The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  As Essa’s eyes fell on Rurik, she sprang for him, and they caught one another somewhere in the middle. Her arms went about him and his about her, and each squeezed the other like lovers soon to war. He kissed her head and her cheek tenderly and asked in all manner of puzzlement how they had caught her. As luck would have it, it had not carried her far.

  “They were waiting for us,” she said. She had delivered everyone from the punishment of the dungeons, only to be caught again in the hall above—half a dozen men-at-arms, armed and armored, and their poor souls with none to bear against them, but for her own blades, which Chigenda made a show of trying to grab, and a terror of a moment when she would not let him have them.

  “Where are the others, then?”

  He petted her hair with one hand and held her close about the waist with the other. Essa nestled deeper against him, eyes closed.

  “Alviss and Rowan wait beyond. Free as caged birds. Chi seems to have been put back in his cell, and—”

  “And there he shall remain,” the lord Matair cut in. They turned and found him rather unmoved by the signs of their affection. If he recognized Essa from younger days, he gave no sign of it. “This is the worst of it, Rurik. For you—either of you—to associate with a dog like that. He’d soon as bite the hand that feeds, as any other.”

  What Rurik wanted to say was that Chigenda would be no trouble as long as Alviss was about. Somehow, he could not bring himself to quite defend the man so much as yet. Perhaps some time in a cell would do him well. However, Kasimir wasn’t finished.

  “The rest of you will be leaving on the morrow.”

  A verbal right hook. It caught Rurik at unawares and sent him reeling. Not even a moment? A night had been far enough for his like, it would seem. The man could not bear him even so long as this, and so Rurik would be returned to exile, where life was simple and forgetful of the past—at least amidst the Matair manor—and his father’s voice decried it all. There would be no discussion.

  But Rurik could not bring himself to let it go. Not yet. He had come too far, had too many questions and accusations yet unanswered. He would not go quietly into the night, like some troublesome little nightmare.

  “And where do you propose to send us, in all your grace?”

  “Ivon departs with Witold’s troops on the morrow. You will go with them. As sellswords, since that is your wont. Vardick will accompany you. You will listen to him. That is not a request. It is an order.” With a laden breath, it was obvious Kasimir was trying to master himself. “Work hard. Keep your head down. They won’t care about your name there.”

  Because he was not likely to live long there. Any of them. Rurik did not need to be told the hardships of the war—he had heard them in a hundred alehouses across the breadth of the Empire. Hundreds marched and hundreds died on either side. Most died in the charges, when the long guns and the cannons rose to greet them, and the twisted meaty slabs of their bodies were all they had to answer. Gunpowder did not, as many so mused, make war any more efficient than the old ways. It only made it more violent and pointless and effortless in the killing.

  A revolution and a revelation. Why waste so much metal and so much skin, when so little of the body is needed to kill? Such was the thought, but there remained much to be perfected. Longbows remained the weapon of choice at range, though vast swaths of the army came equipped with the other. Most would fire a shot or two, and then perhaps never again. But for the rare exceptions, snaplocks and matchlocks remained far too slow in the loading. Too much to do under the chaos of battle, under the haze of the acrid smoke that plunged from the barrels.

  In the end, it still came down to pikes and swords. There were simply less unbloodied limbs to meet them.

  From one death, to another.

  “Another effort at protection, father? I suppose all the people trying to stab me will now hold that honor?”

  “It is better for you than the alternative.”

  “Oh, you are always looking out for me. I am so touched.”

  Essa remained quiet, but he felt her eyes and her hands on him, growing tighter still. The girl was frightened, of a sort, though for whom he could not say.

  Then Kasimir’s hand slapped against the altar and filled the room with a resounding crack. Essa jumped. “Enough!” The man roared, and even Rurik found himself stepping back into himself, less a wolf and more a lectured dog. “Do you think I want to harm you? Do you think I want to kill my son?” Kasimir’s voice never rose or fell. Yet now his voice had risen and darkened and sharpened to a point, and that point was pressed at their throats. His eyes seethed.

