by Barb Hendee
Chastised, he fell silent and continued dragging the guard, keeping an eye out for anywhere to stow an unconscious body. Unfortunately, the few doorways they passed were open arches—with no actual doors.
Julianna was beginning to pant with effort when she suddenly stopped and pointed to the archway of a small antechamber in the passage. “Let’s just pull him in out of sight and lean him up against the wall. No one will find him for a while.”
While Jan found this suggestion risky, they did need to free themselves for easier movement, so he nodded. “Take my violin and give me his other foot.”
Using both hands, Jan dragged the guard into the antechamber, out of sight, and hoped for the best.
“All right,” he whispered, coming back out. “Let’s find a stairwell down.”
Wordlessly, Julianna walked along beside him down the passage. Near the end, just before the passage made a turn, they came upon a narrow, open archway with a burning torch on each of the sidewalls.
Lifting one of the torches, Jan led the way down a dark set of stairs, going lower and lower until they stepped out into another passage.
“Do you think we’ve reached the cellars?” Julianna asked. “Or could there be another level?”
“I don’t know.”
But he made his way to the second alcove on the right side of the passage and breathed deeply in relief. Inside, there were shelves lining the walls… and the shelves were filled with texts and scrolls.
“This is it… or this is what Nana described to me.”
Julianna looked around by the light of his torch. Her face seemed pale. “Yes… but look at them all. How will we know which one she wants?”
“Which one? Oh, we’ll know. She said it’s in a blue painted scroll case with a silver stopper.”
Turning to him, Julianna shook her head. “Jan… are you telling me that she not only knows its exact location, but what the scroll case looks like?” She paused. “I mean, I understand her not wanting to risk coming down here to steal it herself, but how does she know so many details?”
“I don’t care,” he said again, and he didn’t. “Let’s find it.”
Her concerned expression had not relaxed, but she set his violin case on the floor and moved to help him. As most of the scrolls were in tan-colored cases, they were able to scan the shelves quickly, and Jan found himself beginning to panic by the time he’d completed his third shelf and found nothing remotely close to what Nana had described to him.
“Jan, come here. This book is a fake.”
At the sound of Julianna’s voice, he turned to see her examining a fat text, lying flat on a shelf, that appeared to have thick pages, but as he walked over and looked more closely, he could see the lines of the pages were an illusion.
Reaching out, he lifted the top cover, which was made from wood, and he peered inside. The interior was velvet lined and encased a blue scroll with an etched silver stopper.
“This is it. You found it!”
Her expression was still troubled, and she looked him directly in the eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this, give this to someone capable of killing Rico without a thought? Jan, we don’t even know what it is.”
“We know it’ll save Rico. That’s all that matters.” Taking out the scroll case, he slipped it inside his shirt. “Now, we have to get ourselves out of here. Any ideas?”
Julianna was silent for a moment, staring at his chest where he’d hidden the scroll, and then she answered. “If you can get us back to the front gates, I think I can get Sergeant Greer to let us through.”
That meant attempting to walk out of the castle and through the courtyard with no escort, but Jan had nothing better to suggest.
So, they made their way to the stairwell, and back up the stairs with Julianna carrying her tambourine and Jan carrying his violin case and the torch.
“Wait,” he whispered at the top.
Peering around the corner of the narrow arch, he saw the passage was empty, so he stepped out and placed the torch back in its bracket. After that, they hurried down the north side passage to the entryway, and again, he paused before the main doors. They’d made it this far with relatively little violence—just once unconscious guard—but Jan had no idea if visiting “entertainment” was escorted out as well as in.
As if reading his face, Julianna shrugged.
“We don’t have much choice,” she whispered. “Just walk out as if you know what you’re doing, and if possible, try to look offended.”
“Offended?”
“Just do it.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that, and with a puzzled frown, he opened one door and they stepped out into the courtyard, walking at a steady pace for the front gates. A few guards looked their way, and Julianna smiled coyly as she walked. No one tried to stop them—suggesting that people leaving the castle required less security than anyone trying to come in.
As they reached the open front gates, Sergeant Greer turned and saw them coming. His expression shifted to discomfort, and yet at the same time… he didn’t seem surprised.
“Now,” Julianna whispered. “Try to look put out or offended.”
Still puzzled, Jan did his best, and Julianna went straight up to Greer.
“Commander Rupert was not best pleased with Renaldo and sent us away,” she began and then leaned closer. “He said Renaldo was too… old.”
Jan stiffened. That was her plan? So, he was not only playing the part of a male strumpet, but he was now a rejected male strumpet?
Again, Sergeant Greer shifted uncomfortably, though it appeared he might have been expecting this. Apparently, he knew this Commander Rupert fairly well.
However, then the sergeant became more businesslike and asked Julianna, “Why were you sent away?”
“I wasn’t, but Renaldo is new, and I thought to walk him back to the… house and explain to Madam Clarissa. He didn’t do anything wrong. Your commander is just overly particular.”
Ignoring the last comment, Greer looked toward the doors of the castle. “Where’s your escort? Why didn’t Guardsman Avery come back with you?”
