She growled her frustration. “I don’t have time for this nonsense.” A week of hard travel, the terror of finding Cinnia injured or dead, and the strange whip and pull of a magic spell that instantly transported her and her horse hundreds of miles to halt in this barren spot stunned and disoriented, had left her short on patience and long on temper. Hugging the edge of the world in a snowstorm while shouting herself hoarse didn’t improve her mood.
She dismounted and led the horse away from the drop-off to the stand of trees marking the forest behind her. A rush of hot air warmed her neck as her mount whuffled at their roaming about in the dark and the cold instead of sheltering in a comfortable stable. Louvaen stroked his nose and tied his reins to the low branch of a leafless birch. “You’re a patient lad, Plowfoot. We’ll be out of the wind soon enough.” She lifted the flap of a saddle pack and reached inside. The flintlock she’d leveled on Jimenin a week earlier rested heavy in her palm. Far better if she’d brought both pistols, especially traveling alone, but Louvaen refused to leave her father unarmed while Jimenin plotted against him. At least she had two spare rounds of shot in the pouch. She’d waste the one in the pistol getting the castle’s attention, use the second to blow a hole through Gavin de Lovet if he’d hurt Cinnia and keep the third for the journey home.
Snow fell harder, shrouding the hood of her cloak and covering her tracks as fast as she made them on her return trip to the lip of the crevasse. The empty expanse between her and the fortress, along with the pistol’s short range, ensured her shot would fall harmlessly into the blackness below, but the noise she’d make would damn well signal her arrival. She full-cocked the pistol, aimed at the base of the stronghold and pulled the trigger. A corona of bright powder flash blinded her as the pistol fired a boom that thundered across the ravine. Temporarily blinded by the flash and deafened by the discharge, Louvaen closed her eyes and retreated from her precarious spot. Behind her Plowfoot whinnied in panic, yanking on the reins that tethered him to the quivering birch. He settled under her touch and the soothing cadence of her voice. “Easy, my lad. Nothing to be done for it.” She slipped the pistol back into the pouch, promising herself she’d remember to reload.
Ears still ringing, she watched as every window on the fortress’s first floor lit with golden light. A silhouette, only slightly darker than the descending night and obscured by falling snow, appeared on the battlements near the gate. Louvaen marched back to the place where she’d fired her shot and waved. “Lower the bridge, you lackwit!” Whoever lurked up there might not have heard her inside, but Mercer Hallis had often said his eldest child possessed a powerful set of lungs when she was angered, and Louvaen suspected the solitary watcher had heard her just fine, even above the singing wind.
The groan and squeal of a turning windlass sounded, along with the rattle of chains as the drawbridge slowly parted from the gate and stretched across the breach. She untied Plowfoot’s reins from the tree but didn’t remount. Reason told her if the inhabitants in the fortress had wanted to kill her, they would have already put a half dozen arrows in her. Still, she felt better walking next to the big draft horse, partially shielded by his bulk, instead of high and exposed in the saddle.
Geysers of snow erupted as the bridge landed on her side of the crevasse with a dull thud. Louvaen hesitated at the edge and peered downward. The wind blew harder, a restless spirit whirling and whipping in blasts strong enough to push her straight off the expanse of wood and down into the gorge. She didn’t fear heights; she did fear falling to her death, and it was a long way to the bottom. Her heart pummeled her breastbone. She’d grown used to that particular rhythm since this trip started. Fear for Cinnia and now for herself. She’d be gray-haired before this was over.
The dark figure watching from the battlements never moved except for the flap of a cloak. Louvaen frowned. She’d get no help from that quarter. She positioned herself leeside to the horse. It would take far more than a few angry gusts to push Plowfoot off anything. Just to be safe, she looped an arm through the stirrup and held the reins loosely in one hand. They started a slow walk across the bridge, Louvaen counting each clop of Plowfoot’s hooves to distract herself from the temptation to gaze over the edge and into the trench. Wood planks thrummed beneath her feet, supplicant to the wind’s keening dirge.
They made it across in minutes that felt like decades. Louvaen’s hands were frozen in her gloves, her lips cracked and stinging. An iron portcullis rose to allow her entry, winched upward by an unseen hand. The tone of Plowfoot’s clops changed, signaling the transition from wood planks to stone pavers. They passed through a narrow barbican pockmarked with murder holes. She’d read of these things. Defensive measures used during attack and siege. Louvaen hunched her shoulders. The likelihood someone lurked above her with a pot of boiling pitch or hot sand was slim, but the idea still made her twitch and tug a little harder on the horse’s reins to hurry him out of the funneled passage.
