16Feb

Teaser – SPUN by Alex Hall

• Saved in: Beastly Manor, LGBTQIA, Madison Place Press, ownvoices
• by madisonplacepress@gmail.com
• with 2 Comments

One

The kings of France rely on White Hill to produce a very special breed of champion, an elite variety of soldier prepared to defend both the throne and the empire from evils the average human prefers not to acknowledge. Vampire, sorcerer, fae, witch, basilisk and brownie, afreet or demigod – there are more supernatural creatures above and below the earth than most men can face and still retain a shred of sanity.

The students who manage to graduate White Hill’s hallowed halls in one piece go on to don a hero’s blue and silver livery. They are made of stronger stuff than most mortals. And by the time they leave Le Château for the royal court each is convinced that sanity is a small price to pay for the continued safety of France.

I’d happily argue the point but as I’m high on the list of monsters those fresh-faced, newly promoted acolytes are meant to murder, it’s unlikely anyone would listen to my admittedly biased opinion.

 

In the bowels of the earth, while pausing to rest his feet and adjust the lantern he carried in one hand, David heard White Hill’s catacombs exhale.

He froze. The flame on the candle affixed in front of the mirrored lantern lens bowed sideways in the swell of musty air, shivering orange and yellow on a black wick, pointing back along the tunnel from where David had most recently come. He licked dry lips, heart thumping in his breast, but although the flame smoked angrily the light did not go out.

The unwelcome and unnatural breeze reversed itself – an inhale – and the flame flickered briefly in the opposite direction before settling again where David much preferred it stay: upright on the candle wick.

His fingers cramped on the lantern’s handle; he made them unclench one by one then set the lantern on the floor, smooth stone to match the curved walls and ceiling. Eyes fixed on tunnel ahead – pitch black beyond the cheerful glow of the lantern – hand settled now on the hilt of the smallsword he wore on his belt, David clenched his jaw and waited.

La Tarasque, the ancient wyrm that had once burrowed beneath White Hill, leaving behind a system of tunnels so vast even David’s predecessor hadn’t been able to explore them all, was presumed long dead, nothing now but dust and bone and memory.

But other, equally dangerous, creatures had come to inhabit the warren in more recent centuries, most of them unwilling prisoners, compelled by the old magician who had kept White Hill’s secrets in the name of Charles the Wise and King John before him. The old magician’s eclectic menagerie had once been the envy of every scholar who dared dabble in supernatural studies; the royal purse and House Valois’ implicit approval meant White Hill need spare no expense when it came to research or instruction.

The old magician had been gone for decades, the royal purse – thanks to Philip VI’s war against England’s Black Prince – was running dry, Le Château was all but empty of students, and White Hill’s underground warrens were maybe not quite so secure as they had once been, aging cells crumbling into disrepair, their contents neglected.

La Tarasque might be long dead and the old magician’s menagerie essentially dismantled, but that did not mean the tunnels David braved as part of his daily routine were, by any stretch of the imagination, safe.

The flame on its wick in David’s lantern burned merrily upright, undisturbed by surprise subterranean breezes. Nothing stirred the stale air. Whatever trouble had lurked there in the darkness outside the lantern light must have moved on.

Or so David fervently hoped.

An anxious sweat dripped between his eyes. Briefly snatching precious spectacles from the bridge of his nose, he used the sleeve of his robe to wipe his face. Apprehension heated his blood, flushing his cheeks and loosening his muscles, threatening to fog glass lenses when he returned his spectacles to his nose. So deep into White Hill the tunnels were cold. Frost filmed the floor and ceiling, diminishing the sparkle of the striated gold and green mineral that ran throughout the warren. David had spent his first few months on White Hill half in love with the swirl of shining color in the tunnel walls, had looked for any excuse to walk the labyrinth, enchanted by the glimmer or underground starlight, believing himself both worldly and intrepid.

It didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off. The stars in the heavens might be more commonplace, but at least above ground a man might better escape prowling monsters. And David had learned soon after settling in as Sir Thomas Chevalier’s in-house scholar-cum-alchemist-cum-physicker that when it came to supernatural threat judicious retreat was much preferable to close combat.

But like La Tarasque and the old magician, Sir Thomas was dead, murdered years past in his own garden by a much-beloved student wielding nothing more remarkable than a kitchen knife, and David no longer had the luxury of hiding behind books or potions in the face of danger.

By order of King Charles, Le Château’s recruits were David’s responsibility now, had been since the day Sir Thomas’ body was sent in a wagon to Paris for burning. White Hill’s secrets – the good, the bad, the magnificent and the execrable – were his to shepherd, whether he liked it or not. David still relied heavily on the comfort of his books and potions, but now his hands also bore the callouses of a practiced swordsman. His body had traded the awkwardness of youth for the muscled confidence of a soldier in his prime; he was yet the scholar but in taking over White Hill he’d had to teach his body how to be equally as formable as his mind.

Formable, so long as the foe he faced was in truth friendly, the battle feigned. In the practice yard no man or woman on White Hill was as skilled. Against honest threat…

Well.

He’d done his very best to avoid real danger in the twelve years since he’d taken over as White Hill’s Chevalier.

The lantern sputtered. David sighed. Delay would do nothing to make the task ahead easier, and possibly would make the whole mess waiting for him in the chateau above his head much worse.

God, grant me courage, he prayed silently and without much hope. Thus far, the God of his father and grandfather had had paid David no attention at all.

Drawing his sword with his left hand in case whatever had been breathing in the shadows returned, he picked up the lantern and walked deeper into the earth.

When he finally stumbled upon it, the door was like any other door in the warren: old wood bound in iron, latched and locked. None of the underground cells were marked in any way. He was relying on the map he kept in his head, a piece of ink-marked vellum he’d memorized on Sir Thomas’ insistence. Even so, there was no guarantee the room on the other side of the door was the room he’d spent half a day hunting. David need only read a thing twice or thrice to remember it later in perfect detail, but experience had taught him Sir Thomas’ map was not completely accurate. He supposed even the most fearless of mapmakers might become disorientated in La Tarasque’s warren.

He set the lantern down again while he fumbled at the heavy ring of keys he wore on his belt but he wasn’t so foolish as to sheathe his sword. The back of his neck prickled as he fit key after key into the hasp; his spectacles were beginning to fog once again. His pounding heart threatened to leap into his throat.

It took him eight tries, eight different bronze keys, before he found the one that worked.

The lock clicked open, the snick of the tumblers echoing against the tunnel wall. David paused to clean his spectacles a second time before shoving at the door. He was desperately glad no one else was there to see how his hand shook as he buffed glass against the edge of his tunic.

The door opened grudgingly, not into the room but sideways into the stone wall along an iron track. The track needed oiling. The door and the small cell beyond hadn’t seen a visitor for a very long time, possibly since before the old magician’s death.

David stepped over the threshold, leaving his lantern behind on the tunnel floor. Once inside the cell there was no need for candlelight. Every cell within the warren was enchanted for warmth and light; as soon as he set foot in the room a large cluster of natural crystal burst into yellow light, making David blink.

His predecessor’s enchantments still lingered, more helpful than not. The light could be quenched with a touch, David knew, and summoned again with another. When activated, the crystals provided warmth as well as illumination. And the old magician had been thorough. David had yet to encounter a room in the catacombs not fitted with the luminous mineral.

“Bless you, rabbi,” David murmured, fingers restless on the hilt of his sword, turning this way and that as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the yellow light. “For your wisdom and your foresight.”

Wooden chests of varying sizes filled the narrow cell, stacked one atop another on the floor. A few of the half-hazard piles reached the ceiling. Most ended at shoulder-height, the top-most coffers leaning dangerously against curved stone walls. Time or the quaking earth had sent two of the larger trunks smashing onto the floor. Pieces of wood slat lay in pieces amongst a scattering of straw.

Whatever treasure the boxes had contained was lost to time as well; shards of broken glass and pottery winked from beneath straw and splintered wood.

The chests were neatly catalogued in the old magician’s eccentric hand, a mixture of letters from the Hebraic alphabet and alchemic runes burnt into the wood. One quick glance over the inscriptions reassured David he’d found the room he needed.

“Blood magic,” he confirmed out loud, suppressing a shiver of distaste. The alchemic runes indicated the contents of each chest were tuned to human blood, the most powerful of all bodily fluids and, in David’s opinion, the most repugnant of alchemic ingredients.

The short Hebraic phrases seared alongside the runes provided more specific clarification as to nature of the artifacts packed inside each chest. Divinationor contamination, transmutationor conservation. Strengthand nourishment, poisonand protection.

Human blood was a precious fluid indeed, blood magic a potent – and explicitly forbidden – alchemical tradition.

A cold eddy crept suddenly through the open door and into the cell, plucking at the hem of David’s robe and sending a violent shudder through his bones. He whirled, sword raised, braced against attack, but whatever was chasing him – and he had no doubt that something was– did not deign show itself.

Playing cat and mouse, David thought with rising dismay. Trying to frighten me useless. It’s working.

And then, when chill fingers wafted against the back of his neck, a lover’s ghoulish caress: What in God’s name is loose down here this time?

“Begone!” he commanded the room at large in confident tones that belied the pounding of his heart. “White Hill and the treasures within are mine to guard and you are not welcome!”

He waited, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. There was no response, either from vigilant shadows or unexpected breezes. He did not fool himself that admonishment would scare whatever it was away. Banishment properly worked on the preternatural only when strong spells were involved.

Not a revenant – keeping his front to the cell door, David backed carefully through the accumulation of chests, reading labels with a rapidity born of desperation – despite the ghostly freeze.

White Hill couldn’t be haunted; the old magician had seen to that.

Not dwarf nor troll nor vampire. Even as he sorted through wooden coffers he sorted also through the lore in his head. They’re none of them subtle.

His gaze caught on a chest smaller than most of the others, wedged between a tilting stack and the stone wall. No bigger than a loaf of bread, the chest was the right size, but turned sideways to the floor so David couldn’t make out any inscription.

Basilisks can’t disappear. Step by step he edged his way toward his goal. A troll would leave behind a very obvious mess. And a gnome – Gnomes stink. I’d know at once if it were a gnome.

As close as he could get without turning around, unwilling to relinquish his sword or defensive stance, David wedged the toe of his boot under corner of the chest and dragged it away from the wall, causing the nearest coffers to wobble precariously as he did so.

“Careful, lovely. They’ll all come down atop your head if you’re not more circumspect. And then where would you be?”

Oh, thought David as the sound of that familiar voice made his mouth go dry. Incubus? But White Hill is charmed against demon kind.

Lifting his chin, he appraised the monster now standing just inside the threshold and wearing the form of an old friend as disguise and enticement. Yes, against all odds, definitely an incubus. Fear warred with dry amusement. Of all the monsters he might encounter wandering untethered in the labyrinth, this one, while far from harmless, might be the most ironic.

“Child of Lilith.” He raised his voice, sword and stance unwavering even as anxiety knotted his stomach. “You do not belong here. Get thee gone.”

The incubus showed its teeth in Corbin de Beaumont’s white smile. Corbin’s blue eyes widened, guileless, beneath a tousled ginger fringe. David knew the ginger fringe as intimately as he knew his own darker curls; David had tended Corbin’s battered body more than once as White Hill’s resident physicker, seen Corbin in every state of undress and several times gravely wounded, but not once had David looked upon that well-made form with anything other than aesthetic appreciation.

“I’ve missed you,” protested the creature in a perfect mimicry of Corbin’s gruff tones. Pink stained Corbin’s cheeks as he approached. He licked his lips as if in anticipation of a good meal after long starvation, the tip of his tongue shining briefly in the yellow light.

The display was meant as seduction: the children of Lilith were born to feed off sexual stimulus, to milk lust until the monster was satiated and the victim a desiccated corpse. That an incubus was wandering loose in White Hill’s catacombs was deeply disturbing. That it had snatched an imaged of David’s first love from the recesses of his mind was expected. That it meant to make a meal of his carnal desires, a dark jest.

“Keep back!” David warned, blocking the monster’s advance with the blade of his sword. His pulse stuttered. Lilith’s lesser children – succubi, incubi, the Will o’ the Wisp – were more easily killed than a full-blooded demon. A true fiend wouldn’t be cowed by something so mundane as David’s iron sword. But that did not mean the lesser fiend wasn’t dangerous.

The incubus went still, staring from the sword to David’s face, Corbin’s features twisted in confusion. By now, David supposed, he should be showing signs of the enchantment at work, becoming addled by wave after wave of sexual desire, made clumsy by the body’s overwhelming appetite.

Instead David faced the creature coldly, doing his very best to appear unmoved.

