Bedtime Story (12 page)

Dafyd didn’t see the captain move. One moment he was standing, stock-still, hands at his sides, and the next his fist was crashing into the innkeeper’s face. There was a popping noise, and blood poured from the man’s nose.

Bream caught the front of the man’s shirt and pulled him over the bar as if he weighed nothing, calling out “Men!” as the fat innkeeper hit the floor.

Within seconds, several of the men were at the captain’s side, bodies tight and coiled as they surveyed the room. No one else moved. “Find someplace to stow this.”

As two of the men hauled the innkeeper to his feet, the captain leaned in close. “You’ll be lucky not to find your neck in a noose come sunrise,” he said loudly. “That talk is treason, no matter how far from the castle you might be.”

Around the room the miners, who had been watching the confrontation, wearily cast their eyes down to their glasses.

First, I saw her feet: her sensible black shoes, her black pants.

I was crouching in Munro’s fiction section, browsing the
N
s and
O
s.

At first, I thought she was standing so close because I was blocking a shelf that she wanted to look at. I shifted away.

She stepped into the space I had just vacated.

I pulled a Tim O’Brien novel from the shelf and started to read the description on the back cover.

“Excuse me?”

I looked up. “Yes?”

She was young, maybe in her early twenties, with dark hair and wide eyes. She was smiling uncertainly.

“Are you Christopher Knox?” she asked uncertainly.

I stood up. Should I remember her? Had I met her at one of Jacqui’s dinners with people from the hospital, one of those interminable nights where not even name tags would help? Or was she someone from David’s school? Had I met her at a parent–teacher night?

Jesus, I’m terrible with people.

“Yes.”

She fumbled with her shoulder bag.

“I love your book,” she said, pulling out a battered copy of
Coastal Drift
. She was blushing, and she wouldn’t meet my eye.

I was speechless.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” she said, the words rushing over one another. “I thought you looked like you, but I think it’s an old picture.”

It was the original hardcover, with the picture of me on the beach. “I wouldn’t have recognized me from that picture either,” I said.

She smiled and looked down at the floor. “Anyway, I really like it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, playing it as cool as I could, trying to make it seem like this was something that happened all the time, a pretty girl telling me that she had loved my book.

“I’m reading it for a summer class at Camosun College. Contemporary Canadian Fiction.”

“I didn’t know it was being taught.” That was good news. “It’s nice to know that I’m still considered contemporary.” I tried for a wry chuckle.

She didn’t get it.

“It’s my favourite book in the course. I’m writing a paper on it.”

“Well, thank you for that …” I said, leaving a space at the end of the sentence for her to fill. I had no idea what to say.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m Tara,” she said, extending her hand.

I took it. “Chris.” Her grip was soft and cool. “Did you want me to—” I gestured at the book with my chin.

“Oh, please.” She dropped my hand and passed me the book.

“So are you full time at Camosun? I asked, looking for my pen in my bag.

“No, I’m transferring to UVic in September.”

“What are you taking?” I balanced the book on the edge of the shelf, and opened it to the title page.

She shifted a little, uneasily. “Creative writing,” she said, almost like she was unsure whether she should be admitting it. “And English. Double major.”

“Nice,” I said, trying to think of something to write in her book. “The department’s very good.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

She smiled again as I handed her book back to her.

“Thank you,” she said, holding it to her chest.

I shook my head. “No, thank
you
. It’s nice to know that somebody’s reading it.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Apparently she couldn’t either.

“Listen,” I said impulsively. “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something? There’s a Starbucks—”

Her face fell. “No, I can’t. I’m on my way to work.” She gestured down at her clothes—the black pants, the sensible shoes, the pressed white shirt.

I nodded understandingly. No, of course not. I don’t even know why I said it.

“But listen,” she said, taking a pen and notebook out of her bag in a smooth, well-practised motion. The Moleskine was battered, its pages bulging. It looked like one of my own notebooks.

“Why don’t I give you my number,” she said, scrawling on a page near the back of the notebook. “You can, you know, if you have some
time or something you can give me a call, maybe we can, you know, arrange something.” Talking almost too fast for me to follow the words.

