Chapter 6 - ELENA'S SECRET
Peter did not speak for two days.
He walked.
Ate when told.
Slept badly.
Sometimes Thomas heard him whisper Beatrice’s name.
Thomas did not offer comfort.
He did not know how.
Comfort had become a language everyone remembered but few could still speak.
The five of them descended the northern slope into another valley.
Snow became rain.
Forests became farmland.
Dead cattle lay bloated beside fences.
One manor house had been abandoned so quickly silver cups remained on the table.
Aldren took one.
Thomas stared.
“What?”
“You steal now?”
Aldren held up the cup.
“From whom?”
Thomas looked around.
No bodies.
No owners.
No answer.
Aldren placed it in his sack.
“Silver buys bread where bread still exists.”
Marta agreed.
Thomas said nothing.
That night they sheltered inside a ruined mill.
Peter finally spoke.
“Beatrice knew your mother.”
Thomas looked up.
“What?”
Peter stared at the fire.
“She asked about Elena.”
Aldren stopped sharpening his knife.
“When?”
“After you arrived.”
Thomas moved closer.
“What did she say?”
“That Elena came through the mountains years ago.”
Thomas frowned.
“My mother lived in Saint Aldric before I was born.”
Peter shrugged.
“Beatrice said Elena had a different name then.”
Silence.
Thomas felt something shift.
“What name?”
“Mariel.”
He laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it sounded impossible.
“My mother’s name was Elena.”
Peter looked uncomfortable.
“I’m telling you what Beatrice said.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She said not until your mother’s pouch appeared.”
Thomas stood.
“What pouch?”
“The one Bale had.”
Aldren looked at him.
Now everyone understood.
Beatrice had recognized it.
Thomas remembered its leather.
Dark brown.
Embossed near the clasp.
He had seen it a thousand times in Elena’s chest.
Never opened.
She called it sewing things.
He had believed her.
Aldren asked Peter, “What was inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Beatrice know?”
“She said Elena was once attached to a noble house.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
His mother baked bread.
Mended clothes.
Argued about market prices.
Hated nobility.
Exactly the kind of person, he suddenly realized, who might hate what she knew closely.
Marta asked, “Which house?”
Peter looked at Thomas.
“The governor’s.”
Thomas went cold.
Saint Aldric’s governor.
The man whose soldiers sealed the gates.
Whose residence burned during the riot.
Whose captain now hunted them.
“No.”
Peter continued.
“Beatrice said Elena ran away before you were born.”
Aldren watched Thomas carefully.
“Your father?”
Thomas’s father had died when Thomas was five.
A mason.
Or so Elena said.
Thomas remembered almost nothing.
Strong hands.
A cough.
A red scarf.
“His name was Martin.”
Peter shook his head.
“Beatrice said nothing about him.”
Thomas left the mill.
Rain hit his face.
He needed air.
Aldren followed.
“Do not tell me to calm down.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
Aldren stood beside him.
“You knew my mother?”
“No.”
“You knew something.”
“I know everyone older than they claim is carrying something.”
Thomas turned.
“That is meaningless.”
“Yes.”
“Why is Bale after me?”
“Because dead mothers hide useful things.”
Thomas punched the mill wall.
Pain exploded through his healing hand.
Aldren grabbed it.
“Idiot.”
Thomas pulled free.
“I left her.”
“You keep saying that.”
“She knew this.”
“Maybe.”
“She sent me away.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe because of the pouch.”
Aldren nodded.
Thomas stared.
Elena had insisted he leave.
Not only because plague killed her.
Maybe because someone would come.
Maybe she knew Bale.
The thought made him sick.
The next morning, they found a monastery farm.
Abandoned.
In the chapel office, Peter discovered old travel records.
Beatrice’s village had once served pilgrims.
Names recorded for lodging.
Thomas searched.
Nothing.
Aldren said, “You’re looking under Elena.”
Thomas stopped.
Mariel.
They found it.
Seventeen years earlier.
MARIEL DE VARENNE.
Traveling under protection of Brother Cassen.
Destination: Saint Aldric.
Thomas stared.
De Varenne.
Noble name.
Marta whispered, “Your mother had a title.”
“No.”
Aldren took the book.
“Maybe family name.”
Peter found another entry.
Brother Cassen had returned alone three weeks later.
No Mariel.
Thomas’s mind raced.
Elena—Mariel—had arrived in Saint Aldric seventeen years ago.
Thomas was sixteen.
Aldren looked at him.
“Boy.”
Thomas already understood.
“My father.”
Maybe not Martin.
Maybe someone tied to the governor.
He felt nauseated.
They searched further.
A letter had been used as a bookmark.
Old.
Faded.
Signed by Abbot Gerard.
It mentioned “the Varenne girl” and “proof of unlawful inheritance.”
Aldren read aloud.
“…should the child survive, the matter could challenge the governor’s claim to eastern toll lands.”
Thomas snatched the letter.
Child.
His hands shook.
“This could be anyone.”
Aldren said nothing.
That made it worse.
Marta crossed herself.
