The Black Chalice

Seven

Alymere rode blindly into the blizzard.

The road took them into the fringe of the forest, the trees providing some small respite from the harsh weather, if not the extreme cold. He found himself thinking how easy it would be to become disorientated and lost, and from that, how easy it would be to stumble, turn an ankle, and fall, and end up freezing in the snow. How long would you last? In a matter of minutes the shivering would become uncontrollable, in an hour the cold would creep into your bones; in two, or three, you'd slip into a drowsy torpor, and you'd never wake up. It would be an almost pleasant way to go, he thought, then shook off the thought. It was an all too seductive idea and once it had a foothold in the back of the mind it would keep whispering away all the while as the world grew colder.

Sir Lowick was a man with a mission. He pushed his huge warhorse on, urging the animal to gallop faster and faster, headlong into the snow. Alymere, more cautious and on a less sure-footed animal, had long since lost sight of the knight in front of him, but he could hear his destrier's heavy hooves in amongst the other sounds: the whistle of the wind through the leaves, the rustle of the snow-laden branches as they stirred, the chafing of the leather saddle against his hose, the crunch of the snow beneath his horse's hooves, and the muffled sound of his own breathing dampened by his fur-lined hood.

It was darker here, beneath the canopy of trees. Sunlight cast silver coins across the road in front of him like an offering over the snow that Sir Lowick's warhorse had churned up. He caught a glimpse of movement off to his right, but even as he turned to get a better look it had gone, disappearing back into the deeper woods.

Alymere rode on, alert, his eyes darting everywhere at once. Given the discovery of the abandoned mile house and the suspicion that the wardens had been lured away, a deep sense of unease began to take root deep in his craw.

He saw it again as the road bore to the right two hundred paces on, but no more distinctly than the first time. It moved quickly, whatever it was, with an animal grace. He was left in no doubt that the thing was shadowing them. It seemed to be running parallel to the road — which had become more of a track the deeper they travelled into the forest — keeping itself always just out of sight.

He saw it again twice more before he realised what it was: a red hart.

It was a big majestic creature with ten points on its antlers, making it almost certainly king of the forest. That such a noble beast followed them rather than fled at their approach was curious in and of itself. Even as the thought crossed his mind, the hart bolted, disappearing into the forest.

Alymere drew his travelling cloak tighter about his shoulders and hunched down in the saddle, keeping low.

A red hart.

They were deep into his father's lands, his father who had been known as the Knight of the Leaping Hart, and it had been ten years since his father's death. Ten points, ten years, a leaping hart running alongside them on the road. Could it be an omen? If it was, could he afford to ignore it? Alymere made the sign of the cross over his chest.

As he came around the next corner, the track opening up before him, Alymere was surprised to see the hart standing there, head high, staring him down as though in challenge. The huge beast's ribcage heaved, expanding and contracting with the rhythm of heavy breaths. Wraiths of white coiled out of its flared nostrils, conjuring ghosts between them. But this was no ghost or vision, Alymere realised, staring at the hart as it stared back at him. It was very much alive.

He slowed his horse from a canter to a stop, no more than twenty paces between them. The last thing he wanted was for the hart to bolt again, but for some reason he was absolutely sure it wouldn't.

Alymere felt the change in the weather around him; the lessening of the snowflakes, and the easing of the pressure of the cold in his lungs. The change was subtle but noticeable.

He dismounted, walking slowly toward the hart.

The proud creature didn't turn tail and run; at least not immediately. It watched him curiously. As he neared it pawed at the snow with one of its front hooves, and dipped its head to aim at Alymere's chest. For one heart-stopping moment he thought the hart was about to charge him down and he imagined the agony of those points driving through his father's mail shirt and into him. But it didn't. The hart tossed its head to the left, seemingly gesturing for him to follow as it rocked back on its powerful haunches, turned, shifting its immense weight, and sprung into a flurry of motion. The hart's hooves kicked up snow as it bounded away into the trees.

For a moment Alymere stood in the middle of the road, his horse behind him, the hart disappearing in front of him, trapped in indecision, and then he ran after it, pushing his way through the hanging branches. They cut at his face and pulled at his cloak as he forced his way through them. He didn't care, even as a briar thorn tore open his cheek and drew blood. If he slowed down he would lose the hart, and he wasn't about to let that happen. If pressed, he couldn't have said why, but he knew that it was imperative he follow the animal. It was as though he had no conscious choice in the matter, some unseen force impelling him, and all he could do was stumble and flounder deeper and deeper into the forest, always trying to run faster, pushing at the dragging branches and tripping over snagging roots.

The hart was always there, just in front of him, darting and weaving gracefully through the tangled wood.

