By the Light of the Moon (3 page)

Standing on a rough dirt road between one of the Rochmond’s famed apple orchards and the little brook that bubbled down from the near forest and into the fabled Lake Coru, the young woman remained still as the horses drew closer and the shouting ceased. When the horses came to a halt in front of her, forming a vague crescent, their hoofs flung flecks of dirt through the air. As she lifted her hand to her cheek to wipe one away, her eyes finally focused on the captain of the guard jumping off his horse.

“Milady,” he uttered, as he bowed low and stiff. He took in the sight of her white nightgown, its hem stained with dirt and dew, rough leather boots sneaking out from under the ruined fabric.

“I don’t remember inviting you to my morning walk, Sir Clifton.” It was the calm voice of someone who had been awake for hours, alone and at peace, before being interrupted, but not surprised. She finally gestured the man to stand up straight, wrapping her white arms around her chest in an effort to establish a hint of decorum. She suddenly felt the crispness in the air a lot more now that it was laced with voices, the smell of horses, the sight of men in coats. A night alone, completely alone in nature had grounded her, but the discomfort crept into her body with every passing moment, every glance, every sound.

“Milady was not in her chambers when my Lord Rochmond noticed her absence,” the captain explained, his voice involuntarily rougher to fight the onset of embarrassment. She was hardly dressed to receive a gentleman, much less to be standing surrounded by six rough-and-tumble men of his guard.

“And he sent you to slap me in irons?” she asked, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly. “Tie me to your horse, captain, and drag me back?”

The captain could not hold her gaze. It would have been shockingly impertinent, especially considering her state of undress. But more so, she had the dark innocence of a hurt child that shone through any bitter and condescending superiority she might throw between the strong man and her feeble woman’s body. It was disconcerting and in the rising mist, between bird-song and the whispering brook, she held an eerie quality that wasn’t quite as noticeable when hair was braided and coiled, when she was dressed in heavy, embroidered fabrics, walking the warren of passages and hallways of her father’s castle. If a woman was to talk back, the captain pictured haggling fishermen’s wives and shrieking old hags. The collected and quiet irony of the girl in front of him went through him like a knife, with her witch’s hair and piercingly calm eyes that contrasted so strangely with her shaking hands. She tried to hide it, but Frederick Clifton had seen it many times.

“His lordship was worried for milady’s safety,” he finally brought out. Stiffly, he tore open the shiny buttons of his coat, slipped it off and held it out to her. When she took it, it was more for the sake of his discomfort than her own and she swung it over her shoulder with a carefully trained careless gesture. It hung down over her knees; the grotesque image made her look even more like a child; a wrong child, somehow.

It was a game to her, he thought, a game in which she held no stake but that might leave him whipped or expelled from his Lord’s service. A child still; precious and indulged.

“Lenner, ready your horse for Lady Rochmond.”

As if on cue, the youngest member of the guard led his brown stallion into the semicircle and unfastened his saddle. The men were pointedly not staring at the girl, who looked so little like their lady that the deep trench between their classes blurred. The horse, picking up on the tension, nervously perked up its ears, trying to move until a second member of the guard closed a strong hand around its reins.

Sir Clifton cleared his throat and the young woman looked up again. She didn’t fight them, nor did she deign them with another comment until the sidesaddle they had carried along was in place.

She uttered a careless “Thank you,” to the boy who would have to walk home and who offered her his interlocked palms as a mounting block, and then hoisted herself up onto the horse, leaving a dark smudge of mud on the boy’s hands.

She would have preferred walking back by herself, but she had been found and she could do without the dubious pleasure of being ordered around like a child by an aging soldier. She had endured enough humiliation for one morning.

Clicking her tongue, she fastened her hold on the reins, turned the horse and then rode ahead of the men back toward the castle, hoofs still much too noisy in the misty morning air and her mind already buzzing, her chest already aching again.

• • •

“You promised, Moira.”

Lord Rochmond was standing in the drafty entrance foyer of the castle, his short salt-and-pepper hair still ruffled with sleep, but his eyes alert and angry. He had his arms folded across his chest as he took her in; her muddy nightgown, the rough coat that certainly didn’t belong to her, the dirty shoes. She smelled of earth and horse. He exhaled a deep sigh and shook his head.

