The Rose and the Thorn

CHAPTER 17

Hadrian watched the approach of the four deputies whose only identifying uniforms were the simple white feathers in their hats. One had his on backward such that the feather pointed forward like a one-horned bull. These were no different than the last patrol, except they lacked a trained sheriff and were making do entirely with militia. They blundered up, brandishing swords.

“He’s one of them that drew on me. And they got that Rose girl! Look out for the other one.”

“Hold on now!” Hadrian called out. “Let’s not be hasty. You don’t want to die, and honestly I don’t want to kill you.”

“Put your sword … ah, swords … on the ground,” Terence said. “Then lie facedown, or we’ll be doing the killing.”

“Listen,” Hadrian tried again, “Rose didn’t do anything. She’s just a young girl. And-”

“Someone stab this fool.”

They all drew swords.

Hadrian stepped back through the Lower Quarter Gate and, dodging out of sight, pulled his two blades. They followed. The first one through the gate ran into Hadrian’s short sword. His crumpled body tripped the second one. Hadrian ignored him for the moment and caught the third with his bastard sword. The last one hesitated as Hadrian expected he might. By then the second one through-the fellow with the backward feather-was on his feet and swinging. The stroke was just a basic shoulder chop-no skill at all. Hadrian caught it high with his left sword and stabbed him with his right.

His sword thrust pierced the meat of his side. Hadrian didn’t want him dead. More importantly he didn’t want him to fall down. Seeing him occupied, the fourth man pressed the opportunity and took his chance. Hadrian rotated the skewered man around, and the timing was perfect. The fourth man accidentally stabbed the deputy with the backward hat. Both men let out a gasp. The one on the receiving end of the blade being much louder.

Anger replaced horror, and drawing his bloody sword free, the last deputy advanced. He screamed something, maybe words, but perhaps not-Hadrian couldn’t tell. The guy had lost control. Fear and anger pumped him until he couldn’t think, much less speak. This was exactly the type of insanity that military discipline was supposed to prevent. He was slightly larger than the others but no more skilled. The first swing was a sloppy, overpowered stroke meant to … Actually, Hadrian had no idea what it was meant to do, and he didn’t think his opponent knew either. The deputy was just chopping away like Hadrian was a tree that needed to be cleared. A step back and a turn avoided the blow.

Hadrian considered disarming the man-letting him live. Maybe he had a wife; maybe he had kids. This was just a job for him, a way to put food on the table. He didn’t go out that night expecting to die. Hadrian hated killing an innocent man. Though technically he wasn’t innocent-the guy had signed on to be a deputy, a job that came with certain risks, but that hardly made a difference. Hadrian felt sick as he realized he didn’t have a choice. He had let Terence go and this was the result. More men would die-best to just stop it there.

“Sorry,” he offered, and finished the man with a clean stroke-a rapid stab to the heart that was in and out in a blink. So fast that the man offered only a puzzled look before his legs gave out. Then he just sat down without a sound.

Hadrian cleaned his blades. While none had touched him, he was covered in blood and felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. The familiar sensation of disgust crept up his throat, causing him to grimace as he looked down at the tangled bodies. One-the backward-hat deputy-lay staring sightlessly at the stars, his mouth gaping as if in wonder. Hadrian swallowed, forcing the feeling back down, and drew in a shuddering breath. He couldn’t remember how many men’s lives he’d taken in the few years since he’d left home, which he counted as a blessing, but what he didn’t understand was why it never got any easier. He imagined that his father would have said that was a desirable thing, that it proved he was a good man, but Hadrian didn’t feel good.

It was worth it, he reminded himself. Rose will be safe now, and she is innocent.

Hadrian turned to run the way Rose and the sergeant had gone, but stopped when he spotted the Crimson Hand thief, Puzzle, crouched on the roof of the gatehouse.

The thief held his hands up. “I didn’t see anything.” His voice quavered a bit. “As far as I know, it was some other guy-guys even. Five, six brutes-sons of bitches from … from Chadwick-yeah, from the south, who caught that patrol off guard.” He looked down at the piled bodies. “Who’d believe me anyway? If I said one guy had … I mean, no one would. They just wouldn’t.”

“Fine,” Hadrian said, then trotted into the Lower Quarter.

He took a side street, or an alleyway; it was hard to tell the difference in the Lower Quarter. He’d never been down it before but guessed it would get him to the central square faster. In the dark he nearly hung himself on a clothesline that appeared at the last second in a shaft of moonlight. A quick turn allowed the thin rope to graze past his ear. It hurt, but not as bad as it might have. The alley narrowed until he was climbing through garbage where he disturbed a family of rats that hurriedly retreated, squeaking their displeasure. He was regretting his shortcut when at last he squeezed through a rickety fence into the square. He got his bearings and headed for Wayward Street.

