Cloaked

by Taylor Hobbs

  Charlotte’s hand flew around from behind her head and she plunged the hairpin into her captor’s hand. He let out a roar and loosened his hold.

  “Neither mute nor dumb,” she said, and danced away, fresh blood dripping from her weapon. “Just full of surprises.”

  A black blur launched itself at the second guard, who had pulled his dagger out in defense of his friend. The struggle was over in seconds, with the guard slumped against the staircase and his dagger thrown out of sight.

  Amis, without a thought to his injured hand, reached for his broadsword. He was too slow, and before Charlotte could blink, her would-be rapist was laid out flat, and the shadow man stood over him.

  In the abrupt silence that followed, Charlotte whispered, “Are they dead?”

  “Unconscious.” He dragged the bodies so they were sitting next to each other, propped up against the wall. “Find their mugs,” he instructed her.

  She did as she was told, and the shadow man placed the cups in their laps.

  “Is it safe to come out?” Henry asked, from far down the hallway.

  “They will be unconscious for an hour at least,” the shadow man said. “That should give us enough time.”

  “Why didn’t you kill them?” The question blurted out of Charlotte’s mouth before she could stop it.

  “Dead bodies draw more attention than drunken guards,” he answered. “It will be even longer before anyone discovers the prisoner is gone.” He turned toward the hallway, watching Henry stumble toward them while trying to hold the old man up. “Prisoners,” he corrected himself. With a few long strides, the cloaked man was upon them, relieving Henry of his burden.

  “Quickly. Up the stairs behind me,” he ordered the siblings.

  Charlotte didn’t need to be told twice. Apparently I proved my worth, she thought, relieved, as she tucked her pin back in its hiding place.

  They followed the endlessly winding staircase up until the cloaked stranger opened a door that led into the main castle. The floor was silent and unoccupied but for the light of the moon sneaking in through the slats of the window shutters. Charlotte was utterly lost, having never been to this part of the castle before. This certainly isn’t the kitchen, she thought as she tried to orient herself.

  In her futile attempts to gain her bearings, Charlotte almost lost the shadow man, and only the sound of his cloak whisking around a curved hallway hinted at his direction. She picked up her pace, Henry stumbling loudly behind her.

  “Be quiet,” she snapped at her brother, but they caught up to the stranger. He was peering out of an open window, one with a grappling hook caught on the bottom ledge. Charlotte realized that they were in one of the turrets, and though she had no idea what level they were on, the ground looked to be a dizzying distance away.

  The cloaked man wasted no time. With calculated efficiency, he found the free end of the rope that was curled at his feet in looped piles. He then tied a complicated harness around the old man, who still looked incapable of coherent thought, and even less capable of rappelling down a castle wall. Holding up the old man with ease, the stranger watched out the window and waited for the right moment.

  Charlotte peered around his broad frame to see a pair of guards strolling through the gardens. Once they were out of sight, the cloaked stranger sat the old man up onto the ledge.

  Charlotte finally spoke. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We have exactly four minutes until the guards reappear. Make your choice by then,” he said, and began to lower the old man rather steadily to the ground, only bashing him into the stone wall twice. Once his charge lay at the bottom of the tower, the cloaked stranger double-checked the grappling hook and perched on the sill. Hanging onto the rope with both hands, he walked his feet backward and disappeared over the edge.

  How long has it been already? Charlotte wondered. One minute? Two minutes? She turned to her brother. “Can you make it?” she asked him.

  He looked paler than usual in the moonlight. “It’s either this, or torture and death. I pick this.” He tripped while approaching the window, and for a sick second Charlotte thought he was going to fall out, but he bravely grabbed the rope and inched his way down.

  My turn, Charlotte thought. Part of her was amazed she had even made it this far, and she wanted to pinch herself to make sure it was real. She leaned over the edge to check her brother’s progress, and the sight made her vision blur and her stomach churn. She would have braved another sewer trip rather than risk breaking her neck in a fall.

