His voice sounded strained, and she worried that he had hurt himself again, wanted to tell him to take off his jacket and shirt so she could check his bandaging. It had only been . . . how long since he was injured? Her thoughts wouldn’t focus; she couldn’t remember. Days . . . weeks?
“My head hurts.” It came out as a whimper, and Isobel cringed in embarrassment.
“The broth will help,” Gabriel said. “It will be all right.”
She couldn’t remember what had happened. Where were they? What had?—
A voice caught at her, and she looked across the hall. Two men sat on a bench, enough space between them to tell her they did not want to be there, took no comfort from the other, making her aware of how close Gabriel sat to her, his arm draped over her shoulder, and how much comfort she took from that.
The shorter of the two men looked up, scowled at her, and a click click click of bootheels coming down stairs was her memory and she knew who they were: the strangers who had provoked the magicians, then called false insult against them. They were here in Andreas and?—
“The magicians!” She tried to stand, but Gabriel’s arm turned into an immovable weight, keeping her still.
“Easy, Iz.”
“You said they were waking.” She could feel her blood rushing, skin prickling, urgency driving her, but was unable to slide free from his hold.
“One. But the lockhouse can hold them for a little while longer. Drink the broth; you’re going to need to stand up and be presentable soon.”
Isobel knew that voice, knew it would be useless to protest. Despite his warnings, she drained what remained of the broth in one gulp, grimacing at the silty, overly salted dregs at the bottom. Broth for blood, Molly used to say when one of them had their cycles. She thought about telling Gabriel that, then decided against it. He was skittish enough when she bled; no need to remind him of it. Men were awkward that way.
She blinked down into the cup, feeling the warmth slowly creep back into her flesh, aware that she was thinking foolishly, that Gabriel was right; better she sit and be still a while longer.
“Ma?tre Isobel.”
She looked up as the man approached. Old, balding, a shirt buttoned to his neck, neatly darned at the elbows . . . Judge Pike, she remembered. He’d met them at the gate, and then . . .
“No, don’t you stand,” he reassured her. “Marshal LaFlesche has already given her word; all I’ll be needing from you is why you say these men have brought false claim, and there’s no need to be formal about it with only us here. You being who you are, your word will be enough.”
Isobel blinked at him, then looked at the marshal standing a few paces behind. The older woman shook her head once: she hadn’t told the judge anything. But she’d said she was of Flood, and he’d mentioned the boss, not her. . . .
Isobel bit her lip. When she’d first left Flood, she’d thought the name alone would make people look up to her, give her some kind of power. Now, months of travel from home, that name elicited the respect she’d craved, and she didn’t trust it.
She wasn’t fool enough not to understand why. This far out, the boss wasn’t even a name; he was a figure, faceless and powerful. All they needed to know was she came from Flood, and she had authority. Her word would hang these men.
The Americans had given false witness, whether they’d understood that or not. Everyone in the Territory had to abide by the same rules. But she would give them fair telling.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin, putting the now-empty mug into Gabriel’s hand, as though she were making her evening report to the boss, telling him what she’d seen, what she’d observed of the players at the table, the loiterers along the bar.
“My mentor and I were riding north along the Road when I was called to witness.”
No need to say she’d been alone and asleep, or that the whisper hadn’t been a dream-call, not truly; explaining all that would take more strength than she had, with what she had yet to say.
And the whisper itself . . . Her thoughts of that, her dizzy, impossible thoughts, the sensation of something replacing herself with itself, she’d keep to herself. For now.
“We first encountered a homesteading, where the residents told us of the earth shaking, that there was a . . . something wrong, further north. That the ground shook and the animals fled.”
Had this been the boss, she would have told him of the sadness Jumping-Up Duck had described, had told him about the way they had seemed afraid of what was happening, the sorrow and anger they had described. But such things had no place, no weight in what this man must judge.