Wren (The Romany Epistles) (15 page)

Keilvey grunted loudly as he shoved something through the
door into the room. The form fell to the cell floor with an all too solid
thump. A hand fell from the blanket wrapped around the body and came to rest
next to my boot. My eyes were adjusting more quickly than I wanted.

“If you want to get out, now would be the time,” Keilvey
declared.

“Who?” Arthus gasped the very question pressing at my lips.

“A poor wretch who died last night.”

“Surely,” Arthus protested, resisting as I urged him toward
the door.

“Do you want to die here?” Keilvey asked.

“No.”

“Then move.” His tone clearly indicated that he thought I
was a fool for rescuing Arthus, but I ignored him.

Shoving a shoulder under Arthus’ arm, I half dragged him
toward the cell door. Keilvey threw a ragged cloak over Arthus’ shoulders and
head before we cleared the sill. We waited in the hall while he locked the cell
behind us. Then he preceded us past the guards into the overcast morning.
Unchallenged, we crossed the muddy courtyard and stepped into the shadow of the
outer wall. At Keilvey’s signal a supply wagon lumbered past and stopped about
ten feet in front of us.

“Your ride through the gates,” Keilvey informed Arthus. “Climb
in, keep your head down, and it will stop at the first crossroads to let you
out.” Then he pinned me with a steady gaze. “I expect payment in a timely
manner.” He turned on his heel and marched off toward the brick-making ovens on
the far side of the yard.

“What have you done, Wren?” Arthus demanded before coughing
again.

“Get in the wagon.” I practically dragged him over to it. I
would have shoved him over the side too, but he stopped me by catching my arm.
The driver ignored us with studied concentration.

“What bargain?”

I avoided his eyes. “Tell Tourth that Svhen is a wanted man
and to keep his head down.”

“I will not go without knowing,” he replied. The driver
started to grow nervous and the horses restlessly shifted their weight.

“The price was his freedom for yours. I promised to free him
from Hawthorne in exchange for your rescue. Now go or we will both be caught
this time.” I shoved him forward and this time he allowed me to push him up
over the side.

The wagon moved before he completely settled. I watched him
pull the canvas over himself as the wagon joined the queue to exit the main
gate. True to Keilvey’s promise, the wagon with Arthus on board passed through
without inspection. I heaved a great sigh of relief and turned to seek Keilvey
only to come face to face with Hawthorne.

“Mistress Romany,” he exclaimed with false glee. “What could
possibly have brought you to this insignificant valley?”

My chest constricted as every muscle in my back tensed. It
took all of my control to not let my unease show on my face. “I heard you were
offering some bounties, my lord.”

