The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (62 page)

Gully said, “Aye, thank you. I probably overreact, and I beg your indulgence with my moods. My foster brother, Roald, is very special to me, and I should have made that more known in the past. His formality around me, almost like he no longer knows me, is very difficult for me. I am not sure...” Gully sighed, “Never mind...”

“I should not make the same mistake with you,” he said more firmly.

Gully grabbed Gellen and embraced him tightly, then repeated it with Gallun.

He said with more of a smile than he had managed all day, “My beloved brothers.”

The next morning, Gully woke early and his mind was too active to let him go back to sleep. He put on his robe, left the wolves sleeping on the bed and went to sit in a deep chair of soft sheepskin in front of the cooling embers in the massive fireplace.

At first he studied the pannyfruit trees carved into the stone that served as the pilasters on either side of the fireplace. He even noticed a tiny fuss finch carved into the branches of one of the trees that he had never noticed before.

His eyes settled on the embers of the fire and his mind went back to the thief that had been brought before him the day before. He had thought hard about what the patriarch had said, the encouragement that he and Thaybrill, and Wyael even, had given him afterwards. In his heart, though, he knew he could not sit in judgment of people when he had done worse. Everyone else seemed willing to ignore the crimes of his past, except for possibly veWarrnest. And Gully, himself. Certainly not while condemning others. Having a conscience and finding himself in the position he had been in the day before was not something he was able to, or willing to, endure.

His mind turned to how to make reparations for his crimes so that his conscience could be cleared. That was where he bogged down, and he spent a long time, staring into the softly glowing embers of the waning fire, wondering how best to do that.

At some point, he heard the door to his chambers open, and a chambermaid he had not seen before came in. She stopped suddenly when she saw the king there. She looked like she had no idea what to do and settled on dropping to one knee with her head lowered.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” she said softly, “but I was told to come and collect the spent candles in your chambers and replace them with fresh ones. I did not know you were still here. I will come back later.”

She stood and turned to leave, but Gully said, “You do not need to leave. I’ve been sitting here for a while, unable to sleep.”

He glanced out of his massive window and saw how light it had grown outside while he had been thinking. He had been there longer than he realized.

“You aren’t disturbing me, so please go ahead and do what you need to do,” he said.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement and began collecting the candle stubs quietly. She made her way over towards the far side of the room and Gully went back to thinking, his eyes focusing back on the fireplace.

Barely a second later, Gully almost jumped out of his robe at the blood-curdling scream that came from behind him.

He looked around and saw the chambermaid flattened against the wall in horror. Across from her, and standing on the bed where he had finally awakened, was Gallun. Gellen, startled by the scream, jumped up so that both wolves were now standing on the bed and trying to understand what the screaming was about.

The girl stood, candle stubs scattered at her feet, and begged breathlessly, “The wolves, Your Highness! Please do not let them eat me! I beg you!”

Gallun and Gellen looked around, puzzled, almost as if they expected to see some other wolves in the room with them.

Gully said, “The wolves?”

“I had heard you surrounded yourself with the monsters from the Ghellerweald, but I believed them to be silly rumors, Your Highness! Please do not let them kill me!” she begged with a trembling voice.

Gully said, “What is your name?”

“Sire?”

“You’re perfectly safe, you have my word. What is your name?”

“It’s Merta, Your Majesty.”

“Merta, come over here and sit down for a moment,” said Gully, pointing at the deep couch next to the chair he was in front of.

She slid along the wall while keeping a wary eye on the wolves on the bed, then ran over closer to Gully as fast as she could.

Gully gestured to the couch again, but Merta shook her head and said with a slight curtsey, “Your Highness! I cannot sit in your presence! It is not allowed!”

Gully shrugged and said, “And a few weeks ago, I was the thief of Lohrdanwuld and you would have been offended if I had spoken to you in the street. Please, Merta... sit.”

