Sunset Rubies

A plead for Help

Once they were safely in the next room, Claire whirled on him. “How did you find us? Why ask for me? If you had any sense in that brain of yours, you would know that I never wanted to lay eyes on you again.”

“C…”

“Did you lead an army here? Have you told anyone about our location?”

“Claire, no one is here. Your village is safe. I promise.” She took a deep breath and looked in his eyes. She wanted to kick herself. She knew he would never bring an army here. Despite the fact that he had lied to her, he had still done all that he could to protect her. She forced herself to remember Keith’s counsel. Though part of her struggled to trust him, she did know he’d earned his right to explain himself.

“To answer your questions, I would never lead an army here. I knew how to find the village because Marcel gave me directions. I asked for you because you are the only one I wanted to see.” She ignored the last part, not entirely trusting herself to hear the sweetness in his words. Not until she had all her answers.

“Look Claire, I’ll explain everything, but you have to promise to listen to me!”

“I’m listening,” she said, sitting on a stool and crossing her legs.

“Claire, we have nowhere to go,” he said, sitting beside her and placing a hand on her arm. She resisted the reflex to pull away. “When he finds us, he’ll take the kids again and knowing him, he’ll do worse to them the second time. He’ll hurt them, C. He might even kill them.”

She peered into his eyes, trying to detect any lies. All she saw was nervousness. She exhaled loudly. “I’m listening.”

“Oh, where to begin.” He sighed in relief, and released her arm which she folded across her chest. “Best from the beginning, I guess. Leishmann married my mother when she was very young. She was the daughter of a sacred family. She learned…”

“I know the history!” Claire declared. He blinked in surprise, but nodded and continued.

“My father has always been, I don’t know. There’s something about him...” he paused. “I used to hide when he came around, even though he never raised a hand to me. He just scared the crap out of me. I think he blamed my mother for my fears. He beat her, Claire. I never could understand what she did wrong. She was so kind and good.

“I would hide in the passage connecting my room to hers, and I could hear it. But I was so small, I couldn’t protect her. I was too afraid. I hid long after they finished fighting because my mother’s tears scared me more than my father’s anger. I remember this one time...” He paused, running his hands through his hair. When he looked into her eyes she could feel the weight of his sadness.

“She told me I was going to be a brother. Leishmann had been away on a conquest for weeks. When he returned her pregnancy angered him. He claimed she had been unfaithful. He beat her so badly that she lost the baby. My mother had never been unfaithful in her life.”

“Cal, I’m so sorry.” She raised her hand to comfort him, but pulled back before she made contact. He reached for her hand.

“Please don’t pull away from me,” he said, drawing her fingers to his cheek. His eyes closed momentarily and she watched as he took comfort and strength from her. It surprised her that he needed either one. He didn’t release her hand when his eyes opened, but settled their entwined fingers on the counter.

“After the miscarriage she couldn’t get pregnant again. My father hated her for it even though it was his fault. When I was eight my mother told me everything, though I was too young to understand all of it. She said that father had tricked her into marrying him and that he betrayed her with her sister. She told me that I had an older sister who was still living, and an older brother who died in childbirth.” He paused as the memories danced in his mind.

“What was her name?”

“My mothers?”

“No your sisters.” A strange sadness filled his eyes. If possible his loss seemed even deeper. Claire wondered if the sister had died as well, but the pain in his eyes prevented her from asking. “You don’t have to answer that, I can see it’s too painful. We can talk about her another time.” Relief washed over his features. He gave her a small smile of gratitude then proceeded with his story.

“My mother made me promise never to be like Leishmann. She told me I had good in me and that someday it would help me defeat my father. She told me about The Prophecy and about you and made me promise to find and protect you from him. Listen to the rest please?”

He raised a finger to her lip to stifle her rising protest and looked at her pleadingly. Claire huffed, but nodded. His finger drew a lingering trail to her chin and she realized that he had effectively distracted her from whatever exclamation she was about to make.

“The next morning my mother was found dead in her bedchamber. She’d hung herself sometime during the night. My father was so furious he beat me for the first time in my life, blaming me for some twisted reason…A few days later I was given my first blade and entered into a specialized function of his military that required the harshest training.

“When I was thirteen he was re-married to a girl he’d taken from a conquered village. She had Jamerico, Midlyn, and Lilith, but died giving birth to Lilith. His wife had been kind to me and I swore to her on her deathbed that I would take the children and keep them safe.

“Leishmann was too quick. He sent them away and used threats over them to keep my sister and me under control. She wants only Lilith for some reason, but I don’t trust her enough to think her intentions are good. It’s been a race to find them before she has the chance.” Claire’s suspicion had been wrong. The sister lived, but who was she? She wanted to ask, but only moments before she had told him there was no need to have that talk at this time. No, she decided, she would wait until he was ready. She pulled herself from her thoughts and refocused on what Cal was saying.

“For two years I did everything in my power to be the son Leishmann wanted in hopes he would allow me to have the children-- or that I could find some sort of clue that would lead me to them. Then one day he asked me to search for you and sent me off on my own. It was….exhilarating, being free. I thought I’d just abandon him and search for the kids. That’s when I found Marcel.

“I thought Leishmann had killed her when he attacked your father’s village, but she had escaped. She told me about you, your brothers, and the cave. She asked me to search for you in Tyrell. We both knew I would never find the children on my own, and that my movements were so closely monitored that they’d be relocated if I came within a hundred miles of them.

“We staged Marcel’s capture and I gave her to my father as a gift. Those types of gifts are the only things that please him… Marcel was certain that as his prisoner she could find my brother and sister’s location, but if not then hopefully her capture would put me in good enough graces that my father would give them to me upon my return from Tyrell. We never doubted that Marcel could escape.

