Heartwood (41 page)

“I have done my best to be lord of our people,” Grimbeald said quietly, the axe lowering in his hand until it touched the floor. “I have tried to be just and fair, and treat all folk the same…”

“That is not the true measure of a lord!” snarled Maegenheard. “A lord governs by being harsh and firm with his decisions, by being aggressive, not defensive. How much have you expanded your lands? How many towns have fallen beneath your axe?”

“We are at war with Laxony,” argued Grimbeald, “not with each other. Wulfengar's five lands should live in harmony.”

“Harmony!” Maegenheard gave a booming laugh. “That is not the Wulfian way, my lad.”

“No, but it is my way,” Grimbeald said miserably. His axe fell to the floor.

“That is true, and how I regret your weak stomach. I knew from your early years you were doomed to be a failure as a warrior.”

“That is not fair,” Grimbeald protested. “I have fought in many battles; I am a skilled knight.”

“You have the heart of a dove, boy; you are a foolish romantic. You dream of peace and accord between the lands. Bah! You cannot change Wulfian minds. Just because you have a diseased brain does not mean it has to spread to the rest of our kind.”

Grimbeald bowed his head. He felt strangely weak and heavy, as if his father were draining strength from him. The light in the middle of the chamber seemed to be growing dim, emphasising the darkness he felt spreading through him. “I have never pleased you. I have tried and tried to be a different person, but I do not think I could ever be the sort of knight you wanted me to be, however much I trained for battle.”

“Your weakness grows within you like mistletoe in an apple tree,” said his father. “It has invaded all parts of you, and has wrapped tendrils around your heart. You are a failure as a lord and a failure as a Wulfian.”

“I do not know how to be different,” Grimbeald said, and a hot tear coursed down his cheek. How he longed for his father's approval. Just one smile, one word of encouragement. But it had never been that way, and certainly never would be now.

“You can still change,” Maegenheard urged. He came forward and his ghostly hands gripped Grimbeald's arms. “Put aside your foolish, romantic thoughts; your paintings and music; your singing and carving. Your dreams of peace. Turn instead to the true Wulfian path: battle, war, blood and pain. Turn the Highlands into the force it should be. Raise your army. Reconquer the five lands.”

Could he? Was it not too late? Hope surged within him. Could he still lay his ghosts to rest by changing his ways? Perhaps it was true, and he could obtain the heart of a wolf instead of a dove. Put aside his hopes, his dreams for a peaceful future for his land. “But what about Heartwood?” he asked suddenly, remembering his reason for travelling to the Tumulus.

“Heartwood?” Maegenheard spat invisible mucus onto the floor. “Those preening knights and their fancy tree? Who needs them? Who needs religion and prayers and speeches of ‘energy' and ‘Nodes' and ‘saving the world'? The Highlands are all that matter. Leave all that behind you, son, and turn to the true Wulfian way.”

And with that Maegenheard smiled at his son; the first smile Grimbeald could ever remember him giving that was directed at himself. And it made him so warm inside that suddenly he knew he would do as his father said: forget Heartwood, forget his Quest. It was time he became the son his father had always wanted.

 

III

Beata sat on the grass by Peritus's grave. He had been buried that afternoon, and the earth was still loose, covering his wooden coffin in a small mound.

The funeral had been brief, attended only by herself and the two servants who had dug the grave, and they had soon left her to her grief, though they puzzled at the depth of her emotion and the amount of tears she had let fall for a mere serf.

She had been allowed to bury him under an oak tree in the cemetery just outside the castle grounds, and for this she had been grateful, distraught as she was that she could not take him back to Heartwood to give him to the Arbor. It would be a peaceful resting place, she thought, looking across the cliffs to the sea beyond, and eventually he would be absorbed by the oak and thus by Anguis, thought she knew it would take longer for him to become one with the earth than it would have done at Heartwood.

