Grimenna Page 11
“Odrik’s eyes were all changed. I did not recognize him. He bore down on me and rose his fist for the final blow, but then he suddenly stopped. He had me by the cuff of my shirt and I was calling out his name, begging him for mercy. Something strange passed over his face, like a battle of wills. His eyes seemed to clear for a moment, though his face was contorted with some inner struggle. He threw me away and staggered back towards the ramparts, as if fighting the impulses of his own body. He said he was sorry, over and over, he muttered warnings to me I did not understand. Then he crawled over the crenelation while Ceitra began to scream and I realized what he was doing. I tried to stop him, I grabbed hold of his cloak but I was blinded by blood and weak from pain. The cloak was merciful, and tore away before I could drop him. Because I would have.”
Yulin breathed into the heavy silence between them, gazing into Renn’s shadowy eyes with disbelief.
“Yet you said nothing at your trial,” Yulin answered.
Renn stared at him blankly. “The last thing I saw was the horrible fear in his eyes as he began his fall towards earth. The last things I heard were his horrible screams. I tried to spare my father, I tried to save Odrik’s honor. He took his life over mine. So much pain would have been saved if I had been the one to die instead.”
“Rennik,” Yulin began to protest, not sure what he could say to salve the guilt and self hate of this tortured soul. Unable to find any words that could repair, he simply let out a hot breath in a weary sigh.
“We need to bring your father back,” he said. “Come.”
— «» —
“What is he still doing here?” Ceitra snarled when she saw Renn sitting before the fire in the Great Hall the following day. Yulin sat with a handful of his rangers at a table eating a small meal of bread and cheese, all with weary rings beneath their eyes. He rose as the Lady approached him, his face growing taught.
“My Lady, I thought it would be best if he stayed. It was under my orders he was not sent back upriver with the others,” Yulin protested.
“On what grounds? Do you not realize it is him who causes the Lord to take such fits?”
“My Lady, I do gravely apologize. I thought only to spare him the anguish of not knowing if his father should wake or not. He will leave when we know the outcome of last night’s ordeal.”
“It is because of Rennik this has happened to begin with!” she cried.
“He will be sent away again. I am just waiting, and hoping, that if the Lord should wake perhaps he will see things differently. Perhaps he will forgive him. Surely you must give him some acknowledgment. Without Rennik we might never have found the Lord in time.”
“You … hope,” Ceitra said slowly.
“I do, my Lady. I hope and I pray. Perhaps the fog of his madness will lift. Perhaps he will be able to come to terms with his son.”
“There is no medicine, there is no hope that can cure the Lord!” Ceitra screamed. “There is nothing that can bring him back from his madness. There is nothing that can bring Odrik back. The only thing we can do is avoid upsetting him.” Her eyes narrowed accusingly on Yulin.
“He must stay,” Yulin said strongly.
“If he stays behind the walls of the Keep, he will stay as a prisoner. Throw him in chains, for he is not a free man.”
“He’s harmless,” Yulin protested again.
“He is not a free man,” she snarled. Her eyes fell on Renn’s hunched shape before the fire. He did not lift his head to her, but simply sat and stared quietly into the flames. Ceitra called forward her men at arms and ordered them to seize him. Yulin looked despairingly to his Lady again but was met by a hateful fury.
“My Lady, this is not necessary. He has a truth he must speak, that has long been silenced. It must be heard,” Yulin snapped.
Ceitra’s eyes opened wide. “What truth?”
“Of Odrik’s death.” Yulin eyed her levelly.
“Rennik is a liar,” she said coldly. “He has had long enough to think of a way to free himself of the woods. Take him away, chain him in the bailey like the criminal he is.”
Renn stood stiffly as the men approached him and, with a solemn nod to Yulin, was escorted away. Despairingly, Yulin sat down again and threw his meal to the floor, where the hounds leapt on it.
Ceitra pivoted on her heel and stalked briskly from the room, her head held high, her red hair shining in the splendor of her command.
— «» —
A cold pit formed in Renn’s stomach as he approached the bailey square, remembering from years ago when he had stood on trial for his brother’s death and every last person in all the keep had come to stare accusingly at him. He remembered the feeling of the chains that locked over his wrists, and gritted his teeth at the memory of how his hand had been flatted under a wooden press and a red-hot iron pressed into it, scorching his flesh forever with the mark of shame. He remembered the only sound he had been able to make throughout the whole trial was his angered, bewildered scream when they marked him. He had looked in disbelief to his father whose accusing eyes burned into him like the brand on his hand.
Renn felt his heart beat wildly as the shackles closed over his wrists again. The guards grunted and chuckled to each other and then returned indoors.
“I’m sorry,” he said to himself as he tugged futilely against his restraints. He canted his head up to the tower to where he knew his father lay in his sickbed. With a surge of anger and frustration he roared it again, hoping his voice would carry into his father’s deafened ears and into Ceitra’s angry heart.
The peasants, who would have normally thrown waste and scraps at a man tied to the pillar, shied away from him and touched their foreheads. He spat and snarled at them, lunging at them on the length of his chains. They called names at him over their shoulders, whispered “murderer” and “criminal” to each other.
