Chapter 14: Revelations

Jubilee swam up through layers of soft, foggy darkness, back to the light of day. The drugs the Healer had given her to keep her asleep made her weak and sleepy, but she fought her way past them, past the dizziness, and forced her heavy eyelids open.

There was something bulky wrapped around her hands, and her fingers felt peculiarly stiff and numb. She lifted her hands dazedly up to her face, saw the bandaging around her hands, and the memory of what happened rushed back to her with sickening clarity. She gasped, and started to cry. Her hands! She'd never be able to handle a sword, or arrows, again. The loss hit her sharply, and she sobbed aloud, dropping her numb hands and laying her head back on the pillow with a thump.

Logan stirred, raising his head from where it lay on a tabletop on his folded hands. The boy's anguished sobs were loud in the silence. Logan watched quietly for a moment, as his normally stoic squire cried his heart out for what he thought he'd lost.

"Hey," he said, getting up from his chair. The boy started violently; Logan realised belatedly that the chair and table the healers had brought was out of the boy's line of sight. He hadn't known Logan was there.

"Logan!" The kid's eyes filled with tears at the sight of him, but the heavily-bandaged hand came up and tried to scrub away the tears already on the pale cheeks. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in here. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Naw," Logan said easily, dragging the chair over to the bed. "Naw, I woke up on my own." He sat down and stared seriously at the boy. "Kid…Lee…don't try to hide it. Yer hands must hurt like the devil. Ya don't gotta be all stiff all the time; if somethin' hurts, cry. It's natural."

Those blue eyes filled with tears. "What are you going to do now, Logan?" The boy sobbed, unable to hide his feelings. "You're going to have to go and find another squire, and me…what'll happen to me? Oh, God, I should have just died!"

Logan shook his head and scowled in mock ferocity at the boy. "Now, don't let me hear ya talkin' like that," he said, although his voice was soft. "Just cause yer not gonna be as good an archer as ya were before don't mean I'm gonna repudiate ya."

"But I'm no use!" Lee held up his bandaged hands. "I can't feel anything in them. My fingers are totally numb. You won't have any reason for keeping around a squire who can't use his hands."

Logan grinned. "No, I don't. But yer not a squire who can't use his hands."

"But…" The boy examined his hands again.

"Yer gonna be okay," Logan told him quietly. "These last two fingers o' yer right hand may not work so well anymore, and yer gonna have scars on yer hands like a crucifixion victim, but otherwise yer still whole. Yer just gonna haveta learn ta use yer sword in the left hand."

"The arrow didn't…it didn't ruin my hands?"

"No, it didn't," Logan decided not to tell Lee how close he had come to not being able to use both hands at all. The healer had looked at the boy's hands and pronounced the kid lucky. If the arrow had pierced the hand any higher, Lee would have lost the use of all his fingers. "Two fingers're gonna be a little stiff, but that's it."

"Oh, thank God…" Two fat tears rolled down the boy's cheeks, and he blinked them away. He rubbed his face on the pillow, and saw the color of the sleeve. "My clothes…"

Logan sighed. "Yer clothes were bloody, an' ya couldn't lie in that bed fer three days with them like that. Renee dug out one of the pages' uniforms fer ya, an' had one o' the women healers put 'em on ya. She said this custom o' yer peoples only extends ta little boys and men. It's okay, apparently, for an older woman ta see little boys naked." Logan grinned. "Kinda makes sense, actually; yer ma hadda have seen ya skinnin' around when ya was little."

Jubilee laughed weakly in relief. So the Queen had worked her magic, and kept her secret safe. She was glad. "I've been here three days?" she asked Logan.

"Yep. Sound asleep fer most o' them days, 'cept fer when ya woke up and cried. The healers finally kept ya drugged ta make ya sleep." Logan sobered. "Kid, we haven't been able ta fin' out who it was that shot that arrow. The Weaponsmaster threatened to flog everybody senseless if the person who did it didn't 'fess up, but nobody's come forward so far. Ya didn't happen ta see anythin' right before yer hands sprouted a goose-feather shaft, did ya?"

Jubilee thought very hard for a long time, but in the end shook her head. "I reached up to get the arrow out of the wall," she admitted. "I was looking up at the apple; I didn't see anybody, even out the corner of my eye. And then the arrow hit me, and pinned my hands, and…I remember staring at it for a moment, like my hands didn't even belong to me anymore, and then the pain hit. I screamed. I think I sort of remember you pulling my hands out of the wall, but I don't remember anything after that."

Logan nodded. "All right. The Weaponsmaster and I went over the salle, inch by inch, and we couldn't find anything that might tell us who did it. I guess we'll have to let that remain our little mystery. Now, onta my next question. Why was yer spare tunics all mucky and stinkin'? None of yer stuff was wearable; yer gonna haveta wear pages' clothes till we get more in my colors made fer ya." He grimaced at the memory of going into that chest in the boy's room and seeing the manure in it.

