Winterwood, page 27
part #1 of Rowankind Series
Rosie paused and Leo held a cup of water for her to sip. “Ah, Leo, you always did know my mind better than I did. Don’t go away, will you?”
“Never. I’m staying with you. If you want rid of me you’ll have to beat me off with a big stick.”
“Then you’d look as pretty as me. Ouch!” Smiling caused the scab on her lip to crack.
“So what’s in the box, Aunt Rosie?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “No one has ever been able to open it. It seems that Martyn was the greatest of us all. Whatever it is—whatever it does—it holds powerful magic, and that’s a fearful thing.”
“Fearful enough to kill for?”
“Both then and now.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “There were two men came for me. One was like walking darkness, the other looked much like you.”
“Philip?”
“I never heard them use names, but it can’t be coincidence.”
“There are too many coincidences. Did the man—the one you say was like walking darkness—did he have a pockmarked face?”
“He did.”
“Walsingham.”
“What?”
“It’s another Walsingham, Aunt Rosie. This one is making it his business to try and kill us all. He nearly succeeded with you. What can have happened to turn the Walsingham family against the Sumners?”
She shook her head and winced. “Philip, you say?”
“Walsingham has Philip captive. He has a poppet, and through it he can hurt or even kill him. Philip is bound to do his bidding. Even so, though I could believe much of Philip, I can’t believe he would kill his own family.”
“I’m not dead. Is that by accident or design? If by design, the lad’s a powerful actor. He has Walsingham believing that he’s entirely on his side.”
“Philip was always a good liar. I never thought there would come a time that I might be grateful for it.”
The short conversation exhausted Rosie again, and I let her sleep.
Could I believe there was good in my little brother? I so wanted to.
“David, what can you remember about Philip?”
“He had precious little natural kindness, but there’s a huge gulf between being unkind and being a killer.”
“You two need to talk,” Corwen said. “I’m going hunting.”
He stood up and went to the door, took off his jacket, and pulled off his shirt.
“Corwen?”
He grinned at me as he slung the shirt carelessly aside. If displaying his well-muscled and very manly torso was for my benefit, he needn’t think . . . Ah, who was I fooling, it worked—at least insofar as my heartbeat quickened and I found myself wondering how much more he was going to strip off.
He shrugged apologetically. “Shirts are hard to deal with when you’ve only got paws. Don’t worry about the breeches, I can run out of them.” He opened the door and with one flash of smooth skin grew a pelt, shrank down, and vanished into the forest, loping like the silver wolf that he was.
The flash of skin disturbed me. I wondered, briefly, how he’d managed to arrive here clothed when his garments obviously didn’t change with him.
“He trusts you,” Leo said. “His kind don’t change in front of just anybody.”
“I don’t want his trust.” It was another complication.
Quite right, too. Will’s ghost murmured in the back of my mind as his cold lips nuzzled my earlobe.
Corwen returned at dawn, naked and bloody. I know this because I only pretended to be asleep when he stepped in through the front door, sculpted silver in the moonlight. He collected his clothes and crept quietly away again, leaving me feeling . . . what? Discomfited? Aroused? Maybe somewhere between the two.
By the time the household stirred there was a neatly skinned and paunched young buck hanging from a low branch of the elm tree at the bottom of Rosie’s garden, and the gore had been cleaned away.
I surveyed the buck. “Good hunting?” I asked him, wiping a speck of still-fresh blood from his chin with my finger and presenting it to him.
“Good enough.” He clasped my hand firmly in his, raised it to his lips, and slowly and deliberately licked the blood with one sweep of his warm, pink, and wholly human tongue. I think I gasped. The intimate action quite took my breath away. I flushed and turned my head, but not before I’d caught a glimpse of his wicked grin.
“Sorry, I sluiced down without the aid of a mirror.”
I searched for a barbed comment to slow my pounding heart. “Do you even have a reflection?”
Baiting Corwen gave me something else to think about besides revenant brothers, injured aunts, and intimate touches. I smirked as I turned my back on him.
“I told you I’m . . .”
“Not moon-called, I know. Does it make a difference?”
“It will at the next full moon. It means you’ll still be alive the following morning rather than a pile of cracked bones and torn flesh.”
“Fair enough.” I turned back to him. “Corwen, I need you to help me find the Fae, and quickly.”
“No.”
“David will go—with or without me—and I’d rather not see him go on his own.”
“Even if he’s more Fae than human?”
“He’ll always be my brother.”
“If you go to the Fae there’s no guarantee you’ll come home again.”
“I have to come back. I need to free Philip from Walsingham.”
“What if he was the one who hurt Rosie?”
“Especially then. Whatever Walsingham has done to him has to be undone. Philip used to be a wretch, yes, but he was never cut out to be a murderer.”
“Remember what Rosie said about Fae lords being difficult to resist.”
“I should be safe. I haven’t been drawn to another man that way since Will died.” I pushed thoughts of Gentleman James Mayo away, but then a sudden flash of Corwen’s body as he crept quietly through the early morning shadows, of his tongue on my finger, sprang into my mind. I tried to ignore it. “Fae or not, I’m hardly likely to start now.”
