The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  ‘Let’s have it then,’ he snarled at them, shoving his open hand out before him and gesturing for the purses.

  ‘Once you open the gates wide enough to let us through, serjeant,’ Harlin said, shaking his head slowly. ‘Don’t want you closing them again on us now, do we?’ Anselm tried to add a supportive snigger to back Harlin’s words, but just ended up coughing and spluttering wetly. He spat something dark at the serjeant’s feet, who grimaced at it distastefully.

  ‘What’s to say you don’t just go riding off once you’re through?’ he sneered. ‘Not as soft as that, dog.’ Harlin sighed.

  ‘Open the gate wider, or I will have my horse dance a merry jig on your skull after I split it open.’

  The serjeant ran his tongue over his top lip slowly. ‘Fair enough,’ he muttered.

  The man retreated and shoved the gate open fully for them. ‘My thanks, serjeant,’ Harlin said as they passed. The moment they were through the serjeant yanked the gates back into place, clearly straining with the effort, especially when he had to hoist the bar back into place single-handedly – Harlin hoped he threw his back out as he watched him, feeling slightly disappointed that he managed it after a few struggling attempts.

  ‘Well, let’s fucking have it then!’ the serjeant said as he turned to them, panting and sweating visibly even in the dim light. ‘You two are starting to piss me off!’

  Harlin threw the purses to the serjeant viciously and the man caught them clumsily against his chest. ‘Now,’ Harlin said, ‘one final service and I won’t beat you to within an inch of your life – a healer, where?’

  ‘Follow the road,’ Serjeant Falland muttered, opening Harlin’s purse to peer inside with a beady eye. ‘Market square, it’ll be on your left. Look for the sign with the three leaves on it.’ Harlin nodded. He hopped down from his horse and glanced at Anselm, who raised a curious eyebrow over a pained face.

  ‘A pleasure dealing with you, Marcher,’ Harlin said, walking towards the serjeant with his hand extended and a wide, friendly grin on his face. Serjeant Falland watched cautiously as Harlin lowered his helm back onto his head with his other hand.

  ‘There’s a damn sight less in one of these than the other, you liar,’ he complained warily.

  ‘Yes, well, some of us make more coin than others, such is the way of the world,’ Harlin said pleasantly, shrugging, still offering his hand. ‘How about we shake then, eh? I apologise for my temper just now. That’s what you do here in Caermark isn’t it? Shake hands with a man you make a deal with?’

  The serjeant slowly went to take his hand, distrustful, spear nestled in the crook of his arm, his other hand clutching the bags of coin to his chest like a mother would her child.

  Harlin grabbed him by the forearm faster than the serjeant could react and pulled him forwards off balance, his helmed forehead smashing into the serjeant’s face with an echoing crunch. He felt the nose guard on the iron cap give way beneath the force of the blow, and the serjeant fell backwards limply with a look of surprise frozen on his face, his nose pissing blood.

  Harlin scooped up the two purses from where they lay, sprinted back to his horse and leapt into the saddle gracefully. He and Anselm set off down the road quickly, not looking back.

  Stitch that, you Marcher cunt, Harlin thought, unable to keep from grinning.

  He really disliked Serjeant Falland.

  ‘You must have read my mind,’ Anselm laughed as they made their way down a dark, muddy street.

  ‘I’ve spent too much time around you and those other arseholes.’ He tossed Anselm’s money back to him.

  ‘You were a complete bastard when you first came to us and you know it.’ Anselm laughed, managing to keep from coughing. ‘It’s why we liked you so much.’

  That was more than likely true, Harlin had to admit.

  They passed by rowdy taverns, filled with patrons singing and dancing and drinking heartily, past brothels where young girls stood outside flaunting their wares diligently and all too welcomingly.

  The two of them came to the market square some way into the town, the centre, Harlin guessed. Empty stalls flanked all sides of it, ringed by rich-looking manors, the well-trodden road splitting off in numerous directions.

