Nobody's Lady (28 page)

Jaron shrugged. “We planned the fight in the tavern. If we failed to return after we investigated the castle, Gideon agreed to provide a distraction that might summon the lord and his men away.”

“You
planned
that?” I felt hot tears burning my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop them. “Father’s dead because of your plans!”

The air went still, the stifling thickness of the cavern with so many people in it threatening to suffocate us all. Even Jaron’s smugness slipped just a bit. “How do you—”

“No!” Mother screamed. She broke down into sobs, far worse than when she feared Elfriede had gone missing.

I took a step toward her, but Darwyn and Tayton clutched my forearms to stop me. I glared at them and by the time I turned back, Jaron was crouched beside Mother, patting her back. “Aubree, she must be mistaken. Don’t get yourself so worked up.”

“The pages!” I screamed, roaring to life. “Father died in ink and silhouette before my eyes. And more men and women could too.” I strained my shoulders, struggling to free myself. “What were you thinking? You figured out men could harm one another, but you didn’t consider how easy it would be for that harm to become permanent? Even fatal?”

Jurij rubbed his scar and watched as Elfriede crouched beside Mother and took her into her arms. The red of the pool flickered across the tears streaming down my sister’s face. Jaron backed away, watching the two sobbing women like they were some monster he’d unleashed upon the world. Perhaps their tears were.

Alvilda frowned. “What are you talking about? Pages?”

I stopped fighting, and I felt my captors relax. They still didn’t let me go. “Ailill watches us through pages in a book.”

Alvilda raised an eyebrow. “Okay … ”

“Well, if
you
had shared what you knew with us earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this!” Jaron took the distraction from my weeping family as an excuse to wag a finger in my direction. I felt a sudden wave of anger for this stupid man and his stupid plan, which put my father and so many more in danger. And now he wouldn’t even let me be with my family. Marden took my place patting Elfriede on the back, and Roslyn brushed past Jaron to join them, Mistress Baker trembling and following after her. Even Siofra let go of the children’s hands and directed them over toward Mother and Elfriede.

“Don’t blame this on me!” I snarled. None of the men but Jaron would look at me. That said all I needed to know; they did indeed blame me.
But how much has Jurij told them?
I swallowed, wondering if I was just imagining the red of the pool growing brighter and deeper in color. Was it time? Could I go back? Could I stop myself from even hinting to Jurij while I was at it? “The lot of you schemed without me, trying to drag me into your foolish plans, coming up with the stupidest of ways to find out something you don’t even need to know!”

“Don’t need to know?” Jaron practically spat as he grunted in frustration.

“Why can’t it be enough for you that you’re free? Do you really need to know why?”

Jaron patted the hilt of the sword at his side. “That’s easy for you to say since you know everything!”

“I
don’t
know everything!” The water seethed red, echoing my anger. “And if I told you what I know, I could put you all in danger!”

Jurij snapped back to the moment, tearing his focus from the huddle of grieving women. “Danger?” he asked, anxious, disbelieving. “From whom?”

“Who else?”

Ailill.

The specters that filed into the cavern from the darkness were so silent, not a single person had noticed them approaching. They split into two lines, settling in behind the group on either side, blocking us all from the path back to the entrance.

Falling into place at the center of the half circle of specters, Ailill stepped out from the darkness, tugging at the bottom of his glove as if he were just slipping it back on.

He’s all right!
I couldn’t believe how relieved I felt. There were tears in his clothing. His boots were scuffed and dirty. His hair was a bit mussed and out of place. There was a dark bruise on his cheek, and a thin line, no thicker or deeper than a cat’s scratch, across part of his throat that smeared red across the delicate paleness of his skin.

He didn’t seem to notice me studying him as he forced a smile. “I had wondered where you all slipped off to.” He gestured slightly, and the specters moved forward, each reaching for the nearest person. “Perhaps you can find the answers you seek in the life beyond.” The specters lifted their arms and reached forward as one, easily tearing the swords from the scabbards the men wore too loosely at their hips.

