Scarlet was glad to have Lance with her for the final week of her outward journey and, if things went well, he would probably accompany her back to Stormrest with men willing to fight.
She found that she enjoyed his company, despite her misgivings. Scarlet still didn’t trust him, but she no longer feared him. He had proven himself capable, and he was more knowledgeable about the world than anyone she had ever met—even the desert cities of Drakkar, with their libraries and spice markets, were known to him firsthand.
No matter the subject, he seemed to have some passing interest or experience with it. But he wore it lightly, without the air of a man who needed you to know it. She had not expected that.
She wondered why she had a strange obsession with comparing him to a man who had indicated that he didn’t want her. Especially considering that Lance made it no secret that he did want her.
He hadn’t asked her to marry him again directly, but he hinted from time to time that he was interested and hoped she would still consider the possibility.
He confessed one evening that when he first raised it, he’d had no great interest in her personally—he’d wanted to score a point against the queen. He admitted this had been unfair to Scarlet, apologized, and then suggested that things had changed. He had genuinely come to be quite fond of her. It wasn’t love, exactly, but he held her in a certain appreciation that could someday lead there, if she was willing to not simply dismiss him.
And she didn’t. She kept him at arm’s length, certainly, but over the week, the length of her arm seemed to shorten.
On her twenty-third day of travel, the 6th Fireday of Harvest, Scarlet began to notice that they were truly descending out of the mountains. For each turn in the road they took, they could see more and more of the lowlands, and the air became less chilly as they moved closer to the coast.
“So,” Lance said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about a certain captain of the Knights Celestial. Beckwith, I think his name is.”
She had just been thinking of Philip. Strange. “What—? Oh, I really don’t even know him.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, nor entirely a lie.
“Really?” he asked. “I was led to understand you spent the night with him at the garrison?”
“I did no such—wait—are you jealous?” she asked, smiling.
“And what if I am envious of time that anyone else gets to spend with you? Is that so wrong?”
“Not necessarily,” she admitted. “Not if you are actually interested in me for reasons that aren’t political. One might expect it then.”
“What if my interest weren’t political at all? I’m not saying that’s happened, mind you. But it could happen.”
“Lots of things could happen,” Scarlet said, almost dismissively.
Lance considered that, wondering if he’d misplayed the trick.
“I suppose,” he said.
“Sir Philip Beckwith could arrive here tomorrow and pledge his undying love for me while you’re still playing politics,” she said. “And I would still have to decide what I wanted.”
“So you do care for him?” Lance asked.
“Care’s not quite the right word. I do respect him. I think he’s interesting. But you needn’t worry, Lance. The queen’s arrangement is not in the cards. He doesn’t want me.”
“You sound almost disappointed,” Lance said.
“The truth is,” she said, “the queen tried to arrange something. We talked. We agreed that it wasn’t what either of us wanted. So it’s a non-issue.”
But Scarlet also knew it was a lie—on her part. If Philip Beckwith were to actually pledge his undying love for her, she knew it would change things. In what way, she could not say.
But that was about as likely as pigs learning to fly.
“Well, it’s hard telling who he actually is anyway,” Lance said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, Philip Beckwith is not his real name, you know?”
“No, what do you mean it’s not his name?”
“Are you not familiar with the Knights Celestial?”
“I thought I was.”
“Philip Beckwith has existed for about twelve centuries. Since the beginning of the Knights Celestial.”
“Wait, what?” Scarlet asked. “Immortal? Unaging?”
“It’s a title,” he explained. “There was an original Sir Philip Beckwith, but at some point he died, right? So when a new adherent to their strange order joins, he takes the name of one of the former Knights Celestial—one who died.”
“That’s so strange,” Scarlet said. “Why do they do that?”
“To be spooky, I guess,” Lance said. “Beckwith letting the rumor float that he has been alive for a thousand years seems like the kind of thing a man with no real name would allow.”
She wondered what his name could be. His true name.
“How do you even trust a man if you don’t know his name?” Lance mused.
“I don’t know,” Scarlet said.
“Plus, he has a competing land claim, which some argue may be a higher claim. I don’t, mind you, but some do. But I guess the point is that no one knows who he really is and his motivations are probably not altruistic.”
Scarlet turned that over while she rode. They were valid arguments, but on the other hand, Philip had never asked her for anything, never demanded anything, never expected anything. He had been a perfect gentleman. And honestly, at the masquerade, it seemed as if he had been subtly warning her about Lance. Nothing overt—restrained. A hint around the edges. A choice of words.
There was a tiny part of Scarlet that wondered about the fortuitous timing of Lance’s arrival. Just in the nick of time? It seemed unlikely, and yet it had happened. But it really hadn’t been in the nick of time, had it? He’d been too late to save Benedict, just as she had.
At this thought, she stopped her horse, and hunched over in her saddle, sobbing.
Lance rode up and stopped beside her, placing his hand on her shoulder, patting her.
After a while she stopped and with a big, shuddering exhale, she straightened. “I brought my swordmaster to his own death,” she said. “I killed him. He trusted me, and the one time he needed me, I wasn’t there for him.”
