Legends of Dimmingwood 02:Betrayal of Thieves (11 page)

Throughout the meal, Seephinia didn’t join us but stood off to one side, ready to wait on us like the servant Hadrian insisted she wasn’t. The priest whispered it had to do with custom. River people had a lengthy set of rules by which they lived their lives and a great part of these centered around particular behaviors toward guests. The promise of hospitality was not easily achieved by strangers, but once it was attained, a visitor could be assured of receiving every comfort and respect.

Despite this reassuring information, the river woman continued to fix me with a cold eye. I remained at a loss as to what I had done to deserve such hostility but shrugged it off. As long as she didn’t poison my fish, she could dislike me all she wanted. And at least her disapproval was limited to me and, to a lesser extent, Fleet. For Hadrian she clearly had a great admiration.

Conversation during dinner finally came around to Terrac. I nearly choked on my sweetbread when Fleet brought up the subject, for my thoughts had become so preoccupied with the bow I’d almost allowed myself to lose sight of the more urgent matter. I spilled out the story now of the Fist’s ambush and Terrac’s capture, ending with his condition the last time I laid eyes on him, as I was forced to leave him in the hands of the Praetor’s men. Hadrian heard me out and I finished my tale with a plea that he aid me in discovering the fate of my friend. Assuming Terrac was still alive, I would need help in bringing him out of captivity.

Asking the priest for help didn’t grate on my pride as it once would have. I seemed to be growing accustomed to begging.

By the time my tale was over and I fell silent, my throat was hoarse from too much speaking. I had no idea how much time had passed, but, during it, the meal had been consumed and Seephinia had disappeared, carrying off the remains of our repast. Flies were droning over the drips of syrup that had been spilled across the tabletop. Fleet, who had already heard my story, displayed little interest in the retelling and was leaning back from the table looking bored and mildly sulky. The latter was, I supposed, due to the river woman’s departure.

Hadrian looked thoughtful, gazing into the depths of the mug in his hands, and while I awaited his response, I agonized over second thoughts. Had I been mistaken to reveal so much of my plans him? Just because he had once offered to tutor me in magic didn’t mean he wanted to become entangled in illegal activities. After all, he was a priest of the Light and, beyond that, an honest man.

I looked up from the tabletop to find his eyes on me. “So...” he said slowly, and the word hung in the air until I felt like squirming. “You are asking me to aid you in plucking an arrested criminal from the grip of justice?”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t as it sounds. I know what you think of the band, and I wouldn’t ask you to become involved in anything to do with Rideon or the rest. But you must believe me when I say Terrac isn’t one of us. Not really. He’s just an innocent boy who would be a priest had he not somehow gotten swept up in things that weren’t his concern.”

Hadrian appeared not to hear. He said stiffly, “I think you have misunderstood my previous offer to help. I believed you were here for instruction and perhaps council on a difficult point.”

I grimaced, but he didn’t speak of magic or the bow.

“However,” he continued, “it now seems that wasn’t your intention. So let me make this very clear—to both of you.” His gaze swung to encompass Fleet as well. “I want nothing to do with any of your dishonest activities. My offer to instruct you, Ilan, was as simple as it sounded. I never meant to suggest I would aid you in endeavors stretching beyond the bounds of the law. I trust we now understand one another.”

He leaned back, removing his hands from the tabletop and his voice became suddenly brisk. “I had thought to invite the pair of you to stay for a few days, but I think now it would be for the best if you both left right away.”

I was halfway to my feet before he’d finished speaking.

“Come, Fleet,” I commanded. “I thought we might find a champion of justice here, but I see I made a misjudgment.”

I bowed formally to the priest, not caring that the gesture came off clumsy for my having never tried it before.

“My mistake, Honored One,” I said. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time and mine—and more importantly, Terrac’s, for I’m sure he has little of it left. I bid you good day.”

