“Was Gerard really as magnificent as they say?”
I suppressed a groan. Oh well, he was paying. “Gerard was certainly magnificent to look at,” I conceded. “Tall, bronzed, well-muscled with golden hair…”
“A great, great hero.”
I snorted, “Yeah, right. He was awkward with a bow, a passably good swordsman and a hopeless strategist – some hero.”
Predictably, that surprised him. The Gerard I’d just described was at odds with the one painted by popular myth in every way, which was a tremendous tribute to the man’s true genius: the ability to manipulate his own public image.
“Awkward…? Passable? Why did the rest of you follow him, in that case?”
Why indeed? No mystery really; the reasons were obvious once you took the trouble to look at them. “He had the rep,” I said.
Gerard wasn’t a man who ever felt the need to play down his notoriety – quite the opposite, in fact: he revelled in it, relished it, and we all benefited as a result.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I continued, “he wasn’t stupid. He surrounded himself with people who were experts at the things he wasn’t. I was a miles better swordsman, for example, and so was Alvin. Cedric was the best archer I’ve ever seen and Tam, who joined us after Cedric was killed at Arden Falls, wasn’t far behind. Jaeko was a master at planning and strategy and old Sirus had a few tricks that had to be seen to be believed. Claimed they were sorcery and they probably were, if you give credence to that sort of thing. Each and every one of us had our uses.
“Thing was, by following Gerard we got all the plum jobs and the big rewards – the sort that none of us would ever have had a sniff at on our own. He had the reputation, you see, he was ‘The Hero.’ Only ever one man to call on in a crisis: Gerard.”
“But surely there must have been something special about him,” the youth insisted. “After all, he must have won that reputation somehow in the first place.”
“Oh yes,” I assured him, “there was something special about him all right. His power over women.”
“His fabled charm.”
“No,” I shook my head, “it was more than that. It was like a bewitchment, a spell if you will, which he could turn on and off just like that,” I snapped my fingers. “I’ve seen it happen. One minute we’d be getting nowhere with some stuck-up lady this or countess that, with her not giving an inch on payment rates or terms, then suddenly she would stop in mid-sentence, forget what she’d been saying and go weak at the knees. After that she’d be putty in his hands. It was quite something.”
“You really believe that? You think it was some sort of magical power?”
I shrugged and muttered, “Fairy moans.”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, just something Sirus told me once. He said he reckoned it was all down to fairy moans. Maybe he was right, I never did know much about sorcery. Maybe Gerard was able to summon the voices of fairies that only women could hear, bewitching them.” I shrugged, “Used to listen hard whenever I knew he was doing it… never heard any fairies though, moaning or otherwise.
“Sirus would just laugh when I told him and say I was doing it wrong, that I should have been listening with my nose, but he always was a funny old coot.”
“Incredible.” The lad was well and truly hooked.
“Thirsty work, this story telling,” I glanced meaningfully at my now empty tankard.
“Oh… I’m sorry,” he stood up. “Allow me.”
With pleasure.
Ale replenished, I set about telling him what had happened, describing briefly how we had risen to prominence after a series of successful jobs, each of which led to the next one, slightly more significant than the last and correspondingly more rewarding.
Then came the big one. The council of Trilmouth approached us and asked for our help. This was major league at last, what we had been working towards. Trilmouth was one of the top trading cities. If we could make ourselves useful to them, indispensable even, then we really had cracked it.
It emerged that the Crystal of Relf had been stolen. Even I had heard of that hallowed chunk of glass. Bequeathed to the city by its founder, the ‘sorcerer’ King Relf, it was said to contain great power. Many believed that Trilmouth owed its success and pre-eminence entirely to the mystical properties of the crystal. However real or imagined those powers might be, the council felt the city’s influence would wane without it.
To make matters worse, it had been stolen by one of their own number following a disagreement. Said to be a sorceress herself, the Lady Margeaut had snatched the crystal and fled to her castle hideaway in the mountains above the city. The council were now uncertain of whom among their own troops and contacts were to be trusted, so they turned to us.
They offered a reward larger than everything we had earned to date combined – enough that each of us could retire in reasonable comfort, if we chose to.
I described in slightly greater detail what happened on the fateful day itself – how we tricked our way into the castle, how we had penetrated deep within before being discovered and then had to fight our way after that. Swordplay in a confined space is a great leveller and as we made our way upward in pursuit of a fleetingly glimpsed woman who stayed tantalisingly out of reach, every step demanded payment in sweat and blood. Not much of it our blood, thankfully. We were good; very good.
She fled to the very roof of the highest tower and it was there that we finally cornered her.
“It was a frozen tableau,” I explained, milking it, aware that he was hanging on my every word. “The lady Margeaut poised on the brink of the parapet, glorious in silk and velvet, illuminated by moonlight and sputtering torches, golden hair flowing in the wind, which whipped her dress about like some half-furled banner. Her hand was held out, suspending the precious orb over the void.
