Knight's Dawn (2 page)

identity he would call himself Soldier. It was a manly name, if nothing else. I can take care of myself, he said. Dont you worry about me. Soldier stared down at the castle again. In the ruddy light of the dying sun, blood-scarlet in contrast to the whiteness of its midday face, he could see the red pavilions surrounding the city. He estimated that each pavilion would probably accommodate eighty to a hundred men and there were around a hundred pavilions. Ten thousand men. Each one of the pavilions had a pennon flying from the tip of the centre pole. These pennons bore a symbol but the distance was too great to identify them. When he asked the hunter he was told they were animal symbols boars, eagles, falcons, cats, dogs which denoted a company of men. Each pavilion was an entity unto itself and loyal in the first place to its commander. In battle it was the honour of the pavilion which was foremost in the minds of the soldiers. Men lived, fought and died for the pavilion and nothing was permitted to smirch its honour. Who are in the pavilions? he asked. Do they guard some visiting royal or noble? Mercenary soldiers, replied the hunter. Troops from the land of Carthaga. Queen Vanda uses them to supplement her own army, when she is forced to wage war. Actually the Carthagans do the brunt of the fighting, while the Guthrumites usually end up supporting them. They have special qualities. They are brilliant warriors - brave, selfless, disciplined, dedicated to their duty theyve been in the pay of Guthrum for centuries now and are intensely loyal to us. Each soldier serves twenty years then returns to Carthaga. He can keep his whole extended family on his pay while he is a serving soldier and he receives a huge bonus for completing his time. Why are they outside the city walls? The hunter shrugged. Its the way it has always been. They never enter the city. Perhaps at one time they were not wholly trustworthy? It has become tradition now. The Guthrumite imperial guards are responsible for policing inside the city and for protecting the royal family. Carthagans protect the city from attack by outside hostile forces. If a larger army is required, then the citizens are armed and put in the field. Soldier and the hunter then descended from the ridge, with the raven somewhere around in the gathering gloom. As they approached the city Soldier could see that the Carthagans were a squat, broad-shouldered people. They were swarthy, with flat faces and square frames. He and the hunter were not stopped or accosted while they passed through the red pavilions. Soldier assumed this was because they were only two and hardly a threat to an army of ten thousand tough, battle-hardened warriors. Soldier decided it would be a different story when they reached the gates of the city, decorated with an avenue of heads on stakes. They walked through this ghastly gauntlet. Matted hair hung over eye-sockets picked clean by the birds. Tongues, also attacked by birds and insects, hung from between swollen lips. Noses and cheeks were pitted by the weather and other agents of destruction. Help me, whispered one particularly gruesome skull as Soldier passed it by. Help me, please! Soldier turned and stared at the head, startled by the voice, only to see the stalking raven squatting inside, staring out through one of the empty eyesockets. Fooled you, murmured the raven, in a satisfied tone. Fancy a bit of dinner? Plenty here. With that the black bird left the back of the skull and began pecking at the rotting flesh. Youre disgusting, said Soldier, curling his bottom lip. The hunter said, Were you speaking to me? No, no, replied Soldier, wearily, just to the raven. You know? My madness? I am a lunatic after all. Just so, said the hunter. Gome, we must enter the city before the gates are locked for the night. Otherwise we might have to share the hospitality of one of these pavilions. Good fighting men the Carthagans might be, but they are also among the legions of the sweaty and unwashed. Their favourite fare is wild-oat porridge dried in the sun, cut into slabs and fried in goats lard. If you want to sleep with the stink of axle grease in your nostrils and breakfast on oats fried in animal fat, thats fine, but I rather look forward to a supper of fish and almonds, followed by a night in clean sheets bearing the fragrance of sandalwood. You would, muttered Soldier, under his breath, but I doubt Ill see better fare than fried porridge.