Her eyes darted mistrustfully from Gully to the wolves still on the bed and back, but she slowly sat on the couch as asked. Gully sat down on the edge of the chair he had been occupying.

“I have not seen you in the Folly before, Merta,” he said.

“Oh, uhm... Your Highness, if it please you... my father has gotten behind in paying our taxes, and a cousin of mine works in the kitchens here in the Folly. She helped get me a position as a scullery maid so that I could help. Yesterday was my first day.” She gave a penitent smile, as if she expected to be sacked immediately for causing so much commotion on her second day. She pulled discretely at her white coif hat to make sure it sat correctly over her blond hair.

“Oh, I see,” said Gully. “Gallun, Gellen, will you please come here?”

Merta started shaking so much she looked like she might shake herself to pieces. “Please, Your Highness! I’m sorry for making such a mess, but do not turn me over to the monsters!”

Gully waved at Gallun and Gellen to come over and said to the girl, “No one’s turning you over to anyone! And Gallun and Gellen are not monsters! What makes you call them monsters?”

Merta paled, afraid she had now added insulting the king to the list of terrible mistakes she had made that morning. Her mouth opened, but nothing more than a squeak came out.

Gully said, “I’m genuinely curious as to what makes you think of them as monsters, that’s all.”

She gave another glance at the wolves, who were now sitting in front of the fireplace, a few feet away from her. Gallun was yawning again. Gellen was looking rather testy that anyone would call him a monster.

“I... I heard you somehow could control them. We all have heard about the monsters in the woods, the ones that would take people and eat them after doing horrible things to them. The rumor is that you have somehow mastered them and turn them loose on anyone that crosses you. People, out in the city, have even started calling you the Wolf King! And then there are stories that it wasn’t them, but our own people, nobles even, that were stealing people! But yet, here you are with these creatures from the woods, creatures that were once men and now are cursed! I no longer know what to think!”

“Ah,” said Gully. He sank into silence while he tried to decide the best way to sort out all of the rumors and stories the girl had in her mind and replace them with the truth.

Gellen snorted a muted “Mrph!” indignantly at Gully when he didn’t speak quickly enough. Gully said, “Yes, Gellen, just a moment. I’m thinking!”

Merta’s eyes got wide and she said, “They’re true! The stories are true! You can speak to wolves!”

“Hmm?” said Gully, pulled from his musings. “Oh, not really. I just know them quite well, and Gellen can be a little impatient.”

Gellen growled slightly and shifted his weight on his haunches. His ears pulled back as if offended.

Gully looked at him tartly and said, “Oh, do you deny it? Even now?”

Gellen sank down so that he lay on the floor and refused to look at Gully.

“They are not monsters, Merta, and they were not
once
men. They
are
men, even now. These are good people. They are good men that have had terrible stories told about them to scare everyone from the truth behind the disappearances. I know all the stories you’ve heard about them. I’ve heard all of them as well, and I believed them as you did, but none of them are true.”

“The gypsies from the woods that you’re thinking of are real — they’re called Balmoreans. They are a kind and moral people, Merta. Some, like Gallun and Gellen, are exceptionally well-trained fighters, but they are not wantonly violent.”

Merta nodded that she understood, even if she still wasn’t fully convinced.

Gully said to the wolves, “May I impose on you to transform for her so that she will see that you are indeed men?”

They both transformed into humans, and Merta gasped when she saw the two men standing suddenly before her. Then she realized they were both naked and she gasped again and cast her eyes aside.

Gully laughed and said, “Because of their ability to change between animal and human form, they do not concern themselves over their naked forms as much as we Iisenors do.”

Merta was unable to keep from looking at them. She slowly looked up at them again and asked them, “Does it hurt to change like that?”

Gallun and Gellen looked embarrassed and said nothing.

“They cannot speak. The criminal allies of the Domo Regent cut their tongues out. These two men, just like many Iisenors, were to be sold into slavery to the Maqarans. But to answer your question, no, changing from one form to the other does not hurt at all. It is in their nature to do so. It is much like an Iisenor with a beautiful voice desires to sing, to use her gift.”

