The Knight: A Tale from the High Kingdom

by Pierre Pevel

  Located at a slight remove from the road, the inn was built on a river whose current powered a waterwheel. Its thick walls protected not only the inn itself, but also a stable, a forge, a barn, an entire farmyard, a vegetable garden and an orchard, an oven, a mill and a chapel consecrated to the Dragon-King.

  Having dismounted, Lorn entrusted his horse to the ostler, and then, as he sluiced his neck at the water trough, discreetly looked around the place. The inn was busy, pleasant and welcoming. And it must have been prospering because a new building, no doubt destined to house more guestrooms, was under construction. Upon the outer walls, sentinels kept watch over the surrounding area but also glanced towards the enclosed compound from time to time. Others guarded the gate. Lorn wondered what these men were worth. Times were troubled and anyone carrying a sword could call himself a mercenary. But it was enough if their presence dissuaded the brigands from attacking. After all, it was all that was required of them …

  Lorn requested a room of his own, which did not please the proprietor, for – like all innkeepers – he did not rent rooms, but places in each bed. He had only one big bed left in a large chamber, a very comfortable one, as it happened, and he boasted of its merits. Lorn rented both the bed and the entire room. He paid cash on the nail, and that, added to his sinister air and the impassive gaze of his dark spectacles, convinced the proprietor to hand over the key without further discussion.

  That evening, Lorn demanded a hot bath and chose to dine alone in his room. He only left it to make sure that his horse was in good hands, after which he blocked his door with a chair, closed his shutters, and fell into a haunted sleep. He was unaware that he had been recognised upon his arrival and that, just as he was falling asleep, a man was riding flat out to collect the rich reward he had been promised.

  18

  The following morning, as the Dark’s mark still hurt and it seemed his right eye was even more sensitive to the light than usual, Lorn remained in the dimness of his room. He rested, drowsed, suffered in silence, and waited.

  But nothing happened.

  In fact, he felt better and, after midday, he decided to take some fresh air and have a short stroll. The bright sunshine made him blink as soon as he stuck his nose outside, obliging him to draw his hood above his dark glasses. He hesitated for an instant, working the joints of his marked hand, then made up his mind and descended into the courtyard.

  Three families had just arrived and were negotiating the price of their stay with the innkeeper. The men, women and children seemed exhausted. They weren’t rich and were only asking for a corner where they could spend the night and water for the mules harnessed to their wagons. The children would cost nothing: they would sleep in the same bed and eat from the same plates as their parents. But the proprietor remained inflexible. He refused to grant them a discount and voices were raised, an old woman appealing in vain to his generosity, a man reproaching him for profiting from their desperation and fixing unfair prices. Some mercenaries approached and lent support to the innkeeper, silent but menacing. Their presence sufficed. The families realised that further discussion was to no avail and after conferring, they regretfully clubbed together the necessary funds. Wary, the innkeeper insisted on being paid in advance. He counted his money while an infant cried in its mother’s arms.

  Lorn went on his way.

  He returned to the stable to look after his horse, exchanged a few words with the ostler, then bought a bottle of wine and went to sip from it in a chair left in the shade of an oak tree, secluded in a quiet corner away from the bustling courtyard. He had removed his hood but kept his spectacles on, and was rubbing his left hand, immersed in his thoughts, when he perceived a presence beside him.

  It was a little girl, three or four years in age, dirty and barefoot, who was staring at him as she sucked the fingers of her right hand.

  Lorn returned her gaze without saying a word and waited.

  The little girl then raised the hand she was not devouring and pointed a chubby index finger at Lorn. He realised that she wasn’t indicating him but his spectacles. No doubt she had never seen anything like them before. He removed them and held them out to her so that she could look at them closely.

  The child hesitated.

  This unsmiling man made her feel shy.

  Lorn then held up the dark glasses in a sunbeam that broke through the branches. The little girl approached. She wanted to touch the spectacles, but Lorn shook his head. She restrained herself for a moment, looked Lorn in the eyes, and took another chance, advancing her hand very, very slowly.

  Lorn smiled and put his spectacles back on.

  ‘There you are!’

  The little girl gave a start.

  A young woman approached with a hurried step and one could read a great relief upon her face but also the vestiges of a worry too fresh to be easily erased. She was blonde, attractive and not yet thirty years old, although weariness had added to her apparent age. Lorn recognised her. She had arrived with the families who had tried to haggle over the price of their stay.

  ‘You know how I hate it when you run away that, Idia! I always want to know where you are, do you hear me?’

  To seek pardon, the little girl ran to her mother and hugged her legs.

  The woman softened and, caressing her daughter’s hair, reproached her gently.

  ‘I was worried sick, I was.’

  Whereupon she lifted her head and said to Lorn, who had not moved:

  ‘Forgive her, sir.’

  Lorn did not say a word.

  ‘I hope she did not bother you …’

  ‘No,’ replied Lorn.

