Brann stared at him. ‘You knew? How?’
Konall was looking around as his spoke, scanning the area around them rapidly. ‘Why would a noble like my cousin take a miller’s boy, with no training even remotely useful to the duties of a page and not even the beginnings of schooling in combat, to be his page? In fact, why would the captain of a ship-for-hire take a page at all?’ He shrugged. ‘But it matters not to me. I do not believe in slavery, so you are not a slave to me. You are merely a mill boy who I would prefer to be standing behind – well behind – when he is lining up a bow shot.’
At the mention of that, Brann’s thoughts turned to a moment in the mountains, when a similar melancholy had gripped him. If only you knew how true that is. He looked at the two boys. ‘I’m sorry. I get these feelings every now and again, but I can usually push them back down. This time it all seemed to be too much.’
Hakon put a large hand on his shoulder. ‘Enduring what you have, and carrying the secrets that you do, creates great pressure. Perhaps pushing it down has let it grow ever stronger. This was one time too many. But this, tonight, may release the pressure a little. And now there are two others who can share your secret at least, and one of us may also be sympathetic to it.’
Konall glanced around until his gaze settled on a pile of crates, nets and ropes a short distance from them. ‘This is all very touching but at this moment, it is secondary to the fact that we need a place of concealment. Someone approaches and I do not believe it would be respectable for the heir to the seat of Ravensrest to be seen in the docks at night.’ He moved quickly to the cover he had identified. ‘Here. Hurry.’
As they moved to follow, Brann whispered to Hakon, ‘He does not believe in slavery? Then how does that explain the way he treated Grakk and Gerens on the hunting trip?’
Hakon murmured, ‘That was how he treated all servants. Remember, he did go back for them, too, not just for me. And he has improved more than a little since then, has he not? Comparatively speaking, of course.’
‘Quiet!’ Konall hissed, and they slipped down beside him, disturbing a mangy cat that slunk away to find alternative shelter against a nearby pile of empty sacks. Brann picked up the sound of the footsteps that Konall’s acute hearing had noticed, and held his breath. He was still trembling from the emotion of the past minutes, and the tension of listening to the approaching footsteps – a brisk, purposeful clacking of expensive boot heels – was not helping him to calm down. He was, however, surprised to find that the depression that had swamped him had lifted with his revelations. He was unsure what had helped: sharing the burden of his secrets, no longer having to live a deception, or the pair’s supportive reaction. Probably all of them, he decided, but ultimately he did not care. He was just relieved to be free of the oppressive, near-suicidal feelings that had engulfed him, even if it did proved to be only a respite until they struck again. He would enjoy the respite.
His thoughts were interrupted by Konall’s sharp intake of breath and he wriggled around to emulate the other two in peering through the slats of the crates. In mid-turn, his foot brushed against a rotting bucket lying beside him. At the sound of wood scraping on stone, the footsteps stopped abruptly. Konall snatched up a small pebble and adroitly skimmed it across the few yards that separated them from the previously disturbed cat. The unfortunate creature was struck on the rump and, not surprisingly, it squealed in surprise and pain and scuttled away with a malevolent backwards glare. Satisfied, the owner of the expensive boots resumed his progress.
The figure was past them by the time that Brann, more carefully, had completed his manoeuvre but, even from behind, the cause of Konall’s reaction was clear: Loku. Simultaneously, Brann and Hakon – on either side of the noble boy – placed a restraining hand on his arms.
Konall waited until the treacherous ambassador was further down the dockside before whispering, ‘Calm yourselves. I am learning. I do not think my father and uncle would be overjoyed if I decapitated him and disrupted whatever plans they are hatching.’
‘I do think we should follow him, though,’ Brann suggested.
‘I see no harm in that,’ Hakon agreed.
Konall was already on his feet. ‘I feel it would be remiss of us not to do so,’ he observed. He looked pointedly at Brann. ‘If we can all manage to avoid kicking any debris we happen to pass.’
Brann made an obscene gesture native to his homeland but which translated well. Konall chose to ignore it with aristocratic aplomb.
