The Story Peddler

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  The former captain was probably the least forthcoming of all the secret-keepers around this Corsyth, except when he and Dylun got to arguing with each other. He was handsome, I supposed, but those cold blue eyes of his—there was something behind them. Something lost, maybe?

  No, not lost. Wounded.

  Farmer Bradwir had taught me wounded animals were dangerous. They were like as not to lash out and hurt those trying to help them.

  So naturally, I decided to poke this wounded animal with a stick to try to figure out what was wrong with him.

  “Warmil?” I made my voice sound as sweet and safe as I possibly could.

  He didn’t answer me. Just tore another piece of bread off the half-loaf he was eating.

  I raised my voice a bit. “Captain?”

  “Hmm?” He turned to me, eyes wide like I’d startled him. “Yes?”

  “How old are you?”

  He paused like he had to think about it. “Thirty-seven last moon.”

  I fairly choked on my dinner. Thirty-seven! Nearly as old as Farmer Bradwir. And I’d just thought the captain was handsome.

  “Well, I guess the silver hair should’ve given you away, but I didn’t realize you were so old.”

  He frowned at me.

  My cheeks heated. “No disrespect or anything. But I’ve seen young lads in the guard with silvery hair before. Not since I was a lass, though. Ma-Bradwir said it was the hard life of fighting wars that turned their hair gray. But now there aren’t wars to fight. Just peasants to bully, and I guess that doesn’t turn a lad’s hair silver before its time.”

  Warmil’s lips pressed together a moment. “No, I don’t guess so.”

  “Bet you didn’t bully anybody back when you were in the guard.”

  “No, I certainly did not.”

  I paused to look at him another second. “You’re not from the peninsula.”

  “The Western Wildlands, actually.”

  “Oh!” I leaned forward. “I’ve never met a Wildlander! What’s it like there?”

  He swallowed his bread. “Would you be satisfied if I said ‘wild’?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He sighed but humored me. “The land isn’t any good for farming, but it’s rich in minerals Gareth wants. So that’s how he bleeds us dry.”

  “Do you come from a mining family?”

  “Aye. Like most Wildlanders.”

  “But you didn’t become a miner.”

  “No, I joined the guard.” He picked up a stick from the ground and tossed it into the fire. “Back when it meant something different.”

  “Caradoc was still on the throne?”

  “Yes. I joined up when I was fourteen. Caradoc had a good many years left at that point. Joining gave me the chance to study in Urian, which I’d always wanted to do. I couldn’t get enough of it once I started. Learning and fighting.” He stared hard into the fire. “But now I’d just as soon forget everything I know. Useless.”

  “Useless?” I thought of what it would be like to read all the books in Urian. I’d grown up surrounded by a fair handful in Father’s study, but I couldn’t even fathom the libraries of Urian.

  Dylun’s voice surprised me. “Warmil Bo-Awirth is a dangerous sort of fellow.”

  I looked across the fire at the Meridioni, but his eyes weren’t filled with anger this time. Only thoughtfulness.

  Dylun leaned back against a tree trunk. “He’s the type who knows everything and believes in nothing.”

  Warmil spared Dylun a glance, flat as a hotcake. “Indeed.”

  “Well,” I said, “that doesn’t seem true to me. If you believe in nothing, why do you care about getting rid of Gareth or getting freedom for weavers? Seems a man with nothing to believe in would be fine with everything staying the way it is.”

  For the first time since I started poking around in Warmil’s mind, Aeron glanced up. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze fixed hard on Warmil like she wanted to say something. Or maybe like she wanted to run across the circle and hold him in her arms.

  Probably both.

  “Redemption,” Warmil said. “I need redemption, and that’s why I care about those things.”

  “Redemption.” I didn’t know the word.

  “I need to redeem myself. That is, I need to make amends for something I’ve done.”

  “Redemption.” I liked the way that word felt in my mouth.

