Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations #1-2)

Lena and Russell Bothwick made good on their promise to put them up for the night, a kindness made all the more generous when they discovered how cramped the little house was. The Bothwicks had three children, four pigs, two sheep, and a goat they called Mammy, all of whom clustered in the single open room. Mosquitoes joined them as well, taking over the night shift from the flies. It was hard to breathe in the house filled with smoke, the scent of animals, and the steam from the stew pot. Royce and Hadrian staked out a bit of earth as near the open doorway as possible and sat on the floor.

“I didn’t know the first thing about farming,” Russell Bothwick was saying. Like most men in the village, he was dressed in a frayed and flimsy shirt that hung to his knees, belted around the waist with a length of twine. There were large dark circles under his eyes, another trait consistent with the other inhabitants of Dahlgren. “I was a candle maker back in Drismoor. I worked as a journeyman in a trade shop on Hithil Street. It was Theron who kept us alive our first year here. We woulda starved or froze to death if not for Theron and Addie Wood. They took us under their wing and helped build this house. It was Theron that taught me how to plow a field.”

“Addie was my midwife when I had the twins,” Lena said while ladling out bowls, which Thrace handed to the children. The twin girls and Tad, exiled to the loft, looked down from their beds of straw, chins on hands, eyes watchful. “And Thrace here was our babysitter.”

“There was never a question about taking her in,” Russell said. “I only wish Theron would come too, but that man is stubborn.”

“I just can’t get over how beautiful that dress is,” Lena Bothwick said again, looking at Thrace and shaking her head. Russell grumbled something, but since he had a mouthful of stew, no one understood him.

Lena scowled. “Well, it is.”

She stopped talking about it but continued to stare. Lena was a gaunt woman with light brown hair cut straight and short, giving her a boyish look. Her nose came to a point so sharp it looked like it could cut parchment. She had a rash of freckles and no eyebrows to speak of. The children all took after her, each sporting the same cropped hairstyle, son and daughters alike, while Russell had no hair at all.

Thrace entertained them with stories of her adventure to the big city, of the sights and number of people she found there. She explained that Hadrian and Royce had taken her to a lavish hotel. This brought worried looks from Lena but she relaxed as more details were revealed. Thrace raved about her bath in a hot-water tub with perfumed soap and about how she had spent the night in a huge feather bed under a solid beamed roof. She never mentioned the Tradesmen’s Arch, or what happened underneath it.

Lena was mesmerized to the point of nearly letting the remainder of the stew boil over. Russell continued to grunt and grumble his way through the meal. Esrahaddon sat with his back to the side wall between Lena’s spinning wheel and the butter churn. His robe was now a dark gray. He was so quiet he could have been just a shadow. During dinner, Thrace spoon-fed the wizard.

How must that feel? Hadrian thought while watching them. What is it like to have held so much power and now be unable to even hold a spoon?

After dinner, while helping Lena clean up, Thrace was placing the washed bowls on a shelf and called out, “I remember this plate.” A smile appeared on her face as she spotted the only ceramic dish in the house. The pale white oval with delicate blue traceries lay carefully tucked in a back corner of the cupboard with all the other treasured family heirlooms. “I remember when I was little, Jessie Caswell and I—” She stopped and the house quieted. Even the children stopped fussing.

Lena stopped cleaning the dishes and put her arms around Thrace, pulling her close. Hadrian noticed lines on the woman’s face he had not seen previously. The two stood before the bucket of dirty water and silently cried together. “You shouldn’t have come back,” Lena whispered. “You should have stayed in that hotel with those people.”

“I can’t leave him.” Hadrian heard Thrace’s small voice muffled by Lena’s shoulder. “He’s all I have left.”

Thrace pulled back and Lena struggled to offer her a smile.

It was dark outside now. From his vantage point at the doorway, Hadrian could not see much of anything—a tiny patch of moonlight scattered here and there. Fireflies blinked, leaving trails of light. The rest was lost in the vast black of the forest.

Russell pulled over a stool to sit across from Royce and Hadrian. Lighting a long clay pipe with a thin sliver of wood, he commented, “So, you two are here to help Theron kill the monster?”

“We’ll do what we can,” Hadrian replied.

Russell puffed hard on his pipe to ensure it lit, and then crushed the burning tip of the wooden sliver into the dirt floor. “Theron is over fifty years old. He knows the sharp end of a pitchfork from the handle, but I don’t ’spect he’s ever held a sword. Now you two look to me like the kind of fellas that have seen a fight up close, and Hadrian here not only has a sword—he’s got three. A man carries three swords, he, like as not, knows how to use ’em. Seems to me a couple fellas like you could do more than just help an old man get himself killed.”

“Russell!” Lena reprimanded him. “They’re our guests. Why don’t you scald them with hot water while you’re at it?”

“I just don’t want to see that damn fool kill himself. If the margrave and his knights didn’t stand a chance, how well will Theron do out there? An old man with that scythe of his. What’s he trying to prove? How brave he is?”

“He’s not trying to prove anything,” Esrahaddon said suddenly, and his voice silenced the room like a plate dropping. “He’s trying to kill himself.”

“What?” Russell asked.

“He’s right,” Hadrian said, “I’ve seen it before. Soldiers—career soldiers—brave men just reach a point where it’s all too much. It can be anything that sets them off—one too many deaths, a friend dying, or even something as trivial as a change in the weather. I knew a man once who led charges in dozens of battles. It wasn’t until a dog he befriended was butchered for food that he gave up. Of course, a fighter like that can’t surrender, can’t just quit. He needs to go out swinging. So they rush in unguarded, picking a battle they can’t win.”

“Then I needn’t have wasted your time,” Thrace said. “If my father doesn’t want to live, whatever is in the tower can’t save him.”

Hadrian regretted speaking and added, “Every day your father is alive, there is the chance he can find hope again.”

“Your father will be fine, Thrace,” Lena told her. “That man is tough as granite. You’ll see.”

“Mom,” one of the kids from the loft called.

Lena ignored the child. “You shouldn’t listen to these people talking about your father that way. They don’t know him.”

“Mom.”

“Honestly, telling a poor girl something like that right after she’s lost her family.”

“Mom!”

“What on earth is it, Tad?” Lena nearly screamed at the child.