The Scourge of Muirwood (20 page)

The image of the serpent’s lair send a shiver of disgust and loathing through her. Yet it also sparked a memory. She had seen the symbol of the entwined serpents. She had seen it burning. An awful anticipation welled inside her as she realized that she would need to find that place. That it was the reason she had come to Dochte Abbey. The Medium throbbed in her heart, calming her. But it also told her not to tell Colvin.

“I will be cautious,” she answered, smiling at him. “I want you to sleep, Colvin. I will watch over you.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I hunger to talk to you. There is so much I have learned in this place. So much the Medium has taught me. There is no one here that I can talk to. There is no one here who knows my heart like you do.” He leaned forward. “Lia, there is something that has weighed heavily on me. It has been growing heavier and heavier. This is a dark place, but I know that I will be free from it. I long to leave these shores, to leave the shores of Comoros and find a place where such evil cannot exist. There will be a scourging. I can see it. Those who accept the ways of the Dochte Mandar will fall to the Blight. Those who support the hetaera will be killed. I know this is a place of pure darkness where the Myriad Ones roam free. Yet despite this knowledge, I still feel the Medium with me. I have remained true to my oaths. I have not surrendered to their ways.” He looked down, his face turning anguished. “I hardly know how to say this to you.”

“Tell me, Colvin,” she answered, leaning forward. “You can always tell me.”

He looked haunted. His eyes were full of emotion. “The Medium bids me do something.” He breathed heavily, his jaw trembling. “It is not what I wish. But I cannot mistake the intent of it. Every day the urgency grows stronger. The Medium bids me…it whispers to me with great urgency…that I must marry Ellowyn Demont by
irrevocare
sigil.” He licked his lips. “That I must do this before Twelfth Night at Billerbeck Abbey.”

For a moment, Lia was breathless. The force of the Medium rushing inside her heart nearly made her gasp, confirming what Colvin said to be true. It was her heart’s deepest desire to be his, and only his, and to hear it spoken from his lips caused a surge of pain and excitement she had never experienced before. The problem was that he did not realize that Ellowyn Demont was in front of him.

She tried to say it out loud, but her jaw clenched shut, swollen by the Medium before she could say anything. She swallowed, nearly choking on the words and looked down, struggling with her feelings.

“I am sorry,” he whispered in anguish. “I wish I could express to you my feelings. That I could make you see how it made me suffer, knowing…”

Lia put her hand on his and squeezed hard, silencing him. She felt tears in her eyes, tears born of frustration and hope. Blinking the tears away, she stared into his eyes, using every scrap of strength to push the thought at him.

I am Ellowyn. It is I, before you now. I am Ellowyn Demont!

He stared at her in confusion. “Say something,” he pled with her. “I have disappointed you so often. I cannot bear your silence. I deserve your rebuke. I deserve your scorn.” His eyes burned with emotion. “I love you still. But my heart bids me on another path. It grieves me to cause you so much pain.”

Lia shook her head violently, trying to master herself, to find safe words that she could speak. Instantly, she thought of the orb. What if she used it to prove to him who she was? As soon as the thought entered her mind, she felt a wedge of blackness divide her. Shuddering, she understood what it meant. That any attempt to thwart the Medium’s will would rob her of its use. The orb was the Medium’s tool to help her discover her own identity. But it would not help another to that knowledge.

Lia was desperate. If there was a way to find her father’s tome and undo the binding, she would be able to tell him then. If they could find it before reaching Billerbeck Abbey, then she would be free to admit the truth. Hillel would suffer, but Lia knew that Colvin did not love her.

“Tell me what you are feeling,” Colvin said, his expression one of tortured confusion. Yet she was not free to speak her true feelings. Her words had to be guarded and permissible.

With a quavering voice, she answered. “I am struggling with my words and my feelings. My heart bids me tell you that…” she swallowed, yearning to speak words that she could not, “…that you should. It is the Medium’s will.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “You encourage me? You are not hurt by this? It threatens to rip me in half. I do not love her. Yet still the insistence.”

