Twenty-One The Highwayman and the Hounds

TWENTY-ONE

The Highwayman and the Hounds

MARY

I awoke to the smell of bread and a warm back against mine. I lay facing the smoldering fire across a thick, old carpet and smooth stone floor, a cushion embroidered with Mereish patterns beneath my head. Beyond the shutters and the murky glass of the windows, I saw nothing but darkness. It wasn't yet dawn.

I turned my head, expecting to find the shaggy dog lying behind me. Instead I found Sam, his face turned away and buried in another cushion. Even separated by layers of clothing and blankets as we were, his closeness made my thoughts scatter. Instinct told me to roll over, to slip my arm around his chest and bury my face in his back. It urged me to do far more than that.

But a sick feeling lingered in my stomach. As the haze of sleep and the consolation of Samuel's closeness faded, I remembered our situation in all its hopeless complexity.

Us, hunted. The Mereish in possession of staggering new magecraft. Hart waylaid and us trapped in our enemy's heartland.

Tane, how are we going to survive this?

Her answer was a wordless nudge of consolation, but she made no platitudes.

I sat up sharply as a door opened and a sizzling filled the air. A woman bustled in, her eyes dim and her hands holding a cast-iron pan with a wad of cloth. She set it on the dining table, where an oil lamp already burned. She left without casting us so much as a glance.

I looked to Benedict. He was still in his chair, his eyes open and his shirt unfastened to reveal a new Sooth talisman hanging against his own bruised skin. Its twin was warm against my own chest, hidden under my clothes.

The Magni's emotionless, weary gaze dropped to me. "She won't remember us," he promised, his voice overloud in the still house. "She thinks she's dreaming. Go back to sleep; I will wake you all when breakfast is ready."

I'd known the strength of Benedict's influence before, but to see it used in such a way was a new kind of unsettling.

The urge to dig into the satchel and pull out a Magni talisman assailed me. We had yet to test it, but it seemed natural that they would protect against Ben's influence.

I wanted that protection. But until we knew more about the items and their magics, Sam and I had agreed it was best to only use what we absolutely needed.

"Are you… controlling that woman? Like a puppet?" I hissed.

"I am not controlling her. The sleeping mind is much more susceptible to impulses—it does half my work for me. I simply convinced her that she should cook a meal before returning to bed, to sleep late and wake with no memory of what she has done."

"Benedict—"

"Mary?" Samuel sat up, pushing stray hair from his eyes in bleary, sudden concern. His gaze swept from me to Ben and then to the table. The iron pan wasn't alone; there were two loaves of fresh bread, a steaming pot of coffee, and various platters whose contents I couldn't see.

I thought Sam would scold Ben, but he didn't. He just rubbed the sleep from his eyes and pushed upright, wincing and rubbing his back.

A few minutes later, I plodded to the outhouse in the snow-bright, violet gloom just before dawn. I dressed in my clothes from the prison, now dry and partially clean, if stained with salt at the hems. Then we ate, watching the eerie, distracted Mereish woman trail back towards the bedrooms, her expression still blank, her cheeks flushed from laboring over the stove.

"They'll talk," I murmured to Sam as we ate next to one another. "There will be food gone and things amiss. Ben needs to take clothes. I can call up a snowstorm to cover our tracks but…"

"We left a thorough trail in the opposite direction," Sam reassured me. "Hopefully no one will think much of a disoriented farm wife this far our way, and Tane did well to hide Ben in the Other."

"Whether or not they can track us, it changes little," Benedict interrupted and drained his mug of coffee. He still looked a mess, but his eyes were as sharp as ever. "The farmers will not remember our stay, and we need to leave."

He was right—we had no choice—but my skin still crawled as Charles and Samuel led our horses out of the courtyard. The dog, back under his warm awning, watched us dolefully and paid no mind when the gate clattered shut.

Samuel led his horse up next to me and held the stirrup in place while I mounted. Ignoring aching muscles, I arranged my coat as Sam climbed up behind me. His arms slipped around my waist, taking the reins, and I resisted the urge to snuggle back into the press of his chest and thighs.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked in my ear.

"Passably," I replied.

"Don't get handsy," Charles warned Benedict as the other man climbed up behind him and sat on a thick blanket behind the saddle.

In answer, Benedict put a firm hand through the back of Charles's belt and tugged him back an inch. Charles, startled, glanced at Sam for support.

"Never fear," Benedict told Charles, adjusting his cloak with his free hand. "If I had an eye for men, you would already know."

"Is that a compliment?" Charles asked as both he and Sam nudged the horses into movement and we started for the road. He unfurled a crooked grin and glanced slyly back at Ben. "It is!"

Benedict, to my surprise, laughed. It was a genuine sound, hedged with relief, and when I looked over he'd turned his face into the wind. "If that consoles you."

