"No," Becca said, standing in shift and pantaloons at the foot of her bed. "A riding dress, Nancy. That is a party dress."
It was a very pretty party dress—a confection of pale blues and pinks, cut low over the bosom, the high waist tied with a wide ivory ribbon—and it would, Becca thought with a shiver, look well on her. However, she was not so mad as to attempt to ride in such a thing. Rosamunde would have her on the ground in a heartbeat for such folly, nor would Becca blame her.
Before her, Nancy fluttered in mid-air, clearly agitated. She dropped the rejected frock on the floor, darted back to the wardrobe and reappeared a moment later bearing a robe of diaphanous purple, stitched with hundreds of tiny mirrors.
"No," Becca said, keeping her voice firm and even, though she wanted to shout in frustration. "A riding dress."
Nancy threw the robe to the floor, where its mirrors glittered disturbingly, dashed back and forth several times, then hovered bare inches from Becca's face, so that she could see the tiny silver face scrunched up in distress and the small hands twisting about each other.
"Never mind, then," Becca said, with an assurance she did not at all feel. "I'll fetch it myself." She closed her eyes, picturing the riding dress she had once owned, a lifetime ago, when being in town with Irene was the most excitement she had ever experienced, and the number of invitations tucked 'round the frame of her mirror was a matter of grave concern and no small amount of pride.
In those simple, happy days, her riding dress had been raspberry wool, with black frogs to close the jacket, and leather gloves dyed to match. She'd worn it with a high-necked ruffled blouse, and dainty black boots, shined until she could see her face in them, charmingly framed by a smart little hat with an ostrich feather curling along her cheek.
This dashing ensemble fixed before her mind's eye, Becca stepped to the wardrobe, and pulled open the door.
"Oh!" She could not quite contain that little gasp of surprise, though she had, she told herself sternly, hoped for nothing less.
She simply hadn't expected that it would work.
"Here," she said over her shoulder to her maid. "Help me with this."
* * *
Meri took his leave of Jack Wood, and struck off into the trees—not quite at random, for no one of the Forest Gentry was ever entirely random inside a wood. Still, he did not willfully turn his steps to the north or to the east, but meandered as the short growth allowed it, listening the while for what the trees might tell him.
The floor of the wood was soft with old leaf, scattered with sticks and broken bits of branch. Shadowflame and harpers-hood huddled under the protection of low shrubs, flaunting their bright petals. Overhead, a gray whistler gave note of his location and condition; he heard the call picked up a moment later, off to his right, and again, at the edge of his hearing, to the left.
Startled by his silent approach, a squirrel hurtled up a ralif, claws scrabbling noisily against the bark. A fallfox and her kits melted away from him, her eyes glowing golden among the winberige leaves as he passed.
In all of this he found only what he might expect of a elder, and somewhat sleepy, forest. He discovered no other fading, misty trees along his ramble, nor any signs of disease or predations other than those of old age. That this wood was old, he had no doubt. Broad trunks were warmly embraced by soft lichens; longhair moss wisped from the trembling fingers of conifers and the jagged ends of broken branches occasionally interrupted the symmetry of leaf and sky.
Meri paused once by a rotting stump, the tree laid out in broken segments along the forest floor, crumbling into the rich mold. He paused again by a tall pole of a tree, its bark polished away by the creatures who fed and sheltered inside its hulk, its once-proud branches now smooth stubs.
He paused a third time by a forest pool, and unwrapped the bread and cheese Elizabeth Moore had packed for him. As he ate, he listened to the birds, and the various sounds made by the small lives, and to the murmur of leaf against branch. Familiar sounds, and welcome to any Ranger who might find the way here, and rest a moment from wandering.
Indeed, thought Meri, as he bent to drink from the pool, all was as he might expect—saving one thing.
No single tree had spoken to him, either in welcome, or to ask his business among them.
* * *
Her books were in the trunk under the window where she had left them, and what was left of her seeds, salves and the little bag of duainfey.
"Get my shawl from the wardrobe, please, Nancy," she murmured, telling over these treasures with soft fingertips. These few things defined everything that remained of her dreams and hopes. She was an herbalist. A healer. A gardener. Those other things, that had been inflicted upon her, by her will or not—she was free of those things, as she was free of the collar and the compulsion of Altimere's will.
Free of everything, save memory.
There was a flutter at the edge of her vision. She turned as Nancy alighted on the bed, spreading out a crimson shawl gaudy with gold thread and long silk tassels. Becca sighed, quietly. It was not, after all, the shawl she had taken away from her father's house, but—t'would serve.
T'would serve.
"Thank you," she said, and picked up Sonet's book, awkwardly one-handed. She placed it on the shawl, and had scarcely turned back for the rest when a flutter of wings warned her, and Nancy alighted with Becca's own journal under one arm and the bags of salves and seeds in the other hand.
