Justice

by Ian Irvine

  Jackery walked around in a widening spiral. “He was alone. And you can see her prints here, in the soft ground.”

  They remounted and followed. “She’s moving faster now,” said Jackery. “South-west.”

  “Why that way?”

  “Looks like she’s heading to Tinker’s Cleft. A fishing village.”

  Rix considered that for a minute, his anxiety growing. “But Glynnie can’t sail. Can’t swim worth a damn, either. Not that it’d make a difference if she could. The water’s too cold at this time of year.”

  “Maybe, after the attack, she figured it was a smaller risk than going by land.”

  “Let’s ride.”

  They galloped across to the bay and down a track to the village, which was astir. The fishermen were gathered on the shore, children were carrying water up to the cottages and the chimneys were smoking.

  Rix rode up to the men at the boats. “Has anyone lost a boat?”

  They pointed to a skinny old fellow, white of hair and short on teeth.

  “How long ago was it taken?” said Rix.

  The oldster shrugged. “In the night.”

  Rix tossed him a small bag of coin, then scanned the water. Two skiffs were already out and he saw half a dozen sails in the distance, though they were too distant for him to make out their occupants.

  “We’d get a better look from Cape Kimbo,” said Jackery.

  “Where’s that?”

  Jackery pointed to the headland that formed the eastern side of the bay’s entrance.

  “Come on,” said Rix.

  They galloped up the steep path and turned right along a track that ran south-west along the cliff-top of the bay towards the entrance, which was about five miles distant. At intervals Rix stopped, ran to the cliff edge and peered down, expecting to see a wrecked boat. He saw nothing.

  At Cape Kimbo he dismounted and forced his way through a patch of wind-twisted pines to a bare rock platform, and looked south. Caulderon was only two miles away. There were plenty of fishing boats on the lake though none looked as though they had sailed south from this bay. He went back through the pines.

  “No sign of her,” he said to Jackery, who had been several hundred yards behind and was only now tying up his horse.

  They returned to the lookout and Rix scanned the shoreline of Caulderon through his binoculars. A large number of boats were drawn up there, and more were anchored or moored offshore. He could see dozens of people on the shoreline, gleaning, he assumed. From this distance he could almost have identified Glynnie through the glasses, but he saw no one who looked familiar.

  “She’d be in hiding long since,” said Jackery. “If…”

  If she got there. If she hadn’t drowned. If she hadn’t been caught.

  “How could she be such a fool?” Rix said harshly. “Look at all the guards on the wall. How could she possibly think she could make it through?”

  “I would never call Glynnie a fool,” said Jackery cautiously. “But when you care that much about someone, you accept the risk… Because to do otherwise would be betraying the one you love… and if you did that you would die inside. ”

  Rix turned to Jackery in surprise, realising how little he knew about the man.

  “Sounds as though you speak from personal experience.”

  “I had a wife. We lived in Tumulus Town, one of the first parts of Caulderon to be occupied when the war began. I was away with the army, down near Gullihoe…”

  “I saw what the enemy did to Gullihoe,” Rix said quietly. What a night that had been.

  “When we came back, Tumulus Town was enemy territory, swarm ing with soldiers, and they were making an example of the place to terrorise the rest of Caulderon. But my wife was there, and I loved her.”

  Rix felt his hackles rise.

  Jackery’s voice was flat, hard, dead. His eyes went bleak. “I had to get in. And I did get in.”

  Rix could imagine what it had been like. He’d seen all too much of it in the war, and for every atrocity he’d witnessed he’d heard stories of another dozen.

  “But you were too late.”

  “They treated her the way women are treated in war. Then killed her.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Rix.

  “Hundreds of women in Tumulus Town suffered the same fate. I wish I’d never gone back; I’ll never erase those images.”

  “If you could have saved her, you would have.”

  “Why couldn’t it have been me?” said Jackery. “When I became a soldier, I half expected to die in combat—it’s part of the job. Why her?”

