Return to Alastair (24 page)

But even with him living, even if he were strong and well in a matter of minutes, what would happen to her? Without Martica, everything was different. If the bandits and the baron’s men somehow did not find them, would her brother want to take her away with him to Onath?

What a thought that was! Wild and frightening, grand and horrid, all at the same time. But he had said he loved her. Tahn Dorn had gotten her their mother’s necklace. He had called her his family. Not even Martica had done that.

She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and scorned such thoughts. Here they were, hiding in a hole. They might not live to see the daylight, and if they did, they might still be hunted. She shook her head. Since Tahn Dorn had come to Alastair, there had been nothing but trouble.

He rolled beside her. She wished she could see in this awful darkness. She wished she knew if his eyes were open. None of this was his fault. She’d been the one to bring trouble on him. The bandits would surely have left him alone if he hadn’t ventured to rescue her. And Mikal Ovny’s father couldn’t have laid a hand on him either.

“No . . . Master . . .” he muttered barely loud enough to be heard.

Tiarra clenched both of her hands tightly into fists. She didn’t want to hear any more of his fevered words. She didn’t think she could take such glimpses inside him, or perhaps pictures of his past. It was too hard. Much too hard.

Why had Martica lied so? Why had the whole town chosen to blame him and hide the truth from her? How could he even have survived?

“I should go,” she whispered to Ansley. “I need to bring water.”

“No. That big man said you have to stay here.”

“He—he could be dead by now. We don’t know.”

“All the more reason to stay. Don’t go, Miss Ti. It’s you they’re looking for.”

“And my brother. Ansley, he needs water.”

“I don’t think he’s awake to drink it.”

“We need water to combat the fever, whether he is awake or not.”

“Did he ever come here—did he ever come see you before?” “No.”

“Why not?”

“I—I don’t know. But I don’t blame him. I don’t think he could. He says he didn’t know about me.”

“Do you believe him?”

She swallowed down something bitter in her throat. “Yes. I think I do.”

“I’ll get the water,” Ansley volunteered. “They’re not looking for me.”

He was gone before she could even answer him, leaving a larger crack than Toddin had when he replaced the board at the entrance. Still, it was strangely unsettling to be alone in this dungeonlike place with her brother. The dimness and the quiet soaked over her. She wished it were lighter here, that she could look at his back again. She was afraid that moving him or his rolling about on this uneven ground might have torn open his wounds. He could be bleeding. But she could not bring herself to check. He might cry out if her touch hurt him. He might not understand that it was her. And she could do nothing to help him now, anyway.

You could pray.

The words jumped into her mind like a command.
He believes in prayer. You could pray.

Years of protest tore through her mind. Why pray? God knew all about this. He knew everything. And yet he let it all happen. He didn’t do anything. He let her mother die. He let Alastair nearly kill Tahn Dorn, and the only deliverance was almost worse than death. To be slave to a killer. To be forced to obey, to kill or face torture.

“No!” She spoke the word out bitterly to the air. “Why should I talk to you? Have you ever shown that you care?”

Tears broke over her, and she wiped them away furiously. God would not hear her. What was the use to even think about it? God would not hear her, because she did not honor him. She did not trust him to be any help at all.

But here lay her brother beside her.
He
did trust.
He
did believe. But how could he? She suddenly wanted to ask him. How could he suffer burns and beatings, whippings even, and then turn his heart and his thanks to God?

He had spoken to her and to Martica so gently, talking of God’s mercy, asking their forgiveness. Marc Toddin had told her about Tahn going in the night to pray for Martica. “He believes the old woman found the peace of salvation,” Toddin had said, trying to be a comfort. But the words had sounded so empty to her. So meaningless. Because Martica had died alone. And she’d known very little peace in her life.

But Tahn had a strange sort of peace about him. A strange acceptance, perhaps, of whatever would be, and she did not understand it.

“Why do you praise God?” she whispered. “Why do you feel that he loves you?”

She thought of his fever-laden words, only moments before: “I want to die.”

