“People are shaped by their pain,” she said into my ear when she was done. “What did you do to earn this, Karl?”
Memories swirled around in my head, pleasure and warmth in a feather bed, followed by hours of agony tied to the cross. I groaned, “I took a nobleman's wife. Her husband took her campaigning, then abandoned her in her tent of nights while he pranced around and rode every whore in camp. She was lonely and beautiful, I was there and I was young. You remind me of her, actually...”
Had to swallow a nervous lump as my breeches tightened. That was a dangerous thing to think. I needed to say no without offending her, and soon.
She nodded. “I understand. Under my khan, another man's wife may be taken only by duel. Otherwise you invite terrible wrath.” She sat on her knees and breathed in silence, little currents of cool air tickling my skin. Then, “You are strong not to have broken.”
Shaking my head, I breathed, “She came to my cell the night before they tied me to the cross, in secret, and gave me her favour. A white silk scarf. I held it in my hand and...” And laughed at each stroke the sergeant-major dealt me even as the tears rolled down my face. I couldn't finish the sentence. The love of a woman like that wasn't something you ever forgot. I recognised the same heart in this steppe-hardened girl pressed up against me, knew full well I had to get away before the last of my willpower crumbled before her. What was I even doing here? I shouldn't have come!
Her arms snaked around my shoulders and held me tight, her small breasts rubbing against me. I tried to pull away but the arms held me firm, shockingly strong, and then her tongue was at my earlobe and whispering, “Then I must have had your favour with me tonight, Karl. For the first time, I did not cry.”
I was lost the instant she spoke those words. My heart lurched into my throat. She started kissing me, and I let her ‒ I let it all happen in a daze and didn't stop until morning.
Much later, I stumbled back into my own tent and dressed myself for the day's march. Exhausted and guilty, yet possessed by an excited, fearful flutter in my stomach. If anyone found out it could mean trouble. The woman ‒ I couldn't get myself to think of her as 'Lady Silbane,' the name simply did not do her justice ‒ would probably be furious. And she had my name on that contract, written in blood.
I emerged into daylight with last night's wine still fuzzing my head. “Sir Byren,” the squire chirped, waiting for me outside. He wore a strange smile on his lips. “We strike tents in half an hour. Until then, my master and the lady beg you to break your fast with them.”
I harumphed. “I'm no sir, lad. Call me Byren.”
“Oh. I-I'll try.”
He led me to nice spot between two heavy oak trees, where a large blanket had been laid down for the occasion. It bore a whole spread of breads, wines, cheeses, butter, jam, salt pork and even a pot of coffee, a ruinously expensive drink well beyond the means of men like me. I swallowed a mouthful of saliva and sat down to eat with as much restraint as I could muster.
“Tonight we'll try to reach Farrowhale,” said the woman, her red lips curled into a smile, and I found my raw desire for her undiminished after a night with Yazizi. If she were still annoyed about yesterday, she didn't show a hint of it. “If we're at the gates before sundown, we'll have good accommodations for the night. I'll also be able to conduct certain... business I have in Farrowhale without any delays.”
That explained Farrowhale as a destination. It was in the wrong direction to reach the front lines, too far west.
She smacked her lips. “Now... Sir Erroll, might you do me the honour of overseeing the camp? I'd like to talk alone with Byren. There are matters he must be made privy to.”
The knight rose and bowed his head, then went off shouting and blinding to get the baggage in order. Soon all the youngsters were being worked like dogs. The woman smiled indulgently at the noise, shaking her head.
“Our knight does not spare the rod, hmm? You, on the other hand, I've come to appreciate as a man of restraint, Byren. I never congratulated you on your handling that little crisis in Oristo. You saved me from having to have her hanged.”
“I did what you contracted me for, Milady. Getting us out of trouble.”
“Exactly, and I realised you can't protect us from things you don't know about. You deserve more of an explanation.”
I sat back, my interest suddenly piqued. The fog in my head vanished like snow. “About Adar and the sword,” I volunteered.
