by Hilari Bell
She shook her head and walked away, obviously expecting me to follow. She’d read too many ballads—a habit Michael shares but I don’t. She reached the door, realized I wasn’t behind her, and came back. She looked quite surprised that I hadn’t followed the script.
“What lady?” I repeated patiently.
She leaned forward as if imparting some vital secret. “Lady Kathryn Sevenson, Sir Michael’s sister. She must speak with you. Urgently!”
I thought this over. Lady Kathryn and I had met, briefly, a few months ago. She seemed a sensible girl—though the sense of any fourteen-year-old is questionable. She’d asked me to look after her crazy brother, though she hadn’t phrased it quite that plainly either. She’d also been careful of my pride when she’d lent me her brother Benton’s second-best doublet. Her father had no doubt forbidden her to contact me…which was as good a reason as any to go visit her.
The maid led me through the winter dusk to Willowere’s other inn and pointed to a second-story window that glowed gold in the gathering darkness.
“That’s her room,” she whispered. “There’s a ladder in the stable yard.”
And, no doubt, half a dozen grooms and stableboys to watch me putting it up—not to mention the guests who might look out a window or come outside to use the privy.
“How did you get out? Main door, or back entrance?”
She looked surprised again. “I used the back entrance. It’s closest to the servants’ stair.”
“Excellent. Go in the same way, and signal when the hallway is empty, will you?”
I waited only a few minutes before she returned to the back door and waved me in.
To judge by the sounds from the kitchen, they were washing up. I neither crept nor ran down the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor, but walked as if I belonged there. If anyone asked my business, I could make something up. I might even tell them the truth—there was no reason I shouldn’t speak to Lady Kathryn, though her father might not agree. I didn’t give a tinker’s curse for what the baron wanted.
Lady Kathryn, of course, didn’t feel that way. The door whisked open at my knock, and she grabbed my doublet and pulled me into the room so fast I stumbled. The parlor was a pleasant room, with firelight flickering over the well-padded sofa and chairs and several branches of candles illuminating an embroidery frame that must belong to the baroness. Lady Kathryn appeared to have been hemming handkerchiefs, and I pitied whoever had to use them.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly, pushing up the gold-rimmed spectacles that had slipped down her nose. “But if someone tells Father you’re here, we won’t have time to talk. What under two moons does Michael think he’s doing?”
Her straight, mousy hair was drifting free from its pins. In the manner of adolescents in the stringy stage, she seemed to have grown taller in the few months since I’d last seen her. But she hadn’t changed in any other way, and her candor demanded an honest answer.
“He thinks he’s doing the honorable thing,” I replied. “But it isn’t only that—this is his way of getting out of the second half of your father’s conditions.” For the terms of Michael’s redemption had been not only that he must bring Lady Ceciel back, but that once he’d done so he must abandon knight errantry and take up the sensible career the baron had chosen for him. There were times when I felt some sympathy for the baron’s point of view, but this wasn’t one of them.
“Being Rupert’s steward? He’d rather be unredeemed? That’s insane! Rupert’s an idiot, but he’s not that bad. Of course, Michael’s an idiot, too. Master Fisk, what are we going to do?”
“Not a thing, unless you can get your father to change his mind. And what under two moons does he think he’s doing? Once this is done, it can’t be undone. Ever.”
“Actually, it can.” She turned and paced restlessly, up and down the carpet. “I looked it up when I realized what might happen. The High Liege can declare a debt redeemed. They’ve even got some way to remove the tattoos. But the book I read said it had been done only four times since the first High Liege put an end to the great wars, and not at all in the last century, so ’twould be a lot better if we could stop if from happening in the first place.”
“Tell your father that.” I sat down and made myself comfortable. This was going to take a while.
