by Ian Graham
Ballas shook his head.
‘Black was a Servant of the Church,’ said the Warden. ‘I do not know how such a man could be employed by the Masters, but they consider his murder a terrible deed nonetheless. As bad as the killing of a priest. Worse, perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘If your guilt is proven, my friend, that is your destiny.’
He pointed across the Square. Ballas looked toward the Penance Oak. Three crow-pecked heads were nailed to the branches.
‘It is an agonising death,’ said the Warden. ‘In this world of fragile flesh, there are a million tortures a man can suffer. But the Oak is the fiercest of all. It is rumoured that after the head is cut away, the condemned man’s soul is torn from his body …’
‘Torn? How?’
‘I know not,’ said the Warden. ‘The crows, perhaps.’ He laughed mockingly. ‘You will know, soon enough.’
They neared the Sacros. The heavy black gates swung open. The cart passed through, entering a paved courtyard. The Wardens hauled Ballas from the back of the cart, then led him along a shadowed cloister and down a flight of stone steps, until they arrived at a sparsely furnished chamber.
There were a few wooden chairs. A desk of unvarnished wood. Candles burned in niches.
Ballas was shoved into a chair. The Wardens watched him warily, their hands upon their dagger hilts.
For what seemed a long time, nothing happened. Ballas sat silently, listening to candle flames guttering on their wicks. To the trickling of molten wax. To his own heart beating: to the succession of dull, sullen thuds.
Then the door opened.
A man stepped inside. For the first time in a long while, Ballas felt a touch of true fear.
The Blessed Master was tall, broad-shouldered. His hair was black, but grey-dusted at the temples.
The Master gazed at Ballas. Ballas gazed back—then looked quickly away. As if to look upon a Master were a dangerously insolent act.
A defiant part of Ballas said: Do not fear him; he is but a man …
But that was untrue.
Absolute power raised Masters beyond such a meagre status. They were arbiters of Druine’s fate. Of the fate of every individual. At their bidding, men were tortured and murdered— or beatified and blessed. Druine nestled in their cupped hands. No earthly power could oppose them. Such men, Ballas knew, were answerable to no one. What could compel them to treat a man benignly? Nothing. What could urge them to favour justice over expedience?
Nothing.
For an hour Godwin Muirthan interrogated the prisoner.
On first seeing the big man, certain instincts had prickled within the Master. He knew instantly that the fellow wasn’t to be trusted. Mercenariness glinted in his eyes. He had the ever-hungry, ever-alert gaze of a thief. Certainly, it was diluted by fear—but that was to be expected: what man wouldn’t be perturbed when he was to be questioned by a Master?
There was something dangerous about him, too. Muirthan tried to identify the source of this impression. Perhaps it was his size. The prisoner was as tall as Muirthan, and broader. The Master seldom encountered people as well built as himself. Maybe the novelty of this experience unsettled him. Or maybe it was the prisoner’s battered looks. His face was bruised. A deep, crescent-shaped wound pulsed in his forehead. Blood flakes crusted his skin and beard.
Of course, Muirthan had seen such things before. But on most people, they seemed unnatural, a deviation from the proper order of things.
On the prisoner they appeared wholly appropriate. As if, in some perplexing fashion, he had been designed for injury. As if it was his rightful state to bear bruises and wounds.
The prisoner spoke calmly.
In a deep, careful voice, he recounted the details of Black’s death. When he had finished, Muirthan ordered the Wardens to imprison him in the cells far beneath the Sacros.
‘Blessed Master,’ said the big man, ‘you believe me, don’t you? You understand I’m innocent? That I’m not a murderer? I wouldn’t ever kill a Servant of the Church. Not knowingly. Not unless it were his life or mine.’
Muirthan did not reply. Leaving the chamber, he walked through the Sacros, seeking Hengriste.
He found the old Master in the library. He was seated at a table, poring over a parchment. A lantern burned, sinking his eyes into deeper shadow. As Muirthan approached, the old man looked up.
‘You have spoken with him?’ he asked.
Muirthan nodded. ‘He is a liar, of that I am convinced.’