Lia closed her hand on top of his again and patted it. “It is not for us to understand why the Medium wills something. We cannot see all things now. But I have learned to trust it, as you taught me to in the Bearden Muir. When you were abandoned at the Abbey, we did not perceive this moment. Yet we were supposed to meet. I believe that. I will trust that all will happen for the best.”

His eyes looked doubtful. “You are stronger than I am, then. I will do what it commands me to do. It means that we can only be friends, Lia.” He stared at the ground, mastering himself. “You are stronger than I.”

No, just wiser,
she thought. She reached out and touched his cheek. He looked up at her. “Trust the Medium, Colvin. Trust it. I know you are tired. I will watch over you while you sleep.”

He looked at the window. “It is nearly dawn now. You should go while there is darkness to conceal you. You must find where they are keeping Ellowyn. The sooner we leave this awful place, the better. She sleeps late and then studies the tomes with the king and the Aldermaston. Then the dancing again. I will wait for you tomorrow night and you can tell me what you have learned.”

Lia nodded and squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers in return and the swollen expression on his face made her heart ache. Even though she had given him leave to marry Ellowyn, the thought of it clearly tortured him.

His voice was husky. “You must be careful, Lia. Take very great care. Do not let them find you.”

She smoothed some of the hair from his temple, gave him a nod, and then silently slipped through the stone portal into the hidden passageway.

* * *

The pale blush of dawn crept over the island city of Dochte Abbey. As Lia quietly roamed the street, she was the only being up that early. In many other villages and towns, there were those who started working before daylight. But Dochte was as quiet as ossuaries, row after row of stone houses and shingled roofs. Near the rear of the Abbey grounds on the fifth level still, the Cruciger orb led her to the Abbey stables. There was a sound heard at last, the sound of a rake dragging across muck. The pointers directed her towards it. The paddock was open, though dark inside. There was only the sound of raking and the slop of mud and manure. The smell announced it well in advance.

Lia stuffed the orb away and quietly entered the paddock. The inside was full of shadows. Snorts from horses interrupted the stillness as she entered. A heaving noise sounded and she saw a man hefting a bale of hay and carrying it towards the trough. She recognized his size and features. Leathers and hood, but no weapons.

“Martin Evnissyen,” she said in a firm voice, announcing herself.

He did not break his stride and slumped the bale down in the trough, where a few hungry horses began to feed on it. He briskly brushed muck from his hands and strode towards her.

“By Cheshu, lass, it took you long enough to arrive.” As he entered the shaft of light coming from the dimly-lit dawn, she saw his fingers black and filthy and his tunic stained from his work. He smelled horrible.

“Look at you,” she said, shaking her head. “If Pasqua could…”

Her voice froze in her throat as the light fell on his face and she saw the black tattoos zigzagging around his eyes. There was a frightening aspect in his expression, a darkness and emotion that came from his look.

He grinned at her, a fierce grin. “Look at you, lass. So tall. Aye, but what you are thinking the way you look at me? Do you fear I took the water ritual? How can I smell thus and have taken the water ritual, I ask you. These lines and marks on my face are an illusion, my girl. Ink and a steady hand. But it keeps the Dochte Mandar from looking at me twice. A rag and some soap and they are gone. It is you that do not look the part being here. Any lad with even one eye would take you for a foreigner here.” He glanced around her. “Where is Kieran Ven?”

Lia was relieved and shocked at his banter. He spoke as if nothing had happened between them. As if their separation had only been earlier the previous evening.

“I know who I am,” Lia said, looking him deep in the eye. “I suspect that you are not ignorant of it yourself.”

He gave her a pleased look. “Come, lass. I must finish mucking the stalls. We will talk as I work.” He started back and grabbed the rake again and headed towards another stall.

She followed close behind him. “Why are you doing this?”

