The Curricle’s right wheel came off the axle. Goodness knows how or why it happened, in the faint bluish light of dawn, but, as a result, the Curricle teetered, and while Amaryllis hastily attempted to pull up the horses, stopping them sharply and pulling with all her strength, the thoroughbreds reared.
Next thing everyone knew, they were all on their sides, and the Curricle of Doom had capsized ignobly, sliding several feet with the momentum, the sole remaining wheel spinning in the air, then stopping to rest with the wheel lodged deep against a snowdrift-covered roadside hedge. One of the horses was pulled along, and tripped, then rose up again, miraculously unharmed but screaming in equine fury. The other remained upright, and pulled at the Curricle, dragging it even further along and lodging the solitary attached wheel deeper into the show.
To add insult to injury, the small travel lantern hanging from the front was snuffed out in a blink, and with it went all their light.
Lady Ignacia screamed and Lord Nathan screamed, then uttered curses that were beyond his vocabulary under normal circumstances. Lady Amaryllis, her hands entangled in the reins, was alarmingly silent, having ended up pulled halfway out of the curricle and onto the iced-over road and just barely away from underneath the feet of the thoroughbreds. She lay, panting, then moaned, while Lady Ignacia attempted to crawl out of her seat in the back next to Woult.
“Damnation and bloody hell!” cried the young man over and over, as he assisted Lady Ignacia from their sideways position. Finally they freed themselves from the overturned vehicle and were upright, standing on the road.
“Amaryllis, dear, are you alive?” Ignacia said in a horrible soft voice, picking up her capsized plumed hat, then straightening with gloved fingers her emerald-green cape over a sage travel dress—all without attempting to approach her fallen friend. And then she began to shriek again, and in-between shrieks managed to say, “Woult, do go get her out, go see if she lives! Oh, God in Heaven!”
“Amaryllis?” Nathan tried, lowering himself in a crouch before the motionless female, while stretching out one splayed hand to keep the rearing horses away—as though a mere hand could.
“Yes
. . . help me up,” said Amaryllis at last. She moved her head then slowly raised herself up on one elbow, then fell back again with a sharp exclamation of pain. “Hurts like something horrendous . . .” she managed to say.
“What hurts, my dear?” Lord Woult drew himself closer, knelt, avoiding the horses, then took a careful hold of her.
“Ah! It’s my side! Nothing broken, I venture, but I’m afraid a bruise is imminent. My wrists are all entangled and my knee is scraped, and oh, my ankle—damn it all! And look, the Curricle is a godless mess!”
Amaryllis bit her lip but did not cry as Woult managed to free her gloved hands and got her upright so she could stand, leaning on him heavily.
“What a filthy idiot mess, what indignity!” Amaryllis muttered.
“Be glad you’re safe, and Curricle be damned,” Nathan replied soothingly in her ear.
“Yes,” said Ignacia, “for it could have been infernally worse! We are all safe! But—What happened, exactly?”
“Here, you help her stand while I deal with recapturing the beasts,” said Nathan, handing Amaryllis over to lean on Ignacia’s shoulder.
“Recapturing? The beasts are hardly ‘loose’ that they need be recaptured, silly boy,” retorted Amaryllis smartly, proving that she was indeed sufficiently well. “Just grab the reins and tie them down for now, while we deal with the Curricle.”
“Whatever happened?” Ignacia repeated.
“I haven’t the faintest idea in all of the blessed Realm.” Amaryllis tried stomping her feet and found that one of her ankles was indeed in poor shape and practically burned with agony when she put her weight on it. “All I know is,” she continued, “we were flying along just fine, and suddenly the accursed wheel went—just like that, in the blink of an eye. I tried to slow us down but . . . well, as you see.”
“Did the grooms fail to have this vehicle checked properly?” Nathan said, panting with anger and exertion. He had captured the reins of one of the thoroughbreds and was now wrestling with the other as it reared and stomped around, jerking at the fallen Curricle with every move it made. “Whoa, whoa, down, girl—or boy—or whatever you are, you violent brute—”
“Now really, Nathan,” Amaryllis protested. “You know your horseflesh; these are fine boys, do not insult them. They are perfectly innocent and had nothing to do with any of this, the poor dears. Thank all the stars in Heaven they are not injured!”
