by David Weber
Rychyrd chuckled at the joke, picked up the paper-wrapped parcel, and headed for the door. The bell above it jingled musically as it closed behind him, and Stywyrt Hahraimahn shook his head, his expression more worried than he’d allowed Rychyrd to see.
The boy was considerably less than half Hahraimahn’s age, and despite the printer’s ink that ran in his own veins, the shopkeeper sometimes thought the lad had his head too far into his books and not far enough into reality. There wasn’t a malicious bone in young Rychyrd’s body, and he couldn’t seem to truly get it through his head that other people had lots of malicious bones.
Or why anyone could possibly want to exercise that malice against him.
His father, Clyntahn Tohmys, had taken his entire family over the border to the Barony of Charlz in the Border States when the Sword of Schueler swept through Tarikah. He hadn’t fled because of any rabid loyalty to the Temple. Although he’d had no patience with the Reformists and he’d believed quite a lot of the anti-Charisian propaganda of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition, the reason he’d fled was that he was a man of peace. He was loyal to the Republic, but he was also loyal to Mother Church, and he abhorred violence. So when the Sword brought fire and death to Tarikah, he’d taken his family to a place of stability, moving in with his wife’s distant cousins to ride out the Jihad.
As a loyal Siddarmarkian, he’d been among the first to return from voluntary exile when the Reconciliation Courts were announced. He’d taken the family strongbox to Charlz with him, so reestablishing ownership of his extensive farm outside Lake City had been relatively straightforward. But he hadn’t counted on how deep and implacable the hatred left in the Jihad’s wake truly ran.
Too many of his neighbors had died during the Church’s invasion, and too many others had been murdered by the Sword or subjected to the Punishment in the Inquisition’s camps. Few of his pre-Jihad family friends remained, and the Siddar Loyalists returning from their own exile in the Republic’s eastern provinces were too filled with dark and hateful memories.
Hahraimahn didn’t like what he saw coming, but he knew Clyntahn had seen it as clearly as he did. There was no home left for the Tohmys family here in Tarikah. Not anymore. Clyntahn had moved his family into the city after the third time one of his barns had been burned as a warning, and as soon as he could arrange the sale of his farm for something remotely like its actual value, he would be returning sorrowfully to Charlz or even to the Temple Lands themselves. It was a sad, sad story which Hahraimahn had already seen play out too many times.
And that was why he was worried about Rychyrd. The boy loved books and poetry and lived inside his head more than he did in the world outside it. Possibly even worse, he’d spent the years of his family’s sojourn in Charlz listening to his parents speak of the home and friends they’d left behind with wistful nostalgia. His vision of the Republic had been formed out of those conversations—built on his parents’ good memories, not the bad—and he wasn’t as pragmatic as his older brother, Aryn.
You keep your eyes open out there, boy, the bookseller thought as the first raindrops pattered against the shop’s windows. Not everybody’s as goodhearted as you are.
* * *
“Crap,” Rychyrd Tohmys muttered as the first cold drop hit him on top of the head. He really hadn’t expected the rain to begin before he got home, but his father had always twitted him about his tendency to take counsel of his hopes rather than experience.
He looked up in time to catch three or four more drops squarely in the face. Despite the darkness, there was enough street traffic for the grating of iron-shod wheel rims on stone paving to drown any sound the rain might make, but the breeze picked up, fluttering the flames in the oil-fueled streetlamps, swinging the hanging signboards.
It wasn’t just going to rain sooner than he’d expected; it was going to rain far harder than he’d anticipated, as well.
He paused, looking around, holding the precious package in his arms. It was heavy, but it was far lighter than what it contained: the world. The printed page. Poetry, history, four of the playwright Ahntahn Shropsky’s most famous plays. He’d been stocking up for months, ever since he’d realized his father was serious about returning to the Barony of Charlz. Lake City had a lot of rural flavor, but it was still a provincial capital of the Republic of Siddarmark and it had been rebuilding apace ever since the Jihad. Compared to the hills of Charlz, its bookstores were a treasure trove for any scholar. They were, in fact, the one thing about the Tohmys family’s return to Siddarmark which had actually exceeded Rychyrd’s dreams.
