by Tim Stead
“He’s there,” Johan said, and there was an edge of excitement in his voice.
“Then we wait a while,” Francis said. He had insisted on waiting. He had even placed men in the buildings close to the bridge to look for signs of an ambush, and he had devised plans to be followed in case of such treachery. His theory was simple enough. One of these military bastards was going to be on the dukes’ side and try to kill them. It seemed as inevitable as night following day to Francis.
Time passed and there was no signal from the hidden men, which meant that they had seen no sign of a trap.
About half an hour after the man had appeared on the bridge, Francis let go of the rope and picked up his oars. He steered the boat deftly out into the middle of the river with just an oar tip here, a touch there. They drifted for the most part, silent and unseen, until they passed under the bridge. Francis brought the right hand oar inboard and seized the loop of rope they had placed there days earlier. He used his elbow to stop the boat’s hull banging against the bridge. Johan stood up.
“Colonel Striali, it is good that you came.”
The man on the bridge looked down at them. Francis could barely see his face peering over the edge, but the colonel looked surprised, so at least their boat trick had worked one more time.
“How could I resist?” Striali said. “Who are you and what are you offering?”
“You’re no fool,” Johan said. “You know who we are. What we want is the right for the people to choose their king.”
“Populists,” the colonel said.
“We’ve been called worse,” Johan said.
“And what is it you wanted of me?”
“We want to know where you stand, colonel. The king will fall, and not by any deed of ours. If either Derali or Falini seize power there will be a bloodbath; thousands of innocents will die.”
The colonel was quiet for a moment. He looked left and right along the bridge. “So who would be your chosen king?” he asked.
Johan laughed. “How can I say? The people will choose.”
“You’re serious about that? It’ll be you, won’t it? Don’t tell me you don’t have a man already picked.”
“We don’t, and it won’t be me.”
Francis could hear a smile in the colonel’s voice when he spoke again. “Gods, you’re an idealist,” he said. “A bloody solid gold idealist.”
There was something in the colonel’s tone that worried Francis. It was perhaps a little disbelief, flavoured with disgust, but Johan was oblivious to it. He was pleased to be thought of as an idealist, because that’s what he was.
The colonel’s face vanished from the parapet for a moment, and Francis took the chance to ship the left hand oar and pick up his crossbow. He glanced across at the houses along the river bank and saw a light briefly flash in a first floor window. It was the signal, given far too late.
This was a trap.
The colonel’s face appeared again, looking down at them. Francis guessed that the man just couldn’t resist having the last word. The boat was already moving out from under the bridge, accelerating in the midstream current.
“You’ve done me a favour,” Striali said. “Duke Falini will thank me for your heads…”
He said no more. Francis’s crossbow jolted his hand and the bolt hit the colonel in the throat. From this range he could hardly have missed. At the same time he heard the thrum of bowstrings on the right, and several arrows struck the boat, one skinned his left leg and stuck into the left side of the boat even as he picked up the oars and began to pull hard downstream.
The river helped, but there were two more volleys from the bowmen on the shore before he passed out of range. He was hit again, an arrow striking his calf and passing through it into the hull of the boat again. He almost dropped the oars at the pain, but hung on, gritted his teeth and carried on rowing. There was water in the boat now. The arrows had holed the hull, and the water was dark with blood.
He rowed harder. There was a low dock on the west side, and he pulled towards it, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t overrun it. Five yards out he shipped the oars, stretched out and grabbed a wooden upright as it came within reach. He pulled the boat firmly against the dock.
Keron was there, rushing out from the shadows with a couple of other men.
“Johan,” Francis called. “Get Johan.”
He hadn’t dared to look at Johan when he was rowing. The older man had slumped forwards in the boat. At first Francis had thought he’d crouched down to avoid the arrows, but he’d hardly moved since. Keron snatched Johan from the boat and retreated into the shadows. Francis scrambled out, kicked the boat away from the dock and tried to stand. His leg gave way and he fell.
Somewhere upriver he heard the sound of running feet. They were coming for him. He looked at the arrow. It was still in his leg, the bloody point sticking through. He reached down and snapped off the tail, and with gritted teeth he pulled it through.
It was agony, and it was a moment before he recovered himself enough to try to stand again. This time he was ready for the pain and made it upright. He looked up the river bank.
Fifty paces upriver a wagon loaded with brushwood was pushed out of a side street, blocking the riverside road. As he watched, a man ran out and threw a burning torch onto it. The wagon caught fire as though it had been soaked with oil, which it had, of course. This was the escape plan. He paused as the men beyond the fire skidded to a halt. It would take the soldiers ten minutes to come around it by the side streets.
An arrow skated off the road by his feet and Francis limped towards the buildings. A man rushed out to help him and in moments he was being loaded into a wagon next to Johan. Keron was up on the driver’s seat whipping the team forwards.
“How is he?” Francis asked. “Keron looked back over his shoulder and shook his head, just a small shake, but it was enough. If Johan was alive it probably wouldn’t be for long.