He looked at her and laughed. “To be close to the Abbey walls. I need to work, girl, to pay for my bread. To learn the comings and goings of the Abbey. Waiting for you.” He bent forward and started raking the sludge into a pile. “Where is Kieran Ven?”

“At Muirwood, healing,” Lia answered.

“Careless, was he? Poor lad. I thought he knew better.”

“
I
was careless,” Lia said, feeling roused to anger. “And he suffered for it. Many have suffered needlessly, I am afraid. You know the Blight is coming by Twelfth Night?”

“The…Prince said as much. It comes soon. Three days? I was never that Gifted with numbering.” The rake made a horrible scraping sound.

“That is true,” Lia answered. “Martin – look at me.”

“I hear you well enough while I rake.”

“Please, Martin.”

He stopped, resting his chin on the butt of the pole. He glanced at her, as if the look of her pained him.

“Why did you betray the Aldermaston?” she asked.

His eyebrow quirked. “Is that how you see it? How little you know the ways of the world. The ways of men and kings. Very well, I betrayed him. But you must recognize that I had an allegiance prior to
his
, lass. I had my
own
oaths to fulfill.” He started raking again, more vigorously. “An Aldermaston cannot lie. They must speak the exact truth. The Queen Dowager knew this. So did the Earl of Dieyre. I did promise the Aldermaston to take them to a safe haven. There was not an Abbey safer in any kingdom than the one I took her to.” He paused a moment, using the edge of his boot to control an edge of the sludge. “You had the orb, child. You hunted us as I knew you would. You surprised me crossing the Myniths and the lair of the Fear Liath. Only mastons can cross that way unharmed.”

“I thought you were killed,” she whispered sorrowfully.

He snorted. “It would take a greater brute than that to kill me, child. By Cheshu. Am I your first visit in Dochte? Or have you found your way inside the lair of serpents yet?”

She looked at him in shock. “How did you…?”

He struck the rake hard against the ground, dislodging cakes of dung. The look he gave her was full of inner meanings. “I know where you are bound. My duty is to help you accomplish yours. That is why I am here. And to clean the stables. They are filthy, as you can see. Do you know where the garden lair is?”

Lia walked to his other side. “I have been to Colvin, that is all.”

“Pah! That is
not
why you are here. Forget the lad. Put him out of your mind.”

She glowered at him. “How can I put him out of my mind, Martin?”

His expression was full of angst and smoldering anger. “The same way that I must. There is a duty to be done here. The Medium has brought you to see it done.”

“To warn the city?”

“Yes!” he answered fiercely. “To warn them even though they will not listen. The Medium is just. There must be a warning before the scourging begins. Who better to give it than a wretched?”

Lia licked her lips. “Who must I warn?”

He snorted again. “Who do you think, lass? How can you ask such a question? Is your mind muddled? Who, you ask?”

“The Aldermaston of Dochte Abbey.”

“By Cheshu, I almost took you for a simpleton. Well done. Do you know where the garden lair is?”

“Yes, I believe so. It is behind the Abbey, hidden in the trees. There was a plum orchard there.”

Martin nodded and jabbed his finger at her. “The very one. I have seen it myself. I work in the morning, very hard, so that I might snoop and sneak while everyone gets drunk on the cider. How did you get through the wall?”

“There are Leerings guarding the portals. The orb opened them.”

Martin nodded again, looking triumphant. “Well done. I must climb the walls. There had to be an easier way. The Prince…he told me of the Queen Dowager and her ilk.” He looked surreptitiously then nudged closer to her. “We must speak cautiously. These walls can hear even whispers. I dare not forget that. There is more I must tell you. Judging by your haggard eyes, you have not slept all night. Do you see the ladder and the loft over there? That is where I sleep. There are some scraps of food and I will fetch you a meat pie from the market.” He started raking again. “I told the stablemaster that my granddaughter was coming to live with me. I will bark and rave at you. That is my disguise. When my chores are finished and you have slept, we will visit the Abbey again through the secret ways. Go rest, child. Clear your head. There is much to do before you face the Aldermaston.”