by J. V. Jones
That meant four had stopped for him. Jack hiccuped loudly. He could deal with four alone if it came to it.
“You stupid, drunken fool!” said one of the men, pushing his spear into Jack’s thigh. “What d’you think you’re doing stopping Kylock’s guard in full chase?”
“Sorry, mate,” mumbled Jack, “I thought you were a press gang, what with the war and all.” He didn’t bother disguising his accent. The city was crawling with troops from the kingdoms making ready for the war.
The two men who had dashed ahead came running back. They were both out of breath. “He got away, Captain,” said one of them. “One of the sluice gates was open and he jumped right into it.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?” barked the captain.
“Once he was in, he fixed the gate so that me and Harold couldn’t open it. If you’d been there with your spear, we could have pried it open.”
The captain stabbed at Jack’s thigh with the spear. “This drunken bastard kept me from him.” He hissed a mouthful of foul curses, kicking Jack in the abdomen with each one.
Jack tasted blood in his mouth: he must have bitten his tongue when he landed. He endured the kicks passively, groaning a little for effect. Now that the golden-haired man had escaped, he had his own neck to save.
“Kylock and Baralis ain’t gonna be pleased about this,” said another man. “We had Catherine’s murderer right in our grasp . . . ” He shook his head.
“Now listen, you lot,” said the captain, “ain’t no one here gonna mention that we got stopped by an ale-crazy fool, d’you hear? I’m not having anyone thinking we’re a gang of bungling amateurs. If anyone asks, tell ’em the champion had accomplices on the wall who shot at us.” The captain surveyed each of his men in turn. “Is that clear?”
“Aye,” said the rest of the men in unison.
“What do we do about this one here, then, Captain?” said the one who had his blade to Jack’s spine.
“Let him go, Civral. He won’t be telling any tales.” He kicked Jack one more time. “Will you?”
Jack twisted his neck around and said, “No, sir. No tales from me.” He smiled, adding, “Got any beer on you?” Bracing himself for another kick, Jack was surprised when the captain began to move away.
“Come on, lads,” he said. “We gotta get back to the palace and tell ’em to call off the search.” He turned to the man named Civral. “You go to the gate and tell old Greengill to search the area just south of the wall.”
Realizing that he was being let off, Jack rolled around in the dirt for good measure. The captain watched him with distaste. “Dirty beggar,” he said as he walked away.
Jack waited until the men had rounded the corner before picking himself off the ground. He was filthy: horse dung, slops, and mud clung to his cloak and britches. His thigh was bleeding, but nothing that a few minutes worth of pressure wouldn’t stop. Brushing himself down, he decided to head toward the wall. For some reason he wanted to see the place where the man had escaped. He found the sluice gate straightaway. It had been jammed up against the stone and was impossible to move. Jack ran his fingers over the metal grille. He knew it had been madness to help the golden-haired stranger, but somehow it just felt right.
After a few minutes he settled down against the grille, making a bed of it for the night. Sleep came quickly and his dreams, when they came, were all of the man he had helped escape.
Seven
Melli knew it would be better just to lie in bed a little longer and wait for the nausea to pass. She knew that was the right thing to do, but she didn’t do it anyway. Instead she swung her feet onto the floor and sat herself up. The all too familiar churning in her stomach sent her fumbling wildly for her bowl. As always she found it just in time—even when there was no Tawl to find it for her.
Melli’s whole body heaved and she vomited into the bowl.
“You all right in there, miss?” It was Nabber, shouting through the door. The boy had ears like a bat.
Melli spat to clean her mouth: for some time now she had given up trying to be ladylike about the whole affair. All sorts of unpleasant things were happening to her body, and surrounded by a household full of men, there was no one who could tell her how to deal with them or what to expect next. So she had come to treat her pregnancy with a sort of suspicious stoicism: she was constantly on the lookout for new symptoms, and when she found them, no matter how distressing they were, she would grit her teeth and deal with them like a man. She absolutely refused to have a fainting fit over a rash on her neck or a bout of constipation. Maybor’s daughter was made of hardier stuff.
