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An indefinable hush settled over the older men and women, a taut attention, that the young soldiers seemed unaware of.
“I hear,” continued Withi defiantly, “that if a person goes up to the ruins on Midsummer’s Eve, you can see the ghosts of them who did build it.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Heric, winking and nudging his fellows, “Just to see what I might see.” They snickered and coughed.
“You’d not joke,” said Raimond, echoing the sergeant’s grim words, “if you’d been there yourself. Ai, I recall it clearly. There was a girl, back these many years, who went up to those ruins on Midsummer’s Eve. On a dare, it was.” His gaze was sharp suddenly as he looked right at Withi. “She came back at dawn half crazy, and pregnant, too, or so we found out in due time. And she died bearing the child she’d taken from whatever haunts up there!” Hands shaking, he gripped the handle of his cup and banged it on the table for emphasis.
“What?” scoffed Heric. “She gave birth to Lackling here?”
“Nay, and you’d not laugh, boy. One of the men from the country took the child away.”
“Now you listen to me, young Heric,” said Cook in the assured voice of one who rules her domain completely. “It’s true enough, what Raimond says. It happened not so many years back either, for I knew her when we were both girls. She was a pretty, black-haired slip of a thing. Her parents were Salian, fled from the Eika raids. She did go up to the ruins, though everyone said she shouldn’t, and she told me—” Here Cook’s husky voice dropped to a whisper and every stray conversation at the two tables vanished as does a snowflake in fire. Everyone strained forward to listen. “She told me that the shade of an elf prince come to her, one of the Lost Ones, and lay with her, right there in the altar house, and that it was his child she bore.” No one, not even Heric, made a noise. “But the Lord and Lady grant it not to those of mortal frame to have concourse with the Lost Ones, for they are not believers. So she paid the price. She died three days after birthing the child.”
Alain stared at Cook. Sergeant Fell had told a tale to frighten and amaze Withi. Cook’s story was different. Certainly she was telling the truth. She was of an age to be his mother. He had black hair, and his features were sharper and a little foreign, or so everyone in Osna always said. What if this black-haired Salian girl was his mother, and the shade in the ruins truly his father? A Lost One! Wouldn’t that explain why the Lady of Battles had come to him? He had always felt different— and it was often said the elvish kind were daimones in truth because unlike mortal men they did not die in the natural course of years, and if killed by accident or violent death, they were not succored into the Chamber of Light but damned to wander this world forever as dark shades.
“I’m going anyway,” said Withi stubbornly.
“I’ll go, too,” said Heric with a leer.
“You’ll not!” said the sergeant, “and that by my order. We’ve no time to waste. We ride to Biscop Thierra at dawn.”
“None of you are brave enough to go,” declared Withi with a contemptuous toss of her head.
“I’ll go,” said Alain, and then started, surprised to hear his voice so loud in summer’s drowsing endless afternoon that melded into the long bright evening.
Everyone stared at him. Most of the men-at-arms laughed, eyeing him where he sat, the only person among them to keep Lackling company. He was nearly as filthy as Lackling.
Old Raimond snorted but said nothing.
“Who’s this stripling?” demanded Heric. “Enough of a chickling to grow some down on his cheek but not more of a man than that! Or hoping to become one!” He chuckled at his own joke, although no one else did.
“He’s the stableboy,” said Cook, not unkindly.
Alain found that, once noticed, he did not like the attention. He had grown comfortable with anonymity. He lowered his gaze and stared fixedly at the table.
“He’s the only one brave enough to go!” said Withi.
“Heric!” The sergeant looked annoyed. “If you’ve a mind to act like a fool, I’ll see you’re whipped in the morning. Here, girl. I’ve a better idea for your entertainment tonight.”
Alain looked up to see the sergeant draw the girl closer against him, but Withi had a mulish look on her face now, and she shoved him away. “You may all laugh, but I’m going.”
Heric stood up. “I won’t let any stableboy—”
“Heric, sit down or I’ll whip you right here!”
Heric vacillated between drunken pride and the fear of immediate humiliation. Finally he sat.
Lackling burped loudly and, when everyone laughed, blinked good-naturedly into their attention. Sergeant Fell went back to talking of the Eika raids and of the count’s plans to protect his lands and villages along the coast.
It was easy enough for Alain to slip away, once the sergeant had gotten into full flood about the latest devastated village and the rumors that a convent much farther east—over the border into Wendar—had been set upon by the Eika. He had heard that all the nuns and laywomen had been raped and murdered except for the ancient abbess, who had been set free with her feet mutilated to walk the long, painful road to the nearest village.
It was finally twilight, a handful of stars coming to life against the darkening sky. It had to be true! Only by visiting the ruins on a night when the shades of the old builders might return could he learn the truth.
He changed into his clean shirt—for Aunt Bel was too proud to send him away with only one—and pulled his old linen tunic on over it. After some hesitation, he borrowed a lantern. Then, taking a stout stick from the stables, he set off on the track that wound around the earthen walls and four wooden towers of Count Lavastine’s fortress and up into the wooded hills behind. Of Withi he caught neither sight nor sound. He walked alone except for the night animals: an owl’s hoot, the flap of wings, a shriek, then a sudden frantic rustling in the undergrowth.
It was terribly dark and there was no moon, though the stars were uncannily bright. Eventually his eyes adjusted. He dared not use the lantern yet; oil was too precious. It was a fair long walk up along the hill and curving back into the wilder wood beyond. By the time the path led him up to where the tree line ended abruptly at the edge of the ruins, the bright red star—the Serpent’s Eye—rising in the east had moved well up into the sky.
Alain paused at the edge of the trees. The forest ended abruptly here, thick, ancient trees in an oddly straight line at the clearing’s edge. No saplings encroached on the meadow beyond. Though it had taken uncounted years for the old buildings to fall into such complete ruin—many generations back, long before the Emperor Taillefer’s time, even back to the time when the blessed Daisan first walked on the Earth and brought his message to the faithful—still the forest had never overtaken the stones. There was something unnatural here.
