Well of Sorrows

by Joshua Palmatier

  “Other than survival?” Daverran said, then smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “I’m certain that the Carrente Family would be willing to cede a percentage of the land to the settlers and the guilds. Thirty percent seems reasonable. You’d become landowners, beholden to the Carrente Family, of course, but you’d be free.”

  Sartori stirred at this, frowning. “There would have to be a Carrente presence in the group, a contingent of Armory.” He glared at Tom. “I must protect the Family interests after all.”

  “Then what’s our guarantee that the land would be ours, that the Carrentes won’t seize it back after we’ve established the town?” Tom protested.

  “What’s my guarantee that you won’t seize the land and claim it for your own Family!”

  “Gentlemen, please.” When neither Tom nor Sartori backed down or spoke, Daverran’s eyes flashed. He addressed Tom first. “An expedition of this nature cannot be undertaken without Family approval. The Company would need an official charter, issued by Sartori Carrente, giving us the right to embark on the journey, the right to claim the land we settle in the Carrente Family name. The charter can be written in such a way as to legally cede the land to the guildmembers and the guild.”

  Before Tom could respond, the Signal shifted his attention to Sartori. “And I believe, given the . . . misunderstanding that occurred because of your association with ‘Shay Jones,’ that Sartori could be persuaded to decrease the Carrente Armory’s presence in the expedition. As a sign of renewed trust and good faith?”

  Sartori bristled, then caught and held Daverran’s gaze. “And what rights would the Company receive from this . . . venture?”

  Daverren smiled. “The trade rights, of course. With exclusive claim to the town and its immediate vicinity for use by the West Wind Trading Company, under the Carrente Family name.”

  “A percentage of the trade to be extended to the Family.”

  “Of course.”

  But Sartori still hesitated.

  Daverren shifted closer and lowered his voice. “There is little risk to you or the Family. The risk falls on the Company. And it has the advantage that it will resolve your problem with those in Lean-to without disgracing the Family name. Forcibly removing— or killing—that many guildsmen can only hurt your endeavors in the Court, and at a time such as this . . .”

  Sartori winced and turned away, moving toward the fireplace. He stared down into its depths, lamplight flickering on either side of him.

  “If the expedition is to go forward,” he said grudgingly, “there would have to be a Carrente Family representative in the group, in addition to a . . . minimal Armory contingent.”

  Daverren relaxed, tension draining from his shoulders. “The Company will have a presence as well. You’ll have the appropriate papers drawn up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Daverren began rolling up the map. “We can discuss the particulars later.”

  “I’ll have to discuss it with those in Lean-to,” Tom said suddenly. “Those that I can trust. They may not all agree.”

  “Of course,” Daverren said. “But I think you’ll find you have little choice.”

  The Signal made ready to leave, Sartori still deep in thought. When it became clear that the Proprietor had forgotten him, Tom stepped forward, catching Sartori’s attention.

  “You haven’t made a decision about my son.”

  “Ah, yes, your son.” He glanced toward Arten, who stood silently in the background, then frowned. “Is your son of age?”

  “Yes, sir. He turned twelve this summer.”

  “Then I’m sorry. An example needs to be made, to those in Lean-to who may not be as honest as you, to their Families. All of those arrested and currently in confinement will be sentenced tomorrow morning.”

  “But he wasn’t part of the riot!”

  Sartori’s eyes narrowed. “Nevertheless, he attacked my son, a member of the Carrente Family. He will be punished.”

  With a sharp gesture, he motioned for Arten to escort Tom out, the Armory commander grabbing him by the upper arm. Tom clenched his jaw, but he didn’t resist. Arten didn’t release him until they stood outside the gates of the estate. Night had fallen, but two lanterns had been lit on the top of the wall above the gates.

  “You should accept the offer,” Arten said as he let Tom go. “There’s nothing for you here in Portstown. There never will be. Not while Sartori is Proprietor.”

