by Alison Adare
It had been real, though, it had been what she had thought were the very last moments of her life: the thunder of the guns so loud it went beyond sound and became a giant hand wrapping round her chest, shaking and squeezing. Cannon balls falling as a deadly hail, splattering her with blood and mud and parts of men she knew. The mud beneath her beginning to tremble, not with the great concussive wave of each shot landing but the slow and steady rumble of hundreds of hooves drumming on the ground.
Knowing the enemy’s cavalry was charging, riding down the wounded and the fleeing, and that she was trapped in the open, no chance of running across that hellish landscape of dead and maimed and nowhere safe to get to if she could.
Nothing to do but brace the butt of her pike in the mud and stand her ground and pray to Saint Sebastian that she could account for at least one of the bastards before they rode her down and hooves trampled her into the mud.
She had never felt so helpless in her life as at that moment and had thought she never would again, in those last seconds as the horses pounded towards her —
— before Nightfoot cut in front of her, shoulder to shoulder with the horse about to ride her down, heaving sideways so she could drive her pike up and in as the enemy’s charge split around them —
Tom’s hand, stretched out to her, Nightfoot bugling and wheeling, the charge of the enemy swerving around them and flooding onward like a river separating around a rock, separating but not impeded —
She’d abandoned the polearm buried in a horse’s belly, seized Tom’s arm, been hauled up behind him and clung like a burr as Nightfoot had carried them both off the field of battle and to safety.
Safe, absolutely safe …
Until I found myself in the heart of the rebel west, my secrets known to Christ-knows-who, watching Tom and knowing that the best I can hope for is that he marry Lady Modron and I take my leave of him forever.
And she will never know him, as I know him. She will never understand why he must look at every side of a question, and even then it takes a sharp shove in the small of his back to get him to jump one way or the other. Even if he tells her about the mud, the blood, the corpses of the men he led, the orders it was his duty to give and the slaughter that came from them … she will never understand the way someone who was there understands.
At best, she will be kind.
And Janet found it hard to imagine Modron Bryn being kind.
Be fair to her, she chided herself. You find it hard to imagine her having any virtues. You’ve even considered her capable of murder, because you wanted to believe there was a reason Tom might not marry her, might fall out of love with her.
You are hardly an objective witness to Lady Modron’s character.
Sighing, she pulled on the loose trousers and tunic the needlewomen had presented to her, with great ceremony, the week before. Janet had known that, after her words to Tom about local custom, she’d have to wear them, and in fact they were surprisingly comfortable despite the extra fabric — although she missed the stiffness of brigandine promising protection against any knives in the dark.
Boots next, then she belted her sword and flung her cloak over her shoulders. As she stepped out into the corridor it occurred to her that to anyone from home, she’d be indistinguishable from the locals, especially with the wolf’s head snarling above her own.
As she prowled the corridors of the fort she heard nothing that should not have been there. The fires in the great hall and the kitchen were banked, as they should be; the guard on night watch passed her in the courtyard when he should have, and challenged her to halt although he could not possibly have been in any doubt he spoke to Steward Cooper — again, exactly as he should have.
Janet pushed back the hood of her cloak so he could see her face, the rain dampening her hair. “It’s Jack Cooper, Paul. All well?”
“All well.” Another sentence she didn’t catch, and he paused at the incomprehension on her face. “Why are you here?” he asked slowly, with a sweep of his arm to show he meant specifically the courtyard.
“No sleep,” she told him, and he nodded understanding.
Leaving Paul to continue his rounds, Janet crossed to the gate and climbed the ladder beside it. There was nothing to be seen in the darkness beyond the walls, not even a glint of light from the village. She listened, but heard nothing but the gentle patter of the rain. Even the foxes and the owls sleep.
The whole world sleeps, except me.
She stood a while longer, in case a break in the clouds would let the full moon above them show through, but the weather was well set in. Giving it up as a lost cause, she turned to climb back down the ladder, and a flicker of movement by the church caught her eye.
Janet froze in place, only knowing afterward why: that cloaked and hooded form she’d seen move soundlessly in between blacksmith and church had not been carrying torch or lantern. Not Paul.
Or anyone else about honest business.
Raising the alarm would bring Paul at a run and bring whoever was in the gatehouse this night out as well. But it would also alert whoever she had seen that they were discovered, and Janet doubted that any of them — Paul, the gate guard, herself — could reach the church in time to catch the unknown miscreant. Stop the mischief, yes, but until when?
She was already sliding down the ladder as she reasoned it through, and instead of shouting for Paul, she ran as quickly and quietly as she could across the courtyard to the shadow of the church. Edging along its wall, she peered around the corner.
And saw nothing.
The shadows were deep in the gap formed by the smithy, the church, and the fort’s wall. Janet knew, but could not see, that they concealed the sort of detritus that tended to accumulate in small and useless spaces, whether in a house, an army camp, or a fort: fragments of stone from the wall too small to be used in the repairs but kept against the possibility they’d come in handy when one of the buildings inside the fort needed mending; a pot, a tool or two, too damaged for fixing, left aside for melting down; a broken wagon wheel, a cask smashed when someone’s grip slipped at the top of the stairs.
