A Path to Coldness of Heart (8 page)

Gales believed Kavelin’s northern neighbors could not resist temptation, however much they had suffered themselves during the Great Eastern Wars.

The horrors had begun to be forgotten the way a woman forgets childbirth’s pain.

Josiah Gales had mentioned the threat to Inger and the Duke. Neither wanted to listen.

“I have chores, Majesty, and things to do if I’m going to travel.” He was sick of travel. He wished he knew some other way of life. “I’ll be back tonight.”

“I want you on the road to Damhorst tomorrow.”

Gales sighed. “As you command.”

Gales was a frugal man. He had been paid well back when soldiers received regular pay. He decided to spend some of his savings getting drunk.

...

The warlords of Anstokin and Volstokin were less tempted than Colonel Gales feared. Both kings did feel the urge. Kavelin lay sprawled like a naked virgin tied to a mattress of silver. But lurking in the shadows above those splayed enticements was a hideous guardian, a monstrous infant inside a transparent pinkish magical excuse for a placenta. A horror renowned for its evil deeds during the Great Eastern Wars.

The Unborn turned up whenever either king’s fantasies progressed to the assembling of troops. It needed do no more, so far.

Manifestation of the Unborn was not just a promise of terror. It was a clear announcement that a greater horror still had an interest.

Thus was peace assured amongst the bellicose Lesser Kingdoms. And the absence of war inflicted prosperity.

...

Josiah Gales was out of practice with ardent spirits. Handling large quantities was not a skill much admired in senior military men. Wine with dinner, small beer with breakfast, the occasional brandywine of an evening whilst relaxing with his fellows, those were his norms. Some children imbibed more in a day. His most recent falling-down-sick romance with alcohol happened the day they buried Dane’s assassinated granduncle.

People connected to Kavelin had been involved somehow.

Gales was not sure why he ended up at the Twisted Wrench. Probably because the place was a haunt for garrison troops off duty. Even if he was recognized his presence ought not to be resented.

He staked out a shadowy corner and brushed off those who tried to socialize. By not talking he would not betray his accent. Without thinking about it, though, he slipped into a character he once played undercover.

He became the quirky Sergeant Gales. That meant a shift in the set of his shoulders, in the way he held his head, a more expansive set of gestures even while being sullenly unsocial, and a lower class accent when he did have to speak.

The tavern never became crowded. The owner longed for the time when Bragi was king and there were soldiers everywhere.

There was a lot of nostalgia in the Twisted Wrench. And a lot of resentment, too.

Inger had gotten her chance. She had wasted it.

The blame was not all hers, though. The other Itaskian gang enjoyed a fouler reputation. Some folks, in fact, believed the Queen would have done a decent job if her cousin had not been undercutting.

Kristen executed a brilliant strategic maneuver by sliding out of the light when she did. She had taken no blame, only sympathy, with her. The death of Credence Abaca, which had thrilled Inger so back when, now looked like a curse. It, too, conspired to make those still visible look bad.

The Marena Dimura were no longer in a state of insurrection. They had become invisible. They could not now be blamed for all the ills of the kingdom.

Gales was well up the early slope of alcohol consumption. He was pleased to be learning so much. It might be too late to use the information to any advantage but he now had his finger on the pulse of the kingdom.

He should have made expeditions like this before. The knowledge could have kept Inger in much better odor.

It had not occurred to anyone to care what ordinary people thought. Their attitudes did not matter in Itaskia. But this was Kavelin. The monarchs here had been listening for decades. Inger might have, too. She had a mild case of the Kavelin fever.

Josiah Gales had a slight case of that disease himself. He signaled for a refill, then began to brood on that.

Then he began to worry about the time. He should have been back by now. Inger would give him bloody hell when he turned up drunk.

And now he could not leave.

Men he knew had come and gone, none paying him any heed because he timed his piss runs to avoid being noticed. The strategy had worked till an entire squad of archers stumbled in. The Wrench was not their first stop of the evening. Gales wondered how they could afford so much drink. Their pay was in arrears.

The archers settled where Gales would have to pass on his way to the jakes. And they would not move on.

The ache in the Colonel’s bladder reached a point where he had to make a decision. He chose to piss on the floor, sitting where he was, not a choice he would have made when sober.

