The bell sounded again. Three tolls in the darkness. The third quarter! Already? Razi was leaving at midday. She was leaving at midday. Wynter had less than six hours left with her father.
She scrabbled at the quilt in panic and tried to get her thoughts together. Six hours! Less than six hours, and then she would abandon him. Lorcan would be all alone without her, and she would be out in the world. Oh, Christ in heaven, she did not think she could do this.
Dazed and staring, every inch of her aching, Wynter pushed herself onto her hands and knees and slid from the bed. She stood for a moment, swaying and trying to get her balance, her vision distorting as the blood rushed from her head. She leant against the footboard and tried to get some coherent train of thought going. She would go in now and wake her dad, and the two of them would—
A sound from the retiring room stilled her and she paused and listened. Marcello Tutti was murmuring outside her closed door and Wynter’s heart twisted as she heard Lorcan groan and then chuckle in reply. The two men were making their slow way past her door and into the receiving room. Wynter could hear her father’s halting, deliberate footsteps as Marcello helped him across the room. What an effort it was for him, this simple journey from one room to another. Wynter knew at once that he was doing this for her, so that they could have a proper breakfast, without Lorcan seeming like an invalid, propped up in his bed.
If she had paused and thought for one brief minute, she would never have gone to the door without cleaning up. But she was completely exhausted, her mind buzzing like a jar of flies, and she threw the bolt and stumbled into the receiving room before she’d formed a thought any more coherent than just getting to see her father.
Marcello was helping Lorcan take his seat at the breakfast table when she came to the receiving room door. Lorcan was supporting himself against the edge of the table, while Marcello, one hand on Lorcan’s back, was pulling out a chair for him. They paused when they noticed Wynter, and the two of them gasped, their faces falling as they took in her appearance.
Marcello exclaimed, “Oh! Signora!”
Lorcan’s face drew down, black and dangerous as he looked at her filthy clothes, her scraped chin and bruised face. “Who the hell did that to you?” he snarled.
Their outrage was lost on Wynter for a second as she looked at the multitude of candles, the vase of yellow roses, the beautifully laid out breakfast things. Her dazed eyes turned to her father and she took in his crisp white shirt, his formal long-coat and britches, his highly polished boots. Lorcan’s hair was brushed out loose and glossy, falling freely over his shoulders, as if dining at court. He was still corpse-pale, his eyes and cheeks hollow, and was leaning heavily against the table, his powerful arms shaking with the strain. But he was magnificent despite it. Wynter looked at the rage in her father’s face and knew she was going to ruin this, this carefully planned farewell, if she did not snap to it. Now.
She took a shaking breath and straightened her spine. She blinked fiercely, forcing the hazy fog of exhaustion to loosen its grip on her mind. She cleared her throat and then forced herself to chuckle. She was very pleased at how convincing it sounded.
“You can hold off the white chargers for a little while yet, gentlemen,” she said wryly. “I did this to myself.” The two men regarded her uncertainly and she gave them a mock bow, gesturing to the torn knees of her britches, the sooty marks on her tunic. “My candle snuffed itself on the backstairs and I came over all girlish in the dark.” She sparkled a grin at them from under her dishevelled fringe of hair, “I’m afraid I fell down quite a few steps before I got a grip on myself. I’m lucky I didn’t break my damned neck!”
Lorcan searched her face, his teeth bared, his breathing shallow. Marcello looked at him. He laid his hand on the big man’s arm, and murmured softly in Italian that Lorcan’s chair was ready.
Wynter licked her lips and met her father’s eye. Come on, Dad. We’re pretending, remember? Let’s pretend!
“Why don’t you take your seat, Dad?” she said lightly, “And I’ll go make myself presentable. I promise I won’t be long.”
Lorcan looked her up and down again. Wynter gazed at him pleadingly. He made a visible effort to control his anger. He released a long breath and forcibly relaxed his hands from their clenched fists. He nodded to himself. He straightened his spine he tilted his head in acquiescence. Then, turning purposely from her, he let Marcello help him into his chair.
