“Not happy in here,” muttered Thomas.
“Aye,” agreed Eileen, her voice as low as his. “We should go soon.”
“As soon as George gets here,” Thomas promised. “We get breakfast and we go.”
George arrived before they were half-way done with their tea. His hair was wet, his skin shiny, and his clothes were a fresh brown pair of trousers and a green shirt that made him look like a grass-covered hill. He was moving much more easily, and almost smiling until he saw their interlaced fingers. Worry and disapproval replaced the smile as he sat down. Thomas waited for him to say something. Instead, George looked away.
“Oh, get that look off your face,” said Eileen, sounding more worried than exasperated. “We’re holding hands, is all.”
“Aye,” George’s expression didn’t change and Harriet arrived before anyone could say anything further. She put down a mug of tea for George and raised a pot to refill Thomas’s and Eileen’s mugs. She looked exhausted. Dark circles surrounded the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. A bruise covered the entire side of her face.
“Now don’t look so concerned.” There was enough asperity in her tone to make the words an order, rather than a suggestion. She put George’s tea on the table. “I’ve had worse when there’s been fights in here, thank you very much.”
Thomas, who had been on the verge of asking if she was all right, forbore. “You dealt with them well enough.”
“I’ve seen their like before.” Harriet dismissed the bishop’s entire revenue with a wave of the hand and a casual tone, though her posture still radiated anger. “Bullies, they were, and a right mean lot, too. But they’re gone now and good riddance. You’ll be wanting your breakfast, will you?”
“Aye,” said Thomas. “And could we have our horses saddled? We’d like to get going as soon as we’re done.”
“I’ll send the boy out to do it straight away,” Harriet promised. “And I’ll have your breakfast before you as soon as I’ve done that.”
She left, and Thomas half-expected George to take up where he left off, but his friend didn’t say anything, just drank his tea and stared at his hands.
“Are we doing the rest of the trip today, then?” Eileen asked Thomas, ignoring both George’s expression and silence.
Thomas nodded. “Aye. Whatever… the
man
—” he emphasized the word to make it clear they weren’t to mention names—“has planned, he must be in a hurry.”
“A good thing he was,” Eileen muttered, keeping her voice quiet to keep it from carrying. “If he’d stopped here, we’d be waking up in a field somewhere, wondering what we were going to eat.”
“And how to get there without horses,” agreed Thomas.
Harriet came back with three large plates of bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes accompanied by a loaf of bread and a small pail of butter, all balanced expertly on her arms. All conversation stopped as the food was brought, and didn’t resume until the plates were nearly empty. Thomas had known he was hungry, but hadn’t realized how hungry until he was wiping the last bit of egg from his plate with the last bit of bread and washed it down with the last of his tea.
“So,” said Eileen once she’d cleaned the last from her own plate. “What do we do if he gets done whatever it is he’s doing before we get there?”
“I don’t know,” said Thomas. “But I don’t think he’ll manage anything tonight. Not after travelling all day and night.”
“Let’s hope not.” Eileen started to drink the last of her tea, then put the mug down. “Thomas,” there was new worry in her voice, “what if he isn’t there?
What if he just kept going and is going to do something else?”
“Then I keep following him,” said Thomas. “Until I can find a way to stop him.”
He looked at the empty mug and plate in front of him for a moment, wishing he could eat the whole meal again, just to delay having to get back on the horse. Instead, he pushed his chair back and stood up. “Come on. Let’s go.”
***
The road stayed close to the sea, sometimes running in view of it, sometimes winding around a hill and putting it just out of sight. The tangy smell of water and seaweed filled their lungs like mist with every breath. A stiff breeze blew in off the ocean, but the sky stayed clear. The sea birds called harshly to one another, filling in the silence between the three. George was still looking worried, and still not saying anything. Thomas took a couple of tries at conversation with Eileen, but it felt stilted. Soon, though, the pains of riding were back in full force and any desire for conversation faded. All the aching muscles that the bath had put to rest were awake once again. Aside from the occasional groan, and the odd creak of leather, none of the three said a thing.
