Risen (39 page)

Risen hadn’t yet seen William and
Sylvie in the doorway. Instead he snatched at the sword still
fastened to the fallen man’s waist but was unable to grasp it
before the guard gathered himself and rolled over. With a heave, he
kicked Risen, sending the boy flying away from him.

Toppling backwards, he somersaulted
but promptly found his feet. Leaping up, he searched furtively
about as though for a weapon of any sort. It was then that Risen
noticed Sylvie standing with the Englishman in the doorway.
Completely abandoning his scuffle with the guard, he began to run
toward them but was tripped when the fallen man grasped him by the
heel, sending him tumbling again.

He ignored his attacker, focusing
instead on William. “Did you hurt her? Is she hurt?” He swung
clenched fists down into the ground in a gesture of futility as he
raged. “You’re a monster! Do you hear me? If you hurt her,
I’ll…I’ll—”

The guard continued to claw at
Risen, scrambled to grasp hold of the boy’s kicking feet. William
held up his hand to interrupt the brawl.

“She is unharmed,” he announced
with grave authority.

The other captive boys peeked
cautiously over the edge of the loft at the commotion below. The
soldier had by then regained his feet and clumsily drew his
sword.

Pointing it at Risen but speaking to
William, he said, “Little bastard knocked me flat! I’m running him
through—”

He began to advance on Risen, but
William’s voice rose above all the confusion. “Leave him
be.”

“But he tried to kill me! Tried to
escape!” The guard’s sword dangled loosely in one hand as he swept
the other toward the boy.

“Leave him. It is your own
ineptitude that landed you on the ground, and let it be a lesson to
you, but I’ll not have you take your shame out on the captive.”
William reverted to his argument in the tavern. “The boy is for
sale, and you will not damage our gains, no matter your wounded
pride.”

The soldier was perhaps not the
sharpest of the band of men and rubbed his head with some
confusion. He appeared weakly ready to object further, but William
motioned him away.

“You’re relieved. I will stand the
guard tonight and not speak of your failure here.” William said it
as though the fault was entirely the guard’s, and he would cover
his wretched humiliation before anyone else discovered
it.

Leaning down to snatch his hat from
the ground, the guard seemed to reconcile the odds of a salvageable
evening—in or out—and decided that in was definitely the better
choice. He said nothing more, only stomped from the livery,
brushing the dirt from his trousers as he left.

“Should’ve killed him in the
woods,” the man muttered as he stomped away.

Risen jumped to his feet and walked
tenuously over to Sylvie. “Did they…are you—”

“I’m not hurt.” She indicated
William. “He stopped them.”

“I reasoned with them. Everything I
said was true; it wasn’t personal.” The Englishman hastily brushed
away any interpretation of compassion and shoved her, perhaps
harder than he meant to, toward Risen. “Get back to the loft,
now—both of you.”

Risen caught her in his arms and
held her upright, searching her eyes. He spoke softly. “They didn’t
touch you? You’re all right?”

She righted herself and brushed her
filthy shift straight. “No. I told you, he wouldn’t let them.” She
nodded over her shoulder at the English soldier. William scowled as
she began to add, “He isn’t what you think—”

“I said get into the loft!” William
stepped closer, fists clenched. “Now—before I change my mind and
return you to Yeorathe!”

Risen glowered at him as he gently
steered Sylvie beneath the loft. The faces peering from above
disappeared as William propped the ladder. Up the two went, Risen
following Sylvie, keeping his arms around her legs, for she was
unstable without the brace. In this fashion, he climbed up behind
her.

The children crawled over the edge
of the loft, and William pulled the ladder away. Taking up a post
closer to the livery door, he sat, leaning heavily against a large
timber. He reached, taking from his jacket a wine flask but only
stared at it. It was familiar to him, had campaigned with him for
many years. Once, in battle, it’d been nearly ruined, cut into with
a sword, but the slice hadn’t gone all the way through. It had been
his greatest fear that day, that he would lose this old friend.
Tonight…he cast it aside.

Resting one arm across his knee, he
leaned his head heavily back against the beam and gazed at the
night sky that loomed brilliantly above the small town. His was a
weary face, older than it should have been. His eyes were sad and
so very lonely. William’s whole demeanor carried an expression of
someone living only because it was a task he could not
escape.

Then, something truly remarkable
happened. For the first time in a very long while, the Englishman
felt the sting of purpose, the burden of humanity. He’d not
shouldered this for nearly longer than he could remember, and it
was unfamiliar, like a new set of clothes. He embraced it,
permitted it to cross the threshold, allowed it to settle across
the mantle of his shoulders and sink into the lost corners of his
heart. For the first time in a very, very long time, William felt
the sting of a tear. He brushed it aside and decided that it was
not such a disagreeable feeling after all.

* * *

Once back in the loft, Risen noticed
first that their nest of straw was gone—confiscated by the other
boys.

“You will be sorry for your
thoughtlessness!” he threatened but was too battered to engage the
other captives any further. The two of them found a dark corner
where the slope of the roof met an upright wall and leaned against
it for a bit, sitting next to one other.

“He isn’t evil,” Sylvie whispered.
“They are, but he isn’t.”

“Why do you care?” Risen was
incredulous. “He is part of them. They killed your parents, your
brother!”

“He did not,” she countered
gently.

“How do you know that? How can you
trust him?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “It doesn’t matter. A
man would not be in this trade were he not evil. That is the all of
it.”

She turned to better face him,
wincing as she straightened her bad leg. She reached for his hand.
“Risen, think of your father. Do you believe him to be a good
man?”

“Of course I do.” He was moderately
annoyed that she would even ask such a thing.

