O’ the Bolg may lay in ambush
But, the red caps trust their walls.
- Ruad Song
There was a crowd on either side of the Western Gate, and the noise was immense. Brea watched the scene as they approached, distracted by thoughts of the battle of Coscar’s Pass. It was good that Piju had finished his story before they got into the crowd, for the noise was deafening. Brea shook herself out of her memories to look to the gates. The guards had closed and barred them, with dozens of folk inside who wanted out and, judging from the noise, hundreds outside protesting to enter.
“Cui Foe! Cui Foe!” the people outside were chanting. “Kill the Monster! Kill the Monster!” Even through the gates and the noise of the crowd gathered in front of them, the chanting was clear, washing over them with its sinister beat.
Dozens of Ruad and a handful of Bolg stood about in the heat, staring at the sight of the red-coated guards holding the gates closed against the hundreds protesting outside. One noble in a red court tunic was arguing loudly with the guardsmen, but they didn’t seem inclined to listen. The conversations inside the gate and the yelling outside drowned out any discussion in reasonable tones on either side of the gate.
“Can we pass out safely?” she yelled.
Caeshy looked to the guards. He stepped over to their Line Leader and took on his authority. To Brea, he looked a bit like a puffed up grouse during mating season, but the guards understood.
“Clear us a path,” he ordered.
The noble looked at him halfway down the gate. He squinted at him as though trying to remember him from an earlier meeting.
“Caeshel’s son?” he asked. “I’ve already told them to, they’re not listening to any of us. I’ve told them that I can calm my people down, but …”
The guards didn’t quite ignore him, but they passed ineffectual glances among each other.
“There are only ten of us, Master Philosopher, Lord Faille,” the Line leader spoke for his men. “If we open the gates, we won’t be able to keep the mob out, and His Majesty sent orders to keep them out.”
He was on solid ground with the orders and knew a king’s philosopher wouldn’t countermand an order from the king. Master Caeshy looked disgusted at their cowardice, but wouldn’t actually hold a sword himself. Brea expected that Caeshy would run if a man drew a sword against him, so Caeshy expected that the mob would do much the same.
The guardsmen seemed to have the opposite view. Perhaps they thought that the farmers would ignore their handful of blades, fall upon them with farm implements, and kill them all. Neither side was tested with imminent death while the gate remained between them, so there was a standoff.
Lord Faille spoke up. “I can’t do anything here. I’m heading around to the South Gate. If I hurry, I can still get home before dark. Feel free to accompany me, Master Caeshel.”
“No, I’m staying. I just don’t see us getting all the way to the South Gate and back up here before it is long past dark.”
Brea thought that it didn’t sound like much of a problem, but Caeshy didn’t look like he walked nearly as much as she did. Two years in the throne hadn’t destroyed all her muscle tone.
Lord Faille gathered some of his servants and marched back up toward the palace. Caeshy spoke sidelong to Brea.
“My father was Lord Caeshel, but his properties are held by the king now. He had nearly a hundred fields and several nice buildings in town.” He shrugged. “I suppose Faille remembers my father better than I do. I just remember that he was always fighting for some cause or other. Now he’s dead, and Ard is none the better for it.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Caeshy,” Brea said.
Caeshy just shook his head.
“I think he could have done a lot less fighting and a lot more living. I’d be the one to have strong memories of him, not some rural noble who hasn’t made it to court twice in a year.”
Brea couldn’t answer him. She would have fought. If it was worth it, she would always have fought. Of course, her sons were far away fighting battles she didn’t agree with. Perhaps they would sympathize with Caeshy, Cashel’s son, and prefer memories of her to stories of her victories.
“Mistress,” said Piju, “I’m going to go find Master Keynan.”
She nodded at him, not taking her direct gaze from the guards. She felt, more than saw, him slip away into the crowd. She knew he had crossed the walls before, though mostly after dark; perhaps this business before the gate would keep the guard occupied. The guards quailed beneath her direct gaze, quickly finding important things to look at, including the crossbar of the gate and the dirt at their feet.
