by Ben Galley
The crowd parted to let them through, every head bowing politely and reverently. Malvus relished every minute of it, every footfall and step. He held Jeasin on his arm like a prize.
As it turned out, the Arka women didn’t know how to dance, and if the glances had been scathing before, now they were positively boiling. Malvus led Jeasin around the floor, letting her spin and swivel, while he watched his newly appointed lords smirk while their mistresses and spouses stared on. A few of the younger women even tried to imitate the Albion woman, raising the eyebrows of the men even further.
Something about Jeasin’s dancing seemed to raise the pace of the evening. The skalds in the corner kicked something lively into their tune, and soon the sedate air began to crumble, leading to something altogether informal.
‘More wine!’ called Malvus, snapping his fingers at a pair of nearby servants. They rushed to do his bidding. Decanters of purple and yellow wine were soon flying about on trays, glugging into half-empty glasses and being swigged by laughing mouths. How quickly it was, that the veneer of refinement flaked away, to reveal the debauchery beneath that only power, money, and an excuse can buy.
Malvus led Jeasin back to the window. Toskig was there, with Jarvins. The latter was slouching against the wall in his new armour, idly watching his wife swan about the room. He had a half-empty bottle of ale dangling from his hand. Toskig clicked his heels as Malvus approached. Jarvins slid a little way up the wall, and saluted with his bottle. Malvus ignored him.
‘General Toskig. How are you enjoying the banquet?’
Toskig looked a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to such company. What he wouldn’t have given for a good old tavern, or a mess, with a flagon of foaming ale and a good old brawl. ‘Very good, my lord,’ he said, stiffly.
‘And have you met the good lady Jeasin?’ Malvus gestured to the woman at his side, managing to ignore the snort Jeasin made at the mention of lady.
Toskig bowed as low as his armour would allow. ‘My lady.’
‘Pleasure,’ Jeasin said. She could play her role at least, when needed. ‘You a mage?’
Toskig shook his head quickly. ‘No, my lady. Though I taught mages, at the School. In Manesmark.’
‘And a fine job of it he did too.’ Jarvins gargled his beer.
‘Knew a mage once. A Written,’ Jeasin began, causing Malvus to raise an eyebrow. ‘Farden, you know ‘im?’
There was an awkward silence between them, broken only by Jarvins swaggering off with a sigh, off to drag his wife back from the edge of embarrassment, and to find himself some more of that fine, strong ale. Toskig cleared his throat. ‘I knew him, yes. Fought with him in Efjar, when I was naught but a recruit. Good man. Even better mage.’
‘Yes, well,’ Malvus hissed. ‘A traitor to our cause, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Toskig muttered, looking at the floor.
‘Course,’ Jeasin. She knew better than to say anything more.
‘My lord!’ a shout rang out over the music and the sounds of the hall. Malvus turned to find a skinny boy weaving his way through the crowd, dressed in the livery of a messenger. The boy skidded to a halt, bowed once, twice, even three times before handing the scrap of parchment over, with shaking hands.
‘What is this?’
‘Message for you m’lord. From a Nelska hawk. Marked urgent, said my master.’
Malvus snatched the parchment from the boy’s hands. ‘Away with you.’
‘Yes, m’lord!’ The boy scuttled off.
‘Word from the dragons?’ Toskig asked.
Malvus flashed him a look. ‘In a fashion, General. Nothing you need concern yourself with.’ He folded the parchment and slid it deep into his silk pocket. He kept his hand on it. ‘I’m afraid I must leave you in the good company of the General, Jeasin. He’ll escort you back to your rooms.’
‘You mean your rooms?’
Malvus narrowed his eyes. It irked him that she couldn’t see his expression. She might have held her tongue. ‘Any room will do, as long it isn’t this room.’
‘An’ what if I want to dance some more?’
Malvus smiled a greasy smile at Toskig and then leant close to whisper in the woman’s ear. ‘Then you can do it in the darkness of a prison cell,’ he breathed. ‘Or, if you prefer, at the end of a rope.’ Jeasin simply turned away, saying nothing. ‘I’ll leave her in your hands then, Toskig.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ replied the general, and with that Malvus strode towards the door, urgent and hurried. Toskig watched him go, wondering what in Emaneska to say to such a woman. He’d heard the stories from Jarvins. Everybody had.