Those same shadows could also easily conceal the cloaked figure she had seen. And they must. I would have seen them come out, and I didn’t — and there’s no way out of there but this.
There was a lantern hung by the door of the church. Janet lifted it down with her left hand, drew her sword with her right, and stepped into the mouth of the narrow space. “Show yourself,” she said.
No answer. No movement.
She raised the lantern high, trying to make out where her quarry was hiding, and took a careful step forward. “There’s no point hiding. And if you’re thinking to jump me, think on. I’ve killed more than one man in my time.”
Nothing.
Still nothing, as Janet picked her way through the rubbish, scrutinizing every hiding place large enough to hide even a child, let alone an adult. She even prodded a few of them with her sword, in case the figure she’d seen had used witchcraft to turn themselves invisible. Although if they could, it would have been more sensible to do so before walking across the open courtyard.
The end of the cul-de-sac was ahead of her, where the fort’s wall met the corner of the church.
And there was no-one in it but herself.
A chill touched her, and she made her way back out quickly. She had seen the figure go in, she was sure of it — there was no way she’d been mistaken.
Go in, and vanish into thin air. Or turn into a bird and fly away — a mouse or cat, to creep hidden into some tiny crack in the wall …
Had it been Braelyn she had seen? The wise-woman had shown no tendency to powers beyond the gift her hands had for healing, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have them. But why would Braelyn be up here at this hour? The gate hasn’t been open … although if she could turn into a bird she could easily fly over.
Yes, and fly straight to her destination instead of creeping around muffled in a cloak. Besides, Jan
et was almost certain the figure she had seen was taller than Braelyn, was almost sure she would have recognized the healer’s posture and gait.
God’s blood, two witches in our midst.
Now she was glad she hadn’t raised the alarm. The knowledge of someone secretly practicing witchcraft would run through the fort like fire through stubble.
Janet sheathed her sword and hung the lantern back in its place. No, tell Tom, and Tom only. And deal with this myself. In daylight, she would come back and study the place, check the walls and the ground for any arcane symbols or strange traces that might reveal what the witch had been doing, why she had been drawn there.
She tucked her thumbs in her sword belt and looked up at the sky. If the moon had been visible, it would have been full, which perhaps explained why the witch had chosen tonight of all nights for her nocturnal wanderings.
Along the top of the ruined wall by the tower, movement caught her eye.
That section of the wall could only be reached from the tower. Crumbling stone had made it untraversable from the other direction.
Janet ran for the stairs. Cut her off, cut her off —
Swinging around the door frame, she wondered briefly what she’d do if the witch’s reaction was to turn into a bird again. There wasn’t time to run upstairs to the armory and get a crossbow for that eventuality. At least if I can get a look at her face …
The door ahead, back out of the tower onto the wall, was open. Janet slowed her reckless haste, trod as soundlessly as she could to the doorway, and looked through.
Enough light came from the courtyard below for her to see that the figure was not muffled in a cloak, as she had been before, but wearing white, or some other pale color — and then she saw that it was not she at all. It was a man in shirt and breeches, walking out onto the crumbling battlements — a man who, even though his hair was damp and dark with rain, had far fairer hair than any of the locals did.
Tom.
He turned toward the woods below the fort and stood staring sightlessly at them, hands on the parapet, ignoring the rain that streaked his face and soaked his clothes.
“Tom,” Janet said, stepping out onto the wall. “Tom?”
He gave no sign he heard her. As she got closer she could see that he held to the edge of the wall with a white-knuckled grip, that the sinews of his neck stood out like cords. “They’ll all die,” he muttered. “They’ll all die. I have no choice in it. They’ll all die.”
The old nightmare. I’m not the only one troubled by dreams of the past tonight. His feet moved, weight shifting. Janet had the sudden conviction that he was about to hurl himself forward, over the parapet, into the woods below. “Tom!”
He turned slowly — and then recoiled, stumbling back from her with his arms raised protectively, his blank expression shifting to terror. Christ’s cod, it’s the wolf’s head — and Sweet Jesus, he was only a step or two from where the wall crumbled away, the irregular stone there treacherous enough footing in dry weather, let alone in the rain for a man not fully awake.
Janet shrugged the cloak off hastily, letting it fall. “Tom. It’s me. It’s Jack. Tom!”
Tom stopped, heel just shy of the brink. “Jack?”
“That’s right, it’s Jack. Walk over here to me, Tom. Come over here.”
“There’s something …” He raked his hand through his hair. “Somewhere I’m supposed to be.”
“Inside, where it’s warm and dry,” Janet said. She held out her hand to him. “Come on.”
“No, that’s …” He turned on the spot, and her heart leapt into her throat as his bare feet slipped on the slick stone, settled a little as he recovered his balance. “I don’t think this is … I don’t think this is where I want to be.”
“Then let’s go, Tom,” Janet said. She took a cautious step towards him, still holding out her hand. “Take my hand. Just take my hand.” Whether he even saw her, or how he saw her in his waking dream, she did not know. “Tom. Give me your hand. Reach out your hand to me.”