  “For every soldier who’s died in this war, there have been three or four civilians.”

  “War is shit!” Jackery cried.

  “And the sooner it’s over, the better.”

  But Jackery wasn’t listening. He was heading back through the forest, almost running. Rix did not go after him; no doubt he wanted to be alone.

  Suddenly conscious that if he could see the enemy in Caulderon, they could see him, Rix went down on his belly. He swept his binoculars along the walls, making note of the defences. There must be a couple of thousand troops guarding the city walls, and many thousands more patrolling the streets, night and day. Caulderon might have been subdued but it was a great city with a population well over a hundred thousand, and controlling such a city would not be easy.

  A wild thought popped into Rix’s head. What if he attacked Caulderon, took part of it and roused the people to insurrection? If they rose to support him it would be a huge blow to Lyf and an enormous boost to Hightspall’s crumbling morale. It would also go a long way to making up for his ignominious flight from Caulderon—a broken, dispossessed lord, universally condemned for helping to bring down his house and betraying his evil parents.

  He shook his head, smiling at such foolishness. It would turn the city into a slaughterhouse and most of the dead would be innocent civilians like Jackery’s wife. Besides, Lyf would not give up Caul deron easily, and his army at Mulclast was only a day’s march away…

  The more immediate problem was Grandys. Flume was five miles east of here, an afternoon stroll away—less than an hour’s ride on a good path. Grandys would have scouts out, and if he were to discover Rix was here—

  He withdrew into the trees. He had cursed Glynnie for her folly but it was nothing compared to his own; a handful of Grandys’ men could trap him on this headland. And trying to find Glynnie was a monumental stupidity, so why was he contemplating it? Why wasn’t he creeping back to his army by the safest route he could find?

  Rix took bread and cheese from his saddlebags, ate it and washed it down with swigs of warm, flat beer from the skin tied to his saddlebags. He had just finished when Jackery returned. His eyes were a dark, bruised red, his face unnaturally pale. Rix did not remark upon it.

  “I’ve been up on that little hill we saw half a mile back,” said Jackery.

  “Any movement from Grandys’ direction?” said Rix. “Any sign of his scouts?”

  “No. Are you going back, or on?”

  “After Glynnie, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t decide. What do you—?”

  Jackery was shaking his head. “Don’t ask me.”

  “Sorry,” said Rix. “Indecision is one of my greater flaws.”

  “Whatever you do, and whatever its outcome, you’ll regret you didn’t make the other choice. The important thing is to do something.”

  “You’re right—I’m going after Glynnie as soon as it’s dark.”

  Jackery said nothing.

  “Do you think that’s the wrong decision?” Rix said, immediately regretting his rashness.

  Jackery, wisely, did not reply. Rix sat there for another five minutes, twisting on the knife, then leapt up. “I can’t bear it here, not knowing what’s going on up north.”

  They rode back to the hill, which was pimple-shaped at its rocky top and, being mostly bare of trees, had a relatively uninter
rupted view in all directions. After tethering the horses in thick forest along a rivulet they climbed the hill and wriggled onto the top.

  Rix checked on Grandys’ camp at Flume. There was no sign of movement, nor on Bolstir hill. He sighed, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  “I’ll take the watch if you need a nap,” said Jackery.

  “I’m too wound up. But you should.”

  Rix sat with his back to a boulder, closed his eyes and tried to think, to plan, but his mind was too thick and sluggish.

  “By the look of you, you need it more than me,” said Jackery.

  “All right.” Rix glanced at the sun, a pale disc through the brown, ash-tinged clouds. It was after 10 a.m. “But just an hour, no more.”

  He closed his eyes, thinking about Glynnie only a few miles away. With the wind at his back he could sail there in under an hour, though how could he enter Caulderon without being recognised instantly…

  Jackery was shaking him violently. “Deadhand, wake up!”

  Rix’s eyes shot open. “What’s the matter?”

