A Man Betrayed (6 page)

They had been
together many months now, and although shared danger had brought them closer,
there would always be a distance between them. She was a noblewoman and he was
a baker's boy, and they could travel hand in hand for a lifetime and still end
up a world apart.

Night after night
they had spent huddled close with only a stretch of blanket between them. Jack
knew how she smelled in the morning; he'd seen her laugh and shout, but never
cry. He knew just enough about her to realize that she would never be for him.
There would be no future in a relationship between them; love, there might be,
but that wouldn't be enough for either of them. He needed a girl who he could
hug and kiss and fight with. A girl with spirit, like Melli, but one who didn't
make him feel as if he were a clumsy country boy.

Jack turned to the
door and began to force it back against the wind. A flurry of snow gusted forth
into the chicken coop. Jack looked back at Melli before stepping out into the
blizzard. She didn't smile. She stood rigid with the gale blowing at her dark
hair. Too beautiful by far for him. The door closed with the cut of the wind
the moment he let it go. Biting, terrible cold assaulted him, rife and sparring
snow blinded him. He'd only walked a few steps when his foot kicked something
hard. He crouched down and felt what it was. The body of the man he'd killed
four days ago. It had to be moved. For Melli. He wouldn't let the first thing
she saw once the storm passed be a dead man.

Hands already
graying with cold sought out the collar of the dead man's tunic. The body was
embedded deep within the snow and took all of Jack's strength to free it. With
grim determination, he began to drag the body along the ground. The snow was
nearly two feet deep and the corpse cleaved through it like a plow.

Another man dead.
How many more would he kill? At least this had been a clean death. No taint of
sorcery had marked this man's end. He'd killed with a blade and there was more
dignity in the death because of it. Or was he fooling himself? Did it make any
difference to the Halcus soldier? Sorcery or blade, he was still dead. The
mourning would be the same.

Jack's arms began
to ache. His back felt like it would break. His hands had passed through gray
to blue, and he knew enough about the cold to realize that frostbite would soon
follow. Dragging the man's body through the snow was his penance. Master
Frallit had told him many times that a man should pay for his mistakes. If he
cut too much butter into the dough and it baked closer to a cake than a loaf,
the master baker would allow him nothing to eat for a week except the ruined
bread. Jack had resented Frallit's hard ways at the time, but now he grasped on
to the idea of atonement with an eagerness born of self-reproach.

He was a baker's
boy, not a murderer. Everything was so different from what he was used to. It
was as if his life was no longer under his control. Ever since the morning when
he'd burned the loaves, he found himself doing things out of character. He had
killed someone for shelter. What gave him the right to put his needs above
someone else's? There was Melli, of course: he would have killed a hundred men
to give her safe haven. But if he were honest, it was more than just Melli.
Four days back, when he'd forced the door of the chicken coop and found two men
poised with knives drawn, he'd discovered something very hard and unemotional
inside of himself: the will to survive.

It was what had
driven him through the freezing plains of Halcus, and what would make him
continue on no matter what he faced. Perhaps the incident with the loaves hadn't
changed him in any way, merely brought something out in him that was already
there. His mother was strong. Even toward the end, when her body failed, her
strength of will was breathtaking. She refused the help of the physicians and
would not take anything to dull the pain that might dull her wits as well.

Only in her case
it seemed as if she didn't want to survive.

Jack's fingers
were frozen to the dead man's collar, but it was not the cold that chilled to
the bone. A fragment of memory, more tenuous than a wisp of snow, filtered down
through the accumulated recollections of eight years past. A snatch of
conversation, not meant for his ears:

"She's a
tough one, that's for sure. "

"Aye, but
if she won't let them slice her she'll be a gonna just the same. "

"Not a
chance of that, friend. She won't even take a poultice to stay the growth, let
alone take a knife to cut it out. "

He hadn't even
understood it at the time, and the years had conspired to make him forget, but
today, dragging a body to a place fit for the dead, he realized what it meant:
his
mother had wanted to die.
Her will, so much more than a match for
his own, had been directed toward death not survival.

The wind keened
sharp and relentless. The dead man pulled at his back. He was so weary; there
was too much he didn't understand. If he looked for answers, he found heartache
instead. Why had she wanted to die? Was her life in the castle so bad? Or was
he just a worthless son? He missed her so much. She was the only person who was
truly his, only now it seemed she'd forsaken him. Just as his father had done.

It would be so
easy to give everything up, to lie down in the snow beside the dead man and
keep him company in the world beyond. Jack stopped for a moment, watching the
cool cheek of the horizon, as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. There
was no question, really; he had to continue. Fate was at his heels and it
guided his feet forward to the dance.

On Jack walked,
the dead man in his wake, back doubled up with the burden.

The wind was with
him, bearing him along from the coop. It blustered and howled, hamming up its
part in the drama, and the snow formed a backdrop with its silent display. Jack
looked back. He was now a fair distance from the little wooden shack. It wasn't
far enough. He couldn't leave the body within sight of the coop. He owed it to
the dead man.

Finally he came
upon a copse of trees that were camouflaging a slight depression in the land.
He drew close, breath short and ragged from the strain of dragging the body,
and saw that a frozen pond formed the center of the dip. This was where he
would leave his burden.

He slid down the
slope and the dead man followed. The ice was as hard as stone. Jack pushed the
body toward the middle of the surface and folded the dead man's arms across his
chest. He stood above him and watched as snow gathered once more upon the cold
flesh. The body began to take on the look of a stone carving. The snow shone
upon the flesh like silver filings: adorning, ennobling. Satisfied that he had
managed to give the man at least a semblance of dignity, Jack turned and scaled
the slope.

