by Anthony Ryan
“Execution, master?” Vaelin asked.
“What? Oh, the King’s having his First Minister hung. Treason and corruption, usual thing. S’why there’ll be such a crowd. Everyone in the Realm hates the bastard. Taxes y’see.”
Vaelin felt his mouth go dry and his heart sink into his gut. Nortah’s father. They’re going to kill Nortah’s father. That’s why Sollis kept us here. Made me stay too so it didn’t look suspicious… So I would be here when the news arrived. He found himself taking a closer look at Master Jeklin.
“Did Master Sollis visit here this morning?” he asked
Jeklin didn’t look at him, still smiling down at his dogs. “Master Sollis is very wise. You should appreciate him more.”
“I have to tell him?” Vaelin grated.
Jeklin said nothing, dangling some ham through the bars of the cage, grunting a laugh every time the terriers jumped for it.
“Erm,” Vaelin stumbled over the words, clearing his throat, backing towards the door. “If you’ll excuse me, master.”
Jeklin waved a hand, not turning, laughing affectionately at the squabbling terriers. “Little monsters.”
Crossing the courtyard Vaelin felt the weight of responsibility might force him to the cobbles. Suddenly he hated Sollis and the Aspect. Leadership? he thought bitterly. You can keep it.
But there was another thought, a growing suspicion as he reluctantly ascended the winding steps to the tower room, a lingering image of Nortah’s face as he stalked from the dining hall. Vaelin had seen only anger at the time but now realised there had been something more, a sense of determination, a decision…
He stopped as realisation hit him. Oh please, Faith no!
He took the remaining steps at a run, bursting into the room, panic making him shout, “NORTAH!”
Empty. Maybe he’s at the stables. He likes the horses…
Then he saw it, the open window, the absence of sheets and blankets on their beds. Leaning out of the window he saw the knotted linen dangling a good twenty feet below, which left another fifteen foot drop to the roof of the north gate house and ten more from there to the ground. For Nortah, like the rest of them, it was hardly a challenging prospect. The lingering morning mist would enable him to slip away under the noses of the brothers on the wall, most of whom would have been preoccupied with the anticipation of breakfast.
For the briefest moment Vaelin considered finding Master Sollis or the Aspect but discounted it. Nortah’s punishment would be severe and he already had at least a half hour start. Besides, Vaelin didn’t even know if Sollis or the Aspect were in the House, they may well be at the Fair too. And there was another possibility, ringing loud and terribly clear in his head: What if he makes it there first? What if he sees?
Vaelin quickly gathered a water bottle and a couple of knives then strapped his sword across his back. He went to the window, took a firm grip on Nortah’s rope and began to descend. As expected it was an easy climb, taking barely a moment to reach the ground. With the mist all but gone he had to be wary of being seen, standing flat against the wall until the brother on the battlements above, a bored looking boy of about seventeen, wandered away, then sprinting full tilt for the trees. The run would have seemed short on the practice field, scarcely two hundred yards to the forest, but it felt like a mile or more with the wall at his back, expecting every second to hear a shout of alarm or even the thrum of an arrow. At this range few brothers would miss. So it was with relief that he entered the cool shadow of the trees and dropped his speed to a half sprint, still faster than he would have liked for comfort but he couldn’t afford to waste any time. He stayed in the trees for half a mile or so then turned onto the road.
It was busier than he had ever seen it, packed with farmers driving carts laden with produce for sale at the fair, families making the once a year journey to see the contests and the many spectacles on offer, this year no doubt the promise of a First Minister’s execution added a certain spice to the occasion. None of the travellers seemed daunted by the prospect. Vaelin saw cheerful, laughing faces everywhere, he even passed a cart full of what he took to be woodsmen from their collection of axes, all singing a raucous doggerell about the impending event:
“His name was Artis Sendahl
He was a greedy old goat
King Janus came to count his purse
And stretched his greedy throat.”
