Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AUDREY
“The ultimate power is not needing to care.” ~ Matri’sion lesson
H e always stood a little back from the window. Even with his bred-in-the-bone rebellious streak, Chay respected that it’d be viewed unkindly if he was seen in my space.
That didn’t stop him from invading it, of course. It just meant he took some steps to reduce the chance anyone externally would notice. And I, of course, couldn’t do much about it, short of ordering him out.
I seriously considered doing just that for the third time since dawn as I flicked a wood shaving off the arm of my reading chair. And we’d only been officially trapped together for two days.
“Something strange is going on,” he said, angling his head as if hoping it might help him understand better. His belt jangled. I thought of those thumbs, hooked into his belt, and shifted in my seat. “Even for La’Angi.”
“What sort of strange?” I asked, then shook myself. He wasn’t my friend, and he didn’t want to be. That was fine. He had no reason at all to want to be here, speaking to me. “Is it related to the plague?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t heard the first enquiry.
“I don’t think so.” He glanced over at me. “But I’m no expert. Mayhap you ought to have a look, my lady .”
The way he said my lady made it sound like a curse spat out by the Old Gods. Rather than irritate him and go look, I stayed where I was seated. “If there are any unwell or dead, let me know,” I said, turning back to historical reports on metal use, trying to figure out what might be normal.
Certainly not his jangling.
“Caring about people after they’re dead would set you apart from your father,” he mused. “A wise choice as ever, Audrey.”
“My father cares about the dead,” I said, keeping it light. “They spread disease. I hear it’s harder to dispose of a man than it is to kill him. Especially in large numbers.” I smiled at him brightly. Of course those big hands of his were hooked in his belt, his hip cocked. “If you really disliked me so much, I’m sure you could find an accurate way to insult me.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re saying you’re like the Butcher of Wolfswail and then saying I’m not insulting you, right? Do you think being like that man is a compliment?”
Don’t engage, Audrey. But it was right there. “Are you defending that poor attempt to hurt my feelings, sir? Of all the similarities to have with the Butcher of Wolfswail—” I paused, unsure if I’d ever spoken that moniker before, but it didn’t taste ill on my tongue, so I went on, “—being pragmatic is one I will claim.”
He looked at the scroll in my hand. “Ah, yes. So pragmatic of you to lock yourself inside and read poetry for days whilst others die.”
“You believe I’m so powerful I could make a difference if I left?” I asked, raising my brows. “My mere presence may somehow lift a plague?” I clicked my tongue and settled in. “You flatter me, sir.”
“Would if I could,” he muttered, and heat washed through me, hot on the heels of confusion. Then I untangled the wordplay. Not compliment, but flatter .
Feeling my cheeks burning, I pretended not to hear at all, in case he’d meant something entirely different. But though my eyes skimmed over the letters, I couldn’t help but wonder what sorts of things Chay may compliment a person on…and whether he truly did only see my father when he looked at me.
Eventually, Chay moved from the window and took up his whittling. By the time I judged he’d been there long enough for it to be obvious I was avoiding him, the light was fading, and Isolde was curled in the chair nearby, napping. I stretched my aching back and set the letters I’d received aside.
The plague was everywhere. No one had found a curse. Any mage who attempted to interact with it died instantly.
There was no cure.
I walked over to the big window, looking out over the city. There were no new smoke plumes from when I’d looked that morning, at least none thick enough to identify in the dying light. The gates would be closing soon enough. I wondered how long it would be before they’d be letting the prisoner in the dungeons out. How long would it take her to reach her people? What would she tell them?
It was probably strange that I wanted to have a conversation with my would-be killer. It wasn’t because her suggestion had been tempting. It wasn’t.
But who spoke like that?
And how did they behave?
I rolled my shoulders in another attempt to dismiss the tightness, glancing across the bailey below in time to see Steward Daniel ride out. Surely not. He’d have time to clear the city, but not to return. In his wake, a handful of others rode, some with horses on a lead.
“Isolde,” I said, ignoring the way my heart had begun to hammer.
She was there in an instant, wide awake, but only witnessed the last rider and his train of two horses. “What?” she asked me, the question holding no accusation.
I had to swallow the knot in my throat. Words crowded my head, and when she looked at me, I forced myself to say, “I think Steward Daniel is fleeing.”
“What?” she repeated, this time incredulously. “He wouldn’t dare. What did you see?”
But the words were all stuck, now, filling my brain so much that my mouth couldn’t empty them. Because if the Master Steward left, who was in charge? What steps had he really put in place to help people? Was the Captain actually dying, and if he did, and the Master Steward was gone, who would remain?
Had he planned this? To lock me in, and then run away?
“That’d explain it,” Chay drawled from where he sat near the chessboard.
“Explain what?” Isolde demanded.
I watched as, along the walls, guards began to light torches. “The cart loads of stuff I saw earlier. I said it was strange.”
He had.
Below us, a glow came from behind some shutters left ajar. Were they being lit too, or was it just more obvious as the light bled from the sky? And would everyone bleed from the city, too, in the wake of Steward Daniel? Would they go like cider from a cracked jug, rushing anywhere they could? Or was the jug not yet so badly cracked that it was inevitable? Could I still right that jug?