“I thought you missed me, too,” the incubus complained, mouth turning petulant. Corbin’s head tilted in disbelief as the monster considered David’s sword. “I thought you loved me.”

David knew better well that love and lust were too very different things. The incubus had made a fatal mistake. Almost, he felt sorry for it. Mayhap the demon could not distinguish between the heart’s desire and the body’s inclination. In the end it mattered only that Lilith’s children could not make a meal of sentiment, nor could they ensorcell a man immune to sexual urgency.

Without lust to draw upon, the lesser demon was powerless, a shade throwing deception. Even as David pressed his advantage, crowding the monster with sword edge and false courage, the illusion frayed. Corbin flickered, as tenuous as the flame in David’s lantern, and behind ginger hair and wide blue eyes something squat and black angrily flexed a multitude of wizened tentacles.

David’s breakfast threatened to rise. Now that he could see the creature behind the disguise, he could also smell it: wet fur and sulfur, far worse than any common gnome.

A thing out of his nightmares.

He could not think how the incubus had ended in up in White Hill’s warren to begin with. He and Sir Thomas had cleaned the catacombs of any artifact related to demonology when they’d decided to aid Corbin de Beaumont in his quest to kill the Littleton Fiend. David did not think it possible they’d missed something so obvious as a living specimen lurking beneath their home. Nor had the old magician listed one of Lilith’s offspring in the extensive catalog he’d kept of his trophies.

David would know. He’d spent more hours than he liked to admit reading over the artifact lists.

“There’s nothing here for you,” he told the incubus through gritted teeth. Logic said he should kill it immediately. A demon, even the lesser variety, couldn’t be allowed to continue. But unease stayed David’s hand. Except for in pages of White Hill’s many books, he’d come face-to-face with only one other devil, and that with the silvered glass of a scrying mirror as protection. They were unpredictable but not erratic. If an incubus had managed to get past White Hill’s wards, David needed to know why and how.

“Nothing here,” the incubus agreed after an instant of hesitation, running Corbin’s sultry stare once again along the iron blade, then over David and the assortment of wooden chests before it shrugged and dropped false semblance. “It seems I’ve made a mistake.”

An abomination of feeler and fang, it used Corbin’s voice still, and that was much worse than the original deception. “You are hardly worth the effort. A juicier meal calls to me from upstairs, from Le Château.” Dismissing David and his sword, it wheeled and scuttled toward the door. But, being Lilith’s offspring, it could not resist one last taunt.

“You, you’re no good to me, mortal. You’re flawed, a broken thing.” Corbin’s voice, dripping disgust, was as injurious as poison. “I can smell your cowardice, wizard. A waste of my time. Your terror ruins my appetite.”

“No,” croaked David.

“No?” the demon was almost out the door, unnatural appendages twitching as it reached for the threshold. It looked back at David, yellow eyes shining in an otherwise featureless face.

“You’ve made two mistakes.”

David’s sword took the incubus through its middle. The blade caught on bone and gelatin, jerking like a live thing in his hand. The incubus howled, a gusty cry redolent of rot and despair. David bit his tongue to keep from vomiting. He twisted the hilt until black ichor burst across floor, wall, and ceiling, careful to turn his face from the spray.

“The first was in breaching White Hill. The second was in discounting me.”

The incubus moaned as it fell, tentacles whipping back and forth in paroxysms of agony. David leaned hard on the sword exactly as he’d been taught, gripping the pommel with both hands, using all of his weight to keep the demon trapped. It was not at all the same as pinning a straw dummy or skewering one of the many dead pigs Affrodille brought up from Honnefleu for practice.

Unlike a mannequin or butchered pig, the incubus struggled against David’s attack, flailing weakly. David’s sweaty hands slipped on the pommel and he almost lost his grip. The sword was meant for sparring with students or defending against the infestation of dwarves that ran amok in the forest below White Hill. It was not the weapon he would have chosen to face down a demon, even the lessor sort.

The devil’s true form was – despite an overabundance of angry feelers – roughly the size of a Billy Goat, far smaller than its more powerful cousins. Luckily for David, it was depleted by starvation, dwindled to little more than leathery skin and knobby bone. Still, it struggled to the very last, several times landing a solid blow across David’s thighs. Once a single thorny tentacle managed to encircle his left wrist, squeezing. Pain blossomed where the thorns punctured his sleeve and pierced his flesh. David jerked back in shock, tripping over his own feet in instinctive retreat, dragging the sword and demon with him as tumbled to the floor.

The incubus exhaled a final gasp. The tentacle around David’s wrist quivered and then went lax, leaving a smear of blood as it fell away, landing with an ugly wet slap on cold stone.

Davide sat gasping, both hands still clenched around his sword hilt, until he was certain the incubus was dead. The stink of sulfur increased to noxious. Splashes of ichor ate away at stone, smoking. The demon blood would leave permanent scars.

When at last David found the strength to tug his weapon free, he saw that the incubus’ yellow eyes had gone milky white in death.

He swallowed back bile. His left wrist throbbed, the wound a bloody manacle of torn flesh and small black barbs.

Climbing to his feet, he wiped what ichor he could off his blade onto handfuls of straw gathered from the broken coffers, though the iron blade was likely already ruined. He could not sheath it for fear of damaging the leather scabbard he wore, nor would he leave the sword behind and walk the tunnels back to White Hill without defense.

“A demon wandering loose in the cellar,” he muttered, holding sword away from his body as he retrieved the coffer from the floor. “Sir Thomas would never forgive me this.” He tucked his prize under his right then edged around the incubus’ slowly dissolving corpse, sidestepping a spreading puddle of ichor. The stink of immediate decomposition made his eyes sting.

Once safely outside he closed and locked the cell door. The room would have to be cleansed and quarantined, the coffers moved to a new location. The incubus’ death made the space unusable. Lore said the demon-stain endured long after the ichor was invisible to the mortal eye and was three times as unlucky as any broken mirror.

Grabbing up his lantern, David hurried back the along the tunnels the way he’d come. The cleansing would have to wait. He had more pressing business, specifically one of the king’s most trusted dukes waiting impatiently upon his return. John of Berry seemed a tolerant man, but also a man of action, and David supposed he could not expect Berry be contained indefinitely. Affrodille would do her best to act as distraction, but David knew Berry would not wait much longer before he gave up on White Hill and rode off for Littleton’s black forest all on his own.

And that would be a very bad idea indeed.

 

Two

France has had no shortage of ‘mad’ royals. Clovis II of Neustria, consumed by a fit of greed and tormented by fiendish voices only he could hear, stole the skeletal arm of Saint Denis from its reliquary with the intent of feeding the sainted bones to his favorite hound. Charles Maximilien was so fond of sadism that his court feared for their own lives, and for those of their pets. Anna de Coligny believed she could turn into a lioness under the full moon, and periodically tried to climb her bedroom wall tapestries in full royal regalia, hissing and spitting, while her chamber maids looked on in horror. I have done business with the Franco-Therianthropes for centuries, I can assure you Anna was not of their line. And if the poor woman suffered a curse of any kind, it was only that of excessive inbreeding.

Believe me also when I say that none of these three – not the thief, the sadist, or the lioness – held a candle to Charles the Mad, the Glass King, the young brute that ordered my Corbin executed for treason.

When David emerged from the catacombs into White Hill’s kitchens by way of an unobtrusive, narrow door usually secured with padlock and heavy chain, Affrodille was waiting.

“What took you so long?” she demanded, springing up from a stool near the hearth. When she caught sight of David’s sword, still held carefully away from his body, she scowled. “Is that ichor? What happened? You’re bleeding!” She kept her voice low but Cook and a kitchen lass, both chopping tubers near the ever-present cook fire, paused in their work to stare.

Cook had been serving meals to White Hill’s residents since before Sir Thomas took over Le Château. She took both the extraordinary and the grotesque in stride, so long as neither invaded her kitchen. She tossed David’s wet sword and bleeding wrist a disapproving look before waving her knife.

“Out,” she told him. “No mess in my kitchen!”

The young lass working at Cook’s side, less jaded, blanched and covered her eyes. The lass’ horrified expression made David’s pulse race again in remembered terror.

“Not that way.” Affrodille caught at David’s elbow before he could round the large hearth and escape into the dining room. “It’s dinner time. People are eating.” She snatched up several rags from a pile Cook kept near her chopping block for cleaning pots. Ignoring the woman’s angry grumbling, Affrodille steered David out the back door and into the kitchen garden. “Berry’s eating in there.”

More time had passed in the catacombs than David realized. The sky over the kitchen garden was pink with sunset. He turned his face briefly upward, gratefully inhaling fresh air. Birds twittered in the branches of an old lemon tree, while evening butterflies browsed Cook’s herbs. Pale fish dozed in a small pond where water onion was just beginning to sprout for the season. A makeshift wall of ancient Rouen stone kept predators from the herbs and provided a convenient place to sit and enjoy the garden or read a book, if one so desired.

In the summer, the plot was often filled with students, studying or fraternizing, sometimes napping. David envied them their enjoyment. To him the blooming oasis would always be the place where Sir Thomas was murdered.

“Sit,” Affrodille ordered. “You’re in shock. Leave the sword. I’ll send one of the lads for it later. Here. Clean yourself up.” She tossed a rag: David caught it clumsily in one hand before abandoning his ruined sword in spring grasses. He set the coffer on the wall by his side. Where the ichor was still wet on the blade, the grass smoked angrily. Affrodille glanced at the coffer, nodding in satisfaction.

“Good. You found it. Berry’s practically gnashed his teeth to nubs,” she said, hands on her hips. “That man has no good sense at all; I can’t believe he’s allowed near the throne.” She narrowed her eyes, watching as David daubed at the blood on his wrist. “What was it this time? Are those barbs? Is it dead or do I need to be barring the door to the catacombs?”

“Your faith in my swordsmanship continues to underwhelm.” David winced as he picked the incubus’ thorns from his wrist. “It’s dead. But mayhap lock the door.” He should have seen to it immediately, but lingering dismay kept him from thinking clearly.

Another misstep, to add to the oversight of walking the catacombs with only a small sword for protection. He knew better and wanted to blame Duke Berry’s appearance for his scattered attention, but that, too, would be a mistake.

“It’s not my faith that’s lacking,” Affrodille retorted. She snatched up the ring of keys David detached from his belt. “I’ll see to the door. Take a moment to compose yourself and then come have supper.”

“Come report, you mean,” David said, rubbing at his brow where a headache was brewing. Blisters were forming on the back of his hand. “Before his majesty’s regent grinds his teeth to dust.”

“That too,” Affrodille agreed, her full mouth twisting into a pitiless grin. Not for the first time David was grateful she’d stayed on at Le Château after Thomas’ death. If not for her quick wit, uncanny skill with throwing knives, and stubborn spirit, David would have given up on White Hill long ago.

If David wasn’t a fighter, Affrodille had been born to brawl.

She relented, touching his shoulder in reassurance. “You can do this. You are doing this. White Hill depends on it. Take a moment. Remember who you are: Thomas’ heir apparent.

He allowed himself a brief respite on the low stone wall, listening to the birds and enjoying the scent of spring lavender before he scooped up Berry’s artifact, tucking it once again beneath his arm. He pulled the edge of his sleeve over his battered wrist, hiding the wound as best he could. Duke Berry was observant, and David couldn’t let him know Le Château was in any way vulnerable. White Hill’s future depended upon it.

Squaring his shoulders, he left the garden.

Cook stole a glance at David’s face as he crossed through the kitchen but wisely kept mute. The young lass, now busy with mutton instead of tubers, ducked her head, refusing to look his way. The kitchen smelled pleasantly of warm bread and clotted cream. An enormous bowl of stew hung from a tripod over the hearth flames, bubbling gently. David’s stomach woke again, threatening to growl. He’d broken his fast with only a piece of fruit. All at once he was ravenous.

The large hearth divided Le Château’s kitchens from the dining hall. The hall was cavernous, meant to feed many more students than White Hill currently housed. Several broad wooden tables were placed in rows marching at an angle away from the hearth. Fresh rushes hid the earthen floor. Ancient tapestries depicting amiable forest scenes warmed the stone walls. Candles burned on every table, keeping shadows at bay. The light in the high, glass-paned windows far above David’s head was already beginning to fade.

Duke Berry sat on a low bench near the hearth, warming himself at the fire, studiously ignoring the spotted cat twining between his booted feet. More of the dappled felines walked the boards or sat quietly in the rushes near the students still enjoying their supper. The cats hoped they would be awarded bits of food beneath the table if only they begged politely, a tradition Sir Thomas had encouraged.

