Grimenna Page 5

  “No. My father’s a good man, they cannot punish good men. Ramsi would understand that.”

  “There have been many good men who end up in the woods, many innocents.”

  She looked back up to him then, studying his haggard profile. He was almost all shadow, except for a glimmer of silver where his eyes stared out.

  “My father might think you’re a good man,” she said. “But you’re not innocent, are you?”

  He turned his bent head to her. She could smell horse sweat and earthy leathers. His silver eyes pierced into hers, and then her loft seemed to shrink. The air grew stuffy and hard to breathe, and she wanted desperately to find more distance between them.

  A crook of a smile tugged at his half-obscured features.

  “No,” he whispered.

  — «» —

  The Mummers left a short while later, after the pitcher of cider was found to be dry. Viviel watched them stagger across the yard, then turn down the laneway.

  “Be careful,” he called worriedly. “Safe home, straight away.” They laughed and made screeching calls, mimicking what they thought an angry spirit would sound like. The sounds sent chills up Paiva’s spine.

  When they were a safe distance down the road, Viviel shut and latched the door. Renn quietly descended back to the main floor, Jorn burst out of a cupboard he had jammed himself into, and Terg crawled out from behind the wood pile with a slew of curses.

  “I thought they were going to stay all night,” he spat, rubbing his aching shoulder.

  “We will leave,” Renn said, but Viviel shook his head resolutely. He gathered blankets and handed them to the Wildermen.

  “Rest here until the light comes. Please. I’m sure every last ranger in Birchloam is as drunk as Ramsi right now.”

  Renn took the blanket reluctantly. The three men lay down before the fire while her father laid back in a chair with his own blanket over his lap. He had his shepherd’s staff beside him and he tilted his head back to close his eyes wearily.

  Kess came up to the loft and they huddled together on Paiva’s small bed. Paiva had a slew of questions for her mother but she sighed wearily and closed her eyes. Paiva lay awake for most of the night, listening for any noise that came in the dark. All she heard were snores from the men downstairs, the crackle of the fire, and the scurry of mice through the rafters. Slowly sleep crept over her and she closed her eyes, nestling into her mother’s back.

  — «» —

  In the early morning she followed her parents and the three men out to the barn with a sack filled with foods. Jorn gathered up the horse and scratched his head shyly when he caught Kess staring at the haversacks overstuffed with bread from the altar. Viviel shook each of their hands, their branded hands, and wished them well and gave them his thanks again. Renn seemed troubled, and Viviel asked him what the matter was.

  “Our tracks,” he said. “The ground is wet from the spring rains yet. The Warden’s twit of a son would be sure to follow them back here if he caught on to them. Best you gather a small flock of sheep and run them over.”

  “I will,” Viviel said. “Do not worry about us. Best you hide your own tracks on the way out. If the Warden and his rangers caught wind of you, you would be in for it.”

  “Don’t worry about us.”

  “They have hounds.”

  “Doesn’t matter much if they have dogs,” Jorn scowled. “Some rangers you have, if that’s the lot you expect to keep you safe from the woods.”

  “It is,” Viviel mused worriedly.

  “If I were you I’d send word to Master Warden Yulin from the Keep,” Renn said. “He’ll send you good men, and we’ll be sure not to cross the river while they are here. Tell him Varloga is here, he’ll be sure to come.”

  “Now that’s a Warden you don’t want to meet in the woods,” Jorn laughed. “And neither does any Folka.”

  Viviel nodded in thanks again and Renn turned to lead the men out. Paiva ran out a ways after them, leaping onto the stone fence to watch them pass. She called her thanks to them, and Renn kept his eyes on the ground. Jorn threw her a crooked smile and Terg a mischievous wink. She watched them disappear into the trees as the sun blushed the sky.

  Viviel looked about for his wife, and came back into the house where she hid with her hands to her face, stifling sobs. He laid his arms around her and buried her into his deep chest.

