by Paul Kearney
Rictus took his hand away from her warmth and knuckled his eyes. “You and Fornyx. Sometimes I wonder if either of you know me at all.”
She raised herself on one elbow and moved closer to him once more, until they were skin to skin, and the wetness at the crux of her thighs was leaking onto his hip. Even in the dark, he knew she was smiling down at him.
“Perhaps, husband, we know you better than you know yourself.”
Her mouth sought his, hungry now. She straddled him with sudden energy, and their second coupling had real joy in it, like some flash of memory, a moment from the past when she had more flesh on her bones, and he fewer scars on his.
THUS, DAY BY day, his other life claimed him, and Rictus’s spirit began to attune itself to the quiet routine of the farm.
He and Fornyx chopped wood until their palms blistered, beat the last of the hazelnuts off the trees with long staves whilst the girls ran squealing around them, trying to catch them in with baskets, and dug in the hard clay plot beside the house for beet and turnip. They threw themselves into the work of the farm with such gusto that Aise complained the slaves were becoming lazy, but Rictus loved to come back into the house at dusk, stiff and filthy with the day’s labour, to find the fire blazing and the girls at the table and Aise baking flatbread on the griddle. He would seize his wife into his arms and kiss shut her protesting mouth until she put her flour-whitened hands on his shoulders to push him away.
More often than not Rictus and Fornyx would have wine after dinner, and Eunion would sing a song of his youth, or go over some past campaign from history that the two men had never heard of.
He had taught Rian to read, and was now doing the same for Ona, so every evening after they had eaten there would be his low singer’s voice in a murmur with Rictus’s youngest daughter, the two of them heads together in a corner with a single lamp, puzzling out the words on a scroll.
And then there would be bed, Aise and Rictus always the last to go. Sometimes Rictus held back to stand at the beehive hearth alone in the last red light of the fire, savouring the warmth of the flagstones under his bare feet, the smell of bread and wet dogs, the creaking of the roof beams over his head as the wind rushed down from the mountains to stir the thatch. On still nights he could hear the river trundling endlessly in its bed, and owls calling from the woods on the valley sides.
He did not think often of the gods as a rule, except when going into battle, but there were times when he stood there in the quiet house with all the people he loved most in the world sleeping about him within the broad stone walls, and he would raise his head to quietly thank Antimone, goddess of pity, for allowing him this.
He did not think on Antimone’s other face, or dwell upon the fact that when she donned her Veil, she was also the goddess of death.
THE FIRST REAL snows came, knee-deep in the space of a night, and along the margins of the river the ice fanned out in brilliant gem-bright pancakes. The goats were now down in the valley itself, Fornyx,
Funion and Garin herding them from the high pastures while the dogs trotted on the flanks of the flock and sniffed at wolf-tracks in the snow.
Now the wolf-watch would have to begin, the menfolk of the farm taking it in turns to stay out at nights beside the flock, huddled by a fire in the lean-to on the western valley slope with the dogs for company.
Rictus and Fornyx took the first night’s watch together, for while bringing the goats down from the highland pasture, Fornyx had found the tracks of an entire pack quartering the hills, and the tracks led south. So the two men set by a store of wood in the lean-to during the day and as darkness fell they donned their old scarlet cloaks, took up their spears and shouldered a skin of wine against the bitterness of the night. Rian’s demand to come along was firmly rebuffed, and Rictus kissed his womenfolk one by one before shutting the farmhouse door on them and standing by Fornyx’s side in the chill darkness underneath the stars.
“You have the most stupid grin on your face,” Fornyx said. “I can see it even in the dark. Didn’t I tell you how they would come round?”
“You’re short and ugly,” Rictus retorted, “but do you hear me bring it up? Come on, dogs.”
They crunched through the frozen snow, the two hounds padding beside them, transformed into lean, predatory shadows in the starlight. Once, Rictus held up a hand and they both paused to listen. The half-frozen river had been muffled and there was barely a breath of air moving in the valley. They could hear the creaking of their own bones, and the soft rush of blood in their throats as their hearts beat, like the sound of a panting dog.
