Age of Iron

by Angus Watson

  The houses were jammed in side by side like irregular teeth, leaning over the narrow lane until they almost touched. A stinking ditch ran down the centre of the road. How do people get their shit together enough to organise something as massive and complicated as a town, Dug wondered, when most people are the sort of dimwits who laugh at a tortured bear?

  He walked up the hill. This time when he spun round, he was almost sure he saw someone ducking out of sight into an alleyway.

  Chapter 16

  Lowa Flynn strode into Bladonfort from the west and marched up the town’s broadest street, her iron-heeled boots clacking on paving stones. She had a bundle of reeds strapped to her back, towering above her to half her height again. Combined with her dirty red party dress and riding boots, the reeds were almost laughably conspicuous, but it was more subtle than carrying her bow and arrows in plain sight. Anyway, it was her wild hair and glaring, sleep-deprived, grieving, revenge-bent eyes that cleared the good people of Bladonfort out of her way.

  The prevailing wind was south-westerly, so, as in most towns, the richer people lived in the west, upwind on most days from the stink of industry and the poor. Modern stone houses with heavy wooden doors flanked the street. These large solid buildings – some of which had large solid guards standing outside – had been built since Lowa’s last visit two years before. They were merchants’ houses, belonging to men and women who sold crops, metals, animals and slaves at higher prices than they bought them for.

  Lowa ducked into an alleyway between two buildings. On the right, the side of the house gave way to a wall. She peered over it. There was a yard with a couple of chairs, a cot and an open doorway leading into the house. The howling of a baby and fraught soothing attempts of a mother came from upstairs. Lowa slipped over the wall and into the house.

  Ten minutes later she strode into the upper market square with her red dress exchanged for a black linen shirt, hair combed into a ponytail and her pockets heavy with coins. The long bundle of reeds suited the look even less, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  In this, the more exclusive of Bladonfort’s two markets, men in helmets guarded stalls selling furs, wine, meat, brooches and other hammered bronze ornaments, fine weapons, lathe-turned wooden plates, shale bowls and more. A stall selling gold and glass jewellery had three beefy minders. On the far side of the market a soothsaying druid yelped about “storm-waves of Romans” as a guard bundled him away. In the centre was a post with three hands nailed to it. The hands had presumably belonged to thieves.

  “A handy warning,” she would have said to Aithne. A rush of grief almost brought a tear to her eye. She shook her head and set off through the market.

  Not quite outnumbering the marketplace guards were a few customers, none in any apparent hurry to buy anything. The women wore fine linens pinned with big brooches, hair artfully arranged in ringlets and decorated with duck and other birds’ feathers. Lowa recognised sea-eagle tail plumage trailing from one woman’s tresses. The men were in short summer togas, with close-cropped hair. This was no surprise: some of Zadar’s army and a lot of the wealthier people in towns smaller than Bladonfort had taken to dressing like Romans. Lowa felt no call to do the same. Aithne had tried to explain fashion to her. She understood what it was, but not why.

  Past the carefully dressed shoppers, at the far end of the market square, was a large tavern with a clear area in front for performers and outdoor drinkers. Since she’d last been there, two wooden storeys had been added to the tavern’s ground floor. They teetered out alarmingly over the performers’ area.

  Three men and a woman that Lowa recognised from Maidun’s light cavalry were sitting at one of the ten or so tables outside the pub. She could have slashed open her bundle and put an arrow through three of them before they’d realised what was happening, then questioned the fourth, but lowly troops like these were unlikely to know why her girls and her sister had been killed. She ducked behind a milliner’s stall. The milliner was busy flattering an elderly customer.

  “What d’you want?” Lowa jumped. One of the market guards had come up behind her and she’d been so angry at seeing Zadar’s troops that she hadn’t noticed.

  “Just browsing.”

  “Oh.”

  Lowa gave the man a coin.

  “Is there another way into the tavern?”

  The man looked at the coin. “Yeah. Round the back, by the stables.”

