A Dance of Cloaks s-1

by David Dalglish

  Senke did as he was told.

  “There is a spell over all of you,” Thren continued. “When you talk, the spell will silence any lies. I will hear only truth on these matters.”

  “Even me?” asked Senke, a wry grin on his face.

  “Test for yourself,” said Thren. Senke shrugged. He said something. Aaron read a few of the words on his lips, virgin being one of them, but heard not a sound.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Senke said.

  Thren paced before his two prisoners as everyone watched him.

  “Who gave Aaron the amulet?” he asked. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Robert glanced upward.

  “I did,” he said.

  “I thought as much. You are a teacher, and as with many teachers, you took your desire to impart knowledge too far.” Thren tossed the amulet he held aside. “If it had been just this, I would have only given you a warning. But instead, there is this matter of Delius and his daughter.”

  At this, Aaron’s heart sank. So the truth would come out. None of them could tell a lie. He’d risked everything, and for nothing. His own life might be forfeit for killing a fellow guild member.

  “You should have killed Delysia when Kayla killed her father, but instead, she somehow escaped. I now see hesitance where I once saw inexperience. I see mercy where I once saw misjudgment. One of you planted such horrible ideas in my son’s head. I want to know who.”

  Neither Kayla nor Robert said a word.

  “Keep silent, then,” Thren said as he paced. “It is better than lies. I sent Dustin after Delysia, yet he and the girl vanish like ghosts in the barrows. Few knew where Dustin was going. You were one of them, Kayla. So what happened? Did my son come sniveling, crying to you for help?”

  All three of the accused remained silent.

  “Answer me!” shouted Thren. “Whoever killed Dustin dies tonight. Now I will hear a name from one of your lips!”

  Aaron’s eyes flicked between the two of them. He could spare them. If he admitted to requesting information about Ashhur, almost demanding it, perhaps he’d spare Robert Haern’s life. Kayla had done no wrong, not to him. Maybe his death would at least spare her. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kayla spoke first.

  “I know who must have killed him,” she said. The fact that Aaron heard her meant she spoke the truth. He felt his heart leap into his throat. Kayla glanced over to Robert, and Aaron swore he saw a tiny nod of approval.

  “Who?” asked Thren.

  “It was Haern.”

  Silence filled the room. Aaron looked to his teacher, a cry of denial on his lips, but Robert’s stern glare kept him quiet. He realized then what was going on. The old man would die to protect the young. Hot rage pulsed through his veins.

  Thren turned to Robert, his eyes cold steel.

  “Did you somehow arrange for Dustin’s death?” he asked.

  Robert remained silent.

  “Did you teach my son about Ashhur?” he asked.

  Robert remained silent.

  “Did you make his heart weak with words of compassion and mercy?” he asked.

  Silence.

  “Aaron,” Thren said, pushing Senke aside and taking his shortsword. He held the hilt toward his son. With a shaking hand, Aaron accepted. He felt strong hands take his shoulders and guide him before his teacher. Robert knelt, his arms tied behind his back. Tears were in his eyes.

  “I don’t want to,” Aaron said. All there heard.

  “I will suffer none to betray me,” Thren said. “Kill him. Let his blood cover your hands so you know the price of weakness. Dabble in lies, dabble in death. Now do as you’re told.”

  He looked once more to his teacher. Impossible as it seemed, the old man was smiling.

  “I forgive you,” Robert said. “Now do it.”

  No lie. Aaron couldn’t believe it. Forgiven before the sin was even committed, unasked, undeserved. As he held the shortsword, he felt Aaron dying. To kill his teacher for a truthful lie spoken by Kayla, all to save his own life…

  He swung the blade. Warm blood splashed across his arms. Robert gagged twice, his windpipe cut, then slumped over and died.

  “Well done, Aaron,” Thren said.

  “Haern,” the boy whispered back. Thren did not understand the importance of hearing that single word spoken aloud, but Kayla did.

  “I’ll clean up the body,” Senke offered.

  “No,” said Thren as he took the sword from Aaron’s hand. “He made the mess. Let him clean it up.”