She placed the objects with care, then rose into the air, gathering the corners of the shawl into her hands and knotting them.
"Thank you," Becca said again, reaching for the packet. She snatched her hand back as Nancy darted toward her, shaking her head from side to side, and clearly expecting Becca to do—something.
"I—" She cleared her throat and inclined her head. "I will be visiting a friend in—in another country," she said slowly. "You are at liberty until Altimere returns."
Wings flashed, and Nancy shot toward the ceiling. Another flash of wings and she was hovering bare inches from Becca's nose, her face twisted in obvious distress, hands gripped together as she were praying.
"Nancy, I am grateful for your service," Becca said, tears rising to her eyes in response to the little creature's pain. "I would take you with me, if I could. But—Altimere made you, and it is him that you serve, not me."
Nancy extended a hand and grasped Becca's collar, and now she could see that her abigail's face was glistening as if with—but surely not! Nancy was a construct! Surely a machine could not weep?
And yet it did seem as if Nancy were weeping—very likely in terror of what would become of her, when Altimere returned to discover Becca gone.
It was, Becca allowed, a predicament with which she had some sympathy.
"Very well," she said softly. "I accept your service. You may accompany me if you are able. Whatever binds you is yours to break."
For a moment it seemed as if Nancy were frozen in air, then she bolted upward, turning a series of handsprings. She dove then to the bed, snatched up the shawl-wrapped packet, and darted toward the door.
"Yes," Becca murmured, sending one more glance around the sun-drenched room. "It is certainly time for us to go."
Sian was waiting in the hall below. Her eyebrows rose as Becca came down the ramp, but she made no comment, either on Becca's choice of clothing or the tiny naked woman who flew at her shoulder, bearing a bundle twice her size.
"Did Altimere's library pall?" Becca inquired, as she gained the hall.
Sian swept her an extravagant bow.
"In the sense that I was not allowed to remove any books from their places on the shelf—it did. One rapidly grows weary of admiring handsome bindings."
"In that case I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long."
"Please don't trouble yourself on my account," Sian told her with an earnestness Becca could not but feel was utterly false. "I exist to serve."
"You will then be relieved to learn that my horse is being brought 'round and that we may leave immediately your own has been saddled."
Sian gave her a sideways smile, eyes glinting, and Becca had a moment to wonder if she was quite wise to tweak the Fey woman. And yet, she thought rebelliously, she was Sian's prisoner, hostage to the Queen's command. Why should she pretend it suited her?
And if Sian were to place you into the sort of slavery from which you have only just recently won free? A cool voice murmured inside her head.
Becca's step faltered. Nancy, taken by surprise, bumped her shoulder with the bundle she carried, wings fluttering in agitation. Ahead, the door opened slowly, drawn by a pair of Gossamers, a tentative cast to their appendages. Becca bit her lip and quickened her step. She did not want to give the Gossamers time to think about her departure and their part in it. For the Gossamers were also Altimere's creatures, and who knew what punishments they might be meted, when the master discovered that she was gone.
"There is no need," Sian said at her shoulder, "to run, Rebecca Beauvelley."
Becca took a breath, a tart rejoinder on her tongue—then forgot everything: her fear, her situation and the unlikelihood of her escape from either. She had eyes and thought only for the chestnut filly standing there, her reins in the keeping of a Gossamer, ears cocked forward at an interested angle, the star on her forehead blazing bright white.
"Rosamunde!"
Joy lanced through her, and she was across the courtyard, her arm around that elegant neck. Her hat had fallen off in her rush, or Rosamunde had pushed it away, so she could lip Becca's hair.
"Beautiful lady, I've missed you," she crooned, rubbing her cheek against the silken mane. Rosamunde whuffed, her breath warm and smelling of clover.
"We'll never be parted again," Becca whispered. "I swear it."
Rosamunde whuffed again, and there came the sound of hooves, walking purposefully.
Becca raised her head as a dappled grey with a mane like sea-froth strolled, riderless into the courtyard, reins loose along the proud neck.
"Well!" Sian said brightly behind her. "And here is my horse! We may leave at once." A low whistle followed. The grey whickered gently, strong ears flicking.
"Brume, old friend," the Fey woman's voice was soft now; tender, as if she spoke to a child. "Wilt bear me home?"
The grey blew and shook his head, as if laughing, then extended his right foreleg and bent his left, bowing, or so it seemed to Becca.
"Your spirit is wide and your heart is great," Sian murmured, moving past Becca and Rosamunde as if they were as tenuous as Gossamers. "There is no other like you."
She threw a long leg over the grey's back and settled herself in the saddle. Brume rose, and stood, the Engenium looking down at Becca.
