by S E Zbasnik
Shrieking, Hayley leapt out of the saddle towards the little house. She dressed in record time, the knots around her biceps to expose the arms of her livery both sailing in the wind. They could be tied on the ride. Into her pockets, she stuffed whatever food she snatched from the pantry, her trousers bulging from the stolen finds as she dashed back out to find Larissa perfectly saddled on Gringolet.
“Course you didn’t give her any grief,” Hayley snarled at the turncoat horse as she jammed her cap in place.
“Should I…?” Larissa offered to hop down, but Hayley shook her off. She was getting used to riding in the back.
Once safely perched behind Larissa, Hayley dug both her hands into the saddle to get a grip and said, “Let’s get moving.”
Larissa, expert at everything, clicked her tongue and Gringolet tromped his way towards the road. It wasn’t until they ducked under the entranceway gate she asked, “Where precisely are we heading?”
“To Ostmount.” Hayley gritted her teeth. She still hated horses.
“I gathered that, and to Gavin, but why?”
“He’s in trouble; he’s been arrested.”
“Arrested?” Larissa squeaked. It was so high it reminded Hayley of her mouse friend. Maybe she wasn’t perfect at everything after all. “Arrested for what?”
“That’s what we’re gonna go find out.”
“Very well.” Larissa hefted the reins up, bounced her heels into Gringolet’s flank, and shouted, “Yah!”
The horse shot off like a bolt, nearly sending Hayley splattering to the ground. “Ffffff….” Was as far as Hayley got in her cursing as she scrabbled to stay off the hard dirt and not wind up with any broken bones.
“Better grip on to me,” Larissa ordered.
Hissing, Hayley didn’t want to wrap her arms around another damn redhead, but when Gringolet bounced over a rock and picked up steam, both of Hayley’s hands cinched tight to Larissa’s midsection. Only a trail of dust buffeted behind them into the summer sky.
By the time they reached Ostmount’s streets, the ever-pressing sun had waned to an orange-pink haze. That meant Hayley only had the night to figure out what was going on. Too bad she was at a loss for where to go, a fact Larissa kept pressing to her.
“We should approach the Magistrate’s quarters themselves. Inquire as to what happened,” Larissa kept on as if it was that easy. As if the Magistrate was happy to have squires cluttering up his foyer.
Hayley clacked her teeth. While at the estate, with pride and honor lofting her soul, it was easy to think she could do this. When the black and white horse clomped through the same streets she used to prowl, Hayley’s backbone melted to custard. The absolute last place she or anyone else ever wanted to be was near the Magistrate — be it his office, his fancy foyer with the statues of falcons, or bumping into him at a party. That was how you wound up dead.
There had to be another way, another answer…
“Erin!” Hayley snapped her fingers. Larissa tried to glance over her shoulder at the girl still clutched to her back like a baby monkey. “This is about a knight, surely the other Knight-Captain would know. Maybe she was even the one to send Devon.”
“So we head to the compound?” she asked while slowing Gringolet up as they nudged in behind a cart spanning the entire road. People kept flattening to the walls to try and avoid any of the wares sliding off the sides.
“Yes, and do it quick. Who knows how long we have.” Hayley tried to peer around the great cart holding three drivers all wearing massive hats.
Larissa spoke her magic horse tongue to Gringolet and turned the stallion down a small side street. The houses loomed so tight Hayley shrunk her shoulders in, but neither rider nor steed seemed to mind. “If you are wrong…”
“I know.” Hayley knew better than any of them how long it could take to traverse the city. If their only hope was to plead with the Magistrate then a single detour would doom them. “But this is right,” her jangled nerves spoke for her. As Gringolet emerged to a larger road, Hayley spotted two guards shooting the shit beside a wall. Her teeth chattered as they passed. She prayed it was her brain keeping them away from the Magistrate and not her cutpurse gut.
There weren’t many at the compound, the entire place eerily quiet. As Larissa guided Gringolet to the main building, Hayley swept off his ass backwards. She got her feet under her fast, all but running towards the door.
