She paused, then she repeated the concept she wanted the crowd, and the judges, to understand and remember.
“We should be grateful to these soldiers as we are to all our brave troops. We should be applauding them not putting them on trial!”
Archange bowed to the balcony and walked away to a spattering of applause.
The six boys stood waiting while the emperor and his two judges talked. Arish squinted at them in the sunlight. The emperor seemed to say little. It was the merchant, Goldinus Vara, who did most of the talking and, by his gestures, Arish guessed he was debating with the emperor. The old academic seemed to be asleep.
Arish felt a hollow place in his stomach where fear gripped him. Debate or not, he had no doubt what the verdict would be. They would all die here on the sand, in front of a happy, cheering crowd who would then go home to tell their wives and children that they had seen enemies of the City executed this day. His life would end here. The idea was not so bad. What he had seen of life he had not enjoyed. It had been full of brutality, terror, need and loneliness. The fear gripping him dissolved a little and he felt calmer. He hoped the method of execution would be quick. To one side of the imperial balcony he could see the emperor’s executioner, Galliard, who had served the Immortal as long as anyone could remember, standing waiting for the verdict, his hands on the haft of a huge axe.
Arish looked at the other boys. Evan was leaning against Sami, who had his arm round the youngster’s shoulder. In the last few days Arish had discovered that Sami was essentially a kind boy, now the false bravado had been stripped away from them all. Sami had looked after Evan when the others ignored him, and it was Sami who always made sure the small amounts of food and drink they had been given were equally divided.
Sami saw Arish watching him and gave a rueful smile. He patted Evan on the shoulder and the small boy looked up at him trustingly. Arish thought that no one had ever looked to him like that. He resolved that if he survived the day then he would also become worthy of trust.
The murmuring of the crowd softened as the merchant Goldinus stood up and stepped to the front of the balcony. He held up a hand for quiet.
“The verdict of the judges is that the case is proved,” he announced. “The six boys before us are guilty of killing imperial hounds, for which the penalty is death!”
There was a roar of excited approval from the crowd and sighs of fear from the boys. Arish felt a wonderful sense of calm overcome him. This was the end. There were no more decisions to be made. No more struggle. No more dreading what each day would bring. He looked up at the blue sky and told himself he would not see it again. But instead of regret he felt only relief.
Goldinus was still standing, and after letting the crowd have its celebration, he held his hand up again and the noise quieted.
“But the emperor is magnanimous and, above all, fair,” he cried. “He concedes that the Lady Archange made a valid point in her argument. Therefore, generously, he has decided that just one boy will die to satisfy the requirements of the law. The rest will live. They must decide between themselves which these will be. They have until the sun touches the top of the Shield to choose.”
There was a murmur of resentment from the crowd for the spectacle they had been denied. The boys stared at each other in confusion and shock, then turned to look at the falling sun.
“No, no,” stuttered Sami, “they cannot make us choose. It is not fair.”
Arish said, “Nothing about this is fair.”
He wondered at his own reaction. He had felt only relief when he heard they were all to die, but now there was a chance of life, and a good chance, he was reluctant to volunteer to be the one to die under Galliard’s axe. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He heard them arguing among themselves, yet no one stepped forward. They all hoped someone else would.
“We must draw straws,” said Sami. “It is the only way.”
He looked at their pale faces, one by one. Reluctantly they all agreed. Arish said, “Don’t include Evan. He’s not to blame for any of this.”
“No one’s to blame,” Ranul muttered, but the little boy said stoutly, “I want a straw.”
“You understand what it means?” Arish asked him.
“Let him have a straw if he wants,” argued Ranul, and Arish gave him a cold stare. But the child nodded his head. He was old enough to know what he was doing.
Riis ripped the sleeve off his tunic and carefully tore it into six strips. He handed them to Ranul who, his back turned, tore the end off one strip and hid them in his fat fist, leaving the ends sticking out. Arish glanced at the sun, plummeting towards the mountain. “It is nearly time,” he said, his stomach churning with fear again.
