“Percy! Percy! Peeeer-cy! Wake up!”
Jenna was shaking Percy who surfaced out of a dreamless deep sleep to a groggy state of confusion.
“Huh? What?” For a moment Percy did not know where she was, and thought she was in her own bed and it was her younger sister Patty calling her. “Go away, Pat . . .” she muttered, starting to turn over onto her other side, only to bump into a lump that was another warm body. . . .
Everything rushed back, and Percy came awake with a sickening sense of immediate reality, and lifted her head, squinting. They had been lying four to a bed in a small room in Ronna’s Inn, and the warm lump was none other than Emilie, still asleep and snoring softly into the pillow. On the other side of Emilie was another one of the girls, but Percy couldn’t tell who it was, since she was covered completely with the blanket.
Jenna had slept on Percy’s other side at the edge of the bed, but now she had crept out of bed and was whispering loudly, “It’s not Pat, it’s me, Jenna! You know, Jenna Doneil! Time to get up, an’ we oughta get going!”
“Oh, Lord . . .” Percy muttered, sitting up with a groan and rubbing her face. “It is even dawn yet?”
The shutters on the one small window of the room had been drawn and it was impossible to tell whether there was any light outside.
“Dunno,” said Jenna, “but we oughta get going! I just feel it, we need to hurry, hurry!”
“And that would be why?” said Percy in sleep-deprived irritation. She sat up completely and lowered her bare feet to the wooden floorboards. Ouch, the floor was freezing cold.
The night before had been an insane flurry of rushing about back and forth from the pantry to the kitchen and trying to cook breads and porridges for an inn full of hungry guests. They were all of them bone-weary when they finally managed to eat their own share, clean up the kitchen and drag themselves to beds.
While Percy and Jenna set about using the chamberpot, washing up, then putting on their clothes, layers upon layers, the other girls were stirring too. Emilie got up with a huge yawn, clutching her old tattered nightshirt tighter about her against the chill air of the room. The unidentified person on the farthest edge of the bed hidden underneath the blanket turned out to be Gloria Libbin, the Oarclaven blacksmith’s daughter, and she nearly fell out of bed, also seeming to forget where she was, initially.
Out in the hall, the inn was coming awake, and they could hear footsteps and voices. They came downstairs one by one and Percy and Jenna were the first of their group.
Ronna the innkeeper was already out of bed and Mrs. Beck got the lounge fireplace going and retreated into the kitchen to begin the day. “Morning, girls. Be sure to have a bite to eat before you head out,” said Ronna kindly, glancing at the two. “That goes for all of you.”
Jenna tugged Percy’s sleeve. “Are we going to be ridin’ in Grial’s cart again?” she whispered loudly.
“I don’t know, that would be up to Grial,” Percy replied. “She may not be going on past Tussecan. Remember, she only did us a kindness yesterday. It’s not like it’s our cart to do with as we please.”
“Well, child, it certainly could be your cart, if you ask me nicely.” The overly bright voice belonged to the familiar frizzy-haired woman, and Percy nearly jumped, turning around at the ringing sound of it.
“Good morning, pretties!” Grial said, pushing her way past them into the doorway of the kitchen, then dragging them by the hands inside. “First, a bite to eat, as Ronna says, or two bites. Maybe even three . . . or four. . . .” And then she broke into a cheerful cackle.
“Grial, what do you mean?” said Percy, taking a roll from a huge tray left over from last night, and sat down on the end of a bench at the cook’s table.
“Well, here is the deal, duckie. You go on and take my cart with the rest of the girls, while I stay here in town and visit a bit longer with Ronna, my blood relation. I entrust my darling Betsy and the cart to you, because I know you will take excellent care of her—the cart and Betsy, that is, both of them are a she, and both require excellent care. When you finish up that Cobweb Bride business, you come back here to Tussecan, to this inn, and just drop them off.”
Grial was smiling as she finished.
