The Heretic

wagon. Luther is waiting with the wagon. We’ll go home. Let’s go home. Don’t you want to go home?”

She asked this as if uncertain of the answer, but the girl nodded. Still, she did not smile, but she was crying, which, for Abel, was the best sign he’d seen from her for days that she might, someday, heal from what had been done to her.

As Adele led her away, the girl, who was Loreilei, but would always be the girl to him, turned around and gave him a parting look.

It was a look that was near to being frightening, it was so intense. He did not attempt to fathom the feeling behind it. Then she turned back to her mother, and was gone.

“I have something for you, Captain,” Joab said. Abel turned back to his father.

There was the unmistakable clang of metal upon metal as Joab drew his saber from its scabbard. “Few are permitted such a weapon. Captains and above.”

“Father, it’s yours. As DMC.”

“Not at all,” Joab replied. “I inherited this. It is the Dashian blade.”

“No other captain has one.”

“In Treville, perhaps. You are now a regimental commander,” Joab said. “Plenty of Guardians and Regulars in Lindron carry them.” Joab set the saber on his desk, considered it for a moment in its bare form. Then he unhitched the belt and scabbard, and, re-sheathing the saber, set saber and scabbard together back on the desk. “I always told myself I’d give this to you after you had done something…extraordinary.” He smiled. “And, of course, after you’d made captain, which I have always fully expected.”

“Father, I don’t know what to say,” Abel replied. “It is completely ineffectual against artillery. We had exactly no battles, no encounters even, where we grew close enough for sword-work with the enemy. The only time I might have used it, it would have been impossible to conceal, and concealment was what I needed at the time.”

“I know all this well. Believe me, I’ve experienced it myself,” Joab said. “And yet, I expect you to wear it into battle.”

“Why?”

“For the family? For glory?” Joab said. “Some matters cannot be put into words. Just take it, Abel.”

Your father has a point, lad, Raj said. You should do as he wishes.

“As you command,” Abel replied. He picked up the saber and scabbard and buckled it around his waist.

“That’s that. Now, to practical matters,” Joab said. Abel took a stealthy glance but noticed no tear in his father’s eye. Sentimentality was certainly not one of his father’s weaknesses. “Do you have an idea when they’re coming?”

“Yes, I know exactly. Next new three-moon night.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Joab mused. “You have an estimate of how many?”

“It will be…overwhelming.”

“And where they will strike?”

“No, I don’t know that,” said Abel. He sighed. Not a sigh of regret, but of relief.

Safe, for a moment, to breathe, he thought. To not fear my next breath will see an arrow or bullet in my back.

He smiled. “But I do have an idea of what their thinking might be,” he said. “We left them with a certain map, you see.”

“My father is a complete bastard,” Abel said as he paced across the room. Mahaut sat up in a chair. They were in her sitting room now, the room outside her bedroom, her long sickroom, in Lilleheim. He’d thought he would sleep one night in Hestinga, collapse in the bed in his father’s house, the same room he’d grown up in, with the pallet becoming a cot, with the chest of clothing and his few toys replaced by a respectable wardrobe he’d bought with two months of saved wages. But that was not to be.

And then, rested, he would ride to Lilleheim, leave his dont and sleeping roll at the outpost, and go to see her in the village. Instead, he had ridden to Lilleheim shortly after delivering his report. No rest. He’d barely stopped moving.

His father had ordered him back to the Redlands immediately to take over Sharplett’s command from the outpost at the Upper Cliffs. He was to leave in the morning. He’d managed to secure permission to wait until after breakfast, so he’d bought at least that much time.

He’d tormented himself with fantasies that Edgar Jacobson might be there, having returned from his urgent business at Garangipore, but that was not the case.

She was alone, but for a servant, who absented herself to her quarters quickly enough after he arrived. They sat drinking wine in the cool night air, the room lit by three evenly spaced oil lamps, all profligately lit. The Jacobsons really did have more wealth than they knew what to do with to burn oil like that. He supposed Mahaut was getting used to it, too. She allowed the servant to pour their wine before leaving, but sat upright upon her lounging couch rather than recline in a semi-swoon position, as would most women with her position and means. Abel sat in a leatherback chair that felt solid, comfortable, and far more expensive than anything he could afford.

The change in her was enormous. No longer was she taking faltering steps, but hopping around with plenty of energy, only hampered by the slight limp in her right leg. She wore a saffron linen gown with a red sash drawing it closed. And she’d even applied kohl liner to her eyes and a bit of rouge to her cheeks.

“Did you do that before?” he asked her, he said, pointing to his own eye to illustrate. “I don’t remember.”

“You barely noticed my existence before I was shot,” she told him. “I doubt you remember a thing about me.”

“Not true,” he said. “I did at least know Xander had a sister.”

“I saw you,” she said. “When you were in from scouting. That russet tunic. Xander made fun of it, told me how black was better, but I liked it then. And I like it now.”

“It hides bloodstains well, they say.”

“No doubt,” she said. “You were saying your father was a bastard?”

“He didn’t want me to come here. He doesn’t think this is a good idea.”

“Doesn’t think what is a good idea?”

“You are married.”

“We are friends.”

“Yes,” he said. “And I want to be your lover.”

Now she was taken aback. She flushed, and even in the wan light and even with the rouge, he could see it.

“I am a ruin,” she finally said. “You of all people know that.”

He took a strong swallow of wine. There, I’ve told her, he thought. I’ve brooded for two three-moons over how I would say it, and now it’s out, done.

“An interesting ruin,” he answered her. “You can’t pretend I don’t know. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it.”

“You’ve healed what could be healed,” she said. Mahaut nodded, sipped from her own cup. The lamplight flickered across her face, and it slowly dawned on him.

She’s prettier than I remembered. Much.

“What have you done to yourself, anyway?” he asked her. “You’ve…I’m so tired…it isn’t just the makeup, is it?”

“The hair,” she said. “I don’t have it pulled it back in braids. And the robe. You remember me from when I was wearing Xander’s castoffs, and then from the Lilleheim knoll. I long ago made a truce with fine linen, Abel. Let’s just say smooth linen and I became allies, if not friends. And do you like this bracelet? The gems are northern black onyx.”

She held up her arm, and the robe sleeve fell back to reveal a glittering train of jewels. Her fingernails were painted a subtle red.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to act like they tell you to act,” he said. “I won’t believe it.”

“The problem, my dear Captain, is not with me, but with your imagination. We didn’t run into one another for