  There was an embarrassed silence, the woman hesitating to take her leave without further ado. So she asked her daughter:

  ‘Say goodbye, Idia.’

  But the child, with her face in her mother’s skirts, refused.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman. ‘She’s sometimes a little shy …’

  Lorn nodded.

  ‘Well, goodbye, sir … And once again, forgive Idia.’

  Upon which, the woman was about to turn round when Lorn suddenly asked her:

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  Caught short, the woman stammered:

  ‘Where …? Where do we …?’

  ‘I saw you arriving, just now.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. You … You were there.’

  ‘You’re from the Cities, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Angborn?’

  The woman frowned.

  ‘Yes. But how …?’ And then she understood. ‘Ah. My accent. You can hear it, can’t you?’

  ‘A little,’ said Lorn with a friendly smile. ‘And where are you going?’

  ‘We’re going to Brenvost.’

  ‘For long?’

  ‘Perhaps for always. We don’t want to become Yrgaardians.’

  This sentence, spoken with pride, caught Lorn’s attention. It even aroused a trace of admiration in him.

  ‘So you’d rather move …’ he said.

  ‘Move?’ The woman smiled sadly. ‘Our goods wouldn’t fit in a wretched cart, if we were moving. We’re not moving, sir. We fled.’

  Lorn stood up.

  ‘Fled? What do you mean?’

  With a gesture he invited the woman to take his seat. She remained undecided for moment, then suddenly felt very tired and willingly agreed to sit for a few instants in the shade, with her daughter on her knee.

  ‘You were saying you’ve fled Angborn, you and your husband?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Answering Lorn’s questions, she explained that for the last several months the inhabitants of Angborn had not been allowed to leave. The future Yrgaardian authorities feared a mass exodus before the cession, so definitive departures were forbidden and those leaving the city could not take more than they ordinarily would for a journey. It was even impossible to sell one’s house or goods. If one decided to move elsewhere, one had to leave practically everyth
ing behind.

  Lorn would have liked to learn more, but the woman’s husband arrived and asked warily:

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied his wife. ‘I was just resting a little, that’s all.’

  She rose as the man took their daughter in his arms.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said the woman.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Lorn, after exchanging a plain nod with the husband.

  Who was quick to lead his family away.

  When evening came, Lorn went to take his supper in the common room.

  Although he did nothing to cause it, his entrance drew notice. His sombre appearance was disturbing and his spectacles aroused curiosity, so that conversations faltered as he found an empty place on a bench.

  They resumed when he ordered.

  Lorn supped without saying a word, listening to the chatter around him. His neighbours alluded in low voices to the prices being charged by the innkeepers.

  To complain about them, of course:

  ‘It’s theft. Theft, pure and simple.’

  ‘You’d think they were feeding the chickens with grain made of gold.’

  ‘And that their carrots were sown in silk!’

  ‘You said it! You can bet they’re making a fat profit …’

  ‘If you think about it, the only choice is between being robbed in here or out there.’

  ‘But here, at least, we don’t run the risk of having our throats slit.’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  The discussion took a new turn.

  ‘The brigands are growing more and more numerous. And more and more bold. You’ll see: one day, they’ll attack an inn.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I’m sure of it! Where do well-to-do travellers stop, if not in places such as this?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And you think these brigands don’t know that?’

  ‘But all the same, there are the walls. And guards.’

  ‘Walls can be climbed. And guards can be killed. Or paid off. You’ll see that one night we’ll go to bed believing we’re safely tucked away, only to find ourselves with our throats cut in our slee—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Lorn in a tone that brooked no argument.

  The three traders who were conversing near him fell silent, and by way of explanation, Lorn pointed to little Idia.

  As chance would have it, he was seated at the same table as the girl and her parents. Her father and mother, weary and too busy discussing how the meagre funds remaining to them would last until the end of their journey, had failed to perceive that the child was listening closely to the traders’ talk with her eyes wide open in fright. Embarrassed, the men apologised and did not utter another word during the rest of their meal.

  Lorn, however, was no longer much concerned by what Idia might have heard. The Dark’s mark was hurting him and the pain was climbing his arm. He felt both hot and cold, and sweat was beading upon his brow. The fit he’d been dreading for several days now was imminent.

  He stood up, walked out of the room as steadily as he could, and once he was out of sight from others, he took several deep breaths. Gripping a railing, he struggled to keep control of himself but knew that his efforts were to no avail. He needed to return to his room and lie down while he still had the strength to do so on his own. He wondered whether he would have done better to have warned the innkeeper he was ill and asked the man to keep an eye on him. Lorn’s pride had prevented him from doing so and now it was too late.

  The path to his room passed through a gallery open to the air on one side.

  Lorn attempted to climb the stairway that led to it, leaning on the bannister, and once he reached the top he was one of the first – along with the mercenaries standing guard – to see the coach rapidly approaching on the road. Escorted by riders, it entered the courtyard with a great din of hooves, ironclad wheels and creaking axles. This sudden arrival caused an uproar at the inn and quickly drew everyone outside. Even Lorn remained where he was and, pricked by curiosity, watched from the gallery.

