Fool's Assassin - Страница 136

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We could hear things out here. A man was shouting in an accent I didn’t recognize, commanding someone to “Sit down, sit down, don’t move!” I know Perseverance heard it and knew that he realized he was leading me closer to that voice. It seemed the worst thing we could do, but still I followed him.

We rounded the end of the wing and halted. Holly bushes grew thick there, their prickly green leaves and bright-red berries a sharp contrast with the snow. The layer of prickly dead leaves where we crouched bit right through my thin house shoes. We huddled like rabbits and stared at the sight before us.

There were the folk of Withywoods, gathered like a flock of befuddled sheep in the open drive before the main door of the house. They stood in the snowy carriageway in their indoor clothes, hugging themselves and one another, bleating like frightened sheep. Most were people I had known all my life. Cook Nutmeg held Tavia at her side and stared defiantly at her captors. I knew the minstrels by their gaudy garb. They crouched together, staring about in astonishment. Careful hugged herself, rocking back and forth in misery. Shun’s maid was there beside her, clutching the torn front of her dress closed. She was barefoot. Three burly men on horseback were looking down at the people they had herded together. I thought I had seen one of them before but I wasn’t sure where. Two were not speaking at all, but all three had drawn and bloody swords in their hands. One was still shouting at everyone to sit down, sit down. Only a few were obeying him. Off to one side, two bodies lay facedown, unmoving, red melting the snow around them.

One was FitzVigilant. I knew that fine jacket, I knew those tailored trousers. I had seen them just that morning and I knew it was him, but my mind would not accept it.

“I don’t see my da.” Perseverance barely breathed the words. I nodded. Now I noticed a few folk from the stables, but his father was not among them. Dead or hiding, I wondered.

A woman emerged from Withywoods and walked toward the captives. She looked so ordinary, just a plump woman of middle years, dressed warmly for the snow. She had fur boots, a thick wool cape, and a fur hat pulled down over her ears. Her round face and bouncing brown curls made her look almost cheery. She walked up to the man who was shouting at people to sit down and looked up at him. Her voice carried clearly when she asked him something, but it was in a language I did not know. His denial was plain in any language.

She lifted her voice and spoke to the captives. Her accent was odd but I understood what she said. “A boy was brought here, recently. Possibly within the last five years but more likely within the last few months. His skin will be as pale as snow, his hair as white. Give him to us, and we are gone. He might be as young as a child, or a man grown to middle years. We will know him when we see him. He isn’t here, but you must know who we are talking about.” She paused, waiting for a reply, then added reassuringly, “He isn’t one of yours; he has always belonged to us, and we only want to take him home. No harm will come to him, and if you but tell us, no more harm will befall you.”

Her words were measured and calm, almost kind. I saw my house people exchanging glances. Tavia shrugged free of Cook’s arm and lifted her voice. “There is no one here like that. The only newcomer here was the man you killed, the scribe. Everyone else has worked here for years, or was born to us, in the village. You already seen the minstrels; they’re the only strangers here!” Her words tumbled into a sob. The minstrels, already terrified, huddled closer together.

“You are lying!” the shouting man accused her. Her face crumpled with fear and she lifted her hands to cover her ears, as if his words were a threat by themselves.

The unexpected son. I knew it with a sudden certainty. These were the trackers the pale messenger had warned us about. They had followed her here, and for some reason they thought to find the boy here. Perhaps they thought my father had already found him and brought him here for shelter.

“She’s not lying!” Cook yelled at him, and a few others were brave enough to shout, “It’s true!” “There’s no one here that wasn’t born here!” and similar outbursts.

“Can you stay here by yourself and hide?” Perseverance whispered next to my ear. “I need to get to the stables and find Da. If he’s not there … I’m getting a horse and riding down to Withy for help.”

“Take me with you,” I begged.

“No. I have to cross all that open space to get to the stables. If they see us …” He shook his head. “You have to stay here, Bee. Hide.” He bit his lower lip and then said, “If my da … if I can’t find him, I’ll come back for you. We’ll go for help together.”

