Chapter 7 - THE GOVERNOR'S ROAD
Isaac traveled with them for three days.
His family traveled too.
Two sons.
A daughter-in-law.
Three grandchildren.
An old sister named Rivka who complained constantly and walked faster than everyone.
Aldren liked her immediately.
Thomas did not understand why.
Then he heard them arguing over dried fish and realized they were nearly the same person.
Isaac knew roads merchants used to avoid toll gates.
That meant avoiding the governor’s soldiers.
For a while.
The countryside grew emptier.
Plague had begun stripping places faster than refugees could carry news.
One village contained only seven living people.
Another had blocked every door from inside.
No one answered when Thomas knocked.
A third had survived almost untouched because it sat beyond a flooded marsh.
Its people refused entry and threatened arrows.
Thomas no longer resented them.
He understood.
Every stranger was a question with death inside it.
They slept in fields.
Shared food.
Buried one of Isaac’s grandsons after fever took him in less than a day.
No swelling.
No certainty.
Maybe plague.
Maybe another sickness.
It no longer mattered.
Death had become too common to investigate.
Isaac’s daughter-in-law screamed at Thomas when he helped dig.
Not because he did anything wrong.
Because grief needed a body to strike.
Thomas let her.
When the grave was closed, she apologized.
He said nothing.
Apologies had become small bridges over bottomless places.
On the fourth day, they reached the remains of a toll fortress.
Governor’s banner.
Abandoned.
Aldren searched it.
Marta found grain.
Peter found arrows.
Agnes found bodies in the cellar.
Six prisoners.
Executed.
One wore a red Camp Four cloth.
Thomas stared.
Escaped quarantine.
The sign had followed them.
Aldren examined the corpses.
“Recent.”
“How recent?”
“Two days.”
Isaac looked toward the road.
“They’re ahead.”
Captain Bale was not chasing.
He was circling.
Thomas felt trapped by roads themselves.
Then Peter called from the tower.
“Riders!”
They hid.
Twenty soldiers entered the fortress.
Not Bale.
Different captain.
They brought prisoners.
Families.
Mostly healthy.
Red cloth tied around arms.
Thomas watched from a loft above the stable.
The soldiers spoke below.
“Bale wants the Vale boy alive.”
Thomas tensed.
Another voice laughed.
“For what? The governor won’t survive the month.”
A soldier answered.
“Doesn’t matter. The paper matters.”
Paper.
Always paper.
Land.
Inheritance.
Claims.
Even as corpses filled Europe, men guarded ink.
The captain below said, “Bale says the old Varenne charter can transfer three toll valleys if the boy signs.”
Aldren whispered, “There.”
Thomas understood.
They did not need him dead.
They needed his name.
His signature.
His bloodline legitimizing theft.
Agnes whispered, “Then why hunt you?”
“Because I can say no.”
Aldren smiled faintly.
“You’re learning.”
The soldiers moved prisoners into cells.
Thomas saw a woman holding a baby.
A man with one arm.
Two boys younger than Peter.
Camp Four again.
Thomas could leave.
The hidden rear path remained open.
Aldren knew what he was thinking.
“No.”
Thomas looked at him.
“We can free them.”
“No.”
“There are twenty soldiers.”
“Exactly.”
“We have bows.”
“We have children.”
Isaac stepped closer.
“Thomas.”
He rarely used his name with that tone.
“You cannot answer every cage.”
Thomas looked through the boards.
The one-armed prisoner was being beaten for asking for water.
Luc’s voice returned.
Ask who benefits.
Captain Bale’s system benefited every time people accepted that someone else’s cage was not their problem.
Thomas whispered, “We don’t fight twenty.”
Aldren stared.
“What then?”
“Make them leave.”
“How?”
Thomas looked toward the dead bodies in the cellar.
Then hated himself for the idea.
By sunset, they moved the corpses.
Not touched directly.
Hooks.
Rope.
Cloth over faces.
They placed two near the well.
One beside the stable.
Another at the barracks door.
Then Peter rang the fort’s alarm bell.
Soldiers rushed out.
Thomas shouted from the trees,
“Pestilence!”
The word did the rest.
Men saw bodies.
Saw red cloth.
Saw swollen decay.
Panic.
Someone yelled that prisoners had infected the well.
Another soldier began coughing from dust.
He was struck by his own companion.
Within minutes discipline collapsed.
Half the soldiers mounted horses.
The captain tried stopping them.
Nobody listened.
Aldren watched.
“You weaponized fear.”
Thomas felt sick.
“Yes.”
“Effective.”
“I hate it.”
“Good.”
The remaining soldiers guarded the cells.
Eight.
Still too many.
Isaac’s sons fired arrows from opposite sides.
Not to kill.
To confuse.
Marta released the horses.
Agnes and Peter set smoke fires.
Thomas and Aldren entered through the kitchen.
One soldier came around a corner.
Thomas swung a wooden mallet.
The man fell.
Not dead.
Thomas felt relief.
Aldren cut his throat.
Thomas stared.
