Blood and Memory (19 page)

They had run, terrified, not daring to look behind or slow down until their legs were too weak to carry them any farther and their lungs protested loudly, burning for air.

“Please stop, my lady,” Pil gasped, his body bent over. “We must catch our breath.”

“No rest, Pil!” Ylena wore a deranged expression, her hair wild from snagging in overhanging branches, her garments muddied and torn. “I daren’t tell you what they were doing.” He heard her voice break and looked away. “Shar’s Tears,” she said, all strength leaving her as she crumpled to her knees, her face clasped in dirt-smeared hands. She wept, exhausted.

Pil sat down, at a loss for what to say and grateful that he was too fatigued to speak. What they had both witnessed at Rittylworth could not be comprehended. He knew Ylena was keeping the real horror from him and he was glad of it. He cast his own teary thanks to whichever angels had been guarding his own life.

Brother Jakub had asked Pil to remain close to Ylena from the beginning. He recalled Jakub’s gentle words. “Because you are young, she will not feel too threatened by you. She has seen and experienced too much sorrow at the whim of powerful men.”

Although he did not know the whole story, Pil gathered that Ylena had been terrorized at Stoneheart by the King and his minions. Koreldy had counseled that she was not of sound mind, warning them that Ylena had witnessed a ghoulish murder, but Pil was not familiar with the actual events. In the days he had spent in her company since, quietly escorting her, serving meals, generally being on hand to see to her needs, she had been withdrawn but polite. Her silence and sudden tears had been the only sign that she was disturbed.

Looking at her now, he could hardly recognize the fragile noblewoman who had arrived into their care. She had taken command of the situation like a battle-hardened general rallying his troops. Her father and her brother had been revered Generals of the Legion, and no doubt, Pil decided, courage ran in the Thirsk blood. The situation in which they found themselves had brought out the same qualities in Ylena. He wondered what it was that she carried in the sack, why she refused to allow him to help her with it. In truth, it frightened him and he could honestly admit that he did not need or, indeed, want to know what the mysterious sack contained.

The novice wanted to sleep, was desperate to lay his head down on the grass and drift into oblivion, but he dared not, for he was sure he would dream nightmares of burning bodies. He guessed they had been on the move for roughly an hour, perhaps almost two. He glanced toward the sky—barely midmorning, he estimated.

“Lady Ylena,” he uttered gently, “I don’t believe we’ve been followed. I am sure we escaped notice.” He hoped he might offer the right note of reassurance.

“Everyone’s dead,” she muttered, her voice flat and muffled, her face sunk into knees encircled by thin arms. “And they’ll hunt me down until he’s satisfied I’m dead too.”

“Don’t say that, my lady,” Pil replied, fresh fright coursing through him.

She lifted her head to look at her companion. Her eyes were red from tears, but they held a wildness that unsettled Pil still further. “Who do you think they are after?”

He shrugged. “I don’t even know why they came.”

Ylena laughed bitterly. “It was me, Pil,” she said, shaking her head. “Me and Koreldy. Where is he? He promised he would not abandon me.”

Pil wanted to interject that she had not been abandoned to the monks. They all loved her. Instead he held his tongue as she continued. “My parents are dead, my brother killed, my young and beautiful new husband murdered…does it strike you that this monarch is determined to see the Thirsk name barely more than a memory?”

So that was the core of her pain. He knew she had seen someone killed, but Jakub had refused to say more. He had to assume then that Ylena had witnessed her husband’s death. He chose his words carefully, wanting neither to inflame her temper nor risk pushing her deeper into grief. “I want to be a monk, my lady. I am not a politician. I do not understand the intrigues of court.”

Her expression became sad. “It doesn’t matter. I am hunted. The last of my line. You would do well to protect yourself by leaving me now.”

Pil was shocked. “I cannot do that, my lady. I promised Brother Jakub that I would take care of you.”

“And who was taking care of Brother Jakub and all the other brothers? You know what the soldiers were doing, Pil. Each monk deliberately cut down…murdered where he stood. Shar alone knows how those senior brothers suffered on the cross. How can a boy protect me when a whole community cannot?”

Pil suddenly felt all of his young years. He understood what people meant when they used the saying of blood draining from one’s face. He could feel it now, could feel a weakness moving through his body as if determined to shut down his movement, his speech, his heart. Not so long ago he had been carefree and laughing with his fellow monks, eager to become a fully fledged member of the Order. Now that Ylena had revealed the full horror, his mind was filled with the vision of the gentle holy men being stabbed, their throats slit and swords run through bellies…nailed to posts. The image would never leave him. He recalled the smell of smoke and realized the village must have been burning too. He wondered if the soldiers had destroyed the monastery.

