Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THOMAS
“There is a place for everything.” ~ Barloc’s Wisdom, compiled by F. Bergsoniir
T he torches weren’t all lit as I walked back to my rooms. Most were, but a few had burned out and waited, yet to be replaced.
I didn’t stop and feel for warmth on the stubs, but I considered it.
Further evidence of how hard the plague was hitting us wasn’t necessary. I could see it out the windows on the castle wall where there ought to have been groups of three patrolling each segment. The group I could see were covering two segments, though.
If I saw nothing except that, I’d still know we were in trouble.
I hadn’t seen Isolde since she’d been declared sick by the Worg in the dungeons almost a week ago. And that was as unsettling as the thin patrols.
In the mess, Riyad hailed me. He didn’t stand from his spot, his face long and tired. Knowing what he was like, I grabbed some extra bread for him before I went to sit. “They found the source, did you hear?”
I spooned up some thin soup, fighting against my disbelief. “Did they just?” I asked, trying not to sound too doubtful.
“It was a fisherman’s family who died first,” he said, taking the bread I’d given him and ripping it open. “So they’re burning all the fish. And I hear there’s to be a new infirmary, set up at the tourney ground. I’d hate to be the bastard out there.”
I forced more food into my body. Seven days ago, Steward Daniel had left. Four days ago, Acting Captain Smythesson had been found drunk beneath his desk. Two days ago, he’d become Captain properly at the passing of his predecessor. He hadn’t been seen sober since that hurried ceremony, from what I heard. One day ago, Mortemon had gone entirely missing, presumed dead. Today, Acting Steward Romwell had greeted the lady from beneath his thickest winter coat, veins visibly dark beneath his eyes.
“How’s it going, being with the lady?” he asked me, grinning, his gap-toothed smile not entirely kind.
I missed my Rose, suddenly. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and fall asleep. I’d wake to that damned cat without complaint and fetch the babe for her for feeding at any hour he demanded.
“Can’t complain,” I said instead. “Still on the Outer East Wall?”
“Nah.” He snorted. “Everywhere nowadays, and not in the fun way.”
I was going to run the field hospital at the tourney grounds tomorrow. I’d agreed to it. Helped the lady set it up. She didn’t know what it took to run an army camp. I was no expert, but I was the closest she had. Everyone else who had the know-how and was still fit was desperately needed to hold the city together. If it worked, the unrest would ease, and I’d be supported more. If it didn’t work…well, then it wouldn’t matter.
The lady had asked with tears in her eyes after another trip back from the almost deserted mess hall. She knew the risks I was running. She’d done what she could to reduce them.
I’d sworn I’d never put myself in the position where I’d be in charge of people, but that had been under the Duke. Riyad was yapping away, and I just stared at the bits of cabbage bobbing around in the thin liquid.
The little lady, she wasn’t the Duke. Not even close. But he’d be back one day. He’d be taking the reins from her hands.
“…like fish,” Riyad said, and grinned. “But there’ll be plenty of knappchs to be taken.”
Riyad wouldn’t know knappchs if an apple came and pissed in his cup. “It’s not going to be over soon,” I told him, the words razors in my throat. The wind screamed around us, but the lamp didn’t flicker.
He pulled back, affronted. “But the fish?—”
“If it’s the fish, then it’ll soon be stopped.” By the One, I hoped it was the fish. I could live without them for the rest of my life if needs must.
“But I’m not holding my breath, old friend.”
* * *
The next day, when I entered the bailey, I found a horse saddled and waiting for me. Ready to go already were a handful of guardsmen who’d offered to come along in exchange for their own families being provided with shelter and care.
To my shock, beside them was the lady herself on her dignified gray mare, and the missing Isolde on a pleasant piebald. Nearby, Chay stood holding their reins and those of his own warhorse.
“I need to travel to the city,” she told me, before I could ask. “I may need to go with a reduced escort at times, but today, I thought I could see you off and run my required errands.”
If I hadn’t known how regularly she flaunted her father’s rules, I’d have thought it a sensible way to navigate a difficult situation. But with Mortemon dead, she had limited choices.
