The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  “The witch. Give us the witch!” the priests would cry and chant on occasion, and the crowd would take up the cry for a while until it died down again.

  Gilgwyr snorted in frustrated amusement. Little Lucius gave a low whistle and Jonas, Coogan, and Cynyr turned and looked as Stjepan and Erim came up behind them. Nods and quick handshakes went around.

  “Did you see who hit you?” asked Coogan with a wry grin.

  “Could’a been anybody, right?” joked Horne.

  Stjepan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I suppose so. Never saw it coming,” he said, touching the back of his head with a slight wince.

  “I’m betting it was Naeras Braewode,” said Jonas. “I spotted him in the crowd, despite his best efforts to stay hid. He’s had it in for you ever since you fucked up that little scheme he had going on the Street of Smiths.”

  “He’s still holding a grudge about that?” asked Stjepan. “That was six years ago.”

  “Wizards don’t forget,” shrugged Jonas.

  “Wizard my ass,” Stjepan grunted to general laughter, then moved up right behind Gilgwyr and joined him in observing the proceedings.

  “Rodrick Urgoar is still unconscious,” Gilgwyr said by way of greetings. “If news begins to spread of his unfortunate demise, some in this city will no doubt celebrate, given how unpopular he was; but these are the faithful, and this crowd will get really ugly.”

  “I didn’t hit him that hard,” protested Stjepan.

  “Ah, but it’s all in how you hit him, isn’t it?” said Gilgwyr. “Besides, you needn’t be the one to worry, as apparently the rumor is that Lord Arduin did the deed. Some of those present and many who weren’t swear that he struck the High Priest to prevent him from revealing that his sister was a witch.”

  “If you had anything to do with those rumors starting, I shall not be appreciative,” Stjepan said coldly. “I have no issue with standing for my actions, and Lord Arduin was wholly innocent in the matter.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Gilgwyr said, raising his hands defensively. “It seems to have been the genuine confusion of the crowd. Lucky you, off the hook. But regardless of the cause, this mess is going to make getting access to the Lady a bit harder. I’ve sent word for Leigh, but he might have left the city after Harvald died. That old bugger can be hard to find when he wants to be.”

  Erim slipped up next to Stjepan and craned her neck. Someone in the crowd threw some ripe piece of fruit against the doors of the tower house, and that prompted a small shower of imitators. All that food going to waste, she thought, shaking her head. She studied the facades of the houses of the various nobles who shared this street. “There’ll be stables in the back, yeah?” she asked Stjepan. “The servant’s entrances.”

  Stjepan grinned. “Aye,” he said. “The priests will never think to go there.”

  They all stepped back a bit into the alleyway, leaving the Tills on watch.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Gilgwyr.

  “Nothing like the direct approach,” Stjepan said with a shrug. “Let’s go knock and say hello.” He turned to the others. “Jonas, can you stay here, keep an eye on the crowd? Send one of your crew to alert us if things start to look dire?” Jonas nodded. “Coogan, Cynyr, I am beginning to suspect that a fast exit from this city might be required. You’re not part of this, but can you pave our way, let’s say at the Gate of Eldyr, and the West Gate?”

  “Cutting across the whole city, that’s crazy,” said Cynyr. “But I get it, you’re thinking Pierham?” Stjepan nodded. Cynyr and Coogan looked at each other and grinned. “Sure, we can do that. Six Hells, we’ll even help you get a boat. Nothing like a bit of fun before we head back north to the Grand Duke, eh?”

  Sir Holgar raised his head and his hand. There was definitely someone tapping at the rear gate. He glanced at Sir Theodore and the squire Wilhem Price, frozen in mid gesture as they paused in sharpening their swords. Holgar stood and gazed at the gates through the open arch of the stable’s smithy. The double gates were solid oak, bound in iron, and set into one gate was an iron sally port with a spy hole set in its center. The tapping came again.

  He slipped his sallet on his head and stepped out into the rear courtyard, shifting his frame and muscles to let his harness settle. Both he and Sir Theodore were now armored in three-quarter plate harnesses, and squire Wilhem wore a mail hauberk under his quilted gambeson. Holgar could smell smoke and ashes from the bonfires in front of the great house, and could hear the muffled shouts and cries of the crowd gathered in the street; a small part of him was as excited as he was scared. But the rear of the house had so far been quiet. There was a small bell set in the wall by the rear gate with which visitors could announce themselves, but whoever was there was ignoring it and tapping on the iron sally port. Perhaps trying not to attract too much attention? He strode softly to the gate, his sword firm in his right hand, hearing the others rouse behind him. He slipped the visor of his sallet down, and then carefully opened up the spy hole in the sally port.

  He saw three men waiting outside, standing politely and nonchalantly as if they were there to deliver milk and eggs, despite the swords and daggers they bore. He recognized the man in the lead from the funeral. Black-Heart. They locked eyes for a moment, and Holgar stared at him through narrow slits.

  Holgar finally grunted and slid the spy hole closed.

