The crone is statuesque. Even from this distance, she can see it is tall, its spindled front legs almost as long as her body. The tusks that arc from beneath its jaws are russet with stale blood. It has no fur, no scales, only spotted tufts of stiff hair. She is too far away to see its eyes, which are sunken within its skull, but she knows with the knowledge of one who has been both hunter and prey that it watches her as she watches it.
“Stay here and do not move,” she whispers to Johana. He stares at her.
“You are using me as bait?”
“No. I am making it think that I am using you as bait.”
She does not wait to hear his protestations, slipping away towards the east of the wood where the undergrowth is thicker and the trees change from beech to oak. She finds a particular tree that has obliging roots and low branches, and hefts herself up to a crook. She settles herself there, kneeling so that she can spring up easily, and searches once more for the crone.
To his credit, Johana has done as she directed. He remains beside the covered trench, although his crouch is stiff with terror. The crone continues to watch him, and it is so still that for a moment she wonders if it is a living creature or a statue. Then it turns, just its head, to rest its gaze on her, and she knows that she has calculated correctly.
Since her first year of marriage, she has studied the crones’ behaviour, for they have plagued the woodlands of her territories all this time. They are derided as the most abominable of beasts, but she knows something about the power that comes from being labelled unattractive. The way it can be used as a camouflage. The crones, above all else, are intelligent. They can smell a trick, catch a deception. So she has given them one.
Cleves holds her breath as the crone slips closer to Johana. For such an ungainly beast, it can move with impressive stealth, using its long front legs to test a spot, almost as a human would use their hands.
Johana edges back against a tree trunk. He is muttering something that she cannot hear, although she would lay money on it being a string of Ezzonidian curses. Her heart thumps faster, louder. Has she misjudged? If the crone falls into the trench, she will not be able to truss it up for delivery to High Hall. Her plan will come to naught.
“Be clever, but not too clever,” she whispers. It is an entreaty, a prayer.
And it works.
As the crone’s cloven hoof descends upon the unsupported branch that covers the trench, the creature seems to transform. From stealth, it erupts into movement, so quickly that Cleves almost throws herself backwards and ruins everything. It springs sideways on powerful back legs, charging towards the tree where she crouches.
Cleves bares her teeth in victory.
The crone reaches the bottom of the tree. She can see its eyes now; black pebbles in a rat’s head. And in those eyes she realises her miscalculation. She is too high for the crone to reach her with its head, but not with those long forelegs.
She tugs on the rope next to her at the same moment as the beast reaches up and scrapes one of those cloven hooves across her stomach.
A dozen ropes, concealed in the thick undergrowth, spring up around the crone. It is hoisted into the air, legs tangled and tusks tossing furiously. The net holds despite its struggle.
“Frizun!”Cleves curses, climbing down gingerly.
“You are hurt?” Johana says, stumbling through ferns towards her.
“Not seriously,” she says. Her gown and the many layers of clothing beneath it makes it impossible for her to see the spot where the crone touched her. No blood seeps through, and the fabric is intact, yet her stomach is agony.
They look up at the still-struggling crone. It is only from this vantage point that she sees its teets, shrivelled and milk-dry. Now she thinks on it, it is strange that no one has ever come across a crone with young, or a crone freshly born.
“Will your net hold?” Johana says.
“The rope is made of twisted mægencord,” she says. Vines from Alpich used in shipbuilding and the hoisting of rocks.
Johana nods. He looks at her sidelong. “Just out of curiosity, how would you have explained my death to our family?”
“It would not have come to that.”
He wants her to apologise. She did not ask for his presence here, and if he is going to hold his help over her head, then she does not want it. She is through with men and their desire for gratitude.
Johana smiles sadly.
“Those soldiers, cousin. That night. You were so open and easy before.”
Cleves spreads her arms wide. “Do you not find me convivial, Johana?”
“Convivial, yes. But I miss the earnest girl I once knew. This woman before me is all smiles and smoke. You are like that castle you have holed yourself up inside.”
“Come, Johana. You have been at a royal court for as long as I. You know how we must be.”
