“Water,” I begged. “Something to drink.”
She looked at me.
“Please,” I begged. She glanced around briefly and then lowered the bucket. She climbed up onto the fire pile and pressed the gourd against my lips. I swallowed. It was a thin wine.
“Thank you,” I said.
She did not speak at all.
“Help me,” I said.
She just regarded me.
“I don’t want to die,” I told her.
“I’m not your enemy,” I assured her.
“I’ll go away. I’ll leave you all alone. You’ll never see me or hear of me again,” I promised.
She just watched me, with grave eyes.
“Please,” I said, “this is a terrible way to die. You don’t
want to see that.”
She gave the merest hint of agreement.
“Set me free. You don’t even have to set me free. A knife? A chance? Anything?”
She looked pensive. As if thinking it over, weighing her chances.
“Gold. I’ll give you gold. Enough that you could make your own way. Gold, so that you wouldn’t need anything. Or anyone.”
Something flickered over her features. Still she did not speak, but her eyes narrowed. The corner of her mouth twisted.
“I’ll take you away with me. Far away. You’ll be free. I’ll be your slave. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll protect you from anyone who wants to hurt you. I’ll hurt anyone you want. I’ll take good care of you. I’ll take you to a place where no one will know you.”
Her eyes drifted away from me, to the empty doorways of the hall. My promises had been too extravagant. Still, she lifted the gourd to my lips again. I drank deeply, wine spilling down my skin.
I thought of the way she’d flinched from the Princeling.
“Do you hate him?” I asked.
Flicker of interest, and a little fear. Yes.
“Do you hate him? You know what he is? I can hurt him for you,” I whispered urgently. “I can hurt anyone for you.”
“Lazy brat,” a voice called up. A short stick bounced off the bars of the cage.
The older woman stood at the base of my pyre, shaking her fist. The girl gave a squeak and hurried down the steps. She scurried off.
“It’s always the way,” the old woman spoke loudly. I could hear her clearly.
“Do it yourself if it be done proper.”
She threw a bucket of oil onto the wood piled beneath me.
“Your kind has no children does it?” she called up to me. She dipped her bucket into a great wooden cask of oil. She didn’t wait for an answer.
“You are a lucky folk. Look at me, now. Nine children I brought into the world. What do I have to show for it? Nary a grandchild.”
The oil splashed. The relative privacy was at an end. Other women were appearing, doing chores.
“I have a daughter, skittish as a cat, and stranger still. Never says a word. Always looking at things. Even after all what happened, she could still have a man. But once they get a whiff of her ways, they won’t come near. It’s a miracle that a man got close enough to get her pregnant at all. She never told his name. Pity there, I’d ask him back to try again.”
The oil splashed again.
I watched as rivulets and trickles slid down the floor of the cage.
“And then my son...”
I raised my head.
“Your son...” I said.
She stopped in the act of filling her bucket and looked at me. Slowly she filled it and crossed to the scaffold. She climbed the same steps as her daughter.
“He isn’t bad. He is just young. Headstrong. He’ll settle down. He is too wild for just one woman now.”
Oil splashed and slid along the wooden bars.
“Do you know what he did? What he does?” I asked.
She heaved the bucket hard against the bars of the cage, oil splashed over me. Soaking my skin.
“He didn’t do anything.”
“He cuts them...”
“He is my son. He doesn’t do that.” She poked me sharply with a stick. “I know what you say. I know what you are. It’s all lies.”
“He does,” I insisted. “He does.”
“He does not. He never did. And anyway, it’s not our people. It’s not our concern.”
She stepped roughly down the rungs.
“You have to take care of your own. Stand by your own. You think other tribes will stand with us. You have no people. You don’t understand. It’s just us and them,” she said.
She stood there at the bottom glaring at me.
“I understand,” I answered coldly, my eyes glaring back.
We stared at each other, both implacable.
“You’ll burn,” she told me and stalked off, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The sun was riding low in the sky.
Carefully, I tested my bonds. My wrists were tied with thick hemp to the upper corners of the cage. My legs tied spread to the lower corners. The left wrist and both ankles had been slicked by oil. I could move them, but not enough. I could not reach either of my wrists with my teeth to chew through the rope. For long moments the courtyard would be completely empty.
I could not break or slip any of the bonds. I tried twisting my body, pulling at the shape of the cage itself. It gave a little and then no more. I flung myself back and forth trying to topple it, but it was too solidly braced.
The smell of oil stunk in my nostrils. I reached out and tore at the tough leather of my sleeve.
Perhaps the fire would burn through enough of the leather first, to let me break free. Then I’d storm down off the fire and kill all the warriors and escape.
“Arrah,” I said softly. It was almost a laugh.
If I began to burn I would chew at my arm until the blood ran out of me. It was a better way to die than fire.
There was nothing to do but wait to die.
Waves of panic would catch me, and I would thrash and struggle desperately against my bonds, until exhausted. I would hang there, limp and gasping, until I recovered enough strength to panic all over again in desperate fury. I tested the cage again and again.
