The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  Her uncle, perhaps. She needed help in this. Most likely, he would to listen to her. But none would move. None would ever move, until her father told them. Her hopes fell. The witch had him, whether he realized or not. He thought he controlled her, but there was no controlling her. One could guide her. One could direct the flames. But inevitably, the flames would turn back on themselves, and nothing would remain.

  Walthere could build an empire, but he would watch it burn beneath his feet.

  “Ah, my lady lioness, you listen to things best left to shadows, I think.”

  She started, spinning to face the whispering spider. Boyce smiled at her, all perfume and lace, hands crossed delicately behind his back. It took all her strength not to reach out and strike him. People did not sneak up on her, or any lady. It was improper. Yet Boyce was ever-lurking, and even the witch had proven herself capable. Nerves already on edge were like to break entirely. She could do nothing if she could not see them.

  “Should you not be in bed, milady?”

  In lieu of physical gratification, she satisfied herself with a scowl. Boyce looked amused, rather than intimidated. Regardless, he gave her the slightest of bows. “My apologies. In my haste, I seem to have forgotten etiquette. And you, my lady?” There was that twinge of knowing in his voice. A rhythmic lilt that let her know he knew. Her intents, perhaps, if not her thoughts.

  “Merely passing,” she murmured. “Restless.”

  “Ah.” The spider made a clicking sort of sound, his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. “No need to tell your father then. Shall I escort you to your room?”

  “I should think not.”

  “And I should think more carefully if I were you, little lion.”

  * *

  Servants skittered back and forth across the cobbles, ferreting bags and bundles to the carriages. Armored men loitered in clusters around the outskirts of the torchlight, the flames maliciously glinting off blade and halberd. They were large men, all, covered in the polished blacks of the palace guard. The only trace of color: the gold trim of their cloaks.

  It was a miserable night. The snow had ceased its fall, but the air was bitter and the dampness tugged at the lungs. Heated breaths streaked through the midnight air. The horses stamped their hooves and whinnied pitiably.

  Still more came. He had to wonder how many clothes were necessary for a few nights abroad. Then he thought of his own wife and chilled still further. It could be half an hour yet before they were upon the road.

  They had stayed long enough to watch the Veldharts lose both their skin and their heads. Joseph had held Gerome’s weeping widow, made all the necessary arrangements for his children. They would not want for the rest of their days. He could promise that much. He could also promise that the Veldhart name would be extinguished forever more. It seemed a small price to pay for the loss of his younger brother, though.

  The Empress, in one of her moods, had decided to make south for another execution. The heir apparent might have been more hesitant had his brother’s body arrived, but it was still abroad amidst a long, public procession that would culminate in his ashes' interment in the palatial tombs.

  All he could think of was the stench. It would not be his brother. Just a rotting, fetid corpse. They had best hurry, if they did not wish to lose him to maggots. He would have more heads if they lost him to the maggots. Done properly, the body would keep until his return.

  From across the yard, he caught her nasally laughter, stirring visions of strangled cats. The Empress moved with as much grace as she could muster, her youngest whelp dangling cheerfully in her arms, the ladies-in-waiting fanning out around her like excited sheep, showering mistress and son with pleasantries. A Durvalle moved among them, a cow to accompany the sheep. Bloody Farrens were all the same. It did not matter the stock from whence they came. He looked on his sister and scowled.

  Suddenly weary, he turned and headed for his carriage. His white-cloaked bodyguards followed after, in blissful silence.

  Would that he did not have to make this trek, but trust was a rare commodity, and Joseph could spare none of it for that woman in his mother’s crown.

  Chapter 11

  The whip cracked again, the snap of its barbed tail echoing through the tents, inescapable. Essa did not wince at the sound this time, though it still made her stomach churn. Things like this made death look easy. And preferable.