He got urine all over himself. What made it to the floor drained through gaps in the floorboards. The odor did not stand out amongst the other stinks of the Wrench.

Then a shaggy mass of a man materialized. He headed a trio of thoroughly drenched gentlemen. In fluent drunkenese, he bellowed, “Holy fuckin’ shit! Will ya lookit! Sarge Gales, you ole cocksucker! How da fuck are you? Hey! You look like shit, man. You been eatin’ right? You got pushed out too, huh? Guess you’re lookin’ good enough for dat. Hey! Tell dese jack-offs ’bout dat time. You know. Durin’ da El Murid Wars when you got off a dat ship in Hellin Daimiel or wherever da fuck. Wit’ all da women. You guys gotta hear dis. Funniest fuckin’ story I ever heard.”

Gales began to shake. He did not recognize the man blasting dense wine breath into his face. The story he wanted had been the signature bullshit story that Sergeant Gales of the Queen’s own bodyguard had retailed back in the day.

“Come on, man! Nine women in one day!”

The entire tavern had gone quiet, at least to Gales’s ears. It seemed everyone wanted to hear the great story. Including the archers, who looked like they were trying to recall where they had heard all this before.

Gales glanced round. If anyone had a bone to pick with Colonel Gales he was well and truly screwed. “It was Libiannin. Yeah. And it was nine women. That’s no lie. I was a young man then and we was fourteen days on the transport. We hit the beach with our peckers poking us under our chins. I did nine women. In one day. You know what I mean. In twenty-four hours. Fourteen days on a transport, I never even seen a woman. Yeah. You don’t believe me. Nobody ever does. But it’s true. Nine women in one day.”

Gales did not go through the gestures and antics that had accompanied the tales of the old Sergeant Gales. He had no room and did not want his piss-soaked pants to be seen.

His unrecalled acquaintance asked, “You all right? You don’t seem to got so much energy no more. You’re ’sposed ta tell it piece by piece, man.”

Gales raised his jack. “Too many of these. Yeah.” He looked at the other men. “It’s true. You ask him. Fourteen days at sea. I was ready. How many women you had in one day? I wasn’t showing off. I was working it. Yeah. I’ll never forget that seventh one. Yeah. Moaning and clawing. She’s going, ‘Oh! Oh! Gales! Gales! I can’t take no more, Gales! Oh! No! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’ Yeah. It’s true. Every damn word. Nine women in one day. I was a young man then.” After a feigned bout of straining to keep everything down, he said, “I ain’t so young no more. I maybe better get outta here before somebody takes advantage of me. But one more won’t hurt.”

He pulled up a small purse. It proved to be empty. “Ah, shit. Somebody done got me already.” He faced the man who had recognized him. “You see anybody ’round me back here? Somebody plucked me.”

“We just got here, Sarge.”

One of the companions asked, “You sure you didn’t spend it all already? You didn’t get that last jack for free.”

Gales frowned as though making a grand effort to retrieve difficult memories. He decided this was the time to take advantage of the mess he had made in his lap.

Another feigned gag. He stood. “I got to go.”

The moisture was blatantly obvious. Even the drunkest drunks saw it. He staggered badly. And congratulated himself on how he had disarmed even those who had to know who he really was.

He felt awful, though. He did not have to pretend to be thoroughly soused.

He counted forty steps, leaned against a wall, looked back. Nobody had come after him. He had left them sure that he was not worth robbing, or even worth beating up for being an officer.

He faced forward. He was going to be totally miserable later on. And he had to go to Damhorst tomorrow.

A dark shape blocked his path, a big man in a hooded cassock. He was accompanied by several identically clad friends.

One stepped in behind and pulled a sack over his head. The others dressed him in another cassock. His struggles were ineffective. They had trouble mainly because he was now halfway limp.

Then he puked into the bag.

...

The sun was near the meridian. Inger wrestled a mix of panic and anger. Still no sign of Josiah. His mounts remained stabled. His possessions were in his quarters, including weapons and travel gear. The men tasked to accompany him still awaited his appearance.

Inger paced. She muttered. She cursed. She was certain fate had handed her another cause for despair. Josiah was almost all she had left.

