Within

by Aaron Bunce

  Dennah looked between each of the men in the group and realized they were not simply early to rise but had probably been up all night.

  “You are the first we have seen up and about. Other than...well,” Teague said, casually tilting his head towards Banus’ table. Dennah smirked.

  “The patrol never returned last night. Half a dozen men and horse. Good men all of them,” Teague said, shifting uncomfortably before the fire.

  “Surely they would have sought shelter from the storm,” Tadd mused.

  “If there was shelter to be found, surely. But as darkness fell, the weather turned, and the rain became stinging ice. I fear for anyone left exposed to such conditions for long,” Teague said, his gaze never leaving the fire.

  An uneasy feeling crept into Dennah’s gut. The thought of a storm claiming the lives of such battle-hardened soldiers frightened her.

  That could have been me! Stupid…stupid, Dennah! She silently chastised herself.

  Dennah walked over to the door, pressed the latch pushed. Something cracked loudly outside. She gave the door another hard shove, and then another until finally it swung open.

  Frigid, biting air rushed over her, so cold that it took her breath away. The sky was pitch-black. Wisps of snow buffeted against her, driven by a howling wind. Icicles as big around as a person hung from the building’s roofline, stretching clear to the ground.

  The muddy soup of the roadway now shone like onyx glass in the inn’s faint light. She understood Teague’s despair over the missing patrol. Anyone caught without shelter would have surely frozen to death.

  Dennah pulled the door closed, the creeping cold already making her bare feet go numb. She clutched her arms protectively and padded eagerly back over to the fire.

  “We lost a number of horses to the freeze. Several others were frostbitten…it is not good. If I were a superstitious man, I would say this storm reeks of ill omens,” Teague said somberly.

  “We moved our draft animals to a barn yester when the storm threatened with lightning. I will check on them and the wagons,” Tadd said before shuffling off.

  “I think I should help,” Folkvar said, falling into step behind the old wagon driver.

  “What will you do with Roman now?” Dennah dared ask as Tadd and Folkvar walked away.

  “The Council’s edicts are clear, and I am duty bound to their enforcement. If he admits to the murders, he will be shown the mercy of a quick death. If he denies, well, then he will stand for his crimes at the Fort in Falksgraad Creek. If the magistrate finds him guilty, then he will be beheaded, and then burned. If the magistrate believes he was under the sway of this dark menace, he may allow the high priest to weigh him. But that is not a likely outcome,” Teague said.

  “Tilith saw it clear enough when he tried to kill her too. And she was trying to help him! We should just hang him from a tree and be done with this place, save everyone else the trouble,” one of Teague’s men said.

  The large bearded man stood with his elbow resting on a beam, methodically picking the meat from a chicken leg. Teague shook his head, and the man returned to his meal without pushing the issue further.

  Dennah could tell that this debate had been ongoing and didn’t favor throwing herself into its midst, so she left them and slipped quietly back into their small room. She stoked up the fire and warmed her feet before checking her gear.

  She worried over Teague’s response to his soldier’s argument, trying to deny the dark thoughts that continued to creep to the forefront of her mind. She struggled with doubt, trying to reconcile the monster’s true face.

  Teague didn’t seem to share her doubts. In his eyes, Roman’s fate had already been sealed.

  Chapter 34

  An old man’s tale

  When Tadd returned a short while later he was red-faced and out of sorts. He busied himself with the fire, but Dennah could tell that he was in no mood to talk, so she slipped into her dry boots and slipped outside.

  She closed the door to the inn behind her, clinging to the fur coat as the frigid winds whipped by. She had seen early season snows before, but never so stark or violent before.

  The caravan crew staged the wagons on the road the previous day while the weather was still mild. The wagon wheels, heavily burdened, sank deep into the muddy ground, and as the temperature dropped, the mud froze solid, locking the wagons in two hands of rock-hard mud.

  She understood Tadd’s distress. Not even their large draft horses could break the wagons free. The oiled skins kept the goods dry, but little good that did them when they couldn’t move the wagons.