As she listened, Percy’s mouth slowly came open. “But—” she said eventually, “but I can’t do that! How can you say that, Ma’am? I mean, I am not sure I can . . . well, drive the cart into the forest, and what will we do when the road runs out and we have to go on by foot? And what do I do about Betsy’s feed? And what about rubbing her down in the cold and—and—”
“Oh, phooey! You’ll do just fine!” Grial exclaimed, taking a large mug of hot tea that Mrs. Beck came to pour for her. She then drew closer to stare at Percy across the table while Jenna watched them with excitement.
“Thing is,” Grial said in a conspiratorial voice, “let me tell you a little secret, girlie. That road—those roads, all roads and paths in fact—they never end. You might think they do. You might think they just narrow and fade and disappear in the hoary depths of the forest? Not so, not at all! They merely go into hiding, and you just have to search a bit harder to see them. Now, Betsy can always see them. Why? Well because she has a knack for it, and because she’s Betsy. So, if you have Betsy along with you, there will always be a road, and where there’s a road, there’s a cart—if you follow my drift. Just trust your instinct, and when you can no longer do so, allow Betsy to take the lead.”
Percy and Jenna were staring at Grial, mesmerized by her words. . . . Until Grial broke the spell by hitting the table surface with the palm of her other hand. She set down her mug, then got up to fetch some butter for the rolls from the pantry.
Percy opened then closed her mouth again, while a grin broke through. She glanced over at Jenna, saying, “Goodness, I guess then we have a cart!”
Jenna let out a happy squeal, followed by a series of squeaks.
“What’s all the shrieking?” Lizabette came into the kitchen, followed by Regata and the rest of the girls.
“We have a cart! We have a cart!” Jenna intoned with a huge grin.
“We do?” Catrine said. “Well, gracious us, that’s just grandiose, as me Ma would say—may the good Lord rest her! I never expected no cart for so long as we got it!”
“Me neither,” said her sister Niosta. “And the good eatin’ too.” And she grabbed two rolls from the tray.
“Grial’s just too kind, that she is coming along with us to the forest.” Lizabette took a hot mug of tea for herself and a plate of oatmeal and settled at the table.
Percy swallowed a chunk of her roll and looked up. “She’s not—not coming, that is. Grial said I can drive the cart and bring it back when we’re done with it.”
“You?” Lizabette set down her mug and stared at Percy over her sharp nose. “Why, that is just . . . odd.”
“Why?” said Percy. “I can handle the cart just fine. My Pa has one very similar, and a horse too.”
“But you’re—you’re—”
“I’m from a small village. A place where people drive carts. While someone like you is from a large town, and I’m sure you have better things to do with your hands than rub down a horse or pull the reins. Isn’t that right?”
Lizabette opened her mouth then thought better of it and went quiet. However she still had a displeased expression on her pinched face.
“Percy driving is fine with me,” Sybil said good-naturedly.
“Me too,” said Flor, who had just heard the news and came over to the table with her own bit of breakfast.
“Me three!” Emilie said, slurping her tea.
Gloria, coming to sit at the farthest edge of the table next to Emilie, just smiled.
They set out on the road in the bluish dawn. Grial and Ronna stood at the doors of the inn and waved them goodbye as Percy climbed up on the tall driver’s perch and took the reins while the rest of the girls settled in the cart with their things and this time three of them remained to walk alongside it.
“Get along now! Whoa, Betsy!” Grial cried, and hearing her mistress’s voice Betsy reacted by starting to walk in her sedate powerful manner before Percy had a chance to gently adjust the reins. Soon they were moving down the street along the same main thoroughfare in the direction that led out of town, northward.
The streets were mostly empty at this hour, though there were occasional pedestrians and carts, and yes, several young women walking, who looked suspiciously like they could have been Cobweb Brides.
“Isn’t it exciting?” said Jenna, as she skipped and hopped every other step. “We are all going to be Cobweb Brides!”
“We can’t all of us be Cobweb Brides, Jen,” said Flor in mild amusement, walking alongside her.
Lizabette, riding in the cart, gave a snort.