Only when he
reached the top did he allow his hands the shelter of his cloak. As he emerged
from the tangle of bush and tree, he spied the coop in the distance. Something
dark moving from the west caught his eye. He couldn't gain perspective for a
moment and thought it was a flock of birds, or even a herd of cattle. His
vision crystallized, and in that instant his heart missed a beat. The sensation
was nothing like the dreamy descriptions given by love poets. It was hard,
jolting, throwing his whole body out of kilter, unsettling his very core.

The dark mass was
mounted men, the Halcus, and they were heading toward the chicken coop. Toward
Melli.

One step forward
and then Jack felt the sliver of a blade upon his throat.

"Take another
step and you're dead."

Melli was
beginning to feel worried. Jack had been gone too long. There had been
something odd about him when he left, and for one horrible moment she'd had the
feeling that she wouldn't be seeing him again. Such fancies were pure
foolishness, she told herself as she paced the meager length of the coop.

The past weeks had
been the most strenuous in her life, taking their toll not only from her body
but her mind as well. She dreaded to think what the rigors of winter had done
to her face and was glad there was no mirror to confirm her suspicions. More
important than that, though, was the loss of her peace of mind. Such an
overused and undervalued phrase. Peace of mind was as simple as falling asleep
and knowing there would be a hot drink waiting when you awoke, and as precious
as seeing your worth in the eyes of the ones that you loved. It was, when one
got down to the root of it, the assurance of stability. The comfort of knowing
things would always be the same. Now, for her, there were no such assurances.

She unplugged the
knot hole and looked out onto the blank snow, looking north and then west. She
didn't believe her eyes at first. Although she had looked to the west for the
past four days with the sole intent of spotting the enemy, now that she
actually saw them coming, they seemed to be an appalling trick of fate. Like a
child, she had supposed that watching for them would keep them away. She did
not have time to mourn the loss of yet another stolen assurance.

Judging from their
distance, she had a minute or two to make ready. Melli could not allow herself
to think of Jack, she must think only of herself. She was the measure of her
own worth now, and the subtle and unbendable arrogance that only comes to those
who are born into a world of high privilege enabled her to value herself
highly.

Rummaging through
her scant possessions, she found the small food knife that the old woman pig
farmer had given her. It was half the size of the pig-gutting knife and not
nearly as sharp. There was no sense in her challenging a whole group of men
with such a weapon. She decided to conceal the knife and use it later when the
odds against her lessened. That was if the odds were given a chance to lessen.

Melli wouldn't
allow herself to think like that. She would not give in to fear. She would meet
the enemy with head held high. Let them know that the women of the Four
Kingdoms were a force to be reckoned with, just like the men.

She hid the knife
in her bodice, thinking luck was once again with her. She was still wearing the
old-fashioned dress that the pig farmer had given her. Unlike her own stylish
court dresses, this had an out-of-date boned corset. So stiff and dense was the
area between waist and breast that the hardness of a small knife might go
undetected among the bones.

The noise of the
riders could now be heard and Melli grew afraid. Her hands fluttered nervously
to her face and then her bodice. Her cloak! She would put on her cloak. She
could barely tie the fastening, so violently were her hands shaking. Her
stomach was an empty hollow and it pulled at her nerves like hunger.

The door burst
open. Two men stood in the threshold and more behind them. "Where is the
bastard?" demanded the first, the tallest.

Melli clasped her
hands tightly together, tilted her chin, and said with all the bravado she
could muster, "Which bastard?"

The man's face
momentarily registered confusion. He was quick to recover his equilibrium.
"Don't trade words with me, girl, lest you'll speak yourself into the
grave." He dropped his voice an octave lower and Melli recognized the
modulated tones of unquestioned authority. "Now then. Tell me where the
boy is who killed one of my men." An abrupt hand gesture brought the
second man forward. He was wielding a leather-bound club.

"Why,
gentlemen, I was hoping you'd be able to tell me where he is, for I'm damned if
I know." Melli could see surprise on the men's faces. She seized her
advantage and continued. "Walked out on me, he did, just this morning.
Stole all my money. When you eventually find him, I'd be glad if you could give
him a few extra blows just for me."

Another man forced
his way in-the place was getting decidedly crowded-and Melli recognized him as
the one who had escaped from the coop four days back. Her heart sunk as he
said, "Don't believe a word of it, Captain. She cried a warning to the mad
devil. She's in league with him." A trace of contempt could be seen in the
face of the captain as his man spoke.

"Well,
girl," he said. "What have you to say to that?" Melli got the
distinct impression he knew she was lying and was merely amusing himself at her
expense. She soldiered on regardless. "What is there to say, sir? Have you
never disliked a man yet pulled him from the path of a horse anyway?"

The leader
grunted. "I see the women of the kingdoms are as slick-tongued as the men
are thick-headed."

"I can't
speak for the men of my country," said Melli. "But on behalf of the
women, I thank you. It must be a nice change for you to talk to a woman who
does not whine like a goat."

The leader burst
out laughing at this allusion to the complaining nature usually ascribed to the
women of Halcus. He was about to speak when a voice called from behind:

"Captain!
There's tracks in the snow. Looks as if something's been dragged away."

"The villain
robbed my supplies," said Melli quickly. "Took a whole winter's worth
of cheeses." She guessed Jack had done away with the body and knew that
now was not a good time to mention it.

The captain
ignored her comments. "How old are the tracks?"

"Fresh, I
would say, sir. No more than an hour or two old."

"Well, follow
them, you blasted fool! Take an extra five men." He turned to Melli.
"I'll wait here with this little vixen. The rest of you outside."

Jack moved his
head a fraction to look at his assailant. As he did so, he felt something press
against the side of his throat. Only when a warm trickle of blood rolled down
his neck did he realize he'd been cut. He was too numb from the cold to feel
pain, so he had no way of telling how deep the wound was. A second knife
pressed against his back.