Minutes later the horses were secured, and Amaryllis limping but able to stand on her own.
“So what are we to do now?” Ignacia said unhappily.
“Well, I suppose I could walk on back over to that town we passed just recently and see if we can get help.”
“No! You aren’t just going to leave us here unprotected, Nathan!” Ignacia’s blue eyes grew round with imagined terrors.
“She’s right.” Grimacing in severe discomfort, Amaryllis rubbed her side with one hand. “We’re in a nasty wilderness, and this is dangerous enough as it is, with highwaymen and cutpurses lurking lord knows where, and now, with all the Cobweb Bride stragglers that will be making their way here past us. None of them can help us properly, and I am sure more than one of them would be only too happy to rob us down to our petticoats.”
“Besides, there’s that black knight . . .” said Ignacia.
“What black knight?”
“Not sure, m’dear, but at the roadhouse, when we stopped for a breather in the last town, someone mentioned him—a terrifying merciless creature of a man. Supposedly, he is a mercenary, or maybe an executioner, possibly in the employ of the local Duke. Dressed in all black mail, astride a black beast, with horrid minions, he—they haunt these forests, hunting all who pass here, and Cobweb Brides in particular.”
“Who told you that? What poppycock!” Nathan said.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it poppycock.” Ignacia smoothed down her hat plumes and adjusted the contraption on her head. “Particularly when it could very well be true. These local nobles are as good as savages. You’ve heard of the interminable rivalry between Chidair and Goraque, the so-called Red and Blue Dukes? They fight a war every season like clockwork, and it’s in their blood. So, why not black robber knights lurking in the woods?”
Amaryllis stood deep in thought, with hands on hips, and her normally perfectly coiffed black hair flowing in semi-disarray. She was looking at the fallen equipage. “We could try to lift this thing back upright.”
Ignacia turned to her with an angry bobbing of hat plumes. “What? Just the three of us, and you lame as a partridge? Amaryllis, my dear, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve struck your head when you fell. This is beyond impossible.”
“Well, it could be worth a try,” said Nathan. “Amaryllis, sweetling, do limp on over to my right and you’ll lift from that end. Ignacia, you and I, as the only two able-bodied creatures, will push with all our might from this angle.
. . .”
With much grunting and long minutes of misplaced effort, they managed to shove and drag the Curricle out of its place in the snow bushes, then grunted and groaned twice as long to get it precariously upright.
The Curricle of Doom, aptly named, wobbled on its one remaining wheel and leaned heavily to the right against the axle pole, at an alarming angle. Nathan went down the road to look for the other wheel, the culprit that had caused all this mess. The thoroughbreds, now docile and tired after that long fast drive, obediently stood nearby.
Ignacia wiped her brow with the back of her glove and sat down on a fallen travel chest that had been in the small back seat with her and now reposed in the road. “Now what?” she said tiredly. “So he retrieves the jolly wheel. How will we re-attach it?” And then she wailed. “I am freezing, tired, hungry! I just want to be in bed with a hot cup of tea right now, Amaryllis! This is no longer fun! I demand a relief to this—this
horror!
”
“Oh come now, Ignacia, don’t blow this out of proportion, we’ve just capsized. It’s a minor thing, all things considered.” Amaryllis watched Nathan approach, rolling the large wheel before him.
“How in blazes do you plan to re-attach that thing?” said Ignacia with irritation. “Have you any blacksmithing skills? Proper tools? And where are the lugs that you need to fasten it? Probably rolled away halfway down the road, lord knows where. . . .”
“Lugs?” muttered Nathan. “And what do you know of curricle wheel lugs, m’dear?” And he threw Ignacia a very peculiar glance.
“Nothing! I know nothing of
lugs
except that
at present
we don’t have them. You might think otherwise, Lord Nathan Woult, but I am not the ninny you might think I am! Yes, I’ve heard the grooms talking, using that ‘lugs’ term when they were adjusting the wheels.”
