For a moment, the two faced each other, neither looking away.
“I’ll remember that,” Telemachus said at last. “Just have to get you when you’re on your own.”
That threat echoed in Jesse’s head the rest of the night, keeping him from enjoying his meal. As it turned out, the only food the house of refuge seemed to keep on hand was potatoes, which explained why they had peeled so many. Telemachus had made them into three different dishes, but the dozen or so orphans still grumbled as they ate.
They had been glad to see the newcomers though. Jesse had laughed quietly as three little girls crowded around Rae, asking her questions and running their hands through her silky black hair. She looked about ready to throw her bowl of potato soup at them.
As soon as the meal was over, she bolted up the stairs to their room. Jesse, Silas, and Parvel followed. “I don’t like this place,” she said, shutting the door behind them. “Or those priests, and especially not that ruffian in the kitchen. We need to leave as soon as possible.”
“We will,” Silas said, “as soon as we know what we’re doing next.”
“And how long will that be?” Rae demanded. “I say we strike out on our own and do something!”
“Yes, very good,” Silas said sarcastically, staring her down. “And what exactly would that be?”
Jesse could tell from the brief confused look on her face that Rae hadn’t thought of it, but she blurted, “Form a raiding party. Take from the king whatever we can.”
“Like the Rebellion, I suppose?” Silas demanded, turning away from her.
“Listen,” Jesse said, stepping in between them. “Parvel was right—we stand together. Or we should. Right now, all we can do is argue with each other. What we need is a good night’s sleep and time to get our thoughts together.”
“Hear, hear!” Parvel cheered, yawning loudly. “And with that, I suggest we retire for the night. I, for one, haven’t slept on a real mattress for days.”
Silas laughed and kicked one. “You won’t now either. This isn’t your father’s mansion, Parvel.” Sometimes Jesse forgot that Parvel had grown up as the son of a noble, a very different life than any of the others.
“It will do,” Parvel said. “It’s better than stone, anyway.”
Almost as soon as Rae left the room, Jesse fell asleep on the thin straw mattress. He dreamed, as usual, of his parents and of home.
That is, until he awoke to a loud shout. “Surrender in the name of King Selen!”
He blinked, making the blurry darkness come into focus. It was Harrod, holding a candle and looking stiff with fear.
No. That’s not where the voice had come from. Another figure stepped in from the hallway. It was a Patrol member, one with fiery red hair and an ugly scowl. Jesse had never seen him before.
“That’s them, all right,” the Patrol member said. He kicked Jesse in the side, then Silas and Parvel. “Get up, scum! I arrest you in the name of King Selen.”
Captain Demetri. Jesse was sure of it. He had followed them through the mountains and found them. But how? He thought we were dead.
Just then, Anton squeezed into the room, also holding a candle. He looked from Jesse to the Patrol member and back again; then turned to Harrod. “What is going on?” he asked, looking more confused than outraged.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Harrod said. “There’s a problem with our guests.”
The Patrol member scoffed loudly. “A problem, he says. I should say so!” He turned to Harrod and roared practically in his face, “Didn’t you check their papers?”
Harrod’s face remained stiff. “No,” he said. “As a house of refuge, we…”
“They don’t have any,” the Patrol member snapped, cutting him off. “Their papers were revoked when they were thrown in prison for theft and murder. That was before the escape.”
Anton gasped sharply.
“It’s not true,” Jesse said, staring straight at him, willing him to believe them. Anton just moaned and backed away.
“I’ll take ’em off your hands quick enough,” the Patrol member said, grabbing Parvel first.
“By yourself?” Harrod pointed out. “They’re dangerous criminals!”
“I have help.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Now, march, in the name of King Selen!”
Jesse reached down to pick up his bag and walking stick. To his surprise, the Patrol member didn’t protest.
“No,” Anton said, shaking his bald head. “I don’t understand. This is a house of refuge. You can’t…”
“Yes,” the Patrol member said, towering over the priest with his hand on his sword. “We can.” Anton, eyes wide, bowed and retreated into the hallway.
