Checking his watch again, Mark said, ‘You keep mentioning the Twinmoon. Is that what we saw yesterday, the two moons lining up over the ocean?’
‘That’s right,’ she answered. ‘That alignment occurs about every sixty days, one Twinmoon. We use them to chart time, our lives, the seasons. Gilmour sometimes talks of Eras and Ages, but we’ve got no idea what he means. We have a difficult enough time keeping track of what day it is.’
Looking between his watch and the sun, Mark said, ‘Now that you mention it, I don’t think a day here is the same as ours, unless my watch is broken.’
‘Watch?’ Finally she turned to look at him.
‘Yeah, my watch.’ He held out his wrist. ‘It’s a simple machine that tells what time of day it is.’
‘Why call it a watch? Does it only work when you watch it?’
‘No,’ he answered as Steven laughed. ‘I suppose a more accurate name for it would be timepiece. Look, it now reads four in the afternoon, and here in Rona it’s already growing dark. I believe your day has fewer-’ He stopped. There was no Ronan word for hour.
‘I think you’re right,’ Steven interjected. ‘I noticed this morning it seemed to get light much later than at home.’
Now it was Brynne who was sceptical. ‘I don’t know if I should believe you. This may be some elaborate ruse to get me to reveal details of the Resistance. It won’t work.’
Mark removed his watch and handed it to her. ‘Here, take it. It isn’t doing me any good anyway.’
Cautiously, Brynne reached out and took the watch. ‘How does it attach?’ Mark fastened the band and after a rudimentary lesson in telling time, they continued walking.
‘Thank you, Mark Jenkins.’ Brynne smiled for the first time all day.
‘Just Mark is fine, Brynne. Just Mark.’
The trio continued their journey towards the village, bypassing the road for a narrow path through oak, maple, dogwood, walnut and chestnut trees that were interrupted periodically by a particularly prickly and disagreeable type of cedar marked by thin strands of exfoliated bark. There were other trees as well, trees that didn’t belong in this sort of forest: white birch, rosewood, beech, and several species Steven couldn’t identify.
Steven had many questions for Brynne now that she was willing to talk with them, and the young woman complied as well as she could. So little about this experience made sense; Steven was surprised at how well he and Mark were handling their predicament. Magicians at work, huge ravenous beasts stalking the forest, a battle raging through a crumbling palace and all of it happening around them while he and Mark looked on: Steven felt as though he had fallen headlong into someone else’s dream. Now he was trapped. While the story grew ever more peculiar, he was helpless, unable to grasp, let alone solve, the problems that faced them. All he and Mark could do was to continue walking towards town and hope they would find someone with the knowledge to get them back through that mysterious tapestry and into their living room.
Rona’s southern region felt more like a bayou wetland than a Colorado mountain forest and the two foreigners were sweating openly. Hunger and dehydration were giving Steven tunnel vision. ‘I need to eat something,’ he said, ‘and soon.’
‘You’re right,’ Mark agreed. ‘I could eat health food, I’m so hungry.’ Turning to Brynne, he asked, ‘Is there somewhere we can find something to eat nearby?’
Brynne contemplated her choices for a moment before replying, ‘Greentree Tavern. It’s not far.’ She knew Greentree Square would be packed with Malakasian soldiers, all searching for the band of revolutionaries, but she hoped the confusion that would ensue when she brought the strangers into town would give her an opportunity to escape.
‘This tavern,’ Mark asked, ‘is it safe?’
‘It ought to be… I own it.’
‘You own a bar?’ Steven was incredulous. Brynne nodded. ‘Your own bar?’ he repeated. ‘Where were you when I went to college?’
‘How late is the kitchen open?’ Mark said, almost drooling at the thought of hot food and cold beer – even though he had no intention of going anywhere the young woman suggested once they reached the village.
‘Late enough,’ she said, coyly returning his smile. She resolutely continued her forced march, all the while considering how she might escape from the two foreigners. She hoped against hope that Sallax and her friends had survived the assault on the palace and would be waiting to ambush her captors somewhere between Riverend and Estrad.
Brynne had never known her parents. They had died while she was still an infant; she and Sallax had been brought up in an orphanage in Estrad. The elderly couple who ran the orphanage died fifty Twinmoons later, while Brynne was still a child, so Sallax found a job clearing tables and cleaning trenchers and goblets at Greentree Tavern. It did not pay much, but Sybert Gregoro, the tavern owner, had taken a liking to the siblings and they were given a small room of their own, behind the scullery.
When Brynne was old enough, she began working in the tavern kitchen, preparing food and baking bread for evening meals. She had never been to school and learned to read from an older boy who also worked in the kitchen. His name was Ren and Brynne was smitten with him: the first boy she had ever had a crush on. But Ren had other plans for her.
One night, a wealthy Falkan businessman caught sight of Brynne through the scullery doors. He stayed drinking near the fireplace until the tavern was about to close, then signalled unobtrusively for Ren. When the merchant retired to his room, Ren went back into the kitchen and called Brynne over.
She had no idea what was happening, but Ren grinned at her and gestured that she should follow him up the stairs. Sometimes, when the inn wasn’t full, he’d sneak her into one of the guest bedrooms so she could sleep on a luxury pallet. He was her friend and she had no reason to fear him.
When Ren arrived at the door to the merchant’s room, he knocked once, softly. Cracking the door slightly, the merchant handed Ren a small leather pouch and the boy promptly pushed Brynne into the room, pulled the door shut and disappeared down the stairs.
Brynne’s memory of the night that followed was still clouded by terror. She had spent her life trying to repress the violation; even now, many Twinmoons on, she was confounded by the fact that she had never screamed. Sybert would have heard; she knew he would have come quickly to help. Sallax had been downstairs sleeping in their small room; he might have heard her cry for help.
All she remembered was quietly repeating, ‘No, please,’ over and over again while the Falkan businessman held her tightly by the throat. ‘Let you go? Such a toothsome little morsel, just ripe for the plucking – I think not, my sweet little whore,’ he whispered, ignoring her pleas, and took his time abusing her until sunlight broke through the chamber window. Seeing dawn arrive, the merchant dressed, tossed her a silver piece and left the tavern.
Later that morning, Sybert found her. She had not moved from the floor where the man had thrown her after he had finished raping her. She was lying silently, staring up at the ceiling. Her dress had been ripped away from her body, revealing the depths of degradation her attacker had subjected her to: her slim legs were scratched from thigh to ankle, her barely grown breasts were torn and bitten, bloody toothmarks empurpling her pale skin. Tears trickled silently down her still-terrified face, which was as battered as the rest of her frail body.
The publican groaned out loud, then tore the coverlet off the bed and wrapped her gently in it. He summoned a village woman skilled in healing arts, who nursed her back to health over the next few Twinmoons. Sybert himself made sure Brynne was recuperating, refusing to let her take up her duties until he was certain she had healed.