Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  For a moment it seemed Gurjot would refuse him. Then the justice bowed a little more deeply and turned to shout orders at his men.

  The camp threatened to be a ramshackle and somewhat ill-humoured thing. Sang Ki’s men refused to give precedence to the peasant soldiers, and the lowlanders would be cursed if they’d allow themselves to be trampled by the troops of a man who was clearly half mountain savage. In the end, Gurjot and his small group of shipfort men proved their competence and organised a neat encampment with latrines downwind and pickets all round. The vibrant young grass of the pass was soon trampled to mud beneath the boots of the conjoined forces, but here and there bright red and orange poppies dotted the ground.

  Sang Ki invited the justice to share his fire, knowing that etiquette would forbid Gurjot to refuse. He’d ensured there were ample rations for his journey and the other man was offered a goblet of fine wine from the vineyards of the Five Stars and a platter of spiced lamb on a bed of spinach and blue mushrooms. The effect pleasingly mimicked Gurjot’s cloak of office, but he seemed oblivious as he spooned the meat into his mouth and washed it down with a vintage that should have been savoured sip by sip.

  His bird perched on the ground beside him, its half-bald head resting close to his thigh, and Gurjot’s hand paused from its spooning of food to mouth only to stroke it. The carrion mount made a sound almost like a cat’s purr. Its smell in no way enhanced Sang Ki’s enjoyment of the meal.

  ‘Lord Thilak has left this land, then?’ Gurjot said when his rate of feeding finally slowed. ‘A terrible thing to lose a father.’

  ‘And especially to murder.’

  Gurjot’s expression of startlement was quickly hidden. ‘Murder? Do you require my services, then? Wherever I am, there is the King’s justice. So says my oath of office.’

  ‘Would that I could use your services, sir. Alas, the culprit has not yet been caught.’

  ‘But you know his identity?’

  ‘Her identity, though she wasn’t unaided. It was my father’s wife, Lady Nethmi, daughter of Lord Shaan of Whitewood.’

  That produced a slightly longer silence. ‘Is that why you’ve come to the lowlands?’ Gurjot asked eventually. ‘On the hunt for Lady Nethmi?’

  ‘It’s one of the reasons, yes. And your reasons for crossing the pass to the grasslands? I’d heard of no threat from the Fourteen Tribes.’

  ‘The Fourteen Tribes.’ Gurjot’s look said he considered Sang Ki one of their number. ‘No, we have no business with them, unless they harbour our fugitive.’

  ‘A fugitive from the King’s justice?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Gurjot said.

  It was a clear end to their discussion. Sang Ki could have probed for more, but he knew the way this game was played. The one who seemed most desperate to know lost power. So they talked casually of minor things: the twin sisters Nimrit and Nimrat who ruled Leviathan had fallen out over a horse. The fisherfolk had fared poorly this season at Delta’s Strength but the farmers had a bumper harvest. Wanderers who traded with the Eternal Empire had brought a new spice north, so hot it burned going in and coming out. Sang Ki listened politely and only withdrew to his tent when the moon had sunk beneath the horizon.

  What Sang Ki hated most about sleeping on the ground was the undignified process of getting up from it. But after a sleepless hour spent staring at the roof of his mammoth-hide tent he rolled to his side and pushed himself to his knees with a grunt of effort.

  The fat of his belly slapped against the furs beneath him and he felt a familiar moment of disgust at the vast, useless lump he was forced to inhabit. Another grunt and he was on his feet and pulling his robe around him. His hair was so fine there was no need to comb it; it floated around his head in a pale cloud. His mother had often begged him to dye it dark as Seonu tradition demanded. But even with black hair no one would confuse him for a pure-blood Ashane or a pure-blood Seonu, so what was the point?

  When Sang Ki pushed open the tent’s flap, a chill wind greeted him and he heard the distant hooting of owls. From nearer at hand came the low murmur of voices. He soon found the source: a redly glowing campfire with a huddled group of Gurjot’s men around it, most landborn and a couple of shipfort guards. Exactly the people he needed.

