The Scarecrow (Master of Malice Book 1) (38 page)

T
hey left him to the course of his grief. It was the only thing they could think to do for him. They withdrew a polite distance and watched him, concerned lest he try to harm himself in the depths of his despair. Denny left for the garrison and made his sad report to the Colonel. Vassa had indeed learned of the night’s terrible events and sent what help he could spare. Levant had been informed and the First Minister asked the Major what he thought he should do for Taran. Denny shrugged helplessly and advised Levant to send someone for Sullyan. He didn’t know anyone else who might be able to help.

But sending for Sullyan would take too long without Taran’s help. The King’s runners took two days by fast horse to reach the Manor. With Taran out of action, they couldn’t contact General Blaine or the King, either. Levant couldn’t ignore this situation. Callous as it might seem, Taran was too valuable to risk losing to despair. Levant called for his horse and left at a gallop.

+ + + + +

J
inny swam in a sea of pain. Her head ached ferociously and there was a nauseating light across her closed eyes, flashing jagged barbs into her brain. She lay on her back, her limbs finally free of restraint. She could even get her breath, which was a mercy, although her throat was painfully raw. She couldn’t recall ever feeling so utterly dreadful.

She was shivering. Wherever she was, it was freezing cold. She had been wearing her night things when she was abducted, and although they were fine for her cozy bedchamber, they were no use at all against the winter cold. If she wasn’t to freeze to death she would have to combat this frightening headache, rouse herself, and get warm.

Drawing in a breath, she tried to move her head. Nausea rushed over her, but she managed to contain it. Very slowly, she opened her eyes. There was a dim amber glow in the room. She could just make it out through half-opened lids. As her sight became used to the gloom, she made out a very small fire in one corner, opposite where she lay. Rustic bowls and utensils lay on the ground next to the fire, but otherwise the place was bare. Gradually, groaning at the jagged stabs shooting into her brain, Jinny sat up.

She’d been lying on a wooden shelf bed, about two feet off the ground. Beneath her was the silken comforter from her own bed that had been used to restrain her. She eased it out and wrapped it tightly about her body, but it didn’t do much to warm her chilled flesh. She gazed fearfully about her, taking in the rough stone walls, the dirt-packed floor littered with old straw, the stout wooden door, and the tiny fire in the corner. She was quite alone.

There were no windows; the smoke from the fire escaped through a small, angled smoke-hole in the roof. She could hear no sound, but the smells in the room reminded her of livestock—maybe sheep. Was this some herder’s cottage or hut, some shepherd’s refuge from the winter winds? If so, she could be anywhere.

This thought brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t understand what had happened to her. How could she have been abducted from the bedchamber of her own house? What had happened to her servants? Why hadn’t Seth alerted her to intruders? Unless, she thought with a sudden shiver, he’d been killed. Hadn’t that dreadful voice told her Alice had been slaughtered, her throat cut? If it had been done to poor Alice, why not Seth? Why not all her servants?

Jinella began to tremble uncontrollably, half with cold and half with terror. If her abductor could murder her household in cold blood, what lay in store for her? And when would it happen? How long would she be kept here, in fear and isolation, just waiting for her fate? Where was Taran when she needed him? Why had they fallen out so badly, why had she let things go so far?

Piteously, hopelessly, Jinella wept.

+ + + + +

I
nconsolable, Taran stared at the mansion’s smoking ruins in the harsh light of day. The outer stone walls still stood, soot-scarred and stained, but practically everything within them had been destroyed, eaten by the ravening fire. A few roof trusses still reared their stark, black angles to the sky, but all recognizable features of the mansion’s interior were gone.

Taran limped carefully over the wet, charred mess inside the walls, his crushed leg shooting pain up his thigh, his vision blurred, his heart dead and cold. In the face of such destructive ferocity, he thought, how had these few, incongruous items survived? Here and there among the detritus were household objects, strangely untouched. A porcelain figure, intact, its delicate colors unmarred. Over there lay a book—a book!—its leather cover soaked, but its pages whole. And here, in the center of the carnage, a glint of untarnished silver.

