As evening fell, I buttoned the collar of my borrowed shirt and then slipped on the jacket. Everything smelled of cedar. The jacket was blue, but it was cut identically to a uniform jacket. It felt strange to do up the shining brass buttons, as if I’d been transported back to my cadet days. I wondered briefly about the man who had worn this, and what he had thought about the last time he’d buttoned it up. Then I asked the good god to be welcoming to him, took a breath, and let it go.
I looked in Epiny’s mirror with the scrolled gilt frame and tried to smile. It looked more like a sneer. Here I was, dressed in a dead man’s clothes, possibly those of a man I had helped to kill, about to step into the biggest charade I’d ever played in my life. I’d be impersonating Nevare Burvelle, soldier son of Lord Burvelle of the East, come to present my respects to Captain Thayer. I realized I was holding my breath and slowly let it out. My chest still felt just as tight. I knew I must be mad, going along with Epiny’s harebrained scheme. The only advantage I could see to her plan was it was the only one we had.
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.”
“You assume so much,” I said shakily.
“Do I?” she asked, and smiled at me fondly. “I’ve masterminded one prison escape before, and it went almost according to plan. There is only one bit I haven’t decided yet. Should she flee or hide?”
“What?” I was completely taken aback.
“Should Amzil flee or hide? If it’s flee, then we need to steal a horse. I’ve been thinking that the animal that scout was riding today looked healthy and fleet.”
“Epiny, you can’t be considering—”
“Oh, we both know nothing else will work. It’s fine for Spink to speak of the Captain coming to his senses, but I don’t think that man has any senses to come to. Once Spink returns, we shall know where she is held, and we can lay our plans.”
I was saved from having to reply to that by Sem coming with the primer, saying that he was ready to have his lesson heard. He battled his way manfully through eight letters, and then Kara read to us about the boy who could see the bee in the tree. I suppose I was too fulsome in my applause, for she rebuked me with a “Truly, sir, it’s not that difficult. I could teach you to read, if you’d like.”
That jolted a laugh from me, despite my heavy heart. Then Epiny rebuked both of us, Kara for being cheeky and me for laughing at bad manners. I straightened my face and managed to keep a grave expression as I asked little Kara if the missus had taught her to play Towsers yet, whereupon Epiny astonished both children by playfully slapping my hand and forbidding me to say another word about that game.
Yet all the while I was enjoying the children and rejoicing in the home they had found here, my heart was aching and my throat clenched over the fate of their mother. When the door closed behind Spink as he entered, we both jumped, and Epiny’s voice was too bright as she asked him if he had found what had been misplaced.
“Yes, I did,” he replied stiffly. “But it’s quite wedged where it has been dropped. I’m afraid it will take more than saying please to get it freed.”
Kara looked up hopefully. “Sir, I’ve got little hands. Often my mother says that I can get things that no one else can reach, like the time that the button fell through that crack in the wainscoting. Whatever it is, I’d be glad to reach it for you, if I could.”
“I know you would, darling,” he replied. “But I’m afraid it will have to wait for a time. Have you saved me anything to eat?”
“Of course we have. Give me a minute, and I’ll have it on the table for you,” she replied in a housewifely little voice, and trotted off to the kitchen, with Sem at her heels loudly insisting that he could help.
Epiny pounced on Spink. “Where is she?”
“The same block of cells where they held Nevare.”
“But that building is half burned!”
“Only the upper part. The lower cells remained intact. So they’ve put her in one of the punishment cells down there.”
“Punishment cell?”
“A very small room, with no windows, not even in the door. And quite stoutly built, I’m afraid.”
“And the guard on it?” I asked.
Spink looked ill. “Two men from that night in the street. Two men with every interest in seeing her hang so she can never speak the truth against them again. I’m sure Captain Thayer chose them deliberately.”
“Two men I’d have no compunction about killing,” I said, and was surprised at how calm and certain I was.
Spink went pale. “What are you talking about?” he asked, aghast.
Epiny answered. “We’ve been planning her escape. The only real question we have left is, should she flee or should she hide? I’ve been thinking that the best solution is to make it appear that she has fled, but when they give chase, they’ll only find a riderless horse. So they’ll think she jumped off the horse and fled into the forest. But actually we’ll hide her somewhere here in Gettys, and spirit her out after they’ve given up looking for her. We think that that scout’s horse looked good and fast. Do you know where he stables the beast?”
“Not ‘we,’” I said firmly. “Epiny has been making these extravagant plans. I have no ambition of stealing Tiber’s horse.” I sighed. “But I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t come up with anything better.”
