by Tom Lloyd
Now he left his wife to run the chandlery; so many foreigners passed through Byora that there were always opportunities for a man with a quick mind and glib tongue. His illicit living had been even more profitable than the chandlery, but he’d thought the fun had come to an end the day he tried to con a man with scarred hands and a quicker mind than his own. He’d spent the next few days confined to bed while the swelling subsided, and during those uncomfortable sleepless nights the shadows had spoken to him.
Since then Luerce had been waiting for the day he was needed, all the while extending his contacts within the city and smiling sympathetically at stories of hauntings and unfortunate accidents among his rivals.
The second petitioner was a waddling mage in robes that had once been very fine. Luerce bided his time, unwilling to steal a mage’s thunder. The third was a meek-looking merchant whose fortunes had seen better days, judging by the state of his clothes. With a mournful wail Luerce slipped through the lines and past the merchant, falling to his knees well short of the point where Ilumene would have to give him a second beating.
‘Your Grace,’ Luerce moaned, ‘I beg your forgiveness but I cannot wait any longer! I am cursed; cursed by a vengeful priest of Death. My daughter lies at home, one foot inside Death’s Gates because of his spite and no healer can help her.’
He felt the crowd behind him shift, alarmed at the mention of a curse. The guards on either side started to move closer before Ilumene raised a hand to stop them. He had already stepped forward, putting himself between Ruhen and Luerce, as a bodyguard should, and now he peered at Luerce as though trying to see whether he was mad, or simply desperate. He is a great actor, Luerce thought.
‘Why do you come to me?’ the duchess asked sternly, not at all cowed by the mention of a curse. ‘I have no dealings with the priesthood.’ She spat the last word out and Luerce cringed. ‘I suggest you find a mage to undo the curse, or some witch to fashion a charm for you.’
‘I have tried,’ howled Luerce as the tears began to come, ‘and none have been able to break its spell. First my wife sickened and died, then, as a black dog crossed his path in the street, my brother’s heart gave out.’ He gave a choking sob. ‘Your Grace, most blessed lady of Byora, I beg your intercession, I beg help—’
‘Enough,’ the duchess snapped, ‘I cannot . . .’ Her voice tailed off as Ruhen slipped from beside her on the throne. ‘Ruhen dearest, sit back up here,’ she began.
The little boy shook his head solemnly. When she opened her mouth to speak again he held up a hand to her and the words died in her throat. With the room transfixed, Ruhen reached out and ran his little fingers through her sandy hair. When the little boy turned around, Luerce saw he had a single hair in his fingers. With an expression of total concentration Ruhen walked towards Luerce, apparently oblivious to the intake of breath from the crowd behind.
Awestruck, Luerce stayed where he was, as if frozen by Ruhen’s unblinking eyes. ‘Little prince,’ Luerce whispered, his voice carrying around the silent room, ‘I am a sinner, but I did not deserve this curse. I swear it.’
Behind Ruhen he saw the duchess, sitting bolt upright, unmoving, gripping the armrests of her throne, her knuckles white. Beside her, Ilumene’s expression reflected her concern.
Ruhen ignored them all and kept his eyes firmly on Luerce. Without even thinking about it Luerce slowly raised his hand and the child stopped before it, studying the dirty fingernails and raw skin. Eventually Ruhen reached out and tied the hair about Luerce’s index finger, the movements painstakingly slow. ‘Go home,’ he piped, his childish voice quite unlike when Azaer had spoken to Luerce, but with the same electric effect.
He kept still until Ruhen broke eye-contact and went toddling back to rejoin the duchess. Luerce pushed himself upright, staggering a moment before turning to look at those behind him. They were standing in stunned silence until he stumbled towards them and they parted to allow him out through the half-open doors and into the grey daylight.
‘The touch of the innocent,’ the mage said in a hushed voice. ‘They say the pure can cast out sin and daemons, so why not curses too?’
‘He begged intercession,’ breathed someone within the crowd.