  From the window of his second floor chambers, Arduin could clearly see the entire street in front of the city house of his father, the Baron of Araswell. Islik’s balls, we’re fucked, he thought as he contemplated the end of his father’s house and possibly his life. He was grimly cataloging the available defenses for the house in his head: Eight knights, including myself; five squires; fourteen men of the household fit enough to fight, including six experienced bowmen; twenty women in sufficient condition to give assistance, with Tomas in the kitchens already directing the preparation of hot oil, bandages and stacks of arrows and bolts. Even against a rabble numbering in the hundreds if not thousands by now, he was sure they could hold the front doors, possibly even for days—as long as no one brought a battering ram; as long as Templars or the City Watch don’t show up, and it stays this street rabble. But if men that know what they’re doing show up, then we’re done for.

  Given how angry he was, it was actually surprising that Arduin could hold a coherent thought in his head. But his livid anger had cooled enough for a kind of acceptance to ease into him. He had known all week that Harvald’s death under such mysterious and scandalous circumstances had almost certainly doomed his family to an ignominious fate; and now, with his sister accused of witchcraft by the High Priest of the Public Temple, and his brother’s funeral dissolved into a riot to top it all off . . . well, the end would certainly come sooner rather than later. It was almost a relief. Better that we all die and just get it all over with, he thought. Better a quick death than the slow death we’ve been dying for the last ten years.

  Two of the household’s squires, Elbray and Enan, were finishing buckling him into his armor, a heavy three-quarter plate harness in the Sun Court style, slipped tight over his pourpoint arming doublet. Rolled edges, etching, and gold gilding marked it as an expensive harness, but in truth it was also slightly out of date; it had been made for him at the height of the family’s power by the armorer Leon Lis Wain of the House of the Double Lion, back when Arduin was a Tourney Champion, and that was indeed a decade gone by. The current preference in Therapoli was for a sloped cuirass that came to a low point, while his was decidedly full and rounded; for high shoulder pieces, particularly on the left pauldron, to help protect the neck, but his had none; for large, sweeping couters at the elbow, while his were more medium-sized, if elaborately chased and etched. Still, the harness wasn’t terribly less effective than the current fashions, and the armorer’s mark upon it was a considerable point of pride. His plate gauntlets, bevor, and sallet rested on a tabletop nearby, awaiting the moment when the house was truly in danger.

  “Do you r
eally think they’ll attack the house, my Lord?” asked Elbray as he wrapped the King’s sword belt around Arduin’s waist. Arduin glanced down; Elbray was about fourteen years of age, still young, with several more years of squiring to go before he could attempt a knighthood. Enan was even younger, twelve years of age. They both looked nervous. Perhaps we can send them out the back, with some of the women, he wondered.

  “No, of course not,” he said, with as reassuring a smile as he could muster. “But we’ll be ready for them if they are stupid enough to try.”

  He could hear a small commotion outside his chambers, and Sir Helgi walked into the room. “My Lord, visitors at the back gate. Sir Holgar thought you’d want to see them,” he said. Arduin nodded and gestured for Helgi to bring them in before turning back to the window. He eyed the crowd, idly speculating about which one of them he would shoot first with a crossbow. Probably one of the priests; cut off the head, and this rabble won’t know what to do.

  He could hear men filtering into his chamber so he turned; Elbray and Enan expertly turned with him to complete their last remaining buckles and adjustments. Sirs Helgi, Holgar, Clodin, and Colin were escorting three men into his presence. One of them he recognized instantly, and he contemplated the man coldly for a moment.

  “You are Stjepan, son of Byron of An-Athair, yes, and a cartographer at the High King’s Court?” Arduin finally asked. “We spoke briefly this morning on more than one occasion,” he added with a slight hint of irony.

  Stjepan nodded. “I am, Lord Arduin,” he said. “Let me again offer my condolences. My companions are Erim, once of the city of Berrina, and Master Gilgwyr Liadaine. As you may recall, Gilgwyr and I knew your brother from our days at the University . . .”

  “Your days at the University?” Arduin snorted. “You almost burned the city down. Rabble rousers and street brawlers, you were, the lot of you. You earned my brother a black mark against his name and life as a petty clerk at Court. Hardly fitting for a scion of our lineage.” He waved in the general direction of the windows, indicating the commotion outside. “And trouble seems to follow you both, even to his very funeral. Even to the doors of this, my father’s house.” That last was almost a shout.

  “Yes, my Lord,” said Stjepan with a wince. “I do regret the manner in which his funeral ended, and the part I played in it.”

  Arduin contemplated him for a long moment, calming himself. “Is it true, what Harvald said about you?” he finally asked. “That you are a witch’s get. I mean, everyone always says that about the Athairi, that you’re all witch-born and fae-born, but Harvald, he said in your case it was actually true, that your mother was . . . what was it? Argante, called the Witch of An-Athair, who was burned at the stake some years ago . . .”

  Stjepan set his chin higher, his mouth tight. “My mother was indeed Argante, daughter of Yirgane, of the line of Arfane, and Urfante, and Morfane,” he said, though he was not sure that Arduin knew what that meant.

  Arduin nodded, satisfied, and started to walk out of the room, signaling for him to follow.