  The relief she felt when Henry’s feet hit the ground brought her back to the moment. It was now or never, and she had already trusted the dark stranger to bring her this far. Flashes of the never-ending night flicked through her mind. As if crawling through the earth, freeing her brother, and fighting off a rapist weren’t enough, she was still expected to confront her worst fear.

  Clutching the rope for all she was worth, Charlotte felt her shoulders screaming their protest. Her body trembled with exhaustion and fear as she forced it inch by inch down the turret. Dangling almost halfway down the rope, she hit her breaking point. “I can’t…I can’t…I can’t…” she whispered. Her body refused to move any further. But it was all worth it, she rationalized. Henry is free. Nothing else really matters.

  “Let go and grab onto my back.” The voice broke through Charlotte’s morbid acceptance of her fate. She wrenched open her eyes that had been clenched tight with fear. The shadow man hung just below her.

  “I’ll fall.”

  “No, you will not. Hurry.”

  Charlotte’s hands slid down slightly. Her legs found the heavy cloak first, and she wrapped them around a solid waist, anchoring herself to him. Her arms locked around his neck one at a time, and then he was flying down the rope. When his feet touched solid ground, Charlotte immediately let go and fell onto the dirt with a thump. She lay still, trying to catch her breath.

  Henry peered at her with concern. “Are you all right?”

  Charlotte sighed, grateful for the firm earth beneath her. Never again, she thought. “We made it,” she said, avoiding his real question.

  “Not just yet,” the shadow man said sharply. Voices floated from around the turret, a banter that surged Charlotte’s adrenaline yet again.

  The stranger picked up the old man and pulled him behind a nearby tree. The siblings followed close behind, hardly daring to breathe as they stood and waited for the guards to patrol past them.

  Once the conversation faded, Charlotte turned to Henry. “Head for the stables. Steal a horse and whatever else you need to get away from here.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me? Duke Belaq will know it was you! He’ll know you helped me, and then you will be the one in prison!”

  “Henry, someone has to be here to look after Mother. I won’t abandon her, and we can’t make her travel far. If we do, she’ll die,” Charlotte reminded him. “Do you really think the duke will suspect that a woman freed you?”

  “The blame will be mine,” the shadow man said to Henry. “The duke will suspect I took both prisoners. The girl won’t be suspect.”

  Henry looked as though he was going to argue, so Charlotte used her older-sister tone and ordered, “Go! Before it’s too late.” He hesitated a moment, then kissed his sister’s cheek. “Thank you,” Henry said. He turned and ran, slipping through the shadows and staying out of the bright moonlight.

  Charlotte tried not to cry as she watched him go, but a tear escaped and made a clean track down a dirty cheek. She wiped it away, refusing to dwell on how it might be the last time she ever saw him. I gave him a future, she thought. A future on the lam, to be sure, but it was better than certain death.

  The young woman shivered and prepared to sneak home to the village. Before she could take a step, a warm weight settled around her shoulders. The black cloak hung past her feet, enveloping her completely in a protective cocoon. Charlotte whipped around in surprise, but the stranger had his back to her, already
walking away with the old man slung over his shoulders.

  She meant to say ‘thank you,‘ but instead she asked, “What is your name?”

  “It is not important,” he said. Then he stopped, as if debating internally over something, and turned ever so slightly. “But what is your name?”

  She caught a glimpse of a strong jaw with a long, thick scar running from temple to neck. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, and how anyone could survive the wound, she didn’t know. “Charlotte T-Tanner,” she managed to stutter out.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter Two

  How long do I have to keep acting like everything is normal? Charlotte wondered as she trudged the dirt road up to the castle. She had been waiting for a week for any repercussions or questions regarding the whereabouts of her brother, but so far there was eerie familiarity in her routine. A few of the other scullery maids commented that Charlotte had been jumpier than usual lately, but with the arrest of her brother and the stress of caring for her ailing mother, they expected her nerves to be a bit frayed. Other than that, life remained the same.

