by J. V. Jones
He had many things for which to thank the head of the order. Tyren had been good to him. He was the one who had made it possible for him to join the order. He, a common boy from the marshlands, with no rich family to sponsor his training. Tyren had helped him through the worst time of his life. When everything seemed meaningless, and the burden of guilt was too new to be bearable, Tyren had sent him to Bevlin and given him reason to carry on.
The skitter of soft feet brought Tawl back to the present. He was being followed. Surreptitiously, he felt for his knife. His fingers closed around the cool blade, and its deadly smoothness was a reassurance. He was much stronger than he had been a week ago, and he was ready for an attack if one should come.
Tawl walked calmly on, careful not to speed his step and thereby give away the fact that he knew he was being followed. His ears strained to hear the soft patter of feet; his shadow must have shoes of cloth. Tawl managed a grim smile. He wouldn’t enjoy walking these streets with only a thin stretch of fabric between him and the filth.
He was forced to slow down. He was not entirely sure if he was following Megan’s instructions correctly. She’d directed him to what he thought was this alleyway, but she had told him it would branch off to the left. There was no such opening: the alleyway ran straight up without any turnings. He felt his skin prickle. There was a breath of air, a flash of blade, and the man was upon him.
He swung to meet his foe, drawing the long-knife with one graceful stroke. The man had a curved sword. Tawl had seen such blades before and knew that when handled well they were deadly. The man slashed at him, forcing him to move back. He slashed again, a wild and reckless attack. Tawl jumped out of the way of the blade. As his foe prepared for another onslaught, Tawl took the opportunity to strike with the long-knife. He caught the man’s arm and blood welled quickly to the surface. Distracted for a fatal instant by the sight of his own blood, the man looked up to see Tawl knife him in the chest.
It was a clean strike. Tawl had no liking for those who sought to prolong a fight with cruel and intentionally torturous blows. The man fell to the ground, blood rushing from his wound. His curved blade fell by his side, clattering harshly upon the dull stone.
Tawl was feeling a little shaky. It had been a long time since he had last drawn a blade. He took no delight in his win, it was merely something that had to be done.
He considered the curved blade. It was sorely blunted: not the weapon of a man who was serious about murder. He had probably been a thief . . . and a desperate one at that. Tawl picked up the sword, noting with surprise its goodly weight. It would look better once polished and sharpened; maybe he would be able to sell it and gain some money for his passage. He tucked the sword in his belt, ensuring that it could not be seen by casual eyes.
Now he had to find the right alleyway. He decided to continue down the one he was in. He walked for a while, and found to his annoyance that it came to a dead end. He turned, resigned to walking the length of the treacherous street once more. As he wheeled around he felt a powerful blow to his head. He attempted to draw his long-knife, but another crippling blow to his skull made the world go black.
Jack was slowly recovering from his bout of wet fever. He could now walk around the den without feeling dizzy and light-headed.
His recovery was definitely aided by Falk’s various arrays of medicines and ointments. Jack, however, lay most of the credit to the delicious food that Falk served up. Every day there was a savory stew, or a roasted rabbit, or turnips baked in rich meat juices. Jack had spent his whole life in the castle kitchens, but had never been allowed to eat food this tasty. The diet for a baker’s boy was usually thin gruel and all the bread he could eat.
Jack felt almost guilty in the delight he took from eating. It didn’t seem right. He was leagues away from home, supposedly on a grand adventure to find a new life, or the truth behind his mother’s origins, or whatever seemed the best idea of the day, yet here he was comfortably settled in the warmth of the den eagerly awaiting his next meal.
Each day Falk would bring the makings of a fine meal into the den. He would carefully prepare the ingredients, chopping onions and slicing carrots, skinning rabbits and grinding spices. Jack could see Falk enjoyed his work and admired how content he was doing such ordinary tasks. There had been times at Castle Harvell when he too felt a similar joy, but as he grew older, dreams and dissatisfactions had conspired to take it away.
Jack did not like to be idle and had asked Falk if he could help. “No,” Falk replied. “It is a blessing to me to handle the bounties of nature. I love to cook. I take only what I need, and I waste not a thing. The bones from a roast will be next day’s soup, the scrape from the apple will be set to dry.” Jack hadn’t known how to reply to this and so had offered to bake bread for Falk.
“Boy, you are weak yet. Baking bread must wait. Besides, I have only a make-shift stove.”
“I could make griddle cakes,” said Jack, hoping that Falk would agree, for he did miss bread in his diet.
“Very well, Jack. I see you have a need to repay me. It would be ungracious of me if I did not let you do so.” Falk had a way of saying things that left Jack at a loss for words.
So, this day Falk had returned with the flour and eggs that Jack had asked for and the boy set about making the batter for griddle cakes. As Jack mixed the ingredients, he felt that his old life as a baker’s boy was far behind him. There would be times, like this, when he would bake bread, but there was no going back to the past. He could probably find a town far away in the east where he could take up a position as a baker’s apprentice, only he wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted anymore.