  They found the building Serjeant Falland – whom Harlin dearly hoped was still unconscious – had described to them earlier. Three green leaves painted on a rough wooden sign above an arched doorway. It looked closed, its windows shuttered and bolted, and no light crept from within, but Harlin battered the door viciously, until it finally opened a crack and a pair of bleary eyes peered out at him from a halo of candlelight. A litany of profanity followed shortly after, silencing quickly as the eyes took in the sight of Harlin and his imposing figure.

  The healer turned out to be a small, aging bald man with a pinched face and haughty way of speaking called Gethelin. As Anselm was ushered into his treatment room, a vile place full of chemical smells, jars of fluids and a multitude of unpleasant things, the annoying little man insisted Harlin referred to him as a ‘chirurgeon’, whatever that was. He wasn’t inclined to ask, feeling more inclined to strangle him instead as he found everything about him highly irritating. It was something akin to a battlefield cutter, judging by the table he laid Anselm on to poke, prod and pry at his wounds. It was like a butcher’s chopping block, stained dark with old gore and haphazardly scored in places by blades or saws. It made Harlin’s hand trace the scars beneath his armour as he remembered his own times spent with the healers of Parathet. He shuddered.

  ‘Broken ribs,’ the healer said, after making Anselm grunt loudly with pain as his fingers poked almost viciously at his side. ‘Very broken, must have been quite the blow. And, judging by the paleness and shortness of breath, one has pierced his lung.’

  Harlin nodded. ‘Can you fix him?’

  ‘Well, that depends,’ Gethelin said slimily, little long-fingered hands wringing greedily, beady eyes lighting up, ‘on whether or not you can afford to pay for treatment. It is a difficult procedure, and requires much input, time and effort from myself, and lengthy aftercare from my assistants. Not to mention the costs of the medicines required to ensure proper healing, and of course, pain relief.’

  He was like an imp, Harlin decided then as he regarded Gethelin, a gold-lusting little devil, or one of the creatures Marchers believed in that caused mischief and slavered over coin.

  Anselm raised his head from the table to catch his eye, nodding as vigorously as he could while Gethelin was busy watching Harlin’s reaction.

  ‘So be it then,’ Harlin said, restraining his anger. ‘Anselm has coin enough to pay you, I leave him in your hands.’

  ‘Very well, very well,’ Gethelin murmured, ‘I’ll start treatment at once.’

  Harlin nodded silently, then moved before Gethelin so suddenly the little man shrieked and backed into a wall of shelves, jars rattling precariously. ‘You have the look of a bookish man, healer,’ Harlin said coldly, ‘I find bookish men tend to prefer other men as their bedfellows instead of women. If you try to cheat us of coin, or do not fix my friend to the best of your abilities, and fix him soon, then I will be back to introduce your arse to its latest companion.’

  He brandished his sword before Gethelin’s face, all greed and covetousness vanishing from the healer’s expression, utter terror taking their place.

  Harlin sheathed his blade and backed away. ‘Anselm, I’ll be back to check on you in the morning.’

  ‘Where are you off?’ Anselm grunted, squinting over his heaving chest at Harlin as he made for the door.

  ‘I’ve business to attend to,’ Harlin said over his shoulder, ‘and a whore to plough.’

  He wasn’t sure what Anselm called after him as he slipped through the door, but Harlin was sure that it contained a few dozen creatively vulgar words associating him with a woman’s privates. Either that or he was wishing a curse upon whichever woman he went with to have a vulgar undercarriage waiting for him. Regardless, he smirked �
� it was still fun to get one up on Anselm, even if he was injured and in the hands of some jumped-up battlefield cutter, and the woman he had in mind had a fine undercarriage. Exemplary, even.

  Harlin mounted up, leading Anselm’s mount by the reins as he rode his own, not entirely sure where he was going, but glad to finally be alone. He needed to relax, to rest – there was difficult work ahead for him before they left Farrifax, even more difficult once they did leave.

  Things had happened quickly, he had not had time to reflect, to think even, until now. The destruction of Lord Callen’s army, the breaking of the Blackshield Dogs – it had all fallen into place conveniently for what he had in mind. It was a cold, harsh convenience to be sure, one built upon the deaths of thousands, on the deaths of men he had known and fought with for years. But upon consideration… he cared not. If anything, he was glad.

