by Jane Glatt
Brotherhood of the Throne
Book 1
Thief
Jane Glatt
Copyright © 2012 Roberta Jane Glatt
Jane Glatt Enterprises Inc.
www.Janeglatt.com
ISBN 978-0-988021-0-1
All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
one
Her mother would be furious but she climbed up onto the roof anyway. Tomorrow was her sixteenth nameday and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from coming. But she wasn’t sixteen yet so she was going to enjoy her last night of childhood, her last night of freedom, the last night she could do as she pleased. She was going to the one spot in her world where she felt completely safe.
Brenna hunched over as she scrambled across the cold slate tiles. The biting wind whipped mountain snow across the roof. She paused to blow on her hands in an effort to keep them warm and supple. She’d made this climb at least once a week since she was eight and she knew which shingles were loose, knew where the pigeons roosted, knew where lamplight shone when the Duke and his household were awake in the night. Like now.
She shielded her eyes against the glare from the window and watched, grateful for her ability to see well in the dark, a trait she shared with her mother. After a few minutes of nothing but night Brenna eased across the patch of light. When she was in the shadow below the window she breathed out once, a dim cloud in the cold air.
“Brenna.”
She whirled and reached one hand out towards the voice. Her hand closed tightly on an arm and she wrenched it against her chest. Her other hand wrapped over a mouth and clamped down and she pulled the smaller body up against her, the head chin height.
“I told you to stay inside tonight brat,” Brenna hissed. She removed her hand from his mouth.
“But it’s your last night.”
“And I told you to stay inside.” Brenna released her grip and sighed. “Beldyn this is the one night when he’ll be much harder on you than me if we’re caught.” She turned him around until she could peer down into his eyes. “Brat you know he needs me whole and sound for tomorrow. He’d take it all out on you.”
“I don’t care.” Beldyn leaned into her and she ruffled his hair, her hand gliding from his head to the back of his finely knit wool tunic.
“But I do. That stubborn streak will get you into trouble,” Brenna said. She shook her head, recognizing her mother’s words, her mother’s fears. “And how many times do I have to say good bye to you? Time for you to go back to your rooms.”
“I don’t want you to leave.” Beldyn stepped back from her and she saw the glint of tears. “He’s the one I want to leave.”
“You know that won’t happen. He’s the Duke and this estate belongs to him.” By right of legitimate birth, Brenna thought, and she pushed the old anger back down, hard. “Besides, you’ll forget all about me in a few weeks.”
“You know I won’t.” Beldyn looked up at her and she was surprised by the fierceness in his face. “You’ve been my only friend. You’ve treated me better than my own mother.”
“She has her own demons to deal with,” Brenna said. Even after all she’d seen and heard she was unwilling to demean the mother in front of the son.
“And I’m on my own now. At least I always had you.”
“We both know I’m not leaving because I want to.”
“I know. It’s him. He did this. I wish he were dead.”
And Brenna, shocked at the hatred she heard in the boy’s voice, grabbed Beldyn’s shoulders and pulled him to face her.
“Brat you can’t let him make you mean, do you hear me? If you do you’ll be just like him. And where would that leave me?” She heard the desperation in her voice and stopped, trying to settle the knot in her stomach. “You’re my hope, brat. I need you to look out for my mother. And when you’re older and he is dead I need you to come find me. That’s what we talked about - my safe place for your promise to find me when he’s gone.”
“I remember,” Beldyn said.
His head rubbed against her shoulder as he nodded into the cloth of her coat.
“I won’t ever forget Brenna.”
“Good. I need you to survive him, Beldyn. For both of us.” Brenna straightened up and ruffled his hair again. “Time to get back inside before anyone notices you’re missing.”
Beldyn nodded and turned back toward the window. He reached up to the ledge and jumped. His hands gripped tightly while his foot found the toe hold Brenna had gouged into the stone years ago. When he pulled himself up to sit on the window ledge she nodded, satisfied.
“Are you going up there now?” Beldyn asked. “To the safe place?”
“Yes. It seemed like the best place to spend my last night.”
“I’ll miss you Brenna. May the One-God keep you.” And then the boy slipped into the darkened room.
Brenna, alone on the cold rooftop, murmured prayers to her own gods, the old gods, into the icy wind. She tucked her hair behind her ear and blew on her hands, once, twice, before she moved on.
A few short minutes later Brenna folded herself into the gap between two stone blocks. The old blanket was where she’d left it, some straw still tucked under it, saved somehow from the fierce winds that blew down from the mountains. Brenna piled the straw and sat down before she pulled the blanket up and over her head. She wished for better made clothing, like the fine wool Beldyn wore rather than coarse, heavy cotton. Then she was settled and out of the wind and her physical discomfort faded in the face of her fear of what the morning would bring. A morning that would see her sent away from the only life she had ever known, away from her mother, the only person who truly loved her. All because of the circumstances of her birth, all because she was the illegitimate child of an indentured servant.
