Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “Your honour,” Tannyr said. He stood wringing his hands at the same point as he had on her first night in Shadowgate. His younger son, Dale, was at his side. “I don’t know what my Uwen—"

  “You should go home to your wife,” Elianor said. “But leave his body here. I want to examine it.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Tannyr,” Persephone said, striding towards the stage as if she meant to take the throne. But then she stopped halfway, and when she spoke again, her throat was hoarse. “We all knew Uwen. And your nephew Harran was a fine guard.”

  “Will you help us?” Tannyr said to Elianor.

  “Yes,” Persephone said.

  “Dale?” Tannyr rested his hand on his son’s shoulder. Dale’s eyes watered, his arm was still in a sling, but he stood taller than the last time she had seen him.

  “Gwyion, Anton and the rest of the miners have gone to The Last Chance,” Dale said. “We’ve sent a message to my mother at the farm. We can hit them before nightfall.”

  “Gwyion will bring mercenaries from Durançon,” Persephone said. “You do remember the dragon-helmed soldiers?”

  “If Derec survived,” Elianor said, “Gwyion might negotiate. There have been losses on both sides.”

  “You’re talking forgiveness? You?” Persephone smacked her fist into her palm. “Did you see the bodies out there? The one in the guardhouse? In the kitchen?”

  “So, what, now it’s Anton you want to kill?”

  Persephone looked at Elianor as if she were a very stupid person.

  “I’m not going to kill Anton. I’m going to rescue him.”

  “Even if Derec survived, he will be hanged again,” Lena said. She emerged from the shadows beyond Lady Vile’s portrait. “This situation must not be allowed to undermine Lord Vile’s authority.”

  “What if by tomorrow morning Anton is Lord Vile?” Tannyr said.

  “What if they’ve sent for the mercenaries?” Elianor said. “We saw three of them at Nana Haf’s yesterday. The rest of the company can’t be far.”

  “All the more reason to finish this,” Persephone said. “It’s only a day’s ride to Durançon.”

  In the time they took trying to think what to say, the stage door re-opened.

  “Lord Vile is sleeping,” Nathaniel said as he strolled onto the dais. “He told me I have to go to the monastery and ask for the Abbot’s help. Something about a serum?”

  And he winked at Elianor. This was the first time her Truthsense had detected him lying, but was that because of the wink or did he have some control she didn’t understand? And why was he making her complicit in a lie?

  “What serum?” Lena said.

  Nathaniel smiled at her. It was the first smile anyone had seen that afternoon, and unmistakably a threat. “Something you’ve been giving him, apparently.”

  “You can’t go to the monastery,” Lena said.

  “I’ll need Elianor to come with me,” Nathaniel said.

  Elianor folded her arms.

  “You are the only person to survive the Black Dog,” he said. “Persephone, I’m sure you can rescue Anton just fine without us.”

  “You can’t go to the monastery,” Lena repeated.

  “Can the monks heal him?” Persephone said.

  Lena swallowed like she was choking on a bone. Then her eyes retracted, calculating, calculating. “Possibly,” she said. “But be respectful to the monks. Tell Bayard what happened.”

  Elianor snorted. “If they have the cure, then they will give it to us. And I have questions for the Abbot. When do we leave?”

  Tannyr Brek shuffled his feet.

  “We won’t get there before nightfall,” Nathaniel said. “But if we want to get back before sundown tomorrow, we must go now.”

  “You can spend the night at the watchtower,” Persephone said. “Maybe you will find out what happened to Mabyn’s patrol.”

  “What if you meet Kindred?” Tannyr’s whine reminded Elianor of his daughter, still out weeping in the courtyard. “Wouldn’t it be better to help us with the Garns, and then we could send a larger group tomorrow?”

  “I can handle the Garns,” Persephone said.

  “And Lord Vile might not survive the delay.” Lena’s eyes still counted as she spoke, and when her gaze passed back to Nathaniel, it was that of a predatory snake. “If you want so badly to go to Demon’s Pass, you should go now.”

