Act of Will wh-1

by Andrew James Hartley

  They probably had another.

  “What is your mission?” I asked.

  “That’s our business,” Mithos answered quietly, but with a deliberation I was not supposed to question.

  “Thanks a lot,” I snapped. “So you expect me to go trekking across the bloody Hrof with you, knowing that the trip is going to be an absolute swine, and you won’t even say where we’re going! That’s great, that is. Your name has been all over this town for months, years! But because you did me an unrequested favor and saved me from the bloody Empire, putting me right on top of its wanted list in the process, you expect me to go picnicking with you in the desert, even though it wouldn’t surprise me if you put a dagger in my spine to save water. I’d be safer doing a week in the stocks.”

  “People die in the stocks,” Garnet hissed, his green eyes flashing. I think he rather liked the idea. He was right, of course. The worthy townsfolk couldn’t always be trusted to throw no more than fruit and veg at whoever was chained in the marketplace.

  I went on nonetheless. “At least I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder to see whether you thugs were about to. ”

  Garnet got up. His fist was clenched round the haft of a large and mean-looking battle-ax, so I shut up quickly. He came for me anyway, grabbing a handful of dress just below my chin in a pale, strong hand and hoisting me against the wall. His eyes burned hard as emeralds and he placed the cold iron of the ax bit to my cheek. I half stood, half hung, and silently tried not to urinate. I could feel his heart racing and see the whiteness of his knuckles where they grasped the ax handle, and I braced myself for what would come next. In the end he just released me suddenly and, as I crumpled, said, “Find your own way out of Cresdon then, worm.”

  That put a different complexion on things.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “Stressful day, you know?”

  I tried a cautious smile. Whatever I thought of them, I believed they might be able to get me out, something I couldn’t do by myself.

  “Can I do anything to help?” I tried.

  “Unlikely,” said the girl.

  “Can you do a Cherrat accent?” said Mithos.

  “Who? Me? Are you joking?”

  “No. Can you do it?”

  “A little, I think,” I said, doubtful as to what part this new madness was to play in my escape.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Mithos calmly, leading us back into their room.

  They checked on the innkeeper and began getting their things together, then started changing clothes. The girl turned her back first so I could see nothing worth speaking of. I caught Garnet’s eye and leered towards Renthrette, hoping for a little manly understanding, but he looked murderously back. I stopped looking at her and stared disconsolately at the floor. God, what a mess.

  “Sell me this shirt,” continued Mithos.

  “What?”

  “Pretend you are a Cherrati merchant and-”

  “Oh, I see. Well, er. ” I faltered, quickly deciding that to behave like a lunatic in the company of lunatics was only reasonable. I started talking, hunching up my shoulders as I had seen the extravagant Cherratis doing in the marketplace at weekends. I was quite good at things like this, worthless though they were. I tilted my head and spoke through my nose. “You! Yes, you. Did you ever see quality like this? Feel that sleeve. That’s quality, my friend. The finest. what?”

  “Silk,” he prompted.

  “The finest silk you’ll put your unworthy hands on this side of the great river. Purchased at great expense from the hill tribes of the North and embroidered by the twelve virgin priestesses of Cherrath-waite. And would I ask twelve silver pieces of you? No sir, not twelve. Not ten. A mere eight silver pieces. What, you cheapskate, will you ruin me? All right, all right, I’ll take seven. ”

  Shortly, Mithos smiled and told me to stop. “You have a talent, my friend,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll find a use for you yet. Now get rid of that dress and put the shirt on. And the trousers and boots. You’ll probably need a belt with those. There’s one in that box. Can you shoot a crossbow?”

  “Kind of,” I answered. “So long as you don’t expect me to hit anything with it.”

  “Take this,” he said. He handed me a whimsical little crossbow, one of the light, one-handed kind which was legal within the city. It probably wouldn’t do much damage to anyone in armor but it was a lovely piece of work: polished russet wood inlaid with silver. It was exactly what a Cherrati would carry.

