Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “But the dukes had always led their men as separate bands. They could not grasp the idea of breaking up those bands and putting them into unfamiliar formations with strangers. They had not read the histories that King Breon had. They did not know that these were not untried tactics, but had been used in ancient times to win great victories—some by Sorcerer-King Carlodon, Saint Carlodon, Breon’s ancestor. The Duke of Volney on the left flank and the Duke of Naben on the right flank sent messengers to the king. They told him that the Medeans would slaughter them if they advanced.

  “The king sent the messengers back to order the dukes to heed his signals. But even his loyal Torchanes men, who had trusted him in battle many times before, could not suppress their fear. When he made to raise the signal to the right wing again, his own brother seized his shoulder and begged him to retreat.

  “King Breon was angry. Instead of raising the signal, he dismounted from his horse, took up his sword, and started down the hill—alone.”

  Graegor felt the same chill of awe he always did when he pictured King Breon, the silver Torchanes falcon emblazoned on his purple surcoat and his broadsword gleaming in the morning light, walking to meet the enemy by himself.

  “He had gone more than a hundred yards before his men realized that he did not mean to parley. He did not mean to talk to the enemy. He meant to fight, fight even against magi, even if no other man stood with him.

  “Then the right wing, then the left, then the center, advanced to their positions, an army carried forward by his courage. Following him, their fear was transformed. It became an exultation that made their hearts race and their eyes shine. It became a brilliance that lifted them beyond themselves ... into something immortal.”

  The farmer paused, then bent down to retrieve his beer stein. Graegor watched him take a long drink, stretching out the silence of his audience. From outside their circle, the music and voices from the dance square sounded faint, and not even real.

  Throat wetted, the farmer wiped his mouth and beard and continued the story. “Breon’s cavalry raced in a diagonal thrust across the closing space between the two armies, and they cut deep into the Medean left. It opened a path into the main body of the enemy, and the Telgard infantry poured through the gap. The pikemen came up behind Breon in the center and went with him, shoulder to shoulder, into the center line of the Medeans. The Medean army was now cut in half, and when they hit the Telgard line they immediately fell back. Their magi could not unleash their power without risk of striking their own men. They could only deflect the hail of arrows fired into their ranks by the Telgard archers. Their leaders had come prepared to take the offensive only, and were screaming to order a shield wall, their most trusted defense. But their men started to panic, and to fall back.

  “Breon’s brother brought him his horse. From its back, Breon surveyed the field, then ordered a full pursuit. He redirected the archers to support the reserves, and then led his own Torchanes men in a frontal attack against the warrior-magi. And that ... was the beginning of the end.”

  Graegor let out his breath. The Torchanes kings were long gone now, and there would never again be another hero like King Breon.

  The last part of the story told of Breon seeking out the Medean magus-prince and engaging him in single combat while the battle surged around them. With brilliant swordwork, Breon disarmed, dismounted, and beheaded his bitter enemy. Their prince and their magi all dead, the demoralized Medean army retreated all the way back to the mountains, chased and slaughtered by the tireless cavalry of Breon’s Khenroxan allies, who had finally arrived at Falcon’s Rock as the sun was setting.

  “And,” the farmer said at the finish, “no army of such size has ever come over the mountains again. We are Telgards, we are of Lakeland, and we are free.”

  Everyone clapped and cheered, and the farmer took a bow, which set off even more clapping and cheering, and the children playing nearby joined in, just because it looked like fun. The men started saying that no tale could top that one, that was one hell of a fine telling, he had real talent. Graegor stood there for a long moment, holding the story in his mind, until he overheard someone say that they needed more beer. He slipped further back into the shadows before anyone could ask him to help.

  He passed the baker’s house, where a bready smell lingered and a lamp gleamed in a lower window. He kept going. He wasn’t supposed to go down Fisher Row, but it was Solstice, and Ted was probably down there. He passed the last streetlight and followed the path toward the houses near the pier.

  He couldn’t see the island in the lake anymore. The western horizon was still a very dark blue, but the rest of the sky was black and pricked by a hundred thousand stars. The moon was new tonight, of course. He rubbed his hands against his arms, since the wind coming off the lake was cold.

  “Graegor!” It was Ted, running up the path toward him, and he could see and hear other children too. “Come on, we’re playing hide-and-seek.”

  Graegor joined them as they went back up the path to the first house on the main street. Rules and boundaries were set, and Ted sprinted off as the rest of them started counting. Graegor tried not to care that he was the tallest one in the group. When they all started searching, he teamed up with Ted’s youngest brother, who was really too small to seek alone—and who ended up running over to the dance square after a couple of rounds. Finally it was Graegor who found the hider first, under the butcher’s porch, and got to be the next hider.

  He knew the perfect spot. He ran past his house, where a candle glowed in his mother’s shop window. His father’s shop window was dark, and next door was the glazer’s shop. It had a false front, like many of the buildings along the street, and just behind the false front was a tall birch tree with a low branch tucked near the downspout. He scrambled up the branch into the tree, and settled himself on a higher branch and leaned back against the tree trunk to wait.

