Fearless as the Dawn

by Katie Roman

  The priestess from earlier knocked lightly on the door, but in response, Aleka curled her lip and looked away. Undeterred by Aleka’s anger, the priestess came in and held out the Huiki idol. The fresh, dark brown spots that covered the wood testified that Halia had held it in her bloody hands as she died.

  The priestess pressed the idol into Aleka’s hands, put an arm around her, and sat her back on the bed. They sat in silence, Aleka now too numb to cry.

  ~*~*~

  The desk clerk at the Golden Road guard house eyed Aleka suspiciously with his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressing tightly together. He sat behind his desk dressed as any other guard in his red tunic and black trousers, but he wore no jerkin like the guards that patrolled the streets. He had a sun, moon, and winged star embroidered over his left breast, the symbol of the Golden Road guards. His brows were drawn together in consternation.

  “A murder, Miss?”

  “Yes,” Aleka snapped. “A murder in the house of the magistrate, Lord Ghilian.”

  Aleka had sat in stunned silence for a few hours with the silent priestess, but she knew she couldn’t stay in the temple forever. When she left, her anger guided her. There was no room for grief when justice needed to be done. Instead of returning before dark as Lady Ghilian instructed, Aleka went to the city guards. After all, they were supposed to be servants of order and justice.

  “Miss, we can’t simply barge into the house of a magistrate on the word of a servant.”

  “Why not?” Aleka slammed her fist onto the clerk’s desk. “Admiral Edward Ghilian killed my mother! If a member of the Thieves’ Guild were to murder a magistrate, the entirety of the city guard would turn out and drag him to justice. Why should it be any different for an indentured servant?”

  “Calm down, Miss. We can’t just go up to the castle grounds and arrest Admiral Ghilian. He’s a hero. Our finest naval commander.”

  “He’s a murderer!” Aleka knew her voice was shrill now, but no matter what she said, the clerk just kept saying no to her request. “He stabbed my mother, and then she died in the Temple of Kamaria. Lady Ghilian was with her! An injustice has been done, sir!” Aleka’s voice caught and she fell silent, fighting to regain her control.

  She felt tired and empty, and had been on the verge of more tears for hours, but the tears wouldn’t fall. She felt a void in her chest and sadness settled over her like a blanket, but still no tears came. However, rather than sit numbly and wait for them, she chose the path of action.

  “I demand that you do something about this!”

  “Miss, I’m sorry about your ma, but…”

  “No!” Aleka grabbed his inkwell and threw it against the far wall. “Your flimsy apology isn’t good enough! All are supposed to be equal under Glenbard’s law!”

  The clerk stood from his chair, his calm broken. He stood a head taller than her, and despite being a desk clerk, he was more muscled than Aleka thought.

  “Constable Baker!” he shouted.

  A portly man appeared from a back room. He regarded the desk clerk like a lost puppy.

  “Baker, take this girl and lock her up for disorderly conduct,” the clerk said, never taking his eyes off Aleka. “I’m sending a runner to Lord Ghilian of Greyhome’s house.”

  “The magistrate?” Baker asked.

  “Yes. Now hop to and take this young lady to the lock-up while I see that everything is sorted out with the magistrate.”

  “Alright, Miss,” Baker said as he ambled forward. “Come along with me.”

  When he started to pull leather wrist thongs from his belt to bind her hands, she shrieked, “No!” and turned to run without a second thought.

  She burst through the door of the Golden Road guard house and back onto the street. A few people walking by stopped to stare, but she paid them no heed. She turned toward Seafarer’s Way and took off running as guards shouted behind her. She hiked up her skirts, giving her legs more freedom of movement. Her hair flew out behind her in wild strands.

  How dare they try to lock her up! Didn’t they know she was the wronged party? The tears that refused to fall earlier streamed down her cheeks now as she ran. Her sides ached and a lump was caught in her throat when she finally arrived at the Battered Traveler. She bent over double, wheezing and gasping for breath as she pushed her way into the tavern.

  “Captain Yurin!” She heaved and fell into an empty seat.

