Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir (18 page)

“I asked about you, not the village,” Sir Ightham said, “Besides, I have spent my life surrounded by lords and ladies and lieges, politicians and captains, monarchs and diplomats; who's to say that I haven't tired of all that?”

I certainly wasn't.

I did my best to answer her question succinctly. I tried to settle against the bench as she had, but it didn't work, so I sat cross-legged, facing her.

“Like you said, you know my brother. Other than that, it's just my dad—he gave away our best pig for that feast on the first night, by the way. I was so mad about it at the time, heh,” I said, having trouble keeping my answer brief with her watching me so attentively. “He used to be a soldier, actually. He worked along the wall forever ago – ages before Michael or I were born – back when Kastelir wasn't Kastelir. But I've always known him as a farmer. My mother died when I was young. Not even a year old. The only things I know about her are things Michael remembers, really.”

“I met your father,” Sir Ightham said, nodding, wading through recollections of the dozens of villagers she met. “He said little to me, but what he did say was kind.”

She returned her attention to the crowd, and as she watched passers-by scurry back and forth, she added, “I should be sorry to have taken you away from that, had you not made your case so emphatically.”

“Even if I wasn't...” I scratched the back of my head, “Anyway, even if I'd got along with everyone, you wouldn't have been taking me away from much. Look at this place! It's more than I ever imagined seeing in my life, and it's already just one of a dozen places we've been. If I was still at home, I'd just—I'd be up in my room or out in the fields, still scared of pane – still scared of the
villagers
– and I wouldn't have anyone new to talk to. I definitely wouldn't be talking to you.”

I smiled, and she tilted her head to see it. Nothing was said, leaving me all too aware that I'd said too much; I'd picked up Michael's bad habits, despite having always sworn to myself that I'd learnt from a poor example and should know when to hold my tongue. Sir Ightham didn't care about any of that, surely.

“I never would've considered a place like this impressive, or even remotely interesting,” she said after a pause, but not to belittle my experience. “See? We are from very different worlds indeed. This makes for far better conversation than any ballroom gossip.”

I tried to imagine what they discussed in ballrooms. Dresses and suits and suitors, I supposed, but refrained from asking. For the first time since I'd met her, Sir Ightham seemed almost peaceful. Dark marks remained beneath her eyes, but her shoulders slackened and she looked out at Riverhurst, trying to see what I saw.

I didn't search for anything else to say. There was no gnawing urge to fill the silence between us.

The reprieve didn't last for long. Sir Ightham was never going to remain idle for more than a handful of minutes, but taking a moment to herself seemed to have done her good.

“Come,” she said, getting to her feet, “We'd best ensure that brother of yours doesn't have Rán at her wit's end.”

I bounced to my feet and together we headed to find Michael and Rán. Pane were convenient landmarks in and of themselves and I wandered along without having to worry about pushing myself onto tip-toes and squinting. I was about to say something to Sir Ightham – something I hadn't rehearsed a dozen times over – when I caught sight of a woman struggling with her belongings on the other side of the street.

It was a quieter part of the town, pavement occupied by few enough people for it to be glaringly obvious when they went to great lengths to weave around her. She wasn't old but her face was weathered, and I expected she was carrying everything she owned, and did so every day. But more than that, rot demanded my attention.

It was rooted deeply enough inside for her to believe the weight of her bags was what caused her to ache so thoroughly.

“Excuse me,” I said, jogging over. She glanced up, alarmed, and I didn't move too close, lest she mistake me for a thief. “Can I help you?”

“... 'salright,” the woman mumbled, looking away from me. She tugged on the straps of her bags, readjusting them on her back.

“Not with that,” I said, hands clasped behind my back. Sir Ightham crossed the road to join us, but I didn't let her presence distract me. “You're sick, aren't you?”

The woman narrowed her eyes as though I knew how to use the information against her, and Sir Ightham straightened. Her fingers tightened around her bag, and slowly, as though I was approaching a lamb that had cornered itself in a panic, I reached out a hand.

