Crown Thief

by David Tallerman

  Perhaps there was something deeper here than the issues of Moaradrid's absence and the loss of the giantstone. Could it be violence was so repellent to them that they'd sooner die here than go home with the memories of what they'd done? If so, I wondered if anything anyone said could change their minds.

  When we rejoined Saltlick, I could see that he'd come to similar conclusions. He looked sad and worn. Clearly, whatever thinking he'd done hadn't provided much in the way of new arguments to confront the old chief with.

  "Why don't you join us?" I said. "It's not like they won't still be here tomorrow."

  Too late, I realised my lack of tact. But Saltlick merely shook his head. "Stay with people."

  I patted his knee. "We'll see you in the morning, all right?"

  He offered me a weak smile.

  With Huero and his family upon the cart and Alvantes and I riding beside, we headed back up the road. A few minutes later, Huero drew in to one of the tiny, tumbledown riverside villages. Had I thought about it, I might have realised his offer of hospitality had been based more on kindness than practicality. Only when we stopped did I remember that he was practically homeless himself.

  The relative of his wife's Huero had mentioned turned out to be a brother – and he too had a wife, not to mention their four children and her elderly parents. If their farmhouse was large by the standards of the village, it was wholly inadequate for two families. Introductions were conducted on the doorstep; anything else would have risked suffocation for all concerned. Huero waited until the others had gone back in and then said sheepishly, "I'm afraid the barn is all we can offer. If we try to sleep any more inside, I fear the walls might collapse."

  "We'll be fine," I said. "If it weren't for you, we'd be up on the hillside with the giants."

  Huero grinned. "If nothing else they'd keep the wind off, eh? I'll see what I can do about food for you. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can."

  At least it was a sturdily built barn, half-filled with hay – much of it probably destined to be eaten by the giants in due time. Part of me marvelled at how low my standards for accommodation had sunk. Another part was simply glad to have somewhere soft to sit. I couldn't recall ever having spent so much time on horseback. I was growing more bow-legged with each passing day; if I kept this up, I feared it might become permanent.

  Circumstances seemed considerably better when Huero arrived with two steaming bowls of soup. It was mostly rice and vegetables, but there was a little chicken in there, which I suspected they could ill-afford to spare.

  Huero sat with us while we ate, and once we'd scraped our bowls clean, took them back to the house. When he returned, it was with a bottle in one hand and three wooden cups in the other.

  "Not for me," said Alvantes. "It's late." Without waiting for anyone to try to persuade him, he paced to the far side of the barn and started setting out his bedding.

  It was late, but unlike Alvantes I wasn't about to throw Huero's generosity in his face. When he handed me a brimming cup, I recognised it by scent as the notoriously potent local rice liquor. I took a tentative sip. Fire cascaded down my throat, turned my insides molten. I gasped. "That's good."

  "The best. I've been saving it for a special occasion. There haven't been so many pleasant ones lately."

  While Alvantes snored in the background, Huero and I swapped tales of recent events, and he filled in some of the gaps in my knowledge regarding the time Moaradrid had spent there. He spoke jovially, but I could tell it was mostly for my benefit. He skimmed particularly lightly over the loss of his farm and lands, and carefully avoided the subject of how long they could continue to stay with his wife's brother.

  Meanwhile, I finished my first glass of rice liquor, and then a second. By the third, I was used to the burning sensation, and even starting to enjoy it.

  "'S'agoodthing…" I took a breath, began again. "It's a good thing for the giants they had people like you nearby."

  "Yes." Huero looked meditative. "It might have gone very differently."

  An edge to his tone snagged a more sober part of my brain. "Is there something you didn't tell us?"

  "Yes," he said. "There's more." He paused – and the pause dragged on. Not knowing if I should prompt him, I chose to wait; and eventually he continued of his own accord. "We had a second son, Dura and I, older than Ray. His name was also Huero."

  Thinking back to my own experience, I asked, "Did Moaradrid force him to fight?"

  "No, no one forced him. The day of the battle, we got up to find his bed empty. He'd gone in the night to join up with our side."

  Understanding, I spoke so Huero wouldn't have to. "He never came back."

  "Not many did. As soon as the last soldiers left, we went to burn our dead. But we couldn't be sure which one was Huero. The ones the giants had killed… some of them were hard to recognise."

  "That doesn't sound like much of a reason to help keep them alive."

  Huero coughed into his fist. "I suppose it doesn't. The truth is, we'd planned to kill them – or try to, anyway. Everyone from all the villages went. But when the time came… the giants must have realised what was going on, but they didn't try to defend themselves. They didn't do anything at all."

  From what I'd seen of Huero and knowing the giants, I could imagine the scene as clearly as if I'd been there. "You couldn't do it."