Within a half hour they were close to the northern outskirts of town, since Tussecan was not a large place, no matter how it might have seemed the night before when it was bustling with supper-hour traffic and townsfolk. This early in the morning the air seemed crisp and actually bluish with haze, if you squinted to look.
Can air be blue? Percy thought, as she watched the road and the surrounding red-shingled rooftops from her tall driver’s perch. It certainly seemed colored, or at least tangible somehow, as it swept the chimney smoke to rippling puffs, here and there, as she glanced around.
At last they passed the farthest outlying buildings, and the thoroughfare continued onward past empty fields on both sides, and occasional shrubbery. The sun rose, pale and veiled against the winter white sky, and just ahead of them was the dark shape of the looming Northern Forest. From the distance it looked like a streak of unresolved shadow against the northern horizon, but soon enough, they knew, it would become great trees, predominantly evergreen pine and fir. And then it would surround them.
Occasional young women were seen walking along the road. Some passed them, others—after asking where the cart was headed—dropped to an even walk alongside it.
“It’s safer in a big crowd,” said Percy to one or two of the stranger girls. “If you’re all heading to be Cobweb Brides, you might consider walking with us.”
“Do you know where to go?” asked one young skinny girl-child with a heavy accent, who trudged along the side of the road and stuck to their group.
“Not really,” said Percy calmly. “But we all know it’s somewhere North, inside that forest, and for now there’s this big comfortable road. So, one step at a time.”
“Sounds good to me!” replied the girl, with an olive-dark face and very black doe-eyes, speaking somewhat awkwardly. “I’m Marie, and I’m a’gonna walk with you, if you don’t mind.”
“We don’t mind!” Jenna put in, clapping her mittens together cheerfully.
Marie started at the sound, and Percy immediately felt sympathy for her, frightened and tiny and mousy-dark, in her much-darned poor excuse of a coat.
“Where are you from, Marie?” she asked, to put her at ease.
But the girl seemed to become even more flustered at the question.
“Are you from Letheburg?” Regata asked kindly. “Because that’s where Sibyl and I are from.”
“No . . .” Marie replied after a pause, blinking her eyes nervously. “We—my family lives in Fioren now, but before that, we came from . . . far away.”
“Farther than Duarden? I am from Duarden.” Lizabette said smartly. “It is quite centrally located, you know, in a small but prime area. Because if you keep going you will hit the Silver Court directly, and I doubt, from the looks or sounds of you—no offense—that you are from the Imperial neighborhood.”
“I—I am not from your . . . Realm.”
Most everyone turned to stare at Marie at that point.
“Please . . .” she said, “I hope you don’t mind, I have been living here in Lethe almost two years now—”
“Good heavens!” Lizabette said. “Are you from Balmue? Because your speech, that accent, why—”
“I—we came by way of Balmue,” spoke Marie, her voice almost breaking into a whisper at that point, “but that was in the end. First, we came down a big river, I don’t know what you would call it, but we call it Eridanos—”
“Gracious, that is in the Kingdom of Serenoa, is it not? One of the four kingdoms of the Domain, the other being Balmue our southern neighbor, and then even more south, and to the east, the Kingdom of Tanathe, and finally on the other side, south-west, the Kingdom of Solemnis.”
“Yes, Serenoa,” said Marie, and she pronounced it differently, more liltingly, and again everyone stared.
“Is that where you’re from?” Jenna said in wonder. “What’s it like?”
Marie’s alarm lessened somewhat and a wistful expression replaced her fear. “Beautiful! Yes, Serenoa is beautiful and green, and a little cold on the top, like your Lethe here, but very warm down below. It is the most northern part of the Domain, and the two share a border across the mountains. On the west, Lethe, on the east, Serenoa. But we had to go around, because no one can go over the mountains, so we went down and sailed the river Eridanos, and then crossed into Balmue, then we came back up north.”
“But why?” blurted Jenna. “Why did you leave?”
Marie thought, and a worrisome expression returned. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I think my parents just wanted a new life.”