“You're a healer?” the woman croaked, and I didn't lie. I didn't have to. Before I could nod or shake my head, she said, “What do you want? Ain't got nothing here worth having.”

“I don't want anything from you. Please,” I said, ignoring the way Sir Ightham turned her back to us, either looking away from my necromancy or scouting out any onlookers.

The woman relented. Her calloused fingers brushed against my own, and I drew out all of the disease from deep within her. If Sir Ightham had expected me to call any attention to us, she was wrong; it happened in a heartbeat, unnoticeable to anyone passing by.

But the woman blinked, seeing through clear eyes for the first time in what must've felt like a lifetime. Her features were as worn as ever, yet brighter, somehow. Her thanks came, made unsteady by confusion, but Sir Ightham didn't allow the woman the time she needed to process what had happened.

“Here,” she said firmly, pressing coins into her open palm. “Please, find yourself somewhere to stay and have something to eat.”

Her surface kindness was merely a front to get rid of the woman. The woman's thanks doubled, gratitude split between Sir Ightham and myself, but I wasn't given the chance to reassure her that it was fine, honestly. Sir Ightham led me away as though from the scene of a crime, as stony-faced as she'd been when I first met her.

“What do you think you're doing?” she asked, and any warmth I'd attributed to her tone had long since turned tepid. “Anyone could've seen what you did.”

“So?” I huffed, refusing to match her pace, grinding to a halt. “I healed that woman. That's all. She needed help and—”

“And
you
need to be more careful,” Sir Ightham said. “This isn't your village. You can't afford to make the same mistakes.”

I ground my teeth together. I wanted to know who she was to make such sweeping statements about me, about necromancy, as though I hadn't lost anything when the villagers had found out what I really was, but I was too frustrated and no words would get through to her.

“That woman was in pain, and now she's not. She was... her body, it was rotting, like bark or, or...” My head was swimming with colours, images of what I'd felt around the woman not matching up to what I'd experienced when I ripped the disease away. I could never explain what I saw and tasted and
knew
around death and disease, and when Sir Ightham did nothing but stare at me, I realised I'd got myself so flustered that she didn't know what to make of it. “She's okay now. That's all that matters, right?”

“That's not all that matters,” Sir Ightham said firmly, and of course, of course she always knew better.

She looked away for a split-second and moved on.

“What you wish to do is admirable. Truly. But if you help one woman now, then tomorrow you will justify helping two, and word will spread,” she said, and I hoped the way I knitted my fingers together didn't tell her that I'd already helped dozens in Benkor. “It will be like your village all over again, only the laws against necromancy are not so
relaxed
, here. You will not merely be forced into isolation.”

The anger left me. Even after Sir Ightham finished speaking, it took me long moments to realise that her sharp words came from a place of concern.

“I kind of thought... that once I left my village with you, you'd leave me behind somewhere or I'd find a town I wanted to stay in, and then I'd become a healer again,” I mumbled. “I figured I'd get found out eventually, but I'd have made some money and could move on. I'm not really... I don't know what else I'd do. I'm not smart like Michael, I'm not a Knight, and I... I can't
not
do it. I don't know how it works! Just how it feels. And ignoring it, it's sort of like, like it'd be worse than whatever anyone would to a necromancer.”

Sir Ightham stared at me. I looked at the pavement between her feet and she bowed her head to catch my eye, not straightening until I looked back up. We both had things we wanted to say and I fought with myself to keep my gaze level.

“—running is no way to live,” Sir Ightham said with a dry huff of a laugh, both of us well aware that she spoke from experience. “I do not mean to chide you, Rowan. I do not wish to scorn what you do, but I do mean to protect you. Remember what I said earlier: the world is still open and new to you, and you must trust that there are things I
know
that you have yet to learn.”

“Yeah,” I said. It was all I could managed. I swallowed the lump in my throat, staring down at the toe of my boot as I scuffed it against stone.

“Besides, it would not do for you to settle down somewhere,” she continued when I let the silence grow heavy. “I am in need of my squire, after all.”

My head snapped up.

“No you aren't,” I said, but I said it with a grin.