I hefted myself into the saddle and barely even noticed the aches in my hips, in one knee where I’d broken my leg decades ago. Chay was already mounted, and as our group moved off, I caught a glimpse of a stableboy, his cap pulled low and a scarf pulled high over his face, watching from the shadows.
The upper level of the city was, if anything, busier than usual. People stood in groups, talking. Whilst expressions here weren’t grim, there was a strange intensity. Lady Audrey was hailed by a few friendly faces I didn’t recognize, but she didn’t stop and none of them tried overly hard to persuade her to. A cart heavy with food trundled past us.
We moved through the streets, and it felt odd. The hawkers were thin on the ground, foot traffic was thick. Twice, I saw groups of guardsmen moving together with carts, and the sight of the bags in the cart made my blood run cold. I called myself a fool. We weren’t at war.
Well, we were. But the war was far away, over fields and rivers. And I was safe, me and mine.
Lady Audrey and Isolde steered us through the city toward the docks. I didn’t realize their destination before I smelt the brine, though, too intent on the faces watching us from shadowed lanes and windows, from doorways and the side of the road. There wasn’t a war here—but it felt like there was.
A woman hauling wood stopped to look at us, a cat fled into the shadows at our approach. Children playing in the street went silent and hurried away. There was snow on the wind, and I couldn’t shake the thought that we were walking into an ambush.
The tension was heavy, and it had me by the throat.
To my relief, the main road to the docks was blocked. A makeshift barricade of repurposed carts and crates filled the street, with two green guards hastily stowing dice as soon as they saw us approaching.
“No passage, milady,” said one of them, with a bow that wobbled as much as his voice did. They were recruiting hard. I’d never seen the boy in my life.
Silence met this news. I glanced, from the corner of my eye, toward the little lady. She was looking past them, lost in thought. “On whose orders?” she eventually asked, bringing her gaze back to the young man who’d spoken.
His skin reddened under her gaze. “Th—The Master Steward, milady. ’Tis—’Tis to contain the plague.”
“I see.” Her tone said whatever it was that she saw wasn’t pleasing. “I spoke to the Master Steward this morning. I am checking on the situation for him. I thought he would have sent word to expect me.”
Her lie made my heart ache. There was no chance she’d had time to check in this morning and still been waiting for me. But at least she didn’t remind the lad there was no Master Steward in La’Angi, currently, only an unwell Acting Steward.
“My apologies, milady,” he said, stepping aside and waving us through, his eyes wide. “I never—I meant no?—”
“I respect you doing as you’ve been ordered,” she said crisply, as she led us past the barricade.
I waved on the guards I was taking with me to the hospital. “I’ll meet you at the lower market to gather the last of the supplies,” I told one who hesitated. “Or at the tourney grounds.” Whatever was coming, I couldn’t leave the lady to face it alone. Not without feeling the burn of my oath, and not without feeling like a fraud.
We rode on. The streets were empty of people. The buildings stood silent, crowding around us. “We shouldn’t be here,” Isolde said, as we turned yet another corner to leave the barricade behind us.
I silently agreed with her sentiments. I’d seen emptied parts of the city before, but never for a good reason.
“There are no ships,” the little lady said, her eyes fixed on the water behind me.
My gaze moved away from the open shutters on buildings, the doors hanging on their hinges, and went to the bay.
She was right. It was a sight I’d never before seen. Not a single vessel waited in the sheltered bay. Fishing craft lay smashed.
“If you’re thinking of investigating that smoke, so help me, Audrey,” Isolde said, the words threatening.
I raised my eyes again and found the pillar of smoke Isolde had mentioned. “I need to know,” the lady said, her words soft and full of pain. “Isolde—I need to.”
“Fine,” she snapped, and her eyes cut across me like a lash. “Keep her safe,” she ordered, leaping down from her mount with none of the decorum I expected. I looked away as she kicked her skirts up and kilted them to the side, and simultaneously broke into a long-legged, loping run.
“I need to see the markets,” Audrey told us, the words wooden. But she made no move to leave.
