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by Harry Whomersley
Oldbrod Heidberg stood at the window of his study and watched his clients leave the building. Count Marius von Blacke and his wife stood briefly on the cobbled streets before getting into their carriage and, from there, the smog and fog of the Herder morning enveloped them. The sound of Mrs Veidt cleaning up the tea things behind him brought him back to reality.
“Another satisfied customer, Mr. Heidberg?” she said, placing the Count’s half-empty teacup on the tray.
“Very satisfied, thank you,” Heidberg said. “The Countess had her jewels returned to her and the Count was only too happy to include a nice bonus along with my usual fee. And of course, our friends at the police can claim another case closed for themselves, so that will help me stay in their good graces.”
“It doesn’t seem right, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“You doing all that work, I mean, and getting none of the credit. You tracked down that gang of thieves and intercepted them before they could escape.”
“Well, the world turns and we must turn with it, Mrs. Veidt.” Heidberg folded himself in the armchair and worked on lighting his pipe.
Sensing that this conversation, if it could really have been called that, was over, Mrs. Veidt straightened up with the tray in her hands. “Will that be all then, Mr. Heidberg?”
“If you would be so good as to bring up today’s papers from the breakfast room. I will be here until lunchtime working on my correspondence.”
She withdrew and Heidberg took a long breath on his pipe. It was a very good leaf, the finest of a barrel straight from Witenland, in the southeast of the Empire. Heidberg saved it for rare occasions like the completion of a case. Involuntarily his gaze traveled to the wall opposite, where a large map of the Empire hung next to his old family sword. He saw the city of Herder sitting in the province of Westerland in the southwest of the Empire, sitting astride the great River Kais, the artery of the continent which began in the Great Mountains that formed the Empire’s southern and eastern borders and flowed through the imperial capital of Altberg, through Herder with all its industrial might, and then out of the Empire into the Swamplands, where it eventually spilled out into the Ocean at the great port city of Dreumel. And from there all the Empire’s trade spread around the world, from the icy havens of Noroth, the steaming jungles of Kandush, the beast courts of Soma and even as far as the inscrutable Dragon Empire of the east. What an industrious little empire, Heidberg couldn’t help but think.
Mrs. Veidt returned with Heidberg’s letters and the couple of newspapers he took. He made a show of going through the letters again but soon left them on his desk and returned to his armchair, newspaper in hand. The Emperor was announcing a new round of infrastructure improvements to connect the southern provinces with the wilder northern ones, and there were myriad other worthy things that Heidberg soon found himself ignoring in favor of the sports section.
Presently, Mrs. Veidt reappeared in the room heralded by a knock on the door. “Pardon me, Mr. Heidberg,” she said. “But we have a man asking for you.”
Heidberg sighed extravagantly and opened his mouth to say something.
“You didn’t say not to disturb you,” she interrupted.
Heidberg closed his mouth abruptly. She had a point there. “A potential client?”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a card?”
“He certainly does,”
She handed it over and Heidberg looked at it, framed in between his two thumbs and forefingers. It was a simple cream card with a griffon crest in the top right and writing in navy blue ink: ‘Sir Girflic Renarddent, Merchant and Licensed Importer of Garronne Wines’
“Send him up then, Mrs. Veidt. We have so much of his produce in the cellar we might as well get some money back from him.”
“As you say, Mr Heidberg.”
She disappeared out of the door and returned momentarily with Sir Girflic. He was a slim man with neat white hair and a mustache trimmed into a goatee. His face was lined with age, but in a way that made him look more distinguished than haggard. He wore a suit in the Imperial style but his cloth was quartered green and red in what Heidberg immediately recognized as some sort of Argonnese heraldry.
“Sir Girflic, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Do take a seat. Can Mrs. Veidt bring you anything?”
“No, I thank you. I have business to be about today and I would rather tell my story here quickly.” He had clearly been in Herder for a while, his clothes told Heidberg that, but he still spoke with a strong Argonnese accent, the characteristic drawling ‘a’. Heidberg couldn’t help but wonder whether that was an affectation he put on for the people of Herder.
“Very good. Thank you, Mrs. Veidt. I will ring when needed.”
When the men were alone, Heidberg took a long drag on his pipe and invited Sir Girflic to begin his tale.
