The King's Man (The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin)

by Rowena Cory Daniells

  The Merofynian ship did not stand a chance.

  With cries and jeers, the Utlanders made fast to the merchant vessel. Garzik developed a kink in his neck from trying to peer over his shoulder to watch the attack unfold. Jost had tied them up so that Trafyn was on the mast side facing the attack. Trapped between two ships, the Merofynian crew were quickly overcome.

  Just as before, the dead and injured were thrown overboard, and the spoils divided. At this point, Garzik stopped watching.

  If the other ship carried a cabin boy or kitchen boy, Garzik did not see him. Presumably, he was sent to the original Utland ship to replace Isfyl.

  Then the Utlanders set the merchant vessel adrift and aflame. As the ship fell away behind them, the two Utlander vessels divided the spoils.

  Trafyn cursed under his breath.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The one-eared Utlander’s coming to untie us. And he’s bringing wine.’

  Garzik gulped down a surge of panic and put what he’d learnt last time to the test. While Trafyn sucked back the wine at every opportunity, he didn’t. When the celebrating got to the next stage, Trafyn was in no state to refuse.

  There were plenty who were willing to oblige, which made it easy for Garzik to avoid the clumsy reaching hands. No one seemed to care when he drifted over to where Rusan played his pipes. Half a dozen Utlanders sang along with him.

  Garzik crouched just outside their circle, wrapped a fur around him and listened.

  THE NEXT MORNING the two ships returned to their search pattern. Days passed. Garzik realised he should have been keeping a tally. The Utland captains successfully attacked two more ships. Each time, Garzik avoided the celebrations. He tried to convince Trafyn he could avoid it too, but the squire seemed to prefer to get drunk.

  And then, one morning, they turned north and kept on that heading. By dusk of the second day Garzik was sure.

  ‘The Utlanders are headed home,’ he told Trafyn.

  ‘How do you know?’ The squire frowned. ‘And why are you so pleased? They’re taking us further away from our home.’

  ‘True, but once they’ve unloaded we’ll head south again. Maybe the ship will be taken by sea-hounds, who’ll set us free.’ And, although he wasn’t about to admit it to Trafyn, he was curious about the Utlanders’ home. Since the day he’d seen Captain Rusan take down an adult male wyvern on his own, he’d discovered a growing admiration for the Utlanders.

  With their fierce independence and strong warrior code, the Utlanders reminded Garzik of Captain Blackwing. He’d thought his father’s men-at-arms tough, but these Utlanders endured their injuries without resorting to dreamless-sleep and without complaint.

  ‘I wish I could make myself understood,’ Trafyn muttered. He sat huddled at Garzik’s feet, staring at his dirty toes. ‘There’s no need for them to plunder ships, not when my father’ll pay a small fortune for my return.’

  Garzik ignored this old refrain. He stood, leaning against the ship’s side, enjoying the feel of the wind in his face.

  When Olbin yelled an order at him he recognised the phrase; the big Utlander wanted him to lower the sails. He scrambled up the nearest mast. From up there he could see the horizon and the last sliver of the setting sun. Clear sky meant a cold night. But the breeze was strong so they’d make good time.

  Every day he learnt more about the running of the ship. He knew the sailor’s knots and he was learning to read the sea and the weather.

  He was... not happy exactly, but no longer frightened.

  This came as a surprise to him as he hung there, clinging to the mast.

  And it made him feel guilty. He had a duty to return to Byren and restore his honour. He wasn’t about to forget.

  Chapter Ten

  WITHIN THREE DAYS they spotted islands, great craggy rocks that rose sheer out of the sea. The soaring cliffs stole Garzik’s breath. Far above him, birds wheeled high on the air, their cries piercing and clear. He’d always imagined the Utland Isles as small, but some were huge.

  It was early spring, and there were still floating chunks of ice. He got used to the Utlander words beware iceberg being called at all times of the day and night.

  Four days later they approached an island that seemed larger than most. Although it appeared just as bleak as the others, it seemed to be the Utlanders’ home. They laughed more freely, and spoke with anticipation of what they’d do. Not that he understood all of what they said, but some of it was unmistakable as they cupped themselves suggestively.

