Chivalry

by Gavin G. Smith

  “Do you mind if we ask who you are?” Gritcham enquired.

  “I am the King of all Wretches, the Beggar King. You may call me your majesty, or just the Ponce.”

  “What do you want?” Thornto growled. If he didn’t like the way this was going then he would kill the woman first. If she wasn’t dangerous then she was doing a damn good impression of appearing to be so. She carried herself in the same way twenty-year veterans of the Never Ending War carried themselves.

  “Rude...” the Ponce breathed.

  Thornto was aware of Jacamo tensing. The boy shifted his cudgel a little. He might have to die after the woman, Thornto thought.

  “What do you want?” the Ponce asked him.

  The question gave Thornto pause.

  “I want a place to lie low, where I can hide from the Iron Island forces,” he finally said. “I want certain intelligences on members of their military and access to alchemical supplies for the ghoul.”

  The Ponce turned to look at Gritcham. He looked fascinated.

  “Whereas I...” the Ponce started.

  “Want me to kill for you,” Thornto said. It was obvious. It was the only skill he’d demonstrated, after all.

  The Ponce looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two.

  “How many people did you kill tonight?” he repeated.

  Jacamo went to hold up his finger again.

  “You know perfectly well,” Thornto growled.

  The woman shifted her head slightly to look at him.

  “I don’t care who you are but this is something I try and impress on all my sons and daughters, politeness goes a very long way. I will have courtesy in my house just as I would offer it in yours.”

  Thornto knew that the Ponce would be turned away from his home. Others of his station, or rather what his station had been, would have had the Ponce beaten to boot.

  The beggar king looked him up and down.

  “What did they do to you?” he asked.

  It took all of Thornto’s self-control not to turn and look at Gritcham, but something in his expression must have given him away because the Ponce did turn and look at the ghoul.

  “Why don’t you use your own people?” Thornto asked, gesturing towards the woman.

  “Because this will be no ordinary killing and I do not wish to be associated with it in any way. This is why I’m prepared to offer you sanctuary, despite your lack of discretion.

  “Can you give me what I want?”

  “You are hunting Iron Island soldiery?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Whatever else I may be I am still a loyal subject.”

  “Who do you want me to kill?” Thornto asked.

  “The Hierophant of Maranges,” the Ponce told him.

  Thornto felt Gritcham tense next to him. Not three days ago the idea of killing a Hierophant, the highest spiritual authority in any diocese, would have appalled him. Now he just blinked.

  “You must be desperate,” Thornto said quietly.

  “And whatever else you are, you’re clearly damned.” The Ponce looked between Thornto and Gritcham. “Both of you.”

  The ghoul made a soft whimpering noise and then tried to speak.

  “May I ask why?” Gritcham eventually managed.

  “Does it matter if you get what you want?” the Ponce asked.

  “Yes,” Gritcham said.

  “No,” Thornto said at the same time.

  Thornto turned to look at the ghoul. There was resolve on the creature’s face. It surprised him that Gritcham had a backbone but bones could be broken if they got in the way of what he was trying to achieve.

  “Let’s say that he’s an enthusiastic corrupter of the youth,” the Ponce told him.

  Thornto was aware of Gritcham turning to look at Jacamo. The boy grinned wickedly back at the ghoul.

  “Different kind of corruption. I take one in every ten coins they make, that is all.”

  “He’s selling us,” Jacamo told them, “the Hierophant, to the Island Monkeys.” Island Monkeys was a derogatory term lowborn Harlanians used to describe Iron Islanders.

  “He’s a slaver?” Gritcham asked.

  “That’s the best of it,” the Ponce muttered, not even trying to hide the disgust in his voice.

  “So it’s altruism then?” Thornto asked.

  The Ponce’s eyes narrowed.

  “It’s business. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do,” he told them.

  “But you want the Inquisition hunting us, not you?”

  “No...” Gritcham murmured softly at the mention of the Inquisition.

  It took a moment of the Ponce staring at him like he was an idiot for Thornto to realise it was a stupid question.