The wagon rattled through the night time streets, slowing as it approached their destination. It wouldn’t do to attract too much attention in the darkest hours. The wagon stopped, and Keron was there again, lifting Johan out of the wagon. Another man helped Francis down, and almost at once the wagon was moving again. It turned at the end of the street and was gone even before they reached the door.
Inside the house Francis and Johan were taken to a back room and laid down on mattresses.
“Better get that leg fixed up,” Keron said. He pulled out a big knife and cut away the leg of Francis’s trousers below the knee. By lamplight his calf looked black with blood. The big man began to wash the blood away. It hurt. “Not so bad,” he said. “No damage to the bone. I think it went right through the muscle, though. You won’t be walking straight for a while.”
Francis held still while Keron worked, smearing the wound with honey against infection and binding it with a length of white cotton. When it was done he turned to Johan. The older man looked asleep, but the side of his body was soaked in blood. Francis dragged himself over to Johan’s side. He could see that he was still breathing. He touched him on the arm.
“Johan.”
Johan didn’t move, but kept drawing breath after breath.
“Johan. Don’t die. We need you, Johan.”
There was no response, no spark of consciousness left to reply. Francis called for water, and tried to dribble a few drops into Johan’s mouth, parting his lips with a finger and using a damp cloth, squeezing one drop at a time over his friend’s tongue.
He could not help recalling how they had first met. It hadn’t been in a tavern, but on the dockside. Francis had just passed his guilds, and was a fresh-minted journeyman blacksmith, proud of his profession, his skill and his muscles. Johan had been sitting on a bollard, watching the ships load and unload.
Ships didn’t hold much charm for Francis. He disliked the sea, and ships were made of wood and rope. Mostly, for a blacksmith, it was nails in ships, to hold them together, and he scorned n
ails. They were what apprentices were set to make. There were other things, too, but Francis liked to make swords and axes, and scrolled ironwork for rich men’s gates.
“Do you ever wonder what it is like?” the old man said as he passed. Francis stopped.
“What what is like?”
“The homeland – the place that Seth Yarra came from.”
“No,” he replied.
Johan looked up at him. Eyebrows raised. “They have no kings, you know, no dukes, no earls, no counts. All men stand on the same rung of the great ladder.”
“Excepting money,” Francis replied.
The old man smiled. “Aye. Excepting that,” he agreed. “You seem a clever lad. What is it that you do?”
“Journeyman smith, sword maker,” he said.
“I wish I could put you out of work,” Johan said. “When men no longer need swords the world will be a finer place.”
Francis had thought him a fool, but Johan offered to buy him a drink, and he was in no hurry so he’d accepted, and from that day until this they had been friends. Johan had proven thoughtful, honest, generous and kind. He wished no man harm and was happy with his modest means. Francis had known no better man.
And now Johan was dying.
Francis found it difficult to accept that a man of Johan’s stamp should be struck down in such a trivial incident by men not worthy even to converse with him. It made him think that they should have gone about things in a wholly different manner.
He lay by his friend’s side and waited, and after a while Johan’s breath ceased and he became still.
“Goodbye, old friend,” Francis said. He turned away and saw that Keron was watching him. “We have to choose a new leader,” he said. Keron smiled.
“Already done,” he said.
“Done?” Francis sat up, outraged. “The people choose. Here in Dock Ward the people choose their leader.”
“They have,” Keron assured him. “Those that we trust – those that chose Johan.”
“Am I not to be given a say?” Francis said.
“All the say you want,” Keron replied. “It’s you. You are our new leader.”
“Me?”
“Aye. You were Johan’s ’prentice, you had his word, and those that followed him chose you.”
Francis looked around. There were twenty men in the room and they were all looking at him expectantly.
“Your orders?” Keron asked.
12 Golt
There was a room set aside in Golt for those that might arrive in unusual ways. It was a modestly sized room, and it reminded Cain of the duke’s reception room in Bas Erinor where he had so recently waited for his audience with the duke. There were a few soft chairs, refreshments, and a small difference: a guard was always on duty here.
He stepped through Pascha’s magical doorway onto a soft rug and faced a startled guard. The guard was probably startled because, as far as Cain knew, this room had never been used by anyone from either Durandar or Col Boran.
Narak stepped through after him. True to his word Narak had come in plain cottons, though Pascha had insisted he wear a colourful blue and green jacket to demonstrate that he was not, in fact, a peasant.
The guard quickly recovered himself and followed an inappropriate salute with a bow.
“My lords,” he said. “How may I serve you?”
“We are from Col Boran,” Cain replied. “We are here to see the king.”
The guard hesitated. He was not entirely certain what he should do next, Cain thought. Should he take them to the king or send a messenger? Cain decided to be helpful.
“We will wait here,” he said and wandered over to the table, poured himself a glass of wine. He sipped it. Unfortunately it was Avilian red, but not so bad for all that.
The guard ducked out of the door.
Narak didn’t help himself to wine, but sat in one of the chairs.
“It hasn’t changed much,” he said. “And I haven’t been here for a thousand years. I’d swear that tapestry is the same one I saw then.”
