Brann frowned. He was not convinced.
Cannick grinned. ‘Take it from me, Brann. If you want to know what is happening in a town, spend a week talking in markets and taverns or spend five minutes talking to a whore.’
Brann grunted. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I still don’t think that’s all he’ll be doing up there.’
Breta guffawed, startling a man behind her into almost choking on his ale. ‘There is truth in that. Better give him ten minutes, then.’
It was almost exactly ten minutes when Hakon rejoined them, oblivious to the amused looks passing between his companions.
‘You took your time,’ Sophaya said, as Brann and the recently returned Marlo stared at the floor, shoulders shaking.
Hakon’s big shoulders shrugged. ‘We had a lot to talk about.’
It was too much. Brann’s spluttered laughter was replicated around the table. Grakk just smiled gently and slid along on the bench to leave room for the perplexed Northern boy. ‘Ignore them, they are releasing accumulated stress at your – if I can describe it as such? – method of releasing accumulated stress.’ The hilarity only redoubled at that, and Grakk raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Sit, young hearty fellow. The food will arrive soon, and once these buffoons have composed themselves, you can tell us what you have learnt.’
Hakon cast his confusion aside as an irrelevance in the face of impending food, and lowered himself beside Grakk. Brann wheezed as his laughter subsided, his face and his ribs aching alike. The learned tribesman was, as ever, correct – he had not laughed as helplessly for as long as he could remember, and he felt better for it.
The appearance of the food and another round of ale forced them to compose themselves, although the mistress of the tavern, who looked no stranger to a sharp word if she thought it warranted, showed no sign of disapproval at their raucous behaviour. Laughter in an inn spoke of happy customers, and happy customers attracted more customers who wanted to be happy. And they needed more liquid fuel than those nursing their sorrows.
‘So,’ Cannick said once the food was served. ‘What can you tell us, Hakon my lad?’
Hakon’s shaggy head leant forward conspiratorially, although the noise in the rest of the common room was enough to make even those at the other end of his own table strain to hear him, never mind anyone elsewhere.
‘Loku was here.’
Brann felt himself tense.
‘He stayed a few days, then left a week ago.’
Brann leant forward. ‘Left for where?’
The big shoulders shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
‘Was he with anyone?’
‘Left with two men.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘How does she know?’
Sophaya snorted. ‘Men lose secrets as soon as they lose clothes.’ Gerens looked at her, and her smile in return was sweet and innocent. ‘So I have heard, my darling. And once a secret is out, all the girls know it.’
Brann was anxious, however. ‘So who did speak to him?’
‘Don’t know.’
He felt his palms burn as hot as his frustration as he slapped the table. ‘Oh, for the love of the gods, Hakon! Do you know anything?’
That Hakon was puzzled was painted across his big honest face. ‘Of course I do. Why else would I come to tell you something?’
‘Well why don’t you tell us?’
Hakon frowned. ‘Because you keep interrupting me.’
‘I’m asking questions to try to find out what you know!’
Hakon was now quite obviously confused. ‘But how do you know the right questions to ask if you don’t know what I have to tell you?’
Brann paused. It was a good point. ‘I don’t.’
Hakon nodded sagely. ‘That became clear when you kept getting it wrong.’
Konall flicked a chunk of bread at Brann’s head. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested in his languid tone, ‘you should let the boy speak?’
Brann saw Cannick looking at him as Grakk leant to speak in the veteran’s ear. He realised everyone was looking at him, and felt his cheeks grow hot. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
‘Right,’ Hakon said cheerfully. ‘What she did know is that her friend took money from the captain of the Duke’s personal guard.’
Sophaya perked up. ‘Her friend is a thief?’
Brann grinned. His brain was starting to work at last. ‘Her friend was doing what whores do with captains of guards. And at the end, one purse was heavier and one lighter.’
Sophaya grunted and took a bite from a chicken leg. ‘Always warriors and whores. Why do we never get to meet any nice thieves?’
‘Maybe there are just no nice thieves about,’ Marlo offered brightly. Sophaya glared at him. ‘Oh,’ he said, colouring, and taking a sudden interest in tidying the crumbs on his platter.
