‘Come in, boy,’ the cottager growled; Meg brought a cup of something hot and herbal from the small pot she kept on the side of the hearth.
‘Why, Davy, what are you doing out on a night like this?’
The boy paused at the sight of the two strangers; Jimmy gave him a smile and snicked the dagger home in its sheath at his belt; the firelight caught the fretwork on the guard of his rapier.
‘Travellers,’ the cottager said. ‘Now, Davy-boy, why’d you come calling for Meg? Someone ill, or come to their time?’
Aside to Jarvis and the young thief: ‘This un’s Davy, son to Tael at the Holly Bush. Not the first time Meg’s been called out on a filthy night.’
‘Two of the Baron’s armsmen,’ Davy said, sipping at the herbal drink and calming. ‘Beaten! Naked and beaten in the stable.’
‘Serves them right,’ his host growled. ‘Let ’em fester, I say.’
‘Your mother could handle bruises, or setting a bone broken in a brawl,’ Meg said. As she spoke she went to the bed and hauled out another box, this one of boards covered in rawhide. ‘What else is wrong with them?’
Davy looked at the men, shuffled from one foot to the other, and then blurted, ‘They walked out of the door and claimed that a…a whore lured them to the stables, and her pimp beat them!’
The cottager scowled more deeply. ‘A likely story. There aren’t no loose women at the Holly Bush.’
‘That’s what they say,’ Davy claimed. His pimply face looked more hideous as he blushed. ‘And…well, their clothes and weapons and all were gone, and they had their hair and beards cut off, and they were all rolled and slobbered with dung, and…and–’
‘Out with it, boy!’
‘And someone shoved a pinecone up their arses! Both of them!’
Meg began to cackle with laughter as she sorted through her herbs and simples and tools. After a moment of blank incredulity, so did her husband, howling until he had to bend nearly double and hug his ribs, staggering across the cottage and bumping into the walls.
‘Ah, many’s the time I’ve wanted to do that to one of the toplofty cut-throat bastards myself,’ the old man wheezed. ‘Hee, hee, hee! They’ll be sittin’ down careful for months, they will–and squatting cautious-like at the jakes. Hee, hee!’
Davy gave an uneasy grin, but by the way he was standing he was also tightening his buttocks.
Jimmy chuckled, too. Probably funnier to hear about than to see, he thought. Still, I wouldn’t mind hearing the same news about Jocko Radburn, or del Garza, or their master either.
‘And them girls is gone,’ Davy went on.
‘Girls?’ Jimmy said sharply.
‘Them girls that came in the dog-cart from Land’s End yesterday ’bout suppertime,’ he said. ‘Pretty as pictures, they was.’ He gave an enthusiastic description.
‘Flora!’ Jimmy and Jarvis said at the same time.
‘–for all one had a limp,’ the boy finished.
‘Lorrie!’ Jimmy said.
The bottom dropped out of Jimmy’s stomach, and Jarvis Coe cursed quietly in a language Jimmy didn’t recognize. They looked at each other.
‘That’s torn it,’ Jarvis said grimly.
Jimmy nodded, pulling on his oil-treated wool cloak. He yanked the hood forward, reflecting bitterly that this was what came of Flora’s newfound sense of responsibility. She’d got him poking his head into a sewer rats’ den again.
‘No time for subtlety,’ he said.
‘No time at all,’ Coe replied.
The rain blew cold into their faces as they left the cosy, smoky warmth of the cottage.
The skin wrinkled on the back of Jimmy’s neck, and he didn’t think it was down to the trickle of cold water; rather it was due to the thought of Flora and Lorrie in that place.
Bram looked up sharply, startled out of an uneasy doze. Thunder crashed, and lightning glared through the high small window–far too small for a man to squeeze through, and barred with iron, even if he hadn’t been chained.
It wasn’t time for the meagre ration of bread he got; he’d be weak with hunger by now, if it weren’t for the food the children brought him. It wasn’t time to empty the slop bucket either. But he could hear the rasp of a key in the lock. A moment later, he was squinting against the yellow light of a lantern held high in the turnkey’s fist, a tin cylinder pierced to let the candle-shine out.