Hengriste smiled faintly. ‘All men are liars, Godwin. Every twentieth phrase, whether uttered by saint or sinner, is a deceit of some description.’ His voice grew soft. ‘Every living thing thrives upon untruths. A fox moves stealthily, so that its prey will not know it is close by. Is that not dishonest? Certain butterflies bear markings that make them appear something they are not: they seem to be just a bit of tree bark, or a delicate leaf. Such ruses prevent birds from eating them. But, nonetheless, that too is a type of dishonesty.’
He interlaced his fingers.
‘The question is not whether our prisoner lies. But what the nature—and extent—of those lies are. What did he tell you, Godwin?’
‘Yesterday, he tried to sell an ornament to Carrande Black …’
‘An ornament?’ Hengriste frowned.
‘A metal disc, set with gemstones. He says it is a beautiful, valuable piece. The man is a vagrant; he admitted as much. When I asked how he came to possess the ornament, he said it was payment for a good deed.’
Hengriste laughed. ‘He is painting himself as a pious man, is he?’
‘He says that, on the road outside Soriterath, he found a vintner whose cart had broken a wheel. The vintner was frightened, fearing that if he did not reach the city quickly, he would be set upon by bandits. Our prisoner claims he repaired the cart. In return, the vintner gave him the ornament. I asked him the vintner’s name; he said he did not know.’
Pulling up a chair, Muirthan sat down.
‘He offered the ornament to Carrande Black. The merchant ref used, claiming the price was too high. Then, during the evening, Black sent his men to steal the ornament. A fight followed, of course—and Black was killed. The prisoner says Black had three accomplices. One of them was a man the prisoner named as Gramiche: he said that as soon as the Wardens arrived, this Gramiche fled. That tallies with the Wardens’ account.’
‘This man, Gramiche—he was apprehended?’ asked Hengriste.
‘No. The Wardens are still seeking him.’
‘Do you suppose the prisoner has misled us? That, in fact, the man whom the Wardens chased was his accomplice—not Black’s?’
‘It is possible.’ Muirthan nodded. ‘Though men in the prisoner’s circumstances seldom lie. They want to strike a bargain. They want to help us, and so save their skin. Often, this involves betraying their companions.’
He laid one hand flat on the table.
‘As I said, the prisoner has lied to us. But these lies are trivial things. Maybe he did not help a stranded vintner; maybe he stole the disc. Maybe he even took it from Black himself. But he has no deeper connection with the merchant. Nor is he involved with the importing of visionary’s root. He is a tramp, a treader of the road. He is also a drunk and a petty thief. He could not be trusted. None of Black’s rivals would be foolish enough to employ him. His path crossed with Black’s by mischance—nothing more. I am convinced of it.’
‘Good,’ said Hengriste. ‘He shall be put upon the Oak this evening, yes?’
‘I shall supervise it myself,’ replied Muirthan.
The Wardens led Ballas down several flights of stone steps, into the belly of the Esklarion Sacros. They shut him in a large, echo-haunted cell. In the instant before the door closed and all light vanished, he glimpsed a figure slouching against the far wall.
The door shut. He heard laboured breathing.
For a moment Ballas did not speak. He took stock of his own situation. He felt curiously numb, as if there were too much to a
bsorb. If, at this hour on the previous day, his present circumstances had been described to him—if, for instance, a fortune-teller had predicted he’d stand accused of a holy crime and be imprisoned beneath the Sacros—he would have reacted with disbelief. Yet here he was.
Speaking in the direction of the figure, he said, ‘Who are you?’
‘A dead man,’ came the reply. ‘A man living posthumously.’
Ballas licked his lips. ‘What is your name?’
‘It hardly matters …’
‘Tell me,’ said Ballas flatly.
‘It is Gerack,’ sighed the man. ‘Is there anything else you wish to know? For it is distracting to face questions when one is but hours from the Penance Oak.’ The man paused. ‘I am frightened. I would happily spend eternity in this cell, rather than be put upon the Oak. I hear that it is an extraordinary way to perish. The pain is colossal … that of a thousand deaths.’
‘You have committed a holy crime?’
