Scourge of the Betrayer (7 page)

Red Scolin looked remarkably alert as he called down over the railing, “There are Hornmen under this roof. Unhand those men and explain yourselves. Now.” Despite the fact that he had no armor and his small group was badly outnumbered by the soldiers below, he issued this command as if there wasn’t any chance it would be ignored.

The leader looked up. “Ahh, yes. Thought you might still be here.” He unrolled a scroll and handed it to another soldier who started up the stairs with it. “Baronial writ. We are to apprehend these men and deliver them urgently.”

Red Scolin replied, “Maybe you didn’t notice, but this is an inn. Full of travelers. And subject to the laws of the road. Our jurisdiction, none other. Any arresting needs to be done here, we’re the ones doing it, and if not us, then the city watch.” The soldier handed Red Scolin the scroll.

The leader below said, “Peruse at your leisure. You’ll find it a binding document. We have authority in matters of sedition, from now going forward. On the road or off. In an inn or not. Your jurisdiction has been superseded.”

The rest of the Hornmen cursed and one or two called out insults as Red Scolin examined the scroll. When he looked up, he seemed less certain, but still said, “I heard nothing of this from my commander. Until I do—”

“We’re leaving. If you attempt to interfere, you’ll be arrested as well, on grounds of interfering with the baron’s business. Mayhap sedition as well.”

Red Scolin threw the scroll at the soldier. “You’re making an awful error here, Brunesman. Our order isn’t beholden to your baron, nor no other. Even the king himself—”

“Is likely abed. As should you all be.”

The leader turned towards the door and the soldiers began herding the prisoners across the common room.

One of them, no doubt in a moment of panic, elbowed a soldier in the jaw and ran toward the door. The spearmen in the room were more concerned with keeping everyone out of the way, and they didn’t turn right away, even as they heard shouting, and the swordsmen could do little but pursue and shout as he ran. For an instant, it looked like the patron was going to win his freedom, or at least access to the door and the world beyond, but two soldiers who’d been stationed just outside entered the inn, and the patron’s legs almost went out from beneath him as he changed direction, heading towards the kitchen. However, he’d taken only a few steps when a spearmen stepped in his path.

Apparently realizing all escapes were closed off, and having no other idea what to do, he jumped on a bench, and from there onto a long table, waving his bound hands before him. He looked up at the Hornmen in desperation, hoping for some kind of reprieve.

He opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was snuffed out. A spear flew across the room and the prisoner doubled over when it sunk into his stomach, dropping to his knees. His nightshirt protruded in back, the spearhead having gone through him entirely but not quite through the fabric. The prisoner grabbed at the haft of the spear, mouth moving silently, but with his hands bound he wasn’t able to do much with it, and then he fell forward. He jerked like a fish yanked from the sea, his body convulsing, head rising and slamming back onto the table, finally letting out a low moan that seemed to carry on forever. The leader stepped forward, glaring at the man who threw the spear as he did. He pulled the prisoner up by the hair, who finally let out a shrill scream, as if the hair pulling were more painful than the spear sticking through him. The leader drew a dagger across his throat, covering the table with a fresh coat of blood.

We all watched silently as the red pooled on the table and began to run onto the floor. Hobbins stepped forward, incensed, which temporarily made him bold. “I said you could come in, take who you wanted—but this blood here, this blood is a different story. You told me you wouldn’t be spilling no blood, but here you are, spilling plenty all over my good wood. I got a reputation in Rivermost, a good one—this here is a clean establishment, clean as you find anywhere. But this—” He looked around the inn with his arms spread wide—“this here is a mess, no two ways of looking at it. People hear about something like this, it’s bad for me, see? People ride on by if they think there’s murder in the night here. Do you see my problem? I said you could come in, take who you wanted, so long as you was clean about it, but what do I see here, but blood. Blood, blood, and more blood—”

“Count yourself lucky it’s not yours. Perhaps next time you’ll think twice about sheltering traitors under your roof.” The leader wiped his dagger on the dead prisoner’s back and turned to face Hobbins as he sheathed it.

The soldiers prodded the other prisoner out the door. This one, not surprisingly, offered no resistance at all.