  “Your army is moving south! And Grandys’ men are marching north.”

  Rix scrambled to his feet, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stared north. Jackery thrust the binoculars into his hand. Rix peered through them.

  “What’s Hork up to? I gave him express orders to stay on Bolstir.”

  “Grandys must have lured him out.”

  “Surely Hork isn’t that much of a fool?”

  “He’s hungry for glory. And he has a high opinion of himself—he doesn’t like being told what to do.”

  “Then what the hell’s he doing in the army?”

  Jackery shrugged. “What are any of us?”

  “How can he think to take on Grandys’ army?” Rix stiffened. “Hork may want glory, but he’s not suicidal…”

  “What is it?”

  “I think Grandys did lure Hork out—but not physically.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  “Grandys once put a command on me with Maloch. The command was a form of magery and it forced me to obey him. I’ll bet he’s using it again—against Hork!”

  “We’d better go,” said Jackery, staring north.

  Rix felt another gut spasm. He turned towards Caulderon. Glynnie, I’m sorry.

  She would never forgive him for this abandonment, but he had little hope of getting into Caulderon without being caught, and no hope of finding her and getting her out. While only a few miles north his entire army was at risk, and leaderless.

  “Come on,” he said, running for the edge of the hill. “We’re riding for Bolstir!”

  CHAPTER 30

  It must have been six in the morning when the skiff nosed in to a mud-covered beach. Only a hundred yards to go. It was still dark, though dawn was not far off, and Glynnie had to be well inside the city wall before the sun rose.

  The line of the broken wall was illuminated here and there by flares, and through the lake mist she made out three watch posts, two on her left and the other to the right. Guards moved in and out of the light, never relaxing their vigilance.

  She scanned the beach with the crystal, left and right as far as she could see. All she saw was mud and large blocks of stone, dumped there when the tsunami had broken the lake-front wall months ago.

  She sat in the skiff for a minute or two, working on her cover story. She had to abandon the boat, since there was nowhere to hide it. It would not be here when she came back—if she did. She would have to find another way to escape the city.

  If she were caught, Glynnie planned to say that she had been gleaning along the lake shore, trying to find food for herself and her little sister, who was ill. The story was plausible, though it was hard to imagine, in this ruined, half-starving city, that there was anything edible left to find. She stuffed a handful of bait fish into a side pocket of her pack. They stank, but no one in Caulderon could afford to be fastidious.

  There was a gap of some hundred and fifty yards between the nearest guard post on the left and the one on the right. She made for the centre of the gap, keeping low, though in the darkness there was little risk of being seen. She moved carefully, testing each footstep. She could not afford to have a pebble clack underfoot; any sound would carry to the guards on this still night, and after Lyf’s defeat by Grandys last week they would be on high alert.

  Her heart was racing, her throat dry. She tried to calm herself as she crept forward. The broken wall was just ahead now, a jumble of shoulder-high stone blocks. She felt her way along them, looking for a gap, but did not find one.

  She climbed up, feeling her way. The stone was damp, covered in moss, and slippery. She reached the top, felt a large gap ahead and hesitated, afraid of falling and making a noise, or breaking an ankle.

  Glynnie found a way down to the left and reached solid ground. She was in the city! She swallowed a lump in her throat at the thought that Benn could be so close, then fished out the crystal to spy out the way forward.

  As she put it to her eye, a strong arm locked around her neck from behind. She dropped the crystal and went for her knife but a hand caught her wrist in a grip she could not break.

  “Lights,” said a man’s voice, a Cythonian accent. “Let’s see who the spy is.”

  She lunged and kicked furiously but could not get free; the arm had tightened across her throat until she could not draw breath.

  “Stop struggling or I’ll choke you,” the man said.

  A bright lantern was unshuttered directly in Glynnie’s eyes, dazzling her. Another man caught her free hand, searched her with meticulous thoroughness and took her knives.