There it was, far off: the faint sad song of the wolf. The hounds beside the two men growled, low in their chests.
“A bad sign, so early in the year,” Fornyx said in an undertone.
“Mark of a hard winter to come, my father always said. Phobos, it’s a heavy frost falling. Let’s get that damned fire lit before our feet freeze to the ground.”
They trekked through the brittle snow to the shelter and Fornyx set about lighting the fire; he was far and away the best of them with flint and tinder. The goats - twitchy, fey creatures up on the high pastures - seemed here almost pathetically glad to see their masters, and the flock gathered in front of the hut, a dark blot on the snow. Soon the firelight picked out the ranks of the nearest, and their cold eyes reflected the flames at the men and dogs in the lean-to.
Fornyx stood stamping his feet up and down in front of the fire. He and Rictus had stuffed their sandals with rabbit’s fur, which was singed by the flames as they stood there, an acrid, campaigning smell.
“You think the passes are still open?” Fornyx asked.
Rictus cocked his head to one side. “Maybe. It’ll be worse up there on the high ridge. It depends which way the wind blows the drifts.”
“I’ll bet Valerian and Kesero are still down at the sea in Hal Goshen, in some tavern with their bellies full of cheap wine and their laps full of some cheap tart’s arse.”
Rictus smiled. “If they’ve any sense.”
“You know that Valerian and Rian -”
“I know. I’m not blind.”
“She’s of an age now, Rictus, and Valerian’s a good man, for all his antics.”
Rictus opened his hands out to the firelight with a curt nod. “I know Valerian’s worth, as well as anyone.”
“But-”
“But he wears the scarlet.”
“He doesn’t have to wear it all his life.”
“He won’t be wearing it if he wants to marry Rian. I would not have her live the life her mother has led.”
“You have given Aise a good life, Rictus,” Fornyx said quietly.
“It would have been better, were I a man like my father was.”
Fornyx threw up his hands. He knew better than to pursue a matter once Rictus had invoked his father’s memory. “Reach me the wineskin, will you?”
They sat out the night, taking it in turns to doze once the middle part of it was past. They talked desultorily of old battles, old comrades, and the attractions of various women they had known. They hardly noticed when the snow began to fall again, a grey veil beyond the firelight that paled the sleeping goats and brought into the valley an absolute hush, as though the world was awake and aware, but waiting breathlessly for some happening.
The fire died down, and in the snowbound silence they heard again the high, distant call of the wolf.
The goats stirred uneasily at the sound, dislodging snow from their backs so they became piebald. Now that the flames were low, Rictus and Fornyx could see how bright was the light from the two moons. Cold Phobos, his face as pale as pewter, and warm Haukos his younger brother, whose light tinged the snow with a pink like watered wine. Both moons were full in the sky, and around them the ice crystals in the air arced in a double halo of rainbow light.
“Fear and Hope, both full in the sky together. It’s an omen, Rictus,” Fornyx murmured. They were both staring aloft, spellbound.
&nb
sp; “I don’t believe in them,” Rictus growled, but he, too caught some of the sense of wonder, a feeling that they were standing on the threshold of some change in the world.
“I’ve seen it maybe four times in my life, and every time it was on the cusp of new things.”
“Ach -” Half angry, Rictus turned away. He hated talk of omens and portents. His life had leached all sense of the numinous out of him. He believed in what his hands could do and his eyes could see, and though he invoked the gods in prayer and thanks it was as much a reflex as anything else, a grace-note. He did not believe -
“Fornyx - look there, on the ridge to the south. Do you see it?” He crunched out of the last dimming glow of the firelight and stared across the fields of snow to the dark woods of the hills above, and beyond them, the high ridge which marked the entrance to the valley, maybe six pasangs away. There in the moon-drenched dark was the light of a single fire, as steady as a candle-flame in a glass lantern.
