Torchlight
Page 16
He laid his hand against the rock. Like all else his senses touched this strange morning, the feel of it had so many layers. The surface was cool, and slightly imperfect, with minute ridges of wear and weather. So many hands had rested here before his. So many people. He could sense them, feel all of his ancestors in his coursing blood, just barely contained by his skin ...
Stop. He willed his brain to go back to normal, to back down the magnification. Thank God the sun’s not out, it’d probably blind me. Relax. Relax.
By now most people were up and about, their cookfires sending lines of smoke into the low clouds, their wagons splashing through puddles, their heads low under hoods. As Graegor moved through the streets, he heard a predictable amount of complaint about how wet and cold the spring had been, and anticipation that Solstice, in two weeks, would bring better weather. Merchants who’d invested in woolens looked smug; merchants who’d laid in their usual cotton wares looked frustrated.
Graegor kept walking, faster now, trying to wear some of the restlessness out of himself. But, like trying to sleep, it was really no use. Was it the coffee? He’d only been having maybe two mugs a day. Rooster drank the stuff like water and never seemed the least bit jittery.
Then again, maybe Rooster spiked it with something. Graegor considered that. Maybe he just needed a drink, to take the edge off. He grimaced. To him, beer tasted like soap, wine tasted like vinegar, and everything else was just nasty. In the state he was in now, he wouldn’t even be able to smell alcohol without getting sick.
At one corner, he saw the street that eventually curved into Johanns’ neighborhood. He’d avoided that neighborhood since arriving in Farre. He kept right on walking this time too, even though it was a lot harder.
He stopped to let a wagon pass, and had just started to move forward again when someone ran into him. Without even thinking Graegor swept his quarterstaff in an arc that took the legs right out from under the other boy, who yelled as he landed on his rear end on the wet cobblestones.
Graegor stared for a moment, his nerves afire with shock at how fast he had moved. Shaking his head to clear it, he offered his hand. “I’m sorry—”
The boy called him a vile name and shoved his hand away, and Graegor heard someone shout, “What the hell was that for?” He looked up to see another boy his age, taller and heavier, at the head of a group of five more, who stared at Graegor in astonished anger as the boy he had hit got slowly to his feet. Other people glanced at them, then kept going, because they were city people and minded their own business.
The tall boy stood in Graegor’s way and glared at him. “What was that for?” he demanded again.
“It was an accident,” Graegor told him, trying to keep his voice even, because it wanted to rise with his fast breathing.
“You just like knocking people down or what?” The tall boy smelled like onions—but probably wouldn’t so strongly if Graegor’s senses weren’t so keyed up.
“I didn’t hurt him,” Graegor said. Both hands were holding the quarterstaff again. He would try to talk his way through, like he’d promised his mother, but ...
“Yes you did!” shouted the boy he’d run into, rubbing his tailbone. He was smaller than Graegor, but not by much. He and the others all wore heavy, rainproof cloaks with deep hoods, and they were ranging themselves around him. It should have been threatening, it should have scared him, but all it did was make him angry.
“You should watch where you’re going,” he answered coldly. He balanced on the balls of his feet and squared his shoulders to shift the weight of his pack.
“I’m talking to you,” the tall boy reminded him, poking at his chest without quite touching him. “Nobody knocks down my friends and gets away with it.”
“I said I was sorry.” The violence rising inside him made him more nervous than the bullies did. He had to calm down and get out of here. He did not need this.
“I didn’t hear you. Say you’re sorry again.”
Breon’s blood. “All right, I’m sorry. Again.”
“You hurt him,” the tall boy stated. “He’ll need money to go to the hospital.”
Graegor narrowed his eyes. “Money?”
“Your money,” the tall boy specified in a low voice. “All of it.”
“I don’t think so.”
The tall boy flicked his wrist to draw a knife from the arm sheath under his sleeve. “I do think so.”
So Graegor slammed the butt of the quarterstaff into his face.
He only fought two or three of them; the others had the sense to run. It was the same vicious thrill he had felt that night against Craig and his goons—he didn’t even have to think about what to do, how to do it, his body just did it, the quarterstaff an extension of his arm. The other boys had knives like their leader had, but quick pops at their wrists sent the blades flying. The wet pavers that hampered his assailants had no effect on his sure footing. No one could touch him, he had eyes in the back of his head, he could see the blows before they even came, he moved faster than thought. In far too short a time it was over, and he had cleared a twenty-foot circle around him.
Passersby had become frozen onlookers. One man, in an orange hood and wearing a sword, was staring at him with eyes that nearly fell from his head. Something about him seemed familiar, but then Graegor saw two tall chestnut horses, and two bluecloaks astride them.
One look at the faces of the duke’s men drained the triumph of the moment from Graegor. Their eyes were flat, their horses ready, and only an idiot would try to run away. He couldn’t have anyway. He felt suddenly tired, and the street seemed dimmer, its noises muffled. The fight had finally burned his restless energy out.
