The Lost Realm (32 page)

“What has happened here?” he cried, his voice rising with fury.

Captain Gandrell steadied Vicerin's horse and spoke quietly to him. As Lord Vicerin listened, red flowers bloomed on his cheeks.

“Father does not seem best pleased about what's been going on in his absence,” Cedric observed. He smiled grimly. “Let's see, there's the fire, Fessan's escape, the children . . . oh, and the assassin.”

The captain continued to talk. The redness left Lord Vicerin's face, leaving it deathly pale.

“Where is she?” Lord Vicerin shouted, his voice thin and reedy. “Nothing is more important than the well-being of my daughter!”

Elodie snorted.
Of course it isn't. If I'm dead, your entire plan to control the throne collapses, doesn't it?

She stepped out into the blackened garden.

“I'm here, Father,” she called. “I'm all right. Sylva and Cedric are looking after me. They saved me.”

Vicerin slithered clumsily off his horse. Having picked his way around piles of scorched vegetation, he gave her a perfunctory hug, then stood regarding her with a stern expression. Elodie endured first the physical contact, then the stare, without flinching.

“Where is the assassin now?” Lord Vicerin said coldly.

“We have him, my lord,” Gandrell replied. “Would you like to—?”

“What we would like is to see his guts drawn from his belly and his body quartered to the farthest corners of Ritherlee! When we have seen this done, we shall take dinner! See to it, Gandrell!”

Ducking his head, the captain backed away and began to assemble an execution squad.

“You will not want to see this, my dear.” Vicerin's tone remained icy. “You will take yourself to your chambers. Sylva, Cedric—you will see that she gets there safely. When this business is dealt with, we will review security arrangements so that nothing can touch you again.”

Shaking from head to foot, Lord Vicerin turned on his heel and followed Captain Gandrell out of the garden.

“He'll double your guard,” whispered Cedric as soon as his father was out of earshot. “That will make it hard to find your brother's jewel.”

Not to mention getting away from here when I have it.

“We'll manage.” Elodie rubbed her neck, which was now almost completely healed. She was glad they wouldn't have to watch the execution. It didn't matter that the Galadron assassin had tried to kill her; no man deserved to die in such a barbaric way.

“I suppose we'd better do as he says,” Sylva sighed.

“Yes. But we haven't been to see your mother yet today.”

Sylva's face fell. “We should visit her before we do anything else. I'm worried about her, Elodie. She doesn't seem to be getting any better.”

Lady Vicerin lay as still as the dead. Only her fingers moved, twitching minutely on top of the silk bedcovers. There was a dreadful greenish tinge in the sagging flesh beneath her eyes. Her breath was a thin, slow rasp in her throat. She seemed neither awake nor asleep, but trapped in some awful limbo between the two.

Elodie hovered near the window, allowing Sylva and Cedric to sit with their mother. The room was dim and she turned to open the drapes, hoping the sunlight would speed Lady Vicerin's recovery, or at least raise her spirits.

She'd no sooner drawn back one of the thick, velvet curtains than one of Lady Vicerin's maids bustled in and pulled it closed again. The room subsided once more into shadow.

“Forgive me, Your Highness, but Lady Vicerin don't like the light anymore,” said the maid, bobbing her head.

“Oh? I just thought—”

“It's gloomy, I know. But the healer said.”

Elodie looked around. “Where is she? The healer?”

The maid stared at her feet. “Went away.”

“Went away? What do you mean? When's she coming back?”

Sylva and Cedric looked up from the bed.

“Begging your pardon, but I don't think she's coming back. I think she's been”—the maid glanced nervously at the door—“dismissed.”

“Dismissed?” cried Cedric in astonishment. “Who would do that?”

The maid was wringing her hands and biting her lip. She looked as if she was about to cry.

“It's all right,” said Elodie. “We just want what's best for your mistress. Please, tell us.”

“It was him,” the maid blurted. “Lord Vicerin. He said she wasn't doing her job, so he sent her away. He said there wasn't a healer in the kingdom could help her ladyship, and I tried to tell him about Frida, but he wouldn't listen, and now her ladyship's getting worse and worse, and nobody knows what to do!”

“I can't believe he did that,” said Sylva. “There must be something we can—”

“Who's Frida?” Elodie interrupted.

The maid regarded her with wet eyes. “Frida of Hamblebury. They say she heals what can't be cured. They say she has certain . . . special ways. But Lord Vicerin, he won't even—”

“Where's Hamblebury?”

“Edge of the Darrand lands. Not a day's ride, I'd guess.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“I still don't understand why Father would send the healer away,” said Sylva as they descended the hill toward the village of Hamblebury.

Elodie said nothing. She'd lost count of the number of times Sylva had said this during the ride from Castle Vicerin. Cedric understood the depth of his father's evil; Sylva would work it out for herself, sooner or later.

As for Elodie, it seemed clear that Lord Vicerin simply didn't want his wife to get better.

But why?

The mist they'd been riding through was gradually thickening to fog. It bit into Elodie's skin with cold teeth. Their horses plodded patiently down the hill toward the village on a road that was now little more than a muddy track. The village itself was a scattering of ramshackle huts and barns strewn at random across the valley slopes. The buildings had a forgotten air about them, as if a giant had tossed them here and then simply walked away.

