The Witch of Glenaster Read online

  My mother’s father’s family had come south from Lampra, east of the Capital, following the Anvil until they had reached our village, where my great-grandmother had given birth to my grandfather, and there they had decided to stay. My mother had always said there was a cousin of ours living in Ampar – Cousin Beatrice - and sometimes she spoke wistfully of going north to visit her, though she never did. I had no idea if Cousin Beatrice was alive or dead; but I thought of her now, as we headed into the unknown lands.

  The mountains reared up like waves to our left, and after nearly a day’s walking we were upon the broad Bridge of Abanon, crossing high over the Anvil. We gazed downstream, back towards the village that was our home, and the westering valleys that lay beyond it, as the river churned grimly beneath us, and the dark came on.

  We spent the night in a barn just north of the Bridge, in the quiet fields of Nave, untouched by the drakes, and it was not comfortable but the night at least was warm. In the morning we ate our fill of blackberries from the hedgerows, so that our fingers grew purple from the juice, and for a while we were almost cheerful in the autumn sunshine, in that way that one can forget for a moment even the most terrible grief; until it returns, and you feel guilty at having allowed yourself a respite from it. As the mountains of the Fallen Range fell away to the west, the rougher ground became fresh and soft under our feet, and the birdsong more bold. This was Calm, and it was aptly named, for nothing angry or unstilled seemed to rage here. The tree-clustered combes sank into the wide floor of the valley, and for the first time since leaving our own home we saw houses, and people, and smoke from friendlier fires; lazing out of chimneys, or sweeping from bonfires in well-leafed back gardens.

  Folk at first waved cheerily, and said hello; but soon we saw the worried looks on their faces, the sense that something was not quite right: two children travelling alone, fear in their eyes and no adult near; this could only mean trouble, and some closed their doors on our approach. No doubt they had heard of the devastation further south, and did not want to invite such destruction upon themselves. But when we reached one of the larger hamlets, some few miles on, a large woman with a blue headscarf and a silly, plump face came up to us, some fresh linen in her hand.

  “You’ll be wanting to rest, won’t you?” she asked.

  We both nodded.

  “Then come inside. Heavens, look at you two! I don’t know how you came here, and so pale and dirty the pair of you, but you can tell me about it over cake. Do you like cake?”

  My brother nodded eagerly, and then burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The parlour of the woman’s house was fresh-scrubbed and light, and there was a kettle warming cheerfully on the stove. I thought of Alice Pepper, and my eyes stung.

  “You’ll have to watch me work, I’m afraid,” said the large woman, as she scooted back and forth, and I was surprised by her speed and grace. “That’s what my husband does, and him not yet fifty, but lazy to the root of his bones, and much less cheerful!” She laughed, then bent down towards my brother: “Do you like toffee cake?”

  He nodded, but then said, his voice small and far away:

  “But I’m not hungry…”

  The woman smiled.

  “Well I’ll cut you a piece, anyhow,” she said, “and you can eat it or not, as you choose.”

  She did so, and Magnus soon fetched it up in his soft fingers, a look of guilt stealing across his face at his enjoyment of it. I ate more out of politeness than anything else, and I noticed that the woman seemed to look at me pityingly, and I was uncomfortable at it. Magnus licked his fingers, black with treacle, and burped. Then he cried again, and I had to console him.

  Still the woman asked us no questions, and after a while I began to wish she would; I wanted someone to confide in, to share my secret with. Magnus would not speak unless I did, and what honestly could I say? “We are on our way north. Our village was destroyed by the fire-drakes, and our parents are gone. I am going to Glenaster with my brother, to kill the Witch there, and when she is dead these lands shall have peace”? I would feel stupid saying it, and regret doing so. So I watched my brother, and gazed out of the window at the thick-clustered ivy framing it; and the woman watched us both, as she folded her linen and ironed her shirts.

  Finally, after she had given us more food and drink, and let us wash in her bathroom, she said:

  “You’re going north, then?”

