CHAPTER 14
The abuse of the crashing rays of midday suns could not dampen his spirits as he looked ever forward toward the horizon, knowing well that soon the outline of jagged rock would appear before them signaling that after a long journey that home awaited heavy steps. The high trees on either side of the forest path imparted to them little shelter as they moved onward. He listened to the sounds of casual banter as his five guards conversed with the newcomers.
Three they were, two men of fighting age and one a little girl having barely seen nine Haerfests he had come to find out though she appeared closer to seven.
The father and daughter he had found far into southern Aletheia, in a small town just past Harpyroost.
The other man they had met a bit closer in Oikj’il after his farm and family had been burned to the ground upon his insistence that providing quarters to the king’s soldiers as they passed through his town did not include the free taking of his wife.
Soon the crooked outcropping of the mountain could be seen and Jabari could almost feel the coolness on his flesh. Nearly a season it had been since he felt that frigid embrace. Like a lover bitterly lost he longed for her touch. He would see Gwendoline soon, a touch bit less cold but no less invited. He hoped her face to be his first sight upon his return.
Soon only the swamp separated him and his traveling troupe from home. His voice hung low on the air as he lulled the swamp to sleep that they might find safe passage.
He hoped he would find Ren’ai alive and well. He knew well her fate had they departed for their journey earlier than planned. She never would have survived Lieten’s sword. He could only hope that her teacher had lightened his strike upon her knowing that at moment’s need he could not call out to the Healer. What had she learned in the time he had been away? Was her mind turning to her new focus? Was Pin Hi becoming a part of her as it must be to all who wished to protect the Healer?
“I suppose I cannot fault you for caring about your Jagged family as you do.” Gwendoline woke him from his thoughts.
As he ducked in past the Jagged entryway, dark eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting of the Jagged and he could see her at last. “Nor can you change it.”
“I know it well, My Husband. I have no desire to. They are my family no less than yours.” Gwendoline smiled. “But if love for one’s family were measured in time spent with them, it seems that it is I who love them more.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just so many who I promised to visit, to teach herbs and remedies before Renatus' first chill. Aletheia needs me. It is what I have been called to do.”
Gwendoline shook her head in reluctant understanding. “I know. You never have been able to tell anyone ‘no.’”
Jabari turned to the entry way. “Someone new has joined us.” He would not make that mistake twice. Despite her cool demeanor he knew well the anxiety it brought her to have one in the Jagged who had not met her first. That strain he wished never again to see on her brow.
The new arrivals ducked in from the sunlight. Their eyes danced about as they adjusted to the dimness of Jagged torches.
Gwendoline looked to Jabari with what might have appeared to others as a gentle smile, within that peaceful glance he knew she already weighed their intent. Her first thoughts spilled out upon her tongue. “They are getting younger and younger, My Darling.”
Jabari released a boyish smile. He could not deny it, but when the little one’s father had asked to come with him and he had said yes, he could not well have him leave his only surviving daughter behind.
Gwendoline gave him that look that told him she understood, before stepping past him to welcome the newcomers, whatever that welcome might entail. Her left hand rested firmly on her right wrist. Lace shadowed the firmness of her grip. To any who did not know her it might seem merely a sign of highborn upbringing, a ladylike grace it might appear, not the posture of one prepared to make first strike should the need arise.
The men bowed as they entered, eyes now adjusted, seeing the lady there. She curtsied in return, before approaching the young one first.
“And what is your name, Child?”
Gwendoline watched the girl’s eyes struggling to hold hers. The little one appeared as if her body might shake apart should she not bring her fear in check. The girl made no reply. Gwendoline moved on, apparently sensing no harm.
She stood before the girl’s father.
He spoke before she could ask. “Her name is Shyam, Lady. I am Gid.”
A smile crept across Gwendoline’s features. “It is very nice to meet you both. Welcome to the Jagged." She turned to Kerr standing at the ready should he be needed. “Please take our guests to the dinner hall. I’m certain they’re famished.” Gwendoline lowered herself with a deep bend of the knees and ran a soft hand across the little one’s cheek, wiping away the fear she found there. “Do you like Rabbit stew, Shyam?”
“Yes, Lady.” The girl spoke at last.
“Very good.” Gwendoline’s cheeks held a beaming glow. “And I’ll check with the cook. He may just have some blackberry pie left from our midday meal. I’ll bet you like blackberry pie.”
Finally the little girl smiled. “Very much, Lady.”
“Off with you then. I’ll be right behind you.”
