by Anthony Ryan
Notable among the survivors that night were the disordered eastern contingent. After departing Leffold Glade, Erchel’s kin apparently made a laggardly progress towards the Mill and, having been spared death by their laziness, soon melted back into the woods and returned to their more familiar hunting grounds. At least, that’s how the story went.
As for Deckin, well, dear reader, you will learn his fate in due course, for it was ever bound up with mine.
All this unpleasantness I would discover later, but it was my fertile imagination that kept me running that night. My lungs burned like fire, my legs ached and my feet and hands turned blue and numb with cold, but still I ran. Exhaustion finally forced a collapse when the snow at last abated and the sky I glimpsed through the trees turned a slightly less dark shade of grey. My legs folded beneath me and I pitched headlong into a snow drift, my skin too chilled to feel the scrape of it against my face. For a second I was completely incapable of movement, raising fears that I might suffocate until I gathered enough resolve to flop onto my back. Gazing up at the overlapping chaos of snow-burdened branches, I watched my breath rise like steam from an over-boiled kettle.
With rest inevitably came pain as feeling returned to benumbed limbs and the strain of the run took its toll. The mingled force of it was enough to make me cry out but I was grateful nonetheless, for pain gives strength. I knew I had to get up. I knew that to lie there would mean death. Still, the temptation was strong, the pain diminished quickly in concert with clouding vision and fading terrors, for no mind can stay fearful for ever. Soon the icy mound of snow I lay on would start to feel like a warm mattress, like the one I had shared with Gerthe only hours ago…
My last glimpse of Gerthe’s rag-doll corpse hanging from the shed wall was enough to get me moving, for it added anger to the fading pain. She didn’t deserve that, I thought, heaving myself over, hands digging into the snow as I pushed myself upright. This may have been a debatable point. Gerthe was an accomplished and enthusiastic thief as well as a whore and not shy with the knife if the need arose. But still, she had possessed her own brand of kindness. More than that she had been family, or as much family as one such as I could claim. So had Baker, Twine, Lorine, even Todman who I planned to kill one day. Now they were all most likely corpses, if they were lucky.
Shouting with the effort, I pushed myself upright and stumbled on. Running was now impossible but I did manage a hurried shuffle. The journey that followed was full of hungry days and fearful, shivering nights during which I didn’t dare light a fire. There would be rabbits or hares to snare even in winter, but you can’t move through a forest and live off it at the same time. What food I ate consisted of roots clawed from the hard earth or the occasional cache of nuts left by an unlucky squirrel. It was meagre, stomach-straining fare but kept me from true starvation until I finally reached Leffold Glade.
It had long been habit of passing outlaws to leave a cache of supplies at the glade, insurance against circumstances much like this one. The goods lay behind a large but moveable stone amid the ruins scattered through the trees on the amphitheatre’s west-facing side. Usually, shifting the stone would have been the work of a moment or two, but in my weakened state it required what felt like an hour or more of effort. Inch by torturous inch, the stone scraped over the frosted ground in response to my pitiful heaves until, finally, I created enough of a gap to reach for the treasure within. The stores were not copious: some dried beef and clay pots of pickled onions and berries and a small cask of ale. Altogether it wouldn’t have fed the whole band for more than a day. That day, however, it was a bounteous feast into which I threw myself with ravening abandon.
Starvation has a curious effect on the body, causing the stomach to rebel when provided with plentiful nourishment. Consequently, I was soon obliged to spew up a large portion of what I had eaten. Afterwards, I spent a long time slumped next to the hiding place, groaning in my gut-aching misery while occasionally letting out a shrill laugh at the unexpected novelty of my survival. It would please me to report that this was the only occasion on which I experienced profound surprise at finding myself still alive, but that, as you will see, would be very far from the truth.
