The Master of Heathcrest Hall (68 page)

Rafferdy turned away from the door. “Safe? No, they are anything but safe now. All the same, I have no doubt Mrs. Quent will make her way through and, with her sister, find Heathcrest Hall as she intends—even if I have no idea why she believes she must go there. But that she has a reason is certain. You must know, Garritt,
you will not find any man possessed of a greater intellect or greater bravery than Mrs. Quent. She is a singular woman.”

Eldyn regarded his friend thoughtfully. He had known Rafferdy long enough to know all of his moods or whims—or at least so he thought. But while he had seen Rafferdy disconsolate before, even despondent, he had never seen the sort of expression such as the other man wore upon his face now. It was not, Eldyn thought, precisely sadness. Rather, it was a kind of grim and determined resignation—the look of a man who has let some precious thing go of his own free will, and with no hope whatsoever that he should ever get it back again.

“You love her, don’t you?” Eldyn said.

To his credit, Rafferdy neither hesitated nor demurred. “Yes, I do love her. I have done so from the time we met, though at first I was too engrossed in my own cleverness—or what I believed was cleverness—to comprehend it.”

Leaning upon his cane, he moved toward one of the windows. “You see, Garritt, prior to then, I had only ever given a thought to what others thought of me. I never really considered what I thought of
them
. Not until it was too late, until she was forever beyond my reach, did I understand the truth of it. To think, had I not been such a blind and conceited dolt, she might have been married to me!”

He gripped the ivory handle of his cane, then turned back to regard Eldyn. “But no, even had I realized the truth in time, still she would never have consented to such a match. She has ever been too practical, and possessed of too much good sense, to make such a blunder as that.”

Eldyn knew it was hardly an appropriate reaction given all that had happened, yet he found himself smiling. “Oh, I don’t know. If you were overly conceited before, I think now you are perhaps overly critical of yourself. You sell yourself rather short, Rafferdy.”

“Do I? You saw the sort of man she married, Garritt—a man of whom she has now been so wrongfully deprived. Who could ever be more exemplary, more worthy of such a wife, than he was?”

Eldyn’s absurd smile vanished at once; all the same, he did not
let the matter drop. “I mean no offense to Sir Quent, and if he is dead—which I can only believe, for I heard her speak it herself—then it is a most terrible thing. The void he leaves is not one that could ever be easily filled. Yet I would hazard to say, Rafferdy, that if any of us are allowed to continue on with our lives when all of this is done, that if she should choose to look, Mrs. Quent may one day find another, similarly exemplary man. I have to think, in times such as these, more than a few such men will be made by events, though they may have no inkling of it now.”

Rafferdy bowed his head and was quiet for a long moment, as if thinking. Then all at once he tapped his cane upon the floor.

“Come, Garritt. Though I am puzzled by it, I see or hear no sign of the soldiers returning. But let us not give them a chance to do so.”

He went to the door through which Mrs. Quent and her sister had gone and removed the leaf-shaped key. “I believe it might be best if you held on to this for safekeeping,” he said, handing the key to Eldyn. Then he started for the stairs with great purpose. Eldyn pocketed the key and followed after.

As he did, he heard a noise behind him. Eldyn looked over his shoulder and saw a dark flicker of motion in the mouth of a corridor that led away from the gallery. The hair upon his neck stood up, and he recalled the shadowy figure they had glimpsed outside the window downstairs, the one that had lured the soldiers away. Only then a small form dashed out of the opening and darted across the gallery.

Eldyn gave a sigh. It was no mysterious interloper, but rather the small tortoiseshell cat that was a pet of the household. The poor creature must have been frightened by the commotion. He clucked his tongue and held out a hand, but the cat only hissed and ran under a chair.

Well, he supposed one of the servants would find it. Rafferdy had already started downstairs, and Eldyn hurried to catch up to him. The two men proceeded to the first floor. All was empty and silent. Cautiously, they made their way to the front door, which was yet open, and peered out. There was no one in the garden, or
on the street beyond the gate. The soldiers had gone, though what had caused them to leave was beyond Eldyn’s guess.

“I must return to the theater,” Eldyn said to his friend. “I promised to look after Miss Lily, and I will do so as best I can until she might be reunited with her sisters. But what of you, Rafferdy? What will you do now?”

“Assembly is to be dissolved, and there is nothing else I can do here. I must leave the city straightaway, before Valhaine has it entirely shut. Though I confess, I am not certain what I will do after that. I suppose that I might …” His words trailed off, and he glanced away.

“You might what?”

He drew in a breath, then looked back at Eldyn.

“You will no doubt think it a foolish whim, but someone once told me I would make a good soldier, and I think I should like to go join up with the rebels. Though I do not know what I would do for them, or even how to find them. I suppose, even if I did, they would simply shoot me on sight.”

Eldyn found himself grinning. “I suppose they would at that. Unless you knew the proper codes and passwords, of course.”

“A fine suggestion,” Rafferdy said with a scowl. “But how am I supposed to discover such—” All at once his jaw dropped. “Gods and daemons, you know these things yourself, don’t you?”

“It is true,” Eldyn said, lowering his voice even though the garden was desolate. “I have been working this last half month to help smuggle messages out of the city to Huntley Morden’s army. I can take you to the fellow I work for. If I vouch for you, he will have no problem trusting you. He can tell you where to find Morden’s men, and how best to approach them.”

