The Thief King: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Two

by Craig R. Saunders

  He would have to gauge his market as it came.

  He looked up from his reverie and saw that he had passed into the outskirts of the southern town of Brantwise. He estimated it time for lunch. He pushed on, past some well-kept farms and into the town’s heart. He ignored the town’s sole tavern. It was too soon to stop at a tavern. There was always the chance, this close to Naeth, that someone would recognise him. He wasn’t a famous face, but he was a steward. People had an eye for the wealthy. And he was a wealthy man in most people’s eyes, if not in reality. His wealth was that of the city, and he wasn’t at liberty to spend it as he wished. It was an unspoken trust. He had wages to pay even as he collected taxes. A fine position for a thief to be in-- surrounded by money and burdened by a sudden sense of responsibility.

  He pushed on through the town with a few greetings from the friendlier of the passersby, and onto the great south road. It was little more than a wide dirt track, rutted from wagon’s wheels, but it served its purpose if only in keeping him going in the right direction.

  He ate lunch outside the town and fed Minstrel some grain after allowing her to water from a nearby stream. Then, as the suns hit the centre of the sky, mounted and headed for the south.

  *

  Chapter Eight

  An old man sat at the side of the road, an alms cup between his knees. He was blind. Sightless orbs stared unceasingly at the road Roskel travelled. Roskel pulled up before him.

  'My lord. Welcome to Wraith’s Guard,' the old man greeted him.

  'A strange name for a village, old father.'

  'Aye, it is. As is its history. For a small consideration, I would be happy to tell the tale, have you the time to spare.'

  Roskel dismounted and hobbled the mare. He walked over to the man and sat next to him with some relief. He was saddle sore from a day’s ride. He did not like to think how sore he would be should he reach his final destination. At least he would have the winter to ease his aching backside before he undertook the return journey.

  'I’ll listen to your tale. A silver in it for you, too, should it be worthy of remembering.'

  'Oh, it is worth remembering, my lord. A travelling minstrel, I take it.'

  Roskel was taken aback. 'You are amazingly perceptive for a blind man.'

  'It is no trick, really. The wind whistles across your lute and it plays a sweet tune to my ears. Usually the sweetest sound I get to hear is a young woman’s taunts. I long for the days when a young woman throws her barbs at me. Something alluring about a young woman’s voice. Full of promise. Even if she only stops to kick me…'

  'I’d have thought you too old for such considerations.'

  'Get to my age, my lord, and you’ll realise there’s beauty in a young woman even when she’s full of spite and bile. You take your pleasures where you can get them when you’re as old as me.'

  'Just how old are you?'

  'Ninety-eight, I reckon. Come spring, if I make it, by my count it will be ninety-nine. I’m not too sure, though.'

  'How long have you been blind?'

  'Ninety-eight years, I reckon. Don’t remember being born, mind, so I might have seen my own mother once…never after.'

  Roskel was surprised. He didn’t think a man could live past seventy. There was something fey about a man living so long. But he was polite, for the most part. He didn’t challenge the man. To what end? He seemed sure enough for the both of them. And then, Roskel imagined, if the old man was ninety-eight, it didn’t seem right to argue with him. He was venerable. Not many men could say they were venerable with a straight face.

  He might have been a beggar, and blind, too, but there was a certain confidence about the man, and a surety that Roskel wished he could feel on this long road he had set out upon.

  'I’ve some bread and cheese, if you’d be partial to a little sustenance. You certainly look hungry.'

  'You don’t eat so much when you get to my age, but I’ll take a little water if you’ve a mind, my lord.'

  'I’m not lord, old father. Just a travelling minstrel.'

  'As you wish,' said the old man. There was a note of disbelief in his voice that Roskel picked up, but to his credit the old man was sensible enough a beggar not to disagree with a penny mark.

  Roskel handed the old man a water skin. His hand found the skin with unerring precision. He could make a pretty penny for the carnival with such skills, thought the thief.

  'And so to the story, my lord.'

  'I’m on the lookout for a new tale or two.'

  'Tis a fine tale.' The man took a sip of water and smacked his lips in appreciation. 'From the north,' he said with a smile. 'Straight from the mountains. The finest I have tasted in a long time.' He put the skin down. 'Finer than the water from around here. For that is dead water. Cursed, my lord, if you believe in such things.'

  Roskel smiled, nodded; sure that the old man would somehow feel him nodding, just as he could sense a storyteller's opening gambit.

  'The old ones, those who lived here before the race of man came from across the ocean and settled these shores, the old ones had a different name for this land. They called it ‘Sambra’. They built the monuments you see crumbling at places of power. It was an old power. The power of land. Sturmen have lost the using of such powers. Now, in these days, there are no wizards-- but the old ones, they had magic at their fingertips. They had the power of the gods, or so it would seem to us.

