by J. C. Hendee
“And why back before the quarter moon? Ah well, I was going to check on you tomorrow anyway. Homesick yet?”
That was an old jest just for her, as she never really got homesick in being at the guild… until tonight.
Kyne shook her head and pointed to her sack of clothes beside the door.
Father snickered. “Very well. You must look your best, always.”
With a kiss on her forehead, he set the lantern beside her bed but only closed it partway. Its candlelight softly illuminated the room as he went off to join Mother, and Kyne still lay awake.
Father worked too much, and Mother was careful with every coin he brought home each new moon. Kyne didn’t know how her parents could have paid for even her first half-year at the guild. Now it worried her even more for what she had seen, if she had seen rightly this night.
Domin Ginjeriè, the kindest of the domins, would not be the only one hurt if Kyne didn’t do as asked. Much was at stake by what the domin had said, though Kyne was uncertain of everything involved. If it affected relations between guild branches, especially with the Lhoin’na sages or their people, it could end with her being cast out.
And after, Domin Ginjeriè would not be the only one in even worse trouble. What about Wynn, Master Andraso, and especially Shade, if and when they returned? Worst of all, her parents would have wasted more coin than they could have had, should Kyne ever again let slip…
Majay-hì.
· · · · ·
“Slow down!” Marten shouted.
Halfway through the next day, Kyne rushed out of the gatehouse tunnel, dragging Marten by his robe’s sleeve as Grim tried to keep up. She cut left between the keep wall and the inner bailey wall as two apprentices on watch stared after them. Kyne kept jerking Marten through the bailey’s leafy trees, all the way to below the southern tower.
There she stopped, peering along the bailey’s southeastern side toward the nearer end of the initiates’ dormitory. No one was looking out of its lower or upper windows, and likely most were still at lunch.
Grim finally came puffing in last, trying to catch his breath.
“Well?” Marten said, throwing up his hands and letting them flop against his sides. “What’s so secret you couldn’t tell us while we finished eating?”
Grim nodded tiredly, a buttered wheat roll clutched in hand. He was panting too much to stuff it in his mouth.
Kyne was suddenly at a loss. She had yet to figured out how to say anything without breaking her promise to Domin Ginjeriè.
“I… I…” she tried. “Last night… after I left—”
“Yeah, what’s with that?” Marten cut in, looking more put upon. “Why’d you run off on us? We said we’re sorry, didn’t we?”
Grim backhanded Marten on the arm and scowled at him.
“Stop it, both of you!” Kyne nearly shouted and then clamped a hand over her mouth. She looked both ways around the tower for anyone who might have heard.
“What’s the matter with you?” Marten demanded.
After one more stall, Kyne let him have it, all of it, except for two things. She said nothing about crystal sky-blue eyes or a promise to Domin Ginjeriè. She only mentioned a young “wolf” and hoped they would listen.
Marten’s angular face flattened expressionless.
Round-eyed Grim froze stiff with his teeth sunk halfway into the roll.
And neither said a word over what Kyne had asked of them.
“Did you stay up all night this time?” Marten finally whispered. “Or have you gone suddenly stupid? Maybe it was your head, not your butt, you fell on last night!”
This time, Grim didn’t smack Marten for being rude and only frowned at Kyne.
“Please,” she begged. “We have to help it… free it.”
“I’ve two markdowns already!” Marten countered. “I can’t get a third this season. What you’re asking is worth three, if we get caught, not just one for…” His eyes narrowed in shifting toward Grim “…for getting caught with chocolate filched out of the pantry.”
Grim glared right back at him. “It helps me study!”
“Then maybe you should’ve finished it!” Marten shot back. “I know how much I ate. More was gone when that skulking attendant found the rest in our alcove. Now what’s left to pay off the favor I got for you?”
Kyne was lost as to what “favor” Marten was talking about, though that word usually meant he had been up to another his many little schemes. Before Grim went at Marten again…
“Keep your voices down,” she half-whispered. “Now are you two going to help me or not?”
Grim looked away with a nervous cringe.
“Not,” Marten answered.
Shocked, Kyne looked between her two closest friends. She might have broken down again, right there, but her panic had gone too far for any more tears. She jabbed a finger into Marten’s chest.
“Hey!” he squeaked. “What’s that for?”
“When have you ever shied from mischief?” she accused, and his mouth gaped. “When have I ever asked for anything half as troublesome as what you do for yourself? If we do nothing, the wolf cub will be sold or…”
Kyne lost her ire, for the next words were too awful to say.
“Or what?” Marten challenged.
And that was enough to spit it out.
“They will kill it… for its fur,” she whispered. “It is only a puppy, Marten… so little… so alone.”
Both Grim and Marten were silent.
Kyne stared up into Marten’s scowling face in waiting, but it was Grimm who finally whispered something too quietly. Marten’s scowl vanished in shock as he looked over.
“What?” Kyne asked.
“I said… okay,” Grim repeated.
Both Kyne and Marten stared at him. Grim glared right back at Marten and this time punched him in the arm.
“Will you two stop hitting me,” Marten hissed. “All right, fine.”
