turned upward, rising in a steep slope. In a flash of lightning I made out black shapes twisting above me, and below them a gray line. I used my fingers as much as my feet to propel me up the face of the hill, so that soon my hands were raw and bleeding.

Another bolt of lightning rent the clouds, and in that brief moment I saw them: two little figures standing hand in hand. They had reached the old stone wall not thirty feet above me. The lightning faded; I was blinded by the darkness. Then came another flash. A figure all in white fluttered above the children, as if floating among the branches that drooped over the mossy wall.

"No, get away!" I shouted, but the words were lost as thunder shook the air. I ran toward the wall, but my sodden dress pulled me down, tangling around my legs. I clawed my way upward on all fours.

Again lightning flashed. I did not know how it could be possible, but I was sure the branches that hung over the wall reached lower than they had a moment ago. I could no longer see the figure in white. Despite her ghostly appearance, she had not been floating, I knew, but rather had stood atop the wall. Only she was no longer there. The gloom closed in again, only to burst apart a heartbeat later in another flash of light. Now the branches reached so far that they nearly brushed the ground. The children looked upward, their mouths open in fear.

A grimness came over me. I was no longer afraid or weary. I sprang up the slope, covering the last few feet in an instant.

"Get away from the wall!" I called out, and this time they heard me, for they turned around, their faces white as moons. Chambley flung small hands out toward me, and a moment later, to my surprise-and fierce delight-Clarette did as well. I gripped their chilled hands and pulled them toward me. They were s.h.i.+vering.

"Hurry!" I said. "We must go."

However, as we turned from the stone wall we found a curtain of branches hanging before us. They wove in a tangle, barring the way. I tried to move along the wall, but more branches drooped down to either side of us. A creaking rose on the air, and the wall shuddered at our backs. Wet leaves fell in a black snow. Clarette screamed.

Another tremor shook the wall. Clarette twisted away from me. I tried to tighten my hold on her, but our hands were both slick. Her fingers were wrested from mine, and she stumbled into the web of branches.

"Clarette, come back!" Chambley cried.

His hand slipped free of my own, and he dashed after his sister. I tried to grab for him, but a wind rose up, whipping the branches, and I was forced to use my hands to thrust them away from my face.

Lightning flared. I saw that he had managed to wriggle under the boughs to his sister. However, Clarette was not as small; she could not similarly escape the cage of branches. They huddled together. I tried to go to them, but the branches tossed back and forth under the force of the gale, thrusting me back against the wall.

Or was it really the storm that propelled the limbs of the trees? For they seemed to strain and bend as would best hinder our movement, without any regard to the direction of the wind. Again the stones shuddered at my back, violently, as if they would split wide open.

Clarette and Chambley screamed. Then I saw it too. Something pale fluttered beyond the black web of branches.

"No," I murmured. "No, this will not be."

I had said I would keep them safe. I had promised them. I had promised him. An anger rose in me such as I had never felt before in my life. I thrust my hands at the boughs before me.

"Let us go!"

A crack of thunder rent open the sky, and cold rain pelted down as a wind rushed among the trees. The branches heaved and shook, groaning as they bent under the gale.

I twisted myself free. The branches tossed back and forth, then lifted, and I was able to rush forward. I grabbed the children by their hands and pulled them with me as I ran down the hill. I do not know if it was dread or if something was really there, but thought I saw a glimmer of white out of the corner of my eye. I gripped the small hands in my own, so hard I was sure I was hurting them, but they did not resist. The children were weeping, their faces bruised and marked by red lines. I was weeping as well.

Together we careened down the slope as the fury of the storm was unleashed upon us. Just as we reached the bottom of the hill, there was a clattering noise, and a dark form reared above us. Red light flared. The children cried out, and we went tumbling to the ground in a heap.

A strong hand clasped around my wrist. I gasped, raising my head, and blinked against the red light. It was a lantern, I realized, and as my eyes adjusted I saw a familiar, bearded face above me.

"Miss Lockwell," said a deep voice. It was not angry, as I might have imagined, but low, even regretful.

I could only gaze up in wonder.

"I've found them!" he called out now, and I heard the sound of a horse as another red light bobbed toward us in the gloom.

"Mr. Quent," I said. I wanted to say more, to tell him to see to the children, to take them to Heathcrest at once, but I could do no more than repeat the words. "Mr. Quent."

He pulled me to my feet, and I had to throw my arms around his shoulders to keep from sinking back to the ground. The children clung to him at either side.

"What has happened, Miss Lockwell?"

I looked back over my shoulder, at the dark shapes on the hill above us. A bit of white fluttered among them, then it was gone.

"She's in the wood," I murmured. But I do not think he heard me above the storm.

"By G.o.d, you're freezing," he said. "All three of you are freezing. You'll catch your death."

The other lantern drew near. It was Jance on horseback. "Take the children," Mr. Quent said to him, and he handed them up as easily as if they were sacks of flour.

"I can walk," I said, or tried to say, recalling the way he had been forced to carry me once before, not wanting him to have to do so again. It was no use. Mr. Quent lifted me up and set me on his horse, then climbed up behind me. I leaned back against him. He was warm and solid, and despite all that had happened, all dread and worry left me.

For a moment he went rigid. Then I felt him breathe out, and his arm encircled me. With his other hand he flicked the reins, urging his horse into a canter. I shut my eyes and pressed my cheek against his chest, and all the way back to the house I felt not rain, or wind, or any tremor of fear.

T HAT NIGHT WE took ill, the children and myself.

My recollection of what happened after we returned to the house is dim: visions glimpsed through a fogged window. I remember I could not stop s.h.i.+vering, though I was set before a roaring fire, and that I trembled too much to drink the tea Lanna brought me. I remember how the children's faces were like marble as Mr. Quent carried them upstairs, Mrs. Darendal following. Their eyes were shut. They looked like little angels carved of stone.

When he returned, I had presence of mind enough to tell him what had happened; I do remember that much. I did not hold anything back or attempt to deflect any blame from myself. He paced in front of the fire as I told him how I had been cross with the children, how I had found them gone from their room and had seen them out the window running toward the Wyrdwood.

I told him also what I should have told him long ago, about the figure in white. I explained how it was my belief that this being had been in communication with the children, or at least with Clarette, and that I feared it was due to the urging of this trespa.s.ser that the children ventured out into the storm.

I described then what took place at the wall by the Wyrdwood. Or I attempted to, for by then my head was already filling with a haze and my teeth clattered so violently I could barely speak. I tried to describe how the wind had tossed the branches of the trees so that they bent down further than seemed possible, trapping us among them, then how the wind had changed and we had been able to escape.

Except that wasn't what had happened, was it? The wind hadn't changed; indeed, the gale had blown more fiercely every moment. I had thought us lost. Only then I had shouted, Let us go! And the branches had lifted.

Yet how? I wanted to explain these things to him-perhaps he would understand-but by then my shuddering had grown so forceful I could not speak.

His face was grim; in truth, it was more stern than I had ever seen it. He gripped his left hand-the maimed one-inside his right. That he must be furious I was certain. I had failed to tell him of the trespa.s.ser, had failed in my most fundamental duty to keep the children safe. However, when he spoke, it was only to say that I looked very ill and that I should go to my room.

To my credit, I was able to ascend the stairs on my own, but I would not have been able to undress myself without Lanna's help. She stripped me of my sodden dress. After that I could do no more than fall into my bed, for by then the fever had come upon me.