Jan tensed, preparing to take a hard swing with his violin case and yell to Julianna to make a run for it.
But she made a sympathetic face. “He’s still inside… explaining to the commander why Lorenzo isn’t here. I thought it best to leave.” She tilted her head. “I’ll take Renaldo home and come right back. The festivities inside are just beginning. Perhaps you can join us once you’re off duty?”
The sergeant blinked. “Um… yes, perhaps.”
Jan went cold in near disbelief. This was certainly a side of Julianna he had never seen before. Again, he was the performer—the actor—whenever they needed to distract or fool someone else, but she had taken over here… and was doing quite well.
Without asking permission, she stepped past the sergeant and other guards, walked through the gates and out into the city.
Jan followed.
“I told you you’d need me,” she whispered.
He couldn’t bring himself to answer.
He did need her.
Reaching up with his free hand, he touched the scroll inside his shirt. For now though, he needed to save Rico.
· · · · ·
A short while later, Jan walked back into the shabby camp of Nana and her family. He’d come alone after sending Julianna back to his aunt and uncle. She’d argued at first, but he’d engaged her with the task of explaining what had happened. In truth, he didn’t want her anywhere near this middle-aged kettle witch.
Both Nana and Lydia were standing by the fire, and Lydia’s eyes flickered in surprise—and possibly pain. He didn’t have time to wonder at that and walked up to Nana, who stared at him expectantly… eagerly as if he was bringing her a treasure.
“You have it?” she breathed.
Reaching inside his shirt, he withdrew the scroll case, but held it in his grip. “And now Rico will wake? He will be safe?”
Loo
king as if she was struggling to keep from snatching at the scroll, she said quickly, “Yes, yes. That is part of the spell to create the curse… the challenge. Once the challenge is met, the victim will awaken.” Her voice filled with greed. “Put the scroll in my hand!”
With no choice that he could see, Jan reached out and placed the scroll in her long-fingered hand. She clutched it her breast and closing her eyes.
“At last,” she breathed.
Lydia had gone pale, staring at the scene as it played out, and a flicker of discomfort, of uncertainty, passed through him.
“Rico is awake now?” he asked.
“Yes, yes.” Nana waved him away. “Go now.”
She walked swiftly toward her wagon, and Jan stood in place for an instant, before he turned and broke into a jog for the tree line. He was desperate to find out if all this effort, all this risk had been worth it—if indeed, Rico had been saved.
As he reached outskirts of the vast market and was just about to enter, a voice spoke from behind.
“Wait.”
His body jerked to a stop, and he whirled.
Lydia was standing about ten paces away. Though her expression was calm, tears flowed down her face. She looked small standing there in her green dress, almost like a child with large brown eyes.
“You just gave it to her,” she said, “without a question or a thought.”
She sounded too much like Julianna, and he strode back, closing the distance between them.
“What did you expect me to do?” he asked. “You poisoned my cousin. You won his love, and then you fed him cursed wine! Your Nana gave me the only way to save him.”
She winced, and he fell silent. She might only be a puppet in all this too, and he didn’t want to hurt her.
“There is a spell inside that scroll case,” she whispered. “Don’t you want to know what it does?”
His uncertainty, and his unwanted sense of guilt, was increasing. The problem was… he didn’t want to know. He wanted no responsibility in any of this beyond saving Rico.
But she looked so stricken he couldn’t help asking, “What does it do?”
“It will remove a person’s will and replace it with the will of the caster. For now, Nana means to use it on Master Deandre… so he will give us the prime location at the fair. The family has a few skilled performers left to earn money for her.”
Lydia paused and stared at the ground before continuing. “After that, I don’t know what she will do. But she will stop at nothing to gain what she wants. We have lived in poverty for so long while she hunts her spells and uses every penny we earn for her components. This was the spell she has been seeking, the one for which she has forced us to sacrifice so much.”
He wondered about the “sacrifice,” but her presence here confused him more.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
She raised her eyes, and they struck him as haunted. “Did you note a lack of men in our family?” she asked. “Only my aged Uncle Grigory and young Emanuel remain. The rest are all dead… at her bidding, as she ordered them one by one to do what you did tonight, to steal her some spell or scroll.” Her voice filled with bitterness. “My brother went first. She’d heard rumors of a scrying spell created by a male kettle witch near the southern border of Stravina, and she sent my brother after it. He brought her the spell, but to get it, he took a knife wound in the back, and he died the following day.”
“A scrying spell?”
“When she learns of anything new that she might seek, she casts the scrying spell and puts herself into a trance. When she wakes, she knows exactly where the next scroll or spell is located. Once she possessed this ability, she would stop at nothing, and no one in my family had the strength to fight her. She is our leader by right, and we all just obeyed.” The tears on her face flowed more freely. “I loved my brother. He was my friend.”
Without knowing the right thing to say, Jan repeated, “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I never thought you’d succeed. I never thought you’d place that scroll in her hand. You’ve given her to power to remove someone else’s will and replace it with her own.” Lydia turned away. “I cannot imagine what she will do with such power. I wanted you to know what you’ve done.”
