I require your help and am willing to help you in return.
I ask that you speak to Lord Sauvage and request that he offer Kai Volodane a commissioned office in the king’s army, perhaps as a lieutenant. Have him send the offer here.
If you do this, I will pay off one of your creditors. You only need name the debt.
Please respond at your earliest convenience.
Your daughter,
Megan
Taking the letter out to the barracks, I found Captain Marcel.
“My lady,” he said with the short bow. “Can I be of service?”
“I need a letter carried to my family in Chaumont as quickly as possible. Can you spare a swift rider?”
“Of course.”
I knew my father wouldn’t ignore my message as it contained an offer of money, but he exceeded even my expectations with his rapid response. Chaumont Manor was a two-day ride at a leisurely pace. It could be done in a day and half on a fast horse.
Three days after I sent the letter a response arrived. Father must have penned it and put someone on horse within an hour of reading my offer.
My dear Megan,
I have already sent word to Lord Sauvage, and I’m certain he will offer to sell young Volodane a commission. From what I understand, Kai is well trained with a sword, and Sauvage would be glad to have him.
The offer should arrive shortly with all the particulars.
I have enclosed a note for a loan I took out last year, and I appreciate your offer of assistance.
He didn’t bother with a signature. I looked at the note for the loan. It was for five hundred silver pieces.
I took the letter down the west passage. Recently, Sebastian had had a storage room cleaned out, and he’d turned it into a study. I found him there behind his desk going over a ledger of accounts.
“May I disturb you?” I asked.
He smiled. “Please do.”
I held out the letter and quickly explained what I’d done. Almost as soon as I began speaking, his smile faded.
“You’d need to pay my father’s debt and buy Kai the commission,” I finished. “But will you?”
“You want me to send my only brother off to serve in the king’s army?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you want to send him off. I want you to let him go. Will you?”
To his credit, he didn’t pretend not to understand me.
“If this offer arrives and he wants it, I’ll pay the commission,” he said tightly.
“And my father’s debt?”
“Yes.”
I started for the door and then stopped. “Kai can never know about these backdoor dealings. He’ll need to believe Sauvage sought him out.”
Slowly, he nodded.
The offer arrived in the evening about a week later.
I hid it and saved it until morning. I wanted to speak with Kai alone, and Sebastian rarely came down for breakfast anymore.
Walking into the great hall, I found Kai at the table, drinking tea and eating bacon.
Without even a greeting, I said, “I’ve received a letter from Lord Sauvage. I think you know he’s a friend of my family? He enclosed an offer for you.”
“For me?”
I held out the piece of paper. “He’s offering you a commission as a lieutenant. If you accept, you’re to report in Partheney and then take your place in the coastal border patrol.”
Jumping up, he took the letter. Honestly, I’d not known how he would react, but his face came alive.
“A commission? As a lieutenant?” He was overjoyed, reading the contents of the offer several times. “But don’t commissions cost a good deal of money?”
“Sebastian will pay it.”
“Oh, Megan.” His eyes flew up. “On the coastal patrol? I can hardly believe it.” Then his face fell, and he ran his free hand through his hair. “Wait. I can’t go. I can’t just leave you here, not with everything that’s...” He trailed off.
I fought to keep my expression still. He feared abandoning me.
“Yes, you can,” I answered. “Sebastian will look out for me, and our king needs men like you on the border. We’ll all be safer with you watching our shores.”
This was probably a pretty lie, but it worked.
His eyes lit up with hope again.
I touched his arm. “Go, Kai. Go.”
Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to see Kai off, but Miriam and I did.
It was a bittersweet morning for me.
As he mounted up, I said, “Write when you can.”
“I’ll try, but I’ve never been one for writing.” He paused, looking down from his horse. “If you ever need me, I’ll come.”
“I know.”
He cantered toward the gate, and I felt the loss of him. Miriam’s hand grasped mine.
“You’ll always have me,” she said.
I gripped down on her fingers. “We’ll always have each other.”
Winter turned into spring, and spring turned into summer again.
I turned eighteen.
After Kai’s departure, Sebastian expressed more concern for my happiness. Between that midwinter and summer, he held only two house parties, and in between those he spent a good deal of time with me, even taking me on a picnic once.
Occasionally, he would sleep in my bed, and we’d whisper under the covers and he’d pull me up against him to sleep. I would have liked this to happen much more often, but I’d learned never to ask more than he was capable of giving. Sebastian didn’t like to be questioned and he didn’t like to be pressed.
“You understand me,” he whispered one night. “Sometimes I think you’re the only one.”
I’d long since given up on us becoming a more traditional man and wife, but it pained me that we’d never have children.
In the middle of that summer, a letter arrived from Kai.
True to his word, he hadn’t written me often, so one of his infrequent letters always delighted me. This one was longer than usual, and I read parts of it aloud to Sebastian at dinner.
“He thinks next year he’ll be given command of a small contingent of scouts,” I said.
Sebastian shook his head. “He sounds happy, doesn’t he? As if he loves riding up and down the coast looking for pirates who’ve landed without permission.”
“He probably does.”
I didn’t know if Kai was a born soldier or not. I only knew that he needed a purpose.
However, there was a part of the letter I didn’t read to Sebastian, and that night in my room, I read it again by the light of a candle.
I’ve never had any doubt that you somehow took a hand in helping me escape the keep, and I will always be grateful. It may surprise you to hear that I still miss home so much, not the home I left, but the one I remember. In my mind, I go over and over that day when Father and Rolf were killed, imagining ways I might have stopped it.
For a brief span, between the time you came to live with us and the time they died, we had a true home. Then suddenly, Father and Rolf were gone and Sebastian became a stranger.
I like my comrades here, and I’ve made good friends, but they are not my own people and I sometimes feel alone. We all need our own people. With the exception of you, mine are gone.
During the day when I’d read that section, it had made me pity Kai. Here, in the night, in the solitude of my room, it made me pity myself. To my shame, tears sprang to my eyes.