“Ready?” Ranul asked, turning round. Arish saw his face was grey and he was blinking rapidly.
Evan was given the first choice and he chose a long strip. Then Arish, Riis and his brother Parr all picked long strips. Only Sami was left to choose from the remaining two. He glanced into Ranul’s face, then picked one of the strips. It was short.
Ranul blew out his breath in relief. The rest stared at Sami. They had no idea what to say. Arish touched his shoulder in a gesture of comradeship, then the others did the same. Sami nodded to each of them. Then he stepped forward. There was a cheer from the crowd. Galliard walked across the sand, accompanied by two soldiers, who took Sami by the arms.
Then there was quiet from the spectators again as the merchant Goldinus stood to speak. His voice was thinner, more distant now, and Arish thought he looked smaller. Arish frowned. Dread gathered in the pit of his stomach.
Goldinus cried, “The emperor, in his great wisdom, has decreed that the criminal shall be put to death in the way the ancient gods decreed. He will be roasted to death.”
In the stunned silence Arish heard a thin, inhuman screaming. He saw Sami struggling in the hands of his captors, saw the boy turn and stare back at his friends, his mouth open, his face contorted with terror, his eyes panic-stricken.
And the crowd burst into delighted cheers.
Chapter 25
Fell Aron Lee was a patient man. It was a patience won by necessity and practice. The life of a soldier consists of long days of mind-numbing boredom interrupted by moments of gut-wrenching terror. Fell had learned to harness the long days, sometimes weeks, occasionally months, of inactivity. When he was young he had found that by closing his eyes and clearing his mind he could reach a place of calm, a sanctuary from the sights and sounds around him. It took a great deal of practice, for it was easy to be distracted by laughter, a loud conversation, or by the itching in his clothes, or the pleasant fantasies of intimacy that any young man enjoys. But then he had had a great deal of time.
Fell had been a soldier for more than thirty years. The state of calm still did not come easily to him, particularly in the cramped cell with two other prisoners, but when he achieved it it sometimes rewarded him with revelation.
After weeks of captivity he realised he no longer wanted to be a soldier. He had spent his life killing other men, and some women, even a few children. He rarely met anyone who was not either a soldier or the men and women who serviced them. But Mason was not a soldier, or at least not one on active duty. Fell enjoyed their conversations more than he could say, for they roamed across the world, encompassing religion and history, astronomy, music, and agriculture and animal husbandry. Mason was knowledgeable and well read. Fell had not read a book in his life, but he had spent his years of service listening to the conversations of other men, many of whom were, in other lifetimes, farmers or blacksmiths or scholars, or who had trained in the priesthood, before the war enveloped them all. He was surprised how much information he had retained. Each day he looked forward to meeting Mason and afterwards, back in his cell, he would ponder their discussions.
It came to him as a shocking realisation that he preferred this life in a cold cramped cell with two other men than to be back on the battlefield, but it was the truth. And he w
ondered how impoverished his former life had been for this to be the case.
When he returned to the City, he resolved, he would leave this war to others. He had no idea what he would do with the rest of his life, but he hoped it would include Indaro.
He had known many women, from the grimiest whores who patrolled the harbour-front to ladies of wealth and leisure, and once, deliciously, a general’s daughter. He had become attached to none of them. They were just a resource to him. He used their bodies in the same way as he used the female soldiers he sent to their deaths daily. He did not despise them, as he knew many men did. He liked some of them and disliked more than a few. He only had one rule, one ethic, as Mason would put it, although Fell saw it as a practical rule like keeping your sword honed, or sleeping when you had the chance. His rule was never to have sex with female soldiers in his company. So he had watched Indaro hungrily, covertly. His eyes dwelled on the long line of her thigh, the curve of her hip. At a distance he burned for her. But when they spoke up close he was always drenched by the icy water of her arrogance, her argumentative nature, her inability not to answer back. He always walked away from her frustrated in body and mind.
