J. F. Bone, page 8
A man-at-arms in gold and white livery eyed me curiously as I walked past. “Hold a moment, fellow,” he commanded.
I stopped.
“Where do you go?” the Tharn asked.
I shrugged. “Just looking around,” I said. “I’m a stranger here.”
“That’s obvious. With your queer eyes and such pale skin one can tell you are not a Tharn. But why are you here?”
“To see how Tharns select their leaders. In my land it is done differently.”
“Where is your land?”
“Far from here—to the south. I am here with Sar Malthor, Lord of Lothain.”
“You should have many strange tales to tell.”
“I have wandered far.”
“Come with me. I know a wineshop nearby. You can tell me your adventures.”
“I have little time. I have promised to meet Sar Malthor at the Hall of Truth.”
“Do you know where it is?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Then I will guide you and you can tell me of your travels as we go. My name is Wittal, and I’m a member of Sar Virra’s garrison as you can see.”
I wanted nothing less than to talk, but there was no help for it, and besides the fellow could probably help me find my way through the maze of winding streets better than if I attempted them alone. We walked slowly and I told stories culled partly from fact and partly from imagination. Wittal listened, occasionally interjecting some comment on a piece of incredible information like a snowstorm or ice fishing, and time passed.
“Well, here you are,” Wittal said. “This is the Hall of Truth.” He cocked a thumb at the arched entrance to a great barnlike building across the street. “Methinks you do not belong within its walls.”
I grinned at him. “Thank you,” I replied. He had led me in a half circle and I knew it. But I made no complaint. Indeed, I was curious more than anything else.
“It is I who should thank you,” the man-at-arms replied. “Never have I heard such tales as you tell. I would like to hear more.”
“You have heard me out,” I said. “Now I must find Sar Malthor.”
“I did not mean now, but later. Where do you lodge?”
I was silent tor a moment. This Wittal was an annoyance, but he seemed harmless enough. And I could always arrange to avoid him if it became necessary. “I’m at the Blue Kazlik Inn.”
“Good! I know the place. Perhaps I shall see you there.” The man-at-arms waved a friendly farewell and turned back the way he had come, while I went across the street to the arched doorway. So this was the Hall of Truth where the candidates on trial would be housed for the next ten days. It was located between the arena and the castle. I could have reached it in five minutes rather than the half hour I had spent walking with the man-at-arms. The gate was guarded by a squad of spearmen who barred my passage.
“Have you business here, fellow?” the squad leader asked. I looked over my shoulder. Wittal had vanished.
“I wish to speak to Sar Malthor of Lothain,” I announced. I knew he was at the castle, but that was none of this man’s affair.
“And who be you?”
“Warn Rossaw. He knows me.”
“That will not suffice. While Sar Malthor is in the Hall of Truth he cannot see anyone. Come back five days hence when the trial of knowledge is over.”
“He did not tell me this.”
“He assumed you knew. Everyone knows.”
“Not I.”
“You must be the stranger,” the guardsman said. “As I look at you, I see that it is so.”
“The stranger?”
The guard chuckled. “Word of you and your woman has spread. The gate guards who admitted you and Sar Malthor were relieved just before we went on duty. By now the whole castle knows of you. And by tomorrow most of the townsfolk will know.”
I grimaced. “I didn’t realize we had become such celebrities.”
“Strangers are always news, particularly strangers as strange as you.” The guardsman looked at me curiously. “An I were you,” he added cryptically, “I would be getting back to my woman. ” Tis not safe for a beauty like her to be left alone in a city like Zamal.”
“Why?”
“Ask no more questions. I have said too much already. But you were with Wittal, and Wittal is Lorn’s man.” The guardsman turned abruptly and walked back to his men.
I stood uncertainly for a moment and then turned back the way I had come, the short way. My steps lengthened as I recalled some of the campfire gossip of Sar Virra, and Lorn, his seneschal. Presently I was running.
