“Does the name Justrain mean anything to you, Kara?”
Sir Amik stood in the ward, his back turned to the girl, his hands folded behind him.
“No. I have never heard that name before.” Kara’s face was open and honest, and Theodore was certain she was telling the truth.
Sir Amik turned to face her then.
“I would like you to tell me about your father” he said. “About what happened to you after your village was attacked, and how you came to possess the broken ring.”
“The ring was my father’s,” she replied. “He was a woodcutter in the village. He would spend long periods away, sometimes travelling as far as The Wilderness. Once he left us for some weeks…” Kara’s face fell. “When he returned he was badly injured. Shortly after that, in the winter, the man called Sulla came and killed everybody.”
She raised her head to the knight, who looked at her with sympathetic eyes.
“My mother forced my father’s pack into my hands before she was dragged screaming from our house by her hair,” she continued, her voice strained with the effort. “I escaped from the village, evading their hounds and hiding in the woods. I found the ring later, when I searched the pack for food.”
Kara’s eyes were far away as she recalled the horrific events.
“I was found by a party of dwarfs. They took me back to their caves and I was adopted by Master Phyllis. I learned to craft metals better than any human smith in Falador. I learned to mine and how to fight. I was always fighting. Master Phyllis saw the anger in me and took it upon himself to educate me. I even learned to speak their language.
“Then a few weeks ago Master Phyllis became ill, and he made me promise to leave the mountain. He thought it very wrong that I should be kept away from other humans, and decided that I was old enough to find my way in the world. I took my sword and my father’s ring, and sought out the men who had killed my parents.”
Sir Amik listened carefully, and showed no sign that he thought she was telling anything but the truth. Yet to Theodore he seemed uncomfortable as he began to speak again.
“There was a time when we knights had in our service a powerful mage who shared our aims,” he began. “He created the Rings of Life and we issued them to those men who undertook our more dangerous missions-men like Justrain, who went to live amongst the people of your village, in order to spy on the Kinshra.”
Kara’s expression suddenly changed, to show that she understood.
Could it be true? she thought furiously. Could he have discovered the true identity of my father?
“But, Kara, there is something you should know about Justrain,” Sir Amik said. “He forfeited his knighthood when he accused some in our order of being treacherous, of passing information to the Kinshra. When he left Falador for the final time, he did so without his squire, without his armour, and without his sword. He went as a normal man with a sacred mission. That would allow him to marry if he wished-and it seems as if he did, becoming a woodcutter and having you as his daughter.”
The tears rolled down Kara’s face. Suddenly she felt as if she had found something that she had been searching for her entire life.
“But you must listen to me, Kara,” Sir Amik continued urgently. “There is evidence that the traitor might still be alive, and if he is, he must be brought to justice. I need you to think of anything your father might have said to you about this person. Promise me you’ll think about it?”
Kara nodded her head in agreement, although she was too excited to speak. Sir Amik smiled sadly as he squeezed her hand and left her in the ward with Theodore.
For Sir Amik, the conversation had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
He had lied to Kara.
Sir Amik had read Justrain’s reports, and they mentioned nothing at all about taking on the persona of a woodcutter. The knight lowered his head in shame. Not only had he wildly raised her hopes, he had set her on a path that would put her in danger. Kara-Meir would try to remember something that would incriminate the traitor, and Sir Tiffy would see that the suspect knights in the almshouse would know of it.
“I am trusting in you, Theodore, not to leave that poor girl alone,” he whispered to himself as he returned to his quarters, there to greet a suspicious-looking Bhuler. He would have to watch his valet, for he knew how clever he was and that he would object loudly to Sir Tiffy’s plan.
It is for the greater good, he told himself as he sat down at his desk. Yet, as much as he knew it was true, that sentiment didn’t make him feel any better.