“Has the man said anything unbecoming, Geoff?”
“Nothing troubling yet, my lady.”
“You two are a real hoot. Just say whatever you please, why don’t you?” commented Samuel.
“What’s most important is what you’re already doing,” continued Geoff. “Letting the provocations fall on deaf ears.”
I couldn’t help but let out a wry chuckle. I blamed myself for Ern’s death, but with Samuel right here in front of me, I found I could settle for insults. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Frustration itched at my heart, unlike anything I had ever known. After all, regardless of the actual truth, Ern’s parents knew only this for certain: their daughter was never coming back. She had been labeled a traitor while her best friend—and executioner—pranced around as free as a bird.
I thought back to the look in Reinald’s eyes when he uttered those words.
“Look at me, Karen.”
I wanted Ern’s parents to be saved. I wanted to see them and talk to them, but what did I even want to say to them?
“Ern committed suicide. Her back was against the wall. She had no other way out, nor the power to do it herself.”
Would Ern’s parents accept that explanation? Would it offer them some solace to hear that from the woman who killed their daughter, the girl they cherished more than anything else in the world? I had ignored reality, and now I felt it forcing its way back into my world.
They would not want to hear even a single word I spoke. I felt stupid for having been so willingly oblivious to reality. I was a hopeless, helpless fool, and all I could do now was laugh at myself.
“Lady Karen?” said Geoff.
“Hmm?”
“Er, no. It’s nothing.”
I could mull things over as much as I wanted when I was alone. At present, my focus had to be on seeing Ern’s parents to safety. The carriage rocked as its horses carried us past the imperial capital’s gates and eventually stopped off the road at a point far enough that one would not make it back easily to the capital on foot. The guards began to alight from their carriage.
“It’s a mostly deserted road,” commented Geoff, “but there are a great deal of horse tracks. Merchants must pass through here often. There wouldn’t be much in the way of bandits, and one could pass the night without fear of freezing.”
“Which is to say that this is a comparatively safe place to banish them,” I remarked.
Safety was by no means guaranteed, but there was at least a slim chance that Ern’s parents might come under the care of a kind traveler passing by. Ern’s parents alighted from the carriage and warily took in their surroundings. The rope binding their arms was then untied at a guard’s command.
All that was left now was to leave the two to their own devices.
What Geoff and I feared was that Ern’s parents would be cut down where they stood. It was a means of silencing them, and yet none of the guards reached for the swords hanging at their belts. Samuel, too, cast not a single spell.
It wasn’t until the guards gave their prisoners a shove in the back that it happened. Ern’s father, always so placid, let out a loud moan. A wave of panic drifted to those nearby, and in that moment, Ern’s father ran toward me, his eyes filled with resentment.
I had thought it surprising that Ern’s parents had remained so placid, but that had perhaps been a mistake on my part. Here I was, their daughter’s murderer, right there where they could get to me. How foolish to think they would have stayed entirely silent. Unfortunately for Ern’s father, however, his rage never met with its intended target.
The guards were quick to recover and react, and it was not just one who held Ern’s father down. Samuel let out an exasperated sigh, but Ern’s father ignored him, tears pouring down his face as he screamed.
“You murderer!”
The man had no blade on his person, nor any weapon in his hand, but all the same, it felt as if a blade had been thrust into my heart. Pain and self-loathing swirled around me, but there was nothing I could do to stop it, and I simply had to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself.
Ern’s father refused to stop struggling. The guards hit him to silence him, but even then, he fought against them. All of the guards were intent on keeping him under control, and it was this small window of opportunity that Ern’s mother took. She launched herself at me but was stopped by Geoff, who bent her arm behind her back to keep her still. It was everything you would expect from a trustworthy guard, and ordinarily it would have been commendable, but...
“Geoff, release her,” I said.
“But...”
“That is an order, Geoff.”
Hearing my tone of voice, Geoff released his grip. Ern’s mother ran at me, her momentum carrying a strike that landed flush on my cheek but was surprisingly weaker than I’d expected.