Brenna looked directly out across the rooftop to the large window in front of her. An overhanging gable kept her position completely in the shadows yet allowed her a clear view of the room and its occupant. Tonight, as always, the room was lit with so many lamps and candles that she could see straight through to the door at the far end of the room. Just for a moment, her heart raced and she felt the panic start. Then she saw him and she calmed, her eyes fixed on the figure seated by the fire.
Her safe place was a cold perch on top of a roof. But it was safe because she could see him, she knew where he was. Safe because when he was in there and she was out here, he couldn’t reach her. Now it would become Beldyn’s safe place, where he too could be safe from Duke Thorold, where he too could be out of his reach - at least for a few moments.
She started awake and was half standing before she remembered where she was. A quick look showed her only a dim glow in the dark squares of the Duke’s windows. Brenna sat back down and pulled the blanket even tighter across her shoulders. She should go down now while she had the chance, she knew. Her mother would be looking for her on this, her last night.
But she stayed were she was because it was after midnight and she was sixteen now, by law a woman full grown. But there would be no celebration for her nameday; she would see no pride in her mother’s eyes today. No, Brenna would see only fear and sadness and worry when she looked at her mother for what might be the very last time in her life. So it had been for her mother when she turned sixteen and had been sold into Duke Thorold’s household, so it wou
ld be for Brenna as she was sold into servitude.
Reaching into her pocket, fingers clumsy with cold, Brenna searched until she found the small pouch she kept her herbs in. She pulled it out and loosened the leather thongs. She needed to stay awake now with dawn so close. Her hand closed on the knobby ginseng root and she pulled it out and took a bite, feeling the sharp tang on her tongue. She retied the pouch and shoved it back in her pocket, waiting for the ginseng to take away the worst of her weariness.
Brenna tracked the time not by the stars as they moved across the sky, nor by any brightening of the winter sky. She tracked the time by the glow of firelight coming from Duke Thorold’s bedchamber window. When the glow increased she knew the servants had come to start the Duke’s day. Carefully she stood and stretched her cold, stiff muscles. Then she folded the blanket and tucked it back into the niche. With an eye on the windows above her she brushed straw off her black breeches and backed away down the roof. In less than fifteen minutes she was back on the roof of the stable. She inched herself over the eave towards the window of the small loft she shared with her mother. She toed open the shutter, planted her feet on the window sill, and swung down.
“Brenna, there you are.”
Brenna crouched in the window frame then jumped softly to the floor. “I’ve been seeing my nameday in, Mama.”
“I can see that. Here,” Wynne Trewen took the blanket from her shoulders. “I’ve been sitting by the fire, I’m warm enough.”
“Thanks Mama,” Brenna said as she wrapped the blanket around her. She breathed in deeply, savouring the smell of wood smoke layered over top of the scent of her mother, spicy and sweet with the lingering odours of the many herbs she used in her work as a healer.
“I thought you’d be angry with me,” Brenna said. She huddled down on the floor next to the small fire. She looked up when her mother took the single stool across from her and her chest tightened when she saw the sadness on her mother’s face.
“I thought I would be too.” Wynne shook her head. “But you are a woman grown now and you must do what’s right for you. Although I had hoped …”
“I told you I wouldn’t run away,” Brenna said, angry now. “Not and leave you here to take the blame. He’d kill you!”
“Quite likely.”
Brenna squeezed her eyes shut at the pain and sadness and grief in her mother’s words.
“But you would be away from here, you would have a chance at a better life. It would be worth it to me.”
“But not to me! How could I leave knowing that it would cause your death?”
“But it wouldn’t be you who killed me, remember that.” Her mother’s voice was little more than a whisper. But it was an old argument, one that her mother knew she would never win.
“Mama I told you about Beldyn’s promise to me. He will do it. He will.”
“Yes. The promise of a ten year old boy who has been terrorized more than you could possibly know.”
Brenna opened her mouth to reply but her mother’s sad smile stopped her.
“I know that Beldyn means what he says, daughter. But it’s many years until he is a man and with that father who knows what kind of man Beldyn will become?”
Brenna dropped her head to her knees and let her long hair fall over her eyes, hoping to shield her tears from her mother. Beldyn had to survive, he had to come find her, he had to. She couldn’t let go of that faint hope because without it she had none.
“I’m sure he will do as he says,” Wynne said gently. “Now, let’s go over the prayers and passages that my mother taught to me. There is little enough of her that I can pass along, so I need you to remember. After that we’ll go down to the workshop and make sure you have all the herbs you’ll need. Cook’s son hears that the lady of the house you’re going to is heavy with child and ill with it.”
Brenna sighed. She straightened up and shrugged the kinks out of her shoulders. “Let’s start with the one for my eyes,” she said. “That’s the one I need the most.” And she wondered, as she did every time she said the short prayer, why it was her grandmother had taught her mother this particular prayer when her mother clearly had no need of it.
“You mustn’t forget to say it Brenna, every morning.” Wynne gripped her arm hard and Brenna nodded. “And remember not to let anyone hear you.”
“I know, the old gods aren’t welcome everywhere.”