“Don’t run so fast, order boy!” one of the woodsmen called to him as he passed, swaying as he raised a stoneware bottle. “They can’t choke the bastard ‘til we get there. Some bugger has to cut the wood for the fire.” The rest of the woodsmen roared with laughter as Vaelin ran on, resisting the urge to see how well a drunkard could cut wood with his fingers broken.
He heard it before he saw it, a dull roar beyond the next hill, the sound of thousands of voices speaking at once. As a child he had thought it a monster, snuggling into his mother’s embrace in fear. “Hush now,” she said, stroking his hair, turning his head gently as they crested the rise. “Look Vaelin. Look at all the people.”
To his boy’s eyes it had seemed every subject in the Realm had come to the expansive plain before the walls of Varinshold to share in the blessings of summer, a vast throng covering several acres. Now he found he was amazed to see the crowd was even larger than he remembered, stretching the whole length of the city’s western wall, a haze of mingled exhalation and wood-smoke hanging over the mass, tents and brightly coloured marquees rising from the carpet of bodies. For a youth who had spent much of the last four years in the cramped fortress of the Order House it was almost overwhelming.
How can I track him in this? he wondered. Behind him came the song of the drunken woodsmen again as their cart caught up, still rejoicing in the death of the King’s minister. Don’t look for him, he realised. Look for the gallows. He’ll be there.
Entering the crowd was an odd experience, mingling exhilaration with trepidation, the throng enveloping him in a mass of moving bodies and unfamiliar odour. Hawkers were everywhere, their shouts barely audible above the noise, selling everything from sweet meats to earthenware. Here and there a knot of spectators had gathered around players and performers, jugglers, acrobats and magicians drawing either cheers and applause or jeers of derision. Vaelin tried not to be distracted but found himself stopping at the more spectacular sights. There was a hugely muscled man who could breath fire and a dark skinned man in silk robes who pulled trinkets from the ears of people in the crowd. Vaelin would linger for a few seconds before remembering his mission and shamedfacedly moving on. It was as he stopped, amazed at the sight of a half naked female tumbler that he felt a hand inside his cloak. It was deft, almost unnoticeable, searching. He caught the intruder’s wrist with his left hand and dragged the owner forward, tripping him over his left ankle. The pickpocket went down heavily, grunting painfully with the impact. It was a boy, small, skinny, dressed in rags. He looked up at Vaelin and snarled, lashing out with his free hand and desperately trying to pull away.
“Ha, thief!” a man in the crowd laughed nastily. “Should know better than to try it on with the Order.”
At the mention of the Order the boy’s efforts to free himself redoubled, scratching and biting at Vaelin’s hand.
“Kill him, brother,” another passerby suggested. “One less thief in the city’s always a good thing.”
Vaelin ignored the voice and lifted the pickpocket off his feet, it wasn’t difficult, the boy was little more than skin and bone. “You need practice,” he told him.
“Fuck you,” the boy spat, squirming frantically. “You’re not a real brother. You’re one of them boy brothers. You’re no better’n me.”
“Needs a beatin’ this one,” a man said, emerging from the crowd to aim a cuff at the boy’s head.
“Go away,” Vaelin instructed. The man, a plump fellow with a large ale soaked beard and eyes showing the unfocused gaze of the newly drunk, gave Vaelin a brief appraisal and quickly moved away. At fourtee
n Vaelin was already taller than most men, the Order’s regime making him both broad and lean. He stared in turn at the several other spectators who had paused to watch the small drama. They all moved on rapidly. It’s not just me, Vaelin surmised. They fear the Order.
“Lemme go, y’bastard,” the boy said, fear and fury colouring his voice in equal measure. He had exhausted himself struggling and dangled in Vaelin’s grasp, face set in a soot stained mask of impotent rage. “I got friends, y’know, people you don’t want to cross…”
“I have friends too,” Vaelin said. “I’m looking for one. Where are the gallows?”
The boy’s face constricted in a puzzled frown. “Wassat?”
“The gallows where they’re going to hang the King’s minister. Where are they?”
