by R. J. Grieve
“But what?” Sareth demanded tensely, her heart picking up its pace in fear.
“That animal Ursor was with him.”
“Who is Ursor?”
“My brother uses him to do his dirty work. He is a vicious beast, and it seems that….that he has already given Vesarion a bad beating.”
Sareth was paper-white and shaking. “How do you know this?”
“Callis told me.”
Iska found herself gripped peremptorily by the shoulder. “We must do something, Iska! You know this city better than anyone. We must save him! We cannot leave him in the hands of your brother!”
“I know, but….”
“I knew it was him,” cried Sareth distractedly. “From the moment you said one of us had been taken, I knew. I haven’t told you, but only yesterday I awoke to find him sitting beside me on the bed, with a look in his eyes I have never seen before. Only once before, when we were practicing the sword, did I think for a brief instant that I saw something, but the moment was gone before I could be sure. But this time….. this time I was almost certain. There was just something different about him, an intensity I had not seen before and I knew there was something he wanted to say. I lay there afraid to move, afraid to breathe, in case I spoilt the moment but in the end, for reasons that are not clear to me, he stopped himself from speaking. For the first time, Iska, I dared to hope. I dared to think that there might be something between us, and now? Now he is the hands of your sadistic brother.” She tightened her grip on Iska’s shoulder. “We cannot let this be. If you do not help me, I will attempt to rescue him myself. I don’t care what the consequences are.”
At that moment, their attention was distracted by the dolorous sound of a bell tolling. It was coming from the tower on the far side of the square.
They both crossed to the slatted shutters and peered out. A crowd was beginning to form in the large square, curious as to why the bell was tolling. From their vantage point, Iska could even see the bell swinging back and forth within the tower, its note summoning people from across the city. She wondered what the emergency was.
When the crowd had assembled, a detachment of guards marched into the square in military formation. Executing a neat manoeuvre, they split into two lines facing one another to form an avenue that cut a swathe through the crowd from a side-street to the foot of the stone dais upon which the snake pillar stood.
Iska, overcome by premonition, felt an icy hand close on her heart.
“What is happening?” Sareth asked. “What are they doing?”
Iska did not reply, but in a moment their purpose became evident. Along the avenue of soldiers, escorted by two of their number, stumbled Vesarion. His hands were chained behind his back and his shirt and face were covered in drying blood. His face was so bruised and cut, that Sareth, watching in horror from the top of the tower, could barely recognise him. When he saw the dais ahead of him, Vesarion, with a supreme effort of will, straightened his back, lifted his chin and managed to walk the last stretch unaided by the guards.
Sareth spun towards Iska, her eyes wild.
“What are they going to do to him?” When she saw Iska hesitate, she grabbed her again by the shoulders and shook her. “Tell me, damn you!”
“They are treating him as a traitor,” Iska stammered. “They are going to bind him to the post and publicly beat him with a rod they call the Scorpion’s Sting. It is a punishment reserved only for traitors and is said to be immensely painful. The rod is not supposed to break the skin - but it has a steel tip and it does. I have only seen it used once before and….and think it would be better if you didn’t look.”
Sareth abruptly released Iska and striding across the room to her belongings, caught up her sword and swept it from its scabbard. Then, her face wild with fear and grief, she made for the stairs. Iska flew to intercept her and blocked the top of the stairwell.
“No! Sareth! Not this way!”
“Get out of my way, Iska!”
“No! You cannot save him this way! Listen to me, Sareth, they will not kill him now. A traitor’s death follows a strict ritual. After beating him at the post, he will spend the night in prison and then….”
“And then?”
“They will hang him in the morning at sunrise.”
“Move aside!” ordered Sareth.
Iska caught her arm and began to struggle with her. “No! Sareth! You are stronger than me and I can’t stop you, but if you want to save his life, do not do this! Not this way! There are too many guards out there! They would only capture you and you could do nothing to save him. You cannot take them all on! You know this! You would be throwing away our one chance to save him, in what can only be a futile gesture!”
