The Unsuitable Slave.(NC-17) Part 31/34
The stables were quiet aside from the occasional, soft thud of hooves and puffed breath that hung in the air as cloud. Jared adjusted the girth and checked his pack a last time, then breathed earthy-sweet air deep into his lungs and led his girl out of the stalls by rein. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky with a glare in his sight line. He heard the steady clop of another horse on the cobbles and a relieved smile pulled at his lips as he turned to greet the other. Chris had chased him from their conference, raging at his choices and his deviancy, asking him to change his mind, change his wrong but he was sure it was the shock, a knee jerk reaction to something utterly unexpected. Jared had hoped he would calm and follow him. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t know how to be alone.
The person waiting in the yard wasn’t Christian. The stable lad threw his pack over his shoulder and grinned at Jared with hopeful enthusiasm.
“No! Oh no!”
“I have fifteen Summers and I can ride real good.”
“You are too young. I won’t be responsible for getting you killed.”
“Prince Jensen had a command at fourteen and you are not yet seventeen. I can fight and I can run messages. I can tend your horse and tell you jokes.” The boy wheedled and batted his eyelashes, flexed his muscles in a show of strength and bounced on his heels.”
“No. You stay safe, here.”
The lad pouted. “Who is to say it is safe here? There will be uprising everywhere and I will fight for our cause wherever I am.”
Jared pointed to the house.
“I’ll follow you anyway and I’ll whistle. Mama tells me my whistling is ever so annoying.”
Jared continued to point to the mansion and shook his head.
The boy snagged his foot into a stirrup and swung himself onto his horse. “Hey, if we succeed, this is the last great adventure of the war and I am not going to miss it. It may be my only opportunity for a war-story to tell to my grandchildren and I get the scoop of what really happened to Prince Jared. Now, I can tell it to my disbelieving grandchildren or I can tell it now.” The lad gave the cockiest of grins and waggled his eyebrows.
“You little shit! Give me a reason not to knock you off that horse.”
“Nobody should travel alone,” he pulled the reins and dug his heels in, “and you’ll have to catch me first." The lad turned to the moor and took off at a canter.
Jared looked to the empty landscape, shuddered at the vastness of it and followed him. He was done arguing.
***
It happened that Ben was a good rider and cheery company. The lad was inexperienced and eager but good-hearted and quick to follow instruction. It was nothing like having Chris or Jensen’s solid and reassuring presence. This time Jared was required to lead with confidence and give the boy firm command. It steadied Jared in a new way. Ben was reliant on him for his survival and Jensen was in trouble, he needed Jared, of that he was sure. He felt it in the fluttering of his gut and the squeeze of his heart. Jared wasn’t going to show weakness or let Jensen down. If this was all Jared had, his only team, he would make it work because he could not consider a future without his Master, his Jensen by his side.
The Moons favored their journey. Nyxos was at full round in bright cheer, and Hypnos waxed yellow at half. The stars burned through the clouds and the constellations guided them on to Venne. There was irony in that, Morgan had taught him well.
They stopped to take stock, five miles from the City. Inn lights burned a welcome for breakfasting travelers and Jared adjusted his scarf, had Ben check that his collar and cuffs were not exposed, then led the way to charm the serving girls into conversation and hot meals. He spent enough of the money he had appropriated from Jensen’s stash to loosen tongues without rousing suspicion. He was sure Jensen would forgive his light fingers and, if he didn’t, then Jared would take whatever discipline it invoked. Jared was single- minded in his goal.
Ben’s chirpy nature made him friends in quick time and his ready helpfulness saw him offering to help in the stable. Jared watched him with increasing respect. The lad initiated conversation that had travelers pouring their tales to him without asking for Ben’s own story.
