by Rj Barker
I turned to the black-clad Children of Arnst, who remained silent, as they had been throughout the short fight.
“I knew Arnst,” I said. “He was a rapist and a murderer. A cheap con man who could not even hold down a place in the priesthood. To connect his name with Xus makes me sick. If I hear these people,” I pointed at the corpsers, “have been touched I will find you—” I pointed my blade at them “—each of you—and send you to the dark palace in pain and blood. Do you understand?” They stared, saying nothing, and I roared at them, “Do you understand?” A couple of them nodded. “Go then,” I said. “Just go.”
I stood, watching them leave, scurrying into alleys and away, until I stood alone on the dark street. I heard footsteps, slow and gentle, approach me from behind.
“That was well done,” said a voice, and I thought it to be the corpser, Elsire.
“No,” I said, suddenly tired. “No, it was not. I denied that man a quick death for nothing but my own anger at what he represented.”
“You did it because he betrayed what you believe in, surely?”
“Did I?” I said. “Sometimes I am not sure what I believe in any more. Or if I ever believed anything.”
“Well,” said the voice, soft and gentle. “You protected my people, and for that I am thankful.” It felt, suddenly, like all the aches and pains of the day were lifted from me, tiredness fled and the dark and stink of Ceadoc were chased away by the sun. It was as if I walked through a fresh spring day. I turned to find who I spoke with and Ceadoc’s night flooded back. I stood in a dark street once more. The corpsers’ cart was gone, as if they had never been there. In fact, there was no one there at all. Not up or down the street, and where the mud should have been churned up by the fight or those watching, it was undisturbed apart from two sets of footsteps: one set my own, the other in absolute parallel to mine. I heard the harsh call of Xus’s black birds, though I could not see them in the darkness, and I had never heard of them flying at night.
I walked away from there, leaving three bodies behind me, and decided to head back to the Low Tower. I had hoped to speak to people in the town but news of what I had done would run ahead of me like fire through dry grass. Dressed as I was I could hardly claim to be a different Death’s Jester to the one who had cut down three men like they were unschooled children. I had let my temper run away with me, and my sense of justice had been outraged by their casual cruelty. I did not regret it, but I could hear my master’s voice: “Think past the moment, Girton.”
As I dawdled my way back to the Low Tower I came across the tracks of the corpsers’ cart once more. They had not gone far, simply continued on their slow and careful way. They probably presumed I would not want to speak to them, so few ever did. I followed the tracks until I came across their cart.
“Wait,” I shouted. The corpsers turned. The woman, Elsire, raised her throat to me in the old salute.
“Death’s Jester,” she said. “We owe you our lives.”
“The Children of Arnst do that a lot?”
“Aye, but this was the first time the threats were serious. We are safe now, I reckon, while you are at the castle at least.” Her smile was a small sad thing. “I think it is time for Padris to marry.” She was older than I had thought.
“But, Mother—” he said.
“You have been here too long, Padris. It is not safe here for us. Our time has passed.” I did not know what to say in the face of her sad acceptance.
“Torelc’s legacy is a cruel one,” said Padris and his mother nodded.
“I need some help,” I said. “I have heard people shout, ‘Darsese lives,’ in the town, what do they mean by that?”
She shrugged.
“We have heard it too,” said Elsire, “but do not know any more than you. We are seldom included in the town’s business, unless it involves a death among the poor, and Darsese was hardly that.”
“What happened for his funeral?”
“They didn’t invite the likes of us.” She smiled. “Were a big fire at the castle. Landsmen put the town in mourning, but the forgetting plague had only just ended, so that weren’t much work. The plague had the unseen busy in Ceadoc, some nights we filled two carts and the swillers were turning away bodies, said the pigs were too full to eat ’em. Can’t really help you much, Blessed.”
“Well, thank you for your time anyway,” I said, and I was about to walk away when I saw the cart and had an idea. “I need clothes,” I said, “so as not to be recognised.” I pointed at the bodies on the cart. “I can pay.”