“Wait for me,” Larissa ordered, but Hayley wasn’t listening. They may have to scour every building to find Erin, and even then there was nothing saying she was here or knew anything. This was stupid. She should have just sucked it up and…let Larissa do all the talking in the Magistrate’s office. That would have been smart.
Hayley yanked open the door and her head nearly collided with a blue shield stitched over a wool tunic. Staggering back, Hayley looked up and gasped, “Knight-Captain!”
Taking a longer breath of surprise, Erin stared down at her. “Squire.” Her eyes darted over to find Larissa hitching up Gringolet’s bridle, “And the other Squire.”
“Gavin’s been arrested!” Hayley shouted before Erin could say another word. The woman’s entire face crumbled, her eyes burning into the ground as if she couldn’t face any of them.
“I know,” Erin coughed out.
“You…?” Hayley glanced at Larissa to marinate in her being right before focusing on the knight. “What happened? No one, no one seems to know.”
“This is,” she whipped her head like her saliva turned bitter, “this is not easy to say. Knight-Captain Gavin has been…”
“What?” Hayley jabbed at her, her skin itching to get out there and solve this. Was it that pissant Countess who couldn’t keep track of her jewelry? Lady Anne? Maybe someone else who was mad at Gavin for dropping out of the Tourney.
“He’s been accused of raping the Lord Chapman’s daughter.”
“No.” Hayley whipped her head, her fist lashing out to dig into the doorframe. “No, that’s not right.” Behind her, she heard Larissa squeak, this one even higher than before, but Hayley didn’t have time for her. “They’re lying!”
“Squire…” Erin began, but Hayley threw it off.
“That can’t be! Not after…” Her rabid fuming fell off a cliff, as her brain started up. Hayley gnashed on her lip, practically splitting the skin open in thought. “The charges?” She focused her glare fully upon Erin, “They weren’t brought up by her, were they?”
“How did you…?” Erin gasped in surprise.
“The father, he’s the one behind it all! He…” Hayley’s mouth fell open as her brain played out the obvious facts hidden inside the bullshit. “Gavin didn’t do it. No, the father, that Lord Chapass—”
“Chapman.”
“He’s made it up, he’s lying!”
Erin folded her arms together. “How are you so certain of that, Squire?”
“Because…” Hayley began, about to lay out the cruel twist of a man hellbent on getting his way, when she froze. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. “His daughter, the supposed victim, do you know her name?”
Erin shook her head. What happened? Did Chapman find out and accuse Gavin the moment he set foot in Ostmount? Did he learn of their secret marriage and this was his plot to free up his daughter? Where was Myra in all of this?
“I need to do something.” Hayley staggered back to the shadowed air. Soon it’d be darkness everywhere.
“Squire, I understand you’re concerned for your knight, but this is…”
“You don’t get it, you don’t know.” Hayley clacked her teeth. “I can prove he didn’t do it. Didn’t do anything they try to pin on him. I just need time.”
Erin folded her arms, her head bent down in thought. It was obvious she believed the accusations as much as Hayley did. “I’m afraid, in my position with the entire future of the Order resting upon my actions, I cannot assist you in whatever you’re planning. If Gavin is guilty, then it shall be proven in the trial.”
You didn’t think Frederick was either until you found his bawling squire.
That was different!
Why?
Gah! She had to find Myra, she’d answer this right away. If Myra was a Chapman then it had to be that, only that. Nothing else made sense.
“I don’t care, I’m going. What about you?” She turned to Larissa whose entire face paled to ice.
Shaking her head madly, she repeated, “I can’t. Not again. No, please…”
“He ain’t like that. For God’s sake, he saved you!” Hayley shouted but Larissa was unmoored, her back bouncing into the wall as she kept muttering to herself. No, she was on her own for this. Just like before, when all she had was her feet and her wits. If they took Gavin away, if that merchant Lord got his way, would she be back to the streets?
Not the time to worry. She had until morning to find Myra. “Do you know where the Chapman residence is?” Hayley asked Erin.
The Knight-Captain’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but I cannot condone nor assist you in anything illegal.”