“Based on your reputation, Mr. Heidberg, I’m sure that you have already surmised that I am not originally from Herder. I was born in Argonne, the second son of Lord Landuin of Garronne, whose name may be familiar to you for his role in the last Ork Wars. After peace was concluded between Argonne and your Empire, I was one of the first generation of my countrymen to settle in this great city and I am fortunate that I have been very successful in most of my endeavors. For a long time, the only thing that eluded me was a wife, until I was fortunate to meet Isabella Lapulia. She was a foreigner like myself, and had come to this country with her family from Ibania. We were married and I flatter myself that it was a successful marriage. The only thing missing from our union was children, although Isabella had confided in me that barrenness ran in her family and it was something that we had made our peace with.
“Well, that is by the by. After twenty years of blessed marriage we were traveling down the Kais to Dreumel. One night after dinner, she told me that she wished to take the air on deck, and I had barely closed the door of our cabin when I heard a sickening splash. You will understand, Mr. Heidberg, the conclusion of this chapter of my story. My wife Isabella was nowhere to be found. Despite my best efforts, all that could be recovered from the water was the fur stole I had bought her as a birthday present the previous year.”
The corners of Sir Girflic’s mouth twitched in a manner Heidberg recognized as showing emotion threatening to burst out of a veneer of calm. The Argonnese merchant took a pause to collect himself and Heidberg nodded sagely, hoping to convey his sympathies without doing anything as unmanly as offering explicit comfort.
“I will not bore you, Mr Heidberg, with tales of my grief. Suffice it to say that my feelings were savaged most severely, and for some time I considered abandoning my commercial activities and returning to my homeland, where I could live as a minor noble in my brother’s court. But with the aid of my faith in the Daughter, and my understanding of what Isabella would have wanted for my future, I persevered. No other woman has come close to competing with her for my affections, although let me assure you that I have not been without propositions in my time. But I managed to lead a happy and successful life as a widower. That is, Mr. Heidberg, until yesterday evening.”
A pall had fallen on Sir Girflic’s face as he uttered that last sentence, a kind of blue shadow that spoke of nameless mysteries.
“Go on, Sir Girflic.”
“I saw her, Mr. Heidberg. I saw Isabella on the streets of Herder. As young as the day we were married.”
Heidberg had been expecting something along these lines ever since Sir Girflic started talking about his wife, but he didn’t show it. He leant forwards in his chair. “Tell me more, Sir Girflic. What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say, Mr. Heidberg. I can say it no plainer. I was taking a walk back from the docks, where I was inspecting the unloading of some new stock, when I saw her. She was dressed in a different fashion from when I knew her, and her body and hair were obscured by her traveling cloak. But I knew that face. I could never forget that face.
“And so of course I pursued, keeping my distance so as not to startle her. I followed her to a hotel, but I am ashamed to say that by then my emotions were too overwrought to confront her directly.”
“You have the name of the hotel?”
Sir Girflic took a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of his coat and handed it to Heidberg, who looked at the name and put it aside.
“What would you have me do?” Heidberg asked.
“I would have you get to the bottom of this,” the Argonnese merchant said. “I would have you use your famed deductive skills to identify this woman and ascertain whether this is indeed a horrible coincidence, or if there is some evil witchery being played on me.”
Heidberg’s pipe had gone out so he placed it carefully on the table by his chair and leaned forward. He asked a few more questions and tried to keep an open mind but, to be frank, could not stop himself from being a little cynical. Clearly, Heidberg thought, Sir Girflic had stumbled upon someone who looked like his late wife and trailed the unfortunate woman for a few streets. Heidberg was no fan of the new supposed ‘science’ of phrenology, but he knew enough about humanity to know that there were only so many visages that people could form into. But Heidberg was nothing if not conscientious, it was what marked him out from so many others in his profession, and would do his best to bring the truth to light. And Sir Girflic was, like most Argonnese, extremely hidebound by his notion of honor and assured Heidberg that he would be good for his payment whatever the result of the search.
a a a
Sir Girflic took his leave shortly afterwards, leaving behind only the name of the hotel and a locket containing a miniature portrait of Isabella. First, Heidberg checked the address against his own memory and then his reference collection of hotels in Herder. It was the National Hotel, which boded well. The manager there, a Mr. Hoser, was a good friend who had been very useful in a past case and was sure to be so again.
