The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  Arduin had trouble pushing his way through the throng, but finally arrived and almost jumped back with a start, alarm on his face as he saw his sister clawing at her own clothes. He began pushing and shoving away some of the men that surrounded them, even as they pressed in to take a look. He turned and looked over his shoulder, spotting Sir Helgi and Sir Colin pressing toward him.

  “Knights, squires, to me!” he called out. His voice was battle-trained and it rang out like a clarion call. Immediately all of his knights and squires started toward him through the crowd with haste, but his cry also had the unintended side effect of alerting anyone as yet still unaware that something was amiss. He turned back to Malia and the other handmaidens. “Your mistress is unwell. Get her to her coach!” he said as the attention of the entire plaza settled upon the scene.

  Stjepan stared at Annwyn intently, trying to figure out what she was doing. He caught a flash of neck and collarbone and then something else and his eyes went wide. “Let her be. Don’t you see it?” he said, suddenly pushing past her handmaidens, kneeling down and reaching in to help Annwyn open her bodice.

  Arduin’s eyes flashed wide with anger and incredulity, livid upon seeing a strange man’s hands upon his sister. “What the . . . you go too far, sir!” Arduin said with great offense. “Knights. Squires!” Arduin pushed swiftly through the onlookers crowding about his sister toward Stjepan, intent on pulling him off of Annwyn even as she struggled with her own handmaidens on the paved stones of the plaza.

  Arduin managed to get a hand on Stjepan’s shoulder and yanked him partially to his feet, but as he did so Coogan and Cynyr casually crowded in on both sides of him, leaning into the knight to hem in his movements while craning their necks to get a glimpse of his sister. Erim pressed in from behind him, her hand snaking unnoticed around his hip to surreptitiously grasp the hilt of his sword should he try to unsheathe it.

  And so Arduin found himself effectively and casually surrounded and immobilized in the press about his sister, seemingly as if by accident. He struggled in confusion, uncertain about what was happening.

  “She’s trying to show us something!” Stjepan hissed angrily, struggling to free his long coat from Arduin’s strong grip. A scrum was forming as curious, wide-eyed onlookers continued to press in to take a look and Arduin and his knights struggled with the men around them. Annwyn was struggling with her handmaidens, and winning despite their best efforts, and her torso flashed bare beneath them. Arduin caught a glimpse of pale skin exposed in the struggle at his feet, and looked away instinctively, trying to redouble his efforts to clear the crowd. He was about to go for his sword—where he would have discovered Erim’s grip on his sword’s hilt—when suddenly Malia screamed.

  Her handmaidens let go of Annwyn and pulled back as she stretched and writhed on the pavement, displaying herself for all to see. Arduin looked down and blanched with horror as everyone pressing into the tight circle around his sister froze, looking down at her with a mixture of lust, horror, and surprise. At first all that registered was her pale alabaster skin, and her perfect breasts, and her nipples, and she almost took his breath away.

  And then he saw the end of his line written in her skin.

  “King of Heaven help me . . .” Arduin managed to gasp.

  Sliding over Annwyn’s naked torso, fading in and out and moving over her shapely form, were signs, images, words and symbols in a strange and cruel calligraphy.

  Stjepan followed some of the text that slid over her skin. “Tereska malles malifiri tir garas, umess de beyir Azharad . . .” he whispered as he read the words. Awe and wonder dawned on his face.

  “Goddess above and below . . . it’s the map to the barrow,” he said under his breath.

  A set of cryptic letters scrolled over her breasts as she writhed under their shocked gaze, speaking in tongues. Her handmaidens, her brother, his knights and squires, Stjepan, Erim, Gilgwyr, Jonas, Coogan, Cynyr, dozens of courtiers, Marked Men, independents, clerks, and gossip queens in the tightly packed circle pressed in around her stood frozen and just stared, open-mouthed, at what they saw. Hundreds of others would later claim that they’d seen the marks upon her skin, but in truth it was only a small fraction of the mourners present. The only movement in her immediate vicinity was Rodrick Urgoar, the High Priest of the Public Temple, pushing his way through the ring of slack-jawed onlookers until he was close enough to get a good look at Annwyn.

  And he was shocked and frightened by what he saw.

  “Witchcraft. Witchcraft! Seize her! Seize the witch!” the High Priest called out in a high-pitched voice filled with hatred and terror, clearly audible across the whole of the plaza.

