Chapter Twenty-Three. An Invitation Politely Declined.
Twenty-Three
An Invitation Politely Declined.
“He is very protective of you, I shall give him that.”
As Merc walks off, his massive shoulders part the orange and red foliage, which appears brown and purple due to the makeshift blue veil I look out of.
Even after I can’t see him anymore through the trees, I can still sense his presence.
Then again, convincing him to leave was harder than getting us out of the moat.
In the silence that follows, my fingertips trace the silver detailing on one of the outer jacket’s sleeves. They’re so long, the hems hang over my hands, but I’m glad for the warmth.
“He is.” Then, even though I know what this is about, I ask the knight, “What is it you wish to speak to me about.”
“I need your help.”
When Julion doesn’t immediately continue, my eyes shift over to his gold breastplate.
My distorted reflection stares back at me, the blue turban and the veil, and the silver stitching on the togs, presenting a picture that looks nothing like who I was back inside the wall of my village.
This is good camouflage, I tell myself, but not so good that I can remain anywhere near my home.
And then it dawns on me. Julion is alone.
I have a thought that he must be good with the—yes, it is smaller—sword that’s holstered in a bejeweled sheath at his hip.
The trip down from Prosperitus is fraught with thieves and bandits, and for certain, he must be confident of his ability to defend himself.
And successful at doing so.
“Tell me,” I prompt in a low voice.
“I saw what you did to the dragon.” There’s a pause, as if Julion wants me to confirm what he witnessed. When I stay silent, he continues, “I have heard of you, a young woman on the fringes of the Prosperitus territory, who can bring people out of the cave of death—”
“That is not me,” I lie. “I cannot do anything for you—”
“There’s a threat that we face in this Kingdom, one that comes in the darkness, from out of the failing Fulcrum. Surely you have heard the talk. Or perhaps you have seen the carcasses in these very woods.”
“You know of our dead cows all the way up in Prosperitus?” I find that hard to believe—
“No, we have our own around the city.”
“Demons stalk the court?” I breathe in fear.
“And I did not know you had them, too.”
Uttering a curse, Julion begins to pace around, and the gathering sunlight that filters through the colored leaves glints and flashes on his golden armor. His mood becomes grim, his profile drawing into an aggression that shouldn’t be a surprise given that he is a fighter.
“The uneasy peace,” he says, “that has reigned over Anathos since the Dark King was banished during the Great Containment is hard enough to sustain in times of bounty. The four Kingdoms of the North, South, East, and West are not, and have never been, aligned, for we compete for resources to survive and there is no trust among us. If what I believe is happening is fact rather than myth, there are … decisions that must be made for the good of our people, for the good of Prosperitus.”
He stops and stares through the branches at the far-off wall of my little village. It’s then I notice the dull wafts of smoke that as yet rise up from inside of the barrier’s crumbling confines, a reminder that I must go, and the sooner the better in all this daylight.
“There is a very certain courage that I require at this time.” The knight looks over his shoulder at me. “One I find I have lost somewhere along the way and cannot access.”
“That sort of resurrection is up to you, not anybody else.”
“You’re wrong. I can find it as long as my love is by my side.
” Though I am not meeting his dark eyes, I can feel his stare narrow on me.
“And that’s why I need you. My betrothed is dying.
She has … days left, if I am lucky. I need you to keep her alive, so that I can serve in the capacity I must for the citizens of Prosperitus—of which you, yourself, are among. ”
Shaking my head, all I can see is Mare. This nobleman is physically stronger than her, and certainly has more station and resources, but you cannot trust a mob—or predict what they will destroy in their madcap rushes.
“You do not want what is coming after me,” I say roughly.
That he gets all regal is not a surprise. “I am afraid of no mortal thing upon Anathos.”
“Superstitions make men with weapons and flames very dangerous, particularly in a group.”
“And I have an army.”
Julion begins to pace again, and I catalogue the weapons on him, thinking also of what that warhorse of his might be carrying.