This was the mob who wanted to punish Waylaid. She could hope the murderer had a neck she could cut, but she expected that this was something of sorcery, a Waylaid problem. Brea felt like she was set up to fail, and she didn’t like to lose. Her anger boiled at the mob outside the gates. I need him and you have sent him away.
Frankly, she was angry. Her hands and feet burned with the need to get to the other side of that gate, but people wouldn’t stop standing in her way. The palm of her right hand felt like it was about to catch fire. She smiled grimly.
Maybe, just maybe, someone will argue with me about how I let my people move about the city. She savored the bloodthirsty thoughts. For the Daen, there were some wonderful aspects to worshiping the Blessed Mother. You never, ever, had to ask forgiveness for protecting your own.
Piju moved up the street to the guard barracks. Like every other building, it was set a couple of body lengths away from the wall, to make it easy for the guards to see if anyone was trying to climb the wall. But the walls were long and uneven; it wasn’t a couple hundred paces before the guard post dropped behind a crease in the hillside. The guards wanted this no-man’s land kept clear at all times but were ignored by many of the Ruad. What a Ruad could get away with and what a Bolg could get away with were very different things in this city. If a Ruad were to walk in the no-man’s land, the guards might just yell at him. If a Bolg slave took the same walk, the guards might just decide to kill him.
Not many guards stayed in the barracks, but there were usually a couple of men either sleeping or on guard. He didn’t really care how many were in there, he only wanted to use their toilet.
The latrine was dug into the dirt at the base of the wall. It was right next to the one on the top of the wall, so the trench for one was usually the older trench for the other. Each was picked up and moved twice a moon, digging a pace of new trench and filling in the twice used one. The toilets kept the guards from pissing on people below or exposing their buttocks to the town or countryside a couple of times a day.
The enterprising young guards had built walls and a roof for their outdoor toilets, both the one on the wall and the one on the ground. The toilet’s walls weren’t very high, a bit taller than a Ruad, but including the roof it came up nearly a third of the way up the wall.
The upper toilet stuck out an arm’s length from the wall, and had to support the weight of a guard, plus the weight of its walls and roof. The support buttresses for the upper toilet reached almost halfway down the wall. Keeping the two toilets close together meant that only one trench had to be maintained. The guards were unwary of trouble, but one of them had to have considered the risk. Piju wondered what that conversation was like.
“Are we building a ladder over the wall?” one would say.
“Who would climb up the guard’s toilet to reach the top of the wall?” replied the overconfident captain.
Piju slid over the top of the wall. It was empty all the way to the tower on either side. The drop on the far side would have broken his leg, had he taken it directly, but there were some footholds from poorly fitting blocks that got him halfway down. Then it was just a drop of a couple of body lengths. Piju hit with a sideways roll that brought him back to his feet.
He looked at the crowd gathered before West Gate, but no one appeared to be watching. There must have been a few i
n the crowd looking his way; he couldn’t see everyone. He imagined a shout of, “escaped slave,” but he heard nothing. Piju was already running and even if the crowd had seen him, they couldn’t catch him on their best day. The Mistress needs Keynan and his hounds as soon as possible. Well, there is no one in Ard faster than me.
The walls weren’t so far around that he couldn’t go from West Gate to East Gate at a run. It wasn’t quick, as there was no good way to get from East Gate to South Gate, but there was a road between the West Gate and the South Gate road. He could cut through the fields there to get to Keynan and his dogs. The road south was only a thousand paces or so. He would count by fingers, each pace was two steps, his right hand counted to ten while his left counted tens.
Ten thousand paces at a run was what the Kerrick had called, “A Good Run.” Hunts never started closer to Leest than at least a good run, and usually two or three over a few days. Ard was not so large that a good run wouldn’t take Piju all the way around, even though no street took that route.
He commonly started his morning by running down the mountain from the Library and out the East Gate. From the East Gate he would run down the mountain, cut south across the fields, and pass through the farm where Keynan trained the dogs.
