“Your friend?”
“Yes. My friend. While they looked much the same, Trask and his brother were very different men. Where the deacon was brash and heroic, his brother was patient and careful. One day my father” – Jem cringed a moment, but the mistake was not enough to reveal him – “asked me to deliver a message from the garrison to the camps, and while on task, I saw a guard beat a man to death and then drag the body away into the mines. I told my father about what I had seen, but he was too proud to listen. He told me that the miners were criminals, and that they deserved their fates, no matter what that might be. I wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so I went to the farrier.
“The farrier listened to my words, but he knew his brother well, so instead of confronting Trask, he took me back to the mines so he could see it for himself. I was too young to understand hunger. When I saw the withered and emaciated miners, I thought nothing of it. The farrier saw it for what it was. His brother was not feeding them. There were no blankets. Very few provisions. And then we found the dead man. He had been discarded into a pit where one of the mineshafts had collapsed underfoot and… he was not alone.”
“Not alone?”
“There were a lot of dead in there, Trin… enough to fit Trask’s reputation.”
“Oh.” A long silence stretched, then, “So what did Trask’s brother do?” Trin asked.
“What I should have done,” Jem said. “He sent a letter to Trel, telling of his brother’s abuses, and the priesthood responded by sending a man to investigate, a legionnaire.”
And it was the truth, but Jem’s uncle had not sent that letter to just anyone. Jem’s uncle had wanted only to protect his brother, and so he had sent the letter to the only man he knew could help protect Indaht. The farrier had sent the letter to the Magistrate Godahn, to the very man who had given the order that Trask must get the iron by any means necessary. And it had cost Jem’s uncle his life.
“I don’t understand,” Trin said. “If Trask’s brother was the one that reported everything to the priesthood, why would the Legion kill him?”
“The priesthood made a mistake. They sent a letter that warned of their investigation, but they sent it to Trask himself, instead of the brother. Of course, Trask did what you would expect. In the weeks before the legionnaire’s arrival, the miners were fed triple their normal rations, new lodging was built for them, for once they were given blankets and bedding. Even the beatings stopped, and by the time the legionnaire arrived, the miners had been cowed. They didn’t complain of their past mistreatment, they were just happy they had been well fed and clothed for the last month. Even the farrier was convinced that things had changed.”
The truth was, that letter had been addressed to Indaht and had told Jem’s father everything. It had told him to expect an investigation, and told him to make certain the investigators found nothing untoward. But the ‘investigation’ had gone further than that. Rather than simply prove his father’s innocence, Magistrate Godahn had sought to prove how effective Indaht had been as overseer. Instead of a single investigator, Godahn had sent an entire delegation, one comprised of friends and rivals alike, hoping they would see only good things.
“But I wasn’t convinced,” Jem continued. “Trask didn’t know that he had been reported. He’d thought the priesthood’s inspection routine, so he did not expect me to show the investigator all the corpses in the pit. When the investigator and his colleagues saw it, they left immediately, back to Trel to obtain a writ of execution. It took nearly two months before the priesthood sent another legionnaire with enough men to overthrow Trask, but they returned too late.”
The investigator’s real intention – Taehrn Andren’s real intention – had been to sweep the abuses under the rug, to arrive at a camp spotless and well managed, where the miners were happy and safe. Unfortunately for them, Jem had not known any of that. He had not known that their intention had been to save his father, to pretend like nothing bad had occurred, and he had taken one of Godahn’s rivals – the only man in the place who’d seemed intent on doing some actual investigating – to see the bodies in the pit. The rival had done what could be expected, he had used the evidence to destroy Jem’s father.
“The moment the inspector left, the beatings resumed. Trask was unaware that his abuses had been discovered, and his desperation over the lack of iron was heightened by the inspection. They had come to see Trask’s abuses, but Trask believed they had come to see how badly he was failing. Eventually, things came to a head. There was a revolt. Miners and guards alike, fled or died. By the time the legionnaire returned, there were only three of us left, myself, my father, and the farrier, and that’s when the legionnaire realized that he had made a mistake in taking so long to arrive. To make it seem like he had not failed, the legionnaire needed a new Trask, so he took the farrier instead, and passed him off as his brother.”
Of course, the final piece was not entirely true, at least not in the way Trin must think. There had been three of them left. Jem, his father, and his uncle, but Taehrn Andren had not come seeking a new Trask to replace one that had been ‘lost.’ Jem’s father had been there all along, and Taehrn had known exactly who he was. But Godahn and the others had wanted to protect their deacon. It had been vital to the Magistrate’s plans that Jem’s father survive, and this time, they had sent only Taehrn. No delegation, no goalers to keep their prisoner. Taehrn had come alone, and as the only witness remaining, Taehrn had forced Jem to write a statement claiming that the man in Taehrn’s custody had indeed been Deacon Indaht Trask. In reality, it had been the farrier. Taehrn and Magistrate Godahn had sacrificed Jem’s uncle in order to protect Indaht.
“Who was this man? Who was this legionnaire?” Trin asked.