Jubilee turned pink. "I-it was a prank the boys played on me," she said, staring at the blanket that covered her. "They stole my boots while I was in the privies, and soaked them in manure and put them in my chest. I took the boots and tunic out of my chest and put them in the basket with the other dirty clothes," she said suddenly, narrowing her eyes. "They shouldn't have been in the chest at all!"

"They weren't," Logan bit back a growl. "We went inta yer chest fer a spare set o' clothes fer ya, and it was full o' manure an' rottin' meat."

Jubilee made a horrified face. "They must have snuck back in and done something right after I left for breakfast," she told Logan. "Everything was neat when I left it. I always leave it neat so I know if anyone's been in my room when I wasn't."

"'Always'?" Logan's eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. "This happens regularly?"

Jubilee bit her lip. Well, it was too late for her to take it back. "The pranksters put a dead rat in my shoe two days ago. And they've been ruining your stuff; putting holes in your blanket and your standard, threw your spare bridle and saddle in the castle moat so I had to go and fish them out and spend an entire night cleaning them. They've torn my tunics and leggings, threw my saddle in the refuse pit, and lamed my horse; they even loosened one of my horse's shoes."

"They done all that?" Logan was shocked. Why hadn't he noticed? Come to think of it, that must be why the kid looked so tired all the time. As a squire, he had to keep Logan's equipment in perfect working order. Logan hadn't noticed any of the damage; that meant the kid had to be keeping on top of the pranksters' damage. And with the full schedule he had, he must have spent his nights repairing damaged equipment, not sleeping. "Kid, why'd'nt ya tell me?" He narrowed his eyes. "Ya know who's been doin' all this?"

"I didn't want you to think I couldn't handle your things," Lee said tiredly, sinking back onto the bed and laying his head on the pillow. "You made me your squire so I could take care of your equipment and gear. If I don't do my duty, you could cast me off. And I don't know what would happen to me if you did that; I've no home to go back to, and nowhere to go."

Logan sighed. "Kid, if I was going to cast ya off, I'd give ya a few warnin's first. And even if I did, I'd make sure ya had somewhere ta go to. I ain't gonna just turn ya out; I know ya ain't got nowhere ta go." He ruffled the kid's thick black hair. It felt soft against his fingers, and he had to suppress the urge to run his fingers through it. "Now, ya got any idea who's been doin' it?"

"No." The kid dropped his eyes.

Logan sighed and crossed his arms. "Kid. Tell me why I don't believe ya."

There was no answer.

Logan reached out and cupped the small chin in his hand, tilting the face up to meet his. The blue eyes met his, and he read the reason in those orbs.

"I ain't gonna get mad," Logan said. "C'mon, kid. Who's been givin' ya a hard time?"

"It wouldn't do any good," Lee said, his eyes looking for something else, anything else, to look at but Logan's face. "Their fathers got them back in the trainee's weapons program even after the weaponsmaster threw them out. Their fathers have enough power and money and influence to buy them out of trouble. So what's the use of me telling anyone? The next time they get me alone they'll-" The kid stopped talking abruptly.

"They'll do what?" Logan said, alarmed at the sudden silence. The kid didn't answer. "Lee, they'll do what? Are they hurtin' ya? Makin' ya do…stuff that makes ya uncomfortable?"

The kid shook his head. "No, they don't do…that."

Logan waited but no other answer was forthcoming. He sighed. "Oh well. If ya don't wanna talk that's okay. I think I gotta pretty good idea who it is, anyway. It's those three nobles' boys who dared ya ta the shootin' contest, right?" He leaned forward. "Ya don't gotta say nothin'. Just…answer me one question. Ya think any of them coulda shot yer hands?"

Lee laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "If I thought it was them, I'd have told you already. Not even their parents' money could cover that up. But no, it wasn't them. They couldn't hit the target dummies at fifty paces with an arrow; they'd never have been able to make the shot from across the salle to my hands."

Logan found himself agreeing to that as he headed up the steps to the Queen's suite. She'd asked him to let her know when the boy woke up; she seemed extraordinarily concerned about him. Logan wondered what it was that she knew about the boy that he didn't; he'd spent a lot of time thinking about it, and still couldn't figure it out. So the mystery still remained. Who could have shot Lee?

The figure was wrapped in a voluminous black and gold cloak, and wore all black clothing underneath. Because of that, it was hard for anyone to see him as he glided from shadowed doorway to shadowed doorway on his way to the nobles' wing.

He reached a heavy oak door, ornamented with a gilded griffin's head doorknocker on it. Disdaining the knocker (it would make too much noise, and if anyone heard it and came to investigate, he had no good excuse for being here at this time of night) he tapped lightly on the door twice, waited one minute, then tapped once.

