Chapter 33
Somehow, I think it will be the blink of an eye, a simple thing to be in this beautiful bower one moment, returned to the green of Berhta’s Forge the next.
No. The ground opens beneath my feet, and I go down as surely as falling off a cliff.
At some point the descent stops and I’m jerked sideways, shifting horizontally, quickly, through dirt and darkness, watching roots and rocks, earthworms and buried bones, pockets of water and fire as I go, terribly fast, terrifyingly strange.
When I’m travelling vertically again – I think I’m going up, gods, I hope it’s up – I hurtle, hurtle, hurtle until I finally pop out of the earth as if being born.
Dirt on my skin, some in my mouth, sticks in my hair, brilliant red beetles on my skirts like decorations, but at least I’d dried out in the bower so it’s not all mud.
I jump, spitting and shaking myself so the majority of detritus and bugs falls away.
Only then does it occur to me to look around.
I’m in the bridewell, down in its cellar and thankfully not in one of the cells. Clever green woman.
A single lantern throws soft light over the empty cells and the one with an occupant. Cool down here but still warmer than outside. Warmer than the river.
It doesn’t smell any better than when I was last here, and the ragged bundle in a corner doesn’t appear to be moving. Heart in mouth, I whisper, ‘Fenna?’
Nothing. I say a little more loudly, clinging to the bars: ‘Fenna?’
The jerking of someone startled awake, pulled from the refuge of sleep.
‘Who is it?’ She’s at least still got the wit to keep her voice low.
‘It’s Mehrab.’
‘Mehrab’s dead. The boy said they drowned her,’ she mutters. ‘Are you her ghost, come to haunt me?’
‘I’d like to think I’d have better things to do, were I a ghost. Now, move your arse if you want to get out of here.’
Slowly, she rolls up to sitting, peering at me through the gloom.
‘Can you walk?’ Oh. The key.
She climbs to her feet, slowly and stiffly; the hours – days? – I’ve been away have given her time to heal properly and she limps to the bars, grasps my hand tightly. ‘See? Very real, very solid.’
‘How?’ she asks, eyes very round.
‘More lives than a cat, me.’ I don’t quite feel like explaining at this very moment that I did not in fact survive. I’d prefer to simply get us both out of here. ‘Do you know if anyone’s here? Upstairs? I’m assuming that’s where the key is likely to be…’
‘I think just the lad?’
‘Which one?’ I’m trying to be patient.
‘Kian? He brought me that.’ She nods towards the bowl of half-finished gruel and what smells like beer on the floor of the cell. There’s a bruise on her left cheek, dried blood around her nostrils.
‘Did they question you again?’
She nods. ‘Their hearts really weren’t in it, though. They’d drowned you, seemed like they’d had their fill of violence for the night.’
‘They didn’t chain you again?’
‘That was the lad. Made me promise not to tell – as if! He was crying a lot.’
Whatever’s made Kian Arnold have a change of heart won’t be enough to stop me throttling him. I’m half tempted to experiment with deconstructing him. Perhaps his balls still hurt. ‘Just him upstairs, then?’
‘I think so. The others are likely at the inn, celebrating their great victory.’ She grins. ‘May they choke.’
‘Agreed. But first things first. Wait here.’
‘Where else am I going to go?’ She raises her brows.
‘Good point.’
I creep slowly up the stairs towards the door at the top, hoping for all I’m worth that it’s not locked.
Thinking hard, I try to recall the layout of the little entry room where whoever’s on duty sits and waits until relieved by the next sawyer-come-jailer.
A desk. A chair. A cupboard for storage, a row of hooks for hanging coats and cloaks and hats – and a smaller one for keys.
I try the doorhandle – unlocked! Now to pray that the hinges don’t creak.
My luck holds, and I’m able to peek into the room.
There’s Kian Arnold, asleep in the chair, boots on the desk, head thrown back, snoring lightly.
And there’s my cloak hung on those hooks, and my knife and tinderbox and the spare key on the shelf beside it, and on the smaller rack? Smaller keys, for the cells.
