October 7th
“Forgive me, Father. I have sinned.”
Merrily knelt before him, head bowed. Her eyes, downcast to the floor, obscured the conflict behind them.
He is the only hope for us, insisted the Second Voice.
Why? rebutted then First. Why not we, ourself?
“What sin have you committed, Merrily?” he asked gently. They were in his small study, just off the Sanctificatio. Rickety shelves, filled to overflowing with books both modern and ancient, lined the walls. Several other rooms branched off from this one. She had never been in them, but he seemed to make his home there. Rough curtains had been hung over the openings. Today, Father wore the shabby coat and hose of Mr. Filtch; only for communion in the Under-temple did he wear the white robe. His deep blue eyes stared out from his scarred face. They were precise, uncompromising, and merciless.
Tell him about Rolly’s funeral, suggested the First Voice anxiously. We said nice things about Rolly. Father won’t like that at all.
Let me take care of this, soothed the Second.
“I let Jonathan touch me,” she said flatly.
Oh, now we’ve put our foot in it. We’re going to have a lecture about sex.
Father let out a mournful sigh. “Lust is the prison of the soul, Merrily,” he declared, confirming her fear. “Desire leads to degradation and more desire, not to joy. Marriage does not change this principle, but merely scompromises it. The apostle Paul says: ‘Put to death what is earthly in you: Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.’ You cannot simply fight against your passions, or pretend they do not exist. You must have new passions. Your passion must be for God: for His final judgment and victory over the Dark One; for your place among His Elect. Only by replacing earthly desire with holy desire can you escape. You come here, and others come here, to find a new family who will support them in their new, pure desires. And so you have come to me, your father. I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
That is Holy and true, rhapsodized the Second Voice.
How is it any escape from desire to replace one desire with another? questioned the First Voice. And why is Father looking at us like that?
She stared up at him, still on her knees. Now his eyes were like pools of the dusk sky, fading to black. He reached out a hand and placed it on her cheek. She didn’t flinch.
“I forgive your sin, Merrily. But there is a price to forgiveness, so that you may be led to pure and perfect desires. The price is this: You must never again consent to Jonathan Miller touching your body in lust. If you do, then you must leave the Elect.”
His hand lingered on her cheek; then he withdrew it and turned away.
“Go, now, and join us for Communion,” he said. “Your brothers and sisters will support you in holy desires.” He turned from her abruptly and disappeared into a small chamber, separated by a red curtain. There was a dim light within, and she caught a glimpse of another man behind the curtain, though she could not see his features.
She stood and walked back toward the Sanctificatio.
You didn’t tell him that we know, observed the First Voice.
We don’t know, said the Second. And that is why I didn’t tell him.
✽✽✽
“I have to go to Hog Hurst tomorrow,” announced Jonny, setting a roast chicken and loaf of bread on the table. “The goblins are up to something odd again in the Gray Kingdom, and coal shipments have fallen off. Actually, I was supposed to leave by coach this afternoon, but I talked Veridia into letting me stay one more night.”
She put on a bright, brittle smile. “That’s lovely! You’ll get to see your mother again, and I can give you some money to take to my mother and father, and you can bring me back some new arrows…” she trailed off, trying to think of more credible reasons to be happy for his departure. The smile cracked, and she looked down at the table.
He sat down and began carving the chicken.
“What wrong, Merrily?” he asked.
There’s some old man in the sky who made both of us with desires for each other so that we’d have to spend out whole lives denying them, offered the First Voice bitterly.
We made a terrible mistake marrying Jonathan Miller, countered the Second.
She avoided his eyes. “Nothing,” she answered.
“Come on, Merrily. I know you. We’ve known each other since before we could talk. I know something’s eating at you. Please tell me.” He handed her a plate of roast chicken, rich-smelling brown bread, and watercress. She poked at it, casting about desperately in her mind.
“I have to travel for a while too. Queen Anne wants me to go on an errand for her. I’ll leave in a week, perhaps. I can’t say where—it’s one of those errands. But I’ll write to you. I promise I’ll write.”
The First Voice: That’s safe, isn’t it? We’re allowed to write to our husband?
The Second Voice: He won’t much care for what we’re allowed to write.
