“This ‘ere’s the one, Stablemaster. Found ‘im burrowed
into the ‘ay, fast asleep like the boy ‘ad nothing to do an’ all day to do it
in.” The tall boy, Tarris by name and cruel by nature, released his vice-like
grip on the small boy and pushed him forward towards the Stablemaster, leaving
the imprint of his fingers on the boy’s thin and grubby arm. Unlike Tarris, the
Stablemaster was not a cruel man, else his equine charges wouldn’t have
prospered so well under his care. He was, however, a strict disciplinarian who
had no sympathy for anyone who slept whilst there was work to be done in his
stables. The small boy in front of him was not one of those who had come to his
attention before, although he’d seen him scuttling around the middin heap.

He knew the boy was one of those who fed on the hound’s
scraps and the horse’s windfall apples and slept in the hay along with the
other vermin. Like all of those who were kingsward, orphans of the state, they
eventually showed their true nature. It was his right and duty to correct those
assigned to his stables so that the criminal tendencies which had condemned
their fathers to death were not repeated in their get. The Stablemaster was not
a cruel man but he knew his duty and did it well.

“Were you sleepin’, Middin, when there was dirt to
shifted.

The boy didn’t look up but stared at the grey cobble
stones beneath his dirty, bare feet. He’d learnt at an early age never to look
at his betters with his foreigner’s pale green eyes unless he wanted to feel
the crack of their hand across his cheek.

“Yes, sir,” mumbled the boy without further
explanation. He could have added that the previous day he had shovelled horse
dung and straw until darkness had made it impossible for him to see where his
fork struck. Then he had hidden in the hay stack too exhausted to scavenge for
food and too terrified of Tarris’s threats to venture out but he knew the
Stablemaster would take no excuses. He wanted the middin removed and it was the
Middin’s job to do it. There could be no argument or excuses allowed, only
blind obedience and soundless acquiescence.

“’E’s a lazy little bastard, this one,” cut in Tarris
knowingly. “Always loitering about when ‘e thinks no one’s watching but I’ve
seen ‘im, an’ I think it’s about time ‘e learnt to bend ‘is back.”

The Stablemaster looked at Tarris with annoyance. He
knew the boy’s predilection for cruelty and would not be dictated to in his own
stable yard, even by the head stable boy. The goddess knows where the boy had
got his meanness from but he’d been like that from his very first day he’d come
from the kingsward compound. He supposed that if you had to fight to stay alive
every day of your childhood then you would turn out to be mean. Early on the
Stablemaster had tried to beat it out of him but had given it up when he
realised just how good Tarris was in getting those in his charge to work hard.

On this occasion Tarris was probably right
though, the boy would have to be dissuaded from the laziness which all who were
kingsward had a tendency towards.

“How old are you, boy?” demanded the Stablemaster.
Nobody was going to accuse him of marking a child.

“I don’t know, sir,” muttered the boy. “I think I’ve
seen seven summers but I’m not certain.”

“Looks more like eight or nine to me, interrupted
Tarris. “’E may be small but ‘e’s got an old face and ‘e’s dead crafty wiv it,
knows ‘e can get away wiv owt if ‘e’s only seen seven summers and not eight.”

The Stablemaster sighed impatiently, this whole matter
was taking far too long and the middin still had to be cleared. He made his
decision.

“You come with me boy. If you are old enough to accept
the hospitality of this house then you are old enough to bend your back in its
service.”

He put his large callused hand around the boy’s neck,
which he could have snapped with a twist of his wrist, and guided him away from
the middin heap around to the front of the long stable building. Tarris
followed behind, a look of satisfaction on his face. The stable yard lay in the
centre of the low, three-sided building and was an area forbidden to all but
the most senior of the stablemen. It was here that High Lord Coledran came to
inspect the kingdom’s finest breeding stock each day. It was also the place
where his innumerable and important visitors deposited their mounts, servants,
weapons and military escorts before enjoying the High Lord’s bountiful
hospitality.

