Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (4 page)

There was no denying this. Among the dark and dusky Southlander complexions, Daylily’s pale skin and fiery hair stood out like a lighthouse beacon.

“And you did not see where she went?” the baron asked.

“I did, sir!” a boy of thirteen or so spoke. “I followed her!”

“Cheek,” said Stoneblossom and would have cuffed him had not the baron interceded.

“Let him speak.”

“I followed her, and I saw her leave the path to Swan Bridge and cut across a field to the old Grandfather Fig what used to stand on the gorge edge, but which is now a stump, your grace-ship,” said the boy.

“Your
lord
, you dolt,” Stoneblossom growled, but again the baron ordered peace. “Go on, boy,” he said.

“Well, she stood there a moment; then she started to take off her skirt.”

If someone had breathed in the silence that followed, the room might have exploded. Foxbrush did not even move to wipe away the sweat that dripped into his eyes.

The baron at last said, “And what did you do?”

“Oh, I turned me back, your grace-lord,” said the boy. “Me mum may be a washer, but she brought me up right. And when I did look again, the lady was gone. Leaving her skirts behind her.”

“Gone, you say?”

“That’s right. It’s my thinkin’ that she went over the edge, down to the Wilderlands.”

“You’re daft, Tuftwhistle!” Stoneblossom snapped and snatched at his ear, though he eluded her hand. A look from the baron stilled them both. Then he turned to his captain.

“Have you any corroboration?”

“Indeed, my lord, we were able to follow a clear trail left by the lady all the way to the very place the boy indicated.” The captain snapped his fingers, and his men entered, each bearing some token: a pair of lace gloves, a coronet, a necklace in pieces, a jeweled belt, an outer corset, and the ruins of a heavy overskirt in shimmery silver and silk. The remains of Daylily’s wedding gown. Foxbrush paled at the sight, then blushed at the shocking mental image of Daylily in her underdress, however sumptuous it might be. That would be at least as bad as a gentleman appearing publicly in his shirt-sleeves!

Then a final guard stepped forward, and all other thoughts fell from Foxbrush’s head as he gazed upon what this man held.

“We found this by the tree stump.”

The baron stepped forward to take it. “Yes. The catalyst of this mystery,” he said. With careful fingers, he unfolded the letter, which had been crumpled into a tiny wad.

Foxbrush earnestly hoped to die and be swallowed up by the Realm Unseen.

The baron scanned the letter. “Ah,” he said and nothing more for several moments. “Perhaps this explains a little,” he said then. “It appears to be a love letter, unsigned, poorly spelled. Perhaps my wayward daughter had a rendezvous in mind when she made her flight.” He ground his teeth, the first sign of anger he had displayed since the whole business began. “A rendezvous with whom, though?”

No one spoke. But the same thought passed through almost every head: Lionheart, the disinherited prince who had vanished a year ago, after his deposition. Everyone knew that he had been intended to marry Lady Daylily. Everyone knew how she had loved him.

“It all comes together now,” the baron said.

Only it didn’t.

“Um,” said Foxbrush.

Every gaze, which had mercifully overlooked him for the entirety of the exchange thus far, turned suddenly and fixed upon the prince. His stomach chose that moment to roar its ire, and he leapt to his feet, trying to hide the noise with another. “Um, I, uh. I feel I must . . . well . . .”

“Have you something to contribute, crown prince?” The baron could order executions in that voice.

Foxbrush tried to meet the baron’s gaze and, failing that, tried to meet Stoneblossom’s. Failing that as well, he fixed his eyes upon a mark in the wall over the head of young Tuftwhistle.

“That’s mine,” he said.

The baron looked from the prince to the letter and back again. “This? Addressed to my daughter?”

“Um. Yes.”

“You misspelled ‘devotion.’”

“It was, um, an early draft. I, uh, I didn’t mean to send it.”

“No,” said the baron, and his fist clenched, recrumpling the letter. “No, I’m sure you did not.”

With that, he tossed the sorry little ball of paper at Foxbrush’s feet.

Every eye in the room fixed upon the crown prince as he bent to retrieve it; everyone in the room knew now why Daylily had fled. Foxbrush sank back into his seat, hanging his head, and felt he would never have the strength to rise again.

