The Forgotten War (136 page)

Esric pursed his lips slightly. ‘Your family will live. I will probably marry your widow, to solidify the alliance between our houses. I will send them all to Sketta as hostages for now
and the boys can join Emeric’s knights when they are old enough. You, however, will die by having your limbs severed from your body one by one, with your head being the last to be removed.
What remains of you will be burnt and sent to Xhenafa, where I hope you will be judged fairly.’

They spoke a little longer, then Esric left him, walked up to the waiting Spalforth and said, ‘You know what he said. See it done and avenge your father. I am going to the estate to get
out of this damned cold.’

The following morning Esric returned to the now-opened gate and walked out of the town towards the stream. He was one of the few sober men left in the town, having eschewed any
alcohol during the previous night’s celebrations. Garal had been executed immediately before the sun went down, without any ceremony or fuss, partly at the man’s own request. He had
spoken to Eva, Garal’s widow, that very night, outlining his plans for her.

‘He was really torn over whom to side with,’ she had said. ‘He always felt you to be too indecisive to lead the war down here and felt his cousins in Arshuma would back him.
Betrayal wasn’t really part of the man he was, but his ambition came to control his every action. When he saw that neither Fenchard nor the Arshuman king were really interested in backing
him, he became violent, depressed and resigned to his fate. He determined to die like a man, to go out fighting. I am not sure his death quite met his expectations.’

‘I had to do it,’ Esric had replied. ‘Whatever his motivations, his actions were of the most egregious nature; my army would not have stood for anything less.’

‘And would you have killed all of us like you threatened to do?’

‘It was a bluff. He would never have seen you all die.’

‘And if he had called it?’

‘I would not have killed you.’ Esric walked off at this point; the second part of his answer, that he would have found someone else to kill them, remained unsaid.

He now stood on the other side of the ditch opposite the gate, having crossed the bridge over the stream. There, stuck on a spear ready to welcome any visitors to the town, was Garal’s
head. Esric had disturbed the crows feeding on it as he drew closer and now saw that they had been there for a while. The eyes had gone and a lot of the flesh had been stripped from the cheeks and
what was left of the neck. Lying in the grass next to him was the sturdy wooden board on which Garal had been tied while the execution had been performed. Dark blood had soaked into its entirety;
shock and blood loss had mercifully killed him quite quickly. As he looked, he saw bits of sinew and gristle stuck to its surface and realised that the two dogs fighting each other at the gates
were in dispute over some tasty morsel gleaned from this very board. He walked away, trying to inhale some cleaner air.

‘What in Camille’s name have I become?’ he said aloud, though only to himself.

‘I thought Camille was not fashionable in Tanaren?’ Esric spun round to see Mikel standing close by. Where had he come from?

‘She is a lover of the arts; poets often invoke her name, even bad ones. Have you been here all along?’

‘Yes, I have been sitting over there by the ditch for a while; and no, I did not use magic to hide myself. You were too deep in thought to see me, I imagine, and with my head the way it is
using my power is something I won’t be doing for a while.’ His head above his eyes was completely enclosed with a blood-spattered bandage.

Esric nodded quietly and continued to walk next to the ditch and stream, Mikel following closely. ‘You know,’ Esric said after a little while, ‘in my youth I used to write love
poems, imagining the way I would woo my bride, the gifts I would give her, the honeyed words I would whisper in her ear. I never thought it would work out that I would win her by dismembering her
husband and sending his limbs to each border of his land to deter any further would-be traitors. I have become little more than just another butcher in a land full of them. In fact, I have become
rather good at it.’

Mikel shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have not been here long but from what I have seen you have done no more or no less than you needed to do to quiet a rebellious land. Most other generals
would be ecstatic at the success you have achieved. There is no one left here to challenge you now.’

‘Well, at least there is one thing – while I winter here, get married and pacify the land, you are free to go north and see that little dark-haired mage you are so fond of. Emeric
will send some knights with you as an escort along with the Knights of the Thorn, whom, I see, you have given the slip yet again.’