That night the cold descended with such breath-stealing force that I allowed myself the danger of a fire. Making camp in the oval centre of the ancient stone bowl, I struck my flint to a small stack of stripped kindling and branches, hoping the enclosing tiers would conceal the glow. Leffold Glade was a well-kept secret but who knew what had been wrung from those captured at Moss Mill? I found I had to resist the temptation to linger, surrender to the notion that this ancient place offered some form of preternatural protection. But Deckin had been right: it was just a pile of old stones, the location of which may well have already been betrayed to the sheriff’s men, or the dread Sir Ehlbert Bauldry.
The towering champion had begun to loom ever larger in my fear-stoked mind throughout my flight, taking on monstrous proportions and stirring unwelcome dreams during my brief snatches of sleep. Who will bear arms in this traitor’s defence? he demanded from behind his visor, holding up a dripping head, except instead of being Duke Rouphon’s it was the head of his unacknowledged bastard who twitched and dripped gore. Of course, this wasn’t how it had been the day the duke died. I had never at this point seen Sir Ehlbert or heard his voice and had no way of knowing if it matched the harsh, barely human rasp that emerged from the helm. But my imagination was ever an inventive sadist. That night in Leffold Glade as I huddled close to my dwindling fire and surrendered to sleep, it was Deckin’s head that spoke.
You ran, Deckin said. He regarded me with a corpse’s eyes, grey pupils in milky-white orbs that somehow retained the piercing quality they had possessed in life. His tone held a note of regretful injury rather than accusation. Why did you run, Alwyn? Was I not always fair to you? You would have perished if not for me, and yet you killed Hostler and just ran away…
I woke to a bone-deep chill that was only partly due to my campfire dwindling into a charred black circle overnight. Sitting up, I rested my back against the arena wall, looking around the large, empty bowl of my refuge only recently filled with celebrating villainy. It seemed bigger now, and a great deal colder. Even so, once again I felt the temptation to linger here. If I had escaped, then others could have too. Perhaps they were hurrying here and we would meet in sombre but relieved companionship. If enough of them turned up then a new band would be born, Alwyn’s band, the scions of Deckin’s legacy…
My absurd imaginings died as I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “No one’s coming,” I told myself, speaking aloud because why wouldn’t I? “If any managed to run, they ran somewhere else.”
I recalled that Erchel’s folk hadn’t been there for the slaughter, meaning possible refuge awaited me in the eastern woods. The prospect of enlisting in a gang composed of those who might share Erchel’s blood was far from enticing, but so was a lonely death from hunger or cold in the depths of the forest. As I sat in doleful resignation, another thought occurred, one surely born of the nightmare I had just endured. They took Deckin alive.
Castle Duhbos lay within reach if I rationed my provisions and kept clear of roads and settlements. Castle Duhbos where surely the King’s Champion would have taken his prize to face the duke’s justice.
“And what,” I enquired, voice rich in self-mockery, “will you do when you get there?”
There’s a way in, came the response from some traitorous idiot, deep inside. The one Deckin told us about.
“No!” I got to my feet, teeth gritted, shaking my head fast enough to dizzy my sight. “Not a fucking chance!”
Why did you run? the traitor asked, pushing Deckin’s twitching, dripping head to the forefront of my thoughts. Was I not always fair to you?
I clamped my eyes closed, folding my arms tight against my chest as the compulsion built. I have often reflected on the fact that one of the banes of a human existence is the tendency towards addiction. Some go
through life a slave to drink, intoxicating weeds, the enticements of the flesh or the illusory promise of dice or cards. My principal addiction has ever been the urge towards unwise action, the lust for the dramatic course, an unquenchable appetite for doing the unexpected. I spent an hour or more wrestling with the traitorous voice that insisted on recalling every kind or encouraging word Deckin had ever uttered in my direction, while ignoring the cuffs, threats and infrequent beatings, all to no avail.