Her words seemed to get through, for Sareth stopped struggling with her and her gaze fastened on the amber eyes looking up so anxiously into hers.
“We must act tonight,” said Iska quickly. “But we must plan what we are going to do carefully and we haven’t much time. I will do all I can to help you, Sareth, I swear it – but not like this.”
At that moment, the bell ceased tolling. Sareth dropped her sword and ran to the shutters.
Vesarion was standing on the dais facing the crowd and the Prince was beside him.
“This man is traitor,” announced the Prince in a loud voice to the silent crowd. “He would betray our country to its enemies and deserves the pain of a traitor’s death. However,” he paused for effect, knowing that he held the attention of every soul present, “however, I am prepared to be merciful and will allow the prisoner to forgo the pain of the Scorpion’s Sting if he reveals to me the names and whereabouts of his accomplices.” Turning to Vesarion, he said audibly: “The choice is yours. Tell me what I want to know and this need not happen.” He indicated Ursor eagerly holding a long, thin rod with the cruel steel tip that gave it its name.
“Tell me!” demanded the Prince menacingly.
Vesarion turned to face him squarely, and drawing himself up to his full height, looked him in the eyes and said clearly: “Go to hell.”
Once more, a look of molten wrath crossed Mordrian’s features at being defied in such a public manner and he sharply nodded to the guards to proceed.
They released one of the manacles, then chained the captive’s arms around the pillar, so that his face was pressed against the stone. Then Ursor, flexing the rod appreciatively between his hands, came forward. Reaching up, he caught Vesarion’s shirt by the collar and in one swift movement, ripped it away from his back.
Sareth gave a cry of distress and turned so white Iska thought she was going to faint.
Ursor stood back a pace and flexing the Scorpion once more, brought it forward with dreadful force against the prisoner’s exposed back. The terrible sound of the blow carried right across the square, across the silently watching crowd, to the two watchers in the tower.
Again and again, the blows fell. The prisoner’s entire body flinched in response but he did not utter a sound.
By now, Sareth was on her knees sobbing, her hands pressed over her ears to cut out the sound that pierced her to the heart.
“No!” she wept disjointedly. “No! For pity’s sake, someone make it stop!”
Iska, too, had tears streaming down her face and was holding onto the edge of the shutter to prevent herself sinking to the floor.
Yet still it went on. Vesarion was sagging against the post by now, his back running with blood. But still he said nothing, and Iska, despite her distress, knew that she was witnessing a degree of courage that she could barely comprehend.
At last, the Prince intervened, realising that the victim’s bravery was making the sympathy of the crowd begin to shift to him.
“Enough,” he said sharply, his voice tight with anger. Abruptly, he turned on his heel, dissatisfaction etched deeply on his face, and strode away, carrying hatred for Vesarion in his heart.
“It’s stopped, Sareth” Iska gasped in relief. “It’s stopped.”
Sa
reth struggled to her feet in time to see the guards release Vesarion from the pillar. Deprived of the support, he instantly collapsed to his knees. Not unkindly, the guards helped him to stand and propped by a guard on either side, he managed to stumble from the dais. The people of Adamant were utterly silent as he passed, all hostility towards him gone. As Ursor came along behind, carrying the bloodied rod, a few hisses were sent in his direction.
When they had gone, Iska turned to look at Sareth and saw a transformation in her that frightened her. The tears still lay on her cheeks but the grief in her eyes had been replaced with a cold, intense fury, so powerful that it caused her friend to involuntarily take a step backwards.
“Those who did this to Vesarion shall pay for it,” she said in a tight, hard voice between clenched teeth. “By all that is holy, I swear they shall pay.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The Armoury
Eimer and Bethro had not, in fact, disappeared into thin air as Iska supposed, but they were both completely oblivious to events taking place in the city for two very different reasons. Bethro was lying unconscious in a cellar, and Eimer was in the arms of a beautiful woman.