  Orgos was to ride with me in a wagon full of “borrowed” trade goods whose origin I dreaded to consider. He looked good too, I must say. There are more blacks native to Cherrat than to these parts, so he didn’t look at all out of place in his dark leather and crimson silks. He girded on a rapier (another weapon deemed legal because it wouldn’t penetrate the plate cuirass of an Empire soldier), and completed the picture with a plumed cap.

  When Renthrette turned I was disappointed to note that she was dressed in the drab, coarse, and shapeless fabrics of a peasant. She gave me a blank look and turned away. I obviously wasn’t making much of an impression. She made light of a crate I could barely have lifted and my vague interest took another hit. This was unfortunate, since it was only my focus on her that was stopping me from thinking about all the terrible things I probably should have been thinking about, like where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, who was most likely to kill me, and whether they would do it this afternoon or sometime later in the week.

  Orgos checked the ropes binding the innkeeper and the soldiers, all of whom were awake and frightened-looking in ways I would not have believed possible from Empire troops, and then ushered me out, heaving a box onto his shoulder and bidding me take the last bag. When only a couple of crates were left, Mithos led us into the corridor and spoke quickly. “Master Hawthorne, do as Orgos says. Speak only when you have to. I don’t want you being chased across rooftops again. There is an inn called the Wheatsheaf about a mile along the Stavis road. We will meet there, hopefully, for lunch. If we are not all together by nightfall, those who have arrived should head for Stavis at dawn tomorrow. Orgos, you take the wagon through the southwestern gate. And Will?” he said, bending down to my level and speaking carefully into my face. “Don’t even consider turning us in. If you do and they don’t have you up on the scaffold with us, burning your entrails in front of your dying eyes, I’ll make sure someone from our side does something similar. It may be less public, but it would probably feel about the same. Good luck.”

  We left the tavern at a moderate pace and I kept my eyes turned down. With a flick of the reins Orgos set our four Cherrati mares walking out of the inn’s yard and into the streets. I fiddled with my crossbow and wondered if I should just shoot myself now and save them the trouble.

  SCENE VI The gatehouse

  A light summer rain had begun to fall as we left the inn. The Cresdon streets were rapidly being churned to mud by cart wheels, horse hooves, and the shaggy, lumbering cattle they breed in these parts. Orgos steered the wagon expertly enough and, at first, said nothing, so I was free to take a last look at the city, as we hit potholes of reeking, stagnant water deep enough to drown a sheep. All in all I wasn’t going to miss this place too much, even if I knew absolutely sod-all about what lay outside it.

  Frequently we slowed to a virtual stop to negotiate the wagon through streets so narrow that we scraped against houses and shops on both sides. Most of them were white plaster and timber-framed ruins that tier fractionally outwards like inverted pyramids. The thatched roofs on either side of the street almost meet in the middle, but at ground level you can drive a wagon through. Just. I lost count of the number of times the street was blocked by some imbecile taking his geese or chickens to market. It took us three-quarters of an hour to cover about a mile and a half, a good ten minutes of which was spent arguing with the red-faced driver of the hay cart that was coming from the opposite direction.

  I was not used to handling weapons (other than wholly ineffectu
al stage swords, of course, and since I had played almost nothing but girls, I didn’t get to handle those much either), and the feel of the crossbow in my hands, though it was little more than a toy, excited me. As we passed the hay carter, I let him glimpse it and he stopped throwing insults at us. Orgos noticed and frowned at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wouldn’t have used it.”

  “You got that right,” he remarked warningly. “And use your accent.”

  “What? Why? There’s no one around.”

  “Get used to it now,” he insisted, still using the nasal, singsong tones himself, “and you’ll be more comfortable should it become essential.”

  “I’m shy,” I answered with a coy smile that was supposed to amuse him and make him sympathetic. It didn’t.

  He leaned his face close to me and his black eyes fastened on to mine as he whispered, “This is not a game, boy, and there is more than just your scrawny neck on the chopping block. I am not requesting that you practice that accent, I am telling you to. Else get off my wagon.”

