Leta’s gaze ran over the lines and marks that flickered along with the candlelight. She had never been permitted into Aiven’s library unescorted, and the old chronicler who’d holed himself away in there chased women out as a terrier might chase rats. Leta could not recall the last time she had been so near a book.
“And these marks and scratches,” she said, speaking softly, “come together to make what I said. To make the rhyme.” She shook her head, smiling in wonder. “That is magic, you know. And you are a wizard!”
Silence above, then shifting feet.
“My father’s chronicler could not do this work,” she continued, looking from one page to the next to see the wealth of text held there. “Father says he can scarcely put three words to a page, but he’s the only man I’d ever met until now who could read or write.” She looked up into the shadows of the loft again. “Did you teach yourself?”
“No,” said the Chronicler. “I was apprenticed when quite young to Raguel, the former chronicler. When he died, I took over.”
“Do you have a special gift? A magic that enables you to learn?”
“Anyone can learn to read or write.” The voice was drier than ever. “Few bother to try. At Earl Ferox’s request, I am attempting to teach Lord Alistair. But he can’t be bothered to apply himself.”
Leta felt cold suddenly, colder even than when she had stood in the great outer courtyard. “You don’t think much of my lord Alistair, then?”
Once more that wall of silence was her answer. She wondered if the Chronicler had not heard her soft voice and opened her mouth to repeat her question when she heard from above:
“He will make a fine Earl of Gaheris one day. He is just the man old Ferox would wish to inherit, and he will earn the respect of all the North Country.”
Leta waited, but the Chronicler said no more. She stood shivering in the candle’s glow, studying the illumination of the House of Lights and wondering if the Chronicler found her tiresome. Perhaps it was time to return to her rooms, to her lady’s scolding, to supper with Lady Mintha and a groom who did not want her.
Instead, she said, “Could you teach me?”
“What?”
The answer came quick and sharp, and Leta almost lacked the courage to continue. “Could you teach me?” she said, forcing herself to speak. “To read?”
“You?”
In rushed Leta’s practical side, raging vehemently. Don’t be a goose! You are a woman. Don’t forget your place. You can’t learn to read and write! You are intended to marry and bear children.
Leta cringed and almost bowed out then and there.
But her rebellious side replied, Pttttthp! with such clear articulation that her practical side was shocked into silence.
“Why not?” she demanded, a little breathless, as though she’d just run a mile in the cold.
Another long silence. Then the Chronicler said, “I’ve never known a woman to read or write.”
“Does that mean it can’t be done?” Leta asked, half fearing his answer.
At first, nothing. Then the stamp of feet across the loft. Leta turned and realized that there was a narrow, spiral staircase in one corner leading down to the floor on which she stood. She saw a shadow moving and knew the Chronicler was descending. He stepped into the candlelight.
He was young. She noticed this with a start, for she had assumed from his voice that he was older than her father. But indeed, he was as young as Alistair, younger even.
He was also a dwarf.
Though his face and features were fine, his body was disproportionate, his arms and legs too short, his chest like a barrel. He looked up at her, his eyes pale and bright in the candlelight, and they glittered with an expression she could not quite read. As though he was always angry and barely suppressing that anger even now.
Leta realized she was staring. She blushed and looked away.
The Chronicler’s voice was dry as stone. “I’m sorry, Lady Leta of Aiven,” he said. “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”
“I said,” she replied and forced herself to meet his gaze, “does that mean it can’t be done?”
The Chronicler studied her, his eyes shrewd and missing few details. She felt unprotected somehow and wanted to hide. Instead, she held herself straight and hoped her face betrayed none of her many fears.
“No,” said the Chronicler at last. “No, I don’t think it means that at all.”
3
SOME CALL HIM THE CROOKED ONE; others, simply the Mound. He appears without warning, without premonition, a cancerous growth latching hold of the land. He is black earth covered in dead branches that rise like antlers to claw the air. No one knows how he comes uninvited into the protected realms of Faerie lords and ladies. When he appears, there can be no hope.
I was scarcely more than a fledgling then, new on my wings, bright and full of the life I believed was to come. I had never heard of the Parasite, never heard the cursed breath of his name. But my mother whispered it even then.
“Cren Cru! Cren Cru has come among us!”