“I’ll walk with you,” he said, instead. “I’m going that way.”
It wasn’t true. The blacksmith’s barn was in the opposite direction. Nonetheless, Bane accompanied his brother to the tavern. “I’m here,” Drake announced, when they arrived. “I don’t need my minder any more, Bane.”
Bane couldn’t resist one more warning. “Be careful, Drake, Tonight is a night for the ladies to take their revenge.” By tradition, New Year’s Eve in Marplestead belonged to the ladies, and anything that happened on that night was ignored by the entire neighborhood the following day. A drunken husband might wake up in a pig wallow. An unfaithful one in the stocks. The ladies were inventive, determined, and disguised, so no one knew who had done what.
Drake cut him off with an impatient gesture. “I won’t do anything my fair correspondent doesn’t wish, Bane. I never have. The ladies have no reason to go after me. Will you be safe going home?”
“I’ll be fine,” Bane insisted. “It isn’t far.”
Bane figured the revelers would leave him alone. Rumors about the face he kept hidden had grown over the past fifteen years, since his father had brought him to Bancroft House wounded and near death.
Bane still wore the hood that Drake’s mother had demanded, so she need not look upon the scarred wreck of his right cheek,but in truth, the mark of the knife attack that had nearly taken his life had faded since he arrived at his father’s house, ten years’ of age, grievously wounded, and not expected to live. His face might not be pretty, but Bane had seen worse.
The hood also threw his mismatched eyes into shadow—and it had been those that had led to his scarring. Wearing it was a habit. And on a night like tonight, something of a protection.
Sure enough, he made it home safely, though he did see a group of a dozen or so women—masked and costumed. They glanced at him and dismissed him. Was one of them the person who had written to Bane? He paused just inside the gate to watch them pass the tavern and keep walking, so probably not.
“The wife is out,” said the blacksmith, when Bane poked his head into the kitchen to see if supper was ready. “It’s Misrule Night. Don’t know what they’re up to, and I’m not going to ask, but it has them all a twitter. Supper is on the table.”
Bread, cheese, and a big slab of plum cake. Good enough. Bane poured himself an ale and sat down, as did the blacksmith. They ate in silence—when the lady of the house was home, she chattered enough for all three of them, but the blacksmith was a man of few words, and Bane had been eating alone for most of his life.
Besides, his mind was not on the food or the company, but on his brother. Something about the whole situation didn’t sit right. Drake was popular with the ladies, but—as far as Bane knew—this was the first time he’d ever received an anonymous invitation. Not, in itself, suspicious, but Bane didn’t like the timing. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that, on Misrule Night, women used their temporary freedom to seek revenge.
Revenge for what, though? Drake was, as Bane had cause to know, the kindest, most giving of men, with a positive talent for staying on pleasant terms with hisamoursboth during and after their liaisons.
He had almost finished his ale when a hullabaloo started from outside—the rata-tat-tat of drums, the shriek of whistles, and clanging sounds that put him in mind of kitchens.
“Better check,” said the blacksmith, and got up to open the door, just in time for the parade to pass in front of the smithy and then the cottage alongside it.
The noise makers came first. The clanging, Bane noted, was made by various types of spoons against pot lids. The women all wore costumes and masks, like the group he’d seen earlier. Even their own mothers would not have known them.
More women, similarly garbed, followed the noise makers. They were oddly positioned, in long lines, and it took Bane a minute to realize they were pulling on ropes—at least half a dozen ropes, each with eight or nine women haulers. Others danced among them with lamps, lighting the whole scene.
As he craned his neck to see what they were dragging, he noticed that doors and windows were being opened up and down the village street. The men of the village were silent witnesses to whatever was happening.
“It is a shaming,” said the blacksmith. He sounded awed. “There hasn’t been one in Marplestead for seven years! I wonder who it is?”
A shaming. Bane had never seen one, but he had heard about the last one. The man had been a serial fornicator, seducing one girl after the other with meaningless promises. After being led through the whole village and around the major farms and manors all one Misrule Night, he had left town and had never returned.
The object at the end of the ropes was plodding into view. It was a donkey, stolidly ignoring the ropes, the noise, and the murmuring of the onlookers. That, Bane saw at a glance.
What took his attention was not the steed but the rider. He was male. Since he wore nothing but knee breeches and a head-concealing mask in the form of a goat’s head, his gender was beyond a doubt. The broad shoulders and the muscular torso, arms, and thighs also bore witness.
He sat backward on the ass, bound to the saddle with rope, swaying slightly as if he was drunk.
With a jolt of shock, Bane realized he knew that torso, those arms! He narrowed his eyes as the rider drew level, and was aided by one of the dancers, who lifted her lamp so it shone on the rider’s elbow.
“It is Drake,” Bane said.
“Really?” asked the blacksmith. “What has Drake done to deserve a shaming?”
“Nothing,” Bane said, grimly, and took a step forward, but the blacksmith grabbed his arm.
“If you go out there, you’ll be joining him.”
“I can’t leave him there,” Bane protested, but the blacksmith was right. He’d not get Drake free without using his brain instead of just reacting. “I need my horse,” he said. “And a good knife. I’ll grab him when they take him off the donkey to throw him into the pond.”
“They’ll overpower you,” the blacksmith warned. “There are what? Fifty of them? One of you.”
