by Jo Spurrier
I gaped at her. ‘But, I can’t!’ I stammered. ‘I don’t know how—’
‘Figure it out.’ She took a step back and stumbled, but managed to catch herself on her staff. Automatically, I reached to steady her, but her warning glare held me back as she wrapped both hands around the smooth wood of her staff and leaned heavily against it. ‘Sink or swim time, kid. They’re all yours.’
She released her hold on the two lords and gave me a tight little smile before fading from sight under a veil.
The two noblemen turned to me. The kindly aspect of Lord Belmont’s face had turned stern, and Lord Haversleigh was watching me like a hawk.
I buried my hands in my patched skirts, and for a moment I wished the ground would open up to swallow me — only for a moment, though, for then I felt Facet thrumming beneath my feet and quickly pushed the thought from my mind lest he answer the call and open a pathway for me.
‘Yes, lass?’ Lord Belmont said, starting to frown. ‘And who might you be?’
‘I, I . . .’ Again, I stammered. I’m just the servant girl. That’s what I always said, wasn’t it? I’m just a farm girl, I’m just the maid. I glanced over at the line of men and boys in chains, the guards watching over them. All their eyes on me. I swallowed hard at the realisation that the only thing that stood between them and the gallows was me.
I didn’t know how to answer the question, so I took a leaf from Aleida’s book, and ignored it. ‘Have mercy on them,’ I said. ‘Please.’
Lord Belmont’s bushy brows furrowed in puzzlement. ‘Mercy? Why?’
I bit my lip and looked away from his face, trying to find my teacher. I knew she was there — I could see her, just barely, a faint, translucent image, like a statue carved from fading mist. She gave me nothing, though, just watching me with narrowed eyes.
I had to say something. ‘I don’t want anyone to die,’ I blurted out. ‘I don’t want anyone hurt. Please, isn’t there some way this can all be put right?’
‘Child, that’s what we mean to do,’ Lord Belmont said, his voice grave. ‘They’ve broken the law of the land, threatened and robbed innocent travellers. How would you feel if it was you they stopped on the road, stealing your purse and all your goods, and maybe worse besides? Why do they deserve mercy?’
Again, I bit my lip. He had no way of knowing that they had tried to rob us. But even in the midst of it, I’d never truly been afraid. I’d known they couldn’t touch me, that my teacher would keep us safe.
When I didn’t answer, Lord Haversleigh’s impatience broke to anger. ‘What would you have us do, girl?’ he demanded. ‘Box their ears and send them to bed without their supper? They’re grown men, not disobedient children! They chose their end when they took up swords against their countrymen — why should we let Justice turn her sword aside?’
Every argument I could think of died before it reached my lips. The would-be bandits weren’t blameless. They weren’t innocent. I couldn’t even truly say they’d been led astray — even the youngest of them was old enough to know better. Deep down I knew that if it had been some other travellers on the eastern road yesterday instead of us, Holt and his men would have robbed them blind, at the very least.
‘I don’t have a good reason,’ I admitted. ‘But I’m asking for mercy all the same. My Lords, if you hang them all, then maybe that will see justice served — but it will also see a dozen or more families in your lands lose their brothers, their sons and their fathers. I lost my father when I was young, and it still pains me to this day. Maybe these men don’t deserve your mercy and forgiveness, but their families also don’t deserve to suffer for the choices they’ve made.
‘Sirs, you may think me foolish. You may think this is childish, or that I’m just a soft-hearted girl with no experience of the world . . . you might be right. But I have to believe there’s some way all this can be put right, that everything can be fixed and put back where it ought to be. Some way that doesn’t have every one of these young idiots swinging from a gallows. I don’t want anyone to die, my lords, if there’s anything I can do to stop it. I’m asking for mercy, for mercy’s sake.’
Lord Belmont was thinking about it, watching me with serious eyes as he rubbed his bristling chin. My heart was beating hard, harder than it seemed it ought to, even with the nerves that gripped me. I felt flushed and a little faint, with the skin of my neck and my wrists tingling unpleasantly, prickling so fiercely it almost felt like a burn.