  Senke untied Kayla’s hands and helped her to her feet. She rubbed her raw wrists while watching the guildmaster from the corner of her eye. Thren reached out and touched her face with his fingers.

  “Forgive me for the blow,” he said to her. “I struck in anger and false assumption. Robert’s time alone with him was clearly ill-spent.”

  Kayla was not foolish enough to say she understood, or that she forgave him. The words would die silent in her throat. Absently she wondered how long the spell would last. She glanced at Robert’s body. Too long, and she might end up like him.

  “Come,” Thren said, walking beside Kayla as if nothing were the matter. “I want to make sure Laurie’s entrance to Veldaren is memorable as possible.”

  They left Senke alone with Aaron, who still stood before the body. He appeared dumbstruck and on the verge of tears.

  “I have nothing to clean up the blood with,” he said, his voice oddly distant. Senke tried to laugh, but it came out more as a choked cough.

  “There’s a closet in the corner with a bunch of spare sheets. You can use one of them.”

  Aaron obeyed, moving in a stiff, methodical manner. Senke watched him, all the while rubbing his fingers across the front of his chest.

  “I’ve had sex with a horse,” he said as Aaron walked back. The boy paused, but Senke laughed again, his face flushing a pale shade of red.

  “Just testing the spell,” Senke said. “Clearly it’s worn off.”

  “Clearly.”

  Senke sighed. Aaron bent down on his knees and began mopping up the blood. He kept his eyes straight down, as if afraid of seeing the body. The sight of it seemed so…wrong.

  “Listen,” Senke said as he knelt down. “That was a special man, and an old one, too. He was ready to go, and I don’t think he was too upset with you about it, alright? I know how much pressure Thren’s putting on you. He wants you to replace him one day, and to be a name the whole world fears.”

  “I don’t want the world to fear me,” Aaron whispered. “I want them to fear Haern.”

  “Haern?” asked Senke. “I’m not sure I…”

  Aaron glanced up at him, his stare hard and full of killing. Senke’s mouth dropped open. Kayla knew Dustin had been sent after Delius’s daughter. Senke had seen Aaron come speak with Kayla in the mess hall. It made no sense for an old man to try and kill Dustin. But a young one, one who had vanished and was left behind instead of being at his father’s side when infiltrating the castle…

  “I could get killed for this,” Senke said as he stood. He glanced around, as if looking for spies listening in on their conversation. “Fuck me like a Kerran whore. You’re Haern. You took a new name.”

  At Aaron’s icy look, Senke broke out into nervous laughter.

  “Up, down, and sideways, as our dear Kayla likes to say. I know grown men who would have crumbled and confessed sooner than you did, boy. How old are you again?”

  Aaron ignored the question, focusing instead on mopping up the rest of the blood. Senke saw the current blanket he held was completely soaked so he retrieved another. He tossed it over Robert’s body, shaking his head as his grin faded.

  “We’ve all got secrets, Aaron,” Senke said as he rubbed his chest again. “Some we tell, and some we keep hidden. Yours must stay hidden. Do you understand that? If anyone finds out what you did, they’ll go to Thren in a heartbeat. I don’t want to imagine your father’s fury. He’ll kill everyone who knew about it, including me and
Kayla. I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy with living, and would like to continue doing so for the next couple of decades.”

  “I don’t see a way out,” Aaron said as Senke tucked the sheets around the body. “And what was the point? I prayed, and people died. Hardly mercy. Ashhur’s not even real. He’s…he’s just a shitty dream.”

  Senke tsk’ed at him.

  “Such language,” he said as he knelt down. He looked to the door, as if expecting it to bang open at any moment. Just in case, he put his back to it and acted as if he were busy wrapping the body. While Aaron watched, he pulled out a small medallion of the golden mountain from underneath his leather armor.

  “I’m not the most faithful,” Senke said as Aaron’s eyes widened in shock. “I treat it more like a good luck charm than anything else. Doing what we do makes prayer hard sometimes, you know? But whatever you want to say, or want to learn, I’ll do my best. I might be signing my death warrant, but if you need help with girls, love, or faith, rely on me. You’re a good kid, Aaron. I’m not proud of all I do, but it’s better than what I did before joining the Spider Guild. One day, maybe I’ll get out.”

