Annedyl drew her cloak more tightly around herself and shielded her torch. True, the wind was brisk for the season…but she was used to far stiffer winds at sea. No, this chill was a trick of the mind and not the wind. The entire city of Linhir was on edge. A town girl had run off.
She had reached the point she could count the days until she would be healthy enough to return to active service with the nave, and now all THIS comes up. It wasn’t fair. Mayor Orden keeps insisting there was nothing strange, that the foolish girl had run off with a beau, or had some accident and was recuperating elsewhere. Perhaps she had even been conscripted and did not bother to tell anyone. Some had started to whisper that perhaps she had taken her own life for one of those stupid reasons the young choose to end it all. Who really knew?
The fact of the matter was that young Caryn had been gone without a trace for more than a week. The girl was hard for Ane to picture...she was just past her teens, pretty she remembered in that common, obvious way, but not terribly bright. Several of the local rascals would stare at her figure as she went past and whistle, or so she seemed to recall. Ane had had no reason to pay her any mind, but their mothers were friendly. One night, she left her labors in a mason’s workshop, walking for home…and never arrived, or so her family said. Does anyone truly know what happens with family? After all, who could have predicted that Annedyl’s own idiot sister would go from heroine to traitor and back to heroine as if her very life were charmed. Just thinking of it was enough to make her blood boil…the fuss their parents had made when Nethrida had reappeared with that strange band of friends, complete with a Commission from Princess Lothiriel. Some people had all the luck..and others, like Annedyl, take a simple spill from a gangway and end up nearly a year on medical leave with some quack claiming she was lucky to walk again. Nonsense.
She held her torch out in front of her, making sure she didn’t fall in the dark and reinjure herself. That would be typical of how her life was going.
At first she had been glad to get the extra time with her parents, especially when everyone thought Nethrida was dead, after all they weren't getting younger….but now that she had reappeared, both her mother and her father rarely spoke of anything else. Boasting of their son Revion the Swan Knight, their daughter Nethrida serving royalty in Dol Amroth..and…oh yes, Ane, make us more tea like a dear. It was maddening!
She carefully stepped over a bit of mud in the path….then paused. There hadn’t been rain in weeks. On second glance, the mark on the ground was too dark, and the scent that lingered was musky and filled with copper. Blood? Certainly blood..and leading from the cliffside then off the path.
She held the torch up and followed the trail, forgetting the chill as she noted more and more blood in the grass and on leaves of trees..broken branches…disturbed earth. There had been a chase…someone was fleeing, injured.
Annedyl reached to her belt and drew her short sword…..then went pale..the blood was leading her…home. Her parents…what if the blood were not leading towards home, but away from it?
Now she broke into a run, finally coming up short just behind their simple but comfortable estate….and on the kitchen stoop was a huddled figure, wrapped in one of her father’s old cloaks…even from this distance she could tell it was soaked in blood and nearly screamed.
She dropped the torch and rushed forward, pulling at the cloak, the blood still wet and warm…to discover the body of Dottie, the family dog. The mutt had been nearly decapitated, then gutted, brutally…blood was everywhere, soaking her clothing as Ane started to cry, holding the poor beast. During her recovery, even when she could barely get around by herself it had seemed at times that the old dog had been her only friend..certainly the only thing that loved her as she deserved. Who…who could have done such a thing. She turned….and threw up into the flowerbeds, racked with loss and grief.
She stayed that way for what seemed hours, crying, when a shout from the post road shook her from her mourning…several horsemen, men she didn’t know. Strangers in Linhir? At this hour? One of them called. “Girl….is this the home of Councilman Lindhard?” Ane nodded, confused and still too stunned by her loss to bristle at being called "girl".
The horseman called something out to his fellows and wheeled his horse to continue down the road, calling back over his shoulder. “Tell him Mayor Ordan wishes him in town, the entire Town Council is assembling….they found poor Caryn, MURDERED, rest her soul.”
Murdered? In Linhir? There hadn’t been a crime worse than desertion or petty theft in the town in years, and even that was never proven. Rising…she opened the door of the house as if in a dream. First she had to tell her father this foul news. Then she had to bury Dottie and clean up….then, she was going to write to Nethrida. This girl Caryn, and Dottie, both murdered?
If Neth was going to run around playing hero, she might as well earn the false accolades by doing something for her home and family for once.
