“Well, you nearly cost the world a priest. Look at this boy; you nearly frightened him to death.”
“Looks like. Who did you think I was, boy, Haergrim the Raver?”
“Gah?” Stephen choked. Now he knew what it meant to have his heart pounding in his throat, something he had always considered a fanciful literary expression. The rider was closer now, and Stephen realized that he had a human face after all, covered by a bushy, unkempt beard and long, ragged hair.
“Well, he’s an educated fellow,” Aspar went on. “His thousand-year-old maps say no one lives in the King’s Forest, so who else could you be but the Raver, yah?”
The bearded figure bowed slightly, in the saddle.
“Symen Rookswald, at your service,” he said.
“Sir Symen,” Aspar amended.
“Once upon a time,” Sir Symen said dolefully. “Once upon a time.”
Tor Scath wasn’t on Stephen’s maps either, but it was as real as any black shadow in the night could be.
“It was built by King Gaut, more than five hundred years ago,” Sir Symen explained in melancholy tones, as they wound up the path to the hilltop fortress. “They say Gaut was mad, fortifying his stronghold not against mortal enemies, but against the alvs and other dead things. Now it’s a royal hunting lodge.”
Stephen could make out only the outlines in the moonlight, but from what he could see, it certainly looked as if it had been built by a madman. It wasn’t large, but weird spires and turrets jutted up with little rhyme or reason.
“I’m beginning to wonder if Gaut was sane after all,” Rookswald added, his voice smaller.
“What do you mean?” Aspar White demanded.
“What needs to be done with these two?” Sir Symen asked, ignoring the question.
“A cell for them,” the holter grunted, “to wait for the king’s justice when he comes—what, next month?”
“We’re innocent men!” Aiken asserted weakly.
Sir Symen snorted. “I have to feed them until then?”
“I don’t much care. I might have left them to the wolves, but I suspect they might be persuaded to answer questions about a few other matters.”
“Other matters?” Symen said. “Yes. I’m glad you came, Aspar. I’m glad my summons reached you.”
“Your what?”
“Brian. I sent Brian to fetch you.”
“Brian? I haven’t seen him. How long ago did you send him?”
“Ten days ago. I sent him to Colbaely.”
“Huh. He should have found me, then, or at least left word behind him.”
They entered through a narrow tower, crossed a small, smelly courtyard, where Symen remanded the two prisoners and the horses to a hulking brute named Isarn. They proceeded into a dark hall, furnished in rustic fashion. Stephen noticed that only every fourth or fifth torch socket was plenished. A graying man in white and green livery greeted them.
“How was the hunting, sir?” he asked.
“Interrupted,” Sir Symen said. “But by an old friend. Can Anfalthy find something to decorate this old board with?”
“I’m sure she can. Master White, it’s good to see you again. And you, young sir, welcome to Tor Scath.”
“The same, Wilhilm,” Aspar replied.
“Thank you,” Stephen managed.
“I’ll fetch you some cheese, meantime.”
“Thank you, Wil,” Sir Symen said, and the old fellow left. He turned back to Stephen. “Welcome to King William’s hunting lodge, and the most impoverished, thankless barony in the entire kingdom.”
“Our host is somewhat out of favor at court,” Aspar explained.
“And the sky is somewhat blue,” the disheveled knight replied. In the light, he wasn’t frightening at all; he looked gaunt, and sad, and old. “Aspar, I have things to tell you. The Sefry have left the forest.”
“I saw Mother Cilth’s bunch in Colbaely. They told me as much.”
“No. Not just the caravaners. All of them. All of them.”
“Even the Halafolk?”
“All.”
“Well. I’ve been trying to get the Halafolk out of the forest for twenty years, and now they just up and leave? I don’t believe it. How can you be sure?”
“They told me. They warned me to leave, too.”
“Warned you about what?”
Suspicion flitted across Sir Symen’s face. “If Brian didn’t reach you, why did you come?”
“A boy came to Colbaely claiming his folk were killed by men in the king’s colors, down by Taff Creek. I ran into the priestling and his captors on my way to investigate. I couldn’t very well keep hauling them about, so I brought them here.”
“Taff Creek. I didn’t know about that one.”
“What do you mean, ‘that one’?”
“There was a woodcutting camp, two leagues south, killed to a man. We found them twenty days ago. Some tinkers on their way to Virgenya, likewise slaughtered. A half score of hunters.”
“Did any of these hold patents from the king?” Aspar asked.
“Not a one. All were in the wood illegally.”
“Then someone’s doing my work for me.”
Stephen couldn’t stand it anymore. “So that’s your work? Murdering woodcutters?”
“It’s not my law, boy, but the king’s. If the forest was open to anyone, how long do you think it would stand? Between trappers, charburners, woodcutters, and homesteaders, before long the royals wouldn’t have any place to hunt.”
“But murder?”
“I don’t kill woodcutters, boy, not unless they try to kill me, and sometimes not even then. I arrest them. I lock them up someplace to await the king’s justice. I scare them off, most of the time. What I meant just now was that whoever is behind this is killing those who ought not to be here in the first place. It doesn’t gladden me; it makes me angry. This forest is my charge, my territory.”
“But Brian is missing,” Rookswald said. “And he was my man. Though I may be the least favorite of the king’s knights, I still hold a patent to be here, and my household with me.”
At that moment, Wilhilm reappeared, with a stoneware platter of cheese, a pitcher of mead, and mazers for each of them. It suddenly occurred to Stephen that he was hungry, and when he bit into the pungent, almost buttery cheese, he amended that to ravenous. The mead was sweet and tasted of cloves.
Aspar White ate, too. Only the bearded knight seemed not to notice the food.
“I don’t think they were killed by men,” Rookswald said softly.
“What then?” the holter asked, around a mouthful. “Bears? Wolves?”
“I think the Briar King killed them.”
The holter stared at him for a moment, then snorted. “You’ve been listening to the Sefry, sure enough.”
“Who is the Briar King?” Stephen asked.
“Another one of your folk stories,” the holter scoffed.
“So I thought, once upon a time,” Sir Symen said. “Now, I don’t know. The dead we found—” He paused for an instant, then looked up. “They were of two sorts, the dead, the woodcutters. In the flat, where they were camped, they simply fell, no marks on them. No sword cut, no claw gashes, no arrow holes. Nor had they been gnawed or pecked at since death. There wasn’t anything alive at the camp. Chickens, dogs, squirrels, the fish in the stream, all dead.
“But did you know that there’s a seoth near there, a hill with an old fane? That’s where we found the rest of them, or what was left of them. They had been most foully killed, by torture, and slowly.”
Stephen noticed something cross the holter’s face, something quickly hidden. “Tracks?” the woodsman asked. “Were there tracks?”
“There were tracks. Like those of a cat, but larger. And tracks of men, as well.”
“Did you touch any of them? The tracks?”
A peculiar question, Stephen thought, but the old knight nodded. “I touched one of the bodies.” He held out his hand. It was missing two fingers, and freshly bandaged. “I had to cut them off, before the rot spread to my arm.” He scowled. “Aspar White, I know your look. You know something of this. What?”