“Thank you, Sir Clifton. That will be all.”

Once the captain was dismissed, Moira’s hands unclasped and the coat fell open. She shivered a little. Her face still carried traces of that lush roundness of a child but she didn’t look like one at all with the dark circles under her eyes and the almost translucent pallor of her skin. Neither did she look embarrassed or apologetic.

“I did not promise,” she said quietly, only now meeting her father’s eyes. He was an intimidating man, broad and tall, strands of grey in his dark hair and his bushy eyebrows. “I agreed to try and limit my walks to the confines of the castle. And I did try. But there were guards in the courtyard.” Her voice petered out when she finished, she knew it was the kind of explanation that only made sense to her — the idea that sometimes, just the small sound of someone breathing so close, the creak of a leather boot, the metallic clack of a sword being moved in its sheath, could make her skin feel like it was attacked by a swarm of little insects, crawling and tickling until she wanted to scream. How could that make sense to anyone?

As expected, the aging lord uttered an audible sigh and held out his arm to gesture her inside. The discussion was far from over, but it was cold and she needed to get dressed. The entry foyer was no place to chastise a lady.

“Try harder,” he grunted as he followed her into the hall and up a narrow staircase toward her chambers. “You are acting like a little girl. You’re a woman now, with appearances to uphold.”

It was his own fault, he knew. Moira was his only child. Girl or no girl, unusual or not; he had never been able to deny her much of anything. She had grown from that strange but beautiful little girl into the young woman that was walking next to him so fast, he had never really found a way to adjust the way he felt about her or treated her. He reminded himself often, that it wasn’t wrong to dote upon one’s daughter but just as often, she acted in one of those odd ways of hers and reminded him that something had to change. Her sojourns weren’t safe; the rumors that were beginning to spread about her could harm her and she really had to start considering marriage to one of the suitors who came to the Bramble Keep from time to time, searching for a profitable wife.

• • •

Walking beside her father, Moira’s feet felt heavy as she dragged them up the stairs. She hadn’t slept and the men and horses intruding upon her hazy morning had felt jarring, leaving her body in a state of uneasy tension. It made her twitch her shoulders a little now and then, as though trying to rid herself of a crawling insect on her back or in her hair.

“I’m sorry, Father,” she finally said, and her wide green eyes glanced sideways at the aging lord.

“At least wake someone to go with you.” His voice sounded more exhausted now. He hadn’t had the amount of sleep he’d wanted, either.

Moira didn’t answer. How could she? She knew his suggestion was made out of kindness but it also showed just how little her father understood her.

“It is dangerous out there. Truly dangerous. Do you have any idea how valuable you would be to someone … how much money or influence they would be able to extort for your safe return? And people are talking; they love talking about the eccentricities of their betters, you know that,” he continued, seemingly content with her contrite silence.

“You are forcing my hand, my dove.” He exhaled a deep breath and waited for her to turn around to him. “I have made some inquiries,” he went on once he had her attention. “I am employing a new guard for you.”

Her brows twitched but barely rose.

“I am to be a prisoner in my own chambers?” she asked quietly, but then had to look away from her father’s angry glare. She knew some people were able to obey, to simply do as they were told and she had pondered many a night why she simply couldn’t follow her father’s wishes. Why it was so much easier for her to try and slip out from under people’s eyes and do the opposite. Be free, be outside, be alone.

“Are you suggesting you left me any other choice?” he asked her, his bushy eyebrows rose dangerously. “I have sent for a Blaidyn.”

There was a gravity in that statement that lingered in the air for several seconds. Even the echo of their steps seemed dulled by it. A shiver ran down Moira’s spine.

“Enough is enough, Moira.”

She exhaled and finally turned her gaze on him, eyes wide and glinting in the eerie morning light.

“You can’t be serious … ” she whispered, her full, pale lips open even after she finished.

“I am.”

