Return to Alastair (30 page)

“Quickly. Hide beneath a rug. Lie still and don’t move.”

She placed something in his hand. Two long necklaces. One was like diamonds sparkling in the moonlight. The stones of the other were rounded like little balls, white as teeth all in a line.

“Tuck them in your clothes and hide. Hurry.”

Tahn knew the bed was beneath him. He knew he was shivering with the chill of fever. But he could feel the weight of a coarse rug over his head, could smell the odor of dust in it, along with something else he could not name. For a moment he heard voices—his mother was talking to someone who sounded strangely familiar. He knew he’d heard that gruff voice somewhere far away, in another time or another world, outside the gate at Onath.

He didn’t look out, not even when the voices were still. He stayed right there as he’d been told. He waited, knowing his mother would come for him, knowing that this terrible game would soon be done and they would get the baby and Father, and join the caravan toward the sea and the boat that would take them away.

Lucas was talking to him, but he didn’t know how that could be. Lucas was part of a different darkness. A locked room in Samis’s Valhal. Another time. He curled as small as he could beneath the old rug, waiting. He closed his eyes tight, wishing the time would go faster. His mother would tell him he was a good boy when she came back. She would tell him he’d been quiet and good just like she wanted. He lay very still.

Soon he thought he was imagining his baby sister crying and other voices all around him in some unknown room. New smells reached him, and it didn’t seem so dark. He thought he might peek out. But then suddenly, someone gave the rug a swift kick. Stunned, afraid, he jumped to his feet.

“Get out of here, boy! I don’t want street trash cluttering up my booth! Go away! Don’t come back here!”

He stood, blinking at the sunlight, utterly confused. Where was his mother? For a moment he couldn’t move, until the rug maker yelled at him again. The jewels were forgotten. He started running, on legs that felt stiff as boards, for the painted house. Had he done something wrong? Why hadn’t she come back for him? He was almost there. Confusing sounds were all around him now. A crowd was gathering. He looked and saw his father in the midst of the angry faces.

Sanlin Dorn had anguish in his eyes more terrible than anything Tahn had ever seen before. He knew he should run.

But he couldn’t. He was still shaking, sore, weak from the fever that held him. He tried to raise his head on the bed but realized that someone was holding him.

“Tahn? It’s all right.”

Lucas. He tried to say the name, but nothing would come out of his parched lips.
Lucas, what are you doing here?

Someone tried to give him water. How could it be real? There was nothing for him now except a strange man and the blinding pain. All of this was a dream. It had to be.

There was suddenly a knock at the door. Tahn struggled to open his eyes enough to see Lucas, and his sister, and Marc Toddin. A woman rose to the door and asked with a timid voice who was there. Tahn tried to lift his head, tried to see the woman clearly. She held a baby in her arms. Was it his mother? The hair—it wasn’t quite right.

“I need the herb for my joints,” a woman’s voice was saying. “I brung you eggs again for payment.”

The woman with the baby nodded her head, but the voice outside continued. “Someone come to you in the night? Someone sick? I thought I heard somebody cryin’ out . . .”

“Yes,” the young mother answered quickly. “We have someone very sick. You can’t come in. I’ll get the herbs. Wait here.” She closed the door carefully and turned to the others with worry in her eyes. “Mother . . .”

The old woman pulled half of an herb bundle down from the rafter above and placed it in her daughter’s hand. “We cannot have more visitors, Catrin. Take the red sash and hang it outside the door.”

“The red sash? Smallpox?”

“Yes. Everyone in their senses will stay away. Hurry now.”

Catrin gave the baby to her mother and hurried to the door with the herb and the sash.

Smallpox?
Tahn lay on the bed, trying to take in everything around him. Was the baby sick? Was that why she cried?

“Pox!” the woman outside exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Who is it? Who’s got the pox? Not the baby, is it? Somebody I know?”

“No, Ula,” Catrin said quietly. “The baby is well. Go now. Tell everyone they must not come here.”

There was silence for a moment until the young woman latched the door and returned to them. Tahn watched her approach the bedside. She was slender, not very tall. Not unlike his mother. And yet, it was not her.

