The Blight of Muirwood Read online

  The Blight of Muirwood

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE:

  CHAPTER TWO:

  CHAPTER THREE:

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  CHAPTER SIX:

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  CHAPTER NINE:

  CHAPTER TEN:

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO:

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE:

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY:

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO:

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX:

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN:

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT:

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE:

  CHAPTER FORTY:

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE:

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO:

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE:

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR:

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE:

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX:

  The Blight of Muirwood

  The Muirwood Trilogy

  Book Two

  Jeff Wheeler

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Jeff Wheeler

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for your support.

  Visit the author’s website:

  www.jeff-wheeler.com

  Print edition available

  The Muirwood Trilogy

  The Wretched of Muirwood

  The Blight of Muirwood

  The Scourge of Muirwood

  “In every era there comes a moment when the collective thoughts, whims, and motivations of a people become so self-absorbed, so malignant, so unheeding that nature itself revolts. Man scars the land such that it finally rebels against him. As thoughts can spread despair and death like seedlings of weeds strewn by the wind, so they eventually draw the Gardener to pluck them out. The vetches must be pulled, roots and all. When this happens, the Medium ceases to bless, and instead, it curses. Instead of healing, it spews poison. It happens swiftly and terribly. The ancients gave it a name, this culling process that blackens the world. They named it after a wasting disease that occurs in once-healthy groves of trees. They called it the Blight.”

  - Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

  CHAPTER ONE:

  Whitsunday

  Someone threw a stone or a spoiled fruit at the man perched atop the maypole and he nearly lost his balance. After ripping his cap from his head, he shook it at the offender, probably a young man dashing through the crowd. Then grumpily, he planted the cap back on his head, made a gesture of frustration, and continued tying the sashes to the rings crowning the maypole. One by one, the colorful sashes tumbled down.

  “He almost fell off that time,” Sowe said, wincing.

  Lia could not help grinning. “Every year someone tries to knock him down. Every year. What would happen if they did? He would probably break his neck and then there would be no dancing.”

  “Maybe that is why the boys do it.”

  “Not all of them hate dancing. What color sash do you want, Sowe?”

  “It does not matter,” she said, looking down. “No one is going to ask me to dance.” Her shoulders drooped. Dark hair veiled part of her face.

  “Only if you hide up here in the loft. If you go to the maypole, someone will dance with you. I know it.”

  “I do not think so.”

  “Thinking that will surely make it so.”

  Sowe just shrugged and looked back out the window to the maypole in the middle of High Street. “What color do you think I should choose?”

  “Blue,” Lia said. “It matches your eyes as well as our dresses.” She also looked back. The maypole was taller than the walls surrounding Muirwood’s grounds. It was a tradition of sorts, these many years they had spent in the kitchen together, to watch it hoisted up and festooned with decorations. But this year was different. They were both old enough to dance around the maypole. The thought brought giddiness and jittery nerves. Both Duerden and Colvin would ask her to dance, so she did not have Sowe’s fear of being a girl lacking a partner. But she did not want to embarrass herself by tripping on her hem or squashing someone’s foot as they skipped around the circle, holding hands. As she imagined the dance, a sudden pang of sadness struck her. The man who had taught them the maypole dance was dead and it was her fault. Even the smallest things reminded her of Jon Hunter.

  “What is wrong?” Sowe asked, seeing the expression on Lia’s face, and studied her with concern.

  “Just remembering when Jon taught us the dance.”

  Sowe’s smile wilted. She reached out and gripped Lia in a tight hug.

  Pasqua’s voice bellowed from below. “How long does it take to fetch a bag of milled flour, I ask you? Stop watching the window, the pole will still be there when your chores are finished. Do you smell the honey cakes in the oven? Mind you do not forget the sugarplums, the tourtelettes, the sambocade. And I need you to carry out the Gooseberry fool before you change. If you spill and make a mess of yourselves before the dance, you will regret it. Get down here, girls. If I have to come up there, I will bring a switch. I will. Or a broom.”

  Lia and Sowe grinned at each other through their tears, for they both knew that Pasqua was totally incapable of climbing the loft ladder. They hugged each other fiercely a moment longer, saying nothing, then brushed their eyes and hurried down, moving through the kitchen as if preparing for battle. Every open space on the tables was crammed with trays already spilling over with sweets and delights that only emerged the week of Whitsunday. Lia snitched a tiny Royal cake and stuffed it into her mouth. Sowe looked shocked and then tried not to giggle.

  Pasqua’s sleeves were rolled up and she was everywhere at once, stirring pots, poking loaves in the ovens, cracking eggs, and ladling honey. Lia balanced the trays on barrels and chests, while Sowe scrubbed pots clean so that other dishes could be started.

  “Lia, take the pizzelles to the manor house,” Pasqua said. “They are for the Aldermaston’s guests this afternoon. Hurry back, girl. Do not dawdle and gawk! There is much to do.”

