But Percy continued looking at him, closely . . . because the stranger before her was full of inexplicable dissonance. And it seemed there was a
shadow
standing just behind him . . . or maybe kneeling . . . or lying on the ground. But then it was gone, when again she blinked.
He was handsome, in that strange fierce way that some men with really dark hair could be, and his features were fine, exquisite even. And yet, they appeared damaged somehow, swollen, as if they bore the aftermath of heavy bruises.
Niosta seemed to have read Percy’s mind, because she blurted from the back of the cart, “Looks like he took a beating. . . .”
“I am unarmed
. . .” repeated the man softly, continuing to stand with his arms opened wide.
From the distance the sound of men and hounds came brazen and resonant, and possibly closer.
. . .
“Who are you?” Percy said, in a voice betraying nothing.
“I am
nobody
. And my poor sister here is even less . . . I beg you show us kindness.”
“Are they after you?” Regata, standing nearest Betsy, observed the stranger warily. For the first time her friendly, calm demeanor became opaque, and her gloved fingers tugged nervously at the fine forest green wool of her well-tailored Letheburg coat. “Because this is Chidair land, and the black knight must be out hunting right now, I expect—”
“No!” he hastened to reassure. “They are hunting, yes, but not
us
—no one knows about us, and we pose no danger to you, on that I swear—”
“Is your sister very sick?” Lizabette interrupted. “Why is she not moving? What is wrong with her? Is she contagious?”
Percy thought she saw an unusual intensity in his expression, almost the hauteur of a nobleman. But it was fleeting, and then he shook his head wearily. “No, not contagious. . . . But she is very ill—from the
cold
. Please, if I might ask you to allow us to travel with you? I will walk, and she needs but a small place in the cart, to rest—”
“How many more people are we going to fit in this cart?” said Lizabette. “What are we, a traveling tinker circus?”
“You did not seem to mind when those three aristos wanted to take up seats here. Besides, we are on walking rotation,” Percy reminded. “There is room.”
“Yes, well, but at this rate, for how long? Emilie is already out of rotation with a chill, there’s all our bundled stuff, and now this sick girl too! Meanwhile, you’re sitting pretty all the way, and giving everyone orders—”
“I am
driving
this damn cart!” said Percy.
“Aw, c’mon, there is plenty of room still,” muttered Catrine, while Niosta and Flor nodded.
“She can have my place!” said Jenna, hopping out of the cart.
That decided it.
“All right, get her up here,” said Percy to the man, maintaining a gruff, stern voice. “But don’t try anything, because if you do, we
will
take you down like a steer, and truss you up, and leave you to freeze.”
“Yeah, and we’ll take your pants too! And your shirt and cloak!” said Niosta, while Catrine chortled. “My Pa robs carriages for a living an’e show us how to deal with fools like you!”
“Thank you,” the dark-haired stranger said, in a serious tone, ignoring the jesting. He carefully picked up the bundle that was his sister. As Percy watched, it seemed for a moment that another shadow-form lay in the snow right next to the bundled girl. But again, merely a strange trick of the hazy light. . . .
“Are you sure she ain’t dead?” Niosta muttered, watching the stiff shape being placed in the cart, cloak arranged over her, face still in shadow, mostly covered, and only two very limp white hands now showing.
But then, like clockwork, one hand moved—almost like a doll, it might have seemed—and she clutched the wool, drawing it to her. A rasping female voice sounded.
“Where—are we?”
“Oh good, you’re still with us,” Sibyl said with an effort at cheer.
“So now, who are you two? And what are your names?”
“You . . . may . . . call me . . . Claere. . . .” The new girl in the cart spoke with difficulty. She had a peculiar way of breathing before uttering each word, and Percy assumed it was due to a raging chest cold from which she must have been suffering. Her hood slipped aside to reveal a girl with very sickly white skin, and with great haunting eyes, appearing overlarge in her pinched, oval face.
“Oooh! We
may
call you? Well, your high and mighty Majesty, so glad you oblige us with your dee-light’ul name!” Catrine teased, not unkindly.
The man gave her a hard, almost stunned look, while Percy said, “That’s enough now, leave her be.”
