Medalon (22 page)

The Blue Bull Tavern was located near the western side of the amphitheatre, along with several other taverns and the licensed brothels where the Citadel’s prostitutes plied their trade for an amount set and strictly taxed by the Sisterhood. Although they frequented the Blue Bull often enough, R’shiel had little to do with the prostitutes, or as they preferred to be known, the
court’esa
. The word was a Fardohnyan one—in that country
court’esa
were men and women trained from early youth to provide pleasure for the Fardohnyan nobility. They were educated, elegant, highly sought after professionals who, R’shiel had heard whispered among the Probates, knew six hundred and forty seven different ways to make love. The idea fascinated R’shiel. She had been raised to believe the Sisterhood’s view of prostitution. Men were carnal creatures who had no control over their lust. Better to regulate the industry and make them pay for something they would take by force if it were not readily available. But to choose a life as a
court’esa
, even a pampered, Fardohnyan one, struck R’shiel as being a desperate way to make
a living. Particularly in Medalon, where
court’esa
were mostly illiterate young men and women, for whom the trade was one of necessity rather than choice.

There was little love lost between the
court’esa
and the Probates. The prostitutes considered Probates annoying amateurs. They robbed them of their hard-earned income every time one had a dalliance with a Defender who, by rights, should be paying a
court’esa
for their services, not getting it free from some uppity tart in a grey tunic.

R’shiel pushed open the door to the tavern and was met by a hot wave of ale-flavoured smoke. The tavern was doing a brisk trade, although this late at night the customers were only off-duty Defenders and the working
court’esa
. The Novices and Probates were well abed, or should have been. R’shiel received a curious glance from a number of the painted women as she stood at the door looking around. She spied Davydd Tailorson across the room, drinking with several other officers. A plump
court’esa
with big brown eyes was leaning forward suggestively toward Davydd, her ample bosom threatening to escape her low-cut gown at any moment. Whatever she was saying had all the officers at the table laughing uproariously. R’shiel took a deep breath and crossed the taproom, trying to ignore the curious stares of both the
court’esa
and the Defenders who thought a young female stranger in the tavern this late in the night was bound to be looking for trouble. She was half-way across the room when Davydd glanced up and caught sight of her. He frowned, made some comment to his companions and then left
the table. His expression grim, he walked across the taproom, took her arm and steered her back out onto the verandah into the bitter cold.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed, surprising her with his annoyance. “Don’t you know how much trouble you could get into?”

“Of course I know,” she said, shaking her arm free of his grasp. “But I need your help.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?” he asked impatiently, glancing back towards the taproom. The
court’esa
who had been thrusting her bosom at him was watching them curiously through the open door. She wiggled her fingers in a small wave and blew Davydd an inviting kiss.

“Well, I’m sorry. Don’t let me keep you from your whore,” she snapped, annoyed by the
court’esa
and more than a little hurt by his attitude. “You obviously have plans this evening. Your little friend in there seems very accommodating.” She turned and ran down the steps into the street.

“R’shiel! Wait!” He ran after her, caught her in a few steps, grabbed her by the arm and turned her to face him. He glanced around, and, realising they were standing in the middle of the street, he steered her over to the awning in front of the shuttered bakery. The street was still deserted, and the only noise came from the Blue Bull and the other taverns farther up the cobbled street, the only illumination the spill of yellow light from the taverns’ windows.

“Don’t you know there’s a price on your head? If you’re recognised—”

“I don’t care,” she snapped, regretting her decision to seek him out.

“That’s plain enough. What do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” he disagreed, “or you wouldn’t have come looking for me. What is it?”

R’shiel took a deep breath of the cold air. “I want to free Tarja.”

Davydd swore under his breath. “Are you crazy?”

“Yes, I am,” she said stiffly, “so forget I asked.”

“R’shiel, if word got back to Lord Jenga that I’d helped Tarja escape, I’d be in the cell he vacated before morning.”

“I said forget it,” she assured him, disappointed. This was the young man who had helped her climb the outside of the Great Hall to spy on the Gathering. She had thought him more daring than the average Defender. She had thought him Tarja’s friend.

He sighed and shook his head. “Don’t you know how dangerous this is?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to just stand around and watch Joyhinia hang him!” she declared.

Davydd glanced up the deserted street for a moment before looking at her closely. “R’shiel, don’t you think you should stay out of this? Your mother would kill you if you’re caught. She’d kill me too.”

“She’s not my mother.”

“Maybe not,” Davydd said, lowering his voice, “but she’s bound to react like one.”

“I have to free him, Davydd,” she pleaded. “I need your help.”

“R’shiel, Tarja has more friends in the Citadel than you realise,” he told her cautiously. “Take my advice and leave well enough alone.”

“Please, Davydd?”

Davydd studied her in the darkness for a moment, weighing his decision. Then he sighed again. “I just know I’m going to regret this.”