Peter asked, “Are you noble?”
Thomas rounded on him.
“No.”
“You might be.”
“I am a baker’s son.”
Nobody answered.
Thomas tore the letter in half.
Aldren slapped him.
Hard.
Thomas stared.
“Keep destroying proof if you want Bale to become right.”
Thomas lunged.
Marta stepped between them.
“Enough.”
She took the torn pieces.
“We survive first. Hate each other after.”
Aldren smiled.
“I like her.”
Marta glared.
“Do not.”
They continued west.
By now rumors traveled faster than plague.
At crossroads they heard stories.
The king was dead.
The pope had fled.
The sea had turned black.
Cats caused disease.
Jews poisoned wells.
Foreign merchants carried cursed spices.
God sent comets.
The devil rode with Mongols.
Every story contradicted the next.
Every story had believers willing to kill.
In one town, all cats had been burned.
Rats filled the grain store.
Thomas watched them move in hundreds.
Beatrice’s dirty-hands warning returned.
He wondered whether anyone understood rats mattered.
No.
Not yet.
History had not learned enough.
They slept outside the town.
In the night, screams woke them.
A mob moved through streets carrying torches.
Men dragged three families from houses.
Foreign-looking merchants.
Or simply strangers.
Thomas heard accusations of poisoning wells.
Peter asked, “Do we help?”
Aldren answered immediately.
“No.”
Thomas looked at him.
Aldren met his eyes.
“You want to die for people you don’t know?”
Luc’s promise.
Ask who benefits.
Thomas looked at the mob.
Fear benefited men who wanted property.
The accused families owned warehouses.
Thomas understood.
“They’re taking their goods.”
Marta looked.
“Yes.”
Thomas stood.
Aldren grabbed him.
“No.”
Thomas said, “You told me silver buys bread.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because I took from an empty manor.”
“And they kill owners first.”
Aldren’s face tightened.
Thomas pulled free.
“We don’t fight the whole mob.”
“Then what?”
Thomas looked at the town gate.
“Open it.”
Peter smiled slowly.
They moved along the outer ditch.
Marta found an unlocked livestock gate.
Thomas and Peter opened pens.
Pigs scattered into streets.
Cows followed.
Noise.
Confusion.
Aldren, cursing the entire time, set fire to a hay cart away from the mob.
People turned.
Shouted fire.
The crowd fractured.
Thomas reached the families.
“Gate!”
They ran.
Not all.
One old man had already been beaten too badly.
His sons carried him.
A mob leader saw Thomas.
“Poisoner!”
That word again.
Thomas picked up a torch and threw it into a puddle.
Mud extinguished it.
“Terrifying,” Aldren muttered.
Then he stabbed a man who rushed them.
They escaped with twelve strangers.
At dawn, one of the rescued merchants thanked Thomas.
His name was Isaac.
He wore a small leather cap and spoke with an accent Thomas did not know.
He offered silver.
Thomas refused.
Aldren accepted.
Thomas glared.
“What?”
“We need bread.”
Isaac looked between them.
Then smiled sadly.
He asked Thomas’s name.
“Thomas Vale.”
Isaac’s expression changed.
“Vale?”
“Yes.”
“From Saint Aldric?”
Thomas stiffened.
“How do you know?”
Isaac looked at the torn letter Marta carried.
Then at Thomas.
“I traded with House Varenne.”
Thomas felt the road stop beneath him.
“You knew Mariel?”
Isaac studied his face.
“Very well.”
Aldren moved closer.
“Speak.”
Isaac looked toward the refugees.
Then lowered his voice.
“Mariel Varenne was the governor’s younger sister.”
Thomas froze.
“No.”
Isaac nodded.
“She disappeared seventeen years ago.”
Thomas’s mouth went dry.
“Why?”
Isaac looked at him.
“Because she was carrying a child.”
Silence.
“Whose?”
Isaac hesitated.
“The governor’s enemy.”
Thomas stared.
“Who?”
“A man executed for treason.”
Thomas could barely breathe.
Isaac continued.
“His name was Martin Vale.”
Thomas’s father.
Not a mason.
A condemned man.
Elena had not lied about the name.
Only everything around it.
Thomas looked at the road behind them.
Captain Bale.
The pouch.
The governor’s camps.
The quarantine army.
Suddenly the hunt made sense.
If Thomas lived, he was not merely a refugee.
He was proof of a political claim born before the plague.
And in a world where cities died in days, men were still willing to murder over land.
Isaac did not offer Thomas a crown.
That mattered.
He offered him a warning.
“Your father’s claim was never strong enough to win cleanly,” he said. “Only strong enough to frighten men who already had power.”
Thomas looked at the torn letter.
“So I am important because somebody else is afraid.”
Isaac nodded.
“That is how much of nobility works.”
Aldren laughed.
Thomas did not.
He folded the letter carefully this time.
Not because he wanted land.
May you like
Because Elena had died protecting something she believed he should someday choose how to use.
For the first time, Thomas understood that truth could be an inheritance heavier than silver.