He then spent about an hour committing the portrait to memory. The figure was in profile, with the straight line of her jaw leading to a sharp point at her chin. Above that were a pair of pert but demure lips and a retroussé nose. Her cheekbones were high and imperious, and her hair was towards the lighter end of brown, done in what had been the fashion several decades ago. Her eyes were a smoky gray color, and the artist had captured something about her that seemed both haughty and sad. There was almost something not quite human about it. Heidberg didn’t really know what to make of it, but he was often stumped by artistic matters. He assumed that, like all these kinds of portraits, the reality differed somewhat from what was depicted, but by the time he stepped out into the Herder streets he was almost certain that Isabella would not be able to slip past him undetected.
The lobby of the National was empty when Heidberg arrived, except for a rosy cheeked man with extravagant mustaches behind the desk. It was dark paneled and decorated with tasteful hunting scenes and portraits of important personages: the very epitome of sober, Imperial comfort. The man behind the desk looked up from his papers when Heidberg came in. He broke into a smile and immediately came round the desk, taking up the new arrival’s hand and shaking it vigorously.
“Well if it isn’t Mr. Heidberg,” he said. “What can I do for you today? I take it this isn’t just a social call.”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Hoser. I’m after information.”
“You hurt my feelings,” Hoser said, pouting exaggeratedly before breaking into a laugh. “What can I do for you?”
Heidberg took out the locket and let it click open. After a pause, Hoser took it and held it up to the light.
“Hmmm, pretty woman,” he said.
“Indeed. You wouldn’t happen to know her?”
“I see a lot of people every day. I’d have to think.”
Heidberg sighed, because this was crass, and smiled, because it was all part of the game. He took out his wallet and began to flick through it. He half took out one note.
“The face is familiar,” Hoser said.
Heidberg eased out another note.
“Yes, I think I have seen her recently.”
A third note was eased out.
“Yes, that’s it. That’s Madame Claudanne Le Vieux.”
Heidberg handed over the three notes and Hoser returned the locket to him before walking back round his desk.
“I’m afraid to disappoint you,” he said, heaving his guestbook out from under the desk and slamming it open. “But she departed this morning.”
“You’re a crook and a thief, you know that?” Heidberg said, not unkindly.
“I do try my best, Mr. Heidberg. I can tell you it was a bit of a surprise: she was booked in for another week and had given me no complaints. Now, let me see.” He turned the pages of the guestbook and frowned. “No forwarding address but she did have me send some of her baggage down to the ferry terminal at the docks.”
“Excellent. Where to exactly?”
Hoser frowned again. “She wanted them sent down to the Southern Terminal.”
“So, she’s going to Altberg?”
Hoser shrugged. “I would imagine so.”
Heidberg nodded and tried not to show his emotions. “How long had she been here for?”
“Not long, by the looks of things. I didn’t check her in myself but she was with us for less than a week.”
“Any idea what she was in town for?”
“Afraid not. Argonnese lady, by the sounds of things. But beyond that I don’t know anything. Kept herself to herself, as far as I could tell.”
“No visitors?”
“Certainly not, Mr. Heidberg,” Hoser pressed his palm over his chest. “What kind of establishment do you think I run?”
“Indeed,” Heidberg said. The two men held each other’s gaze for a few seconds and allowed themselves a little smirk. Then Heidberg chewed his lip and looked into the distance. “Very well,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the counter. “Thank you for your assistance, I’ll call again when I next need to take advantage of your fantastic indiscretion.”
“Always your servant, Mr. Heidberg,” Hoser said, tipping an imaginary cap.
a a a
On his walk down to the port, Heidberg turned over the meager facts this visit to the National had turned up. If Isabella—or Claudanne Le Vieux, as he supposed he ought to refer to her now—had been happy with the service at the National, then what cause did she have for such a sudden departure? Heidberg always tried, in these kinds of situations, to avoid jumping to conclusions on scanty evidence but in this case, it was hard not to infer that Madame Le Vieux had noticed Sir Girflic following her and had left town immediately. Sir Girflic had been insistent that he had remained unobserved, but Heidberg knew from experience that it was harder to follow someone discreetly than most civilians believed. This, in turn, suggested several possibilities. Firstly, and most straightforwardly, a single woman traveling the Empire by herself might justifiably be scared away by a stranger picking up her tail on an afternoon, however well-groomed that stranger may be. The other obvious alternative was stranger: that Claudanne Le Vieux and Isabella Renarddent were, indeed, the same person.