Chapter Two

There was a good deal of traffic going through and milling around the outer gate at this time of the evening. It was the hour of the day when those whose work took them beyond the citys walls came back inside for protection during the night hours. There were coaches and horsemen, peasants with ox-carts, dog-carts and hand-carts, and lone men and women on foot, some carrying the implements of their trade: scythes, axes, saws, hammers. Many of the vehicles were piled high with faggots and wood. Others with animal fodder or vegetables. The way through the gate was ankle-deep in dung and though Soldier attempted to tread carefully, his leggings were soiled almost to the knee shortly after joining the queue. The whole area stank and the flies were large and bothersome. Soldier assumed that they would be stopped by the outer guards on the gate and questioned, but they hardly even glanced at the hunter and himself. Once inside the outer ward however, it was an entirely different matter. They were almost pounced upon by four burly men in uniform and led to a gatehouse tower. The hunter was taken inside, while Soldier was made to wait. It was growing dark now and the lamplighters were abroad. There were brands in iron cages on the walls round about and these were being torched. Soldier felt it must be a wealthy place to have street lighting and was duly impressed by all the activity. The hunters mount stood tethered to a post nearby, looking mournfully at the door through which her master had vanished. On its back was the boar the hunter had shot with his crossbow earlier in the day. Soldier was now extremely hungry and the thought of the boar roasting on a spit played havoc with his imagination. He wondered if the hunter would invite him to a meal, now that they were inside the city. All right, said a guard, coming out and beckoning to Soldier, in you go. Soldier stepped inside the tower to find himself immediately in a room where a scrivener in a grey robe sat at a desk. The man was elderly, with a wall eye and a rather sour look on his face. He was also quite ugly, being bloated and puffy-looking, with a poor complexion and some kind of rash on his neck. Name? said the man in a bored voice, his quill pen poised above a great leather-bound book. Soldier looked about him, bewildered. There did not seem to be another door in the room, yet the hunter was nowhere to be seen. Where did the hunter go? he asked. The scrivener looked up with his one good eye, impatiently. Stranger, he said, in a quiet patronising tone, I would like to get this over with as quickly as possible, so that I can get back to my soup, which is cooling on the table by the window. Soup is not my favourite fare, but it is one of the only meals I can digest in comfort these days, since all my teeth are gone and my gums are somewhat diseased. If you do not reply within three seconds, I shall have you thrown outside the city walls where you will spend the night or not depending on how soon the wolves get to you, most of whom, I am jealous to be so informed, still retain a full set of fangs. Soldier, said Soldier, quickly. What? My name - my name is Soldier. The scrivener scratched away in his book, his left eyebrow raised and his tongue-tip sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Soldier, he repeated. Nothing more? Not Soldier from Kandun or Soldier of Tyern? Usually when ones name is ones trade, a town or a city follows. Smith of Blandaine, for example . . . Just Soldier. Then my next question is, where are you from, Soldier? From from the Ancient Forest. The scrivener looked up from beneath his brows, his wall eye disconcerting Soldier. The Ancient Forest? That region is uninhabited. What is more, you do not look like a local, like one of us, so to speak. You seem to be a foreigner and a very strange one at that. Blue eyes? I never heard of such a thing, not even amongst the beast-people beyond the water margin. Youll have to do better than that, Soldier. Look, he blurted, the truth is I dont know who I am or where Im from. I woke today on a. hillside just beyond the Ancient Forest. I feel as if Ive been in a great battle - Im sure I have. But the hunter who brought me here said there had been no battle in that region for years. I dont understand whats happened to me, but I mean no harm to anyone in Guthrum. I simply need a safe place to sleep until my memory returns and I can put my life in order. Ah, yes, the hunter. You have money? Money? the soldier felt in his tattered pockets, around his belt for a purse, and came up empty. No, no money. The scrivener put down his pen and smiled. It was a horrible expression, even worse than his scowl. Then how do you expect to live? I thought that is, I hadnt really thought. But Im willing to work. Ill eat scraps for the time being. Ill fight with the dogs for bones under the table. It doesnt matter. What I need is time time to recover my wits. The scrivener suddenly and surprisingly