OMG! I'm sooooo, sooooo sorry for the wait! First I was grounded, and then Hurricane Isabel came by, and now I'm grounded again! Only right now I'm saying this is "Homework". Heh…neways, no new reviews so I don't think anyone missed it much. If you did I'm sorry again.
~Chapter 5~ Questions Half Answered
"Lenora?" Lenora's head jerked up to see Rhine standing in the doorframe. The younger girl looked worried about her. That was the one thing that made Lenora sometimes hate her little sister. The girl was sooooo nice. "Father wants you…" Rhine started. She crouched and said in a whisper, "he's with some Rags." Rhine had met Rags some time ago; it was a credit to her that she still remembered the thief's name. Her older sister nodded.
"I know," Lenora said thinking of a way to explain what she knew. "It seems complicated, I'm not entirely sure what's going on." She nearly laughed. ENTIRELY? I'm not at all sure what's happening, she reflected.
"Well, father's calling you, so he might want to tell you," Rhine said, ever sensible. Lenora bobbed her head up and down again.
"That would make sense." She stood and hugged Rhine. "Please don't tell mother." She left, sauntering out of the room like a queen. Rhine sighed. And please, please don't forget to tell me what happens, she thought despairingly. She'd once been jealous of Lenora, the prettier daughter, the one father actually liked. But Lenora wasn't that bad, and didn't deserve Rhine's spite. For all she knew, Lenora had never even noticed how their father favored her. She sighed again and lay down on the floor. With luck, she might hear the words spoken below.
Hehe, Rhine's an eavesdropper too! Must be a family thing. And now back to the show…
Meanwhile, Lenora skipped to the store part of her home. She was now positive that her father would explain everything to her. Rhine was smart, certainly smarter than she was. She paused outside of the store for a moment.
"—was it?"
"Riyan, Snatch, the whole crew mostly."
"How did…"
"They just did. They came, and they took everyone."
"Calm down. We can't do anything 'bout it, you know. It would ruin everything."
"Blast everything. It's already good and ruined anyway."
"No…not really…send someone…into the workroom."
Lenora pondered what they'd been talking about. Something had happened to her friends obviously. Something really bad, or else Rags would never have started crying. Rags had said something about them being taken. The Lord Provost maybe? Only none of Lenora's friends were that famous as thieves. They were just common street thieves. Rags was one of the best of them, and she was as poor as any other urchin. And where were they sending someone? And why? Maybe they'll tell me.
With that thought in her mind, she entered the store and looked around. Her father beckoned to her from the doorway of his workroom. She nearly ran across to him in excitement. Rags was sitting on the only chair. She looked better, though it was plain that she'd been crying hard. Lenora's father, Holdden, closed the door and locked it.
Her first question tumbled out of the girl's lips. "What happened?" She was angry suddenly, angry that her father had done anything dangerous without telling someone in the family. He might have told mother, she thought suddenly. She is his wife. Suddenly she felt ashamed. Why had she expected that if he told anyone, it would be her? She forgot that questions she'd been dying to ask. Now she was bursting with tears, suddenly guilty about something. Her father didn't seem to notice that something was wrong.
"Rags and her crew got attacked by some people. They were taken, all except Rags, and maybe some others." Holdden nodded towards Rags. "Luckily she saw you before you got any closer." He smiled at her warmly, and her guilt disappeared. If her father wasn't mad at her, than what was she doing being mad at herself? "They've seen a merchant kid with them, and if you'd shown up it would have made matters worse."
"But, why? Why were they attacked? They'll be all right, right?" She looked so hopeful, that her father almost declined to answer.
"We don't really know. We know why they were attacked. They got in some trouble yesterday night. But we aren't sure if they'll be hurt or not." Lenora bit her lip in thought.
"Yesterday. Yesterday you came in with your leg wounded. When I came in to get your dinner. You're not a thief, are you?" She looked alarmed. Her father a thief? She liked the thieves she knew, but having a pickpocket for a relative was something she'd rather do without. Her father looked aggrieved.
"Well, no, not exactly. Selective stealing, you might call it." He grinned. Rags laughed harshly.
