The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [139]
Slightly indignant, I told him we were perfectly able to look after ourselves. Changing the subject, I asked why I had been locked up at the inn. “Your parents told us to mention your name. I didn’t reckon on such an unfriendly reception,” I said resentfully. Brydda only laughed and gave me a slap on the back that winded me.
“Much has happened since I last spoke to my parents. I was betrayed by one of my men. Once I could go to and from the inn openly, an ordinary seaman, but now I am known to be the notorious seditioner they call the Black Dog. You are lucky I had friends keeping an eye out at the inn for the messenger I mistook you for. Once she comes, I will leave Aborium. I dared not send word to my parents while I am here, because I was afraid of having their connection with me exposed. But I am glad to hear they are safe.”
“Those soldierguards at the gate,” I said in sudden realization. “It was you they were looking for.”
He nodded. “The Council would like to catch me, and so would the Herder Faction. But I will slip through their fingers like snow during the moon fair.”
“Where will you go?” I said unthinkingly.
Brydda looked at me for a long moment. “Few would expect an honest answer to such a question. But I believe I can trust you. Does it seem strange to you that a wanted man trusts his instinct over caution?” He smiled when I did not answer. “I have a kind of infallible knack for judging people.”
“Yet you say you were betrayed …”
He nodded grimly. “By a man I loved like a brother. But I did not misjudge him. He was tortured and made to speak, and there will be a payment for that. Come, tell me the truth. Are you not a seditioner or a runaway yourself, that my mother should tell you my secrets?”
I stared at him in fright.
“I told you. I have a knack at guessing. But don’t look so unnerved. It makes us allies, not enemies,” he said.
I nodded, shaken, entertaining an odd notion about this uncanny “knack” of his. “My parents were burned by the Council as seditioners, and my brother was killed by soldierguards,” I said.
Brydda nodded triumphantly. “I thought as much, though I think there is more to your story than that. But it is enough to know we fight the same fight. It is my aim to rid this land of the Herder Faction and its tyranny. I have many allies who think as I do, and for now we oppose the Herders in a thousand small ways. But the time is not too distant when we will challenge them openly.”
I was filled with excitement, for his words were almost identical to Rushton’s, except Brydda seemed to think the Herder Faction worse than the Council.
He continued. “The message I wait for is to ensure there are no Herders waiting for me in Sutrium. It is too dangerous for me here now, so I will go elsewhere and harass them anew. Sutrium. They will not expect me to be so bold.”
Reuvan came in, grim-faced. He bent and spoke into Brydda’s ear.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Your friends are gone,” Reuvan said.
I sighed in relief. “They will have gone outside the city when I didn’t come back. That was what we planned.”
Brydda said, “Reuvan means they have been taken prisoner. I have allies who let me know who has been taken by the Herders and the soldierguards. It seems your friends were among today’s intake.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Rumor says the boy was a runaway Herder novice,” Brydda went on.
“No!” I whispered in horror. “Where have they been taken? Who has them?”
“The Herders,” Reuvan said. “They’ll have been taken to the cloister for interrogation.”
“I have to help them,” I cried.
Reuvan shook his head. “No one escapes the cloister cells. There are priests everywhere and killer dogs. And the place is built like a labyrinth.”
Brydda scratched his head. “Only a madman would attempt such an impossible rescue.”
There was a commotion at the door, and a girl entered. Weary and travel stained, she half staggered into a chair. “You are the messenger?” Brydda asked.
The girl nodded. “Sutrium and all the