“What?”
“He would shout.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Aldren looked tired.
“Maybe.”
The word disturbed Thomas more than certainty.
They reached the cell keys.
Freed prisoners.
Chaos.
The captain confronted them near the gate.
He recognized Thomas.
“Vale.”
Thomas raised a spear.
The captain laughed.
“You know nothing about your father.”
“I know enough.”
“He was a traitor.”
“To who?”
“The governor.”
“That is not the same as the city.”
The captain attacked.
Thomas barely blocked.
Steel hit wood.
His hands went numb.
The captain was trained.
Thomas was not.
Second strike.
Third.
Thomas fell.
The sword came down.
Marta threw the dead soldier’s helmet.
It struck the captain’s head.
Aldren attacked from behind.
The captain turned.
Thomas grabbed mud.
Threw it into the man’s eyes.
Cheap.
Ugly.
Alive.
Aldren stabbed him under the ribs.
The captain fell.
Thomas stared.
Again.
Men kept dying near him.
He wondered when that would stop feeling like a boundary crossed.
Maybe never.
Maybe that was good.
They escaped with twenty-three prisoners.
Too many to feed.
Too many to hide.
For the first time, Thomas was not part of a small group.
He had a column.
People asked where to go.
He did not know.
They asked anyway.
At dusk, an old prisoner approached.
His name was Gerard.
Former clerk to the governor.
Thomas stiffened.
“You knew Elena?”
Gerard looked at him.
“I knew Mariel.”
Again that name.
Thomas had begun hating it.
“What did she hide?”
Gerard sat.
“Records.”
“What records?”
“Land grants. tax accounts. prisoner lists. payments to mercenaries.”
Aldren whistled.
“The pouch.”
Gerard nodded.
“Copies small enough to carry.”
Thomas frowned.
“Why?”
Gerard looked toward the refugees.
“Your mother discovered the governor was using plague quarantines to seize estates from families declared dead.”
Thomas went cold.
Camp Four.
Not merely containment.
Property theft.
“When entire households die,” Gerard said, “someone decides who inherits. The governor decided himself.”
Isaac laughed bitterly.
“Even death pays taxes.”
Gerard continued.
“Mariel knew the system because she helped administer family estates before she fled.”
Thomas swallowed.
“She knew this would happen?”
“No. But she knew her brother.”
Thomas looked toward the road.
“So Bale wants the pouch because it proves theft.”
“And because it contains the original Varenne family seal.”
“Why does that matter?”
Gerard stared at him.
“With the seal and your blood claim, you could invalidate half the governor’s emergency transfers.”
Thomas almost laughed.
“Half the people are dead.”
“The survivors still own land.”
“Do they?”
Gerard looked at him.
“That is the question.”
Thomas thought of the manor silver Aldren took.
The empty houses.
The warehouses stolen from accused poisoners.
The plague was not only killing people.
It was redistributing the world.
Anyone who survived would inherit something.
Unless stronger men wrote papers first.
Then Gerard gave the worst news.
“The governor left Saint Aldric before the gates closed.”
Thomas froze.
“He escaped?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Castle Varenne.”
His mother’s family seat.
West.
Exactly where they were traveling.
Aldren swore.
Thomas asked, “And Bale?”
“Going there too.”
Thomas looked at the growing group around him.
Refugees.
Escapees.
Merchants.
Orphans.
People with nowhere else.
He had wanted only somewhere they could choose when to leave.
Now the road ahead led straight toward the man who built cages from plague.
Agnes sat beside him.
“What do we do?”
Thomas looked at Elena’s cross.
Then at the people waiting for an answer.
He hated Beatrice for being right.
They were watching him.
“I don’t know.”
Nobody moved.
Thomas took a breath.
“First, we eat.”
Aldren smiled.
Best leadership decision Thomas had made yet.
They shared grain from the fortress.
For one night, nobody asked about castles or claims.
Then bells rang in the distance.
One.
Two.
Three.
Plague arriving from the east.
Again.
Always.
At dawn they moved west.
Not because Thomas wanted Castle Varenne.
Because the plague was behind them.
The governor was ahead.
And every other road had begun closing.
Before they resumed the march, Gerard placed one hand on Thomas’s shoulder.
“You do understand people may still call you lord.”
Thomas looked at the refugees gathering packs.
“Then they will be disappointed.”
“Names create expectations.”
“So do walls.”
Gerard nodded.
Thomas watched an escaped Camp Four prisoner share bread with Isaac’s youngest granddaughter. Two weeks earlier they had been strangers from different worlds. Now both carried the same mud on their boots.
“Let them expect food,” Thomas said. “A dry floor. A fair hearing if we can manage one.”
“And loyalty?”
Thomas thought of Bale.
“No.”
Gerard raised an eyebrow.
Thomas picked up his pack.
“If people stay only because they owe me, I have built another camp.”
Aldren overheard and groaned.
“Sixteen years old and already giving speeches.”
Thomas looked at him.
“You can leave.”
May you like
Aldren smiled.
“Exactly.”
