Tahn

by L. A. Kelly

  Roy, Leah, and the other Wittley children looked at them with surprise.

  “Forgive us,” Mr. Wittley told Netta, “for not sheltering you then. My wife was afraid.” He looked hard at the children’s faces. “Roy and Leah tell me the young man’s horse came back to you arrow shot.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vari said. “We aim to go and find him. We need your help, if you will. We need the loan of a wagon.”

  “Before I do anything,” he said, “you tell me who you are, boy. You can’t all be Triletts, surely, but Leah says you claimed to have an older sister. Was it the lady you were talking about?”

  “I claimed her as such,” Vari admitted. “But it’s not so.” He dismounted. “I’ll give you the truth, as God is my witness. Then God judge you for what you do with it.”

  “Vari!” Netta exclaimed. But the look in his eye as he turned to her was so deep and resolute that she held her peace.

  “This is the Lady Trilett as sure as we breathe,” he said. “We don’t know whether or not she’s the last of her house.” He gestured suddenly to the children. “All of us—we were the captives of the man who carried out the slaughter. We were to be the same as slaves to him, sir, killing when he bid us. That’s what he would train us up for. And my brother—I call him that because he saved my life—he took us all out of there and was careful to hide us and see to what we needed. And he saved the lady too, by snatching her out of her home before they could lay a hand on her. But now they took him and are blaming him for what’s happened. They’ll kill him at Onath, sir, unless we get there to stop it.”

  “I heard they caught the villain,” Kert Wittley said, his eyes still on the faces of the children. “Didn’t know who they meant.”

  “It’s a lie, what they say,” Vari continued. “He had no part in what was done.”

  “It’s said he’s a known killer.” Wittley sighed. “One of those grim mercenaries that shows up out of nowhere. Who is he really?”

  Vari looked down at his feet.

  “He is a Christian man, sir,” Netta spoke up. “He was one of these.” She reached to touch Duncan and then Briant. “He was a captive child, raised by a demon of a man to do unspeakable things. He was numbered among those mercenaries unwillingly, and he turned from them at great peril to save our lives.”

  Vari looked at her with appreciation. He had not known how to respond.

  “Now please, sir,” Netta continued. “We beg your help. I would that you spare us a wagon, and if I cannot pay you for its service, then God shall reward you the more. And I plead with you both—” she looked over at the man’s wife, “keep the youngest so their lives are not at risk in what we do.”

  “No!” Duncan protested. “I want to come with you!”

  “Listen, please,” Netta said, now looking at Vari. “I have watched you all. I know how brave you are. But I also know the smallest among you are not prepared to face what might lie ahead.”

  Temas started crying.

  “Please, Vari,” Netta continued. “Help them to understand. You know what I am saying.”

  Vari was quiet for a moment, remembering the sparring of Tahn’s lessons. Never yet had the smaller four ever managed to survive their imaginary attackers. Sometimes Stuva, Tam, and Doogan fared better against him or even the Dorn. He turned to Mr. Wittley. “Would you favor us so?” he asked.

  It was Mrs. Wittley who answered. “Child! How could we not? You can’t take babes against soldiers. Haven’t any of you got family somewhere?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Roy Lin!” Kert called his oldest son. “Ride to Dole Briggs and tell him I need to meet with the men. They can come here.”

  Roy jumped to obey.

  “You’ll need help, boy,” Kert told Vari. “I can try to persuade my friends.”

  “How long would it take?” Vari asked.

  “Be tomorrow before everyone’s got the word. What they’ll answer to it, I don’t know. Every one of ’em would fight for his family, and they’re good men. I wish I could promise you they’d go to Onath for a stranger—”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “I can’t answer for ’em, much as I’d like to. They’ve got families to consider. Maybe if you stayed and spoke to ’em—”

  Vari shook his head. Maybe wasn’t good enough. “We can’t lose that much time,” he said. “Not a whole day. He could be dead. Rane, you and Duncan and Temas, you stay here. Briant, you too. Keep them in line. You do whatever these good people tell you and help them with things. We’ll be back for you as soon as we can.”

