better.”
“I have heard of this March,” he said, unperturbed. “I have heard about your haunted forest.”
Mérian stared at the young man, agitation knitting her brows as curiosity battled her reluctance to encourage any Ffreinc affinity. Curiosity won. “This is the second time this evening someone has mentioned the haunting.” Searching the lower tables, she found the two girls she had spoken to earlier.
“Those two—there.” She indicated the sisters sitting together.
“They spoke of it also.”
“They would,” muttered the young man, obviously irritated that his important news had been spoiled.
“Do you know them?”
“My sisters,” he said, as if the word pained his mouth.
“What did they say?”
“Nothing at all. The baron was seated, and we had to come to table, so I learned nothing more about it.”
“Well then, I will tell you,” said the young man, recovering something of his former good humour as he went on to explain how the forest was haunted by a rare phantom in the form of an enormous preying bird.
“How strange,” said Mérian, wondering why she had heard nothing of this.
“This bird is bigger than a man—two men! It can appear and disappear at will and swoop out of the sky to snatch horses and cattle from the field.”
“Truly?”
He nodded with dread assurance. Apparently, the thing was black from head to tail and twice the height of the tallest man, possessing glowing red eyes and a beak as sharp as a sword. He smiled grimly, enjoying the effect his words were having on the young woman beside him. “It can devour a human being whole with one snatch of its beak, and also outrun the fastest horse.”
“I thought you said it swooped from the sky,” Mérian pointed out, dashing cold water on his fevered assertions. “Is it a bird or a beast?”
“A bird,” the young man insisted. “That is, it has the wings and head of a bird, but the body of a man, only bigger. Much bigger. And it does not only fly, but hides in the forest and waits to attack its prey.”
“How do you know this?” asked Mérian. “How does anyone know?”
Bending near, he put his head next to hers and said, “It was seen by soldiers—not so many days ago.”
“Where?”
“In the forest of the March!” he replied confidently. “Some of the baron’s own knights and men-at-arms were attacked. They fought the creature off, of course, but they lost their horses anyway.”
The tale was so strange that Mérian could not decide what to make of it. “They lost their horses,” she repeated, a sceptical note edging into her tone. “All of them?”
The young man nodded solemnly. “And one of the knights.”
“What?” It was a cry of disbelief.
“It is true,” he insisted hurriedly. “The knight was missing for three days but was at last able to fight free of the thing and escaped unharmed—except that he cannot remember what happened to him or where he was. Some are saying that the phantom is from the Otherworld, and everyone knows that any mortal who goes there cannot remember the way back—unless, of course, he eats of the food of the dead, and then he is doomed to stay there and can never return.”
Speechless, Mérian could but shake her head in wonder.
“All the baron’s court have been talking about nothing else,” said the young man. “I have seen the man that was taken, but he will speak of it no more.”
“Why not?”
“For fear that the creature has left its mark on him and will return to claim his soul.”
“Can such a thing happen?”
“Bien sûr!” The young man nodded again. “It has been known. The priests at the cathedral have forbidden anyone to make sacrifice to the phantom. They say the creature is from the pit and has been sent by the devil to sift us.”
An exquisite thrill rippled through Mérian’s frame—half fear, half morbid fascination.
“You live beyond les Marchés,” her companion said, “and yet you have no knowledge of the phantom bird?”
“None,” replied Mérian. “I once heard of a great serpent that haunted one of the lakes up in the hills—Llyntalin, it was. The creature possessed the head of a snake and the slimy skin of an eel, but legs like those of a lizard, with long claws on its toes. It came out at night to steal cattle and drag them down into the bottom of the lake to drown.”
“A wyrm,” the young man informed her knowingly. “I, too, have heard of such things.”
“But that was a long time ago—before my father was born.
My grandfather told