  Dennah watched as men chopped at the ground with hatchets and hammers, laboring and cursing to free the stuck wheels. She circled around the long line of wagons as a group of men started to yell excitedly. A team of horses strained, pulling at the first wagon in line. With a mighty heave, the team rocked the vessel. It teetered for a moment, but then something popped loudly, and one of its wheels flew apart, shattering in a shower of wood splinters and broken banding.

  Dennah followed the workers back into the White Crowe. They dropped their axes and tools into a pile and fell, defeated and somber, into chairs around the fire.

  “No way we’re leaving here for a time,” one of the men groused.

  Folkvar walked in through the door, untying a scarf from around his face as he stomped the snow from his boots. He threw her a quick smile before disappearing into the crowd. Tadd sat, sullen and moody, puffing on his pipe in a tavern chair. Dennah retreated to their room, deciding that it was probably best to leave the old man alone for a while.

  Dennah found her bags, bathed and changed into some clean clothes. She continuously returned to the same troubled thoughts, reliving the moments in Roman’s room with Tilith and Captain Teague.

  She heard Roman’s pain, his fear. It looked and felt genuine enough to her, but how was she to know he wasn’t putting on a guise to fool her and everyone else?

  Am I better off letting him die? What if he is the victim, and not the monster they all think he is? The face in the orchard…she thought, struggling to connect the strange events. Could she live with herself if he was a pawn the whole time, and did nothing to help him?

  Can I be that person, the one that looks on and does nothing while good people suffer? That certainly wasn’t who her parents raised her to be. But more importantly, it wasn’t who she wanted to be.

  “Ah, damn it,” she cursed suddenly, shaking her head and willing the accursed thoughts away.

  A battle raged within Dennah: between the person she felt she had to become and the person she longed to be. She knew that she couldn’t be both at the same time.

  Can I forsake compassion, friendship, and loyalty for mere survival? Can I become that cold?

  The door opened suddenly, and Bull towered in the doorway, his wide shoulders scraping the narrow doorjamb.

  “I’ve been looking for you all morning. Where have you been?” he asked.

  Dennah’s irritation flared. “I’ve been here, not exactly hiding from anyone.” Bull flinched, her tone visibly startling him, and realizing, too late albeit, the rhetorical nature of his question.

  “Just because the wagons’r deadlocked doesn’t mean we’re on downtime. Sit guard outside the prisoner’s room!” he barked, furrowing his brow in his best tough-guy face. “And I want you up there now!” Bull accentuated his point by slamming the door.

  “Bastard!” Dennah cursed, throwing a tin cup at the door.

  She emerged from her room moments later. The tavern of the White Crowe had grown noisy as the trapped caravan workers took to drink and song to stave off boredom.

  Banus sneered at her as she walked by, pausing his game of cards to elbow Tarkus next to him. The pair snickered stupidly. Dennah remembered the feeling of her fist driving into his nose and the gratifying pop of bone and cartilage. The thought made her smile.

  Dennah marched up the steps. She found Blain Tivorian fast asleep in a chair outside Rom
an’s room, his hand still stuffed in his trousers. It looked as if the slightest nudge would topple the man from the chair.

  Dennah struggled with the urge, but in the end, cleared her throat respectfully. When he didn’t respond she cleared it a bit louder, yet still the man slept. Her patience gone, she stepped forward and kicked the leg of his chair.

  Blain teetered and flailed his arms like a wounded bird before toppling bodily to the floor.

  “Oi…what’s that about? Spitting…dirty, back stabbing.”

  “I am here to relieve you,” Dennah said flatly, her chin held high and her shoulders square.

  “You,” Blain said, spittle running down his bearded chin.

  “I ought to throttle you…you stuck up little wench. You need a man to teach you respect,” Blain said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  Dennah didn’t flinch. She was used to their profane, vulgar innuendos by now. But they were just talk.

  “Girl’s ain’t got no business doing soldierly work. I should do you a favor and take you home to tend my kitchen. You could even moan my name nice and pretty and give me a couple young ones,” Blain added importantly.