The boy’s creased brows formed into an arch of calculation. “Wossit worth?”
Vaelin tightened his grip. “A broken wrist.”
“Miserable Order bastard,” the boy muttered sullenly. “Break me wrist if you want. Break me bloody arm. What odds does it make anyway?”
Vaelin met his eyes, seeing fear and anger but something more, something that made him relax his grip: defiance. The boy had pride enough not to be a victim to his fear. Vaelin saw how truly ragged and threadbare the boys clothes were and the mud covering his bare feet. Maybe pride is all he has.
“I’m going to put you down,” he told the boy. “If you run I’ll catch you.” He pulled the boy closer until they were face to face. “Do you believe me?”
The boy shrank back a little, head bobbing. “Uh huh.”
Vaelin set him down and released his wrist. He saw the boy fight the instinctive impulse to run, rubbing his wrist and edging back a little. “What’s your name?” Vaelin asked him.
“Frentis,” the boy replied cautiously. “What’s yours?”
“Vaelin Al Sorna.” There was a flicker of recognition in the boy’s gaze. Even he, at the bottom of the pile in the city’s hierarchy, had heard of the Battle Lord. “Here,” Vaelin fished a throwing knife from his pocket and tossed it to the boy. “It’s all I have to trade. You get another two when you show me the gallows.”
The boy peered at the knife curiously. “Whassis?”
“A knife, you throw it.”
“Couldja’ kill someone with it?”
“Only after a lot of practice.”
The boy touched the tip of the knife, tutting painfully and licking his bloodied finger when he discovered it was sharper than it looked. “You teach me,” he mumbled around his fingers. “Teach me how to throw it and I’ll show ya the gallows.”
“After,” Vaelin said, seeing the boy’s distrust he added, “my word on it.”
The word of the Order seemed to carry some weight with Frentis and his suspicion receded, but not completely. “This way,” he said, turning and moving into the crowd. “Stay close.”
Vaelin followed the boy through the mass of people, sometimes losing him amidst the crush only to find him a few steps on, standing impatiently and muttering for him to keep up.
“Don’t they teach ya how to follow folk then?” he asked as they struggled through a particularly thick knot of spectators at a dancing bear show.
“They teach us how to fight,” Vaelin replied. “I’m… unused to so many people. I haven’t been to the city for four years.”
“Lucky bastard. I’d give me right nut to never see this dump again.”
“You’ve never been anywhere else?”
Frentis gave him a look that told him he was very stupid. “Oh yeah, got me own river barge I ‘av. Go anywhere I please.”
It seemed to take an age of struggling through the crowd before Frentis halted, pointing at a wooden frame rising above the throng about a hundred yards away. “There y’go. That’s where they’ll stretch the poor sod’s neck. What they killin’ ‘im for anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Vaelin replied honestly. He handed the boy the two knives he had promised. “Come to the Order House on Eltrian evening and I’ll teach you how to use them. Wait by the north gate, I’ll find you.”
Frentis nodded, the knives quickly disappearing into his rags. “You gonna watch it then? The hanging.”
Vaelin moved away from him, eyes scanning the crowd. “I hope not.”
He searched for a good quarter hour, checking every face, watching for any sign of Nortah, finding nothing. He shouldn’t have been surprised; they all knew ways of avoiding searching eyes, subtle ways of making oneself unrecognisable and just another body in the crowd. He paused by a puppet show, feeling a mounting knot of panic building in his gut. Where is he?
“Oh, blessed souls of the Departed,” the puppeteer was saying in a mock tragic tone, his expert hands working the strings, moulding the wooden doll on the stage into a pose of despair. “Ever have I been Faithless, but even a wretch such as I deserves not this fate.”
Kerlis the Faithless. Vaelin knew the story, it was one of his mother’s favourites. Kerlis denied the Faith and was cursed to live forever until the Departed consented to allow him entry to the Beyond. It was said he still wandered the land, seeking his Faith but never finding it.
