Before Winter

Marcus threw him the pouch with the bread and sausage. “If you are hungry before I come back, you can eat this then. I think you’d prefer it to raw fish. I’ll find a fish for myself and be back shortly.” He laid a pistol on the rock beside Devin. “Keep that close at hand while I’m gone.”

Devin’s head still throbbed but he hadn’t admitted that to Marcus. There was no way out of the present situation except to walk back to La Paix and he would do it, whether his head hurt or not. The journey would take longer this time, a week or more, with them having to avoid the roads and any small towns or villages. He leaned back against the rock and closed his eyes; the rushing water of the stream below him formed a soothing backdrop. The forest spoke a dozen peaceful languages around him: birdsong, wind through leaves and needled branches, the scurry of small creatures searching for food.

A cascade of stones and dirt sat him upright, the gun in his hand. Before him was an elderly woman. Her head would have barely come to Devin’s chest and he wasn’t tall. She was like a wizened child; ragged grayish-brown clothing clung to her slight frame, making her blend effortlessly into the rocks and earth behind her. She squatted down, blinking uncertainly at Devin.

“Who are you?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“I might ask the same,” Devin replied. “Who are you?”

She cocked her head as though trying to remember. “I am Lavender. Are you the one those soldiers are looking for?”

Devin feigned nonchalance. “Are they looking for someone?”

“They are,” she said with a fearful look at the road above. Her brow furrowed. “They are always looking for someone and then people die.”

“They won’t hurt you here,” Devin replied.

She frowned, giving her brown wrinkled face the look of an oversized walnut. “They don’t want me. There is no one else in the forest except that man fishing. And you’re on edge,” she prodded. “It makes me think they’re hunting for you.”

“I honestly don’t know who they are hunting for,” Devin replied. “And what business is it of yours anyway?”

“It’s my business to know what happens in these woods,” she said defiantly.

“Well, this particular matter doesn’t concern you.” Devin waved the gun in her direction. “You need to be on your way.”

She laughed again, a deep humorless sound that put Devin’s nerves on edge. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

“I can,” Marcus’ voice said suddenly. He had come up silently behind Devin, his gun in his hand.

Lavender was unconcerned. “You won’t shoot me,” she said. “The sound of a gun will bring those soldiers back here.”

“True,” Marcus answered, his voice deadly. “But I can slit your throat and no one will hear a sound.”

Lavender’s body crumpled, like a bunch of rags thrown on the floor, her gnarled hands went to her scrawny throat. “Why would you kill me? I’ve not done you any harm. I’ve done nothing but speak to the gentleman.”

“He told you to be on your way,” Marcus replied. “You need to leave.”

“I will,” she said. “I thought we could help each other.”

“In what way?” Marcus asked, his voice sarcastic.

“I can show you a way into the tunnels,” she whispered.

Devin and Marcus exchanged a look. The tunnel system, which used the natural cave formations of Northern Llisé, would provide them with a safe, protected route to reach Madame Aucoin’s house in Amiens. “And what do you want in return?” Devin asked. He realized his mistake too late when her toothless grin revealed her brown gums.

“So you do need to reach the tunnels?” she cackled.

“Devin, shut up!” Marcus growled. “You’re only making matters worse.”

“I can take you there safely,” said Lavender. “For a price.”

“And what would that be?” Marcus asked.

“What does the boy have hidden in his coat?” Lavender asked.

“You’ll find nothing in my coat but a ripped lining,” Devin replied, involuntarily clutching Tirolien’s Chronicle to his side.

“Let me see,” Lavender asked, reaching out with sticklike fingers.

Marcus slapped her hand away with the barrel of his gun. “Keep your hands to yourself,” he said.

She snatched her hand away, holding it against her scrawny chest. “If you hurt me I will tell the soldiers where you are.”

“Then I may as will kill you,” Marcus replied calmly. “I doubt anyone will miss you.”

“Lavender is a story,” she protested feebly. “You can kill the bards but you can’t kill stories.”

Devin leaned forward warily. “What do you mean?”

She wrapped her arms around her as though she were cold, her ragged clothes looking more like a burial shroud. “Stories live on if you keep telling them.”

“There need to be bards to tell them,” Devin corrected her gently. “The bards tell the stories so that they won’t be forgotten.”

