The Blight of Muirwood

• Title Page
  
• CHAPTER ONE:
  
• CHAPTER TWO:
  
• CHAPTER THREE:
  
• CHAPTER FOUR:
  
• CHAPTER FIVE:
  
• CHAPTER SIX:
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN:
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT:
  
• CHAPTER NINE:
  
• CHAPTER TEN:
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN:
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY TWO:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY NINE:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY TWO:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY THREE:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY SIX:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT:
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY NINE:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY ONE:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY TWO:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY THREE:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY FOUR:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY FIVE:
  
• CHAPTER FORTY SIX:
  

The Muirwood Trilogy

Book Two

Jeff Wheeler

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Jeff Wheeler

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for your support.

Visit the author’s website:

www.jeff-wheeler.com

Print edition available

The Muirwood Trilogy

The Wretched of Muirwood

The Blight of Muirwood

The Scourge of Muirwood

“In every era there comes a moment when the collective thoughts, whims, and motivations of a people become so self-absorbed, so malignant, so unheeding that nature itself revolts. Man scars the land such that it finally rebels against him. As thoughts can spread despair and death like seedlings of weeds strewn by the wind, so they eventually draw the Gardener to pluck them out. The vetches must be pulled, roots and all. When this happens, the Medium ceases to bless, and instead, it curses. Instead of healing, it spews poison. It happens swiftly and terribly. The ancients gave it a name, this culling process that blackens the world. They named it after a wasting disease that occurs in once-healthy groves of trees. They called it the Blight.”

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

Someone threw a stone or a spoiled fruit at the man perched atop the maypole and he nearly lost his balance. After ripping his cap from his head, he shook it at the offender, probably a young man dashing through the crowd. Then grumpily, he planted the cap back on his head, made a gesture of frustration, and continued tying the sashes to the rings crowning the maypole. One by one, the colorful sashes tumbled down.

“He almost fell off that time,” Sowe said, wincing.

Lia could not help grinning. “Every year someone tries to knock him down. Every year. What would happen if they did? He would probably break his neck and then there would be no dancing.”

“Maybe that is why the boys do it.”

“Not all of them hate dancing. What color sash do you want, Sowe?”

“It does not matter,” she said, looking down. “No one is going to ask me to dance.” Her shoulders drooped. Dark hair veiled part of her face.

“Only if you hide up here in the loft. If you go to the maypole, someone will dance with you. I know it.”

“I do not think so.”

“Thinking that will surely make it so.”

Sowe just shrugged and looked back out the window to the maypole in the middle of High Street. “What color do
you
think I should choose?”

“Blue,” Lia said. “It matches your eyes as well as our dresses.” She also looked back. The maypole was taller than the walls surrounding Muirwood’s grounds. It was a tradition of sorts, these many years they had spent in the kitchen together, to watch it hoisted up and festooned with decorations. But this year was different. They were both old enough to dance around the maypole. The thought brought giddiness and jittery nerves. Both Duerden and Colvin would ask her to dance, so she did not have Sowe’s fear of being a girl lacking a partner. But she did not want to embarrass herself by tripping on her hem or squashing someone’s foot as they skipped around the circle, holding hands. As she imagined the dance, a sudden pang of sadness struck her. The man who had taught them the maypole dance was dead and it was her fault. Even the smallest things reminded her of Jon Hunter.

“What is wrong?” Sowe asked, seeing the expression on Lia’s face, and studied her with concern.

“Just remembering when Jon taught us the dance.”

Sowe’s smile wilted. She reached out and gripped Lia in a tight hug.

Pasqua’s voice bellowed from below. “How long does it take to fetch a bag of milled flour, I ask you? Stop watching the window, the pole will still be there when your chores are finished. Do you smell the honey cakes in the oven? Mind you do not forget the sugarplums, the tourtelettes, the sambocade. And I need you to carry out the Gooseberry fool before you change. If you spill and make a mess of yourselves before the dance, you will regret it. Get down here, girls. If I have to come up there, I will bring a switch. I will. Or a broom.”

Lia and Sowe grinned at each other through their tears, for they both knew that Pasqua was totally incapable of climbing the loft ladder. They hugged each other fiercely a moment longer, saying nothing, then brushed their eyes and hurried down, moving through the kitchen as if preparing for battle. Every open space on the tables was crammed with trays already spilling over with sweets and delights that only emerged the week of Whitsunday. Lia snitched a tiny Royal cake and stuffed it into her mouth. Sowe looked shocked and then tried not to giggle.

Pasqua’s sleeves were rolled up and she was everywhere at once, stirring pots, poking loaves in the ovens, cracking eggs, and ladling honey. Lia balanced the trays on barrels and chests, while Sowe scrubbed pots clean so that other dishes could be started.