The baron, however, chose once more to dismiss the prince’s existence, addressing himself instead to his captain. “She cannot, as this boy says, have descended to the Wilderlands—”

“Oi!” Tuftwhistle protested, but Stoneblossom silenced him with a smack and a “Hush up, you!”

“—so it remains that she must have crossed Swan Bridge and is even now making her way across Evenwell. Put together a company and ride out. Take some of Evenwell’s men with you; they know those roads.”

The captain saluted and, summoning three of his men, marched from
the room. The other guards, at the baron’s indication, shuffled the groundskeepers out. Foxbrush watched them depart as a man watches the last of his allies departing from the field of battle, leaving him alone with the enemy.

But one of the groundskeepers, who had stood silently by with the others, a low green hood pulled over his face, paused in the doorway, his brown hand clutching the frame so that even when the guard hustling him out pushed his shoulder he remained in place. He said in a thick voice, “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

The baron, who had turned to contemplate the fire, looked up. The firelight playing in his eyes gave him the appearance of some devil trying to recall his victim’s sin. “What did you say?” he demanded of the lone groundsman.

“I said, I wouldn’t put it past her. Climbing down to the Wilderlands, that is.” Suddenly the groundskeeper’s voice altered and became almost, but not quite, familiar. He said, “I wouldn’t put anything past Lady Daylily. Best not to underestimate her.”

Before the baron could reply, the hooded man was gone. The baron took two steps in pursuit before halting and deciding against such a chase. He returned to his study of the fire, and Foxbrush, in his hungry, sweating corner, could only hope the baron would not turn those devil eyes upon him.

At length the baron said, very quietly, “Get out.”

Foxbrush mustered himself and fled.

The figs in the basket had all turned to putrid mush in the heat of the day. Foxbrush, hungry as he was, was not quite as disappointed as he might have been. There were times when, no matter how urgently a man’s body might cry out, a man’s spirit cannot comply.

He felt sick to his stomach.

Foxbrush, like most young men of limited experience misled by centuries of poets, had always believed that heartbreak would lodge itself in . . . well, in the heart. Yet his heart beat on at a healthy if rapid rate.

His gut, however, felt as though someone had scooped it out and filled it with gnawing worms.

He sat gingerly at his desk, perched on the edge of his seat. No one had thought to light so much as a candle in his study, and little of the sky’s dusky glow found its way through the window into his room. It was very like—and he shuddered at this—the gloom of the Occupation.

He should light a lamp. One sat at the ready by his elbow. But somehow he could not bear the notion of being alone with himself that night, and the dark kept his thoughts momentarily at bay.

He bowed his head and the worms in his belly writhed. “Why in Lumé’s name did I write that dragon-eaten letter?”

What was it Daylily had said to him those few short months ago when he, down on one knee, had asked the crucial question?

“I’ll marry you, Prince Foxbrush,”
she’d said,
“but only with the understanding that you
will never love me.”

But she knew. Dragons blast it, the whole kingdom knew that he adored her! Had he not made a fool of himself during her previous wedding week last winter, when her then groom, Lionheart, had left her alone in the middle of the dance floor before the eyes of the whole court? And Foxbrush had stepped forward and taken her in his arms. Gallant Foxbrush, ready to save the day! Noble Foxbrush, eager to salvage his fair one’s honor!

Clumsy Foxbrush, who danced like a clockwork soldier, and within three turns had trod upon her dress once and her feet twice.

“Let me go,
you dolt,”
Daylily had hissed so that none but he would hear above the music. And she’d wrenched herself from his arms, and it was his turn to be left alone in the middle of the dance floor, while she made her way after Lionheart.

From that day on, he’d heard the young gallants of the court whisper behind his back: “Foxbrush Left Feet!” But really, Hymlumé love him, was it
his
fault that in all his academic pursuits, he’d never encountered a course on courtly dancing?

There was no one to blame but himself, however, for writing those letters.

In the dark, Foxbrush flipped a switch to open a “secret” compartment in his desk—which wasn’t so much “secret” anymore as “understood to
be private.” A stack of letters emerged as the compartment slid open, letters tied up with a limp silk ribbon. Anyone coming upon them could see in a glance that they were love letters. Not everyone, however, would guess they’d all been written by Foxbrush himself. Written and never delivered.

