Fell (The Sight 2) (5 page)

Alina had her thoughts on the chest in the house, but Mia was still a child and delighted by the magic of snowfall, feeling her footfall light and springy on the strange new ground, almost giggling as the snowflakes melted on her cheeks and nose. In that muffling fall they could hardly have made a sound if they’d wanted to, creeping like thieves through the night towards the house. But the children suddenly stopped dead.

“Hush,” hissed Alina, swinging round fearfully. “What’s that?”

Mia’s face screwed up like a walnut, and as they strained to listen in the darkness, the little girl suddenly caught a sound on the snowy air, like a distant drumming.

“Horses,” gasped Alina.

They were both looking towards the path that ran along the side of Malduk’s farm, and through the break in a wooden palisade that had been built a hundred years before, in one of the wars that had lit the region in fire and blood. It protected the track for nearly a quarter of a mile, running straight past Malduk’s homestead down to the village of Moldov, but nowadays it was particularly useful when the shepherds were droving sheep to market, as it prevented the animals from slipping away down the bank, to a little stream that meandered along its far side.

The girls could both hear the sound of horses clearly now from the hard track. Riders were coming towards them in the snowy night.

“Perhaps it’s Turks,” whispered Mia, gulping and clutching Alina’s arm.

“Don’t be frightened, Mia. I’m here.”

Alina was terrified. She had never fought anyone before, let alone a Muselman soldier, and the girl had no idea how she might confront something so terrible as a heathen and defend the little girl. She reached for her knife, but realised again that she’d left it in the house. The children’s pounding hearts calmed a little though as they saw who came riding into the yard. They were two soldiers from the lands beyond the forest, one of whom Alina had seen before at market. He was one of Lord Vladeran’s men, though not the one she had spoken with. He had a deep scar on his right cheek.

“You there,” cried the other soldier, reining in his sweating animal. “I was on the hill and saw Turks riding east.”

“Only three,” said the scarred soldier at his side, “but they’ll be others all right. The heathen never travel so far alone.”

“Hurry, children,” said the first soldier, “tell the household, then get the adults to raise Moldov. They must light the beacon fires.”

Mia was shaking, yet she had never heard anything so exciting in all her life.

“Can we trust you, children?” asked the soldier who had just spoken.

“Yes, sir,” answered Alina, deepening her voice and stepping forwards.

“Good lad. Then we’ve nothing to fear at all, with a David in our midst, ready to slay a hundred Goliaths. Or an Achil.”

“Achil,” said Mia nervously.

“Achilles, child,” said the soldier with a smile, glad to take a rest from his gallop. “Your brother may look like a girl, but he’s clearly bold. Don’t you know the story? They tried to hide Achilles away dressed as a girl, but when they suspected him, and offered him many gifts, it was a sword he went for straight.”

Alina suddenly felt her cheeks grow hot, but pride grew in her too, and Mia felt a little jealous. But the soldier with the scar was suddenly looking at Alina strangely.

“I want to be a soldier,” said Alina boldly.

“Be content to be messengers first,” said the first soldier, “for a warrior’s is a hard, lonely way, full of death and sorrow. A boy couldn’t know that yet.”

Alina looked down. She thought sadly that a girl couldn’t know it either, but that any life would be less lonely than hers. The soldier with the scar was speaking now.

“You sound like a priest, man,” he said angrily, “giving advice and talking of Achil. You’ll not waste any more of my time. I’ve helped by riding with you this far, but now I must get back to my own men and warn them. Besides, I have more important affairs.”

“Then I’ll ride to the troop of King Stefan’s men camped beyond,” said the first soldier, and he turned back to Alina and Mia. “Hurry, children.”

They nodded as the men turned their horses and galloped away, although the soldier with the scar cast another enquiring look back at Alina.

“What do we do now?” whispered Mia. “Shall I run to Moldov to find them?”

Alina felt a dreadful sadness in her gut. Her natural instinct was to help, but she wished suddenly that it was her own parents that she had been asked to aid, whoever they were, and now she desperately wanted to know what was in the chest.

“No, Mia. First I’ll get my knife from the house, then we’ll go together. After we’ve looked.”

Alina led Mia quickly up the steps and opened the door. There was no one inside either, and the room felt warm as they hurried towards the chest. Mia gave Alina the key, and she was trembling as she opened it, and took out the large paper, curled at the edges. At the top she could already see the shape of that eagle, etched in blood red, with opening wings. Exactly the same as the mark on her arm.

