The Tessellation Saga. Book Two. 'The One' (14 page)

‘Surr,’ she
implored, speaking to a guard Jed could not see.

‘What girlie,
want some lovin’?’ A man barely feet from Jed answered the call,
his voice hard and cruel, laughter not far away. Jed ducked down in
horror, he was seconds away from capture and journeys grace alone
had kept the guard busy at his toilet and deaf, whilst Jed had
sobbed only inches away. He waited silently, barely breathing as
the guard moved back toward the encampment and his sister-in-law.
At last, he looked up again and drew a sharp breath in horror,
finally recognising the broken old man Sámia was tending, it was
Jackie, his brother Jackie, beaten badly and covered in congealed
blood, his arm obviously broken and black eyes that were sunken
into a swollen face. He was the old man at Sámia’s feet,
so that
must be it
, Jed reasoned,
the soldier’s must ‘ave threatened
Sámia or me parents an’ knowin’ Jackie, he must ‘ave tried ter
defend ‘em.
Tears of fury flowed from his eyes as bravely,
Sámia called out to the guard again.

‘Hush love,
please…,’ he heard his mother beg, fear for her daughter-in-law
clear in her voice.

‘How long will
we be in Devilly afore we’re sold?’ Sámia asked, adding, ‘will we
be able ter stay together?’ The guard leered; leaning back to show
her he was rubbing himself.

‘S’al right
darlin’, I could be persuaded ter buy yer meself…, got a good few
weeks ter save me beer money eh!’ He answered, guffawing loudly.
Sámia looked toward the darkness, Jed realised the brave foolish
girl had endangered herself for him, to give him the information he
needed. Quietly he backed away, once he was far enough away he
threw back his head and howled a long slow ‘Blue’ type howl.

As children,
the Brewster’s along with Gideon would play hide and seek in the
forest, one would count and the others would go hide, a howl would
alert the hiding children when the hunter was coming. It had only
been in the forest they had been able to play this game, as outside
of its leafy borders, Jed and Mayan always seemed to know the
whereabouts of the other. In the forest, their so-called, twin
thing, did not work but here and now, Jed knew Jackie would hear
the howl and know that it was he, Jackie would know he was coming;
he would know Jed would find him and save the family.

Once far enough
back from the slavers camp Jed stood slowly and ran. Fear and need
added wings to his feet and no longer tired or hungry he sped back
the way he had come. He had to find Varan and he needed help, he
had not seen Mayan, Gideon, Sonal or Jed, Gideon’s father amongst
the villagers but it did not mean that they were not there.

The moon shone
all the way, brightly illuminating Jed’s road as he ran, silver
light fell on the cold ground and sparkled amongst the
frost-covered grasses. Finally, when he thought he had recognised
the place where he had left the carriage he slowed and crossed the
road to a familiar looking gorse-bush to ensure he was at the right
place, the place where he had collapsed into his vomit. There,
where he had spewed, he could see by the light of the moon
multitudes of tiny insects were now crawling their way through what
had once been the contents of his stomach.

‘G’awds
Strewth,’ he said again, echoing his earlier sentiment. He took a
breather allowing his tortured lungs to inhale gently and his heart
rate to slow a little as he watched the insects dissecting and
chewing. At last, he headed into the woods where he had last seen
Lemba disappearing with the carriage. As he ran past the tree line,
he stumbled and fell headlong onto the cold hard grass.

‘Damn,’ he
cussed as he began to pick himself up, he had to be more careful,
move slower, a foot down a rabbit hole in the dark and he would
never be of any use to his family, he stood turning his head to see
what had tripped him over.

‘Toby?’ He
asked quietly, unable to believe he was seeing the sleeping figure
of his friend.

At first after
he had woken up, Toby had just felt cold. He did not understand
what had happened, one moment he was enjoying himself immensely
making the bitch suffer for all the hurt he had received at her
hand. Then, next thing he knew he was left for dead here beside the
road and propped up against a tree.
I ‘ad Gideon in the palm of
me ‘and, Mayan the bitch enticed me away, so Gideon could do… what,
what ‘ad he done?’
Anger and frustration had caused him to
throw away the blanket, food and the extra fuel for the fire. An
act he later regretted as he quickly became colder and colder with
his teeth chattering uncontrollably and his broken leg
excruciatingly painful. As the day turned into night, the fire went
out and his hurts began to dissipate leaving him feeling numb and
tired. Quickly he fell into unconsciousness.