The specters raised the swords above their heads with both hands, all pointed down at the men.

Ailill crossed his arms and nodded. “Proceed.”

“N
o
!” I screeched.

The specters stopped as one, the blades hovering dangerously over the men’s heads and backs.

Their sudden hesitation gave the men enough time to pull away. Sindri, Darwyn, Tayton, and Master Tailor formed a half circle with their backs to the water. Even Alvilda stood beside her brother, her hands clenched at her sides. Siofra pulled Luuk out of the way, and she and the rest of the women, my mother and Elfriede included, stood in a half circle around Luuk and Nissa, whom they pushed toward the water’s edge.

I was worried they were making a mistake, trusting in that water to save them. I didn’t want them anywhere near it. I had no idea how I could go back through time with so many people around.

Now that Darwyn and Tayton had abandoned their posts at my sides to form their protective barrier, I was free. Jaron stood at the center of that group, his blade clumsily drawn. The specters hadn’t disarmed him or Jurij, who’d been further inward when they arrived. I scanned the statue-like crowd of ghastly pale figures. There should have been enough of them to take the blades from Jaron and Jurij. But there weren’t. Not in the cavern anyway.

“What happened to the rest of the specters?” My heart thundered wildly at the idea of vanished specters and dead men, more lives to go back and save.

“Specters?” Ailill echoed my word as he stepped forward, hands clutched behind his back. “Oh. I keep forgetting what you call us.”

Us?
I supposed Ailill considered himself as one with them in a way. Although he seemed convinced with the curse broken, he wouldn’t find himself joining them.

“They are detaining the rabble-rousers from what is left of the tavern.”

“What’s
left
of it?” repeated Alvilda. “What did you do to it?” I was afraid she’d launch herself at the nearest specter, but Master Tailor grabbed her forearm and pulled her back with a warning glance.

Ailill cocked his head. “
I
did not do anything. It was the men of this village who started the fire.”

“Fire?” spat Jaron. “I never told them to start a fire!”

Ailill raised an eyebrow and nodded at the nearest specter. They all lowered their weapons, holding them at their sides. “But you told them to start a fight, I assume?” He chuckled darkly. “I should have guessed. I only wonder how you managed to get out of the cells while I was distracted.”

I shifted uncomfortably and decided to stand beside Jurij. We alone were between the specters and the line of villagers. “I let them out.” I eyed the nearest specter, as if I really had a hope of identifying which of them had dropped the key or which had almost spoken to me.
Are the specters truly one and the same?
“One of the Ailills dropped the key.”

Ailill scanned his specters, struggling to contain a smile, my comment eliciting amusement when I expected anger. “Interesting,” he said, almost as if expecting the culprit to speak up. For, now that I thought about it, the idea of these perfectly trained statues doing anything on accident was absurd. I’d either found a rogue specter—and the thought that one had tried to speak to me led credence to that theory—or I’d played right into Ailill’s plans, which his lack of utter anger and disgust might attest to.

Both ideas seemed wrong. Possible, but wrong. I’d never known a specter to act without Ailill’s instruction, or at least a general sense of what he’d wanted. But it made so little sense to me that this would be what he wanted.

Ailill gave up on his fruitless search for the suspect and clasped his hands together in front of him. He studied us, staring over my head at the line of people behind me. Or at the deep red glow of the pond he insisted they should know nothing about.

I used the silence as an opportunity to ask what I’d been dreading. “Ailill.” His head snapped toward me, a mixture of surprise and delight on his face. “My father?”

“Olivière, you knew from the pages … ” He stopped, his eyes drawn back to the pool. “He was gone. I asked the tavern masters. He was one among a dozen or so who vanished in the battle. I am sorry.”

As I thought. All the more reason I had to make this work.

