Luck in the Shadows (2 page)

His only remaining hope now was that they would finish him off quickly; death loomed like a welcome release from the hours of pain, the endless stream of questions that he didn’t understand and couldn’t answer. Clinging to this bitter comfort, he drifted into a fitful doze.

The familiar tread of boots jerked him awake sometime later. Moonlight slanted in through the window now, pooling in the straw beside him. Sick with dread, he pulled himself into the deeper shadow of the corner.

As the footsteps came closer a highly pitched voice suddenly burst out, shouting and cursing over the sounds of a scuffle. The cell door banged open and the dark forms of two warders and a struggling captive were framed for an instant against the torchlight from the corridor beyond.

The prisoner was a small, slightly built man but he fought like a cornered weasel.

“Unhand me, you cretinous brutes!” he cried, his furious words marred somewhat by a noticeable lisp. “I
demand
to see your master! How
dare
you arrest me! Can’t an honest bard pass unmolested through this country?”

Twisting an arm free, he swung a fist at the warder on his left. The larger man blocked the blow easily and pinned his arms sharply back again.

“Don’t fret yourself,” the guard snorted, giving the prisoner a sharp cuff on the ear. “You’ll meet our master soon enough and wish you hadn’t!”

His partner let out a nasty chuckle. “Aye, he’ll have you singing loud and long before he’s through.” With this, he struck the smaller man quick, harsh blows to the face and belly, silencing any further protests.

Dragging him to the wall opposite Alec, they manacled him hand and foot.

“What about that one?” one of them asked, jerking a thumb in Alec’s direction. “They’ll be taking him off next day or so. How ’bout a bit of sport?”

“No, you heard the master. Be worth our hides if we spoiled him for the slavers. Come on, the game’ll be starting.” The key
grated in the lock behind them and their voices faded away down the corridor.

Slavers?
Alec curled more tightly into the shadows. There were no slaves in the northlands but he’d heard tales enough of people carried off to distant countries and uncertain fates, never to be seen again. Throat tight with renewed panic, he tugged hopelessly at his chains.

The bard raised his head with a groan. “Who’s there?”

Alec froze, regarding the man warily. The pale wash of moonlight was bright enough for him to see that the man was dressed in the gaudy clothing common to his kind: a tunic with long, dagged tippets, the striped sash and hose. Tall, muddy traveling boots completed the garish outfit. Alec couldn’t make out his face, however; the fellow’s dark hair hung to his shoulders in foppish ringlets, partially obscuring his features.

Too exhausted and miserable to attempt idle conversation, Alec pressed into his corner without reply. The man seemed to be squinting hard in his direction, but before he could speak again they heard the guards returning. Dropping flat in the straw, the bard lay motionless as they dragged in a third prisoner, this one a squat, bull-necked laborer in homespun garments and stained leggings.

Despite his size, the man obeyed the warders in terrified silence as they chained him by the feet next to the bard.

“Here’s another bit of company for you, boy,” one of them said with a grin, setting a small clay lamp in a niche over the door. “Someone to help you pass the time ’til morning!”

The light fell across Alec. Dark bruises and welts showed darkly against his fair skin. Clad in little more than the tattered remnants of his linen clout, he returned the man’s gaze stonily.

“By the Maker, boy! What did you do that they dealt with you so?” the man exclaimed.

“Nothing,” Alec rasped. “They tortured me, and the others. They died—yesterday? What’s the day?”

“Third of Erasin, come sunrise.”

Alec’s head ached dully; had it really only been four days?

“But what did they arrest you for?” the man persisted, eyeing Alec with obvious suspicion.

“Spying. But I wasn’t! I tried to explain—”

“It’s the same with me,” the peasant sighed. “I’ve been kicked,
beaten, robbed, and not a word will they hear from me. ‘I’m Morden Swiftford,’ I tell ’em. ‘Just a plowman, nothing more!’ But here I am.”

With a deep groan the bard sat up and struggled awkwardly to untangle himself from his shackles. After a considerable effort he finally managed to arrange himself with his back resting against the wall.

“Those brutes will pay dearly for this indignity,” he snarled weakly. “Imagine, Rolan Silverleaf a spy!”

“You, too?” asked Morden.

