Despite the night and the thick black slashes that were the burned trees, I could make out Lord Purvis’s emblem on one of the tabards. The stench from the men and the horses dumbfounded me, and Tillard dropped my hand and stepped in front of me, took my shoulders in his hands and gently shook me.
“Close it out, Wisteria. Your gift is to taste the world, and tastes here are foul and poisonous. They are tainting you, and if you don’t close it out, you’ll be lost to the poison.”
His words were a whisper, and he repeated his lecture, shaking my shoulders a little more firmly, then cupping my chin and tipping my head up, locking his eyes with mine. His gift was to read thoughts “shouted” by others, and so I suspected he was hearing my thoughts about the death and decay, the burned woods, and the gloom that covered Mardel’s Fen like a heavy wool blanket.
“Wisteria!”
I did what he demanded, pushed away all the things I’d asked my wyse-sense to bring me. Had I a clue this would be so atrocious and debilitating, I would have looked only with my eyes and not with my magic.
“I’m all right, Tillard.” He held my chin for a moment more just to be certain, then he released me and continued slogging toward Rial, looking over his shoulder to make sure I followed closely.
I felt something slimy and yielding bump against my knee, and I glanced down. Dead fish floated around our legs, their white bellies blistered as if they’d been boiled. The heat from the fire could have been intense enough to cook them. The sight of them sickened me, and I raised my gaze to the back of Tillard’s head, putting more effort into pushing away the awful presence that had subsumed the fen.
I idly wondered about Winter Sky. The horse wasn’t with him, and we hadn’t passed it. Tillard didn’t appear worried and hadn’t mentioned the horse, which seemed to mean something to him. I opened my mouth to ask Tillard about Winter Sky when beyond a charred cypress I saw the horse standing in water that reached halfway up its legs.
The trees around the horse were green, and moss draped down from some of the branches, gently teasing its gray back. It appeared that the fire had stopped abruptly, a line drawn in the fen.
Tillard stroked the side of Winter Sky’s neck and made a cooing sound. The horse wuffled, and Tillard took the reins in his right hand and motioned to me with his left. This time he didn’t look over his shoulder, just pressed in deeper.
We were soon rewarded with scattered greetings. Tillard bowed to each Nanoo, and as I came forward, Alysen rushed out of Nanoo Shellaya’s cottage and squeezed me fiercely around the waist.
I could see over her head, and glancing from one tree to the next I spotted soft lights coming from slits that served as doors and windows. Not so many Nanoo came out this time to see me, and I wanted to ask how many had died by Lord Purvis’s men and how many slept in the dark in their beds.
“Eri!” Alysen squeezed me tighter then released me, stepped back, and tipped her face up so she could better see me. “Oh, Eri … Lord Purvis came here. You looked for him in the south, and all the while he was here. He came looking for you. It was horrible, Eri, he—”
She babbled about Purvis’s attack, and as I’d shut out the tastes of the fen, I shut out her words. I didn’t need them. I knew full well what had happened. Purvis and his men had come to Mardel’s Fen, the trees and walls of thorny growth had barred their way, then fought against them, some of the trees spearing the men with branches as deadly as a knight’s lance. So Purvis had raged against the woods and found a way to set the damp trees on fire.
But the very heart of the fen hadn’t burned.
“Where is Lord Purvis?” I interrupted Alysen’s tale. “Where is he?”
“Gone, Eri, run off. The Nanoo joined their magic and kept the men from coming to the heart, killed men and horses. Two Nanoo died, and others were hurt, but—”
Nanoo Shellaya touched the top of Alysen’s head, the simple gesture startling her. “We tended our injured, Eri, and theirs who seemed important by their manner. One … enemy still lives. One died this morning, despite our ministrations. We’ve wrapped him and will give him to the trees in a ceremony tomorrow. We have fallen brothers to honor then, too.”
That meant let the animals and insects feast on the corpses. The Nanoo did not believe in burying bodies; they thought what remained of a person should feed creatures and fertilize the land. From time to time they collected bones they came across in the fen. These, too, were used, made into tools or ground up into a powder for various medicines.
