by Robin Hobb
Then the door was flung open and the three children boiled out. “Missus, missus!” Kara shouted frantically. “Mum is very late! She still isn’t back from the market! We should go look for her.”
“Oh, my darlings, I know, I know. She’s been delayed. I’ve come home to take care of you until she gets here. Everything will be all right!”
Kara looked half a head taller than when I’d last seen her. Her dress astonished me. It was blue with a pattern of flowers, and she had a tidy little pinafore over it. Sem was dressed, as Epiny had warned me, in a suit made from cast-off uniforms. Dia, scarcely more than a baby when last I saw her, was dressed as primly as her older sister. Her blue pinafore with white ruffles matched Kara’s. Their faces were washed, their hair combed, and my heart broke when Sem looked up at Spink and said soulfully, “Thank the good god you’ve come home now, sir! I tole the girls you and the missus would come back and find out why Mum’s so late.”
“Epiny, Spink, may the good god bless you forever for what you’ve done for them,” I said quietly, and it was perhaps the most fervent prayer I’d said in my life. To see the children groomed and healthy, to see Sem standing tall like a brave little man, concerned about his sisters: could I have asked anything more of them? Tears stung my eyes. I found myself wishing that I presented a better aspect to the children as I climbed from the back of the cart. They stared at me as they would at a stranger, and quickly dismissed my presence as they clustered around Epiny, clutching at her skirts and asking, “Where’s Mummy? Will she be home soon?”
“I’ll be sure that she comes home very soon, my dearests,” Epiny blithely lied. And then I realized she was not lying at all; it was what she fully intended to do.
A tall, homely woman appeared suddenly in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. A bright brass whistle hung on a fine chain around her neck.
“Thank you, Rasalle!” Epiny exclaimed at the sight of her. “I’m so glad you could watch the children for me.”
“Well, it’s no more than I owe you, all the times you’ve helped me, ma’am. I’m going to hurry along home now. My missus will want me to start the dinner for her. Unless you still need some help here?” Rasalle eyed me curiously.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! So much has happened to me today that I’ve completely forgotten my manners. This is my cousin, Mr. Burvelle, come for a visit while he recuperates from some health problems. And just fancy, on the last leg of his journey, he was waylaid by highwaymen! His horse, his baggage, everything he owns was lost to them!”
“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Such a thing to befall you! So pleased to meet you, Mr. Burvelle, and I’m so glad that you still managed to arrive safely. I’m so disappointed that I must hurry along. Well, ma’am, you take care. It never seems to rain but that it pours on you! Your housemaid—” She halted her tongue, looked at the children, and said, “Delayed, and houseguests, all on the same day! Call me if you need any assistance! I’m sure my missus would be glad to let me help you.”
“Oh, I shall, never fear, I shall! In fact, as you can see, Mr. Burvelle’s own garments were stolen from him as well. But I think he is of a size with poor Lieutenant Gerry. If your mistress would not mind, could some clothing be loaned, perhaps?”
“Likely she would, ma’am. You know she’s resolved to make the trip west, back home. She was looking through his things today, saying that there was no sense packing a dead man’s clothes.”
Epiny gave me a glance and said quietly, “Lieutenant Gerry was unfortunately killed in a raid this last winter.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said so sincerely that the maid stared at me. I stood, mute and frozen, not hearing the rest of their conversation.
The woman hurried away and Epiny swept us all into the house. Spink had gone to put up the horses, and she told the children to hurry off to the kitchen, and she would come to give them some bread and broth soon. No sooner were we alone than she exclaimed, “Oh, it couldn’t be better. Rasalle is the biggest gossip in Gettys. Soon enough everyone will know that my cousin has come to visit.”
I cared little enough for that. “I have to find out where they’re holding Amzil. From what I’ve heard of Thayer, the man is unbalanced. Even if all his men oppose the idea, he’ll still try to hang her.”
“Hush!” Epiny told me sharply and rolled her eyes toward the kitchen. “Don’t say anything like that where the children can hear. They don’t know that their mother has been arrested. They’re calm now, but I won’t have them frightened.” She took a shuddering breath and admitted, “I’m frightened enough for all of us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
DECISIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
As evening fell, I buttoned the collar of my borrowed shirt and then slipped on the jacket. Everything smelled of cedar. The jacket was blue, but it was cut identically to a uniform jacket. It felt strange to do up the shining brass buttons, as if I’d been transported back to my cadet days. I wondered briefly about the man who had worn this, and what he had thought about the last time he’d buttoned it up. Then I asked the good god to be welcoming to him, took a breath, and let it go.
I looked in Epiny’s mirror with the scrolled gilt frame and tried to smile. It looked more like a sneer. Here I was, dressed in a dead man’s clothes, possibly those of a man I had helped to kill, about to step into the biggest charade I’d ever played in my life. I’d be impersonating Nevare Burvelle, soldier son of Lord Burvelle of the East, come to present my respects to Captain Thayer. I realized I was holding my breath and slowly let it out. My chest still felt just as tight. I knew I must be mad, going along with Epiny’s harebrained scheme. The only advantage I could see to her plan was it was the only one we had.
