Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 (53 page)

fate.

“Syn-Jern!” Genny cried, her heart breaking. She managed to free one arm and extended it toward her

husband in pleading. “Syn-Jern!"

Demonicus swung into the saddle of his own mount and sawed on the reins. Without looking behind him

to make sure the Tribunal guards followed, he kicked the palfrey into motion.

“Your Worship, what of the captain?” the guard holding the reins to Syn-Jern's horse asked. He glanced

at Anson Loure and met the pleading eyes of the captain's wife.

The priest did not hear the question. His mind was on the torture he planned for Syn-Jern Sorn.

“He was trying to save his lady,” Syn-Jern told the guard. “You would have done the same."

“Shut your mouth, thief!” the guard growled.

“Leave him be, Halton,” another guard suggested. “The captain will resign. Mark my words. He's a

Tribunalist to the core."

“Aye, but he'll hang alongside the Outlaw for letting the woman escape,” Halton predicted. Without

another glance at the captain's wife, the guard urged his mount to forward.

Syn-Jern jerked in the saddle as his horse leapt forward. He twisted, wanting, needing one last look at

his wife. Tears came into his eyes when he saw her stricken face and trembling lips. “I love you,” he

called to her and was rewarded by Genny's cry of uncontrollable anguish.

Angie Loure tried to rouse her husband, but the man lay like a rock on the hard ground. “Anson, wake

up!” she begged. “We have to leave this place.” She looked up at the demon still hovering overhead and

would swear every day of her life the evil thing winked at her. “Anson!"

“Help her,” Tiernan told Kerm and the big man hurried to the Loure's aid.

Angie glanced at the McGregor. When the man nodded in reply to her silent question, she relaxed.

Someone would go after her children and bring them to her and Anson. Only death and dishonor awaited

her husband in Virago and she would have none of that. She smiled at Kerm as he bent over to scoop

Anson from the ground.

“Sure knocked him out cold,” Kerm stated.

“He's got a right hard noggin',” Angie said.

“And will have a right brutal headache I'm thinkin',” Kerm replied.

Genny pulled loose of Tiernan's hold and sank to the ground. She covered her face with her hands and

began to keen. She rocked in her torment, her knees digging into the hard ground, but she did not feel the

pain. Her world had ceased at the moment her husband had been taken from her; what was a physical

pain?

“Syn-Jern,” she whispered over and over again. “Syn-Jern."

Her tears flowed like molten silver down her cheeks and she reached up to swipe at the moisture.

“Syn-Jern, I love you
. I love you!
"

It was a pitiful moan of anguish: the voice of a breaking heart.

“Syn-Jern!"

The Outlaw's woman threw back her head and howled her pain to the heavens.

“Lords alive,” Neevens whispered. “She sounds like a Chalean banshee, she does."

Lin Su went to his mistress and hunkered down beside her. Though he did not touch her, his support

was there and those who came near her were warned off with a scowl.

“It's leaving,” Weir said, and all eyes went to the heavens.

The sky was boiling, the clouds swirling counterclockwise like an inverted cyclone. Raphian opened its

grotesque maw, bellowed, then was sucked through the bruised sky. Almost immediately, the stench of

sulfur dissipated.

“Mount up!” Weir ordered. “We'll go af—"

“No,” Tiernan told him. “We stay where we are."

“The hell we will!” Weir shouted. “I am going after my friend! Do you actually think we'd leave him to

the Tribunal's tender care?"

“Aye!” the men shouted. Kerm's voice was the loudest.

“We'll go back to Ciona and foment a plan, Saur,” Tiernan stressed. “One that won't get the lot of us

killed or jailed alongside him. Demonicus will sign arrest warrants for every man he can put a name to

who was here today. There's not a one of us—myself included—who'll be safe from Tribunal justice."

“Then what do you suggest, Prince Tiernan?” Kerm asked.

“We'll have to leave our countries,” Tiernan said sadly. “Head for Chrystallus or Ionary. Anywhere the

Tribunal does not hold sway."

“Our families, too?” someone asked.