Frustration had been the overwhelming emotion of his time in captivity. Indaro strode into his thoughts at all times, as arrogantly as she had done in his life. The thought that she might be in the next cell, separated from him only by a stone wall, was disturbing and tantalising.
The kiss she had given him shortly before they were captured had been cool and perfunctory. He had no idea what it meant. When they got free of the fortress he would be sure to find out.
But first he had to escape. Outside the walls he would find somewhere to hole up, waiting for the search teams to leave in his pursuit, assuming he would be running for the far City. Then he would find a way back in and free the other men, and Doon, and Indaro.
So he waited patiently for the right time. He knew his guards would eventually become sloppy. More than two months had passed since he made his last escape bid. In the meantime, he had practised calm submission. When they came for him he took on a shambling gait, fixing his eyes down to the stones. He occasionally muttered to himself or stared wildly at the sky. He knew experienced guards would not be fooled by this, indeed, would tighten the security around him. But these men were not experienced. He was convinced now they were a group of peasants dressed in uniforms and given cheap swords. They even looked alike, so he guessed they came from the same village, perhaps one raided by the Blues, their men taken captive and pressed into soldiering.
Occasionally they sent only five guards rather than the usual six. Fell took no advantage of this when the weather was bright. He was waiting for a time of rain and mist, of which there was plenty in Old Mountain. At last a day came, a day when the low wet cloud seemed to touch the ground, and when there were only five guards at the door of the cell. Fell meekly allowed himself to be chained, his hands behind his back, and they set off.
The route was always the same. They marched along the corridor and up steps to the outer courtyard. This they crossed, two guards in front of Fell, usually four behind. Today there were just three guards behind him.
The keep was fronted by a wide ditch, and the steps up to the oak door rose high above the ditch, which now had a foot or so of water lying in it. As they marched towards the steps Fell raised his head slightly and squinted at them. The uneven stone was puddled with rain and muddy from the boots of many soldiers going to and fro.
As they climbed the steps Fell lagged slightly until he sensed the first of the rear guards closing on him. Then he stumbled on an uneven stone and, as the guard came up to him, stuck out his boot and deftly tripped him up. The guard fell against him and the two of them tumbled off the stairway into the ditch.
They landed in soft mud and neither was injured, but both were winded and Fell still had his hands chained behind him, his body trapped beneath the weight of the guard in his heavy rain-soaked uniform. Before the guard could scramble up Fell pulled hard and twisted and, with an agonising crunch, his left arm came out of its shoulder socket.
Fell gave an anguished yell, only partly exaggerated. The shoulder had been dislocated so many times over the years that it popped out and in again quite easily. It was painful, but tolerable. He yelled again, as the guard got to his feet and gave him a couple of kicks in the ribs. The other men came pounding down into the ditch.
“My shoulder!” Fell gasped, as they grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. “My shoulder!” Knowing they couldn’t understand him, he indicated with his head until the platoon leader tore off his shirt and looked at the crooked limb. The man glared at him, clearly suspecting a trick. Fell knew the man was in a quandary. To put the shoulder back in place meant extending the arm first, which they could not do with Fell’s arms chained. The man almost certainly had orders not to unchain the prisoner on any account. On the other hand, he believed Fell to be incapacitated by pain, and there were five of them. He drew his sword and ordered his men to remove the chains.
They were deployed all around him. The leader faced him, sword unsheathed but point downwards in a relaxed grip. One man held Fell’s right bicep with both hands. One held his left arm, about to raise it to pop it back into the socket. This one had a knife in his belt and Fell concentrated on its exact position, its angle in the belt. He hoped it was sharp. Fell was uncertain of the two guards behind him. Under the sound of the drumming rain he had heard one other sword being unsheathed, but he did not know on which side of him the man stood. The other could well have his sword out already, or a knife. He had to assume they were both armed.
