Bounty (44 page)

“If you are not mortally humbled by unimaginable shame, then I don’t want to hear it,” Catris established in a no-nonsense fashion, not humoring the girl in the least.

Delcy’s confidence blanched ever so slightly at the princess’s manner. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t know much, do you? Are you even aware that a man is awaiting execution down the street as we speak? Are you aware of that?”

“I–”

“What were you doing when I sent your maid to fetch you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What were you doing? Because you obviously weren’t mourning the pending loss of a close member of your community – one that you once smothered near to your heart and made every valid claim of being in love with. I suppose in all respects maybe you were – it’s always been known that the love of the conceited is shallow.”

“Godren has been gone for three years,” Delcy objected.

“Oh, so no longer counted a close member of your community? Or did you mean three years is longer than you should be expected to stay in love?”

“He was accused of murder and became a different person out there,” Delcy persisted defensively.

“So what were you doing, embroidering?”

“What?”

“You’re avoiding the question; I want to know what you were doing when I sent your maid to fetch you.”

Delcy opened her mouth, flustered. “I – nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing – certainly not embroidering. How could you make such a morbid assumption?”

“How could you do nothing?”

“What would you have me do, march out there and grapple with the headsman in objection?”

“Oh no, you might ruin your dress. I suppose that’s a good excuse for not crying on it either.”

“It is not my place to intervene with authority,
your Highness.
I would not be sitting in my room embroidering while a man I once knew is being executed in town, but embroidery
is
what I do. I do not
confront headsmen
. I do not possess the physical strength.”

“Did Godren possess the physical strength to stave off the accusations? To endure starvation if he could not obtain sustenance on the streets? To resist going emotionally insane? It isn’t about
physical strength
– but if you want to make it about that, one thing he did have the physical strength to do was knock you silly a long time ago, and by the gods I don’t know why he didn’t do it.”

Blood rose to Delcy’s pale cheeks as she grew incensed over such unsympathetic implications. “This is outrageous, my lady,” she fumed, barely containing her obvious desire to lash out further.

“Is it?”

“I did nothing to deserve this,” she said in great objection. “How dare you march in here and presume to judge my character? You have never spent a day in this town, and know nothing of our lives. Have you ever even spared a glance for any town lesser than your precious capital? Do you even have the capacity to understand a humble way of life? You know
nothing
. Nothing of us, nothing of
me
.”

“I do, however, know that Godren did not commit the crime you have condemned him over. I
know
he didn’t do it. And if–”

“I beg your pardon; the crime
I
condemned him over? You flatter me, your Highness, but condemning goes to the authorities.”

“Oh, so you’d like to blame them as well?”

“I never blamed Godren.”

“You had the ability to revoke the evidence against him.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I never knew better about any evidence. They decided what was valid, and as far as I’m concerned they can keep that job. Having someone’s fate in my hands, and the obligation to deliver its just reckoning, depending on so many threads… I don’t think I could stomach it.”

“And yet the threads of your embroidery don’t dizzy you in the least. Not even your role as one of those fateful threads, one of those
factors
, seems to sicken you in the least.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Are you saying that Godren really came to see you that night?”

An evident swallow slid down Delcy’s throat. “Yes,” she said in a flat tone. “He came to see me.”

Catris cocked an eyebrow and let the silence hang, forcing the girl to stand straight-faced in the uncomfortable presence of her blatant lie. As could have been anticipated, Delcy tried to fill the silence herself, squirming away from pressure;

“If he did not commit the crime, that is unfortunate. It would be a shame for them to put stock in invalid evidence.”

“It’s also a shame that I believe Godren’s family over you.”

“And what did they say about me? That I framed their son for murder and condemned him to death all by myself? They’re his
family
– of
course
they’re going to defend him, and blame someone else.”

“They can vouch for him not fulfilling the majority of the little fantasies you have spread around town – and Seth can as well – and even if they can’t for that night, that still makes you a liar and gives me every reason to believe them over you. And don’t tell me Seth is merely on their side, because I cross-referenced their stories in different rooms at different times. What’s more, I happen to have a fairly keen insight into Godren’s taste for women, and you are nothing of the stuff he pursues.”

Drawing herself up in offense, Delcy let any trace of serene maturity slip. “People may change, my lady, but I have, at one point, been the focus of every boy in this town.”

“Oh don’t play spoiled princess with me, missy. I’m one too. The difference between you and me is that I am the princess of Raven City, so I’ll get what I want. Do you realize I have the right to arrest spoiled brats just because they could be taken for mocking me?”

“Daddy would never let you come in here and threaten me with such nonsense,” Delcy fumed.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t. He would send you reassuringly to your room to suck your thumb and tell you he’d take care of everything, wouldn’t he? But he’s not here to cushion and coddle you, is he? And instead of being here in his place to console you like you might once have fantasized, your childhood sweetheart is being held under the headsman’s pending blow for your father’s very murder – and
you
, you are being investigated for responsibility in this treachery. What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Delcy. Doesn’t it ever bother you that the real killer is still out there, perhaps among you, getting away with murder and potentially planning the death of any one of you next?”