  The guard turned away. Lowa grabbed a green woollen cap from the stall and stuffed it under her shirt, hoping it was worth more than the coin she’d given the guard. She followed the smell of horses to the back of the tavern. A lane, muddy despite the recent dry weather, separated a large stable block from the inn. Along the back wall to the right of the tavern’s back door was a low wooden gutter sloping into a tub. Beery men’s piss, thought Lowa, collected for tanning leather. She was glad she wasn’t a townie.

  A portly guard emerged from the stable. “What are you doing back here?”

  As she opened her mouth to answer, a horse-faced girl in leather trousers and wool shirt came out of the tavern door, carrying two buckets of water. The guard turned to watch the girl’s swaying bottom as she walked into the stable. Lowa darted into the tavern, through a dark corridor and into the main room.

  There was a strong smell of body odour and stale beer despite the fresh straw on the floor. Two narrow windows with shutters thrown wide and an open door let in enough light and a little air. A melange of chairs and tables, all made by the looks of it by different people from different woods, spoke of regular breakages. This was the smartest tavern in town, but despite its veneer the rapidly growing Bladonfort was lawless – or at least its laws did little to stop drunken fights. In bigger towns she’d visited to the east there was a curfew at night, and only the richest citizens – merchants, gang bosses, some mercenaries and druids – were allowed to walk the streets. As far as she knew, they didn’t have a curfew in Bladonfort yet.

  To her right, facing the door, was a long wooden counter with a woman who looked like a half-starved troll scowling from behind it. Whoever ran this boozer clearly didn’t hold with the comely-barmaid-attracts-custom theory.

  Lowa bought a bronze-handled leather mug of ale that smelled of fart from the hatchet-faced barwoman, she settled in a dark corner that covered both entrances, lowered her new cap and waited.

  People trickled into and out of the tavern, but none of Zadar’s men and women other than those she’d seen outside. After an hour or so a big lunk wandered in and argued with the barwoman. Lowa must have lifted her head just a little too far, because the man seemed to recognise her. He smiled at her, not the mean smile of someone about to shop her, more the smile of a brain-damaged dog hoping against previous evidence to be given a scrap of food. There was something about him though, behind the brainless smile. Something dangerous, perhaps. She decided to keep an eye on him.

  He looked at her chest with a clumsy attempt at nonchalance and sat at a nearby table, angling his chair towards her as if she were entertainment. Every now and then he glanced at her over his mug. After a very short time he got up and went to the bar again, walking with a strangely twisting swagger, as if sitting down for a short time had aggravated an old injury. He had another argument with the barmaid and returned to his table with a second beer and a bowl of food. He continued to sneak looks at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  Lowa watched him eat. He looked strong, if a little portly, and she liked his face. A bit lumpy, a bit weather-beaten, but he had kind eyes and a gentle way about him, somewhat belied by the well used warhammer and long knife hanging from his waist. And he at least had the decency to pretend he wasn’t leering at her.

  It was a while since Lowa had seen kind eyes. She decided that he wasn’t one of Zadar’s but just a man who found her attractive. Men who fancied her would usually just swagger up and pretty much plonk their penises on the table. This fellow’s shyness was unusual. Three years ago maybe sh
e would have thought it was pathetic. Now she found it more endearing than the cock-on-wood approach.

  As the big shy man was getting up to buy his third drink, Dionysia Palus, or Deidre Marsh as Lowa preferred to call her, and Weylin Nancarrow walked in. Both were dressed in town garb – him in linen shirt and trousers, her in a linen dress. She was tall, but he was much taller. He always walked – indoors and outdoors – with a slight stoop, as if he’d learned his lesson after banging his head too many times. Deidre’s shiny straight black hair was held in a centre parting with a white band, and she had her usual “I’m sooo fucking bored” scowl on the incongruously chubby white face that topped her slender frame. Weylin’s head was newly shaved at the front, the usual tangle of long dark hair sprouting from the back of his scalp.

  He’d killed Cordelia last night, but had still got up this morning and worried about his hairstyle. A wave of hatred and grief almost made her attack them in a screaming rage. Instead she pulled her hat further forward.

