Master and Fool (23 page)

"Melli,
what's the matter?" Jack's hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"Nothing."
Melli turned to face him. The tenderness in his voice brought the lump right
back to her throat. Jack had aged so much the past year. His brow was lined,
his eyes more knowing; he was no longer the same boy who had come to her aid by
the roadside all those months ago. He was a man now. Suddenly she didn't feel
the need to hide everything behind a show of strength. Taking a quick breath,
she said, "Jack, I'm just . . . "

Before she'd
finished her sentence, Jack caught her up in his arms and guided her toward his
chest. Melli rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek against the
soft fabric of his tunic. The past few days had been madness: Tawl leaving
without saying good-bye, Jack turning up out of nowhere, the escape from the
townhouse, and the scuffle with the guards. Her nerves were worn thin and her
emotions wom out. Everything was happening too fast, the dangers were too real,
and the outcome was too far in the distance to see.

Since yesterday
morning she'd hardly had a chance to catch her breath. When the armed men had
come banging on the door, she and Maybor had left by the back way. Two guards
were waiting for them. Melli had watched as Maybor and Bodger and Grift fought
with the two men. Grift was badly wounded. There was a lot of blood. He could
barely walk. Bodger had half-dragged, half-carried him to the butcher's yard.
Just as they arrived, Jack caught up with them. He was bleeding, too, but his
wounds did not appear serious. He didn't want to talk about what had happened
back at the house.

Donning Maybor's
cloak to hide the blood, he'd had a few quiet words with the butcher. A measure
of Maybor's gold changed hands, and the butcher led him to a wooden trapdoor in
his courtyard, below which lay Cravin's wine cellar. The butcher never saw the
rest of their party-Jack made sure of that.

The wine cellar
stank of sour wine and damp. The ceilings were low, the walls -were wet and
dripping, and springy mosses grew like a carpet on the floor. There were four
chambers in all, linked together by a series of passageways. The largest
chamber, which they were in now, was located directly below the trapdoor. It
was by far the dampest of the four: the door let in water and slops from the
courtyard, but little light. Grift had been placed in the smallest, driest
chamber, and Bodger was tending him there now. Melli had spent the night
sleeping on a wooden pallet in another chamber, and Jack and Maybor had shared
the fourth.

All night they had
been without light, rushes, food, or medicine. Early in the morning Bodger had
volunteered to go out for some supplies, and they now had lanterns, a brace of
roasted pheasants, three bundles of fragrant summer grasses, and some
strange-looking grease in a bowl. "Medicine," volunteered Bodger,
before being asked.

Whilst Maybor
busied himself with trying the various vintages-most were, he pronounced,
"ruined by the damp"-Bodger tended Grift in the small chamber, and
Melli saw to Jack, here, in the main cellar.

Right now, though,
it felt as if Jack were looking after
her.
Melli withdrew from his
embrace. Here she was perfectly well, feeling sorry for herself over nothing at
all, damp-eyed and helpless like a princess in a tower.

"Come
on," she said briskly. "Roll up your britches so I can put some of
this medicine on your leg."

"Later,"
said Jack, walking away. "I want to make sure this trapdoor is secure
first, and then I'm going to see how Grift is getting on. My injuries can wait.
They're flesh wounds, nothing more."

Melli didn't
protest. She hadn't really known what she was doing anyway. For all she knew
the medicine was supposed to be swallowed, not applied. She sat on an upturned
wine barrel and watched Jack prop a bar against the door.

"Tomorrow I'll
get a hammer and some nails," he said, "and fix a bar in place. It'll
make it more secure." That finished, he jumped down from the crates and
asked, "When you looked around earlier, did you come across another way
out?" Melli shook her head. "No. That," she motioned upward to
the trapdoor, "is the only entrance."

"I'll have to
make my bed here from now on, then." Jack began to push the piles of
crates away from their position under the trapdoor. "If anyone breaks in,
we'll need all the warning we can get."

It was on the tip
of Melli's tongue to say that they didn't have any warning yesterday, but she
stopped herself. She knew Jack wouldn't like to be reminded about what had
happened. So she nodded instead, and offered him her hand, and together they
went and saw Grift.

