Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “Useful thing, Truthsense, if you can accept in trade for being a Magistrate,” Nathaniel said. “Wouldn’t it have been more sensible for them to keep your belongings wherever they’ve stashed Derec?”

  “Nothing they have done so far seems particularly sensible.”

  “So, it’s a trap?”

  Elianor shook her head. “More likely they’ve panicked and done something stupid. Either way, we should go look.”

  Nathaniel grinned, and launched himself onto his horse. Elianor lowered her eyes lest she be caught making a fool of herself.

  Chapter 24

  Anton followed Persephone as she squared her armoured shoulders and drove her horse farther up the mountain. She had agitated for this for days. Now they finally had permission to search higher in the mountain for Mabyn’s patrol. It should count as a victory, even if it meant visiting Hodri’s farm to let him know his daughter, Seren, was missing. Instead, Persephone refused to acknowledge Anton when he suggested they take a break, barely grunted when he passed her bread taken from the kitchens on their way out of the castle, and point blank refused when he offered her his wineskin. It took the fun out of getting drunk on the journey.

  The land on the road to Demon’s Pass was sparse and dry, when you could find it beneath the snow. The closeness of the Kindred made everything less trustworthy. Twice Anton had caught himself checking back over his shoulder. Only a crazy person would live this far away from town. Anton had known Hodri since well before the war and, frankly, wished the horrid old man would move farther.

  “Was Seren still seeing Mabyn?” Anton said. “Maybe they eloped.”

  Persephone pulled up her horse and glared at him.

  “Why would you think something stupid like that?”

  “Optimism? A tendency to look on the bright side? Seren and Mabyn’s patrol went missing on the same day.”

  “What, she eloped with the whole squad? Seren was working weekends at Nana Haf’s: she was seeing lots of different people.”

  “It’s not a brothel, Seph.”

  Persephone grunted.

  “If you’re going to hit me with that sword,” Anton said, “please try not to kill the horse as well.”

  Persephone turned back in the saddle and they continued up the narrow road. Anton, undeterred: “Do you think Begw would really leave to visit her mother, in the middle of the night, with her sister missing? After all the fuss she made in the courtyard?”

  “Why would father lie? Maybe Seren told her she was going back to her mother.”

  “Yeah, right. Maybe.”

  “What do you want me to say, Anton?”

  “That you’ll do the talking when we see Hodri.”

  “Sure, if you promise to keep your mouth shut. Idiot.”

  Hodri’s farmstead looked like two huts had fallen over into each other, drunkards huddled together against the chill. A dry-stone wall extended out the back and then sort of gave up. This offered a pair of drowsy-looking goats a simple route for escape should they ever gain the gumption to wrestle themselves free from their stakes. But they, in turn, were more interested in chewing on the overgrown hedgerow than freedom.

  Anton and Persephone tied their horses near the wall. There was no porch, just a patch of dirt before a front door that looked like it had been kicked in and then rapidly repaired. This was because Anton had once kicked it in and then rapidly repaired it. Someone had broken it again since. Anton looked away south, down the mountain to the dirty smudge of the town. Nathaniel and the Magistrate should be there now.

  “Are you coming?” Persephone said.

  Anton pulled off his gloves and scratched at the scar from his missing fingers.

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

  Persephone ducked her head and rapped three times on the door, careful not to break it. There was shuffling within. A gust of wind blew a small cloud of wood-chippings. One goat bleated and the other looked balefully over the wall as Anton pulled back on his gloves.

  “I’m just saying, if Seren’s in a freshly dug grave out back, you owe me a drink.”

  The door rattled back and forth. Someone worried at the bolt lock from inside. Persephone took half a step back as the whole thing lifted and shook in its frame, swung on a broken hinge, then gave way towards the interior.

  “What do you want?”

  Hodri looked terrible. Long grey hair fell towards a filthy beard that never grew but had never been cut and framed a face filmed with filth. He stank of alcohol. Maybe, Anton thought, just maybe, for all that Hodri abused his daughters, he actually cared about them. Or maybe this is what a man looks like when the person who feeds him goes missing for a few days.