‘So,’ he coughed.
‘You ‘ungry?’ she asked, abruptly.
Toskig shook his head. ‘Erm. I ate…’
‘I’m bloody starvin’,’ she muttered, as she felt her way towards the smell of food, wafting on the breeze from the back of the hall. She strode forward confidently, making others get out of her way. She was enjoying this, despite Malvus’ parting words. Enjoying the feel of eyes upon her, of the furtive whispers they thought she couldn’t hear, of all of it.
Toskig was not enjoying anything. He walked behind her, dodging in between the dancers, trying not to get in anybody’s way. A hundred colours of silk and shades of jewellery spun before his eyes. His armour gleamed a little too harshly in the light. The wine had gone to his head.
‘Do you need a hand?’ he called to Jeasin.
‘No,’ she flatly replied. And she didn’t. She walked right up to the tables, stopping just before them, and began to feel around for what had been left over from the evening’s feasting. Toskig watched as she pawed about, collecting things on a dirty plate, like a thief rooting through a box of treasures. A hunk of bread. A slice of cheese. A titbit of ham. Some oiled fish. Only once did she falter, dipping her finger in a bowl of soup. She cursed and kept going. More bread. More cheese. She must have been starving indeed.
‘Finished?’ Toskig said, rubbing his stubbled chin.
‘Just about,’ Jeasin muttered, as she added something greasy and roasted. ‘There.’
‘Shall I escort you to your room?’
‘If you have to.’
‘It seems I must.’
‘Lead the way then.’
Toskig did as he was told, leading the woman from the banquet hall by the corner of his arm. She clutched the plate in her other hand. The general tried not to wonder where she was going to put it all.
Soon enough, they had escaped the hall, and were walking through the quiet corridors of the Arkathedral, boots and shoes clicking softly on the marble. Glancing through the windows on their right, Toskig noticed night had only just fallen, and the torches of the city were only beginning to glimmer. Toskig stared at his city, at the smoke leaking from chimneys and at the tiny figures below in the orange veins of cobblestone streets. The word responsibility, came to mind then. They were his now, in a way. He had swapped two-dozen grubby recruits for the safety of the whole city. No wonder he felt so bewildered, so nervous. A sergeant, in a general’s boots.
‘Here we are,’ muttered Jeasin, pulling him to the right.
Toskig shook his head and pulled her back. ‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken, my lady. Malvus’… your rooms are higher up. That’s the way to the prisons.’
‘That it is,’ she said, pulling again, but Toskig stood his ground.
The general eyed her suspiciously. ‘And what would you want with the prisons?’
Jeasin huffed. ‘What do you think, Toskig?’
The general looked over the woman’s shoulder and frowned. A little lump blossomed in his stomach. ‘Malvus’ orders…’
‘…Mean shit. He ain’t here.’
‘Of course he’s not. But there are guards, there are eyes everywhere. Including mine.’
Jeasin put her free hand on her hip. ‘It’s food, man. Not a key to the door. That’s your old Arkmage in there, right? Your Undermage and his wife? Starvin’ probably. A little fo
od won’t ‘urt. You going to tell him?’
Toskig didn’t reply. Jeasin sniffed. ‘An’ here I was thinkin’ you were the honest type.’
Toskig frowned. ‘You put me on dangerous ground, woman.’
‘You were already on it. So am I. Anyone is, where Malvus is concerned.’
‘Mind your tongue…’
‘I’m gettin’ bored of people tellin’ me that.’
Toskig sighed. He looked up the corridor, then down it. Nobody. He looked into the hallways that led to the prisons. He could see the guards at the end of it. Loitering by the torches, clacking their spears against the floor. ‘Men!’ he called. Their heads snapped around and they soon came running.
