Chapter 8: The Washed-Out

Linnea rode two days north with the king's pencil thought riding behind her eyes.

Someone had closed her record in pencil, and the king had seen it and said nothing.

She did not ask Theron what it meant, and he did not speak to her at all.

The first of the twelve ran an inn at a river crossing at the end of the road.

She was a broad woman with scarred forearms who had once carried two sacks of grain up the keep stairs at a run.

She did not smile when Theron walked into her taproom in the black coat of the Lord Commander.

"I know who you are," she said. "I've been waiting a year for someone like you."

"Then you know why I've come," Theron said.

"Do I?"

"The king wants to hear what happened to you."

The woman wiped her hands on her apron and looked past him at Linnea.

"And who's this?"

"The recruit who said it in front of the king," said Theron.

The woman's face changed.

Linnea stood just inside the door with the rain dripping off her coat.

The thoughts in the room reached her all at once.

The innkeeper's was tight and raw and old.

Don't cry. Don't you dare cry in front of him. You swore.

"My name is Linnea," she said. "I'm sorry it took so long."

The woman stared at her for a moment longer.

Then she pulled out a chair.

"Sit down, girl. You'll want to hear it sitting."

They sat at a scarred table by the fire, and Theron stayed standing by the door with his hands behind his back.

The innkeeper told it plainly.

She had been given a card with a small lamp drawn on it. She had gone to the major's quarters because she was told it was a trial.

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