Just after noon, Eileen spotted a fishing village. There was no inn, but one of the women there offered to sell them dried fish to eat. Lacking other alternatives, they bought it and sat on a hillock near the road to eat. The meal was short, silent, and not very good. Thomas had his own down as fast as possible, then was on his feet. “We should get going again.”
“Already?” George protested. “We just sat down.”
“And now we get back up,” Thomas held out his hand to Eileen. She put the last bite of her lunch in her mouth and grabbed his hand, using it to pull herself to her feet and land in his arms. Thomas let her stay there, wrapping his around her and hugging her tight. George watched the two of them a moment, then rose and headed for his horse, wearing the same expression he’d had on at the inn.
“George!”
George stopped at Thomas’s call, but didn’t turn back.
Thomas gently let go of Eileen and walked towards his friend. “George, just say it.”
George didn’t move. “What’s to say?”
“Whatever you didn’t get a chance to say in the graveyard,” said Thomas. “Whatever you wanted to say this morning.”
George shrugged. “Nothing to say.”
He started walking again. Thomas grabbed his sleeve and pulled. George stopped, more out of surprise than anything else, and looked down at Thomas’s hand on his arm.
“George, please.”
George raised his head, and Thomas saw pain and worry etched deep into his friend’s eyes. “What is there to say?” asked George, his voice quiet. “That it’s a bad idea? That I disapprove? It’s not like you’re going to listen.” He shoved his chin in the direction of his sister. “It’s not like
she
is going to listen.”
Thomas found himself momentarily at a loss for words. After a moment, he tried, “I wouldn’t hurt her, George.”
“Aye?” George turned all the way around, squaring off with his friend. “And if you die? Did you think about that?”
Thomas nodded, remembering his words to Eileen in the bath. “Aye.”
“She doesn’t need to be hurt like that,” said George, his voice still quiet though the fear in it was plain enough. “You should have left her alone.”
The truth of the words made Thomas’s throat close up. An image of Eileen mourning for him blossomed in his mind, and shook him to his core.
“George,” Eileen stepped forward and put her hand on her brother’s arm. “I thought about it, too. I mean, when we first… When we started it was just… it was letting go. It was something breaking free, some way to get rid of all the fear and the anger and everything else.”
Eileen’s eyes went to Thomas, her need for understanding clear in her face. Thomas remembered the hard, dark passion that had gripped them, and the torrent of feelings it had unleashed. He nodded.
Eileen smiled back, the expression hopeful and brittle at once. “After that, when the bishop’s soldiers were raiding the apartments, I started thinking about dying, too. And how I shouldn’t hang onto Thomas when he might…”
Eileen trailed off, looking at the ground. The sound of the sea rolling to the shore and the wind rustling the grass swirled in the silence that came between the three of them.
“I’d rather have this,” said Eileen at last, still looking at the grass beneath her feet. “Even if this is all that I get, I’d rather have this.”
The wind and the sea were the only sounds for a long time.
“I thought you’d say something like that,” said George. He sighed. “I’ve been thinking about dying since the night you were stabbed. About all of us dying, or me and Thomas dying and leaving you alone.” He put a large hand on his sister’s shoulder. “I don’t want you dying. And I don’t want you hurting any worse than you already are.”
“I don’t want to get hurt either.” Eileen stepped closer to her brother, tilted her head to look into his eyes. “But George, can I have this? Even if it’s just this and just for now. Can I have this and can you give it your blessing?”
George looked at his sister a moment, then reached forward and engulfed her in an embrace. “I thought about us leaving, too,” said George, the words coming out in a rush. “You and I going someplace else and being safe, but then Thomas would be left all alone and we still wouldn’t be able to go home.” He raised his eyes to Thomas, and now tears were flowing. “I want to go home, Thomas. I want all of us to go home.”
Thomas found his throat closing up again. He reached up and put a hand on George’s shoulder and managed to say, “We will.”
“Aye,” said Eileen, her voice half-muffled in her brother’s chest. “We all will.”
George squeezed her again and for a long time, “Aye. We all will.”
