by George Hatt
Mithrandrates dismissed Garon and went into his chamber. A dark-haired beauty waited for him, reclining on a mass of sumptuous cushions. Her diaphanous gown was open in the front.
“Shall we make love, my Emperor? Or do you instead need a good flogging upon the chessboard this night?” she asked.
Mithrandrates poured a cup of wine and handed it to her. “Chess, Lady Madeline. I need to remember that I can, in fact, be outmaneuvered. Hubris is particularly deadly in the Citadel.”
She smiled and rose from the cushions. “Good. I have interesting tidings to share while you scowl at the board.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Barryn
Barryn rose before the sun one sabbath to go to the temple. He had taken Dub’s advice and sat patiently through the boring sermons every week so he could walk among the trees and meditate in the prayer gardens of the great walled temple. “Silent prayer and contemplation” he had learned to call it. He was really praying to his ancestors and the spirits of the wood. Barryn was too afraid to pray to the gods, especially Mahurin and Ashara. They might, after all, hear him and suddenly turn their attention upon him.
Barryn visited the jakes, washed up and gathered a few copper crowns for his offering before leaving the House of Portia. His coin purse jingled merrily at his side as he left the gates of the great manor and wound his way down the now familiar maze of streets toward the Gold Merchants’ Bridge.
As Barryn turned a corner, a cloaked man smelling of ale, man stink and pipe smoke bumped into him.
“Eh, oy, ah, many pardons, eh. I dunna see like how I used to, what?” the man slurred.
“Sorry…” Barryn stopped his apology cold when he felt a slight tug at his side. He swept his hand down and felt his purse missing. Barryn wheeled away from the stinking man and bolted after the sound of quickening footsteps down another alley. He ran the thief down and tackled him in the alley.
“That’s my temple offering, you goat fucker!” Barryn raged, slipping into his thick heathen accent.
The accomplice, a wiry man with a scraggly goatee, elbowed Barryn in the jaw and scrambled to his feet.
Barryn found a broken pave stone and, rising to one knee, hurled the missile at the fleeing man. The stone cracked into the back of his skull, and he dropped in mid-stride.
“You little shit!” hissed the stinking man, who was now behind Barryn and devoid of his drunken slur. Barryn turned, and the thug was on him, a dagger clenched pointing downward in his left fist.
The next moments were a blur of steel and furious kicks that felt like an eternity to Barryn. He slammed the robber to the ground with him, then simultaneously clenched a handful of greasy beard with his right hand and pinioned the dagger with his forearm. Barryn hammered the man with his weaker left hand as they both kicked and scrabbled in the mucky alley.
A voice thundered behind them.
“Stop! City Watch!” A swift kick knocked Barryn off his attacker. The robber laid where he was, dazed by the heathen boy’s pummeling. “What is this? Speak!”
Barryn obeyed. Two men with drawn swords stood before him. They were clad in maille and helm, and the winged horse of Brynn was embroidered on their tabards.
The young heathen panted and tried to control his accent. “I was on my way to temple, and these two robbed me,” he said, weakly pointing first to the stinking man and then to the wiry man a few yards down the alley. His right forearm began to throb, and he felt the warm wetness of blood as it dribbled on his skin.
“Who do you belong to?” the taller watchman asked.
“Lady Tethys of the House of Portia,” Barryn said.
The shorter one scoffed and kicked the dagger away from the stinking robber’s limp hand. “You need to go to temple if you labor in that den of iniquity. Did you choose to serve in the fortress of harlots, or are you under bond?”
“Bond,” the heathen boy said, then pointed again to the wiry man. “My papers are in my purse, along with seven copper crowns for my offering. He has them.”
The shorter guardsman walked over to the limp form and found the purse. He rifled through it, felt the wax seal of Lady Tethys on Barryn’s papers, then walked back to the heathen boy. He tossed Barryn the purse. “Stand up, lad, and step out of the alley. The fight isn’t finished.”
The taller watchman cleared his throat. “Sojak, I should sound the horn. Mahurin can watch His own.”
“Mahurin sends us forth to do His will, Jesse,” Sojak said. He turned to the now stirring robber. “Stand, you dog. Stand! Puke it out. Puke. Empty your guts. Now STAND!”