Shivering, Elodie pulled the hood closer around her head. Seated in the saddle behind her, Samial seemed unaffected by the cold.

I suppose there are some benefits to being a ghost.

The drab cloaks they'd chosen were a good disguise. Not only did they hide their finely embroidered Vicerin dresses, but they also afforded some protection against the mist, which in turn had given them excellent cover during their exit from the castle. Cedric had wanted to come with them, of course, but Elodie had insisted he stay behind.

“You have to cover for us,” she'd explained. “If anyone asks, say we're sorting through all our childhood toys in the tower attic. Tell them it's the only place we'll feel safe until your father puts my new bodyguard in place. And whatever you do, tell them we don't want to be disturbed!”

Cedric had made no attempt to hide his displeasure, but he'd agreed all the same.

“Just be careful,” he'd said as he waved them out of the castle gate.

Careful was exactly what Elodie intended to be. Hamblebury was part of the Darrand estate, which meant its inhabitants might well be hostile to any Vicerins venturing here. Hence the cloaks.

In any event, she needn't have worried. Although the village was busy with men and women going about their daily chores—chopping wood, winnowing grain, repairing roofs—its inhabitants seemed somehow sad and turned in on themselves.

Maybe it's the war. Or perhaps life in Hamblebury is just hard.

One of the villagers—a middle-aged woman with a spreading belly and tired eyes—did eventually look up at them. Elodie smiled at her and asked if she knew where Frida lived. The woman pointed toward a thatched cottage almost lost in the fog. Elodie thanked her and they rode on.

“What about the horses?” said Sylva as they dismounted. There was no hitching rail outside the cottage, just a stack of logs cut for firewood, and the horses wouldn't have to wander far to get lost.

“They'll be all right.” Elodie nodded to Samial.

Sylva smiled. “Of course!” She might not be able to see the ghost, but by now she was becoming used to his presence.

Elodie knocked on the door. A boy of about five years old opened it. Upon seeing Elodie and Sylva, he called for his mother. A short, skinny woman appeared and studied them with shrewd gray eyes. Her hair was gray too, drawn into a tight bun, and her baggy black dress reached all the way to the ground.

“Strangers,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly deep. “What brings you?”

“Are you Frida?” Elodie asked.

After a long pause the woman said, “Yes.”

“My mother is sick,” said Sylva. “Someone told us you might be able to help.”

Another pause.

“I might. Come.”

The door was low enough that they had to duck, but the cottage's interior was warm and welcoming, with a large hearth in which a fire blazed. Over the fire hung a cooking pot. Through another door Elodie saw a pantry stocked with what looked like jars of food and preserves. The boy was hiding in there, staring at them with wide eyes, his thumb corked in his mouth.

Elodie looked around, momentarily confused. She'd never been here before.
So why does it feel like home?

“How does she ail?”

“What?” Elodie was still staring into the pantry.
Those aren't preserves. They're potions. And that isn't a pot. It's a cauldron.

“How does she ail?” Frida repeated. “The sick mother.”

“She's eaten hardly anything for days,” said Sylva, who didn't appear to have noticed anything strange about the cottage. “Except for a few spoons of broth. Her skin is cold and pale, sort of greenish. And she won't . . . she won't wake up. . . .”

Frida gave Elodie a curious look, then shooed the boy out of the pantry. He ran from the cottage, still sucking his thumb. Frida rummaged among the shelves for a moment, then returned holding a small bottle of dark green liquid.

Potion
, Elodie thought.

Her eyes roved over countless more bottles stacked on the pantry shelves.
That one cures backache
, she thought.
That one removes warts.

She shook herself. How could she possibly know such things?

Frida placed the bottle into Elodie's hands.

“Use but a little,” she said. “Too much, and she will sleep forever.”

As she released the bottle, her fingertips brushed Elodie's skin. A jolt ran up Elodie's arm, and it was all she could do not to cry out. Frida's eyes widened, and she knew the gray-haired woman had felt it too.

“Witch blood!” said Frida. “Your mother?”

“Yes. My mother was a witch.”

Sylva gasped beside her, but Elodie felt a rush of understanding. So that was why the cottage had felt so immediately homely. Her mother must have had potions too, and knowledge like Frida's, maybe even lived in a cottage like this. . . .

Questions were bubbling up inside her, but before she could ask them, the boy burst in.

“Men!” he wailed. “Men riding monsters!”

Fear filled Frida's gray eyes. “I knew he would come. Vicerin has left us alone until now. Now he is here!”

From outside came the sound of hoofbeats and long, wailing cries. Frida bustled the boy back into the pantry and opened a trapdoor in the floor.

“Hide with us,” she said urgently, lowering the boy into the cellar. “If Vicerin's soldiers see you, they will kill you.”

“No,” said Sylva. “They won't.”

She threw off her cloak, revealing her dress with its blue Vicerin sash. Frida gasped.

“I am Sylva Mayanne Vicerin. And they will answer to my command!”

Before Elodie could stop her, Sylva had rushed out through the door. She hurried after her, the little boy's words echoing in her head.

Men riding monsters. What does that mean?

Outside, the mist swirled like torn silk. Hulking shapes moved through it: men on horseback, carrying swords.