Before they went out into the outer room she pulled the dresser from the wall and pried back the panel she’d seen Jastail get behind.
A hollowed compartment held a small handwritten note:
Meet me at the wayhouse two days from the final auction. Bring every man you can trust for five handcoins. We’ll set the balance right, and you may have yourself a route of your own for the trouble. Watch that you’re not followed. And should you feel ambitious, know I’ve taken precautions against your greed.
Wendra tucked the note inside her bodice, and checked to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. Satisfied, they went out to the table. They were eating stale bread when Jastail returned.
“Quickly, and hold your tongues,” he said.
Outside, they climbed onto their mounts, and Jastail led them casually down a vacant alley toward the east. The sun lay low in the west, sending their shadows in long, dancing rhythms on the ground before them. Penit fought to ride alongside Wendra even through the narrowest lanes.
We could make a break now.
She dismissed the thought. They might be able to break away, but it would have to be once they reached the open road, and even then would need to be planned. If Jastail caught the boy, Wendra couldn’t leave him again.
They passed a cluster of tents and rode into a field dotted with cook fires. Shallow ditches had been dug to catch the rainwater as it rolled from oiled canvases stretched over wooden frames. The smells of grouse and prairie hens rose on the dusk air. Wendra’s stomach growled at the savory smell.
“What is this, then?” said a man, stepping into their path.
A group of men joined him.
“I’ve business elsewhere,” Jastail said, looking past the men at the open land along the horizon.
“So pressing that you would leave at suppertime?” the man asked with a smile. “And taking your stock with you.” The others laughed, their eyes passing from Wendra to Penit and back with a dark lust. “How far the great Jastail has fallen that he buys his own wares. Damaged goods, my friend.” The man shifted his head to the side to affect a sidelong glance of reproof.
“Business elsewhere,” Jastail repeated.
“Is that so?” the leader of the group replied. “Well, perhaps. But I don’t like what this means to those of us you leave behind.” The man raised his hand to his mouth and bit a fingernail before continuing. “Why did you forfeit the price of a boy on the block? It isn’t like you.” His eyes narrowed. “And it isn’t fair to those prepared to pay good money for him, either. And what of this one?” He walked past Jastail and laid his hand on Wendra’s thigh. She kicked him in the chest, and would have put her boot in his face if the stirrup hadn’t caught. The man stumbled backward.
When he regained his balance, he rushed toward her, one arm brandishing a deeply curved knife. Orange sun glinted in the beveled edge as Wendra tried to shy away from the charge. Instantly, Jastail was between them. He ducked beneath the man’s arm and drove a leg into his ankles. The other went over on his face, his jaw slamming the hard-packed earth. The report rose in the mellow evening like the striking of river stones together.
Wendra had seen men cower when their leader was put down, but these men rushed in on Jastail the instant he swept the first man off his feet. Two smaller fellows tried to flank him as the largest among them came directly on, a moronic grin showing five existing teeth. Two more drew short blades and skirted the edge of the fray like dancers anxious for a turn with a courtesan.
Wendra needed Jastail to win. Whatever the highwayman had planned for her and Penit, he was their only chance of escaping Galadell.
Jastail lunged for the largest man, feigning an exaggerated roundhouse toward the man’s face, and drove his knee into the fellow’s groin. The lout doubled over with an airy whoosh. One blade swept near Jastail’s face. But before the man could recover to strike again, Jastail drew his own sword and struck a deft jab to the man’s sword arm. The wounded brute dropped his weapon and turned tail.
The other swordsman rushed at Jastail’s back. He fell into a forward roll and narrowly missed a jab at his spine. He came up and whipped his sword around in a deadly, level arc, catching the man in the neck.
The fight had drawn the attention of nearby traders. Troubled shouts rose, and the faint clink of blades and armor accompanied bellowed questions sounding from the tents.