  “I knew she shouldn’t have gone out, it was my fault. I knew better,” she said.

  “It didn’t happen. Do not despair. It did not happen.”

  Chapter 4

  A few hours later Paiva sat before Warden Lier in his quarters beside her father. The Warden stared across his tidy desk with the same hazel eyes he had given to his son, ringed with weariness from the festivities of the night before. Behind him on the walls hung a large map, showing the village and the huge expanse of forest beyond it separated by the Panderbank River. There were marks throughout the woods, showing Wilderman camps and trails. His entire office dripped in finery: there were red silk curtains in his window, ornately carved furniture and a tall crystal decanter filled with wine. He had a servant who tended to him and his dogs and horses, and Paiva began to believe what Renn had said about how he was not one to get his boots dirty. Despite this, his face was hard and his manners cool and calculated. He gave every impression of a capable and dangerous protector, though there was not a trace of dirt beneath his perfectly shaped fingernails.

  Warden Lier dipped a quill in ink and marked the date on a piece of parchment, ready to record and note the statement they had come to give. He waited patiently while Viviel found his first words.

  “She was walking home from the bonfire and Ramsi came after her,” he began.

  Warden Lier’s brow lifted in surprise and looked to Paiva. “Ramsi was with you?”

  “No Sir, it was not Ramsi,” Viviel said. “She thought it was but she was deceived. She had thought Ramsi had gone off with another girl and decided to go home. She was surprised, and glad, to see he had come after her.”

  Warden Lier frowned and began scratching into his parchment. Viviel procured a small pouch and from it he drew pieces of clay, arranging them together atop Warden Lier’s desk in the shape of a fox’s face. It was Ramsi’s own mask — Viviel had found it by the altar when he had gone to hide the Wildermen’s tracks. The feathers he had found he burned, for there had been traces of black blood on them.

  The mask was compelling enough evidence for Warden Lier, who scrutinized it. Viviel recounted the rest of the story simply. He had been very firm with Paiva to agree it had all happened in the front of the Ibbies’ house in hopes of keeping the Rangers away from the pastures, where they might uncover evidence of the Wildermen.

  “You’re not hurt?” Warden Lier asked Paiva. “He did not touch you? There are no marks on your body?”

  “Only bruises,” Paiva said. “I was in a terrible shock and didn’t speak with my parents about it until this morning.” In fact, her entire body was covered in bruises and she smelled strongly of the healing liniment her mother had rubbed her with before she left the house that morning.

  “Yes, I would imagine,” Warden Lier said.

  “It was Varloga,” her father confirmed. “I am sure of it. She said he was all white, half-owl, half-man.” Warden Lier scrutinized his parchment, his eyes deep and thoughtful. When they looked at Paiva there was no suspicion in them, only concern.

  “I think it best I had rangers on sentry at your farm for the next little while. I’ll send the rest into the woods and have them overturn every leaf until they are sure there is nothing hiding in there.”

  “I thought perhaps you could notify Warden Yulin from the Keep,” her father said.

  “What for?”

  “Perhaps it would do well to have more manpower, is all,” Viviel said.

  Lier dismissed th
e subject carelessly. “I will leave Ramsi in charge of guarding your farm, and I will myself go into the woods in search of this creature. Rest assured the beast will be dealt with.” He finished recording the statement on parchment, then slid it over to her father with his quill to sign.

  Hesitantly, Viviel took the quill and made his mark.

  They left the Warden’s quarters and headed back up the laneway. Her father was quiet and thoughtful, sucking smoke from his pipe.

  “What is wrong? What are you thinking about?” she asked him.

  “I was thinking about your mother’s sister who lives at the Keep.” Paiva had only met her aunt Bessil a handful of times in her younger years. She knew she had spent the past years slaving away as a cook in the kitchens of the Keep and had very little interest in ever returning to Birchloam.

  “I don’t want to go to the Keep,” she said as she followed her father’s train of thought.

