by Bill McCurry
Baldir halted the column in the castle yard beside a large and finely crafted wooden building. It turned out to be the First Barracks. Stan led us inside, almost giggling. “Shh! Listen for it. That whale-assed Baldir is going to get his narblies torn off and fed to the pigs.”
Twenty seconds later, the screaming started.
An orderly debriefing had been underway, until Ella ran to an older man, grabbed his sleeve, and started shouting at Baldir, who screamed right back at her, but with a lot more bad words. The older man looked powerful for his age, with an aggressively bristly moustache, and he was trying to get one or the other of them to shut up. I watched from the side until Pres stepped in the middle of all this. The shouting faded and died.
I bowed. “I’ll be the first one to show you reverence, Your Highness. Remember that it was me when it’s time to start throwing people in the dungeon.”
That started a few minutes of bowing, apologizing, accusing, explaining, and pleading. In the middle of all this, Stan scurried around returning our weapons and cackling like a nasty-smelling witch. Ella waved at me and pointed at the older fellow, who was hurrying away. “Follow Sir Linkan!”
I followed the man, while she and Pres followed me. We jogged out of the barracks, into the keep, and upstairs to a fancy sitting room. Linkan bowed to Pres and hugged Ella before leaving us in the hallway.
“Is this Linkan your father?” I asked Ella. She laughed at me over her shoulder as she walked into the room.
Linkan had brought us to the queen, a small, pale, stoop-shouldered woman in a blue dress that cost enough to feed Crossoak for six months. She embraced Pres, who said, “Bib, this is my mother, Queen Dall. Mother, this is Bib, the man who rescued me.”
The queen glanced down at my left claw for a moment, and then she crinkled her eyes at me but didn’t quite smile. “You have done us such a service, sir. I wish I could better reward you. For now, some refreshment.” She pointed at a side table, and I missed the next minute of the conversation while I drank three glasses of wine.
When I caught up, Ella was saying, “Who remains loyal?”
The queen said, “Difficult to say. The other cousins support Duke Lundt on promise of titles and rewards. He has announced that Prestwick has been killed, so everyone is uncertain about the state of affairs.”
I said, “Pres, who’s the biggest pain in your ass? Let’s just kill them.”
The queen’s face thought about smiling. “It’s a little more complicated than that, sir… Bib?”
Pres said, “Yes, Bib saved my life.”
“You have my deep gratitude. But it is more complicated. Prestwick, we must find a place for you outside the city. You’re in danger here.”
Ella said, “Flax Manor—”
The door swung open and a hard-faced young man entered, followed by more guards than I thought would be possible to pack into that room. The young man bowed. “Your Majesty. Your Highness. Governess, and… guest. His Grace invites you to join him in the Music Room.”
I think the queen grew paler. It was hard to tell since she was already the color of an onion. No one tried to disarm us. Maybe it would be seen as insulting the prince or something like that. Or, maybe they thought outnumbering us four-to-one would keep them safe. In any case, they took us, and we went.
The Music Room didn’t have so much as a tin flute in it. A pale, intelligent-looking young man in regular working clothes stood behind a spotless table. Four chairs had been shoved aside, and small couches and tables were arranged around the walls. A beautiful, multicolor tapestry of a coronation hung on the far wall. It included a representation of the twelve gods looking down and blessing the new king.
“Pres, is that your ancestor?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, it was.”
I glanced at the young man by the table. “Is that his ancestor too?”
Pres nodded again.
“He looks like an asshole. At least I know you can take a joke.”
By the time everyone who was going to enter the room had entered, we had His Grace and his two guards, Pres, Ella, the queen, sixteen more guards, and me. The room had only one door and no windows.
Lundt said, “Cousin Prestwick, I’m overjoyed that you’re alive. Welcome home.”
Pres said, “Thank you. How did my father die? I’ve heard rumors.”
“A terrible accident with his horse. It was so sad. My condolences.”