Even as I gathered my bundle for the journey, I told myself this was a mission born of curious sentiment and no more. I wanted to know Deckin’s fate – that was all. Did he not at least deserve a witness to his end? Rescue was a fantasy, a deadly one at that. But, days of weary travel and lonely nights inevitably led to speculation which in turn gave birth to scheming. He’ll be locked in a dungeon, so even if I make it within the walls, how to free him? Dungeons have locks, so you need keys. Who holds those keys? The gaoler, who is perhaps a fellow prone to drink or, even better, not averse to bribery. But how to bribe a man when I have no coin? Steal some, you fuckwit…
And so it went. Throughout the long trudge to Castle Duhbos, my outlaw’s mind evolved and discounted myriad plans for the liberation of Deckin Scarl. I knew as I plotted that it was folly of the worst kind, the kind that would in short order see a lad of promise and no small ability strung up alongside his mentor. Despite the endless whispering of the traitor’s voice and the ever more intricate stratagems it gave rise to, I knew with hard certainty that I walked towards my doom and would in truth never set eyes on Deckin Scarl again.
I was wrong on both counts.
CHAPTER TEN
“Will any come forth to bear arms in this traitor’s defence?” The lord constable’s voice sang clear in the chill morning air, rousing only a small murmur from the assembled mass of churls and townsfolk. I heard a modicum of anger among the muttering and whispering, even a few prayers to the Martyrs, but no open shouts of defiance and certainly no strident acceptance of the constable’s challenge. Among the several score of gawpers who clustered before the scaffold that day, not one stepped forwards to raise a weapon in defence of Deckin Scarl. He knelt at the edge of the platform, bedraggled and bleeding in his brace of tight, heavy chains. His beard and hair had been shaved, rendering his features an arresting exhibition of scars, scabs and multi-hued bruising. At his back stood a knight of impressive stature, clad in a full suit of armour that glimmered bright, as did the brass eagle emblazoned on his breastplate.
An eagle, not a flame, I thought, looking the knight over. This then was not the famed Sir Ehlbert Bauldry. A glance around the platform confirmed the presence of a quartet of kingsmen in Crown Company livery, but no other knights. For reasons unknown, the King’s Champion was not present this day.
I had arrived at Castle Duhbos that very morning, straggling along the icy, wheel-rutted road to find a great many people already gathered for the coming spectacle. There was no need to ferret out information or linger in the vicinity of gossiping strangers. The reason for their attendance was on every set of lips: today they would witness the death of the Outlaw King himself.
Like Castle Ambris, Castle Duhbos had its own collection of hovels outside its walls, the scaffold having been erected on the expanse of grass that separated the two. From the shortness of the grass I assumed it to be a space normally reserved for tourneys or fairs. The number of onlookers present told of far more people than could have been drawn from the hovels or the castle itself. From the cloaks they wore and bundles they carried, I judged most had walked several miles to witness the judgment of Deckin Scarl, in the midst of winter too.
“Doesn’t look much like a king now, does he?” I heard one fellow in the crowd mutter to his neighbour. The air had been thick with such whispered commentary as I worked my way through the throng. Some made jokes or voiced caustic observations. Others murmured of past encounters with Deckin Scarl, their voices coloured by keen satisfaction. Not once did I hear a word of sympathy or the sound of tears being shed. For all his fame, and his occasional, purely pragmatic largesse, Deckin remained an outlaw. This fate was the deserved end of his kind, as it always had been and always would be.
I kept pushing forward until the press of bodies grew too dense to allow further progress. However, I was close enough to see the faces of those on the platform and hear all words spoken.
“Witness this, traitor!” the lord constable called out, turning to point at the prisoner’s bowed head. The constable, a thin, spindly limbed fellow despite his voluminous voice, would have seemed comical on a less ominous occasion. The way his long coat flapped, and the tassels of his skullcap flailed, resembled a jackanapes’s capering at the fair. “See how well the people of this duchy recognise your treason,” he railed, “for not one will raise a hand to preserve your miserable life!”
His stridency and near manic expression bespoke a man clearly enjoying both his task and the notoriety that came with it. He adopted a melodramatic pose at this juncture, head raised and arm outflung to the crowd. Had Lorine been here to witness it she would surely have laughed in professional disdain.
