Emissary

by Thomas Locke

  “Maps,” Adler declared. “Maps are the key.”

  35

  As they readied to depart for Havering, a clutch of foot soldiers and officers came forward together. Hyam liked how they were mostly clear-eyed and erect, though a few winced at the sound of a blacksmith shoeing a horse in the stables. There were only a few inert forms sprawled by the tents set up along the far wall. Hyam saw how Adler marked them with a frown.

  The soldiers’ spokesman asked permission to pay the Ashanta banker a visit. Adler explained, “Most of these men were drawn here by desperation and the hopes of winning the tournament purse. Some of their families face grave hardship.”

  Hyam asked the women, “Is that why you came as well?”

  “We are forbidden to fight in the tournaments,” Meda replied bitterly. “But give a man a few ales, and he likes the idea of besting some woman foolish enough to challenge him to a duel with steel.”

  Hyam saw Joelle appear on the top step and waved her over. “I want you to go with these men to the banker Vanier. Fetch another sack of gold and pay everyone the second portion owed for this year.”

  Adler showed astonishment. “That’s too much!”

  “I’ve known hardship, and I’ve lived with hunger,” Hyam replied. “None of my troops should ever worry about either.”

  “I will go,” Joelle agreed.

  “Ask the banker if he knows of any Ashanta financier in the badlands, especially around . . .” He asked Adler, “What was the name of that Oberon city?”

  “Falmouth Port.”

  “Ask if any have gone missing or can’t be accounted for. Tell him it’s urgent.”

  “The Ashanta financiers spend their words as carefully as they do their gold,” Meda warned.

  “He will answer me,” Joelle assured the officer.

  Meda responded with a tight grin. “Something tells me you’re going to make a fine soldier.”

  Hyam entered Havering in the company of Adler, Meda, their two aides, and four foot soldiers who had served a disgraced count. Clearly they still held their former leader in affection and despised the rulers of this prospering town. Their taut gazes scanned the walls and barbican and portcullis for threats, and were never still. The two women walked with hands resting upon the hilts of their long knives. They shared the troopers’ sour expression. Hyam had never felt safer.

  It was not the first time he had been proven wrong.

  Adler saluted the portcullis guards, then led them across the bridge and beneath the raised gate. They entered the tumult of a thriving market town. Tournament banners still hung from the main walls, while the winners’ pennants flew atop the main keep. Between the palace’s inner walls and the city’s outer barricades stretched a warren of cobblestone streets. The lanes were packed with people and beasts and hawkers and stalls. The noise and the smells assaulted Hyam from every side. He followed Adler down one crowded lane after another and wondered if he would ever become comfortable with a city’s chaotic din.

  The mapmaker was hardly into his thirties and already bald. His hands were yellowish and his fingers as scrawny as a chicken’s claws. He punctuated each response with a nervous bow. Adler demanded his most complete maps of the realm, but when they were unrolled, the officer frowned and declared, “These won’t do. They won’t do at all!”

  “They are our finest, good sir. I drew them myself. The hide is deerskin vellum stretched and—”

  “Swallow your lecture on parchment and ink,” Adler said, stabbing the border regions with an outraged finger. “The badlands are empty!”

  The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as nervously as his spine. “Of course, good sir.”

  “He hasn’t even drawn in Falmouth Port!” Meda exclaimed.

  “Of course not, madam.”

  “Stand straight, man,” Adler commanded. “What’s the meaning of this? You can’t just erase five dozen fiefs with the swipe of your pen and expect me to call you a mapmaker.”

  The narrow man bridled. “The edict expressly forbids any mention of badlands.”

  “What edict is that?”

  Hyam stepped forward. “Never mind.”

  “What nonsense is this? The man has left out everything—” Adler jerked when Meda poked him in the ribs. Then the light dawned. “Oh. Yes.”

  Hyam asked the mapmaker, “Can we see your earlier maps?”

  The man blanched whiter than he already was. “I was ordered to burn them.”

