The Jack of Souls

by Merlino, Stephen

  “I have the right to cut his balls off,” said the third. This one Caris recognized as the Sapphire’s squire, whose lance she’d broken. She stood, and he halted short, confusion on his brow as the torchlight illumined her face. Before he could draw his sword, her mailed fist crashed into the side of his head and he fell like a stone. More blows followed, but Caris barely remembered them.

  She woke from a blur of fury to find herself on her knees, straddling a motionless body. She’d been balled over it, rocking back and forth. She had no idea how long she’d been there, only that her arms were tired from blows, and the face of the squire beneath her was so crushed and disfigured it nearly made her vomit. Three others lay senseless beside her. One was Harric.

  What in the Black Moon is wrong with me?

  Trembling, she stood and surveyed the bodies around her. She had to get Harric to Mother Ganner. He always called her his “true mother.” Mother Ganner would hide him and get him on his feet and out the door in the darkness. The kitchens, she thought. It isn’t far. I can leave him with Mother Ganner, and depart without any more delay.

  She dragged the squires to the deepest shadows against the inn, then hoisted Harric to her shoulder. He was surprisingly light, even with a pack on, so she bore him quickly along the back of the lodge to the kitchens.

  The yard was empty. It seemed there had been no witnesses, and darkness was deepening, which would completely cloak her escape, once she left Harric in good hands.

  The door to the kitchen was open. She looked up and down the yard to be sure she wasn’t spotted, then mounted the stone step and entered.

  Red Moon, White Moon, full in the sky

  Red like a witch’s evil eye.

  Black eats White,

  And leaves the Red.

  Kratos’ Moon, we’ll all be dead!

  —Children’s rhyme describing “Kratos’ Moon,” a mythical event in which the Unseen Moon eclipses the Bright Mother, heralding tides of war and plague as the Mad Moon reigns unopposed in the sky.

  12

  Ill Met in Gallows Ferry

  Caris laid Harric on a bench in the kitchens. Mother Ganner stood at the bread table with her round, fat back to Caris, working flour into one of many mounds of dough on the boards. Caris removed her helmet, and looked about warily. Even in her present state of excitement, she noticed the uncharacteristic silence in the kitchen. The serving girls stood together in the pantry, as if afraid to be noticed. More ominously, the great room adjacent to the kitchens, which usually roared with revels till midnight, lay hushed as the pale hours before dawn.

  “Mother Ganner?” Caris said.

  The widow turned her plump face toward Caris, without interrupting her kneading. A baby hung in a sling across her bosom—one of her cooks’ daughters—sleeping peacefully to the rhythmic swaying of her work. When Mother Ganner saw Caris, she stopped kneading and curtsied with a muttered “Lordship…”

  Her face seemed odd to Caris in the uneven firelight, but what first seemed a trick of the shadows snapped into clarity as Caris stepped closer: the left side of Mother Ganner’s face was as swollen and purple as a wine melon.

  Caris sucked her breath. “Mother Ganner! What happened?”

  For several heartbeats the widow stared at Caris, trying to reconcile the familiar voice and face with the hard and polished armor.

  “Caris, girl? What—” Her eyes found Harric and widened. She wiped her hands on her apron and bobbed to his side. “Harric, la! You should be far away by now. What you gone and done?” She brushed his hair from his eyes and examined his battered face. “Don’t we make a pretty pair,” she muttered.

  Caris’s breathing eased, but her heart still reeled with fierce emotion. The berserk reaction she experienced when she found Harric in danger upset her deeply.

  “He’s got to run,” said Mother Ganner. “You both best run.”

  “We are. I mean, he was. I am, too.” Caris grimaced, uncertain now why she’d planned to go alone.

  Two serving girls crept from the pantry to peer at Harric, but Mother Ganner jabbed a fat finger at them, the flesh on her arm shaking imperiously. “Get back in there. Go on! I don’t want you tattling he’s here, tempted by their dirty silver. Soon as Missy and Wallop come back from the great room, they’ll stay with you too, till I say. But one of you fetch me that kettle with the herbs I meant for Lyla. And bring a bowl of rags.”