Foxbrush pulled them out, several years’ worth of the most tender and romantic feelings he’d ever put to paper. Such as this one:
And a union of our two houses
would prove as profitable to the improvement of our estates
as would the union of our hearts to the improvement
of our lives.

Or this:
When weighed upon the
joint scales of reason and regard, the balance of my
affections proves a sound measure upon which to make your
judgment.

The idiotic yearnings of youthful fancy, perhaps, but truly, if rather haltingly, expressed. Only, thank the Lights Above, he’d never let one of these fall into the adored object’s hands!

Until today.

With a biting curse, Foxbrush fumbled for his matches, some notion of warming the room with a blaze of burned hopes and dreams brewing in his mind. He struck a light, held it up.

And he screamed, “Iubdan’s beard!”

Across his desk stood the hooded groundskeeper.

“Good evening, Foxbrush,” said he. “It’s been some time.” Then he put back his hood.

“Iubdan’s
beard
!” Foxbrush cried with redoubled vehemence.

It was Lionheart.

T
HE
W
OOD
WAITED
, as it always did.

It had no need to go hunting. In all the long existence of the Between, before and after the advent of Time, it had proven itself the most effective of predators, not by any great cunning or guile but simply by its patience. If it waited long enough, prey inevitably walked into its enfolding arms as into a lover’s embrace. And those whom the Wood embraced, it rarely let go.

For the Wood was full of things that kill: some that meant to, some that didn’t, though the latter were no less deadly.

Daylily, her underdress torn, her hair in disarray, her eyes wild in an otherwise calm face, slid the last few feet down the gorge trail and stood upon the edge of the Wilderlands. She knew what she did, or believed she knew. After all, had she not shut her mouth when Lionheart asked if anyone would defend Rose Red? Had she not shut her mouth and thereby pronounced the poor girl’s sentence as clearly as though she’d spoken it aloud?

And Rose Red had been banished to the Wilderlands. She had disappeared into its shadows even as Daylily, her skirts clutched in both fists, disappeared now, stepping out of the world she knew into a world of half-light remembered from poison-filled dreams.

The ground was soft beneath her feet. Leaves rustled against the hem of her gown. Silence closed in around her, reaching out to touch her face even as the tree limbs stretched down and caught gnarled fingers in her hair. She passed into the Wood Between, ready for any fate to greet her.

Any fate, that is, except the one that did.

Had Crown Prince Foxbrush been asked how his day might conceivably be made worse than it already was, he would not have been able to give an answer. How could it possibly be worse?

But this was only because he wouldn’t have considered the possibility of Lionheart returning.

The match he’d struck burned his fingertips, and he dropped it with a cry, plunging the room back into darkness. For the space it took him to light another and apply it to the nearest lamp, he could pretend that it was all an illusion brought on by fatigue, worry, and hunger. Surely,
surely
Lionheart could not—

Oh yes, he could.

Foxbrush, holding up the newly lit lamp, leapt to his feet, jostling his desk with violence enough to knock the basket of figs over the edge. Figs landed with thuds and scattered across the tiles like so many rodents escaping a trap.

“You . . . you’re real,” Foxbrush gasped.

“Last I checked,” Lionheart agreed with a grin that looked more wicked than usual in the lamplight.

Foxbrush felt the blood draining from his face. He kept blinking, then squinting, as though to somehow drive away that image before him. But no, there stood Lionheart, large as life, ragged as a beggar in his groundsman’s clothes, his eyebrow raised in just that expression of incredulity Foxbrush
had found unbearable from the time they were small boys and forced to “play nicely” together.

But something was different about his face as well. Something . . . Foxbrush couldn’t quite put his finger on it. A sense of depth and height struck him as he looked at this man he despised.

He didn’t like it at all.

“I thought you ran away for good the moment the barons declared their decision.”

“Try to contain your joy at my fortuitous return, cousin of mine,” said Lionheart, bending to retrieve a squashy black fig that had made it as far as his boot. “You know,” he said, resting the fig in his palm as though gauging its weight, “these really are only good for goat food. Perhaps your tastes have developed since I’ve been away?”

A thousand and one thoughts crammed into Prince Foxbrush’s tired brain at once, none of them charitable; it was enough to make him burst, yet too much to make him articulate. So he watched his cousin pick up two more figs and begin to juggle all three.