‘And intercession he received,’ the duchess finished, looking down at the child beside her. Ruhen smiled up at her and she felt herself enveloped in warmth.
Venn stirred, drifting slowly towards wakefulness. His head felt heavy, his chest tight. The smell of incense tickled his nostrils and he came awake with a twitch and a cough. He turned his head and felt the greasy, sweat-soaked cushion against his ear.
I cannot continue like this. I am dying here, he realised, reaching out for the cup of water by his bed.
Someone put the cup in his hand and helped him lift it to his lips. He blinked and slowly focused on the face before him - not the priestess, but a young woman, a Harlequin, one soon to walk out into the Land. He recognised her; she had sat at his feet often these past few . . . weeks? Months? He was no longer sure. Her name eluded him too, but much did, for up to an hour after awakening. He’d once been a great athlete, but he had had to become used to being a broken old man while Jackdaw lived in his shadow.
‘We have come to say goodbye,’ she said softly as he drank.
‘You are blessed now and sent out into the Land?’ he croaked, his throat raw.
She shook her head. ‘No, Master. We go to seek the child, the innocent, the prince of your tales.’
I have you, Venn realised, only just in time. You choose your king, and when you find him you will cast off your masks and march under his banner.
‘You believe the Land is in need of intercession?’
She nodded urgently.
‘Then I should come with you,’ Venn said, struggling to rise.
She helped him up, her face a picture of concern. ‘Master, you are very weak.’
‘Have faith, sister. When I start on the journey to find our little prince, faith will restore me.’ The words were barely out of his mouth before he realised his mistake - it was far too early for him to leave. His desperation to be rid of Jackdaw had made him rash, he had not reached enough Harlequins yet. His impatience could be the undoing of everything.
‘We are ready to leave whenever you are, Master,’ she said, indicating half a dozen other young Harlequins standing close by.
‘Then slip my swords upon my back,’ Venn intoned, echoing the words of a heroic tale they would all recognise, ‘and let us go wherever our master leads.’
‘No,’ said a sharp voice behind her: the priestess. She looked weary, but her voice was still full of authority. ‘There’s still too much snow; a journey will kill him.’
The young Harlequin glared. ‘The worst has passed already.’
The priestess walked up to the young woman and looked down at her. ‘He is too weak; you must wait for the thaw.’
‘We shall carry him. “The strong shall bear the weak on their backs, letting the weak guide them, for it is they who see the safest path”,’ quoted the Harlequin.
Venn winced at the smugness of her piety, though he was fascinated to see how they interpreted his words to their own ends.
‘And his weakness shows you the path, child,’ the priestess replied triumphantly. ‘His weakness shows you that such a journey should not be undertaken until the spring.’
Spring? Can I last that long with Jackdaw in my shadow? Venn wondered. It could be the equinox before the snow recedes this far north - he stopped dead. The Equinox Festival, when more Harlequins gather than at any other time.
He gave a weak cough and interrupted, saying, ‘Priestess, you are correct. My weakness tells us we should wait, that there is preaching yet to be done. We shall stay until the Equinox Festival, and when we have celebrated with our kin, we shall go.’ He paused, breathing heavily.
When he’d caught his breath, he added, ‘And you will come with us, Priestess, to minister to those of the clans who join our quest.’ And we’l
l need to bring as much water from the pool as we can - those Harlequins we meet on the journey will challenge my authority unless I can get them to receive her blessing first.
The priestess bowed low. ‘You do me great honour, Master,’ she said, her eyes brightening at the prospect.
I will give you everything you have always wanted, Venn thought as he allowed himself to be helped back to bed. You should read your scriptures a little more carefully, priestess. Such a thing has ever been a curse.
CHAPTER 25
As evening fell over Byora a gusty wind brought stinging sheets of rain. Two men crouched in the lee of a chimney stack, their waxed-cloth coats held protectively over their heads, and peered over the edge of the rooftop at the street below.
