Snippet #1500612

The courtyard was busy with the sights and sounds of House Damian's knights. They were a group of decent size (outnumbering Strake three to one) and all of them boisterously talking and laughing as they milled about under the red panther's sigil. The air was stale, windless, and the sigil of Strake did not move in its place over the estate. The family's motto - I Breathe, I Endure - was hidden in its folds.

One man, ornately dressed, broke away from the group and led his horse up to the great doors where Jane was standing, her household arranged about her. (Or peering out of the corners of windows.) He made a grunt as he dismounted and looked her over. Jane bore the look with a quiet, steady expression.

"I've come to speak with the Lady Strake. Fetch her, woman."

'Tis not the first time I've been mistaken for a servant, she thought.

"You are in her presence," she replied and curtsied, noting with a burst of satisfaction that she was two heads taller than the man. He looked taken aback, then bowed.

"You have my apologies, my Lady. I am the Knight Commander of these men and under the banner of House Damian. We have been sent by His Grace, the King."

She said nothing and continued to look in his eyes. He fidgeted and continued: "His Grace wishes to speak with you about your knowledge of Jamie Winsler and his whereabouts."

"I see the civil war has managed to reach us at last."

"At last? As we understand, my Lady, you've supplied him with men and arms."

Oh. Yes, she'd forgotten about that little detail. She tried a smile that she hoped was winning. Or flirtatious. Or anything that would let her stall for time. It was Addie who saved them, coming forward and insisting their guests speak of such matters on stomaches that were not empty - for the evening meal was just ready to be served.

Jane felt the dark, crawling reminder of what she'd seen happen at the last feast where there had been political tensions. And she hadn't been one of the key players in that one.

~

"I don't like the Knight Commander."

Jane's eyes did not move from the dancers. They had struck up a small band of players as the feast drew to its close, and some of the knights had paired with ladies of her household. Out of the corner of her mouth, she asked: "Why?"

"He keeps looking at me ... as if ... as if he knew what I looked like without my chemise!"

Jane had never felt so blessed to be physically unspectacular in her life.

"Well, he is a man. He's probably seen his fair share of ... un-chemised ladies."

Addie made a choked noise.

As if he knew they were speaking of him, the Knight Commander left his place amongst his men and walked over to them, bowing as he did. Addie made a high-pitched squeak and began to fidget in her seat. Jane put just enough pressure down on her foot to leave a warning ("Don't faint!") and a bruise. The smell of wine rolled off him like perfume.

"May I ask the pleasure of Lady Adelaide's company in a dance?"

"I'm called Addie, ser," the lady-in-waiting whispered.

"Adelaide," he insisted. "Feels more like I'm dancing with a princess."

She threw a desperate, pleading look at Jane and was whisked away.

~

It was half to to the gift Jane had received from her father on her twelfth birthday and half to the drunken state of the Knight Commander that all who escaped with their lives from the Strake estate that night did.

"Keep this book, Stem," he'd said, using his pet name for her, "and write down every day in it."

"But what if there's nothing, Papa?"

"There's always something to write about."

As evening began to settle around them, and the candles were lit as the windows darkened, Jane retired to her bedchamber. There would be much to write of in Book that day ... the previous pages had been filled with her grief of the deaths of her sisters and her worries for little Margaret. Of course, poor, sweet, simple-minded Katherine was also a worry, but she was one that Jane had grown accustomed to. She considered skipping the entry, but she had never done so before, and a single night of weariness would not make her.

Book was absent. Jane frowned, running her hands over the empty space at her bedside where she kept it. That was strange. None of the servants ever bothered it and she never placed it anywhere else.

"Addie?" she called. "Have you seen my diary?"

"No, my Lady. 'Tis misplaced?"

The only other place it would logically be would the small library on the first floor. It was late, and the house quiet, but she could not sleep without writing a few words.

"I might have put it in the library," she conceded and picked up one of the candles from her bedside. "Come with me," she said and ignored her lady-in-waiting's less-than-quiet sigh.

As they headed towards the library, down the main staircase, they heard the faint sounds of men's laughter. Jane paused.

"Another one!" she heard a voice shout, followed by more laughter.

Another what?

Curiosity tugged Jane onward down the corridor, past the library. It was the room where the Knight Commander and his men had been set up. The door was flung open, and candle light spilled into the hall. Slowly, she approached, then pressed herself against the wall by the door, listening.

