Tahn (21 page)

Tahn had turned his eyes and his mind away from Samis’s ranting. There was something the lady had told him once. A Scripture verse. It had stuck in his heart the night he was so wondrously saved.
“Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him …”

He knew he need not fear the wrath of God or of hell now. Blessed Savior! Couldn’t God also save the lady and the children from the wrath of Samis? For that, he had perfect trust. But what of himself and the wrath of a misguided crowd?

He could scarcely dare to hope it.

Netta prayed alone at the cave’s entrance on a sunny morning. There was a lot to concern her. The responsibility for these children that Tahn had once told her was not hers now rested solidly on her shoulders.

And she still had no idea of the fate of any of her family except Uncle Winn. She continued to pray desperately for them, refusing to give up hope.

Then there was Tahn himself. He was such a complex sort, and she’d never been entirely comfortable with him. Still, Vari could be right. Tahn had worn his concern for the little ones like a coat he could not take off. That he would just abandon them did not seem to fit with all he’d done before.

And the provisions. Tahn had left them with a lot of food, but after a week, it was almost gone. It troubled Netta greatly that someone would have to go to one of the towns for more.

Vari was anxious to search for Tahn, and Netta was concerned about the trouble he might find. But Vari was as aware of the need as she was, and found her just as she’d turned to come back into the cave. “I’d better ride to Merinth this morning,” he said. “We’ve got to get more food.”

“I want you to stay,” she told him. “I’ll go.”

“You?” he questioned. “You can’t. You don’t even know the way.”

“I’ll take Stuva with me,” she said. “Vari, the others need you here. You can fish, you know the plants better than I do, and you’ve befriended the neighbors. If something should happen to one of us right now, better that it be me.”

He was looking at her skeptically. “What do you think would happen?”

“I can’t explain,” she told him soberly. “I just don’t feel right about you going. There is trouble of some kind, perhaps.”

“And you think you could handle that?” He shook his head. “Lady, I’m sorry, but you’re a lady. You don’t know ten beans about trouble.”

“I would stay on the outside of it, Vari,” she said. “But if you had the slightest suspicion it might concern the Dorn, you would be in the very midst.”

There was anger in his eyes, but his voice did not betray it. “Then you admit he would not leave us willingly.”

“We can’t be sure, but I expect not.”

He sighed with a depth of sadness almost tangible. “Lady,” he told her, “I think Tahn would agree with you. I think he’d want me to make the little ones my priority. If it weren’t for that, you couldn’t keep me here. I respect you, but I can’t understand how you could know he was in trouble and walk away. Of course I’d be in the middle of it! How could I do anything else?”

She put her arm around him and was surprised that he didn’t pull away. “Vari, I respect you too. Especially for your love for him. But I didn’t say I would walk away. If he needs our help and it is possible to give it, I couldn’t refuse that. But he wouldn’t want any of you to imperil yourselves. Now let’s look into those clothes Tahn brought you and fit me up as a proper poor boy.”

Vari gave her a quizzical look and then laughed. “A poor boy? You?”

Netta smiled. “If I wear this dress, dreadful as it has become, I will gain attention. My father gave me too much, and it was once finer than most can afford. In Onath, my face is known, but in Merinth, dressed as a youth like yourself, perhaps I’ll not draw glances.”

“Lady,” Vari voiced his skepticism, looking at her womanly figure and silken brown hair, “you don’t have the look of a boy.”

“You will help me, then, Vari. Perhaps in loose layers with my hair tied back as the Dorn does his, I could at least blend in a crowd.”

“Are you sure about this?”

Netta sighed. “You are so like an adult, I will be as frank with you as I can. I need to do this. I need to know I can leave this cave and not be bound to it as a slave to what has happened. I need to listen for word of my family. I need to know you will be right here safe. I don’t want to be left wondering if you shall disappear as Mr. Dorn has. How could we survive, only me and the little ones? Vari, I must learn my way. I must learn how to handle trouble, if need be. A lady or not, I cannot stay helpless!”

“Fine,” he conceded. “I’ll help you. You’ll go. But there’s something you need to know first.” He paused, taking a deep breath and watching her closely.

“Tahn told me the night we tried to save your uncle that he’d stand against the whole world for you, that he’d give up his life if he had to. He said there’d be no price too high for some way to make you smile, instead of disliking him so. He never said he loved you. I don’t think he could. But I don’t know what could be so close, even though he had such a struggle knowing how to handle the way you talked to him.”

Netta stared at him. That the Dorn cared about the children, she admired. That he would save her life for the sake of an angel, she greatly appreciated. But this? “No, Vari.”

“Just listen,” he said. “I know you’ve got to be proper, like a lady should. You might never admit it. You probably can’t. But you love him too. I’ve seen it in you.”

She didn’t say a word. What could she say to a thirteen-year-old that thought he knew such things?

