Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [58]
His home. Caelan found his eyes stinging, and he struggled not to let his emotions get away from him. For once he wished he could take refuge in severance like his father. Then it wouldn’t hurt like this.
Picking up a handful of snow, he pressed the wet stuff against his jaw. The cold numbed the pain, giving him relief, but he saw blood drip through his fingers and run down his wrist.
The Thyzarenes chattered and laughed among themselves as they came and went purposefully. They dragged out bulging tarps, which were flung on the ground. Looted contents spilled out for inspection.
They left nothing in the hold unexamined. Clothing, scrolls, herb jars were all rifled. The cooking pots were brought out. The barrels of food stores. Spoons, cloak pins, shaving razors, writing ink, chairs, even the beds were dragged about and scattered. The raiders pawed through the items, selecting and rejecting with grunts and arguments.
Helpless and enraged, Caelan watched them. This was a violation such as he had never known. Home had always been a place of security, of absolute and utter safety. He kept looking at the destroyed ruins, and he couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Imperial auxiliaries were not supposed to kill and pillage imperial citizens. How could the army commanders have turned these barbarians loose on the populace?
Caelan found himself confused, resentful, and angry. For the first time, his belief in imperial right was shaken. He prayed the gods would strike these savages down, but the heavens remained calm and uncaring above him. Were the Thyzarenes merely robbers, it would be bad enough, but they destroyed what they did not want with brutal callousness.
Beva’s earnings chest and strongbox were both found and dragged outside, the men sweating to carry them. Locks were shattered with hammer and chisel and the lids flung back. Parchment scrolls—the deeds to this land—were ripped and flung to the winds. It was the coinage that made the raiders cry out in delight and crowd around.
Their leader drove them back with fierce commands; then he alone crouched over the chests, sifting the glinting coins through his fingers.
Within the strongbox was a small casket of rosewood similar to the one in Caelan’s room. Its contents held a few baubles—an amber necklace, a ring, and a few hair jewels that winked in the fading sunlight.
Caelan kicked at the netting. “Those were my mother’s, you dogs! You can’t have them. They’re for—”
A kick in his ribs shut him up. He collapsed in the snow, hurting and trying not to cry. The other prisoners looked away in sympathy, except for Beva.
When Caelan finally sat up, wincing, he saw his father’s emotionless gaze on him.
“Father—”
“You, quiet!” It was the Thyzarene who had captured him. He cuffed Caelan’s head and glared at him. “No talk.”
Caelan glared back, but he made no further effort to talk to his father. Beva was a man of stone. He probably didn’t even care what was happening. After all, he had severance to console him.
The jewels vanished quickly, shared out and tucked into the belts of the few who were favored. The man who had captured Caelan was one of the recipients. He glanced at Caelan and grinned with a flash of white teeth in his beard.
Beva’s medicines were sniffed and poured out. Then the jars and bottles were smashed. Caelan could see his father’s lantern still hanging over the gate, unlit and forlorn. The sign of a healer was supposed to be respected by thieves. Now it hung over the looters as a symbol of Beva’s futile trust in decency and mercy.
Would it have made a difference if the holdspeople had had weapons with which to defend themselves? Probably not.
Caelan scowled to himself and pulled up his knees against his chest. He wanted to scream, and kick, and fight—anything except sit here and take what was happening.
Then they came and surrounded the prisoners. Raul drew in his breath with an audible hiss. Gunder was trembling, his eyes darting back