Ironheart. Emily French

and thickening. She had to work fast. There was much to do before supper. So she controlled herself as well as she could, and twisted ’round to face her great-aunt.

      “What profits me to object? I am constrained and cannot stray from Grandy’s decree.”

      “How long can we wait?”

      “Wait for what? Grandy sees his lordship of the northern marches foundering. If the knight does not fulfil his promise by the morrow, then Grandy will find another willing to wed me.”

      “I can understand how sweet freedom is, Brenna, but you must wed sometime. My brother would not insist on your marrying someone who displeases you, and you must have a life of your own.”

      “I have a life…in my thoughts, and in my dreams. That will have to suffice.”

      “You were never so credulous before.”

      “The bride-price has been paid. The wedding feast is prepared. The priest is here. Most surely, there will be a marriage.”

      Follow the road, the leper said.

      Trouble was, the road appeared and disappeared by turns in the uneven light of the forest. At a lichen-mottled outcrop of rock, Leon reined in and dismounted. Deso tugged at the rein, impatient, and leaves stirred and rustled under his massive hooves.

      Leon walked, leading his big creamy-pale destrier along the brown, wet depths of the drifting leaves, following the ancient stonework until the trees grew so close he could no longer find the next white stone to guide him. It was like a ghost road; the only other soul he’d seen in five hours was a leper.

      Shadows enveloped him. Even on a sunny day the massive trees in this region were dense enough to filter light, but this had not been a sunny day. The last hours plodding through rainy mist and mud had scarcely discomforted him, for he was already beyond weariness, his flesh chilled by the wind.

      I am lost… he thought. He wished he could lie down and rest. His head throbbed, his mouth was dry and his throat burned. He kept walking, light-headed with hunger. He had given the last of his bread to the leper squatting beside an empty alms bowl at the crossroads in exchange for directions to Valle Crucis.

      That had been midmorning. Now it was near nightfall. Wrong way, something said to him. He was certain of it. This was not at all where he’d intended to go. He looked back. Already the trees had closed in upon the path. He could see no more than a few lengths behind, a few lengths ahead.

      I have done a foolish thing, he thought, wishing he and his escort had never been parted; and then he shook off the feeling as too much caution. Within a day of his meeting with the king’s chamberlain, he’d taken his leave, gathered his men and headed for Wales, though the frosts were still too bitter for any greening of the land.

      Six weeks later, appalling storm rains swelled the rivers and brooks, drowned the upland bogs and rendered the hillsides treacherous. The company had wrapped their weapons in oiled leather and themselves in heavy hooded cloaks and pressed on without pausing. Wagons bogged in roads turned to quagmires, sumpter mules sank to their haunches in mud and tempers became frayed.

      Lodgings had been small and scant. His men grumbled under their breaths, laying wagers on whether Ironheart would command them to harden themselves yet further by camping in the open. It was cruelly hard, but then had come the worst blow of all. Wet fever struck down half his company. Rather than delay further, and only after much argument with his sergeant, he’d left his men at Crewe under the command of Rodney of Leyburn, while he continued on with only his squire, Thomas, to attend him.

      It had seemed a good idea at the time. Now, though, he wondered if he’d been too rash. He desperately needed food and shelter for the night, for by now it was painfully obvious that the leper had not had the faintest notion of Valle Crucis.

      A chill convulsed him. His brain was whirling with half-formed thoughts. Was this a fool’s mission, riding for Wales? It was a long way to go on a hunch.

      Still, he had a duty. He would deliver the relic of the Holy Cross entrusted to him by the monks at Cluny, a perfectly natural reason to visit the abbey—and to discover whether the informant’s reports were true or false. After that, he was not certain. He was tired of political intrigue. Mayhap he could resign as the king’s judiciar and so buy some time, a chance to decide what he should do next.

      He could go to Dinas Bran. His heart slammed against his ribs. It was not sane. It was, if one was a fool. And no one could accuse him of that. Intemperate, perhaps. But not a fool.

      Or he could take another fork in the road. He could go to Whittington, claim it as was his legal right. Then perhaps he could move forward and not constantly think back toward the lost things he remembered. Making peace with that, he could perhaps begin to see things as vividly ahead of him, instead of the gray space that seemed to occupy all his future…

      “I think we’re a long way from nowhere, don’t you?” The destrier twitched its ears at the sound of his voice, and a rising wind whispered assent through the wet branches.

      The road bent around an out-thrust knee of rock. It was the solid ground ahead that beckoned him, and his feet were very glad to feel that solidity under them as he left the forest behind. He was onto a well-worn path. He glanced up the slope, saw stones and vines through the trees, saw stone walls and turrets, saw…

      A truly wondrous sight.

      Dinas Bran!

      The castle enjoyed a vantage over all the valley and perhaps the plains and hills beyond, to all the distance a clear day would afford. Like a great hog’s back on top of the hill it stood, a brooding stone pile with thick gnarled walls and an air of neglect. Not as fine as some, but a sturdy, well-built fortification for all that, with narrow openings in it here and there through which it might be defended.

      A bell began to toll from the walls, waking echoes across the hills. Following these echoes other sounds began to reverberate from within the keep itself: dogs barking, the calling of voices one to the other, the jingling of horses. Birds rose from the tower, wheeled and drove, chattering, black specks against the lowering sky. Ravens, which gave rise to all manner of lore and legend.

      Deso’s nose met his shoulders and shoved. Leon gathered the reins, which he had let go slack, and remounted. “Hear that, Deso? Do they wait to pick our bones?”

      A dry, distant crack of thunder cut through the gloominess of his thoughts. Ravens were not the only things threatening, it seemed. There was a bank of dark clouds piling up in the north; the kind of clouds that were laden with rain and indiscriminate in their dropping of it. A flicker of lightning ran along the edges of their contours, making them for an instant as sharp and clear as outlines cut from blackened copper.

      Leon urged his mount up the steep incline, black shadow against the sullen light, for the motte and the stronghold above, a swift striding that lost not a pace. The tearing thunder-crash repeated itself a few seconds later, and just a little longer than before. The stallion snorted and shied, setting the equipment jingling and creaking. He put them to a quicker pace, and they went pell-mell up a chancy turn, over ground buried in leaves, a stretching and gathering of sinew, a flutter of mane, a streak of mire, as if that could make them safe, get them behind gates and walls.

      A vast somber sound boomed out, brazen and measured, the rattle and groan of chains as the portcullis was lowered. It was not an auspicious hour to arrive unheralded and alone. Gates were secured at sundown and reopened with the dawn. Many a traveler who misjudged the timing of his arrival spent an uncomfortable night outside the walls at the mercy of robbers and worse.

      “The lower gate should be open still.”

      The stallion shifted its weight, bowed its head, and made a quiet, disturbed sound. No doubt Deso was thinking of a warm stable, a good rubdown and some sweet oats. He himself wished desperately for a cup of ale, for a place to lie down and rest. But first he had to discover whether the postern gate remained open. He would know soon enough.

      The road bent to follow a curve in the curtain wall where standing stones made an aisle