But then, wouldn’t she have looked older? Heidberg could well allow that Sir Girflic’s view of her would be charitable, his vision peeling back the years and layering on a memory of her appearance during their marriage. Except Hoser had immediately recognized the locket.
a a a
At the docks, the man running the Southern Passenger Terminal was gruff but also seemed bored enough to answer Heidberg’s questions.
“Aye, I think I seen her. Left by boat just this morning.”
“Headed where?”
“Towards Altberg.”
“Did she go by the local or express ferry?”
“The only express ferries today are strictly commercial, so she’d have had to take a local one.”
“How many stops on those?”
“For Sol’s sake,” the attendant said, waving at the poster on the wall. “You can just read that on the map.”
Heidberg checked the map superficially—there were about a dozen scheduled stops between here and Altburg—and then, somewhat sheepishly, bought a ticket on the next local service, which was leaving in one hour.
The service was a large dwarven-made paddle steamer and Heidberg found himself a comfortable seat inside and by a window, where he could think without being disturbed. The mystery had begun to define itself, like a figure growing clearer as it got closer to the viewer in the fog. This lady, this Claudanne Le Vieux, had traveled from Argonne to the Empire and set herself up in a well-appointed hotel in one of the Empire’s major cities, only to leave at the first sign of being followed. Of course, it would be natural for a single woman in Herder to be worried about being followed, but the speed of her departure suggested both that she in some way expected to be pursued, and that this pursuit was something she feared. What could drive a woman—a young woman by all accounts, and a handsome one at that—to flee in such a manner? Heidberg was a man of the world and could think of many reasons. And many of those reasons would encourage him to leave her well alone and allow her whatever peace she could have.
But he had followed her. Frankly, he doubted that he would be able to run her to ground at this stage: she could get off at any of the twelve stops between here and Altberg and at each of those stops there would be more than one way to move on. There were simply too many branches to this tree of possibilities for Heidberg to realistically cover them all. Nevertheless, Heidberg would not be able to go back to Sir Girflic unless he had truly done his best. But that wouldn’t answer the questions about the mysterious Claudanne Le Vieux. What was the secret of her continued flight? What horrible purpose, what deep design, lay behind this marathon escape of hers? Heidberg knew that it was unlikely that he would end up resolving these questions, but it was nonetheless a problem that intrigued him.
The north bank of the river, immediately outside Heidberg’s window, was all forested. The Swartwoud Forest. In centuries and millennia past, it had stretched over the entire middle of the Empire, a vast green shadow where light could hardly penetrate the canopy and the roads through it were tiny arteries sneaking around the thick trunks. All travelers were at the whim of the roving bands of goblins or mutants who infested the forest, who would tear humans apart for sport and plunder. Or they could be seduced by the fay folk, the spiritual remnants of the High Elves of Albion, who had become so attuned to their forest it was said they had become more tree than person: just wailing, wooden spirits raging against the death of their civilization. It had been a long time since Swartwoud was that place of total terror. Before Heidberg’s birth, imperial governments had led crusades to root out and exterminate the vermin, and armies of machines and men had been put to work to cut back the forest into a more manageable shape. Fortified towns were built in cleared areas and the roads were cobbled and maintained. This march of progress hadn’t made the woods completely safe—during his tour in the State Troops, Heidberg’s regiment had been set on by mutant raiders more than once and the lone traveler would be unwise to take to the roads at night—but they were not the place of chaos and destruction they once were.
Heidberg knew all of this, of course. But still, as he sat by the window, watching the sun go down behind him, purple tendrils of dusk creeping over the trees and unknown sounds emanating from them, he shivered involuntarily.
a a a
The ship pulled into its first stop early the following morning and Heidberg used the two hours the ship was docked to visit all the inns, taverns, and hotels he could find. He showed the locket to the people he met there but met with blank faces at every turn. Running out of time, he left a notice with a description in the two most popular hotels and made it back to the ship just before it disembarked again. He repeated this program at the second and third stops, both times with the same non-result. By the time they reached the fourth stop, it was the afternoon of the third day of Heidberg’s trip upriver.