They stopped at the Inn for most of the morning, taking warmth and soft drinks and swapping frequent company. By noon Jared was confident that they had a good general knowledge of the unrest that surrounded Venne. The news was disturbing, fear and hopelessness clutched at him but he forced himself to gather his comrade and ride forward. He took point with dignity, projected courage but all the time his mind was a swirl. He had no plan, and few hours to formulate one. It seemed that checkpoints were becoming more frequent and the suspicion of the soldiers increased at each stage. Civilians were fleeing Venne with meager belongings, in sooty, ragged clothing, while Jared and Ben headed inward to the chaos.
The landscape was familiar, housing and settlements, offices and barracks were like old friends to him. He forced himself to breathe slow and relax his grip on his reins. He smiled at passers-by and greeted groups of weary but focused warriors who moved with purpose about the area. Ben rode so close their horses almost clashed and Jared found a smile to paste on his lips. This was it, they were it and there could be no falling apart now.
They were almost at the city gates when a soldier pulled them up with one hand settled on his weapon. “Why do I know your features, traveler?”
Jared pretended to take a long stare at his face before he answered, “I have had occasion to deal with both barracks and Palace in my time. It is likely we have met and perhaps shared drinks.”
It wasn’t the right answer, Jared could sense it from the increased tension in the man’s shoulders and the flex of his hand about his hilt. Jared kept his tone pleasant. “Perhaps I resemble somebody that you have met.”
“What is your purpose here?”
“I am sent with this lad to retrieve belongings that My Lord wishes to keep safe. He keeps premises with fine armor and steel which he must distribute in haste to Lord Morgan. It is my honor to complete this task.” Jared cited an address which he hoped still dealt with such items.
“Then you must have papers.”
Their confrontation was drawing stares, Jared gave a false smile and nod, “Of course, but I am not sure that all who watch us are sympathetic to Lord Morgan’s cause, we should pull out of the crowd. It is all quite unsettling. Maybe you can find a way to assist us in our mission.”
His reins were taken in hand by the stranger and he let himself be led to a quiet spot between abandoned trading stands. He flicked his hand for Ben to follow and hoped the lad had some common sense.
The parchment he presented was blank. He watched for the warrior’s reaction and drew faster. Ben shifted and jumped from his horse, blocking the view to passers-by. Jared was shaking but he took the opportunity. He pressed a sharp edge to the angry soldier’s throat and leaned in close to speak. He didn’t recognize the cold hostility in his own voice, “Where are the prisoners being kept?”
A glob of vile spit struck his face and slid a revolting trail. Jared retaliated with a forceful slap that reddened the skin and jolted the man’s head into the stone wall. He heard Ben suck in air.
“I can leave you alive enough to crawl back to your family or I can make sure you beg for them as you die.” Jared stuffed a rag into the mouth that opened in rage and let his knife draw a fine nick that trailed blood down the soldier’s neck. There was no time to think, the man struggled and pushed with unexpected might and loud crack at his elbow. Jared’s response was immediate and instinctive, his captive contorted his face in agony as he sank toward the ground. It took a hefty tug at Jared’s ruby handled blade to pull it out of the foot it had pinned into the soil. “I can repeat it with the other foot,” he snarled. If this was war, if this was inflicting hurt, he had no regret, it was all too easy.
Ben coughed loudly. Incoming.
Tears slid down the defiant face, Jared removed the rag to allow the soldier's bitter speech, “You can’t help them. All you will see is vermin meeting their end.”
Jared tensed, he estimated no more than three unarmed citizens were watching with interest. Ben stepped back to maintain distance from them and Jared adjusted his stance and dealt a heavy punch to his captive’s gut. He had to finish this quickly. “Where?” he repeated as he let his blade catch the light.”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Not if you tell me. I keep my word.”
Blood pooled and gathered on the street and snot ran from the man’s nose. “There is a holding place for the condemned, on the North side of the Square.”
Jared withdrew the knife from his throat and took him by the shoulders. With a hefty shove the soldier was in the arms of a smirking citizen. “I said I wouldn’t kill you,” he called as they made haste to leave the scene. Within moments, a crowd of riot and noise was left behind them and the distraction had them slipping through the gates without challenge.