"Do you require assistance to mount, Rebecca Beauvelley?"
Becca turned without answering, aware of a blur of color near Rosamunde's flank. Nancy still bore the bundle, though it must, Becca thought with a flash of guilt, weigh on her cruelly.
She turned, fumbling one-handed with the strap on the saddlebag. Something cool brushed her fingers—tentacles, she saw, deft and sure. The strap loosened, the flap came up and Nancy flittered forward to slip the precious shawl-wrapped bundle inside.
That done, the Gossamer pulled the strap tight.
"Thank you, Nancy," Becca said, and to the Gossamer. "Help me to mount, please."
She felt the pressure about her waist, and a moment later was settling into the saddle, the neat split riding skirt seeming a frivolous affectation in comparison to Sian's spare elegance.
"It is well," the Engenium said. "We take our leave now." Brume turned and moved out of the courtyard.
"Follow, please," Becca whispered into Rosamunde's ear. "We must do as she says until we can think of another way to keep ourselves safe, and together."
* * *
Meri finished his bread and cheese, washed his hands in the pool, and walked out to the center of the grove, his arms wide and his face turned up toward the leaf-shrouded sky. His chest was tight, his meager kest rising to cast dancing shadows among the lower plants. It had been many seasons since he had offered himself formally to a forest. Even after his long sleep, the trees had known him, welcoming him by name, respectful of his diminished power.
This wood, though . . . It was not merely that this wood did not know him. It was as if this wood knew nothing; as if it had dreamed itself out of the Vaitura entirely, leaving behind only empty trunks.
"I am," he said, his voice solemn, as befit this venerable and subdued place, "Meripen Vanglelauf, Wood Wise and Ranger. My purpose is to uphold the ancient covenant. Of my own will, I seek the trees. Of my own heart, I serve them."
His words rang for a moment against the air, then faded, as if swallowed by the forest's dream.
Meri took a breath, lowered his arms slowly and stood, head bent. Disdained, his kest fell. He shivered in the absence of its warmth.
Sighing, he crossed to the pool, drank, and stood. He felt the veriest sprout, roundly ignored by his elders, and laughed wryly, recalling Jamie Moore's hot assertion that the trees spoke to him—and his wilting when Jack Wood had pointed out that the trees did not share their pain with him.
His thought snagged on that, and he frowned, frozen in the act of reaching for his pack.
The trees near the homestead had not only spoken to him, they had known him. Indeed, now that he cast his mind back, there had been tree chatter and a sense of regard this morning as he had walked out with Jack Wood, until—
Until they had come upon the larches, cloaked in their uncanny stillness. He must have been more distressed than he had understood, but yes, now that he thought, it was precisely as if the larches had marked a boundary between forests, as sharp and distinct as a wall between rooms.
Meri shook himself, grabbing up his pack and his bow.
All very well to pinpoint where the problem began. It was, he allowed, a step. However, his duty lay in the direction of discovering what the problem was, and doing his utmost to repair it.
Well.
Meri swung the pack up and settled it across his shoulders. Whatever it was that made this wood so strange and dreamy, it lay ahead of him. That, too, was a step.
"Steps enough," he sing-songed for his own amusement, "a journey do make."
He shook his head and moved off, with a Ranger's ground-eating stride, one more silence among many.
* * *
Nancy settled on Becca's shoulder, one tiny hand wound in the hair over her ear, pulling uncomfortably. Becca began to speak—then stopped, suddenly aware that her maid was trembling violently, her spasms increasing as they came nearer the arched shrubbery that marked the end of Altimere's garden.
Ahead of them, Sian and Brume passed through the arch. Nancy's grip became excruciating; Becca gasped, and bit her lip.
Rosamunde passed under the shrubbery. Becca took a hard breath, tasting the lemony scent in the back of her throat, and Nancy—
Nancy screamed.
Becca started, jerking the reins, Rosamunde danced, steadied as her rider made a brief recover, then skittered as Becca sagged, her shoulder abruptly ground beneath an appalling weight.
Nancy's scream went on, high and hopeless, ragged with agony. Becca pulled on the reins, and screamed herself as the banshee on her shoulder spasmed, tearing her handful of hair out by the roots. Becca pitched forward, her braid snapping free of its pins, her heels striking Rosamunde's side, and her horse leaped, hitting the street with a clatter, charging Brume's flank. The grey spun, ears back and teeth showing, while Sian raised a hand shrouded in turquoise mist, and cried out in a voice that brooked no argument, "Hold!"
Rosamunde slammed to a halt, throwing Becca forward, left hand tangled painfully in silky mane, right arm flung 'round a sweating neck while Nancy arced into the air like a stone from a catapult, scream trailing behind her—and cut off abruptly as she was surrounded by a turquoise-barred cage.
