by Stan Nichols
Following some small talk about the commune and its fortunes, Karr said, ‘I wish we’d known this horse’s shoe needed attention before we left there. Still, we’ll be at Saddlebow soon.’
Caldason made one of his rare contributions. ‘Can’t we go round it?’
‘I don’t know where else we can have a horse shod. Anyway, skirting Saddlebow adds another day to the journey. But I don’t want to linger there any longer than you do. We’ll rest, see to the horses, stretch our legs. No more.’ He turned to Kutch. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask: have you ever been to Valdarr before?’
‘No, nor even Saddlebow. I travelled a bit with my master, but always to other hamlets and villages. I suppose that makes me a country boy.’
‘Then it’s probably good that we’re starting at Saddlebow and working our way up. You could find town and city life a bit overwhelming at first.’ He gave the boy a smile. ‘But don’t worry, you have guardians.’
‘One of whom’s a wanted outlaw,’ Caldason said, ‘and the other a target for assassins.’
That put a bit of a damper on things and they rode in silence until Saddlebow came into view.
It was a sizeable town, full of activity, and when they found a blacksmith he told them he needed a couple of hours to attend to the shoe.
‘You won’t find another smith less busy,’ he promised.
‘All right,’ Karr replied, handing him some coins.
The man spat on them and dropped them into his apron pouch. ‘I’ll see to it your team’s fed and watered.’
‘We could do with that ourselves,’ Karr decided. ‘Come on,’ he told his companions.
They began to walk, looking for a tavern. The streets bustled.
‘Is it normally this full?’ Kutch asked.
Karr shook his head. ‘This is unusual.’
There were watchmen in the crowd, and a few paladins. They steered well clear of them. As they got nearer to the town’s centre there were more and more people.
‘Maybe we’ve come on a festival day or something,’ Kutch suggested.
‘They don’t seem in a particularly festive mood,’ Caldason pointed out.
He was right. With few exceptions the crowd was sombre and uncommonly quiet for such a mass.
Everybody seemed to be going the same way. Reeth, Karr and Kutch went along with them, partly out of curiosity, partly because they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.
Eventually they came to the town’s main square. It was packed with hundreds of people. Peddlers and jugglers worked the throng, but they plied their trade with scant enthusiasm. The tunes the itinerant musicians played were mournful.
Kutch spotted food sellers, carrying their wares on large trays balanced on their heads. ‘I’m starving,’ he announced. ‘Shall we eat?’
‘Wait.’ Caldason put a hand on the apprentice’s shoulder and pointed towards the centre of the square. Kutch and the patrician craned their necks to see.
The crowd lapped up against a long wooden platform which rose above the heads of the onlookers. It could have been a stage, except for several thick projecting posts, about the height of a man.
Kutch looked puzzled. ‘What is it?’
‘An execution platform,’ Caldason explained.
The blood drained out of Kutch’s face. ‘Oh,’ he whispered.
To one side of the platform a small spectators’ stand had been erected. It was covered by an awning and held three or four rows of tiered seats. They were filling up with the expensively attired and well fed, presumably local dignitaries. Among them were individuals whose splendid clothing and showy glamoured accessories marked them out as citizens of Gath Tampoor.
A blast of trumpets silenced the murmuring crowd. Then a procession climbed to the platform, led by an official with the self-important look of an over-promoted clerk. He was followed by several other functionaries, and behind them two bedraggled men who were obviously the accused, escorted by militia. Already manacled, the prisoners were chained to two of the posts.
The retinue included a state sorcerer. Swiftly, he cast a spell that conjured an orating glamour. This took the form of a giant mouth that floated high above the dais and acted as an amplifier for the crowd.
Stepping forward, the lead official unrolled a sheet of parchment. As he read from it the hovering mouth aped his lip movements.
‘Let it be known,’
the mouth boomed,
‘that these men stand accused of disturbing the peace of the realm as legally constituted and guaranteed by His Sovereign Highness Prince Melyobar, and that through their actions they sought to endanger, subvert and betray the citizens of Bhealfa. Be it recorded, moreover, that they are further charged to be members of proscribed organisations engaged in criminal deeds to the peril of the realm.’
‘In plain language, the Resistance,’ Karr whispered.
‘All here are called upon to witness the indictment of the malefactors in accordance with the demands of law,
’ the mouth continued, approximating the real speaker but different enough to be unmistakably non-human.
‘The degree of their guilt shall be determined, and if their probity be found wanting, let their fate serve as an example. The accused are to be put to the test. Gods save the Prince!’
The crowd responded half-heartedly, and one or two voices were raised in protest. Mounted paladins and the militia on the platform scanned the gathering, ready for troublemakers.
‘What does being put to the test mean?’ Kutch asked.
‘They’ll undergo ordeal by magic,’ Caldason said. ‘If they pass, they get prison or exile. If they fail, it’s death.’
‘What does that have to do with proving their guilt or innocence?’
‘They’re already guilty in the state’s eyes. This is by way of public entertainment. Or a warning, depending on the crowd’s sympathies.’
