I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) (8 page)

      I patted Godwin on the shoulder as I moved past him, rubbing my thighs hard enough my hands began to ache. Aelia turned an eye to me she meant to be frosty, but was thawing in a way that exposed her fear. She faked a cough to collect herself, but failed. She leaned close and hissed at me, “We must continue.”

      I nodded, pitching my voice just as softly, “I appreciate your concern, Lady. Gather whatever you absolutely need. I’ll tell the boys we are moving out light. We’ll grab food and––“

      The Lady looked as if I had slapped her, “No! We must keep the carriage.”

      I stuttered to a stop for a moment. Gelia had no problem with summoning winter from within her and from over the Lady’s shoulder the old woman’s eyes flayed me alive. I ignored her and tried sanity again, “I advise against it, but we can take the time to have the boys pack up heavy packs from the luggage, and we will continue on foot with whatever we can carry. We will make the oak chest a priority but—“

      The Lady had recovered her dignity, but none of her intelligence, “No! We must keep the carriage.”

      Something bitter cackled from inside the Fog.
When given the choice between a good idea and a bad idea, a noble infallibly reached over your shoulder to find the catastrophically worse idea
. I stared at her, catching glimpses of secrets flitting behind her eyes, but I swallowed my arguments, “I will—“

      “You will what, Crow?” The lady asked, turning the boys’ name for me into an insult.

      “I will range ahead to find the horses water,” I said, picture perfect but wholly affected indignation drawing me up straight, “lest they die in their harnesses.”

      She flushed, eyes tracking over my face for any trace of duplicity. I simply brushed past her, and motioned Theo over. I put my palm against the back of his neck and pulled his head close to mine. I whispered orders to him that he probably didn’t need: be alert, protect the lady, be prepared to fight or run. Then Gelia approached me and handed me two folded leather buckets. I accepted them and licked my lips, “Thank you Reverend Sister.”

      She did not sneer, her words did it for her, “How wise is it to have the Lady’s most skilled defender leave her?”

      I took a deep breath, swallowing the bile that I yearned to spit into her face. When I spoke, I was amazed how calm and level my voice was, “If thirty barbarians come up this road, my blade will make no difference to the outcome. On the other hand out in the woods, I’m the only one that can disappear if I wander into a knot of Westerners.” I fixed her with a deadly serious stare, “But if you swear before your God that you want me to stay, I will stay.”

      Gelia’s jaw locked in place, and she shook her head sharply before blessing me angrily and stalking away. Theo, bobbing in the storm swept surface of our conversation, looked back and forth between the priestess and I. I smiled at him and shrugged. Minutes later, I was back into the comforting silence of a forest that smelled of distant, but fresh, blood. I could say it spooked me, but that would be a lie. My only thoughts were not for myself, but stray thoughts kept slipping back to the carriage party. The dark thing at the back of my mind swatted at these worries but they continued to buzz between my ears.

      I walked for half an hour, but once the road passed a series of hilly meadows, grasses sheared short by the teeth of herds, the flow of dirt became a stream, than a path–like trickle. There was no escape this way, and no water, either. Without thinking it through, and without knowing why, I turned around and walked back. Despite the hollow hurt in my legs, the release of tension created a definite ache in my shoulders. I felt old doors inside creep open and flush the musty halls of my soul.

      I reached the carriage party, but they were not alone. Fifteen Kingsmen soldiers and what was obviously a noble of some kind surrounded them, but the scene was distorted, tense, and paranoid. Instantly the Beast caught scent of impending murder and snuck out of the Fog. I felt my skin go cold as I scanned the forest on every side, picking out many places where a man could secret himself. The Beast chose one at random, and I disappeared into the tree line.

      Even off the path, my boots made only the softest of coughs on the wilting carpet of limp leaves. The silence of hiding birds and cowering mammals utterly refused to mask any movement around me, but the Kingsmen appeared to be more interested in the boys than the woods. The noble was faced away, and I could not understand his softly pitched words. I got closer and closer, melding with the trunks of trees and shadows of thick branches. Ahead, the boys gave up their weapons, and I wanted to scream inside.