By the time he had settled himself at the table, Lorcan was completely given over to the game. Pulling his napkin towards him, he grinned up at her. “You’d better hurry, girl,” he said, “or you’ll have naught but eggshells and butter-smears for breakfast.”
Wynter gave him a narrow look and held a finger up to him, holding his eyes sternly as she left the room. “I will be but a moment! Touch nothing!”
As Wynter was passing through the retiring room, she heard Marcello excuse himself to Lorcan. She paused at her bedroom door, turning to look as the little man let himself out into the hall. Wynter suspected that Marcello was no fool, but nonetheless he was choosing to go along with whatever tale Lorcan had spun him about this highly unusual breakfast. Perhaps Lorcan had told him that it was her birthday, or some special anniversary. Whatever the truth, Wynter was immensely grateful for this discreet little Italian. He was a balm to her heart.
She leant against her doorframe, gazing at him and, just as he was shutting the door, Marcello raised his eyes and saw her. He paused. His face softened, his eyes shining in the blaze of candlelight. His mouth twisted, his brows drew together in gentle sympathy and he nodded. Wynter lifted her chin, tremendously moved, for some reason, at this shared look. Then Marcello gently shut the door and she passed into her room.
She shut the door behind her and gathered her resolve.
Coiling her hair on top of her head, Wynter stripped naked and groped her way forward in the gloom to fill her wash basin with tepid water. Lips compressed into a fierce little line, she lathered her sea-sponge and commenced to scrub herself from head to toe. Everything she did was precise and contained. Her mind, her face, her heart, empty of everything but determination.
She rinsed her body. She dried herself, rubbing hard all over, so that her skin tingled and glowed. She cleaned her nails. She scrubbed her teeth with tooth powder. She went to her mother’s dressing trunk and selected the pale rose gown with the dark rose trim and shift. At the mirror she brushed out her hair, leaving it loose and free, a dark red curtain hanging beyond her shoulders, as though she, too, were about to dine with a king. I will wash it later, she thought, before I leave. God knows when she would get the chance to wash it again.
She regretted the raw patch on her chin, the vivid scratches on her hands. She regretted the dark bruise on her forehead where she had run into the wall. She did not like that her father would look at her across that beautifully laid table and see these stark reminders of the truth.
She closed her eyes, her lips trembling, her hands clenched. Then she turned abruptly, and made her way into the receiving room.
Lorcan smiled and made a gallant move to rise as she entered the room. Wynter lifted her hand and graciously indicated that he might remain seated. Lorcan dipped his head in polite assent and sat back down, as if her raised hand was the only thing preventing him leaping to his feet and rushing to pull out her chair.
My God, we are good at this, Wynter thought. She surveyed the table as she settled into her place. She drew her napkin towards her and inhaled as appreciatively as she could. Will I be able to eat? Please God let me be able to eat! “How lovely this is, Dad!” She smiled, raising her eyes to her father, meaning every word. “Thank you so much.” Lorcan smiled back at her and some small knot of tension released itself from the air.
They worked their way through the food, eating every bite. They spoke easily of music and of books. Lorcan re-told amusing stories of his youth. It was gentle, it was pleasant, and the time ran through their fingers with impercept
ible speed.
Eventually they were done and they dawdled, smiling, over the debris, until Wynter rose and cleared the table of everything but the coffee things. She left it all on a tray outside the hall door, and when she turned back to the room, Lorcan had pushed back from the table, shifting his chair sideways to stretch his long legs. He was carefully adding cream and sugar to their coffee bowls and Wynter realised that his hair was burnished with bright sunshine.
She pressed her back to the door, and turned to the look out the windows. Pretty little clouds were moving slowly across the pale blue sky, glowing in the full light of day. Her chin began to tremble, and she gritted her teeth and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Come on! she scolded herself, come on! Her body obediently relaxed, the coil of knots in her stomach released themselves. Good.
Wynter unclenched her hands and began to move calmly about the room, quenching the candles. The air filled with the warm scent of snuffed wick and Lorcan looked up, suddenly aware of what she was doing. He glanced at the windows, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
Approaching the breakfast table, Wynter laid her hand on his big shoulder and leant to snuff the final flame. Lorcan put a hand on her arm. “Not that one, darling.” Wynter paused. “Leave that one.” His voice was unsteady and he did not let go of her arm.