Epiny had tucked a sleeping Solina into her bed, and then prepared and served a much-needed meal to the rest of us. But Spink didn’t join us. He’d gone out to inquire discreetly about Amzil’s location and situation. Before he’d gone, he’d told Epiny that he hoped that Captain Thayer had come to his senses and realized that he did not have any authority over either of the two women. Several of his officers had raised that objection earlier, but Thayer had ignored it, insisting that if their transgressions involved his soldiers in any way, then he had the authority to punish them. He’d also insisted that Amzil’s “confession” made any trial unnecessary and a waste of time. The sooner she was hanged, the better, and he’d settled on dawn the next day as an appropriate time for an execution. He’d been merciful to the other woman. She would spend two days in the public stocks, and then be banished from the town.
“What?” I’d asked Spink. “He’ll humiliate her and then just turn her out of the town, with no horse, no supplies, nothing, to walk alone back to Dead Town? That could be a death sentence for her.”
“I tried protesting. He wouldn’t hear me. When I spoke out anyway, saying that my housemaid had obviously acted in defense of her life and the lives of her children, he threatened to have me disciplined for speaking out of turn. I don’t think it’s a question of him doing what he thinks is just, Nevare. I think he just wants to be rid of Amzil, and he doesn’t want to have to think too much about what he is doing or why.”
From what Spink said, I doubted that any verbal argument would sway Thayer in his determination to have Amzil hanged. Nonetheless, I stubbornly clung to the tiny spark of hope that he’d offered me. Someone might say something to him to wake him from his blind vengeance. No, not vengeance, I decided. Erasure. He would expunge from his life the woman that could accuse him. He’d have himself flogged and kill the final witness. Then I recalled how Spink had defied him that night, and I felt cold trickle down my spine. Would Spink be his next target?
Epiny, the children, and I consumed a simple meal of broth and bread spread with the drippings from last night’s rabbit dinner that was also the source of today’s broth. Despite my earlier hunger, it was hard for me to swallow as I looked at the three small faces around the table and dreaded what the future might hold for th
em. The children were reserved with me, but Kara peppered Epiny with questions about her mother, to which Epiny could reply only that she was certain that Mummy would be home as soon as she could, and in the meantime, Kara should eat her meal with her very best manners. In that regard, I was surprised to see how far they had progressed from a time when the best they knew was to squat around a hearth and eat with their hands. Even little Dia sat propped on a chair and managed her spoon quite well.
After the meal, Dia had been put down for a nap, while Epiny set both Kara and Sem to a lesson from one of her old primers. The two children diligently bent their heads over the book while Epiny and I retreated to the other end of the room to talk softly.
“They certainly absorb a lot of your time, don’t they?” I observed, expecting her to say that this day had been unusual.
“Small children are a full-time task for any woman. They are missing their mother badly just now, and being the best little lambs they know how to be because of it. When Amzil is here, Kara is quite obstreperous, full of questions. And Sem is of an age where he is quite weary of the house, and longs to be out in the street with the other boys at all hours of the day. Many of the other boys just seem to run wild here. I have spoken twice to the commander, telling him that a regimental school for the youngsters would not be amiss at all, but he balks at the idea of mixing officers’ children with those of enlisted men, let alone the townsfolk. I’ve insisted to him that it’s the only efficient way to do it, but he will not even hear me out. The man is a cretin.”
I thought of asking her if she realized that her behavior to his superiors would definitely affect Spink’s chance for advancement, but bit my tongue. Spink had said he was content with his willful wife; I would not interfere. I suspected it would have been a waste of my breath anyway. Instead, I said, “I admire what you’ve done with them. But I also envy you and Spink. I’m a stranger to them, but they’ve given their hearts to you.”
“All of that will change after you and Amzil are married,” she decided blithely. “I think you’ll make a very good father to them. Sem still speaks of you, from time to time, as ‘the man who used to hunt meat for us.’ That’s not a bad image for a son to have of his father.”
“You assume so much,” I said shakily.
“Do I?” she asked, and smiled at me fondly. “I’ve masterminded one prison escape before, and it went almost according to plan. There is only one bit I haven’t decided yet. Should she flee or hide?”
“What?” I was completely taken aback.
“Should Amzil flee or hide? If it’s flee, then we need to steal a horse. I’ve been thinking that the animal that scout was riding today looked healthy and fleet.”
“Epiny, you can’t be considering—”
“Oh, we both know nothing else will work. It’s fine for Spink to speak of the Captain coming to his senses, but I don’t think that man has any senses to come to. Once Spink returns, we shall know where she is held, and we can lay our plans.”
I was saved from having to reply to that by Sem coming with the primer, saying that he was ready to have his lesson heard. He battled his way manfully through eight letters, and then Kara read to us about the boy who could see the bee in the tree. I suppose I was too fulsome in my applause, for she rebuked me with a “Truly, sir, it’s not that difficult. I could teach you to read, if you’d like.”
That jolted a laugh from me, despite my heavy heart. Then Epiny rebuked both of us, Kara for being cheeky and me for laughing at bad manners. I straightened my face and managed to keep a grave expression as I asked little Kara if the missus had taught her to play Towsers yet, whereupon Epiny astonished both children by playfully slapping my hand and forbidding me to say another word about that game.