She had felt that way. Many times. She had even thought once or twice about ending her own life. But perhaps she was afraid of what would be. The way Tahn had said, “I fear...”

What had changed him? What had made him fearless, able to face Alastair’s hatred and his own bitter memories? If it was God, she wanted to understand. She wanted to know for herself what that peace might be like.

She could be fearless. But her fearlessness was rooted in anger, she knew that very well. And it was apt to desert her at the most inopportune times.

“I don’t understand you,” she whispered to God. “Do you truly love my brother?”

She could not speak the rest.
Do you love me? Even though I have blamed you and rejected you, are you like Mr. Toddin said, trying to spare me the way my brother has done? And more, would you give me the peace of salvation? I don’t even know what that means! But my brother does, doesn’t he?

“Tiarra?”

She was jarred at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t expected him to wake.

“Lucas?” he called.

“He will be here soon. I think . . . I think they may be trying to see that the bandits do not come this way.” She knew his struggle suddenly beside her. She knew he was trying to get up, at least to his knees.

“We are . . . beneath the barrel maker,” he said.

“I didn’t know you were awake to realize—”

“I recognize it. I’ve been here before.”

There was something strangely heavy in his voice, but the peace was there too. “I think you should lie down,” she told him. “There is no use going anywhere. Not yet.”

“They should be with us. I don’t like not knowing . . .”

Strange that he was so much himself again, and not thinking of his own weakness. “Why do you care so much for everybody else?” she dared question.

“They are my friends.”

“I wasn’t. I hated you.”

“You were taught it. I can’t blame you . . . what you didn’t know.”

“Do you blame anyone?” she asked. “For the things that happened to you?”

He was quiet for so long that she almost thought he had slipped away into the fever again. But finally he spoke. “Perhaps it is a test of God . . . that you would ask me such a thing in this place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here.” He stopped for a moment, and she waited. “It was here. I ran from the street by your Martica’s house. They were chasing. There was an open hole. I tried to hide—but they saw me—”

“The crowd caught you here?” she asked, the breath catching in her throat.
God, why? Why have you led us to this place now?

“Someone grabbed my leg,” he continued. “And then . . . that man . . . poured out his pot. I think they all left. I slid down. I stayed . . .”

Tiarra’s heart pounded. “Until our uncle found you?”

For a moment Tahn was silent. “Samis. I never called him uncle.”

“Was he always horrible?”

“Yes.”

“But he saved your life?”

“Yes. And I never understood why.” He pulled himself forward a few feet and stopped with a moan. “I should look out.”

“No. Stay still. Please. You were taken in fever, just moments ago. You were talking—of some other time, perhaps.”

Across the darkness, his words reached her. “I pray I didn’t trouble you. Some of my other times . . . were not . . . holy.”

She could not quite understand. “Then is this time holy?”

“In its way. God is with us.”

But Tiarra tensed inside. “With
you
! Somehow! Maybe
you
are holy! And I cannot understand it. But he is not with me! I am not with him!” She was sorry for the words as soon as she said them. She was sorry to bare her heart in such a way.

“He is with you,” Tahn said quietly. “And you could be with him.”

“The noblewoman—Lady Netta—she taught you this?”

“Yes. And you also need God’s peace.”

The words were like a sudden stab. That he would put it that way. Just as she might have herself, were she to state her own need. “I—I don’t trust him.”

“It’s hard. At first. When you trust no one.”

Tears stung her eyes, and she felt a hand, far too warm, suddenly on her arm.

“Sister, let me pray with you.”

The tears overwhelmed her then. She could not hold them back. “I can’t! I’m not like you! I don’t forgive! You could have come into this town killing people. I would have! I would have sought out every one of those people and gladly lifted my sword.”

“No,” he said, his voice sounding weaker. “You are a good heart—God has already touched you . . .”

“You can’t know that.”

“You love . . . more than the people around you . . .”

She shook her head. “I think you are deceived.”

“Who else cares for the street children?”

That question quieted her for a moment. “Your friend Lorne. He fed them.”