It took time to return to the inn, for in spite of the care I had taken to remember my route before I was waylaid by Wittal, I missed a turn and became thoroughly lost in a rabbit warren of streets and alleyways. The uneasiness that had made me retrace my steps swelled to full-blown anxiety as I passed square after square, none of them familiar. The worry was nearly panic by the time I emerged from a narrow, twisting alleyway into a square larger than the others; on the opposite side, dim in the dying glow of evening, stood the Blue Kazlik Inn. Nothing had changed. The square was quiet. Grinning with relief I walked across the open space toward the inn-yard.
My toe caught in an upturned cobble and I stumbled to my hands and knees, as an arrow cut the air above my bent body and ricocheted off the cobblestones of the square.
Action and reaction were simultaneous. I jerked the kelly from my sleeve, and sprinted for the inn, moving from side to side to confuse the hidden archer. A flicker of gold and white showed at an upstairs window—the one from which Martha had waved goodbye. The flicker became an arm holding a bow. I snapped a medium intensity blast at the arm. A sharp explosion and a puff of greasy smoke leaped from the casement. Beyond it someone screamed, then all was silent. I hit the door of the inn, burst it open and blaster in hand, glared wildly around the common room. It was empty. I went up the stairs two at a time. I wasn’t quiet, but no one bothered me. The inn was as silent as a tomb. I moved down the hall to the door of our room. It stood half-ajar. I kicked it open. A man in gold and white livery lay on the floor, his left arm burned off at the elbow. He stunk of burned hair and flesh. It was Wittal and he was unconscious from shock. A quiver of arrows hung from the bedpost. I knelt beside the bed, tore the opened pack roll apart and transferred half a dozen spare charges for the blaster to my pockets, and stuffed the kelly into my trousers. The webcor wasn’t enough for my purposes, but I took it anyway. I couldn’t find the other kelly.
I tried to revive Wittal without success, and cursed because I had left the Medikit outside with the fifty from Lothain. Finally I went downstairs.
“Innkeeper!” I roared in the empty common room. “Show yourself else I burn this place to the ground!”
A muffled pounding answered me. I followed the noise into the kitchen and across it to a heavily barred door. I swung it open and customers and servants poured out. They must have been packed like sardines, I thought grimly. Among them was Hobaday, the innkeeper. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his face was swollen, and one eye was half shut behind a puffy bruise.
“What happened?” I said, as I caught him by the jerkin. We were alone; the others had fled into the street.
“Sar Virra’s men—a whole troop. They came upon us, beat an answer out of me, and locked us all in the buttery.”
“An answer to what?”
“To where your lady was lodged. I told them, but they would have found her anyway. They knew she was here. They went up the back way.”
“Which you showed them,” I said tersely.
The innkeeper shrugged. “I like to stay alive and our lord, Sar Virra, has no respect for the lives of those who oppose him. Moreover he has an eye for a pretty wench, and your lady is beautiful. It is enough reason. It has happened before.”
“But he can’t—”
“Sar Virra is lord of this region, master of the high, middle and low justice, and you are not a Tharn. As long as he stays in good grace with the Lord Chamberlain and the Tarnas, he can do as he pleases, and what ordinary citizen can approach Sar Vostek or the Tarnas?” Hobaday shrugged. “You can see what I received. And that is but a taste. An I defied Sar Virra’s men, I had been slain outright.”
“Where have they taken her?” I demanded.
The innkeeper shrugged. “To the castle, of course. Where else? Behind those walls none can gainsay Sar Virra.”
“One can,” I said grimly.
“An you value your life, do not attempt it. The castle is impregnable and Sar Virra has many warriors and men-at-arms.”
“What would you have me do? Forget it?”
“It would be best. There are other women.”
“Not for me.”
The innkeeper shrugged. “That is your concern,” he said.
“There is a body upstairs, dressed in the livery of Sar Virra,” I said coldly, “They left one behind to take care of me.”