“Lia, take the pizzelles to the manor house,” Pasqua said. “They are for the Aldermaston’s guests this afternoon. Hurry back, girl. Do not dawdle and gawk! There is much to do.”

As Lia approached the door with a tray of pizzelles, it opened from the outside. Sunlight blinded her for a moment, and she did not recognize the man in the doorway. Though she did not know him, he walked in as confidently as if he had entered the kitchens a hundred times.

He was shorter than Lia, but as old as the Aldermaston and Pasqua. He had a cropped beard that was well salted, matching the rough tangle of hair atop his head. The leather hood was pulled down about his dirty neck and shoulders, and he wore stained leathers beneath as well, a rough-looking tunic black with sap spots and a sheathed gladius belted to his waist. The sight of the weapon struck Lia like thunder. If that did not, the bow sleeve around his shoulder would have. The wild look of him, the oil and leather smell of him, reminded her fiercely of the man she had buried in the Bearden Muir.

“Who is barging into my kitchen on Whitsunday,” Pasqua said, her voice building to roar as she turned around. She was dumbfounded a moment. “Martin?”

His voice was loud and thickly accented. “It is a good reason, Pasqua, and I will beg you not to raise your voice at me again. Even these many years have not dulled the ache from hearing you rant, by Cheshu. Tell me where the Aldermaston is, and I will be on my way as quickly as I came.” He turned his fiery eyes to Lia. “Do not stare so, lass, that will not do. Not at all. The rudeness of children these days. I will relieve you of several of those since the tray looks so heavy.” And with dirty fingers, he snatched three pizzelles and started eating one. Crumbs clung to his beard.

Lia looked back at Pasqua. She stood silently, her mouth gaping open, staring at the intruder. “Martin,” she said again, almost whispering. Then her eyes blazed with white-hot heat. “Out. Now. Out!”

He leaned against the doorframe and cocked his eyebrow at her, waiting.

“Get that tray away from him, Lia. Do not let him steal another bite. Where is that broom? Sowe – the broom! Out, Martin. Out!”

“Huff and holler all you like, Pasqua. Just tell me where I can find the Aldermaston and I will go.” He wandered over to a nearby barrel with a perfect dish of sambocade. Not a slice had been cut into it yet. “I always did fancy this dish of yours. I just might have a taste of it.”

“If you touch it, I will have your finger in a stew!”

He stood over it, eyeing it hungrily. “Just a little. I will use a spoon.”

“Do. Not. Touch. It!”

“The Aldermaston is in the manor,” Lia said, nodding to the man respectfully and nudging him with her eyes towards the door. “I will take you, sir, as I was just on my way.”

“Kind of you lass, but I know the way. Much has changed since I last roved these grounds. Much indeed, including yourself.” His eyes burned like blue fire. “Why, you were but a mewling little thing. It was I who found you in a basket that night, lass. I who brought you to Pasqua, if she has sense enough to remember your first taste of milk. I left Muirwood when you were but a seedling, but how you have sprouted! You have the same look about you. Why, you are even taller than me now. On our way then. Pasqua, I will have some of that later, mind you. You
will
save me a slice.”

And he said it in such a way that Lia felt the tingle of the Medium thread through his words.

* * *

“You wanted to see me when the guests left, Aldermaston?” Lia said, clenching her hands as she stepped into his study. “Astrid said they were gone.”

The Aldermaston’s voice was leathery and out of breath. “You may go, Martin. Enjoy the festival. I will speak to her. Alone.”

She had interrupted a conversation and paused, looking about the room. Lia had not seen Martin in the shadows on the other side at first. He blended in well, his features still and brooding. With a sour-faced shrug, he rose from the window seat and crossed to the door, staring intently at Lia all the while, his expression growing sterner and sterner, as if he found something very distasteful about meeting her a second time.

Even with the conversation unfinished, Martin obliged. “All in due time, Aldermaston. Aye, all in due time. Enjoy the festival. As if I will enjoy myself watching for sneaky cutpurses or learners getting too cuddly under the eaves instead of eating finch pie. Enjoy myself, by Cheshu.” He gave Lia one final scorpion look and then shut the door behind him, hard.

Lia turned and found the Aldermaston reaching down and lifting something heavy to the table. She recognized it instantly as Jon Hunter’s gladius, except it was polished and the leather scabbard smelled of oil soap. Next, he set down two leather bracers, a shooting glove, a tunic girdle, and a quiver of arrows. Each item had been painstakingly polished. Finally, the bow came next and the Aldermaston set it on top of them all. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed them towards her.