‘It’s a misuse of the Craft,’ Kutch seethed. ‘Why can’t they be allowed a proper trial?’
‘Such niceties are available only to our rulers,’ Karr told him. ‘Though it’ll be a chilly day in hell before any of
them
appears in a court. For the rest of us, justice is summary.’
On the platform, the presiding official signalled that the test was to proceed. The sorcerer began a ritual, reciting from a heavy tome held open by an acolyte. Whatever he said was a mystery to the crowd as it wasn’t relayed by the levitating mouth.
There was a series of blinding flashes, a fraction of a second apart, and a trio of swirling green clouds appeared on the platform. A collective gasp rose from the onlookers. Rotation slowing, the clouds took on a tangible appearance.
The glamours that formed were identical. Three women, tall, marble-skinned, dressed in silken white gowns that reached the floor. Their hair was spun gold and they wore laurel crowns. Black blindfolds covered their eyes.
They stood in a line before the first accused.
Via the orating glamour, the official declared portentously,
‘Behold, the personification of Justice! One holds the key to mercy. The others, annihilation.’
He turned to the first condemned man.
‘You have a span of twenty beats in which to make your choice.’
Pointing to each of the statuesque glamours in turn, he counted them off.
‘One, two or three. Prisoner, you hold your destiny in your own hands. Let the test commence!’
An unseen drum began to pound, steady as a heartbeat. Nervously, the accused man’s gaze flicked from one motionless glamour to the next. The deathly hush that had blanketed the crowd was broken as people started to call out their favoured numbers.
Karr noticed the anger on Caldason’s face, and that he was clutching the hilt of his sheathed sword, white-knuckled. He reached out and stayed his hand. ‘No, my friend,’ he whispered. ‘The odds are too great, even for you.’ Caldason glared at him, eyes blazing. ‘Think of the boy,’ Karr added.
Reeth sobered. He shook free of Karr’s grasp and looked to Kutch.
The boy was staring intently at the platform and the unfolding drama. Under his breath he mumbled, ‘Two… number two… pick
two
.’
Abruptly, the drumming stopped. Once more, the crowd fell silent.
‘How do you choose?’
the official demanded, echoed by the resonant mouth.
The prisoner’s hesitant reply couldn’t be heard far beyond the platform. The mouth glamour broadcast it.
‘He chooses… three!’
Those in the crowd who agreed with the choice shouted approval. There were some cheers and boos, but mostly the response was mute.
‘
No
,’ Kutch groaned, ‘it’s two.
Two.
’
‘Let the named one be revealed.’
The third glamour drifted forward. At a command gesture from the sorcerer it underwent a transformation. Its features blurred and melted, and in seconds it returned to an eddying green cloud. That held for a few seconds. Then the wisps of emerald haze dispersed, showing the glamour reconstituted. But differently.
A roar went up from the crowd, a mixture of disappointment, rage, and a little glee.
The glamour was draped in rags. Her hair was stringy and grey, and the laurel headdress had rotted. The hands and arms were stripped to bone. Where there had been a noble, comely face now there was a bleached skull, a grinning death’s head, jaw agape.
‘The accused stands condemned! In accordance with the authority vested in this tribunal, the penalty shall be exacted.’
What happened next was at least mercifully swift, if shocking. A brawny militiaman approached the prisoner. As he moved he swung a two-hand broadsword in a high arc. Its blade glinted briefly in the sun, then severed the man’s neck. His head sprang from his shoulders, bounced across the platform and came to rest near the edge. The body, hanging by chains, pumped copious blood. It splashed the other, horrified prisoner shackled alongside.
There was uproar in the crowd. A patter of refined applause came from the spectators’ stand.
Kutch turned away from the sight, stunned, and in reflex buried his face in Reeth’s side, suddenly more child than man. Taken aback, Caldason gingerly encircled him with a comforting arm.
Matters stood for a moment. Then Karr asked gently, ‘How did you know, Kutch? That he’d got the wrong glamour, I mean. You seemed very certain if it was a guess.’
Kutch disentangled himself from Caldason, looking bashful. ‘It wasn’t a guess,’ he sniffed despondently. ‘They’re using quality magic, expensive stuff, which makes it hard to tell. But not impossible.’ He shrugged. ‘I recognised it from experience, I suppose.’
‘Come on,’ Caldason said, ‘let’s go.’
Before they could push their way out of the mob, the official’s surrogate mouth announced the next test. The crowd pressed forward again.
There were three new glamours on the platform. These were male, clothed in white togas and sporting long black hair. They weren’t wearing blindfolds; they simply had no eyes, just smooth skin where they should have been.
The second ordeal commenced, the drum began its doleful pounding.
But the accused wasn’t going to co-operate. He started to shout, loud enough for some of his words to carry. They were parts of slogans or a speech and the only string they heard was,
‘…freedom! Long live the -’
‘Forfeit!’
the mouth bellowed.
The militiaman came again and finished his work with the sword. It took two swings this time.
‘We should leave,’ Karr suggested softly.
The crowd began to disperse, quietly shuffling.
