thought was the fervent hope that Ninian was warm enough…
TWELVE
In his hiding place, Ninian stirred in his sleep and woke. Still groggy, he focused his mind on the message he had to send, concentrating on the image he was trying to impart. He brought Josse to mind, visualizing him lying deeply asleep, and gently attempted to introduce the vivid image into his dreams.
He and Meggie could sometimes communicate in that way, although it was haphazard and only worked intermittently. They practised regularly, and Meggie was sure they were improving. Would it work with someone who was not of Joanna’s extraordinary blood? Would it work with Josse?
Ninian fervently hoped so.
When Ninian had obeyed Meggie’s fierce command and run away from the fight up by the chapel, he’d had no idea of where he would go, other than that it was undoubtedly best to stay within the great forest. He had first encountered it when he was a child, a fugitive with his mother and on the run from a cousin of hers whose plans for Joanna and her son were not at all to Joanna’s taste. There had been several years when he had lived a very different life, but a decade ago he had come back. Since Josse had adopted him and they had all gone to live in the House in the Woods, Ninian’s knowledge of the wildwood and everything that lived within it had grown until it was almost as great as his half sister’s.
Without even thinking about it, he knew as he’d fled that it was the obvious place for a man like him to hide.
To begin with, the overriding necessity had been to get away. As soon as he was some distance from the chapel he had deliberately slowed right down. A running man could not help but leave tracks because, for one thing, his headlong flight tended to break branches and flatten undergrowth and, for another, if you were racing along you could not see where you were putting your feet, and it was all too easy to leave footprints in muddy patches.
In the depths of the dense woodland, Ninian had moved silent and light-footed as a shadow. The immediate danger was past, and so he had turned his mind to what he was going to do. He had wounded a great lord and in all likelihood killed another. He heard Meggie’s words in his head: if he’s dead they’ll make sure you hang.
He did not want to die. Life was sweet, and he was not ready yet to leave it.
Having decided that, he began to make plans. Get far away, preferably across the Channel. Yes, that was good. He would need his horse, some good, weatherproof garments, some food supplies. Some money. None of those could he acquire except from his home, so he would have to make contact with the household. Well, he would have to do that anyway, for to leave England without saying goodbye was impossible. He pictured Josse and Meggie, and then an image of Little Helewise’s lovely face gently took their place.
Before he could be undermined by his emotions, he deliberately closed them away in a corner of his mind and returned to the practicalities.
He wondered how grave the accusations against him were. Was he exaggerating the danger? Would they listen if he said that both lords had advanced on him, each bearing arms, and his actions had been purely in self defence? They might. But what if they did not? He shook his head fiercely. Oh, but it was hard, not knowing the outcome of the fight.
He had drawn close to the little hut where his mother and Meggie had lived. He had not been aware of heading that way, and he wondered if perhaps his mother’s spirit had tugged at him. He stopped under the trees at the edge of the clearing and, trying to empty his mind as Meggie had taught him, he waited. There was a faint whisper, as if a soft breeze had swirled up from the ground around him, and he found that he was smiling. Then it — she — was gone.
Meggie was not at the hut, but he had not expected her to be. Some time had passed since the fight, but he guessed she was still involved with the wounded men, probably down at the abbey by now. But somebody was there.
As he approached, the door opened and Tiphaine said, ‘You’d better come in and tell me what’s happened.’
She made him sit down by the fire, and swiftly she made a hot drink for him. It was some herbal concoction that had the effect of swiftly soothing him, so that he was able to tell his tale calmly.
When he had finished, she nodded and said, ‘I knew something was amiss. Josse has been here, and he told us, but I’d already felt it in the air.’ She paused. He wondered if she would go on to explain, but he ought to have known better. Turning to face him, her eyes seemed to snap back to the present moment, and she said, ‘You didn’t kill either of the men you fought.’
He was about to shout with relief, but he knew from her expression that his joy was premature. ‘Go on.’
‘Two things,’ she said. ‘One: there’s a third man at Hawkenlye and he is dead, and they’re saying you killed him.’
‘I did not,’ he said quietly.
She nodded impatiently, as if to say of course you didn’t. ‘Two: out of the two you fought up by the chapel, one’s the dead man’s brother and the other’s the king.’
Ninian felt as if somebody had punched him very hard in the stomach. Of all the men in the land, he’d had to go and inflict a wound on the king. He recalled the older of the pair. He hadn’t recognized him, but then there was no reason why he should have done. He had never met him in his life.
He looked up to find Tiphaine watching him. He almost told her: the king is my half brother. But it was his mother’s secret, and not his to tell. As if she heard his thought and understood, Tiphaine reached out and briefly clasped his hand.
Then she said, ‘You need help, but you can’t go to the House in the Woods.’
‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘If they find out my family sheltered a wanted man, Josse will be in trouble too.’
‘Not much future in staying here either,’ she went on, as if she had not heard. ‘Much as this place would welcome you, and much as I reckon you’d be safe here indefinitely, you can’t spend the rest of your life in a hut in the forest.’ She fixed stern eyes on him. ‘Your mother saw great things for you, my lad. She thought she was doing the right thing by you when she placed you in that knight’s household where you went as a boy, but it turns out that wasn’t your path after all. Now you spend your days dreaming under the trees and tending the wild creatures.’
‘I like the forest!’ Ninian protested sharply. ‘I’m happy with my life.’
She studied him, quite unmoved by his outburst. ‘So you might be, young Ninian, but I reckon what occurred today happened for a reason.’
He thought about it. ‘You mean it was all predestined, just to shake me out of my comfortable ways and force me to do something different?’ He spoke with heavy sarcasm, intending to make his suggestion so preposterous as to be laughable.
Tiphaine wasn’t laughing. And, as he listened to the echoes of his bitter words ringing in his head, he realized he wasn’t either.
In this place, in the depths of the wildwood and with the distillation of his mother’s strange legacy strong around him, it all sounded horribly plausible.
He had stayed with Tiphaine until dusk. Then he got up to go. She came out into the clearing with him, looking up into the night sky and sniffing the air. ‘Mars is rising,’ she observed. ‘He’ll give you courage if you set out with your head high.’ Then, to his surprise — for he had never thought her a demonstrative woman — she stepped up to him and put her arms round him in a quick, tight hug. She muttered something in a tongue he did not know, but he guessed it was a blessing. Then, without another word, she went back inside and closed the door.
He had already made up his mind where he would go. Keeping off the main tracks, he followed the faint animal trails that only he — and probably his half sister — knew. Even there, he was careful only to walk where the ground was firm and the leaf mound lay deep. As the light faded and he could no longer see clearly where he was putting his feet, he took to feeling his way with his toes. Progress was slow, but he was all but sure he was leaving no traces of his passing. Besides, he was not in a hurry. He had all night.
He was not sure he could find the place. When he knew he was near, he stopped, leaned his back against a birch tree and made himself relax. Memories returned: they were bitter-sweet, for his mother was wound up in them and, as always, bringing her to mind was both a pleasure and a deep, unhealed pain. For a moment he