Lord Haversleigh looked down the length of his hawkish nose. ‘I’ve heard enough of this tripe,’ he said. ‘If you think I’m letting those marked men slip away from me again—’ With one hand he gestured to his men, and with the other, he grabbed me by the arm, about to pull me aside and shove me towards the two men who started over.
But as soon as he touched me, Aleida was there, her veil dropping away like a cloak slipping from her shoulders. ‘Now now,’ she said lightly, laying one long-fingered hand on Lord Haversleigh’s arm. ‘Don’t go touching what doesn’t belong to you. That’s how folk lose their hands.’ She was barely touching him — just her fingertips rested on his forearm, but at once he began to tremble, and I felt his grip go weak. His breath ragged and with sweat beading on his brow, he released my arm.
‘You lads fall back,’ Aleida said, watching Haversleigh’s men from the corner of her eye. ‘Back where you were. There’s good boys. Now, my lord.’ She linked her arm through Lord Haversleigh’s, shoving her staff towards me to hold. ‘Which of the prisoners hail from your lands?’
‘The five tattooed wretches,’ Lord Haversleigh said. His voice was slow, almost slurred, and his glare had become a glassy stare. ‘The others are Belmont’s folk.’
‘Just the five? Well, you needn’t trouble yourself in that case, my lord. My apprentice’s plea for mercy was never meant for them. What about you, Lord Belmont?’ she tipped her head back, raising the brim of her hat enough to look him in the eye. ‘Have you been moved by her words?’
‘Mercy, for mercy’s sake?’ His expression was sombre, even sad. ‘It’s true, there’s little enough of it in the world. And there’s an argument to be made that too heavy a hand when it comes to discipline can do as much harm as too light. Very well, young lady — those who’ve only committed robbery will be sentenced to a flogging and fine, or to labour in my fields if they can’t drum up the coin. The ones who’ve had a hand in murder, however . . . they will hang.’
‘Seems fair,’ Aleida said. ‘Satisfied, Dee?’
‘Murder?’ I said, feeling like I’d been slapped. ‘They’ve killed someone?’
‘A farm lad, some months ago. A foolish young man who got mixed up in some underhanded dealings. He was found on the roads, beaten half to death, and lasted another week before he breathed his last. My castellan and guard captain have been looking into the matter — they tell me he joined this band of wastrels, only to back out again once he’d thought better of the whole affair. It seems they gave him a thrashing for it, and took it too far.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say as I looked along the line of young men and boys, all chained together, the young lad with the broken arm on the end. He was the only one of them I’d really spoken to, other than Holt.
‘Dee?’ Aleida prompted me. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it?’
I swallowed hard, and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, thank you, Lord Belmont.’
Aleida held her hand out for her staff, and I passed it over. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’ll let you get about your business. Come along, girls.’
She turned away, and the moment she released Lord Haversleigh’s arm he staggered back, shaking his head like a flystung horse.
‘Watch him, Dee,’ Aleida muttered as she veered towards the five outsiders. ‘This could still go sour. Tell me if he signals to his men.’
Glancing back, I saw Lord Haversleigh talking to Lord Belmont, the hawk-nosed man gesturing angrily, a frown of confusion on his brow, while Lord Belmont laid a fatherly hand on hi
s shoulder. ‘All right for now,’ I said. ‘But we should probably go, quickly!’
‘In a moment. There’s something I have to do first.’
The five marked men were chained separately from the others, with double the guards even though two of men were badly wounded and barely staying on their feet. As she drew near, the leader turned to her, despite the guards barking at them to hold still.
‘Get us out of here,’ the tattooed man said — the same one who’d stood beside Holt when we met them on the road that morning. ‘We’ll make it worth your while. Never mind that business earlier, we’ll make it square.’
‘What, with that money you stole from me?’ she said with a faint smile.
‘You let them hang us, you’ll have no hope of getting it back.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. In any case, maybe I’ll consider it a price worth paying.’ Leaning on her staff, she quickly drew a sigil in the air with her finger, and then released it with a flick of her hand, shattering it into myriad fragments that settled over the brutes, glowing briefly before dying away.
