The Mate He Gave Away novel · Chapter 13 of 40

Chapter 13: The Summons

"Who?" Corvin said.

The physician didn't answer him.

He held out his hand to Agnes instead.

"A knife, please. A small one."

Agnes gave him her paring knife without a word.

He opened his filthy cloak across his knees and felt along the hem until he found a lump.

Then he picked the stitches out one by one.

His hands shook so badly that I took the knife from him and did it myself.

Inside the hem was a square of paper, folded small and wrapped in oilcloth.

"He threw me out with the clothes I stood in," the physician said. "He never thought to check the clothes."

I unwrapped it on the kitchen table.

It was one page, in the same fine court hand as the confession I'd just watched him write.

At the bottom was a mark in brown ink, a shaky circle with a line through it.

"The millwright couldn't write," the physician said. "That's his mark. I watched him make it."

Corvin didn't reach for it.

"Read it to me," he said. "I want to hear it out loud."

So I read it.

"I burned the mill at Frostgate the first autumn of the new king. I broke both stones with wedges and pushed them in the pool. I was paid twenty gold crowns."

My voice wanted to stop. I didn't let it.

"The man who paid me came to my house at night with his hood up. When he counted out the gold I saw his ring. A raven in gold. I saw his hair. I knew him from the crowning. It was the king."

The fire ticked in the grate.

"I have been afraid eight years. I want it written down before I die."

I put the page down.

Davy had gone very still on his stool by the hearth.

Corvin stood up.

He picked up the page and read it again himself, slowly, his lips moving on the word king.

Then he folded it along its old creases and handed it back to the physician.

"Keep it with the other," he said. "Thank you."

He walked out of the kitchen.

I didn't follow him straight away.

I waited until I heard the barracks door bang across the yard.

Then I went after him.

The barracks was a long stone room with sixty cots and one fire.

Most of the men were still up, dicing and mending boots.

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