Loku had turned sharply up a side street and they hurried to regain sight of him as he moved into a part of the town even less reputable than the docks.
Konall grunted. ‘He is on no official business, that is for sure, if he is headed in that direction.’
Brann frowned. ‘He is not exactly hiding, though, is he? Surely, if he is up to no good, he would be trying to conceal himself more.’
‘Sometimes,’ Hakon explained lightly, ‘you attract more attention if you skulk in the shadows than if you move confidently and with purpose, as if you have no care who sees you. And no one will question a man of such obvious importance as to where he is going, even in this quarter.’
‘So why are we skulking in the shadows, then, among the muck and the rubbish?’ Brann objected.
Pulling his hood forward to hide his face and, more importantly, his distinctive, long, white-gold hair, Konall said in a low tone, ‘We are not hiding from onlookers; we hide from Loku. The streets will stay fairly quiet until the inns stop serving for the night. It would look a touch suspicious if he saw us behind him for any appreciable distance.’
Brann shrugged his acceptance, and hugged the wall closer.
As if Loku had heard Konall’s words, however, he wheeled suddenly and stared directly at them. They had two options: freeze and hope that the shadows would conceal them, but risk being seen and looking suspicious; or be so conspicuous that they (hopefully) would dispel any suspicion – but in doing so, losing their secrecy if Loku had not, in fact, spotted them at all in the darkness.
Either way, Konall made the decision for them. Roaring in rage, he dragged Hakon into the middle of the street as if they had spilled from a doorway.
In a surprisingly coarse voice, he bellowed, ‘That is one time too many you will insult her honour!’ and swung a wild punch at his page’s stomach. Fortunately, Hakon had the presence of mind to realise what was happening and doubled over the blow, looking as if the wind had been smashed out of him but absorbing the punch in his hunched position. He dropped to the ground, coughing roughly.
Brann pulled Konall by the arm, growling as loudly as he could, ‘Come, Mad Dog, before his friends appear.’ He started to drag the taller boy towards Loku and, as he had hoped, the ambassador had no wish to encounter such miscreants and turned and hurried on his way.
‘Mad Dog?’ Konall said, with more than a hint of amusement in his voice.
Brann shrugged. ‘I could not think of any of your people’s names quickly enough, so I went for a nickname. I think it quite suits you, actually.’
He could not see properly in the gloom, but he was sure that Konall came close to smiling.
‘Come on, Mad Dog and Mad Pup,’ Hakon’s voice said behind them. ‘He has turned down another street and we are in danger of losing him.’
They hurried to the junction and Konall peered around the corner. ‘We just got here in time,’ he said quietly. ‘He slipped down an alleyway as I looked. If we had been a moment later, we would have had no idea where he had gone.’
‘Hurry up, then,’ Hakon said urgently. ‘He is getting away.’
Brann tugged him back by the sleeve. ‘Do not be so hasty. He may be waiting there to see if he is being followed.’
Konall nodded. ‘That would make sense. I think it is time for the return of Mad Dog and his little helper.’
‘What about me?’ Hakon objected. ‘Do not think you are leaving me out of this.’
‘You will do what you are told,’ Konall gro
wled.
Brann stepped in. ‘There is a simple solution. If Hakon keeps to the shadows, it will look as if he is following us, as if he is seeking revenge. That way, if Loku spots Hakon, he will think he is trailing us, not him, and there will be a reason, therefore, for all three of us to be there.’
‘Enough talking,’ Konall said abruptly. ‘Get moving.’
He pulled his hood further down over his face and hunched forwards in an attempt to disguise his build. Placing an arm around Brann’s shoulders as if he drunkenly needed support, he half-dragged him forward and the pair staggered ahead, with Konall grumbling incoherently – and surprisingly convincingly. Brann fought hard not to giggle, an urge that grew stronger as they neared the corner. When they drew level with the alley, Konall started a decidedly unhealthy coughing fit that was violent enough to wheel him around to face down the narrow lane. He sank his head into Brann’s shoulder.
