Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide

by Hickman, Tracy

  Jarod was truly puzzled. He had not known what to think when Caprice had sent for him, but this was not among the dozen wonderful possibilities he had concocted for himself. It was obvious she was distressed, and he had no idea why. “Oh, Caprice! I’m so sorry! What have you heard? What is it?”

  “Here,” she said, pressing an amulet into his hands, “it’s the best I can do to help you. It’s broken, of course, but maybe some good will come out of it for you.”

  Jarod gazed down at the simple medallion. “It’s a wish?”

  “I got it from the well this afternoon, so it’s still fresh,” Caprice sniffed. “It will keep in the amulet, though, for a long time. Use it when you think it best—when it will help you the most.”

  “Well, of course,” Jarod smiled. “That’s a very thoughtful gift! I . . . I’ve been working on a gift for you . . . a gift of my own, I mean, and as soon as I’ve got enough money, I’ll . . .”

  Caprice suddenly slapped his face.

  “I don’t want your tainted money, Jarod Klum!”

  Jarod’s face reddened to match the growing mark on his cheek. “And what’s wrong with my money? I work hard for it!”

  “You know very well what’s wrong with it!”

  “I do not . . . but I’m beginning to wonder what’s wrong with you!” Jarod felt his own tears rising in his eyes. “You asked me to come, remember? What do you want?”

  Caprice’s green eyes softened suddenly. “I want you to give yourself up, Jarod.”

  “You want me to . . . what?”

  “I want you to give yourself up,” she repeated, throwing her arms around his waist and holding him tightly. “You must turn yourself over to the authorities immediately. Xander Lamplighter’s a good man—so are the town patrons. Perhaps if you confess, they will be merciful to you and save you from the hangman’s rope . . .”

  Jarod was in a whirlwind of confusion and conflict. On the one hand, his beloved Caprice Morgan was holding him tightly to her and the sensation filled him with elation—and yet the few words he caught between the beats of his pounding heart and the sudden rush of blood to his ears were ominous and more than a little bizarre. He gazed toward the scribe for help, but Abel seemed to be looking anywhere but where Jarod might catch his eye.

  Caprice had begun sobbing into his shirt.

  “There, now,” Jarod said in soothing tones as he awkwardly put his own arms around her shoulders to comfort her. “It’s going to be all right . . . what is it you want me to confess to? I can go see Father Pantheon right away if—”

  Caprice pulled back from him. “Oh, Jarod, this is no time for making jokes!”

  “Caprice, I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Jarod said, once more thrown into confusion, especially after having managed momentarily to hold her in his arms only to have that thrilling moment yanked away from him. “If I’ve done something wrong . . .”

  “Something wrong!” Caprice gasped. “Of course it’s wrong . . . you know it’s wrong!”

  Jarod stood for a moment, words having failed him utterly.

  Caprice looked down at her feet and then took both his hands in hers. “Perhaps you’re not the man I hoped you were, Jarod. We all have our wishes . . . maybe it’s time that I realized that mine are broken, too . . . just like everyone else’s.”

  “No, Caprice,” Jarod said. “I . . .”

  A loud voice called out from behind him up Wishing Lane.

  “JAROD KLUM?”

  Jarod rolled his eyes, turning slightly so as not to pull his hands away from Caprice. “Yes? Who is—Father?”

  He dropped Caprice’s hands at once.

  Not just his father, he noted, but Xander Lamplighter and a number of the men from the town were with him. His intimate tryst had somehow turned into a community meeting. “What are you doing here?”

  Ward Klum’s hat seemed particularly square on his head today, his face grimmer than usual. He bowed slightly to Caprice. “Mistress Morgan.”

  “Master Klum,” Caprice curtsied in response.

  Ward Klum turned to Jarod. “I need you to tell me what’s going on, Son.”

  Jarod flushed. “Well, Caprice . . . Mistress Morgan . . . asked me to meet her here so that she could tell me something.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  Jarod grinned with embarrassment. “Well, I didn’t understand it, really. She told me I should turn myself over to . . .”

  Ward Klum shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

  Jarod gaped. “Too late for . . . Father, what’s going on?”

  Ward looked away. “I think you had better come with us, Son.”