Hobbins gulped, his thin neck bobbing, but he found some small reservoir of courage to continue talking. “Traitors? Now, you didn’t say nothing about no traitors here. You said criminals. I know nothing and less about no traitors.”

“Then you best learn how to tell, and learn quickly. Dangerous times, old man. These are certainly not the last.” He walked toward Hobbins, who took two quick steps back. “Pray we have no cause to visit your inn again.”

Hobbins nodded weakly and looked around the room at the rest of us suspiciously, as if the Brunesmen might have left a traitor or two behind as some kind of test. He looked at the blood again and yelled for Syrie. She came out from the kitchen, having anticipated his order, carrying a pail of water and a thick-bristled brush.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the puddle of blood. “Hurry up now, it’s soaking in.” Then he looked around the common room again. “You people, I’m sorry you had to be woken like that. But a man can’t account for all those that sleep under his roof, can he?” No one answered. “No, no he can’t. I knew nothing about no traitors, same as you good folk. We got nothing to do with them, they got nothing to do with us. And that’s all there is. So you go on back to sleep. Few hours left in the night, and you paid for the roof, so use it.” He turned to go, but something passed across his face—so blatantly it might have been a curtain being pulled back, revealing a mind calculating all things against silver made or lost—and he no doubt considered the damage word of mouth might have on his future patrons. He stopped and added, “I got no use for breaking fast myself, least not until the sun’s in the middle of the sky. Don’t serve it neither. That is, most days. But tomorrow, I’ll rustle up something first thing, and those that partake will get it at half cost.”

I looked down the railing, but the Hornmen had disappeared back into their rooms. Hewspear and Mulldoos walked over. Braylar turned to them, and twitch-smiled. “You see? Our timing will be perfect.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but clearly the other two did. Hewspear said, “The baron does seem to be ferreting out treachery in all corners.”

Mulldoos yawned. “Who says those two were traitors? Besides the baron’s ferret boys, that is?”

“That’s all that matters,” Braylar replied. “The baron’s predisposed to see treachery, whether traitors exist or no. Appearances, Mulldoos. That’s what we trade in.”

Mulldoos scratched at his testicles and said, “Going back to bed. Long ride tomorrow.” Then he burped and returned to his room.

Hewspear watched him go and turned back to Braylar. “He does have a pronounced lack of imagination. But he might also have a point, however blunted. Who’s to say the baron isn’t playing at something less obvious than traitor hunting?”

Braylar started back towards our door. “We shall see.”

After closing and locking the door behind us, he started undressing. I asked, “What were you discussing on the balcony? What—”

“You’ve been in my company for less than a day. Do you really suppose that makes you a confidant? Trusted adviser?”

Of course I didn’t. But how could I avoid asking? After I emptied my bladder and stripped down to my nightshirt, I kept thinking about the man dying on the table in the common room. So much blood. So much struggling ended so abruptly with the quick swipe of a dagger.

As a boy at the Jackal, they generally kept me in the back, scouring spoons and plates, emptying chamber pots, so I rarely even saw the patrons, let alone any attacking each other.

Since then, I’d seen brawls in a few taverns—though I typically tried not to frequent the places those were likely to occur, sometimes it was unavoidable. And once I saw a drunkard actually pull a knife and stab someone, but the blade was short, and he’d caused only a small wound before the innkeep clubbed him to the ground.

But this… tonight… this was something much different, and much more disturbing.

Braylar laid back on his bed, arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

I said, “When you woke me up, you said you knew violence was coming. And it did. What woke you? Did you hear horses outside? And why were you sure the baron’s men were intent on violence?”

He didn’t answer right away, long enough that I sat up to see that his eyes were still very much open. His left hand drifted down to his flail, fingertips absently running up and down the handle. I was about to say his name when he responded, eyes still fixed upwards. “There are many things to be explained when the time is right. You can be sure I’ll know when that is.” He looked at me for another moment or two and then reclined again. “Turn out the lamp, Arki.”

He closed his eyes. Mine stayed open long after it was dark.

