“Favors?” Jep said. “From bribes to favors. Come, what is it they ask for?”
“A flask of bitter, sometimes, to salute the birth of a child. Or a whore for such time as it takes to satisfy a manly urge. Most often, they want a spot of meat, roasted vegetables, sweet bread.” The turnkey looked about like a thief. “And always they think to purchase freedom, my friends. They kneel there and hold up small offerings—their last, most valuable items still reeking of their own ass or slick with the offal of their own guts—and grovel to be let out of their chains.
“The biggest fools confide in me their absolute innocence, and the shrewder ones their guilt, but each hopes to tender a deal that appeals to my softer side.” He patted his rump and made an indelicate sound as though it were choreographed. “They speak of ailing families, pining lovers, motherless children. They weep for sunlight, companionship, the warmth of a soft bed. And for these things they are willing to trade their last valuable in return for my mercy.”
“And which one do you give them, Beattie, mercy or greed?” Bryon asked, sarcasm thick in the query.
A snorted laugh came from Beattie the turnkey, and Tahn looked up in time to witness the man’s sordid response.
The man drew himself up and puckered his lips as a woman preparing to kiss. Then spoke with a high, coquettish tone. “Why, no one ever bought a thing with mercy.”
The three belted laughter. The raucous clamor of it echoed around the room.
“How do you do it, then?” Jep asked, stifling his own giggles.
“Oh, lads, that is the best part.” He hunkered over again as though sharing important secrets, his head swiveling like a ferret before he began. “I accept these bribes with a glad heart and promise all the inquirer seeks, sometimes more. These pitiful fools cry and thank me, blessing me for my tender mercy, promising me more than they’ll ever have for my willingness to make such an exchange. I smile at them, and tell them how I can see how good a person they are, and wrongly accused, and how I will do all I can to send my good word of them upstairs to the halls where leniency or clemency might be granted. And then they fuss more over me and weep some more, kissing my boots and praising my name.
“And I drop the booty into a pail of soap and water and leave them to their happiness.” A malignant grin spread over his damaged teeth. “On appointed days I return to deliver their meager meals, sometimes throwing a bucket of water over them and dropping a shake of soap and a wet rag. And they ask about our arrangement. And that is when I squat before them and wait for them to be still. Then while their eyes are steadfast and hopeful on mine, I say to them, ‘What arrangement?’”
Bryon and Jep dropped their jaws, then hooted and clapped each other in amusement.
“You should see their faces,” Beattie went on. “Oh, nectar, pure nectar. That look of hopelessness, betrayal, from a criminal yet, is the wages of my post, lads. Robbing these convicts of their last petty desire, a bit of hope. It makes the stench almost bearable.”
Tahn cringed and wanted to sink into the stone, cover himself over, and take himself from the company of these men. Their vile oaths and curses, obscene jests, and despicable acts rankled. Was this the city of light Vendanj had meant to bring them to?
Then Rolen rose to his feet.
The sound of his chains was like a harbinger in the echoing chamber, slicing the laughter to silence.
He stepped into the shaft of light thrown by the door, emaciated and filthy, but with a terrible countenance. He opened his mouth and spoke with a thunderous voice.
“Enough! I will bear your devilish tongues no more! By the Will that forms and sustains us, I command you to be silent! Or I will rain down your deaths upon you without mercy!”
His words echoed about them as he stood in dreadful majesty. Bound with irons, he stared at his jailers, still and solemn.
The men cowered, their blades falling from their hands, their arms and legs quivering violently. They bent low to where the floor and wall met and pleaded Rolen’s forgiveness.
Tahn watched in silent reverence and awe. He recalled all the stories he had ever heard about the Court of Judicature; he thought of the first Convocation of Seats called to answer the threat of the Whited One; he remembered readers’ tales of nations and kings and dominions assembled to act on the word of the First Promise; but grace and nobility Tahn would forever associate with this moment, as he stood fettered at dark hour in the vaults below the Halls of Solath Mahnus.