“I tried! Even Mother tried! She talked about the disgrace to the family, and Rosamund cried at him. But he still thinks he can force Michael to do what he wants. He was furious when he heard you were coming back without that Ceciel woman. He thinks if Michael is unredeemed, no one will hire him except Rupert, so he’ll have no choice but to come home and do what he’s told or starve!” As she spun to pace back toward me, her skirts caught the bundle of handkerchiefs and knocked them to the floor. “Then Rupert spoke up, which was quite brave because he never argues with Father. He said if Michael didn’t want to be a steward, then he didn’t want to hire him. But Father said that being unredeemed wouldn’t matter if Michael were home where everyone knows him, and that he’d be better off even unredeemed than wandering the countryside getting into lunatic scrapes, and that once he grew up and settled into the job, he’d be all right.” She was breathless by the time she finished, and her eyes searched my face intently. Looking for hope, I suppose.
I rose and picked up the handkerchiefs. “The baron doesn’t know his son very well, does he?”
Kathryn blinked hard, but didn’t cry. “He’s stubborn. And he really believes what he’s doing is right.”
“Which one of them?”
That made her smile, though it looked strained. “Mother and Father are dining with Lord Dorian—smoothing him down, Mother says. He’s furious, too, but that’s because of some stupid tax thing. Master Fisk, could you talk to Michael? Father’s going to see him later—try to talk him out of it one last time. He told Mother if Michael would just bring that Ceciel woman back, he’d pronounce him redeemed no matter how angry it made Lord Dorian. If you could persuade Michael…” But her voice held no conviction. I shook my head and put the handkerchiefs back on the table. Kathryn grimaced. “I’m supposed to be hemming. Mother says it’s the best way to learn smooth stitches. She’s going to check my progress when she gets back.” She prodded the bundle. “Curse the wretched stuff. Master Fisk, what are we going to do?”
“Hemming.” I took a needle and thread from the sewing kit and started on a near-finished handkerchief, taking care to reproduce Kathryn’s awkward stitches as best I could. “No reason for you to get in trouble too.”
“I mean about Michael.”
“If neither Michael nor your father will change his mind, there’s nothing you can do. I know how much you care.” I made my voice as gentle as I could, which was hard, for my seething frustration matched hers. “But you’re only fourteen—”
“Fifteen.” She lifted her chin defiantly.
“No difference,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
I finished the handkerchief she’d started and picked up another. Sewing has always soothed me, probably because I learned it from my mother, who was a soothing sort of woman. Then I thought, despite myself, of my own father. No matter how much he had harmed his family unintentionally, he would never deliberately have hurt anyone, least of all his own children.
You must come home at once. For the thousandth time, I wished I’d never received that letter. Or that I’d gotten it years from now, when it couldn’t possibly matter. Or two and a half months ago, before I’d met my idiot employer.
“You’re of age.” The challenge in Lady Kathryn’s voice drew me back to the present. “And you’re a crim—” She went scarlet from collar to hairline. Then she drew a deep breath and her voice firmed. “A criminal. You could get him out of jail, couldn’t you?”
In fact, I wouldn’t turn eighteen for several weeks. But I was a criminal. I finished one side and stitched around a corner.
“I might,” I said finally. “Though that’s a lot chancier than you
seem to think. The problem is, even if I do break him out, there’s a better than even chance he wouldn’t go.”
Kathryn’s mouth twisted in rueful agreement, and she sat abruptly.
“I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to get him to see sense,” I went on with rising passion. “But the idiot wouldn’t listen. He believes in the law.” It still sounded insane to me. I stitched around another corner. “And he’s as stubborn as they come. So you see, there’s nothing either of us can do.”
But that didn’t stop us from discussing it for almost an hour, sharing our anger and dismay. We might have talked longer if Kathryn hadn’t looked down at my work and started to giggle. Caught up in the conversation, I’d been making my usual neat, tiny stitches—we had to pick the seams out of three handkerchiefs and redo them before I left.
The next morning, ironically, dawned clear and calm—a beautiful day for a tattooing. There wasn’t much to pack, for we traveled light. I led Tipple and Chanticleer into a shadowy alley on the side of the market square. I didn’t think anyone was likely to recognize me, or Michael’s horses, but caution is one of my few virtues. Unlike my employer.