  Without waiting for a response, the commander stepped back through the gates, slipping from the lantern light into the darkness of the yard beyond.

  4

  HERE’S COLIN?” ANA DEMANDED the moment Tom ducked through the flap over the door.

  A fire blazed in the pit, Sam and Paul on the far side, Ana tightening a bandage over Paul’s upper arm. A spot of blood already stained it. A used dressing sat at Ana’s feet.

  Tom caught Sam’s gaze, and Paul’s. Sam frowned; Paul spat into the fire.

  He couldn’t meet his wife’s eyes.

  “Sartori refused to release him,” he said, moving toward the fire, noting the aleskin to one side. He picked it up and took a long, heavy pull before setting it back down, the ale bitter on his tongue.

  He caught Ana’s expression out of the corner of his eye, but turned away, settling down before the fire, across from Sam.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that Colin attacked Walter with the sling, that he beat him.”

  “I told you not to give him that sling, that it would only lead to trouble.” Ana jerked at the bandage and Paul winced. “And what did you say?”

  “That Colin must have been provoked.”

  Ana snorted and stood. “Well then, Tom Harten, you don’t know your own son as well as you think.”

  Tom’s shoulders tensed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that there’s more of you and your anger inside of Colin than you can possibly imagine. More of your pride. He’s taken his share of beatings from Walter and his gang, but I wouldn’t put it past Colin to have started the fight today. What’s going to happen to him?”

  “I don’t know.” When Ana didn’t respond, he glanced up to where she stood over him, hands on hips, met her gaze directly for the first time. “I don’t know! Sartori said he’d pass judgment in the morning. On Colin and all of those they took after the riot.”

  The anger in Ana’s eyes hardened, the muscles of her jaw tensing.

  “He arrested people from the riot?” Sam asked.

  Tom didn’t turn from Ana. “Yes. Shay and a few others.”

  “And he’s lumped Colin in with them?” Paul shook his head. “That’s not good. That’s not good at all.”

  Tom felt the urge to punch him.

  Ana’s hands fell from her hips and she turned away, began rummaging through their few possessions, rattling pots, sorting knives and utensils that didn’t need to be sorted.

  “We have another problem,” Tom said, trying to ignore his wife for the moment.

  “What’s that?” Sam asked. He stoked the fire with a stick, embers flaring as they rose with the smoke.

  “Sartori is going to raze Lean-to. Apparently, Shay’s not one of us. He’s a member of the Avezzano Family, not a guildmember, and Sartori believes he was sent here to foment a rebellion. He’s been using us and the others in Lean-to to cause trouble, like the riot today, but Sartori’s had enough. He’s going to send in the Armory to clear us out.”

  Paul leaped to his feet. “He can’t do that! We’re citizens of Andover! We have rights! We have—”

  “Paul!” Sam’s voice cut across Paul’s rant like a blade, stopping him short, breath drawn in, face red. He motioned for the smith to sit down.

  Paul exhaled sharply, mumbled something under his breath, but sat.

  Sam turned back to Tom. The small room was silent. Even Ana had stopped moving, although she remained in the shadows.

  “I assume you protested,” Sam said. “Yes.” />
  “You told him we had nothing to do with Shay, that we have nowhere else to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did he say?” Ana asked.

  Tom shrugged. “He said it was our problem. That we should go back to Andover or find someplace else here on the coast.”

  Paul cursed loudly, and for once Ana didn’t slap him on the back of the head or protest.

  “What are we going to do?” Sam said after a long silence.

  “I can’t go back to Andover,” Paul said. “The Armory would snatch me up and send me to the front of the Feud in an instant.”

  “For being a smith?” Ana asked incredulously.

  “No,” Paul answered. He caught Tom’s gaze. “I was part of the Armor y before. The smithing came after. But there was an incident. One of the recruits who joined with me died. I saw it happen. The commander discharged me, with the understanding that I wouldn’t speak of it, wouldn’t report it to the Family. At the time, I was more than willing to get out; the Armor y wasn’t for me. The commander’s watched me for years. He was elated when I told him I was heading to New Andover. If he saw me back in Trent . . .”