  Her wrists were bound behind her back. Her captor shoved her along a muddy path that wound uphill for forty or fifty yards to a beautifully built manse set on a small mound. Glynnie’s eyes widened, for she recognised it. She was in the grounds of what had, until a few months ago, been Palace Ricinus. She had worked there as a maidservant all her life.

  But Palace Ricinus was gone. A huge circle of yellow stone buildings, supported on rows of columns, had been erected where the centre of the palace had been. And she knew, with utter certainty, that she was about to be erased just as completely.

  Her captor thrust her through the doorway of the manse into a long room with an ornate plasterwork ceiling and a series of windows along the left wall. There was a small square table in the middle with four chairs around it. Papers were neatly stacked on a longer table along the end wall.

  “Sit,” said the man who had caught her. He drew the nearest chair out.

  She sat. He took the chair across the table from her. He was short and stocky, with pale grey skin, black eyes and wavy grey hair, cut short. He wore an officer’s uniform and looked tired and harried. The other man, a burly fellow with close-cropped hair, stood by the door.

  “I am Captain Ricips,” the stocky man said. His voice was crisp, businesslike, with a slight rumble. “What is your name?”

  “Halie,” said Glynnie. She dared not give her own name, since it was bound to be on one of their lists. Halie had been the name of her little sister, three years younger than Glynnie. She had only lived for a year. Glynnie felt tears form as she spoke her sister’s name. She had not thought about her in ages.

  “Why were you sneaking through the city wall after curfew?” said Ricips.

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” she said softly. “I—I’d been out trying to find food—”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  It was the weak point of her story, one she had not been able to find a good explanation for. “If something fresh washed up on the shore, I’d be the first to find it.”

  “In pitch darkness?”

  “I’m so hungry, I’d smell it.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look, then opened his hand and rolled the hexagonal crystal across the table. It made a small rattling sound as each face turned.

  Glynnie’s throat closed over. She tried to pretend that she’d n
ever seen the crystal before, but knew he would never believe her. She could feel the blood draining from her face.

  “What’s that?” she croaked.

  “It’s the Herovian night-shard you were looking through before you got out of your boat,” he said with sudden, cold ferocity. “You tried to dispose of it as I caught you, because it’s proof you’re an enemy spy.”

  “It’s not mine. I found it,” she said weakly.

  “What’s your real name and who are you spying for? It’d better not be Axil Grandys!”

  “I’m not a spy!” she cried, rising from her chair and looking him full in the eye. “I’m not! I’m just a poor maidservant. You’ve searched me. You know I’ve got no money, no food, nothing.”

  Ricips considered her for twenty or thirty seconds. She thought he was wavering but she could not think of anything to say that would improve her case. Better to say nothing than be caught in a lie. Another lie.

  The burly guard started, came across and whispered in Ricips’ ear. They both studied Glynnie.

  “Are you sure?” said Ricips.

  The burly guard’s reply was indistinguishable. Ricips went to the end table, riffled through the papers and drew out several pages held together by a pin. Glynnie could not read what was written there, though it appeared to be a list of names.

  “It was at the Glimmering peace conference,” said the burly guard. “I’m sure of it. She cried out as Grandys took Rixium Ricinus away.”

  Ricips checked the list, looked down at Glynnie and read the list again.

  “You are a maidservant, but your name isn’t Halie. It’s Glynnie. You were a maid at Palace Ricinus, and now you’re Rixium’s consort. His lover.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “You deny that you are the maidservant Glynnie, formerly of Palace Ricinus?”

  There was no point. “I’m Glynnie. But I’m not Rixium’s lover, nor have I ever been.”

  “But he is your close friend?”

  “Yes. At least, he was…”

  “And Rixium served Grandys. He fought beside Grandys.”

  “Rixium was under Grandys’ sorcerous command,” she said desperately.

  “And perhaps still is. Now you come spying for Rixium, or Grandys, carrying a Herovian night-shard. What were you looking for?”