by Shel, Mike
“It isn’t meant as one,” she offered lamely. “Not really.”
After a few moments of silence, he spoke again. “It feels wrong.”
“What do you mean by wrong? Because it was bestowed by our mad queen?”
“That it was bestowed at all. I’m Sir Kennah, and poor Ruben is on a shelf in Mictilin’s cellar. If either of us ever deserved to earn a title one day, it was him. He was the finest friend a fellow ever had.”
Agnes reached up and gave his meaty bicep a squeeze. “You’re a good fellow, too, Kennah Rolenwy. If you haven’t earned the title yet, I’m confident you’ll earn it in time. And Ruben will look down and laugh with joy.”
Kennah closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing away tears. He nodded, looking like he wanted to say something, but instead he gave her a short smile and walked away.
We all carry our pain, Agnes mused, watching the big man disappear behind some crates stacked to the fore. Some are defined by it; others…well, maybe we’ll grow wiser.
And what is your pain, Agnes? said a thought in her head. Does it define you?
“Out of the way, freckles!” shouted the female water witch, giving Agnes a sour little shove as she walked along the rail, snapping her fingers over the side at the elementals stirring the water white. The woman mumbled phrases Agnes couldn’t make out, but she knew them to be Middle Djao, the language of sorcery. She recalled Qeelb’s characterization of the woman’s kind.
Agnes came back to the rail and looked down again at the elementals, speeding them up the river. She prayed those words—very bitter—would never come to describe her.
23
Gallows
Until he stepped on the weathered, waterlogged planks of the docks at Balowy, Auric had never set foot in Marburand. He had known many Syraeics who hailed from the duchy, most of them fine people, but his reflexive distaste at the mention of the place had never waned; apparently his small-town prejudice against the cosmopolitan cities of Hanifax extended to its richest dependency as well. It surprised him that such sentiments still lingered, despite all his travels.
The female water witch—she had never introduced herself, nor had Auric bothered asking her name—tended the barge while Yarbo went in search of the ’Burandi merchant company that had contracted with Oglewhim for their cargo. He returned half an hour later, his scowling, unshaven face pregnant with curses.
“Bloody ’Burandi bastard! Says we’re tenth in line! Tenth! We’ll be waiting past midnight to offload!”
“Aeeiie!” screeched the female water witch. “You whiskered old fool! Did you show ‘im the contract? ‘Goods received immediately upon arrival’ is what it says!”
“O’ course I did, you poxy hag! You think a contract’s imbued with magic powers? I showed it to ’im and he told me for all he cared I could dip my wick in a hole while I wait!”
The woman cackled—it was an unpleasant thing. “That shriveled old pod? Dormant! Extinct! Never to rise again! Not if Babaloc hisself came up from the deep to fellate ya!” Yarbo’s response to her insult was a fulsome expectoration onto the already sodden planks of the dock. He shoved an unlucky deckhand out of his way and headed back for the barge’s tiny cabin. Auric was caught now by the woman’s milky left eye, and he wished Yarbo was still there to soak up her venom.
“We’ll be here for the night, then?” he queried.
“At least,” she grumbled. “You and your lot can spend the night under your lean-tos or pay for beds ashore. I care not. Just be here by break o’ dawn or we’ll consider our contract void and head this barge back to Ralsea. In fact, I’d much prefer that than headin’ empty to Ironwound.” And with that, she made her way toward the rear cabin, no doubt to resume her eternal squabbling with her co-captain.
Chalca was beside him then, watching the woman shimmy her way between stacked crates of wine. “By Pember’s prick, I could compose an entire opera of those two old wretches bickering.”
“I suspect it would end with a murder,” said Agnes, coming up from behind.
“Oh, a murder or two, I should think,” said the actor. “Our audience would demand it.”
“Much pain in that sad pair,” observed Sira, joining their conversation.
“Oh, Sister Sira, you’re too kind,” said Chalca with a sigh. “We all harbor our own pain. Most just let it out in ways less operatic than our gracious hosts. Personally, I try my best not to contaminate others with my sorrow. While those two screech and howl at one another, the rest of us are struck by little flecks of their poison.”