“How long will you be gone?” he asked, fiddling nervously with his fork and knife.
“Just a few weeks, I think,” she replied. “I’ll have to be back for exams in December, anyway. The Triad professors don’t give you a pass just because the Queen sends you to do her business all over Uelland.”
The meal drifted by awkwardly, as both Jonathan and Merrily avoided the traps around them. But after he had finished washing the dishes and they sat before the fire, he reached out to take her hand in his own. She withdrew the hand and stood up before they made contact.
“I have to go to read for class,” she announced. “I’m behind in Glibgrub’s lecture.”
“Merrily!” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you tell me?”
She turned to him, desperate.
“I can’t!” she pleaded. “It’s… it’s something I have to deal with, Jonny. Alone.” She turned to the small line of pegs where her cloak hung, still dripping.
I don’t want to leave here, said the First Voice. I want to stay with him tonight. We’ll be apart for many weeks. Maybe it will be longer. I want to stay here tonight and hold him and—
I want to remain faithful to God and the Elect, interrupted the Second. I want to feel safe and pure and clean and I certainly don’t want to burn in the Pit for all eternity. We were anointed in front of everyone else, and they know about us. We love Father and the Truth he has taught us. And we know God sees our sins and our lies.
Do we know that? Do we know that more than we know who killed Rolly?
We must know. We have faith. We said the words, and we have spent so much time doing all the things Father requires of us to be holy. We cannot be wrong now, after all that effort. That’s faith, and we have it.
There was a touch on her shoulder. She spun away, her eyes flashing.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped.
Jonny dropped his hand to his side. His eyes showed pain, disbelief, and anger. Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the small study.
She put on her cloak, packed a few things from the bedroom, and left their home.
Merrily did not sleep that night. Instead she went to the library at Peacock Hall and read the hours away by the light of flickering candles. Her eyes did not droop. Her thoughts kept them wide open, racing through her head and heart without mercy. When they grew too loud, she stood up and walked around the table once, then sat down again. She was alone. Normally there would have been a handful of goblins studying through the night, whispering and munching idly on sandwiches. They needed little sleep, but their minds and stomachs both demanded constant activity. Tonight, though, the library was quiet and empty.
At dawn she walked across the square to Bastings Hall, where Queen Anne kept a small but well-appointed office for her. She changed into fresh clothes, washed her face, and brushed her hair. Glancing at the bills and pamphlets that covered the walls near Bastings, she caught the hollow-eyed visage of Hobb the Wise staring back at her, a headline at the top of the pamphlet proclaiming the dawn of a new era of justice.
The voices were silent.
She took a deep breath, and looked at herself in the mirror. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her jaw seemed to be clenched all on its own. She put on a bit of makeup to fix it all, and brushed her hair again. Then she called for a coach and made her way back to their home in the trade quarter.
Jonathan was gone. The place was tidy, and the bed had not been slept in. There was no note left behind; he was simply gone. She packed up a few more belongings from the dresser in their bedroom and retrieved her spare bow and quiver. Then, looking around reflexively, she knelt down before the bed. She slid a low, flat chest out from underneath, put a small key in the lock, and opened it.
Inside was a sheathed rapier. It was of fine steel, perfectly balanced, and had an elaborate wrist guard with the device of the crowned eagle.
It is wrong that we keep this, said the Second Voice. Father should have it back.
He isn’t missing it, said the First Voice. He thinks it was lost when he fought Cyrus. And I’ve no desire to give a blade back to a man who killed my friend.
You know nothing. And that blind, sinful illusion that you cling to is precisely why we should give it back to Father.
She gritted her teeth and forced the voices to be silent, unable to them anymore. She simply operated her body, doing with it what had to be done. The case returned to its place beneath the bed. The body returned to Bastings Hall.
The body went to her classes, and all inside her was silent.
✽✽✽
Nine days passed before Merrily finally set out for Roosterfoot. There were diplomatic papers to be drawn up, a negotiating strategy to be formulated, and an escort to be assembled. She arranged with her instructors for an absence from their courses, and received reading and writing assignments for the time she would be away. Freddie Greensmith promised to take notes for her in lecture. Her headaches, a perennial annoyance, began to make another cycle of appearances.
