by C. B. Currie
‘Come with me,’ the knight said.
The Gutters was a warren of cluttered houses and ramshackle hovels, cheap taverns and stinking ditches. It was surprisingly close to the chapter house, across the street and behind a row of townhouses and shops near the Laughing Cockerel. The order and grandeur of Bastion just stopped and gave way to a festering slum, as if it were a different city altogether. Though there was a usually curfew for the sake of order, and reputable establishments like The Old Cock, sent their customers home well before midnight, there could still be heard laughter and song and the moans of coupling from behind the thin walls of The Gutters. The watch did not bother to enforce the Lord’s writ here when they could avoid it and indeed half the customers for the whores were probably watchmen and town officers.
Donnal was wearing his helmet and sword, but no armor. His cloak was a plain dark one and his tunic was a commoner’s. He wore no sign of his rank in the order. Haendric followed close behind, clutching his leather satchel containing his priest’s robes and the heathen book, stepping over a puddle of vomit at the knight’s signal. They ducked under low awnings, over small piles of rubbish and excrement, around fetid puddles and past sleeping drunks, a harlot and her customer rutting furiously against a wall and a hound that growled and bared its fangs as they passed too closely. They crossed what passed for a main road – a muddy, rutted track, perhaps half a dozen paces wide, with sunken cobblestones that had not been repaired in years, and disappeared into another cluster of densely packed shacks of thin planking or crumbling earthen walls. The thatch on some roofs was black and rotting, the wooden tiles on others moldy and slick; shutters hung loose on windows and doors sat ajar in their frames. Dark huddles of people scurried past and a drunk staggered out of an unlicensed ale house and started to relieve himself against the opposite wall.
Donnal led Haendric around a small wooden barn or warehouse, surprisingly sturdy and probably not more than a few years old. There was a wide pair of doors at the front and a smaller, man-sized one on the side. There he stopped and rapped rhythmically on the door.
‘So they know it’s me,’ he explained to the priest in a gruff whisper.
After a few moments the door opened a crack and a voice greeted him, then a small, frail looking monk in brown robes ushered them in.
‘Brother Januth, this is my friend Handers,’ the knight said and Haendric raised a palm in greeting.
The monk looked him up and down and nodded. ‘Sick is he?’
‘No, but he can help the sick. He’s a skilled healer.’
‘Then he has come to the right place. We had another sailor in this afternoon with a fever. By suppertime he was delirious and talking to people in his head.’ The monk had a northern accent, perhaps from as far as Northwatch or Wellstone.
‘Brother Januth runs an infirmary,’ Donnal explained.
‘This is more than a mere sick house,’ the monk corrected him. ‘This is the House of Enduring Grace, chapel and hospice to the poor.’
Haendric had seen nothing outside to indicate it was a house of worship, but as Brother Januth led them inside with a candlestick, he could make out that the main area of the small barn had wooden benches and a crude altar and could fit perhaps fifty or a hundred souls if they stood and packed themselves in. Haendric imagined in a district like this though, the regular worshippers would number far fewer. He also suspected that Januth was not an avowed monk either. It was the way he spoke, or the nervousness, but Haendric knew the type and he had never liked them. A commoners who had donned the robes to earn his way. He likely couldn’t even read.
At least he appeared to be doing some of the Chapel’s work. There was the sound of coughing from the back room and Januth showed them in. There were a dozen rickety cots lined six by six along each wall and the monk led them down between the two rows.
Haendric approved of this arrangement at least. Many sick houses and abbeys made patients share their beds, but Haendric had observed that this only made people sicker. More than half the beds were occupied and most of the patients seemed to be sleeping fitfully, but for a woman or boy, he couldn’t tell, who was tossing and coughing in the night. He was intrigued by the talk of a sickness in the south. ‘Can I see the sailor who came in today?’
The fellow’s bed was the last on the right, in a darkened corner. Januth had propped up a screen with a curtain to separate him from the others.