  I drew a breath.

  “Yes,” I replied, adding quickly: “We have family there.”

  The woman nodded, wiping her hands on her apron, her arms rippling like dough.

  “Well, I won’t try and stop you, though I worry about you. You’re so young. But if that is where you are headed… You seem like a sensible girl, though your face has a dark look, and I worry about that, too. But you’ll be all right while you remain in the valley: folk are suspicious here, but most are friendly once you get to know ‘em. They’ll no doubt give you some food, or let you bed down for the night somewhere. But once you climb up to the Plateau, and the places beyond it, you’ll want to be more careful: there are all kinds of strangers and wilder types about these days, and if I were you I’d find a guardsman who’s headed your way. They often like company, those that travel alone, and will lend you their sword if danger presses.”

  She sighed.

  “Ah, me..! I’d let you stay here, as long as you wished, if it was up to me…” And my brother’s eyes darted up at this. “But my husband, he’s not so fond of children, and he wouldn’t allow it.” She frowned. Deep, fat wrinkles kneaded her face. “He’ll be back from the forge later, wanting his supper. Old miserybones…”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We took our leave of the woman with regret, as the morning wearied into afternoon, and before we left she gave us each a small parcel of food – “Just some cakes and pork pie, enough to keep body and soul together for a while” – and a clean shirt for my brother, and a summer dress for me (“They belonged to my sister’s two, but they’re long since grown.”). She also gave me a pair of daps, and I was grateful for them, for my feet were callused and sore. She folded the clothes carefully in paper, and put them with our other provisions in a canvas satchel, which she hung carefully over my shoulder. Then she kissed us both, and wished us a safe journey; and as we threaded our way through the sunflowers at her gate, I thought when I looked back that she was crying, though she just waved us on, and smiled. And I realized she had not even told us her name, and we hadn’t asked.

  It was true, what she said, that people in the valley – some, at least – were friendly, and that night we slept in the shade of a mulberry tree, outside the house of an old man who, like the woman, did not ask us any questions, indeed hardly said a word. Magnus was restless during the night, fidgeting so much I had to tell him sharply to be still; and then he cried, and I held him, until the sun came up the heavens, and we had to be going once more.

  We breakfasted on apples the old man gave us, and some of the cakes whose crumbs now dusted the lining of the satchel; and we picked blackberries as we walked along, an eager brook babbling beside us most of the morning, until it turned east, and we headed on, northwards. By lunchtime Magnus was dragging his feet; by mid-afternoon he was hardly moving at all. Finally he stopped, dead, as the dusk settled, and I tried to urge him onward. But he refused, shaking his head in that stubborn way of his, his arms crossed, his face a sulking frown.

  “What is it?” I asked, feeling as stupid as I must have sounded. “We can’t stop here.”

  He glowered at me.

  “I want to go home. Why have you brought us here? Mum and Dad will be looking for us. They will wonder where we are. Take me home.” And he set his feet as firmly as he could.

  “Little one… We need to get help. That’s what Mum and Dad would want. We need to go to the Capital, to speak to the emperor. Our village has been destroyed, Mag. We cannot go back. You see that, don’t you…? Here, let me give you a hand…�
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  He drew away from me, red-faced and implacable.

  “What about these messages? That you were going to leave for them? In case they follow us…”

  “I have left them, mister,” (and I said this gently). “I put a note in the woman’s bathroom, and one in the old man’s kitchen…” And indeed I had, though it was more for honesty’s sake, as a thank you for their kindness, than out of any hope of rescue. “You know I want to see Mum and Dad just as much as you…” And I held out my arm to him, and silently, after a few moments, he took it, wiping the rumour of a tear from his cheek, and we continued on.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Our journey for that first week or so followed a similar pattern: I always wishing to push forward, to get to our destination as quickly as possible; my brother hanging back, cautious and reluctant, increasingly suspicious of me, and of the situation he found himself in. He was old enough to know when he was being patronized, and to insist on his privacy when he wished it. There was little enough of that now, however, and I did not want to be his enemy. As well as the love I had for him, I had an obligation – I was his parent now – and besides, he might be of help to me when the time came to kill the Witch. She was his enemy as well as mine, and there was no reason why we could not kill her together. The victory would then belong to both of us.

