Chapter 10: The Tent

He found me in the alley with my back against the brick and my right hand dripping blood.

I had gripped the wall so hard when the Collar broke that I'd torn my knuckles open.

The Collar had stumbled off toward the river, still weeping, and I did not call him back.

"Marlis."

Commander Stane stopped three feet away.

His eyes went to my hand, then to the empty alley, then to my face.

"Who was here?"

"One of the Marshal's hounds. He's gone," I said.

"Did he touch you?"

"No," I said.

"Did he say anything?"

I thought about the ledger and the twelve names.

I thought, not yet.

"He said the Marshal wanted me. Then he changed his mind."

He studied me for a long moment.

"That isn't all of it."

"No," I said. "It isn't."

He took off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders.

He walked me back along the fort road without touching me anywhere else.

His tent stood in the lee of the east wall, at the foot of the stones.

He'd slept in it since he was fifteen, he told me, because the barracks made him feel like a door was shut on him.

Inside, there was a cot, a trunk, a small iron stove and a lamp.

He lit the lamp and washed my knuckles in a basin and wrapped them in clean linen, bending over my hand with his head down.

His hands were very gentle.

I watched the grey at his temples in the lamplight.

"At the levy," I said.

His hands stopped.

"You sat that horse and watched my father beg. In front of the whole valley. You didn't say a word."

"I know," he said.

"He was crying. I'd never seen him cry, and you looked at a piece of paper."

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

He kept his eyes on the bandage.

"I had a sealed letter in my coat. I couldn't have spoken against it. I would have broken my jaw trying."

"That isn't an answer," I said.

"It's the only one I'm allowed."

It was a strange, hard sentence, and I heard it, and I let it go by.

I said the thing I'd come to say.

"Then show me something you're allowed."

He lifted his head.

For a long moment neither of us spoke.

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