The port was called Folkshut and was, in truth, not really a port as much as a Sanctuary to the Eternal Bloom which happened to be on the river. The cult of the Eternal Bloom had been around for centuries, never quite the Empire’s main religion but still an important cult, working with local farmers to improve crop yields and, in recent years, its Sanctuaries had taken on a new role as important centers for the teaching of the biological sciences. Its priests had a reputation for being hospitable, if enigmatic, people: exactly the kind of company, Heidberg thought, that a lone woman on the run might seek out.
As with other habitations of this type, the Sanctuary consisted of a series of boarding houses laid out around a large central temple that doubled as a warehouse. There was a farm attached and the landscape was dotted with foxes the color of burnt orange, the long-standing symbol of the Eternal Bloom, who slept or padded around in complete freedom. One short road led from the quay, and there were three more roads on the other side of the Sanctuary, each of which cut their own routes north through the Swartwoud.
Heidberg was the only one to disembark from the ship at the quay and it wasn’t until he was well within the Sanctuary’s fields that he saw someone. A young mage whom Heidberg took to be an apprentice was hunched over the vegetable beds, spooning soil into a bucket. When the bucket was nearly full, he carefully removed a plant from the bed. Its top was a bushel of lush green leaves but from the dirt appeared a pink, woody thing that looked like a human baby sleeping peacefully. The apprentice tucked the baby plant into his bucket and covered it with soil. Only when this was done did he stand up and look at Heidberg. He was dressed head to toe in brown and green robes, with a broach of office in the color of a red rose pinned over his heart.
“Greetings stranger,” he said with a smile on his face, not looking at all surprised to see Heidberg. “Are you here to consult with the High Mage?”
Heidberg thought for a second and supposed that he was.
The apprentice led him into the central chapel. Heidberg had never been into one of the Eternal Bloom’s chapels and was both over- and underwhelmed. It was effectively an enormous barn, with a wooden altar at the far end and a few benches between it and the door. But all along the sides were pens for cattle and horses and chickens, while bales of feed for the animals and produce for sale were stored on the upper levels. There were about half a dozen apprentices and mages attending to the animals or the crops.
One woman was dressed in the same brown and green colors with the rose brooch as the other mages, but of a noticeably finer cloth which, combined with the wreath on her head, clearly marked her out as the aforementioned High Mage.
The apprentice introduced Heidberg and she took his hand in hers. “Greetings. What brings you to our Sanctuary? Do you seek enlightenment? Or are you here for more prosaic reasons?”
“The latter, I’m afraid,” Heidberg said. “I seek information on someone who may have passed through here.”
The High Mage nodded sagely. “You seek Madame Le Vieux,” she said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yes,” Heidberg said, stunned.
The High Mage shook her head. “You are too late. She passed through here only a day ago. She came with great baggage and abandoned it here. Then she left into the forest: I’m afraid she cannot be found.”
“She left her luggage here? Can I see it?”
The High Mage shook her head.
“Why?”
“We have kept them. But they were hers to give to us, and not ours to let the world see.”
Heidberg stifled a sigh. He had not, honestly, expected a different answer to his last two questions. Frankly, he understood her position: he probably wouldn’t let a stranger inspect the possessions of a woman who was clearly fleeing someone. And besides, the important point was that he finally had a coherent lead. The High Mage was looking at him with a placid smile that nevertheless, it was clear, contained a steel that Heidberg knew he could not overcome.
“I understand your discretion, High Mage,” he said. “I wonder, do you have a horse to lend me?”
“That depends. Do you have coin to spend?”
Heidberg smiled.
a a a
Heidberg set out from the Sanctuary about an hour later, with a horse and a pack bulging with cheese and bread and salted meats they had given him. The High Mage must have known he intended to pursue Claudanne but she didn’t make an effort to dissuade him. And Heidberg understood why: the saying went that the Swartwoud was good at keeping its secrets, so good that it occasionally kept the secrets of the foolish travelers who wandered into it.