Gallun smiled at her and reached out his hand in a polite greeting to Merta.

She blushed fire-red to do so with a naked man, but hastily shook his offered hand before jerking it back.

Merta asked, “How did they come to be your pets, Your Highness?”

Gallun frowned, and Gellen growled low in his throat. Merta seemed to realize her mistake and gave a pained look to Gully.

Gully said to them, “It is ignorance, friends, but easy to overcome.”

To Merta he said, “These are men.
All
of the Balmoreans are people, just like you and me. Some of them have the gift of being dual-bodied, like Gallun and Gellen. They are not my pets, which would make them little more than the slaves they were at risk of becoming not so long ago. What you see as being pets is, in fact, no more than the fact that they are very dear friends to me. I already said that Gallun and Gellen and I have been through much together and I highly value their company.”

Gully stood behind the two men and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “They are free to do as they wish, but they choose to stay near to me out of loyalty to our bond. Their friendship and trust is a very great comfort when I have much need of it,” he said, more to the balmors than to Merta, and got from them in return broad smiles.

Merta asked Gully if he was one of them, as she had heard, and if he could turn into a wolf as well.

Gully spent the next few minutes explaining how only some were balmors, and that balmors were not always wolves. He told how, even though he was not a balmor, he was a member of their society through a blood-seal, something that made him both happy and proud.

Gully reminded Merta that she should have no fear of any of the Balmoreans she would undoubtedly run across in the castle. His explanations done, Merta stood, curtsied again and set about the task she had come to do.

In the meantime, Gully began thinking again, adding to the list yet another problem that he now discovered as a result of his conversation with Merta. A comment she had made stuck in his mind, though, and he began following it and thinking about it. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was the key to a different problem he was suffering. He made a decision and left soon after to act upon it since it felt good to be able to take a step like this on his own.

~~~~~

Gully said, “No, no, Wyael. Hold your arm out from you a little further and keep your eye on where you want the knife to go. You cannot watch the knife in your hand and expect to know where you’re throwing it.”

Wyael stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on the straw target covered in brown burlap. He carefully drew his hand back with Gully’s own throwing knife in his grip. He closed an eye to try to focus better on the target, one of the ones usually used by the archers of the Guard for practice. Gully had placed the target very close by for their first practice session.

Gully stopped him, “Wyael, open your eyes. You cannot see properly if you close one of them.”

Wyael drew his arm back and threw the knife at the target. It hit the target quite well this time, but it hit it handle first, so it only bounced off.

Gully said, “Well, there’s a good improvement there! Your aim is much better! Now we will just practice so you begin to feel how to judge distance and can land it blade first.”

Gully stood back and let Wyael practice a few more times. There was small crowd gathered for the lesson the king was giving Wyael in how to throw a knife, a keen interest in it having sprung up after the display a few days ago in the Throne Hall. Even Dunnhem had joined them, lapping up every tip Gully gave and trying to learn the skill just the same as the young boy was learning it.

While Dunnhem and Wyael continued to practice, Gully looked to Thaybrill and said, “Do you have any desire to learn, Thaybrill? I will teach you as well, if you like.”

Thaybrill didn’t seem to hear the question, and when Gully followed Thaybrill’s eyes, he found them watching Roald dismounting his horse, probably having arrived back from meetings in one of the garrisons across the city. Thaybrill’s eyes stared, almost unblinking, at the Lord Marshal as he led his horse back into the stables. Gully even saw a soft sigh escape from his brother’s lips.

The others were occupied with Wyael and Dunnhem practicing their throws, but as Gully watched, it fell into place like a pick finally hitting a tricky lock tumbler and allowing a mysterious door to swing open. Gully recognized the look he saw on his brother’s face. The realization surprised him, some, but not in a bad way, and it explained a lot. It certainly did not diminish the affection that had steadily grown for his twin brother over time.