“No need,” she said. “We owe a debt, clothes is the least we can give you.” She had Padris strip a corpse of about my height—a youth, barely out of his late teens—and pass me his ragged clothes and cloth cap. The clothes stank and the cap felt like it moved in my hand, so full was it with lice.
“Thank you,” I said, “and I need to find a well, and an inn, one where they may know about those who speak of Darsese.”
Directions given I stripped from my motley, armour and blades. The Conwy I strapped to the inside of my leg, it would be difficult to get at but I would not let it out of my sight. The rest I gave to the corpsers with instructions to take them to the Low Tower portcullis and put them into the hands of Merela Karn and no other. I described her to them and had no doubt they would do as I asked. They were honest folk.
At the well I tore a rag from the clothes the corpsers had given me, it would hardly spoil the cut of them, and wet it, using it to clean the make-up from my face. Though I would not look clean I would look no more dirty than any other denizen of Ceadoc town. From there I headed to the drinking hole Elsire and Padris had directed me to, it was not the nearest, they said, but was more likely to accept a stranger than some of the others. Though they were at pains to point out this still did not mean I would be welcome.
The place was called the Dead Mount, and it had a poorly drawn picture of a mount with a spear sticking out of its front and a rider whose expression may have been horror or hilarity, it was difficult to tell. Inside, the place was thick with people and noise, fragrant miyl smoke filled the air and made me feel light-headed. The conversation slowed to a stop as I entered and made my way to the plank of wood where a heavy-set woman and a man, who could have been her husband or brother, possibly both, were serving.
“Perry,” I said. The woman stared at me. I wondered how old she was. Probably not as old as she looked.
“We don’t serve mage-bent.” She spat when she talked. “Brings bad luck.”
I put two bits on the table, probably more money than all the perry in the bar was worth. It smelled more like vinegar than anything people would want to drink.
“Then serve everybody.” She stared at the money. “I am sure they will see that as good luck.”
“You steal that?”
“Do you care?”
A smile crept on to her mouth.
“No.” She raised her voice. “Everyone, this is the first lucky mage-bent youse’ll ever meet. He’s bought youse all drinks.” A roar went up and men and women jostled me, many shook my hand. Eventually, after much slapping of my shoulder, I found myself at a corner table with a young man and woman who found my money attractive enough to ignore the ill luck sitting with one of the mage-bent may bring them.
“So, what brings you ’ere then?” The boy put his hand on my leg and the woman slipped her arm around my neck. They both stank so strongly of the vinegary perry that I suspected they may have been bathing in it.
“My master is a trader in Maniyadoc,” I said. It was not entirely untrue, though our trade was the production of corpses. “I have been sent to look around Ceadoc, find her a place to stay, spy out what trade is like.”
“Trade is yellow as Coil,” said the boy, “ain’t no one got anything.” I crossed my legs to stop his hand getting any nearer my groin.
“Is she rich, this master of yours?” said the girl, leaning in. There was nothing I could cross to stop her smushing
her lips against my cheek. I thanked Xus she at least missed my mouth as her teeth were black and her breath like running into a brick wall.
“Rich enough,” I said. “Tell me something.” The woman was staring intently at me, or trying not to fall from her stool. It was hard to tell.
“We’ll tell you anything, lovely,” she said. I had no doubt she would.
“Aye, anything, lovely,” echoed the boy while trying to force his hand past my crossed legs. He was not one to pick up a subtle hint.
“I thought the high king had died,” I said, “but I have heard many say Darsese lives while I am here and—” The boy removed his hand from my leg and the woman gave up her fight with gravity and sobriety and fell from her stool. Then she crawled away and vanished into the crowd.
“You from the castle?” said the boy, “or the Children?”
“Neither. I—”
“You don’t ask about the old king,” he said. “Not in public. That’s all you need to know.” As he finished speaking I realised everyone in the hole was staring at me.