For a long moment Rafferdy stared at him, then all at once he gave a laugh. “I should think you were being facetious, Garritt, except I know such is impossible for one so irresistibly earnest as yourself. So it is I can only believe, remarkable as it seems, that you are indeed the most notorious sort of traitor and rebel.”

Eldyn could not help feeling a note of pride at this. “Hardly notorious, I would say, but my talents have had their uses.”

“I imagine they have at that,” Rafferdy said, and raised an eyebrow. “Even after all these years, you are full of unexpected revelations, Garritt! I am very glad to have known you. Just as I am glad to know we will be fighting on the same side.”

“As am I,” Eldyn said wholeheartedly.

“Well, then, lead me onward.” Rafferdy gestured with his cane toward the path before them. “To war,” he said grimly, eagerly.

And Eldyn replied in kind, “To war.”

 

T
HE PEOPLE HUDDLED in the cave and listened as the wind shook the branches of the trees outside.

Ivy groped around in the darkness. She knew this place; she had been here before, she was sure of it. Only her name wasn’t Ivy or Ivoleyn. It was something else, something more lilting and musical in the way it was spoken. And the others crouching in the cave around her were not strangers; rather, they were the people of her tribe. She recognized their warm, familiar scent. It should have been a comfort to her.

Only there was another scent on the air as well, sharp and metallic. Like lightning. Or like fear.

Abruptly, a crimson glow appeared at the mouth of the cave. At first Ivy wondered if it was the new red moon shining through the opening in the cliff. Then she thought perhaps Tennek, who had been standing guard, had raised up a burning brand. But that was foolish, for what if the gray ones saw him? Tennek had seen them before. They looked like men, but their eyes were as dead as a shark’s, and when cut their wounds seeped a thick, colorless fluid instead of blood. Did Tennek not recall how the gray men had nearly killed him that time? And what of the shadows with teeth—the things described by that other tribe they had encountered?

Only then Ivy recalled that they had not lit a fire in the cave from which her brother might have pulled a branch. And as the
man and the woman stepped into the cave, she saw that it was from neither moon nor fire that the red light came.

The man was tall—taller than any of the men of her tribe—with eyes as blue as the sea. A wolf pelt was thrown across his broad shoulders, and though he looked different from the men of her tribe, with his square face and jutting nose, he was still pleasing to the eye. All the same, an unease filled her at the sight of him, a sense of foreboding. Nor was she reassured by the appearance of the one who accompanied him. The woman was clad in strange, supple skins that clung tightly to her body, and her face was as pale and smooth as the inside of an abalone shell.

Before Ivy could tell the others to be wary, Nesharu had risen and hobbled forward to meet the strangers. It was Nesharu who had taught Ivy about the
wayru
—that was, how to understand the rhythm and pattern of all things in the world. She was the oldest and wisest woman in the tribe, and therefore its leader. She exchanged words with the strangers, but Ivy did not hear what they said, for even though the trees were a good distance from the cave, the roaring of the wind in their branches filled her ears. It was a sound like many voices spoken in unison.

Something is wrong
, the voices of the trees seemed to say.
The light has changed. The ground trembles. The rain is bitter. Something is wrong.…

The red light brightened. Ivy jerked her head up and realized that Nesharu was inviting the strangers into the cave. The red glow came from a stone resting upon the palm of his hand. Ivy had never seen such a thing. Its light fell upon the people, staining them like blood.

All at once a dread came over Ivy—a feeling so powerful that a moan was forced from her. A red light. A man wearing the silver pelt of a wolf. A woman with skin as white and hard as quartz.

Yes, Ivy had seen all of these things before. She had seen them, and she knew what was going to happen next. The shadows would come—the shadows with teeth—and the people would flee from the cave. They would follow the tall man to the edge of the trees.
He would call upon the ground to swallow up the shadows while the woman struck at them and beat them back with arms that moved as swiftly as pale snakes. Together, they would protect Ivy from the shadows, and help her to get to the forest. Then Ivy would call to the trees, asking them to protect her and her people.

And the trees would listen. Through her, they would learn that the shadows were their foes, and the trees would never afterward forget this. Their trunks would bend, their branches would reach down, and they would lash out at the shadows, breaking them, beating them into dust. All of the people would be saved.

No, not all of them. Not her son …

Even as Ivy realized what was going to happen, it was already happening. The tall man took her by the hand and led her away from the people, back into the cave. She went willingly, her heart still beating rapidly from the feeling of the trees bending to her wishes, and from the sight of the stranger’s strong limbs and handsome face.

He set down his glowing stone and came close to her. For a moment she caught a trace of an unpleasant smell, like dead fish washed up on the shore. But this was forgotten as he laid her down upon the floor of the cave and their clothing fell away.

Through you, I will truly live again
, he said.

And he held her close as their bodies became one in a moment of pain and delight.

It was not until later, when her belly swelled and she gave birth, that she finally learned what he had meant by those words he spoke. For then, even as she held her newborn son for the first time, the tall man who had become her mate crumpled limply to the ground. His body, once strong but now feeble and covered with sores, became still and lifeless. And at the very same moment his final breath rattled from him, the infant in her arms opened his eyes.