Wendra turned her mount on one of the men trying to flank Jastail and spurred the horse. In a burst, the animal leapt, trampling the man before he could cut Jastail. A frenzied whinny erupted to her left. Penit had followed her lead, knocking the other thug to the side with his horse’s broad chest.
As running steps and calls of concern flooded the street, the last man slowly backed away. Jastail jumped into his saddle and rode toward the shadows. Wendra and Penit raced at his heels. She’d saved her captor’s life again. But she expected no gratitude from the man leading them past the last tents of Galadell.
* * *
They rode another three leagues before stopping for the night.
Jastail said nothing, tethering the horses and throwing his blanket near the base of a tree. He tied Wendra and Penit’s hands and feet, but let them sleep close together.
When Jastail had fallen asleep, Penit nudged her. “You awake?” he whispered.
She nodded, but kept her eyes closed.
“If he ties us every night, it’s going to be hard to get away.” He paused until he heard Jastail make another sleeping noise. “I’m going to play a part. Like a dumb kid who needs a da. To make him trust me. It might give us a chance.”
She wanted to argue, but it made sense. “Be careful,” she whispered back. “This isn’t a pageant.”
That was all he said, and sooner than she might have thought, he was asleep beside her.
A rough boot at her calf awoke her the next morning. “Pack and eat,” Jastail said, untying them. “Stretch your legs and arms before you mount.”
Jastail had already seen to his blanket, and had allowed a small fire over which a pot of black tea heated. Wendra saw a handful of juniper berries laid on a clean rock near the pot to spice the tea once it brewed. He sat reading from a book, making notations with a thin piece of graphite.
Penit insisted on packing both his and Wendra’s blankets and fetching food from their packs. She allowed him the task and sat opposite Jastail on a low rock, watching him.
Jastail lifted his eyes. “Did you assume a ruffian like me couldn’t read?” he said with a hint of sarcasm.
“No,” Wendra replied. “I just didn’t expect to see you reading poetry.”
Jastail partially closed the book, his brows rising in interest. “And how did you know it was poetry, dear lady? Have you been rummaging through my things without my knowledge?” His voice held a bit of humor.
“No. Your eyes move unevenly to each line. History and fancy run the width of the page.”
“How astute. And why do you wonder at my choice of literature? No wait, let me guess. Is it because the dreams of a laureate would be lost on one like me, who kidnaps women and children? Because if it’s so, lady, then you make an ardent case. And I may be at a loss.”
Her silence seemed to disconcert him more than her words might have. His charming demeanor fell like an ill-fitted mask.
“I wasn’t born near the blocks, dear woman.” The words came bitterly from his lips. “And not every scop looks heavenward when he contrives his rhyme.”
“You want me to believe in the noble savage,” Wendra said tersely.
“Not at all.” He rubbed the binding of the book the way Balatin used to touch Wendra’s hair before he kissed her goodnight.
“What you think of me is none of my concern. And the differences between nobility and savagery aren’t as clear to me as they are to the gentry. I’ve sat at fires where a man who doesn’t read is distrusted and shunned. In other lands my poems wouldn’t earn me the shoveler’s spot in the court wastery.” Jastail’s eyes fl
ared. “But that’s precisely why I read these works. Precisely why I don’t care what you think of me.”
“I see,” Wendra observed in an even tone. “Your books have confused your morality.” She sent Penit back to the horses to retrieve the waterskins. “What about being taken into the company of thieves by one who wagers you on the table like a loose coin, or watching a child marched onto the blocks before a crowd to be auctioned like a hog at breeding season?” Her voice continued to rise as she lashed out at him. “Tell me how as a child you offered your hand to your elders to find an ally, elders who then used you to cheat another, as you did the boy.” She stood, dark stirrings in her chest.
Jastail showed her a flat, dead stare. “My answer to that might surprise you. But, you forget yourself, woman. Take care.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “Not concerned about your fellow tradesmen pursuing us anymore?”