Auric was struck by the man’s ability to turn a phrase. “Blessed of Pember,” they called themselves. Perhaps they were.
“I wouldn’t mind a few hours off this beast,” Kennah commented, tugging on his beard. The broken sorcerer, always the last to arrive, stood behind him. The others nodded their agreement.
“All right,” said Auric, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get ourselves a decent meal, then we can decide if we want to sleep ashore as well.”
They had their dinner in a tavern called Maud’s Bounteous Table, which lived up to its name. They feasted on roast chicken and potatoes, rich gravy and greens, and hearty buttered bread, fresh from the oven. The red-haired serving girl who filled their tankards informed Auric that Maud had been dead for nearly two hundred years, and that the establishment was now in the hands of a distant relation who had moved to Balowy from Bennybrooke, halfway across the duchy. “But Cousin Bhertoc’s Bounteous Table ain’t got th’ same ring, ‘as it?”
His dining companions’ tankards were topped off with the tavern’s heavily-spiced mead. “Made from th’ fermented honey of Harkeny bees, fierce an’ wild as th’ Korsa who live up that way.” Auric shook off the woman’s fourth attempt to pour him a cup, insisting again that he would do fine with water.
“You may pour Sir Kennah another brimming tankard full, my crimson lass,” drawled Kennah, too loud, scraps of chicken and grease in his beard. It was his fifth, and the man’s unfocused gaze and employment of his new title left Auric in no doubt of the beverage’s potency. Agnes herself, normally abstemious, was emptying her second mug; Chalca was tipsy, his mascara smeared, and even Sira had a broad, inebriated smile across her face.
“Would you please provide me with a bill, madam?” Auric asked. But the woman didn’t hear him, laughing as Kennah put an arm around her waist and steered her into his lap. A splash of mead sloshed over the lip of her serving pitcher, wetting Auric’s tunic. A surge of anger rose in him and the Djao blade tingled at his hip, as if sharing his outrage. He was about to speak when a heavy hand landed on his forearm. It was Qeelb, the other sober member of their party. Auric was repulsed by the indentations left by the witch-braces in the flesh of his hand but checked his impulse to recoil at the man’s touch. Auric recalled again, not for the first time, what the sorcerer had done back in the Grand Hall of the Citadel.
“Allow them their revelries, Sir Auric,” said Qeelb, his deep, unsettling eyes focused on him. “They’ll have little to laugh about soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that what lies ahead will provide plenty of opportunity for grim resolve.”
“You’re an odd one to preach levity.”
Qeelb allowed himself the slightest smile, then pulled his hand back from Auric’s arm. “A fair statement. Nonetheless, I say we sleep here tonight. I think it will rain, and our lean-tos on the barge won’t provide adequate shelter.”
“You predict the weather? Another gift of yours?”
“No more than any other man. The clouds behind us, to the east, they looked fat and dark. And better these companions of ours have a roof over their heads instead of stumbling back through unfamiliar streets to the docks, in the rain.”
“Very well. Provided cousin Bhertoc will accept the queen’s script. I fear the b
ill here may outweigh my purse.”
A man burst through the door from the street, shouting something Auric couldn’t make out over the din of the crowded common room. He was a swarthy, pock-marked man with long graying sideburns and a curled moustache. A few heads turned his way and he yelled again, jerking his head and gesturing at the door through which he had appeared. Auric thought he made out a name and a word: Jonah and hang. More conversations stopped until at last the man’s announcement could be heard clearly.
“Constable caught Jonah an’ the others! They’re gonna hang ‘em—right now—in Vellessey Square!”
In seconds, half of Maud’s patrons were out the door. And before he could do anything to prevent it, Auric’s intoxicated companions had joined them.
The fringes of Vellessey Square, only a few blocks from Maud’s, were ringed by weathered marble statues of Marburand luminaries, pompous sentinels Auric didn’t bother to identify. Rather than those antique effigies, the focal point of the broad space was the permanent gallows, raised ten feet and at the center of the square, generous enough to accommodate a dozen condemned and those responsible for seeing sentences discharged. Only three stood now with nooses around their necks and hands tied behind their backs, along with a black-robed priest of Marcator and two men in breastplates and conical helms, swords at their hips. A sizable crowd already surrounded the sturdy wooden structure, illuminated by lampposts lit in the late afternoon by public alchemists. Auric was having difficulty judging the mood of the people; were they angry, or anxious for gruesome entertainment?
