David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

“I hope so,” Myrrima said.

Now Iome retrieved the jewelry chest from under the bed and withdrew her mother’s crown and the most valuable pieces she could see. Just in case, she told herself. These pieces she wrapped in a pillowcase, thinking it would fit nicely in her saddlebags.

As she finished, someone—a girl-shouted desperately out in the courtyard before the castle. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone here?”

Myrrima opened the oriel window. Iome leaned over the sill to look down.

A girl of twelve, a serving girl by the look of her, wearing a brown frock, saw Iome and cried, “Help! Your Highness, I was hoping to find one of the King’s Guard. Milady Opinsher has locked herself in her apartments and won’t come out!”

Lady Opinsher was an elderly dame who lived in the city’s oldest and finest neighborhood. Iome knew her well.

She knew for a fact that Gaborn had Chosen her when she presented herself at their wedding. Certainly Lady Opinsher had heard the Earth King’s warning.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Iome said, wondering at what trouble this portended.

She and Myrrima hurried down to the bailey, with Sir Donnor and the Days falling in step behind. The girl climbed fearfully onto Myrrima’s steed, and they raced the mounts down through the King’s Gate, into the city, and along the narrow streets toward Dame Opinsher’s manor.

As they raced, Iome glanced up, caught sight of a child in an open window. It was late in the morning, she realized, and still not everyone had obeyed her husband’s call.

At Dame Opinsher’s manor, they stopped at the porte cochère , where white columns held up a roof above an enclosed courtyard. At the front door of the manor, two guardsmen in fine enameled plate stood at arms.

“What is the meaning of this?” Iome asked them. “Shouldn’t you have left by now?”

“We beg your indulgence,” one guard said, an old fellow with clear blue eyes and a silver moustache that drooped over his mouth. “But we are sworn into the service of Lady Opinsher, and she bade us remain at our posts. That’s why we sent the girl.”

“May we pass?” Sir Donnor asked threateningly, as if unsure what the guardsmen’s orders were. If the woman had gone far into insanity, she might have ordered the guards to kill all comers.

“Of course,” the elder guard said. He stepped aside.

Iome dismounted, hurried into the house with the serving girl to lead the way.

Lady Opinsher’s manor was far newer than the King’s Keep. While the keep had been built two thousand years ago to serve a lord and his knights, the manor here was less than eight hundred years old, and had been built at leisure during a time of prosperity. It was also far more opulent and stately than was the King’s Keep. Iome imagined that it was more like a soaring palace at the Courts of Tide. The entrance had clear windows above it, so that sunlight shone into a great room, making its way down past a silver chandelier to fall onto intricate tile mosaic on the floor. The walls were all paneled with polished wood. Fine lamps rested on tall stands.

The servant led Iome’s retinue up a great staircase. Iome felt terribly self-conscious. She was wearing boots and riding clothes, and in such a fine manor, she should have been able to hear the rustle of her own skirts as she climbed the stairs.

When they reached the second floor, the servant led Iome to a huge oaken door, intricately carved with Dame Opinsher’s heraldic emblem.

Iome tried to open the door, but found it locked, so she pounded with her bare fists and shouted, “Open in the name of the Queen.”

When that brought no response, Sir Donnor pounded harder.

Iome heard the whisper of feet against stone, but still the dame did not open her door.

“Get an axe and we’ll chop down the door,” Iome said loudly to Sir Donnor.

“Please, Your Highness, don’t,” Dame Opinsher begged from behind her barricade.

Sir Donnor halted as the dame unlocked her door, opened it a crack. The woman was elderly, her face covered in wrinkles, but she still had a slim figure. With her endowment of glamour still intact, the dame was a fine-looking woman, though she seldom had set foot from her house in the past three years.

“What may I do for you, Your Highness?” the dame asked with a stiff curtsy.

“You heard the Earth King’s warning?” Iome asked.

“I did,” the dame answered.

“And?”

“I beg to be left behind,” Dame Opinsher said.

Iome shook her head in wonder. “Why?”

“I am old,” the dame said “My husband is dead; my sons all died in your grandfather’s service. I have nothing left to live for. I do not want to leave my house.”

“It is a fine house,” Iome said. “And it should be here when you return.”

“For eight hundred years my family has lived here,” the dame said. “I don’t want to go. I won’t go. Not for you or anyone else.”

“Not for yourself?” Iome asked. “Not for your king?”

“My mind is made up,” the dame said.

I could command Sir Donnor to drag her out, fight her guards, Iome realized. She doubted that the old gentlemen would give Sir Donnor much trouble, for he was said to be a fine warrior. Borenson had fought him, and promoted him to captain in the King’s Guard.

“There is a purpose to life,” Iome said “We do not live for ourselves alone. You may be old, but you still may serve others. If there is any wisdom or kindness or compassion left in you, you could still serve others.”

“No,” Dame Opinsher answered. “I’m afraid not.”

“Gaborn looked into your heart. He saw what’s in you.” Dame Opinsher was known for her charity, and Iome believed that she understood why Gaborn had Chosen the old woman. “He saw your courage and compassion.”

With a dry chuckle, Dame Opinsher said, “I ran fresh out of such traits this morning. If my serving girl could buy them in the market, I’d have her fetch them. No,” she said forcefully, “I’ll not leave!”

She closed her door.

Iome felt dismayed Perhaps the old woman did feel compassion, but did not believe that tomorrow could be better than today, or that her own fife was worth struggling for, or that she had anything of import to give. Iome could only guess at the woman’s motives.

“You may stay, then,” Iome said to the door. She would not drag a woman kicking from her own home. “But you will release your servants. You’ll not let them die, too. They must flee.”

“As you will, Your Highness,” the dame answered. Hei voice came through the door weakly.

Iome turned to give the command, but the serving girl was already running, glad to escape. Iome stared at Myrrima for a moment. The dark-eyed beauty was thoughtful.

“Even your husband can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Myrrima offered. “It’s not his fault. It’s not ours.”

“Sir Donnor,” Iome said, “go to the city guard and have them search every building in the city. Find out how many more like her there are. Warn them in my name that they must depart.”

“Immediately,” Sir Donnor answered, and he turned and hustled off.

“That will take hours,” Myrrima said after he was gone,

Iome understood the hint of a question in Myrrima’s voice. She was asking, “And if we do this, when do we leave?”

Iome bit her lip, glanced at her Days as if searching for an answer. The matronly old woman held silent, as usual. “We have fast horses,” Iome said. “We can run farther in an hour than a peasant can in a day.”

Iome found the wizard Binnesman down at an inn, as he had promised. The inn, a reputable old establishment called the Boar’s Hoard, was the largest in the city, and the cellars beneath it were a veritable maze. Huge oaken vats exuded a yeasty scent, and dried alecost hung in bundles from the rafters. The place smelled also of mice, though feral cats darted everywhere as Iome, Myrrima, Sir Donnor, and Iome’s Days wandered among piles of empty wineskins and bins filled with turnips and onions and leeks, past winepresses and barrels of salted herring and eels, between moist sacks of cheese and bags of flour.