Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) (6 page)

“Could I see that?” Yarrow asked, looking at the book as if it were some kind of ancient treasure.
 

“Of course, mate,” Arlow said, handing the tome over. Bray nearly snorted at his pandering use of the word ‘mate,’ but managed to keep her derision to herself.
 

Yarrow took the book in gentle hands. He ran his fingertips along the leather binding, turned each page with the utmost care, his eyes flying left and right as he skimmed.

Arlow watched him with amusement. “You know, the Chisanta have the greatest libraries in the world.”

“Truly?” Yarrow asked. “I can’t wait to see that…”

The three of them speculated happily about the amazing abilities they would develop, as the afternoon sky gave way to evening unnoticed.
 

“Then what happened?” Yarrow asked.
 

“He pulled it out of his mouth and held it up.” Arlow made a dramatic show of surprise and disgust, then boomed in a deep, accented voice, “‘By the Spirits above, what’s this then?’”

Bray laughed so hard tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she held her stomach, her cheeks sore with smiling.
 

Yarrow, when his own laughter had subsided, said, “I hope you didn’t get your cook fired.”

“Nah,” Arlow said. “My father knew it was me. It was always me. But I didn’t even get to the best part. Then my mother says, with a completely straight face, ‘Didn’t you know that feathers are used for flavoring in Adourra?’”

“Your mother sounds hilarious,” Bray said, laughing anew and wiping her cheeks.

The horses without whinnied.
 

“Are we slowing?” Arlow asked.

Bray squinted out the window and discerned a rough-looking farmhouse in the limited light.
 

Yarrow leaned across her to ascertain their location as well. “Must be our fourth.”

“I hope this means we aren’t far from the inn. I’m starved,” Bray said.
 

The carriage came to a jostling halt. They could hear the distant murmur of Mr. Paggle’s voice and the thunk of an additional trunk joining the others on the roof.
 

“His parents sure are old,” Arlow said.

Bray agreed—the couple had distinctly graying hair and heavily lined faces. She thought them rather severe in appearance. They parted from their son with cool disinterest and turned their backs before he had even stepped into the carriage.
 

The door creaked open and the large shape of their final companion filled the frame. Arlow slid over, allowing the newcomer to sit beside him. This new boy was so large, Bray struggled to believe he was only fourteen years old. He had sandy hair, blue eyes, a wide angular jaw, and broad shoulders.
 

He smiled tentatively at them and extended his hand to Arlow. “Peer Gelson.”

They each gave their own names. Peer Gelson grinned with the air of a boy who felt uncomfortable, but was determined not to show it. He kept rubbing the mark on his neck, as if verifying its continued presence.

“So, tell us about yourself,” Arlow said. Peer looked alarmed.

“Oh, come off it, Arlow,” Bray said, and turned to Peer. “Don’t mind him. He’s just—”
 

“An arrogant little prat?” Arlow supplied and winked at her.

She smiled. “More or less.”
 

“You’re a farmer?” Yarrow asked.
 

The carriage picked up speed once again and Peer’s eyes flitted to the window. He nodded. “Aye, so they keep telling me.” He ran his index finger along a ridge of callus on his right palm.
 

“Your parents didn’t look too happy,” Bray said.

Peer let out a short, bitter laugh. “No, they were none too pleased with me. Thought I should stay on till after the harvesting.”

“But you couldn’t,” Yarrow said.

“That’s what I said. It would seem I suffer from a lack of gratitude, or so I’ve been hearing these past few days.” Peer shrugged and assumed a look of indifference.
 

“There isn’t a town nearby, is there?” Arlow asked, looking out at the uninterrupted darkness.
 

“Nah, there’s nothing round these parts, excepting a few other farms.”
 

Bray’s stomach rumbled. “How far are we from Platstone?”

“Oh, ’bout three quarters an hour,” Peer said.

Bray attempted to stretch the pain out of her lower back and rotated her shoulders in slow circles. The time could not pass quickly enough for her.

“Excellent,” Bray said, sometime later, when she heard voices through the window and felt the carriage come to a stop.
 

Peer’s brow furrowed. “We can’t be there yet.”

He was right. If they had entered a town there would be lights, but Bray could discern no break in the darkness beyond the window. She hushed Yarrow and Arlow, putting a finger to her lips and jerking her head toward the window. The tone of the voices served as warning enough—Mr. Paggle argued and several strange men spoke in clipped, commanding barks. She heard a soft thunk, and Mr. Paggle’s voice disappeared. Bray grabbed hold of Yarrow’s hand.

He leaned in close and whispered, “Highwaymen?”

Bray gave one sharp nod. What else could they be?

The carriage door swung open and a strange man leaned in, his rough stubbled face illuminated by a lantern in his left hand. He held a cocked flintlock pistol in his right. It gleamed menacingly in the orange light. On the man’s neck, Bray spotted a familiar tattoo—a clenched fist encircled by a crown. Pauper’s King men.

“It’s just some kids,” he called over his shoulder.

“Well, bring ’em out.”

Bray’s pulse tapped a steady beat at the base of her neck. The hand Yarrow clutched grew clammy. She could not have said if it was her own sweat or his.
 

The man gestured with the pistol and she flinched. “Come on out now.”
 

She began to slide toward the door, but Peer stopped her with a hand on her knee and descended first.
 

The carriage was stopped on an empty stretch of road, no signs of habitation near at hand. The wind blew and Bray crossed her arms for warmth. She could discern the shapes of five men, two on horseback. She scanned the gathering, seeking Mr. Paggle. Surely he carried a pistol. Her heart plummeted when she spied the shadow of his crumpled form on the ground.

“Get the trunks down.”
 

The stubble-faced man tucked his pistol into a holster. He climbed up the side of the carriage, removed the straps, and began carelessly throwing luggage to the ground.
 