Gwendoline stood again as Kerr led Shyam and her father from the entrance. She turned to the remaining man, then back to see that Kerr and the new arrivals could be seen no more. She spun back, sparing but a bat of an eye to the one left standing, then she swooped around to the side of him, faster than Jabari’s fastest guard. Jabari did not have time to sigh his regret, as his wife pulled metal to the man’s neck and across. She stepped aside allowing not a drop of red to disgrace her fine dress as the man dropped to the ground.
Ivar stood next to the man with mouth agape. Gwendoline glanced across to him, prompting a quick closing of the jaw, and then to her husband as a look of relief mingled with sadness across her features. “You had better be glad your guards never left your side on your journey home. He had been waiting for a moment alone with you and his strike would have been quick.”
“I take it he is not the peasant farmer he appeared to be?”
“No. One of Ruric’s assassins.”
Jabari’s eyes sank with his spirits. He only wished to find the best in those he met. He could be glad his wife could see through them. “Ivar.” Jabari looked up to his guard still standing there staring. “Fetch someone to clean this up. Drag the body to the swamp while it’s still warm.” He turned to Grenal who stood there waiting, stoic. Jabari knew he had seen this sight far too many times. “First, please go to our guests. Let them know that John…” Jabari paused looking again to the lifeless lump on the floor. How sad it was, to have the assassins now taking on the names of beloved E’epans past. Jabari sighed then continued. “John has decided not to join us after all.”
“Yes, Master Healer.”
Jabari spun to his wife, extending an arm to her.
Gwendoline smiled, her duty now done. She took her husband’s arm as he offered it and they continued on to find their seat at the dining table.
A hero’s welcome, Jabari did not encounter as he entered the dining hall, but rather the sight of Shyam pulling chairs out from the table, tripping across them, laying obstacles as if to escape a terrible monster. Jabari knew well that a FlameChaser would not last a second in the dining hall. His fighters and guards may have been settled for an evening meal, but they would be no less armed than any time in the Jagged.
Jabari watched as Gid reached his daughter, drawing her into his arms.
“What’s going on here?” Jabari could not imagine what had given the girl such a fright.
No less fear dwelt in the eyes of the father. “Keep her away.”
Jabari spoke again. Force filled his voice where kindness before had found her home. “By the gods departed, someone tell me what is going on here?”
“Keep her away.” The father spoke again.
> Was this man mad? He could not understand.
Ren’ai stepped forward past a fallen chair.
“I said keep her away.” The man said again yet louder.
Jabari darted across, pulling Ren’ai up by the shoulder, but released her in an instant. Only confusion radiated from her grey, grey eyes. He spoke in a tone bearing only concern. “What did you say to her?”
He could see in Ren’ai’s eyes that she did not know what to say. She could only speak the truth. “I introduced myself. Nakali told me it was the polite thing to do.” Ren’ai looked back to her trainer. Nakali could only shrug.
Maybe the tales of the Clavras had reached a greater audience than he had originally presumed.
Finally the father spoke in a more reasonable tone. “The daughter of Ren’o breaks bread at your table, Healer?” The man’s eyes had turned in an instant from those of gladness to be in his presence to those of deep suspicion.
The Healer could only state the fact. “She does.” He turned to the still puzzled Ren’ai. “Did you tell them who your father is?”
“No.”
The man spoke again. “She does not have to. She is a Ren. She has the same eyes. Those grey, hollow eyes. The eyes of an evil man.” He held Shyam close as she started to cry.
Jabari reached Ren’ai’s arm before she could leap at him, possibly gouge his eyes for speaking so unkindly. She fought his grasp. “Have a seat, Ren’ai.”
Ren’ai had to protest. “But.”
Jabari raised his voice. “Now.”
“Fine.” Ren'ai's feet protested each backward step before she took a seat with arms woven tighter than Calethian armor.
Jabari looked back to the man and his daughter. “Please, Sir. Have a seat. Tell us what you have heard of Ren’o.”
Ren’ai knew what he would say before he said it. Clarity reached her before he could speak it. When she heard him name that Ridgetop town all of the memories of the night of Haerfest Ball flooded again into her consciousness.
“The Massacre at Caerwyn Ridge. Ren’o led his followers to destroy that defenseless town, burned it to the ground.” Gid spoke in a manner in which one only spoke fact, without hesitation, speculation or wavering as to the truth to which he spoke.
“It’s not true.” Ren’ai dared him to say it again. Not even the strong hand of Jabari would be able to hold her back.
Jabari could see no good end to this standoff. “Nakali, please take Ren’ai to the training rooms.”
Nakali did not say a word. She only complied, pulling her squirming apprentice away from any potential altercation.