  Aaron stopped scrubbing, seeing that whatever blood was in the carpet wasn’t going anywhere through his meager efforts. He tossed the wet, crimson blanket on top of Robert’s body, glad that his head was covered. He didn’t want to see those sad eyes staring up at him.

  “Everyone needs friends,” Senke said. “Even people like you and me. Thren seems determined as the abyss to keep you from having any. But we’ll be training together, hopefully for the next several years. When we do, we can talk more, alright?”

  Aaron nodded.

  “What do we do about the body?” he asked.

  “Leave it here,” Senke said. “We’ve done enough. I’ll get a few of our lower ranks to smuggle it out one of the tunnels. I think it’s time you and me got something stiff to drink.”

  Aaron smiled.

  “Senke…thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  Senke winked.

  “Keep it to yourself, Haern. ”

  18

  F or over a mile stretched the wagon train. Some were covered with dried hides and white tarps, while others were open and piled high with pumpkins, squash, and winter-corn. In one wagon was a whole troop of dancers, singing and laughing at the sight of Veldaren’s walls. Another two were full of hard men, their faces and hands scarred from the sellsword life. All around the wagons walked servants, cooks, high-born maidens and low-born camp followers. At the far end trailed a small herd of cattle and sheep, ready for the butcher. When the Kensgold started, they would have fresh blood and meat for their festival.

  Ahead of it all rode Laurie Keenan.

  “We’re bringing twice what we brought last year,” said Torgar riding next to him. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I know things more often than others,” Laurie said, his voice oddly soft and gentle. “Like how I know you should watch your tongue, Torgar, lest I cut it out and feed it to the ravens.”

  The sellsword captain laughed at his employer. Laurie was a smart man, but he was often full of idle threats and ambiguous comments. His eyes were dark, his complexion more so. Riding next to the sellsword, he seemed skinny and weak. He wore his hair long and braided, in the popular fashion of Angelport where the caravan had originated, following the highway out from the Ramere and north through the Kingstrip.

  “I don’t understand why we bother to return,” Torgar said, ignoring the warning to watch his tongue. “This must cost you a fortune every time we make this trip. Why not make Leon and Maynard come to you? It’s far safer in Angelport than Veldaren, anyway.”

  “Because if all three of us left Veldaren, there might not be a city to return to,” Laurie said. His face was clean-shaven except for a thin strip of hair growing from the center of his chin that hung halfway down his neck. Laurie twirled it with his fingers as his caravan wound around a small hill on its way to the city’s western entrance. The southern gate was closer and would have saved them a good twenty minutes of traveling, but the king had forbidden merchants from entering there. That, and being among the poor was not one of Laurie’s favorite pastimes; the south was just crawling with the empty-pocketed cretins.

  “A shame you can’t just hire that Thren guy to work for you,” Torgar said after glancing back at the caravan to make sure nothing looked amiss. “Imagine what a man like that might have done as your right hand man.”

  “Trust me, I’ve tried,” said Laurie, sounding tired of the topic. “He’s a hard man to get a hold of. Most of my messengers wound up dead, at least the one’s offering him the position. I think he took it as an insult.”

  Torgar laughed heartily.

  “Only a fool would turn down working for you, milord. Food’s good, the women are fine and clean, and there’s always a steady stream of idiots to kill with a sword.”

  “Speaking of idiots with swords,” Laurie said, pointing to the western entrance. The gates were open wide, but there was a lengthy line of peasants, merchants, and mercenaries winding out from it. A thick grouping of guards was the cause.

  “Did they check our things last time we came?” asked Torgar.

  “That was only two years ago. Have you taken so many blows to the head that you can’t remember even that far?”

  Torgar kept his head shaved, and he rapped it with his knuckles and made a hollow knocking noise with his tongue.

  “My ma scooped my brains out when I was four. Left just enough to swing a sword, ride a horse, and bed a woman.”

  Laurie chuckled.