shrugged. As you will. I understand you clutched the hem of the hunters garment and craved hospitality? In which case we cant refuse you shelter, that person being a citizen of this state. You may have to sleep in the street, but thats up to you and your fortunes. The scrivener pointed the goose-feather quill at Soldier as if it were a weapon. But stay out of trouble. Youre lucky you were not caught and hung in the countryside. Am I understood? Perfectly. I will be the model citizen. You will not be a citizen at all, since you are an outlander. But you will be good or you will be dead. Yes, yes, you have my word. With that the scrivener called the guard. Alarmingly, Soldier was marched away towards a half-lit shack standing not far from the tower. He had thought he would be released immediately, but it seemed there were other procedures to go through. The shack turned out to be a blacksmiths forge, with a great furnace making the place unbearably hot. There a tall, skinny man, whose skin was pitted with black scars from flying red hot iron filings, fitted an iron collar around Soldiers throat and sealed it with a rivet. Soldier yelled, as the pain of the hot rivet bit into his neck. The smith grunted. Still wincing, Soldier asked, Are you from Blandaine? The smith stared. Yes, how do you know? Because I have heard that people from that town are unfeeling bastards. The smiths eyes hardened. You be careful, stranger. When the time comes, itll be me who takes that collar from your neck. My mother was a gentle woman, but I have inherited all my character from my father, who was one of the queens torturers. The best at his trade, so Im told. The guard laughed, and said, Come on, stranger. On your way now. If I were you Id make my way down to the canal district, where youll find the rest of the riff-raff. How long do I have to wear this thing? A month at the most. Once the iron collar was in place Soldier was allowed to go. He realised he had been given the collar so that he could easily be identified. People would know he was a stranger and be wary of him. He would be under observation, by the local residents, during all hours. If he turned out to be a thief, or worse, he would be banished from the city. These precautions seemed very reasonable to Soldier, even if he did feel a little bitter at being subjected to them. In dark times people protected themselves against infiltrators from the wildernesses. His new iron tore was uncomfortable at first. It chafed his neck. But he knew he would soon get used to it. Soldier made his way through the dimly-lit cobbled streets, not really knowing where he was going. Eventually he came across a canal, which he followed to a network of moored barges. The canals were fed from the water in the moat, which in turn received an inflow of water from the natural system of rivers and lakes beyond the city walls. He was now in the centre of the city. He went towards a quay. There he saw a sight that shocked him to the core. The bloated body of a woman was floating in the water, caught up in the mooring rope of a small barge. Just as Soldier spotted her, someone came up from below decks and saw her too. Bloody corpses! Soldier heard the bargees words quite clearly. They stink in this weather . . . The bargee took a boat-hook and prised the cadaver away from his mooring line with as much passion as if it were the carcass of some animal. The white limbs and naked torso of the victim of some horrible violence her head was split down through her nose and upper jaw then went floating off on the current of the canal. The bargee grunted in satisfaction, before going below again. There had been no compassion in the bargee, only irritation that a lump of flesh had snagged on his boat. Soldier was appalled by the lack of sympathy shown by the bargee and the horrible nature of the womans wounds. What is this place I have come to? he asked himself. Sitting on the edge of a quay and contemplating his shadow on the water below, Soldier thought about his life. It amounted to only twelve hours. He had been born at noon, so far as his memory told him, and it was now around midnight. He knew nothing about himself. In his mind he clung onto those aspects of his short life which meant something to him. The hunter, for example. That they should have met on the edge of the forest was pure coincidence, yet Soldier felt that the hunter knew more about him than he had revealed. Soldier believed the hunters interest in him went deeper than just a casual meeting and acquaintance. And where had he gone? The hunter had simply disappeared into thin air, taking his horse, hawk and boar with him. Hes probably roasting a pork joint over a log fire now, said Soldier. Wrong. The meat is already cooked and fit to be devoured. The hunter is just this minute eating the hogs head apple. You know, the one they put in the pigs mouth when they roast him? In his other hand is a jug of ale. I bet youd like both, wouldnt you? Unfortunately, all