‘What do you think?’ Sebe said, his voice almost drowned out by the falling rain. He nudged Doranei forward, making room for him next to the warm side of the chimney, but Doranei ignored him. His focus was solely on the man he was watching through the ground-floor window of the house opposite. Despite the rain the shutter was open enough for anyone to have a good view of the street.
‘He ain’t there for his health,’ Doranei said eventually. ‘They’re taking shifts at that window, not so obvious about it that you’d notice if you weren’t really looking.’
‘But there’s no doubt, is there? Shit. So what do we do about it?’
‘Our job.’ Doranei looked his fellow King’s Man in the face and Sebe nodded reluctantly. ‘They’re not innocents sent to watch a door. They’re the enemy. Those boys might not be great at surveillance, but they’re not complete amateurs either.’
Sebe led the way back, crouching until they reached the rear of the building. They dropped down into the small back yard and were heading for the alley that ran behind it when they were startled by a cough.
Doranei turned to see a man standing under an awning outside the next-door house, a filleting knife in one hand, a half-skinned rabbit in the other. The man was grey-haired but far from decrepit and he showed no fear as the two men turned towards him. He raised his knife as he reached for a second, but Doranei shook his head at the movement.
‘Just passing through,’ he said firmly, opening his coat enough to show the man his weapons - a pair of slim long-knives, as well as his sword and axe. They were not the weapons of a thief.
‘There’ll be trouble?’ the man asked in a thick accent, setting his knife down to acknowledge it wasn’t a fight he wanted any part of.
‘No,’ said Doranei, ‘we’re gone.’
The man looked relieved as Doranei headed out of the yard. The rain was keeping most people off the streets and they were clear to find a safe route to the back of the watchers’ house. It took them a while before they were satisfied they would be able to get in without any fuss, but Doranei was feeling increasingly apprehensive. The house being watched was the base for the Narkang agent in Byora, a contact used only by a very select group. King Emin’s intelligence network was small, and everyone knew not to take any risks unless directly ordered to; that anyone knew about this safe house was a worrying development.
The house backed onto another, and a path ran down the side of each to the gardens. The gate to the first didn’t budge but the second opened without a problem. With rain and the dark keeping folk inside, they thought it a reasonable risk to walk in, hop one fence and then the next. Once in the watchers’ yard Doranei and Sebe didn’t need to break stride; the rear door was unlocked and Doranei, a long-knife in one hand, pushed it open to find a blond man leaning over a stove. Before he’d finished turning at the sound of the door opening, Doranei had lunged at the man and sliced his throat open. The man flailed about, knocking a pan off the stove which crashed to the tiled floor before Doranei could stop it. Doranei caught the man and lowered him to the floor, wiped his knife and followed Sebe, who had nipped past him.
‘What’d ya drop now?’ called a voice from the front room as Sebe reached the doorway. Sebe exploded forward, and Doranei, waiting at the door, heard the loud rap of steel on skull, followed swiftly by some rapid thumps and the sound of a man falling.
He peered in and saw Sebe astride a prone man, his blade positioned under the man’s throat, and moved on to check the other rooms on that floor. As expected, they were empty, as were the upstairs rooms when he checked them. In seconds he was back down the stairs.
In the front room he found Sebe had arranged the man’s hands behind his back so he could kneel on them, pinning him face down. Sebe wasn’t a heavy man but it was an awkward position, and the prisoner would have no hope of stopping Sebe from cutting his throat. Doranei stabbed his own long-knife into the wooden floor right by the prisoner’s head and squatted down next to him.
‘Your friend’s dead,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘so you want to avoid going the same way, you answer quick and true and you don’t bullshit me, right?’
There was a slight grunt from the man, who was more concerned about keeping his head up.
‘The knife stays there,’ Doranei said, ‘and the longer you take over your answers the harder you’re going to find it to stay in that position.’
A second grunt: Doranei took that as understanding and continued, ‘Good boy. Who do you work for?’