Under the relatively dry shelter of the tree, Beata's final energy reserves drained out of her, and she lay down on the grass, her head on her arm, her misery sliding from her like an animal that had been coiled around her body. Never had she felt this low, not even when Caelestis died. And she knew she had to be honest with herself. It was not just the fact that Peritus had been killed that was causing her such misery. True, he was a childhood friend and a good companion, and she would mourn his passing for a long time. But it was more than that.

The whole journey had been a disaster, right from the moment Erubesco had taken the arrow in the forest. She should have done as Fortis said, turned around then and gone straight back to Heartwood, and given her Quest to someone who would have done it right. But what had she done? Lost all her companions, who had trusted her to lead them and keep them safe. And not only that – and here her breath caught in her throat and her heart almost stopped – she had lost the Virimage, the one possible saviour of the Arbor, because she had been lonely and flattered by his compliments, and curious to know about the sexual act. She thought of the way Teague had touched her, his fingers soft, his lips gentle, and cried, aching for him in spite of what he had done, and hating herself for it.

Several times, she tried to wrench herself up from this pool of misery, but each time she felt herself sucked back down, as if she stood in quicksand. She tried to persuade herself that Peritus would forgive her, that he would have understood her feelings for Teague, and that he was enough of a friend to realise she would never have wished him harm in a million years. But deep down, she knew her actions had been unforgivable, and she had surrendered to her emotions without taking the care that should have been second nature to a knight. In doing so, she had sacrificed him – and who would forgive a friend for that?

She attempted to think of Valens's face, and hoped he would understand why she had made the decisions she had; he was fair and just and would not blame her for the way things had turned out. But she was fooling herself; Valens would be bitterly disappointed with the turn of events.

She tried to convince herself Teague's actions towards her meant his heart was black, and therefore he would not have been able to heal the Arbor. For how could such an evil person heal the most precious thing in the universe? But then she thought of the way the yellow flowers had grown on her palm, and she knew in spite of what he had done, this was not the case, and he would almost certainly have been able to do something to help the tree, even if it was against his will.

She had lost the Arbor's only hope; because of her, Heartwood and eventually the rest of Anguis would fall to the Darkwater Lords. The water elementals' reign would be supreme. Everything would crumble, everything would fall to ruin, and it was all her fault.

Lost in despair, as unable to see the way out as if she were in the depths of a dark forest, Beata wept.

It was some time before she realised something was happening around her. She wasn't sure what first alerted her to the fact that the tree was moving; maybe it was the sound of the roots crawling through the grass, or maybe it was a movement out of the corner of her eye, but she wiped away her tears to find the roots snaking towards her slowly, and she gasped, not having seen this done by any other tree except the Arbor.

Was it malevolent? Instinctively, she drew up her legs to escape the thick tendrils. The roots stopped as she withdrew, and above her the tree shook gently, as if rustled by the wind, although there was no breeze. Beata's heart thudded. Part of her wanted to flee, but another part of her, perhaps the child within, remembered the gentle caress of the Arbor, the thing she loved more than anything in the world, and the slow heartbeat beneath its trunk. As a seven year-old, when she had felt lonely and was missing her parents and home, she had crept to the tree in the dark and put her arms around it; its warmth had never failed to comfort her. Something told her to trust this oak. Slowly, she straightened her legs. Just as slowly, the roots moved towards her.

The soft tendrils crept gradually up her legs and over her body. Her breathing quick, she lay on the grass and let the roots slide over her torso and then up, into her hair. The feel of the soft, fibrous plant against her skin was both repulsive and strangely seductive, and she shuddered, although whether from disgust or desire she could not tell.

The roots tightened their grip, and eventually she felt as if she had been tied to the floor by chains. She couldn't have moved, even if she had wanted to. But strangely, she found she didn't want to. As if they contained some kind of narcotic, sleep quickly came upon her, and her eyelids descended like curtains at the end of an act.

And as she slept, she dreamed.

There were six figures on horseback, riding through the Dorle countryside. It was as if she rode, too, beside them, and when she looked across to the right she could see the Henge in the distance, rising up on top of a hill, a dark shadow through the misty rain. Briefly, she thought of Gravis and his Quest, and wondered how he was faring and whether he had been able to activate the Node. But then her attention was drawn to the companions she rode with.

