The Crown Tower trc-1

by Michael J. Sullivan

  Royce veered off the road, guiding his horse around the scrub and rocks, climbing and then descending a hill that left them out of sight of the highway. Hadrian followed and found him dismounted next to a rash of bushes, tying his animal. Hadrian remained mounted, watching as Royce saw to his horse’s needs; then, finding a suitable place, he unrolled his blanket and lay down.

  “I take it we’re camping here, then?”

  Royce said nothing, still refusing to acknowledge his existence.

  “You could have said, ‘We’re going to bed down here for the rest of the night.’ No, wait, you’re right, too much. How about ‘sleeping here’? Two words. Even you could manage that, right? I mean, I know you can talk. You had plenty to say back in Arcadius’s office. Couldn’t keep the words from coming out then, but no, utterly impossible to indicate in any way that we’ll be stopping here for the night.”

  Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. “How long were we on the road?” He paused to look up at the moon. “What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don’t you think, Hadrian? Moon looks like a fingernail, ain’t that right, Hadrian? That tree looks like a goddamn bear, don’t it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and that ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon.”

  Royce shifted to his side, hood up.

  “Yeah, well … thank Maribor and Novron I didn’t need your help that time.”

  “Didn’t care for my help too much in the stable,” Royce said.

  “It speaks!” Picking a spot on the other side of the horses, Hadrian laid out his ground cover and draped his blanket over the top. “And I did thank you for that.”

  “And I was touched by your heartfelt gratitude.”

  “You didn’t need to stab him. And you didn’t need to kill all those people on the barge. You could have just told me who you were, who they were, and what they were planning.”

  “You have your ways. I have mine. I haven’t been impressed by your methods. Mine work.”

  “Well, then by all means stick with yours. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find yourself back in prison. I hear there’s a whole bunch of like-minded people in there.”

  “Say hello to the worms for me, then,” Royce said.

  “Worms?”

  “Graves are where people who think like you end up.”

  “No, they don’t. Only the lucky ones. You need someone to bury you for that. You know anyone who’d go to that trouble for you?”

  “If I’m dead, why would I care? If I’m not, it’d better be a very deep hole.”

  “You have any friends?”

  “One.”

  “Arcadius?”

  “No.”

  “Where is this friend?”

  “No idea.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “When he framed me for murder and sent me to prison.”

  “I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word friend.”

  “And I think you live in a fairy-tale world where words have consistent meanings. Can you read and write?”

  “My father taught me.”

  “Good for you. Ever notice how the word friend is only one letter away from fiend? Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not.”

  “You’re an optimistic fellow, I’ll give you that.” Hadrian threw a second blanket over himself and turned to his side, setting his back to Royce.

  “Did you save any?” Royce asked.

  “Any what?”

  “Of those eggs. If you did, we could cook them for breakfast in the morning.”

  Hadrian lay silent for a moment confused; then it hit him and he almost laughed.

  For a second day Royce and Hadrian traveled in silence. It didn’t bother Hadrian anymore. The crack about the eggs had sapped some of the tension-maybe Royce was human after all. Hadrian wasn’t the chatty type to begin with. He just felt they had been in the middle of a conversation when they escaped Sheridan and the following silence festered like a sliver in his skin. The sliver was still there, but it was one of those deep ones that would need to work itself out. He’d been through worse, and this was only going to last a couple days. That had been the promise at least.

  For the last several miles Hadrian had seen what he thought was a figment of his imagination like the bear tree, only this was much farther away and much larger. A single vertical line like a massive pole stuck into the horizon. With each passing hour, the pole got bigger. By the time they stopped for a midday meal, the pole had become a tower, and it was still miles away.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Hadrian asked.

  Royce was on his knees searching through a canvas bag. He looked up and Hadrian nodded toward the horizon. “The tower? Yeah. Still about a day away.”

  Hadrian stood staring. Everything at that distance had a bluish cast, a muted washed-out color that began to blend with the sky. The tower stood at the apex of a massive hill that dominated the plain.

  A perfect place for armies.

  Hadrian could imagine rows of foot soldiers lined up in the open fields. Cavalry wheeling in wide arcs. Legions upon legions could maneuver without effort, and likely did. That tower was a ruin-all that remained of a bigger structure. It must have been mammoth. He could almost see it, this massive fortress on the rise overlooking the vast expanse. The final battle of a war had scarred this land, and it centered on the rise and the castle that once crowned it.

  Hadrian sat on a patch of grass, putting his back against a rock, and opened his own food sack. He had lots of apples rolling around the bottom, cheap and plentiful around this time of year. They didn’t have them in Calis and he’d bought a half dozen. He bit into one and fished out a chunk of cheese to go with it.

  “What was that you slept on last night?” Royce asked.

  Hadrian thought of saying “the ground,” then realized what he was getting at. “Canvas I coated in pitch. In the Gur Em everything is wet. You lay out a blanket and it will soak through. The pitch keeps the water out. This isn’t a jungle but I remember dew getting my bedding soaked just the same.”

  Royce was nodding. “Interesting. Hadn’t thought of that. Good idea. Teach you that in the military?”