The highwayman smiled. “They’ll wait their chance upon me. For now, they’ll return to their trading.” He carved a slice of cheese. “When we meet again, they’ll remember what their efforts earned them, and I’ll be wealthy enough to have them whipped for harboring ill thoughts of me.”
“The shine of a copper has long since lost its luster for you,” she observed.
He nodded as if it might be so. “My poet might agree with you.” He tapped his book, easy enthusiasm in his eyes. “His lines open a spyglass to the farthest reaches of what man is. And where the lens blurs on too distant an object … there, there is where I long to be. To know what I am capable of…”
Jastail looked into the distance, as though he were recalling words from his poet.
The bird that uses wings only to gather insects,
No matter how finely plumed,
Is a meaningless creature.
The horse that uses hardy legs
To but pull a plow through the soil,
Is a meal waiting to be prepared.
What then of man, so noble in reason, fine in particulars, crafty with wit,
Who rests his body and rises again at dawn to weed a furrow,
Draw a mug, or argue over the shifting of a line upon a map?
How lesser is he, to have been endowed with such capability
And yet negotiate each breath to the breeding of yet another man,
Who will but eat and drink and argue until his own rest is come.
His smile returned. “So now you have it … the all of me.”
“Bitter words for a poet.”
“The truth always sounds bitter to an unfamiliar ear.” Jastail put his cheese away, and pointed at Penit. “It’s forgivable in the boy, but you’d do better to understand the poem.”
Wendra regarded Penit for a long moment. “I understand it well enough,” she asserted, still watching Penit. “And they’re a coward’s words, written with his own grave at the back of his mind. Some men come to nothing because they aspire to nothing.”
“And this is how you value an author?” Jastail said, interest arching his brows.
“No,” she said sharply. “It’s pity for one who thinks so little of his own contribution that he must do like the starling and soil his home for those that come after him.”
Jastail stood, staring at her with that look of apathy she hated so much. “When our verse is written, my lady, you will be a notation writ in small script, and that will be a good deal more than the grave marker will say.”
Wendra opened her mouth to respond, but just then Penit returned. Jastail grinned a mouthful of smiling teeth.
The highwayman used people the way his poets used their words, each stroke, each action carefully placed, to carry off the intended meaning. It was maddening. Her head ached with the constant effort to hold her melodic stirrings at bay.
He rose and kicked dirt into the fire. His broad mouth and bright eyes again shifted to the inscrutable expression he’d worn at the card table where he’d wagered Wendra’s hope of finding Penit. The look sent a shiver up her back, robbing her of her anger.
Without a word, he mounted and led them north. He wasn’t going to give them a clear opportunity to escape. Sooner or later, they’d have to make a gamble of their own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Scars—Disappointment
Easily 60 percent of asylum patients claim no physical abuse, but instead say they’ve failed someone they care about.
—League report on the state of noncontributing citizens
Braethen moved deeper into the Scar.
Meche and the other wards had continued southwest on their patrol. Vendanj and Mira alternated leading and trailing their group toward this man Grant.
It left Braethen with little to do but stare into the waste around them. And remember.
Maybe it was the Quiet woman and the way her utter lack of empathy had gotten inside him. Or maybe it was just the feeling of the Scar. Whatever the reason, his mind kept returning to a moment. He’d been thirteen.
* * *
“Braethen?” The pained cry came from his parents’ room.
He looked up from his book of Sodality tales. His da was away at Kali-Firth sharing the stories of winter’s pen—those written during the long cold months.
“Braethen?” Weaker this time.
Braethen got out of bed and rushed to the room. “Ma?”
He lit the lamp and found her coated with sweat. Her hair was drenched with it, her clothes soaked through.
“You’ve got winter fever,” he said. “We need to get—”
She shook her head. “I’ve had the fever,” she gasped. “This is different.”
He now noticed red splotches on her cheeks and neck. Her eyes were bloodshot. And her hands quaked like old Nezra’s.