  They didn’t notice his approach from the darkness until the stale smell of his sweat hit them. He saw a wool-swathed peasant sniff, then look around, and fought not to blush as he went to warm his hands at their fire. They didn’t give him a welcome but they didn’t tell him to leave either. It was a good enough start.

  ‘You’re a long way from home, friends,’ Sang Ki said.

  One of the men grunted, another spat. Most were sneaking looks at him. He was used to their expressions: a combination of disgust and fascination that his mother too sometimes wore. His father had been different. Lord Thilak had asked the tribe’s elders for concoctions to help his son shuck off the growing layer of fat and had only frowned thoughtfully as each failed, as if the medicines and not his son were at fault for his immensity.

  ‘And is your journey nearly at its end?’ Sang Ki asked after the silence had lingered a while.

  A round-faced shipfort man with an ugly scar across his cheek shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘You don’t know this fugitive’s location?’

  ‘The plains,’ the soldier conceded. ‘There was a party close on his tail, but he killed ’em, they say. They disappeared in the Black Heights, anyhow.’

  His tail. It was a little more information, a drip of it. ‘And what has he done for such a force to be sent in his wake?’

  There was another silence, but he sensed that this arose more from puzzlement than reluctance to speak. These men didn’t know the fugitive’s crime. And suddenly Sang Ki had a very good idea who they were chasing, and perhaps why Gurjot chose to play with his cards clutched close to his chest. ‘So it’s Yron’s heir you pursue – as some villains call him – our King’s ill-omened son.’

  ‘A criminal is all we were told,’ one of the landborn said. ‘A wanted man.’

  ‘And a valuable one.’ The expressions that statement elicited were even more carefully blank and Sang Ki smiled. ‘Fifty thousand gold wheels for his capture, or so I heard.’

  The blank faces melted not into shock, as he’d expected, but chagrin, and he realised they’d already known the full sum. Interesting. He’d expected Gurjot to lie to his hirelings and pocket the bulk of the coin himself.

  ‘A hundred wheels for each man and a thousand for the officers with the rest for Justice Gurjot,’ a peasant said.

  ‘A great deal of coin,’ Sang Ki agreed. ‘But enough to lure a man away from his fields for weeks, maybe a full season? Who knows how long you’ll be gone when the man you seek could be anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve no fields,’ a youth with a pitifully thin moustache told him. ‘They went to my brother.’

  ‘And mine,’ another said and Sang Ki nodded.

  ‘I see. Gurjot has brought an army of second sons on his quest.’

  The shipfort man scowled. ‘There’s no shame in being a second son.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ Sang Ki said. ‘Our ancestors were led to these lands by the fifth son of an emperor, or so the legend goes. Not every man is given his due – some must earn or fight for it.’ He smiled at the soldiers and left them to their fire, ready for his sleeping furs at last.

  He woke stiff and cold as the morning mist crept through the tent flap he’d failed to shut the night before. When he emerged, rubbing crumbs of sleep from his eyes, his mother was already up and cradling a steaming mug of tea in her hands. She jerked her head sharply when she saw him and he knew she meant for him to approach. He stooped to kiss her cheek before scooping a ladleful of tea for himself.

  ‘You wandered last night,’ she said. ‘You spoke to the soldiers.’

  He could ask how she knew but what was the point? ‘I found out what this little gathering is all about. It’s Yron’s heir. They’re hunting the King’s prodigal son
and the fifty thousand gold wheels he carries with him, in a metaphorical manner of speaking.’

  ‘Thilak had enough gold.’ There was a hitch in her voice when she said his father’s name.

  ‘I’m not interested in the gold. And neither, I think, is Gurjot. I don’t believe his mission is fully sanctioned by our King, who would surely have sent either all his strength or only spies. I think Gurjot hopes to capture the fugitive himself and so win back the favour of one who long ago discarded him. And if the mission isn’t official – ah, Justice Gurjot, a good morning to you.’

  The old man approached their fire, looking more weary after his night’s rest than he had before it.

  ‘Your men tell me you’re seeking a rich prize indeed,’ Sang Ki said, handing him a mug of tea.