“You should leave, mage-bent,” said the serving man, and he pointed at the door. “We ’as talked, and we ’as decided money can’t buy off ill luck.”
“Very well.” I stood. I considered knocking my drink to the floor and saying something cutting, but there must have been twenty or thirty people crammed into the stuffy little hole and that was more bodies than I was comfortable leaving behind me. I slipped out of the door and into the warm darkness. The truth was I had expected little else but a cold reaction to my questions, especially as I had seen those who had shouted about the high king being hauled off by Landsmen. Answers would come though, I had no doubt of it. A stranger wandering into town, flashing money about and asking questions without any subtlety was sure to attract attention.
I visited a few more drinking holes, asking the same questions, receiving similar reactions, and I let myself be thrown, physically, out of more than one.
They found me, those people whose ears were open for such questions, as I rounded the end of a street. By the time I was halfway up it they filled the gap in the houses before me—another ragged group of men and women carrying hoes and clubs. They were not in the black of the Children of Arnst. These were in the mud-spattered, faded browns and grey of every day. I turned, behind me was another group. A lone figure left them and walked toward me, not coming too near, and behind the figure the group closed in. I counted fifteen of them, six in front, nine behind.
“Who are you?” At first I thought it the woman who had sat with me in the first drinking hole, but this woman was not drunk, and though there was a familiar resemblance she had a hardness about her the drunk woman had lacked.
“I am sent here by—”
“Blue Watta curse your lies, mage-bent. We’ve lost enough to the Landsmen and the Children. Tell us the truth or we’ll leave you broken and mewling for your masters to find in the midden heaps, if they are even bothered enough to come looking for you.” I almost replied with “You couldn’t,” but bit back the words. I wanted information, not violence.
“I am a servant of King Rufra ap Vthyr,” I said. “He has heard talk of Darsese still living and he has sent me to investigate this.”
“He is the pretender who wishes to take Darsese’s place,” she said, her words gaunt and hostile.
“Not if the high king still lives. Rufra obeys the laws of the land. He has no wish to go against them.”
“What is your name, servant of Rufra?”
“Girton Club-Foot,” I said. I am not sure why I chose to tell the truth. Maybe I thought it would scare them enough to talk.
“I have heard that name, you are the jester assassin? You do not look like a jester.”
“It is a very poor disguise and has already found me trouble once today,” I said.
“They say Girton Club-Foot is a mighty warrior also,” she said, “and you do not look like a mighty warrior either.”
“I am not a warrior. I am a killer.” She held my gaze. “It is different.”
“We could end you here.”
“You could not,” I said. I felt myself loosening up, muscles relaxing at the thought of violence.
She must have sensed some change in me.
“Will you let us test you?” I did not think “no” would get me very far and I nodded. “Afrin,” she shouted and a huge man lumbered forward holding a hoe.
“Is he your best?” I asked.
“He is our biggest.”
“That is not the same.” She studied me further and I decided she had been a soldier at some point, the smile when I said that big was not the same as good gave it away.
“Janil,” she said. The smile was in her voice now. “Test him.” A smaller woman stepped forward. Seeing I was unarmed she started to sheath the blade she held but I shook my head.
“No.”
“No?” Janil looked to the woman who led them.
“It would not be fair,” I said.
“Not fair?” said their leader. “In that case, Janil, you can kill him for the insult.”
“She can try,” I said.
Janil came forward quickly, her sword held loosely in one hand. She was angry. She thought I had been calling her unskilled when I had said to keep the weapon, though I had meant nothing of the sort. As she came within striking distance I fell into the position of readiness. She feinted, a pretend thrust at my stomach. She expected me to be careful, to be wary of her blade. That was not my way. Speed and surprise are the weapons of the assassin of Xus’s black bird. Third iteration: the Maiden’s Pass (variant). One foot around the other and a step forward. Shock on Janil’s face as I step inside her guard. She reaches for the stabsword at her side. Too late. Twenty-fourth iteration: the Boatgirl’s Twist. Spinning along her outstretched arm, at the point I am about to come face to face with Janil—she wears a sweet perfume and has eaten something sharp and sickly—I grab the wrist holding her sword. Fifth iteration: the Boatgirl’s Dip. Going under her arm without letting go of her wrist, twisting it against the joint. She drops the sword, gasps with pain and then I am behind her and she is on her knees in front of me. Arm bent backwards, head being forced down. I hear a wave of sounds, whispers of shock at how quickly the best of them has been put on the floor.