“It took me months of searching to find you,” he chuckled, stroking his thumb along the back of her hand. “Isn’t it strange how a year in Tyrell is such a short time in Danyon? Do you realize in the eighteen years you were gone, only three years had passed in here?” He smiled at the oddity.

“Sorry, back to my story. I had been searching for a small child. When I found you….I was mesmerized. It was brilliant how your brothers dyed your hair, but it was your battle at the fair that made your identity obvious.

“I sent word to Marcel immediately and waited for her to make her escape and come to you. I should have left then, but I enjoyed spending time with you.” Her heart fluttered at his endearing words and boyish grin that momentarily interrupted the somber tone of his tale. He lifted her fingertips to kiss them before she could protest and then continued his story when the protest never came.

“Unfortunately, my message leaked to Leishmann. That’s how he discovered where you were. Luckily, he believed the message was originally meant for him and didn’t suspect betrayal. Otherwise he would have had me killed on the spot, heir or not.

“The night I came over…Leishmann’s leach of a General had given orders to attack your home. Claire, I swear I had no idea the attack would happen.” He looked intently into her eyes and squeezed her hands, begging her to believe this even if she could not bring herself to believe anything else. She reassuringly moved her thumb over his knuckle.

“When the attack came and Keith tried to grab me and have me follow your escape I told him who I was. I told him I would try to stall to give you more time to get to safety. I ran to stop the troops and he followed you and Mark up the stairs.

“When things calmed down the General was just as surprised to see me as I was him. I told him he’d interrupted a sensitive information gathering mission and returned with him to Leishmann’s camp. I had the general punished for his insubordination of launching an attack without my permission and began making plans to pull the small army of men out of Tyrell.

By that time I thought you were safe and back in Danyon until the day you tried to rescue me. I had to chase after you or the men would have been suspicious. When your brother hit me with the knife everyone forgot about you. Apparently, they thought Leishmann would be angrier if they lost his son than if they lost you. They were wrong. Those that were with me suffered because of it. The fact that you were caught within the hour is the only thing that saved their lives.

“I tried to protect you from Leishmann’s wrath. If you hadn’t been so determined to test every nerve Leishmann had, I might have succeeded,” he raised an eyebrow at her wryly and her face flushed with embarrassment. She hadn’t thought to back down from that fight, and she hadn’t hid from provoking him. Only now could see the recklessness of it in hindsight. When her eyes lifted to meet his she noticed how Cal’s simmered with passionate rage.

“The night he beat you I could have killed him. Had you died, I would have!

“Fortunately, I still had the Meekoberry Root--which worked amazingly fast on you, by the way. I still wish I could have given you the rest you needed, Marcel was upset about that. At that point the best option I could see to keep you be safe was to claim you as my bride to be. Leishmann appreciates forced marriages after all, and I convinced him that the union would be enough to stop the rebellion.

“Marcel found me while I was…well…relieving myself. It was the only time I had been alone since your capture. It was quite the surprise to see her there when I turned around.” He gave a small laugh at the memory. Claire couldn’t help the twitch of her own lips imagining the scene. He savored her smile before continuing.

“We made a plan to get you out of camp. That night I snuck into your tent and drugged you. I carried you out of camp and put you on a horse with Marcel. My heart had never raced as fast as it did watching you being carried out of sight. I was afraid that any minute the guards would raise the call of your escape. Luckily, no one realized you were gone until the next morning, and by then I was confident that you were safe.

“What happened next?” Claire asked, her voice barely carrying over the sounds of the Inn.

“Leishmann was in a rage, of course. Your watchman was questioned, tortured, and then killed once we got home. He was suspected of letting you escape--I felt bad about that, but it couldn’t be avoided.” Claire flinched at this. She hadn’t particularly liked her stony faced bodyguard, but it was still a shock to realize that he was dead because of her. Cal had become so lost in his story that he didn’t notice her distress.

“I helped comb the forest for you knowing you wouldn’t be there and then continued the goose chase once we returned to Danyon. Then, about three weeks ago this man approaches me in a tavern and says he has a message for me. He takes me out back, hands me a paper, and disappears. Literally, one minute he was standing there, the next poof, he was gone.

“The page contained a map with a starting point exactly where I was standing. It marked two locations; where I would find my siblings, and where I would find a woman with long white hair. I knew I’d end up here, with you. The moment I finished reading it, it burst into flame.

“I found the children in a rundown shack and you’ve already seen their condition-- even after the steady meals I’ve given them over the last two weeks. They had Jamerico laboring in the fields and the girls were the wife’s personal slaves.” His eyes darkened and she could feel an echo of his outrage inside herself. This time she was the one to squeeze his hand, her anger at him almost completely dissolved. “I rescued them and came here. I have no doubt by now Leishmann knows I took them. If he finds us he will take them away again to keep me under control. He won’t chance losing power over me when his kingdom is in jeopardy because of a half pint like you.”

“I will help you take care of them and so will my brothers,” Claire promised. “They can move into the cabin with us. My brothers just built on a spare room that would give them plenty of space. You and my brothers will have to sleep outside, but we will make it work. We will make sure he never finds them…”

“You’ll help me? After all you thought I was? Claire, thank you.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. She could see his relief at her acceptance and the pain of reliving so many horrific events from his life. She was compelled to reach out to him, comfort him, and even protect him from the hurt. She shook her head. She was feeling too many things too fast. She needed to slow down so she could actually think. She tugged her hand free and turned on the stool so he couldn’t reclaim it.

“I’m doing this for the three little children in there. I know now why you did what you did, but it I still need time to process. I’ll help you, but please don’t expect more from me than that.”

Cal straightened his back, cleared his throat, and nodded. “Thank you, Claire,” he said softly. She stood and walked back into the dining room, missing the light smile and the whispered, “But it’s a start. I will win your heart again.”