One of the martial figures atop the gallows stepped forward to a chorus of guffaws and sneers from the crowd below. He was a stuffy looking fellow with a prominent chin and a bright blue plume sprouting from the top of his helmet. He was doing a poor job concealing his unhappiness at the crowd’s derision. He attempted to marshal his dignity, nostrils flaring as he drew in a deep breath and unfurled a scroll before him. The people gathered in the square fell silent for his declaration, but as soon as he started to speak, they roared with raucous chatter and laughter. The man frowned in a way that exaggerated his already protuberant chin. It was a sadly comical thing, making him look like a pouting little boy. He waited for the din to die down again, but as soon as it had, and he attempted to recite the words on the page before him, their mocking hubbub erupted anew.
“Who is that poor fellow?” Auric asked a squat local woman standing near him.
“Poor, eh?” replied the woman, who spat on the ground in response to Auric’s assessment. “Arguably the stupidest man in Balowy—Constable Begwin. He’s represented the law for the past six months—badly. We call him ‘Constable Bog-Wit’ round here. Silly sod. Thinks more of himself than he should since Count Rogaugh planted that plume on his head. No worries. We take the piss out of him when we can. This’ll be a real treat.”
The priest of Marcator, a scowl on his face, stepped forward and lifted the symbol of his office before the unruly crowd: a black rod shot through with veins of silver. The gesture silenced the mockery in a few moments. The priest said something to Begwin then, who held up his scroll again and read its contents in a quavering, reedy voice.
“For unlawful speech, inciting servile insurrection, and troubling the count’s peace, Jonah Hurley, Scal Mogg, and Ahayla Upson are sentenced to die, under the authority granted our noble count by Her Majesty, Queen Geneviva the First, beloved sovereign of Hanifax and all its lands and dependencies. They shall be hung by the neck until they draw breath no longer. May mighty Marcator bless our empress and her lawfully designated executors!”
“Who wrote down those big words for ya?” came a shout from the crowd
“Yeah!” shouted another. “Tell us what ‘servile’ means, Bog-Wit!” Begwin’s incensed response was drowned out by hoots and peals of laughter from the citizenry surrounding the gallows.
The priest, brandishing his rod like a weapon and flapping his black robe like a crow’s wings, stepped to the fore again, his face alive with righteous indignation. “You mock this sacred execution of the law, citizens?” His voice had a rumbling authority lacking in the outmatched constable’s address. “I will endow every reprobate here with a Burden of Expiation if you do not give this man and his office the respect and deference it is due! He is the chosen constable of Count Rogaugh, himself the overseer of this city, anointed by Duke Willem, and he the anointed satrap of Geneviva herself, ordained by Blessed Marcator!”
“Laying it on a bit thick,” slurred Chalca, standing behind Auric. “He has stage presence, I’ll grant him that. Next he’ll be quoting—”
“‘Know thy station,’ intoned the priest gravely, “‘O Ye people of the earth, for the gods do bear witness to all thy sins and shall hold thee to account on the day of thy judgment!’”
“Book of Marcator’s Glory, chapter forty-seven, verses one and two!”
The cry came from the noosed fellow flanked by his condemned cohorts. Auric took real notice of him for the first time. He had a plain, masculine face, graying stubble sprouting from his chin and cheeks, a bald pate and smudge of a nose broken more than once. He had the look of a laborer, hardworking, honest. His countenance was one you would expect in a shop foreman, able to corral colleagues through the respect he had earned.
The black-robed priest pointed his rod at the man with sudden fury. If it had been a lance, he would have run him through. “And what would you know of Holy Scripture, Jonah Hurley? You shall meet Marcator at his scales sooner than any other here! You stand condemned for your defiance of the god’s just laws and will pay defiance’s price in short order!”
