Hazel's Promise (The Fey Quartet Book 2) (4 page)

HAZEL FOUND IT
difficult to meet Tam’s eyes in the morning. She was embarrassed by their kiss. Embarrassed, and ashamed. How could she have responded to Tam when it was Drewet she loved?

Tam wasn’t embarrassed. He whistled jauntily as he folded up his blanket and stowed it in the packsaddle.

Hazel folded her own blanket, not looking at him as he strapped the packsaddle onto Marigold’s back. She buried the blanket in her sack and yanked the drawstring tight.

“Toss that over here,” Tam said, holding out one hand.

Hazel hugged the sack to her chest. “You needn’t come any further. Mottlethorpe’s only two hours from here. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“We’re coming,” he said, and gestured with his hand for the sack.

Hazel hugged it more tightly. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Tough,” Tam said. He crossed the small clearing in three strides, pulled the sack from her grip, and returned to Marigold.

Hazel followed him. “I
said
I’ll be fine by myself!”

“And I told you yesterday that Marigold’s a stubborn beast. She’s got her heart set on Mottlethorpe. Don’t disappoint her.”

“I’m not joking!” She reached for the sack.

The cheerfulness faded from Tam’s face, leaving it serious. “Nor am I. It’s too dangerous for you to travel alone. I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t want you to,” she said stiffly.

“Is this because of last night?” Tam strapped the sack in place. “It was just a kiss, Hazel. Forget about it.” He reached out and ruffled her hair. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll tell you about London, if you like.” And his manner was so casual, so
brotherly,
that she felt foolish.

BY THE TIME
Tam had told her about London—the cantilevered bridge and the great wall with its gatehouses, the beauty of St Paul’s Cathedral—Hazel had mastered her embarrassment. She was able to look Tam in the eye again.

“What would you like to hear about next?” he asked cheerfully. “Coventry? Lincoln? York?”

“My mother grew up in York. What did you think of it?”

“York?” Tam shrugged. “It’s much like any other city.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“I prefer Dapple Vale. Cities are so full of bustle that you can’t hear yourself think. They’re filthy. They stink. The buildings are all crammed together. There’s no
space
. The vale is . . . it’s green and peaceful.” Tam thought for a moment, and added: “And safe. When you enter York, at the city gates there are heads stuck on poles, and crows sit on them eating out the eyes. And there are arms and legs hung on ropes.”

Hazel shivered. Her mother had lived in a city with heads at the gates? “Why the heads? Why the arms and legs?”

“Criminals,” Tam said.

Hazel pondered this answer. Glade Forest kept the vale safe from outside dangers—outlaws and famine and plagues—but not from human pettiness. The vale had its share of drunkards and brawlers. Occasionally men were brought before the Lord Warder accused of thieving, sometimes even manslaughter or worse. But Dappleward didn’t cut such men’s heads off and put them on poles for the crows to pluck out the eyes; he expelled them from the vale.

“I’m glad we live in Dapple Vale,” Hazel said somberly. She looked around. They’d come out of the king’s forest. Fields lay on either side of the dusty road. Many were planted with grain crops; some lay fallow, grazed by sheep and cattle. To her eyes, the crops looked sparse and the livestock scrawny.

“Not far to Mottlethorpe now,” Tam said. “Once we get to the top of that rise, we’ll see it.”

Hazel’s pulse doubled its pace. “I have a smock and kirtle with me,” she said, suddenly nervous. “I’d like to change before . . .”

Before meeting Drewet again. Drewet. After ten years,
Drewet
.

“Change behind that oak tree,” Tam said. “Marigold and I’ll wait here.”

MOTTLETHORPE WAS NO
city such as Tam had described, but even so, it stank. The smell assaulted Hazel’s nose long before they reached the first houses. A wooden bridge crossed a shallow creek that was clearly the town cesspit. Excrement lay in stinking piles, tumbled together with animal bones and offal. Flies swarmed and maggots crawled and filthy pigs rooted among the waste.

A hundred yards past the creek was Mottlethorpe, houses crammed together as closely as dirty teeth in a mouth. The skyline was a bewildering jumble of gables and rooftops and crooked chimneypots. Several derelict cottages lay between the stinking creek and the town. Their timbers had been removed and the cob walls were collapsing in on themselves. Hazel eyed the ruins as they passed. Had the owners died of plague? Starvation? Murder?

“There’s someone
living
in that one,” she said, horrified.

Tam followed her gaze, and grimaced. “Makes you appreciate the vale, doesn’t it?”

