Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (12 page)

“There’s a dead man crawling at your feet, about to pull you down. You may choose not to believe me. Or you might want to back away—”

“Ah,
merde!
” the knight stepped back, while a few foot soldiers approached, carrying long pikes, and they unceremoniously prodded the corpse away with the sharp ends.

“These damn things keep coming up and they are everywhere,” muttered the knight, wiping snowflakes from his nose and beard and watching his men deal with the dead man. However his stern expression loosened and he nodded at Ebrai. “If you’re really on our side and have useful news from the Emperor, the Duke will want to see you.”

“By all means.” Ebrai nodded in turn. He then directed the gelding to cross the road toward the knight and soldiers. The horse snorted in displeasure, shook its head, scattering the fresh snow powder frosting its mane, and carefully stepped around the spot with the floundering corpse and the pikemen.

“By the way,” said the knight tiredly, starting to walk alongside Ebrai and his mount. “If you must know, there is no more Oarclaven. For that matter, most of Goraque is gone too, up north, and to the east especially. There’s nothing there; hardly any of our land left before the foreign border begins. You can now see the Valley of the Rhine, they say, and the Holy Roman Empire.
 . . .”

Ebrai took a deep breath, exhaled, once more feeling the compounding weight of the new complications. Following the walking knight, he slowly rode through the spare camp, greeted by halfway indifferent stares of the Goraque soldiers.

The knight was talkative. “We’re making our way toward Letheburg now, collecting reinforcements, and whoever you are, you might consider joining us. The city is under siege, and we are told the Sovereign’s armies are headed that way. Indeed, we watched them pass only hours ago, as we lay low in hiding, in the forest just a few miles back.”

“I’ve been following the Trovadii, yes,” Ebrai responded. “They swept past Silver Court and did not stop. They are moving north.”

“I am sure His Grace the Duke Vitalio Goraque will be curious to hear all this and anything else you have to say.”

“I have no doubt.
 . . .” Ebrai spoke, looking up at the sky, for in that moment the overcast thickened and the flakes sped downward in thick flurries.

“Aye, it’s really coming down now,” muttered the knight, seeing the direction of Ebrai’s gaze. “Just our luck.”

S
now was falling.

Great big flakes swirled, blanketing Rollins Way, on the other side of the glass window and past the bright chintz curtains of the cheerful parlor of Grial’s house.

Hecate, also known as Grial, sat in a wooden rocking chair with her back to the window, looking as mundane and human as she had been for so long that it had almost become a habit. Even her frizzy hair was back, and her dingy patchwork housedress with it grease-stained apron. Only her eyes were different, darker than black, filled indeed with the weight of immortality.

“Well, girlies,” she said to the room full of very attentive, truly mesmerized girls who were attending her every word, and in some cases still shaking in residual holy terror. “In about ten minutes, there will be a knock on the front door. I am about to be summoned to see the King in the Winter Palace, so I am going to pop on over there right now to save everyone some precious time. Time is in very short order, dumplings, so there’s simply no excuse to waste it, not even to let nature run its temporal course.”

“Oh, goodness, yes, Your Divine Grace—that is, Your Sacredness, o Great Goddess Hecate—” began Lizabette, stammering and sitting very primly on the sofa with her feet together and her back straight.

“Now, now, phooey,” said Hecate. “I told you to stop that nonsense. I am still Grial as far as all of you are concerned. ‘Grial’ is a perfectly lovely name, and it is definitely
one
of my names, so please, do be kind enough to use it. Now then, there’s the big kettle of potato soup still not done boiling and needing a few chunks of Gorgonzola to be stirred in toward the end, so please be on the lookout for it, Marie. And Catrine, have yourself and Niosta a few apple tarts from the pantry, top right shelf, but don’t touch the one just below it—oh, might as well bring the whole platter out for all of you to have while I’m gone. Faeline, be a dear and stop hyperventilating, that’s it, just remember what I told you, breathe through the right nostril, then the left, and count to ten. . . .”

And saying this, Hecate patted down her kinky wild hair, tugged at the apron around her waist, and then, as the girls continued staring in her, she pointed at the door and added, “As soon as that knock comes, simply tell the dear man from the Palace that I am already there.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Niosta said breathlessly.

But Hecate was already gone, while the empty wooden rocking chair continued to creak and rock a few more instants without her.

S
now was falling.

Queen Lucia Osenni sat morosely in a deep wingchair near the window in her Royal Spouse’s study and watched its endless white descent, thick and relentless, from a winter sky that was a dreary cocktail of milk and ashes.

The whole world outside was grey despair. Indeed, they were being smothered by a veil of overcast that seemed to have taken over the heavens permanently. It was mid-morning and yet the level of light was that of dusk, so that the street lanterns had to be re-lit to burn in the daytime. Meanwhile Letheburg was being inundated with the white powder, piling on the rooftops and streets. In just a couple of hours it was ankle-deep, and lord knows how bad it would get by evening. By then, it would also be too late for their citywide defense of the walls, as the struggling black-smoke fires that were at present still burning, sputtered into nothing.

For the moment, the exhausted garrison soldiers continued to trudge back and forth on their shifts to hold down the defense of the city. She could see them as dots of dark cobalt blue in the Lethe Square below. Wheeled carts were moving along with difficulty, sinking deep and getting stuck in the icy ruts, and in most cases replaced with freight sleds to glide over the fresh powder. Torches flickered with weak golden light, struggling to stay lit in the snowfall.
 . . .

Queen Lucia looked away, glancing at King Roland as he was occupied with a large map of the city, spread out on the desk, and arguing with several advisors. Whatever futile strategic nonsense they were considering or planning, she was certain, would do little good now.