  Since it was still early evening, the Traveler was relatively quiet. A few sailors looked up from their drinks, and one of the barmaids ran to fetch the owner. Taki was leaning over the bar flirting with the owner’s sister, but he stopped when she burst in and came to sit down with her.

  “Aleka, what are you doing here?” He took her shaking hands.

  “Taki, Mama was killed by Admiral Ghilian!” she whispered. “I reported him, and now they want to lock me up! Please Taki, take me to Nareroc on one of your ships!”

  “Aleka, I don’t understand. Halia is dead?” He clutched Aleka’s hands tighter, his eyes glassy as he searched her face.

  “Please, just take me out of here, Taki! They want to lock me up!”

  Just then, the door to the tavern opened and three guards walked in. Two had the waves of Seafarer’s Way embroidered on their uniforms, and the third had the sun, moon, and winged star of Golden Road. They made a beeline for Aleka and Taki.

  “We are here to take you in, Miss,” the Golden Road guard said. “It’s for your own good.”

  “No!” Aleka jumped out of her chair and stood behind Taki, hoping against hope that he would be able to protect her.

  The other patrons stopped their conversations to watch the scene in fascination. The owner emerged from the back room and crossed the tavern to stand between the guards and Aleka.

  “Is something wrong, constables?” he asked solicitously.

  “We are taking this young woman to the Golden Road lock-up until the magistrate, Lord Ghilian, says she is free to go home.”

  “I am sorry, sirs,” Taki said. “I do not understand…”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Aleka screamed.

  “She’s been leveling claims that besmirch Admiral Ghilian’s good name,” the Golden Road guard continued. “We don’t want her spreading lies around the city.”

  “I’m not spreading lies!”

  The tavern owner shook his head. “We don’t want any trouble, constables. Go on, Aleka, no one is going to hurt you.”

  Taki stood and took a hold of Aleka’s hands. “Come on, Aleka, go with the guards. It’s what Halia would have wanted.” He spoke gently in Narerocish, his voice cracking as he talked.

  “No, Taki, please, please take me to Nareroc!” she begged. “Please! Taki, don’t let them lock me up!” Her heart beat so fast, she thought it would burst from her chest. “You said you’d take me!”

  Taki shook his head and let her hands drop before stepping out of the guards’ way. They surrounded Aleka, the two from Seafarer’s Way grabbing her arms and holding them while the Golden Road guard bound her wrists together.

  Stunned, Aleka stopped fighting. She just shook her head in disbelief. As the guards dragged her out, she screamed Taki’s name one last time. He didn’t answer.

  Chapter Four

  Aleka was not alone in the Golden Road cell. A ruddy-faced girl of about nineteen sat in the corner opposite the cell door, her brunette hair falling to her shoulders in a tangle of curls. She wore an old, but clean brown dress and scuffed boots, and watched Aleka with a smirk on her face.

  The cell itself was relatively clean. Aleka had heard stories that the lock-ups in other districts had dirt floors and spider webs everywhere, with rats bearing lice waiting to share the floor with prisoners. Since Golden Road was the most affluent district, it stood to reason that at least their lock-up had stone floors. But stone floors and a lack of vermin did nothing to distract from the bucket pushed into the corner and the smell that emanated from it.

  Aleka stood against the wal
l, closed her eyes, and thought of Kunegunda. She had once been imprisoned by the King of Cesernan. She did what she needed to survive, and that was what Aleka would have to do. She took in a deep breath through her nose, willing the image of the brave queen to stay fixed at the front of her mind. She could weather any storm if she acted as Kunegunda would.

  Hours passed. She’d been in the lock-up long enough to see the sun set and the moon rise in the sky. A torch outside the door lit the cell, but there wasn’t much to see. Aleka just watched the shadows move across the floor as a knot settled in her stomach. The guards had dragged her in like some wild animal as she screamed and cried. Eventually the tears subsided, and Aleka felt numb all over once more. Then the older girl was put in the cell with her. She at least seemed accustomed to her surroundings and undisturbed by being in the lock-up.

  “You a lady’s maid?” the girl asked from her corner. Aleka’s eyes snapped open. The girl watched her with her head cocked to one side.