“You have made your fate, Faithless one,” intoned the puppeteer, bobbing the collection of wooden heads that represented the Departed. “We do not judge you. You judge yourself. Find your Faith and we will welcome you…”
Vaelin, momentarily distracted by the puppeteer’s skill and the craftsmanship evident in the dolls, forced himself to turn back to the crowd. Look, he told himself, Concentrate. He’s here. He has to be.
His survey stopped when a face in the audience caught his attention, a man in his thirties with lean, strong features and a sad gaze. A familiar gaze. Erlin! Vaelin stared in astonishment. He came back here. Is he mad?
Erlin seemed completely rapt by the puppet show, his sad gaze utterly absorbed. Vaelin puzzled over what to do. Speak to him? Ignore him?… Kill him? Dark thoughts flickered through his head, driven by panic. I helped him and the girl. If they catch him… It was the image of the girl’s face and the feel of her scarf around his neck that forced sanity back into his thoughts. Walk away, he decided. Safer if you never saw him…
Erlin looked up then, his eyes meeting his, widening into alarmed recognition. He glanced once back at the puppet show, his expression an unreadable confusion of emotion, then turned and disappeared into the crowd. Vaelin was seized by a compulsion to follow him, find out if Sella was well but as he started forward a shout erupted behind him followed by the sound of clashing blades. It was fifty yards away, near the gallows.
A crowd was knotted around the scene of the disturbance and he had to force his way through, drawing grunts of pain and insults as his desperation made him less than gentle.
“What was he doing?” someone in the crowd was saying.
“Trying to get through the cordon,” another voice said. “Oddest thing. Not what you expect from a brother.”
“Think they’ll hang him too?”
Finally he was through the throng and drew up short at the scene before him. There were five of them, soldiers of the Twenty-Seventh Cavalry judging by the black tail-feathers in their tunics which gave them their informal name: the Blackhawks. Reputedly a favourite with the King because of their service during the wars of unification, the Blackhawks were often given the honour of policing public events or ceremonials. One of them, the largest, had Nortah by the throat, a beefy arm wrapped around his neck as two of his comrades attempted to restrain him. A fourth man stood back a little, his sword raised, poised for a strike. “Hold the bastard still, Faith’s sake!” he shouted. They all bore bruises or cuts showing Nortah had not been easily captured. A fifth man was kneeling nearby, clutching at a bloody wound in his arm, his face grey with pain and tense with fury. “Kill the fucker!” he snarled. “He’s bloody crippled me!”
Seeing the man with the sword draw his arm back further Vaelin acted without thought. His one remaining throwing knife left his hand
before he knew he had drawn it. It was the finest throw he had ever managed, the blade catching the swordsman just below the wrist. The sword dropped to the ground instantly, its owner gaping in shock at the shiny piece of metal impaling his limb.
Vaelin was already moving, his sword hissing from the scabbard on his back. One of the men holding Nortah’s arms released him as Vaelin charged, scrabbling at his belt for his own sword. Nortah saw the opportunity and brought his elbow round to smash into the soldier’s face, making him stagger into Vaelin’s flying kick. He stumbled a few more paces, blood streaming thickly from his nose and mouth, before collapsing heavily to the earth.
Nortah snatched a throwing knife from his belt and stabbed backwards, sinking the blade deep into the thigh of the man choking his neck, forcing him to release his hold. Vaelin moved in and dropped him with a blow to the temple from his sword hilt. The remaining Blackhawk had released his hold on Nortah and was backing away, sword drawn, the trembling point flicking between them.
“You’re…” he stammered. “You’re breaking the King’s peace. You’re under arr-”
Nortah moved with blinding speed, ducking under the sword and smashing his fist into the man’s face. Two more punches and he was down.
“Hawks?” Nortah spat on the unconscious soldier. “More like sheep.” He turned to Vaelin, a hysterical desperation shining in his eyes. “Thank you brother. Come,” he turned away wildly. “We have to rescue my fa-”
