Page 12 of Swordheart
“That sounds awkward.”
“I do not think it would go well, no.”
“And if I killed myself?”
“I would try to take the blow myself. I have no choice.”
This was getting worse and worse. Halla groaned. “Do you have any better ideas? Other than my fifteen-year-old niece somehow staging a rescue that she doesn’t know anything about?”
Sarkis frowned and leaned against the bedpost. “Clearly you must drive these ruffians from your home and then alert her.”
“Drive them from my home?” Halla almost choked at the impossibility of it all. “They wouldn’t go! Nobody thinks it’s really my home, no matter what the clerks say! I’m locked in my own room!”
He inhaled sharply. “You are a prisoner here?”
“Yes! I’ve been locked in here for three days!”
This seemed to change everything. The servant of the sword was abruptly all business. “We cannot wait on the honor of your kinswoman, it seems.”
“… my fifteen-year-old kinswoman…”
“Pack for a journey. I will allow no one under my protection to be held prisoner, even by their marriage kin.”
“Wait, it’s all right if they’re not locking the door, but since they are, now we’ll leave?”
He looked at her as if she were daft. “Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Clearly.”
She put her hands on her hips. Sarkis sighed. “It would be extremely rude to interfere with your kinswoman’s efforts to rescue you. An insult to their honor. But as you are clearly in immediate and present danger, we cannot afford to wait. We must leave this place at once.”
“Where are we going?”
“Away from here.”
CHAPTER 4
It did not take Halla long to pack. She had few enough possessions… at least, not possessions that she felt were hers and not Silas’s. Most of those she abandoned without a qualm. The jewelry that her husband had given her she dutifully packed, feeling that it was the sort of thing a widow ought to keep.
I suppose I could sell it if I have to. It’s not worth much, but it might…oh, damn, I’m doing this wrong. I should be very upset that I have to sell my jewelry, shouldn’t I?
It’s just that I’m fairly certain his mother picked it out. Or he picked it out thinking it was something his mother would wear.
Her late mother-in-law had been cut from the same cloth as her sister Malva. Halla had tried to love her and then had tried to like her, and then had tried to be dutiful and compliant, and finally had settled for not being too obviously relieved when the woman had dropped dead.
All her possessions and a spare change of clothes, the tiny tinderbox she kept for lighting candles, and a few coins piled together. It made a pitifully small bundle.
She thought about trying to find more to pack, then heard her mother’s voice in her head:No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves.Very well. She tied it all up, started to heft it, and Sarkis took it and slung it over his shoulder.
He had turned his back earlier while she changed into sturdier clothes for travel. She’d had no idea that an enchanted sword would have such a strong sense of propriety.
Well, perhaps it’s different where he’s from. The Weeping Lands? I’ve never heard of them, but I suppose that doesn’t mean much.
She’d slithered hastily into a long woolen habit with somber sleeves. The material was fine enough, but the dark color and lack of ornamentation marked her as either mourning, eccentric, or on her way to a convent.
And I might be all three, for all I know. A convent might be the best place for me. Except that I ask too many odd questions and I don’t think you’re supposed to do that in a convent, are you?