“I see it.” Fornyx joined him, shivering. “It’s a campfire, up on the side of the ridge. They must be deep in the drifts up there, whoever they are.”
“Valerian? Kesero?”
“Too close. They know this valley - for the sake of six pasangs they’d have marched through the night, knowing a warm bed was here waiting for them. Whoever is up there, Rictus, does not know Andunnon.”
BEFORE THE SUN came up, Rictus and Fornyx were back in the farmhouse. The rest of the family rose to gape as the two men methodically armed one another, hauling on the black cuirasses which were Antimone’s ageless gift to the Macht, belting on their swords and strapping bronze greaves to their shins. The girls clustered around their mother, round-eyed, and Eunion, after a moment’s shock, unearthed his own hunting spear. Rictus saw this and held up a hand.
“No, no my friend. You stay here.”
“What is it, Rictus?” Aise asked calmly, her arms around Ona’s shoulders, her face white and fixed as a statue’s.
“It may be nothing. Fornyx, tie up that damned loose strap at my back, will you?” The two men checked one another over, tugging on straps, tightening buckles.
“Shields?” Fornyx asked.
“And helms. We may as well look the part.”
Ona began to cry.
Within minutes, the Rictus and Fornyx of the farm had vanished. In their place now stood two heavily armoured mercenaries, their eyes mere glitters in the T-slits of their helms, the scarlet cloaks of their calling on their shoulders, shields on their left arms, spears at their right. They had become men of Phobos, the god of fear.
“Stay in the house,” Rictus told the others. “If we’re not back by mid-morning, pack some things and head for the north, up in the hills. Make for the old shepherd’s bothy on the high pastures. This may all be for nothing, so do no thing that cannot be undone.” He caught Eunion’s eye. “Keep them safe, you and Garin, until we return.”
Eunion nodded, swallowing convulsively.
Rictus stared at Aise, then Rian, a blank mask, unknowable. The face of death. Without another word, he ducked out of the house, and Fornyx followed him.
THEY COULD SMELL woodsmoke on the still air, the only smell in the white snow-girt morning. Without speaking, they trudged uphill into the woods, shields slung on their backs, spears at the trail.
After two pasangs they doffed their helms and halted to listen. The snow had stilled the woods, the birds, the river itself. The trees were silent and listening with them. A cock pheasant creaked and coughed away to the west, the sound carrying like a shout.
And then the other sound. Men’s voices, and something large making its way through the snow and the brush above them.
“I count four, or could be five,” Fornyx said.
“Five,” Rictus said. “And at least two horses.”
“We should have javelins, or a bow.”
Rictus smiled with sour humour. “We wear the red cloak and the Curse of God. They’ll piss down their legs at the very sight of us. Helm up, brother, and guard my left - you’re quicker on your feet than I am.”
“Every time you say that. Just once, couldn’t I —”
“Fornyx.” This last came out of Rictus’s mouth in a whispered hiss. Fornyx grimaced, ducked behind a tree and donned his helm. The two men nodded silently at one another, grasping their spears at the mid-point.
They could make out men talking now, strange accents, a bark of laughter, and the truckle of air through a horse’s nose. The trail down the hillside was buried in snow, but still made a clear way through the trees, a white ribbon uncoiling across the slopes of the forest.
Up close now. They could smell the sweat of the horses.
Again, the cock-pheasant rasped, as though counting down the moments. Behind his tree, Rictus breathed deep and even, as his father had taught him in boyhood, as he had in turn taught so many men who had fought under him.
The spear-grip in his hand was more familiar to him than the feel of his wife’s breast. The black cuirass was feather-light on his back. The world was a bright slot of light. He had known these sensations all his life. They were what his life was about. They were what made him alive.
He stepped out from behind the tree.
THAT FIRST MOMENT, counting bodies. How they are standing, what is in their hands, what they are wearing - the weak points. Who is the leader? Deal with him first.