I was going to make Keilvey suffer. He didn’t tell me that
my old enemy was the enforcer.
Lord, help,
I prayed. I was going to need
all the help I could get.

~~~~~

Hawthorne loomed over me and grinned. Trying to keep the
unease from growing between my shoulders, I met the challenge in his gaze with
one of my own.

“Keilvey mentioned a bounty on a blonder from the west.” I
fingered my first knife as though I wished to bury it in the back of all
westerners, but Hawthorne’s back came to mind.
Easy, Wren,
my conscience
whispered.
Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.

Hawthorne pursed his lips and waved my statement away. “We
have a trace on the man. Word is he is hiding in the valley. Only a matter of
days before we know where.”

“You are not pursuing him yourself?” I asked.

“I have moved up in the world.” He gestured toward the heavy
gold collar around his neck. Red rubies winked at me as he threw his chest out
with pride. “I am the enforcer over the whole valley.”

“Impressive.” I watched a bird take flight from the most
distant guard tower.
Please don’t let it be one of mine,
I prayed.

“Never thought I would amount to much did you?”

I didn’t answer and he didn’t seem to expect one since he
continued.

“I have my own rookery now and my own birds. How are your
falcons, by the way? Are they still coming at your beck and call?”

I was saved from telling him it was none of his business
when a man in a guard uniform approached from the prison. He informed Hawthorne
that the prisoner brought in the night before was dead.

“Dead?” A red flush crept up his face from his neck and his
eyes glinted in anger. His hand went to his dagger, the ill-balanced one I
recalled from last time we met. The same one I pulled from the back of my friend,
Woral.

The young guard stepped cautiously back, out of reach. I
didn’t move, but my muscles tightened in readiness.

Hawthorne visibly struggled with his temper. “He could have
given us more information. Tell me he was at least interrogated last night.”

The guard’s face drained of color. “No, your eminence,
because he was obviously ill. Vicron planned a session for this morning before
the execution.”

“Bring me Vicron,” Hawthorne ordered through clenched teeth.
The young man ran on his way before the name fully formed. “I do hope you still
plan on remaining with us,” Hawthorne said to me as though he discussed the
weather. “If you wait long enough, you might be allowed in on the capture of
the Westerner. Besides, there are plenty of other bounties at large in the
area. The old lord of the valley had a son. The prisoner….” He indicated the
jail with his thumb. “Was supposedly a comrade in arms with the whelp. I hoped
to find out a bit more about him before the rat died.”

My heart stuttered. “Is there a price on his head?” I asked
calmly.

“No, but there should be.” Hawthorne smiled a slow, creepy
smile. “I plan on having the whelp and the Westerner in my gaol or mounted
above my gates before the celebration.” He indicated a series of iron spikes
adorning the archway to the main gate. “Speaking of the celebration, you must
stay for that at least. Surely you can remain with us for a month until the
end. King Orac himself arrives within a fortnight.”

A man resembling a brick wall on legs approached in the wake
of the young guard.

“I will need to leave on business shortly, but I will return
for such a festive occasion.” I timed the last words so that Hawthorne only
managed to open his mouth to protest before the guard interrupted.

“See Keilvey about rooming in my name,” Hawthorne said
before turning away to deal with Vicron.

The steady rhythm of the mallet striking the wedge, the pull
and release of my muscles, and the smooth shifting of balance from one side to
the other was just mindless enough to ease my crazed mind. I could use no other
word to describe my state beside obsessed. No matter how I tried to distract
myself from the memories of the battle of Catorna, they lurked on the fringes
of my consciousness.

“Shouldn’t you place a new wedge before that one is
completely imbedded?” Hiller commented.

I paused to eye the log. The wedge was almost flush with the
wood. I should have placed the second wedge strokes ago. Now my work was going
to be twice as hard.
You deserve it.
I grimaced.

“Place the wedge and I will start it,” I replied, turning
toward Hiller only to pause.

Dardon and Svhen stood behind him, looking like they wanted
to be anywhere else. Dardon glowered as though someone had stolen a win in the
practice field. Svhen frowned, which for him meant trouble.

“These two say you need some help.” Hiller waved in the
direction of my comrades.

“Then grab a mallet and a wedge.” I knew that wasn’t what he
was saying, but I intended to make them work for it.

“Not that way,” Dardon barked. “You haven’t been this
intense since….” His voice dropped to nothing, leaving the sentence hanging. We
all knew he was thinking of the journey home from the war. I jumped at every
snapping twig, rustle of the wind, or thickening shadow. Arthus startled me one
night and I nearly took off his head. Only his swift reflexes saved his life.

“Iscarus mentioned your conversation last night.” Hiller
placed the wedge, holding it in position, but both Dardon and Svhen stepped
back.