‘He was feeling ill when he came in, feverish, but he was lucid,’ Januth explained as they walked around the frame. ‘He hasn’t been since though, but at least he has been sleeping.’
The man was around forty, Haendric guessed, with a thin beard and receding hair shaved close in the manner popular with sailors and boatmen from the south. His breathing was ragged and strained and his face glistened with sweat. He was shivering despite two blankets, one of wool and the inner, a heavy sack cloth. The priest touched the man’s neck, near the large artery and he was hot, very hot.
‘There’s more,’ Januth said, ‘I’ve not seen anything like it before.’ And he turned the feverish man over, pulling aside his loose tunic.
Haendric could see clearly in the dim light, large watery boils up and down the man’s back. They were swollen thick with fluid, each as large as the tip of his thumb and ringed with angry red flesh. They seemed to radiate from his lower spine, where they clustered thickly, and spread haphazardly across the back, in this man’s case from left to right, getting thinner and smaller the higher they went.
‘I may have read of such boils,’ Haendric said. ‘Perhaps I can be of help.’ He did not say that he had read about similar such illnesses in the Qureshi texts at Havenside’s library.
‘You said another sailor?’ Donnal pointed out.
‘There were more?’ Haendric asked.
‘One, but he said he was alright and took himself back to the docks. Said he had to sail. Staggered out of here like he was near death though.’
‘If he’s still there in the morning we should find him.’ Haendric suggested sternly.’
‘I was hoping you’d take Brother Handers in for a while,’ Donnal said to the monk, handing him a small purse of coin. ‘And find him some robes.’
‘As always, the House of Enduring Grace appreciates donations,’ Januth said, taking the purse. ‘We also welcome all the help we can get.’
‘Then let me see the other patients,’ Haendric said.
‘None are urgent, I think,’ Januth explained. ‘We will look at them together in the morning and they need their rest for now.’
‘Very well,’ Donnal clasped Haendric on the shoulder. ‘Januth has a spare bed in his room.’
Haendric followed them back into the chapel, as the stricken sailor rasped on in his feverish dreams.
Eighteen
Algas was a man whose fortunes were low. He sat in the Four Friars tavern by the docks in Northwatch and sipped on the last of the summer ale from a copper tankard. It was bitter and crisp up here, but strong, and it was soothing to his throat, which was still a little hoarse from the fever he had suffered a fortnight past. His brother had loved honeyed ale, which always left a tangy and slightly numb aftertaste. His brother Gormir, Jarl of Shorha. Algas should be jarl now that Gormir was dead but his cousin Gerwulf had claimed the title. And now the man across from him was telling him a Chapel of the Faith was being built in his fort.
‘Are you sure?’ He asked.
‘One of stone,’ the trader answered him in their own tongue. He was a man in his middle years, bony, with a pockmarked face and a plain leather skullcap, scraggly grey-blond hair sprouting out from under its rim. He was also a Northman who had lived for years in the kingdom and such men were increasingly common. They would draw no attention to themselves speaking their own language in a dockside tavern. ‘I saw the foundations with my own eyes.’
Algas sneered in disgust. It hadn’t been a month since Gormir’s death in battle against the southlanders and now he was being told Gerwulf ha
d embraced the southlander faith.
‘He is to be named Lord Gerwulf and his sons will hold the title. He has promised that all his people...’
‘My people,’ Algas corrected him.
‘Your people…will convert and that there will be no more pagans in the kingdom’s north, no more raids on these shores. The islands are his to rule as long as he pays his dues to the crown.’
‘What dues?’
‘Furs, fish, butter, cheese; a twelfth of all the money he takes. The same as any other lord with the means to pay.’
Algas rolled his eyes. Gerwulf had always been a shrewd trader and always seemed to have extra coin. He had no doubt his cousin would hide much of what he took from the royal collectors and pay them as little as possible. ‘When was this decided?’