“Aye,” Tiernan sighed. “Your families, too.” He hung his head, knowing he could never go back to the

Court of the Winds at Boreas Keep. He would not endanger his brothers or his father, the King. He, too,

was an outlaw, now.

“Didn't think on this happening,” Kerm said, voicing the thoughts of the other men. “Didn't think we'd

have to leave Virago."

“Until we have Syn-Jern with us,” Weir vowed, “we ain't going nowhere!"

[Back to Table of Contents]

Patrick had dreamed of Holy Dale Manor many times over the years. Long before he ever met Syn-Jern

Sorn, he'd had dreams of the country estate and the cave beneath the cellar. He knew of the hidden

excavation in the mountain beyond where horses and men could be housed and had been the one to tell

Weir of its existence.

It would have been easy for the Ionarian to find his way through the cave to the trapdoor that led into the

false cellar, but he did not enter Holy Dale that way. He walked boldly through the front door, climbed

the stairs to the upper floor, and entered the bedroom of Rosa-Lynn Sorn.

“Come to slit my throat, McGregor?” the woman asked. She was seated at the window, her back to the

door.

“I would like nothing better, but I've other plans for you,” Patrick told her.

Rosa-Lynn turned her head to look at the man whose voice she did not recognize and was stunned. At

first, she thought it was Syn-Jern standing in the doorway, but the eyes were wrong. “Who are you?” she

whispered.

“Does it matter?” he asked.

She stared at the stranger for a long moment, then shrugged indifferently. “I suppose not.” She turned

back to the window.

“Feeling sorry for yourself, Duchess?” Patrick sneered.

“No,” she replied and was surprised to realize she had spoken the truth. What she felt was a numbness

that had turned her cold. “For the man I've betrayed thrice now.” She hung her head and buried her face

in her hands. “Whose life is forfeit because of my selfish ego."

“Do you want to help him?"

“It's too late."

“There is a way."

Rosa-Lynn sighed. “There is no way. He is deep within the bowels of the Tribunal Hall, my friend. No

one can get to him."

“His priest can."

She slowly lifted her head and turned her bleak gaze to him. “For what purpose?"

Patrick stuck his hand into the pocket of his jacket. He withdrew a small vial made of ruby glass. “This is

Maiden's Briar,” he said. “It is the most potent poison in the world."

“You would kill him?” she asked incredulously.

Patrick Kasella raised his chin. “I would rather see him die a painless death than suffer the tortures that

await him come morning.” He went to her and stood looking down, the pain evident in his eyes. “They

will brutalize him, Rosa-Lynn. They will hurt him in ways you can not begin to understand.” His voice

broke and he had to stop. Squeezing his eyes shut, he paid no heed to the tears falling down his cheeks.

“We can not allow that,” she said softly, recognizing love when it confronted her.

“No,” Patrick replied, “we can not."

“How do we stop it?"

“According to Tribunal law, he can have one visitor on the night before he is executed. It can only be a

family member,” Patrick explained. “You are his only living family save Genny and it would be folly to

allow her to visit him."

The fate of Syn-Jern's wife meant nothing to Rosa-Lynn. “You want me to go to him and give him...”

She pointed at the vial lying in Patrick's palm. “That?"

He shook his head. “I would not ask it of you, Lady. I will do it."

“How?” she asked incredulously.

“Take me with you as your spiritual advisor."

“Me?” she snorted. “I have no spiritual advisor."

“Does the Tribunal know that?” Patrick challenged.

Rosa-Lynn thought on it for a moment, then shook her head. “I see no reason why they should, but the

priests who visit here are known by the guards, I'm sure. They would ask questions you may not be able

to answer."

“They'll ask me no questions, Lady,” he replied. “I guarantee it."

“And just how will you do that, Milord?” she asked.

“I will dress as one of the Brethren of the Mists. No guard would dare come close enough to question

me."

Rosa-Lynn shivered, thinking of the leprous clerics from the Isle of Dayle. She stared at him, her

appreciative gaze wandered over his handsome face, then she shook her head. “It will not work. Even

were we to rub floured water over your face, your male beauty would shine like a new copper coin.” She

shook her head again. “No, it would not work."