From the south end of Ard, he’d run a long loop toward the west on a path that hit the North Road near the end of West Gate road and crossed into the Northern Forest beyond where the King’s guards commonly patrolled.
Piju hunted in the Northern Forest, where the game was plentiful. But, he had been told by the Daen not to bring the meat back through the East Gate. The guards at the East Gate would assume that he had taken the deer or boar in the king’s woods, which was true. The Daen told him that it was illegal for him to hunt north of the city, which was near half of Pywer, because he wasn’t a noble Ruad. Rather than argue a stupid rule with guards, he brought the kill around to South Gate, where it was legal to hunt. It was half a run out of his way, but he had tried to stay out of trouble. South Gate was also next to the slave quarters, which wasn’t a bad reason to stop there.
He also liked to help Keynan with his dogs, which were kenneled near the South Gate. It was a bit of a walk out from the road, into the fields, but the hound master had picked a spot where there was a long stretch of woods for hunting practice and a lot of free fields for running. He had a Ruad family living nearby that helped him. For Keynan to do it alone would have been a lot of work, to get two dozen dogs fed and run every day, but with a team they made short work of it. Piju had wanted to run the dogs some himself, but Keynan had thought he was too small to control them.
Houses were set up all around the city walls, making any straight route between the gates impossible, but there were paths. Fields lined the road, behind deep ditches. These were backed by a near wall of small houses, barns, cow runs, and other farm buildings that made this area almost impassible for anyone bigger or less athletic than a Bolg boy.
Piju hurdled the ditch and was halfway across the field when he heard the dog howl. It was Blue, and she bayed again, a pure note of canine need. Piju slowed his running, turned his head and looked south. He felt his jaw drop open as his keen eye picked out Blue, turning the corner onto the Southern Road.
Dragging their handlers behind, the dogs bayed again, hot to go hunting. Keynan had seven Ruad farmers, big men and heavily built, each with a massive hound on a rope. The men had little idea of how to walk a dog and held the rope like they were trying to pull a boat into dock. Keynan held three leads himself, walking them with no effort. Blue had no harness. She bounded ahead a dozen steps, turned at his call, and bounded back. She charged around the entire team at full speed and then ran ahead again. Turning the corner after him, one at a time, were a full five chariots.
Piju stopped in his tracks and turned around. The details were still vague at this distance, but that looked like all of Mistress Brea’s chariots on the road, minus the one Waylaid must have taken this morning, and all her men.
Thirty to one odds might look bad for a Ruad, but the Daen won’t be stopped.
He started walking back to the road, the thick dirt of the wheat fields clogging his toes and dragging at his feet. He stopped and was staring again, as a dozen Daen soldiers were jogging behind the chariots.
Mistress Brea only has twelve soldiers, right? This nearly doubled that count. Still staring, he slogged slowly back through the chest-high wheat and jumped the ditch.
The dogs swarmed around him. They were big, weighed more than he did, with a beautiful yellow and white pattern. Blue was a gray and white, which happened sometimes, and there were big black puppy spots on the backs of Blue and her two littermates. The puppies were less than a year old, but not much smaller than the others. They would be huge by the time they were five. Piju found himself wrapping his arms around Blue, her mismatched blue and brown eyes staring into his. Her eyes always made him think of Waylaid and made everyone else think that the dog was crazy. She bayed again, and the others took up the chorus.
The group behind them did not look like a bunch of farmers; they wore beautiful armor, carried fine swords and wore bronze helmets. The tunics beneath were simple homespun wool shirts, but that was only apparent next to Berin Halfhand’s fine linen shirt and breeches. There were five of the Mistress’s warrior priests helping the new soldiers form lines and dress ranks. The charioteers were all farmers, but the spearman in each chariot was one of Brea’s senior troops.
“I guess they found you,” Keynan said, indicating the dogs. “Given the mob, I brought some reinforcements.”