  “I—” Rurik fumbled for an answer.

  “Stupid. How stupid.” His father winced, shook his head. “Cullick wanted to kill you. To take your head and mount it on his bloody wall, all because you poked your little head where it wasn’t supposed to be. I pleaded with him. Pleaded. Do you know the desperation of a man forced to beg for his own son’s life? Do you? No. Sometimes I forget your youth. Perhaps it is understandable, then, that you do not comprehend the pain it took to seek the alternatives—to press beyond that shriveled prick and to beg from anyone that would have me.

  “And what did I find? Exile. That was what Rusthöffen offered me. Exile. Death, or banishment. What kind of a decision is that to place at a father’s feet?” Kasimir’s shoulders sagged. “Between the two, the choice is obvious, but arduous. For me, it would be as good as killing my son. For you, there was at least a chance. But you couldn’t move on. You had to let it fester and boil, until it pressed you back to death’s bitter door, and now, there is nothing I can do if they find you here.

  “Of course he tried to kill you. Why do you think I sent Alviss? I sent Alviss to protect you. To give you words and ears where I could not. And now…and now…”

  The man’s eyes quivered, and Rurik had to blink away his own doubts to be certain of it. Again the hand slapped the altar, less harshly this time. His father frowned heavily, drew himself up against the wetness in his eyes, and dried whatever lay beyond by force of will alone. Still, there was an unmistakable sunkenness about his eyes then, as they looked up at their son.

  Kasimir had become less than he was. Rurik could see that now. This was not the man he had left among the rain, so many moons before. Something had withered in him, some fire gone out. Much strength remained, but some part had gone from him that could not be returned, and the hero had been reduced to a mortal man. Reality was harsher than fiction ever might have been.

  Essa’s hands squeezed at him. Rurik would not look. She had told him. It was not possible. Love. She was always pushing it where others could not see it. In the wilds or in the hearts, it did not matter which. Everywhere and all about. Romantic. Hopeless romantic. She did not know the world, and she did not know his father. Yet in the case of his father she was…was…

  Rurik was speechless. Where words were willed to move, nothing stirred.

  “How must the world look to a young man whose father is his enemy?” The words were barely above a whisper. “Blood runs deeper than the blade can reach,” his father continued softly, seemingly regaining some semblance of himself. “But a blade is focused. It has one purpose. Blood runs in many ways. Not all of us,” he inclined his head toward Essa, “make a show of it.”

  “Some things move in more subtle fashions,” she murmured. Kasimir studied her briefly, then nodded respectfully.

  “The girl speaks the truth of it.”

  “Essa,” was all Rurik could manage.

  “Essa,” Kasimir repeated. “Charmed.”

  So he did not remember her. Pity, or providence. Rurik could not say which.

  “I…” Essa looked confused. “Erm, charmed, ser.”

  His father’s gaze flicked away from her again, back to him, and it was as if she ceased to exist. He was waiting for something from Rurik, that much was certain, but nothing was forthcoming. When their eyes met, Rurik could no longer hold the gaze. He looked away, and contemplated
the freckles on Essa’s cheek.

  After it became apparent that Rurik would not speak, Kasimir pressed again. “Such times are not built for trust. There are too many eyes, too many ears here that are not mine alone. And Cullick’s reach is far, as well you know.”

  “Let him come,” Rurik meekly ventured. “I wanted—”

  “Don’t be absurd. Life moves beyond your own. Cullick would damn us all. He might yet.”

  “But you—his messenger…”

  “I do not have the luxury of refusal. Some sit below me. Others above. Cullick is far above.”

  Twice over. The title count already placed the man high above the meager lordship of Rurik’s father, but the title palatine added another dimension to his power.

  It was an attempt by the royal family in ages past to guarantee allies amongst the collection of provinces that made up the Empire, and to check the power of the dukes. One county palatine lay at each corner of the Empire, to keep an eye on the others. The provinces around them were controlled by barons and counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, and in turn to the crown, but the palatines skipped all this extra. Oftentimes they found themselves at odds with the other provincial lords, but they cared little, for their power went further still.