The High Mage had told him that there were three villages within a day’s ride of the Sanctuary, one on each road. She hadn’t told him which one Claudanne had taken and Heidberg knew better than to ask.
Although he was not himself a believer, Heidberg went into the chapel and prayed before departing. He didn’t know the right words for the Eternal Bloom but felt that his clumsy improvisations could be good enough. He didn’t pray to follow the same road as Claudanne had used, but he did pray that the Eternal Bloom would guide him towards the overall best outcome. When he prayed that, Heidberg wasn’t entirely sure what that best outcome was, but he felt reasonably confident that he would recognize it when he found it.
When Heidberg reached the three-pronged fork in the road, he dismounted and studied the dirt for a while. He knew this was an important choice: although he could theoretically double back and check the other prongs if his first guess was wrong, that delay would almost certainly put Claudanne too far away for him to catch up. After a few minutes of looking, he decided that the tracks down the middle fork looked the most recent, so he mounted his horse again and headed down it.
a a a
Heidberg reached the nearest village just around nightfall. It was a small village of, he guessed, only a few hundred souls but he was nonetheless glad to pass under its gates: there were noises in the woods—chittering, braying sounds—that hinted at horrors which had lessened with the onrush of civilization but would perhaps never be eliminated entirely.
A quick trot around the village revealed what looked like three inns so he would ask around in each of them. If no-one in the village had seen Claudanne/Isabella then the chances of Heidberg tracking her down seemed slim to impossible: she would be either safe on some other prong of the road or torn to shreds by nameless horrors in the trees of the Swartwoud. In that case he would return to Herder and write of his failure to Sir Girflic, content in the knowledge that he had done the best he could.
The barman at the first inn managed to persuade Heidberg to part with several coins to help smooth his memory, before admitting that he had never seen the woman in the locket. So it was with some annoyance that Heidberg steered his horse to the second inn and tied it up outside. The inside was dark and dingy, enlivened only by a few colorful watercolors of farming scenes on the wall, and the fire which was going about its business in the fireplace. There were three men sitting at the table nearest the fire, nursing drinks and not talking to each other, although in a companionable enough manner. The barman sitting behind his bar was reading a penny dreadful of some kind and stood up when he saw Heidberg.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?” he asked.
Heidberg sucked his lips, composed himself for a performance of jollity, and asked, “Do you have anything dwarvish?”
“We certainly do, sir,” the barman said, turning around and slapping the barrel immediately behind him. “Tell me, have you heard of Fisher’s Strong Donkey Tosser?”
“I have not.”
The barman smirked. “And you look like such a man of the world too. I’ll make it a half to begin with, then. But you’ll be wanting more, I promise you.”
Heidberg smiled as the barman took a glass and began to pour the drink. No matter how hackneyed it was, Heidberg was always charmed by this kind of patter. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, when the barman handed him the drink. He took a sip and waited a moment after he swallowed for his brain to properly register the tastes. It was certainly strong, and hoppy and nutty too. Not all that bad, he concluded, if not all that special either.
“I told you, you’d like it,” the barman said with a smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Are you just passing through? Do you need shelter and feed for your horse?”
Heidberg carefully took a gold coin out of his pocket and put it on the bar. “I’m looking for information.”
The barman nodded, without taking his eyes off the coin.
Heidberg took out the locket and put it in front of the barman’s vision. His eyes widened slightly and momentarily, but enough for Heidberg to appreciate that the barman recognized the woman in the picture.
“Jealous husband?” the barman asked.
“Something like that.”
The barman sighed and Heidberg reached into his purse for another coin. “You know, the thing is,” the barman said, haltingly, “that a lot of people come through here. It can be hard to keep track of all the faces I…”
He was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing. Instinctively, the barman’s eyes flicked up and Heidberg turned to follow his gaze. The door in question was around the side of the bar, presumably leading to whatever rooms were upstairs. A woman had just walked through that door and, although most of her was concealed, Heidberg would recognize that face anywhere: he had trained himself to do so; he had been traveling along the Kais showing that face to people he met.
Heidberg didn’t know what must have tipped her off, he supposed someone in her position must have a decent sense of imminent danger, but she immediately bolted for the door. Heidberg tossed the extra coin onto the bar and raced after her.