I was all eagerness to be gone from the place. It was suddenly unspeakably galling that I had accepted this man’s hospitality and eaten bread at his table, food for which I had no way to pay him. The restricting confines of common decency forbade even planting a knife through his ribs on my way out the door. But I was most furious of all with myself for having let down my guard long enough to trust this comparative stranger in the first place.

I strode to the doorway and although I heard Fleet nearly upsetting the table in his haste to scurry after me, I didn’t slow for him. We were nearly out when I recalled I had left my bow behind and was forced to make an undignified about-face to march back for it, detracting heavily from the dramatic exit I had in mind.

As I grabbed the bow, Hadrian cut into my furious thoughts. “You can leave as angry as you please. But I’ll ask you not to insult me as you go by spouting sanctimonious lies about championing justice. I believe I know a thing or two on the subject, having been a Blade of that order before you were born.”

“Were you even listening to a word I said?” I asked. “My friend is innocent. He’s been mistakenly assumed guilty of crimes he never committed and is in danger of suffering a punishment he doesn’t deserve—if he hasn’t already. If that doesn’t constitute a miscarriage of justice, I don’t know what does.”

The stress of the past days came rushing in on me and my anger gave way to despair, so I stopped short of the insults I was about to shout in the priest’s face. Instead, I sighed, scrubbed a weary hand across my face, and said, “But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have the right of it and I should just stand back and allow my friend to suffer while I escape and live free for another day. What makes Terrac’s fate my responsibility? He had just as much chance to escape as I.”
Except that he had come after me that day to say farewell
. If not for me, he would never have run into the Fists. That made all the difference.

“You truly believe in this boy’s innocence,” Hadrian said quietly. “You care about him.”

“Yes.”

“And you seek no gain for yourself?”

“None,” I said.

“That is very un-scoundrelish of you. In fact, you’re in danger of doing a thing some would call noble,” he said.

“I’m glad you find that amusing. But what am I standing here for?”

I would have turned away but suddenly Hadrian was blocking my path.

“Don’t be so hasty,” he said. “Put away your bow, sit down, and we’ll talk things over carefully. This time, I promise to reserve judgment.”

As he spoke, he moved to take the bow from my hands. I tightened my grip, surprised at the flare of possessiveness I felt at another person attempting to handle the weapon.

Hadrian noticed and dropped his voice so that not even Fleet could hear. “I’m not forgetting there are other things we need to talk about as well,” he said quietly.

CHAPTER TEN

We spent the remainder of the daylight hours and sat up late into the night discussing Terrac’s situation and what should be done about it. It didn’t take me long to realize enlisting the aid of the priest may have been a mistake. At this point, it appeared Hadrian might do our cause more harm than good. Once I had convinced him Terrac’s worst crime was to become involved with the wrong people, he was nearly as determined as I to see him spared a wrongful fate. Unfortunately, his ideas on how to go about the rescue were a little more legal than anything I had in mind. He wanted to meet with the Praetor, have Terrac brought forward for a chance to defend himself, and bring me out to shed light on the truth.

He seemed oblivious to the fact the only witness to the boy’s innocence was a bedraggled woods thief who, the moment she admitted her association with the band of Rideon the Red Hand, would be clapped in irons herself. I wanted to save Terrac all right but not at the cost of
my
neck. For that matter, I wouldn’t endanger the band either and it was certain I would be doing so if I complied with Hadrian’s plan. Maybe in the world Hadrian liked to imagine, the authorities would gratefully accept the testimony of an admitted outlaw and allow me walk free. But this wasn’t that place. The nearest authority in the region was the Praetor, a man not known for his tolerance of outlaws, particularly those associated with the Red Hand. I didn’t want to imagine what Rideon’s reaction would be if he knew I was even contemplating such an action.

Fleet promoted an altogether different approach. I should storm the dungeons and slaughter the guards, rescue Terrac, and carry him back to the safety of Dimmingwood. Or, even more brilliant, I could force my way into the keep at the heart of the city, murder any opposition, and take the very Praetor prisoner, holding him on threat of death until he ordered my friend freed. I would be carrying all this out alone, of course, because Fleet would have no involvement with either plan, despite both having been his idea.

