Ransom looked down at him from atop his exhausted mount. “Does he live?”
Alain nodded. “He’s . . . he’s very sick. He’s been calling for you all night.”
Ransom nodded and guided the horse into the bailey. There was a well in the middle of the yard, and he saw a few young men drawing water from it. As he approached the well, he sensed the presence of the cloaked lady. The realization did not surprise him. He’d expected he would find her nearby, although it surprised him to feel her presence pulse from the well itself. Ransom reached the edge, and one of the boys looked up at him in awe and admiration, much the way he might have regarded a knight when he was younger.
“Water my horse,” he told the boy.
“Yes, my lord.”
Ransom dismounted and stood by the rim of the well. Something struck him, a strange feeling that he had been there before and that she had been there with him. He looked at the lad, who was probably eight years old.
“Have you seen a lady here?” he asked the boy.
“Pardon?”
“Have you seen a lady here at the well?” he asked. His hand gripped the hilt of his bastard sword.
The boy looked around. “No, my lord. Not since the princess left.”
He knew the lady in the well could feel him too. That meant she was waiting for something, but what? And how was he to reach her? Was she really crouched down in the well? He carefully leaned over, looking down into the darkness. That strange sense of recognition thrummed inside him again, and he heard the distant roar of the waterfall in his ears. He felt the power pulse inside him, although it was much depleted.
“I’m here,” he called, hoping his voice would carry down the shaft.
He waited for an answer, but none came.
Ransom backed away from the well and started toward the fortress. She had done her damage, and it was likely too late to reverse it. He could at least see his king. The rest could be handled later. As soon as he entered, he saw Talbot leaning against the wall, hands covering his face as he tried to control his grief. Ransom walked up to him and gripped his shoulder.
Talbot’s face crumpled when he saw it was Ransom. “It’s you,” he said in a choked voice. “Go to him. I can’t bear to see him like this. He’s wasting away before our eyes. I’ve put twenty coins in the well as prayers he’ll recover. But he keeps getting worse!”
Ransom dug his fingers into Talbot’s muscle. “Simon said you were sent to deliver the surrender. What happened?”
Talbot nodded, then started sobbing. “The king thought . . . it was a trick. He trusts his son not at all. I swore on the Fountain, by the Lady of the Fountain, that it was true, that Devon wishes to see him before he dies. But the king sent me away. I can’t bring myself to tell him, Ransom. He wanted to beg his father’s pardon before he died. He’s afraid . . . he’s afraid of going to the Deep Fathoms. It was Robert who turned Devon away from you. I don’t know why we believed him. He was jealous of you from the start.”
“Where is Robert?”
“In the dungeon,” said Talbot with malice. He broke down weeping again. “I can’t do it, Ransom. I can’t. You have to tell him. His father won’t come in time. He won’t see his mother either, or his brothers.”
Ransom stared at Talbot, feeling himself ready to break down. Why was it up to him to deliver the dark tidings? Devon had dismissed him from his bonds of loyalty, and yet they existed still within his chest. They felt like chains. Seeing Talbot so distraught had withered his remaining hope that Devon might yet recover.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
He was brought to the chamber where Devon lay dying. The healer, a barber from the village below, wrung his hands and shrugged helplessly as he looked at Ransom. His bushy black-and-gray beard, so full compared to his balding head, made him look almost comical, but no levity was possible at such a moment. Ransom bit his lip as he gazed at the almost corpse on the bed.
Devon had shrunk since Ransom had last seen him. Blood seeped from his eyes, staining his pillow. His teeth were yellow and his lips chapped. The smell of filth permeated the chamber in a nauseating mist. Ransom nearly choked on it. He stared down at his friend, his king, and all feelings of resentment vanished, replaced by pity.
“Ransom,” Devon croaked, the sound otherworldly.
The knight approached the bedstead, and the barber fled the room. Even though the hearth was blazing, Devon trembled as if frigid. His eyes were closed, scabbed, but he’d still sensed Ransom. Or could he see him?