The Untold Tale (The Accidental Turn Series Book 1) Read online

  Electronic Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please visit your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About The Author

  Acknowledgements

  Connect with J.M.

  Copyright

  The Untold Tale Copyright 2015 by J.M. Frey. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover design by Ashley Ruggirello

  Cover art from ftourini/Riverd-Stock/gd08 on DeviantArt.com

  Book design by Ashley Ruggirello

  Map by Christopher Winkelaar

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-942111-28-3

  Electronic ISBN: 978-1-942111-27-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

  REUTS Publications

  www.REUTS.com

  Also by J.M.

  Novels

  Triptych (Dragon Moon Press, 2011)

  Novellas

  (Back) (SilverThought Press, 2008)

  The Dark Side of the Glass (Double Dragon Press, 2012)

  Short Stories

  “The Once and Now-ish King” inWhen the Hero Comes Home

  (Dragon Moon Press, 2011)

  “On His Birthday, Reginald Got“ inKlien

  (FutureCon Publications, 2011)

  “Maddening Science” inWhen the Villain Comes Home

  (Dragon Moon Press, 2012)

  The Dark Lord and the Seamstress

  (CS Independent Publishing, 2014)

  “The Twenty Seven Club” inExpiration Date

  (EDGE Publishing, 2015)

  “The Moral of the Story” inTesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods

  (EDGE Publishing, 2015)

  “Zmeu”inGods, Memes, and Monsters (Stone Skin Press, 2015)

  “How Fanfiction Made Me Gay” inThe Secret Loves of Geek Girls

  (Bedside Press, 2015)

  Anthologies

  Hero Is a Four Letter Word (Short Fuse, 2013)

  Academic

  “Whose Doctor?” inDoctor Who In Time And Space

  (McFarland Press, 2013)

  Dedication

  For Gabrielle Harbowy, who began as my first acquiring editor and grew into a remarkable advocate, cheerleader, and friend. I’m so blessed to have someone so positive, so ambitious, so clever, and so kind on my side in this journey.

  The Sigil that Never Fades

  The Quill that Never Dulls

  The Cup that Never Runs Dry

  The Parchment that Never Fills

  The Blade that Never Fails

  The Desk that Never Rots

  The Spirit that Never Lies

  With these tools our world was born,

  And with them can be broken.

  Or born again.

  Chapter One

  I am upstairs when I catch sight of the approaching cart and its cargo through the thick glass of my window. I assume the body in the back is a corpse, brought to me for study and then burial. But no one handles a corpse with such care; the driver is directing the horse to travel slowly, avoiding each hole in the dirt road. They also do not stop to pick up a healer for a corpse. Yet Mother Mouth is in the back, hunched as best she is able over the blanket-wrapped body.

  By the time I make it down the grand staircase to the foyer, three of my Men are lifting the bundle from the cart with careful concern. I gesture to the threshold, and they lower it onto my front step. As soon as they set the body down, I can see that my assumption was correct.

  It is a young woman.

  And she is still alive. But only barely. I contain my shudder of revulsion, clamping my teeth down hard on my tongue to keep from gagging. I think I am only successful because I’ve seen this sort of thing before.

  Bootknife has flayed her very prettily.

  Artistic tendrils of bloody ivy are torn into the vellum of the young woman’s flesh. I can only see a little of the pattern, however, from between the blanket’s folds. Bootknife has written spells and agony into the muscle he’s carved, into the wounds left by the strips he filleted from her. It’s as detailed as any woodcarving for a stamp—some deep; some wide and shallow; some the merest scrape, only a layer or two of skin absent. Disgustingly beautiful. But it is not art.

  It is torture.

  She is unconscious. A blessing. I can’t imagine how much the young woman must have been screaming before my Men forced poppy milk down her throat. Well, I suppose I can imagine it—I have seen quite enough of Bootknife’s handiwork to be able to envision her pain. What I mean is that I do not want to imagine it. I can’t bear the thought of the sounds that must have ripped her throat bloody.

  She is as wrapped in rough blankets as she can be with such extensive injuries to her back. The blankets are filthy and crusted with blood and other bodily fluids, which means they were probably the only protection against the chill spring morning that her rescuers could find. I clench my hands into fists and jam them into the pockets of my house robe to keep from rushing forward and helping. A Chipping Master does not dirty his hands in labor. I hear the invective in my father’s hateful voice in my head, and I take great pleasure in telling it to go drown itself.

  All the same, I stay back. I would only be in the way.

  Mother Mouth assesses the young woman’s injuries, and when she is done, we ensure together that there are no Words of Tracing carved into the victim’s skin.

