by Robert Evert
“I know it’s not your fault!” Artis erupted. “By the gods, Nat. Is that what you think? That I’m mad at you for almost getting killed? If so, you’re not as smart as you think you are.” He stomped toward the path leading back to town. “Maybe I shouldn’t wait until spring to get out of this place!”
Natalie ran after him, heedless of the slapping twigs and branches, Hadley and Ida at her heels. “Art!” She tugged at his shoulder. He halted, but wouldn’t turn around.
“Damn it, Nat”—he choked back a sob—“I wish you knew fewer things about the world, and a lot more about me.”
She stroked his back. “Art…” Not knowing what else to say, she hugged him from behind instead. He relaxed into her arms. “Thanks for caring. I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the ass.”
He muttered something, and she turned him around.
“What?”
Teardrops still clung to his lower eyelids, but his expression remained cold. “Who did this to you, Nat? I promise I’ll never tell anyone, but honestly…I don’t think I could live not knowing. It’s too big of a secret to have between us.”
It was too big of a secret. Still, she wanted to get on with her life and forget what had happened. It was over. The bruises and cuts would heal, and eventually she’d forget. Maybe.
“It was Brago,” she said.
They all sucked in air.
“Shit!” Hadley cried. “You’re kidding me! Brago? The Brago?”
Natalie sat onto a fallen tree.
“Nat?” Artis said softly.
“It was Brago! I saw him as clear as day.” She started crying, though she didn’t know why. “He was going to kill me!”
Artis hugged her.
“I know you all think I’m crazy”—she sniffled, trying to stem her ever-growing tide of tears—“but it was him! I saw him! He was kicking and punching and—”
“You aren’t crazy.” Artis stroked Natalie’s hair as she sobbed. “And we believe you.” He lifted her chin until she looked into his eyes. “I believe you.”
Natalie tightened her grip and laid her head against his surprisingly muscular chest. “Thanks, Art.”
“We believe you, too,” Ida said, patting Natalie’s back.
“Absolutely,” said Hadley.
For a moment, they all stood in the grove of elm trees, comforting Natalie, as the evening darkened around them. Natalie knew holding Artis for this long was a mistake, especially after everything she’d told him about them being friends. But in his arms, she felt safe, and she hadn’t felt safe since her father had died.
She sniffled. “Thanks, all of you. It feels good to tell somebody who doesn’t blame me for what happened.”
“Nobody blames you, Nat.” Artis took a deep breath as if readying himself for another blow. “But there’s more, isn’t there? Why would he just attack you right out of the blue? Did he say anything?”
Natalie sat down onto the fallen tree again. “He…he asked me who I was working for, or who hired me, or something like that. I can’t remember exactly. I think he was drunk.”
“Who you were working for?” Ida repeated. “Why would he care? It’s none of his business.”
“What else?” Artis sat down next to Natalie. “Don’t leave anything out.”
Natalie dragged the edge of her cloak under her nose. “That’s it. There’s nothing else. At least I didn’t hear him say anything else. But then again, I was too busy getting my head pounded against the cobblestones.”
“You said you’d taken a book from the library.” Artis took the books and papers from under Natalie’s arm. “Where’d you get these?”
“I got them from—” Natalie tried to think of a good lie, then laughed at herself. She’d already told them the important stuff. Might as well tell them everything else. “I sort of…ran into Brago today.” She immediately added, “He didn’t see me, but I saw him.”
“You saw him? Where?”
“What happened? What’d you do?”
Natalie grimaced. “I…kind of did something stupid.”
“Oh, no.” Artis’s face drained pale. “What did you do, Nat?”
“Well, I kind of…that is, I…”
Hadley threw her hands up to the twinkling stars. “Oh, dear gods, just spit it out! What happened? What’d you do?”
“You see, he stables his horse at Henry’s…”
“And?”
Natalie steeled herself for their reaction. “I sort of…stole these from his saddlebag.”
