by Veras Alnar
“I was under the impression your stay in the town was unpleasant,” Lord Guain said.
“Not always,” Amis admitted, “but I was hoping to have left on the day I became ill.”
“I suppose God has plans for us all,” Lord Guain said, “and more are mystery than known.”
“I don't know what to believe,” Amis admitted.
“My childhood in Adelaide was troubled,” Lord Guain admitted, “it was a difficult place to grow up. So it gives me some understanding when I see the same results in others. People haven't treated you well, Amis, it's obvious. I hope to change your mind that everyone is of the same ilk.”
“Maybe they didn't like me,” Amis said, “but I also did things that I'm not proud of.”
“Was that why the villagers chased you to the barn?” Lord Guain said.
It was with sudden steps that Amis stopped in their walk around the courtyard.
“How did you know that?” Amis said.
“There were rumors of child sacrifice,” Lord Guain said, “those poor vanished souls in Fairfax. Lady Anna was troubled by it very deeply and it seemed no one knew what to do. It's only natural that if Fulk said you went to ruin then your guilt was assumed. If there's one thing consistent no matter what country one finds oneself in, it's that anyone who's different is the first to be assumed at fault rather than innocent.”
“I didn't kill those children,” Amis said.
“I never thought you had,” Lord Guain said.
“But I had done something bad,” Amis said, his heart shrinking in his chest, “terrible enough to make them rightfully angry.”
“What have you done?” Lord Guain said.
And here was the real test, the true letting go of it. If Amis could bring himself to say it and perhaps, deep down inside, because he had a mind that Lord Guain wasn't all he seemed and was perhaps a terrible murderous man that it didn't matter if Amis told him.
“I killed an infant,” Amis said, whisper quiet.
The wind kicked up a little, just a breeze that ruffled the ash covered plants and leaves in the courtyard.
“Was it aborted,” Lord Guain said, “it's not against any law and not seen as murder by the court.”
“No,” Amis said, his throat pained him to say it, “I murdered an infant that was three months old. Cut off his head like a suckling pig because my lover bade me to. She was afraid her future husband wouldn't act kindly towards it.”
“Ludicrous,” Lord Guain said, “a bastard son among the peasantry is hardly the end of the world. Why do you think she really made you do it?”
“If you knew her,” Amis said, “you'd know that was the why. She wanted to be free, more than anything.”
Amis closed his eyes against the barrage of images that assailed him.
“I went with my father once,” Amis said, “when I had a mind to earn some money to get a proper sword and not the broken, wooden idiot one Conrad gave me. And Martin, my father ordered me to come with him and shovel muck. And so I tried. It wasn't the smell or the mess or the way people turned away from us that bothered me, it was the dead children.”
Amis took in a shuddering breath.
“People don't think about what lot the peasants live,” Amis said, “nobles most of all, if you have a bastard and can't afford it, it's easiest to drown it in the cesspit. My father told me it was a bad week for it, that it wasn't usually like this. That war made people stupid and afraid. And my father, he said it was the husbands who would dump them like that, not usually the mother who you could hear crying all over when they realized their child went missing. I didn't want that for Durgia, it would have driven her mad. She was kind, she didn't want to do it. She cried when I knocked its head off but at least it was a clean death with some honor and not drowning in a pile of someone else's shit.”
“Did you cry?” Lord Guain said.
“Does it matter?” Amis said.
“Yes it does,” Lord Guain said.
Thinking back on it Amis could only remember the smell and the sounds but perhaps, his cheeks had been a little damp.
“Yes,” Amis said, “but I don't know why. It wasn't anything to do with me, I just didn't want it to suffer-”
“The way you had,” Lord Guain said.
Amis shook his head.
The earth rumbled and the clouds darkened even deeper the coming of night, from the sky the ash began to fall again like gentle, smoke colored snowflakes.
“Thank you,” Lord Guain said, “for telling me the truth.”