Taran recognized that small, bright gleam and took a sobbing breath. He was looking at the finely-chased silver box he had bought as a surprise for Jinny. He remembered the look of pure joy and love on her face when he presented it to her, and how she’d thanked him for the gift.

He froze, realizing where he stood. Above his head, such a short while ago, had been Jinny’s private rooms. She had kept this little box in her solar, and this is where it must have come to rest when the wooden floorboards and joists had been consumed, collapsing into this unrecognizable jumble of broken furniture and scorched, ruined fabric.

Unable to help himself, yet frightened of what he might find, Taran picked through the mess. He knew Jinny would have been in her chamber when the fire began, and the few servants he had spoken to confirmed that their mistress hadn’t escaped. His desperate prayers that she’d somehow climbed or jumped from a window went unanswered. No one had seen her or heard her. And so, tears stinging the scorched skin on his face, he tried to find her.

+ + + + +

S
eth watched Taran walk unsteadily through the smoldering rubble, unmoved by the Adept’s grief. He might have made a pretense of helping him, curious as to what might be left for him to find, but for the arrival of Lord Levant. Taran was oblivious, lost in sorrow, and didn’t see Levant as the man sat his horse, staring at the carnage.

Looking around, Levant caught sight of Seth and hailed him. With no other choice Seth approached the lord, who indicated the ruins with a wave of his hand.

“Is there any chance Lady Jinella survived?” he asked, speaking softly lest Taran hear him.

Seth glanced at the building. “I doubt it, my Lord. The servants got out, but the mistress had retired to her bed. She’d have been asleep when the fire broke out.”

Levant frowned. “You were the Baron’s manservant, were you not?”

“Yes, my Lord. The mistress graciously kept me on because of my long service to her uncle.”

“So where were you when the fire started?”

Seth went cold, but didn’t allow himself to react. “I’d gone out earlier, my Lord. The mistress sent all of us early to our rest and I decided to visit with a … friend in the city. I heard the commotion and saw the King’s Guard race by, and someone said the mansion was burning. I ran here quick as I could to help with the buckets.”

This was almost true. Undecided as to his safest course of action once the wastrel disappeared with Jinny, Seth hid out of sight until the fire was well underway and too fierce to halt. He had seen Taran and Denny’s men race past and stayed where he was until they began clearing the area. Smearing soot on his face for effect, he joined the final throes of the futile struggle, taking care to be noticed by his fellow servants. Then Taran began his desolate search and Seth experienced a macabre desire to witness the outcome of the Baron’s plan. He thought his master might like to hear of Taran’s despair when he came across what remained of “Jinella.”

Levant appeared satisfied with Seth’s explanation and waved him away. Seth went back to the ruins and slowly worked his way over to the distraught Adept, who was pushing at something lying beneath a blackened roof beam with the toe of his boot.

With a sharp, heartbroken cry, Taran went down on one knee, reaching into the charred, sodden mess on the ground. His hand came up holding a long scrap of green silk, once richly embroidered, and a gold ring still encircling a blackened finger bone. Seth watched as Taran clutched the forlorn scraps to his breast and once more screamed his grief at the blank, uncaring sky. He bowed his head, his body racked by sobs.

Seth approached him, pleased their deception had worked so well. He could see more tattered remnants of cloth, as well as the gleam of bone. The skull of the dead whore had been completely stripped of flesh, but pathetic wisps of blonde hair still fluttered nearby, and the expensive necklace could be seen draped around the neck bones.

Seth stopped beside the moaning Adept. “I’m a bit surprised you’re so upset, sir,” he said.

Taran jumped and shot the manservant a grief-filled look. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Seth shrugged. “The mistress mentioned you and she had quarreled. She told me it was all over between you. She said you’d let her down, badly. She was quite distraught.”

“Distraught?” Taran’s eyes were fearful, haunted. “She was upset, of course, but it wasn’t over. I loved her, Seth, she knew that.”