Patrick laid the vial in her lap then reached once more inside his jacket. This time he withdrew one of the

many masks he'd carved over the years and slipped it over his face. “Even if I looked like this?” he

asked.

Rosa-Lynn recoiled, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes wide, her throat clogged with bile, she

pushed his hand from his face. “Put that away!” she hissed, the mask far too real for her peace of mind.

“It will work,” he told her. “The guards will take one look at this gruesome thing and not come within a

mile of me."

She swallowed the bitter vetch in her mouth and looked down at the mask dangling from his fingertips.

She studied it for a long while, then turned to him. “It might work,” she said.

“It has to work,” Patrick insisted.

Rosa-Lynn cocked her head to one side. “You love him that much?” she asked.

Patrick did not hesitate. “With all my heart and all my soul for as long as I draw breath and even when I

do not.” He smiled sadly. “Even into the next world and beyond,” he whispered.

“Yet you would do this to him?” she asked, touching the vial.

“I can not bear the thought of him suffering in any way,” Patrick answered. “If I can prevent it, I will

move heaven and earth to do so."

She lifted her hand and laid it gently against Patrick's cheek. “Would that I could find a love so pure and

so selfless.” She sighed. “I have a feeling such is the love he bears this woman Genny."

“You would be right in assuming so,” he replied. He reached up to cover her hands with his. “Will you

help me, Lady?’ he asked.

“Aye,” she answered. “It is the least I can do for him."

* * * *

Syn-Jern lay on his side in the cell, his knees drawn up to help ward off the cold and the pain from the

repeated blows that had broken at least two of his ribs. His breathing was ragged and the musty smell of

the hay on that he lay made it even more difficult for him to draw air into his bruised lungs.

They had beaten him so severely, he was disoriented, his thinking clouded. The dank cell spun each time

he tried to lift his head. Although they had pummeled his body and kicked him twice in the head, his face

was untouched.

Deliberately so.

“Do not hit him in the face,” Demonicus had ordered as he sat watching the beating. “I want no visible

proof that he has been misused."

Why that was, Syn-Jern could not guess. Surely the priest did not think the people of Wixenstead

stupid. Each of them knew what went on behind the thick doors of the Tribunal Hall's interrogation

facility. Hadn't Trace Sorn's battered and broken body been hoisted up the scaffolding at the Bone Yard

for everyone to see?

“Not his face!” Demonicus had bellowed when Rynen's fist plowed into the side of Syn-Jern's head.

The blow had brought the stars down from the heavens and Syn-Jern had passed out.

He shifted on the straw, gasping as pain broke over every portion of his ill-used body. The floor beneath

him was wet with his own urine and the cloying feel of it on his britches was almost more than he could

bear. When he heard the door open down the corridor, he groaned, thinking his tormentors were

returning to beat him again.

There was a strange scraping sound, then the clink of keys against the iron door.

“You've visitors, Outlaw!” a guard said nervously as he unlocked the cell door.

With the room shifting around him, Syn-Jern could not make out the faces of the two people who

entered his cell. The faces kept swirling out of focus and he finally closed his eyes to keep the nausea the

motion brought from getting the better of him.

“Would you like to stay with us, sergeant?” one of the visitors asked.

The guard backed away from the priest. “No offense, Your Grace, but I've got things to see to!"

Syn-Jern opened his eyes and tried desperately to focus for he'd recognized Patrick's voice. “Pat...” he

began, only to have something coarse cover his mouth.

“Be still, you poor misguided creature,” Patrick said.

“Argh!” the guard whined when he saw the leper put his vile hand—covered with burlap though it

was—over the prisoner's mouth. Shuffling away as fast as he could, he shuddered at the thought of

touching Sorn now that one of the Brethren had laid hands to him.

“He's gone,” Rosa-Lynn whispered just as the door to the interrogation room clanged shut.

“You know what to do,” Patrick told her.

Rosa-Lynn nodded. She left the cell and hurried to the locked door through which the guard had exited.

“Open up!” she demanded, banging on the door. “Don't leave me in here with that foul beast!” She