R’shiel leaned forward, meaning to kiss his cheek to thank him, but he moved at the last minute and she found herself meeting his lips. He pulled her closer and let the kiss linger far longer then she ever intended it to. With some reluctance, he let her go and shook his head.

“Now she gets romantic,” he joked as he let her go. “Come on, then. I know someone who might agree to this insanity. I never did plan to live long at any rate.”

The stables that housed the Defenders cavalry mounts were vast, stretching from the eastern side of the amphitheatre to the outer wall of the Citadel. They were warm and pungent with so many animals stabled in such close confines, but their soft snores comforted R’shiel. Davydd had left her here and told her to wait. He had been gone more than an hour; plenty of time for R’shiel to imagine any number of unfortunate fates had befallen him. It was also more than sufficient time for R’shiel to wonder if she had misjudged him. He could be reporting her presence at this very moment; gathering a squad to arrest her while she waited here like a trusting fool…

“R’shiel!”

She spun toward the whispered call. “Davydd?”

A uniformed figure appeared in the gloom.

“R’shiel.” Nheal Alcarnen moved towards her, his expression unreadable in the dim light of the stable. She didn’t know him well, but he was an old friend of Tarja’s. He was also the captain who had been
hunting them in Reddingdale. She glanced over his shoulder but he was alone. “Davydd says you need my help.”

“I…I want to free Tarja.”

Nheal looked at her for a long moment. “Why?”

“Why? Why do you think! They’re torturing him and in a few days they’re going to hang him! Founders, Nheal! What a stupid question!”

He nodded, as if her answer had satisfied some other, unvoiced doubt. “Aye, it was a stupid question. I don’t agree with what he’s done, mind you, and I don’t hold with any of that pagan nonsense, but this has gone beyond the simple punishment of an oathbreaker.” Nheal took a deep breath before he continued. “I was there when Draco arrested him. The Spear of the First Sister held a blade to an innocent man’s throat and threatened to kill him and his entire family. If Lord Draco can betray his Defender’s oath so readily and be honoured for it, I see no reason why Tarja should be hanged for the same offence.”

The news did not surprise R’shiel. She had suspected something of the kind. Tarja would never have surrendered willingly.

“You’ll help me then?”

He nodded. “The guard changes at dawn. If I call a snap inspection I can delay them for a time. We don’t waste good men on cell duty. The night watch will be half asleep, or drunk if they’ve managed to smuggle in a jug when their officer wasn’t looking.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Nheal.”

“Don’t kill anyone,” he told her. “And if you’re caught, keep my name out of it. I’m doing this
because Tarja was my friend. But he’s not so good a friend that I want to be hanged alongside him.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“I doubt it,” he said, then he turned on his heel and walked away. Within a few steps the darkness had swallowed him completely and she was alone.

Tarja woke at first light. Grey tentacles of light felt their way into his cell from the small barred window as he swam toward consciousness. He opened his eyes and lay there for a while, trying to work out what was wrong, what was different. The smell of his own body disgusted him. It stank of sweat and blood and stale urine.

It took him a while, but eventually he worked out that both his eyes were open. It took him even longer to realise he could move. He sat up gingerly, waiting for the pain to return, but it was gone. Completely gone.

Tarja flexed his fingers, his unbroken, unmarked fingers, with increasing wonder. He pushed his tongue against teeth that were firm in their sockets, ran it over lips that were smooth and supple. Pulling back the torn sleeve of his filthy, bloodstained shirt, he picked at a scab on his arm. The crust lifted with a flick to reveal pink, healed and unscarred flesh beneath. He rotated his shoulder and it moved freely and smoothly. Swinging his feet onto the floor, he discovered the soles of his feet were whole and
undamaged, only the stains of blood and loose flakes of skin giving any indication of their condition the night before.

Tarja wondered if he was still dreaming. The last thing he remembered was the little girl who had featured so prominently in his dream, and another shadowy, undefined figure. The details were hazy. He’d lost consciousness, he remembered falling into the blackness, but nothing after that. For a moment he wondered if perhaps his pagan friends had petitioned the gods on his behalf. There seemed no other explanation for his sudden recovery. It was an uncomfortable thought for someone who didn’t actually believe that the gods existed.

A noise in the guardroom outside diverted him from taking an inventory of his vanished injuries. They had come for him already. Oddly, pain heaped upon pain was easier to bear than pain inflicted where there was none. Tarja wondered what the reaction would be to his miraculous recovery. Joyhinia would probably have him drowned as a sorcerer.

The door flew open and the guard stumbled drunkenly into the cell. Close on his heels was Davydd Tailorson. Tarja stared at the guard uncomprehendingly as he fell to the floor.

“He’s drugged,” Davydd explained. “Don’t worry, all he’ll have is a hangover.”

Tarja looked at the young man blankly.

“Hey! Snap out of it, Captain! This is a gaol break, in case you haven’t noticed. Get a move on!”

