The man nodded. His leader started towards the stern, but was stopped by the warrior. ‘Captain, there’s more.’
His exasperation at not having been given the full story was magnified by the feeling of having watched two of his men die. ‘What is it?’ he snapped. Then he saw the pain in the man’s eyes as the stocky warrior found it a struggle to begin. ‘Take your time, Egil,’ he added more gently.
‘We delivered the goods to the village, but not to the merchant,’ he started hesitantly.
The Captain frowned. ‘That is not good. We took on a contract, and if we want to work, we have to fulfil our duties to any man who is relying on us to keep his business alive.’
Egil grunted. ‘I don’t think he has to worry about concluding this deal, Captain.’
The tall man frowned. ‘The village was empty?’
The man shook his head. ‘Of life, yes. But death – oh, it was full of that. Every person had been slaughtered. Every person. The entire village. Men, women, even the tiniest children.’ He shook his head, clearly shaken. ‘I’ve never seen its like, Captain.’
His leader looked at him sharply. ‘Never? You have seen much over the years, Egil, with me and before, that none of us would care too much to talk about. Are you sure?’
The warrior stared up at the Captain, his eyes haunted. ‘Oh, I am sure, my lord.’ Brann started. He had not heard the Captain referred to as nobility before. But he concentrated on keeping his rowing normal, hoping to draw little enough attention to his eavesdropping so that he could continue to listen.
The warrior eased himself to his feet and spat viciously over the side as if trying to rid himself of something distasteful and disgusting. Staring over the waves, he continued, his voice low. ‘It was brutal. No, worse than brutal. We have all seen things, as you say – the gods know, we have all had to do things we would rather wipe from our consciences, because we have had no option. That is the way of the warrior, like it or not. But this…’ He paused, his breathing heavy as he struggled with the effects of the scenes in his mind. The Captain said nothing, not wanting to pressurise him. The warrior slapped the rail, as if angry at himself for losing composure. He cleared his throat. ‘It was savagery, pure savagery. Beasts would not have left such a scene, never mind men. These people – nothing more threatening than farmers, merchants and their families, mark you – these people had been ripped apart. I mean, literally, ripped apart.’
The younger warrior must have been struggling with the same images, but the sound of them put into words was too much for his self-control and he lurched to the rail and vomited.
The Captain frowned. ‘You usually have a stronger stomach than that, Philippe. You are not a newcomer to combat.’
The man hung his head, though it seemed more from the weariness of carrying such heavy memories than any hint of shame at his reaction. ‘This was not combat, Captain. This was not even a one-sided massacre, or mass executions. This was the scattered remains of people whose flesh had been torn from them, whose limbs had been ripped away, whose heads had been pulled – not cut – pulled from their shoulders. And…’ He started shaking violently. ‘And the babies, they… they…’
The shaking increased and Egil gripped him by the arm. In an almost tender gesture, the Captain laid an arm around his shoulders and steered him towards the stern. ‘Go see Cannick,’ he said softly. ‘You need food and rest, and we are going to be at sea for a while, now, so – weather and pirates allowing – you will have a chance to enjoy both.’ He nodded to the medic to accompany the man and watched his heavy-footed progress to the door that led below decks. He turned to Egil. ‘What was he trying to say?’ His voice had lost his tenderness, and was as coldly grim as the north wind. ‘I am sorry to subject you to this, but I must know what you saw if I am to decide our course from here.’
‘I know, Captain, I know,’ Egil said, his voice as bleak as his lord’s. ‘But it was like arriving in hell, with all its evils, and then discovering that all that you found there was just an anteroom before the doors opened to horrors beyond our imaginations.’ Avoiding the Captain’s eyes, he stared across the swell of the sea; it was incongruously peaceful compared with the scenes that were being described. He fixed his gaze on the sparkling swell, speaking in tones that were forcibly measured.
‘The men had died trying to protect the women and children; that much was obvious from where they fell. The women had been rounded up, and taken into a large barn, a grain store that was only about a quarter full: a solid enough building with rough stone walls. They threw ropes over the beams above and tied them to the women’s wrists, hoisting them until only their toes supported them. They slit their bellies, letting their entrails spill out. But they knew the women would not die at once. They did not wish them to, although the women must have prayed for the release of death.’ He paused, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat. The Captain stared at him in silence, his face a tight, blank mask. ‘Because they brought in the babes and killed them before their mothers’ eyes. They took them, little ones of five years or so, right down to mites that could not even crawl, and the bastards swung them by the ankles and dashed their heads against the wall. Some of them were smashed over and over, far beyond what was needed for death. They just dropped their little bodies at the foot of the wall and went for another one. The pile was as high as my chest.’ His voice was cracking again, but he ploughed on unaware, lost in the story that had been so easy for the party to read from the aftermath of the slaughter. ‘Can you imagine what it must have been like, Captain? Horror more than any of us could understand was still on those women’s faces when we found their bodies hanging there. And think what the little ones must have felt like, those who could see what was coming their way.’
The Captain put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You have seen too much, Egil. More than any man deserves to. Get as much rest as you need. And come to see me any time you need to.’