  The sentenced man deserved all twenty lashings. In a drunken rage he had attacked two of his campmates and broken one’s arm, despite a rule of no fighting and no drinking in camp. There would soon enough be more than enough of each, the nobles said. That may have been, but it remained a law complicated by the enterprising sutlers among the camp followers.

  Another crack and the man’s blood shunted to the earth, leaving spatters down his back and a gathering pool in the snow. Yet beyond a grunt with every shuddering blow, the man kept his silence. He bit down on the rag provided him and took solace in his silence. But then, he was not like her. He was built like an ox, and apparently punched like one as well.

  “Fifteen, by my count. Again.”

  This was not the first such sentence since their arrival. In a camp so large, it was not unexpected to see such a multitude of fights. One man had been caught pilfering chickens from a nearby coop the very day of their arrival. Another filching bread from the storehouses. That one had hit too close to home. It was essentially what Voren was doing for them. If anyone caught on, he would get the same. They should have warned him away from it from the beginning. After what he had already been through, she couldn’t stand to see him brought to that.

  “Quite the shame. He was never a looker to begin with.” Rowan clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head in disappointment.

  Essa nodded lamely. She was further than him, further than them all, carried away by the cracks and the blood and the resonating silence that followed. The man she saw was slimmer than this, rendered somewhat gaunt by the alcohol. His face was different, his sounds, even the motions as he heard the whip rise.

  Her father took each blow screaming, with his hands bound to a tree, and all the town watching. It was his own fault. She had never contested that, and nor had he, though he took it out on her. Kasimir himself had been the one to deliver those blows. No one in his service, he believed, should be delegated to any other. It was only right that if his hand had raised them up, it should be his hand that cast them down. To put it in another’s hand would be dishonorable.

  A soldier’s mind. A soldier’s heavy hand.

  Rurik had watched then from across the yard. She had wanted to go to him, to take him by the hand and flee headlong into the woods, but she could not. Alviss and the Brickheart stood on hand, to make sure no one came too near, and she was marked by her own blood. Nor could she leave her father. Frightened as she was of him, she was his daughter, and loved him for it, even when she had no right. So she stood as a child transfixed by the sight of his blood, the sigh and the whine and the sickening thuds.

  She twitched nervously as the last stroke fell. Rowan grabbed at her arm and shrugged toward their camp. “Best be off,” he said, tugging. She let him lead her away, watching as the large man was hefted from his bonds and left to sag into his own filthy pool.

  “Barbaric treats, those. Wouldn’t you say? I feel’s though we’re back in the dark ages.”

  “As though you would know.”

  “I read, darling. I also have the ears to listen.”

  Rowan waved to the others as they drew near. Alviss sat sharpening his bardiche by whetstone, alongside the dying vestiges of the fire. Chigenda sat near him, watching the flames with an unsettlingly envious sort of stare. However, Rurik was nowhere to be found. Alviss guessed quickly enough at the nature of their searching, and informed them the boy had been summoned by courier to treat with Brickheart, at his brother’s command.

  Her heart fell. It meant he would likely return in poor mood and poorer spi
rits. “Any idea when he shall return?” she asked hopefully. Alviss shook his head. It could be moments, or hours.

  She needed a walk. Some semblance of fresh air. The camp and all its people suddenly felt stifling. She could go nowhere but through it, but the walk might at least stave off the walls that felt like they were closing in. She nudged Rowan, made plain her desires, and hooked him on her venture into the crowds.

  Alviss started to rise to accompany them, but she put him off with assurances they would not go far. She asked him to let Rurik know if he returned before they did, and he reluctantly agreed. The man hunkered back down with obvious distrust, but he said nothing more, and they wandered into the shifting lanes of their makeshift city.

  Crowds stirred, as restless soldiers were apt to do. Individual camps maintained some semblance of identity, but the longer the tents were pitched and the men dug themselves in beneath the snow, the more they mingled. Equally frustrated captains oft did little to stop such fraternization. Everyone needed a touch of normality to keep the demons at bay. There was a general feeling that hell would come soon enough. They had no need to make their lives any more unbearable than they already were.

