For an eternity, they waded down the valley. When they arrived by the village, Selen shook his arm forward to carry on. “Slope,” he muttered.
Louis understood. The path after the village went down to the bottom of the valley. They wouldn’t need to tow anymore. When the sledge dived forwards, he grasped that they needed to hold fast instead. Every move to the side could overturn the sledge and throw bags and dog onto the snow.
The way down turned out to be a nightmare. They towed on the flats and held on the slopes, maneuvering between the spruces, the gullies, and the boulders. Each time the dog was on the verge of slipping from the sledge, Selen threw himself against the heap to steady it. Unable to follow, Louis tottered but forced himself to rise. After a while, all he could do was cling to the rope and tag along. When he felt the rope pull him and realized he was nothing more than a dead weight, his reaction was to let go. As the rope left his fingers, the sledge spun on its runners and overturned. The dog fell and yelped. The bags were scattered in the snow. Selen faltered towards the dog but fell down with exhaustion.
“Selen.” Louis shuffled over to him and stumbled down. “Get up… The night,” he breathed out. He punched his friend’s chest and tugged his clothes. “Get up.”
“Save the dog,” Selen murmured before passing out.
Louis looked at the forest around, then at the dog. Without thinking, he removed his furs, walked to the animal, and covered it warmly. He returned to Selen and, grabbing his arms, he dragged him behind.
For what seemed hours, Louis trudged, his hand numb or frozen fast on Selen’s coat. His mind was blank. His body was numb. His head turned heavy, and he fixed his eyes on his legs. The ground around them turned from white to light grey, and white flies sparkled over his eyes. Snow stuck to his hair. He didn’t dare glance at Selen for fear to see him frozen dead. Thus he repeated to himself it was just exhaustion. You can rest. I will get you back home. Louis stumbled. Swore. Pushed himself up. At some point, his legs refused to move, and he fell on his knees.
Louis crawled until his clothes were soaking wet with icy water. His lungs burning, he rolled on his back. The clouds were dark grey. Night…build a shelter. He tried to speak to wake up Selen but only choked on the words. Big snowflakes swirled down from the sky and caressed his face. His gloved fingers clenched on Selen’s furs. We will rest a while…a short while. His eyelids drooped.
“My lord? What happened, my lord?” Louis heard a voice say over him.
“Poor boy’s all frozen,” a croaky woman’s voice added.
A blurred shape loomed over him. “Lord Kendal,” Louis whispered. “Tell the lord…the king wants him…to save the dog.” His eyes closed.
His body was enveloped in a kind of soft flannel. His head sank into feathers. Silk caressed his cheek. Louis felt warm skin against his naked torso. He realized he lay on someone’s back which smelled of a unique, male fragrance with a touch of honeysuckle. The sound of a crackling fire told him they had been rescued. He gave a faint smile.
“Are you awake?” a voice said behind him.
Louis opened his eyes and was blinded by the light coming through the window. Shading his eyes with his arm, he adjusted his sight. As he did, his nose grazed his armpit, and he made a face. Their saviors might have sponged off the cold moisture from his body, but he would need a bath to get rid of the stench of the road. He lowered his gaze. Selen lay on his stomach, still deeply asleep. His braid had been unwoven, and the massive clump of hair lay over his head. The rope had left deep wounds in his shoulders as if he had been whipped. You hauled more than your share to spare me. Selen’s wan face was a mask of lesions. A grease had been smeared on the most serious ones. With sadness, Louis grazed his fingers on the cuts on his cheek.
“They will heal,” the kind voice said. “As will yours.”
“And how is your leg?” Louis asked.
He turned around. Near the fire, Folc sat in an armchair, his bandaged foot on a stool. His shoulders were wrapped in a warm plaid. Under his light, groomed beard, he looked tired but healthy.
“It’s getting better every day.” Folc smiled. “Ahanu took great care of me.”
“As you did for us.” Louis caressed a strand of Selen’s hair, careful not to wake him up. “Thank you.”
“Lord Kendal wanted to give you his room. I refused, knowing you wouldn’t approve. However, I took the liberty to lay you down in the same bed. I presumed you would ask about Selen at your waking.”