“But they are … they are vicious. And traitors. And … and … not human.” Moira knew that Blaidyn were employed by other noble houses, mainly in their armies. They were mercenaries, known turncoats, remainders of fabled Fae wars who lived on the margins of society. There had never been a Blaidyn at the Bramble Keep, though; the mere idea made her skin crawl.

“I am sure most of that is prejudice, dear.” He sounded calmer now, knowing that if nothing else, he had gotten to her, had made her listen for once. “As I said, I had someone ask around. Old Brock is just one man; I assume he told you those stories? It has been a long time since they betrayed anyone. They have a good reputation in armies now. Don’t you understand, my girl? I need to know you are safe. And you won’t help me with that. A Blaidyn will find you wherever you are, whoever took you or whatever happened to you. That is all I care about.”

Her eyes narrowed for the briefest moment; she exhaled and turned around to her father when they reached the door to her bedchambers.

“As you wish, Father.” With a small gesture, she loosened the hold of the jacket on her shoulders, slipped it off and handed it to him. Her face was blank except for a certain tightness in her jaw and around her temples; frustration she tried her hardest not to show as another hard shiver made her face and shoulders twitch.

“Would you like me to call for your maid?” His daughter looked tired and white, where he wanted her to be lively and happy, red-cheeked and smiling. She rarely did and her eyes never looked quite alert — quite settled — in the world anymore. It worried him as much as it hurt. He had consulted physicians but to no avail. She just didn’t sleep; not at night anyway and the few hours she sometimes took to lie down during the day didn’t seem enough to keep her mind rooted in the present. “To draw you a bath, help you get dressed, build your fire?”

“No. Thank you,” she answered after a pause, fingers on the door handle. “I shall call for her myself when I have need for her.”

“As you wish.” The lord’s hands were still holding the guard coat, but for the moment he didn’t have the heart to ask her where she had borrowed it from; the captain, he assumed. He watched her close the door behind her and breathed out an audible sigh.

From one of the Bramble Keep’s tower rooms, through a small window, Brock stared into the distance; the cornfields and orchards, the rivers, the mountains and the plains and always dominating the view; Lake Coru, dark and deep. The fief of Rochmond was vast but mainly agricultural and far to the east of the population-heavy western coastline of the kingdom. The Bramble Keep and the small town of Rochmond — an hour’s brisk walk from the Keep — were the only places the royal map painters usually deemed important enough to deserve little dots in the area between the eastern mountain ridge, Lake Coru and the western borders to the neighboring fiefs.

There were villages — merely a few farms in size, a few woodchoppers’ camps and miners’ quarters in the mountains — but humanity was sparse here, just the way Brock liked it.

He could see farmers bringing in the autumn harvest in the mild sunshine. Clouds in the distance were promising rain, always caught by the mountain peaks to wring out their load in the valley below. It was high time to bring in the wheat before a single storm could flatten the stalks against the muddy ground. So there they worked, tiny figures in the distance with their carts and their horses and their scythes. It was always the same, every season; with comfortable regularity they came about and passed into winter. To Brock, they melted together, commonplace and short. A sleepy village, another harvest, another ship in the lakeside harbor that took the produce, the timber and the ore back into the capital.

He knew what he had been searching for when he spied a solitary figure in the distance. It was a man; distinctly so from his build and walk, even from so far away. He was traveling on foot, fast and in no apparent hurry all the same.

Brock’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward just a little bit. Strangers were rare in Rochmond, but this one was expected. A frown grew on the old man’s face as he watched the figure wind his way down the paths, coming closer with every step.

• • •

Owain had not owned a horse in quite a while. Horses displayed a natural fear of his kind. Smelling the wolf through the layers of apparent humanity with ease, they tended to neigh and rear up. It was torture to put the beast through this when he could simply walk. His legs were strong and fast; he was as fast as most horses anyway.

The only horses Blaidyn could ride were those bred and broken in one of their camps and settlements and he hadn’t been back to such a place in many years. Owain was a wanderer these days, moving from employment to employment, from town to town. He did good work; he was quiet and efficient but not a man to seek approval from humans or his own kind, not a man to ingratiate himself for a better position. Instead, he found somewhere else. He was easy to recommend, a simple man it seemed, without ambition or greed.