And he was about to lose them. His mother and father were going to drag him back to Symberg, the tiny town ninety miles from nowhere (otherwise known as Mhartynsberg), where his mother’s fourth cousin would greet their return with mixed emotions. Wyllym Styrges had welcomed them with open arms when they’d fled the chaos of western Siddarmark. He was a dutiful son of Mother Church, and he’d found room on his farm for all of them. His visitors had repaid his generosity by pitching in on the unending chores of a successful farmer and nearly doubled his pre-Jihad production. But he was only in his forties, with a rapidly expanding family of his own, and the farm simply wasn’t that huge. His relief when Clyntahn Tohmys took his family back to Siddarmark had been palpable, and it was hard to blame him for wishing the Tohmyses could have stayed there.
Rychyrd wished the same thing.
The rain began to patter across his shoulders, leaving dark blotches on the brown wrapping paper of his books, and he opened his tunic, shoving the three volumes into it and hunching forward to protect them with his body. He had over three blocks to go, if he followed the main avenues, and he’d promised his mother he would. But he didn’t see how he could keep his books dry for that long a walk, especially in lighting conditions this poor. Lake City’s sidewalks were well-maintained, but this far north, there were always flagstones which had been heaved up by the alternating freeze and thaw of winter. If he tried to pick up his pace, he was bound to hang a toe on one of them in the semi-dark.
But there was an alternate route.…
Rychyrd hesitated for another moment, then turned and headed for a nearby alley mouth. The buildings on either side were so close together their upper-story balconies overhung the alley, turning it into a tunnel of sorts. There were plenty of gaps in its “roof,” but between the gaps, he would actually be out of the rain, and it would let him cut one entire block from the walk.
The lighting was even more problematic, unfortunately. Occasional pools of brightness where someone’s windows looked out onto the alley were interspersed with much wider chasms of inky blackness where there were no windows and the balconies overhead choked off whatever light might have trickled in.
Those patches of darkness were favored by citizens of Lake City who preferred not to bother the city guard with their business transactions. Rychyrd was young, and small for his age, but not young enough to prevent a few of those citizens from calling out sultry invitations as he hurried past, and he shook his head with a smile. His actual experience with the “fairer sex,” as his father had always put it, was nonexistent, aside from a handful of clumsy kisses. Given some of the books he’d read, however, he had a very shrewd notion of what those inviting voices were suggesting, and a part of him—not the most cerebral one—was tempted to accept the invitations. They’d probably want more than he could afford, but it wasn’t like he was going to have books to spend the marks on much longer. And his older brother Aryn had always insisted that real life experience was more important than anything he could glean out of a book!
Rychyrd’s smile turned into a chuckle at that thought. Aryn was only five years older than him, but sometimes those years seemed like a lifetime. Aryn had never wanted to return to the Republic; in fact, he’d fought his parents’ decision. The difference in their ages meant he’d been twelve when the Tohmys family fled to Charlz. Rychyrd had been only seven—he’d turned eight later that same year, in Charlz—
and his memories of the Republic and of the chaos which had enveloped Tarikah, even before their departure, were very different from Aryn’s. For that matter, he’d come to realize that “his” memories were really echoes of his parents’ stories about a Republic which had never known the Sword of Schueler. About a Republic which had died forever when the Reformists and the Inquisition’s madness had ripped the world apart. He’d built his own vision of Siddarmark out of those tales … only to discover how far short of the vision its reality fell in far too many ways.
He stopped chuckling, bending his head as the rain picked up. Away from the main streets, there was practically no traffic noise—the rumble from beyond the solid blocks of buildings which walled in the alley was more like the sound of a distant sea, not remotely loud enough to drown out the pattering rush as the rain pelted the balconies above him. He found himself dodging from dark patch to dark patch, sheltering under the island overheads to stay out of the downpour as much as he could.
