Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Derwinwater

It is hard to place exactly when it started. My yearning to leave, that is. I think it must have started a long time ago, perhaps on that first autumn day when I discovered my gift. But perhaps it started before then. Either way, I think a better place to start my account of things is much later on the days leading up to my departure.

The most noteworthy thing I remember from that time was the bird song. It was spring, we had just trudged through the dullest winter our little village had ever faced and when the sun finally came it brought with it the flowers and the birds in all their glory. I remember one morning I woke early, hours before dawn, as I often did. I dressed in the silvery gloom, putting on tough leather hunting clothes, then headed out into the crisp morning which was still so silent, only broken by the far away call of a late night bird.

Out of the grounds of my father’s large house I walked, and into the streets, overcrowded and already smelling of sweat and sewage at this cool hour. A few people scuttled by, farmers on their way to start the day’s chores, merchants who had long journeys ahead, but only the odd face, nothing compared to the swarms which would press their way down these narrow roads in only a few short hours’ time.

Finally after a few twists and turns, the buildings thinned and I entered the forest.The woods were vastly sweeter smelling and less inhabited, this was my dominion. There was only one person in the world who knew this land as well as I did, it was her who I was going to see that morning. Her name was Leigh, she was one of my closest and oldest friends, there was not a time in all my life when I didn't know her.

I made my way to her, picking my way through bushes and trees rather than sticking to the path whose route was meandering and slow. For almost an hour I walked through the dim expanse of woodland, listening to the sounds that the creatures made as they too set about their morning tasks. As I walked the segments of sky which I could see through the dense leaves overhead started to lighten and bird song started to fill the darkness.

Eventually I heard human voices, gruff and deep, the voices of men who knew they were men a little too well. I carried on walking towards my destination, a campsite inhabited by a gang of hunters. Eventually I emerged into a large clearing, already alive with activity. I was barely spared a glance as I walked past the vast men who were busy sharpening weapons and packing supplies. I walked straight to one of the wooden huts which ringed the clearing, all facing inwards to a central bonfire where meals were prepared and eaten in the evenings.

Without knocking on the door I entered the cabin, inside was dark despite the quickly brightening day outdoors, these hunters had no glass for windows. Leigh sat on the edge of a low straw bed. She was bent over, putting a leather boot on, her long brown hair fell to the ground and brushed the dirt floor, she did not mind. Leigh’s a few years older than me. Probably. Nobody’s really sure, seeing as she was found in a meadow as an infant. Jared, the leader of the hunters, heard her crying one summer’s day, and knowing that there were no houses where a baby might live nearby, he went to investigate. He found her wrapped in a cloth, laying in the centre of the meadow on a bed of grass and wild flowers. Jared has often been called a cold blooded man, but he is not cruel and so he took the child and gave her to one of the hunter’s wives who raised her until she passed away a few years later. From then on Leigh belonged to the hunters. She could have been no older than six, although none of the men had much experience with children they did their best for her. She was raised a hunter, learning their ways and their trade.

She stood up, straightening out the men’s tunic which she always wore. “You ready?” she asked, a smile flitted over her odd little face. She was actually very pretty, but she was pretty in such a cute way that it didn’t suit her at all. She had rosy, freckled checks, a button nose and the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen, but I had seen those features grimace as they pulled an arrow from a dead creature more times than I could count, her girlish beauty always seemed so misplaced in her.

“Absolutely.” I looked around the chaos of the hut, an assortment of arrows, clothes, wood shavings and scraps of fur carpeted her bare floor. “Are you?”

“Yes” She said slightly flustered as she gathered together a flask and a sheath of arrows. “I was up late last night carving these” she waved and arrow vaguely as she slid it into the leather tube.

A moment later we were in the open air, back into the outside world which was now as light as day. As we walked across the circle of huts Jared spotted me. He came over with his arms thrown wide open and a big leering grin on his face. There were several teeth missing in his open mouth.

