She just prayed to God he was doing better than her.
At this particular moment he didn’t reply, so she went inside to get them something nice for the evening.
*****
It was a very large crowd of people. More than he’d ever seen in one place before. Crowding the square, all trying to get a view of the platform and the gibbet. He’d got here too late to get a good view.
“Vesek, my friend!”
He recognised the voice. Friend. That wasn’t the way he would have put it. But it was useful for now. He looked over at his best client, the source of much of his money. He nodded at him.
“Come watch with me over here,” the man said, motioning to the back of his cart. “We can see better from up there.”
Watching anonymously was now not going to be an option. And ignoring his ‘friend’ would look odd. And he did have a useful vantage point. A better place to see the action, so to speak.
“Okay, Didrik,” Vesek said, walking over.
“I see you have your drawing materials,” Didrik said, a hint of hope in his voice. “Can I have first refusal on whatever you create?”
“I’m not sure I’m going to yet,” Vesek said. “It depends on whether the scene inspires me or not.”
“You artists,” Didrik said. “Surely something as important as this deserves record? How could you fail to be inspired by imperial justice at its most powerful?”
“Many local artists will be inspired no doubt. But I don’t want to produce anything … derivative. I need to put my own spin on things, do something different.” Which was mostly true, he added silently.
“Being different? Is that why you draw so many structures?”
“Inspiration strikes in different ways.”
“Well whatever you say, I love your work. I hope you draw what follows.”
“Who is being executed?”
“Didn’t you hear? It’s been the talk of the town for a day or so now.”
“I’ve been wrapped up in my work. I’ve not heard the announcements.”
“You’re working on something good? Can I see it?”
“It’s not finished yet.”
“Ah, of course.”
“So who is being executed?”
“Sorry. Man by the name of Horolf. Convicted thief.”
“Theft? How does that merit execution?”
“Stole from the wrong person. Someone who had quite a bit of sway with the magistrate. Who then sentenced him to death rather than prison or maiming.”
“That’s wrong.”
“It’s the way the system works. Money or influence. Though, money is influence as they say. But either one gets you what you want. And the magistrate agreed to make an example of him.”
“It’s wrong.”
“It’s the world we live in.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Yes, well, things don’t always turn out the way people want or expect. And it might be wise to keep these sorts of views to yourself. The people love a good execution.”
Vesek looked around, sickened at the display. The happiness or even glee on people’s faces. Universal. Well, almost. One other person in view didn’t seem very happy.
“Not everyone,” he muttered.
“What’s that? Oh,” Didrik said, following the line of Vesek’s gaze. In a roped-off area near the dais were a selection of officials. One of whom had a distinctly grim expression. “I see. The Thieftaker. Well it’s not like she has a reputation for being happy at anything.”
“But particularly unhappy at this it seems,” Vesek said, musing.
“It wasn’t her case perhaps. Who knows. It doesn’t matter. Everyone else is here for the entertainment.”
“Entertainment?”
“Well what else would you call it?”
“Murder.”
“I’d keep that to yourself. It’s justice.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Anyway, here they come.”
A series of robed and hooded men walked through a fenced-off section in the crowd. In their midst was a bound and cuffed man, head down, half walking, half being dragged by the big minders at his sides.
“Why is he making no effort to escape?” Vesek said.
“Where would he go?” Didrik said, indicating the square with a sweep of his arm.
“He’s going to die though. For something petty. Surely he can’t be accepting of that? Something in him has to want to live.”
“Sometimes men break. Sometimes you have to bow to the inevitable. You seem to be having a lot of trouble with this.”
“My first execution,” Vesek said.
“Wow. Really? How have you managed that?”
“I’ve not lived near an execution square before,” Vesek said. “And I have other interests.”
“I suppose,” Didrik said. “Still, the first is the most exciting. Hopefully you’ll end up drawing or painting something epic.”
“Perhaps.”
The man was led up onto the platform. The noise from the crowd began to grow with a series of cheers and jeers. Vesek’s stomach began to jump. The combination of the large crowd, the noise and the palpable emotion surrounding him was building to a profound effect.
Didrik looked at the expression on Vesek’s face, his wide eyes. “I see you’re starting to get it,” he said.
Vesek ignored him and continued to watch. The man was half carried to the gibbet and positioned in the noose. His head was still down, no defiance in him at all. Vesek, even from this distance, thought he could see a tear running down his face. But maybe it was his imagination. It would be apparent in his drawing however. He pulled out a sheet of parchment and began to sketch. Sweeping lines taking in the bowed head, an expression of fear and misery. And a lone tear, glistening on the cheek. Noticing the motion, Didrik looked over and saw Vesek drawing. He grinned before looking back at the proceedings.