Every ounce of him wanted to break down and weep, die where he sat and turn away from this ugliness. Instead he heard Jakub’s comforting voice in his mind and he adopted a similar tone now.

“We have been spared, my lady. Shar protected us by placing us somewhere unexpected when the soldiers came. And almost no one outside the monastery knew of the grotto,” he added as gently as he could, adding sorrowfully, “Brother Jakub was keen for you to have a private place to bathe and rest.”

A wan smile ghosted across her face. “Go, Pil. By staying with me, you put yourself in danger. I’m not sure I can look after both of us. Please be safe.”

“No,” he said, adding firmly, “We stay together as we promised Jakub. That’s my job, remember. He told me now was when I prove my worth.”

It struck him that Ylena was no longer paying attention to his courageous words. A long silence followed and Pil believed she had forgotten the thread of her thought. So it made him jump when she stood and unexpectedly replied.

“Only Duke Donal might offer us protection.”

“Then Felrawthy is where we must head, my lady.” He tried to sound brave despite the sense of dread he felt.

“I don’t get your point, Jessom. Frankly, I like her dedication,” Celimus said, kicking away the hand of the stable master, who was fiddling with his stirrups. “Leave it!” he scolded. The man flinched and stepped away silently from the beautiful roan mare whose saddle the King had just made himself comfortable upon. “I’ll be galloping her,” he warned. “You’re sure her foot is fine?”

The stable master nodded. “Yes sire, all soreness gone. Enjoy your ride.” He bowed and departed.

“Get on with it, Chancellor!” Celimus barked, irritated by the delay to his dawn ride. “Tell me what bothers you.”

“It just strikes me as odd, sire, that Leyen would leave under cover of darkness.”

“I would have thought most assassins craved the cloak of night.” The sarcasm bit.

Jessom ignored it, continued smoothly. “She left without Aremys. No word as to why.”

“And where is he now?”

“No longer at Stoneheart,” Jessom said, deliberately brief. “Gone about your business.”

“And?”

“Well, I’m just wondering what business Leyen might be about, sire. You specifically gave instructions that they were to track down the person in question together.”

“Do you not trust your own people, Jessom?”

The Chancellor considered the cunning way in which Celimus always managed to turn accusation away from himself. He squinted into the dawn’s sharp light toward where his king sat with a halo of sunshine about his head. “I trust no one, my king.”

“Well said,” Celimus admitted. “I gave her some additional instructions to take a message to Valentyna for me.”

Jessom glanced around to see no one could overhear them. “I see. Did you ask that she perform this task first?”

“No. It was my understanding she would handle the business with Aremys before traveling to Briavel.”

“It is strange, then, that she left so hurriedly, and may I say, she seemed rather disturbed after she left your chambers the other night, your highness.”

Further irritation traced across the King’s face. “Your point?”

The Chancellor shrugged. “Well, perhaps she did not like the message you asked her to pass on to Briavel,” he said carefully, presuming the King would share the message with him now.

But Celimus was too shrewd. “It bears thinking about. Do we know anything about her departure?”

“Only that one of your pages, Jorn, was attending to her. He showed her out of the castle gates. He may know something.”

The horse was restless to move, as was the King. “Jorn? Perhaps he delivered to
Leyen the written piece I wanted her to take to Valentyna.”

Jessom contrived an expression suggesting it pained him to divulge what he was about to explain. “You see, your majesty, my fear is that Jorn, who serves you and serviced Leyen—without permission I might add—also attended Koreldy when he was here.”

That caught the King’s attention, as Jessom knew it would. He let the notion hang between them, knowing Celimus’s subtle mind would put it all together.

Anger clouded the olive gaze. “Find the boy. Keep him frightened in the dungeon for my return. Make sure he’s ready to tell us everything—and I’m trusting your instincts, Jessom, that there is something here—by the time I get back.”

“As you wish, sire,” Jessom said, nodding low as Celimus clicked to his mare and urged her out of the courtyard.

Jorn cowered in the cold of the damp cell, frightened and confused . He had been grabbed by two soldiers in one of the many castle orchards where he had been collecting some parillion fruit for the King’s breakfast. Jorn had risen especially early to ensure that when his monarch returned hot and dusty from his morning ride he would have plenty of the refreshing chilled juice he favored to quench his thirst.

Now Jorn mournfully remembered the precious fruit he had dropped and ultimately stepped upon when the soldiers appeared and manhandled him roughly toward the dungeon. He shivered in the chill and looked around, his vision dulled from fear at what he might or might not have done to so anger his superiors. What had he done that warranted incarceration? He replayed the last few days over and again through his mind, wondering at what terrible mistake he had made.

