Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (64 page)

‘And I wish he could trust you the way we do.’

Surprised at that, Jenn asked, ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that you’re too hard on yourself. You always have been,’ Martha replied. ‘
You
were the one chosen by the Key to be Jaibir, not Robert. And
you
have been the one here for the last eight years, dealing with the aftermath of the Battle, dealing with the discontent, the restlessness—’

‘To the point where five children went wandering off on their own? How is that an achievement?’

Martha shook her head. ‘It’s an achievement when those children have the confidence and skills to make it as far as they did. It’s an achievement when they could find the courage to do it. So they chose a bad time, and a bad place—’

‘I failed to make them understand, and Liam died because of it.’

‘Their parents failed in that, Jenn. You’re not responsible for
the thoughts of every Salti here.’ Martha paused a moment, then added, ‘Robert can’t take your place, Jenn.’

Jenn stiffened at that, but didn’t pull away. Martha had always been far too good at reading her moods, at knowing what to say and when to say it. In too many ways, Martha had become the sister Bella had refused to be, and that hurt.

‘You know, I don’t know what’s going to happen.’

Martha shrugged. ‘Does that matter?’

It was a good question. Unfortunately, she had a good answer to accompany it: she’d seen the demon inside him, and the way he still refused to deal with it. She saw the temptation in his eyes, the reluctance in his words. Too much conflict and too little resolution. For Robert, every direction he turned was an opportunity to make the Prophecy come true. With the demon unchained inside him, he was now running towards it, blind and deaf.

‘With Robert, yes. It matters more than anything else.’

*

Finnlay rapped on the door twice, but didn’t wait for a reply. He just pushed it open and stepped inside, almost slamming it shut behind him.

‘By the gods, Robert, you have some gall!’

‘What? What have I done now?’

‘What have you done? All innocence, is it?’

Robert struggled to sit up. Finnlay barely glanced at him. ‘I’m trying to get some rest, Finn. I’m tired.’

‘Yes, I know. You basically haven’t slept since we left Maitland, which in itself is a piece of stupidity! Now, do you want to tell me what’s going on, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?’

‘Going on?’

Finnlay came around the bed and stood with his hands on his hips, forcing Robert to look at him. ‘You’re through the gate all of five minutes, long enough to let everyone see you’ve come back – and then you run off and hide in here.’

‘I told you, Finn, I’m tired.’

‘So tired that you couldn’t have spent another few minutes with everyone? With your nieces? Helen is convinced you don’t
like her any more, and everybody else thinks that either there’s something very wrong with you, or you have terrible news to impart.’

‘What?’ Robert did push himself up then, frowning at his brother. ‘Why would they think that?’

‘Why?’ Finnlay’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. ‘Have you honestly got no idea at all why people would think that? Robert, they look up to you! They wait for your visits, often planning their lives around your work. They take your lead in so many things – and it doesn’t occur to you that your hasty departure would make them worried? Are you joking?’

Robert stared at him without blinking. Then he let out a long sigh. Carefully, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just not thinking …’ He reached down for his boots, but the pain made him gasp. Finnlay put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his place.

‘Robert? Don’t you think it’s time you talked about it?’

‘About what?’

Finnlay wanted to sigh, but didn’t dare. His brother looked so fragile; it scared him. As soon as he left Robert, he’d get him a sleeping potion. ‘Talk about whatever it is that’s scaring you.’

‘Serin’s blood!’ Robert groaned softly.

‘You can trust me, Robert, I swear.’

‘Don’t swear. You have loyalties to other people before me. Your family, for one.’

‘Oh, and you think Jenn is the other? This is just great, you know? Now I’ve got both of you doubting me because of my relationship with the other. And once again I’m stuck in the middle, unable to do or say anything, but having to put up with suspicion being levelled against me all the same. Well, so what if I have other people? Don’t you? Doesn’t every man? Or is that what you wanted from Micah – and that’s why you had to get rid of him, because he fell in love and developed another allegiance?’

‘Stop right there, Finn!’ Robert shook his head, holding his hands up in warning. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Micah made a
mistake,
nothing more. A simple mistake. You’ve made enough of them yourself. You should know.’