Bethro was the only one of the companions who had escaped the notice of the guards and had managed to slip down a side street unseen. Nevertheless, that did not prevent him from imagining, with lurid conviction, that he was being pursued. He hurried along the street, at a pace that was somewhere between a fast trot and a slow canter, until he came to an entry that ran along the back of a tavern, that in happier circumstances he would have been only too delighted to patronise. The entry was partly blocked by a brewer’s wagon drawn by a patient dray-horse, just now with its attention fixed contentedly upon a nosebag full of oats. The brewer had been unloading barrels and trundling them along the cobbles until he reached a trapdoor from which descended a wooden chute. He then bowled them skilfully down this apparatus, dropping the kegs easily into their new home. Having delivered the last barrel, he had gone into the tavern to collect payment and have a glass of something pleasant with the landlord.
Normally, the keg-rolling process would have fascinated Bethro, but it said much for his agitation that he paid not the slightest heed to it. He stopped at the corner and carefully peering around it, scanned the street for sign of pursuit. His heart was just beginning to steady its erratic beat, comforted by the normality of what he saw, when a detachment of guards came into view at the far end of the street and set it racing again. Bethro, doubtful of his ability to out-run them, and at a loss to know what to do, began to back nervously into the shadows of the entry.
Where were the others? Could he find his way to the library? Surely Callis would help, if he could only reach him? All these thoughts jostled around in his mind, like leaves caught in a whirlpool, as he backed into the alley. His heart was drumming, his palms sweating, his eyes were fixed on the corner, expecting the guards to burst round it at any moment. But it was travelling in reverse that proved his undoing. Bethro took one too many steps backwards, and with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, found that instead of solid cobbles under his feet, there was only thin air. He hadn’t even time to cry out. With no more than a terrified gulp, he shot downwards into the dark void, struck his head sharply on a barrel and landed in an unconscious heap on the floor.
The brewer, returning sometime later, completely unaware of this unusual addition to the stock, slammed shut the trapdoor and securely locked it.
While Bethro lay out cold on the cellar floor, his more enterprising young companion was having a much more enjoyable time. Eimer, demonstrating the skill attributed to him by his sister, did indeed run like a hare. Even as a boy, he had been light on his feet, easily eluding a frustrated Enrick intent on giving him a hiding, and was thus perfectly able to out-distance the heavy-footed guards. Laughing a little at their ineffectual attempts to keep up with him, he soon left them behind. Springing nimbly up onto a garden wall, he walked along its narrow ridge with all the poise of a cat, his arms held out to keep his balance, before neatly dropping down into a pleasant garden at the back of one of the grander mansions. The sound of many running footsteps in the street outside signalled the fact that the guards were at least managing to keep to the right direction. He expected the search party to stampede on past, but to his annoyance, they stopped just outside and he heard the order being given to search the adjoining houses.
Eimer, deciding that it was time to depart, was in the act of crossing the garden, when he suddenly came face to face with a young woman carrying a basket of washing. Her pretty mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ of astonishment. Eimer, his eyes dancing with mischief, placed his finger conspiratorially against his lips, in the age-old gesture for silence. The maid saw that the young man before her was handsome, in an engagingly rakish way, moreover he had a warm, attractive smile with just a hint of a devil-may-care attitude about it that was irresistibly appealing. Distracted, she could think of nothing else to say but a rather feeble: “Who are you?”
Once more the smile flashed. “Eimer,” said the Prince, as bold as brass. “You couldn’t help me out, could you?” he asked winningly. “I was...er...visiting a friend, when her husband unexpectedly came home early and totally misconstrued what he saw, and now he’s after my blood. What with the guards searching for these strangers, I’m highly likely to be caught and that might mean the end of a promising career. Now you wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”
Encouragingly, from Eimer’s point of view, this recital made her giggle, but then she said: “You speak sort of funny?”
