SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Twenty-Three
Just before noon, I rose atop my mare as we prepared to ride into Saulieu. Despite the carriage driver’s protest, Maximillian insisted we would ride to town on our own.
I stared back down at Gabrielle as she stood in the fortress forecourt beside her lady’s maid. Of course, she would not join us, a disappointment I hadn’t realized until that morning. Though she might slip out of the fortress in the middle of the night, we couldn’t expect the servants to approve of a noblewoman leaving her home atop a horse. In this matter, the peculiar eccentricities of the Baron made no matter—a lady only traveled through the country in her carriage while guarded.
Gabrielle’s wistful smile was the last thing I saw before Maximillian’s horse jerked forward, triggering mine to follow out over the moat bridge.
We remained on the road to Saulieu only a short while once the fortress disappeared from view. Maximillian then reared us onto another road that led north. For several hours, we passed over rolling hills at a trot, stopping now and then to let the horses drink and rest. We talked of everyday matters while delighting the mare with the occasional fruit of a passing orchard.
In time, the farms gave way to unoccupied soil and the massive oak trees that dotted the quiet landscape. Just before the sun fell to the far west, Maximillian led us into a forest. The setting light waned in the thick, and less than an hour later, I realized I followed him in an uncomfortable dark.
Don’t be concerned, he said. I know the way.
Traveling under such feint light, my fear was instinctual. But I knew firsthand that I couldn’t be safer than by Maximillian’s side.
From the far east, a wolf’s cry rose above the forest, and my horse jeered with concern. I looked off toward the source of the cry and swore I saw Maximillian smile when I looked back at him for reassurance.
I couldn’t see where we were. Looking up, I never saw the sky. Starlight could not penetrate this place.
I heard a creek’s ripping water now and then when the breeze stopped cutting through the massive trees for a moment.
Just when I thought it might be easier to close my eyes and let the sound of Maximillian’s horse guide me through the timber with its trot, I saw the glow of light up ahead in the distance. I expected he was leading us out of the forest, but I soon found myself at its very heart.
A round clearing of two hundred feet or more lit up in a blaze of moonlight. The trees surrounding us on every side were so tall that the newly risen moon only fell on less than half the circular ground. But what light fell was so bright I could see everything around me with stark clarity.
Maximillian dismounted his horse, whispered in her ear as he smoothed her nose, then gave her rear a slap that set her trotting back into the forest. After I dismounted, he dispensed with my mare similarly.
“How will we find them?”
Maximillian answered with only a smirk before turning his back to me.
At the center of the clearing was a small hill that rose ten feet from the forest floor. A small path circled the hill as it rose, winding around in what appeared to be an arc so perfect that I presumed he must have laid it himself. We walked along the path in silence until we reached the summit, where an unnaturally flat circle waited, surrounded by carved rocks of various sizes set along the perimeter.
“What is this?” I asked when he stopped.
“We don’t know for sure,” he answered. “That is, Gabrielle and I both agree it’s an ancient sundial. It’s missing a gnomon, the piece at its center that would cast the shadow. The mathematicians or priests who built it may have inserted that piece only when they used this. Or perhaps thieves stole it. I expect the piece was handsomely made and quite valuable. The base where it would insert is also missing.”
He pointed to the very center of the circle, and I saw a slight depression where something large had once sat.
“But there’s no question of the craftsmanship if you look at the carvings on the stones at its perimeter. They’re laid with flawless precision. The largest pieces lay at the poles—that one is north,” he pointed to the largest. “You cannot see the stars to prove it from the ground, but if you climb that tree to its upper height...
“This was a unique place,” he continued. “Just look at the tree line—how it arcs in perfect unison. The forest had yet to reclaim it when we came upon it decades ago. Only a few saplings and younger timbers had made their way to penetrate the spot, but we cleared them away. Time had reclaimed her—the nearest people have no idea any such thing resides in their forest. It may take another century before builders penetrate this deep in search of wood.”
“This is where you mean to do it,” I said. It was a statement, not a question, but Maximillian answered just the same.
“Yes,” he nodded with a smile. “I can think of nowhere more special to take you. When I stand here, I think of my father. Everything about this place reminds me of him. The care taken with its design—simple but elegant in its flawlessness. I believe Father may have had a hand in its making, though Gabrielle disagrees. Still, I see his people’s precision and respect for the world when I look around me.”
He fell silent at his words, and I stared at the ground just as he did. The shadow made by the western tree line had moved, shrinking a couple of feet as the full moon rose to conquer it. The light crept up the hill at a snail’s pace and would soon reach the sundial floor.
“Is she truly not coming?” I asked.
Maximillian turned to me, and I saw his eyes falter. He approached me in time and took my face by the jaw, as he always did when he meant to whisper counsel.
“You must forgive her,” he said. “I asked her to allow me to do this on my own.”
“But why? Why not have her with us?”
“She asked me the same question days ago. It was always our father who performed the ritual. It being his right as the eldest, the gift came to us all from him. And at each ceremony, the pack observed the profound moment with reverence. It was more than my father’s tradition; he expected his children to respect this moment when we welcomed a new wolf into the pack.”
I shook my head, not understanding the point of his disregard.
“All except mine,” he answered my thought.
Maximillian stepped back and took a breath, staring off at the forest as if his recollected memories swam in the distant shadows.
“I wasn’t born to my human parents within Father’s province. A soldier discovered me in the realm of Milan, a sentry from the house of Duke Sforza. The Milanese pack was massive, with hundreds of wolves in its ranks spread over half a dozen holds throughout their vast lands. The largest of these was Castello Sforzesco at the center of the citadel, where the Duke spent most of his time.
“My lycan nature emerged when I was but thirteen. I was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. Daniello, the foot soldier I mentioned, came upon me one day while I played with my siblings in the alley behind our parent’s home. I needn’t tell you the overwhelming sensation of hearing another man’s voice in your mind. He enthralled me. The man’s insistence that I was not human and would leave with him that very night to be with our kind made no difference to my excitement.
“Despite his insistence on silence, I told my brothers and sisters, of course, all of who made fun of my nonsense. When my story landed in my human mother’s ear, she took me aside to admonish me. Such talk would offend our father and bring me shame. I promised to say nothing more, though I waited for Daniello to visit that night with great anticipation. The mere idea of an adventure with other mind speakers was too tempting. I was a teenager stuck behind too many siblings in our pedestrian world of boredom.
“Sometime in the night, I awoke to a scream.”