‘He is not there,’ he breathed into Brann’s ear. He stiffened. ‘Something moved behind that pile of rubbish. It may be a rat or it may be…’
‘I will check,’ Brann whispered. Konall held him back briefly, and he felt something cold and hard slip up his sleeve.
‘Take my long knife,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’
Brann grinned weakly. ‘In case it is a rat, you mean? I would more happily face a man than one of them.’
‘Big woman,’ Konall chided him. Brann did not answer but instead spluttered theatrically and spun away unsteadily.
‘Going to be sick,’ he moaned frantically and loudly and, hand over mouth, he ran at the pile – and startled a wizened, wrinkled beggar who sprang up, wide-eyed, from behind it.
It was unclear who was the more startled of the two. Konall was, however, less hesitant and was at the old man in a blink, pinning him against the building’s wall with the edge of his boot knife resting against the dishevelled character’s throat, the long fingers of his free hand gripping his captive’s wrists and pinning them against the crumbling surface of the stonework above his head.
‘I do not think he is in any state to run away,’ Brann objected.
‘Do not question me unless you have a better plan,’ Konall hissed in anger. ‘And unless you know what you are talking about. I am not worried about him running away, but about him running,’ he nodded at a low opening in the wall behind the debris, ‘in there.’
Feeling foolish, Brann nodded his acknowledgement just as Hakon joined them. Konall immediately sent him back to watch the street from the mouth of the alley and positioned Brann to one side of the hole in the wall.
‘If anyone looks out, stick your knife in their face,’ he growled.
His tone brought home to young boy how much more serious the situation had quickly become. No longer were they almost light-heartedly following a figure in the dark; now they were in a highly charged, uncertain situation that could prove instantly fatal for any of them – and the gods only knew how many others, if Loku was plotting some atrocity somewhere inside the building.
His nerves on edge, Brann tried to stare intently into the dark opening – but could not stop himself watching Konall with the old beggar. The tall boy pressed his blade harder against the man’s grey-stubbled throat and, his face aggressively close, snarled, ‘A noble went through that hole, did he not?’
In a quavering voice from a throat tightened by terror, the old man shrilled, ‘I saw no such man, my lord. I am just a poor beggar who had found a place to sleep.’ His eyes, however, betrayed his voice – darting calculatingly in search of any advantage he might gain.
Konall’s eyes, staring directly into those of his captive, widened in anger. ‘We both know that is not true, so stop wasting time,’ he hissed. ‘We both know you are a lookout for this viper’s nest, and we both know they will kill you if you betray them. But they will have to find you to kill you. And that is if they survive what we bring to them. Whereas if you do not betray them, I will kill you now, for I have no more time to waste on you. So you have a choice to make, and a quick one: die now or take your chance to run, hide and survive.’
The grimy beggar’s eyes narrowed and fixed on Konall. ‘Then there is no choice,’ he rasped, the fear dropping from his tone in an instant. ‘What would you know, my lord?’
‘Who entered just now?’
‘Loku.’
‘How many are in there?’
‘Eight, and Loku. One guarding the door to their room, the rest inside if it be the same as the other times.’
‘How many other times?’
The beggar shrugged. ‘Six, maybe seven, since this time last year.’
‘Why do they meet?’
He shrugged again. ‘I do not know.’ Konall pressed the knife harder and trickle of blood oozed from the grimy skin. ‘Why would they tell me?’ He opened one hand slightly to reveal a couple of small coins. ‘I am just paid to sit here each time they get together.’
Konall’s voice was low with contempt. ‘You would betray your lord, and your people, for that?’
The beggar’s contempt matched Konall’s. ‘Why not? Makes no difference to me either way. Now, do you need any more, or can I go now?’
Konall shook his head. ‘I need no more.’ The beggar relaxed in readiness to leave, and Konall made as if to start turning away. Abruptly, he tensed and sliced his knife across the old man’s throat. Blood, dark in the shadows, gushed from the wound as he dropped, lifeless, to the hard ground.
Stunned, Brann found it hard to comprehend what he had seen. Konall’s callous savagery shocked him. Why was he involved in this, when one side seemed as brutal as the other? Before he could think further, a harsh voice grumbled from the darkness within the building.