He let them take his quarterstaff and pack and belt knife. His money was in a wallet strapped to his right shin under his trousers, but since the bluecloaks didn’t ask, he didn’t volunteer it. As the beaten boys slowly got to their feet and tried to get the horsemen’s attention to tell them what had happened, Graegor let the horsemen take hold of his wrists and wrap a cord around them. He nodded when he was told that the magistrate was just on the next street, and could they trust him to not cause any trouble on the way, or would they have to hood him too?
I am so stupid. He walked between the two horses toward the magistrate’s courthouse and wondered what had come over him. He’d avoided confrontations for three months, kept his head down, worked hard. That was the whole reason he had quit the job at the cooks-against-the-servers place—he didn’t need this kind of trouble. Why a fight out in the middle of the street? Why in front of two bluecloaks?
If they were taking him to the magistrate, then they’d probably make him pay a fine. He thought about bribing the horsemen—it was likely the cheaper option—but he’d never bribed anyone before. Aside from the fact that he didn’t want to give the least copper penny to any bluecloak, he was pretty sure that a bribe wouldn’t work anyway, and that he’d look stupid if he tried. He didn’t even know how to bring up the subject. Sir, how much would it take for you to let me go? Two silvers? Three?
How much could the magistrate fine him?—Probably more than a street brawler usually got since he’d used the quarterstaff instead of just his fists. But he hadn’t really hurt anyone back there, had he? He’d seen them get up, right? Maybe the magistrate would just extract a promise of good behavior and let him go.
The courthouse was a narrow, three-story stone building between two others like it. One of the bluecloaks dismounted, and while the other led the horses away—along with Graegor’s pack and quarterstaff—the first gestured for Graegor to precede him up the steps to the tall doors. They opened before he reached them, and another bluecloak greeted his comrade with cheerful profanity. Graegor was taken down one level and into a windowless stone room containing a bench and an oil lamp. He was locked inside with the assurance that the magistrate would probably see him “sometime today”.
That’s nice of him, Graegor thought sourly. He didn’t think it was noon yet.
Finally, finally, the door opened, and the same horseman who had escorted him earlier was there. “This way,” he said, bored. Apparently it was a slow day for him too. Had real criminals been making trouble this morning, the bluecloaks might have run Graegor off with a kick in the butt rather than taking the time to bring him here.
They went up three flights of stairs to a carpeted foyer laid out before an oak door. A clerk behind a desk wrote down the horseman’s name and what had happened. He asked Graegor his name, and Graegor gave him the same one he’d given Rooster. The clerk didn’t bat an eye either. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.” Two months ago he’d spent his coming-of-age birthday digging a latrine.
“Are you apprenticed?”
“No.”
“Where are you working?”
“Nowhere right now.”
“Where do you live?”
Graegor clenched his teeth. “Nowhere right now.”
“Have you ever been arrested before?”
“No.”
The clerk made notes the entire time on one of the first pages of a large, newly bound book. Many older versions of the book sat behind him on tall oak shelves. “Can you write?”
“Yes.”
The clerk swiveled the book around and handed Graegor his quill, pointing to a line beneath his notes. “Sign.” Graegor managed an awkward signature with his bound hands. Then the horseman signed the page, and the clerk signed and dated it and nodded toward the door. “Go in.”
There were two more bluecloaks and three more clerks in the large room, which was dominated by an enormous, high table on a platform as big as a stage. A fire burned behind a grate across the room from the door, near the magistrate’s tall chair, casting orange light on his black sleeves. Duke Richard’s portrait hung on the wall, and his emblems were everywhere, patterning the blue velvet drapes over the windows, carved into the base molding where the walls met the floor, hanging in sculptured glory over the fireplace.
The magistrate reminded Graegor of his father—grey, lean, dour. He consulted with the clerks and the horseman escorting Graegor, then cleared his throat. “Graegor Lakeman. This morning you attacked four young men with a pike in the middle of the street.” Even his voice was a lot like Graegor’s father’s, not quite hiding disgust. “All four have broken bones. All four are from respected families. Do you wish to say anything in your defense?”
Respected families. That told him all he needed to know about his chances here, but he had to try. “Sir, one of them bumped into me, and I accidentally knocked him over. I was about to help him up when his friends came. One of them said to give over my money. They were starting to surround me so I attacked before they did.”
The magistrate looked at the horseman, who said, “Sir, I did see him talking to one of the boys. The others were starting to surround him, like he says. But I didn’t hear anyone ask for money.”
The magistrate turned back to Graegor. “Did you really think they would attack you with two of our lord duke’s horsemen there?”
“I didn’t see the horsemen, sir, and I don’t think they did either.”
“So you are maintaining that you acted in self-defense?”
“Preemptive self-defense, sir.”
At that, the magistrate almost smiled. “There’s no such thing. You could not have been certain of their intentions. You were the attacker.” With that settled no differently from how Graegor had expected, the magistrate looked down at his paperwork and wrote something. In due course he looked up again. “You are assessed a fine of two silver ounces.”
“What?” It was absurd—it was almost a month’s wages!
“Two silver ounces,” the magistrate enunciated, as if Graegor were hard of hearing. “Because of—”
“Two silver ounces? Just because I won?”