“The dead man of Lord Purvis, where is he, Alysen?”
She shook her head, either not wanting to think about it, or not knowing.
“Here. Follow me.” This came from Shellaya. Though starlight shone down brightly in the center of the Nanoo community, her features were so shadowed I couldn’t read the expression on her face. Her shuffling gait took her from my side and through water that rose above our knees, past her cottage and to a spot where the canopy was thicker and I had to strain to make out anything.
I heard the incessant buzz of flies, and though I kept my wyse-sense in check, the stench of the body was strong enough to make me gag. It was wrapped in Galia leaves, tied with cords.
“The dead should not concern you, Eri.” Nanoo Shellaya stood by the body, head bowed. She showed respect even for the enemy.
She’d used the word “enemy” earlier, a fact that made me even angrier at Lord Purvis. While many people in this world distrusted the witches and feared them, none had been considered an enemy before.
“Eri, the dead are beyond the cares of the land and face the dreamland or the desolation.”
“The desolation for this one, I think.” I sloshed to the body’s head and pulled back the leaves. I heard Nanoo Shellaya retreat back to the heart of the fen. So difficult to see; I had to stare at his shadowy features, then run my fingertips along his cold, cold face. I’m not sure why I wanted to know this man, perhaps I just hoped it might be Lord Purvis. I felt the lips. Not Purvis. I felt around the eyes.
Celerad, the man I’d seen in the scry and the man who’d visited Bastien in what seemed like long, long days ago. I pulled a knife from the sheath and cut all the cords holding the leaves around the body. I hoped I hadn’t broken a taboo or angered some Nanoo spirit. I felt around his waist and found his belt and buckle, unclasping it and tugging the belt free, jostling the body and disturbing the flies and other insects. A section of the belt was covered with dry, crusty blood, and it felt heavy in my hands because of the sword in the scabbard that hung from it.
I awkwardly worked the belt around my waist and buckled it in the farthest notch. Still big for me, it settled around my hips, and the end of the scabbard reached to past my knees and disappeared in the water. I turned the belt slightly, so I could get at both the sword and my two knives.
Satisfied, I did my best to replace the leaves and retie the cords, though I left a gap in the leaves around Celerad’s face. A part of me wanted to make it easy for the vermin of the fen to feed off the Moonson.
30
Tillard stood by Nanoo Shellaya’s cottage, eyes on my hips where the sword belt hung. I didn’t offer him an explanation of why I wore it. If he wanted to know, he could pull that from my mind easily enough.
“Shellaya said another man still lives. One of Lord Purvis’s evil flock. I want to talk to him.” My expression added, “Now.”
Tillard gestured to a thick stringybark with a wide slash that served as a door. A peach-colored light glowed from within, and as I neared the home I smelled fruit tea brewing and something like camphor. Too, I smelled dried blood—a scent I’d become overly accustomed to.
He lay on a low cot in front of a small fireplace, his armor and weapons neatly arranged underneath the cot. No fire burned, but there were thick orange candles on a table, and these provided enough light to chase all the shadows from the one-room dwelling.
The sweat on his face announced his fever. Conscious, he watched me glide to his side, m
y wet boots dripping over the hard-packed dirt floor. I knelt by him only so I could get closer to his face and better see his wounds. There were bandages across his stomach, dotted with dark splotches of blood. I couldn’t be sure what had injured him, but I suspected trees had speared him. I felt no pity, and I’d no intention to help tend him.
“Tell me of Lord Purvis.” I made certain my words had an edge to them. “Everything you know.”
His head pointed at the ceiling, he looked out the corners of his eyes at me. His mouth parted and he licked his lips. “Water, please.”
I made no move to help.
Two Nanoo were in the room. Likely they’d been here all along and I’d not noticed them because I was so intent on the wounded Moonson. I saw from the tabard folded beneath the cot that he was of the order. I’d not recognized him, or the Nanoo, one of who raised the man’s head so the other could pour water into his mouth. He drank thirstily, then gritted his teeth when they lowered his head back.