At first, he thought she had vanished when he got outside, but a second later a white horse galloped past him, coming from the inn’s stables. Claudanne was on it, the wind throwing her cloak backwards and revealing her face, removing whatever ambiguity might have remained about her identity.
Cursing any and all gods that came to mind, Heidberg untied his horse and raced after her. The worst part about all of this was that he had been rather hoping he didn’t find her: despite knowing he had a duty to his employer, running down this woman who clearly did not want to be found did not appeal to Heidberg’s sense of honor.
Claudanne had a decent head start on him but there was only one way for her to go and that way she went: out of the north gate and further down the Swartwoud road.
It was dark now; the gloom of the overhanging trees made it hard to see her. Soon he was tracking her along the road by the sounds of her horse’s hooves and the instincts of his own mount.
He knew he couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Soon enough his sense of self-preservation would cause him to abandon pursuit and turn back. In fact, he was just about to do that when, from around a corner she had turned, he heard the shriek of a woman and the braying of a horse.
Steeling himself for whatever he would see, Heidberg drew his sword and steered his horse round the corner.
What he saw was somewhat anticlimactic. The white horse was in the middle of the road, rearing up but progressively calming itself. And Claudanne was lying in a muddy heap by the roadside, heaving herself to her feet. A burnt-orange fox stood in the middle of the road. When Heidberg came on the scene, it locked him with a very deliberate stare and then scampered off into the woods as if it had never been there.
Putting the momentary shock behind him, Heidberg dismounted and ran over to the prone woman. She was already moving slowly, and groaning.
“Get off me!” she shrieked as Heidberg approached.
He realized that he was still holding his sword. He sheathed it and held out his hands. “I just want to talk,” he said. “I’m not here to do anything to you.”
She glared at him and then took his hand. He helped her up and she immediately sat down on a nearby tree stump. Heidberg wondered whether they ought to turn back and make for the village, but she seemed totally unconcerned, and he could hear nothing from within the woods.
“My name is Oldbrod Heidberg,” he said. “And I am a private investigator from Herder. A few days ago, a man came to me saying…”
“Oh, I know,” she said with a sigh. “Poor Gilly. I didn’t mean for him to see me.”
“So, you are Isabella?”
“Isabella Renarddent, Claudanne Le Vieux, and many others besides. It makes no difference. Yes, they are all me."
“I have so many questions,” Heidberg said. “But first, I suggest we repair back to that inn. The Swartwoud is not a safe place at night.”
“I have nothing to fear,” she snapped. “The goblins and beasts of this forest would not dare to approach me.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed, as if Heidberg really was the most stupid man she had ever met and she had had such high hopes for him. “I am one of the Luminari. Your people used to call us the High Elves, back when there were enough of us to suit such a thing. The base creatures of this continent cannot touch me.”
Heidberg gasped and took a couple of steps back. It seemed too fantastical to be true. He had learned the story of the last civil war of the elves in school, a story so ancient by the time it came down to him that it seemed more like a cautionary tale than history: the great elves of Albion, consumed by their arrogance and decadence into a civil war which sunk their homeland and destroyed their souls. There were no more of them left, he had been told: a relic of an age before science and progress. The fay folk didn’t count: they were more spirits than bodies, and more like beasts or plants than cultured, civilized beings.
But here this woman was, as beautiful and as young as she had been decades before. Truly, the miniature in the locket had not added an iota to her beauty or the symmetrical perfection of her features. Despite how it seemed, his quarry being an immortal elf was perhaps the simplest explanation.
“I know what you’re thinking. And, yes, most of us did die in the destruction of Albion. But my father had good relations with the humans, and hid me with a merchant and his wife, who raised me as their own daughter. It was only when they grew frail and I stopped ageing that they revealed the truth to me. Back then, there were more of us. We can hide easily amongst the humans and for a while we made something of a community of lost souls: too small to rebuild our empire but large enough to keep its memory alive amongst us. But, over time, our numbers dwindled. People would stay too long in one place, and neighbors would ask why they didn’t age. Accusations of witchcraft and sorcery followed, and many of my people were burned or hanged.”
She paused and fumbled amongst her skirts for a hip flask. Finally revealing this secret to a mortal seemed to have broken a dam inside her, and she clearly had no intention of stopping. She took a swig and offered it to Heidberg. He hesitated.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned.”