“I am not!” he roared at them, and snarled all the more. Then a voice floated out to him calling his name, breaking through his blinding rage. He swiveled his head and saw a pale-haired girl facing him — Paiva.
“Get away from him,” someone shouted. “He’s a mad dog.”
Paiva didn’t move. She stood before him, quietly watching him with her strange green eyes.
“Go away,” he growled, staring her down warningly. There was something about this girl that unsettled him. If there had been one person in all the world he could have kept his past, his identity hidden from, it would have been her. He remembered how she had looked at him in Birchloam after having saved her from Varloga. She had stood atop her father’s stone fence as he had departed into the woods and looked to him as if he had been a hero. Now in her eyes he was nothing more than a scoundrel, a murderer. It infuriated him to be so shamefully exposed.
He turned away from her. When he looked back, she was gone.
— «» —
Lord Pratermora lay in his bed, still as death, his beard seeming to have turned white overnight. His face grew sunken and haggard, his lips bluish and withered as a corpse. An assortment of physics attended to him, dripping restoring fluids into his mouth and pasting his skin with clay to draw out the poisons in his body. Slowly he began to tremble, then he shook with violent shivers. His mind surfaced and he began to let loose loud yells. The physics, afraid his mind would be broken if he woke, tied him to his bed. A Goddish priest stayed vigilant at his side, murmuring chants and dispersing burning oils into the air about the chamber to ward off the ills of dark spirits.
He thrashed in his bed with nightmares, and in a semi-wakefulness would open his eyes and stare blindly about the room, moaning broken words and crying out for help. He’d try to fight the physics and the nurse maids who came to soothe him, twisting against his restraints. He’d speak of shadows, of Odrik, of Rennik lost in the woods, of his wife calling to him, until suddenly he seemed to surrender and went still and listless.
The trials for wrongdoing that were held in the great halls had unjust outcomes. Men were stripped of their names and homes, branded and thrown across the river into the Wilderlands. She found blame in every man, whether it was far-fetched or not. There was no compassion, no understanding. She gazed on each person with hate, and each person who felt her hate shook with fear.
Paiva found even the kitchen maids grew fearful, for Ceitra was quick to displease and often found pleasure in choosing one maid during meals to taunt and belittle for shortcomings Ceitra always found unnecessarily. It seemed the more unhappiness Ceitra caused, the more beautiful she became. While the maids began to look haggard and worn, Ceitra shone as if her very skin were made from some precious luster. Her eyes glittered darker, her hair seeming to burn more red.
Bessil seemed to have lost her joy of cooking. She worried excessively over her recipes. The sweetness of sugar seemed to have lost its taste to her, and the love and the care she poured into serving meals seemed to fade. The bread never seemed to leaven quite right — pots scalded under distracted watch, and maids ended up crying as they suffered a curt lashing of her sharp tongue. Paiva herself wished more than ever to be back home, but it seemed that in such uncertain times she had a duty to help those around her for whom she had come to love and care.
It was exhausting to try and deflect the unhappiness around her. It was exhausting consoling Bessil over a spoiled batch of tarts, and trying to coax small smiles from her friends. She waited anxiously for Yulin to come to the kitchens, but he never did. Now more than ever, she prayed her family would come to retrieve her, to take her back to the sanctuary of the little pastures in Birchloam. She was left hoping, for there were not even any letters.
She could hardly bear going out to the market on Bessil’s errands, for it involved passing by the bedraggled form of Renn chained to his pillar. Most times she saw him he was hunched down, head bowed beneath his hood. He did not react to anything, even bold little boys who crept up to him to prod him with sticks before their mothers hollered at them. Wherever his mind was, it was a thousand miles away from here.
She wondered if he prayed. She wished she had the courage to call out a passing word of comfort, to tell him to have hope, to throw him a scrap of food. Instead she always passed by hurriedly, and only offered her own silent prayers to him, too afraid to attract the attention of the guards or the spiteful peasants.
The thought of Renn bothered her as the days passed. One evening when the kitchen was empty she stole a small loaf of bread from the pantry and went outside to the urchins, coaxing one to deliver it to Renn in exchange for extra scraps. She grabbed it eagerly, tucking it away under the folds of her ragged cloak and hurrying down the street into the bailey. She approached Renn but he did not look up from his pious hunch; he did not even notice the bent figure until the loaf of bread hit him in the chest. He stared at the bread for a moment before he realized it was food, then hurriedly swept it under his cloak. He looked up to the urchin who smiled at him with rotten teeth.
“From my little mistress in the kitchens,” she said, then trundled away to collect her reward.
If Bessil had noticed the missing bread, she said not a word.
— «» —
Paiva attracted Ceitra’s attentions one night as she served supper. The lady sat back in her great chair, toying her fingers around the rim of a golden goblet. Paiva felt the black stare from across the room and shuddered beneath it. Then she heard her name called out, for it seemed Ceitra had not forgotten it.
“Come here girl,” the lady demanded. “I want more wine.” Paiva brought forth a decanter and filled Ceitra’s extended goblet. The wine rippled in, swirling into the gold like liquid ruby. Ceitra smiled her curious little smile and brought the wine to her lips, never taking her eyes off Paiva.
