by Anthony Ryan
When the whoremaster drove me from the meagre shelter of the whorehouse, he had done so with considerable enthusiasm. “Get out of here, you useless little fucker!” had been the last words I could recall him ever speaking to me, and these were among his kindest. The switch left welts on my arse cheeks as I scampered away, running for the thick blanket of ferns fringing the border of the collection of hovels I had, until that point, called home. Usually, when the whoremaster’s temper was up, I could hide there until nightfall, wait for him to drink himself insensible, then creep back in. The kindlier whores could be counted on to share some of their supper with me after which I would crawl into the rafters to sleep. But not that day.
Growling, he had chased me through the ferns, switch catching me on the neck and head until I consented to flee for the dark embrace of the forest. The sight of the wall of jagged shadows was enough to bring me to a halt and brave further blows. My childhood had been rich in overheard stories regarding the fate of those foolish enough to venture into the forest proper. Cursing my intransigence, the whoremaster crouched to gather stones and proceeded to pelt me, one missile sending a scattering of stars across my vision when it smacked into my forehead. I recall falling before my gaze turned black and, when it cleared, I found myself staring up at a swaying matrix of branches.
It may have been delirium brought on by a hefty blow to the skull, but I felt as if the forest spoke to me then. The rustle of leaves and creak of twisting timbers combined into a voice, not speaking words I could comprehend, but speaking nonetheless. To my boyish and befuddled mind, it sounded like a welcome, one soon swallowed by the sound of Deckin’s greeting.
Sitting up, I found myself confronted by a very large man with a copious black beard and a slender woman with copper hair tied into long, neat braids. I could see a glimmer of white teeth in the large man’s beard as he smiled, a mix of amusement and interest in his eyes. The woman didn’t smile, but neither was her face unkind. I have since ascertained that Lorine couldn’t have been more than twenty years old at our first meeting, but even then I felt there to be something ageless and regal in her bearing.
“What’s your name, lad?” the bearded man said, striding closer. He reached down to grasp me by the shoulders and lift me up, setting me on my feet. Due to my lingering confusion, or perhaps some deeper instinctive warning, I didn’t shy from his touch or attempt to run.
“A-Alwyn,” I stuttered back, blinking as the action of speaking opened the cut on my forehead, allowing blood to trickle into my eyes.
“Alwyn, eh?” The bearded man grimaced a little as he thumbed the blood from my brows. “Was it your mother or your father that gave you that name?”
“Didn’t know ’em. Gave it to myself,” I replied, fear quickening my heart as the singular fact that I was alone in the forest with two strangers began to solidify in the lessening confusion of my brain. “Whoremaster said she died birthing me. My father was just some fucker who fucked her before fucking off, he said.”
The copper-haired woman spoke then, moving to the large man’s side and sinking to her haunches. “A man with a colourful turn of phrase, this whoremaster,” she said. I found my boy’s eyes captured by her expression, for it was one I hadn’t seen before: a mingling of sympathy and steely anger, albeit part hidden by a warm smile. “And quite a temper too,” she added, pulling a rag from the sleeve of her woollen blouse and pressing it to my forehead. “I’d say that man would benefit from a lesson in restraint.” She raised one sparse eyebrow and glanced at the bearded man. “Wouldn’t you agree, my love?”
“That I would.” The large man gave an affable snort, rising to his full height so that I was obliged to crane my neck to meet his gaze. “Best if you stop at our camp for tonight, young Alwyn. There’s a whole brace of pigeons stewing in the pot and we’ll need help eating it all.”
Stooping, he gathered my small hand in his while the woman took the other. I walked along with them, feeling no urge to run, for where could I go? Of course, one night at their camp soon became a week which slipped into months during which I learned many new things. Also, for the first time in my short life I no longer spent every hour suffering hunger or the fear of an unexpected swipe of the switch. As the months became years, dark thoughts regarding the whoremaster grew, only to fade when, having vented my vengeful intent to Lorine, she informed me in an offhandedly cheerful tone that the fellow had been found strangled on the very doorstep of his brothel not long after my departure. My varied paths in life have never led me back to the cluster of hovels where I was raised, and even now I feel not the slightest inclination towards a visit, for there is nothing there to see and no one to kill.