“If it's worth anything,” Amis said, “you're the first one I've ever told anyone about it. Except for Fulk, seeing as he was there to put the body in the ground in the graveyard after.”
“And he had no qualms about this?” Lord Guain said,.
“No,” Amis said, “he loved Durgia just as much as I did, and knew her friends who used to spend time on the barges. They were a rough lot but good strong women. I liked them, though I don't think they thought much of me. Fulk was the one who always got their attentions with his clever stories and smooth tongue.”
It was such an unburdening that Amis began to feel the most powerful exhaustion creep through his bones. It was nearing sunset and that always seemed to be the time when he had the worst headache.
“I want to go inside,” Amis said.
Reaching up towards the rose, Lord Guain surprised Amis by brushing his fingers through his hair.
“I think out of everyone on earth, you'd understand me best,” Lord Guain said.
Perhaps his guess had been right, Amis thought and Lord Guain was at heart, despite his handsomeness, a very lonely man.
It was after this that they went indoors and Amis, though he had finally felt his guilt lift a little, still felt uneasy and unwell.
“Ouch,” Amis said, pressing his hand against his forehead.
The headache had appeared at sunset again but it was much more mild than it had been before.
“Come into the great hall,” Lord Guain said, “I can get you some wine.”
Amis opened his eyes and nodded at Lord Guain just as he saw Fulk creep around the corner. A great bang rang out and it was with some fright that Amis saw Lord Guain drop like a potato sack to the floor.
“That solves that,” Fulk said.
“My god,” Amis said, “what have you done!”
“I don't know if I've killed him,” Fulk said.
“There's blood,” Amis said, feeling sick at the sight, “what did you hit him with?”
“An old hammer mace,” Fulk said, “that I got from the dungeons. Handier than a crossbow, it'll take the brain out of anyone.”
Blood sluggishly began to crawl across the floor and Amis heard Nethir's warning come back to him unbidden; blood spilled here is never to some natural end, keep that in mind. Gathering all of his fortitude, Amis turned the body of Lord Guain onto his back and saw the eyes staring back at him, surprised and glassy.
“I think he's dead,” Amis said.
“Then we've done in a murderer,” Fulk said, “nothing to be fussed about.”
“Shut up,” Amis said, weakly.
As unseemly as it was, it felt like Amis had betrayed him.
“We'll put it in the dungeon,” Fulk said, “and lock the door just to be sure.”
Together they managed to lift the body of Lord Guain, his face frozen in a cold, dead gaze. Somehow Amis felt chilled by it, more than he had ever by the living man. They worked and sweated until they opened the leaden door and rolled the body down the stairs. When they laid it against a stone pillar surrounded by collapses and dusty skeletons, Amis noticed the old ring on Lord Guain's finger. Some compulsion made him brave walkind down the stone steps to slip it off and pocket it. As they were closing the heavy casement, Amis felt like they were being watched, the back of his neck prickled and when he looked behind him, he swore he could feel burning eyes that bored into the back of his neck.
“God what is that,” Fulk said, “all
those scratching sounds, must be a hell of a lot of rats.”
“I don't think so,” Amis said.
With Lord Guain done away with, Amis felt extremely miserable. He went to the solar with Fulk who had the gall to hum a tune, a lovely little song about the Princes of Elaine, which was so incongruous in the dark and grim hall of their keep it might as well have been a comedy.
“Sit down on that bed,” Fulk said, “rest yourself.”
“We've done wrong,” Amis said.
“I have no doubt he would have done us in if he hadn't got to him first,” Fulk said.
“How do you know that!” Amis shouted, “He could have been an innocent man!”
“For god's sake you idiot,” Fulk shouted back at him, “he's done in the whole town like a mad sacrifice, you saw the proof yourself!”
“I keep dreaming about it,” Amis said, “about the beasts in Garstwrot keep and he saves me from them by waking me up when I'm sleep walking. But I'm not sure if it is a real thing or just some wild imagining.”
Fulk sighed and got up from his reclined position, he held Amis' crossed arms and forced him to meet his eyes.