⊕

The next morning, I woke up to find myself alone in the room, Braylar and his gear gone. I felt like I’d been subjected to the press—my head pounded fiercely, and the room tilted as if I were on the deck of a ship on a rough sea. I promised myself I would never try to match the drinking pace of a Syldoon again.

Gathering my supplies, I headed downstairs. Many who’d been sleeping in the common room were already gone, no doubt at first light, perhaps before, given the sequence of events in the night, and the inn was surprisingly empty. The Syldoon were seated around a table.

Vendurro saw me and waved me over, which elicited a groan from Mulldoos. Most of the bowls in front of them were nearly empty, clotted with the remains of whatever Hobbins had thrown together on such short notice.

I passed the table the prisoner had been killed on, and while Syrie had done what she could to clean it, there was no disguising the bloodstain, and the entire contents of my stomach nearly came rushing up.

I sat down next to Vendurro. He whistled, which seemed to be the most piercing noise ever made by man. When Syrie showed, he said, “We’re about through here, but the scribe could use a bowl and some bread, I’m thinking.”

She looked at me quickly and nodded, her cheeks flushed, and then headed to the kitchen without a word.

Glesswik said, “Touchy little bird, ain’t she? Think she’d never seen a man’s throat cut before.”

I wondered at the conversations they must have had that morning. Had they seen Syrie creep into Braylar’s room? If so, had they pressed Braylar for details of his conquest? Had he lied about what a wild minx she was? Or admitted that some belated modesty got the better of her?

In retrospect, I’m glad I wasn’t privy. The whole episode would have only mortified me further.

The Syldoon pushed their chairs back and rose from the table. Braylar turned to me and said, “Eat something. But don’t dawdle.”

I nodded and watched them walk out the open front door. Syrie arrived a few moments later her tray laden with a bowl of steaming slop with a heel of bread half-submerged on one side and a spoon on the other, and a mug of watery-looking ale. My stomach wrenched and I took a deep breath.

She set the bowl and mug down in front of me and asked, “Anything else you be needing, just now?” This seemed more perfunctory than pleasant.

I looked up at her and immediately regretted it. Had she known I was awake while Braylar slid inside her? Was she repulsed? Or perhaps ashamed? My cheeks were inflamed, and hers no less so.

“No,” I mumbled. “Thank you, Syrie. No.”

She looked away quickly. “Safe journeys then.” A moment later she was back in the kitchen. I felt as if I should have said something, but had absolutely no idea what.

I was sure I’d been born after my mother tumbled into a patron’s bed, just as Syrie had. Though I couldn’t possibly imagine she was overcome with any sudden bout of modesty. Where Syrie struggled to smile in the face of circumstances designed to prevent it, I remembered my mother as a tough, calculating woman possessing some low cunning and little enough else. She was intent on changing her lot in life but grew increasing bitter as it failed to happen.

Perhaps she’d given herself over to those men in the hopes of winning a heart attached to a loose purse string. Had she imagined someone might rescue her? Sweep her out of the Jackal and into some better life? Or had she simply been trying to distract herself from just how few real options she actually possessed by slipping into as many different men’s arms as possible?

I stared at my food for some time before taking a bite, until I remembered Braylar’s warning about dallying. I forced myself to eat what I could and made my way to the stables.

Lloi appeared to be in the final stages of packing Braylar’s new wagon. The wood was painted a faded green, and the canvas that was pulled tight across the frames was dyed blue. Four horses pulling, with his other two tethered to the side, as before.

The other Syldoon were mounted near the front of the wagon. As I approached, I heard Braylar addressing Mulldoos, “I’ve heard your reservations, weighed them, and found them too slight to burden me just now.”

Mulldoos looked about as pleased as a man who rolled around in rashleaf. “Course you did, Cap. That’s what you do. But it’s not just me thinking this here. The gray goat, the other two, we all of us think the same. Maybe you didn’t need guard detail coming to Rivermost—though, when it comes to it, I’m sure you did there too—but you sure as shit need detail going out.”

Braylar shook his head. “We’ve discussed this. And now we’re done discussing. You ride ahead. Lloi will accompany me. We’ll take a different route. No detail is necessary. You’re needed ahead. I must get there undetected. It isn’t so very complicated.”