  In an instant, the world seemed to slow to a crawl for Stjepan. He looked up slowly, seeing the shock and horror in the faces of the crowd. He could hear the gulls laughing in the air above them, the mocking roar of Heth in the surf. He could smell the stink and sweat of their fear, their hate, their lust and desire. His eyes narrowed and his lips skinned back from his teeth in a snarl.

  Stjepan turned with sudden speed, twisting about despite Arduin’s strong grip on his doublet, and struck Rodrick Urgoar right in the face, the top two knuckles of his fist flattening the High Priest’s nose into the shape of a crushed bulb of cauliflower. Rodrick’s head snapped back, blood spurting into the air in a high arc from his smashed and broken nose, and he fell backwards into the crowd, his body instantly going limp.

  And the funerary plaza dissolved into bedlam and chaos.

  Gilgwyr walked through the screaming, scattering, pell-mell crowd as though lost deep in thought, untouched by the riot around him. Most of the mourners were fleeing off the funerary plaza back toward the Public Temple of the Divine King and the docks and streets of the Public Quarter, even as Divine King priests and temple assistants tried to push through them to get to the bier and their fallen High Priest. Marked Men and independent crews lashed out to escort the two Princes of their Guild to safety, fighting with the escorts of high ladies from the Court, and Gilgwyr didn’t even notice as a cassocked priest was lifted high into the air and tossed bodily off the plaza and into the urn-filled waters of the bay by Petterwin Grim’s men. Arduin and his knights formed a protective cordon around his sister’s handmaidens, as they bodily dragged her from the plaza and the clutches of Divine Kings priests who screamed for them to surrender her. Bottles and fists were flying in the general commotion, and something hard struck Stjepan in the back of the head, on purpose or by accident, and he went down, only to be hoisted up onto the shoulders of Erim and Jonas and Coogan and hustled into the crowds fighting to get off the plaza.

  That is why my dreams are still so beautiful, Gilgwyr thought. The gods have smiled upon us. We are truly blessed. We still have the map. He looked up and realized he was walking toward Harvald’s body and bier, now lying abandoned and forgotten in the chaos. He took up a torch off the marble pavement and lit it at one of the smoking braziers. He stepped beside the bier, looking down at the gauze-wrapped body. He took a last swig from his small bottle and then emptied the rest of it onto the body, smiling warmly.

  “Thank you, old friend. Today is a great day, a blessed day, and soon, very soon, will come the best day of all. A great change is coming!” he said in a fierce whisper. “Forgive me for doubting you!”

  The veiled woman dressed in white was the only person seemingly unmoved by the chaotic scene of the plaza; she still stood nearby, singing her dirge. Gilgwyr wondered for a moment if she was in fact the actual White Lady, the harbinger of death from Aurian legend, and he shuddered. He lowered the torch and walked in a slow circle about the bier, setting light to the corded stacks of firewood and tinder until they burned bright and the body was aflame, and soon the ashes of Harvald Orwain, son of Leonas, Baron of Araswell, were gusting out over the waters of the bay, floating on a song of mourning.

  Stjepan was walking up a leaf-strewn forest path, broad high trees of birch and purple-leaf oak, maple and elm, cherry and white ash,
cedar and pine stretching out for leagues in all directions. The trunks of the trees and the debris of the forest floor were coated with old layers of lichens and moss, and a rust-red under-brush complemented the ancient patina of grays and dull greens. The leaves were turning burnt red and orange-yellow, into fire and gold, all the brilliant shades of autumn, and so he began to suspect it was a dream. He turned and looked to his right through a break in the trees, and caught a glimpse of a far sloping range of forested evergreen hills, backdropped by a horizon of desolate high mountains. Down to the east a great stone castle sat on a rise over a small riverside city, and he knew that across that river would be the Plain of Stones. An-Athair. The great Erid Wold. The woods of my birth. A dream, then, but still it was pleasant, and so he kept walking the ancient forest path, drinking in its beauty.

  A handful of starlings swooped past him and settled on the lower branches of a great elm as he approached it. You are too late, too late, they called to him.

  “Too late for what, little lords?” he asked.

  You’ll see, you’ll see, they called, and then they took to wing.

  He followed the path and the flight of the disappearing starlings until they had passed beyond his sight. The woods fell silent. No animal scurried in the underbrush, no bird sang in the branches above. He could smell wet earth and leaf and needle, moss and sun-lit stone, and from nearby the smell of something burning.