Hakon cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, the captain of the guard is a regular customer of Joceline’s friend. Joceline is the nice girl from upstairs.’
‘We guessed,’ Brann growled. ‘Anyway…?’
‘Yes, well, he told Joceline’s friend that a man calling himself Loku had stayed with the Duke for several days, and had been locked away in discussions with him for much of that time. He said that the man must have been important, because the Duke wasn’t rude to him.’ He looked around at the questioning faces. ‘Apparently, the Duke is rude to everyone, so that was a big thing.’ He laughed. ‘I know, it sounds a bit trivial, but it seems that he is ruder than most around here, and this is not a very polite town as it is.’
Cannick snorted. ‘I can vouch for that.’
‘So,’ Mongoose said, ‘I think we need to have a chat with this rude Duke.’
‘Just what I was thinking, too,’ Brann said. He looked at Hakon. ‘Do you think Joceline could arrange to let us meet with her friend, so we can work out our best approach?’
Hakon’s face split into a proud grin. ‘Already asked her. It cost me extra, but if we go up to her room in an hour, they’ll be there. The man the friend meets with has tastes in gratification that had, of late, turned to a more, er, painful type for Joceline’s friend, but while the friend would like to end the relationship, the man is controlling and powerful and, it appears, even gains gratification from his power to keep the friend visiting unwillingly. I get the impression that if we can help with this situation in any way, the friend will be amenable to helping us in return.’
Grakk filled Hakon’s flagon with ale. Even in a land renowned for the quality of its wine, the Northern boy’s tastes remained constant and straightforward. ‘Well done, young Hakon,’ the tribesman said. ‘You have indeed been a credit to yourself tonight.’
Hakon drained the flagon and reached for the pitcher to refill it, burping happily. ‘Thank you, Grakk. It was hard work, but it was worth it in the end. I think my father would have been proud of me.’
Marlo almost spat his own drink across the table, and the laughter of the others filled the air above it. Brann, though, felt a stillness creep through him, and he stared into the large fire in the hearth, but the flames he saw were not those warming the room. He saw a mill alight, and a man in the doorway, holding off attackers before being driven inside the building. His home and his family, burning together. He shuddered and got to his feet, muttering about needing some fresh air.
The courtyard at the back of the tavern was quiet, a place of sharp contrast against the boisterous cheer of the common room inside, and a small barrel provided a convenient seat against the back wall of the building. Night had fallen completely, and a thin crescent moon slipped occasionally into brief sight between drifting clouds. Darkness had dropped across the sky in ul-Taratac in what seemed like a single breath compared with the gradual change he had been used to as a child, and while the dusk had been longer here than in the Empire, still it seemed fleeting here than at his home.
Home. He sighed and rested back against the wall, staring at the sky. Movement from the doorway to his right saw him
relax almost as quickly as he had tensed. It was strange how, on a journey, you become attuned to the tread and breathing of your companions to an extent where you know who approaches without even realising what your ears have heard.
Cannick pulled over a small crate and sat beside him, groaning as he eased himself down. He laughed. ‘You know when you are getting older when you make a noise every time you sit down or get up. Every so often you forget to try to hide it from those around you.’
Brann smiled, and touched his fingers to the ribs on his left side. ‘Just like an injury.’
‘We all try to hide what bothers us, lest it betray a weakness.’ The grey head turned in the shadows to look at him. ‘Don’t we?’
Brann sat for a moment, then sighed. He waved a hand upwards. ‘That sky. We could be anywhere. I was just wondering if the same sky is looking down on my home.’ He stopped, his breath catching sharply in his throat for a moment. ‘But then I wondered if I have a home any more.’
‘You have seen much. You have changed and grown and are not the boy who left that village. You have seen and endured more than most people would ever experience in a dozen lifetimes.’ A big hard hand rested itself on his shoulder. ‘It is only natural you would question where you fit in.’
The hand on his shoulder felt good, comforting, protective, understanding… fatherly.