She looked back at the figures and saw in shock that one of them was Teague. He wore a cloak, the hood pulled low over his face, but it was definitely him. She glanced around at the other riders and saw with surprise they, too, were Komis, distinguishable by their jet-black hair, their swarthy skins and their strange gold eyes. So, he was with his countrymen, she thought, and judging by the direction they were travelling, they were headed for Komis.

She gave a little start, and opened her eyes.

She was still lying on the floor beside Peritus's grave, and the tendrils were still covering her body, but they were now slowly pulling away, and she watched open-mouthed as the tree withdrew until its roots were once again just hard ridges, firm in the earth.

Was it the Arbor, she thought breathlessly, wondering if the tree had somehow managed to reach out to her across the lands, to give her the vision? Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. Whatever the cause, the point was that
something
had given her the vision, and that meant
something
wanted her to know where Teague was heading.

She looked down at Peritus's grave, at the little wooden plaque pushed into the ground at the head of the mound, with just his name on it. Reaching into her tunic, she took out the oak leaf pendant hanging on a chain around her neck and pulled it over her head, leaning across the grave to hang it on the corner of the plaque. Perhaps it had been Peritus who had given his last energy to help her.

Whatever, or whoever, had helped her, the fact was that the Virimage was still alive and on his way back to Komis. Teague, who had taken her without a second thought, then killed her friend before abandoning her. He could still help the Arbor recover, she thought, even if he were forced. If she could find him, she could make him come back with her to Heartwood, and then let Valens deal with him as he saw fit.

She had been given one more chance to save the world, and she could not pass on it.

Beata pushed herself to her feet. She stretched her arms above her head, feeling the branches of the oak tree tickle her fingers. She smiled. It was time to let the knight back out, she thought with some amusement, looking down at her soft tunic and smiling wryly. Tearing it from her body, she stood there naked for a moment, feeling the gentle rain wash away the misery and hopelessness that had threatened to drown her barely an hour ago.

Then she turned to the horse that had been waiting patiently, tethered to the tree, and pulled her breeches and padded tunic out of her saddlebag and dressed swiftly. It was not an easy job, dressing herself with the heavy mail, but she did it eventually, welcoming the weight of the metal rings on her shoulders. Taking pins from another bag, she twisted her hair into a tight knot at the base of her neck and secured it firmly.

The lady had gone, probably forever, she thought, with not an ounce of regret. The knight was back. She looked down for the last time at Peritus's grave.
Rest easily, my friend
, she thought.
I will avenge you, and in doing so, I will save Anguis from her foes
.

Turning, she mounted the horse nimbly and guided it onto the track leading south-west across the hills without a backwards glance.

 

IV

The Darkwater Quest party arrived at Vichton in the late afternoon. At the head of the party, Chonrad led the way along the main road shadowing the Wall the whole way across Laxony, and through the large city gates into the city proper. It had been a long and difficult journey and, in spite of his tiredness, his heart swelled at the thought of being home.

Vichton was a large city but well-fortified and protected, and he had the advantage of knowing the guards manning the city wall were well-trained, as he personally oversaw his army's training whenever he had the chance. For the first time since leaving Heartwood, he relaxed.

He had been shocked at the state of Isenbard's Wall and its forts on their journey. In the short time he had travelled to Heartwood, the Wall had noticeably missed the departure of the Exercitus, and despite a physical presence by countrymen of both Hannon and Barle, the Wulfian raiders had clearly observed the Wall's weakened state, and were taking the opportunity to carry out deeper and more devastating raids. All of the party had been aghast at the devastation wrought to the town of Setbourg, which had seen many of its buildings burned to the ground, and shortly before their arrival, a large raid had seen many of the women raped and the men killed. Chonrad was pleased to see that Esberg, in his homeland, had fared better; with a city wall manned by trained guards, it had managed to keep out the raiders, but the guards had told him of the repeated and increasingly violent raids, and it was clear matters were escalating.