  “May we come in?” Persephone said.

  “No.”

  “You heard about Seren,” Anton said.

  “Tannyr had one of his boys come by.”

  Hodri glared at Anton as he spoke, as if Persephone wasn’t standing right there between them.

  “I’m sorry, you should have heard it from us,” Persephone said. “We came as soon as we could.”

  “Well, you came. Have you found my daughter?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I see Begw didn’t have the decency to come herself.”

  “Begw is…”

  “I don’t care,” Hodri snapped. “Why don’t you bugger off until you have something useful to tell me.”

  “Do you mind if we look around?” Anton said.

  “Of course I bloody mind!”

  Hodri went to slam the door. Persephone caught it and almost took a chunk out of the wood.

  “Mabyn’s patrol came up this way, the day before yesterday. Did they stop here?”

  “I warned Mabyn he wasn’t to come up here again.”

  Anton tried to give an ‘I told you so’ look to Persephone, which she ignored.

  “Was Seren having trouble with Mabyn?”

  “I scared him off. Too old for her.”

  The thought of Hodri scaring anyone was absurd. Maybe he used the smell. But Seren had been terrified of the old man. Fathers were like that. It didn’t matter how small they became; they were always big in your head.

  “Was it Uwen that came to see you? Or one of Tannyr’s other boys?” Persephone said.

  Interesting question, Anton thought. Hodri pulled the door as close to shut as he could manage, then stared out like a rat through a rat hole.

  “What did Uwen tell you, Hodri?” Persephone said.

  “He said Seren left Nana Haf’s at the end of her shift and no-one’s seen her since.”

  That was similar to what Anton had heard. Derec Garn had come to the castle to ask for help with the search, so Anton had asked him to travel to Durançon to meet the Magistrate. It had seemed more useful at the time. A Magistrate, pointed in the right direction. Now…and the more he thought about how he had found out she was coming…

  “That girl was a sinner,” Hodri said. “Engaged in a sinful trade. It was always going to end like this.”

  “She worked behind the bar, Hodri,” Anton said, Persephone’s hand on his arm.

  “If you work in a whorehouse, you’re a whore!”

  “That didn’t stop you from spending her salary.”

  “This isn’t helping,” Persephone said.

  “Everyone knows what side you make your bed, Anton Vile.”

  “What is that even supposed to mean?” Anton’s voice rose, bursting from his chest and bypassing his throat. He felt Persephone tense. Hodri bared his teeth, a biting tortoise.

  “You’re not one of us, not anymore; you’re one of them. Not farmer, not mountain: you’re town.”

  “When was the last time you did any farming, Hodri?” Anton gesticulated at the nearest goat, as if it might intervene to support his argument.

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Persephone put both hands on Anton’s chest and pushed him, walking him backwards until he was well out of reach of Hodri. “You stand here with the horses.”
/>   She stalked back to the farmhouse door. Anton couldn’t see her face, but the tone of her voice was more than enough to hold the obnoxious old man in his place.

  “What is this about, Hodri?”

  “Ask your brother. All the change since he came back: re-opening the mines, the Garns getting rich, outsiders coming to Shadowgate. If the Black Dog took my daughter, it’s because she was doing what she was doing, and she was doing it because of him.”

  Anton closed his eyes. He could still feel where Persephone had touched him, and, no matter how hard he tried, his skin crawled with an old memory. She hadn’t meant anything by it. He was sure she hadn’t meant anything by it. Can’t blame someone forever for old mistakes.

  He put his left hand out and caressed the nearest horse. Sometimes it still felt strange not to carry a sword. The big broadswords everyone used on the mountain were a liability if you only had one useful hand. He could have made himself one of those skinny little rapiers they used in Lutense, but he didn’t want to learn how to use it. He didn’t want to fight anybody anymore, not really. Even a simple punch can leave bruises on your knuckles longer than the bruises on their face, and then, great, everyone has bruises, nobody sleeps right. Persephone reasoned with Hodri in lowered tones. Anton liked his hammer. Quicker, blunter, more options to stop than to kill. Useful for things other than killing people. But sometimes, just sometimes, he wished he still carried a sword.