Even at this early hour, with the sun barely over the
horizon, the courtyard was full of activity, for if the Stablemaster was about
then everyone was up and working. Magnificent stallions, the sires of the
kingdom’s finest war horses, called eagerly to each other over half doors whilst
outside frisky mares with long, fine legs, bred for speed and agility, were
groomed until their coats shone like silk. In their empty stalls unseen hands
scrubbed stone and wood to a cleanliness only equalled in the High Lord’s great
house itself. It would be many hours before those who toiled would be allowed
to eat what the horses and hounds had left.

The boy had seen the courtyard once before when the
kingsguard had handed him to the Stablemaster. There had been the usual order
for him to care and train the boy until he had a trade to live by and could
repay the kindness of the state which had raised him thus far. On his arrival
the stone-cobbled courtyard and pristine white walls had seemed to be a place
of hope and freedom after the dark confines of the kingsward compound but
Tarris had ensured it wasn’t. It was he who had assigned the small boy to the
back-breaking task of clearing the middin, offering him lighter work in return
for personal favours which the terrified boy had found the courage to refuse.
Since then Tarris had picked on him constantly until his life was full of fear
and pain. Nothing had changed from life in the kingsward compound, only the
colour of the walls.

“You know what’s expected of you?” demanded the
Stablemaster, making it sound more like a command than a question.

Of course the boy knew. On that first day, having not
eaten since the previous morning, he had mistakenly taken an apple from the
feed buckets before the stallions had eaten their fill and had received a
thwack around his ear from Tarris to remind him of his place. Then he had
learnt the meaning of bending your back to the master’s service from the older
boys who had shown him their scarred backs. It was they who had told him such
stories of the Stablemaster’s method of instruction that now he could barely control
the effects of his fear.

“Bend your back, Middin,” rapped the Stablemaster.

The boy braced his legs as the others had told him and
bent from the waist down to grasp the lower bar of the hitching post in his outstretched
arms. He held on firmly having been told that a tight grip would make what was
to follow easier to bear. He turned his eyes downwards to fix his attention on
the cobbles beneath his feet and flattened his back. In doing so he caught the
gleeful glint in Tarris’s cruel eyes as he moved in front of him and pressed
down hard on the boy’s hands.

“If you’ll bend over like this for me when I ask, I’ll
make sure you never have to bend your back to the master’s service again,”
whispered Tarris.

Tarris’s words held little comfort and he lowered his
head whilst his legs shook despite his efforts to keep them steady. If they
gave way before the designated punishment was over it would be Tarris’s job to
haul him over the hitching post for the Stablemaster’s lesson to continue.

“This is goin’ to hurt you more than I would,” hissed
the elder boy gleefully.

When the Stablemaster’s rough hand touched the boy’s
back he flinched and gave an involuntary shudder which brought a harsh cackle
of laughter from Tarris. The Stablemaster gave Tarris a cold stare but
continued to pull the grain sack, which acted as the boy’s tunic, high over his
shoulders and passed his head. Instantly he was plunged into a darkness filled
with the smell of his own sweat and fear and ingrained dirt. This was the worst
part he had been told, not knowing when the lesson would begin in earnest.
Already his back ached from the strained position and the need to relieve
himself was urgent. He knew he would anyway, that humiliation was part of the lesson
but he was determined to hold on as long as he could, however foolish his pride
might be.

The Stablemaster ran his hand over the boy’s sweating
back, even now not sure how old the boy could be. The knobs on his spine
pressed against tight flesh and each rib stood out in stark relief. In truth he
had seen more flesh on a half starved hound than on this boy. He began to
regret his decision to teach the boy his first lesson but Tarris stood watching
with a sneer on his face. He knew that any sign of forbearance now would be
ridiculed by the stable hands before the day was another candle length older. Reluctantly
he raised his dog whip and began the usual litany he used on such occasions.