“It’s too absurd. There I was, performing at the Harvest Fair at Rook Tor only last week. I happen to have several powerful patrons in these parts and believe me, they shall hear of the treatment I’ve endured!”

The fellow prattled on, giving an encyclopedic recital of the places he’d performed and the highly placed people to whom he looked for justice.

Alec paid him little heed. Wrapped in his own misery, he huddled morosely in his corner while Morden gaped.

The jailers returned within the hour and hauled the frightened plowman away. Soon cries of an all-too-familiar nature echoed up the hallway. Alec pressed his face against his knees and covered his ears, trying not to hear. The bard was watching him, he knew, but he was beyond caring.

Morden’s hair and jerkin were matted with blood when the guards dragged him back and chained him in his place again. He lay where they flung him, panting hoarsely.

A few moments later another guard came in and handed out meager rations of water and hard biscuit. Rolan examined his bit of biscuit with obvious distaste.

“It’s maggoty, but you should eat,” he said, tossing his portion across to Alec.

Alec ignored it and his own. Food meant dawn was close and the start of another grim day.

“Go on,” Rolan urged gently. “You’ll need your strength later.” Alec turned his face away, but he persisted. “At least take a bit of water. Can you walk?”

Alec shrugged listlessly. “What difference does it make?”

“Perhaps a great deal before long,” the other man replied with an odd half smile. There was something new in his voice, a calculating
note that was decidedly out of place with his dandified appearance. The dim light of the lamp touched the side of his face, showing a longish nose and one sharp eye.

Alec took a small sip of the water, then downed the rest in a gulp as the needs of his body took over. He’d had nothing to eat or drink in more than a day.

“That’s better,” murmured Rolan. Getting to his knees, he moved out as far as the leg chains allowed, then leaned forward until the manacles drew his arms back tautly. Morden raised his head, watching with dull curiosity.

“It’s no use. You’ll only bring the guards back,” Alec hissed, wishing the man would keep still.

Rolan surprised him with a wink, then began to flex his hands, spreading the fingers and straining the thumbs about. From across the cell Alec heard the soft, sickening snap of joints separating. Rolan’s hands slipped free of the manacle rings. Falling forward, he caught himself on one elbow and quickly relocated the joints at the base of each thumb.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes with the end of one tippet. “There, and now the feet.” Pulling down the top of his left boot, he extracted a long, bodkinlike instrument from an inner seam. A moment’s work on each of the leg iron locks and he was free. Taking up Morden’s water cup and his own, he came over to Alec.

“Drink this. Slowly now, slowly. What’s your name?”

“Alec of Kerry.” He sipped gratefully at the extra ration, hardly believing what he’d just seen. For the first time since his capture, he felt the beginnings of hope.

Rolan watched him closely, looking as if he’d reached a not entirely agreeable decision. At last he sighed and said, “I suppose you’d better come with me.” Pushing his hair impatiently back from his eyes, he turned to Morden with a thin, unfriendly smile.

“But you, my friend, you seem to set remarkably small value on your life.”

“Good sir,” Morden stammered, cowering back, “I’m only a humble peasant but I’m certain my life means as much to me—”

Rolan cut him off with an impatient gesture, then reached forward to thrust his hand into the neck of the man’s grimy jerkin. He yanked out a thin silver chain and dangled it in Morden’s face.

“You’re not very convincing, you know. Louts though they are, Asengai’s men are far too thorough to miss a bauble like this.”

His voice is different!
Alec thought, watching the strange confrontation in confusion. Rolan wasn’t lisping at all now; he just sounded dangerous.

“I should also tell you, by way of instruction, that tortured men are usually extremely thirsty,” the bard continued. “Unless they smell of ale, as you do. I trust you and the guards had a pleasant supper together? I wonder what sort of blood is it you’re smeared with?”

“Your mother’s moon flow!” Morden snarled, his simple expression vanishing as he pulled a small dagger from his legging and lunged at Rolan. The bard dodged the attack and drove his clenched fist against Morden’s throat, crushing his larynx. A swift jab of his elbow to Morden’s temple felled the man like an ox; he collapsed in the straw at Rolan’s feet, blood flowing from his mouth and ear.

“You killed him!” Alec said faintly. .