      During the commotion, I darted forward, within a handful of paces from the back of the noble’s soft, unprotected skull. Then, Aelia’s eyes catch mine. She inclined her head sharply, once. Telling me it was over, telling me to run.

      I kicked the Beast screaming into the Fog, and reached deeply into the mental closet filled with masks. I screwed a stupid looking smile onto my face and wandered down into the midst of the group. The noble jumped, several soldiers cursed and drew weapons, so I held the buckets up high and ratcheted my voice up a few octaves, and took on a lilting, poncy tone, “I apologize, Milady! There is no water to be had for your noble beasts. But I see we have been saved!”

      The noble, at least the man in the best armor and wearing the stupidest expression, sneered and hit me hard on the jaw. It took everything I had to let the blow land, but at least collapsing into a heap was easy. I tried to ignore how close his dagger was to my hand. I tried to ignore how exposed his neck was. I tried to ignore his horrible breath as he leaned close and said, “My name is Captain Andrew O’Conner, Scion of the Imbel line. Do not speak in my presence again.”

      After being struck by Captain O’Conner, the boys and I were disarmed. I clamped down on the Beast as O’Conner himself took the Phantom from me, his eyes already claiming it as a prize for himself. Her Ladyship and the Nanny were bundled back into the carriage with the Captain, and we were turned around to head back to the battlefield. The low-born amongst us were discouraged from speaking, as being clubbed across the face is a great discouragement. Soon, corpses hanged from the trees said that we were approaching the decided battlefield.

      We were stopped before we ever reached open ground, and only the smell on the wind, increased presence of blood spatters, and macabre tree ornaments told of how close we were. One of the fifteen guards left with O’Conner.

      The world has a lot of injustices. Nobles love to pretend they do not exist, but usually only for themselves. Any poor sod who gets caught on the battlefield can look to a short hard life inside of a mine, or perhaps a quick hanging, or a knife across the throat. Nobles, on the other hand, are whisked from the battlefield and treated as, well- nobles. I would have a note of genuine disgust at that, but I think it might be hypocritical since that self delusion is the reason I’m not being hanged, stabbed, or enslaved. It was especially useful, since winter came down upon us with the subtlety and kindness of a hurled anvil.

      If only the sequence of events made sense.

      Hour after hour passed, and though discipline became more lax, there wasn’t any kind of opportunity at escape that included the Lady and her carriage. The runner returned with food, bread for the boys and I as well as a cold repast of roasted fowl and fruit for her nobleness. We were all watered, and to Godwin’s relief (did I mention relief?) the horses were included and began to recover.

      It was near night by the time O’Conner returned, a self satisfied grin firmly in place. I weighed his traits and decided that if I did anything next it would be met with violence. I took a guess at how much.

      I stood up and put myself between he and Aelia, voice lilting, “Captain–“

      I forced my hands to stay at my sides, I locked my legs to keep from moving, but I couldn’t stop myself from leaning away from the blow as he hit me again, this time across the cheek with a riding crop. The blazing column of pain caused the entire world to dissolve into bright white. I had planned to fall down, and it was a good thing too. I missed what he said to Aelia, but there was some shouting. Inside of my ringing ears, everything was confused.

      At least I was able to get up by the time we were being collected to move on. O’Conner walked back by me, tantalizingly within reach when he paused.

      “The next time you sully the memory of my noble lineage with words directed at me, fool,” O’Conner smiled grimly as he made what he thought of as a joke, “One of us is going to die.”

      I bowed my head, meekly, but inside the Beast roared a promise loud enough to shatter mountains. There was no doubt that we were prisoners, but there was no explanation yet as to why. We had a cell large enough for thirty more people, and it was even out of the wind, though only through a quirk of history, and not due to any kindness of our captors.

      The King came to power twenty years ago in The Reunification war between the Grand Dukes and Duchesses of the Kingdom. The civil war had raged for fifty years, enough for the Kingdom to be well on its way to considering itself a series of separate fiefdoms. That’s when the last of the great raids of Western Barbarians flooded over the Northern Ridge Mountains. They made it half way through our nation, laying waste to whole regions and demanding tribute from everyone else, before they were stopped.

