Chapter Three

3.

As Nettie took her first plodding steps up the Rainbow Bridge the dusk sun was cracking open like a dropped egg, smearing yolk and a little blood across the horizon.  Gabe and Cob sat cheek by jowl on the bench behind the mule’s swaying rump, jostling into each other at every rattle of the cobbles.  

Ahead, the bridge roadway looked nothing like it had mere hours before; twilight’s shadows had turned the stones from grey to blue and the crowds of villagers were all gone.  Most of the vendors had vanished as well, leaving the bridge eerily abandoned.  The only folk left behind were an odd crew of orphans and beggars set to the task of cleaning up with brooms and refuse carts.  Some were sweeping furiously, hoping to earn the magister’s approval and a few nits for wine or tin gin; others were only bending their backs to search for discarded heels of bread.  All told there were maybe twenty of them spaced out along the sides of the bridge, most of them filthy, scrawny children, but there were a few crones mixed in as well, and one lumbering giant of a man, three heads taller and half-again the girth of Gabe.  Cob knew that one. The Big Idiot he was called.  When it came to nicknaming the misfortunate the people of Thimble Downs were no less cruel or uncreative than the villagers of any other Triton town.  

The idiot stared vacantly as they rolled toward him, resting his chin on an overlong broom that looked like a twig in his hands.  His huge blue eyes were like a infant’s, curious and naive, and strand of drool leaked from the corner of his mouth.  Cob waved but the man didn’t notice, his attention distracted by a fly.  

“He’d have made a fine berserker if he’d been right in the head,” said Gabe, giving Nettie an encouraging swat with his switch.  “Though maybe it’s best he was born gentle.  A beast like that with a temper would be a fearsome thing.”  Cob nodded his agreement.

“I fought next to a man that size at Brackwater under Randen Norrell’s banner.  He was fearsome indeed, but on the very first charge the Altarians brought him down like wolves on a boar.  Big men make big targets.”  

“Randen Norrell’s banner,” said Gabe.  “Scarlet phoenix on a black field?”  Cob glanced sideways at him.

“It was.  With an arrow through the breast.” 

“It caught fire that day.  Struck by a flaming arrow.”  Cob almost smiled.

“It did.  No one can say the Altarians haven’t got a sense of humor, dark though it be. You fought the Brackwater, then?”  

“Aye. Guy Thalis and the Iron Horse.”

“A fine company.  Were you at Ashfall with them as well?”

“Nye.”  Gabe lifted his vest and shirt, exposing a stomach like a boulder covered in black fur.  By his navel there was a puckered scar the size of child’s fist.  “I took that from one of Selthena’s bloody spearmen on the second day of The Brackwater.  Put me flat on my back in a Vella’s tent for three whole moons, sleeping and chasing the promise.  Couldn’t even get up for a proper shit.  When I finally come out the war was over and Old Triton was no more.”  Gabe spat.  “Hell of a thing to wake up to, that.  I was of a mind to go right back into the tent, but the Vellas wouldn’t have me.  So I traded in my armor for a sack full of coppers and sought out the worst inn in Shiner’s Port, intent on wining myself to death.”  He grinned.  “That’s where the wife found me.  She’d been my brother’s woman but he lost his head to a Phaeon blade at Ashfall and made a widow of her.  If she hadn’t come round to dunk my head in a bucket I’d be wandering Necartha with my kin by now.”

“Bloody Phaeons,” Cob said absently, his mind seeming to drift.  Gabe grunted.

“A name I’d not heard or spoken in seven years or more before today.  Not that I wished to.  I’ll tell you though, Cobbler, I have thought of them.  Every time I see your boy go riding past on that horse.  Just the sight of it makes my bowels go to water.  He is one of them, isn’t he?”

“You see it well as I,” lamented Cob.  “But as you said, some things need not be dwelt on without good reason.”

“Aye.  I only bring it up now out of concern for the boy.  You ought to know. . .if he is one of them, that sword may awaken the blood.  Those blades aren’t just made of steel.  There’s life in them.  I heard told once by Guy Thalis, anyhow.  He lived prisoner among the Altarians for a time.”

“I know it,” Cob replied, tersely.  “It is true.  The memories will rise, sword or no.  It’s already begun.”

“Has it now?”  Cob nodded.

“You heard how he took the doe this morning?  Through the heart from a hundred paces while at a canter over uneven ground?  One bowman in fifty could make that shot, given a hundred chances.  The boy still thinks it’s luck, but I’ve seen him perform similar feats a dozen times this year.  Whatsmore, he thrashes in his sleep of late, calling out a woman’s name.  Not his mother’s or any Triton’s.  Lanadara.”

“Lanadara,” said Gabe.  “Blazes.  I’m sorry, Friend.  I’d say that sets a mortar of it.”  Cob sighed, solemnly.

“It won’t be much longer now,” he mused, more to himself than to Gabe.  “The blood will call him to Altaria.”

“Will the Phaeons open their gates to him?  At his age?”