  Chapter 45

  Haf stood in the doorway of The Last Chance and watched the survivors struggle down the hill. Miners and manual labourers, maids and manservants, everyone who had left for the Manor to stand in solidarity with her son Derec. Now they stumbled with exhaustion from the battle they had lost. She meant to calculate who had left and who had been left behind. Instead, she searched until she spotted Gwyion, there, at the back, his arm around a sobbing Olwen.

  At the front of the group was Anton Vile, hurling himself forward and dragging the rest in his wake. Across Anton’s shoulder was Derec. Haf’s heart lurched. At first, she hadn’t recognised what Anton was carrying. She tried to run out to meet them, but her legs wouldn’t move. Maybe Derec was okay. Maybe he was just unconscious.

  Anton stopped in the garden and slung Derec to the ground with a great whoosh of air. Derec dropped, dead weight. Anton fell to his knees and dry-heaved at the earth between his hands. Sweat ran from his stubble hair and dripped onto the dust. The rest of the group staggered to a halt in an open semi-circle around him.

  “What happened?” Haf said. “Did Vile survive?”

  “Go inside,” Gwyion said.

  “Why are you leaving Derec on the ground?”

  “Go upstairs.”

  “Papa?” There was a long dirt stain across the front of Olwen’s green dress: at some point she had fallen and then been dragged along the ground. She raised her right hand to support her father, but the hand swayed lost in the air.

  “Bring everyone in,” Gwyion said to Olwen. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Give them food and water. Something quick. Put Ty in charge. I need you to get Anton off the floor.”

  “What about Derec?” Haf said. She wanted to run to where her son lay, but somehow Gwyion was stronger than her, somehow her legs wouldn’t move.

  “Go on now,” he said to Olwen, with that soft, kind voice of his. Then he put both his hands on Haf’s arms. He was not a large man. She was taller, when she wore heels. But she felt he would lift her through the doorway in the same way he used to lift their children from their cribs.

  “Derec is dead, Haf.”

  No, that’s not right.

  “They had him on the back of a cart. The horse bolted, and the fall broke his neck.”

  If Derec were dead, Gwyion wouldn’t be this calm.

  “Go upstairs to the back room. I’m right behind you.”

  “But what about Derec?”

  “There’s nothing you can do. I need you to go inside now.”

  He again wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

  “Use the handrail,” he said. “Or you might fall.”

  They walked along the mezzanine, up the stairs again, through the office on the top floor then the final, short flight of stairs took them to the attic bedroom they had shared when they first opened the tavern. Gwyion sat Haf on the single bed in the corner, which was still covered with the old green blanket. The dim light from the round attic window muddied the colour.

  “Are you injured?” he said. “Have Tannyr’s men been here?”

  Gwyion patted her arms and legs as if she were a dull child, then lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes.

  “Where were you, Haf?”

  From downstairs she could hear tables being moved, people talking, those sounds somehow closer than Gwyion’s voice. Someone shouted “No! No!” and then was hushed. A chair fell.

  “I went to Tannyr’s farm.”

  “When? This morning?”

  “Last night.”

  “But where were you this morning? Were you at t
he Manor?”

  She nodded.

  “Where?”

  Derec was dead. Gwyion had to put his hands on his knees to keep balance as he sat next to her on the bed. He had been hurt. What had hurt him? Haf’s face felt numb. No, you don’t feel numb. Something else that felt like feeling numb. She licked the insides of her lips.

  “What did you do, Haf?”

  “I went to Tannyr. Last night. I asked him to give me the Magistrate’s rifle.”

  “Why did you think he… Gods, Haf.”

  She thought he would pull away.

  “Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. How did he always do this?

  “No. He didn’t hurt me. But I’m not okay.”

  “I’m sorry. Stupid question.” He opened his arms. “Come here. I mean, do you want to?”

