The Dothan Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  “What plan do you have that requires me to wear these… garments.”

  The knight slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him. His scarred face was turning red, and she realized her words had brought forth his temper.

  Too late to go back now, she thought.

  Sir Caldry crossed the short space between them, grabbed the front of her dress, and hauled her to her feet. The fabric of the gown cut painfully into her armpits.

  “We don’t have long to get out of here! You will take Éimhin through the gate, dressed as a slave.”

  “And what about you?” she asked, wanting to know the whole plan.

  “I will meet you a mile down the road at a burned-out barn. You can’t miss it.”

  “How will you get through the gate?”

  To say he had a recognizable face would be an understatement.

  “You don’t want to know. Now, are you going to do as I say so that we can get out of here, or do you want me to leave you behind as one of Lilah’s whores?”

  That thought was enough to get Bethany to agree to do just about anything. He left her and, much to her disgust, she dressed in the soiled garments. All of it was too large for her. She laced up the tunic as tight as it would go to cover her small breasts and tore a strip of the shirt off to use as a belt. When Bethany was finished, she gathered up the dress and the horse blanket, and opened the door.

  Sir Caldry was waiting in the hallway. He stared at her for a moment before heading toward the distant staircase. She followed quietly, too uncomfortable to speak. At the bottom of the stairs they found the main room empty except for Lilah and the red-headed woman.

  “You better hurry. The cart will be here soon,” the old woman said as she adjusted her grip on her cane.

  “Thank you, Lilah. I cannot express my gratitude.”

  “No need, youngin’.”

  “Then this is goodbye.” With this final statement, Sir Caldry patted her shoulder and kissed her tenderly on the cheek.

  Bethany stared at them, unaware of the mortification showing on her face. She had never seen the scarred knight act so tenderly to any individual; her being a used-up whore made his action even more extraordinary. Bethany averted her eyes when she noticed the redhead staring at her. A moment later, Sir Caldry was ready to leave. Bethany followed him out of the whorehouse and into the alley. The sun was above the horizon but not high enough to see beyond the buildings of the city. Éimhin, Sir Caldry’s horse, stood waiting for them, his normal tack tied up in bundles of burlap and hanging from his back.

  “Now for the final touches,” said the knight as he lifted a large bucket filled with the odorous remains of the whorehouse’s dinner.

  Without giving it a long scrutiny, Bethany spotted rotting vegetables, half eaten tubers, and steak bones, all floating in a sickening mixture of curdled milk and ale. Bethany gagged and looked away, afraid that if she stared at it any longer she would lose last night’s dinner.

  “Help me smear this over Éimhin.”

  “What?” she demanded.

  “He looks too much like a prized warhorse. We need to make him look like a cart horse or pack animal.”

  “Good luck,” Bethany murmured to herself as she eyed the giant animal.

  “This is the best we can do. We’ll also hack off his mane and tail a little. Now start helping,” growled the knight when she didn’t move to take some of the sludge.

  Bethany plugged her nose with one hand, looked steadily at the horse’s rump, and dipped her hand into the cold, slimy slurry. With difficulty, she applied herself to rubbing the goo into the horse’s immaculate coat. It took them nearly an hour to cover him in sludge. Once it was on, the knight produced a bucket of dry dust, which they flung at his coat, allowing it to stick to the wet mess.

  Finally, the knight took a long dagger from his boot and began working on the horse’s tail and mane. He didn’t cut it straight off, but half cut, half pulled on the hairs. Éimhin tossed his head at the painful treatment and stomped one of his enormous hooves on the packed earth. Bethany wanted to calm the animal, but wasn’t willing to return to the source of the smell, now clogging her nostrils. Sir Caldry spoke soothing words and, to some extent, they helped calm the animal.

  When he finished, Sir Caldry turned to her. “Your turn.”

  “Meaning?”

  Sir Caldry picked up the mostly empty bucket of spoiled food.

  “No,” Bethany said, suddenly realizing what he had in mind.

  “You look too clean and tidy for a slave. Besides, the smell will help keep the guards from looking at you too closely.”

  “I’ll be next to horse, which smells bad enough.”

  “Do it by choice or by force,” said the knight, his mouth pulled down into a glower.

  Bethany glared back for a few minutes before she realized she would lose either way. Finally, she sighed and nodded her head.

  The knight was just finishing up a few carefully-applied smudges to her neck when the horse was kind enough to defecate. To her astonishment, Sir Caldry scooped up a small clump of the warm poop and smeared it into her shirt and the knees of her pants, not so much as to be obvious, but enough to make it clear that she was a lowly stablehand.

  Bethany swallowed the bile rising in her throat and resolutely thought about nothing but hugging her mother when she finally made it home.

  At last, he stepped back and examined his creation.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “I won’t need such a disguise. No one will see me go through the gate. Now, we are quite close to the main gate. Take Éimhin.” Here he handed her the rope lead. “Careful, he bits. You’re going to go down this alley, and turn left. At the next major cross road, turn left again, then follow the crowds. They’ll all be heading toward the gate.”