  Dionysia walked to the bar and stood next to the lunk, but Weylin came towards Lowa, head forward as if he were being led by his large nose. She tensed, but he went straight past her, out to the piss trough at the back.

  The lunk returned to his table with another beer, glancing at Lowa on the way. She waited, ears thrumming, hands shaking, until Deidre ordered drinks then, while her quarry was distracted by the price of the drinks, she slipped out of her seat and walked silently over to the bar.

  “Hello, Deirdre.”

  Deirdre stiffened as Lowa pushed her knife into her back.

  “It’s Dionysia.”

  “Whatever you’re pretending to be called,” Lowa whispered in Dionysia’s ear, “I know exactly where your liver is. And if I stabbed just a little harder than this—”

  Lowa pushed the knife until she felt the tip pop though skin. Dionysia gasped.

  “—then I’d puncture your liver and you’d die. Slowly, in pain. So I suggest you walk over to the table in the corner with me.”

  “Weylin will be back in—”

  She pushed the knife deeper. “Just a bit further in, Dionysia. Just a tiny bit.”

  Lowa guided Dionysia to her table, pushed her into the corner and sat next to her, knife in her back.

  “Why did Zadar kill my women?”

  Dionysia flicked her hair and fixed Lowa with a low-lidded stare. That she still managed to look patronising with a knife poking into her reminded Lowa what a total bitch she was, and impressed her a little.

  “My sweet, do you really think Zadar tells me all his plans? Any of his plans?”

  “What are people saying?”

  “Oh darling, we have better things to—”

  Lowa twitched the blade.

  “All right, if it really turns you on that much to know, the death of your women and your escape is the talk of the army. The upper stratum anyway.” She emphasised the Latin word.

  Lowa twisted the knife. Dionysia gasped, at least partially, it seemed, in pleasure. Lowa felt blood run onto her fingers. Dionysia licked her lips like a whore canvassing for work. What a freak, thought Lowa.

  “Nobody knows, or at least nobody’s saying, but consensus is that your women were overheard plotting against Zadar. I know that your idiot sister Aithne whinged to Atlas about Zadar’s methods.”

  Dionysia turned, even though that twisted the knife deeper. She looked straight at Lowa.

  “But don’t worry; you won’t mind for long. Your soul will be looking for a new body in the Otherworld soon. Very soon.”

  Lowa raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  “Zadar knew you’d be in Bladonfort. He sent some of us here to find you. Oh, and by the way, before we left we all had a game of football. I’m not sure who won. I only played for a few kicks myself, but everybody agreed that Aithne’s big head made by far the best ba—”

  Lowa grabbed Dionysia by the chin and smashed her head into the stone wall. As Dionysia lifted her hands to wrench her face free, Lowa pulled the knife out of her back and plunged it upwards, through linen dress, through skin and fat, under her ribcage, into her heart.

  Dionysia gasped and her eyes widened.

  “Your. Name. Is. Deidre.” Lowa twisted the knife with each word.

  Weylin came back in on the last twist. Lowa didn’t see him until it was too late. As she made to get up, Weylin pressed the point of his sword into her neck, pinning her. She glared at him, furious with herself for forgetting his imminent return and for killing her hostage.

  “Don’t move,” he said, eyes darting to his dead wife as she slipped under the table with a sigh. He didn’t seem overly surprised or bothered. “Arthur! Tristan! Any of Zadar’s! To me!” he shouted.

  A couple of seconds’ silence, then the four soldiers that Lowa had seen out front came charging in. Weylin stood looking at her, pleased with himself, while two more Maidun soldiers piled into the pub. She was facing seven in all, armed with a swords or knives. A couple wore mail shirts. She was sitting and unarmoured. Her knife was stuck in Dionysia. Her longbow was out of reach, sheathed in reeds. Her attackers were too close for the bow anyway. One against one, with the one where she was, would have been long odds. One against seven … What could she do? Her mind raced and came up with nothing. She gritted her teeth.

