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Chapter 29: Mara’s Empty Room
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2026-11-03 08:50:05Old Garrick walked to the Red Quarter on the first Sunday in May. He had a charred coat in his arms. And a lie on his tongue.
He hadn’t wanted to come. He was seventy years old and his knees ached in the damp. He wasn’t keen on walking all that way from Vareth Hall to the tanners gate. But he had been lying awake in the tack room for three weeks with an empty cot next to him. He had come to the conclusion that it would be best if a mother heard it from someone who had known her son.
So he would say he was sure the lad was alive. He would write. He didn’t believe it. But he had known Mara Albrecht’s name for a month now. He had buried his wife and son. He knew how it felt to wait.
He asked for directions to find Alder Street. He smelt his way to the dye shop. Then he climbed the outside stairs. The old blue stairs with a few stubborn flecks of colour. He walked up slowly, gripping the banister.
The door was open.
He paused on the landing.
He didn’t know why, but something in his spine told him it wasn’t open like it usually was on Sundays. It was a ruined, forced and abandoned door. Hanging on one hinge. There was a large dent where someone had kicked their boot against the door next to the lock. Inside was silent.
He walked in.
The table had been knocked over. The three chipped cups were smashed on the floor. The small jug of wild flowers had been stepped on. The dried flowers were crushed. The bed had been stripped and slashed. The straw mattress was ripped open and lay in the corner. All the drawers were open. All shelves were empty. Someone had searched thoroughly.
On the windowsill where there should have been a small tin box all that remained was a pale square.
Garrick stood in the centre of the room clutching his charred coat.
"Mistress?" He croaked. "Mistress Albrecht?"
Nobody answered. A child was singing in the lane below. A door slammed. Long dusty beams of sunlight shone through the broken shutters. He spotted something small and shiny near the overturned table. A single faded blue ribbon.
He picked it up.
"They came on Tuesday." A voice said behind him.
He turned around. An overweight grey haired lady stood in the doorway. She wore a dark midwives apron. She had a basket in her arms. She was probably sixty years old. Her hands were large and red. Her eyes had seen many births and a few deaths.
"You’re from the big house." She said. "The one the boy worked for."
"I’m his—" He paused. "Friend."
"Then you’ll want to know. Four people came. Wore grey coats. No insignia. Not the watch or Tollhouse. They had a piece of paper and they used it like a battering ram. They were here for an hour. When they left they took her with them."
"Where?"
"If I knew I would be there." Her face remained grim. Her voice thickened. "She didn’t cry. She walked down those stairs like she had been expecting it. When she got to the bottom she looked up at this window." She pointed. "And smiled."
Garrick looked at the window.
"They took the little box. The tin with her letters. They were very particular about that. But she had warned me. A fortnight ago she sent me a note." She pulled a folded piece of paper from her apron pocket. "Look in the tin. Give whatever you find to Stephen." She laughed bitterly. "But there’s no tin and no Stephen."
The old mans throat bobbed.
“He’s not dead,”I don’t believe it lad. He’s gone looking for the man they took."
The midwife looked at him for a long time. Unexpectedly she walked across the room and took the charred coat from his arms. She held it and Garrick watched her thumb stroke over the burn mark on the shoulder.
“I pray you’re right,”Because somebody has to tell him."
"Tell him what?"
She didn’t answer straight away. She was looking at the pale square on the sill.
"That his mother was never scared of any of this. Just what it would cost him."
They stood in silence in the ruined room. The sun slowly climbed up the wall.
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Where The Lowborn Kneels Chapter 29: Mara’s Empty Room
Old Garrick walked to the Red Quarter on the first Sunday in May. He had a charred coat in his arms. And a lie on his tongue.He hadn’t wanted to come. He was seventy years old and his knees ached in the damp. He wasn’t keen on walking all that way from Vareth Hall to the tanners gate. But he had been lying awake in the tack room for three weeks with an empty cot next to him. He had come to the conclusion that it would be best if a mother heard it from someone who had known her son.So he would say he was sure the lad was alive. He would write. He didn’t believe it. But he had known Mara Albrecht’s name for a month now. He had buried his wife and son. He knew how it felt to wait.He asked for directions to find Alder Street. He smelt his way to the dye shop. Then he climbed the outside stairs
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