“Samantha!” he cried enthusiastically. “So glad you could make it down here today.” He spoke in a friendly tone, but there was an accusation there. I hadn’t been able to come on the hunt for a few days. I had broken the agreement. “You tell your father that if you miss one more day this month and we’ll have to re-think our arrangement. You hear me?” he told me, he didn’t sound in the least bit angry, not even especially threatening. It was just another preparation he had to make before he could set out today.

The arrangement he referred to was a deal struck between him and my father. The agreement was made long before I was even born and it was that in return for Jared not ordering his hunters to attack the village, Father would pay him. But my Father’s village is poor and he had no money to spare, and so he agreed that his first born child would work for Jared. When I was born a girl Father was certain that the terms had been “first born son” but Jared burn down a few barns and in the end I was sent to him at the age of seven.

I followed Jared’s hulking form as he led us all into the depths of the forest. We walked silently, more silent than a summer breeze, more deadly than a raging fire, we plucked our route over the dead leaves and dirt. I felt a sense of peace out there in the forest. When I had first started hunting I despised it with a burning passion but after many long days spent alone in the cool green, I learnt to love the sounds of the forest. We were a team, a seamless unit of efficiency, splitting up and combing every inch of ground, never a foot out of place.

I hadn’t been walking long when a movement on a tree trunk caught my eye. In the split second that it took the squirrel to make its spiralled way around the tree I pulled an arrow soundlessly to my bow and when it reappeared it fell to the ground with a shaft of wood sticking out of its head. I walked to the base of the tree, picking up the small dead thing. It was scrawny and thin, it might feed a cat, but the cats could feed themselves.

I stuffed it in my game bag and returned to the route I had been tracing. One of the hunters was watching me.

“You always hit them right in the head” he said. His name was Ethan.

“I have a lot of practice” I said as I walked past him.

“We all have a lot of practice. How do you do it?” He persisted as he followed me. A pigeon flapped through the branches above our heads. Another swift shot brought it down, the arrow straight through the wing this time. It was still alive when it came down, I broke its neck with a sharp crack then pulled the arrow from the wing. He watched me all the time, his face an innocent mixture of admiration and disgust. I walked on, pretending I hadn’t noticed that he was still dogging me. I didn’t find anything else until I reached the stream. It was a small stream, fresh water flowed over black slimy rocks and bright flowers grew in the wet soil on the banks. Three deer stood by the stream, their delicate heads bent as they drank the sweet water.

Ethan drew up beside me, pulling his crossbow to his shoulder. He released his bolt at the same instant as my arrow left the bow. They sailed through the air next to each other, while they were flying I loaded a second arrow and put it through the third dear.

They lay there on the ground, their blood flowing and mixing with the water. The perfect tranquillity of the stream was broken, suddenly the air seemed silent as though every creature mourned the death of their comrades. I pulled the arrows from the animals’ heads and we carried them back to camp over our shoulders, not caring for the blood which dirtied our clothes. I threw the deer and my game bag down on the ground of the clearing and turned to go back into the forest.

“wait” Ethan told me “most of those guys couldn’t catch this much in a week” he said, I stayed silent hoping that he wasn’t going to ask me again how I managed to do so well for myself. “We’ve done our fair share, let’s stay here for the day, we can pretend we just got back when the others get here.”

I looked at him for a moment, then reluctantly nodded and a smile crept onto my face “alright.”

We sat down on one of the benches which ringed the central bonfire pit and there we stayed for most of the day, talking and joking the way old friends do. The sky was a deep indigo when we heard the first voices making their way through the forest. Merry, rejoicing tones which neared us steadily, the sound of a pack of wolves returning home from a successful day. They all arrived at once, they must have met up in the forest somewhere, each of them was carrying a rabbit or two, or perhaps a goose or even a boar. They cheered when they saw our deer, the crowd, who had perhaps already taken a few too many sips of their flasks, flowed towards the campfire issuing congratulations and praise. I slipped away from the throng and left while no one was looking. There was going to be a party there tonight, these things were never planned but when everyone was in such high spirits these things always ended up happening. I left the light of the fires and torches which were quickly being lit in the clearing and entered the twilight darkness of the forest. Unnoticed and alone I slipped through those dark woods, glancing back to ensure that I was not being followed. I walked a different route to the one I had taken on my way here earlier, I was going somewhere else after all. Every turn I took brought me onto smaller and smaller paths until I was walking down a canyon between the undergrowth which my footsteps alone had created.

