The Abbey loomed up around a bend in the road, lanterns beckoning with a promise of warmth that she already knew would not be kept. She hurried her pace a little; the horse tugged on the rein in her hand, and whickered. Poor thing; it thought she was taking it to a stable. If there were varks out here, she wanted to get back to the wagon as fast as she could!
She stopped, a few paces away from the door, to compose herself. The horse pawed the ground with impatience. When she had caught her breath, she rang the bell with an imperious hand, hoping to sound like the sort of person who was not used to being kept waiting.
When Brother Pierce did make his appearance, he gave no sign of recognizing her as anything other than a female, and thus, a major intrusion into his life. He frowned at her, his face taking on all the look of someone who had bitten into an unripe plum.
"What do you want?" he asked, rudely. "Be off! We don't house vagabonds _"
"I'm no vagabond, you insolent knave!" Robin said, with shrill indignation. "If this were Gradford, I'd have my servants horsewhip you to teach you manners!" She had heard enough of the wealthy women of Gradford and the way they spoke to underlings who offended them to enable her to produce a pretty fair imitation of their mannerisms. She drew herself up tall and proud, as he gaped at her, clearly taken aback by her rude response. "I am Rowen Woolwright, sister to Master Orlina Woolwright of Gradford, and I demand to know what you have done with my sister! That cur of a High Bishop sent her here on some fools errand and _"
Brother Pierce's wizened face flushed as she began her harangue, but a sly smile crept over his features when he heard who it was Robin claimed to be. He made an abrupt gesture, startling the horse, and cutting off her torrent of words.
"Shut your mouth, woman, before it condemns you to a fate like hers!" he snapped, interrupting her. Now it was her turn to stare at him in simulated surprise that he should even dare to interrupt her. "We'll have no truck with the agents of darkness here, nor heretics, either! She's not here, the sorcerous bawd! She conjured a demon and sent it to destroy the Holy High Bishop, but he was stronger than her dark magic, and the Hand of the Sacrificed God protected him. He defeated the demon, as a hundred witnesses can attest, and the demon itself betrayed its mistress."
Robin hoped that she looked appropriately stunned. Evidently she did, for Brother Pierce smiled nastily.
"High Bishop Padrik had every right to condemn her, but he forgave her and sent her on a pilgrimage of penance to this Abbey," he said, his voice full of glee. "She's been sent to a holy shrine in the hills by our Abbot, as is his right and duty. She was unrepentant when she came, and he has sent her on to be judged. The Sacrificed God himself will be her judge once she reaches the holy shrine of the hills; if she returns from the shrine, well and good, she will be restored to her former position by the High Bishop himself."
"And if she doesn't?" Robin asked, sharply, "What then? How will you protect her _"
He smiled, displaying large, yellowing, crooked teeth. "God will protect her, if she is innocent. If she doesn't return, well, then she is clearly a witch, guilty of the charge the blessed High Bishop laid upon her, and the God has sent her where she belongs. Her property will be confiscated, since all witches are traitors, and it will be turned over to the Cathedral and Carthell Abbey."
She did not have to feign the shock she felt. No wonder Padrik was a wealthy man, able to give an entire clan of Gypsies silver and even gold! If he was getting monies this way, as well as from the gifts of the faithful_
"The shrine _" she said, gasping out the words. "Where is this shrine?"
Brother Pierce grinned again, overjoyed to see her so discomfited, and obliged with a description.
"Ye follow this road here _" he said, pointing to the Old Road that led on to Westhaven. "Not the newer route, but this 'un. Ye take it into the hills, till ye come to a bare-topped hill. If ye get to a village called Westhaven, ye've gone too far. On top of the hill, that's the shrine. But I wouldn't go there _" he added, as she turned to go.
"Why not?" she asked, belligerently.
He laughed, the first time she had heard him do so. It sounded like an old goose, honking. "Because, woman, if you go there, ye'll be judged too! And be sure, if you don't return to your home and the duties of a proper woman, it'll be because demons have taken you like your sister!"
She turned away from him as he slammed the gate shut, feeling chilled, and not by the wind. The Old Road_a bare-topped hill? Between here and Westhaven? There was only one place he could possibly mean.
Skull Hill.
She ran back to the wagon as fast as her legs would carry her, the horse running alongside, but looking back over its shoulder with longing; there was a painful stitch in her side before she got there. "They sent her to Skull Hill," she said, panting, as she harnessed the horse up again, and flung herself into her seat. "I don't think she's very far ahead, not if they wanted to time her arrival for midnight _"
"R-right." Kestrel didn't waste any words; he simply slapped the reins against the horses' backs to get them moving again.
It was terrible. They wanted to gallop the horses and knew they didn't dare. It only took a single hole in the road to send both horses down_and at a gallop, that would mean broken legs and dead horses for certain, and if the wagon overturned as well, they could wind up dead.
It took a few moments for the pain in her side to leave; she breathed the cold air in carefully, holding her side, and waited, before the pain eased enough that she could speak again. "Now we know what the Ghost meant," she pointed out. "About people being sent from here."
"Y-yes," Jonny replied, urging the horses to a faster pace than a walk, until they were moving as fast as even Gwyna considered safe. "P-put one of th-those p-pendants on an enemy, it m-makes them c-come here. And it identifies th-them t-to th-the Ghost."
"He'll kill her, of course," Robin replied off-handedly. "He won't even hesitate. He told us that himself."
But Jonny only turned and flashed her a feral grin, teeth gleaming whitely in the moonlight.
"N-not if w-we f-find her f-first!" he said. Robin returned his grin, but uncertainly, then peered through the darkness ahead of them. She was hoping to spot Orlina Woolwright quickly, for at this pace, they could defeat their own purpose by accidentally running her down.
Through the valley of Carthell Abbey they raced, and out the other side into the hills; Robin could hardly believe that a woman on foot had come so far, so quickly. It seemed impossible_but the road was wet and muddy here, and they kept coming across the tracks of a human, pressed into the mud and visible even at a distance. They both knew how seldom anyone used this road, so who else could it be?
They were deep in the hills again before Robin realized it. And now she had the answer to another question_why tend this road so well if no one used it?
To make it as easy as possible for your victims to reach the place of ambush, she thought grimly. It isn't the Sire who tends this road; it's the Abbey, I'd bet the Ghost's silver on it.
But they were very, very near Skull Hill now; one more hill, and Orlina would be within the Ghost's grasp.