  “I think the third one occupies the most of your meager intelligence,” he said. “Come. Let’s find out what the fuss is all about before we have a thousand people trampling each other to get through.”

  Torgar led, and Laurie followed. They rode around the outer edge of the line, ignoring the few angry calls from lowborn merchants and farmers. When they reached the gate, the crowd swelled in a semicircle, making their progress difficult.

  “Look for a spare guard,” Torgar said. “I’ll see if I can pull him aside. They’re bound to shit their drawers when they see our caravans coming.”

  Laurie looked but saw none. Realizing the same thing, Torgar dismounted and started pushing his way through. When a man cursed him and moved to strike, Torgar grabbed the hilt of his longsword and drew it enough to reveal naked steel.

  “I draw, it ain’t going back in without blood on it,” Torgar growled. The man, a haggard farmer with a cartload of pumpkins drawn by a donkey, paled and mumbled an apology. One of the guards, hearing the threat, pushed aside an angry woman and called out to them.

  “Draw no blades, or you can sleep outside the walls tonight,” the guard shouted. Torgar stood to his full height so that the guard’s eyes only came up to his neck.

  “Hope you brought friends,” Torgar said, but his grin was playful.

  “Enough, Torgar,” said Laurie, following in his wake. He glanced about nervously, disliking such close quarters with the unwashed rabble. “Are you in charge of the gates here?”

  “Just helping,” the guard said. “Listen, if you’re in a hurry, you’ll still have to wait just like everyone else.”

  “I’m not like anyone else, and I will not wait like anyone else,” Laurie said. He turned and pointed at the massive caravan of horses, wagons, and carts in the distance, billowing dust to the sky. “Those are mine.”

  “Damn, never can catch a break,” the guard said. “Which ones are yours?”

  “All of them.”

  The guard paled, and he seemed to look at Laurie with newly opened eyes. For a moment, he chewed his lip, and then the connection hit him.

  “Lord Keenan?” he asked. “Oh shit on me, I’m sorry milord. I’ve a half-dozen merchants all pretending to own Dezrel, and I figured you just another…”

  “That’s fine,” Laurie said, interrupting him. “What is your nam
e, soldier?”

  “Jess. Jess Brown, milord.”

  “Well, Jess, before I bring my convoy through the gate, I’d like to know what is going on. I take it there is some sort of tax or toll?”

  “There is,” Jess said, glancing once at Torgar. “Though you might not like it. King Vaelor, Ashhur bless his name, passed the laws not two days ago. There’s some fines involving mercenaries, which you’ll learn about soon enough. The short of it is taxes, though, on all goods and services traveling into the city.”

  “On all goods?” said Laurie. He grabbed his long green cloak and wrapped it tighter around his shoulders, as if a bit of his heat had escaped him. “What nonsense. Tell me the taxes.”

  Jess did. As he ran through a memorized list, Laurie’s face turned darker and darker. With each item of food, cloth, servant, or animal, he counted, checked against his own stores, and accumulated a total. By the time Jess was done, Laurie’s neck had turned a deep crimson.

  “All this due just to enter?” Laurie asked, his quiet voice poorly hiding his anger.

  “Forgive me, milord,” said Jess. “Gerand Crold has been most insistent about enforcement. He’s ordered any man caught turning a blind eye or accepting a bribe to be strung up from the wall by his thumbs and left to the ravens.”

  “I can’t blame you for your orders, nor for enforcing them with such threats hanging over your head,” Laurie said. He took out a single silver coin and handed it to Torgar, who then passed it on to the soldier.

  “Thank you, milord. You are most generous.”

  “And thank you for your time,” Laurie said. With a quick nod to Torgar, the two pushed their way out of the crowd and back to their horses.

  “The thieves must have gotten to the king,” Laurie said as he mounted his horse. “Either that or his advisor, Crold.”

  “More likely the advisor,” Torgar said. “He’s been around awhile, if my meager memory serves me well. How many kings has he seen die? Probably views himself as one. Might not be the thieves involved, either, just greedy hearts knowing you was coming.”

  As they rode back toward their caravan, Torgar raised an eyebrow at his master.