‘A holy crime, yes—but also a humane one. I have a daughter; she is in her seventh year and, like myself, she suffers an illness of the lungs. Often, she wakes at night, gasping, unable to draw proper breaths. She weeps and claws her throat … It is an awful thing, to see one’s child suffocating. To watch her eyes glaze, her body contort.’
Ballas sensed that the other prisoner was looking towards him. He felt the man’s eyes probing vainly through the dark.
‘Do you have children?’ asked Gerack.
‘No,’ Ballas replied.
‘Then you cannot understand. You will think me foolish … But, in desperation, I sought the help of a healer. He promised that, by the use of magic, he would cure her. His fee was high. I am not a wealthy man, and I had to pawn the few valuable things I owned. When I had enough money, I hired the magicker and he tended to my daughter. Of course—’ bitterness crept into his tone ‘—his spells had no effect. His rituals, his chanting, his laying-on of hands … they were futile. He might as well have recited a nursery rhyme.
‘When, a fortnight later, I found his head nailed to the Oak I felt pleased. He was a fraud. A charlatan. He grew wealthy from others’ wretchedness. He deserved to suffer.
‘But then … then I felt afraid. For it is a holy crime not merely to be a magicker, but to enlist their services. It matters not whether the magicker is genuine or false. Whether his spells are potent, or mere stirrings of air—it makes no odds to the Pilgrim Church.
‘Fearing that the magicker had kept a list of those he had tended, and that this list might be in the Church’s hands, I gathered up what belongings I could and, with my wife and daughter, tried to leave Soriterath.
‘We were stopped at the city gates. The Wardens were suspicious. Perhaps they can instinctively spot wrongdoers … As I feared, the magicker hadmade a list. And the Church had seized it.
‘I was arrested and tried. And now … now I sit here, knowing that tomorrow my wife and daughter will be escorted by the Wardens to Papal Square and forced to look at my head, nailed to the Oak. It will be a holy lesson. A divine education. They will see the fate of all sinners. In my features, they will discern my death agonies. The Church’s work will be done.’ Gerack was silent for a heartbeat. Then he added, ‘What was your crime?’
‘I killed a Servant of the Church,’ said Ballas.
‘Ha!’ The other man’s laugh was joyless. ‘Did he suffer?’
‘Not as much as I’d have liked.’
‘And now you are to face the Oak for it …’
‘I’ve been tried,’ said Ballas, ‘but no verdict’s been passed.
I killed to preserve my own life. And I didn’t know I was fighting one of the Masters’ men. I can’t be found guilty. It’s not possible.’
‘It is possible,’ said the other prisoner, ‘and it has happened.’
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Do you suppose you would be here if the Masters thought ou innocent? A verdict has been passed—you merely haven’t been informed.’
‘Horseshit,’ said Ballas sharply.
‘It is the truth,’ retorted Gerack. ‘When I was brought here, a Warden referred to this cell as “Gatarix’s Cave”. Are you a reader of the holy book? Know you the tale of Gatarix? He was the seaman who tried to murder the Four. Of course, he failed. For his crime, he was imprisoned in a cave near the holy mountain—then he was decapitated and his head was nailed to an oak. When you are taken from here, it will be to the Penance Oak. Do not delude yourself. You have been questioned by a Master?’
‘I have.’
‘By the time you gave your last answer, he would have decided upon your guilt. If he thought you innocent, you would have been released immediately. But here you are, as doomed as me.’
Ballas was quiet a long time.
‘A man is only doomed,’ he said at last, ‘if he accepts his fate. And I don’t. I shan’t perish. Not upon the Oak. Not by the Pilgrim Church’s hand.’
‘What do you propose?’ The other prisoner laughed despairingly. ‘Do not say you intend to escape—’
‘It is that, or die,’ said Ballas.
Groping through the darkness, he placed his hands on the door. He pressed against it. It did not budge. He hadn’t expected it to.
Yet he had to do something.
‘If you want to live,’ said Ballas, ‘you must do as I say.’
‘It is futile,’ said Gerack, ‘to fight death, when death is assured. Let us accept it, as placidly as we can. For us, there shall be no escape.’
Ballas’s anger flared. He charged through the dark to where he guessed the other prisoner was seated. Reaching out a hand, he grasped the man’s shirt-front.