She visited Father every night in the Under-temple. “Merrily,” he said to her on one of these occasions, as she sat wearily in his office, her eyes stained with tears. “You must remember that in all things you do God’s will. No thing happens but that He wills it. If He wills for you to travel as the Queen’s envoy to Roosterfoot, it must be that He has a task for you there. Do not fight against God’s plan for you.”
If God wills everything we do, remarked the First Voice acidly, then what’s the sense in asking forgiveness our own choices? They’re God’s choices, not ours.
God is all-powerful, so He must have the power to give us free will, responded the Second Voice. When we abuse that gift, we must atone or suffer the consequences.
That is logically insane, said the First.
“Remember that you serve only God,” said Father on another occasion, “and not King or Queen, Republic or Crown, and not any man but me. Though you seem to do the work of the woman who calls herself queen, look for a moment when you will do God’s true work. Hobb would replace God with his National Assembly, and he is an abomination even as much as Anne Linsey Gray.” Father’s twisted face and blue eyes held her own. “Kill Hobb, if you can. Bring back a victory to Anne, so you can be close to her without suspicion. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, but I need not fight all my enemies at the same time.”
The Queen, too, sat with Merrily privately before she left.
“You look weary,” observed Anne, after two hours reviewing the many landowning families of central Uelland represented at the Roosterfoot Moot. “You must remember to sleep. And to eat; you are too thin.”
Merrily nodded silently. Both sleep and food had been of little interest since she began living in the office in Bastings Hall.
“When did you last sing?” asked the Queen. Merrily looked up sharply.
Why does she care when we sing? wondered the Second Voice.
Something happened last week, answered the First. After we missed Cyrus at the docks. I can’t explain it. There was music, and we sang. We couldn’t help it. It felt natural and perfect and joyful, just for that moment. Why did we sing?
The Queen was staring at her. “Are you alright, Merrily?”
She nodded firmly. “Sorry, ma’am. Just trying to remember. It’s been a little time.” She couldn’t explain the song at the docks to the Queen any more than she could explain it to herself.
Queen Anne sat back in her padded chair and gazed at Merrily quietly. “There is a part of you that neither I nor the lecturers at Triad can nurture,” she said finally. “It is the part of you that makes music. When you sang with Mr. Snort at Lady Triggle’s parties, that first year, I could tell then that it lifted you into a different place. Beatrice Snugg saw it too. I think that is why she trusted you. It is something that you need, Merrily. But I have not heard you sing since you came back from Uellodon.”
I miss Wigglus, said the First Voice. He hasn’t written for a month, and it has been longer since I wrote to him. He has been busy in the courts in Uellodon. I love him and I miss him.
Wigglus Snort is an abomination, snarled the Second Voice. We have not written to him because he is a foul affront against God’s order. What he does with other men is condemned in all five Testaments. It is even more disgusting than our lust for Jonathan Miller.
“Merrily.” The voice of Queen Anne cut over the other voices. “I would like to ask you something. It is a favor, and you may say no if you wish. I will not be upset with you. But I hope you will say yes. In the spring there will be a coronation ceremony. I am still arranging the details with Bishop Wildrick and the Charter Council. I trust you understand why?”
Merrily nodded. “Legitimacy,” she replied simply. “Uellish respect the forms and traditions of the Crown. They will more easily follow a Queen who fits into them. There is precedent for a coronation to legitimize a pretender; Alexander the Wartful did the same thing during his rebellion against Bloody Maude, and became Alexander the First.”
“Yes,” said the Queen. “I told you once that there would be a time for new music in my court, and that I wanted to commission songs from you. I still do. If you write music to play at my coronation, then I will have it performed by the finest players we can hire. It would be printed here in Green Bridge and sent all over the Neighbor Kingdoms; you already have an eager audience, thanks to Mr. Snort’s industry in publishing your songs. If nothing else comes of this sad, brief rebellion, then perhaps one piece of music will survive us and be heard again. But whatever the future holds, I want my court to be a place of beauty and passion and truth. Will you make music for me, Merrily?”
This pretend Queen knows nothing of beauty or passion or truth, sneered the Second Voice. Only in God can they be found, and she has no God.