“And that’s one of your problems, isn’t it?” Corwen asked.
“Problems?”
“Widowed at twenty-two and still in love with a ghost.”
And why not? I felt Will’s ghost rather than saw him.
“You go too far, Mr. Corwen. I loved Will!”
“There! You said it in the past tense. Well done!”
“I still love him.”
“But does he love you?”
Of course. Will’s ghost reassured me. I’ll always love you.
“Then let her have a life, Tremayne,” Corwen said, looking straight at where Will’s ghostly voice had come from. “Don’t let the fruit wither on the vine.”
She’s not for your plucking, Wolf!
Will roused himself, a little ectoplasmic whirlwind, tough enough to move things in the real world like a poltergeist might. Corwen faced him, fists balled.
Men!
“Stop it, both of you!” I turned and stomped off into the house.
I think it was not mentioning the Fae again that made Corwen relent. He finished the last of his dinner that night and wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin and threw it on the table. “All right,” he said, “we’ll go. But you’ll both agree to do as I say.”
My relief at having an experienced guide evaporated with his first suggestion.
“Absolutely not!” I stood up so quickly that my chair smashed over backward and disturbed Rosie in her sleep. “Outside!” I inclined my head to the door so as not to wake her. Once through the door I turned on him. “I will not say I’m your wife.”
“Would you rather be seduced by a Fae?” Corwen’s teeth shone in the gathering gloom.
“It won’t come to that.”
“You’re a good-looking woman, Ross.”
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”
“If you wish.”
“I don’t wish.”
“We need not say the words, but if we jump the bonfire together I can contest any claim, unless, of course, you want to forget about Philip and waste the rest of your youth bearing Fae children. I’m told that being bedded by a Fae is quite an experience if—”
He didn’t get any further. I slapped him hard, and Will’s ghost chuckled.
Leo appeared in the doorway. “Not wishing to interrupt, but Rosie would like to see you, Ross. She says to come right away. No, not you,” I heard him say when Corwen started to follow me.
26
Wolf Magic
“I’M SORRY IF CORWEN AND I disturbed you, Aunt Rosie. That man can be so infuriating.”
Her eyes were brighter than yesterday. She waved me forward with her bandaged hand.
“Come sit.”
I sat on the edge of her bed.
“You had a man and lost him.”
“Will, yes. He’s still here.”
“I know. I can feel him. In fact—leave us!” She addressed Will’s spirit. Surprisingly, he dissipated and was gone.
“I never intended to abandon Leo. That night the mob came for us . . .” She took a deep breath. “Things happened so fast. One minute it was just talk and intimidation and the next minute it was threats and fear and anger. And then the first torch came smashing through the window, setting fire to the furnishings.
“Ma collapsed from the smoke. She’d always had fragile lungs. We begged for mercy for her, but they wouldn’t let her out. Pa wouldn’t leave Ma. It was like a desperate madness was on him when she stopped breathing. Aunt Eileen tried to talk some sense into the mob. She’d birthed most of them, and their children, too. But Walsingham must have fired them up with wicked stories. They were past listening to reason. Someone threw a rock and it caught her clean on the temple, killed her in an instant.
“It was all happening too quickly, the smoke, the heat, the roaring of flames inside and angry voices outside. Pa rose from Ma’s side and stood astride Aunt Eileen and cursed the mob. He blasted them with a huge explosion of power that must have drained him in an instant. Drained him beyond his limits. It flattened everything outside the house within a radius of . . .”
“I know. I saw the circle. Nothing grows there, even now.”
She nodded and gulped. “We didn’t know then that men had died. Maybe Pa did. Maybe he’d intended that they should. I think by that time he wasn’t quite in his right mind. His wife and his sister gone.
“I thought we should all run, but Pa clutched at his chest and said he was dying. He wanted us away safe without a hue and cry following. He pushed the winterwood box into my hand. Separate and make a new life, he said. Then he told us what to do and wouldn’t be persuaded that there was any other way. In truth, I’m not sure we could have carried him far, but by all that’s holy we’d have tried.
“So we did as he told us. We stood beneath the solid lintel of the back doorway and blasted our home and all that was in it. A fireball so huge they must have seen it in Chard. And us at the very center unharmed.” Tears ran down her face freely. “Margi was always a daddy’s girl. I’ll always wonder if we could have saved him. We sundered our magical connection like Pa told us to do, then split up and ran. I think I was mad with grief and shock for a while. I didn’t think of anything, not even food or shelter, and especially not Leo. I daren’t think of Leo. I didn’t know Walsingham was dead. I thought if he knew about me and Leo then Leo would be in danger, too. So I just ran. I ended up here, and the Fae found me.
“They let me live under their protection, but I always knew there would be a price. After the box went to Margi I was going to go back and find Leo, but the Fae came for me, to collect their payment.