The trader looked about the tavern. It was busy, crowded with sailors, fishermen and some of the city’s watchmen, all drinking after their shifts. One of the painted harlots who plied her trade in the tavern was leading a staggering sailor upstairs. The hearth was blazing but the chill northern wind blew a draft through cracks in the walls and around the shutters and doors. Nobody seemed to be paying them any mind. ‘Men say it was weeks ago. They say he met the King’s envoys after they were rejected by Gormir.’
Algas remembered that day. A boat had arrived and two men came to the palisade with two priests, seeking peaceful talks. Gormir had beaten the mewing priests and spat on one of the envoys and pissed on another before sending them away. He swore that no northern sea-jarl would ever pay tribute to a weak southlander king. After that Gerwulf had been gone for two nights with a whole ship’s crew. He had come back with silver and said he’d been trading pelts. Could the defeat at battle of Breglyn have been Gerwulf’s betrayal? His cousin had certainly escaped easily enough, while the rest of them were slaughtered.
‘Is there any proof?’
‘Only Gerwulf and his men know and they are safe in their hall at Shorha.’
‘My hall,’ Algas corrected him again.
‘Your hall,’ the trader replied, eyes downcast.
‘How do I find men in Northwatch?’ Algas pressed.
‘To take it back. You’d need a lot. And a lot of money too. Sellswords sometimes come here. That one over there.’
Algas looked over at a man with an eye patch and curved sword he’d spotted earlier. He was older, but had the face of a brawler.
‘And how do I get money?’
‘Become one yourself? It’s not a bad living. You might even gain plunder, especially with the talk I hear.’
‘What talk?’
The man looked around nervously. ‘Rebellion. The lords are displeased with their king. That’s why he’s buying up new ones, like your cousin.’
‘And Northwatch’s lord?’
‘He’s one of the displeased ones. I’m too old, or I’d probably join up. But there’s been a sickness in the city, and I’ve always taken sick too easily. I’m taking my crew tomorrow and going back across the sea.’
‘What sickness?’
‘A few ports I’ve been in recently. Sailors taking ill. Perhaps something at sea?’
Algas passed him a coin across the table. ‘You can go.’
The trader took the penny and scurried away and the warrior leaned back and finished his mug of ale. He watched another of the whores come down from the rooms upstairs and begin flirting with the guests. He needed a woman. Instead he called to a serving boy for more drink.
He paid no mind to the talk of sickness. Seamen were always taking ill. His thoughts were at Shorha. What was his cousin up to? Becoming a southlander lord, turning to their faith, it was something Gormir would never have considered. Was this what it took to hold onto power these days? If so, what did it take to wrest power from such a man? If he were to hire men, would they demand he turn to their Faith? Was it that powerful? Perhaps he should just flee, far away and forget Shorha ever existed. But what kind of warrior willingly gave up his birthright? He could not answer these questions. All he could do was drink.
He was into a third mug when the door opened and the armored soldier walked in. A few heads turned and many eyes fixed on the man’s sword. He was tall, probably the same height as the Northman, and dressed in a grey traveling cloak, a brown tunic, mail and steel guards on his arms and shins. His boots looked to be a fine leather and the helmet carried under his arm was polished steel. The brown tunic had an emblem of some cup Algas did not recognize.
For a moment he wondered if it had been the finely dressed warrior he had seen on the shingle beach during his flight from Breglyn, but upon closer inspection this man was older. His beard was grey, his face haggard. While his armor and mail coat were indeed of excellent make, his clothes and boots showed the wear and tear of travel and his face showed the lines of many years out of doors. His brown cloak looked like it was bloodstained.
The soldier looked around the room, stroked his thin beard uncomfortably and for a moment his eyes fixed on Algas. ‘I need men,’ he said, ‘and I can pay.’
Beland was scraping the bottom of the barrel. On the road to Wellstone, he had lost most of his fighters – the armed guards who’d claimed to have experience but looked like they had never drawn their blades before. Beland was tempted to fault Prior Algwyn for not being able to pick warriors, but then even he had not expected any real trouble on these roads. Yet when brigands attacked his group had been outnumbered, and one of the men hired by Algwyn had dropped his sword and run right away. An arrow had felled him.
