Winterling Read online

  Around the fire the Mór’s people danced, all rags and shadows. Some of them were naked but painted with ash and blood and stripes of black from burnt sticks; others wore fur or ragged finery. They all wore masks made of fur or feathers or leaves.

  What would Fer see if she looked at them through her seeing-stone? Most likely the same thing he saw with his puck vision. They were wildling, most of them, and they’d been getting worse lately. They served a usurper, a false Lady, so they were coming unbound from their oaths and rules. Some of them were probably burning with the same fever that Twig was.

  The Huldre’s people seemed wary. Maybe they could feel the wrongness about the Mór’s people. They didn’t join in the dancing and drumming, but stood at the edge of the clearing, watching: the little nisse in their red caps and long white beards, and the golden-haired grim who should have been fiddling along with the drums, and the nökk, who looked like big-eared old men with green eyes and gray beards dripping with icicles. In the shadows beyond the fire, deeper in the trees, the Huldre’s trolls lurked. Some of them had three heads; some just one head on hulking, bent shoulders. Their skin was the mottled gray of stones, and they had bowed stumpy legs, and arms long enough that their knuckles dragged in the snow when they walked.

  Rook slunk along the edge of the clearing to the Mór’s tent. Two wolf-guards lounged in front of the door, watching the dancers. Rook tried to duck past them into the tent, but the she-wolf grabbed his arm.

  “Hey-ho, Puck-puppy!” she said, grinning. “What’re you up to?”

  The bites on his arm burned under her gripping hand, and his head spun for a second. “Get off,” he growled, and jerked out of her grasp.

  And then—slam—he found himself flat on his back in the snow, with the other wolf-guard snarling down into his face. Slavering jaws snapped a finger’s width from his nose.

  “Hold on, hold on,” the she-wolf guard grunted, and knotted her hand in her partner’s shirt collar, pulling him off.

  Rook scrambled away.

  The he-wolf guard crouched in the snow. His black eyes glittered and he panted. His partner kept a tight grip on his collar, holding him back. He wasn’t a person anymore, Rook realized, he was a wolf dressed up as a person.

  Rook got to his feet, all of his wolf bites aching. “He’s wildling,” he said.

  The she-wolf guard shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it, Puck, is there?”

  “There is, yes,” his mouth said, before his brain caught up.

  “Yeah?” the she-wolf asked. She pulled on her partner’s arm, forcing him to stand, which he did, shaking his shaggy head.

  Rook nodded. He could tell her. The Mór hadn’t ordered him not to. “Ask the Fer-girl for help,” he said, and ducked into the tent.

  As the hanging carpet blocking the worst of the cold from the tent swung back into place, the sound of drumming and dancing from outside was muffled. The tent itself was lit warmly by a few lanterns and two braziers full of hot coals. In the middle of the tent sat the Mór on a camp chair draped with a carpet so that it looked like a throne. One of her crows crouched on the arm of the chair. She wore her usual plain black shirt and trousers. Instead of her leafy crown, she wore a band of silver in her hair. She also wore an aura of glamorie, of beauty and nobility. Rook squinted and saw, behind it, that the Mór looked more tired than usual, her face lined and her hair like a crest of ruffled black feathers, not shining, but dull. Her eyes were a little too bright, and darted around the room as if she was nervous. Seeing Rook come in, she caught his eye and gave a tiny nod. Wait, she meant.

  On a chair beside the Mór sat the Huldre, the Lady of the people of this place. Rook knew about the Huldre. She had her own kind of glamorie. In the daytime she was a loathly old hag. As soon as the sun went down she turned into the cheerful-looking young woman sitting opposite the Mór. She had long, curly golden hair and rosy cheeks, and wore a clinging dress made of soft white leather trimmed with white fur, and a crown made of holly twigs and leaves. The dress had stains down the front from where the Huldre had spilled her dinner, and the hem was dirty from being dragged on the ground.