“I only mean to talk to someone, swear to God on high,” Hayley said raising her hand. Erin elaborated upon the Chapman place, white stone walls with four trellises of dead roses outside. Unfortunately, it was also clear across the city.
“It’ll take you all night to get there,” Erin said, but Hayley was already running over the small bridge out of the compound. She knew a shortcut, her feet directing her not to the main thoroughfare but the cistern. There were sewers that’d cut a path right up to richie street.
Before she vanished, Hayley shouted, “I’ll fix this, I promise. He didn’t do it.” While leaping down into the shit-infested waters, she nearly believed both parts of her statement.
It was a lot bigger than Hayley anticipated. The Chapman manor loomed three stories tall and took up enough space to house four families. Tall bushes filled with prickers tried to hide away a view of the inside and trailed along the brick walk to the front door. Walking up and knocking wouldn’t get her what she needed. No way people that fancy would let someone like her anywhere inside, much less to see Myra.
That’s assuming Myra lives there in the first place. While the mystery blonde had seemed put together, she certainly hadn’t struck Hayley as rich enough to own people. This was going to be a problem.
Think. Every place had a weakness. Hayley had certainly broken a few locks in her days. Usually as a way to try and survive a cold snap in someone’s cellar. But something like this…only the pros would touch it. Hayley felt eyes from across the way staring at the strange girl pacing back and forth outside the Chapman estate. She needed to get to the back, away from fussing neighbors.
With that thought, Hayley slipped past the brick walls and merged into the bushes. Burrs swiped over her skin, but most didn’t dig too deep. Once she erupted into the indigo gardens primped to perfection, Hayley swiped a hand over her head and shook off what prickers lodged into her clothing. There had to be a servant’s entrance. If she could get to it, sneak inside when no one was looking, then… It was just a matter of checking every single room in that giant house for Myra, without anyone knowing who she was or what she was doing there.
It was stupid, but Hayley didn’t have a choice. Cinching her cap on tighter, Hayley began to edge around the bushes and ferns of the garden, her eyes scouring for the flimsy wooden door at the back. There was always one. Light burst from under the seams, brighter than a lamp or candle. No doubt the kitchen fires were blaring even in this summer heat. That was her answer.
Her eyes peeled around, trying to suss out someone who might make a break for the cooler night air. That was her way in, sneak past when the backs were turned. Hayley patted her hands and hunkered down when a pot exploded a few feet away from her.
Leaping to the side, Hayley covered her head in fear that more would come. Only a few curse words answered instead, from high above. A shadow eased out of a window and with a surprising grace clung to a drainage pipe. Shimmying fast, it made its way to the ground and stepped over to investigate the pot that fell to its doom.
“Stupid thing.” The shadow kicked the debris when Hayley rose from her hiding spot.
A woman gasped, about to lash out, when Hayley held up both her hands and whisper-begged, “Myra?”
“Oh blessed Mary, it’s you,” Myra cried, a hand patting her chest to calm herself. “I feared you were one of my father’s hired ruffians.” After taking a few more breaths, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to help my knight,” Hayley said, her knees knocking at the thought. “Thought I’d have to break you out to do it.”
Myra snickered to herself. “My father thinks he has control over everything.” The laugh was short lived as her head hung down.
“What happened?”
“Not here.” Myra glanced around, her eyes landing upon the same servant’s door. “Let’s get to the street to talk.” Both of them slid back through the gardens, Myra climbing the brick wall to get free. Hayley took the same pricker path out; last thing she needed was to break her ankle from a miss.
“I used to go through those as well,” Myra said, “but coming back with a ton of burrs stuck to my clothes was a bit of a giveaway.” Jerking her head, Myra led Hayley down the well-lit and groomed streets of where she lavished in luxury. The pickpocket, ex-slave couldn’t stop from gawping at how clean it all was. She hadn’t stepped in shit once.
