by Anthony Ryan
CHAPTER SIX
The Shavine Forest was far larger in the days before the demands of forge and shipyard sent hordes of charcoal burners and woodcutters to ravage it down to its current size. Although this despoilment was well under way when Deckin’s band haunted the woods, the forest remains huge in my memory. I often think of it as a beast in its own right, a sprawling leviathan of ancient trees with few clearings and innumerable root-choked gullies where outlaws of craft and experience could evade the duke’s sheriffs for months or even years.
So, when the time came to break camp and head for Leffold Glade we did so with a cautious slowness, moving in silent and precise order from one hiding place to another. The old duke was fond of periodically sending companies of soldiers and huntsmen into the darker regions of the forest where, with luck, the hounds might ferret out a miscreant or two for the noose. Whether this newly appointed cousin would prove so diligent remained an open question and Deckin was disinclined towards chancing a rapid march.
His decision was not popular with the band, although no tongue was so foolish as to say so. Travelling at the dawn of winter meant days of miserable traipsing across frosted ground where game was sparse and fires difficult to light come nightfall. The nights were the worst, long hours of shivering darkness alleviated only by Gerthe occasionally consenting to snuggle next to me for warmth. Sadly, snuggling was all she would permit and I was too wary of her small but sharp dagger to risk a wandering hand.
Leffold Glade sat twenty miles to the north amid the thick forest between the duchy’s heartland and the wetlands of the north-eastern border. Reaching it required traversing a few miles of open country, something we only ever did in the dead of night and in carefully established order. Bowmen were posted on both flanks a good thirty paces from the central group all bunched close around Deckin and Lorine with daggers and sundry weapons in hand. Lacking any skill with the bow and considered not yet hefty enough to act as a guard, I was sent to scout the ground ahead, ready to let out a piercing whistle at the sight of any patrolling soldiery.
The band moved at a run when we did this chore, covering the ground to the road and beyond at a pace just below a sprint. Although the old duke’s men rarely patrolled at night, it wasn’t unknown for his sheriffs to lay an ambush at frequently used crossing places. Fortune smiled that night and I reached the safety of the trees without detecting any problems. Still, the forest was alive with the creak of the trees, branches heavy with the first snows of winter. Although well used to life in the woods, time alone in the wild dark was always a disconcerting experience, stirring fears born of an instinctive knowledge that this was neither a place nor a time for people to be abroad.
Therefore, I should have been grateful for the sight of Lorine hurrying towards me, breath pluming white in the gloom, but there was something about the cast of her face that set me on edge. She wore a careful smile, her gaze set in the bright, searching look of one keen to read another’s reaction. The artifice of it bothered me, as did the fact that I had spotted it so easily; normally she was a much better actress.
“Thought you’d need another set of eyes,” she said. “Since Erchel’s not here.”
Erchel usually joined me when scouting ahead, but thanks to his punishment he was currently in no condition to do more than stumble along in wincing misery. I responded to Lorine with a nod, blowing air into my hands and rubbing them together. She made a show of looking around before letting out a satisfied sigh. If it hadn’t been for her counterfeit smile my lust-ridden mind might have entertained the notion she had orchestrated a little private time for a dalliance, a very special reward for my recent work. A perilous but still enticing fantasy that vanished as soon as it entered my mind. I found myself possessed of a keen desire to move away from her, well-honed instincts warning that we were about to have a very dangerous conversation.
She didn’t speak at first, turning and cupping her hands around her mouth to call out the three owl hoots that told the others the path was clear. It wasn’t until their shadowy forms began to appear that she murmured, “You know what he intends to do, I assume?”
“’Course not.” I blew on my hands again, casting my eyes around so as not to meet hers.
“You’re very far from being a stupid lad, Alwyn. I know you spy on us. I know you hear and see more than you’re supposed to.” I could feel her gaze on me, my skin growing hot despite the chill, a heat that had nothing to do with my many sweaty imaginings of what it might be like to find myself alone with this woman. As ever in life, the reality was a sharp and unpleasant contrast to the dream. “Tell me—” snow crunched as she took a step closer “—what do you think he’s planning?”
