“Very well, sir. And Steward Dixon sends to tell you that the guardsmen are eating everything within sight. As our larders were not well stocked this fall …”
Our larders had been overflowing before the raid. “Tell him to send a man and wagon to Withy and stock whatever he thinks we need for now. Next market day, he can make a trip to Oaksbywater. I will settle with the merchants later. They know we are good for it.”
“Very good, sir.” Bulen cast a worried look at FitzVigilant. He had only served him for a short time, but there was already a bond between the young men. “Is there anything I can bring for Scribe Lant?”
Lant did not even shift his eyes toward Bulen. Chade shook his head silently and the man withdrew. “Lant?” he said softly.
FitzVigilant drew a deep breath and took up his tale as if it were a heavy burden. “We were all there. And they brought out Shun and her maid. I remember I noticed that Shun was fighting them, because no one else was. She was kicking and screaming at the man who dragged her. Then from somewhere, she had a knife and she stabbed his hand. She almost broke free. He grabbed her by the shoulder and slapped her so hard that she fell. He still had to throttle the knife out of her hand. He pushed her toward us and walked away. Then she looked all around and when she saw me, she came running to me. She was screaming, ‘Do something! Why isn’t anyone doing anything?’ She threw her arms around me, but I just stood there. Then she asked me, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ And I couldn’t think of anything wrong at all. I said we should just stand with the others. It was what I wanted to do. And she asked, ‘If it’s what they want to do, why are they moaning?’ ” He stopped and swallowed. “I listened, then. And they were. Moaning and weeping but in a disconnected way. And I realized I’d been doing it, too.”
Only Shun had fought back. Why? Had the training Chade had provided for her made her bolder than the others? I’d hired no servants for their skill with arms, but I was sure my stablefolk had seen a brawl or three. Yet no one had fought back. Except Shun. I looked at Chade. He didn’t meet my eyes, and I was forced to set the question aside for later.
“The guards on horseback started shouting at us to ‘sit down, sit down.’ Some yelled in Chalcedean, some in our tongue. I didn’t sit, because I was already too cold and there was snow on the ground. And I felt that as long as I stayed with the others in the carriage turnaround, I was doing what I should be doing. One of the men started making threats. He was looking for someone, a pale boy, and said he would kill us all if we did not turn him over to them. I knew of no such lad, and apparently no one else did. There was Oak, who you had hired as a serving man. He was blond, but scarcely a boy. But someone said to one of the men that he was the only towhead working at Withywoods. He was standing not far from me. And the man who was asking rode his horse over to Oak, looked down on him, and then pointed. ‘Him?’ he shouted at this other man. He was dressed all in white, and though he looked like a prosperous merchant, his face was a boy’s. He shook his head and the man on the horse was suddenly very angry. ‘Not him!’ he shouted and then he leaned down and slashed Oak’s throat with his sword. And he fell into the snow, with the blood leaping from the wound. He lifted his hand to his throat, as if he could hold it back. But he couldn’t. He looked right at me until he died. Blood steams when the day is that cold. I never knew that. And I just watched.
“But Shun didn’t. She screamed, and cursed the man on the horse, saying she would kill him. She started to run at him. And I didn’t know why, but I caught hold of her arm and tried to hold her back. I struggled with her. And a man on a horse rode over and kicked me hard in the head, so I let go of her. Then he leaned down and thrust his sword through me. And he laughed as I fell right onto Oak’s body. His blood was still warm. I remember that.”
Oak. A young man hired to help serve the dinners. A smiling young man, unlearned at serving in a house, but always smiling, and so proud of his new livery. Oak, a lifeless body, seeping red into white snow. He had come to us from Withy. Did his parents wonder yet why he had not come home to visit?
There was a noise at the door. It was Thick, coming back with a platter of little raisin cakes. He was smiling as he offered them to us. He looked puzzled when Chade and Lant and I shook our heads. Perseverance took one, but held it in his hand. Thick smiled and sat down on the hearth with the plate on his lap. He made a great show of choosing one. His simple enjoyment of a little cake rang sharply against my heart. Why could not it be my little girl, my Bee, sitting there with a whole plate of cakes to herself and no worries?