Mikel seemed pleased with himself. ‘What can I say? They do seem terribly naive.’

‘Tell Morgan that the south is clear of enemies west of the Broken River and that few remain even west of the Helkus. We can stand with him if he calls upon us.’

‘That I will,’ Mikel replied. ‘Now stop this pointless brooding and go back to your men. From what I can see most of them worship the very ground you tread upon, so they should
at least see you from time to time.’

Mikel walked off towards the town gates, leaving Esric alone again. He looked west towards Sketta, his power base many miles away. Then he looked east towards the occupied lands. Just over the
river Helkus lay Calvannen itself; maybe a concerted campaign in the spring could yield his ancestral lands to him for the first time since the war began. For Esric the Poet Baron, it was just a
wistful dream; for Esric the Butcher, though, it was a tangible reality. He crossed the bridge and followed Mikel back into the town, not looking once at Garal’s ruined head nor at the crows
who had returned to feast there.

Morgan did not consider himself a religious man. Even before battle he rarely attended services and, as far as the ceremonies of Mytha the warrior god, with their anointings of
herb-infused bear blood, were concerned, he considered himself way too old to be involved with such things.

Today, though, was different. Today he felt it incumbent on him to pray and for more than one reason. On the side table in his room he picked up his icon of Artorus; it was a simple wooden
carving; every soldier had one and it was completely unlike the icons of the moneyed and influential which usually featured lacquered wood, lapis lazuli, silver, gold and finest porcelain. Mathilde
collected the things. She had told him she had over a hundred; she kept her favourites next to her bed and prayed to them morning and night. Morgan smiled at the thought; she was quite a pious
lady.

He placed the icon on his table and lit a small candle next to it.

‘To all the Gods,’ he said, ‘ – if you are listening, that is – watch over my wife and child, if they are not already at your side. If you can, let Lisbeth know
that I think of her daily and will continue to do so no matter what recent events have occurred. Also guide me with what I am about to do, give me the wisdom to do the right thing, for, if I am
wrong, if I am not the judge of character that I think I am, then I may be brought to your side this very day. If that happens, then I would ask you judge me on both the good and bad things I have
done in my life and consider that everything I have done has been done with a reason. As it must be. For ever.’

He stopped, stared blankly into space for a while then stood, placing a dagger into a scabbard in his belt. ‘Let’s get on with this,’ he said as he left the room.

The cell door swung open and Morgan strode in flanked by a guard and the smiling jailor. Syalin was sitting in exactly the same place as he had last seen her – on the
chair, apparently lost in her own thoughts, calm and serene.

‘Bind her hands and bring her with us,’ he said in a voice as neutral as it was business-like. Her eyes met his for a second. ‘Time for a reckoning,’ he said to her.

She did not flinch. Rather she stood and let the jailor tie her as ordered.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I will not try to escape.’

She was led all the way out of the prison, down to the gates of the keep. There, Dominic was waiting on his steed with Cheris sitting right behind him, gingerly clinging to him, looking just
like what she was – someone who had never ridden a horse in her life. Syalin was bundled into a wagon, with a soldier sitting either side of her and the jailor opposite. Two other knights
were mounted ready to ride with them and there were also two spare horses, one of which Morgan managed to climb on to without assistance.

They rode through the castle gates, over the drawbridge, down the hill and over the river. Making no real haste they rode through the town, watched by only a couple of the idle and curious.
Leaving Felmere behind, they took the same route as Morgan had recently taken with Itheya. It was colder than that day had been, though, the low grey clouds carrying a threat of snow. The river was
as noisy and cheerful as ever, but today it just looked bitterly cold, a black ribbon crossing a grey, bleak land.

Finally, they reached the trees again. Dominic rode over to Morgan.

‘Up the hill to the plateau next to the waterfall. I will be back in an hour or so.’

‘That is what the lady requested.’ Morgan looked at Cheris who had looked less and less comfortable as the journey had unfolded.

‘Yes, Sir Knight, up the hill,’ Cheris groaned. ‘Please have a care; I feel I might topple off at any moment.’

