Bee Sting Cake by Victoria Goddard

Author:Victoria Goddard [Goddard, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Underhill Books
Published: 2017-09-19T22:00:00+00:00

“I DON’T QUITE UNDERSTAND how I’ve never heard anything much of the Woods,” Hal was saying when I once again started attending to the conversation. “You’d think that they’d be much more famous quite apart from the honey.”

“Infamous,” I muttered.

“They don’t usually get named,” Mr. Dart replied. “Most of the time they are just—the Woods.” He grinned at Hal. “You have heard one story about the Woods Noirell, I trust—and about the Castle at its heart: ‘Where stood at the window, white stone and ivy, / The silent watcher’—”

“‘In her high tower, / When we rode the high way / To the golden city / The city of roses’. That was the Castle Noirell?”

“That was Jemis’ mother!”

“I had no idea that was a real place. I always thought it was somewhere far away and long ago.”

“Long enough ago that Jemis wasn’t even a twinkle in his father’s eye.”

“But your mother is in one of Fitzroy Angursell’s songs! Wait—how do you know she’s the subject?”

“She saw the Red Company go by,” Mr. Dart said. “Jemis used to make her describe them over and over again.”

“Do you mind?” I began, half-laughing, but we had turned another corner and there before us was the village. And the villagers.

They stood poised as if to begin a celebration—or, I realized, as we sat our horses and watched expectantly, they stood posed.

St-Noire was the village of the Castle Noirell: so much I knew. It was the only village within the bounds of the Woods, so far as I knew. It had once been considered a very picturesque and beautiful place, its architecture running to two-storied timber and white plaster buildings in comfortable, gracious proportions, the roofs covered not with the thatch commoner out in the barony but with wood shingles weathered to a pleasant silvery-brown. The windows were diamond-paned, the coloured glass here and there evidence of the wealth flowing into the village from the travellers passing by on their way to Astandalas the Golden.

I just remembered, from that one visit to my grandmother, that the village had been warm and welcoming and full of flowers even though we had come the week of my birthday. My birthday was in the spur weeks between winter and spring, on the come-and-go day meant to stop the seasons from precessing too much. Even so, St-Noire had been full of sunlight and honey and the singing of the bees working all those tiny jewel-bright flowers of the earliest spring.

Today it was full of sunlight and flowers, but the air was heavy and still and silent and smelled of nothing other than some faintly pleasant bitterness.

“More saffron,” Hal murmured.

“Are they ... asleep?” said Mr. Dart.

I blinked again at the scene before us, my mind switching as if from the mode of mortal danger to the mode of ordinary confusion (though neither seemed quite appropriate in this case), and I saw that the village was ... still.

“Are they ... stone?” said Hal.

The houses were in good repair, the plaster glowing gold

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.