The prisoner was lifted into place, and the rope placed around his neck. Vesek glanced again at the Thieftaker. She still wore the same grim expression. Worthy of a painting all to herself. Though he’d need to be careful. A dangerous woman and not to be crossed. She might take exception to an unflattering image of her being displayed publically. Still, inspiring. He looked back at the prisoner. One of the hooded men was standing with his hand on a lever. Another was standing next to the man and from his posture appeared to be talking to him but it was impossible to hear anything over the noise of the crowd.
He wondered what was being said. What could possibly be said. Something about God no doubt. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to help the man now.
The lever was pulled. The trapdoor opened. The man dangled. The crowd cheered.
Vesek felt sick.
*****
Regis had been suffering these attacks since ‘it’ had happened, and he didn’t know when they were going to end. If he had been asked before it all happened, and of course then he wouldn’t have joined the legions, but if he’d been asked he would have said seeing the men who did this swing from a gallows would have brought closure.
Standing there that morning, a summer’s day, watching the men be led up, heads bowed, and then kick their legs and swing as the life was squeezed out of them, he’d have expected that to bring closure.
To let him get on with life.
To let him live again.
It hadn’t. Obviously it hadn’t. Why would it? There was something wrong with him, in his body, in his head, and it wasn’t going away just because his big sister had stepped in and ruined her career with a successful prosecution.
He was sick. Sick now… He would have to find a way to cope.
He hadn’t that day though; he’d come home, thrown himself onto his bed and curled into a ball as his mind went on a journey through a godless abyss.
It happened. What he needed to do was stop it.
The drugs did that, the drugs did that very well, if you accepted the fact you weren’t doing anything el
se, the fact that drugs became life and you didn’t have a life when on them.
Yes, the drugs had been marvellous.
Then there were no drugs.
He didn’t think his sister had done this, it must have been a city thing. Perhaps that thieftaker, or someone else. The governor, blame him too. No drugs, all gone, none coming into the city and the people he bought from scared.
So he had to find something else.
He had to find it quickly.
It was then he had resurrected an old skill. He’d done it before the legion, and when in it he’d always been given the nicked swords to work on, doing the best he could. Now … now he worked on it better than ever.
He had a knife in his hands, and a sharpening stone on the table in front of him.
Holding the hilt in one hand, and the dull part of the blade in the other, he began to carefully sharpen the blade.
One clean move.
One clean move.
One clean move.
There was a glory in the repetition.
There was a sympathy in the noise.
There was calm and peace here, a feeling and a focus that quieted his breathing, brought order to his body, allowed him to enter a different world.
Sometimes, when he thought about the practice afterwards, he wondered if this was the same feeling priests and monks received when they bowed their heads and prayed.
Not that he bowed anymore.
He had bowed to generals, to soldiers.
Never again.
Elena had suggested a life in the priesthood. He knew she had been trying to be kind, but it had felt cruel.
He was unclean.
It wasn’t that he felt unclean, although he did; he felt it seeping out of him every moment apart from when he was sharpening.
It was that Bastion knew he was unclean.
Everyone knew what had happened. Everyone thought it when he went out walking, when he bought food, when he needed to talk to do something, anything, they were always looking at him as if he was dirt.
The priests knew. The priests wouldn’t forgive.
So no temples for him. Just sharpening to keep the attacks away.
He was sat there now. Mind focused, hands moving with skill.
One clean move.
One clean move.
One clean move.
While he sat calmly he was beyond random worries. But you can only sharpen a blade for so long, and he took this one off the stone and looked at it.
Sharp, very sharp indeed.
Time for another.
He placed the knife carefully down, and picked the next one up. At this point a thought intruded.
What was Elena doing? Catching someone important.
He wondered how she thought of him. Did she still love him like a brother?
Yes, definitely.
Did she respect him? As a person?
Maybe not. Maybe she was a good liar. She never gave any clue, always asked after him, made sure he was alright and looked after. But did she respect him? Knowing what she knew?
He wouldn’t have.
He didn’t.
So did she? And if she didn’t, did it matter? The whole city could be against him, what difference would it make?
But as he sat there, mind still calm, he realised it did matter to him. He needed Elena. It was Elena and him, against the world, a team, no one else was important.
He needed her but…
She needed him.
That was the way it was, and how it should be. No one else need intrude. Him and her, who took on the legions, who survived in this foul city.
He nodded to himself, and applied the knife to the stone and began the slow, deliberate movements.
One clean move.
One clean move.
One clean move.
Peace. He was almost entirely at peace. Why couldn’t this last forever? It would last for the next few hours, even after he stopped, a feeling that the world was right and how much he loved his sister, but it would go in the end so he had to grasp it while he could. That feeling of almost being happy, while knowing it couldn’t last, like standing on a bridge over an abyss and knowing you couldn’t cross all the way. Even in peace and hope the knowledge of failure.
But it was the best he could do, and right now it was enough.
