Scarlet in the Snow (21 page)

If the cats felt any sense of outrage at being asked to act as guides for a mere clumsy human, they showed no sign of it. We made the two-hour journey in total silence apart from the occasional crackling of a twig under my foot.

When we reached the edge of the forest, beyond the fields that butted up against it, I could see, rising in the air, the yellow-and-white bulbs of a village church. I had no idea where exactly I was, but Old Bony had said to head for Lodka, so it must be in that general direction. Lodka was a long way south of my own home; I had obviously come out of the forest in a very different direction from the one I’d come in. Either that or the geography of the witch’s realm was utterly unlike the country outside.

The cats left me there, and I set off across the fields, towards the village. Upon reaching it, I soon found the place where the Lodka-bound coach picked up passengers.
There was an hour to spare before the next one arrived, so I sat on a bench, and after eating some bread and cheese, took out the box Luel had left for me and extracted the slip of paper.
Lilac Gardens, Palume
. It made as much sense as the first time I read it; that is, not a great deal. That was clearly where I had to go, but for what purpose was still not clear. Was it to meet Luel? To see Ivan?

And why had Luel left me those other things? I took each out in turn, but could see nothing particularly special about them. I peered closely at them and saw that each sweet bore a faintly imprinted letter. That wasn’t unusual, though. Cautiously, I touched one to the tip of my tongue. There wasn’t even a tingle. The sweet tasted inert, like chalk. ‘Useless,’ I murmured, disappointed, and was about to replace it in the tin when I realised something. I’d not said ‘useless’ in Ruvenyan. I’d said it in Faustinian. I remembered that word from my childhood, from the tutor who used to fling it at us.
Nilos
, she’d tell us, you’re all
nilos
! What on earth had possessed me to say that now?

An extraordinary idea bloomed in my mind. Once again I put the sweet to my tongue, only this time I kept it there a little longer before removing it. ‘Strange, it’s really strange,’ I murmured, and that also came out in Faustinian.

I picked up another sweet, touched it to the tip of my tongue and said something that I didn’t understand at all, in a language I didn’t recognise. I tried another. ‘Yes,’ I said, and this time it was my own language. I picked another, and now there I was saying something in a
language I recognised, though I knew very few words in it. It was Champainian.

I peered at each sweet in turn. Yes. There was no mistake. ‘F’ must stand for Faustinian, ‘C’ for Champainian, ‘R’ for Ruvenyan and ‘A’ for Almain, probably. Oh, Luel, I thought excitedly, bless you, bless you! A tin full of instant language – one of the most useful gifts I could ever have hoped for! With these I could not only understand and make myself understood in Champaine, but I could easily disguise my own Ruvenyan origins perfectly.

Though I must not do it yet. They were calling all passengers to the coach. It wouldn’t do to make people suspicious. I put away the sweet tin in the box, closed it and put it back in my pocket. The comb and hanky most probably had their own secrets. But I’d have to wait to find that out too.

The journey to Lodka was perfectly uneventful, and before dark, the coach was disgorging its passengers at an inn by the port. Lodka is a big port and there was a perfect crowd of boats at the harbour, all sorts of crafts, from graceful skiffs to lumbering fishing boats, elegant passenger steamers to workaday barges loaded with goods of all kinds. Could Old Bony have meant a boat when she said to ask for ‘the wanderer’?

I went to the harbourmaster and asked. ‘The
Wanderer
?’ he echoed, and opening a great ledger, ran his finger down a list of names. ‘Ah, yes. Here it is.
Wanderer
. It’s in port at the moment. It’s a Faustinian barge, out of Ashberg. Carries old clothes and other used goods.’

I was puzzled. How on earth would Old Bony know a Faustinian barge-captain? ‘Who’s the
Wanderer
’s captain?’ I asked.

‘Young man named Andel. Ashberg native. But he’s got a Ruvenyan girl with him. Don’t know her. She’s not a local. You’ll have to hurry if you want to catch them. They’re due to leave any moment.’

When I found the
Wanderer
it was already moving away from the quay. I waved my arms and shouted at the barge’s occupants – a very tall, broad young man at the tiller, and beside him, a dark-haired young woman. ‘Please stop!’ I yelled. ‘I bring greetings from the lady of the forest!’

Light broke into the woman’s green eyes and she smiled, revealing a flash of sharp white teeth. ‘Then you must come on board,’ she shouted back, and the barge edged close enough for me to jump on.

When I was safely on board, the girl held out a hand. ‘You are most welcome, friend of the lady of the forest. I am Olga, of the family Ironheart.’

Ironheart! The famous clan of werewolves! That explained why Old Bony knew her. I’d never imagined meeting one from that celebrated family, and I suddenly felt very shy as I shook her hand. ‘Er, good evening, Lady Ironheart. I am so very honoured to –’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Olga crisply. ‘And don’t call me “Lady”. I’m just Olga. And this is my man, the famous Captain Andel.’ And she shot him a proud, loving look.

‘Really, Olga, you must stop flattering me,’ said Andel, laughing. He had a soft, rather charming accent when he spoke Ruvenyan. He shook my hand. ‘Welcome aboard,
Miss. Any friend of Olga’s is a friend of mine.’ With a twinkle in his eyes, he added, ‘But may we perhaps know the name of our charming guest?’

I could feel myself going bright red. ‘Oh, sorry. I’m . . . Sveta Popova,’ I said, using my mother’s maiden surname as a precaution.

‘Well, Sveta,’ said Olga, ‘we are very pleased to meet you.’

‘And I you.’

‘Is the lady of the forest well?’

‘She is in fine form.’