  Bethany looked up at him and felt her lower lip begin to quiver on its own accord. He wasn’t going with her? She felt panic rise up and tighten her chest until she thought she couldn’t breathe. In an effort to hide her fear, she lifted her head, bit down on her tongue, and did everything she could to show her disdain for his plan.

  “Why can’t you go with me?”

  “We’ll be more noticeable together. Besides, my ride is meeting me just down the street. Now once you get beyond the gate, stay on the main road until you see a burned-out barn. Hide behind the building, but make sure no one sees you leave main road. The barn is about a mile down the road. If you come to the ruins of a stone tower you’ve gone too far.”

  With this final instruction, Sir Caldry flipped the hood of his cloak up over his face and darted down the alleyway, leaving her with his horse. Bethany glanced up at the enormous horse and felt the tears leak over her eyelids, despite her determination not to cry. To her astonishment, the horse nuzzled her in the shoulder before taking a step forward and using her shoulder to scratch his dirty head. The horse was large enough that the attention nearly knocked her off her feet. She leaned against his pressure and allowed the animal to comfort her.

  At least, I’m not alone, she told herself before taking a firm grip on the lead and heading toward the street.

  At the corner of the alleyway, she spotted Sir Caldry weaving his way toward the other side of the street. She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced her feet to keep moving.

  Turn left, turn left at the next street, she repeated in her head.

  She obeyed the instructions and headed down the street, careful to keep her head down, half her attention on the back of Sir Caldry. He stopped by a cart, and she couldn’t help but glance at it. It was full of dead bodies, and the man leading the mule was calling out to the rundown buildings.

  “Dead cart! Here for your dead!” he shouted over and over again.

  Bethany spotted Sir Caldry sneak around the back end of the cart and glance at the man. The man nodded once and Sir Caldry climbed in. Before Bethany could avert her gaze, a nearby door open and two men emerged, carrying a dead body. They tossed it
irreverently onto the top of the pile, right over the knight’s back.

  Bethany swallowed yet more bile. He was right—she would rather have horse dung smeared all over her then use his means of exiting the city. She focused her attention on the crowd in front of her and began weaving her way through the slower travelers.

  In an effort to look like the slave she had so recently been, Bethany slumped her shoulders, kept her gaze on the ground, and focused on the gnawing hunger in her stomach. She wished Lilah had offered them some breakfast, but reminded herself that the whorehouse owner had already done more for them than she had to.

  At the next junction she noticed that most of the crowd was turning left and assumed this was the turn she was supposed to make. She turned and followed the crowd.

  Bethany was just beginning to wonder if she had made the wrong turn when she spotted the enormous gatehouse beyond a distant two-story building. Part of her felt relieved, knowing she wasn’t lost, but at the same time her chest tightened in nervousness as she realized this was the moment when she was most likely to be found out.

  No doubt, if the gates were open again, they were searching each person for signs of her or the knight. Bethany added a slow shuffle to her dissembling and tried her best to blend in with the crowd. A slave would either be in a great hurry, or determined to squeeze every minute of freedom out of the chore. She decided, since a runaway princess would also be in a hurry, going slowly would be the best strategy.

  Before she thought it possible, Bethany reached the gatehouse where the guards were carefully checking each person and each cart big enough to carry a human. Though she tried to keep her head down, she quickly spotted Lyolf, the bastard prince checking travelers alongside the guards.

  She didn’t mean to stare at him, but it happened all the same. He glanced up, instinctively knowing someone was looking at him. The prince looked at her for a second before his eyes flickered to the giant, filthy horse she was leading. Bethany quickly lowered her gaze, but continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye. He squinted his eyes and stared at the horse for another few seconds before looking back at her.

  She saw the moment of recognition. His mouth opened, ready to shout out the alarm, and his arm rose to point at her, when he suddenly shut his mouth and returned to examining the individuals nearest him. In her astonishment, Bethany lifted her eyes to him again and stared, even as she kept up with the crowd. She turned her head to keep him in her line of sight as she exited the gatehouse.

  At the last second, when the flow of the crowd was about to take him beyond her gaze, he looked at her one last time and nodded once.

  Bethany swallowed the lump in her throat and jerked her head forward.

  Had he really just acknowledged her? Or was she going mad?

  Just breathe, she told herself.

  Bethany looked up to see that she was many feet beyond the gatehouse and that the main street was often intersected with smaller paths, leading to the small huts and farms sitting outside the city-wall’s protection.

  She continued on, breathing the free air and hoping that the knight had also escaped. How he could get caught, she didn’t know. She doubted any of the guards were willing to dig through a cart full of dead bodies.

  The day was extremely cold, even for Tolad in November, with a fierce wind that made her damp shirt flap uncomfortably against her skin. Within the city walls and amongst the buildings, she had some minor protection, but now the wind blew against her until she shivered. She hadn’t made it much beyond the walls before her teeth started to chatter.

  Bethany picked up her pace, hoping the movement would keep her warm. It didn’t work, and by the time she spotted the burned-out barn, her fingers were bright red and her teeth hurt from clattering. Bethany glanced around, noticing the last pedestrian turning down a side path. Knowing there was no one to witness her, she turned off the road and began to make her way toward the barn. The snow drifts were nearly up to her chest in places, and she more climbed over the snow than walked through it. The horse was having only minor difficulties, what with having much longer legs and with Bethany clearing some of the snow.

