Shattered (14 page)

As messengers carried each letter to their destinations Robin dismissed her people back to their homes, if they had any, or back to Denrick’s castle if they did not.  The handlers, messengers, scribes, most were retained to Denrick’s service and to it they would return.

She travelled with them south and broke from their company when they reached the castle.  Her destination wasn’t there, not yet.  He would send for her when he arrived.

Robin continued
on into the city of Verill.  The whole province was named after the city and it served as somewhat of a capital to the southern lands, with Denrick’s castle overlooking it from a small hill at its center.

The city
straddled the river and radiated out from there, its stone walls reaching for the horizon on both sides.  It was hard to stand before the gates and remember the small trade town that used to be here.  Insignificant little villages of wood and clay had once dotted the county side, but they had all been razed to charred earth in the war, and what portion of the peasantry wasn’t killed had migrated here.  They rebuilt Verill after the war, using stone shipped downriver from the north, and it swelled to the monstrosity it was now.

Robin booked a room at the largest inn, just as she had told Denrick she would be doing, and she waited.

A week passed before his men came for her.  They came in broad daylight, soldiers painted brightly in his arms, for they had nothing to hide.  While King Dorthorial might rule the entire kingdom, the governing of each territory was left up to its appointed Lord.  Denrick was well within his jurisdiction here.

There was little commotion as they arrested her.  Robin went along without protest, though they still saw fit to bind her hands together behind her as they loaded her into a wagon.  As though she had any strength in those fingers at all to wield a weapon against soldiers.

**

Robin had walked this same path once before, years and years ago.  She’d been eight then and the snow that buried the ash of Verill was just beginning to thaw.  The snow had brought peace with it, though that blanket of white was speckled through with the black on red of the occupying North.  She hadn’t felt the chill of that winter.  Her hatred had sustained her, kept her warm, and it was during that winter she took her first life.

There had been no planning in that first attack.  Day after day soldiers marched through the
ruined town, where their tents outnumbered the buildings still standing, through streets bloated with the living filth war displaced.  Robin was among the refugees, huddled down in the gutter, watching the sea of black on red pass.  And at night those same soldiers stayed warm in the taverns, surrounded by widowed women too hungry for pride.

Not all of the soldiers made it back to their camp each night.  It never failed that half a dozen or more could be found passed out drunk in the street, hidden in some doorway or curled up upon a step, but not before leaving a wake of vandalism behind them.

It had been opportunity only and even now Robin couldn’t explain what possessed her to act.  She’d been living like that for weeks, half-starved and sick with a fever that came and went.  Her burned hands leeched infection into her blood and what remained of her fingers were blackened with frost.  Maybe it was the cold that slowed death, she wished for it every night, yet each morning she awoke to a new day.  That night was no different from any of its predecessors.  But possessed she’d been.  What transpired that night still didn’t make sense to her, not even years later.

She watched a soldier stumble drunkenly towards her, and then past, without so much as glancing down at her col
d patch of shadow.  Maybe if he’d acknowledged her, even kicked or cursed at her, it would have been different.  But he never even saw her.  A few paces more and he collapsed there in the alleyway and something Robin had been hold inside snapped.  Her hatred for those occupiers crested and broke free.

She stalked off to the main street and stole a lantern
from the first windowsill she could reach.  It was heavy and she could just barely grip it, cradling it awkwardly between her arm and her better hand.  The metal singed her skin but she couldn’t feel it.  She carried it back to the alley and stood over her soldier.  And then she tossed the lantern down on his sleeping body.

That image etched into her mind as the war had.  The oil reservoir in the lantern must have been full, or near it, for it spilled over that man’s clothes and ignited.  Robin watched him burn and felt nothing.  She stood statue-like in the glow of her tiny victory as onlookers rushed forward to try in vain to save him.  And then she was arrested.

***

Denrick glanced up as Robin was led in now.  This was all too familiar and she wanted to laugh.  The hearth was a little warmer and both of them a little older, but otherwise it felt like a dream of long ago.  Their eye met briefly, across a table littered with food and papers, and it was to that most of Denrick’s attention stayed.  He turned another page over, took another bite, and ignored her.

It was only the guard that seemed to grow uncomfortable, caught in between their silence.  Robin knew better than to speak first, she knew she was in trouble, and however he choose to punish her she felt prepared for.  She had caused a lot of pain over the years.  It was almost fitting that she should finally be on the receiving end.  And if this was to be her end as well she was ready.  The last few days
, since leaving Nathan and committing to this course, had been calm and peaceful beyond measure.

Denrick leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach.  His face settled into a frown as he looked across his half eaten meal to Robin, but still he didn’t speak.  Their quiet was growing heavy, even for her, and she shifted her weight around as though she could
alleviate the pressure of his stare.

“Do yo
u want to explain this to me?” Denrick said at last, lifting her letter from the table and waving it once between them.

“There’s nothing to explain.  I’m done hurting people for you.”

“I see.”  His fingers came down on the armrest, one after another, drumming out a beat with which to think to.  “And you thought I’d just let you walk away from all this?”

“I know better than that,” Robin answered.

“What did he offer you that I haven’t provided?”

“This has nothing to do with Prince Dorthorial,” Robin said, and tried to believe it herself.  He was the tipping point perhaps, but it had been building up for years unbeknownst even to her.  She was tired and she drew in the first half of a sigh.  “My life is still your m’lord.  Take it if you see fit.”

“You always were stubborn,” Denrick sighed.  He nodded over to a soldier stationed behind her, near the rear door, and Robin felt her heartbeat fluttered against her chest.  This was happening quickly now but it wasn’t anxiety that tumbled over in her stomach, it was relief.  She had been ready for this day for a long time.