When Hadrian reached Medford House, he was out of breath. He pounded on the door, then bent over and rested his hands on his knees. His legs were wet. It wasn’t sweat. Why can’t it ever just be sweat? In the light of the House’s porch lanterns he saw the dark red stains. I should get a butcher’s apron. At least none of the blood was his this time.

Jasmine opened the door.

“Did they make it?” he asked.

The girl stared at him and took a step back. “Oh … dear Maribor. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Did the sergeant and Rose make it? Are they here?”

“Rose?” Her expression of fear and confusion shifted to delight. She took a step backward and in a hopeful, earnest voice asked, “You saw Rose?”

“Yes, she was coming here. Where is she?”

Jasmine shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rose isn’t here.”

“Hadrian?” Gwen said, coming out of the parlor. She was limping, leaning on a homemade crutch. The scarf was off. Ugly black and blue marks inflated her face. Gwen’s lips were bloated, puffed, and split. The whole right side of her head was a dark bruise, one eye swollen shut. Cuts left black tracks of dried blood. Looking at her, Hadrian stopped feeling sorry for the sheriffs and wasn’t embarrassed for the blood on his clothes.

“I’m looking for Rose.” His voice harsher, louder.

“Everyone is,” Gwen replied.

“No, she was just with me. A castle guard was escorting her back here-”

“Rose was with you?” Several of the women pushed past Hadrian, stepping onto the porch.

“They were attacked by a sheriff and some deputies, and I”-he looked down at his clothes-“I helped out a little.”

“I see,” Gwen said.

“Rose! Rose!” the women on the porch were shouting.

“They should have been here by now. The sergeant and Rose were ahead of me.”

Gwen looked at Jasmine. “I was on the door for the last two hours and no one has come by.”

“Maybe they ran into more trouble,” Hadrian said. “Keep an eye out.” He turned.

Gwen stopped him. “Where’s Royce?”

Hadrian looked back. “He’s … ah…”

“Is he okay?”

“Was when I left. He’s … um…” Hadrian couldn’t manage to think of a way to say it that didn’t sound terrible. He had that problem with Royce a lot. Normally it didn’t matter so much. Royce never cared what anyone thought of him-but Gwen was different.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I was just-You’re covered in blood, and alone. I was just worried; that’s all.”

“Sorry,” he offered. “I’m going to look around. Maybe they ran into others.”

Hadrian went back down the steps. The ladies stopped shouting. Nothing moved on the street. Most of the thoroughfares branching off Wayward and all of the alleys were just dirt paths that sliced between narrow shacks. Only the porch lanterns of Medford House and the windows of The Hideous Head provided any light. Far away, a dog cried. Hadrian could think of few night sounds as lonely as a dog’s distant howl.

He walked down the street, listening, watching. Where’d they go?

At the start of Wayward he passed the well, pausing to peer into alleys. Manure filled most of them, like the one he’d cut through to get there. Horses made a huge mess of roads, and in the finer quarters, street sweepers were paid to haul the droppings away. In the Lower Quarter, the road apples looked to be shoveled aside. Hadrian imagined the place reeked in the heat of summer. The odd lumps and piled shapes lost in shadow made it hard to tell anything, and if it hadn’t been for a fortuitous sliver of moonlight catching the hem of her dress, Hadrian would have never found Rose.

In a narrow alley between a pawnshop and a decrepit shack, it took only two steps into the manure-packed crevice to be sure. The girl lay on her side, her skirt high on one hip exposing a pale thigh. No movement. Her eyes were closed. She might have been sleeping except for the bloody slice across her throat. No blood. The pile of manure drank it up.

Hadrian stood staring. In the shaft of moonlight he could see his breath puffing. The night was growing colder by the second. His jaw clenched tight, his hands made and unmade fists. He wanted to put a sword in his hands, to swing, swing hard, but there was no one to swing at. There was just a beautiful girl-a girl who once spilled soup on him, who he’d once danced with-lying in an alley, dumped like garbage.

He looked around for the sergeant but Rose was alone.

Light, Hadrian thought.

