The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1) by Prue Batten Read Free Book Online Page B

the outline.
    Bellingham’s eyes, his breath, his voice were as tangible as if he stood in the room in front of her... Betrothed, betrothed, betrothed, he shouted . Everything merged with the sight of her father as he lay lifeless on the bed. Then her mother’s voice saying ‘This will help.’ It cascaded over her head threatening to wash her sanity away. And the prophecy, that eldritch feeling, pulled at her: Start walking, go on. Walk!
    She jumped up and began to cram clothing and a rug in a tote, rolling the few things tightly. A small miniature with a deft pencil sketch of her father followed, slipped down the side of the bag. Her dog, Hector, watched her sleepily, yawned and turned in three circles, to collapse and tuck his head firmly against his side. Ana went to kiss him, but something made stop. If she was to do this properly even he must be excluded from her life. ‘I'll not stay to marry Bellingham, and I can’t stay in the same house as Mother and Peter. I can never forgive them.’ Her muttering disturbed the dog and he grunted and burrowed his head deeper. Propelled by hurt, she turned away to grab the bag and climb through the open window, clambering on stockinged feet across the iron roof to the horse-chestnut tree by the back of the house, to jump and land like a cat on the ground. Creeping as quiet as a shade, she let herself in the kitchen door and set about piling some food into a cloth. Muslin bags filled with a little flour, dried meat, some cheese, one or two windfall apples, a knife. Time to be gone.
    She pulled the door shut and with care, picked up her father’s rowan crook. Its collar of silver bells glistened in the dark night and she thanked Aine the Mother that it was leaning against the doorframe. It was her most suitable weapon against attack from malign wights, and to avoid noise, she wrapped it in her jacket to silence it until she was behind the stables. There was a slight tinkle that seemed to ring as loud as the chimes of the Venichese campanile bells in the night air and she sucked in her breath for a moment, expecting Mother or Peter at the door.
    Nothing!
    With relief, she pulled low riding boots over the black breeches she had chosen to wear. She had knotted her hair and dragged on a dark woolen cap of her brother’s - she truly was a nightshade. A matter of moments and she was past the stables and in the middle of the Long Field, feet wet from the night dew but surely only the first of many discomforts she must endure. Not the least of which was the hurt she felt at her family’s shameless treatment of her. She would never understand, never! Then, as she hefted the bag onto her back, having unwrapped the crook and put on the coat, her bruised breasts pulled and tugged, as blue and yellow as if a horse had thrown her and stomped all over her body. As sharp as a goad, the pain prompted her to put her head down and continue through the pasture a quarter of a mile to the hawthorn hedge which separated ‘Rotherwood’ from the wildness of the Weald. She could hear the wights, their eldritch voices even now casting shivers down her arms. Throwing a last look back at the shape that was her home, Ana put a foot on the stile over the hedge and began to climb. Immediately the forest silenced. The total lack of sound crashed around her ears, more disconcerting than any noise, because for all of her life, Weald-wailing had run as a continual counterpoint to normal night sounds on ‘Rotherwood’. She grasped the crook firmly and with a tinkle of the collar of bells, she jumped to the ground to continue the journey she had begun.
    She had a plan. During the evening as she sat alone in her room, intermittent shivers shaking her body, she had dwelt on her mother’s perfidy. Unaware of anything her family might be suffering, her grief had kept her insulated. Had she been more cognisant, she may have understood her mother’s fear-driven actions a little better. Certainly she would never