“He had no right.” I drove the mallet at the wedge with all
my might. Metal bit deep into the wood and the muscles in my shoulders
protested. Ignoring them, I lifted the tool again. “No one has a right to
discuss my thoughts but me.” The slab of metal whizzed past Hiller’s head and
missed his hand by a breath. The crack of the impact echoed through my head.

“Unless you won’t let them rest and it is endangering you
and those around you.” Svhen stepped forward to stay me from lifting the hammer
again. He spoke as though I had done nothing more than tripped over a pail of
milk. Something of his tone reminded me of Wren’s eerie calm in the face of my
rage.

Hiller looked up at me. “Right after I came home from the
war, I almost cracked Warwick’s head open on a brick wall. Do you know what his
offense was?”

I shook my head, trying to envision mild Hiller enraged.

“He told me my hair was standing on end.”

“The point is,” Dardon said, “we were all there.”

“Not Catorna,” I retorted.

“Maybe not Catorna, but some just as horrible,” Dardon
answered. “I led a scouting party into a trap.”

“Failed to defend my swordmate’s blind spot,” Hiller
admitted.

“Attacked an unarmed man,” Svhen offered.

We all stared at him in horror. Not that we all hadn’t done
the same in the heat of battle when the adrenaline high burned in our veins,
the blood rushed in our ears, and our opponent dropped his sword. However, just
the idea of him, honor bound, cool-blooded Svhen, losing control to that degree
jarred me.
If even Svhen can be shaken….

No!
“One hundred seven lives gone.” The pain jammed
itself into the back of my throat, making me gag on my own spit. I wanted to
heave, scream, and cry simultaneously. The conflict tore at my gut, bringing
tears to my eyes. Tears? I lifted a hand to touch the foreign wetness. When was
the last time I cried?

“Iscarus told us.” Hiller’s hands gripped my shoulders.

“Aron.” The name ripped past the knot in my throat despite
my best effort to keep it inside. The sound brought his face to my sight. His
expression of horror, fear, and confusion as he looked down at the arrow in his
chest burned in my memory. I watched again the slow melting of his features
into the slack contortion of death.

“Your father would have understood,” Hiller informed me.

Suddenly my parents joined the ranks of dead encroaching on
my defenses. The walls I erected around my soul over the past years trembled.
Crumbling from the inside out, what I feared loomed.

I lowered my head. Svhen lifted the handle from my slack
fingers. The lump in my throat threatened to choke me. I couldn’t breathe
against the pressure in my chest. A voice murmured in my ears. At first I
thought it was one of the spirits haunting me, but I gradually realized it was
Hiller praying for me.

I was a fool. Conviction struck my shoulders like a load of
stones. I staggered. Then lowered myself to sit on the log.

Hiller joined me. “All our righteousness is as filthy rags.”
Hiller continued to quote and pray, but the sentence burned itself into my
brain.

Without the grace of Deus, I was lost. I couldn’t even save
myself, let alone the ones I cared about. It wasn’t my place to carry this
weight. Deus had already taken it from me, I just refused to let go and it was
poisoning me slowly. All those months that I thought I was winning with my own
strength, He was working beneath the surface.

Wren had seen the struggle and poked it, opening the
festering sore to the air. Like any disease, the poison fought back against the
remedy, but now it was losing its hold. Deus was prying my fingers loose
despite my protests and stubborn tenacity. He would win. He always did. It was
simply a matter of whether I would give in with the threads of dignity
remaining or continue to throw a tantrum.

“I surrender.” My words slipped out as a breath, but I knew
the Lord heard them and would hold me to them. Tears followed. I wept for my
parents, Aron, and the men who died at Catorna. The knot at the back of my
throat washed away and with it swept the grief I hoarded for two years.

When I finally lifted my head, an hour later, Hiller sat
beside me, silent and serene. Svhen and Dardon were not in sight.

“At peace?” he asked.

“Better.” I ached physically, but I knew to the depths of my
soul that I was finally at peace before Deus again.

“Welcome home.”

Iselyn rose before me, a majestic shadow of its former glory
in the fading light.

Then I noticed a figure climbing the trail toward us. He
spotted us and waved, yelling something.

“Something is wrong.” Hiller rose to his feet and started
down the trail to meet the man. “What is the news, Troj?”

I dragged myself upright and picked up the mallet.
Regardless of the news, I was not up to splitting any more logs tonight. When I
finally joined the two men, Hiller’s face looked fierce.

“Arthus returned. He never reached the border because he was
picked up by a press gang.”

“Is he well?” I asked Troj.

His face answered for him. I plowed past Troj and started
toward the castle. “He will live,” Hiller yelled after me.

“He’d better,” I hollered back, “for Kat’s sake.”

Hiller caught up with me as I strode across the courtyard
toward the barracks. Men moved about as though they were productively occupied,
but I intercepted worried looks every way I turned.