The door opened almost before his fingers left the panel of the door, and a hand wearing a black glove reached out, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him in. "You fool!" the man on the other side of the door hissed as he tried to quietly close the door behind the other black-cloaked figure. 'What do you think you're doing! You risk exposing us if anyone sees you sneaking up here! One of the King's Knights has no reason going to see a minor nobleman tenuously attached to the King's court!"

The other figure brought his hands up and threw the hood of the cloak back from his face and head. "You worry too much, Duke Gilbert," he said scornfully. "No one would question one of the King's Knights."

"Except another Knight!" Gilbert hissed furiously, his features set and hard in the firelight. "Sir Logan's been coming and going all night, in and out. If he sees you…"

Julian laughed and dropped into a padded chair, reaching for the bottle of fine wine sitting on the small table in the Duke's room. "Sir Logan won't be asking anyone questions," he said, pushing the glass aside and grabbing the bottle. "He's so wrapped up in that little pretty-boy squire of his. I actually might have done us a favor by shooting the boy."

"How so?" Gilbert's hard, flinty obsidian eyes narrowed.

"The Queen's maids were getting a little curious. I had ordered one of the maids to come to my room before our last meeting, and then forgot. By the time I got back to my room she was impatient with waiting, and she wanted to know where I'd been so long, so late. I got her to shut up about it, but you know these girls, they tell each other everything. The Queen was lookin' at me a little coolly, until this fracas with the squire focused her attention elsewhere. She's very wrapped up with the boy." Julian laughed and brought the bottle to his lips. "Sir Logan's the only other one who might possibly try and figure out the connection between us two, and he's too busy trying to figure out who's been harassing his squire to really pay a lot of attention to what I'm doing lately. He still hasn't figured out that I was the only other knight in the room that day who has the accuracy to shoot anyone's hands at that distance. Or if he has figured it out, he thinks that I'm too honourable to do such a thing." Julian smiled.

Gilbert snapped irritably, "What is it about that boy? You, Sir Logan, the Queen…what's so special about that boy?"

"He's pretty," Julian shrugged, swallowing back another draught of the wine. "Too pretty to be a boy. I wonder if the lad might not be a girl under the clothes. Granted, he don't behave like a girl, but…well, I like the way the boy looks, and I want him in my bed." He put the bottle down. "I will get the boy, won't I? When King Gallas gets Logan, I'll get the squire, right? Per our agreement?"

"Of course," Duke Gilbert scoffed. "Like I would have any interest in dallying with a peasant boy. I like girls, Julian."

"I like either, as long as they're pretty," Julian shrugged. "But enough. I didn't come here to talk to you about a squire. I came to tell you that the King informed us he's going to start collecting his knights as soon as this winter weather turns. It's only a month till spring, and he's anxious to get this war wrapped up by the time summer comes."

"Where will Sir Logan be positioned?"

"Logan and I will be going to the border section between Argonne and Hildreth. If I'm not mistaken, that's only a few miles away from Gallas's summer fortress. I'll capture Logan in the heat of battle and draw him away, and then it won't be hard to take him to Gallas's fortress. I'll drop him off there, come back for the squire, and disappear with the boy to Gallas's side of the border. After he's got the information he needs and he crosses the border to get back here, I'll join him."

Gilbert said darkly, "I hope, for your sake, it turns out to be that easy. If you mess this up, we'll both swing for it; if not by Richard, by Gallas. I'm going to leave this up to you, Sir Julian; if I have to pay for your mistakes you'll regret it."

Julian waved a dismissive hand. "Come on. It's a boy and a single knight; what could happen? They both care about each other; Logan treats the boy more like a favored son than a squire. A few threats, some veiled references to bodily harm coming to the kid, and he'll be putty in Gallas's hands."

Gilbert smiled. "And what of the boy?"

Julian shrugged. "Threaten the boy with harm to his mentor, he'll go along quickly enough. Besides, he's a skinny little thirteen-year-old. He's not big enough to pose a threat to me." Julian picked up the bottle one last time, took a last generous swig from it, and put it back down on the table. "Now, if we're done here, I have one last errand to run before I go to sleep."

"You were the one who came here, not me," Gilbert grumbled. "What's so important?"

Julian laughed. "Another step in my campaign to have Logan repudiate the boy. I'm going to get the boy so sick he won't be able to take care of Logan properly. Maybe the man will finally open his eyes to the fact that the boy is useless." He stood, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head. "Fair evening, Gilbert."

"Fair evening, Sir Julian," Gilbert mumbled, sitting down in the chair and picking up the bottle. As the door closed behind his midnight guest, he upended the bottle over his glass. Not a drop fell out. "Damn it! He drank all my wine! That was my best red!" He stared at his empty glass, furious.