Crinan’s body burns bright, a small gesture to whatever gods he believed in, to accept his spirit in their arms as it soars back to them. The smell of roasting flesh and sizzling fat attacks our nostrils, lingering for a long time,even when we depart. Yet as we trudge along on tired feet, following the Bard, none of us comments on it. Each of us carries their own ghosts, it seems, whispering to us in this cold, dark forest, where tree trunks white from snow bring to mind bony fingers, rising from the ground in supplication. Another litany of death, just like the skulls in Shepherd’s hallway, equally silent and unmoving. At some point, even the snow stops falling, an eerie mist rising from the ground in its stead, making it hard to see. The Bard’s lantern flickers, its flame erratic. His hand must be trembling and for once, I can’t blame him.
‘How much further still?’ I ask, if only to subdue this silence.
‘It should be just up ahead.’ He huffs – with exertion or existential dread, it’s hard to tell.
I cast a glance at Anassa. She seems determined to avoid my gaze, her head high, jaw locked. Wearing her mask again, to hide whatever troubles her. The phantom of her touch lingers on me, her spontaneous hug back in Shepherd’s world. Was that only this morning? I hope we stay alive long enough to feel this warmth again. And maybe this time –
‘There,’ the Bard says, bringing me back from my thoughts. ‘That should be our carriage, up ahead.’
I spot it right away, as the trees thin, revealing the road ahead. A chariot, unlike anything I’ve ever seen, towering like a house, complete with a curved roof made of wood planks. And at its front, two chestnut brown beasts, neighing as they see us.
‘Easy now.’ The Bard raises a hand tentatively for the horse closest to him to smell. Not a complete idiot, then. The horse shuffles its hooves, and I can feel the groundvibrating, but then it settles. ‘We may have a slight problem,’ the Bard tells me as I approach to let the beast smell me too. ‘I’ve never had to drive a horse-drawn carriage in the past. I remember the way back to the inn, I think, but our driver …’ He points back to the forest, to the crisp corpse we’ve left behind.
I sigh. ‘Fine.’ Grabbing hold of this hulking house, I find my footing and climb up. There is a wide bench at the front, so that the driver can steer this thing seated. How lazy … Yet in my current exhaustion, it will do. I settle in, grab hold of the reins, the leather layered with frost – almost too stiff to bend. The Bard and Anassa stare at me again. You’d think I’d just committed yet another murder, or managed something equally preposterous. It grows tiring, having to issue orders, think ahead, while the two of them gape at me, shocked or affronted or perplexed, like children who need to be told how the world works. ‘Well?’ I ask, the challenge clear in my voice. ‘Anyone want to tell me where we’re going, or would you rather walk?’
The Bard snaps out of it first. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ With a fluid movement, he climbs aboard the carriage and sits next to me, too close for comfort. ‘I’ll guide you to the inn.’
‘Great.’ I look at the remaining member of our group, a tall, tenebrous figure in the mist, with eyes that cut like lanterns. ‘Are you coming, Anassa? Maybe you’d rather sit in the back. No sense all of us being in the cold since this thing has a roof.’
She blinks, then nods.
When the carriage shakes and the wood groans and I’m certain she’s on board, I give the reins a small tug. The horses start with a slow trot, gradually increasing speedas the wheels get unstuck from the snow and this whole thing starts moving.
‘Where to?’ I ask the Bard without taking my eyes off the horses’ flanks, the way their coats glisten as the snow melts with their movements.
‘Follow this road, then take the first – no, the second turn right.’
I catch a glimpse of his hand, pointing to our left.
‘That’s not right,’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’ Do words mean anything in this world?
‘Oh, forgive me, I was thinking stage right. Yes, left. Take the second turn left,’ he enunciates slowly, and I consider throwing him off the carriage.
But that might upset Anassa, and she’s already closed off as it is.
So I spare his life, again, and instead focus on the rhythm of the horses, on maintaining the right hold on the reins despite the trembling of my hands and of my heart. No need to alert these beasties that their driver knows not where she’s going, what this world is, and why she has now chosen twice to upend her life, all for a woman wrapped in black.
35. Anassa
This carriage ride is the least comfortable of my life. No seating, not even a pillow. Only a cold, unforgiving wooden floor that creaks as I bundle myself in my cloak, nestling in a corner.
I don’t know how long we’ve been riding through these snowy woods, the road twisting and turning. Perhaps longer than we should have, to judge by the expletives reaching me through the snorting of the horses and the squeak of leather straps and rotting wood, as Claret screams at Shakespeare to ‘Decide where we’re going!’ We take several sharp turns that almost have me flying, bumping from one side of the carriage to the other, in what I’m sure will be a needlework of bruises on my shoulders.
Perhaps it’s fitting that my body is as sore as my spirit is crushed.
The things that horrid man said about me, about Gruoch … Over and over I return to them, unable to push down this rising tide of apprehension. I fear that I was wrong, that I have caused pain to Ophelia, suffering to Claret, all for a goose chase of a more innocent self that may not exist. And look how easily Will Shakespeare found us, like side notes on a page that a trained eye can decipher … Shepherd sent him here, of that I have no doubt – to stop us, or to somehow control us. Controlme. The tide rises higher, until I taste sour sands in my mouth.
By the time the carriage stops, the sky bleeds with the softest pinks and yellows, the promise of a new day dawning.
I shakily descend and meet my two companions at the front. I cannot bear to look at either of them. Because there was a moment, short yet distinct, when Claret’s knife flew through the air, before it landed on that man’s chest. A moment when I wished her weapon would find another target, land on Shakespeare’s sternum instead, silence his words forever.
And how much of a villain does that make me?
‘Ah, we’re finally here, and not a moment too soon,’ Shakespeare says, pointing at what I can assume was our intended destination. A ramshackle inn with a half-fallen sign, its stony lower part overcome with moss and weeds, the glass yellowing on its long row of windows, the upper storeys set in deep red wood. Further down the road, the low roofs of simple cottages speak of a humble village – if even that.
Claret stares at the inn and then at Shakespeare, flaying him with her eyes. He clearly got us lost coming here, yet I can’t fault the detour when our destination is so drab.
‘After you, ladies,’ Shakespeare insists, opening the inn’s creaking door for us.
