Taniel (The Taverner's Daughter I)

22: Jarryd - Castle Stakkr

It was late in the afternoon when, exhausted, Rufus landed at Castle Stakkr between the outer wall and the thrashing sea. One of the guards pulled the gate open. Jarryd dismounted and Rufus, his mindpath locked, departed for Wizard Ritter's dragonhold on the mainland.

Jarryd started up the slippery stone stairs, hearing the bar on the gate thump home behind him. The chains of the portcullis rattled. His heart beat faster. He had come home without Taniel and now he had to deal with the consequences.

Wizard Ritter paced on the landing above, throwing anxious looks down at him.

Jarryd stumbled on the step, but righted himself on the shoulder-high balustrade. He was not in danger of catapulting over the edge, not from this level. Beyond the landing, narrow steps spiralled around the castle wall. There, a slip meant certain death.

He tripped again on the last step. Ritter snatched at his shoulder, righting him, his grip painful. His stepfather propelled him inside, pushing him against the wall. The door banged shut behind them.

"What happened?" Ritter yelled. "Rufus won't speak to me. You messed up with the boy, didn't you?"

He does not know, Jarryd thought.

"I didn't get a proper look at the dragonspeaker." Jarryd pushed himself off from the wall. "I nearly intercepted a woman, Sir." He straightened his jacket. "I didn't frighten her, or anything."

Ritter frowned. "Did you test her?"

"Of course not," Jarryd said, filling his voice with scorn. "She was a grown woman. Rufus is upset and I ran out of food." He shrugged. "I'll stay long enough to stock up. I'll go back after Rufus feeds."

He hoped he sounded truthful.

"That you will. Do not return without him, this time. I do not care if it takes a month. Mason says he has the latent power of a stage three wizard."

Jarryd's fists clenched. He sickened every time he thought of Ritter draining magic from an innocent. His stepfather trod a thin line, leaving only enough magic for carrying out dragonrider duties. On occasion, he misjudged.

Jarryd could not bear the thought of Taniel in danger. He could not bring her back here with him. If she had that much wild magic, Ritter would find a way past his vigilance.

"Jarryd! Where's the girl?" Mother's arrival snapped them both to attention.

"Girl?" Ritter said. "Olivia, a girl?"

"Girl?" Jarryd echoed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Wizard Ritter swung back to Jarryd. "You let her go."

"How was I to know? Bloody hell. I'm going to get something to eat. I'm starving." Jarryd stormed off to the kitchen, finding it easy to give Mother a filthy look as he shoved past.

"Wait," she said.

He ignored her. He was not interested in knowing why Mother had lied about the interception, if only by omission.

Ritter would care.

In the pantry, Jarryd stuffed bread and dried meat into his backpack. He hurried up the stairs to his bedroom.

Dax did not appear. Probably at the mainland dragonhold, Jarryd thought, helping the dragons train the apprenticed dragonriders in residence.

He grabbed a clean set of leathers and a towel.

His mother was outside his door, hand raised ready to knock, when he opened it to leave. "Jarryd, you will speak with me," she said.

"Not now, Mother. I stink."

Ignoring his mother calling after him, Jarryd ran down the stairs, finding Ritter and Katerine in earnest conversation. Though he wondered where the servant woman had been these past weeks, he did not want to waste time finding out. The pair watched him cross to the door at the head of the original staircase into the castle bowels.

Arriving at the bathing chamber, Jarryd shook a mage light into life. He stripped. Plunging into the pool, he gasped at the cold. Salt water stung the sweat from his skin. After wallowing for a good while, he reached for the sand bucket and scrubbed himself mercilessly.

He would smell sweeter when he next held Taniel.

Jarryd grinned, feeling confident that the excuses he had given his mother and Ritter rang true. All the same, when he returned to his rooms, he refused to admit Mother. She might see through his lies.

When his stepfather tried to speak to him, he pretended sleep, putting pressure on him to move quietly around the room as he packed.

He found an old backpack and shoved in his smelly leathers and spare boots. Any clothes he found, he tossed on to a tattered bedroll he had spread on the bed. He added the small chest holding his documents and savings.

For a long while, he stood at the door of his wardrobe, fingering his black leather robe. If Taniel had his child, and the afterbirth spell worked, he would be a wizard again.

He left the robe hanging and walked around the room, fingering possessions. He had a new life ahead and needed no reminders of this one.

Weapons.

He needed weapons. He pulled his hunting bow and arrow bag from hooks on the wall and collected his knives, snares, and fishing gear from the cupboard. Sighing, he knelt and peered under the bed, uncertain if he should the take his birthright with him.

He must, he supposed.

He dragged out the weathered sword box and added it to the growing pile on the bed. He rolled, tucked, and secured the bedroll with a length of rope. It was an awkward bundle, but it would do until he arrived at Skerby. He slung it across his back. When the weight seemed balanced, he tied it to his body.

Jarryd picked up his backpack on the way to the window.

Rufus hovered outside.

Ritter banged at the door with renewed shouts for entry.

Jarryd stepped out on to the narrow stair and swung the backpack over a neck spike. Snatching the handhold, his legs slid down the dragon's shoulders.

Noise exploded out the window, buffeting him sideways. Smoke choked him. Rufus circled over the sea, out of the wizard's sight.

Over his shoulder, Jarryd watched his rapidly dwindling home fade in the twilight. He should have said goodbye to Dax but he did not want to waste time at the dragonhold.

He wanted Taniel.

Donning his sleeping harness, Jarryd anticipated getting back to his betrothed earlier than he had hoped. It would be good to see her again. He liked her company.

His grin faded only when sleep took him.

***

10 March 2017 - replaced with revised scene (in a major departure from original, Jarryd does not bond with the sword)

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