  “Yes. And I desire the kind of redemption a person needs when he’s failed so miserably his life will be forfeit without it.”

  “So you failed at something?” If I was a betting lass, I’d wager this was the wounded part. “You failed and now you think you need to make up for it.”

  That reminded me of a certain pirate. I glanced at Mor. He was looking straight my way.

  Warmil went on. “I don’t think I need it. I must have it.” His words spiked edgier than a prickle-back on a poker.

  I thought about the idea of someone redeeming himself. What if he had to make some sort of payment every time he didn’t succeed in the mission his commander gave him, or he was bested in sword training, or he didn’t polish his armor shiny enough?

  Or she didn’t sell enough stories?

  Or she snapped at Brac?

  Or her big mouth ran away with her again?

  The thought was unsettling enough to make me shift on the log where I sat.

  “Seems to me—” I began.

  “Uh oh,” Mor said. “Something seems to Tanwen again. Everyone beware.”

  I made a face at him but kept on. “If your whole life is about measuring up, you’re in for a load of trouble, aren’t you? I mean, there wouldn’t be a person in Tir with any friends left if we all expected perfection of plain ol’ people all the time.”

  Karlith laughed. “The lass speaks truth, Warmil. Whether she means to or not.”

  Warmil turned to face Karlith. “I respect your faith, Karlith, because I respect you. And out of that respect, I’ll say nothing further.”

  Karlith’s eyes turned sad, though she smiled still. “For all your book learning, you’d think you would understand about the Creator. Funny thing, that.”

  “Just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean I fail to understand.”

  Karlith’s smile brought Ma-Bradwir’s motherly ways to mind. “I’ll always pray that the Creator’s love will find you, Warmil. Or that you’ll find it. I don’t see how you’ll ever be free from your fetters otherwise.”

  Warmil’s mouth pulled into an even grimmer line until his lips fairly disappeared. “Noted.”

  “What did you do that was so bad, Warmil?” It bounced out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  The grim line of Warmil’s mouth collapsed into a grimace.

  I shook my head. “You don’t have to tell me. My big mouth just runs on without my brain sometimes. Pay it no mind.”

  “No.” He brushed crumbs from his trousers like he was calm inside, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s just as well that you know so you’re aware what sort of man you share a camp with.”

  He seemed to be swallowing—gathering his courage. “It was after Gareth’s rise. Everything had changed already. Caradoc’s guard was a distant memory, and the new sort of guard had been mobilized to fight Gareth’s wars for several years. My unit was . . . different than the others. The men didn’t like Gareth’s policies. We weren’t the only ones, of course. There were many soldiers across Tir who’d sworn to protect the realm, not die on a distant battlefield to satisfy the new king’s lust for land.

  “But my men were too vocal about it. My fault, of course, because I was too vocal about it. They followed me.”

  My throat tightened. “So what happened?”

  “We were dispatched to the Haribian front.” The captain flinched. “But we never made it. And I abandoned my lads to die at the hands of their own countrymen.”

  “That’s not how it happened!” Aeron cried. Fire might have started shooting from her eyes for how
they blazed. “That isn’t the whole story, Captain.”

  Warmil shrugged, and suddenly it seemed he’d found something really interesting on the forest floor.

  Aeron’s face hardened. Her features were severe in any case, and even more so when she got riled up—but somehow she was full of a fierce sort of beauty.

  And she turned that fiery gaze on me, like I’d accused the captain of cowardice or something. “We were ambushed. Urian wanted us silenced, and they accomplished it. Simple as that.”

  “But I . . .” The words died on Warmil’s tongue. His fists clenched by his side.

  The knuckles on all ten of his fingers whitened. Then—no mistaking it—they began to glow. Warmil’s face pulled and his jaw clenched.

  On the other side of the circle, Mor rose. “War—”

  Then Aeron practically shouted, “It wasn’t your fault!”