She then gently moved the reins and directed Betsy forward. The cart began to roll, with more girls walking, and the man walking also, right alongside his resting sister.
“And what should we call
you?
” Percy directed her question at him.
“Jack Frost!” exclaimed Jenna.
“Vlau,” he responded. “But you can call me anything you like.”
“I expect, I shall be calling you and everyone ‘run!’ very soon, if the hunters come upon us. By the way, I’m Percy Ayren, from Oarclaven, and we’re all Cobweb Brides. Some of us have been walking from as far back as south of Letheburg. Our journey lies into the forest, to Death’s Keep.”
“Good,” he said. “Because our journey lies in the same direction.”
L
ady Amaryllis drove the Curricle of Doom bravely forward despite a lingering ache in her ankle. Seated at her side, Lord Nathan gave her frequent close glances throughout their lighthearted banter. Behind them, in the smaller back seat, next to the travel chest, Lady Ignacia made herself comfortable against a pillow and pretended to doze, with her fur-trimmed hood raised against the wind, concealing both her plumed hat and her chilled face.
“Are you holding up well, Ignacia, darling?” said Amaryllis flippantly, as they made their way in the full but hazy daylight, with sparse trees and Lake Merlait on the left side, and thick forest on the right.
“Goodness,
you’re
the one with the sprained ankle, m’dear! Heaven only knows why you must insist we continue this silly excursion! As for me, I am utterly bored and exhausted,” retorted Ignacia in a similar tone. “Was just making a brave attempt at sleep, in order to dream of
food
—you know, succulent filet of smoked salmon drowning in white sauce, and roast duck in cream and mushroom puff pastry with dill and chives—”
“Stop that immediately! Ah, but you are far more evil than Amaryllis!” Nathan exclaimed. “And speaking of pastry, what have we that’s even remotely edible in that trunk next to you? If I recall, only the bread and croissants seem to have any flavor to them.
. . .”
While they chattered, there was a sudden explosion of sound in the forest, just a few feet off the right side of the thoroughfare.
A horn blared deafeningly. . . .
And then dark figures mounted on horses, and even more men on foot, burst out everywhere around them.
. . . Snowdrifts stirred, and more figures rose up, moving like elemental creatures of winter, white and slate and grizzled silver all in motion. Were they even human?
Amaryllis could barely keep hold of the reins as her black thoroughbreds reared up, for the second time in one day, neighing in terrified fury, as they were immediately grabbed from all directions by dark soldiers. There were vague flashes of ice-blue surcoats emblazoned with insignias, and then the curricle was jerked and held, by a least half a dozen mail-clad men-at-arms.
Amaryllis cried out, and Nathan and Ignacia’s voices sounded next to her and behind—
“Halt, upon pain of death! Stay where you are! Do not move!” The command was issued by several of the mounted helmed men, in peculiar strained or stilted voices, while another announced: “You are trespassing on Chidair land! What is your excuse?”
After the first shock, Amaryllis had regained her tongue. “Chidair land? Since when is a major thoroughfare considered Chidair land? We are noble travelers of consequence, on a free road, and this is an outrage! How dare you accost us or hold us? And as for ‘pain of death,’ gracious, where have
you
been?”
In reply the speaker laughed harshly. “Where have
I
been? If you must know, M’Lady, I’ve been in battle, and I’ve been
slaughtered
, and yet, here I sit!” Speaking thus, he removed his dirt-stained, dented helmet and revealed a grey bloodless face, frozen-motionless eyes, and what appeared to be a major gaping wound to his skull.
Amaryllis gave a scream and shrank back, dropping the reins in reflex. Nathan gasped.
“Yes, you see, pretty Lady, I’m a dead man. And so are most of the rest of us. Now, answer the question, what are you doing here? Or else you’ll learn the meaning of ‘pain of death’ without actually dying!”
“We are traveling from the Silver Court,” said Lord Woult with grim determination. “And as such, you have no claim on us, not even if this
were
Chidair territory instead of a free road.”
“Any Cobweb Brides here?” said a soldier leaning in from behind the curricle, drawing close and grinning wide with his own dead face—pale and bared of helm, and sporting even more gruesome mortal wounds across the neck and jaw, a hollowed eye socket, severed ligaments and sinew and raw bluish-violet flesh. Ignacia made a small stifled sound, then drew away as far as possible from him, leaning forward.