  “It’s not fair, Vari,” Briant said. “We love the Dorn as much as you do.”

  Vari sighed. “We’ve got to do what makes sense. They’ll be looking for eight street urchins such as ourselves. If they don’t see the right number, they might look elsewhere. Besides, I need you all to tell the men about the Dorn and what he’s done for the lady and us. If they want to come then, you’d have done us a service.”

  “But you said he might be dead by then.”

  “And he might not. We don’t know how fast they’re traveling or what they’re going to do when they get there. We can’t take chances. We’ll do it both ways. You’ve got to stay here and get the job done.”

  Briant looked down at his bare feet. “All right,” he said. “We all got our place.”

  “Good man,” Vari said. “Now the rest of you mind the Wittleys.”

  “Let me get you that wagon,” Kert Wittley told him then.

  He shook his head. “I hope you return safe. I admire the fire in you. You’re better’n a man.”

  Before they left, Leah ran to tell Vari good-bye.

  “Remember what I said, Lee,” he told her. “Pray for him.”

  “I will pray for all of you,” she pledged. “That God be with you and that those who have hurt you may never hurt another.”

  16

  There was no prison in Onath, and there hadn’t been an execution there since Netta was Stuva’s age. They entered the town at night, and it seemed deathly still.

  “Where would they take him?” Vari asked Netta.

  “I don’t know.” She was sure they’d said he would be killed at Onath. But she wasn’t sure the reason for the choice. Why wasn’t the baron’s prisoner taken to the baron’s own hometown? “Follow me,” she said and led them through the quiet streets.

  Everything was dark, and little had changed. It was strange to her, coming back into town this way. It made all the familiar places seem beyond her touch. Until they came to the church.

  That building stood tall and proud at the center of town, and Netta was relieved to see that it had escaped damage. The rectory nearby was still standing, and Netta thanked God for it, though she could see some signs of the fire’s ravage.

  “We should go in the church,” she told the boys.

  “Are you sure?” Vari asked. “Why?”

  “I need to find the priest. And you all need to rest. In the morning we’ll find out where Tahn is. I trust there’ll be no execution without a crowd and a lot of commotion in the daylight.”

  “Then we should find him now and get him out at night,” Vari protested.

  “He’s not in this town,” Netta told them. “Not yet.”

  “How do you know?” Tam asked, mystified.

  “They will come with a lot of noise and a cage on wheels. There will be soldiers everywhere. They will send someone ahead to stir up the people first. It is too quiet now. He’s not here.”

  “What if he’s already dead?” Doogan asked.

  “I don’t think there’s been time,” she replied. “If they follow the old custom, he’d be hanging three days with a bonfire nearby and a guard to see that whatever people do, they don’t take him down.” She drove the wagon toward the stable house behind the church, surprised that she could talk to these boys as though they were men.

  “People make me mad,” Tam said quietly.

  “I understand,” Netta
told him. “But I fear you haven’t seen the worst, of a crowd at least. This town has loved the Triletts. They shall hate what is claimed against Tahn.”

  She thought about that for a moment. Surely that must be why the baron had chosen Onath for the execution. The soldiers had said the baron would honor a noble house. How better to court favor than to become an avenger by such gruesome means? What better place to make oneself a hero than before Onath’s grieving crowd?

  Father, give me strength, she prayed. Give Tahn strength! What he must be enduring right now!

  “Are you sure the church is safe?” Vari interrupted her thoughts.

  “I trust it,” she told him. “They are my friends.”

  They brought the horses and wagon into the stable house next to the animals and carriage already inside. Netta patted the nose of one of the horses in the stable.

  “Cherub, you are still here,” she whispered. She turned to the boys. “If Father Marc Anolle is still here as well, I know we are safe. This is his horse. He will help us.”

