Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “To say the least,” Loren added, and the captain nodded grimly.

  “Our destination is here,” he said, pointing at a spot nestled within the mountains. “A small village near the mine heads. We’ll stay there tonight, and from there”—he gestured at the map, sweeping his hand over the green expanse at the top of the sheet, only rarely broken by roads and even more rarely by towns—“we’re truly on our own.”

  III

  I SET TO WORK the next morning still thinking about Lazarus Took, and To the Four Directions. Castle intrigue? A quest? Sure, it was hoary old material, but he had hooked me again, just like he had when I was a kid.

  I managed to push the thoughts to the back of my mind while I wrote, but after that I surrendered. I went back to LazarusTook.com and clicked through to the Biography page.

  Shining Swords and Steel

  The Road to Honour

  The World a Stage

  Long Journey Home

  No mention of To the Four Directions. If it weren’t for the familiar style, I might have wondered if there was another Lazarus Took. Why wasn’t there any mention of the book here, or in any of the bibliographies I had found? I had certainly never heard of Alexander Press, but you would think that the webmaster of the official Lazarus Took website would have.

  Well, nothing like going to the source.

  I clicked on “Contact Us.”

  To: info@lazarustook.com

  From: Christopher Knox

  Subject: Lazarus Took details

  Good morning –

  I recently stumbled across your website and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all your hard work. It is very difficult to find any information about Lazarus Took, and I was thrilled to see that he has not been forgotten.

  Took was one of my favourite authors when I was a child, and now my son has started reading his books.

  As a freelance journalist and writer, I am fascinated by Took’s story (as well-told in your scrupulously researched Biography page), and I am considering writing a piece on “forgotten” writers whose work continues to have an impact on those fortunate enough to find it. Would it be possible for me to interview you regarding Took and his work? Or, at the very least, consult with you on background for the story? Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

  With best regards,

  Christopher Knox

  I added the most significant lines as a postscript, hoping they would read as a casual afterthought:

  PS: While I’ve got your attention: I’ve always wondered, did Lazarus Took only write the four novels that you list? Did he ever work under a pseudonym? Did he leave any unpublished papers at the time of his death?

  Thanks, CK

  I sent the message and leaned back in my chair.

  That would do for the moment; if anyone was likely to know about To the Four Directions it would be someone at Took’s official website. If they even bothered to reply.

  In the meantime, though, it was still early enough to read a bit of the book while David got ready for school. And then maybe have a wander downtown.

  That sounded like the start of a good day.

  Coming out of the garrison captain’s quarters, Dafyd was surprised to find the mustering area full not of soldiers, but of miners. It took him only a moment to see through the disguise, but the deception had worked. The men were in clothes tattered and greyed with age and dirt. They seemed broken down, moving with a slowness that Dafyd recognized from seeing men in the tavern who spent their days pulling nets from the sea, or cutting trees to build houses in Colcott town.

  Even the horses seemed drab and dull, and Dafyd watched as one of the men picked up a handful of dirt and rubbed it into the shining coat of his mount.

  “We’re ready,” Captain Bream said from behind Dafyd.

  It was a slow day’s ride, and a long one. The captain sent the men out in three staggered parties. Dafyd, Loren and the captain rode out with the second. Dafyd was just barely able to see the first men ahead of them whenever the road straightened. The road to the pass was narrow, and the trees on either side pressed in on them. They kept the horses at an ambling pace.

  “We’re just coming to the pass,” the captain told Dafyd after they had been riding for several hours. “Steady now.”

  Looking up, Dafyd was dizzied by the sight of two sheer rock faces towering above him. Deep shadows swallowed the trail ahead.

  He shifted uneasily in his saddle. He knew that up there, somewhere, was a watchtower, manned not by soldiers of the Crown but by Berok warriors. He could feel their savage eyes on the small crew of men, studying them. Would the disguises hold?

  His neck prickled with the expectation that, at any moment, he might feel the sudden driving thrust of an arrow piercing his back, the cowardly enemy staying safe and unseen as they slaughtered the King’s Men.

  He tried to focus on the motion of the horse beneath him. The dull sound of hoofs echoed up the stone walls. How easy it would be for the Berok to come at them from above, or behind. The knife tucked in his boot was faint comfort.

  The sky narrowed to the thinnest of lines overhead. The sun had disappeared behind the walls of the pass. Tense to the point of snapping, the men glanced warily around, twisting in their saddles at the slightest noise.

  They rode through the half-light for hours. Dafyd wearied after being alert for so long to every noise, every shadow.

  When the road widened again, a rush of relief passed through the group of men. It was as if they had all been holding their breath, and had all exhaled at once. The captain’s grim visage broke into a small smile.

  Once through the pass, they gave the horses their heads. The trees were shorter here than they were along the coast. Hardier stock. The air was noticeably drier, and it burned Dafyd’s nose.

  Once again, they did not break for a midday meal. The mine heads were a full day’s ride from the garrison, and their deliberate pace through the pass had slowed them. Dafyd was ravenous by the time they arrived at the mining camp, just before sunset.

