Act of Will

by A. J. Hartley

  If I was to give myself up and turn Orgos over to the Empire, these were the men I would be assisting. Of course I had seen them before, but never had I seen them as an enemy might. They looked almost invulnerable, which, I’m sure, was the idea. They also looked like an army, like conquerors. Orgos and the rest of them scared me, but in a different way. They still seemed human, I suppose. I looked at the steel-clad guards by the gate, their weapons ready and their eyes concealed by the shade of their faceless helms, and I saw them as the myriad blades of some vast mincing machine. They stood immaculate and motionless before us: soullessly disciplined. One glance at their iron at such close quarters illumined tracts of land, towns, and peoples ground beneath a regulated, even march. Suddenly they didn’t look like the kind of people I wanted to help. In a purely subjective moment, the decision was made.

  Another pair of the foot patrolmen appeared and emptied the family out of the cart in front of us with a couple of rough orders and a poke with the butt of a short spear. They spilled out and huddled together. A little boy began to cry, and one of the women drew him to her and folded him into her robes: comforting and silencing in one frightened movement. The guards picked scornfully over the poor cart and then started on the people, their questions randomly mixed with insults. I felt Orgos stir fractionally as a guard pushed close to one of the women and threw some lewd remark to his companion. I gave Orgos a quick look and saw with horror that his right hand had strayed towards the gold basketwork hilt of his rapier. I prayed it wouldn’t move any closer.

  It didn’t. The soldiers, bored with their harassment, contemptuously urged the cart through the open gate and turned to us.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.” Orgos beamed as we drew up to the gatehouse. From here you could see through the arch with its raised portcullis and broad outer doors, through twenty feet of city wall and past the grim, motionless infantrymen, out to the road and freedom.

  The patrolmen gathered about the wagon and I tried to smile calmly, though my face sort of froze in the process. I looked down at the crossbow in my lap and figured it was best to put it down.

  In contrast to the way they had just treated the people in the bullock cart, the guards were, in their imperious way, polite: almost deferential.

  “Names, identification papers, and destination, please,” said the duty officer.

  I looked with muted alarm at Orgos; the mechanics of our escape had not really occurred to me and we hadn’t discussed such details. Orgos produced a pair of neatly rolled parchments and answered, with a Cherrati hand gesture, “I am Alberro Spirant and this is my apprentice, Geoffrey. We deal in silks, satin, velvet, cambric, lace, fine cotton, and other costly fabrics. Perhaps you’d care to see our wares?”

  “We’ll take a quick look in the back if you don’t mind,” answered the soldier patiently. Orgos drew out a small key and passed it to me.

  “Show the gentlemen inside, Geoffrey,” he said casually. I regarded him for a moment, my mental alarm bells clanging fiercely, and then clambered down to the wet and muddy gravel. Two soldiers followed me to the rear of the wagon. As my fingers fumbled madly at the latch on the tail flap, I could hear Orgos’s precise Cherrat accent complimenting the young captain on his town and telling him of our planned route to Bowescroft via Oakhill. It sounded credible to me. I hoped they thought so.

  I got the back open and stood clear as one of the guards clambered in and began poking around. There were various large boxes and crates piled high with clothes and rolls of material. He picked at a couple but obviously wasn’t interested in effecting a real search.

  “How’s business?” said the guard at my elbow without warning. I jumped slightly and forced my voice out with an effort, only at the last second remembering to switch on that ludicrous accent.

  “Not bad, my friend, not bad.” I shrugged expansively. “But we’re hoping for more success in—” Blood and sand, where had Orgos said we were going? “—Bowescroft and Oakhill. As you can see, there is an awful lot of merchandise to clear yet and they are rather, how might I put it, luxurious items. Not for just anyone, don’t you know? The Cresdon folk were not as ready as we had hoped to invest in such quality.”

  How was that? It had sounded all right to me. I had acted myself stupid with all those arm and shoulder movements, finished with that excessive, slow Cherrati frown of thoughtful doubt, and waited for him to respond.

