Tattered Souls - Epilog

At the tapping sound, Rastellion starts out of an unsettled doze. For a moment, he can’t remember where he is: the shape and appointments of this loft apartment – my cell, he thinks, bitterly – aren’t yet familiar. The insistent tap comes again, and he turns to the window, where a cowled form is darkly silhouetted against the stars of a moonless sky.

“Uncle,” he breathes, and rises from the chair to unlatch the casement.

Ceolfred slips in, scarcely more than another night shadow. “Th’others are waitin’, outside th’ north gate,” he whispers. “Y’ ready?”

Slowly, Rastellion lifts his cloak from the back of a chair, looking around the sparse room. Few of his possessions have been moved here, and he won’t be taking any of them. Anyway, he could hardly pack for a journey, not without arousing suspicions. Ceolfred promised – when they made these plans several days ago – all that would be taken care of.

So: clothes, cloak, knife. Everything else left behind. Even Whitey left behind, back with his father, at his rented rooms outside Bree. Leaving Bree with even less than he arrived with, less than a year ago.

Rastellion nods, slowly. “I suppose I am.”

The older man puts a strong hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Don’ need t’ do this, y’ know,” he says, echoing their former conversation, when Ceolfred had returned with his news. “Hundred gold’s a lotta money, more’n twice what your pa’s farm fetched. E’en if we do get’all this cleared up, y’ stand t’ loose it all th’ same, for breakin’ parole.” His grip tightens. “An’ if somethin’ goes wrong… then you’ll be on th’ run, lad. No way ever t’ prove yer innocence wit’out her testimony.” He lets his hand fall. “So it’d be no shame t’ stay here, Rast. Mebbe even smarter.”

Rastellion shrugs. “It’s just money.” But he still turns pained eyes to his uncle, seeking reassurance. “You’re sure you saw her chained? Sure she … sure she said she loves me?”

Ceolfred nods. “Sure as yer standin’ in front’o me. Immalaine’s a pris’ner, right enough, an’ this marriage none o’ her doing.”

The young man holds the other’s gaze for a long moment, then nods. “So why’re we still farting around here in Bree?”

Ceolfred’s grin flashes white. “Good lad. Follow me.” He turns and slips back out the window, silent as starlight.

Rastellion, after one last look around and one more deep breath, follows, though a bit less sure-footed: out the window and across the weathered, rooftop slates of Bree.

A few minutes later, a curious night breeze flutters in through the room’s thin drapes. Its exploring fingers discover nothing interesting in the little apartment; nothing but an unmade bed, worn furniture, and a few scattered crumbs on the uneven tabletop.

It pauses at the table’s edge, beside the single chair, where new damage has been inflicted on the old wood. Then it scampers back outside, seeking more interesting haunts.

Behind, at the table’s edge, etched lines are faintly visible – lines dug into the table, earlier that night, by a dagger’s restless tip.

Two characters, intertwined.

R and I.