  “But you didn’t destroy your own work, did you. You hid them and hoped someone would come offering gold.” Hyam opened his purse. “That day has arrived.”

  The sight of florins brought a greedy glint to the mapmaker’s gaze. “Such maps would carry a heavy price, good sir.”

  “No doubt,” Hyam said, satisfied. “Show us what you have.”

  They were led through a peaked oak door and up narrow stairs to where a score of men and women of all ages labored at long desks. The rear windows and two skylights were open, admitting a stronger hint of the odor Hyam had detected downstairs. He glanced out the back and found another team curing hides and grinding ink.

  The mapmaker led them into a side office, where an old man hastily scooped a pile of silver coins into a sack and demanded, “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Go watch the store, Uncle.”

  “You dare bring customers into my office and then order me away?” The old man showed remarkable agility as he sprang up and rushed around his desk, waving his arms. “Your place is downstairs, not here! Not here!”

  “They bring gold, Uncle.”

  “Eh?”

  The younger mapmaker shut the door and whispered, “They seek Oberon maps.”

  The uncle blanched, then hissed, “I ordered you to burn them as the king commanded!”

  “Then you would not have my gold,” Hyam said, extracting a pair of florins.

  “Go watch the store,” the young man said, opening the door and shoving his uncle out.

  “Make sure the coins are real!”

  The young man shut the door again, sighed, and said, “Wait here.” He unlocked a rear cupboard, inspected the hoard, and asked, “How many do you need?”

  “Several.”

  “I have that many.” He extracted an armful. “Come to think of it, perhaps you should take them all.”

  They unfurled them one by one, making a substantial pile on the desk. They were studying them intently when the uncle burst back in, recoiled at the maps arrayed across his desk, and hissed, “The sheriff’s men are here!”

  “What do they want?”

  “The squire of the Three Valleys.” The uncle pointed a trembling finger at Hyam. “He described you down to a bow you do not carry.”

  “Old trouble?” Adler asked.

  “The squire’s son was bested in the tournament,” Hyam replied. “He tried to take it out on me. He failed.”

  “No bloodshed,” the younger mapmaker said. “Vellum never gives up fresh blood.”

  Meda checked out the rear window, then drew back and hissed, “The place is ringed by crossbows.”

  “This looks far more serious than a matter of wounded pride,” Adler said.

  Hyam tried to find the orb and forge a mental connection, but the distance was too great. He regretted coming into town. What was more, he regretted not thinking before now to try to extend his connection to the globe.

  A voice from beyond the house called, “Squire Hayseed! Must I come and drag you out?”

  Hyam handed the senior officer his purse. “Adler, stay and acquire the maps. Meda, come with me.”

  Adler clearly did not like this. “Sire—”

  “If they’re after trouble, your men will not help. We’re outnumbered and trapped. Get the maps back to the inn. If I am arrested, tell Trace.”

  He halted further argument by slipping by the garrulous uncle and descending the stairs. As expected, the first face he spotted when entering the main chamber was the knight who had challenged
him in the inn’s forecourt. The sheriff’s son declared, “When they told me you had shown up again at the inn, I said to my aide, no man could be that stupid. Wasn’t that what I said?”

  “That is what you said, my lord.” The man was massive and scarred and responded with a bored voice. Hyam recognized him as one of the group that had shared the squire’s table. A dozen men armed with crossbows took aim through the house’s windows. Four more men-at-arms crowded around the map tables, their swords at the ready.

  “My aide is a hothead,” the sheriff’s son went on. “He wanted to run out and arrest you. But I said no, did I not.”

  “You did, my lord,” the warrior agreed, his voice as flat as his gaze.

  “We must wait,” the young knight said. The map room did not grant him much space to swagger, but he did his best. “Wait and let the fool enter our lair. Which you have. Didn’t he walk straight into our clutches.”

  “He did indeed, my lord.”

