this she probably had a good reason.
“I had another vision,” she said and stopped there.
I waited a full minute before I decided she wasn’t just being slow to talk, “A vision of what?”
“We have to leave Mort, there’s no future for us if we keep following this path,” her eyes were beseeching me. I had never seen her look so desperate.
“What did you see?” She didn’t reply so I repeated myself. She had that stubborn look. “I’m not doing anything unless you tell me,” I declared.
That got her. She argued for a minute more before she finally gave up and shouted at me, “I saw your death! Are you happy?! Will you listen to me now?”
I was stunned but I stayed calm. “When?” I asked.
“Less than a year I think, sometime in the spring. That’s why we have to leave, we can’t go back to Washbrook,” she was insistent.
“So it happens at home? How?” The question scared me witless and I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“I won’t tell you that, it’s too hard. There was a war, you died during the battle. I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” She had stopped crying and gave me a hard stare.
“A lot of things can happen during battle, you can’t be sure that things will turn out that way. Who were we fighting?” As far as I knew Lothion had no enemies, within or without, other than some crazed cultists.
“I don’t know who, but I know what will happen. Mort… I know! There’s no avoiding this, I could feel it,” she said.
“The future is never fixed.”
“Nothing I have ever seen has failed to come to pass,” she replied.
“What about the priest poisoning people?” I knew for a fact she had changed that.
“I knew when I saw it that I could prevent it, and I did. Yet everything I saw before and after it still happened. There was no changing what I saw today.” There was a cold certainty in her voice that chilled me.
“Let me think for a bit.” I walked out onto the veranda. I forgot to mention it before, but the view of the gardens was stunning. She started to follow me but I waved her away. It isn’t every day a fellow hears he has only months to live.
I spent close to a half hour out there, watching the trees and listening to the wind. The world seemed a lot more vibrant than it had just a short while ago, so much more worth living for. I wish I could say what moved me to my decision, but it wasn’t a thing of words. I simply knew. To alter my course would be to deny myself, to become someone I didn’t want to be. I went back inside. Penny was already repacking our things.
“Stop that, we’re not leaving.”
The look on her face was heartbreaking. I would have given almost anything to take it away from her, but not this. “You can’t be serious?” she said.
“I am. I can’t abandon them. The duke needs my testimony. The people of Washbrook need our protection. Our parents need us. If I walk away I won’t be the man you love, I’ll be a mockery of him, a sham. I would rather face the future with my head up, even if it means losing… everything.” I was close to weeping myself, but my resolve kept my eyes clear.
Penny stood up and marched up to me, anger written all over her, “What about me? Huh! What about your parents? We can bring them with us! What will I do after you’re dead? Did you think about that!? Did you!?” She was shaking like a tree in a storm. “Do you think memories of your noble intentions will keep me warm at night? Think they will make your parents happy?”
“I won’t change my mind on this.” It hurt to see her like this.
“You selfish bastard!” she swung at me, but I caught her wrist. I would have let her slap me, it might have made me feel better, but I worried she might hurt her hand on my shield. She struggled with me for a moment before jerking her hand away. “I’m not staying. If you’re going to do this you can do it alone. I won’t watch you kill yourself,” her voice was quiet now.
I opened my mouth to reply, I need you. I can’t do this without you, but the words wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t force her into this. I didn’t have the right. She stepped backward as I stood there, with my mouth half open. She was shaking her head, as if to deny what she saw in my eyes. Finally she turned and walked to the door, and a moment later she was gone. She didn’t even slam it.
I sat down on the bed. I couldn’t imagine a day gone more terribly wrong.
Chapter 6
I sat in the room for almost an hour. I wanted to go after her, but given what she had said I couldn’t. If I really was going to die in half a year it wouldn’t be fair to force her to watch. Maybe if she got away now she could find someone else, forget… anything to keep it from hurting her so much. Of course I was an idiot to think that, if the situation had been reversed there’s no way in hell I could have gotten over it in just a few months, if ever.
One thought lightened my mood. If I knew the approximate time and circumstances of my death, then I could be pretty damn sure that I wouldn’t die before then. Seen in that light it meant I was damn near disaster-proof for the next six months. There’s a certain freedom that comes with knowing you can’t die, at least not yet. I tried to focus on that. A knock at the door interrupted my train of thought.
Rising I answered it promptly, to find a servant escorting James, the Duke of Lancaster. He entered as soon as I opened the door. As closed it behind him I could tell he was agitated. In fact, looking at the aura around him he fairly pulsed with rage. I hadn’t seen James that angry since the battle in Lancaster Castle.
He paced the room without speaking, so I left him alone and poured myself a cup of wine. I may not have mentioned it before, but the suite had a very nice wine selection laid out in the central room. “Would you like some?” I asked him.
“Screw the cup, bring me the bottle,” he replied abruptly.
James was not known for drinking to excess, but I damn sure wasn’t going to question him. I handed him the bottle and he turned it up, taking a long draught before sitting down on the couch. I relaxed a bit; now that he was sitting he didn’t seem quite so explosive. “You look like your day has gone about as well as mine,” I ventured.
“I wouldn’t know about that. Did your son just piss all over you and tell you to go to hell?” his tone implied I didn’t have the faintest idea how bad his day had been.
“Marc said that?” I was shocked. Throughout our entire lives he had lived only to please his father, not that he always succeeded.
“No, he didn’t say any of that. He has joined the priests of the Evening Star and disavowed his inheritance, no warning, no word, no reason,” he finished and took another long swig from the bottle.
“He wants to be a priest? What the hell?” I couldn’t imagine it. The last few years his only interests had been women and wine. I still wasn’t sure if I trusted the goddess of the Evening Star anyway. Father Tonnsdale had set a bad precedent for me by poisoning my parents and almost poisoning everyone at Lancaster as well. I tossed my glass back and looked for another bottle. I didn’t think I could pry the first one away from James.
“He wasn’t at the house when I arrived yesterday. He sent me a note saying he would call on me today. Arrogant pup!” He drank some more. At the rate he was going I wondered how long he would last.
“And today?” I sat down on the couch next to him. I had my own bottle now.
“Today he showed up at the door wearing a white robe, told me he had been ‘called’ by the goddess. He gave me this,” he pulled out a crumpled sheet of parchment. I took it from him and scanned the lines. It spelled out in clear words that Marcus of Lancaster was giving up his inheritance and all claim to the duchy of Lancaster.
“And you just let him?” I regretted saying that immediately after the words left my lips. The wine had overridden my normal good sense.
“Hell no! I raged at him! I was so damn angry I wanted to throttle him right there! But he was unmoved. Calm as a ship in the eye of a storm. That made me angrier than anything I think. He just listened to me, then left.” James seemed calmer now, and a little tipsy. “Mordecai, tell me something… and be honest.”
“Certainly your grace.”
“None of that ‘your grace’ shit! I’m asking you as one man to another, as a father to his son’s best friend,” his face was flushed. “Was I a good father? Did I drive my son to this? He always seemed happy, what did I do
