“I’m going anyway,” said Withi stubbornly.
“I’ll go, too,” said Heric with a leer.
“You’ll not!” said the sergeant, “and that by my order. We’ve no time to waste. We ride to Biscop Thierra at dawn.”
“None of you are brave enough to go,” declared Withi with a contemptuous toss of her head.
“I’ll go,” said Alain, and then started, surprised to hear his voice so loud in summer’s drowsing endless afternoon that melded into the long bright evening.
Everyone stared at him. Most of the men-at-arms laughed, eyeing him where he sat, the only person among them to keep Lackling company. He was nearly as filthy as Lackling.
Old Raimond snorted but said nothing.
“Who’s this stripling?” demanded Heric. “Enough of a chickling to grow some down on his cheek but not more of a man than that! Or hoping to become one!” He chuckled at his own joke, although no one else did.
“He’s the stableboy,” said Cook, not unkindly.
Alain found that, once noticed, he did not like the attention. He had grown comfortable with anonymity. He lowered his gaze and stared fixedly at the table.
“He’s the only one brave enough to go!” said Withi.
“Heric!” The sergeant looked annoyed. “If you’ve a mind to act like a fool, I’ll see you’re whipped in the morning. Here, girl. I’ve a better idea for your entertainment tonight.”
Alain looked up to see the sergeant draw the girl closer against him, but Withi had a mulish look on her face now, and she shoved him away. “You may all laugh, but I’m going.”
Heric stood up. “I won’t let any stableboy—”
“Heric, sit down or I’ll whip you right here!”
Heric vacillated between drunken pride and the fear of immediate humiliation. Finally he sat.
Lackling burped loudly and, when everyone laughed, blinked good-naturedly into their attention. Sergeant Fell went back to talking of the Eika raids and of the count’s plans to protect his lands and villages along the coast.
It was easy enough for Alain to slip away, once the sergeant had gotten into full flood about the latest devastated village and the rumors that a convent much farther east—over the border into Wendar—had been set upon by the Eika. He had heard that all the nuns and laywomen had been raped and murdered except for the ancient abbess, who had been set free with her feet mutilated to walk the long, painful road to the nearest village.
It was finally twilight, a handful of stars coming to life against the darkening sky. It had to be true! Only by visiting the ruins on a night when the shades of the old builders might return could he learn the truth.
He changed into his clean shirt—for Aunt Bel was too proud to send him away with only one—and pulled his old linen tunic on over it. After some hesitation, he borrowed a lantern. Then, taking a stout stick from the stables, he set off on the track that wound around the earthen walls and four wooden towers of Count Lavastine’s fortress and up into the wooded hills behind. Of Withi he caught neither sight nor sound. He walked alone except for the night animals: an owl’s hoot, the flap of wings, a shriek, then a sudden frantic rustling in the undergrowth.
It was terribly dark and there was no moon, though the stars were uncannily bright. Eventually his eyes adjusted. He dared not use the lantern yet; oil was too precious. It was a fair long walk up along the hill and curving back into the wilder wood beyond. By the time the path led him up to where the tree line ended abruptly at the edge of the ruins, the bright red star—the Serpent’s Eye—rising in the east had moved well up into the sky.
Alain paused at the edge of the trees. The forest ended abruptly here, thick, ancient trees in an oddly straight line at the clearing’s edge. No saplings encroached on the meadow beyond. Though it had taken uncounted years for the old buildings to fall into such complete ruin—many generations back, long before the Emperor Taillefer’s time, even back to the time when the blessed Daisan first walked on the Earth and brought his message to the faithful—still the forest had never overtaken the stones. There was something unnatural here.
He felt all at once that the stones were aware of him.
An outer wall of stone—still almost as tall as he was—circled the inner ruins. The craggy height of hill rose above it, trees straggling along its slopes. It was far quieter here than it had been in the woods. As he stared, a shadow flitted above and vanished into the trees. He gripped the stick more tightly in his left hand and picked his way carefully across the uneven ground to a gap in the wall. It looked like a sally port or servant’s entrance, or something more arcane, unknowable to men. Now stone had fallen from the wall to partially block it. If the gap had once been shuttered by a door, that door was gone. He climbed carefully over the tumbled stone and paused at the top, staring into the ruin.