“Thank you again, and thank you for helping the queen keep things running. Now that I’ve returned, I’d like to schedule the coronation.”
“Considering your grief… and your youth… perhaps that discussion should wait.”
Pres crossed his arms. “I won’t be getting any sadder, or any younger. It’s time I was crowned.”
“You certainly are your father’s son.” Lundt smiled and leaned toward Pres, hands on the table. “Yet I would feel irresponsible if I handed the throne to someone not yet prepared for the burden.”
Pres said, “I certainly am—”
The queen interrupted her son. “His Highness is prepared—”
Pres held up his hand. “Mother, stop. I certainly am my father’s son. To whom the throne should be handed is not your decision, because the throne does not belong to you. Murdering my father does not convey rightful ownership of the throne.”
Lundt clenched his teeth. No one said anything or moved. Then I saw Lundt touch his thumb to his sword’s hilt as he showed his teeth.
I said, “Hey, Your Grace, did you know your tapestry is wrong?”
Lundt squinted at me. “What?”
“It’s wrong. It only has twelve gods. Not everybody knows this, but there are thirteen gods.”
Lundt looked at the queen. “Who is this man?”
“My name’s Bib. Nobody prays to the thirteenth god, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And we’ll all agree that if you can’t name her, then it’s hard to pray to her. But I’ll tell you a secret.” I leaned in toward him. “I actually know what her name is.”
I ran toward them. Part of their minds didn’t quite believe I was coming, and that part paralyzed them. I drew my sword in the first two steps, lunged toward His Grace as he stood across the table from me, and opened his throat with a neat little slice. I slashed the right-hand guard across the skull and face. He’d live but might lose his eye. The left-hand guard stopped short and backed away from me toward the wall.
“Does anybody want to fight for this dead man?” I asked, facing the rest of the guards while Lundt’s blood dripped down the side of the table. “No? Not when you have the true King of Glass right here, eh?”
Nobody had any fight left in them. I bowed to Pres, and everybody else did too. I gave the queen an extra little bow and smiled my most woman-stealing smile at her. “See, Your Majesty? You just kill them.”
I stayed at Glass for two weeks before I’d begun annoying everybody around me. Pres was the exception, and I attribute that to youth and inexperience. He tried hard to get me to stay, offering me various positions and rewards. He offered me an earldom, a barony, or a knighthood. When I didn’t bite, he tried to hire me as captain of the guard, weapons master, or enforcer of the king’s justice. He followed up with tavern owner, brothel owner, beer inspector, or just walk around, do what I want, and let him clean up the mess. I turned it all down. I had places to take the stupid god-named sword, and I was counting on the fact that sometimes people like me better when I’ve been away for a while.
The queen didn’t offer me any incentives to stay. She wasn’t rude, but she acted as if I had dog shit on my boot, and it would be a relief when I took it outside.
I said to Ella, “Damn! How could you show such devotion to that dried-up horse apple of a woman?” My going-away feast had ended two hours ago, and just a few hardy fools were still talking.
Ella smiled but at the floor instead of me. “She gave me her only child to love and protect.”
“Krak’s teeth, I guess if she gave me something
to love and protect, I’d feel differently.”
“Where will you go tomorrow?” She didn’t sound too interested.
“North, to Grollen. They’re rumored to have bandit problems. What will you do once Pres is crowned?” I couldn’t help sounding as interested as hell.
“He won’t require a governess any longer. Perhaps I will tutor.” Ella stuck a big knife into the oak table. I barely saw her draw the thing. “Or not. I’m undecided.”
I laughed as I pulled the knife free and handed it to her. “Ask Pres for a tavern, or a brothel. I’m not using mine.”
“Ah? Brothel. Definitely a brothel.” She started to smile but caught herself. “Some circumstances find men at their most childish. I am strikingly qualified.”
“Keep it running until I get back. If you’re not turning a profit by then, I’ll save you. I’ll be your star customer.”
“You intend to return?”