  So I did everything I could to keep him on my side, and sometimes he fought me, and at other times he acquiesced with barely a murmur; but he never really became anything like the accomplice I wanted him to be.

  Still, God was kind to us in the valley. The weather stayed warm, and there always seemed enough to eat, and somewhere sheltered to sleep; and just when we were on the point of despairing, help would arrive unexpectedly, or something would happen to lift our spirits.

  There were enough kind people to keep us fed and alive, and clean, all the way on our journey through Calm, and the canvas bag started to grow heavy with things, so that we almost had too much, and the strap left welts in my shoulder. What concerned me more, however, was the knowledge – the absolute certainty – that, as we made our way along the valley floor, past villages and farmsteads and lonely orchards, we were not alone.

  There were other people about, of course – farmers and labourers going to and from their fields, tradesmen with packhorses, women labouring under great bags of washing while their men chewed tobacco and watched them do so - but always they seemed unthreatening, even if they were not friendly, and we never strayed too far from the track that ribboned its way, mile upon mile, along the valley floor. Now and again we would see a more frightened look in the eyes of other travellers – a young family, their cart piled clumsily with belongings, or an elderly woman, shivering and close to death – but they did not worry us, nor we them, and we passed each other with barely a murmur. But sometimes we would spend half the day without seeing a living soul, and we had grown used to being solitary, only seeking out help when night fell.

  It was about the third day that I noticed it: a movement, small but undeniable, in the high hedge that ran beside the track. When I turned to look, I could see nothing; but as I moved on I became sure there was something, like an animal but rather bigger, tracking us, quietly, on the other side.

  My brother was in one of his fiercer moods, and didn’t seem to notice, trudging on miserably; and indeed I was relieved when, after about half an hour, whatever it was seemed to disappear, and there was nothing else strange that day.

  However, as the days slid by, that first uneasiness grew steadily; and, though I could not always see it, and though I could not always hear it, I was certain something was following us, and that even the air seemed strange when it was around. I thought my brother caught some of this, too, though he was too buried in his grief to pay much attention.

  I tried to ignore it, and after ten days of walking we were almost at the head of the valley, as it climbed upwards to the Fearless Plateau, that settles for many leagues high above the hills of Catherineshire and the Light Lands.

  It was on our way out of the valley, as the path grew steep and ivy-strewn, that we first encountered Thomas Taper.

  My brother had slipped and lost his footing, sliding a good few feet down the bank and leaving a trail of turned earth and crushed bits of creeper. I almost laughed, but bit it back when I saw his face, and worried he might be really hurt. But it was just his pride that was bruised, and he fought off my attempts at help with angry tears.

  As I pulled him to his feet, I heard a muffled cry, away in the bushes, and stopped, listening hard; for I was sure it had been a human being, not an animal or a bird, who had made the sound. I signalled my brother to be silent, and we drew back as far as we could into the undergrowth. Across from us, about thirty feet away, a rowan tree shook violently for a moment, and then was still. And then, as we watched to see what would happen, there was a rush of noise behind us, and we found we were surrounded by three men, two of whom had daggers drawn, and the third, stinking of mould and with breath like tar, his arms crossed, looking down upon us. He was nearer seven foot than six, and to us he seemed like a giant. Unlike his companions, who were merely desperate, he had a pitiless look, as of someone who cannot be bargained or reasoned with, but will do as he pleases until somebody stops him.

  “Well, this is a pretty scrape…! Two childers, all alone, wandering the wild places… ‘Tain’t wise, is it, Mister Rawlings…?”