Woman and horse halted in a deserted bailey. Sheltered by the castle’s towering bulk and the high curtain wall, the ward lay protected from the scream and bite of the wind. Snow fell in lazy veils to shroud the buildings hugging the perimeter. She made out a stable, forge, and the spavined remains of an abandoned bakery. More of the golden light seeped from shuttered windows, revealing the startling sight of rose vines in full bloom clinging to a garden wall and climbing the height of the tower keep.
She’d never seen the like, especially in the heart of winter. In the fey light of dusk, blossoms spilled down the keep wall in a crimson river to stain drifts of pristine snow. Louvaen had the unpleasant notion she gazed upon a wound in the castle’s stone façade from which poured living blood. She paused and stared harder at the flowers. Either she was more tired than she thought and her eyes were playing tricks or the vines moved. Twisting and eeling over themselves in an ever-shifting thorny carpet, they squirmed over the ground. Louvaen backed up against Plowfoot as the flowers stretched their petal faces towards her and hissed.
Plowfoot’s ears flattened against his head at the sound. He shied away from the roses, Louvaen stuck to his side.
More sorcery. Ketach Tor drowned in the stuff. What crazed person enchanted roses to slither and hiss? She kept a wary eye on the plants and put more distance between them. At that moment she’d hand over her last coin if it bought her a rake and a torch.
She nearly leapt out of her shoes when the castle doors opened on a rusted shriek. Light poured from the entrance and across the steps. A familiar shape, cloaked and hooded, raced toward her. A lifetime of habit ruled Louvaen, and she held up a staying hand. “Cinnia! Stop running before you fall and break your neck!”
Her command went unheeded. Cinnia launched herself into her sister’s arms with a sob, knocking them both against an affronted Plowfoot. “Lou! Oh, thank gods, you made it safely!”
Despite the fact she wanted to wring Cinnia’s neck for scaring the life out of her and their father, she hugged her back hard enough to make her squeak. A gloved finger caressed the line of Cinnia’s nose. “Are you well?”
The girl grinned, her eyes bright in the shadow of her hood. “Yes, very well!” She kissed Louvaen’s hand. “But you’re an icicle! Let’s get you inside and by the fire. Someone will see to Plowfoot.” She peered past Louvaen’s shoulder, and dread replaced her smile. “Where’s Papa?”
Louvaen gave her arm a reassuring pat. “Not in a cell. He came down with a cold. I left him in Dame Niamh’s care.”
“She’s always liked Papa. She’ll treat him well.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will.” Their attractive widowed neighbor had been casting lascivious smiles at Mercer Hallis for years, ever since Cinnia’s mother died. Louvaen didn’t doubt the woman would coddle her father and try to seduce him into her bed. She kept that bit of conjecture to herself.
She let Cinnia lead her by the hand up the castle steps. Behind her, a cloaked figure led Plowfoot toward the stable. The mysterious watcher on the battlements had disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” Cinnia tugged on her arm. “He’ll be fine. The stable is warm, and he’ll have a stall with oats and fresh water.”
“There was someone on the battlements when the drawbridge lowered. Was that de Sauveterre?”
“No. The family’s sorcerer, Ambrose.”
Louvaen halted in the snowfall and dropped Cinnia’s arm. “They keep a magician in their household?” That explained why the property stank of magic.
Cinnia rolled her eyes and clutched her elbow. “He’s a decent sort. Reserved but kind to me since I’ve been here. You’ll meet him tonight.” She shook Louvaen’s arm in warning. “Be civil, Lou. If you’ll remember, it was magic that led you to Ketach Tor.”
“Aye and I’d not have to resort to the stuff if you’d just stayed home!” She yelped and slapped Cinnia’s hand when the girl pinched her.
“I’m not discussing this in a snow storm while there’s shelter and a fire waiting for us. We can fight this out over a cup of ale. Now come with me.” She all but dragged Louvaen through the doors.
They entered a large hall brightened by a mix of torches, candles and a lit hearth opposite the entry. Shadows cast by the dancing flames cavorted across lime-plastered walls and fled toward a ceiling supported by a ribcage of age-blackened timbers that reminded Louvaen of a ship’s hull flipped upside down. The twinkle of steel caught her eye, and she half turned to view one wall covered in an array of weapons—swords, axes, glaives and spears. Shields lined an adjacent wall, interspersed by tapestries depicting both hunting and battle scenes from an age long passed. Rushes crackled underfoot as she followed Cinnia to the fire, and Louvaen caught a whiff of dust and rosemary.
Waves of welcoming heat billowed toward her. The hall was antiquated but not neglected. The hearth was modern and sent smoke up an unseen flue instead of directly into the chamber. The snow on Louvaen’s cloak melted, turning it and her into a sodden mess. She shrugged it off her shoulders and held the dripping garment in an outstretched arm with a grimace. “Where can I put this?”
“I’ll take it, mistress.”
