He was going to do it.
‘Esyld . . .’ he murmured.
‘Esyld, go fetch some wood,’ ordered a voice behind him.
And Master Orbey’s firm hand fell upon the boy’s shoulder at the very moment when he was preparing to get up. Because Esyld had nodded to him before leaving her wooden stool. She moved towards the front door while her father took her place with an embarrassed air. She disappeared into the cold night and the door slammed behind her.
‘Sir,’ said Master Orbey, rubbing his hands near the fire, ‘I saw you the other day, training with Madog.’
He brushed his beard with the back of his hand, looking thoughtful before taking the plunge:
‘You aren’t very attentive, sir. I’m worried.’
Laerte gave him a brief glance before turning towards the door. He was only waiting for one thing: Esyld’s return. Unless he found a way to escape her father’s sermon and join her in the settling night.
‘I know you have been through a terrible ordeal, but . . . every wound closes.’
The blacksmith hesitated. Laerte looked sharply towards him, his eyes blazing. Neither of them dared to say a word. Until at last, Laerte broke the heavy silence.
‘I will not forget my family,’ he muttered defiantly.
‘I’m not asking you to,’ Orbey seemed to excuse himself, raising his hands before him. ‘Not for anything in the world. What I’m trying to say is that this wound eating away at you, you need to put it behind you. You must learn how to fight. For the memory of your father.’
‘You know nothing of him,’ the boy snapped, on the edge of tears.
By what right did this mere blacksmith evoke Oratio of Uster? Although he had been in his father’s service, he had no family bond with him. Any more than with his son.
‘I’m not asking you to forget him,’ Orbey insisted with greater conviction. ‘You can never do that. All wounds heal, although the scars remind us of them. And if the pain is less keen, it still cuts deep.’
He slowly stood up.
‘This loss, nothing will ever fill it. But . . . I dread that we will lose you if you don’t listen to Madog more closely.’
The boy did not have time to respond. The door opened with a sudden bang and two men, holding a third by the shoulders, entered the house shouting.
‘Come on, you cur! Tell them what you did!’
‘What is it?’ rumbled Meurnau.
‘It’s old Bastian from the Creeks house,’ explained one of the two men.
The third man did not attempt to hide his fear, his white hair tousled over a weathered face. Gaunt-looking, lost inside a thick cloak that fell to his worn-out, muddy boots, he cast wild eyes at the pair holding him in their grip.
‘Mercy . . . mercy,’ he begged in a high-pitched voice.
‘He was in Aëd’s Watch two days ago and not just to stock up on provisions. He’s a coward! A traitor!’ raged the other man.
Meurnau went to Bastian and gripped him by the throat.
‘What?’
‘I-I . . . I beg you,’ stammered Bastian.
‘What have you done?’
‘He’s sold us out,’ snarled one of the soldiers.
‘No, I-I just said . . .’
‘You said what?’ rasped Meurnau.
A distant voice interrupted the interrogation.
‘To arms! To arms! The Empire is coming!’
‘I didn’t want to,’ sobbed Bastian. ‘But they gave me money for my family. I told them you were in Braquenne, that you were protecting Laerte of Uster. He gave me money so that my family could eat. The winter is hard, sir, and—’
‘Who did you tell?’
‘Captain Etienne Azdeki,’ the old man confessed. ‘We can’t do anything against a knight with the animus,’ lamented Madog.
‘Laerte!’ Meurnau called.
Outside, the voices of the soldiers could be heard beneath the flickering torches. Azdeki was coming. Of the tumult that followed, Laerte only had a confused memory. The lieutenants drew their swords, people ran to and fro, and there was an increasing din. Until finally Meurnau’s hands lifted the stunned boy and carried him to the other end of the room, near a small door.
‘Laerte, you have to go,’ he said.
When the boy did not move, he raised his voice.
‘Do you hear me, Laerte? It’s Azdeki! I don’t know if we can escape him. You must flee. At least we can lead him away from you. Flee, Laerte! Go!’
