“But we will be soon. Thanks to the San, I’ve finally found a way out of my marriage. If the Ferens think I am dead, they will finally leave me alone.” Kepi would have the freedom she desired.
She took the piece of bread he offered her and devoured it. How clever of him to pack food. How resourceful he was, this boy she loved, so unlike Dagrun, who was used to having his way as he wanted, when he wanted.
Seth was the son of a crofter, and had once apprenticed with a physician. He understood herbs and tonics, and he was used to making do with little, used to caring for others. Even now, tending to her wound, he’d torn his tunic to bind the gash. It felt like the first day they had met. “When we get to the farm,” she said, “do you think your mother would teach me to be a seamstress? I’d like that, I think. Learning to sew. To do something useful.”
“My mother isn’t much of a seamstress herself,” Seth said, tying the ends into a firm knot. “But I suppose she might show you what she knows.”
“My mother wasn’t around to teach me to sew.” Kepi picked at the torn place on Seth’s shirt. “Maybe I’ll fix this for you, when we get there.”
“Hmm,” Seth said, and then he was quiet.
Kepi was rubbing the torn fabric between her fingers, thinking of Seth’s mother—would she teach Kepi to cook, to care for goats?—when underneath his tunic she saw a fresh cut arching across the smooth skin of Seth’s belly. The gash was newly sutured, the stitches as small and neat as a physician’s.
“What’s this?” she asked. She had seen the outlanders draw a blade across his chest, but how had he managed to bandage the wound? Alone in the forest with no needles, no thread?
“Oh that,” Seth said, tucking his shirt into his breeches now. “It’s old. Yesterday, before the San attacked, I had a skirmish with a Feren soldier in the camp. He thought to best me in the ring, but I got a piece of him too.”
He glanced to the side. The buzzing in the back of her head grew louder. Kepi had tried not to pay attention but there was something wrong here. Seth was edgy, unhappy, and unable to meet her eyes. He glanced behind them, at the way they had come. She realized he was waiting. But for what?
The bread. The stitches. At last she understood. “We’re not escaping, are we?” she asked, all the joy gone from her voice.
Seth closed his eyes and took her hands in his. His face was long with anguish, his hands cold. “They’re coming,” he whispered. “The Ferens. They’re following me here.”
Kepi pulled her hands from his, disbelief etched all over her face.
“I had no choice,” he told her. “They captured me as I entered the forest to find you. Dagrun said he would kill both of us if I didn’t help them. I had to. I’m so sorry. I had to,” he confessed, tears in his voice. “I’m so sorry, Kepi, I’m so sorry.”
“No, no,” she muttered.
She could have made her way out; she hadn’t had to wait for him, she did so only because of love, but now her love would bind her to her enemy. Seth had sold them out for a threat. If it had been her who had been caught, she would have fought—she would have died fighting—so Seth would be able to live.
Instead Seth had chosen his life over hers.
The buzzing in her head exploded, burning and white with anger, anger that congealed like sour milk in her stomach along with the pain of sadness and disappointment. He was gentle and he was also weak. This boy she loved.
“We’ll find another way to escape. We will, Kepi, I swear it,” he cried, trying to reach for her hands again.
Kepi turned away from him; her vision had narrowed to a thin, dark tunnel, and at the end of it she saw not the boy she loved but a servant, a servant who had betrayed his mistress to save himself.
“I did what I could to keep us both alive. They said if I took their soldiers to you, all will be forgiven. Dagrun would stop hunting you, he wouldn’t hurt you for running. And he’ll allow me to stay on as your master-of-arms in Feren. He doesn’t know about us.”
“Seth—Dagrun wants me alive, I am no use to him dead. You did not buy my life, only my imprisonment,” she said softly, as if explaining to a child. Kepi shook her head. Was it possible he was so simple? That he had not thought it through at all? “I should have died last night in the forest, let the San take me rather than live to see this day.”
Seth shook his head desperately, but it was too late, they heard the Ferens approach—a clank of gauntlets, of swords.
Four men dressed in silvery armor, their chest plates bearing the Tree of Feren, appeared out of the mist and surrounded the couple. “Good work, boy,” one of them said with a laugh.
Seth took a step back, his face red from weeping.
Kepi lowered her head as the soldiers bound her hands, and though she told herself she would not cry—not for Seth, not for herself—she cursed and swore at the Ferens, and in the struggle to hold back her tears her vision blurred as they led her back to the carriage.
27
The shadow and the rustling in the brush revealed an ordinary man and not the eld. The stranger was alone, dressed in gray robes, and he held a curved dagger in front of him, but loosely, as if he was not certain if he planned to use it.
He did not move. No wave. No greeting.
As Ren approached he saw he was a man of middle years—handsome, with dark hair and eyes, muscular, nearly as broad as Arko himself, with his chin raised as if he saw something in Ren he did not like. His thick black hair was silver at the temples, but there was no denying he was still in his prime, or that he seemed reluctant to greet Ren, waiting until the boy was an arm’s length away before giving him the slightest nod.
“Your sister Merit sent me. I’m her husband, Shenn Wadi. I hope you don’t mind, but it’s long been practice for the heir to bring a man or two along to watch his back. Your father did it. Your grandfather too, from what I hear. It’s just not sung about in the King’s Hall.” The man gave another barely perceptible bow as he stowed his knife and offered Ren his hand. The warden had told Arko’s soldiers to leave the reserve, so how was it that Shenn had been able to enter it? Was it because he was married to Merit, his sister? Shenn was a member of the king’s family.
Ren took his hand. “I don’t need help, but I might like the company.”
The man’s grip had been cold and wet. Shenn was nervous, and his tone was overly bright. Ren had observed the same behavior in the priors when they were about to do something unexpected or unwanted. He hoped he was wrong, he hoped his sister was being overprotective, but his gut told him otherwise. “Thank you, brother.”