She began to walk away, and he realized this wasn’t over. He couldn’t allow it be over.
“Lydia,” he called.
She stopped with her back to him.
“Where does Nana keep all her stolen spells?”
The girl was silent for a long moment, and then: “Our wagon. She keeps them in our wagon.”
Without another word, she vanished into the trees.
Jan stood there for a while, uncertain how long, and then continued to the outskirts of the market, to the unkempt Móndyalítko wagons at the back. The first person he saw was an aged woman stoking a fire, and he walked up to her.
Digging into his pocket, he removed a small silver coin his father had sent with him.
“Old mother,” he said politely, using a common greeting of the Móndyalítko. “My family has run low on oil. Might I trade this coin for a flask?”
The coin he offered her would purchase a barrel of oil, and her eyes lifted to his face.
“I need it,” he said softly. “Will you trade me?”
“Of course, my son,” she answered, going to a wooden box of supplies and taking out a flask. “But you offer too much.”
“This is for your kindness and trouble.” He handed her the silver coin and looked to a candle lantern hanging off the back of her wagon. “And may I borrow that? I promise to return it soon.”
One of her bushy gray eyebrows rose in an unspoken question, but she clutched the coin in her hand and nodded to him.
“I’ll bring it back,” he told her, lifting it down.
She watched him as he closed the shutter on the lantern and headed back into the tree line, back toward Nana’s camp.
What he was about to do troubled him, but after what Lydia had told him, he couldn’t simply return to his family. As much as he hated feeling responsible for a heartless woman having obtained a tool of great power, he was responsible, and he could not leave things as they were.
As he reached the clearing, he stopped behind a spruce tree, peering out. Lydia and Nana were not in sight, but the other three women, the little girl, the youth called Emanuel, and the aging man, Grigory, were all at their own campfire near the second wagon. A few small tents had been set up, and Jan wondered if perhaps everyone except Nana and Lydia lived out of the second wagon.
Nana’s dwelling was much closer to him, just a few paces away, with its own larger campfire—along with the cauldron and iron hook. In the darkness, he slipped up behind the wagon.
Through an open window, he heard voices.
“I’m going to need mandrake root,” Nana said. “Can you get it for me?”
“Yes, Nana,” Lydia answered in an emotionless voice.
Both women were inside.
Carefully and quietly, Jan open the flask of oil and began dousing the back of the wagon. When the flask was empty, he crouched down out of sight of anyone across the camp, and he opened the shutter on the lantern to remove the lit candle inside.
Then he ignited the oil.
Flame began to spread rapidly, and when he was certain the fire would become a blaze, he ran out around the side of the wagon and shouted.
“Fire!”
Gasps and a panicked cry sounded from inside, following by shuffling and something being knocked over. Lydia came running out first, nearly flying through the door. Nana came out next, but she clutched the blue scroll case and several pieces of rolled parchment.
Jan struck in a flash, before she even saw him coming. He grabbed everything in her hands and threw it all onto her campfire.
“No!” she screamed when she saw what he’d done, and she ran toward the campfire.
Instantly, he caught her from behind, pinning her arms and lifti
ng her off the ground. She screamed and fought him, struggling uselessly to break free as the scroll and parchments burned. Behind them, he could hear the blaze of the flames engulfing the back half of the wagon.
Lydia stood a short distance away, just watching him. She said nothing, nor did she move to try and help her grandmother. Across the camp, the other family members were on their feet, watching in silence as well. No one interfered.
When the scroll and parchments were burned black, he let Nana go and stepped away, loath to touch her any longer than necessary.
She whirled to see her wagon ablaze, but her eyes were wild, mad, and before he realized what was happening, she ran for the wagon door.
“My spells!” she cried. “All the rest!”
She was through the door before he even thought to move, and then he bolted to go after her. The wagon was burning on three sides, and the night wind fed the flames.
“No!” Lydia cried, running between him and the door. “She is not worth your death!”
Jan stopped. The doorway was on fire, and wagon was completely engulfed. Over the roar he thought he heard a scream.
“She’s not worth anyone’s death,” Lydia said.
He’d not meant to kill tonight, but had he? Had he killed Nana or had she killed herself? He wasn’t sure.
The other family members came over, and in silence everyone watched the rest of the wagon burn.
Jan had left them without a leader, and with only one dwelling for seven people. When Nana’s wagon was nothing but smoldering blackened remnants, he turned to Lydia.
“I’ll bring food, supplies, and blankets from our own camp,” he said. “This is my doing.”
Her gaze was on the remains of her home. “I don’t blame you. You only did what the rest of us could not.”
She was a strange, composed young woman. Perhaps she had been through so much in the past few years that little affected her anymore.
He was about to draw her away when shouting and footsteps sounded from the trees.
“There!” a familiar voice shouted. “I smell smoke over there!”
A moment later, Rico burst through the tree line with wild eyes. Uncle Rosario, Aunt Doreena, and Julianna came running behind.