Seth shook his head sadly, warming to his theme. He hadn’t intended to do this. He’d simply wanted to remember the man’s reactions so he could tell his master. But he knew how the Baron hated Taran for his support of Sullyan, and for his rescue of Prince Eadan. He knew his master would want Taran to suffer whatever torments could be devised to repay him for his actions. And now Seth was in a position to increase that suffering.

“I don’t think she did, sir. I heard her last night, before she told me to send the servants away. She was almost hysterical. I could tell she’d been crying when she summoned me to give her instructions to the household. I thought then something was badly wrong and I pleaded with her to allow me to fetch one of her friends, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She almost threw me out, sir. She told me she wanted everyone out of the house—she wanted to be alone.”

Taran went white. “What are you saying, man? Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, sir, it’s just that I overheard the Major earlier, before he left, saying he thought the fire must have been caused by a spilt lamp. But I checked all the lamps yesterday evening, as I always do, and I know they were all trimmed and safe. If it was a lamp that caused this fire, it was deliberately done.”

Taran stared into Seth’s face, his eyes wide with horror. “No,” he cried, “she couldn’t have! She wouldn’t! She’d never take her own life—not like
this
!”

Seth shrugged and began moving away. “I’m only telling you what I know and what I saw, sir. I’ve never seen the mistress so distraught. I remember thinking she might do anything in a state like that ….”

+ + + + +

T
aran couldn’t bear the implications. His guilt over the angry words of their last parting flared anew and his heart constricted painfully. He relived Jinny’s tearful fury as she had sent him away, betrayal and anguish rolling off her in waves. It was his fault, yet he had made no attempt to see her since, to comfort her, to reassure her of his love. And now she was gone and he would never have the chance again. All his hopes for the future, for a family, for the love and companionship he’d always craved, were gone, cremated on a pyre of his own cowardice and selfishness. Jinny had paid the price of his failures.

Numb and shocked, Taran stumbled away, clutching the scrap of cloth and the ring in his hand. As he did so his foot kicked against the small silver box he had bought with such love. The sight of it lying there among the ruins of all he held dear was too much for him to take. As he bent down to pick it up, the world blurred around him and he fell on his face in the smoldering rubble.

+ + + + +

D
enny and Ardoch rode at the head of their men through the Forest Gate and separated a mile into the trees. Denny took the northeastern side of the forest and Ardoch the southern. Although the snow had ceased falling, the weather was gloomy and overcast, the ever-present clouds promising more snow before the day was out. As Denny had feared, the night’s heavy snowfall had obliterated all tracks save those of fox or bird. There would be no clues to help them hunt their quarry.

No clues had been forthcoming from the victims either. Lord Levant, having delivered an unconscious Taran to the physicians, made his promised visit to Sir Regus and his lady. He was gratified to find they were none the worse for their terrifying ordeal, for the only injuries they’d sustained related to their wealth. The promissory note from the Treasury went far toward healing that particular wound.

Levant had hoped they would be able to give him some idea of where their attack took place so Denny could focus his search in a general area. But apart from a vague notion of how long it took them to reach the city on foot, neither were much help. And considering neither ever walked very far, their estimations were probably way out. So Denny had no help in his task and was forced to organize his searches in wide sweeps.

Denny parted with the old Torlander and his band of twenty swordsmen at a junction marked only by a thinning of the trees in the deep snow. He watched them ride south and then led his own group northwest. They kept their eyes open for any signs of the gilded coach, traces of the horses’ harness—which would likely have been stripped of its gold and silver adornments and abandoned—or scraps of cloth from the clothing taken. Denny guessed the ruffians’ haul would have been reduced to small pieces, easily bartered or sold in the villages. Whole items such as gowns, the leather harness, or a complete coach, although worth more in their original state, would attract far too much attention and would be remembered. And as the coach was far too large to be taken far before being dismantled, Denny thought it might provide the first sign of the attack.

He wasn’t wrong.

His riders fanned out until they were just in sight of each other, easier in the leafless forest than it would’ve been in summer. The barren trees and the smothering of dead bracken by the snow meant they could cover more ground in less time. On their very first sweep northward, after an hour of searching, one of his men let out a yell.