The man turned slowly and directed eyes filled with pain at the taller man. A single tear had traced, unnoticed, a trail down the grime on his cheek. ‘That’s not even the worst of it, Captain,’ he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He gripped his leader’s arm. ‘Do you know what they did when they were finished? Do you know what we found? On the floor, facing the women, were the remains of food and drink. They sat there, Captain, and they ate a meal. They ate and watched the women die, watching these women who had just been forced to witness the slaughter of their infants. They enjoyed it, Captain, the bastards actually did it for fun. Can you see that?’ He wiped his brow with his sleeve and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Can you believe that? Some of the women must have died from blood loss, or maybe their hearts gave out. Others had their throats cut – I don’t know if they wanted to make sure they were dead before they left, or if they just got tired of the screaming. Either way, the only mercy of the day was that none of them survived to live with those memories. Some mercy that, is it not, Captain?’
His leader gently prised the warrior’s fingers from his forearm. ‘Let us hope that the gods are helping them now more than any man could,’ he said softly.
Egil cleared his throat. He still spoke quietly. ‘The gods… that’s the thing. It was a scene of sickening horror, but it was methodical, ordered, like something religious. But no god I know would accept offerings such as those.
‘We sent their souls onwards as best we could. We fired the barn, giving them a pyre, but the smoke alerted those who had destroyed the village. We knew the chances were high that it would, but we could not leave those people like that.’ His voice was stronger as he insisted, ‘You do know, Captain, that I did not run back to the ship because I feared these savages. It was only that the numbers were uneven, and vastly so. Our deaths would have served no purpose.’
‘I know well that you are no coward, Egil. You will never need to convince me of that,’ the Captain said softly.
The man’s tone was fierce. ‘I am not trying to convince you of my courage,
Captain, but my desire. I want to find those who did this, and I cannot do that if I die. I want to hunt them down and send them to the hell they must have sprung from.’
‘We will, Egil,’ the Captain promised. ‘You need not worry about that. I know you will not be able to rest until you have done so, and Philippe, too, but you will have to content yourself with the thought that it will happen in time. What you have seen places a burden on us, and not just in terms of retribution on behalf of those villagers. They will not be the only ones who have suffered at the hands of these savages, and if these people are riding about in confidence with so many soldiers in the area as you say, then there is something going on of a grander scale than we can attempt to address. We must speak to others. No, your revenge must smoulder for now, but be assured that it will be satisfied. Be certain of that.’
His hand on the veteran’s shoulder, he walked him towards the stern, speaking to him quietly as they went.
Not long afterwards, the wind picked up and they shipped oars. Brann was left with whirling images of horrors filling his mind. Even after, at dusk, he drifted into a fitful sleep, the pictures haunting him, invading his dreams.
The next morning, he was shaken awake by Cannick.
‘Captain wants to see you,’ he said simply, in a low growl. He unlocked Brann and led him slowly to the stern. He supported the boy by gripping his arm above the elbow, as Brann found that his legs, used only to the movement of lifting himself up and backwards when he rowed, seemed so soon to have forgotten how to walk.
The Captain was sitting behind his desk when they entered. He told Brann to sit in the seat that he had occupied the last time, and indicated to Cannick that he could go.
‘I will get to the point, boy,’ the Captain said bluntly. ‘I know you heard some, or maybe much, of what was said when the men came aboard yesterday. You, and those beside you, could hardly fail to hear, so close were you to us.’ He stared intensely at Brann. ‘Tell me what the oarsmen talked of last night. I need to know what fears and rumours may take their attention away from instant obedience. There are times when the timing of the rowers’ work keeps us all alive and, if there is a situation that may affect that, I need to deal with it now.’
Brann shrugged. He saw no point in lying and, indeed, even had he wished to do so, he doubted if he could withhold the truth for long under the glare of those piercing eyes.
‘They know little,’ he said, his voice blank. ‘There was a massacre, and that’s really all that was discussed. The other rowers seem to have seen fighting before, so didn’t seem to think it was worthy of any more talk than that. Because of where I sit, I heard more, but it wasn’t really something I wanted to gossip about. I heard what they did to the people,’ he paused, ‘and the children. I saw how it had affected the man who was telling you. I know something is going on there that involves soldiers and the people that did these terrible things. I know the village that you were meant to deliver the goods to was wiped out,’ he paused again. ‘And I know you felt horror at what they said.’
‘Anything else?’ the Captain asked.
‘Only that you are going to do nothing about it.’ He shrugged again, and stared at the floor. ‘But why should you?’
The Captain frowned. ‘Meaning what?’
Brann hesitated, but knew he had started to say something that he must now finish. ‘Meaning that it seems little different from what you did to my village.’
The Captain’s hand slammed down on the table, causing Brann to jump. ‘It was very different,’ the Captain hissed violently. ‘You would do well to remember your place, boy. If you can count, three of my men came aboard with you. Whoever attacked your village, it was not us. And whatever their reason, it was not my orders. What happened to your brother, what has befallen you, these are unfortunate in your life. But they are fate. Fate happens. Fate is what will happen. Fate is what has happened. We merely craft what we can of the life fate gives us, however long that lasts.’ He scooped two gambling cards from the desk and slammed them onto the tabletop in front of Brann. He leant in close, his voice intense. ‘You play the hand you are dealt. To dwell on the cards you would have preferred is to allow others to play theirs before you. And then you have surely lost, whatever the cards you hold.’