He took the flask and took a sip. He had no intention of doing anything to stop her story.
“Over time, we began to get more desperate. Some of us headed north, thinking they could harness the magnetic vortices there to raise Albion from the depths. We never heard from any who went to do this, but it did not stop several expeditions from trying.
“Others went to the forests and gave in to their real nature. Your human myths have us elves as refined and noble creatures, and perhaps we were. You think we were better than you. But the truth is that we were merely greater, greater in both the good and the bad. Those who gave in to their dark urges most fully became one with their forests and became the fay. They will still protect me, that’s why I don’t fear the goblins or mutants in this forest, but they are little more than insentient monsters now.
“Others deepened their studies of the magics and other mysteries of the world. They fled into the mountains, where they eventually lost themselves in their meditations and became as one with the rock.”
She sighed again and took another sip.
“I don’t know if there are any more like me.”
“So, what do you do?” Heidberg asked. “Just move on every decade?”
She nodded. “It varies: it’s usually between one and three decades before people start to notice that I’m not aging. And then I can just fake my death and disappear. For the most part my ‘deaths’ avoid excessive notice: this world is very used to women suddenly being dead.”
“So, what about Sir Girflic? What caused you to return to Herder?”
Claudanne dropped her head and Heidberg heard a loud sob in the darkness. “Isn’t it obvious? I loved him. I still do. Such a wonderful, kind man. A paragon of your kind. While we were together, I often thought about confessing everything to him: surely, he would understand and we could be happy. But eventually I decided to take the easier way out and do what I always did. I thought my death might spare him the pain of having to waste away while I stayed the same.”
“How many times have you been back to see him?”
“I don’t know. Once every few years. The poor man has never noticed me before.”
Heidberg nodded and sat down on a tree root. He looked deeply into the forest and still couldn’t see anything. He wasn’t sure how much he trusted Claudanne but he couldn’t hear anything suspicious.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he said, taking out his pipe.
She waved her hand to indicate that she didn’t.
“Do you visit any of your other former friends?” Heidberg asked eventually.
“No. Only Gilly.”
“I assumed he was just a silly old man who confused one woman with another,” Heidberg said thoughtfully. “I suppose he thought he was too.”
Claudanne dropped her head into her hands and sobbed. Heidberg thought about comforting her but then realized that she probably wanted to be left alone, for him to be nothing more than a passive listener to her story. This was something which had been inside of her so long and could now pool out. Both the secret of her everlasting life and her grief at having to leave her beloved behind. He could only imagine the full extent of her pain and it consumed him as he thought about what right (if there was one) Sir Girflic had to know what had happened to his beloved.
They sat like that for a while, him sucking on his pipe and her crying quietly. There was no sound from the forest around them and their two horses sidled up to one another to say hello before calmly grazing on the verge, ignoring each other.
Presently, he finished his pipe and stood up. “Is there any way I could contact you?” he asked, fiddling with his horse’s bridle and saddle to check everything was securely fastened.
“Why?” she asked, dabbing her cheeks with her cloak.
“I think that Sir Girflic would like to see you again,” he said. “Once more, before he dies.”
She considered him for a while before she understood what he meant. Then she considered him some more. She stood up and went over to her horse. She took a white pebble from one of the saddlebags.
“This is a hearing stone,” she said. “Each one is paired with another, allowing messages to be passed between them. Long ago, my people used them to communicate over vast distances. The magic in it is weak now, but if you use it once, and only when the time is right, it should be sufficient.”
Heidberg put it in his jacket pocket and buttoned it down firmly. He nodded and said “I’ll keep a close eye on him. You have my word.”
He mounted his horse and turned it back to the village. “Where will you go now?” he asked.
“North,” she said. “There is a nobleman there who seeks a governess for his blind daughter.”
He looked at the road back to the village. It was black and long and full of terrors. “How do I know that the fay’s protections won’t vanish as soon as you leave?”
She shrugged. “How do I know you won’t tell Gilly and lead a hunting party after me?”
Heidberg smiled grimly. “I expect that girl will feel very lucky to have you as her governess.”
“Yes,” Claudanne said sadly. “I expect she will too.” 