“I thought he’d already caught some of them?” Horace asked.
“Three of the five. He caught one only two weeks ago. Henry Wheeler was his name. Will confronted him and Wheeler tried to escape.”
“What happened?” Halt asked, although he dreaded to hear the answer. People didn’t just “escape’ from someone as skilled and deadly as his old apprentice, and he didn’t want to hear that Will had blood on his hands.
Gilan seemed to sense his thoughts. He shook his head abruptly.
“Wheeler is dead. But it wasn’t Will’s doing. He tried to attack Will and fell on his own knife.”
Halt heaved a silent sigh of relief. “And the other two?” he asked.
“He captured them both and brought them in for trial and sentencing. Although he said to me that he was hoping they’d try to escape. I got the feeling that he even gave them several opportunities to do so. But they weren’t stupid enough to take them.”
There was a brief silence as they thought about their old friend.
“What about Ruhl?” Horace asked.
“Will nearly caught him on one occasion,” Gilan replied.
Halt looked up quickly. “I didn’t know that.”
Gilan nodded. “It wasn’t long after he started hunting them down. He got within five metres of him. Ruhl was on a punt, crossing a river. Will arrived just too late, after the punt had left the bank. They were face to face for a few seconds. But by the time Will had unslung his bow, Ruhl had taken cover behind some wool bales. Will tried to follow by climbing along the overhead cable that held the punt against the current. But when Ruhl reached the far bank, he cut through the cable and dropped Will in the river. He came close to drowning.”
“So close,” Halt muttered. “I imagine that makes it even worse for him.”
Gilan nodded agreement.
“So, Gil,” Pauline said, ever the one for practical action, “what do you suggest we do—other than simply talking about it and wringing our hands?”
Gilan hesitated. He was moving onto uncertain ground here, but his instinct told him the key to Will’s salvation lay with the people in this room—the ones closest to him.
“Look,” he said slowly, “we’re the ones he loves above all others. And the ones who love him. Maybe if we all talked to him together. If we got him into a room and told him how we’re worried for him, how we can see the harm this quest for revenge is doing to him, well, maybe the fact that we’re all saying it will get through to him. Maybe he’ll… I don’t know… snap out of it?”
He finished the rambling sentence on a questioning note, as if looking for one of the others to supply the answer. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure what they could achieve. But he sensed that this group of people were the key to solving Will’s problem. Perhaps the combined force of their love for him could break through the dark fog that was swirling in his mind, pull aside the black curtain that had separated him from all but one thought—revenge for Alyss’s death.
“I don’t think just talking will do it—” Horace said thoughtfully.
Cassandra interrupted. “But surely if we all talked to him, all of us at once, we could get through to him?”
Horace pursed his lips. “I don’t know. You know how Will is. He’s stubborn. Always has been.” He glanced to Halt for confirmation, and the old Ranger nodded.
“Odds are,” Horace continued, “if we just talk at him, he’ll nod his head and pretend to agree with us. Then, when we’re done, he’ll simply continue on as he has been.”
He paused, his face set in a thoughtful frown. He sensed he was close to an idea but couldn’t quite grasp it.
“We need a new focus for him. Something that will break his obsession with Jory Ruhl and his surviving accomplice. Something that will occupy his mind so fully that it will leave no room for thoughts of revenge.”
Gilan spread his hands in a defeated gesture. “Well, as I said, I tried to send him on two missions and he—”
“It needs to be something more compelling, more personally involving than just a mission,” Pauline said, grasping what Horace was getting at. Like him, she felt there was an idea floating just out of reach. It was Halt who stated it.
“He needs to take on an apprentice,” he said.
They all turned to look at him. The idea, once stated, seemed so obvious. Both Horace and Pauline nodded. This was what they had been getting at, without realising it.
Gilan looked hopeful for a few seconds, then he shook his head in frustration.
“Problem is,” he said, “we have no suitable candidates at the moment. And we can’t offer him someone substandard. He’ll simply refuse to take on someone who’s not up to scratch, and he’ll be right. I won’t be able to blame him for that.”
“I wasn’t thinking just any apprentice,” Halt said. “It needs to be someone he already has a personal connection with. Someone he cares about, so that he can’t refuse. It needs to be a person who will involve him emotionally—as well as physically and intellectually.” He looked at his wife. “Remember years ago, when I sent Will off to Celtica with Gilan and I started behaving a little… erratically?”
“You started throwing noblemen out castle windows, as I recall,” she said, her lips twisting to contain a smile. Halt made a gesture that indicated he didn’t want to get into detail about that time in his life.
“Whatever. You sensed that I needed a new influence in my life to take my mind off the things that were troubling me.”
“As I recall, you were assigned to accompany Alyss on a mission,” she said.
“And it did the trick. Her youth and cheerfulness snapped me right out of my brown mood.”
Lady Pauline arched an eyebrow. “It didn’t stop you throwing people into moats.”
“Maybe not. But he deserved it,” Halt said, showing a rare grin. Then he became serious again. “Anyway, what I’m thinking is, if we put Will in charge of someone like I described, it might get his mind off this quest for revenge. And if we can do that, we’ll be well on the way to helping him accept and live with Alyss’s loss.”
“Of course, you never get over the loss of a loved one,” Cassandra mused.
Halt nodded to her. “No. But you can learn to live with it and accept it. And gradually, the hurt becomes more bearable. It doesn’t go away, but it becomes bearable.”
Gilan had been watching his former mentor carefully while he put his case. The young Commandant knew Halt, probably better than anyone else in the room.
“I take it you have someone specific in mind to be Will’s apprentice?” he asked.
Halt looked at him. “I was thinking Madelyn.”
Seven
Suddenly, everyone was talking at once.
“Madelyn? You mean my Madelyn?” Cassandra cried, coming half to her feet.
“You must be joking, Halt!” said Horace.
“But she’s a girl!” That was Gilan.
Halt waited until they all fell silent. Then he answered them calmly.
“Yes, Cassandra. I do mean your Madelyn. And no, I’m not joking, Horace. And yes, Gilan, I am aware that Madelyn is a girl.”
He noticed that, alone among those in the room, his wife had said nothing. He glanced sideways at her and was not surprised to see that she was nodding her head thoughtfully. He gave her a brief smile. The others were all still totally nonplussed by his suggestion. Cassandra had fallen back into her chair as she realised he was serious. He spoke to her now.
“Evanlyn,” he said. Like Will, Halt usually used that name for her in private. It was a mark of affection between them. “Let’s just think about something. If you had a son instead of a daughter, what would he be doing now?”
“I didn’t have a son—” she began, but he held up his hands to still her protest.