White Hill’s students, two lads and one lass – a paltry clutch – knew that they would be allowed to stay and witness the king’s business if they also behaved tactfully, another tradition of Thomas’ David continued. House Valois’ difficulties were White Hill’s difficulties, so long as the supernatural was involved, and White Hill was nothing without its pupils.

‘My inglorious crew’ Thomas had called his original apprentices, and the name had stuck through more than one graduating class.

“I’m smudged, besmirched, the most inglorious of all the crew.” So Laurie had told Corbin only days before all their lives had gone to ruin. Corbin had relayed those sour words to David much later in a private letter obviously – from the wine stains and misspellings – written when Corbin was deep in his cups, adding a postscript in his strangely elegant scrawl: We failed him when he needed us most.

The most recent inglorious crew looked up as one when David entered the dining hall, faces expectant. They were very young. David could not quite believe he and Corbin, and Affrodille and Laurie, had ever been quite so green. Their naivety shook him to the core.

The incubus, had it lived, would have found them a very tasty meal.

He scanned the room for Affrodille and found her talking quietly with two soldiers dressed in blue and silver livery. The livery marked them as members of House Valois’ elite ranks. Their alert stances and the way they scanned the room even as they talked with Affrodille told David they were practiced killers ready and willing to defend Duke Berry with their lives.

A slight stiffening of their spines was indication they’d noticed David the moment he stepped around the hearth. That the soldiers continued to smile and nod at Affrodille instead of drawing the swords they wore on their hips meant they believed him harmless.

No one from House Valois had ever believed Sir Thomas harmless.

“Chevalier.” Berry stood up. “There you are, at last.” He wiped a finger over his thin mustache, lips folding into a frown. “I did not plan on wasting an entire day, waiting upon your success.”

“Apologies, Your Grace.” Affrodille appeared at David’s elbow, smiling prettily at the duke. She had grown up at court and could wield charm as deftly as she did her knives. “White Hill’s catacombs are extensive. Not even Sir Thomas knew his way around the labyrinth, or understood the old magician’s collection. As a collector yourself, surely you understand how treasures may get out of hand.”

Berry was not immune to Affrodille’s appeal. He relaxed minutely, smiling even as his eyes darted to the chest under David’s arm. “You found it.”

“Not without some difficulty,” David admitted. He crossed to the nearest table, set the chest carefully atop the boards. Two young lads and one lass craned their necks to see but knew better than to rise from their supper for a better look. “But, yes, here it is.”

It did not matter that he hadn’t had a chance to check the coffer’s contents, that his certainty rested entirely on a working knowledge of the old magician’s shorthand. He hoped only Affrodille noticed the minute tremble in his hands as he opened the chest.

Nerves later, her expression cautioned. First, see this through.

If Affrodille could sham agreeableness in the face of the duke’s disdain, David supposed he could fake confidence.

“Medea’s Phial.” David slid the open coffer across the boards. Berry bent at the waist to for a look. Automatically the duke started to reach for the glass jar where it lay nestled in a bed of dusty straw. David murmured a warning. Berry thought better of the impulse, instead folding both hands safely behind his back.

“Aye, it matches the description,” King Charles’ regent agreed, head bowed over the artifact. “The glass is the correct color, and the etchings – although of course I cannot be certain without touching –”

“Don’t,” David said.

” – appear to match up – ” Berry snapped his fingers and his guards left their position against the wall. One carried a sack bundled in her arms. The second spread a piece of papyrus on the table near the chest. In the candlelight David could make out a detailed sketch, ink fading from blue to grey.

The drawing, he deduced from the worn papyrus and declining ink, was very old indeed. It was also a capable likeness of the blue glass phial he’d brought up from the catacombs.

“I suppose it’s possible copies of the phial were made…” Berry paused, playing again with his sparse mustache. “As a connoisseur of the arts, I’ve seen my fair share of painted forgeries.”

“We keep no forgeries in White Hill,” David replied evenly, pretending not to notice as his students hid affronted expressions behind their hands. “Fakeries are quickly disposed of. We have no interest in falsification. This is Medea’s Phial. I have no doubt.”

Cocking his head at the sack in the soldier’s arms, he continued, “Whether or not it will work as we hope depends entirely on the authenticity of your incantation.”

Berry’s dark eyes narrowed. “As I said, I’ve seen my fair share of forgeries and I have it on excellent authority that this is the real thing.” Again, he snapped his fingers. The soldier slung the sack onto the table. David winced at the woman’s nonchalance.

Not on behalf of the old spell Berry claimed to carry but because, according to the contents of King Charles’ letter, the bag held something far more precious.

“Straight from the Vatican’s Archives.” Berry drew a fragile-looking volume from within the bag. Bound in smooth, mottled brown hide, it was hardly thicker than the width of David’s thumb, the cord used to secure the pages fraying. “Sixtus sent it over in all haste once I’d convinced him of our need. From what I can tell, it’s mostly an assortment of hedge-witchery, love spells and simple charms, and the like. Mayhap the witch meant to conceal the true pearl among stones.”

First wiping his fingertips fastidiously on the corner of his tunic, Berry opened the volume, turning over each leaf one at a time until he’d paged more than halfway through.

“Here.” He turned the volume toward David. “Here it is. In the original Ionic, I believe, unlike the rest of the entries. Mayhap a family incantation, passed from mother to daughter down the generations?” Berry rolled his broad shoulders in a shrug. “I’m afraid my working knowledge of the language is incomplete, but see, here – ” The tip of his finger landed on fragile vellum ” – it’s the same drawing, the same phial. Surely Sixtus can’t be wrong.”

David’s working knowledge of Ionic – both old and new – was excellent.

“He isn’t.” A quick check through the list of ingredients as well as a few minor notations written in the margins next to the incantation convinced David that Pope Sixtus knew his demonology. “This is the spell that kindles the Phial. I’ve seen parts of it before, but never the whole. I imagine Sir Thomas believed the incantation lost, else he would have mentioned it when – ”

David caught himself in time to swallow back Corbin’s name. House Valois, though too polite to press the issue, still thought of the de Beaumont family with distaste, still believed Corbin was a thief.

Affrodille cleared her throat. Berry’s unpleasant mustache twitched.

“About that,” the duke said, as he drew a second treasure from his bag, “more difficult to convince his majesty to part with this – again – than convince Sixtus to send the grimoire. The Saracen glaive, at your insistence.”

David bit the inside of his cheek to keep his expression from changing. He was grateful his hands did not betray him with another tremor when he reached for the oaken case. His fingertips remembered the feel of the old wood, the uncanny warmth of the golden clasp and padlock, the miniature faces carved into the lock’s face.

“Are they laughing or screaming?’ Berry wondered as David caressed the etchings. “Hardly matters, I suppose. Either way, they’re…disturbing.”

David didn’t reply. The padlock was unsecured. He set it tenderly to one side before opening the long box.

“Is it the same sword?” Affrodille stood on her tip toes to look over David’s shoulder. “There are four, are there not?”

“This is Corbin’s sword,” David said, gazing down on the blade where it rested on old velvet the color of emeralds. “I remember it clearly.” He still sometimes saw the glaive in his nightmares as he relived Laurie’s death, the sound of flesh and bone breaking while Corbin twisted the unlucky blade in Laurie’s gut.

“They are not all four identical,” Berry agreed. “This is the same sword your friend was trained to in his childhood. It is a measure of King Charles’ regard that he’s agreed to the loan.”

“His majesty’s regard.” Pretending not to notice his own little inglorious crew had left their table and drifted close, each trying to get a glimpse of the infamous weapon, David closed the lid on Corbin’s glaive. “Or his desperation.”

“Candidly: both. We need the monster dispatched and the poor girl back, swiftly. The girl alive, if possible. Her corpse, if necessary. Either way, time is of the essence.” Berry drummed an agitated tempo on the table with blunt fingers. “His majesty has more pressing issues to concern himself with at the moment.”

David had taken the other man’s unrest for dislike. Now he was beginning to think Berry’s annoyance cloaked fear. Affrodille must have come to the same conclusion. She made a conciliatory noise as she poured red wine from the pitcher on the table.

“As House Valois well knows, White Hill is both efficient and discreet.” She passed a cup of wine to Berry, giving the man something to occupy his restive hands. “Please tell his majesty the problem is all but handled. And thank him for the loan.”

“In the past House Valois has known White Hill to be both efficient and discreet. As of late, White Hill has been less reliable. To be frank, Charles begins to worry good coin sent to your coffers might be better spent on more reliable defenses.”

“Charles?” Affrodille asked, “Or his dukes?”

“White Hill has been House Valois’ greatest weapon since before Philip gained the throne.” David met Berry’s sneer with a practiced, pleasant smile. “It would be a mistake to discard us now.”

Berry’s sneer faded. “Return the girl to us quickly and without fanfare and his majesty will have no cause for complaint.” He took a long swallow of wine. “Although what exactly a witch’s talisman and an afreet glaive have to do with the girl’s abduction, I don’t understand.”

David repacked the witch’s grimoire and Corbin’s sword into the bag, taking care to handle both artifacts with the reverence they deserved. He added the small chest holding Medea’s Phial, then gathered the sack up against his chest.

“Some questions are safer unanswered, Your Grace. If you’ll excuse me, I want to begin on this at once. Time, as you said, is of the essence.”

 

“Come.” David said to the knock on his door. He waited until Affrodille slipped into the tower room before slumping back into the over-stuffed chair he preferred for thinking.

She studied him with badly concealed concern. “How’s the arm?”

“I told you; it’s nothing.” Upon returning to his quarters he’d plucked the remaining thorns from his flesh, sterilized and bandaged the gashes. He preferred not to think of the stinging fire in his wrist. “Is he gone?”

“On his way back to the Grand Châtelet, riding like the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels.” Affrodille paced a turn around David’s laboratory, pausing here and there to sniff at a tincture bubbling over flame. “Speaking of, what exactly did you encounter in the catacombs? When you popped back into the kitchen you’d gone white as if you’d seen a ghost.”

“No ghosts on White Hill or in Le Château,” David said automatically as he did every time a new student asked. At Affrodille’s sour glance he hurried on. “Incubus. On of Lilith’s children. Lost in the labyrinth. I got the impression it hadn’t been down there long, but I’m not sure…” He trailed off before admitting, “I wasn’t prepared. It could have killed me easily, if it hadn’t been already weakened by starvation.”

“Incubus. Demon? There are no demons in the catacombs. Sir Thomas would have said. Why, if he’d had a demon on hand, especially a lesser devil, Thomas would have set Corbin to kill it as a test for readiness before he took on the Littleton Fiend.”

David shrugged. “Perhaps he intended to and didn’t get the chance.”

“No. An incubus walking below Le Château is not something he would keep from us. Thomas never willingly put his students in danger.”

David couldn’t agree, but Affrodille had loved Thomas with all her heart, and he saw no point in causing her pain. “It’s dead now. I suppose that’s all that matters.”

“You’re a fool if you think so.” But she dropped to her knees between his chair and the cold hearth. “I’ll deal with the catacombs while you’re gone. Double-check the wardings, keep the children above ground.” As a second thought, she added, “When you return we’ll go down together, do what we can about the stain, check for further demon sign.”

David murmured wordless assent. He had no doubt Affrodille would handle the breach in the catacombs as she did any other inconvenience – with skill and courage, easier done alone than with David’s help.

It didn’t matter. His thoughts were already on the journey ahead, and on the sword that rested, blade naked, across his knees.

Affrodille couldn’t read minds but by now she knew David’s as well as her own.

“Do you think Corbin will take the glaive back?” she asked as she began the process of kindling a fire in the hearth. Outside the tower window night had fallen and despite the season and the flames simmering on his stove, the room was quickly growing cold. “Do you think he’ll help us?”

“If I ask, he will,” David said with more certainty than he felt. Corbin had been trained since childhood to kill, but Laurie’s betrayal had changed something in all of them. David had seen Corbin’s face after he’d agreed to surrender the glaive. Remembering it now, he thought Corbin had been relieved.

Affrodille touched candle to tinder and the hearth burst into cheerful flame. “The Beast may stand in our way. Even Media’s Phial can guarantee that devil only a taste of what he desires most, and a taste may not be enough to seal the bargain.”

“It will be.” David’s gaze drifted to the oval looking-glass propped on his table against a pile of books. The glass, set in a simple, worm-eaten wooden frame, reflected back the cluttered worktable. It was the same glass the Beast had once used to contact David, the same glass Corbin used to look for David when he was feeling homesick.

