Curse of the Forbidden Book (15 page)

Lady Taralyn was waiting for them outside. Even though it was clear that she wasn't wearing her face powder, she seemed to be paler than normal. The dead, numb expression on her face worried Jesse.
What kind of news is she bringing?

She didn't say. Instead, she began to hurry away from the tent. “We must be alone,” was the only explanation she offered.

Jesse wanted to ask her what was happening, where Rae was, and a thousand other questions, but Parvel just shook his head. “Just follow,” he said.

Everyone in the camp was going about business as usual. There was even more noise and activity than the night before, as some of the losers of the archery tournament packed up to go home.

No one seemed to recognize Lady Taralyn, but, then, Jesse knew that none of the suitors had been permitted to see her during the tournament. The part of her dress that poked out from underneath her long cloak was a simple white skirt. It could have belonged to anyone—servant girl, cook, old woman.

She stopped in front of a rough wooden structure at the edge of the camp, next to the palace wall. Jesse made a face. It was the latrine, erected on the palace ground specifically for the tournament. The afternoon heat did little to make the smell more bearable.

“All clear,” Parvel pronounced cheerfully, clearly trying to put Lady Taralyn at ease. “Now, what is it that you wanted to tell us?”

“It's about Rae,” she began.

And then she collapsed against the wall and started to cry.

In the past month, Jesse had faced deadly snakes, rockslides, hunger, and danger at every turn. This was something entirely different, and almost more frightening.
What do you do with a crying woman?
Jesse had never felt so helpless.

He couldn't fix the problem because he didn't know what it was. He couldn't say that everything would be all right because, for all he knew, everything would not be all right.
Maybe Lady Taralyn came to say that they had found Rae and thrown her into the dungeon. Or, if she was caught trying to escape, that a Patrol member had killed her.

The thought was so terrible that he couldn't stand the silence anymore. “What is it?” he asked, trying not to let his impatience creep into his voice. “Is she all right?”

Lady Taralyn was still crying, more quietly now. “I had to come,” she managed quietly, taking a deep breath. “I promised her I would. I never knew it would be this hard.”

Now Jesse panicked even more. Lady Taralyn had promised to come tell them…if something happened to Rae? He wanted to scream at Lady Taralyn, to shake her and demand to know where Rae was.

“She's gone,” Lady Taralyn continued. Her voice was steadier now, but she still would not look at them.

“You mean Rae?” Parvel asked. She nodded. “Where?”

“By now, she must be outside of the palace gates.”

Startled, Jesse almost turned to run to the main gate.
Maybe we can get there before she does
. Lady Taralyn could not have known about Roland's order to the guards. Had she unknowingly sent Rae to her death?

A silent glance from Parvel told Jesse to stay. “How did she get away?”

“No one questioned me as I walked through the camps,” Lady Taralyn said dully, ignoring his question. “They didn't even know who I was. I'm too plain to be a lady of the court. Especially now.” She paused. “I couldn't look at anyone. I couldn't let anyone, especially
him
, see me. Not with….”

Her voice broke off, and Jesse was afraid she was going to start crying again. Instead, she straightened up and turned around, wiping tears from her eyes. Slowly, staring past them into the distance, she pulled back the hood of her cloak.

“Lady Taralyn?” Jesse asked, stepping closer. It was her, of course.
But her hair….
The long, beautiful red curls had been cut to her chin, raggedly, as if Taralyn had wielded the scissors herself.

“Now you know,” Lady Taralyn said. She had the same look of defiance on her face that she had when she told them she had freckles, as if daring them to laugh.

“It was my idea,” she said, when none of them said anything. “Rae came to me for help. I hid her from my ladies-in-waiting. She wanted to use my face powder to cover her skin, wear one of my old gowns and a veil, and leave the palace disguised as me. I knew it wouldn't be enough.”

“So you cut your hair,” Jesse finished, when it seemed like Lady Taralyn would not go on with the story.

She nodded. “I braided it and sewed it to the veil. It is one thing that all of the guards would recognize—my red hair.”

“And the guards would simply let the lady of the palace sweep out the gate?” Jesse asked, skeptical.

“It's not unheard of,” Lady Taralyn said, tilting her chin defensively. “I've had a habit of…wandering away from the palace, ever since I was a little girl. All of the guards know it. I think they find it amusing. Don't tell my father,” she added.