Eventually a light broke the deep green and a cottage came into view. It was a long, low slung building with flint stone walls and a thatched roof. It nestled in amongst ancient trees which were surely younger than the building, and possibly younger than its occupant.

I approached the low wooden door and entered without knocking. He would know I was here, and I wouldn’t be able to get in if he wasn’t ready for me. But the door swung open easily, inside the room was dim and cluttered but cosy. It was cluttered with books of all kinds, they over flowed off the sagging shelves which lined the walls, into piles on the desk and around the chair which sat by a small wood burning stove.

Despite the fact that the only heat in that stone building came from that tiny stove, if was always warm, even on the longest winter nights, and despite the fact that the wood in the stove and the candles which lit the rest of the house had never once been replaced, they were still as fresh as if they had been put out yesterday. Not a single char on the logs, not a drop of wax on the candle holders. The reason for this lies in the owner of the tiny house. His name is Aiden. He lives here alone, in the quiet of the forest and the solitude of his books. Hardly anyone in the town even knows he’s here. The only way he survives out here all alone is with his magic. He has spells for everything, from growing food to keeping wandering travellers away from his land. Us hunters have always known the house was here, you start to see past the deflections when you spend so much time skirting around them, but I never knew that anyone lived here until I discovered my gift for magic.

If was one day several years ago, I was hunting with one of the boys and we were bickering about something while we walked. When we reached the house, quite by coincidence, I said something that tipped him over the edge and he hit me and then we were in a full out brawl, kicking, scratching biting at anything we could. He was older than me and double my size, I was a skinny little girl. We were on the ground squabbling right in front of a window, he was on top of my, raising a fist to hit me in the head and I was completely calm, I felt his weight pressing down on me, I felt the bruises already starting to form and I decided I had to get him off of me, and so, I caught his punch mid-air and I pushed him off, only I pushed him too far and I grabbed his hand too hard. He flew through the window of the house we had stopped beside, shards of glass fell over both of us and I didn’t feel the cuts which they made. I looked inside the gloom of the house and saw him lying there clutching his broken fingers.

Of course Aiden couldn’t fail to notice a good sized adolescent falling through his window and he wanted to know exactly what I had done. He wasn’t angry, he was curious, I was terrified, I cried and told him that I would find a way to pay for the broken window if he please wouldn’t tell Father. From that day on I was Aiden’s student.

When I entered the cottage that day, Aiden was sitting in his chair by the stove reading an ancient book, silent and composed, calm and collected. His eyes flicked up from his book as I approached and he regarded me over his glasses with what I would have taken for a look of distant if I didn’t know him better.

“There’s blood on your clothes” he told me with the air of a fussy mother before turning pointedly back to his book and closing it carefully. I cast a charm, the blood was gone by the time he looked back up. Now his act dropped and he smiled warmly as he stood up.

“Samantha” he said with a loving pride as he wrapped me in a one armed hug “It’s good to see you again.” It had only been a week since I had last been up here, but time passes slowly in these remote places and lonely hours are so long. I returned his smile.

“You to, Aiden, what is it you’re reading?” I asked him.

“Oh, it’s just some records of variation of the polyjuice potion. Very boring stuff, I’ve got something much more exciting for us to work on.” He bustled past me and laid the book he had been reading on top of a tittering pile before pulling a book out of the middle of another stack, miraculously without disturbing the twenty or so tomes which sat on top of it.

“Notes on the creation, control and care of mythical creatures.” He said as he dropped the book down on the single empty space on his desk.

“If they can be created then they aren’t really mythical are they?” I asked as I moved closer to get a better look.