  “I think you are going to burn brightly and briefly,” the Ponce told them.

  “Which Iron Island soldiers is the Hierophant working with?” Gritcham asked.

  Thornto could see the answer coming.

  “The Red Companies,” the Ponce told them.

  It might have sounded like a coincidence but now the captives in the room at the tavern made sense. This was exactly the sort of business that the Red Earl and his men would want to involve themselves in.

  “Tell me about the Hierophant, how is he guarded?” Thornto asked. Gritcham was murmuring the word no over and over again.

  Five:

  The Hierophant

  The halberd’s axe head crashed down on the Church Militiaman’s helmet, splitting it open, bisecting the man’s head with a sickening crunch and then sticking there. Thornto’s muscles bulged and he grunted as he tried to wrench the axe out of the wound. The militiaman was still on his feet, shaking. The other guard in the corridor thrust his spear at Thornto. It glanced off his shoulder and opened up his cheek but Thornto barely felt it. Before the second guard could bring his shield up, however, a crossbow bolt embedded itself in his throat and he collapsed to the ground. Thornto worked out how to wiggle the axe in the wound so it came loose and that guard collapsed to the floor with a crash as well.

  Cross appeared over the body of the guard she’d killed, glancing up at Thornto, clearly irritated about the amount of noise they were making. She had guided him through hidden and forgotten streets, through sewers that must have bordered the kingdom of the ghouls, and in through the church’s catacombs. Thornto was coming to the conclusion that it was easier to fortify yourself against an army than it was against one man. Particularly when that one man was guided by a woman who knew the city as well as Cross did. She wasn’t, however, supposed to be involved with the killing as there was to be no trace of the Ponce’s involvement. This was presumably why she was using a dagger to dig out the crossbow bolt and mutilate the wound.

  They’d left Gritcham back by the door to the crypt. He hadn’t wanted to be involved but nor had he wished to remain in the crypt.

  The arched, stone corridor ran off the nave and led to the Hierophant’s private offices. Thornto strode towards a door in the wood-panelled wall at the end of the corridor. He stopped by a wall sconce and lit the match cord on both the pistols. Gritcham had already loaded and primed them for him, now Thornto cocked both the weapons. He left the halberd next to the sconce. It would be too unwieldy in such an enclosed space.

  Turning back towards the door, Thornto saw that it was open. A shocked-looking priest, presumably investigating the noise, was staring at him. Thornto started to run. The robed priest tried to close the door. Thornto’s boot crashed into it, battering the door open and sending the priest flying.

  There were four others in the room. A jowly looking red-faced man sat behind a sturdy table of polished hard wood. Judging by the elaborate white robe the man wore this was the Hierophant. Sat opposite the Hierophant at the table was Bloody Stephen, the Earl’s Squire. There were two other Crimson Company soldiers present, presumably there as escort for the squire. Both the Hierophant and Bloody Stephen had goblets in front of them on the table.

  Thornto put the barr
el of one pistol against the face of the first soldier and pulled the trigger. The powder in the pan exploded as the match touched it and the man’s face caved in as the ball passed through, spraying his brains on the wall behind him. Thornto shot the second soldier in the neck as he tried to rush him. The ball travelled up through the man’s head and blew a chunk of his skull off. The room was filled with acrid smoke now. Thornto could taste it.

  Bloody Stephen appeared out of the smoke, screaming. The squire threw himself at Thornto. He felt a dagger tearing through his coat, scraping against his hauberk. Thornto staggered back against the wall, dropping his firelocks as he did so. He pushed Bloody Stephen with all his might. The squire flew back into the smoke. Thornto drew both his daggers and stalked after him.

