DEPARTURE
The next morning Karigan arose while it was still
dark to prepare herself and Condor to leave. After a warm
breakfast, she assembled with the other members of the expedition
and their escort outside the main castle entrance. The escort
comprised half a dozen soldiers of the light cavalry and, to
Karigan’s delight, another half dozen Green Riders who would remain
at the wall to aid Alton. The small size of their company would
allow them to ride swiftly and reach the wall before the
equinox.
She yawned through
the benediction of the moon priest, who stood on the castle steps
droning on and on. She had not slept well, but at least she didn’t
feel as miserable as Yates looked crouched over in his saddle with
a greenish tint to his face.
Condor shifted
beneath her and snorted, steam pluming from his nostrils, just as
anxious as she to be off, but now that the moon priest had
finished, General Harborough started issuing final orders. Captain
Mapstone stood next to him, hands clasped behind her
back.
“I know you will
conduct yourselves with the utmost professionalism,” the general
was saying. “And you will serve your king and country well.
Captain, anything you’d like to add?”
She gazed at each of
them in turn, not smiling, but not looking sad either. She appeared
every inch the commander she was. “Each of you has my confidence
this expedition will succeed. I want you to know how proud I am of
you, and I look forward to you all returning home
safely.”
General Harborough
grunted. He appeared ready to send them off when the great doors of
the castle opened. King Zachary emerged onto the top landing and
trotted down the steps, a pair of Hillander terriers running
alongside him, and Fastion following behind at a respectful
distance.
Leather creaked and
metal jingled as the company bowed to him from their saddles. The
king paused first by Lynx, and moved on to each member of the
expedition to share some private word. Much to Karigan’s dismay,
she got all fluttery inside awaiting her turn. What would he say to
her? Something personal, or just wish her well on her
way?
He wore blacks and
grays as somber as the moon priest’s gowns, his longcoat flowing
behind him as he approached her. Karigan did not feel the morning
gloom or the cold or anything when he stopped at Condor’s shoulder,
but when he clasped her hand, the warmth of his touch shocked her.
She almost missed his words.
“Do whatever you
must, Karigan,” he told her, his voice so quiet it would not carry,
“to come back. You must come back. To me.”
Before she could
even open her mouth, he was on to Yates. Karigan sat there at a
loss. Had she heard him right? She bit her bottom lip. It had
happened too quickly, and now he had already mounted the steps and
paused on the landing. “May the blessings of Aeryc and Aeryon be
upon you all,” he said.
General Harborough
ordered them to ride out. Karigan reflexively reined Condor around,
all of it a blur. However, as she rode away from the castle, she
did not see the road ahead of her, but the image of the king
standing straight and strong on the castle steps with his two
terriers sitting on either side of him, the gleam of dawn on his
amber hair, and his longcoat flapping in the wind.
She would keep that
image, she knew, tucked away in her mind forever.
The sharp clip-clop of hooves on the street below
awakened Galen Miller from a deep slumber. He rose from his pallet
in a panic fearing an opportunity missed, and flung himself across
the attic room to the window, his body ungainly from the sleep and
the shaking disease that afflicted him. Could his long wait finally
be over? He swung the window open and leaned out over the sill into
the crisp air.
It was, he
discovered, only a small military detachment riding two abreast at
a smart trot down the nearly deserted street. The time was just
past sunrise and the Winding Way remained darkened by the shadows
of buildings, but he could discern the blue uniforms of the light
cavalry and the green of messengers. There were a couple of
soldiers in black and silver, and a pair of riders in what looked
like forester’s garb. An odd assortment to be sure, and something
Galen hadn’t seen before during his many hours of surveillance of
the Winding Way, but certainly not what he’d been waiting for all
this time.
After the company
disappeared around a bend in the street, he sagged down to the
floor beside the window and just sat there. The detachment was of
no matter to him. He did not care what business hurried them on.
No, they’d been a passing curiosity was all. He’d have to continue
his vigil until what he wanted came into the view of the attic
window.
He kept his longbow
and quiver close by and now he reached out with a trembling hand to
caress the inlay work and carvings of the bow, its graceful curves.
It was truly the work of a master, both beautiful and deadly. He’d
won it in a tournament when he was Clay’s age, a young man still,
and an archer in old Lord Mirwell’s militia. He’d been the best.
When he retired from duty, he used the bow for hunting and had
taught Clay the ways of the woods and how to track quarry. Galen
passed his hand over his eyes remembering good days spent in the
woods with his son.
Clay had grown into
a fine man and an expert tracker. He followed his father’s path and
joined the militia. Everything would have been fine, but Lord
Mirwell’s coup attempt failed and Clay went into hiding in the
Teligmar Hills with his captain. Captain
Immerez. Then there’d been the whole plot to abduct Lady
Estora. Why had Clay gotten mixed up in all that?
The last image he
had of his boy, before the undertaker nailed the lid of his coffin
shut, was of Clay’s swollen, blackened face, his thickened tongue
jutting between his teeth, his neck ravaged by the noose. At least
he’d gotten a decent burial. Thanks to the stranger who’d given
Galen those silvers, Clay was put to rest with dignity in a
cemetery not far away from the inn. He’d even have a marker for his
grave: Clay Miller, beloved son of Galen and
Rosaline.
There was enough
coin left over from the burial, and from the sale of his old mule
and cart, for Galen to keep his attic room at the Cock and Hen with
its all important view of the street, as well as to purchase the
bitter weed from the herbalist he chewed to calm his
shakes.
Sometimes the weed,
however, gave him waking nightmares of seeing his boy dangling from
the noose—not the adult man, but the tow-headed boy of about
ten—his legs kicking, his body swaying, his struggles answered only
by the jeers of the mob assembled to see him die. In these
hallucinations, Clay struggled till he moved no more, the rope
creaking on the gallows from his dead weight.
Just the memory of
the visions set Galen off into choking sobs. “My boy, my boy ...”
Morning bells chimed in the distance, a bright counterpoint to the
shroud of darkness that perpetually lay upon him.
His only comfort was
his longbow and arrows, and what he could do with them. Rightfully
the bow should have been passed down to his son, but now Galen
could only use it to honor him. He would maintain his vigil over
the street and soon find peace.