  “I was thinking you would be safe there until this Varloga is contended with.”

  “I don’t want to go to the Keep.”

  Viviel puffed on his pipe thoughtfully. They went on homewards in silence.

  — «» —

  Paiva’s mother was in a terrible mood the rest of the day. It did not matter what Viviel said to her; she could not help but to be irritated by him. Paiva could not go anywhere without her mother coming to look for her and so Paiva could assure her she was well. Paiva ended up spending the rest of the day in the kitchens, for Kess was too afraid to send her outside unsupervised.

  Viviel went up to the pastures and into the woods, checking again that there were no signs of Wildermen left behind. He stopped to kneel at his altar and send a prayer out into the forest. By midday the rangers had been assembled and led up the road to the Ibbies’ homestead where they scoured the woods and the pastures. Alarming talk had started in town and Mr. and Mrs. Switch had come forward about the strange white Mummer they had encountered the night before. It was found that their description matched Paiva’s perfectly. Kess was like a kettle on the verge of boiling over, but Viviel soothed her with gentle assurances.

  Ordered to stay indoors and with nothing to do until the rangers concluded their investigation, Paiva joined her father by the hearth as he scribbled his writings into his journal. She did not ask him but she was sure he was recording what had come to pass with the Wildermen the night before.

  Not wanting to interrupt him, she procured one of his older journals from his shelf at the back of the house and flipped through it, searching through his scribbles for the Old Stories of Grimenna. As she looked at his inky illustrations of creatures, she came across his work on Varloga. Below the name written in bold letters was an eerie drawing of owl. There were other drawings as well—shapes of men and other half-creatures Varloga was said to take, but it was the owl she returned to and studied. She read his slanted writing of the many stories of the spirit, and records of sightings and places he was said to haunt. There was one paragraph that caught her eye, and as she read it she felt as cold as ice.

  “Spirit of the Dark Humors,” it read, “Born of the Humor of Fear. The First People claimed this spirit to be the cause and reason of nightmares, ailments, accidents and misfortune. He was said to take the shape of a giant white owl and was evoked to curse enemies. He was warded off through generous sacrifices of livestock and precious objects. He was greatly feared for his dark powers of shapeshifting and conjuring, and later he became known as the White Magician, preferring the form of a man over that of an owl. He is ruled by the Strix, under whom he is commanded and compelled. To her he brings the gifts of the simple people, and if she is displeased it is he she sends back to torment them.

  “It is through him the Folka beasts are conjured. The Folka are soulless, empty beasts manifested from nightmares, and often when they are killed, they return to trouble the dreams of their killers. It is not known if Varloga was ever an Incarnate, though there is a belief the guardian of the old temple of Morinvere sold his soul to the Strix who in turn granted him magic so he might become a sorcerer. Varloga is said to have taken this guardian’s body, and thus he was able to leave the Forest and trouble mankind.”

  Paiva continued to flip through the pages, perusing her father’s inky illustrations. Any one of them could have been a design for a costume on Mummers-eve. Paiva closed the book and weighed it in her hands. Within held all her father’s secrets, myths and stories that were being forgotten by a sweeping belief in a mightier God. This book was precious and at the same time dangerous. Those that were Goddish would easily believe them to be a source of witchcraft and ill-doing.

  She returned the book to its place on the shelf alongside the many others containing old songs, old remedies, old families and old places, mixed in with records of the farm and animal husbandry.

  “Father,” she said. “Why are you forever recording things and gathering stories?”

  He looked up to her from his journal, his eyes soft and kind.

  “I have old blood, Paiva,” he said. “My collecting started when I wanted to find my origins. They are your origins as well.” He smiled then, a lingering smile that touched into his eyes and made them glow. Then he dropped his head back to his writings, his interest becoming focused elsewhere.