Cain judged the cloth less than a decade old, but the subject matter was traditional.
“Some things never change, it seems,” he replied. “But it is only seeming.”
“Aye, there’s truth in that,” Narak said.
Cain went to a window and looked out. It did truly seem that very little had changed. He could see towers, all different heights according to the standing of the families, all bearing banners that hung limply in the still air, and beyond that the sea, grey, green, and seeming infinite. He had been here only a hundred years ago – more than a lifetime, yet it seemed just months past.
The guard came back. Apparently there had been someone near at hand.
“A message has been sent, my lords,” he told them. Cain smiled and nodded. It was more difficult to talk openly with the guard in the room, especially as they were concealing Narak’s identity, so they waited in silence. They did not have to wait long.
The door opened and a man stepped into the room. He was not young but not old. A touch of grey about the temples gave the lie to his unlined, handsome face. He was richly dressed. Brown leather boots with silver trimmings, white satin trousers, a blue silk shirt and a brown leather jacket, the sleeves fluted with green silk.
“You are from Col Boran?” he asked, his tone quite eager.
“We are,” Cain replied. “I am Cain Arbak, and I have come with my companion to see the king.”
“I am the king,” the man said. He smiled and extended a hand, which Cain took. The king had a firm handshake. “Please come with me. We can talk on the terrace.”
Cain followed the king and Narak followed Cain. It was not a long walk. They went along a corridor and down a flight of steps and out in the air again. The King of Avilian’s terrace was a much finer example than Pascha’s at Col Boran, though it lacked the spectacular view. White gravel paths ran around the edges, lined with low and precisely trimmed hedges. Within that border lay a perfect lawn, and at the heart of the lawn a cluster of rose bushes in full bloom surrounded a fountain. Several of the king’s guards stood about, and at one end of the lawn an archery target had been raised.
The king walked to the other end where a man waited with a bow and a full quiver of arrows hung from the back of an ornate chair.
“You will forgive me,” the king said. “At this hour I usually spend some time at the butts, and at least here we can be somewhat private.”
He took the bow from the servant holding it and dismissed him. Cain watched the king pick an arrow, fit it to the string, draw and shoot. It was a fair shot, and struck the target not far from the gold.
“These are difficult times for Avilian,” he said.
“So it seems,” Cain replied. The king picked another arrow.
“Peace should be a time of prosperity,” he said. “And we have had peace for a hundred years. Even Berash is our friend, and no blood has been spilt on either border since the second Great War.”
Cain waited. The king shot his second arrow, but this one struck the target further from the mark.
“My people are suffering, Lord Arbak. The nobility of Avilian seem to have forgotten the meaning of their class. They live high and tax high, and care not for their lands or people. It must stop.”
“I would agree with you, Lord King, but the affairs of Avilian are not those of Col Boran.”
The king picked up an arrow. He pointed with it, indicating the towers and banners that flew over Golt.
“Is your banner here?” he asked.
“No,” Cain replied.
“You have the right.”
Cain shrugged. “The politics of this city have never appealed to me. It is all words and games, and my duty has always lain elsewhere.”
“A fair answer, and you’re a better man for thinking so. But this is more than a game to them, and I am just another player on their board. They dance around, pretending respect, but if I should become a threat they all have th
eir assassins here in Golt. I do have a solution, Lord Arbak, but I would never live to see it through.”
“You think they would kill their king?”
“I know it. I, too, have my spies.”
“The king is right,” Narak said. It surprised Cain that he spoke at all. He had indicated that he would not, but now the Wolf stepped forwards so that he stood beside the king. “The Avilian nobility do not deserve the name. Tell me, Lord King, what is it that you have done?”
There was such a surprised look of naked guilt in the king’s face that Cain knew Narak had hit the mark.
“I have done nothing,” he said.
“But you have spoken to someone, laid some plan, taken a bold hand in some way?”
The king recovered his composure. “Just who are you?” he demanded.
“Brash,” Narak replied.
“By name and nature.”
Narak smiled. “May I see your bow?”
The king hesitated, but there was something in Narak’s voice, a hint of conspiracy perhaps, and the king handed the weapon over. Narak plucked the string idly, picked up an arrow and weighed it in his hand.
“It’s a good weight,” he said. He put the arrow to the string and in one motion drew it back, turned and released. The arrow flew up, across the terrace, and through the balusters that bordered the roof of the king’s apartments. They all heard a man cry out.
“What have you done?” the king demanded.
“I may have saved your life. Send men at once to retrieve the injured man and ask him why he was crouching up there with a bow and his arrow ready to shoot.”
The king shouted to his guards and a couple of men ran off. The king had moved off so that Cain and Narak had a little privacy.
“Was that not interference?” Cain asked in a low voice.
“I could hardly let them shoot the man while I was standing next to him, it would be unmannerly,” Narak replied. “Besides, what is the point of us if we do not interfere a little?”
Pascha would not be happy, Cain thought, but in truth he believed that Narak had done the right thing. If he had been as good with a bow, and given that he’d seen the man, which he hadn’t, Cain might have done the same thing.