  Arduin and then Stjepan entered a dark, austere chamber, followed discreetly by Sir Colin and the squire Elbray, and paused. The chamber’s window shutters were drawn shut, and looked out over the rear courtyard, so the cries of the street rabble were distant and muffled but still audible. There was a gauze curtain around a divan, with figures behind it. They began approaching the curtain, and soon Stjepan could see a semi-conscious Annwyn tossing and mumbling to herself in the arms of a fearful but defiant Malia, who stared up at them wide-eyed.

  Arduin stopped, and Stjepan stopped right behind him, but then Arduin glanced back at him and with a slight inclination of his head indicated that Stjepan could approach more closely. Stjepan nodded and walked past him toward the curtained area. Annwyn was still in her mourning dress and in obvious distress, her eyes unfocused, a faint gleam of sweat upon her face and neck, now unveiled. Her golden hair was tightly wound behind her head, though a few strands had come undone and were plastered by sweat across her forehead and face.

  Stjepan crouched before her, and cocked his head, listening.

  “The images on her body were bad enough,” said Arduin quietly in the dark behind him. “But then the . . . words started. At first I thought they were just mad ravings . . .”

  “No, it is an old tongue she speaks; has your sister ever studied Old Éduinan or its dialects?” Stjepan asked. Éduinan was the original language of the Danians, Daradjans, and Maelites—the language of the mountains, literally, for the peoples that lived upon the Éduins mountains or within their shadow.

  “My sister has been brought up with the education befitting a Lady,” said Arduin coldly. Stjepan grunted noncommittally as Arduin paused. “So . . . where do these words come from, then? Is this indeed some sort of witchcraft, then, as the High Priest said?”

  Stjepan took a deep breath. “Your sister is in the grips of a Sending, an enchantment of the mind and body sent by your brother as his dying act, and I believe with a clear purpose. The images upon her skin are part of a map, sent for us to follow.”

  Arduin gaped at him. “My brother? Are you mad? My brother, the clerk, placed an enchantment upon my sister? He was no magician!”

  “Perhaps you did not know your brother as well as you thought you did, my Lord,” said Stjepan quietly. “A rudimentary understanding of the hermetic arts is taught to almost all students at the University.”

  “My brother . . .” Arduin began, then stopped. He thought on the questions of the Inquisition and the City Watch and the Magisters that he’d heard all week: Did Harvald consort with wizards and sorcerers? Where might he have learned the arts of higher magic? Have you ever seen Harvald with magical amulets or talismans? He thought about the glimpse of the body he had, before the priests and undertakers began their work on it. “My brother . . .” he started again, struggling. “My brother . . . my brother died from a curse and was unrecognizable to me even as we put him on the pyre. What is this a map to? What is so important that Harvald would risk death for it and endanger our sister?”

  Stjepan looked at Annwyn for a long moment.

  “It’s a map to the Barrow of Azharad,” he said.

  Malia withdrew reflexively from her mistress with a loud gasp as the whole room seemed to freeze. Sir Colin began to whisper a prayer.

  Arduin’s face contorted—with fear, fascination, possibility. He drew back a bit, so his face was partially in shadows.

  “The Sorcerer King of the Bale Mole?” Arduin asked quietly. “That is a cursed name. If this is true then why didn’t Harvald turn the map over to the King’s Court, or the University Magisters?”

  Stjepan glanced back at him. He couldn’t quite make out Arduin’s expression in the darkness of the room. “Because we aimed to find the barrow ourselves. You’ve heard the rumors and stories, yes? That he had the sword Gladringer in his possession when he was buried?” Stjepan asked.

  Arduin waved his hand dismissively, but his mind was already racing. “Campfire tales sung by bards,” he said, even more softly.

  Stjepan gave a little shrug. “Maybe. But Harvald believed the stories to be true. He’d found records in the archives of the Court, long forgotten letters and journals from men who’d been traveling with the King of Dania after the Black Day Battle; they gave report of the sword falling into ill hands and tracked it north. And then accounts from the campaign against Azharad a century later, from the wardens of the Lord of Gyrdiff, from the knights of An-Dama Logh and the so-called Erl of the Tiria Wold. All of them reporting seeing Azharad with Gladringer in the war in the woods.”

  King of Heaven, could it be true? Arduin wondered.

  “What we needed was a map. This map. And we finally found it, thanks to the archives and a bit of luck. We thought if we could find the sword . . . well, recover the lost sword of the High Kings and you could command almost any reward for such a service to the crown . . . even restore the fortunes of your historic name, as
Harvald wished,” Stjepan said. He studied Arduin. “Even with this latest disaster courting your family, if you were to sponsor our expedition, and but grant me an audience with the Lady . . .” he trailed off, not needing to say it: this could be enough to save you.

  Arduin closed his eyes and this mind spun and raced, making calculations, weighing his options, all of them terrible.

  King of Heaven, the sword of the High Kings; let this be true, he thought to himself.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” said Arduin. He walked past Stjepan and pulled the curtains open. He looked down at Annwyn. “Rouse your mistress,” he said harshly to Malia. The handmaiden paused, looking at the two men as though they were crazy, and then slowly she started to shake Annwyn, whispering to her softly.