  “If I were gone who would be sober enough to hold a sword and keep the Earl’s gold safe? Besides, I doubt your corner of the pigpen even has a kitchen to tend,” Dennah jabbed back.

  “You little,” Blain started to come forward, but Dennah cut him off.

  “Captain Teague is downstairs. I don’t think he would like to hear that you were sleeping while guarding his prisoner, do you?” she lied. In reality, she had no idea if Captain Teague was still in the inn, but the effect on Blain was nonetheless immediate, and satisfying.

  “I weren’t sleeping,” he mumbled as stalked past. He turned only once to glare, before walking down the stairs.

  Dennah wiped off the chair and settled in. She listened to the rising din below but turned as Blain Tivorian and one of Teague’s footmen appeared from the gloom of the stairs, each with a woman on their arm.

  Blain gave Dennah a lewd look and then disappeared into one of the rooms. The other woman, giggling drunkenly, pulled her man into a room and promptly slammed the door. Dennah knew this would be the problem as long as the storm raged outside, deadlocking the caravan in town.

  It was not long before the quiet was broken by the moaning, giggling, and headboard banging from the adjoining rooms. Dennah started humming a tune out loud and quickly longed for something to stuff in her ears.

  Dennah pulled her sword and wiped it down, never breaking from the chorus of her favorite tune. She took note of every nick and ding in the blade, trying to block out the exaggerated ruckus going on around her.

  After a short time, a familiar tune drifted up the stairs from the tavern below. My Beer Belted Lass wasn’t one of her favorite songs, but it effectively drowned out the other noises.

  She found a dull spot on the blade with her thumb and wished that she hadn’t left her sharpening stone in her bag downstairs. She picked up the sword and held it flat bladed in her open palms and looked at her exaggerated reflection in the shiny metal.

  The oil lamps hanging on the walls doused the hallway in a warm glow, their yellow flames occasionally flickering when a harsh breeze whistled against the building. The dancing light and thrumming music quickly became relaxing.

  Dennah slouched in her chair and found her thoughts drawn to Roman once again. She longed to look him in his eyes and ask him for the truth. She considered the story he told her about the woman on the farm. Dennah couldn’t remember her name, but he seemed to care genuinely for her.

  She was like a mother to him. She reached up and slapped her forehead in frustration.

  “Oh, young miss you shouldn’t beat yourself up so…” someone said from the top of the stairs, and Dennah flinched. She hadn’t noticed anyone approach.

  Frenin stood with his right foot on the landing, and his left on the last stair, his walnut cane tucked between his arm and his body. He carried something in both hands, but Dennah couldn’t immediately tell what it was.

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Frenin said, hoisting his weight off the last step and dropping his cane to the ground.

  “It’s alright…I’m just preoccupied. That’s all,” Dennah said, shaking her head

  “I dare say your counterparts downstairs are causing quite the ruckus, and so early in the day,” Frenin said, chuckling. Dennah just shook her head, but she didn’t consider any of them her counterparts, not in the least.

  Dennah turned the skeleton key and pushed the door open. He nodded gratefully and entered. Dennah lingered in the open doorway. She would be lying to herself if she said the sight didn’t sicken her.

  Lucilla had returned promptly after Roman’s ordeal with the cleric, and she had yet to leave his side since. The rumpled, curly haired woman looked like she was about ready to drop. She turned puffy eyed as Frenin entered.

  “I was almost dosing. Hello, Frenin,” Lucilla said weakly. She looked past Frenin to Dennah and looked back to Frenin, a calculating look on her face.

  “She is fine, Lucilla. I dare say we can trust Miss Dennah here more than any other in the whole lot. In fact, why don’t you come in, I have something I need to tell you,” Frenin said, his usually bright smile pulled down by worry.

  “How is he?” Dennah dared ask as she closed the door.

  “The fever returned, worse than before. I honestly don’t know how much more of it he can stand. Never, in all my thaws…” Lucilla said, trailing off.

