Return to Alastair (6 page)

Suddenly, there was a shout just down the street, and all three of the men stopped in their tracks. One of them ran immediately. The other two held their ground until the stranger came at them at a dead run. The second man ran with Tiarra’s bag in his hand, but the third stayed long enough to meet the stranger with his hard blows.

The black-garbed stranger fought well, and the remaining attacker had no easy time breaking loose enough to run. But the newcomer stopped and looked at Tiarra lying there in the dirt at his feet and gave the assailants no chase. He knelt beside her and gently took her hand. She was untrusting, almost ready to fight him too, until she saw the large cross suspended from his neck. She stared at it in disbelief.

“Are you all right, my lady?” he was asking.

And then she was stunned as much by what he’d called her as by the cross he wore.

“Are you a priest?”

“Not yet. Someday, perhaps. Are you hurt badly, my lady? May I help you to your home?”

She shook her head and sat up, but it set her head to throbbing, and she sat still for a moment before trying to stand.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” the stranger continued. “They never had a proper path set before them. Theirs was a terrible teacher.”

“You know them?”

He nodded. “They are three of fifteen or so still around Alastair. They set about to steal, but they can scarcely resist viler things when they come upon a lady as fair to the eyes as yourself. It is worse than sad, the state they’re in, and what they do to the land hereabout. I am so sorry, lady, for this.”

He was a strange one, to talk of it as though it were partly his fault. “Who are you? Are you come from St. Thomas’s?”

He smiled. “Yes. My name is Lucas. Can you stand?”

She rose to her feet with his careful help. “I’ve never seen you there,” she said.

“It’s been four months,” he replied. “And I’ve never seen
you
there.”

She scowled. “I haven’t been there for three years, and I’m not going back! When your God shows a care for this awful world, I’ll come and thank him. And not until then!” She pulled away from him and took a limping step.

“I am sorry about the loss of your bag, my lady. May I help you to your home?”

Tiarra stood in silence for a moment. She hadn’t even remembered the bag. But it had held the gain of all Martica had left in this world. She had done right by the old woman, only to lose it, and she would have to face her empty handed.

The tears filled her eyes quickly, and she hated that this stranger would see them.

“Let me help you,” he said. “You’re hurt.”

But she turned away.

“Ti?” Mikal’s voice called from somewhere down the street, but she made no attempt to answer. Instead, she moved away with small steps, drying her eyes. For Mikal to see the tears would be even worse than the stranger seeing them.

She could hear him running toward them. But she could get no distance even from Lucas the someday-priest, who seemed to be following her in his concern.

“Wait a minute, Ti.” Mikal touched her arm as soon as he was close enough and stopped her determined steps. “I’ve been looking for you.”

She tried to turn away, but he held her and moved to see her face. She would have sizable bruises tomorrow, and she knew that was probably plain already. He stood in tense silence, having come upon the scene too late to know what had happened.

“Who did this?”

“Three of the dark angels who used to haunt the mountain,” Lucas replied. “The lady is hurt. She should not go on alone.”

Mikal looked at her carefully. But Tiarra shook her head. “They stole Martica’s bag,” she told him. “I’ll have to go and tell her.”

“Thank you for being here, Reverend sir,” Mikal told the stranger. “I know where she lives. I’ll help her.”

Tiarra looked up at the Reverend Lucas, who still stood so close. “I owe you a thanks,” she said. “I am grateful, but I need no more help now, thank you.”

Mikal took her arm again, but she pulled away. “Let me carry you, Ti, please,” he said.

She turned to him angrily, unable to stop new tears. “No! I’ll not be owing you anything. Leave me alone! I know my own way home.”

He stared at her, and Tiarra thought she could see anger in his face.

“I’m only trying to help! Can’t you see I’m trying to be your friend? Maybe I should have been quicker to tell you about your stupid brother. Maybe you had a right to be angry then. But now? Tiarra—”

“No!” she shouted again. “Don’t even talk to me! Vale dismissed me, Mikal. Because I fought at you and left. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

He stood in silence, just looking at her. She hated that he was probably seeing the anguish in her eyes. She hated that he had come upon her when she was so weak. Robbed and beaten. Without money, or work, or a father to provide her anything.

By the expression on his face, it seemed he understood. “I’ll speak to Vale. Surely if I explain—”

“Go away.”

“I’ll speak to him,” he repeated. “Right now.” He turned to the man with the cross beside them. “Please see her home. She’ll not have me at the moment.”

Tiarra turned away from them both. “I told you I know my own way!”

The man named Lucas followed her anyway. She didn’t like it. But she knew she should be grateful. He would be watchful lest her attackers show themselves again, a very real possibility were she walking alone.

As they entered Vermeel Street, Lucas could see here and there a child peering out at the young woman he was trying to escort. But because he was behind her, they would not come near. He knew what it was like. He could remember when he had hidden that way, especially from men, fearful that they would punish him for having to steal in order to live. Alastair was still the same, and it broke his heart.

She stopped in front of the worn little mud-brick house with painted designs peeling away from its outer walls. And he could remember when some of the designs were bright and new. He’d been a little boy then, and the old woman who sat outside painting had scolded him for getting too close.

“I live here,” Tiarra was telling him. “Thank you again, sir. I’ll be fine.”

He was not at all convinced. He could see that her bruises were swelling and gaining color. “You have family near?” he asked, remembering Mikal Ovny saying something about her brother.

“Only Martica inside,” she answered him.

He didn’t question her, only nodded. “I would like to talk to her and explain what happened, my lady.”

She wearily leaned against the wall of the house. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I know. I only wanted to see you home safely.”