  — «» —

  “I hear you had a good fright the other night,” Ramsi said as he leaned against a post in the barn and watched Paiva muck the stalls. He had his arms folded across his wide chest and his sword hung at his hip in a prominent display of manliness. He had brought with him a small group of men that were standing idle at all corners of their property. They did not do much but sit and twiddle grass stalks between their teeth or throw stones at birds. Ramsi had been out with his father and a score of rangers for almost two days, tracking and searching, uncovering nothing. He was bored now, looking for something more exciting to do.

  “I did have a fright,” she said.

  “I heard the spirit appeared to you in my likeness.” She felt her cheeks burn with exertion and humiliation and stabbed the pitchfork hard into the muck of hay and manure as he chuckled quietly. “That’s the best trick I heard of on Mummers-Eve yet.” He smiled.

  “It’s not funny,” she said.

  “It sounds ridiculous to me. Why would a spirit like Varloga even want you? What could be so special about a sheep herder’s daughter? To me it sounds like a very tall tale, told by someone in want of attention. I even came to your house on that night, and you did nothing but hide in your bed.”

  “My father found your mask in the front of the house,” she scolded him.

  “I could have dropped it there,” he shrugged. “You could have stolen it.”

  “Just do your job Ramsi,” she said as she tossed muck into a wheelbarrow. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Not at all.” He walked out of the barn, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his shoulders squared. She glared at him as he paced the yard, kicking at pebbles in the dirt. If he had not been so terribly handsome she probably would have thrown a forkful of muck at him.

  She sighed to herself as a great realization occurred to her. Ramsi Lier wasn’t worth getting upset over. He wasn’t worth another wasted thought. She could wish it was him who had come to her rescue; she could wish it was him who had struck Varloga in the neck with an arrow. The simple truth was that it hadn’t been him—he had been off courting a prettier, wealthier girl who probably wasn’t standing up to her ankles in horse and sheep muck at this very moment. It had been a dirty, black-haired outlaw who had saved her, not Ramsi.

  She didn’t let herself feel disappointed, and she didn’t lament over his loss in her heart. As her father always said, it was his loss, not hers.

  — «» —

  Viviel had sent two letters to the Keep, one to the Warden Yulin that Renn spoke of, and one to Paiva’s aunt Bessil. They received a letter in the following
week, written in a hand that clearly didn’t care for writing. Paiva recognized it as Aunt Bessil’s and waited for her mother to read it. There was only one small sentence.

  “Send the girl then.”

  Her mother frowned. It did not sound very inviting.

  “I think I should stay here,” Paiva protested. “Ramsi says he’s very sure Varloga won’t come back and the last I did see of him he had an arrow in his neck.”

  “The only thing to stop a creature like him is an arrow in his heart and his head cut off. You’ll go. There will be hundreds of soldiers and towering walls all around you, you will be a thousand times safer than here. Here you are like a mouse in the middle of a field trying to hide from a hawk.”

  “But I have never left Birchloam before.”

  “And you’ll come home to it again.” Kess smiled. “In the meantime you shall have an adventure and steal all of Bessil’s recipes for me.”

  Close on the heels of the messenger came a score of men on dusty horses. At the lead was a stony-faced man with a cropped gray beard. He wore the same deep red garments as Warden Lier, only he carried himself differently. Warden Lier resembled very much an esteemed man of high rank, but Yulin looked like a warlord. The men that flanked him were twice the size of any of Warden Lier’s rangers, and they had iron mail beneath their tunics and studded shoulders.

  People came out of their homes and gawked as they passed, riding through the village and up the lane way to stop at the Ibbies’ front door. Viviel came down from the fields to greet him, followed by Ramsi who looked concerned.

  “Warden Yulin,” Viviel greeted the man who swung from his horse and removed his leather gloves to shake Viviel’s hand.

  “Warden Yulin? From the Keep?” Ramsi blurted. “Why are you here?”

  “I was sent word that Varloga was sighted here,” Warden Yulin said briskly, sizing up the youth.