Well of the Damned (19 page)

Gavin
brushed away his wife’s tears with his thumbs and kissed her
forehead. “We’ll talk when you get home. I’ll be
back afore you are. Just be safe, awright? Don’t go anywhere
without Tennara, Lila or Adro.”

She
nodded, embraced him quickly, and climbed into her carriage with the
help of her footman. Her caravan started off.

Gavin
watched them ride off, then patted Trevick on the shoulder and headed
back inside. “While I’m gone, I’d like you to lend
Edan a hand with whatever he needs. It’ll be good for you to
see how things are run around here.”

The
boy bobbed his blond head. “I will. When will you be home,
sire?”

“If
all goes well, in about eight days.”

He
found Edan squatting in the hall, explaining to the three girls that
because their parents were the king and queen, they needed to get
used to them traveling from time to time to take care of important
matters.

The
girls noticed Gavin and ran to him. He scooped Jilly up and tucked
her in the crook of one arm while he joined Edan with a knee on the
floor. “You girls will be awright for a few days without me,
won’t you?”

They
nodded, though they didn’t appear enthusiastic.

“Focus
on your lessons and the time will go by faster than you know.”

“Yeh,
but our lessons are stupid,” Iriel said. “I don’t
need to learn letters and numbers. I want to learn swordplay.”

“I
know you wanted to be a Viragon Sister, but the Sisterhood has been
disbanded and the beyonders are gone. Maybe it’s time to make a
new goal, and until you do, reading, writing, and figuring numbers
are good skills to have, even if your goal is to become a battler. I
prefer battlers who can read and understand battle plans to those who
can’t.”

Iriel
looked up eagerly. “So can I learn reading by studying battle
plans?”

Gavin
and Edan looked at each other and chuckled. “See why I love
this girl?” Gavin asked him. “No, sweetheart. You got to
start with more basic lessons.”

Edan
said, “Another important quality of a battler is perseverance.
Do you know what that is?”

Iriel
shook her head.

He
explained the meaning of the word for her. “King Gavin’s
perseverance is why we’re here today. You’re only nine
years old. If you develop perseverance now, by the time you’re
old enough to serve as a soldier, you’ll be a force to be
reckoned with.”

Iriel
looked to Gavin for confirmation, and he nodded. “May I go with
you to Calsojourn, Papa? I’ll bring my book and do my lessons
while we ride. Please?”

It
had charmed Gavin that Iriel was the first of Feanna’s adopted
children to start calling him Papa. The other girls soon followed her
lead, but Trevick still called him by his title, no matter how
fatherly he tried to be. “No, we’ll have a dangerous
malefactor with us. I need you to stay here and help watch over your
sisters.”

Daia
approached, dressed to ride with a knapsack over her shoulder. “Are
you ready to leave?”

Gavin
hugged the girls one last time, and tried to hug Trevick but settled
for a handshake. The stable hands had Golam and the other horses
saddled and ready, and his two guards were waiting. Quint met them
there with a bundle of warm bread, cheese and ham to eat on the way.
“You’re good to me, Quint. My thanks.”

“I’ll be glad to come
along,” Quint said. “I’ve packed a bag, in the
event His Majesty has changed his mind.”

Gavin
clapped his shoulder. “He hasn’t. I’ll be counting
on you to have bath water ready when I get back, though.”

“Of
course, sire. And a shave.”

Edan
surveyed his companions. “Only three battlers? Gavin...”

He’d
chosen Vandra and Brawna to guard Cirang. Although Brawna hadn’t
completed her training with the Viragon Sisterhood, she was a
dedicated battler to whom Gavin had once promised a job. She had
reason to distrust both Cirang and Sithral Tyr, and Gavin thought her
a good choice to watch his prisoner. “You worry about keeping
things running smoothly here. Daia’ll worry about me. I’m
not in any danger just traveling from here to Calsojourn.”

“Let’s
at least take Galiveth instead of Brawna,” Daia said. “She’s
callow.”

Brawna
hung her head.

“I
have my reasons for choosing Brawna. We’ll be fine.”