  “No.” Aleka looked down at her dress. She’d dressed quickly in a gray linen dress before following Halia’s body to the temple. There were little specks of blood across the gray and several patches that she’d sewn on.

  “You look like you could be one.”

  Aleka wondered if the girl had even looked at her clothes. She cocked an eyebrow and a hip, unsure as to the girl’s reasoning.

  “You’re very pretty, is all,” the girl continued as her already pink cheeks flushed. “Pretty girls always get trained to be lady’s maids.”

  “Did you want to be a lady’s maid?” Aleka asked. She crossed the room and sat on the floor next to the girl.

  “Me? Nah. My sister wanted to serve some knight’s wife a few years back, but Delia has a face like a shovel. Who’d want that to dress them every day?”

  Aleka blinked. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “Neither’s Delia,” the girl laughed. “She’s a right mean one, my sister. That’s probably another reason why she never became a lady’s maid.”

  Aleka smiled in spite of herself.

  “What’s your name?” Aleka asked.

  “Essie.” She held out a hand.

  “Aleka.” She shook Essie’s hand and found it firm, despite her small size. “How did you end up here?” The more she talked as though things were normal, the better she felt.

  “Cutting purses for the King of Thieves,” Essie said matter-of-factly. “He’ll be along with coin by noon tomorrow to get me out.”

  Aleka gave Essie the once over. She’d never met an actual member of the Thieves’ Guild before. “Aren’t you a little young to be serving such a ruthless master?” Aleka imagined all thieves were old, grizzled folk with nothing left to lose.

  “Marcus? Ruthless? Nah. I mean, so long as you don’t cross him.” She laughed to herself. “And what did you do to get in here? You’re not Guild, that’s for sure.”

  “I reported a murder,” Aleka said, looking down at her hands. It was only natural for Essie to ask, but Aleka had no interest in discussing how she ended up in the Golden Road lock-up.

  She felt tears well up in her eyes. She tried to blink them back, but more just sprang up as though her eyes had a leak. She wanted to lay down and curl into a ball, and then scream and break things at the same time. Aleka felt pain from the newly formed hole in her heart. She hadn’t even been able to say good-bye.

  “Are you alright?” Essie asked, placing a hand on Aleka’s knee. “Did you murder someone and now you regret it?”

  Aleka’s head shot up and she narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Her hands clenched in her lap and the muscles in her neck tensed. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Essie said, putting her hands up in apology. “It’s just, well, you’re locked up for reporting a murder…”

  “I reported Admiral Ghilian for committing a murder.”

  Essie’s mouth dropped open. “The King of the Emerald Seas? Hero of the Battle of Uyn Struet? You reported him for murder?”

  Heat flared up deep in Aleka’s belly. She took in deep breaths that she snorted out her nose like an angry bull. Hero? King? Beast and brute were more apt terms for the Admiral. Aleka dug her knuckles into her knees and her entire body shook with rage.

  Essie scooted away from her, suddenly wary, pressing her back against the wall. “He really murder someone?”

  “He sliced up Lord and Lady Ghilian’s cook in a drunken rage,” Aleka snapped. All her sadness had been replaced with a white-hot anger.

  Even a thief, who was supposed to hate the nobility, not venerate them, didn’t believe the Admiral was capable of wrongdoing. Essie sat there, wide-eyed and disbelieving that the so-called King of the Emerald Seas might do something horrible. But he did do something terrible. He robbed Aleka of her mother. He struck down an indentured servant, and yet was apparently untouchable by the law.

  “This cook – she was important to you?” Essie asked. “’Course she was. You probably wouldn’t risk a magistrate’s ire otherwise. I’m sorry.” Essie lowered her head in a motion of respect.

  Aleka felt some of her anger ebb away. It wasn’t this girl’s fault. She only asked a question. “He’s going to get away with it, isn’t he?” Aleka asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “Likely. A knight once knocked around my cousin because he didn’t like how she swept his house. He was ordered by the courts to pay a silver as compensation because she lost two teeth. But a silver didn’t cover the costs of her getting fired and having to visit the barber-surgeon to have teeth he damaged pulled from her head.”