“Now don’t get mad,” Vari told her. “I know you have to act like it’s all a matter of what makes sense for the children. But you stayed for more than that. You saw what he was going through with the nightmares and all, and—”

“Vari,” she said sternly, “that’s enough of such talk. We all do what we must for one another and ourselves. If I knew where to find my family, you know I would have gone.”

He looked down at his boots with a sigh. “All the same, Lady,” he told her, “if you see him, you won’t stay on the outside. You won’t be able to.”

Netta and Stuva were soon mounted and ready to go.

“Stay together and don’t talk to anybody much,” Vari was telling her. “And listen to Stuva. He’s got a good enough head on his shoulders.”

Netta just nodded.
How much like my mother Vari seems today,
she thought.
A shame there is so much responsibility on him, young as he is.
“Vari,” she said. “Stay close to the cave.”

He laughed. “You think I’ll hide from you? If we’re not here, we’ll be at the stream.”

In a moment they were gone, the lady and the nine-year-old, looking like peasant brothers together on the old trail to Merinth.

“I don’t figure you ever had much chance to learn stealing,” Stuva told her. “You better let me do it.”

Netta shook her head. “I was just now praying that the Lord would provide another way.”

“Don’t worry over it,” the boy said. “Someday you’ll be rich again, and you can pay it back.”

“That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll remember it for all that’s been taken so far. But still we should believe that God will provide other means now.”

Stuva gave her a sideways glance. “You’re the strangest person I ever met.”

She didn’t answer. The strangest person she’d ever met was Tahn Dorn. And when she’d known the depth of his pain, she had wanted to help, just like Vari said. Thinking about it made her wish her mother were here to talk to. For the first time she was almost glad her mother had gone on to heaven before her beloved home was burned. But how precious her advice would be right now!

It made Netta uneasy to realize that Vari wasn’t all wrong. She knew she’d come to care about what happened to the Dorn. She wanted his safe return almost as badly as the children did. She rode in silence, thinking that only God could put a caring heart in a man like Tahn. And only God could have brought her to see it.

When they got to Merinth, Netta knew it was not just an ordinary market day. It all looked normal enough as they came into the town, but she could feel a strange tension. Down one street she heard shouting and looked in that direction. But Stuva was turning the other way. “Mostly liquor and hard goods that way, brother,” he told her. “The food vendors are over here.”

“Stuva, God be with you to find us food,” she said solemnly. “I will meet you right back here.”

“Remember what Vari said,” he told her with concern. “Where are you going?”

“I will tell you later,” she said. “If I’m not here to meet you in an hour, you can go on home. I remember the way now.”

Stuva looked at her for a moment with his brow furrowed. She was glad he didn’t argue. “I don’t know what you want to do,” he said. “But if you’re not here, I’ll wait. I don’t think Vari would want us traveling back alone.”

She nodded, and Stuva obediently rode toward the open market food vendors, looking back once or twice. She could tell he was worried for her to be alone.

Finally he disappeared into the crowd. With heart pounding, Netta turned her mount the other way to follow the distant commotion. Stuva had been too intent on the food to pay it any attention, but amidst the far-off shouts she’d heard the word
killer
. Other people might think of someone besides Tahn Dorn when they used that word, but she had to know for sure. The closer she got, the more tension she felt. Soon a growing crowd was just ahead of her.

“He’ll be hanged, that’s what they say,” someone was saying.

“If he be the one slaughtered the Triletts,” someone else said, “that’s too good for him! They hang any common criminal. Let him be flayed first!”

She felt as though her heart would jump through her throat. He who slaughtered the Triletts? To be hanged? She moved the horse forward.

Two soldiers were gesturing to dismiss the people. “Go on now!” one of them shouted. “You’ve seen his sorry hide. But we can’t let him out to you. We’re bound to get him to Onath for the execution. Come there if you’d watch it. The baron would be proud to show his honor for the memory of a noble house.”

Onath? The baron showing honor? That did not make much sense to Netta.

Some of the crowd was dispersing, but others were savoring the fervor of the moment. “Murderer!” someone screamed. Someone else was picking up rocks and throwing them at the wagon behind the soldiers. The entire back of it was enclosed with heavy bars. A cage on wheels. But Netta could not see the hated criminal.

She dismounted carefully and tied her horse at a post in front of the nearest shop. Then she pushed her way through the crowd, praying that the people, and especially the baron’s soldiers, were too absorbed to pay her much attention. More people were gathering, and more were throwing rocks through the bars of the cage. There was so much shouting. And more soldiers. She knew she shouldn’t be here and shouldn’t be doing what she was doing. But she couldn’t help it. She had to see who was in that wagon.

She forced her way toward the front of the crowd. Finally she squeezed past a large man with a cane and got her first clear view of the prisoner.

It can’t be!
her mind screamed as panic rose in her heart. It was Tahn. The man who had tried to give them a fighting chance. Caged and condemned.