While Ignacia chattered, Amaryllis glanced up and down the road. Surprisingly there had been no passerby in the long minutes that they’d been downed. The portion of the road behind them, winding south-east, had filled with pallor along the horizon over the treetops where the sun was due to rise shortly.
“Look, it’s dawn,” Amaryllis said. “How pretty and crisp it looks here on the outskirts of the Realm.”
“Well I think it’s perfectly horrid,” Ignatia said. “We ought to be moving forward or heading back, doing something or
. . . or getting assistance from
someone!
In the very least, someone ought to be down this infernal road who can help us! Where is everyone? Not even one puny vagabond Cobweb Bride!”
Just as the last petulant word echoed into silence, from far behind them down the southeasterly road came the faint sound of voices, approaching.
Female voices. Girl voices.
And amazingly, in this dawn-lit no-man’s land, there was laughter and singing.
F
rom the driver’s seat, Percy could barely feel the cart swaying underneath her as it rolled along the northern road. She held on to the reins with stiff, mitten-covered fingers as Betsy plodded with confidence, hooves crunching on the fresh show that dusted the beaten-down thoroughfare. Occasional fat snowflakes came fluttering down like sudden bits of dislocated cloud in the blue dawn. They landed on tops of shawls and hats, sprinkled all the exposed surfaces like “heaven’s sugar and flour.”
God is cooking,
Percy’s Gran used to say.
When it’s winter and bitter cold, He sends down heaven’s sugar and flour, so that we can make sweet bread and stay warm.
Sugar and flour? Brr, it was cold!
The girls were singing all around her. Every one of them—except for Lizabette who protested that it was far too cold to speak, much less sing, and that they will all lose their voices and go hoarse permanently, and no one, much less Death, would want to marry them and become attached to a “husky virago.”
At which point Niosta and Catrine stopped singing and held their faces to suppress coarse laughter.
“A less than dulcet voice never stopped a man before from marrying,” Sybil remarked with a twinkle in her eyes. And then she picked up the song again in full voice.
Emilie started to cough.
“You see!” Lizabette exclaimed. “She is losing her voice already!”
But even Percy herself could not hold back, and hummed the chorus—so quietly that probably only she alone could hear herself—while vapor curled from her lips.
For the last few miles they had all picked up and memorized Gloria’s far-too complicated grim verses of the Cobweb Bride “song,” and, led by Jenna’s earnest voice, had somehow put it all to music, to the tune of “My Shepherd’s Pot Is Boiling,” or maybe it was the “Little Red Apples” nursery song.
The cheerful discrepancy was obvious (while the air was still indeed frigid from the night). And yet it felt good somehow to belt out at the top of one’s lungs such happy tunes coupled with such gruesome lyrics as “worm-ridden soil” and “Death’s cold kiss” and especially “diiiiissoluuuuuuuution of will”—“Whatever that means,” sang Emilie, as she added her own bit of harmony.
“‘Dissolution of will’ indeed! Where in the world did you come up with that one? What notions, what long words, Gloria!” Lizabette commented occasionally.
Gloria simply shrugged and continued walking with two other girls who were taking their turn not riding the cart.
In the distance, up ahead, there was something on the road.
Percy felt an instant pang of worry for their safety. She squinted into the bluish dusk, pulling on the reins to slow down their movement.
“Oh look, what’s that?” Sybil said in that same moment, seated on Percy’s right and sharing her vantage point. Her feet dangling from the cart stopped moving.
“Everybody, quiet!” Percy’s voice rang out, and all the girls went silent immediately. It suddenly got so very quiet they could almost hear the dawning forest breathing in blue and silver dusk.
“Oh no . . . looks like a carriage wreck,” Niosta said, from Percy’s other side.
Marie, the so-called “foreign girl” from Serenoa—their newest and very young looking straggler, who had joined them only a few miles earlier—shivered. Covering herself in her threadbare shawl, she inched nearer to the protection of the cart.
“Or, it could be, someone’s up to no good,” whispered Flor. “What if it’s an ambush of some kind? What if it’s the black knight?”
Percy felt a cold lump of fear forming in the depth of her belly. And by the looks of the others, she was not the only one. But she could not show it, could not let them know she was afraid, because Grial had given
her
this cart to drive.