“Something to do with the new duke.” I risked a glance at her face, finding the smile vanished and her expression one of intent scrutiny. “He’d fetch a hefty ransom. We’ve done it before. We’ll snatch him and the king’ll have to cough up a whole cartful of gold to get him back.”
“Merchants and a noble or two – that’s who we’ve ransomed before. This is different. And what makes you so sure it’s just ransom Deckin’s after?”
I am determined to make myself a duke. I didn’t repeat what Deckin said that night, although I was fairly sure she knew I had heard them. This entire conversation felt like being trapped in a pit with hissing snakes all around. “What else is there?” I regretted the question as soon as it was out of my mouth, for it gave her leave to draw closer.
“He talks to you,” she said, voice quiet. “Says things to you he doesn’t say to me. The bond between bastards is strong, eh? You tell me what he’s after.”
Looking into her searching gaze, I understood that her question wasn’t rhetorical. She genuinely thought I knew something she didn’t. “We talk, sometimes,” I said. “He says a lot, but tells me little.”
“He’ll tell you more, when he gets maudlin and needs to vent all that sorrow, all that hate and love for the man who fathered him. Once it was me he vented at. Now it’s you.”
Her hand moved, quick and sharp, causing me to take a step back in expectation of a blade’s sting. Instead, something flickered in the air between us, catching the dim moonlight as it spun and fell into my palm. One skill life had taught me early was to never let a falling coin touch the ground for there were always plenty of other hands ready to claim it. The silver sovereign weighed no more than a couple of sheks, but felt heavy in my hand, heavier still when she added another alongside it.
“He’ll tell you things,” she began, “things I’ll need to hear, for all our sakes…”
She fell to an abrupt silence as I upended my hand, both coins making small holes in the snow as they fell.
“Always liked you, Lorine,” I told her. Her face suddenly lacked all expression, but also, I fancied, had grown a shade paler. I glanced over her shoulder at the shadowy forms of the band hurrying towards the trees, Deckin’s bulk looming largest among them.
“So,” I added, turning away from her blank mask of a face, “I’ll forget this. Best if you do too.”
Leffold Glade was perhaps the best-kept secret among the varied outlaw bands that once ranged the Shavine Forest, a ready-made and conveniently situated meeting place where disparate packs of miscreants came to agree alliances or settle disputes. For reasons unknown it had never been discovered by any duke or sheriff, making it something of a pilgrimage site for folk of our persuasion; you weren’t truly an outlaw until you’d seen the glade.
At this point in my life the word “amphitheatre” had yet to enter my lexicon but that’s certainly what this place had once been. Descending rows of tiered steps created a bowl around a flat circle some forty paces wide. The whole thing was overgrown with roots and weeds, of course, but the granite and marble visible beneath the blanket of snow-dusted green made it clear that it was not a natural feature of the landscape. Despite the cracked and mossed-over appearance of the stonework, the grandeur of the place lingered, my youthful mind conjuring varied and sur
ely fanciful imaginings every time we came here.
I envisioned a great mass of people crowding these tiers, all cheering or jeering at whatever spectacle unfolded in the arena below. In fact, I remain uncertain that it was in fact an arena. Pre-Scourge writings are rarer than gold and while some allude to combat as a form of entertainment others speak of a people as passionately fond of plays and poetry as they were bloody spectacle. In those days such conjecture was beyond my imagination, however, and I continued to envisage lurid battles between ancient slave warriors after which the victors would surely enjoy the amorous adulations of a female admirer or two, their lust stoked to insatiability by the sight of blood…
“Alwyn.”
I turned in time to receive the corpse of a white-pelted hare in the face, much to Justan’s amusement. “Cooking time!” he told me, still laughing and holding up a brace of recently snared beasts.
He was a slight fellow and it wouldn’t have been beyond my strength to administer a beating, but, despite a fondness for pranks, was also the least malicious of any member of this band and consequently hard to dislike. He was also a precisely vicious hand with a knife, which tended to discourage any unwise notions regarding petty revenge.