“You can tell the stories,” she insisted. “You can tell Lavender’s story.”

Devin rubbed at the bandage on his forehead. He wanted to lie down and still the thumping ache in his head.

“Come back tomorrow,” Marcus said. “You can tell your story then.”

“Lavender’s story is part of the Chronicle,” she said.

Devin exhaled. “Dear God, Marcus! She can’t be the Lavender that Armand taught me about?”

“I agree,” Marcus muttered, shifting his gun from one hand to another. “That was centuries ago, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Devin whispered. “Lavender, is your story about your white pony?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes,” she said, “my beautiful white pony that ran away.”

“Where is your father’s house?” Devin asked. “Surely there must be someone left who wonders what happened to you.”

She shook her head, looking forlorn and afraid. “I can’t find it.”

“You lived in Arcadia,” Devin explained gently. “This is Tirolien. Your story is in Arcadia’s Chronicle. I believe that you lived there.”

She threw her hands out in supplication. “I don’t know where that is.”

“We are going that way,” Devin said.

“Devin!” Marcus warned. “We can’t take anyone with us.”

“But she’s lost,” Devin said. “Surely we can show a little mercy?”

Marcus shook his head unyieldingly. “Not now. Not here.”

Devin looked helplessly at Lavender. “How do you live? Where do you sleep?”

“I sleep under the trees. The roots are my pillows. In winter when it is cold, I live in this cave.”

“This cave?” Devin asked, nodding behind him.

She nodded, curling her feet around her, pulling the scraps of her clothing down to cover her toes. “I eat berries and nuts.”

“This is her cave, Marcus,” Devin protested. “We can’t stay here.”

“I don’t mind,” Lavender offered. “We can all stay here together.”

“We mind,” Marcus replied. “If this is your cave, we’ll move on.”

“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I have no one to talk to but myself. Once I ate at a fine table, with wine and tarts; there was music and laughter and dancing. Now, I am lost and I don’t know where home is.”

Devin closed his eyes, thinking wretchedly of Angelique and all she had lost.

“Lavender, how old are you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I have forgotten.” She picked at the fabric of her clothing for a moment. “Did you know my pony is missing?”

“I had heard that,” Devin said. “I don’t believe you will find him here though. You need to go back to Arcadia.”

“Is it a long way?” she asked.

Devin looked at her bare feet worn hard and leathery from walking. “I think you could make it,” he said, pointing above them. “You should follow the road.”

She made a sharp keening sound, making herself as small as possible. “Men travel the road. They are cruel, cruel men. They burned my father’s chateau.”

Devin sat forward, making his head throb more. “Your father’s chateau burned?”

“It’s gone,” she said in faint voice. “All my people are gone. There is no one left but me and I have nowhere to go.”

Devin put a hand to his head. “Marcus, surely there is something …”

“No,” Marcus repeated. “We can’t get involved. There is too much at stake, Devin. We need to move on, Madame, and leave you to your cave.”

She nodded, sitting in a forlorn heap.

“Do you have any money?” Devin asked.

She shook her head and spread thin fingers. “I have nothing but my friends,” she said, gesturing behind them into the small cave.

Marcus whirled, pointing his gun behind them but there was nothing there but the rocky cave floor.

“What friends?” Devin asked.

She crawled behind Devin into the shadows. “These friends,” she murmured, collecting small rounded wooden balls from the floor of the cave. She placed one of the balls gently in Devin’s hand. “This is Simon.”

Devin turned the ball in his hand, revealing features cut deeply into the wood with a knife or stone. The wooden ball was a head with recognizable features: plump cheeks, a bulbous nose, and a mouth wide open in laughter. “Who is Simon?” he asked.

“My father’s baker,” Lavender said. “He made all the tarts, cakes, and sweets. He always saved me something special in his apron pocket.”

Devin reached carefully for another ball. “And this one?”

“My father,” Lavender said, her fingers reluctant to release it into Devin’s hand. She turned it so the features were apparent but did not pass it to him. The face was strong, the nose long and thin, the smile betrayed a gentleness that Devin recognized in Lavender’s own face.

Lavender collected it, cradling it in her lap like a child. “I would like to see him again,” she whispered.