Thomas stepped back, letting the siblings have their moment together. After a time George looked up again. “We have to go home,” he said, managing a shaky grin. “I want to see the look on Da’s face when you tell him that you want to court his daughter.”
Eileen looked up from her brother’s chest. “Does this mean we get your blessing?”
George nodded. “Aye. If you two want to court, for what it’s worth, I’ll give my blessing.”
“It’s worth a great deal,” said Thomas, feeling suddenly light, as if George’s words had made a great weight drop away from him. “Thank you.”
Eileen‘s eyes were shining. She squeezed her brother again. “Thank you.”
George held her tightly for a time, then growled and pushed her off, muttering something about clinging girls and wiping at his eyes with a sleeve. Eileen stuck out her tongue at George even as she took Thomas’s hand. George ignored her and headed for his horse. “Come on,” he said. “Are we going to be here all day?”
Thomas, grinning, led Eileen to her horse. She hugged him tight, squeezing hard.
“Haven’t you two had enough?” called George.
Eileen looked pointedly at him over her shoulder. “I thought you gave your blessing.”
“Aye,” said George. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be quiet about it.”
Eileen stuck out her tongue again, then mounted her horse. Thomas mounted his own and the three headed down the road.
** *
The afternoon passed like the morning. The sore muscles felt worse with each passing mile, and what conversation there was died out soon enough as each focused on just staying on their horses and keeping moving. The hills around them went from mainly grass to more heavily wooded as the afternoon ran on, blocking the view of the sea.
The road moved inland for a time then looped back towards the sea as the sun descended slowly from its high place. The shadows started to grow long, and the sun was just getting ready to touch the highest of the hills when the three, coming around a bend in the road, found themselves facing farmlands and, in the distance, a town.
“Is this it?” Eileen asked.
“I think so,” Thomas said, “and if we can get clear of the trees we can see it.”
“Thank the Four,” said George with great feeling. “At least now we can get off the horses for a while.”
“Not yet,” Thomas stood in his stirrups, looking over the town. “First we need to find out where the bishop’s house is, and then we need to find the standing stones.”
“And how do we go about doing that without getting his attention?” asked George. “As soon as we start poking about, someone’s going to talk. We may as well go to the inn and announce ourselves as fish bait.”
“How about up there?” Eileen suggested, pointing to a particularly tall hill about a half-mile away. “We could see everything, I’ll bet.”
“How will we know from looking which house is the bishop’s?” George asked.
“It’ll be the biggest,” Thomas replied. “It’s a good idea. Come on.”
Thomas kicked his horse into a quick canter and they rode towards the hill. It was steep, but the woods weren’t heavy and the horses made it up easily enough. They reached the top, found a cleared bit of land, and saw the town and sea stretched out below them.
Seaview was almost as large as Lakewood, and had a proper harbour and a high stone tower looking off to the sea. The houses were huddled close to one another, the better to face the cold winds that would come off the sea in the winter. Beyond the village edge, fields stretched in all directions, creating a plain where there had once been forest. Other fields, cut into the woods themselves, stretched further from the village; small houses teetered on the edge of the fields, half in, half out of the forests; and sheep and cattle grazed in the open places in the woods.
The bishop’s house stood in the midst of the open fields, the ground before it sloping gently away to give a view of the sea. A low stone wall enclosed not only the house itself, but also stables and a chapel. The land around had been stripped and tilled, and was green from the first shoots breaking through the soil. Thomas whistled. “Nice place.”
“We’ll never get close,” said George, dismay on his face. “There’s no way to sneak up on it.”
“There!” said Eileen
Both men turned to look at her, then to follow the line of her arm. Some distance away, mostly covered in trees, were the tops of a pair of stones. Thomas squinted at them, and saw several others as well. “Good eyes.”
“Thank you.” She flashed a smile at him. “How far away do you think it is?”
“A mile, maybe more,” Thomas said. “We should get going now if we’re going to get there before dark.”
“We’ll need food,” said George, “if we’re going to spend the night in the woods.”
Thomas’s belly announced its agreement with that statement even as his mind began to worry over the logistics of getting a meal. “We can’t go into town.”