It was playing with him. He never gained so much as a pace on it, and it never drew away more than a dozen before it looked back to be sure he still followed.

Alymere blinked back the sting of cold tears from the bitterly cold air and plunged on. The sounds of the forest changed, dampened by the press of snow on the canopy of leaves above. Less and less light filtered through, but the little that did speared down in shafts of golden sunlight. The ground was dusted with snow but nothing like the two-foot deep drifts that lay on the fields. Alymere pushed back his hood, sacrificing the warmth it afforded for some semblance of peripheral vision. The forest was alive with movement.

He caught sight of a flurry of black off to his right: wings. After the initial shock at the explosion of movement and sound, Alymere realised it was nothing more sinister than a bird startled into flight and trapped beneath the canopy, unable to rise into the sky. The bird darted between branches and trunks, finally settling on a thick limb in front of Alymere, halfway between him and the hart. It was a crow, he realised, although it was larger than any crow he had ever seen.

The crow ruffled its feathers as he approached, its beady yellow eyes watching him intently. Alymere felt distinctly uncomfortable under its scrutiny. For the second time since leaving the mile house he made the sign of the cross over his chest. The crow threw back its head and burst into a raucous caw that rang out through the trees. The echo folded back on itself over and over again, making the caw seem to last forever.

As the sound finally faded, the hart bolted.

Alymere launched himself after it again. He glanced back over his shoulder once, to see the crow staring down at him. The bird loosed another mocking caw. Alymere was left in no doubt that the crow was laughing at him on his fool's errand, but he ignored it and ran on. He was lost, the hart leading him a merry dance deeper into the wood. He wanted to stop, to turn back and follow his tracks back to the road before they blurred away beneath more snow, shed by falling branches, but retreat wasn't an option. He was committed. He had been ever since he had taken the first step into the forest. The forest was a primeval place; strange things happened within its sanctuary, of that Alymere was in no doubt. The red hart was a portent, and a powerful one at that… could it be his father's spirit guiding him now? The thought sent a thrill through young Alymere's blood, reinvigorating every muscle and fibre in his body. He pushed himself harder, running faster, ignoring the sting and cut of the trees. He wasn't about to let the hart escape him. Not now. Not if it had been sent by his father.

The crow flew behind him, darting ahead occasionally only to circle back through the tree trunks and up behind him again as the bizarre procession wound its way deeper into the heart of the primeval wood.

The press of the trees began to thin. He saw moss growing on one side of the trunks, and knew from his uncle's teaching that he could use such knowledge to find his way back out of the forest. It was as good as a mile marker and a signpost for charting the passage of the sun.

And then the forest opened up into a grove. The red hart stood in the centre of it, drinking from a crystal blue pool while the crow settled on a dolmen that seemed to form a gateway on the far side of the clearing. For a moment Alymere thought he caught sight of another place through the stone arch, but the illusion was broken as a woman stepped through it into the grove. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a garland of summer flowers tangled in her hair. Sunlight streamed down all around her, bathing her in its radiance.

But it wasn't the woman that stopped Alymere dead in his tracks, nor the sight of the crow bursting into flight in a flurry of wings to settle on her shoulder a moment, but the shift in temperature. It was as though he had stepped out of the heart of winter into the warmth of spring in a matter of a dozen paces.

She wore a simple white dress that hugged her body. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, with rings of daisies woven into the curls. A blush of colour filled her cheeks as she smiled at him. It was a smile to fire the blood and stop the heart at the same time.

Alymere felt a thousand urges welling up inside him all at once, each one undeniable — lust, hunger, adoration, protectiveness — but more than anything, seeing her, being near to her, he felt alive.

The Spring Maiden stood beside the red hart, stroking its glossy pelt, then knelt, cupping her hands in the water and offering it to the majestic animal. The hart drank from her hands. Alymere had never seen anything like it in his life and doubted he ever would again.

Had he not been so taken with her beauty he would have seen the reflection she cast in the water. In the truth of the pool she was anything but beautiful. In the water the flowers in her hair became corpse blossoms, the blush in her cheeks gave way to grey, cracked and withered skin, and her eyes, so full of summer, darkened and became sunken hollows set deep in her pinched skull. Her glossy black tresses reflected back as thin clumps of grey hair and patches of psoriasis-crusted scalp. The beauty mark on her left lip was a wart in the water. Her simple white dress which hugged her like a long lost lover was transformed into the black shift of a crone in mourning. Where youth and beauty gazed into the pool, death looked back out of the water. But Alymere was young, his heart naive. He saw only beauty.

And when the Crow Maiden opened her mouth, her words were every bit as seductive as her borrowed demeanour.