Spink looked only mildly relieved. “Fleeing or hiding, such plans are of no use until we find a way to get her out of there. I stopped on the way home and spoke quietly to two other officers. Neither of them were enthusiastic about trying a civilian, let alone executing one, and both are horrified at the thought of hanging a woman. As for the Captain having himself flogged, well, it’s insane.”
“Then they’ll stand by us if we go to Captain Thayer tonight and—”
“They won’t stand by us. They won’t confront Thayer. A man capable of hanging a woman and flogging himself is certainly capable of punishing any underling who questions his authority. No. But they’d certainly be greatly relieved if something happened so that the woman didn’t hang.”
Epiny smiled. “So, for example, if she vanished from her cell, no one would search for her very diligently.”
“Epiny.” Spink looked at her levelly. “It’s very complicated. Everyone knows how Amzil feels about her children. They know she wouldn’t leave town without them.”
“She might. For a short time, because she knows they are safe with us.”
“Epiny, we’d still have to get her out of the cell.”
“We have some explosives left from the last time!” Epiny exclaimed brightly.
“No. Blowing up the cell wall with black powder would most likely kill the occupant,” Spink pointed out. “Those cells are tightly built with thick stone walls, not wood. Any explosion we set off that was powerful enough to break the wall would definitely harm Amzil. Nevare was very fortunate that you and Amzil blew up the wrong prison wall the last time. No. No explosions.”
“Well, that’s no good, then.” She thought for a moment. “What is the door made of? If we get rid of the guards, can we force it?”
I spoke up. “I doubt it. My door was of very thick wood, reinforced with metal strapping and a heavy lock.” I hesitated, then added, “It didn’t look as if the place where I broke out of my cell had been repaired very well. I might be able to break a hole in the wall with a pry bar and a sledge. But it wouldn’t be a quiet operation. And I might find myself back in my old cell, with the door still locked, and Amzil locked in another cell.”
Blithely ignoring this, Epiny was relentless. “Who would have the keys?”
“Captain Thayer, most likely.”
“Then we have to get them somehow. Spink, we’ll have to invent a reason for you to visit him tonight and—”
“Not a chance of that.” Spink sighed. “I went there before I came home, determined to make the man see some sort of reason. I couldn’t get past the sergeant on the desk. The man tried to be polite, but finally admitted that he’d been given a direct order not to admit me on any grounds.”
“Then I’ll go,” Epiny said decisively.
“That would be useless, and you know it,” Spink told her firmly. “His sergeant has had orders to refuse you admission for weeks.”
“I could raise enough of a fuss in that outer office that he’d have to come out.”
“No, my dear. I won’t risk you. The good god knows what Thayer would decide was a just punishment for a shrew in his office. Possibly the stocks.”
Kara came to the door of the parlor. “Sir, your meal is on the table. I wouldn’t interrupt, but we wouldn’t want it to get cold, would we?”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Spink replied so meekly to her motherly tone that Epiny had to smile. Spink rose. “Come with me, both of you, and have a cup of tea. Our discussion might have to wait for a time, but—”
“I’ll go,” I said suddenly. They both looked at me, confused.
“What could be more natural? I’ve come all this way to see if I’d like a career with this regiment. If we can make me presentable, it would only be natural that I’d immediately call on the commanding officer. In fact, it’s only courteous. And unless he has completely lost touch with reality, he can’t politely turn me away.”
“And?” Spink asked.
“And once I’m inside, with the door shut, I’ll do whatever I must to get the keys. And after that, whatever I must to have her out of there.”
Spink looked aghast. Epiny replied only, “There, you see? Flee or hide. I told you that was what had to be decided immediately.”
“I am not stealing a horse,” Spink announced and then, as Epiny opened her mouth to speak, he said more loudly, “And neither are you. Or Nevare. Come, now. Let’s have a cup of tea together. And let us remember that the children are listening.”
And indeed, as we entered the dining room where Kara had laboriously set out Spink’s food, Kara observed severely, “Stealing is wrong.”
All the adults exchanged glances, wondering how much else she had overheard, but as she did not seem overly distressed, we let the topic go. Epiny went to the kitchen with Kara, promising to return soon with a pot of hot tea and cups for the rest of us.
As soon as she left the room, I leaned across the table to Spink and asked him, “Do we have a chance, do you think?”
He looked tired. “Impossible to say. How would you get the key? By stealth or deceit? Violence? Even if you get them, how do we overcome her guards? Do they go down quietly or flee shouting for help? Are we willing to kill them to have her free? How quickly can we get Amzil out of there? And, as Epiny keeps coming back to, does she flee or do we hide her? If she is missing, they are certain to search here first. And if the children are still here, well, then I think they will know she has not gone far. Irregardless of her other reputations, she is known in town as a fierce mother.”