“There's plenty worse in this world than you or I,” Fulk said, “when we're through with this, make a prayer at a church if you still feel badly about it and then fight for God and country under the banner of a King. That was our plan, wasn't it?”
“It was,” Amis said, “though I have my doubts if it was a good one.
“So pessimistic,” Fulk said, releasing him, “on the 'morrow, we'll say goodbye to Garstwrot and let whoever comes deal with the remains of the goodly Lord Guain.”
They sat in silence for some time with the fire crackling in the chimney and Amis sat at his desk in melancholic revelry.
Fulk puffed on his pipe, “were you the sodomized, or the sodomizer when he bedded you.”
Amis swore at him, “what the hell does that matter now?”
“I had wondered is all,” Fulk said.
“Don't bother me about your perverse fantasies!” Amis shouted.
“So the sodomized,” Fulk guessed, “never thought you'd have it in you to bed a man, to be honest.”
“God!” Amis said, “Shut up! Shut up!”
“Was it like that with the Durgia?” Fulk said, “she was a bit of a wild one, wasn't she? And all her little schemes about the town. I think you have a kind, Amis. People who are very much above you in the brain. ”
“I don’t want to think about her anymore,” Amis said, miserably, “or him.”
Fulk grabbed Amis and held him close; he smelled of dank things, of all the nasty things that lived in the earth. His breath wasn't as bad as his teeth looked but his face was still troubling; the intensity of his gaze was something Amis had always found frightening. Those pale colored eyes that narrowed and glared, schemed and plotted things Amis never dared think of.
“Let go of me,” Amis said weakly, all the fight had left him earlier when he had seen Lord Guain hit the ground in a heap.
“I never noticed before,” Fulk said, “but your eyes aren't quite brown.”
The reflection that he had seen in Lord Guain's eyes was reflected back at him in Fulk's own limpid gaze and Amis knew somehow, beyond all doubt, that there was something terribly wrong. He shoved Fulk away and grabbed a mirror from the desk and held it up and sucked in a desperate breath. Fulk stood behind him and went deathly quiet, until he finally sucked in a ragged breath of his own.
“Amis,” Fulk said, “how are you doing it?”
“I'm not doing anything,” Amis said, staring as desperately as he could.
“There must be some trick,” Fulk said.
“It's not a trick,” Amis said.
It was impossible, not something that could be real. But it was staring him in the face or rather, it was the lack that he was seeing. His reflection. There was nothing in the mirror he held in his head, not a wisp of anything but the chair behind him.
“My God,” Fulk said, “your eyes have gone red.”
Amis sucked in air through his teeth and jumped up from the desk.
“It's a story,” Amis said, “it has to be.”
“I thought it might be true,” Fulk said, putting a hand to his mouth, “but not like this.”
“What truth do you know!” Amis yelled, “TELL ME!”
The ground underneath their feet rumbled and echoed deep in the empty keep, as if the earth was grumbling under Garstwrot's dungeon.
“The heir of Garstwrot,” Fulk said, “I had figured you were it but I didn't believe in Garstwren's ridiculous legends, there was no reason to.”
Amis stared at him, perplexed beyond anything.
“But an heir would be my mother,” Amis said, “since my father is dead, wouldn't it?”
“She's not your mother and he's not your father,” Fulk said, “just shut up and listen and don't interrupt me. It's something I had figured out piece by piece. The Fairfax's kept you so they'd get Garstwrot, that was the title that you had that they had wanted. Who knows how or why, or the precise movement of events. But those eyes ring true and your father, Martin, I had heard that he was a very different man years ago. A man of exceptional skill so I thought, perhaps you'd come by your sword swing honestly. But then someone else told me, it had been a longbow he'd taken up not a sword. And I got to wondering about other things, like how you seemed so stupid and so smart all at once.”
“Thank you for that,” Amis said, surly.