“Hsst!”
The sharp sting of a thrown twig rebounding from my nose banished my reminiscing and I scowled at Hostler’s stern, judgemental frown. “Wake up, heathen,” he ordered, voice quiet but pitched with his usual flat curtness. “If you’re going to guard my back, do it right, Scourge take you.”
I shifted my scowl into as bright and cheerful a smile as I could muster, knowing it would stoke his anger worse than any retort. Hostler was perhaps the most unusual outlaw ever to haunt the Shavine Forest, for he was as fully devout and faithful a follower of the Covenant of Martyrs as any soul I ever met. His resentment for the company of his fellow villains was a constant, burning flame, but seemed to burn brightest for me, perhaps because I never tired of feeding the fire.
Taking a calming breath, he muttered the passage of scripture that typically rose to his lips whenever I tested his patience. “‘For it is the fate of the truly faithful to suffer the company of the sinful and profane. To suffer is to be purified in the sight of the Seraphile.’” With that, he turned about and resumed his careful progress through the trees.
We rested a few miles on, perching on the trunk of a fallen ash to eat our ration of salted pork. Winter’s grip hadn’t yet fully tightened on the woods, but the air had already taken on the edge that would soon deepen to bone-cutting chill. For a lad of my inclinations there were many advantages to living in the forest, but the weather wasn’t among them; winters cold enough to kill and summers that would birth clouds of midges and sundry bugs in numbers enough to drive you to distraction. I always preferred the more clement but all-too-brief respites of spring and autumn.
“You ever hear of a knight named Sir Ehlbert Bauldry?” I asked Hostler as we ate, keeping my voice to the soft murmur we adopted when on the move.
“Plague me not with your prattle, heathen,” Hostler muttered back. For reasons I never established, Hostler reserved title of “heathen” for me alone. Everyone else was merely a sinner.
“King’s Champion, so I hear,” I went on blithely. “Thought you might’ve crossed paths in your soldiering days.”
It was a calculated taunt, since I was aware Hostler’s time under the banners was a sore subject. In fact, I only knew of it from the sermons he preached to himself for want of another audience. Most evenings he would wander in a circle around his fire with his eyes closed, quoting endless invective from the Martyr Scrolls interspersed with rare but revealing contrition for the many sins that had coloured his life, contrition that didn’t prevent him from running with the most infamous outlaw band in the Shavine Forest.
The previous summer I had seen this man split a guardsman’s skull fully open with a hatchet, the blow delivered without any hesitation or utterance of scripture. He was as worthless and vicious as any other member of this band, but his faith in his own salvation never faltered. I had long ago concluded his faith was the ardent belief of the mad and stopped pondering the contradiction of it all, except when I found myself the focus of his delusional hypocrisy.
I expected another curt dismissal, so was surprised when Hostler’s face took on a cast of grave recollection. Some would have called his features handsome, although the manic light that frequently shone in his gaze tended to negate such an impression. Now though, he appeared almost normal and when he spoke his voice l
acked the usual flatness or judgement.
“He wasn’t champion when I saw him,” he said. “Just a young knight in the service of King Mathis, but even then I doubt there was a fighter of any station in all the duchies who could match him. For so large a man to move with such swiftness seemed… unnatural. And to wreak such slaughter, even among rebels, might be seen by some as sinful. But he did not rejoice in it as the other knights did, or partake in the cruelties they inflicted on the captives. When we piled the bodies, he knelt with proper solemnity as the Ascendant gave supplication. A true knight of Covenant and Crown.”
It’s good that you like him, I quipped inwardly, my thoughts returning to Deckin and Lorine’s conversation. Mayhap we’re going to meet him soon.
“And Sir Althus Levalle,” I said. “Ever hear tell of him?”
The abrupt narrowing of Hostler’s eyes was a clear sign I had miscalculated. This man may well have been mad as a pox-brained monkey, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Why so interested, heathen?” he asked, shifting to face me.