"Wrack and wind!" The bars solidified. Nancy threw herself onto her face, wings trembling.
"Release her at once!" Becca cried, pushing herself awkwardly up into the saddle, Rosamunde unnaturally still beneath her. "And remove your will from my horse!"
Sian raised haughty eyebrows. "Do you order me?" she asked, cold-voiced.
Becca shook the loose braid behind her shoulder and stiffened her spine. She ought, she knew, be afraid, but what she felt was anger, and a rising warmth. The day glittered at the edges, showing stipples of gold and copper.
"Do you infringe on my rights?" she snapped, hot to the Fey woman's cold. "My horse, Madam Engenium—and my servant!"
"The horse, I grant." A sweep of long white fingers and Rosamunde was moving, dancing nervously. Becca consciously adjusted her seat, and leaned forward to pat the proud neck.
"Gently, my lady," she murmured. "We have an agreement to reach."
"An agreement to easily reach," Sian snapped, and the bars enclosing Nancy contracted. "Surely neither of us desires one of Altimere's creatures by us on our journey."
"Nancy is my servant," Becca said, swallowing against the heat rising in her blood. "I told her that I would accept her service, if she won free of Altimere's influence." She moved a careful hand, startled to see a wisp of golden fog following her fingers. "I believe that she has done as much—as I have, myself."
Huddled on the bottom of the cage, the little creature nodded vigorously.
"You see?"
Sian shook her head. "Altimere's creature is under no geas to be truthful to you—or to me."
"I believe her," Becca said flatly. "And you harm my servant at your peril, Engenium."
There was a moment, a long moment, where the air seemed to heat uncomfortably, and sparks of gold, green, blue and copper glittered like snowflakes in the sunlight. Becca heard a ghostly crashing, as if of waves striking rock, and a rumble like a storm was building . . .
Brume shook his head, frothy mane slapping the sides of his neck, and executed a sharp dance-step.
A damp breeze struck Becca sharply on the cheek, teasing the bars of Nancy's cage into mist. The little creature sprang aloft the instant the last wisp of turquoise had drifted away, did a double loop and came to rest on the pommel of Becca's saddle. She knelt there and kissed Becca's hand. Her lips were cold and hard.
"You are welcome, Nancy," Becca murmured. "I trust we will have no more unseemly displays. Now, if you please, prepare yourself to ride."
Nancy leapt up. Following the flicker of color, Becca saw her settle on top of the right-side saddlebag, her hand gripping the leather strap.
"Very well." She licked her lips, tasting salt, and faced Sian firmly. "We are ready, Engenium."
"Not quite." Sian bent a stern, sea-colored gaze upon her, and Becca felt a thrill of terror, that she had dared to set her will against this Fey, who was powerful beyond a mere woman's reckoning.
"If that creature behaves in any way that I find threatening to myself, my land, or my people, I will destroy it, Rebecca Beauvelley—and you will not be able to stay my hand. Do you believe me?"
Becca bowed her head, awed ,and somewhat unsettled in her stomach. Had her time with Altimere made her mad, after all? How had she thought to stand against so puissant a lady?
"I believe you," she said submissively.
Sian may have snorted, or she might have laughed. Whichever, she did turn her horse, with a click and a lean, and moved off down tree-lined road, Rosamunde following before Becca gave the signal.
* * *
If the path would not appear, he would make his own, as ever he had.
Altimere rose from his chair, shook out his lace, took a deep breath of warm, mist-tainted air, and took a single step forward.
It was as if he tried to push himself through a stone wall. He exerted his will, his kest rising in a blaze of silvered reds.
The mist around him flared sullen pink, gave—and tightened like a drum head, flinging him back, off his feet, willy-nilly into the chair, ghostly hands around his throat.
"I do not permit!" The mist filling his mouth softened the shout to a whisper, but it would appear that in this, his will was, yet, sufficient.
The pressure around his throat faded.
He was alone in his chair, surrounded by mist.
Deliberately, Altimere sat upright, adjusted his collar, and closed his eyes.
He had not wished to do this; had not wished to place his pretty child in peril. But where was her safety, with him imprisoned?
Gathering his kest, he composed himself, and mentally told over those things which were bound to him. Not for him the gemstones and flowers braided into the hair, nor the knotted bits of silk. No; he was Altimere of the Elder Fey, and he had no use for such stratagems and tricks.
It was the necklace he reached for, showing blackly iridescent before his mind's eye. He did not like to endanger his child in this way, but, really, what choice did he have?
Altimere touched the necklace with his will, issued the command—
. . . and cried out as the image faded away into the mist, leaving an echoing emptiness behind.