by Barb Hendee
"Baron Milea remains here," Omasta said. "I have my orders, lady. I've brought a horse for you."
"She will need her personal effects," Emel said. He took Hedi's hand and walked toward the foot of the stairs.
Omasta fell in behind them. "Of course. I will assist with the baggage."
Hedi climbed the stairs with Emel. It was clear that Omasta would not leave her alone with the baron. Something more had happened for Darmouth to want her locked inside the keep for her own "safety."
Emel looked strained as he led the way to her room and began gathering her clothes and belongings. Omasta remained out in the upper hallway but kept the door open. There would be no chance for a single private word with Emel.
Once Hedi was packed, her panic rose again. She tried to think of a way to postpone her departure and have even one moment alone with Emel. When no ideas came to her, she was left with only the most cliche of feminine ploys.
Hedi put a hand to her throat, rolled her eyes closed with a soft exhale, and slumped to the floor in a heap.
She heard Emel kneel beside her, felt him take her hand, and he shouted at Omasta, "Get cold water and a towel… to the kitchen, man!"
A moment's silence followed, then heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway.
Hedi opened her eyes and pulled herself up by Emel's grip, leaning close to him with a whisper. "What has happened?"
"Shhhhh," he answered, and there was as much fear in his green eyes as she felt herself. "I should have told you last night. Darmouth has chosen you for a wife. He wants a legitimate heir."
Hedi stared at him. Had she even heard him correctly? Too many thoughts raced through her mind, and Omasta would return any moment.
"Do not let them lock me up!" she insisted.
"We cannot refuse," Emel said quickly. "I would end up rotting on the keep wall, and you would still be trapped."
"I would rather be dead," she answered too loudly, and Emel raised a finger to his lips, "than be breeding stock for that aging savage! There must be-"
"Go with Omasta, and wait for me," he said. "Smile for Darmouth, flatter him, play the bride-to-be if you must, but do whatever keeps him pacified. I will find a way to get you out, and we will disappear, but we cannot let him suspect anything."
Omasta came running back to the doorway. "The maid is coming. Are you… all right, lady?"
He saw her hand clasped in Emel's as she leaned close to him, and the concern vanished from the lieutenant's face as his eyes narrowed. A serving woman followed on his heels with a pitcher and towels. Emel turned his back to the door and looked Hedi in the eyes.
Go, he mouthed silently, and stay alive.
Alone in the dark room upstairs, Leesil dropped on the bed's edge. He was awake, yet visions like nightmares thrashed about in his mind. There had been so many victims, and then so many years of drinking himself into unconsciousness just to forget. Sometimes he couldn't remember all of their names. Only those who came after him in his sleep.
Lord Baron Progae… Lady Damilia… Sergeant Latatz… the blacksmith of Koyva… Lady Kersten Petzka… Josiah, the old scholar…
Leesil looked about for something, anything, to focus on rather than face his own rising memories. Magiere would come soon, but he half-hoped she would stay away. It took all his effort to fight off the ghosts, so how could he keep them from her?
Someone shifted in slumber beneath the bedcovers behind him.
Leesil lunged away, spinning about as he backed against the room's opposite wall.
The blankets and sheepskin cover were still neatly pulled up where he'd left them that morning.
The bed was empty. It was just his memories taunting him. But Leesil remained staring at the smoothed bed covers, uncertain that he could trust what he saw. He slid down the wall to lean against it on his haunches.
He should light a candle, or prepare for bed. Do anything to keep himself in the moment. But he remained there shaking in the dark, unable to forget…
Hedi Progae.
He'd seen her only once. No, in a way, it had been twice. One face among so many in his mind. And it had all been so long ago…
On the morning of his seventeenth birthday, his mother presented him with a gift.
The wooden box was as long as his forearm, less than half that in width, and no thicker than two hands stacked one on the other. Inside were items of unmatched craftsmanship. The sheen of their metal was brighter than polished steel.