The stinking robber meekly obeyed. “Begging your pardon, good sirs, I were just…”
“You were robbing a boy on his way to cleanse his soul at the Holy House of Mahurin. An attack on the least of Mahurin’s children is an attack on Him!” Sojak said.
“Sojak, let’s bind him and his comrade and sound the horn,” Jesse said. “Then we’ll get the boy to the guardhouse so we can bind his wounds.”
“The wounds of the flesh are as nothing next to the wounds of the soul, Jesse. And temporal justice is nothing if we are not just before Mahurin,” Sojak said.
“Fine. Fuck it. Do it. The kid’s bleeding here,” Jesse said. “I won’t shed any tears over these turds.”
“Please, good sirs!” the mugger began to sob.
“What I do, I will do quickly,” Sojak said. “In the name of Mahurin!” Sojak stepped into a swift cut from over his right shoulder. His sword flashed in the early morning light and buried itself in the robber’s head with a crunch. Sojak followed up with another vicious cut before the hapless crook hit the ground. He walked to the wiry accomplice and flipped him onto his back, then placed the pave stone that had felled him into his limp hand. Sojak then dispatched the man with a quick stab to the gut.
“Would he have held on to the rock after you ran him through?” Jesse asked.
“Good point,” Sojak said. He turned around nudged the pave stone out of the corpse’s hand with the toe of his boot. “Sound the horn, Jesse.”
Jesse and another city watchman held Barryn down on a bench in the guardhouse of the Gold Merchants’ Bridge while Sojak washed the cuts on the boy’s arm with grain spirits. Flaming spears of pain brought silent tears to Barryn’s eyes, and his nose filled with snot.
“Ach! Fuck me running!” he hissed. The two guards holding him down laughed softly and tightened their grip.
Sojak paused and wagged a finger in Barryn’s face. “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head on the Sabbath. Mahurin saved you from those sinners when He sent us down that alley. Jesse and me don’t usually patrol that far. The least you can do is not foul Mahurin’s holy day with your filthy language.”
Barryn nodded, and Sojak continued his work. Barryn tried to keep his mind on anything but what was happening to his savaged arm. When they had entered the guard house, the city watchmen had removed their helms and Barryn could see their features clearly in the lamplit room. Jesse and the other guard had full heads of hair, Jesse’s shoulder-length and streaked with gray. Both had trimmed beards. Sojak, by contrast, was clean-shaven with close-cropped hair.
“Were you an Imperial soldier?” Barryn asked, trying the knowledge he had gained during his tutoring in the past weeks. The two holding him down laughed out loud, and Sojak stopped again and glared at Barryn.
“No, lad. He’s a Knob Head,” Jesse said. “A Son of Mahurin. They are especially faithful.” He finished with an air of seriousness that Barryn thought could have been genuine or sarcastic—but he could not tell which.
Sojak finished washing the slashes in Barryn’s arm and produced a needle and thread. “This will hurt like the hellfire the apostates will suffer.” He looked up at Jesse. “Keep jabbering with him while I do this.”
“Don’t worry lad, you’re in good hands,” Jesse said. “Me and Sojak were mercenaries together once upon a time. He was better at combat medicine than a lot of the surgeons. He could have been one hi
mself, but he didn’t want to be no officer. You’ll mend just fine.”
“Mercenaries?” Barryn asked. “Ow! What are mercenaries? Ach!”
“What are mercenaries?” Jesse asked in a mock heathen accent. “Mercenaries are freebooting soldiers of fortune, lad. They fight for the highest bidder, if they feel like fighting at all that season. Mercenaries fight when they’re asked, not when they’re told. They don’t kowtow to some master’s whims like the Imperial army and the lords’ vassals. They’re the only truly free men there are, if you ask me.”
“You undisciplined dogs,” the other watchman said. “If you want freedom and high pay—when it comes—go be a mercenary. If you want steady wages and guaranteed victory, you join the Imperial Army.”
Jesse scoffed. “Sure, victory is assured when all you do is keep the roads clear of bandits. Did you ever fight a real opponent, Farley?”
“None dare face the might of the Empire!” Farley said.