  It would not do to give our enemies such advantageous leverage as to lead them here. To the unknowing, my home appears to be no more than the manor of silly, crumpled Forsyth Turn, younger brother to the great hero Kintyre and a man quite stodgily attached to his library. And those on the outside must remain unknowing. Even the slightest slip would bring the Viceroy down on my Chipping, and I will not have the people under my care endangered.

  I do not bother to ask why my Men brought the woman to me and not to the king; if the king had the security and ability to protect himself and those in his charge from the Viceroy, he would never have secretly employed me as his Shadow Hand.

  There is nowhere safer for the injured visitor than Turn Hall. Not even Kingskeep.

  Assessment done, they take the woma
n inside. I catch the attention of my butler and order a wing of my home that I have not entered in years be opened specifically for my surprise guest.

  It has been a long time since there’s been a need for lady’s chambers in Turn Hall. They have remained shut since my mother’s death. It has been even longer still since the need for a lady’s maid; my staff are nearly all men. This is not out of preference, but because there are no women in my household who require women servants, and it made sense to leave the town’s supply of employable young misses for houses where they were more needed.

  I am going to have to find a woman. Blast.

  We linger in the hallway outside the room long enough for servants to strip the dusty bed linens and replace them with fresh. I dismiss my Men to write up their debriefing reports, and then help Mother Mouth lay the young lady on the bed myself. The only way we figure she will be comfortable is belly-down, her face propped to the side with a feather pillow.

  Once she is installed on the bed, I step back into a corner to remain out of the way. Mother Mouth takes a short breather—she is no longer young; her skin is papery thin and scored with laughter lines, but still glows with vitality—and all this rushing and lifting has winded her. She then ties her silver-streaked hair back and begins the careful work of spreading tinctures and ointments, mixing potions meant to neutralize spells and remove pain before she starts cutting away, with gentle knife work, the meat that has rotted from neglect.

  My staff moves around them both in an orchestrated dance, fetching lamps and candles and water in an ewer; bringing in, using, and then removing brooms and cleaning supplies; opening windows and laying a fire in the hearth. I do as I always do, what I am best at doing: I observe.

  When Mother Mouth finally sits back, a smear of blood on her forehead where she pushed a stray tendril of hair out of her face, I offer her a handkerchief. It is russet, the color associated with House Turn, my family. She takes it graciously, though she wrinkles her nose at the fineness of the fabric.

  “We’ve had this discussion before,” she says. “Good silk should be saved for dressing wounds, and rough cotton for wiping faces and noses.”

  “I agree, Mother,” I allow, a smile sitting in the corner of my mouth and trying so very hard to stretch into the rest of it. “However, there are expectations at court, and when one’s work relies on creating a good impression, the silk must be used for snot.”

  “And that’s why I’ve no use for court.”

  Mother Mouth rises and goes to the bag of medicines she left on the bedside table. She pulls out phials and jars, each neatly labeled in her spiky hand. She is leaving behind tinctures and syrups to add to my young visitor’s wine when she wakes in pain, along with bandages and ointments enough to cover the whole of the vicious patterns on her back several times over.

  “Right, then, my boy,” Mother Mouth says, standing and cleaning her bloody hands at the washstand. “Let the lass sleep it through, and I’ll return in the morning to assess her healing. I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be her right now. Keep her asleep if you’re able, lad. And send for me at once should she turn feverish or her wounds begin to fester and reek,” she finishes.

  “No stitches?” Mother Mouth has sewn each of my Men up at one point or another, myself included. There are none among the Shadow’s Men who do not bare the gratefully earned signature of her needle. It seems odd now that she is not doing the same for our guest.

  “No,” Mother Mouth agrees. “The slices that remain open are shallow. Where they are also narrow, there is no need. Where they are wide . . .” She shrugs. “I could not make the skin meet over the exposed muscle without tearing it. The rest of the deep cuts have begun to scar already. Better to cover it over with the salve, and with Words, and leave it to nature.”

  I nod, well used to this particular healer’s pointed and honest instructions—she is the best within an hour’s ride from my keep, and thus my preferred go-to healer. My Men and I call her Mother Mouth because of her bluntness, her willingness to bully us verbally into obeying her commands, and we always do so with a smile, and to her face. She has another name, but has long since gamely resigned herself to this one.

  “I will reapply both salve and spells personally when it is t-t-time,” I promise.

  “Oh now,” Mother Mouth scolds playfully. “None of that, my boy. No need to be nervous. It’s just a woman and a bit of blood.”

  “I’m not ne-nervous of her,” I say.

  She pats my arm. “Of course not. You’re a good boy, Master Turn.”

  I pretend to bristle at the juvenile endearment, but it secretly pleases me. Mother Mouth has known me my entire life. She pulled both my elder brother and I from our mother. She set my broken arm when Kintyre dared me to climb an orchard tree to the top. She put her hands into my brother’s guts after his first run-in with a goblin brigade and held them in place until the Words of Healing could take hold. She closed my mother’s eyes after a fever took the Lady Turn away. She called my father’s corpse a silly shit while she cleaned it the day he drank himself into a tumble down the foyer staircase and into his own grave. She has more than earned the right to call me her “good boy,” should she so choose. And I always do my best to live up to it.