  "How could we? And once we'd realised that, there seemed to be only one other choice." Huero lowered his head, brushed at his eyes. "Afterwards, we were relieved. We understood… it's much better this way."

  I couldn't think of a thing to say. My mind boggled at the kind of decency that could see the giants for what they really were after what they'd been made to do. Yet even through the fog of alcohol, I understood that Huero was right. Any other outcome would have destroyed him and his people forever.

  He looked up. "Well. I think I've talked at you enough. You should get some sleep – like your friend there."

  I glanced at Alvantes, still snoring sonorously. It didn't seem the time to explain how far he was from being my friend. "Goodnight," I said.

  I watched as Huero walked to the barn doors and pushed through them. The space was spinning very gently. The warmth of the rice liquor seemed to have permeated my entire body. I stood – and was surprised. As I crossed to the double doors, I had no conscious idea of what I was about to do. Even as I stepped into the cool night air, my brain was in complete denial of my actions, as though observing from a great distance.

  I caught up to Huero halfway between barn and house. He looked at me in surprise.

  "You should take this," I said. I clasped his hand.

  He looked at his palm and then at me, and there was nothing in his face but bewilderment.

  "To feed the giants. When Saltlick talks them into going home, take whatever you need to get your farm back. If there's anything after that, you can give me it back when I'm next through here."

  "This is…"

  "You'll need to get it changed somewhere."

  "But…"

  "One more thing. Can you keep an eye on Saltlick? He can talk fairly well now. He could translate if you need him to. He's more sensitive than he lets on – a few compliments go a long way. He's fond of children."

  Huero nodded, without his eyes ever leaving the golden disk in his hand. "We'll look after them all," he said. "Far better than we've been able to, with this." Finally, he managed to tear his eyes from the coin. "Thank you," he said.

  "It's just money," I told him. "Goodnight."

  I woke, bleary-eyed and thick-skulled, to another overcast dawn and a vague sense of horror.

  What had I done?

  I tried to think about the coin – the coin I'd so impulsively given away, the coin that had been the one remaining hope for my future. I couldn't. It was a cavity in my mind. Whenever my thoughts came close to it, they vanished. It was the same when I tried to ask myself what happened next. Was I really about to go with Alvantes? Alvantes who hated
me, who I despised in return? If I didn't, what option did I have? Every question was like a sinkhole. My thoughts fell into it and nothing came back.

  If Huero had come out then, I might have told him I'd made a terrible mistake. If Alvantes had asked whether I still planned to go with him, I might have said no. Neither thing happened. We packed our bedding, saddled up and rode into cold morning drizzle.

  Saltlick was already about when we reached the hillside, and deep in a one-sided conversation with one of his brethren. I couldn't help noticing that it wasn't the former chieftain this time. He gave up when he saw us and ambled down the hillside.

  When he drew near, I said, "I suppose this is goodbye, then. I know you have to stay and talk some sense into your friends."

  Saltlick struggled against his limited vocabulary for a suitable reply. After much obvious thought, he settled on a booming, "Easie friend."

  I managed a half-hearted grin. "Saltlick friend too."

  It was true – and perhaps I hadn't entirely realised it until then. I'd grown used to the clomp of his footsteps beside me, the tectonic grind of his jaw as he ate, his impossible, indefatigable good-naturedness. It struck me with the sudden jolt of an unexpected blow – I would miss him.

  "I don't expect we'll see you when we come back this way," I told him. "You'll have convinced the other giants and you'll all have gone home together. Perhaps, though, some day… I mean, if I happened to have nothing better to do… I could come visit you?"

  Saltlick beamed. "Easie visit," he agreed.

  I could see Alvantes was getting impatient. Maybe Saltlick noticed too, for he chose that moment to reach down and offer me his hand. I let him clamp it around mine and we shook.

  "Take care of yourself," I said. "Good luck."

  Riding away, I fought the urge to look back. I managed well enough for a couple of minutes, and then allowed myself a glance over one shoulder. Sure enough, Saltlick was waiting where we'd left him. He grinned and waved.

  I returned the wave; I couldn't quite manage the grin.

  I would have been hard pressed to think of a single moment I'd enjoyed since I'd stolen the giant-stone from Moaradrid. My escapades with Saltlick and Estrada had seemed an unremitting nightmare at the time. Yet the knowledge that they were over, that we'd never travel together again, left me with a sense of emptiness.

  What made it worse was the thought of who I still travelled with – a man who made no secret of loathing me, who until recently had wanted nothing more than to see my head on a chopping block.

  Estrada was gone. Saltlick was gone. Now it was just Alvantes and me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Though the ground to our right rose quickly into overgrown hillside, the road ran straight and uninterrupted and the land beside the Casto Mara remained more or less level. For the entire rest of the day I could see Aspira Nero as a streak of grey crawling shallowly from the wide-flowing river at its base to the outcrop of mountainside that marked its highest extreme.