A lethal smile was creeping over Isolde’s face. “There’s no one he could’ve possibly named,” she said, the words low and full of threat, “who could hold the keep together.”
The Captain was dying. The Master Steward had put forth a young man, loyal to my father, to take his place. He would’ve left his assistant in charge. He’d tucked me away, safe. He was tucking himself away, too.
The harvest wasn’t coming in fast enough, or the plague was spreading too quickly.
He was going to let them all die.
Isolde stepped in front of me, but she was still smiling. My eyes fell on the bow of her lips as she spoke to me, but the words were too much, and I felt the tears spilling over.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. It wasn’t supposed to get this bad.
I needed to be present. I needed to stand behind whoever was managing the field hospital and the relief efforts.
We have to stay. The words wouldn’t come out. They filled my head like caltrops, cutting me up no matter what I tried to think or do. This was my place. This had to be my place. I couldn’t give voice to the words to explain that I couldn’t leave like this, like a rat off a sinking ship. I could do something here.
“Audrey,” Isolde said, and pre-empting her heartache, I held the weight of her disappointment. I was being crushed.
But I couldn’t afford to break.
“We should leave, too, but we can’t,” Chay said mockingly. “First, we must attempt to rescue the poor, lowly people. Our intentions are good, so what does the impact matter?”
“Go cry into your bunk,” Isolde snapped. “And hope that mayhap one day you’ll have the courage to try.”
He made a noise of disgust. “How pragmatic of you,” he said, and the barb stung. “You don’t know me, Matri’sion, and you never will.” His eyes raked over me, though, not Isolde, disappointment in the tight line of his downturned lips.
I reeled, wishing he’d simply struck me instead.
“Promises, promises,” Isolde muttered, pressing a handkerchief into my hand.
He was right. I was as likely to lead them all to ruin as they were to make their way there by themselves. I thought of those children, of their rage-filled cries that reverberated in my bones, and the way their black blood had oozed.
I’d gotten them a mage. It was all I could’ve done, and it hadn’t worked.
Rather than retreat to my bed to cry, I snatched up my cloak and left the tower.
The stables were warm and peaceful. Isolde followed me, setting a torch in a bracket silently. I went straight to Storm, who nickered at me and came to snuffle my hair.
I drew in a deep breath, feeling the ground beneath me, just as she did, just as Isolde had taught me. I ran my hand down her smooth muzzle, smelling the hay and horse scents that spoke of safety. She searched me for treats half-heartedly, and I drew from her strength.
“What can she hear?” Isolde asked me, the question patient.
I listened, moving around her to run my hands down her neck. The sounds of the city were different than usual, but not in a way I could put my finger on. Not alarming, just unsettling. In the foreground I heard Vixen in the stall next to her snuffling, and Chay’s horse chewing his cud. And then the creak of the door, the torch fluttered threateningly in its bracket with the gust of wind. The jangle of Chay’s approach.
I expected more barbs. Bracing myself, I waited, staring at Storm’s long, strong neck and the silver, neatly trimmed mane that teased my fingertips.
Instead, I heard the slosh and clatter of a bucket of water, the rattle of brushes, the happy equine snuffles that had once seemed so odd coming from an infamous Raider’s Ban warhorse.
Isolde didn’t prompt any more questions, just brought me Storm’s grooming items, and moved over to her mare.
The three of us worked without speech, and I was lulled by the rhythmic motions. Storm leaned into the brush, and I felt the gentle pressure of her gratitude from the palms of my hands all the way to the soles of my feet.
I’d done what I could. It hadn’t been enough that day. Mayhap next time it would be if I tried to learn more and do better. If I didn’t forget.
In the aftermath of the emotions, the tiredness crept in. I packed up slowly, loathe to leave Storm but knowing I needed sleep.
Next time, we’ll ride, I promised her silently. And a small part of me imagined riding into the sunset, tracking the evening shadows down to the Matri’sion lands. I could imagine the wind buffeting my face and the feel of her strength beneath me, connecting me to this world.
I’d ride, instead, through the apple trees. Because while a part of me wanted to leave, another part of me needed to stay.
As I waited for Isolde to finish, my eyes fell on where Chay was leaning up against his gelding. His expression was one of pain, and whilst the ground threatened to swallow me to see it, I could also see the peace he was drawing from his friend, much as I had with Storm. Demanding he leave would’ve been so easy. Expected, even. Instead, I turned away quietly to give him what privacy I could. But the image, once seen, was not easy to forget. The furrow in his brows that raised a little in the middle and turned down at the edges, as if in hopelessness. The downward curve at the corner of his lips, the slump in his shoulders, the way his hands had rubbed slow, deep circles in his friend’s shoulder in a way that made me ache.
He was angry with me, and that was fair. I’d known he was hurting. It shouldn’t have made a difference that I’d seen the evidence of it.
Drawing in a deep breath, I told myself that his horse, at least, could comfort him. Even if I couldn’t.