“Be on your guard, and get ready to run, if needed,” she said firmly.
And so, they slowly and quietly advanced forward. Betsy the draft horse took soft, cautious steps in the crunching snow, and the cart wheels barely creaked.
But they had nothing to worry about.
“Oh, gracious, I recognize that tri-colored plume hat!” said Lizabette, as they approached.
And indeed, in a few more feet they could distinguish a familiar curricle standing semi-upright at an odd angle in the middle of the thoroughfare—the same one that had passed them a few hours ago—and its three aristocratic occupants. One lady was seated on top of a fallen travel trunk. The other stood nearby, awkwardly keeping one foot from resting flat on the ground, milling from one foot to the other, and holding on to two very handsome thoroughbred horses. Meanwhile, a gentleman was busy fiddling with a possibly broken wheel.
“Hello there!” exclaimed the seated lady, and quickly stood up, waving her arms, her hat with its plumes bobbing, her expensive emerald-green cape catching underfoot, so that she nearly tripped in the snow.
The gentleman let go of the wheel and turned likewise, waving at the approaching cart.
“Greetings to you! We mean no harm and require assistance!” said the gentleman in a ringing baritone accustomed to haughty command. In the blue light of dawn, he was handsome and elegant in his winter greatcoat, with a fur hat rakishly slanted over his dark hair.
“Good morning to you,” Percy said, pulling up the cart, and stopping Betsy just far enough away so as not to spook the other horses, and also just to be cautious.
Meanwhile Lizabette responded at the same time, interrupting her. “M’Lord! M’Ladies!” exclaimed Lizabette ingratiatingly, “is anyone hurt?”
“No,” said the lady in deep burgundy red, holding the horses.
“Yes!” exclaimed the other two.
“The Lady Amaryllis here has a sprained ankle, and she does require assistance back to town,” said the lady in green.
“Yes,” echoed the gentleman, shaking snow off his gloves and dark coat. “As you can see we’ve run into trouble. Take us back along this same road, and you will be well compensated.”
The walking girls gathered closer around the cart, and everyone was staring at the aristocrats, and then back at Percy.
“Well,” said Percy thoughtfully. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t go back. We are all Cobweb Brides on our way to find Death’s Keep.”
“You did not hear me, I presume?” said the gentleman, with a sharp edge entering in his voice. “I mentioned that you will be
paid
—very well, I add.”
“Yes, I heard, M’Lord,” Percy replied, “but it is not the point. We cannot turn back now. I am truly sorry, but I’ve been entrusted to take this cart and this horse and all these girls, as far as possible
forward
. I cannot make detours.”
“And why not? Why is that, exactly?” said the lady in green. Her previous nonchalant tone was now different.
“Because,” said Percy, feeling herself going numb and yet more resolved with every word, “going forward
once
is dangerous enough. I cannot risk extending this trip for any of us.”
“Will a few hours make any difference to any of you?” the lady continued, coldly and bluntly. “You are all going to your
deaths
, you do know that?”
“Yes,” said Percy. “But only
one
of us will find it—if
I
can help it.”
Everyone looked at her in silence. The girls had gone very still; the nobles likewise, taken aback at the audacity and force of her words.
And then she added, more mildly, “If you like, however, I will make room for you in our cart. We all take turns walking. If the lady who is hurt needs to sit down for the whole duration, it is understandable. But that’s the best I can offer.”
“Why, this is an outrage!” exclaimed the lady in green, stomping one fine booted foot against the packed snow. “Do you know who we
are?
We hail directly from the Silver Court! The Right Honorable Lord Nathan Woult is before you, and this here is the Lady Amaryllis Roulle, and I myself am the Lady Ignacia Chitain! Have you any notion of what and whom you refuse?”
Percy was sorely tempted to say something she would truly regret, but held herself back.
“We are so sorry, Your Ladyship, My Lord!” muttered Lizabette. “Perchance you can have my seat here, I would be happy to oblige, really, all of us would be!”
“What’s wrong with your cart?” said Gloria suddenly.