I looked for her on the platform, but there were no captives present save Deckin. There were, however, a long line of heads impaled on stakes on the battlement above the castle gate. I hadn’t had the opportunity for more than a cursory glance, finding them all too degraded by corruption to make out any recognisable features. I did espy one with long hair that straggled in the wind, but it was too distant to discern if those fluttering tresses held a copper sheen.
“Long has this man been a terror to the good folk of this duchy,” the constable continued. “For he stands convicted in the sight of Commons, Crown and Covenant of so many foul deeds that to list them would require a full day and night. But, good people, know that today the manner of his punishment is determined not by his mere criminality, but by his treachery. For let it be known that this—” the constable’s lip curled as he swung his outstretched hand towards Deckin, finger pointed in unwavering accusation “—worthless cur, not content with base thievery and bloody murder, has further condemned himself through vile treason against the Crown. This man, with deliberate intent, did molest and steal from a Crown agent, a royal messenger no less. Also, sound evidence has been provided that he did conspire with the traitorous rebel Magnis Lochlain, known commonly as the Pretender, to foment violent revolt in this duchy. This he did to avenge the just execution of his father, the traitor and false Duke Rouphon Ambris. I ask you, good folk of the Shavine Marches, has there ever been a man more deserving of just execution?”
The constable threw his arms wide as he asked this, no doubt expecting some uproar of bloodthirsty agreement. Instead, the response was more a combination of murmured assent and growling anticipation, punctuated by a few coughs and impatient mutterings. I saw the constable’s face twitch with angry embarrassment, a pink flush creeping into his cheeks that soon took on a deeper shade of red as another sound came from the platform.
As his head jerked, Deckin’s wounds scattered blood onto those at the front of the crowd. At first, I thought him possessed of a coughing fit, or, as the grunts coming from his throat grew, some manner of hysterics. Then he raised his head fully, revealing features riven by cuts and charred by burns, but also set in a mask of genuine merriment. Deckin Scarl was laughing.
“Silence this swine!” the constable snapped, casting an imperious hand at the knight who stood behind Deckin. However, instead of delivering the expected blow to the captive’s head, the knight merely altered the angle of his visored face to hold the constable in silent regard. I saw the pallor of the constable’s face pale, although his narrow features took on an enraged aspect. This, I knew, was a man at war with his own pride. As the senior agent of Crown law present, authority over these proceedings rested with him, but he had just been openly defied. His status required that he voice a rebuke, but the prospect of delivering one to this knight was clearly far from appealing. For
tunately, he was spared the decision when Deckin’s laughter gave way to speech.
“Kill me for the truth, if you must,” he told the constable, the words emerging from swollen and cracked lips in a rasp that still managed to carry to my ears. “I’ll not deny I deserve it. But don’t kill me for a lie, you worthless shitstain.”
The constable’s gaze wavered between Deckin and the recalcitrant knight for a prolonged interval. Finally, the growing chorus of coughs and irked mutterings from the crowd reminded him that he had an execution to conclude.
Taking a deep breath, the constable swung back to address the crowd, tassels flailing afresh. “Let it be known that our sovereign, Great King Tomas, First of this name and most deserving of the Seraphile’s grace, is a man of mercy and compassion, even unto the most vile. No subject, be they of noble or mean blood, will be put to death without the chance to cleanse their soul.” He paused to wave a hand to the rear of the scaffold. “Let Communicant Ancred, Appointed Chaplain of Castle Duhbos, come forward so that he may hear the traitor’s testament.”
Communicant Ancred was a tall, aged man with a long grey beard, who approached Deckin on faltering and hesitant legs. He moved with his back bent and it seemed to me he kept upright only by virtue of the staff he clutched in his spotted hands. I saw little enthusiasm for his task in the sagging creases of his face, even a glimmer of fear in those watery eyes. When he halted to stoop at Deckin’s side, the voice that emerged was a thin, piping trill most present couldn’t hope to catch.
“Speak now of your transgressions and voice no lie,” the old cleric intoned. “For the Seraphile know all that resides in your soul. Honour the Martyrs’ example with truth and receive their cleansing grace.”