He began to unlace her shoe as he
meant to ease it from her foot. What he did was a very intimate
thing, and in the ordinary course of life it would have been
intensely forbidden. But they were not in an ordinary course of
life, and they were not constrained by the belief system of the
elders of their time. They were children—taken, fragile, and on a
path as uncertain as the life of a raindrop. He then pulled off her
other shoe and laid it next to its mate.

“Do you believe your father has
ever killed a man?” Sylvie asked as Risen pulled off his jacket and
spread it across the laps of both of them.

This question caught him by
surprise, and he answered hastily. “Of course he has. That’s just a
foolish question.” He was immediately sorry about this and quickly
added, “It was his…his duty, his occupation. You don’t understand.
Sometimes there are bad people and…”

Now he thought himself ignorant, for
no one should be able to understand better than she that there were
bad people who could and would do bad things.

“Were you present during his
occupation…when he has ever killed anyone?” She pressed him gently
as she reached for his hand.

Risen was somewhat preoccupied with
her holding his hand, and he forced himself to concentrate, studied
her, his eyes reflecting his uncertainty. “Why do you ask me these
things? My father is a good man. You know this.”

“Yes, Risen. He is. Of this I have
no doubt. Yet what I know of your father is very little if you
think about it.” He was modestly offended, and she added gently, “I
know that he is a good father and a good husband. I know that he is
a brilliant warrior and that he rules the dynasty with care. But, I
also know that he is…was, a mercenary—a hired soldier. You yourself
told me this.”

“I don’t understand what you are
trying to say. My father is a great man, and…”

Risen was genuinely miserable and
rubbed his head gingerly, cautiously exploring the orbital ridge of
his eye. It was swelling from the blow the soldier—the one who’d
taken her—had given him at the outset, but he could not see the
deep purple that was marking it now.

Sylvie persisted. “I am saying that
your father was also taken once. He was owned by the one they
called Duval. We have all heard tale of this.”

Risen remained on the defense. “My
father would never hurt children or women. I know this in my heart.
It is part of his principles. He—”

“And, evidently…neither would
William.”

This gave him pause, and he searched
her eyes, tried to draw from them what she already appeared to
know. They’d been through so much, suffered so much.

He tried but was unconvinced. “We
cannot trust him, Sylvie. We mustn’t.”

“I did not say that we could. I
only mean to say his soul is a tortured one. He deserves
compassion, Risen. He deserves love.”

“You will excuse me if I don’t feel
the same way.” Risen physically pulled away from her. “He is one of
them. He means to profit from our misery. He—”

She stopped him, laid her arm on his
and, again, took his hand. Laying it against her cheek, she kissed
his palm. This was enough to instantly arrest him, for Sylvie had
never before reached for him in this fashion, and certainly never
kissed him, even if it was his hand. Searching his soul for words,
he found none.

Only a short time ago he had
professed his love for her, and he thought she meant to do the
same. This still burned within his heart, and when she did not, he
wondered if she remembered. Would she say those words to him? But
was this not the same? This kiss on his hand?

She held his hand gently to her
chest, over her beating heart. He believed she read his thoughts,
saw into his soul.

“Risen, if you love me, do not let
anger cloud your heart. If you love me, truly love me as you say,
let it not be blighted with hatred for another, especially one you
may not know as well as you think you do.” She replaced his hand
onto his lap. “I would be difficult to love another who would be so
unfeeling.”

Risen struggled with this, with
Sylvie’s ability to forgive—her willingness to extend pity.
“Sylvie, these men captured us. They will sell us when we reach the
sea. We will be parted, perhaps…perhaps…” He could not say what he
believed to be true, that if they were separated he would survive,
possibly, but she most certainly would not. “I cannot share your
charity,” he admitted. “If I have the opportunity, I will kill
them.”

There…it was out. He’d said it. He
was, after all, his father’s son—offspring of Ravan, son of the
most feared mercenary ever. But, he dreaded what she might say in
return.

“Risen, I know our fortunes are
uncertain. Things are changed. But of this I am certain, that you
saved my life that morning at my family’s farm. I am also convinced
that at this moment we are together in this loft, and the stars
have come out.” She shifted, indicated the small venting window
that was long fallen from its hinges near the shambled roof peak,
and nudged closer to him, resting her head tenderly on his
shoulder. “Don’t you feel so fortunate that we can share them
together?”

He turned his cheek, allowed his
lips to caress her hair, pressed them against her. Risen closed his
eyes, breathed in the essence of her leaning against him. She
reached a thin arm around his waist, and his heart swelled for he
could not imagine, at that moment, loving someone more than he did
her. This was a very powerful thing—the first time a heart feels
connected in this way.

He then allowed his gaze to wander
past the small window opening she’d indicated. Beyond sparkled a
black, velvety night, sprinkled with perhaps the brightest stars
Risen had ever seen.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

†

The moon slanted through the quarter
window of the ship, breaking through the clouds and splashing off
the water in so many parallel, silver ribbons. It also lit the body
of a sailor, shining cool off his deeply tanned skin as he peeled
from his clothes. His frame was lean, angular and still holding its
youth.

A scar arced in nearly a perfect
hook, across his shoulder, down his back, and off his right flank.
It was ironic because it was caused by a hook tossed from a
stubborn fish, the line having swept across the boom of a boat as
it marked him in such a peculiar way.

It’d been an ugly wound, and his
first mate had stitched it closed. It was wide and ridged, and
glistened an odd, pearl grey on his skin giving it an even more
surreal appearance. Once the pain was gone, he was indifferent to
it, but over time he grew to like it, believing it was a good sign.
Sailors needed signs, and this sailor thought it was God’s way of
letting him know he was there, and a time would come when they
would meet and have words with each other.