“Those other things on it,” whispered Mia, at her side. “They’re words, aren’t they, Alina? I know they are. It was silly of me to try to read them, but I’m not wicked, I promise. You’ll tell them, won’t you, if they find out?”

Alina held the parchment with a sense of dread, and seeing the mark closer up made her shiver again. But not as hard as when she looked at the fine lettering written in pigment across the parchment and suddenly realised that she could decipher it. She began to mouth the words silently. It was extraordinary enough for a girl to be able to read, but how she could do so, Alina Sculcuvant had no idea at all. Perhaps it was a fairy spell.

“You can read it,” whispered Mia wonderingly. “What does it say?”

“It says … ‘To his lieutenant, from the hand of Lord Vladeran, written this day of our Lord and Holy Saviour 1479.’”

“Lord Vladeran,” gasped Mia.

“Hush now, Mia. ‘May this be a proof of the pact between us, and his orders regarding the disposal of a child. A traitor.’”

Its meaning came slowly, and Alina looked up. “Child?” she wondered out loud.

“What can it mean?” asked Mia.

“I don’t know yet. It’s about some child. But why does it say, ‘disposal’?”

“Read on, Alina.”

The girl continued, haltingly.

“ ‘The orders of Lord Vladeran are final in regard to the child. Let none aid or give her succour on pain of instant death. If it is found that his Lieutenant shall have dev … deviated from his instructions, his position, freedom, and life are forfeit. Let him do his work then and take his reward for carrying the girl, known by the mark here above, beyond the borders of Castelu, and for her disposal, for if he serves us faithfully, he shall always have our protection.’ ”

Alina fell silent. Castelu—Lord Vladeran’s lands. A girl. A traitor to Lord Vladeran, known by the eagle mark on her own arm.

“It means you, Alina,” said Mia softly.

“Yes, Mia.”

“Then the story of how you came here,” cried the little girl, wrestling with the horrible thought, “of how Uncle found and saved you, is …”

“A lie.”

“Oh, Alina. Then you’re not a changeling at all.”

ALINA'S HEAD WAS SPINNING AND THE ROOM had begun to sway before her hazel eyes. This news that she was no changeling was in part a wonderful thing for Alina Sculcuvant. She was not the daughter of goblins, after all, but a real girl.

Yet the truth that had come to replace the story of a changeling past was also far more terrible than being nestled in the arms of wood sprites or born in the bowl of an oak tree. A girl child, somehow linked to Lord Vladeran, and the distant region of Castelu. A child that Vladeran had wanted dead.

What could it all mean? Had Malduk and Ranna been protecting her from Lord Vladeran all along, even though the parchment threatened death to any who did so? If they had, and she was no changeling, it was still like a terrible fairy tale. Suddenly the light in the room seemed to flicker, and Mia rushed over to the window.

“I can see burning torches on the hill, Alina.”

“Perhaps they know of the Turks already,” said the older girl, although she felt in her gut that something far graver was happening, and she remembered her strange apprehension that morning. She was still wondering where Ranna and Malduk had gone, when they heard their voices outside, close by. They were returning to the house.

Alina hardly knew what to do. She still didn’t know what the parchment really meant, and she had promised the soldier to warn Ranna and Malduk of the Turks, but she certainly didn’t want to be caught like this with the parchment, and she realised she was wearing Malduk’s stolen coat.

“Quickly, Mia,” she hissed, throwing the paper back in the chest and closing the lid. “Hide.”

“Behind the pelts,” said the little girl, plunging for the sheepskins piled up nearby, where she had often hidden in her games about the house. Alina didn’t need to be told twice, and she squeezed into the cramped space next to little Mia, as the door to the cottage burst open. They heard the sound of stamping boots through the curling wind and Malduk’s heavy cough, then Ranna’s voice behind him.

“That’s good at least. Mia must still be in the forest. But where can that damned changeling have gone?”

Mia looked at Alina. The couple must have checked the barn. The terrified children could see through a gap in the snowy pelts, straight towards the pair. “Perhaps she overheard us,” said Malduk, “and fled into the night.”

“Well, it don’t matter now,” said Ranna. “It’ll be done with soon enough.”

“If it works,” said Malduk, handing his wife something that she put down on the milking stool. It was a dagger, rather fine and long, curved like a Muselman blade and the handle wrought with etched silver. Alina wondered where a shepherd as poor as Malduk could have got such a wonderful thing, so much finer than her own, and where her own knife was too.

“It’ll work all right,” said Ranna. “With word of these Turks, the villagers are already in a frenzy. Their blood’s up.”

Malduk turned to look at his wife admiringly.