Reeth and Karr each took one of the boy’s arms to guide him through.
‘It would have been number three that time,’ Kutch told them, blinking back the tears.
13
Jecellam, the capital of Rintarah, sprawled in the middle of a fertile plain and was backed by distant snow-capped mountains. Three rivers served the city, one running through, the others looping it. Ranches and farms of enormous acreage surrounded and supplied the metropolis.
The ethos of the eastern empire was collectivist, or at least outwardly so, and nowhere was Rintarah’s doctrine more apparent than in Jecellam. Its streets were clean and orderly, with buildings arranged in neat rows. As far as possible, lives were regulated and necessary tasks centrally organised. The city was policed with vigilance, and according to the state was practically free of crime.
Despite Rintarah’s egalitarian order, disparities existed, not least in the distribution of magic. The grandest, most expensive products of sorcery were invariably to be found where the affluent lived. And there were such people, whether the system recognised it or not.
The city was predicated on there being a place for everything and everything being in its place. There were residential quarters, and different areas where things were made, youngsters educated, the sick tended.
Officially sanctioned houses of pleasure existed too, well away from the homes of the elite. They clustered in the oldest part of the city, where cleanliness and conformity were less rigidly enforced, and where the unacknowledged poor congregated. Places which respectable citizens, fearing to walk, would visit in carriages with shaded windows.
A particularly notorious street ran adjacent to the docks. The bordellos lining it were said to cater for every taste. Consequently it was one of the few places where the highest and the lowest mingled.
The many establishments the street had to offer ranged from the dismally sordid to the gaudily opulent. One particular building, narrow, tall and outwardly unremarkable, fell somewhere near the middle of this spectrum. Like the others it was always open for trade, as the demand for its services was by no means restricted to the hours of darkness. But around noon few women were working and there was only a trickle of clients. This was a time when the burghers who covertly owned the business saved money by not employing minders.
A visitor to the house, once past its heavy front door, would be aware of shabbiness and neglect. Reasonably luxuriant long ago, the interior was now down at heel. Wall hangings depicting erotic scenes from antiquity and legend were faded. Woodwork was chipped and in need of varnish, rugs were threadbare. The faint odour of rot wasn’t quite hidden by incense.
Creaking stairs led to several storeys in like condition, each with half a dozen or so client chambers. On the top floor there were just two rooms, both with their doors shut.
The bigger of the two was very much the same as all the other rooms in the building; grubby and in need of decoration, though a few personal possessions gave a little character to its austerity. Its main item of furniture was a large bed.
A man and a woman occupied it. Naked, entwined.
Mumbling endearments spiced with obscenities, he thrusted feebly. He was old, near bald, with a pepper and salt beard. He had saggy, veined skin and a paunch, and perspired copiously.
The woman under him was putting on a performance, only able to pretend she was enjoying the act because she’d learnt how to disassociate, to put her mind somewhere else.
She had light olive skin and jet black hair. She was strong-featured, handsome and smooth-limbed. But at twenty-eight summers Tanalvah Lahn was growing long in the tooth for her profession.
His exertions seemed to last forever, breath laboured, bony fingers digging painfully into her shoulders. She caught a whiff of his body odour – unwashed flesh and old sweat – and turned her head to one side, keeping a fixed smile.
At last he climaxed and she matched his cries and moans with fake responses. Relief was her strongest emotion, mixed with a revulsion she tried hard not to show.
He rolled off her, panting, red-faced. She hoped he wasn’t going to have a seizure. That was always bad for business. He lay wheezing, a trickle of drool snaking from the corner of his mouth
.
‘You were wonderful,’ she lied huskily.
He returned a similarly barren compliment, his interest in her already fading.
She got up, glad to move away from him. On a wobbly cabinet beside the bed stood an earthen basin filled with cold water. She dipped a cloth in it and washed herself. The client rose too and started to dress. She dried off and reached for her own clothes, wriggling into them hurriedly, anxious to be rid of him.
As he put on his garments their finery began to reveal his status; the distinctive livery of a senior bureaucrat. He had a fancy title which, like his name, she’d instantly forgotten.
‘So, how long have you been doing this?’ he said, negotiating buttons.
It was surprising how often they came out with that question. She suspected his curiosity was feigned, like that of all the others, and he probably only spoke to fill an otherwise awkward silence.
‘The governors marked me out at birth. I began work at first blood.’
He winced at her explicitness. Like most men, she reckoned, he didn’t want to think about the workings of a woman’s body, just make use of it. He covered his embarrassment with flattery. ‘Ah, that explains your expertise, my dear.’
She could have told him she never had a choice about the path she trod. Or how sick of it she was. Instead she flashed him a practised, non-committal smile.
A muffled thump and rumble came from the next room. It sounded like Mahba had a lively customer.
‘Have you never wanted to do anything else?’ Tanalvah’s client asked.
It was another standard question. Doubtless to be followed by the time-worn
Let me take you away from all this
that would be forgotten as soon as he’d gone. He was irritating her. She just wanted him to leave. ‘Look,’ she said, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice, ‘it’s been good, but time’s -’