Gentry

   The Witch spake not to me tho I cried out for a word. Let her curse me as readily as Hildegard, or mock me as Gawen did, if only she would speak. She left me to be torn between them like a bone twixt two dogs. In her silence, ’twas the black knight who counseled me.

“Speak not what might harm Lady Zhorzha,” he said. “If thou art in truth her champion, hold thy tongue.”

Tho my mind was confused, I heeded him, and spake only those things that had been wrought by mine own hand, and what I knew of Sir Edrard’s courage. For he could no more suffer the consequences, and I would have it known that he was true and valiant to the last. Of Lady Zhorzha, Master Dirk, and Sir Alva, I was silent. Many a time, I told the ilk tale of my journey to Arkansas, first to the sheriff’s men, then to Mansur, then to the lady Howell, my father, and my mother. I was heartsore to distress her and recalled my father’s words when I was a boy. If I would be noble, he said, I must strive to do her honor.

Certs, to give her grief was dishonor, and I knew she grieved when I would not do as she asked. She bade me say I knew not what I did, that I was ill, for then the court would send me to some safe place. I might have done it, ere I read how I could be kept there and physicked beyond my wish. As ever, she desired to protect me, but I accorded not with her desire. My mother went from me in tears, and I could offer her no comfort.

In truth, I was glad when they had gone, and I was returned to my cell, where there was what silence I could have. I made my prayers to appease Hildegard, and I told tales to soothe Gawen. Sleep would not come in that room where the window was no more than an archer’s loophole, but there weren hours enough to exercise myself. I passed many weeks thus, and each week the lady Howell came with my father, or my mother, for they could not often come together, and leave Elana and Trang with my aunt. It shamed me that I was such a burden unto them, and I bade them not surrender so much for me. ’Twas also that I wished to speak alone with the lady Howell, for she was mine advocate and not my mother’s. It liked her not, but she came as I asked, and soon I made her know my intent.

I would not plead to be locked away safe for some unnumbered years, but to spare my father and mother, I would plead. For I did those deeds by mine own hand, and by pleading, I would free myself sooner. The lady Howell spake with the prosecutor, and returned to tell me what he offered. If I vouched my guilt for slaying Paul Scanlon, I should serve no more than five years.

That week ’twas my mother that visited, and she was wroth with the lady Howell, and with me, and with God, methought, for she cursed us all.

“Lord, don’t test me! I won’t allow you to do this!” she cried out with fierce feeling. I knew it well, for oft she had turned it upon me when I was a stubborn boy.

“Mrs. Frank, honestly, this is a good offer,” said the lady Howell. “He’ll probably only serve two to three years. At the rate things are going, he won’t even go to trial for another eighteen months.”

“I don’t care. He cannot go to prison. Do you hear me, Gentry? You’re not taking this plea deal.”

“My mother, I hear thee, but prison be not Battle of the Nations,” I said. “Thou canst not forbid me go, as thou didst then.”

I readied myself for her wrath, but she wept, and still I could not give her what she longed for. After some while, she drew from her purse her kerchief and dried her eyes. When she laid her hand upon the table, I gave her mine.

“Gentry, please, listen to me,” she said, and her voice in its hoarseness reminded me of the lady dragon. “I know you take what the Witch says very seriously, and I understand why, but you can’t trust her to help you make decisions like this. She doesn’t know any more than you do. She’s not psychic.”

“Sooth, I know it. My mother, rememberest thou when first the voices spake to me?”

“Of course, I remember.”

“And I was frighted, for I knew them not. And thou said, Fear not. They aren part of thee. They aren thy voice. I say to thee, it is so. If I rely upon the Witch’s wisdom, ’tis myself I rely upon. This is my choosing.”

I told her not that the Witch was silent. She spake not to me since I broke my vow to protect Lady Zhorzha. ’Twas I alone that chose this path, the sooner to be free.

Tho til the last, my mother tried to sway me from it, I made my plea. I went before the judge, and there I swore a true confession of what crimes I committed. My lord asked, kenned I my plea and felt I remorse for what I had done? I assented I did, tho in truth I thought my crimes not very horrible.

At last, I was delivered to the place of my servitude, where I was put into a barber’s chair still shackled. The first cold dread crept into my belly when the clippers with their gnashing metal teeth were put to my head. Tho I longed to be brave and stoic, I was not. I cried out like a small boy, like the small boy I had been when the therapist would do what she called desensitizing. I never could be made insensible, for ’twas not a battle to be fought, but a torment to be endured. My gaoler called for another to restrain me, and they scorned against me, as I was put to the blades.

The place was called Malvern, a name that struck fear into my heart. Malvern cometh of the Welsh moel bryn, meaning a bald hill, and in my mind I saw Bryn Carreg, its stones tumbled down to strip the hill bare. I saw my dreams turned to rubble and dust.

CHAPTER 52

Zee

   The City of Wichita used a Bobcat to clear Mom’s front yard, while she stood on the porch, screaming and crying. When they were done, there were no waterlogged china cabinets, no boxes, no books, not even any grass left. Just a patch of dirt with a few broken bits of china here and there.

Mom didn’t speak to me for a month.

I went back to waiting tables at the Cantonese place, and I picked up some shifts at a biker bar, where I got my ass grabbed ten times a night. With both of those, I could keep Mom and me afloat without dipping into the money from Uncle Alva. I moved that, a hundred a week, into a savings account for Marcus. Not enough to make anybody suspicious, but it would add up to fifty thousand dollars by the time he was eighteen.

I hired a lawyer, who took my retainer in cash and started filing paperwork to get me visitation with Marcus. Because the Gills and I were all nonparental relatives, the lawyer thought I had a good chance.

I rented a house off Craigslist. A little run-down bungalow on Seneca with scuffed wood floors, a pink-tile bathroom, and a fenced yard for Leon. I furnished it with a bed, a dresser, and a coffeemaker. When I wasn’t working or sleeping, I laid in bed and read, so that was all the furniture I needed. I wondered if this was what prison was like. It was what I deserved.

I still had Gentry’s Yvain book, but I put it away after I got to the part where Yvain overstayed his year and a day, just like I knew he would. Laudine had given him a magical ring to protect him, but she sent a servant to get the ring, and to tell Yvain not to come back. After he realized how badly he’d screwed up, Yvain wandered off into the woods like a crazy person. A whirlwind broke loose in his brain, so violent that he went insane. If I let myself think too much about what I’d done, I might go insane. He hated himself above all else, the book said, and that was how I felt. I drank too much and smoked too much, trying not to think about it.