The Ragged Man

by Tom Lloyd

  The presence of priests on the streets was no great surprise — their bile and fury would have dissuaded many from attending temple, so it had always been likely the priests would eventually follow — or chase — their flocks into the street. That every major street corner had a priest preaching was troubling, as was the venom with which they harangued passers-by — and even the cavalry, until their attendants hushed them.

  Every preacher had at least a handful of penitents guarding them, a necessary precaution considering the raised hackles their words were causing among the people. Vesna knew that folk wouldn’t go against armed troops, but angry words were being exchanged all over the city. He couldn’t help but be put in mind of Scree in the days before the population lost its sanity completely. He shuddered.

  When the procession reached the lower end of the Palace Walk, Vesna saw a crowd up ahead and called a halt. The people were blocking the street and he didn’t want to lead the cavalry close enough to spark either a panic or a riot. As he edged nearer however, he realised this was no mob, but a crowd listening intently. Vesna looked over the heads to see what was happening and blinked in surprise.

  There was what had to be a Harlequin standing on a makeshift gantry on the left. The diamond-pattern clothes and white porcelain mask were unmistakable, as was the entranced hush over the crowd.

  ‘Now that’s something I’ve never seen before,’ he commented to Suzerain Torl beside him. ‘A Harlequin preaching?’

  He’d spoken too quietly to be heard by anyone else, but all the same the Harlequin broke off from what it was saying and stared straight at him. Vesna felt the air grow cold as faces turned to follow the Harlequin’s line of sight. Their expressions were more annoyance at the interruption than anything else, but Vesna also smelled resentment in the air.

  He started to turn his horse away from the crowd when the Harlequin called out over the tense quiet, ‘Brothers, there you have the embodiment of war — sitting so proud with blood on his cheek, stained and burdened by the life he has led. Pity him, fellow children of the Gods, for men of war have lost the path of peace and pain fills their soul.’

  Vesna checked behind him to ensure his soldiers hadn’t instinctively drawn their weapons.

  ‘I fight in the name of the Gods,’ he called back, aware that he needed to respond in some way. ‘I fight with the blessing of the Gods.’ Death’s cold rattle, why is a Harlequin starting an argument with me?

  ‘You are as lost as the cults. It only remains to be seen if you wish to seek peace, or continue to add to the pain sickening this Land,’ the Harlequin retorted.

  ‘You claim greater wisdom than the Gods?’ Vesna demanded.

  The Harlequin gave a slow, pitying shake of the head. ‘NotI — all I claim is a desire to fill my heart with peace, to be as a child and free myself of the burden of years that cloud a mind.’

  I don’t think I’m likely to win an argument about the merits of peace, Vesna thought, tugging his red cloak a little to ensure it completely covered his armoured arm. But I’ll find out nothing by backing off.

  ‘What of the wisdom that comes with age?’ he ventured.

  ‘That too is clouded by the fear driving the actions of men. It is only by letting the baggage of life fall away that men ensure their decisions are not tainted or swayed.’

  ‘Let me guess: you have a suggestion for how to do that?’

  ‘Not I,’ the Harlequin intoned; ‘I do not appoint myself arbitrator for the deeds of others. Every man and woman must choose their own path in this life. I offer no ritual for absolution, no mantra to cleanse the soul of its stains. We must all find innocence in our own way — we must all serve innocence in our own way.’

  Before Vesna could think of a reply the Harlequin raised its hand, pointing at the part of the crowd that was blocking the centre of the street. ‘My siblings, we cannot hope to find the path to peace just by blocking the path of war,’ it called in a laughing voice, diffusing the tension in the air. ‘Please, allow the men of war to pass; a child would not be so prideful as to mind standing in the gutter and nor shall we!’

  A smattering of laughter accompanied the shuffling of feet and in moments the street was clear enough for the troops to pass. Gesturing for the column to advance, Vesna rode on slowly, giving the Harlequin a respectful nod as he passed. It did nothing in response, but he felt its eyes on his back until he crossed Hunter’s Ride and started on the last stretch leading to the Palace. As he neared that Vesna realised there was another unpleasant surprise waiting before he made it inside the walls.