He stood up quickly, tears stinging his eyes. ‘It is that, yes. I meant it that way.’ He wiped a sleeve across his eyes and cleared the roughness out of his throat. ‘But I also meant it in a literal way. The last sight I had of my village was to see it under attack from those pirates you fought after I… after I came aboard your ship. The last sight I had of my home was it aflame. And the last sight I had of my father was him fighting men at the doorway. They forced him inside.’ He took a deep breath. ‘At least he was with my mother and my sister when he died.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘The last words he ever said to me were to drive me away over my brother’s dead body. He wished it had been I who had died. The irony is, if he hadn’t rejected me, he would have got his wish – I would have been in the house with them.’ He sat down again and looked at the shadow of Cannick’s face. Honesty lives more easily in the privacy of dark than the glare of day. ‘There are times when I wish I had been in there with them. And with them now, wherever we go after,’ he waved an arm expansively, ‘all this.’
Cannick sighed. ‘The life we live and the things we see, boy, there are times when we all think that way. But we still cling to life, and fight to cling, and use every last bit of strength to fight. It is what we do.’ His hand ruffled Brann’s hair. ‘You are not alone. Remember that.’
Brann leant back against the wall again with his shoulders and head, staring at the darkness of the fragments of sky and the darker clouds framing them as silence fell over the pair. The clouds filled a space they could see but could never touch. Occasionally clouds came to earth and touched people, but people could never go up there to meet them. It was a world they knew was there, but could never reach. And beyond that world… Who even knew what was there?
‘Cannick?’
‘Yes?’
‘What you were talking to Grakk about before. About the gods, and religions, and priests, and all that. Do you think there really is something after this life?’
The silhouette changed as the veteran warrior turned towards him. ‘I think we don’t know if there is or there is not. If there is, and we have lived life as well as we can here, then we can face whatever lies beyond as it comes to us. But if there is not, then it would be a terrible waste being given this life if we were not to live as much of it as we could, don’t you think?’
Brann nodded. It made sense. ‘But what do you believe? You must have seen so much. You must have heard so many priests, and listened to men talking about their gods. Is there nothing that makes sense more than the rest?’
Cannick laughed. ‘In the right words, they all make sense. But let me ask you this: you have seen a fair bit yourself, and you were brought up respecting your own gods. What do you think?’
Brann stared into the darkness. ‘I think,’ he said slowly as his mind worked. ‘I think that it is the people who matter, because religions are guided by people and followed by people.’
‘Exactly. There are temples that preach violence and hatred, but they are few and badly followed. Why? Because of what people mostly want from religion: reassurance, understanding, hope, all connected with the things we don’t understand or know.’
Brann remembered a comment from the campfire several weeks before. ‘But Breta said that religions have started more wars than anything else.’
Cannick barked his harsh laugh. ‘Take it from an old soldier, people start wars, not religions, and for all sorts of reasons. Power and fear being two of the main ones. Religion is a tool some use to do that, but it is the most powerful tool man has ever known for that end. Like everything else, what one man can use for good, another can use for bad.’
‘So it is just a sham? A tool for controlling people?’
Cannick laid a calming hand on his arm. ‘You tend to overthink things, Brann. It is what it is. It feeds needs that we all have, and if it makes people get on, take care of each other and respect the world around them, if it gives people peace and calms them when they worry about answers they can never know for sure in this life, then what does it matter what names they give their gods or what position they adopt to speak to them?’
Brann sat in silence. This simple soldier’s life had given him an outlook that strangely mixed common sense and cynicism to create tolerance. But there was something else. ‘But what about those savages Loku had gathered in the mountains of Halveka? The ones who captured Hakon and Gerens, and who tried to overthrow Einarr’s father. They seemed to worship death, and gods of death. They revelled in torture and suffering; they lusted to inflict pain and despair, and not just there – it was the same with the story we heard when the ship put into the South Island.’
Cannick spat between his feet. ‘That was no religion, that was Loku. That was a sham, used to control carefully selected people, not a message of belief spread to anyone who would listen. That bastard took the scum, the dogs who enjoy dishing out suffering. The bullies, the cut-throats, the murderers, the sort who revel in disorder and feed off any opportunity to indulge themselves. You will find them in a hysterical mob, joining for the fun of it; you will find them in the shadows when they see a vulnerable victim; you will find them in the crowd at an execution, baying with bright eyes when the axe falls or the noose tightens. It is a thrill they crave.’