Robert levered himself to his feet. He made his way to the other side of the small room, to the table placed against a rough-hewn cave wall. He poured wine from a jug and sipped it.

The brother inside Finnlay didn’t want to push, could see that Robert was slipping closer to the edge – and had been since the Malachi attack. But the brother in him also wanted to push, to make something happen, to make Robert take the help he needed.

‘What are you afraid of, Robert?’

‘You know damned well what I’m afraid of, Finn!’ Robert snapped.

‘No, I know what you
used
to be afraid of. Now, all I see is a man who just keeps running and running. Are you afraid of facing Nash? Of losing to him?’

‘No! Damn it, Finn, leave it alone!’ Robert kept his back to Finnlay, his shoulders square and rigid. ‘I told you before, Nash doesn’t scare me. He probably should, but he doesn’t. I’ll bet I don’t scare him, either. And if he kills me, well …’

‘Then,’ Finnlay moved closer, the truth suddenly and horribly obvious, ‘you’re afraid of winning.’

Robert said nothing.

‘Your hand will change the world. That’s got to be just a little frightening. It would be to me, and I don’t have the Word of…’

Slowly, Robert turned and faced him, his gaze flat and unrevealing. So close now, Finnlay had to finish this.

‘You’re afraid of what happens if you do beat Nash. Is that why you need Andrew?’

Robert’s voice gave away nothing. ‘I
have
to beat Nash. There is no other option.’

‘And the Prophecy says—’

‘This has nothing to do with the Prophecy.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Then what?’

The answer was long in coming. Robert, breathing shallowly, moved around Finnlay and headed back to his bed. ‘This isn’t about the Prophecy, Finn. It’s about power.’

‘Serin’s blood,’ Finnlay swore, shaking his head at his own stupidity.

‘Ah,’ Robert sighed lightly. ‘He understands at last.’

‘You’re afraid of the demon having so much power. And if you’ve had to sacrifice Jenn in order to beat Nash, there’ll be nobody left to stop you, will there?’

Robert barely listened. Instead, he rolled over onto his good side, pulled the pillow close and shut his eyes.

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Me?’ Robert replied, his words faint. ‘I’m going to try to sleep.’

*

Andrew hung around outside the workroom, watching people go in and out, listening to the background noise of the Enclave, remembering what it was like to be here before he …

But he couldn’t go home again.

Unless of course he could somehow get to Kenrick first. With the King’s protection, Nash wouldn’t dare do anything to him, would he?

‘Andrew?’

He looked up and came away from the wall as Arlie emerged from his workroom.

‘Is something wrong? You want me to have a look at your cuts?’

That was as good a reason as any. Andrew followed the Healer as he went back inside. He sat where he was directed and looked around at the shelves and benches which lined the cave, lined themselves in bottles and jars, in wooden cases and boxes of potions and dried herbs and lotions and poisons and spices for uses that he couldn’t even imagine, let alone understand.

But at least he could see what he didn’t understand.

‘You want to tell me what’s wrong?’

Andrew blinked and looked down to find Arlie testing a
bandage around his arm with a gentle finger. Arlie’s other hand was missing, chopped off at the wrist. Healed a long time ago.

When had it happened? How had it felt – and why didn’t Arlie want to kill the man who had damaged him so badly?

How had Andrew grown up knowing this man without knowing something so important?

‘Arlie,’ he began, holding his arm steady as the Healer began to change the dressing, ‘what happened to your … your hand? When did you lose it?’

Arlie, intent on washing the still-tender wound, said, ‘That was the day I met your mother. She and Robert helped save my life. Twice. Micah helped the second time. I was a lucky man that day.’

‘Lucky? To need to have your life saved twice in one day?’

‘Better that than have the need not met, eh?’ Arlie smiled at him, which Andrew returned.

‘So how did it happen?’

‘Martha and I were coming back to the Enclave and went through a village that had some sick children. I made up a tonic and gave it to them, but the Guilde had just taken over the healing and hospice work from the Church—’

‘In 1354?’