But Corbin hadn’t used the mirror to speak to David for months, and although David had tried scrying through it twice since Duke Berry arrived at White Hill, king’s missive in hand, there had been no answering response.

“You’ve said time moves strangely in the Manor,” Affrodille reminded David. “No telling how much has passed for Corbin since you said your goodbyes at Fontainebleau.

“Impossible to know for certain,” David agreed. He stretched booted feet toward the fire, grateful for the warmth. The afreet glaive was heavy in his lap but he was strangely loath to set it aside. He traced a thumb over the Saracen blacksmith’s stamp on the pommel and the distinctive nautilus curves on the grip as he blinked thoughtfully at the hearth. “I can’t reliably guess what sort of reception I’ll find.”

“Well.” Affrodille rose to standing in a single, fluid motion. She thumped his shoulder with false enthusiasm. “I envy you the adventure. You know how I love a challenge.”

David refrained from rolling his eyes. “I need you and the children to find whatever you can on King Charles’ ‘problem’.” He jerked a thumb at the king’s letter where it lay on his writing desk, pinned beneath half a geode. “Shape-shifter with a taste for tailoring, abduction and blackmail.”

“Tailoring?” Affrodille quirked both brows.

“Cloth-of-gold,” David confirmed, ignoring her amusement. “According to his majesty, ‘a most beauteous fabric fit for God and king alone.’ Monsieur Aureate secured a place in court based solely upon his rich textiles and enviable dress-making talents. He was, the king writes, one of a kind.”

“Monsieur Aureate,” Affrodille said, “would be a nom de plume. Cloth-of-gold suggests sorcery. Or alchemy?”

“Spinning wool into gold is far beyond even my not-insignificant capabilities. Besides which, Monsieur Aureate had one other distinguishing characteristic.”

“Oh?”

“He always wore an especially cloying perfume. His majesty thinks an extract of jasmine. So strong, in fact, Monsieur was often detectable by nose before he entered a room.”

“Ah. You think our tailor was masking one strong scent with another. Sulphur, or brimstone? And that would be why you required the glaive.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Generations without any manifestations, and now a demon at court and a demon in our cellars within the span of a few weeks?”

Generations without any manifestations, and then the Littleton Fiend woke, David thought. From the grim expression on Affrodille’s face he didn’t need to voice his suspicion out loud.

“Everything we have on demonology is still up here.” David gestured at the books piled haphazardly around his room. “Including the English king’s Latin treatise. Set the everyone to reading. Find me Monsieur Aureate’s true form. I’ll contact you through the mirrors as soon as I reach Beastly Manor. One day, two at the most if the manor eludes.”

Affrodille groaned. “Two days? Two days is not enough time! You’re asking the impossible!”

David smiled without sympathy. “You did say you love a challenge.”

 

 

Three

Honnefleu in the spring of 1382 was a town holding its breath, prosperous and cautiously lively, aware the that young King Charles’ troubles in Rouen could easily spread west along the Seine and become Honnefleu’s troubles as well. News traveled quickly up and down the riverbank, carried by sail or on horseback. Rouen’s bells were confiscated, the city gates torn down, and twelve good men executed for the crime of standing against the Duke of Burgundy and his policy of heavy-handed taxation.

The revolt was quelled and Rouen placed under the administration of a royal governor. But the mood in France was hardly peaceful. Violence simmered in the air, barely contained and ready to explode at the slightest provocation. While the people of Honnefleu went about their daily business as usual, outwardly calm, behind shuttered windows and locked doors, in the privacy of their own homes and businesses, they spoke of their displeasure in whispers.

Honnefleu lacked Rouen’s courage. Afraid of retribution, villagers would not protest taxation outright for fear of Burgundy’s iron fist, but they did not hesitate to show their discontent in small human ways: pelting naval officers with word, stone, and rotten fruit when the sailors dared leave the protection of ships for the temptations of shore or turning their faces aside in disgust when members of the royal cavalry passed through town to Fécamp in the north.

It was well known even as far as Littleton that the proprietress of the Blue Goose, Honnefleu’s most beloved tavern, would refuse service to any man or woman wearing the king’s uniform, and not politely.

I applaud her for her good taste.

 

David departed White Hill for Littleton at dawn, choosing a non-descript bay mare from Le Château’s stables, eschewing Affrodille’s larger, faster and more conspicuous black gelding. He left his scholar’s robes folded neatly on his bed, dressing instead in a plain crofter’s tunic and trousers, and a pair of sturdy, well-worn boots.

Though it galled him he left off the soft, Phrygian cap he habitually wore, covering himself instead with a hooded cloak. Even more than his scholar’s robes the cap marked him as White Hill’s alchemist and Le Château, as much as any warship or cavalry regiment, belonged to King Charles.

He could not risk delay on any account, nor did he wish to be battered with rotten fruit or dung as he rode through Honnefleu.

“Keep your hood up,” Affrodille cautioned for the third time as David double checked the straps fastening the sack hiding the afreet glaive across his back. “To better hide your curls.”

And for the third time David awarded his friend an incredulous glance. “I’d be recognized for my spectacles first.” Reading glasses were an expensive indulgence. Those who could afford spectacles rarely risked them outside of their homes. David was a well-known exception. He refused to grope through life half-blind and thanks to House Valois, had the means to regularly replace broken lenses. “Stop worrying. No one will pay me any mind. It’s not like I intend to pause for a friendly chat.”

Affrodille grunted doubtfully, crossing her arms over her chest. But she did not chide him again as he swung up into the saddle, and if the salute she tossed him when he kicked the mare into a gallop was mocking, her tepid farewell was more than made up for by the cheers and whistles issuing from the student’s dormitory above the stables as he galloped away from Le Château and down the steep wagon track toward Honnefleu below.

They have too much faith in their elders, David thought as the track down White Hill unspooled beneath the mare’s pounding hooves. And then: Time alone with Affrodille will soon teach them otherwise.

 

Honnefleu was already stirring. Lamplighters whistled their way down sandy cobblestone streets, snuffing what flame remained in the cresset baskets used overnight to keep cold and darkness at bay. The brisk morning air was heavy with the scent of brine. The bay reflected the rising sun on David’s right – ship masts split the silver sky – while on his left industrious merchants began the process of unshuttering their shops, and customers spilled grudgingly from port-side inns, calling for their horses and wagons. The city’s many taverns would open for business later in the day, when travelers and sailors alike began to think of beer, supper and companionship.

David crouched low in the saddle, head bowed and hands light on the reins as the mare, barely winded from her climb down White Hill, galloped past shop fronts. The lamplighters dodged out of her way to keep from being run down, and the merchants paused in their busy work to watch David gallop on. He could feel their eyes on his back as he passed. He’d come from the direction of Le Château, that they knew for certain, but cloaked as he was and without the king’s favor glittering in starburst on his breast he was shielded from acrimony. The stirring people of Honnefleu looked after David with sleepy suspicion, but they let him pass unmolested.

Away from the harbor crooked streets branched south toward the king’s highway, skirting gardens and well-kept homes. There were no garden walls in Honnefleu to divide one patch of grass from another. Flowering vines and blooming pear trees stretched between stone facades, connecting one residence to the next. Neighbors shared meticulously tended vegetable plots and chicken coops. Every other stoop hosted a fat cat waiting to be let in for breakfast. Baking bread and wood smoke scented the air, making David’s mouth water as he galloped past windows newly opened to the mourning

He’d packed only hard tack and cheese for travel, and he envied the housecats their breakfast of leftover patisserie.

It would be an easy day’s journey on horseback from Honnefleu to Littleton. The king’s highway ran in a southerly direction past field and hedgerow, the horizon broken here and there by groups of fruit trees and spreading bramble. Armed soldiers in royal livery patrol the road in regular intervals, charged with keeping travelers safe. There was no more dependable road between Calais and Angers, and none busier.

Just outside of Honnefleu David reined his horse back to an easy trot. It was unlikely he’d be recognized beyond the city, either as king’s man or Rouen Jew. The mare, although fit, could not keep up a flat-out gallop for long. Besides which, a man in visible haste would only draw unwanted attention.

He was not so foolish as to pull back the hood from his face, but he did straighten in the saddle, lifting his gaze from the cobblestones, relaxing enough to enjoy his surroundings. It was not often that he had occasion to leave Honnefleu, and although he was a self-proclaimed hermit, he did not regret the opportunity for adventure, even as he expected he was riding into a much larger imbroglio than either Berry or King Charles had been inclined to admit.

So early in the day the king’s highway was lively with traffic, on foot and on horseback. Merchants and crofters made up the greatest number of travelers, but David counted two families of tinkers – each pulling a brightly painted caravan behind raw-boned oxen -as well as one wealthy Calais tradesman flanked on either side by armed guards. A patrolman in livery rode nearby, sword on his back and eye on the way ahead.

David wondered if the merchant had bribed the soldier to stay close at hand, or if the patrolman’s attentiveness was only coincidental. The highway was safe, but not impervious to trouble. Brigands occasionally hid themselves in the adjacent trees, spring out for a bit of mischief and thievery between watchmen. Corbin had been set upon himself on his way from Littleton to Honnefleu, almost murdered in the night by a rogue disguised as a Benedictine from the island abbey of Le Saint-Michel.

The false Dom had been no average brigand, intent solely on robbery. Corbin had survived the attack but with a hole in his skull. The monk had faired far worse, torn to pieces by a pack of wolves in the night.

David and Sir Thomas had traced the false monk back to Caen, discovered he was a sword-for-hire called Alf, but learned little more.

What Alf had wanted with Corbin, or why the man had walked the highway in the guise of a monk, David would not guess. But he was certain Alf was no coincidence. After the inquest he’d found a sailor’s charm sewn into the hem of the man’s blood-stained robes: a sprig of rosemary burnt at both ends and braided through with red salvia, then wrapped in a piece of soft parchment inscribed with Corbin’s full name.

Sailors were a superstitious lot, and most of their charms were ineffective – but not all. David knew of at least one pirate in Honnefleu who had a talent for crafting authentic charms. Corbin wore her protection around his neck in the form of mermaids’ fingers and sharks’ teeth strung together between beads.

The bone necklace had come too late to protect Corbin from Alf. And David, who didn’t like unsolved puzzles, had kept Alf’s tracking charm to himself, thinking to speak of it to Corbin only after he had an explanation, but he’d never had the chance. Laurie had murdered Sir Thomas, and Corbin had cut down Laurie and fled White Hill for Beastly Manor, and the mystery of the false Benedictine became unimportant.

Twelve years later and the puzzle of Alf was still unsolved. David, riding past a square of farmland that might have been the very same upon which the sword-for-hire had died, continued to wonder who had sent an assassin after Corbin, and why.

 

The tradesman and his retinue made good time. David rode in their wake, grateful for the path the guards cleared through slower foot traffic. His mare seemed eager for the company of other horses, stretching its legs to keep up with the merchant’s stout pony, pricking her ears hopefully in the direction of the patrolman’s courser. The courser paid her no mind but the soldier flicked David a friendly glance before returning his watchful gaze to the road.

“Strange animals, aren’t they?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Horses,” the patrolman explained, mouth curling at the corners. He rode bare-headed, his helm attached to his saddle, which told David he wasn’t expecting mischief, but kept one hand loosely on the hilt of the dagger on his belt, which meant he knew better than to rely on expectations.

The badge on his shoulder said he was a newly made knight while the cut of his boots and gloves suggested he was of noble birth.

“Not my specialty,” David confessed. “Horses.”

“It’s the herd instinct,” the young soldier said. “They prefer company to loneliness, you see, even the company of strangers. Tilda, here – ” he thumped his courser lightly on the neck ” – is the friendly sort, a rare thing in a mare. She won’t mind if your girl there gets close. But the pony will kick.” He indicated the guards with a tip of his chin. “And while those two geldings are too foot-sore to make a fuss their handlers are another matter. You’ll be safer back with me, if it’s companionship you’re looking for.”

“Thank you. But I’m not – ”

The soldier’s smile deepened. “You’re a man of letters? A scribe. I can tell by the ink on your fingers. And your spectacles.” He laughed when David reached up in consternation to tug at his hood. “Not used to travel, are you? Safer behind a desk with a quill in your hand. Which house do you work for?” He took his attention off the horizon long enough to toss a quick salute. “I’m called Ansel, recently of his majesty’s cavalry. My youngest brother is a man of letters, you see. He works for Duchess d’Auvergne, a prime position.”

“I’m David.” He couldn’t help but be impressed. “You’ve an eye for detail. Most don’t pause to take note of a man’s face, let alone the ink on a his’s hands.” It was the sort of scrutiny schooled into pupils of Le Château, where attention to detail could be the difference between life and death, and it was not a skill that came naturally to many.