Paiva suddenly wondered if she knew that she was stealing bread for the accused murderer of her husband and her palms began to sweat in panic. She could not imagine the punishment she would endure for such an act. She tried to keep her face expressionless, washing it clean of worry.
“I hear times are troubled in Birchloam,” Ceitra said. Paiva felt a prickle of anxiety run up her spine. She had not heard of trouble in Birchloam. Her thoughts raced out worriedly to her parents. Ceitra’s smile deepened, her eyes pooling darkly.
“I have had no news from Birchloam, my Lady,” Paiva replied quietly, “but I am sure there are still good spirits left in the world to watch over it. That is all I can pray for.” Then she smiled and curtsied. The smile froze on Ceitra’s face.
“How dare you speak of good spirits,” came her cold voice. Paiva felt the dread of having made a horrible mistake. Ceitra delicately lowered her goblet onto the table and stared at Paiva as if she had grown two heads. Paiva watched a strange change occur: the smoothness of Ceitra’s skin suddenly became strained, her hair seeming to grow coarse and dull as a rage began to build behind the masked eyes.
“How dare you speak of good things in a place like this,” Ceitra said.
Paiva blinked, confused. “But my Lady,” Paiva said, “surely you believe there is still good left in the world. Surely you still have hope.”
The Great Hall fell into a deep silence. Not a breath was drawn; not a single person stirred. A brittle tremor rippled across Ceitra’s face.
“Hope,” Ceitra echoed, drawing in a low breath. “Are you mocking me, little one?” Her eyes suddenly darkened, dimming the room with their intensity.
“I will teach you about hope,” she said. “Hope is belief, hope is faith. Hope is putting that faith in a person, or in a dream, or in a place. When that faith is taken from you, when hope is driven out, it leaves the believer in despair.” Then she rose from her seat, towering over Paiva in her violent reds and oranges.
“I will teach you,” she said again, and Paiva felt a hollow pit form in her stomach. In a rustle of bright silks, Ceitra sauntered away, leaving the Great Hall chilled in her wake.
Chapter 8
Paiva was busy with work in the kitchens one late, drizzly afternoon when a page arrived asking for her attendance in the Great Hall. Bessil threw her a concerned look, then asked the page what the matter was.
“Her Ladyship requests an audience with young Paiva Ibbie is all,” the page replied, though there was something apologetic in his manner. Paiva followed him up the stairwell and into the Great Hall, Bessil curiously following on her heels.
There before the High Table was a proud figure in a red tunic. She recognized his tousled head instantly and she felt her heart drop. It was Ramsi Lier. Beside him stood two hunched figures under the vigilant guard of men at arms. Her parents.
Paiva felt Ceitra’s black eyes on her and looked to the lady in shock and dismay.
“Please come forward,” Ceitra gestured to her. Paiva stepped carefully towards her parents, though a man at arms moved to block her from touching them. She strained to look over at them, but each one had their heads bowed, and to her horror, their hands bound behind their backs.
“What is the meaning of this?” Paiva asked heatedly. Yulin stood beside Ramsi, a black frown on his face and his hands clenched to his sides. Ramsi had his head held high, a small, proud smirk pulling at his mouth that Paiva would have loved to rip off.
“As I remember telling you, Ms. Ibbie,” Ceitra said, “there was trouble occurring in Birchloam.” Paiva could not comprehend her meaning. She did not know how her parents could be the cause of any trouble. But even as her thoughts raced, her eyes landed on an a
ssortment of books spread atop the High Table. Her father’s books — his leather-bound journals and scraps of parchment. There was all sorts of trouble a vindictive, angry person like Ceitra could find scattered inside them.
Rain pelted the arched windows of the Great Hall, spilling a gloom that settled over Paiva as thick as a wool cloak.
“Young Ramsi Lier, Ranger of Birchloam, has brought to my attention a serious matter which has been long overlooked.” She procured a parchment paper, neatly unrolling it and scanning her eyes over it.
“This is concerning the night of Mummers-eve, in the springtime of the year,” Ceitra began. “Mummers-eve is a primitive festival wherein common people dress up in mock disguise of Folka. I find it most distasteful. No wonder the people of Birchloam provoke the attentions of malicious beings.
“Warden Lier of Birchloam’s statement collected from Viviel Ibbie the following day states that the dark spirit Varloga attacked Paiva Ibbie in the front of the house on the night of Mummers-eve, after she began her walk home alone from the festivities in the village square. The dark spirit was said to have appeared in the likeness of Ramsi Lier, who is standing before me now. An investigation was initiated by Warden Lier, providing no further proof as to the presence or whereabouts of any evil spirits or malicious entities.
“Shortly after Warden Lier’s investigation began, Master Warden Yulin received a missive from Viviel Ibbie with the concern of Varloga loose in the lowlands.” She procured this letter as evidence. “It states simply that there was an occurrence with the dark spirit and if men could be mustered from the Keep for further protection it would be of great significance. Master Warden Yulin dutifully obeyed and took his own troop of rangers to Birchloam where he uncovered nothing Warden Lier had not already.”