Renegade's Magic

“Mr. Bur,” Amzil corrected her daughter and, “Burvelle, actually,” I told Amzil.

She gave me a questioning look. “I’m not going to hide who I am from them,” I told her.

She looked down at the rag that was the remnant of her apron. She folded it carefully. “I’m not sure if I know who you really are.”

I laughed. “Neither am I. But I think we’ll have plenty of time to find out.”

The first night we stopped, I drove the cart carefully off the road and behind a thicket. That evening Sem and I hunted with my sling, but not successfully, for my feet were exceedingly painful. It was just as well we didn’t get anything. We’d have had to eat it raw, for we didn’t dare light a fire. We ate a small, cold meal and then bedded the children down in the back of the cart. The older two fell asleep almost instantly, but little Dia wailed at the dark open sky overhead and the strangeness of it all. As I listened to her thin, woeful voice rising to the distant stars, I almost wanted to join in. Amzil walked her, pacing slowly around the cart, humming, until finally exhaustion won and Dia slept. She tucked Dia in between her brother and sister and then came to stand beside me. She hugged herself in the darkness and asked me the same question I’d been pondering most of the day. “Now what do we do? Where do we go?”

“Far away from Gettys,” I said, striving to sound optimistic and certain. “To a new life.” Very gently I took her in my arms. She turned her face up to mine and I finally kissed her as I’d always longed to, a slow, sweet kiss with her body fitted against my own. She deepened the kiss, and I felt as if we were spi

“Amzil,” I said, thinking I needed no other words.

But she spoke. “You’ve saved me. More than once. You’ve a right to me now, I suppose. But Nevare—” She hesitated, and that pause was ice down my back. “Nevare, I’ve changed since the Lieutenant and Missus Epiny took me in. I can’t just get by in this life. You may not think so, after what you’ve seen of me, but my mother raised me to be what she was, a respectable woman. Not nobility, like you, no, nothing so grand. But respectable.” Her voice was narrowing, squeezed by tears. “And that’s how I want to raise my daughter. I want Kara to see herself as a woman that deserves, well, deserves to be married to the man she beds. Deserves his respect.” She lifted her hand between us to rub the tears from her face. “However foolish that might seem to you.” Her voice went lower, inviting me to share the bitter joke. “A murderess and a whore wanting to make her daughter think she’s a respectable woman.”

I took a deep and difficult breath. “We’re starting a new life, Amzil. I think we should do our best to start it right.” With a groan, I released her. “I want you, very badly. But I will not claim that from you as if it were a debt you had to pay. Nor do I want you to come to me unaware of who I am. I know that I love you. But you need to know who I am. It will not be easy for me to wait. But I will.” I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “And we are still fleeing for our lives. Tonight, we must get what sleep we can.”

Although I slept little that night, my dreams were the sweetest they had ever been. And before the dawn, I rousted everyone out for another long day’s travel.

On the second evening that we camped, we settled for the night in a brushy hollow away from the road’s edge. Amzil wanted to boil some water and wash out our injuries, but I was not certain of the wisdom of starting a fire. “If they were looking for us, they’d have found us by now,” she said irritably. “Men on horseback could have overtaken us easily. My feet hurt, and I know yours must. What good does it do us to flee if an infection kills us anyway? If they were going to catch us, they would have by now.”

“It depends on how bad the fire was,” I countered. “They may at first assume that you perished there. And then, when they start tearing down the charred ruins, discover that we didn’t. And send a patrol to hunt us down.”

She gave an impatient sigh. “We took the horse and cart. My children are not in town. Anyone who wants to know, knows that we left town. If they wanted us, they’d have us. I think fire is more important than stealth right now.”

She won, but I gathered the very driest wood and kindling that I could find for her, and insisted that we keep the fire small and smokeless. Yet I was grateful when she boiled water for tea as well. There is something about a hot drink that can put heart back into a man. Just as I began to relax, a slight sound turned my head. An immense croaker bird settled heavily into a nearby tree. I stared at it, waiting, but the ugly thing only whetted its beak on a branch and looked down at us. Amzil and the children paid it no mind. Sem was begging his mother to make hearth cakes like she used to cook, and Amzil was considering our supplies to see if it were possible. I sat and stared at the bird of ill omen. I thought of Spink’s words and, like him, longed to return to a life in which a bird was always only a bird.

“Good evening, Nevare.”

I turned my head slowly. I’d already recognized the voice. Tiber had come up on us as quietly as a stalking panther. He stood at the edge of our camp, looking at us. Kara gave a little shriek when he spoke. Amzil froze where she was, with the pot just lifted off the fire so that she could pour more water on the tea leaves.

“Good evening, Tiber,” I said in resignation.

I think he realized that Amzil was more of a threat than I was. “Evening, ma’am,” he said with a respectful nod to her. He smiled disarmingly and asked, “Could I beg a cup of that tea from you? It smells very welcoming.”

Amzil looked at me. I nodded slowly. Tiber approached our small fire carefully, like a stray cat moving into unfamiliar territory. He smiled at me, nodded to the children, and then hunkered down to accept the cup of tea that Amzil gingerly offered him. He seemed disinclined to speak immediately but I could not stand the suspense. I asked him directly, “What brings you out this way?”

He smiled. “Well, you know, Nevare. I’m a scout. I’m scouting.”

“For what?” I knew scouts had various duties, usually defined by whom the commander was. Buel Hitch had been sent on errands to fetch smoked fish, but also to keep a watch on how many Specks were in the area and to watch for signs of highwaymen working the road. Most often, scouts kept in touch with the indigenous populations and acted as liaison with them. Buel had spoken to me of such duties. It was likely that when he’d died, Tiber had inherited them.

“Well, you’d mentioned you’d been attacked and robbed, so I thought I would ride this stretch of road and see what I could see. I’m pleased to tell you I’ve found no signs of robbers or thieves. Whoever attacked you must be long gone. But that’s not my only errand.”

He blew on his hot mug of tea. I waited. “Gettys is in a bit of a stir. The commander is in the infirmary. The doctor says he probably had some sort of a seizure. His mind hasn’t been clear since then. No one was surprised. He’s seemed a bit erratic the last few months. Poor fellow’s on bed rest now, and Captain Gorling has stepped up to command.” He took a sip of tea and nodded to himself. “I like him. He’s not as excitable as Thayer, except when his wife gets to him. He leads the men instead of driving them. The men seem relieved. The very same night the Captain fell ill, we had a bit of a fire in the old jail. Burned through some beams, and the whole building collapsed into the cells below.” He glanced at me and away, glanced up at the croaker bird and then came back to me.

“But how about you?” he asked sociably. “I thought you were going to stay around Gettys for a while. I even dropped by Lieutenant Kester’s house, same night we had all that excitement. I thought I’d visit and see if you might want to hear about being a scout for the regiment. We’re short on scouts right now. In fact, there’s only one. Me. We lost one of our best scouts last summer in the plague.” He paused and looked at me carefully over the rim of his cup as he drank more tea. I said nothing.