It was the Siddar Loyalists, he thought. They didn’t care that Clyntahn Tohmys had always considered himself a loyal Siddarmarkian, that he’d refused to enlist in the Barony of Charlz’s militia or army even at the height of the Jihad. They didn’t care that he’d fled from the huge farm his family had worked for over two centuries only because he had a wife and two young sons he was determined to keep safe from the madness swirling about him. He’d returned from one of the Border States, not even the Temple Lands, but it didn’t matter. He’d left “in the hour of the Republic’s need,” and that made him a traitor.
It hadn’t been all that bad at first, not while Archbishop Zhasyn was alive. But since his death there’d been no one with the stature to stare the Siddar Loyalists down. Archbishop Arthyn did his best, and Archbishop Olyvyr, the Reformist-minded Archbishop of Cliff Peak, who’d replaced Archbishop Zhasyn on the Reconciliation Courts was a decent, fair-minded man. But the two of them were like the ancient bishop who’d stood on the shore of the Wind Gulf Sea and forbidden the tide to come in.
Old Master Hahraimahn hadn’t been far wrong to call the Siddar Loyalists “thugs.” In fact, Rychyrd didn’t think he’d been wrong at all, although his father—with dogged fair-mindedness—had insisted not all the Siddar Loyalists were street toughs with nothing better to do than harass decent people. It was a point upon which he and his wife were not in agreement, however, and Rychyrd—and Aryn—both sided with Danyel Tohmys in this case.
But—
“Well, what do we have here?” a voice said suddenly.
It was very different from the voices which had offered Rychyrd “a good time.” It was harsh, deep, male, and it came from the heart of the dark patch in front of him.
The young man froze, standing in a shaft of wan illumination spilling from a lantern on the balcony ahead of him. Then he swallowed hard and took a step backwards as four or five figures swaggered out of the darkness.
“It’s that book-loving bastard, that’s what it is,” another voice said, and Rychyrd’s stomach clenched as he recognized it. Before the Jihad, Byrt Tyzdail’s family had worked side by side with the Tohmyses. Their farms had lain right next to each other, and for generations, Tyzdails and Tohmyses had helped plow and sow one another’s fields, gather one another’s harvests, build one another’s barns, drill one another’s wells.
But there were no Tyzdails now. Only Byrt. His parents and two of his brothers had died that first horrible winter of the Sword. His older sister, her husband, and three of her children had disappeared into one of the Inquisition’s camps … and never been seen again. His younger brother had joined the Republic of Siddarmark Army … and died somewhere in Cliff Peak.
Only Byrt remained, and perhaps it was inevitable that his hatred for Temple Loyalists should burn with a white hot, searing heat. But it burned hottest where those who had once been friends—friends whose actions had betrayed his own dead family—were concerned.
Friends like Clyntahn Tohmys and his family.
“Oh! It’s the book-loving bastard,” the first voice said mockingly. “That mean we should treat him any different from all the other bastards?”
“Sure we should,” Tyzdail said flatly. “We let some of them go.”
Rychyrd backed away, sweat beading his forehead. He was probably younger than any of the Siddar Loyalists—he was a good ten years younger than Byrt, for example—and that meant he was probably faster. Running down the alley, with its occasional piles of refuse hiding in the dark, would be an excellent way to fall and break bones. But not running—
“Going someplace, shitass?” another voice said from behind him, and he froze. He darted a look over his shoulder and his heart plunged as two more men emerged from the darkness.
“Oh, look!” the first voice taunted. “The wittle wabbit doesn’t have any place to wun now. Oh, boo-hoo!”
“Look,” Rychyrd said, though he knew it was unlikely to do any good, “I just want to go home. And my entire family’s going to leave as soon as my dad can sell the farm. We’ll be gone, and we’ll never bother any of you again.”
“But we don’t want you to go and leave us,” Tyzdail said. “We want you right where we can reach you, any time we like.”
“Byrt, I never hurt you. Neither did my family,” Rychyrd said, turning and managing to get his back against the alley wall. “We weren’t even here!”
“No, but your fucking friends were,” the first voice grated. “Already dealt with a lot of them, but you pick your friends, you pick sides. And you picked the wrong one, friend.”
“I was seven years old!” Rychyrd protested. “Nobody asked me to pick anything!”