  It was a tiny, squalid place, not quite a village. There were several bunkhouses for the miners, a few scattered houses, a general store, and an inn. Huge piles of ore littered the ground at the foot of the mountains, and black smoke belched into the sky from behind a scrim of trees. The air was grey, and tasted of smoke.

  The first company of King’s Men was waiting in the shade near the inn. Captain Bream handed his reins to one of them as he dismounted. He took off the miner’s shirt he had been wearing, revealing his uniform.

  Dafyd climbed gingerly from the horse, trying to ignore the gnawing pain in his legs. He followed the captain into the cool dim of the inn’s common room. It was larger than his mother’s tavern, and every table and glass was already full. But where The Mermaid’s Rest would have been filled with the boisterous laughter and good cheer of men at their rest, this place was silent, the drinkers barely looking up. The room stank of spilled ale and old soup.

  Captain Bream strode over to the fat man working behind the bar. “I’m looking for the innkeeper.”

  The man looked at the captain the way one looks at something he’s stepped in. “You’ve found him,” he said.

  Bream drew the folded letter of passage from within his uniform. “I come bearing a letter of mark from the King. My men and I require lodging for the night, and board for our horses.” He unfolded the letter and laid it on the bar face up. Dafyd could see the King’s seal.

  The innkeeper didn’t even look at it. “There’s no rooms tonight,” he said flatly.

  Bream pushed the paper closer to him. “I have a letter of passage—”

  “And I have no rooms,” the innkeeper said, leaning forward. “Would you have me put all these men out into the cold?” He pushed the letter back across the bar.

  Bream’s jaw tightened. “By order of the King—”

  “The King,” the innkeeper snorted. “The same King who refused to quarter soldiers
here for the last year, even though we warned of the Berok encroaching? The King who would throw us to the wolves rather than send a company to protect his own iron? And now he wants me to put you up for the night as you pass through, before leaving us to the wolves again?”

  Dafyd didn’t see the captain move. One moment he was standing, stock-still, hands at his sides, and the next his fist was crashing into the innkeeper’s face. There was a popping noise, and blood poured from the man’s nose.

  Bream caught the front of the man’s shirt and pulled him over the bar as if he weighed nothing, calling out “Men!” as the fat innkeeper hit the floor.

  Within seconds, several of the men were at the captain’s side, bodies tight and coiled as they surveyed the room. No one else moved. “Find someplace to stow this.”

  As two of the men hauled the innkeeper to his feet, the captain leaned in close. “You’ll be lucky not to find your neck in a noose come sunrise,” he said loudly. “That talk is treason, no matter how far from the castle you might be.”

  Around the room the miners, who had been watching the confrontation, wearily cast their eyes down to their glasses.

  First, I saw her feet: her sensible black shoes, her black pants.

  I was crouching in Munro’s fiction section, browsing the Ns and Os.

  At first, I thought she was standing so close because I was blocking a shelf that she wanted to look at. I shifted away.

  She stepped into the space I had just vacated.

  I pulled a Tim O’Brien novel from the shelf and started to read the description on the back cover.

  “Excuse me?”

  I looked up. “Yes?”

  She was young, maybe in her early twenties, with dark hair and wide eyes. She was smiling uncertainly.

  “Are you Christopher Knox?” she asked uncertainly.

  I stood up. Should I remember her? Had I met her at one of Jacqui’s dinners with people from the hospital, one of those interminable nights where not even name tags would help? Or was she someone from David’s school? Had I met her at a parent–teacher night?

  Jesus, I’m terrible with people.

  “Yes.”

  She fumbled with her shoulder bag.

  “I love your book,” she said, pulling out a battered copy of Coastal Drift. She was blushing, and she wouldn’t meet my eye.

  I was speechless.

  “I wasn’t sure it was you,” she said, the words rushing over one another. “I thought you looked like you, but I think it’s an old picture.”

  It was the original hardcover, with the picture of me on the beach. “I wouldn’t have recognized me from that picture either,” I said.

  She smiled and looked down at the floor. “Anyway, I really like it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said, playing it as cool as I could, trying to make it seem like this was something that happened all the time, a pretty girl telling me that she had loved my book.

  “I’m reading it for a summer class at Camosun College. Contemporary Canadian Fiction.”

  “I didn’t know it was being taught.” That was good news. “It’s nice to know that I’m still considered contemporary.” I tried for a wry chuckle.

  She didn’t get it.

  “It’s my favourite book in the course. I’m writing a paper on it.”

  “Well, thank you for that …” I said, leaving a space at the end of the sentence for her to fill. I had no idea what to say.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m Tara,” she said, extending her hand.

  I took it. “Chris.” Her grip was soft and cool. “Did you want me to—” I gestured at the book with my chin.

  “Oh, please.” She dropped my hand and passed me the book.

  “So are you full time at Camosun? I asked, looking for my pen in my bag.