Hazel nodded soberly. No one slept in roofless hovels in Dapple Vale, not even the very poorest folk—among whom her family numbered. And no one ever starved to death.
Compared to these people, we are wealthy beyond measure.

They entered the town proper. Ramshackle buildings lined narrow, squalid streets. Hazel stepped closer to Tam, glad he was with her. Mottlethorpe didn’t feel dangerous, but neither did it feel safe.

“You know where Drewet lives?” Tam asked.

Hazel nodded. Her Faerie gift told her exactly where Drewet’s house was. “It’s on the other side of the market square,” she said, and then hastily added: “So I was told.”

Tam accepted this with a nod, and Hazel felt a twinge of guilt for lying to him.

They set off down a street that was almost as filthy as the reeking creek had been. Hazel stepped carefully, holding up her hem. Her throat was tight with nervous excitement. Drewet. After ten years,
Drewet
.

“Market day,” Tam said, when they reached the end of the street.

Mottlethorpe’s square was a swarming, seething mass of people. Hundreds of people. People past counting. Hazel almost recoiled. The din was overwhelming, a roar of voices like a river in flood, above which dogs barked and livestock squealed and bleated. Musicians played somewhere. Song spilled from an alehouse.

“On the other side?” Tam said.

“Yes.”

Tam stepped into the market square, leading Marigold. Hazel reluctantly followed. People jostled her on all sides, more people than she’d ever seen in her life, townsmen and women, merchants, tradesmen, farmers, peasants, all pressing close and shouting to be heard. Smells filled her mouth and nose until she thought she would gag: cow dung, singed leather, a whiff of roasting meat, the stench of sewage, rank human sweat. An elbow caught her in the ribs, a boot nipped her toes, someone butted into her, knocking her a step sideways. A tiny spark of panic kindled in Hazel’s chest. She was close to being crushed in this mob, close to suffocating.

Tam glanced back, and halted. “You all right?”

I’m not as brave as I thought I was
. Hazel lifted her chin. “Of course I am.”

“Best not get separated.” Tam took her hand. His smile was kind, brotherly. “Come on.”

Hazel felt foolish—but she held on tightly to Tam. That firm, warm, strong handclasp was an anchor. She no longer felt as if the mob was going to swallow her whole. It became easier to breathe. She found herself able to look at the wares for sale: candles and spices, lengths of fabric, metalware, leather goods, slabs of bloody meat. “Hot peascods!” someone cried shrilly, and someone else: “Hot sheep’s feet!”

On the other side of the market square, Tam released her hand. “Where now?”

Where is Drewet’s house?
Hazel asked silently, and the Faerie gift led her down a street to a tall, narrow house.

“Drewet lives here?” Tam looked dubious.

Drewet had left the vale to make his fortune. It seemed that he’d succeeded. The house was three stories high, leaning out over the street, the plaster newly whitewashed, the timbers freshly painted. Some of the windows were even glazed.

“Are you
certain
he lives here?” Tam said.

“Yes. Um . . .” Hazel groped for a reason that didn’t involve magic. The door knocker caught her eye, shaped like a lion with an iron ring in its mouth. “I was told a three-storied house with a lion as the door knocker,” she said, and flushed for her lie.

Tam still didn’t look entirely convinced.

Hazel moistened her lips. Her heart was banging against her breastbone. She drew a deep breath, stepped forward, raised the knocker, and rapped on the heavy oak door.

A WOMAN ANSWERED
the knock. Tam could tell with one glance that she was a servant.

“I wish to see Drewet Ilbertson,” Hazel said.

Tam gritted his teeth. He wanted to grab hold of her arm and yank her away, tow her back to the vale. He curled his fingers into his palms.

“Drewet Ilbertson? Ain’t no Drewet Ilbertson lives ’ere,” the woman said. “It’s Drewet Blacklock as lives ’ere.”

Hazel lifted her chin. “Then it is him I wish to see.”

“He’s stepped out,” the servant said. “Missus is in, if you want to see ’er.”

Hazel lowered her chin. “Missus?”

“Widow Mercer, as was.”

Hazel’s brow creased. “Widow Mercer?”

“Widow Mercer, as was, ’til she married Drewet Blacklock,” the woman explained, her tone patronizing and impatient.

Hazel paled. Her hands clutched one another. “It’s not the right Drewet.”

Yes, it is,
Tam told her silently.
He found himself a wealthy mercer’s widow to marry.
His relief was dimmed by the expression on Hazel’s face: bewilderment, despair. She looked as if her dreams were collapsing around her.