Finally, I simply hung there and watched the shadows grow long. The hall began to fill with people.
At first it was mostly Horsemen. Their women moved among them, serving. Then, here and there I noticed Dwarves. Little clusters and knots representing different totems. Come to treat with the Horsemen, I supposed. Were any among the Dwarves I had spoken to? I could not be sure.
A delegation of Vampires made its way in. Were they here to watch the show? I recognized the Cull, indifferent to all, here to see her mark fulfilled. They brought with them a retinue of Arukh bodyguards.
I recognized several of them from the Troll’s house. The burned female from the Vampire’s lodge. Strange choices, I decided, to wind up with so many I knew. I spotted the little Arukh next to the Cull, still mindlessly dragging her great bronze sword. It must have amused the Horsemen, no one tried to take it from her. She snarled at a Vampire.
I almost smiled. She was such an awful slave, yet she insisted on it. What would become of her, I wondered. She’d find some other mad little obsession. She probably wouldn’t live long, her kind of madness didn’t last.
A delegation of Goblins appeared, a posse of clever girls and the small, wizened form of a Low Mother, only just descended past birthing age, in the center of them. It was rare to see a Mother, another testament to the power of the Horsemen.
The girls were surrounded by Hobgoblin guards, one of whom towered above the others.
“Hail Arukh,” Vhoroktik called, her voice ringing through the hall, “I wish I’d killed you when I had you.”
Her voice softened. “Any death but this. Any people but these.”
The little Arukh stood then, and the two stared at each other for a second.
Tashifar appeared.
“Hail Tashifar,” Vhoroktik bowed sardonically. “General of Men. Well do we know your name.”
“Hail Vhoroktik-Khanstantin, Totzaklinh,” Tashifar replied. This was almost an occasion, two Arukh Names meeting.
“I had thought the Brave Tohkzahli disbanded?” he said.
She grinned, mad, bad and dangerous.
“So the Mothers have said; will you call them liars?”
“The Mothers’ words are by definition, truth,” he bowed sardonically in return.
More men came, not just from the Horsemen, but from other principalities in the Human kingdom, petty barons and lords of this street or that block.
A delegation of Kobolds, perhaps from the Secret Kingdom, with their own tame Arukh handful, skulked around the edges of the crowd.
An embassy of Giants and Trolls showed, taking a place near the door. The Trolls were small against their companions. Odd, I thought, how Trolls were everywhere. Whatever happened, it seemed there’d be a Troll around to watch it. Strange how creatures so large and frightening could be so unobtrusive.
Even Selk appeared, in a small delegation of elders without guards, who found a spot on the side and sat quietly. I appreciated that they’d chosen not to bring their fighters. Speaker for Elders was there, our eyes met and he nodded sadly. His lips moved. An apology?
There was muted conversation, and jostling as people found their places. Finally they seemed to settle. The closest to me were a circle of Horsemen elders, behind them the strongest of the Horsemen. Behind them were other groups of Horsemen, other Humans, other races.
Finally the King forced his way to the front. He walked up to my pyre and turned to face the crowd.
“We feast,” he spoke loudly. They quieted. “We feast with our allies. We give thanks for this land which brings us so much.”
They applauded.
“We feast. But even in this land our enemies work against
us,” he shouted.
The Horsemen roared.
“We have always had enemies. We have always triumphed against them.”
No triumphs that lasted, I thought. They’d been driven from one place to the next, out of one land after another. They’d been a fleeing scavenging people.
“But still they contend against us.”
I realized that they’d been fighting and running for so long, they no longer knew how to win. For them, there’d always be enemies, there’d always be battles. They could know no peace.
He raised his arms.
“We shall give them no peace. No rest. We shall burn them wherever they appear.”
They’d just keep on attacking until they lost. Or until they destroyed everything. I saw it clearly. They would keep on climbing until they fell. They had no other choices. The Trolls were wrong. The Horsemen were a broken people, there was no taming to be done.
They cheered.
“There are no enemies but the ones you make,” I called, to jeers and catcalls.
“Your words make you our enemy,” a Horseman yelled, as they cheered him. “You’ve slandered our Prince. You’ve taken your lies to every people in hopes of raising them all against us. Did you think we wouldn’t come after you?”
“I’ve accused your Prince. I said these things,” I yelled back. “It is true that I said them.”
Some Elders held up their hands.
“Her own mouth condemns her,” cried an Elder.
“I am condemned for speaking truth,” I called, my voice cracking.
“Let her speak,” Vhoroktik-Khanstantin called, grinning madly. “Let us have amusement, before the fire.”
The crowd quieted, even the Horsemen hesitating, like a calm before the storm. How many of them had heard my story? For how many was it rumours without form or substance? Did they hope to hear it? To listen to my accusations as I burned? A mad Arukh, screaming maddened accusations. That was sport for sure.
Beside the King’s table, the Prince sat and smirked. At the end of the table was a burning brand, hanging from a pole.