  “’Tain’t,” said one of the men, the one closest to me, who now had my shoulder in a painful grip.

  “I wonder, Mister Rawlings, honestly I do, how good folk allow young ‘uns such as these to go off all by themselves, what with the dangerous men that you find nowadays, cutpurses and such, hiding in wait to trap the unwary…”

  Mister Rawlings made a sound that resembled a rat being drowned in mud.

  “What do you think, miss?” asked our interrogator. “Hmm? What would you say to this state of affairs? I’ll wager you’ve got some pretty things in that bag, eh? Why don’t we just take a look…?”

  I struggled slightly, and spat at him, and the saliva hit him square in the face. He stepped back a little, and, retrieving a handkerchief from the pocket of his britches, flicked it theatrically, and then made a big show of wiping it across his cheek. Then he advanced on me, till I could almost taste his breakfast he was so close.

  “Now, please, please don’t be doing that again, miss. Me and my companions here, we’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble, and we wouldn’t want to have to cut your young brother’s throat to make you cooperate, now would we…?”

  And he squeezed my face till it hurt. And the other man, who had said nothing up until now, pulled my brother roughly by the neck, so that he was directly in front of me. He had a dagger to his throat. The steel was pinching his pale skin. My brother was too stunned to cry, but the fear in his eyes broke my heart.

  “Please! Please. You’re scaring him. I’ll give you what you want. Let my brother go. Please…”

  “Just give us the bag!” said Rawlings, and made a swipe for it, his beard scratching against my ear as he did so. But the big man put a hand up.

  “Wait!” he said. “She says she’ll give us what we want. Do you hear that, Mister Rawlings…?” And he licked his lips, and a strange look I had not seen before came into his eye. “I know what I want…”

  He regarded me for a moment. I felt a patch of warm drool forming against my skin, and Rawlings, his mouth so close I could feel his tongue quivering within, laughed his horrible laugh. And the other man, who was fat and stupid and had a knife to my brother’s throat, laughed too. It was the most disgusting sound I had ever heard.

  But as the big man moved towards me, his fingers twitching at his belt-buckle and his face flushed and sweating, there was a loud crack in the wood behind, and as he turned to look, a dagger thudded firmly into Rawlings’ neck before anyone was aware it had taken flight, and immediately his hand went slack, and his own blade fell to the ground. He crumpled like a sack
, and I was free. But as I looked up to help my brother, I saw the big man turn back; and when he did, there was a look of surprise on his face, as if he was puzzled by something. His left ear was missing, and there was blood pooling thickly about his temple, and for a moment he looked at me helplessly, like an enormous child. And as he too collapsed to the ground, I saw another figure, a tall man, dressed in a dull-brown greatcoat, his face hidden by a wide-brimmed hat, carrying a sword freshly used, and staring in our direction. He held up the sword, and pointed it at the man who had Magnus. No words were exchanged, but the man’s trousers became suddenly damp, and he immediately let Magnus go, and scampered off into the trees. I ran to my brother, who was crying now.

  “Oh, little one, it’s all right…” I said, and held him tightly for a good while.

  When I finally released him, I saw that the bodies of the slain men had been buried roughly under a pile of leaves, and their killer was sitting quietly on a tree stump, wiping down his blade.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said, quietly. “They would’ve killed you, you know.”

  For a moment I could not find words.

  “I – do not doubt it…” I said eventually.

  “Cowards like that, who prey on children, they are worth less than beasts…” And he shook his head.

  I could see his face more clearly now. He was a man of about forty, with long, messy hair, grey about the edges, and a faint beard. He finished cleaning his dagger, and replaced it in his belt, next to his sword. Then he looked up at us.

  “I’m Esther,” I said. “Esther Lanark. This is my brother, Magnus. We are from Southtemper, in the Anvil Valley. We are on our way to the Capital.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed a little, as if doubtful of my tale, but only for a moment, and he smiled slightly as he pulled a small cigar from his pocket, and gestured back towards the valley.