Chapter 21

Wren's POV

"It's that Hale house," Hester said. "They're not done with you after all."

"No, Hester." I looked down at Linnet's head so I wouldn't have to look at her. "It's a long story. Before I came to you, I belonged to Duskmere."

"Duskmere?" Her hand closed on her apron. Duskmere's heir was going to be bound to the King's daughter; even Hester knew that.

"We won't bring trouble on you." I made myself meet her eyes. "If they come asking again, tell them I went away with my husband a long time ago. Where to, you're old and you've forgotten." I shifted Linnet to my shoulder. "And we have to go. They're a month old now. In a couple of days, if the weather holds. Any longer and it'll turn cold, and the river will be harder."

Hester looked at the cradle where Sol was asleep with his fists up by his ears, and I saw her want to argue and decide not to. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I'll get your things together. Warm clothes, and food that keeps, and some of my herbs."

Briar had come in with a bowl of broth and heard the end of it. The broth slopped. "Are we really going, miss?"

"Pack what we need," I said. "As quick as you can."

"And this." Hester brought a bundle in coarse cloth out from under the eggs in her basket. "Somebody left it on my doorstep yesterday. I said nothing, but I thought you'd best have it."

Briar untied it. Inside were packets of dried herbs, raspberry leaf and nettle, good tea in a twist of paper, and a small crock of honey, all of it tied up neatly with red cord.

"Miss." Briar held the cord up. "That's the cord I tied on the old oak by the market well."

I took it from her. It was the same.

The one who had carried my letter and never once shown his face knew where I was living, and had come all this way to leave me raspberry leaf and honey without a word. I felt the weight of what I owed him.

"We'll take half the herbs," I said, winding the cord around my fingers and putting it in my pocket. "The other half stays here for Hester."

"You'll do no such thing. You've left me silver enough to see me out already."

I went and took both her hands in mine. They were rough and warm.

"If it weren't for you, Hester, the three of us would be..." I couldn't finish it. "Look after yourself when we're gone. I'll think of you every day."

She turned her face away and scrubbed at it with her sleeve. "You look after those two."

* * *

Two mornings later, before it was light, we pulled the cottage door shut behind us as quietly as we could. Briar had Sol bound against her chest, and I had Linnet, and we each carried a light bundle on our backs.

The track was lost in mist, and the grass was soaked with dew. Halfway down, Linnet woke and began to cry, a thin, cold, hungry sound.

I found a rock out of the wind and sat down and put her to the breast, and bent my cheek against her head. "Hush, little bird. Mama's taking you and your brother down the hill. We're going to ride on a big boat. You'll see how wide the river is."

She quieted to small snuffling sounds, with a tear still caught in her lashes.

"Miss, we have to hurry," Briar said, looking down at the sky going pale over the trees. "The barges don't wait."

I wrapped Linnet up again. "Come on."

We were nearly at the bottom when we both heard it: footsteps on the path below us, more than one person, coming fast. We were off the track and crouched in the bushes before either of us said a word, with our hands over the babies' heads.

The steps came closer, and women's voices, low.

"...this way, I'm sure of it. I came up behind that old woman once. I remember the track."

"Quiet. It's not light yet. We'll have them before they're out of bed."

I knew that voice. I parted the leaves a little.

Four women were coming round the bend in the gray light. The one in front wore a brown bodice, and walked with her back as straight as a rod, and kept turning her head from side to side as she came.

Mistress Pell.

I knew her walk before I saw her face. I had watched it cross the Duskmere courtyard every day for three years.

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. I held Linnet against me and felt her small breaths, and prayed she wouldn't wake. Beside me, Briar had Sol wrapped so close that only the top of his head showed.

Pell passed below us on the path, twenty paces down the slope. The wind was coming up the hill into our faces, and it carried everything of us away behind, and the stream beside the path was loud with the night's rain. She looked at the track and the trees and went on up the hill, toward the cottage.

When everything was quiet again, I opened my hand. My nails had left four red crescents in the palm.

* * *

They would find the cottage empty and come straight back down. We went down the rest of the slope as fast as we dared and came out on the road to the Low Wharf.

A hundred paces from the toll gate, I stopped.

There were four or five men at the gate in plain dark coats, standing in the road and watching every person who went through.

One party searching the hills, and one holding the wharf. We were caught between them.

Against Briar's chest, Sol woke and began to grizzle.

"Shh, sweetheart, shh..." Briar bent over him.

Too late. Two of the men at the gate had turned their heads. They looked at each other, and started toward us.

Then I heard wheels.

A closed carriage with a blue hood was coming up the road behind us at a good pace. I stepped out in front of it and waved my arm, and the driver pulled up a few paces short of us.

The curtain at the window moved, and a man's voice came from inside, low and impatient. "What is it? Why have you stopped us?"

"Please, sir. We're two women alone with babies, trying to get to the wharf. Would you take us a little way? We'll pay."

"We're in a hurry. We don't carry passengers. Stand aside."

I looked back. The two men were much closer.

Briar saw them too. She went white, and then she took hold of my arm with her free hand and all but threw me up onto the step, and pulled the curtain aside.

"What do you think you're doing?" The man inside sounded startled and angry.

I was half in already, with Linnet hidden in my shawl. "Forgive us, sir. There are men after us, bad men. Only take us past the gate, that's all, and we'll pay double. You'll have no trouble from it, I swear."

"Stop there!" one of the men behind us shouted.

"Watch yourself!" The driver's voice was louder than his. "Are you blind? Look whose carriage you're stopping!"

The man in front glanced at the side of the carriage, and I saw his face change. There was a small badge fixed there, plain, that I hadn't noticed: a pair of scales. The High Justiciary.

He stepped back and bowed. "Your pardon, my lord. I didn't see."

My lord.

I shrank into the corner. I knew how great men looked after each other. But the carriage had already begun to move, and it went past the gate at an easy pace, and nobody stopped it.

Inside, no one spoke. Briar and I sat pressed into the corner with our heads down, and I didn't dare look at the man across from us. I don't know how long it was before the carriage slowed.

"You can get down here," the man said.

"Thank you, my lord. Thank you."

We climbed down with the babies. As I turned toward the trees, I heard him behind the curtain make a small sound that might have been a laugh.

"It was nothing."