  Dennah walked over and stood next to Frenin. They looked down on Roman together. Her anger and pain bled away, and she instantly wondered how she had convinced herself to blame Roman.

  They had shackled his hands and wrists, binding them tightly with heavy lengths of chain. A shackle was fitted around his neck. A rope connected that to the manacles locked around his ankles.

  Lucilla, in an attempt to keep him warm spread blankets out over his drawn form. Roman’s face was pale and drawn, like bleached parchment, and dark rings wound around his eyes. His entire body started to shake, causing the chains and shackles to jingle and shake.

  “You missed it, Frenin. When the tonic wore off, he awoke for a bit. He was lucid, but then this damned fever, it was just like before…well you know,” Lucilla said, wiping Roman’s forehead with a cool compress.

  “Why don’t you get yourself something to eat, and maybe a little rest? I will stay with him,” Frenin said, patting the healer’s shoulder affectionately.

  Lucilla looked up at the elder, patting his hand with a resigned sigh. She heaved her bulk out of the chair and walked from the room, quietly closing the door behind her.

  “What do you think is wrong with him?” Dennah asked after a short, uncomfortable silence.

  “I cannot say,” Frenin said, shaking his head.

  “Do you think…why did he do it? Why did he hurt those people?” Dennah dared to ask, giving voice to her doubts.

  “You two seemed to be fast friends. Tell me, honestly, do you think him capable of such violence and evil?” Frenin asked, turning to study her.

  “I hardly know him…but, you heard the cleric,” Dennah sputtered.

  “I have known Roman since Lucilla pulled him, kicking and screaming from his mother. I can say with absolute certainty, that you will not find a gentler heart. You know the woman at the farm? Greta was her name. Did Roman tell you of their relationship?” Frenin asked, settling into the chair next to the bed.

  Dennah nodded.

  “Some thaws back, when I was a younger man and Bardstown was a busier place, I had just taken the mantle of elder from my father. We had travelers coming in from the roads north and south, east and west, at all hours, from sunset to sunrise. Well, one fall day, a bad storm blew in, actually very similar to the one we are enduring right now. Well you see, I made it a habit of greeting everyone coming into our town. I was new to the title and all,” Frenin said.

  Dennah look
ed back towards the door, fearful of the tongue-lashing she would receive if Bull found her in Roman’s room.

  “A young couple arrived in town from the north. She was very pretty, but also very young. Younger than you, in fact, barely sixteen winter thaws. He was a strapping young fellow, smart as a whip, and incredibly protective of her. She was with child and trying to hide it, but I could tell right away. She had fallen ill on the road, so they stopped here for help.

  “Our cleric back then was batty old codger. He tended to her for a short while, but then just up and walked out. He refused to care for her any longer, and would not explain why. Lucky for us, Lucilla and Noble had recently settled here, and she took up her care. They were only here a few days before her condition grew worse. You see, she had a fever that burned unlike any we had seen before, and she was haunted by horrible dreams, dreams that assaulted her in her waking hours too.

  “We worried that she would succumb to the fever, her and the child, but as luck would have it, she went into labor. Lucilla delivered the babe as the first sun rose following that ill-fated storm, and before she could place him on his mother’s breast, she died. She was never able to hold her newborn son.

  “You see, when Roman’s parent’s arrived in town, they carried very little with them, only enough to fill a small bag. The few possessions his mother had with her were locked away in a box. Roman’s father never spoke of her to anyone after that, and I never felt it was my place to press him,” Frenin finished sadly.

  “So, did you ever tell Roman about his mother? Surely someone should have told him something, anything,” Dennah asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

  Frenin shook his head, “I promised his father long ago that I would not,” he said, clutching more tightly to the package in his arms.

  “So…what is that then?” Dennah asked, her emotions threatening to burst forth.

  “If Roman survives the fever, Teague will take him south to the fort in Falksgraad to stand for murder. I want you to give this to him. I want you to tell him of his mother. He deserves to know,” Frenin said.