  “I need to go,” Caris said abruptly. She dropped the sock of coins Harric had given her onto the bench, then forced herself to take a step toward the door.

  Mother Ganner looked at her, brow furrowed, but only nodded. “Gods leave you, girl.”

  Caris stalked to the stables.

  Free.

  She’d done the right thing. She could mount and ride from Harric and Gallows Ferry with clear conscience and clean heart.

  *

  Harric opened his eyes and stared at the widow for a moment before he recognized her. “Ma?”

  “Hush. You’re in the kitchens.”

  He stared about in confusion, then peered closer at her face.

  “What happened?” He reached up for her swollen cheek. He tried to sit, but pain lanced his ribs and head. He moaned and fell back.

  “Hush, now. It’s all right.”

  “How—”

  “Caris brought you. All clammed up in metal, la! I thought she was…” Her jaw quivered, and she pressed her lips together.

  “I mean what happened to you? Your face…”

  The bowl of steaming herb-water came, and she busied herself soaking the rags. “You hush. I aim to clean you up. Take a drink of the blood, la. It’ll help to heal.” Mother Ganner held a cup of stallion’s blood to Harric’s swollen lips, and he forced down a bitter swallow. She wrung out a rag and daubed his brow. Pain stabbed through the cuts on his forehead, but she held him still, her face grim and intent. “No time to be gentle. Hold still, and I’ll make it quick. And while I clean you up, you listen, ’cause you have a right to know what happened here.”

  She lifted her chin as if steeling herself for what she was about to say, but a trembling lip betrayed her grief. She laid the rag across his forehead and lifted another from the bowl. “A second Phyros-rider come through tonight after you left your cart.” Her voice grew hoarse and tight. “A real one. One of the Old Ones, gods leave us.”

  Memories of Bannus and the Faceless One crashed into Harric’s mind. His mother, influencing Bannus. Still trying to kill him. He moaned. “Lyla…Bannus. Is she still…?”

  “Bannus, la!” Tears streamed from her eyes. “Oh, Harric, he bust into the foyer like a god, all blue-faced and wild. He grabbed our Lyla where she stood sweeping, and roared for drink, and laughed, and smashed things and dragged her to a room. I grabbed his arm to stop him and he swatted me down like a child. I’m lucky he only smashed my fool head and left it on my shoulders.”

  The widow choked, and her round face wrinkled in a mask of grief. “Oh, Harric, her eyes. I couldn’t do a thing for her. Oh, that poor, sweet girl!”

  Harric sat up, head pounding. “She’s still there.”

  Mother Ganner’s weeping eyes went suddenly hard. “Where the Black Moon you think you’re going, you damn fool? You think you’d get her back? That monster’d take your head clean off with a thought. Only reason you’re alive now is luck. Only reason I’m alive is I’m an old fool of a fat thing, and there ain’t no glory in killing a cocklehead as that.”

  “But—will he let her go?”

  She shook her head, swallowing hard. “I don’t know, Harric. But I ain’t about to lose two of my chickens in one night. Your mother’s ghost would never let me rest if any harm come to you.”

  Harric’s swollen lips twisted. “I’m pretty sure she’d be comfortable with it.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Your momma’d want you to live to set this right.” She leaned close and thrust an angry thumb at her ruined cheek. “Take a good look at this, Harric, and don’t you forget it.
This is what it was like before Her Majesty come. No law but the whim of blood rank. No lady learned her letters like your mother, no widow owned her own timber lodge like me, and no bastard lived to manhood with a chance at freedom. Her Majesty is all that’s standing between us and the Old Ways. And if the Old Ones are come again, then she’s our only chance against ’em.”

  Harric grimaced. Something was coming clear to him—an old obstruction dissolving in his heart, a new purpose filling his mind and cleansing his conscience. “I’m going to Her Majesty,” he said, raising a hand to cup her swollen cheek. “I’m going to tell her what I’ve seen, and pledge to serve in any way I can.”

  A cautious hope wrinkled her brow. “You mean that, la? Just like your momma wanted?”

  “No. Not for her. Never for her.”

  Something in his voice made her pause. She regarded him between swipes with the rag. “You wasn’t like this before she died.”

