by Karen Miller
Wincing, breathing harshly through pinched nostrils and gritted teeth, he made himself sit up, even though it hurt so much he thought he might vomit again. There were faces out there that he knew. Guild meisters he’d counseled. Guild members he’d helped. Turning his head looking over his shoulder, he saw more friends. People he’d drunk ale with down at the Goose. People who’d laughed to see him. Thrown roses without thorns. Flirted. Flattered. Boasted that he knew them and smiled at his approach. Screamed his name as he’d traveled the road to Justice Hall. Who’d witnessed him sitting in judgment in that grand place and applauded as though he was their hero.
Nobody was applauding now. Now he wasn’t anybody’s hero.
“Filthy blasphemer!” somebody called from the crowd. “Liar!”
“Traitor!”
Somebody threw something. An egg. It burst against the bars of the cage to drip stinking, rotten and slimy to the floor. The stench mixed with the reek of excrement and vomit, clogging his blood-caked nostrils, churning his stomach with acid and bile.
“I ain’t!” he croaked, and felt the split skin of his face crack and ooze. “I ain’t no more a traitor than you!”
As those in the crowd close enough to hear him burst into jeering laughter, the nearest guard turned and thrust his pikestaff into the cage in a single, economical jab. It caught him in the mouth, crushing his lip against his teeth, tearing his flesh even wider.
“One more word,” the guard said, “and I’ll cut out your tongue. Got it?” It was Dever. They played leap-jacks together down at the Goose on the nights they found themselves there at the same time. Used to play. Dever wasn’t grinning now, wasn’t reaching out to slap him on the back, buy him a pint, bend his ear about the latest lady love.
Now he looked cold enough to kill.
Another egg came sailing out of the crowd. This one found its target. Hit him on the side of the head. The smell was gut-wrenching. Somebody else threw fresh cow shit. Lukewarm but still stinking, it burned his face where Jarralt had laid him open, searching for satisfaction.
The guards made no attempt to stop the rain of abuse. Only when something landed too close to them did they raise their pikestaffs and shout. There was no escape. All he could do was survive it, just as he’d survived Jarralt. In the end he curled up on his side and tried to ignore the shouts, the insults, the eggs, and everything else they threw at him. The pain. Concentrated instead on the one thing that would sustain him for as long as this ordeal endured. Hate. On the one name that fed his slow-burning fury.
Gar.
———
When he woke a second time it was again to glimlit darkness and the rise and fall of unfriendly voices, sibilant as the ocean, to the smoky scents of roasting meats as food merchants catered to the avid crowds of Olken still gathering to gloat and deride. So large had their numbers swelled that a barrier had been erected around the cart and cage, keeping the insomniac onlookers at bay; standing beyond it, pikestaffs at the ready, a different set of guards.
What was wrong with the bastards, eh? Didn’t they have homes to go to? Children to care for? Did they have nothing better to do than stand around here feeding their faces on sheep fat and bile?
Well, no. Clearly not.
Groaning, swearing as all his hurts growled, biting, and colder than ever he could remember, he managed to force himself upright. “Barl’s ti—” he began to curse under his breath, then stopped. Stared. Closed his fingers into fists.
Willer stood outside the cage, smiling in at him. In his pudgy hands a hot beef sandwich, dripping bloody juices down the front of his apple-green jacket. He didn’t seem to notice. His bloated face was shiny with grease, with triumph, and his eyes gleamed in the lambent glimfire.
“I told you I’d make you pay,” he said conversationally, around a mouthful of sloppily chewed bread and meat. “Didn’t I?” The gloating smile widened, like a toad’s. “This should teach you to disbelieve me.”
“Go away,” he said, even though he knew he was wasting his breath.
Willer shivered with pleasure. “The executioner was in the guardhouse all afternoon, sharpening his axe. I went to watch. Zzzt, zzzt, zzzt. You’ll never guess: the townsfolk are placing bets on how many strokes it’ll take to do the job. They hate you, Asher. Thanks to you, Olken life is about to change for the harder. I’m hoping it’ll take three strokes to kill you. Four, even. I’m hoping it hurts. A lot. You deserve to suffer. You deserve everything that’s happening to you.”
