Master and Fool (60 page)

The leader
appeared surprised to hear the words. He glanced at his companion before
speaking. "I am not your judge, Tawl of the Lowlands," he said.
"Tyren claims that privilege in Bren."

Skaythe watched
the party ride away. Ten knights, four of them marksmen, three hostages,
thirteen horses, two mules, and enough supplies to provision a journey to Bren.
So Baralis hadn't relied on him alone.

Skaythe returned
his bow to its sheath. The rain had done it no favors and it would have to be
waxed and then restrung. A good shot at this distance, with a damp string and
the air heavy with rain, would be nearly impossible. The Valdis marksmen were
no better than he-just a whole lot closer.

It had been an
interesting scene to watch. It had taught him a little more about his mark.
Tawl was not stupid; he knew when to quit. The knights had outrun and
outnumbered him, his friend was down and his horse was less than a barn's
length from collapse. The man was no fool, but he wasn't a hero, either.
Skaythe shook his head. Most definitely not a hero. Heroes don't smash their
opponent's brains out when they're no longer capable of fighting. They don't
keep on beating a man long after the fight is over. And they don't kill from
lack of control.

Blayze died by
Tawl's hand. It was an unnecessary death, and one Skaythe intended to
vindicate.

Skaythe rubbed his
aching shoulder. The damp brought out the worst in that, too. Tawl had a lot to
answer for. After the duel on the cliffs north of Toolay, it had taken Skaythe
two weeks to recover from his injury. He had found an old woman in a small
village to tend to the wound. A lot of blood was lost, the shoulder blade had
been grazed, and there had been some minor muscle damage. The old hag had done
a fair stitching, but she hadn't used a clean knife and infection had set in.
He lost a week to fever, and another to poor health. When he finally mounted a
horse again, he had to ride slowly with many rests. He eventually arrived in
Rorn only to find no trace of the knight or his companions. By making inquiries
at the harbor he'd discovered that the knight had sailed to Marls two days
earlier. Skaythe promptly followed.

The week aboard
ship had been good for him. It gave him a chance to finally recuperate. His
shoulder had stiffened during the ride to Rorn and the voyage gave him the time
to work the suppleness back. He exercised and massaged, gradually extending his
range of movements. By the time he landed in Marls his shoulder was strong
enough to hold a bow for the draw.

During the journey
north, he had taken a few practice shots. He had lost both distance and
accuracy, but even then he could still outshoot Valdis' best. A few weeks of
rest and he would be back to fighting form. The problem was the riding. The
knight had set a grueling pace from Marls, and Skaythe was forced to better it
to catch up. Long hours in the saddle, combined with sudden downpours and
biting winds, had started the stiffening process once more.

A few more weeks
of these sorts of conditions and his shoulder would be back where it started.
But Skaythe had no choice-especially now-he had to follow Tawl. The knight's
life was his for the taking and no one else was going to get there first.

Skaythe mounted
his horse. Perhaps it was a good thing that the knights had captured Tawl. It
would slow the pace down and make him easier to track. Warning arrows were out
of the question now, though. With four trained marksmen in the party, Skaythe
had no intention of giving away his presence. Skaythe kicked his horse forward.
Next time he came for Tawl, the strike would be unannounced.

Tawl leant back
against the tree he had been bound to. Glancing over at Jack, he hissed,
"Are you all right?"

Jack nodded.
"My head's splitting, but I'm sort of used to that by now."

It was dark. They
had traveled north all day. With one hand tied behind their backs and both feet
tied to the stirrups, it hadn't been an easy ride. Nabber fared better over the
back of the mule.

The knights had
just made camp. They were well organized. A fire was started within minutes,
and holk and drymeat porridge were set to boil. The horses had been fed,
watered, and brushed. A watch was currently circling the camp, bows at the
ready to bring down intruders or game. Waterskins had been filled, breastplates
loosened, muscles massaged, and brandy passed from hand to hand. Even the
captives had been seen to. Jack's wound had been tended, Nabber had been given
herb tea for his cold, all their bindings had been loosened, and they had been
retied, with care, to three separate trees. Later there would be food.