Devin looked at her gnarled hands, the skin that hung from her wiry frame and thought that she must have outlived her father by at least fifty years. “I would like to see my father again, too,” he answered gently.

She looked up. “Do you know where your father is?”

“I know where I left him,” Devin replied. “I hope he is still there but nothing is constant. Time changes everything.”

“I went back one time,” Lavender said. “There were horrible men there. They had killed my father’s guards and burned the chateau.”

Marcus returned his gun to his jacket. “When was this?”

Lavender shrugged. “Many winters ago. I saw the men on horseback and the torches and I ran. I didn’t even try to help them,” Lavender murmured, her voice barely audible. “I carved their faces here, so I wouldn’t forget them.” She swung her arm out, encompassing the wooden heads. “I have them all except for the stable boy who didn’t latch my pony’s stall.” She chose one head from the collection and held it up. “This is the Captain of the Guard. His name is Amando. He would have fought to the death to protect them!”

Devin glanced at Marcus. “Had you heard about the destruction of this chateau?”

He shook his head. “No, nothing. Although much of what transpires in these far northern provinces goes no further. I doubt your father knows either.”

Lavender let out a huge sigh and leaned back against the rock as though the conversation had exhausted her.

“Lavender,” Devin asked. “Did you have any brothers or sisters?”

Her little head bobbed up and down as she scrambled forward on her knees. “They are here, too.” She lined four wooden balls up on the rocky shelf above them. “Sébastian, Abelard, Michel, and Charles.”

Devin felt a shiver run down his back at the detail she had worked into the faces. It was almost as though she had collected a host of men’s heads that had been decapitated. He took a deep breath, trying not to show his revulsion. “Is it possible that they might have escaped?”

Lavender began to cry. “I don’t know. I ran away. I didn’t stay to help them fight. I simply saved myself.”

“God!” Marcus commented angrily, his face unreadable in the shadow of the rocks. “This world seems filled with women who have been abused and yet feel responsible for their families’ deaths.” He remained silent for a moment and then put a hand out to grasp one of her scrawny shoulders. “Lavender, we’ll take you back. Surely there is someone who can help you in your own province.”

CHAPTER 4

Dreams

“You told me you knew a way into the tunnels,” Devin said, extending Lavender a piece of bread.

She nodded as she tore at the crust in her hand. “It is down the mossy steps. A whole town used to be there. It’s deserted now. No one has lived there in years.”

Devin wished there had been time to read Tirolien’s Chronicle. Surely, an entire deserted town would have found its way into the Chronicles at some point. He recalled the map they had found in the Bishop’s Book, which outlined the resettlement of people from towns in danger of being wiped out by the government. His nearly perfect recall brought the map to mind with all its details but he remembered no designation for a deserted town in the mountains above Calais.

“What was the town called?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” Lavender replied, fondling one of the wooden heads of her brothers. “It was very, very old.”

“It sounds too good to bypass,” Devin replied.

“We’re not on an archaeological expedition,” Marcus warned him. “We’ll investigate only if it will get us back to Arcadia sooner.”

Devin shifted so the back of his head was against the rock face behind him. The coolness of the stone soothed the dull ache that persisted. “Where do the tunnels go, Lavender?”

She shook her head. “We don’t know. We don’t like the dark.” She seemed to grow smaller when something frightened her; she scuttled backwards, nervously cradling the carved heads of all her brothers in her lap.

Devin tried to imagine what her life had been like, to have lived once as a child, in a household of wealth and affluence, and then spend the remaining decades as a wild thing that lived off the land and hid wherever she could find shelter. The parallels to Angelique’s life were uncanny but while he found Angelique both endearing and repelling at different times, Lavender merely seemed pathetic. How terrifying it must seem to be elderly with no prospect of anyone to care for you. If she died in these woods or even in the shelter of the cave, she would leave little alteration in the landscape: just a small bundle of bones in a few shreds of cloth.

Marcus arrived triumphantly. Surprisingly, in the short time he had been gone, he had caught two fish. He gutted them on a flat stone and fileted the meat, dividing it into three portions.

“Lavender claims to know a way into the tunnels,” Devin said quietly, as Marcus worked.

Marcus looked up, his knife poised in midair. “Can you show us the way?” he asked.