“About everything. 'What's written in blood cannot be undone,' so they say, and you've proven twice over that hiring you was the right decision.”
She threw an errant black lock back behind her ear with a flick of her head, and gave me a little smile. It nearly stopped my heart. For that instant when she dropped the aristocratic facade, she looked achingly beautiful, more real and more human than I believed possible. I swallowed.
She went on, “I have to make an admission. The truth is, I didn't seek you out for your skills or your reputation. I may need your help in Farrowhale, you and Adar. My business involves you both.”
A slow grin twisted my lips. I knew it. “His sword and my plate. Same bronze, same craftsmanship. You want to find out more about them?”
“Not only that. There's another item in Farrowhale, a helm belonging to a professor at Scholar's Hall. No one seems to know who forged it or how he came by it, and he refuses to sell under any circumstances. We'll convince him to join us. If there are more items to be found, they'll be somewhere along the front lines, and the Professor can help us track them down.”
She cocked her head at me and parted her lips ever so slightly, drawing in breath. She went on, “Now that I've been honest with you, I'd like to beg the same in return. Would you tell me where you got that breastplate?”
I barked a short laugh. “If you've heard of me at all, Milady, you've been bored with that story.”
“I'd very much like to hear it from the horse's mouth,” she said in a pleasant, encouraging tone. “It may give me some insight.”
It was a foregone conclusion. I'd tell her anything she wanted, and we both knew it.
“It was my second tour as a Contractor, following a pair of rogues known as Poull and Rorik, brothers from some seaside town near the border with Feldland. Not the brightest of lads, but strong and cunning. Seemed a clever antiques dealer had tricked them out of their farm and turned it into a digging site for old frippery. The brothers were livid, and wanted to take fair payment out of him in return. I was still young, fresh out of the Army, and their little adventure sounded like fun. They had a plan all drawn up, they just needed a more experienced fighter. The only man they'd trust to help was the kind of mercenary who wouldn't be bought out from under them.
“We trekked into the city and made sure everything was in place for the operation. The next night we went in, climbed up the antique dealer's tower and burst into his bedroom. What we didn't know was that he was a paranoid maniac who'd hired a Feldlander bodyguard from the Gallowsmaid Order to stand at the foot of his bed every night with a bloody great sword in her hands. This girl was half again as tall as me, arms like a blacksmith's and a jaw you could crack rocks on, fierce red hair all the way down to her waist and eyes shot through with blood.” I was gesticulating wildly to bring across my younger self's surprise, fear and wonder. The woman giggled behind her handkerchief.
“I was so shocked I stopped dead in my tracks, which is what saved me. The brothers lunged forward with their axes but she stepped back and opened them up with one easy slice of that sword. It went right through their jerkins. Then she rounded on me.” An echo of fear quickened my heart all the way back from eight years ago. “I jabbed my spear at her. She set it aside with her sword and yanked it right out of my grip, but that bought me a few seconds to draw my own sword. I got it out just in time to parry her massive blow, which broke my arm like a twig. She hadn't expected that, and lost her balance. Although I was half-blind with pain, in the moment she stumbled, I took my belt knif
e and sunk it into her throat. She died in my arms, saluting me.
“The antique dealer himself was a tall, piggy bastard two hairs short of cowardice. He stumbled out of bed holding a little Feldish rapier, wearing my plate over his white silk nightgown and a steel gorget to keep his throat uncut. He called me an assassin and told me to leave. He said the breastplate was host to dark magics and would protect him from harm, so I'd best flee before he ran me through. You could tell he really believed that story. If he'd had a whole suit of bronze, he'd sleep in it every night.” I chuckled. “I picked up my sword in my left, put him on the ground and cut his head off at the chin. I got his plate and his gold, everything I could carry in one arm, and ran all the way back to Corver.”
She looked at me with fresh interest. “Intriguing. I wonder where your antique dealer unearthed his treasure.” Then, abruptly, she stood up. “It's time we left. Walk next to me and I'll tell you Adar's story.”