The two remained silent until they reached one of the first street crossings, actual carts rattling on past even though it was long past sundown. Myra planted her back against a wall, curled her hands over herself, and began to weep. “I don’t know what happened. We were careful, always careful, but this time…”
She sucked in her tears, her sobs slowing as she turned to look at Hayley. “My father, he knew. Somehow he knew that I was meeting Gavin in an…intimate setting.”
Oh shit.
“They didn’t even let him put his trousers on before buckling the chains to his arm and legs. His poor…” Myra crumbled, her face buried in her hands. She had enough presence to not fall to the filthy ground, but her entire soul collapsed in on itself. All Hayley could do was try to limply pat her shoulder as if that would help.
“I don’t know what they did with him,” Myra cried. “I asked my father, demanded he tell me, but…” She spat at the ground. “He thought he could lock me away. Bastard.”
Hayley huffed in and out. How much should she tell her? It might break her or something. But… “I know where he is,” she muttered, Myra’s face dawning as she leaned tighter to Hayley like she was the only warmth in the world. “In the dungeon, awaiting trial on charges of,” she mashed her lips together, her face twisting away, “rape.”
“God damn it!” Myra screamed, her fist pounding into the wall. “I knew he did it! I knew he went and…! That cold snaked, son-of-a…”
“Are they false?” Hayley squeaked out, her throat bobbing, her eyes slammed shut.
“What?”
“Just, with Frederick and, and the way boys can be, I don’t know what to…”
Myra eyed up her knuckles, almost as if she expected to find blood where perfume should rest. “Every moment he was with me, every touch, I wanted just as much as he did. Maybe more sometimes. They’re all lies concocted by the father whose angry he’s lost.”
A breath escaped out of Hayley’s lungs. She knew in her heart they had to be, but the question wouldn’t evaporate from her mind. Anything was possible in this world. “But if, if you’re not claiming it, then…” Hayley scratched at her head. “I need to get you to him. Plan. Or figure out what to do for tomorrow.”
Gulping, Myra wafted her bruised knuckles over her eyes to blot the tears. “I don’t know a thing about the dungeons, or how to even see someone in them.”
“Luckily, I do.”
The moon hung high by the time Hayley escorted a far more angry
Myra to the guard quarters, jail cells, and…gallows. They rarely dismantled it anymore, the Magistrate of the opinion that the mere existence of its creaking wood deterred crime. Hayley only cast a glimmer of a glance before she ducked into a worn path walked by those who were relocated to the dungeons. It wormed its way between crumbling rock walls, black moss sprouting on the sides while the stench of urine tinged the air.
To Myra’s credit she didn’t once complain about the smell or conditions, just folded her fists tighter and cursed under her breath. When they reached the barred gate, Myra gasped, “No!”
“Don’t worry,” Hayley slunk forward. With her scrawny arm, she reached straight through the iron bars and strained to flip open the lock on the other side. The gate swung inward, allowing both women to scamper inside. Hayley placed a finger to her lips telling Myra to keep quiet. They weren’t supposed to be here, though it was rare for guards to patrol their own grounds much.
This late at night, most were either asleep, drunk, or gambling. She knew that all too well, Hayley dodging moonbeams to lead the distraught Myra towards the dungeon door.
“What if it’s locked?” Myra breathed, but Hayley shook her head.
Barely pausing, Hayley yanked on the door. It gave without thought. No one locked their doors around here because people weren’t around long enough to learn how to escape. You had to rely upon the kindness of strangers, and the press of gangs wanting their members out, to pull that off. With her back flat to the wall, Hayley eased down the buckling stone stairs. Her eyes kept a fix upon the guard room where light bounced from what looked a cozy fire. Be busy. Please be busy eating or whatevering.
Nary a peep broke as she kept waving her hands to tell Myra to hurry up. It’d been some time since Hayley memorized their rotation schedules, and they would change it. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, she stepped away from the safety of the wall and filled her lungs with the stench of despair.
Water oozed out of the walls, the air humid and chilled despite the heat of summer. No warmth touched here, no love. This was where everyone waited their last few days before they died. Hayley’s fingers glanced over the cool iron bars as she walked, counting until she found her old cell. They threw her in there for two days for picking the wrong pocket.