“Maybe . . .” said Amaryllis.
“In that case, you are to surrender now, upon the orders of Duke Ian Chidair—and lo, here is Hoarfrost Himself, arrived to deal with you!”
And as the denizens of the curricle looked on, the soldiers on all sides moved aside as from the right of the road, on the forest side, out of the snowdrifts and the overgrown hedge, emerged a tall warhorse. Mounted on it, sat a huge giant of a man. His barrel chest was clad in a damaged and tattered blue surcoat with Chidair crest and colors, covered with multiple faded bloodstains, poorly fitting loose mail plate over a damaged hauberk, and neither helm nor gauntlets. His wild tangled hair stood up like an unruly briar covered in frozen bits of lake bracken, leaves, twigs and other indescribable dirt. He was thus stained from head to toe, soaked and marinated in the lake, and then frozen . . . and lastly, dusted with snow.
However, the most disturbing part of him was his eyes—eyeballs opened wide and frozen in place, motionless and unblinking.
“Welcome to my lands, three pretty ladies! Or is there a lad amongst you? Aha, yes! A pretty lordling, I see!” Hoarfrost’s voice was a deep bellowing roar, and each word punctuated with hissing breaths driven by a mechanism of solid gears.
“I am Lord Nathan Woult, and your so-called welcome leaves much to be desired, Duke,” said the young man bravely, attempting to rise from his seat in the curricle. But he was immediately pushed back down by two thick mail-clad arms, as burly soldiers held him motionless.
“Stay, boy, stay!” roared Hoarfrost. “Are you a Cobweb Bride too? Or is it just these two lovelies?”
“How dare you!” Amaryllis could hold back no longer. “Have you no fear of the Emperor? Or is your honor besmirched entirely? Now that you are neither dead nor alive—yes, I can see quite well by your utterly
filthy
appearance—do you answer to Death alone, or perchance to no one at all?”
Hoarfrost bellowed with laughter. “You have said it, by my arse! Exactly so, girlie! I now answer to
no one
, and least of all to Death, the cold bastard! Now shut your pretty mouth, and sit tight, as I take you all to be my honored guests! That’s right, you are all
guests
of the Duke Chidair now, and as such, you will sit pretty in my Keep! And if you please me well, I will let you stay among the living a wee bit longer!”
“Provincial savage!” said Amaryllis, while Nathan squeezed her arm meaningfully, so that she remain quiet.
But Hoarforst ignored her completely now. He continued shaking with laughter, as he sputtered to his men: “Take them away and put them with the others. And take care with the excellent horses and that fancy bit’o carriage—”
But as he started to turn away, Ignacia’s voice sounded, ringing loud and unusually forceful, from the back seat of the curricle.
“Wait, Duke Hoarfrost, Ian Chidair! You might want to listen to what I have to say to you!”
“Oh, Ignacia, hush!”
Duke Hoarfrost paused and then slowly turned around, his barrel chest, perforated with holes, hissing loudly in the general silence. “And what have you to say, little bird?”
“Only this—you have been told to expect
me
.”
Hoarfrost stilled entirely. No hiss of breath; only macabre frozen eyeballs regarded her.
“I am the one,” continued Ignacia, a fierce new energy coming to her usually complacent and vacuous pretty face. “The one sent to parlay with you on behalf of Her Brilliance, Rumanar Avalais, the Sovereign of the Domain, and soon to be the sole ruler of all the surrounding territories.”
And as Lady Amaryllys and Lord Nathan stared at their dearest “friend” in shock, observing her in an entirely new light, all manner of details suddenly clicking into place, she continued:
“I am the Right Honorable Lady Ignacia Chitain of Balmue, and my true allegiance lies with the Sapphire Court and its Sovereign, and none other. For several years now I have been placed within the Silver Court to infiltrate and report to my real liege, and I am now at liberty to disclose my true role to you, because of the present circumstances.”
“Ignacia
. . .” whispered Amaryllis, while blood drained from her cheeks, and cramps of ice seized her innards. “Is this a—joke?”
