The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  Amidst such troubles as these, the Emperor had no reason to go to war. What he did now was simply madness, and no one could convince Rurik otherwise.

  Which was not to say that he found his own actions to be amongst the sanest of courses. Merely necessary, not logical.

  Rurik studied the men from the base of the steps, peering through the railings. When the wanderer drew too near, he receded into the shadows, ducking behind the point of the stairwell where it curved and broadened out, to provide a wider landing for ascending guests.

  The room was an immense endeavor, as befit the station of a lord, and the one true bit of pomp in the Matair household. The design of it, as in much of the manor’s grounds, had been carefully plotted by his mother when his father had first swept through the Ulneberg, many years before her passing and Rurik’s own birth. Several long tables were set throughout the main floor, for the dining of the family, the servants, the guards, and anyone that at any point might dwell beneath the manor’s roof.

  Brilliantly crystalled chandeliers dangled by gold chains from a high ceiling. From either side of the stairs, and from the wall above the main door, hung the banners of the house Matair, the Empire, and house Witold, to whom Matair held its allegiance. It was a menagerie of birds and a diversity of color, though the years had seen some of the color start to go from the fabrics and the room itself. At either end of the hall stood suits of old armor, done in the style of ages long past. One, at least, was an ancestor’s, though whose he could not recall. The others had been purchased from old knights of old families, long since passed their need for such items.

  It pained the boy to do what he had to, but a fire was the easiest cause of distraction, and the manor housed so many little fires already. Sneaking back behind the stairs, he hefted a torch from its sconce. He reemerged at the other side of the stairs, through another door, and calmly crept to the nearest table. When the fire caught on one of the legs, he darted back to cover.

  There he waited. When the shouts erupted and the sounds of scattering chairs followed, his moment was at hand. Setting the torch back where it belonged, he stalked back out the other side of the stairs. Just as he did, one of the men skittered out the front door, no doubt headed for the well in the courtyard. As he peered through the railings, he spied the others beating furiously at the flames, to little success. It had not grown far, but in a wooden abode, that could quickly change. As it were, a single bucket of water could put it out, but that now depended on them.

  Without a second thought, he hopped the railing and sprang up the steps, though he moved as quietly as his haste would allow, carefully avoiding all the steps he knew would creak beneath his weight. He gained the second landing, darted up the left split in the stairwell, and disappeared into the hall beyond.

  There he paused, both to catch his breath and calm his heart. Flattening against the wall, he peered down the hall for any sign of patrol, but there was no life here either. Then he eased around just far enough to catch sight of the main hall. The guard that had fled was already returning with a bucket sloshing between his arms, and the relieved shouts of his companions told him that it was none too soon.

  Before they could ponder from whence the fire had come, Rurik turned and entered into the final stretch. Here lay the personal quarters of the Matair family, from young to old, and the dead long gone.

  These halls, as the ones below, were plain, unadorned. His father liked them kept that way. The floorboards were not even covered in rugs, just unyielding wood, waiting at rigid attention to catch some unlucky bare foot with a splinter. Rurik could see himself springing down this hall when he was younger, screaming as his brothers chased him. His father stood there, in memory, hands crossed behind his back, staring them down with a face as stone. Only the eyes moved, following them wherever they went—those cold eyes, riveting them to their spots. He did not like the noise when he was in his study.

  Rurik slunk down the hall, sliding his blade from its sheath as he went. There were no guards here. Rarely were. The hall opposite, at the other end of the stairs, held the dreaded Vardick of Tarney, whom the villagers called the Brickheart, and for good reason. His father’s captain of the guard was a harsh man, loyal to a tee, but excessive in his excises of his father’s justice. What personality he showed was often cruel, even to those he was sworn to protect.

  Visiting dignitaries were also housed there, kept in rooms awaiting children or family that would never come. Usually some Surinian, likely now the messenger from Cullick. Merten, his father’s steward, had his room there, and so too did the shieldmen of the house. Alviss, at one time, had held such a home. Isaak’s man, and Ivon’s, still did. His sisters had no one man, and every man, to serve them.

  He lingered as he came to his own door. His was the first, or the last, depending on how one looked at it. He ran his hand along the door’s handle. It was cold, dusty. Therein he saw a child, not so unfamiliar, holding and held by his mother as she read him a story. Such warmth, such kindness—so young, lost. He looked up at her and she looked down at him, smilingly, and he felt safe in the oceans of her eyes. She tugged him closer, kissed the top of his head.

  Then she was dying, withering away, and his bed was not his bed, but his father’s, and everyone was around but no one knew what to do. Liesa tried to draw him back, but he would not go. He could see the blood, his mother’s disgorged belly so recently swelled with child. She looked past him, then she blinked. Then never again.

  Gripped by nostalgic longing, he could not help but crack the door. He stepped cautiously inward, uncertain of what to expect. His heart sank at the cruelty of the image. The room had been emptied of all that had once been his. Only the bed remained, and it was stripped bare. Something small within him buckled then, for it was the cruelest of blows. They had taken him from this place and seen all trace of his memory stricken from it.