  Rook stood quietly by the door. His head spun and the wolf bites on his arms and chest burned. It’d been a long day; first the ride through the Way that the Huldre had opened for them, then getting Phouka settled and persuading one of the horse grooms to re-bandage the bites. The groom hadn’t done a very good job; Rook felt the bites gnaw at him with every move he made. Then the business with Fer and the wildling girl, Twig.

  “ . . . as soon as possible,” the Huldre was saying. Her body looked as fresh as a ripe apple, but the voice was cracked and dry like an old woman’s. “It is as if the land has been poisoned. Well, you are a Lady, as I am. So you feel the land, just as I do.”

  “Of course,” the Mór said grimly.

  “I do not like this way you have of bringing the spring, you know. It doesn’t feel right. But winter has lasted far too long,” the Huldre went on. “We can’t wait any longer for spring to come, so we will do what we must.”

  The Mór shook her head. “I need more time,” she said. “I have added somebody new to my retinue and she needs training.” She hunched forward in her chair. “Her participation in the hunt will make it exceptionally powerful. And this will give you more time to find us appropriate prey. It will be an excellent hunt.”

  “My goodness, it will have to be, to break the hold of this terrible winter we’ve had,” the Huldre said. “It’s the worst I can remember.” She rubbed her snub nose, thinking. “Leaf Woman would put things right. I wish she would return to her proper place.”

  “As do we all wish,” the Mór said briskly. “But Leaf Woman has gone away, and we must do the best we can without her.”

  “Yes, I suppose we must,” the Huldre said with a sigh. She moved like an old woman too, leaning on the arms of her chair to lift herself to her feet. “Take the time you need. Train this protégé of yours, and then she can spill the prey’s blood and bring us our spring.”

  “Three days,” the Mór said.

  “Three days it is,” the Huldre agreed with a nod. She turned and hobbled toward the door, the fur hem of her dress dragging on the rug. Seeing Rook, she stopped. “Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “It’s your puck!” She stepped closer and Rook held himself still while she leaned in to examine him with nearsighted eyes. Her breath smelled like rotten teeth. She was beautiful, though, even to his eyes, even from up close, her skin smooth and unwrinkled, her hair shining. “He’s younger than the puck you had last time, isn’t he?” the Huldre asked, turning back to the Lady. “Wherever did you get him?”

  The Mór leaned forward in her chair, her eyes narrowed. “He took on his puck-brother’s oath,” she said sharply. “He is bound to me.”

  The Huldre turned back to Rook with an enticing smile. “I could use a clever puck. I don’t suppose you’d like to transfer your oath to me, would you, child?”

  Anything would be better than being bound to the Mór. But he didn’t have that choice. “It’s a thrice-sworn oath,” he muttered.

  The Huldre stepped back, and the smile dropped off her face. “Oh,” she said. “But that’s—” She glanced at the Mór and then back to Rook. “I’m very sorry,” she whispered. She reached out with her hand and patted his face. “Poor puck. I can do nothing to help you.”

  Rook stared. He’d hardly expect her to help.

  One more gentle pat, and the Huldre pasted the cheerful smile back on her face, turned to nod to the Mór, and ducked out of the tent. A wisp of drumming and shouting leaked in as the tent flap was swept aside, and was muffled again when it fell.

  “Hm.” The Mór put her elbows on the arms of her carpet-covered chair and folded her clawlike hands under her chin. “You’ve been gone a long time, escorting Gwynnefar back to her tent after dinner. What has she been up to?”

  “This and that,” Rook muttered.

  The Mór frowned. “I will make it an or
der if I have to, Robin. Tell me what the girl has been up to.”

  He hated telling her. Hated it. He took a deep breath. “That maid of yours, Burr,” he said. “Her sister was wildling. She asked Fer for help.”

  “Fer?” the Mór interrupted, her eyebrows raised.

  He shook his aching head. Stupid, calling her by that name in front of the Mór. “Gwynnefar,” he said. “Burr took us to her sister and Gwynnefar healed her.”

  “How concise you are,” the Mór said, her voice dry. “Tell me more. How did this healing work, exactly?”

  Rook knew what she was asking. He waited a sullen moment before answering. “It’s what you think,” he said. “She used herbs and spells.”