The first thing Jesse saw when he stepped into the hallway was Rae, arms pinned behind her, held by a hulking form of a man.
It was Telemachus, his twisted grin glowing in the flickering candlelight. “I said I’d get you,” he said. He jerked his head toward Rae’s shoulder and grinned.
Rae’s tattoo. So he had seen it. Fear twisted in Jesse’s stomach like a knife.
Then he thought of something else. But nearly everyone in Amarias believes the Youth Guard members are heroes, not criminals. He didn’t have time to think about it more, because the Patrol member shoved him forward.
“Even the girl?” Anton protested weakly. He was pressed against the far wall, as if he wanted to disappear into the shadows.
“Her?” The Patrol member laughed a deep, coarse laugh. “She was the ringleader, old man.”
“Lies,” Rae said, her voice like ice. “Like everything else the king and his men have ever said.”
The Patrol member stepped forward, hand raised. He’s going to slap her, Jesse realized.
In the second it took him to make that realization, he saw movement beside him. Silas ran forward, grabbed the Patrol member, and slammed him against the wall so hard it shook.
Immediately, Telemachus let go of Rae and pulled Silas off. For a moment, Jesse was sure that Telemachus had straightened up, losing his hunch.
Rae tried to run, but Harrod blocked the staircase. “Oh, no you don’t, young lady,” he said, fat arms crossed.
“See?” the Patrol member said. “First, the girl speaks evil words about the king, and then this one attacks a member of the king’s law-keeping force. Highest treason!”
One of the doors in the hallway opened slightly. Anton closed it firmly. “Stay where you are,” he ordered the orphans inside.
It was useless to fight back now. If the Patrol said they were criminals, then they were criminals.
The Patrol member took lengths of rope from his sack. He had come prepared. “I hereby bind you, in….”
“In the name of King Selen,” Jesse finished. “We know.”
“That’s enough from you, or I’ll tie your mouth shut too,” the Patrol member said. He paused. “That’s not a bad idea. Wouldn’t want to disturb the good citizens nearby.”
The Patrol member gagged and bound them, tying the four of them together by a rope around their necks. Then he tied their hands together behind their backs, leaving their legs free. The process took considerable time, since Rae decided not to be compliant. Finally, he nodded to Telemachus. “You, boy. Help me get these ruffians back to the compound.”
Telemachus turned to Harrod. “Can I?”
But it was Anton who answered. “It seems we have very little choice. Be back by morning. And stay safe.”
Telemachus gave a surly nod and shoved Parvel toward the stairs. That jerked the rest of them forward. Jesse tried to reach up and rub his sore neck before he remembered that his hands were tied too.
Between the Patrol member at one end and Telemachus at the other, Jesse hardly had to walk. They dragged their line of prisoners down the dark, empty road.
Suddenly, Jesse foun
d himself jerked to a halt. In front of him, Rae had stopped. Somehow, she had managed to work her gag loose. “I warn you,” she said, between clenched teeth, “you will not be able to force me to come with you…not without a fight.”
Someone laughed, and for a minute, Jesse couldn’t place who it was. When the voice laughed again, he blinked in surprise. It was Telemachus—but it wasn’t the same low, surly laugh he had heard early. It sounded almost…friendly.
“Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” he said. He straightened up, his hunched back disappearing. Now he was even taller than before, almost like the giants Jesse had heard about in stories.
Instead of shoving them down the road, Telemachus rolled up his sleeve. “You are among friends,” he said.
There, faint, but still visible in the moonlight, was a broken circle with an A. The symbol of the Youth Guard.
Chapter 4
They couldn’t talk in the street. That, at least, is how the Patrol member explained the need to continue on to the barracks. He did take off their ropes. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Necessary for the deception, you know.”