Tahn felt it then. The call of the Will: small, silent. He bore witness to the dignity of this imprisoned Sheason, long suffering and dutiful even in this vile pit, and rested easier in his own chains, if only for the moment. And in that instant, he thought he knew something of where to draw the line and where to stand.
* * *
They stared at Sutter, unspeaking, wide-eyed as though amazed that they could be seen at all. Or perhaps the glossy whites of those eyes were simply the hundred-league stare of the untabernacled.
The mists licked at him, creeping across the stone floor, swirling around the feet of the ethereal creatures who stood with yearning expressions that suggested the need to speak with Sutter, but could not.
The cold had awakened him, as it had the night he’d spent in the home of the leagueman Gehone. This time, he could do nothing more than cower into his corner as far as his chains would permit, and hope these beings were not like the creature that called itself Sevilla.
Sutter’s heart raced; panic seized him. He wanted to cry out, but his voice failed. This time, neither Tahn nor the powerful arms of a leagueman would rescue him. And these two creatures—maybe more of them lost in the mists that churned around him—stood in full view, their wide eyes caught in that eternal look of surprise and need.
Perhaps they were a nightmare. Perhaps a fever dream.
If he did grow sick and vomit it would shock him. He’d scarcely eaten, and what he had had been rotten fruit and fetid water.
All this gave Sutter the feeling that he lay already interred, bound up in the great room of a tomb with other waking dead. The trembling in his arms and legs grew so violent that his chains began to rattle. The sound of it rose into the deathly scene, and he feared he would never see his own fields again, nor offer the gratitude to his papa that he now so badly wished to give.
It was the chill of the grave to be sure, and he pressed himself into the floor, waiting to die, and heard distantly in his ears his own weak moan.
“Sutter.” An intruding voice. “Sutter!” It came again.
He stared up into the face of Thalen at the end of his tether, calling his name. And in that instant, something changed. Sutter looked around at the cell. The mists were gone. The figures were gone. In a great gasp he took a long, painful breath, exhaling in a cry that resounded in the prison cell.
“He’s having the tremors.” It was one of the scops against the other wall. “Give him some water.”
Thalen took up a bowl and wetted Sutter’s lips.
“He’ll be all right. Have him keep drinking, even the filth they’re providing. It will help.” The man spoke with the assurance of a father who’s had sick children.
Moments passed, and Sutter soon began to feel normal again. “Thank you,” he managed.
“No thanks necessary, my boy,” the scop said. “Precious little to be done here.” His chain rattled as he waved a hand at the room. “I figure what I can do, I must.”
Sutter pushed himself up. “Why are you here?”
“We await trial on grounds of sedition.”
Another scop piped in. “We played the cycle of the First Promise in the square south of Solath Mahnus. The League did not take kindly to the subtle suggestion that its formation was not only unnecessary, but unfortunate.”
A weak laugh came out of the dark from yet another of the beaten players.
On their left the door opened, spilling harsh light down on them. Sutter blinked back tears at the intrusion, then shaded his eyes so that
he could catch a better look at the scops across from him. One of the women had buried her head in her knees, whether shielding her eyes from the light or in abjectness Sutter could not tell. But the faces he could see still held the sloppy, exaggerated application of face paint done by their jailers to make the scops up like jesters or fools.
It was the jailers’ way to mock what these people did to make their way.
“Quiet down there,” a voice barked. “You’ll get yer chance to entertain us later. You’d best save yer strength for yer performance.”
The door shut with a bang, echoing down on them and blessing Sutter with darkness once again.
“I am Niselius. Why are you here?” the first man asked Sutter in a whisper.
“A friend of mine saved a leagueman from his rope. I guess heroism is no longer honored.” Sutter smiled, but his swollen face twinged and he let it go.
“That may be our fate, as well,” a woman said. “Some believe an example will be made to scare all troupes from their wagons. I am Mapalliel. Nice to share the darkness with you.”