“I told you before that I couldn’t remember the time I spent with them, but I can.” She sighed. “I remember every glorious second of it. I forgot Leo altogether and I was totally besotted with my Fae lord, lying in his bed, carrying his child.”
Rosie’s face tinged pink. “And don’t think me a maid with nothing to compare it to. Leo and I were well suited between the sheets. Does that shock you? I hope we might be again if he can forgive me.”
“I don’t think you have any need to fear about that, and no, it doesn’t shock me.”
“And you, girl, need to wake up to the real world. Find yourself a flesh and blood man. Will’s gone. Move on and let his ghost move on, too.”
“I’ve never—”
“What about Corwen? Fine figure of a man even if he is a werewolf.”
“He’s not moon-called!”
Was I defending Corwen? I shrugged. “Besides, he’s only here because he’s obeying the Lady’s orders.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“That’s one more good reason for not playing out a ridiculous charade when we go to the Fae.”
“No. Exactly the opposite. It may only be a charade. No one is saying you have to say the words and abide by it afterward, but it will protect you. He’ll be possessive, aggressive. That’s what you need, unless you want to lose yourself to them.”
“Of course not.” I shook my head. “I’ve got too much to do, and somewhere back on the ocean there’s my ship and my crew.” I took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll do as Corwen suggests—but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“If it doesn’t mean anything, why are you worrying about it so much?”
Good question, Aunt Rosie.
I leaned forward and kissed her left cheek, the only part of her face that didn’t look as though it hurt like hell.
We left the following morning after Corwen insisted that he and I actually jump the bonfire together in the time-honored tradition of country weddings. No one said the words, so it wasn’t real, but David still applauded as we leaped the small fire he’d created. The sham enabled us all to lie by telling the truth. It would have more power if we consummated it, but there was no way I was going that far. Every time I looked closely at Corwen I felt nothing but confusion. He was a handsome man, tall and well-favored, but I didn’t trust him. A little worm at the back of my mind reminded me that I hadn’t trusted Gentleman Jim either and that hadn’t worried me in the slightest. In fact it had added a certain spice to the experience.
We packed what provisions Rosie and Leo could spare into our saddlebags, and Corwen took Leo’s horse, having arrived on foot, or four feet.
“So where are we going to?” I asked Corwen as he picked a path into the deep woods.
“It’s not geographical,” he said. “There are many worlds overlaid on this one, and the Fae inhabit more than one. They are here and in every patch of woodland you’ve ever seen, but their true home is Iaru.”
“So how do we find them?”
“We don’t unless they want to be found.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Trust me, wife.”
I heard David snort softly as if suppressing laughter, and somewhere overhead in the branches of a birch tree, Will’s ghost dislodged a shower of autumn leaves.
“Haven’t you got anything better to do?” I shouted upward.
We spent the first night huddled in a hollow beneath the roots of an old oak with an almost-full moon filtering through the branches overhead. We didn’t set a watch, since we wanted the Fae to find us. In case the Fae were observing, Corwen insisted he and I sleep together, fully dressed, of course, but wrapped in both cloaks. I couldn’t fault his logic, but I sincerely doubted his motive. Despite my reservations, however, I had to admit it was warmer than sleeping alone.
Halfway through the night, I awoke to find Corwen snuggled up tight behind me, his arm around me and his hand resting comfortably on my breast. Comfortable for him, that was. I bent his fingers back and pushed his hand away. He mumbled and turned over. I wasn’t sure whether he’d really been asleep or whether he was acting. So I turned over with him and, pretending to be asleep, wrapped myself around him, letting my arm drape over his hip to his groin. See how he liked being embarrassed. But when my fingers trailed over the front of his breeches I felt him ramrod stiff. Hastily I turned over again and feigned a snore, feeling heat prickle my face even in the chill of the night.
I swear the bastard was laughing.
On the second day we rode deeper into the forest. Against all my expectations, I relaxed more the further we went. The upswell of magic that beleaguered me when I left the sea seemed almost normal, now.
“You’re a woodland creature,” Corwen said. “You should never be on the ocean, it’s not your natural habitat.”
“Of course it is. I’m a privateer captain, remember.”
“I’ll bet you’re seasick on every other ship but the Heart.”
“We both are,” David chipped in.
“I spent time chained up belowdecks in the Heart,” Corwen said. “I could feel her. There’s winterwood built into her. She’s a floating forest, a distillation of all this.” He waved one arm toward the canopy of autumn leaves. “Admit you’re not a child of the sea.”
I wasn’t going to admit anything. Will’s ghost agreed with me.
We camped the second night on the bank of a small stream, our horses hobbled to allow them to graze. We still had food in our packs: smoked venison, hard cheese, cold potatoes cooked in their jackets in the roasting pit two days ago, and apples, so we didn’t need a fire, but it was pleasant to make one anyway.
David built our fire on the sandy bank of the stream and fed it on chunks of an old fallen branch. We sat companionably in the light of the round moon and the flickering flames until it was time to sleep. Corwen and I curled together again, but thankfully without the inappropriate touching. As I settled down, I was surprised to find that it felt good to have a warm body at my back.