  “Right,” I muttered, scared of his earnestness.

  “What?” he demanded, making his point carefully.

  “I mean, right you are, there, sir,” I replied in the best imitation of Cherrat as I could manage. He grinned, satisfied, and his white teeth glowed impossibly in his black face. His features seemed capable of slipping from death-threatening hostility into amiable good humor without so much as a pause for thought.

  I hadn’t spent much time amongst black people for, in these parts, they tended to be wealthy merchants: hardly the types to frequent the Eagle. When you saw them it was usually in the marketplace, and I mean the traders’ market, not the bruised-fruit-and-rancid-meat places. They were well dressed, well spoken, and accompanied by servants and occasionally “attendants” (the euphemistic term applied to bodyguards to keep them legal). These guards couldn’t carry much in the way of arms in the town, of course, but they could be weighed down with plate armor and battle-axes on the roads. That was legal so long as they didn’t travel in groups of more than four.

  People tended to be respectful of the black merchants for their wealth and education, but you sometimes got a sense of resentment simply because they were outsiders, a resentment aggravated by the fact that our town was occupied by foreigners. I was rather fascinated by the darkness of Orgos’s skin, the tight curl of his hair, and the broad features of his face. Fascinated, but not reassured. I don’t suppose I’d ever been this close to a black man before, and that actually made me feel worse. I wouldn’t miss this lousy town, if I got out of it, but Orgos, with his fake accent and unfamiliar appearance, reminded me of how little I knew of the outside world I was being thrown into, and I resented him for it. Whether I resented him enough to turn him over to the guards on the gate remained to be seen.

  “What was that flash of light?” I said, suddenly remembering something that had been nagging at me.

  “What flash of light?”

  “Back at the inn,” I said. “When the soldiers came in. There was a flash of light, bright like a firework. I wasn’t looking right at it, but I saw the way it lit the room and then. I don’t know. I got confused or sick or something.”

  “It must have been a spark from swords clashing,” he said. He stared ahead of him.

  “A spark that lit the whole room?” I said. “No way.”

  “I can’t think of what else it would be,” he said. “I didn’t notice it.”

  I knew he was lying, but I had no idea why or what else it could have been, and since he was twice my size, a notorious criminal, and armed to the teeth, I said nothing.

  We got stuck behind a cart containing a peasant family in bright but soiled clothes, though they were less relevant than the two underfed bullocks pulling them. We had to (I could barely believe it possible) reduce speed.

  All cursing aside, we came to the gatehouse too soon for my liking. Once again, I felt the steely grasp of terror’s mailed gauntlet tightening about my genitals. Around us the houses, hawkers, and wandering livestock had melted away and we found ourselves in a corner of the great sand-colored stone wall that circled the city. Fifty feet up, pairs of infantrymen walked the parapeted wall. Sentries, their white diamond-motif cloaks drawn about them against the rain, looked down upon us through the eyeholes of bright steel helms, their bows over their shoulders. I stared wide-eyed at Orgos, who made the smallest calming gesture with one hand and reined the horses.

  At the angle of the two vast walls was the gatehouse, surmounted by a watchtower. The bullock cart in front of us stopped and the driver climbed down. A burly foot patrolman was asking him questions and pointing dismissively at the people in the wagon.

  The dozen guards who stood alert in the gateway itself were the business end of the Empire. They too wore the white diamonded cloaks, but they bore large round shields protecting them from knee to shoulder. Iron cuirasses encased their thoraxes, and their helms were crested with white horsehair and left only their eyes uncovered. Over their thighs and abdomens they wore skirts of white linen with metal rings sewn on. Shortswords hung at their waists, a pair of light javelins stood by their sides, and in their right hands they clasped long wooden spears tipped with fine steel. They scared the living daylights out of me.