I wrestle with my conscience, think seriously about putting my knife to the lad’s throat and drawing it across – then I think about his mother and how she will feel.
Lutetia is kind and I’d not willingly hurt her.
So I fasten my cloak, put my reclaimed possessions into my pockets and I’m reaching for the cell keys when I hear a whimper behind me. I turn slowly.
Kian Arnold’s white as a sheet, bottom lip trembling, swollen, red-rimmed eyes filling with tears. His voice quivers. ‘Are you here to kill me, ghost?’
This time I’m tempted to play the spectre, but I resist. ‘Not a ghost. I’m here to save my friend.’
‘You died. I watched. I saw. I was the only villager to do so, and I’ve had to keep telling them, all night and all day. Had to tell my mother and she asked how could I? How could I stand by?’
‘Surely they all knew. They told the god-hounds I was a witch, the crimes I’d committed.’
He shakes his head. ‘They… everyone answered questions, but we didn’t accuse you of anything, Mistress Mehrab. You must believe that. No one wanted you murdered. I didn’t want you murdered, just wanted you… frightened. That’s all. We didn’t… didn’t know how the god-brothers would…’
‘That’s what god-brothers do, Kian.’ My desire to kill him has cooled. ‘Where are they?’
‘At the Fox that’ll give them pause as long as Kian keeps his mouth shut.
May it make them soil their holy robes. I’m not done with them.
Fenna grabs my hand again and whispers urgently, ‘Don’t let me be caught again. Kill me before that happens.’
‘If there’s no other choice, certainly, but don’t give up so easily. It shows a lack of faith in me when I’m already back from the dead.’
Rather than take Fenna out the front door – too brazen even for me – we use the ladder to exit, and sneak into the woods.
She’s weak from lack of decent food and ill-treatment, but she can move under her own steam; I, on the other hand, am having one of those rare surges of energy when I think I can do anything.
Or perhaps that’s simply the resurrection.
Fenna’s canny enough not to try and have a conversation, just follows me as I pick my way towards the smithy and Faolan’s horses.
With any luck, they’re all still saddled and ready to go, but that might be wishful thinking.
Surely he’s found them today, put them back in their stalls.
The horses will give us a better chance of getting home unscathed, or at least more quickly than on foot.
I’m delusional, I suspect, if I think it’ll be easy to outpace a horse made of bone and ill-will and wish-hounds that travel on the night air, but a woman must believe in miracles if she’s to survive this world.
And, at the moment, escaping the god-hounds is more imperative than avoiding the huntsman.
We’re almost across the open ground between the tree line and the smithy, so very close but not close enough, when the moon comes out from behind the clouds and the doors of the inn across the marketplace open and all five god-hounds come staggering out, stumbling down the steps.
For a moment, I think my cloak might save us – Fenna’s has been lost somewhere along her journey as a captive – and perhaps for a second, two, three, it might.
But Fenna sees the god-brothers and all her fear bubbles up, comes out as a half-scream that she tries too late to swallow down.
And we’ve got their attention.
They don’t start running towards us, however, not immediately because, I can only assume, I’m a ghost and terrifying. Part of me is delighted to have the chance to stick a knife in at least one if not all of them, and I hear my blood beginning to thud, thud, thud in my ears.
Then I realise it’s not my blood, but the sound of hoofbeats, accompanied by an unearthly baying. I push Fenna towards the smithy, get her in the stables, and pause only long enough to see the shadow half on his skeletal steed, and the wish-hounds bounding towards the now-shrieking god-brothers.
In the stables, Rosie remains, whickering softly to greet me, and the two geldings, still saddled.
I don’t question it, just urge Fenna onto Rosie, then grab the reins of all three mounts and lead them back out into the night, into the trees, praying the huntsman is too busy toying with the god-brothers to notice us. The screams seem to support my hopes.
Once we’re well hidden, I mount up and kick the gelding into a gallop. Rosie follows as does the other horse and we plunge away into the darkness.
* * *
The moon appears at random intervals, peeking from behind clouds when we need her most – perhaps to make up for her recent betrayal.
The forest itself moves to allow our passage and I think the green woman must be looking out for me in her own way.