  Warmil’s clenched fists slammed into the rock where he sat. Explosions of color burst down the boulder and scattered across the Corsyth floor so far that I couldn’t see the end of the color trail.

  The captain spit out the words. “I abandoned my men. All dead, except Aeron.”

  I craned my neck to look at what the colormaster had made.

  Across the fallen leaves and jutting roots of the trees, dozens of bodies lay. Not a perfect reflection, like Dylun’s pictures had been. These pictures writhed—stretched and twisted, as if the world had been spinning when the images were made.

  Gaping mouths frozen in silent screams.

  Bodies torn open; blood splashed everywhere.

  The banner of Tir draped across the corpses.

  Warmil’s mouth worked. His fists clenched and unclenched. “All those lads . . .”

  The way he said “lads” finally made something click in my mind. They’d been his family. He’d cared for them like an older brother might. And how would Brac feel if all the wee ones in Farmer Bradwir’s brood were murdered and Brac felt he’d led to its happening?

  In that moment, Warmil began to make sense to me. And I pitied him.

  I forced my eyes away from the battle scene on the ground and closed them tight. I dug into my memory and pulled up a day that hid there, tucked away safe. Early autumn last year, just as the winds were cooling and the Menfor Sea wasn’t fit for swimming anymore.

  Brac and I stood on the pebbly beach below the cliffs of Pembrone. He’d said something to me. I couldn’t remember what. In my mind’s eye, his mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear the sound. Must have been jesting, though, because I threw back my head and laughed. Brac beamed. And the breeze whipped through his straw-colored hair, loosed from his tail while we rested after a long day of harvest.

  I set my mind harder on that breeze until I could feel it about my face and working through my hair.

  My eyes fluttered open back at the Corsyth. Story strands so clear I couldn’t see them but for the way they made the light shimmer curled through the air. My laughter and Brac’s carried on the strands, and the breeze of them ruffled the leaves on the ground.

  I squinted and directed them down. The wind quivered through the leaves, turning them over and around. In a moment, Warmil’s painting of anguished death had fairly vanished, and clean leaves settled back into place on the forest floor.

  Karlith reached out and touched Warmil’s arm. “See that, Captain Bo-Awirth?” she said softly. “All things made new. Redeemed.”

  Chapter 24

  Braith

  Braith stood before the king’s door. Her hand was poised to knock, but she hesitated.

  Had enough time passed since council? She had taken her evening meal in her chambers the previous night, then avoided the king’s table for breakfast this morning. But would she find him angry still about her call for mercy the previous day?

  Braith almost turned to leave. But no. She must find it if she could. The king’s behavior had become too troublesome to ignore.

  She rapped on the door.

  The wooden barrier creaked on its hinges. The face of Baedden, the king’s bodyguard, appeared in the opening. He grunted.

  The towering man never spoke more than a rumble or two.

  Braith fixed her features into a pleasant mask. “Good morning, Baedden. Is my father available?”

  Baedden paused, glanced over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Braith and nodded once. He opened the door fully and allowed her access to the king’s front chamber.

  Oil lamps dotted the walls of King Gareth’s room. The firelight shimmered along the scar that stretched the length of Baedden’s face on the left side.

  Braith shuddered.

  Baedden escorted her to the door of the king’s study. His face bunched into a scowl and he nodded to the door.

  Braith inclined her head. “Thank you, sir.”

  She used “sir” in the loosest sense of the word. Baedden was nothing more than a gruff mercenary.

  Braith knocked on the study door. “Father?”

  Silence.

  She tried again. “Majesty?”

  Movement stirred within the study. Then his brusque voice. “Yes?”

  Braith steeled herself and entered the room. The king stood behind his huge desk, fingers drumming the polished writing surface. He stared at the floor and mumbled to himself. He had not changed from his dressing robe.

  Braith frowned. “Father?”

  The king started like he’d forgotten anyone had been at the door. “Oh, hello, darling.”

  Darling. Did that mean she’d been forgiven?