“And you were right, wife. We couldn’t have done it in her sleep. Not in our barn anyway, with soldiers abroad and the elders warier than ever with the raids. As you said, she might be too strong for us now. And kill her here and Mia would know of it.”

Mia and Alina turned to look at each other in utter horror. Kill her? What were they saying? Malduk stared out of the window.

“And it couldn’t have worked more perfectly if the witch had cast us a real spell,” he said with satisfaction.

“Only because I had the stomach for it, husband,” said Rana angrily. “Unlike you, with your precious conscience. But it’s not over yet.”

The old woman had just picked up a piece of rag and started to wipe her hands, and Alina went icy cold, as she saw that Ranna’s wrinkled old hands were covered in blood. Mia had noticed it too and begun to shake.

“A stroke of genius though—Bogdan,” said Malduk.

Ranna’s eyes narrowed like a crow’s, and Alina wondered why Malduk was talking about the shepherd Bogdan. What had they done?

“Such a filthy, black night to be out, husband,” Ranna growled. “I’ll make you some broth, while you clean yourself up.”

“Good, woman. My feet are cold enough to freeze brandy.”

Ranna walked towards the kitchen, as the children huddled in terror in the shadows.

“I still say you should have done for her there in the snows,” she said, “and saved me all this bother.”

Malduk sat down on the chest. He was suddenly remembering that strange morning, seven years before, when he had been walking in the mountains and stumbled on the soldier and girl in the gully, next to their dead horse. From the rockfall around them, he had realised immediately that the animal must have slipped and sent them both over the edge, killing the soldier and the horse and knocking Alina unconscious. As the little girl had lain there, he had tried to rouse her, and when she had finally opened her eyes, he had asked her who she was.

“Alina, I think” was all she had managed to say, before she swooned again.

Then the old shepherd had searched the soldier’s body and found that heavy bag of gold and Vladeran’s parchment. He had taken ages to decipher the strange words written there, but at last he had realised that it was the man’s letter of instruction, his orders to take the little girl far away in secret, and murder her.

“We shouldn’t have meddled in her fate,” said Ranna in the hovel.

“Perhaps I was getting soft in my old age,” said Malduk, with a half chuckle, surprising himself with the thought. “And she would have been taken soon enough with the fury of that winter, it’s true. She was frightened out of her wits as it was when she woke fully. Kept mumbling that she was sorry. About what I’ve still no idea.”

“She’s a weak nature, that’s why, even for a feeble girl.”

In her own childhood old Ranna had wanted to be a boy, and she had been furiously jealous of her brothers and the freedom they had around the home.

“No doubt, Ranna,” grunted Malduk, “but it was when she was lying there in the snow that I …”

“Took pity on her,” hissed Ranna scornfully. “Why, husband? There’s no pity in the wild. No pity for poor shepherds, neither.”

“Then I had the idea, proper, to steal the soldier’s gold, and get us a servant into the bargain.”

Malduk was hiding his old pain too though, his longing for a son of his own. For a time the old witch’s plan to conceal Alina with strange stories of changelings had even made him feel he had been given one by magic. But that had faded.

“But when it’s finally over, at least I won’t have to make the witch’s brew again, to make her forget,” said Ranna, holding up her little bundle of herbs. “She won’t have anything to forget at all, let alone the lie that this ever protected her from the fairies. Stupid child.”

When the old witch on the mountain had first given Alina Sculcuvant the herb soup to protect her from the goblins, she had whispered strange words to her too, as she looked deep into her little eyes, winking at Malduk over her shoulder. A spell, Malduk and Ranna called it, and they had paid the witch handsomely in mutton for her magic, as they had for the tale she had brewed up too. But the power, which men in later days would come to call hypnotism, helped by those potent herbs, had not been hard for the old woman to conjure. Not with the state Alina had been in. Post-traumatic amnesia it would be called, in the far distant days when science would learn to name everything.

Ranna and Malduk both laughed, and Mia swung her head to Alina again, her eyes like a frightened cat’s. The older girl’s whole body was trembling with fury and bitterness at the dawning revelation.

“I still don’t know why the great Vladeran didn’t just do away with her himself,” said Ranna irritably from the kitchen, “if he wanted her dead.”

“Great ones always like others to do their dirty work, don’t they?” answered Malduk. “Besides, you know how superstitious they say his lordship is. He clearly wanted the soldier to take her beyond the borders of Castelu.”

In their hiding place, Alina’s heart was beating harder than she had ever known.