Jesse almost smiled at that. They didn't intend to tell Governor Elias anything.

“I waited for her to leave,” Lady Taralyn said, “then came to find you. Rae says that you are to leave the palace and meet her at Roddy's place.” She said the words carefully, as if she had memorized them, and Jesse was happy to see that she had lost the idea that all of this was just a game. “Do you understand what that means?”

Parvel nodded. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“Rae needed me,” Lady Taralyn said simply. “No one's ever needed me before—not for anything. I've never been able to do a single thing for anyone else. Not that I ever wanted to, before yesterday.”

Jesse thought about that, then realized what Lady Taralyn meant. “It was Prince Corin, wasn't it?”

She nodded. “And I'm glad I did it.” Lady Taralyn's delicate face seemed to wilt like a dried flower, and her voice dropped. “No one told me it would hurt so much. To be ugly, I mean.”

She reached a hand up to touch her hair, but to Jesse's relief, she didn't begin to cry again. “In the old tales, when heroes did something valiant, they were never afraid,” she said, sighing. “But then, the heroes were never women.”

“And it is women like you who will change that for the next generation,” Parvel said graciously.

Lady Taralyn blushed. Then she shook her head. “No. I can't be a hero. Heroes are brave.” Suddenly, she looked like a little girl instead of a full-grown noblewoman. “I'm afraid. Afraid to face them…like this.”

Jesse glanced at Parvel, who had his eyes closed, thinking. He always seemed to have something to say when he didn't.

He opened his eyes again. “In a very old book of wisdom, so old that there are very few copies left in Amarias, there are these words: ‘Perfect love casts out fear.'”

“How beautiful,” Lady Taralyn murmured. Then she looked up at Parvel. “But what does it mean?”

“The most perfect kind of love,” Parvel said, “is sacrifice.”

Then Jesse understood. He understood why Prince Corin took Rae's whipping, and why Jesus, God's Son, died to pay the penalty for all of the wrongs of the world. It was because of love, perfect love.

Jesse saw understanding dawn in Lady Taralyn's eyes. Then she stood. “You must go. Find Rae and leave this city.” She looked out toward the palace gate, where Patrol members stood guard over the drawbridge. “It may be more than I can ever do.”

“Goodbye,” Jesse said. He felt like he should add something else. “I know who you marry is mostly beyond your control, but try to stay away from Sir Roland.”

She smiled a strange, wry smile and fingered her short hair. “I don't think I'll have to worry about that anymore.”

“He's dangerous,” Jesse added, seeing that Lady Taralyn didn't understand. “He's the one who's part of the Rebellion, not us.”

She gave a small gasp. “How do you know this?”

Jesse thought back to their last adventure. “It's a long story,” he finally said. “If we ever meet again, I'll have to tell it to you.”

Always the gentleman, Parvel took Lady Taralyn's hand, kissing it. “We can never thank you enough.”

“No,” Lady Taralyn said regally, “thank you. I'm not afraid anymore.”

And, though her face was stained with tears and her curls ragged around her face, Jesse realized that Lady Taralyn had never looked more beautiful.

Jesse and Parvel walked back to the camp in silence. Silas and Prince Corin were waiting right where they had left them, although Silas had convinced Prince Corin to lie back down.

“Well?” he asked. “Where's Rae?”

Parvel explained as quickly as he could, tying the last few knots on the bundles as he spoke. “She's ahead of us by now, provided she got out of the palace safely,” he finished.

“She did,” Jesse said, more confidently than he felt. “She'd swim the moat if she had to.”

Silas didn't move. “It doesn't make sense,” he said, shaking his head. “She gave it all up for a servant girl.”

“I wouldn't worry about her, Silas,” Jesse said, shrugging. “Her hair will grow back. And I think she learned a lesson about vanity.”

“You don't understand,” Silas snapped. “In District Two, noblewomen are forbidden to cut their hair. It is a symbol of their status. Cutting it off is the highest act of rebellion a woman can commit.”

“Oh,” was all Jesse said. Prince Corin shook his head in admiration.

But Silas wasn't finished. “Besides shaming herself in front of the entire noble court, she risks being disinherited by her father, not to mention ruining her chances of marriage. No man would want to marry a woman considered dishonorable.”

Suddenly, Lady Taralyn's sacrifice became much more clear. Jesse felt foolish for making it seem so trivial.

