Seventh Bride (14 page)

There were only a dozen graves. Rhea walked between them, looking for names, and found
Elegans
written on most of them.
 

Is this their graveyard? Did this use to be their manor house, and Crevan married into it? Or is the world just twisted around again, and I’ve come to their graveyard by magic?

“And which is Lady Elegans?” she asked. “Is this part of the test? Find the correct grave?”

A dozen graves. Eight of them had the name
Elegans
.
 

Rhea felt a bubble of panic.
No one told me her first name.
What if I put the flowers on the wrong grave? I’ll fail the task.

She looked down at the gravestones again…and then blew her breath out, hard.

Don’t be ridiculous. This is not hard. Aunt would figure it out in a trice.
It’s no worse than when we get grain from the Smiths.
 

There were six Smith families in town, all of whom were descended from the same patriarch and all of whom hated one another passionately, egged on by self-same patriarch. Working out which Smith household was due which bags of grain could be an exciting prospect if the notes were not exact.

This would be easier if they had dates. I could work backwards from there…

But there were no dates. There were a few phrases chiseled here and there, and several carvings, but no dates. Time had apparently stopped in this place.
 

Of the eight Elegans gravestones, three had male names. It was unlikely that Lady Elegans had been named John or Jack—though not impossible, Rhea had to admit, as the mayor two towns over had been born under the name Jack, and was now the most elegantly dressed woman in three counties. But both of those stones had badly worn lettering, as if they were very old, and the third male headstone was very small and said “Beloved Son.”
 

There were five headstones with a woman’s name or no name at all, and two of those were also weathered. The one next to “Beloved Son” said “Beloved Daughter” and was no larger than its counterpart.
 

Children,
most likely, thought Rhea,
carried off in a plague. Poor things.
 

That left her with two gravestones.

One had sharp, clearly edged writing.
Sophia Elegans.
The other was a trifle more worn, but the stone looked softer, and it read
Catherine Elegans.

Sophia Elegans had a carving of ivy around the edges of the stone, and underneath it said
Beloved Wife.
 

Catherine Elegans had a carving of an angel, and the words
The World Is Greater For Your Gift.

Rhea considered this.

It was hard to imagine Lord Crevan writing
Beloved Wife
under something and meaning it, although it was perfectly plausible that he had waved a hand to someone—probably Ingeth, or perhaps her predecessor—and said “Have it say something appropriate, Beloved Wife or some such—” and thought no more about it.
 

On the other hand, there had been that long and rather opaque discussion about gifts. And bulls. Rhea scowled.
 

She glanced at the sky. The moon was high overhead, not yet beginning its downward slide.

And as soon as I’m done here, the path is going to close up or some such nonsense, and it will take half the night to get away from it.
 

She could afford to be annoyed by this, because she was very nearly sure that Lord Crevan would not kill her
before
he married her. He seemed very interested in marriage.
 

Afterwards, of course, is another matter. I suppose he killed Lady Elegans, whether she was Sophia or Catherine.
 

After the golem-wife, merely murdering someone seemed almost unremarkable.
 

I suppose I shan’t enjoy it very much if he does it to me. Then again, I suppose no one ever really enjoys dying, however it happens.
 

Well, enough of this.
 

She pulled the bouquet from her pocket and divided it in two. Each had a few stems of asters and a sprig of rosemary.

She laid one on the grave of Sophia Elegans, Beloved Wife, and one on the grave of Catherine Elegans, The World Is Greater For Your Gift, and stepped back.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say something,” she said to the graves. “My name’s Rhea. I’m the miller’s daughter. I suppose I’m going to be Lord Crevan’s wife, if I can’t get out of it. I guess that makes us…err…something? Not sisters. Something else. Anyway. The flowers are for you. I hope wherever you are, you’re…um…well?”

It was not the most graceful speech ever made in a graveyard. Rhea felt vaguely absurd and her face grew hot, even though no one heard her but the hedgehog and the dead.
 

She turned away.
 

A dog stood outside the iron fence, looking at her.

Here we are, then
, thought Rhea grimly.
 

It was not a nice-looking dog. It had a short coat and the cool, professional look of a sheep-killer.
 

Rhea measured the distance to the gate. The dog was on the opposite side of the graveyard from the gate, and while she could not hope to outrun it for more than a few paces, she need only get to the gate and haul it closed. It opened out, with a heavy metal cuff that slammed down over the bar, so once she shut it, the dog would not be able to pull it open again.
 

And then it will jump over this ridiculous three-foot fence and tear my throat out.

Well, as long as I have a plan…

“Nice dog?” said Rhea.
 

The dog stared at her. The moon burned green in its eyes.
 

“Good
dog,” said Rhea, and turned and bolted for the gate.
 

The dog took off silently, and that was a bad sign. If it had barked, at least, it might have been a sign that the dog was as nervous as she was, but it did not bark. It merely ran.

She reached the gate, and a second dog slipped out of the grass and charged her.

The hinges made a shattering squeal when she yanked on the crossbar, and there was a bad moment when it looked as if the gate was not going to close at all.
 

“Oh no,” said Rhea, and threw herself backward, pulling against the gate.
 

The resistance gave so suddenly that she fell over backwards, and the gate struck the gatepost and bounced open again.
 

The second dog could not slow down in time. It ran its shoulder into the gate, forcing it up against the gatepost, and Rhea scrambled to her knees and jammed the metal cuff down to hold it in place.

The first dog arrived. It jammed its muzzle through the bars and Rhea retreated.

“I like dogs,” said Rhea weakly, as the dogs snarled at her through the gate. “I’m not scared of them at all. Really.”

The first dog’s throat worked, and a sound came out like black, snarling laughter.

That was not a dog noise.
 