  'This here village is built over the remnants of one such place. A relic of forgotten ages past. You can see, if you’ve a mind to, the ridge that runs around the village. The village rests in the centre. Take a look, my lord, if you’ve a mind. You’ll see the occasional stone peering out from under the earth. Stone like you’ll never see in a quarry for it does not come from this land. Black as the darkest night, and unbreakable. Strike it with hammer and chisel hard enough and you’ll break the hammer and chisel both, but not a dent will you make in that stone. The people of the village use the stones that rise up for hearths and fireplaces, for no heat will mark it. The people of this village have grown wise. They will not dig for it, for one man had the folly to do so and it proved his ruination.'

  Roskel took a sip of his water. The suns were moving over the western horizon, but he didn’t mind. He could see there was a tavern a ways down the road. He had time. And, he had to admit to himself, the old man was a storyteller born. No doubt past the age of ninety you’d heard a tale or two.

  'Remember, the old people had power. They built on places of power. That power seeped into their buildings. They left, for why nobody will ever know, but that power remains. A man from the village determined to mine the stones. He thought to build his house from the stone. He dug and carried for many years, until he had enough stones to build a house. But the stone remembers.

  'He built a fine house on the outskirts of town, and for a year and a day, the villagers were in awe of his home. It was darker than the darkest night, but on a moonlight night it shone with a silvery glow. Sometimes people said that they heard it sighing, like a woman who’d lost a child or a man who’d lost his wife. It sighed like disappointment and death, sadness and despair. The man, you see, was going steadily mad.

  'He began to shun his friends. He began to stay in his home. For days he would not eat. Then he started to become thin…not from lack of food, but more like a shadow drawn out.

  'The man would only come out of his house at night. On a clear night the villagers would see him, walking back and forth, back and forth, burning a furrow in the ground around his home with his worried footsteps.

  'The villagers tried to persuade him to leave the house. But he would not hear their pleas. The house moaned in the night by now. On a windswept night the anguish in the stones could be heard for up to a mile.

  'Then one day, the man was there no longer. He was just not there. It was like he had disappeared. But the villagers knew. He was not gone. He was in the stones. They could hear the cries of his soul in the night, sometimes cry
ing like the bereaved. The man had gone the way of the old ones. The power had eaten him alive, and there was nothing left but the sad, black house.

  'Listen well tonight, should you stay at the Restless Spirit Tavern, for you will hear his cries on the wind, should they be right. But don’t be tempted to leave the tavern at night, for his restless spirit is in these stones. The stones of power. And so the village stands, and the villagers remember.'

  Roskel watched the old man as he finished his tale. The old man's face came alive, telling his story, just as Roskel felt alive from hearing it.

  'What happened to the house?'

  The old man nodded, expecting the question...like a troubadour born, he'd led Roskel to it.

  'The house was torn down. Its stones were spread around the perimeter of the village. The people guard against the return of the spirit, and the spirit in the stones guard us. Never has a bandit crossed those stones. None with darkness in their heart may pass the walls and leave alive. The spirit is our guardian, and we are stewards of the stones…lest they eat another of the unwary…'

  The old man grinned.

  Roskel smiled back. Even though the old man couldn’t see him he got the sense that he knew he was pleased. It was a fine story. A good one for a tavern on a dark winter’s night, should it come to that.

  'It was a fine tale, old father, and I thank you for taking the time to tell it to me. I hope my heart is pure. It certainly is a tale to give the evil traveller pause.'

  'As it should, my lord. But if you will not take my word as to its truth, just listen to the stones tonight in your bed. Or, perhaps, you’ll like to believe it was just a story.'

  'Perhaps,' said Roskel, and for some reason the story chilled him, but not unpleasantly. It was a good tale, and he had nothing to fear.

  He pressed a gold piece into the old man’s hand. 'For the tale and the time. It was finely told, and one well worth remembering.'

  The old man smiled up at Roskel as he remounted Minstrel.

  He did not look back at the old man. For some reason he feared to look. He had heard enough tales to know the folly of looking back when you met a stranger on the road. The darkness was falling, it was past dusk, and in such an hour in places of power it did not pay to look back.

  Just in case the man wasn’t there.

  Roskel paid for a room and stable for the night in the Restless Spirit Tavern, and lit a candle against the dark. He laid down, his backside aching and his limbs weary, glad for the rest, and listened to the wailing in the night.

  It could have been the wind.

  *

  Chapter Nine

  The strange man stood before Orvane Wense once more. His face was a study in serenity.

  For his part, the Thane of Kar was calm on the outside, but his mind raced as he thought of the opportunities this man presented. To have a network of spies unparalleled in Sturma, perhaps in the whole of Rythe…he knew not what rested across the wide eastern seas, but certainly nothing so…intricate…could exist in the Drayman lands to the west.

  He wondered by what means the man before could know the things he knew. It was by some means other than the mundane. He was sure of that much. But his new found friend was tight-lipped on the subject.

  He could have the information tortured out of the man, but then, what good would that do? He would have to labour in ignorance, at least while it suited him to do so.

  'And so the Lord Protector?'

  'The artefact is with him. He travels alone. Should you wish it, he could be dead by morning.'