“See, lad, that’s what all these ex-Imperials say,” Jesse laughed. “What they mean is, ‘Gee, I wish I had balls enough when I was young to join a mercenary company!’ Then you can tell stories like the ones me and Sojak have. No shit, there I was…”
Farley scoffed. “This one again? Isn’t the boy in enough pain?”
“Not any pain like those fuckers in Hastrus were in after we got hold of ‘em at Victoria’s Crossing,” Jesse said. “So me and Sojak was in the Black Swan Company. This was before I got hurt and Sojak found religion. The Company had been hired by a count in Aternis to help settle a score over the border in Hastrus. I never knew what their fight was over, and I never asked. Didn’t fucking matter. Anyway, me and Sojak were armored up and set on our destriers, lances pointed to the sky, ready to charge the Hastrus infantry with the rest of the heavy horse. Then our sergeant lifts his visor and says, ‘Oh, hell no. Where the fuck’s their cavalry?’ So he and the other sergeants put their heads together real quick and then send a rider to the commander. ‘They’re going to hit our flank,’ was the message. Commander sent the rider back telling the sergeant ‘You have got your orders. Charge at the signal.’ The sergeant—yeah, bite down on this stick, lad. I know it hurts like a fucker. Anyway, the sergeant points off to our right says, ‘Fuck that, they’re going to hit us on the right flank. They’re going to come right between those two little hills.’ He rides out in front and tells all of us, ‘When you hear the bugles sound for the charge, wheel right and follow me.’ So sure enough, commander sounds ‘charge’ and we wheel right and walk the horses forward behind the sergeant. The commander sends a couple of staff officers to ride up to us and ask us what the fuck we think we’re doing. Then, lo and behold, over the next rise comes galloping the flower of the Hastrus chivalry, right at us. They was trying to roll our flank, you see. So the sergeant lifts his lance, waves the flag signal to charge, and we charge right into ‘em. Those poor staff officers were caught up in it! One moment they’re threatening our sergeant and the rest of us with the lash, the next they’re charging right beside him into the mess! We caught those poor bastards off guard, and then it was assholes and elbows, lad. I speared some banneret like a fish, and poor Sojak busted his lance on the first blow! Then out came our swords, and the real fun started. We scattered their cavalry, then came wheeling back left to roll up their flank, like they tried to do to us. The commander saw what was happening and had off two volleys from our crossbowmen by the time we made it to the main body. Those poor sons of bitches were pulling crossbow bolts out of their comrades’ asses when we charged in, and the rout began.”
Jesse sighed and gave an almost wistful smile. “You see, for all the rain and cold and shit food you have to suffer through, it’s fights like that what make this profession all worth it.”
Barryn muttered something, and Jesse took the bite stick out of his mouth. “What happened to your sergeant?”
“Well, he had saved all our skins that day,” Sojak said. “After the battle, the commander punched him in the jaw for disobeying him, then promoted him to lieutenant right there. His name is Alcuin Darkwood, and he runs the Company now. Good man.”
When Sojak was done, he gave Barryn instructions to keep his arm clean and wrapped lightly during the day, but to leave it uncovered at night so it can get air. He made a sling out of an old cravat and told Barryn to keep his arm near his heart for several days while it healed. “And pray for health,” Sojak said. “I only stitched up your hide. With Mahurin alone rests health and all good things.”
“So what are you going to do when your indenture is up?” Jesse asked as Barryn got up to leave the guardhouse.
That was almost a year away, and Barryn had been too busy learning and adapting to think that far ahead. “I don’t know, sir.”
“You’re a scrappy fighter and tough as boot leather,” Jesse said. “You should join one of the mercenary companies. I’m partial to our mates in the Black Swan Company, but all the Guild companies are good outfits.”
