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Dusk fell quickly, and while the barn was draftier than they expected, the three guests were grateful for the standing steel fire pit, which they found discarded among some other tools. Shaped like a basket, the self-feeding pit was perfect for their use since they were still damp from their earlier ride.
After unsaddling the horses and placing them in one of the vacant pens next to Master Greyson’s, a white mare who was a little indifferent about the company, Joss made sure the horses were fed and watered while Henrik and Callan made room for the fire pit. Henrik collected wood from around the side and it was Callan who started the fire, using Hodgson’s flint rock and Henrik’s dagger. After several attempts, the fire was now blazing at a safe distance with the three sore riders standing around it, drying off and keeping warm. Joss handed out a portion of the bread and cheese, each eating only as much as they needed in order to save some for later.
“So where did you get the coins from?” Henrik spoke up after they had all grown quiet, staring off into the flames. At some point he had separated the map and flyer, the map laid out on the ground in front of him to dry while the flyer remained discreetly in his pocket.
“From the man whose horse I stole,” Callan replied matter-of-factly. “When I pulled him out of the saddle, they fell out of his pockets. So I grabbed them.”
“Very princely of you,” Henrik murmured, causing Callan to glare at him.
“Don’t think you wouldn’t have done the same in my position,” Callan accused, causing Henrik to match his glare.
“Down, boys,” Joss groaned, standing in the middle with her gaze fixed on the warming flames.
“What exactly did your sister do to piss that fool off?” Callan questioned, his eyebrows knitted together.
Joss was afraid he would ask, but too tired to be clever, simply said, “She fell in love with someone else’s son. Master Greyson and my father had made a pact early on that our families would merge when the occasion called for it. My sister went against it, which Master Greyson found insulting.”
Callan eyed her, but she didn’t return his gaze. “And the witch nonsense?”
Joss took in a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. “She ran off with a noble man, and to protect his reputation, his family accused her of bewitching him against his better judgment.”
Henrik shifted next to her. “We don’t need to discuss this now. It’s not important.”
“The hell it is,” Callan protested. “You said that man’s a raging drunk with a temper and we need to take turns keeping watch, so I need to know the gravity of the situation.”
“What kind of hearing do you have?” Henrik gawked. “We weren’t even near you when I said that!”
“Impeccable!” Callan snapped. His dark glare suddenly turned on Joss. “I need to know the whole story. No surprises.”
Joss, who kept her eyes on the fire, lifted them to take in Callan’s angry face. Or was it concern? The light seemed to cause his face to flicker with different emotions.
“She died,” Joss said bluntly. “They accused her, and to pacify the rumors, she was tried and beheaded.”
Callan stared at her, his face unreadable. “After she died, why didn’t you uphold the pact?”
“Because I had already broken it.”
The two stared at each other, the fire cracking in front of them.
“She was my baby sister,” Joss clarified, wanting this conversation to be over and done with. “I had to take up my father’s ax after my oldest brother was killed and my little brother ran away. My father’s grief was getting the better of him, and so to protect him from botching an execution and to keep food on the table, I took his position. So the marriage pact fell on my sister, the last resort.”
Callan’s eyes shifted to Henrik, who kept his glare on the fire. “And your father never picked up his ax again?” he asked, his gaze back on Joss.
“No, he didn’t.”
Something began to thaw in him, his gaze softening under the weight of his suspicions. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Joss nodded, but didn’t bother to reply.
“And the assassin,” Callan spoke up, and Joss forced herself to hold back a sigh. So it had bothered him.
“You know him?” His words were softer, more cordial.
Joss felt her chest tighten, which was off-putting since she didn’t like the hold Aric obviously had on her. “We found him on the side of the road. He was bad off, so we helped him, like we’ve done with others. We didn’t know he was an assassin until he showed up in the courtyard.”
Callan was staring hard at her, but as if seeing she too had been betrayed, blinked back his judgment. “Why was he bad off?”