  ‘Gods, I’ve got enough to worry about, haven’t I?’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Soldiers?’ Suzerain Torl said, casting Vesna a questioning look. Torl was older than the men under his command, and he had to rely on their eyesight for anything in the distance.

  ‘Aye, they’re penitents,’ Vesna said grimly, ‘but maybe this is one argument today I can win.’

  ‘Are you going to reveal your full authority, my Lord?’

  ‘How long would I be able to keep it a secret in any case? It’s a surprise the city didn’t all know before we arrived.’

  Vesna spurred his horse into a canter and broke away from the column, covering the ground quickly. A regiment of penitents had formed up around the fountain-statue of Evaole at the centre of the Barbican Square. Vesna took in the whole scene with a single glance: the Palace gates were shut and archers stood ready on the battlements above. The rest of the square was deserted.

  The penitents looked nervous, shifting restlessly while the priests in charge of them bristled at his arrival — or one of them did at least; the other was a priest of Karkarn, of middling rank by the hems of his scarlet robes. His reaction had been one of opposites; stepping boldly forward, then faltering, most likely when he saw the teardrop on Vesna’s face.

  ‘Count Vesna, the city rejoices in your return,’ announced the other priest, somehow contriving to sound disapproving of what he’d just said. He was a man of Nartis, and as tall as Vesna, though he lacked a warrior’s muscle. His features were small and rounded with cheeks like a baby’s, but his expression was rapacious.

  ‘Really?’ Vesna said in a dead tone and looked around. ‘I didn’t notice anyone celebrating. Is that what you’re doing here?’

  ‘No, my Lord, we are here on the orders of the High Cardinal himself — ’

  ‘To besiege the Palace?’ Vesna broke in, recognising the pious tones of a fanatic; it was easy enough these days.

  ‘To ensure the rule of law and the will of the Gods are done,’ the priest snapped back. ‘The abomination Chief Steward Lesarl has installed in the Palace must be driven out, along with the Chief Steward himself. The impious ways of that wicked man have forced our hand, and we stand here in defence of the entire Farlan tribe, against the machinations of inhumans and all outsiders.’

  ‘Last stand of the faithful, eh?’ Vesna growled. ‘I was present at one of those in Scree. I can tell you: it brought us only hurt.’

  ‘Unmen Dors!’ hissed the priest of Karkarn, ‘perhaps it is time we left?’

  ‘Leave?’ Dors shrieked at his fellow unmen, ‘and disobey the orders of the High Cardinal, the voice of our Gods himself?’

  ‘Enough,’ Vesna shouted, loud enough to make even the fanatic hesitate. The penitents were staring at Vesna with increasing apprehension. He knew his reputation as a warrior wasn’t the cause; it was the effect of Karkarn’s blood flowing through his veins. Time to use that divine authority.

  ‘Unmen Dors,’ Vesna continued in a quieter voice, ‘you will lead your troops away from this place and instruct the High Cardinal they are not to return. You will do this now.’

  ‘You do not issue the cults with orders,’ Dors squeaked with outrage, ‘you have no authority over us! It is our duty to see the abomination is removed from the seat of power and prevented from issuing his monstrous orders!’

  Vesna didn’t bother to respond; there was no reasoning with a
fanatic. He felt something flicker inside him, something stir and grow. A coppery taste bloomed on his tongue and the Land grew suddenly sharper, each line and shadow more defined. He felt shadows spill from his shoulders like a mantle of boiling darkness and a sudden surge of rushing power flowed through his limbs.

  The shadows cascaded all around and flooded the cobbled square around his horse. Vesna took a slow, deep breath and twitched back his red cloak to reveal the iron-clad arm. Tight, twisting energies snaked around the black-iron plates and Vesna saw Unmen Dors’ eyes widen.

  ‘Get out of my way and take your mercenaries with you,’ Vesna snarled, feeling his face flicker as he spoke — the spirit of the God of War was coming closer to the surface. The ruby teardrop blazed with crimson light and cast a bloody corona around Vesna’s head.