  The whole camp was abuzz with news of the coming march. A day, some said, others a week. Most agreed the arrival of Count Ibin’s nephew would be the deciding factor. A thousand more levies for the march, and they would move in full.

  A grand army, it was. The grandest. If one could call such things grand. Thousands of bristling spears. Long guns packed with saltpeter, aching for a match to light their way. Horses and riders, set to stampede the earth beneath their feet, to grind bone to dust with lance and hoof. They were the voices, the camp a choir. Time did not matter. It was the moment they sought. The moment when they would take the world and crush the neck of it beneath their heels.

  It was some sickness that had long ago seized the world. Not man, nor men. Civilizations. Races. Whole and utter. It defied continents, even the boundaries of faith. Those at the head plunged the spear on, while those underfoot bore the weight and all the consequence. They were the ones that would splinter as the spear snapped.

  All nations flocked behind the spear, when they could. The thought could sicken, but it did not surprise. Civilization could make the man, but somewhere behind it, the savage always lurked. Now, it was merely Idasia’s time to unleash its animal aggression. The flower of nations, they called it. But it was a flower watered in blood. Its own, as much as anyone else’s.

  There would come a time when it would break. She merely hoped it did not come during their march upon the field.

  As they came around a tent, Rowan put his arm to her, staying her as a small trail of giggles bolted past. Attached to them were a pair of scantily clad women, some bearded soldier lurching after them, shouting. From one of the campfires, one group of men cheered them on, and from somewhere not so far away, she caught the whistle of a bawdy tune.

  “I smelled her fair, I smelled her dear

  Dancing through the streets so clear

  Down by the bay

  One day in May—

  And I put it to her rear!”

  Behind every great man, a woman. And behind many less than stellar, as well. Another factor of the mingling men—all cocks were equal when put before an all too willing cunny. Take it to measure. Just watch your purse.

  The camp followers had settled behind the army, and the air was boisterous with their cries. Some cooked and laundered. Others peddled wares as any street merchant might—and these were as low a creature as any might find, parasitic, prostrating themselves before the soldiers while robbing them blind. These were where the alcohol came from, and men with coin but no outlets, regardless of family or friends waiting for those very coins back home, would flock there for these and any number of other useless wares.

  Whores presented their goods as well. Some wore loose robes, despite the cold, and would bare a breast to passing soldiers, hoping for a gander. Others, more well known, merely waited in their tents for prospective customers. Some didn’t charge at all, and these were the most offensive creatures of all. Treating their own bodies as though they had no worth, or relishing their lives on something all too fleeting. Spreading disease, while they were at it.

  Hopeless. So many of the creatures passing through the camp seemed as such.

  They roamed as far abroad as the count Hendensleuce’s camp, who had not deigned to join his troops at war, but sent his best to guide them. There the soldiers turned them back. Too close to meal, they said. Unless Essa wished to join as part of the dessert, they could not in good conscience let them be. So they let themselves out.

  Hungry dogs skittered past, sniffing for any scraps of food left to rot. These were wild things, or pets, she knew. Things brought for companionship, only to be abandoned in favor of their masters' own stomachs.

  “I sometimes feel we’ve struck into our Zuti’s country,” Rowan said, watching as the dogs roamed past. “None of it fits.”

  “How so?”

  “So dirty. So…inefficient. Wild. Control stretches to the boundaries of the tents, no further. It’s made of cloth and wood. The men, though? Hardly. Running wild as gryphons.”

  “Old gryphons,” Essa corrected him.

  “It was a manner of speech.”

  “An incorrect one. Wild as a molted, winged oxen. Brilliant. Such an image.”

  “Wild as a bowyer’s girl, then. Or at least her tongue.”