  “We can’t go back either,” Ana said. “We’ve used all of our coin to survive here in Portstown.”

  Tom thought he would hear accusation in her words, but he didn’t. “There’s another option.”

  “Sartori had another suggestion?”

  “No. The West Wind Trading Company’s representative.” All of the others frowned.

  Tom sighed. “He wants us—the guildmembers in Lean-to and anyone we trust—to lead an expedition onto the plains, to set up a town so that the Carrente Family can lay claim to a large swath of the inland when the Court finally gets around to dividing up the lands here.”

  “We aren’t farmers, Tom. We aren’t . . . we aren’t settlers, for

  Diermani’s sake!”

  Tom shot Paul a glare. “I know that. I told him that. But he doesn’t seem to care.”

  “What about the groups that have already been sent east?” Sam asked. “Sartori already has people who’ve settled farther inland.”

  “According to Daverren, the Signal from the Company, those farmers haven’t settled far enough east for it to count. And they’re only farms. He wants another town, a place that can trade with Portstown and other towns along the coast once it’s established. He’s willing to fund the expedition, but he needs people willing to settle it, to make it work.”

  “He needs people to take the risk,” Ana said roughly. “Sartori has tried a settlement before, but none of those people have ever returned, have they?”

  No one said anything for a long moment. Then Sam stirred. “What did you tell him?”

  Tom shook his head. “Nothing. But I don’t think we have any choice, and Daverren knows it. Sartori isn’t going to let us stay here, not after the riot. He’s not completely convinced we don’t have anything to do with Shay.”

  Both Sam and Paul grimaced.

  “What do you want us to do?” Sam asked, climbing to his feet. Paul followed suit.

  “Spread the word. About the trial tomorrow and about the expedition. About Shay. Make certain everyone understands that Sartori is serious about destroying Lean-to.”

  “What do you think is going to happen to Shay and the others?”

  Tom thought about the rage he’d seen on Sartori’s face as Arten led him and Daverren back to his estate, and he frowned, troubled. “We’ll find out in the morning. But we all know they went to the dock to start a fight.”

  He’d tried to keep the concern out of his voice, but when Sam and Paul ducked out through the entrance they both looked grim. Tom stood to watch them go, then turned.

  To find Ana standing directly behind him. Her hand was clasped to her chest, to the pendant beneath her shirt.

  “Tom,” she said, and he could hear all the fear he saw in her eyes in that one word, all the worry, the concern, the dread. And all the hatred, of Sartori and Portstown.

  And beneath all that, hatred of him. For bringing them to this place. It was thin, and it was buried deep, but it was there. And it hurt.

  Because he could think of nothing he could do to make it go away.

  When Tom and Ana emerged from their home the following morning, the rough blanket sliding off Tom’s back as he ducked out into the weak sunlight, they found a group of men, women, and children waiting, mostly guildsmen but a few of the men from the rougher part of Lean-to that they’d befriended. Sam and Paul stood at the forefront. Karen, her father’s hand resting protectively on her shoulder, stood behind them. Her father’s face looked haggard and drawn, had looked haggard and drawn since the voyage across the Arduon and the loss of his wife and two other children to sickness, but he offered a thin smile and nod of support, his hand tightening, pulling Karen a little closer.

  No one said anything, and after a brief moment, casting a quick look at Ana, taking her hand, Tom turned toward Portstown.

  The twenty or so that had gathered followed, but along the way they gained more. Men and women stood outside of their huts, waiting. They touched Ana and Tom as they passed, murmured words of support, of encouragement, all in grim voices, before joining the group behind. By the time they left the ragged edges of Lean-to, the group had more than doubled.

  The town was shrouded in a faint mist that slowly began to lift as they made their way down the grassy slope to the outskirts of the town proper. They passed through the low stone walls of the estates, down past the wharf and the docks, and turned toward the town’s center, toward Sartori’s land and the barracks and penance locks to one side.