“You’re a fool, Willer,” he said tiredly. “Such a damned bloody fool. You got no idea what you’ve done.”
“I know exactly what I’ve done,” said Willer, eyes bright with malice. “I’ve helped bring a blasphemous traitor to justice.” Dripping beef forgotten, he stepped even closer to the cage. “The guards say they heard you screaming. How I wish I’d been there to see it.” His voice was laden with longing. “All those times you disrespected me. Abused me. Humiliated me. Insulted me with your very presence. Did you think I would forget? Did you think I would forgive? They say you shat yourself like a baby, that you—”
“Willer,” said Darran, stepping out of the shadows. “That’s enough. He knows you’ve won. Go home.”
Startled, Willer spun about. “Darran! What are you doing here. You’re supposed to be nursemaiding pathetic magickless Gar!”
Darran came closer. Smoothed out a wrinkle in the pissant’s beef-stained coat. “When I think I once felt affection for you, I could vomit,” he said, his voice low, shaking. “Go home. Before I forget myself and make a scene.”
Uncertain, truculent, Willer knocked the age-spotted hand aside. “Why are you protecting him, Darran? You hate him as much as I do! You wanted him brought down as much as I did, don’t try to deny it! ‘Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself,’ that’s what you said. And then you preferred him over me, me, who served you like a son for years! Why?”
Darran shook his head slowly, tike a teacher despairing of a backward student. “Because Gar asked me to. Because, like you, I swore to serve him with faith and loyalty. Because unlike you I kept my word.”
Willer’s jaw dropped. “Asher’s a traitor. A blasphemer! He broke Barl’s First Law!”
“Yes, he did,” agreed Darran, nodding. “And for that he’ll die. But even so, he’s a better man than you’ll ever be.”
“Succouring a traitor is treachery in itself!” hissed Willer. “I could have you arrested for that. I will have you arrested! I’m not your dogsbody any more. Now I’m a man of influence and I won’t be trifled with!” He turned away, searching for the nearest guard, and his wet pink mouth opened wide, to shout.
Darran’s fingers closed about his arm. “I wouldn’t, Willer, if I were you.” His voice was soft. More dangerous than Asher, watching and for the moment disregarded, could ever have imagined. “For a man who prides himself on his memory you seem to have forgotten a thing or two. Even with all that’s happened I’m not without influence myself. Remember Bolliton? I do. I also have proof. The right words in the right ear and—”
“What?” Sea slug Willer pulled free and backed away, his greasy face puce with fury, and fear. His elbow bumped the bars of the cage. “How dare you threaten me? I’ll tell the king what you’ve said, I’ll see you thrown in prison for it, I’ll—”
The fat fool had forgotten where he was. Despite his chains Asher touched his fingers to the back of the pissant’s collar. Seized it and twisted savagely, cutting off Willer’s air with a gurgle.
“You’ll do nowt or I’ll kill you here and now,” he whispered into Willer’s ear. “Think I can’t? Think I won’t? What can they do if I wring your neck? Chop my head off twice?”
With a strangled shriek Willer wrenched himself free. The nearest guard, finally noticing the prisoner had visitors, turned. Scowling, his pikestaff at the ready, he approached. Then, seeing who they were, hesitated. “Meister Darran. Meister Driskle.”
The ole crow bowed. “Good eveni
ng, Jesip.”
“Meister Darran, you shouldn’t be here,” Jesip said unhappily. “You neither, Meister Driskle. We got strict orders to—”
“Relax, guardsman,” said Darran with his oihest smile. His hand fell on Willer’s shoulder, fingers tightening. The sea slug closed his mouth, his expression pinched with pain. “I’ve orders of my own.” Darran lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Confidential. A matter of state. You understand?”
Asher held his breath. Jesip was new. Young. Easily awed. And Darran had a reputation.
“Two minutes, Meister Darran,” said Jesip. “Orders or no, I can’t give you more than that.”
“Thank you,” said Darran. “I’ll make sure your cooperation is noted in the right circles.”
Jesip flushed. “Just doing my job, sir.” He looked at Willer. “And Meister Driskle?”
“Is with me,” Darran said smoothly. His grasping fingers tightened further. Willer squeaked. “But he’s not feeling well. A morsel of food gone down the wrong way.” He spared the slug a reproving look. “One should never eat and speak at the same time, dear boy. There might be an unfortunate incident.”
