Sergeant Burke stumbled and cursed. “I’m telling the truth, curse you all!”
The villagers laughed and prodded Burke and his men forward roughly. How by the God had he fallen in with these putrid idiots? That was easy. He had stupidly led his men straight into it! He was angry with himself for being so foolish. Of course the villagers would be suspicious, of course they wouldn’t believe a dirty group of rough looking men were anything but brigands, but he had needed help and horses. He needed to return to Lady Julia as quickly as he could. Young Lorcan must have reached her long since.
“Listen to me—”
“I think we’ve heard enough!” a big man with the arms of a blacksmith said gruffly. “I say we hang you right now.”
“Damn straight!” another man agreed.
“…my girls to think of…”
“…and my wife says…”
There was a good deal of agreement, and Burke’s men looked at him uneasily. This was looking worse and worse. He cast about for anyone resembling a lord or someone in authority, but all he saw was a mob. When a man produced a rope as if by magic, he panicked and began shouting for all he was worth.
“A judgement!” he yelled. “A judgement! I demand a hearing of the lord!”
Burke’s men took it up. “A judgement!”
“I’m innocent! A Judgement!”
“We’re all innocent!” Burke shouted. “I want my judgement with your lord!”
The big man cuffed him around the ear, but Burke would not be silenced. The crowd began mumbling uneasily amongst themselves. Burke and his men quieted as they tried to make sense of what they heard.
“…can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Well, just because! They ain’t one of us. They ain’t even Devan!”
“I am too a Devan!” Alvin protested.
“Shadaaap!” the burly man said, and clipped Alvin around the ear. “We should take them to Rakin. He’ll know what’s right.”
“Yes, Rakin will know!”
“Who by the God is Rakin?” Burke asked, but received nothing but a glare. They shoved him and his men roughly along another lane between rows of small thatched houses.
“You don’t think they’ll hang us do you, Sergeant?” Alvin asked, staring uneasily at the rope one man still carried.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Burke grumbled, still glaring at the blacksmith. He relented at the woeful look on Alvin’s face. “Brace up lad. Rakin will sort this out.”
“How do you know?”
“He almost has to be the headman, so he’ll know our rights.”
Alvin seemed reassured.
He prayed he wasn’t lying to the boy and wished there were someone to reassure him about that, but he was the senior man among his men. He had to put up a brave front for them. He was a good sergeant, but he shuddered at the thought of ever gaining a captain’s sash. Leading men could be hard, how much harder must it be for a captain who led so many more than he?
Rakin was indeed the headman, but far from the old gaffer of Burke’s imaginings, he was a man in his prime. Together with his wife and young son, he had made his fortune serving travellers good food and wine in the inn his widowed father had died to build. Burke learned all this later from his captors, but his first meeting with Rakin taught him enough to make him wary. Here was a man who held Burke’s men’s lives in his hands. A man accustomed to the villager’s respect, and well aware of the power he held over their opinions.
Burke had lived within Athione for many years, met the high and mighty of the realm, and rubbed shoulders with mages with the power to level mountains. None had scared him the way Rakin did that day. Tall and no older than thirty if that, he had a way of looking at a man that sent shivers down his spine. His grey eyes held Burke’s for a long moment before doing the same with each of his men. Burke swallowed dryly. A word or gesture from this man would see all of them dangling from a rope, and none in the village would question it.
Rakin met them on the steps of his inn, and listened patiently to the blacksmith’s report of events, saying nothing. When the blacksmith finished, he pursed his lips and nodded at some decision he had made.
“Your name is Burke?”
Burke nodded and stood straighter. “Sergeant Burke of Athione. My men are also of Athione.” He ignored the snickers of derision his claim produced, already well aware that none believed his story. “We come from the fighting north of here—”
“There’s nothing north but the clans!” someone shouted, and greeted by loud agreement.
Rakin raised a hand, and the crowd quieted. “Shil has a point, Sergeant, if that’s who you really are. What do you say to him?”
“My Lord Keverin led us there to find Lady Julia. We did, but she wouldn’t leave without paying her debt to the clan that helped her. We fought the Hasian legion not far from Denpasser, and were captured along with our lord.”
The crowd murmured in surprise, and Rakin let the noise build a little before raising a hand for quiet once again. “You say you were captured with Lord Keverin?”
Burke and his men nodded, aware of the sudden silence around them.
“All know Lord Keverin died in the north.”
“That’s a lie!” Alvin spat, trying to shake off the men holding his arms.