      A simple knight from an ancient family rode into the conquered territories and began organizing the people. Defeated knights, bow carrying woodsmen, and footmen wielding hastily forged spears became a tide behind him. He resurrected a tradition of our ancient fathers: The
castra
. It is a military discipline wherein, every night, soldiers cut down trees, raise a palisade, dig a dual–purpose trench and latrine around the walls, and fill the trench with sharpened stakes. Where there are no trees they use dirt, or snow, or even stacked rocks. Within these impromptu walls they are allowed to pitch their tents. It slows down the progress of an army by as much as a quarter, but it always means they have a place to retreat to, or to fight off a midnight assault by barbarians.

      For three years he waged war from his home near The Gray Forest all the way back to The Northern Ridge Mountains, crashing through the barbarians, traitors, and even the warring nobles ensconced in their private lands. He was brilliant, ambitious, and ruthless. Thus being the biggest bastard with the greatest talent for making living men dead men, he became King Ryan the First, sovereign of Noria. Eventually he lost his interest in the welfare of his people behind mountains of tax money, but the resurrected tradition of the
castra
lived on.

      That’s where we were. Inside one of the most settled–in
castra
I had ever seen. Apparently, someone knew the barbarians were coming, and had mobilized almost three hundred troops to meet the raiding army. I was willing to bet they had begun construction on this wooden fort weeks ago, waiting here as the mountain keep and the people of River’s Bend died. It was good ground to meet a barbarian assault, even if it cost hundreds of innocent people their lives. At least they had time to complete some rough log–construction barracks. The Barbarian horde had crashed against the walls and their fists had sundered. Now the army had left for home, with only our fifteen jailers left behind.

      Thankfully, we were inside one of the officer’s quarters, and I was enjoying just being alive and indoors as the sky spilled sleet from angry clouds. The boys and I were still living on bread and water, the fire pit in the center of the room could use a few more logs before our breath stopped fogging in the air, there was no latrine for our use in here and the doors had been hammered shut so there were no opportunities at escape, and my sword was at least fifty paces away… but you can’t have everything.

      I watched the smoke from the fire pit lurch up against the wind and slip out of the hole in the center of the ceiling.

     
Not yet, anyway
.

7   

A Shard of Night,

Alive and Hungry

Aelia sat in the corner in somewhat walled off from the rest of us by a few of her trunks brought from the carriage. One would think that allowing myself to be captured and struck on behalf of on my employer, her crew of beardless youths, and her damn cat would bring some amount of praise. One would be dead wrong.

      I lay on a palate rolled out on the hard, cold dirt floor, Aelia casting me glances that had been stropped to an edge that could shave rain out of the clouds. Godwin and Jonathan were sleeping. Miller and…
I can never remember his name
, the stinky kid were talking furtively next to the fire. Theo had come over to ask me a barrage of questions I could not answer until I sent him across the room to sulk. Now was not the time for teaching a boy about getting into the head of an opponent. Now was for the three most tactical events in a fight: resting, eating, and napping.

      I leaned back and closed my eyes when the rustling of silk, fine linen and whalebone raced at me like a dog attacking. There was another flurry of activity, and the other conversation in the room ground to a halt. I ignored the implication of floral perfume and the alluring scent of a woman who has gotten slightly sweaty. I ignored it because there wasn’t much to talk about, not to mention there was a second scent there and it was as alluring as a steel gray hair in a severe bun and romantically caustic holy robes.

      Then I heard what I had been dreading, “Crow? Crow?”

      One eye snapped open and swiveled across the room. Next to me the Gelia’s wrinkled hands lay primly on her knees. Just beyond, Aelia’s hands twisted themselves on an expensive expanse of silken clad lap.

      My eye slammed shut and I attempted to ignore her, a plan that only worked for about as long as it took to exhale before she hissed again, “Crow!”

      I huffed and sat up, resentment moving from my stomach to just behind my eyes. I turned to speak with the Lady, but she resolutely faced forward. I immediately thought I was lost in a badly written comedy, Aelia speaking to me covertly across the stiff shoulders of her chaperone. This was another example of noble in–breed–ery, since even now it was just as important that she not be seen being too friendly with a commoner (who was in a bed of sorts - for shame!)that we discussed escape right now. “Crow, speak to me, damn you!”