But the First Voice had an answer. No, it said. That is not correct. I knew beauty and passion and truth when I sang and Wigglus played his violin. I did not need Father or God.
“I will, ma’am,” she said, with a real, genuine smile, such as she had not smiled for many months.
✽✽✽
Merrily sat up in the library that night, her head pounding. A book was open before her, but she did not read. Instead she stared at the candle on the table as it slowly grew shorter, making a puddle of wax on the stained oak. The library was empty once again; there was no sign of the usual goblins. She wondered where they had all gotten to. Sleep did not come easily, but at last she laid her head down and dozed through the pain for a few hours.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
As the sky began to lighten in the east, she made her way back to Bastings Hall, where she changed and packed a few last odds and ends for the journey to Roosterfoot. Her chest had already been loaded on the coach last night. Merrily normally preferred to travel light, but the Queen had set her seamstresses to work over the last week, producing several new dresses that were, to Merrily’s own eye, rather too grand for her to wear. These, along with other diplomatic necessities, now occupied a large chest on the top of the coach waiting for her in the square. She went down to meet it.
Merrily had drawn the line at riding in the coach, which cut off her awareness of the land and people around her. Winston was saddled and waiting. With the palfrey were four mercenaries, dressed in the deep black and silver livery of the Snugg forces. A white badge, prominently displaying the letter ‘S,’ was on each man’s shoulder. They wore steel breastplates and carried both rapiers and long guns. Another man, named Mr. Mowatt, sat on top of the empty coach. Merrily would use the it to enter Roosterfoot, and perhaps to arrive for formal appearances at the Moot.
The faces of her bodyguards were grim and alert. Unlike the coach, they were not merely for show.
“Gentlemen,” she addressed them. “We will ride hard for Roosterfoot and try to cover the distance in three days. You already know the danger; the Republican Guard have partisans in the country we will travel through. If we are attacked, listen to me for instructions. I would like you all to come home to your families.”
What about our family? wondered the First Voice, digging at the wound. What family will we come home to?
Our family waits for us in the Under-temple, answered the Second Voice confidently. Our Father prays for us, and God protects us. We were wise and faithful to leave Mr. Miller.
Did we leave him? asked the First.
People were about in the streets, even at this early hour. Shopkeepers swept the previous night’s dusting of snow off their stoops, hanging out flags and bunting to draw in the day’s customers. Boys and girls in uniforms made their way in tidy lines to the neighborhood schoolhouses. In the merchant quarter, the caravans and laborers of the three remaining majors, as well as their smaller competitors, were busily loading, unloading, and arguing good-naturedly with each other. At the Snugg factor house, she caught a glimpse of Veridia Snipe, standing outside and giving firm instructions to everyone within earshot. She was carrying a small bundle in her arms; Merrily had heard she’d given birth just a week ago.
I want one of those, said the First Voice.
You have a higher calling now, answered the Second.
She made the party stop at the small house on Warbling Way that she once shared with Jonathan, and walked in alone. Jonathan wasn’t there, and by the look of it he hadn’t been home for some days. She pulled the case out from under the bed, opened it, and stared at the sheathed rapier quietly for several minutes. Then she took it out of the box, left the home, and returned to the party. Before remounting Winston, she strapped the sword to her belt.
Merrily and her entourage trotted briskly along the cobblestones, Merrily leading the way on Winston and the bodyguards and coach trailing along behind. They passed beneath the east gate of the city, where sturdy wooden scaffolding obscured the features of thick, massive towers being hurriedly erected on either side of the portal. Workmen were already visible in the dawn light, moving about and preparing the great cranes that would lift new blocks of stone into place.
She paused for a moment, turning to look back at Green Bridge. The rosy light of dawn washed away the inevitable human ugliness in her mind, leaving only a vision of a place she had begun to really, truly think of as home. It wasn’t perfect; but neither was she. She was surprised to feel a sudden clutch of fear in her chest. Merrily was rarely afraid of danger, but something lurked behind conscious thought that made her stomach sink. What was it?
“Follow the bright path,” she muttered to herself in the fey-speech she had learned as a child. As they always did, the words brought a shift in conscious thought, soothing her headache and her fear. The two voices that argued endlessly with each other inside her head were silent, too, for the first time in days. Smiling, she turned her eyes forward and nudged Winston into a fast trot.