  As they approached, a sound intruded on the morning calm: the sharp report of hammers.

  Tom frowned.

  When they entered the square, Ana’s grip tightened, and she shot Tom a terrified look, halting in her tracks, hand going to her pendant. “They can’t,” she said, but then she choked on the words, denied them with a shake of her head.

  Not certain what she had seen, Tom searched the mist, followed the sound of the construction—

  And saw through the lifting fog the Armory, saw the gallows they had built since last night, which they were finishing now.

  A hand closed around his heart, closed and tightened, and for a long moment he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred, narrowed, a yellowish film closing in on both sides. It felt as if he’d been punched in the gut, as if he were reeling from the blow.

  He would have stumbled, would have sagged to the ground, his knees weak, but Sam was suddenly at his side. “It can’t be for Colin,” he said, his voice harsh, angry. “They can’t hang him. They’ll have another riot on their hands if they do, Diermani curse them.”

  The hand around Tom’s heart loosened. He blinked, steadied himself. Behind, he heard the rest of those gathered grumbling to themselves. A low warning rumble.

  Straightening, he squeezed Ana’s hand in reassurance, leaned down to kiss her. He could feel her trembling, even though she stood perfectly still, back rigid.

  “Colin,” she said.

  “I won’t let anything happen to him. We won’t.” She pressed her lips together, nodded.

  Tom turned and led the group through the square.

  They passed the gate to Sartori’s estate and halted where the gallows had been built. The structure was rough, hastily put together, and stood next to the penance locks. As they approached, the Armory finished hammering into place the last of the boards on the narrow platform and climbed down. The guardsman with the broken nose who had halted Tom at Sartori’s gates the night before stepped up onto the platform and tossed a rope, noose already tied on one end, over the notch in the support beam that ran horizontally over the trapdoor in the center. He adjusted the height, then tied it off.

  Arten, standing back from the platform, nodded his approval, then turned. The commander scanned the crowd from Lean-to, noted their angr y looks, their set expressions, before his gaze settled on Tom. He
looked exhausted, dark circles beneath his eyes.

  “Is there going to be trouble?” he asked. There was no hint of exhaustion in his voice. Behind him, the rest of the Armory guardsmen had formed a rough barrier of pikes between the gallows and the group from Lean-to.

  “That depends on Sartori,” Tom said.

  Arten nodded, as if he’d expected the response.

  The mist burned away, sunlight glaring down from across the plains. With it came the people of Portstown, emerging from the streets in pairs and small groups, couples and families, some from the outer farms riding in on horseback. The square separated into two factions before the gallows, those from Lean-to on the left, Portstown on the right. Tom watched them all as they came in, saw some of them drop their gazes as if ashamed, saw others snort in contempt or spit to one side. Most simply refused to look in their direction, and most were taken aback by the gallows and the hangman’s noose where it swung in the gusts of wind from the ocean, troubled looks turning the corners of their mouths.

  By the time Sartori made his appearance, Sedric and Walter trailing behind him, over a hundred people from Portstown had gathered, including the Patris from the church, and nearly eighty from Lean-to, most the families of guildmembers, but a large enough contingent from Shay’s group to cause the Armory to shift forward, hands on pommels. The crowd parted as the Proprietor approached, Sartori taking to the platform without hesitation, as if it had always been there, not erected that morning. Sedric and Walter took their places behind him.

  Tom did not see any sign of Signal Daverren, nor any of his assistants.

  “People of Portstown,” Sartori said, breaking through the low murmur that had drifted through the crowd, “it is with regret that I stand before you to pass judgment this day. As you know, the Carrente Family has seen fit to grant me these lands in New Andover, to grant me the title of Proprietor of Portstown. Unfortunately, one of the duties as Proprietor in such a wild and unsettled territory such as this is as Judge. It is my responsibility to see that justice is carried out, that crimes are punished, and it is that role I am to play today.