Out of the Faold (Whilst Old Legends Fade Synchronicles) (2 page)

“I will miss you,” Nanny told her with a teary smile. “Who is going to keep the girls in line?”

“You might have to take over my job!” Glory told her
with a laugh.

At the age of ten Glory was the matriarch of the four daughters. Her older sister, Janna, was weak willed and quiet, the younger two looked up to Glory for her manners and proper composure in every situation. If she weren’t going to be a Sister she would have made a fabulous duchess as the wife of one of her cousins or even been presented to the king for his sons. She was flawless. Her clothes were not wrinkled. She knew how to serve tea at the age of five years to her mother’s guests. She even played cards with them during brunches and giggled along as they shared stories of the other nobles. Just yesterday the ladies had held a special brunch for her in celebration of her departure to the San
ctuary. They’d given her gifts. She wore delicate flowers on her ears made of gleamin
g silver with lacquered petals.

A
ringing of a
bell from downstairs announced visitors at the door. Glory forgot herself for a moment and jumped up and down in excitement. One last hug had to do as they rushed out of the room. Nanny called for a porter to help with the chest as Glory took her position to descend the staircase, like a queen entering a grand hall. A single Brother in grey robes stood at the open door, his hands folded at his waist, watching as she made her graceful and flawless descent. A wagon
s
tood outside waiting for them. H
er mother and sisters kissed her good-bye. They made promises to see each other at holidays and Mother would travel to see
her next week at the Sanctuary.

Glory sat next to the Brother on the wagon seat, beaming as they turned down the lane toward the road that led to the city. She would make new friends, become the most beloved pupil the Sisters ever had. Perhaps they would have her to tea and tell her stories as well.

Pearl

Pearl noticed the Brother watching her from across the
cobbled
square. She’d ducked behind the seamstress shop but when she peaked out again, he was still there, trying to look casual. But she knew. She’d had a history with the Brothers. Every six months or so they’d snatch her, take her to that
Sanctuary
-place, bathe her, put her in a dress, make her listen to a bunch of stories about dead people she cared nothing about then sent her back to the streets making her promise to come visit the next week. She never did. She never got hungry enough to
go back without being snatched.

She was happy where she was. She had a few comfortable places to sleep, she made friends easily, ate well enough. She knew who to stay away from and who she could trust. She didn’t have to deal with tutors or be stuck indoors. Pearl learned young you don’t just take what you want or no one will trust you and they will never give freely. So each day as she walked through town a shopkeeper may call her over for a piece of fish, give her a pair of old shoes or cut her hair if it was in her eyes. She didn’t have parents but a lot of different people looked after her. She was dirtier than most, counted stray cats an
d dogs as friends, even got tsk’
d at by fancy ladies in the street but she was fin
e with it.

One day last week there were two maids from the keep in the shop where she sat nibbling on a tart in the back room. One nodded at her and said to the other, “That one will be a Tucker whore the way she’s already filling out. Dressed as a boy
she
can’t hide real curves much longer. Such a shame.
You c
an’t scrape mud off a boot with a dirty knife.”

The shopkeeper shooed them out furiously then brought her a sweet, maybe in her way
as
an apology for their behavior. The woman
had asked again
, “You sure you don’t want to come get cleaned up, I’ll train yo
u a bit, get a position at the K
eep? You’d never want for anything.”

“No, ma’am,” she told her again. “Thank you, though.”

“You stay away from that Tucker,” she demanded with a finger pointed at Pearl. “You bind up your chest if they get bigger than eggs and you come to me if you start to mense. You stay away from Tucker.”

“I will,” she agreed and nodded.

What the woman didn’t know was that Tucker had already tried to win his way into her graces, brought her sweets, a pretty green dress and the promise of coins of her own. But his ladies she knew down by the pubs told her to stay away. He was one of those people she couldn’t trust. They had warned her.

Thankfully people mostly let her be and she was content with that. Until the Brother showed up.
He was still there. If she tried to sneak past and he managed to grab her she didn’t know if she could bring herself to bash him in his knockers like she could to any other man. She wondered if Brothers even had knockers under their robes. The thought caused her to giggle.

A hand grasped the hair on the back of her head tightly, pulling her backward almost off her feet. A Brother
stood looking down at her from above. A flash of panic charged her elbow with speed she didn’t know she had, it must have struck real knockers because he doubled over with a cry of pain. He hadn’t let go of her hair so she was dragged down. It was cut short enabling her to struggle out of his grasp. She ran faster than she’d ever run before. The first Brother still stood in the square simply watching as she dashed toward the pubs and the dock where she hoped there were more people to hide her. Alleys she knew so well seemed less protective than ever. Someone had boarded up a hole at the back of a shed where she and a few of the dogs slept at night. In a panic she ran into the road again to find someone she knew to shelter her. A Brother saw her from two doors away, hiked up his robes to run faster and almost reached her but she found the arms of one of Tucker’s ladies, a shield
with long skirts.

“Now, Brother,” she smiled at him. “Pearl has done no wrong. Leave her be, now.”

“I don’t want a dress!” Pearl shouted at him from behind the woman.

“Come, girl,” he muttered, weary of chasing her. “It’s time.”

“Time for what?” Tucker’s lad
y asked, her hands on her hips.