Wynter leant her weight on the table then, her head down, suddenly unable to go on. Neither of them looked at each other. Lorcan squeezed her arm, his eyes on the candle flame. He shook his head. He looked away.
“I had thought…” he whispered. “I had thought that… I would be up to a walk… in…” His grip on her arm tightened.
In the grounds the clock-tower bell struck the fourth quarter. Four more hours. Lorcan looked around the room in despair. What could they say to each other? What could they do?
Wynter sank to the floor at his feet and laid her head on her father’s knee. She snaked her arms around his waist, slipping them under his opened coat and knotted her fists into the fabric of his shirt. Lorcan rested his big hand on her hair and sat back, turning his head to look out the window. Wynter did the same, resting her cheek against his knee. He stroked her hair. Together, they watched the little clouds move across the morning sky and they simply did not feel the time passing. It went in silence, too quickly, and when the fifth quarter sounded, they still had not moved or spoken a word.
Lorcan leaned forwards and kissed her cheek. “Time for you to get ready, baby-girl.” She twisted her grip on his shirt, tightening her arms around his waist. He rubbed her back. “Come on, darling. It’s time. You have things to do.” She did not move, so he gently pushed until she was compelled to sit up and release her grip on his shirt. He brushed the hair from her face. He winked, “Go on.”
Wynter rose numbly to her feet and went into her room
Most of her provisions were waiting for her outside the palace wall. They had been slowly assembled and packed by Marni over the last few days. Her horse too awaited her, having come down with a mystery ailment that required quarantining from Razi’s precious Arabians. He would be tacked up, and waiting, fully packed in the stables of a little inn half an hour’s walk from the palace.
All Wynter needed to do now was pack her grooming kit, her travel belt, a change of clothes, supplies should her menses come upon her, and her maps. The maps most importantly of all. Up until last night, she had had no idea where she would be heading. She had a lot of work to do with those maps.
She stood heavily in the centre of her room, doing nothing. The longer you stand here, she told herself, the longer you leave Dad sitting in there, alone. That spurred her on.
By the time she stepped back into the receiving room, she was transformed. She had washed her hair and bound it tightly to her skull, containing it in a tight-fitting light-knit hood. She had her riding britches on, her riding boots and a long sleeved tunic over her undershirt. She wore Christopher’s dark jacket, and a wide brimmed straw hat hung down her back. Razi’s note crackled with each breath, snug against her heart, her guild pendant nestling beside it, its chain tucked under her shirt. All her belongings including her guild badges, were neatly stowed in the little knapsack on her back or distributed amongst the pouches and bags that adorned her travel belt. She was well coined, well armed and not at all ready to go.
Lorcan looked up from his chair and met her eyes. He did not indulge in his usual litany of exhortations. Mind your purse in the crowd, girl. Are you well moneyed? Are you provisioned for the gripes? Make sure your dagger is easy to hand. Instead he just gazed at her, his eyes stricken and huge, his hands white-knuckled on the arms of his chair. The two of them gazed at each other across the sunlit room.
The clock-tower bell struck the half quarter, and they were out of time.
Wynter’s vision blurred, her eyes overflowed and tears ran down her face.
“You must go now, baby-girl.”
She shook her head at his half-hearted whisper.
No. She shut her eyes. No.
No! She made up her mind. No. She could not do this. She began to fumble with the ties of her knapsack. She wouldn’t do it! She wouldn’t sacrifice this lovely man, and everything they meant to each other, all that he had given for her. She wouldn’t sacrifice it all for the sake of politics. She would stay. She would damned well stay. What had she been thinking? She would be his comfort and his harbour as he had been for her. She would be with him, right to the very end.
She couldn’t manage the God-cursed knots! She grunted in frustration and began scrabbling at the buckle of her travel belt.
Lorcan was rising slowly to his feet. She sensed him making his unsteady way around the table towards her.