Tawl had watched
all the activity with a certain admiration. These men worked well together.
They carried out their various jobs with little need for orders. They were
efficient, but not unkind, and relied upon each other heavily. Tawl recognized
just two of them. Andris, who seemed to be second-in-command, had been a circle
below him at Valdis, and Borlin, who was one of the four marksmen and the
oldest knight in the group, had first taught him how to use a bow.

It was Borlin who
walked toward them now: heavyset, short for a knight, with arms as thick as his
thighs, and the grin of an old campaigner stretching his blue-veined face.

He waggled a
bow-callused finger. "No talking between the prisoners. You know that,
Tawl."

"I was just
testing your memory, Borlin. After all, it's got to be thirty years since you
learnt that rule."

"You calling
me old, boy?"

"I'm not
calling you a spring chicken."

The sound of
Borlin's laughter brought back vivid memories for Tawl. The low, gurgling laugh
had been something of a phenomenon at Valdis. People used to say it sounded
like a barrel full of rocks rolling down a hill.

"Got yourself
in a bit of a mess, haven't you, Tawl?" he said. "Word is you
murdered Catherine of Bren."

"Word is the
knights stood by and watched women and children being slaughtered in
Halcus."

Borlin's face
hardened in an instant. "You weren't in Halcus, Tawl."

"No, but a
friend of mine was-a good man who couldn't bear it any longer. He headed south
and took a boat to Leiss."

"A
deserter."

"No,"
Tawl shook his head. "Not a deserter. A man who remembers what Valdis once
stood for."

Borlin turned and
began to walk away.

"Is that how
you manage to live with yourself, Borlin?" Tawl shouted after him.
"You just turn the other cheek?" Tawl's chest strained against the
bindings. He was shaking, and behind his back his hands were balled into fists.
A handful of the knights were staring at him.

"Why did you
say all that?" whispered Jack.

"Because it
needs to be said. These are good men following a bad leader, and in their
hearts they know it. But no one dares speak it out loud." Tawl's thoughts
turned to Gravia. Perhaps he shouldn't have sailed to Leiss: the knights would
have listened to him. He wasn't an outcast and a suspected murderer.

"Tyren can't
be the only one to blame," Jack said. "He must have found knights
willing to carry out his orders." Tawl shook his head. "You don't
understand. The knights are sworn to obey Tyren. It's not a matter of which
knights are good and which are bad. They don't have a choice. Disobey Tyren and
they break their oath. Most knights would rather die than do that." Try as
he might, Tawl could not keep the bitterness out of his voice as he spoke. He
had broken his own oath in front of the entire city of Bren.

Jack gave him a
long, appraising look, and then said, "The knight who cut me from the
horse said that Kylock's forces were on the move again. They're heading to Ness."
Tawl exhaled softly. Jack was right: it was a good time to change the subject.
With an effort, he switched his mind to the topic of Kylock. "He's wasted
no time."

"We can't
either. We've got to escape-"

"No."
Before Jack had finished speaking, the word was out. "There's no need to
escape just yet. We're heading north. The knights are setting a good pace. We
can afford to bide our time for a few days."

Jack flashed him a
hard look. "What are you up to, Tawl? Why didn't you want me to do
anything in the field?"

"I don't want
you using sorcery on these men, Jack. They don't deserve it."

"Neither did
the seers."

Tawl slumped
against the tree trunk. There was no possible reply. Jack was focused on what
he had to do, and that was the way it should be. But there was something else
here, something that had nothing to do with Jack but everything to do with him.
He was Tawl, Knight of Valdis, and no amount of vows, denials, or dishonor
could change it. The circles would be with him for life.

Tyren was forcing
knights into making a terrible choice: stay in the knighthood and be used as
Kylock's mercenaries, or desert like cowards in a cloud of secrecy and shame.
To men who prized honor and loyalty above anything else, it was a hard decision
to make. They were damned either way. Tawl watched the knights gathering around
the campfire. They were settling down, pouring cups of holk, exchanging jokes,
rolling out their bedrolls for the night. One man was humming a tune, another
was mending his leathers. Good men following a bad leader.