  The time now was not one of grief, or remorse, but one of vengeance. The chance for it was there, waiting to be seized, offering itself freely. If he had to cross a bridge built from the corpses of men to take that chance, then so be it – he had waited far too long already for it to present itself. Waiting any longer would see that chance evaporate before his very eyes, maybe gone forever with the way the winds of Caermark were blowing. The future waits for no one, after all, and a man must do the same.

  He came upon the street they had passed through before when on their way to the market square, the one flanked with brothels and taverns. The smells of food wafting from each tavern set his stomach to growling and his mouth to watering as he moved past them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He picked one at random, a reasonably safe-looking place called The Stuck Pig, lashing the horses to the post outside, beneath a sign that depicted the unfortunate animal it was named after. Inside was packed with drunken, raucous gatherings of men who danced to loud music played by a quartet bearing peasant instruments – fiddle, flute, drum and wheel-lyre. Their feet beat a thundering rhythm on rickety floorboards, slopping ale and drink as they careened stupidly through smoky air.

  A miserable-looking barkeep served him some equally miserable-looking meat pie with a side of soggy vegetables that managed to look depressed in their own right. He shovelled it down his throat regardless, stomach easing gratefully, and spared the morose-faced barkeep an extra copper for directions to Lady Ethelwynn’s when he settled up.

  Those directions led him through destitute parts of town, up into more affluent areas, where roads of mud, shit and other foul things ran into ones of fine cobblestone that led uphill and higher upon Farrifax’s foundations.

  Harlin came to a place where the road snaked and wound between stately, affluent houses of fine timber and stone in a circular, private estate, gathered around a hefty stone carving. It depicted a bearded man of powerful physique, grim-faced, robes tied loosely about his waist, one hand raised before him clutching a burning brazier that crackled and spat as Harlin drew close to inspect it.

  It was one of the Marchers’ gods. The ‘old gods’, they called them. He’d never known why, exactly, or cared to ask. Harlin had never regarded himself as much of a god-botherer, but something about the gods of the Marchers offended him. They were fond of rules, of laws and restrictions, of the forbidding of things, as though they simply existed to deny their followers any enjoyment of life and revelled in doing so. He didn’t understand why men would pay tribute to such creatures and serve them so willingly. It was like asking to become a slave and thanking your master every time he took something from you, or whipped you for disobedience. What was there that could possibly deserve tribute and such fevered worship in that?

  They were slavers, the Marcher gods, nothing more.

  He glared up into the stone face above him, spat on the god’s robes, and moved on.

  Lady Ethelwynn’s brothel was just past the stone god. It was a large, three-floored stone building that spoke of extreme luxury, its outer walls lit by the light of torches either side of intricately-carved wooden doors. The sight made Harlin pause and his jaw drop – it looked expensive. A place for nobility, not base soldiery. He hadn’t expected it to be anything like this. This was going to put an unpleasant dent in his coin purse for sure. He shook himself, sighing, and lashed the horses to a post outside. So be it, he needed this, after all. A large wooden sign hung above the entrance, Lady Ethelwynn’s Bathhouse painted upon it in elegant golden letters.

  The doors of the building were shut tight, but from open windows shone the light of candles, and the sounds of all manner of carnality could be heard faintly from somewhere within. A promising ambience.

  His hand grasped a brass handle shaped like the nude torso of a woman, and with a firm shove he entered into a wide hall, lit duskily by candles hanging from many brackets. Tapestries hung from every wall, depicting young, nubile females stripped bare and exposing themselves, or engaged in a variety of nefarious, fleshly activities with each other. Eye-catching décor. Definitely his kind of establishment.

  Harlin smiled to himself, pleased by his surroundings, and crossed a clean wooden floor to where an attractive woman of some thirty or more years sat behind a desk. She was sat bent over a hefty-looking ledger with a considerable pile of silver coins next to her, scrawling something in the pages with a large, fancy quill, her nimble fingers spotted with ink.