Carrying Rose in his arms, she hardly weighed anything. He cradled her as best he could, taking extra effort to keep her head up. He didn’t want it to drop back, not with the slice across her throat. Gwen’s girls had cleared a table, but he was reluctant to lay her down. Her body was still warm, still soft. He placed her gently on the dining table that had been dressed with linen as a dozen sobbing women circled him. Hands to faces, some on their knees with their heads bobbing over their laps.

Gwen stood at the head of the table, eyes moist, wet lines on her cheeks. She just stared, her hand braced on the table. She placed a quivering palm on Rose’s forehead and caressed her as if soothing a troubled child, then bent and kissed her brow.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and more tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. “Clean her up.”

Gwen led Hadrian away. She took him into the drawing room, a smaller, homey space with a glowing fire in a stone hearth. Soft chairs and delicate furniture huddled inside the hug of dark wood and the smile of bright floral wallpaper.

“I don’t understand,” Hadrian said. “They were safe. They were only a few blocks away from here.”

“Etta,” she called to one of the girls. “Bring Hadrian a basin and a cloth. He needs to clean up.”

“And even if they found them, why would they have killed her like that? The others didn’t seem to want to kill her. They just wanted to take her back to the castle.”

“You know who killed her?”

“The sheriff pa-” He stopped. She was right. He didn’t know who had killed her. Sure, there were a lot of sheriff patrols, but not that many. And what happened to the sergeant? And why would they have killed her and just left the body in an alley?

Etta entered the drawing room with a pretty blue and white porcelain basin of water and a towel over her shoulder. She was rushing. Rose’s death had everyone on edge. There was a sense of urgency. A drive to do things fast even though there was nothing really to be done. Etta sat him down on a stool, kneeled, and began to wash his face and hands.

Hadrian hardly noticed her. His mind was elsewhere-running up and down Wayward Street and the alleys branching off it trying to make sense of things. Had I missed them by taking the shortcut? If I hadn’t gone that way, could I have stopped it?

At the gate he remembered the sergeant had said that Exeter was trying to kill her, but the sheriff they had run into ordered his deputy to take her to Lord Exeter, not kill her.

I’m taking her home, the sergeant had said to the castle guards, but it didn’t sound like he even knew about Medford House, and he didn’t like Hadrian helping. Why? Maybe he wasn’t taking her home. Maybe he was just looking for a dark enough alley.

Gwen took the towel from Etta. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take over.”

Etta nodded. As she left, Gwen motioned for her to close the door.

“You don’t need to clean me,” Hadrian said, taking the towel from Gwen, who sat across from him.

“Yes, I do. I need your hands clean.”

Gwen peered up at him with an expression he couldn’t read-fear, perhaps, or nervousness but also a sense of eager anticipation. Looking at that once-beautiful face made him wish he had stayed with Royce, if only to watch.

“I want to ask a favor, a very personal favor,” she said in a serious tone. She wet her bruised lips and wiped the hair from her face. “I need you to give me your hand. I want to read your palm.”

“What? Like a fortune-teller?”

“Yes, exactly.”

They did that sort of thing in Calis. There were palmists’ stands all over the cities, along with crystal gazers and bone seers. Hadrian never gave it much thought. He figured they just spoke in generalities that could apply to anyone, but some people he knew swore by it. “Oh, right. You’re Calian.”

She nodded.

“An odd time for fortune-telling, don’t you think? We-”

“Please.” Gwen, who had always been calm and comforting, looked desperate. Seeing her battered face broke his heart.

He extended his hand.

Gwen caught his fingers. She looked scared. He could feel the quiver of her hand on his. She turned his hand over, spread his fingers, and stared down at his open palm.

He waited. Her face cycled through a gamut of emotions: fear, curiosity, astonishment, joy, then back to troubled. New tears welled in her eyes. She let his hand go, covered her face, and began to sob.

“What is it?” He reached out for her, and to his surprise, she threw her good arm around his neck and hugged tight.

After a few minutes Gwen relaxed and let him go.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded, wiping her eyes. He waited for a long moment, allowing plenty of time, but she remained silent.

“Anything you want to tell me?”

For one awful, selfish instant he imagined her saying something like, Hadrian, I’ve wanted to confess this to you ever since we first met, but it isn’t Royce I’m in love with … And what would he say? He knew what he’d like to say. He was just as smitten with her as Royce was, but he also knew that betraying Royce wouldn’t just be wrong or cruel-it would be fatal.

Gwen shook her head, and in that one small movement of swaying black hair, Hadrian felt both dejected and relieved. Whatever bothered her probably had nothing to do with him or-

Royce!

Hadrian stood up. “I need to go help Royce.”

“Yes … yes, you do … and he needs to help you.”