Free The Song of Andiene by Elisa Blaisdell Page B

slit windows.
    “I thought you would surely understand,” Giter said, raising his head to look desperately at Ilbran. “She must have paid you. Why else would one of the fisher-folk shelter one of them, like mice rescuing a nestling falcon? It would not have harmed you to share your gold with one other man.” The butcher looked at Ilbran with a kind of baffled fury. “Why were you so greedy?”
    Ilbran stared at him. So simple, so heartbreakingly simple. They could have bribed him with Andiene’s gold, and bought safety at least for a while. He thought back to that last conversation. He had been a fool not to realize. Every word burned in his mind, taking on a new meaning. He spoke harshly, trying not to think.
    “In my speech, threats mean threats. Why were your actions so different from your intentions?”
    “You tried to kill me,” Giter said simply.
    If only I had , Ilbran thought . Before he was on his guard. It would have been easy then.
    Somewhere down the hall, a voice called out, “Any news of Erit Maassanfil Alenefile?”
    “No talking,” shouted the guard, before anyone could answer.
    “Why did you come, that night?” Ilbran asked softly.
    “I saw you at the market-place. You had the look of one with a secret. When I went home, I could not forget. I dreamed about it every night, a voice whispering, telling me of the gold to be gained.”
    “What kind of a voice? The voice of your own greed?”
    Giter shuddered. “No. It was a whisper, a harsh voice, rustling like rats running over the dry leaves. If I listen, I can hear it yet.”
    Ilbran shook his head. It meant nothing to him. Idly, he scraped away a patch of lichen that had grown on the wall for perhaps a hundred years. The fragile lace fell in splinters of pink and white and red, like flesh and bone and blood. “What news of the girl?” he asked.
    “None. You hid her well. I swear that is the truth.” Giter eyed him for his reaction, then added, “I heard a wild story from one who was on the beach that night.”
    “She spread wings and flew away?”
    Giter coughed, and spat blood. “No doubt you know all about it. But they made a song of it, and it must have spread far beyond the city.”
    “What do they say?”
    “That a boat came in on the tide. That a girl—they say it was the girl—got in it, and then it went out, with no sail, against the tide.”
    Ilbran shook his head. “You know nothing of that?” asked Giter.
    “Nothing.”
    “Then what became of her?”
    “I do not know. We told them that we had sheltered her, finally, hoping that it would be a quicker death. For them it was. I saw them die.”
    He was silent for a while. If he thought of that first night when the soldiers took them … there were the makings of madness in that. Time for his revenge. “Why did they take you?” he asked.
    Giter twisted his hands together. “I do not know. They seem to think that I was your confederate. If you swore to them that I was not, that I had nothing to do with it, have no idea where she is … ” His eyes showed unquenchable hope. “They think it is a case of ‘when thieves fall out’, but if you said that I knew nothing of it, they would believe you, would they not?”
    Ilbran smiled grimly. “There is no chance at all that they would believe me. They promised me a respite from torture if I would name my allies, and I could think of only one man worthy to be so named.”
    Giter looked at him in shock. “They believed you?”
    “You are here. They do not take chances, it seems. But I did not expect to have the pleasure of your company so close.”
    Giter whimpered, and cowered in his corner. “They tortured my son, to make me confess, and when I confessed to stop them, they killed him. My wife, my children, they took them away. I do not know what they did with them.”
    Ilbran caught his breath in horror. He had not realized, he not stopped to think, what his impulse for revenge would bring.
    His thoughts ran in mazes