  He merely nodded and looked away, bored. Fantastic! I was hit by a wave of elation at my success and turned to address the other guard, who was getting out of the wagon looking as apathetic as his comrade.

  “Did you come across anything that caught your eye, eh, my friend? There is some fine stuff, very fine. No Thrusian cotton in there my friend, certainly not. But silk and taffeta gowns for the ladies, eh? We carry only the best. Now, you, sir, young, handsome, and strong as you are, must have some nice young lady to buy for?”

  “Not today, no thanks,” said the first guard, backing off. I, warming to my role, pushed him further, speaking through my nose and waggling my hands about. “But I can give you a very good price. What size would it be? We can cut and make to measure for no extra charge. The ladies love to be pampered, my friends, oh yes. Here,” I said, grabbing some fabric out of the back at random and thrusting it into his hands, “feel the thickness. See how it glows with color. Notice the deep lustrous finish. Examine the detail so lovingly hand-embroidered by the twelve virgin priestesses—”

  “No, really, thanks,” he stammered, slightly embarrassed. The second guard was already in retreat, hands raised and mouthing polite rejections. I was about to push them still harder when Orgos called from the front.

  “Geoffrey,” he shouted, a definite hint of irritation showing through the blanket of his Cherrat accent. “We are ready to pass through now. Put the cloth back in the wagon, and come back here at once. You hear me, Geoffrey?”

  I couldn’t remember what he had called himself to the guards so I just did as he said. He seemed to be making apologies to the guards on my behalf, but they shrugged the incident off. In a minute I was back up at the front and the guards were waving us through. Then a shout from behind made me turn with panic. Hurrying along the street towards the gate was Rufus Ramsbottom with about eight patrolmen and an officer.

  Now we had a problem. I flashed a glance at Orgos and he started the horses moving. I bent low in my seat as the officer came up alongside us and addressed the gate commanders.

  “Trouble in the streets by C Garrison. A rebel called Hawthorne escaped from a patrol this morning. He’s been concealed by sympathizers. Fights broke out when known rebel taverns were searched and we may have a full-scale riot on our hands in Sector Six. The high command wants no traffic in or out until the fighting is brought under control and the culprits are in custody. Close the gates.”

  I closed my eyes tightly and tried not to scream with frustration.

  SCENE VII

  No Virtue in Almost

  The gatehouse soldiers looked at each other and sighed. After the briefest of consultations, two troopers marched swiftly over to the stairway that would take them up to the mechanism used to close the im mense gates. I looked back to Orgos, who was maintaining his role as Cherrati merchant, slightly exasperated by the proceedings. Glancing backwards, I could see Rufus with his back to us, waving his clumsy hands about and shouting. I turned away fast enough to break my neck and stared ahead at the infantrymen that stood in the shade of the archway, their eyes glinting through the holes in their helms.

  “May we proceed, Officer?” inquired Orgos smoothly.

  “We’ve got trouble in another sector,” replied the guard. “We’re going to have to close the gate. Sorry, sir.”

  He turned away, distracted by the sound of feet on the steps, and watched as about thirty soldiers filed down from the walls above, their shields and spears shouldered. The staircase was narrow. While the troops came down, the two men sent to close the gates had to wait at the bottom. I
counted slowly to ten in my head and waited for Rufus to see me. The staircase was still jammed with descending soldiers.

  “We were hoping to make Oakhill by nightfall,” I ventured carefully, “and we would really prefer not to stay here with our merchandise if there is likely to be some form of civil unrest.”

  “Sorry,” the officer said without looking at us. “No one in or out.”

  “Then perhaps you’d like to take another look at our wares,” I said.

  Orgos gave me a hard look but I ignored him.

  “No,” said the officer. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t show you the best silks,” I breezed. “We keep those well out of sight. But maybe someone of your taste would appreciate them. We have damask so soft you can barely feel it against your skin. . . .”

  The officer at our side glanced at the men waiting to go up to close the gates, exhaled with slow boredom and muttered, “It’s time someone built another staircase up there. Go on,” he said, turning to us suddenly. “Go through. Quickly.”