Then it went out, a freak gust turning it into a wisp of bitter-smelling smoke gusting out through the metal. The turnkey cursed, and so did the mercenaries crowding behind him.
‘Well, get another’n lit: we need light for this,’ one of them said to a man behind him.
Bram grinned. He didn’t feel the cold fear that sometimes blew through this chamber. Instead he felt something that radiated anger–but it wasn’t aimed at him, and somehow it made him feel warm and safer, however mad that was. It reminded him of his mother.
Another lamp came, and went out; the third guttered wildly but didn’t extinguish, since the holder shielded the flame with his hand. With the light, the armed men advanced on Bram. One carried a singlejack, a light blacksmith’s hammer, and a chisel.
‘No games,’ a big mercenary said; Bram recognized him from the fight at the ford, and scowled. The big man grinned at him, and went on: ‘Lord Bernarr says we can’t kill you. But we can mess you up, eh? Nothin’ says you have to have sound legs or unbroken arms, right?’
He shoved another burlap bag over Bram’s head, and drew the drawstring painfully tight. The young man gasped, drawing in the sweetish scent of the oats that had filled the bag not long ago, and sneezed helplessly.
‘Foolishness,’ someone said–Bram couldn’t see a thing now, just feel the rough hands pushing and shoving him. ‘Why not leave the chains on?’
‘Sump’n about cold iron, the magicker said,’ another voice replied–the weasel-like skinny man’s.
The hammer peened musically on the back of a cold chisel, and the manacles fell away so that Bram gave a grunt of relief. Then he bit his lips against a yell, as rough rope bit into his wrists where the iron had rubbed them raw. His feet were still free, though, and he was direly tempted to kick out.
Better not. Just get a beating, he thought. Wait for the moment. Wherever they’re taking me, it can’t be worse than being chained in this room with invisible spirits running loose through it.
As the men hustled him out, he heard an incongruous sound: the whistle of a poorwit, one of the little birds that haunted hedgerows back at home in the valley.
Beneath the rough cloth, Bram grinned. He’d taught young Rip how to whistle that way just last summer. He had more friends here than his captors suspected.
Lorrie looked around, restraining the impulse to rub at her leg. It was itching and hurting; the itching indicated that it was healing, but it was a long way from healed, and if she pushed it too far she could rip it open again.
Bram, she thought. Rip. She could do anything she had to do.
‘I wish Jimmy were here,’ Flora said nervously.
‘Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him,’ Lorrie said.
‘They wouldn’t, if he didn’t want them to,’ Flora said. ‘But we’ve got to do something now.’
Lightning rolled again, showing the grim bulk of the manor ahead, outlined against the night sky; rain hissed down unceasingly. She squinted. ‘That’s a light!’ she said. ‘Look, there, in the tower at the corner.’
A wavering yellow glow came from the narrow windows there; narrow enough to double as arrow-slits.
‘Maybe they won’t notice us, then,’ Flora said.
As they approached the grounds, a vague uneasy feeling visited them. It seemed to get stronger with every second as they neared the entrance. ‘Something’s wrong,’ whispered Flora.
Lorrie said, ‘Maybe we should go look for Jimmy?’
Flora said, ‘I think you’re right.’ She was verging on turning around the dog cart, when she said, ‘Wait a minute!’
> ‘What?’
‘Do you really want to abandon looking for Bram?’ Flora asked.
‘Well, we wouldn’t be really abandoning him, but we’d be…’
‘Putting it off just a little?’
‘Yes, that would be exactly what we’d be doing,’ Lorrie agreed. ‘And, besides, maybe the weather will be nicer tomorrow and I think we’d do better looking…’ She stopped when she saw Flora get a strange expression on her face.
Flora’s forehead was lined in concentration, and she set her jaw as if she were trying not to yell out. She narrowed her gaze and said, ‘Damn it!’ and flicked the reins. Flora urged the horse forward until they came to the wrought-iron gates; there was a small room beside them, built into the wall that circled the garden. It was only six feet tall, although topped with spikes; built long after the manor, and to keep out game and livestock rather than enemies. As if willing the words out, Flora asked, ‘What is it you’d rather be doing than going in there right now?’