Eight deputies surrounded Michael when they led him into the square. He wore only his boots, britches, and the shirt I’d mended—not enough, for it was chilly despite the bright sun. On the surface he looked as composed as he had yesterday, but his eyes showed the shadows of a sleepless night.
Neither he nor his father had yielded. I hadn’t expected it, but it still made me angry. At both of them.
A sullen murmur rose from the crowd, and Michael looked around, eyes widening in astonishment. He’d never been hated before. Get used to it, Noble Sir. I’d spent the last three weeks trying to warn him, but had he listened?
I found precious little satisfaction in being right.
A mushy snowball splattered against one of the platform’s supports as they led Michael up the steps. There was only one judicar today. A plump, nervous-looking man who hadn’t dared to speak up yesterday in Lord Dorian’s presence. I was pleased when, free of his liege lord, he stepped forward and glared at the crowd until the rustle of movement settled.
The only other person on the platform was a neat, older man who looked like a notary. I wondered whom they’d roped into the job—he might be the town’s executioner, for all I knew. On the small table beside him sat a needle, a paintbrush, and a bottle of ink.
The guards hovered close as the moment approached, bravely prepared to see justice done, no matter what it took. They looked rather disconcerted when Michael sat down, rolled up his sleeves, and laid his arm on the table without fuss.
He chose this, I told myself fiercely. He could have gone home and become his brother’s steward. We’d even had Ceciel in our hands. (Though hauling an unwilling woman cross-country for three weeks might have been a bit dicey.) But he’d chosen to let her go. I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d tried. I had tried! It was his choice.
The older man was probably some sort of healer, for he washed the inside of Michael’s arm carefully before he dipped the brush in the ink and made two small strokes. The platform was so high that no one could see the mark, but we all knew what it looked like—two broken circles, interlocked, like half-open links of a chain. The symbol was so old, no one truly knew its origin, though scholars speculated that they represented the two moons, and that once the Gods had had some part in this. Though it was hard to see how the Gods of animals and plants could be involved in a matter of man’s justice.
Whatever their origin, the circles now stood only for a broken debt. A ripple of nasty satisfaction swelled as the ink was laid down, but this time Michael ignored the crowd, staring at his wrist with fixed fascination. He seemed not even to notice as the older man took up the needle, though I saw the muscles in his shoulders tense as it pricked.
It looked strangely painless for such a dire punishment. The needle rose and fell rapidly, driving ink into the skin, and the old man worked for several minutes before he took up a clean towel to wipe away a trace of blood. After ten minutes it became obvious this was going to take a while, and that as spectacles went this was neither bloody nor dramatic. The crowd began to break up, as people who had better things to do left to do them. I was sorry to see them go—the ones who stayed were the ones who’d come with intent.
The old tattooist gave Michael’s wrist a final rub with the towel, inspecting his work before he released it. Michael pressed it against his stomach as if it stung, but he yielded his other arm without protest. The old man was washing it when the next snowball flew.
It passed over Michael’s head, and the guards, who’d abandoned their official postures and were standing about quite casually, ducked aside. But this time, instead of glaring the crowd into submission, the judicar moved himself to the far end of the platform, out of range. The next snowball splattered messily against Michael’s shoulder. It was half melted, as much mud as snow, and he flinched when it hit.
The guards looked expectantly at the judicar. He looked aside. Lord Dorian owned this one, all right.
The snow/mud balls came frequently after that, interspersed with rotten fruit—apples mostly. I promised myself that if it came to stones, I’d go fetch the judicar who’d spoken up yesterday; but it never did.
Michael endured in grim silence, his face set.
The guards followed their superior’s example and backed out of range, but the tattooist had no such option. Though he winced at the splatters, he took care to keep Michael’s arm clean. Finally one man with particularly bad aim caught the tattooist squarely, and he stalked over to the judicar, expostulating. I was too far off to hear what he said.