  Meda demanded, “What right do you have to waylay my liege as he goes about his lawful affairs?”

  “But they’re not lawful at all, are they.” The sheriff’s son sneered at the guards’ captain. “Not when he’s guarded by women the king himself has ordered be made toothless. Is that not so.”

  “Toothless it is, my lord. Every one.”

  “So our Squire Hayseed must now be brought up before my father the sheriff.”

  “And the lass, my lord?”

  He stripped Meda with a careless gaze. “She’s hardly worth the trouble. You’re free to go, woman. No doubt the inn’s scullery wench could use your help.” He smiled at Hyam’s defenselessness. “I failed to gain your name the last time we met.”

  “Hyam.”

  “An odd name for a squire. But never mind.” He gestured to the hulking brute. “Bind him. Bring him.”

  36

  They dragged Hyam through Havering and into the central keep. Beyond the palace stables, a narrow portal opened into the keep’s wall, and circular stairs emitted a stench that was laced with pain and terror. Hyam had tried repeatedly to connect with the orb on his way along the city’s lanes. As they approached the dungeon portal, he desperately strived to bridge the distance and failed yet again.

  The city dungeons were a vast underground arena whose peaked ceiling was supported by massive stone pillars. The aide of the sheriff’s son was careless and unemotional in his violence, cuffing Hyam when ordered with an almost bored casualness. The sheriff’s son, however, took pleasure in leading Hyam through the central chambers, introducing him to the various implements of torture and assuring Hyam that he would soon become familiar with them all.

  The sheriff’s son stood pretending to debate over which tool to apply first, when footsteps echoed upon the stone stairs and a voice called, “Where is the prisoner?”

  The sheriff’s son blanched. “Here, my lord.”

  “Did I not say I wished to meet him?” A portly man accompanied by two guards with torches appeared at the stairwell. “Is this the one?”

  “He is, my lord.”

  “Are you certain?” The older man wore his remaining hair like a froth encircling his bald pate. His breastplate had been scrubbed and polished until it shone like silver. It was the only military aspect about him. He was peevish and flaccid and chinless. “He certainly has the build. And the hair. You there, what is your name?”

  “Hyam, my lord.”

  The sheriff’s son offered, “I could apply the screws and make sure he speaks the truth.”

  “Certainly not. I told you, our instructions from the palace were most precise. This man was to be delivered unharmed. What’s more, a second message has just arrived. Every last iota of his gear must be delivered untouched and unsearched.”

  The young man turned sour. “By what right does some palace lackey order us about like serfs?”

  The newcomer eyed the sheriff’s son with distaste. “If you knew who made the request, you would not open your vile little mouth. Chain him, post a guard, and see he remains unharmed. Where was he staying?”

  He went as sullen as a disciplined child. “Three Princes Inn, my lord.”

  “Send someone we can trust for his belongings. Then join me in the hall. I must alert the palace. We have matters to discuss.”

  Hyam was heaved into a cell that contained one other unfortunate guest. The sheriff’s son kicked Hyam hard in the ribs, then again. He watched as the brute locked a chain to his ankle and kicked Hyam a third time. He leaned tight into Hyam’s moaning face and promised, “We shall meet again.”

  Hyam thought he was too sore and too worried to sleep. He was also hungry and he was afraid. His cell mate was a man he could scarcely see in the gloom, with matted hair and beard, and dressed in rags. The man’s age was impossible to guess. Hyam heard one of the passing guards call the man Warbler. The prisoner crooned a single wavering note. He did not even seem to draw breath. The sound worked on Hyam’s brain like a spike.

  Even so, he slept.

  Instantly the dream gripped him in claws as desperate as the dungeon’s air. He was again trapped within the ash-covered valley. The glowing red orb hovered at the valley’s other side, held in place by a rider whose crimson robes ran and flowed like spilled blood.

  Slowly the rider lifted his free hand and drew back his hood.