Together, her friends all stared at the books and papers Artis was holding, the slight evening breeze ruffling the papers’ edges. They turned back to Natalie.
“Okay!” she cried. “I know! I know! It was stupid of me. But when I saw him standing there, talking so calmly to Henry like nothing had happened…I just got so angry, you know? He was laughing like he hadn’t a care in the world, like it was just any ordinary day!”
“Well I say, good for you!” Hadley thumbed through one of the books. “The son of a bitch deserves it. Can you sell them? Are they worth anything?”
“I don’t know,” Natalie replied, feeling beyond exhausted. She felt empty and crushed, and the light inside the house was still burning. Why couldn’t this night just end? “I hope so. Maybe I can get thirty or forty silver.”
“Thirty or forty silver!”
“I’m guessing. I don’t know for sure. They’re old and probably rare. But that’s not the point. It was stupid of me. I shouldn’t have—”
“You should’ve taken your knife and gutted him!” Hadley stabbed the air, twisting an imaginary weapon. “Seriously! You should hunt him down and kill him for what he did to you. I know! Next time, steal his damned horse. Think of how much money you can get for it. Think of all the stuff you could buy!”
“Do you know what they do to horse thieves?” Ida asked Hadley disapprovingly. “You’re going to get her into more trouble than she’s already in! What you should do, Nat, is tell the constables. Tell them everything and let them punish Brago.”
“Oh, you’re cracked!” Hadley countered. “The constables won’t do anything. Hell! Brago works for the king! She should hire somebody from the thieves’ guild and—”
“I’m not going to steal his horse, or anything else,” Natalie said. “I shouldn’t have taken anything in the first place. It was stupid of me. I just want him to disappear so I don’t have to see him again. It makes my skin crawl thinking we might bump into each other again.”
“You won’t see him again,” Ida said, without much conviction. “It’s a big city.”
“Yeah. And if you do, I say, jump on his back and slit his throat!” They all stared at Hadley. “What? He deserves it!”
Artis leafed through one of the books. Many of the crackling pages were adorned with beautiful pictures painted with actual gold and silver. “You have to give these back.”
Hadley snorted. “The hell she does. By all rights, she deserves some sort of recompense! If she were married, her husband could sue!”
“I’m serious, Nat.” Artis examined another book, which was even older than the first. “He’s going to be looking for this stuff.”
“Why?” Natalie leaned in, trying not to touch Artis’s body with hers. “They’re books. How valuable can they be?”
“I’d say they’re worth four thousand gold.”
“What!” Hadley and Ida rushed over.
Artis studied the loose papers. Many had drawings and maps. “Nat, these are his notes. He needs this stuff to win the Kings’ Quest.”
A chill seeped into Natalie’s bones. “And the reward for completing the quest is four thousand gold.”
“People have been killed for less.” Artis closed the book. “Nat, you have to get rid of these right away.”
Chapter Nine
They pressed in closer around Artis, staring at the books and papers in his hands, as the shadows of night filled the woods.
“How can these help anybody find
a stupid golden harp?” Hadley asked.
“Yeah.” Ida tried to read their titles. “What’re they about?”
“This”—Artis handed her a book with a worn cover—“is a biography of Balen the Minstrel, written shortly after his death. It’s over two hundred years old.”
Ida gave it a disinterested glance before passing it to Hadley.
“Ugh!” Hadley cried. “It stinks! Why do books always smell like dusty attics?”
Artis examined the second book. It was nearly the size of his chest and more than three inches thick. “This lists the ancestry of every prominent family in The Angle.” Flipping through the brown pages, he found one marked by a scrap of paper. “This is Balen’s.” He ran his finger down the list of faded names. “Evidently, his family line died out with his great-grandson, Claude. That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.”
Hadley took the smallest of the three books from Artis. Its binding was split and its cover missing. “What about this one? It’s pretty beat up.”
“That’s a book of Balen’s music.”
