Hilde #4
Hilde had been too stunned by his crudeness to defend herself.
And if she had hoped that Thorgoode might say something—anything—she had been disappointed.
He had remained silent. It had been almost fifteen years since that meeting, and sometimes she wondered if perhaps the true reason Thorgoode had so deeply dedicated himself to running his family’s oldest but most remote estate was that it afforded him the opportunity to largely avoid his brother.
Now he would avoid him for eternity, but Hilde had no such luxury.
The Harrier was leaning against the giant stone mantel in the Hall, contemplating one of the murals she had painted along the inner wall with a scowl, his spiced ale untouched on the table behind him.
He looked disarmingly like Thorgoode. They were both massive, square-jawed men, muscled and broad-shouldered like giants in a fireside tale, with tawny hair that hung down around their shoulders.
The only notable difference was that the Harrier had a very prominent mustache, which he kept greased upward into two curving points, as enlisted men were not permitted to have any hair below their lips while in uniform.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. No matter how much they resembled each other, the Harrier was nothing like her husband.
Also in attendance, lurking by the door, was his aide-of-camp, Brumdorf, who followed the Harrier about like an especially large and ominous shadow.
She suspected he had been chosen for the position entirely because he was big enough to lift an entire person with one hand, like a farm wife picking up a chicken.
He possessed a miniature version of the Harrier’s mustache, comically small on his very large face.
She expected that the Harrier wouldn’t tolerate anyone having a larger mustache than his.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace. I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” she said as she entered.
“Finally,” he said, turning toward her. He took in her appearance, disdain evident on his face.
“I thought perhaps you were dressing to meet me, but I can see that wasn’t the holdup.
Isn’t that the ghastly dress you wore to Germain’s funeral?
Really, if Thorgoode is determined to pass you off as a lady, he should at least dress you for the part.
Now, what’s this nonsense your footman told me about Thorgoode being in Neck? I need to speak with him.”
Well, at least he had come expecting to find Thorgoode, which meant he didn’t know anything was amiss. Yet. Bless Ed for believing and repeating the lie of his whereabouts. “My footman’s report was correct. My husband is away tending to business.”
“Absurd. I would have had word if he’d gone to Neck.”
“You haven’t come from Neck yourself, Your Grace?”
“No, I was at Engelbrooke.”
Engelbrooke was his main estate. That was surprising. Generally, if the Harrier wasn’t in Neck, he was at the front. But it was a mercy regardless. If he hadn’t been in Neck himself, he might believe that Thorgoode was there.
“He’s very occupied with his business. He mentioned to me that he might not have time to call on family or friends.”
“What business?”
“I wouldn’t know, Your Grace.”
“Oh, come now, we both know you have your sticky fingers in all his pies.”
A shiver ran up her back. That phrase was clearly meant to imply that she was a Charmer, but thankfully only in a facetious, generally insulting sort of way.
He had no idea she actually had a Charm.
No one knew that, aside from Han, and if he had somehow known, then no amount of Thorgoode’s fondness would have saved her from his ire.
They might not execute Charmers anymore in Eldmere, but on the rare occasion you did hear about one turning up, nothing good ever happened to them.
They ended up dead in mysterious bar brawls where no one else got a scratch, or got trampled by mules who were otherwise very well behaved, or tumbled down very inconveniently placed wells…
or, at the very least, they disappeared, and Hilde could only hope they found a way to vanish into some other life, in which they could keep their secret safer.
Better not let him see that he’d made her flinch.
“If I did, I think it unwise for a wife to tell her husband’s business to others without his leave.
Even to family, Your Grace,” she said, trying to sound firm and unshaken.
If he was annoyed with her for not sharing the details of Thorgoode’s business, he was less likely to question the reality of that business. Or so she hoped.
He studied her flatly, and she would have sworn he was weighing the benefits of making her talk against the bother that doing so would cause with Thorgoode.
“It matters only that he isn’t here, as I wished to speak with him,” he finally said, apparently having decided that she was not worth the trouble.
“Most of our business will keep, but I suppose you will have to do for the most pressing matter.”
“Me?” she squeaked before she could stop herself.
“Yes. You know the estate to the east of here? It’s called Merewyth.”
“Isn’t it abandoned?” She knew it was, aside from the groundskeeper, Mr. Nimsby, who lurked around and sometimes played cards with Han.
He let them graze sheep in the valley by the lake in exchange for a small cut of the wool profits, which she expected never made the journey from Nimsby’s pockets to those of Merewyth’s owner—whoever that might be at this juncture. Which was just fine by her.
“Yes, well, that’s the thing. I want you to see whether it stays abandoned.”
Whatever was he up to?
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“There’s a man. Elmwood.” He spat out the name like it was a curse. Whoever he was, the Harrier disliked him. More than he disliked Hilde, which was saying something.
That seemed a point in this Elmwood’s favor.
“I don’t know him, Your Grace” was all she said.
“Of course you don’t!” he snapped at her.