It was coincidental that this happened to be the same chamber from which Myrren had been dragged by her torturers almost a decade earlier. Such information would have meant little to Jorn if he learned it, of course, and if he had studied the last block of stone of the wall behind the cell door he would have noted a curious inscription that might have meant a lot to him considering his adoration of Ylena Thirsk.

On that stone were three words,
AVENGE ME WYL,
they read.

Someone such as Fynch, susceptible to the ebb and flow of enchantments in a world that scorned their existence, might touch that inscription and feel the thrum of the magic used to make such a mark on stone. Jorn had no such talent and his heavyhearted gaze slid past the words without note.

The thin, dark Chancellor with hooded eyes who had recently arrived was offering no reassurance.

“Please, Chancellor Jessom, tell me what it is I’ve done,” he begged through the bars.

The man’s seal of office hung heavily from a chain, swaying as the Chancellor paced slowly, waiting for the King. “I’m sorry, my boy,” Jessom said, adopting an avuncular approach. “This is all very confusing. It goes to the highest level, Jorn. Somehow you have attracted the King’s attention…negative attention, that is.”

“But, Chancellor Jessom, sir, it is my pleasure to wait loyally on the King. I would do nothing to harm him.”

“Would you not?”

The boy shook his head dumbly. Even in his Sight he knew he was missing something important. It was written in the Chancellor’s heavy-lidded gaze.

“Ah, here is his majesty now, Jorn. Hopefully we can clear this up and you can be back at your duties by the noon bell.”

“Oh yes, sir,” Jorn said, feeling a surge of hope knife through him. “I’ll do anything to set things right.”

“Good boy. Be easy now. Your king approaches.”

Jorn could hear the click of his sovereign’s boots against the dull flagging of the dungeon floor. He could not make out the words but knew the King had made some remark that had amused the guards. Laughter erupted, the swaggering tread resumed, and then suddenly the familiar tall and resplendent shape of Celimus appeared beside Jessom. His face was shining with tiny beads of perspiration. He had come straight here from his ride, then, Jorn thought miserably. Whatever secret he apparently held from them was considered more important than the sovereign’s comfort. The King turned a predatory gaze on Jorn, who quailed at the sight.

“Your majesty,” the Chancellor said, bowing low.

Jorn, more terrified than ever, knelt immediately. “Your highness,” he whispered, ready to confess to anything.

Celimus glanced toward Jessom, whose slight nod indicated the lad was so petrified he would tell them whatever they needed to know. Celimus smiled thinly. If Jorn had looked up at that moment, he would have known that his life was already forfeit, but he kept his head low to the floor, hands clasping and unclasping nervously as he awaited his king’s pleasure.

“Stand up, lad.” It was the dry voice of the Chancellor.

Jorn obeyed, kept his head bowed more from shame than anything else, for he realized that he had soiled his trousers in his fright.

The King finally spoke. “Look at me, boy.” His voice was hard. Jorn struggled to obey and finally lifted damp eyes toward Celimus, who continued. “I shall ask you a few questions. What I require is complete honesty.” He stared at the boy. “Because you have nothing to fear,” he lied.

Jorn nodded, eyes wide with his intense desire to please. “Yes, your majesty. I promise to tell you whatever it is you need.”

“Good. Now, do you recall a recent guest at Stoneheart, who dined with me? She arrived with a man called Aremys and—”

“Madam Leyen, yes,” Jorn interrupted, anxious to impress his king.

Celimus nodded. Jessom smiled briefly.

“Is it true that you waited on her…without permission from either myself or your superiors?”

Jorn frowned. “I did not wait on her, your majesty.”

“Oh? I hear differently.”

The boy clutched at the bars. “Oh no, sire. I…” They watched his brow crease as he recalled what had occurred. “I was on an urgent errand for one of your secretaries, sire, which took me that morning into that wing of the castle where Madam Leyen was accommodated. I was in quite a hurry, as I recall.” He watched both men nod. “Um…Madam Leyen hailed me as I ran past the corridor.”

“And what did she want?” Celimus prompted.

“Advice, sire.”

Jessom smirked. “What sort of advice, boy?”

“Well, I didn’t find out until later that evening because she could tell how much of a rush I was in to be about my duties. I left straightaway, having exchanged only a handful of words with her, sire. She was a stranger to me.”

Celimus was not so easily deterred. “And later?”

“Yes, later, sire. I did go back to her chamber, as she asked me to. I felt obliged, your majesty, because she was your personal guest and had no one attending her.”

The King held on to his patience. “And?”