“Of course! You can’t fall in love with me from a distance if I’m right here in front of you.”
“That’s a foolish hope.”
“But not impossible. Although that’s not a barrier. I’ve seen shit happen that was not in any way possible.”
“You’re right, the hope is not impossible. But exceedingly foolish.”
“If I wasn’t being foolish, you wouldn’t recognize me.”
We embraced, and I wandered away to my chamber. The next morning, I rode north.
Grollen’s bandit problem surprised me. Half the country’s barons were the bandits. They had run the regular, honest bandits off into the countryside. Then they stole everything that their appalling reptile of a king had stolen from them. The only people who really got hurt were the ones not stealing anything from anybody.
It made me want to unleash lightning and call plagues on everybody rich enough to wear clothes without holes in them. I even tried to bargain with Harik for some power, but he and all the other gods ignored me. I ended up killing the seven worst barons and their loyal advisors, and then I had a sword-point conversation with the king from the foot of his bed at midnight.
I don’t think any of it helped a bit.
I rode back into the City of Glass two months after I left. I went a little crazy and looked around for any new whorehouses Ella might have opened, but of course there weren’t any. King Prestwick received me right away.
“Sorry I missed the coronation, Your Majesty.”
I’d been away only two months, but Pres looked taller to me. He also ordered his people around with such determination that I figured someday he’d be a bastard to work for. Not yet, though. He sat me in a cushioned chair and poured wine. “It’s good to see you. Will you stay?”
“Maybe. Where’s Ella?” I ignored the wine.
Pres chewed his lip.
“Damn it to dog shit, you’re a king and you can’t even tell me? Is she alive?”
“She left.”
“Left where?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything. She was just gone.”
I spent the night at the castle, but I turned down Pres’s offers of feasts and banquets. The next day, I rode out of the city before dawn, still thinking about whether to search for her. If you declare love for somebody, and then they run away without warning, I suppose that’s about the worst response you can get, short of bloodshed. The gods know I am not above doing stupid things, but at some point, stupid just becomes cruel.
I turned east toward the frontier. I hadn’t journeyed that way in years, and I didn’t think there was a single person out there that I liked. I should have some fine opportunities to kill people.
Thirty-Five
Sometimes I daydream about finding a relaxed and comfortable situation in which people need to be killed. I’d appreciate living at a well-stocked inn, if a bunch of traitors and kidnappers would line up in the street every day no earlier than noon, so I could execute them. I wouldn’t mind if they fought back or tried to escape. Hell, they might even kill me, but at least I wouldn’t be dirty, soaked, tired, or freezing like I was today.
The far south frontier is a dark, barren, sharp land on the sweetest day of spring. Today was late autumn, and it was wet, blustery, and shatteringly cold. I was riding to the port of Deephold for no damn good reason. I didn’t know anybody there, and I had nothing in particular to accomplish. I was just looking for people to kill. I told myself I was looking for the right kind of people to kill, the ones who really deserved it. But once in a while, when I was really drunk and harsh, I admitted I had grown less particular lately.
It was just a fact, and I wasn’t whining about it. Nobody grabbed my hand and made me murder people.
When I had met Ella at Crossoak, I told her I liked to kill people. She told me to come with her, and we’d see whether there was anything to be done about it. We had done something about it, I remembered that for sure. I had since become a little unclear on what that was.
Today, Deephold lay two days of hard riding ahead on a clear road, and my horse had been killed five minutes ago. Some Hill Man I didn’t see had thrown a javelin through her neck. That left me squatting behind the best cover I could find, a rock as stubby and frigid as Lutigan’s heart.
I had gotten distracted by some unexplained smoke from just over the rise, and I left the road to investigate. I found two wagons and a few broken barrels on fire, along with four mules, three dead traders, and three Hill Men congratulating each other on how happy their wives were going to be with all the goods they’d just taken.