Lance cleared his throat.
“If you’d have been there, they might have killed you too, with whatever that power is that they have.”
“Oh, you didn’t see?” she asked.
“See what?”
“They tried to do it to me, too.”
“Tried?”
“Yes. I could feel it. Like it was trying to pull me out of myself.”
“Really?” he asked. “What stopped it?”
“It didn’t work,” she said. “It was almost as if they couldn’t grab ahold of me. Like I was slippery maybe? It was like I was protected from them.”
Lance turned away then, staring off into the woods, and mumbled something she missed.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just glad you were safe,” he said.
“I am, thankfully,” she said. “But Benedict is not. His family is not. My father is going to be very disappointed in me. But it’s not just that. I miss his company.”
Lance flicked his reins, getting his horse moving again. “I know I am a poor substitute, but I’ll be here for you.”
She caught up to him and they rode along as more of the land opened up below them.
“I must confess,” she said, “that I did not expect you to be such a good swordsman yourself.”
“Many, many years of practice,” he said. “But I can pay you the same compliment. You really do know how to use that saber. I’ve not seen someone better with that kind of weapon.”
“I have,” Scarlet said.
“Who?”
“Sir Benedict.”
Lance pulled rein slightly, turning his horse. “You ready to set up camp? I’m tired.”
She checked the sun. Normally she’d push on another hour, but she had been yawning herself for the last half hour, so she relented. “Okay, I guess this is as good a spot as any.”
“Any thoughts about how far out we are from the town?”
“I think four or five days,” she said. “I’m anxious to get there and finally sleep on a real bed. Not to mention get a hot bath.”
Lance began laying out the tents. It had become his job while she prepared dinner. In this case, it would be a trio of grouse they had gotten an hour earlier. It had almost been four, but Scarlet had missed her second shot and cursed herself for losing the arrow. Cutting the shafts and fletching them was not difficult. She had the materials in her saddlebag and plenty of grouse and pheasant tail feathers. Losing the steel tips was a bigger concern. There were no portable forges, iron, charcoal, and molds handy. She had to conserve her arrows for the next week before she could buy more in Psalter’s Point.
Scarlet had a fire going by the time the tents and bedrolls had been placed, and she cooked the grouse in a cast iron pan while Lance looked for and found clean water. They were out of butter, which was a real nuisance, but she still had some oil, so she used a little extra. Salt and pepper they still had in abundance, and edible greens were readily available along the road if you were careful. Tonight, she added slices of chanterelles to the pan, giving them a pinch of salt and a tiny bit of garlic she still had in her bag.
“I know it’s wearing to travel for so long,” Lance said. “And it’ll be good to get into an inn, but honestly being outdoors, eating good food, enjoying the evening sun. It’s not all that bad. Especially with good company.”
Scarlet deflected the last bit. “I’m hoping for some Wentworth company in a few days,” she said. “That will be good company.”
Lance eyed her, but said nothing.
She shuddered.
“What?” he asked.
“Just those creatures with their black blood. It seems like—I don’t know. I read about this in lore once. What if they are undead?”
Lance was quiet for a moment, turning his cup in his hands.
“I did read about the undead one time. Most of it is rubbish. But some seemed more real.”
“Like what?” she asked, drawing Philip’s blanket around her shoulders and touching the corner of it to her upper lip.
“The old texts call them the Unfinished,” he said. “People killed before their time. Whatever years they should have lived—someone took those years and gave them back, but without everything that makes a person a person. They’re what’s left when you remove the will.”
Scarlet stared at him. “You’ve read about them?”
“I’ve read about a great many things,” he said, and smiled, and poked the fire.
She watched the flames settle and told herself it was only his usual breadth of knowledge. It usually was.
“And they can drain life, too,” she said.
“Yes, that was in the reading,” Lance said. “They extend beyond their normal lifespan by stealing it from the living.”
“If they keep stealing can they live forever?”
“Live?” he asked. “They aren’t living. But can they exist forever? Possibly.”
“But what causes it in the first place?”
“I would guess a curse,” Lance said. “Maybe a deal.”
“With Shaetan?” she whispered.
“Don’t use that name out loud,” Lance warned her. “He has good ears.”
She dropped her eyes to the fire, then raised them again. Lance Ashcroft had some very strange areas of knowledge. Scarlet was no fool. She knew that some of Lance’s statements were meant to cast doubt on Philip. To be fair, they had landed a little. But some of the things he said made her wonder about him as well.
Or maybe it was the way he said it, or perhaps his mannerisms alone. When he was paying attention, he was a perfect gentleman—erect posture, proper. But she had watched him for the better part of four days now, since Benedict’s death, and there were just times that he seemed to not be there. Hollow, almost. Maybe it was just a brooding nature, but it unnerved her.
She flipped the birds in the pan. The grouse was nearly done.
“Five minutes,” she said. “And we can eat.”
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.
Philip! Where are you!! Catch up to them, man!!!