Page 43 of Tea and Empathy
“The duke’s here?”
“The golden-haired one on the golden horse with the light mane.”
“He matched his horse to his hair?”
She looked at the duke again. The horse was perfectly coordinated with him. How had she never noticed that? “I suppose he did, but I never thought he was particularly vain. He may not have done it on purpose.”
“You’re defending him?”
“I’m trying to be fair. If I can’t be fair to him, I can’t expect him to be fair to me.”
“Murder and vanity are hardly on the same level when it comes to unfair accusations. Maybe he saved you a journey. You could talk to him here and see if you can get him to listen.”
“I doubt that will do any good while the baron’s here. He’ll do everything he can to stop the duke from listening to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to strike me down as a dangerous fugitive before I had a chance to speak. The plan was to go to the duke while Baron Vaughn was likely to be here and I could get the duke’s ear without his influence. If the baron was able to persuade the duke to come here, I may not be able to get the duke to see reason. He’s already made up his mind.”
“To get out of the village, we’ll have to go through the market square. Do you think we could blend in with the market crowd and slip past?”
She didn’t look at all like the elegant woman she’d been at court in her sturdy peasant clothes and with a straw hat shading her face, but she didn’t want to risk it. “There’s not much of a market crowd to blend in with, and it looks like they’re investigating any woman who passes. But that’s not the only way out. We could head up to the castle, and there’s a walking path leading down from there that meets the lane near my cottage. That’s how I thought you came to be in my garden when my theory was that you might have been held prisoner in the castle and had escaped.”
“That’s a good idea—going by the castle, not that I was a prisoner. At worst, I imagine the castle offers a lot of hiding places. You’re sure it’s abandoned?”
“Everyone here believes it is. The danger would be if the visiting nobles decide to stay there while they search for me. It’s better for us to get out of here. I’m just concerned they would have left a guard by the cottage, so we’ll have to be careful in that area.”
“They didn’t know about the cottage. We only knew that you were in the vicinity of the village.”
“It’s the healer’s cottage, and I’m a healer, so it’s pretty obvious.”
“Would any of these nobles know what a healer’s cottage even is?”
“Possibly not. But we’ll be careful anyway. They may have posted a guard on the lane to watch for anyone leaving the village in that direction, so we’ll have to stick to the woods.”
They turned and headed back the way they’d come, up the lane that wound around a hill on the way to the castle, sticking to the shadows near the buildings so they wouldn’t be visible from the market. “Where should we go if going to court would do no good?” Bryn asked.
“I don’t know. Just somewhere not here until we figure something out. Eventually, whatever belongings of mine they have should lose their traces of me so it will be harder for them to find me. How long might that take?”
“That depends on the power of the wizard, but if Baron Vaughn went to my master, then he had to be desperate or dishonest enough that no other wizards would deal with him. My master was the wizard of last resort, the one willing to take jobs more ethical ones wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I stayed with him for so long, other than the fact that I had nowhere else to go and was useless at any other way of earning a living.”
“Maybe I could look for another opportunity to approach the duke, when the baron isn’t around,” she mused aloud, trying to fight off the misgivings that grew larger with each step. “I would like to clear my name eventually.” After a few more steps, she added, “I feel bad about promising Gladys that I’d come back.”
“Maybe if they don’t find you here, they’ll leave.”
“I wouldn’t—” A scream from the market square cut her off. She turned back to see some of the soldiers grabbing a woman. Elwyn couldn’t tell from this distance, but she thought it might have been Hana.
Mair’s voice carried as she bellowed, “Leave her alone. What kind of man are you, letting your men abuse an innocent woman like that?”
Elwyn stopped in her tracks. They weren’t going to give up, she knew, and other people would only be hurt if she left. She’d never be able to stop and rest, never be able to find a home and community again. She liked this home, this village, and she wasn’t going to let them take it away from her. If the village had drawn her here for a reason, she was sure it would protect her and allow her to stay. It might even be for the best that things had happened this way. If she’d confronted the duke at his court, they would have been in his territory, surrounded by his people. But this was her village. He was the outsider here. These were her people. She’d served tea or prescribed herbs to almost everyone in the marketplace.
“I can’t leave,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I should face them now and get this over with. I’m tired of running. You can go, though. The baron won’t be happy with you about getting in his way and using that memory spell.”
He took her hand. “I’ll stand with you, whatever you choose. It’s my fault that they’re here, and I don’t want to run, either.” He squeezed her hand, and she was surprised by how much stronger that made her feel.
She returned the squeeze. “Then let’s go.”
As they turned around and headed down the hill to the market, she began to have second thoughts. While she was sure most of the villagers would side with her, there weren’t that many of them. The soldiers nearly outnumbered the entire village, and they did outnumber the people in the market. They were also armed and trained in using their weapons, and most of them would have no qualms about striking down people they regarded as peasants. The villagers would be armed only with tools and perhaps an angry chicken, and she wasn’t sure how many of them would be willing to stand up to knights and lords, even if they’d shrugged off the disappearance of their own lord.
She also dreaded airing all her woes in the market square, surrounded by her friends, neighbors, customers, and patients. All the details of her past were likely to come out, and she didn’t know what they’d think of her in the aftermath. She might have to move on even if she wasn’t arrested. She was glad she’d told Bryn everything. At least he wouldn’t be shocked by anything that was said. Well, almost everything. She’d told him about the murder accusation, but not the extent of her relationship with the duke. That made this whole affair even more sordid.
When they reached the market square, she kept her head down and tried to walk like a weary peasant, blending in among the other villagers. As long as the nobles didn’t recognize her, she had the upper hand. She could move among them and position herself perfectly for this confrontation, as long as no villager greeted her by name.