  Abel followed Jarod as the men led him back up Wishing Lane. He did not get to see Melodi Morgan that day to ask her about his book, and Caprice was left standing alone on the footbridge, quietly crying.

  “But I’m not the highwayman!” Jarod, red-faced and frustrated, insisted yet again.

  “That’s just what I’d expect the highwayman to say!” growled the Constable Pro Tempore as he pushed the young man into a dungeon cell.

  “Xander! Please!” Ward Klum spoke as sharply as Jarod had ever remembered. “You’re not helping the situation at all. Of course, he isn’t the highwayman!”

  “Then why are we arresting him?” Xander fumed.

  “Because there’s been a complaint lodged officially with my office,” Ward replied evenly, regaining his composure. “Once the complaint is registered, there is a procedure that has to be followed . . . and I’m afraid in this particular case it gets rather complicated.”

  “Complicated?” Xander looked at the elder Klum slightly askew. “I don’t much like the sound of that!”

  “Well, in this particular case, it is—”

  “Where is he?” came an anxious voice from the top of the dungeon stairs.

  Ward and Xander both turned toward the sound.

  Squire Melthalion came down in a rush, his feet sliding down the last two treads before he came to a jarring halt at the base of the stairs. He barely stopped to catch his breath. “Where is he? Do you have him?”

  “Who?” Ward asked in astonishment.

  “The highwayman!” The Squire gulped once before rushing forward. “I heard that you had the highwayman in custody and were . . .”

  The Squire stopped suddenly as his eyes fixed on Jarod’s cell.

  “Why . . . that’s not . . . that’s your son, Ward!”

  “Yes,” the elder Klum replied flatly.

  “But he isn’t . . . I mean . . . he, uh, he couldn’t be the . . . the highwayman.”

  “But he is,” Xander said with a great sniff. “Near everyone in the whole town says so!”

  “But that’s just Gossip Fairy nonsense!” The Squire seemed almost amused at Jarod’s predicament. “Why, he doesn’t even look like . . . er . . .”

  “Look like what, Tomas?” Ward asked, his eyes narrowing as he gazed on the innkeeper.

  “Why, he doesn’t even look like . . . like . . . like a highwayman!” the Squire stammered. “I mean, where’s the . . . the black . . . you know . . . cape-thing and the . . . the . . . the . . . hood?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t exactly expect him to pass among us during the day in such a getup, would you?” Xander countered, his big fists planted firmly on his hips.

  “No, of course not!” Tomas answered, the blood rushing up into his wide face. “But, I mean, look at him! It’s only Jarod! There’s nothing dashing about him!”

  “What do you mean by that?” Jarod complained.

  “Eh? Oh, sorry, Jarod . . . no offense meant at all! You’re a fine man . . . just fine! But, in all seriousness, you?—the rogue raider of the night? I mean, it’s laughable!”

  “Could you please stop trying to help me?” Jarod groused.

  “What you think, or Xander thinks, or what I think, for that matter, is of no consequence,” Ward said, his voice rising slightly to that commanding tone that Jar
od knew and feared all too well. “The complaint has been registered, and it must be prosecuted according to the King’s Law.”

  “Here now!” Xander said indignantly. “There’s no need to persecute the boy!”

  “I said prosecute—not persecute!” Ward snapped. Then he shrugged his shoulders and lowered his voice. “There is a process that must be followed, and there are circumstances regarding all questions of Dirk Gallowglass that require special care.”

  “Well,” Squire Tomas said, blinking as he thought, “what are the charges against Jarod? Maybe there’s a problem with the original complaint.”

  “The charges are clear and supported by evidence,” Ward said. “Last night a large sum of money—three sacks of coins, to be exact—vanished from the cooperage. Jep Walters has made a thorough accounting, with my help, and it does appear that he was robbed in the night. The main doors to the cooperage were locked the night before and found unlocked this morning. The only things missing were the coin sacks and the only unsecured entry was those front doors. Vestia Walters—”

  “Vestia?” Jarod exclaimed.

  “Vestia Walters,” Ward continued, “claims that she had the key to those same doors with her earlier the previous day when she met Jarod for an assignation on Boar’s Island.”

