The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,134

have. I made my prayers to appease Hildegard, and I told tales to soothe Gawen. Sleep would not come in that room where the window was no more than an archer’s loophole, but there weren hours enough to exercise myself. I passed many weeks thus, and each week the lady Howell came with my father, or my mother, for they could not often come together, and leave Elana and Trang with my aunt. It shamed me that I was such a burden unto them, and I bade them not surrender so much for me. ’Twas also that I wished to speak alone with the lady Howell, for she was mine advocate and not my mother’s. It liked her not, but she came as I asked, and soon I made her know my intent.

I would not plead to be locked away safe for some unnumbered years, but to spare my father and mother, I would plead. For I did those deeds by mine own hand, and by pleading, I would free myself sooner. The lady Howell spake with the prosecutor, and returned to tell me what he offered. If I vouched my guilt for slaying Paul Scanlon, I should serve no more than five years.

That week ’twas my mother that visited, and she was wroth with the lady Howell, and with me, and with God, methought, for she cursed us all.

“Lord, don’t test me! I won’t allow you to do this!” she cried out with fierce feeling. I knew it well, for oft she had turned it upon me when I was a stubborn boy.

“Mrs. Frank, honestly, this is a good offer,” said the lady Howell. “He’ll probably only serve two to three years. At the rate things are going, he won’t even go to trial for another eighteen months.”

“I don’t care. He cannot go to prison. Do you hear me, Gentry? You’re not taking this plea deal.”

“My mother, I hear thee, but prison be not Battle of the Nations,” I said. “Thou canst not forbid me go, as thou didst then.”

I readied myself for her wrath, but she wept, and still I could not give her what she longed for. After some while, she drew from her purse her kerchief and dried her eyes. When she laid her hand upon the table, I gave her mine.

“Gentry, please, listen to me,” she said, and her voice in its hoarseness reminded me of the lady dragon. “I know you take what the Witch says very seriously, and I understand why, but you can’t trust her to help you make decisions like this. She doesn’t know any more than you do. She’s not psychic.”

“Sooth, I know it. My mother, rememberest thou when first the voices spake to me?”

“Of course, I remember.”

“And I was frighted, for I knew them not. And thou said, Fear not. They aren part of thee. They aren thy voice. I say to thee, it is so. If I rely upon the Witch’s wisdom, ’tis myself I rely upon. This is my choosing.”

I told her not that the Witch was silent. She spake not to me since I broke my vow to protect Lady Zhorzha. ’Twas I alone that chose this path, the sooner to be free.

Tho til the last, my mother tried to sway me from it, I made my plea. I went before the judge, and there I swore a true confession of what crimes I committed. My lord asked, kenned I my plea and felt I remorse for what I had done? I assented I did, tho in truth I thought my crimes not very horrible.

At last, I was delivered to the place of my servitude, where I was put into a barber’s chair still shackled. The first cold dread crept into my belly when the clippers with their gnashing metal teeth were put to my head. Tho I longed to be brave and stoic, I was not. I cried out like a small boy, like the small boy I had been when the therapist would do what she called desensitizing. I never could be made insensible, for ’twas not a battle to be fought, but a torment to be endured. My gaoler called for another to restrain me, and they scorned against me, as I was put to the blades.

The place was called Malvern, a name that struck fear into my heart. Malvern cometh of the Welsh moel bryn, meaning a bald hill, and in my mind I saw Bryn Carreg, its stones tumbled down to