  “No.” Hadrian shrugged. “Just got tired of sleeping soaked, and I was on a dock one day watching a sailor paint the top of his hat with pitch. Said he was waterproofing it. That gave me the idea.”

  “Clever,” Royce said. There was a note of surprise as he peered at Hadrian through squinting eyes.

  “I can make you one if you like. Just need to get another piece of canvas and find some pitch.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll manage.”

  “Not a lot of trouble and it can be tricky to get right. Too little pitch and the water still gets in. Too much and it will crack when you roll it. Water gets in the cracks and-”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “No, really, I can show you-”

  “I don’t need your help,” Royce growled. He reached back and pulled up his hood, which had been down most of the day.

  There was no further conversation. They ate, mounted, and moved on.

  Clouds rolled through, large gray things. A curtain of rain swept the horizon to the west but never came at them. Looking behind him, Hadrian realized what Dancer had known for some time-they had been slowly climbing for miles. Visibility was impressive. He couldn’t ever recall seeing so far. Whole forests looked like bushes, and the mountains that had appeared so grim and imposing the day before were tiny things. The tower continued to grow. Less blue, less hazy, the once-featureless column was made of blocks. Battlements ringed the top and were made of a differ
ent material, something bright like chalk-marble maybe. The whole thing had likely been dressed in the white stone-the whole castle perhaps-but the pretty material would have been scavenged. Hadrian had seen such things in Old Calis. Great fortresses gutted, the once-noble edifices used for field walls to corral sheep. The higher stone would have been too difficult to get. As pretty as the white slabs were, they weren’t worth dying for. The effect was dramatic-a gray tower with a white … crown.

  Hadrian laughed to himself.

  Royce turned to look.

  “Crown Tower,” he said, pointing. “I get it now.”

  Royce rolled his eyes.

  The village of Iberton hugged the shore of a narrow lake that disappeared into foothills of yellowing grass. Dozens of boats bobbed at piers that jutted into the water like gapped teeth. Houses were small, quaint things of stacked stone with plastered uppers. Each one blew smoke from chimneys and sported a garden of ripe vegetables. Children ran across the docks while a pair of black dogs chased. After almost two days of Hadrian listening to the wind, their laughter was musical.

  Beyond the lake, beyond the foothills to the north, the real mountains began. Snow-capped teeth rising jagged against the sky. Past them lay Trent, a whole different country. They had come to the ceiling of Avryn. The tower was just up the road and loomed over everything, except the mountains. It felt as if they had climbed a tall ladder and had reached the top rung. The view was impressive, but it was an uneasy perch.

  Royce veered off the broad way to the narrow track leading to the village and dismounted before a small building with a signboard that was no more than a picture of a frothy tankard. Although it was growing late, it was much darker inside, and at first all Hadrian saw was the flicker of lanterns that hung from roof beams. He stopped at the entrance to grant his eyes a chance to adjust, but Royce continued forward, moving to a little table between a small stone hearth and the windows.

  “How ya doing?” The man behind the bar greeted him with a big smile. He extended his hand and Hadrian had to take a couple quick steps to meet him. The proprietor had a firm grip and a wholesome way of looking him in the eye. “I’m Dougan. Who might you be?”

  “Hadrian.”

  “Nice to meet you, Hadrian. What can I get you?”

  “Um…” He looked over at Royce, who was lost in the recesses of his hood again. “Beer.”

  The bartender looked regretful. “Sorry, lad. We don’t offer beer. Beer is what you get in any shoddy tavern on any dusty road where they have barrels delivered by wagon after weeks of travel in the hot sun. This is Iberton. You’ll need to be more specific.”

  All three of the other patrons seated at the rail nodded and looked his way with pitiable expressions. Each was an older gentleman, the sort he’d expect to find drinking while the sun was still shining. “I’m sorry. I’m not following. What do you offer?”

  “Ale, and lots of it-the finest in Ghent.”

  “The finest anywhere,” said the oldest of the rail’s crew. He wore a lengthy gray beard that nestled on the bar and a tattered traveling cloak that was torn and mended with various colored threads. “And I should know-I’ve been there.” He raised his mug. The rest imitated him, each taking a swallow, and the mugs all hit the wood again with a singular thud.

  “I’ll have an ale, then,” Hadrian said with a smile.

  Again the doleful looks.

  “What kind?” Dougan asked, this time leaning over and resting his elbows on the counter. He jerked his head toward the walls where panel-painted advertisements hung. Each had some rendering of a mug, glass, or tankard spilling over and phrases such as A Taste of Summer’s Morn, Barley’s Banquet, Bittersweet to the Last.

  The walls were covered and Hadrian just stared.

  “Where you from?” Dougan asked, still looking up at him with that warm, cheerful smile.

  “Rhenydd,” he said. Hintindar was too small for anyone to know.

  “Ah … down south. First time up this way, then?”

  Hadrian nodded. He was still looking at what he realized was the tavern’s menu scattered over the walls. Some were beautiful, lovely paintings of the lake or masterfully carved in bas-relief. Others were crudely chiseled or written on bark with charcoal.

