In Which Bentlefay Receives A Grisly Message

Lynde Falconer to Thomas Crowder:

Dear Tom,

Oh, my dearest, how I long for you. We have had so much trouble here, and nothing of comfort or happiness in weeks. We have finally had proof that Nicholas Rafe was taken at Marshweather – quite grisly and incontrovertible proof, since that monster Bleake has sent us his severed hand. I call myself a fighter; I make my living thus; I have seen crime and battle and death – but I see now that I have somehow remained innocent; since I am more sickened by this callousness than I have ever been by the blind brutality of a beast.

Bleake even sent his gruesome bundle by Rafe’s personal servant, who came in yesterday barefoot and in rags with his face puckered up, and gave the bundle to the king. We were all at the receiving, and the hall was full of the limp white courtiers flapping their useless hands and chattering their meaningless words. The king turned gray and swayed on his feet when he recognized the messenger, but by the time the queen had run to him he had hardened into stone, and took the bundle as ceremoniously as though it had been a diplomatic missive, though the man had clutched it to his chest and refused to release it until he had stammered out its contents.

He was too inarticulate to be heard more than a few feet away, but it was evident to anyone who recognized him that something terrible had happened to his master. The king and queen shepherded him out of the hall and I put my arm around the princess, who had recognized him too and was shaking all over her body. One of the queen’s ladies said something under her breath to her partner who tittered nervously, and the princess turned on them with all the violence of youth and grief. But before she could say anything, Lady Winifred came forward and said in her clear voice, “Their majesties have had sad tidings, my lords and ladies. I am sure nobody wishes to intrude upon their sorrow, so we will all go in to dinner, and allow them to meet the situation as they see fit.” And as the lords and ladies were dithering for the most advantageous way to respond to this news, Lady Winifred shot a meaning look at me over the princess’ head, and I took her to her room.

By the time we got there, she was bent almost double, and collapsed to her knees on the floor almost as soon as I was able to get the door shut. I pulled up the stool from her dressing table and she buried her face in my lap and sobbed.

“It isn’t fair,” was all she could say. “He was good. It isn’t fair.”

I stroked her hair until she stopped crying and her breath grew more even. “We haven’t yet heard what happened,” I said finally. “It may not be as bad as we think.”

But I had seen his servant’s face, and of course so had she. “What must they have done to him?” she cried. “What might they still be doing to him? I would rather think him dead.” And of course I could see her point.

Just then the queen came in. “Oh, good,” she said. “Winnie told me you had run out, and I hoped I would find you together.”

The princess threw herself at her mother, who caught her before she could say anything and gave her a little shake. “Now, then,” she said. “It is bad enough, but if you borrow trouble you’ll never get out of debt.”

We both chuckled dutifully at her joke, and then looked at her.

“He is still alive,” said the queen. “Or he was still alive when Dugin left. He was in prison, but there was a surgeon with him.”

We sighed with relief, but she held up her hand. “He needed a surgeon because he had lost a hand.”

We both made some sort of sound, and the queen nodded. “That was the bundle that Dugin gave to your father,” she said to the princess. “We have looked at it, and we are satisfied that there is no substitution. It had his signet ring on the index finger.”

The princess made a slight retching sound, and her mother went to the bed and hooked the chamber pot expertly out from underneath it with her foot. “Puke in there if you have to,” she said briskly. “Lynde looks steady enough; she will hold your hair.” This seemed to have an astringent effect, for the princess stood up straight and shook her head.

“I’m all right,” she said faintly. “Tell me what we are to do.”

“Good girl,” said the queen. “Now, Bleake sent no communication – except the hand, of course. Dugin was told nothing except ‘get out, go home and give this piece of carrion to your masters.’ Of course, we cannot regard this as anything but a harbinger of war, and we don’t know what Bleake may have got out of Rafe.”

“Nicholas would never tell them anything, no matter what they did to him,” the princess said hotly.

Her mother cocked an eyebrow at her. “You have never been tortured,” she observed. “He may have told them nothing, he may have told them the truth, he may have told them the wildest of lies. Suffice it to say that we don’t know. Given that, the difficulty of our task has become magnified: we have a certain amount of intelligence from Rafe, but we have no way of knowing how that intelligence has been compromised. The only way we can mount a defense and have any trust that it will be effectual is to start thinking like Bleake.”

The princess’s rosebud lip lifted in disgust and she made a flicking motion with her fingers as though to consign Bleake to the dung heap where he belonged.

“I know,” said the queen. “But one thing you have to learn about military tactics, my dear, is that it consists of much more than crosses on a map.”

So we are at war now, dearest Tom, and I have never felt more empty for you, and Father, and home. My place is here, and my task is crucial, but every blow I strike for the salvation of Bentlefay I strike for those I love. Please take great care in these troublous times, and know that you are ever dear to your own,

Lynde

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