“Exactly right, the title is inaccurate, but the book provides a very good insight into magical creatures.” He flipped it open to a section titled “creation.” “The whole thing is full of inaccurate titles” he explained “You don’t create magical creatures any more than you create a chicken, but you can summon them, the writer had some very wrong ideas about the mechanics of magical beings. We are going to identify and correct them.”

“Sounds like fun” I said with a faint sarcastic smile.

“It will be good for you to learn how to identify errors in the research of others” he told me, I still wasn’t convinced that this was going to be any fun “Once we’ve done this I’ll let you summon a phoenix” he added with a smile and that had me won over in an instant. We sat side by side at that desk and painstakingly went through all of the things in that dusty old book which could not be true and all of the things which were and wrote them out in another book. When I say wrote, I mean that I enchanted the book to write the words I spoke out loud and then dictated to it what I needed to say, this was much faster. For hours we sat there, we worked steadily and consistently until I could hardly keep my eyes open for another second and then I went home, we would summon the bird another day, Aiden promised me. To this day, I have still never seen a phoenix.

I walked back home through the forest, it was fully fledged night time now, or was that a hint of dawn in the sky? I did not have much time before the sun rose and I would need to be down at the market selling our game. I walked as quickly as I could over that uneven ground, knowing my way well despite the dark. I reached the street which I had walked down earlier, now filled only by a single drunkard who stumbled out of the tavern as I walked past.

I reached the courtyard in front of my home and was pleased to see that there were no lights on in any of the windows, it was so much easier to sneak in when no one was awake. I crept over across the open space, just as silent on the flagstones as I had been on the wood and dirt of the forest. I pulled the hood of my cloak up over my head as I walked, something I normally did as soon as I entered the town. I wondered vaguely if I had been missed at dinner tonight, or if they had just assumed I was still out hunting.

The door was locked by a heavy bolt, but a well-practiced charm helped me move it back easily. The heavy oak door, which normally squeaked as it swung, opened silently. I crept up to my bare stone room and was asleep virtually before I had time to lay down.

The next morning I over slept and so I was woken by the maid. She had once been my hand maiden, but now we had so little money that she was in put in charge of most of the household. She came in smiling like a summer’s morning, I groaned at her and heavily resisted the urge to send her out with an expulsion charm. Reluctantly I pulled myself out of my bed and forced myself into my clothes. I made my way through corridors which still held the illusion of wealth, towards the kitchen where I grabbed a hasty bowl of porridge before leaving through the side door. I didn’t see a single member of my family, they were all still asleep. Out into the morning sunshine I walked, through the streets, to the market place where the market stalls were already set up. The square was large and every inch was packed with tables and rugs upon which goods were laid out carefully, but I found Jared’s stall easily, he was so huge that he was a bit hard to miss.

I made my way towards him, through a maze of food and fabric. Most of the stalls were selling bread or cheese or else carved trinkets or herbs. Nobody ever sold much here, few merchants came through this town anymore, but they all came anyway, every week at sunrise they set up their stock and they haggled and bartered until the sun had long set and by the end of the day everyone at least felt like they were a little better off. As I walked through the crowd I caught snatches of conversation, people discussing news from the outside world or gossip of the lower classes of our town.

“Did you hear, Felicity Lea is pregnant?”

“Well, let me tell you this, there’s a way coming.”

“Oh but have you seen the backer’s son recently?”

“You know I ‘eard one of ‘em advisors who’s work for the king’s dead.”

I stopped by a stall selling little bouquets of heather, wounding if I should buy some for my mother’s birthday.

“Nah, he’s not dead, he’s resigning”

They were all laid out over the white silk cloth, little bundles of pink and purple flowers.

“Well, who’s takin’ his place?”

There were many different types, some had bluebells and snowdrops woven in amongst the darker heather.

“I ‘eard they were ‘aving a competition, t’ see who’s most suited”

“Well ‘ere’s something new. What kinda advisor was he anyway?”

I bent over the plants, taking in their light sent.

“Oh, it was somethin’ ‘bout druids or sorcerers. Nasty stuff really”

I looked up suddenly at the owner of the stall, a stout ugly looking man who was talking idly to the stall owner next to him.