The woman uttered a mild laugh—something he could appreciate in the bowels of this dungeon.
“I am Sutter. If it’s really so dangerous, why do you do it?” Sutter thought of Penit standing up to a leagueman in Myrr.
Mapalliel answered. “For me, there aren’t many choices. For most women, come to that. If you’ve no husband and no dowry, there are precious few things a man with coin will pay you to do.” She thought a moment. “And the wagons have a kind of honor of their own. It may be true enough that some of the folliets carry double meaning meant to teach people of the past and the lessons they may have from it. But execution for playing a pageant? The regent has lost the fist inside her glove if it comes to this.”
“Isn’t it the League?” Sutter slid to his right, his chains scraping the stone floor.
“Yes,” Niselius said. “But law requiring such severe punishment would have had to be ratified by the High Council. She oversees its affairs. Something is amiss that the regent is not able to reject such a law.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Sutter offered.
“Maybe.” This was a new voice, softer, yet still male, and still too deep in the dark to see clearly. But it came as through the swollen lips of one beaten badly in the face. “This then is civility,” the unnamed man added, “that the League suppresses the stories they believe threaten their own liberty. But what of the liberty to tell a story in the first place? Much stands to perish in this. Not just some few of us.”
Sutter understood most of what the man said, coming though it did through ruined lips.
The darkness resumed its silent pall upon them. Sutter did not know what else to say. These were their own choices. And the old wounds revisited him, making sympathy a hard thing to summon.
Though something about the maniacal, painted grins on the beaten faces of these simple pageant players left him uneasy and with a small portion of pity.
“Come, enough of this brooding. Let us employ our talents and make a folliet even here. This one for ourselves.” Niselius stood, extending a hand to Mapalliel to help her to her feet.
Sutter watched as the the other two scops dragged themselves up. They all then stood in a line.
Niselius bowed. “What will it be, my friends? What story would you have of us?”
Sutter could think of nothing, but didn’t have to. From his nook behind him, Thalen said evenly, “The Last Harvest of the Reapers.”
The troupe stood in silent reverence for a few moments. Then, with a grave nod from their leader, they began. They told an amazing tale of heroism at the farthest reaches of the north and west, of the time that gave name to the Valley of Sorrow. When the Quiet stood in awful might against a small Recityv army and a band of Sheason.
The Velle rained down fire and wind upon the surviving few of the Second Promise, and the advancing line of Quietgiven came as a dark wave that would roll them under in minutes. Near upon their utter defeat, with the trained, armored soldiers of Recityv all but destroyed, the small battalion out of Risill Ond arrived after a three-day forced march with no sleep.
But the farmers, come with pole-length scythes and many short upon a handle, did not pause. They marched past the Sheason, who needed enough time and relief to join their hands for a final rending of earth and heaven to bring an end to their war. Directly into harm’s path they went, creating a mighty line of men with little else but their trust in their sickles.
Their muscles hardened by long summers and autumns of work held the Quiet at bay, cutting down the enemy in a hard wave. They gave the Sheason the time they desperately needed. And when the great calling of the Will went up, every last man from Risill Ond lay dead upon the ground, most with their tools still gripped tight in their fists.
It would always be said of them that they thrust their implements of harvest with strength and faith after crossing the world to buy a moment’s time with their very lives.
When the troupe finished, they stood in respect of the story they’d just played to a dark dungeon cell and two farmers from the hidden places of the east.
A quiet pride filled Sutter’s chest, the kind that made you want to stand and die with the valor of those memorialized in the telling. And the root-digger from the Hollows heard a sniff from behind him, making him think of a hand-sewn emblem on an old rug and the honor to fulfill an oath made generations past.
Then an abrupt intrusion of light and the slam of an opened door stabbed the darkness again. Their turnkey bustled in and unfastened two of the scops without a word, herding them up the stairs toward the outer door. One of these was the woman who’d spent most of her time with her head laid upon her own knees. As she began to shuffle her bare feet over the cold stone, she looked down at Niselius and said with all the earnestness of her soul, “Tell my children I love them.”
