When I got back to Rosalinda, she was sitting on the ledge, staring out at the horizon.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t remember if I’d told her that. “It’s my fault what happened to Edrard, and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you.” I wasn’t expecting her to say that, and she didn’t sound angry. “The thing is, Gentry would have followed you to the ends of the earth. Edrard couldn’t even be bothered to help with the housework. What he did, that wasn’t because of you. He did it for Gentry, for brotherhood. Maybe it was stupid, but it was also incredibly brave.”

We walked back to the car without talking. I popped the trunk to get my purse and, while the trunk was open, I uprooted the FOR SALE sign and put it in. Then we got on the road to Wichita.

“Would it help if you had your own phone?” I said, after we’d been driving for a while. Now that I’d thought about the FOR SALE sign for thirty miles, I was ready to think about something else. “I could get a phone for you on my plan for like fifty bucks a month.”

“Why would you get a phone for me?” She looked at me like I’d invited her to join a coven of lesbians.

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m just saying, would it help you? With your Etsy store? Not having to count on your brother for so much. Because it’s not that expensive. I can afford that.”

“Seven,” she said. We were up to seven hawks on the drive back. She was quiet for probably ten minutes, until she said, “I could pay you back eventually.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not a loan.”

“That’s a lot of money for you to just give me.”

“Let’s say a year,” I said. “We’ll do it for a year, and either you’ll be able to afford it yourself next year, or we’ll work something else out.”

A year was only six hundred bucks. It wasn’t a lot of money, and it didn’t do a thing to make me less sad about Edrard, but at least I was doing something useful for somebody. When we got to town, we went by the Verizon store and she picked out a phone. With taxes, it was forty-eight dollars a month. The same as it had been when LaReigne and I had a phone plan together. Mine was the first number that went into Rosalinda’s phone.

“If you need anything, you can call me. Like if you need a ride to the post office. Or whatever,” I said, when I pulled up to her folks’ house to drop her off.

“Okay.”

I was relieved that she didn’t say thank you, because she didn’t owe me anything. It wasn’t charity.

“Why did you take the FOR SALE sign?” she said.

“Because it’s not for sale.” Some things weren’t for sale.

CHAPTER 57

Gentry

   My cellmate was called Nate, and upon our meeting he was quick to make jest of me.

“Shit, we got Prince Valiant up in here,” he said, when first I spake to him.

I took it not amiss, for his hands weren open and he rose to greet me, not to oppose me. Sooth, Nate and I weren well matched. He minded not that I paced, and I minded not that he snored. ’Twas no worse than to share a room with Trang.

Malvern was a place of small chambers and smaller windows, but after some weeks, I began to think I needlessly borrowed the Witch’s superstition over the name. Among what was called general population, there was the yard, there was daylight, there was chapel on Sundays, and Nate would hear tales and tell them also, so we might while away our time of penance. I wrote letters that my family might know I thought of them. I would write to Lady Zhorzha, but I knew not where my letters would find her, nor whether they would be welcomed. To my great shame, I remembered not her words on parting. Nor mine own.

There weren some queds and knaves who would offer me offense, but they frighted me not. I would meet a push with a push and a blow with a blow.

When I had been there nigh a month, Nate was called to take physic for a tooth that troubled him, and I remained alone. Two men came to the open door of the cell and demanded I know not what, for I was speaking with Gawen and heard them not. Seeing how the first man drew his elbow close to his body, I sat up, for I knew he meant to strike me. Were he quicker he might have done so.

He swung, keen to land his blow when I was unready, but I grasped his hand and, pulling him with it, laid him upon the floor. He rose and made to strike me again, but ’twas much diminished and landed upon my shoulder. I meant to end the skirmish as quick as I might, and struck my elbow upon his throat with some force. He fell prostrate and the other man, who by a venture had come to fight me also, instead bore his friend up and retreated.

“I heard some of those Aryan boys got it in for you,” Nate said upon his return, when he learned what had betiden. “Dude named Scanlon saying you killed a blood relation of his. That true?”

“Mayhap. For my brother and I fought and slew three men that weren numbered among those who call themselves Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. One was called Scanlon.”

“You for real killed you some KKK motherfuckers? Shit, I guess that makes you an honorary nigga around here.”

Sooth, I was sore in need of a friend in that place, and Nate seemed to me an honorable man. His crime was the manufacture and sale of a controlled substance, for which he served a sentence longer than mine own, but he was ne a man of violence ne a liar. I was alone in that place, but he took me in among his brethren, and invited me to sup with them. In the yard, they kept their own place, where they lifted weights and played at cards. When I slept in the sun, I was safe among them, but ’twas Nate’s certainty that Scanlon would seek to fight me again.

“Dude come at you, figured you for an easy mark,” Nate said. “He won’t make that mistake again. Next time, he’ll come around with a couple bigger dudes. Killers.”

“I am trained in melee combat,” I said.

“You understand,” said Vernon, he that was first among Nate’s brothers. “We can’t buck for you, man. Not at this juncture. If it turned into a brawl, the warden would come down on us. Nothing personal, but you gotta fight this one yourself.”

“Nay, I ask it not of you. Ye musten guard yourselves.”

“You, too, my man. You gotta keep your head on a swivel,” Nate said.

“Certs. The black knight be ever vigilant.”

“Shit. The black knight.” Vernon was not alone in his laughter, for Nate and his brothers weren much amused that I carried the black knight with me.

Later, when we awaited lights out, Nate returned to the matter of Scanlon.

“You can’t let him off easy next time. None of that chivalry shit. When those Aryans come for you again, whoever comes for you, you gotta give them a real beatdown. Knock they teeth in. You go for blood, so they don’t mess with you again,” he said.