  He approached a high clearing in the woods. Massive, ancient trees surrounded the clearing, their lower branches filled with dangling amulets and chimes, small sculptures and offerings placed around their trunks. A pyre had been built in the center of the clearing, and a single post erected within it. A woman was tied to the post, her long silk dress slightly torn and soiled with dirt. She was beautiful, wild, her long wavy black hair framing a face of wisdom and power. His mother, Argante. A crowd of their neighbors watched with fear and excitement behind several circles of men dressed in black robes and brown hoods as some of those men stepped forward and lowered torches. The pyre began to catch.

  A young boy stood stock still to the side, watching with wide eyes. Stjepan recognized his younger brother, Justin, and his heart broke. Two hooded men, with deer antlers attached to their masks, held a struggling young woman on her knees, forcing her to watch as the flames of the pyre grew stronger and higher. He couldn’t see her face but her long curly hair was unmistakable, a deep, dark brown that was almost black, the color of burnt earth. His sister, Artesia.

  He walked slowly toward the pyre, coming to stand behind his sister and the men restraining her. He could hear his sister whispering to herself: “That won’t be me. That won’t be me. That won’t be me.” His mother looked down at him and smiled, as she always did in his dreams. Smoke and flames were rising up around her. Her skin was blackening from the heat, but she seemed serene.

  “Stjepan. Blood brother,” said a familiar voice behind him.

  Stjepan turned, and saw Harvald standing behind him, smiling apologetically. Behind Harvald looking toward him were Gilgwyr, Jonas the Grey, Coogan, Cynyr, and Duram, dressed in their street-worn finery, swords and daggers in braces at their hips. They nodded to him in turn. Beyond them, he could see a group of men with their backs to him: Austin, Fionne the Fingers, Timm Bellane, Myles the Younger, and Darant. So Austin is dead, then, he thought sadly.

  “I’m so sorry, Black-Heart,” said Harvald softly. “The Path of the Dead calls for us all eventually.”

  Stjepan looked at him for a moment. “Yeah. I suppose it does,” he replied.

  He turned back to stare as the flames consumed his mother.

  From the window Erim could see smoke rising in the distance over the southern and eastern skyline of Therapoli, more smoke than was usual from the chimneys of its many fireplaces, kilns, and ovens. Bells were ringing in several parts of the city. She guessed that there was a fire down in the Public Quarter. The scene around the Public Temple had been a rough one, and it appeared as though some of the Marked or perhaps someone from one of the independents might have used the chaos and confusion as an excuse to do a bit of damage. Riots and near-riots were scary things, in her experience, as they had a life of their own; someone might start one for their own purposes, but there was nothing like running down a once familiar street with screams and the smell of smoke and panic in the air to escalate excitement into madness, and then who knew what could happen. The bells of the Public Temple had been ringing an alarm ever since the High Priest had gone down, and they’d seen horsemen from the City Watch marshaling on the streets as they’d carried Stjepan’s unconscious body out of the quarter.

  The smoke to the east she’d guess was somewhere in the High Quarter; not a conflagration yet, probably bonfires on the cobblestones, and likely outside the city house of Araswell, where she was certain the Lord and Lady had retreated from the funeral, and where Gilgwyr, Jonas, Coogan, and Cynyr had all headed after depositing Stjepan safely in his rented rooms in the small attic lofts above the print shops of Grim & Sayles, a few blocks up from the Forum where Tinker Street met Aqueduct Way. The Grim in Grim & Sayles was in fact Petterwin Grim, Marked Man of the Guild; she was pretty sure he couldn’t read, but he had been persuaded by Stjepan and Harvald to back the purchase of a printing press to be run by the bookbinder Garrett Sayles, and as far as she could tell he had no reason to complain to date, as the press was minting new books and broadsides and pamphlets virtually at all hours, bringing letters to the commoners of the city. Stjepan had found it amusing that the functionally illiterate Grim was using a print shop as the cover for his activities and operations as a Marked Man. Grim had thought it funny, too.

  As she watched the smoke rising from the High Quarter, she wondered a bit about the beautiful Aurian woman, and if she really was a witch. She’d seen the strange letters and symbols moving about the woman’s skin, as though they were fish swimming in a murky bowl of water that she could only see when they were pressed against the glass, trying to get out. She wondered how they’d gotten into her, and if it hurt at all. The woman had that classic Aurian beauty—blonde hair like spun gold, pale skin like ivory, and full, shapely breasts that would be soft handfuls to the touch, a different kind of beauty than the Palatian Ariadesma, with her copper skin and lithe, tight, athletic dancer’s body. She wondered what the blonde Lady would look like completely naked.