  As Lia approached the door with a tray of pizzelles, it opened from the outside. Sunlight blinded her for a moment, and she did not recognize the man in the doorway. Though she did not know him, he walked in as confidently as if he had entered the kitchens a hundred times.

  He was shorter than Lia, but as old as the Aldermaston and Pasqua. He had a cropped beard that was well salted, matching the rough tangle of hair atop his head. The leather hood was pulled down about his dirty neck and shoulders, and he wore stained leathers beneath as well, a rough-looking tunic black with sap spots and a sheathed gladius belted to his waist. The sight of the weapon struck Lia like thunder. If that did not, the bo
w sleeve around his shoulder would have. The wild look of him, the oil and leather smell of him, reminded her fiercely of the man she had buried in the Bearden Muir.

  “Who is barging into my kitchen on Whitsunday,” Pasqua said, her voice building to roar as she turned around. She was dumbfounded a moment. “Martin?”

  His voice was loud and thickly accented. “It is a good reason, Pasqua, and I will beg you not to raise your voice at me again. Even these many years have not dulled the ache from hearing you rant, by Cheshu. Tell me where the Aldermaston is, and I will be on my way as quickly as I came.” He turned his fiery eyes to Lia. “Do not stare so, lass, that will not do. Not at all. The rudeness of children these days. I will relieve you of several of those since the tray looks so heavy.” And with dirty fingers, he snatched three pizzelles and started eating one. Crumbs clung to his beard.

  Lia looked back at Pasqua. She stood silently, her mouth gaping open, staring at the intruder. “Martin,” she said again, almost whispering. Then her eyes blazed with white-hot heat. “Out. Now. Out!”

  He leaned against the doorframe and cocked his eyebrow at her, waiting.

  “Get that tray away from him, Lia. Do not let him steal another bite. Where is that broom? Sowe – the broom! Out, Martin. Out!”

  “Huff and holler all you like, Pasqua. Just tell me where I can find the Aldermaston and I will go.” He wandered over to a nearby barrel with a perfect dish of sambocade. Not a slice had been cut into it yet. “I always did fancy this dish of yours. I just might have a taste of it.”

  “If you touch it, I will have your finger in a stew!”

  He stood over it, eyeing it hungrily. “Just a little. I will use a spoon.”

  “Do. Not. Touch. It!”

  “The Aldermaston is in the manor,” Lia said, nodding to the man respectfully and nudging him with her eyes towards the door. “I will take you, sir, as I was just on my way.”

  “Kind of you lass, but I know the way. Much has changed since I last roved these grounds. Much indeed, including yourself.” His eyes burned like blue fire. “Why, you were but a mewling little thing. It was I who found you in a basket that night, lass. I who brought you to Pasqua, if she has sense enough to remember your first taste of milk. I left Muirwood when you were but a seedling, but how you have sprouted! You have the same look about you. Why, you are even taller than me now. On our way then. Pasqua, I will have some of that later, mind you. You will save me a slice.”

  And he said it in such a way that Lia felt the tingle of the Medium thread through his words.

  * * *

  “You wanted to see me when the guests left, Aldermaston?” Lia said, clenching her hands as she stepped into his study. “Astrid said they were gone.”

  The Aldermaston’s voice was leathery and out of breath. “You may go, Martin. Enjoy the festival. I will speak to her. Alone.”

  She had interrupted a conversation and paused, looking about the room. Lia had not seen Martin in the shadows on the other side at first. He blended in well, his features still and brooding. With a sour-faced shrug, he rose from the window seat and crossed to the door, staring intently at Lia all the while, his expression growing sterner and sterner, as if he found something very distasteful about meeting her a second time.

  Even with the conversation unfinished, Martin obliged. “All in due time, Aldermaston. Aye, all in due time. Enjoy the festival. As if I will enjoy myself watching for sneaky cutpurses or learners getting too cuddly under the eaves instead of eating finch pie. Enjoy myself, by Cheshu.” He gave Lia one final scorpion look and then shut the door behind him, hard.

  Lia turned and found the Aldermaston reaching down and lifting something heavy to the table. She recognized it instantly as Jon Hunter’s gladius, except it was polished and the leather scabbard smelled of oil soap. Next, he set down two leather bracers, a shooting glove, a tunic girdle, and a quiver of arrows. Each item had been painstakingly polished. Finally, the bow came next and the Aldermaston set it on top of them all. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed them towards her.

  Lia swallowed. “I do not understand.”

  “The Medium weighs heavily on me tonight, child. Concerning you. The feelings have persisted and I am too old to bother ignoring them. These are yours now. Tomorrow, after Whitsunday, you are the new hunter of Muirwood. I sent for Martin to train you. He is not pleased with the choice, as you could tell, but he will obey. There is no one better than he that I could trust to train you. He is Pry-rian, actually, which makes it all the more interesting considering our discussions since the death of the old king at Winterrowd. Your training begins tomorrow, as I said.”