  She had nearly made it halfway across the small field to the old barn when she slipped into an extra deep snow drift. By now the cold snow had melt against her skin and soaked her thin clothing. She drooped against the snow drift and would have remained there had it not been for the horse’s incessantly nuzzling her in the back. When she still didn’t move, the annoying beast nipped her gently.

  Bethany looked at the horse over her shoulder, wondering at Sir Caldry’s warning about the horse biting people. She had seen the results of the ornery beast in slaves and stablehands sporting monstrous bruises on their arms and shoulder. And yet, the animal hadn’t shown the least bit of aggression toward her. Bethany sighed before working herself free of the snow drift.

  She continued on, barely needing to keep a hold on the lead. Finally, when every muscle in her ached with the cold and her limbs were numb, she reached the far side of the barn. Here, where the building and lining forest had protected the ground from the worst of the snow, Bethany stopped to look around.

  How long would it take for Sir Caldry to join her?

  After a short wait, during which she leaned against the horse and shivered, she remembered that they had packed the horse blanket and her old dress in the bundles hanging from the horse’s back. She worked on the knots, each movement hurting her frozen, red fingers.

  When her eyes were burning with unshed tears, she got the knots undone and the packs down on the snow-covered ground. She dug through them and found the dress and blanket. She wrapped both items around her shoulders before using the nearest snow drift to climb onto the back of the mighty horse.

  Had the animal shown any signs of its usual irritability, she would never have considered mounting it, but it had been calm and almost friendly from the very beginning. She climbed onto its back and draped the blanket over both herself and the horse, trapping the animal’s body heat about her.

  The animal reeked but, then again, so did she. She leaned forward until she was lying along the length of the animals back, her cheek against the animal’s neck, the barn’s rickety wall mere inches from her other cheek. Like this, she waited, stroking the animal and listening to it whinny at the occasional forest noise.

  “Thank you, Éimhin,” she said, suddenly feeling connected to the horse in their moment of mutual need. He sputtered in response before shaking out his clumpy mane, which wacked her in the face a few times.

  As she lay along the warm horse, no longer distracted by the urgency of the moment or the need to keep moving, thoughts and fears crowded her mind.

  What would happen next? How would she get home? What would happen when she did?

  Visions of her mother pushed all other thoughts aside. Would her mother accept her, after all she’d done and all that had been done to her?

  Maybe I can work in the castle, thought Bethany. I can’t be a princess again. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened.

  It wasn’t just that she had been raped. Bethany forced herself to think the word, but the result was another flow of tears.

  No, it wasn’t just the shame of being impure. It was all the things she had done. After all, her actions against Wolfric had directly caused a man’s death. She was a murderer.

  Bethany tried to hide her face in the horse’s mane to keep the tears from freezing to her face.

  Chapter Six

  With the greatest sense of relief, Cal felt the bodies above him shift and voice call out. He wiggled out of the cart and took a deep breath of fresh air. The smell of the dead clung to him, and he longed to bathe and clean his clothing. Considering the current temperature, he doubted he would get to for many days.

  “Thank you,” Cal said as he handed the carter the agreed upon gold coin.

  The man bit the coin before pocketing it and shuffling away with his cart full dead bodies, headed toward the large pi
ts used by the city for the poor and the refuse alike. Cal glanced around, ascertaining what side street he was on. Once he knew where he was, he headed off, going across country rather than on the paths.

  It was not an easy trek, having to half climb, half dig his way through the deep snow. The deep snow levels would mean a slow and dangerous journey down the mountain into the lower regions, and with a companion he didn’t much care for. Cal pulled his thoughts away from the princess and focused on his feet. If he took a wrong step, he could end up stuck in a snow drift or with a broken ankle. Cal skirted around a number of farm houses, cutting through their snow covered fields and into the small thickets for better coverage.

  The need to not be seen meant the short journey took him nearly two hours to complete. Finally, when his clothing was soaked through and his limbs were starting to ache with the cold, he emerged from an extra dense section of forest to find the girl draped across Éimhin’s back, the blanket covering them both.

  Cal stood within the edging trees and stared at the sight. He had owned that horse since it was a foal and never once seen it accept the attentions of another human being without some sort of mischief. And yet here it stood, allowing that damn woman to lounge on its back while it made calming noises, as if it knew she was frightened.

  He knew his face was pulled down into a glower as he emerged from the woods, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Eventually, the sound of his boots crunching in the deep snow aroused her to his presence. She gave a start, nearly sliding off Éimhin’s back.

  As he got closer, he noticed streaks running down her face where her tears had washed off some of the mire.

  “What took you so long?” she asked once he was close enough to hear her whisper.

  “I couldn’t exactly take the road.”

  She nodded once, her head held high, before sliding off Éimhin’s back. As she moved, Cal could see that she had also wrapped the dress around her shoulders. Cal realized that in her borrowed clothing, she would be even colder than himself. Sure enough she began to shiver as she stood in the knee-deep snow.