‘Keep the noise down, you old fool. I can hear you talking to yourself from down the corridor.’
A large face bearing a tattered eye-patch appeared in the hole in the wall. In panic, Brann stabbed out with the knife, by pure chance ramming it into the hapless guard’s good eye. It only entered a short way, but the man’s embryonic scream was cut short by Konall, whose hand hammered against the hilt of the weapon, smashing it into the victim’s brain and killing him instantly.
Konall followed the falling body into the building, dropping the few feet to the lower level of floor and, with a nauseating sound, retrieved the weapon and wiped it on the guard’s tunic. Brann threw up violently. In a matter of seconds, two men had died in the most brutal of manners and, worse, he was a part of it. Whatever his distaste, he was as bad as Konall.
‘Good reactions,’ Konall observed, handing back the knife. ‘The use of the knife, that is, not the vomiting.’
He turned back into the room. Unable to follow, Brann could not stop staring at the weapon in his open palm. Hakon moved beside him. He reached across and closed Brann’s fingers around the hilt.
‘You kept yourself alive. That is all. No more,’ he said quietly. ‘Now put those thoughts you have aside, and we will talk later. If you want to survive the next time as well, you must live in each moment alone for the next while, simple as that.’
‘But the old man,’ Brann said bleakly. ‘There was no reason for him to die. Konall is as bad as they are. And now, so am I.’
Hakon turned him by the shoulders, and stared into his eyes. ‘Yes there was a reason, no Konall is not, and no you are not. But we have not the time to discuss it now. It comes down to this: do you want to die?’ Brann shook his head. ‘Good. Do you trust me?’ Brann nodded, surprised at how readily he did so. ‘Then do this, for I do not want you to die either – and neither does my sister.’ Mention of Valdis brought Brann back slightly to his senses.
Hakon continued speaking rapidly. ‘Fix your mind totally on what you have to do, in each second as it comes. Konall and I are with you. We are, the three of us, a team. These are hard men in here, and we must help each other, and work as one, if we are to come out of it alive. Bury all emotion, and do whatever you have to do, automatically.’ He slapped Brann’s shoulder. ‘Now
let’s go. I will be right behind you.’
Konall was crouching in the gap in the wall. He had returned to hurry them on, but had stopped on hearing Hakon’s words.
He looked at his page. ‘You have much of your father in you.’ Without further ado, he turned back into the dark room. Hakon, Brann was sure, was blushing as he nudged the smaller boy towards the gap. It was unevenly edged, as if it had originally started to crumble from poor workmanship and the effects of the weather, and had then been roughly enlarged once the opportunity had presented itself for an entrance other than the front door. It led into a small room that lay around four feet below ground level with, Brann noticed as he dropped onto the basic, earthen floor, light entering from a doorway to the right.
Without looking down, he stepped hesitantly around the body on the floor – then jumped as, with a soft thud, Hakon dragged the old man’s corpse in from the alley. The taller boy gently propelled him towards Konall’s waiting figure at the doorway.
‘Sorry to startle you,’ he murmured. ‘It just was not wise to leave such an obvious sign of our entry lying in the street.’
‘But what about, you know, what I did?’ Brann asked awkwardly. ‘You know: what I left lying on the ground out there.’
Hakon grinned. ‘At last, you are thinking things out again – thank the gods. You have your moments away from us, but you always seem to come back. That is good.’ Brann was not so sure if it was, indeed, so good, but Hakon was continuing. ‘Do not worry about leaving your lunch out there. It is not that unusual a sight around here.’
Konall glanced at them. ‘If you ladies have finished gossiping, would you like to proceed?’
The pair nodded, and after a quick glance from Konall into the corridor, they slipped from the room. Brann felt as if they left Hakon’s small amount of levity in the room: strangely, despite the two dead bodies within it, there had been an irrational sense of security about that room. Now that they were moving deeper into the building, he had an acute sense of not belonging, and such a strong feeling of danger that it was almost as if he could taste the threat in the air.
Hero Born Page 39