matter how harsh or hostile the conditions. They had to. Lives depended upon it. He tossed them into the grate and knelt, fumbling with the tinder. It sparked the third time of asking and the fire caught on the fourth spark. In a matter of minutes the fire was cracking and sap snapping and popping in the logs as it burned, filling the small room with warmth.
Lowick stripped out of his own armour, and then did the same for Alymere. What had kept the heat in outside only served to keep the heat out inside. Alymere's shivers lessened as the warmth filled the room, but he didn't stir.
Lowick had set his sword down upon the small table, within easy reach.
The knight paced around the cramped room, frustration eating away at him. What had possessed the lad to leave the road? Snow madness? He had heard of such things, when the cold was so great it froze the blood in the brain, but surely the onset of any such madness demanded more time in the cold for it to worm away inside a man? He cracked his knuckles and stretched out the bones in his back.
He needed to think.
There was much about the day that the knight had no liking for, not least the fact that his guards were still missing. Had they too succumbed to snow madness? Was it some sort of sickness that his ward had contracted in this very room? Was bringing him back here a mistake? Would he succumb to it himself? A thousand thoughts and more raced through his mind, clamouring to be heard, each of them more strained and panicked than the last. He needed to focus. To think. He had not been able to find any trace of the guards out on the road, which, he was beginning to suspect, boded ill for them. For two miles up and down the road he hadn't been able to find sight nor sound of an overturned cart or a wagon with a broken axle or any other travellers in trouble. That didn't discount the idea that the missing men had been lured out exactly the way Alymere had surmised.
Mercifully, he hadn't found any sign of reivers either.
He pulled up the small stool and sat, leaning back against the wall of the chimney breast, savouring the warm stones on his back.
Once, during the darkest part of the night, when the lad had tossed and turned most violently during his fever-dreams, the knight knelt and said a prayer, offering his own life in return for Alymere's if that was what was demanded. A life for a life. It was the old way. He didn't know how he would live with himself if the boy didn't make it. It would be like losing his brother all over again. And it didn't matter how strong he was, how great his skill at arms, he could vanquish every foe he faced on the battlefield and it wouldn't matter, because he couldn't fight disease or sickness. He couldn't save his brother and now he was helpless to save his brother's son.
All he could do was pray, and hope that the God that looked after foolish young men with hearts the size of lions was listening.
The knight didn't move from his bedside vigil until Alymere woke with the coming of the dawn.
Twelve
His dreams were plagued with visions he could neither cling to nor understand. In them, he dreamed he was a blind man battling demons or a demon battling blind men, his focus shifting from one set of eyes to another again and again as the battle raged on. And these were proper demons, devils even, barbed tails, forked tongues and all. Again and again, the Crow Maiden's imprecations that he follow the smoke, find the blind monk and bring her the book, turned over in his mind. Always, as the fight was won, his foe was vanquished in a flurry of wings and feathers as the blind man or the demons transformed into black birds, crows, rooks, ravens, and scattered before him.
He woke sweating and feverish.
His uncle knelt at his bedside, head down in prayer.
Alymere coughed, hard.
The knight looked up, met his eye and said simply, 'Thank the maker. You gave me a fright there, boy. What the devil were you thinking?'
Alymere eased himself up onto one elbow, but even as he did the world reeled around him and he sank back into his pillow, groaning. It was no kind of answer, but he couldn't answer, because he had no idea what his uncle meant.
The last thing he could remember was the red hart standing in the middle of the road.
Both Alymere and Lowick flinched as a crow flew up against the window, battering the streaked glass with panicked wings. There was something familiar about the bird: a vague memory that evaded him in the clear light of morning. He lay back in the bedroll, trying to remember how he had got here. 'Sorry,' he said, finally finding his voice. Meaning
The knight shook his head, 'Not good enough, lad. Words are cheap. You nearly got yourself killed running off into the forest like that. It's nothing short of a miracle that I found you.' The words were harsh, but his manner masked genuine concern. Alymere didn't understand what could have happened to warrant it.
He tried to move again, easing himself into a sitting position. He didn't say another word for a full five minutes whilst he gathered his wits. He rubbed at his right eye and temple, trying to get the blood flowing. The horizon slowly stopped canting and settled. He breathed slowly, regularly. It was only then that he noticed the strip of linen tied around his forearm and remembered how he had been given it, and, more slowly, by whom.
And with that memory came the rest: following the hart into the trees, the maiden herself, making love to her, and finally his promise, which had bled into his dreams. But for the life of him, Alymere couldn't recall anything after that. He had no recollection of leaving the Summervale, nor of the fact that the glade itself was not a sanctuary of summer but rather a trick of the mind and that as the so-called summer faded and the sun went down on it he was left lying naked in the snow in the thick of the forest, winter wracking his body. The last thing he remembered was the maiden kissing him like lovers did, her tongue licking along his teeth and lips, and whispering, 'Follow the smoke. When the time comes, you will understand. Do not fail me, or the Devil take your soul.'
'Do you believe in the otherworld, uncle?'
'Do you mean do I believe in magic?' Lowick asked, his brow furrowing as he considered the question. 'There are more things in this life that I can understand or account for. Whether they're magic or not, I don't know. Why do you ask?'
'I think I saw a sign,' Alymere said. 'A red hart.'
'And that's why you took off into the forest?'
'Don't you see?' He reached for the tabard the knight had draped across the chair before the fire. 'A leaping hart.'
'A white hart, lad. There's a difference. You're reaching.'
'Still — '
'Look at the evidence. Discard the fanciful, the wishful thinking, and what have you got? Apply your mind to it like any other puzzle. Be dispassionate, rational, logical.'
Alymere didn't answer him, but that didn't mean he was not doing exactly that; picking through his memories in search of the truth. He wanted to believe that it was his father's animal totem that had led him to the maiden and the Summervale, because that would make finding the blind monk so much more meaningful, but wanting didn't mean that it was. It just meant that he was trying to find some sort of reason where there was no reason to be found. He didn't argue with his uncle. Instead, he clambered out of the bedroll and, beginning to dress, asked, 'Did you find the men?'
'No,' Lowick said, but it was the way he said it, part dread, part resignation, that conveyed the full extent of his expectations. That they still hadn't returned meant the missing men had been out in the snow for at least two full days now, but most likely three. Three days out in the bone-freezing cold. Three days with the mile house abandoned and the wall vulnerable. Nothing good could come of that.
Alymere belted his tunic and stuffed his feet into his boots. He felt woozy and light-headed, but more than anything he felt hungry. It had been more than a day since he had last eaten. He looked around the guard room, saw again the dirty pots, but this time realised what he didn't see: food. There was no food in the place. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before.
'We spent so long thinking about what was here we didn't ask ourselves what was missing,' he said,
