Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [91]
“Yes,” I said, “she did.”
When Cecilia had sent me to Mother Chilton for the milady posset, I had not thought it strange. After all, even Maggie had recognized the name and known the old woman as a healer. But Mother Chilton had done so much more for Cecilia. She had sheltered her when Cecilia fled the queen’s wrath. She had sent Cecilia home, with the unknown “Hemfree” to escort her. And Mother Chilton had said something else on my last anguished visit to her, something about the queen. . . .
“Caroline studied the soul arts but she has no talent. Still, it is why the queen recognized you.” And, I realized with sickness in my belly, why the queen had brought Cecilia to court as a child. Caroline hoped that Cecilia would develop that “talent” that the queen lacked. She had not. But evidently there existed an underground web of these women, a web that spread gossamer threads from The Queendom to Soulvine Moor. Cecilia, Mother Chilton, Queen Caroline. Perhaps that web was why Queen Eleanor had refused to turn The Queendom over to her daughter. She knew that Caroline waded in dangerous waters. And now Cecilia, pursued by Greens, was being driven back to Soulvine Moor.
I don’t know how long I sat there on the reeking straw of the goat shed, blind and dumb from my inner terror. Finally Maggie said softly, “Roger?”
“Yes.” My voice did not sound like my own.
“Is Cecilia on Soulvine Moor?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Does she . . . Is she ...”
“I don’t know what she is.”
But the moment I said it, I knew it was not true. I knew what Cecilia was. She was exactly as I had always known her: childish, heedless, sweet-natured, lovely, adorable. She was the “pretty little kitten” that Mother Chilton had called her. No more, but no less. She had no “talent”—that was why Mother Chilton had hoped that she could “find some goatherd or scrub farmer to marry her.” That was why this unknown Hemfree had been sent to take care of her. Cecilia needed taking care of. That was why I, too, was here. To find and take care of Cecilia, my sweet kitten, my love.
Maggie said, “Who is ‘Hemfree’?”
“Some relative or friend of Mother Chilton.” And perhaps of Cecilia, as well. Someone who knew the country and the people and, perhaps even knew Soulvine Moor itself. Someone who Mother Chilton could order about, as the queen ordered Lord Robert. A man who lived in the shadow of female power. Like me.
“Roger, what are you going to do?”
“If Cecilia has gone onto Soulvine Moor, I must go after her.”
“Please do not.” Her voice was reasonable, but reason barely holding back a storm of emotion.
“I must.”
“Why? To find a silly girl who doesn’t care three pennies about you?”
“I have to go, Maggie.”
The storm broke. “Why?” she yelled. “To be killed? To have your soul taken? Why?”
“That’s a folktale. No one can take souls from the Dead.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I do.”
“It isn’t—”
“Maggie,” I said, taking both her hands in mine. “I’m going. If you don’t want to go, then stay in the Unclaimed Lands. Go back to that farm three days’ walk from here, they will take you, you’re a hard worker. Here, take this.” I fished out two of my remaining silver coins and held them out to her.
She threw the coins into the straw. “Keep your filthy money! But you can’t go into Soulvine!”
“I can. I will.”
“I won’t be—”
I lost all patience. “No one asked you to be anything! Go back to that last farm! Go back to The Queendom! I don’t care!”
She put her head into her hands and wept.
It was a gale of tears such as I had not imagined was in her, a deluge, nothing like the silent tears I had seen her shed for her slain brother. She wailed and sobbed—sensible, sharp-tongued Maggie! I didn’t put my arms around her. I sat, sullen, until the storm was over and she had grown quiet, and then I again laid the two silvers on her knee and left the goat shed. I headed east, toward the border, toward Soulvine