  “Okay, this here’s a barley town,” Dougan explained. “That’s what everyone does. They grow barley.”

  “And fish.” This time it was the fat gent nearest the door. He wore a priest’s frock and spoke with his hands. He made a casting motion and added, “Lots of good fishing here, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I thought Ghent was big on sheep and wool?” Hadrian said.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of that too,” Dougan said. “And if it’s a fine woolen tunic or cloak you want, I know the perfect place. But if it’s ale you’re after, you need walk no farther. Now, many people grow barley, and most of them who do make their own ale. This here is the perfect place for that. Barley farms and that lake out there provide the best ingredients in Elan. Just walk out and scoop up a bucket of water, and you’ll see that it’s crystal clear. We don’t even have a well. There’s no need. So all the big farms hereabouts have their own brands like Bittersweet and Summer’s Morn. Those are from farms up on the north shore, whereas Barley’s Banquet and Old Marbury are from the south.” Dougan pointed up at the shelf that ran near the ceiling that was lined in oversized, metal mugs. Writing was etched on each but was too far and too small for Hadrian to read. “Them’s the trophies handed out each year, and there’s a grand competition for the first place. So you can see Iberton takes its ale seriously.”

  Everyone at the bar-everyone in the tavern except Royce-watched Hadrian. Sensing pressure, he decided to play it safe. “What would you suggest?”

  This caused the priest to shift uneasily on his stool and the bartender to sigh. “That would be putting me in a precarious pinch. Being the dispenser, I must remain neutral.”

  “You’ll choke on anything other than Old Marbury,” said the man farthest away, the only one besides himself who wore a sword.

  “Before you decide,” the priest said, “you should know this is Lord Marbury.”

  “Oh?” Hadrian straightened up and offered a bow. “Your Lordship.”

  Everyone smiled in an embarrassed manner, except Lord Marbury, who scowled. “Do that again and I’ll stab you in the foot.”

  Hadrian looked to Dougan, who, by virtue of his winning smile, had become his helmet in a hailstorm.

  “It’s more of an honorary title now,” the bartender said.

  “The church doesn’t recognize ranks of nobility within Ghent,” the priest explained.

  Marbury grumbled, “The church wouldn’t recognize a-”

  “Another drink, Your Lordship?” Dougan said loudly, snatching up the mug before the man.

  “I wasn’t done with that one.”

  “Oh, I’d say you were. And let’s not forget we still haven’t found out where this young lad’s loyalties lie, have we? Or his friend’s for that matter.” Dougan stared at Hadrian expectantly. “Have you decided?”

  Hadrian was confused and uncertain where the topic of conversation had wandered. Then Dougan gestured at the advertisements again.

  “Oh … right. Um…” He glanced at Lord Marbury, who sat hunched over the rail glaring at Dougan. “I’ll try Old Marbury, I think.”

  This brought smiles from both His Lordship and Dougan, and Hadrian felt as if he’d finally said something right and had made more than a drink order.

  “I’m partial to Bittersweet,” the bearded traveler who had offered the toast admitted. Hadrian noticed the man jingled when he moved, but instead of a weapon, he was ornamented with numerous metal trinkets that dangled from a wide belt.

  “You’re a tinker?” Hadrian asked.

  “Tinker Bremey,” he introduced himself. His handshake was weak and began unpleasantly before their thumbs met. “I have good hooks if you’re here for the fishing.”

  “And what
might your friend be interested in?” Dougan asked, pointing toward Royce.

  “Good question. We haven’t known each other long.”

  “Join up on the road, did ya?”

  “No, we-”

  “I’m not thirsty,” Royce called.

  Marbury glanced over. “Then why in Maribor’s name did you come in here?”

  “He was thirsty.” Royce pointed at Hadrian. “I just wanted to get out of the wind. Is that all right?”

  “Sure.” Marbury nodded and turned to Hadrian. “Considerate fellow you’re riding with.”

  “Oh yeah.” Hadrian nodded and smiled. “That’s exactly how I describe him to everyone-considerate to a fault.”

  Royce smirked and folded his arms across his chest.

  “I sell a tight weave tent that blocks even the highest winds,” the tinker informed him. “Comes with nautical-quality rope and pegs to hold it in place. You stretch this lady out and she’ll keep you warm all night.”

  Dougan slapped Lord Marbury’s and Hadrian’s mugs on the bar, where both foamed over just like in the pictures. The bar went silent as Hadrian raised the drink to his lips. He was used to small, or table, beer in Calis, where they used an over-abundance of hops. This was stronger, richer and fresh. He was grinning before he drew the mug from his face.

  “Hah!” Marbury slapped the counter. “I told ya. I should win this year. Just look at him-there’s a happy man, if ever I saw one.”

  Hadrian nodded. “It’s good.”

  “He’s just being polite,” the priest said. “You can tell that’s the sort he is. Raised well. Mother was likely a devout member of the Nyphron Church.”

  “Actually, my mother passed when I was young,” Hadrian said. “My father … well, the only time he mentioned the gods was when he ruined a bit of metal or burned himself on the forge.”