She could feel him sinking down beside her. He was weak. He could not hold himself up any longer. “
You
fed them,” he persisted.

“And cursed God at the same time for such need!”

“But you can pray now—he would forgive you gladly.”

“And bear my penalty?” she asked, thinking again of Marc Toddin’s words.

“Yes. He . . . already . . . has . . .”

Tahn’s words dropped away, and Tiarra turned to him in the darkness, suddenly afraid. He’d come up from the fever so quickly, and yet the fever was still with him. Was he sliding away from her again?

She touched his head and felt the heat. “Pray for me, please,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“You’ll not be . . . alone,” he said, but she could barely hear him.

17

L
ucas tensed at the sudden rush of horses to the painted house where Martica had died. He and Toddin crouched at the corner of a nearby home and watched the bandits circle the little dwelling.

“I should have told
you
to carry Tahn’s sword,” Toddin whispered. “You’re not even armed.”

“Old habits are hard to break,” Lucas confessed. “I still carry two knives.”

“Dorn!” one of the horsemen yelled. Lucas knew it was Burle, the headstrong bandit leader, former troublemaker among Samis’s men. He wanted to approach him, to confront him now, but he knew it was unwise.

“Dorn!” Burle yelled again. “Come out and face us!”

“Fool,” Toddin muttered under his breath.

“There’s no one here,” one of the other bandits said. “Where are their horses?”

Burle and three of the other men dismounted and burst inside the little house.

“Now what?” Toddin whispered.

“Be ready,” Lucas replied. He didn’t know what Burle would do when he didn’t find anyone. Not give up. That was sure. They would have to be ready to draw the bandits away if they got too close to the place where Tahn was in hiding. They would fight if it came to that.

He started praying in a whisper, that somehow the bandits would be diverted, the baron’s men would not find them, and God would intervene to spare Tahn and his sister, as well as Toddin and the street boy. He did not pray for himself. But the oversight must have been obvious. Toddin turned his face and looked at him strangely.

Sword in hand, Burle came rushing out of Martica’s house with a curse. “They’re not here. Let’s go!”

“Where?” demanded a cocky young rider whom Lucas recognized as Toma.

“The church! That barman said Lucas lives there. He would shelter them! And it wouldn’t be the first time Tahn took refuge in a church. You remember Onath.”

Behind the neighboring house, Lucas shook his head. How could anyone who remembered Onath seek to do Tahn harm again? He’d been falsely accused, injured, paraded through the streets, caged like an animal. The baron would have hanged him had not Benn Trilett and the priest given him sanctuary at Netta’s pleading. Wasn’t that enough?

For a moment he forgot his religion and cursed Burle under his breath. But then he prayed. And pulled a knife from his shirt.

But there would be no need to fight. Burle and the other men were soon back on their horses and riding away toward St. Thomas’s.

“Well,” Toddin whispered. “That priest will be having quite a night, first with the baron’s soldiers, and now the bandits.”

“I pray they do him no harm.”

“Better that you pray again for us. It’s the baron’s church, and the priest will help the baron, won’t he?”

It was a difficult question for Lucas to answer. He did not want to believe that Father Bray would betray him, or any friend of his. Even Tahn Dorn. But in truth, he could not be sure. “He has nothing to tell them. He has no way of knowing where we are now.”

“He knew where we were. We have one troop gone, and another likely on its way.”

“Perhaps he has sent them in another direction. Surely they would have been here already were they coming this way.”

“Perhaps you’re too naïve for your own good. Or selfdestructive. Like the Dorn.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think he cares if he lives or dies?”

Lucas was stunned. “I think he’d fight with all the strength he could muster.”

“Indeed. For his sister. Or for you. Maybe even for me.”

Without a word in response, Lucas looked up at the big man.

“Twice with my own eyes I’ve seen him walk willingly into savagery,” Toddin continued. “For someone else’s sake. It’s going to kill him one day. But maybe you’re like him.”

“You are here as well, Marc. For our friend, you would do the same thing. And it would be honorable.”

“I know. But I still care if I make it home.”