  She shuffled across the bed and he put his arms around her. But now she could tell he was angry by the tension in his grip, as if he had embraced her reflexively then forgotten why. She lay her head on his chest, but when she looked upwards, at the face beyond his chin, it was set and cold.

  “I wish you hadn’t gone to him.”

  “I thought if I got close enough, I could kill him, take the rifle, and that would be proof enough for the Magistrate. But he just gave it to me. Oh Gods, Gwyion, was it for nothing?”

  “You killed my son.”

  My son. Not our son. Her flesh was being drawn into the hole in her chest. Could he smell Tannyr on her skin?

  “Did you shoot Lord Vile?” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Gwyion snorted and shook his head. She tried to stay still against him, but he let her go. There was a wet stain on his shirt from tears she could not feel on her face. She didn’t cling, just knotted her hands into her dress as he went to the window. The light formed a halo around his wool jacket.

  “Just tell me the truth, Haf. Where were you?”

  “I went to see Lena and offered to tell her where the rifle was if she freed Derec. But she didn’t care. And when I demanded to speak to Lord Vile, she sneered at me.”

  “Did you show her the rifle?”

  “Of course not. I hid it outside the wall. When I came back, Uwen was waiting for me.”

  “Uwen took the rifle?”

  “He followed me from the farm after I finished with his father. I was sure Tannyr would try something, but I thought I’d been careful. I even spent the night hidden in the old smugglers shack, the one—”

  “So Uwen shot Lord Vile? Not you?”

  “The guards had orders not to let me back into the castle.”

  “Who was at the gate?”

  He won’t believe you if you hesitate.

  “Wyn. It was little Wyn. She kept on apologising. I was going to make a scene, push my way past, but then I heard the shots and…”

  He still wasn’t looking at her. His shoulders relaxed a little, but he wouldn’t turn around. She kept talking.

  “I won’t tell you I don’t want Arbalest dead. We’d all be better off with Anton as Lord of Shadowgate. But Uwen took the rifle from me after I saw Lena.”

  “Uwen is dead. And many others besides. I don’t know about Lord Vile.”

  There was a loud cry outside. It was Anton. He shouted like an animal; then there was the heavy thud of a fist smashed repeatedly into wood. Gwyion’s silhouette was dark, framed by the light. The contrast made his face hard to read.

  “I’d paid off the guards, Haf. Anton had a contraption, a harness, that Derec was wearing under his tunic. Ty was supposed to hook it up before the cart was pulled away. But when…Uwen…fired the rifle, the horse bolted before we were ready.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It would have looked like Derec had been hanged. Probably felt like it, too. After they cut him down, we’d have smuggled him out and got him on a horse to Lutense.” He put his hand on the frame of the circular window. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood.

  “He never liked it here anyway,” Gwyion said.

  Olwen’s voice, from outside, “Anton, stop, you’re hurting your hand.”

  There was a dull ringing in Haf’s ears.

  “I could have told you all this,” Gwyion said. “If you’d come back.”

  No. No time for guilt. No time for tears.

  “That isn’t fair,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t fair,” he said. “Does anyone other than Lena and Wyn know you were at the castle?”

  Haf shook her head, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the door. The sounds from downstairs were getting louder.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Gwyion, look at me. Your head is bleeding.”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “Hodri jumped me when we were trying to get to Derec. With that stupid walking stick he didn’t need.” Gwyion shook his head, then winced as the movement knocked his eyes out of focus. “I’m sorry, Haf, I think I killed your brother.”

  “Good,” she said. “He was a hateful bastard and deserved to die. What are you going to do?”

  Gwyion lurched forward. His stiff legs propelled him to the door. He put his hand on the knob.

  “I’ll ask Anton to take you and the others back to the house. Convince him to fight, Haf. You were right. We’re only safe if he becomes Lord of Shadowgate.”

  “No, I mean what are you going to do?”

  “Me? I will wait for Tannyr to get here. Then I’ll talk to him.”