At first, Jesse thought Parvel would give the order for them to flee into the darkness, leaving their two former captors behind. Rae certainly looked ready to bolt. But they kept walking, and Parvel said nothing.
“Can we trust them?” Jesse muttered to Parvel.
“We’re still alive,” was all he said. “I think it would be best to see what happens.”
That didn’t seem like a secure plan to Jesse, but he had learned to trust his leader’s instincts, so he followed Telemachus and the Patrol member.
Here’s where we’ll see our proof, Jesse thought as they approached the gate to the barracks. Most Patrol outposts were small, a few houses inside a compound. This one, though, was within sight of the gates of Davior, the capital of District Two. It had room to house at least a dozen patrol members.
“Who’s there?” a raspy voice from behind the thick gates demanded.
“It’s Ira, of course,” the Patrol member holding Jesse said. “Back with the children from the refuge. We’ll question them, but I think our informant was just trying to stir up trouble for them. They seem harmless.”
The door creaked open, and the other Patrol member laughed. “I take it those priests weren’t slaughtered in their beds by the time you got there, then.”
Ira’s voice became sharp. “No, and you should be grateful. You know the priests do no harm and should be protected.”
A wheezing laugh from the other. “So you always say. If it weren’t for you, that house of refuge would have been shut down years ago. Well, I say they don’t do us good either. No bribes, no drinks. Nothing but their crazy tales and ancient morality.”
“If more people had their ancient morality, we might have fewer people in our jail,” Ira pointed out.
The wheezing man apparently had no comeback for that. He just grunted and let them pass.
“This way,” Ira said in a low tone. “My wife will have food ready, if I know her.”
“And good food, too,” Telemachus added, sounding excited, as if they were coming as late-night dinner guests.
So Ira was married. Jesse knew that not many Patrol members had a family. Most were young and ready for adventure—the king liked it better that way. Some though, often supervisors or officers, were allowed to marry before their years of service were up.
Sure enough, a small woman with a wide smile opened the door to meet them. “Come inside,” she said, beaming at them. “If I know my husband, you’ve had a harrowing night. But you are welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Parvel said warmly. Jesse glanced back at Silas and Rae. They didn’t look welcome. In fact, they looked ready to bolt into the darkness.
“I’m sure you’re hungry,” the woman said, shutting the door behind them. “Those houses of refuge don’t feed you growing children nearly enough.” She turned to Rae. “Help me in the kitchen, would you, dear?”
Before Rae could refuse, as Jesse was sure she would, the woman turned suddenly. “Oh, and where are my manners? My name is Willa.”
“Of course!” Ira said, laughing loudly. “We haven’t introduced ourselves properly!”
“Shh!” Telemachus hissed, looking around uncomfortably. “Won’t someone hear?”
“Most of the men are in the city tonight; getting drunk at a tavern, like as not,” Ira said. “Besides, if anyone comes, I’ll tell them I’m interrogating the prisoners.” He sat down on a bench so hard that the table shook. “And that’s just what we’ll do. I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“We mind,” Silas said flatly, crossing his arms and glaring at Ira.
Willa looked around nervously, blinking a few times. “We’ll just be in the kitchen, won’t we dear?” she said to Rae.
“No,” Rae said, not even looking at her. She stood beside Silas, straight and defiant. “I’ll be right here.”
“Never mind, then. I can manage just fine by myself,” Willa said, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “It’s mostly ready anyway.” With that, she retreated into the kitchen, leaving the rest of them standing in a circle, eyeing each other. It reminded Jesse of a story he had heard a traveler from the Northern Waste tell about wolves fighting for control of a pack.
This time, though, no one wanted to make the first move. When the silence seemed to drag on, Jesse said, “Silas, you don’t have to be rude. They’re on our side.”
“We don’t know if we can trust them,” Silas insisted, cold gray eyes fixed on Telemachus, who stared right back. Before, his gaze was dull and unintelligent, but now Jesse could see a sharp mind behind his disguise. “Maybe they’re Guard members. Maybe this is all fake.”
