Interregnum (8 page)

The moment they’d arrived in the town, the Company had set eyes on the small market and had dispersed to purchase various goods leaving the captain, the sergeant and the boy standing in the street. Tregaron had raised an eyebrow and nodded his head in the direction of a tavern called ‘The Rapture’. Athas had shaken his and gestured at the boy.

“Need to get him some armour” he’d explained. “We’ll get along to the nearest smith and meet you in there afterwards.”

So saying they’d turned and walked on, leaving the captain to enter the tavern alone. Athas had consulted Quintillian only very briefly on the subject of armour, more a confirmation of his own ideas than a real enquiry, and had then turned his attention to the smith and struck up a conversation about the folding of steel. It seemed that the big sergeant had both the knowledge and the skills of a smith. Quintillian had stood and listened for a few minutes until he was thoroughly bored and had then made his way from the smithy out into the street, browsing the few shops with interest. He’d spent his entire life in seclusion on the island and even such remote parts of the outside world still held interest for him in almost every corner. A minute or two of browsing and he’d made a surprising discovery: a scribe and bookseller. That was unusual to say the least in such a small provincial town. He’d perused the reasonably meagre though good quality range for around a quarter of an hour before his eyes lit upon a treasure: Carso’s treatise on the collapse of the Empire. He’d read sections of it in the library on the island, but it was considered too valuable to leave in the hands of youngsters, so he’d never had a chance to read through from cover to cover. He’d been forking over the change for the purchase and complimenting the scribe who owned the place when an angry looking Athas had flung open the door and drawn him painfully outside by the ear.

“Where the hell have you been?” he’d demanded. “You can’t just go wandering off whenever you want, you know?”

Athas had taken in the wide-eyed expression of the lad and the way he clutched the book tightly to his chest and had sighed.

“The armourer’s going to take the rest of the day to put your stuff together, so we’re heading for the tavern. Now.” With those few words, the burly sergeant had hustled Quintillian across the street and into The Rapture.

Since then he’d had a reasonably good and filling meal and two glasses of beer. The Company had refused to order him the watered wine he wanted, just spirits or beer. He sighed again as his eyes strayed from the plate of chicken bones to the book lying open before him. He like Carso’s writing. The style was fluid without being over-elegant; factual yet readable. He smiled as he turned the page. It was strange to think that he’d read so much history in his young life and now here he was, among the men who’d actually made that history. The Grey Company had been there when the Empire had crumbled; had seen it fall, even been involved in it. His eyes flicked around the room taking in his companions and finally lit on Mercurias, heading for his table and carrying a small tray.

“T’aint no good sitting drinking on your own” he grinned, his teeth flashing surprisingly white in the lamplight. “Solitude drives a man mad.”

Quintillian returned the smile.

“I find solitude gives me time to read and think. I’m used to it.”

The medic sat heavily in the chair opposite the lad. He unloaded the contents of the tray onto the table, a brooding unlabelled bottle of some unknown spirit and two small slightly chipped glasses, and then reached out to the book. The boy drew in a sharp breath involuntarily and the medic stayed his fingers as he touched the cover.

“You value this too much” Mercurias sniffed. “Books are for entertainment. Food and drink and company are worth a great deal more. You’ll learn that in time.”

Quintillian frowned.

“The written word” he said haughtily, “is far more important than the mere vulgarities of physical existence. We’ll be long dead when this text is still illuminating and educating generations of scholars.”

Mercurias smiled sarcastically and patted the book once before turning it to see the spine. His smile broadened as he read the title.

“Carso: Empire in Ashes” he chuckled. “Utter crap!”

Quintillian bridled and snatched the book from under the medic’s hand, cradling it in front of him. His voice had risen in pitch when he addressed the medic.

“This is a work of genius” he argued. “Well written and accurate, from a man who was well placed in the Imperial bureaucracy at the time of the fall. I’ll bet you haven’t even read it!”

Mercurias smiled.

“Don’t take offence lad; none’s intended.” He sighed. “Probably is well written, but it is also crap. You’ve got to stop taking things at face value. True, I haven’t read it, but I’ll guarantee you its inaccurate. Carso was no better placed to document the collapse than your average provincial farmer. He may have been in the bureaucracy, but that means nothing. The man was harbourmaster at Rilva, way over in the east. I shouldn’t think he set foot within a thousand miles of the capital during the entire time. Carso’ll have done what most historians do and pieced together bits from other people’s writing; people who really were there.”

The lad continued to hold the book defensively.

“But it’s corroborated so well by everything else I read.”

“’Course it is” the medic continued. “All these writers use each other for information. They’re bound to all be the same. Don’t take ‘em as gospel. Personal experience is the only thing worth paying real attention to.”

Quintillian narrowed his eyes.

“So you mean that you could tell me the truth?”

The medic shrugged and poured a slightly cloudy pungent spirit from the black bottle into the two glasses.

“I was there, it’s true” he said softly. “The wars were all close to home by then and there was more need for doctors in the homeland than on the frontiers. Most of the medical corps was based in the capital at the time, in fact. I can tell you some things. Others are best left buried. What in particular do you want to know?”

The boy leaned forward, considering whether to drink the spirit. He clicked his tongue a few times and then picked up the drink and sipped it. The face he pulled made Mercurias laugh loudly.

“Slam it down,” he grinned, “For heavens’ sake don’t sip it. It’s not wine.”

Quintillian wiped his eyes and rubbed his burning lower lip. His voice came out little more than a wheeze.

“What I really want to know is about the Captain and the unit. You were all there, weren’t you; not just the medics. You were all in the capital at the end; when it happened.”

The medic narrowed his eyes.

