Chapter 9
Theo had been exhausted earlier,but after getting across the bridge, finding the barracks, and eating a meal, he’d found a second wind.
Captain Draper had hauled him into her office straight after he’d pushed away from the mess hall table, and he’d decided to tell her the whole story.
He needed assistance, and while he wanted to keep the kidnapping as quiet as possible, he also didn’t want to lie.
The only part he held back was the exact nature of Melodie’s skills.
“You trust her?” Ellen Draper asked. “The woman you want to include in the rescue?”
“She didn’t hesitate to free me from the spell I was under. She did nothing but help me. She’ll be useful when we catch up to the bastard who took the kids.” He laid out his reasoning simply, ticking them off on his fingers.
“And she says the merchant who took you from your abductor might know where he went?”
“She thinks he knows more than he is prepared to admit. And right now, he’s our best lead.” Theo hoped she was right, because otherwise, they were just stumbling around the vast forests of Grimwalt with no direction.
Draper gave a slow nod. “All right. I’ll approve the expenses for her. You say the general has gone back to Ta-lin to raise the alarm?”
“Yes. The commander and the queen are in residence there. That’s why the princess was allowed to come on the training run.”
“Shit.” Draper shook her head. “What a mess.”
“My uncle took it very badly,” Theo said. “It brought back too many memories. I was worried about leaving him.”
“I’ll send four of my people down to Ta-lin at first light.” Draper wrote something on the parchment in front of her. “I’ve got roughly half Cervantes and half Kassian soldiers stationed here. I’ll make sure two of the group who ride down are Cervantes. Best case, if they meet the rescue party coming the other way, they’ll be recognized. If they find the general is having trouble on the journey to Ta-lin because of remembered trauma of the Chosen Camps, they will help him to continue on his way, and it will still be better if some of them are Cervantes.”
Theo gave a nod of approval. “Please tell whoever goes down to Ta-lin to keep this extremely quiet.” Theo leaned back in his chair. “How many can you spare for me?”
“I want to give you my whole cohort,” she said. “I really want to come along.”
There was silence between them for a beat, because Theo knew she meant every word.
“But realistically?” he asked.
She sighed. “Realistically I can give you four, which means we are down to half our number. My standing orders are never to go below that amount.” She pulled a fresh sheet of paper towards her. “It isn’t as important, but I’ll give you two Cervantes, two Kassians in your group, too.”
“I think a small, tight group will be better than a large one, anyway.” Theo tapped the edge of Draper’s desk with his fingers. “Can you give me your best?”
“I can.” She scratched her quill over the page.
“Don’t tell them what it’s for.” Theo leaned forward. “I’ll tell them as soon as we’re out of Illoa. I don’t want this leaking.”
She gave a nod.
“And I’d like you to tie a goat up at the bridge and set someone in the square to watch who pays it any attention. If me and my team miss the trader, or if Melodie is wrong about the trader knowing more than he says, the abductor may come back looking for what he thinks is me. If he does, it’s another lead back to the children.”
She sat straighter, as if she hadn’t considered that. “That’s an excellent idea.” She blew out a breath. “To be honest, it feels like it’s a necessity and I won’t simply be waiting here, stuck by my orders.”
“It is a necessity.”
“What type of goat?” Draper asked.
He tried to remember what he’d looked like in that form, but he’d only caught glimpses of himself in the reflection on the water, and he was so preoccupied with the horror of the spell that trapped him, he hadn’t paid attention. “Maybe Melodie could tell us,” he said. “When I bring her back here tomorrow morning, remind me to ask her.”
Draper stood. “I’ll organize everything you need. You look—” she paused, considering her words.
“Like I was a goat for three days?” Theo asked, a tiny smile tugging at his lips.
She chuckled, shook her head. “Like you’re exhausted. There’s a room for visiting officers just past the bunk room. Settle in there and catch a few hours sleep before you leave.”
He followed her advice, washing in the communal baths and taking the soft cotton pants and tunic Draper had given him so he had something to wear while the rest of his things were being cleaned, then collapsed onto the bed. It would be the only chance for a comfortable sleep he’d have for the foreseeable future.
He requested that the soldiers on duty wake him at change of guard at first light, and then he fell into a deep sleep.
“Wait here.”
Melodie heard the distrust and suspicion in the soldier’s tone, and meekly accepted it with a nod.
She sat down on the long bench that was set against the wall in the front hall of the military barracks, hands folded in her lap.
She guessed they didn’t have too many late-night visitors, and she had upset the usual order of things.
A woman came through the door, hair sticking up on one side, as if she had been dragged from bed. She stopped in front of Melodie. “I am Captain Ellen Draper, and I’m in charge of this barracks. My understanding was that Lieutenant Hallan and you had agreed that he was going to fetch you tomorrow morning.”
Melodie looked up at her and nodded. “Yes.” She didn’t want to drag the sordid business between her and Vinest into the public, but from the glint in Captain Draper’s eye, she decided honesty was probably the quickest way to get this over with. “My former employer didn’t want me to leave and locked me in.”
Draper’s eyes narrowed. “Locked you in?”
“In my room. I lived with him over the workshop where I worked. I decided it would be better to escape tonight than delay the lieutenant tomorrow morning with an ugly confrontation.” She lifted her shoulders. “I really just came to say I will try to get a room at the inn on the corner, and the lieutenant can fetch me there, rather than across the bridge tomorrow.”
“Does your former employer know you are coming here?” Draper asked.
Melodie tilted her head, thinking about it. “He knows Theo is a soldier for Kassia and Cervantes; he has associated Theo with my leaving; so he may come here to ask questions.” She thought back to what happened at the river crossing. “The soldiers at the booth in the middle of the bridge delayed him a little for me. I don’t know if he decided to keep after me or not.”