Slowly, his hand rose. He took a step forward, then another.
The second she could reach him Janet seized his wrist and hauled him towards her with a heave that made the muscles of her shoulders crack in protest. He reeled, off balance, and cannoned into her. She went over backwards, taking him with her, landing on the stone of the battlements with a crack that snapped her teeth together.
Tom tried to get up and put his elbow in her stomach hard enough to make her grunt. “Jack?”
“Yes,” she managed, still keeping hold of his wrist in case he took a fancy to go dancing off down the wall again. She opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, frowning, and fully awake. “Are you all right?”
“Soaked through,” he said in confusion.
She let him go, then, and rolled over onto her side. “You’re outside. It’s raining.”
Tom sat up and slicked his wet hair back from his face. “I thought … I’m not sure what I thought.”
“You were dreaming,” she said. “Dreaming awake. Has it happened before?”
“No.” He rose to his feet and held out his hand to her, drawing her to her feet when she took it. “At least, I don’t think so. But …”
“But you have been dreaming,” Janet guessed, and he nodded.
“It was … getting better,” he said. “For a while, and then …”
“I know.” She linked her arm through his and drew him toward the tower, scooping up her cloak as they passed it. “It’ll get better again.”
“I don’t deserve for it to,” he said, so low she had to strain to hear him.
Oh, Tom. “It was war, Tom,” she said, steering him through the door and up the stairs to his chambers. “People die in war. You know they do.”
“But I …”
“But you made a bad choice in bad circumstances. What were you to do? Refuse the order given to you?” She got him through the door and pushed him at the chair by the fire. “Sit. If you were a proper lord, you’d have a squire to build up the fire and find you dry clothes, but I’ll have to do.”
He sat, obediently. “You, of all people, shouldn’t forgive me.”
Janet knelt at the hearth, piled more fuel on the fire and blew until the flames began to creep up the logs. “I, of all people, do. That should tell you something.”
“That you’re a better friend than I deserve,” he said, and then, “Jack, you’re drenched as well.”
“Rain,” she reminded him. “Outdoors.” She rose to her feet and went to his chest, finding a dry shirt and breeches and tossing them to him. “Get yourself dry. I’ll be back when I’ve changed.”
He looked up, and frowned a little. “You’re dressed. You were up?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You’re not the only one who dreams, you know.”
Back in her room, she locked the door, shucked her clothes and found dry ones. She left off her boots, but took an extra moment to run her razor over her chin and refresh her ‘stubble’. Not that Tom is in much state to notice, but it was part of the habit of concealment, just as turning the key before stripping was, despite the unlikelihood of being disturbed in the dead of the night.
When she went back upstairs Tom had changed, and was sitting staring sightlessly into the fire.
Janet took the chessboard and the box holding the pieces from the shelf, and set them down firmly on the table beside him. “Black or white?” When he hesitated, “This or cards, Tom, take your pick.”
She was relieved when the corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m not such a fool as to play cards against Jack Cooper,” he said. “Black.”
“I’ll beat you this time,” Janet said, setting up the pieces.
She didn’t, but she put up a good enough fight to draw his attention entirely to the game and hold it there and when she tipped her king over in acknowledgment of defeat, he actually chuckled in triumph.
“Another?” she said.
“You’re a glutton fo
r punishment. No.” He rose to his feet as she began to pack up the pieces and went to the window, opening the shutters. “It’ll be dawn, soon.”
“Good, I’m starved,” she said, and he gave another breath of a laugh.
“When are you not? Jack, thank you. I’m glad it was you who found me.”
“Yes, well, I’m not sure the tenants would be delighted to think you wander witless in the night.” She closed the box. “I’ll bring a pallet up here this evening.”
He turned from the window, frowning. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“No, but you do need someone who’ll wake up when you trip over them on your way out the door in your sleep,” Janet said. “Never mind what people will think if you’re seen wandering around, you could very easily have gone off the wall last night.”
“You need your own rest,” he said stubbornly.
“Oh, and I’ll sleep so well wondering if I’ll find you in pieces in the morning? No argument, Tom.”
“And if I make it an order?”
Janet shrugged, got up to put the chess set away. “Won’t be the first time I’ve been insubordinate, and I doubt it would be the last, either. Christ’s cod, Tom —”
“Your language,” he said reflexively.
“Saint Theodosia’s teats,” she said deliberately. “Saint Felix’s foreskin. Saint Abban’s arse. Saint Veronica’s —”
“Jack!” Tom said, blushing scarlet, half-laughing, half-horrified. “Stop!”
“I’ll stop when you agree I’m talking sense,” she said. “Saint Simeon’s stones. Saint Philip’s plums. Saint Odile’s oven.”
“All right!” He threw up his hands. “All right. Before you have any more to shock Father Donnic with at confession.”
“If he hasn’t dropped dead of a heart attack after teaching Emlyn these past years, he’s unshockable,” Janet said. “She told me the story of the nativity the other day.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Janet grinned. “She started with the bit about God swiving another man’s wife,” she said, and left him spluttering with outraged laughter as she headed down the stairs.