‘Duchess,’ the man wheezed. There was a cut on his temple where Sebe had hit him, not hard enough to crack his skull but enough to put a man off-balance. A steady trickle of blood was coming from the cut but Doranei guessed he couldn’t even feel the sting yet. His blue eyes were wide with fear and Doranei saw he wasn’t anyone special, certainly not part of Doranei’s own violent world. That was good news; he might think he had a chance at survival if Doranei looked happy enough with his answers.
‘You’re watching Forty-Two, door with the eagle’s head knocker ?’
Another grunt.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know,’ was the hoarse reply. The man’s face was white now; Doranei could see his jaw trembling with the effort of keeping it up. ‘Not told.’
‘Free his left hand,’ he said to Sebe, and their prisoner gave a gasp of relief as he wedged an elbow under his body. ‘If any like us entered you were to send a message? You Ruby Tower Guards?’
‘Byoran Guard, special corps. Anyone goes in, we send a message to the tower.’
‘Who gave you the orders?’
‘My captain, but message was to go to the new sergeant at the tower.’
‘Name?’
‘Kayel, big foreign bastard, they say, never met him.’
‘Big bastard?’ Doranei wondered, sharing a look with Sebe, who was clearly thinking the same thing. There were few people who’d know who the Narkang agent was in any given city, and how to put a watch on him, but the traitorous golden boy of the unit was certainly one.
‘This sergeant, what’s his full name? What’s he look like?’
‘Hener Kayel, I think. Never met him but I heard he boasts a lion mauled him - took half his ear as he killed it. They’re all scared of him, kill you soon as look at you they says.’
Doranei didn’t speak for a moment, casting back in his mind to the day Coran, King Emin’s white-eye bodyguard, had staggered back to the palace, his knee ruined and Ilumene’s dagger still lodged in his ribs. Coran had managed only a glancing blow; Ilumene had done more damage himself when he’d sliced off the bit of his ear that was tattooed with the Brotherhood’s mark. He sent it to the palace two days later so King Emin would be certain that he still lived.
‘There’s no doubt then,’ Doranei said at last, sheathing his dagger as he rose. ‘Time to call for help.’
Without looking down he stepped over the man’s legs and headed back the way they’d come. After one quick jerk, Sebe followed him.
Legana woke with a start as her narrow bed shuddered. She looked around for a moment, the memory of a sound lingering in her ears, until she realised it had been made by the heavy front door below her room slamming shut. It was dark, and no light crept around the curtain
, so she must have slept past nightfall. Legana felt for the chair beside her bed and found her clothes. She dressed as quickly as she could, and finished off by wrapping herself in a long shawl of coppery silk that the wine merchant’s wife had gifted her with. Legana couldn’t appreciate its colour now, but everyone in the room had gone silent when she put it on, and that told her enough.
Collecting her slate and chalk, Legana unbolted the door and went out into the darkened corridor. She barely needed the support of the walking stick the wine merchant had lent her. It had been old and blackened - his father had used it for thirty years - yet when she touched it, the tarnish had disappeared, revealing the stick’s beautifully patterned silver head.
Legana paused to tuck the slate under one arm and allow her eyes to get used to the light coming up the stairs. They were still sensitive, colours washed out to grey, but much of the fuzziness had gone and now she could see the corridor almost as clearly as anyone else. It was for comfort that she ran her fingers along the wall as she headed for the stairway that led downstairs.
She still felt fragile, but instinct told her that her healing was done. Her hearing was diminished and her voice remained a ruin, but she was far stronger than a man now, and vastly more resilient - the occasional bouts of poor balance and her tendency to move slowly and carefully were ingrained, and she would have to learn to live around them.
The building was split into three parts. Business was conducted in the large hallway at the front. It looked more like a storeroom than a shop front. Legana headed there first, knowing Lell Derager, the wine merchant who was Byora’s Farlan agent, didn’t conduct business after dark. The slamming of the door was almost certain to have been those fools from Narkang returning.