  As Charlotte mulled over the events from the past few days, she grew more unsettled. Why hadn’t the town been alerted to look out for Henry? Why weren’t guards storming the streets of the village? How had such blatant defiance of the duke gone unpunished? It was like no one knew about the escaped prisoners.

  Lost in thought, she didn’t realize that she had crossed the threshold and into kitchens, and almost collided with the head cook.

  “Child! Watch where you are going!”

  Charlotte mumbled an apology and went to grab her apron. “Not today,” the cook said. “I’ve got a serving girl who got herself into trouble, and I need someone to serve the council breakfast.”

  No, no, no, Charlotte thought, panicked. He would see it, the guilt that was written all over her face. She would be found out immediately.

  The cook mistook her wide-eyed terror as nervousness, and said to her, “The duke will be with the council. You won’t be alone with him. Just help serve the fish and biscuits and keep quiet. They won’t even know you’re there. Follow the lead of the other girls, and be invisible.”

  As the cook prepared the silver platters and the staff lined up to receive them, Charlotte tugged nervously at the sleeves of her dress. Underneath her clothing, she was still one giant scab. Her scrapes had begun to heal, but she couldn’t afford any more questions. Her awkward excuse for the bloody mess of her hands the day after the dungeon escapade had been suspicious enough. I cut them on pottery shards, she explained to curious servants. Mother had another episode in the house. But there was no explanation ready for the cuts that crisscrossed the rest of her body, waiting to turn into a silvery web of scars.

  As she reached for the heavy platter stacked with biscuits, Charlotte tried not to wince at the weight added to her battered body. Head held high and arms shaking with effort, Charlotte fell into the back of the line and the serving girls paraded to the Grand Hall.

  Duke Belaq lounged at the head of the long table, his council of six leaning toward him eagerly in their chairs, but only succeeding as far as their protruding stomachs would allow. They talked over one another, seeing who could cluck the loudest to capture their lord’s attention. Like chickens at feeding time, pushing each other out of the way to get the best scraps, Charlotte thought. Lean and deadly, the duke was a fox in the chicken coop, and the birds were too distracted to realize the danger they were in. Charlotte sensed it, unable to keep her eyes off of him as she watched his impassive expression darken to irritation.

  “Enough,” he said. No yelling, no hint of exasperation. With only that quiet word, the advisers’ mouths snapped shut. “I have decided not to report it to the king.”

  One brave member spoke up. “But Your Grace, it has been happening all over—”

  “No. Not in my holdings. I will not show any weakness. We will handle it internally and quietly. I will not have it get back to the king that we have failed in any way.”

  Invisible, be invisible, Charlotte told herself, as she tried to stop her hands from trembling. His pride finally gave her a reason as to why the news of her brother’s escape had not spread like wildfire. She could feel hot rage seeping off of the duke in such close proximity, though he tried to hide it under a cool exterior.

  Charlotte glanced over at the other servants, each studiously focused on serving the food, lacking the context to understand what the duke had just revealed. But Charlotte knew, and thanks to the council member, she had also discovered that her shadow man had visited more than one castle recently. The duke wouldn’t be able to keep the outlaw’s existence a secret for long, though. It was only a matter of time before rumors from surrounding villages reached Belaq’s lands.

  Charlotte ached to know more about the shadow man, and silently willed the council to give her another crumb of information, but their attention turned to their plates. Trying not to gag as the men sucked loudly on their fish bones, her eyes flitted to the duke once more.

  He didn’t touch his food, redirecting his focus to what looked like a letter off to the side of his plate. Even if Charlotte could risk getting close enough to his side to see it, she wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway. But what if it contains information about my dark stranger? Her careful control slipped, and Charlotte let out a frustrated sigh.