A man's absurdly high, prissy falsetto spoke:


Hello, Book.

I really hate to dance. I wish that I could learn. Louisa always gets compliments about the way she moves her feet, but when they look at me, they just smile and say something nice that they think won't my feelings. I don't know why I can't learn! Maybe it's because I am too tall. I am two inches taller than Mumma and I hope I don't grow more, because pretty women are supposed to be very fragile and dainty, like in the tales. Sometimes I walk on the sides of my feet with my legs bowed a little to be shorter. It's hard to tell if I'm wearing a nice, thick dress, and I've gotten very good at it. But you can't dance that way.

Mumma says not to worry about it and that sometimes there are girls that bloom late. I asked her how late and she laughed. I am terrible at dancing and stitching and figuring out what other people think. That last one is politics. Papa says I spend too much time inside my own mind to know how to get inside someone else's. I shouldn't like to be inside someone else's head anyway because I like mine just fine. Maybe it would be nice to get inside Louisa's and learn how she dances, but I don't think that's politics."


Jane went cold with humiliation and rage. How did they get Book? That entry ... she must have been twelve when she'd written it, if Louisa was still alive. It had been a long time she had last thought of her sister Louisa, who had died shortly before her thirteenth birthday ... in the same sweep of illness that had carried away so many just a month ago.

"Shame you didn't find anything really worthwhile," she heard the Knight Commander's distinct voice.

"There might be code in it. His Grace'll be interested enough."

What?

"When do we start?" a gruff voice asked.

"Give it another hour or two. They'll be sound asleep."

"Why's the King so sure it'll work? That bastard doesn't have the honor to fight in an open field, why's he expected to come avenge Strake?"

They're going to kill us, Jane realized. What was there to stop them? She had no military force to speak of, beyond a few knights who had stayed - and they were mostly those whose days of knighthood were slowly beginning to fade as age crept up on them. Beside her, Addie's ragged breathing sounded like thunder.

"We're to Cavanaugh," Jane whispered. "I want you to ready Katherine and Margaret. And any of the servants who will remain with us and are capable. Addie, if you faint, I swear I'll leave you there."

"But what if they kill us?"

"Then we'll be dead. They won't if we are prepared."

~

Lord Winsler,

I send this letter to you in the utmost haste. By the time this reaches you, I believe that the Strake estate will have been burned, but my men, and the rest of my household, will have found refuge at Cavanaugh. The king has launched this attack on your allies to draw you, and more likely Jamie, out into direct warfare. We will be able to hold our ground with the combined forces of Cavanaugh. They will expect you to come to our aid from the front, as a shield, I imagine. They are unaware of Jamie's location, as am I. It would be the perfect opportunity to flank them. They would be caught between us and slaughtered. If you are at all able to contact your son, I beg you to do so. It may give him a perfect opportunity to come into the open.

Jane signed her name and filled the rest of the empty space with diagonal lines, so as to prevent any forged postscripts. Ser Guy took the letter and nodded to her.

"If all goes well, it will be in his hands in three days."

"At the soonest?"

"Aye."

The crows might be feasting on us by then, she mused. Margaret reached out and wrapped her fingers around Jane's hand, squeezing, her eyes full of fear. Her other hand was in Katherine's. Jane looked at the two of them and felt a fierce, hopeless surge of protectiveness: the same she often felt for poor, mad Benjamin. Katherine was all of twenty years old, but she'd the mind of a babe, and had since the fever in her childhood had addled her wits.

"Take them to the horses," she said and pulled her hand from Margaret's viselike grip.

"But where are you going?" the child's voice threatened to become a wail.

Just as her words were finished, there was a woman's scream from beyond the open window, followed by unintelligible shouts. The clash of metal followed.

This is Lord Winsler's war, at last, she thought.

"To fetch Miss Addie and a few other things. You won't even notice I was gone. Ser Guy? Edwina?"

The elderly nursemaid's face was streaked with tears, and she hesitated as the knight ushered out the two of them, Katherine following the man's lead with an empty, beatific smile.

"Your father's sword, isn't it?" Edwina asked.

"Yes."

"It's not worth your life, Stem," she sobbed.

Jane scoffed. "Look at you! Crying and making a mess for no reason! I'll be back in a moment."

