In contrast, Dulgath sported a wide porch with columns that held up the extended roof to shade it from the summer sun. This was less a fortress and more a glorified country manor. That was one of the things Sherwood loved about the castle and, by extension, Nysa Dulgath.
Once on the porch, he made a quick turn to the right to break Fawkes’s line of sight. Immediately his back felt better. Elevated as he was, Sherwood had a broad view of the courtyard. The shadow cast by the east tower divided the yard into dark and light, the contrast leaving those areas in the sun so brilliant they looked washed out. Having no place to go except away from Fawkes, Sherwood stopped three steps after making his escape and stood dumbly on the porch. He was acutely aware of how his arms hung pointlessly at his sides, how heavy his body felt, how dry his mouth was, and how none of it mattered. Depression was closing in; the dark clouds were circling, creeping up, preparing to smother. Just then, he saw movement, or thought he did.
Like his arms, his eyes had been left with no clear direction. Sherwood had been aimlessly staring because at that moment he found even the effort of shifting his gaze to be too much. If he had been walking or merely glancing around the way a person typically might, he never would have noticed the motion. Having seen the subtle shift of light and darkness near the well, he was slow to grasp the impossibility of what he saw. No one was there and nothing was moving in the breeze, because there wasn’t one.
A cloud—maybe? Or a bird’s shadow?
Sherwood stepped off the porch and looked up. The sky was clear.
Everyone—everyone is in the Great Hall. So who—or what—is near the well?
The or what surprised him. Sherwood wasn’t usually a believer in the fantastical. He’d spent too many drunken nights with court entertainers. Minstrels, poets, and storytellers accepted him as part of their club and told him the real stories behind the tales of valor and wonder. At a young age, he discovered the truth about the world—mysteries were designed for a purpose, and if something seemed too fantastical to be true, it was. But he was the only audience in the courtyard, and he’d entered only a second before. What had moved in that corner of the yard didn’t look human. Nothing more than a shadow, but the movement was strange, too fast, and—
Didn’t it go up rather than across?
Such a thing wasn’t possible. There hadn’t been a sound. In the stillness of the empty, windless yard, Sherwood could’ve heard a leaf fall, but there was nothing.
Who or what is near the well?
The question lingered, and Sherwood realized that the hurricane—with its dreadful, smothering clouds—was holding off. The storm had miraculously been brought to bay by this aberration. Keeping his eyes locked on the spot, he descended the steps and started across the courtyard.
Along with the odd sense that what he’d seen wasn’t normal was the equally strong impression that it wasn’t good. With each step, he became more certain of two things. The first was the wickedness of what he approached, and the second was that it was still there. Just a day before, he would have returned inside, but it wasn’t the previous day and Sherwood found himself not so much brave as invincible. He was a soaked man caught in a summer rainstorm.
What harm can it do that hasn’t already been done?
The inner ward’s well was set in a niche surrounded on three sides by screening walls. Sherwood was certain something was hiding in that little space where his sight was blocked. Crossing the yard, he approached the well head-on, but saw nothing except the beautiful stone mural of fish and the side-cranking windlass that looked a bit like a sailing ship’s wheel.
“Sir?”
Sherwood jumped at the sound.
“Mister Stow?” Rissa Lyn had followed him across the yard. In both her hands, she held empty buckets.
He must have looked strange, creeping up on the well and staring at it. The expression on her face said as much. She even gave a concerned glance at the well, and then another behind her.
“Is the…ah—has Lady Dulgath concluded her meeting then?” he asked, trying his best to sound sane.
“Yes, sir.”
“No one admitted to it, did they?”
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t think they would.”
“Me neither, sir.”
Sherwood nodded and forced a smile that must have been miserable, judging by the way Rissa Lyn grimaced in return.
“I’m sorry. You’re here to fetch water. Don’t let me get in your way.” He gave a curt nod and started back toward the castle.
“Sir?”
He paused, turning to look at Rissa Lyn standing in the sunlight. She was still grimacing, but not at him. She looked frightened.
“What is it?”
“I know who busted up your things,” the maid said in a whisper, her sight darting toward the castle doors. Then she turned and walked to the well, setting the buckets down and reaching out for the windlass crank.
“Let me help you with that,” Sherwood said, and rushed over to rotate the wheel.
“Thank you, sir. You’re too kind, sir,” Rissa Lyn said loudly. Then, as he began cranking, she whispered, “I was woken by the noise, an awful cracking. I often sleep in the linen storage. It saves me from crossing the yard in the dark.”
She glanced around apprehensively at the old walls. “No one cares ’cause it’s just me who goes in there. So I was just down the hall, you see, and I heard it. I don’t know what I was thinking…going down there, I mean. It sounded like a monster was loose in the castle—crashes, shattering glass, cracks, grunts, and under all of that a muttering like someone was talking to themselves. I honestly don’t know how I found the courage to peer through the crack in the doorway.”
“What did you see?” Already Sherwood had convinced himself that the phantom shadow near the well was some ancient ghost or demon responsible for the destruction of his easel and paints. Rissa Lyn’s answer was both disappointing and depressing.
“Was Lord Fawkes, sir.” She emptied the water from the well’s bucket into one of her own. “He was in the study working up a sweat after taking a real dislike to your painting stand. Hard work, I guess, difficult to break.”
“Did he see you?”
“Oh—no, sir. I just took a peek, and when I saw who it was, I ran back to my cupboard. People think he’s swell and all, but—he scares me.”
Sherwood let the wheel spin, taking the haul back down to the bottom of the well. “Scares me, too.”
This made her smile at him for the first time. “It just wasn’t right for him to do that, not to someone as…well, as nice as you.”
“Thank you, Rissa Lyn.” He started cranking again. “Did you tell Lady Dulgath?”
The smile vanished and that look of fear rushed back. “No, sir.”
“Why not? She was asking for—”
“She was asking for the guilty to step forward. His Lordship wasn’t there. And if he were, he wouldn’t bother.”
“But you could’ve explained about seeing him.”
She shook her head. Rissa Lyn had curly hair that jiggled like leaves on a bush well after she stopped. “He would find out, and who would believe me? He’d just deny it, and then I would be in trouble for lying, even though I wasn’t.” She bit her lip, and he understood.
Sherwood wasn’t making idle conversation about Lord Fawkes being scary. The lord had the brutal aggression of ambitious men. He wouldn’t think twice about crushing or intimidating those he saw as below him.
Sherwood grabbed the well’s bucket this time and filled her other bucket. “You can still tell Lady Dulgath in private. Talk to her like you’re doing with me now. No one but you and she would know what you said.”
The curls shook again. “Me and Her Ladyship…we…I don’t speak to her.”