Chapter 22
New Truths
“That bastard!” Kiernan snarled under her breath.
“What did he want?” Cael asked with a glare at the Duke’s slamming door.
She strode past the line of guards and marched down the hill, pulling up short at the river of mud that served as a road. “Demon’s breath!”
“What happened?” Cael asked again, more urgently this time.
“Why is there so much mud here?” she snapped, angry that she could not continue to expel her anger by taking herself as far away from the Duke of Lewstin as fast as possible.
“It’s runoff from the mines,” Cael answered, distractedly. “Every time the blasters open a new section, the mine floods.”
“Well, there has to be some way to divert the excess water from the town! This is absurd!” She hopped on one foot to remove first one sandal and then the other. Picking up both sides of her dress, she stepped down into the quagmire and sank up to her ankles. After days of open travel, she had longed to wash the road dirt off her body and feel clean once again. Now, it looked as though she was destined to be perpetually dirty staying in this dilapidated town. Most animals live better than the people of Lewstin.
“Men in high houses care little for the conditions below,” Cael commented.
“By the Highworld he should! As a landowner, it’s the Duke’s sworn duty to provide his townspeople a safe and suitable place to live. If my…” She paused and shook her head. “If the King were still alive, he would correct this wrong. He was a fair ruler, Cael.” That much she did remember.
He nodded. “I believe you. Sadly, the Duke is not. If any of the folk here bring up ideas to improve our living conditions, we’re punished for wasting time. He doesn’t want us to invest time in anything that doesn’t involve the mining of diamonds.”
“So, I’ve heard,” she muttered. She sighed and looked around. Twilight had descended and two men moved through the town square lighting lamps. Several couples were gathered around the women’s barracks bidding each other a good night. She looked at Cael. “Am I really to sleep there?”
He nodded sheepishly.
“Can I have a bath at least?”
“You have to put your name on a list.” He hesitated. “It usually takes a few days.”
“So, not tonight?”
“Probably not.”
She looked down at the red dress she had been wearing for days with a grimace.
He took her hand in his. “We better hurry and get you inside before curfew.”
“Curfew?” she exclaimed loudly.
“Yes,” he said dragging her forward. “Come on.”
The mud squelched between her toes as she followed in resignation. People on the street glanced her way, most with curiosity, some with openly hostile looks. All with an underlying sadness. These are a beaten people.
Cael pulled her to the side before the door to the barracks. His eyes softened and he placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Papa!”
Kiernan stepped out of the way as a young, blonde girl of around ten years of age ran to Cael.
He squatted down and hugged her tight. “Hello, love. Have you been behaving yourself while I’ve been gone?”
“Yes, Papa.”
He stood. “I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Mistress Malley. Larkin, this is my daughter, Tilly.”
The little girl gave her an awkward curtsy.
“Nice to meet you,” she told Tilly with a smile.
“It’s getting late,” Cael announced. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave Tilly one last kiss, squeezed Kiernan’s hand and walked away into the night.
“This way, Mistress Malley,” Tilly said.
Kiernan followed the little girl into the barracks and froze at the chaos inside. Women and children packed the room. Babies cried, mothers cooed, young children shouted and played in any available space they could find. Small cots lined both sides of the long building. Every one of them occupied. Those that did not have a bed slept in the area between on blankets. Dear Highworld, how do they live like this?
A gray-haired woman seated on a stool to the right of the door gave her a shocked look. “And, who might you be?” she asked, pushing her considerable bulk upright. She wore a simple frock and was barefooted, although it was hard to tell with the amount of mud that covered her legs.
“I’m Larkin Malley.”
“Haven’t had no newcomers around here in a long time. You lost?”
“No. I came with Cael Trathen.”
“Bloody idiot,” she murmured and eyed Kiernan’s gown. She reached into a cubbyhole behind her and pulled out a worn dress, frayed at the edges. Nothing had ever looked so good to Kiernan in her life. At least it’s clean.
“Thank you,” Kiernan said gratefully, accepting the dress. “Where should I change?”
“Do you see any noble lady’s dressing room around here? You can undress right where you stand.”
A few of the women within hearing distance chuckled.
Red-faced, Kiernan peeled off her gown and quickly changed. “I don’t suppose a bath is available?” she asked, tying the laces at the bodice of her new dress.
“Of course, there is.” The woman checked a parchment nailed to the wall. “Two days from now.”
Kiernan fought back the urge to cry. Two days living with a coating of mud. “Please put me on the list.”
“I’m Marian, the matron here.” She handed Kiernan a blanket. “There are no beds left, so you’ll have to make your own spot somewhere. Lights out in one minute.”
Kiernan nodded and turned back to the pandemonium with despair. A small hand slipped inside hers.
“You can sleep with me,” Tilly told her softly and led her into the room along the narrow aisle. All conversation ceased as they passed and walked toward a small cot in the middle of the room. “Sod off!” Tilly shouted, shooing away a young boy that had been lying there.
Kiernan removed the handkerchief from her head and lowered herself down onto the cot after Tilly and had to take the young girl in her arms to make room for them both.
“Lights out!” Marian shouted and all the lanterns were extinguished.