Tawl woke late.
The sun was high in the sky. It was midday. Despite the lateness of the hour,
the fire was still alight. In fact, not only was it alight, it was boasting
freshly cut logs and a pot full of something hot. Looking into murky depths of
the pot, Tawl discovered a concoction of dried apples, sweet rolls, honey
cakes, cider, and cheese. Nabber. Only a boy of twelve could come up with such
a dish. Grinning, Tawl stood up and shouted out the boy's name.

Nabber duly
appeared from behind a leafy bush. "'Bout time, too," he said,
walking over to greet him. "I thought you'd never wake up. Five minutes
longer and I would have eaten the stew."

"Stew?"
Tawl's grin widened. He felt as happy as a child. "So that's what you call
it?"

"Well, I must
say, this will be the last time I cook for you. Never seen such a show of
ungratefulness." Nabber sat down beside the fire and began tending his
stew. "No one's gonna force you to eat, you know."

Tawl sat down
beside him. "No. I want some. Dish it out. Plenty of the soggy sweet rolls
for me."

Tawl watched as
the boy dished out two large portions. As he handed him one of the bowls, Tawl
realized that Bevlin's letter was still crumpled up in his fist. He'd hardly
realized it was there. He slipped it in his tunic and took the bowl.

"Nabber,
we're heading back to the city today." Nabber now had a mouthful of food.
"I thought we might be."

"I've got to
see Melli one last time before I go away." Tawl thought about the contents
of Bevlin's letter-he would never have to read it again, he knew it by heart.

Everything was now
clear to him: he knew what he must do and why he must do it. Last night he had
been given a rare and wondrous gift. No, not one gift-two gifts.

The first was
Bevlin's forgiveness.

The second was
that he now had a chance to fulfill his oath to the duke and his promise to
Bevlin. He was sworn to protect Melli and her child. When he spoke the oath in
front of the duke and the people of Bren, he thought that there was no going
back. Valdis, Bevlin, and the quest were doors that were firmly closed. But
last night as he read the letter, he realized that although they might have
been closed for many months, the locks had never been turned.

Indeed, by
swearing the oath, he had only bound himself more surely to the quest.

Melli's child was
the rightful ruler in Bren. He was bound to protect the interests of the duke's
heir. Only by finding the boy named in Marod's prophecy would Melli's unborn
child ever be able to take its place as leader. Larn had to be destroyed, the
war had to be halted, and Kylock and Baralis had to be eliminated before his
job was done. Then, and only then, would his oath be fulfilled. Melli and her child
would never be safe until Bren was at peace and her baby was formally
recognized as the duke's sole heir.

It was the baby's
birthright to rule Bren, and the one who could make this come to pass was the
one whom Bevlin had searched for.

Tawl took a deep
breath of mountain air. Everything had been connected all along, and it had
taken Bevlin's letter for him to see it. As Catherine's murderer, Melli could
no longer afford to be associated with him, yet this way he could still work
for her even though he wouldn't be at her side. He would be working for her
long-term protection. And with an oath that bound her to him for a lifetime,
the future was something he had to consider.

Up until now he
had been thinking in terms of weeks and months, never planning too far ahead.
Now he had to think in years, perhaps even decades. If Baralis and Kylock won
the coming war, Melli and her child would be forced to live in hiding all their
lives. They would be hounded like criminals, always on the move, unable to
trust anyone, living with fear day to day.

He could not and
would not allow that to happen. "Eat up, Tawl. The stew's going
cold."

Tawl blinked,
emerging bleary-eyed as if from sleep. "I'm sorry, Nabber. My thoughts
were"-he shook his head-"a long way away."

"One taste of
my stew will bring you down to earth again, Tawl. It's the special combination
of melted cheese and cider that does it."

Reaching forward,
Tawl patted Nabber's shoulder. "You're a rare friend, Nabber."

"I'm only
doing for you what Swift would've done for me." Nabber refused to meet his
eyes, suddenly developing an intense interest in scraping all the ash into a
pile.