‘Toby,’ Jed
tried again to talk to his friend, first, he checked for signs of
life, talking all the while as he did so.

‘G G G G
iiiiiiddddd,’ was all Toby could manage. He had trouble opening his
eyes and he was cold, so cold. Relieved that his friend was at
least alive, Jed continued to check Toby’s extremities in an
attempt to gauge the extent of his condition, he could not easily
find a pulse at Toby’s wrist and realised his friend had a broken
leg. His concern grew as he noted Toby did not react with the pain
as Jed manipulated the broken limb. He knew the signs of
hypothermia and realised his friend was seriously ill and did not
have much time.

Quickly, Jed
set about building a fire; scouting around near Toby, Jed found
fuel, food and a rough homemade wool blanket. The wool was
strangely dry even though the ground beneath it was heavily frozen.
After building up the fire and heating some of the food, Jed
managed to wake his friend enough to force some hot food into him.
He knew that Toby needed to be warmed up from the inside out and he
stripped the man carefully of his damp clothing, wrapping him
instead with the dry but rough woollen blanket before laying the
damp clothing, absently noticing the newly sewn sergeants chevron’s
beside the fire to dry. Stripping off his own clothing, he too
climbed nearly naked into the blanket to wrap his body around
Toby’s in order to transfer some of his own body heat to the
desperately ill man, he almost laughed.
Gideon will never let me
forget this
, he thought, two
near naked men under a blanket
together.

As the cold
left Toby, his fingers began to tingle and his leg gave him a dull
ache but in his dreams he was warm, a roaring fire protected him
from the cold that threatened to kill him. Gideon was the king of
cold and he had two Sonal’s, two ‘outsiders’ helping him to freeze
the land.

Jed awoke as
dawn approached, he had slept badly and was anxious to get back to
Varan; quickly he dressed himself and re-dressed Toby in his now
dry clothing. Toby slept on as Jed re-built the fire and heated the
remains of the food.

The sky slowly
began to lighten and chase away the grey of the night as Jed
continued to feed the fire, soon now the sun would rise. Finally,
Toby stirred, his leg was giving him pain and he was hungry.

‘Mornin’,’ Jed
managed, ‘how d’yer get ‘ere like this Toby?’ He asked, as he
handed him some of the reheated food. Toby slowly sat up, grimacing
as pain flared through him and he looked at Jed carefully trying to
assess what his one time friend knew.
Does ‘e know about the
village, about what I did?
He thought and always able to turn a
situation to his advantage, Toby turned the tables.

‘Where’ve yer
been mate?’ Toby replied answering the question with one of his
own, ‘yer been AWOL now fer months, we all been sent ter arrest
yer, sommats ‘appened at ‘ome, the Colonel reckons ‘t was you and
Gid,’ he said, adding, ‘I fell off me ‘orse trying ter get ‘ome
afore the soldiers. I managed ter sneak away ter try an’ warn May,’
he looked intently at Jed, his voice full of sorrow, ‘yer know as
‘ow I feel about ‘er, always ‘ave ‘ad.’

He lowered his
head far enough to look sad but still able to watch Jed beneath his
lashes and he remained still, quietly evaluating Jed’s
reaction.

‘Me fam’ly,
Toby, the villagers, what’s going on, me ma…’ Jed’s voice cracked
as he thought about the camp a few miles down this very road.

‘Jed…, look at
me, this is gonna be ‘ard fer yer. Yer been away ser long yer don’t
know.’ Toby looked away waiting to see if Jed had snapped up his
bait.

‘What Toby,
don’t know what?’ Jed pleaded, pain and fear deep set behind his
eyes. Toby was elated, Jed had taken the hook and swallowed it
whole.

‘It turns out;
Gid is Gath’s son, lost as a babe. Gid told King Gath the villagers
were ‘olding im captive, stopping ‘im findin’ ‘is real ‘ome and
fam’ly. Gath ‘ad old Jed taken and Gid said as ‘ow ‘e ‘ad waited
long enough fer Mayan an’ ‘e…’ Toby allowed a tear to run down his
cheek and fall onto the blanket, Jed watching intently, absently
noticed the tear keep rolling, as if the blanket was waterproof.
Toby himself did not find the tear difficult, his leg was
incredibly painful but he managed to control his voice choosing a
suitably empathetic tone as he finally continued, ‘Mayan ...Gid
raped an’ killed ‘er.’ Without waiting for Jed’s inevitable
question’s, Toby continued to embellish his story knowing that as a
child Jed, like his sister had always been a sucker for a tale and
he was no different now. He could have laughed at the varied series
of expressions that crossed Jed’s face. Then an idea occurred to
him that was as staggering to comprehend, as it was easy to
achieve. Painfully he struggled with his broken leg.