Ansel shrugged. “Curiosity killed the cat, as my mum used to say, and to my shame I’m plagued with more than my fair share. Still, can’t be too careful, lately.” He lowered his voice. “Not with the troubles north and in Paris. I’ll wear his majesty’s colors proudly, but I’ll keep both eyes open whilst I do.”

One of the guards riding ahead near the tradesman chose that moment to turn his head and spit on the cobblestones, barely missing a gray-haired shepherd coaxing a group of goats along the highway. The shepherd cursed, but the guard ignored him, darting an ugly glare back Ansel’s way instead.

“I see,” David said. “And why is it a royal knight is playing nursemaid to…” He paused, letting Ansel fill the silence.

“Oh, that’s Rolande L’herboriste. Private physician to his grace, the duke of Anjou,” Ansel replied readily. “He rides twice a year from Littleton way to tend to the duke’s health, and to his majesty’s as well. Sometimes he brings his daughter. Valentine’s a bright, well-formed lass, a treasure.” Ansel clicked his tongue. “Rolande is very well regarded at court, and his services do not come cheaply. His grace swears Rolande is worth more than his own weight in gold and so King Charles provides the man an escort to and from Paris whenever he rides attendance. I drew the short straw this time ’round, but I won’t complain. The weather is fine and I’ve a second cousin in Littleton with a cot to lend and an extra jug of apple brandy put aside for my arrival.”

David regarded the tradesman on his pony with new interest. As far as he could see Rolande was remarkable only for his casual display of wealth, the ostentatious silks and furs he wore as dangerous as royal livery in a climate of unrest. The dark-haired man flaunted rings on every finger. A large purple cabochon hung suspended from a delicate gold chain around his thick neck. His shoulders were broad, muscled beneath his fine tunic, his thighs massive. This was a man used to hard labor, dressed implausibly in a lord’s finery.

As master of White Hill, it was David’s business to know everything of import regarding House Valois, and that included everything about the king’s health. And indeed – thanks to an assortment of carefully placed informants David knew the name of every court physicker, bloodletter, and hedge witch granted access to Charles.

But he’d never heard of Rolande.

“I don’t believe I know your herbalist,” David murmured. “From Littleton, you said?”

“Aye. Well. Directly west of Littleton, I mean to say.”

David’s brows rose beneath his hood. “Directly west of Littleton lies the black forest.”

“So it does,” Ansel agreed. “So it does.”

 

Rolande the herbalist chose to rest his pony at mid-day. David, despite the urgency of his errand, decided to do the same. He judged they’d make Littleton only an hour or two after dark, thanks to the hired guards’ aggressive push down the highway. It was David’s good luck he’d come upon the group – he was beginning to suspect in more ways than just the one.

They pulled up off the side of the highway near a stone crofter’s well. Distant cottages squatted in the spring crop. A spotted cow watched over a hedgerow as the guards drew water from the well for their horses and Roland’s pony. The herbalist stood to one side, stretching the kinks out of his spine and legs, the jewels on his fingers flashing. Ansel wandered deeper in the crop to take a piss while David, relieved to be out of the saddle, stomped blood back into his feet while waiting for a turn at the well.

Noontide sun beat against David’s hood and cape, too warm. The wound on his wrist throbbed angrily. He put it out of his mind, opting instead to ponder Rolande. He let the mare drink her fill from the bucket attached by rope to the well, then pushed back his hood long enough to wash road dust from his face, hands, and spectacles which he dried on the edge of his tunic. When his spectacles were once again in place Rolande met his eye across an expanse of new green crop. When he saw David looking, he jerked his chin in invitation.

It’s not like I intend to pause for a friendly chat. He’d promised Affrodillehe’d keep a low profile. But if David’s hunch was right, Rolande L’herboriste was worth a vow broken.

“My escort tells me you’ve been making enquiries,” he said as David approached, leading the mare on a loose rein. “Ansel’s naïve. Which explains why he might not understand Anjou would toss him in the gallows for a wagging tongue. You, my friend, haven’t the excuse of youth.”

“Have we met?” David asked. “I’m certain I’d remember if we had. Beg pardon, my friend, but yours is not a face I would forget.”

Rolande’s eyes – one blue and one brown – narrowed to slits when he laughed. “Fairy touched. I was born with only the one. My da was a woodsman who had no patience for a one-eyed child. He wanted to smother me whilst I slept but in desperation my mam made a deal with one of the forest fay. Plucked its own blue eye out, the fairy man did, and shoved it right into mine own head.” He snapped his fingers. “Pop.”

One of Sir Thomas’ many cats was a rough-eared tom with one blue eye and one brown. David had been in White Hill’s kitchens the day it was born. The kitten had two blue eyes when it first regarded the world. As it aged the right darkened to brown while the left stayed true to the color of sky. The mismatched eyes were a notable oddity, but definitely not the result of fairy magic.

“You don’t believe me,” Rolande said, chuckling. “No matter. But it’s my fairy eye that shows me the truth of a man’s ailment, and how best to set his body right again. I do well by my mother’s bargain, and it does well by me.”

“I’m told you tend his majesty in Paris.” The mare was restless. She nudged impatiently at David’s shoulder. He quieted her with a touch. “I trust King Charles is well?”

“Well, and hale.” Rolande winked, brown eye closing. “But you’ll understand if I can’t go into more detail. His majesty’s health is his majesty’s business.”

David pretended confusion. “In truth, I care little for matters of court. It was Ansel’s mention of the black forest that caught my attention. I’m certain I misunderstood, but – Surely you don’t make your home within that accursed wildwood?”

Rolande’s affable smirk faltered. “Not within, nay. I’m not so much a fool as that. But close by its shadow, aye, and I am familiar with its denizens.”

“My good luck,” exclaimed David with false enthusiasm. “As it happens, I’m heading to Littleton, and into the forest beyond. I’m in need of a guide.”

“What is your business with the forest?” Wariness replaced Rolande’s good cheer. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I doubt you can afford my services.”

“My business is with the Littleton Fiend. I’m told that devil’s lair is very difficult to discover. A many-towered mansion, a chateau that moves hither and thither through the forest of its own whim, unmoored in time and in place, tethered to the black wood by the strength of a sorcerer’s potent curse.”

“Sorceress,” Rolande corrected sourly. “Twas a witch that first spoke that ancient curse, a vengeful crone.” He crossed his arms on his chest, pulling his furs more closely about him, shivering in the sunlight. “I can’t help you.”

David filed Rolande’s fear away in the back of his head, something to be taken out and examined later. “Can’t,” he suggested, “or won’t?”

But the herbalist shook his head, stubborn. “There are others in Littleton who might, for the right price. Ask for Sarah Brown, the inn keep’s wife. Or Nell at Cottage Farm. Both have cause to know the forest.”

“Thank you.” David essayed a polite half-bow from the waist.

Rolande was already turning away, reaching for his pony. “Don’t thank me yet,” he tossed over his shoulder as he swung up into the saddle. “Your coin purse will be much lighter for their help, likely with slim result. The Fiend keeps his lair well hidden, unless it serves his purpose to catch you knocking at his gate.” Rolande’s bi-colored eyes flicking across David’s face and then away. “Are you expected?”

“I’ve no reason to suppose so.” David smiled. “Though I do have a knack for finding what I seek.”

Rolande kicked his mount sharply in the belly, sending it headlong back toward the highway. His guardsmen, surprised, hurried to catch him up.

“What’s got into him?” Ansel asked, appearing at David’s side.

“I can’t say for sure,” David lied. “But we were speaking of the black forest.”

“Mon Dieu!” Ansel snorted, handsome face crinkling in amusement. “No wonder he scuttled off. The people of Littleton don’t much like strangers asking questions about their forest. They’re protective of its strangeness, I think. Or mayhap just afraid.”

“Of interlopers?”

Ansel turned somber.

“Nay,” he said, “of catching the forest’s attention.”

 

 

Four

Mirror magic is a learned skill, just like swords’ work or learning to ride a bicycle. And as with any learned skill, practice is important. One need not use a mirror, of course. Any reflective surface will do – a crystal ball, a bowl of water, a piece of highly polished silver. With concentration shapes appear; physical but not necessarily harmless. Often what is revealed is symbolic. A skilled scryer may also use mirror magic for long distance communication.

Some people have a natural affinity for scrying. They only have to walk past a shallow pond, glance sideways at the polished blade of a dinner knife, look too long into the blue heart of a flame and unbidden images will flood their mind. Other people, like David Chevalier, spend a lifetime in practice and achieve only modest results.

As with any sorcery, some capability is often more dangerous than none at all. The apparition Bloody Mary, for example, is responsible for more dead children than small pox.

 

They reached Littleton earlier than David predicted, an hour before sunset. Rolande and his company turned off the highway first, kicking up dust as they left cobblestones for packed earth, urging their horses ahead. Ansel tossed David a quick farewell salute and a grin as he rode on. Neither Rolande nor his guardsmen afforded David any attention. All three had been ignoring him with impressive determination for the last half of the day.

David took no offense. Quite the opposite. That he’d managed to rattle Rolande only meant he’d been asking the right questions. That David wasn’t certain what he’d said to upset the herbalist didn’t matter. He expected it would be made clear sooner rather than later, if it was of any consequence. It was Rolande’s reaction, slowly stoked by David’s continuing presence nearby from discomfort to a simmering fury, that was truly interesting.

Conversation, he knew, was much like alchemy: often the end reaction was well worth a day spent gently stirring.

David reined his mount to a leisurely walk, letting the others pass and then pull ahead. The mare, a hardy sort used to carrying riders in haste between White Hill and Paris or White Hill and Fontainebleau, was not winded by a day’s journey in good weather. She rooted at the bit, unhappy, as her new friends disappeared into the dusk. But the gash around David’s wrist had turned to fire and the rest of his body, unused to so many hours in the saddle, felt stretched out of place and in the wrong direction. He wanted a hot meal, and even hotter water to wash in, and afterwards a comfortable bed until dawn.

There was no good reason to rush on. Only a fool or a truly desperate man would brave the black forest after sunset, and David – hardly a fool – had not yet reached the point of desperation. He’d meant it when he told Rolande he usually found whatever it was he sought, be it clandestine monster or lost treasure. He did not suppose rooting out the Littleton Fiend could be much more challenging than tracking a vampire to its tomb or a dwarf to its nest.

A small voice whispered in the back of David’s head that he was perhaps overconfident. He dismissed it with a shake of his head and a sigh, then pointed the mare’s nose in the direction of burgeoning torchlight ahead.

As he grew close to town the road changed, straightening between humps of field, weathered oak planks laid across the deepest wagon ruts, the wood worn smooth by traffic and weather. Low stone walls and thick hedgerows bordered plots of farmland. Past a tangle of vegetation thatched rooves and stone dormers cast shadows in the dusk. Candles flickered through the cracks of shuttered windows. The evening air smelled of sweetly of burning Applewood. Distant voices wreathed the fields like wood smoke; laughter and singing, the sounds of families greeting each other as they returned home for supper.

David’s stomach growled. The mare whickered in sympathy, no doubt thinking wistfully of grain mash and White Hill grasses.

“Almost there,” David soothed. “Affrodille assured me the inn keep’s stable is recently renovated on his majesty’s dime and more than adequate.”

The mare swung both ears forward, mollified.

David could see the inn ahead even in the increasing gloom. The three-story building, called Henri’s after the baker who once sold bread and patisseries out of the first floor, was the tallest in Littleton. Henri was several years gone, the building under new management, the bakery converted to a tavern frequented by locals and travelers alike. A new baker had set up shop several doors down from the inn. A painted sign over the closed door read simply Sweets & Savories, elaborately curved letters dancing in the light of a nearby cresset.

An eager lad met David in front of the inn, popping up from the stoop like a marionette on strings.

“Welcome to Henri’s!” He cast a curious eye over David’s hood, likely catching the flash of  David’s spectacles, and then over the bag strapped across David’s back. “Stable your horse, monsieur? Are you staying the night?”

“Yes.” David winced when his boots hit the ground. Pain stabbed his injured arm, wrist to elbow. His legs protested time spent too long in the saddle. “Assuming there’s room.” Light and noise spilled through the inn’s open door, along with the scent of roast meat. “It seems very full.”

“That’s only the regulars come in to celebrate Cooper John’s good fortune. There’s plenty of beds left. Just ask Sarah behind the bar.” The lad accepted reins and an offering of two silver pennies from David’s purse. His affable smile widened. “My lord. Thank you, my lord.”