  The Mór’s face grew still and cold. “So she is a healer, is she? Like her foolish mother.” Then she fell silent, perched on the edge of her chair with her shoulders hunched, staring down at the carpet beneath her feet. “She will not like to spill blood,” she muttered. At last her head jerked up. “Well, it is not what I wanted to hear.” Her face grew even colder. “Did you see what she did during our dinner, Robin? She sought to compel me to answer a thrice-asked question.”

  She’d nearly done it, too. Fer had resisted the Mór’s glamorie enough to demand answers of her, and that meant she was powerful.

  “She could be dangerous. But I will bind her to me,” the Mór said fiercely. “I must have her power bound to mine. I will bind her with blood, and my power in the land will be secured.”

  Bound with blood. Rook knew exactly what she meant by that. He hated it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The Mór gave a sharp nod. “You have done very well, Robin. I think you should name a reward.”

  He didn’t even stop to think. “I want my shifter-bone back, and the tooth.” So he could be a proper puck again.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the Mór said. “Not yet. Soon, maybe. In the meantime, I want you to keep watching Gwynnefar. And remember, no answering her questions.”

  “What if I have a question?” Rook asked. He could do what Fer had tried to do, ask once, twice, three times, and force her to tell what had really happened to the true Lady and her human lover.

  The Mór jerked herself to her feet, crossed the tent, and raised her hand. Rook kept himself from flinching away. “Do you dare ask a question of me, my puck?” she asked, her voice low, threatening. “Do you dare ask it three times?” She leaned closer. “Imagine what I might do to your puck-brother if I were compelled to answer.”

  Rook swallowed the question down. It was too big a risk. “No,” he whispered. “No question.”

  “I didn’t think so.” The Mór’s bony hand patted his face, just as the Huldre had done. “You look unwell, Robin. Go and sleep.”

  “Oh, sure I will,” Rook said. With all this going on, was he likely to sleep? Still, he stepped toward the tent’s door. As he pushed the hanging carpet aside to step out, he paused. “Have you noticed,” he said nastily, “that your guards are in the last stages of wildling?”

  The Mór’s eyes flashed silver, sharp as needles. “Leave it, Robin. That is for me to deal with.”

  Without answering, he stepped outside the tent. The Huldre and her people had gone. The drums were silent and the dancers had drifted away, and somebody had thrown snow on the bonfire to put it out. The night felt icy cold and empty. Overhead the half moon marched across a flat, black sky.

  Rook headed toward the tent where Phouka and the other horses were stabled. Phouka, his puck-brother, stuck in his horse form, who had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He felt shivery and light-headed. Go sleep, she had said. He wouldn’t sleep, but he needed to lie down for a bit and not think about the way the true Lady’s daughter and her questions picked at the tight bonds of his thrice-sworn oath to the Mór.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fer woke up in the gray time before sunrise, shivering inside a cocoon of silk sheets and two coverlets. She lay still for a moment, looking up at the sloped, blue-green ceiling of the tent. Last night she’d discovered something about who she really was. In this land, she was a healer. Today she would have lessons from the Lady, and she would learn more.

  Her stomach felt hollow—she was hungry for breakfast—but she was nervous, too. Lessons with Grand-Jane meant reading dusty herb lore and cleaning the stillroom and making up tinctures and lotions and electuaries. Boring, often enough. Warrior lessons with the Lady would not, Fer felt sure, be boring.

  They might even be dangerous.

  Steeling herself against the ice-cold air, Fer unwrapped herself from the coverlets, leaped out of bed, and flung on her jeans, woolen socks and sneakers, two T-shirts, her sweater, and, on top of it all, her patch-jacket. With cold fingers she braided her hair, sticking the Lady’s black feather in the rubber band at the end of the braid.

  On the chest she found a tray with breakfast on it; somebody must have brought it in while she slept. Also on the tray was a bottle stoppered with a cork and sealed with wax. Fer ran her finger over the seal. The wax came from Grand-Jane’s beehives. This was a message from her grandma, sent through the Way. Somebody—she wondered who—had brought it from the Way and left it for her to find.