I had no argument with these men. Since I didn’t speak their language, and they were the most dangerous fighters in the world, I wheeled my mare and rode like hell for seven or eight seconds until from somewhere a fourth one of the bastards killed my mare.
Charging them would just get me poked full of javelins, so I waited. If I were four Hill Men and had trapped a cowardly foreigner behind a rock, I’d feel fairly comfortable about just walking up and stabbing him to death. Before a minute had passed, I heard a boot scrape on the other side of my hiding spot.
I jumped out and startled one of them, stabbed him in the chest, and jumped the other way as a javelin whipped past me. Two more were running at me. They looked imposing in all their furs, but they were half a head shorter than me. They came at me from two sides, and I tried to dodge out from between them while blocking, cursing, and wondering where the last one was. At last, I slipped past one, hamstrung him, and flung him at his friend. The friend jumped out of the way, but I sliced his throat while he was still off-balance, and then I killed the hamstrung one from behind.
The fourth man appeared behind me, ready to ram his javelin all the way through me. Something odd warned me, maybe the sound of his breathing, or the faintest of shadows on that gray day. I twisted so that the blade scraped my ribs instead of my liver. My foot slipped on a wet rock and I fell sideways. Then I heard a loud pop, and the Hill Man flopped over limp as laundry.
A man waved at me from forty paces away. “Are you still alive?”
“Desh?”
“I’ve been following you for weeks. If you’re about to die, then this has been a disappointing trip.” The young man walked up to me, leading his horse. He opened his cloak and groaned as he wrapped his sling around his waist. “Why didn’t you go some place warm?”
“I didn’t invite you along, so you did this to yourself. You look well, though. I don’t have much to offer you. We could cook my horse.”
He shook his head. “I need your help.”
“Well, that seems abrupt, but I can’t deny that I owe you. How’s Limnad by the way?”
“Mystifying. I may require years to become an expert on spirits. I may never get there.”
“I need to bind up my ribs, and those wagons are making a nice fire. Let’s go over there.” I disrobed just enough to get at my wound. “Who do you need killed?”
“No one. I don’t need that kind of help.”
“If you need advice on love, you came to a d
ry well. Sorcery troubles?”
“I need help paying a debt. A debt to Pres.” He opened a satchel and brought out an intricate false hand crafted of pale wood and bronze.
“That’s beautiful work. Assuming that it actually does something.”
“It does. Just tell Pres that it’s from me.”
“Hell, his land is thirty days back the way you came! Why do you want me to do it?”
“There are two reasons. First, I have business that takes me north, not west toward Glass. Second, he knows you better than he knows me. Trust and confidence make these sorts of things work best.”
I nodded. “All right, I said I’d help. I look forward to when you owe me a favor. There are a couple of toy boats I lost when I was a boy in Ir. I’d sure like to get those back.”
“I’ll watch for them in my travels.” He pulled out a rough leather bottle, smaller than my palm. The stopper was sealed with thick wax. “Open this before you show Pres the hand.”
“Could you ask me to do something a little less suspicious, like throw a snake down his shirt?”
“You don’t need to make him drink out of it. Just open it. It will release enough power for you to properly fit the hand.”
I took the bottle and examined it. “This seems awfully useful. Like stashing away a few extra arrows for an emergency. I’ve never seen anything like it. How does it work?”
“It’s magic.” Desh smiled. “Don’t look at me that way. I don’t ask you to explain how you make insects do tricks.”
“I’d like to make one of these mules unsaddle my horse and strap the saddle onto himself, but I guess we’ll have to do it the regular way.”
An hour later, Desh said goodbye and rode off north. My new mule and I pushed on to Deephold, where I boarded a ship and sailed west. A week later, I bought a new horse in Garhalt, and three weeks after that, I rode up through the city of Glass on a dim morning in knee-deep snow.
Pres received me without any waiting around. He threw out his current company, two fancy-dressed buckets of bacon fat asking for some kind of favors, and he looked happy to do it. We wandered off to his library to chat.