A chill ran through Brann. ‘Gerens?’
‘No. Gerens is different. Whatever has happened to that boy, there is not that love of inflicted pain these others have. Were there that in him, he would not be with us. He would not be one of us. When he does anything, he does it without any feeling at all, like if that innkeeper in there killed a rat in his food store.’ Cannick sighed and sat staring ahead, as if choosing the right words to fit his thoughts. ‘Some people come arrive in this world to a life that is close to nature. For some – like him – it seems there is little difference between animals and men in certain respects: we are all creatures, and there is a certain amount of truth in that.’
Brann frowned. ‘But he is not a monster.’ His loyalty to Gerens had forced out the words more harshly than he had intended, and he gathered himself before continuing. ‘He is practical. The way he sees it, if something needs to be done, he just does it.’
Cannick put a big hand on Brann’s shoulder. ‘No, he is not a monster, but he is different. There is no getting away from that fact, and to deny it is to deny Gerens for the person he is.’
Brann shrugged. ‘We are all different.’
Cannick smiled gently. ‘Some differences make more of a difference. But you are right, and I say again, he is not a monster – he has feelings.’
Brann nodded. ‘For Sophaya.’
‘For Sophaya, ye
s. And for you.’ Brann looked at him sharply, and Cannick snorted in amusement. ‘Not in that way. He feels a loyalty. A protective urge without reason, without question.’
‘That’s Gerens, though, isn’t it? He doesn’t question; he just acts.’
‘Well,’ Cannick said quietly, ‘be thankful that he acts in your favour. And I do mean: be thankful. Few men have their back guarded so fiercely.’
Brann looked at the veteran warrior pointedly. ‘Einarr does.’
Cannick nodded. ‘For different reasons.’ He stared at the sky with the expression of a man who looked not over distance, but back through time. He grunted. ‘Those are reasons for another conversation. But simply put: yes, you are right. So never forget, or underestimate, his place in your life. And never see him either just as he who would kill in aid of your safety as easily as blinking. Yes, put a knife in his hand and he is coldly efficient without compassion or remorse – but remember always that, though his emotions work in his own way, they still exist. They are as much as part of him as the other side.’
It was true. ‘Like me, now.’ The thought frightened him when he allowed himself to consider it. ‘After the City Below. And after the… the treatment in Khardorul. One me normally, another me when I fight.’
Cannick grunted. ‘Like all of us have to be when we fight. We do not have the luxury of being able to care in those moments. It is what humans do to survive. With Gerens it does not need the heat of conflict to do that, it is there all the time, ready. But he is different from those others, Brann, the ones who Loku gathers, who he fosters. Gerens may not do it with regret, but also he does not do it with pleasure or desire.’
‘But others do. We saw as much at the village in the mountains before we travelled south with Einarr: people acting worse than animals; people craving the suffering of others and finding some sort of euphoria when they inflict it. Is this common?’
‘Fortunately not, son, fortunately not. There are just some people, Brann, and thankfully only a few in every hundred, who like that sort of thing but they are usually not bright enough to do anything more than inflict random violence when a chance presents itself… unless a leader finds them. Look in every army and you’ll find one for every score or more of ordinary soldiers. Loku set himself up as a leader for them. The “religion” he gave them of sick and twisted viciousness was not a religion at all, of course, it just took the pleasure they already had and built up its flames with constant feeding and by surrounding them with similar people, like taking a man who is a slave to ale and putting him with others the same and giving them an endless supply of the stuff.’ He spat into the dust at his feet. ‘In his case, it was a sham and a way of controlling people to his own purpose, but they became intoxicated so much that life without it would seem lacking – and they were enjoying themselves too much to want to change it, anyway. It justified their actions and encouraged them. We were lucky you found that group in time, but there will be others in Halveka and in the South Island, as we know.’
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 6