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The Best of Men - an epic fantasy (Song of Ages Book 1)

Page 8

by Wilf Jones


  ‘Why didn’t you give him a room?’

  The landlord puffed out his ample cheeks. ‘You might have other ways about you than I can credit, mister wizard, but can you see a normal bloke like me shifting that great lump? I did try. Near put my back out. Oh I wish you’d do something about him; if you could only get him out of the parlour it’d be a start. Bad for trade, he is, stinks to high heaven and he’s forever bothering my customers.’

  ‘He can get a little argumentative…’

  ‘Argumentative I can handle, it’s all the silly jokes that’s causing the trouble. He spent yesterday evening making frogs fetch up in people’s drinks, then he turned my best gravy green and no one’d touch it. One daft bloke gave ‘im a talking to. Well you’ve never seen anything like it: made a cloud hang over his head and it rained and rained on him, right there in my parlour, till the floor was a lake and this stupid bugger soggy as a drowned dog. Upped and left at a ruddy trot, I can tell you, and I don’t blame him but that’s another regular gone and I can’t see him coming back. Not until that joker’s long gone.’

  Seama couldn’t help grinning at the absurdity.

  ‘Well you might think it’s funny but ‘at’s money to me.’

  Seama tried for contrite. ‘I do beg your pardon, Mr Rodber, honestly I do. I can see this has been something of a trial for you. It’s just that he’s normally so reluctant to use magic – I think I can see why now, but I didn’t realise drink could make him so… well, ridiculous.’

  ‘And I still don’t see why that should be funny.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. Well then, I suppose I’d better do something.’

  Just then the door to the back parlour burst open and a young woman ran out, half in tears and half in a rage.

  ‘That’s it,’ she cried, ‘That’s definitely it! He can get his own food and sodding drink!’

  ‘Language, Sally!’

  ‘You want to tell him that, Mr Rodber.’

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Seama.

  Sally looked up at him ready with a sharp word but then blushed, realizing who he was. ‘Never you mind, sir!’ she said, then turned on her heel and more or less ran for the kitchen.

  Seama took a good deep breath before he plunged into the room. Visibility was poor: none of the lamps were lit and though the fire seemed to be drawing well enough the atmosphere was very smoky. But sight was not the most offended of Seama’s senses.

  The unwashed, inaccurate pissing, drink-reeking stench of the man filled the room, that and the uncontrolled wheezy laughter of someone in hysterics who’s been laughing for far too long. The high backed chair by the fire was rocking with both. If only the fire had not been lit; if only he didn’t insist on wearing woollens and fur even in the height of summer; if only he wasn’t six feet tall and three feet broad; if only it hadn’t been Tregar MacNabaer it might not have been so bad.

  ‘Tregar?’ he called out cautiously, ‘Tregar Mac?’

  The laughter faltered. Seama made his way towards the hearth. The laughter ceased. As he rounded his quarry’s den a leg shot out, took him down by the ankles and sent him tumbling head first into the chair opposite. The laughter rang out with renewed vigour and the only words to emerge between the gasps and guffaws were:

  ‘Go’ ter wetch… ye feet en her’ laddie.’

  Seama, furious, struggled to right himself, getting his cloak all tangled in the process.

  ‘That was not funny, Tregar.’

  Tregar did not agree and continued to giggle like some huge, idiotic bear. Seama glared at him, trying to regain a little dignity, and yet leapt to his feet in alarm when a loud voice shouted out just behind him: ‘Whoopsadaisy!’ The rug he landed on promptly jerked from beneath his feet and dumped him back in the chair.

  From the empty bar in the corner by the door a deep brogue rumbled out: ‘Make yoursel’ cumf’t’ble, zurr’ quickly followed by a much sweeter tone, in a passable imitation of the departed serving girl, piping up close to his ear: ‘Now my love, what’s your fancy?’

  Seama’s annoyance reached a critical level.

  ‘For Gods’ sakes, Tregar, get a hold of yourself.’ But Tregar was far beyond the ability to take his advice, and far beyond any ability to see the danger signs.

  ‘Ay, just what I said to the wee lassie,’ he giggled, ‘Well, somethin’ like that.’