youre likely to get tonight is a pie crust washed down with some of that canal water. Soldier turned to see the raven perched on the edge of the wharf, a piece of pie at its feet. Where have you been? Soldier asked. Oh, here, there and everywhere. Arent you going to thank me for the bit of pie? Ive eaten my share. This bits for you. Soldier reached out and gobbled down a piece of crust half the size of a mans hand. Can you get any more? he asked. Im still very hungry. Are we friends? Do we have to be? Cant you remain a figment of my imagination? Not if Im going to steal real food for you. Soldier nodded. I see your point. All right, were friends. Does that make you happy? Not deliriously, but we need each other. What would you like me to fetch you now? A piece of pork crackling? Soldier closed his eyes. Oh, yes yes, yes, yes. Well, if I dont return, youll know Ive got a crossbow bolt up my arse. Nice necklace, by the way. Pearls would have suited you better. The bird flew off, into the night, leaving Soldier fingering his metal collar. People were beginning to gather now, around the storage houses alongside the canals. Some of these huts were empty and it was to these that the homeless gravitated, presumably to find shelter for the night. Soldier was looked on with mild suspicion as they drifted by him. He sat on the quay, minding his own business, not speaking to anyone. There were ragged women with urchins in tow. There were men who looked spent and wasted. There were the drinkers and the hemp-smokers and the gambling addicts. There were those who had fallen on hard times because of luck, and those who had brought hard times upon themselves. None of them approached Soldier directly and he did not feel confident enough to speak to anyone either. A short while later the raven came back with meat in its beak. For the next hour the raven fed Soldier as if it were one of its own fledglings. Then he fell asleep on the quay. Fortunately it was a warm night, so he did not suffer any exposure. The following morning he wandered the city, the raven on his shoulder, finding the market-place. There he breakfasted on cabbage and kale stalks which he found in the gutters. It was in the market that he first saw his reflection in a copper mirror. The face, with its patchy black beard, was a stranger to him. He thought it looked tired but tough, with an unblemished complexion not pocked or scarred in any way. Indeed, he looked a soldier. His hair was dark and cut unfash-ionably short, seemingly by a barber lacking in skill. He guessed his age to be around thirty years. Beyond that, his reflection told him nothing about himself. He remained a mystery to his own eyes. He began begging for his food. There was a hostility amongst the people which quickly emerged. Soldier was kicked and beaten, sent on his way with bruises and all but broken bones. He was shocked too, by the level of apathy he found in the citizens. They did not seem to care about anything at all. Several times he came across bodies, in alleys or floating down the canals, with signs of violence on them. Clearly murder was rife, and he feared being blamed for one of these deaths. It is easy to point the finger at a stranger and yell, Assassin! There was a high level of corruption too, with bribes freely passing between citizens and figures of authority. This Guthrum was a dangerous place for anyone who had no friends and did not know the unwritten rules which kept men alive in such times. It was on one of his forays around the market-place, begging amongst the stalls, that he met Spagg. Soldier stared at the stall in front of him in amazement. Displayed there were severed hands, some of them stuffed with herbs and with candles stitched between the index and forefinger. Others were in their naked state. They had all been drained of blood. The dried ones looked brown and grizzled, and in some of these the sinews and tendons had shrunk so that the hand now resembled a claw of some giant raptor. Can I help you friend? asked the warty-faced individual behind the stall. Do you wish to purchase my wares? He looked into Soldiers face. Do you wish to sell those blue eyes? Theyre rare in Guthrum. Unique, even. I could get quite a bit for those eyes, if we preserved em in good gin. Soldier stared at the man who wore a leather apron and skull cap. I need the eyes. Theyre the only pair Ive got. And I cant buy anything. I cant afford anything. Cant you see Im poor? What are they for, anyway? The individual chuckled. You dont know me? Ah, the iron collar. Youre a stranger. Well, Im Spagg, and these, my friend, are hands-of-glory. The hands of hanged men and women. Ownership of one of these will unlock doors to a fortune. You dont need money now. Just promise me some of your future earnings, so to speak, and Ill let you have one on tick. Soldier remembered all the handless corpses hanging from the gallows out in the countryside. You cut them from bodies? Spagg said proudly, I