“I don’t remember,” Jem lied. “I don’t remember his name, and I haven’t seen his face since.”
“Godsdamned butchering bastards. If I knew that man, I’d cut his blooding heart out. What kind of person does that to another? And for nothing but to protect their damned career. Do you think he’s still out there somewhere? I bet he’s a godsdamned magistrate or something by now.”
“I don’t know, Trin.”
“Well, why didn’t you or your father do something about it?”
“What could we do? By then, I knew better than to look to the Legion for help. They were the problem.”
“Gods, Jem, forgive me. Here I was telling you not to hate the Legion, but turns out I was wrong. Right now, I’m mad enough to want ‘em all dead. And the priests besides. I might even smack Bell once upside the head next time I see ‘im. Shit, Jem, hatred isn’t good enough. The butcher who killed your friend needs to be punished.”
She didn’t know the half of it. Jem intended to do more than punish Taehrn.
Propping open the sturdy wooden door, Trin exited onto the battlement overlooking the city. Half in the rot and half not, Derlin was an odd place. The half in the rot was made of clay brick while the other half was of wood. That clean line between in the rot and out had always astounded her. It seemed too precise, too fantastical. It was pretty though. As much as she hated the rot, the reddish clay and the light pine went well together. If the keep itself were not such an eyesore, with its dark and unadorned stone walls, Derlin would be a magnificent city.
A bit like her life… half in the rot, and half not.
As her thoughts drifted, Trin’s eyes wandered to the burning moon. She had never thought Jem’s past might be a comfort, and never thought a story like that might help ease her depression, but it had. It had riled her, and she wanted nothing more than to drown any bastard that might threaten the boy or even look at him funny. Who in Butcher’s name could do such a thing? And you know he’s not telling the full story. The lash marks on his arms and legs are proof enough of that. He was whipped at some point and probably beaten. Either by his father, or by Trask, the blooders.
Gods, here I am moping over a little guilt and a little grief – over Fate, for the Butcher’s sake – a
nd that boy’s so full of pain, he might as well be a walking crypt.
She was somewhat embarrassed to have broken down in front of Jem. It hadn’t been since the day she had met him that she had felt so terrible, but this evening, it had come on all of a sudden. Perhaps sudden was inaccurate. It had been a combination of entering the rot and seeing the burning moon that had set her off. That thing was foreboding. A part of her had even wondered if she had been the cause of it.
Her depression was not something new, but she had believed it well managed. It was five parts grief to five parts fear, with a smidgeon of guilt. More than fifteen years on the road and she had never felt unsafe. The roads of Trel had always been a sanctuary for her. She knew what the man she’d stabbed was after, but that wasn’t what haunted her. Maybe if he had been successful, his desires might have bothered her more, but he hadn’t and they didn’t. It was what she had done to him, that bothered her most. Feeling guilty for killing the man seemed ludicrous, and whenever that guilt surged she tried her best to pin it back down, but there was no denying that she had killed a man. It was more proof that she would become the god of Death.
More than fifteen years trying to fight Fate, and she was no closer to ending their bargain. For a long time, she had thought that she could simply search, and that one day she would find that old woman, and that they would sit down as they had that night, and that their discussion would end in a new bargain, one that saw Trin freed from the curse which brought death to those around her. But Fate was not out there. The god did not want to be found.
Trin’s search had taken her across the continent; to Settin, to Lock, to the Horn, and as far into Gellin as was humanly possible. But even knowing what she looked for, she hadn’t found what she needed. That wasn’t to say she hadn’t found a way to stop Fate. Trin had, but it wasn’t the solution she wanted. And yet… she felt her search was at an end.
She felt guilty for how the curse used her, but she had always believed herself separate from it. The curse acted, it killed those around her and used them to kill, just as it had done with the Tyrant of Ternobahl, but it had never before been her doing the killing. Though it killed, she herself could still do good in the world, and make it a better place. At least that was what she had always thought, until she had seen the page in Teachings of a Whore.
It was clear on the matter, and what she had done to that man beneath the tree only proved it. She would not simply ‘bring death,’ eventually she would become Death. And even if it meant becoming a god as Fate had said, it was not a god Trin wanted to be. While the page said that Death could be tempered, it did not say that such a god could stop being itself, and so long as she was the direct cause of it, even a single death was too much for her to bear. Even those which seemed the curse’s doing – those which seemed completely separate from her, such as her father’s – were becoming hard to deal with.
And that was the trouble. Whether by the rot or her own curse, she knew the tents wouldn’t last. Such problems should not cause her so much stress, but they did. Now that people depended on her, even for something as simple as lodging, Trin didn’t want to fail. She had never loved failure, but could always accept it because failure in the past had only hurt her. She was frugal enough that a bad trade deal had never left her hungry or without a home, but now, others might end up in the cold if she did not succeed.
Her predecessor’s logbooks spoke of such an event; a long winter during the Gableman’s Riots in which the Tyrant of Ternobahl and his revolutionaries had set fire to the Legion’s camp in the midst of winter. There wasn’t much chance of freezing to death this time of year, especially in the rot, but the horrific story still made her nervous. A rare storm in the midst of spring was not unheard of, and in her experience, such unfathomable occurrences were not beyond Fate and her meddling.
