We’re going to need more horses.
***
I try to time it carefully. My desire to not risk being caught by the wild hunt and its master, who move by night, warring withanother desire not to sneak around Berhta’s Forge in broad daylight where god-hounds wait. It’s still dark when I venture forth, but I’m hopeful that I’ve chosen an hour when huntsman and wish-hounds are coursing back across the forest to the shelter of the barrow, and the residents of the village are still in their warm beds. I have to risk the pre-dawn dark if I’m going to find some shadows to hide in while I do what I need to.
The forest paths are quiet and deserted, terribly cold. Soon there’ll be snow to either cover our tracks or give away our direction. Rosie picks our way through the trees, until we can cross the short distance between the woods and the smithy. There’s no light of the forge glowing in the last morning darkness but it’s very early and no one would appreciate the sound of hammer on metal ringing out to wake them. It’s all I can do not to creep into the house, into Faolan’s bed, tell him I’m going… but if I do that he’ll argue, robbing me of precious minutes. If someone tells the god-hounds that he’s connected to me there’s no telling what will happen; though I cannot imagine him betraying me, who can say what one will divulge under torture? And this village – what if these god-hounds get a foothold? If they petition the Archbishop of Lodellan to build a church here, to let iron bells ring through this ancient place. What will it become?
He was absent from my life for so long… I can live with that again. It will not kill me. I’ll send him a letter later from who-knows-where. Perhaps. I remind myself of the years alone, no matter that he’s apologised. So, no. I won’t risk others for the sake of him.
I lead Rosie into the stables to wait in the warmth for myreturn. None of the mares are pregnant now, but their colts are by their sides. Sorrel, Birch and Blister. They whicker gently at the sight of us. There are three geldings and two other mares, older and calmer. Swiftly, I saddle two of the geldings, both dark mahogany – one for Rhea, one for Fenna. Eadig will be the main packhorse and Fyren will bear the lightest of loads; I won’t leave him behind. Still haven’t decided what to do about the livestock, but one catastrophe at a time. A cart will be too slow and unwieldy when we go off the paths as we’ll no doubt need to, so we’ll be travelling as light as possible. Tieve will be passed around between us or perhaps she’s light enough for Fyren; if she wishes to come with us, of course. I can’t just assume she’ll happily leave her family.
Faolan will curse me for another theft, so I hang a purse of gold on one of the hooks where the spare bridles wait.
I kiss Rosie on the forehead, bid her wait for me, then sneak out into the grey morning. Both cloak and boots have been enspelled for quiet movement, but these are little spells meant to help make you less obvious, not perfectly undetectable – that requires bigger spells, bigger magic, a larger blood tithe and ingredients that aren’t ones a decent witch will easily or willingly use.
I duck between houses and places of business, sticking to the shadows where and when I can; though still dark it’s the paling darkness that presages dawn. I don’t have long. The bridewell sits low and squat not far from the Peppergill mansion. There’s a front door and out back an entrance with a ladder down to the cellar, and thanks to a ten-year-old’s light fingers and foresight, I have a key.
I should be paying more attention to my surroundings but I’m thinking how to get a wounded Fenna out of that cellar. Will she be able to walk, make it up a ladder? I don’t want to risk the front door. She’ll be slow and will need help. Once I get her back to the smithy and the stables, it’ll be easier with the horses, then slipping back into the forest and riding hard for the cottage where the others wait. And I’m thinking about the two children lying deep in a barrow, trying to figure how to get them out and what to do with them when and if I do…
Yes, Ishouldbe paying more attention but I’m not, which is why someone is able to get their hands around my throat before I even know he’s there. Then someone’s shouting, ‘Tie her hands, tie her hands! Don’t let her touch you!’
Kian Arnold, Lutetia’s idiot son, he of the broken leg. I recognise his voice; he no doubt remembers the pain of being healed by said hands. Someone else obliges, wrapping rough hemp rope around my wrists so tight it doesn’t take long for them to feel numb. Kian and his new best friends, four shifty-looking god-hounds in stained habits, frogmarch me towards the front door of the Peppergill mansion.
29
Not in the parlour of the Peppergill home this time – deprived of my knife, coat and the cell key – but the formal dining room with its long table and many chairs, dark polished wood panels on the walls hung with portraits (varied quality of artistic endeavour) of the Peppergill generations, finely wrought tapestries Thaddeus has imported, and a huge fireplace at one end with flames leaping against the chill. No sign of Deva or Matthias, but at the far end of the table sits the master of the house, sharing a very early morning drink with an especially thin god-hound. To his credit, Thaddeus does not look comfortable. The other four (by name Mael, Alderic, Wilfred, Oeric, although which is which matters not at all) stand by the doorway, not offered any refreshment even after the task of dragging me along, not even the one to whom I gave a bloody nose with my elbow before they got a good grip on me. Kian Arnold is somewhere crumpled outside – my boot caught him squarely in the nuts and I can only hope it was hard enough to either make him expire or never father offspring.
I have been rather unceremoniously thrown onto a chairopposite the thin god-hound. My ears are ringing from being soundly boxed (that bloodied nose had a price). The one sitting comfortably, sipping from an engraved golden goblet, is clearly the leader of this little band, which means he’s got a bit more brain capacity than his fellows, and sufficient ruthlessness that they’ll fear and follow him. He looks me up and down.
‘I’m Father Loic. I’m told you go by Mehrab.MistressMehrab.’ He sneers as if the title is a joke, a stolen thing.
