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Tales of the Sundering

posted by Brenda at 08:19 AM, July 11, 2004 | Filed under : Fiction | Comments and Followups

The Sundering was a turning point in Garrett’s life. Thanks to Liz for inspiring Garrett to finally tell this story.

“This storm’s unnatural,” Donovan said as he surveyed the sky to the north. “I’ve never seen anything like it. All the horses are spooked, even the ones that never do.”

Garrett watched the sky as well. In his entire thirteen years, he had never heard his father sound worried. He did now. Another gust of wind pushed his hair out of his face as he watched the clouds, so gray they were almost black, roil and tumble in the distance. Occasionally lightning flashed and the thunder cracked. Each clap sounded closer than the last.

“Is that why they sent down the order?” asked Garrett.

“To batten down? Aye. And we’d better get to it.”

All afternoon, since the order had come down from the castle, all of the stable hands had been preparing the stables for the impending storm. The carriages were brought inside and the carriage house doors barred. Anything that might blow away was secured. Extra water barrels were brought inside the stables and filled. The empty stalls were cleaned and loaded with hay from the forage sheds, so no one would have to venture outside.

There were a lot of empty stalls. Most of the princes and soldiers had ridden out earlier this afternoon, armed for battle. Rumor had it that something was to be done about the Black Road, once and for all. Only Prince Gerard remained behind to act as Regent. Some of the newly-discovered grandchildren of King Oberon stayed as well. Garrett himself had helped Prince Random ready a horse, a steady, black mare named Ebony. The prince had not been himself. He usually talked and joked with Garrett when he was here. Today, he had been quiet and serious, as if he was carrying some great weight inside. Garrett had asked if everything was okay. He smiled and said he had just said good-bye to his wife. Apparently it hadn’t gone well. Suddenly feeling awkward, Garrett had gone off to look for armor for the horse.

Now, as the work neared completion, Garrett paced the stables nervously. He stopped often to comfort and reassure the horses when the thunder rumbled, climbing into the stalls to stroke their necks and talk to them. They seemed comforted somewhat by the presence of the grooms, all of whom had been called into service. Garrett prepared himself for a long night.

“Garrett!” he heard his father call from farther up the aisle.

“Yeah, Dad?”

Donovan strode up to the stall where Garrett was stroking a small roan mare named Sprite. “I want you to head home before the storm gets too bad. Pastern’s already dismissed you.”

Garrett was indignant at being sent home like a child. “But, Dad, they need all the help they can get! Pastern said so himself.”

“I want you home, Garrett,” said Donovan, more sternly.

Garrett never argued with his father, but he was determined to stand his ground this time. Even though he was young, he was as good a groom as anyone here. “No! Mum’s there. It’s fine. They need everyone here with the horses!”

Donovan snapped. “Garrett, I can’t do me job here unless I know you’re there for your mother and sisters! Now, GO!” he shouted, pointing at the door.

Garrett gulped as the realization hit him. Dad was scared. He was being sent home to protect, not be protected. He squared his shoulders and stared into his father’s eyes. Then he nodded. “I’ll keep’em safe, Dad,” he said softly as he passed Donovan to leave the stall. But as Garrett ran home through the howling gale and blinding rain, he had no idea how he was going to do that.

* * *

Mum talked incessantly while she prepared supper. That in itself was a bad sign. When Mum was nervous, she couldn’t stop talking. After a while, Garrett tuned it out. He played any game his sisters wanted to play - horsey, hide and seek, dolls - anything to keep their minds off the storm. Faith and Maggie, who were six and almost three, giggled gleefully. This was a treat. Garrett never played with them this long.

When Garrett told Anna that Donovan had to spend the night at the stables, a momentary look of terror flashed in her eyes before she conquered it. Garrett saw it, though. “It’s okay, Mum. I’ll be here,” he smiled. Garrett did his usual evening chores of bringing in wood and water when he first got home. He also closed and locked the shutters and barred the door, remembering the ‘batten down’ order. Anna watched him, but did not ask why he was doing it. Garrett was sure she didn’t want to know.

After supper, Garrett sat with the girls on their bed, telling stories of beautiful princesses, valiant princes, and a few frogs with spells on them. The gusts outside were so strong the cottage walls often shook. The thatch rattled on the roof. Whenever the thunder boomed, both girls curled tighter into Garrett’s lap. He reassured them. “It’s just a storm. Nothing to worry about.” Garrett wished he could believe himself.