  If I was to give myself up and turn Orgos over to the Empire, these were the men I would be assisting. Of course I had seen them before, but never had I seen them as an enemy might. They looked almost invulnerable, which, I’m sure, was the idea. They also looked like an army, like conquerors. Orgos and the rest of them scared me, but in a different way. They still seemed human, I suppose. I looked at the steel-clad guards by the gate, their weapons ready and their eyes concealed by the shade of their faceless helms, and I saw them as the myriad blades of some vast mincing machine. They stood immaculate and motionless before us: soullessly disciplined. One glance at their iron at such close quarters illumined tracts of land, towns, and peoples ground beneath a regulated, even march. Suddenly they didn’t look like the kind of people I wanted to help. In a purely subjective moment, the decision was made.

  Another pair of the foot patrolmen appeared and emptied the family out of the cart in front of us with a couple of rough orders and a poke with the butt of a short spear. They spilled out and huddled together. A little boy began to cry, and one of the women drew him to her and folded him into her robes: comforting and silencing in one frightened movement. The guards picked scornfully over the poor cart and then started on the people, their questions randomly mixed with insults. I felt Orgos stir fractionally as a guard pushed close to one of the women and threw some lewd remark to his companion. I gave Orgos a quick look and saw with horror that his right hand had strayed towards the gold basketwork hilt of his rapier. I prayed it wouldn’t move any closer.

  It didn’t. The soldiers, bored with their harassment, contemptuously urged the cart through the open gate and turned to us.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.” Orgos beamed as we drew up to the gatehouse. From here you could see through the arch with its raised portcullis and broad outer doors, through twenty feet of city wall and past the grim, motionless infantrymen, out to the road and freedom.

  The patrolmen gathered about the wagon and I tried to smile calmly, though my face sort of froze in the process. I looked down at the crossbow in my lap and figured it was best to put it down.

  In contrast to the way they had just treated the people in the bullock cart, the guards were, in their imperious way, polite: almost deferential.

  “Names, identification papers, and destination, please,” said the duty officer.

  I looked with muted alarm at Orgos; the mechanics of our escape had not really occurred to me and we hadn’t discussed such details. Orgos produced a pair of neatly rolled parchments and answered, with a Cherrati hand gesture, “I am Alberro Spirant and this is my apprentice, Geoffrey. We deal in silks, satin, velvet, cambric, lace, fine cotton, and other costly fabrics. Perhaps you’d
care to see our wares?”

  “We’ll take a quick look in the back if you don’t mind,” answered the soldier patiently. Orgos drew out a small key and passed it to me.

  “Show the gentlemen inside, Geoffrey,” he said casually. I regarded him for a moment, my mental alarm bells clanging fiercely, and then clambered down to the wet and muddy gravel. Two soldiers followed me to the rear of the wagon. As my fingers fumbled madly at the latch on the tail flap, I could hear Orgos’s precise Cherrat accent complimenting the young captain on his town and telling him of our planned route to Bowescroft via Oakhill. It sounded credible to me. I hoped they thought so.

  I got the back open and stood clear as one of the guards clambered in and began poking around. There were various large boxes and crates piled high with clothes and rolls of material. He picked at a couple but obviously wasn’t interested in effecting a real search.

  “How’s business?” said the guard at my elbow without warning. I jumped slightly and forced my voice out with an effort, only at the last second remembering to switch on that ludicrous accent.

  “Not bad, my friend, not bad.” I shrugged expansively. “But we’re hoping for more success in-” Blood and sand, where had Orgos said we were going? “-Bowescroft and Oakhill. As you can see, there is an awful lot of merchandise to clear yet and they are rather, how might I put it, luxurious items. Not for just anyone, don’t you know? The Cresdon folk were not as ready as we had hoped to invest in such quality.”

  How was that? It had sounded all right to me. I had acted myself stupid with all those arm and shoulder movements, finished with that excessive, slow Cherrati frown of thoughtful doubt, and waited for him to respond.

  He merely nodded and looked away, bored. Fantastic! I was hit by a wave of elation at my success and turned to address the other guard, who was getting out of the wagon looking as apathetic as his comrade.