  Opening the bottle, Fer pulled out the letter rolled up inside and read it.

  Jennifer—

  Things here have gotten very bad.

  My girl, when you opened the Way, something happened. It has been weeks since you left, and spring has still not come. The rains continue, every day. Winter has been creeping back in. The river through town is flooding, and none of the farmers have been able to put in their crops.

  I am afraid that something from that world is spilling over into ours.

  You must come home at once. I need you here.

  Fer jumped to her feet. Grand-Jane needed her!

  But wait. She couldn’t come at once. For one thing, she wasn’t sure, exactly, where she was. They’d ridden through the sky, or through another Way to get here, and she didn’t know how to get back.

  Her heart gave a thump. Grand-Jane was right, though. Something was wrong in this land. The wildling was evidence of that, and so was the stag hunt, and the over-long winter, and the Lady’s strange, twisty answers to Fer’s questions. And if the wrongness here was spilling over into her own world, it was her fault. She was the one who had opened the Way.

  “That means I have to close it,” Fer whispered to herself. But how? Rook couldn’t tell her. The Lady wouldn’t tell her, she felt sure.

  If she couldn’t close the Way, she’d have to set right whatever was wrong here. Spring hadn’t come there, Grand-Jane had written. The Lady brought the spring, Rook had told her. Maybe if the Lady brought the spring to all the lands, spring would come at home, too.

  She would stay, she decided. Stay until she figured out what was wrong and then help to fix it.

  That decided, she sat down on her camp bed and ate her breakfast and drank the cooling tea.

  While eating, she eyed the other thing she’d found on the chest. A warm-looking coat, black wool like the one Rook wore, but with a hood and silky-soft black fur at the collar and cuffs. She was supposed to wear it instead of her patch-jacket, she knew. But to trade her jacket for the Lady’s gift would be to leave Grand-Jane’s protection, and she wasn’t willing to do that.

  She waited a bit longer for Burr or Rook to fetch her for her lessons with the Lady. But they didn’t come. Fer stuck her head out of the tent flap. A black crow was perched on one of the bent birch trees nearby, waiting for her. The sky was cloudy gray, the pine trees dark, as if night was still clinging to them. The air smelled of fresh pine needles and of wood smoke. The camp was stirring, the Lady’s people like shadows in the gray light, coming and going.

  Fer stepped outside, then paused and closed her eyes.

  At first she just heard the breeze sighing in the pine branches overhead, and then she reached out to the land all around her. It was frozen and dead. In the distance, she
sensed, the land rose up into mountains, and winter gripped them, too, even colder than here. Under her feet, she felt roots trapped in the frozen ground, felt how they longed to stretch and send tendrils toward a warmer sun.

  She opened her eyes, wondering. At home she had felt the spring coming, the change in the air and in the swelling in the tree buds, but that was nothing to how connected she felt to this land. It was like . . . almost like she had extra senses, or like the land was part of her. It was like magic. No, it was magic.

  Taking a deep breath, Fer headed down the snowy path. A pile of charred wood lay in the middle of a trampled-down space before the Lady’s tent. She’d heard the sound of dancing and drumming last night, but she’d been too tired to see what it was. Some kind of feast, maybe, with a bonfire.

  Seeing her coming, a gray-clad wolf-guard, the female one, came to meet her.

  “Quick word in your ear, healer-girl?” the she-wolf said. Her words came out on puffs of steam in the icy cold air.

  “Okay,” Fer said, stopping. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “What do you want?”

  “It’s like this.” The she-wolf stepped closer. “We need your help.”

  Fer nodded. “All right. Help with what?”

  Across the cleared space, the Lady ducked under her tent flap and stepped outside.

  “Ah, nothing,” the wolf-guard said, seeing the Lady. “Never mind. No need to mention it.” She trotted ahead and, with a quick bow to the Lady, went to stand beside the tent.

  Fer followed, more slowly.

  The Lady stood slim and tall, beautiful from the top of her black hair to the soles of her black deerskin boots. “Good morning, Gwynnefar.” Her eyes narrowed, disapproving. “Did you not receive the coat I sent for you?”