Not many months ago she had been ready to abandon Fulk’s claim to Kavelin’s crown. Then Bragi got himself killed. Most of the people who wanted rid of her then turned round to support her—except that witch Kristen, whose brat’s claim had no legal foundation.

Here she was again, abandoned by another man, ready to shriek, “To hell with it!” and leave Kavelin to anyone who wanted the heartache.

She watched Fulk nap, for once in rare good health. The boy seemed angelic, lying there in a splay of blond curls. Neither she nor Bragi had curly hair but her mother said she had had curls as a toddler. One of her few remaining women came into the nursery. “Yes, Garyline?”

“That unpleasant Wolf person is here, Majesty. He says he has the information you wanted.”

Inger rolled up her nose. She avoided Nathan Wolf as much as she could. But when Josiah dropped off the face of the earth she had nowhere else to turn.

“Send him in.” She had no choice.

Sometimes she felt sorry for Wolf. The man was never anything but what he ought to be. He never did anything wrong. But he radiated something that made everyone wary and distrustful. Only Dane actually liked him. Inger suspected that Wolf did not like himself much. What others thought reflected back and made him think he deserved the negative responses.

Wolf’s manners were perfect. Inger did not face him. She did not want him to see the revulsion his presence sparked. “You found something?” She stroked Fulk’s hair, praying his good health would last.

“Colonel Gales spent the evening at a tavern, the Twisted Wrench, which is frequented by the garrison. He drank so much he wet himself. The last anyone saw him, he was going out the door.”

“That’s it? That’s all?”

“It is, Majesty. And I would like to point out that the men and I have done almost miraculous work, coming up with that so fast.”

True. Inger reined in her emotions. Wolf had developed that information so fast she wondered if he had not been involved somehow. “You’re right, Nathan. That was good work. Can you even guess where he is now?”

“No, Majesty. But these things usually end with a corpse. Or an embarrassed soldier who has been rolled by a prostitute.”

Josiah would not have taken up with a prostitute.

Wolf stepped to the door. “I can keep on squeezing the men who were there, but…”

“Almost certainly a waste of time. Nathan, you’ll have to do what Colonel Gales was supposed to do today.”

“I am at Your Majesty’s command.”

Exactly the answer she wanted from every man in her service, but from Wolf it seemed somehow both sinister and darkly suggestive.

Poor Nathan could not talk about the weather without making people think he was an oily, wicked pervert.

Inger gave Wolf his instructions, which were exactly those she had given Gales. Though her stomach tightened, she allowed a hint of a suggestion that a substitute who handled the Colonel’s work well might expect some of the Colonel’s perks.

She felt filthy when Wolf left.

She did wonder why the man seemed so slimy, creepy, and repulsive. He did nothing to validate that.

...

Nathan Wolf, wounded, reached the Breitbarth castle two days later than he should have without having run into trouble. He was afoot. He was the second member of his band to get through, and the last. He arrived to find that the cavalryman who had preceded him had expired before he could explain what had happened.

The Duke himself came to see Wolf. The sorcerer Babeltausque was dressing his wounds. “What the hell happened, Nathan? The other guy thought he was the only survivor.”

“An ambush, Your Grace. I didn’t get a good look. Marena Dimura bandits, I guess.”

Babeltausque said, “He’ll be fine if there’s no sepsis. Gister Saxton told the same story.”

“The Marena Dimura haven’t done anything since Abaca died. Why change now?”

Wolf mumbled, “I don’t know, Your Grace.” He tried to explain why he had come instead of Gales.

“Ah. Possibilities suggest themselves. Gales either stepped out of the equation deliberately, was ordered out by Inger, or was removed by someone else. That seems most likely. So. Why? To get rid of Gales? Or to move Nathan up a notch?”

The sorcerer said, “That is a pathetically long stretch.”

“Meaning?”

“I believe in the malicious mischief theory of providence. My hypothesis? Gales went out drinking and got mugged, or killed, by somebody who didn’t know who he was.”

“A twist on ‘It’s not conspiracy if it can be explained by stupidity’?”

“Exactly.”

Greyfells stared at Wolf. “Nathan has done well, Babeltausque. Remove the curse.”

Wolf frowned, confused, as he slid away into sleep.