  He couldn’t see or hear very much from here. The rustling leaves felt warm around him but cool to the touch. It was one of his favorite spots—Audrey was still much too small to climb up and bother him.

  The minutes dragged on, and no one found him. He scratched a fly bite on his arm and considered the idea that this was too good a hiding place. Had he ever shown this tree to Ted? Since all the others were fishermen’s children—at least, he assumed they were, they smelled like it—they probably didn’t know the town proper as well as he did. Had anyone made a rule about not hiding in trees?

  They should find him soon. He wasn’t that well hidden. Then maybe they could play another game, like tag-up. Tag-up was fun. But not as fun as stickball. That had been such a great throw. Perfect ... dead-on. Really the best he had ever played.

  He shut his eyes, and found it was no darker when he did. He kept opening and closing them, as a game to pass the time before they found him. They should find him pretty soon now ... soon ...

  He jerked awake, seizing the branches to keep from falling, certain that he’d heard a scream or ... or ... he didn’t know ... but something—something was wrong.

  Had he really fallen asleep? He found his balance on the branch and listened as hard as he could. He could still hear the music from the dance square, and laughter between there and here. The other children had apparently stopped looking for him. He had won, but in this game, that wasn’t really the point.

  Climbing down, he winced at the ache in his shoulder. His neck popped as he unkinked it, and, because the sound was both vulgar and funny, he cracked his knuckles too. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong, that he’d heard something besides people having fun. He stepped out from behind the false front and saw one of the fisher girls coming down the street—the one in the green dress who had been squeezed against him under the butcher’s porch.

  “There you are!” she exclaimed between big bites of a handcake.

  “Why did everyone stop looking for me?”

  She swallowed. “Well, at first nobody could find
you, and then they brought out the handcakes, and then they wanted to do all the children’s dances, so ...”

  At least he had missed that part. “Are there any handcakes left?” he called after her as she kept going.

  “Just the ones that grownups like,” she called back. “I got the last berry one.”

  Now that just wasn’t fair. Graegor stood there and fumed. This wasn’t how Solstice night was supposed to be. He was supposed to have seen the green flash, he was supposed to have gotten blessed by that big wave, Ted and the others were supposed to have found him, and he was supposed to have gotten a berry handcake.

  “Stop it!”

  That he heard distinctly, but very faintly, and he froze. Something was wrong. Where had it come from? Not the street ... it was a girl’s voice ...

  He turned in a slow circle, straining his eyes and ears, and then saw a line of dim light beneath the fence between the glazer’s house and his own. Was someone back there? He went quickly to the gate and unlatched it, and it swung silently back.

  The light was coming from the crack at the bottom of the stable door, and Graegor came around the wagon feeling relief mixed with guilt. In his haste to finish his chores and get to the schoolyard to play stickball, he’d forgotten to douse the lantern. It was a very good thing he had come back before his father had—this would have earned him a lecture for sure. There were times he wished his father would just haul off and hit him rather than make him listen again to why he was disappointed in him.

  He’d grab the lantern, and then figure out where the voice he had heard had come from. He reached for the door, but then heard a girl crying, “It hurts!”

  The words were mingled with sobs, and Graegor froze again. It was here, the wrongness was here—but why was anyone in the stable at night? Who was it? She was crying—and then he heard a deeper voice, a male voice. His words were muffled, but his meaning was clear—he wanted her to be quiet.

  Graegor touched the door, then stopped. He knelt and patted the ground around him, finally locating a sizable scrap of wood. He heard the girl shriek, and he stood up and silently tugged open the door on its rollers, just enough to peek inside.

  He squinted into the dim light falling from the lantern, but he didn’t understand what he was seeing. There was Hagan—Graegor could see his belt buckle hanging to his knee as he pushed himself against Miriam. She was bent forward over a saddle tree, her yellow skirts pushed up and showing her legs. Her face was turned toward Graegor and her eyes were shut tight as she cried. Hagan’s hands were inside her dress, and he was hurting her—whatever he was doing was really hurting her!

  Graegor stepped inside, set himself and brandished the stick, determined to sound like his father. “Hagan!”

  They both jumped, and Miriam ducked her head away with a sob. Hagan pulled away from her to turn on Graegor, not bothering to cover himself, and Graegor was shocked at the size and darkness of his penis. “Get lost,” he snapped.

  “You’re hurting her,” Graegor said. His father’s authoritative tone was gone, but although Graegor felt very small, he held the stick and stood his ground.

  Hagan smiled—smirked—at this attempt at valor, pushed down on Miriam’s back, and said, “What, you’re going to hit me? Try it, brat.”

  Brat? None of the apprentices had ever dared talk to him like that, he was the master’s son! “You had better stop.” There, he sounded more like his father now. He heard the horses whuffing behind him.

  Miriam coughed hard, and her skirt slid further up. Graegor stared, and blushed, because he couldn’t help looking from Hagan’s open trousers to Miriam’s pale leg. Hagan gave Graegor another evil smirk. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want a turn?”

  Graegor’s face flamed, and he dropped the stick and fled. He didn’t know exactly what Hagan had meant, but it was something private, something that he wasn’t supposed to know about.

