(44) Shame – 1

Still tugging at the collar of the cloak, Kre looked up at the smirking face of Braun.  “It suits you,” the Magistrate sneered down from his high seat on the wagon.  “Now get in and shut up.  We need to make up some time.”

Lowil shrugged apologetically and hopped up into the back of the wagon.  Kre followed suit but did a double-take when he saw the large box in the middle of the wagon’s bed.  “What’s this?  A market delivery for the city?”

His former teacher shook his head, almost sadly and opened his mouth to answer.  Before he could, Braun piped in, almost in a cheerful tone.  “That there’s your victim.  It’s evidence for your trial.  No body no murder, you see.”

“Just the one?  Why not bring both?”  Kre snapped back, irritated at the glorified clerk’s constant attitude towards him.

Lowil cut in before Braun could say something that would set Kre off again.  It was already going to be a long tense ride, having a constant state of petty in-fighting would mean that they might never make it to the Citadel, at least not with all of them still alive.  “This has nothing to do with evidence.  Dragon Knights have always been accorded the privilege of being buried at the Citadel.  We feel that our own Mr. Cootsman should be afforded that same privilege.

“The other body was taken to Fort Cowl and we assume it was buried in an unmarked grave or burned at a pyre.”  He rubbed his chin slightly as if pondering it further.  “To be honest, I’m not sure how the military handles remains of the unknown.”  Lowil grabbed a pencil and notepad from the bag next to him and jotted down a few notes for himself.

Kre closed his eyes and bowed his head briefly, placing a hand on the end of the coffin.  Terync deserved that much at least, before he was taken out of the town he loved so much.  ‘Or did he,’ he wondered.  ‘Let’s be honest, I have no idea if he even liked this town.  Maybe this was just a random place he chose to settle.  Maybe he picked Mintas because it was so damnably far away from the Citadel.  Maybe he just wanted to live free on the frontier, away from the responsibilities of a Dragon Knight.’

“Oh for the love of…” Braun muttered.  He snapped the reins and the pair of horses started their plodding walk.  Kre felt the wood of the coffin slip away from his hand and saw the wagon lurch away when he opened his eyes. 

“Hey, wait a minute,” he called out.  He supposed that his plaintive cry only served to amuse Braun even more.  Knowing that, he very much wanted to just stand there and watch the wagon roll away without him.  He was certain that he could get the smith to snap off the lock on the cloak of shame and he could very well live his life in peace.  He could even change his name, like Terync did, and hide from his past.  No one in Mintas would rat him out and Braun would eventually move on, probably to a new civil posting and forget all about this.

The thought to just run the other direction was so very tempting.  He firmly believed that it was almost expected of him.  He figured that the dumbest thing he could do right now would be to catch up to the wagon and he suspected that everyone else knew it too.  “Hells,” he muttered under his breath, “even Terync ran and hid from something in his past.”

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