‘When the lady has seen whatever she wants to, don’t stop to find us; we may already be back in the castle. Take a knight with you; you know how dangerous she is.’ Morgan
laughed at Cheris’s indignant look and at her desperate attempts to cling to Dominic as the three of them disappeared into the trees.

Morgan was left with one knight and the wagon. ‘Let us start back,’ he said to them, turning his horse and feeling his wounds pulling sharply.

They rode on for a little while, until they reached a tiny copse next to the river. Within a dozen trees was a tiny bush-fringed glade, its bare earth covered by scant patches of grass and
scattered leaves brown with decay. The wagon stopped here in front of Morgan and he watched as Syalin was led out of it, a rope around her neck and tightly binding her wrists. She was wearing a
cloak against the cold, which the jailor removed, leaving her in her linen robe and boots. Throwing the cloak to one of his colleagues in the wagon, he climbed back in and turned to Morgan as he
did so.

‘Your instructions have not changed, my Lord.’

‘No. They remain as I told you earlier.’

The jailor bowed as best he could and called to the driver to be off. Within a minute the glade was deserted. Deserted apart from Morgan and Syalin.

‘Stand over there. Turn your back to me,’ he said curtly.

She obeyed. She was right next to the river.

‘I never thought it would happen somewhere so cold,’ she said quietly. ‘It will be quick, won’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it will not take long at all.’

‘I thank you for that.’ Her voice could barely be heard above the rushing water.

‘Shall I kneel?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said. She heard the sound of a dagger being unsheathed. It would not be so bad. This was a pretty spot and the trees concealed them from any
onlookers; perhaps she would be tipped into the river when it was done. No, she thought, the river runs through the city and, if he wanted this to be done quietly, it would rather ruin the purpose
if her lifeless body were to float past Felmere Castle. Why was she wondering such things? It hardly mattered, after all. She heard him approach. He was right behind her. She would have been much
quieter than he, she thought wryly. For what good that did. She relaxed and waited for the inevitable.

A magpie hopped across the glade not ten feet from her; it gave her a quick, curious glance and continued on its way. Still she waited.

Then she felt the knife behind her, grazing her arm. He was doing this all wrong; perhaps it wouldn’t be that quick after all. Then it dawned on her exactly what he was doing. He was
cutting her bonds.

Just a few seconds later he was standing in front of her, holding the frayed and severed cords. He threw them to the ground. ‘I told you it wouldn’t take long,’ he said with a
half-smile.

She looked at him dumbstruck. Her mouth opened, but no words came for a few seconds. Finally, all she could manage was ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I am letting you go,’ Morgan said. ‘You were just doing your job. Your actions were decided elsewhere and so I have no interest in vengeance. You can go. Your life is your
own.’

She continued to look at him, her mouth open like a goldfish.

‘Oh, and this is yours – you might need it.’ He threw her the knife, which she caught without thinking. It was one of hers. Then Morgan spoke again.

‘Ach, now what have I done? I have given you your knife. Here of all places where no one can see us. I had forgotten, too, you are part of a greater being and bound to kill me. You cannot
think for yourself or this great being dies; at least, that is what you told me. Well,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘you had better get on with it; I am too wounded to run or fight back.
Unless, of course, you actually are capable of independent thought and can decide for yourself, whether or not to pursue this action. I am here. You had better get on and kill me.’ He opened
his arms and waited, his face non-committal.

‘Are you mad?’ she whispered. She felt the knife in her hand; he was so close it would be easy.

‘No.’ said Morgan, ‘but I do think that you are not the person you pretend to be. You are not divorced from your actions and you are capable of thinking and acting
independently. I have shown you clemency; the rest is up to you.’

‘Where would I go?’

‘Well, if you kill me, your mission is accomplished; you can go back to your Emperor in triumph and spend the last eight years of your life slaughtering other people or being the
Emperor’s little plaything, if what Cedric has told me has any truth. The blackroot is on me; you can take it at your leisure. Come along. It is getting cold here and I haven’t got all
day.’