Joss stared at the fire, recalling Aric’s face, those eyes, that kiss; things she kept to herself. “After you and I parted, he caught me, told me someone in a mask had paid him to assassinate you. He didn’t know who you were until he tracked you down. When he refused to kill you, they tortured him.”
Disciplined had been the word he used, but Joss couldn’t make light of the mistreatment like he did, not after mending those injuries.
“But he’s after me now,” Callan stated, a hint of a question laying in his tone.
“The person in the mask has... a lot of resources, apparently,” Joss tried to convey the seriousness of it, though still not knowing the full extent of the situation herself. “Aric thinks the only way to save himself and us is to give this mask what they want, and that’s to kill you.”
Callan eyed Henrik and then her. “Since you both are here, I take it you disagree with him.”
Joss nodded but didn’t say anything, keeping to herself as she watched the fire pop and hiss into the night.
There was a nudge against her shoulder, and Joss looked up at Henrik, who gave her a small grin. “Why don’t you go rest? We’ll take the first round,” he suggested, nodding behind them.
Unable to fight him, Joss trudged over to the hay pile next to the horses. They had found some old blankets, which were laid out on top of it.
Realizing she hadn’t properly checked her ankle in a while, Joss pulled her boot off and unwrapped it. Finding she had normal motion again, she tossed the wrapping and put her boot back on. With her now dry cloak around her, Joss pulled the hood on and nestled down in the hay, which smelled slightly sweet, an indication that it was fresh and not yet moldy. She was a little thankful for that, the sweetness counteracting the smell of the horse pens.
While the two continued on with another conversation, Joss was still stuck on the last one. She remembered the way her sister looked in the jailhouse, the way she was bent over with her head on the block, the way her neck looked. She closed her eyes, trying to bury it away. That's why she had shied away from telling the story to Aric. With Callan, it was all factual; with Aric, it would have gone deeper. She would have divulged more, felt more, told him everything because being vulnerable around him had a way of feeling good. It was scary to know she would have opened herself up to him, mainly since they hadn’t even known each other that long.
“Hey,” Henrik spoke up, and Joss slowly opened her eyes to find Henrik lying down next to her, snuggling into the hay with his own cloak wrapped around him.
“He’s too alert. He wants to keep watch first,” Henrik explained, sleepiness edging into his face.
“Makes sense,” Joss replied, staring over at Callan who remained standing at the fire pit.
“So are you okay?” Henrik asked, eyeing Joss. “That was a lot of heavy topics to cover in one night.”
Joss kept her gaze on Callan. “Yeah. It’s a small price to pay to keep him placid.”
Henrik hesitated, and Joss realized there was more to that question than he let on. “And what about Aric?” he asked, a touch of sympathy in his tone.
Joss’s gaze moved from Callan to Henrik. Even in the shadows she could make out his features, the concern still lying there.
“You still have feelings for him,” he assumed when she didn’t reply.
“I don’t want to,” she confessed in a whisper.
“You’re not your sister,” he reminded her.
“It’s not just that,” she spoke up, her throat tightening. “He’s an assassin; a criminal. I’ve killed men like him before. Even if all this goes back to normal and he stays, who’s to say that in a year—or ten, or twenty—he won’t be found out, that he’ll have to answer for his crimes. I’d have to kill him like I did Celine.”
The truth felt cold sitting in between them, and that’s when Henrik understood what she feared, being the executioner who beheaded her sister. She would be playing that role again, killing someone she loved, and even Henrik didn’t want to imagine the scene, especially of what happened afterwards: when Joss couldn’t keep any of her meals down because the guilt had twisted her stomach, or all those stained eyes and blank stares which had lasted for months. Even how her father acted afterwards had been hard to watch. Understanding her fear, Henrik slipped his hand in hers, squeezing it tenderly. Neither one said anything more; just knowing the other was there was enough.
Before she closed her eyes to let sleep consume her, Joss took one more look at Callan. It was then that his head slightly turned, and when he faced forward again, she knew he had heard every word.