When Anna finished the dishes, she threw more wood in the fire and took Maggie onto her lap in the rocking chair. She sang all the lullabies Garrett remembered from when he was young, and then some. And then she sang them all again, even though Maggie was already asleep. Garrett cuddled Faith in his lap, rocking back and forth on the bed and comforting her when she squeaked about the thunder. He watched his mother, rocking in the firelight and remembered being Maggie’s size, in his mother’s arms, staring into the fire on a stormy night. He remembered how he used to suck his thumb and twirl a lock of his mother’s hair as he drifted off to sleep. As he sat now on the bed holding his little sister, listening to the old lullabies and the raging storm, he idly twirled a lock of Faith’s hair.

* * *

Sleep was nearly impossible. The wind grew stronger, screeching through the roof thatch. The lightning was almost constant and so bright it flashed through the shutter cracks. The thunder roared. The roof sprang so many leaks that Garrett and Anna gave up trying to contain them. Maggie and Faith slept for part of the night, but Garrett and his mother merely dozed. Finally, they gave up trying to sleep, poked up the fire and played cards. Every so often, one or the other would glance at the roof to be sure it was still holding. They talked about everything but the storm, each trying to be brave for the other.

The sudden crash of a window in his parents’ bedroom woke up the girls and made Garrett jump out of his chair. There was nothing strong enough to hold the broken shutters closed against the wind, so Garrett pulled the straw mattress off the bed and into the main room to keep it dry. A tree branch tore through the roof over the loft, leaving no hope of saving that part of the house from the water. As Anna tried to calm the crying girls, Garrett pulled his parents’ mattress over to the girls’ bed on the far side of the main room. He wedged one side between the wall and the bed, pushed everyone under it, then crawled under it himself. He held the open side down with all his strength as the wind, blasting now through more broken windows, tried to tear it from his hands. Anna was too terrified to make a sound. She clutched the girls close to her, barely breathing. Garrett could feel her grasping the back of his shirt.

Before dawn, it got worse. Without warning, a great concussion like Garrett had never felt before rocked the house. The bed collapsed, throwing the family to the muddy floor. Debris rained down as more of the roof gave way. Pots, kettles and dishes crashed to the floor. Anna clutched Garrett’s left arm with a bruising grip, sandwiching the girls between his body and her own. Garrett’s grip on the mattress held against the wrenching wind. The seconds felt like hours.

And then it was over. They all laid under the soggy mattress and listened as the wind diminished and the silence between the thunder claps grew longer. Eventually, Garrett raised a corner of the tick and peeked out from under it. It was dark. The rain had put out the fire. Garrett slowly crawled out from under the mattress, surveying the damage. There were holes in the roof, but the rafters appeared to be intact and the stone walls were still standing. All the windows were broken. It was still raining, but vertically, not horizontally like it had been.

“You can come out,” Garrett said as he pushed the mattress off the rest of the family. Pointing at his sisters, he ordered, “You two stay on the bed. There’s broken glass everywhere.” Both girls nodded, wide-eyed.

Anna wandered to the front window that faced the castle. “Gods,” she breathed. “Garrett, look!”

Garrett looked over her shoulder with a gasp. In the lightning flashes, he could see a whole tower, the one that housed the Family Wing, was missing and a fire was consuming the kitchens. He went to the door and unbarred it. Outside, he stared at the castle, broken and burning, then glanced down the slope to his right. What he saw stole the breath from his lungs. “Mum…” was all he could get out.

Anna followed his gaze and screamed. Where the main stable had been, there was now a huge pile of rubble. Men and horses ran everywhere, yelling and whinnying. Even from here, Garrett could hear the screams of injured horses and men.

“Donovan!…” Anna sobbed, clutching her hands over her mouth in a panic.

Garrett spun around and held her tightly by the shoulders. “Mum! Look at me! Listen,” he said firmly. He stared into her eyes, forcing her to focus on him instead of the collapsed stable. When he had her attention, he spoke with a calm he didn’t know he could possess. “You stay here with the girls. Close the door and start cleaning up. The chimney looks fine, so restart the fire and keep the girls warm. I’ll go down there and find him.” At the mention of his father, Anna sobbed again. Garrett wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He clenched his teeth, keeping his own emotions in check for her sake.

After a moment, he released her, holding her by the shoulders again. “Do you understand, Mum? You stay here. The girls need you.” Garrett knew those were the magic words for his mother, and he was right. Thinking of her children, Anna bit her lip, nodded and forced herself to calm down. Garrett let her go. “I’ll find him, Mum. I promise,” he said with more confidence than he felt, then he took off at a run.

* * *

When Garrett got to the stables, Withers, the afternoon horsemaster, was in the middle of a group of stablehands, counting heads. Garrett knew them all. They were soaked and dirty and many were bleeding. As he approached the group, Withers’ words froze him in his tracks.