Toskig took a breath and crossed his arms as Jeasin stepped to the side, plate held behind her back. The two guards trotted up and smartly came to a halt. They saluted, and then glanced sideways at Jeasin. One recognised her; she had been there a few nights ago. On Lord Malvus’ orders, if he remembered rightly.
‘Eyes front, reprobates,’ snapped Toskig, in his best drill sergeant voice.
‘Yessir!’ they barked in reply.
As Toskig began to grill them, demanding unnecessary reports on the state of the prisoners, Jeasin quietly slipped down the corridor, heading straight for the deepest, darkest cell. Her hand trailed on the wall, feeling it turn from marble, to rough stone, then to iron in places, etched with runes and spells.
‘Durnus!’ she hissed through the grate. ‘Old man!’
A face soon appeared, a gaunt face, wrinkled with age. ‘Jeasin,’ he said. ‘What a pleasure.’
‘What does she want?’ came a mutter from inside the cell.
‘To feed us, by the smell of it.’
‘And that’s all tonight,’ she said, pushing the food through the gaps in the grate, piece by piece. She wrinkled her nose at the oily fish as she felt it between her fingers.
‘On Malvus’ orders again?’ said the other voice, that of the Undermage.
Jeasin shook her head. ‘No. One of the new generals provided a distraction. Seems to be on your side.’
Modren’s pushed his face up against the grate. ‘Which general?’
‘Toskig?’
‘You mean Sergeant Toskig?’
‘Yeah, well ‘e’s General Toskig now. Malvus took a shine to him.’
‘And Toskig was stupid enough to accept,’ Modren hissed.
‘Maybe he just wants to survive, not be locked up in a bloody cell, like you two,’ Jeasin shrugged. ‘I know I do.’
‘Well, thank you, Jeasin. For the food,’ Durnus said, quietly.
‘This is gettin’ dangerous, you know. Sneakin’ about like this.’
Modren snarled. ‘So’s being at the mercy of Krauslung’s newest dictator.’
‘That ain’t my fault.’
‘Do you have any news?’ asked Durnus.
Jeasin scratched at her head. ‘He got a letter. By hawk.’
‘From whom?’
‘Nelska.’
‘Saker then.’
Durnus put his head against the bars, trying not to betray the dark pit of hopelessness that was slowly digging its way into his stomach. ‘I can only wonder what he is planning,’ he muttered, before disappearing into the darkness of the cell.
Modren gripped the bars. ‘Jeasin,’ he asked. ‘How much do you know about hawks?’
Jeasin raised an eyebrow.
The birds smelled foul. She knew that much about hawks. They smelled foul, and they shuffled around on their perches, rattling their claws and making her flinch. Jeasin hated birds. She clutched the scrap of parchment in her hand and edged closer to the nearest hawk.
It screeched and Jeasin quickly backed away. Curse those mages, she hissed inside her head. If she had been standing on dangerous ground before, she was now perching on the edge of a very tall and very unstable cliff.
Jeasin bit her lip and tried again. The hawk stayed silent this time. She reached forward and gingerly felt its feathers, cold and soft. The hawk didn’t move. She took a breath and reached for its leg, where Modren had told her she would find a little loop of twine. The mage had been right, and her fingers found the roughness of it. While she tried not to think of the sharp beak, inches from her face, she rolled up the parchment with her nervous fingers and pushed it through the loop.
A noise in the corridor outside made her freeze. Boots, on cold marble. She paused, parchment halfway through the loop, heart beating, while she listened to the boots recede.
‘Too bloody close,’ she muttered, as she pulled the loop tight and tugged it hard. The bird whined. It seemed secure enough.
Jeasin moved to the window and felt for its latch. Gods. Of course it was stuck. Jeasin grit her teeth and jiggled it. Still stuck. She pushed harder and it came loose with a stomach-clenching bang. A blast of cold air slapped her in the face, and she winced. Behind her, the birds began to flap and screech. Jeasin flinched again. They were making far too much noise. Jeasin quickly reached for her hawk. Its wings hit her hard in the face as she lifted it from its perch but she hung on grimly, holding it up to the open window.