Glassy, diamond tears pricked Delcy’s eyes – haunted, guilty, and terrified – but she kept them from falling.

“How dare you condemn an innocent man to death to conserve your social image,” Catris said.

Suddenly Delcy sobbed. “No, he could have done it,” she insisted, losing her stand.

“You’ve convinced yourself of that, haven’t you? But I know, Delcy – I
know
he didn’t do it.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“It doesn’t matter what I can prove. If I know you aren’t being honest with me, I can find excuses to rip you from this place and keep you smothered in the dark for the rest of your life.”

Delcy sobbed again. “But I didn’t do anything.”

Catris stared at her, pointedly without pity. “Neither. Did. Godren. Yet his consequences are far worse than yours ever would have been, and he is taking them without expressing an ounce of a fit, much less sobbing like an idiot. I am giving you a direct order to clear him. Do you understand me? You will talk. And maybe since no fatal harm came of your little cover-up, your town will forgive you. That is the best you can hope for. I
will
imprison you if you do not oblige.”

Laying out her options, Catris let her absorb the black- and whiteness that had become of her bleak existence. Looking helpless and distraught, Delcy struggled within herself, on the verge of a cataclysmic breakdown. Catris willed her to understand that it was really very simple. All she had to do was speak, and the severity of her consequences would be reduced significantly.

Finally, Delcy looked up through tear-laden eyes, her decision made.

*

Lifting his head at the sound of hoof-beats on the road, Godren watched the princess approach the yard, Delcy at her side. The dark-haired girl was a mess, her face streaked with tears and masked by locks of disordered hair. She avoided meeting the eyes of the world, and had to literally be dragged from her mount by the princess. With one hand still around her elbow, Catris forced her to the yard and sought out the authorities.

Hope nested inside Godren. Delcy looked like she would rather be anywhere but here, but perhaps Catris had somehow convinced her to talk. He strained his ears, trying to make out the exchange of words. At first it was difficult, but then a breeze stirred and carried their voices to him.

“What is the meaning of this?” the constable was asking.

“Delcy Caster is here to testify on Godren’s behalf,” Catris announced.

“With what?” the man demanded impatiently, not taking kindly to this last-minute interruption.

“She can denounce the evidence that places him at the scene of the crime.”

Frowning, the constable turned his eyes on Delcy. She shrank further into her hair, but dragged the explanation out of herself. Her voice was meek and shameful, and broke as she made her testimony; “Godren didn’t…come to see me that night,” she confessed, and sobbed.

“What?”

His tone encouraging the intensity of her crying, Delcy cowered against the princess’s hold. “He never came to see me.”

The constable’s mouth worked, but no words came out. He blinked against this new information, and then sputtered. “What in the gods’ names do you mean by this? Don’t play games with me, girl. A man is awaiting execution on the grounds that you placed him at the scene of the crime, as the only man who had access to your estate during the time your father’s murder took place.”

As the constable received the revelation less than graciously, tears ran more freely down Delcy’s face.

“What do you
mean by this
?” he demanded again, and she flinched.

“I made it up,” she squeaked miserably.

“You
made it up
? You self-gratifying wretch. Do you realize what you could have done?”

Whatever Delcy managed to say after that, Godren didn’t hear it. A huge weight dissipated from his shoulders, a weight he had not realized had become so much a part of him. It left him deeply raw with the ability to breathe in a way he had forgotten. He felt so light he could whisk away with the free, free wind, so elated he could outshine the sun. As ironic as it was, he stood there in the execution yard, shackled, thinking to himself,
I’m free…

And then someone was releasing his bonds, and Delcy was being collected for some manner of punishment or deliberative custody in the background, and Catris was coming before him. He gazed at her blankly, unable to decide on a feeling, wondering if this was real.

Catris bit her lip. Opened her mouth.

But then an interruption of hoof beats reverberated down the road once again. This time, when the residents of Wingbridge looked to see who was coming, a great cloud of dust met their probing eyes. It was a much greater procession than the first time, and everyone grew silent in bemusement for the traffic passing through Wingbridge that day.

When the riders drew closer, Catris’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly, but she squared them and stood her ground as her father and his entourage came to a stop just shy of the execution yard. The king’s face was grim, but he didn’t immediately speak.

“Catris,” he decided on after seeing no better way to address the unknown situation.

“Father,” she returned.

“Dare I ask what you are doing here?”

“Something…came up.”

“Something came up leagues away from the nunnery I left you in,” he corrected her.

“Well…naturally. Nothing comes up in a nunnery, father. They’re all too stanch in oaths of utter plainness for that. The very air is boring to breathe.”

“Please tell me this is not merely an escapade for a breath of fresh air. We cannot afford your whimsical defiance right now, Tris. I–” For the first time, the king caught sight of Godren behind his daughter. Where the princess had always gotten stuck on mere familiarity at the sight of his face, the king was obviously more informed when it came to Raven City’s most wanted. Instant recognition registered on his face. “Catris…” he began, and then changed his approach; “Someone put this man in irons.”

Just as quickly as relief had found Godren, his freedom was stomped back into ashes.

Two of the king’s men dismounted to obey, and Godren could do nothing but stand there as his fate was juggled from one course to another.