Gathering (Chronicles of Empire 1)

by Brian G Turner

  Sirath kept back as long as possible, then tentatively approached. Closer up, Ulric looked younger — perhaps only a couple more years from boyhood than himself. Still much stronger, though. Sirath had to find a safe way to engage the big man. “This weather’s a sod.”

  Ulric nodded. “Just like back home.”

  “You’re not local, then?”

  “No. Traveling.”

  “Why? Hunting someone? No one dangerous around here, I hope?” Even as Sirath tried to joke about it, he could feel his scalp prickle with tension. He might be pushing things too hard, but he had to figure out if Ulric was a danger, and fast.

  Ulric burst into hearty laughter. “Hunt someone? No, just game. Rabbits, birds. And boar, when allowed.”

  Sirath pretended to share the man’s humor. “You must face some vicious bunnies to need a sword?”

  Ulric shrugged. “Auntie got that at market. Was worried about me being attacked by outlaws.”

  Sirath dared to edge nearer the fire. If Ulric was concerned about robbers, he might welcome company. Better to keep the big man relaxed and talking. “So ... where you going?”

  “City of Corianth.”

  “Sounds like a long way for you?”

  “Just felt I should. Time to seek my place in the world. Walk away to find my fate.”

  Sirath could tell there was a story not being told, but wasn’t about to pry. “Don’t get your hopes up. The gutter’s where most people end up when they seek their fortune. That’s where life puts them when they ask for too much. I’ve seen plenty of that. Ask for nothing, expect nothing, and you won’t be disappointed.”

  “I’ll remember not to ask for too much, then.” Ulric glanced aside. “You headed there?”

  “Suppose I must be. I should sell them animals in the city hay markets. Get more coin than in some village backwater.”

  “Weren’t you already going?”

  “I might have been thinking about it. I just wandered, see where I ended up. Seeking my fortune, if you like.” Sirath smiled. He realized he’d relaxed a little. Ulric had an honest manner that was disarming. But Sirath still needed to remain on his guard.

  They shared an awkward silence. A burst of hailstone rattled outside. Water dripped over the cave mouth.

  Ulric threw a piece of his broken bow shaft onto the fire. “You see any wood back there?”

  “No, but I’ll look again.” Sirath stood, glad for the chance to walk off his nerves. He found scattered ashes from previous fires, but nothing useful. So he wandered about the cavern, getting a measure of it. He looked for nooks and cracks he might sneak into if needed. But the walls were smooth, and there were only a few rocks that could provide any hiding place. He should move on, and soon, with or without Ulric — before someone less welcome appeared. Sirath checked on his mules to make sure they were settled and still tied together, and able to leave quickly.

  Voices sounded behind.

  Sirath spun around as two figures entered the cave. He ducked behind rocks, his throat tightening like he was going to be sick. He should never have taken those animals — they’d slowed him down and now he was a walking dead man.

  Ulric spoke with the strangers. Sirath dared to glance up and saw a finger pointed his way. What a fool he’d been not to realize Ulric might be with company! No wonder the big man hadn’t looked worried, with accomplices close by. There was no point hiding now they all knew where he was.

  Sirath planned to step forward with a cheeky wave and attempt some charm, hoping to win over some goodwill, even mercy. Instead he tripped and almost fell, his legs stiff from fear and the biting cold.

  Two young women stood with Ulric, both about his own age. Sirath didn’t recognize them from the inn, and with a flutter of hope realized Ulric was introducing himself — he didn’t know them, either.

  The nearest was pretty, sun-kissed bronze and blonde, with bright eyes. She had money and class, judging by her blue velvet jacket, white shirt, black breeches and boots. She carried nothing more than a leather satchel, and showed no sign of a concealed blade. “Merry meet! I’m Jerine. How do you do?”

  The other wore a simple wool habit, with a bag at each shoulder. She pulled back her cowl to reveal the face of a black southerner, framed with short curls. “My name is Erin. I am an acolyte for the Order of Omicron.”

  “Warm yourselves by the fire,” Ulric said. “You’re welcome to share.”

