Because it never occurred to me that I could climb them myself one day…
What a peculiar feeling…to realize how narrow her world had been. The city, and not even most of it, just the parts that held the Guildhalls, the homes of the people she visited, the shops she needed, her father’s warehouse. And a little, little bit of Sebastian’s forest. And she had never lifted her eyes past that. How much had she missed?
“Down there, our poacher traps that entire valley,” Eric was saying. “Now, as I told you, the land hereabouts is pretty poor. It’s mostly no good for the sort of hunting that the gentry do except if they want the challenge of a boar-hunt, and it’s been on the orders of the last several Dukes that if the people hereabouts want to take a few fish from the stream, wild goats from the hills, and rabbits and boar from the forest, they may do so. The dwarves mine the tin, so aside from a pen-scratcher or two, and a few mechanical fellows, there’s no wages for a man in the mines, and all the folk here have is what they can scratch out of the dirt, cut down and haul away, and catch. Sebastian said nothing was to change, and sent out word of that when he came of age. As keeper of these forests, I abide by what he says, and this makes sense. I don’t hold with making a man desperate. Purely because it isn’t practical. The most dangerous man there is, is the one who’s got nothing to lose. I can tell when game’s getting thin, I give out a few warnings, people move to another valley for a while for their hunting, and until now, everyone’s abided by the rules.”
She nodded, silently. That was just good common sense, the sort that the King exercised all the time, and encouraged his judges to use.
“But this fellow — ” Eric spat in disgust “ — he’s a disgrace. He’s not a poacher — he’s a butcher. He traps anything, and whatever he traps, he skins and takes only the hide, leaves the carcass to rot. He’s trapped out three valleys so far, and if I don’t stop him, he won’t stop till he’s trapped out the forest, and then what will the folks here do for a bit of extra meat? They’ll say it’s the Duke’s men who took all the game, and never mind Sebastian hasn’t any men.”
She nodded again.
“So, that’s why we’re here. I know he runs these traps just before sunset, counting on me wanting to be back behind the Manor walls by then. I can see three of those traps from here, and when he turns up, we’ll have him.”
“Can he see us from down below?” she whispered.
He grinned without looking at her. “If he could, we wouldn’t be here.”
Well, he’s the Gamekeeper…
“And there he is.”
She looked where he was looking, peering down into the shadows, down through the mist of barren twigs. It was only by the furtive movement that she saw him, if indeed it was a man, slipping through the underbrush and then pausing. The only reason she could see him at all was that he was dark against the white snow. If it had been summer, and all those trees and bushes thick with leaves, he would have been as “invisible” as her servants.
“He’ll be busy for a while. That trap has a mink in it, and he won’t want to spoil a hide that valuable,” Eric breathed. “Now, follow me, but stay a good fifteen lengths or so behind me. If he has friends, I want you to be a complete surprise.”
Eric eased his horse down the hill. When he was far enough ahead that the only thing she could see in the deepening shadows was the darker shadow of the moving horse, she followed.
The mule wasn’t happy about going downhill in such uncertain light, but she picked her way down the slope, anyway. Bella had no real idea of how far down the hill their quarry was, until suddenly Eric’s voice rang out in the cold air.
“Hold, in the name of Duke Sebastian!” His voice crackled with authority.
Which their quarry did not seem impressed by.
“Duke Sebastian ain’t here,” the poacher replied, sounding as calm as if he and not the Duke was the rightful owner of these lands. “And you can kiss my butt, Eric the Gamekeeper.”
“Brave words for a man with an arrow pointed at his heart,” Eric retorted.
“Man doesn’t have to be brave when his partner has a knife to your partner’s throat.”
What? she thought — and that was when something dropped out of the tree above her, landed behind her on the mule with a jolt that shook them both and grabbed her from behind before she could catch her breath
“Be very quiet, laddie,” said a voice in her ear, as she felt the cold edge of a blade press into her throat.
A mule’s reaction to something unexpected was to freeze, with all four legs planted — which, this time, was not in the least useful. Her captor had plenty of time to wrap the arm that did not have a knife at the end of it around her, pinning her upper arms to her chest.
Terror hit her like lightning, and just as in the forest, when the wolf had begun chasing her, she acted without thinking.