      I took a deep breath, and felt out the thousands of conversations just beyond our tongues. I saw all the deviations and switchbacks, and sought to chart a course to the end I desired. Like a crown–princess picking through gowns before a ball, I decided on just the right amount of hoarfrost to edge my words, “Yes, Lady?”

      Three sharp breaths of increasing indignation preceded her next, “By what right do you address me so?”

      “You must excuse me, for I am greatly perturbed, Lady.” I turned away from her, lying on my side and casting my face in shadow, “A noble lady is found by a small group of Kingsmen. Instead of giving her safe conduct through an area rent by strife, they virtually guarantee their execution by taking her into custody and holding her. Stranger yet, not only is she not ravaged; no word is made of ransom for her safety. I am quite certain that the only people that shun from spilling royal blood are royal themselves.” I measured the pressure between us, waiting until I heard her draw breath to speak and then said, “It is a riddle, Lady.”

      “Crow…” I turned back around to face her, and saw the fear there. “Captain O’Conner recognized my family’s crest, knew who I was. He knows of the bidding, and knows if he holds me here a few days it will make things easier for his kinsmen to compete.”

      I felt truths lingering like shadows behind her words, “Tell me of the bidding, Lady.”

      Her voice was tinged with panic now, “My father has sent me to stand against many noble families and merchantmen. Any one of them would pay well to keep me from the table.”

      I closed my eyes, desperately recalculating the odds of reaching Carolaughan alive. At the edge of my mind, I heard the beating of wings. In the corner Leoncur, Aelia’s cat, yowled.

      She broke my concentration, “We must flee.”

      I glanced back and forth and saw no trace of the oak and iron chest from the top of the carriage.

      “Your moneys are still hidden on the cart, are they not?” She nodded stiffly, and so I shook my head, “We will never make it out of the
castra
with that cart.”

      Aelia stared at me with all the self importance she could muster, “We must have it.”

      “You may be safe, good Lady, but such an action may provoke them to kill one or more of us in retribution.”

      She thought for only a second before setting her jaw and trusting it out, “Death is not the worst of evils.”

      I almost said something biting and snide about her risking death before making that determination, but the look in her eyes stopped me. There was so much life inside them, so much strength, that I was stunned into silence. She was beautiful beyond any words. I glanced at Gelia, but she was looking at her Lady, face as awed as mine. Rage beyond measure welled up inside me, focused inward as a pillar of fire, yet I still gathered myself to my feet and stretched out muscles still tight by the day’s exertions. I brusquely walked to her dinner plate and liberated the small knife from the remains of some cold roast. Even now she couldn’t trust me to work unmolested, “Crow, what are you doing?”

      I crossed to the wall and set the knife blade between the rough logs. With a few sharp taps, I had a chink in the mud, and then in the snow beyond, too, showing a world of black night and white ice.

      I am letting you win
. I thought, anger from my own personal forge licking at my own face in punishment.

      “I am getting ready.” I said.

      “Getting ready for what?”

      “I’m going to kill them all.” I turned from the wall and glanced at her luggage, “Do you have a white cloak?”

      But the answer was as I feared, “No, but Gelia does.”

      The old woman looked horrified, but still she stood and took off her cloak and thrust it at me in one, swift motion. A quick examination saw that the back was decorated with the holy symbol of her order, but the lining was untouched, though slightly dirty, white. It was perfect. I took a deep breath, reversed it, and slung it over my shoulders. My skin crawled to be so near anything having to do with her, but it was wholly necessary to have any chance whatsoever.

      Still, it was time to go.

      I turned to stare meaningfully at the fire as my plan coalesced in my head. Then I looked upward to the hole in the ceiling where the smoke escaped. Of course there was a hole in the ceiling. Where else would the smoke escape? At the same time the Lady was the important member of the party, and she was dwindlingly unlikely to climb out of a hole and then race across a frozen landscape without supplies. Still, there would likely be a guard nearby. I closed my eyes and ran the odds again, and again, liking the answer I got less and less each time.