They covered thirty-five miles that first day, trotting for long periods and then walking to rest the horses. Mr. Mowatt’s coach slowed their progress somewhat, but the four sturdy carriage horses were able to keep up a steady pace well into the evening. Throughout the day’s travel, she and the guards cast a wary eye to other travelers on the road, but there was no sign of hostility. One guard rode a mile ahead at all times, and another a mile behind; they checked in every half hour and rotated the scout duty. Merrily judged it wiser to remain away from settlements until she reached the relative safety of Roosterfoot, so they made a discreet, cold camp in a patch of woodland rather than stop at a public house in one of the little villages along the road. Mowatt slept under his carriage, while Merrily and her bodyguards set up bedrolls under the stars. The guards divided up the watch, and three of the four settled down to sleep.
The October moon was waning overhead, diminished to a tiny sliver. Merrily walked alone among the old patch of trees, looking up at the stars through the barren branches. A cold wind brought the fresh, sharp smells of high autumn to her nose.
“Who am I?” she asked aloud into the darkness. She found it was the only way to know who was speaking. The moon held no answers. Though the night was cold and her sleeping roll warm, she lay awake for long hours, staring at the dark canvas over her head. Sleep, when it came, was troubled by whispering voices.
✽✽✽
They rose early the following day and continued along the Roosterfoot Road, moving swiftly to the south and east. It had snowed lightly overnight, leaving a dusting of white on the road that had already been marked by the hoofprints of local traffic. The air was cold, and her breath steamed in front of her.
Merrily was left with little time for contemplation, however. Only an hour after the sun rose, Mr. Stiggins, the man on forward scout duty, came galloping back toward them on the road, his horse thundering on the frozen gravel.
“Republican Guard ahead,” said Stiggins tersely, letting his horse catch its breath. “Twenty men. Armed for mounted skirmishing. They’re coming on at a canter.” The eyes of her four bodyguards swiveled to Merrily, and Mr. Mowatt shifted uncomfortably in the coach seat.
We should go back to Green Bridge, urged the Second Voice. God’s will is not served by dying out here in service to a false queen.
“No!” she said aloud. Her companions looked at her in surprise and concern, and she remembered that she wasn’t alone. She hastily reassembled her composure.
“I won’t run back to Green Bridge,” she said firmly, “but we’ll have to run somewhere. We passed a good-sized farm lane about a mile back leading off to the north. We’ll make for that, and look for a place to hide or defend.”
She spun Winston and spurred him to a canter, as fast as the coach team could follow. Two guards pulled up behind her, and the third behind the coach. As they rode, she cast her eyes behind her to the east, but no riders were yet visible.
They quickly encountered the rearguard, who accepted her change of plans with a terse nod. And after another short ride, they came upon the lane that Merrily recalled. She silently cursed the dusting of snow, revealing their tracks for any minimally attentive pursuer to see.
“This way,” she barked, wheeling Winston to the north. A small handful of farm buildings were visible in the distance. She nudged the palfrey into a canter again, and they pounded up the rough farm lane. Behind her, Mr. Mowatt’s coach rattled and creaked alarmingly on the uneven ground.
She looked back again. Now, in the distance to the east, she could see the riders. Their numbers seemed awfully large to her slightly panicked eye.
We are the servants of a just and loving God, whispered the Second Voice. He will not abandon us. God, do not abandon us—
A crisis is no time to start praying, interrupted the First Voice. Either we’ve already gotten on His good side, or the whole thing is pointless anyway. Let God save us now if He wants, and we’ll make it up to Him later.
“That farm complex looks defensible enough,” shouted Merrily over her shoulder. The horses and carriage rumbled up the road to the gates. The farmhouse itself was a large, two-story building with a simple, high-peaked roof and small windows. It was surrounded by outbuildings with their doors facing inward, making a small inner square that was fleshed out by simple split rail fencing. A ventilation cupola stood out at the peak of the barn.
A small handful of men were hurrying out of the farmhouse toward them. Merrily dismounted quickly, but waited for them to come to her. Behind the men trailed a young boy of perhaps eight years. Merrily’s mind raced; this had be handled delicately, but very swiftly.
