by Alex Bledsoe
Kay was a big man, and it wasn’t easy moving him out of the ditch; he was weak and couldn’t really help. Polly and I got him onto the road, and they waited while I brought the wagon closer.
Both of them stared at the coffin. “What the hell is that?” Polly asked.
“Who the hell is that?” Kay rephrased.
“Just a favor I’m doing for someone,” I said.
“Is that your secret weapon?” Kay muttered as he struggled up onto the seat. I didn’t answer.
“What about me?” Polly said. “You going to leave an old lady by the side of the road?”
“We’re heading literally into the middle of a battle,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll get there before it actually starts, but I can’t guarantee it. You sure you want to come?”
She gestured around her with the torch. “There’s not a standing farmhouse or a living person within ten miles of this road. I won’t be much better off.”
“You’ll have to ride in the back.”
She scraped the torch across the road stones and extinguished it in a shower of sparks. Then she jumped over the tailgate with surprising nimbleness. “It’s not the first time I’ve ridden with a coffin. Who’s in it?”
I didn’t answer. I made sure Kay wouldn’t fall off, then urged the horses on their way. We headed west into the blazing clouds toward Nodlon Castle.
chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kay was too weak, and Polly apparently disinclined, so we rode without talking. I kept tabs on the old woman out of the corner of my eye; I knew exactly what her game was. But she just watched the fires, her expression unreadable.
The road became an obstacle course of bodies, both human and livestock. The nauseating death smell grew stronger as well. At one point I had to stop and drag an overlapping pile of corpses aside to make room for the wagon. They were tied together at the wrists and weren’t all adults. They’d been marched here and then executed; the family dog, no doubt loyally tagging along, was on the bottom.
When I returned to the wagon, Polly said flatly, “What a mess.”
“You think?” I said, and snapped the reins before she could reply.
* * *
AT last the rising sun burned through the cloud cover and showed the full extent of the damage. Homes were reduced to their stone parts. Fields smoldered, bodies lay everywhere, and livestock stood numbly, not sure whether to flee or graze. Buzzards began to appear in the sky as wolves skittered for the shadows. The worst part was the utter silence: there seemed to be no wounded, only the dead.
“That son of a bitch,” Kay muttered. “That son of a bitch. This was never supposed to happen again. We promised the people it wouldn’t, and they trusted us. They made this a country, not just an island.” His rage, even muted by his injury, was fearsome.
“Why would he do this?” Polly asked from the back, as calmly as if discussing a pot roast.
“Because he enjoys it, the son of a bitch,” Kay said. “As a kid he liked to cut the legs off birds and watch them try to land.”
I remembered the adolescent Medraft I’d encountered. This is exactly how I’d have guessed he’d grow up. But as I came to appreciate the scale of it, it no longer made sense as a tactic. “If he’s planning a coup, then he must believe that all this will be his soon. Why destroy it?”
“I don’t know,” Kay growled. “You can be sure there’s a plan, though. Courtesy of the poison-titted bitch that suckled him.”
“That’s somebody’s mother you’re talking about,” Polly said, her words echoing Kern’s warning. “If he’s a grown man, his mother can’t make him do anything.”
Kay turned to snap a reply, having to swivel his whole body due to his neck. Instead he exclaimed, “Holy shit, that’s a coffin!”
Polly snorted. “Nothing gets past him, does it?”
Kay’s anger vanished in his confusion. “Seriously, LaCrosse, that’s a coffin. Has it been there all this time?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Kay’s face no longer shone with sweat; his fever must’ve broken. “Did you tell me about it before?”
“I mentioned it.”
“I guess I was really out of it. Who’s in it?”
“I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
“The favor involves taking a coffin to Nodlon? At a time like this?”
“Yes.” I jerked my head slightly toward Polly.
She saw it, though, and said, “He means he won’t talk about it in front of me because he doesn’t know if he can trust me. Fine, I only stayed with a total stranger in a ditch for hours and risked my life flagging down help for him. That’s all.”
