The Cornish Princess by Tanya Anne Crosby
ChapterThirty-Two
Through the faintest crack in the ceiling, it was possible to spy a brightening sky—another trapdoor that might have gone unnoticed save for the faerie fire.
The second orb followed it up, leaving the tunnel below flirting with darkness. It stopped just over Málik’s head as a thin, feathery breeze blew at the orb from above, scattering tendrils of white and blue light. “Ladder,” he said, and even as he reached for it, Gwendolyn felt the kiss of a cool breeze. The rope was tucked to one side, hanging on a wooden dowel that was half gnawed—rats, perhaps—and Gwendolyn feared for a moment that the rope itself would be compromised. She held her breath as he released it, but one firm tug revealed it was secure and ready to climb.
This time, Málik ascended first, if only to be certain no one was waiting above, and Gwendolyn watched him with halted breath, praying that none of those raiders knew about her uncle’s fogous and where they led—but they mustn’t, because if they’d known, they would have already found themselves beset upon in these tunnels, rather than waiting for them to emerge.
They must have believed that shaft only a cellar and fully destroyed. And yet, only now, after wandering those tunnels, did Gwendolyn realize they’d encountered no ingots nor ore. The main cavern beneath her uncle’s bower had been empty, despite that no shipments had been made to Trevena in so long.
Were his wheals so depleted that he’d had nothing to send? Or was her uncle secretly trading with someone else? More questions for which Gwendolyn hadn’t any answers.
Once again, as Málik climbed, dirt rained down over the pate of her head, and her heart hammered savagely, anticipating another collapse. But the shaft remained sturdy, and Málik made quick work of the ascension. Reaching the top, he bumped his fist, and popped opened the trapdoor to find the night clear, and stars twinkling above. Only to be certain, he withdrew the sword from his scabbard and leapt from the shaft more nimbly than Gwendolyn could have managed. By now, every muscle in her body was sore—if not from battle exertion, then from crawling and stooping through furlongs and furlongs of dark, twisting tunnels.
The wound on her leg ached—not so much for the cut, but for the bruised flesh beneath. Her bottom hurt as well, completely overshadowing the tiny bruise she’d previously had on her knee.
Following its maker, the faerie fire—both orbs—vanished once they emerged into the night, dissipating like a puff of vapor, and Gwendolyn didn’t linger. The tunnel behind her fell into darkness as she reached for the ladder, body aching and muscles burning, as she followed the silvery moonlight to freedom.
To her surprise, she emerged into a quoit that reminded her of the Giant’s House near Fowey. Yet, unlike that quoit, this one appeared to be more of a tomb.
The sky was brightening, but the capstone above kept the moon’s full light from the trapdoor, so that, even by day, it must be difficult to spy from below.
As children, she and Bryn used to run about that Giant’s House, wielding wooden swords and taking turns at defending it. Demelza used to say they were built by a tribe of giants who’d hurled these stones together in a game of Quoits. This one sat in the middle of nowhere, with no sign of anyone having used the premises for any reason at all, not for years.
In fact, the stones were all covered with undisturbed lichen, which led Gwendolyn to believe no one had been here since the tunnel’s creation.
So then, were those fogous meant to store her uncle’s yields or were they only a means for escape? In the end, he’d sent Gwendolyn into the tunnels with Málik, only to die with his family in defense of her. Sorrow tugged at her heart and she fought back another painful sting of tears as she inhaled deeply of the fresh night air.
After so long crawling through damp dirt, she had grit between her teeth and her nostrils were encrusted with tears and filth. Much to her dismay, the quoit lay nestled in a small fen, along a ravine, and they had to wade through more wet muck and climb a steep hill to see anything beyond the reeds. Again, Málik led the way, sword in hand, until he reached the summit, and then he re-sheathed his sword and waited for Gwendolyn to join him.
Before them, the land lay cloaked beneath a mantle of kobold blue. The sea was only a shimmer in the distance, and the moon but a thin, mocking smirk in the sky.
“Where did your faerie fire go?” she wondered aloud.
“Gone,” he said, placing his arms akimbo. “It served its purpose.”
“Really?” said Gwendolyn, tugging at an eyelash to remove a bit of dirt. Every part of her ached, but it was only now that she really dared to notice. “I always heard they were more apt to lead men astray?” Indeed, the piskie lights were well known for leading men so far into the woods that they never again found the light of day. It was a wisp with a will of its own, and they were no doubt responsible for leading men to their deaths in the woods surrounding Porth Pool.
With every fiber of her being, she resisted the urge to sit now, knowing that if she did, she might never again rise.
Málik winked at her. “I suppose it depends on who it means to lead.”
“Ah,” said Gwendolyn, dumbly. Her brain hurt as well, as it tried in vain to make sense of everything that had transpired—not merely the attack on her uncle’s village, but Málik’s disclosures as well—the truth of who he was…
Fae.
She blinked, and the things he’d told her scattered like dust in the wind. Moreover, when she tried to ply him with more questions, she found she hadn’t any to ask.
“It’s too far to walk to Trevena from here. We’ll have to go back for horses,” he said, and Gwendolyn nodded, noting with a pang in her heart that he didn’t suggest it should be to check for survivors. Clearly, he really didn’t believe there would be any.
He looked at her then, and Gwendolyn saw not the arrogant creature she’d first met, but the friend she’d come to know. His heart was there in his pale blue eyes and this, too, squeezed at hers. Gods. She admired the firm features of his noble face, the confident set of his shoulders that bespoke such power and ageless strength.
There was so much Gwendolyn longed to say—I’m sorry, for one—but the words wouldn’t come.
To her shame, she had dis-served him… merely because.