  There was an older boy then, sure of himself and his manhood. He and the girl at his side were all fiery kisses and whispered words, giggly laughter and stumbling graces. They were drunk, the both of them, on wine as much as lust. For days they had their eyes on one another—from across the table, or over their fathers’ shoulders, even as they walked the grounds or went riding beneath the midday sun. Young lust, mistaken for love. It was not the first mistake, but it was meant to be the last.

  Both spun and swayed and danced through a shower of passion. He pawed at her dress and she groped at him through his pants. He nipped her neck, her head tilted back, and she was moaning, unabashed. He hitched her skirt up over her legs. Or she did, or they both did—it didn’t matter. Hot. Wet. Ready. They tumbled over one another in their haste, and the bed rose up to greet them. She fell on him with kisses, and he on her, his hardness leaping in answer to her, and he rutted her there amongst his sheets, feeding off her arousal as much as his own.

  It was a beautiful moment, lost to time. Soon that same boy would feel other hands about his shoulders. There would be ropes, and hoods, and then a cell in his own basement. All the moaning in the world could not help him then.

  Unable to bear another moment in this stricken place, he retreated, closing it all behind him as he went.

  An old board creaked sharply beneath his feet, and he drew up short, going stiff as a board himself. His steel lingered before him, as though warding shadows of swords and spears away. There was no one, though, not even a wayward eye. He moved on, picking his way carefully, trying to remember which boards howled at a step and which were strong, sturdy and silent.

  Beside him lay another room as equally troubled. Sweet Anelie. His sister Anelise slept there. She was the youngest, five years his minor, and her life, as beautiful as their father tried to make it, was troubled from the start. It was she who killed their mother. That was what Ivon always said. When she was younger, he ruthlessly assailed her for it. As she aged, and bloomed, and came to look ever more like the one they had lost, his brother turned to ignoring her completely. Ivon could not bear the sig
ht of her.

  All memories, without the satisfaction of reality. How he longed to see her. She was the kindest thing. Quiet, to a fault, so gentle in everything she did. She shut herself off from the world in many ways, but she had always been the closest to him. He protected her, played with her. For the longest time, he feared, he would be her only friend. It would have hurt her worst of all when he was forced to leave. He could still see her weeping as they forced him through the streets. It was raining then, but they were not rain drops pouring down her cheeks.

  Inching further, destiny looming. Sweat welled against his own volition, his body set to full rebellion against his mind. Focus. Focus. Focus. His hand was getting a shake to it, and he tried to will it to stop. It would not obey. Breathe deep. We’re almost there. His father would be in his study—his precious library—at the end of the hall.

  Another room, another memory. He could smell the lingering taste of sweet perfume, wafting out from under the door.

  She would be there, always there, waiting to spring and to scold him for some ill-perceived wrong. Hands on her hips, scowl drawn tight; he could see the little boy cringing, eyes downcast, awaiting the lecture. Liesa was the mother he and Anelie never had. She was intelligent, protective and fiercely independent. Before Rurik’s disgrace, she had also had the honor of being Kasimir’s bane, as she was now eighteen years—a year older than Rurik, and two years older than most seeking proposals—and was, as yet, unmarried.

  It was not for lack of effort. His father had tried three times to match her, all unsuccessfully. Each time she drove them off, somehow. Rurik always thought she intimidated them. Men did not generally like strong women, and what she lacked in the physical realm, she more than made up for in the sharpness of her tongue and the overbearing of her intellect. She always said she was a woman through and through, but above all else, a person.

  Not everyone was looking for a person in a wife. A body, he thought. All most were looking for was a good body, with strong, child-bearing hips.

  Another board creaked, and he retreated a pace, fearing at any moment his sister might emerge. When she did not, he found his hands still trembling, sweat lapping at his brow. He was close now. Just a few more doors and it would all be over. One final plunge, and he would see this through.

  See what through? The hall split there, another proceeding left, to the door where mother and father lurked, peering out at him from his memories. Their voices sang sweet siren songs, beckoning him onward, but he would not listen. He was so close. So close to what? He flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword, timing his breaths. One. Two. Three. One. Two…

  His mother was holding him as his father looked on, disinterestedly. She was yelling at him, without sound. Kasimir was looking away, trying to avoid the discussion. Rurik cringed as a hand caressed his cheek, trying to rub the black and blue mark from his cheek. The bruise was swelling where Ivon had struck him. All he had wanted was a book from father’s study.

  If Ivon had been there now, he never would have made it. The man was everything his father wanted—so much so it hurt. He was the warrior, the general, the captain of hearts and of men. He was handsome—in a stone-faced sort of way—with his long black hair and inquisitive brown eyes. Rurik had been the philanderer, against all his father’s efforts, but Ivon was every bit their father reborn, with the looks of their mother’s family. Since he had come of age, he took the role of lieutenant for his father, and asserted himself as captain of patrols for Verdan and the Ulneberg beyond. When he wasn’t abroad, their father put him to attention in the matters of the household: managing the staff, supervising the funds. Kasimir took him everywhere, and Ivon followed obediently. His one shortsightedness lay in the fact that he had little mind for strategy. He was more a warrior, less the plotter. Therein lay the key difference between father and son. Such wisdom, Rurik was certain, would come with age.

