So she asked again, “Why don’t you smile anymore?” and settled herself to wait in silence, hoping the question’s weight would be enough to prompt him. Minutes went by as they rode and he performed the ceaseless scan of the landscape, searching for threats.
Perhaps a mile later, he spoke, a single sentence that negated any further attempts at conversation. “Because I’m not happy.” His voice carried just enough breath to make it to her ears.
A few hours later the road entered a copse of trees, and Fess’s gaze sharpened as he searched the woods for threats. Nothing stirred beneath the canopy except for squirrels or other small game, but Fess jerked, facing a bend in the road.
“Someone’s coming.”
A moment later she caught the percussive sound of plodding hoofbeats and the creak of a wagon. Fess pulled to a halt and signaled her to do the same and they waited. She measured time by the call of birds until the wagon came into sight, a rickety affair pulled by a horse that should have seen its last pasture long ago. The man on top held the reins with one hand. His other arm hung useless at his side.
“He’s wearing Aille’s colors,” she said.
The man’s gaze came up off the road just once before guiding his horse to the right. He gave no other sign that he’d noticed her and Fess or that he cared.
Toria put her horse in his path, forcing him to stop. “Soldier.” He lifted his head, but his eyes hardly saw her. “Are you come from the Darkwater?”
His head dipped in a single nod. “Aye.”
“What happened?”
Enough of his abstraction fell away for him to laugh caustically. “Our idiot of a commander received his first and last lesson. Darkness belongs to them.” He didn’t bother to elaborate.
The rasp of his laughter could have peeled bark from a tree. “That sort of sentiment doesn’t usually go over well with officers,” she said.
He smiled at her, but behind his eyes she saw horror working to get free. He turned to poke one of the bodies stacked behind him. “You don’t mind d’ya, sir, if I offer an opinion on yer glorious leadership?” The driver jerked as if at an unexpected response and bent to put his ear close to the dead man’s mouth.
He straightened to leer at her. “He says he doesn’t mind.” He laughed. “We’ve had quite the conversations, we have, the commander and I. An idiot in the field he might be, but there’s no denyin’ he’s a great listener. Always gives me his undivided attention, he does.”
Fess moved forward and extended his hand. “Fair travels to you, soldier.”
A bit of the soldier’s frantic leer faded as he accepted the gesture. “You’re riding into a killing field, lad, and no doubt.” Without warning, he spun in his seat and struck the dead officer with his fist. “Against King Rymark’s instruction, the captain there thought it would be clever to dress us in black and cover our faces in charcoal to scout the forest at night. Idiot. Even if those in the forest couldn’t see us, we wouldn’t have been able to see them either, as if we could aim our bows by sound alone. We were slaughtered, two hundred men and women, except for me. My ma always told me I was lucky. I guess I had enough blood coming out of my arm that they figured I’d bleed to death.” He shrugged. “Or maybe they’d had their fill.”
She nodded. An unhealthy flush marred the man’s complexion. “How many of them came out of the forest against you?”
The soldier’s expression hardened. “Two.”
Fess pointed at the pile of bodies. “What’s so special about these eight that you have to cart them back to Cynestol?”
The soldier shook his head. “They’re nobles. They may be stupid and arrogant enough to get everyone in their command killed, but an accident of birth means they get carted back to the city instead of buried in some unmarked grave up north. Can’t have them touching common men, not even in death.”
Memories of war and dying fought to escape from behind the doors where she’d locked them away. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Maledetto.” He laughed.
Toria nodded to him. “As you say. Find a healer at the next village for your arm. It’s infected.”
His eyes narrowed. “And how would you know that?”
“It stinks,” she said.
With his one good arm, he shook the reins and the horse continued its slow plod south. Toria watched him go. “If he doesn’t get healing for that arm, he won’t make it back to Cynestol, whatever his name is.”
“He told you his name,” Fess said.
She pulled a deep breath through her nose, hoping to erase the stench of death from the cart, but it still hung in the air. “Maledetto means cursed.”
Chapter 13
After we gained the safety of the walls of Cynestol, most of our escort peeled off in ones and twos until we rode in the company of only Hradian and eight of the cosp, half of whom were of an age with Rory. Hradian’s presence managed to get us past most of the small-jobbed, small-minded functionaries who considered it their mission to keep the common man away from the cathedral and the Archbishop. Our journey was marked by a succession of clergy who rose in rank the farther we penetrated into the cathedral. When we arrived at the Archbishop’s “office”—a word that was far too small to convey the proportions of the actuality—Hradian and his soldiers withdrew as if they’d been about to step on sacred ground and be struck dead for it.
Bolt stopped short at the sight of the Archbishop’s secretary. “He’s new.”
“Is that bad?” I asked.
He sighed. “It probably means Amicus has died. I don’t know why I’m surprised. He was older than I. Don’t grow old, Willet. You won’t like what comes of it.”
My circumstances as one of the Vigil, any of whom might ultimately