“Then I guess you’re just stuck with your old man’s choices,” Tyzdail said. “Maybe he’ll get the message.” The older man’s laugh was ugly. “You sure as Shan-wei will!”
There were seven of them, Rychyrd realized sinkingly. Seven—every one of them older and most of them a lot bigger than he was. He tried to sink into the wall behind him, feeling his knees begin to shake, bitterly shamed by the icy torrent of fear pouring through him.
Then one of the thugs raised his hand, opened the slide of a bull’s-eye lantern, and the dim shaft of light—blinding in the alley’s darkness—hit him in the eyes. He didn’t understand. They’d already identified him, so why—
The shaft of light moved, swinging away from him, and he sucked in a deep breath. They hadn’t opened the slide to get a better look at him; they’d opened it because they wanted him to get a better look at the ready clubs and knuckledusters. They wanted him to see what was coming.
He opened his mouth for a final plea he knew would be useless.
* * *
Aryn Tohmys swore under his breath as the rain pounded down. At least he’d seen it coming and grabbed his oilcloth poncho and his father’s hammer-islander before he headed out into it, but the poncho leaked and the rain had turned into a downpour, interspersed with rumbles of thunder. He hadn’t seen any lightning yet, but it was coming, and Rychyrd was about due a piece of his mind when he finally found him.
Doesn’t have any business worrying Mom this way, he thought balefully. Him and his books! I know he doesn’t want to leave them behind, and Langhorne knows he works hard to buy the things. But he’s got to start getting home earlier. If he doesn’t—
He swallowed the thought. Rychyrd’s job as an assistant cook—a cook who spent more time washing dishes than cooking—in a downtown restaurant demanded long hours. It was always late when he got done, and by the time he went by his favorite bookstores, it was even later by the time he got home. But this was a new record. He should have been home at least an hour and a half before Aryn set out to find him. Personally, Aryn suspected he’d found someplace along the way where he could find cover from the rain and protect his precious books. But his mother had been so worried that Aryn had volunteered to go find the reprobate and drag him home by the ear.
So far, he hadn’t done much finding.
He step
ped from the open sidewalk to the cover of a shop awning and opened the door. He pulled the hammer-islander off his head, careful to keep it—or his poncho—from dripping on the merchandise, and stepped into the interior’s mellow lamplight.
“Aryn!” Stywyrt Hahraimahn sounded surprised. “What are you doing here? I’m just about to lock up for the night.”
“Looking for Rychyrd,” Aryn sighed. “Mom’s about to have a wyvern because he’s not home yet. You wouldn’t happen to have seen him, would you?”
“Yes, I did.” Hahraimahn crossed the shop to Aryn, his expression suddenly taut. “He came to pick up those books he’d put on layaway. But that was three hours ago! You’re telling me he’s not home yet?!”
Aryn felt a sudden chill which had nothing to do with leaking ponchos. Three hours? To walk four blocks? And he’d walked those same blocks to get here without seeing a single sign of Rychyrd along the way.
“No, he’s not. Or wasn’t when I left, anyway.” Aryn ran his right hand through his unruly hair. “Now I’m starting to worry!”
“I told him to be careful.” Hahraimahn sounded torn between concern for a young man of whom he was deeply fond and irritation—fear, really—at the thought that he might not have been listened to. “I told him after what happened with Feldyrmyn there were some really stupid, really pissed people out there.”
“Yeah.” Aryn ran his hand through his hair again.
Hairklys Feldyrmyn was another native of Tarikah who’d come home after the Jihad. In his case, he’d come home from the Episcopate of St. Hailyn in the Temple Lands, however, because he truly had been a Temple Loyalist. In fact, he’d enlisted in the Army of God and seen some of the Jihad’s toughest fighting. The experience hadn’t made him any fonder of Reformists, either, and while he’d come home with his wife and daughter after the peace treaties were signed, it hadn’t been to stay. All he’d wanted was to reclaim his family farm and sell it to provide a nest egg for a new life back in the Temple Lands. He’d made no secret of his plans—or of his contempt for the “traitors to Mother Church” who’d made the Temple’s defeat possible, for that matter—and seven or eight Siddar Loyalists had decided to make an example out of him and his family.