Louis looked at Folc. “Then, I would have asked about you.”
“And I had you shaved.” Folc smiled.
The door opened. A maid came in with a tray. Behind her followed Ahanu and the dog. Though weak on its legs, it approached the bed and opened its mouth in a kind of smile. Louis caressed its head and behind its ears.
“We respected your last will,” Folc said, while Ahanu took a seat near him. “Though the peasants who found you still talk of the oaf who gave his coat to a dog,” he chuckled. “You collapsed a hundred yards from the first farms. You were lucky.”
Louis bit his lip. Lucky was not a good choice of word. The maid placed the tray on his lap and curtsied before swiftly exiting the room. It smelled of soup and herbal tea. Two slices of buttered white bread lay on the side. Parched, Louis fell on the soup.
“Louis,” Folc carried on, preoccupied. “We only found the dog.”
Louis stopped eating. “Did you find the bags? The plants? The books?” he asked, worried.
“Yes, we found all that. It’s here in the corner,” Folc said with a disdainful gesture at a pile of bags as if it didn’t matter. “Louis, Lissandro never came back here. And where are the others?”
Louis’s head sank. “They’re gone,” he whispered.
“Do you mean…? Lissandro, Kilda, they are…?” Folc asked with disbelief and sadness.
Enough with the questions. Louis’s eyes snapped up. “Gone.” He turned to Ahanu. “We found the Nuharinni.”
Ahanu sat straight in his seat with deep interest. “Did you kill them?”
Expecting more from the Child, Louis hesitated. Despite that this rancour took its roots in time immemorial, the Child’s heart burned with blind hate. Louis didn’t want to judge. Maybe the man had his reasons. But he, as a man, felt the responsibility for the life or death of those wretched souls in the mountains that had filled him with pity.
“They are no threat to anyone and have not been one for long,” Louis said. “They were unaware of the events in Nysa Serin. All those people aspire to is peace. I don’t think your people will hear of the Nuharinni anymore.”
“Then my task with you is done,” Ahanu said, still slightly suspicious. “I will return to my people and inform the elders.”
“Are you not curious to know what we found?” Louis asked, surprised.
Ahanu shrugged. “What is there to learn from an injurious tribe?”
“To learn from their mistakes,” Louis responded. “At your return, tell your people that, should any of them wish to leave the forest, they will only be asked to swear the oath to accept the laws of the social contract, and the Crown will grant them the title of citizen. There is only one status in Trevalden.”
“I have learned a lot in your company,” Ahanu said. “I met your people, I saw your homes. This is a sad world you live in. I pity you. None of us will join that.”
The nerves tensed in Louis’s jaw, and he repressed himself from responding to the slap. The people will forge a new society, and I will show you wrong.
Ahanu rose. “But I look forward to meeting all of you again in my village. I will make sure you are warmly welcome.” The Child raised his hand in a salute and left the room.
“Did you succeed?” Folc asked eagerly as the door closed.
“Yes. We found a cure and will head home tomorrow,” Louis said. He moved the tray onto a stool on the side and pulled the sheet over his chest. The cold of the room already fought its way back into his body. “Any news
from Nysa Serin?”
“Joined forces from nearby towns and lords control the gates of the capital to prevent anyone from fleeing,” Folc said. “But we received no news from the inside.”
“Make the arrangements for an escort. We will break the blockade,” Louis said. His vision faltered, and he paused. “You don’t need to come with us. You can follow at your own rhythm in a wagon.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to rest a little while here?” Folc asked. “You both are exhausted, and the capital is two days’ ride from here with a swift mount.”
“I know, but we will rest once at home. We have lost enough time here,” Louis insisted. His arm stiffened on the sheet. “Now, I will sleep and gather strength until tomorrow. Have the servants come with food, hot water, and the ointments. I want to take care of Selen myself.” Should he show that he was already short of breath and dizzy, they would pamper him for days.
Using crutches, Folc got up from his chair. “I will spread the orders and ask that you don’t get disturbed,” he said, hobbling to the door.
“Folc,” Louis called to him. “Once we are back home, we will see to your education.”