  He opened his eyes. Persephone was looking back at him as she spoke to Hodri.

  “We have to go up mountain. Can we come speak to you if we get any more news?”

  “Won’t be here. I’m leaving. Going where I’m wanted.”

  “But what if your daughter comes back?” Persephone said.

  It was a drop of water in the desert, a rivulet in the wilderness, the tear that ran from nowhere but the base of Hodri’s eye.

  “We both know she won’t come back,” he said.

  Chapter 25

  They lunched at noon near the fork where the high road re-joined the low. Elianor had led them around the outskirts of the town, away from prying eyes. Nathaniel shared out the pasties that had emerged in a picnic wrap from the ordered chaos of Ifanna’s kitchen, and the two of them sat on a large rock and enjoyed the afternoon sun. Rees stood farther away, still in earshot, glowering north along the low road towards town. Elianor and Nathaniel faced south, where the track to the mines weaved into the flattening foothills, trying to spot into what sort of trap they were walking.

  “Is that Derec’s cart?”

  Nathaniel must have exceptional eyesight. Elianor could make out several large buildings organised around a wagonway. The wagonway was a tracked road made of metal railings that ran two hundred metres to the scaffolded entrance of the mine. Between the mine and the buildings, a flagpole flew an unfamiliar flag. Several miners led a horse-drawn wagon towards the mine, and another two were arguing with a third, who waved his arms in their faces. All told she could make out a dozen figures, a half-dozen structures, some animals, but no cart.

  “Where?”

  “There, left past the steam pump.”

  A stone building hunched around a long chimney, drawing an unhurriedly revolving wheel to its side and playing the spokes with long fingers of black metal. The struts wove back and forth like old women knitting by the guillotine. It was an extraordinary feat of engineering.

  “You’ll never see anything else like it, not even in the capital. The Breks used to own this land, but with the upper levels mined out and the lower levels flooded, it wasn’t good for much more than goats and sheep. Anton came back from engineering school with all sorts of ideas for how to restart the mine, but Tannyr doesn’t like new things. So, Anton found another way.”

  A mouse ran out from cover under the rock, making for the roots of the nearby tree. For some reason, one that must make sense if one were a mouse, it stopped and looked directly at Elianor. She threw the last of her pasty at it.

  “Anton studied in the capital?”

  “Before becoming an artillery officer in the war against the North. My father thinks nobles should be cavalry. Still doesn’t explain why he sent me to the Magistry.”

  That was why she hadn’t recognised the flag above the mines. It was an artillery signal pennant.

  “You must think highly of your brother.”

  “Anton?” Nathaniel laughed. “Last year some men came from the Northern Kingdoms. Have you ever met a Northerner?”

  “Tourists. In the capital. And the Wardens, if you count the Wardens.”

  “They came to look at the mines. Anton showed them around. You know how they look at us. Like we’re children, or animals. And then they stood in my father’s audience chamber and asked Anton to come back with them to the Kingdoms. They said they were a ‘charity’, whatever that means, and wanted to share plans for a mechanised cart that could move faster than a horse. Anton said no. He said he had too much to do here.”

  “He understood his duty,” Rees said.

  “He limited his ambition. Think of what he could have achieved. Instead: this.”

  Nathaniel gestured around him, at the piles of stone, the empty mountainside, the lost goat stood halfway between here and nothing.

  “Have you talked to him about it?” Elianor said.

  “Anton doesn’t talk. He jokes. It was the same with the mines. Father didn’t want to know, and Tannyr didn’t understand, so instead of taking the time to explain, he went to the only person in Shadowgate with a grasp on the modern world. Gwyion Garn loaned the money so that Anton could buy the land on his behalf. When Tannyr sold, he didn’t know who was really buying.”

  “Why didn’t Gwyion just buy the land directly from Tannyr?”

  “Countryside rules.”