He knew he would have to move on soon, and although he had enjoyed his time with Falk, he needed to be on his own. He was worried about the future: Baralis was after him, he had no money in his pocket and nowhere to go. The time was fast approaching when decisions would need to be made—he could choose to forget about the incident with the loaves and live quietly as a baker, or he could change the course of his life and make himself anew.
As he thought, Jack made the batter, adding a combination of beer and water to thin the mix. He stirred it, seasoning the mixture with a touch of salt. He would let it sit for just long enough to enable the flour to soak up the water—if it were left too long, the yeast in the beer might cause the mix to rise. Master Frallit would beat a boy whose griddle cakes were anything less than flat.
Falk had just returned from one of his mysterious forays. Jack would have liked to ask what the man did on these outings, but could not find the right words to do so.
“So, you are indeed a baker,” commented Falk, nodding toward the batter.
“I was never made a baker. I was a baker’s apprentice.”
“Words! Titles! If you can bake, surely you are a baker.” Once again, Jack could think of nothing to say.
He checked the hot iron platter on the fire and greased it with a little pork fat. The grease smoked: the temperature was just right. He gave the mixture one final stir and then poured it in separate rounds onto the hot surface. The iron platter hissed and smoked but soon settled down, and minutes later the delicious aroma of griddle cakes filled the den. He had no wooden spatula to flip the cakes over with and had borrowed an old knife of Falk’s to do the job.
Falk watched Jack with a certain skepticism at first, but then seemed genuinely interested in what he was doing. “Well, Jack, I am impressed,” he said as Jack loaded a plate with the hot and fragrant griddle cakes.
After they had eaten their fill and were relaxing close to the warm stove, Falk made a simple request: “Tell me who you are.”
The fire dimmed and the wind calmed, as if waiting for his reply. Time drifted away from him, and if asked later, Jack would never know how much had passed before he spoke.
“I don’t know who I am. Only days ago I thought I knew, but now everything has changed.” Jack waited a moment to see if Falk would speak. He didn’t, and it was his silence
that gave Jack the courage to carry on. He could trust this man.
“Over a week ago now, something happened to me—something evil. I burnt some loaves, then I felt a terrible pain in my head. When I looked again, they were barely browning.” As he spoke, Jack felt relief. It was good to speak it out loud; it lost power by being shared.
“That’s why you left the castle?”
“Yes.” Jack was glad that Falk didn’t seem shocked. “I couldn’t risk anyone finding out what I’d done. They might have stoned me.”
“People in the Known Lands are fools. Anything they don’t understand they seek to destroy!” Falk shook his head in anger. “They call themselves civilized, but they have no idea about the way things are.
“Sorcery, for that is what it is—I’ll make no bones about it—isn’t a gift from the devil. Sorcery is neither good nor bad—it is the person who draws upon it who controls its nature.”
“But everyone at the castle says it’s evil, and only wicked people use it,” said Jack.
“They are right and they are wrong. It is mostly drawn by people who are wicked, or rather greedy. But it wasn’t always that way. At one time, many centuries ago, sorcery was common in the Known Lands. It came out of its making and was as ancient as the land itself. Gradually people in power came to resent the random spreading of sorcerous gifts—a common laborer was just as likely to be favored as a great lord. People in high places could not tolerate such a dangerously indiscriminate scattering of power. They acted swiftly, eradicating all who could practice. ’Tis easier to rule by sword than sorcery.
“Only a few practitioners survived the Great Purge. Today the art endures more by rumor than practice. Its time has nearly passed; this world is too modern for it to continue. Like most things old, its worth has long been forgotten.
“There are still a few places where it thrives. Places cut off from the changes of time, places where the land itself is as magical as the people who stand upon it. But they are ever decreasing, and fewer and fewer people can draw upon its source.”
Jack’s mind was in a turmoil. Could what Falk had said be true? All his life he’d been taught that sorcery was devilment, and now this man had turned everything around. “So I’m not evil?”
“There is dark and light in every man, as there is in every day.” Falk shrugged. “I doubt whether you are evil. Though there is much you are not telling me.” He looked Jack squarely in the face. “You never really told me who you are. What about your family? Where were they from?”
Anger flared within Jack. It was the same as ever, people asking casual questions, never realizing how hard it was for him to answer. “I’m a bastard! Satisfied? My mother was a whore and she didn’t keep count of her customers!” He stood up and threw his cup in the fire.
“Where is your mother now?”
Was there no end to the man’s probing? Jack watched as the wooden cup succumbed to the blaze. His anger left him as quickly as it came. He turned to face Falk as he said, “She died eight years ago. She had a growth in her breast and it ate away at her.”
“How did you manage with her gone?” Falk’s eyes were impossibly blue. There was such compassion in them that Jack felt free to say things he’d never admitted before.
“It was easy. In some ways, it was even a blessing. After her death the taunting stopped for a while, and I could pretend I was normal.”