She’d once told herself she admired his fae folk, and yet despite that she knew for herself what it felt like to be forsaken for what other people perceived, she had treated this man with the same contempt.
“I can go quicker without you,” he suggested.
“I’ll not remain here.”
To that, he nodded, his lips lifting at one corner, as though he’d already expected her to answer that way, and he said, without argument, “Stay close.”
The village wasn’t far.They arrived at the edge of twilight, with the sun only just waking. A soft blush lit the horizon, painting her uncle’s village a dusky shade of rose. Smoke rose from the landscape, like a smoldering brume arising from a warm, piskie pool.
Whoever those men were, they were gone now, but they’d left nothing intact. The garner was consumed, and Gwendolyn hadn’t the stomach—or the heart—to look inside. If there were any survivors at all—perhaps the children down the well, no one remained.
Her uncle’s home was burnt to the bedrock. Within the rubble, they spied several charred bones, though it was impossible to say to whom they belonged. The fire was spent already, but the embers still burned hot, making it impossible to sift through the remains. Though at least there was no need for a pyre; these bodies were already consumed.
Gruesome as it was, they spied the top of a man’s head, with one long arm twisted before it. Evidently, one of those raiders had been trapped in the shaft, with his torso buried and his head exposed to the fire—at least she hoped with all her heart that it was a raider, and not her Uncle Cunedda, meaning to follow them down.
The stable, too, was destroyed. There were no horses to take. However, Gwendolyn discovered her bridle and satchel hanging on a small wooden horse, most likely set aside when the farrier was fixing her mare’s shoes. Inside the satchel, much to her horror and relief, she found the prunes she intended to show her father.
Her belly protested loudly, having gone so long without sustenance, but more than the ache in her gut, the one in her heart could not be denied. Still, she held back more tears as she considered her part in this travesty. What would she tell her father?
She had lied about the reason she’d come to Chysauster, and now so many good people were dead. Someone would have to return to give them a proper funeral.
Satisfied that nothing could be recovered, they made their way south to Ia’s farm in funereal silence. Only once arrived, they found it, too, abandoned.
Most likely, Ia’s father had spied the village smoke, or heard the war horns, and rushed his family to shelter. There were many caves along the shoreline, and perhaps this was where they’d gone. They would return to discover they had no liege lord, and no one left to defend them—at least until her father could award these lands to another of his vassals.
Lamentably, they would also return to find they were minus two horses, though at least their animals seemed well enough in the interim. A few goats roamed about a small enclosure, a fat hog wallowed about a mud hole, and a lone hen scratched around a small but sturdy coop. Gwendolyn didn’t like to think herself so savage, but it was all she could do not to take that hen and swallow it whole.
Fortunately, she discovered a few eggs inside the coop and took those inside to boil. There, she found a small kettle and a dying fire in the hearth. She rekindled the flame, set the eggs into the pot, precisely as she’d watched Lowenna do, then returned to the stable to choose the two strongest horses for the journey home, fully intending to repay Ia’s father the instant she could.
In fact, she would trade him two for one, and if her father objected, she would stand her ground. The old Gwendolyn mightn’t have known how to boil an egg, or how precious a single hen was, but she was changed—all things were changed. Her actions had consequences, she realized only belatedly—even the most inconsequential decisions.
A swim in the pool with Bryn could easily have cost a dear friend his life, and Cornwall its alliance with Loegria. Her uncle and his family had paid in blood for her journey to Chysauster.
Perhaps at one time she and Bryn had marched along those shoals, searching for peregrines, but she was not seven any longer. She was seven-and-ten, a woman betrothed, with an ailing father and duties she must withhold.
“Let me see to your leg,” Málik demanded.
“It’s fine,” Gwendolyn said, as she saddled the second of two mares.
He arched a brow. “Your leg, Gwendolyn.”
Gwendolyn, too, lifted a brow, wondering when precisely she’d ceased to be “Princess” in his eyes. But this was not entirely unwelcome. With him, she’d much rather be Gwendolyn.
“You’re right. ’Tis healing,” he said, only after making her sit on a bench and unraveling the bandage to peek beneath.
“As you said, ’tis only a flesh wound,” she allowed, with a hint of a smile. “I shall live.”
“Indeed you will,” he reassured. “Indeed you will.”
And regardless, he cleaned the wound for her, then made her a strong-smelling poultice of mashed juniper leaves, smearing this smelly concoction on her wound, before re-wrapping the bandage. Thereafter, he disappeared for a while, and meanwhile, because everything they’d arrived with was gone, Gwendolyn searched the house for supplies to travel with.
She found two cloaks, one in a heap by a sewing basket, another in a coffer, neither in good repair. Thin, and made of wool, she wondered how they could keep anyone warm. But no matter, it was better than nothing, and this, too, she intended to repay twofold. She would gift them two of hers—else steal a few from her mother.
Gwendolyn pushed both cloaks down into the saddlebags—one for each—then slid her arming sword into the saddle’s fur-lined scabbard. In these parts, even a poor farmer must be prepared to defend his farmstead.
At long last, Gwendolyn stole an old blanket from another trunk in the master’s chamber and rolled it up, then tied it to the back of her mare, intending to share this with Málik.
The master’s bed had one more coverlet to spare, but she couldn’t leave the family with nothing. It wasn’t as though they had the benefit of a good port with merchants to trade with. These blankets were handwoven, and likely they’d taken Ia’s mother long months to weave.
Gwendolyn figured they would have taken the better of their blankets with them, but it wasn’t as though they had plenty. The house itself was quite mean.
It was only a short while before Málik returned, and Gwendolyn supposed he was ready to leave, but without a word, he dragged her into the master’s chamber, then shoved her down beside the bed.