And they were all quiet again, until…
“So what do we do?” Grim asked. “Whatever, it’ll have to be after everything’s over for the day.”
“Yeah, this’ll be a night job,” Marten added.
“What do we tell our superiors about leaving the grounds?” Kyne asked. “And what about our parents?”
Marten muttered something under his breath, and then, “Sleep-around—it’s the only way.”
Kyne and Grim exchange a worried look. She was uncertain how that scheme would work this time.
“I cannot be the ‘spoke’ of the wheel,” she warned. “It will look suspicious, since I went home early last night, earlier than usual for the moon.”
Marten raised an eyebrow at Grim.
“Oh, fine!” Grim grumbled, shuffling off toward the keep’s gatehouse.
Marten quickly followed. “Come on. We have the rest of day to get it set up.”
Kyne was a bit slow in joining them. This coming night, both Marten and Grim would see the “wolf” for themselves. Hopefully, in the dark, neither would notice its eyes at first. They didn’t believe in—well, what she should not say—but they knew she did.
When they did notice those eyes, knowing her, they might realize…
Kyne dismissed that worry until the moment came. All that mattered was that she had the two friends she trusted the most.
· · · · ·
As Grim crept to the lock and chain on the bay door of his father’s workshop, Kyne hunkered nearby in the dark with Marten. They had all left their initiates robes behind at the guild so as not to be so noticeable together. Fortunately, Grim had a key to that lock.
His father expected him to learn the family trade whenever at home; apparently, that was not what Grim wanted. His mother doted on him as an only child and shielded him from his father. There were two problems in all of this, from what Kyne knew.
First, Grim was not doing well as an initiate. Second, he had even less of an idea than Martin about what he really wanted to do. The guild wa
s probably just a way for Grim to hold off his father’s expectation for now.
It had taken the rest of the day between seminars, study sessions, and other duties to put another “sleep-around” into motion. Grim’s home was the “spoke” for tonight around which everything turned… or at least what their parents would think it was about.
They each had to send notes home explaining where they would go for the night; that meant messages delivered from a scriptorium, a private scribe shop, to avoid any record in using guild scribes. Grim or Marten usually had enough spare coin for that, maybe a couple of silver groats or a shil at the most.
Kyne and Marten’s parents would think the three of them were staying at Grim’s for the usual reason: to tutor Grim for the next exam. In turn, Grim’s parents would think they were staying late at Marten’s for the same reason. They could then go back to Grim’s later, if need be.
If only it were all that simple.
Before the next new moon, all of their parents would expect to see those exam results signed by a guild superior. Kyne didn’t want to know where Marten had gotten the paper used to fake those in the three times they had done a sleep-around before. She also didn’t want to know where he acquired samples of domins’ signatures, since no one ever knew who would administer each real exam.
It was bad enough that Kyne had the most refined handwriting and was the one to fake those signatures.
She was still nauseous in thinking about that, but this time it all served a greater purpose than sneaking off to see a passing carnival troupe.
Grim slipped the key into the lock, carefully covered lock and chain with his bundled cloak, and any click, clack, or rattle was adequately smothered, so that his parents in the attached cottage would hear nothing. When he opened the bay door, Marten grabbed Kyne’s hand, and they scurried into Master Alvôrd’s wheelwright workshop. It was too dark to see anything until a lantern came to life, and Grim snuffed the wooden match used to light it.
A cart stood in Kyne’s way before the bay doors. Beyond that was a big, ornate, enclosed carriage that would require a team of four horses. She and Marten stepped around and farther in as Grim crept along the workbenches and racks that lined the inner board-and-timber walls.
If there was one thing Grim was good with, it was tools.
All anyone need do was describe what had to be done. Grim would know which tools might be needed, even ones never heard of by Kyne. But as he quietly pulled a mallet off the wall to add to other tools piled in his cloak, she started thinking about all of Marten’s trickery.
Mostly because of something he had said earlier today.
“What ‘favor’?” Kyne whispered.
Marten turned from watching Grim and stared blankly at her.
“The chocolate,” she added. “What favor was that for… this time?”
Marten rolled those green eyes with a sharp sigh. “For him,” he whispered, jutting his chin toward Grim. “For that last make-up exam that only he had to take.”
Kyne shook her head, still confused. “Grim passed. He is fine, for now.”
“Barely… with a little help. I got copies of exams from initiates who passed straight off… the better ones.”
Kyne grew instantly suspicious. “Whose exams?”
“Who do you think, smarty? Though not just yours.”
“You are not supposed to do that!”
“I’m not letting him get kicked out! And it’s not like he memorized answers, since we get different questions every time. But it helped him with new ones they threw at him. You don’t know what it’s like to have to fight for your own life from your parents. Even I’ve got it better than him.”
Kyne watched Grim as he paused to inspect his gathered implements.
She had not often thought about how hard it was for others who gained initiate’s status—and not the way she had. Grim had been accepted because his parents—his father—had paid full fees. Perhaps it was his mother who insistence, and Master Alvôrd truly had other expectations for his son.
Kyne could not imagine that kind of pressure, though she had her own worries concerning her own parents. Until now, she had never realized just how bad things really were for Grim. She had been too preoccupied with her own misery for the last several moons. Of course, Marten taking further risks was no better.