Braethen reached down and grasped her hand to steady it. “Da won’t be home until tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll run get Hambley. He may know—”
She squeezed his fingers. Shook her head. “Don’t leave me. Fetch me some water.”
He pulled his hand from her grip and dashed to the kitchen, returning with a tall cup of water. She drank thirstily, spilling half the cup over her face and chin, but seemed glad of the coolness.
“Ma, you need help,” he insisted. “Let me go find Hambley.”
She shook her head again, as she began to stir more anxiously beneath her blankets. She rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position, but managed to take his hand in her own again.
“Ma?”
“Sweet one, my stomach.” Her face pinched in pain. “Cramping.”
Braethen tried rubbing her back to soothe her. She seemed not to feel it. Perhaps some willow leaves, he thought. He pulled away again, and rushed to his father’s study, where a shelf of dried herbs sat in earthen jars. He threw off the lid of the willow jar and took a handful of the crushed leaves. Racing back to his ma’s room, he grabbed the pitcher of water.
At her side again, he poured her cup full and mixed the leaves in with his finger. It wasn’t boiled, so didn’t dissolve well, but he thought it would work just the same. He propped her head up and helped her drink again. She got half down before vomiting it all.
“Don’t leave again,” she said, her voice now feeble, pleading. Her eyes pinched shut.
Braethen’s mind swam. She needed help. Help he couldn’t give her. But she needed his comfort. He glanced desperately at the door. He could get to Hambley’s in a few minutes. They could be back in ten. The Fieldstone Inn owner might not know what to do, but Braethen was out of ideas.
His ma whimpered. “I’m so hot.”
Braethen grabbed her blouse from the chair and soaked it with the water, then draped it over her neck and forehead in a horseshoe shape. She exhaled with momentary relief.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I love you, Braethen. Whatever happens, I love you.”
“Ma?” he said, panicky. “Don’t say that. It’s just fever. We’ll break it.”
A weak smile touched her lips. “Your warrior soul.”<
br />
He stayed at her side, her body drenching the blanket and sheets and pillow. Her cries growing weaker. Some few words coming, soft and incoherent.
If she could sleep, maybe that will help.
She kept hold of his hand through it all. Until the firm grip loosened.
“Ma?” he said, fear spreading in his chest. “Ma?” He gently shook her shoulder.
Her chest wasn’t moving. And her face was relaxed. Peaceful.
Sitting beside her, his hand held loosely in hers, he silently began to weep. He didn’t know how long he’d been that way when the front door opened. Morning. Da was home.
His father came into the room, a satisfied smile on his face. His readings of his winter’s pen at the festival must have gone well. He’d be brimming with stories to tell.
His face fell slack when he saw them. A’Posian dropped his satchel and rushed to her side. He felt her neck with his fingers. Worry passed to shock. Shock to grief. He shook his head, and looked at Braethen, tears streaming down into his beard.
“Oh my boy, what happened?” his father asked.
Braethen looked into his father’s wounded eyes. “She called to me in the night. I came in.” He broke down, crying. “Da?”
His father put a comforting arm around him, patting his back.
Into the man’s chest he hitched several sobs, and sputtered out what he could. “She was sweating. I thought it was fever. But she said no. She had belly pain, and red cheeks, bloodshot eyes.…”
When Braethen had collected himself, he drew back, and found grief and confusion on his father’s face.
“What, Da?” he asked, wiping his face.
“It sounds like Dagen gripe.” His father’s expression turned questioning.
Then something else settled into his father’s face. Something he didn’t speak. But the look wasn’t mistakable. Disappointment.
But his father never spoke it. He only bent over his beloved and wept. A long while, he wept.
* * *
Riding through the Scar, Braethen’s chest heaved with guilt and sorrow.
In the months after, he’d realized the origin of that look on his father’s face. That disappointment. As part of his apprenticeship, his father had given him physic books to read and understand. Not advanced learnings. But more than general knowledge like willow leaves or balsam root.
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