Kay leaned close and asked quietly, “Is it anyone I know?”
“No.”
He sighed with relief. “Then never mind. I have a feeling I’ll be attending plenty of funerals soon enough.”
Or just one, I thought but didn’t say.
* * *
WE topped a small hill. At the bottom, four horsemen blocked the road at a place where the forest gave way to open, wild meadows. There’d be no sneaking past them.
Two of them noticed us as we looked down at them. They wore mismatched metal and leather armor scavenged from past battles and had the arrogant posture of men used to pushing people around. Even without it, the bodies littering the nearby ground, the empty “confiscated” wagons parked in a neat row, and the riderless horses tied to available tree branches told the story. Nobody got through this roadblock. But we would, because I wasn’t walking away from this now. Sure, I’d earned my money and kept my word, but if I didn’t avenge the innocent blood, no one would. And that was a contract with my conscience.
The other two guards stood in the meadow near a solitary tree. They shared a longbow and took turns firing shafts into a corpse that hung by its ankles from a branch. At this ridiculously close range the arrows went almost entirely through the body. The two archers laughed as the most recent shot made the corpse swing in a shallow arc.
As she took in the tableau, Polly said, “Shit.”
“Well put,” I agreed.
“I’ll handle this,” Kay said, and forced himself to sit up straight.
I put my hand warningly on his arm. “These aren’t Knights of the Double Tarn.”
“They’re under Medraft, and I outrank him.”
“I don’t think you do today.”
We had no choice but to continue down the hill toward them. I stopped the wagon when one of the men stepped in front of us and raised his hand. He was missing the tip of his nose. “That’s far enough, shit-kicker. By the king’s order, this road is closed.”
Kay said raggedly, “I’m Robert Kay, King Marcus Drake’s seneschal and General Medraft’s commanding officer. I’m on my way to Nodlon, so move aside.”
The second man, tall and skinny with ears that stuck out like open closet doors, said, “Tough titty, old man. You ain’t getting there on this road.” He rubbed the neck of the nearest horse. “Nice team, though. Strong. Make good army horses.”
Nose-tip walked around the wagon. He gestured at the coffin and said, “Hey, who’s the worm farm?”
“My mother,” I said. “She died six months ago. I’m moving her to be buried by my father.”
He scowled. “You dug her up?”
I shrugged. “It’s what she wanted.”
“You stupid country fucks,” he said. The two men laughed. I guess my expensive clothes, spattered with dried blood and coated in trail dust, no longer gave me away.
By now the archers had noticed us, too. I said, “So what’s the toll?”
“Toll?” Closet-ears said.
“Yeah, you know. The toll to use the road.”
The two exchanged looks and snickered. “So you got money to pay a toll?” Nose-tip asked.
“Show it to us,” Closet-ears added.
I held up my money bag and shook it so it rattled.
“Whoo-ee, we got us a rich boy here,” Closet-ears said. “Jingles like the
bells on a whore’s ankle.”
“You know,” I said wearily, “there’s no reason to be an asshole about this. I’m willing to pay to get past you.”
“He called us assholes, didn’t he?” Nose-tip said.
Closet-ears shoved him playfully. “I think he just meant you.”
“Really? Well, in that case, I think I’ll just take all the money as an insult fee.”
I said, “Tell you what: I’ll shoot you for it.”
Closet-ears and Nose-tip exchanged a look. Closet-ears said, “Huh?”
I pointed at the archers, who had stopped their contest and now intently watched us. “One arrow each, me and your best man. You pick the distance and target. If I make a better shot, you let us through. If I don’t…” I trailed off with a shrug.
Closet-ears called out, “Hey, Raven! This guy wants to shoot against you!”
The one called Raven, tall and about thirty years old, walked over with the bow. He looked at me carefully, evaluating both my skill and my status as a threat. I did my best to hide both, which—given my unwashed hair, disheveled clothes, and unshaven face—wasn’t hard. “What do you know about shooting?” he said at last. “Poaching the king’s deer in the winter?”