‘Death is not assured!’ Ballas dragged Gerack to his feet. ‘Do you hear me?’
The man seized Ballas’s wrist. ‘Let me go! You are being foolish!’
‘And you reckon it’s wise to go meekly to the Oak?’
‘I will have no part of this! I want to sit quietly. I want to think of my wife. And of my daughter. They are all that I have. All that I shall leave behind. If I carry them in my heart, maybe the Oak won’t prove so bad.’
Ballas slapped Gerack around the head. The man yelped.
‘You pissing halfwit! You needn’t leave them behind. There has to be a way out. Always, there’s some way to escape.’
‘Escape? Where would we escape to?’ The other man spoke quietly. ‘Have you no inkling of the Church’s power? There is not a square inch of ground unwatched by the Masters’ men. There are not merely Wardens to contend with, but agents—ordinary people, employed by the Church to spy upon their fellows …’
Ballas stood very still. ‘D’you want to live? Or die?’
‘You speak as if we truly have a choice.’
Ballas did not reply.
Gerack exhaled. ‘What must we do?’
Ballas thought for a moment. ‘When the Wardens come, we’ll surprise them. As soon as the door opens, we’ll fight.’
‘That is hardly subtle,’ said the other prisoner softly.
‘Piss on subtlety. Violence’ll serve us better than anything else. Now: are you hurt? Do you have any injuries?’
‘My head aches where you struck me. Otherwise, no. But I warn you, I am not a fighter. I am not strong of limb. Or spirit.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Ballas. ‘We’re not fighting a duel. It won’t be honourable combat. We have to kill—that’s all. Or injure. It’s not that difficult. Go for their eyes, their throats—and their balls. Use your wits, too. Take their weapons, if you can—and use them. More than anything, be ruthless. For your own sake. And your family’s.’
‘You speak as if you have experience of such things,’ said Gerack.
‘My life hasn’t been easy,’ replied Ballas, after a pause.
They waited.
Ballas had been brought to the Sacros at noon. He estimated it was now mid-afternoon, or thereabouts. Every midnight, a curfew was placed upon Papal Square, so head
s could be nailed unobserved to the Oak. Nine hours or so would pass before the Wardens came for him.
He sat down on the floor.
Time trickled slowly by.
Ballas and Gerack hardly spoke. They maintained a heavy, brooding silence. The other prisoner was thinking of his wife, Ballas supposed. And of his daughter. What he would have to do if they were all to remain safe—assuming he did manage to escape.
It seemed that the Wardens would never arrive. But, after a seeming eternity, footsteps echoed outside the door.
Ballas got to his feet.
‘Get ready,’ he said.
Heart pounding, Ballas waited a few seconds. The bolt slid back and the door swung open into the cell. Outside stood six Wardens. Springing forward, Ballas raised his fist—
—Then staggered back, as a Warden crashed the torch he was carrying into the big man’s face. Momentarily blinded, Ballas gave a startled cry. Someone punched him in the stomach. Then something hard cracked against the side of his head. Blow after blow struck Ballas. Fists, feet and knees pounded his body. He dropped to the floor. The attack lasted ten, maybe fifteen seconds. It was crushingly savage. The Wardens were well-trained fighters. They knew precisely how to splinter bones and snap gristle. When they’d finished, blood was pouring over Ballas’s face. A dull buzzing filled his ears. His bones and muscles ached.
Groaning, he opened his eyes.
A moment of residual blindness. Then the cell grew clear to his vision.
The Wardens gazed down at him.
They were breathing heavily. They seemed amused, satisfied. The other prisoner sagged against the wall.
In the light from the torch Ballas saw that Gerack was a thin man, with a short beard. His hair was black, and unevenly cropped. His arms were folded protectively across his chest. He shivered violently. His wheezing breaths were very loud.
‘On your feet,’ the torch-bearing Warden told Ballas. ‘I wish to show you something.’
Slowly, Ballas got up. Another Warden grasped Ballas’s wrist, forcing his arm up behind his back. The big man grunted.
‘See this?’ asked the torch-bearing Warden, casting light on the cell wall.
Near the ceiling, there was a hole the size of Ballas’s fist in the brickwork.