“Should I call for Grift?” came Nabber again.
Grift was as near to an old wife as a man was likely to get. He had a remedy for everything from toothache to lost limbs. Melli adamantly refused to take his advice about morning sickness. There was no way she was going to eat three unripe apricots every night. “No, Nabber,” Melli said, walking to the door. “Don’t call Grift.” She opened the door. “I want to talk to you, instead.”
Nabber spit on his palm and slicked back his hair. “Me, miss?”
“Yes. Come inside.” Melli returned to the bed, pausing to kick the bowl under the frame.
Nabber followed her in. He made a great show of brushing himself down and pulling his britches up. “It’s an honor to be invited in, miss,” he said. He looked around speculatively, and Melli guessed he was appraising the worth of the waterclock and the various other contents of the room. “Right nice set-up you have here, miss.”
Melli smiled. “Thank you, but none of it’s mine. It’s all Lord Cravin’s.”
“Aye, he’s just the sort for secret stashing.”
“It’s just as well for me that he is, or I would have nowhere to hide.”
“I’d find a place for us, miss. You just say the word.” Nabber looked at her with all the confidence of youth.
“I believe you would, Nabber.” She indicated a chair and bade him sit. “I want you to call me Melli from now on.”
“Say no more, Melli,” he replied, regarding the chair warily. “Though I’d prefer to stand if you don’t mind. Good friend of mine, name o’ Swift, always maintained that a man heard nothing good sitting down.”
Melli was surprised to hear herself laugh. After yesterday, when she had learnt that Tawl had left her, she thought that everything was coming to an end. But there were no ends, just heavily veiled beginnings. The duke’s death had been a beginning, and so was Tawl’s departure. Life always continued, and laughter was never far behind.
Leaning forward, she said, “Nabber, I want you to tell me all you know about Tawl. Who his family were, why he left the knighthood, what he was doing when you met him. I need to know.”
“He will come back, you know, Melli. He promised me he would.” Nabber’s face was a picture of conviction. He believed very deeply in his friend.
Melli felt a sudden pressure in her throat. Ever since the pregnancy she had known such terrible mood swings: one minute laughing, then crying like a baby the next. Now she wanted to cry; the boy’s faith in Tawl made her sad. “Just tell me what you know.”
Nabber pulled a handkerchief from his ever-present sack and handed it to Melli. “Right. Where d’you want me to start?”
Melli was surprised and then touched by Nabber’s attention. She thought she had concealed her sadness well. “Tell me about when you met him.”
Nabber took an actor’s breath. “Well, that was in Rorn. Beautiful day it was, a good many months back now. Tawl had just returned from the cursed isle of Larn, and he was looking to deliver some letters. I volunteered to help him find the addresses. Even then it was obvious he needed me, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“What was in the letters?”
“Nabber shrugged. “I can’t say. What I can tell you is that he went to Larn to talk with the seers about a boy. He was on a quest, you see, to find this boy, and he’d come up blank. Well, Larn put him straight, an
d me and him were traveling to find this boy, when—” Nabber’s narrative came to a dead halt.
“When what?”
Nabber was silent for a minute, thinking. “When the man who sent Tawl on his quest got killed.”
Melli detected something strained about the boy’s voice. “Killed?”
Nabber dashed ahead. “Aye. It sort of set Tawl going, you know. If he did find the boy now, he’d have no one to take him to, so he just lost all his will to carry on. And then we ended up here, in Bren—him fighting in the pits, me making sure he didn’t get beaten. Teamwork, you know.”
Melli nodded slowly. “Was giving up the quest hard for Tawl?”
“Harder than I can say. He lived for finding the boy. Sworn to it, he was. For a man of honor like him to give it all up . . . ” Nabber shook his head. “It’s a tragedy.”
“Is there any way we could persuade him to continue his quest?”