But her friend did not even deign to glance at her. “No joke at all, Lady Amaryllis. My apologies to you—and to Lord Woult—for the continued deception. It was nothing personal.”
The Duke’s hissing bellows came to life again. “How do I know that you do not lie now, and this is not an elaborate bit of nonsense to escape my hold?” Hoarfrost uttered, measuring every word.
Ignacia had a quick answer. “The missive you have received contained an invitation from the Sovereign to form an alliance against the King of Lethe and the Emperor of the Realm. In exchange for your cooperation, you were offered neither Life, nor Death, but the guarantee of perfect Eternity.”
A
bout an hour after noon, Percy asked everyone if they wanted to take a small break. The forest remained noisy with men, distant echoes and footfalls and voices coming from all directions, but so far they had been amazingly fortunate, and the little path had kept them safely meandering deeper into the woodland.
Next to a comfortably large snow-hillock and several thick bushes, Percy pulled up Betsy, and the cart stopped.
“Quiet, quiet, now! For the love of God, keep quiet!” Lizabette repeated, as the girls scattered behind bushes to take care of bodily needs.
Percy got out Betsy’s grain bag and hung it around the horse’s neck for her to feed. There was no time to unhitch Betsy and get comfortable; this was going to be a short rest stop. She then stomped around to wake up her numb feet in their thick woolen wrappings. A few steps away, the man called Vlau stood hunched over and motionless, near the equally motionless, pitiful Claere, where she lay in the cart right next to sniffling Emilie and a few small sacks of their belongings. What a sorry sight they all made.
. . .
“You hungry?” said Percy, looking at him. “We have a roll or two to spare, for you and your sister.” She then took out the basket with the bread and pulled out two flour-dusted rolls, now day-old, but perfectly edible and tasty.
He looked up with weary apathy, and started to refuse.
“Eat! It’ll warm you up.”
“My sister—she is too sick to eat.”
“Well, then
you
eat, and we’ll see to her later.”
He paused, parting his lips, about to speak, considering
. . . when Percy reached out and put a roll in his hands.
“Take it. I’ll be back in a moment. Meanwhile, don’t try anything, all right?” Not waiting for him to respond, Percy then turned away, bit off a big chunk of the other roll, and while still chewing, went into the shrubbery to take care of her own natural business.
When she returned, most of the girls were back, and Flor, the baker’s daughter, was busy making a small fire in a hastily dug pit. “Bring me twigs, dry sticks, pine needles, pine cones, tree bark—anything you see! I can use it all to stoke the fire. Anything you bring, just watch, I can use to make a fire,” she whispered bossily, tucking long wisps of flax-blond hair out of her face and deeper under her kerchief shawl, and several girls immediately started looking.
While they were milling about, it started to snow.
“Oh, just what we need,” Lizabette grumbled, shivering, as large fluttering snowflakes landed on her lashes and cheeks. She pulled her coat collar up, and her hat lower down over her ears. Her long nose was red, and for that matter, so was everyone else’s.
“What if someone sees the smoke from the fire?” Sibyl asked.
“They won’t,” retorted Flor. “Not with
my
fire and my snow pit they won’t.”
And interestingly, she was right—she had arranged the walls of the snow pit just so and perforated them with several horizontal outlet tunnel holes, so that the smoke was oddly diffused and never rose more than a foot off the ground before dispersing.
When the little fire was burning steadily, fed by endless twigs and other kindling, Regata brought out a small iron kettle, and packed it full of clean snow for boiling water.
“What are we going to do for tea?” said Jenna, as the girls all gathered around the fire pit, and took off their mittens to warm reddened fingers against the rising steam. “Should I gather bark?”
“Bark tea? What an abomination. . . .” Lizabette vigorously rubbed her frost-bitten fingers, then held them splayed over the warm vapors escaping the boiling water. “Might as well brew dirt.”
“Check the basket.” Percy pointed to the bundle with the rolls and other supplies. “I think Ronna, bless her, gave us a small bag of
real
tea leaves.”
The tea was immediately located and a generous pinch went into the boiling water. Then Jenna and Regata uncovered two drinking mugs of fired clay, and they were filled with tea and passed around, warming many small frozen hands and fingers, not to mention their insides.