But that soldier didn’t come for her.  Instead he turned from the room and marched off down the hall.  Robin listened to the sound of his steps echoing off the stone corridor.  She brought her eyes up to Denrick’s, to try to read him, but he only smirked at her and looked back down at his letters. 

“Try not to look so disappointed sparrow,” he said, and picked up his quill once more.

He worked as they waited.  Robin scanned the table, the room, working her eyes over every detail to occupy her mind.  She studied Denrick.  It had been a long time since she really looked at him.  He’d be about the same age as Nathan, but worry and scheming had etched lines into his face that the latter lacked.  They didn’t have the same comforts here.  Everything they had Denrick had fought for.

When the guard returned he wasn’t alone.

“Lily…,” Robin whispered, a single soft breath that died before it left her lips.

Lily’s hair was disheveled and dark rings hung beneath her eyes.  Her hands were bound before her and she kept them hugged close to her stomach.  The silence in the room became a real thing, a tension heavy in the air like the worst kind of humidity, and it pressed in on Robin now and drained away her strength.  The only other sound was in their steps, in the back and forth swish of Lily’s dress as she was led across the room.

“I found her a long way from where she should be,” Denrick explained.  “Tell me sparrow, what’s the penalty for desertion?”

Robin swallowed down the accumulation of saliva that sat stagnant in her mouth and flexed her arms against her own bindings.  Death.  Death was the penalty for desertion.  “I ordered her away m’lord.”

“I assumed as much,” Denrick replied, but he gave no signal to halt the guards.  Lily’s bound wrists were tossed up over an empty iron holder that jutted out from the wall.  She didn’t struggle, she must have known how pointless it would be, but as she turned her face to the side Robin caught a glimpse of all her fear, shimmering within her watering eyes.

“Then punish me instead,” Robin said.  She steeled her voice, issued the demand, and silently hoped Denrick wouldn’t hear her fear as well.

“I am, my dear.  Why else would I go through the trouble of retrieving your whore? I didn’t need her brought here if I was just going to kill her.”

Robin swallowed again.  It was becoming more and more apparent who was in charge here.  She knew there would be consequences to releasing Nathan, consequences to abandoning her former life and forsaking her lord, but she had wrongly assumed she would be facing those consequences alone.

The guard holding her squeezed harder on her upper arm and Robin realized she was rigid.  Every muscle in her body was flexed and tense.  She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax.  She couldn’t afford to become desperate.

Lily whimpered as a knife was run from the collar of her dress down to her waist, parting cloth as it went.  Those two halves were yanked back until the whole of her back was exposed.

Denrick nodded towards Robin and the guard holding her.  The rope at her wrists fell away in one smooth cut and Robin brought her hands forward, flexed the fingers in her right, and leveled her gaze towards where Denrick sat.  Anger rolled over in her stomach.  She had to clench her jaw shut to keep it down.

“Now it seems to me like you have a job to do.”  He nodded towards the trembling girl and slid Robin’s whip forward.

“No.  I’m done hurting people for you, m’lord.  Twelve years is enough.”

Denrick smiled as he rose.  “But you’re so good at it,” he said.  He walked around the table, dragging his hand across the smooth wood as he did so.  “It’s too bad you decided to grow a conscience now.  Your warped little mind was a wonder.”

He lifted his fingertips from the wood lightly at the exodus of that last word.  His back was to them all now and he stared off at the fire that warmed the room.  His movements were slow, heavy, as he walked towards the hearth.  And as he lifted the iron
prodder from its place and shoved it into the glowing coals Robin felt nausea replace anger.

“It hurt, didn’t it?  Being burned,” Denrick asked the open fire.

“Yes.”

“Do you still have those nightmares?”

“No.  Not so often anymore,” Robin replied, but the memory of them came unbidden with the reminder.  So too did other memories, fonder ones.  Like the times she’d crawl into Denrick’s bed and he’d stroke her forehead until the nightmares left and she could sleep again, or all the times he cupped her face and reminded her that no matter how hideous she was he’d always look after her.  On second thought, maybe he’d always been a bastard.

But his voice again interrupted her thoughts.  Denrick prodded at the fire and se
nt up a storm of sparks into the air.  “I notice you never use this method.  Not even on those soldiers I brought you.  Which is odd really, I figured it would be your favorite.”

“The smell is unpleasant,” Robin said in a single breath.  She had to get the words out quickly, to get her jaw shut again, or she feared that sickness would escape her.

Denrick chuckled.  “It leaves the most hideous scars too, doesn’t it?”  He lifted the charred iron from the fire and stared at Lily through the curved end.

Lily stared back.  Her eyes were wide with terror and her shoulders heaved.  Denrick’s first step towards her broke the paralyzing hold fear had over her and she burst into struggle.  She whimpered as she failed to bring her arms down, shaking her head desperately from side to side.  Her hair, that soft hazel brown Robin had run her hands through and buried her face in so many times, had been tied back  in a single braid and it swung like a pendulum across her back as she fought to get free.

“Please,” she whispered, “please, please,” – over and over, until she ran out of breath to speak and mouthed the empty words instead.

Robin swallowed one more time and shut her eyes.  When she opened them again her sickness was gone, swallowed up by despair.  “Stop it.  I’ll do it, just stop.”

“If you insist, sparrow.”  He knew he won, Robin could see it in the smug smile upon his face.  And she wanted nothing more than to wipe that grin clean, but the truth was she was trapped.

He tossed the poker down upon the hearth and returned to his seat, back before his meal, and Robin stepped forward to retrieve her whip.  He took a lazy sip of wine and smiled at her.