I began to sing as we left the farm. The winds came to me curiously, flowing in from every direction and whispering what they held—snow, sea-salt, ice, warmth. I began luring snow in from the southwest, and, as the farmhouse passed from sight, the storm arrived. A flurry battered us until, breathless and bright-eyed with the chill, I convinced it to come to rest. Flakes ceased to drive and instead fell thickly then, layering the road behind us and filling in our tracks.

As my song faded Samuel made a warm, soft noise in his chest, and I looked up at him.

"It never fails to surprise me, when you sing," he murmured, his eyes distant on the road ahead and the soft, thick snow. "I'm here, wholly. With you."

I tentatively clasped his hand where it held the reins, forearm resting heavy on my thigh. There was a tension to the moment, an expectation of more to be said. I waited, willing him to speak.

"I am sorry," he said, low and only for me. "For holding back from you. Once we are safe… can we speak?"

"Of course."

He cleared his throat and changed topics. "We should let the snow clear in a quarter hour or so. We may be hidden, but we also cannot see or hear, and that unsettles me."

Soon after, I began to sing again and the snow ceased to follow us. We left the storm behind, chased by fading flurries into open farmland and the growing light of dawn. The sun warmed the eastern horizon, pushing back the bruised twilight and diffusing in our misty breaths—beautiful, crisp and clean in the way that only snowy mornings could be. But I felt growing tension in Samuel's arm at my waist.

At first, I feared I was the cause. But when I twisted to look into his eyes, his gaze was towards the sea.

"They're still not at the meeting place?" I guessed. The forest inland to the south took on more shape and definition, and up ahead I saw the smoke and pricks of light that marked more farmhouses nestled among snowy hills. "Olsa isn't coming."

"She is not," Samuel affirmed. " Hart is moving east, but in convoy with the other ships. I… I have no doubt he has been captured now."

"What is east?" Charles asked. "Where are they going?"

"Ostchen," Ben said. "The naval port. It would be the natural place to take any captured ship."

Samuel's arm retreated from my waist, and I realized he was adjusting his weapons—loosening his cutlass in its scabbard with a rasp of frozen steel.

I unfastened clasps of the saddlebags so we could reach our pistols quickly. "Is someone coming?"

A dog began to bark. It came distantly, back up the road—too close to be the shaggy dog at the farmhouse. It was also not alone. A howl joined it, then another.

"Fuck," Benedict growled. Charles had slowed his horse, and we came alongside to confer. "How could those dogs be tracking us? I was in the water long enough to kill me."

"Regardless. Always assume the dogs are after you," Charles said with grave conviction. "If Olsa is not coming, we need to take to the forest."

"Now," Benedict added, reaching for the reins.

Charles elbowed him back and gathered the reins himself, directing the horse off the road. Samuel followed without a word.

I looked back the way we'd come. The sun slipped up over the eastern horizon, casting our shadows over the mottled line of our tracks. My thoughts slowed, clotted with fear, and, for a few breaths, I gave it rein.

I imagined hounds tearing through the snow, harrying us into the trees. I imagined the riders that would come behind them, muskets sparking and pluming. I imagined a bullet in Samuel's back. Hands, dragging me back to the prison, to the cell with the other Stormsingers, gagged and helpless. Chains fastening me to the mast of a Mereish warship.

I began to sing. The snow returned quickly, remembering the song I'd sung it a short time ago. A flurry of thick, fat flakes melted on my cheeks and swept us silently into the pines.

When the trees surrounded us, I changed my melody. I sent the snow driving ahead of us at a blistering, nearly horizontal angle, carrying away our scents. My trained winds, however, kept us in a bubble of calm, full of the clink of tack and the crunch of snow beneath the horses' hooves.

"There's a monastery called Oruse, two days' ride from here. One, now," Samuel said, raising his voice just enough to be heard. "They are bound to shelter anyone, even foreigners and criminals."

"Are they also bound not to betray them?" Benedict asked, his eyes haunted for one vulnerable moment.

"I've hidden in my share of monasteries," Charles put in. "Aeadine, given. But they were not prone to betrayal. Half the monks were hiding from sullied pasts."

"I'd prefer to ride right for Ostchen," I said, surprising myself with how true it was. The prospect of staying another minute on Mereish soil chilled me, and the weight of unbelonging was oppressive. "We can find Hart and get out to sea."

"Because reclaiming your ship will be entirely straightforward," Benedict said with false congeniality.

Dogs bayed in the distance, muffled and distorted through the snow. We were all quiet for a moment, listening to them echo and fade through the trees.

Charles was as serious as I'd ever seen him. He flicked his gaze between us. "I can lose them, if you trust me."

"We have no choice," Ben pointed out.

I nodded and felt, more than saw, Sam do the same.

"Then follow my lead and do as I say." Charles nudged his mount into movement and we set off after him.