“Music?” She crinkled her nose. “Why would Brago be interested in music? What’s he going to do, sing to find the harp?”
Natalie’s sinking feeling grew worse. She’d glanced at the titles when she hid the books under the straw, of course, but she hadn’t connected them to the Kings’ Quest, and she certainly hadn’t dreamt they’d help Brago win four thousand gold pieces. Just as Artis had said, men had killed for less than that—much less.
They stood uneasily in the snarl of elm trees, crickets chirping around them. Finally, Hadley spoke. “So let’s get down to brass tacks. Is any of this valuable? Could Nat really get forty silver pieces?”
“And how could any of this help Brago find the gold harp?” Ida added. “I mean, if these books said where the harp was, wouldn’t people have found it by now?”
“I don’t know…” Artis scanned the papers, several of which had detailed sketches. “Clearly, they all have something to do with Balen, and the quest is to find Balen’s harp, so they must be important. Why else would he have them?”
Ida nudged Artis and pointed to words scribbled across the top of a page. “What does this say?”
“Cathedral of the Stars,” he read. “You okay, Nat?”
“What about this?” Ida shoved another drawing in front of Artis’s face. “This looks like the inside of a building.”
“It’s a sketch of the cathedral’s nave,” he replied.
“Chancel,” Natalie corrected him, her voice soft and distant. “The nave is where the people sit. This is a sketch of the altar.”
A dog barked from a neighboring farm, startling them.
Natalie felt drained and shaky. Artis put a hand onto her shoulder.
“Nat, are you—?”
“Yeah, I’m…I’m fine, thanks.”
Hadley and Ida shuffled though more papers.
“Look at this one.” Ida held out what appeared to be a map of a winding street off of which scores of dead ends branched. “What does this say?”
Artis squinted. “First right. Second back. Third up.” He turned to Natalie. “Maybe you should go lie down.”
“Third up?” Ida snorted. “What does that mean?”
“What the hell does any of this mean?” Hadley pushed the papers back into Artis’s hands, disgusted. “And I still want to know how much all of its worth. Can Nat actually get forty silver?”
“She’s not going to sell it,” Artis said firmly.
“So you say!”
Artis gathered everything together. “Look. Every adventurer or want-to-be adventurer is scouring the continent for Balen’s damned gold harp. These”—he shook the papers—“these were going to help Brago find it.”
“Well, doesn’t that make them even more valuable?” Ida asked.
Natalie fought to breathe. She felt light-headed. “They’re too valuable.”
“How can something be ‘too valuable?’” Hadley snorted. “I’d bet you adventurers would pay ten gold pieces for all of this stuff. Hell, they’d probably pay twenty! Think how much that money would help out, Nat. Twenty gold. You’d be rich!”
“You’re missing the point, Had.” Artis sat on the fallen tree next to Natalie. “The prize for Balen’s harp is four thousand gold. If Brago would try to kill Nat just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, what do you think he’d do to get these books back?”
The light in the house went out. Outside, the darkness became even more consuming.
Natalie fought to swallow. Voice trembling, she managed to say, “He’s going to kill me.”
“What?” Artis wrapped his arm around her. “No. No, he won’t. Nat, look at me, look at me.” She blinked up at him, tears welling in her swollen eyes. “Listen, all you have to do is put them back. His horse is at Henry’s stable, right? Just put them back where you found them, and everything will be fine. Trust me!”
Natalie’s shaking grew worse. “He…he left. Left town this morning. He probably already knows they’re gone. He’s going to find out who took them, then he’s going to—!”
She began to bawl. Artis pulled her close as she clutched his shirt with both hands.
“It’s okay…” He caressed her back. “We’ll just have to make sure he never finds out you took them.” He shot a glance at Hadley and Ida.
“Oh, right!” said Hadley. “I’m not going to tell a soul. Seriously, Nat, I’ll take this to my grave.”
“Me, too! Don’t worry, nobody’s going to know from any of us!”