  Clearly, for all that they’d used the lads on the ship, they had wives and girlfriends at home.

  The cliffs seemed impenetrable, until a long narrow inlet opened before them. Once through the headlands, it became a steep-sided valley, shrouded in snow. At first Garzik thought there were no houses, but he spotted spirals of thin smoke and realised the buildings were built into the hillside like the highland cottages back home in the Dividing Range.

  As the two ships rowed across the still waters of the narrow bay, he spotted the jetty. It was substantial, with room for at least two ships, and there were bollards along the shore where ships could be tied up. How many ships did the settlement have?

  Three, or four at least.

  One thing struck him as curious. There was no ice blocking the inlet’s narrow bay. Before he knew he meant to do it, he’d turned to Olbin and asked, ‘why no icebergs?’

  Olbin looked surprised and Garzik realised he’d spoken the Utland tongue. The big Utlander grinned and replied. ‘No icebergs here because...’ And rattled off a string of the new words. Seeing his confusion, Olbin laughed. ‘No icebergs. Safe, hot-lander!’

  Hot-lander... it was what they called everyone else, and it was an insult. From what Garzik could gather, it carried the connotation of being lazy and weak in both body and mind.

  As Olbin strode off calling to the Utlanders to make ready to secure the ship to the bollards, Trafyn came up behind Garzik. ‘Why did you do that? Now they know you understand them.’

  Garzik shrugged. It had been an accident. ‘I hear the Utland tongue all day long. The question just slipped out.’

  Trafyn shook his head. ‘Don’t know how you do it. My tutor had to drum my language lessons into me with a cane. And I swear he enjoyed it, the bastard.’

  Garzik studied the steep-sided valley with the eye of an estate holder. Patches of colour drew his gaze to places where early blooming flowers had pushed their way through the snow. Brilliant pinks and purples. Very pretty. But there was not much arable land other than a narrow lip around the shoreline. Behind this, the valley rose sharply and soon grew too steep even for snow, except in the cervices where hardy spruces clung to the rock. ‘How do they farm?’

  Trafyn shrugged, clearly uninterested.

  ‘I suppose they could build terraces like on Ostron Isle.’ Garzik frowned. The snow was too deep to tell if the valley was terraced, which made him wonder again. ‘What’s stopping the sea ice from forming?’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  Garzik shrugged again. ‘The more I know about my enemy, the better.’

  ‘So you are a spy!’

  ‘No, I’m a survivor.’

  ‘I wish they understood Merofynian,’ Trafyn whined. ‘I wouldn’t have to be here if they –’ He broke off, fixing on Garzik. ‘You can translate for me!’

  ‘I don’t know...’ Garzik thought about it. ‘I understand more than I can say, but I don’t know the word for ransom, or father.’

  ‘You’ll learn them,’ Trafyn insisted. ‘And when you do, they’ll treat me properly.’

  Garzik was tempted to refuse, just to spite Trafyn, but Queen Myrella had reared him to be a better man than that. He pointed. ‘Look, here come their families.’

  People poured out of cottages, running down to the wharf, calling happy greetings. Women, children and youths, they all dressed alike: breeches, fur-lined boots and thigh-length smocks. These were tied off around their thighs with colourful br
aid. The same braid trimmed around their necks and cuffs. Children turned cartwheels in the snow and danced with excitement.

  Then the work began.

  The raiders pulled on boots to plough through the snow up to the settlement. Trafyn was all right – he still had his boots – but Garzik’s toes were numb with cold. He went over to Olbin, pointed to the nearest raider who was pulling on his boots, then pointed to his feet.

  Olbin said something too quickly for him to catch. The next thing he knew, he was carrying a bundle, plodding through the snow up the slope after the big Utlander.

  When they came to a patch of clear ground, they stacked the bundles. Women were going through them, sorting things, sending different things to different store rooms.

  ‘Here.’ Olbin thrust something at him.