  “What’s up, boss?” said one. “Oh, Mother! It’s Lowa Flynn! Result! What’s the reward again?”

  “Go find some rope one of you. Or better, chain,” said Weylin, not taking his eyes or his sword off Lowa. “The rest of you stay here, stay alert. She’s a tricky bitch, this one. Arthur, keep an eye out in case she’s with anyone. Everyone else, eyes on Lowa. You get the rope, Tristan.”

  As Tristan left there was a gap in the press and Lowa caught the eye of the big stranger sitting across the room. She widened her own eyes, imploring for help. He held her gaze for a moment, then looked down at his beer, shaking his head.

  Chapter 17

  “What?”

  “You’ll find most things are more expensive in Bladonfort than where you’re from, sir.”

  Her voice was sharp, but she lingered on the word at the end of each phrase. Dug was impressed at how she’d managed to make her drawn-out “sir” sound about as deferential and welcoming as a gob of spit dribbled onto a stranger from a window.

  She stared at him with hard little eyes. Her tight mouth was like a dog’s arsehole in a face made from the bark of an ancient, diseased tree. He wondered when she’d last smiled.

  “A coin the same as this one got me ten beers at Boddingham.”

  “Prices go up, love.”

  The “love” sounded as affectionate as a shit-smeared dagger in the guts.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. They just do, sir.”

  “But why?” Dug looked at the barmaid. She looked back. He sighed. “One beer please.”

  She poured his drink from a spigot hammered into a wooden keg. Dug glanced at the woman in the corner. She looked up at the same moment and he instantly recognised the leader of Zadar’s troop of archers that had made total arses of Barton’s forces the day before.

  Her eyes were the blue of glacier ice. Her skin was smooth and spotless, as if carved from the whitest heartwood. Her lips were red as yew berries, the upper one lifted at the middle and corners like the recurve bow with which she’d slaughtered dozens of Barton’s denizens. Her hair was clean, nearly white blonde, swept back into a high ponytail. Even sitting, she seemed to zing with energy, as if she might suddenly leap up and cartwheel out of the door, yet he couldn’t remember seeing a calmer beauty. Not since Brinna of course …

  He noticed the bundle of reeds propped against the wall next to her. So she’d popped into town on a roofing job? That seemed unlikely.

  Dug smiled his most dashing, sophisticated, I’d-be-fun-to-talk-to-and-amazing-in-the-sack smile. Not a flicker of emotion crossed the young woman’s face. She looked away. He darted a subtle look to her chest. Her breasts were on the small
side, but well shaped. Big tits, he’d found, had their attractions, but once a woman was past twenty or so, he decided that large jugs always disappointed in the raw.

  He’d planned to sit outside with his beer, since it was a warm day. But, now he thought about it, he’d spent far too much time outside of late. He decided to take the chair facing the bar at the table by the door. It happened to give him a clear view of the beautiful archer.

  “How you doing, all right?”

  Dug jumped. It was a young prostitute with big blue eyes, a round nose and lips like a fledgling’s beak. Her prematurely silver hair rather complimented her lightly tanned skin, but it was her figure, Dug guessed, that kept her in business. It looked like her white flax shirt and leather shorts had been sewn on and then shrunk. Firm, tanned flesh burst from leg holes, arm holes and particularly the broad neck hole. Dug guessed she was in her late teens. He glanced at the beauty in the corner. She was watching them. Or perhaps looking past them, at the door.

  “No thanks, hen. I’m waiting for a friend,” he said.

  “All right,” said the girl and headed off. She’d looked relieved, like someone visiting a disagreeable relative’s hut out of duty and finding they weren’t there. That rankled. Surely if you had to shag someone, he wasn’t that bad? He remembered his earlier look in Ulpius’ mirror. He had looked a lot older than he’d thought he did. He decided to sell the mirror. Just a bite to eat first.

  He finished his beer and headed to the bar with a world-weary but capable swagger that he thought might impress the archer.

  “Another of those, please.” He dropped his mug lightly onto the bar. And a large piece of mutton with fresh bread.”