Olga nodded. ‘She doesn’t change, that one.’

‘I don’t suppose she does,’ I said.

‘Do I know this mutual friend of yours?’ said Andel, quizzically.

‘No, my love, you do not. Not yet, anyway.’

‘But she knows about me, or at least about the
Wanderer
?’ said Andel. ‘Otherwise she would not have sent Sveta.’

‘You are quite right, my darling,’ said Olga, and squeezed his hand. ‘All of us forest-people are of interest to its lady. That is how it is.’

‘Then I suppose I have to hope this grand personage doesn’t think ill of a simple barge-captain hobnobbing with an Ironheart,’ he said lightly.

‘Oh, she isn’t grand, just powerful,’ Olga replied, smiling. ‘And she doesn’t interfere unless she must.’

‘I’m relieved,’ said Andel, with a touch of irony. ‘But now, Sveta, tell us – where are you bound?’

‘The seaport,’ I said promptly. ‘And there, to board a ship bound for Champaine.’

‘Ah, you have a long journey ahead,’ he said discreetly, not asking me why I wanted to go there. ‘Well, we can take you as far as the port at the river mouth. From there you can find a vessel that will take you across the sea. Will that do?’

‘Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.’ I fumbled in my bag. ‘I can pay and –’

‘Please put your purse away,’ said Andel, a little sternly. ‘You are amongst friends here, lady of the forest or no lady of the forest.’

I coloured. ‘I’m sorry. I did not mean to cause you any offence.’

‘None taken,’ said Olga briskly. ‘Now then, Sveta, how about we leave grumpy Andel to his tiller and go sort out your sleeping quarters. Then we can have a good brew of hot tea?’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ I said.

As I followed my new friend to the cabin of the barge, I thought how very different she was to how I’d imagined a werewolf to be. I’d imagined darkness, brooding, bestial silence and sudden rages. Not this frank, open-hearted girl, quipping lightly with her lover.

I hadn’t expected the warm book-lined cabin either, or talking companionably with Olga over excellent tea and honey cakes, as the barge chugged peacefully down the river, with Andel at the helm. To my relief, Olga did not probe me for my history but spoke happily of her own. And what an extraordinary story she had to tell!

I listened with bated breath to her account of how she’d met Andel during a dangerous adventure in the Faustine
Empire. That was the first I had heard that things were beginning to change radically in the empire, for I took little notice of international news in my country fastness, and the news was still so very brand-new. And I learned that my new friends had had an important hand in those momentous events, and that as a result, the young werewolf and the simple barge-captain had very high connections in the Faustinian imperial family.

‘But it’s not what Andel and I care about,’ Olga said. ‘It’s that we made true friends with whom we shared so much, and whose happiness mirrors our own.’

‘That is so beautiful,’ I said, deeply moved, and longed to tell her my own story. But I knew Old Bony hadn’t issued her warning lightly; and the last thing I wanted to do was to endanger the happy crew of the
Wanderer
. Olga looked at me quizzically but she did not question me.

A little later, when Andel came in, I managed to bring the conversation round to general talk about Palume, and then to what really preoccupied me. ‘You have a lot of books,’ I said, gesturing to the shelves. ‘I wondered if you had any about art in Champaine?’ I added swiftly, ‘You see, I worked for a painter back home and I thought I might try to get a similar job in Palume. But I mostly know about art in Ruvenya, and it would be good if it sounded like I knew what I was talking about in terms of art in Champaine, too.’ How smoothly and plausibly the lies tripped off my tongue, I thought, slightly disgusted with myself.

‘Excellent idea,’ said Andel, smiling, ‘but unfortunately I don’t have a specific book on the art of Champaine.
However, I did pick one up a little while back about art in general, and it is bound to have an entry on Champaine.’ He walked over to the shelves and pulled out a rather shabby book inset with a sepia plate of a painting showing a city scene.
Modern Art and Artists
, its title read in Faustinian. ‘For a book on art, it’s not very useful, I’m afraid. There are only a few pictures and they’re not even in colour. But it’s only about five years old.’ Andel flicked to the index. ‘I’m sorry, there’s no specific entry on Champaine. But I can see Champainian names amongst the artists, so if you like I can –’

‘Would you mind if I had a look myself?’ I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

‘Oh. You know Faustinian, then?’

‘Only a little. I’m no good at speaking it but I had a Faustinian tutor as a child and she made us read endless things,’ I said quickly, ‘so I can read it a lot better than I speak it. Plus I have a dictionary I can consult if I get stuck.’

‘A Faustinian dictionary?’ said Andel. ‘But I thought you were going to Champaine?’

‘I am. I’ve got a Champainian phrasebook, too. I just brought the Faustinian dictionary in case I decided to go to Faustina at some stage,’ I gabbled. ‘It’s the one I had when I was a child.’

Olga and Andel looked at each other. ‘Well,’ Andel said, ‘if you need any help translating anything, just ask. And you can keep the book if it’s useful.’

‘Thank you so much,’ I said hastily. ‘But please, I’d like to give you something in return.’ I rummaged in my bag and brought out the encyclopedia volume.

To my surprise Andel’s eyes widened. ‘Olga,’ he exclaimed. ‘Did you see this?’

Olga glanced at it, then at me, noting my baffled expression. ‘Andel’s got almost a complete set of that encyclopedia,’ she said, getting up and pointing at one of the furthest shelves. ‘Only that one was missing.’

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ I said, sincerely relieved that at least I could do something, however small, for them. ‘I’m so pleased.’

‘So am I,’ said Andel, grinning. ‘Now, it’s getting rather late. How about some dinner?’