Rolan pressed a finger to Morden’s throat, then nodded. “Seems I did. The fool should’ve yelled for the guards.”

Alec cringed back against the clammy stone as Rolan turned to him.

“Steady now,” the man said, and Alec was surprised to see he was smiling. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

Alec managed a mute nod, then sat rigidly while Rolan unlocked his chains. When he’d finished he went back to Morden’s body.

“Now let’s see who you were.” Sliding the dead man’s dagger into his boot, Rolan pulled up the soiled jerkin to examine the hairy torso beneath.

“Hmm, that’s no great surprise,” he muttered, probing at the left armpit.

Curious in spite of his fear, Alec crept just close enough to peer over Rolan’s shoulder.

“See here?” Rolan showed him a triangle of three tiny blue circles tattooed into the pale skin where the arm joined the body.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a guild mark. He was a Juggler.”

“A mountebank?”

“No,” Rolan snorted. “A keek, a ferret. The Jugglers carry out
any sort of dirty mischief for the right price. They swarm around petty lords like Asengai the way blow flies gather on a midden.” Tugging the dead man’s jerkin off, he thrust it into Alec’s hands. “Here, put this on. And hurry! I’ll say this just once; fall behind and you’re on your own!”

The garment was filthy and soaked with blood at the neck, but Alec obeyed quickly, pulling it on with a shudder of revulsion. By the time he’d gotten it on, Rolan was already at work on the lock.

“Rusty son of a whore,” he remarked, spitting into the keyhole. The lock gave way at last and he opened the door a crack, peering out.

“Looks clear,” he whispered. “Stay close and do what I tell you.”

Alec’s heart hammered in his ears as he followed Rolan out into the corridor. Several yards down lay the room where Asengai’s men carried out their tortures. Beyond that, the door to the warder’s room stood open and they could hear the noise of a rowdy game of some sort in progress.

Rolan’s boots made no more noise than Alec’s bare feet as the two of them crept up to the open doorway. Rolan cocked his head, then held up four fingers. With a quick motion he indicated that Alec should cross the doorway quickly and quietly.

Alec stole a glance inside. Four guards were kneeling around a cloak on the floor. One cast the knucklebones and coins changed hands amid much good-natured cursing.

Waiting until their attention was focused on the next toss, Alec slipped across to the other side. Rolan joined him soundlessly and they hurried around a corner and down a stairway. A lamp burned in a shallow niche at the bottom. Rolan took it and set off again.

Alec knew nothing of the lay of the place and quickly lost all sense of direction as they made their way along a succession of twisting passageways. Halting at last, Rolan opened a narrow door and disappeared into the darkness beyond, whispering for Alec to watch his step just in time to save the boy from tumbling down more stairs that descended less than a pace from the door.

It was colder down here, and damp. The wavering circle of light from Rolan’s lamp skimmed across lichen-stained stonework. The floor was stone as well, rough and broken with neglect.

A final, crumbling set of stairs brought them to a low,
iron-strapped door. The paving beneath Alec’s bare feet was frigid. His breath puffed out in rapid little clouds. Handing him the lamp, Rolan went to work on the heavy lock that hung from a staple in the door frame.

“There,” Rolan whispered as it came free. “Blow out the light and leave it.”

They slipped out into the shadows of a walled yard. The lopsided moon was low in the west; the sky behind the stars showed the first hint of predawn indigo. A thick rime of frost coated everything in the yard: wood stack, well, farrier’s forge—all glinted softly in the moonlight. Winter was coming early this year, Alec thought. He could smell it on the air.

“This is the lower stable yard,” Rolan whispered. “There’s a gate beyond that wood stack, with a postern beside it. Damn, but it’s cold!”

Scrubbing a hand back through his ridiculous curls, he looked Alec over again; except for the filthy jerkin, the boy was all but naked. “You can’t go traveling all over the country like that. Get to the side door and open it. There shouldn’t be a guard, but keep your eyes open and be
silent!
I’ll be right back.”

Before Alec could protest, he’d ghosted away in the direction of the stables.

Alec crouched by the doorway for a moment, hugging himself against the cold. Alone in the darkness, he felt his brief burst of confidence ebbing away. A glance at the stables showed no sign of his strange companion. Genuine fear stirred just below the fragile threshold of his resolve.