Barryn walked back to the House of Portia in the morning’s cheerful daylight considering what the watchmen had said. He would never be a druid—that much was certain. Perhaps he could yet be a warrior. He walked on in the warming morning. His purse was tucked away inside his clothes, and his good hand rested on the pommel of the robber’s dagger the watchmen had given him as a souvenir.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Grantham
Grantham rode through the gates of Brynn at the head of his entourage, travel-stained as his followers and just as glad to be home after nearly a month on the hard road. The band of 20 nobles and their squires had ridden north on the main Imperial road through Hastrus and turned south to avoid the Shoraz-Athar Rift, a thousand-mile long channel rimmed with steep mountains that cut the Mergovan Empire almost in half. Only one abandoned road led to a pass and an ancient bridge that crossed that great rift—or used to, if the histories were to be trusted. Travelers avoided that road because it was a favorite haunt for bandits. Those foolish enough to run its gauntlet of treacherous wilderness and savage brigands met the wrath of the fearsome M’Tarr, the scaled, ruddy-skinned people of the Shoraz-Athar. If any had even seen the bridge in a century, they had not returned to their countrymen to tell of its condition. The M’Tarr, it seemed, had long memories.
Grantham’s party had avoided trouble with the bandits and made good time along the well-maintained road. The Imperial government, he mused, perhaps had some value after all.
“Clarice!” the duke greeted his daughter, a beautiful young woman of 17, when the cavalcade entered the gate of his villa. He dismounted and kissed his daughter’s cheeks. Stewards took hold of the knights’ horses and led them to the stables, and the wagons trundled off behind the great house to be unloaded and put up.
“I have a bath and a hot meal ready for you, Father,” she said. “The servants saw you coming through the city gate and ran straight home to tell me.”
“Your embrace is all the warmth my tired old bones need right now, Clarice,” he said, smiling down at her. “The villa looks to be in excellent order under your management. What news of your mother? Pack a trunk—we shall go see her at the estate as soon as I report to Lady Drucilla.”
“Mother is doing very well,” Clarice said. “She is ruling the estate in your absence with an iron fist.”
Grantham laughed and walked with his daughter toward the great house. “Then I must needs liberate my holdfast from the usurper with all haste. A brisk spanking to her bottom will make your mother docile enough.”
“Father! You lecherous old man. My dear mother is pure as the driven snow—a virgin who immaculately conceived me and Corrine,” Clarice said. She paused. “Gareth was conceived the regular way.”
“There is nothing immaculate about you three rascals, and especially not your mother,” Grantham said. He sighed and stroked his daughter’s hair. “We’ve been married more than 20 years, and I still miss her as much as ever when I have to be away.”
“I kno
w, Papa. I miss her, too, even though I enjoy managing the villa,” Clarice said. “I even miss Corrine and Gareth, but don’t tell them.”
“I won’t breathe a word to them,” Grantham said. “Tell me all the family gossip I’ve missed—after I take that bath.”
Grantham set out early the next morning to meet the governor and render his report of this year’s council. He entered the great hall of the Governor’s Palace behind the chamberlain and found Lady Drucilla of the Rivers in a dark mood. She sat on a carved wooden throne set up on a dais at the far end of the hall. The yellows and blues in her brocaded dress accentuated her dark skin and long, tightly braided hair but did little to brighten her stern countenance.
Bishop Tarnez stood beside the governor on the dais affecting an air of calm condescendence mastered by princes of the Church. The cleric wore a gleaming cuirass with a golden Sun of Mahurin dominating the breastplate. A white woolen cloak attached to sun-disk conchos on his breastplate hung over his shoulders and brushed the stone floor. Grantham noticed with artfully concealed surprise that the bishop had shaved his head. The call for church reform must be gaining real momentum if even our good bishop is moved to join the Knob Heads, Grantham thought.
“My lady, brother bishop, I am pleased to render a full accounting of the annual Imperial Council,” Grantham said, and handed a bound roll of papers to the chamberlain.
“Do not concern yourself with the petty details, Duke Grantham,” Drucilla said. “We are on the brink of war with Relfast. We must prepare the realm.”
“My lady, we have at least a year to do so,” Grantham said. “All provinces voted this year to uphold the peace. The sanctions that the Imperial Seat can levy on those who break the peace are becoming more and more severe.”
Drucilla laughed mirthlessly and leaned forward in the throne. “What ‘empire’ do you speak of? And what ‘sanctions?’ When I see the Mergovan Eagle, it is carried by pompous road patrolmen or stamped on worthless pieces of paper. Duke Grantham, the rivalry between Brynn and Relfast is older than the Mergovans’ false empire and of far more consequence. And I intend to bring the rivalry to an end.”