The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

His voice was soft. “Does the Aldermaston know you stole one of the rings from the old cemetery?” he whispered, nodding down to the front of her dress.

Lia nearly lost her composure. She had forgotten to tuck it back inside her dress and now he had seen it. She said as calmly as she could, “The Aldermaston knows everything that happens at Muirwood. Surely you know that. Why do you need the oats? You know I can keep secrets, Jon Hunter. You know that very well.”

He sighed. “I will tell you, but remember it is a secret.” She nodded eagerly. “I found a horse in the woods today.”

“Really? Can I see it?”

He smirked. “If you do not tell anyone, Lia.”

“Even Pasqua?”

“Of course not her, though you know the Aldermaston trusts her.”

“I will fetch your oats then.” She held the door a moment and then shouted, “Sowe, don’t come out yet. It is Jon.”

She quickly ascended the ladder and carried down a sack of oats. After shoving it into Jon’s hands, she was about the close the door when he stopped it with his boot.

“Whose shirt is drying by the fire?”

For a moment, Lia’s mind emptied of all ideas. Jon was trained as a hunter, and his watchful eyes noticed everything, first the ring and next the shirt. She stood for a moment, guilty, her ideas gone to the winds. Her mouth went dry. What could she say? What could she tell him?

“It is my secret,” Lia said, blushing uncontrollably, and then she had the next idea. “I cannot share it, but you could ask Reome since she knows.”

Jon gave her a confused look and withdrew into the night.

After she shut the door, she pressed her forehead against it. Hiding a man for three days would be more difficult than she thought.



“The first commonly accepted reference to the term ‘Aldermaston’ was engraved in the Third Tome of Soliven, one of the more tedious texts that learners struggle to translate their first year. The passage can be read thus: ‘And he that is the Aldermaston among the brothers and sisters of the Family, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and is consecrated to put on the garments of chaen, shall not reveal his wisdom, nor rend his clothes; neither shall he go in to any dead body; neither shall he go out of the Abbey grounds, nor profane the Abbey grounds; for the crown of the anointing oil is upon him.’ The record goes on to speak about what wife he may take and what blemishes may disqualify him from the anointing.





“This is the accepted origin of the term ‘Aldermaston’ by most learners, and many hold mastons themselves to these high standards, excluding knights, armigers, or squires who fight in the service of their king, properly sanctioned, and thus visit death upon the bodies of their foes.





“I am told there exists another translation of the Tome of Soliven, which mentions and describes the first use of the term ‘Aldermaston’ in a different manner. It tells of King Zedakah, back in the day of the first Family. As a young boy, he was strong enough in the Medium to stop, as Soliven wrote it, the mouths of lions and quench the violence of fire. He instructed the ancestors of the first Family in the order of Aldermaston, telling them that they should have power, through the Medium and by their lineage, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course; to defy the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to stand in the midst of the sun; to do all things according to the will of the Medium, and at its command, subdue principalities and all powers.





“I should think learners would prefer this account, if only the original could be found.”





- Cuthbert Renowden of Billerbeck Abbey



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CHAPTER SEVEN:


The King’s Men





Lia and Sowe both slept in the loft that night. The young man who would not tell them his name insisted on sleeping on rush-matting on the hard kitchen tiles. After complaining that he had dozed for much of the day and was not tired, he paced and skulked through the dark kitchen as if it were a prison. Lia watched him from the loft. After Sowe fell asleep, which never took long, he took up a broom and practiced with it like a sword, swinging the pole around in a series of studied moves, that would have been graceful except for the time he stumbled against a bucket or when the makeshift blade clacked against a table during a down strike. He muttered to himself often. Lia watched for as long as she could keep her eyes open, then fell asleep out of pure exhaustion.

She awoke before dawn and discovered him sitting by the small oven, his face reflecting the hue of the fire, rubbing his mouth as he stared into the flames. His clean shirt covered the chaen, fitting him well at the shoulders. He glanced up at her as she started down the ladder, then looked back at the oven fires.

“Did you sleep?” Lia asked him, noticing the bandage over his eyebrow was missing, the scar red and swollen.