by Park, Elsie
Roland replaced the dagger into its sheath and raised his head up again so he could peer inside the cottage, but curtains obstructed his view. This wasn’t a complete disadvantage, for those inside wouldn’t see him either. He was able to eavesdrop undetected on the conversations, but it was hard to distinguish one from another through the muddle of words.
The chatter quieted and a clear, recognizable voice reached his ears. It was Audri’s.
“Dear friends, I am happy to be with you all again. How I’ve missed our more frequent meetings, our time together, but the events of late have forced my absence. But take heart and bear with me, for I swear to you that through these educations, you will someday be able to rise above your present station and not be taken advantage of by oppressors or anyone else who exploits ignorance. By being able to read and calculate for yourselves, your trades and dealings will be more fair and just. And so we begin another session to prove that knowledge, and not the brutality of a lord, is true power.”
The crowd agreed with murmurs of approval. Roland was shocked. He knew Audri was up to something, but he never expected this. He realized that her talking to the villagers in town had probably been to let them know this secret gathering would be happening today.
He heard a scratching sound inside, like coal being scraped against wood.
“Charity, what does this spell?”
A young female voice answered, “Shilling, milady.”
“Correct. And what are these two numbers added together, Rebekah?”
Another girl spoke up, pausing after each number as she thought over the answer, “One-hundred and seventy . . . plus forty-six . . . equals . . . two-hundred and sixteen.”
“Excellent! You’ve clearly been studying,” Audri praised. “And your writing looks beautiful, too.”
“Thank you, milady,” the girls said with pride in their voices.
“Oh, it’s so wonderful being with all of you again,” Audri said. “I’ve missed you terribly.”
Multiple voices, male and female, piped up expressing the same. Light chatter persisted for a few minutes until Audri gently hushed them and encouraged the lesson.
Roland smiled. Shopping indeed. Her adamant begging to keep her village trips now made sense. He shook his head and almost laughed out loud. Although he was frustrated at her deception, he was more impressed at Audri’s bravery in holding a secret school under Festus’s nose and that she cared so deeply for the villagers to risk herself for their education. A new respect for her entered his heart. Empowering the peasants through reading, writing, and mathematics . . . Roland approved. His parents held similar practices with their villagers, and the outcome was always positive.
Lord Craven’s intimidating influence came from keeping them ignorant and weak—sure signs of a tyrant. If Festus knew his peasants were being educated, he’d put a stop to it and dole out serious punishments. No wonder Audri had even kept the secret from me. She took no chances.
“Milady,” an aged male spoke up. “How . . . how fares your squireship?” The man sounded embarrassed to be asking the question, but his curiosity clearly gave him enough courage to do so.
“Isn’t it obvious?” a young boy said. “Just look at her. She’s lost a cart-load of weight!” Innocence and pride filled the child’s honest comment, but it was followed by what sounded to be a palm slapping the back of his head. “Ouch!”
“Hush, child,” he heard Gail hiss. “Mind your manners.”
“It’s all right, Gail,” Audri assured, a smile evident in her voice. “You’re absolutely right, Waylon. I have lost over four stone5 since coming under the tutelage of Sir Roland, and I am quite proud of my newfound strength and agility.”
Roland thought about his squire’s trimmed figure, curvy and toned. What else will Audri say about her odd arrangement and her “slave-driving” mentor? Roland wondered as he raised his ear a notch to hear better.
Audri cleared her throat and spoke thoughtfully. “As I continually strive to educate myself in many ways, I admit that this recent undertaking has been the most challenging by far. But it has also been one of the most enlightening, as I have learned the ways of a true knight and the high morals he’s supposed to live by. As most of Guildon’s knights have become lax in upholding their standards, I’m privileged to act as squire to a rare and honorable one. How else might I better learn to survive in this world we live in? My position as squire is a strategy truly fit for my gain in the end.”
She didn’t admit her compulsion in becoming his squire. The villagers evidently considered her peculiar circumstance to be of her own making. He smiled to himself. She clearly valued her pride. And she said she felt privileged to be my trainee. Was it a true statement or just a front to keep the villagers from worrying about her? If true, he couldn’t help but feel pleased. One of his goals was to have Audri respect him as her knight, not just from duty but because he had earned it from her—and because she liked being with him. Roland’s eyes widened in surprise at his own secret hope that Lady Audrina Gibbons accepted him as a friend, trusting it might grow into something more.
“Well, that’s it in a nutshell. Now back to the lesson.” Audri’s words cut into his thoughts. Apparently, the crowd acquiesced for no more questions regarding her squireship were raised.
Spying a log a few feet down from him, he rolled it over as a makeshift seat. He sat on it, relieving his cramped legs and leaned his back against the side of the house. He remained there for over two hours, wrapped tightly in his wool cloak and listening to the voices inside. He munched on a bread roll he’d saved from his earlier purchase, but he wasn’t the most comfortable, sitting in the cold drizzle. He remained because he thought he’d learn something more about Audri. Nothing more surfaced, however.
Roland was debating whether to remain there any longer when he heard Audri say, “All right, that concludes our reading and writing. A short break and then on to arithmetic.”