“Then you are a dead man. You cannot kill Sar Virra’s man and live. You will not leave this city alive.”
“I am not yet dead.”
The innkeeper spread his hands in a gesture that said my death would be only a matter of time. “But you will be. No one slays Sar Virra’s men and lives to tell of it. No one in Zamal will help you. We have learned what it means to oppose our lord, and to aid his enemies.”
“And you are a friend of Sar Malthor?” Incredulous contempt tinged my voice.
“I am not a brave man,” the innkeeper replied. “I am a man of peace. Because Sar Malthor and I were born on adjacent farms does not mean that I partake of his love of battle.”
I shrugged. “I could kill you,” I said. “Your cooked carcass would be a lesson for other cowards.”
“An you will,” the innkeeper said. “I cannot stop you. But if I help you I am a dead man for sure. As it is you may not kill me.”
“What makes you think I’m any more merciful than your lord?”
“Your eyes. They are not the eyes of a beast. And I have willingly done you no harm.” He touched his forehead. “I have even bled for you.”
“You can do one thing more,” I said. “You can hide me until I can escape this city and return to my friends.”
“I dare not.”
I shrugged. “Then I will tell Sar Virra’s men when they catch me that you tried to hide me, and spoke against Sar Virra. Since I am a stranger with no reason to hate you, they will believe me.”
“But that would mean my death.”
“It seems you have no choice. You are not man enough to kill me, yet you dare not turn me out for fear I will have you killed.”
“Could you lie a man’s life away?”
“If a thing of great enough importance depended on it I could. Look at me and see if that is not so.”
The innkeeper nodded slowly. “You could do that,” he admitted. “All right, I will hide you an you do not betray me if you are found.”
“It’s a bargain,” I said.
CHAPTER 14
After learning a method of entering the inn unseen, I went out into the streets with a hooded cloak covering my face. As I had suspected Hobaday had a private entrance. Innkeepers are alike anywhere in the galaxy. I described in specific detail what would happen to him if he betrayed me and he swore with tears of terror in his eyes that he would be my true man forever. Personally I hoped that forever would last until dawn.
Slowly, speaking to no one, I made my way toward the castle. I wondered what had happened to Martha. She might have given a good account of herself, but she might have been caught by surprise. I hoped she was unhurt and feared that she was injured. For given a chance, she would fight, and she was as strong as the average Tharn male. They’d have to damage her to subdue her. Presently I found the causeway. I had no idea what I was going to do. I wondered if I could storm the castle single-handed. But for the moment I must wait for Sar Malthor at the end of the causeway stretching from the castle to the city. He came eventually, together with his wife Alwys in a sedan chair. There was a link bearer and a couple of men-at-arms in Sar Virra’s livery escorting him. I stopped him, calling his name from the shadows at the foot of the causeway. I told him what happened. His breath caught in his throat as he heard me out.
“Are you sure that Sar Virra is privy to this?”
“Not certain, but Wittal, whom I burned, was pointed out as Lorn’s man, and Lorn is Sar Virra’s seneschal.”
“By Tharn! I’ll call him to account for this. He cannot do this to my friends.”
“You’ll say nothing. Talk and Martha is dead. Keep silence, my lord. If Sar Virra has Martha it will do more good to bide your time, pass the trials, and then call him to account by trial of battle. As his peer you can do this.
And he will think he can win and so he’ll spare her life. But right will be on your side. We cannot lose!”
“He’s a stark fighter and deadly with the sword. Yet I have sworn to fight your battles, and I will do this. I will even try harder to pass the trials. Meanwhile, you had better get back to the men of Lothain. You’ll be safe there. I must go to the Hall of Truth. It is arranged and I cannot change it.”
“I know,” I said, “but I have another place to go.”
“You do not plan to enter the castle?”
“I do.”
“It’s madness.”
“That is what Sar Virra and Lorn will think.”