Instead, Queen Lucia counted down the minutes until Grial got here. . . . All their hopes lay with Grial, she knew on some odd instinctive level. She would arrive and
she
would say or do or reveal something useful, even if at first the King always protested and frowned at her “devil suggestions.”

And speaking of the she-devil—a liveried servant announced Grial’s arrival, in what seemed to be an impossibly short amount of time elapsed since the courier had been sent through the snow to fetch her.

The King grunted and frowned, granting his reluctant “audience,” while the Queen immediately stood up from her seat with hopeful excitement.

Grial entered unceremoniously right after the servant, and the general babble of voices in the room quieted while all the distinguished military advisors stared at her, many over their noses or through the lenses of their pince-nez.

“Your Majesties!” Grial exclaimed, nodding with her head once to each Monarch in the remotest kind of courtesy possible, and put her hands together, rubbing her palms on her filthy apron that normally made His Majesty queasy. “Now, how may I be of service?”

“Grial!” Queen Lucia smiled and came a few steps forward, but then relented, seeing her husband’s stern glare.

“Mistress Grial, hmm, well—yes, I realize this is frankly ludicrous, to expect this of you, but I am being told you might have some
unusual
means of assisting our city defense.” The King coughed to clear his throat and spoke the words reluctantly, setting down the map markers in the form of tiny tin soldiers. He then folded his arms and looked at her.

“Unusual means, Your Majesty?” Was it only a trick of the light, but Grial’s black eyes seemed particularly dark and bottomless today, despite her smile. The nature of the expression in those eyes made the King want to shudder.

But Roland Osenni got himself under control and got to the point. “Unusual, yes,” he said. “As in, sorcery.
Witchcraft
. The thing that you do, woman! Don’t make me come out and say it!”

“Well, Majesty, apparently you did just say it, and so naturally I must respond.” Grial looked around the chamber, from the King to the Queen to all the advisors, and then she continued, in a bright ringing voice. “Here is the thing, about sorcery and witchcraft. It’s all about using one’s true will and desire and the energy at hand to make something happen. Something very
powerful
.”

“Go on,” the King said.

“Here we have Letheburg. An entire city surrounded by sturdy and tall walls of stone. And we have a great big army of thoroughly nasty dead men camped outside our walls, trying to get inside.”

“Yes, yes, we already know all this!”

“So what we must do,” Grial said, “is make the walls impossible for the enemy to breach or scale—using the will and the power at hand.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it—whatever it is you’ve just said!” said the King. “Now, proceed to make yourself useful, and do it!”

“Do what, Your Majesty?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Grial, do your infernal sorcery!”

Queen Lucia clutched her hands together, and then added, “My dear, you really ought to ask her gently, I dare say, and maybe use the word ‘please’—”

In response suddenly Grial cackled. Her raucous laughter came ringing through the chamber, and lasted at least long enough to make King Roland want to cover his ears and gouge her eyes out, or maybe gouge his own eyes out—or exactly ten breaths. “Oh, oh, oh dear!” Grial said at last. “My dear Majesty, how you do make me chortle so! Begging pardon, of course, but surely you don’t expect
me
to do any of this sorcery on behalf of Letheburg?”

“What?” said he, frowning once more. “What now?”

“Why, Your Majesty, this kind of magic may only be performed by the one who is in charge. The one who is ultimately
responsible
for Letheburg, the guardian or the caretaker, the steward or the lord, the ultimate ruling authority. In other words, Majesty, someone such as Yourself.”

The King glared at her. “What are you saying? I thought you were already performing some kind of binding spell up on the parapets every night! I am told this with great assurances of certainty! Or are my men addled?”

“Goodness, I am merely spreading good cheer up there!” Grial put her hands on her hips, shook her head, and cast her gaze about the room. “Really, now, gentlemen! Did you honestly think I was doing sorcery when I was supplying the good soldiers with my famous apple pies? Why, the girls and I spend every day covered in flour, baking and rolling the dough—”

“Enough!” the King roared. “I knew this was a terrible and foolish mistake calling you here. There is no such thing as sorcery, and all of this has been for nothing—”

“Ah, but I wouldn’t say so, Your Majesty, not quite for nothing!” Grial stopped moving and froze, and her gaze upon him was like the weight of an invisible hand holding him down. “There is indeed sorcery and magic, and yes, wonder and
power
in this world . . .” she said softly.

They heard her utter the words, and everyone present felt each tiny hair rise along their arms, together with a chill. The room had grown as silent as the grave.

“The one who rules this city must go up on the battlements. This person must walk the entirety of the walls in a great circle, beginning and ending in the same spot, then proceed to stand up there, holding two torches raised up to the heavens, and look out beyond the walls to face the enemy. This individual must stand thus, one whole day and one whole night, and never waver, using all the will and power in their heart to create the true wall of safety and protection around Letheburg. After that, no one will be able to breach the city, for as long as the true ruler remains within the walls, or simply wills it to be so.”

When Grial finished speaking, the abysmal silence continued. King Roland stood, plunged in thought, and a deep frown was crippling his features.

“So you’re saying I must go up there, and stand with torches a whole day and night while some kind of magic happens, and all the while I get shot at by muskets and arrows and heaven knows what other hellfire that they’re sending our way?” the King said eventually.

“Why, yes, Your Majesty. But it’s not all that different from what the good soldiers are already enduring up there as they aim and fire and strike and chop and throw down the corpses back into the fire below, while keeping themselves safe as best they can. At least all you would have to do is merely stand there and look out, after taking a nice leisurely walk around the entirety of the walls.”

“Damnation!” King Roland burst out. “Is there no other way?”

“Not really, I am afraid not, Your Majesty.”