Roland knew that if people came out to stretch their legs in the open air, he’d be seen for sure. He started to push off of his log when a voice close to the window made him hastily slide off the log to the muddy ground beneath.
“By heaven, I feel a draft,” a woman stated. Still under the window, he tipped his hooded head back to look at the base of it just inches from his view. A hand had parted the curtains and rested on the sill.
“The window’s open.” Roland held his breath. The woman’s voice was so near he thought for sure she’d seen him. “The wind must’ve shaken it loose. It’s a wonder I hadn’t felt the cold earlier, but with so many warm bodies in here, it’s no surprise.” The hand reached out and grabbed the wood pane, pulling it shut with a soft clunk, cutting off all sound from the inside. Roland let his breath out and cautiously brought himself up into a low squat. Crouching until he cleared the window, he moved off toward the back of the house.
At the corner, he noticed the charred remains of another cottage situated forty feet back and to the right of the home he stood by. Roland sensed something familiar about it. Had he known it as a child? He was only five when he was taken from Guildon. The fuzzy vision of a quaint, thatched-roof cottage, a small garden to the side, and a man and woman whose faces were obscured to his memory flashed through his mind, but as quickly as the images had emerged, they disappeared.
He moved toward the lonely ruins, his mind digging franticly for more suppressed memories that might tell him why he felt this way and if he’d known the place. He was halfway between the occupied house and the remains when the creak of door hinges behind him made him dart behind the closest tree. With stealth, he pulled himself up onto a leafy branch. He peeked around the large trunk and observed through the thick foliage a young man with a slight limp and a young woman exit the back door of the cottage. They were wrapped in cloaks against the damp cold, hoods covering their hair. The arbor obscured most other details about them.
> The young woman spoke first, turning to face the man and taking both of his hands in hers. “Andrew, ’twas said they took you to the dungeon weeks ago for stealing. I thought I’d never see you again. We haven’t been able to talk since you escaped. What happened?” With a light wind blowing in Roland’s direction, her words reached him with clarity.
These are probably the two villagers Doyle ordered to be found, Roland surmised.
Andrew’s head turned toward the backyard, perhaps sweeping it for prying eyes. Even at that distance, Roland thought he vaguely recognized the man. He thought the man’s face looked battered and bruised, but it could have been the dreary day making it appear so. “Oh, Autumn, I didn’t take anything. I swear upon our parents’ graves.”
“I believe you, you know that.”
“Yes, but try explaining that to two guards with swords drawn and a loaf of bread at my feet. The youngster that had taken it from the bakery bumped into me and dropped it. He didn’t bother picking it up at the sight of the guards and disappeared. I picked up the loaf, intending to return it to the shop when the baker erupted from his door yelling to the guards and pointing in my direction. They didn’t believe my explanation, and I had no choice but to go with them. They took me to the dungeon.” Andrew’s voice choked, filling with emotion. “Oh, Autumn, I saw and experienced such appalling atrocities as could ever be laid upon the human body.”
“Oh no, no, dear brother.” Autumn’s words burst with equal emotion.
This might be the same young man I witnessed being dragged to the dungeon.
Andrew stood there shaking his covered head. “Sir Doyle, he . . . he had unspeakable things done to me. He starved me, mutilated me, burned me with hot pokers. Autumn, I have scars that will last the rest of my life, as long as that is.” He lifted his loose tunic to expose his stomach and chest.
“Oh, dear heaven, Andrew, he carved you up!” Autumn whimpered, her hand reaching out to touch her brother’s wounds. “And your ribs. I can feel them under your skin. You must have lost at least two stone6 under his cruel hand! How you’re still alive I do not know.”
Andrew pulled his tunic down. “There are devices in that horrid place for the sole purpose of delivering pain—and death. They could only have been devised by someone with an evil heart. He made me do unforgivable things for him under penalty of more torture if I didn’t comply. I’ve born false witness against others and helped arrest people I knew to be innocent. Oh, Autumn, I’ve even taken the life of another, all in only a few weeks’ time.”
“But why use you to run his foul errands? Why not one of his knights or his guards?” Autumn asked.
“Because I’m expendable, less important than the paid sentry. If I’m caught in the act or die executing a task, he’s not lost anyone significant in his view. He knows our parents are dead, that they won’t come looking for me. He showed me the prisoner he used before I was arrested. The lucky man was no longer alive, but I could see the terrible marks of torture upon his body, the emaciated state he was in before drawing his last breath. I thought many times that I’d rather die and let someone else take the burden of running Doyle’s bidding, but my heart lurched at the thought of someone else suffering as well.” Andrew paused. “He’s a disturbed, cruel man, Autumn, and there’s no reason for it that makes any sense to the rest of us.”
Roland felt sick for the young man’s dilemma. Perhaps Doyle, even after torturing his late father to death, remained infuriated at the world for his circumstance and took it out on others as a way to vent and cast blame. He suspected that’s what drove Festus’s treatment of Lady Honora Craven as well. On a much smaller scale, it’s what happened with himself when he lost his temper, getting angry over a situation and taking it out on whatever, or whomever, was around him instead of looking to himself as the one in error. He’d never stooped to the deplorable acts of Festus and Doyle, though. He couldn’t comprehend it.