“See that she’s well fed.” David slapped the mare lightly on the withers before limping across the stoop and into the inn.

A burst of loud good cheer heralded his arrival. He was relieved to see it was only the general conviviality of a friendly crowd enjoying a fine night and even finer drink. Several patrons raised their tankards in his direction – the universal sign of welcome recognized in every tavern from Brittany to Flanders – before returning to whatever conversation his arrival had interrupted.

“Bienvenue!” The woman polishing tankards behind the wide fieldstone-and-oak bar had pink cheeks and a snub nose. She also wore a woodcutters’ axe on a belt over a simple wool tunic and tiny gold hoops in her ears. “Supper or a bed or both?”

“Both.” David pushed back his hood and maneuvered his way to the bar, slipping between patrons seated on benches, patrons propped drunkenly against the inn’s slanting stone walls, and patrons already passed out on the rush-strewn floor. The glaive in the sack on his back made sidling awkward. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in so close a crowd.

Whatever Cooper John’s good fortune, David mused, the celebration must have started early.

“Belly up, then.” Using a flapping bar rag as incentive, the woman cleared a place for David and his belongings at the bar with the efficiency of Moses parting the Red Sea. She looked David up and down as she did so, stare catching on the bag as he propped it against the bar within easy reach. Unlike the stable lad, she declined to keep her thoughts to herself. “Down from Rouen, are you?”

David was used to being mistaken for a Rouen Jew. The supposition no longer made him as homesick as it once had.

“Honnefleu. Heading west. I’m in need of a guide through the forest,” he added as she placed a trencher of good roast beef and a tankard of cold, dark ale on the bar in front of him. “Are you Sarah Brown?”

“Aye.” But she shook her head knowingly. “You mean my mum, I think. She was Sarah, also, and a woodswoman and a tracker. Made a nice wage leading merchants and the like back and forth through the wildwood, once upon a time.”

David paused, tankard half-raised. “Once upon a time?”

“Mum died over the winter. Cold got into her old bones at last. Went to bed and didn’t get up again. She’s sorely missed.”

“I’m sorry.” The ale tasted faintly of apples, fizzing on David’s tongue and warming the back of his throat before hitting his empty stomach in an explosion of pleasure. He drank his fill, then started on the trencher.

“Stick to the main path through the wood and you’ll be fine,” Sarah said in between filling tankards. The supply of ale and thirsty customers wanting more seemed ceaseless. “You look like the sort of man who can handle himself.”

Thinking sourly that looks could indeed be deceiving, David chewed a mouthful of tender beef and carrot. The food was as fine as the drink, lightly spiced and expertly cooked. He ate very well on White Hill, but Henri’s simple meat and vegetable trencher was a thing of rare gastronomical beauty.

“What about Nell? Nell of…Cottage Farm?”

Sarah’s brows rose under a fringe of dark hair. “Oh, aye. She’ll take you through. But only if you convince her it’s worth her while. Nell’s a busy woman.”

David nodded. He ate without speaking until gluttony made his stomach protest. Around him the common room grew boisterous and then solemn and boisterous again in waves, like the ocean lapping against a rocky shore. The party showed no sign of slowing even though outside the door night had fallen, shadows grown inky.

He’d always assumed farm folk went to their beds soon after dusk and rose with the sun, but the group in Henri’s seemed uninclined to behave like proper villiens.

“What’s the celebration?” he asked around a young man slumped and snoring on the bar.

“John Cooper’s best milk cow,” the young man’s companion, a grizzled fellow with ale in his beard, replied. “Had twins just this morning, she did. Two heifers. Both healthy and strong, and the mother’s doing fine.”

“Congratulations?” David’s confusion must have shown on his face. The old farmer laughed.

“His best milk cow, I said. Twins make for a complicated birth; often one or both die in the doing, and sometimes the mother was well. John expected a loss, he did, and John can’t afford a loss. But the cow and the babies are well, you understand? Fortune smiled on Littleton this morning.”

“I see.” David scanned the crowd, trying to guess which of the men might be the lucky John Cooper, but quickly gave up. They all had the whittled, windburned features specific to farmers and laborers, and each appeared as pleased with life as his nearest fellow. Any might have been the man who expected loss and was granted bounty instead, none seemed less relieved than his neighbor.

David extracted several coins from his purse and caught Sarah’s attention. “For a room, and my supper, and another round of ale in honor of John Cooper and his milk cow.”

A cheer went up. The farmer slapped David on the shoulder; his grin was gap-toothed and crooked. Sarah winked and waited until the noise died down again. Then she leaned in close over the bar top.

“Bed’s up the steps, first door on your right,” she said. Then, more quietly: “You’ll find Cottage Farm on the east side of town, near the old mill. Barn’s brand new and looks it, stands out like a tulip in the briar. Get their early and you’ll catch Nell at her chores before she walks out over the cliffs for crabbing. Once she’s off she won’t be back till nightfall.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, nay.” Sarah tested the weight of his coins in her palm. “Thank you.”

 

The bed was one of ten empty cots set up dormitory-style in a square room just off the second-floor landing. The room had no windows and smelled faintly of bread. It was cold; the thick stone walls and lack of windows and hearth made David think the room been used for storage when the building had still been a bakery. The only light came through the open door from the busy common room below, though each bedstead was equipped with a squat beeswax candle and a serviceable chamber pot. He supposed he was meant to trot back downstairs to the main hearth if he wanted a flame for his candle. Instead he left the door open in hopes of letting in some warmth.

David set his bag gently on the floor next to the cot nearest the door then sank gratefully onto the mattress. It was horse hair stuffed into a patchwork of empty bags once used for flour, lumpy but clean. A thick wool blanket folded neatly at the head of the bed would serve as pillow or coverlet. He saw nothing to indicate hot water for a wash was in his future, but he was willing to settle for a full belly and a serviceable mattress under a safe roof.

The pain in his wrist was becoming worrisome. He shucked off his cape and rolled up his sleeve. By the light of the open door he could see the brown crust of dried blood on the bandages Affrodille had insisted on applying before he’d set out for Littleton. Then they’d both hoped the sluggishly bleeding gashes were not of any serious concern. Now David wasn’t so certain. Though the bleeding was slowing, the skin around the bandages was hot against his seeking fingers, lumpy as the horse hair mattress. Where the incubus’ thorns had punctured his flesh, puss rose in pinprick boils.

He had no reason to believe an incubus was venomous. Everything he’d read indicated their danger lay in their glamour and – once their prey was diverted – in straightforward brute strength.

He convinced himself that the wound was only acerbated by a day spent on horseback. A night’s rest would help. Rolling his sleeve back into place, he decided he’d take a second look in the daylight, change the bandages then if necessary.

A gut full of good food and ale fogged his head. He smothered a yawn. But there was one more task needed doing before David could sleep. Hefting the bag onto the bed, he unbuckled one leather straps and reached in, digging past Medea’s Phial still safely snuggled in its small coffer and the glaive in its larger chest. He tugged forth a bundle wrapped tightly in strips of raw silk. It felt solid in his hands, unbroken. Still, David didn’t relax completely until he’d wound away the silk and held the mirror, thankfully in one piece, on his lap.

The glass was black in the dim room, the oval frame rough against his hands. He placed it to one side and reached again into the saddlebags, retrieving a small wedge of soft limestone secured in a drawstring pouch.

Scrying was one of the most basic skills in an alchemist’s tool kit, often the first passed from master to apprentice. Any neophyte was expected to demonstrate his competence in primary divination before he or she was allowed even limited access to the alchemic lab. A mirror, a piece of black crystal, still water or fogged glass – the instrument didn’t matter so long as the prospective medium learned to steady his or her mind and see true.

David had learned the principles of scrying at his uncle’s knee. He’d proved very poor at it at, laughably unreliable. The things he glimpsed in the glass were impossibilities: towering buildings made of glass, metal-skinned birds skimming high above even the uppermost roofline. A crystalline bridge spanning a rift in red earth. Once, a giant clock face ticking atop a tower while figures swathed head-to-toe in white punted boats back and forth on a green river below.

“Imagination,” David’s scolded after each vision. “You have too much imagination. Steady your mind and try again!”

He was better at far-seeing than divination, but not by much. He could speak to a person through the mirror one room away, one house away, and on a good day one village over. While both his cousins, neither of whom had aspirations of joining the old magician on White Hill and spent more time practicing swordsmanship than the family business of poisons and potions, could scry Grand-mère in León.

“So much time spent admiring your pretty face!” they teased David as he glared into the glass. “Best hope the magician in his white château takes a shine to it as well, or he’ll never let you near his tower. You’ve nothing else of worth to offer him.””

David never met the old magician. He arrived at White Hill too late. Luckily Sir Thomas was a kind man who saw value in what David could do and did not judge him for what he could not.

“Use it sparingly,” Sir Thomas had counseled as he’d admired the old mirror, a gift to David from his uncle – who thought himself very droll – on the day David had left Rouen for White Hill. “And for all our sake’s always put yourself in a sacred circle first when you must. If you can’t control, do your best to contain.”

David did use the mirror sparingly, and while his technique improved with time, he was never equal to his uncle and cousins. And he never used the mirror without first putting himself inside a protective circle.

He drew the circle now, limestone chalk on the cold stone floor. He didn’t need the light from the common room below. He could draw a sacred circle awake, asleep, blind and half-dead. Geometry and ritual he understand. Unlike far-seeing or divination, geometry and ritual were consistent, enduring and unchanging. The incantation fell from his lips without hesitation, his hand was steady as it moved across the floor. The chalk was a lodestone in his fist.

When the circle closed David sat at the center, the mirror again on his lap. The noise from the downstairs was muffled, the light through the open door obscured. If anyone walked into the room, they would not see him sitting there on the floor by the bed. Their eyes and mind would skirt the edges of the circle, unable to comprehend that which was right in front of their noses.

David lifted the mirror flat on his palms to nose level, breathing softly through his mouth so as not to fog the surface. He closed his eyes, counting backward from twenty, calming his breathing, clearing a cobweb of distractions from his mind. His heartbeat slowed to a peaceful, steady bump behind the cage of his ribs. He forgot the pain in his arm, and the ache of overused muscles.

When he opened his eyes again, he did not look directly into the mirror but slantwise across the glass. It was not unlike gazing across Le Château’s garden pond on a quiet winter’s morning. The mirror shone a soft, silvery brown, lit from within by an old magic he could only hope to someday master.

It was not an easy connection to maintain. If he let the cobwebs gather again, if he thought, for instance, of mad Rob who’d used a similar method to scry for King Charles and who’d driven Laurie to murder, or if he moved in too close and let his reflection fall across the mirror’s face, disturbing the spell…

Then he’d have to begin again.

“Vingt…dix-neuf…éveillent…” David whispered, barely moving his lips, doing his best not to think of anything at all.

Tiny whitecaps ruffled the mirror’s surface. Where they broke, folding in onto themselves, they left smears of vibrant color behind, pieces of a mosaic swirling into place.

Encouraged by the mirror’s response, David sharpened his intent. Droplet by droplet he filled the empty ampoule that was his mind with elements specifically Corbin.

Astonishingly ginger hair, cut short for safety’s sake. Eyes the color of the Seine on a sunny day. Slow to smile, quick to laugh. A volcanic temper, tightly restrained. The scar on Corbin’s temple, the long lazy days wasted in recovery after that ugly wound, David dancing affable attendance in the sick room. Innumerable hours shared over the problem of the Littleton Fiend, together in David’s tower, high above the rest of the world.

Corbin.

Self-pitying, self-sacrificing, too fond of alcohol, loyal to a fault, prone to black moods, cultivated as a killer and deadly with the glaive in hand.

Blushing pink over a ribald joke. Gobbling cook’s fresh-baked bread, sighing pleasure even as he nearly choked on a mouthful. The string of mermaid’s finger bones around his throat. Corbin had offered that same string to David, shrugging off the necklace’s worth, laughing at David’s excitement.

“A gift. From me to you. Merry Christmas, David.”

“By God and all His devils! You make more noise than a cock at crow! Must you broadcast your schoolboy crush across all Normandy? No wonder Uncle Baruch despaired of you. Your unabashed naivety is like to attract all kinds of dangerous things.”

David’s pulse wanted to leap. Only the iron control of long hours spent in practice kept the spell from dissolving.

“‘Crush?'” he enquired politely, glancing askance at the mirror, catching a sideways impression of a decrepit chamber: tattered curtains, faded carpets, broken furniture. “I don’t understand. What is ‘crush’?”

The Littleton Fiend – angry yellow eyes, wild black hair, a notion of silk and velvet – snarled something under his breath that David wasn’t meant to catch.