As Willer gasped like a landed fish, Jesip nodded, one finger raised in warning. “So it’s two minutes, then. And only because you work for the palace.”
“Exactly,” said Darran.
“And once you’re done, best mind you take care on your way home,” Jesip added. “The mood’s a mite unchancy round here just now.”
Darran nodded, smiling. “Excellent advice. Thank you.”
As Jesip withdrew, Darran released his fearsome grip on Willer’s shoulder. “Run away now, Willer, and forget you saw me ... or I swear there’ll be a reckoning you’ll not forget.”
Tripping over his own feet, cursing, Willer fled. Asher looked at Darran. “Bolliton?”
Darran sighed. “Alas, an unsavory business. I reimbursed the prince’s coffers from my own pocket. Kept various receipts ... hidden. Allowed Willer less leeway afterwards. It seemed the prudent thing to do. In hindsight, however...”
“Prudent would’ve been dismissing the little turd,” Asher muttered. “Might’ve saved a lot of heartache.” Without warning a fresh wave of pain assailed him. He slid down the cage bars again, into the filthy straw.
Darran didn’t reply. Instead just stood there, silent, his eyes unreadable, his expression composed, as his measuring gaze took in the brutal evidence of Jarralt’s displeasure. The dried manure and egg and other detritus, gifts from a grateful, adoring public. Asher looked away, not wanting to see his condition written plain in the old man’s face.
“What are you doin’ here, Darran? You come to gloat?”
The secretary shifted his gaze and stared at the crowd. “Look at them all. By now I doubt there’s a cradle-bound babe anywhere in this City who doesn’t know you’re arrested, and why. Within days they’ll have heard it even down on the coast.”
Asher closed his eyes. “That’ll put a smile on my bloody brothers’ faces.” Thinking of the coast, of the people there, he bit his hp. Made himself look at the ole crow. This was going to hurt worse than Jarralt’s poker... “Darran. I need a favor.”
Darran drew back. “A favor?”
“It ain’t for myself,” he added quickly. “Not exactly. I got a friend. Jed. We grew up together in Restharven. He’s hurt, on account of doing something I asked, and won’t ever get better. Since we got back from Westwail-ing I been sendin’ him money. Makin’ sure he was looked after. When this is over ... when I’m—” He took a deep, painful breath. Let it out. “—dead, can you make sure what’s left of my savings finds him?”
Darran’s expression was a mingling of surprise and sorrow. “Asher, all your money’s been confiscated. Your possessions too. You don’t have a cuick or a shirt to your name.”
He should have expected it. Jed. He swallowed anger. Thought of something else and sat up sharply, no matter the pain. His heavy chains rattled. “Cygnet? What about Cygnet?”
“I’m sorry,” said Darran after a long pause. “The stables are disbanded. Someone said—I truly am sorry, but Conroyd Jarralt has your horse now.”
It was a sharper agony than anything done to flesh and bone. He pressed his bloodstained hands to his face and felt salt sting the open wounds there. Felt his hard-pressed willpower break at last. His precious Cygnet, prey to that man’s hands and heels, to cruel bits and crueler spurs.
Darran stepped closer. “You should know, Asher, I’ve been told everything.” His voice was thinned to a whisper. “Is it true? That you can—you know?”
Wrenching his thoughts away from Cygnet, poor Cygnet, he lowered his hands. “What does it matter?”
“Asher! Is it true?”
He let his head rest against the cage. There was no point denying it now. “Aye. But I wouldn’t go repeatin’ it if I were you. Jarralt’ll kill you.”
Darran seemed torn between horror and fascination. “Then if you do have... power... can’t you free yourself?”
He’d asked himself the same question. He supposed it was possible. In theory. He could call down a freezing on the City, say, that’d turn all its citizens into ice statues. Leave him free to break out of this cage and run. But long before they’d frozen the guards would have clubbed him unconscious. Or dead. And anyway, there was nowhere to run to.
“No. I can’t.”
Darran stepped closer still, so his face was near to touching the cage. “I know why you did it.”
He let his eyes close. “ ‘Why’ don’t matter. Not any more.”
“You did it because you love him.”