  The other man’s sagging face looked gratifyingly chagrined, but Sang Ki didn’t want to leave him with the impression he was seeking coin. ‘I’ve no need of gold, but I’ve a mind to help you, if help is needed,’ he said. ‘And given how wide the plains are, how lost your fugitive and how few your numbers, I can’t see how my assistance might be unwelcome.’

  ‘The coin’s already been promised and divided between my men,’ Gurjot said carefully.

  ‘I’ll make sure my men are equally recompensed from my father’s coffers, so there’ll be no ill-feelings when the prodigal is apprehended.’

  ‘We could use the extra blades.’ Gurjot was still studying him untrustingly. ‘But you told me you were heading into Ashanesland. Why would you interrupt your journey for no reward?’

  Sang Ki’s mother was watching him carefully, clearly seeking the same answer. Because I’m a fat half-breed who wants to inherit from a full Ashane lord, he thought, and what are the chances of that unless my reputation with the Oak Wheel is increased? Because I believe Lady Nethmi most likely fled this way and I’d give almost anything to find her? Because I’ve read a great deal about Yron’s heir and I think it would be fascinating to meet him?

  But all he said was, ‘Assisting the Oak Wheel will be reward enough.’

  20

  Krish didn’t like the sky. There was too much of it, stretching miles towards the horizon in every direction. He’d been walking south for nearly two weeks now, and only the temperature had changed, growing a little warmer with every mile and every day. The same grass surrounded him, silver or green as the wind took it. Every so often there’d be a tree, and once or twice he’d found streams meandering aimlessly over the endless plain.

  He’d had a lot of time to think about his ma’s last words to him. The shipborn were constantly fighting, that’s what he’d heard. There’d been the War of the Sons, he didn’t know how many years ago, and the Fool’s War later on. The lords seemed always to be battling each other or fighting against the Oak Wheel. There’d be people in Ashanesland who’d fight for him, like she’d said, but plenty more who’d sell him to his father the King for what it would buy them. The men of his village had done as much, and they’d known him his whole life.

  Here on the plains he was safer. No one would know what his strange eyes meant, but no one would know why he was worth fighting for, either. If he wanted to raise an army, he’d need to offer them something. He could offer the tribes part of Ashanesland, but then his own people wouldn’t be too happy with him, would they? And was it more important to have the warriors of the tribes or the loyalty of his own landborn?

  He didn’t know enough, that was the problem. When he’d wanted to understand how Snowy could have a brown kid, he’d spent a long time studying the goats and their breeding. That’s what he needed to do now. He couldn’t be rash. He needed to know more about King Nayan if he meant to overthrow him. He needed a plan.

  Of course, it was hard to find out anything here on this vast, empty plain. And he could hardly raise an army out of thin air. His ma had seen a map once, but he never had. He didn’t know where he was going except west, which the village men had always used as a word to mean far away and foreign. At least each stride took him further from the King’s men and the bitter cold of the mountains. His lungs cleared a little more every day and he felt stronger.

  The plains teemed with wildlife: ponies and birds and deer and small, stripey rabbits and rats bigger than the rabbits. The ponies he couldn’t catch and the birds and deer he couldn’t shoot, having no bow. The rats alarmed him, but he’d caught a few of the rabbits. It was probably time to inspect his traps now. He turned in a slow circle, trying to remember where he’d laid them. To the left, he thought, beyond the tree that reminded him of the one outside his old home, gnarled and near death.

  But the tree wasn’t the only thing he could see in that direction. There were two black smudges on the horizon he was sure hadn’t been there before. As he watched they grew larger, resolving into the figures of men on horseback. He felt a cold knot of dread in his stomach. These were the first people he’d seen since he descended from the mountains and all his brave thoughts of building an army vanished. His instinct was to hide, but he knew it was pointless. The silver-green grass was only waist-high and he must be as obvious to them as they were to him. He judged that he had a little time before they reached him. He couldn’t think of anything better to do with it than check his traps.