  He turned to find a pair of peasant’s shoes – simple leather soles, straps and grass stuffing to insulate them. Better than nothing. He sat down and pulled them on, lacing them up around his ankles.

  ‘Come on.’ Olbin urged.

  Unloading the cargo from both ships took the better part of the day. Everyone pitched in, including the three dozen or so youths, beardless boys whose voices hadn’t broken. For all that they weren’t as strong as the men, they worked alongside them, putting their backs into the unloading.

  Of course, Trafyn tried to do as little work as possible, moving slowly, resting as often as he could. The Utlanders weren’t fooled. Passing men and women, even children of nine or ten, would clip him over the ear and tell him to get moving.

  They didn’t have to do that to Garzik. He figured the sooner the ships were unloaded, the sooner they would be restocked and return to sea.

  The sooner he could escape and return to Rolencia.

  ‘Rusan, Olbin!’ A big woman with iron-grey hair swept the captain and his first mate into her embrace.

  They pulled back, laughing, as she congratulated them on winning the ship. Her resemblance to Olbin convinced Garzik she was his mother, but she seemed equally fond of Rusan. She appeared to be in charge of where everything was being sent, and all the Utlander raiders deferred to her judgement.

  At one point, Garzik and Trafyn were called over and displayed. He didn’t catch what was said as she looked them over with sharp, assessing eyes. Then they were sent back to work.

  He got the impression she was in charge of the settlement.

  Other than a couple of very old white-haired men, he’d spotted no adult males besides the returned raiders. There were quite a few beardless youths and – now that he came to think of it – there weren’t many women. Here, it looked like the men spent their time out raiding, while the women ran the settlement and reared the children. But that still didn’t explain why there were so few women.

  Another thing puzzled him. How did they decide which youths remained behind to guard the settlement and which went raiding?

  With another word to the two captains, the iron-haired woman headed back up to the settlement. When she spotted Trafyn sitting on a bale resting, she berated him, calling him something that sounded like lazy-legs.

  He muttered sullenly, then got up so slowly Garzik knew he courted trouble. Iron-hair grabbed him by the ear and dragged him off, followed by taunting children.

  Rusan and Olbin hooted with laughter. Garzik glanced to them.

  ‘Belongs-to-no-one will work in kitchen.’ Olbin answered Garzik’s unspoken question. ‘No lazing there!’ He grinned proudly. ‘The women whip him into shape. Women tough.’

  Belongs-to-no-one was an insult, meaning there was no-one to avenge the person’s death. Garzik thought it might mean slave as well, because it also seemed to mean belongs-to-everyone – as in the person must work for everyone.

  The days had been getting longer, but they had only just finished the unloading when children of eleven and twelve returned with long-haired goats and shaggy, horned cows. If the goats and cows had been foraging there must be pockets where grass had pushed its way through the snow.

  When summer finally came, it would come quickly. At least, that’s what it was like back home. A hot, intense summer of steaming days and nights when plants and animals threw off their winter stupor to grow and procreate madly. By evening, Garzik was ravenous.

  All this hard work meant he needed to fill his belly. Right now, he could smell food cooking and his stomach growled in anticipation, but Olbin sent him down to the shoreline to bring back the children. He could hear them shouting and laughing behind a row of snow-shrouded spruce trees.

  Trudging down there, he was thinking only of returning to find some food but, behind the trees, he found a dozen naked children laughing and frolicking in a pool of steaming hot water. It was formed by diverting water from the stream into what appeared to be a man-made rock pool. As the children jumped and laughed, water lapped over the far end and flowed into the bay. He tested the water in the stream and found it to be lukewarm, but the water in the pool was steaming; something under the ground must be heating it.

  Ingenious, and it explained why the bay wasn’t iced up.

  Watching the children laugh and leap about, boys and girls all in together too young to care, he felt a smile tug at this lips. He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of the grown-ups. In a moment he was naked and in the water as well. It was hot, almost too hot, and fresh enough to drink. The children were wary of him at first, but soon started splashing him. Their high laughter carried, echoing off the valley’s steep walls.