  As they wandered, a man in plain brown robes wobbled slowly past. He was old, and he walked with a bit of a hunched back, but he called out to his god in a voice that was like rolling thunder. A copy of the Vorges was tucked beneath his arm, its pages rustling as he twisted from side to side, to guarantee the crowds had the full measure of his words. Few paid him any mind. Yet he went on, tipping his head to them as he went, reciting one of the songs of Assal.

  On they went, one of the chapel tents rising and falling in their wake. Inside, a priest in blue robes was blessing a small crowd of attendees. She peaked in, out of curiosity, trying to see if there was anyone there she recognized. But the Gorjes didn’t attend services, nor did she recognize anyone from Verdan.

  As she reemerged, Rowan was shaking his head.

  “What,” she asked.

  “How can you listen to that drivel? Save your soul and all that. Such lies.”

  “Faith gives people hope. If they choose it, let them have it.”

  Her cousin rolled his eyes. “Faith also gives people fire. And a desire to use it. On me, for one.”

  “Excess is always the trouble.

  “Always’n. Come, my beloved heathen.”

  “After you, heretic.”

  “Ah, so I be. Down to the very blood. Check my skivvies, dear? Certainly I’ve got a wart or something there to prove all that demonism guides me through my day.”

  The blue robes named this tent Visaj. The names were lost on her. Farren and Visaji. Reformer and devout. What changed? They called one another devils, but it wasn’t as though she could look at them and see so great a difference. Each had grievances for the other. Each had issues irredeemable in her eyes. One was new, one was old. That meant something. To some.

  The drama between the groups only served to fuel the electricity of the camp. She knew it, could see it in the eyes and in the motions. People were uneasy. They lived together as such, but as troubling as the idea may have been, there was a difference between having a heathen behind another wall and having him mere feet away, snuggled into your very covers.

  “Look at this one, here.”

  Just beyond the tent, a man had settled into the dirt, hands cupped, eyes roaming restlessly for any signs of potential givers. His legs were bent awkwardly beneath him—likely broken. Or crippled. Either way, it must have been incredibly painful. His skin looked like dried leather and his eyes were somewhat glazed with age. They would not last him much longer.

  One of the monks from the chapel pavilion moved past
, hands cupped in prayer. The beggar held his own to the man, but the monk wrinkled his nose and moved by with a derisive snort. Not even a semblance of interest, of care for his flock.

  “Like anybody else, these religious types come down to two sorts,” Rowan said. “The fanatics, and the greedy. One don’t need no coin. The other lets it consume him.”

  “Anybody?”

  “Anybody in any sense o’ power. Whole ‘nother mess when you check into the haves and have nots.”

  They started on again, but Essa caught herself tossing glances at the beggar. There was a bowl near him, either for food or for coin, but either way, it was empty. And he was rakish. She always pondered such sights. How one could look upon a man in such a mass of their vaunted society and yet feel nothing. One was no less a part of their civilization simply because he had not the coin to feed himself. Any man could find himself in such a position as easily.

  Then a finger wagged in her face. “I know you feel it, but don’t you do it.”

  Essa rolled her eyes at her cousin and doubled back. Now she would do it as much for spite as for any kindness in her heart. For the joy at watching Rowan’s heart skip a beat each time she parted with a coin on something he considered “frivolous.”

  A mangy looking dog, of the same countenance as the beggar, ventured near as she approached. As she came upon them, it circled the old man once, twice, and settled next to him, letting a scant piece of meat dribble from its mouth. Most of what remained was fat, and it had obviously been roasted over a fire, and previously chewed. Yet the dog did not eat it. With its nose, it prodded the scrap towards its master, whining slightly as it did.

  With a deftness she had not expected, the old man snatched the bit of meat up, trailed his fingers across it, and split it in two. Less than a bite for each, but he fed one to the dog and popped the other in his mouth, and she could tell he was savoring it like a child with a piece of rock candy. Idly, he stroked the dog’s matted fur, and it leaned against him heavily.