  Without further encouragement we began to move. My heart rose to my throat and I stared ahead of me, past the guards and the officer who hastily, mechanically recited the usual Empire regulations.

  “If you have heavier weapons and armor you may bring them out once you are a hundred yards from the gate. Remain on the road at all times and be watchful for highwaymen. Have a successful trip, sirs,” he called as we trundled through the twenty-foot-thick arch and the heavy doors. The portcullis was lowering with a heavy metallic squealing as we emerged into the light and soft drizzle. Behind us the great gates themselves began scraping and creaking until, with a deep boom, they shut tight.

  For a hundred yards or so we did not speak and then, bringing the wagon to a halt in a stone-flagged space and turning to one of the boxes between us, Orgos said, “Idiot. What were you trying to do back there? Selling clothes to Empire guards! You were asking to be arrested.”

  He was smiling. I grinned and said, “I was just fleshing out the role a little. Giving it color.”

  “Idiot,” he said again, but this time he laughed outright. I wanted to punch him lightly on the arm or something as a show of fellowship, but something held me back, the thought of his name dragging mine up the wanted list, perhaps. Instead I just said, “Geof -frey? You called me Geoffrey! What the pox kind of name is that?”

  He gave a single bellow of laughter and opened the box. Whatever relief I was beginning to feel died as I stared at the contents: armor and weapons of the serious sort. I wasn’t being allowed to forget my comrade’s profession.

  Orgos stood up and looked back to the massive yellowish walls of the city.

  “I hate that place,” he remarked, fishing a coat of ring mail out of the box and pulling it over his head.

  I couldn’t say much to that. I didn’t really know anywhere else, though even I could see it was a bit of a sewer.

  “How come they’re saying I’m a rebel?” I asked. I was tiny bit pleased by the idea, even though I knew both that it was dangerous to be impressed by such things and that they were about as wrong as they could be.

  “The Empire doesn’t like to be humiliated,” he said. “Better to be outmaneuvered by a seasoned rebel than a child actor.”

  The phrase irritated me, but that feeling was squashed by something rather more weighty.

  “So if they catch me now . . .” I said.

  “They’ll charge you with more than being in a few plays they didn’t like.”

  He gave me a shrug and a grin as he saw the effect his words had on me. “Cheer up,” he said. “You’re with us now.”

  Great.

  Orgos replaced the rapier in the back of the wagon and emerged wearing a pair of the long swords he had used before, scabbarded in a harness on his back so that the hilts stood vertically up from his shoulders. I would have needed both hands to wield one of those four-foot blades, but a look at his biceps and forearms told me that he would manage just fine. He reached up to their handles, crossing his arms over his chest to see that they were in the right position, and then bade me get down and come to the back of the wagon. One of the swords, the one he had had back at the inn, had a large and irregular stone set in the pommel, amber and lustrous.

  “Choose a weapon,” he said. “What can you use?”

  Throwing aside a few top layers of fabric, he opened a chest of armor and another two of weapons. I recalled my encouraging the Empire guards to stay and poke around the wagon a little longer. We would really have had to do some talking to explain that lot away.

  I got in the back and touched some of the steel in amazed fascination. As I said earlier, I know little of weapons and I am no fighter, but just seeing this pile of purposeful and elegant arms held me spellbound. I chose.

  Orgos looked at me with his mouth open and then roared with laughter, his head tipped back and his teeth showing.

  “Can you even walk in that stuff?” he demanded.

  I confess to having gotten a little carried away. He made me put a lot of it back. Most of it was too big for me anyway and I could hardly breathe in that helm. I could barely lift my arms and no, I couldn’t really walk. I tried a corselet of light scale and swapped the two-handed great-ax I had chosen for a short sword and small shield. It was a bit of a comedown, I suppose, but I kept looking at the way the corselet sparkled in the light and it made me feel good. Actually, the sword alone was so heavy that I soon had to put the shield away too. It was a good thing I’d put that bloody ax back. It had taken all my strength to get it out of the wagon.