  Erim was interrupted from her daydreaming by a grunt from the bed. She looked back. Bed was a generous term; Stjepan slept on a mattress lain over the top of several crates, surrounded by stacks of more crates. The print shop stored some of its old equipment up in the lofts, and so there were strange metal contraptions scattered amongst the crates and chests along the walls and corners. Stjepan was slowly sitting up, reaching for a flask of water that she had placed by his bedside. It had been hard to find a place to put it, as every available inch of flat surface in the loft was covered with stacks of paper, books, inkpots, and boxes of quills. She watched as he drank some of the water, then poured the rest of the flask over his head and shook his wet hair, heedless of where the dripping water was scattered. He grunted again, cleared his throat, and looked over at her. In one smooth motion, she hefted and then tossed his leather-wrapped brace of sword and daggers to him, and he caught the bundle casually in mid-air with one hand.

  “Gilgwyr says city law be damned,” she said softly, touching the rapier and dagger that she had slung to her side, retrieved from her own rooms while Stjepan slept. Anticipating a fast exit from the city, she’d also paid Master Cort a month in advance to hold her rooms in case they had to leave quickly. “You’d better hurry. We’re missing the show, and it’s starting to get ugly.”

  She indicated the window. Stjepan lifted his head, listening to the distant sounds of temple bells for a moment, and then nodded, his mouth and jaw set grimly.

  Stjepan and Erim moved quickly up the cobble-stoned alley, their faces masked by black neck scarves pulled up over nose and mouth, Stjepan with his hat pull
ed low over his face. They carried their sheathed swords and daggers in leather-strapped bundles, in case they had to discard them quickly, and Stjepan had a leather satchel slung across his body. They had crossed the Public Quarter from the print shops of Grim & Sayles through back alleys and side streets, avoiding the main thoroughfares; on occasion, startled residents had ducked out of their way, the sight of masked and armed men adding to the air of danger created by the temple bells tolling their alarm in the distance. The King’s Road that separated the Public Quarter from the High Quarter was the trickiest part of the journey, as even with the strange air that was settling over the city it was quite busy. But they had dashed across it so quickly that no one had time to notice.

  Noble families and wealthy merchants lived in the High Quarter, and as they often brought centuries of their rivalries and internecine wars into the city, their houses were usually built as strong tower keeps, with either no or only small windows on the ground floors. Windows grew larger as the floors grew higher, but were usually built with strong wooden window shutters in case arrows and bolts started to fly from building to building. By law no tower could be built higher than the lowest stone of the High King’s Hall, but as the Hall was built on a hilltop rise, that left plenty of room for some of the Quarter’s towers to reach considerable height. The alley that Stjepan and Erim followed led them up to the Street of Orfeydda, named after the first Aurian King of Therapoli, and most of the tower houses there belonged to old pedigreed families of Aurian lineage.

  At the top of the alley, Gilgwyr, Jonas, Coogan, and Cynyr leaned nonchalantly against stone walls and iron railings in the shadows, along with several members of Jonas’ crew; Little Lucius and Horne held the rear, watching Stjepan and Erim approach, while the brothers Cole and Ruvos Till held point, standing nonchalantly a couple of yards in front of the alley. Their swords and daggers were hid from view behind their bodies or cloaks. They were watching the backs of a large crowd of jeering onlookers gathering in the wide street before them; somewhere in the crowd were a couple more of Jonas’ men, Tall Myles and Little Myles (who, unlike Little Lucius, actually was little), slipping through the press to see what was happening up close. Across from their vantage point and up a few broad stone steps were the great doors of the city house of Araswell, now shut fast against the surly crowd and showing stains where fruits and vegetables had been hurled against it. Several bonfires had been lit, one directly in front of the building, and two at each end of the street, and their smoke wafted through the streets and alleys of the High Quarter and into the sky. Divine King priests filled the front ranks of the crowd, along with some armored Templars. The crowd had already swelled to over a thousand men, women, and occasional children; it seemed a mix of devout commoners, probably marched up from the Public Quarter; pilgrims, caught up in the specter of a witch hunt; curious servants and groomsmen from nearby noble houses; and some element of pure street rabble, scum that didn’t even rate as amongst the independent crews, but skulked in the shadows on the leavings of their betters.