“What’s your business here, miss?” asked their leader. He was a tall, weathered fellow of perhaps fifty years. His arms and chest were robust, and he bore a strong family resemblance to the younger men behind him. The boy peered out from behind the grown-ups, staring at her with nothing but curiosity on his face.
She knelt on the ground in front of them, ignoring the shrieks of protest from the Second Voice.
“Sir, I must beg your aid,” she implored, speaking quickly but clearly. “I bear messages under the seal of Queen Anne, and Republican partisans pursue us.” She showed him her roll of diplomatic credentials, which was indeed bound with the seals of the Queen and the Charter Council. “I ask that you give us shelter, sir, as a free man should to travelers in danger. The Queen will pay you fair compensation for any harm that comes to your farm in hiding or defending us.”
The weathered farmer looked down at her, and then up at the road beyond his lane. Though Merrily couldn’t see them, she estimated the pursuing partisans must nearly have reached the farm lane. The farmer thought for just a moment.
“My name’s Hender,” he said, his voice tense. “We’ll do what we can for you, Miss. Get that coach into the barn. More time for talk later, if we all live through this morning. Boys—get your bows, and your sisters.”
The younger men sprinted back for the house, and Hender hauled open one of the tall, sliding doors to the barn. Mr. Mowatt, now obviously terrified, drove his team inside, and Hender slid the door shut again.
“They’re coming up the lane,” said the old farmer. “Don’t think hiding will do you much good.”
“No,” agreed Merrily. Her four guards drew up behind her, tamping powder charges into their long guns. She glanced around the farmyard hastily. “I’ll put a man on the roof of your house, if I may, and another man on the roof of the barn. I’ll stand just inside your barn door with the other two. We’ll shoot at them a bit to draw them into the yard, and then show ourselves. They’ll have to bunch up to come in at us in the barn.”
“Move,” said Hender tersely. “My family will be in the farmhouse. We’ll do what we can.”
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the most they had time for. Merrily nodded and gave orders to the mercenaries. The two that Merrily picked to stay with her gave their long guns to their comrades, who would be out of melee range. The mercenaries took a moment—just a moment—and locked hands with each other.
“Blood and gold,” said one; and the others repeated the old mercenary’s creed.
“Blood and gold!”
Then they went to their posts.
✽✽✽
Merrily watched, peeking around the open door to the barn, as Hender stood firmly, ten feet inside the closed gate to his farmyard.
“What’s your business?” she heard him say to the leader of the mounted soldiers. The partisans wore simple black cloaks and dark-stained leathers, and they had no badges or markings. But there was a certain sameness to their clothes, their posture, and their movements, that revealed them as men of a fighting group. They carried long spears and short bows, with sheathed sabers hanging from their belts. The horses looked strong and fast.
“We pursue outlaws of the Republic,” said the man in charge. “They fled from us up this lane. Stand aside, and no harm will come to you or your family.”
Merrily glanced up at man on the farmhouse rooftop. She could see him looking back at her for a signal.
“I do not consent,” said Hender, showing remarkable courage before twenty armed men. “You may not enter. I own this land in freehold under the laws and customs of the Kingdom of Uelland. I pay my taxes to the Roosterfoot Moot, and my deed is duly recorded in the rolls at Farmers’ Hall. This is my land; get off it.”
Merrily glanced over Hender’s shoulder to the windows of the farmhouse. The slatted shutters had been opened in the side facing into the farmyard, and the faces of men and women could be seen inside. She caught the face of the young boy, peering out a narrow window on the second floor.
My son could look like that, said the First Voice. He could look just like that when he is eight years old.
You will never have a son, said the Second. You will ascend into Heaven and sit before Heavenly Father, where you will sing psalms of joy and live in spiritual bliss for all eternity.
Her gaze drifted down to the confrontation at the gate. The leader of the partisans lifted his spear out of its socket and pointed it over the fence at Hender.
“Open the gate, farmer. There are no lawyers here, no courts, no bailiffs, and no one to help you. There is no law but the will of the People. If the People’s will is not yours, then you are its enemy.”
If I had a body, said the Second Voice, I would walk out there right now and smite him.
