by RJ Baker
And then.
Almost against her will.
The bow shifted aim.
The mount lowered her antlers to fend off an attack.
A lizard lunged.
An arrow flew.
It took the lizard in the heart. Another beast is swept away on the crown of the golden mount. The three remaining lizards turn to face Aseela and the golden mount attacks. A furious rage. Arrows fly! One, two, three. Together the woman and the mount slay the lizards.
And all is quiet.
The mount steps forward, huge and threatening, blood on her antlers. Behind the queen of the herd her mate stands.
From out of the brush came more mounts, the queen’s herd, a forest of sharp antlers and razor tusks.
Aseela calls to the sky, “What a fool I have been! We have hunted mounts, and mounts have killed us in return! This is how it always was, this is how it always will be! My time on this earth is done. My children will be raised alone. What do animals know of mercy?”
But the queen of the herd spoke:
“Human, I killed one of your scent, and yet you saved me.”
Aseela fell to her knees and rent her clothes to bear her breast for the sharp antler.
“Mount, I saw you protecting what you loved, and saw myself in you.”
“But you must know our people are enemies. You shoot sharp arrows and we gore and trample. That is the way of life, unchanging.”
“Then gore and trample, Queen of Mounts.”
“I cannot return love with blood,” said the great beast. “As you saw yourself in me, so I see myself in you. And as we act, so are changes wrought. Let us be change. Now take my gift.” Two young mounts, one black, one white stepped forward. “Take my children, ride upon them and let them help you in your labours, and as long as you do not hunt my herds they will serve you.”
And Aleesa, who had once run like the wind, now rode like the wind and knew a joy like no other. And since that day no man or woman has hunted a mount. And that is right and that is just.
When Gusteffa finished, the applause was rapturous, and I marvelled at her. She was a fine acrobat but more a great judge of people. She had danced well and presented a story that mirrored the performance the people were about to see now – justice in action. Gusteffa raised a hand in triumph, gave me a wink and a quick, happy, flash of her teeth before cartwheeling out to the side of the arena and vanishing into the crowd.
“She was wonderful, wasn’t she, Boros?”
“If you say so,” he said, leaning forward. “Mostly she just gets under my feet, being everywhere. But it seems everyone else likes her, even that yellowing priest, Darvin, likes her.” He shook his head. “But now it is the real business. First case is our murderer.”
A guard captain walked forward, her metal shoulder pieces polished to within an inch of someone’s life so they gleamed like silver in the yearsbirth sun. Behind her two guards dragged forward the bound man and the chatter of the crowd died away.
“King Rufra, I am Captain Vellit of your fourth cohort; behind me is Guard Elithon. Two nights ago he got drunk and killed a guardsman called Untire because he would not spend the night with him.”
“You have witnesses?” said the king.
“Both Polik and Calkini behind me saw the act. Elithon himself does not deny it.”
“Does Elithon have anything to say?” Vellit moved to one side and the two guardsmen helped the bound man stand. Now I could see him clearly I saw eyes red from crying and bagged black by lack of sleep.
“Is what they say true, Elithon?” said Rufra, his voice sounding deeper, sterner than I was used to hearing.
“Aye, Blessed,” he said. “We was drunk.” His voice broke and he fought for a moment to bring his tears under control – though strangely, he did not appear at all frightened. “I only wanted him to come back to me, that were all. Then he were dead at me feet and my blade was wet. It were like Dark Ungar took me.”
“You do not deny it then?” The guard shook his head. “You know at this time I need every blade I can get?”
“Aye. I have let you down, Blessed.”
“You have. Do you have anything to say before I pass judgment?”
“Quick,” he said, though it was barely audible. “Just make my end quick.” The man stared at the floor. Rufra nodded to himself. “Elithon of the fourth cohort, a death is met with a death, and you will be taken to the nearest souring by your captain, your blood will bring life to the land.” Elithon nodded at the judgment, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Gabran the Smith doing the same. He must have brought this before Rufra.
“Was that a good judgment, Boros?” I said.
He nodded.
“Aye, though a pity. I always thought Elithon rather handsome.”
