Read Online The Last Knight by Hilari Bell - Free Book Online

step—doubtless, I was meant to. My embarrassment faded and resentment replaced it—I dislike being deliberately humbled. Fisk crept softly behind me, doing his best to become invisible, as is his habit when he wants to make certain I take all the blame. In this case, I had to admit I deserved it.
    I halted at the foot of the dais, for to climb it would have left me standing on the baron’s toes, and looked up at him. “I am Sir Michael Sevenson, and I have come to apologize for my error in setting Ceciel Mallory free.”
    “I know who you are, young man. And why you’re here. I expected you yesterday.” Fisk stirred behind me, but I wasn’t surprised that he knew we were coming.
    Sir Bertram looked me over like a curious crow, an impression that was reinforced by the black clothes of mourning. His hair, which grew in a neat fringe around his bald head, just touched his collar, and while he was thin, he still seemed hardy. Father had said Sir Herbert was in his early sixties, and this man was his younger brother, but his face was deeply lined, like that of a man a decade older, and the eyes that regarded me so intently were red and swollen.
    I forgot that he had made me walk the length of the hall, and even the humiliation of confessing my own error. “I am truly sorry, Sir, for what happened to your brother. I’m going to bring Ceciel Mallory back. If she poisoned him, you’ll have justice.”
    “Justice?” His face twisted. “What good will justice do my brother now?” Then he sagged in the great chair. “I suppose justice is all that’s left,” he said wearily. “Come with me, Michael Sevenson, freer of poisoners. I want you to see something.”
    He stepped down from the dais and strode off. We followed, of course, though I was anxious about our destination. The baron was clearly grieved by his brother’s death, and keeps this old held dungeons, or even worse places.
    But we passed out through a postern door, and set off briskly through the kitchen garden and up the wooded hill behind the keep.
    Fisk stared when we came over the hill’s crown, and saw the size of the blood oak grove stretching down its slopes. I knew enough of country life to understand that all the nearby villages would bring their dead here as well.
    Blood oak leaves die in autumn, as other leaves do, but for some reason they cling to the branches even in death, only falling when the spring growth comes. There are several myths to account for this, but no one really knows why. Whatever the reason, walking through the blood oak grove was an uneasy experience, even on a sunlit autumn morning. The dry leaves rustled and whispered together, as if the dead buried beneath their roots were gossiping back and forth.
    As we went downhill, the trees became smaller and younger. Soon we reached the recent part of the burying grove and a grave into which the earth had barely settled. The sapling planted there had only five leaves, still turning to the deep russet of dried blood. ’Twas the wrong time of year to transplant, but a blood oak planted over a corpse always thrives. Scientists say ’tis because they draw nourishment from a body’s decay, but the old tradition that a good man’s soul sustains them appeals more to the heart. If that was true, Sir Herbert must have been a good man, for this tree was perfect. In fact…I bent to look closer.
    Saplings are often unmarked, for insects and animals have had fewer chances at them, but something about this plant pricked at my sensing Gift. I knelt and held out my hand toward the sapling, not quite touching it, and felt the unmistakable prickle of its energy against my palm. The sensing Gift is the only human Gift that is always reliable, even if you have to touch a thing to be certain whether it holds magic or not. Every village has access to someone with the sensing Gift, so no one would ever be fool enough to cut this tree. Sir Herbert’s grave would be marked for decades, even centuries. I