“Only one way to find out,” I said.
He thought it over for a minute, then gestured I should get down. I did. When I began slipping off my scabbard, two swords appeared at my throat. I finished much more slowly. The blades went away, but their owners watched me minutely.
I followed Raven, Closet-ears, and the fourth man over to the swinging corpse. Nose-tip stayed by the wagon, nonchalant but certainly alert.
We stopped twenty paces from the tree. Closet-ears rushed over and gave the corpse a shove. It began to swing, dislodging two crows who’d swooped in for a snack. The body was a well-dressed middle-aged man’s; his purplish face was still frozen in its dying look of surprise. Raven pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it. “Can you do this?” he said smugly, then fired. The arrow pierced the swaying palm of the dead man’s right hand. His compatriots laughed.
I took the offered bow and arrow. I was a fair shot, but certainly not in Raven’s league. Then again, what I really planned to shoot was closer and not moving. If I got the chance.
I tested the bow’s tension. It was considerable. “Too much for you?” Raven asked with a cackle.
I nocked the arrow and smiled. “Just getting a feel for it.”
I turned sideways to the target just as I’d been taught, raised the bow, and drew the string. I kept my elbow up, the way my dad had always showed me. My knuckles reminded me that they’d been broken just a few days ago, but they did the job. I felt my thumb against my cheek and knew the string was as taut as it was going to get.
Then I pivoted and shot Raven from an arrow’s length away. The shaft passed right through the soft tissue of his neck and thudded into Closet-ears’ chest behind him.
I dropped the bow, grabbed Raven as he started to collapse, and drew his sword. I rushed at the remaining man, who got his own blade out in time to knock aside my jab. He was young and heavily muscled, and he grinned once he realized he was in a fight he understood.
We exchanged enough blows for me to know he was too good for me to fight him this way, so I pretended to lose my sword—not that hard—and when he raised his own to bring it down on my skull, I rushed under his arm and knocked him to the ground. I sat on his chest just as I’d done with Agravaine, only this time I was a complete professional. I hit him once in the hollow of his throat with the edge of my hand, and when his eyes bulged and he clutched his neck, I pulled his own dagger from his belt and used my weight to drive the blade through his secondhand leather armor into his heart.
He died with a wet, bubbling cry. He may once have been someone’s child, as Kern said, but he gave up that humanity the first time he killed someone and laughed. And unlike me, fate never gave him a chance to earn it back.
I took a moment to catch my breath. Sometimes experience was better than youth, but youth could recover faster. I ran back to the wagon, where Kay slumped across the seat. Nose-tip lay moaning on the ground with Kay’s sword in his belly. Stabbing him had taken all the wounded knight’s strength.
Nose-tip looked up at me. “Finish it, then,” he gasped.
I pulled the sword from his stomach. Blood and organs surged forth, and he clutched them with both hands as he curled into a ball. “Finish it yourself,” I said. Kern would be proud that I resisted the urge to kick him in the head.
I tossed Kay’s sword into the wagon and helped the wounded knight sit up. He opened his eyes and said, “Did you get the others?”
“Yeah, I got ’em.”
He grinned, which turned into a scowl of pain. “You’d make a fine Knight of the Double Tarn. Sorry I could only handle one.”
“You did your part.” Then I realized Polly was gone. I looked around, but saw no sign of her on the road, in the fields, or in the forests. I hadn’t counted the horses, so I couldn’t tell if one was missing.
That annoyed me. I had plans for her. I made a quick check of the coffin, which hadn’t been tampered with. Then I propped Bob back on his side of the seat and we resumed our trip to Nodlon, leaving Nose-tip still writhing on the road. Three crows hopped nearby in anticipation.
chapter
TWENTY-NINE
At noon I again stopped the wagon at the top of a hill. Kay had fallen asleep, and the sudden halt didn’t wake him. I checked his pulse; it was weak but steady.