  Thornto’s knee bumped against someone crawling around on the floor. Not sure if it was the priest or the hierophant he stamped down and heard a cry of pain. Bloody Stephen came at him out of the smoke again. Thornto raised the dagger in his left hand so it was level with Bloody Stephen’s eyes and advanced. The naked blade brought the squire up short. As he moved forward, Thornto pulled his left hand back closer to his body. Bloody Stephen lashed out at Thornto’s face with his own blade. As he did so Thornto slammed the dagger in his right hand into the side of squire’s head. Bloody Stephen’s blade opened up the side of Thornto’s face. Again, he barely felt it. He did, however, feel the tip of his own dagger crunch through skull as he imbedded it in the squire’s head. He pulled Bloody Stephen in closer to him, looking into his eyes to see if he could see the squire’s soul being dragged down to hell.

  Then the cathedral’s bell started to ring as the alarums were sounded. Thornto looked around through the smoke for the Hierophant. The priest was lying on the floor cradling a badly broken arm but there was no Hierophant. Thornto picked up and holstered his pistols. He didn’t have time to properly finish off the priest so he just stamped on the man’s head in passing.

  The Hierophant was running down the corridor leaving a trail of shit and piss behind him. Cross stepped out in front of him, levelling her crossbow. He came to a stop.

  “You will be damned for this! Get out of my way you whore!” he screamed.

  Thornto grabbed his halberd from where he’d left it against the wall and then he grabbed the Hierophant.

  “Let me go!” the man squealed as Thornto dragged him out into the nave. He threw his halberd to Cross as he passed her.

  “Gritcham!” Thornto cried. The ghoul came running, carrying the chains that the Ponce had given them, handing them to Thornto. People were hammering against the cathedral’s double doors now. Thornto noticed that the doors had been barred, he wondered if Cross had done that. She had disappeared again. He guessed she had returned to the crypt.

  Thornto dragged the protesting Hierophant up a set of wide stone steps to the gallery that ran around the nave. He remembered the feeling of awe he experienced whenever he entered a cathedral. How small he had felt in the presence of the Light. He glanced towards the altar where the ever-living flame burned within the prism, shedding light, helping to illuminate the huge building. He felt nothing. Not awe, not fear of damnation at his unnatural state, nothing.

  “The doors!” Thornto shouted at Gritcham. He thought the ghoul might faint with fear but Gritcham forced himself over to the door. Outside, the clamour was becoming more and more furious. The doors were starting to bend inwards as something was used as a battering ram against them. The cathedral bells had gone silent. Thornto wondered if Cross had killed someone else on her way out.

  At knife point, Thornto forced the Hierophant to climb over the stone railings that ran around the gallery. Thornto, working quickly, removed two sets of manacles from the chains that Gritcham had been carrying. He manacled the Hierophant to the stone railing just over the door. Then he took the two hooked lengths of chain that the Ponce had supplied and dug the hooks in as deep as he could into the screaming Hierophant’s stomach. The lower half of the man’s white robe turned red. Screams turned to agonised howls. He surprised Thornto by soiling himself again, narrowly missing Gritcham who was waiting below. Thornto dropped the ends of the chain down to the ghoul.

  “Make it taut,” he told Gritcham.

  Hurriedly the ghoul secured the end of the chain to the door handles as best he could whilst the door was being repeatedly hit with a ram. Another impact and the bar securing the doors split but held; it wouldn’t take too many more impacts. Thornto was already halfway down the stairs by the time Gritcham had finished. The ghoul turned and sprinted for the crypt. Thornto followed.

  Thornto stepped into the entrance to the crypt and then, making sure he was well concealed, he turned to look back. The doors burst open. The chains dragged the hooks down through the screaming hierophants flesh, tearing open his abdomen. Intestines and viscera rained down on the cathedral’s would-be liberators and the Hierophant went limp.

  Thornto’s eyes narrowed as he saw the Red Earl amongst the crowd, sword and shield in hand. The earl was caked from head to foot in the Hierophant’s gore. He was glancing around furiously. Then he turned and looked straight towards the crypt entrance. Thornto sank back into the gloom. Now he felt something.

  “What did you do to me?”

  Cross had led them back to the warren of interconnected buildings that the Ponce used as his lair. Jacamo had shown them to a small, filthy room.