  “I don’t like your ‘if,’ Lady,” Vari told her.

  “Trust me,” Netta told them. “What choice have we, till we know where to find our Dorn?”

  Netta pulled open the huge sanctuary door and urged them inside. But they all seemed afraid.

  “We’re not supposed to be in here, are we?” Tam said, looking into the dark hall with its vaulted ceilings and recessed walls. The moonlight that filtered through the stained glass windows created shadows that made the place look truly cavernous.

  Vari pushed past them. “Find a place to lie down.” But he stopped in the middle of the aisle. “Lady Trilett,” he said, “God would not fault us using his house this way?”

  “He has prepared it for us,” Netta told him. She looked around anxiously. “Father Anolle!” she called. “Are you here?” She went toward a door at the back of the sanctuary and called again. “Father Anolle?”

  There was no response.

  “I’ve never been in a church,” Doogan said. “It feels strange.”

  “We need to be here,” Stuva maintained. “We need God’s help tomorrow. He’ll hear us for sure in here.”

  Netta was walking back to them. “He hears us always,” she said. “But Stuva is right. Let us ask for his favor and guidance.”

  They sat in a circle in the aisle, and she led them in prayer and told them the story of David and Goliath. When she was finished, the boys lay beneath the pews and soon were asleep.

  But Netta could not rest. This was almost like home, and her heart stirred within her for her family.

  They had passed the ruins of the Trilett estate as they neared the town. Her home was heaps of stone and ashes now, and she’d had to put the sight of it behind her quickly. Where are they? she wondered. My father, my aunts, my cousins—what has become of them?

  “All of my world has changed, Lord, except this place,” she whispered and then glanced over at the sleeping boys. They’d needed the rest, but she could not wait a moment longer to know if Father Anolle was all right. Might he be in the rectory? She hadn’t expected that because of the damage, but he was not in here. So had to know whatever he could tell her about her family. And she had to pray with him for the Dorn.

  She slipped from the church quietly and ran across the moonlit churchyard. The rectory was dark and quiet, with scaffolding over a third of the back for the repairs. She ran to the door at the front. If he’s not staying here, where would he go? If he were in the church, surely he would have heard us.

  She pounded on the door, but there was no response. The rectory too was empty. “Lord God, where is the priest?” she cried. “Show me!” But she returned to the sanctuary without answers.

  She fell to her knees at the altar and began praying, but she stopped suddenly. She’d heard a sound, so faint and far away. Voices.

  “Father, where are you?” she called. She rose up and found her way through the dark to one of the back rooms.

  “Father Anolle, are you here?” she called again, but only silence answered her. “I know I heard someone!” she said. “Help me, God!”

  She peered out the window over the churchyard. The rectory stood stark and silent, just as it had minutes before. But now a faint glow appeared and passed before a window. Soon the rectory’s side door opened, and a tall figure emerged holding a flickering candle.

  “Father Anolle!” she cried. She could not wait for him to cross the churchyard. She ran out to him and fell at his feet.

  “What is it, child?” the priest was asking. “Who are you? For what have you come?”

  He leaned and took her arm, but she did not rise when he tried to pull her upward.

  The priest set his candle down carefully and knelt beside her in his long robes. “Who are you, child?” he asked again. “What brings you here so late at night?”

  “Father Anolle,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment, but then he pulled her into his arms. “Netta, dear child!” he said. “Thank God you’re alive!”

  But he broke from the embrace suddenly and took her arm again. “Come,” he said with some urgency. “Come with me now.”

  He led her into a back room of the church and by the dim candlelight rolled away a rug from along one wall. Then he lifted a concealed door to reveal the dark tunnel going down into the depths. “There are steps,” he told her. “Come with me now.” He took another candle from a table and lit it for her.

  She stared in surprise. “Father—” she began, meaning to tell him she was not alone.

