The Scourge of Muirwood (24 page)

They continued through the passageway, winding through the hidden tunnel quickly. Lia remembered the tortuous passage, but the orb was her source of light and comfort. She could not imagine how difficult it would have been to find the way in the dark without it. Martin was wise to leave streaks of chalk to mark the way.

“Yes,” he continued sagely. “Dieyre is a crafty man who serves a crafty mistress. Be wary of his lies. The world is full of fools eagerly waiting to hear what they long to be told. A devious man will use that.”

“You seem as if you knew him,” Lia said. “You described him perfectly.”

“I have never met the man. But I am acquainted with his kind. He is driven by his anger. When he does not get what he wants, he calls it injustice. The anger feeds itself and destroys him from the inside. A wise man once taught me this saying from his tome. ‘For as the wood of the forest is, so the fire burns. And as a man’s strength is, so shall his anger be, and according to his riches he will increase his anger.’ Is it not strange that the more someone has, the less he feels he has? Envy can never be sated.”

“This way,” Lia directed, thinking on his words. It reminded her of the Aldermaston of Augustin. He had a wealthy Abbey and more fine things than she had ever seen before. Yet it was not enough. He coveted Muirwood and its supposed riches. She sighed, longing to be back home and hoping things were not as desperate yet.

They reached the small conclusion to the tunnel and Lia demonstrated the latch to open it. As expected, the room was empty. She knew Colvin would be with Hillel and she would be telling him of her plan. He would suspect that Lia would be waiting for him in his room, as she had the previous night. The memory of it still burned. It was still too new. Billerbeck Abbey was their destination. That was where they would marry.

She noticed Martin’s expression as he studied the room, glancing over the furnishings, the simplicity and sparseness of it. He nodded with approval.

“Thank you,” Lia told him, reaching out and touching his sleeve.

The fierce grin answered her. “I am proud of you, lass. Whatever happens, know that I am.” He struggled to speak as his eyes brimmed with tears. “
He
would be proud of you as well.” His jaw clenched shut, and she could see him fighting against his tongue – unable to say more.

Lia clasped him tightly, kissing his bearded cheek and then stole back into the tunnel, anxious to return to the tower and wait for Hillel’s return. She would do everything within her power to persuade the girl to leave. But if she chose not to go, Lia would leave her trussed up in the room and unconscious.

Suspicious and wary, Lia made her way back to the hetaera’s garden.

* * *

“Lia is here. I am astonished that she found us so easily. Somehow, I knew that I would have to face her again. The Aldermaston said it would happen. Not directly, but he said that before I could gain my deepest desire, I would face an obstacle to that desire which would seem insurmountable. She is the one person who threatens my happiness with Colvin. I imagined her far away, safely away, and that it would be too late when we next met. But here she is, come all this journey to save us. I know she will resent me for taking Colvin away from her. But she does not deserve him. It is a mockery to think that a wretched deserves an earl. If I were but a wretched at Sempringfall, I would not aspire to someone like him. When I think of her, I remember that terrible dawn when Colvin abandoned me to the ossuaries to rescue her. It was not until that moment when I realized how much I cared for him, and how much he would not return my love because of her. I hate to admit it to myself, but I was glad when she was injured. I even secretly hoped she would die. She did not. There is an image that keeps coming to my mind, again and again. I am putting rocks on her grave. I am burying her beneath a mound of stones. Colvin is with me. I know it is the Medium. I do not know what it means. I think the stones are symbols. They are concealment. They are walls. I must help Colvin bury his affection for this girl so that he can then in turn care for me as he ought. There is a noise.”

- Ellowyn Demont of Dochte Abbey

* * *

Lia finished ascending the spiraling stairs outside the tower and her legs throbbed with the exertion. The night was cold and windy and threatened to yank her from the steps. She focused on the final blocks and reached the balcony ledge as she had before. It was nearly midnight. Sweat trickled down her ribs as she raised her arms and pulled herself over the lip of the balcony. Her breath was harsh in her ears and she waited a moment to rest and calm the wild shuddering of her heart. Soon, if her plan worked, Colvin and Hillel and Martin would be gone and slipping away with the tide. She still had a duty to perform – to confront the Aldermaston of Dochte and give her warning. The orb would guide her on the safest route to him and away again. She longed to be back at Vezins, aboard the Holk with the others and casting off. The feeling of Dochte Abbey filled her with dark thoughts. Something ancient and terrible lingered in the stones.

The door was shut from the balcony and she peered between the gap. There was little light – only a few candles burning, filling the room with shadows. It meant the residents were still cavorting at the dance. Lia pushed on the doors and they opened soundlessly. There was no one inside. Her heart filled with courage, knowing she would have time to search the room and learn of Hillel’s existence at Dochte. First, she needed to find a place to hide.

As she entered, she caught sight of a large desk nearby and on it, an open tome. There were scriving tools around it and small shavings of aurichalcum. It drew her there, or was it flame in the candle next to it that shimmered off the gleaming surface. She approached and a feeling of envy struck her next, seeing the words etched on the tome but not able to understand them. It was her place to be studying – it had always been her wish to read. Lia stared at the tome, feeling a surge of resentment threaten to overwhelm her. It was a violent feeling, one that bubbled up inside her with great force and power. She was envious of Hillel and the time she had been granted to spend with Colvin. The wood of the desk was highly polished, the work of a master artisan. The tiles on the floor were shiny and clean. All her life she had lived in an Abbey kitchen, instead of the palace she deserved. The envy twisted darkly into resentment.

Why were these feelings so strong? She had not given her upbringing much thought recently. She had never regretted being raised at Muirwood. It was leaving the Abbey that had made her miss it most. Why the envy now? Why the dark thoughts to brood on?