“Heard those Cordwainers talking back at the road,” I replied with a shrug, keeping my tone bland. “From the sound of things, they’d fought a battle recently.”
Hostler’s gaze failed to soften, maintaining a steady enquiry as his instinct for detecting the transgressions of others came to the fore. His next questions might have left me floundering for more explicating lies. Skilled in deceit as I was, it rarely worked on him. Fortunately, I was saved by the faint whiff of smoke sent wafting into our noses by the southerly breeze. Hostler and I blinked in unison and immediately rose to a crouch.
Across the small clearing from us, Baker and Twine were also getting to their feet, each drawing an arrow from their quivers and setting them to the bow stave. No one save a fool would light a fire in this region of the forest. We were still deep in the recognised territory of the Outlaw King and the duke’s soldiers and sheriffs knew better than to betray their presence in such a manner.
Hostler held up a hand to hold us in place and spent a short time in stilled silence, eyes closed but nostrils flared. Finally, he opened his eyes and nodded to the north-west where the trees were marginally thinner. We adopted the standard scouting formation, me trailing Hostler with the archers on the flanks. The scent of smoke duly thickened until I could see wisps of it drifting through the branches above. Then came the sound of voices. They were faint and odd sounding, the words impossible to discern, but they led us on better than any beacon.
After another fifty paces, the voices grew loud enough for me to conclude they were speaking a language I didn’t know. Casting a baffled glance at Hostler I saw his face grow sour as he mouthed his reply: “Ascarlians.”
Halting, he jerked his head at the broad trunk of an aged yew a few paces off. I followed as he climbed, scaling the twisting limbs with the ease that came from years of needful practice. The camp lay revealed when we had ascended perhaps twenty feet from the forest floor. I could make out the source of the smoke easily, a stack of piled timber leaking a pale-grey miasma into the air. The people around the fire were rendered indistinct through the canopy of leaves and branches, but I estimated about a dozen. Two were made more prominent by virtue of constantly wandering back and forth through the smoke. The pitch of their voices told of a heated argument, the words an unintelligible melange of soft vowels and harsh exclamations.
“Any notion of what their saying?” I whispered to Hostler.
“I don’t sully myself with heretic speech,” he murmured back, eyeing the camp. “But they’re northern savages, to be sure.” He shifted his gaze to me. “Find Deckin. Tell him we have trespassers.”
CHAPTER THREE
Before striding into the trespassers’ camp, Deckin had it surrounded. Moving with silent and practised swiftness, the band formed a tightening circle that covered all avenues of escape. There were no sentries or lookouts to warn of our approach, making me wonder at the guileless ignorance of these interlopers. Did they not know where they were?
The argument that had continued to rage as we formed our trap fell to an abrupt silence at the sight of Deckin’s bulky form emerging from the trees. Lorine stood to his right and Raith his left while Todman, always keen to remain in range of Deckin’s notice, trailed after. I joined the others as we came to a halt at the edge of the small clearing where this strange lot had made their camp. I counted twelve, eight men and four women. During forays into the port towns on the coast, I had encountered a few folk from the Fjord Geld, the northernmost Albermaine duchy seized from the Ascarlians by one of King Tomas’s ancestors. These people were similar in appearance, standing an inch or two taller than those of the southern duchies with pale skin and blond or light brown hair. Also, they were all armed and armoured, albeit poorly. Axes and hatchets hung from their belts and many wore leather tunics adorned with iron plates. My eyes picked out many tears and stains on those tunics and noted how their faces were all besmirched with the mixture of sweat, dirt and blood unique to those who have survived a violent confrontation.
Only one carried a sword. He was the tallest of the bunch with a mass of flaxen hair tied in braids, some of which had come adrift to create the impression of a wind-tossed haystack. His expression was no less wild, eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at Deckin, mouth slightly agape. I saw no fear in that countenance, but rather a near manic spasm of relief. The outlaw’s life provides a fine education in judging when a meeting will remain amicable or descend into violence. Reading the northman’s face left me in no doubt as to how this would go.