“It is a horrific sight, isn’t it?”
Trin sighed without turning to face him. “I’m not in the mood, Taehrn.”
“Are you ever in the mood?”
“For you? Can’t remember a time.”
“Oh, now that is a lie. There was a time when you and I were rather close.”
From the corner of her eye, she watched him shuffle beside her. As he settled in, with his hands resting upon the crenellated balcony, she made no move to leave. Trin refused to give ground whenever the man accosted her, to do so would give him too much leverage over her life. After all, what would she do during holidays in Trel?
“I’m not signing the papers, Taehrn. As much as I dislike the idea, when we return to Trel I’ll be overseeing the shipping company myself.”
Taehrn’s feet shifted as he turned to stare into her eyes. She did not meet his gaze. “I have come to terms with that.”
“Have you? Or is that just another thing you say to feel less a fool?”
Taehrn’s feet shifted again. His shoulders rolled as he straightened his back. “Do not fret over Lila and I. By the time we return to Trel, I will have ensured both my own position and the future of my children for generations to come.”
Trin allowed herself a glance at him. She nearly laughed. Though he had been in the Legion for twenty or more years, she was still unused to the shorter hair. It made his face look out of proportion, his nose larger and his lips crooked. She blamed it on the hair, but of course there was the chance she was simply looking for his flaws now, when she hadn’t before.
“For generations, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Then why bother with the papers in the first place?”
“Because I knew that you did not want your father’s business and did not want it to go to waste. There is security in having many irons in the fire.”
“Even the irons that can never belong to you?”
“Never? Why, those are the most tempting. What is life without challenges?”
Trin scoffed. Gods I hate it when I have to agree with him. “If not the papers, why are you bothering me?”
“Because I wished to speak with you, and to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Yes, against the boy.”
Trin glared at him. “Against Jem? Taehrn, I know you hate it when others take interest in what you think are your projects, but that boy means a lot to me and if you try to manipulate him, I’ll make certain that you regret it.”
“You do not know him, Trin.”
“I know enough.”
“No, Trin, you do not. He is dangerous.”
“Oh shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s just a hurt kid, with a bad past, and a brighter future if I can get him to stop dwelling on the shit that’s been done to him.”
“The shit that’s been done to him?” Taehrn chuckled. “Be careful, Trin. Jem is a very dishonest person.”
“Dishonest? You really think you’re a good judge of honesty? Gods, Taehrn, you’re pretty much the antithesis of honesty. Jem is a good kid, and I won’t let you manipulate him or me, so you better leave it.”
“I will not. I am not manipulating you, I am trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit? That is all I have ever done for you, Trin.”
“No, all you’ve ever done for me was use me to get what you want, and when I could no longer give you what you wanted, you up and left.”
“I did not leave, you did. And I could not have foreseen what happened.”
“Oh, Butcher take you. It’s not what happened that was the problem, it was how you reacted to it, and you know it. What was it you said? ‘I can never be with a woman who cannot give me an heir?’ Are you really surprised that I left? I might be barren, but I’m no victim, Taehrn, and I wasn’t going to sit around so you could make me into one.”
“Must you be so crude?”
“Crude? Saying it any nicer won’t make it any different. But that proves my point. That’s exactly what you never understood. The moment that whore gave me the news, I accepted it as a part of myself, but you wanted me to h
ate that self, which was something I couldn’t do.”
Taehrn’s chin drooped as he gazed over the city. “Do you truly see me as the villain? It was not I that gave you this illness.”
“It’s. Not. An. Illness!”
Taehrn fell silent. Tapping on the cornice, his fingers ticked away the seconds. “Perhaps you are right… it is simply that… That story you told the other day, of the baby placed into your care. It made me think of what might have been.”
“If you were thinking of anything but you and me apart, it wasn’t what ‘might have been.’ It may have taken a whore’s news to put the lie to everything you ever said and every motive you ever claimed, but even without that news, I would’ve seen those lies eventually. It only got us there faster.”
“Is it truly such a crime that I wanted what I thought you could give me?”
“No, the crime is that you wanted me only for the things you thought I could give you. If it weren’t for my father’s success, you would not have considered me in the first place. You loved me for the advantages you thought I’d bring, and when those advantages turned out to be false, you lost interest.”
“Perhaps… perhaps that is true, but it was not for lack of love.”
“Don’t lie to me, Taehrn. I’m smarter than that and I don’t want your damned pity, nor did I want your love if it came grudgingly.”
“It was never grudging. You were a friend and it was a friendship I did not want to lose. Think of all we could have done together.”
“Done together? I didn’t want that, you did.” Trin shook her head. “Look. I know you’re ambitious, Taehrn. I’ve always known that, and I accepted it, but I couldn’t accept your methods. You talk so much about friendship and cooperation, but those things don’t mean anything if there aren’t any real feelings propping up the relationship.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 73