“He’s a smart one,” Ira said to Telemachus, as if none of them were in the room.
“Of course he is. How else do you think he survived?” Telemachus looked curiously at them. “But for an entire squad to get away…why, that’s unheard of.”
Jesse didn’t bother explaining the truth. He wasn’t a member of the Youth Guard. The fourth squad member, a young woman named Alieah, had died in training. He knew it hurt the others, especially Parvel, to remember that part of their story.
“While I applaud your caution, I assure you, you have nothing to fear,” Telemachus said. His smooth words, compared to the way he spoke in the house of refuge, almost startled Jesse. “If we had wanted to kill you, we would have done it by now.”
He was right, Jesse knew. If Ira and Telemachus were on the side of the king, they would have been killed instantly.
“Sorry we had to meet the way we did,” Ira said, shrugging his broad shoulders. He too began to roll up his sleeve. “As a token of good faith,” he said, “though it might be a bit hard for the young lady there to see.”
He soon found that with his burly arms, his shirt wouldn’t roll all the way to his shoulder. “Bah,” he said, giving up the attempt and pulling his shirt off. “There it is.”
He had exposed his right arm, the puckered skin covered in red welt-like scars from his shoulder to just before his elbow. “Hot coals,” he explained, his face hardening. “I was the only one of my squad who survived the attack. I knew I would have to take desperate measures to keep them from finding me. It was the only way I could think of to disguise the Guard tattoo. I tell folks I was badly burned in a fire that consumed my parents’ house.”
Jesse shuddered, not just because of the raw flesh, but because he pictured Ira burning it himself, screaming in pain. He would never make Silas, Parvel, and Rae do something like that…would he?
Ira put his shirt back on. “Once he knew you were Guard, Telemachus found me. We thought we should get you away from there before anyone else recognized you.”
“How would they?” Rae asked. “I doubt many of the king’s men sto
p by houses of refuge.”
“Especially in this district, it can’t hurt to be too careful,” Ira said. “The king hates us, you know. Wants to kill every Youth Guard member, to destroy the young ones who might fight back against him.”
“We know,” Jesse said, cutting him off.
Ira looked a bit disappointed at the reaction. “Then you know that only a few get away from him alive. Those who do need to stick together.”
“And so you bring us to a Patrol outpost?” Rae said, using her sharp words like a dagger. “How is this any safer than the house of refuge?”
“Because we know how to make you invisible,” Telemachus explained patiently, not seeming flustered at all by Rae’s outburst. “After all, we’ve done it ourselves. We can get you disguises, help you fake an accent or a mannerism, get you jobs in a town somewhere so that you can live in perfect obscurity.” Now that he had dropped his act, he spoke with perfect articulation and a slight District Two accent. “That’s what I’ve learned to do at the house of refuge.”
“Yes, about that,” Jesse said. “Do you always act…?” Jesse trailed off, trying to think of a polite way to finish his sentence.
“Rude, surly, and hostile?” Telemachus suggested. “Only to strangers. To the priests and the orphans, I’m a gruff, loveable hunchback. They know they can trust me with anything. I don’t talk much about my past. But then, no one at a house of refuge does. And no one asks questions.”
“The perfect place to hide,” Parvel said thoughtfully. “An excellent choice, Telemachus.”
“My name isn’t really Telemachus,” he admitted. “I chose it for myself, once I went into hiding. And you’ll do the same. I have a friend who can forge papers for you with your new identities.”
“What if we don’t want new identities?” Rae asked.
Jesse groaned. Why does she always have to pick a fight?
“Then you apparently want a death sentence instead,” Telemachus said.
“Fresh bread!” Willa exclaimed, bustling through the door with a tray of rolls and breaking the uncomfortable silence. She began to hand out the rolls; then stopped when she got to Jesse. “You need two,” she said, winking at him. “You’re nothing but skin and bones.”
Curse of the Forbidden Book Page 3