He stood and walked to a small window at the rear of the cabin, staring out in a manner that suggested that he saw nothing of the scene that lay in front of him. His hand strayed to the scar on his face. After a long moment, he sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
‘I will tell you this, boy,’ he said quietly. ‘And not because I owe you anything, nor that you deserve anything. But because knowledge arms us and ignorance kills us, and I will not let you die like…’ He turned away. His voice was almost a whisper. ‘Like others.’ He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the wall. Brann could see the side of his jaw where it clenched for a long moment, then relaxed abruptly as the Captain faced him once more. ‘And because you, like everybody else, should be aware of something more than the few miles of countryside around the village you have grown up in. I suspect that you have never been out of your valley before now.’
He returned to his seat and, rather than the upright, alert manner in which he had sat before, he slumped into it, staring at the ceiling.
‘So, I will tell you basically where you live, which is as good a place to start as any. The Green Islands, so-called because the amount of rain you get allows nature to flourish more than anywhere else known to man. Though how you don’t drown or die of misery, I will never understand. I have lived in ice-bound cold, blistering drought, and everything in between, and to everything I have become acclimatised other than that accursed incessant rain.’ He snorted, though it was unclear whether it was dark amusement or climate-induced disgust.
‘Anyhow, two islands lie one to the north of the other, separated by a narrow stretch of sea; at some points it is only around two or three miles across. The northern island, as you will perhaps know, is Alaria. It stretches around two hundred miles, north to south, and roughly one hundred miles across its broader southern coast. Its neighbour to the south, Cardallon, measures maybe double each of Alaria’s dimensions.
‘Your village is in a small valley around halfway up Alaria, an hour’s ride from the east coast. Your island is a kingdom, but many of your people do not even realise it. The king rules, and has contact with community leaders, but he really has an easy job.
‘Those in the south are not interested in coming north and, because yours is a single kingdom, there are no neighbouring factions jostling for power. All that the king must do is to ensure that everything is running more or less smoothly, and so his duty is really just to be administrator-in-chief, and nothing more.
‘If it were not for the weather which, as you will know well, changes between glorious and miserable more frequently than any man should have to endure, with more emphasis on the miserable end of the scale, it would be idyllic and an attractive target for other monarchs looking to expand their territory. But the weather puts them off, understandably, as does the fact that this climate tends to produce men who are hardened both physically and in spirit. Even the farmers in your country can offer a hard fight.’
Brann flushed with anger and pain at the memory, surprised by the short flash of emotion he had thought he had lost the ability to feel, but the Captain had not noticed. He continued, ‘The southern island was once under one ruler, but split several hundred years ago into three kingdoms, Ragalan, Salaria and, unimaginatively, Westland.
‘By and large, through marriage and politics, they managed to live with each other and trade, content to be lucrative. Every generation or so, however, some king or other tends to forget that war is bad for business and dreams of the perceived personal gain that would come of uniting the island under one ruler once more.
‘To date, no one has managed to do so since the original split, and the three kingdoms have remained as such. In the meantime, this set-up maintains
an undercurrent of distrust and intrigue that extends to civic leaders, and this occasionally produces a challenge to a king from within his own borders, either through an assassination attempt or a full-blown military uprising.
‘This latter option is what may be going on at the moment in the area we have just visited. Either someone is trying to take over, or has done so already and is flexing their muscles to establish the sort of regime that they wish.
‘The problem is the level of brutality that you heard described. Horrific as it is on that scale, it also has wider implications that reach beyond the borders of even this island.
‘Our Lady downstairs also seems to think that it holds some serious import. All that she could shed on the matter was that she saw fire, darkness, fear, sorrow and pain hanging over the country. That may sound pretty vague to you, but in her terms it is a fairly specific prediction.
‘In any case, when a situation is affecting what looks like such a large area, anything we do to avenge slaughter, no matter how horrific, in one village will be inconsequential. What is more use is carrying the information to those who are in a better position to assess it and its consequences on a more wide-reaching scale.’
He swung his legs down from the desk and stood up. ‘There, your lesson is over for today. Any questions?’
Brann shook his head. The Captain’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the boy, as if trying to fathom his thoughts.
‘Not so talkative this time, are you?’ he said after a few seconds.
Brann shrugged. ‘I have changed,’ was all he said. It was not cheeky, or defiant – merely a simple statement of fact.
The Captain walked to the door but waited before he opened it. Brann had stood, ready to leave, his manacles clanking as he moved.
The man said, ‘You may find that you change back. Not totally: you will always carry a bit more hardness with you, but maybe that is not a bad thing.
‘Maybe you will not change back, but most do: the gods know we all do things out of character now and again, so do not let any setbacks worry you overmuch.’
Hero Born Page 14