The judicar shrugged and spoke to the guards, and six of them scattered into the crowd, forcing people to drop their hoards of fruit or snow.
With the disruption stopped, the tattooist finished quickly. Michael stood and nodded courteously to the man, though at that point I’m not sure Michael knew what he was doing. The guards marched him off the platform and escorted him out of the square. A full score of rowdies followed, yelling taunts and obscenities. I hoped the guards would stick around for a while.
I swung into the saddle and was about to go after them when someone clutched my boot. I yelped and jumped, but it was only Lady Kathryn. She wore a servant’s drab gown and a determined expression. Her face was whiter than Michael’s, which was saying quite a lot.
“This is all I could get.” The purse she pushed into my hand jingled, but it was too light to hold much gold. “Write to me, Fisk. Promise. Whenever you’re in one place long enough to get a letter, I’ll write back.”
The odds that Michael would be able to stay in one place long enough to carry on a correspondence were small, and I couldn’t help her, but what I said was, “Hasn’t your father forbidden you to write to Michael?”
The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Of course he has. That’s why I’m writing to you. And if you choose to share my letters with someone, I can hardly prevent it, can I?”
I grinned despite the seriousness of the situation, and her smile grew wider, though there was more anger in it than joy.
“If Father’s so fond of the letter of the law, it seems only fair to give him a taste of his own medicine. Promise me, Fisk.”
I couldn’t promise, and Michael had passed out of sight. “I’ll do what I can.” Kicking Tipple into motion, I followed my lunatic employer.
I urged Tipple to a canter, and we passed through the gang of rowdies before they had a chance to do anything. The guardsmen eyed me uneasily as we trotted up, but I simply fell in behind them, and soon they ignored me. Michael stared ahead, ignoring everything, walking straight through the slushy puddles unless one of the guards pulled him around them.
The guardsmen stayed with Michael until the rowdies gave up and returned to town, and I was grateful. We could have outrun the mob on horseback, but getting Michael into the saddle might have posed a problem. I wondered whose orders
the guards were obeying. His father’s? Lord Dorian certainly wouldn’t do Michael any favors.
I brought Tipple up to Michael as the guardsmen turned back. He kept walking, like a puppet under the control of some relentless master, for a dozen more yards. I was about to speak to him, though I don’t know what I’d have said, but it proved unnecessary. A bridge rose in the road before us, crossing a small river, and Michael’s steps quickened. He turned off the road and marched through the thick, dead grass, hardly breaking stride to pull off his boots. He stumbled down the bank and waded into the river, which rose to mid thigh, and then knelt and ducked his head beneath the water.
I’d only a moment to become alarmed, for he surfaced shortly, scrubbing his hair. His recently mended shirt drifted down the stream as he washed his arms and chest, followed by his stockings and britches. I contemplated the probable temperature of the water and decided it was no part of a squire’s duties to retrieve them.
I did get out a dark wool blanket and threw it over Chanticleer’s saddle in the hope that his big body and the sun would warm it. I also scraped the mud off Michael’s boots. I was glad he hadn’t worn them into the water—he hadn’t another pair.
The cold drove Michael out quickly, and even so his skin was mottled red and blue. The black circles on his wrist stood out boldly. As I took his hand to pull him up the bank, he looked at them curiously.
“W-w-w-well, at l-l-least th-th-that’s over.” His teeth were chattering so hard, he barely got the words out, but his voice sounded natural. I grabbed the blanket and tossed it to him, trying to conceal my surging relief.
“You’ll just have to learn to keep your shirt on, Noble Sir. But you have to do that, anyway.” Which he did, for the scars of a flogging, no matter how nobly acquired, were almost as incriminating as the tattoos. Between them, Michael would never convince anyone he wasn’t the most vicious criminal unhanged.
He was trying to dry himself without unwrapping the blanket, a task of some difficulty, but at that he frowned and said, “No longer noble—nor sir, neither. But I still won’t conceal my shame. ’Twould be a lie.”