So rarely do we agree, mused the First Voice. When we do, there can be no more hesitation.
She signaled the man on the roof.
There was a loud, sharp crack as the long gun discharged, and one of the partisans slumped off his horse. The other horses reared and whinnied, momentarily panicked by the loud, unfamiliar noises. They weren’t professional light cavalry, noted Merrily with some satisfaction—just thugs on horseback. Helpful.
The second gun, from the man on the roof of the barn, discharged. He missed his target, but the spray of dirt on the ground and the loud noise further confused the horses. Hender, as surprised as their opponents, nonetheless recovered his wits and dashed for the door of his home.
“I’m over here!” called out Merrily. Her voice, well used to projecting for an audience, carried clearly over the din and confusion at the gate. Then she raised her right hand, extending one finger in the ancient and time-honored salute to an unworthy adversary.
Two more cracks rang out from above, as the men on the rooftops fired again. One more partisan fell limply to the ground.
The riders awkwardly scrambled off their rearing, panicking mounts, then picked themselves up and drew their light sabers. They smashed casually through the gate and poured into the farmyard. Merrily waved at them cheerfully.
They boiled forward. To Merrily, who had practiced in numerous melees but never experienced a live skirmish of this size, they seemed many more than eighteen. She swallowed and tried to stay calm, stepping backward slightly into the barn. The two mercenaries standing on the inside of the doors watched her cautiously.
Trust in God’s plan, said the Second Voice.
Her breathing slowed; her feet stopped retreating; and she drew Father’s rapier. She raised it in front of her, looking at the horde of onrushing men.
She remembered consciously little of what happened next. There was a jumble of screaming, stabbing, swinging. Her training in swordplay at Triad had been extensive, and she found that her muscles knew exactly what to do. There was a dance, in the darkness of the barn, as the partisans poured awkwardly through the narrow chokepoint. The mercenaries lunged at them viciously from both sides, and Merrily whirled and parried and thrusted, tripped and punched, kicked and pulled and bit. It was all instinct; like singing a song she knew by heart. In the darkness, she danced death with her partners.
The red haze slowly retreated from vision, and she found that there were no more men for her to fight. She took stock of the violence she had done.
There were bodies all over the inside of the barn. They were scattered about her, splayed out in positions of agony and death. One of the mercenaries inside the barn was down, his throat cut. He was already gone. The other man had an ugly stab wound in his right shoulder and a long slice across his face. She treated the wounds carefully, washing them and pressing clean bandages on to stop the bleeding. The coachman, somehow, had survived, and now watched her in terror from a hiding spot behind the boxy vehicle.
“Bring this man into the farmhouse,” she said, gesturing at the wounded soldier.
Outside there were more bodies. One of the mercenaries on the roof had been pierced by arrows from the partisans, but the other was lucky, and escaped without a scratch. It was Stiggins, the man on forward scout duty earlier. Arrows riddled the black-cloaked bodies of the partisans as well, to Merrily’s brief surprise. Then she saw the sons and daughters of Hender in the windows of their home, bows held in their hands and grim looks on their faces.
Hender himself came walking out into the carnage in the farmyard. The young boy trailed along behind him. The older farmer surveyed the bodies.
“Not a professional among them,” he remarked contemptuously. “They’ve grown fat bringing terror to folks who don’t fight back.”
Merrily narrowed her eyes at him.
“You know what you’re doing in a fight,” she observed.
He gave her a tight-lipped grin. “Scout cavalry,” he confirmed. “Adjunct squad to General Chester’s company in the last war with Svegnia. Captain Chester, back then. Trained my boys and girls with the bow, just in case.” He spat on one of the black-cloaked men. “‘In case’ came today.”
“Did any get away?” she asked.
“Aye,” he answered. “Three, I think. Made off up the lane like Horace Carelon himself was riding after them.”
Her face became grim. “Then you won’t be safe here, Mr. Hender,” she said. “The Guard will be back. They’ll come in the night, and you won’t have the advantages we had today. Is there somewhere else you can go?”