‘Jed,’ he
cried, real tears this time as the pain caused from movement in his
leg was excruciating. ‘Jed, I found Mayan afore she died, she give
me this ter give ter yer, so’s yer know I be tellin’ the truth. She
said fer yer ter avenge ‘em all.’

Toby pushed his
hand into his pocket and slowly withdrew it, opening his clenched
fist, he held out the shiny blue stone, still as vibrant and alive
now as it had been on the night Gideon had tied it around Mayan’s
neck, the night Jed himself and Gideon had become blood
brothers.

‘I tried ter
stop ‘im Jed but ‘e were too strong, an’ ‘e busted me leg an’ left
me ter die. I crawled ‘ere ter find someone ter ‘elp.’

The blue stone
twinkled in the pre dawn light, it looked grey now but Jed knew it
was blue. He instinctively felt for Mayan using the ‘twin thing’
his mother had always said they had. There was nothing, usually, he
could get a sense of her at least. He tried again, desperate to
feel something of his sister. Still there was nothing, he knew how
much his sister loved Gideon, how all her life she had followed him
around only waiting for him to notice her. When Gideon had given
her the stone, she had been the happiest girl in the world and he
knew she would not have passed on the stone for any reason other
than death. He thought of the tale Lemba and Rhoàld had told him,
mostly the same as Toby’s but for a few minor differences.
A
King’s son is a King’s son…
he thought.

Toby sobbed
with real pain as his broken bone grated, protesting as the leg
moved. Jed saw the pain on his friends face and read it as agony in
finally losing Mayan and he was convinced.

‘Me ma an’ Da
were visitin’ with Jed’s folks, me ma was gonna ‘elp May with
shopping fer the wedding. That’s when Gid found out about ‘is Da,
that’s when ‘e killed ‘er. They buried ‘er, buried ‘er, right there
at Gid’s granda’s ‘ouse… E’s a mighty fine prince now, don’t need
no village girl.’

Toby stopped
then, he looked at Jed under his lashes once more, hoping he had
not gone too far, even he could see his story was more than a bit
disjointed and everybody in the village knew the story of Gideon’s
father Jed and his wife. How Tom, Toby’s father had been too scared
of the wood to walk the drunken man all the way home and the house
had burned down, killing Mayan, Jed’s wife and their newborn son.
Everybody knew Tom and Jed hardly spoke anymore, so it would be
highly unlikely for his parents to be visiting Gideon’s
grandparents, let alone helping with preparations for the wedding.
Toby cursed himself for lying too easily and he prayed Jed would
not notice the anomalies. He was glad he had been opening Jed’s
mail though, in the time Jed had been AWOL he had received three
letters all telling of the impending visit to Jed’s parents at
Branton, silently he wished he had checked the dates of the visit
more carefully.

Jed moved off
to sit alone,
Gid, ‘ow could yer do such a thing?
He thought
as he reached out once more to find his sister. He still felt
nothing, Mayan was just not there, all their lives he and Mayan had
been able to ‘know’ how the other was feeling or if they were near
or in pain, once, as a child, Jed had broken his ankle falling from
a tree, he had not felt any pain at all but Mayan had screamed in
agony. Apple had explained it to them then as their being, two
parts of the same whole, a natural ability known by most twins.

Again, he tried
and again there was nothing, choked and full of grief with tears of
pain and guilt racking his body he looked down the road he had
travelled the previous evening, where he knew his parents were
chained up like animals and ready to be sold into slavery. His
heart grew cold as he realised that Toby was speaking the truth,
his twin sister was dead.

Toby sat
watching him intently from the base of the tree, he saw Jed stuff
the stone in the pocket of his leather jerkin and come to stand
before him.

‘Gideon will
die fer this,’ he said. ‘Iffen it’s the last thing I do, I’ll kill
‘im fer what ‘e’s done.’ Again, Jed walked away not wanting Toby to
witness his grief and as Toby watched him go and despite the pain
in his leg, a smile hovered around his mouth.