They were asleep when a large owl came floating up the valley to circle above Bear’s camp for some time. Four bedrolls beside a covered fire were visible. The owl, who could hear a mouse move a single whisker, heard breathing from each one of them. She moved over the forest seeking other life, finding some creatures visible, birds mostly, and other creatures only detectable by their breathing or small movements, in hollow trees, under a fallen trunk, in a copse of trees. She flew down among the trees, searching. Nothing under the fallen tree trunk but a family of wildcats; nothing in the copse but deer.
Blinking slowly, without volition, the owl flew back down the valley to Benjobz Inn. In the forest beside it, she lit upon a low branch. The woman before her stared into the owl’s eyes. The owl, unable to move, thought of what she had sensed. The woman stared more intensely, hurtfully, digging deeply. The owl was first gripped by terrible uncertainty, then by terror, then by hideous pain as the woman snatched her feathered neck, grasped her head in one strong hand, and twisted . . .
Pain over, everything over, the feathered body dropped to the soil, where Alicia, Duchess of Altamont, stamped upon it furiously before striding back to the inn. Alicia really preferred liars. People who lied to her gave her excuse to terrorize and torture them, but the damned innkeeper had told her the truth! The child and her nursemaid had gone back to Woldsgard! They must have gone by while Alicia was taking her alternate route from Altamont, the route that nobody knew of but herself and Jenger, and a few of her guardsmen. So she had missed the ones going to the abbey and two mounted troops as well, both of them headed toward Wellsport; so said the innkeeper.
It was infuriating. Of all things in life, she loved having her own way, but it pleased her more to have it when someone else opposed it. It didn’t matter whom she was vying against, or even whether they knew they were vying. It could be a bet on cards, a horse race, a plot to take over a kingdom. Any of these could involve an opponent who was fun to squash like a bug or even more fun to deal with deliberately, torturously, at excruciating length, best of all if they didn’t know why! The delight of their seeking a reason, their frantic attempts to understand! Their despair when she told them there was no reason. So amusing when they realized she needed no reason except her own desires. She had looked forward to dealing with a lying innkeeper, looked forward to pursuing an irritating Tingawan presence, even to the very walls of the abbey. The innkeeper hadn’t lied; the girl and her caretakers hadn’t gone to the abbey, though possibly, only possibly, the man called Loppy might learn otherwise.
She would wait for Loppy to return before she gave up all hope for the amusement she had planned. And even if it were true, it would mean only a slight delay before she could find the girl and her guardians and kill them all. Perhaps when she returned to Altamont she would create a new Big Kill, one of her very own. Or perhaps she would wait until she went to Woldsgard, as wife of the duke. She would make him watch. Though it might work best to wait until she was his widow. Before he died, he could spend endless days tortured by her description of the deaths that would follow his own.
Wilderbrook Abbey was deceptive at first appearance. As the reunited animals, people, and wagons came up the last pastured hill toward it, they saw first only the clustered bell towers fingering the sky. When they were a bit nearer, they saw a massive structure extending for a mile or more behind an even longer, though lower, wall. As they came still closer, they saw that the wall had its foundations at the bottom of a huge, circular depression in the grassland, one that curved away from them on either side, circling the abbey and continuing beyond it into the forest. The walls, for they were multiple, were very high, dotted with guardsmen along their lengths; the lands they enclosed were extensive; the depression was very deep—too deep, too wide, and too water-filled to be crossed except by way of a bridge.
There were several bridges. A leather-clad man on horseback beckoned to them from the outer end of the nearest one. As they turned toward him, he motioned toward the drawbridge and portcullis between the fourth and fifth of the huge stone piers that supported the structure. As they approached, the drawbridge rumbled down. The mounted man led them across, ironclad hooves and iron-sheathed wheels beating a reverberating tattoo upon the timbers. The narrowly grated portcullis rattle-clanged up into its recess in the thick wall, just high enough to clear the wagons, barely allowing time for Abasio’s wagon to follow the rest before it thundered down behind him. Once through the wall, however, all this noise had gained them access to only a wide, curved corridor between the outermost wall and a taller, inner one that was no less heavily guarded. The two walls had a wide space between them, enough that they had no trouble turning the wagons to the right to follow their guide.
“There are three ring walls,” the man called over his shoulder. “None of the gates are in a line. Different gates and bridges go through into different parts of the abbey. The outliers told us you were coming, and you’re expected down this way.” They went along the gentle curve for some time, passing various lowered portcullises before another gate presented itself on the left.
