My father roars for attention, and the vassals, instantly recognizing the features of their liege-lord, stop their chants and cheer for him. After a moment, the crowd falls completely silent.
“Sorry to interrupt your cheer, ladies and gentlemen, but we’re hunting for someone at the moment. Have you seen a lone rider pass by recently?”
Interesting my father starts like this. We know well that Pearl’s horse is here, but that information isn’t shared with the public. In response to my father’s words, a few of the men break out into laughter, and the red-faced man who I saw standing on the table, imitating shooting a gun, beams proudly. “Why yes, we did see someone, matter of fact, m’lord.”
My father’s attention focuses on him. “Oh? Tell us more.”
A few more table rattlers join the growing noise as the man stands up. “You don’t need to worry about them any longer, m’lord.”
I forget how to breathe, long enough for Bobby to shake me by the shoulder, forcing me to inhale sharply.
“Why don’t I need to worry about them?” my father says, still playing with the man, even as my senses spin, and a slow, burning dread inches through my soul.
“Why, I took care of ‘em!” A few more cheers for the man. “It was a filthy Hartson,” he says, accompanied by growls and curses. One man howls, his face contorted into battle rage, stamping his feet. “Saw the colors. To think one of them got so far in. Took me two shots, but I got them. Won their horse, too. Fine looking beast it is, m’lord. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was from their personal stables!” The cheering intensifies, even as I feel the ground cut itself out from under me.
No.
My father glances at me, and sees I’m unable to function. I curse my weakness, but know if I speak, if I stand up – I’ll launch at that man and strange the life out of him. I'll take out the entire bar. How dare they. How dare they!
“Yes, yes, very good,” my father says, lowering the volume once again. “But I do have a few things to ask you, boy.” His grave expression seems to take the bite out of the man’s jubilant attitude. “Are you aware of recent developments between the Claymores and Hartsons?”
The man stares dumbly at my father, and the rooms goes deathly silent. “Developments?”
“Are you aware, for instance, that my son married a Hartson?”
You could hear a coin drop in the pause after my father’s words. Something finally dawns in that man’s eyes. “M’lord, of course. But –”
“Are you also aware that if anything were to happen to that Hartson, on our lands, that we will end up in a war against the Graves, who have the manpower and firepower to wipe us out completely?”
The man appears green by now, and no one’s smirking anymore. I’m glad my father was able to keep calm and state this, because I don’t think I could have emulated his mood in that moment. The dread rips inside, making it hard to think, to breathe.
“We happen to be out here now, looking for my son's wife,” My father says, further nailing the point in. “She came down this way.”
The man looks as though he's about one second from fainting or vomiting at this point.
“The horse you have ‘won’ from this Hartson happens to be our horse, too,” my father says silkily. “So, not only have you shot at my son’s wife, but you’ve stolen one of our horses, too.”
I watch as the man begins to shake from head to toe. “I – I saw it was a Hartson. They’re our enemies. We know – everyone thinks –”
“Where is she?” My father steps closer to the man, who shrinks back. “Show us where she is. Where she lies.”
“I – I don’t know. She – she fell in the ravine.”
“Show us,” my father hisses. “And maybe I might find leniency in my heart not to execute you for the slight you’ve done against your lord. Against our entire clan. Since if she's dead, we are dead with her.”
Morgan and Danny glare. I can almost see the fires of war in their eyes. All our caution, all my efforts, are in ruin.
Practically in tears, the man nods, and prepares to leave with us. There’s no more cheer in that bar. We’ve killed their mood.
Just like they killed my wife.
“I hope you’re happy,” I manage at last, though my voice is trembling with rage. “For once we try for peace, to stop our people from dying. And you just ruined it. Maybe when the Graves visit your homes and slaughter you, you might stop to think if it was worth it. If it was worth hating.” The room remains silent as I leave the premises, and control my urge to throw up by the wall. My stomach churns. To think they were celebrating shooting Pearl.
We’ve always celebrated a successful raid against the Hartsons, but now I think I know how they must feel. When people cheer and scream for the death of someone close to you, like they’re nothing, it’s soul-wrenching. We gnash and wail at the loss of our loved ones while they dance on their graves, and we do the same to them. She’s not a monster. She’s a person. How dare they celebrate.
We should have tried for peace sooner.
We shouldn’t have been forced into this situation by the Graves.
I should have been more attentive to her.
We, along with a few apologetic volunteers, head towards the spot where the man, vassal Henry Speedmore, says the Hartson toppled down. At the bend of the road, where there’s no railing. Shining our flashlights down, we can catch disturbed plants and pebbles. As if someone had fallen, and tried to grab at something to slow their descent.
Being shot and falling down this doesn’t exactly bode well for her chances of survival. Henry also seems quite convinced he’d killed her, and keeps his distance from me.
Wise.
Glumly, heart throbbing painfully in my chest, I work down the ravine with the others, taking a careful path through the branches, bushes and shale. It’s hard going in the darkness, even with all our flashlights. My legs burn as we venture down, sometimes slipping, but always following the destruction wrought by Pearl’s fall. There are wild animals in this place. What if she’d survived, but then been accosted by a coyote or bear? A free meal dropping in on them. Horrible image after horrible image battles through my mind. I brush past thorns, barely registering the sting of cut skin. Lights fumble and flicker in the darkness as people have to keep constantly adjusting themselves to keep their balance.
Cold seeps through us, adding yet another fatal image to my mind, of Pearl somehow living through all of this, only to die from environmental exposure instead.
“It’s alright, son,” my father says. I don’t reply. “There’s always hope she’s survived. Takes a steel will to have to live with us for so long.”
Maybe an hour or two pass. I’m not exactly keeping track of the time. Thankfully it’s not raining, snowing or storming, at least, because it would have been impossible to do this in the night. The slope flattens out into the forest below, and we finally can move without bracing against a drop. The Bonecleaver advances ahead, still following the trail Pearl left, before he barks out, “Found her!”
Stomach now in my mouth, I stumble through the woods and men to what resembles a corpse. Pearl, lit up by the beams, is unmoving, covered in dirt, twigs, and blood. It’s as I feared. Everything spins, and I fall to my knees beside her, unsure if I’m going to cry, scream, or hit something. She’s all broken like some lifeless doll. I stroke at her cheeks, remembering how she looked in her full beauty, rosy and willful and vulnerable all at once. How we had kissed, and grown closer, and finally promised to shake off our chains. In her death, everyone else dies.