*****
Erik looked proudly at the shop. His beloved shop.
It had been restored to its former glory now that all danger had gone, and he had returned to what he did best: cutting meat perfectly and then selling it cheerily enough to please his many customers.
He should thank those three men when they got out of prison, and he supposed he should thank Karina, although that felt a bit strange.
The door opened, and Erik saw two people. One a young man, basically a boy, walking aimlessly past. The other was a woman, who wore a coat that had been patched in so many places it was practically another garment entirely now.
“Hello again, what can I help you with?”
She came over and looked carefully at all the cuts of meat, until she pointed at the cheapest.
“A pound of that please. I got my son coming over.”
“Of course,” and the meat was selected, weighed and wrapped in muslin before being handed over.
“Four coppers?”
It should be five, going on the price, but he nodded and held a hand out. “Four will be good.” He was feeling happy today, after all, so why not spread it.
She turned, opened the door, and left with a wave.
Erik didn’t see the wave.
He saw something else.
The boy, who he thought had been wandering past, was stood there. Perhaps ten years old, normal old clothes, just standing.
Maybe he wanted some meat but couldn’t afford it.
Maybe a mother or a sister was in a nearby shop.
Maybe many things…
Erik had seen the look on that boy’s face, and had seen the intensive stare. So he knew, in his heart, that the boy was watching the shop.
And that meant the extortionists were out there somewhere, planning to come back here. And he was alone.
He rushed to the door and shut it, then drew the lock across. He didn’t feel any safer, but that would stop them.
Then he peered out of the window at the boy, who stood there and stared back. No subtlety here, none at all.
Okay … front door locked.
The yard!
Erik ran through his shop, almost colliding with the back door that he now slammed shut and slid the lock on too.
Both doors, all windows, everything sorted.
He relaxed against the wall, feeling his heart pound a little less with each breath.
He jumped at the sound of something crashing in the front of the building, and he rushed in terrified, only to discover his knife had fallen off the table onto the floor. He’d left it near the edge when he’d run to the doors, and it had dropped.
Stupid bastard, he thought, and peered out the front. The boy was gone.
That had to be good, didn’t it?
Unless he was telling people things.
Erik unlocked the door and leaned out. Still no sign.
He jumped again, this time as a noise began behind him, but it turned out that a back door being kicked open so forcefully the locked was ripped off was a lot louder than a falling cleaver.
The cleaver… He grabbed it off the floor, and stood in the doorway between the rooms, as the extortionists rushed in and stood opposite.
“Get out or I swear to God I’ll use this,” and the cleaver was waved.
“You won’t use that ya soft fuck, you ran and got some heavies.”
“I will!”
“They ain’t about are they? They’re in prison. We’re not though, we’re here.”
“I will hurt you.”
“There’s three of us pal, three. Any idea how a fight goes three on one?”
“Soldiers use bla
des for a reason.”
“Soldiers lock their fucking doors.”
Erik wasn’t sure what he meant, until his mind informed him he’d opened the front door, peered out, and then not locked it.
His mind was too late to stop the kick in the back of the shins that made him tumble to the ground, and then the cleaver was kicked away.
The extortionists stood round him.
“Where shall we begin?”
“I…”
“You owe us money. Yeah, let’s start there. You’re late on your payment. You know what that means,” and a fist slammed into Erik’s head, making his vision spin.
“Also, you attacked us.”
“I…” He couldn’t speak, especially not when a man kicked him in the balls.
“You brought in outside assistance. That is very bad. Do you know what very bad means? No answer, or is that gurgling an answer? It means your bill goes up. You owe us more. We’d probably take the whole shop, but we need someone to clean it up after.”
“...I…”
“Yeah, lads, start smashing this place up. Let’s give Erik here a present for when he wakes up.”
Erik’s spinning, agonised mind heard the sound of things being tipped over, meat and metal hitting the floor, wood splintering.
“Oh yeah, your hired help killed some of us.” The leader leaned down and growled. “Kill us? So we should gut you and sell you.”
Erik was silent.
“So, you’re going to do exactly what we say Erik, exactly, or we are going to kill you. Got it?”
Erik just looked at them.
“I didn’t hear you,” and he kicked Erik in the chest.
“Aaayyeesss.”
“Good, that’s the attitude, that really is the attitude. Work with us. You’re ours now you little shit, we own you and this stinking shithole. First thing you’re going to do is wait till your balls stop burning, then you’re going to get this place nice and clean to make us money, then you’re going to bring every copper and silver and bow to us when we come back tonight and get it. Then we let you live. Got it?”
“Yesss…”
“Alright lads, that’s it. Let’s go.”
*****
“This is the best food I have ever tasted,” Trimas said, as he bit into a pile of meats and vegetables wrapped in bread.
Knives of Bastion (An Empire Falls Book 2) Page 16