  She got to her feet. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Lieutenant Massen and his men won’t get back here until tomorrow. Or tonight, at the earliest. The Breks will be here long before, and this time with the guard. And Persephone. Someone has to stall them.”

  His lip curled enough to show his teeth.

  “We’ve been married for thirty years. I trusted you. But you went up to Tannyr’s farm and gave him everything he ever wanted.”

  His anger was a relief. It opened the space. Fighting was better than being numb.

  “What happened to Uwen?” Gwyion said.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You tell me.”

  “He was up against the wall, with the gun in his mouth and his head blown out.”

  “He was Tannyr’s son. Plenty of reasons to kill himself.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “What, you think I killed him? Honestly, I wish I had. The mountain will be a better place when every Brek is dead.”

  Gwyion flinched, his hand to the back of his head. Then he walked out. The blood stained his fingertips and left a short trail on the doorknob.

  Chapter 46

  The early afternoon sun warmed the courtyard of Shadowgate Castle. It had been more than an hour since they had agreed that Elianor and Nathaniel would go up the mountain to seek a remedy for Lord Vile’s injuries, while Persephone would lead Tannyr’s men to ‘rescue’ Anton from Gwyion Garn and the miners.

  Elianor was not happy with either part of the plan. To the best of her knowledge, mystical remedies rarely proved effective for gunshot wounds. A placebo didn’t help much when you were bleeding to death. And the Black Dog had been seen both higher and lower in the mountains. So why was she needed as escort if it was just as likely to strike towards the town as towards the monastery? It was a distraction, a bizarre jaunt when things were critical here. And yet, the mystery of Shadowgate was inextricably linked to the monastery at Demon’s Pass. Controlling that secret might be the secret to controlling the Viles.

  As for the little civil war brewing here in Shadowgate, the greatest danger was they would kill one another before she returned. Tannyr Brek was a mess, fuelled by wide-eyed anger and disbelief. People cheered as he declared that the dead would only have justice when the Garns were killed and the mines were burned. He didn’t seem to know if he was celebrating a victory or drowning in defeat.

  Elianor stoo
d in the middle of the courtyard and let the chaos dance around her. This was her fourth day here. The bruises on her face from the fight with the Black Dog were a flushed, deep blue, and she could still feel swelling under her eye. So what if Persephone killed Anton, or Anton killed Persephone? Garn or Brek, Brek or Garn—Elianor just needed a living, compliant Vile. She needed to get a Republican vote back to the capital and serve Théophile Carada the lesson in humility he so richly deserved. She needed to fulfil her promise to Genevieve Grime. She needed vengeance.

  “I need to talk to you, Captain,” Elianor called across the yard.

  Persephone had snatched a satchel from a guard, Wyn, and was halfway up the stairs to the barbican over the main gate. Most of the remaining farmers gathered before the Manor door, where a young man called Blair Keenan was organising them into columns. At the door to the guardhouse, Sergeant Rees argued with Tannyr Brek. The argument only stopped when Lena arrived, whispering something in Rees’ ear before disappearing back into the shadows. Elianor pushed past Wyn, who fell over herself trying to apologise and salute simultaneously then ran up after the Captain.

  “I need to talk to you about Anton.”

  Persephone stopped at the battlements and rested her hands on the stone. She leaned out to look at the great bridge that crossed the chasm between the castle and the road to town.

  “I know he’s been playing you. Calling you castellan then undermining you at every turn. Except, now he isn’t here, you really are in charge—"

  “You aren’t going to drive a wedge between us.”

  “If you don’t start acting like you’re the one in charge, the mob down there in the courtyard will.”

  Persephone removed a spyglass from the satchel she had taken from Wyn and extended it with a violent pull. The mechanism caught on the way out and she nearly dropped it.

  “What did you think was going to happen? We hanged Derec Garn,” Persephone said.

  “I’m not interested in local politics.” They stood right by the bloodstains on the parapet where they had found Uwen’s body, his head blown open by the rifle. “Or what you do to your brother.”