“See?” said Artis. “Everything will be fine.”
Yet Natalie couldn’t stop crying.
“Nat.” Artis tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go. “Nat, this is important. Did you tell anybody else about this? Anybody at all?”
She shook her head.
“Then we’ll be fine.” He lifted her chin. She peered up at him, sniffling. “We’ll be fine, okay?” He smiled. “Nobody’s ever going to know. Trust me.”
Chapter Ten
The next morning, exhausted and frightened, Natalie snuck out of the house before Robbie and the other children could see her battered face. The swelling had already gone down quite a bit; however, she still had ugly scabs crisscrossing her forehead and her eyelids had remained a dull purple.
When she reached Upper Angle’s gates, the sky was still black with no hint of the rising sun. Only a handful of people were up and about: rat hunters checking their traps, lamplighters snuffing out the lamps hanging above the streets, and a few traveling merchants finding spots to set up their carts. They all went about their business as though it was just another day.
Natalie kept reminding herself everything was going to be fine. After all, why would anyone suspect her of stealing Brago’s books? Only her friends knew what had happened; they certainly weren’t going to tell anybody. And if by chance somebody did question her, she’d giggle like a stupid girl and say, “Why would I need books? I can’t read!” and they’d believe her. Everyone would suspect that the thief was another adventurer trying to stop Brago from winning the quest, right? Everything was going to be fine.
As Henry’s Livery and Stables loomed closer in the darkness, Natalie’s anxiety grew. She desperately wanted to draw her knife, but she had to appear normal—simply a peasant girl going to the job she’d worked at for the past three years. No need to panic.
Taking a deep breath, she peered cautiously around the dark, vacant street. No Brago.
Then she crept toward the stables and listened. Inside, horses shifted, eager for their breakfast and to be released into the livery yard. But that wasn’t unusual.
Wiping her sweaty palms across her pants, Natalie tried to calm herself. She’d hidden the books and papers under some spare clothes in box she used as a chest. The kids wouldn’t dare go through her stuff; even Robbie knew what would happen if they did. She only had to finish her work, then she’d figure out what to do with Brago’s things.
Natalie slid open the stable door, its rumbling disturbing the early morning quiet. None of the horses greeted her. That was odd. They usually whinnied and snorted as soon as she appeared; it was the best part of her job.
Cautiously, she edged into the stable, checking the shadows for anything amiss. She searched behind the bales of hay. Nothing. She peeked into the makeshift tack room where saddles and bridles were stored. Still nothing. She took another step deeper into the darkness, when something moved. It wasn’t one of the horses.
Natalie spun on her heel, ready to run, screaming—until somebody spoke.
“Nat?” said a weak voice.
She froze.
“Nat? Is…is that you?”
As quietly as she could, Natalie drew her knife and peered into an empty stall. Henry was sitting on an overturned bucket, face deathly white.
“Oh.” Natalie tried to calm herself. “Hey, Henry.” She checked the other stalls. Except for the horses, they were alone. “What are you doing here so early? Trying to do my work for me?” Her lighthearted laugh came out more like a nervous shriek.
Henry’s shallow breaths appeared as grey vapor. Natalie suddenly realized how chilly the morning was.
“Nat,” Henry said slowly, “did you…did you take anything from Brago’s saddlebags?”
Natalie’s heart skipped for several beats, then began to hammer at her aching ribs. “What?” She staggered. “No! No, of course not. Why? Why do you ask?” She forced herself to breathe.
“That’s what I told him,” Henry mumbled into his trembling hands. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t you. He must have lost it after he left. He didn’t like hearing that. He didn’t like hearing that at all.”
“Lost it?” Natalie licked her dry lips. She scanned the stalls again. Brago’s horse wasn’t in any of them. “Lost what?” she asked with feigned confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“I tell you, Nat, I’ve never been so scared in my life. I…I still don’t know what I should do. Most of me says I should get the hell out of town while my legs still work. But my family—”