I knew that was a foolish plan, for him. If he got to the stables, he should just ride like the wind for Withy. But I was terrified. I gave a sharp nod. He pushed me down lower. “Stay here,” he hissed, as if I could forget to do so.

He moved to the edge of the holly bushes and waited. The round woman seemed to be arguing with the man on horseback. She pointed angrily at the bodies and gesticulated wildly. Plainly she did not like how he was conducting his search. He was gesturing with his sword and shouting. Then, out of the house came the fog man. I recognized him from my trip to town. There he had been a gleaming light in the alley that people avoided. Today he was a pearlescent mist and, in the center of it, a plump man pale as a ghost. He turned his head slowly from side to side as he walked, and either my eyes deceived me or his eyes were the color of fog. A strange chill went through me and I shrank as small as I could, pulling my awareness back into myself. Putting up my walls, my father would have called it. I felt blind but if that was the price of invisibility I was willing to pay it.

“Bee?” Perseverance whispered, but I shook my head and kept my face turned in toward my belly. I do not know what he sensed but abruptly he took my wrist in a grip like ice. “Come with me. Come on. We’re going now. Together.”

But he did not take me toward the stables. Rather, we crept back the way we had come, remaining behind and under the bushes that landscaped that wing of Withywoods. I did not look up but merely followed where he dragged me. “Here,” he panted at last. “Stay right here. I’ll go to the stables. If I can’t find my da, I’ll bring the horses here. I’ll be moving fast and you’ll have to run out and jump for Priss’s back. Can you do that?”

I didn’t know. “Yes,” I lied.

“Stay here,” he told me again, and then he was gone.

I remained where I was, behind rhododendrons whose drooping green leaves were encased in ice and snow. After a long time, I lifted my eyes and peered about. Nothing moved. I could no longer hear the huddled captives, but the angry voices still teased at the edges of my hearing.

Revel was dead. My father was gone. Riddle was not here. FitzVigilant was dead. At any moment Perseverance could be dead.

And at that thought, I could not sit still. I was terrified of being killed, but even more terrified that my only ally might be dead and I would not even know it. How long would I sit here under a bush while his life was leaking out somewhere? I started panting, trying to get enough air to keep the blackness at bay. I was cold and thirsty and alone. I tried to think, to not do something stupid simply because I wanted to do something.

I took the dirtied cloak out of my jerkin front. I had not forgotten it. But I knew its limitations. It needed time to take on the colors and shadows. I could not fling it about my shoulders and run and hope to be unseen. Except that snow was white. It would not be perfect camouflage, I thought to myself as I spread it out on the snowy ground beside the bushes. I would be more like a white rabbit or a white fox; anyone with half an eye would see my movement, would see my feet and the tracks I would leave. But it would give me a better chance at reaching the stable than I’d had before.

The angry voices from the other side of the house grew louder, the man threatening, the woman unhappy but not pleading. Insistent, I thought to myself. She would have her way. I heard a scream, a man’s scream this time, and I wondered who had been hurt or killed. It was followed by a woman wailing. And wailing. And all the while, the cloak lay on the snow and mutated from the color of the darkness inside my jerkin to the color of the shaded and rumpled snow. I had never before paused to think that truly, all snow was not white. Now I saw that it was gray and dirty pale blue and speckled with bird droppings and bits of fallen leaves.

I crawled under it, not wishing to pull it back under the bushes and risk it taking on the colors of leaves and branches. It was sized for an adult, so there was ample fabric to wrap round me and drape my face. I clutched it at my waist and chin, leaving a small space for my eyes. I looked all around, and saw no one on this side of the manor. I darted from my shelter to the cluster of holly bushes where we had previously sheltered, taking care not to get to close to them. I froze where I was, considering the terrain between me and the stable. Should I crawl slowly across it? Make one fast dash? Earlier, the snow had been a smooth blanket over the low sward. Now I clearly saw the tracks that meant Perseverance had managed to cross it. Suddenly I knew he had waited for them to be distracted, perhaps by the man’s scream. I did not want to look at the captives. Their situation frightened me and made it hard for me to think. But I had to analyze my chances. The woman was still wailing. Was that enough of a distraction? I stood perfectly still and shifted only my eyes to look at the herded prisoners.

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