Sean Russell - The Shadow Roads

A dozen feet off, a small company of men-at-arms had stoppedto water their horses. They wore the livery of the House of Vast and were,almost certainly, searching for Carl and Jamm.

The dawn had only just broken, the coarse grass slick withdew, the ground beneath them a cushion of moss. They had slept here for a fewshort hours, Jamm unable to continue. Their stolen mount had been abandoned inthe night, set loose in a field with some other horses in hopes that she wouldnot be discovered for some hours yet.

We should have cut her throat and left her in a wood, Carlthought, somewhere she wouldn’t be found for a day or two. If she were foundthat day, Vast would know where to send his men-at-arms. Escape would be nearlyimpossible with Jamm so injured. What a beating he had taken!

But even so, the little thief’s instincts remained intact.He reasoned that the Duke would assume they would go to Kel Renne. Best to dosomething unexpected, that was the rule Jamm lived by-do the unexpected. Sothey set out for the river, hoping to cross over and make their way toWestbrook. The Isle was large enough that Vast could not keep it all under hiseye at once. And Jamm was clever enough to keep them out of sight for some timeyet, unless luck turned on them-which it might at any moment if the little mancoughed.

“They won’t have gone this far,” one of the men-at-arms saidfirmly. He had a deep voice, thick and heavy like the rumble of distantthunder. “That little thief couldn’t go more than half a league, even onhorseback. We saw to that.”

The others laughed.

Carl saw Jamm bury his mouth in the sleeve of his jacket.

Don’t cough , Carl willed him. Don’t cough.. .

“Who’s this, then?” one of the others asked.

Carl heard the men all rise to their feet, swords slippingfrom scabbards.

“Ah,” the deep-voiced one said,” ’tis only some Renne,hoping to find the last few men of Innes to hone their blades on.”

Carl dared not look at his guide, fearing what he would see.

The Duke’s men greeted the Renne.

“So what game has Carl A’denne been playing?” one of thenewcomers asked.

Carl could hear the stir of excitement among the horsesbeing watered as the other horses appeared. The grass stirred over him in thebreeze, and a wren scolded. He felt like it was only a matter of time, perhapsonly a moment, before they were discovered. Jamm could not run, and how farwould Carl get, chased by mounted men? He closed his eyes and tried to calm hisheart. It was over. They had only this last moment of freedom.

“Seems he was spying for the Prince of Innes, or so we surmise.But he must have been playing both sides. He came over the canal the othernight with a little thief guiding him. Someone knew the thief by name, and Vastsoon had the story from him. A’denne and his thieving friend slipped away bynight, a sure sign of his guilt, I say.”

“Well,” the Renne said, “we’ll soon have the story from A’dennehimself.”

“Not if we find him first,” the Duke’s man growled. His companyall laughed.

“We’ve been ordered to bring him to Lord Kel alive,” theRenne said.

“We’ve been promised a reward to bring back his head andleave his body for the crows,” the man of Innes answered. There was silence fora moment, and Jamm coughed.

He’d muffled the sound as best he could, but not wellenough.

“What was that?” one of the men asked.

Carl heard blades being drawn, followed by footsteps throughthe long grass.

Jamm looked at him, eyes wide. He knew he couldn’t run.Would the men of Innes kill them before the Renne could intercede?

Suddenly something shot through the grass.

“There!” someone yelled.

Carl rose to his hands and knees, prepared to fight or run.

A small pig flew out of the grass onto the road, and the menof Innes took after it. Swords flashed, and the pig squealed and screamed. Thelittle animal dodged this way and that, as the men flailed away at it, finallylanding a blow and spraying them with blood. The pig still ran, and a secondblow brought it down, but it was up again, struggling forward on three legs. Itonly went a few feet before one of the shouting men raised a sword over hishead, two-handed, and finished the little animal. The men were all laughingand pointing at the swordsmen who’d missed.

A wind sprang up then, combing through the grass. Carl andJam went crawling off, the sound of their progress lost in the wind and thecruel hissing of the fields.

Dease noted each of his visits to Lady Llyn Renne in theback of a book. He did this so that he could not lie to himself about thefrequency of their talks. There were reasons of decorum that would justify thisscrupulous accounting-you simply didn’t visit a lady too often unless you werebetrothed. But that wasn’t really his concern; he didn’t want to appearfoolish before Llyn. Everyone in the castle knew that she loved Toren. It wasDease’s fondest hope that she would one day see the futility of her feelingsfor Toren, then Dease might woo and win her affections.

But now he had heard another rumor; while he was away, Llynhad often been visited by Lord Carral Wills, and she had allowed him into hergarden and met with him face-to-face.

A feeling like falling came over him, and he could not helpbut shut his eyes. The darkness brought no comfort. Unlike Dease, Lord Carralwas blind. The minstrel could never look upon Llyn’s scarred face. She did notknow that the people who loved her cared not at all about her appearance, nomatter how terrible she thought it herself.

Dease didn’t care, that was certain. The longing to be inher presence, to be near to her, was at times unbearable. He would lie awakenights thinking of nothing else. He dreamed of Llyn, of seeing her face forthe first time. In some dreams she was hideous beyond bearing-and he would runaway, down long endless hallways. In other dreams her beauty was dazzling.Sometimes he dreamed that he traveled far, and against great odds, found a curefor her burns, and carried it back to her.

But these were dreams. In real life, he kept count of howoften he visited so he should not appear too foolish-like an infatuated boy.

A maid curtsied him out onto the balcony, where he stood,gazing over the walled garden. By day, he had never seen it. By night it was amysterious place, filled with shadows and unrecognizable shapes in shades ofgray. Lavender was the scent of the place, and a small tinkle of running waterwas its voice. That, and the sighs and whispers of the trees.

Dease gazed down into the shadows, starlight glinting offthe water of a small pool. He struggled with the feelings inside of him, as healways did in this place.

“Ah, Lord Dease,” came Llyn’s lovely voice. It stabbed intohim like a blade-then the pain dissolved into an ache.

“Lady Llyn,” Dease said softly.

“I cannot tell you how happy I was to hear that you’d returned.”

“And that Toren had returned with me, no doubt.”

A small hesitation. “Yes … I was happy to hear of Toren’sreturn, as well.”

Movement caught his eye. She was there, beneath the thin foliageof a lace maple. Her famous blond hair caught his eye, and he remembered thescent of it-that night they’d danced, she in costume and carefully masked.

He shut his eyes a moment and breathed in the scent of lavender.

“Lord Carral is a guest of Castle Renne, I’ve been told?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft and tentative. “He hasbecome our ally, as you’ve no doubt heard.”

“So I understand.” Dease read much into her voice, into thepauses, the little inflections, the warmth with which she said a name. Later hewould revisit each little nuance, wondering what they meant. Pondering themover and over, until he had made so many interpretations of her words that hewould finally lose all sense of what she might have truly meant.