“You ask me, that lot don’t deserve to live ‘round ‘ere. I don’t see why they needs any advisors anyways.”

I had heard enough, I straightened up and walked on, pretending I hadn’t been listening at all. I think it was at this point that my problems began, as I walked through that cacophony of colour and smells and the idea of the competition unfolded in my head. Imagine it! The world’s best sorceress gathered in that vast castle to showcase their craft. I pictured them there in their fine silk robes in those cavernous halls lit by the golden sunlight. And suddenly I found an image of myself there with them. And I wasn’t in hunting gear or a stiff fitted dress, but a long wizard’s robe of the deepest emerald silk and people flowed around me, all speaking the ancient languages which I had only ever heard from Aiden’s mouth before, spells and charms danced through the crowd as people talked and laughed and in the centre I stood.

“You make sure you get a damn good price on them deer, Sam.” A gruff voice which didn’t fit into my dream said, suddenly I was back in a dingy market in a poor merchant’s town, with no merchants in sight. The voice belonged to a hunter, I cannot remember which one. He had come to drop off the meat and now he was leaving, I would remain here all day to sell it.

He left without a goodbye, I sat down on the rough stool which stood behind the stolen table upon which our game was laid. The stool next to me was selling freshly grown potatoes, a crooked old lady sat at the table wrapped in a shawl which might once have been something like white but which now was that tired grey colour of the sky before it rains. I knew her well, her name was Esmeralda, I knew that unless I spoke to her she wouldn’t even notice me, but if I said just one word she would chatter on all day as if I were her dearest friend. She had kept me company on many lonely Sundays, but today I decided to stay quiet.

Time passed slowly on these days, I sold five rabbits and two ducks by noon, but nobody with enough money for a deer had come past my stall. I dropped back down onto my stool after one particularly tense haggle over a duck and was just about to turn to Esmeralda when a figure stopped in front of me.

She was tall and slender and so obviously foreign that there was something quite unnerving about the way she looked at me. She looked down at me, I mean that in every sense of the phrase. Her ice blue gaze fell down on my shabby clothes from a face so clearly defined and pure it seemed that I must have been carved out of stone. Her nose was long and straight, her skin pale and white, she wore a long white fur coat which looked so soft and so glossy that the animal might still be alive.

“Tell me girl” she said and surprisingly her voice was not at all accented. “How much is your finest meat?” she asked.

“Fifteen shillings for one of the deer, that’s the best I’ve got” I told her, pointing to the dead deer.

“Don’t be stupid child. It’s not worth that and you know it” she scorned.

“You obviously aren’t familiar with how bartering work, my lady.” I replied very calmly.

Then she did something very unexpected, she handed me a pound coin and I handed her back a crown. Then she said “I know Jared well, his catch is better than anything bought fresh at these markets.”

Then I wondered whether to ask her one of two questions, why she was here or how she knew Jared. I decided on the former. “If you don’t mind me asking, my Lady, what brings you to our village?”

She smiled at me, her teeth, behind those rosy lips, were as shite as snow. “I am on my way to the castle of Gellendor” she said “there is to be a competition there, I am going to attend”

“What sort of competition?” I asked, but of course I already knew.

“It will determine who the new advisor on sorcery to the King will be” she spoke in the same way as she had when she first addressed me, looking down that narrow nose. “The current advisor thinks such a thing will make him well remembered.” She muttered and her disapproval was evident in every word she spoke.

I wondered why she was going if she obviously disagreed with the idea so much, but instead I pretended not to have noticed and asked “When does it start?”

“The opening ceremony will take place in three weeks’ time.” She told me. And then she hauled the deer onto her shoulder and left. A moment later her pristine coat was hidden by hundreds of muddy coloured aprons and dirty animals on fraying ropes.

The next day, I visited Aiden much later. When I opened the door he was sitting at his table eating a small bowl of some kind of brown stew. I sat down opposite him and the first thing I said to him was “I met an odd woman yesterday”

“I meet an odd woman almost every day, in fact she’s here now” he replied.