  The Empire was at heart as any empire was—hereditary. However, in its infancy Idasia had adopted a sort of electorate system, for the purposes of guaranteeing the coming heir was worthy of the role. On this council of electors sat the three dukes and the four counts palatine. In most instances, they were mere yes men—they heard what the Emperor wanted and they nodded their heads and made it so. There had been times though where their decisions had shaken the Empire to its knees. Blood followed, and the egos of the counts palatine, as all men with power, grew stronger yet.

  For Rurik, such arrogance was embodied in the sneering visage of Palatine Cullick, who not only demanded the life of a lord’s son—his life—from lands beyond his own, but imprisoned Rurik in his own home until the decision could be reached. The count turned sex to rape and crafted a tragic story for all to hear, but it had been Duke Rusthöffen who heard it, and the duke would have spared his life for nothing more than a chance to spite Cullick.

  If caught again, however, there would be no second chance. Word was law and Rurik had flouted it with abandon.

  “Forgive me,” Essa interjected, “but are you not accompanying the soldiers? We had heard as such.”

  “It had been my intent. Now…Ivon shall have it. Things move too quickly, and uncertainly, for me to leave Verdan. There is a storm brewing far more turbulent than any hot air the count might blow. You know Matthias marches?”

  Both nodded. It was all anyone spoke of. Now, he thought bitterly, this will be the man most likely to send me to my death. Goody.

  “The void he has left is filled with squabbles. His sons mobilize, reckoning it more like than not he shall not return to raise the crown again, and with them floods old hatreds, long contained. Twice this week alone, I’ve had to string up men for assailing Farrens. There’s rioting in the south, near Ravonno. Some provinces are withholding troops. Likely to use them on each other. And the Inquisition marches. The sons let them in. Now they snatch up knights as they do the commonfolk, denouncing them in the eyes of Assal and man and putting them to the torch, at the behest of Imperial decree. It’s madness. And some men, like Cullick, will undoubtedly try to capitalize on it in any way they can. I cannot leave your brother to face that alone, however capable.”

  “The Inquisition? Why would they bring the Church’s people here?”

  “Not all sons follow their father’s steps,” his father said distantly.

  Emperor Matthias was a tolerant man. He welcomed the Farrens at a time when others were demanding slaughter against them. The Church was among the greatest proponents of this, and the Emperor’s sons were dedicated servants of the faith. They did not share their father’s tenderness. Many among the people feared what might happen in the first few years of their rule, for it was the youngest days of an emperor that saw the most ambition. Youth bred it. Age tempered it.

  The Church, embodied by the very physical power of the four principalities of Ravonno, had formed the Inquisition in response to the spread of Reverend Farre’s words. It was, after all, a doctrine embraced by the people, and there were far more of them than there were nobles. However, the little folk were easily cowed, and the Inquisition was a means to do it.

  Its weapon was fear. Its mandate: annihilation. Some people got off with mere recitals of verse and creed, but others were lashed, beaten, racked. For the most serious offenses, burning was commanded, and at a time where such barbarism was shunned at other levels of society, the Church’s men threw themselves into it with such abandon that people called them “the Bloody Friars” behind their backs.

  However, they had been long-banned from the Empire on pain of death. The Church denounced the decision as heretical, even threatened excommunication and war. The Emperor responded by marrying a Farren woman. It was all so glamorous, the bards wrote songs of it, and people whispered of angels and devils on the march. The Emperor had been only practical, though. The Inquisition would usurp his authority, place the Church above it. It would stir his people into a frenzy, as it had in Asantil to the west, and sow discord amongst the nobility.

  Fortunately, the Idasian Empire was far too powerful for the Church to actually carry through on its threats. Not with the Zuti so near at hand. The Empire was one of the keys to holding the continent against their frenzy. If the Church sparked war against Idasia, all of Marindis could be overrun. The fact that the Emperor’s own children were much beloved of the firebrand Imeritus running the Church only served to solidify Matthias's position. To excommunicate him would be to excommunicate his family, after all.