A scream of rage echoed around the cavern as Mother launched herself at the specter who had threatened Luuk, her arms flailing.

“Mother, no!” I shouted.

“Aubree!” I heard again and again.

I pushed past Jurij, determined to stop her, afraid of her getting anywhere near a specter with a blade. But Mother turned sharply, running right toward me. I stopped, surprised, but Mother kept advancing, tears running down her cheeks. She was going to try to punish somebody for this. If she somehow thought I was to blame, if she, like everyone else, just wanted to lay the blame on me without giving me the chance to fix it, then I’d let her. I’d tried. I tried staying away from everyone. I tried letting solitude be my penance for my sin. I was tired of trying.

An arm clamped down across my chest, dragging me backward. I tried to turn, but the force was too great. I kicked.

“Now, hold on, Aubree!” Jaron! Jaron the flirt, the instigator, the all-around troublemaker I’d considered more of a friend when he hadn’t an original thought in his head. His left arm was clenched tight across my chest, his right hand still holding the sword awkwardly at his side. The tip of the blade poked into my skirt, ruffling it as he fought to hold me.

Mother kept running, and Jaron did the unthinkable. He raised his sword so the tip pointed at my neck. “Aubree, stop!”

Mother froze just a short distance from us. “Jaron, let her go! How could you?” She choked on her sobs. Like a coward, he’d used me as a shield. As though my mother’s fists could possibly harm him as much as he and the rest of the men had harmed the people in the tavern.

“I’ll let her go,” he panted, but I didn’t feel at all comforted. I struggled to keep my feet firmly planted, but he was dragging me so that I rested on my toes. “I just want you to calm down and listen.”

Mother shrieked. “
Listen
? Your foolishness killed my husband!”

“Your
former
husband,” pointed out Jaron, a correction not at all appropriate given the circumstances.

Mother’s face grew dark as her eyes widened. “I don’t care! I loved him even still!” She looked like she was barely restraining herself from leaping at him. “I wish I’d never loved you! I hate you!”

Jaron’s grip slackened somewhat, and I almost twisted away, feeling the prick of the blade on my throat. But he tightened his grip again and backed up, turning his head to and fro. Everyone around him was suddenly an enemy, even if no one else had made a move. He turned us both so I could see Ailill again, but he was gone.
Gone.
Impossibly gone. In desperation, my eyes darted to Jurij. He looked from me, to Jaron, to my mother, and back. Frozen in place. His hand on his sword’s hilt.

The specters were just a blur of white at the edge of the darkness. Not a single one moved forward to stop him.

Jaron dragged us back through the circle, even as Alvilda swooped out to lay a hand on Mother’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” she sneered. “Jaron, let Noll go right now!”

“Ha!” spat Jaron. “You can’t order me around, Alvilda! Not anymore!”

“This isn’t about that, Jaron!” Master Tailor stepped beside his sister. “Great goddess, man! What are you doing? Let the girl go!”

“I’m not doing anything!” He swung his sword out, pointing it at everyone in sight. “I just want you to listen. Calmly.”

“You’re the one who’s not calm!” said Tayton. He took a step forward, swinging his clenched fist. “We didn’t want to hurt her!”

“Tayton,
no
!” shouted Darwyn, grabbing onto his shoulder.

“No one move.” Jaron flicked the sword back to my throat. It hurt. I could feel the warmth trickling down my skin. I didn’t dare breathe.

“All right,” said Jaron after a moment of silence. He dragged me slowly backward until I felt the water lapping at my feet, and he froze, probably realizing he couldn’t retreat any farther without falling into the pool.

“All right,” repeated Jaron. His breath fluttered across the top of my head. “Start talking, Noll. Tell us everything. Explain to them why I had to go to such lengths. And then we’ll all go home. We’ll be fine.”

“My father is
dead,
Jaron.” I expected my voice to be strengthened by anger, but I practically choked on the words. “And so are a number of others.”