Maybe he’s right to be so secure—in the usual course of things.
But I fear that version of Anathos went by the wayside some time ago; it’s just taken us a while to catch up with the disintegration.
“I saw what you did with the dragon.” His voice grows strident, his footfalls turning into stomps that crush the ground cover. “You killed it first. Then you brought it back.”
“I did no such thing.” Again, the falsity leaves my lips easily. “And I fear your desperation is making you mad—”
“I shall pay you.” He stops again and looks across the lengths that separate us. “I am not without means.”
“I don’t need money, and even if I did, I have nothing but my sincerest sympathy to give you. At any price.”
Julion curses and approaches me. “Why are you withholding your gift? You could alter the course of my life and so many others—”
I open my mouth and quote from the Book of Time, or at least as I’ve overheard it: “‘In the right and proper order of things, there is nothing that shall escape the call of death.’”
“Spare me pabulum from the past.” He leans in to me, and the energy rolling off him shifts. No more a hero, he becomes an aggressor. “Besides, if you really believed that, you would not have brought the dragon back—”
“That beast spontaneously revived. It happens—”
“After you drove your knife into its throat, and then disappeared from sight right before my eyes. Or did you think I could not see what happened? I witnessed it all, and I need you to save my beloved so that I may do what I must to protect this Kingdom and its citizenry.”
Turning my head, I stare through the changed leaves, searching for Merc’s black-leathered figure. We should have had a signal for when it was time for him to return. A whistle or something like a birdcall.
“Fates, I do not understand you.” Julion wheels his arm about as if he’s trying to loosen a knotting in his shoulder.
“You are an outcast, with no resources and no one to help you but an unscrupulous man who is out for himself. And I stand before you, prepared to provide you shelter, protection, and money, and you will not give me what you imparted to some dumb monster for free.”
I picture the dragon, lying there in the sand, the color gone out of its scales, those boys taunting its pain and beating at its head with sticks.
“People don’t tell you ‘no’ very often, do they,” I hear myself say.
This seems to pull him up short. “Indeed, they do not. But then I am not in the habit of asking things of senseless women very often.”
“So if I do not acquiesce to your request, I am to be relegated to stupidity?”
“I am offering you so much more than you have!” Now he walks around in a tight little circle, as if he’s on a lead that’s staked to the ground. “In return for a work of … compassion and grace in the midst of a cruel and unfair fate. Yet you fight against me—”
“Do you remember the crowd last night?” Anger sharpens my voice.
“That mob is what I have been waiting for—and fearing—every moment since I can remember. If I actually possessed the power you say—and I deny having any such thing—and I were to use it to bring anyone in your court back from the grave that awaits them—however unfair that grave is—that violent crowd would absolutely come after you, too. They’d just be wearing your army’s uniforms, instead of the tattered clothes of villagers, and their weapons would be so much more than torches and rakes. ”
He stops dead. “No, they would not.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“You do not know who I am.”
“Your ilk is more common than you think.” As he tosses his head back and looks at the sky with annoyance, I study his profile in a way I’ve not been able to do—and recognize him in all his grandeur.
The wealthy and beautiful, be they men or women, are a tribe, far apart from the likes of me.
“You’re a well-bred man of means, who gallivants through his mortal time on Anathos, doing what he wishes, going where he pleases, and bidding others to his whims because he was born to nobility and the court.
And he’s so certain of his position that what was merely the luck of his birth he ascribes to his own intelligence and doing. ”
“And you’re a commoner with no prospects who’s being offered the kind of security a woman of your station cannot even hope to marry.”
“Wrong,” I snap back at him. “But you’re close. I’m a commoner with no prospects who’s turning your arrogant offer down—and you should thank me for it. You can’t handle what comes with my aid.”
After what happened to Mare? I am never, ever drawing on that power again. Ever.
“I thought you said you have no special gift,” he drawls. Then he says in a very low tone, “I can force you, if I have to.”