The view below and ahead would’ve made a great tapestry. In the background stood Nodlon Castle, perched starkly on its cliff against the sea and sky. Sun sparkled along the top of the walls, where men in armor patrolled the parapets. Flags fluttered in the breeze, and white gulls flew in place against the wind.
The land just outside the walls was empty. I’d seen it crowded with vendors and merchants just days before, but they were long gone now, leaving only bare spots in the grass where they’d previously camped.
Beyond this open space, closer to us, men and horses in armor formed a defensive crescent around the castle. They’d established a line with spears, shields, and barricades, but their strength wasn’t deep. If the line broke, there were no reinforcements to fill it.
Next came another crescent of open land, except for two things. One was a fifteen-foot pole protruding from a pile of wood. It was the stake where the queen would be burned if found guilty of her crimes. The other was a large tent set up just beside the road.
The tent’s walls rippled in the wind, and several Knights of the Double Tarn stood guard outside it. It flew a large white flag of truce. The rival commanders would meet there to negotiate prior to engaging in battle; each would give the other the chance to surrender. That was where I needed to be.
Between me and that destination was the vast camp of Medraft’s enormous mercenary army.
Unlike the orderly billets of government-sponsored troops, the mercenaries’ tents were a hodgepodge of sizes, styles, and personalizations. Men sat around campfires polishing armor, sharpening weapons, and drinking to excess. Pages and water boys ran among them, and screams occasionally punctuated the steady clatter. I estimated five thousand men; the knights in Nodlon, even counting the trainees, might manage a sixth of that. Currently Medraft’s men hadn’t even established a real perimeter to face their opponents; they were content to rest after their march and let their sheer presence do the work.
My horses tossed their heads nervously. I wanted to do the same, but I’d look silly.
The road went down the hill through the mercenaries, past the white tent, and into the castle. In places the stones were shattered so badly that it became merely a muddy path littered with rock shards. Like the landscape it passed through, the mercenaries had deliberately destroyed the road to prevent its use.
Kay stirred beside me. He yawned, winced at the pain it sent through his neck, and looked around in confusion. It only took a moment for
him to orient himself, though. “We made it,” he said. “Did you have any more trouble?”
“No. But this could make up for it.”
He grimly surveyed the scene. “It’s like the last twenty years never happened,” he said at last. The horror, regret, and dismay in his voice was heartbreaking. “We’re back to the way we were.”
“It’s not too late. If we can get down there before the sword-clanging starts, we can stop this.”
“What is going on? Do you know who killed Sam Patrice?”
“Yes,” I said with certainty. “I’ll tell you when we’re all in the same place at the same time.”
“All who?”
“Everyone involved.”
He sat back and closed his eyes. “Sounds like one of those damn mummer shows.” In a faux upper-crust twitter he said, “‘I suppose you wonder why I’ve asked you all here.’ I hate those things.”
“You’ll like this one,” I assured him.
* * *
FIRST, though, I had to get through the army. No one had paid any attention to us so far; they assumed that if we were here, we were supposed to be. Certainly I looked only marginally more presentable than most of the mercenaries, and the bloody bandage around Kay’s neck helped him blend in as well. But the drive to the white-flagged parley tent was a long one, and the chances we’d make it without being challenged were pretty slim. It seemed smarter to make the first move myself.
I started the wagon down the road slowly, watching the soldiers who passed nearby until I saw the kind of man I wanted. I called out, “Hey! Pissant!”
A young man with a vague suggestion of a beard on his chin turned, saw us, and pointed questioningly at himself. “Yes, you!” I snarled. “Get your ass over here when I call you.”
He threaded through the crowd until he reached us. He was bare-chested, his hair and body wet from recent washing. This must be his first campaign if he still worried about hygiene. He also wore no weapon, a sure sign of a novice. When I was a mercenary, I never went anywhere unarmed. I said, “Get up here and drive this thing.” I stepped over the back of the seat into the wagon bed.