  Isaak never would have let him reach their father, either. The younger of his elder brothers, Isaak was the hunter, both of man and beast. He knew the Ulneberg like the back of his hand. From a young age he had learned to read people, carefully and methodically. Whereas Ivon championed the art of battle, Isaak was a student of subterfuge. He had you before you ever knew he was there—a consequence, Rurik always thought, of the many hours he had spent with Mariel, Count Witold’s Master of Words. Isaak was good with his hands, quick on his feet, and even quicker in mind. He had a way with animals, which was just as well, for he lacked such care with men. One could never tell what he was about. He could be kind and courteous one moment—a ruthless and relentless monster in the next. When he was younger, Rurik had been a bit afraid of him.

  Even now, he could not say he was ever wrong in that.

  Each slept across from the other, but neither was here now. Where Ivon was, Rurik could not say, but Isaak still hunted him, and for that he was glad. The man’s relentlessness would be his own undoing, in this instance. What soft sounds emanated from his quarters, then, would have been his little daughter and his wife—the extravagant younger daughter of Count Witold. Nesse was a pretty lass, and kind, though Rurik oft suspected she and Isaak were of like minds.

  Two vipers in a lonely cell. His brother had the pick of them, then—the daughters of the count. There was a reason he went for Nesse. What that would mean for their daughter though was any man’s guess. Sweet child—but for how long?

  From under Ivon’s door rose the faint creaking of a rocking chair. His wife would be awake then, tending the baby, or minding her sewing. She had been pregnant when Rurik was banished. He could only imagine her child now. That hollowed him. He was missing an entire new life—a presence he would likely never know, and never be known by. What would they tell the child if it ever asked? He no longer existed.

  The ghosts clawed at him, but he struggled against them, as if pressing against a current. It was rising, gripping at his throat, threatening to drag him under. He warred for possession of his own mind, his thoughts an enemy unto themselves. The door was just a few feet away. So many faces rose and fell around it, calling out to him, hitting him, shouting, yelling, screaming, laughing, gone.

  Can you do this? I do what I must. It wasn’t so. Can you see? See what? Everything. He’s there. Can you do it? Do what? The word bunched in his throat. Kill. Kill. Kill. He cringed against himself and the cavalcade of his own demented ideas. Are you a boy or a man? A man. He didn’t hesitate to kill you. He didn’t draw the knife. Doesn’t matter. Did it ever? No. No. I will not do it. You have to do it. This is why you came back, isn’t it? Not the knife. You knew it was a lie. No I didn’t. The knife was just a bridge between the gaps. There were many other things, too many things, that brought that blade into your hand.

  There were no other doors and no one left to bar his path. There was just one place left to turn.

  Yet as he reached for that door, he stood as if upon a precipice. All those memories and those people welled up around him, and he was as nothing before them, and no one—a single faceless body caught in a tempest of condemnation. For all the wealth he had been born into. In spite of the name he had inherited. Any number of others had those same things, or less, and made themselves greater.

  What am I?

  They were all stronger than he was. Ivon was by far the superior swordsman, spearman—warrior. Liesa was far shrewder, possessed of a strength of will the likes of which he could never hope to grasp. Isaak—cruel Isaak, witty Isaak—he was more cunning and fleet of foot than he had ever been, even as a boy. He could track a man a thousand leagues and never tire, nor waver in his conviction. Rurik would grow weary and turn aside long before he ever saw the man. Even Anelie had her graces—a tenderness of life that was well beyond his own heart’s reaches. She deserved life. Every day she lived was cherished, every moment lived, even if she never spoke a word of it. Sweet child. So much pain surrounded her, and she took it every day, in silent acceptance.

  Every opportunity, every advantage, had passed him by. N
o. He had let them slip through his fingers, like so much sand. Every chance was given him, and in the end, he spurned them all and burned even his own name from existence. Rurik, once Matair, the exile. His name had been taken when he was banished. Just as well. What could he do? Shoot a gun. Flash a smile. Any man with half a brain and half the coin could learn to fire such a thing. It did not take strength, of mind or of body. And even the lowliest soul could grace the world with a smile.

  He straightened before the door, closing his eyes against the noise. Everything was there before him, waiting. None of it mattered. He was nothing. So it was. It would pass, as he would, and the names and faces of everyone else. There were many things he was not. There were more he could not do. None of it mattered, in the end.

  He had come to do one thing. No more, no less. He would see it done, and none of the rest would matter again. Blood begot blood, and he would see what spilled here. He had a sword, and his pistol. They were all he needed—not much at all. Questions needed answers. That was all. His father would be the one to answer them. Then he could go, to whatever awaited.

  There was no shout as he burst into the room. Nothing moved to meet him. The eyes were already there, fixed, sinking. He leveled his pistol between them, but the words he wanted choked in his throat and would not move. Flickering pools—there was a ripple in the depths.

  His father looked at him dejectedly, surrounded by his books, a frail old man in a failing kingdom. “The world moves beyond you, Rurik. You do not even realize what you have done.”

  But he was too far gone to care.

  Chapter 7