The effect this simple question had on Nabber was nothing short of amazing. He began to pace up and down the room, shaking his head and muttering. Once or twice, Melli heard the word “Swift” muttered under his breath. After half a minute, Nabber turned to face her. From his sack, he pulled out a sealed letter. It looked old and pocket-weary, stained yellow with time and sweat.
“This,” he said, holding the letter up, but not out toward her, “could have changed everything.”
“What is it?”
“Letter from a dead man.”
A breath of cold air passed over Melli’s body. She pulled the bedclothes about her. “The man who sent Tawl to look for the boy?”
“That’s the one. Bevlin he was called. Nice man, couldn’t cook, though. He sent this letter to the Old Man in Rorn, with instructions that he give it to Tawl if he died.”
“And why haven’t you given it to him, then?”
“Someone tried to, but Tawl wouldn’t take it. He just left it on the street for anyone to pick up. Me, I just came along and pocketed it. Holding it, I am, for Tawl.”
Melli knew that Tawl had left her because he wanted to make sure she was safe. She also knew exactly how hard that must have been for him. He did not take his oath lightly, but it was more than just an oath to him: he loved her. And Melli had known Tawl long enough to realize that he was not a man to give his love lightly. Indeed, Melli couldn’t imagine Tawl taking anything lightly. He was not that sort of man.
Melli never knew who looked up first: herself or Nabber. But somehow their eyes met, and Nabber’s dark and twinkling brown eyes held the exact same thought as her own.
“Without you, miss, Tawl has nothing to live for.” Nabber’s voice was soft. He dropped her name out of respect.
Melli stood up and crossed over to him. A ripple of nausea threatened, but she fought it with fists clenched. When it passed, she laid her hand on Nabber’s shoulder. She could feel his bones through the fabric of his tunic: he was very small and very young. It was easy to forget just how young he was. “You know Tawl very well, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And this letter,” she said brushing her fingertips against the parchment. “This letter only arrived after he’d sworn his oath to the duke.” It wasn’t really a question, for Melli knew the answer already. Once Nabber nodded, she continued. “And his oath to the duke prevented him from opening it?”
“I think that’s about the long and short of it, miss.”
Without realizing it, Melli had gradually shifted her weight so that she was leaning against Nabber for support. She pulled away, drawing herself up to her full height. “Nabber,” she said, her voice ringing clear and strong, “you must take it to him now. Find him wherever he is, and tell him—” Melli thought for a moment. “And tell him that I command him to read it.”
“But—”
“No, Nabber. I will hear nothing more. I know he asked you to look after me, but right now the one thing you can do to give me peace of mind is find Tawl and deliver the letter. It has been unopened too long.”
Nabber’s face was a study of barely concealed joy. Oh, he protested and objected, and tried very hard to make a case for staying, but at the end of the day all he wanted to do was go to Tawl. His heart was already there.
After a few minutes he allowed himself to be talked into it—Melli didn’t begrudge him the show. “Well, seeing as you’re insisting, miss,” he said. “I best be on my way.”
Melli smiled as he bowed and then dashed out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind him, she fell back on the bed. Tears welled fast and heavy, but she wiped them away, telling herself it was just another symptom of an overactive womb.
Jack couldn’t get the golden-haired stranger out of his mind. His dreams had been filled with him. Just before dawn, he’d dreamt that instead of helping the man escape, he had actually followed him under the wall and out of the city. When he woke, Jack found himself strangely disappointed. He was still in Bren, and the golden-haired stranger was long gone with the night.
It was midmorning now; a day in high summer, warm and breezy, with thin streaks of clouds whisking across the sky.
The city was full of soldiers. Ever since he’d arrived six days back, Jack had noticed that more and more troops were flooding into Bren. The taverns and the brothels were crawling with them: mercenaries, the duke’s guard, blackhelms recalled from the field, and even some of Kylock’s troops, wearing the blue and the gold of the Royal Guard. Jack made a point of keeping his distance from all of them. Soldiers waiting for action would pick a fight just for the sake of it.