  “Like what?”

  “You ain’t been nothing but mad since that day. All full of hurt and hate. Always talking how you’ll resist her doom and you won’t be her puppet.”

  “And I won’t.”

  Mother Ganner stood abruptly. She towered above him like a mountain, chins trembling with emotion. “I don’t want to hear another word about it, Harric. The Old Ones are returning. Think of it. I fear the Breaker Moon is coming. It hasn’t come since before the Cleansing, but that time it near burned us from the map. That means the Queen’s in real trouble. The world’s in trouble.”

  “Krato’s Moon?”

  She nodded gravely. “Call it what you like. I been having dreams on it. Thought they was just dreams till Bannus turned up.”

  It made sense. Old Ones returning, a new magic in the north, rumors of the Iberg Imperial Concord stirring across the sea, its greedy eyes on Arkendia. It could all point to the coming of the Breaker Moon.

  “When the Bright Mother goes dark,” she said, “we’re gonna need every maker we can get, so we don’t have no time for you moping about your mama. Time for you to be a man, and we needs whatever your mama taught you, no matter how bad it hurt you to learn it. You understand? Queen didn’t free you to have you shrivel up in bile.”

  “I will, Ma. I’ll make good of it. For you and the Queen, I will.”

  A look of love and pride spread across her face. In it he saw her old strength return, which did him more good than all her bandages.

  He fumbled in his sleeve and pressed the last share of the witched squire’s silver into her hand. “This is for Lyla. Make sure Lyla gets it?” The widow hefted the purse for a heartbeat and smiled with the good half of her face. She dropped the bundle in the baby’s sling and climbed ponderously to her feet, raising Harric with a sturdy hand.

  “I’m so proud of you, Harric, I could near bust myself. Helped raise a right gentleman, I did. Proudest thing I ever done. Now, you get. If you find yourself north and with simple folk what can give you help, you tell ’em you’re my son. Like enough I done them a kindness when they come through, and they’re good folk who’d jump to return a favor.”

  Harric’s eyes teared. He caught her hand and held it to his lips. “Thanks…” was all he could say.

  “La, sweet boy! It’s me that owes the thanks. Made my life a song all these years. You just come back when you’re safe and ready. And don’t worry about us. We’ll get on.”

  Then she swept him out the door with a strong and gentle hand.

  *

  Harric pressed his back to the lodge and paused to let his eyes adjust to the dark. The Mad Moon still hadn’t risen above the Godswall; he guessed there remained no more than a half-hour of darkness before he bathed the cliffs and river in his fiery light. To his left stood the foot of the stable yard, where the Hanging Road entered through the south gate and split off behind the inn through the market place; to his right the yard flared into a wide carriage turnabout, bound on two sides by the inn and on the opposite side by the stable where Jacky slept, unaware of Harric’s intention to wake him for a very long ride.

  When he could see well enough to make out the outlines of the roofs against the sky, he began skirting the head of the yard, keeping the inn to his right and navigating mostly by memory. He hadn’t gone five paces before he stumbled upon something and fell. Throwing out his hands to break his fall, he bit back on a yell, his battered ribs erupting in protest with the impact. What he found on the ground, however, was the unmistakable softness of a body. Groping, he found the face, where he felt no breath, but his hand came away sticky and smelling of blood. He shuddered, and wiped it off on the victim’s breeches. Had this been one of the grooms that attacked him? Had Caris slain the man and dragged him here?

  A scuff from across the yard made him crouch and freeze. He peered in the direction of the sound, and at first he saw nothing. Then he caught movement along the stable, though it was so dark he couldn’t be sure whether he’d actually seen it or merely heard it.

  He was in near perfect darkness at the foot of the inn, but some of the windows above allowed a faint and indirect candlelight to tint the darkness farther out in the yard. In one of these pale shafts two figures moved parallel to his course. One was tall and thick, the other short and broad, with the larger making considerably more noise—limping, perhaps?—with an occasional click of metal on metal, as from armor plates. The smaller figure moved with a rolling, loping gait Harric could not make sense of in such low light. Crawling? Hobbling on all fours?