  The first two were empty but the third contained a creature he didn’t recognise. It was long and sinuous with a banded, bushy tail and the sharp teeth of a predator. The snare had tightened round its leg rather than its neck and it was mewling pitifully. It turned big brown eyes on Krish as he approached, pleading rather than fearful. Krish wondered if he’d worn the same expression when the village men had chained him up.

  The creature’s leg was a little bloody where the noose had tightened, but Krish didn’t think it was broken. He sighed and reached for it. ‘Don’t bite me now.’

  It snarled and hissed but didn’t attack as he loosened the cord and set it free. It looked at him for a moment, teeth bared, then turned and slunk into the grass, its silver fur rendering it instantly invisible.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Krish said.

  He wasn’t hungry anyway. It was clear now that the two horse riders were heading towards him. As they drew closer he could see that their dark red shirts were covered in fine beadwork. Their skin looked very pale against the cloth, the colour of curdled milk. These weren’t the king’s carrion riders. They must be of the Fourteen Tribes. That should have been reassuring, but their swords were drawn and their expressions weren’t friendly. Krish had always been taught to fear the savages of the plains, who sometimes raided mountain villages.

  When the men reached him they slowed their mounts. The horses were beautiful beasts, one brown with a white diamond on its forehead and the other a solid and shiny black. The men were less appealing. The first, little older than Krish, had a permanent squint that narrowed his eyes to untrusting slits beneath his turban, and the other’s face was cross-hatched with thin white marks that suggested a deliberate scarring rather than the wounds of battle.

  The two men circled their horses round him, one in front and one behind, never quite stopping, so that he had to keep turning if he wanted to keep one in sight. He chose to watch the older man.

  That man smiled, but when he spoke it was in a language Krish didn’t know.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Krish said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The man spoke again, maybe repeating himself. He spoke more slowly, but it was still a nasal-sounding gibberish.

  Krish just shook his head this time. He was sure his own words would be nonsense to them and he doubted they much cared what he had to say.

  The tribesman’s smile widened as he slid from his horse. His sword was still in his hand and as he approached Krish he swung it in lazy arcs. Behind him, Krish could hear the younger man dismounting. His shoulder blades itched but he stopped himself turning round. He remembered the thieves who’d ambushed him outside Frogsing village. He’d outwitted them, but they’d only been half-witted. And they’d threatened hi
m with flint knives where these men carried steel.

  The older man spoke again, his sneer evident even if his meaning wasn’t, and the younger man laughed. He was only two paces from Krish now, close enough for Krish to see the rust-coloured stains on the sword’s single edge. He made a gesture with the weapon, nodding towards the ground and then looking at Krish.

  Krish shrugged, not understanding, and the man did it again, more sharply this time. Then, when Krish still looked uncomprehending, he stepped forward and struck him hard across the face before gesturing at the ground and pushing down on his shoulders.

  He wants me to kneel, Krish thought, as blood dribbled from his nose to his lip. He knew he should obey. Even armed, he’d stand no chance against the tribesmen in a fight. But he’d done nothing to provoke them, just like his ma had never done anything to provoke his da. And he was a king’s son. He looked the man in his eye and shook his head.

  For a moment the tribesman looked surprised. Then his expression changed to anger. He stepped back a pace and raised the sword above his head, where the metal glinted in the sun and the rust-red bloodstain stood out plainly.

  The man remained with his sword raised, unmoving, and Krish wondered if he was savouring the moment. But as the moment stretched, he saw the tribesman teeter – and then he saw the bloom of blood on his chest. Krish stumbled back as his attacker fell on his face to reveal the yellow-fletched arrow protruding from his back. The air was suddenly thick with the stink of shit.

  The younger tribesman yelled in outrage and Krish instinctively flung himself to the ground as a sword cut through the air where his chest had been. Listening for it this time, he heard the dull thud of an arrow striking, and the second tribesman toppled to the ground.

  The arrow had found his throat, not quite killing him outright. Krish watched a moment as the young man’s hands clawed at the wood, trying vainly to pull it free while the blood leaked out of him. It was a pitiful sight and his whimpers drove Krish to grasp the arrow, twisting it until the tribesman shuddered and was still.