I hope it won’t cost her, that the shadow half won’t sense her power, won’t be able to track her to the bower as a result. That makes my task all the more urgent.
I don’t know how long the huntsman and his pets will take with the god-hounds, whether they’ll die quickly or slowly.
I can’t help but hope slowly, especially Father Loic.
He’ll never get his hands on Rhea, never drag her back to Lodellan to be presented to its archbishop and an ecclesiastical court. For that I’m grateful.
Eventually I slow the geldings to a walk and Fenna moves Rosie up beside me while we’re on a broader path.
All the horses are lathered with sweat and I feel we’ve used all our luck in not having one of them stumble into a rabbit or fox hole.
Another miracle. A time of miracles, this day and the last, and such things can cease at any moment.
Fenna asks: ‘Did you see that thing? All of those things? Am I mad?’
‘Yes. And no, not mad.’
‘They told me they’d drowned you.’ She clears her throat. ‘Did they?’
‘Yes. And I’ll be delighted to tell you more about it all when we’re safely home, Fenna. My advice is to keep an ear out for pursuit.’
‘You need to know what I heard, after they… drowned you. The Peppergill man was shouting at them – a lot of folk were shouting about what had been done. None of them were happy. They didn’t, as far as I can tell, let anyone know what they planned.
Only that idiot boy and he’s all regret now.
’ She shakes her head. ‘That little shit Loic told Master Peppergill that witches are patient, they play a long game. Like all cancerous growths they lie in wait, hibernate for a long time before doing ill to their host. That you’d show your true colours eventually and he was doing the village a kindness by destroying you sooner rather than later.
But, Mehrab, you need to know that you have friends in that village. ’
I grunt.
The shadow half terrifies me, but this evening’s work has taken care of one problem at least. The god-hounds will not report back to Lodellan, and I doubt anyone will be looking for them.
Nobodies, embarrassments to the church, sent on the road to get them out of the way.
They’ll not be missed by their superiors or the world in general.
‘What happens next?’ asks Fenna.
‘Back to the cottage, rest a few days before we travel now that the god-brothers are no longer likely to try and burn us. Then southwest, I think, towards one of the bigger harbours, take ship somewhere. Away from here. Somewhere Rhea’s baby can grow safely.
’ But what if that child, so linked to this land, this forest, can’t thrive elsewhere?
Or do we stay? Is it safe? What are the odds of other god-hounds following?
Am I being overly cautious, uprooting us all?
For the moment, I have enough problems to contend with.
‘Rhea’s baby?’
‘Oh. Oh, you couldn’t have known. Yes, a little girl.
Something else to discuss once we’ve eaten, bathed, made plans.
’ How will I tell them about the green woman?
The mari-morgan? Will I tell them at all?
Later. Later. A decision for later. I’m starving and so very tired.
Not so long ago dead. And in those days of rest, I must work out what to do about the huntsman and his wish-hounds, about the two children who lie in a deathly slumber in a barrow in the depths of the forest.
‘Tomorrow, Fenna, all the answers tomorrow. I need to rest, as do you. We’ll be safe within the bounds of the holding for a few days at least,’ I say as we round the bend where the cottage lies. A few days’ rest. I hope.
‘But where is your holding? Your cottage? I thought…’
‘Shrouded. Tomorrow, Fenna, tomorrow, I’m done with questions.’
And behind us, I hear the thud of hoofbeats again.
It makes my heart hammer, but there are the two elms and I urge the geldings at the space between them, tug at Rosie’s rein so she keeps up.
The sudden baying of the wish-hounds is horribly loud – then we’re through the veil, over the ward-line and the next sound to be heard is whimpers from the wish-hounds as they try to pull up in time before the enchanted boundary, and the scream of frustration coming from their master.
I wheel the horses about, and smile at the sight of the cringing hounds and the rearing horse and its raging rider. Safe for now. Safe for now. The huntsman takes off into the trees, the dogs trailing behind. I turn back and dismount, help Fenna down.
In front of us: the cottage, lights ablaze, the door thrown open and Rhea and Tieve rushing out, shouting my name.