  Enough was enough. Tregar didn’t seem to care what he did or said and Seama decided to respond likewise. He stood up, aimed a sharp kick at one of Tregar’s shins, and then, without any further physical contact, he flipped the armchair backwards sending Tregar arse over tip, crashing through an occasional table, to belly-flop painfully on the Old Dog’s polished boards.

  A lesser man might have given up but the bloody-mindedness in him forced Tregar to bounce up onto hands and knees before he succumbed to the vomiting. The vomiting knocked the stuffing out of him, and Seama relented in his invisible grip on the man’s stomach.

  As the pool of mess spread before them, Seama called out to Aldo, who had been waiting anxiously outside in the corridor.

  ‘Landlord,’ he commanded, ‘A room and a bath, if you please, and lots of cold water.’

  CHILDREN OF THE RUINS

  Huaresh, Eastern Valdesia (The Skirt), 3057.7.18

  Carla lies motionless. Like a dead thing. Dark is coming on. Their work finished for the day, the crows with caw and croak are leaving.

  She sits bolt upright. She cannot look to her left – her mother was on the left. She dare not look to the right for something sticky is making a pool there, a pool she had put her hand into only a moment before. She will not look at her hand.

  Instead she stares stiffly straight ahead into the ruins of the schoolhouse.

  A new sound has roused her.

  A call or cry. At first she thought it was a cat but now she understands that it’s the squalling of a baby. A baby of the ruins.

  Her legs are sore. Her arms growing bruises. Her back tender. Everything hurts. She considers squalling herself. Not crying like a baby demanding attention, but because she should. Because. Instead she sets her face hard, pushes to her feet and begins to step carefully through the scatter of bodies, making sure not to stumble. She makes her way, not as a terrified and abused seven year old might, but as her mother would whenever something needed to be done.

  Mr. Gjultera’s house is on the right, and Old Ma Bera’s little cottage. Both of them are smashed at either end as though a great big hammer had swung through the gap between. Floor boards jutting out from half way up wobble and creak as though someone is walking on them. But no one is there. Not even a ghost.

  And then Ma Bera’s front door swings open.

  Carla wants to run but cannot. She is fixed in place mid-stride, back heel up, front toes curling into the dirt. Not able to look and see who or what is coming because she cannot turn her head. She senses a dark shadow: a suggestion of someone, bending to retrieve something from the road, and then bringing it to her. The suggestion stops some yards to her side.

  ‘It’s a coat. A coat for you.’

  He moves close, holding it out for her to take. Only now does Carla realise she is half-naked and shivering.

  ‘It’s for you – you’re cold.’

  Released by sudden anger screaming in her head, she snatches the coat from him, swirling it around her shoulders; she drags it in at her middle with two fists, and then sinks to her knees to gather in the warmth.

  Benito had heard the baby too. He’d been lying still. Still and quiet for an age. Long after the noises in the village had finished. Down in the cellar. The cellar that belonged to Mrs Bera. Where his cat had gone. He wondered where the cat was now.

  But he heard the baby start to skrike – wanting someone to come. So he got up and climbed the dark stair into t
he back kitchen, past the larder into the parlour and through to the front door.

  And there was the girl – Carla, a classmate of his little sister – standing still in the road, though it looked like she was walking. On the floor in front of him was a coat – one of those jacket things Mrs Bera always wore. He decided it would be best to give it to Carla, then maybe the cold wouldn’t keep her frozen in one place.

  As they climbed through the planks and boards and broken furniture, the baby began to cry non-stop. ‘A good job too,’ thought Benito. The crying made him easy to find. Carla rolled up her coat sleeves and picked him up, took him from the cold stiff body of his mother. Benito took off his jumper for Carla to snuggle him in. The baby boy cried and cried. Benito didn’t mind that.

  ‘You need to give…’

  The voice came out of the air. Carla crouched to the ground, shielding the baby with her own body.

  ‘He wants… milk’

  The voice was cracked and weak.

  Benito looked up, and there, silhouetted against the dusk sky, doubled over a shaft of wood at the top of the old school bell-tower, like a worm on a stick-pin, was the shape of a broken man.