“Alvin!” Burke snapped, and Alvin stiffened to attention. “Leave this to me.”
“But, Sergeant, they’re lying!”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
Alvin sighed and relaxed. “Aye, Sergeant.”
Rakin watched the brief exchange with interest. He turned to the man holding Burke. “Brande, your cellar I think. You have nothing dangerous down there?”
The blacksmith shook his head.
“Put them there for now. Have your apprentices stand guard outside it with their biggest hammers.” He raised his voice over the mutters of the villagers, “I’m calling the council to meet with me inside to decide the right of this. If Lord Keverin is really alive, our Lord Purcell and the King will want to know. Brande, take them away.”
Brande jerked Burke roughly out of the line. Those holding Alvin and the others followed. Talk of Lord Purcell’s wishes heartened him. He felt reasonably confident that Rakin would defer judgement now that doubt over their identities had entered his mind.
Burke and his men fretted the rest of the day away in Brande’s cellar. Time dragged slowly past, but news finally came in the form of two women bearing platters of food. The blacksmith and his huge apprentices came along with them, but they need not have worried. Burke was only too happy to stay away from them when he heard the news.
“Here, you must be hungry. Rakin says we gotta feed you,” one woman said as she placed the food upon the ground and stepped back.
“Thank him for me,” Burke said, waving Alvin forward to take the food. “What has he decided?”
“The council is split. All know you for the brigands you are, but they don’t want to be the ones to hang you. Some say we should just do it and bury you proper in the woods. Rakin says he wants to think about it a bit more before deciding, but I think he’ll agree. You deserve a proper burial. They have a nice spot all picked out.”
Burke’s heart sank. They were all dead men. He wished he had stayed with Lorcan. This was his fault. If he had simply stayed on the other side of the river, none of this would be happening. Was Lord Keverin well? He pushed that worry firmly to the back of his mind as his stomach rumbled. He went in search of food, ignoring the bang of the trapdoor closing overhead.
He growled when he found the trays bare. “Oy you greedy bastards, where’s mine?” His men chuckled as Alvin revealed his share hidden from sight. He shook his head. “Only you lot would fool around at a time like this.”
He settled himself in the corner to eat his meal and plan an escape. There must be some way to get out of this and he would find it.
* * *
Had Keverin known that men of Athione were close by, he would have been greatly heartened by the news. As it was, he tried not to dwell on his uselessness. Lorcan had to do nearly everything for him. The thought was a bitter one. What good was a one-handed man to anyone? Lorcan had to be the one to ask for work, for if Keverin did, they smiled at him pityingly and gave him a copper or two as if he were a beggar, not a man asking for a decent wage for work. No, Lorcan had to be the one to ask, and the one that did the chores they gave him, and the one to feed and clothe them both, and… Sometimes Keverin felt like screaming at them to look at him and see a Lord of the realm, not some crippled beggar. That’s what they saw when they looked at him, if they looked at all. Most didn’t even do that, for fear his lameness was in some manner contagious.
Keverin and Lorcan approached Redbridge from the west. Had they been travelling in the opposite direction, as Keverin dearly wished to, the road would have led him to Malcor and Julia. When he considered that every step took him that much further from Julia, he had to force himself not to turn back.
“Have we money enough for a place at the inn, Lorcan?” Keverin said as they crossed the brightly painted wooden span that lent Redbridge its name. “I would love a bath and a proper bed, even if for only one night.”
Lorcan shook his head. “Maybe, if you don’t want to eat tomorrow, m’lord.”
Keverin grinned at the boy’s sour tone. “I’ve been thinking about the torque again.”
“I thought we had agreed not to use it.”
They had, but it was beginning to feel like sentimental foolishness to him. The torque Julia had made for him was solid gold. He didn’t know exactly how much gold, but by its weight, it should be enough to buy a good horse, or perhaps two nags. The problem with the torque was threefold. One, Julia had made it with magic, and non-mages had no business messing with magic. Two, anyone that saw it would assume he had stolen it from some rich nobleman; a very real possibility considering they were dressed like peasants now. And three... Julia had made it. It was all he had of her.
“True, lad, but I think we might take the chance by selling the clasp. Just the clasp. What do you think?”
“I think I’d prefer asking for work at the stables than ruining something the Lady made.”
Keverin smiled. Lorcan worshiped Julia; it wasn’t surprising he thought that way. “She wouldn’t want us to starve, Lorcan. It’s only gold. She can fix it, or make another.”