  ‘CLOSE THE GATES!’ yelled the coachman, as he pulled on the reins to bring the coach to a halt. ‘CLOSE THE GATES! WE WERE ATTACKED!’

  As the heavy gates were being shut, Lorn, who could see over the outer wall, scrutinised the surrounding area in the glimmering dusk. But his sight was blurred; it was like looking through a billowing veil. He gave up and focused instead on the coachman, who, in front of the inn, had jumped down from his seat and was recounting how bandits had ambushed them but they had managed to force a passage. Worried questions poured forth from his listeners. Where had the ambush taken place? How many bandits were there? Had they pursued the coach?

  The coach.

  Despite his difficulties in concentrating, Lorn observed that the person or persons whom the coachman had been driving had still not shown themselves. Then he noticed that the escort riders had dismounted but that only a handful of them remained by the coach they were supposed to protect. Most of them had already quietly slipped away while the coachman drew all the attention to himself.

  Something was up.

  Something that Lorn sensed was about to happen, without being able to identify it clearly.

  He understood when he saw who finally left the coach.

  Dark-haired, young, pretty.

  She had claimed to be called Elana and, a few weeks earlier, she had tried to abduct him.

  At first he thought he was delirious, that his fever and the Dark were playing tricks on him. But he recognised the young woman without a shred of doubt when she raised her head as if she knew exactly where to find him and he met her gaze.

  She smiled at him.

  Lorn cursed and rushed to his room, locking the door and jamming it with a chair. Anxious and fretful, he paced up and down trying to collect his wits. He needed to think. Quickly. He had no shortage of ideas, but they jostled about in his head, overlapping and cancelling one another, while the pain in his strained arm provoked a sort of dizziness in him.

  They were there for him.

  To abduct him. Irelice had missed its chance in Samarande but had not given up.

  He was in no shape to fight.

  He had to flee.

  Starting by escaping this room in which he had trapped himself …

  Lorn suddenly realised that screams of horror and the sounds of combat were rising from the courtyard. And just then, someone tried to open the door.

  His combat instincts took over.

  He snatched up his sword in its scabbard, passed his good arm through the strap of his bag, opened the room’s window and threw his legs over the sill. The window was ten feet above the ground, behind the main building. Handicapped by his left arm, he fell rather than leapt out at the very moment when his door was kicked down. His landing hurt but caused no serious injury and, limping slightly, he went to the corner of the building and discreetly glanced around it.

  It required an effort to clear his sight, as fat drops of sweat stung his eyes.

  Chaos reigned within the fortified inn. In the light from torches and lanterns, the warriors who had been escorting Elana were fighting the mercenaries and had taken possession of the premises, striking at anyone who stood in their path, shoving aside men, women and children.

  A man was leaning out from the window of Lorn’s room.

  ‘THERE HE IS!’

  Lorn rushed into the melee, unsheathing his sword.

  He struck a warrior who was taken by surprise, deflected the attack from a second by pure reflex, and riposted by slitting the man’s throat.

  ‘OVER THERE!’

  Lorn turned round and sensed rather than actually saw Elana, who was calling and pointing at him from the gallery. A warrior rushed him and Lorn struck blindly. Once. Twice. And he struck again at another menacing figure, before feeling the spatter of warm blood upon his face. The world had become an appalling muddle of sounds,
cries, tumbling shapes and brimming colours. Lorn lost all awareness of himself and once again became the terrified madman who had fled beneath the storm at Dalroth. It was a fall into an abyss of violence, screaming spectres, primitive fears and savage impulses. He no longer knew who he was attacking or whom he was defending himself against, warriors or mercenaries, or perhaps even innocent bystanders.

  When he returned to his senses, he found himself on horseback, wounded, and holding the reins with the same hand that gripped his bloodied sword. His mount reared with a whinny, panic-stricken, before the gate in the outer wall. Had he forgotten that the mercenaries had closed it after the coach’s arrival? Or had he simply not thought about it at all, caught up in a frenzy?

  Whatever the case, the gate still stood tall and shut tight before him, and the walls meant to protect him had become a deadly trap.

  Unless …

  ‘Surrender!’ Elana called. ‘It’s over!’

  His mouth dry and his eyes sore, dazed by the migraine boring into his temples, Lorn tried to take stock of the situation.

  Elana and her warriors had him cornered. Fighting had ceased in the corpse-strewn courtyard. The inn’s clientele had taken refuge in the buildings and were peeping fearfully from the windows.

  Lorn sheathed his sword …

  Before spurring his horse with his heels.

  Determined to risk all, he knocked over one warrior, forced several others to dive to one side. Continuing to gather speed he crossed the courtyard at a gallop, charging towards the new building under construction.

  Elana understood what he intended to do.