“But the size of the place. You’ll be discovered.”
“I don’t think so, they won’t be looking for me in their back yard, and you can narrow the search for me.”
“How?”
“Tell me the logical place to look for Martha.”
“There are two, and both are in the donjon—that great square tower at the north end. That’s the strongest place in the castle. All else could fall and that would still stand. Sar Virra and Lorn both live there.”
“And where in that tower would I be likely to find her?”
“At the very top, or the very bottom, in the aerie or the dungeons—probably the aerie. An you get trapped in either end you’ll never get out. Forget this madness. I will pass the examinations, kill Sar Virra and we can walk into the castle as the new lord and seneschal.”
“You make it sound simple,” I said, “but that will take at least five days and probably much longer. And Martha in that fellow’s hands for ten minutes is too long. I’ve heard the campfire gossip. I have come to despise Sar Virra of Valthi, and I have never met him.”
“You wouldn’t change your opinion if you encountered the fellow,” Sar Malthor said. “Tharns are not usually vile. Virra is an exception.”
“Wish me luck,” I said.
“I do,” he answered, “and if it will ease you I swear to try and kill Sar Virra. That knowledge should comfort you if you are caught and hanged.”
“I have my kelly and your training with weapons to harden me. And I have surprise to aid me. It is not as impossible as you fear.”
Sar Malthor shrugged. “Do not be foolhardy, my friend, and whatever you do, do not kill Sar Virra. His person is sacrosanct. You would turn every hand in Tharn against you. He can be called to account only by his peers, by the Tarnas, or by a Folk Council. An I pass the trial I will be his peer, and he will be my task. He never can be yours.”
My first problem was to get into the castle, and the best way was the most direct one. What I needed was a livery, and I knew exactly where to get one.
I found it in the third alehouse—a drunken man-at-arms so stupefied with wine that he was no problem to maneuver out of the house and into an alley. I did a few things to him with the kelly on needle aperture and minimum intensity. When I was done he was most cooperative, even eager to give me the passwords for the outer and inner baileys, but unfortunately he did not know the word for the keep, which would have done me no good anyway. If the inner guard was anything like that of Lothain, it knew every member of the donjon’s staff by sight. So I set the kelly on maximum stun and gave him a full second, then I left him in the darkness, stripped to his undergarments. The stun, together with the alcohol, would keep him quiet for hours.
Clothed and armed in soldier’s gear, and wearing Sar Virra’s livery, I staggered boldly up the causeway and past the outer guard, mouthing the password and reeking with wine. I had no trouble. I crossed the outer bailey—past the stables and outbuildings, across the cleared space before the inner bailey walls.
This guard was more alert—which was to be expected. “Halt!” he cried, dropping his spear point to the level of my chest.
I halted.
“Give the password.”
“Zamal and Valthi.”
“Not that one, you drunken fool. That’s for the outer bailey.”
“Ain’t this the outer bailey?”
“No, and even you should know it, Now Quick! The password or I call the guard officer.”
“Ah—Valthi and Virra.”
“Your memory is better than your balance,” the guard said. He raised his spear and I staggered past. The inner bailey courtyard was lit with numerous lanterns set in sconces along the walls. On its inner face the courtyard gave onto a broad moat in the center of which stood the huge square tower of the donjon.
Inefficient, I thought, a ditch would have served just as well, if not better for my purposes. I eyed the tower. The stones were rough. An active man could conceivably climb them, particularly at the southwest corner, which was under repair. About twenty feet above the water was an arrow slit, with several stones knocked out of its edges. A man could squeeze through that hole. The only problem was that it was visible from the main gate. But there were no guards on the drawbridge and only a lighted sentry post in front of the raised portcullis. The keep was not closed for the night. I almost wished it were, since that would give me greater security from discovery. As it was, someone crossing the drawbridge might see me. I’d have to shoot my way out with no assurance that I could make it.