  He had to get help. He ran to the street, to the lights and the dancers. The musicians were playing a fast song, and the people who weren’t dancing were clapping their hands in time. After several frantic seconds he found his parents—his father was talking and drinking at a table with Sheriff and some other important men, and his mother sat nearby looking happy, her head swaying to the music.

  Graegor skidded to a halt at his mother’s elbow and urgently tapped it. She turned her head slowly and smiled at him, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re still awake?”

  “Momma, I need to tell you and Dad something. It’s very important.”

  Her dreamy look vanished. “What? Is it Audrey?”

  “No, but—please, Momma, tell Dad, please.”

  His father glanced at him suspiciously when his mother touched his arm, but they both followed Graegor a few steps away, out of the ring of torches. “What is it, honey?” his mother asked, laying her hands on his shoulders.

  He was standing in a puddle of beer, but he didn’t want to lose her attention, so didn’t move as he took a deep breath. “Hagan’s in the stable with Miriam. He’s hurting her—she’s crying—he’s pushing her over ... “ His cheeks and ears were on fire, and he couldn’t look his mother in the eye, so he studied the ground instead. “He’s hurting her,” he said again.

  His mother didn’t say anything. Finally he looked up at her. Her mouth was set in a thin line, and her hands were gripping his shoulders harder. She looked at his father, who nodded curtly toward their house. Graegor trailed behind them, relieved that they had believed him and that he hadn’t had to say anything else.

  When they reached the stable, though, no one was there but the horses. Lightning, Graegor’s first and favorite horse, whuffed at him, and he patted his white muzzle. His father stopped near the saddle tree, looked at it, then looked at Graegor. Graegor nodded. His father’s face twisted in disgust. His mother’s arms were folded tight against her chest as if she was cold.

  They circled the yard to the house, and their footsteps on the porch were loud. His father opened the door, and once inside his mother picked up the lit candle from the window sill. Graegor followed his parents up the back stairway, and he could hear sobs on the other side of the wooden wall. When they reached the landing, his mother gestured for Graegor and his father to stay there, and she went the few steps to the room Miriam shared with Ulla, her other apprentice. She knocked softly, then opened the door. “Miriam?”

  The crying stopped, replaced by several hiccoughs and a garbled “Mistress Valerie ...”

  The light flickered, and Graegor could hear his mother murmuring something, and Miriam answering. Then he heard his mother ask, “Where’s Hagan?”

  “H-Hagan?”

  “Graegor told us what he saw in the stable.” There was a note of disapproval in her voice, a note Graegor didn’t understand. Miriam hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “He did?” Miriam’s voice held fear and despair and even anger, and Graegor couldn’t understand that either. What had he done wrong? She’d been was in trouble, and he hadn’t been able to help, so he’d gotten help. Why would she not want him to tell anyone? Was it private for her too? It hadn’t looked that way—it’d looked like Hagan—

  “Do you know where Hagan went, Miriam?”

  Another hiccough. “No.”

  Graegor’s father turned and went back down the stairs. His mother leaned out of Miriam’s door and glanced past Graegor, then looked back at him and said, “Graegor, please get me a cup of milk.”

  Milk—her usual medicine. Graegor trailed his fingers against the walls to guide his steps back down the staircase. Out on the porch, the milk jug was almost full and nearly too heavy for Graegor to bring up from the coolchest. He lugged it inside and set it on the table, then lit another candle from the banked fire so he could see. He spilled some milk as he filled the cup to its brim, and a little more as he brought it carefully up the stairs. He stopped on the landing when he heard Miriam’s voice.

  “... didn’t think he ...” She was crying again.
“... he said it was too crowded, so we went to the stable. I thought it was just kissing, but he ...” She couldn’t finish.

  “So you’re saying you never intended to give yourself to him?”

  “No!” Miriam choked, retched even, and Graegor scowled. Miriam was too nice for Hagan to be so cruel to her.

  “Even on Solstice? Even though you went with him willingly?”

  “It was—just—kissing!” Her voice rose, and Graegor’s mother made soothing noises, and Graegor carried the cup the rest of the way to the door.

  Miriam and his mother were sitting on one of the beds. His mother’s face was calm, but Miriam’s was haggard, and she didn’t look at him. He was sure now that she was mad at him, that he’d done something wrong. He gave the cup to his mother, who gave it to Miriam. She took some time drinking it down, and Graegor wanted to leave, but didn’t know if he should. Finally his mother passed the cup back to him and nodded dismissal, and he retreated downstairs. He stood in the kitchen, wondering if he should leave the house, and where he should go if he did. Finally he took the cup to the pump and scrubbed it in cold water and powdered soap.

  He was drying the cup with a towel when he heard footsteps in the yard and the back door opening. As his father came in, his mother, carrying the candle, reached the bottom of the stairs. “Did you find Hagan?” she asked quietly, and Graegor stood still to listen, hoping they wouldn’t notice him in the dimness.

  “He hadn’t gone far,” his father growled.

  “What did he say?”

  “That she’d been willing. That she was only upset because it hurt.”

  “She said she never intended to. She’s nearly hysterical.”