  “You must have feared that all were lost,” the priest broke in. “And they feared for you beyond measure.”

  Her heart leaped in her as she realized what he meant. Someone was alive! Somewhere beneath this church, in this hole black as pitch, someone in her family was alive!

  “Follow me closely,” the priest was saying.

  Netta followed him down the dark steps, but he turned a corner and seemed to disappear.

  “Father?” she called out.

  “Lord above! Netta?” another voice answered.

  And Netta gasped, unable to believe what she thought she had heard. “My father?” Hurriedly, she followed the priest around the corner and into a room.

  “Netta? Truly?” The voice of the nobleman Lord Bennamin Trilett reached cautiously across the darkness.

  “Father!” Netta cried. She dashed forward toward his voice, but he was there to meet her before her third step and pulled her to his chest in a crushing embrace.

  “God be praised!” he cried. “Great God be praised!”

  “It was her we heard in the church,” the priest explained. “She came running out to me as I reached the courtyard.”

  “We thought you were lost the night your screams woke us, cousin,” another voice said. A young man stepped from the shadows toward her.

  “Jarel!” Netta said. “I thank God for your lives!” It was Winn’s son, the awful tease she’d avoided as a small child. How glad she was to see him now! But she grew quiet. “Are there any more?” she asked them. “What about the others?”

  Her father took both of her hands in his. “Dear girl,” he said softly. “They are with your mother now, God rest them.”

  She choked down a sob. Dear Aunt Mara, her cousin Anton, and—

  “Netta,” her father said. “Are you all right? Really?”

  Her mind whirled. For a moment it was hard to think past the sorrow. But there was so much to tell them. So much to ask. God help them understand.

  Her father was leading her to a cot. Jarel lit a pair of oil lamps with the priest’s candle, and suddenly the room seemed almost a cozy living space. “We’ve no idea what you’ve been through, child,” Benn Trilett was saying. “Rest now. Sleep if you can. We will talk when you are ready.”

  “No, father.” She stumbled over the words. “I have with me … friends … They are upstairs …”

  Immediately the priest moved to the dark stairway. “Who
are they, Lady?” he asked with concern.

  “Children,” she told them. “They are sleeping, I think, beneath the pews.”

  “Children, you say?” the priest asked in amazement. “They should not be alone. They would not be too frightened if they found me upon waking?”

  “I shall go back up to them, Father Anolle,” she said. “But first, have you heard of the execution soon to take place?”

  “Indeed,” the priest told her. “It shall be right outside the churchyard. I was told the scoundrel was taken by the baron’s men as he sought a young girl’s harm.”

  “He’s the one who led the men to destroy us, Netta,” Lord Trilett added. “And one of the baron’s men told Father Anolle it is the same devil who killed your Karll! I thank God you are here to know his punishment.”

  “No!” she cried out. “No, Father! He’s no devil. That is why I came here. Father, we have to stop it! He saved my life in taking me away. He saved yours by letting me—telling me—to scream as I did. Father, I shall tell you everything, but please believe me, he’s no devil. I pray that we may save him!”

  Her father held her. “They say his name is Dorn, child. You tell us he is innocent?”

  “Yes, Father. The children upstairs, and others, he spared from the true villain, a trainer of killers whose name is Samis.”

  “I don’t understand, Netta,” Jarel said. “If the man meant no harm, why did he take you away? Why did he not speak to us of the danger instead of only having you scream? It would have gone far better for us. First they slaughtered those who stayed praying, then they rounded up whoever they could find as we searched for you.”

  Netta bowed her head. “He said it would be that way,” she whispered sadly. “That only those seeking me would have a hope to survive.” She looked up at their faces, knowing how hard this must be for them. “We would not have listened to him,” she said. “We would have run him off without trusting his words. Or perhaps worse. Because truly he is the one who killed Karll.”

  “Child!” her father exclaimed. “How can you say he is innocent, then? Did you leave with him willingly?”