  “God’s socks, this place stinks,” one of them whispered. “Whole place is an open privy.”

  “Hush you, now,” said the other, in an accent Harric had never heard. “We’re not alone.”

  The figures stopped, and Harric froze. He couldn’t have been spotted. The darkness beneath the eaves was complete, and he’d made no noise. He scanned the yard for evidence of some third party, but saw nothing, and guessed someone must have appeared in a window above him. The figures changed course directly for Harric, passing through a swath of candlelight in which Harric glimpsed a bald pate and long mustachios.

  The Phyros-thief.

  “Here is your man in the green belt,” said the voice with the accent. “Was he a walking bruise when you left him?”

  “No. Where is he?”

  “There. Behind the barrels.”

  “Moons take your eyes, Brolli. I can’t see any barrels.”

  “I’m here,” Harric whispered. He stepped out, hope rising in his heart. “Here.”

  The old man drew near, breathing heavily and smelling strongly of ragleaf and oiled iron. “Moons, I’m glad we found you, son. There’s been a mistake—”

  “This is not good place to talk,” the shorter one whispered. “Come this way.”

  “Follow Brolli,” said the knight.

  Brolli led them to the head of the yard, in the deeper shadows against the inn. Harric caught confusing glimpses of him as they crossed swaths of candlelight. His proportions seemed wrong. The legs were too short for his prodigious upper body. He used his arms while walking, like a child playing at horse, but his legs followed his arms in a kind of hop or lope. A dwarf? Once it had been fashionable for knights to keep dwarfed men as squires, but the young Queen Chasia found it distasteful, so it fell from fashion. Could the old man be so backward he kept a dwarfed squire? It might be the reason for his outcast blackened armor.

  “Here,” Brolli said, pausing in a pool of darkness at the head of the yard, where the stable joined the inn. Harric still couldn’t place his accent.

  “Sit guard for us, will you, Brolli?”

  Brolli said nothing, but by the sound of it he climbed onto one of the water barrels lined up beneath the eaves, then leapt to the side of the stable and scrambled onto the roof.

  Harric listened in astonishment, trying in vain to follow with his eyes.

  “Born climber,” the old man grunted. He groped Harric’s shoulders and found his backpack. “Good. You were leaving. Smart boy. I assume you have
the purse I gave you. I need it back.”

  Harric blinked. “The purse?”

  “Don’t play daft, son.” An edge of urgency crept into his voice. “That trinket’s very important—it was a mistake that I gave it—”

  A door in the lodge at the head of the yard banged open, ten paces to their left, casting a beam of lamp light into the yard. The old man hushed Harric before he could speak. A tall man stepped from the lighted corridor into the yard and closed the door behind him, to be swallowed by the dark. Harric stared at the place where the man had been, and picked him out as a darker patch against the lodge, padding softly in their direction.

  Harric glided to the side until he rested his hand against the lodge, and crouched behind one of the water barrels. The man’s eyes would not be as well adjusted to the dark as his were, and if the man continued his current course he’d pass right by Harric without knowing it. Harric could pick his pocket or trip him into the old knight, or grab him from behind. But the man crossed half the distance to where they stood, then stopped, his back against the siding.

  The scent of spiced perfume reached Harric’s nose. Aconite, also called “witch cloud,” he thought, as if it were one of his mother’s blindfold tests in courtly tinctures. Aconite is an Iberg favorite: mildly stimulating, anxiety inducing if used in incense, associated with magic.

  As if to confirm the correlation, the man muttered something in the rich, round syllables of the Iberg language as he slipped a hand into his shirt, removing it with something clasped in his fist.

  Then he vanished.

  One moment the Iberg was there—the next, he simply wasn’t.

  The old knight cursed.

  Harric stared in astonishment at the spot where the man had been. He’d heard tales of witches using the power of their witch-stones to enact incredible feats of stealth, but he’d never dreamed he’d see it. How vain he’d been to think himself invisible by virtue of his stillness and the man’s ill-adjusted eyes! Harric felt naked and vulnerable, his own tactic rebounding against him with double the force, but remained motionless in hope he had not been spotted.