  There was little else to see there at the northern tip of the Castoval. The slopes were too stony and uneven for farming, and settlements were few and far between. Occasionally I'd catch a glimpse of the Casto Vidora, the river that flowed from the western mountains to merge its turbulent waters with the Casto Mara. Mostly, though, I was left with the walls of Aspira Nero and my own deliberations to keep me amused.

  Neither was remotely up to the task. The view was tedious, and my thoughts insisted on tormenting me with questions I had no way to answer.

  Like, What happens now?

  What do you think there is here for you?

  And last but far from least, How much of a dung-brained moron would you have to be to give away all your gold?

  I tried to concentrate on Aspira Nero. Not only was it still dull, it served to remind me how desperate my circumstances had become. Minute by minute, I was drawing nearer to the edge of the world I knew.

  The northernmost wall of Aspira Nero and the Casto Vidora joining the far bank were the absolute limits of the Castoval. Beyond was Ans Pasaeda and eventually, far to the north, the royal city of Pasaeda itself. But Aspira Nero belonged to neither north nor south. Defined by its location, it was a gateway and a melting pot, wedged between two very different nations.

  Its grand walls, however, were mostly for show. They certainly hadn't done much to keep Moaradrid from tramping his armies through here. In fact, all he'd have needed to do was knock – for unlike even the smallest of the other towns, Aspira Nero had no garrison of defenders. Had there been troops here, the Castovalians would have considered them northern, the Ans Pasaedans as Castovalian. There were guardsmen, but they served no role in the town's protection, focusing all their energies on policing the streets instead. For all its unpredictable mingling of cultures and despite its labyrinthine streets, crime was practically unheard of in Aspira Nero.

  In short, it was a depressing place, and I'd never wasted much time there.

  Alvantes, of course, had no way of knowing that. When we were still a short distance away, he asked abruptly, "Are you wanted here?"

  "What?" I said. "How would I know? No one sent me an invite if that's what you mean."

  "I mean, have you committed any significant crimes that are likely to get you arrested on sight?"

  "Oh. Not that I remember."

  I'd never stolen anything bigger than an apricot in Aspira Nero, but I wasn't giving Alvantes the satisfaction of a straight answer.

  He rode forward, dismounted, rapped hard on a smaller door set into the main gate and called, "Two travellers seeking ingress. I'm Guard-Captain Alvantes of Altapasaeda, and my companion is Easie Damasco."

  I was a little disappointed when rather than shouts of, "Not Easie Damasco, the notorious thief and outlaw?" we were met with a disgruntled, "Hold your horses, damn it!"

  A minute later, the door swung inward. A squat man in plain leather armour and conical helmet stood in the entrance. "Couldn't you have got here before we shut the main gate?" he complained.

  "Evidently not," replied Alvantes.

  The guard had sense enough to read his tone correctly. "Right. Evidently." He stepped out of the way. "Welcome to Aspira Nero. Portal between north and south and all that."

  Dismounting, Alvantes led his horse through the gap, and I followed.

  The narrow street beyond ran crookedly, somewhat up hill. The buildings had little of the Castovalian in their design. Like the walls, they were built from stone quarried in the mountainside behind, over two and even three storeys. Each seemed supported by its neighbours, giving the unsettling impression that if any one should collapse, the entire town would come tumbling down. The bare stone was harsh and unwelcoming, just as the few locals to note our arrival did so without a hint of friendliness.

  I hoped Alvantes's local knowledge was better than mine was. "So what's the plan?" I asked. "I tell you, another day of riding will be the end of me."

  "Damasco," he said, not turning. "It's time we talked. Or rather… it's time I talked and you listened."

  "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

  "There's an inn I know nearby," he continued as though I'd never spoken.

  There was an edge to his tone that brooked no argument. Instead, I trailed after him, down first one and then another twisting side street. From there, we turned into the yard of an inn named the Fourth Orphan. Alvantes called out a stable boy to take our horses, passed him a coin, and led on into the taproom.

  It was clean but gloomy, full of purposefully dark corners. The handful of patrons stopped their conversations to watch our entrance with a little too much interest. In general, it struck me as more the kind of establishment I'd frequent than somewhere I'd expect to find Alvantes.

  Still, it was clear he knew his way around. Pointing out an isolated table towards the back, he said, "Sit down."

  I did as I was told, tucking myself into one of two opposing benches that shared a low table. A minute later, Alvantes eased onto the
opposite bench, placed a cup of wine before me. Not much caring that he'd bought nothing for himself, I took an eager sip. It was headier and sweeter than any Castovalian wine I'd tasted, perhaps a vintage from across the border.

  "So," I said, "this is pleasant. But perhaps it's time you got out what's on your mind."

  "Damasco. I've never made any pretence of liking you."