“I mean,” Lionheart continued, “goats are amazing animals, reputedly able to digest anything. Even black figs, which is pretty impressive when all’s said and done. But you’re looking a little peaked around the edges tonight. Perhaps an invigorating diet is just what you need? A goat I used to know once said—”

“Lumé, Leo!” Foxbrush set the lamp down with such force that the oil in its base swirled in a miniature maelstrom. He reached across the desk to snatch back the figs as though retrieving rare gems from a thief. Not knowing what to do with them once he’d got them, he squeezed them into pulp and seeds, which stuck to his fingers. This in itself was testimony to Foxbrush’s interesting mental state; the prince’s hands were typically clean, each nail well filed and buffed to a high polish.

Lionheart always did have a way of bringing out the worst in him.

“Easy now, Foxy,” said Lionheart, watching the fate of those three figs. “No need to get violent.”

“Violent? I’m not violent. I’m never violent.” Pulling a handkerchief from Tortoiseshell’s jacket, Foxbrush began to wipe at the fig juice, snarling
as he did so, “I’m working on a solution to our agricultural crisis. One without violence. Ideally, without squabbling among the barons.”

And there went that wretched eyebrow of Lionheart’s, sliding up his forehead again. “With goat food?” he asked. “What have the barons to say to that?”

“The barons offer no ideas, just arguments,” Foxbrush said. “And since I’m not Eldest,” he continued, “they don’t include me in their various plottings. Not yet anyway. Other than bribes, of course.”

“Of course.” Lionheart nodded. “So, is this something to do with your response to their bribes, then? Inedible, semi-rotten fruit is highly effective when thrown from upper windows.”

Foxbrush opened his mouth to growl an answer but paused a moment. He hadn’t actually considered that possible use for his samples. It wasn’t all that bad an idea, if rather beneath his princely dignity.

He shook his head savagely, however, and rammed the sticky handkerchief back into his pocket. “Always the clown, Lionheart. Always the jester. Meanwhile, Southlands is on the brink of collapse, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’d picked up a hint or two,” Lionheart replied dryly, taking a seat in a well-cushioned rattan chair, far more comfortable in this room that had once been his than Foxbrush was or ever could be. Foxbrush hated him for it. He hated him for many things just then.

Growling, Foxbrush knelt, righted the spilled basket, and hastily began shoveling the scattered fruit back into it. “Our orchards are in trouble,” he said. “Reports come in every day from every barony, telling us of crops and harvests failing. The oldest, richest mango groves have all withered from poison or been pulled up by the roots! There’s scarcely a healthy plantation left in the entire kingdom. Do you understand how this affects Southlands, from the richest baron down to the poorest tenant? How can we trade with the Continent without our primary exports? There are the tea plantations still, of course, but we’ll have to up our prices if we hope to make ends meet, and how can we compete with Aja or Dong Min at increased costs?
They
didn’t suffer under a dragon’s thumb for five years!
They
can undersell us with every merchant from here to Noorhitam!
We can’t depend on our teas, and we can’t hope for anything from our mangoes.”

“I know.” Lionheart’s voice was very low when he replied, though his mocking smile remained in place. He put out a foot and nudged one of the figs out of Foxbrush’s reach. “Remember, it was my problem before it was yours.”

But Foxbrush didn’t hear. This was his way when he got caught up in his theories. For the moment, even the horror of his ruined wedding day was forgotten, and his eyes shone as he eagerly clutched the basket of figs, looking down at them as though he gazed upon the jewels of Hymlumé’s garden. “There is a solution,” he said in a low, almost desperate voice. “Figs!”

He plunked the basket back down on the desk and grabbed
A History of Southlander Agriculture
, fumbling through the pages. “I’ve read all about it. Back hundreds of years ago, the elder fig was the primary export for Southlands. It was like gold grown on trees, so high was the demand!”

Once more Lionheart replied softly, “I know, Foxbrush.”

“Don’t you see? We have elder fig trees all over the country, growing like weeds! The tough old things survived the Dragon’s poison with scarcely a mark on them. They’re thick with fruit, and if we can simply start tending them as we used to and harvest them, we might be able to establish a new trade!” The heat of excitement carried Foxbrush on so that he almost forgot it was his cousin to whom he spoke. “I’ve written to several of the baronies, and at least eight have responded, telling me that their estates are full of old elder figs. Enough, perhaps, to get a good harvest!”