“This is not a cart,” said the lady in red, limping a few steps forward. ‘It is a
curricle
, and it has lost a wheel. Have you any notion of how to fix something like this? Any of you?”
“Why, what an excellent idea, Amaryllis!” said Lord Woult. And to the girls he said, “If you can fix this wheel, you will be paid very, very well!”
Niosta and Catrine looked at each other, clever dark eyes glittering in the dawning light. “Well,” said Catrine, “I think me an’ sis here can take a look. My Pa and uncle taught us, they know all about carts and carriages.”
“Oh, good!” Lady Ignacia said. “So your father fixes carriages?”
“Well, not ’xactly, M’Lady,” said Niosta, with another glance at her sister. “He do know how to rob ’em however. But he sure know how to fix broken wheels on the robbed carriages!”
Lord Woult’s face was impossible to describe.
Percy said quickly, “There will be no robbing here, of anyone. Now, can the two of you girls please look at that wheel?”
With a few more exchanged glances and fleeting wicked smiles turning into disguised hard giggles, the two sisters hopped down from the cart, and went closer to look. The rest of the girls got down also, to stretch their legs and stomp for warmth. A few approached the curricle, and milled around, while the ladies gave them wary, cool glances.
Percy sat in the driver’s seat feeling like a lump, afraid to let go of Betsy’s reins, and torn between giving in entirely and helping these fancy people with whatever they asked, or holding her own and ignoring them.
Fortunately, it took only a few minutes of poking and prodding, and Niosta announced, “We can fix it, just need lugs, there’s two missing, is all. Found one down in the snow, so just need one more, and it’ll be all right and hold up.”
With an exhalation of relief, Percy nodded, then tied up the reins, and leaned under the seat for the toolbox. Grial kept one well stocked, fortunately, and there were lugs and nails and twine aplenty, together with hair pins and incomprehensible bits and pieces of heaven knows what.
In moments, the wheel was lifted up by several girls, and reattached properly to the axle pole. Catrine forcefully turned the lug nuts with her surprisingly strong and grimy little fingers (frequently blowing on them for warmth when they turned numb with cold), with Niosta hammering the lugs for good measure, calling them “rotted bastards” and periodically spitting in the snow. Then the whole lot of them tested the curricle by rocking it side to side, then shoving it a few steps forward and seeing it roll nicely.
They were done, and Lady Amaryllis, the one with the limp, immediately nodded her curt gratitude, and moved up with the two fancy horses, which the gentleman helped her hitch properly to the curricle.
“Remarkable! Excellent! Well done, and our thanks!” said he, a light-hearted and frivolous expression returning to his handsome face. He drew out a handful of gold coins and passed them out to the girls nearest, then turned his back on the whole lot of them, as if they ceased to exist. The two ladies occupied themselves with dusting off their capes, re-loading their trunk, and then the one in a burgundy outfit was assisted back into the driver’s seat.
“Are you certain you can handle the driving, my dear?”
“Of course! Honestly, Nathan, you must know I am not driving with my feet!” she protested, and then they were talking and laughing in artful courtier tones once again.
Percy stopped listening, and while the girls giggled and counted coins, and took their time getting back in the cart, she adjusted the reins and said firmly, “Whoa, Betsy!”
But before they moved even a few steps, the black thoroughbreds and curricle and nobles all clattered forward and past them, flying north along the road.
“Well! That was rather interesting!” said Lizabette.
“Huh
. . . I thought they’d turn back,” Percy said softly. “There are no more towns ahead of us, and that lady is more hurt than she realizes.”
“Stupid fancy lords’n ladies,” Regata said. “Where do they think they’re going anyway? The Northern Forest? Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not right in their heads, after that wreck!”
“And then the black knight gets ’em!” Emilie giggled.
“First they need to make it that far. I say they break down again in a few miles.” Catrine swiped her nose with the back of her mitten. “And that’ll mean more coins for us!”
This is not a game, not for anyone
, Percy thought. But she said nothing. The morning had grown brighter, as the sun rose and shimmered faintly like a pearl through the milky overcast of winter clouds.
“I’m hungry!” said Jenna. And she dug into a basket for leftover rolls. “Who wants some?”