“We should have thought of that sooner,” she said quietly as she took the baby from her mother’s arms. “She might have seen in. She might have suspected something.”

“Yes. Yes, I know. But it is done now.”

“We thank you,” Lucas told them. “For keeping us hidden.”

“I do little so far,” the old woman replied. “Let us hope the soldiers are as shy of the pox as Ula is.”

Tahn opened his mouth, struggling to get the words out. “Is my sister sick?”

Immediately every face turned to him. Tiarra took hold of his hand, and the touch was like their mother’s, so soft and warm.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine. Do you feel better?”

He couldn’t answer that. Her eyes were so clear, shining. “You look like her,” he said, not quite sure if he’d said the words out loud.

“Like our mother?” she asked him.

But the room spun. He wondered how it could be so cold. Wearily, he closed his eyes. But when he did, he could see their mother again, singing a gentle song, holding him tenderly in her arms.

“Tahn?”

“I don’t think he’s all with us,” the old woman was saying. She pushed a cup to his lips, trying to get him to drink. He tried, and the warm liquid was soothing. But he could scarcely swallow. He knew he needed it, he knew every drop was like rain to the parched ground, but he could barely manage it. Perhaps he jostled the cup too much. He could feel warm drops spilling onto his clothes.

“Trouble is coming,” he tried to tell them. “Help us.”

The old woman answered him softly. “We’ll do everything we can.”

But he knew she didn’t understand all of what he meant. “Not me,” he tried to tell her. “My mother. Please.”

“Your mother’s gone, lad.”

The words soaked over him and through him, and he trembled.

“He’s remembering, isn’t he?” Tiarra’s voice was asking. She sounded afraid.

Yes
, he tried to answer her, but this time he knew he hadn’t managed to get the sound out.
Yes
, he tried again, but the words were only inside him, and she did not hear.
I remember our father now. He . . . he didn’t kill her . . . he couldn’t have . . .

“That should be all the proof anyone would ever need,” Marc Toddin’s steady voice was saying. “If he’s begging for his mother’s sake, he couldn’t have had part in hurting her.”

He felt the cup pressed to his lips again and reached to touch the hand that held it. The fingers were bony, wrinkled. And he thought of Martica’s long fingers pointing at him in the street. In dreams, God had pointed that way. Angels had looked at him with the faces of an angry crowd. With horror. Repulsion. Hatred and disgust. He was not worthy of life.

He could hear the crowd at Onath now shouting, “Killer! Killer!” He could feel himself shaking. No. He didn’t want the sword that was suddenly thrust into his hand.

“I see the killer’s eye in you, boy,” Samis was telling him. “You were born for this.”

He rode a smoke-gray horse behind the master’s huge stallion. They were on their way to a house he didn’t know. His hands were shaking as he held the reins. He wept in the saddle, wanting to flee. But his horse was tied by a length of rope to the master’s. And the opium he’d been given had his head in circles.

“You’ll come to enjoy this, no doubt. It will be a great night for you. We will set the place on fire,” Samis’s voice rang in his ears. “And when they run, we will cut them down with our swords like they are nothing. It will be a game.”

“No . . .”

His protest was like the breeze fluttering past them. It could gain no hold.

“It is your purpose. You cannot escape it. You’ll die, Tahn. You’ll burn again. With flames this time, endlessly, if you defy me. I will see to it.”

With tears in his eyes he watched the flames growing, spreading over the unknown dwelling. He heard the screams. They mixed in his ears with the memory of his own screams in Alastair, and the flames in front of him infected him with the terror of his dark dreams.

“No,” he said, but the word was weak and powerless. People were running from the horror of the fire. Someone ran past him screaming.

“Cut them down!” Samis yelled. “Or I swear you’ll burn!”

In his mind he could feel the touch of the flames on his back and his arms. He could see the awful demonic faces around him. And he couldn’t bear it. He slashed with the sword. He struck out in all directions. He had to get out of here. He had to live, to do anything he must to survive, or he would be stranded forever in those flames, in his screams and the endless pain. He saw his own sword rip at a man. Tears streaming from him, he swung again. Samis was right. He had a killer’s eye. He could not deny it now, as the man fell, covered in blood.

