Rosalind: Book One

4-The Lord and The Boy

In the dead of night all things fall silent, all but restless hearts.

Lord Caspian had stormed off into the stables after the incident during dinner time. He saddled one of his riding horses before taking off running as though the Devil was at their heels. Caspian rode the black stallion fierce and wild through the groves of trees as the night's wind whipped through his hair and send it flying across his face like a thousand silver needles.

A deathly cold came over Caspian in a blink of an eye. Where there had been a mild wind moments ago, the temperature now clicked its chilly tongue against the Lord's pale flesh. Caspian brought the horse to a gallop and watched his rapid breathing and the animal's own crystallize before him.

All Caspian had ever known in his life were blazing summers, welcoming springs, and warm autumns. Winter never came to Transylvania. It never came anywhere but in the fairy tales, Caspian's nursemaid had narrated to him when he was a child. But now, the man's skin felt as though teeth were upon it; his flesh attacked by a million, tiny woodland creatures too small for the eye to see. Nursemaid Alma's ghost flickered in Caspian's mind as the wind rustled the leaves and pulled them off the trees with one fluid gesture. Nursemaid Alma's low, soothing voice found its way from the back of Caspian's brain to the front where it became loud and clear.

'They say that thousands of years ago the snow fell for the first time. Pregnant clouds held millions of tiny crystals of water that morphed and turned into ice as they descended from heaven to earth. The crystals covered the land with a blanket as white as anything you have ever seen. The winter was cold, colder than you could ever imagine. So cold that it made teeth chatter and bones rattle. Breath turned into a mist and you could see your own words forming right before you. No matter what a body did, you could not shake that cold out of the marrow of your bones. No one knows for certain how snow came to be but some say it was the spiders. A flock of little blue critters had crept out of an old witch's flower basket and skittered over the flowers and trees. Long, needle-fine spider teeth tore into the delicate leaves, into the velvety petals. They tore into the stems and bark until every single flower and every single tree in the world wept. Then the snow came. No one knows why.'

The sky above rider and horse, though dark with night, had a strange line of pink zigzagging across it as though it were trying to tear it in two. Flickers of red and orange shone behind a cluster of dark clouds like an electrified heartbeat.

"Rain must be coming," Caspian uttered under his breath before he clicked his tongue and the horse turned to gallop towards home.

Lady Calla had already retired to her and Caspian's bedchambers when the Lord of the manor returned. Sleep had already welcomed the Lord's wife. Calla lay on her side of the bed cocooned in the wolf-skin covers. Her dark hair fanned around her face like a halo. Caspian stood at the door watching flickers of candlelight dance across his wife's face. He watched the gentle rise and fall of Calla's body. Listened to every intake of breath. Then, before he was drawn into the room by her beauty and the warm appeal of both body and bed, Caspian walked out of the room and headed towards his son's.

The walls of the large manor were cool to the touch when Caspian slid his palm across. The brown and gray stone floor echoed Caspian's leather-clad footsteps. The candelabras mounted on the walls gave off just enough light for one to walk down the halls at night time with ease. Wax melted down the brass candle-holders, white putty covering the coppery stems. A drop of wax fell upon Caspian's hand and burned an angry little spot right by his knuckles. The Lord welcomed the pain.

The halls of the manor were as silent as a tomb. When Caspian reached Troy's chambers he paused and rubbed his knuckles. The lord touched his ear to the door. When he heard nothing but the crackling of wood from his son's fireplace, Caspian carefully opened the door and stepped inside.