Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [36]
“Yes, all right. Thank you,” Caelan said. He shot Farns a pleading look. “Just leave the key under my door,” he whispered. “No one has to know.”
But Farns shook his head. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but, no. It ain’t right. You got to think this through. There’s no rush.”
But Caelan knew he had little time. Farns’s idea of thinking things through was to sit through the entire winter until thaw. By then it would be too late.
He gripped Farns’s wrist. “Please. For me?”
Troubled, Farns met his eyes for a moment, then looked down. “I got to do what’s best,” he said with apology in his voice. “This ain’t right. You go and get your bath now. In the morning, things will look better.”
Disappointed, Caelan trudged away, passing Anya’s curious look without a word. In the morning, he would have less time than ever. His father wasn’t going to relent. As soon as Beva caught up on his work and tended the patients who had come during his brief absence, he would begin his meditation in preparation for the purification. Caelan figured he had three days, more or less, of grace before he was severed into a compliant creature, shuffling along to do Beva’s bidding like a simpleton.
The idea of it made Caelan shudder. He couldn’t endure that. Just because he had a gift didn’t mean Beva could dictate how he used it. Caelan didn’t care what tradition said about fathers having the right to say what their sons would or would not be. He wasn’t going to bow to this. He couldn’t.
A nameless hope in the back of his mind sustained him during his bath. When he was warm and clean and dry, he put the cover on the copper bathtub and hastened along to his room in his houserobe.
No key lay under his door.
His hope died. Old Farns’s soft heart was usually persuadable. But not, apparently, this time. Not even to save him from purification.
Caelan struggled to put away hard feelings toward Old Farns. The man couldn’t help if it he had to serve his master first. It was Beva who paid and housed him, Beva to whom he owed his allegiance.
That meant everything was up to Caelan himself. Without further hesitation, he took off his houserobe and got dressed again.
He waited until the house grew quiet and settled for the night. Crouched by the door, with the lamp turned out so his light wouldn’t shine beneath his door, Caelan heard his father’s footsteps go down the passage, and a few minutes later return. His father always checked all the windows and doors last thing at night to make sure they were all secure. When Beva’s door was shut, Caelan forced down his impatience and made himself wait another hour in the dark.
He yawned and grew sleepy, but angrily forced himself to stay awake. If he let fatigue rob him of this opportunity, he would be nothing more than a fool.
He knew his father meditated before sleep. Caelan wanted to take no risk of getting caught. So he rubbed his face and made his plans and fought his own weariness.
At last it was time. He drew on his cloak and eased from his room, taking care not to let his door hinges creak.
On silent feet he went down the dark passage like a ghost. In the kitchen he gazed around through the shadows until his eyes adjusted to the dim glow from the embers on the hearth. Everything was tidied and in its place. Old Farns kept his wood carving tools in a pinewood box beneath the wall bench.
Caelan opened the lid and took a mallet and two stout chisels. These he tucked in his pockets.
It was quickest to go down the passage leading past the servants’ quarters and exit through the door at the rear of the house. But that meant taking a risk of being heard.
Instead, Caelan made his way to the front of the house, walking stealthily through the cold receiving room where guests were greeted. The room had an austere, forbidding aspect to it. It had never been a welcoming room, not even when his mother was alive to place fresh flowers on the table.