‘Hey!’ Lord Haversleigh called out, striding towards her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t get all worked up, now, my lord,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to rob you of your prize. In truth I can’t do anything about the sods without my bloody apprentice having a conniption fit, so honestly, you’re doing me a favour. Goodbye, lads,’ she said to the five as she turned away. ‘Rest in peace, and all that.’
As she limped away, I caught Kara by the sleeve and pulled her after me. ‘Come on!’
‘But, my sword!’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
As soon as we were out of sight of the road, Aleida sat heavily on the ground, her legs folding beneath her. She was breathing hard and trembling badly.
‘Oh gods,’ I said, hurrying to her side. ‘Can I help?’
‘Oh, I think you’ve done enough,’ she gasped. ‘Good gods.’
‘I’ve done enough?’ I said with indignation. ‘You just dumped me in there!’
‘Yep. That was weak, Dee. You had Belmont, but you fumbled Haversleigh completely. He was this close to clapping you in chains.’
‘I had no idea what I was doing! What was that, anyway? Mind control?’
With a withering look, she raised a hand, and a fat blue spark flared at her fingertip, buzzing like a hornet before it leapt across to sting me on the arm. I jumped back with a yelp of protest.
‘Not mind control,’ she said. ‘We talked about that in the cave. Or is your head too full of lambswool to remember?’
I shrank back, wounded and still indignant — but then I remembered. Mind control only works as long as you hold the spell in place. I remembered something else she’d said, too. I’ve been too soft on you. That was a mistake, and I mean to correct it. ‘Then what was it?’
‘You tell me.’
When I didn’t reply, she raised her hand again, bringing to life another blue spark.
‘The perfume?’ I blurted out. ‘I know it was a potion of some kind.’
‘Oh, so you do have some wits rattling about in that little head. It’s called Persuasion. Subtle, but powerful — you can’t just tell people what to do, you have to talk them into it, but if you play your cards right you get them to do all kinds of things, and they’ll walk away thinking it was their own idea.’
‘You could have told me that!’
‘And you could have kept your mouth shut instead of meddling with affairs you don’t understand!’ She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead with a groan.
Kara fidgeted nearby, her hand hovering where the hilt of her sword should have been. She’d watched the whole exchange, but wisely, I thought, decided not to comment upon it. ‘What do we do now? Are you just going to let Belmont take them to the fort?’
Aleida lowered her hand to give the girl an incredulous look. For a moment I thought she was about to speak, but then she turned away again with a shake of her head.
I wiped sweating hands on my skirts. ‘Did you know they’d killed someone?’ I demanded.
Kara grimaced. ‘Holt said it was some other lads. Not him. And it wasn’t meant to be like that; they got carried away.’
Aleida laughed, a low cackle. ‘Oh, other lads, was it? Not your beau. Because of course the leader of the troupe is going to let someone else decide who gets a beat-down, and how much. Your swaggering skunk of a swain is going to hang, little girl.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ Kara snapped. ‘And he’s not my beau, or anything like that! He’s just . . . useful. That’s all.’
The ring on my finger hummed, but this time I managed not to startle at the feel of it. Even without the ring, I reckoned I’d have known it was a lie. Kara’s face was still pale from shock, and there were fresh tears in her eyes. She dashed them away quickly with the back of her hand. ‘And now what am I going to do? They were going to help me rescue my da. Now I’ve got nothing! Those bastards even took my sword!’
‘Oh, would you shut up,’ Aleida growled. ‘I’ve had enough of your bleating! All you’ve done is hang around begging other people to do the heavy lifting for you; first Holt and then me and Dee. Oh, I saw you strutting around with that bloody sword at your hip, but have you ever pulled it in a real fight? Well, have you? Or have you only ever squared off against scarecrows and empty air?’
Kara didn’t reply. Her mouth hung open, speechless, her face slowly turning red with fury.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Aleida said. ‘You’ve never been in a real fight in your whole blessed life. It’s all an act. You’re just a poser, like that idiot Holt, like you’re living in a bloody fairy tale. For all your squawking about your precious father you’ve not made one move in his direction, have you? We told you hours ago exactly where to find him, and what have you done? Just sat on your lily-white hands and waited for someone else to go and save him.’