      The worst thing was how hard O’Conner’s bastards were trying to make this. If some syphilitic bard were telling you about this, I could have pled sickness to the guard, or screamed of fire, or needing to make water. Unfortunately the doors were nailed shut and there were no guards to beguile. I guess, as a hero, I could have crashed through the barracks rough–hewn door with a sword in one hand, an axe in another, screaming a challenge for all to hear. Unfortunately, no sword, no axe, and no way my shoulder would make it through a door that was at least four fingers thick. I could have climbed out of the flue with a rope and grapnel. Of course O’Conner had not left me such heroic implements.

      Instead I kicked the sleepers awake, we stacked Aelia’s trunks end on end, then I had the boys hold them steady. Without pause I clambered onto the top of one, then managed onto the top of the second. The chests jostled unsteadily as I straightened, extending desperate fingers that fell short of the hole in the logs above.

      I jumped.

      In stories the hero does not miss the edge of the opening fall to the side, barely miss the coals of the fire, and slam shoulder first into the hard packed floor. I on the other hand bit back a cry, shoved the tears into the deepest part of my soul, shook off helping hands, and gave it another try. The sensation of my palms clapping onto the edge of the rough hewn frame of the crassly primitive chimney would have been more satisfying if it wasn’t accompanied by a wrenching pain that traveled down my left side. The pain only intensified as I pulled myself up until my eyes were able to scan left and right. There was no crackling of ice beneath boots, no challenge, no axe cleft my skull, and that meant so far my plan was working (shoulder tackle of the dirt below notwithstanding).

      The world was obfuscated by gauze curtains of blue and white. Water and ice, tumbling through the air in a lovers embrace until they shattered on the hard ground, freezing together into a singular sheet. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so cold, and trust me I would complain about it a lot more if it weren’t so necessary to my survival.

      As would be expected, the army of three hundred built this place to house three hundred soldiers. O’Conner’s bastards had a unique problem: leave the fortress and have no secure place to keep Aelia, or stay inside the fortress and be unable to man the walls fully. Luckily, the Barbarian horde that had made it necessary to build the
castra
largely resided beneath two full strides of earth, or swung from trees encased in coffins of ice. So looking outward was not as much a problem. Add to that his brilliant idea of nailing the doors shut and leaving us no guard to bribe, fool, or coax and he had neatly turned the
castra
into our jail.

      Still, though chances of an organized force attacking were small, but O’Conner was a military man: Walls were to be manned. It was a sure bet that somewhere it was written that soldiers on walls need light sources, and so it was. The chances were so small, however, that rather than lethal pairs, or difficult roving groups, they stood as exposed singles. So I marked four, miserable men, meandering on the walls near shuttered lanterns that did nothing to illuminate the world beyond and made them easy to see. The closest was a mere twenty paces away. The path from the top of the barracks to the adjoining wall was clear. That was the end of the good news.

      I stifled a groan and heaved myself up onto the sheet of ice that entombed the barracks. It didn’t crack, or crackle or creak. All heat was instantly sucked from my hands and the cloak became links of lead that almost toppled me back into the officers’ barracks. I got a foothold and climbed out onto the quickly building glacier, making sure the hood was up and staying flat. In seconds my whole front was soaked through with freezing water. Spreading the cloak out like the skirts of a warhorse, I began to more forward fingerlengths at a time.

      Whether you are striking a man down in the heat of combat, shooting him from a distance, spicing his favorite wine with belladonna, or knifing him in the spleen: it is all the same. Murder is a matter of being prepared. That is all. You must be prepared to use every bit of equipment with no thought to its cost. You must be prepared to seize an opportunity with no warning. You must be prepared to strike with no mercy. When given no equipment, or opportunities, you have to be willing to make do with a white cloak, a sharp knife, five boys, and two pieces of luggage.

      Normally it takes hours, sometimes days, to commit murder. Many times it only feels like it. But finally, finally when you get into position… Even when the target turns at just the wrong time… Even when he squints into the gloom, trying to figure out what he saw, or smelled, or heard… even as he steps out of the protective circle of light and stands within arm’s reach and waits and waits and waits… especially when he looks too long and the breath you’ve been holding begins to poison your blood, and bright stars flash before your eyes… even when he starts to look away and you exhale, making a cloud perfectly illuminated by the dregs of the lantern pointed away from you…