“Don’t talk back to my lord!” the horseman snapped, and the magistrate raised his voice: “That’s one night in jail for your disrespect, as well as two more silver ounces.”
“Two more?” It came out a shout. The horseman reached out and grabbed his upper arm, but Graegor wrenched free. The horseman snarled and lashed a backhand blow, but Graegor saw it and ducked backward. Somehow he kept his feet. He straightened and glared at the horseman, who had moved back a step with his eyes narrowed to slits and with one hand held low in a gesture to caution the other two bluecloaks to stay back.
“Enough!” the magistrate barked. “That’s three more silver ounces and another night in jail! Do you want to keep going with this, boy?”
He was spinning out of control. He had to calm down. He was digging himself deeper and deeper and deeper with this idiocy. He had to control himself. He literally could not afford not to.
He let out his breath and slumped his arms down. His eyes fell to the blue and grey veins spidered through the marble tile on the floor.
“I would have your apology, boy.”
“I apologize, sir,” Graegor said between his teeth.
“The fine stands at seven silver ounces, the sentence at two nights in jail.” He pressed his seal on the paperwork, which was passed across the table to the horseman, who thanked him and grunted at Graegor. Slowly Graegor turned, and at his horseman’s gesture, shuffled to the clerk’s table at the room’s far end.
When the lady clerk asked him for the seven ounces, though, he balked. “Can’t I stay in jail instead of paying the fine?”
The clerk made a tsking sound. “Heavens, no. You’d have to stay almost two weeks, and that’s too long to go without food.”
This was the first Graegor had heard of that particular aspect of his punishment, but he said, “What if I don’t have seven ounces?”
“We’ll sell your belongings.”
Graegor looked at her for a long moment, but, faced with nothing but blank efficiency, he bent down and hiked up his trouser leg to reach his wallet.
A few flights down the stairs, the horseman brought him to a large, affable old jailer with a box lantern. The jailer, making small talk with the horseman, snapped the cord around Graegor’s wrists with a quick jerk of a knife. Down another flight of stairs, there were six cells, three on each side of a low room, lit only by the tiny window at the ceiling straight ahead. The horseman and the jailer took him to the middle cell of the three on the right. Like the others, it had stone walls, a bare stone floor, and a heavy oak door with iron bars in the large cutout window.
“So,” the jailer said as he shut the door with a clang, “if you got to piss, there’s a hole in the back corner, to your right. Lift the cover. It’s pretty deep, so unless you take a big dump, it shouldn’t smell too bad.” He turned the key in the lock.
“Um, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” The jailer followed the horseman back up the stairs. The lantern dimmed as it moved away with him, and soon the only light was through the little window.
As the hours crept by, his biggest discomfort was his stomach. The ham sandwiches he’d had before dawn were long digested. As best he could remember, this was the longest he’d ever in his life gone without eating while being awake the whole time. His stomach moved beyond gurgling and shooting bile up his throat to outright pain, and he wrapped his arms around himself and silently paced up and down his cell, two steps one way, two steps the other, because the pain got worse when he wasn’t moving.
It was ridiculous—it’d been less than a day—that was no time at all to go without food.
So many people were lucky to get even one bad meal a day, and for them two ham sandwiches would be a feast. What was wrong with him?
He tried not to think about food, but there was nothing to distract him. Spicy chicken pies yesterday, beer-battered fritters the day before, skewers of mushrooms and red potatoes the day before that. Coffee nearly every day since he’d been in Farre. He’d never drank it at home. Nobody did—everybody usually had tea at home, or just water. He remembered being very, very small and leaning forward in his mother’s arms with a wide-open mouth to catch the stream of water from the village fountain.
Great. Now he felt thirsty too.
Would he ever tell his mother about this? About the two nights he’d spent in jail in Farre for street-brawling? He could imagine telling Audrey—he could easily imagine telling a spellbound Audrey every detail—but not his mother. And not Jolie.
A pang in his chest momentarily rivaled the ones in his stomach. It was best, really, that she probably never wanted to see him again. He couldn’t imagine telling Jolie that he’d been in jail.
His stomach hurt so badly he thought it must be killing him. He leaned against the wall, doubled over, rocking back and forth on his shoulder pressed into the cold stone, and muttered curses between his teeth, a litany of foul words that could have been a prayer. He cursed the bluecloaks, the magistrate, the duke, the city, the village, his father, himself, himself, himself.
It was some time later, after he had slumped to the floor in exhaustion but was still unable to sleep, that he saw the jailer’s lantern light at the top of the stairs. It almost instantly disappeared as the jailer stumped down to the cell block and out of the angle of what Graegor, on the floor, could see through the bars on his door; but then the jailer said something to somebody, and laughed.
Graegor got up in time for the jailer’s lantern to blind him as the man stopped in front of his cell. “Here.” He held something out to Graegor, who took it without thinking. He stared at it with watering eyes, and took such a big bite of the apple that he nearly choked. The jailer laughed at him too, and moved on to the occupant of the third cell. He passed out more apples to the other side of the cell block, and when he passed Graegor’s cell again on his way back to the stairs, Graegor swallowed and said, “I thought we weren’t given food.”