“Lord Purvis, I say. Tell me of him, Moonson.”
He worked his lips and stared at the ceiling. “He directed us here days past. It was a mission of great import for the Empress, he told us. I was not privy to the nature of our mission, only that we would be fighting enemies of our Empress.” He gasped, and the Nanoo gave him another swallow of water. “Three days past we started our assault.”
“The woods kept them out of the heart of the fen for nearly a day,” one of the Nanoo supplied. She was a young woman, I could tell from her hands and voice. But already she had the lined skin of her people, and her hue was dark like walnut. “Then they did something to the outer trees. Normally, no fire could touch them.”
“Lord Purvis has magic about him,” the Moonson supplied. His voice cracked, and the young Nanoo wet a cloth and rubbed it across his forehead.
I did not understand her compassion for the enemy, but neither did I understand much about the Nanoo. I held my tongue until she was done fussing over him.
“Lord Purvis did something to the bark, cast a spell that coated the trees with … something … something shiny and sweet that made them burn. The fire, it wasn’t magic, but what he put on the trunks … that sparkled like fresh snow.”
I knew nothing of such a spell, but I saw the two Nanoos nod, as if they understood what he talked about. “The drying,” I heard one of them whisper.
“They caught fire, the trees,” he went on. “They didn’t burn like we expected, the flames were small.”
“But deadly enough to the grove,” I whispered.
“We went in when the fire started to die. So difficult to breathe. Our eyes burned like they were on fire, too. We wanted to wait, but Lord Purvis—”
“He didn’t want you to wait.” I leaned closer, the smell of the Nanoo’s medicine stinging my nostrils.
“No. He finally told us the precise nature of our mission. He wanted the girl.”
I pressed a finger to his chest.
“The girl with pale skin, he told us. She would be singular in the village, looking like no one else.”
“He knew of the Nanoo village in the very heart of this place?”
He nodded.
“Alysen, Lord Purvis called her. Alysen of the House of Geer. Said for the future of the Empire and the Empress we would have to kill her.” He shook his head. “Against what we stand for, killing someone so young, but we’d sworn fealty to him. We’d sworn to follow him anywhere and heed his commands.”
I applied more pressure with my finger, deliberately hurting him. At the edge of my vision I saw the young Nanoo step forward to protest. Tillard had come inside, and he stepped between the young Nanoo and the cot, holding his hands to his sides. He said something to her, but I didn’t hear. I pressed a little harder and listened to the wounded Moonson.
“Celerad commanded us, our Pike.”
A Pike of Moonsons was eighteen men, trained to fight on horseback with a variety of weapons.
“Lord Purvis had saved Commander Celerad’s life two years gone, and Celerad—and thereby us—swore fealty to him. Such is our way. A blood-bond we’d forged.”
“The one called Commander Celerad…” This came from the young Nanoo. I couldn’t see her, Tillard was in the way. “He died this morning, though we tried our best to save him. The trees fought him, and an infection did the rest.”
Tillard stepped to the cot and stared down at the man. Then he got on his knees and pulled out the chain mail, sword belt, and sword.
“And Lord Purvis wanted Alysen dead.” I thumped the Moonson in the chest to get him to continue.
“Aye, said it was necessary. We’d sworn fealty.” He paused and rolled his eyes. “We’d pledged the blood-bond and so we came into the woods, walking through water, fish dying at our feet from the heat. Hot as a dry summer, the place felt … though there was water everywhere. Hard to breathe, to think, to hear Lord Purvis. And then the trees, even the burned ones, came to life.”
He recounted the battle, though I didn’t need those details. I wanted to know about Lord Purvis, and if he’d died by the trees.
“He retreated, Lord Purvis, with those of us able to follow him.”
“How many?”
He didn’t answer me, licking his lips and eyes staring at the ceiling. I motioned for more water. Tillard gave it to him this time.
“How many men retreated with him?”