  He coughed pointedly, dragging her attention from her ledger. She looked up at him with some surprise, then scrutiny as she looked him up and down, as though assessing how much coin he might be carrying by his appearance. Harlin could only suppose that this was Lady Ethelwynn herself.

  ‘Yes?’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘I, ah,’ he answered, hesitating beneath her glare, suddenly aware of how grimy his appearance was. ‘Is Aedri available?’

  ‘Aedri?’ the woman said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘Can you afford her?’

  ‘Several times over,’ Harlin said with a glare. He patted the unimpressive coin purse on his belt, pleased its clinking was audible. The woman’s eyes flitted to it suspiciously.

  ‘Hmm,’ she breathed, and screamed, ‘Aedri!’ Her voice made Harlin’s ears ring.

  When Aedri appeared some moments later from a door at the back of the hall, her face lit up at the sight of Harlin, and she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. There was something about the girl that woke Harlin’s lust all too easily, the revealing silk dress she wore not helping matters.

  ‘Harlin!’ she cried, staring up at him. ‘You came back!’ He smiled, impressed she remembered his name.

  ‘I have business to attend to.’

  ‘And you stink,’ Aedri commented, nose wrinkling as she pushed him away playfully.

  ‘I could use a bath.’ He glanced over at Lady Ethelwynn, who watched the two of them suspiciously.

  ‘Back rooms,’ she snapped at the pair, voice snapping off Harlin’s rising manhood. ‘Three silver for hot water, ten for your night’s stay, another three for Aedri’s services.’

  So much for a free one, then.

  Sixteen silvers. Never in his life had he paid so much for a night with a whore. She was lucky Aedri was worth it, he thought, counting out her fee, his purse depressingly empty after at his hip.

  Aedri took his hand and briskly led him through the door she had emerged from, down a hallway with many rooms, the sounds of people deep in the midst of their coupling coming from behind each closed door. The entire place had an air of expense and corrupted, sordid class about it that Harlin couldn’t help but find enticing.

  At the end of the hallway Aedri pulled him behind a staircase and, turning on him suddenly, her arms were about his neck again and she reached up to kiss him, standing on the very tips of her toes. He pulled her into him by her slender waist and savoured the moment before she broke away, looking up at him coyly, his size dwarfing her utterly.

  ‘I’ll have the girls run your bath, nice and hot.’ She smiled. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘And you,’ he said, bowing
his head. She kissed him on her tip toes once more.

  She led him through a door nearby to a warm room dotted with deep stone baths sunk into the floor that were long and wide enough to swim in, almost. Young serving girls, dressed more plainly than Aedri, stoked fires at the far ends of the room and heated water for them at Aedri’s bidding in great blackened kettles. The room was soon full of steam, and smelled strongly of pleasant herbs and leaves that were burned in bunches hung along the walls.

  Harlin stripped at Aedri’s command, his armour and clothes gathered up silently by a few of the serving girls and taken to be cleaned, a service Aedri said was complementary for their visiting knights and nobles, one Lady Ethelwynn didn’t have to know he was using. It was odd to be stood there naked before so many women and not have them bat an eyelid.

  Harlin slipped into the bathwater gingerly, lowering himself gently and feeling relief flood through him almost instantly, the heat soothing his wounds. The room around him disappeared in clouds of white steam and sweet-smelling smoke, sleep almost taking him as he reclined and closed his eyes, submerged up to his shoulders.

  He snapped back to attention when he heard, and felt, something slip into the bath with him. He opened a tired, curious eye, and saw Aedri gliding gently towards him through the water. A hungry look was in her eyes as she approached that brought a smile to Harlin’s face.

  ‘Welcome to my lair, monster,’ she said, a teasing smile shaping her lips. Her hands ran down his chest beneath the water, fingers playing over his scars. He opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed a finger to his lips and shook her head. ‘We have all night for talking. You look like you’ve been through a nightmare or two since I last saw you, so for now just lie back and let me make you feel a little better.’

  She bit her lip as she felt for him beneath the water, straddling him with supple legs, sighing as she slipped down onto him slowly.