Even the Viscount’s hounds, when they went after foxes, did not make noises like that.
 

The second dog giggled at her. It was most definitely a giggle.

Rhea took a couple steps back from the fence.
 

“You’re not dogs,” she said.

Something laughed behind her, and she turned to see a third dog-monster, with its paws on the fence.

They could jump it. They could jump it
easy
. I could
step
over this damn fence.
 

But they did not jump the fence. They snarled and snickered at her, pacing around the edges, and they put their broad paws up on the crosspieces of the fence. She did not want to look too closely at their paws. They were long and had something that resembled fingers.

Rhea stood in the middle of the graveyard, atop the grave of Sophia Elegans, Beloved Wife…and found that she was
furious.
 

It was so
stupid!
The dog-monsters were so obviously there to frighten her and keep her from leaving the graveyard. They could have killed her in a heartbeat if they wanted to, but they were just pacing around the edges, making those nasty un-dog-like noises.
 

“He’s cheating,” said Rhea savagely. “This is just like the brambles last night. He wants to make sure I don’t get home.”

He was worse than a swan. At least swans just went for you. They didn’t set you up to fail.
 

She shoved her hands in her pockets. The hedgehog prickled against her fingers.

“Do you want me to put you down?” she asked. “I’m about to do something very stupid.”

The hedgehog turned a bright eye up toward her and shrugged, as if to indicate that perhaps it was the time for very stupid acts.

Rhea stalked toward the gate.

The first two dog-monsters were bunched up there—
First and Second,
she named them in her head,
and the other one is Third.
Not very good names, but she didn’t have time to be clever.
 

First jammed his head through the bars again, lips writhing against his teeth.

Rhea yanked out the kitchen knife in her pocket and stabbed the dog-monster in the face.
 

It was not a terribly good stab. Millers’ daughters do not traditionally spend a great deal of time engaged in single combat. She stabbed straight down and the knife blade skidded across the monster’s muzzle and over its tender nose.

First shrieked, a sound somewhere between a yelp and a scream of pain, and yanked its head out of the gate. The knife went flying.
 

It took far too long to find the blade again, even with the moon winking off the steel. But the dog-monsters were not attacking her, as she’d half expected. Instead First had his head down, pawing at his face like a dog that has been stung by a bee, and Second had retreated away from the fence.

Rhea held the knife up in front of her. Her hands were shaking. She shot a glance over her shoulder. Third was watching her silently, but had not jumped over the fence.

“Well?” she shouted. Her voice trembled horribly, but she didn’t care. The important thing was to say the words. “Well? Come on, then! Are you going to do anything?”

Second bared his teeth at her, but did not move.

She clutched the knife in front of her. The silver ring on her finger seemed unnaturally large, as if it got in the way of the hilt, and surely that was impossible.
 

If I stop to think about this, I’ll lose my nerve. They’re not supposed to kill me. Whatever Crevan wants me for—and he wants something, clearly, with all this talk of gifts—he’ll need me alive to marry me.

I think.

Well, the golem-wife wasn’t alive, but—well, she’s—oh, hell.

Quickly, before she could think herself out of it, she unlocked the gate and pushed it open.

Second ran at her. Rhea swept the knife in front of her and shouted “Try it! Go ahead!”

Adrenaline made bright sparks in her vision—but Second stopped. The dog-monster halted, bouncing stiff-legged. The air filled with growls.

She inched her way sideways, keeping her back to the fence. From the corner of her eye, she saw Third slinking around the bottom of the graveyard, coming toward her.

“I see you,” she said. “Don’t think I don’t.” The dog-monster stopped.

Second rushed forward suddenly, while her head was turned, and grabbed a mouthful of her skirts.
 

Compared to a swan’s neck, the dog-monster was an absurdly large target. Rhea kicked up, hard, and caught Second’s throat with her boot. He let out a gagging cough and fell back.

She spun in time to brandish the knife at Third, who immediately retreated.
 

Rhea’s breath came in short pants, and there was sweat streaming down her back and between her breasts.
Much more of this and I’m going to pass out from sheer panic…

First’s head was up now. There was black blood on his muzzle and a murderous look in his eye.

It occurred to Rhea that while Lord Crevan might have instructed—or enchanted, or whatever—the dog-monsters not to kill her,
Lord Crevan wasn’t here.
And she had made this one extremely angry.
 

First lunged.

Rhea sank down and lifted the knife, prepared to sell her life as dearly as she could.

Something slammed into the dog-monster from the side, a great dark shape that picked it up and threw it aside. First flew a dozen feet and landed impossibly hard. It sounded like a sack of wet laundry being dropped on stone.
 

Second spun away from Rhea and leapt for the intruder. The dark shape jerked its head sideways, and Second screamed in sudden pain and fell back, limping.
 

The moonlight streamed down on a broad, hairy back and heavy teeth.

It’s a bear.

It was gigantic. It looked like a cow or a pony. Shaggy rolls of fat hung over its sides and its paws were the size of platters. This was a bear fattened up on autumn, ready for a long winter’s sleep.
 

The bear looked at her with tiny glittering eyes, and Rhea looked back. She was still holding the knife, which now seemed about as useful as a toothpick.

“Nice bear…?” said Rhea hopelessly.

She knew
of
bears, of course. She’d heard stories. Bears were creatures that lived out in the woods somewhere, like wolves and bandits and wisent, and the only humans they interacted with were hunters and the characters in the more unfortunate sort of fairy tale.
 

Now and again a bear would take a pig that had been turned out to fatten up on acorns, but that was as much interaction as anyone in the village regularly had with bears. Rhea had never actually seen one, only pictures in books.

She’d known they were large, but the books had drawn them like thick-bodied, tailless wolves, not like hairy mountains.