He nodded. “I have a cousin up north, near Far Gourd. I hate to leave the farm,” he said, looking around sadly, “but they’ll burn it soon enough, whether we’re here or not. Your Queen won’t stop the Republic for long, miss. She can fight their soldiers, but there’s a disease of the mind and the heart that spreads through any castle or trench. You can’t fight it once it takes hold. I’ll pack up my family, and gather up the horses of these bullies, and we’ll make ourselves a little caravan up to the north. My cousin will give us shelter for a time, while he still can.”
Hender paused thoughtfully, sniffing the cold October wind.
“I’ve heard there’s a new settlement far up in the north,” he said. “Out beyond the frontier, in some valley up on the East Branch. Heard there’s an iron mine and finery there, and plenty of land to settle. Might give that a try.”
She turned to look at the boy. He was kneeling down next to one of the fallen partisans, and she could see his lips moving, as if he were whispering.
“You son has never seen a dead man?” she asked.
Hender shook his head. “No, miss. None of our folks has passed since he came along.”
Hender took the boy’s hand and pulled him gently up.
“Come on, Jonathan,” he said.
Merrily was shocked. “What did you call him?” she asked after a stunned moment.
Hender looked back at her. “Jonathan, miss. Common name in these parts.” And he led young Jonathan back to the farmhouse.
That could be our son, said the voice in her head. The other voice was silent.
✽✽✽
She sent the bodies of the two fallen mercenaries back to Green Bridge with the injured man, and letters to the families that she wrote out and signed herself. With only the coachman Mowatt and the guard Stiggins as protection, she decided not return to the road, but made her way deeper into the countryside, circling first to the north, away from Republican territory, and then moving east again. Merrily, Stiggins, and Mowatt stayed in farmsteads and barns, paying their way to farmers who were more than happy to accept her coin and give them a hot meal and a few blankets. It took many more days to reach Roosterfoot, but she saw no further sign of the Republican Guard.
On the first of November, she rode proudly up to the north gate of Roosterfoot. A small squad of armed militia at the gate looked at her credentials incredulously, comparing the grand pronouncements on her writ with her dirty, haggard appearance and her rather pathetic entourage. But, as the militia could find no reason to detain a dirty young woman, a tired and frightened coachman, and one weary mercenary, they let her through.
She made her way to the large, grand public house to which Queen Anne’s letter offered guarantees against her expenses. She relaxed her tired, weary muscles in a long bath, adjusting slowly to the changed circumstances.
In her head, the two voices were still gnawing on an old bone.
That could have been our son, said the First.
It will never be our son, replied the Second. How long must we be occupied with this nonsense? We have made a commitment to God and to Father that will not be broken. It is a promise of duty and love. One does not set down such a promise.
But I want a child, insisted the First, stubbornly. I want to hold him and nurse him and keep him close to us. And I want him to have a father, like our father. Actually—I want him to have a father like Jonathan Miller.
That bridge is behind us, painting the sky with its flames, said the Second Voice smugly. No man will take us as a wife now.
In the evening, she dressed in one of the less flamboyant gowns, buttoned down an elegant wool overcoat, and pulled on a pair of dress boots with raised heels. She had practiced walking in them for hours at Triad, and could move with grace, but she still found the feeling absurd. She tucked her diplomatic writ into one pocket of a small satchel.
The coachman, Mr. Mowatt, had cleaned the mud of travel off the coach and polished its black sheathing. He had changed into a clean suit and overcoat, and wore a shiny black top hat. He held the door for her and bowed low as she entered, then drove her through the streets of Roosterfoot to the Moothall.
The doors of the tall, stone building were of thick oak, bound in iron; they were open, and light could be seen within. Two guards stood at attention on either side, their dress uniforms a dark purple color. Their spears were polished, and the blades glinted in the light of bright lamps on the wall outside the building. Merrily’s heart raced; for all her long training, she had no idea what to do next, really. But then her gaze fell on a third man, waiting patiently in the lightly-falling snow. He was tall and thin, perhaps sixty years old. He wore an elegant but understated gray suit and a tall, cylindrical top hat. His cravat was dark gray, and his eyes, a sort of light grayish-blue, were the most colorful thing on his body. He smiled gently at her as the coachman opened the door and she stepped out.
“Good evening, Mrs. Hunter,” said Hobb the Wise, offering his arm and gesturing toward the open doors. “Welcome to Roosterfoot, and to the Moot.”