“Exactly,” said Percy. ‘Why else does anyone move from one place to another?”
But some of the girls continued to stare somewhat.
“You’re not spies, are you?” Lizabette said. “But then, if you were, you wouldn’t admit it, would you?”
Marie opened her mouth and looked like she wanted nothing more than to disappear on the spot. “Oh, no, no!” she hurried to say. “No, please, of course not spies! My father carves wood for furniture! We live in Fioren and my parents sell the chests and boxes! Oh, no, no!”
“I think we’ve scared Marie enough,” Sybil spoke up loudly. “The poor girl is in the Realm now, and she’s going to be walking with us, so enough nonsense!”
“Spy my arse!” Niosta added, and winked at Marie, then at her own sister Catrine. And they both stuck their tongues out at Lizabette when she was not looking.
Marie exhaled in relief, and mostly avoided eye contact with anyone, but she now resolutely trudged along with the cart.
They moved for a few minutes in blessed silence, with only the creaking cart and the crunching snow.
Jenna began to hum:
“Cobweb Bride, Cobweb Bride,
Come and lie by my side. . . .”
and again,
“Cobweb Bride, Cobweb Bride,
Come and lie by my side. . . .”
Lizabette wrinkled her forehead and said, “Will you not do that please, child? I have the beginnings of a headache and it’s hardly past dawn. Not good to be having one this early.”
“Oh, sorry!” said Jenna, and went marginally quiet. Her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold air, but you could tell she was just bursting with energy, as her steps came with a bounce. So, instead of humming she started running in zigzags in front of Betsy, with her arms stretched out to the sides like wings.
“Look at her, the big goose,” said Regata, walking next to Flor. But she was grinning as she said it.
The forest drew closer, and soon the first tall sparse trees began showing up on both sides of the road. All sound seemed to disappear, except for the occasional crunch of snow underfoot and the clumps falling from branches, and the fast sudden beating of bird’s wings.
The cart rolled slowly, and had to veer off to the side a bit several times in order to allow faster vehicles to pass. Because, there had been occasional carriages and curricles along this empty stretch, and you could hear them coming from miles away in the forest silence. There had been one in particular, a curricle traveling at breakneck speed, crammed with three passengers. In the blink of an eye that they could tell, they were two fine ladies and a lord, with one lady in the driver’s seat. They were all wearing fancy winter hats with plumes, and it was a wonder the hats did not come flying off.
“Did you see that? Fancy aristocrats!” Sybil said matter-of-factly—her thick reddish brows rising in amusement—as she leaned to stare in their wake, from her seat in the cart next to Lizabette.
“Indeed, and those tri-color plumes are the height of fashion at the Silver Court this season!” replied Lizabette, patting her own somewhat stylish hat.
“Do noble aristos really go to be Cobweb Brides?” Emilie folded her shawl closer around her reddened snub nose.
“I think,” Percy said, “it doesn’t matter if you are noble or a nobody, when it comes to being a Cobweb Bride.”
Jenna immediately picked up the humming.
“Cobweb Bride, Cobweb Bride,
Come and lie by my side. . . .”
Suddenly, Gloria, the quietest person Percy knew, began to recite in a loud melodious voice:
“Cobweb Bride, Cobweb Bride,
Come and lie by my side.
Here, the cool touch of stone
And the feel of my throne
Will not make you recoil.
Here the worm-ridden soil
Covers ancient white bones.”
Everyone stared at her, including Marie, and even Jenna went absolutely quiet and nearly ran into Betsy, as they listened. Gloria continued to recite, as though she had memorized the words a long time ago and they were merely coming out now, like easy breaths:
“Time suppresses the groans
Of your own mortal kind;
Soothing dark fills the mind.
Here with me you will reign,
If true love you don’t feign
With a smile on your face.
Dressed in pale spider lace
You will come unto me,
Make your choice clear and free.
With the breath from my chest,
Lips of stone on your breast,
You will know Death’s cold kiss. . . .
Do not find me remiss.
