“I’ll be sure that she comes home very soon, my dearests,” Epiny blithely lied. And then I realized she was not lying at all; it was what she fully intended to do.
A tall, homely woman appeared suddenly in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. A bright brass whistle hung on a fine chain around her neck.
“Thank you, Rasalle!” Epiny exclaimed at the sight of her. “I’m so glad you could watch the children for me.”
“Well, it’s no more than I owe you, all the times you’ve helped me, ma’am. I’m going to hurry along home now. My missus will want me to start the dinner for her. Unless you still need some help here?” Rasalle eyed me curiously.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! So much has happened to me today that I’ve completely forgotten my manners. This is my cousin, Mr. Burvelle, come for a visit while he recuperates from some health problems. And just fancy, on the last leg of his journey, he was waylaid by highwaymen! His horse, his baggage, everything he owns was lost to them!”
“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Such a thing to befall you! So pleased to meet you, Mr. Burvelle, and I’m so glad that you still managed to arrive safely. I’m so disappointed that I must hurry along. Well, ma’am, you take care. It never seems to rain but that it pours on you! Your housemaid—” She halted her tongue, looked at the children, and said, “Delayed, and houseguests, all on the same day! Call me if you need any assistance! I’m sure my missus would be glad to let me help you.”
“Oh, I shall, never fear, I shall! In fact, as you can see, Mr. Burvelle’s own garments were stolen from him as well. But I think he is of a size with poor Lieutenant Gerry. If your mistress would not mind, could some clothing be loaned, perhaps?”
“Likely she would, ma’am. You know she’s resolved to make the trip west, back home. She was looking through his things today, saying that there was no sense packing a dead man’s clothes.”
Epiny gave me a glance and said quietly, “Lieutenant Gerry was unfortunately killed in a raid this last winter.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said so sincerely that the maid stared at me. I stood, mute and frozen, not hearing the rest of their conversation.
The woman hurried away and Epiny swept us all into the house. Spink had gone to put up the horses, and she told the children to hurry off to the kitchen, and she would come to give them some bread and broth soon. No sooner were we alone than she exclaimed, “Oh, it couldn’t be better. Rasalle is the biggest gossip in Gettys. Soon enough everyone will know that my cousin has come to visit.”
I cared little enough for that. “I have to find out where they’re holding Amzil. From what I’ve heard of Thayer, the man is unbalanced. Even if all his men oppose the idea, he’ll still try to hang her.”
“Hush!” Epiny told me sharply and rolled her eyes toward the kitchen. “Don’t say anything like that where the children can hear. They don’t know that their mother has been arrested. They’re calm now, but I won’t have them frightened.” She took a shuddering breath and admitted, “I’m frightened enough for all of us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
DECISIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
As evening fell, I buttoned the collar of my borrowed shirt and then slipped on the jacket. Everything smelled of cedar. The jacket was blue, but it was cut identically to a uniform jacket. It felt strange to do up the shining brass buttons, as if I’d been transported back to my cadet days. I wondered briefly about the man who had worn this, and what he had thought about the last time he’d buttoned it up. Then I asked the good god to be welcoming to him, took a breath, and let it go.
I looked in Epiny’s mirror with the scrolled gilt frame and tried to smile. It looked more like a sneer. Here I was, dressed in a dead man’s clothes, possibly those of a man I had helped to kill, about to step into the biggest charade I’d ever played in my life. I’d be impersonating Nevare Burvelle, soldier son of Lord Burvelle of the East, come to present my respects to Captain Thayer. I realized I was holding my breath and slowly let it out. My chest still felt just as tight. I knew I must be mad, going along with Epiny’s harebrained scheme. The only advantage I could see to her plan was it was the only one we had.
Epiny had tucked a sleeping Solina into her bed, and then prepared and served a much-needed meal to the rest of us. But Spink didn’t join us. He’d gone out to inquire discreetly about Amzil’s location and situation. Before he’d gone, he’d told Epiny that he hoped that Captain Thayer had come to his senses and realized that he did not have any authority over either of the two women. Several of his officers had raised that objection earlier, but Thayer had ignored it, insisting that if their transgressions involved his soldiers in any way, then he had the authority to punish them. He’d also insisted that Amzil’s “confession” made any trial unnecessary and a waste of time. The sooner she was hanged, the better, and he’d settled on dawn the next day as an appropriate time for an execution. He’d been merciful to the other woman. She would spend two days in the public stocks, and then be banished from the town.
“What?” I’d asked Spink. “He’ll humiliate her and then just turn her out of the town, with no horse, no supplies, nothing, to walk alone back to Dead Town? That could be a death sentence for her.”
“I tried protesting. He wouldn’t hear me. When I spoke out anyway, saying that my housemaid had obviously acted in defense of her life and the lives of her children, he threatened to have me disciplined for speaking out of turn. I don’t think it’s a question of him doing what he thinks is just, Nevare. I think he just wants to be rid of Amzil, and he doesn’t want to have to think too much about what he is doing or why.”
From what Spink said, I doubted that any verbal argument would sway Thayer in his determination to have Amzil hanged. Nonetheless, I stubbornly clung to the tiny spark of hope that he’d offered me. Someone might say something to him to wake him from his blind vengeance. No, not vengeance, I decided. Erasure. He would expunge from his life the woman that could accuse him. He’d have himself flogged and kill the final witness. Then I recalled how Spink had defied him that night, and I felt cold trickle down my spine. Would Spink be his next target?
Epiny, the children, and I consumed a simple meal of broth and bread spread with the drippings from last night’s rabbit dinner that was also the source of today’s broth. Despite my earlier hunger, it was hard for me to swallow as I looked at the three small faces around the table and dreaded what the future might hold for them. The children were reserved with me, but Kara peppered Epiny with questions about her mother, to which Epiny could reply only that she was certain that Mummy would be home as soon as she could, and in the meantime, Kara should eat her meal with her very best manners. In that regard, I was surprised to see how far they had progressed from a time when the best they knew was to squat around a hearth and eat with their hands. Even little Dia sat propped on a chair and managed her spoon quite well.
After the meal, Dia had been put down for a nap, while Epiny set both Kara and Sem to a lesson from one of her old primers. The two children diligently bent their heads over the book while Epiny and I retreated to the other end of the room to talk softly.
“They certainly absorb a lot of your time, don’t they?” I observed, expecting her to say that this day had been unusual.
“Small children are a full-time task for any woman. They are missing their mother badly just now, and being the best little lambs they know how to be because of it. When Amzil is here, Kara is quite obstreperous, full of questions. And Sem is of an age where he is quite weary of the house, and longs to be out in the street with the other boys at all hours of the day. Many of the other boys just seem to run wild here. I have spoken twice to the commander, telling him that a regimental school for the youngsters would not be amiss at all, but he balks at the idea of mixing officers’ children with those of enlisted men, let alone the townsfolk. I’ve insisted to him that it’s the only efficient way to do it, but he will not even hear me out. The man is a cretin.”