  Oswaldo Bassalo was surprised that any of it still mattered. He should be dead already. Most likely he would be dead in just a little while. But for as long as he was living he’d try to help them. Whatever the cost. The pain from his wounds bound him tight, making it hard to breathe, still less to speak. The children were silent, both looking up at him as though he was an impossibility.

  ‘Must … help me … down.’

  His words came in bursts. He wondered if they could understand him. The baby had stopped crying now, perhaps warmed into an exhausted sleep. Carla gently laid him on the ground, making sure he was well wrapped, and then got to her feet. One thing at a time – he’d told them a thousand times. She stepped over to Benito and pushed lightly at his back. The boy did as he was told and stepped closer to the tower.

  ‘Signoren,’ he said.

  It was an acknowledgement at least, but there was no certainty in the boy’s stance. Carla came to stand next to him. Oswaldo concentrated on trying to make his words strong and clear.

  ‘Benito … find an axe.’

  The boy didn’t move. Oswaldo smiled inside, despite the pain. Benito at fifteen, apprentice to his father now, hadn’t changed much from the schoolboy the Signoren had taught. Benito was kind and tolerant and sensitive, so good in many ways, but he was rarely quick to action. He needed to consider everything he heard and saw for a good long while before coming to a decision. Oswaldo realised he should have explained why he wanted an axe.

  Carla wasn’t so slow. She would do Benito’s thinking for him. The girl took his hand and after a quick glance to reassure herself that the baby was safe, she led him over to his father’s house. Oswaldo could not see what was happening as they clambered through the ruins to the back but he imagined the girl struggling to lift the big axe and then Benito stepping-in to help.

  A new scene swam into his view. Minutes had passed. Below him now Carla was angry with the boy. He stood motionless, looking as though he might cry but the girl was dragging at his shirt, urging him to the base of the tower, and thumping his chest when he wouldn’t move. The boy shook his head.

  ‘No, can’t,’ he said. ‘It’ll hurt the Signoren bad.’

  Carla relented in her attack. Then she put a hand upon his forearm, and looked him in the eye. She nodded her head, giving him permission, releasing him from fault. The seven year old was taking responsibility on herself.

  Oswaldo wouldn’t have it.

  ‘You must!’ he spat out. ‘I tell you to.’ Speaking so forcefully tensed the torn muscles in his stomach – his words came out as a howl of pain but he wouldn’t let up. ‘You must Benito – good lad – chop me down or I will die. Your father would be proud of you. So proud. Can you do this Benito? For me? For the baby? Carla is right – you must do this – for us all.’

  In the village scores of Bassalo’s people knew pain no more: not the women battered or skewered, not the children beheaded, not Andras amputated till the blood drained out of him. For Oswaldo every axe-stroke was agony, but agony is not death. He clung to every jolting, jag of pain as though pain could empower him; it would designate him among the living.

  This had been a day of horror but also a day of miracles. The biggest spar that impaled the Signoren had torn through the fat on the right of his belly, scraped the surface of the muscles beneath, and come out again through the left hand side. Who would have thought that being fat could be a good thing? Not an organ injured. And the pain in his back was awful but he was sure his spine was undamaged. Most likely though, he would never use his left arm again: another shaft had pierced his shoulder and in the trauma of the fall, the impact had forced it deeper, pushing his shoulder-blade out at right angles to his back. The biggest part of the bleeding came from this wound. Carla launched herself at it with a wad of cloth, and pressed to stop the flow, and pushed to stop the shoulder blade looking so bad. Bassalo screamed all the while and then passed out.

  When he came-to she was still there, still pressing but weaker now. The shaft had been drawn – Benito sat to one side looking at the bloody end of it on the ground before him. Carla kept looking back at him, needing help, but the boy didn’t notice. Bassalo wondered that she didn’t call out to him.

  ‘Benito, good lad,’ he said, and the boy looked round, startled perhaps that the Signoren could yet speak. ‘Do you know where your mother keeps her needles? Her sewing box?’