“But it doesn’t matter now,” said Malduk. “She’ll be dead before dawn. Serves her right for opening the chest today and poking in her nose where it don’t belong.”

Mia looked guiltily at Alina as the shepherd got up again and stared out the window.

“Ranna. There are men coming down the track already,” he said, “I can see their lights over the palisade.”

“Then go and meet them, man, at the end of the path. We must appear as normal as possible tonight. I’ll go around the back and pretend to be chopping wood, or looking for Mia. While I get this off my hands properly.”

Malduk looked suddenly nervous, but he nodded.

“Very well, wife.”

“And husband,” said Ranna, “we’re innocents, remember.”

“Yes, wife,” answered Malduk, “but it’s all very well the villagers hunting her down, but what if the authorities capture her first, and she tells them what she knows?”

Ranna stared at her husband as Alina wondered why they were talking of hunting her down. For all Ranna’s clever plotting, she had not calculated this.

“Then she must never speak again,” she growled. “Make sure of it, man. Silence her.”

Malduk nodded again and snatched up the dagger on the milking stool. The door to the house banged violently, and Alina could hardly breathe with the horror of it, while little Mia was shivering furiously. Ranna finished in the kitchen and went outside to the back of the house.

“Quick,” cried Alina, appearing from the sheepskins. “We can slip away and hide in the barn to think. They won’t realise I’m there, and at least she won’t see you, Mia.”

“Oh, Alina. What they said. It’s terrible.” Mia’s teeth were chattering almost uncontrollably. “They want to kill you. Lord Vladeran tried before. But they’ve done something. They’re plotting. And my aunt had blood on her hands.”

“Perhaps they went to slaughter a sheep. Come, Mia, take my hand.”

Alina was nearly twice Mia’s height, and as they held hands, she felt as protective as an elder sister. She opened the chest and grabbed the parchment again, slipping it into her pocket as the children hurried through the door together into the snow, and heard Ranna swearing and cursing behind the house. The two girls crossed noiselessly to the barn and slipped inside. They were safe, for a while at least.

“Oh, Mia,” said Alina bitterly amongst the freezing shadows, as they shut the barn doors fast behind them and the girl noticed that Elak had gone. “If I’m no changeling, then what am I really?”

“It said Castelu,” answered Mia. “Do you think … Do you think you could really be some powerful …”

“A girl?” said Alina quickly. “No, Mia, don’t be foolish. But what am I going to do now?”

The little girl’s eyes were full of tears, but she answered her friend with all the firmness she could muster.

“You’ve got to go, Alina. You’ve got to run away, like you said. Before Malduk comes back.”

Alina knew her friend was right, but she felt sick to her stomach.

“And you’ll come with me, Mia?”

The little girl gulped, but shook her head firmly.

“No. It’ll only make it worse. You’re bigger than me, and can run faster. Much faster than any of the village children. I’ve seen you. Run, Alina. Now. Up into the mountains. Anywhere you can be safe.”

Alina shuddered, for now the thought of the mountains didn’t make her feel safe at all, yet there was a strange excitement in the girl’s heart too.

“But I promised never to leave you, Mia.”

“Promises only matter if you try to keep them, Mother told me. Sometimes you can’t, that’s all,” the little girl said with the strength and practicality of a born peasant. “I’m safe with my aunt and uncle, at least, but you’ve got to go, and quick.”

Alina nodded, finding courage in her little friend’s brave words, then started moving about the barn, gathering up her few humble possessions. The little girl helped her pick up her bits of clothing, a pack, and the parcel of food she had brought her earlier, and at last Alina was ready.

But with that they heard two more voices outside. The children peered through a crack in the barn door and saw Malduk running back into the yard and, trotting alongside him, one of the soldiers they had met earlier. The one who had spoken of Achil.

“You’re safe from the Turk, for now at least,” said the soldier, bringing his horse to a stop. “And Stefan’s men are roused. But you must look to your loved ones.”

Malduk was regarding the man very nervously, for he hadn’t expected to meet him on the track at all.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

There were shouts and the group of villagers from neighbouring Moldov, the men Malduk had spied before, came crowding down the path, and into the yard. They had burning tapers in their hands and their mood was ugly. They were hunting. At their head was a shepherd Alina recognised, called Barbat.

“What’s wrong, men?” cried the soldier.

“Sculcuvant,” answered Barbat, “the changeling. Where is he?”

Alina’s heart was suddenly pounding fast enough to burst. What now?

“I … I don’t know,” answered Malduk. “He was sleeping in the barn, but now he’s gone. Perhaps into the fields. Why, man, has he stolen something?”