The Malevolent Tree

Blood Fruit

What is everyone gawking at now?

Tavish MacBruce clamped his conical crushed velvet hat to his head and edged through the crowd gathered around the massive tree. He was generous with his Excuse me's—despite Lord Cullen's warning that politeness to peasants was unbecoming of his official wizard.

To hell with that. Just because he had been dragged into this barbaric alternate universe, that didn't mean he had to act like a goon—especially on the say-so of a man younger than Tavish's daughter.

When the last two towering farmers stepped back to allow a good look at what they found so fascinating, Tavish nearly lost his morning oatcake. From the yew's lowest branch hung a bloody corpse.

What was worse, he recognized her. Despite the gash that had severed one side of the wrinkled old face from the other, the gold sea serpent circlet tangled in the grey-and-brown hair identified the victim as Hextilda, third princess of the lost kingdom of Naddodd. At supper the night before, she'd agreed to let him pick her brain about her knowledge of parallel dimensions. Now that knowledge was lost forever—along with the poor woman's life.

When a crow landed on the dead princess's shoulder and proceeded to do literally what Tavish could no longer do figuratively, he averted his gaze. Pitiful old soul. He stared at MacDaragh Castle perched atop a jagged knoll half a mile away. Mist obscured the valley, but the flecks of fool's gold in the castle's grey-green granite walls twinkled in the dawn. A single guard stood at the narrow wicket door where he had slipped out for his morning walk. The main gate remained shut.

Where was everybody? Were the lazy bums still asleep? A crazed killer had sliced up Lord Cullen's honored guest, and nobody was examining the bloody scene except the crows and the flies.

Of course, in a land roamed by dragons and fairies, he couldn't rule out intelligent birds and insects, but he doubted they knew how to properly gather evidence.

"Won't somebody cut her down?" moaned a gangly youth several yards away. "I cannot bear to see a gran strung up like a hare in a trap."

Murmuring agreement, several men stepped forward, sickles in hand. While they'd dared not touch a princess, none of them could neglect a gran.

"Stop!" Tavish said.

Hastily, the farmers stepped back and bowed their heads. Lord Cullen's wizard had spoken.

At least, his supposed wizard. Tavish waved a hand as if soothing the air. "You can lay her down in a moment. Let me take a look first." He slipped his other hand inside his wizard costume to the hip pocket of his jeans.

As his daughter Mattie liked to say, No pics, didn't happen. Good thing he'd charged his mobile on his apple battery last night—though he doubted a dozen crab apples laid out like a secondary school science exhibit was what the manufacturer had in mind.

When Tavish held up the slim rectangle, the men with sickles stared. When he approached the corpse, tapping the screen and sending out flashes, they fled into the crowd.

Now that he was gazing at poor Hextilda via screen, a sense of scientific detachment kept his urge to retch in check. He captured a grid-like series of pictures of the ground then worked his way up. He walked clear around the horror, tapping away while making a mental note to preserve the knots. The princess had been sliced before she'd been hung—the rope bore no signs of the weapon. The pink frost beneath her showed she'd bled out after.

Steeling himself, Tavish edged closer. The slashes looked like the work of a curved blade. Maybe a sickle. With the oat and barley harvests in full swing, at least one absent-minded farmer might have left one lying around.