More cases followed, and, as Boros had said, they were mostly dull – arguments over goods, tents being pegged too close together and neighbours who could not get on. Little of it interested me. We were in the middle of a case about a lost draymount – the man who had found it would not give it back unless the man who owned it paid for the fodder it had eaten – and the crowd were jeering and booing at the two men involved, when the steady tramp of soldiers’ feet brought quiet to the small arena.
Boros, who had been using the cover of his bandages to disguise that he was on the point of sleep, sat up in his chair.
“Well, this looks like it may get more interesting than arguments about half a rick of hay,” he said as the crowd split to allow a phalanx of Landsmen through. At their head was Karrick and – a shock ran through me – behind him stumbled the old woman who had given me yandil leaf. “Or I could be wrong,” he said. “It might just be awful. Blue Watta curse the Landsmen, they bring nothing but misery.”
Karrick stepped forward, and another Landsman pulled the old woman after him by her stick-thin arm. I glanced over at Rufra. He looked annoyed. Areth looked stricken.
“King Rufra,” said Karrick. His voice carried over a crowd now silent and cowed – only a fool didn’t fear the Landsmen. “I am sorry to interrupt this court—”
“Then do not do it,” said Rufra. “There are ways to bring a grievance, Karrick, and you know them. You helped me draft the rules we follow.”
“Aye, but this is more important than squabbles over money.” With a heave his second threw the old woman into the dirt. Karrick did not even look at her. “This woman is a sorcerer, and as you have decreed the Landsmen cannot act in your camp without your say-so I must have your judgment on her.”
“There is only one,” said his second. “A sorcerer is questioned and then goes in a blood gibbet.”
“Quiet, Fureth,” said Karrick sharply. “I speak for the Landsmen here.”
“Rufra, this is wrong,” said Areth and she stood. “She is only an old woman, a herb seller. I bought herbs from her when our son was ill, and …” Her voice died away. Rufra’s face paled, then visibly hardened.
“No wonder your son died if you trusted this sour-wombed creature.” There was a shocked intake of breath at the way Fureth spoke to the queen. Then the Landsman brandished a bunch of leaves above his head.
A ripple of laughter passed through the crowd. “Doxy!” shouted a woman. “He’s gone soft in the head if he thinks doxy is for sorcerers – he’ll have to gibbet every women in the camp!” More laughter.
Karrick gave his deputy a filthy look and spun on his heel. “Fureth may speak out of turn,” he shouted, “but what he holds is not doxy. It is yandil leaf or, as you common folk call it, sorcerer’s balm.” There was another gasp at that and I became still from the inside outwards. The old woman had given me yandil. What had she told them? She looked exhausted, her hair lank and her ragged clothes bloodied.
“What has been done to her?” said Rufra quietly.
“Nothing. She ran is all, tired herself out,” said Fureth from behind Karrick. “Then we had to subdue her.”
“Silence, Fureth!” barked Karrick. “My apologies,
King Rufra. I did not command this woman to be put to the question nor punished. We abide by the rule that the only law in your lands is yours. Landsman Fureth will be punished if he has overstepped the mark.” I did not believe Karrick, and behind him Fureth sneered underneath his wide green helm.
“So I must decide if she is a sorcerer,” said Rufra sadly.
“There is no question of that, King Rufra,” said Karrick quietly. “Under the high king’s law possession of sorcerer’s balm is proof of sorcery.” Rufra nodded but did not look happy. “And even you must bow to the high king’s law, King Rufra.” Karrick did a good job of sounding regretful. He probably practised in front of a mirror.
“He is right,” said Aydor. “We cannot allow a sorcerer in camp.” I felt like opening his guts, especially knowing what he had been involved in with his mother.
Rufra looked at Aydor and for a moment I hoped he would dismiss him, or shame him publicly for speaking when he was not part of the council. Then he turned back to Karrick.
“Very well. This woman shall be taken by Captain Vellit to die alongside Elithon.” Rufra put his hand on Areth’s hand. “Her death will be quick at least.”
“No,” said Karrick, his voice full of mock regret, but there was iron within it. “She must be questioned. I am sorry, but if she has sorcerer’s balm she may have been supplying it to others. And then she must go into a blood gibbet. A sorcerer must be seen to die.” The crowd had become silent; nothing stirred a crowd’s hate quite like Landsmen and sorcerers.
