Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THOMAS
“The right gates shall be opened and the wrong ones closed
through your faith in the One.” ~ The Book of Bread and Salt
A t the knock, I settled my shield more firmly on my arm and opened the door to the familiar face of Joseph, who’d been a boy when Rose and I had moved into our home right beside him. At his feet was a basket of coal. “Heard this was needed,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “Congratulations, sir.”
Sir. I was already reaching for the basket before I realized that was my title now. “Thanking you,” I said without thought. “I believe there’s enough for a three-day, with this.” Not that I knew how high the lady burned her fire.
“That’s good, then.” He cleared his throat. “Mary, she sent for Master Fitzherbert to attend your Rose, I hear.”
The world slowed around me, and my attention narrowed to his familiar expression. The lines worn into his skin over the decades had gathered in folds of worry between his brows and around his lips.
“We knew you’d make the payments work,” Joseph went on, hands in his pockets. “And you’d want to come home to Rose. You’ve always said so. You said she was worth everything.”
She was. And Fitzherbert’s rates might just cost me that. “Is she okay?”
He shuffled back a step. “I’m guessin’ so. Not much that mage can’t heal.”
I’d seen things mages couldn’t heal, but those who were willing to pay for a mage to attend the childbed rarely lost the mother or the babe. Whether it was because of the magic, or because the only ones who could afford a mage could also afford to feed the family…
I looked down at the basket of coal in my arms, having forgotten it was there, unsure of what to do with it.
I needed this watch to finish so I could get home to Rose.
“Mary, she’s probably taken the little ones,” he went on, taking another step back. “I expect they’ll do well to wait with us tonight. Unless you’ve rooms, now, in the castle?”
Rooms? I thought of the little home we’d been lucky enough to find for ourselves, on the first floor, no less. The world didn’t quite make sense when I thought of leaving that home. “Oh. I don’t know.” I’d been knighted, but all I understood of it was the roles I needed to perform.
“Good timing, though. Mary, she was terrified of the cost of a Healer. She’ll rest easy now, knowing you’re,” he waved a hand at me, taking yet another step back, his smile brittle. “I’m glad for you, Tom. You’ve earned it.”
Mayhap he meant for that to be a good thing, but mayhap not. We all knew how people earned positions under the Duke.
But he was too far away, and I was too smart to correct him, so I just nodded and hefted the basket, closing the door after myself, my blood howling through my veins.
Rose would be fine, even if we were beggared. And mayhap we wouldn’t be. Mayhap there was some way it would all be okay.
Whatever happened, I knew we’d be well with Rose still alive with us.
I knocked and quietly deposited the coal in its cubbyhole, my hands clumsy from the cold that had seeped into me when I wasn’t paying attention. I was about to let myself out again when Isolde swept down the stairs. She’d have been a beautiful woman, if she didn’t look like she was always sucking on a lemon. My Rose was older, and her clothes less fashionable, but she always had a smile. Surely, she’d have a smile this night, too.
Chay was late, and the ladies looked ready for the night’s meal. The One knew I was ready to have the day done with.
They were headed for me, and I realized I was going to need to tell them they couldn’t leave yet when heavy knocks sounded on the door. I opened it and found Chay and Mortemon both there, with their tabards.
With the women behind me and the men before me, I stepped to the side and let them all figure out the situation, no conversation needed. Keep it simple, sweetheart, Rose would’ve said approvingly. My heart ached.
I missed her. I hadn’t realized how much day there’d been until I thought of her, at home, alone. But there had been so many new adjustments and small things to follow up. There was no first day of Blackguard training the way there’d been with the Watch, when we’d all been taken on in a group and run through what we needed to know, but Mortemon had done his best. Chay still looked scruffy, but considering he’d been sworn in only hours ago, I hoped the Duke would give him some grace.