“What do you want?” the demon demanded. “It’s the middle of the night!”

Whether he meant to tempt David into checking how much time had passed since he’d chalked the circle, thusly breaking the spell, or whether it was indeed late night wherever and whenever the Manor resided, David couldn’t guess.

“Never mind. I know well what you what. You can’t have him. Now go away.”

A flicker of fingers on the other side of the mirror, the threat of scrying cut short.

“Beast!” David blurted. “I’ve brought his sword!”

The fingers froze. The connection held.

“Brought?” the Beast enquired coldly. “What do you mean, brought? Where are you, David?” He made a sound disturbingly like an animal testing the air, sniffing out prey. “And what exactly have you done to your arm?”

 

Five

The women of Littleton have been connected to the black forest for as long as I’ve been watching, and I’ve been watching for a very long time indeed. Before even the hamlet had a name, the fae who made their homes deep in the wildwood and the mothers, wives, and sisters of the sheepherders who had begun to settle the fertile meadowland between the Alevins to the north and Bretons Sea to the west exchanged promises over blood and milk. They were bound forever after.

I’m an expert negotiator, but I’ve never yet been desperate enough to strike any bargain with fairy kind. For their side of the contract, Littleton’s mothers, wives, and sisters received a taste of the forest’s benevolence.

They called it hedge witchery and it runs in still in their daughters, a contract unbroken.

As for the fae – I can say only that if anyone notices that occasionally an infant born into Littleton seems more preternatural than any human child has a right to be…

Well, no one dares speak such suspicions out loud.

Safer by far in a world where any advantage is hard won to count your blessings and not spit in the direction of the forest.

 

David woke later than he intended, to the sound of bootheels on stone and hushed breathing much too close. He sat bolt upright, at the same time reaching for the afreet glaive.

The sword was there, safely concealed in its bulky sack, snugged against his side on the mattress.

“Monsieur.” The man bending over David’s bed was a blur. “Your snoring offends the ears. I’m trying to sleep. Roll over or get out.”

David unhooked his spectacles from the collar of his tunic. Settling them on the bridge of his nose, he blinked to clear sleep from his eyes. Though the closed room was no brighter than when he’d rolled into bed, he could tell by the internal clock ticking always in his head that he’d slept the night away.

“It’s mid-morning,” he said in disbelief. He hadn’t slept through a sunrise since he was a small child, rising always before the birds. It was a habit he’d cultivated, believing no day should be wasted.

The man standing over him frowned. He was dressed in royal silver and blue, covered from the neck down with a fine layer of mud. “So it is. I’ve been riding all night, haven’t I? A man’s allowed to a sound sleep in a good inn, so long as he’s got the coin. A sound sleep, mind you, undisturbed by snoring.”

He flicked a glance at the sack on the mattress. When David had gone to bed he’d covered both himself and treasures, but now the blanket was on the floor and the sack revealed.

“Shouldn’t sleep so deeply, if you’re carrying something precious enough you’ll take it to bed like a lass,” the soldier said, grimly amused. “Henri’s is the safest establishment you’ll find a day’s ride either way, but the roads are thick with thieves of late, and you never know who you’re sharing a roof with. I could have had it off you easily and been long gone before you stirred.”

“I’m not…I don’t usually…” David’s fingers curled protectively on the sack. He didn’t think the man was a threat. If he’d been intent on thievery, both he and the sack would have been long gone, David none the wiser. “I don’t usually sleep so deeply. And I don’t snore.”

The man snorted. He dropped into the bed across from David’s, shedding road dust in a puff. “Well, it wasn’t me vibrating the rafters. Kindly roll off your back or get out.” He shook out the wool coverlet, pulling it up to his ears, and twisted away from David.

David’s mouth hung open. He shut it with a snap, which only proved to bring the dull throb in his head into focus. His eyes were sandy with grit, his mouth sticky and dry. His bones ached. A shiver rattled his body from head to toe, setting his left arm afire. He knew at once that he was in trouble.

Moving gingerly, he sat on the edge of the mattress, feet on the floor where the scuffed outline of his chalk circle was barely visible to his knowing eye. He had a tincture of willowbark in his bag, as well as dried elderberry and his precious glass vial of opium. A fever was a nuisance, but not debilitating. As White Hill’s physicker, he’d treated more febrile patients than he could count.

Wound infection was the obvious cause. He’d ask the inn keep for hot water and honey, re-dress his wrist and be on his way. No cause for alarm. It was only the fever setting his heart to pounding.

He needed to check beneath his bandages, assess any signs of putridity, but the light in the room wouldn’t do. He stood up. His head swam in protest and briefly he thought he’d lose last night’s supper all over the floor.

Moving as carefully as if his bones might shatter, David shouldered his bags, hugged the glaive in its chest against his front, and made his way downstairs.

“Look at you,” Sarah Brown said from behind the bar. “Bit late to rise, aren’t we? You’ll never catch Nell now, not until nightfall.” She paused, brow wrinkling. “You look all done in. I don’t recall serving you that much ale.”

Silently, David cursed himself for a fool. In the fog of waking too late and too abruptly, not to mention the mists of his fever, he’d forgotten Cottage Farm.

“Sit down before you fall down.” Sarah came around the bar, reaching for David’s elbow. “I’ll send for the blood-letter. He’ll set you right in no time.”

Grimacing, David demurred. “I’ll see to it myself. After I speak to Nell.”

“Well, there’s no point in hurrying now. You’ll not see hide nor hair of her until after dark.”

But David was already out the door, calling for his horse. The stable hand – a lass this time – watched expressionlessly as he strapped the sack on his back and then hitched himself up into the saddle, but not before he’d slipped the green glass vial of opium into hand and taken a healthy sip.

“What sort of medicine is that, my lord?” the lass asked, wrinkling her nose.

“What makes you think it’s medicine?”

“You’re bleeding through your sleeve, my lord. And you stink like sick room.”

“Which way to Cottage Farm?” He tucked the vial in his cape and tossed the lass a coin. His purse was growing light. He could only hope Nell didn’t expect a king’s ransom up front for her tracking services.

“That way, my lord.” Clutching the coin in her fist she pointed. “East at the divide, on until the road narrows. You can’t miss it for the new barn and the gigantic hound that guards it.”

“Gigantic hound?” David paused in reining the mare around. Sarah hadn’t mentioned a guard dog. He wondered if she’d left out that important detail on purpose.

“Some say it’s a loup-garou, a wolf man, come out of the forest to keep Nell company.” She grinned up at him. “But I don’t believe in fairy tales. Do you?”

“I do,” replied David, making the child gape. He nudged the mare with his heels, clucking encouragement. She leapt immediately into an eager trot, snorting loudly at a pair of quail bobbing across the cobblestones, scattering them into the brush.

“Someone is rested. Treated you well in the stables, did they?”

The mare swiveled her ears backward and forward, lifting her hooves high. David buried his fingers in her mane for balance. He tugged the edges of his cloak more tightly around his body, shoulders slumping. The opium was already doing its work, dulling the sharp edges of pain and fever, but the remedy came with a price. Every good physicker knew poppy oil blunted the wits and should be used sparingly.

In hunting the Beast, David had need of his wits.

Beyond the heart of Littleton proper, just past a squat stone shopfront displaying signage too weathered to be easily interpreted, the road forked. David and his mare took the east-most fork, stepping off cobblestone onto dirt. Pink and yellow wildflowers dotted overgrown meadow on either side of the track. Low walls and strings of bramble ran rampant through the greenery, cutting the land into uneven shapes.

David could smell the sea in the air: salt and iron, like spilled blood. It was less cloying here than in Honnefleu, overlaid with the sweet perfume of cut grass and Applewood. A breeze kicked up, making pink and white blossoms sway on their stalks, and long grasses whisper. Hypnotized by the ripple of color and sound, David’s own head bobbed.

The mare stumbled on a rut in the dirt then stopped abruptly. David jerked in the saddle, coming awake just in time to lock eyes with the loup-garou standing stiff-legged in the middle of the lane.

But, no, that was the opium talking. David had encountered more than one lycanthrope in his service to White Hill. In fact, he’d encountered exactly three. Three was not a multitude by any man’s count, but the werewolf was not a plentiful species in western France thanks to Philip VI’s penchant for trapping gray wolves.

The animal in the lane was no supernatural monster. Nor was it an overgrown hound. A fine example of canis lupus lupus, it stood almost as tall as the mare’s barrel, tawny fur bristling, long pink tongue lolling between bared yellow teeth.

The mare began to tremble. The wolf growled. David gripped the saddle and the reins both, knowing an instant before the mare whirled that she would spook.

A whistle split the air, two high trills and then a deeper note. The mare froze mid-flight. David tilted on her back but kept his seat. The mare lowered her head until it almost touched the dirt, breathing heavily. David craned his neck, looking for the wolf, but the animal was gone.

“I’ve sent her away.” A woman stepped out of the meadow, hopping over a fallen hedge-row. She landed on her feet within a hand’s breadth of David and his horse. The mare twitched but did not flee. “She’s used to teasing the locals, you understand, and didn’t expect visitors from out of town or she wouldn’t have been so bold.” She soothed David’s trembling mare, running a light hand from throat latch to ear. “I’d dismount, were I you. I can only hold this one in place for so long.”

David did as he was told, moving slowly so as to spare both his arm and the mare’s over-stretched senses. Once on the ground he eased the reins over the mare’s ears, gripping them securely in one hand, before turning to face his rescuer.

She wore a long tunic over torn hose and pair of high boots, and a string of freshly caught fish over one shoulder. The fish dripped water down her front and the boots were coated with wet mud. When she was sure that David had his horse firmly in hand, she whistled again, one low note and two high.

The mare, released, took off skyward and sideways. The next several minutes were spent trying to convince her that charging back toward town was not a viable option; by the time David coaxed and cowed her into standing again in place they were both out of breath and sweating, the mare having decided David was a menace and David beginning to wish he had never left White Hill in the first place.

The woman observed their struggle with veiled amusement. She did not offer to help or even speak again until David had his frightened mount back under control.

“Dog scares horses,” she said when David and the mare stood panting. “They don’t like her smell.”

“That was no dog,” David retorted. “I know I wolf when I see one.” He blew out through his nose to clear his head. “How did you do that?”

She had dark eyes and dark brows and dark, glossy hair cut short like a lad’s. Feigned innocent widened her eyes. “Dog minds me when I send her home – ”

“No,” David interrupted. He shoved back his hood. “My horse. You kept her from running.”

“Oh, that.” The string of fish danced when she shrugged. “It’s a simple hedge spell. My mum taught me how when I was just a lass. Useful on most animals.” She closed one eye in what might have been a wink. “Even wolves.”

For the first time David noticed the cottage in the meadow behind her, and beyond that, a proud stone barn, clean and white in the morning, newly thatched roof golden.

“You’re Nell,” he said, close to sagging with relief. “The hedge witch. Mon Dieu, I thought I’d missed you. I need your help.”

“I can see that.” She coked her head, amusement gone, and pursed her lips. Then she sighed. “Come on, then. I can’t do you much good here in the middle of the lane, dirt all around and no clean place to sit. This way. Put your horse in my barn while I start the water boiling.”

“Water?”

But she was already back over the hedge row and halfway across the meadow, leaving David and the mare to follow much more slowly, wary of gopher holes beneath the grass and wolves lurking in the wildflowers. The mare, in a baffling reversal of moods, lipped idly at tall pink blossoms, forcing David to pull at the reins repeatedly to keep her from grazing. It was as if she had forgotten the wolf completely.

The simple hedge charm Nell had used to calm the animal seemed very thorough.

David untacked the mare and put her into a large box stall in the otherwise deserted stone barn. He hung her bridle on a peg in the wall, taking quick note of his surroundings as he did so. The inside of the barn was spacious and rigorously ordered; crofter’s tools hung in neat array from more pegs on the wall across from the stall. Last year’s hay was put up in the loft above his head, kept cool and dry under the thatched roof. A single fat rooster, red-plumed and suspicious, watched David from the loft.

Carrying Corbin’s sword in the sack slung over one shoulder, David left the barn and made his way across an extensive kitchen garden to the cottage on the other side. The garden was as ruthlessly ordered as the barn, plots trim and tidy. A one-eyed orange tom cat judged David from a clump of rosemary, and a dun-colored pea hen startled up from her nest beneath a white rose bush when Nell stuck her head out the cottage door.

“Water’s almost boiled,” she announced. “Sit here on the stoop. Light’s better out here this time of the morning.” She disappeared back into the cottage.