Yet all the while I was enjoying the children and rejoicing in the home they had found here, my heart was aching and my throat clenched over the fate of their mother. When the door closed behind Spink as he entered, we both jumped, and Epiny’s voice was too bright as she asked him if he had found what had been misplaced.
“Yes, I did,” he replied stiffly. “But it’s quite wedged where it has been dropped. I’m afraid it will take more than saying please to get it freed.”
Kara looked up hopefully. “Sir, I’ve got little hands. Often my mother says that I can get things that no one else can reach, like the time that the button fell through that crack in the wainscoting. Whatever it is, I’d be glad to reach it for you, if I could.”
“I know you would, darling,” he replied. “But I’m afraid it will have to wait for a time. Have you saved me anything to eat?”
“Of course we have. Give me a minute, and I’ll have it on the table for you,” she replied in a housewifely little voice, and trotted off to the kitchen, with Sem at her heels loudly insisting that he could help.
Epiny pounced on Spink. “Where is she?”
“The same block of cells where they held Nevare.”
“But that building is half burned!”
“Only the upper part. The lower cells remained intact. So they’ve put her in one of the punishment cells down there.”
“Punishment cell?”
“A very small room, with no windows, not even in the door. And quite stoutly built, I’m afraid.”
“And the guard on it?” I asked.
Spink looked ill. “Two men from that night in the street. Two men with every interest in seeing her hang so she can never speak the truth against them again. I’m sure Captain Thayer chose them deliberately.”
“Two men I’d have no compunction about killing,” I said, and was surprised at how calm and certain I was.
Spink went pale. “What are you talking about?” he asked, aghast.
Epiny answered. “We’ve been planning her escape. The only real question we have left is, should she flee or should she hide? I’ve been thinking that the best solution is to make it appear that she has fled, but when they give chase, they’ll only find a riderless horse. So they’ll think she jumped off the horse and fled into the forest. But actually we’ll hide her somewhere here in Gettys, and spirit her out after they’ve given up looking for her. We think that that scout’s horse looked good and fast. Do you know where he stables the beast?”
“Not ‘we,’” I said firmly. “Epiny has been making these extravagant plans. I have no ambition of stealing Tiber’s horse.” I sighed. “But I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t come up with anything better.”
Spink looked only mildly relieved. “Fleeing or hiding, such plans are of no use until we find a way to get her out of there. I stopped on the way home and spoke quietly to two other officers. Neither of them were enthusiastic about trying a civilian, let alone executing one, and both are horrified at the thought of hanging a woman. As for the Captain having himself flogged, well, it’s insane.”
“Then they’ll stand by us if we go to Captain Thayer tonight and—”
“They won’t stand by us. They won’t confront Thayer. A man capable of hanging a woman and flogging himself is certainly capable of punishing any underling who questions his authority. No. But they’d certainly be greatly relieved if something happened so that the woman didn’t hang.”
Epiny smiled. “So, for example, if she vanished from her cell, no one would search for her very diligently.”
“Epiny.” Spink looked at her levelly. “It’s very complicated. Everyone knows how Amzil feels about her children. They know she wouldn’t leave town without them.”
“She might. For a short time, because she knows they are safe with us.”
“Epiny, we’d still have to get her out of the cell.”
“We have some explosives left from the last time!” Epiny exclaimed brightly.
“No. Blowing up the cell wall with black powder would most likely kill the occupant,” Spink pointed out. “Those cells are tightly built with thick stone walls, not wood. Any explosion we set off that was powerful enough to break the wall would definitely harm Amzil. Nevare was ve
ry fortunate that you and Amzil blew up the wrong prison wall the last time. No. No explosions.”
“Well, that’s no good, then.” She thought for a moment. “What is the door made of? If we get rid of the guards, can we force it?”
I spoke up. “I doubt it. My door was of very thick wood, reinforced with metal strapping and a heavy lock.” I hesitated, then added, “It didn’t look as if the place where I broke out of my cell had been repaired very well. I might be able to break a hole in the wall with a pry bar and a sledge. But it wouldn’t be a quiet operation. And I might find myself back in my old cell, with the door still locked, and Amzil locked in another cell.”
Blithely ignoring this, Epiny was relentless. “Who would have the keys?”
“Captain Thayer, most likely.”
“Then we have to get them somehow. Spink, we’ll have to invent a reason for you to visit him tonight and—”
“Not a chance of that.” Spink sighed. “I went there before I came home, determined to make the man see some sort of reason. I couldn’t get past the sergeant on the desk. The man tried to be polite, but finally admitted that he’d been given a direct order not to admit me on any grounds.”
“Then I’ll go,” Epiny said decisively.
“That would be useless, and you know it,” Spink told her firmly. “His sergeant has had orders to refuse you admission for weeks.”
“I could raise enough of a fuss in that outer office that he’d have to come out.”
“No, my dear. I won’t risk you. The good god knows what Thayer would decide was a just punishment for a shrew in his office. Possibly the stocks.”
