‘I kept getting lost, and every time I turned around, that cursed map at the centre of town was there – but the THOU ART HERE kept changing places, and never told me where I really was, and …’ Her brow furrowed wearily. ‘There was something about a giant piece of cheesecake on a stick too, but …’ A faint flush touched her pale cheeks. ‘I guess that’s not actually scary.’
Gwen let her breath out, but she felt no urge to laugh. ‘Nightmares are nightmares whether they seem silly bythe light of day or not,’ she murmured. Jane gave her a wan smile.
‘Some fresh air will do us good, even if it is cold.’ Isobelle rose and went to the window, opening the shutters. One slipped its hinge and fell to the floor with a clatter – Hilde jumped, letting out a shriek that made everyone in the room start.
Hilde, clutching her hands to her chest, blinked, and swallowed, and blinked again. ‘Ach, I have not any excuse … I do not know what is wrong with me this morning.’
This time, Gwen did look at Isobelle. And she found in the other girl’s eyes the same creeping dread that was rising in her own body.
It wasn’t just the townsfolk being affected by fear. It was spreading.
Before anyone could speak further, a commotion outside brought them all to the window.
‘Why, it’s Sir Orson!’ exclaimed Jane, peering down at the town square, where indeed, the handsome young knight was in a heated argument with another man. Gwen recognised the bright colours of the town crier from the night of the party.
Sylvie, who had hung back as the others crowded around the window, elbowed Jane out of the way so she could see. ‘We’d better get down there,’ she said uneasily. ‘He looks like … Oh dear, we’re too late!’
For Orson had struck out with his fist, knocking the town crier down in a heap.
They hurried downstairs, across the empty taproom and out into the street. The crier, not much hurt, was on his feet again, but could not retreat due to the fact that Orson had the collar of his bright tunic clenched in his fist.
‘Orson, what the hell are you doing?’ Isobelle cried, rushing forward. She reached out, as if to pull Orson’s hand from the man, but Orson stepped back, holding up his free hand to bid Isobelle halt.
Gwen came up beside her, staring at the young man. His eyes were blazing with anger, his handsome features drawn back in a snarl.
‘If you’d heard the things he was saying,’ Orson panted, ‘you’d have done the same. Vile things – things no one should say about any woman, much less one who—’
‘For the love of – I donotneed you to defend my honour!’ Isobelle spluttered.
Orson reined himself in somewhat, drawing in a breath through his nose and back out, clouding in the frigid air like the snort of an angry bull. ‘Not you. Gwen.’
Gwen felt her cheeks warm in consternation and embarrassment both, as all eyes turned to her. ‘I don’t need you to defend my honour any more than Isobelle does,’ she managed to say.
‘Tell them,’ Orson said, giving the man a shake, still holding his collar. ‘Tell them what you were saying.’
The town crier, a reedy, tall man with a long nose and thin lips, pressed his mouth closed so tightly it all but disappeared. It made him look like a surly stork.
Orson shook him again until Sylvie stepped forward and laid a hand on the knight’s arm. Orson took another few steaming breaths and muttered, ‘He was shouting it up and down the streets. The sea monster, the necromancer, all of it … saying it isGwen’sfault.’
When Gwen had ridden in the Tournament of Dragonslayers, she’d grown used to taking bone-jarring blows, hits so hard she couldn’t think or see or feel her body afterwards, even as she maintained her seat in Achilles’s saddle. She felt like that now, all over again, only without the solid bulk of her horse to cling to.
She staggered back a step and found Isobelle there, taking hold of her arm. She concentrated on that and not the ringing in her ears.
‘Gwen’sfault?’ Isobelle’s voice was so loud it could have been called a shout, if her tones weren’t so well bred. ‘What the … Gwen is here trying tohelpthem! She doesn’t have to be, we could have left, we could have … I mean, we weren’t even here when the monster showed up, it was already here before we arrived!’
The town crier had found his voice again, for he snapped, ‘Yeah, but it weren’t rising from the dead! It weren’t coming so close to the town we could see it from the windows of our houses!’
Isobelle let out an incoherent sound of outrage and let go of Gwen so she could charge up to where Orson held the crier. ‘It hadn’t risen becauseno one had killed it yet!’
The sounds of their argument faded into the background as Gwen, her body still unsteady from that invisible lance hit, found her gaze drifting from the drama unfolding in the square, and towards the houses that surrounded it.
Some of the shutters were cracked a mere inch – she saw the glitter of eyes here and there beyond them. More than a few houses sported charms hanging over their doors and windows, wicker things bent into the round shape meant to protect against the evil eye. Not a single other person was out on the streets.
It was a different place from the one that had welcomed them. It wasn’t as simple anymore as the townsfolk being too afraid to talk about the sorceress. Now, they were too afraid to … tolivehere at all. But with nowhere to go, they could only huddle behind closed doors.
Paralysed.
Gwen knew the feeling, all too well.