Two stilettos as thin as knitting needles rested upon a coiled garrote wire with narrow wooden handles. There was a short curved blade strong enough to cut bone. Hidden behind a foldout panel in the box's lid, he found hooks, picks, and wire struts for opening locks.
No boy would have wanted this for his coming of age.
His mother slipped away as Leesil examined the items. When he noticed she was gone, he clutched the box and went looking for her. On the house's second floor, he stopped at his parents' room, looking in through the half-open door.
Cuirin'nen'a… Nein'a… Mother…
She sat on the window seat at the back of the room, the lake and for-est and gray sky all far out of reach behind her through the glass. Her perfect caramel skin, white-blond hair, and large almond-shaped eyes were mesmerizing. She was like an unearthly statue of smoothly polished wood, silent and unmoving, except for wet tracks of tears upon her checks.
Leesil backed away, unable to watch anymore.
Something tugged at his pant leg, and he looked down. Chap let go with his teeth and turned down the stairs. Leesil followed his only boyhood friend through the house to the kitchen. When Chap whined and pawed at the hatch in the corner, Leesil lifted it open. Chap jumped effortlessly down into the cellar and waited as Leesil followed.
He lit the lantern resting on the floor. The cellar was sparse, with no furnishings and few stores except a crate of dried goods, a barrel of excess fabrics and linens, and small sacks of whatever vegetables were in season. A small assortment of light and short blades and one buckler hung from the stone-reinforced walls.
Leesil opened the box, wondering at his mother's tears after all the training she had insisted he endure. He lightly fingered a stiletto blade as the hatch above him opened again.
His father climbed down the ladder.
Gavril always dressed in neutral colors, earthy and dark hues. His brown hair hung to his shoulders, and soft down covered his chin. His refined hands looked as if they belonged to a musician or perhaps a silversmith.
Leesil lifted one wire pick, a bit thicker than all the others. "What kind of lock would this open?"
His father held up both hands as a call for silence. "Our lord has a task for you."
Leesil blinked. He'd seen Lord Darmouth only once, four years earlier, as the ruler left his keep to lead a regiment out of the city. Gavril had been called to attend, and Leesil waited in the road with his father just beyond the gatehouse of the keep's stone bridge.
Darmouth rode out on a gray-flecked stallion so large that Leesil was certain he felt each pound of its hooves vibrate through the stone bridge and into the earth beneath his feet. Darmouth didn't dismount or even gesture to Leesil's father, but pulled up his horse under the gatehouse.
Gavril put a hand on Leesil's shoulder, telling him to wait, and stepped forward. Darmouth spoke down to Leesil's father in a low voice. The gray-flecked beast beneath him pawed the ground and snorted in the freezing winter air, its breath like belching smoke. Leesil never learned what was said, but Gavril was gone all that night and returned after the following dusk.
Seated on a crate in the cellar, Leesil looked at his father. The hatch in the kitchen floor above Gavril remained open, and light spilled down, deepening the shadows on his face. His skin seemed too tightly stretched over cheeks and jaw, as if he couldn't relax.
"What does Lord Darmouth want from me?" Leesil asked.
The tension of Gavril's face broke, leaving a strange exhaustion as he pulled a rolled parchment from t
he front of his shirt.
"Baron Progae is accused of treason. His influence is such that Lord Darmouth cannot risk arrest and a public trial. The death warrant has been signed by the council of ministers. I have a map of Progae's fortress and grounds. You will leave tonight." He paused, not looking at Leesil. "Scale the north wall to the rampart and enter through the northeast tower. I've marked Progae's chamber. He will be alone. All other family members are away with relatives. Make certain he is asleep. Do you understand?"
Leesil followed his father's words, but he did not understand… didn't want to understand.
"This is why we still live," his father said, "how we stay alive. It's your time."
Leesil had undergone years of training, with many nights in this very cellar learning things he put out of his thoughts during daylight. Still, he wasn't prepared for this moment.
"Remember every detail," Gavril continued. "Lord Darmouth expects an accounting when you return. I've vouched for your skill, and… our lives depend on each other. Do what is necessary. Consequence matters not unless it comes. Remember your training, and it never will come."