“No!” Areth stood, and when she spoke she did not speak to Rufra or to Karrick, she spoke to the crowd. “That is barbarism. She is an old woman who may have done nothing more than mistake something forbidden for doxy. She could be any of us.” There were murmurs among the crowd – hadn’t one of them just mistaken it for doxy?
“If that is true it will come out when we question her,” said Fureth, and Karrick shot him a foul look, his fury at being undermined plain for all to see.
“It is the high king’s law, and even though High King Darsese is far away, it is him the Landsmen ultimately answer to, Queen Areth,” said Karrick.
“From what I hear,” whispered Boros, “the high king is far more interested in feasting and his catamites than what the Landsmen get up to.”
“I do understand, Queen Areth, that your background leaves you unfamiliar with the laws of the blessed,” Karrick said, and he may have believed this, but to the crowd it sounded like an insult and Areth was loved.
A cynical voice within me said that the queen was simply worried the woman would mention her name. A louder voice told me she genuinely felt for the woman and would have interfered even if she not been involved with her.
“The blood gibbet is wrong,” said Areth.
“You question the high king’s law?” said Fureth. Karrick shot him another dark look. “Quiet, Fureth,” said Karrick, “I will not tell you again. Areth simply cares for her people, as a queen should.”
“Do not fear for me, girl,” said the old woman, and the crowd went silent, the better to hear her words. “I do not fear the burning tongs or ripping blades.” I believed she would protect Areth, but what if she protected her queen by offering another to the Landsmen – me?
“Were I a man,” said Areth, “I would use your high king’s law to fight for her innocence.”
Did her gaze stray away from the Landsmen, just for a moment?
“But you are not a man, my queen,” said Karrick, “and you cannot.”
Did it stray to me?
I stood.
“She is simply an old woman, and you are cruel men in search of a victim.” I put my hand on my blade so there could be no mistaking my meaning. “I say this. And I am a man.”
As one, an intake of breath from the crowd.
“Girton …” said Rufra. I could hear how much more he wanted to say, it was caught up within the two syllables of my name: warning, reproach, fear. I glanced over at Areth. She looked, not pleased, relieved at what I had done, while both Nywulf and Rufra were warning me off with their eyes. But it was too late. I had chosen a path. What was it Gusteffa had said? “My path is set. You still have a choice.”
“This is not your fight, Girton Club-Foot,” said Karrick. He sounded reasonable and I knew he was right. To challenge a Landsman to a fight over an old woman accused of sorcery would probably arouse suspicion. I could already feel it, the crowd starting to wonder, to turn.
But I had other reasons to challenge Karrick.
“I say she is innocent, and I also say you are not. You are a murderer, Karrick Thessan.” A storm of excited noise from the crowd. “Rufra charged me with finding Arnst’s killer – you all heard him do so,” I shouted. “The day Arnst died, Karrick left Rufra’s Riders to come back here. He should have been here by nightfall with little trouble, but he was not back in the Landsmen’s compound until the next morning, and he told his men he rode in with Aydor.”
“That proves nothing,” said Nywulf from behind me. I ignored him, though it bothered me he was defending the man.
“But there is more,” I said. “Arnst was killed with a Landsman’s knife.” A ripple of shock ran through the crowd. “And Arnst did not simply give in; he fought, and his sword was bloodied.” I stepped forward, raising my voice and spreading my arms in the manner of a Festival storyteller. “I saw the bloodied sword myself, a fine blade.” I spoke to the crowd as if we conspired together against a common enemy and then turned back to the Landsman, speaking casually, but loudly enough for all to hear. “You are wounded, are you not, Karrick Thessan?”
“It is from training …” he began, but I could feel the crowd turning against him. “This is not a play, boy,” he said, I spoke over him using all the skills my master had taught me as a jester.
“Most damning of all, a young and innocent boy saw a Landsman going into Arnst’s tent that night.” The crowd let out a hiss. What I said was a lie, a small one, but I needed to push Karrick. I knew he was guilty but I could not prove it. Instead I had to make him fight me and prove his guilt that way.