“It's not meant as an insult, just the truth,” Fulk said, “and I wondered if they hadn't kept you locked in Fairfax tower to wait for you to come of age, gather up the title and then shove you into a well or something.”
Amis made a distressed sound, it was something he didn't think his parents could have done. And yet, it was all there staring at him in the way they had treated him. He hadn't been their son at all but a tool to reach the goal they had so wanted.
“It's not a very rich land Garstwrot,” Fulk said, “but it's a damn good place to barter with a King who's losing a fight and once those wars broke out it would be even more tempting. But there's risks involved in playing such a game.”
“So they sent me here,” Amis said, “but why?”
“I don't know,” Fulk said, “maybe someone scared them, or they got a threat and thought it wasn't worth the bother. It's not as if you have a blood relative alive to ask anymore.”
“If it's true that Martin wasn't my father,” Amis said, “then who was he?”
“I've no idea,” Fulk said, “I couldn't figure it out. He was well traveled and smarter than the rest of town and still shoveled shit for a living but I bet he could tell us if he still walked exactly why things happened as they did.”
“He did seem a ruined man,” Amis said, “though by what I could never tell.”
The rumble from the earth was stronger and Amis walked over to the window and flung open the shutter. The ashes were falling from the sky in great profusion and the clouds had covered all the moon and stars.
“Close that up,” Fulk said.
“I've never seen the sky like this,” Amis said, “so dark.”
“For god's sake, shut it up!” Fulk said.
Forcefully, Fulk shoved him out of the way and slammed shut the shutters. It was clear he was becoming unsettled and Amis dreaded what conclusions he had reached in his head that had made him so nervous.
“If you are the heir of Garstwrot,” Fulk said, “and his blood is what's at fault making your reflection vanish before our eyes then who knows what else is true.”
Fulk turned to him with the most awful look on his face.
“I heard about them when I was digging holes in Croglin,” Fulk said, “the dead that would get up and walk again out of their burial shrouds.”
Croglin Grange was a tiny, monastery town some miles away that produced most of their town's beer, it was hardly the stuff of evil legend and more known for its Sunday suppers to traveling pilgrims than anyth
ing at all sinister.
“But I'm not dead,” Amis said, “obviously, or I wouldn't be talking to you now.”
Fulk paid him no mind and continued with his story.
“After some digging one night, the monks and I got drunk. They told me all about them, when they had been all over the country back in the old days. They'd crawl up out of their graves like ghastly mummies and drink blood,” Fulk said, “and then return to them still as anything when dawn broke. They'd stink of death and offal and you couldn't reason with them because they were just rotten skin with moving bones. Servants of evil witches, all the others like Garstwren that were whispered about in legends. I thought it was only in jest but maybe there's something to it. They were sometimes called un-dead and lurked about only under the cover of night.”
“That's a stupid word,” Amis said, “it has no meaning. And I stand under the sun just fine.”
Though it was true that Amis found the darkness easier on his aching head but that could have been caused by anything.
“Amis,” Fulk said, “that night in the barn-”
“I had a fever,” Amis said.
“You may have died,” Fulk said.
“I'm not dead!” Amis insisted.
“If anything about this wretched place is true then it could be!” Fulk said, “Who knows what unnatural laws things like that follow, during the day you had a reflection. I saw it! At night things may change, who knows. I hate this sort of stuff, the dead should shut their putrid mouths and stay in the ground nice and tidy not wander about like a bunch of clattering junk off the side of a bargeman’s hauler.”
“I was never put in the ground and I'm not dead!” Amis said.
“I don't know what to think,” Fulk said, hand wrenching at his own hair, “I don't know what's true! And Lord Guain and all his scheming, what of him? Was he really Gessetto turned young and handsome instead of old and decrepit?”
“I don't know,” Amis said, “but nothing gave away any disguise. No secret mark or scar that I could see.”
A noise startled them both, it was scratching at the fire place in their room.
“What is that?” Fulk said.
“I keep hearing it at night,” Amis said, “maybe it's the rats you're so fond of mentioning.”