  He felt the reverberations of his voice in his mortal bones; the whole of Barbican Square appeared to shudder with every syllable. The unmen’s resolve collapsed and he staggered backwards, his hands raised as though to protect himself from a physical blow. The priest of Karkarn sank to his knees, white-faced and terrified.

  The penitents, all mercenaries, no doubt, shrank back. Those among them who prayed would pray to Karkarn, and none would doubt the God’s presence now. They began to shuffle away while Dors still cringed under Vesna’s stare, but the tall priest was stirred to action when he heard the scrabbling footsteps of the penitents racing away.

  ‘You may tell the High Cardinal he is not to send troops to the Palace again,’ Vesna called after them. ‘If he wants to debate religious authority with me he can come alone.’

  He looked up; the archers were staring out over the battlements, the same look of horror on their faces as the fleeing penitents.

  ‘What do you lot think you’re waiting for?’ he called. ‘Get that damn gate open before your commander arrives or you’ll wish it was a bloody prince of daemons waiting down here!’

  CHAPTER 16

  Count Vesna rode out from the tunnel beneath the Palace Barbican and hesitated. Nothing had changed except for the thinned lines of recruits assembled to welcome the Ghosts home, but, quite unbidden, his mind cast back to the day he first arrived here. The sights and smells had changed little in the intervening decades. While this return was a somewhat muted affair, Vesna felt his heart ache as the clatter and clamour of that day filled his ears, swamping his senses as completely as they had a young provincial noble on his first trip to Tirah Palace.

  Not long past his seventeenth birthday and newly raised to his title, it had been a wary and angry youth who’d ridden into that massive hemmed space and looked around in wonder. Sotonay Shaberale had been at his side: a whiskered veteran of sixty summers who’d spent much of the previous two years teaching Vesna sword-craft. To Vesna’s surprise, they had barely arrived when a bellow echoed out over the training ground.

  All eyes had turned, first to the hulking figure of Swordmaster Herotay as he roared ‘Shab!’ followed by a stream of inventive, anatomically impossible obscenities.

  The Swordmaster had run from the crowd of nervous youths he’d been inspecting — hopeful farm-boys and proud young nobles alike — who watched with alarm as Herotay dragged Vesna’s mentor one-handed from his saddle and enveloped him in a bearhug that made the older man gasp.

  ‘What have you brought me then, you whoring old bastard? How long are you staying?’ Herotay had demanded, casting his appraising eye over Vesna. Vesna had slid from his saddle and offered the Swordmaster an awkward bow while Shab battered the man away.

  ‘Just long enough to get you drunk and yer wife in bed,’ Shab said with a levity Vesna had never heard before. ‘I made the journey to show the faith I got in this boy, but he don’t need me here to hold his hand.’

  ‘All the way from Anvee? Death’s bony cock, boy, you must be good!’

  Vesna hadn’t known how to respond to that; Shab had made it clear this wasn’t the place for pride. The veteran had told only part of the truth in any case: the death of Vesna’s father had hit him harder than he then realised, and Shab had come along as much to keep him out of trouble as to recommend his pupil.

  ‘I realise the honour Master Shab does me,’ he had stuttered, ‘and I will endeavour to live up to it.’

  Herotay had laughed. ‘Don’t you worry yourself about his honour, boy. The man’s been sniffing around my wife like a horny ferret for thirty years now; there ain’t much honour for him in my eyes. Mind you, you’re prettier than Shab ever was, so maybe you’ll do him proud there too.’

  ‘How proud would you be now, Shab?’ Vesna wondered aloud as he watched the Ghosts stream in, some to be reunited; all to share the grief of others. ‘I doubt you expected this when you told Herotay I was destined for great things.’

  For the hundredth time that week he rubbed the fingers of his left hand together, wincing at the numbed sensation — it was neither skin nor armour but something other. He could not inspect the join between the two; that was one thing he would have to trust Tila to do for him. The only visible join was at his shoulder where the pauldron sat; his cuirass had been no problem to remove, but everything from the pauldron to his fingertips was fused to his skin: from the mail that covered his inner arm and armpit to the raised ridge of the pauldron that deflected blows from his neck, it was all a part of him. It was maybe not flesh, but the loss of any piece would hurt like a bastard to remove, even the lion-embossed plate that protected the elbow joint.