“It’s not that, m’lord. I can see the magic in it. There’s a lot of it... a lot. I don’t think we can break it, and even if we could, we shouldn’t. It might be dangerous. Mathius taught me a little about warding, I know what can go wrong. Didn’t a ward destroy Athione’s west wall?”
“Yes, but that was the sorcerer’s doing.”
Lorcan shook his head. “Mathius said a lot of the damage was caused by the magic in the wards being released all at once. Really, m’lord, I would feel better if we left it alone.”
Keverin sighed. “All right, if you think it’s that dangerous. We’ll ask for work, but not in the stables. The inn must need someone to wash dishes.”
“I hope so, m’lord.”
“Cheer up. It’s not so bad working for a meal now and then.”
Lorcan scowled, glancing at the houses they passed. “If this place were just a bit bigger, I could take to the rooftops tonight and we would have all we need.”
Keverin laughed. “Well its not. Any of your mischief will be traced straight to us—we’re strangers in town.”
Lorcan sighed. “I know, I know.”
They found the inn easy enough. It was in the middle of town fronted by the green. Trees dotted the green where children ran and played in the shade. It had been a long time since he had seen the like. Clan children didn’t so much play as train to fight. Oh, they called it play right enough, and seemed to enjoy it, but there was no doubt in any watcher’s mind that what they were witnessing were the seeds from which warriors grew. Wrestling they called it. Even a girl of fifteen would give a veteran Devan guardsman pause. Keverin had seen it happen. He glanced at Lorcan and found him staring in fascination as the children chased each other, or played catch, laughing and shouting. Perhaps Lorcan remembered his own good times, few though they be.
Keverin clasped the boy’s shoulder and shook him gently. “Come, Lorcan, I’ve found the inn.”
Lorcan nodded and followed Keverin, looking back over his shoulder at the laughing children.
The Halfway House was a comfortable looking place, well kept and stately in its old age. Looking around, Keverin suspected the inn had been built before the rest of the town, probably to supply comfort to travellers on the road to Elvissa and points beyond. Keverin led Lorcan inside and scanned faces for the innkeeper. There were a good many to choose from. The inn boasted a large common room filled with many round tables and customers sitting at their ease. Most were talking with friends over beer or mead, some of them chatted over a meal of thick broth with fresh bread and butter on the side. Keverin’s stomach grumbled in complaint as the wonderful aroma of good food reached him.
“Can I be of service to you?”
Keverin dragged his eyes away from the food. “Yes, if you are the innkeeper.”
“I am indeed. Evrard is the name. Do you need lodgings, food, baths perhaps?”
“Honoured to meet you, Evrard, I am Keverin. This is my son, Lorcan.”
Lorcan straightened and smiled.
“We do need a place to stay, Evrard, and food too, but...”
Evrard sighed. “You can’t pay. I knew you were going to say that.”
“My son and I are more than willing to work for our supper and a night’s lodging.”
Evrard looked doubtfully at Keverin’s empty shirt cuff.
“I lost it fighting the Hasians.”
“You were at Athione?” Evrard said, suddenly interested. “Is it really as big as they say?”
“Bigger.”
Keverin hadn’t lost his hand at Athione, but he saw no harm in letting the man believe he had. After all, he really had lost his hand fighting the Hasians. What did it matter when the battle occurred, or where?
“Bigger?” Evrard said uncertainly. “You really have been there?”
Keverin nodded. “I served there most of my life, until this happened.” He raised his stump.
“You weren’t turned out, surely?”
“No. Lord Keverin would never do that. A lot of us stayed on, working in the stables, or serving in the citadel.”
“He sounds like a good lord. I’m sorry he died.”
Keverin opened his mouth to say he wasn’t dead yet, but Lorcan’s nudge reminded him not to take the chance. If Evrard thought he lied, he would probably refuse their offer to work for him.
“He was a good lord.”
Evrard rubbed the tip of his nose as he thought. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can have a room between you, hot baths, a meal… I’ll even throw in a jug of mead or two, but I want something in return.”
“Go on, I’m listening,” Keverin said warily.
“Your boy can help out in the kitchen, while you tell me all your news of Athione and Lady Julia.”
Keverin grinned. He would never get a better deal than that. Talking about Julia and home was no chore at all. At Lorcan’s sigh, he turned and smiled. He chuckled at the sour look on the boy’ face.
“Done.”
“Good!” Evrard said. “I’ll show you the room, and have the tubs filled. You can tell your story after you’ve freshened up and eaten.”
Keverin nodded and followed Evrard upstairs with a quietly grumbling Lorcan a pace behind him.
* * *