“Wave your wand at me all you like, priest,” spat the condemned man. “The day’s comin’ when someone is likely to shove that thing up your puckered ass!”
There was a collective gasp from the crowd at the man’s blasphemy. Auric noticed an inebriated Kennah beside him step forward. He put a restraining hand on Kennah’s muscled arm as he reached for his blade. At that same instant, the priest of Marcator wheeled around and struck Jonah Hurley full force in the mouth with the black rod; an alarming crack carried to those gathered below. Jonah Hurley spilled back, falling onto the wooden platform, the slack of the noose rope falling with him. The crowd went silent.
The last light of the setting sun was lost in the dark clouds that had gathered in the sky. Auric felt a few drops of the rain prophesied by Qeelb strike his face. The mood of the crowd was darkening as well, and Szaa’da’shaela tingled at his side, as if to warn him of the shift. The condemned man took a few moments before he stirred, then struggled to right himself, finding it difficult with hands tied behind him. At last the other man in breastplate assisted him, lifting him from the planks of the gallows with a firm but diffident hand.
Jonah Hurley’s head was bowed when he stood again, but at last he looked up slowly, a bloody smear around his mouth, his lips split. He spat at the priest, saliva mixed with blood. And then he smiled, a red thing, revealing a jagged row of broken teeth. The priest pointed his rod at the man and said something Auric couldn’t hear; if the gesture and words were meant to cow the man, they didn’t succeed. Jonah Hurley muttered something back at the priest, who blanched and took a step back, perilously close to the edge of the platform. Then the cleric pointed a fist at the man, forefinger and pinky extended, a superstitious gesture of the peasantry, warding off the Evil Eye. Whether he intended to or not, the priest had just revealed his less than exalted origins. He gathered up his black robes so as not to trip on them, then turned to descend the steps of the gallows. The crowd glowered at him but didn’t dare lay profane hands on a priest; they parted and allowed him to slip through their numbers, toward the looming cathedral tower of his god poking above the rooftops to the west.
Begwin, the overmatched constable, looked lost at that moment, his religious authority having fled the scene. The other martial figure on the platform whispered something in h
is ear. Begwin nodded, then walked over to the lever at the far end of the platform: the lever that would remove the planks beneath the three condemned prisoners.
“Last words!” shouted the squat woman whom Auric had spoken to earlier. “You owe ‘em last words, Bog-Wit!” There was an angry susurrus of assent across the crowd at the woman’s admonition, and Begwin walked back over to the three noosed figures. He said something to the other condemned man on the platform—Scal Mogg, a thin fellow who looked about Agnes’s age. He shook his head and the constable went to the woman. She wore a patterned red and blue kerchief on her head and was clad in the simple garb of a shopkeeper. Her right eye and lip were swollen—she had apparently not gone quietly when they had come to arrest her.
“My name is Ahayla Upson,” she shouted in a soprano, her eyes fierce and defiant. “My husband’s name is Jayma Upson, and he’s dead or dyin’ in Duke Willem’s dungeons! I go to my grave sure that I’m dyin’ for right, an’ content knowin’ my girls and my boy are safe across the river. Shouldn’t matter which side o’ the Ironbell you live on, bein’ safe or bein’ free.” Her good eye welled up with tears and she grimaced. She had said her piece.
The constable looked at Jonah Hurley now, nodded.
“I don’t need your leave to speak, you bloody ‘risto tool,” Hurley began, his scowl made more potent by bloodied mouth and broken teeth. He turned from the constable to focus his address on the rapt crowd gathered around the gallows. “Many of you here know me. I’ve spoke my mind free since the day I was named, an’ never needed no man’s permission! You all know what I’m wantin’ to say, heard me say it b’fore, but I’ll say it again all the same: we ought to hang every bloody ‘risto from Balowy to Kenkaid, an’ rid ourselves of their blight, like they done across the river! Rogaugh wouldn’t’ve had good Jayma Upson clapped in irons and dragged off to Bennybrooke, eh? For hidin’ his son from his bloody conscripters. Some of you’ve had sons stolen, eh? Does the bloody duke own your children?”