Lavender bit into a piece of fish, mashing its white flesh between her brownish gums. Devin found himself alternately disgusted and then sympathetic to her. “We’ll go down the mossy steps,” she repeated, gesturing somewhere over her shoulder.

“How far away are the mossy steps?” Marcus asked.

“We can reach them by tomorrow night,” she answered, reaching for another piece of fish.

Marcus glanced at Devin. “Is it hard walking?”

Lavender flicked a fly from her bare toe. “We will need to walk carefully. The woods can be cruel.”

The woods had obviously been cruel to Lavender, Devin thought. Life had been cruel to her just as it had been cruel to Angelique. One of them had a chance at redemption; whether it was too late for Lavender remained to be seen. He ran a hand over his eyes, hoping his blurred vision corrected itself soon. It left him feeling unsteady and nauseated. He slipped down and rested his head on his hand, letting Marcus’ questions and Lavender’s staccato answers be drowned out by the wind in the trees and the rush of the stream below them.

Chaotic dreams had the wooden heads speaking to him, one after another, hinting at terror and brutality that existed long before René Forneaux. Their jabber became constant. Each of them interrupted the other, their voices becoming louder and louder until Devin couldn’t separate them. Without Lavender to identify them, they might as well have been an angry mob intent on violence.

Devin tossed and turned, chased by terrifying shadows of the past and a clear image of his enemy in the present. The wooden head of the Captain of the Guard suddenly opened its mouth crying “Danger! Danger!” until it dislodged itself from the others on the rock ledge and rolled off down the ravine, its mouth screaming its alarm until it landed with a plop in the stream below. It bobbed along as the stream carried it and its garbled warning off toward Calais and the sea where it would be lost forever. The other heads watched in horror as it bobbed away on the current.

Devin wakened with a start. Lavender lay curled like a pile of rags, her father’s head in her hands. Marcus stared out at the woods below them, starlight tracing glistening ribbons in the water. “Don’t you ever sleep?” Devin hissed.

Marcus glanced at him. “I sleep better than you, apparently. What was all the excitement about?”

Devin shook his head. “Strange dreams. I wonder whether I’ll ever be rid of them.”

“Forneaux?” Marcus asked.

“And his ilk,” Devin said quietly. “If Lavender’s home was burned and this town she’s taking us to was destroyed, obviously, there have been evil men at work in these mountains who lived long before René Forneaux.”

Marcus stretched out his right leg, the barrel of his pistol glinting for a moment before he came to rest. “There have always been evil men, Devin.”

“There’s something else, though,” Devin said. “Don’t you feel it? Lavender must have lost her home fifty years ago, at least. Forneaux couldn’t have had anything to do with that.”

“I’m not certain you can believe anything she says,” Marcus replied. “She thinks she is the Lavender from the Chronicles and that she had a white pony.”

“Perhaps she did have a white pony,” Devin countered. “She may also have been named for the legendary Lavender and now she confuses the two in her head.”

“Those damn heads give me the creeps!” Marcus said with a shudder. “And she’d better not expect me to carry them for her. There must at least forty of them!”

Devin suppressed a laugh. “If my dreams have any element of truth, there are now thirty-nine. The Captain of the Guard is no longer with us.”

“What?” Marcus asked, giving him a strange look. “Go back to sleep. You’re as crazy as she is.”

“I’ll explain in the morning,” Devin assured him.

CHAPTER 5

The Wilderness of Llisé

Devin wakened to the sound of sobbing. He rubbed blurry eyes with one hand to see Lavender scouring the ledge above them, her muddy hands feverishly patting the rock. Some of the wooden heads cradled in the remnants of her skirt had fallen to lie in the dirt at her feet. Devin prevented two of them from falling with the toe of his boot as they rolled precariously close to the edge of the ravine.

“He’s gone! He’s gone!” Lavender sobbed. “We can’t go on without him to protect us!”

“The Captain of the Guard?” Devin asked resignedly.

Lavender turned to fix him with a suspicious eye. “How did you know?”

Devin sat up. “I didn’t actually know for sure. But I dreamed about him last night. He kept shouting, ‘Danger! Danger!’ and then he rolled off the ledge and down the ravine. I watched him float down the stream toward Calais.”