To his left stood a girl with hair of a more golden hue than the tousled swordsman. I put her age at much the same as my own, though the pleasing absence of any scars to the skin beneath the grime on her face told of a far more comfortable upbringing. She was the least armed of the group, possessing only a long-bladed dagger, and her clothes, while hardy, were free of armour. The fearful gaze she cast at Deckin, which widened considerably as she surveyed the rest of the band, told me she also possessed a far more rational mind than her companion.
Deckin said nothing, coming to a halt ten paces short of the swordsman and folding his arms. The forest air thickened as the northerner continued to stare at this imposing newcomer with his wide, hungry eyes while Deckin regarded him in arch expectation. Finally, the swordsman spoke, a rapid, harshly accented torrent in his own language that was accompanied by a fair amount of spittle. The fellow crouched into a fighting stance as he spat his words, hand shifting to grasp the handle of his sword. The girl also spoke, the words no more intelligible but the faint and tremulous timbre of her voice marked it as the desperate warning of a terrified soul. The rest of their group were busy exchanging uncertain glances and I saw sweat glistening on the axe handles as they gripped them with nervous hands.
Deckin’s beard bunched and his brows furrowed at the swordsman’s words. “Gerthe!” he called out, glancing over his shoulder to summon the band’s most accomplished linguist. Gerthe was a maiden of many talents, often expensive and carnal in nature, but a remarkable facility for languages was the one Deckin valued most. Having learned her trade in the ports on the Shavine coast, she could speak no fewer than seven different tongues with fluent ease and converse in a half-dozen more.
“Ascarlian, I take it?” Deckin asked as she hurried to his side.
Gerthe bobbed her head in affirmation. “From the southern gelts, I think.”
“And what’s he saying?”
Gerthe’s usually cheerful features took on a reluctant grimace, her eyes flicking between Deckin and the swordsman in apprehension. “It… wasn’t nice, Deckin,” she said.
“Just tell me.”
Coughing to smother the quaver in her voice, Gerthe translated in as uninflected a tone as she could manage. “‘What scum is this that approaches? Have you come to beg or steal? In either case, I have only death to offer.’”
Deckin let out a small grunt of laughter which gave leave for the rest of the
band to follow suit. The mirth caused the northerners to crowd closer together, except for the swordsman who apparently took it as an affront to his manly dignity. Snarling out more words he drew the sword free of its scabbard, brandishing it at Deckin before sweeping the blade around, his voice hoarse and near comical in its stridency.
“‘Laugh, you worthless wretches,’” Gerthe related dutifully. “‘Laugh as I, Skeinweld, Sword of the Altvar, see you to your graves!’”
This, naturally, only brought forth more merriment and mockery, enraging the northerner such that his face took on a crimson hue. However, our amusement abruptly faded when Deckin raised a hand. His face had taken on the narrow, unsmiling focus we all knew so well. Whatever was about to happen, it wouldn’t be funny.
Glancing at Gerthe he said, “Tell this silly little bugger that he’s in my forest without leave. Tell him that, by way of a toll, I’ll take that fine sword he clearly has no notion of how to use. After that he’ll have safe passage to the coast where he and his friends can find a ship to piss off home in.”
This was an unusually generous offer; Deckin was rarely so forgiving of trespassers. However, the Ascarlian barely seemed to hear the words Gerthe related to him. When she finished talking, his feature acquired an absurd eagerness and he made a beckoning gesture to Deckin. More words spilled from the Ascarlian’s mouth as Deckin moved to stand only a few short paces from him. The northman’s voice was softer now, his lips moving more rapidly.
“More insults?” Deckin asked Gerthe.
“Prayers,” she said, face tightening as she, Lorine and the others backed away. “His death ode to the Altvar.”
A shadow passed over Deckin’s face then, too brief for me to fully read the emotion beneath it. I thought at first it might be contempt, but now I think it was more a mingling of regret and pity. But it was gone in an instant, replaced with the same hard, narrow focus. Facing the Ascarlian, he raised his hands, both still empty for his axe was still strapped to his belt.