  “Assassination!” Xander was deeply concerned. “Why, that’s worse than I thought!”

  “Not . . . that’s assignation!” Ward fumed. “A tryst . . . like a meeting between two lovers. By the heavens! How I wish you people read books!”

  “So Jarod met Vestia on Boar’s Island,” Squire Tomas shrugged. “Couples have been meeting there since before even you and I were young, Ward.”

  “Yes, but Vestia doesn’t remember having the key after they met,” Ward continued. “Then there’s what she saw out her window last night.”

  The Squire raised his eyebrows.

  “She says that she saw the highwayman riding away from the cooperage north past your inn, Squire Tomas,” Ward continued.

  “What?” Jarod whined. “I was out at Farmer Bennis’s last night! I even told you where I was going.”

  “I know, Son,” Ward said. “You said you were going to spend the night at Aren’s—which, you must admit, is north of town. Xander and I did a little investigating on our own. There are a number of shod hoof marks that pass north across the stones next to the inn. There are also several places where the mud has covered over the stones during the winter and they have not yet been cleared. Interestingly, it seems that not only did a horse and rider pass that way but it looked to me as though they stopped for a time under one of the corner windows of your inn, Squire Tomas.”

  Tomas blanched.

  “Squire?”

  “I didn’t hear anything!”

  “No one said you did,” Ward continued. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing at all,” the Squire gulped. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get all this cleared up in short order. Jarod’s name will be cleared in no time at all!”

  “I’m afraid that’s the complicated part,” Ward said with a look on his face that was, if possible, more grim than usual.

  “Father?” Jarod asked. “What is it?”

  “About five or six months ago, the highwayman made the mistake of surprising Lord Pompeanus on the road between here and Welston.”

  “Lord Pompeanus? Cousin of the king?” Squire Tomas gasped.

  “Yes,” Ward said, tugging uncharacteristically at his collar. “The king’s favorite cousin and, as fate would have it, the field marshal of the Eastern Wall Armies.”

  “Bad luck that for you, Jarod,” Xander nodded. “He’s a cold killer with a blade in his hand. You’d have done better with a different mark.”

  “It wasn’t me!” Jarod said, emphasizing each word.

  “Oh, right you are,” Xander replied with an exaggerated wink.

  Jarod rolled his eyes.

  Ward continued. “The warrant stated that Lord Pompeanus believed he had pinked the rogue but couldn’t be certain. What was certain is that in pursuing the highwayman into the woods, Lord Pompeanus’s foot found a gopher hole, which wrenched his ankle and broke his foot. For this offense, Pompeanus issued a warrant to every county and shire in the kingdom demanding jurisdiction if this rogue is discovered—and the extinction of all gophers, although that part of the warrant certainly does not apply here.”

  The Squire squinted. “So, what does that mean for Jarod here?”

  “It means that Lord Pompeanus is being notified that Jarod has been arrested as the highwayman,” Ward answered. “He will come here personally to take charge of the investigation.”

  “But they’ll find Jarod to be innocent!” Tomas urged.

  “Justice is rarely about the truth, Squire,” Ward replied. “Even if Lord Pompeanus released Jarod, there would still be the matter of Vestia’s report and the evidence in the courtyard. Pompeanus will not let the matter go. He will find his highwayman, and when he does, the matter will be out of my hands. His punishment, I’ve no doubt, will be swift and most final.”

  “Of course,” the Squire said, licking his lips. “I . . . well, I’d best be off! Sorry to have bothered you!”

  “That seems a rather sudden leave-taking there, Squire,” Xander commented.

  “No more so than the coming,” Ward observed. “Tomas, you seemed to get here rather quickly after the arrest.”

  “Well, you know . . . incensed townsperson and all . . . concerned for the theft of a fellow merchant . . .”

  Xander snorted. “Since when have you become concerned for the welfare of Jep Walters?”

  “No, really, I must be going,” the Squire continued, hastily backing toward the stairs. “Glad to see you’ve got this well in hand! Nicely done, Constable!”

  “Constable Pro Tempore!” Xander yelled down the dungeon hall.

  But the Squire had already bolted back up the stairs.

  “Father,” Jarod said with all the earnestness of his soul, “this is lunacy! I’m not all that certain I could ride a horse at a gallop, let alone be this highwayman.”

