by Vela Roth
“You will not have to do without him. First of all, we must see to his wounds. You know the mages the Kyrian temple sends to Solorum every few days?”
“Well, yes. They assist the household with garden magic and healing. But I’ve never seen them set foot in the western wing of the king’s prison, my lady.”
“This afternoon will be a first, then. I’m forbidden to meet with them, but it is hardly my fault if we happen to be visiting the prison at the same time, hmm?”
“Callen’s youngest sister could get word to them. The king wouldn’t pay any mind to her comings and goings.” Perita’s composure had returned. “But I won’t see him survive prison just to face his sentence. If there’s aught we can do to spare him from the headsman, my lady, I’ll do all I can to serve you in seeing it through.”
“Information is where all such efforts must begin. The more we know, the better.”
“I’m afraid I’ve told you all I know.”
“If we understand the reason for the incident, it could help us prove Callen’s deed was justified.”
“There’s no reason in it, my lady. At least, if any man remembers a reason for the feud, I’ve never heard him explain it.”
“As you say, Lord Hadrian and his men do not pick fights. No one has sacrificed more to keep the feud at a standstill.”
“If only the other side saw it that way, my lady.”
“Was Verruc a particular rival of Callen’s?”
“Yes. He envied Callen’s victories.”
“I see. So the rivalry had become personal. How did Verruc and his men manage to ambush Callen alone, though? Callen is clearly too honorable to accept a challenge under dubious circumstances and too sensible to fall for a trap.”
“It’s dangerous at night, my lady, even for off-duty soldiers.”
“The fight happened at night?”
“Verruc had the character of a thief, not a warrior.”
“Lord Tyran and his men are notorious. His own misconduct sets the example for theirs. Their camp is circulating a great deal of gossip about the incident.”
Cassia observed the hint of expression around Perita’s mouth, the blankness in her gaze, the odd stillness of her hands where they rested upon the abandoned mending.
“Callen went straight to his liege to tell the truth,” Perita said. “That won’t stop Lord Tyran’s guards from making up lies.”
“In that case, I would like you to be the one who educates me about their gossip, so when I hear it from others, I will know better than to believe it.”
“It’s not fit for your ears, my lady.”
“I’m only barely a lady. You need never hesitate to speak frankly with me.”
“Oh, I couldn’t, my lady.”
Cassia considered Perita. We’d do anything for each other, she had pledged just a moment ago.
“I can understand you’d be hesitant to repeat nasty rumors about Callen. Think of it as spying on the enemy’s weapons, so we may properly arm ourselves against them.”
“Please, my lady. Don’t ask me to speak of that.”
Perita was indeed clever at showing the right face at the right moment. But Cassia was very good at watching faces and reading lips. And there were some lips that begged to be read.
Cassia knew all about words unspoken that you longed for someone to hear, although you could not say them.
“I can understand your anger,” Cassia said. “Hold on to that. It will serve you well. But…do not fear. You don’t have to be afraid.”
Perita’s mouth was still.
“I know the wounds lies leave behind,” Cassia went on. “Wounds that seem like they will never heal. I know the fears that come even when you’re alone, when threats seem to grow into something larger than words. I have only recently found the courage to fight them myself, but if I am certain of anything, it’s that they are easier to conquer when you are not alone.”
Perita’s lips trembled.
Cassia clenched her hands in her lap. “I have no right to ask you to make me your ally. But if you choose to give me that chance, I will be discreet and reliable.” Cassia took a deep breath and braved Perita’s gaze again. “You can trust me.”
Perita spoke. “I’m the only one who saw what happened. Me, a woman, who can’t stand witness in matters of law. Even if I could testify…no one would listen to me once they found out I was there that night.”
Perita, unflinching, did not look away. As if daring Cassia to judge her, as everyone else would do if they knew what Cassia did about where Perita went at night.
A woman’s word was worth little, a whore’s worth nothing. And that’s what everyone would call Perita, if the truth got out.
“I know they would not listen,” Cassia said. “I know what they would say. My mother knew, too. But you will hear no wounding words from me. I will listen.”
Perita drew a breath. “Verruc didn’t ambush Callen.” Another breath. “Verruc ambushed me.”
Cassia reached out. She found her hand moving slowly, as if she expected someone to strike her. As if she expected the person she reached toward to shy away for fear of being struck. But Cassia closed the distance between them, and no one stopped her. Cassia put her hand over Perita’s.
Perita didn’t shy away.
Cassia searched for words and found them all insufficient. This was not the time to speak.
She listened.
“Ever since we got to Solorum,” Perita began, “Verruc wouldn’t leave me be. He saw me with Callen when the girls and I came by the practice yard. I don’t know if Verruc really wanted me, or just to spite Callen, but he made up his mind he’d have me. I kept telling him no, but he accused me of just being coy. When he finally realized I wanted nothing to do with him, he started threatening me. Boasting of what he’d done to other women. It got to the point where I had to watch my back everywhere I went, for if Verruc ever caught me alone…”
Fury boiled up in Cassia, powerful and without warning.