Tawl smiled. He
knew it was best to change the subject "Right then, let's finish our meal
and then make our way back to the city. If we hurry, we can get there by
dark."

They walked all
day, stopping only once to rest by the roadside. The weather was warm, but the
sun did not shine quite as brightly as it could, for the sky was filled with
smoke. Most of Bren's harvest was being systematically destroyed. The two
companions passed field upon field of charred wheat, rye, and oats.

Villages were all
but deserted now. Everyone had gone to the city, taking with them whatever
livestock and possessions they had concealed from the mercenaries. Already
looters were moving in, ransacking deserted homes and terrorizing those who
were either too old, too stubborn, or too infirm to leave with the rest.

Once, during the
day, Tawl caught sight of Valdis' banner in the distance. The yellow-and-black
flag was at the head of a large company of knights. Tawl couldn't make out too
much detail, but he caught the flash of their steel armor and watched the dust
rise as they passed.

The knights were
not the only fighting men on the move. As they drew nearer to the city, the
roads became blocked with troops wearing the blackened helms of Bren, soldiers
dressed in the blue and the gold of the kingdoms, mercenaries with no colors to
boast of, and peasants brandishing pitchforks and scythes.

As the day wore on
and the hard facts of war pushed close in all directions, Tawl knew in his
heart that he had made the right decision. His duty was to put an end to this.
Oh, right now everyone was happy and festive, confident, excited, ready to do
battle. But all that would change over the next few weeks. The scream of the
siege engines and the blast of artillery would haunt every waking moment. Many
would see their loved ones die, their sons maimed, their fathers bleeding to
death for want of a surgeon, and their brothers scarred for life. Eventually
people would begin to feel trapped inside the city as the streets and the lake
began to stink of the dead. And if the siege went on long enough, starvation
and disease would take more lives than a whole year's worth of fighting.

And this one great
city was just the start.

Baralis and Kylock
would not stop at Bren. If they foiled the siege and routed the Highwall army,
they would send their troops out and chase them back across the mountains. They
would take Highwall, take Annis, and then they would turn their gaze to the
south.

They had to be
stopped. Larn had to be destroyed. The boy must be found.

Approaching the
city walls, Tawl and Nabber bypassed a near-riot at the gate, as it had just
been closed for the night and the gatekeepers could offer no guarantee that it
would open again in the morning. Tawl looked at the hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of people waiting for entry: two-thirds of them were men wanting a
fight. Baralis would let them in.

He and Nabber
skirted the angry mob and made their way down into the drain channels. A few
stragglers and beggars had made the drains their home, sleeping on their
bundles, blankets pulled close, eyes carefully down as the two strangers
passed. Tawl let Nabber lead the way. The boy waded down tunnels knee-deep in
water, shuffled along ledges meant only for rats, and crawled into openings
that were too dark to see. Tawl found it hard to keep up with him. Eventually,
a glimmer of pale moonlight came into view ahead. It was the sluice gate.

Someone had gone
to great trouble to fit it firmly in place. Tawl and Nabber went to work to
loosen it. Half an hour later, they had worn away enough stone to free the
metal grid from its hold.

Wet and exhausted,
Tawl pulled himself out from the ditch. Spinning around, he offered a hand to
Nabber. The boy grinned as he was hauled up. "We made it again,
Tawl."

"No one knows
the back ways like you do, Nabber." Tawl looked around. The street was a
quiet one: no shops, taverns, or brothels to attract people into walking its
length. "Come on," he said. "Let's get back to Melli."

Tawl's heart
soared as he made his way to the townhouse. He had so much he wanted to say to
Melli, so much to share and explain. Yet more than anything else he wanted to
take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her. She was everything to him,
and before he left the city to renew his quest, he would make sure the words
were said.

As soon as they
turned toward the square, Tawl knew there was something wrong. The house was
dark. He raced across the square. The door had been kicked in. The hallway was
destroyed. Tawl took the stairs four at a time. Melli's clothes were gone. The
room had been turned upside down.