What none of us wanted to mention was the possibility all our planning could prove to be for nothing. We couldn’t be certain Terrac was even alive, considering the last time I saw him he’d had an arrow in his back.

We finally decided our first action must be to learn exactly what had befallen him since then and, once his position was known, we could build our plans from there. Here our consensus ended, because no one could put forth a reasonable suggestion on how this information should be attained. The priest and the street thief were at odds on every possibility, and as the night drew on, I developed a splitting headache from listening to their bickering. The candles the river woman lit around the room had burned low and still Fleet and Hadrian worried at one another’s plans like a pair of dogs at opposite ends of a bone. Seephinia had long since retired.

My eyelids drooped, the voices of my companions growing distant, as the failing light carved deep shadows across their faces. I leaned my head against the wall, sleep crept in to claim me, and I slipped blissfully into a place where cool forest shadows enveloped me and the only sounds were the singing of crickets and the familiar rustling of leaves and creaking treetops swaying overhead.

***

The next three days found the situation scarcely changed. I eventually talked Hadrian out of his foolish plan and together we persuaded Fleet to see the flaws in his schemes as well. We decided Fleet would spend the days hanging around the taverns in Selbius, picking up gossip from off-duty city guardsmen frequenting those places, as well as pursuing information from his less reputable connections in the city. He didn’t speak of it, but I knew he was also checking the pillories in the market square daily and that he made it a regular practice to walk past the east bridge in the common district, where executions routinely took place.

We were living in uneasy times, and the Praetor believed the only hope of curbing the rising lawlessness of the province lay in taking swift and decisive measures against crime. Light pickpockets were strung up alongside violent criminals with little distinction between the two and, from what I heard, on little more evidence than rumor or a doubtful witness or two standing up at a mock trial. The more I considered these things, the more the fear grew within me that I had arrived too late for Terrac.

Hadrian did his part. Having made it clear from the beginning he had no intention of going through illegal channels to restore Terrac to freedom, he nonetheless set about the endeavor in his own way with a will. Like Fleet, he put the word out among a number of friends in the city, ones he trusted to be discreet, that certain parties would be interested to know of the condition and exact whereabouts of a priest boy named Terrac, suspected to be under the custody of the Praetor’s Fists. He also enlisted the help of Seephinia and a small number of others in the river folk community. I don’t know how he persuaded them to take an interest in our affairs, because they usually bore nothing but contempt for drylanders. But they nurtured an inexplicable respect for Hadrian and at his request agreed to brave the noise and confines of the city, where they kept their eyes and ears open for news of Terrac.

What was I doing while the others were working so industriously to save my friend? As it turned out, I was the only member of our little conspiracy remaining idle through those long days. Hadrian felt it would be the wisest course to keep me on the river rafts and away from the city as much as possible. I had an air about me, he said, which screamed woods folk and as these were regarded with a measure of suspicion by the city dwellers, it might be best not to call unwanted attention on ourselves by waving me like a flag beneath the noses of the city guard.

I protested, of course. I had more right to be involved than anybody, and I was no more a risk than Fleet, who couldn’t resist slipping his hand into the pocket of every fifth passerby on the streets. But my protests did me no good. Hadrian said Fleet had that skill only street thieves possessed of pulling off his business effortlessly and blending into the milling crowd before anyone took note of him. He knew the backstreets and allies of the city as well as he knew his own dear mother’s face, whereas I would only blunder around, slowing him down and attracting attention to his actions.

I couldn’t argue with that, no matter how I wanted to.

And so, this was how I came to find myself living in the tiny hut, a semi-permanent guest on a river folk barge. Life carried on somewhat monotonously for me during that time. I suffered moments of sickening anxiety on the occasions when Fleet visited to report his lack of progress, but between these times stretched long hours of boredom, as I found myself trapped on a not particularly large vessel with a handful of strangers, most of whom didn’t speak my language.