Her expression was difficult to read. Certainly not anger or fear, but she was not happy to have been followed, nonetheless. “Martica has not been well,” she said. “And we can’t offer you anything.”

“I’d not take anything from you.”

She said nothing more. But he could see she was hurt. He stepped forward to help her inside, and she did not resist him.

Lucas looked around the small shelter and noticed first that there were no chairs. There was precious little of anything. Tiarra made her way past her own mat on the floor to the small doorway in back. And he followed her to the little house’s only other room.

“Who is it with you?” she called out when she saw his shape in the doorway.

“He’s from St. Thomas’s, Martica. He helped me on my way home tonight.”

“Helped you?”

Lucas knelt at the woman’s side. “Your daughter was attacked by violent thieves, good lady. They did her harm, and it might have been worse had I not seen them. I would not have her alone—”

“You were robbed?” The old woman directed the question to Tiarra, who sat down and suddenly seemed to be shivering.

“Yes, Martica. I am so sorry—”

“Child! There is no gain from you! I was successful once, in my measure. Before I knew you! God bless your mother, but you carry your father’s curse. I lose more and more in the care of you until there’s nothing left!”

Shaking, Tiarra pulled herself to her feet again and fled the room. Lucas watched her go and then turned to the old woman and sighed. “She was not at fault. She fought valiantly, lady.”

“She’s not my daughter.”

“But she acts it toward you. Doesn’t she?”

“I don’t know how she acts. I worry for her. How will she ever survive? I pray for a man who will look only at her face and not see all the trouble brewing inside her.”

Lucas shook his head. “It seems to me she would need just the opposite.”

Martica looked hard at him. “You come from St. Thomas’s, you say?”

“Yes.” He opened the small bag at his belt. “Permit me to repay your loss, lady. Call it a benevolence of my church.” He laid several copper coins in her hand. “It was a terrible thing those men sought against an innocent girl. Give her your patience, my lady. She seemed too brave to be frightened, but I know she is in pain.” He stood and bowed his head to her. “God’s peace to you.”

“Give her my patience?” Martica grumbled. “She’s hopeless, that’s what she is. Can’t keep anything. It’s a curse, that’s what it is.” She started coughing again, and he turned to follow the young woman who had to abide here with such words.

Tiarra sat in the corner in the first room, her head against the wall. He knew she was crying. Without a word, he walked to the hearth, piled kindling, and began a fire. Then he took a cloth that had been on the heavy old table, dropped it into a pail half full of water, and carried both to Tiarra’s side.

“You should not be here,” she told him.

“It seems almost that you should not be.”

She stared up at him for a moment but then turned her head away.

“Forgive me,” he said immediately. “I have no right to voice myself so.” He knelt beside her and lifted the wet cloth to her face. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Five years ago, I was that age. And things are very different for me now. Your world, too, will change.”

She turned to look at him again. “I think you’re wrong, sir. The world doesn’t change. We just step from one spot to the next.” She took the cloth from his hand. “I can tend to myself. You don’t need to stay.”

He stood and glanced around. “Have either of you eaten?”

Tiarra looked at him in dismay. He found a bag with a bit of meal in it, and then a single onion. There was no other food. He worked in silence, watching Tiarra, until she leaned down to her mat on the floor. Then he returned to her side to lift the old blanket up to her shoulder and bathe her face again. “You might be more sore tomorrow,” he told her. “But it should grow better after that. May I pray for you?”

“I would that you leave me alone,” she said in a quiet voice. But he returned to the hearth, where soon she could hear his soft prayers. And before long the aroma of roasted onion and flat bread filled the little house.

6

A
full day had passed, but the journey had gone quickly. Tahn knew this terrain. He’d traveled it often as a warrior of Samis, bidden to his dark deeds. Alastair was nestled at the foot of the mountain that had held Samis’s walled stronghold. A mountain stream flowed into it and provided water for the thirsty town.

Already the tension of the place stirred in him, and they had not yet reached the border of the city. He had avoided Alastair like a plague before. He had only set foot in it once since Samis had carried him away half dead in the shock of his burns. And that was the night he’d stolen Vari and the children away from Samis, to get them food even as they were hunted.

“Lord God,” he prayed aloud, “guide our steps. Help my heart. Lead us to find what we seek.”

Lorne looked over at him with understanding. This could not be easy. There were no guarantees for him. He prayed a silent prayer of his own that they find something and not be left with nothing to show for the journey.

Tahn suddenly slowed down and motioned for his friend to stay close. Lorne tensed. Tahn had a sixth sense for trouble, and keen ears as well.

“In the trees ahead,” the dark-haired warrior whispered. “I can’t say how many.”

Lorne started to put his hand on his sword, but Tahn shook his head. “Just follow me.” He drove his horse forward, and Lorne followed, wondering why Tahn did not even try to skirt whoever was waiting.

Three riders blocked their path, and Tahn stopped and nodded to the biggest of them. “Burle,” he said. “It’s been some time since seeing you.”

“It’s the Dorn!” Another man, still concealed in the trees, had said it, and Lorne couldn’t help but smile at the dismay in his voice.

“Come on ’round,” the big man named Burle called to someone. Two other men showed themselves. But there were more. A voice continued in the trees to their left.

“What are you doing here, Tahn?” Burle demanded. “We thought you had yourself another haunt by now.” He turned to Lorne and shook his head. “I would’ve expected to find Vari at your side. What’s the matter, Lorne—you have no one else to ride with?”

The big bandit didn’t seem the least bothered by the warning. “Well, that’s enough time for a bit of a chat! Have the Triletts thrown you out, man? What do you want up here again? Aren’t looking for me, are you?”