‘The Old Dragon!’ she snapped at it, before tossing it out into the night.
Chapter 15
“The wind was a king’s daughter once. A beautiful, beautiful girl was she, with a face that could make a daemon’s heart melt. But her father the king was a jealous king, a fearful king. To keep her beauty from the leering eyes of men he locked her away in the highest tower of his castle. For years the daughter begged to be let go, so that she might glimpse the face of another man besides her father, and for years the king refused her, each time telling her that next year, she would be allowed. And so the years dragged on, until her nineteenth birthday, when once more she asked to see the face of another man. When the king refused again, the daughter wept and cried like never before. Three days she cried, until finally it broke the king’s heart to see her beauty so marred with grief, and so he finally relented.
The next day the king decreed that all nine cities should put forward a champion, not of sword nor of magick, but of ugliness. One by one the cities sent their champions, and one by one they came, revulsive to the very core. Scarred, disfigured, malformed, they came to stand before the king. All the court but he wilted before their gruesome visages. It took him three days to choose a champion. Finally he selected a quiet young man from the second city, a hideous creature yet pure of heart. The king had him dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and so disfigured was he that the maids needed blindfolds to dress him.
When the king called for the young man, they tread the thousand steps to the very top of the tallest tower together, until at long last they came to the doors of his daughter’s room. The king called for his daughter, and thrilled, she came, throwing the door wide open. There, the young man was shown to her, in all his vast hideousness. The young man, so overwhelmed by her beauty, fell to his knees, clutching his heart. The king looked on with a smile, watching his daughter’s face curl into disgust at the sight of him. But lo, it was not disgust, but a smile of her own. His face turned to horror as his daughter rushed forward to embrace the young man, kissing him on his twisted lips.
‘No!’ cried the king in anguish. He cast the young man to the floor, breaking his head upon the stone, and in a moment of rage, he cursed his daughter, there on her own steps. He cursed her face, saying, ‘You wish to know the faces of men? You wish to know them? So be it, you may see all the faces you please, but no man shall ever lay eyes upon your beauty, and yet every man will feel your caress.’ And in that instant she was turned. Her robes and skin fell away, vanishing from sight until nothing was left of her except the feel of her breath on the king’s cheeks, a strong breath, powerful in its force. For the daughter had become the wind, and with her first gust she lifted her father from his feet and hurled him from the tallest tower, lingering only to watch him fall to the rooftops of the city below.”
‘The Wind and the King’ - and anci
ent fairytale
Melt-water flooded his nostrils, forcing their way into his brain like two daggers of ice, the very definition of cold. The water stung his throat as it sought out his lungs. It flushed them out like old wine-skins. Ice clutched his heart.
His whole mind screamed at him not to breathe. To force it out, not to take it in. There comes a point in a drowning man’s final moments where he will scream this to himself over and over, until finally he will relent, and he will grasp at the dangling hope that he could breathe water all along. Farden took such a breath; a deep, gasping breath that would have pulled the flames from a campfire.
But to his surprise, he tasted air on his tongue, and the fluffy cold of snow along with it.
Farden twitched. He pushed out his limp limbs and heard the crunch and creak of barely-settled snow. The snow was a warm blanket compared to the deathly cold of the water. He carefully unscrewed his eyes, wincing as the sharp brightness of the light stung him.
‘I thought I was done with all of this…’ Farden gargled through the snowflakes. Nobody was around to hear him grumble. Nobody but the sun, and the stars shining through the piercing blue only a winter could own.
One by one they fell. The stars punched the earth, throwing up great columns of snow and rock in their wakes. Farden flinched as the ground shook and the trees cracked. Ten, twenty, thirty, and still they came. Dark shapes began to stand against the white of his dream, leaking smoke and reeking of sulphur.
Farden stood to meet them, and found himself naked against their eyes, wearing only his tattoos for modesty. And they glowed. They glowed like he had never seen them glow before, not even as they had his first night as a Written, when he had crawled, sweat-soaked from the Scribe’s doorway, into the arms of the blind healers. Farden held his hands up to the dark shapes and found fire swirling around them.