  Erin put her bags down by her boots, water dribbling to the dust of the cave floor. “The light be with you, thank you for your hospitality. I did fear I might never escape this atrocious weather.”

  Jerine seated herself on a rock beside Ulric. “We saw a mule train in the distance, and followed it here. We may not have found shelter, otherwise.”

  Sirath kept back and gritted his teeth. He cursed his bad luck to have led the women here. Jerine smiled too easily, and he distrusted privilege on sight. But it was the acolyte who unsettled him most — he’d suffered enough of the Order’s gang violence on the streets of Canalecht. Sirath wanted nothing more than both women gone. But he’d enemies enough, and willed his mouth to stay shut against making more — if he could manage that.

  Ulric took out a mean hunting knife and began to carve the remaining piece of wood from his bow. The first shavings sparked as they fell into the fire. The women chatted with him about the weather.

  Sirath twitched, watching in case anyone else appeared. Jerine might have servants following, and it would only take one to have heard talk of a mule thief. No one came. But he needed to know if he should just run now. “You two traveling alone?”

  Jerine nodded. “We met a short way back along the track.”

  Sirath’s stomach uncoiled with relief — but it was clear he should leave. It might be better to sell the mules to Jerine, and escape with coin in his hand. He pointed to the animals. “If you’d prefer to ride instead of walk, you could always buy them.”

  Jerine followed his gaze and appeared thoughtful. “If they’re broken in for riding, I may like to borrow them.”

  “Borrow?” Sirath repeated. You couldn’t trust anyone, but the rich even less. “I rode one for a bit. Didn’t want to get rubbed raw. Why?”

  “There’s a road in these hills that leads to Arris Town. I’m going there to meet my twin sister, at an inn. She’s offering work in Corianth.”

  Sirath narrowed his eyes. “What sort of work?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s for a city councilor, so the pay should be good. If any of you are interested?”

  Ulric shrugged. Erin looked away.

  “Sounds tempting,” Sirath said. Solid work meant a full purse, and was better than being lost and hunted in these hills. Especially as he remembered cities as expensive places. If she was telling the truth. “Why did you say borrow? You don’t want to pay for the mules?”

  “We can’t be far, so I wouldn’t need to buy them. However, there are all sorts of expenses for maintaining healthy animals. Stabling, feeding, grooming, the cost of a surgeon — ”

  “Alright,” Sirath snapped, annoyed because he didn’t have a penny for their care. “What’s your offer?”

  “If you allowed us the use of your mules, I would pay for their costs.”

  Sirath tried to find the trap in this arrangement. Jerine could just disappear with everything. When you stole horses in Canalecht you used stealth and luck, and if it all went wrong, the speed of the animals. Sirath looked at the mules — they hadn’t moved fast for him. Jerine was right about the expense, though. Either she was a dangerous trickster, or a potential patron. At the moment he couldn’t tell which. “That's all good talk, but do you have the money for it? I don’t mean to be disrespectful or nothing, but words are more easily said than done.”

  Jerine picked up her leather satchel and unstrapped it. She pulled out a bag of black velvet, tied up with string, and passed it to him. “Take a peek in there.”

  Sirath frowned — no sane person handed over a purse to
a stranger. But his greed was fired and he took it anyway. It was heavier than he expected. “By, that’s a weight ... you must have a few rocks in that!” He laughed, trying to cover his feelings of unease and excitement. He loosened the string — awkward with cold fingers — and pulled it open. His smile froze as he found the bag filled with money. Sirath slowly lifted out a decate sovereign, almost as large as his palm, and whistled involuntarily. He held gold in his hand!

  That alone would allow him to live like a king for months. The rest was mostly silver guilders, Irithian issue, so more highly valued for their purity. He wondered whether he could get away with palming the sovereign — probably not as he'd drawn attention to it. He might still be able to slip a guilder or two into his boot, though his hands were still too numb to risk deft movement. In fact, why not just run with the purse out of the cave and have it all?