Too many times, in Marten’s more selfish scheming, he built up two markdowns. He barely reached a season’s end without receiving a third one—and that would be his last markdown and his last day as an initiate.
Kyne grew sicker at having gotten her friends involved in what she was doing—not to mention lying about what she was really doing. Two more people could be ruined if the secret she kept about the pup was ever discovered.
Grim wandered over in studying the tools overburdening his cloak. “This should do… I think.”
“Think?” Marten echoed.
“I won’t know for sure until I see the lock. That’s why I have to bring so much.”
“We still need a sack, a big one,” Marten said. “Leather would be best.”
Grim shook his head. “Only canvas ones.” With his arms full, he tilted an elbow toward the shop’s front corner.
Marten grumble something and then, “That’ll have to do… I hope.”
Once he gathered a large sack, they all plopped down by the shop’s front wall. It was still too early for what they had to do. Later, when the bell for night’s second quarter carried faintly over the city, Marten rose as he grabbed the lantern, and Grim re-lit it. Marten then waved all of them out of the workshop. Kyne stepped out first with Grim close behind, and Marten shuttered the lantern after Grim locked up the workshop.
And then they were off.
Master Alvôrd’s workshop was a few blocks south of the warehouse. Along the way, they had passed within sight of the wagon. Even so, stopping so Grim could have a better look at the lock was too risky with many people still out in the streets. And now, Marten didn’t want to be spotted by any lingerers in passing by a second time. They went the long way around, coming at the wagon from the north end of that backstreet.
Pausing at the wagon’s front, Marten made Kyne and Grim wait as he slipped ahead along warehouse’s rear wall. That was a too long moment for Kyne as she crouched in hiding with Grim. Not a single sound came from under the tarp beyond the tall wagon’s bench, and then Marten finally returned.
“The mainway is clear,” he whispered, and with a flick of his hand, he urged them to follow.
Kyne stood staring at the tarped cage as Grim silently laid out his roll of tools under the end of the wagon’s bed. Marten set the big sack and lantern there as well. When she reached for the tarp flap’s lower right corner, intending to lift it slightly so Grim could see the lock, Marten closed a hand on her wrist.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
She stared as he began digging under his shirt, but then Grim stepped in and grabbed the tarp’s corner, pulling her attention. Grim now held the lantern, its shutter cracked slightly, as he pulled the tarp aside for a look.
“Oh, bother!” he whispered.
Kyne inched closer. “What? What’s wrong?”
“The lock’s too thick. It would take too long—too much—to snap or cut its loop. Same for the door’s bolt.”
Kyne began to panic again. Had all of this been for nothing?
“I have to split the lock’s casing along its seam,” Grim added. “To strike down on it, I’ll have to…”
He shrank back from the tarp, perhaps thinking the wolf could hear him, and he looked up to the top of the covered cage.
“No worries,” Marten whispered.
Kyne and Grim turned, and Marten opened a wad of old paper pulled out of his shirt. In it was a lump of something. Grim turned the lantern on it, illuminating a bit of raw meat.
“Where did you get that?” Kyne asked, and then, “What is it for?”
“To calm it down,” Marten answered, nodding toward the cag
e. “Maybe give it a little nap.”
Kyne looked once more at the lump and then, “What did you do?”
“Nothing bad,” he assured. “Just a sprinkle of sleeping herbs from the guild’s hospice.”
“Marten, you are not going to—”
“Hey! You want to wrestle a wild animal into a sack while it’s awake? Go ahead… I’ll watch.”
“I’d prefer it didn’t jump at me,” Grim added, “when I climb up there.”
“Oh, all right!” Kyne whispered in frustration.
Marten stepped up to the cage as Grim took hold of the tarp flap’s bottom corner. At Marten’s nod, Grim jerked the tarp aside, and Marten chucked the lump of meat through the door’s slats. Grim released the tarp as they both hopped back, and all three of them stood waiting.
Nothing happened… or at least they heard nothing.
Marten took a hesitant step, leaning in with one ear to listen closer to the tarp. Kyne stepped to one side in watching.
“Well?” Grim whispered.
Marten shrugged. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe it was already asleep.”
Kyne carefully gripped the tarp’s corner. After that had already been ripped aside once, it seemed unlikely that the pup had heard nothing, especially after a hunk of meat was thrown in. She pulled the tarp slowly until a hand’s breadth of the door was exposed. Grim offered the lantern, but she shook her head, not wanting to startle the pup anymore.
She heard—saw—nothing and so pulled the tarp aside a little more.
Marten crouched low and crept in to look under her arm. “Maybe the one who caught it came back and took it away.”
That was a horrible thought, and Kyne pulled the tarp even wider.
A snarl and a wet smack were smothered by Marten’s yelp.
Kyne dropped the tarp and stumbled back in fright. She almost tripped on something that then kicked her foot. Light exposed everything as Grim fully opened the lantern’s shutter.
There on the ground lay Marten on his back, shaking all over. His eyes were wide around the spatter of meat juice all over his face. And the lump of meat lay on his chest.
“Little monster!” he hissed in looking up at the tarped cage.