I fell in behind the ladies as Mortemon took the lead, which would’ve pleased him plenty. As the Blackguard went, he was the runt of the litter and had been treated as such. It’d made him mean, and judging from the tension between he and Chay, they’d already had a run in. Chay hadn’t cleaned his boots yet, but his tabard was neat beneath his belt, and his mouth was blessedly closed. Whatever had happened, they were keeping it between them.
Given how little my young shieldman knew, he did well to escort the lady to her seat at the table. I made sure my feet were in the right spot, and my shield was forward, then focused on breathing as the hall filled before us, people moving willy-nilly. My own girls would have already eaten and be helping Mary with the cleanup. Someone would be with my Rose. Whatever had happened, she was okay. They would’ve given her some honey water and clean linens. If she could stand, she’d’ve bathed. If she couldn’t, they’d help her soon enough. I hadn’t been there, but she knew she was in my heart, and I in hers. And she’d left that offering, too. Those little things, they made you feel stronger. If she’d wavered, she’d recall them. It would’ve kept her going until the mage arrived.
Sandra’s birth had terrified me, but I’d been a much younger man, then. I’d never managed to feel confident in the process, but I knew how much a body could take, and I had faith in the mage knowing he’d only get paid if he did the work to save the patient.
Mayhap, with my new role, I’d be able to pay him and still keep all our bellies full.
The Duke swept in, deep in conversation with two men who I recognized but couldn’t name. One of them usually held a chalkboard, as the dust on his sleeves bore testament.
Everything settled into place as the Duke moved forward. I didn’t have to like his methods to respect his results. The lady served him calmly, unruffled by the long day she’d put in. People turned back to their meals, and talk leveled out. Everything was how it should’ve been, with the Duke paying no attention to my unkempt young counterpart.
I’d never once stood so close to the Duke. Even when he’d ridden past me that day in Wolfswail, he’d been on his horse and felt like he was on the other side of the country.
Servants laid out the meal, and I watched in silence as they ate. None of us met each other’s eyes, or the eyes of those we served. I didn’t dare shift throughout the entire meal. I could see the floor was dry. I listened to the folks walking across it. But I could feel the blood in my boots. My bones ached, but if I moved, my feet would squelch, and then the Duke’d look at me.
I was a dead man breathing, but I had babes at home who needed me to keep on bringing in the coins.
The rewards for the tourney were given out—the medallions, not the purses. The Duke wouldn’t be so crass.
Escorting the lady back to her room was physically painful, but I fought not to limp. I just had to get home to Rose. It wasn’t so far, now.
Mortemon didn’t come into the tower with us, and I was relieved to close the heavy wooden barrier between his watchful eyes and the outside world.
The lady was already gone from the defensive chamber into the inner room, and Chay had wasted no time dropping the iron bar over the door that kept her locked safely inside. I assumed her handmaid would do the same from the other way.
“I know I’m on now,” Chay said, looking up at me, one hand on his side like he was injured. His eyes shone overbright, but I doubted it was from the wound. “But I need you to cover for me.”
I thought of the creases in Joseph’s brow. Rose. “I need to get home.”
“You don’t know me,” Chay said quietly, his voice shaking just a little in a way that unsettled me. “You’ll learn I don’t ask for much, but my friends are leaving tonight, Thomas. I may never see them again.”
He didn’t have a family, or mayhap those people were his family.
They’d sent for a mage. Rose would be fine. If she wasn’t…if a mage couldn’t hold her, nothing could. But the mage wouldn’t take on hopeless work. I’d be naming another little girl tonight.
I had a family.
His blue eyes glistened. He didn’t hide it.
“I’ll cover for you for a half-hour.” I hadn’t been ready with a name. The babe wasn’t due until winter, and we’d not yet agreed on anything. I could think on the name now. It wasn’t wasted time. Really, ’twas sensible. The lad would focus on his role better.
He was gone before I could finish my warning about staying out of sight, and I sighed, closing the door behind him.
If he was caught by the Duke, I’d be on duty all night and for a lot more besides. Because he’d be dead.