"You were awake late into the night, I expect," Laird Prydae went on. "Meeting the Highwayman, no doubt."
"No, my liege," Cadayle started to say, but she just shrieked instead as Bannagran reached over with his free hand, grabbed the front of her nightdress, and tore it from her, leaving her naked in the room-naked except for a jeweled necklace.
Cadayle looked down at the floor and quickly lifted her hand to cover the stolen necklace.
"You leave her!" her mother cried from across the way, and Cadayle glanced over just in time to see Callen's approach stopped suddenly by a backhanded blow from Bannagran, which sent Callen flying to the floor. Cadayle instinctively started to react, but the big man pulled all the harder on her hair.
"Enough of this foolishness," Bannagran said. "You are fairly caught, young lass. Make your death an easier thing with a bit of cooperation."
Callen shrieked at the blunt remark and charged again, only to be thrown aside once more by the giant Bannagran.
"My liege, pray you get those soldiers in here to control this wench," Bannagran said with a chuckle, but he bit the words off suddenly, noting Prydae's transfixed expression. "My liege?"
Prydae stood there staring at the naked Cadayle, at the softness of her curves, at their odd familiarity. The laird was no stranger to the sight of a naked woman, and so he was not leering like some giddy adolescent. But he was transfixed, by a memory the sight of Cadayle had inspired. The curve of her belly, the way her wheat-colored hair cascaded in layers across her lowered face. He thought of a bonfire, of an adder, of an adulteress and a knave. His gaze went from Cadayle to her mother, who, like Bannagran and Cadayle, was now staring at him curiously.
"Callen Duwornay," Laird Prydae remarked, the name springing from memories he didn't even know he possessed.
The woman blanched, something that neither Prydae nor Bannagran missed, and fell back a bit.
"N-no, my liege," she stammered.
"Callen Duwornay," Prydae said again, more confidently. "Not the poison of a snake nor the powrie dwarves could kill you."
"No, my liege, I am-"
"You are Callen Duwornay, and that is your daughter," Prydae interrupted. He looked back to Cadayle, at her curves, as images of that long-ago night began to stir within him. He remembered Callen in the firelight-remembered her looking exactly as this young woman now appeared to him. He remembered her curves, and the regrets he had that he would never bed her; and as that last thought played in his mind, he felt a stirring in his loins.
"That one," he said breathlessly, pointing to Cadayle. "She comes to Castle Pryd."
"What of the old wench?" asked one of the soldiers moving into the room past the laird.
Prydae fixed his gaze upon Callen, who seemed too afraid to say anything at that terrible moment.
"What do you know of the Highwayman?" Prydae asked sharply.
"She knows nothing!" Cadayle blurted, and Prydae turned a fierce scowl upon her.
"But you do," he said.
"My liege, I will tell you everything I know," Cadayle pleaded. "But please, do not hurt my ma. She's done nothing. She knows nothing. She's innocent. Please, my liege."
Prydae motioned with his head, and Bannagran dragged Cadayle from the room as the other two soldiers descended upon Callen. Only when Cadayle was long out of sight did Prydae turn on the woman.
"How you survived is of no concern to me," he said. "I admire it, I would say."
"Please, gentle Laird Prydae, do not harm my girl," Callen said, her voice a whimper, her body seemingly broken by the weight of it all.
"Harm her? Nothing could be further from my intentions, Callen Duwornay."
Callen began to cry.
"My liege?" asked one of the soldiers flanking her.
"Give her to Bernivvigar," Prydae said, turning and exiting, hardly seeming to care about Callen. "Perhaps he will be merciful, perhaps not. It matters not at all to me."
The woman, too broken by the suddenness of it all, by the shock of being discovered and the horror of having her daughter so unceremoniously dragged away, offered no resistance, offered nothing at all, as the two men hoisted her up. She didn't, couldn't, walk as they started out, but that hardly seemed to matter.
They just dragged her.
35
The Downward Spiral He stayed near the edges of town as the sun climbed in the eastern sky. He knew that he should return to the chapel, knew that he was taking a giant risk in remaining out and about. The monks would go to his room when they noticed that he was not doing his daily chores.
But none of that mattered to Bransen now; nothing beyond the reality of Garibond's death mattered. He couldn't believe the tale those living in what had once been his home had told him. He couldn't imagine that Master Bathelais, scowling as he often was, could be so despicably cruel as to have murdered a man as fine as Garibond. And what of Brother Reandu? Perhaps Reandu wasn't as powerful in the order back then as he was now, but certainly he would have protested the execution. It made no sense to Bransen as he wandered through the shadows under the many trees that marked the outskirts of Pryd Town, and yet, he found that he could not deny that which was obvious.
The man at the campfire had Garibond's knife. The people in his house were sincere, and why would they lie, given that such a lie might well mark their doom at the hands of this masked stranger who had come banging on their door? Bransen knew that they couldn't be telling the truth, that Garibond couldn't be dead, and certainly not by the hands of the brothers who had been his protectors all these years. And yet he knew that they certainly were speaking honestly. He had seen it in their faces.
At one cluster of trees, the weary young man plopped down in the shade and leaned back against a white birch. He tried to sort through every memory he had of every encounter even remotely relating to Garibond these past ten years. He remembered Brother Reandu's face on the one occasion when he had mentioned his father, the initial shock Reandu had shown, the obvious discomfort behind his stuttered responses.
But what did it all mean? If Garibond was dead, murdered by the brothers of Blessed Abelle, what did it all mean to Bransen and for Bransen?
A myriad of emotions rolled through him, everything ranging from anger to despair to the feeling that he had to run and hide somewhere, somewhere dark and deep, where no one would ever find him. All the confidence of the Highwayman flew from him, and he felt again the helpless little boy he had been. But what did it matter, after all? He thought again of his absence at the chapel, and of the implications should he be discovered, and he shrugged them away. How could he go back there, knowing the truth? He would have to face Master Bathelais and Brother Reandu. He would have to demand the truth from them, though he already knew it, in his heart at least. And then what? What could he say to them? What explanation could they possibly offer that would make any difference to the realities of their actions? For Bransen knew Garibond's heart as well as he knew his own, and if that man was a heretic in the eyes of the brothers of Abelle, then the brothers of Abelle were simply entirely wrong.
Bransen found a stream of sunlight flowing in through an opening in the trees, and he lay down, staring up at the fiery orb. He wanted the rays to permeate his corporeal form, to cleanse him of the impurities and anxieties, to empty him of his rage and his pain. He closed his eyes, and exhaustion overcame him.
He knew at once, when he awoke, that the day was nearing its end, and that any hope he might hold of sneaking into the chapel unnoticed was long lost. Instinctively, he began concocting possible explanations and excuses to explain the absence of the Stork.