  Years before, Lia had stumbled off the ladder steps carrying a heavy sack of flour, had fallen on her back, the sack spewing flour dust all over her, nearly choking her to death. She felt like that now, her world turned upside down, her head aching and mouth too full of questions to even know how to start speaking.

  The Aldermaston slowly stood and walked to another chest. He gently opened it. “You say nothing?” he asked.

  “I am too…I am too startled to speak. What about my duties in the kitchen?”

  He looked closely at her, squinting. “You will be replaced with another helper. It happens often enough. It would not be possible for you to do both duties, Lia. You must learn to fight, to hunt, to handle animals.” His gaze penetrated her soul. “You will memorize the secret tunnels beneath the grounds for errands that I will send you on. Be one of my advisors, like Prestwich and Pasqua. And Martin. You are to be one of the Abbey’s defenders now. Since you are so talented with the Medium already, you will even handle some of the outer defenses, the stones that warn us of danger. The stones that defend us. That is a duty that Jon could never fulfil because the Medium never heeded him. You are different.”

  Become a hunter? Her? The thought of leaving the kitchen made her ill. Leave Pasqua and Sowe again so soon? Her experience with Colvin in the Bearden Muir and Winterrowd was hardly a fortnight ago and she finally felt safe again. Now the Aldermaston ruined it with his words. Yet at the same time, she was excited, thrilled, that he trusted her despite her youth. That he needed her. That the Medium needed her.

  Her mind was so full, her question came out a little foolishly. “Has there ever been a girl before?”

  “Pardon me, Lia?”

  “As your hunter – I mean, as the Aldermaston’s hunter. Has it always been a boy?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “Does that matter?”

  It was difficult to explain her feelings. “What will everyone say? They will wonder why you chose me and not someone strong like Getman Smith, or some other wretched like Asdin who you trust with messages.” They will mock me, she thought, her eyes boring into his.

  He was quiet a moment, his expression beginning to twist into annoyance.

  “Fools mock,” he answered gruffly. “Tongues wag. Babies cry. And goats bleat.” He reached down into the chest he hovered near and pulled out a bundle of soft blue fabric. “They would fuss and fret no matter who I set in that position. Many did the same when Jon became the Abbey’s hunter. But only because they do not understand that I did not choose him. Neither did I choose you. Muirwood is guided by the Medium, not by me.” He paused and studied her face. “Tomorrow, the training begins. Tonight though, you must dance.” He approached and handed her the bundle, which she discovered to be a new cloak and dress.

  His voice was thick with emotion. “I cannot believe you are old enough for the Whitsunday festival. I knew this time would come. I always knew it. The night of the storm when you stole the ring. I was so angry with you, that you stole something valuable from my chamber. A gold ring. Yet the Medium forbid me to reclaim it from you or to chastise you. You still wear it around your neck. The Medium was aware that you would need it. And you did, in the Bearden Muir. Just as it is aware that you need this experience now. Here, take these. Your old cloak and dress are fit for rags now. Pasqua has been telling me for some time that you are sti
ll growing. And since tonight is the maypole dance, we thought it best if you and Sowe had new dresses and girdles. Go child. Return in the morning for the sword and the rest instead of bringing me my breakfast.”

  Lia bit her lip. “Does Pasqua know?”

  The Aldermaston shook his head. “Not yet. She will know tonight, and I will tell her.”

  Lia took the soft bundle and hugged it to her chest. Her feelings swarmed, threatening her with tears, but she clenched them back, refusing to cry in front of him. For a moment, for an instant, she had hoped he was going to tell her that she could become a learner at the Abbey. Colvin had promised her that. Would he not have made the arrangements for her to start when the new first years arrived? More than anything, she wanted a tome of her own and the implements of scriving. She wanted to read about the mastons of the past and how they had learned to tame and be tamed by the Medium. That was what she wanted, not becoming a hunter. The experience in the Bearden Muir still haunted her dreams at night. She never wanted to go back there.

  Closing her eyes, Lia nodded and turned away from the Aldermaston, uncertain what she should be feeling towards him. Gratitude? Dismay? Trust? Betrayal? Why were her feelings always so tangled and confusing with him?

  She hurried out of the manor house to the kitchen. The sun was low in the sky and sinking fast. The festival would begin soon. Everything in her world was about to change.

  Desperately, she wanted to talk to someone, to spill her feelings and know she would be listened to. Someone who knew about facing their fears and rising above them. Her heart wrenched with confusion. It was not Sowe she wanted to tell. It was Colvin. She was grateful that she would see him soon. For word had spread all day that many knight-mastons who had received their collars and spurs at Winterrowd had come to celebrate Whitsunday at Muirwood.