“Lord Erol Elmwood was born a useless wastrel and a poor excuse for a member of the aristocracy. He bought a commission in the cavalry to put his father’s nose out of joint, then proceeded to make himself my problem for several years.
He acted as an insubordinate rapscallion at every turn and should have been court-martialed after his first week in service.
” All of that was definitely a point in his favor, as far as Hilde was concerned.
“But you see,” the Harrier continued, leaning toward her in an almost gleeful, conspiratorial manner that made her skin crawl, “he is finally getting his just deserts. Elmwood has a Charm, which I always suspected; anyone that depraved is bound to have one. It’s an especially nasty Charm, too. Would you like to guess what it is?”
“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea,” she managed to say.
The Harrier leaned back, as if he were about to make a grand pronouncement.
“He can resurrect the dead.”
A Charm for resurrection? Hilde had never heard of anything like it, outside of legends. Resurrection was the stuff of old gods and fireside tales and miracles worked by Myran saints. You might as well say that someone had a Charm for truth-telling, or curing all disease, or flying like a bird.
“He was disgraced and discharged, stripped of his estate and holdings, and banished,” the Harrier continued, his voice bright with malicious joy.
He didn’t merely dislike this Elmwood person; he hated him.
“They should have executed him, if you ask me. Can’t risk having a nasty Charm like that out in the world. ”
The words This isn’t Relance, Your Grace were at the tip of her tongue, but fear fizzled them out before she spoke them.
Relance was notoriously ruthless about Charms, which they saw as religious heresy.
As a result, Relance had even fewer remaining Charmers than Eldmere.
But it seemed deeply unwise to suggest to the Harrier that his opinions were aligned with those of his sworn enemies.
He surprised her by acknowledging it himself.
“But of course the king can’t be seen to be pandering to Relancian standards.
Truly, it’s a pity Elmwood wasn’t captured by the Relancians,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.
“It would have been a favor to us all if they’d gotten their hands on him and built him a pyre.
They may be a bunch of ignorant swine, but they do have the correct idea about what to do with Charmers.
Of course it will all come right yet, once his banishment is carried out and they dump him over the border.
I am rather sorry I won’t be able to attend. ”
“What is any of this to do with Merewyth, Your Grace?” she asked, hoping to steer him away from rhapsodizing about the joys of public executions, which she knew all too well he was unsettlingly fond of.
“As I was saying,” he said, sneering at her, “Merewyth is Elmwood’s pokiest scrap of land. Apparently, the court seems to have forgotten about it when they stripped him of everything else.”
“That is quite an oversight.”
“Yes, well, you should never send a lawyer to do a real man’s work. Now, pay close attention. I want you to keep an eye on Merewyth. Elmwood is not in residence now, but if he turns up, I want you to write me immediately. Do you think you can manage that?”
She weighed her response carefully. She could tell by the way he spat out his request that it pained him to ask her for anything.
It would, of course, be prudent to immediately agree and make herself his eager spy.
He’d be less likely to suspect her of plotting against him if they were conspirators in this new matter, and it would likely hasten his departure from Croftholde and allow her more time to sort out what to do about Thorgoode.
Still, the idea of agreeing to help him stuck in her craw.
Especially when it required turning in someone else with a Charm to face punishment for using it.
A Charm should be no different from any other characteristic a person possessed, and she deeply resented the fact that it had to be kept secret and was reviled instead of celebrated for the useful thing it often was.
She wondered what sort of relationship this Elmwood had with his Charm, given that he had revealed it in what seemed to have been a very public way.
She hadn’t heard of anyone Charming so openly in her lifetime.
Perhaps he shared her secret conviction that there was no inherent crime in using something that was part of you.
Regardless of how he saw his Charm, it seemed that he was not opposed to using it.
At this thought, an idea took shape.
It looked breathtakingly like a new plan.
“Well?” said the Harrier, impatient.
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’d be happy to write to you if this Lord Elmwood comes to Merewyth.”
The Harrier seemed surprised. Perhaps he had not expected her to comply so readily.
“Right. Good. Well, I shan’t stay for dinner.” He snapped his fingers and Brumdorf stepped forward. “No one here worth conversing with, with Thorgoode away.”
The insult held no sting whatsoever, relieved as she was by the prospect of him leaving promptly and without asking any more questions about Thorgoode’s whereabouts.
She smiled at him again—and this time, it was entirely genuine. It seemed to make him uncomfortable.
“I’ll take my leave,” he said. “Your groom insisted on taking my horse off someplace, so I hope that’s not going to hold me up. She was quite rude to me. I suggest taking her in hand.”
“I will speak to her myself. My apologies, Your Grace,” said Hilde, who had no intention of correcting him and telling him Han was Croftholde’s steward, not its groom, and her sister to boot.
As he galloped off, she felt more hopeful than she had in weeks.
A Charmer who could raise the dead, on her very doorstep and in a precarious position.
All she could do was wait and hope that he did indeed flee to Merewyth.