First your heartbeat grows still;
Dissolution of will.
Then you sink with me, deep,
Into dark, final sleep.
No regrets must there be,
Promise me.”
The words ended. There was absolute silence, except for the creaking of the cart.
“Goodness!” said Lizabette. “What . . . was that?”
“Did you just make that up, just now?” Emilie said.
Gloria nodded.
“That was actually somewhat poetic . . .” Lizabette said. “I wasn’t even aware you could read, much less compose.”
“How did you do that?” Jenna exclaimed. “How, how? Gloria, how did you do that?”
Gloria shrugged, then said quietly, “I am not sure . . . I make up rhymes in my head. Sometimes.”
“Rhymes! Sometimes!” Jenna squealed in exuberance. “That rhymes! Just now, you did it again!”
“Headache?” Lizabette reminded, holding on to her forehead.
But Jenna was not to be denied this time. “How does it go, Gloria, the whole thing, please? ‘Cobweb Bride, Cobweb Bride . . .’” She began to sing in her ringing but somewhat flat tone, just slightly off key, just enough to be endearingly annoying.
Percy bit her lip in suppressed laughter.
Tired, cold, and in pain from his compounded injuries, Beltain stood at attention in the icy-cold chamber of his father, the room with the broken window and the snow drifts piled on the windowpane among the shards of broken glass. Together with the cold, milky dawn light seeped inside, illuminating the bulky shape of Hoarfrost.
The Duke sat in the chair with his back to his son, before a single flickering candle lowered inside a tall glass to keep it from being extinguished by the gusts of wind that freely travelled the room. He was reading something—a roll of parchment, thought Beltain—that looked as if it had been delivered by a messenger, for Beltain could see the red silk ties and the crumbling remnants of a broken seal littering the mahogany surface of the large table.
The seal seemed familiar, but he was not quite sure, not from the distance at which he stood. Besides, he was in that state of exhaustion where he almost ceased caring. His vision was swimming from lack of sleep, and his newly damaged shoulder was in agony. It seemed that all of his recent injuries were hardly healing, and now, this. Damn that knight who bear-wrestled him. . . .
“My Lord . . .” Beltain began. “Father, I’ve delivered another group of prisoners. Among them are Imperial knights and two ladies—”
“Quiet!” Hoarfrost’s bark-like exhalation of breath interrupted the younger man. He continued to pore over the writing, and Beltain was about to offer to read it for him when his father turned around, crumpling the sheet in his beefy hands and then held the parchment over the candle.
The thin material caught on fire soon enough and Hoarfrost tossed the flaming ball into the cold, unlit hearth of the fireplace nearby where it was consumed and fell apart in tiny reddish sparks. His fingers had seemed to hold the flames momentarily also, but the dead flesh could not have known it, the burning pain. . . . The dead man slowly and methodically extinguished his fingertips by rubbing them against the icy front of his surcoat tunic.
“Now then,” said Hoarfrost, turning to his son like a creaking tree-trunk and actively shaping his mouth into a rictus that was intended as a smile. “How was your night of hunting, boy?”
“Well enough, father,” replied Beltain. “There were many women—poor girls mostly, bedraggled creatures—that we’ve caught all over the forest and the vicinity. And, as I mentioned, I’ve detained an interesting group of noble prisoners, including Imperial knights and two gentlewomen.”
“Imperial knights, eh?” said Hoarfrost.
“Yes, sir . . .” Beltain found it uncanny to stare too long at the motionless eyeballs, frozen in their sockets.
“Where are they, these Imperial visitors?”
“Here, in the Keep, my Lord. They have been given food and a space to rest, some spare quarters—”
“You are far too charitable to your prisoners, boy!”
“I—was not sure what you intended to do with them.”
Hoarfrost sat back in the chair with a creak. “True enough, I have not decided yet. It might be easiest to kill them and have them join my ranks here in Chidair.”
Beltain felt cold rising inside him.
“Kill . . . the women?” he said softly. “How will that help you . . . or your ranks?”