Cassia knew the primal fear all women shared of what could happen to them when their protectors weren’t watching. But she had always faced that threat with Knight at her side. And her lineage, however much she hated it, made the king’s retribution a threat.
Perita had no royal name to make a man think of consequences. She didn’t even have an animal to protect her.
Was there no one you could turn to? Cassia wanted to ask. But she knew the answer. What could a tallow chandler do to protect his daughter from Verruc, a favorite of Free Lord Tyran’s? Perita’s father knew better than to expect advocacy from the king’s household.
Perita knew better than to expect advocacy from Cassia.
“I couldn’t tell Callen. I didn’t want to start trouble in the barracks. This sort of thing happens all the time, and the girls and I know to look out for each other. I just didn’t go anywhere alone…except to be with Callen. Nowhere’s safer than with him. But Verruc set a trap for me.”
Cassia scarcely breathed. She feared to hear the rest.
“Somehow Verruc knew where Callen and I meet at night. As careful as we’ve been, after no one’s ever found us out. He got his two cronies to delay Callen. When I went to the place…our place…there was Verruc.”
No. No, Cassia didn’t want it to be true.
Sweat beaded on Perita’s face. “Callen saw through it. He killed the other two on the spot and came straight to me.” She gulped a breath. “He got there in time.”
Relief made Cassia weak all over. “Are you all right?”
“Callen didn’t give Verruc a chance to lay a hand on me.”
“Is there anything you need? If you have even a scratch, I will see to it you receive the best care from the Kyrian healers.”
Perita shook her head, her face ashen. “Thanks to Callen, Verruc never carried out any of his disgusting threats. All he got away with was talk. Just a lot of words.”
“Wounds,” Cassia said again.
Perita shrugged,
but she was shaking. “We’re used to that, aren’t we?”
Cassia’s anger flashed again like a clear light. “We shouldn’t be.”
Perita gulped again, her sweat trickling down her face, her whole body shivering.
“I know what it’s like to live in fear,” Cassia said.
Perita’s breath came in frantic gasps. “I was so afraid.”
There was no rattle of illness in her chest, which medicine might ease. Just as there was no elixir that could untie the knots in Cassia’s belly after she had seen the king.
“I still have—nightmares.” Perita swayed in her seat. “About—about—what he tried—to do.”
Cassia had no betony charm at hand. She put her own hand in Perita’s. “You’re safe now. I swear to you. No one will threaten you ever again.”
Perita held on tight, resting her forehead on Cassia’s hand. For long moments, she heaved breath after breath, while she never shed a tear. Cassia steadied her with a hand on her shoulder until her rapid, ragged breaths eased into sighs of relief.
While Cassia had wallowed in her own affairs, Perita had struggled through each day bearing all this. She had lived with the fear of what Verruc would do to her if he got the chance. She had lived through the ordeal of a close call. She had gone to a safe place to see the one she loved, only for her enemy to desecrate her sanctuary and try to violate her.
Cassia had thought only of herself. She had used Perita to further her own ends. She had risked Perita’s health for a night of pleasure.
“I am so sorry, Perita. I should have realized. How I regret every time I sent you on a meaningless errand…put you in real danger just for a bar of soap in the middle of the night…”
“My sister walked back with me.” Perita hiccuped.
“Like your friends and family, I should have come to your aid. Please…could you find it in your heart to…forgive me?”
“You’ve so many problems of your own to contend with.”
“That is no excuse.”
Perita sat up slowly. “Can you forgive me for betraying you to the king?”
“There is nothing to forgive. That was not your choice.”
Perita’s eyes flashed. “None of this was my choice.”
“I know. Little of it has been my choice, either, but I cannot deny I had more choice than you, and I squandered it. No more. I will help you see justice done.”
“Callen won’t even tell Lord Hadrian he killed Verruc and the others for my sake. He’ll choose death before he lets this ruin me. And yet I can do nothing for him. But you can, my lady.”
“We can. Together. My voice is yours.”
The Western Wing
A rough, puckered scar ran from the prison warden’s left brow to his cheekbone. An eye peered out from beneath his mangled lid, and his other narrowed to match.
Cassia endured his glare with her chin high and let him study the small army she led: her handmaiden, two Kyrian mages, and a liegehound. Callen’s youngest sister was perhaps their fiercest fighter of all, but they had left her in the sunshine outside. The dungeons beneath Solorum were no place for a girl of six.
No sound emerged through the closed door behind the warden. Were its massive oaken panel and iron reinforcements enough to trap the groans of the dying, or was it magicked?
The warden planted his feet and crossed his arms. “This is the western wing.”
“That is why we are here,” Cassia replied.
“The men beyond this door have been sentenced to execution. Consider them already dead. There is no work of the gods to be done here, except by Hypnos.”
Deutera’s veil concealed her expression, but not her resolute tone. “Kyria’s work does not cease while they still draw breath.”
“The sooner they stop, the better for them.” The warden’s left eye lagged in its socket as his gaze swiveled to the mage. “I won’t have you prolonging their misery nor the king’s duty to feed them. Save your magic for the deserving.”