Leesil left that night with his toolbox, thick and short daggers for climbing, and a rope coiled about his torso. No one saw him in his dark cowl and clothes as he scaled the north wall, clinging below the rampart until the guards passed out of sight. The rest of the way, from the tower to the courtyard and on to the main manor house, seemed almost too easy as he slipped along walls, around corners, and through doorways. Some part of him waited for something to go wrong-wanted it to happen.
He believed he was alone, but while passing an archway, he saw faces peering out at him.
Leesil's muscles tightened. He forgot his training in an instant of alarm. He ducked his head and froze in a crouch, with the cowl shading his eyes above a black wrap covering the lower half of his face.
Through the archway was a room with hardwood chairs, a dark colored divan, and a russet carpet covering the middle of the stone floor. Long curtains by the window had been left open. The moon threw enough soft light into the room for Leesil's elven eyes to see a large family portrait hanging on the wall. He relaxed slightly. It was just a painting.
Everyone in the portrait had dark hair, perhaps black, from the man and woman to the three daughters, dressed in simple but refined attire. The father stood behind his seated wife and an eldest daughter, and the two younger girls sat upon the floor at their mother's feet. Behind them was a draped curtain for a background.
Baron Progae's chin beard and scant mustache accented a long face of narrow features but prominent cheekbones. A shelf of thin eyebrows overhung his hazel eyes. He wore a white shirt beneath a plain brown vestment trimmed in black. His wife was austere in her cream dress with an overlaid vest of golden fabric, yet there was warmth and pride in her eyes. She had one arm around the eldest daughter seated beside her.
The daughter looked about fifteen, or at least a bit younger than Leesil himself. A mass of black curly hair fell past her shoulders. Her skin was pale, her nose and mouth small and delicate, making her eyes seem deep and dark. She had her father's nobility mixed with her mother's allure. Leesil had rarely been exposed to young women face-to-face, and this girl in the painting was quite pretty.
He flushed beneath his cowl and scarf at being so foolishly startled. He slowed his breaths and moved on.
Rounding the stairwell landing on the third floor, Leesil faced an empty corridor. The guards were all outside and the servants asleep. He spotted the third bedchamber door on the right. It wasn't likely to be locked, but he already had a pair of wire picks in his mouth.
Leesil crept down the corridor, quick and quiet, and found the door was unlocked. Progae had no idea his betrayal had been uncovered. Leesil took his time turning the latch, inching it down slowly to be certain of silence, then slipped in and closed the door. He took the picks from his mouth and locked it from the inside.
The room held a four-poster bed. It was so immense that at first he wasn't sure anyone slept there. From the dresser and chest to the window seat and side tables, all the room's fixtures seemed large in the dark. Leesil crouched, listening, and heard the long and low breaths of slumber. He crawled along the floor to the bedside.
Progae slept on his back, lips barely parted. A thick down quilt was pulled up high about his throat. Leesil hesitated. His mind went blank, and he couldn't move-until he heard his father's voice in his thoughts.
This is why we still live… our lives depend on each other… do what is necessary.
Leesil watched Progae take two more breaths.
He removed one silvery stiletto from his wrist sheath and settled next to the bedside so his left hand could reach Progae's face. In his right hand he held the stiletto poised above the bed's edge. One of his mother's lessons came to him.
A sleeper will roll away from a touch, even before waking.
Leesil reached out and brushed Progae's cheek with his left palm. The man started in his sleep and turned away, exposing the back of his neck. Leesil followed the movement and wrapped his left hand across the man's mouth. The rest took less than a blink.
He rose up, full weight behind his grip. The man's head sank sideways into the yielding pillow, pinned by Leesil's forearm. He drove the stiletto upward, and it pierced the soft skin at the top of the neck. The tip scraped over the first vertebrae and into the skull. The blade stopped when the narrow hilt guard met skin.
Progae clenched and went limp.