  There was no face to the figure that was revealed. Only a skull that seemed woven from the same metallic insects that formed a vile cloud about him. The mage grinned at Hyam and said, “Hello, cousin.”

  Hyam woke up gasping. One of the squire’s kicks had cracked a rib, for the breath that woke him also stabbed his side. He levered himself off the damp stone floor in gradual stages. Across from him, the prisoner continued his crooning. Hyam stared out the crossed metal bars that stood between him and the various implements that filled the central chambers, positioned so the prisoners never lost sight of the fate that would soon consume them. Only he did not see them now. His vision remained trapped by the skull and the glowing red orb, and the fact that he had missed something vital.

  “I’ve been a fool,” he said to no one in particular.

  The guard outside his portal chuckled. “Little late to be noticing that.”

  Hyam shook his head in the darkness. The dream had carried a message, one he should have realized long before now. He had been blind to a crucial element. If he had seen it earlier, he might well have managed to avoid his fate.

  As if the guard could read his thoughts, he said, “Nothing like a night in the dungeon to force a man to drink the potion of regret.”

  Gingerly Hyam crawled toward the portal, until his chain clinked tight. “What time is it?”

  “Doesn’t really matter, does it. Few more hours, I go off duty. Not long after that, you’ll be missing one of your last dawns.”

  “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Nor do I. But I know enough about the message to be glad I’m not the one bound in that cell.” The guard shifted around to where he could look through the bars. “What’s your name?”

  “Hyam.”

  “Rumor has it you’re practicing the dark arts.”

  “That is absolutely not true.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But there’s one coming from the king’s palace who will be asking you questions. And whatever you say in reply, two things are for certain. You won’t like the questions, and you won’t survive the conversation.”

  “Who is coming?”

  “All I know are rumors. Most of which can’t be true.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  Curiosity showed in the guard’s gaze. “You’ll tell me what you’ve done?”

  “My only crime was to best the sheriff’s son.”

  “I heard about that. You truly shot the arrow across the river and hit the earl’s coin?”

  “I did.”

  “Wish I’d seen that. Though the squire is not a man to cross.”

  “So I’ve learned.�
�

  “Yeah, pity, that.” He scratched his back by rubbing up and down the foul stones.

  Hyam repeated softly, “Who is coming?”

  “The king’s own adviser is who I’ve heard.”

  “Does this adviser have a name?”

  The guard turned and showed him a stony expression. “No.”

  “All right.”

  “If you knew anything, you’d know not to ask such a thing. Not even here.”

  Hyam clenched his eyes and reached out, hunting anxiously. But the walls and the stench and the dark all mocked him. And behind his closed eyelids loomed the dream’s image of a valley filled with charred remnants and a faceless rider. Coming. Coming.

  He sighed his defeat and opened his eyes. “How long do I have?”

  “The capital is six days’ hard ride. Though my mates are taking bets on whether the sheriff’s son can be forced to wait that long before starting on questions of his own.” His battle-hardened features carried a hint of sympathy. “I’d find what peace I could if I were you. While you still have time.”

  37

  Hyam must have drifted off again, for when he opened his eyes, there was a different guard on duty outside his barred door. He started to speak, but his mouth was gummed and his jaw ached from the brute’s casual cuffs. His chest had tightened to where each breath was a grunt against the pain.

  Hyam noticed none of this.

  In the far distance he sensed a faint glimmer of power. It was so unexpected and so out of place he had difficulty believing it was real. He wondered if he was still dreaming. But the force gained strength until he was almost ready, when he heard a familiar voice say, “I hope you have the lout chained up.”

  “We do, my lord.” The squire’s voice boomed cheerfully from the curved stairwell. “We do indeed.”

  “Is he in pain?” Trace’s voice sounded older than Hyam recalled, as though the mage had aged decades since Hyam’s capture. Which made two of them. “Does he bleed? Does he moan with agony?”

  “Soon, my lord. Very soon.” The sheriff’s son did not quite hide his laughter. “Watch your step here.”