Lorrie pressed herself back into the leather of the seat as if trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the gate. ‘Anything, actually. Just about anything you could name.’
Flora nodded emphatically. ‘Yup. I’m thinking we just ran into one of those wards rich people sometimes pay old Alban for.’
‘Who’s Alban?’
‘Magician I knew once,’ was all Flora said. ‘You put this thing called a ward around something you don’t want people to bother, and they come up with reasons why they don’t want to bother with it, just like they thought it up all on their own.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Lorrie, ‘but wouldn’t this be better if we found Jimmy first?’
‘It would,’ said Flora as handed the reins to Lorrie. She got down from the dog-cart, one hand in the pocket under her cloak which held more of the powder that hit men like a fist, and walked over to the gatekeeper’s room. Over her shoulder she said, ‘But if we did find him, we’d find other reasons not to come here. Right now I want to be anywhere else more than I want to be here, so that tells me that this is where I need to be.’
Lorrie didn’t fully understand, but she said, ‘So we go anyway?’
‘Having Jimmy here would be better, but we go anyway.’ She stuck her head into the window that was the only opening on this side and looked around. ‘Nobody here,’ she said, pulling her head out. ‘But it stinks: someone’s been living here.’
‘How do we get through?’ Lorrie asked, looking at the tall iron gates with a worried look. I might be able to climb that with both legs working proper, she thought unhappily. With this, I’d have trouble getting on a horse again, once I’m down on the ground. Maybe we should wait until my leg is better…
‘Not a problem,’ Flora said, interrupting Lorrie’s next reason for not going inside.
She took off her cloak and pushed it through the gate’s grille, then unbuckled her borrowed–stolen–swordbelt and did likewise with that, fitting it through carefully.
Then she backed up half a dozen steps, ran forward lightly, and jumped like a cat. That put her nearly head-high on the iron; she swarmed up the rest of the slippery metal as if it were a ladder, and flipped herself neatly over the top before clambering down on the other side. She jumped free when still higher than her own height, and landed lightly, perfectly in control as she took the force with bent knees.
Lorrie goggled. What was it she did for a living in Krondor? she wondered. Set up for a mountebank and tumbler?
Flora was grinning as she heaved at the long bolt that kept the gates fastened from the inside. ‘No lock!’ she said. ‘Just this bolt, and a chain looped through it.’
The chain clattered free, and Flora retrieved her cloak and weapons before they rode up toward the gates of the manor.
‘I’m coming, Bram, Rip!’ Lorrie said grimly. Once spoken, those words seem to vanquish the terrible feeling she had that they should do more before attempting to enter the grounds.
‘Who are you?’ Bram said.
‘Silence,’ the oily voice replied, and a brief stabbing pain came from everywhere and nowhere.
Breath hissed out between his teeth. The room smelled wrong, like a sickroom: old rotten blood and malevolence. There was cold stone under his back, and the mercenaries were fastening him down with leather ties. Oddly, they went around his knees and elbows, not his wrists and ankles.
Oh, gods, he thought sickly. It’s sized for children! This is where they sacrificed the children they stole. Even then, his belly twisted with nausea.
The mercenaries went about their business as briskly as if they’d been trussing a hog for slaughter. It left him stretched out like a starfish, painfully so since the ties were at a slightly lower level than the ridged surface on which he rested. Cold air flowed across his skin as his breeches and shirt were cut away and pulled off. Then fingers fumbled at the drawstring of the bag that covered his head. He could already see a diffuse glow of light through the coarse weave of the cloth. When it was pulled away, he had a brief glimpse of a large richly-furnished room with windows, two doors, and through one a bed on which rested a beautiful, pale-faced woman, apparently asleep.
‘Cover his face!’ a man barked. The voice sounded old and weary, but the command carried authority.
Of him, Bram could only see the back and his clasped hands; there were jewelled rings on the fingers, and his jacket was of rich dark velvet.