‘“Father” you say?’ I let my gaze wander slowly down his robe. ‘That seems unlikely since you and your little friends are all wearing the same thing. Those coarse off-white linen robes? Nothing more than the garb of a lowly monk, and the only thing to set it apart from a novice’s attire is the band of brown at the cuffs and your black rope belt.’ Colour leaches from his already-snowy complexion. ‘No. An actual priest would wear a brown woollen habit, his belt would be purple and hung with the tools of office: three little silver vials containing the oils for blessing, exorcism and extreme unction. None of which you have.’ I flick a glance back at the others. ‘Not a one of you.’
I imagine when young this Loic would have had a sort of strange architectural beauty, all cheekbones, jaw and brow, deep-set eyes. Haunted. In youth, it would have been quite fascinating, romantic-looking, and perhaps if he’d been the sort of man who gave and received love from another person in the usual sort of way – with generosity and kindness and patience – he might have developed a little healthy weight, the kind of softening contentment brings. Now in his forties, I estimate, with neither fat nor kindness to pad out his skin, he’s nearly skeletal. Haunted has become starved and insatiable – likethere’s not enough of anything in this entire world to fill the hole in him. The eyes are sunken, bordered by bruised delicate skin, lips thin as gruel. Lady Death herself might find him a little too famine-touched for her tastes. Beneath his robe, there are hints at sharp bones, all angles; it must hurt for him to sit on that skinny arse. Does one of his minions carry a cushion, I wonder? No, I don’t believe they’re the sort to lay hands on a cushion unless they stole it.
And he is, even though there’s an air of authority about him, as grubby and travel-worn as his four god-brothers – and that air strikes me as brittle. Seeing them confirms my earlier thoughts when Tieve described them. A pack of god-hounds, this far out? Holy hounds, this far from Lodellan, deep in the heart of this forest? They’ve not come from Lodellan – to get from the edge of the Great Forest to Berhta’s Forge (not so far from its heart or so the very vague maps say) is six weeks’ worth of travel. Then from Lodellan itself to the edge of the Great Forest? Months on top of that. So they’ve come from some far-flung rural parish, some arse-end abbey within reach of a pigeon with a note attached to its leg, bearing news of Rhea’s crime.
I’m not from this continent, I’ve avoided having anything to do with the god-hounds, but I know their works and I hate them. And I recognise this type, thisLoic– noprinceof the church would be sent so far out. Never a bishop or cardinal or a deacon nor even a lowly priest would keep going this far just to catch one little witch, no matter that she roasted the Prince of Lodellan. No, this one is here because he’s got nothing to go back to – not without Rhea in tow. I wouldn’t be surprisedif this merry band is on its last warning with one of the more remote monasteries, and when word reached it (as it would do), they jumped at this chance – and I cannot imagine their abbot raised any objections. Catching Rhea doesn’t merely mean bringing a witch to heel: it’s money and power and position, likely a pardon for something done wrong. She and any other witch he can catch will mean his own life clawed back. And he’s got enough charisma and or brutality to convince the four with him – all young and stupid – to follow him.
‘We’ve travelled a long way, our possessions have been lost, but I still maintain my righteous authority.’ His voice doesn’t even waver as he lies; still, Thad’s expression is uncertain as he watches the god-brother. ‘You’re going to be judged,MistressMehrab. I’ll see to it.’
‘You’re not fit to judge me,’ I say. ‘You have no evidence against me.’
‘Your friend would beg to differ and with the right motivation she became very chatty. Fenna, yes? All her tales of bringing a young murderous witch here, one we’ve been seeking.’ Relieved I note he doesn’t mention ‘Visiting Sisters’, so she has perhaps not told everything. ‘Fenna will remain alive until we find where the young one’s gone, but there’s no trial to be had for you.’ He shakes his head with false regret. ‘I’ve heard the stories from these good villagers. How they live in fear of you. That you’ve seduced them with potions and powders, drawn them in by healing imaginary ills, or binding bones that god has set asunder. Why, this man here tells how not so long ago you brought a bewitched toy to this very house trying to increase the reach of your evil. And these childrenwho’ve gone missing and been returned by god’s good grace? Each one has told, now that I am here to protect them and they need no longer fear you, how you lured them from their homes, into the woods, how you haunt their dreams even now, and how your curse has seared a mark into their foreheads.’
‘Oh, you little shit. Andthoselittle shits. Andyou, Thaddeus Peppergill, how dare you? I helped that child be conceived, I brought him into the world, and you dare tell such lies?’ I raise my voice when I would prefer not to, not to give these idiots any reaction at all. He has the good grace to look ashamed. ‘Howdareyou!’
‘Don’t try to intimidate this good man, witch!’ Again, Loic shakes his head. ‘You’re too dangerous to keep alive. You’ll be dealt with and your cottage will be burnt to the ground before we move on.’
Good luck finding it, I think with glee and relief that he doesn’t know Rhea is there. But I feign fear when I say, ‘The girl left weeks ago, heading towards Berrick’s Bend to the south. You might yet catch up with her.’
‘I thank you for that betrayal. But we’ll burn your home anyway – no point leaving sanctuary for another like yourself to take up residence.’ He gestures to the other god-hounds, and they move in to drag me away.
***
They throw me into a cell, and I’ve never been so roughly handled in my life. I hit the stone floor with its sparse covering of straw, and I feel my shoulder shift. A cry flies from me before I can bite down on it, hide that they’ve hurt me. But they hear, those vile little boys, they hear and they laugh. Thedoor closes with a slam and the key is turned in the lock with a finality I don’t like, and they tramp off up the steps.
I scramble to my feet as fast as I can and, teeth gritted – I can taste blood in my mouth, a tooth might even be loose – and slam myself into the solid mortared wall, violently snapping the joint back in place. The pain is blinding, and I slide down the wall almost as soon as I’ve made contact, and into oblivion for a blessed while. As I drift off, I think I hear someone calling my name.