Draper glanced over at the soldier who had originally told Melodie to wait. He had come back into the room and was standing to attention behind his captain. He nodded and moved to the door, slipping out into the night.
Gone to see what was happening at the bridge, Melodie guessed.
She was suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue. She forced herself to stand. “Please pass on my new address, Captain. I’ll see Theo in the morning.”
“You’re from Kassia and Cervantes, aren’t you?” Draper suddenly asked. “Even though you’ve come over from Grimwalt. I can hear it in your voice.”
Melodie hesitated in the doorway. “I think so. But we moved around a lot when I was a child. My father never told me where we were originally from.”
Theo suddenly pushed through the door from the back.
He was wearing soft black cotton pants and shirt, and it outlined the height and the breadth of him in fine detail. “Melodie.”
She grimaced, suddenly feeling embarrassed and disheveled. “I didn’t mean for you to be woken. I just wanted to say I left my house, and you can find me at the inn down the road tomorrow instead. Please go back to sleep.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m packed and I’m ready. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He moved, silent and quicker than someone that big surely should, and stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. “I knew something was wrong earlier, and I let you go into that house anyway. I’m sorry.”
She stepped back, fighting the sudden prickle of tears. She would not weep. She would not look weak under the weight of so many suspicious eyes. “This was my fight, not yours. And it is finished. Go back to sleep.” She drew in a breath, lifted a hand, and touched his arm. “Please.”
As she turned to the door, Vinest burst in, hand clamping hard on her forearm. “There you are. We need to talk.”
The look in his eyes was off, like he had lost some part of his sanity along the route from home to here.
She fixed her gaze on his fingers, knuckles white with the force he was using on her, and a sound came out of her throat in response to the pain that she couldn’t control.
His head suddenly snapped back, and the bruising grip released.
She collapsed back onto the bench, arm cradled close to her stomach.
Theo had hit Vinest.
He was still hitting him.
“Enough.” Draper came to stand beside Theo, and with a sound of regret he dropped his fists.
Vinest was hunched over by the door, arms lifted in front of his face.
“Let me see your arm,” Draper ordered her.
The heat of embarrassment from earlier was nothing to what she felt now. She wanted to refuse, but the look on Draper’s face told her she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She extended her arm carefully, and Theo knelt beside her and carefully pushed up her jacket and her shirt sleeve.
The bruises already looked ugly, four lines on top, one below.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” Vinest said, gaze fixed on what he’d done. “I just want you back.”
“You locked her up tonight, held her against her will?” Draper asked. “And now you have assaulted her in front of witnesses in the Kassia and Cervantes barracks.”
Vinest was shaking his head. “I didn’t plan to keep her locked up. I just wanted her to cool down, to rethink her plans.”
“The law is clear,” Draper said. “Locking someone up against their will is a crime that is always prosecuted in Kassia and Cervantes. It has to do with the fate of the Cervantes themselves at the hands of the old Kassian queen, and the life experience of the new queen, locked up for years by her cousin. There is no leniency, no mitigation you can give that will lessen the consequences. You’re lucky the crime occurred in Grimwalt, or we would be delivering you to Public Security right now. Assault is also a crime here, though.” Draper glanced at Melodie. “Do you want to press charges?”
Melodie looked down at her feet, still reeling that Vinest would do this to her, and then slowly lifted her head. “Yes. But I don’t think I have time right now. Possibly when I return to Illoa, after my trip.”
“What trip?” Vinest was looking at her with wild eyes. “Where are you going? I need you, Melodie. I made some miscalculations in the way I handled you, and I’m prepared to put them right.”
“By locking her up and hurting her?” Theo’s voice was soft and low, and Melodie shivered at the menace in it.
“No, no. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve made more bad decisions in the last ten hours than I have ever done before. Ask her! Ask her if I ever mistreated her before today.”
Everyone turned to her, and she was suddenly sick of it. “He exploited me, he’s been treating me like an indentured servant since I came to live with him, but this is the first time he’s hurt me or tried to lock me up.”
“Because this was the first time you wanted to walk away,” Draper said.
“Yes,” she answered.
“We have a place for you to sleep here tonight,” Draper said. “Corporal Bindle will take you.” She motioned with her hand, and Melodie saw four other soldiers had appeared in the room.
She shuffled forward, wishing she had simply left a note under the door earlier, and saved herself this mortification, and then, as she glanced at Vinest, at his pathetic face, she straightened.
She wasn’t the one who should feel mortified, and if Vinest didn’t, that was just more reason to keep far away from him.
“Thank you, Corporal,” she said, as the soldier led her through into the back.
“All kinds of excitement today,” the corporal said, with a quick grin. “And it’s Jacinta.” She was slender and muscular, dark hair braided down her back and dressed in sleeping clothes like the ones Theo had been wearing.
It looked like Melodie had gotten everyone out of bed.
Jacinta Bindle took her to a small room with two narrow beds set against each wall. “Sleep tight,” she said. “I’ll be part of the team traveling tomorrow, and I gather you’re going with us.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you know what the big mystery is, do you?”
Melodie looked at her in surprise, and realized Theo hadn’t told them. Or hadn’t told the junior soldiers. Draper would most likely know.
“Ah. You do know but you can’t say. Interesting.” She left Melodie with a flick of her braid, and Melodie set down her bags and looked thoughtfully at the door.
She didn’t know why she had thought she and Theo would be going alone, but now she wondered how she had come to that conclusion. Of course he would assemble a team.
They were going after Cervantes children who’d been abducted, who were being kept against their will.
As Draper had just explained, to these people, there was no greater crime.