“She told me about a competition going on in Gellendor” I continued.

“Oh whop-di-doo” he said with a sarcastic smile “more bastards in shining armour killing each other for fun?”

“No, it’s going to be sorcerers competing for the role of advisor to the King.” I told him quietly. “I think we should go.” I added quickly before he had time to respond.

“No.” the smile broke, replaced with a serious glare. “There is no way we are going.”

“Why not?” I asked, I had expected this, my voice was level and calm.

“Why should we?” he retorted “You are far too young to be considered and I am far too old, there would be no point”

“You aren’t too old” I told him. “All of the best wizards are old”

“Samantha, all that you know about wizards comes from stories.” He spoke the words with such finality that the matter was settled.

“If we went, we would have a chance to get out of here, I know you hate it here and I don’t think there’s a single living thing is this world that doesn’t know I do, we could leave, Aiden. We would never have to hide again, we would be safe and happy. And best of all we could use the Gellendor library.”

“Leave it Samantha. We are not going.” I had pleaded my case, and he had declined, I let it go. For now. I had just under a week. I would mention it again until he gave in.

I left early that night on the pretences that it was late and I was tired. The sun was still in the sky as I walked back home and I knew that I was early enough to still enjoy the company of my delightful family at dinner. There was no need to hide my face as I walked through the streets at this time of day, despite the fact that they were much more crowded than they had been the other night.

Once I reached home I found my family all in the living room forming a perfect picture. Father sat and wrote at the desk, scribbling out a letter or degree painstakingly carefully in thick black ink, mother sat by the fire sewing something or other and Felix was carving something out of wood in the corner. Felix, my younger brother thinks of himself as something of a carpenter, Father has tried explaining time and time again that he is a Lord and not a tradesman, but Felix used to run off into the forests and spend his time carving until Father just gave up and let him do as he pleased.

I would have another brother, actually, I would probably have several more, but my mother gave birth to a dead boy and since then she has been unable to conceive, and so it is just the two of us.

I joined Mother by the fire and played the part of a placid daughter, learning the role of a woman from her mother just like any other, we sat in silence, and that silence was all that told of the cracks. It told of Father’s resentment that he didn’t have a better heir and all that lay between Mother and Father and it told of my Brother’s shyness and my own longing to leave. But we all ignored it. We pretended that those quiet spaces were none existent as we listened to the crackling of the fire and the scratch of my father’s pen on his paper.

And then our silence was broken. And despite everything, there is nothing I would not give to have that moment back now.

An urgent knock came to the door. Father jumped up from his chair, I caught a glimpse of his face in the fire light, taught and strained, I had not noticed that anything had been amiss. He hurried to the door, evidently trying very hard to keep his movements restrained and measured. He opened the door and stepped outside to talk to the visitor, I could not see who it was. A moment later he hurried back inside, he grabbed his coat and his sword and left the house. He did not utter a word to us.

We sat there for an hour, I don’t think Felix noticed, but Mother’s hands were shaking a she tried to sew, when we asked her where he had gone she said he was probably out drinking as though that was something he did regularly. We only realised that something was deeply wrong when we heard shouts from outside. Blood curdling, screaming, I rushed to the window as did Felix. Mother stayed exactly where she was. Across the courtyard I could see out into the street, people ran past, their feet slipping on the cobblestones, many of them were holding torches but it was not the light from those small flames which lit the sky in a bright red bruise. I spun away from the window and moved towards the door only to find my way blocked by my mother.

“You can’t go out there” she told me, I heard the smallest strain in her voice.

“What the hell is going on out there?” I demanded. I doubt I had ever sworn in front of her before.

“We haven’t been paying the taxes fast enough, the King is taking his payment, but they won’t come in here. They won’t hurt us.” She explained almost apologetically.

“But the villagers don’t have any more money to give.” I protested, as though if I convinced her the bloodshed outside would stop. I pushed past her and opened the door, running out into the cold air of the night.