I could barely hold a sword, but that didn't matter to her.

“Perhaps not,” she replied, smiling.

We left Riverhurst shortly after. Michael and Rán gathered plenty of supplies, for our journey was to be a long one. Three weeks was the best estimate Sir Ightham and Rán could give us, at which Michael seized hold of the map, turning it this way and that, certain that there
had
to be a quicker way.

Kastelir could've swallowed Felheim whole. Each of the former territories were larger than our Kingdom, and our destination, Isin, was in the very centre of the country, marking the former meeting place of the territories. We were to give our horses bitterwillow when we could, but they'd need days to recover between doses, else they'd end up consuming volumes of it for little to no effect, beyond shaking.

The days were long and monotonous. They blurred together but never seemed to roll on, and all we did was ride and ride, avoiding cities and villages alike, while Sir Ightham looked over her shoulder, expecting someone to be fast on our heels. I went to sleep, expecting to find Sir Luxon stood over me when I awoke.

Michael, when he wasn't busy complaining about anything and everything or begging Sir Ightham to let us stay at an inn for the night, told stories to pass the time. We were grateful for them, if only to have something other than the beating of hooves to listen to, but even he almost ran out of tales to tell.

But no matter how dull the days were, the evenings took on a life of their own. Once the horses were fed and a fire was burning, Sir Ightham would prepare our dinner while Rán, Michael and I talked and talked, as though we hadn't spent an entire empty day together. What we spoke about was of no note – anecdotes from our childhood, and Rán asked more questions than she answered – but it gave me something to look forward to throughout the day.

Sir Ightham didn't say much to me, after leaving Riverhurst. She spoke to Rán when necessity dictated and she answered Michael's questions as briefly as she could, but she always seemed caught up in her own thoughts, in what laid ahead.

When we needed to refill our supplies, Michael and I would wander down to one of the solitary farms scattered across Kastelir. I'd gone with Rán once and never again after that; the owners caught sight of her from a window and bolted themselves inside.

“More lessons tonight, hm?” Michael asked as we headed down a hillside towards a lonely house caught between overgrown fields full of grazing sheep and horses. “Who knows, perhaps this time you'll manage to point the sword at Sir Ightham.”

“At least she wants to teach me,” I said, but it wasn't much of a defence. Each night after dinner, Sir Ightham insisted on teaching me to use a blade, and by some miracle, every night, I wound up frustrated long before she did. Once I'd tried to swing the sword and ended up burying the blade inches into the soil.

“I've no interest in anything of the sort,” Michael said, playing with the coins Sir Ightham had given him. I carried a bag to fill, but he preferred to handle the money. “For all the wolves you've killed, you'd think you'd have something of a knack for it. You'd have better luck trying to read again.”

I went to elbow him but he side-stepped it, chuckling to himself as I settled on rolling my eyes. It was true: I was bad. But I was determined to improve so that Michael would shut up about it, and Sir Ightham knew she wasn't wasting her time.

“Good evening. Terribly sorry if we've come at a bad time,” Michael said when the farm owner opened their front door. He liked to do all the talking, too. I stood there, trying to look cheerful. “We were wondering if you might be willing to part with any food. Cheese, bread, meat—we're more than happy to pay double what you'd get at market.”

The farm owner rubbed their chin, glanced down at the coins in Michael's palm, and said, “Not from around here, are you?”

Not that anyone was from around there; I hadn't seen so much as a barn in hours. Our accents never failed to give us away, and the Kastelirians looked at us as warily as I would've looked at a Kastelirian, back in Felheim.

“Indeed we aren't! But we have family – a few cousins – a few day's ride from here,” Michael explained. It was a different story every time. “We underestimated how long it'd take and don't have nearly enough to tide us over.”

The farm owner grunted, which I took to mean
wait here
, returning a few minutes later with slab of meat and an armful of vegetables with dirt clinging to them. We paid more than a fair price and had change to spare, and as we turned to leave, Michael said, “You wouldn't happen to have any ale, would you? Wine? Anything would do.”

“Not in this house, lad,” the farm owner told him, clicking the door closed.