I nodded and went to gather my things.
The woman rode sidesaddle as we travelled under the morning sun and recounted everything. I let her words roll over me like waves across the shore, each one made beautiful by that warm, melodic voice.
One day, long ago, an old wise man was travelling through the countryside. He stopped at the spot where Adar's village now stood, just a hot spring in amongst rocks and flooded fields of wild barley, and he found a bronze sword shining at the bottom of the spring. The wise man concluded it to be a message from God and tried to dive for it, but the waters at the bottom of the spring were so hot they scalded him and left his hands covered in painful blisters. He was forced to give up and swim back to the surface. He could do no more that day, and slept a fitful sleep, haunted by gleaming bronze dreams.
The next morning he cut off a nearby tree-branch and fashioned a staff out of it, so that he might reach the sword without the use of his hands. However, even with the pole he could only poke at the sword, and it wouldn't float. Cursing his luck, the wise man broke the staff over his knee and slept.
The second morning he wove a loop from his robes and tried to hook it around the sword to lift it up. When he hooked the blade, he crowed with victory, but when the cloth tightened against the blade it was cut through on both sides. The wise man bemoaned his luck and slept.
The third morning he ate the last of his food and thought. He couldn't move the sword, nor drain the spring. For hours and hours he pondered but couldn't find a solution. As nightfall set in, the wise man wept at his powerlessness and tried once again to sleep.
All night he tossed and turned. Finally he couldn't bear it, and in the pitch darkness he crawled to the side of the spring, hungry and dirty and humble. With eyes closed in prayer, he beseeched God for the wisdom he lacked, and prayed for hours until he felt the light of dawn on his face. When he opened his eyes he found the sword washed up on the shore in front of him. He picked it up and knew at once that his life's duty would be to build a shrine and a village of worshippers to this weapon. He built it with the words, “The sword can make fools of all men.”
“And Adar was born to these sword-wordshippers,” I surmised as she finished.
“Yes. I don't know the whole of it, but it seems he was the son of an uncertain father, and the bickering about him only stopped when the village elder stepped in and called him a child of prophecy.” She shrugged. “Just as well. The boy's too weak to be a farmer, too timid for soldiering, too awkward for a craft and too tongue-tied to do anything else. I only wanted the sword, but it came with strings attached.”
I scratched my beard, which had grown long enough to start irritating me, though I hadn't found the patience to shave so far. “How come you haven't taken it away?”
“You never know when there's some hint of truth to legends and prophecies. Supposedly Adar is meant to write the final pages of the sword's history.” There was a mischievous gleam in her eye. “And I'd strike a poor figure with a sword belted round my waist, wouldn't I?”
“I'm not so sure about that,” I told her, and made her laugh.
For a minute she didn't say anything, just stared at the horizon with unfocused eyes, the reins held loosely in her delicate fingers. “Saints help me, sometimes I feel for the boy, lowborn and wretched though he is. Loaded with responsibility yet pathetically ill-suited to it. What a lot in life.”
She seemed distracted, preoccupied ‒ off her guard. I finally dared to voice the thought bubbling at the back of my mind, the question no Contractor should ever ask of their employer. “Why are you here, Milady?” She looked at me, and I hurried to add, “I mean, a woman of wealth like yourself travelling all this way for a simple treasure hunt? You don't seem the type to risk your life for gold or silver.”
“Mmm. Maybe you ought to wonder whether we're hunting anything at all.” She smiled down at me from her horse. “Do you believe in destiny, Byren?”
“I... Can't say I've met her, Milady.”
She nodded and giggled to herself. “You may yet.”
Waving a quick farewell, she rode on ahead, leaving me to march next to the wagon and within arm's reach of the slave girl walking behind it. Yazizi didn't come near me, though. She acted as if absolutely nothing had happened. My stomach churned as I remembered everything that did happen.
“Women,” I muttered darkly.
