Tahn (23 page)

Vari’s look was like daggers. “If you had let me go, Lady,” he said, “I could have helped him. I wouldn’t have left till I did!”

“Listen to me!” She raised her voice in answer to their blame. “He saw me too. He told me to go! I saw at least seven armed soldiers. There may have been more, plus an angry crowd! Would God there could have been some way to save him! But there was nothing we could do. Thank God none of you were there, because you surely would have been killed! He knew it. That’s why he sent me away.”

The tears broke over her again. “I am so sorry!” she cried. “God knows I didn’t want to leave him like that!”

Vari had grown very quiet. “Is he hurt?”

She nodded.

“I don’t understand how they could ever catch him,” Doogan said with a sniff. He put his arm around Rane, who was suddenly trembling.

Netta swallowed hard and squelched her tears. God only knew what these children had already seen. She might as well be ready to tell them anything she could, hard as it was.

“Think he’s strong enough to escape?” Vari asked.

“No,” Netta said gravely. “He has an arrow in his back. He was beaten severely. One of his legs is bloody. I have scarcely seen anyone so weak.”

Vari was staring past her, his face as pale as the swirling clouds in the sky behind him. “When do they mean to kill him?”

She knew what he was thinking, and her heart was torn at the thought of it. Oh, if only they could save him! But what of these precious lives? “I don’t know when,” she answered. “They say they will go to Onath.”

Vari looked then at the faces around him. “I’ve got to go to him,” he said solemnly. “Maybe I can’t stop them, but I’ve got to try like he did for me.”

“I’m coming too,” Stuva said.

No!
Netta’s heart cried, but before she could say anything, first Doogan, then Duncan, and then all the others were voicing their agreement.

“You can’t!” she cried, terrified beyond words for their young lives.

“You can’t stop us, Lady,” Tam said. The boy’s face was set with a determination mirrored in all the others, and she knew he was right. There was no way she could stop them.

Lord, what have I done?
she wondered. But then from somewhere deep within her came a strength she did not expect.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper.
She knew it was a Scripture verse, and it gave her hope and resolve. If she could not prevent these dear ones from leaving, then she must do everything she could to help them.

“Vari,” she asked. “Your friend offered her help. Might she and her family be trusted?”

“I think so,” he said. “They don’t know who we are, ma’am. But they are no friends of the baron, and they are good people.”

“Let us go to them and beg a wagon,” she said. “I fear the Dorn is not able to sit the saddle, and we may need a wagon for our journey.”

“You’re coming?” Stuva asked in surprise.

“I am,” she said and rose to her feet. “You are like my own children,” she told them. “I love you all, and I fear for your lives. But you are right. We can’t just let him die alone. I pray God that even if we fail, we might let him know we’ve counted him worthy that we should try.”

“You’re brave,” Briant told her.

Netta shook her head. “No. I’m not. But he is accused of destroying my family. I wouldn’t be a Trilett if I let that lie stand.”

Vari almost smiled. “You know Onath, don’t you?”

“Like the back of my hand,” she answered.

“Then let’s go.”

Leah’s mother was outside and saw their approach. Netta could tell that she recognized her immediately, even in the boy’s clothes. “Lady, I didn’t know you were with these children,” the woman said. “But God be thanked you’ve survived.”

Kert Wittley was right behind his wife. “Lady?” he asked.

“It’s the Lady Trilett,” Mrs. Wittley told him. “The one I gave provision for.”

Roy, Leah, and the other Wittley children looked at them with surprise.

“Forgive us,” Mr. Wittley told Netta, “for not sheltering you then. My wife was afraid.” He looked hard at the children’s faces. “Roy and Leah tell me the young man’s horse came back to you arrow shot.”

“Yes, sir,” Vari said. “We aim to go and find him. We need your help, if you will. We need the loan of a wagon.”

“Before I do anything,” he said, “you tell me who you are, boy. You can’t all be Triletts, surely, but Leah says you claimed to have an older sister. Was it the lady you were talking about?”

“I claimed her as such,” Vari admitted. “But it’s not so.” He dismounted. “I’ll give you the truth, as God is my witness. Then God judge you for what you do with it.”

“Vari!” Netta exclaimed. But the look in his eye as he turned to her was so deep and resolute that she held her peace.

“This is the Lady Trilett as sure as we breathe,” he said. “We don’t know whether or not she’s the last of her house.” He gestured suddenly to the children. “All of us—we were the captives of the man who carried out the slaughter. We were to be the same as slaves to him, sir, killing when he bid us. That’s what he would train us up for. And my brother—I call him that because he saved my life—he took us all out of there and was careful to hide us and see to what we needed. And he saved the lady too, by snatching her out of her home before they could lay a hand on her. But now they took him and are blaming him for what’s happened. They’ll kill him at Onath, sir, unless we get there to stop it.”

“I heard they caught the villain,” Kert Wittley said, his eyes still on the faces of the children. “Didn’t know who they meant.”

“It’s a lie, what they say,” Vari continued. “He had no part in what was done.”

“It’s said he’s a known killer.” Wittley sighed. “One of those grim mercenaries that shows up out of nowhere. Who is he really?”

Vari looked down at his feet.

“He is a Christian man, sir,” Netta spoke up. “He was one of these.” She reached to touch Duncan and then Briant. “He was a captive child, raised by a demon of a man to do unspeakable things. He was numbered among those mercenaries unwillingly, and he turned from them at great peril to save our lives.”