‘You shut your wretched mouth!’ Kara said.
‘Why don’t you come over here and make me?’ Aleida spat back. ‘Come on, put your money where your mouth is. ’Cause it seems to me that you’re more than willing to shed other people’s blood for your father’s sake, but you draw the line at risking your own. You’re just like him, aren’t you? Let other folks do the hard work, then swoop in at the end to snatch your prize. I should have let Belmont keep you, you’d be more use feeding worms in the graveyard than you’ll ever be in life. And that goes for your wretched father, too.’
Kara moved towards her, fists bunched. ‘Don’t you dare say that about him. Don’t you dare!’
Quickly, I stepped between them, hand on my wand.
‘If you really cared about him, you’d do something,’ Aleida said. ‘Anything. Whatever it took. But never mind, I’m sure he’ll understand. Tonight, after Minerva cuts his throat and his ghost comes to tell you it’s finally over, you’ll be able to explain that you just couldn’t do it. It was all too hard. He’ll understand. You’re just a little girl, after all.’
‘Rot in hell, you putrid old sow,’ Kara said in a whisper, tears spilling down her cheeks. Then, she turned and ran, vanishing into the dry brush.
I wanted to go after her. I tried to follow, but my feet were rooted to the spot. I wanted to call out her name, but my voice was frozen.
‘Gods, Dee,’ Aleida said in a small voice. ‘Please don’t fight me. I can’t afford to waste the strength.’
My mouth snapped closed, and I whirled to face her. She wasn’t looking at me though. Her head was hanging down, black hair dragging in the dust.
‘Why would you say that?’ I demanded. ‘How could you be so cruel?’
She didn’t say anything; she just sat in the dust and shrugged.
‘She’s going to do something stupid,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that’s the general idea.’
I dropped to my knees. ‘She’s going to go to Minerva!’
�
��I hope so. Listen, Dee, we need to buy some time. I let on that I give a shit about Kara when I asked Minerva to spare her father. Minerva’s witch enough to know we’re coming to mess with her ritual, she needs to slow us down. Kara hates me with a passion now; Minerva will see that and find a way to use her against us, but she’ll have to break off finishing the rite to figure out a plan.’
I realised my fists were clenched and aching with strain, and I made myself release them. ‘You . . . you planned all this?’
‘Planned is a little strong. Had the idea while you were dithering around with Belmont and Haversleigh. Good to know I’ve still got the touch . . .’
Knowing those vicious words were chosen with care didn’t make me feel any better about the matter. But that horse had bolted, and there was no use shutting the gate now. ‘Well, if time is so valuable we’d best not waste it. Here, I’ll help you up.’
But Aleida shook her head at my proffered hand. ‘No, not yet. Just a little longer.’
She wasn’t in good shape. She looked exhausted and frail. If we were back at the cottage I’d be urging her to bed, building up the fire and pouring her a cup of the restorative potion we now brewed by the kettle. ‘You can lean on me,’ I said. ‘You need your potion. And I’m sorry I spoke out of turn and interrupted the working, you were right to be cross at me. I should have known better. I’ll try not to do it again.’ I crouched down to pull her arm across my shoulder, but again she refused, warding me off with a raised hand.
‘No, Dee. Just wait. It shouldn’t be long.’
‘What won’t be long?’
She ignored the question, sweeping hair back from her face with a shaking hand and glancing back towards the road. ‘Lord and Lady, Haversleigh, how long is this going to take?’
I remembered, then, the five outsiders, and the sigil she’d drawn to mark them all. I’d only glanced at it, I’d been too worried about Lord Haversleigh and his men to pay much attention; but I could remember some of it. There was the element that meant life-force, and another that would direct energy towards the one who cast it. And encircling them all, binding them together . . . that one represented death. They were going to be hanged, Lord Haversleigh had said. ‘Aleida? Lord and Lady, those bandits . . . What did you do?’