“She is good,” I said. “She is a soldier and a warrior. Do not let what I have done detract from her skill any, but I am Girton Club-Foot and she is not trained to fight someone like me.” I looked up to meet the eyes of the woman. “Very few are.”
“Are you going to kill her?” said the woman.
“It is not my intention,” I said. “I only wished to show you I am who I say. Now, will you answer my questions?” I let Janil go and she stood, rubbing her shoulder. “It will be sore for a day,” I said. “Find something cold to put on it, if you can in this heat.” She nodded, and lifted her head, exposing her throat to me before she went back to stand by the woman.
“My name is Govva,” said their leader. “I apologise for the way we have acted, Girton Club-Foot, but those of us loyal to the high king are hunted, and we become fewer by the day.”
“Then maybe we should get off the street?” I said, and wondered what made these people loyal to a man they had probably never seen, one I knew had been a monster. She nodded, leading me away to a ramshackle house where torches were lit and questions could be answered.
The building we sat in was made of mud bricks and I could see though the walls in places. The breeze this allowed in felt like a blessing in the heat, but in the winter I imagine the house was barely warmer than outside. On one wall was a painting, it looked like it was done using fingers rather than brushes, but the long red hair left no doubt about who it was meant to be: Darsese. Govva poured me a cup of vinegary perry and I sipped at it, doing my best not to grimace. There was something in the room that set me on edge, but I did not know what. There was a subtle scent in the air that I could not place—and just at the moment I thou
ght I knew where I had experienced it before, Govva interrupted my thoughts.
“You don’t have to pretend it is good,” she said. “We know it is not.”
“Small mercies from dead gods.” I placed the cup on the table. “I do not like perry much even when it is good.” I wanted to talk of Darsese with them, but they were jittery and thoughts of that smell hung in my mind. So I left a silence, let them fit in what words they chose.
“We heard the plague did not come to Maniyadoc,” said Govva.
“It did, in some places. But it was not as severe.”
“Did you see cases?” she said and took a swig of the perry. She made no attempt to pretend she liked the taste of it.
“No, thankfully.” I took a deep breath. Thoughts of darkness suspended in the air with that scent.
“It was awful. Two out of every three died. Whole families were wiped out. It started with shivering.” She wrapped her hands around herself, as if she were cold. “Every time I got a chill I thought I was finished. After the chill came the rash, rings around the arm, the neck, lines over the face. The skin would become papery and tear easily. I saw children and men crying in their beds, afraid to move because of the pain. There was blood everywhere.” She moved and a breeze passed through the room, stealing away the scent that had set me on edge.
“You lost someone?” I said.
She stared at the floor.
“Husband. My youngest child.”
“I am sorry.”
She lifted her head, met my gaze.
“Why? It was not your fault.” Took another swig of perry. “It could have been worse. Two of my children got on the caravans, I have that solace at least.”
“Caravans?”
“Aye, near the end Darsese made provision for the strongest to leave Ceadoc. I stayed to nurse the dying, but it was good to know my girls escaped.”
“When do they return?”
“They do not, but we knew that. When I have paid my debt to Darsese I will go to join them.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking of her children no doubt, then she continued. “After the paperskin came the worst bit, the forgetting. At some point, it could be after days or after hours of the paperskin starting, the ill would go to sleep. And when they woke, something of them would be missing. Then more sleep, they would drift in and out and each time they woke more of them would be gone. At the end you were left caring after a body, after only flesh with nothing of the one you loved in it.”