The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

Turning her face the other way, to shut out the sight that would haunt her days, she saw the Tor rising ahead to the east. The Tor was a nearby hill, the highest point in any direction – a bald, crouch-backed hill with a few rings of trees along the lower fringes of its steep green slopes. As a child, it had always tempted her. But it seemed so far from the abbey walls that she knew she and Sowe would never be able to make it there, climb it, and return before dark. The best she had been able to do was get Jon Hunter’s description of it. He had been to the top many times. It is nothing but a bald, crouch-backed hill, Lia. It is a lonely hill. There are other hills in this Hundred with better views than it. But that made Lia love it even more, even if she believed she would never be able to climb it.

How long before the sheriff and his men would have their horses saddled? How long before their pursuers came after them? She did not know the land very well but she imagined the road was not safe, not with the king’s army on the way. Being a wretched, she only knew the names of the streets the bordered the Abbey on two sides – High Street and Chalkwell.

Looking up at the Tor again, she had a thought. If they needed a place to hide – or a direction to ride – the Cruciger orb would guide them.

“Stop the horse,” Lia said.

“Are you sick?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No, remember the king’s army. The orb! I have the orb to guide us.”

Colvin sharply pulled on the reins and the mount fought him. He tugged harder, several jerking motions, and tamped the flanks with his boots, even though he did not have spurs. The stallion snorted and huffed, still giddy with the thrill of the run. Colvin calmed it with his voice as it finally came to a stop and thrashed its mane. He patted its neck soothingly, while Lia opened the pouch at her waist and with trembling hands, withdrew the Cruciger orb. Her arms shook from holding on to him so tightly, and the orb wobbled in her hand.

In her mind, she thought the words, Show us a safe path to Winterrowd.

Again the amazing spindles went to work, spinning deftly and quickly, pointing due east, directly at the Tor.

Colvin looked back at the direction. “It is pointing east. Winterrowd is the other way. The last time you asked it, it pointed west. This makes no sense.”

Lia looked at it sternly. “Show me Winterrowd.”

The spindles swung around and pointed west.

“Why is it showing us both?”

“Show us the safe way to Winterrowd,” she answered, and the spindles pointed back to the Tor. Writing appeared on the lower half of the orb.

“How can Winterrowd be in both directions?” Colvin asked.

But Lia understood. “Because it knows things that we do not. It knows the way to Winterrowd, but it also knows other things. Like what is down this road. The safe way to Winterrowd brings us to the Tor. Guide us there and if it changes directions, I will tell you.”

“Should we trust it?”

“Do you think you can find the way yourself?” she answered sternly.

Colvin made a clicking sound and tugged gently on the reins, leading the stallion off the road and into the trees. A quick tap and it plunged up ahead into the nest of towering silver birch. The branches were twisted and gnarled, trunks warped and bent and writhing in the breeze. Twigs and leaves churned under the hooves. The shade brought cold and Lia felt a shiver tear through her. Part of her was exhausted from the sheer terror of their escape.

Past the screen of trees, a gentle hill sloped downwards to the base of the Tor. And there, before their eyes, a walled garden nestled at the base of the hill a short distance away. Jon Hunter had never mentioned its existence before. Lia knew instinctively that it was their destination.

Colvin looked over his shoulder at her. A ball of sweat trickled down his cheek.

She nodded and they started down the slope towards a doorway set into the stone wall. On the air behind them, the sound of charging hooves drifted in from a distance. Colvin kicked the stallion hard and Lia clutched him with one arm and pressed the orb against her queasy stomach.



“There is but one way to truly gain mastery over the Medium, and that is to realize you cannot truly master it at all. It masters you. When one attempts to force it, compel it, command it, or otherwise exercise dominion over it – the power flees like a timid bird. That is because the Medium knows our innermost thoughts. It knows how we intend to use it. Man may deceive other men. But one simply does not deceive the Medium. If its will is sought, it will come. If we emulate the principles by which is thrives, it flourishes in us. Pride is poison to it. In reality, there is perhaps not one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as our pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please. It is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. You will see it, perhaps, even within the Abbeys of the realm. For even if I, an Aldermaston, could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”





- Cuthbert Renowden of Billerbeck Abbey



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CHAPTER NINETEEN:


Blood Spring