“So that makes four missing - Pastern, Bailey, Mane and Curry. Are we sure they were all here before it went down?” asked Withers.

“Aye, sir,” answered Fetlock, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief against his head. “I seen them all. They been here all night.”

There was a pause as someone said something quietly to Withers. Garrett was sure he heard the words “the Kid.” Sure enough, the crowd parted to let him in. Withers looked down at Garrett and continued awkwardly, “Ah… yes…we have four missing. I want everyone to spread out in groups of two or three. No one works alone, you got that? You find anyone, you call and we all work to get them out. You find any horses too badly hurt to save…you know what to do. All right, go. And be careful!” He dismissed the group, but placed a hand on Garrett’s shoulder, keeping him behind. He squatted down, as if he were talking to a child. “Perhaps you should go back home, son.”

“No. Me dad’s missing. I’m strong and I’m helping.” Garrett’s tone made it clear he would not be dismissed.

Withers sighed wearily. “All right, then. Go join a team.”

Garrett worked side by side with the other grooms as dawn broke. The guards came down to help round up the horses. They brought with them disturbing news - Prince Gerard was missing. No one had seen him since the previous evening and it was feared he was buried somewhere in the rubble of the castle. Prince Jerod, King Eric’s son, had taken charge and was leading the rescue effort. The guards seemed confident in his abilities. Garrett glanced at the castle and thought about the kind man who was a mountain himself buried under that pile of rocks. He stifled the thought quickly. It made him think too much about the other kind man buried under this one. He furiously resumed his digging.

An hour later, a call went up. Someone had been found. Everyone went to help, but it was too late. Horsemaster Pastern was dead. Even though the other grooms tried to shield him, Garrett saw Pastern’s body, his head covered in blood and hanging at an angle that was just wrong. He was still holding the halter of the horse he had been trying to lead out of the stable. It, too, was dead.

Garrett’s group went back to where they were digging. They found a horse, alive and pinned, and worked quickly to dig it out. When they finally extricated it, they could see it was not badly injured, but the animal was frantic. As Garrett tried to calm it, a call went up from several yards away.

“We’ve got Bailey!”

Garrett turned in the direction of the voice, distracted, just as the horse reared. Its front hoof caught him just above the left eye, knocking him backward into the rubble. Blood gushed from a three-inch-long gash on his forehead as the back of his head smashed into the stones. Garrett felt a brief moment of spinning, then blackness.

* * *

The music Garrett heard touched something deep inside him and he briefly wondered if he was dead. Then the pain hit and he knew he wasn’t. When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a cot in a large tent. People hurried in and out and Garrett could hear the moans of the wounded. Somewhere, someone was playing a mandolin and humming softly. A petite, dark-haired woman was carefully washing the blood off his face. Garrett could tell she was blind. He tried to sit up, but she gently pushed him back down. He let her. “Where’s me dad?” he croaked.

“He’s alive, lad,” said a voice from the other side of the cot. Garrett turned to see Sorrel, one of the grooms, sitting next to him. “They were still digging him out when I left with you. He was talkin’. Said he was hurt but he’d live.” Sorrel grinned. “I’m glad I’m up here. He’s gonna kick some ass when he finds out you got hurt.”

Garrett tried to grin, but it hurt too much. “I reckon I’ll live,” he said.

“You will indeed,” said the lady confidently. She traced his facial features with her gentle fingers, feeling for spots of blood she might have missed. Then she cocked her head, as if puzzled about something. “Your features seem familiar. What is your name, lad?”

“Garrett Bailey, ma’am. You must be Lady Vialle,” he said. He didn’t know of anyone else here who was blind.

“Yes, I am. Your name is not familiar, but I still feel that I have met you, or perhaps one of your kin, somewhere before,” she said as she deftly threaded a needle. “Have you lived in Amber all your life?”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Garrett, eyeing the needle warily. “Me dad works in the stables. I grew up in the Quarters, at least for most of me life.”

“It would not have been in the stables. I have never been there. Where were your parents raised? Easy…steady on…,” she said gently as he flinched at the first stitch.

“Both me parents grew up on the Docksides.” Garrett thought about it, wincing as she stitched. “Perhaps you met me Uncle Gunnel. I never met him but Mum says I look like him. He died at sea before I was born.”

“It is possible,” she agreed. She asked more polite questions about his family while she continued to stitch. The conversation helped keep Garrett’s mind off the task at hand. When she was finished, she bandaged his head and carefully helped him sit up.

“I want you to go straight home and rest. Drink lots of fluids and no heavy lifting for several days. Doctor’s orders,” she smiled.

Garrett looked at Sorrel and rolled his eyes. “Yes, m’lady,” he said politely. “Thank you.”