  “Hold still, you’ll tear the flesh,” Gritcham told him. The ghoul was trying to sew up the flap of skin that was hanging off Thornto’s cheek. Thornto lapsed into silence again, staring at the ghoul’s faintly canine features. He was close enough to smell the rotting meat on Gritcham’s breath.

  “I don’t want to hurt people any more,” Gritcham told him once he’d finished.

  “You haven’t yet.” Thornto was gingerly touching the fresh stitches.

  “Leave it alone,” Gritcham told him. “I don’t want to contribute, or even be present.”

  Thornto fixed him with a stare.

  “I asked you a question,” he finally said, surprised that the ghoul hadn’t turned away.

  “You know what I did,” Gritcham said looking down. Thornto wondered if the ghoul felt shame now that he was confronted by the results of his own works, where previously it had only been a philosophical exercise in alchemy.

  “Am I still alive?” Thornto asked.

  “I... I believe so,” Gritcham told him.

  Thornto leaned forwards.

  “Then why am I so different?” he whispered.

  Gritcham backed away.

  “I don’t know.” Now Gritcham wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You’re lying to me.” It was said simply enough. “I’m stronger, I don’t feel the pain of my wounds...”

  “I don’t think you’re stronger, your body is as capable as it ever was but certain limitations of mind and pain have been removed. As for your wounds, I suspect you do not feel them because you have become immured to the pain of your transformation.”

  Thornto thought on this. It was only when he concentrated now that he became aware of the pain, the burning in his blood. It was incredible to him. The agony had made him scream in such a way that he thought he’d never stop when he’d first awoken. He’d become used to it, as though he’d worn out something within himself.

  “I suspect you could fight on, wounded, much longer than a normal man but you could still be killed,” the ghoul told him.

  “Why has my manner changed so much?” Thornto demanded. “I am as much the monster on the inside as I am on the outside.” Though, in truth, he had been avoiding reflective surfaces. He could not bear to see what he looked like now. “The only things I am capable of feeling are rage and hatred.”

  “The pain, your experiences…?” Gritcham said but again Thornto heard the evasiveness in his voice.

  Thornto grabbed him by his coat and dragged him forwards.

  “I am not as I was! Tell me!”

  “Or what?” Gritcham
demanded. It was clear he feared Thornto but there was resolve in his voice as well. “I want to be destroyed. Every moment up here risks my capture by your church and a life of torture, and we live a long time. You have already made me complicit in your atrocities. What will you threaten me with now?”

  Thornto let him go.

  “I am your creation. My crimes are yours. You owe me an explanation.”

  “I revived your flesh,” Thornto told him.

  Thornto stared at him for a moment or two whilst the ramifications of the ghoul’s words hit home.

  “You didn’t call my soul back,” Thornto said.

  “It was pure alchemy. There was no spiritual element.”

  “You made me empty.”

  Now Thornto started to wonder where his soul had gone. Had he been a good enough person to be lifted up by the Light? He remembered that he hadn’t seen the Light as he lay dying. Would his soul be judged by the on-going acts of the flesh? If so then he was almost certainly hell-bound. He felt some trace of the old fear he’d felt for the Light.

  “I am sorry,” Gritcham told him.

  “Why don’t you kill yourself, ghoul?” Thornto asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  “We are not like you. We are a hardy people. It is no easy thing to destroy ourselves. I will serve you but I have no will to hurt even the worst of you.”

  Thornto just stared at the ghoul. Gritcham was just too pathetic to waste hatred on. Besides, Thornto needed it all.

  The door was pushed open and Jacomo appeared.

  “Have you two finished shouting at each other?” he asked. “The Ponce wants to see you.

  The dead child, a little girl, was laid out on a bench. The Ponce was standing over her, holding one of her hands, tears streaming down his face. It looked as though she’d been spitted. Thornto looked between the body of the child and the Ponce. He knew it was wrong that he felt nothing but somehow that came as a relief. Jacamo looked grave, his head bowed. Cross was stood close to the Ponce, crossbow at the ready. She looked angry.

  The Ponce wiped tears and snot off his face with the back of his sleeve.