Renegade's Magic

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.”

I thought of asking her if she realized that her behavior to his superiors would definitely affect Spink’s chance for advancement, but bit my tongue. Spink had said he was content with his willful wife; I would not interfere. I suspected it would have been a waste of my breath anyway. Instead, I said, “I admire what you’ve done with them. But I also envy you and Spink. I’m a stranger to them, but they’ve given their hearts to you.”

“All of that will change after you and Amzil are married,” she decided blithely. “I think you’ll make a very good father to them. Sem still speaks of you, from time to time, as ‘the man who used to hunt meat for us.’ That’s not a bad image for a son to have of his father.”