“It will certainly get them out of the way and out of the Cobweb Bride running. Plus, with the dead, less mouths to feed in town. More resources for the Keep. Plenty of solid reasons I should have them killed. They can do the laundry and they wouldn’t even need to stop for sleep.”
And Duke Ian Chidair laughed with the rhythmic sound of bellows.
Beltain felt a sudden spasm of dizziness in his head, while the room seemed to shift momentarily. He grasped his hands before him until the fingers lost all feeling and took a staggering side-step in order to remain standing.
Hoarfrost noticed his condition. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Shaking, boy? You are almost as white as I am.”
“It’s been a long day and even longer night . . .” Beltain continued to grasp his hands before him. “And, I’ve not yet recovered from my previous wounds. . . . Earlier, one of the Imperial knights mauled me rather badly. I—would appreciate a bit of . . . sleep, my lord.”
“I see, whelp,” Hoarfrost said. “Maybe I should have you killed after all, so you won’t ever have to worry about these mortal concerns again, eh? I could grant you the deathly stroke myself, what do you say, boy? Clean and fast. No? Well then, take an hour and lie down for a nap, then a bite to eat. Then, back out you go, we have more Cobweb Brides to catch. And—you’ll see—things are just beginning to get exciting. . . .”
Speaking thus, Hoarfrost glanced behind him at the once-again cold hearth of the fireplace.
“May I . . . take my leave?” Beltain said softly, feeling the muscle strength in his legs dissolving. Another minute of this and he knew he would not be able to keep himself from collapsing.
“Yes, get your sorry carcass out of here, before I make you a carcass indeed,” Hoarfrost replied. “I’ll be taking my personal patrol out into the woods and expect to see you back out there shortly. Dismissed!”
Harsh wheezing barks of laughter followed Beltain as he headed out the door. And then, silence, and the whistle of the ice-wind through the broken window. The cold seemed to come with him as he walked to his own quarters in the Keep. Cold, permanently lodged in his mind.
The threesome that comprised the League of Folly had travelled all night. Though no one would admit such a frivolous sentiment, this was an improvement over having to attend another excruciating midnight ball and pretend to eat entirely raw living flesh at the buffet. Lady Amaryllis Roulle, wearing a smart burgundy-red riding habit—even though she was not going to be riding any beasts, merely controlling them via harness while perched on a high seat—drove the Curricle and the two fabulous black thoroughbreds like a madwoman, while Lord Nathan Woult and the Lady Ignacia Chitain held on to their seats for dear life.
They flew past towns and villages, took a brief stop to dine at Letheburg around midnight (waking up an understandably crabby innkeeper and his staff to serve them something either raw or like tasteless sawdust, then pack a picnic basket of the same for a later “snack” on the go), then back on the road they went. It was crisp and clear indeed, without snowfall or the least bit of inclement winter weather. And except for the wind chill in their faces, luck was with them as far north as Tussecan, after which, smack dab in the middle of the road, it ran out.
The Curricle’s right wheel came off the axle. Goodness knows how or why it happened, in the faint bluish light of dawn, but, as a result, the Curricle teetered, and while Amaryllis hastily attempted to pull up the horses, stopping them sharply and pulling with all her strength, the thoroughbreds reared.
Next thing everyone knew, they were all on their sides, and the Curricle of Doom had capsized ignobly, sliding several feet with the momentum, the sole remaining wheel spinning in the air, then stopping to rest with the wheel lodged deep against a snowdrift-covered roadside hedge. One of the horses was pulled along, and tripped, then rose up again, miraculously unharmed but screaming in equine fury. The other remained upright, and pulled at the Curricle, dragging it even further along and lodging the solitary attached wheel deeper into the show.
To add insult to injury, the small travel lantern hanging from the front was snuffed out in a blink, and with it went all their light.
