Romeria
Islow Eros to a canter as we approach Norcaster’s wooden gate. It didn’t look like much before, but up close, it is far more daunting, at least twenty-five feet high, the silhouettes of the archers manning it eerily still.
“Am I allowed to talk now?” Pan whispers.
“About what?”
“About how none of those legionaries noticed us leave?”
“We can talk about that later.” Though I have no idea what I’ll say. “Right now, I’m your keeper, and we’re heading to Bellcross to see an aunt who has fallen ill.”
“My aunt or yours?”
Maybe it would have been better to leave Pan behind, but it’s too late now, and if I’m right, he’ll prove useful. “Mine. Your gloves are on?” The last thing I need is for someone to notice his glowing mark.
He waves his covered hand in answer.
“Okay. Remember the plan and let me do all the talking.”
A smaller gate built into the main one swings open. It’s just tall enough to allow a person on horseback through, guarded by a stocky soldier gripping a sword.
“State your purpose!” he barks.
I push my hood back. “A bowl of stew in the tavern and a warm, dry bed for myself and my tributary, kind sir.”
His beady eyes roam my features, and I catch the spark of interest in them, as expected. If I have to keep Princess Romeria’s face, I may as well put it to good use. “Aye. It’s a wet one tonight.” Backing up, he waves us in.
We canter through town, taking in as much as we can. Elisaf wasn’t exaggerating. The houses are all wooden and small—one to two rooms each—with thatched roofs and stone chimneys that expel smoky plumes, the scent of burning wood melding with the damp air.
Half the torches smolder, failing in their simple task, unable to withstand the rain. Others are sheltered by glass covers and offer enough light to guide our path through the narrow, empty streets.
“Which way to the tavern?” Pan asks.
It’s in the center of town, according to Elisaf. I draw my hood again, feeling spies within the shadows, likely not people we want to meet. “This way.”
“That has to be it.” The carved sign for the Greasy Yak sits high on the building’s face, illuminated by a single lantern on one side. It’s the largest structure we’ve seen so far in Norcaster, three stories tall, with a balcony wrapped around the second floor and larger dormers adorning the third. It’s the only place that seems alive with activity, windows glowing with candlelight, the faint hum of music and laughter drifting out into the night.
And it’s in the center of town, directly across from the town square.
Where ten lifeless bodies dangle from ropes.
“Oh my God.” I stare in horror at the evidence of an execution. But that’s not the worst of it. Fifteen others are still alive and trapped in wooden structures that hold their hands and heads in place while forcing them to stand at an uncomfortable incline.
Pan curses. “Oswald put me in a pillory once, for taking cured meat while everyone was sleeping. People threw horse dung at me. Better than rocks, though.”
Around these people’s feet are rocks the size of baseballs.
“Wonder what they did to deserve that.”
He shouldn’t wonder. I don’t wonder at all. “They took the poison.” A drop of my blood. They didn’t want to be fed on and abused anymore, so they made a stand, and now they’re being punished. Not hung, though. At least not yet. Why? To make them suffer more?
A familiar surge rises from deep inside, stirred by the overwhelming wave of anger and despair. Gesine warned me about this. Digging into my pocket, I slip on my ring, squashing a potential eruption I won’t be able to reverse.
It does nothing to calm my rage. “Why did they have to take their clothes?” As if the method isn’t torturous enough, they have to humiliate them like that?
“No point wastin’ good wool,” Pan says matter-of-factly.
On people who are going to die here, he doesn’t need to say.