Almost to answer the impression, she felt the Medium warn her – because the thoughts were
not
coming from inside her. The feelings came from outside herself.

Lia turned and saw a set of glowing eyes approaching. Then another. Then yet another. There were six in the room, dressed in black cloaks and wearing the black cassocks she had encountered previously. Her heart shrank. The Dochte Mandar had found her.

Fear engulfed her, a sick tide of fear that swamped her senses, black as night and terrible as the creature in the mountains of Pry-Ree she had faced. They had been waiting for her to return.

Lia fled. She rushed to the window balcony, knowing she had precious moments to get outside. They would have soldiers waiting for her below, she knew that now. But better to face soldiers with steel and fist than struggle against the compelling emotions which the Dochte Mandar attacked her with. The night breeze was caressing, but her heart was too frantic to care. She planted her hands on the edge and nearly vaulted it when she realized to her horror that the stones of the stairwell were gone. There was nothing but the naked face of the tower wall below.

In a wild moment of pure panic, Lia wondered if she should jump over the ledge and fall. Where were the steps? The question made her notice the Leering – the shallow indentation in the stone floor in the sculpted shape of two entwining serpents. It was the hetaera’s tower. She realized that her previous trips had not gone undetected at all. The trap was left open invitingly.

Martin! He would be trapped inside the Abbey too. They were all trapped.

The glowing eyes formed a wall by the balcony. The man in the middle spoke, his voice thick with the Dahomeyjan accent.

“Welcome, child. Have you received the water rite?” She recognized his voice from the day before as she and Jouvent had been met.

She struggled against the flood of feelings, but she was no match for six of them.

* * *

They escorted Lia down the inner well of the tower, three in front and three behind her. The only other way down was a plunge down the center of the shaft. Torches burned in brackets on the walls. The wrought ironwork of the torches were shaped into coiling serpents, whose mouths breathed out the flames. Lia shuddered. The air was cloying with the smell of incense. She remembered it from Augustin Abbey. The smell lingered in the air, thick and heavy with its aromatic spice.

When they reached the base of the tower, it ended at an enormous wooden door, which they opened and proceeded to march her down the corridor.

“Cover your hair,” one of them ordered her, adding a flex of the Medium to the command that made it horribly compelling. She complied and raised her hood.

She was terrified. Her mind refused to work, as if the Dochte Mandar were shrouding her thoughts with such terrors that she could not focus on anything, not the path they walked, the number of doors they had passed. She did not know how deep she was in the Abbey. It was elegantly crafted, with beautiful velvet draperies and ancient tapestries. There were pedestals and gold-etching everywhere, filling her eyes with the extravagance of the expense.

They ended the journey at a door and the leading man knocked on it.

Lia prepared to meet the Aldermaston of Dochte. She tried to steel herself, but she could not stop trembling. Her heart ached with despair. Would Martin be able to escape? Would he come for her? Or were the Dochte Mandar truly waiting for him as well?

The door opened, but Lia could not see inside yet, for the wall of black cloaks covered it.

“We have her.”

It was Dieyre’s voice. “Leave her with me.”

“The Aldermaston wishes to speak with her.”

“He will. But I paid you to allow me the first chance to speak with her. Give us a moment before the Aldermaston comes. Go.”

“As you wish,” came an arrogant reply. The curtain of men parted and Lia saw Dieyre in the doorway, a goblet in his hand, his shirt collar unbuttoned and open, exposing his chest, damp with sweat. His unruly hair was just as she remembered it and she felt a spasm of dread. The last time they had faced each other, she had tried to kill him and he had succeeded in killing her.

He seemed amused by the expression on her face. “Come in, Lia.”

The Dochte Mandar allowed her to pass them and she did, entering the room and Dieyre shut the door behind her, letting her pass near him. He seemed to smell her scent as she passed by. It made her feel terrible.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked and brought the goblet to his mouth and took a sip from it. She could smell the cider on his breath.

It was a bedchamber with no windows. It reminded her a little of the one in the Aldermaston’s manor, the one where Marciana and Hillel had slept. There was a fireplace, an enormous canopied bed with huge velvet curtains sprawled open, revealing a disheveled mattress and blankets. There was his sword, propped against a cushioned seat.

“I will not drink the cider,” Lia said, turning slightly to glance at him.

He sauntered into the room and set his goblet down on a table after taking another swallow from it. “How about a bath then? I was about to bathe when the knock sounded. You are filthy, Lia. Such a girl as you should be in a gown instead of that hunter garb. Would you like me to fetch a gown for you?”

She turned and faced him, angry by his impertinence. “You want Marciana. I know where she is.”

Dieyre smiled hungrily, his eyes narrowing with pleasure. “Of course you do. I am sure she was headed to Muirwood when you burned down my castle in Comoros. Really, Lia, that was unfair. I liked that castle.” He sighed dramatically. “The question is not where is Marciana now. The question is where she will be going. There is an Abbey in Pry-Ree where she and the others will be sent. Which Abbey is it?”

Lia licked her lips. “You think I will tell you?”

“I know that you will, sooner or later.” He lifted the goblet again and took a sip. His eyes smoldered with anger. “For your sake…I mean for Forshee’s sake I hope you relent sooner than later. But relent you will. Tell us everything you will. You will even join us before this is over, my dear. So why not skip the unpleasantness? You have been running a good long while. But I am a hunter too, and I have chased you down. Have the grace to admit you are caught, you are defenseless, and that nothing you do or say will deliver you from this place until you agree to join our cause. I granted you the chance to join me at Muirwood, and you spurned the offer. I extend it now on the most agreeable terms. Join us, Lia. One way or the other, you will.”