‘It is done, my lord,’ the nondescript middle-aged man standing by Bram’s head said.
Nondescript, that is, until you saw his eyes. They were like windows into…not emptiness, but a void where even darkness would be snuffed out. Like nothing Bram had seen in his life, they caused fear to visit the pit of his stomach, ice to run up his back, and his arm hair to stand on end. The man’s eyes were windows into less-than-nothing.
He smiled and dropped a long silk scarf over Bram’s features.
‘Wouldn’t want to leave you out of the festivities, boy,’ he murmured as he went about his work.
The silk would hide him from anyone looking, but Bram could see through the gauzy cloth himself–dimly.
During the brief moment his eyes were clear, he’d also seen the inscribed figures drawn around the stone-topped table to which he was bound, and the black candles that guttered at the points; a rug rolled back against one wall showed that they were usually covered. Bram had his letters. He didn’t know what those writhing glyphs were, and had no wish to know. Looking at them made his eyes hurt, and he wrenched his gaze away. At the edges of his consciousness, something giggled and tittered.
‘Let me loose, you bastard!’ Bram yelled.
‘Silence,’ the man said again; and the pain returned, shooting spikes into his gut and groin and joints.
Silence it is, Bram thought, testing the bindings. Strong leather, from the feel of them, far stronger than needed for children, and he couldn’t even rock the stone table; it would take six strong men to lift, or two with a dolly.
Bad, he thought. Very bad. Help!
Astonishingly, something touched his face for an instant–something like a woman’s hand, warm and tender.
Off in the distance something fell with a crash and a clatter. He could hear a distant voice howl in pain, and then: ‘It’s the little bastards again! Get sand, get water, put out the god-damned fire!’
The unimpressive man with the terrible eyes shrugged.
‘Time to commence, my lord,’ he said. ‘It’s only an hour and–’ he looked at a sand-timer, ‘–perhaps five minutes to the time.’
‘Elaine,’ the older man said.
It was more of a croon; there was a longing in the word that made the young man take notice despite the hammering of blood in his temples and the dryness of his mouth.
Bram could see the one with the evil eyes, the magician as Bram now thought of him, pick up a small tool and a pot and he steeled himself for more pain, but there was only a brief wet coolness, touching him just up fro
m where his pubic hair began. The magician was chanting under his breath, in a quick-rising, slow-falling tongue Bram didn’t recognize.
Another touch, just a little higher than the first. Bram craned his head up until his neck creaked, trying to glimpse over the muscled arch of his chest and see what the man was doing. It took a moment to realize what was happening; then he began to tug at the restraints again.
A neat line of red dashes was being painted up the centre of his body, heading for the breastbone.
‘Why isn’t there anyone here?’ Flora said, looking around the entrance hall of the manor.
The great building should have had someone on duty at the front door, even though it was just before midnight. Instead there was only the clear blue flame of an expensive lamp filled with imported scented oil.
‘Just be glad there isn’t,’ Lorrie said.
They both shed their wet cloaks–the greasy wool didn’t smell any better for being soaked through and it just made them chillier now that they were out of the rain–letting them drop to the floor.
Then: ‘Rip is here. He’s close–he’s thinking about me!’
‘Where do we–’ Flora began.
Then she jumped and squeaked. Beside the great fireplace a section of wood panelling was swinging outward on smooth, noiseless hinges.
Lorrie’s hand went to her knife. Then she caught her breath and collapsed onto one knee despite the twinge in her leg, holding out her arms.
‘Lorrie!’ Rip squealed.
He ran to her so fast he skidded and didn’t quite bowl her over. Three other children followed him out. Lorrie gasped.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Rip said, drawing back. ‘I forgot. Bram told me you hurt your leg.’
‘Bram!’ Lorrie said. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s up there.’ That came from a blonde girl about Lorrie’s age, in a dust-stained frock. She pointed to one corner of the room, where a stone staircase curled upwards. ‘They took him away,’ she said and her great blue eyes looked haunted. ‘People don’t come back, when they take them away.’