“No,” he said, trying to shake away the scene. That was the first time he’d killed, the night of that awful fire and the nameless man at his feet. But there’d been so many nights. So many men. And between them all, the vials of opium. The locked doors. The whip. And Samis’s cruel threats.

Where was the bed in that simple room? Where was Lucas? At least Lucas would understand. At least part of this.

But he didn’t call for him. He knew Lucas would be afraid to come to him at night when the dreams were so near. He was possessed by them. Just like the night of that fire, when he felt the torment upon him, he couldn’t help but lash out.

“Stay away,” he warned his sister. “Please.”

“Tahn, it’s all right.”

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even see her. The darkness had closed in. He lay as still as he could, watching the demonic faces drawing nearer. There was nothing he could do. No way to stop them.

God! You washed away the blood! Every hurt! Every stain! God help me!

He didn’t know where the voice had come from, though he knew it was his own.
God! Receive me! Deliver me!

He felt the cool water as he dunked his head in the Snake River east of Merinth. He let his soaked hair drip down his back, soothing the fire both inside and out. Someone had told him that God is merciful and extends his hand to any who will take it, to deliver them from torment, from flames. Christ on the cross prayed for his own murderers and the mockers who hated him so.

“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

Tahn shook with the thought of those words. He had known what he did. Countless times he had seen the bloody sword and yet lifted it again to fulfill Samis’s orders. Because it was all he knew, and the thought of hellflames was enough to drive him past his senses. The fear bred the blood, which led to guilt, more fear, more blood. It was an endless cycle, with Samis and his opium spinning the wheel like grim-faced demons.

“The sword fits you, Tahn. You’re the best killer I ever trained.”

“I hate you!” he screamed at him. “I will kill you one day!”

Samis’s retribution for those words, and for his one failure, was horrible. Something different had happened on a rooftop garden, late at night. A man named Karll fell after fighting so bravely. Tahn could remember the screams of the woman with him. And an angel, strong and bright, had stood in front of her. An angel had protected her. From Tahn. From the fury of his sword. And he could not harm her.

Night after night that woman haunted him. He had so often seen the disdain of angels in his dreams. He had seen them turn their backs. But here was someone the angels loved, whom God loved. He could scarcely fathom it. He could not stop thinking about it.

God! To touch your mercy! Your grace! To see your eyes looking upon me untainted by wrath! Help me! I am trapped in the darkness, the blood! But I want you to love me. Can it be?

He heard the baby crying, and the fog descended over him again. He wasn’t sure what was real. He wasn’t sure where he was. But he knew the woman from the rooftop was far away, much too far for him ever to touch.

23

T
he fever burned hotter in Tahn, and there was nothing they could do. Marc Toddin came and went twice, each time giving a report of the soldiers searching another part of the city. From the window, Lucas saw Ansley once too, but he didn’t enter the little cottage. He was with other street children watching, listening, trying to learn whatever they could.

All the while, Tiarra sat sullenly, sometimes looking at her brother, sometimes gazing at the barren walls.

Lucas prayed for a miracle for her sake.
Show her, God. Show her how much you care.

The healer woman had tried to get medicine in Tahn, but he had not wakened again for her to give him more. She bathed his forehead and leaned over him, her head bowed. And then she gave Lucas chilling news.

“I think this no natural sickness, Reverend sir. This is a war. Good and evil fighting inside him.”

Lucas did not acknowledge the words. Perhaps he’d already known.
Tahn! Once a dark angel, you are no stranger to evil things. But God lifted you. He gave you light and washed the dreams away. Alastair haunts you. That is what it is. But God is with you still. Hear him. Listen for his voice.

Lucas took Tiarra’s hand and prayed with her. And then he rose silently to the window again, listening for any sound from the church. Father Bray would not betray him. Even more, he would not betray this family he seemed to care about. But what was to stop the baron’s men from returning with a wrath born of frustration? What was to stop them from searching here?

About midday, he heard the searchers. Down the street he saw them enter a house and then come out angrily and go to the next one. He knew what would come then, and he prayed for God’s favor, for the red sash outside to do its job, for the men to hurry away from the dreaded sickness these women had claimed.