Chay climbed down, took the reins of Isolde’s mount and gave the animal some attention. It seemed not at all bothered, though. Not like us. Chay sent a long, meaningful look my way. I lifted my shield from its spot on my saddle, strapped it to my arm, and turned to face back the way we’d come.
Isolde wasn’t gone for long. “Mostly nets, boats, barrels, and fish,” she reported to us, taking her reins back and leaping up lithely, flicking her skirts to resettle them. “Some bodies,” she added, matter-of-factly. “Not as many as I expected.”
The chill in my breast spread to my bones.
“Did the plague kill them?” Audrey asked her, her voice heavy with the question.
Isolde drew a deep breath. “I didn’t get close, Audrey.” The little lady waited, and Isolde let out the air she’d so carefully drawn in. “Damn it,” she muttered. “I saw one— one —that was clearly cut down. But most of them were too burnt to tell.”
“How many?”
Isolde’s patience surprised me when she said softly, “I don’t know. The pyre was huge, but as I said, it was mostly nets and wood from what I could see. Lingering there is no wiser than lingering here.”
“If it’s spread via the fish, we’re safe here,” the lady said, but she was turning her mount.
“Yes.” The word was brief, sharp, as Isolde came toward me to take her place at the front. “If.”
Audrey hesitated a moment more, clearly wanting to explore for herself. Behind her, I watched Chay watch her, waiting, his face a study of neutrality. “Which market should we head to, my lady?” I asked Audrey.
She started for a moment, clearly being torn from her thoughts. “The main,” she replied grimly.
“Market?” Isolde demanded, turning to look at Audrey incredulously, her cheeks pale where her scarf had slipped.
Audrey lifted a hand toward the barren bay of La’Angi, her expression somber. The wordless explanation made Isolde close her eyes for the briefest of moments. Grief? I doubted it. Anger, more like, that the lady risked herself.
I wanted to ask them how long it would take before I was free to do my duty, but at the end of the day, protecting Audrey was my duty. The question clawed at my chest as we made our way through tense streets, as we stopped to let a group of men pulling a cart covered in thick burlap toward the lower levels of the city, their faces shrouded with cloth, expressions bleak. None of us asked what was in that cart.
The market wasn’t empty, as I’d half feared; however, the stalls usually full of vegetables were all but bare, offering only the poorest selection of sad-looking wares. The bakery had a sign up saying they were out of stock, and the butcher’s hooks were clean. The fletcher and the furrier were still there, but no one stopped at their stalls.
We rode through as we could never have done safely on a normal day. The crowds that usually clustered were replaced by hurried, grim-faced, shocked-looking individuals. None of us spoke as we rode. Audrey led us along a path through the main market into the park.
As we approached the Bonetree, I kept my eyes ahead. There was still a patrol on it, but only one pair. The wind whispered through the hollowed bones craftsmen had turned into chimes and hung high in its branches, making haunting music.
I remembered shimmying up that trunk as a boy, before the punishments had been so severe. I remembered my ma whispering words and tucking little bundles of whatever she could find into the gaps where the roots lifted themselves forcefully from the ground. Back in those days, for a bit of copper, you could play as long as you liked, and no one would remember. Now, the price was silver, and you had to be quick.
Even the lady got suspicious looks from the guardsmen on duty. She stared at the tree, frowning, but didn’t stop. The sky threatened us with dark clouds, but we kept the same pace, taking another route back to the castle. We stopped twice for groups of guardsmen—once taking an empty cart toward the lower levels of the city, once for a group with a full cart returning. They saluted the lady smartly as they passed us by. She watched, unblinking. I saw Isolde looking down at her own fist on her saddle horn. The gloves hid her skin, but I knew she must be ill and was no doubt hurting.
“Who’s in charge of the guard today, Thomas?” she asked me as that heavy cart was pulled through a lesser gate toward the castle.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, my lady.” It was the truth.
“Is anyone, really?” she asked me.
All I could do was repeat, “I’m sorry, my lady. I just don’t know.”