  If his sons had now let the Inquisition in, however, it would be as ushering the wolves in amongst the sheep. Once they were there, you could shout all you wished, but they would not go until they had gorged.

  “They already burned Iñigo.”

  If word of the Inquisition frightened Rurik, this terrified him. Usuri. Rurik and Essa exchanged a glance, each reflecting the other’s grief and confusion.

  Iñigo was a true pagan. Nor did he ever attempt to hide the fact. Neither Farren nor Visaji, he nevertheless took traits of both into himself and combined them with traits of other, far older pieces of religion. The man himself was something more than the sum of his beliefs, however.

  Iñigo saw things. Distant things. Past things. Things other people did not see, but ever craved to. He sank into the darkness of realms far beyond the mortal thought and carried back with him portents and visions. It was a quaint trick, subtle in its intensity, but less subtle in the attention it brought. He was a taboo creature, but a guilty pleasure amongst the nobility. His face was commonplace in many courts across the Empire, even among the devout.

  Rurik imagined those same men were the ones pointing the fingers at him when his time came.

  I am sorry, Usuri. So sorry.

  “When?”

  “A moon’s turn,” Kasimir said softly. “They took him on the road and burned him in the street.”

  Rurik’s father had been amongst those to count him as a friend. Visits were infrequent, but lengthy when they came. Rurik came to think of the man as a sort of grandfather, though Iñigo was in truth no older than his father. Never once did the man seem to put any effort into appearance. His was a visage of matted furs and road-worn robes—a mangy-haired man too long removed from a blade. Like a bear, in many ways, but he was kind, if eccentric. He liked to run his gnarled hands through Rurik’s hair, and give him treats from far off places.

  Once, Iñigo had brought chocolate from his native Narana. Nothing had ever tasted so sweet.

  Are you alright? God, tell me you didn’t watch…

  With each visit, however, Iñigo brought something better than food. He brought a friend. His daughter, Usuri, was Iñigo’s one and con
stant companion, and she was of an age with Rurik. From the beginning they clicked, and their tortures of the kitchen staff were legendary. Essa joined them, from time to time, but even then he saw the looks that Usuri gave him. Friends, all, but some things went deeper than that. Some things demanded more.

  Idly, Rurik slipped a hand into his pocket, fiddling with a faded coin. He thought of Usuri, saw her smile. It had been months since he had seen her last. It was terrifying to think how she might react to her father’s passing. Far more heartbreaking to think of her agony. Love was something she had much of, with few to see it returned. Her father had been one of those few. No more.

  Of the two, the Church would regret the most that she had been the one to live. Usuri the Many-Starred, the Little Mistress, was nearly as well-known as her father, and far the more dangerous creature. Her father could see things. She could do things, in a world that no longer believed in them. Rurik had seen her do it, and had it done to him.

  “Just close your eyes and think,” the little witch said, slipping the coin into his palm. “You can hear me when I call.”

  He felt the coin roll between his fingers, thought of Usuri lying broken on the floor. There would be tears, and then there would be blood. Can you hear me Usuri?

  Like most sensible men of the age, Rurik did not believe in magic, but he did believe in Usuri. Reconciling the two was agonizing, at times.

  “Has Usuri…?” Essa asked with heavy voice.

  Kasimir shook his head. “No one has heard anything of her since her father’s passing.” Not unexpected, but undesired.

  After a long moment of unease, Rurik’s father broke the ice with a suggestion of rest. Long travels lay ahead. The lord asked that they send in Alviss on their way out, though. Essa tugged at the boy, but Rurik hesitated. He had many other things he wished to ask and to say, but they would not come out. Many blows had struck him that night, and he was not sure what to do about them. Essa hung at his hip, and he clutched to her like a man adrift, clawing for something to keep afloat.