Prologue Part 2
When Djaq returned to the house it was well past sundown. The place was in darkness and silence. As she walked through the doorway she did not even bother to light the oil lamps that were set into the walls. Instead she relied on her memories of the layout and sense of direction to guide her through the cool hallways and corridors.
The gentle cooing of the birds could be heard as she passed them. They were content enough having already forgotten the horrors that they had witnessed two days earlier. How she envied the birds.
She would never forget.
Eventually Djaq knew that she was outside their room. The place where they had enjoyed some privacy. The only place that had been for them and them alone. She leant forwards and rested her head on the oak door which was as heavy as her heart felt.
Mustering up the courage to open the door she slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open. The moonlight filtered through the high widows with intricate wooden grills inlaid into them creating a pattern of light and dark right across the room.
It was how they had last left it in haste. The light linen sheets of the bed crumpled at its foot. The wooden stool lay on its side and the parchments that had been balanced on top of it strewn across the floor. Djaqs eyes were drawn to the corner of the room. To where he had always stored his axes.
Those axes! Sometimes Djaq had chastised him for taking better care of them than he did of himself but he had simply given her that bashful sideways smile that made her forget what she had said. Then he carried on oiling the wood and sharpening the blades saying that they needed care in the hot dry environment.
Now the corner of the room was bare. He had grabbed the axes with one hand as they had fled from the room grabbing her with his other hand.
The stoic face that Djaq had managed to hold since returning from the burial now crumpled and she threw herself on the bed sobbing into the sheets that still smelt of him.
"I have to do this Djaq. Trust me!"
Those had been his last words to her.