Jabari twisted the skin above his nose between a thumb and center finger before he walked away as guards stepped in to straighten their chairs and resume their meal.
Jabari met Ren’ai there in the place he had spoken within the hour. He found Nakali and Ren’ai practicing low strikes upon a straw dummy. Ren’ai’s strikes in particular demonstrated that the incident from dinner still resided in her mind.
She swung around as he entered with her awareness of movement on the air growing stronger with each passing week. “How can he say things like that? My father was a good man. He did not kill those people.” Ren’ai ran a thumb across the faces upon the carved cube her father had given her the night he died. None in the Jagged had ever seen a moment that she did not wear it on a tight leather strap tied securely around her neck.
“I know that.” Jabari approached her, drawing his sleeve across her brow, sopping pooling sweat. “But it does not matter what I know. You will find, Ren’ai, that sometimes it does not matter what is true only what people believe. It will be upon you to convince them that You are not your father.”
“But my father did not do those things. I am proud to be his daughter.”
“As you should be. But the lies that have now permeated the land, the tales that grow and spread, they are a thing you cannot change. As long as they believe it, they will judge your every action by it. You must convince a man first that your heart is in the right. Then and only then can you work toward changing a false belief. Do you understand, Ren’ai?”
Ren’ai signaled her understanding with a quick nod.
“Good. Don’t worry. They’ll come around. Eventually they’ll see what I see in you.”
“What is that?”
“One, I know, that one day I will be able to proudly call my guard.”
“I hope to one day be that guard you can be proud of.”
“I’ve no doubt.” Jabari could speak it only as truth. She would be a guard one day. Her training, he knew, was going as planned. Nakali and Lieten would not let him down. “The two of you must be starving after your battle with the straw man. The cook has saved each of you a bowl of rabbit stew. Please hurry before it gets cold.”
Ren’ai did not hesitate. She bounded out of the training room and back into the hallway. Nakali slinked along not far behind.
“Do you think she really understands?” A voice rose from over Jabari’s shoulder. He turned with a start.
Gwendoline stood there, eyes wide, watching him.
“She wants to understand. I think that is the first step.”
Gwendoline joined him at the far side of the training room, but a sparring partner she would not be. “She does want to understand what you teach her. But she is still so afraid. I don’t know if that fear will ever leave her.”
“What does she have to be afraid of?” Jabari turned as without provocation, he slammed a knife hand into the temple of the waiting straw dummy.
Gwendoline waited. “She is afraid of betraying their memory. If she does not hold onto the vengeance in her heart she is afraid she will have failed them. But she wants to serve you. More and more so, it is why she trains. I’ve been watching her while you’ve been away. More and more each day, she loosens the grip that her past has upon her.”
“I knew I could count on you to be my eyes while I was away. You know I would never leave the Jagged, had I that choice.”
“I know, My Love. You cannot hide away in your fortress while our people suffer.”
“It’s getting bad out there, Gwen. Getting worse.”
“I know, Bari, I can see it in your eyes. It would not take a Dreamer to see that it pains you. Just as Ren’ai fears that she will fail her family, you fear that you will fail our people. But you will not. You do everything you can for them.”
“Do I?” Straw littered the air as he threw a side kick into the dummy head nearly knocking the binding free.
Gwendoline swooped up beside him, pulling him close. “Don’t you doubt it. Ever. You are doing what an E’epan is called to do. No more can be asked of you.”
He rested her head upon his chest. His heart beat against her ear. “He sent his soldiers out to find us again.”
“Oh, My.” Gwendoline could only draw a deep breath as he held her.
“We killed them, Gwen. All of them. We killed Ruric’s men.”
Gwendoline spoke through straying strands. “Because they wanted to kill you.”
“If I stayed in the Jagged, I would not have to kill anyone.”
“If you stayed in the Jagged more would die. You would not be able to heal the people. Console them in their misery. Teach them to heal themselves.”
“I know it with my mind, Gwen. But my heart tells me that a Healer should never have to choose one life over another.”
“I wish I had answers for you, Bari.” She pulled from his embrace to look into dark eyes. “I really do. But in one area I think I can be of assistance. I think it is time that Ren’ai begins to learn the Old Stories.”
“I cannot dismiss the idea. But she will not love the old tales as do you and I. It may take some time before she understands their significance.”
“All the more reason, she should begin that training now. Please let me work with her. The Old Stories will give her perspective on the world you are trying to show her that is greater than herself, what has happened to her.?
??
“You are right. But you can ask Nakali, getting that one to sit still for even a moment takes everything from you.”
“If you want this one to be a guard, Jabari, It is a battle I am willing to fight.”