"Andris!"
shouted Tawl toward the fair-haired man who was busy stripping branches for the
fire. "Come over here and loosen my bindings."

It was time
someone gave these men another choice.

It was early
morning, an hour or two before dawn, and Mistress Greal was up and about doing
a discreet spot of scavenging.

The nobles'
quarters in the east wing of the palace were her looting ground. A dark and
chilly place. A closed-door, silk-carpeted, rat-rustling sort of place, where
fortunes lay around for the taking.

King Kylock-Borc
bless his dark little soul was having so many of the old nobles impaled,
beheaded, and poisoned that it was impossible to keep track of the deaths.
Unless one kept a little notebook, of course. Mistress Greal patted her bony
bodice, where a softly bound book served to cushion her carcass.
"Keep
records, "
her father always said,
"you never
know
when
they might come
in
handy. "

Death was a great
liberator of wealth. And messy, furtive assassinations made that wealth much
easier to purloin. A lot of times wives couldn't be sure that their husbands
were dead-one beheaded corpse floating belly-up on a lake looks much like
another. When there was no body to speak of, children preferred to believe that
their fathers were imprisoned, not dead, and when all one had to go on was a
few bloodstained sheets, it was easy to assume one's errant brother had taken
yet another virgin to bed.

Rumors abounded
about the assassinations, but no one knew for sure. Kylock had a talent for
disfiguring the corpses. Fingers, moles, birthmarks, double chins, battlescars,
and manhoods of significant size were all sliced off with surgeonlike skill.
Mistress Greal had seen her king in action: Kylock was entranced at such times.
Blind to the world, he saw only the bodies in front of him and the razorkeen
edge of his blade. He spent hours down in the castle dungeons, eyes glazed
over, knife in hand, lips moving without making a sound.

Feeling suddenly
chill, Mistress Greal pulled her shawl close about her shoulders. The brief
pulling action caused a sharp cramp in her damaged left wrist, and she quickly
released her hold on the fabric. Ever since Maybor had broken the bones two
years back in Duvitt, she had problems with certain hand and wrist movements.
It was inconvenient, but not a great obstacle: luckily her money-grabbing right
hand was as nimble as ever.

She soon came upon
the door that marked her destination. Pushing gently upon the honey-colored
wood, she let herself into the chamber of Lord Bathroy, one-time close advisor
to the duke, now a faceless corpse rotting in a shallow grave. A week ago he
had made the mistake of openly criticizing Kylock-blasting his decision to
massacre all of Highwall's troops-and had been taken into custody, tortured,
then killed. These days, fewer and fewer people dared to speak up against the
notoriously unstable king. The candle Mistress Greal carried gave off just
enough light to set the deceased lord's silken tapestries gleaming. She smiled
with satisfaction. Kylock's madness was her gain.

Mistress Greal
quickly set about piling various items into her large woolen sack. Clever as
well as fast, she never took too much: a gold goblet here, an embroidered tunic
there. Nothing in sufficient quantity to be missed. Lord Bathroy's family might
be unsure of his status at the moment, but once he'd been gone a month, they'd
have the Church declare him dead and be round within an eyeblink to split the
spoils.

Once the sack was
heavy enough for her liking, Mistress Greal took her leave and headed toward
the next chamber on her list.

Her dear but
rather silly sister, Madame Thornypurse, would sell the scavenged goods at
market. Sadly, the brotheling business had taken a decided turn for the worse
since the Highwall army had been defeated. The night following the battle all
the troops in the city had gone on a raping spree; their blood was hot with
victory, and with no enemy women to ravish, they turned instead to Bren's
whores. No brothel was left untouched, no streetwalker overlooked, and not so
much as a copper penny to show for it! Kylock had done nothing. It was well
known he had no love for women, and he simply let his men do their worst.

Things had hardly
been better since. Once the men realized they could get away with their
behavior, they simply took women at will. Madame Thornypurse had hoped for an
improvement once the siege army left for Ness, but that was two weeks ago now,
and chaos still reigned in the city. If you were a member of Kylock's army,
then you were free to do as you pleased.