Page 17 of Fortress of Snow

Disowned. Abandoned. Alone.

As she lay across her bed, the words from Warin’s letter ran through her mind. “Father,” she whispered, desperately missing her father, longing to speak to him and hear his voice again.

God had let him die when she needed him, when God knew that Warin would not care for her and would cast her off. He could have healed her father, but He chose not to.

“God, why?” she whispered as she buried her face in her pillow, tears seeping from her eyes.

She had a place to sleep, but for how long?

Several of the servants who had gone to work for her father were orphans, some as young as nine. They’d had nowhere else to go, so her father had brought them into his household to work. Was that what Mazy needed to do? Become a servant to earn her food and a bed? But Mazy had not learned the skills of taking care of a household. Her skills at archery and knife-throwing would not get her a position as a servant, and she was a woman, so she could not be hired as a guard.

But she would do what she had to do, and she would not feel sorry for herself. Her servant Bathilda, who was more of a mother than a servant, had taught her to disdain self-pity, had pointed it out in Mazy whenever she saw it.

“You don’t want to be like the little girl,” Bathilda had said, “who cried because she wanted a wolf for a pet, to keep her from being lonely. She was inconsolable until the mother went out to look for a wolf cub to bring back home to her and was eaten by the wolf cubs’ mother. Then the girl was truly alone.”

Mazy wanted to say that the child was more foolish andindulged than self-pitying, but she was too afraid Bathilda would smack her hand for being impertinent.

Whenever Bathilda saw Mazy get tears in her eyes, she would say, “No self-pity. Remember the girl who cried for a pet wolf.”

Mazy vowed to be strong, and she would not complain or feel sorry for herself. She would look for things she could thank God for.

That vow would surely be easier to make than to keep.

Berenger went looking for Sir John, tramping through the forest to the rock outcropping where Sir John was wont to go when he took a notion to drink strong spirits.

And sure enough, when he reached the place and got close enough to see through the dense trees, Sir John was there, pacing one way, then spinning on his heel and pacing back the other way. In his hand was a flask like the one the alewife in the village used to contain her strongest drink.

Sir John took a sip from it, then muttered to himself as he paced.

Berenger would much rather turn around and go back to the castle, lose himself in his duties, and leave Sir John to his own vice. But he was here for Mazy. She needed someone to advocate for her, since her oldest brother had abandoned her.

“Sir John.”

He froze and snapped his head in Berenger’s direction.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“What about? My blighted, cursed family?”

The words were extreme, but then, Sir John often spoke in such extremes. “Your sister is very upset about what her brother did. I’m sure she would like to hear a few words of comfort from you.”

Sir John took another drink from his flask before speaking. “She never should have left home, should have married whomever Warin found for her. It was foolish, and now she has no prospects, no way of making a good marriage.”

“Not because of what she did but because Warin chose to react the way he did. He is the one at fault. Your sister only wanted to see you, her brother. She had lost her father and was grieving. I’m sure Warin had no sympathy for her.”

Indeed, if Sir John had gone to her when their father died, she would not have had to come looking for him. He bore some of the responsibility for her predicament. But if Berenger said that to him, Sir John would only become enraged and refuse to cooperate.

“You have the opportunity now to show her that she is not alone in the world,” Berenger said, trying to phrase it as positively as possible. “Family cares for family, and brothers must care for their siblings.” Berenger had learned this lesson well when he and his siblings had been locked in the Tower of London, falsely accused and even sentenced to death.

How would Sir John react to his lecture? He waited to see if the knight would be angry and start yelling.

He did not speak for several moments, before finally saying, in a very mild voice, “Mazy is a good girl. I will take care of her. Brothers must take care of their sisters.”

The man possessed two opposite temperaments, and this was the Sir John that Berenger liked—mild and agreeable.

“Warin is the one who caused all this. He is the one who should pay for ruining my sister and casting her off. And I shall be watching for a way to make him pay.”

And this was the Sir John who made everyone uncomfortable with his aggressive anger and bitterness. But at least he wasn’t yelling.