My mind had leapt ahead. “If the children are gone, they will accuse you of helping her escape.”
“Or of not preventing her from doing so. To Captain Thayer, it will be one and the same thing.”
“So. You are saying that perhaps we can do it, if you are willing to sacrifice your career. For if she hides, they’ll know all they have to do is wait. And if she flees, with or without the children, you’ll be implicated.”
He nodded.
“Do you think Epiny understands what she is asking of you?”
He gave me a long, slow look. “And what are you asking of me if I don’t act, Nevare? To live as a coward? To witness an innocent woman shamefully executed, and then raise her children, looking into their faces every day? Sooner or later, they will know what became of their mother. Sooner, if I know Kara. I suspect she already knows more than she is letting on to us or the other children. Eventually, they’d all know I stood by and did nothing while their mother was executed for defending them.” He glanced aside and gave a short, contemptuous sigh for my quibbling. “What’s a lost career compared to that?”
I spoke after a long silence. “Spink, I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t do it, Nevare.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I muttered, just as Epiny reentered with the teapot and cups. She poured for us and sat down, but then had to leap up when the baby awoke and cried. A moment later, Dia entered, looking wide-awake but tousle-headed after her nap. Spink put her up at the table and gave her a cup of weak tea with sugar in it. Kara and Sem came to join us. When Epiny returned and I looked around at the table crowded with children, the full hopelessness of the situation descended on me. The afternoon was already waning. Could I spirit three children out of the town, hide them in a safe place, and return to break Amzil out of jail and escape with her and the children before dawn? And afterward, could we remain free?
I considered taking them to Kesey and begging him to watch over them. I shook my head. No. I couldn’t involve him, and if we had to flee from there, there was no place to go. I looked across the table at Spink. His grave face echoed my own thoughts. It was impossible. Yet it was what must be done. To succeed, I’d have to get Amzil out of her cell and escape from the town with her and all three of her children. And it would have to be done in such a way that Epiny and Spink did not seem to be involved. I took a breath and spoke through the prattle of the children at the table. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stay long. Tonight, after I visit two old friends, I’ll probably be leaving.” I looked at Epiny, and when I had her attention, I let my eyes wander over the children. Then I looked back at her. “I’d like to get the earliest possible start. Would you pack the essentials for me?”
She looked at the three children that were not her own, and yet were. Her eyes suddenly brightened with tears. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I suppose the sooner that is done, the better.”
The afternoon passed in a strange display of false normalcy. Spink had to return to his duties and feign disinterest in the fate of his housemaid, and even annoyance at the thought of being left with the care of her children. Epiny, on pretense of gathering mending and washing for “spring cleaning,” was going through the children’s clothing and bedding. I went out to look once more at the rickety cart and the ancient horse. I did what little I could to tighten the wheels and gave the old beast a feed of oats. As I did so, I tried frantically to make some real plans, but knew there were too many variables.
The day both dragged and sped by me. The children’s questions about their mother multiplied and increased in frequency. Epiny’s promises of “soon she’ll be back” began to wear thin for them. Dia became fretful, but Sem was angry and Kara downright suspicious. My efforts to make firm plans with Epiny were frustrating, for every time I sought a quiet moment with her, it seemed a little head was popping in, demanding attention or asking yet another question.
Epiny put Kara to kneading bread dough and entrusted Sem with a knife to cut up potatoes for the evening repast. While they were thus busy, we hastily loaded the wagon with the children’s things, some clothing for Amzil, and a supply of food. Epiny kept adding things. A cooking pot and a kettle. Cups and plates. When she started to take their few toys and books from the shelves, I stopped her. “We’re going to have to travel light.”
“For a child, these are essentials,” she said, but sighed and put some of the items back. We carried them out to the cart and loaded them. Over all, I tossed a blanket, and could only pray that no one would give it a second glance.
Epiny left me with the children while she hurried off to “visit” one of her whistle brigade who lived close to the edge of Gettys. In a town like Gettys, she knew the news of Amzil’s hanging would have flown far and wide. To Agna, she would confide that she wished Amzil’s children to be as far from the gallows as possible when their mother met her fate tomorrow. Epiny would ask if she would take them in for the night.