Another Brother stepped out of an alley to the side and another seemed to f
loat down the road toward them.

“Did something happen, Pearl?” the woman asked her quietly. Pearl shook h
er head into the woman’s back.

“It takes three Brothers to tackle a little girl in the street,” she screeched drawin
g looks from others passing by.

“She needs to come with us.”

“I’m not!” yelled Pearl backing into the doorway behind her.

The woman glanced at the door, appearing undecided what to do. She dare not send Pearl inside into the clutches of Tucker, though she feared the Brothers weren’t innocent in their approach to the girl. She had no time to decide though for the door swung wide. Tucker placed a hand on Pearl’s shoulder but she swiftly moved back to th
e safety of the woman’s skirts.

“Can I help you, Brothers?” he asked with a polite grin. He had no use for the Sanctuary or its followers but to have three at the door of one of his dice houses sharpened his curiosity. Were they now traveling in packs to pander to the downtrodden?

“They are snatching me!” Pearl yelled in accusation.

“Child,” Tucker cooed. “
I’ve told you before, you have a place with us anytime you choose. A warm bed, plenty of food, friends all the time. We can take you in.”

“Madam,” one of the Brothers pleaded to the woman, while he stepped forward. “She was marked at birth. She is to be a Sister. It is time.”

“A Sister?” the woman remarked a little too loudly. Then quieter to Pearl she said, “A Sister?”

“Now, listen gentlemen,” Tucker interrupted, “This
dricken
street rat has no business going off with you getting ideas about being a Sister. She has had no upbringing, sleeps with dogs, can’t find her way to a washbasin and will do better with us than locked up in a hole in the ground for years.”

The woman’s face blazed red as she twirled to face him. “You think life is so fantastic working for you?
” she screamed. “Spreading my legs
to drick
any ruffian or thief you send my way at all hours, getting sick, doing away with the unborn, all for a few coins? I can’t hold my head high. You have ruined my life but you won’t destroy this sweet girl.”

With that she pushed Pearl toward the closest Brother and bent down to say to her, “They will not be unkind. You go be a Sister. You don’t deserve a life like this.”

Pearl nodded sadly but understood. There was only so much time before Tucker would snatch her off the street and she’d be forced to do his bidding. She’d seen it before. Even now he shoved the woman in
to
the street
like a discarded rag
and slammed
the door. They waved good-bye.
Pearl
quietly
followed the Brothers back through the city to the San
c
tuary.

The horses trotted along the road, eighteen of them. Sixteen were manned and two were used to haul gear. At the front rode the commander of the unit and his sergeant, still tall and straight-backed after long hours in the saddle.
The men behind did their best to follow suit but were tired and it showed in their postures.
The sun was descending into the sky ahead causing an orange glow
to bathe them and the hillside.

The
ir
uniform
s
w
ere
black. The leather chest armor had scalloped
plates
with silver fastenings,
more decorative than practical. They wore
black leather short coats over tan linen shirts, and
soft
black
leather
riding trousers.
A variety of weapons was carried, though they had
all
been issued the Marshall hatchets, a sharp blade on one side with a thick rectangular head on the other. Only the Captain had the
single
weapon, others used bows,
short
swords, knives as well.

The Captain
lifted his arm to signal a stop. Trees on their left had petered off to a clearing close to the point where the road forked, one direction going to the city and the other to farmlands and villages nearby. They set up camp off the road, erecting lean-to tents, fire pits were dug, and horses were tended to then the men settled down to sit on their bedroll
s as the night sky turned dark.

The
Captain
sought out his sergeant’s focus as soon as they heard voices singing further along the west road. Horses’ hooves and the rumble of wagon wheels told the
m
that the city had
probably
sent provisions. His men would be grateful, though he wasn’t quite sure he wanted them to be ‘provisioned’ quite yet as they were still on duty. On
ly when they reached the Keep of Brynntown
and reported to the Duk
e could they have time to rest.

Tucker’s man in the lead seemed unimpressed by the num
ber of men before him. A small unit
of cavalry wouldn’t fill his boss’s pockets, though his girls might get some coin from them. His dice throwers and brew man probably wouldn’t break even. It was much more profitable to stay at home for the regular clientele. Oh well, he sighed, as he resigned himself to a night of campfire and sl
eeping in the bed of his wagon.

The C
aptain
, Amias Natan Filbar Doran stood as the wagon approached. The driver tipped his hat in greeting at
Doran
as he reigned in the horses. One of the ladies in the back of the wagon waved at his men with a big grin then leaned close to say something to the other sitting next to her. The two of them would be very busy that evening if their driver had anything to say about it.

“Sorry for the intrusion, Captain,” the man called out in apology. “Mister Tucker sent me to enquire if you needed supplies? It’s a half day ride still to
Brynntown.
Would you care for a hot cooked meal by the ladies?”

The
sergeant, Kel,
glanced at Amias then at the driver again. They hadn’t had a real meal in four days, though he doubted the ladies would be able to produce much on a campfire when
their interests lay elsewhere.

When that offer was not jumped on, the man suggested, “I have a keg of ale back there, a nice strong
black
brew.”

Amias Doran approached the man and beckoned him down from the wagon. The ladies accepted that as their own invitation so alighted and made their way, with smiles for all, to the men’s campfires to share a
seat with some lonely soldier.