‘That’s right. Anyone outside the Guilde practising healing was breaking the law. I was arrested. They tied me to a trium above the village and chopped off my left hand as punishment. I would have bled to death if Jenn hadn’t created a diversion so Robert could get me free.’

‘That was … sixteen years ago?’

‘That’s right.’ Arlie finished what he was doing and put away the salve and dressings.

‘And … you don’t mind?’

‘Mind what?’

Andrew waited for the older man to face him before he opened his mouth. ‘Don’t you mind that Robert didn’t rescue you
before
the Guilde took your hand?’

Arlie’s eyebrows rose at that. He leaned back against the table and folded his arms. ‘I don’t know. I never thought about it like that. I suppose I could.’

‘I think
I
would,’ Andrew replied, conviction sitting hard in his belly.

‘Or perhaps,’ Arlie ventured, ‘you might blame yourself for letting things get so out of hand in the first place.’

‘I …’ Words failed him. But he’d been wrong about one thing. He did understand more than he’d thought. ‘How is my mother?’

Arlie took the abrupt change of subject without blinking. ‘She’s much better now she’s close to the Key. Her wounds are clean and healing nicely. She took a great risk, but I’m sure she’ll recover completely soon enough.’

A great risk protecting him. As she’d always done, even at risk to her own life? As Bella and Lawrence had done, knowing he would be a target at some time in his life? How could he have lived fourteen years and been blind to so much around him?

‘Thank you for looking at my injuries.’ He slowly made his way to the door.

‘You’re welcome.’ Arlie smiled, but Andrew couldn’t find one to return.

As he walked back out into the corridor, he found Helen waiting for him, a smile on her face enough to throw his thoughts to the wind.

He just wanted to forget for a while.

‘Come on,’ Helen whispered. ‘I’ll tell you about Liam if you like.’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But in a little while. For now, can we just sit somewhere?’

She grinned at him. ‘I know just the place.’

*

It wasn’t winter in his dream any more. Now it was sodden summer, the western plains quaking in knee-deep mud, wrestling with carts and oxen and an army he didn’t recognise. The push for the forest, for the battlefield, was paramount. But the battlefield wasn’t the border; it wasn’t a war with Mayenne, but a fight with the Enemy. He had to go and fight the Enemy, had to win this time, and make sure the man would no longer be around to hamper his plans, to get in the way of his achieving his ambitions.

But there was so much rain it had washed away the bridge over the river, the river where Vaughn had been swept away, pushed to his death for certain, but there was another bridge further south, closer to the forest, and they’d have to cross there to get shelter, and rest the animals and the army before they faced the Enemy, or they’d all die, yes, they’d all … die …

Robert sat up in bed, eyes wide, unable to breathe, grasping in the dark for any shred of light.

By the gods! The dream! How could he … that wasn’t
his
dream …

He got out of bed, poured a large cup of wine and gulped it down so quickly his chest hurt. He didn’t light any candles. He couldn’t bring himself to admit, even now, that he was afraid of the dark.

And besides, it wasn’t
this
dark that scared him.

How could he be dreaming somebody else’s memory?

Nash’s memory.

But was it memory? Or was it just Robert’s mind playing more tricks than usual, putting him into Nash’s place, seeing things through Nash’s eyes? It certainly wasn’t his usual dream.

He pulled the covers over his head, deliberately ensuring total darkness surrounded him.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on a breathing exercise that always helped him sleep, even after a nightmare.

And he was instantly back in the dream. A different dream now, but this was his usual dream. This was where he stood upon the boggy and bloody battlefield, his sword ready to fall from useless fingers, his wounds bleeding and deep, ready to kill him, and Nash stood before him, his face ripped and savaged, but still exuding an air of victory.

Why had Nash been so sure he would succeed and that Robert would fail? Had Robert really been foolish in thinking he could kill Nash by using the Word?

And if not like that, then how? In the name of all that was holy,
how
was he to destroy such evil? How could he eradicate it before it filled and consumed him, until he …

He Sensed her behind him, walking silently now, betrayal in
her future, in her present as she stepped between them, raising her hands, as she’d done in the past, as she would do again—