“The headsman’s axe is a hard enough fate,” Deutera said. “Kyria would not have them suffer while they await it. Would you begrudge them the comfort of our ministrations in their final days?”
Cassia knew a retreat when she saw it. The warden abandoned the lost argument and pinned his gaze on Perita instead. “You’ve already had your final visit. Returning in the company of mages doesn’t change the rules.”
Cassia hooked her arm in Perita’s and held her close. “Perita is my companion. She goes where I go.”
“And who are you?” he finally asked.
She smiled. “Cassia Basilis.”
The warden’s scowl deepened. He bowed, barely. “My lady.”
“You have not heard of my works on behalf of the Temple of Kyria?”
“As I said. Hypnos is my god.”
“You are not aware one of your prisoners is promised to a member of my household?”
“Dead men don’t keep promises.”
“I keep mine. Let me pass. Relief from pain is the least I owe my handmaiden’s betrothed.”
The warden subjected them all to the sort of sneer men gave women they regarded as meddling nags.
Cassia drew herself up into the posture she had learned from the kennel master many years ago and spoke in the tone best suited for training dogs. “Warden!”
His gaze snapped back to her.
“Perita will be permitted to see Callen, and the mages will be permitted to tend his wounds.”
That was definitely a sneer he gave her. But he answered, “As you wish…my lady.”
He waved a hand at the guards who stood at attention behind Cassia’s retinue. The two men came forward to the prison door. Their strength made the massive barrier swing as easily as a lady’s dressing screen.
As Cassia and her company filed past, the warden gave her a parting glare. Knight answered him with a growl.
“You’ll leave before dusk rites,” the warden ordered. “If the goddess takes a notion to send you back for more good works another day, I’ll want to see a seal from the king.”
Cassia smiled at him with the coldness that had sent Lord Ferus running. She imagined what she might do if she had the sword the warden carried at his hip. Next time, she vowed, she would have something better than a sword or the king’s seal. She would have a letter of release for Callen.
The stench of the western wing assailed them. The mages didn’t flinch, and Cassia wondered if magic on their veils shut out odors. If she had not helped in the infirmary before, she might not have been able to stomach it. She and Perita pressed their scented handkerchiefs tightly to their noses.
Perita was brave to come here and confront Callen’s suffering a second time. Did she want comfort? Cassia wouldn’t find out by not offering. She offered Perita her arm again, and Perita leaned on her.
The two guards’ heads nearly brushed the low ceiling as they escorted Cassia and her companions down a wide hallway. Sputtering torches lit the passage at intervals. Between the lights gaped holes of shadow filled with iron gates, groans, and most of the rank odors. They came to an intersection where two more hallways led off at angles. More lights in the dark, more barred doors, more men who would die at the king’s command. Cassia had lived in her own version of his dungeon all her life, although she had never set foot here.
How many of the prisoners deserved this fate? How many were like the men who would have died for the chance to carry Solia’s body off the field, who had died against the ramparts of Castra Roborra to punish her murderers?
The guards herded them down the right-hand hallway, and the passage narrowed around them. Now that Cassia’s anger had taken on a life of its own, it was hard for her to shove it down. Impossible, in fact. She could only channel it and make it into a fuel for her more lucid thoughts.
Their escort took them past more turnoffs and into a crooked offshoot of the hall that felt like a forgotten corner of the world. No sun had touched these stones since these walls had been bui
lt here in the bowels of the Mage King’s palace. The legends were true, and he had been a just king, Lio said. How golden had that age been? Had the western wing been a bastion of justice instead of a cruel jest of Hypnos’s?
Cassia could hear Perita sniffing softly as the guards unlocked the cell, but the door’s screech soon drowned out her quiet weeping. The still, prone form at the back of the cell, discarded on the squalid floor, was a man. The one Perita cared for. The broken body before them was the one Perita held at night, the one that loved her.
Cassia let the mages go first and slid her arm fully around Perita to hold her up. Wouldn’t Cassia need an arm to lean on, if anything befell Lio? Yes, she would. For just a moment, before she wielded every secret she knew, every tool at hand, every bit of influence she could muster against those who had done such a thing to him and made sure they never harmed him again.
Staring at Callen, Cassia experienced a moment of astonishing clarity. It was stronger than anything she had felt in many years. No, it could not compare with anything she had ever felt before.
The mages knelt beside Callen, subjecting their clean, fragrant robes to the filthy ground without any hesitation. Deutera kept her lantern hooded and set it down near enough to give them light without blinding him. Before Cassia could ask if she would rather wait outside, Perita drew herself up and stepped forward. Cassia went with her, and together they knelt beside the mages to offer their help.
Cassia was indeed grateful for her training, such as it was, in the compassionate but hard school of the mages’ infirmary. Callen lay in his own offal, his skin slimed with the sweat of a high fever, his hair matted with dirt and rotten rushes from the floor. It was hard to tell how many of the dried bloodstains on his clothes were his own, but the wet mess of pus at his left knee made it clear which wound was the cause of his troubles.