A splotch of blood welled around the stiletto's hilt. It looked black in the dark room.
Leesil remained there, pressing his victim's head into the pillow. He didn't know how long, only that the muscles in his left arm suddenly cramped, goading him back to awareness. He jerked the stiletto out and rolled the body onto its back again. He forgot to wipe his blade before sheathing it.
Progae's hazel eyes stared up at the ceiling over a gaping mouth. Leesil closed the mouth and eyes and straightened the quilt. When he left, he locked the chamber door from the outside with his picks before stepping softly down the hallway to the stairs.
In the years that followed, he never remembered leaving the grounds, nor whether he'd been cautious or run the whole way home.
He arrived before dawn, breath ragged in his throat and chest, to find his parents waiting. Nein'a was watching out the kitchen window when he stepped in the back door. He passed her without a word, but Gavril stood in the carved archway to the front room. Leesil had no choice but to stop.
He gave his report without looking at his parents' faces. When he fell silent, and it was clear he had nothing more to say, his mother quietly dismissed him. He sat alone on the floor of his room, the door closed, and barely heard Chap scratching from the outside.
Come dawn, Gavril took him to the keep. He was led to an alcove by guards to make his report in secrecy. Lord Darmouth nodded in approval.
"No one will even know he's dead until my troops seize his fief. You've done well, boy. Progae's treachery ended before he made his first move."
Leesil told himself again and again that he had assassinated a traitor. The relief of justification stayed with him for almost a whole moon.
His mother was called to the keep for a celebration, and so his father decided to take Leesil out for the evening. Along the way, they passed a few nobles in their finery on horseback headed down Favor's Row to the keep bridge.
Leesil sat alone at a table in an out-of-the-way inn, nibbling on roasted mutton with herbs, while Gavril chatted at the bar with a man named Byrd. He couldn't hear much of what they said over the noise of other patrons. What he did hear was a name uttered by someone nearby behind him.
"Shameful," one said. "About Progae."
Leesil lowered his fork.
He knew better than to get involved. Even in this inn, his father told him to keep his cowl up. His hair was too different from that of other people. Leesil kept his back to the speaker at the table behind him and toyed mechanic
ally with his food.
"About Prograe?" asked a second. "I heard he was a traitor."
"I meant his family," answered the first.
"What of them?" asked a third, deeper voice.
"The wife and two youngest girls starved to death in the streets."
Leesil stopped poking at his mutton.
"What?" asked the second. "No one helped them?"
"They were outcasts," the first said. "Blood of a traitor and all, and they served no use anymore, I suppose. Not even their relatives would take them in, probably on their guard to see who was next. Only the eldest girl survived. Darmouth gave her to one of his loyal 'nobles' as a mistress if I heard right."
"Damn shame," said the third. "I saw them once, coming in for last winter's harvest celebration. Lady Progae was an eyeful, and that eldest daughter had the look of her. Hedi, I think. Why cast out women and children? It was Progae's academy, not theirs."
"Watch your mouth!" whispered the second. "Just be thankful you and yours aren't blood kin to a traitor. I for one can't wait for spring. At least then I can take my goods and caravan away from this place for a while."
Leesil stood slowly, dropping the fork before he realized it. He didn't look back to see the men's faces and said nothing to his father as he pushed out the inn's front door.
He walked quickly through the night streets. By the time he entered Favor's Row, he was running for the house. He slipped in through the kitchen door and stared out the window at the keep upon the lake.
"Leshil?" a soft voice called from behind him. "What is it?'
Leesil spun about. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway with Chap beside her.
Only Nein'a called him by that name. His more common one was simpler, less memorable to any who overheard it. Her speech was tainted by her own native tongue and made anything she said both lyrical and guttural. Leesil wondered if this was just her or if all her people sounded this way.
And he wondered why she'd returned so early from her duties at the keep.
She wore a deep tan gown that matched her skin, its vine-and-leaf pattern wrapping about her tall form. A midnight-green cloak with ermine trim hung over her shoulders, its hood down.