  For the first time since he’d been captured, he scrubbed himself and felt clean, really clean.

  He swam to the top end and discovered the water was cooler up this end. So he swam along until he felt the water warm up. Then he dived under the surface to see if he could spot where the heat was coming from, but he couldn’t see any source for it. Maybe the rock itself was hot?

  When he came up for air again he found several beardless youths waiting for their turn, with more arriving all the time. Most of the children had already clambered out quickly and Garzik followed suit.

  Not quickly enough for one of the youths who’d lost an eye to a claw – a leogryf attack, by the looks of it. Claw-face slapped him on the buttocks and shoved him in the direction of his clothes. The other youths laughed and mocked him as they waited for him to dress and leave, before beginning to strip.

  Garzik would have preferred a fresh set of breeches and vest, but he wasn’t a lord’s son now. So he hastily pulled on his sailor breaches and vest, then trudged up the slope.

  The Utlander’s settlement was not large and most of the buildings were built into the steep hillsides. Other than the long-hall, there were only half a dozen chimney pots poking out of the snowy roofs. The path led to a patch of relatively flat ground in front of the long-hall where the children headed. A free-standing building stood off to one side, connected by a passage. Probably the kitchen. Free-standing cook-houses were a common precaution in case of fire.

  The hot swim, coming after a day of hard work, had exhausted him and he was asleep on his feet by the time he stumbled into the long-hall after the last youngster. He spotted the pelt of a leogryf, complete with maned head, on the wall. The wingspan was twice the height of a tall man. A beautiful sun-on-sea Wyvern skin glistened in the lamplight. Over the fireplace, he spotted manticore chitin, fashioned into shields, carved with the same stylised symbol of the leogryf figurehead from the Utlander’s original ship.

  The long-hall had been dug into the stone and ran along the valley wall. There were dark storage rooms at the back that might originally have been caves. A steeply pitched roof allowed room for a mezzanine floor, which he guessed held bedchambers.

  The women had been feeding the small children and infants and they now took them up the stairs to bed. By this time, the beardless youths had returned and they were fed. They’d only just received their meal when the Utland raiders returned, wet-haired and laughing. The raiders took pride of place at the top of long table, and there they were joined by the wome
n, among them several older women like Iron-hair, who they treated with deference.

  Food trays were delivered by children of around ten and eleven, and some adults. He wasn’t sure if the adults were slaves; they had the same witchy look around the eyes as the Utlanders. He was having trouble working out the hierarchy.

  Since there was no-one telling him what to do, Garzik went in search of a meal. He followed the slaves and serving children down the passage to the kitchen.

  Here it was all a bustle as food was served up. Here, he found Trafyn up to his elbows scrubbing pots.

  As soon as the squire noticed Garzik, he left his post. ‘You have to get me out of here. I’m a lord’s son.’ He gestured disgustedly to the busy kitchen. ‘This is beneath me.’

  An old woman spotted him, clipped him over the ear and dragged him back to work. When he looked like he was about to argue, she slapped his face. Furious, he raised his hand.

  One of the beardless youths caught his wrist before he could strike the old woman. Claw-face swung Trafyn around and smacked him so forcefully the squire fell to his knees.

  A string of fast, nearly unintelligible Utland speech left Claw-face’s lips. It might have been impossible to understand the words, but the meaning was clear.

  Something else was also clear. Claw-face was not a beardless youth. Claw-face was a woman. And suddenly the mystery of the missing women was explained. They dressed and acted like men.

  But why?

  As Claw-face turned away, she noticed Garzik staring. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re...’ he didn’t have the right word.

  ‘A beardless,’ she said, as if it meant great warrior.

  ‘But...’ He opened his mouth then realised even if he could phrase his question it was impossibly rude to ask why she took the role of a man. So he ducked his head to show respect and retreated.

  Back in the long-hall, he found a warm spot near the fire not far from the long table and sat hugging his knees. Now the interactions at the table took on more complexity, for Claw-face and the other beardless flirted with the young women as much as the raiders did.