“No, Dad!” she growled without looking at him. “No!” and she tugged clumsily at the buckle of her belt.
He was beside her then. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and, still leaning heavily on the table, he pulled her into him, squeezing her tightly against his chest. Wynter buried her face in his shirt. She could feel him trembling. He rested his cheek against the top of her head, and she knew he would let her stay.
“Oh Dad…” she began gratefully, snaking her hands up to wrap them around his neck. But his grip tightened even more and trapped her hands between them. With a groan, Lorcan pushed himself suddenly from the table, sending the two of them staggering sideways, toppling towards the door.
Wynter thought they would fall, and cried out in panic. But Lorcan flung out his free hand and caught them both with one powerful arm against the hall door. He leant there for a moment, panting. Wynter, still clutched against his chest, as helpless as a doll, felt him shaking, his heart beating fast and unsteady.
“Dad!” she pleaded, “No!” She turned her face up against his shirt, trying to push out of his determined grip. “Dad! Please!” He was holding her too close to let her see his face. All that was visible when she finally managed to tilt her head, was his blood-red hair, falling into her face, and the clean-shaven set of his jaw.
“Dad! Dad! Please!”
She felt his breath hitch as he shifted to support himself with one shoulder against the wood, and Wynter heard the awful sound of metal against metal as, one-handed, Lorcan slid the bolt open.
“DAD!” she wailed. “DAD! Please!” A tear fell onto her upturned face, and then another one. They were sliding over the clean line of her father’s jaw and they dropped into her eyes, onto her cheeks. She sobbed and Lorcan pushed the two of them away from the wood, almost losing his balance as he drew on the last reserve of his incredible strength to stand back and open the door.
He pulled it open a crack and shifted abruptly to hook his free hand over the top of it. Supporting himself on the door, Lorcan abruptly released Wynter from his powerful grip and pushed her through the narrow gap into the hall.
“No! No!” She clung desperately to him. But he was determined and had already started to close the door and withdraw his arm. Wynter’s hands slipped from his shoulder to his elbow.
He continued to pull his arm back, she clung to his powerful forearm, he pulled back. Their fingers squeezed for a moment. And then Lorcan pulled his hand free, and shut the door in her face.
He drew the bolt. He turned the key in the lock.
Wynter clung to the wood, tears streaming down her face. She listened. There was no sound from within.
“Dad,” she whispered. “Dad.”
“Please…” he said softly, his voice muffled as if his face was pressed to the other side of the door.
Wynter shut her eyes and sobbed.
“Please…” he said again. “Go…”
Wynter spread her hands against the wood and pressed her forehead to the door. Tears dripped from her face, dropping to the stones at her feet. She nodded.
“Goodbye, Dad,” she whispered. “I love you.”
There was no more sound from inside the room. She pressed her ear to the door and faintly, very faintly, she heard a long slow slide against the wood, as if her father had run his hand down the panel on the other side.
Slowly, every movement a supreme act of will, Wynter pushed herself back. She stood for one last moment, one hand still on the door. Then she dropped her head, let her hand fall to her side, and walked stiffly away.
The Uncharted Path
Wynter stood, staring at the jostling line of people as the gate guards meticulously checked each egress paper. The midday sun blasted down on her straw hat, throwing a stark shadow across her blank face. Her tell-tale hair was hidden beneath her dark hood; she had pulled the legs of her britches out to hide her expensive riding boots. She was just another whey-faced servant girl in travel clothes, patiently waiting in line. She was Madge Butterfield, to be precise, Under Pot-girl and Scour, fully papered, courtesy of Marni, and legitimately released from work to head home and tend her sickly mother.
The gates were unusually busy for midday in the summer. Dust rose in choking clouds from the shuffling feet and the restless horses and the wagons, and most people had their faces covered. It was Progress Day and people had been trickling from the complex all morning, heading into the town for the two day fair. Wynter suspected that Razi had specifically chosen this uncomfortable time to depart, so that he could do so in the relative safety of a big crowd. She knew he would travel with only a small band of men, probably in disguise, and once outside the complex they would simply melt into the eternal chaos of the Port Road.