Lady Ignacia screamed and Lord Nathan screamed, then uttered curses that were beyond his vocabulary under normal circumstances. Lady Amaryllis, her hands entangled in the reins, was alarmingly silent, having ended up pulled halfway out of the curricle and onto the iced-over road and just barely away from underneath the feet of the thoroughbreds. She lay, panting, then moaned, while Lady Ignacia attempted to crawl out of her seat in the back next to Woult.
“Damnation and bloody hell!” cried the young man over and over, as he assisted Lady Ignacia from their sideways position. Finally they freed themselves from the overturned vehicle and were upright, standing on the road.
“Amaryllis, dear, are you alive?” Ignacia said in a horrible soft voice, picking up her capsized plumed hat, then straightening with gloved fingers her emerald-green cape over a sage travel dress—all without attempting to approach her fallen friend. And then she began to shriek again, and in-between shrieks managed to say, “Woult, do go get her out, go see if she lives! Oh, God in Heaven!”
“Amaryllis?” Nathan tried, lowering himself in a crouch before the motionless female, while stretching out one splayed hand to keep the rearing horses away—as though a mere hand could.
“Yes . . . help me up,” said Amaryllis at last. She moved her head then slowly raised herself up on one elbow, then fell back again with a sharp exclamation of pain. “Hurts like something horrendous . . .” she managed to say.
“What hurts, my dear?” Lord Woult drew himself closer, knelt, avoiding the horses, then took a careful hold of her.
“Ah! It’s my side! Nothing broken, I venture, but I’m afraid a bruise is imminent. My wrists are all entangled and my knee is scraped, and oh, my ankle—damn it all! And look, the Curricle is a godless mess!”
Amaryllis bit her lip but did not cry as Woult managed to free her gloved hands and got her upright so she could stand, leaning on him heavily.
“What a filthy idiot mess, what indignity!” Amaryllis muttered.
“Be glad you’re safe, and Curricle be damned,” Nathan replied soothingly in her ear.
“Yes,” said Ignacia, “for it could have been infernally worse! We are all safe! But—What happened, exactly?”
“Here, you help her stand while I deal with recapturing the beasts,” said Nathan, handing Amaryllis over to lean on Ignacia’s shoulder.
“Recapturing? The beasts are hardly ‘loose’ that they need be recaptured, silly boy,” retorted Amaryllis smartly, proving that she was indeed sufficiently well. “Just grab the reins and tie them down for now, while we deal with the Curricle.”
“Whatever happened?” Ignacia repeated.
“I haven’t the faintest idea in all of the blessed Realm.” Amaryllis tried stomping her feet and found that one of her ankles was indeed in poor shape and practically burned with agony when she put her weight on it. “All I know is,” she continued, “we were flying along just fine, and suddenly the accursed wheel went—just like that, in the blink of an eye. I tried to slow us down but . . . well, as you see.”
“Did the grooms fail to have this vehicle checked properly?” Nathan said, panting with anger and exertion. He had captured the reins of one of the thoroughbreds and was now wrestling with the other as it reared and stomped around, jerking at the fallen Curricle with every move it made. “Whoa, whoa, down, girl—or boy—or whatever you are, you violent brute—”
“Now really, Nathan,” Amaryllis protested. “You know your horseflesh; these are fine boys, do not insult them. They are perfectly innocent and had nothing to do with any of this, the poor dears. Thank all the stars in Heaven they are not injured!”
Minutes later the horses were secured, and Amaryllis limping but able to stand on her own.
“So what are we to do now?” Ignacia said unhappily.
“Well, I suppose I could walk on back over to that town we passed just recently and see if we can get help.”
“No! You aren’t just going to leave us here unprotected, Nathan!” Ignacia’s blue eyes grew round with imagined terrors.
“She’s right.” Grimacing in severe discomfort, Amaryllis rubbed her side with one hand. “We’re in a nasty wilderness, and this is dangerous enough as it is, with highwaymen and cutpurses lurking lord knows where, and now, with all the Cobweb Bride stragglers that will be making their way here past us. None of them can help us properly, and I am sure more than one of them would be only too happy to rob us down to our petticoats.”
“Besides, there’s that black knight . . .” said Ignacia.