“Get one of the whelps to help,” I said, referring to the dozen or so youngsters in our company. With my recent success I felt such chores should be beneath me.
“Deckin’s orders.” He stepped back, moving his head in an authoritative jerk at the cluster of youngsters assembling a firepit near the edge of the arena. “Wants a proper tasty feast for our visitors and with my dearest Yelk gone on his travels, you’re the next best cook we have.”
We had been at the glade for close on three weeks now. Upon arrival, Deckin had chosen the messengers. To my surprise, Erchel had been among them. “Be sure to tell your uncle how you got that limp and all those scrapes,” Deckin instructed, handing him what less-educated eyes would have taken as a bundle of frayed cord. In fact, it consisted of four different lengths of rope all tied in a particular knot beyond the ken of most hands to craft. Few outlaws can read, but any worth their salt in the Shavine Marches knew the meaning of those knots: a summons from the Outlaw King.
Erchel, as thoroughly cowed and reduced to craven obedience as I would ever see him, bobbed his head and duly limped off towards the east. Twine, Baker and Yelk were entrusted with the other knots and dispatched to the remaining points of the compass. While we waited for Deckin’s summons to be answered we built shelters against the deepening chill and increasingly heavy snow, reaping what game we could from the surrounding woods. The previous evening the outlying scouts had reported back with news of other bands approaching from east and west, meaning this place would soon witness the largest gathering of outlaws for many years, all of whom would be expecting a decent measure of hospitality from their host.
Sighing, I swallowed further protest and moved towards the firepit. “We’ll need more wood than that, and a lot more water.”
The most impressive prizes from our hunting efforts were a pair of full-grown boars, which were duly gutted, spitted and set to roasting over the fire for the many hours it would take to render them ready for table. I marshalled my company of underlings with the efficiency of a sergeant-at-arms, setting them to the myriad tasks required when feeding a large number of people. Steam billowed in clouds from the many pots and cauldrons holding soup flavoured with wild herbs and the marrow of butchered bones. The band had a decent stock of salt to draw upon and Deckin gave me leave to use all of it. True spices were rarer, though we had plenty of garlic and thyme. A glower from Deckin had sufficed to compel the others to give up their private hoards of pepper or sugar, Gerthe even handing over a small wrap of saffron.
“Was gonna sell this in the spring,” she muttered with a sullen reluctance that made me want to hand it back, albeit in exchange for a special favour. But with Deckin looking on I confined my response to an apologetic smile and went about adding the precious scarlet fronds to a bowl of groundnut oil.
My young workforce attended to their various tasks with a mostly silent and industrious diligence, free of complaint or bickering. It was one of the contradictions of outlaw life that those called to it at a young age were often better behaved than seemed natural for children, but then fear is a great disciplinarian. That being said, they were never reduced to complete subservience and the need for occasional correction was inevitable.
“Oi!” I said, delivering a hard cuff to the back of Uffel’s head when his hands, which should have been engaged in chopping up bones for the broth, strayed to the skirts of the girl next to him. Besides Lorine, Elga was the prettiest face in our band and, though thirteen, could still pass for younger which made her useful during cutpurse excursions to the larger towns. Uffel was a year her junior but the lusts of manhood had arrived early, along with a growing spatter of pus-filled pimples that covered his face from brow to neck.
“Back to work,” I growled with a baleful eye, an order with which he complied after daring a scowl in my direction. Elga, ever a bright soul, gave a small giggle and blew a kiss at him which only made his blotched features scowl more. She pouted at him and turned away to offer me a curtsy of practised daintiness.
“My thanks for protecting my honour, good sir.”
“I’m no more a sir than you’re a lady.” The knife in my hand blurred as I rendered a horseradish into shavings. Reaching for another, I found my gaze caught by the sight of Todman talking to Lorine. It was only a few words exchanged in passing but rare enough to draw my eye for they rarely spoke. For the most part Lorine seemed to regard Todman with only marginally less disdain than I, and I would have expected any interaction between them to be short and sharp. But this was different, the unheard words uttered without any obvious resentment but rather a cautious, clipped brevity.