They were soldiers, all of them. He saw that at once, despite the dun-coloured cloaks, the winter-gear. They had swords - the heavy curved drepana of the lowland cities - hung at their hips, and from the pommel of the nearest horse hung three bronze helms, like outsized onions. But no red cloaks on display - they were not mercenaries.
The men froze as Rictus and Fornyx materialized in front of them, gleaming faceless statues of ebony and scarlet, spears held easily at the shoulder. Rictus’s eyes flicked back and forth within the helm-slot. He breathed out a little, relaxing somewhat, looking at the deeds and intentions of their eyes. No need for death, not right away.
“Good morning, lads,” he called out, the bronze robbing his voice of tone and warmth. “What’s up here for you in the snow and the hills this time of year?”
One of the men edged closer to the lead pack-horse, where a bundle of javelins was slung. Rictus stepped forward two paces and levelled the aichme of his spear at the man’s throat.
“You’ll not be needing those, friend. Not today.”
A black-bearded man held up his hands in the air.
He had a broad, likeable face which was at once good-humoured and sinister. He might have been Fornyx’s younger brother.
“The Curse of God, here in the middle of nothing and nowhere - now there’s a prodigy! Lower your spear, brother. We mean you no harm. We are merely travellers, on our way to better things.”
Rictus cocked his head, the spear stone-steady in his fist. He was aware of Fornyx at his left, breathing quiet clouds of breath into the still air. No-one else was stirring - they had sense enough for that, at any rate. One brisk movement would resolve the morning in carnage, and they knew it.
“Who are you?” Rictus asked the dark-bearded man.
The man bowed his head, grinning. “I am Druze, and these are my friends, my comrades in arms Grakos, Gabinius, and a couple of other rascals. We were seeking the quickest way to Hal Goshen and seemed to have gotten ourselves turned around in the night. Our apologies if we have trespassed upon your ground. We mean no harm. We may take a rabbit or two out of your woods, but that’s all.”
He was lying. The straight road to Hal Goshen lay up along the ridge, impossible to miss. Only an imbecile could wander off it, and this man was no fool. Rictus knew that just by the sloe-black twinkle in his eyes. He was not afraid, either, or even apprehensive. That was worrying.
One of the man’s friends trudged down the slope from the rear of the party, also holding up empty palms. This was a smaller fellow, and slender. He wore the short woollen chlamys of the mountain folk, with the hood pulled up
so his face was hard to make out except for a bright gleam of the eyes as the sun caught them in passing.
“Perhaps you would like us to turn back,” he said, setting a hand on Druze’s shoulder. The nails had been painted scarlet some time ago, but the paint had worn and flecked. He looked as though he had been scrabbling in blood.
“If you do, then I cannot see us arguing with two men such as yourselves. Even the five of us are no match for two Cursebearers. So consider yourselves the victors.” A smile under the hood. “There is no need for blood to be splashed on such a bright morning.”
“Agreed. Turn back out of this valley, and we will part in amity,” Rictus said. He lowered his spear but kept his left shoulder towards the strangers, the shield covering him.
“So be it,” the small man said. “Though, if I could, I would like to know the names of those who turn us back on our tracks.”
“You think me a fool?” Rictus asked lightly. They were all young, these five men, and the speaker perhaps the youngest of them all, yet their gear had seen much service, and they stood with the easy, yet alert poise of trained soldiers. These were no mere citizens. Something about all this was wrong.
“I hear tell that Rictus of Isca lives in this glen,” the hooded youth said. “He’s a much storied man, and a Cursebearer to boot. If I were to encounter him, I’d like to know I had, just for the telling of the tale later.”
“Cursebearers do not just spring up out of the ground, especially so high and far from civilized life,” Druze added, spreading his hands like a reasonable man. “You cannot blame us for being curious.”
“Perhaps Rictus prefers to keep himself to himself,” Fornyx said.
“He has every right to do so,” the hooded man replied. “Believe us when I say we wish him no ill. I have been reading stories of the Ten Thousand since I was a boy. It would be a banner-day in my life, were I to meet their leader face to face.”