While she was off doing that, I was left in charge of the children, including Solina. The baby was supposed to take another nap while Epiny was gone. Instead, she woke the moment the door closed and began to cry lustily. I was pathetically grateful when a gingerly check of her napkin revealed that it was still clean and dry. I picked the babe up, put her on my shoulder and walked about the room as I had seen Epiny do. The three children had gathered to witness my incompetence. Solina’s wails only grew louder.
“You’re supposed to bounce her a little while you walk,” Sem offered helpfully.
“No!” Kara said disdainfully. “That’s what women do. He’s supposed to sit in the rocker and rocker her and sing her a song.”
As neither the walking nor the bouncing had helped, this seemed a good idea. Once I was seated with Solina, they all gathered round me so closely that I feared I would rock on small toes. “Rock her!” Sem commanded me impatiently.
“And sing her a nursery song,” Kara added imperiously. Obviously they had gauged Epiny’s attitude toward me and based their own upon it. And so I laboriously rocked and sang the nursery songs that I knew. Dia made so bold as to climb up on my lap and join the baby. When I had worked through my nursery songs, and Solina had quieted but not fallen asleep, Kara asked me thoughtfully, “Do you know any counting songs?”
“Oh, one or two,” I admitted, and her theory proved correct, for before we had counted backward from the ten little lambs for the second time, the baby was sleeping. It was tricky to get Dia off my lap and then stand without waking Solina, and trickier still to put her back in her little bed without waking her. I shooed the other children out of the room. Sem and Dia had readily scampered off down the hall, but Kara waited for me. As I shut the door of the room, she reached up in the dimness and took my hand. She looked up at me, her small face pale in the darkened corridor.
“You’re him, aren’t you? The man that gave us food that winter.”
“Kara, I—”
“I know it’s you, so don’t lie. You sang the same songs before. Don’t you remember? And I heard the Lieutenant call you Nevare. And Mum said you would come back someday. Maybe.” She didn’t give me a chance to confirm or deny her words. She took a sharp breath. “And my mother’s in trouble, isn’t she? That’s why she hasn’t come home.”
“She’s in a little bit of trouble. But we think that it will be sorted out soon and—”
“Because there’s a plan.” She interrupted me. “If my mother is ever in trouble, there’s a plan. She made it and she told it to me.” Her head came up and she added gravely, “I’m in charge of it. I have to remember it.”
She kept my hand in a small firm grip and led me to the little room that they all shared. She knelt beside the bedstead to pull up the loosened floorboard. The “plan” proved to be a small sack of coins hidden there. In with the coins was a simple silver ring with a rose engraved on it. “I’m to give this bag to the missus and ask her to keep taking care of us. She’s to have it all, except the ring. She has to keep that safe in case Sem ever wants to grow up and marry a girl, so he’ll have a ring to give her. It was our grandma’s.”
“That’s a good plan,” I told her. “But I hope we won’t need it. I’m going to try to get your mother out of trouble. Then we’ll come for you. If the missus can arrange it, you and Dia and Sem will be in a house at the edge of town. Your mum and I will come there, load you in the cart, and go. But you can’t tell Sem or Dia about the plan yet. You have to keep it secret and remember it, and help them to be good until I come for you tonight. Can you do that?”
“Of course. But where is our mother? And where have you been and why were you gone so long?”
“Those are all questions that I’m going to have to answer later, Kara. For now, you’ll have to trust me.”
At that, she looked at me doubtfully, but finally nodded gravely.
When Epiny returned, she was not pleased to discover how much Kara knew. “That’s a big burden to put on very small shoulders,” she scolded me.
“You’re the one who keeps telling me not to lie to people,” I replied, and she sighed in exasperation.
There was no time for us to have doubts about it. Epiny loaded the children into the cart and took them off to her friend’s house. By the time she returned, on foot, Solina had awakened. Epiny took the baby from me and bowed her head over her child. “It struck me as I was leaving them there that I might never see them again. I wanted to say good-bye, but could not, for fear of alarming them or making Agna wonder what was going on. It was so hard to leave them there. Kara was so calm about all of it, but Sem demanded to know why they had to stay there for the night. Dia was busy looking at Agna’s two goats. I don’t think she even noticed I’d gone.”
I took my cousin in my arms and held her and her child close for a moment. “It won’t be the last time you’ll see them, I promise. I’ll get Amzil out of her cell, and she and the children and I will get cleanly away. And when we can, I’ll send word to you. And someday you’ll see all of us again.”
There was a knock at the door and I let her go. It was the neighbor’s housemaid, Rasalle, with Lieutenant Gerry’s carefully bundled clothing. Our time to hesitate was over. All was as ready as we could make it. I retreated to Spink’s room to dress for my charade.