  “Countryside gossip,” Rees added, sourly.

  “Haf was supposed to marry Tannyr instead of Gwyion.”

  Rees grunted.

  “Whatever reason Tannyr had for not liking Gwyion before,” Nathaniel said, “he’s had plenty of reason to hate him since. Gwyion and Haf speculated every penny they had on Anton’s design. Once the lower levels were clear of water, they hired out-of-town miners to dig up the richer seams. Now the mines pull more money and trade into Shadowgate than all Tannyr’s farms put together. The whole south of town is new: new buildings, new people, new ways to do things, and the Garns profit from it all.”

  “What about Anton? Do the mines pay a tithe?”

  “I don’t think he cares. He has a direct cut, but he spends most of it on his refurbishments of the Manor. I think he only does things so he doesn’t notice he isn’t really doing anything.” Then, abruptly: “Will we find Derec here?”

  “No,” Elianor said. “They’ll have him hidden somewhere safe.”

  “My brothers worked down the old mine, before it was closed,” Sergeant Rees said. “I was the youngest. Their work paid for me to stay in school long enough to get in the army. They were all dead by the time I came back to join the guard. Not one of them made it to forty years old.”

  Nathaniel stopped eating and ran his thumb along the edge of his pastry. Elianor watched Rees closely. This was the first time she had heard him speak so much.

  “Haf’s a hard woman,” Rees continued. “She had Derec working the mines as soon as he was of age. He’s more a brother to those boys and girls than I was to my own. They’ll die to protect him.”

  Elianor got to her feet.

  “Well then,” she said. “Let’s see that they don’t have to.”

  “How do you want to do this?” Nathaniel said. “Wait until nightfall and sneak in?”

  “I’m an officer of the law. We get on our horses and we ride right into the middle of them.”

  ◆◆◆

  The miners formed a semi-circle, blocking off the end of the road in front of the steam pump. Its great rotating wheel clacked and whirred; an enormous sucking sound was followed by the heaving of water. Elianor cast an imperious glance acr
oss at the cart. Her chest of possession was in plain sight atop. Several miners stood in front. Most were armed, some with tools, some with more obvious weapons.

  “I am Elianor Paine. You know why I’m here.”

  She kept her hands on the reins and away from her weapons. Nathaniel and Rees stopped a few paces behind her. She looked around the group, trying to identify a leader.

  “You,” she said, pointing at the man with the tousled sandy hair who had just slapped the shaft of his pick into the palm of his hand. “Where is Derec Garn?”

  “I’m the foreman of this mine, and Derec’s one of us,” he said. “You can’t have him.”

  “Do you understand who I am?” Elianor said.

  “You just told us,” the foreman said, glancing at the other men with a forced grin. There was some weak laughter. Not a lot, but too much. Elianor reached for her pistol.

  “Wait!” Another man, dressed in black, ran along the wagon track. He waved his hands like he was trying to take flight. “Everyone, put down your weapons!”

  The miners parted as he passed and closed ranks behind him. Still out of breath, he presented himself before Elianor with his hands open and his palms facing her. He was that unpleasant middle-aged mix of fat and thin. His skinny limbs sprouted from a pot belly that rolled over an ill-fitting belt.

  “Your honour, I’m Gwyion Garn. This has been a horrible mistake.”

  Gwyion Garn looked like a farm hand who had stolen a clerk’s clothes then got lost somewhere in his late forties. This was arguably the wealthiest and most powerful man in Shadowgate Town. He had cut himself shaving.

  “Please forgive my men,” he said. “We have your belongings here. No harm has come to them.”

  He batted his hands towards the miners who stood by the cart. The foreman lowered his pick. Was this submission, or the inability to think and grasp at the same time?

  “Sergeant Rees,” Elianor said. “Bring me my chest.”

  The Sergeant licked his lips. He only dismounted after Elianor. Gwyion rubbed his hands on his trousers. Rees advanced on the chest. The miners moved aside. The nearest nodded and gave a weak smile, the farthest stared as if at a snake. Rees took the chest in both hands.