The Falconer's Daughter - Liz Lyles Page 0,18
pebbles scattered beneath her feet. The mountain could not hold her. The mountain would not hold her. She tore the skin from her palms and feet as she scrambled, her hands bleeding on each stone she touched. Papa was below her, far far down. Where was Culross?
Cordaella reached higher, ever higher, the mountain growing, swelling in her face, pressing against her forehead and her chin and her eyes were full of the dark sharp mountain. She reached up and up for yet another ledge, a fresh fistful of coarse dirt and pebbles streaming in her eyes. She blinked back the dust, the grit between her lashes, beneath her eyelids. She could taste the dirt. It was in her nose, coating the inside of her mouth. Cordaella knew she had tasted this dirt all her life. Exhausted, she leaned into the wall of rock, the mountain her only mother.
She craned her head, searching for a glimpse of her father. She could see him, he was still there, still at the base of the mountain, his own face pressed to the rock. Wasn’t he coming? If he didn’t hurry it would be too late. Time was running out. “Papa!”
His voice was faint and yet the urgency carried, “Fly Cory! Fly.” His desperation echoed thinly on the silver air. The mountain trembled and she screamed, her body hugging the cliff, her eyes wide with terror. “Help me!”
“Fly Cory! Fly away!” He was bleeding worse, more and more red pouring from his mouth. She couldn’t hear his words, the blood taking them all away. Cordaella couldn’t hear him. She shook her head violently, her short nails digging into the cliff. The mountain trembled again. He would die down there. He would die without her. But he wouldn’t let her come down, drowning in his sea of blood.
She threw herself from the mountain, leaping madly into the air, the legend of Icarus coming to life all over again, poor brilliant Daedalus far beneath. She pumped her arms harder, more vigorously and sobbed, “Papa! Wait!”
He died.
“Wake up! Wake up, you wretched wild thing!” Elisabeth pushed Cordaella angrily, her small hand snaking into Cordaella’s tangled hair. She gave it a hard pull. “Whatever are you howling about now?”
The dreaming. Cordaella would forever be dreaming the end.
“Leave her be, Beth.” Philip groggily raised his head from the pillow. “She’s having another of her bad dreams.”
“She is a bad dream—” Elisabeth cried petulantly. “Why does she have to be in here with us?”
“Because she’s our cousin.” Philip swung his legs clear of the bedcovers. “You shouldn’t be so nasty to her. She can’t help it. An orphan and all.”
Elisabeth flounced back to her bed, “She doesn’t even speak English properly! She doesn’t belong here with us. What can Papa be thinking?”
Grudgingly Philip had to agree with her. “It doesn’t make very much sense.”
“It certainly doesn’t. Falconer’s daughter indeed! Papa is a fool to think she will ever change. What is he to do with her? He ought to put her with the other servants—”
“But the inheritance—”
“Keep it of course. But send her to a convent. Ugh!” She shivered in disgust. “A stable animal, that is what she is.”
Cordaella lay silent, listening, her eyes open and fixed intently on the high vaulted ceiling of the nursery. Now that the dreaming had begun it would never end. Nothing was real anymore. It was as if she had fallen into a deep sleep and could not wake. God only knows what they did to him. Why couldn’t she remember better? Somehow she only saw the blood. There was so much of it.
Elisabeth turned on her side and Cordaella could feel Elisabeth staring at her. Cordaella turned to look at Elisabeth, her cousin’s blue eyes brittle in the moonlight. “You do not belong here, Cordaella Buchanan,” Elisabeth said.
Softly Cordaella whispered back, “Aye. I know that much.”
“I am the lady of the house. And I say you shall go.”
Cordaella would not cry. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered. Nothing would ever matter again. “Then I shall go.”
“Have some pity, Beth,” Philip whispered.
Elisabeth ignored him. “I shall have her sent to sleep with the pigs.”
Cordaella squeezed her eyes shut, a hot emotion splitting her heart into two, and then into two again. She would have promised anything at that moment if it meant she could escape.
Abruptly Philip rose from his bed, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. “Hush, Elisabeth! You are too cruel!” He crept to his cousin’s bed and knelt beside it.