She tore the sheet out of the notebook and handed it over, suddenly flustered again. “I know how busy you must be, though. You must get lots of people wanting to pick your brain …” Offering me excuses, offering rationalizations in her own mind for when I didn’t call.

I looked down at the paper:
Tara Scott
, and her phone number, written in green ink. “Thanks,” I said, folding the paper and tucking it into my front pocket, the corner of the envelope containing Dale’s key digging into the back of my hand.

“I’ll give you a call.”

Her smile was hopeful, but dubious. She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. If you get a chance.”

Dafyd tried to avoid making eye contact with the innkeeper’s wife as she brought them their breakfast and made sure their glasses were kept filled. She looked worn to the point of exhaustion, as if she hadn’t slept at all the previous night.

After, she followed a short distance behind Dafyd and the magus as they walked from the grey of the tavern into the bright morning of the inn-yard, staying close to the doorway as they went to their waiting horses. The guardsmen were already mustered and ready to ride.

“Ready?” Captain Bream asked. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Dafyd noticed a length of thick rope draped over Bream’s lap. He was working one end of it between his hands.

Dafyd nodded and pulled himself into his saddle. He was getting better: this morning, he barely ached at all.

“The first company has already departed,” Bream said.

The captain twisted the rope and curled it around itself. Dafyd didn’t envy the captain—he was always on his guard, constantly watching the people around him, surveying their surroundings.

He probably slept with a knife in his hand, Dafyd thought, watching as Bream pulled two lengths of the rope, tightening a knot. His heart dropped in his chest when the captain held up the rope, now tied into
a noose, just wide enough to allow the passage of a man’s head before it was tightened.

“Are you ready?”

Dafyd had a hard time answering, not sure what the captain was asking. “I am,” he said carefully.

“Good. We’ll ride out next. Hide yourself in the middle of the pack. Before we do that, though—” The captain draped the noose over his lap as he tugged at his reins and brought his horse around toward the woman by the tavern door.

“The innkeeper,” he said, his voice booming. “Is he your husband?”

The woman looked terrified. “He is, sir.”

The captain held up the rope, seemed to study his knot. “He has an unwise tongue.”

“I’ve told him, sir. I’ve told him many a time.”

“Tell him again,” the captain said. “And tell him that if all he believed about the King were true, his neck would be in a rope this morning.”

The woman gasped as the captain tossed the noose gently toward her, the rope landing in the dust at her feet.

“Give him that, so he doesn’t forget.”

David’s footsteps pattered up to the front porch, oddly light, and his key was in the lock and the door open before I had a chance to mark my place in the novel I was reading for next week’s column and look up.

He slung his pack off his back and dropped it to the floor, tugging off his jacket and swinging the door shut in the same motion.

“Hey, sport,” I said. “What’s up?”

He turned toward me sharply, as if surprised to see me sitting there, same place I was every day at this time.

“Hey, Dad.”

He kicked off his shoes and picked up his bag.

I set the book on the side table. “You all right?”

He nodded, his eyes flickering between me and the rest of the house. The nod seemed like an afterthought, distracted.

“How was school?” I felt like I was interrogating him with pleasantries.

“It was okay.” His body seemed tense, oddly coiled, as if I had interrupted his momentum.

“Just okay?”

He shrugged. Then he stood there like he was waiting for me to dismiss him.

“Do you want a snack? Dinner’s going to be a little later tonight …”

“Sure.”

They say that changes in your children seem to happen overnight—had I missed the moment when he turned into a teenager?

“Do you want to come down for it, or should I bring it up to your room?” A question that couldn’t be answered with a monosyllabic grunt.

Another shrug. “I can come down.” He hefted his bag back onto his shoulder.

Apparently we were done.

“Okay, give me a couple of minutes.”

He nodded, and then he was gone, bent a little under the weight of the pack.

“Homework first,” I called after him. “No video games until after your schoolwork is done.”

Nothing.

For two days the King’s Men gave their horses a bit of lead, but never let them reach a full gallop. They rode the faint riverside trail from early in the morning until late in the afternoon, when they would start looking for places to make camp. They rode through the heat of the day, the sun baking down, a thick sheen of sweat on their faces catching the dust and darkening their skin. They rode through the rough, brown-grey landscape, through the tall dry grass and over the slow rolling hills.