David collapsed gratefully onto the stoop. The limestone was pebbled with moss and worn at the center where generations of crofters stepped in and out of the old farm house. The orange tom came to wreathe about his ankles.

“That’s Cat,” Nell said, returning outside with basket, bowl and whistling kettle in hand.

“Dog and Cat.” It was the opium, David supposed, that allowed a snort to escape. “And do they get along, Cat and…Dog?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Nell refused to be baited by his raised brows. She knelt on the ground below the stoop. “You know my name. I don’t know yours.”

“David.” He hissed pain through clenched teeth when she began to roll up his sleeve.

Nell sighed. “Well, David,” she said. “It’s the wrist, is it? I’m going to have to cut this fabric away. Your arm’s puffing up hand to elbow, and that’s only the beginning, I’m afraid.” She retrieved a pair of short-bladed sheers from her basket, sterilized them with water from the kettle. “Sit still. I’ve a steady hand but I’m no saint.”

He nodded, shoulders hunched beneath his cape. Cat washed its paws, purring sympathy as Nell set scissors to David’s shirt. A cloud passed overhead, casting a brief shadow over the garden. David suppressed a shiver.

“How long have you had the fever?” Nell’s sheers were making quick work of his sleeve, bloody fabric falling away beneath her onslaught.

“A day. Perhaps two.”

“Fever and swelling. The wound’s definitely gone putrid.” Nell said cheerfully. Then she paused in her snipping. “Jésus. What did this?”

David’s eyes had fallen shut without his permission. He cracked them open, looking past Nell’s bowed head. She’d reached his wrist, cut away the bandages. He didn’t recognize his arm for the ribbons of black and red running in angry striations beneath his skin, and for the inflammation. It looked less like a limb than an boiled sausage; fingers, wrist and elbow lost in the swelling.

“Demon.” He shook the green glass vial out of his other sleeve, popped the cork with trembling fingers, and took a healthy swallow. “Incubus, to be more specific. Strange. I haven’t read anywhere that they’re venomous.”

Nell looked from David’s face to the vial. Her frown deepened. “Demon, you say? I know of only the one devil in Normandy proper, and he’s a peaceful sort so long as he’s left alone.”

David put a hand over his mouth to stifle another snort. “So long as you dance to his tune, you mean.” He leaned precariously forward, looking past his grotesque arm and into Nell’s shocked face. She was really quite striking – sharp cheekbones, square jaw, proud nose. The lines around her eyes and mouth said she was quick to smile, though she was scowling now.

“Don’t be frightened,” he whispered while the orange tom purred, and the pea hen scratched about in her rose bush. “I know. I know the Beast sent his she-wolf to watch over you, to be his eyes and ears. How many other ‘dogs’ roam Littleton, snooping for their master?”

“What is that you’re drinking?” Nell inquired archly. “It doesn’t smell like spirits, but you’re obviously off your head. Or is it the fever talking nonsense?” She rose to her feet. “Let’s get you inside. This is far worse than I expected. You’ll need to be lying down for what comes next.”

She looped an arm around David’s waist, helped him up off the stoop. She took his weight easily, sturdy when he fell against her. Both of his legs were suddenly unreliable.

“What comes next?” He dreaded the answer.

“I burn the infection out of you,” Nell replied grimly. “If you’re lucky.”

“Wait!” David slapped his good hand against the cottage lintel before she could guide him through the door. “My bag. The glaive! You don’t understand.” Opium fogged his brain. He couldn’t be certain he was making sense, and he desperately wanted to make sense. Affrodille would chide him for letting weakness get in the way of necessity. “I need your help. I need to find Corbin, and quickly, before the girl’s time runs out!”

“Hush now. Nobody’s time is running out. Come inside and I’ll help you, just as you say.”

Relief rushed through David. His already racing heart pounded violently. The noise in his ears turned to buzzing and flooded his skull. Colors, much too bright, dazzled his eyes.

“I fear I’m going to faint,” he said, chagrined, and did.

 

He came to slowly, chased from dreamless depths by firm hands on his shoulders.

“Careful, now. I’m just changing out your shirt, understand? The fever’s finally broken.”

She pulled his shirt – rough wool, much too large, not his shirt – over his head in increments, moving carefully around his arm. David knew he should protest for modesty’s sake, but he was warm, much too warm, and bare skin seemed preferable to clothes. He squinted, trying and failing to bring his surroundings into focus. Where were his spectacles?

“Here.” The woman – her name slipped his grasp like a fish through water, darting close and then away again – pressed a cup against his lips. “Drink this. It’ll help.”

He took a sip, made a face at the taste. “Nettle tea,” he diagnosed. His voice sounded too much like stones scraping. He swallowed again to wet his throat. “And honey. What else?”

“Chamomile. ‘N’er a man shall lose his life from infection – ‘”

“‘ – were chamomile prepared with his food’,” David finished. All at once her name surfaced. “Nell, the hedge witch. I’ve been looking for you.”

“And you’re David, fodder for demons. Are you also a physicker, then, to know the Nine Herbs Charm?”

“When there’s need at home. There’s often need,” he admitted.

“Well.” She sniffed, easing him back onto a very uncomfortable bolster. “I emptied out your wee glass bottle. I did not like what the tincture was doing to your heart. If that’s the sort of medicines you prescribe your patients, I think you’re doing more harm than good.”

“It’s a family antidote for pain, very costly.” David reached up to adjust his spectacles, remembered they were gone, and clenched his teeth against the ache in his bones. His arm pulsed angrily from fingertips to shoulder. Silently he cursed Nell for her meddling. “It would be welcome now.”

“And antidote for life, I think.” Nell placed the spectacles in his hand, waiting while he settled them on the bridge of his nose. “The chamomile will help with the pain while my compresses and your fever sort out the venom.” She smiled. “Pain is only a reminder that we are still alive.”

David didn’t answer. Infection and fever felt like a failure, pain a punishment. He was struck with an urge to weep or snarl. He took a moment to compose himself by looking around, everywhere but at his offending limb.

Nell’s cottage was a simple affair, stone and thatch. The walls in the front room were grey with soot and age. David rested on a low pallet near the kitchen hearth, so near he was in danger of rolling into grate. Flames leapt up the chimney, stoked high and giving off waves of heat.

It was no wonder he’d soaked his clothes. The room was a furnace.

“As I’m sure you know, febrile humors help a body fight off infection.” Nell sat in the room’s single chair, set as far away from the hearth as the small space allowed. Now that David’s wits were returning, he saw she’d traded her crofter’s togs for a loose, knee-length tunic. Her legs and feet were bare, her short hair stuck to her skull with sweat. “Your body seems stubbornly unwilling to do the work on its own, so we’ll just help it along.”

“How long was I asleep?” It felt wrong, sitting bare-chested in front of a woman he hardly knew, but the only blanket was across his lap and from the feel of things he was just as naked below the waist as above. “Where are my things?”

“There.” Nell pointed at a large tapestry hanging on the wall on the far side of the room. The tapestry was covered all over with skillfully embroidered birds and butterflies. In the flickering light off the hearth they almost appeared to move. “My son’s room is there, behind the wall hanging. He’s taken apprenticeship in town with the blacksmith and rarely sleeps here anymore, so I use the space for storage.” She drew up her feet and tucked them between her thighs and the chair seat. “You were fretting after the bag even in your fever dreams, so I set it as far away from the heat as I could without leaving them it my garden, just in case your treasures are sensitive. I don’t know what you’re carrying, but you fretted like you have charge of the king’s own jewels.”

“Don’t you?” David challenged, because the smug tilt of her chin suggested she’d taken time to riffle his things. He didn’t take her for a thief, nor could he be certain she was trustworthy. “Not the king’s jewels, no, but dangerous things better left undisturbed.”

“Hmm.” She rose and crossed again to his side. “As for how long you were out – not long enough, I think. I’d hoped for a few more hours untroubled. But maybe it’s your bladder waking – do you need to take a piss? I’ll fetch the pot – ”

“No!” He flushed, coughed. “But a cup of water would be welcome. Febrile humors may fight infection, but it’s no good if I’m roasted like a pig on a spit before the wound clears.”

“My mam used to say physickers make the worst patients,” Nell told him. “Now I’m beginning to see she was right. There’s a well out back. I’ll bring you water. But first, I need to change your bandages.”

It was David’s bad luck she saw right through him to the panic he struggled to suppress. He’d had a good look at the black and red lines running up and down arm before he’d lost consciousness. He knew the classic signs of sepsis. It was theoretically possible to survive blood poisoning – if one first survived amputation of the effected limb.

“You’re wondering about the pain, I expect.” Nell brought over the candle from the table and held it over David’s left arm. It cast a soft yellow glow over the bed. She bent her head over the bandages wrapping his forearm.

“It’s onyx stones that keep most of it at bay,” Nell continued, carefully unwinding the dressing. “So long as they’re placed correctly against the damaged tissue, throughout the poultice.” A small pebble, dark and shiny as ink, fell from a fold of bandage into her hand. “That’s an old and powerful charm, that one, not so simple as bidding a horse stand still or sending a wolf away. My great-great-grandmother bewitched these stones. The knowledge of the doing is long forgotten but the stones still work, better and safer than any poppy juice, so far as I’m concerned.”

When David couldn’t muster a reply, she shrugged, continuing: “The sea kelp and the rock salt are my own addition, tuned to the stones. I know enough about demon kind – that is, I’ve been told the sea water and salt mineral will sometimes keep them away. I guessed it might help with demon poison, and you’ll see I’m right. The venomous lines beneath your skin are fading. If it were a common putridity, I might have used red fern and rue instead, but a strange infection such as this requires imagination, don’t you agree?”

Still David didn’t speak.

“It’s a bread poultice on the wound,” Nell explained quickly, beginning at last to notice his dismay. “And lavender and calendula, ash from a lightening-struck tree, and more rock salt. It will help draw out the infection. It’s working, or your fevers wouldn’t be flagging so quickly.”

“It’s swollen,” David managed at last. “More swollen. My fingers – ” he reached one-handed for the candle, but Nell snatched it back. ” – I can’t feel them. I can’t feel them at all!”

“That’s the stones working.” Nell took the soiled bandages to the hearth, returned with a pot of steaming water and a clean rag. “As to your hand. There’s been some necrosis, I’m afraid. The venom appears to challenge blood flow. I’m certain we’ll save the arm, but I can’t promise you’ll keep all your fingers.”

David slumped back on the pallet.

“You’ve turned green. Are you going to be sick?” Nell enquired, washing pus and poultice from around his wrist, taking care not to disturb the small black stones strung on leather and wrapped like a bishop’s rosary around his forearm.

“No.”

She huffed. “Because I’d think that, as a physicker, you’d mayhap be more grateful I’ve managed to save the arm. It was a near thing, I’ve never seen infection move so quickly. Truth be told, I went for the bone saw before I even mixed your first cup of tea. Just in case, you understand.”

Wound washed clean of angry fluid, she dried it with a second rag. He didn’t feel a thing, not the pressure of her fingers, not the pain of gaping flesh. The absence of sensation frightened him and he had to fight his nerves to keep from leaping off the cot. And that made him feel quite the fool, because White Hill’s Chevalier should fear no spell at all, and hedge-witchery barely qualified as a spell.

“We’ll leave the poultice off,” Nell proclaimed. “Let the wound air a while. I don’t like that it’s still leaking pus.”

“Thank you,” David said, breathing through his nose while she deftly rewrapped his arm, bundling more onyx among the bandage folds. “May I have that water now?”

“Aye.” She rose, arranged her kit back on the hearth, and hurried outside, bare calves flashing in the firelight. She left the door cracked open behind her. A wash of cool night air burst across David’s damp chest.

Once he was alone in the room David lay rigid, determined not to let despair get the best of him. Nell might be brusque, but she wasn’t wrong. She’d saved his arm, and probably his life. Had he collapsed anywhere but on her stoop, it was conceivable he’d be dead, felled by sepsis and fever. Her black stones were controlling his pain, and from the look of his arm he suspected the pain was very bad indeed.

A few fingers lost to necrosis was a small price to pay. He did not assume he would have done any better, were their roles reversed.

But logic and sentiment were warring beasts, and melancholy threatened to win the battle.

“Drink.” Nell appeared at David’s side. He hadn’t heard her return from the garden. “Then sleep again. You’ll feel better when you wake.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can.” She held the cup to his mouth. “As you’re not the first surly young man I’ve head in my sickbed.”

David drank. The water was sweet on his tongue, tasting of the night. The effort left him trembling, but he felt better for the refreshment. After, he turned his face away from the firelight, closed his eyes, and slept.

 

 

 

 

 

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