“What black knight?”
“Not sure, m’dear, but at the roadhouse, when we stopped for a breather in the last town, someone mentioned him—a terrifying merciless creature of a man. Supposedly, he is a mercenary, or maybe an executioner, possibly in the employ of the local Duke. Dressed in all black mail, astride a black beast, with horrid minions, he—they haunt these forests, hunting all who pass here, and Cobweb Brides in particular.”
“Who told you that? What poppycock!” Nathan said.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it poppycock.” Ignacia smoothed down her hat plumes and adjusted the contraption on her head. “Particularly when it could very well be true. These local nobles are as good as savages. You’ve heard of the interminable rivalry between Chidair and Goraque, the so-called Red and Blue Dukes? They fight a war every season like clockwork, and it’s in their blood. So, why not black robber knights lurking in the woods?”
Amaryllis stood deep in thought, with hands on hips, and her normally perfectly coiffed black hair flowing in semi-disarray. She was looking at the fallen equipage. “We could try to lift this thing back upright.”
Ignacia turned to her with an angry bobbing of hat plumes. “What? Just the three of us, and you lame as a partridge? Amaryllis, my dear, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve struck your head when you fell. This is beyond impossible.”
“Well, it could be worth a try,” said Nathan. “Amaryllis, sweetling, do limp on over to my right and you’ll lift from that end. Ignacia, you and I, as the only two able-bodied creatures, will push with all our might from this angle. . . .”
With much grunting and long minutes of misplaced effort, they managed to shove and drag the Curricle out of its place in the snow bushes, then grunted and groaned twice as long to get it precariously upright.
The Curricle of Doom, aptly named, wobbled on its one remaining wheel and leaned heavily to the right against the axle pole, at an alarming angle. Nathan went down the road to look for the other wheel, the culprit that had caused all this mess. The thoroughbreds, now docile and tired after that long fast drive, obediently stood nearby.
Ignacia wiped her brow with the back of her glove and sat down on a fallen travel chest that had been in the small back seat with her and now reposed in the road. “Now what?” she said tiredly. “So he retrieves the jolly wheel. How will we re-attach it?” And then she wailed. “I am freezing, tired, hungry! I just want to be in bed with a hot cup of tea right now, Amaryllis! This is no longer fun! I demand a relief to this—this horror!”
“Oh come now, Ignacia, don’t blow this out of proportion, we’ve just capsized. It’s a minor thing, all things considered.” Amaryllis watched Nathan approach, rolling the large wheel before him.
“How in blazes do you plan to re-attach that thing?” said Ignacia with irritation. “Have you any blacksmithing skills? Proper tools? And where are the lugs that you need to fasten it? Probably rolled away halfway down the road, lord knows where. . . .”
“Lugs?” muttered Nathan. “And what do you know of curricle wheel lugs, m’dear?” And he threw Ignacia a very peculiar glance.
“Nothing! I know nothing of lugs except that at present we don’t have them. You might think otherwise, Lord Nathan Woult, but I am not the ninny you might think I am! Yes, I’ve heard the grooms talking, using that ‘lugs’ term when they were adjusting the wheels.”
While Ignacia chattered, Amaryllis glanced up and down the road. Surprisingly there had been no passerby in the long minutes that they’d been downed. The portion of the road behind them, winding south-east, had filled with pallor along the horizon over the treetops where the sun was due to rise shortly.
“Look, it’s dawn,” Amaryllis said. “How pretty and crisp it looks here on the outskirts of the Realm.”
“Well I think it’s perfectly horrid,” Ignatia said. “We ought to be moving forward or heading back, doing something or . . . or getting assistance from someone! In the very least, someone ought to be down this infernal road who can help us! Where is everyone? Not even one puny vagabond Cobweb Bride!”
Just as the last petulant word echoed into silence, from far behind them down the southeasterly road came the faint sound of voices, approaching.
Female voices. Girl voices.
And amazingly, in this dawn-lit no-man’s land, there was laughter and singing.