“Nor are witches.”
“But we’re not witches.”
“There are those who would call us that because we know the ways of healing.”
“And because of my eyes,” Brenna added. Not for the first time she wished she’d been born with her mother’s eyes - two clear blue eyes filled with kindness and intelligence.
“Yes, because of your eyes,” Wynne agreed. “Say the prayer now; I can see a little green showing in your eye already.”
“Wise Ush,” Brenna began her voice a low whisper. “Let all see what is not. Two brown eyes and no trace of one green.”
“Good,” Wynne peered at Brenna’s eyes again. “They’re both the same brown now. Finish with the other passage and meet me in the workroom. I have a present for you.”
As she watched her mother climb down the ladder to the stable below Brenna quickly started to mumble the second phrase. “Brothers by the throne …” The words came automatically, with no sense to them that she could make out. Her mother claimed no more understanding of it than she had, but said her mother, Brenna’s grandmother, had insisted she learn it and pass it down to her children. Brenna had not heard her mother speak the phrase for years - she claimed she could no longer form the words – but she knew them well enough to know when Brenna had made a mistake. Wynne had schooled Brenna harder in the two prayers than she had in the arts of healing. And she’d been a firm taskmaster for that.
Brenna put her one dress into her pack and slung it over her shoulder. She was still in the dark tunic and breeches she’d worn on the roof and she saw no reason to change. She wanted her new owner to see her as a youth, a non-woman whose only value was her healing skills. She hoped not to share the fate of her mother - forced into the bed of her lord and master. It was a faint hope she knew. Duke Thorold’s glances at her told her he had noticed her passage into womanhood. No doubt the only thing stopping him from taking her to bed was his belief that he had sired her.
Brenna stepped out over the edge of the loft and placed her foot on the ladder rung. This was the last time she’d ever do that here, she thought sadly. Likely the last time she’d share a space with her mother. She paused for a moment then spied the blanket she’d discarded by the fire, the one that smelled so much of her mother. She stepped back onto the loft floor, scooped up the blanket and tucked it into her pack. She hoped Mama wouldn’t mind, hoped she wasn’t consigning her mother to months of cold, but she needed to take her smell with her, needed to wrap herself in her mother’s essence.
“Where’s the whelp? She was to be ready at dawn.”
Brenna froze at the sound of the duke’s voice booming in the quiet of the stable. She couldn’t hear what her mother said in reply but she recognized the soft tone, the slow cadence designed to placate and calm. She’d heard her mother speak to Duke Thorold in that same manner countless times.
“I don’t care that this is your last day together, witch. She’s not yours and has never been yours, as you’ll both truly know after today. Now where is she?”
“I’m sorry my Lord Duke. I’m coming.” Brenna tried to keep her voice steady as she hurried to the ladder and took the steps two at a time.
When she reached the floor of the stable she hefted her bag onto her shoulder. Then she turned towards the door to the workroom. Duke Thorold’s bulk filled the doorway, the fine rich silks and furs no doubt keeping him warm despite the cold air.
He took a step toward her, his glare making her duck her head, but after a moment she lifted her head and met his eyes. She knew it would enrage him but she hoped it deflected the Duke�
�s anger from her mother to her, gambling that he wanted to hand her over to her new master unmarked.
“You insolent child,” Duke Thorold took another step toward her and still Brenna held his gaze. “How dare you taunt me?”
Brenna could see her mother’s worried face behind him, her head shaking no as she looked on.
Finally Brenna lowered her head. It would help neither of them if she pushed Thorold into a rage. “I’m sorry my Lord Duke, I thought you might want to confirm that I am free of blemishes or marks.”
Duke Thorold took one more threatening step and Brenna saw Wynne slide out behind him.
“I apologize as well my Lord,” Wynne said as she dropped into a low bow. “It was I who delayed Brenna’s parting. I have one more thing to give to her but I needed to fetch it from the workroom.”
“And what is it you wish to give her?”
“Just my work knife, my Lord,” and as Brenna watched Wynne held up her sheathed knife to the Duke. “It was my own mother’s gift to me before I came here.”
“Your knife.” Thorold snatched it out of her hand and drew the blade. “Since I own you, anything you own is mine.”
“But it was my mother’s. The only thing of hers that I have.” Wynne’s voice was so quiet Brenna could barely hear her, but she saw her mother’s back sag as her head dipped lower.
“This is a very fine knife, witch,” Thorold said. He ignored Wynne’s bent form as he held the blade up to the torch light. “You should have given it to me long ago. I shall punish you for that, my dear.”
“No!” Brenna hadn’t meant to speak it out loud, hadn’t meant to give that single word so much force, but as Duke Thorold drew himself to his full height and turned all his attention to her Brenna breathed in, almost in relief. She slipped her bag off her shoulder and let it fall to the dusty stable floor. Then she looked him straight in the eye.
He would kill her. She knew it by the anger she saw fill his eyes, the cold smirk he wore as he stepped over her mother, who had sunk to the ground, eyes round with fear.