But Laerte still didn’t move. The lieutenants left by the front door, and he heard their war cries. He heard the dry ring of swords striking one another, screams, and a rising roar . . . Yet everything seemed so slow in the boy’s eyes, so surprisingly blurry, and . . .
The hand that slapped his cheek brought him out of his torpor, his heart leaping in his chest. The Empire. The Empire was here. Fear held him in its grip and would not let go.
‘Flee, Laerte! Go on!’ shouted Meurnau as he opened the door.
Without further hesitation, the boy plunged into the night, barely hearing the door slam behind him over the pounding of his heart. He fell to his knees on the frozen earth and the din of the battle became more distinct. He feverishly regained his feet. To his right, the gigantic shadows of the combatants were projected against a wall. Deformed, yet splendid and frightening, they sometimes merged together, haloed in the reddish light of the torches.
‘Laerte?’ called a small voice.
She appeared out of the night, her breath whistling and her cheeks crimson from running. There was fear in her eyes. In the distance, the clamour of the battle continued to resound.
‘Run,’ she said brusquely. ‘Go away.’
He stood there at a loss, without knowing what to do or where to go, whether to fight or take flight, to die somewhere far from her or perhaps here in her arms or . . .
‘Go away, Laerte! Go!’
Her voice cracked like a whip, stinging him. She was not asking him to go, she was ordering it. Her fine features were twisted by a savageness that was quite unlike her.
‘Go away!’ she insisted.
He darted off into the night, making his way between the tall marsh grasses that lashed his face. He ran as fast as could, until the fighting was no more than a distant echo and only the icy starlight lit his path. His legs became heavy, his breathing painful, his throat dry and prickly, but he didn’t stop. Esyld’s voice repeated in his head, so harsh and brutal: ‘Go away, go, go away!’
His boots sank into stagnant water but still he went on. He almost became mired in a patch of thick sludge. He went on. He fell, scraping his knee against a jutting rock, and almost smothered himself in the mud as he wept. He got up and went on.
His chest was on fire and he felt dizzy. His breath rasped in his throat and his heart felt ready to explode; and tears ran down his mud-stained cheeks in a steady flow. There was only blackness before him, a series of barely distinguishable shadows, and the sound of hoots and snapping wood carried on the slow breeze. He was all alone out here, in the dark . . .
He fell forward. And this time he did not get up. There was nothing but pitch blackness and a long soothing silence. Then a murmur, like a distant chirping.
Laerte blinked. Something viscous, with a bitter taste, was obstructing his mouth. He coughed once, closing his eyes.
The wind caressed his cheek, lifting his filthy hair. He coughed again, harder this time, and gradually recovered his wits. He was lying on his belly among the tall grasses, sunk in the mud with part of his face immersed. He rose with a start before immediately folding in two, coughing up the soggy earth that was choking him. When he finally felt better, he stood up. He had no idea how long he’d been running. Swamps surrounded him for as far as the eye could see. Except for . . . protruding from the tall grasses, turned upon its side atop a small dry mound, he recognised the cart with the hornets’ nest. He decided to make his way towards it, taking stumbling steps. He was exhausted, his mind empty and he collapsed on t
he dry ground a few yards from the cart and passed out again.
When he regained consciousness, a host of question assailed him. What would become of him now he was alone? What could he do? Where could he go? How would he survive? Had Meurnau fought off the attack? Esyld . . . she’d survived, he felt certain of it. She could not die. He would go find her and . . . no. He knew nothing for sure, except that Empire had killed his family and was hunting him like a cur. He was reduced to the state of a beast at bay.
Amidst his worries, he gave a cry of joy upon seeing the broken hornet’s nest lying on the ground. This simply discovery offered such relief that he almost sobbed. The Erain frog had stuffed itself full of insects, leaving only the dried-out empty husk of their shelter. The cart was suddenly as welcoming as any of the houses at Braquenne and the boy began to search the crates, looking for the means to arrange a comfortable hideaway. He spread old fabrics on the ground, devoured peaches from jars as if he hadn’t eaten for days, and finally fell asleep when the sun was at its zenith.