  “No, I’m transferring to UVic in September.”

  “What are you taking?” I balanced the book on the edge of the shelf, and opened it to the title page.

  She shifted a little, uneasily. “Creative writing,” she said, almost like she was unsure whether she should be admitting it. “And English. Double major.”

  “Nice,” I said, trying to think of something to write in her book. “The department’s very good.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  She smiled again as I handed her book back to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding it to her chest.

  I shook my head. “No, thank you. It’s nice to know that somebody’s reading it.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Apparently she couldn’t either.

  “Listen,” I said impulsively. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something? There’s a Starbucks—”

  Her face fell. “No, I can’t. I’m on my way to work.” She gestured down at her clothes—the black pants, the sensible shoes, the pressed white shirt.

  I nodded understandingly. No, of course not. I don’t even know why I said it.

  “But listen,” she said, taking a pen and notebook out of her bag in a smooth, well-practised motion. The Moleskine was battered, its pages bulging. It looked like one of my own notebooks.

  “Why don’t I give you my number,” she said, scrawling on a page near the back of the notebook. “You can, you know, if you have some time or something you can give me a call, maybe we can, you know, arrange something.” Talking almost too fast for me to follow the words.

  She tore the sheet out of the notebook and handed it over, suddenly flustered again. “I know how busy you must be, though. You must get lots of people wanting to pick your brain …” Offering me excuses, offering rationalizations in her own mind for when I didn’t call.

  I looked down at the paper: Tara Scott, and her phone number, written in green ink. “Thanks,” I said, folding the paper and tucking it into my front pocket, the corner of the envelope containing Dale’s key digging into the back of my hand.

  “I’ll give you a call.”

  Her smile was hopeful, but dubious. She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. If you get a chance.”

  Dafyd tried to avoid making eye contact with the innkeeper’s wife as she brought them their breakfast and made sure their glasses were kept filled. She looked worn to the point of exhaustion, as if she hadn’t slept at all the previous night.

  After, she followed a short distance behind Dafyd and the magus as they walked from the grey of the tavern into the bright morning of the inn-yard, staying close to the doorway as they went to their waiting horses. The guardsmen were already mustered and ready to ride.

  “Ready?” Captain Bream asked. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Dafyd noticed a length of thick rope draped over Bream’s lap. He was working one end of it between his hands.

  Dafyd nodded and pulled himself into his saddle. He was getting better: this morning, he barely ached at all.

  “The first company has already departed,” Bream said.

  The captain twisted the rope and curled it around itself. Dafyd didn’t envy the captain—he was always on his guard, constantly watching the people around him, surveying their surroundings.

  He probably slept with a knife in his hand, Dafyd thought, watching as Bream pulled two lengths of the rope, tightening a knot. His heart dropped in his chest when the captain held up the rope, now tied into a noose, just wide enough to allow the passage of a man’s head before it was tightened.

  “Are you ready?”

  Dafyd had a hard time answering, not sure what the captain was asking. “I am,” he said carefully.

  “Good. We’ll ride out next. Hide yourself in the middle of the pack. Before we do that, though—” The captain draped the noose over his lap as he tugged at his reins and brought his horse around toward the woman by the tavern door.

  “The innkeeper,” he said, his voice booming. “Is he your husband?”

  The woman looked terrified. “He is, sir.”

  The captain held up the rope, seemed to study his knot. “He has an unwise tongu
e.”

  “I’ve told him, sir. I’ve told him many a time.”

  “Tell him again,” the captain said. “And tell him that if all he believed about the King were true, his neck would be in a rope this morning.”

  The woman gasped as the captain tossed the noose gently toward her, the rope landing in the dust at her feet.

  “Give him that, so he doesn’t forget.”

  David’s footsteps pattered up to the front porch, oddly light, and his key was in the lock and the door open before I had a chance to mark my place in the novel I was reading for next week’s column and look up.

  He slung his pack off his back and dropped it to the floor, tugging off his jacket and swinging the door shut in the same motion.

  “Hey, sport,” I said. “What’s up?”

  He turned toward me sharply, as if surprised to see me sitting there, same place I was every day at this time.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  He kicked off his shoes and picked up his bag.

  I set the book on the side table. “You all right?”

  He nodded, his eyes flickering between me and the rest of the house. The nod seemed like an afterthought, distracted.

  “How was school?” I felt like I was interrogating him with pleasantries.

  “It was okay.” His body seemed tense, oddly coiled, as if I had interrupted his momentum.

  “Just okay?”

  He shrugged. Then he stood there like he was waiting for me to dismiss him.

  “Do you want a snack? Dinner’s going to be a little later tonight …”

  “Sure.”

  They say that changes in your children seem to happen overnight—had I missed the moment when he turned into a teenager?

  “Do you want to come down for it, or should I bring it up to your room?” A question that couldn’t be answered with a monosyllabic grunt.

  Another shrug. “I can come down.” He hefted his bag back onto his shoulder.