Edan
launched into a lecture about assassins and unresolved grievances
between Thendylath and its former enemy, Cyprindia. “The fear
of beyonders kept them from our shores. Now that the beyonders are
gone, there’s nothing to keep them from coming to settle old
scores.”

“Scores
that got nothing to do with me.”

“Sons
repay their fathers’ debts,” Edan said.

Gavin
cast him a sharp glance, wondering whether Edan had guessed Gavin’s
debt, the one he’d handed down to himself from his life as his
own ancestor, Ronor Kinshield. Gavin had kept that secret closely
guarded. Even Feanna didn’t know who he truly was.

“We’ll
be fine. I’ll send word if we’re delayed for any reason.
Fear not, Edan. Everything’ll go as planned.” As soon as
he said those words, Gavin got an odd feeling that something would go
wrong.

Chapter 22

Gavin’s
team consisted of Vandra, Brawna and Daia, each dressed in the blue
tunic and trousers uniform of the First Royal Guard, mail shirt with
blue and gold ribbons woven into the elbow-length sleeves, a new
sword, a dagger strapped to her calf, and an oiled, full-length
leather cloak to keep the rain off. Daia’s mail was further
distinguished by a round, flat medallion, stamped with a wolf’s
paw in the center of the chest.

Also
dressed in mail, Gavin had Aldras Gar in its customary scabbard on
his back which stuck out from under his cloak through a slit. Though
a few drops of rain found their way down his back, he preferred
getting wet to wearing the sword on his hip.

“Can
you make a magical rainshade?” Vandra asked as they started
across the bridge. “I saw a mage using one the other day.”

It
was a good idea. After a couple of tries, Gavin constructed a large,
clear canopy that hovered a few feet over their heads like a giant
rainshade. Though gusts of wind blew the rain sideways and sprinkled
them, the canopy kept most of the rain off the riders and their
horses. Satisfied, he stored the spell in one of the gems in Aldras
Gar’s hilt so he wouldn’t need to constantly think about
keeping the canopy up.

Equipped
with knapsacks and satchels of dried food, waterskins, bedrolls and
tarps, they stopped at the Lordover Tern’s gaol to get Cirang.
Because Gavin hadn’t sent prior word they were coming, the
warden refused to release her to Vandra and Brawna, even dressed in
the mail of the First Royal Guard, and so Gavin had to go inside the
gaol’s office himself.

“What’s
the problem?” he asked. The last time he was here, he’d
beaten Jophet, his new Supreme Councilor of the Militia, unconscious.

The
gaol warden, a pudgy buck with a thick, black beard, broke into a
sweat. “Oh! There’s no problem, sire. No problem at all.”
He fumbled with the keyring, dropped it, hit his head on the edge of
the desk when he bent to pick it up, and staggered into the wall.
“Sorry, sire. Sorry. I’ll bring her right out.”

Gavin
and his battlers followed him, taking note of the stench, the dirty
faces ogling him from the cells, the water leaking onto the floor.
Prisoners begged to be fed, to have a bath, to plead their case to
him and win back their freedom. While some wardens believed prisoners
should receive minimal comfort and care while in gaol, these
conditions were worse than any he’d seen. Maybe Gavin needed to
establish some formal requirements all the gaol wardens would have to
adhere to.

“Clean
up this gaol and feed these people,” he told the warden. “I’ll
be back to inspect it in a week. I don’t want to smell this
stench or see dirty faces looking back at me. You hear?”

“Yes,
sire. O’course. I just— o’course, sire.” The
warden stumbled over his own feet, caught himself, and then fiddled
with a few keys before opening one of the cell doors.

Cirang
smiled when she saw Gavin. “Well, well, Your Royal Highness.
What a surprise. I guess you couldn’t refuse my offer after
all.”

Vandra
put a set of shackles on Cirang’s wrists and shoved her down
the corridor. The other prisoners watched with envy from the little
window in the door of their cell, and Cirang looked at each of them
as she walked past, a superior smirk on her face. “I know your
faces,” she told them. “Don’t forget the debt you
owe me. I’ll be calling on you to repay it someday.”