  Lost in his thoughts, Vesna was an island the wary mortals skirted as they went about their lives. Only a handful looked in his direction, and none for long — unlike that day twenty years ago. Then, they had all noted his face, and the special attention Vesna had received — it had been his first taste of the burden a reputation could build.

  In the public trials Vesna had been the only one to knock down the Swordmaster facing him, but it had been mostly thanks to a slip and it worked against him in the end. Shab had told him that every man entered the Ghosts on his arse, and Vesna was no exception; Swordmaster Herotay himself had seen to that. The bruises from his wooden swords took a week longer than anyone else’s to fade, but he’d given a good account of himself, and laid a clear marker.

  Vesna shook the thought from his mind. He’d spent enough time thinking during the last few weeks to last any soldier a lifetime. Slipping from his horse, he beckoned over a groom and headed towards the main wing where General Lahk was waiting for him.

  Before he reached the building a still figure caught his eye: a young man in the white robes of a chaplain, who was growing increasingly pale as he watched the returning Ghosts ride in. The cobalt-blue hem of his robe had a band of white running through it and the legion crest sewn over his heart was that of the Ghosts itself.

  ‘Legion Chaplain?’ Vesna ventured as he approached the young man.

  The chaplain jumped, startled. ‘Ah, yes sir, Chaplain Cerrat,’ he said when he recovered his composure.

  Vesna extended his hand, feeling a pang of sympathy for the youth. ‘I’ve heard your name mentioned. Lord Bahl himself ordered your appointment, no?’

  Cerrat’s face flushed with nervous relief as he gripped Vesna’s forearm. ‘He did, sir, yes.’

  ‘Stop that,’ Vesna said sharply. ‘I don’t care how young you might be — you must remember your position, Legion Chaplain Cerrat. You are on Colonel Carasay’s command staff now; your military rank is equivalent to mine, even if a chaplain can’t issue orders.’ He turned his head so Cerrat could clearly see the two gold earrings in his left ear.

  ‘Take it for granted and they’ll make your life a misery,’ Vesna continued, ‘but put it aside to avoid throwing your weight around and they’ll never respect you. Without respect a chaplain’s just an angry priest, and the Gods know we’ve had enough of those.’

  Cerrat swallowed and bobbed his head. ‘You’re right, sorry. I’ve only been here a few days; this is all a bit of a shock, both the position and the influence I’m told I have within the
cult. I arrived here as a novice.’ The new legion chaplain had a boy’s face but a soldier’s build; he was bigger than Vesna had been when he first arrived, and he was unlikely to have stopped growing yet.

  Vesna forced a smile and clapped his black-iron-clad hand on Cerrat’s shoulder. ‘As did I, as did we all.’

  At the contact Cerrat’s eyes widened. He wasn’t a battle-mage, but he was an ordained priest of Nartis now, and he would be able to feel something of Karkarn’s spirit within Vesna, even if he could not yet put a name to it.

  ‘Some of us arrive with greater expectation on our shoulders than the rest,’ Vesna assured him with a smile, ‘men we’ve revered saying we’ll surpass them, but you look strong enough to bear that weight. Only those who ask great things of themselves achieve them; just don’t be in any rush.’

  Cerrat nodded in understanding. The chaplains were the heartbeat of the regiments; the fiercest and most uncompromising among them; he had much to learn from his flock to be able to fill the position he’d been given.

  ‘Enough of that,’ Verna said. ‘Do you know where I can find Lord Fernal and the Chief Steward?’

  ‘They’re in the main wing — meeting an envoy from Merlat who arrived a few hours ago.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Vesna looked back at the crowd of soldiers behind them. ‘This evening, when they’re all settled, go and find Sergeant Kishen and get drunk with him. That’ll be the first lesson in your education in dealing with the Ghosts.’

  Having dropped the new legion chaplain squarely into the middle of the lake, Vesna collected General Lahk and together they made their way through the Great Hall to the quieter private areas beyond. Just before the wide, ornately decorated main staircase was the ducal audience chamber. A pair of guards suggested Lord Fernal’s presence within.