“Tam was there, staring down the shaft of an arrow pointed at her heart; me and Alvin flanked him, with swords drawn, wondering if we dared inch any closer, whilst Jeanty stood off to one side, debating whether any of his acrobatics would enable him to catch the crystal if she did drop it…
“And at the centre stood Gerard. Magnificent, Golden Gerard. The voice of reason, telling her that it was finished, insisting that if she would just step away from the edge no harm would befall her, that he personally guaranteed her safety if she would just hand over the crystal. It was working too. She was weakening, starting to discuss terms. Any fool could see that she was on the point of yielding, that she was about to give up… Well, any fool but one, apparently. Another moment and it would have been job done, but do you know what the stupid oaf did then? What the great Golden Buffoon just had to go and do?”
My audience shook his head, enthralled.
“He turned on his much-vaunted charm, that’s what. It wasn’t happening quickly enough for our Gerard, oh no. Mere words were too slow, so he had to do it the easy way, the dumb ox!” I paused, shaking with fury even now, after all these years.
“And?” I was prompted.
“She swooned. Literally collapsed. You could see the exact instant when Gerard’s power hit her. One minute she stood there, beautiful and defiant, the next she just crumpled, lost her balance and toppled right over the edge, with all of us lunging to try and catch her. Jeanty even managed to grab hold of a corner of her dress, but it tore as she fell and he was left holding no more than a tatter of silk.” I stopped speaking, seeing it all again, unable to go on for the moment. “Biggest purse of our lives and he had to go and do that!” I muttered at length.
“Is that when you hit him?”
I nodded, “Smack on his golden bloody chin.”
“None of this ever came out,” he said breathlessly.
“Of course not. Gerard was still the meal ticket after all, so the others all got together and decided to salvage what they could. Thus the official story emerged – about how we had fought valiantly through the castle to confront the evil sorceress on the roof of its highest tower, from whence she flung herself to her doom, taking the crystal with her rather than surrender it to its rightful custodians.”
“But you refused to go along with that story?”
“Too true. I’m a man of principle, you see. I’d had more than enough of the Golden Gorilla and his posturing by then. Besides which,” I felt obliged to concede, “that punch broke his jaw, so he wasn’t too keen on having me around any more.”
“Which is why you were thrown in jail.”
“Yup, that’s about the size of it. For assaulting the great Hero.” I drained my tankard. “Well, there you have it – the real story of what went on. Thanks for the drinks.” I went to rise. “All such a long time ago,” I muttered. “The only thing I still have from those days is the ornamental dagger Gerard gave me that time when I saved his life. Of course, we were on better terms back then.”
“Can I see it?” he said at once.
“The knife? Sorry, I haven’t got it with me, it’s back at my room.”
“Oh.” Obvious disappointment.
“…which isn’t really that far – just around the corner, in fact, if you’d care to come back and see it.”
“Would you mind?”
I shrugged, “I was going there anyway.”
So we left together, with him still talking, still asking questions, which I answered in unhelpful monosyllables, my mind on other things.
It was dark already – the evenings were drawing in. As we stepped from the smoky warmth of the inn, the night greeted us with a cold slap to the cheeks. I led him through a narrow side street, badly lit, little more than an alley really.
His questions turned to the subject of the dagger. “Where did it come from exactly?”
“I’m not sure, exactly … One of his lady friends, no doubt – a token of undying love from some gentlewoman or other.”
“Why have you kept it all this time?”
“Oh, it comes in useful.” It really was dark here. We seemed to be the only two people out at this late hour.
“It can be used, then? It’s a real knife, I mean, not just an ornament?”
“Oh no, it’s perfectly serviceable,” I assured him. “Here, let me show you.”
With one fluid movement, I drew the knife from my belt, stepped in towards him and drove it deep into his belly, my free hand covering his mouth. In the dim light I could barely make out the look of disbelief and shock that froze his features. He had just started a low gasping moan when I drew the blade across his throat, silencing him forever.
He would have fallen then but for my supporting arm. I lowered him to rest in a sitting position against the wall. A quick glance round to make sure no one had seen anything, then I slipped a hand into his coat and relieved him of the bulging purse which had caught my attention when he first bought me a drink.
“You didn’t stand a chance,” I told his sightless eyes. “If not me, it would have been someone else.” In truth, it was a miracle he had survived this long. His sort of naïvety came with a very short shelf-life.
I pocketed the purse, which felt satisfyingly heavy, then cleaned and did the same with the knife. “Sorry kid, but there’s not much work around for retired heroes these days and I have to make a living somehow.”
I stood, composed myself and strolled away, humming a half-remembered tune that Jimmy the Minstrel used to play around the camp fire. Gerard would invariably lead the singing with gusto. He had a decent voice, come to think of it.
Those were the days.
NewCon Press, 09/01/2023
£9.99 (Paperback) | £19.99 (Signed Hardback, Ltd. Ed.)
Pages: 80 pp. | ISBN: 978-1-914953-41-5