That made him laugh. He dragged his eyelids open. “Now you believe it?” He breathed hard, trying to dull the stabbing pain. “Gar was more a brother to me than Zeth or Wishus or Bede or any of ‘em. A hundred times I could’ve walked away. Should’ve. Wanted to. But I didn’t. And I broke Barl’s Law ‘cause he asked me to. ‘Cause he promised to protect me and I believed him. I thought his word meant something.” His hands fisted. “Better watch yourself, ole maggoty man. Better take a good long look at what’s happened here and ask yourself twice what you’re doin’, staying with him. ‘Cause this is where loyalty leads you.”
Darran wrapped his fingers around the bars. “Asher, listen.”
Beyond the cage Jesip and the other guards had drifted into a huddle round an open brazier to drink some ale and gobble meat pies. One of them stirred up the coals with a poker; the brazier’s mouth glowed with a steady, scarlet heat. Searing memory stirred. He felt his muscles contract, his bowels loosen. Was ashamed.
“Asher?”
Shame turned to anger. “Go away, Darran. Ain’t nowt you can do here and I’m sick of your manky ole face.”
Darran let go of the bars. “Not before you’ve heard what I came to say.”
“I ain’t interested.”
“This wasn’t Gar’s fault.”
He choked. “Not his fault? Of course it’s his fault! He said he’d protect me and look where I am!”
“If you’d let me explain, then—”
“Explain?” he said, incredulous. “Explain what?” He wanted to howl, to scream, to tighten his fingers round Darran’s scrawny throat and throttle him into silence. “That it turns out Gar’s gutless? I know that already!”
“Please, Asher, you must see his position!”
“I do see it! He’s alive and I soon won’t be. He’s in his Tower and I’m in this cage. I saved his life, Darran! He’s only breathin’ today ‘cause of me!”
“I know that,” said Darran, desperately whispering. “He knows that.”
“Then he has to stop this! He owes me, ole man!”
“Oh, Asher,” said Darran, his voice breaking. “Don’t you think he’d save you if he could? He can’t. His hands are tied, he—”
“Tied?” he said savagely, and raised his manacled wrists. “Well, mine are bloody chained]”
Darran stepped back, his face gray and
drawn. “He knows that too. And he’s sorry, Asher. You’ve no idea how sorry he is. But there’s nothing he can do. There were threats made. Dreadful threats. Against him... against the Olken people. He had to sign that proclamation.”
“He’s the king, Darran! He can bloody unsign it!”
There were tears in Darran’s eyes. Tears. “Not any more. Haven’t they told you? This afternoon he renounced his crown in favor of Conroyd Jarralt. Our new king has confined him to the Tower and stripped him of authority. For all the good he can do you now—for all the good he can do himself—Gar might as well be in that cage with you.”
Hope’s last embers died. Despairing, Asher flung himself at the iron bars separating him from Darran and pressed his face against them.
“I wish he was! You tell him that, you stinkin’ ole maggot! Tell him he’s the traitor and it’s his head they ought to cut off with then sharp and shiny axe! But since it’ll be mine, tell him I hope he dies a long, slow death years and years from now, and that every minute of every day of every one of them years is agony and that every time he closes his eyes he sees my face! The face of the friend he murdered!” Exhausted, shuddering, he felt himself start sliding down the bars. “Go on, you bastard! Tell him!”
Jesip must have heard him then, because he left his fellow guards, marched back to the cage and poked his pikestaff between the bars. Asher barely felt its sharp tip puncture his skin.
“Watch your mouth, traitor!” Jesip growled, then turned to Darran. “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve had more than two minutes and—”
“It’s all right,” said Darran. “I’m leaving now.”
“Right then,” said Jesip. He sounded relieved. “Goodnight to you, sir.”
“Goodnight, Jesip,” replied Darran, turning. “And ... goodbye, Asher.”
He summoned a skerrick of saliva and spat. “Piss on you, Darran. And piss on that treacherous shit in the Tower.”
Jesip hit him. Hit him again, and again, until all he could do- was lie face down on the floor of the cage, breathing in the stench of shit and egg and vomit, grunting with each blow. Moments later the other guards joined in. The sounds of their dedicated fury mingled with the shouts and applause of the crowd.