Folc smiled. “We will see you tomorrow.” He nodded, whistled the dog to his side, and closed the door behind them.
On the verge of exhaustion again, Louis flopped into the pillows. Please, God, give me the strength. He already feared what he would see behind those gatehouses. He looked at the milky shoulder of his friend. If he were awake, Selen’s guileless words would soothe his troubled mind. Since Selen needed to recover from his wounds, Louis refused to wake him up. He crept nearer and skimmed his chapped lips on his soft shoulder.
“I’m scared,” Louis murmured. “Provided that we are not too late, I haven’t shared their misery. Who am I to bring them a cure and hope? How will they hear my words on freedom and justice if their souls are a gaping wound? I have lost their trust. I deserve to be put down.”
Selen shifted in his sleep, turned around, and snuggled against his chest, his hands clenched under Louis’s armpits.
“Stay,” Selen breathed.
His soul full of melancholy, Louis twined his hand in the hair on the back of Selen’s head and let himself drowse.
41
The wait was long. At the barricade, the soldiers at Josselin’s side broke the silence with their sighs and the jittery moves of their fingers on the crossbows and lances. Josselin felt on his tongue the metallic taste of the febrile atmosphere. All along, the sun had been hidden by the grey clouds, but by the shadows, he could tell that it had moved by a quarter of an arc by now. Don’t make them attack by night, he thought as his gaze peered at the alley’s mouths and beyond the heaped casks.
A snowflake fell and melted on the box in front of him, followed by more. It added a fresh layer of snow to the morning one which hadn’t melted. A shrill in the distance sent all the defenders in a start. Josselin expected sentinels to retreat from the alleys. No one came. Instead, heavy sloshes progressed in their direction. Footsteps in the mud of the gutters. And an even less reassuring sound. The clinking of chains.
They didn’t hide. They didn’t charge. Slowly, their assailants walked into the light of the small square. None of them was dressed to face the weather. In tunics, aprons, or working outfits, nothing would hinder their moves. Women had knotted up their skirts. Some men hid behind hoods or scarves. Josselin found it hard to understand why they needed to conceal their faces. They were here to wipe them out. Could they hide from the gods? Or did they consider that the unseen was far more frightening? It was more than an outbreak from the slums’ gangs. Their assailants’ faces could have been anyone’s weeks ago. Maybe some had smiled at him from behind a counter or a windowsill. Now they were stained, ravenous, their eyes streaked. Despite their animosity, their features weren’t rougher than the ones of the guards. Still, their looks didn’t matter. Josselin only needed to follow their arms to their hands to feel his bowels twist. The gangs’ members had picked what they handled best—their working tools.
On the first row, exposing the shiny teeth of a maul in his hands stood Rowley, the butcher. Next to him, a woman with a bun of grey hair pointed forward fleece shears and spat insults at the guards. She stepped aside, and a scrawny man with a bushy moustache came forth. His nasty eyes met his neighbors’. The crowd quietened.
“Urian! Why don’t you just drop your weapons and spare us the trouble?” the man called out to the commander. His shoulders curved in a puny way, contrasting with the sharp fish knife he held in his hand.
In the middle of the barricade, in front of the hospital doors, Urian looked down at him. “I know you, Gavin. You’re slums filth—” he scanned the crowd “—but not all of you are! You were once honest workers, artisans, merchants. Don’t commit such a crime.” Scoffs and sneers met his words.
“And you think your hands are clean? Traitor to your kind,” the little man answered back with all his yellow teeth. “I changed my mind. Bring me the head of this moralizer.”
A crossbow’s bolt hit the grey-haired woman in her forehead, and all hell broke loose.
Against all common sense, guards who had reached their breaking point jumped over the boxes and casks to meet the charging crowd. Josselin cast a glance at Urian, who, after a second of hesitation, launched the stroke to save his men. There was nothing left to lose anyway. His sword in his hand, Josselin yelled and joined the melee.