  The rain had just about stopped, so that was one less discomfort. I drew the sword and weighed it in my hand, imagining myself a great fighter and betting Renthrette would be impressed. Next time we had some trouble they’d see a different side to Will Hawthorne. Maybe. After a couple of minutes of me waving the sword about, Orgos told me to put it away before I maimed him. Still, a moment later I saw him smile. For the first time that day I stopped worrying and relaxed enough to enjoy the ride.

  The road was good thus far, paved and cambered. But as soon as the gate house was lost to our sight in the elms and sycamores which grew around the city, we veered off to the northeast on a series of farm tracks.

  Orgos sat quietly beside me, his eyes on the trail. Maybe it was the elation of escape, the satisfaction of outwitting that moron Rufus, or just the feeling that I had done right not to run crying to the Empire, but I felt slightly better disposed to him. And whatever the dangers, I was still alive, free, and touched with something I had never felt before. It had the feel of adventure and all the anticipation that comes with it. Will the Adventurer. Hawthorne the Rebel. A childish and dangerous thought, perhaps, but there you have it. Even at the time I had a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t last.

  SCENE VIII

  The Wheatsheaf

  By about half past one, with the sun high and the rain gone, we caught sight of the inn set back from the road. I was glad of it, for the air was growing warm and humid despite the early showers and I was ready for the coolness of a shady room and a draught of beer. Or six.

  The inn was a large two-storied affair of mottled grey stone with sills and lintels of varnished oak. The sign over the door showed a bunch of full, golden wheat stalks. Its roof was thatched brown and well shaped with two chimneys poking through, one of which released a thin curl of bluish wood smoke. It was all rather picturesque, like one of those cheap engravings that you sneer at in the Cresdon markets. The upstairs probably housed guests sheltering from those very markets.

  After drawing the wagon up to the front, we dismounted and scraped the mud from our boots. Then Orgos tried the door and led me in.

  Now, I was used to the smoky, stone-flagged, fleapit taprooms of the town from which we’d just escaped. Bars, to me, meant noise, raucous laughter, spilled beer, semifriendly gambling, and the occasional brawl. The Wheatsheaf, by contrast, dripped with class and a slightly embarrassed silence. It was obviously an
eatery for merchants before they ventured into the cultural desolation of the Hrof wastelands or, for that matter, those of Cresdon. The floor was tiled with a glazed and patterned ceramic featuring the ears-and-leaves motif we had seen outside. Very fancy. There were windows of leaded glass all around the room, and as a result the entire chamber glowed, pleased with itself. There were tables set for dinner decorated with dainty vases of flowers. No dartboard. No pools of vomit and urine. No whores.

  At the far end of the room by the cold hearth of a carved fire-place sat Mithos, Renthrette, and Garnet. They had changed out of their peasant clothes and wore light cotton fabrics which looked like they would breathe well, even under armor. The barman sent a boy with Orgos to tend to the horses as I hung my armor up with the rest and ordered a pint of best.

  I took my mug, sauntered over to the table where the others sat, swinging the crossbow roguishly by its strap, and cast Renthrette an easy smile. She might as well have been wearing her armor, because it glanced off and fell in some dustless corner. I sat beside her anyway and made sure she noticed the sword I was wearing. I thought it made me look pretty sharp.

  “Isn’t it a bit early to be drinking?” she said.

  “Drinking?” I repeated, momentarily baffled. “This is beer.”

  “It contains alcohol, doesn’t it?” she said. She had a slightly prissy attitude that annoyed me.

  “Not like whiskey,” I said, shrugging. “But a bit, yeah. So?”

  “You’re a child!” she said.

  “I’m eighteen,” I said, straightening up. “What is it with you people?”

  Mithos gave Renthrette a look.

  “In the city, everyone drinks beer,” he said. “All classes, all ages. It’s their primary source of nutrition, which, given their markets and the condition of the water supply, is probably as well. It’s liquid bread.”