“Yesterday,” Andrew continued, “having been sent to flush out an innocent man, I knew I couldn’t continue doing those horrible things. But I knew you’d be in danger if I ran away. I couldn’t go to our house. He’d have guards watching it. When I chanced to see you in the market, I risked a pass to tell you to hide. I’m glad you did, for they searched our house when I didn’t return to Doyle, looking for us both.”
“Yes, I know. They burned the house, too.” Autumn sniffed and wiped a hand across her eyes. “Oh, Andrew, we have nothing now. What are we going to do?”
Andrew took his sister into his arms. “We still have each other, Autumn . . . and Lady Gibbons, too. She said she’ll do all she can to protect us. You know we can trust her.”
They held each other until the back door opened, revealing a woman’s silhouette. Roland made out little else through the leaves.
“Class resumes, dears.” It was the same voice of the woman who had reached out and shut the window above his head. The cottage owner, he presumed. “And it’s not safe to be in the open. You’ll put us all in danger if you’re discovered. Come back into the house.”
The siblings disappeared inside and the door closed.
After hearing this conversation, thoughts of the ruins were pushed back into his mind to be pondered upon later. The young man’s words conjured up ghastly images about what went on in the dungeon under Guildon Castle and the terrible screams emerging from it. It left him feeling nauseated. Between the ruthless Lord Craven and the sinister Sir Doyle, Roland wasn’t sure who was the worst of the two.
As a knight under Guildon’s employ, he had a duty to report runaway prisoners. But as he was here under pretense only, he held no true obligations to the tyrannical earl. Festus’s praise and acceptance would be nothing to the guilt Roland would feel returning an innocent man to Doyle’s dungeon. Yes, he’d keep these two stowaways a secret. And it appeared that Audri knew of their situation and had agreed to help as well. He would too if he could.
The sun slipped lower, closing in on the top of the hills; it would set within an hour. Roland slipped from the branch and landed onto the soggy ground below. He had no more business here.
He began the lengthy walk back to the castle.
Do I confront Audri with the truth of her “shopping” or do I feign ignorance? What would her reaction be if I told her I knew? He smiled to himself over the stubborn woman he felt such a fondness for.
He passed by a modest cottage sitting just off the road and heard male voices around the far corner, drawing his attention to a large barn behind the dwelling. Sir Heath and a castle sentry stood behind an older man unlocking the barn door. The man swung it wide. No one noticed Roland as the three entered the enclosure.
Roland took a step in their direction when he remembered they were searching for the escapee. His head turned back down the road, his eyes resting on the distant grove of trees housing the cottage where not only the prisoner was holed up, but where Audri secretly taught her group of villagers. That house would be next on their route.
Glancing once more at the barn to make sure he wasn’t seen, Roland turned and ran back to warn Audri and the sibling fugitives.
5: Over 56 pounds.
6: 28 pounds.
Chapter 11
Audri’s lesson was interrupted by someone pounding on the locked front door. All mouths hushed, and fearful eyes turned toward the main entry. Has Festus discovered the school and sent guards to arrest us? Audri’s racing heart beat against her chest. Or has Doyle found out that Andrew and Autumn are hiding here?
“Audri, it’s Roland!” her knight’s familiar voice yelled through the door.
Audri was relieved it wasn’t the castle guard but was just as shocked and fearful that Sir Roland knew she was in here. He’d obviously followed her despite his making her believe he would leave her alone today.
She hesitated to answer the door. How much did he know about what went on in
her makeshift school? If he knew nothing, she could still deter him from discovering it, but if he knew everything? She looked to the aged house owners, Richard and Liliana Griffith, and to Gail for advice, but their faces displayed just as much shock and confusion as hers.
“Audri, I know you’re in there, so open up.” His voice sounded more desperate than angry. She motioned for everyone to remain where they were, including Andrew and Autumn who looked ready to bolt out the back way if necessary. Audri shuffled to the front door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack.
“You must hurry,” Roland said through the small opening. “Your school and the two fugitives are in danger of discovery.” She opened the entrance wide and admitted her mentor. Her mind raced to understand why he was helping her instead of being angry over her obvious deception, but there was no time to reflect on his reasoning.
Roland stepped into the crowded common room where a few sat upon stools and benches, but most stood for lack of space. “There’s no time for much explanation but know that sentries are presently searching the barn down the road and that this house will be next. You must leave now.”
Before chaos could ensue, Audri took charge, keeping everyone alert but calm. “All right, if they are at crofter Hauber’s, then you all know which way you must go to avoid sight of that area and the road that runs along it. Take alternate paths and be swift, but don’t run or that will call attention to yourselves.” Everyone nodded and stood, donning cloaks and gloves as they exited the cottage. Some went out the front door and others used the back. The house was nearly empty in less than a minute.
Audri turned to Roland.
“How . . . how did you find out?” she asked.
Roland moved his face close to hers, and she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “You aren’t very sneaky, you know, not for me anyway. To be honest, it’s a wonder Festus hasn’t discovered your secret already.”