Beneath the sacking tunic the boy could only hear the
mumble of words spoken by his master and was unprepared for the moment the whip
cut across his shoulders. Despite his resolve to be strong he cried out in
shock and pain and felt wetness run down his cheeks and the inside of his leg.
He had been beaten before in the kingsward compound but nothing like this. If
only he could hear what the Stablemaster said he might learn to be better but
all he could hear was the muffled recital and the sound of his own blood
pounding in his ears. The cane cut again and a new kind of wetness ran down the
side of his body.

The Stablemaster cut down with his dog whip for a
third time and winced at the boy’s cry of pain. After the first stroke he had
been holding back but there was no flesh on the boy to prevent his cane slicing
to the bone and drawing blood. He wished he had never started this but Tarris’s
sadistic eyes left him with no option but to continue although he knew the boy
would collapse long before the eighth blow could fall. The Stablemaster raised
his arm again whilst the small body shook beneath the suffocating sacking and the
boy sobbed openly, knowing the next blow would have him on his knees with all
control gone.

“That must be a truly savage creature to take two of
you to give it a thrashing.” The voice which interrupted the Stablemaster’s
stroke was soft and velvety with the slightest hint of irony. “Now what sort of
demon have you captured there? It must be a greshling or a trolsterk at least.”

The Stablemaster lowered his arm, his feelings torn
between gratitude at being prevented from delivering the next blow and
annoyance that his word of law should be questioned within his own domain. He
turned to the man to see who dared question his authority but the early morning
sun had risen behind the man obscuring the caped and hooded figure and turning
it into a dark silhouette.

“It’s no demon, sir, but a boy who has shown his lazy
nature and must learn the lesson of how to bend his back to his master’s
service.”

Inside the sacking tunic the boy shook with fear
whilst Tarris looked petulantly at the intruder and pressed the boy’s hands
harder into the wooden hitching rail.

A boy! Ah yes, I should have recognised the savageness
of the creature despite his diminutive size and obvious thinness.” The voice
had now become coldly cynical with more than a hint of malice. The Stablemaster
squinted against the glare of the low sun but the tall man’s features still
remained hidden within his deep hood. “Tell me, Stablemaster, is it your usual
custom to teach a child his manners when he can neither see nor hear the lesson
you deliver.

The Stablemaster felt foolish and guilty at the same
time and now a small group of stablemen had gathered on the far side of the
yard to enjoy the rare occasion of their master’s discomfort. “The boy is kingsward
whose father was quartered and it is my duty to make sure the boy doesn’t go
the same way. If it takes a lesson or two to make him learn to bend his back to
his master’s service then that’s what I must do. I would rather him learn the
feel of the dog whip on his back now than to sell his soul to hellden’s master
and die at the cross pikes like his father did.

“Perhaps the boy would learn quicker if he could see
the goodness of the man who delivered that lesson,” suggested the man with
mocking severity. “I suggest you release him from his darkness.”

The Stablemaster felt the heat of anger and
indignation rise within him and stepped forward a pace to defend his questioned
authority.

“My master is the High Lord
Coledran and he has commanded me to turn these worthless kingsward into good
freemen with an honourable trade and he gives me an open hand to do as I see
fit. This boy is lazy and must learn his lessons the same as others have done
before him.”

“Release the child now,” commanded the hooded man in a
sibilant hiss.

Taken aback by the man’s vehemence the Stablemaster
went to protest further and for the first time caught sight of the black eyes
and the sharply drawn features which were no longer hidden in shadow. He
stepped back in haste, dropped the dog whip and snatched the boy’s hands back
from within Tarris’s grasp. The sudden movement and change of events confused
the boy and he cringed from the Stablemaster’s grip as the coarse sacking was roughly
pulled down over his tender back. Terrified of what new punishment might be
forthcoming he kept his eyes steadfastly on the raised cobble between his feet.
The cloaked man studied him with waning interest, he was, after all, just
another small, fatherless boy.

BOOK: Sword and the Spell 01: The Grey Robe

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