Tears coursed down her face, which bore an awful cast of uncertainty.
At the door she and her fellow scop looked back at their friends, and that’s when Sutter knew their faces. Captured differently in the light at the door, the bruises and blood and garish paint faded in his eyes to the true faces beneath.
They were the faces in his waking nightmare.
The faces of the dead.
It hit Sutter with a horrible certain prescience, just as he now realized that he’d seen the spirit of the woman burned at Ulayla in his window the night before her execution.
The door closed, leaving them to their troubled hush and obscurity.
Sutter wept silent tears, knowing that the woman would never see her little ones again.
Nor would those small ones see their mother one last time. And that, too, touched upon his old wounds, and Sutter cried for each of them.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The Lesher Roon
Wendra stepped into the street that fronted the Descant Cathedral. Seanbea accompanied her on her right, Penit holding her hand on the left. The boy involuntarily squeezed her fingers as he took in the festive decorations of a city virtually transformed overnight. Even the streets in the mercantile district celebrated the Lesher Roon, streamers dipping in low arcs between shops, lintels and sills adorned in makeshift garlands fashioned from corn husks and dried vines. Men and women walked about with small sprigs of various green herbs fastened to a lapel or hanging from a breast pocket, showing their awareness and support for the race.
Penit started ahead, pulling Wendra along. She hadn’t expected that the boy would actually run the race, but it gave her a good reason to leave behind the ruminations brought on by Belamae’s words and lose herself in the gaiety of the event.
The teacher wanted her to remain with him for several months at the cathedral to study, imparting a warning to her should she choose to do otherwise. Twice more—once last evening and once this morning—they had spoken since her arrival. Belamae had shown her the wonders of music, hinted at the methods and techniques she could learn to master her craft. Th
e ways to compose and organize music astounded her. And she’d sensed that the things Belamae shared with her were merely those tools he taught to each student he mentored. Beneath these things, beyond them, his eyes seemed to tell her that her true training would consist of greater methods, things not spoken of among the other pupils. But she continued to maintain that she could not create as Seanbea had suggested. Each time she denied the ability, Belamae’s eyes darkened with disappointment and concern.
But there was no time for this. For her own reasons, she’d agreed to enter Penit in the race: She wanted to find the others, if they’d made it at all; and with the streets as full as they were, she felt safe from hidden or surprise dangers.
Past the end of the street, the crowds thickened. Barkers called out foods and souvenirs of the Lesher Roon for sale. Street performers sang songs that Wendra soon realized must attend race day as traditionally as the songs of Northsun—old folk tunes, by now, that most everyone knew. A general buzz of excitement hummed in the streets, bystanders speaking excitedly to one another but, she noted with relief, happy noise, not the kind of dangerous crowd she’d recently heard in Galapell. Very like Northsun, Wendra thought, a fraternal air prevailing in every face and word and song.
Carriages and wagons plied the streets, bridles and wheels woven with yet more garlands. The sweet fumes of spicy drinks filled Wendra’s nose, and here and there a child near Penit’s age received advice from parents or other adults as they streamed toward the Halls of Solath Mahnus.
Beyond the merchant quarter, the avenues and lanes thrummed with life, the people moving with more purpose but no less enthusiasm. Men dressed in fine cloth coats with two rows of buttons down the front and glossy boots carried tall, thin glasses of what looked like a rum punch that Wendra fancied to taste. Other men moved about in full armor polished to a bright shine, one hand swinging in time with their strut, the other settled comfortably on a ceremonial weapon. Women carried bouquets in the crooks of their arms, slender white and green grasses interspersed with deep red flowers and yellow roses. Here, the children sat politely, their shoes less worn, their shirts bright with vertical stripes that often matched the clothes of their parents.
The Unremembered: Book One of The Vault of Heaven Page 70