***
Freezing sleet drizzled from looming grey clouds and the cobbles beneath their feet became slippery with the miserable slush.
The Summer Palace stood, an untouched relic, at the far reach of Venne, impenetrable and securely closed for siege. It was a forbidding testament to Morgan’s presence for there was no longer any other to take its protection.
The main prison stood empty, a shell of its former self, doors were battered and hanging, the bars torn from the windows. The Royal insignia had been ripped from its pole and fluttered, tattered and defaced, on a low wall. The acrid stink of smoke pervaded the senses, barely covering the putrid-sweet stink of cloying blood that ran through the gutters.
Buildings smoldered, shops were overturned and streets were empty. Scared citizens scurried by the shelter of crumbling walls and abandoned carts. Soldiers patrolled with dark threat and drawn swords. Jared pulled up the hood of his cape and walked his mare with an overt show of belonging. The fear had left Jared, his eyes shone bright and his body pulled taut. There was a thrum of excitement and purpose through every fiber of him.
In the Square, joiners worked reluctantly at a stage, completing trapdoors in the base and a high bar overhead. Rope was looped and knotted. Troops circled the endeavor with sharp instruction and body blows of encouragement. Jared was careful to take time in his approach, to let it be casual and curious, but his attention was drawn to the makeshift barricade at the North of the Square where a solid troop of Morgan’s elite gathered with heavy presence.
Ben and Jared played their parts of out-of towners with aplomb, asked after the events of the week and the purpose of proceedings. Ben chatted excitedly about his intention to join Morgan’s armies and Jared spoke sympathetically of the soldiers who had died. He expressed anger with a red flush to his cheeks and wondered what traitors and Kingdom-vermin looked like as subdued cowards. They inched steadily closer to the barred area as they inquired about the time that the fun of the executions would start and where the best viewing was to be found. One man returned a sideways glance and mentioned in passing that Jared resembled their deceased Prince and Jared laughed it off with a comment that it used to be a hilarious coincidence but was now a particular disadvantage. Others chuckled with him.Because nobody returns from the dead, especially not those who fell at De’ith, Jared thought, as he kept his lips in an arc. Inside him a murderous poison and explosive fury roiled and flared.
Finally, finally there was the clear view he had been ingratiating himself for. Brave men, comrades and unexpected allies, were chained and caged together. All that remained of Steve’s revolutionaries and Jensen’s covert troop crouched, broken, bloody and beaten, betrayed by the human condition of mistrust. Defeated but not bowed, bright eyes raged defiant in the closed cage and he flicked his own gaze over them, looking at them, searching for the one with the dazzling green stare. If any recognized his cloaked form, none demonstrated it. Jared's trembling knees and sick stomach were grateful for that consideration.
Jared offered a silent prayer to the absent sun, a plea for them all, but his mind pictured just the one who held the key to his collar, the one who owned his soul. He wouldn’t remember the platitudes he spoke as he stalked the exterior of the barricade, just the moment when he saw the broken body that Steve clasped upon his knees, the brief flutter of thick eyelashes in an obscenely swollen and battered face and a flicker of emerald-gold awareness that found and held his own, hazel gaze for the briefest moment.
He wanted to scream, cry out and rage. The need to act, to draw his weapons and batter the cage was all encompassing and visceral but the stakes were high, the odds higher and he had no plan and no army. He felt Ben’s hand, warm on his shoulder, heard the concern in his voice as the lad lied for the sake of appearance, “Our Lord will be waiting on us, Sir.”
Jared returned a reply in character and prayed that Jensen would not believe it, “You’re right, Lad. We have wasted enough on these traitors.” He struggled just to keep his eyes on the route of his departure and to prevent his feet from sliding on the frozen surface.
They reached the opposite edge of the Square before Jared allowed himself a glance behind. In the dark skies overhead, a ribbon of sunshine slashed through the swell of grey, and a rainbow shone, vivid and iridescent against the gloom.
Part Thirty Two
Masterpost
Back to Part Thirty