  Benito frowned. ‘It’s under her bed,’ he said. ‘She always sews in bed. Where it’s warm. She says it’s a grand job! Always sewing and knitting. Dad says it’s a pity you can’t knit money.’

  Carla had known what the Signoren intended. He thought she might have done it anyway, whether he’d asked or not. She kept up the pressure on the wound until Benito returned and wouldn’t relent until the boy knelt to take her place. She was so white-faced when she stood that Oswaldo thought she might faint. He should have known better. Carla wouldn’t allow herself a moment’s rest or weakness. She rummaged through the sewing box, scattering the contents all around, until she found what she needed. She took out a bobbin of the best silk yarn and a curved needle.

  Oswaldo could see her poor arms shaking as she tried to thread it.

  BLOOD, BLIGHT AND BALLISTICS

  Ayer Town 3057.7.18

  In an upstairs room of The Dog’s Last Breath, a public house now emptied of the public by all the screaming, swearing and roaring of the past couple of hours, Tregar, inadequately wrapped in an under-sized bath robe, was propped up against a bolster in a decent bed, sniffing suspiciously at a pungent pot of a black liquid he did not recognize.

  ‘What a reek!’ he said, ‘And I have to drink this?’

  ‘Yes you do,’ Seama insisted, ‘I’m told it’s very good for these situations. They’ve been using it in Garassa for quite a while now.’

  Tregar was not impressed. ‘They’re strange people in Garassa.’

  ‘That may well be, but given they’ve taken to drinking gin like it’s some sort of profession, maybe they have some idea of what they’re talking about.’

  Tregar shrugged. He wasn’t up to arguing. ‘Aye well, mebbee,’ he said. ‘Here goes then. Slante!’

  He tipped the pot and took a quick sup, and spat it out again in the same second.

  ‘Great Spurl’s Tits! That’s bladdie hot!’

  Seama laughed. ‘They say it’s no good unless it’s hot as a furnace. You’re supposed to blow on it and take a sip at a time. ‘

  ‘Thanks for letting on.’

  A more cautious approach yielded better results and after only a few of the recommended sips Tregar eased himself back against the bolster pleased with this new discovery.

&nb
sp; ‘Ye know,’ he admitted, ‘It’s not so bad. I could get used to that. What d’ye call it?’

  ‘Rahi – they ship it into Garassa from Sulle’ Sullinor. Aldo tells me his merchant picks it up in the Stralli Market every six months or so. Astoril’s gone mad for it apparently. It’s making good business for Aegarde.’

  Tregar chinned the air. ‘It’s a damn pity Aegarde can’t just stick to business then, instead of all this nonsense Athoff’s been getting up to. Have ye spoken to Mador about it yet?’

  ‘We’ve had a few words but no not really. He told me you had a disagreement.’

  ‘Aye, that’s one way of putting it! More like a fight. Right there in front of the whole Privy Council. It is just possible I went a little too far – I think I called him dim-witted. Somethin’ like that. But he was just as bad, ye know. You should have seen him, Seama, prancing about the room like a lunatic, ranting on about invasions and tactics and what have ye. I was seriously beginning to think he was losing his marbles. Talk about wrong-headed. He just kept going on and on about his ‘duty to the nation’ and how Jaspar’d have to look out for himself.’

  ‘He must have had his reasons.’

  ‘There was not a scrap of reason involved in it, Seama. Look, you don’t go invading another country when you’re under attack at home. That’s what I told him. Mebbee I should have tried harder, tried to calm things down but, and I don’t know why, it all just came out yelling and swearing.’ Tregar took another sip at his Rahi, trying to think back to the origins of the argument, feeling sure he was missing something important. ‘It was odd ye know. I’d seen him earlier, up in his snug. He was upset o’course, who wouldn’t be, but honestly there wasn’t any shouting or anything like it. He was just thinking things through, weighing up the risks, making plans – the way he usually is. I was sure he’d settled on sending the armies north. What changed his mind I don’t know. It was like it was the argument itself, if that makes any sort of sense. I don’t know, Seama, it’s all madness. Let’s face it, straight as a skooger what he should be doing. He just seemed to take against me saying so. Did he tell ye about Sands?’

 

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