  “A silver?” Aleka gasped. Halia was worth more than a silver. Likely Essie’s cousin was worth more than a silver, too. “He only had to pay one silver noble?”

  “And the feckless, dung-souled beast didn’t even do that. He never paid up.” Essie shrugged. “Nobles like to punch down, and no one delivers them to justice. That’s why it’s better to keep your mouth shut.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  Essie cocked an eyebrow, looking Aleka over like she was a simpleton. “Do you serve Lord and Lady Ghilian?” Aleka nodded. “Then you don’t really know what’s fair. I’ve heard that Lady Ghilian treats her people well; even making sure her servants can read and write. It’s hard to find anyone who’ll say a wicked word about her. She’s not like some of the other ladies who take the rod to a servant for nothing more than a minor offense.”

  Except she kept me from my mother, Aleka thought. She looked away from Essie and blew out a loud sigh.

  “There are worse folks in the world than Lady Ghilian. Best keep your mouth shut tight and not say anything against her precious son, or else you’ll find more than just those from Greyhome against you.”

  “He’s a monster.” Aleka turned back to Essie, but there was no sympathy in her eyes. She just shrugged again.

  “Maybe, but who’s going to believe a servant who calls his reputation into question?”

  “Someone has to. Right?” Aleka asked, but Essie didn’t offer any validation.

  ~*~*~

  Aleka didn’t sleep much. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Halia’s bloodied form on the kitchen floor. Eventually she abandoned the efforts altogether. She sat in the darkness, choking back sobs so she didn’t wake Essie. She lay curled into a ball in the corner, her salty tears pooling on the stone floor near her cheek.

  Slowly, light began to ebb into the cell, crawling across the floor from the window. Dawn arrived as usual, but everything felt different. Aleka couldn’t even find the strength to move. She just remained in a ball watching as dawn gave way to morning. When Essie woke, she watched Aleka carefully, but offered no words of encouragement.

  She must think I’m lying just to besmirch the Admiral’s name, or that I’m just an entitled brat. Aleka’s thoughts turned dark. If a pickpocket wouldn’t even believe her, how could she hope to get justice for her mother? Maybe Essie was right and she should keep quiet and move along, but the very thought was like a knife in her
chest. Her mother deserved better.

  Sometime after the sun rose, Aleka was pulled from the cell by two stone-faced guards, neither offering any explanation as to where they were taking her. Essie remained behind, waving a good-bye. The guards loaded her into one of the black arrest wagons, boxing her off from the street as they trundled on. The cart bounced down the streets of Glenbard with Aleka jostling around in the back, unable to see where they were going. She could warrant a guess though; it was probably where all criminals eventually went. She bounced along, her stomach growing queasy as much from the rocking of the cart as from the inevitability that she was being taken to stand trial.

  The cart came to an abrupt stop, pitching Aleka forward roughly onto the dirty wood floor. Her cheek pressed into the floor and she wondered what would happen if she played sick. Would they take her to a healer? Could she delay her punishment long enough to formulate a plan within a house of healing?

  “Come on out, girly,” a guard said brusquely as he opened the back of the arrest wagon. Thoughts of escape and deception were replaced by a tightness in her chest and the need to cry once more. Delaying her punishment would only make things worse.

  Aleka was helped down by the guard and then stopped a moment to take in her surroundings. The wagon had stopped before a large stone building two stories tall with stained glass windows on the second story. The front section had a domed roof with flat-topped cornices. Five banners of different colors, with distinct symbols upon them flew from the top. Aleka knew the building well enough. She’d run errands to Lord Ghilian here before. It was the magistrates’ courthouse where they heard pleas and passed down sentences to the populous.

  “Move on,” the guard said, giving Aleka a sharp poke in the back with his baton.

  Aleka was handed over to a courthouse guard upon her entrance. Unlike her errands to the courthouse, she wasn’t brought in through the front entrance, but rather hustled along through a side door. There, she was locked into a holding cell very much like the one she just vacated.