“She wanted advice on her gown.”

There was an awkward silence before Celimus replied, an edge of threat to his tone. “You jest, of course?”

“No, sire,” Jorn beseeched. “I would never do that, my king. Madam Leyen wanted to make the right impression on you, your majesty, for the supper she was sharing. She had no garments of her own and was in a borrowed gown. She sought my approval.”

“A lad’s approval?” Jessom said, his voice high with his disgust.

Jorn shrugged slightly before catching himself in the act. He turned it into an obeisance. “It’s the truth, sire. Perhaps she thought I might know best, as I did mention that I was your personal messenger.”

“That’s it?” Celimus said, his own disbelief evident. “You expect us to accept that this… this… approval was all she asked of you?”

Jorn bobbed frantically. “My lord king. That is all she asked of me.” He watched the King’s hand turn to a fist as the famous anger stoked. “I did go back that night, of course,” he blurted out.

“Ah…and why did you do that?”

“To deliver a parchment one of your secretaries bade me deliver very late. I was told it was urgent, King’s business.”

He watched a glance pass between his captors. And it was only then that Jorn realized where this strange conversation was leading. He had always counted himself as sharp. He made good use of that skill now to make the leap in his mind that it was not him they were after but Leyen. And even she was not the true prey. It was where her loyalties lay that they were most interested in. They were after Ylena Thirsk. Beautiful, sorrowful, badly treated Ylena, whom he would rather die than betray. And yet betrayal is precisely what they sought from him. He could see it now as clear as daylight. They wanted him to tell them where Madam Leyen had been traveling in such a hurry that night. They wanted to hurt his beloved Lady Ylena yet more.

Well, he would not permit it! He was only a messenger and thus nothing in the eyes of the King. But he, Jorn, had made a promise to a beautiful woman and she had returned his loyalty with a promise that she would send for him. Any day now he would escape Stoneheart and travel to Argorn, where Ylena would welcome him and allow him to serve her as he so dearly wished.

He would not reveal her secrets. Not through his lips, Jorn thought as a bright new sensation burst into life within him. He was not a fiery person, very rarely allowing anything to get under his skin sufficiently to make him angry. His naturally sunny personality helped him defuse most situations in which another’s temper might flare. But a spark of anger had erupted and it was fueled by the look of accusation in both his monarch’s expression and the carefully contrived vision of sympathy that the solicitous Chancellor had suddenly become, shaking his head sadly.

“Well?” the King demanded.

Jorn spoke with assurance. “I gave Madam Leyen the parchment and took her gown, cape, and some jewelry, as requested, back to Lady Bench’s household.”

“Leyen left that night, you liar, and you know it!” Celimus spat through the bars.

“I have no reason to lie to you, my lord king. I was coming to that,” Jorn said, pleased that he did not flinch at the King’s hostility despite the sudden watery feel to his knees. He grasped his last sense of composure, ignored the damp reminder of his fear, and gilded the truth. “She told me she was leaving. I know not why, sire. She asked me if I would accompany her to the stables because she did not know her way around Stoneheart. It was not my place to question her actions, my king. I am a simple messenger, keen to serve you and your esteemed guests.”

“And so you did,” Celimus said, slyly now.

“Yes, sire.”

“Did she mention where she was going?”

Jorn paused to think how to answer this. “No,” he said truthfully.

“That’s odd, boy, because the guard on duty that night recalls you mentioning the duchy of Felrawthy.”

Jorn had never and would never again give a better performance. His expression remained impassive even though he suddenly hated the man he remembered on watch that night. He had given him much coin to keep his mouth closed. “That’s right, sire, I think I might have mentioned it.”

“Why?” Celimus approached the prison bars again as a hunter might, closing in for the kill.

“Because that’s where I understood Madam Leyen comes from, sire,” he lied.

Celimus looked toward Jessom, who blinked, slowly.

“I have no information on Leyen’s history, sire,” Jessom admitted, somewhat abashed. “She told us Rittylworth, but she is a mystery and likes to keep it that way. In truth, I have never seen her as plainly as I saw her at the supper. She is usually in disguise, even for our meetings.”

“For all we know, she could have been in disguise at supper,” the King growled, not realizing how close to the truth he was. “Did she share with you where she was headed?” Celimus demanded of Jorn.

The lad shook his head, seemingly confused. “She must have in passing, for I can’t imagine how I would know such a thing. I’m sorry, sire, that I don’t remember our brief conversations more clearly, but I do know she did not tell me where exactly she was going—I presumed it was to her home,” Jorn replied smoothly, lying expertly for the last time in his life.
Forgive me, Shar
, he beseeched inwardly.