Over the following days, this consolation faded away to be replaced by a terrible sense of despair. Not a soul passed through the neighbouring marshes; Laerte was well and truly alone. Meurnau had probably died during the attack by the Imperial soldiers. The days became weeks and the spring arrived in a timely manner to warm the Saltmarsh’s breeze. Tormented by hunger pangs, Laerte had been forced to learn how to hunt hive frogs, remembering Esyld’s claims that their tender meat was similar to chicken.
He tried to make fire without success, managing to cut his hand several times in the process. He had to content himself with eating the frogs raw, almost vomiting with each mouthful. The flesh was slimy, the blood sticky, the nerves hard to chew. But it was the only food available to him. Everything he had learned from Esyld, which had seemed so useless at the time, he now used to survive. Because the marshes were a veritable breeding ground for frogs with multiple virtues. The mucus from one allowed him to prepare an ointment, while another turned out to be a nourishing dish.
Several times he pondered leaving his hideout and trying to reach Aëd’s Watch. But was he even certain of finding the right path through the swamps and, if he did, what would he find in the town? Meurnau and his men, if they had survived, would surely have combed the countryside looking for him. But what if they believed he was dead?
The days passed and his despair grew so oppressive that he became incapable of doing anything at all. He remained prostrate, famished and weary . . . and then came a morning when he finally came close to death and found he lacked the courage to face it. He finally stood up, and decided not to let himself die in this place.
The weeks became months, the mildness of spring became the heat of summer. Until that day when, moving through the tall grasses far from his lair, hunting hive frogs, he heard a voice roar:
‘Azdeki! Godsfuck! Tomlinn!’
Through the grasses, he could make out a man on horseback sweeping the air with his sword. And circling him were three growling rouargs.
‘Tomlinn! Azdeki!’
When one of the beasts leapt upon the knight, toppling both rider and steed, Laerte fought the urge to run away as fast as he could. But it was not morbid curiosity that led him to watch the massacre, no, it was a sense of vengeance. The Imperial troops had killed his family . . . and now it was if his own region was avenging the Count of Uster and his people. He stood up to get a better view of the man being devoured but then immediately crouched down again, nervous. In the distance he’d seen at least sixty other soldiers carrying heavy pieces of wood, parts of what looked like a dismantled bridge. When he dared to lift his head again, he watched them march away without any hint of concern for their comrade.
‘Azdeki! Tomlinn!’ screamed the knight, just a few yards away from him.
The rouarg’s snarling covered his voice; the knight would soon be torn to shreds. Laerte decided to leave the scene, preferring not to hear his death screams. Especially since he risked the same fate himself if one of the rouargs noticed his presence. He turned around, still crouching, when his hand brushed against the bulge in his pocket. The whistle. The rouarg whistle. A feeling of guilt came over him, more cutting than a sword, heavier than lead, unbearably painful. To watch a man die, whoever he might be, was one thing. But to fail to intervene when one had the means to save that man’s life was another. The satisfaction he derived from seeing vengeance done collapsed beneath the weight of a shame as unexpected as it was sudden. Would he really allow the man to die like this?
He heard a strange sound behind him.
Throwing a frightened glance over his shoulder, he witnessed the unthinkable. The rouarg was thrown into the air by an invisible force and, along with it, the mauled carcass of a horse. A terrible scream rang out, harrowing, so awful that Laerte sank into the mud and covered his ears. Was it possible to suffer so much? The cry had nothing human about it and, when it died, it was like an icy silence had fallen on the marshes. Laerte plunged his hand into his pocket and seized the whistle. He held it so tightly it felt as though the piece of wood had pierced his palm and when the wind carried the thuds of an approaching rouarg, he brought it to his lips. He tried to blow, hard and fast, in bursts. No sound came out. His throat was too constricted and he gasped for breath. The thudding drew closer and the grasses bent beneath the wind. He inhaled, swelling his lungs, and blew, stronger still, forcing as much air as possible into the tiny piece of hollow wood. He needed to blow harder. There was a growling noise, so close that he thought he could feel the beast’s fetid breath on him. He filled his lungs and blew again and was rewarded with a dull snarl. Then a second. And a third which he continued until his face turned bright scarlet.