Ten years of dreams,
Tam reminded himself. Ten years of holding faithful to her pledge. While Drewet married a wealthy widow.

I will kill him for this,
Tam vowed.

“Here’s master,” the servant said, with a nod up the street.

They both turned to look.

A man strolled towards them. Tam struggled to recognize him. The cocky strut was Drewet, the black hair, but everything else . . .

Tam raised his eyes heavenward.
Whichever god is responsible for this, thank you
.

Drewet had been muscular ten years ago; now he was . . . the only word for it was
fat
. He had enough flesh for two men. His paunch strained against his belt as if he were pregnant.

“Master.” The servant bobbed a curtsy. “These people wish to speak with you.”

Drewet glanced at them, taking in the donkey and their clothing, dismissing them.

“Drewet?” Hazel whispered.

Drewet blinked, and looked at her more closely. “Hazel?” He tipped his head back and laughed. His paunch wobbled like suet pudding beneath the over-stretched doublet. “Well, I never. Hazel Miller. I never thought to see you again.”

“We had a
pledge
.” Hazel’s voice was tight. Tam glanced at her hands. They were curled into fists.

“My dear girl, that was years ago. Don’t tell me you’ve held to it? How amusing.” Drewet’s fleshy jowls quivered, as if he suppressed another laugh. He looked Hazel over, his eyes lingering on her breasts, her hips. “You’ve matured well.”

Tam handed Marigold’s rope to Hazel. “Hold this.”

Hazel didn’t take the rope. He thought she wasn’t even aware of his presence. Her face was bloodlessly pale, her jaw clenched, her eyes burning.

“Hold it,” Tam said again, taking one of her hands and wrapping her stiff fingers around the rope. He turned to Drewet. “You and I need to talk.”

“And who might you be?” Drewet said, arrogantly.

Tam stepped closer, until they were nose to nose. “We’ve met,” he said, his voice a low hiss, just loud enough for Drewet to hear. “Wistan Dappleward.”

Drewet recoiled a step. “You?”

Yes, me
. Tam punched Drewet as hard as he could.

Drewet’s head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his nose.

Tam hit him again. And again. Punches that had all his weight behind them. Drewet staggered back, and collapsed. Tam followed him to the ground and kneed him in the groin. Drewet screamed breathlessly. “That’s for Hazel,” Tam told him, panting, blood roaring in his ears. He kneed Drewet again, even harder. “That’s for Hazel, too.” And again. He was going to
smash
the man’s balls. He’d never bed a woman again.

Drewet stopped screaming. His eyes rolled back in his head. Behind him, Tam heard the servant shrieking.

Hard fingers clenched in Tam’s hair, yanking his head up, almost pulling his hair from his scalp. “Get up!” The voice was Hazel’s.

Tam blinked, and focused on her face. It was as fierce as her voice.

“Get off him.” Her fingers clenched even tighter, hauling him backwards.

“Ow,” Tam said. “Ow!” He staggered to his feet, trying to loosen her grip on his hair.
But I still have to castrate him
.

“We’re leaving,” Hazel said. “Now!”

She towed him through Mottlethorpe’s backstreets, fast, almost running, her hand fisted in his hair. Tam was forced to bend almost double. Buildings flashed past, half-glimpsed. Marigold trotted at their heels. “You can let my hair go,” Tam said, when they reached the stinking creek outside the town. He peered awkwardly up at her. “Please.”

Hazel halted and looked at him. He saw fury on her face, and tears in her eyes.

The tears undid him. The last of his rage evaporated. In its place was contrition. “I’m sorry, Hazel.”

Hazel released his hair. “What would have happened if you’d killed him?
What
?” The tears spilled from her eyes. “They’d have hanged you for murder!”

“I’m sorry,” Tam said again, straightening, rubbing his aching scalp. “When he spoke to you like that, when he looked at you like that . . .”
I wanted to kill him
. He pulled her into a hug, and held her close. “I’m sorry.”

Hazel rested her head against his chest. “We have to get back to the vale. As fast as we can. If they send people after yo
u—
”

“They won’t,” Tam said, with a certainty he didn’t entirely feel. Hazel was right: he could be hanged as a common criminal. His name meant nothing outside Dapple Vale. “But you’re right; we’d best get going.” He stroked Hazel’s hair once, resisted the urge to kiss her, and released her. He took Marigold’s rope and held out his hand. “Come on.”