Still, he didn’t want to stray too far from them—they, like him, had gravitated to the south of the city, and Jack most definitely wanted to stay where he was. Melli was somewhere on the south side: last night having proven what he’d already guessed.
The guards had referred to the golden-haired stranger as the duke’s murderer. Jack had heard the rumors about the man; he was said to have been the duke’s champion, a failed knight, Melli’s protector, and ultimately Melli’s lover. Which meant that last night he had abandoned her: the man had left the city alone. Jack couldn’t begin to guess what was truth and what was fiction, but he had seen the man’s face for himself, and although it was very easy to believe that the golden-haired stranger could take someone’s life, it was hard to believe he would do it without just cause. Jack had looked into his bright blue eyes and seen the nature of the man.
No. Even if the duke’s champion had run from Melli, Jack still didn’t regret helping him. Sometimes things went deeper than right or wrong; sometimes they were just meant to be.
Jack picked a busy street and headed for the largest density of people. There was a market up ahead, and it was as good a place as any to find food to eat and people to watch.
Walking through the crowds, Jack searched the faces of everyone who crossed his path. He didn’t really know what he was looking for. Some sort of clue, certainly, perhaps someone who was acting suspiciously, or someone he recognized. The golden-haired stranger had run down a street less than a quarter of a league away from here, and Jack had the distinct feeling that Melli would not be far away.
Jack spent the last of the morning milling around the market, helping a butcher with his carcasses in return for a roasted chicken, gossiping with two old women about the duke’s murder—he now knew the golden-haired stranger’s name: Tawl—and finding out about the area from a man who sat on the road carving toy boats from chunks of firewood.
Apparently, even though the area was notorious for crime and prostitution, only two streets down from the market was a small square where some high and mighty lords at court had discreet townhouses. “For keeping their easy wenches,” said the wood-carver with a wink.
With nothing better to do, Jack decided he would take a walk over to the square. The roast chicken lay heavy in his stomach and the scope of his search lay heavy on his mind. His steps dragged; he wasn’t expecting anything to come of the walk, it was merely something to pass the time.
&nb
sp; When he finally arrived at the square, he was disappointed to find that it looked like countless other squares he’d seen: dirty, strewn with filth, the buildings unremarkable and badly in need of repair. There was even the usual fountain gurgling unpleasantly in the middle, surrounded by several old flower-sellers who were busy watering their stock.
Jack was about to turn from the square when he decided that since he was here, he might as well take a drink of water. The chicken was a heavy load that needed lightening.
As he approached the fountain the flower-sellers scuttled away like beetles. Jack couldn’t help but smile—women being afraid of him was something he hadn’t quite gotten used to. He had always been tall, but only after his training with Rovas had the rest of his body begun to match his height. He was broad now, with muscles that tested the stitching on his tunic, and with arms and legs that gave him the look of a professional fighter. Even his hair, which fell in a chestnut ponytail down in his back, must make him seem like a wild man. Jack quite liked the way he looked and, until last night when he saw the stranger running down the street, he fancied himself as looking quite tough. Compared to the golden-haired man, though, he was nothing more than a spring sapling.
Jack smiled and bent forward to take a drink from the fountain. The water was cool and tasted of lead. He edged a little nearer and thrust his whole face under the stream, enjoying the wetness on his face.
Just as he was going to pull away, he noticed a man leaving the house in the far corner of the square. Even through the filter of running water, there seemed something familiar about him. The man turned to the side and Jack got a glimpse of his profile: huge nose, large pot belly. Stepping back from the fountain, Jack rubbed the water from his eyes. The man was turning down the far street. Not pausing to think, Jack ran after him.
He knew this man. He had listened to his bad but kindly offered advice, watched in amazement as he downed cup after cup of ale, and been ordered around the palace by him as a boy. It was Grift. Castle guard and expert extraordinaire. Jack raced toward him, calling out his name.