We spent the rest of the day marching hard towards the north and west, and in the last light of the sun I spotted the outer wall of Farrowhale rising darkly in the distance. We made it the rest of the way by torchlight. The gates were already drawn and bolted by the time we arrived, but I was acquainted with one of the guards and bribed him to pass us though a small postern gate, far off the main road. Of course the inner city would be locked up tight as a drum until morning, so for the moment we searched the pitch-dark alleys of Farrowhale for a decent inn where we could kip the night.
Fortunately I'd come this way in the world before. I knew which stones held the moss.
Once we reached the Fire and Wine, I got my room and then availed myself of the owner's home-brewed brandy until I passed out. I didn't think of Yazizi, and I certainly didn't think of the woman. I told myself I didn't want to get entangled any further.
My dreams called me a liar. Female scents, flashes of sweat-slick skin grinding against mine. Sometimes my lover seemed dark as smoke. Sometimes... not. Finally I caught a glimpse of ruby-red lips and then I woke up.
I drew my hood over my eyes as far as possible, shielding them from the morning glare. They weren't up to facing daylight yet. I would've been in bed still, but Farrowhale had other plans. Every bloody church in town was banging away at its bells to ring in the new day or some such bollocks. Each time I heard another gong down the street, the sound echoed over and over in my head until my brain was ready to burst.
When I managed to squint through the blinding sun, Farrowhale didn't seem to match how it looked in my memory. The war had changed since I left the Army, and when places as far south as Newmond flooded with refugees, even more of them came to Farrowhale to try to find a new life. One that didn't include being robbed, raped or butchered every few weeks.
Whether or not they found what they were looking for, I saw dark skin everywhere along the streets and bazaars, endless faces the colour of varnished cherrywood. By now they outnumbered the city's original population by two to one. The streets were clogged with barely-living bodies, unemployed and malnourished, withering away as they begged for alms. Pretty soon this place would be nothing more than a corpse pit for black fever.
The old Halers had recognised that too. Overheard shreds of conversation told me that most of them had already packed up and left for the deep south or all the way to Feldland. Those who could afford the rent boarded themselves up in the inner city, now heavily guarded against the threat of sick refugees coming in. They still lived in relative comfort while famine and disease gripped the people outside. It reminded me of a protracted siege.
Understandably, tempers ran high.
I came through the press of bodies only to find a cruel little farce playing out at the White Gate, the sole entrance to the inner city. Several Haler guards pushed around an emaciated old man who cried out for help in Northern. He couldn't or wouldn't respond to the guards' challenges in Southern, which only spurred on the beating. They shoved him to the ground over and over again, kicked him like a dog despite pathetic yelps of pain, and I had to look away.
Some parts of the North were so rural, the people never learned to speak Southern. Didn't have any use for it. The guards would know that, but they didn't care.
A crowd of underfed Northerners stood watching the event with jaws and fists clenched in impotent rage. The glint of steel halberds and crossbow quarrels kept them at bay, but the only thing that stopped them from tearing me to bloody ribbons was the hood hiding the colour of my face. I shouldered through them in a hurry.
The guards eyeballed me fiercely as I strode up to the towering gatehouse and demanded to be let in. They moved to bar the way, stern-faced and ready to gut me, until I pulled back my hood. Once they saw the colour of my face they nodded and waved me through.
Freshly cleaned cobbles greeted me on the other side, free of soot and grease. Everywhere I looked I saw the roofs and steeples of mansions and public buildings rise above the simpler, timber facades of shops and houses. Church towers and their deeply ringing bells stood high and proud against the blue sky. Finally, rising above everything at the very top of Farrow Hill, there was the castle.
Vast curtain walls stretched all around it, blocks upon blocks of hard granite white-washed to a milky colour. A network of turrets and a massive keep challenged the heavens above, their tops covered with bombards and catapults, uncovered and ready to fire. Short of Winter Court in Kingsport, Farrowhale was the most powerful fortress in the Kingdom.
Written in Blood Page 4