He calmed his mind, relaxing his body, letting his knees unlock, loosening his shoulders. He took a deep breath, sucking it in sharply as if preparing for anticipated pain.
Time slowed. He felt the man’s calloused hand grip his wrist, place the other firmly against his torso. There was an endless pause, then he twisted it. The shoulder went back into place with an audible crunch and Fell shouted out and leaned towards the guard at his right. When the guard on the left dropped his arm he was tensing it already. He threw his weight against the man on his right, who automatically braced to support him. With his left hand Fell grabbed the knife from the belt. He swept it round, arcing down and up again. It slashed down through the great artery in the inner thigh of the leader, and up into the throat of the man holding him. As the leader raised his sword, shock slowing him, Fell spun out of the grasp of the right-hand guard, reversed the knife and threw himself backwards against the leader, the knife plunging into the man’s belly. Two down.
The guard who had popped his shoulder, now on his right, was still struggling to get his sword out. The two unknowns were in front of him. One had a sword raised, and was bringing it down towards his neck. Fell rolled off the leader’s body and the sword thudded into the corpse. Fell sprang to his feet. In one smooth move, he snatched up the leader’s sword and leaped over his body, plunging the sword into the chest of the man who had fixed his arm. He dragged it out again. Three down.
The two remaining guards hesitated as Fell faced them, sword in hand. Then they both turned and ran, clambering up the bank of the ditch and disappearing into the mist.
Fell laughed shortly, then bent and grabbed the leader’s sword-belt and knife. He sprinted up the side of the ditch and ran in the opposite direction to the two fleeing guards.
That, he knew, was the easy part. He had come this far before. Getting out of the fortress, when he had only the haziest idea of its geography, was another thing. He had spent hundreds of hours standing by the high window of the cell, watching the traffic of troops, and the small female servants, their routines and the movements which were not routine. Unless they had spent months creating an elaborate hoax for him, which he thought was quite possible of Mason, the entrance to the fortress was in the south. So, keeping close under walls, hidden by the mist and heavy rain, he made his way to the west, towards a low tower he had seen and marked in
his mind. Like the other squat stone towers within view of his cell, this one had narrow unshuttered windows. And the tower appeared unused, for he had never seen movement there. He needed some height, so he could see the layout of the fort.
He made his way to the tower with little difficulty. It was not only unused, but long-abandoned. The door was padlocked, but the wood of the frame had crumbled in the damp air. Fell spent a few precious moments digging around the hinges with the knife. Then, having dug some fingerholds, he pulled hard and the door came easily off its hinges. He squeezed through the gap and pulled the door back into place as best he could. A casual glance would see only an unbroken padlock. He felt his way up slimy stone steps in the gloom then, as thin daylight started to reach him, raced up to the highest floor. Cautiously he peered out of a narrow window.
He grinned. As he had calculated, from this vantage point he could clearly see the south wall of the fortress and the main gate. He watched for a long time, until darkness fell.
Dawn was just a possibility in the eastern sky when Fell was awoken from an uneasy sleep by the rumble of cart wheels. He rolled to his feet and looked out of the tower’s narrow window. The main gates were lit by just two torches, but in their dim flicker he could make out three pony carts crossing the courtyard towards them, bound for outside. Fell snatched up the sword-belt and raced down the steps, reckless of falling in the pitch-black. This might be his best, his only, chance.
He took a moment to pull the broken door neatly shut behind him, in case he had to retreat there again. Then he ran to a low building on the corner of the courtyard and peered round. The first cart had reached the gates, and he could hear the murmur of conversation between the gate guards—a dozen or more—and the carter. Laughter came to him on the night breeze. He ran lightly, silently as he could, across the cobbles to the rear of the third cart. Before he got there the gates groaned open, just wide enough to permit the exit of the carts, and the first went through. The other two rumbled forward, then stopped again as the second carter reached the gate. The third lagged behind a little, leaving its load still in darkness.
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