“Er…well, that’s because I come from a remote village. We hardly ever come to the big city, you know,” he extemporised, desperately trying to remember the name of the region Iska had mentioned. “Oh! I’m from Lysar,” he brought out, with a great sense of achievement. “Ever heard of it?”
She laughed again. “Of course I’ve heard of it. They say people from there are a bit odd.”
He bowed to her. “Who am I to break with tradition? I think they just say that about us because we fall in love so easily.” He gave her a bold wink, then not losing sight of his priorities, said: “You wouldn’t, by any chance, have somewhere I could stay till the dust settles?”
The maid frowned. “Was she pretty?”
“Who?” asked the absent-minded Prince.
“The woman whose husband came back early.”
“Not as pretty as you,” declared the Prince truthfully. Wise beyond his years in the ways of women, he sensed that she was wavering. Stepping closer, he crooked his finger under her chin, turned up her face and promptly kissed her.
The basket of washing dropped to the ground. “You are a bold, insolent young man!” she announced, in unconvincing tones of disapproval.
“Yes, I am,” agreed Eimer and kissed her again.
The serving girl, abandoning pretence, caught his hand. “Come with me,” she commanded.
Sareth found herself walking down a street in the eastern section of the city, not at all certain about what she was supposed to be doing.
Once the guards had gone from the square beneath the bell tower, and the crowds dispersed, Iska seemed to be seized by a fever of urgency.
“I have the beginnings of an idea of how we might save Vesarion,” she had rapidly told Sareth, “but it must be carried out this evening and I have so much to arrange before then, that I have no idea how I am going to get it all done in time. Unfortunately, for my plan to work, we need one other person, and as we have no idea where Eimer and Bethro have gone, we must obtain the help of the one member of our company whose location we do know.”
With a slightly sinking heart, Sareth was ahead of her. “Gorm,” she supplied. “But he’s outside the city.”
“Yes, and you are going to have to get him in – and what’s more, you are going to have to do it on your own because I have no time to spare,” declared Iska, already heading for the stairs. “The eastern quarter has already been se
arched, so it should be safe enough now. Good luck.”
“But….but how am I going to do this?” Sareth protested. “The gates will still be guarded!”
Iska had already disappeared down the stairs before Sareth had finished her sentence, but her voice echoed back up the stairwell. “You’re resourceful, Sareth. You’ll think of something.”
So now Sareth roamed the streets, desperately trying to think of a way to not only smuggle a Turog into the city but not be recognised in the process.
It didn’t help that her emotions had been in turmoil since she had witnessed what had happened to Vesarion. Alternating waves of grief, fear and rage swept over her, until at one point she was forced to sit down on a low wall and collect herself.
“If you are going to save him, you must think clearly,” she told herself fiercely. “So pull yourself together. Iska has a plan to rescue him and although I don’t know what it is, she needs Gorm – and that means she’s going to get Gorm, even if it kills me.”
As she sat there, gradually gaining mastery of herself, her eyes fell on two things that gave her the seeds of an idea as to how her task might be accomplished. The first prerequisite was to get a disguise, and there, facing her through the open gates of a courtyard, was a washing line from which hung several dresses of the type that a serving girl might wear.
Carefully, she waited her opportunity, casting discrete glances up and down the street until the coast was clear. Then, quick as a flash, she nipped into the deserted courtyard and whipped a dress and a headscarf off the line. Just as she was leaving, she spotted a battered straw hat sitting on a chair and brazenly helped herself to that as well. Finding a secluded spot, she swiftly donned the dress over her shirt and breeches. The dress was not ideal, for it was too wide and a little too short, revealing a pair of riding boots not in keeping with the peasant woman she proposed to pass for. Sareth, looking disapprovingly at her boots, decided that she would have to chance it. Her luxuriant brown hair, she hid under the scarf and just for good measure, rammed the broad-brimmed hat on top of it all. Then, taking a handful of dust, she rubbed it on her face.