  Ward pressed his hands together, his two forefingers against his lips as he considered. “Xander, you say everyone in the town is sure that Jarod is the highwayman?”

  “Aye! It’s common knowledge.”

  “In my experience, ‘common knowledge’ is neither common nor at all knowledgeable,” Ward replied. “More to the point, if what I hear about Lord Pompeanus is even half true, his dictation of justice is ruled more by his passions than by his head.”

  “What does it mean, Father?” Jarod asked as Xander closed the dungeon cell door.

  “It means we have a week at most to prove your innocence to the satisfaction of a man who is not known for valuing proof,” Ward said.

  He reached out between the lattice of the cell’s bars and, for the first time since Jarod was a child, took his hand.

  “You’re not the highwayman, Son,” Ward said. “And what we have to do is find a way to convince everyone you’re not.”

  • Chapter 13 •

  Dirk’s Last Ride

  It happened in the darkest and deepest part of the night.

  The lamps in the streets of Eventide were all dark. The pixies had, many hours before, all been released from their confinements. Only the narrow crescent of the moon gave the barest light to the courts and alleys of the town, and that was occasionally shuttered by the passing of low clouds caught in the breeze in the night of an early summer.

  Through the darkness—through the night—rode the highwayman.

  The clatter of his black steed’s hooves rattled down the streets. His shrill cry echoed between the walls like the wail of a banshee spirit. It startled the sleep of many as he passed up Cobblestone Street. Ariela shrieked in her own small house, adding considerably to the commotion as the dark form of the highwayman rode madly through the town at full gallop. His black hood obscured his face from any who leaped from their beds in panic and
managed to open the shutters on their upper floor windows in time to catch a glimpse of the dark form, cape flying behind the rider’s shoulders.

  The highwayman pulled up his steed slightly as he entered Trader’s Square, rounding the countinghouse. Deniva Kolyan, peering through the slits between her bakery’s front windows, saw clouds part for a moment, the moon illuminating the square and the silhouette of Dirk Gallowglass on his steed, the horse’s steel-shod hooves scraping against the stone, sparking in the night. She was surprised by this, as the legend of Gallowglass had it that he was an expert horseman. The figure astride the mount certainly looked shorter and somewhat heavier than she had thought would fit his description, no doubt the purpose of his disguise as he rode. The highwayman pulled the horse to his right, his arm flashing a blade in the night as he screamed, “Evangeline! Evangeline!” Mount and rider plunged through the night toward Bolly’s Bridge—with Charter Square and the Griffon’s Tale Inn just beyond.

  In that moment, the clouds veiled the lunar light, plunging all the streets in the town again into darkness.

  Dirk never made it across the bridge.

  There was a horrible crashing sound and the distressed whinny of a horse. Angry shouting carried above the muted rumble of Bolly Falls and the Wanderwine River rushing beneath the bridge. Then the distinct ring of steel on steel pierced the night on both sides of the river.

  A sudden, terrible squeal rent the air.

  There was a loud splash from the river.

  The night was silent once more . . . except for the clopping of the riderless horse of the highwayman walking aimlessly back into Trader’s Square. When the clouds parted again, the moonlight revealed an empty saddle on the horse’s back, glistening darkly.

  Ward Klum, dressed unconventionally in his nightshirt, boots, and official tasseled cap, emerged moments later from the countinghouse with a storm lantern held high. Garth Bolly was also rushing into Trader’s Square from the mill, a stevedore’s hook in his hand. They met, speaking with each other for a moment before Garth pointed and the two of them ran toward Bolly’s Bridge.

  At nearly that same moment, Jep Walters—at the most urgent insistence of his wife, Livinia—burst from the cooperage red-faced and gripping an antique casting wand in one thick hand and a sputtering torch in the other. The wand looked like a relic crafted from the time of the Epic War and had most probably not been re-enchanted or fired for more than twenty years. Jep looked encouraged when Joaquim Taylor and both Harv and Merinda Oakman came out of their shops—Joaquim brandishing shears and Merinda her largest rolling pin. Harv had his own torch as well. All three of them rushed toward the west side of Charter Square—from where they had heard the cacophony.