  Sirath looked up and saw Jerine smiling through him. Ulric’s knife glinted as he whittled beside her. Sirath shivered, and this time not from the cold. So why did Jerine allow Sirath to hold her fortune? Ah, but she was offering opportunity. Hiding and stealing was a way to survive on the streets, but in Jerine's world, you used promises backed with gold. That was the whole point of money.

  They could both travel in the safety of a group. Sirath had the transport, and Jerine the coin to pay for it. Everyone won. The revelation only took a moment, but it left him feeling awkward. “You’re going to get robbed if you keep offering your purse. Quick, get this lot out my face before I’m tempted myself.”

  And that was that. Sirath had made his decision. No more running.

  Jerine smiled. “Oh, I knew you wouldn't.”

  Sirath fumbled with the string. He sighed and returned it with the purse to Jerine. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at doing knots. I’m a lot better at undoing them.”

  “So, Sirath, do you trust my word now?”

  He put on an agreeable voice, “Jerine, I liked you lots already ... now I like you even more. If you’re paying costs then you’re welcome to use my animals.” Sirath waited until she’d tied her purse, then with a wink flipped over the guilder he’d palmed.

  He didn’t enjoy the thought of traveling with Erin. And Ulric was more likely to listen to Jerine than him. But Sirath would have to risk it. Better to leave with a group who knew where they were going, than be lost alone and hunted in these hills. He could only hope Jerine made good on her word. Otherwise life was going to get very dangerous, very fast.

  Small Blessings

  Erin

  Erin followed the others out from the cave and prepared to continue her journey — and face judgment in the city of Corianth.

  She pulled her sodden habit in against a bracing wind. At least the sleet had stopped, and it would be a relief to travel in company again. Sirath lined up the mules and glared at her. Jerine told everyone to mount them. The animals had no saddle to hold onto, and Erin struggled to climb up.

  Ulric crouched down. “Stand on my leg.” He held his arm out to steady her.

  She used him to haul herself over. The mule’s back was hard and wet and uncomfortable, but she thanked Ulric for his kindness.

  When everyone was ready, Jerine led them at a walk along the dirt track. Erin gripped tightly to the mule’s mane to stop herself from slipping off. They crossed a low ridge, then over boggy heath that sucked at the animals’ hoofs.

  Every step took her closer to her presentation, and ordination. The moment she had spent her life dreaming about. Now it brought only dread — of facing a life of no faith, within or without the Order. It had begun when she had watched the village children die, God deaf to her prayers. If her faith had cracked then, Mallian had made it a chasm.

  “Tired?”

  Erin looked up. Jerine had dropped back to ride alongside her. Erin smiled weakly. “A little.”

  “I’m sorry we weren’t able to speak properly before, above the storm,” Jerine said. “Where are you from? Your accent is familiar.”

  “I ... I have traveled from Pora, across the Angellenic Sea from Mardin.”

  “I thought so! I’ve just come from Mardin. I always loved swimming in the sea. Ah, the beaches and fishes. And, of course, the Great Library. Did you visit there?”

  Erin shook her head. “I could not stay long.”

  “That’s a shame. The Great Library is wonderful. Mardin is a beautiful place.”

  Erin was not so sure. There she had been surrounded by the contrasts of the ancient city. White gleaming towers, said to be encrusted with gems by Queen Messilda herself, dropped their shadows over slum alleyways ravaged by poverty. The charity of the Order had been nowhere in sight. The Order of Omicron had forgotten its own foundations. Instead of blessing the poor, it served the rich. No wonder God had become lost to her.

  Erin fidgeted with her sandalwood prayer necklace. “I am grateful to travel with you, and for shelter at the inn when we arrive. Yet once I reach Corianth, my presentation is everything.” Erin felt a pang of guilt to decline the offer of employment, when she would have wandered astray in these hills without Jerine’s guidance. Erin feared to have offended by the refusal.

  Jerine raised a hand and halted. “Aha, here we are!”

  It was an old road, long in disrepair, with cracked stones strewn about the heather. It was probably what Erin had been directed to find before — she must have turned onto a cattle track by mistake. Another misjudgment on her part.