  The duke’s dark eyes snapped over to her, and Charlotte froze. After a beat, she gathered her wits about her enough to cast her gaze to her feet. Her neck bowed completely forward and she flushed with horror. She didn’t dare look up again until the order came to clear the meal. She could still feel a dangerous gaze on her as she exited with the other girls, sending a shiver up her spine.

  Charlotte had grown up surrounded by gossip about Duke Belaq. She remembered the stories she was told as a young girl, just starting out her work in the kitchens. “Stay away from him if you can,” the older girls cautioned her. “Don’t catch his attention.” She had successfully followed this advice for ten years.

  She had been working in the kitchens since she was nine, and pointedly shown no initiative in order to rise beyond the station of a scullery maid and become a serving girl. It seemed to be a cruel twist of fate that the cook had decided to promote her at exactly the wrong time. Now, the duke’s new-found interest in her directly coincided with the escape of her brother, and it was all her fault. Serve the food and get out—that was all she needed to do. How could I have muddled it up? Charlotte groaned.

  Worst case scenarios wove their way through her brain as she ferociously scrubbed the kitchen floors, desperate for a distraction. Her prayers were answered when the head cook interrupted her cleaning. “I need chickens for supper. Go and fetch them.”

  Suddenly frantic for fresh air to clear her head, Charlotte jumped at the chance. She savored her walk to the coop, glad to be out of the confines of the castle. Once she was no longer in the same building as the duke, some of the tension eased behind her neck. Any thoughts of further relaxation fled, though, when she stumbled upon a group of stable boys talking.

  “They’re calling him the Cloaked Shadow,” said a boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve.

  “And nobody knows who he is?” his friend asked, breathless.

  “No. But he’s been in and out of dungeons all over the kingdom, freeing prisoners.”

  “All the prisoners?”

  “No. Only some. But a lot of those from wealthy families, I guess.” The twelve-year-old clearly enjoyed all of the attention from his audience and gave them a conspiratorial grin. “They say that the duke’s castle is the only one he hasn’t broken into yet.”

  So I’m right then, Charlotte thought, Duke Belaq is determined to cover up the escape of his prisoners. And Henry wasn’t supposed to be freed after all. He would have been left there to rot if I hadn’t been there to muck up the Cloaked Shadow’s plans.

  Her dark stranger was a professional, well on hi
s way to infamy within the kingdom. And I’m the only person who has probably seen his face, she realized with a jolt. Part of his face, anyway. As rumors of his prowess spread, he would become the most wanted man in the land. What would he do to her, though, if he thought she would recognize him? He didn’t seem like a bad man, but that was before Charlotte was a risk to his identity.

  “Does he kill people?” she blurted out, and four pairs of eyes turned to her, surprised.

  “Not usually,” the boy said. “Guards get taken out, but usually nobody dies. People think he is some kind of ghost, able to get in and out without being seen and without killing. My brother says that everyone they questioned after the break outs all said the same thing—a tall, cloaked shadow attacked them, and then they woke up hours later.”

  Charlotte thought about what the stranger had said to her—“Dead bodies draw more attention.” Just how long had he been operating? Years, maybe, without drawing suspicion. But lately, hushed talk of spies and the state of the kingdom traveled through the countryside. Rumors abounded about rebel forces growing in number. Belaq had promised the king that he would root them out. In the past year, arrests became even more frequent, and not even money or a title could keep a suspect safe.

  “What, have you heard something about him?” the boy asked, shaking Charlotte from her thoughts.

  “Um, no, nothing,” she stuttered.

  “I’d like to take him on!” one of the other boys exclaimed. “I bet I could catch him.”

  The three others began to push him around. “I’d like to see you try!” Their rowdy behavior escalated, and Charlotte was forgotten as she scurried toward the hen house. “You’d be knocked on your bum before you even saw him!”

  Her dark stranger was making waves throughout the Kingdom of Algonia. Though he was an outlaw whose very existence was shrouded in mystery and exaggeration, Charlotte felt like she knew him. A little thrill went through her every time she remembered how he had helped her.