Vari looked at her with appreciation. He had not known how to respond.

“Now please, sir,” Netta continued. “We beg your help. I would that you spare us a wagon, and if I cannot pay you for its service, then God shall reward you the more. And I plead with you both—” she looked over at the man’s wife, “keep the youngest so their lives are not at risk in what we do.”

“No!” Duncan protested. “I want to come with you!”

“Listen, please,” Netta said, now looking at Vari. “I have watched you all. I know how brave you are. But I also know the smallest among you are not prepared to face what might lie ahead.”

Temas started crying.

“Please, Vari,” Netta continued. “Help them to understand. You know what I am saying.”

Vari was quiet for a moment, remembering the sparring of Tahn’s lessons. Never yet had the smaller four ever managed to survive their imaginary attackers. Sometimes Stuva, Tam, and Doogan fared better against him or even the Dorn. He turned to Mr. Wittley. “Would you favor us so?” he asked.

It was Mrs. Wittley who answered. “Child! How could we not? You can’t take babes against soldiers. Haven’t any of you got family somewhere?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Roy Lin!” Kert called his oldest son. “Ride to Dole Briggs and tell him I need to meet with the men. They can come here.”

Roy jumped to obey.

“You’ll need help, boy,” Kert told Vari. “I can try to persuade my friends.”

“How long would it take?” Vari asked.

“Be tomorrow before everyone’s got the word. What they’ll answer to it, I don’t know. Every one of ’em would fight for his family, and they’re good men. I wish I could promise you they’d go to Onath for a stranger—”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“I can’t answer for ’em, much as I’d like to. They’ve got families to consider. Maybe if you stayed and spoke to ’em—”

Vari shook his head. Maybe wasn’t good enough. “We can’t lose that much time,” he said. “Not a whole day. He could be dead. Rane, you and Duncan and Temas, you stay here. Briant, you too. Keep them in line. You do whatever these good people tell you and help them with things. We’ll be back for you as soon as we can.”

“It’s not fair, Vari,” Briant said. “We love the Dorn as much as you do.”

Vari sighed. “We’ve got to do what makes sense. They’ll be looking for eight street urchins such as ourselves. If they don’t see the right number, they might look elsewhere. Besides, I need you all to tell the men about the Dorn and what he’s done for the lady and us. If they want to come then, you’d have done us a service.”

“But you said he might be dead by then.”

“And he might not. We don’t know how fast they’re traveling or what they’re going to do when they get there. We can’t take chances. We’ll do it both ways. You’ve got to stay here and get the job done.”

Briant looked down at his bare feet. “All right,” he said. “We all got our place.”

“Good man,” Vari said. “Now the rest of you mind the Wittleys.”

“Let me get you that wagon,” Kert Wittley told him then.

He shook his head. “I hope you return safe. I admire the fire in you. You’re better’n a man.”

Before they left, Leah ran to tell Vari good-bye.

“Remember what I said, Lee,” he told her. “Pray for him.”

“I will pray for all of you,” she pledged. “That God be with you and that those who have hurt you may never hurt another.”

16

T
here was no prison in Onath, and there hadn’t been an execution there since Netta was Stuva’s age. They entered the town at night, and it seemed deathly still.

“Where would they take him?” Vari asked Netta.

“I don’t know.” She was sure they’d said he would be killed at Onath. But she wasn’t sure the reason for the choice. Why wasn’t the baron’s prisoner taken to the baron’s own hometown? “Follow me,” she said and led them through the quiet streets.

Everything was dark, and little had changed. It was strange to her, coming back into town this way. It made all the familiar places seem beyond her touch. Until they came to the church.

That building stood tall and proud at the center of town, and Netta was relieved to see that it had escaped damage. The rectory nearby was still standing, and Netta thanked God for it, though she could see some signs of the fire’s ravage.

“We should go in the church,” she told the boys.

“Are you sure?” Vari asked. “Why?”

“I need to find the priest. And you all need to rest. In the morning we’ll find out where Tahn is. I trust there’ll be no execution without a crowd and a lot of commotion in the daylight.”

“Then we should find him now and get him out at night,” Vari protested.

“He’s not in this town,” Netta told them. “Not yet.”

“How do you know?” Tam asked, mystified.

“They will come with a lot of noise and a cage on wheels. There will be soldiers everywhere. They will send someone ahead to stir up the people first. It is too quiet now. He’s not here.”

“What if he’s already dead?” Doogan asked.

“I don’t think there’s been time,” she replied. “If they follow the old custom, he’d be hanging three days with a bonfire nearby and a guard to see that whatever people do, they don’t take him down.” She drove the wagon toward the stable house behind the church, surprised that she could talk to these boys as though they were men.

“People make me mad,” Tam said quietly.

“I understand,” Netta told him. “But I fear you haven’t seen the worst, of a crowd at least. This town has loved the Triletts. They shall hate what is claimed against Tahn.”

She thought about that for a moment. Surely that must be why the baron had chosen Onath for the execution. The soldiers had said the baron would honor a noble house. How better to court favor than to become an avenger by such gruesome means? What better place to make oneself a hero than before Onath’s grieving crowd?

Father, give me strength,
she prayed.
Give Tahn strength! What he must be enduring right now!

“Are you sure the church is safe?” Vari interrupted her thoughts.