“What the hell makes you think we were there?” he said defensively. “There were a lot of units spread across the central Empire then. I think the Captain and most of the lads were out to the west.”

Quintillian smiled.

“Do you have a canteen?” he asked.

The medic nodded and, slowly withdrawing the object from his pack, placed it on the table between them. The lad smiled knowingly and turned the flask over to reveal the engraved wolf’s head on the other side. He pointed at the decoration.

“You all have them” he pointed out. “The Captain’s very intelligent I know, but he’s not doing a very good job of hiding who he is. Or the rest of you for that matter.”

Mercurias leaned across the table, his face inches from the boy’s. His voice issued in a threatening whisper.

“If you really did know what you were talking about, you wouldn’t be doing it so loud.”

Quintillian’s voice dropped to the same level.

“Kiva Tregaron, Captain of the Grey Company” he said. “Kiva Caerdin, General of the Empire and Commander of the Wolves. It’s not a great leap to work it out. It may be all nice and good and sentimental for you all to carry your old regimental flasks, but it really is a gaping hole in any kind of cover you’re all trying to achieve.”

Mercurias frowned and slugged down a little of the spirit before he spoke.

“Ok. You’re bright. I knew that. Question is: how bright are you? Time for you to tell me what you know about us.”

“Not all that much” Quintillian shrugged. “I know that he is the General. No one could make that mistake given the evidence. You’re all so tight-lipped about it, I can only assume that what constitutes the grey company are, in fact, the members of the Wolves from before the fall, you included, yes?”

“Not all of us,” the medic conceded, “but most, yes.”

Quintillian nodded.

“The rest of what I have is questions.”

The medic frowned.

“Alright” he said, taking a deep breath. “I have just one question for you and I want you to answer it truthfully. There are dozens of ways to tell if a man’s lying and I know a lot of them.”

He glared at Quintillian until the boy nodded, hovering between nervousness and excitement. At the nod, Mercurias leaned forward and spoke in a low voice.

“Why us? Were you actually looking for us?”

The boy shook his head.

“I know it seems odd,” he said, “but I assure you it’s entirely coincidental. I’m just grateful to get the chance to travel with heroes; legends even. That’s worth a hundred corona alone. I’ve read about the Wolves since I was first able to pick up a book.”

Mercurias narrowed his eyes and his voice dropped even lower, barely audible among the sounds of the bar.

“One more thing then” he murmured. “You do know about your family, don’t you? You’re too clever not to have made the connection, even if no one’s ever told you. Your books would tell you. And the Captain tells me that your head-man on the island’s a priest called Sarios. I’m assuming that’s Minister Sarios. In the old days, he controlled all varieties of medical practice in the Empire. Hell, I took my oath in front of the man!”

Quintillian smiled.

“Yes” he replied, “but as the ‘captain’ keeps telling me, such connections are things best kept secret. Until I know more about him, he need not know more about me. I think that’s fair.”

Mercurias opened his mouth to rebuke the lad, but whatever he said went unheard as a loud voice from the other side of the bar cut through the general hubbub.

“I don’t like darkies!”

The medic’s head whipped round and he half rose from his seat. Quintillian craned his neck to see past the older man. A large brute with a shaved scalp and dark leather armour all but eclipsed the door to the street. He looked angry. Craning the other way, the lad could see Athas standing by the bar close to Kiva. He didn’t even glance elsewhere to find the ‘darkie’. It occurred to Quintillian that black-skinned warriors weren’t all that common these days and were still considered ‘exotic’ and yet he’d barely registered the colour of the sergeant’s skin. Perhaps his standing as a sergeant of the Wolves had overshadowed his mere physical presence. Athas stood away from the bar. In the fluid motion of a natural tide, the occupants of the main room drifted to the periphery, leaving a clear passage between the sergeant and the new arrival.

Athas folded his arms and glared at the man in the doorway.

“I don’t like mindless assholes,” he replied evenly, “but I notice they let them in here.”

The medic sat back down and turned, fleetingly, to look at the lad.

“This should be good.”

Kiva hadn’t moved from the bar; merely took a calm drink and smiled a frightening smile.

The bulky visitor stepped inside the bar, away from the door lintel and unhooked a heavy mace from one side of his waist and a long-bladed sword from the other. Behind him several other men entered, but stood by the doorway. Quintillian tapped the medic on the shoulder.

“If there’s going to be trouble, shouldn’t we be ready?” he asked.

Mercurias shrugged.

“Trouble?”

The second man to enter was a great deal smaller than the first. He wore armour very similar to the Kiva’s and a bear skin over his shoulders. One of his eyes was permanently closed by the scar of an old blade wound. The man grinned and Quintillian shivered at the sight. ‘Bear skin’ stepped forward a pace and spoke to his bulky friend loud enough to be heard across the bar.

“Jorun, I don’t think you want to mess with this ‘darkie’!”

His words went unheeded as the large man continued forward, his two weapons ready and swinging as he moved. Athas stood still, arms remaining folded. Quintillian tugged on the medic’s arm.

“This isn’t good” he said urgently. “Why isn’t the captain helping?”

Mercurias grinned back at him.

“He doesn’t need any help. Can’t you see that?”

The large man finally broke his slow advance and ran at Athas, the mace high and ready to drop and the sword jutting forwards at chest height. Athas continued to stand until the last moment, when he shifted his weight slightly to the left, stepped forward inside the reach of the blade and, unfolding his arms, jammed the fork he’d been holding into the man’s throat. The momentum carried the two forward a couple more paces, the fork tearing skin as the movement jarred them both. As they stopped, the big man stared down in shock and the weapons toppled from his hands. He reached both arms toward Athas, who merely waggled the fork, still buried in the man’s neck. His other finger waved in front of the enemy as though scolding a naughty child.