  She smiled. “How are you this morning, Father?”

  “Unwell, Braith.” His face twisted into a troubled grimace. “Quite unwell.”

  Braith hesitated. It seemed the events of afternoon council the previous day had been forgotten. Perhaps it was best not to bring it up. But if he was still offended, better to apologize now than feel his wrath later.

  “I hope you are not unwell on account of me, Your Majesty,” Braith said.

  “What?” The king’s stormy gray eyes lifted from the floor and he turned to her. “You, darling?”

  “Our disagreement at council yesterday.”

  “Oh, that.” The king waved his hand. “No, no.”

  “Oh.” Braith paused a moment, frowning. Then she crossed the room toward the king and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Then something else troubles you.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured. “Nothing to be done about that.”

  He seemed to speak more to the late-morning air beyond the glass panes than to Braith. After a moment, he gave a fierce shake of his head and resumed pacing. Braith’s hand slipped from his shoulder.

  Then his voice boomed so suddenly, Braith jumped. “It is the disloyalty of my people that troubles me.”

  “Disloyalty, Your Majesty?”

  “Do my armies not protect the people of Tir? Do my temples not keep the people pious and holy before their goddesses? Did I not expand the boundaries of their empire, fill their homes with slaves and servants? Do I not allow them to farm the land that belongs to me?” His fist slammed to the desk. “Why do they not love me?”

  Braith swallowed hard. “They fear you, Majesty. Is it possible to have both the love and the fear of your people? I think it must, perhaps, be one or the other.”

  The king scratched his beard. “Yes.” He nodded. “They fear me. And fear is better.”

  “Is it? They cower when they could be kissing your hand. If you had their love, you would also have their loyalty. Is that not better than their terror?”

  “It is much too late for love and loyalty. That time has passed,” the king said sharply. Before Braith could respond, he turned to her. “Braith, your virtues do you credit. But you must temper them if you are to rule one day, which you surely will after I’m gone. We must find you a strong husband. You will rule well together, he as the enforcer king and you the diplomatic queen. Just as you and I rule well together.”

  Braith stiffened. “A strong, ruthless husband—like Sir
Dray Bo-Anffir?”

  The king seemed to pay no attention to the name. “Yes, a strong husband is in order. You’ll carry my mantle well after I’m gone. With him by your side.”

  “Naturally.”

  The king turned back toward the window. “It is important, Braith.”

  Braith glanced at the king’s desk. There. Right on top, easily accessible. “Yes, Father.” She reached for the parchment—what she had come for.

  “Yes . . .” He moved as if to turn back around.

  She froze, fingers outstretched toward his desk.

  But he paused another moment, and Braith took her chance. She snatched the parchment and slipped it into the wide sleeve of her gown just in time as the king turned away from the window.

  “Was there anything else?”

  Braith inclined her head slightly. “No, Your Majesty. I’ll retire to my chambers now. Cameria will see to luncheon before council. I just . . . couldn’t bear it if things were uneasy between us for long.”

  The king patted her on the cheek. “Farewell, my dear. I’ll see you at council.”

  Braith curtsied and then slipped from the room. She brushed past Baedden, who barely spared her a parting glance, then skittered into the hallway.

  The parchment in her hand seemed to burn a hole through her palm—it was the first thing she had ever stolen.

  She rounded the corner toward the east wing of the palace. And slammed bodily into a mass of purple velvet robes. Naith Bo-Offriad.

  The parchment fluttered from her hand to the stone floor.

  “Forgive me, Highness.” Naith straightened his robe and smoothed hair that didn’t exist on top of his head. “I did not see you.”

  Braith steadied herself. “Your Holiness.” The calm of her voice belied the rattling breath in her lungs.

  The stolen item lay on the ground in full view several feet away. The king’s writing and wax seal were recognizable on the back, even from Braith’s distance.

  “There is no apology necessary, Your Holiness,” she continued. “I was not minding my steps as I ought to have been.”