“We’ll
be waitin’,” one prisoner said. He flicked his tongue at
her and cackled, and the other men hooted and jeered.

After
draping a cloak over Cirang’s shoulders and pulling the hood up
over her head, Vandra put Cirang on a mule, facing backwards. Its
reins were tied to Vandra’s saddle, and Brawna took up the
rear. It occurred to Gavin he was the only male in the party, and he
was the one being protected rather than doing the protecting. How
different his life had become from only a few months earlier.

Outside
Tern, the road sloped gradually downhill. Although wet, it was made
of well packed dirt and rocks and repelled much of the rainwater,
which ran along the sides of the road, forming rivulets in the weeds.

Though they stayed mostly dry
beneath the canopy, the constant ping of rain hitting it was
unpleasant. Lack of conversation made the ride even drearier. As a
warrant knight, he’d spent too many days riding alone and
passed the time by talking or singing to Golam. He didn’t
necessarily want to do the talking, but someone should. For a while,
Vandra and Brawna made fun of Cirang and the rude and audacious
things she’d gotten away with while she was a Viragon Sister,
but soon they ran out of stories to tell.

“Tell
me one thing about yourself I didn’t know,” Gavin said,
“and then tell me one thing about the person before you. Daia
you start.”

“Me?
All right. You probably didn’t know I refused to wear a dress
until I was eight years old. My father’s men-at-arms thought I
was a boy with a funny name.”

Amidst
the chuckles, Cirang said, “And then she lifted her skirt for
every one of them.”

“Shut
up, Cirang,” Daia spat.

“So
tell us one thing about King Gavin,” Vandra said. She had a
lisp when she spoke due to the absence of two front teeth, but it
didn’t seem to make her self-conscious, despite Cirang’s
mockery.

Gavin
was glad Edan hadn’t come. He knew nearly all of Gavin’s
secrets, but he could be trusted not to give any away that Gavin
wouldn’t want told. Chances were good his companions would want
to know how he’d lost his eyetooth, and that was a story he’d
never tell again. “Daia doesn’t know my secrets.”

“King
Gavin has a tender heart,” she said with a teasing lilt. “I
saw him comfort a little girl who’d been knocked down in the
street by a drunk.”

As
if on cue, everyone answered with a drawn out, “Aw.”

Cirang
followed it with, “What a milksop.”

Gavin
tried harder to resist Cirang’s taunts, knowing she was only
doing it to goad him into acting from the kho side of himself. “How
’bout you, Vandra?”

“Where
to start? My life has been one enigma and misadventure after the
next.”

“Tell
us how you came to join the Sisterhood,” Brawna suggested.

Vandra
exhaled loudly. “I’d been training as a dancer and had
hopes of dancing in the Sohan Theatre Company. One day when I was
sixteen, I had an audition that went so well, they hired me right
then. I ran home with the news, full of excitement, and walked in on
my mama being ravished. I don’t know what came over me, but my
vision was painted with red. I flew at the man in a rage. He had a
knife and fought back. It’s how I got the scar in my upper lip
and lost my front teeth, but I managed to take it from him, and then
I, um, castrated him with it.”

Gavin
cringed. Of all the ways to die... He shuddered and gave in to the
urge to cover his private parts with one hand. “He bled to
death?”

“No,”
Vandra said, “not exactly. He, um, choked to death.”

“Seemly,”
Cirang said gleefully.

Daia
hissed in a breath. “I think we get the idea. So you joined the
Sisterhood after that?”

“Yeh.
I got such a thrill out of saving my mama from this buck, I decided
I’d rather save people and mete out justice than dance.”

“I
can’t say he didn’t deserve what he got,” Gavin
said, “but damn! I’m going to have nightmares now.”

She
paused to let the laughter die down. “The only thing I can tell
you about Daia that you might not know is she sings like an angel.”

Daia
gaped at her and flushed.

Vandra
smiled sweetly. “I heard her once in the stable when she
thought she was alone with the horses.”