Kiernan lay her head back and without thought began to stroke Tilly’s soft hair. She stiffened at a familiar swelling that surged inside her breast. A fierce, protective force that had nothing to do with blood oaths or duty. It was an instinct born of nature and that had the power to move mountains.
She allowed the tears that formed in her eyes to run unchecked down her cheeks at the memory that had managed to breach the foggy corners of her mind. A personal realization that touched her heart to the core and one that she knew without a doubt to be true.
I’ve held babies of my own at one time. I’m sure of it.
****
Beck strode ahead moving north now through the Puu Rainforest, his little band of followers straggling behind. He wasn’t intentionally trying to discourage them from continuing on by the pace he set. It was just that the need for urgency drove him above all other trifling consideration. Josef Asher could only hide for so long. Gage Gregaros could only forestall an accession war for so long. More importantly, somewhere on this island Kiernan needed him, and he had already made the decision to put her first.
The thought sent adrenaline flooding into his limbs pumping them harder and faster until he was suddenly in a blind run. Vines and tree branches slapped at his face and body as he ran. He could have set a shield around his body if he had been thinking clearly, but he wasn’t. Shouts sounded behind him, but he ignored them. Footsteps crashed through the forest in an effort to catch up. Beck cast out with his earthshifting and moved the dirt beneath him until the ground lifted his steps into long, leaping bounds. The trees melted away into indistinct replicas as his magic pitched him forward one enormous stride at a time.
Beck ran on this way for hours, stopping only when the mu
scles in his legs finally gave out and he fell to his knees on the path.
He was still there, catching his breath when the sprinting footsteps came closer sounding loud in his ears. Too loud. He stood and spun around. People poured out of the forest in all directions, running hard. Men and women. A few children! Even a one-eyed Cyman! There must have been a hundred of them.
“What…? What in the Highworld is all this?”
“King Beck! You ran so fast!” Tristan exclaimed, skidding to a halt, the strings of his biggins cap swinging wildly beneath his chin.
“What is going on here?” Beck barked again, ignoring the royal title as he had numerous times over the past few days. The boy simply refused to acknowledge Beck’s claims.
Tristan looked puzzled for a moment. “What? These people?”
“Yes, Tristan, these people. Where did they come from?”
“Oh, I guess word has gotten around in Iserlohn.”
“Word about what?”
“That you’re out looking for Princess Kiernan, Your Grace!” he answered slowly as though Beck were dimwitted. “Since the Scarlet Sabers refused to help, we kinda decided that we’d take their place. Like I said, King Beck, you and the Princess have done a lot for the people of Iserlohn. We’re not the type to forget about a thing like that.”
Beck ran a hand through his hair, alternately touched and exasperated. “Look, Tristan…” He looked around at the group. “Everyone, please hear me! The Scarlet Sabers did not refuse to help me! I am on my own by choice!”
“So are we, Your Grace,” Tristan said with a shake of his head.
“Tristan! You don’t understand.”
The stout boy gestured dismissively and started away. “We’re wasting time. Come on, Your Grace. We’ve a Princess to bring home.”
Chapter 23
A Hard Slap
A relentless, harsh clanging brought Kiernan abruptly out her exhausted sleep. “What’s happening?” she asked, already jumping off the cot.
“Oh, no,” whispered Tilly.
“What is it?”
“The bell,” she whined in a terrified voice as she swung her legs off the bed and slipped into her dirty dress. “It means there’s going to be a flogging.”
Fear stabbed at Kiernan as she dressed and went to stand in the aisle with the other women lining up before the door.
“Hurry, now!” Marian, the matron, shouted. “The Duke has a show to put on! Don’t give him what he wants. No crying now.”
The women moved ahead sluggishly, clearly not eager to witness the event. A public flogging wasn’t anything new to Kiernan. Although, infrequent, she had seen a few in her life growing up in Nysa, and they never got any easier to watch.
When Kiernan arrived at the door, she grabbed Marian’s arm. “Who is to be punished?” The question earned her a glare, though she didn’t know why.
“Could be anyone for any offense,” the matron answered. “The Duke enjoys a perverse love affair with the whip. But, if I had to guess, I would say it was your very own, Cael Trathen.”
“Cael?” she asked in a panic. “He did nothing wrong!”
“Brought you here, didn’t he?”
A snarl ground out through Kiernan’s lips. She looked around at all the youngsters filing out the door. “Do the children have to watch?”
“Everyone.”
Kiernan pressed Tilly tight to her side and reluctantly followed the women out onto the porch of the barracks. “Close your eyes,” she told the little girl.
But, Tilly did look, and her cry was heartrending. “Papa! Papa!”
Cael knelt in the mud, his hands tied around the same wooden pole as the man she had seen yesterday. Blood covered his bare back. His head hung between his shoulders causing his long hair to hide his face from view. He looked barely conscious.
Sympathy lanced her heart. Cold rage stole her breath.
The Duke of Lewstin sat obscenely on an ornate chair on his hill, out of the mud, away from the horror he had orchestrated. Over the distance, their eyes met and in that moment she knew. This whole event was meant for her. To test her loyalty. Not to Cael, but to him. To witness firsthand the price of betrayal.