Believing they heard the roar of a male, the female rouargs immediately fled and Laerte found the courage to stand up, still short of breath. The Imperial troops had vanished over the horizon. The tall grasses waved slowly beneath a sparkling white sky. Little by little, nature emerged from its torpor and the croaking of frogs became audible again. Not far from them, a harnessed horse came towards him at a walk, looking lost. Its reins hung from its neck, and a badly clawed red saddle sat on its back.
‘Why . . . ?’
He examined the knight’s body and almost fainted when he saw the crushed leg, the blood mixing into the marsh mud in odd spirals.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
It was perhaps simple compassion that made him try to save the knight when he was at death’s door. His respiration was weak. His skin was pale.
‘I thought you were dead . . . I thought you were . . .’
It was perhaps mercy that made him bring the man to his hide-away . . . and then watched him gradually decline without feeling anything, neither pity nor hate. When he saw the empty scabbard at the man’s belt, he went back out into the heart of the marsh to look for the sword. He spent more than an hour searching the thick mud in the rain. A foul odour assailed his nostrils but it was nothing compared to the fear churning inside his belly. Several times he halted, listening for any sound other than the drops striking the soft earth. But no rouarg interrupted him before his hand, at last, touched the pommel of a buried sword. He started back towards his makeshift camp, his heart still pounding, but his fear faded as each step took him closer to home.
Lying near the cart, the wounded knight was babbling deliriously, his face soaked with sweat, writhing in pain.
‘Why, Frog . . . ?’
‘Why what, Wader?’
That first night he spent kneeling beside the dying man, firmly gripping the sword’s hilt in his damp hands. The rain fell heavily. And the drops, which filtered between the cart’s boards, mixed with his tears. Sobbing, he lifted the blade over the body as it twitched in pain. He could lower it, split the armour, pierce it and put an end to all this. They had killed his father.
‘Why didn’t you let me die there, in the Saltmarsh?’
The second night, when he had already begun to clean and bandage the ma
n’s wounds, he wondered again if he should finish the knight off. The sword was heavy . . . he only needed to add a little force to the blow for its weight to do the rest and penetrate the man’s torso.
He wept . . . he couldn’t do it. He longed to do it, to avenge those he had lost, to answer the deeds that had stripped his mother and little sister of all dignity. They had been broken, he could do the same . . . Or so he believed . . . But he was not capable of it, not yet.
‘You were merely a child . . .’
He let himself fall to the side with a moan, crying hot tears, cursing himself for being so weak. Between sobs, he opened his eyes.
‘You could have let me die . . .’
A few yards in front of him, an Erain frog looked at him without moving, the pale glow of a wan moon reflected in its black eyes.
An Erain frog . . .
‘You were just a child . . .’
*
‘You could have let me die . . . You were just a child . . .’
‘My childhood ended the day I hesitated for the first time,,’ Laerte replied.
He could barely remember the warm humid air of the Saltmarsh now. Here in Masalia, the nights were dry and stifling. Times had changed . . .
‘And the day I saved you, believe me . . . I hesitated,’ he added in a frighteningly calm voice.
Leaning against the wall of a kitchen, arms crossed, his piercing grey eyes lingered on the old general sitting at the table. Before them, placed on the brown cloth that had hidden it for so many years, Eraëd glittered in the light of an oil lamp. By the door, Rogant stood watch like a guard. On the other side of the room, her red hair ruffled by the light breeze coming through the half-opened window, Viola leaned against the ledge with both hands. They had brought the general to this house not far from the port. It had been their hideout since their arrival in Masalia, while Viola tried to win the old man over.
The Path of Anger Page 27