The others had fought and one was wounded badly, lying even now in a fevered daze with a suppurating cut to his thigh in Northwatch’s chapel hospice. Beland did not expect the fellow to survive. He had killed two of the ruffians himself and not gotten a scratch, though he’d pulled a muscle lunging. The cramp it had caused in his shin could be excruciating if he stepped or turned in just the wrong manner, but otherwise didn’t plague him much. He was just getting old.
The other two guards were mostly fine, but one was disheartened after receiving a small sword cut and might not be much use in another fight. Worse, he might desert in the night. The other, a lad of little more than Vanis’s age, had killed one of the robbers and wounded another. The thieves had pulled the injured man away and fled into the woods, leaving Beland to lead the his wounded men and terrified monks out of the trap and toward the city.
There were hill clans in these parts who had in years gone by raided for silver, cattle and women. Though they had one by one come under Wesgard’s sway, the king’s laws were hard to enforce this far from the capital, especially if, as talk would have it, the local lords were tired of his rule. Acquisitive tribes could easily take advantage, and such men smelled opportunity in disorder. They’d have wanted the goods, the cart or whatever coin and weaponry they could steal. There had been almost a dozen of them, but they still had to be desperate to risk accosting five armed men, one a mounted knight.
He did not regret killing the young men that morning. He’d killed before in defense of the Faith. They might have killed others had they lived to escape. But their faces - they were just lads, vagabonds, like his runaway son might well be by now; like the boy he’d seen hanged at Bastion. They had died afraid, and alone. One had cried for his mother as his blood slowly drained and Beland had skewered him because he’d had neither hope that the boy might survive, nor the heart to hear out his death. He had not forgotten the faces he’d killed in his youth, dusky desert heathens and ruddy pagan raiders. These would also linger.
Without enough men now, he’d been forced to call into Northwatch. The priory and the delivery would have to wait, for the wounded man was an urgent case. He had been entrusted coin for the journey and it was at his discretion how to use it. So at Northwatch he had left his wounded and dead, including the bodies of the thieves, and reported the brigands to the watch, who’d immediately mounted a patrol. He visited the run-down tavern by the docks, paid for two more hard-looking fighters, stayed one night
and then rode out at first light.
The first of the new swords was a scarred ruffian named Galbry, who had an eye patch and close-cropped graying hair. At first Beland had wondered if he were fit to fight at all. But he had shadow-sparred with a curved blade he claimed to have bought from a trader from across the seas and impressed the knight with his deftness. He looked shifty though – Beland had an eye for such men – and the knight wondered what sort of a past he had, resolving to keep an eye on him.
The second was a tall Northman, Algas who looked like he could fight well enough even without the sturdy sword he carried. He was blue-eyed and square-jawed, with broad shoulders and a forced smile. He had claimed to be from a family of merchants but then every man had a story. He seemed at once haunted and easygoing, taking life’s challenges with a nonchalant shrug, yet staying tight-lipped about his home and family, betraying some bitterness the knight suspected. That neither man was likely an upstanding citizen was perhaps understandable, but Beland needed men, at least as far as the priory and back to Northwatch. Men in the city said these roads had also been troubled lately and he had seen for himself how the local brigands had proven bolder than expected.
Neither man could read but both could listen, which was vital. So after the detour into Northwatch he had ridden out and kept to the main road with four wagon guards again, one of the new men with one of the regulars at both the front and the back. The Northman walked fast, keeping up with the cart, while the one with the patch looked warily around. Wellstone was only a day on the road at most now and Beland looked forward to arriving and lightening the load. The cart was to return almost empty, unless the priory had anything to spare: Wellstone was not a wealthy monastery like Havenside, with its fertile fields and plentiful livestock. He’d been he might receive some dried fish, tallow candles and a few seal pelts, but not much else. Of course, as a knight-penitent, his orders might change on arrival.