“I bet you’d like to call her lady,” Elga said. “And more besides.” I looked down to regard her impish grin, then jabbed a finger at the half-ground garlic in her pestle.
“If you don’t get that done you can call me ‘sir’ every time I stroke your hide with a hickory rod.”
She pouted again but duly returned to her work while I watched Lorine and Todman walk in opposite directions, recalling the weight of the two silver sovereigns she had placed my palm. The questions this raised were obvious and troubling in the quandary they presented. How many did she put in his palm? What did she expect in return? And, most troubling of all: Do I tell Deckin?
I have heard it is common in other parts of the world for outlaw bands to name themselves, but in the Shavine Forest we tended not to bother with such formality. Groups came together and split apart with a frequency that made keeping track of them all a pointless task. Deckin’s band was a singular exception in having remained a more or less cohesive body under one leader for more than a decade. Loosely affiliated gangs, often born out of familial ties, were much more the norm. These criminal fraternities conformed to a vague, constantly shifting territorial patchwork.
Although Deckin enjoyed an unchallenged ascendancy over the whole forest, his absolute authority covered the heart and south of the forest. The various factions of the Sakhel family kept mostly to the western reaches where they preyed on caravans carrying goods from the coastal ports. The less prosperous north was the province of a scattering of smaller bands under the control of the Thessil brothers, whom it’s said were once both sergeants under the old duke’s household banner but had fallen out of favour after pillaging one village too many without ducal leave.
It was in the east where a sense of order among thieves was least discernible. Here disparate families of old outlaw standing pursued feuds of indistinct origin and vied endlessly, and unsuccessfully, for dominion. It was from one of these tribes, the Cutters, that Erchel had been exiled when still a whelp when his tendencies became intolerable even for his own villainous kin. Deckin had taken him in as a favour, after payment of a decent fee of course. It had been hoped that Deckin’s brand
of discipline would straighten Erchel’s twisted soul into something useful in time. As it transpired, his principal use was now as a conduit to his family.
Erchel’s folk were the first to arrive, a band some thirty strong, all sharing various degrees of rattish resemblance. Their fellow easterners were not long in following them into the glade, six different gangs of differing strength who eyed each other with a feral enmity that would normally escalate to violence in short order. However, old custom dictated that no blood was ever spilled in the glade and, for all their myriad faults, these scoundrels were fiercely attached to tradition.
I watched Erchel stand by as Drenk Cutter, his uncle, exchanged greetings with Deckin, all hearty laughs and comradely backslapping. Erchel’s eyes were downcast and his back stooped, no doubt fearful of attracting too much notice. I wondered if he knew that one of the many discussions about to take place in this refuge would concern his own imminent murder, but doubted it. Although possessed of an enviable cunning and nose for trouble, Erchel was not truly a schemer. His instincts were tuned towards immediate survival and I considered him incapable of thinking much beyond the next day.
The Thessil brothers came next, both brawny men in their late thirties leading a sixty-strong retinue. Deckin’s welcome was of a much more formal kind than that offered to Erchel’s folk, a respectful half-bow followed by an extended hand. The brothers were not twins but shared a uniformity of stature and dress, both accepting the proffered hand with the same stiff caution. They carried themselves with a soldierly bearing and neatness of grooming and attire that set them apart from most of the outlaws crowding this place. Watching the contempt they tried, mostly without success, to keep from their blocky features as they surveyed the gathering, I judged them as men who would much rather have remained under the banner.
The Sakhels were the last to arrive and, next to Deckin’s band, proved to be the largest in number, over a hundred men and women resolving out of the trees at twilight. Their clan had fractured and reformed many times over the years but retained a uniformity of garb and facial decoration. I had heard they were descended from warriors exiled from the frosty wastes of the northern Fjord Geld generations ago, a legend I found increasingly credible upon viewing a plethora of tattooed faces rich in studded noses and ears. They were also the most well-armed group in attendance, every one bearing a sword or an axe, some inlaid with engraved runes that told of ancient origin.