She broke eye contact and felt herself being forced down along the stairs and into the mud.
All around her, the crowd was deathly silent and Kiernan recalled Marian’s directive to the women not to cry. She now understood why. It was their one small act of defiance. The Duke may be able to force them into witnessing his brutality, but they would not give him a reaction, the one thing men like him craved most.
Tilly tried to break free to run to her father, but Kiernan held her back.
A man in a black hood with two cutouts around the eyes stood in the mud twenty feet behind Cael. Dressed only in black trousers and the hood, his bare, muscled chest gleamed with sweat. A wicked-looking leather whip dangled from one hand.
I have to do something! Kiernan pressed Tilly into Marian’s hands and pushed through the crowd determined to lock on to the punisher’s eyes so she could mindshift him. All she needed to do was get him to hold the tip of the whip back just enough so Cael wouldn’t be hurt as bad and no one would be the wiser.
The Duke stood from his chair to address the townsfolk, stopping her cold.
“Fine people of Lewstin! It is with great sadness that today I must condemn our brother, Cael Trathen, to a punishment of twenty lashes for the crime of thievery.”
The crowd murmured in surprise. Kiernan waited for one of them to call the Duke out for what could only be an outrageous lie. None did. She scanned their faces. Cael’s father stood in the back. He met her stare for a brief second and then shook his head and turned away.
The offense was more than she could stand. “No!” she shouted. “Master Trathen is a good, decent man. He would not steal!”
“Guards!” the Duke screamed. “Escort that woman back to the barracks!”
Two soldiers started toward her, but she ducked away from them. Refusing to engage the Duke, she turned to the people. “How long are you going to stand for this?”
“Guards!”
“You all know Cael Trathen is not guilty of any crime, yet you stand by and watch! You must rise up against this injustice!”
The soldiers grasped her arms and wrestled her toward the barracks.
“Proceed with the final ten lashes!” the Duke shouted.
“You must fight!” Kiernan countered.
No one answered her cry as she was carried up the stairs and unceremoniously dumped inside the building. The doors were slammed shut, but not before she heard the tip of the whip whistle through the air and land on Cael’s back with a sharp snap. Not before she heard his cry of pain.
She pounded on the door, but the guards held it shut. Misery overwhelmed her. Cael must have known the Duke would punish him if he brought her here to Lewstin, but he did so anyway. Why did he help her when he so easily could have brushed off her persistence and left her behind?
Because he was an honorable man and wanted to help her.
Her blood oath flared inside her body, and she vowed to do the same for him. With every cry of his pain, her resolve grew stronger.
****
Kiernan spoke to no one for the rest of the day, and no one spoke to her. Although, it was clear from the looks of the women that they blamed her for Cael’s whipping. As do I.
Every time the door opened, she feared it would be one of the Duke’s soldiers there to drag her out for her own punishment—and it would have nothing to do with a whip. Mostly, though, she was alone with everyone off to work in the mines, including Tilly. The women who looked after the very small children came and went, but otherwise the barracks remained empty.
She lay on her small cot and plotted her revenge on the Duke. She couldn’t do it alone, that much was certain. She needed the townspeople to desire their freedom as much as she wanted to give it to them.
Late in the afternoon, Marian came into the barracks and
brought her bread, cheese and water, which Kiernan accepted gratefully. The matron did not speak to her and it infuriated her. She stood to confront her. “Why, Marian? Why don’t you fight?”
To Kiernan’s surprise, the matron laughed. “To what purpose?”
“For freedom! For a life free of terror! For better living conditions!”
“Like Cael? He brought a new wife to town to make his living conditions better and what did he get for it?”
“You can’t possibly—”
“Have you seen the guards?” Marian asked. “Have you seen the walls? Have you seen how families are separated? These are all tactics to keep the people of this town focused on one thing.”
“Mining.”
“Exactly.”
“But, you must—”
The matron cocked her hand back and slapped her in the face. Hard. “Stop it! Just stop your nonsense! If you continue with your heresy against the Duke, you’ll get worse than a whipping. You’ll be dead! And, you’ll probably take a few of us along with you.”
Kiernan brought a hand up to her stinging cheek. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Bloody noble,” Marian grumbled, shaking her head.
“I’m a maid,” Kiernan told her.
“And, I’m the Princess of Men.”
Kiernan had to bite into her lip to keep from smiling.
“It’s easy to fight back when you’re a lion, isn’t it, my lady?” Marian said, jabbing a finger into her chest. “You’re used to people doing your bidding and bowing down to you, I can see that by the way you act. Well, for whatever reason you’re here, you’re in with the sheep now and we don’t want your bleating to attract the wolf. Do you hear me?”
Is she right? Am I doing more harm than good? Are my perceptions colored by privilege?
“There is no help for us in Lewstin,” Marian continued as though reading her thoughts. “This is our lot and we’ve accepted it. You will have to, too, if you want to survive.”
Kiernan reluctantly nodded, deciding to give it up for now. “How is Cael doing?”
An Oath Of The Kings (Book 4) Page 14