For the second time Jack expected condemnation for his words and received understanding instead. “It’s not a sin to be ashamed of your parents. What is wrong, though, is to accept the words of others without questioning. Just because people called her a whore doesn’t mean that she was.”
Jack turned to face Falk. “But why—”
“Why do people belittle others? It’s the same as with sorcery. If they didn’t understand, if she was different in any way, they would hate her for it.”
“She was different!” Jack felt an excitement growing in his breast. Falk had not only freed his thoughts, he was altering the very nature of them. “She was a foreigner. She came to the kingdoms when she was fully grown.”
“Where was she from?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. She never said. I think she might have been afraid of someone or something in her past.”
“Aah.” Falk stroked his beard and thought for a while. Then he said, “Perhaps she was afraid for you more than herself. If she was just concerned with her own safety, then what would be the harm in taking you into her confidence? It seems to me that she might have kept her past a secret to protect you.”
What was it about this man that he could so casually challenge beliefs Jack had held true for years? He cast his mind back to his childhood, to the mornings on the battlements. He remembered her words, “Keep your head low, Jack, you might be spotted.” Spotted by whom? Jack’s head was reeling with new ideas. Up until now, until this conversation with Falk, he felt as if he’d been looking at the world through a brewer’s filter. Things had suddenly been thrown into sharp focus.
“As for being illegitimate, Jack, some of the most powerful men in the Known Lands had similar starts in life. Why, the archbishop of Rorn himself had no father to call his own—yet no one knows it.” Falk stood up and put his arm on Jack’s shoulder. “A word of advice. Don’t hate the man who fathered you.”
Jack moved away. “What makes you think I do?”
“I have experience with such feelings—I too was called a bastard. I made the mistake of letting it ruin my life. I managed well until I passed my twenty-third year. I had a wife and three children and land of my own. One night I overheard two people talking in a tavern. One man mentioned my name and said I was doing well. The other just sniggered and said, ‘Once a bastard, always a bastard.’ I went for the man’s throat; it took four men to pull me off. He nearly died. I was sentenced to work a year in the slate quarries. Instead of spending the time wishing I was with my family, I festered in a pool of hate. I hated my father for making me an object of contempt. I blamed him for everything.
“Unlike you, I knew who he was. When my year was up, I tracked him down. It took many years before I finally found him. I was full of anger and ready for battle. He was an old man, stiff with rheumatism and pathetic to behold.
“I held my fist to his face and he begged for mercy. I am thankful to this day that I gave it.
“We sat and talked and supped a while. He told me that the reason he never married my mother was because she came from a good family and would be better off not wed, for he had no money to look after a mother and child. I don’t know if I believed him—it doesn’t really matter. The point is, he was just a man—not evil, not cunning, not deserving of punishment.
“I left him and returned home. My wife and family had moved away and left messages for me not to follow. The rest of my tale is too long to tell. I’ve seen much of life and men, traveled to scores of cities, talked with countless people and been known by many names. I ended up here, alone. What I say to you, Jack, is don’t make the same mistake as me. Don’t spend your time inventing fantasies of revenge. They will only destroy you in the end.” Falk put down his cup and made his way out of the den, leaving Jack alone to contemplate his words.
Baralis had decided to make his move on the girl, and to this end he had called his mercenaries to him. Once again they were meeting outside the castle gates. A vague uneasiness of late had caused him to take Crope with him on any of his expeditions. Baralis found a certain reassurance in the huge bulk of his servant. There was one unexpected bonus to this arrangement—the mercenaries looked decidedly intimidated by Crope’s presence.
“I want you to pick up the girl. I know her position. She is southeast of Harvell, four days hard ride.” Baralis’ gaze challenged anyone to doubt his knowledge.
“What about the boy?” asked the leader. Baralis had no intention of letting them know he had no idea where the boy was. He didn’t like anyone to think he might not be infallible.
“I will
personally see to the boy myself. He is not traveling with the girl anymore.” Baralis watched with amusement as he saw that his mercenaries were wary of how he knew so much. One final twist of the knife, “When you pick up the girl this time, I strictly forbid you to lay one finger on her. I will not have her raped by mercenaries like a common tavern wench.” Baralis saw the faces of the men register many emotions: amazement, guilt, hatred, and fear. He was not displeased. “Go now, and do not fail me again.”
The men mounted and rode away. Baralis was wondering if he had left it too late. The girl would soon emerge from the forest and begin to encounter towns and villages. Still, he thought, as long as she is away from court there will be no betrothal. Once the girl was caught and in his haven, he could turn his full attention to finding Jack. The dove was weakening and would soon die. The baker’s boy could be leagues away by now; a second bird might be unable to locate him. Baralis was not unduly concerned—a dove was not the only way to search the forest.
“Come, Crope. Let us get out of this bleak wind. There is much for me to do.”
“Will there be anything for me to do, master?” asked Crope, his hand inside his tunic, doubtless holding his precious box. Baralis wondered what was in it—probably his dead mother’s teeth.
“If there is not, I will find you something.” The huge man smiled, and Baralis added, “Something tailored to your unique skills.”