“Girton,” said Rufra, “this is not enough. There are many Landsmen here, and even if it was one of them this boy saw—”
“You protect Arnst’s killer?” From the crowd stepped Danfoth the Meredari. “You say you have new ways that are fair for all, but you protect this man.” He pointed his huge hand at the Landsman.
A strange look crossed Karrick’s face. He seemed resigned, almost as if he were glad to be caught. He stepped forward. “Girton is your champion, King Rufra,” he said softly, “and he defends this woman –” he pointed at the stallholder “– and accuses me of murder. This cannot stand.” He drew his sword. “Let our blades decide it, Girton Club-Foot. Let blood bring life and truth.”
I stepped down from the dais and Nywulf grabbed me by my arm. “Why are you doing this?” he hissed.
“He is a murderer,” I said, “and probably the spy you set me to search for.”
“Girton,” he said quietly, his grip tightening painfully around my arm, “I forbid this and will knock you on your arse to stop it if I have to.”
I met his intent gaze and took a deep breath.
“You owe me,” I said “Remember a night long ago in Maniyadoc? You said you owed me for Rufra’s life. Well I call in that debt here and now.”
He pulled me in close.
“You had better be right about this, Club-Foot, because you are perilously close to ruining everything Rufra has built.”
“I am right,” I said, “I am sure of it.” Nywulf let go of my arm but a shudder ran through me. Ruining everything? What did Nywulf know that I did not?
“If you’re that sure you’re right, make sure you win,” he said.
I nodded and stepped forward. Before me Karrick was strapping a long oblong shield, marked with the tree of the Landsmen, to his arm, and Fureth was tightening the straps on Karrick’s helmet. Karrick pulled down the visor, blank and polished t
o a mirrored sheen, the mark of the Landsmen elite. I had heard of these warriors but never seen one. They were feared.
But so was I.
I made sure my own helmet was secure on my head. I did not use a visor – they were useful in a melee, but in one-on-one combat I preferred to be able to see clearly over protecting my face from scars.
Behind Karrick the Landsmen, about fifteen of them, had lined up in two rows, and the parched branch had been raised, their green standard hanging limp in the cold air from the twisted wood. I had no standard to raise but Danfoth walked forward with a pole in his hand and stood in front of the raised dais where Rufra sat. He unfurled a flag: a black background with a white circle and within that a cross of mount antlers. I had never seen such a sigil.
“The chosen of Arnst stand with you, Girton Club-Foot,” said the huge Meredari. “Avenge the fallen.”
There were two loud crashes as Karrick banged his spear on the inside of his shield.
“Shall we do this, Girton Club-Foot? Or do you wish to stop your foolish crusade against me before it topples you?”
He crouched behind the large shield, his body almost totally hidden by it, only the eyes and the crest of his helmet showing. His long spear twinkled in the light. He looked unassailable, a man without fear or doubt.
I drew my weapons.
“I am not frightened of you. I have chosen this path,” I said, “and have no choice but to travel it.”
He shrugged. “Very well, but the King must start this.” I glanced over my shoulder and Rufra stood, he looked furious. “I ask you both, once more, not to do this,” he said. Danfoth’s hand tightened around the haft of his spear.
“Girton must renounce his accusations and allow us to take the woman,” shouted Karrick.
I looked at Rufra and behind him saw Areth, her head in her hands.
“I cannot.”
“Then make ready,” said Rufra, “and Xus guide the right blade.” I took his mention of Xus as tacit support until I remembered that the Landsmen also paid homage to the god of death. Then all was forgotten and we began to circle.
Of all the foes to face, a man with shield and spear is the hardest in many ways and the easiest in many others. If you can get past the spear they are usually finished, but the shield Karrick carried also had a frontspike, a great barbed point that he could use to impale an attacker. It made the shield into a weapon or, at the very least, gave him time to draw his sword if his spear was beaten or broken. And the shield was big, giving him excellent cover and my stabswords had little chance of puncturing it. His left side was vulnerable because the shield interfered with his spear and it should have been easy to dash around the side of him and attack, but I knew only a fool would try that; a gap so obvious could only ever be a trap.