"That is once way of putting it," she said with a half grin. "And it even managed to be fun till now." The grin turned to an icy smile. "Get to the point Holdden." Holdden looked surprised at the ferocity of Rag's request.
"Rags and everyone got attacked because of me," he said simply. "It was my idea." He sighed heavily. "Look, it wasn't meant to get this bad." He was apologizing, Lenora realized, to Rags. Rags shrugged. After a long pause Holdden went on. "Well, it was my idea," he repeated. He was floundering. Rags looked utterly disgusted.
"Wasn't meant to get this bad?" she asked sardonically. "What, you expected helping to kill that damn noble would do good?" Her face was white with anger and had Holdden not been twice her size, she would have hit him. Lenora gasped, and Holdden groaned before Rags realized what she'd done. She smiled. "Whoops."
"Why would you want to do that?" Lenora shook her head trying to understand. "Kill somebody, I mean." My father? A murderer? And a thief? And a tailor? Rather wish he'd make up his mind…
Holdden grimaced. "You'll hate me for this, right? It started out; He was just paying us to take things from one or another noble. And then it was blackmailing them into giving us money. A while ago He said we ought to kill one of the squires. Said the squire was plotting to murder the king." Lenora shook her head mutely. "So last night we tried. Didn't go so well, so we ran away." He glanced over at Rags. "I swear, I never thought anyone had followed us."
"You never do think do you? You never thought once about the danger we'd be in if we got into this! You promised me that it was risk free! Oh, don't get me wrong. The whole group loved stealing! We loved how we were making a profit for once. But you should have, oh, I don't know. You should have let us back out. None of us wanted to kill anyone." She was hysterical, Lenora noted in the part of her brain that was not paralyzed with shock. The normal Rags would never have gotten this emotional.
"You're right." Holdden said soothingly. "It's my fault, I know that. But we can't back out now. Don't you get it?" He sighed. "Look, He said we had to. He knows what we've all done. He knows our names. He blackmailed us," he admitted.
"Shut up." Rags whispered. "Just don't talk. I hate you." She clenched her fists, the knuckles turning white. They were silent for a while. Lenora could barely breathe. This was too much. She'd never been mad at her father in her life. And now she had a reason to hate, even fear, him. She couldn't, of course. Even as she realized that he'd put his whole family at risk for the thrill of going against the law, she knew that she loved him more than anyone else in her family. And she could understand him. She could understand perfectly how they'd gotten stuck in this position. Rags shifted, and Lenora glanced at her. This is insane. How can everyone have gotten caught so easily? They're thieves, they know that city better than most. They should have been able to get away.
"So what are we going to do?" Rags asked. Her anger seemed to have subsided for now. "I see it now. We do have to finish this. Unless He already betrayed us."
"He didn't. We got caught because someone saw us running away. He hasn't done anything yet. But I bet He can arrange to get them out." Holdden frowned. "I don't know if He would though." Rags scowled.
"He wouldn't. He already blackmailed us. What reason does He have to help us?"
"Who is this He anyway?" Lenora asked, her patience beginning to thin.
"He's…well, He's a noble I think. He never told us his name." Holdden shrugged. "Guess it was stupid not to think that was suspicious."
"So he's a traitor. And you are too." Lenora sighed. "Did you tell mother?" Her father looked skeptical.
"What do you think?" He frowned. "Maybe I should."
"She thinks you don't love her anymore." Lenora said truthfully. "Because you're never around."
"What?" he cried is astonishment. "No. That's not true."
"Yes, she said that—"
"Is this really necessary?" Rags asked sharply. "I believe we should be more concerned about my friends." She glanced at Lenora. "Our friends?" Lenora nodded. "So what are we going to do?"
"Send someone they haven't seen in to kill the squire." Holdden said quickly. He glanced at Lenora awkwardly. "And I'm not a traitor. That squire is. Remember? Plotting to kill the King." He said it to assure himself that he was in the right. But Lenora knew better. Besides, even if one of the squires did want to kill the king, was the chance that a mere Squire would be able to? She didn't say anything. If her father had to kill someone to save her friends, then it would be worth it.
"Someone they haven't seen, who we trust." Rags stared at Holdden forcefully. "Someone like Lenora."