  Jerine suggested that they ride alongside the road rather than on it. Partly to avoid a trip and fall, but also because the mules had not been shod.

  They continued for a long time in silence. The afternoon drew on to evening. Daylight faded as they reached empty pastures enclosed by dry stone walls. At the monastery they would be going through the ritual of Evening Song, in thankfulness for the day. Erin said a silent prayer for humility, guidance, and revelation.

  A moonless night fell upon them.

  Ulric dismounted, and walked ahead with a burning rag on a stick for a torch. But it cast little light, and Erin could barely see anything. Gray shapes moved by the road and startled her, until she heard them bleat. She kept her head down, her spirits increasingly unsettled to travel after dark among strangers. Ulric had shown her kindness, and Jerine appeared friendly, educated, and well-born. But Sirath’s expression remained hostile to her — she would have to take care around him.

  Then timber buildings loomed out from the gloom. Lamplight and muffled voices escaped through cracked shutters. It was a relief when Jerine announced this was Arris Town.

  Jerine stopped by a passageway, and stepped up to a door. A lantern behind a linen window illuminated a weathered sign. It read The Apple Tree, a simple picture underlined by the common signs for an inn.

  Erin carefully slid down from her mule, into a slurry of mud and dung.

  Jerine and Sirath conferred quietly among themselves, then both looked at her. For a moment Erin feared she was to be ostracized for some cruel amusement — as when her original companions had abandoned her at Canalecht. However, Jerine waved her over. With relief Erin realized that they had probably been deliberating on who would stay with the mules, while accommodation was organized.

  Jerine opened a creaking door, and indicated for Erin to follow.

  She stepped into a common room filled with a warm, orange light. A healthy fire burned in a hearth. A handful of trestle tables and benches were set out, and a single lamp. A pair of doors and a narrow staircase stood to one side.

  A handful of old men, dressed in woolens, were the only company. They grew quiet to stare, then resumed their game of jok squares. The monastery had a set, the squares of drilled wood polished smooth with age. Erin had been good at it — enough to earn extra bruises from Sister Alexia.

  Erin would be humiliated if she were forced to return. Father Clement would try to look kindly upon her, but everyone else would laugh if she failed to be ordained. No one else from the monastery ever had. As if she had not already broug
ht enough shame on herself by her affair with Mallian. He could have been a comfort to her now.

  The first time she had entered a tavern was with him — a long evening of dancing and joy. The last, he had spat at her feet and lain in the arms of another woman. Erin touched the thin, copper bracelet he had once given her as a token of love. It was all she had left of him.

  Erin remembered where she was, and smiled apologetically in case anyone had noticed her distracted, and seen through her and her guilt. One of the old men stared out with white-blind eyes. That made her shudder — there was something about blindness that disturbed her, not least how the eyes moved but saw nothing.

  “Hello?” Jerine said aloud. “I'm looking for lodging for four, food and drink, and somewhere to stable our animals.”

  A small plump woman with ruddy cheeks and a cheerful smile entered through one of the doors. A linen apron barely contained her ample body, and a wimple covered her messy hair. “Blessings on you. I'm Nel, the landlady.”

  “And to you,” Jerine replied.

  “Fortune is with you. I have spare beds to share in the dormitory upstairs. Most folk have already traveled through to the city for the Spring Fair.” Nel gave them both a pitying look. “Let's get some food and mulled cider in you, first. Sit yourselves by the fire. I’ll not charge for the heat, unless it’s from your cups!”

  Jerine clasped Erin on the shoulder. “Stay here while I see that Sirath and Ulric have the mules properly stabled.”

  Erin was thankful to remain in the warmth, but as Jerine disappeared outside, felt self-conscious to be left alone. Fearing to be stared at, she kept her head down and approached an empty table by the hearth. It would be a relief to get some feeling back into her cold body — she had never imagined these northern climes could be so harsh, even in spring. She placed her bags on the packed earth floor, where they squelched over the rushes.

  She should have forsaken her vows and run away with Mallian. She should have never insisted on completing her presentation first. A tremor of grief rumbled through her chest.