"John!" Cara's bare feet slipped on the muddy clods of the plowed field and she fell repeatedly, clawing her way upright, digging in her toes and fingers to push forward to where her friend had fallen. By the great oak tree, they said; in the furrows, they said; was dead, they said.
The men had ridden in at dawn, faces to the sun and froth on their horses. Hard, tired men who rode with a purpose: to kill John.
Cara saw blood and the more she looked the more she saw, glistening brighter than the wet soil. Shaking, she fell to her knees before fingers that seemed to grow out of the mud, like pale tubers from some alien plant, bent towards the sun. Sick with a clenching fear in her gut, Cara pulled great hunks of turned earth and tossed them away without seeing where they fell, trying to find the fastest route to John's face. She had to see him, to know he was gone forever. John, the only one who believed her.
If she hadn't had to work with her grandmother in the kitchen, she might have seen those men enter her grandparents' bar. She would have known they meant trouble by the way their fine clothing stood out among the patched homespun of the regulars. She would have seen the way they watched with narrowed, suspicious eyes. If she had seen them, she would have run out the back and found John before they did. Cara only heard after hours of working, when a new set of patrons entered for lunch and she had to wait tables. The chatter was all about those men, and Cara's grandfather gave the start of their story while others continued it to its brutal conclusion.
John's eyes were closed and blood crusted his scalp, nose, and lips. Cara kept digging with her fingers, adding her own blood to John's, until she cleared his shoulders, his chest, his hips. They had stripped John down to his breeches, and his arms showed defensive cuts and bruises where she imagined her friend covering his face from their blows. "John, John, oh John..." Cara repeated over and over like a prayer, her tears falling on his bruised face as she used brute force, hands wrapped under his arms from behind, to try to pull him from the sucking mud.
Her grandfather recalled for the gathering lunch crowd the coldness of the men's eyes and the refinement of their bearing. One wore the medallion of the Guild of Mages around his neck. Cara's grandfather himself told the men about the boy John who lived like a wild animal, squatting in the half-fallen stone cottage in the woods at the eastern edge of town. Michel, owner of the supply shop across from Old Fell's Pub, took up the tale from there as he had been one of the growing crowd who followed the men on their mission. They would not stray from their duty for they had made an oath to one of royal blood: kill John.
Cara and John were as near in age as they could guess although she was longer and stronger than he, as most girls were when measured against boys of their age. Despite her strength and desperate will, Cara could not pull John's body from the sucking mud. She knelt beside his bruised and bloodied head. "Why?" Cara wept. "Why did they do this to you?" Her small hands patted what was free of John's body, checking limb and torso for breaks or open wounds. She felt him for breath, but was shaking and unsure if what she felt was life, wind, or her wish.
"What I don't know is why those men were sent to kill that simple boy," mused Michel, who had occasionally hired John to run errands in exchange for a sausage or hard roll. "Did they speak of reasons, Fell?" he asked of Cara's grandfather, who had spoken to the men the longest.
"No reason they gave me, but they were determined: the boy must die." Old Fell and most of the crowd shook their heads sadly, for while they didn't think much of the wild boy, neither did they wish him dead. Cara's grandfather knew John as well as any of the adults in town, knowing at least that Cara considered him a friend. If Old Fell had known of his granddaughter's devotion, it wasn't clear how he may have felt.
Heads turned as the bell over the door heralded a new patron and the small crowd was joined by a stunned Marielle, mistress of the Wayfarer's Inn. "They're staying with us." Her brown eyes were wide, "They paid in gold." She waited while the wealth of that statement sunk in before adding, "For a month." Marielle knew how to spin out a tale for effect. "They've taken the whole top floor for themselves." The murmurs built to exclamations and speculation. Why? they all thought. Old Fell counted money for meals and drinks in his head. When the mage's medallion was mentioned, Marielle confirmed that it was true. "He has taken the gathering room on their floor for his workshop. He said," she leaned in with a glance at the door, "he should never, ever be disturbed." Why? they all thought.
After she rested, Cara tried again to remove John's body. While a very strong young girl, Cara's strength ran out, and she was unable to free her friend's body from the earth. Crying in frustrated anger and confusion, she did what she could, and instead used her apron to wipe John's face clean of the mud and blood. "Why?" she asked again, looking up towards the town she had always known and wondering if she still recognized its heart. Others had known those men were coming after John, so why weren't they stopped? Why wasn't John warned? Why wasn't he protected? Cara brushed her lips against John's cold forehead and pushed herself upright against her knees, like an old woman. She inhaled and exhaled, feeling as if her breath could have been fire, and went to find help to bury her friend, and answers for the crime.
Cara grandmother startled when Cara stormed through the open back door to the kitchen. "Where have you been?" the older woman scolded, hands still working to plate sausages and bread. "You were supposed to help for lunch, and with the goings-on, we're busier than usual. What a time to run out!" Cara's grandmother spared another glance and saw her granddaughter's state. "What have you been about, girl? You're covered in mud and... is that blood, Cara?" Cara let herself be examined, her grandmother gripping her shoulders. "What has happened? Are you hurt?"
"They killed..." Cara swallowed. "They killed John."
Her grandmother sighed and the concern ran from her eyes. "Yes, Cara, that's why we're busy. There are royal guests in town." Thoughts whisked over the older woman's face. "You didn't see them? No, you were here when it happened, must have been. Cara," she bent again, "You must leave that boy now. Don't interfere. This is a royal matter." A much different concern rushed back, "There is magic." Cara felt her head swiveling, denying, but her grandmother cut her off, "No, Cara. Leave it. It is of no concern for you except that our small town has been chosen, and if we can manage, the whole affair can be to our advantage." Cara could hear the stories of when their town had been on the path to a great metropolis and how the fates had left it drained, carrying a boarded-over downtown, an empty hotel, and only locals to serve what had been grand cuisine and now only coarse bread and stew. She saw her grandmother had taken out the old pastry utensils which lay like operating instruments on the table, unwrapped after decades. All this because her friend died, alone in a farmer's field.
"Cara!" snapped her grandmother. "I said clean yourself. Soak those clothes and wash your arms and face. Prepare for our royal guests."
Her grandmother didn't see Cara's mouth open in protest, close in futility; open in anger, close in resolve. Cara did as she was told, but towards her own ends. She needed to know why.
PART I'M NOT TYPING BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT SHOULD BE YET.
The rains of spring poured from the heavens and ran down the dirt roads washing away stone and most had given up wagon travel until they could be repaired. FARMER WHOEVER OWNED THE FIELD, who had been so pleased to be the center of attention just a week before, was now damp and irritable, complaining to Old Fell as he nursed his coffee spiked heavily with whiskey. "I'm not allowed to plow any of that damned field." XXX's neighbors and fellow farmers made quiet sympathetic noises, though without much energy because they knew XXX couldn't handle all his fields at once, anyway. One gone fallow meant maybe the other three could finally have the attention they deserved.