“Give me my daughter back!” she wailed.
Her tears poured out of her with her anger, and I had nothing to give in return. I could not bring myself to speak the truth. Ern’s secret dealings with Reinald, the work she was doing in her lab—none of it could be shared with the common citizenry. As such, even the truth of Ern’s death had to remain under cover.
Ern’s parents were lost in a sorrow that had nowhere to go. I knew that pain, having seen all those people in Conrad lose everything—their families, their lives as they knew them, and all they had ever owned. It was an insurmountable despair, and one that sapped at one’s very will to go on living. And so, at the very least, they were entitled to their anger. If they did not have a target for their feelings, then perhaps they would take the money I wanted to give them, only to follow a similar path to their daughter. It was to avoid that outcome that I chose silence as my response.
“Why you?!” Ern’s mother cried. “Why did she have to die?!”
She was stronger than I expected, and we tumbled to the ground. Ern’s mother lay on top of me, pushing my shoulders down.
“Why...why...?” she moaned. “How could you...? You were such a sweet young girl...”
The river of her tears continued to flow. Sobs replaced her rage, and her fists pounded weakly against my shoulders. She was devastated, and though I knew there were things to say to people in such states, no words came. I simply did not have it in me to speak. I thought it far better for Ern’s parents to be consumed with rage than to be mere husks of the people they once were. At least with feelings still pulsing through their bodies, they might still live on.
“...search...” Ern’s mother whispered.
Huh?
“That’s enough,” said Geoff. “You’ll take your hands off Lady Karen now.”
Geoff pulled Ern’s mother from me. She had lost all will to fight and simply collapsed to her knees, sobbing. Her husband was a mess of bumps, cuts, and bruises, and together the two cried to the sky for their daughter, now lost to them. Neither would struggle any further.
The guards all heaved great sighs of relief at the trouble having finally passed. Samuel looked over it with a thoughtful, if entirely unreadable, expression on his face. I, for my part, simply looked at Ern’s parents, stunned.
“Are you okay?” asked Geoff, worried.
“I, er... Thank you, Geoff.”
“I understand if you feel that you deserve their anger, but I could not allow it to continue any longer. Please forgive me.”
“No, Geoff. You did the right thing.”
But all the while, I could not tear my gaze from Ern’s parents. It was finally time for them to be banished, left to their own devices in the middle of nowhere. And yet before they left on their journey into the unknown, someone called out to them.
It was Samuel.
He carried with him two bags, which he passed to Ern’s parents as they turned, frightened and unsure of what to expect. With the bags in hand, Samuel gestured with his jaw. Now go.
Ern’s parents looked so small, so terrified as they disappeared into the distance. When I thought of where they might go and where they might end up, it felt like a vise squeezing my heart. I believed in Reinald, I did, and yet I did not want Ern’s parents to go too far.
“What did you give the two of them, Samuel?” I asked.
“Call it a parting gift. They’ve nowhere to go, but they won’t get anywhere empty-handed.”
The very idea that Samuel would have prepared something for them was unfathomable. I couldn’t believe it.
“Nothing more than a few scraps of food and some coins,” he continued. “Go and check for yourself if you don’t believe me. That’s all you’re going to find, I assure you.”
“No, they wouldn’t let me get nearly that close to them.”
“Ah, a girl who sees the forest for the trees.”
“We’re done here,” I stated plainly. “Thank you for your time.”
I was so horribly tired of talking to him. He left with his entourage, and Geoff and I boarded the carriage prepared for us.
“As much as I hate to say it,” said Geoff, “they don’t stand a chance if there are soldiers waiting in ambush somewhere in the forest.”
“I know. But I daresay it’s not likely.”
“Something back there led you to that conclusion?”
“Call it a hunch.”
I looked out the carriage window at the road beyond. Ern’s parents were gone, having disappeared down the path into the forest.
“If the plan was to silence Ern’s parents, execution would have been the simplest, quickest method,” I said. “There’d be no need to go to the trouble of arranging documents to see them banished.”