"And 'twas the same your father said and him seven years in the grave now."

"The more we talk, the more time we waste," Jane said, frustrated. And fearful. "Fifteen minutes. I'll be back with Addie and we'll ride for Cavanaugh."

The words said, she turned and hurried from the room. It was both urgency and a fear that Edwina would change her mind that quickened her pace. There was the smell of smoke and fire and Jane realized they had begun to torch the estate. Generations of her family had been born, and lived, and died, under this roof. Now it was going up in flames. Her father's sword was kept in a secret room, just off the main staircase, and hidden by a secret panel in the wood. Heavily ornamented (and heavy in general) Jane could barely lift it with one hand.

Book, she thought, miserably. But there was nothing to be done for that, unless she wanted to track down the Knight Commander and challenge him. Jane turned the corner back to the staircase and crashed into him.

"Oh," he said. His eyes were bloodshot, his clothes stained with blood. "There you are."

Before she could react, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. The sword dropped with a loud clang. His other hand grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her down to his level, his lips crashing against hers, his rough stubble tearing at her skin.

This is the part where a knight gallant shows up. But this was the House of Strake, where the tales never had happy endings. Jane bit down on his tongue and tasted blood. He cried out and slackened his grip, allowing Jane to twist away. She brought her arm across her mouth and spat.

"Bitch," he snarled, blood pouring down his chin. He drew his fist back and lunged at her, but the wine had addled his senses, and she stepped out of his way with ease.

The blow that struck her from behind was unexpected. And debilitating. Her head screamed, and her vision exploded in purple and black dots.

"My Lady!"

Addie?

Jane lifted her head just as the man who'd struck her kicked her in the ribs. The force of it made her bounce up into the air for a moment. The smoke was growing thicker. She tried to make sense of the voices about her, but the ringing in her ears would not stop. When her eyes began to focus, she saw Addie, her bodice ripped, her chest crisscrossed with bloody cuts, struggling to free herself from the Knight Commander's grasp.

"No," she said, knowing the words were useless; knowing she was useless.

Why didn't you give them a son? she thought. Why couldn't you give them a single son?

Her father's sword glinted in the light of the fire that had begun to lick at the tapestries. A pair of black boots came into her line of vision and she looked up to see the nameless Damian knight who had struck her.

"This is what happens to all who betray their sovereign king."

The women's eyes locked for a moment. And then the Commander slit her throat.

"Addie!" Jane shrieked.

She flung her hand out for the sword and her fingers clasped so deeply around it that her palm was sliced. She thrust it up with all her strength, feeling it strike the knight's body, a moment's resistance, and then the sickening, foreign feeling of it sliding within. He made a strangled sound and staggered back from her, his body pulling away from the sword. Blood ran down its hilt onto Jane's hand. It was all the opportunity she needed. She raised and brought it down on his back, teeth bared. The man's legs gave out beneath him and he crashed to the floor.

The Knight Commander let Addie fall and lunged for her. With a wild, animalistic scream, Jane rounded and sunk the blade deep into his belly. He, like their other attacker, collasped. Four times more, she brought the sword down on him, then stopped, chest heaving. Her hands were stained with blood, as was her gown. There were spots of it on her face.

I've killed two men, she realized. Strange, she did not feel remorse; indeed, were she given the same chance, she'd kill them again. There was an overpowering smell of wine and burning wood, coupled with the coppery scent of blood. And there was Book, strapped to his side beside the sword he had not drawn. She pulled it loose and forced herself to look away and towards the wall, towards Addie. Her heart cried out. Her lady-in-waiting stared up at the roof with vacant eyes, her mouth open, her neck a sea of red.

There was nothing I could do. Slowly, she got to her feet and walked over, sword dragging, and dropped to her knees beside Addie. Her large, green eyes, pretty even in death, closed beneath Jane's fingertips.

"I'm sorry, Addie," she whispered. Her eyes burned, but the tears did not fall. There was no time to mourn. Outside, she could hear the shouts and screams of battle. She wasn't sure if they could fall. In two months, she had lost seven sisters; mourned and mourned until she was certain her heart had broken and mended itself crooked. There was nothing left to do but carry on.

As they rode off into the night for Cavanaugh, Jane remembered how her father had never looked back when he headed off to his last battle. She did not turn to watch Strake burn.