As Sorrel helped steady him on the way out of the tent, Garrett softly commented, “No heavy lifting. Ha! *Somebody’s* gotta fix the house.” Sorrel chuckled in agreement.

* * *

Garrett did go home - briefly. He told Anna that Donovan was alive and had been taken to the hospital tent. She fretted over his head injury and tried to make him stay home, but he insisted on going back to the stables. “It’s just a few stitches. It doesn’t even hurt that much,” he lied as his head pounded.

When he arrived at the stable, Garrett caught up on the latest news. All the missing hands had been accounted for. Pastern and Mane were dead. Word from the castle was that Prince Gerard had been found alive but seriously injured. The engineers were still trying to figure out how to get him out. Garrett spent the rest of the afternoon helping with the grim work at the stable. The grooms and guards built temporary paddocks to corral the horses. They inspected the remaining buildings, condemning some and clearing others. And worst of all, the guards ran through the horses that were too badly injured to be saved. Fifteen horses died in all. It broke Garrett’s heart.

While Garrett helped tend the remaining horses, he tried not to watch the grisly sight of the draft teams being hitched to the bodies of the dead animals, but he couldn’t help it. It was like watching a funeral procession. The teams, their drivers nearly in tears, dragged their gruesome cargo to a large field just outside the outer bailey. The guards and grooms together used levers to pile up the bodies. At dusk, they lit the pyre.

The stench of burning horseflesh was horrific. A light breeze blew the smoke back over the stables and the Quarters, sickeningly thick. Even inside the bailey, you could see the flames rising; the sparks, the red glow. Garrett was outside his family’s cottage splitting wood, the pains in both the front and back of his head trying to drill their way through to each other. The smoke just made it worse. He tried to go inside, but with no windows and holes in the roof, it made no difference.

During the afternoon, Anna had done what she could with the house. She cleaned up the broken glass and crockery and got fresh rushes to cover the floor, which was still quite wet. She moved the bed from her room to the main room, rearranging the furniture so the bed was under the only portion of the roof still intact. All the mattresses were still damp, but that didn’t matter to Anna. Donovan lay bandaged and sleeping on the bed. As long as he and the rest of her family were safe, she could deal with wet mattresses and broken windows.

When Garrett came inside, Anna could see the pain on his face. “Sit down, love. Have some stew,” she said with concern, pouring him a cup of water.

Garrett shook his head, growing greener at the mention of food. He sat at the table and rested his head in his hands, hoping the feeling would go away. It didn’t. With a cough, he bolted from the table, out the door and around to the back of the house. He vomited until it felt like his insides were turned upside-down. When he was done, he leaned against the wall. The cool stone felt good against his back and hands. He stood there gasping for a long while, breathing through his mouth so as not to smell the stench of the fire and now the vomit.

The sky grew dark and the moon shone dimly through the smoke. After a long while, a sob escaped his throat. Once the first one was out, the rest followed. Garrett cried like he hadn’t since he was a child. Sobs that racked his entire body. He was exhausted, frightened, grief-stricken, sick and in pain all at once. He just wanted it to stop.

“Garrett…” he heard his mother’s voice around the corner of the house.

He glanced in her direction, bit his lip and sniffed hard, trying to stop the tears. “I’m all right,” he said thickly.

“No, you’re not,” she said softly. “You’ve been through all hells today.” She found him in the dark and wrapped her arms around him.

Garrett resisted, standing up straight against the wall, still biting his lip and closing his eyes. His breath, when he released it, came out as a tremble. He choked back the sobs. He was thirteen. He was too old to cry.

Anna knew. “Let it out, love,” she whispered, holding him close. “Just let it go.”

That was it. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and cried out everything - all the fear, all the grief, all the pain. And she held him, her little boy who wasn’t little anymore; who had been though more horror in one day than many grown men saw in years. And survived it.

She held him until he calmed down, then slipped her arm around his waist and led him back into the house. “Come in. You need to go to bed,” she said firmly.

“Where?” he asked, looking around the wrecked room.

Anna chuckled, “Does it matter?”

Garrett smiled. “Guess not.” He paused and looked at her sheepishly. “You’ll stay, right? You know, ‘til…” he trailed off.

“‘Til you fall asleep?” she asked knowingly. Garrett nodded.

Anna smiled warmly. He hadn’t asked that in years. “Yes, love,” she replied, rubbing his back. “As always.”

Follow up: the trackback URL for this entry is: http://www.whiterose.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/3857

2 Comments

Olof
Jul 11, 2004 9:40 AM

That was just lovely, Brenda. I'm almost crying. (no I'm not kidding)

Karen
Jul 12, 2004 1:50 AM

What Olof said. :)

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