A second set of troops turned the corner. Their bright shields flashed in the sunlight as they turned, a full twenty men in a tight box formation. They wore Ruad red-caps but had green coats instead of red. That would make them the household of some noble Ruad. They wore no armor and carried no swords, but they had thick wooden batons buckled to their hips and carried shining brass shields.
An older Daen, wearing only a leather coat and the insignia of a Unit Leader came up to Keynan and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Blessed Mother, we haven’t had a run like that in years. I hate to ask, my good man, but this doesn’t look like a battle.”
“Pardon, Sir,” said Piju, and the gentleman looked his way. “Mistress Brea sent me, she needs you.” He took a breath and organized his thoughts. “There is a civilian mob gathered at the Western Gate. It impedes the murder investigation requested by the King of the Ruad. Mistress Brea needs you to clear the gate.”
“Well spoken, little man.” Keynan nodded at him.
Berin swung down from his chariot to make introductions. “Apprentice Piju of Leest, this is Unit Leader Fifth Rank Absoe of Eiodon.”
Piju grasped forearms with Absoe, proud to be considered one of their number.
A noble in a green coat approached their conference.
“Master Keynan, might I join you?” he said.
“Absolutely,” Keynan warmed to the formality of the moment. “Unit Leader Absoe, Group Leader Berin, apprentice Piju, this is Lord Liest of the Southern Marches, on which we are apparently standing at this moment.”
Berin frowned and looked at the ground as if it had suddenly shifted under his feet.
“We don’t ask for help from the Ruad.”
“Please, good sir,” said the noble, “I owe Keynan a great debt for not taking my head earlier today. I would be happy to repay this debt by loaning him a body of troops.” He waved behind him at the block of troops drawn up under the stern gaze of their Ruad Group leader.
“We tend to count our men by fives and twenties, instead of twelves, but perhaps a group of Ruad could assist three groups of Daen? My Group Leader would be under Unit Leader Absoe’s direct command.”
“Piju of Leest, how far to this riot control event that we are called upon to perform?” Absoe asked.
Piju checked his hands. “one thousand, one hundred, twenty-two paces.” He realized he shouldn’t count the run through the
field, but didn’t correct himself.
Berin grabbed a training shield out of his chariot and handed it to one of the recruited farmers.
“This is a training shield. Strap it to your left arm. This shield is double the weight of a common shield, so use it to hit people.”
The farmers stared at him blankly.
“EVERYONE GET ONE!” Berin shouted, and the men dived for the chariots. Ten training shields were found and a pair of long staves, weighted near the end with iron rings.
“Ahh,” said Berin, “blessing staves. I am so glad you found those.”
Two of the more experienced men picked them up and spun them to a buzzing blur. Absoe and Berin moved among the troops, helping the new men adjust their shields and helmets, giving advice to the soldiers.
“Just remember, one blessing per opponent, don’t get tied down in a real fight. Convince them to move on.”
Absoe stood straight, gathering his breath.
“MEN!” he called, and his troops straightened visibly. “Friends,” he added quietly and looked lovingly at the men arrayed before him. “You are not trained in crowd control. Most of you are not trained at all. These men are simple farmers, much as you are yourselves.
“But you are the Blessed Folk, and they are Ruad. They will run from you, and you will let them run.” He raised his arms as if to embrace them. “They are afraid. You WILL NOT BE AFRAID.”
“NO!” came crashing back.
“FORM UP!” he shouted. “Keynan, dogs front.” He pointed at the Ruad Group Leader. “Liest’s men, behind the dogs, you are my center. If you break I will kill you personally.”
“Unit Leader, Sir. Yes Sir,” The Group leader shouted back in a heavily accented Ruad speech, “Lie stairs! Foe Ward! Mosh!” and the unit marched cleanly up the road.
“Recruits,” Absoe shouted. “You are my right flank, I want you to follow the Ruad till I call ‘Right.’ You will then fill in the space between them and the city wall and you will hold that position. You will not draw your sword without me, ME, saying so. You will not break or I will kill you before the day is through. MOVE.”
The Broken Man Page 20