I swallowed.
“I said that a Mermaid was killed. This is true, for a Mermaid is dead and all the Selk will testify to this. And I said that other murders were done, among almost every people. And this is true as well, for the bodies were plain for all to see. I said blood has been spilled. And all this was true.”
I licked my lips, my mind blank.
“I put riddles to the Horse King,” I blurted, for lack of anything better to say.
They laughed.
“For this I am condemned to the fire?” I asked.
There was a blur of discussion.
A Horseman Elder stood. “You have spoken lies about our Prince, placing these deaths at his hand, and for that you burn. And when you speak them again, then shall you feel the fire.”
“They are lies, then?” I asked.
“They are,” he shouted.
“Then let him deny it.”
There was a clamour. The Prince smirking, stood, shaking Tashifar’s warning hand away.
“I deny,” he yelled.
“You deny,” I called.
“I deny. It is not true, any of it, not the least part.” He grinned, enjoying the game.
“And if it was,” I called, “if it was true, if any part was true, if you’d taken the least of the least, a Kobold, would it matter?”
The Dwarves barked laughter. Dead Kobolds didn’t matter. The Prince noted this.
“What if it was an Arukh?” I asked. “Or a Totzaklinh? Or some out country root grubber? If it was an enemy? Who would any of them matter to? Would it matter then to you?”
“It would all be lies,” he said confidently.
“And were it true of the least.”
He hesitated.
“It would not matter. You would still be upon the fire.”
“She burns for lies,” said the Elder, standing again, irritated by the discussion. “Fire is the penalty of lies.”
“I will burn whether it be true or not.”
“You’ll burn,” the Prince said, grinning at the crowd, “that’s all I’ll mark. Let your words be like your flesh, vanished into ashes in the wind.”
“What’s it matter,” a drunken Horseman stood. “She’s named as enemy, burn her.”
“It is fitting to burn me because I’m enemy,” I called desperately.
“By the fire of truth: Yes!” he called back. His friends laughed.
Fire of truth? I wondered. Is that how they thought? That with fire not only liars but lies were burned away. My mind raced to find a use for this thought.
“And are enemies to be killed, burned, raped and tormented?” I asked. “Is there anything that is not right and just to visit upon an enemy?”
He swayed cheerfully, his friends egging him on.
“Nothing. Our justice is generous. We withhold nothing from our enemies but mercy.”
“And are enemies all those who oppose your will?”
“They are.”
“Then I’ve accused the Prince of nothing but justice upon his enemies.”
A hushed rumble went through the other races. The Selk Elders looked sour. Vhoroktik went dark.
“Is that the justice of Horsemen?” she mumbled, loud enough to be heard. A couple of Horsemen gave her harsh looks, she grinned back at them. Hands slid down to weapons.
“You will burn me for this?” I said quickly. “How am I lying? How am I your enemy? If I claim to the Prince only deeds within his rights?”
Several of the Horsemen looked confused.
“These things are lies,” the Elder stood again to speak. “And were they not lies, it would not matter, for they wou
ld be uttered against us. Regardless of the truth of your words, you have tried to employ them against us. Now you must feel the fire of truth.”
“And for claiming the Prince has taken among his own friends, among his own people, his own family?”
“Your cleverness betrays you,” the Elder said firmly, “for these things are truly lies and for these lies alone you must burn.”
“I have not made these claims. Of all the things I have said, these things I deny.”
The Horse Elder looked confused, sensing a trap.
“Shall I burn for denying these claims?” I asked, springing my feeble trap. “What does it mean if the fire of truth consumes me with this denial upon my lips?”
“Uhhh,” he began. He halted. The hall went quiet, all eyes upon him. He thought furiously.
“Perhaps,” he said carefully, “the Elders should call council and discuss matters.”
The Horse King stood.
“Piss on that. I tire of this game. You name yourself enemy. Die by your name. Burn her. Let the Elders deliberate over ashes.”
At once several Elders and Horsemen rose to argue. The King had overreached himself.
Cries of ‘call council’, ‘call council’, rang among the Horsemen.
“We can’t drag her from the fire to address a council of Elders,” the Prince complained.
He was met with a storm of protests.
“I want to address council,” I called desperately, over and over as loud as I could, my voice breaking. Anything to get off the fire, to prolong my life, even for a few instants. Anything that might lead to a hope or a chance.
“She isn’t even one of us,” yelled an angry Horseman.
“I claim address by your custom,” I cried, my voice cracking. “If I am to die by your custom, then I claim its rights.”
“Fine,” said the King angrily. “Have your address to the council. But know that when you finish, you burn. The first lie you utter, you’ll burn.”
Several elders looked unhappy with this.
“At least,” one complained, “have the hall cleared so that we may take counsel in the proper way.”
“No,” snapped the Horse King irritably. He’d make no more concessions to Elders before this gathering. “She’ll speak and we’ll have an end to it.”
The Mermaid's Tale Page 38