In a sea of shrills and red spurts, he dodged, sliced, and ducked his head. It wasn’t a battlefield where he had to block a blade and fear an arrow, but a slaughter where each hand could hold an unseen weapon. Therefore, Josselin chopped each limb coming at him. He avoided a poker aimed at his back by a young boy and cut the lad down from the shoulder. A hook missed him by an inch and tore off the eye of the man at his side. He spun his sword in a circle hoping no ally stood in his proximity. As he turned, the point of the blade split open Rowley’s flank, letting out a knot of guts. One hand holding his bowels in place, the butcher raised his maul at him but froze in his move and crashed down at his feet, a cleaver nailed in his back. A bundle of chains hit Josselin’s temple, and he landed in the bloody mud. At any moment, he expected a spear to finish him but, though some boots trampled his back, he was left ignored. Reaffirming his grip on his sword’s hilt, he was trying to rise when orders in the distance came to his ears.
As the flow of fighters above him swayed back, Josselin crawled to the barricade where mutilated bodies piled up on the broken crates. He turned around. With a relentless efficacy, soldiers in plates bearing the royal colors charged the gangs. The guards of the palace had come down to their rescue. Progressively, the mass scattered, revealing the extent of the massacre. On the ground, Josselin recognized the blue and white colors of Urian’s tabard. Josselin hurried and knelt at his side.
It was too late for the commander whose flank had been stabbed by a fish knife. Out of respect for his bravery and loyalty, Josselin took hold of his collar and, gathering his strength, dragged Urian’s body towards the hospital. Survivors of the watch hurried to give him a hand, and they carried the commander over the barricade and inside the building. Before he crossed the threshold, Josselin heard orders shouted behind him. He swiveled around. A sergeant bearing white and blue feathers over his helmet motioned to his men.
“Reform the ranks! Push the last of them inside the hospital!”
Puzzled by the order, Josselin approached the man. “Those men came to destroy the place, Sergeant. I don’t think it’s wise…” The sergeant turned his head in his direction and raised his visor. “It’s not wise to gather them inside the building with us. They may attempt something,” Josselin carried on.
Ignoring his words, the sergeant hailed one of his men. “Push all of them inside and block the doors!”
Josselin was taken aback. So was the soldier. “I’m sorry, sergeant. I don’t understand…”
“Block the doors,” the sergeant barked.
; “This is nonsense,” Josselin protested. “We have wounded here to attend to and sick people inside. Did Mauger give that order?”
Still ignoring him, the sergeant repeated his command, raising his voice. “The orders are to lock the threat inside, and the threat is anyone I see here.” Whispers of protest rose from all sides. The orders had been unknown or didn’t make unanimity. “And anyone who would not obey these orders!”
The menacing voice shook some soldiers out of their torpor, and they mauled the defiant towards the hospital, facing men of the watch and fellow guards of the palace indistinctly. Pushed back against his will by two armed men, Josselin tried desperately to get the guards to listen to reason.
“This is madness! Your function is to protect the people. This is not the king’s will. This is not the people’s will. Not all of us here are sick.” The sergeant turned away. “This is a madman’s orders. What are you going to do to us?”
Josselin was tossed into the hospital’s hall. The large doors closed on him, a hedge of swords rose on the other side to prevent anyone from slipping through. The doors shut with a thud. In an instant, the soldiers around him hammered the wooden panels. The metallic sound of several gauntlets resounded in the hall over the complaints. Josselin faced the questioning looks of the nurses and the anxious faces of the sick who had gathered near.
“What’s going on, my lord?”
An acrid smell reached Josselin’s nostrils. He sniffed and tried to trace its origin. It didn’t come from the inside.
“The doors are getting hot,” a guard exclaimed.
Shrieks broke out in the packed hall. Through the panicked crowd, Josselin waved back to the office. He didn’t try to close the door behind him. Instead, he approached the couch where Brother Benedict lay. He knelt and took the monk’s hand in his.
“We must do something… We must…” Josselin glanced at the window, got up, and strode towards it. He didn’t need to reach the windowsill to see the flames. He turned around, drummed with his hand against the table, crouched near the monk again. “The smoke…the smoke before the flames.” He put his hand to his side and grasped his dagger. “The blade before the smoke.”
Light from Aphelion 2 - Tears of Winter Page 46