Lionheart crossed his arms, his face solemn as he regarded his cousin. When Foxbrush at last ran out of steam, he said only, “Too bad, then, that elder fig trees don’t produce edible fruit anymore.”

And there was the rub.

Foxbrush’s cheek twitched. He put the book back on the table and eyed the spoiling fruit in the basket. “They weren’t always. Inedible, that is. We used to know how to cultivate them.”

“The brown fig and long hall fig are edible,” Lionheart said, “but—”

“But not in demand,” Foxbrush finished for him. “Not so succulent or sweet.”

Their eyes met over the lamplight. A brief exchange of sympathy, of understanding, such as these two had never before known. In that moment, the weight of all Southlands rested on the shoulders of both cousins, all the impossibilities that would crush a king to death with hopelessness.

But Foxbrush could not bear sympathy from Leo, nor pity either. He turned away. “I keep thinking—”

“Lumé spare us.”

“Shut up, Leo. I keep thinking I’ll find something. If I keep reading, if I keep hunting, I’ll discover the secret to renewing the elder figs. Everything I come up with has been tried before. I’m at a loss, and I don’t mind admitting it.”

“Well, that’s the first step, isn’t it?” Lionheart said, his voice surprisingly heavy. “Admitting your shortcomings?”

Foxbrush’s eyes flashed. “I’ve not given up. I’m not going to run away. Not like—”

“Not like I did.”

“Yes! Exactly!” Foxbrush clenched his fists. “That’s always been your nature, hasn’t it, Leo? Even when we were children, you slipped out to play in the woods all summer while I labored over whatever task was given me. You shirk. You run. And when you can’t do either, you laugh! You were
never
going to be a good Eldest. You never deserved it, despite your birth. You never deserved the throne, you never deserved her, and you won’t have either now, and thank the Lights Above for justice yet in this world!”

He stopped for breath, his body tensed, prepared for the verbal abuse bound to fall upon his head. Lionheart was always the lightning tongued, able to rip Foxbrush at the seams until he could scarcely stand.

This time, however, Lionheart said nothing.

He sat quietly in the chair that had once been his, before the desk that had once been his, in the study that had once been his. All smiles had fallen from his face. His eyes were open, but he had flinched now and then during Foxbrush’s tirade as though feeling physical blows. When Foxbrush shouted himself into silence, Lionheart remained in this attitude, making no defense, forming no attack. Foxbrush found he could scarcely breathe.

At last Lionheart said, “Well,
that
at least I did deserve.”

The world shifted and only Foxbrush’s grip on his desk kept him from falling over. “W-what?”

“You’re right, Foxbrush,” Lionheart said. “I never deserved to be Eldest. It was all a matter of birth, not merit.” He raised his gaze to his cousin’s face but dropped it again quickly, and Foxbrush could see him battling with himself. Surely the bitter words would fall at any moment.

It was too much for Foxbrush to bear. He sagged where he stood and groaned. “Of all days, Leo. Of all days! What possessed you to return
now
?”

Then a whole host of new, swirling, furious thoughts assaulted his brain. Foxbrush pulled himself upright once more, as masterful as he could be in his man’s livery, and pointed a finger at his cousin. “You did this,” he said. “You ruined my wedding day. You! You stole Daylily away, and now you think to intimidate me, and—”

“Really, Foxbrush,” said Lionheart, his voice once more full of that cheek that always made Foxbrush want to smack him. “For a chap without a fig’s worth of imagination, you certainly can spin quite a yarn when motivated. Perhaps if kingdom ruling doesn’t suit you, you could take up penning romances for a living?”

The former Prince of Southlands rose, and though he was no taller than Foxbrush, his presence somehow loomed. For the first time, Foxbrush saw the shirt beneath the groundskeeper’s hood and jacket. It was not something he should have noticed in that moment of tension and fury, but it caught his eye.

In the place over Lionheart’s heart, there was a hole. And around this hole were dried bloodstains.

“I have come,” Lionheart said, “to make peace with my father. I returned to Southlands with no other purpose in mind, and I certainly did not intend to arrive on your wedding day. But now that I’m here, you will find I am no longer a running man.”