Tarja jumped to his feet, leapt over the body of the guard and ran down the hallway after Davydd.
“Do you have horses?” he asked, as he skidded to a halt near the door. It seemed such a banal question. What he really wanted to ask was:
How can I be running? Last night I couldn’t walk! What has happened to me?

“Out the front,” Davydd assured him.

Another man was waiting for them, this one a man who had still been a Cadet before Tarja had left for the southern border. He couldn’t even recall the man’s name.

“You’d best get changed,” the young man advised urgently, handing him a clean uniform. “We’re going out the main gate as soon as it’s opened. You’ll never pass as a Defender looking like that.”

Tarja took the uniform and changed into it, delighted to be rid of his soiled clothes. As he was pulling on the boots, he glanced up at the men.

“You’ll hang if they catch us,” he warned.

The lieutenant shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than being a Defender these days.”

Both saddened and heartened by the man’s reply, Tarja stood up and accepted the sword Davydd handed him.

“Thanks.”
How can I hold a sword? They broke my fingers! I must be dreaming.

“All clear,” the lieutenant announced, looking out into the yard.

Tarja followed him into the yard and stopped dead as he realised who was holding the waiting horses. R’shiel turned as she heard them. She studied him for a moment, surprised perhaps that he could even stand, then did no more than acknowledge him with a nod.

“They’ll be opening the gate soon,” she said. “We’d better hurry.”

“R’shiel—”

“You take the bay,” she said, handing him the reins. Her expression was unreadable. “I heard they were torturing you. I’m glad to see you’ve not suffered too much.”

Tarja stared at her in astonishment. She was angry with him because he was whole! How could he explain to her what had happened, when he couldn’t even explain it to himself?

“Come on!” Davydd urged.

Tarja took the reins and leapt into the saddle, following the others out of the yard and into the streets of the Citadel. He rode with R’shiel on his left and the other two close behind. She didn’t look at him. He couldn’t understand her anger, or how she had come to be involved in his escape.
I don’t understand how I could go to sleep a broken man and wake whole, either
, he thought.

As they neared the main gate, Tarja pushed aside the question of his astounding recovery. He had to live through the next few hours before he could indulge in trying to solve such an inexplicable riddle. The buildings closest to the main gate were clustered close together, built by human hands, not Harshini. Three stories tall and roofed with grey slate tiles, many were boarding houses, offering accommodation to officers who preferred not to live in the Officers’ Quarters near the centre of the city. They were popular because they were away from the watchful eye of the Lord Defender. There were no snap inspections here. Tarja rode past them with his head
down and shoulders hunched. Chances were good that if they got to the gate, they would be allowed to leave unchallenged. The guards held the gate against
incoming
traffic. They wouldn’t bother with officers heading
out
.

They rode at a walk past the last house before the open plaza in front of the gate. A door opened on Tarja’s left and a captain stepped out into the street. The movement caught his eye. The shock of seeing such a livid scar momentarily distracted him and he stared openly at the man. The young captain gasped as he recognised Tarja.

“Guards!” Loclon yelled toward the gate.

“Damn!” R’shiel muttered, kicking her horse into a canter. They followed her lead without hesitation. Loclon ran after them, calling to the guards on the gate who were embroiled in an argument with a burly wagon driver. A large oxen-drawn wagon was blocking the way, as the driver disputed his right to enter. Tarja glanced over his shoulder at Loclon, who had almost caught up to them, even though he was on foot. The distance between the boarding house and the blocked gate allowed little room for speed. Loclon’s cries finally caught the attention of the officer in charge, who glanced at Tarja, shock replacing confusion as he recognised him. Davydd drew alongside him, unsheathing his sword.

“There’s only one way out of this now!”

Tarja nodded and drew his own weapon. He looked for R’shiel who had ridden ahead and seemed determined to ride down anyone foolish enough to stand in her way. He didn’t know if she was armed, but she couldn’t hope to fight off the Defenders, even
on horseback. The wagon driver was ignored as red coats streamed toward them and he lost sight of her as his attention was drawn to his own survival. He swung his sword in a wide arc as he pushed forward and the Defenders drew back from the deadly blade. He heard a cry and looked up as Davydd toppled from his horse, a red-fletched arrow protruding from his chest. Tarja looked up with despair at the archers lining the wall walk, their arrows aimed directly at him and his companions. He looked for R’shiel and was relieved to discover she had also seen the archers. She held up her hands in surrender as she was pulled from her mount. The young lieutenant was slumped in his saddle, arrow-pierced through the neck.

“Drop your weapon!” a voice called from the wall walk. Tarja looked up at the bows aimed squarely at his heart and knew refusal would result in death. For a fleeting moment, the idea seemed attractive. But they would kill R’shiel, too. He hurled the blade to the ground and didn’t resist as the Defenders overwhelmed him.