That uncharacteristic fury within me kindles and I nearly look him in the eye as I start to unbutton his coat: “Try it and see how that goes. Wouldn’t beating a woman sit badly upon your spotless conscience.”
Abruptly, he covers his eyes and turns away. “What are you doing?”
My fingers attack the fasteners. “I’m giving you your clothes back—”
The high-pitched whinny of a horse cuts through the forest, and we both jerk toward the sound.
“Fates,” Julion says bitterly, “your helpful friend better not be stealing my stallion and leaving us both in the lurch.”
We take off running. He’s in front, cutting through the branches without holding any to the side for the person drafting in his wake. I don’t care. I’m shorter than him, and easily duck to keep from getting smacked in the face with the orange and red leaves.
In a clearing not far from where we were, his fine white stallion is tethered to a tree, and Merc is indeed standing before the magnificent warhorse.
As he eyes the steed while it throws its head and whips its tail, he does look as if he’s sizing up a leap into the saddle, and I wonder if Julion’s opinion of the man I’ve so blindly put my faith in may be closer to the truth than I can bear to admit.
“Off hand thee!” Julion shouts as he breaks out into the knoll.
Merc’s head twists in the aristocrat’s direction. Then he raises his palms. “I’m not touching anything.” After which he assumes a smirk as he measures me. “More than I can say for you, evidently.”
I pull the coat back together and hastily redo the buttons.
Meanwhile, the stallion keeps mincing in place, those finely shod hooves prancing divots into the ground like it’s warming up for a full-out bolt.
Julion strides over to the horse and soothes it with a calm stroke on the snorting muzzle and soft words quietly spoken—
With eerie clarity, I see a beautiful young woman with deep brown skin and long, flowing black hair, reclining against silken sheets, fading away.
“I’m very sorry,” I say in a hoarse voice.
Julion takes a deep breath and glances over his shoulder, looking through Merc to me. “Please. Help me. There are things … I must do that I am unable without her.”
All I can do is shake my head and drop my eyes to his finely made riding boots.
“Keep the clothes,” he tells me with defeat. “If you change your mind, come to court and ask after me. I shall receive you at once.”
As he releases the reins from the branch he wound them around, he says, “Fates be with you.”
“May the crescent moon watch over your trail as well,” I whisper.
The golden knight mounts with an elegant economy of movement, and the stallion hips backward, clearly not willing to associate with lower-class women and men of questionable scruples for even a heartbeat longer.
With a swoop of the reins, Julion turns the warhorse about and gives it free head, those hooves thundering off through the forest for the main road that leads north and east away from my village.
Not that it’s mine anymore.
I glance back at Merc, focusing on the beads that are tied on the ends of his braids. Before I can speak, he demands, “How much did he pay you for your service.”
“Nothing. Nothing happened—”
“Why are you so determined to deny your job.”
On the contrary, I’m not going to argue about how those buttons got unfastened. “We must leave now. Before the herders take the sheeplings and cows out to the pastures—”
Merc comes over to me, and even through the muck that covers him, I can smell the cedar fragrance I’ve become so addicted to.
His scarred hand reaches out and touches the veil over my face. “Did he kiss you? I might have to kill him, you know.”
“He has an army,” I hear myself say.
“That hasn’t stopped me yet.” I sense Merc’s eyes narrowing. “Is that all he wanted of you? Sex.”
I lift my chin and stare off over his shoulder, noting how the blue veil changes the colors of the landscape. “Yes.”
“You’re lying to me.”
After a long, tense moment, Merc backs off with a curse. My deflation is immediate, as if both my heels have been punctured and all of my strength funnels out into the coney needles underfoot. I hate the lie, but the truth is so much more complicated—and so much worse.
“The Badlands are a full day on horseback if we don’t sleep,” he says brusquely. “On foot? We’re looking at two without any breaks. So we need to find some of what your noble charge just left on.”
When I don’t respond, he shoots me a glare. “Don’t tell me you can’t ride.”
I take a deep breath, and say with resignation, “Okay. I won’t.”