“Well,” Parvel said, hefting the largest of the bags of supplies onto his shoulders, “we can't let her sacrifice go to waste. We have less than an hour until curfew.”

Jesse picked up his bundle right away, knowing that as soon as the sun went down, the drawbridge would close for the night, and no one would be able to get in or out of the palace grounds.

“I will carry this,” Silas said, picking up the leather bag that held the Forbidden Book. He slung the strap over his back, next to the quiver of arrows. From the way he clutched Prince Corin's bow, Jesse knew that no one who tried to take the book from him would escape alive.

“Won't they stop you when they see the bow?” Jesse pointed out.

Silas shrugged. “I could be one of the governor's hunters. Or they might recognize me from the tournament. I'm tired of fleeing unarmed.”

“It's a risk we'll have to take,” Parvel agreed.

It was time to leave, but Jesse couldn't think of a way to thank Prince Corin for all he had done. “We are grateful,” Parvel finally said. “You saved our lives in many ways.”

“You saved mine,” he said simply. “Besides, I wanted adventure, did I not?” He tried to laugh. It didn't work. “If you are ever near the Great Sea, I would be offended if you did not visit.”

“And if we do,” Parvel said, “we'll bring even more adventure to you.”

Now Prince Corin did laugh, although a wince of pain soon followed. “No doubt.”

They turned to leave, and Jesse started to say, “Well, Prince Corin—”

“In Dagen, we do not say goodbye,” he interrupted. “We say, ‘Go with God.'”

“All right, then,” Jesse said, trying to imitate Prince Corin's jerky bow. “Go with God, Prince Corin.”

“The same to you.”

Then it was back to hurrying, with Jesse limping behind Parvel and Silas on the path that led to the main gate. The palace grounds were large, but they would easily make it to the gate before sundown without hurrying.

He wanted to say this to Parvel and Silas, but he doubted they would listen. Besides, they still had to make it to Roddy's Haunt where, hopefully, Rae was waiting.

There were very few people on the road, although one procession in front of them signaled a suitor's return to his homeland. “Many of the young men working in the palace—the servants, not the slaves—live in the main part of Davior,” Silas explained. “They work during the day and go home at night to their families. That is what we are doing. Understand?”

Parvel nodded. “And if they ask for our papers?”

“We pretend to be foolish young people who don't bother to carry them with us,” Silas said. “And if that doesn't work, we bribe them with Prince Corin's silver.”

“That always seems to be the right answer,” Jesse said dryly.

Silas shrugged. “That's because it works.”

“Are you saying that from experience?” Parvel teased.

From the frown on his face, Silas was clearly not amused. “Yes,” he said shortly. “That's how I found out Rebellion members killed my father. I bribed one of the Patrol members who was there.”

“I'm sorry, Silas,” Parvel said. He was quiet for a minute as they kept walking. “Did he believe?”

“He was a priest,” Silas snapped. “You know that.”

“Not all who call themselves followers of God believe in Him,” Parvel said gently. “You've said so yourself.”

For a minute, Silas glared at Parvel. Then he just turned away, shaking his head. “He believed. And he still died. Which is why I do not believe in God or His Son or rising from the dead or any of the other crazy nonsense that you've been preaching to Jesse.”

Jesse started to say something in Parvel's defense, but Silas cut him off. “I don't want to talk about it,” he said, his voice calm again. “We need to hurry.”

And so Jesse went back to looking at the scenery. That seemed to be safer than talking, at least when Silas was in one of his moods.

As they walked along the path leading away from the suitor's tent, Jesse turned back to see Prince Corin's strange, woven tent on the palace lawn, and beyond that, Lady Taralyn's tower inside the palace walls.
Prince Corin saved our lives and Lady Taralyn saved Rae's. I can't ever repay either of them.

Then he saw something else, moving quickly toward the path. It was a lone figure, and as he broke away from the camp, Jesse knew with frightening certainty that the hulking, red-clad man was Roland.

Jesse began to run, passing Parvel and Silas.

“Slow down, Jesse,” Parvel said, chuckling good-naturedly. “We're supposed to be innocent servants, not fugitives.”

Jesse didn't take his advice. He knew he'd need a lead on the faster, stronger Youth Guard members. “You can try the innocent servant act on our friend Roland,” he shot back, “but somehow I doubt he'll believe it.”

Now Silas and Parvel looked back. “I see your point,” Parvel said grimly as he began to run.