Lavender rose to her diminutive size, her hands on her hips. “You didn’t even try to stop him? To save him?”

“I was asleep!” Devin protested. “I saw this in a dream. Have you asked Marcus if he heard anything?”

Marcus shook his head. “I certainly didn’t hear him roll down into the stream, Lavender.” He gestured at the wooden heads scattered around her feet. “Are you certain he isn’t there?”

She flopped onto the dirt, sorting balls into groups around her, murmuring each name lovingly to herself. Devin watched her, wondering how much of reality she had any true hold on. She looked so pathetic, tears drying in dirty streaks down her cheeks, her fingers shaking as she tallied up the only remnants of her family and friends that she had left.

“What have we done to our people,” Devin whispered to Marcus, “that they have been left so fragile and pitiful? Angelique’s story shocked me when I realized how much she had to bear and then there was Elsbeth, Dariel Moreau’s wife. She went to the market and came home to find her husband tortured and murdered on the floor of Tirolien’s Bardic Hall. Who knows what unhinged Lavender’s mind or how many more there are like her? How many children have watched their parents die and have been left orphaned to …”

“Just stop!” Marcus demanded. “Why are you so maudlin this morning? It won’t help anything to dwell on this. You’ll end up spouting gibberish yourself, if you haven’t already.”

“He’s not here,” Lavender wailed suddenly. She glared at Devin. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t help him! He would still be here if you had caught him when he fell.”

Devin sighed in exasperation. “Well obviously, I didn’t. I wasn’t even awake, Lavender. I thought I dreamt the entire thing.”

“He took the time to warn you!” she pointed out with an accusing finger. “And it cost him his life.”

Devin resisted the urge to point out that a wooden ball was not alive. “He may have warned me,” he said quietly. “But he didn’t tell me what he was warning me about.”

“We can’t stay here,” Lavender stated, gathering the wooden heads in her tattered skirt. “We need to move on, now. Surely you can understand that!”

“Perhaps he was warning us about the deserted town down the mossy steps,” Devin said. “There is more than one place here where we may encounter danger.”

“Well, I’m leaving,” Lavender said with a huff. “I don’t need to be told twice that my life is in danger. If the Captain of the Guard gave his life to save me, I would be foolish to disregard his advice and so would you!”

Marcus dropped his head in his hands. “God! This is insane!”

“Call it what you will,” Lavender replied sulkily. “But remember that I warned you.”

Marcus clapped a hand on Devin’s shoulder. “Let’s go! There’s no use arguing with her and call me a bleeding-heart moron, but I won’t let her go on alone.”

Devin smiled and stood up, one hand on the rocks behind him, hoping to hide his persistent dizziness from Marcus. His bodyguard didn’t need another thing to worry about.

They slithered down the slope to the stream bed. Marcus persuaded Lavender to let him carry the wooden heads in the food sack after two escaped her skirt on the way down the incline. The smell of earth and pine reminded Devin sharply of his bodyguard’s gun pointing at him in another part of Tirolien but he pushed the memory away and concentrated instead on Marcus’ broad back ahead of him. Lavender led them deeper into the woods, where the ferns grew so large they towered over her. They followed the stream as it meandered to the northeast. The air was chilly this morning and wood smoke wafted through the trees.

Marcus put a hand out in front of Devin. “That smoke is from a cooking fire. Those soldiers may have stopped for the night. Walk quietly and be ready to hide should we come across them.”

“The smoke is from Martigues,” Lavender volunteered. “It is off the road, a mile or so to the north. There are only a handful of houses there. Hunters and trappers, mostly. They sell their meat and furs in Calais until the winter snows make the roads impassable. They are rough men. I stay away from Martigues.”

Devin glanced at Marcus and saw a shadow of worry cross his face before they started off again. The smell of wood smoke faded as they moved farther away from the road. Devin didn’t believe he had ever traveled so far into the wilderness before. The pines here were as tall as cathedral spires and even in August there were telltale glimpses of autumn color among the maples and aspens. In a heartbeat autumn would be over and winter would be upon them. They had to reach Coreé before roads were impassable and the icy storms on the Dantzig had effectively halted travel for the season. He hoped that Lavender’s promise of a way into the tunnels was a legitimate one and not a figment of her irrational mind.