  An attractive proposition. But Farinder’s death would avail him little. Already the Stewards would be divided. No Thane could become a Steward…but then the Stewards were only a measure to protect the crown. Until one came along who was worthy?

  But none save the royal line could wear the crown. What use usurping a throne with no symbol of office? None would support the king, not without the Crown of Kings. And that rested in the Cathedral at Kus, a useless lump of metal and gems for all to see and none to hold.

  But if it was true…the Stewards and the priests could hold it…did Farinder intend to take the crown for himself?

  Was that the reason behind this journey? Was that why the Lord Protector of the whole of Sturma travelled light, heading south, in total secrecy? He even travelled under the guise of an itinerant bard, one with means, to be sure. From what he knew of the Lord Protector, the man liked his comforts. Wense could not imagine the man travelling as a bard down on his luck.

  He knew little of the man before his time in office, save that he had been a bandit, pardoned and absolved of all crimes by his friend, Tarn, the last of the line of kings. Tarn had managed to save Sturma from Hurth, Wense's greatest rival among the northern Thanes, but at the same time had provided for the future. Had he died without proclamation they could have chosen a new king…

  Wait…if the crown could not be worn…

  What a fool! The crown could not be worn by another because there was still a king.

  'Gods, I am a fool!'

  'My lord?' enquired the man before him.

  'Nothing. Leave me. Allow me to think. Slow him down. Return to me when you have done whatever it is you do. Tell me of it tomorrow, but for now leave me.'

  The man walked out on silent feet. Wense did not notice him leaving.

  Everyone had presumed that the crown had chosen this man Farinder, and that he had followed the dying king’s last proclamation, to act as Steward to the country. He had named no successor. Therefore, in the eyes of the Thanes, the issue had been decided…there were to be no more kings. The Stewards would hold the crown, for all purposes, and the Crown of Kings would reside as it always did in the Cathedral on the Plains.

  But why, then, could only the man Farinder hold the crown? What if his ability to hold the crown was not because he was eligible by dint of the magic of the crown to hold it, nay, to wear it even, but because he was its steward, protector of the crown…why could none other wear it?

  Unless…Wense turned over the possibility in his mind…

  If it were true, then why the journey in secrecy? Could it be that Farinder had finally decided to wear the crown?

  No. From what he knew of the man he despised the trappings of power. He did not seem enamoured with his state functions. He spent more time whoring and drinking in the city than he did on matters of state. The stewards were the power on Sturma, true, but Wense knew the brain behind this new state of affairs was Durmont, the quiet secretary, and thus their benefactor the Thane of Spar.

  Think! Damn him for a fool…could it be true? The crown could only be worn by a king…but if there was another of the blood they would be young…could Tarn have had a brother he didn’t know about? No, that did not ring true. Could there be a son?

  If there was a son, he would be too young to take the crown…but Farinder had been close to the king…he could know. He could take the crown and hold it until…

  Wense's head ached from the possibilities. It was not over.

  Why would there be stewards unless another could come to take the crown in time?

  Farinder knew something he did not. He was increasingly sure of it. He needed to keep his strange new ally on his side. He would have to treat him with respect. The man knew things no man should know, though. He would have to be wary, lest he become embroiled in his own plots.

  He took a glass from the table before him and sipped some wine. It was still warm.

  His hands shook.

  What if there really was still a king?

  *

  Chapter Ten

  The stranger, who had once been the Spy Master of Naeth, once an assassin in Drayman lands, once, even, had called the continent Lianthre his home, walked through the capital of Kar unhindered. People gave him a wide berth. Thieves on the streets, the cutpurses and the headbreakers - all thought twice about accosting him as he strode confidently down the darker alleyways toward the poor quarter, where he had a simple roo
m in one of the cities less salubrious establishments.

  He made the journey calmly and without interruption. Even though his movements were sedate it did not take him long. He nodded politely to the barman as he entered the bar, then headed up the stairs to his room.

  He bolted the door behind himself and knelt upon the floor. He pulled a rug aside to reveal a strange design painted beneath. Shuffling forward he placed himself in the centre of the pattern, and concentrated.

  His face seemed to waver for a moment, not settling on any one particular form. His features appeared to melt and a red glow came from his eyes. The room was lit well by the eerie light. The air before him shimmered, and then there was a clearing in a wood.

  A man, similar in appearance to the conjurer, stood from his seat on a fallen tree and turned to face the man in the room. To him it seemed clear, but to the man in the room the picture was wavering and insubstantial. It was an oddity, for usually this method of communication was sound, tried and tested. The painting he knelt upon was an anchor, and he should have been solid. But no matter. It was results that counted.

  'Slow him down. I do not care how you do it, but he must not reach the crown before the winter. My lord will reach the same conclusion we have in time, but for now we need to be patient while the stupid human thinks of things himself. He is smart, for a human, though. I think we will not have to wait long.'

  'Is he to be given safe passage? Should I reveal myself yet?'

  'No. He is to be allowed to reach the Cathedral. Just slow him down. I care not how. Do not make me repeat myself again.'