  Mother Mouth packs her small case and takes her leave. When my staff has finished ferrying ewers of both hot and cool water, wine, a modest bowl of broth, fresh candles, towels, my mother’s newly cleaned dressing robe, my mother’s slippers, and my portable writing desk into the room, I dismiss them to their suppers.

  One last young lady lingers at the door, and she must be freshly arrived for she does not wear russet livery. I do not know her, and she seems eager to be of help, which is extremely encouraging. She is slim, her hands rough and callused, giving her the appearance of one who looks like she works hard, and her apron is very starched. She resembles Cook—same rigidly marshaled brown hair, same firm lines around her eyes, very competent and very discreet. She waits silently on the threshold, obviously waiting for me to speak first.

  “Hello,” I say. “Yes?”

  “Sir,” she says and bobs a curtsy. “My mother sent for me when she heard you had a lady guest, sir. Figured you’d want a girl in, sir.”

  “Very good of her to take the initiative. Well come, and well stayed.” I take a moment to go to my portable desk and scribble upon a fresh piece of paper. When the ink is dry, I fold up the note. “Your name, miss?” I ask.

  “Neris, sir.”

  “Can you read, Neris?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  “Excellent. Here.” I hold out my hand. In it are a letter and a small sack of gold coins. She takes both.

  “I would like you to return to your usual household with this and give both to your mistress. The envelope contains an apology letter to your employer, and this should be enough coin to replace the wages she’s already paid you this week. I would have you here until you are no longer needed at Turn Hall. And I will pay double whatever your current employer offers. Is that acceptable?”

  She smiles, and there must be her father, for Cook’s face does not have such fetching dimples. “Oh, yes sir!”

  “And I invite you to move your things into the Hall come morning. Unless you have another billit you prefer?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Very well. Ask your mother for Turn-russet livery when you return, and we’ll get you set up in the maid’s quarters. Though, ah, you may be alone there.”

  “I’m not afraid of the dark and the quiet, Master Turn,” she says, dropping a curtsy and vanishing in that lovely discreet way of lady’s maids the world over. It’s a vastly underprized skill.

  My new guest and I are now alone.

  My skin prickles at the thought of being trapped in a room with a person I know so very little about—I am not used to being the one on poor footing—and I go to the window to try to relieve the pressing sense of claustrophobia. It is silly; she is unconscious and, thanks to the poppy milk, will remain so for
a good long while. I have nothing to fear from her.

  Still. She is an unknown factor, and I do not like those in the least.

  There is a reason I’m the king’s Shadow Hand. Who better for a spymaster than the man who becomes physically agitated when he feels ignorant?

  The sky outside has turned an ashy blue. Rain is on the horizon, and the breeze is picking up accordingly. I open the sash just enough to allow in the fresh wet air, but not enough for raindrops when they finally start to fall. The puff of breeze against my chest, fluttering my shirt and Turn-russet robe, gives me a false sense of safety—I have an exit if I need one.

  The breeze also flutters the heavy velvet drapes. Dust puffs out of the folds and onto the wooden floor. My mother was of House Sheil, and so much of the décor in her chambers is a deep, dark purple—the throw rugs, the comfortable upholstered chairs by the hearth, the bedding, all of it is patterned with curling designs of lilac and lavender and deepest indigo. It has been years, perhaps a whole decade, since my father had Mother’s chambers shut up. I suddenly realize how much I have missed purple.

  The cloud cover is blocking so much of the sun that the room has become gloomy, and the details of the woman hard to catch. I make a second circuit for candles, which I light with a twig from the small fire in the hearth. Then I set the kettle Cook left on the mantelpiece onto the hook attached to the flume and wait for it to boil. A hot drink on a gray day is always a comfort, and the air in my mother’s chambers is dry from being shut up for so long, so the steam will do us both some good.

  Now to take care of this silly fear; I will observe the woman and decipher what I can of her, so that the anxiousness can finally dissipate long enough for me to get some paperwork done. I pull one of the chairs that stand before the fireplace over to the bedside, and settle into the lush padding. Then I look.

  The first thing that registers is that she is in pain, despite the sleep brought on by the poppy milk. It is obvious by the creases in her forehead and the set of her jaw. Her hair is matted with sweat and other fluids that I do not wish to consider closely. Perhaps I dismissed Neris too hastily—my guest could certainly do with a wash, if only for her own comfort. But I am not certain that it would not have caused her more agony, so perhaps it is best to wait until the young woman is awake and aware and able to help the maid.