“Forty men, maybe. Forty maybe lived. Soldiers and oak brothers.” He coughed, his shoulders bouncing against the cot. Once more Tillard raised the man’s neck so he could drink. When he finished drinking, he went on. “Those of us who couldn’t follow, the horrors we saw, the ground rising up and snaring us, vines like snakes, men with skin like the bark of old trees.”
I grabbed his chin in my hand and turned his face so I could stare directly into his eyes.
“Tell me about Lord Purvis.”
“He commands the Empress’s army.”
“I well know that.” My spittle hit his cheeks and he closed his eyes.
“But he did not bring the army here, only some of his soldiers and our Pike. This mission was to be as quiet as possible.”
“More—”
“He has been given a barony, Lord Purvis, and our Pike … each of us has been granted land south of his estate. Lord Purvis has done well for himself, especially after the Emperor’s death. He has done far better than his father.”
“His father…”
“A mere taster on the Emperor’s board.”
My fingernails dug into the flesh of his throat. “Taster?”
“His father tasted for the Emperor, died when the Emperor did, failing to find a poison that killed them both.”
I felt the color drain from my face. “Lord Purvis is Rembert Lemblyre t’Kyros? Not possible!”
The man’s eyes were wide with the new pain I’d inflicted on him. I’d cut him with my nails; thin trails of blood wet my fingers.
Steadying myself, I took even breaths. “Why is he called Lord Purvis? Tell me!”
“Wisteria?” Tillard touched my arm.
Without trying I tasted Tillard’s curiosity, and I tasted the Moonson’s pain and fatigue and resignation.
“Tell me, Moonson!”
“Rembert Lemblyre t’Kyros served with Lord Elgar Purvis’s men from an early age, it was said. And when Lord Elgar died in a battle with bandits, Sir Lemblyre t’Kyros took his name. Lord Elgar had no children and had willed his estate to Sir Lemblyre … the new Lord Purvis.”
“Rembert.” I fell back, hitting my head against the hard floor and staring at the ceiling, the room growing dark around me. Shadows that I’d not noticed before reached up and swallowed me.
Rembert?
My brother, Rembert?
It had to be him, not another man with that name, as the Moonson had said he was son to the Emperor’s taster. I tried to deny it, tried to put another man in his place. Another Rembert.
I dreamt in the darkness, seeing my brother w
hen we were children, his face so smooth and the color of cream. Two years older than I, in him my parents found so little wyse that they devoted their magical tutelage to me. He hadn’t seemed bitter then; I’d not tasted that foulness in him ever. But later, before I was sent to the Village Nar and he was sent south and later became a soldier to some lord, I remembered tasting a hint of anger.
Just a hint.
The original Lord Purvis? Was that the man my brother had joined?
I cursed myself now in my dream for not keeping track of my brother. My life had become the Village Nar, and the people who meant something to me were Lady Ewaren and Bastien, Willum, and all the others my brother had ordered slain.
How had a boy I’d played with, fished with, shared secrets with … how had such a boy turned into … a demon-of-a-man? There was no better word to describe Purvis.
Rembert.
My brother.
Demon-of-a-man.
The darkness I dreamt in was absolute and thick. Despite all the pain and misery I felt, the black formed a comforting cocoon that I wanted to wrap tighter and tighter. I vaguely registered that I felt light-headed and that my breathing was becoming increasingly shallow. I heard a rushing sound strong in my ears, and had no clue where it came from. I didn’t care. I cared only about my cocoon, which was taking the breath from me. It wouldn’t be so bad, I knew, to stop breathing entirely. I’d see no more ugliness, would no longer hear the deeds of people being bad to one another, no longer have to deal with friends dying, bloodoaths to fulfill.
If I let the blackness claim me, I would be released from my bloodoath. I would not then have to face my brother … Lord Purvis … the one I’d been calling the demon-of-a-man. I would not have the last of my family’s blood on my hands. The darkness tightened, and my head spun. I barely breathed now.
No pain.
I thought there’d be pain.
In the darkness something brightened, something pale green spotted with red. Lady Ewaren’s torn and bloody dress.