“We’ll be lightening your load here, in the name of the Pauper’s King and the poor of Trinitas,” one of the men on horseback announced.
 

Two more men materialized in the lantern light. They knelt, sifting through their trunks. One was slight with a long ponytail, the other bald and massive.
 

“They’re taking our
things
,” Arlow whispered to Bray, his eyes wide with horror. Of the six trunks, four of them were his. Bray watched as Peer and Yarrow’s trunks were rooted through and rejected. They held nothing other than threadbare clothes and worthless knick-knacks. When they reached Arlow’s trunks, however, it was as if their collective birthdays had come early.

A long, appreciative whistle sounded. “Would ya look at this, Cline?” the stubble-faced man said, holding up a box containing a wide collection of cufflinks. “These’ll sell for a fortune.”

The bald man snorted and held up a dinner jacket. “We got ourselves a right dandy, here.” He tossed it into the dirt, where a pile of plunder was forming.

“That’s
velvet,
you cretin—” Arlow cut off as Yarrow elbowed him in the ribs.
 

The bald man, Cline, left the remaining trunks to his companions and approached Arlow. Bray held her breath, wondering what a highwayman would do to a person who called him a ‘cretin.’

“Hand over jewelry, watches, anything you got of value. Turn out your pockets,” he said. Even from a distance, Bray could smell the rankness of his breath. Arlow leaned back, his expression appalled.
 

“Or do I have to hold ya by the feet and shake ya empty?”
 

Arlow blanched and turned out his pockets. He handed over a watch, a ring, all the money in his wallet, and the last pair of cufflinks to complete the set. Cline tucked these in his pocket then slid down the line to Peer. Peer pulled his pockets inside out to show that he had nothing but a handkerchief. The highwayman proceeded to pat Peer down, rather invasively, to ascertain he was hiding nothing. Bray swallowed, her heart galloping into motion in her chest. He would not do the same to her, would he? She could not abide the idea of his hands on her.

Yarrow, beside her, turned out his pockets as well. They held nothing other than a simple pocketknife and two handkerchiefs—one plain and dirty, the other feminine and lace-lined. Cline did not bother taking either, nor to pat Yarrow down—his clothes were in such a sad state he was probably deemed too poor to rob. Finally the big man slid over to Bray. He looked down at her and she stared up into his ugly face unflinchingly. His nose appeared to have been broken at some point in the past, and his eyes protruded bulbously from his face like a frog.
 

She held up empty hands. “I don’t have anything.”
 

He looked over his shoulder. “There weren’t any dresses in them trunks, were there?”

“Nah.”

Cline looked down at her and she raised her chin defiantly. “Where are your belongins, little girl?”

“I told you,” she said. “I don’t have anything.” Her mouth had grown uncomfortably dry.

“Is that so?” he asked and, with unexpected speed and deftness, he plucked the leather strap from beneath her bodice, revealing the two rings she kept by her heart. One was large and thick, the other small and delicate. Both were made of silver and carved with interlocking leaves.
 

“Give it here,” he said.

She clasped the rings in her fist and pressed them to her chest. “No.”

His eyebrows drew down and his hand came to rest on his pistol. “Now, girl, I ain’t askin. You give it, or I take it. Your choice.”
 

The wind whipped Bray’s hair about her face and she felt a chill that had little to do with the weather. She clenched her hand tighter and felt the rings dig into her palm. “No.”
 

“Just give it to him, Bray,” Arlow hissed.

She shook her head, her knees trembling in fear.

The man moved as if to grab her. She squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for his touch, but it did not come. She opened her eyes again to find herself staring at Yarrow’s back. He had stepped before her protectively.

Cline laughed and tried to push Yarrow out of the way, his eyes never moving from the bounty clutched in Bray’s hand. He didn’t notice Yarrow’s fist until it struck him squarely in the crooked nose.
 

He stumbled back, eyes watering in pain. “Why you little…”

The big man pulled back his fist, preparing to punch Yarrow in the gut. Before the blow could land, Peer leapt onto his back, his arms circling around the man’s neck.
 

The highwayman bucked like a great beast trying to rid itself of a fly, but Peer held on, pulling all of his weight against the man’s windpipe. An errant elbow cracked Yarrow in the face and he hit the grass with a pained grunt.

Before Cline’s companions had time to react, Bray darted forward and snagged his pistol from its holster. With two shaking hands, she pointed the weapon at the man’s head. Peer let go and scurried safely out of range.

“Hey now girl,” he said, eyeing the weapon, “none of that. We got a lot more ’en one pistol.”

Bray flexed her finger over the trigger. “Yes. And how many heads have you got?”
 

Cline’s companions came forward. In a moment, four pistols were trained directly on her.

“Let’s take a breath here, gentlemen,” Mr. Paggle’s groggy voice broke in. Bray’s head snapped to the sound in surprise. The driver had risen as far as his knees, his hand pressed to a bleeding head. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t all ride safely away from this unfortunate encounter.”
 

“We will allow you to leave if you give us no more trouble,” one of the men on horseback said—the one who had named them Pauper’s King men. He was tall, with a bright red beard and smiling eyes.

“Not without them rings, we ain’t,” Cline said, his voice thick and muffled.

“How do we know you won’t shoot?” Mr. Paggle asked.

“I give you my word.”

Mr. Paggle snorted. “The word of a highwayman?”

“I prefer to think of myself as an acquirer of charitable donations. Regardless, I am a man of honor. I say I will not harm you if you allow my companion,” he said the word with distaste, “to keep his head. And I mean what I say. It is your choice to trust me or not.”

He smiled at Bray in an almost fatherly way, as if he found her pistol-wielding quip endearing. She wanted to trust him. She lowered the pistol, marginally.