“I don’t know.  But I think he will go, anyhow.  I see restlessness in him already.”

“You won’t try to stop him?”  Cob shook his head.

“Of course I will.  But. . .I didn’t learn much from the war, Drobbins.  But one thing it did teach me is that when fate paves roads for a man, there’s little use in trying to steer him down one or the other.  They all lead to the same place.”

“Aye,” said Gabe.  “I’d take the oath on that with you.”

They were coming to the peak of the bridge now.  Over the top of it the road pitched down towards Ganther’s statue.  Cob spotted Minda a third of the way there, climbing up on a table to retrieve the wooden muffin from atop her tent.  She was still wearing her apron with the ties flailing loose behind her.  Her stall was one of only three left standing on this side of the bridge, every other besides Cob’s and one of the tincture hawker’s had been dismantled.  Cob thought it odd that the hawker was still open but then he caught sight of the man, slumped on one of his barrels with his chin on his chest.  Sleeping off an overindulgence in one of his own potions most likely.  

“Minda,” Gabe yelled, stopping the wagon in front of her tent.  “Leave that blasted muffin alone.  I’ll get it.”  The plump, matronly woman glanced over her shoulder at the two of them.

“There you are.  I was getting worried.”  She climbed down off the table with the muffin in hand and hefted it over to the wagon, dropping it into the straw.  Then she looked up at Cob, her cheeks flushed from the exertion.  “Is Wilhem all right, Cob?  Will he need a Vella?”  

“I don’t think so.  He should be fine, thanks to you and your husband.  We stitched him up and he’s resting.”

“Good, good.  I about fell over when I saw what they did to him.  That Lorel Breylock. . .he’s a dungheap with a whore’s lips, that’s what he is.  What of the horse?”

“We’re going to see about that now,” said Gabe, who had stepped down from the bench and was chocking one of the wheels with a stone he kept in the wagon bed.  “I’ll be accompanying Cob to Whitestone to stand as witness to the boy’s injuries.”

“Now?” She balked.  “What of the shops?”

“We’ll pack everything up in the wagon.  There’s plenty of room for what little we have between us.”  Gabe passed his eyes over Minda’s things.  Besides the tent itself there was only the little oven, a couple of empty trays and baskets and the table, which was really just four planks laid across two sawhorses.  Cob’s things didn’t amount to much more.  Minda looked doubtful though, anyhow.

“Wouldn’t it be better to start anew in the morning?”

“It would,” said Cob.  Gabe was already on the move, collecting the oven.  “But besides his wounds Wilhem also brought home urgent news that must reach Lord Jondel’s ears tonight.”  Cob awkwardly lowered himself from the cart, attempting to use only one of his legs.  He nearly toppled over when he reached the ground.  Minda caught his arm and steadied him.

“Thank you,” he grumbled.  

“Urgent news,” said Minda, still clutching his arm, “usually means bad news.  What’s happening?”  Gabe brushed past her at that moment, setting the oven down in the bed of the wagon.  His eyes met Cob’s and he gave a very slight shake of his head.

“Nothing too awful,” said Cob.  “Wilhem saw a band of men wearing Miravel colors camped on the banks of the river a league south of here.  He thinks they mean to knock down the old Forger’s bridge to obstruct the waters and interrupt the flow of timber to Tanis.  Lord Jondel will want to rout them out before they get the chance.  Bringing him the news should greatly improve my chances of getting Skreeander back.”

“Ah,” said Minda.  “I see.  Well in that case I suppose we best be moving.”  She bent to pick up a stack of trays and came up frowning.  “I gather this means I’ll be walking myself home, husband?”

“Why not to the bakery?”

“Have you gone daft on me?  The bridge’s closed on the morrow for the Observance.”

“Ah, right.” Gabe frowned.  “Then yes, I suppose you’ll be walking.”

“Do you mind?” said Cob.  “I hadn’t thought of it.”  Minda sighed.

“When Ganther gave me these horse’s legs he probably intended for me to use them more than I do.”

“Surely,” muttered Gabe.

“You’re one to speak.”  She glanced at Cob.  “He takes that wagon everywhere.  Even to the privy.”

“She jests,” scowled Gabe.  Minda laughed, her bosom quaking.

“Anyhow, a walk won’t kill me, Cobbler.”

“Thank you, Minda.  I won’t forget your many kindnesses this day.”  

“I hope not,” she winked.  “Because after tonight these hooves of mine are going to be in desperate need of new shoes.”

“Bring them to me in the morning and I’ll have them good as new by midday.”

“Stop your ears, Cobbler,” said Gabe.  “She jests.”  Minda again shook with laughter.

When they had packed both shops into the wagon, leaving only a little debris for the scamps and crones to pick over, Minda brought Gabe his cudgel and handed it back to him.  The big man settled the weapon in its customary spot on his belt, letting Minda plant a kiss on both of his cheeks while he adjusted his buckle.  Then Minda set off up the bridge for home.  It was nearly full dark by then.  

Gabe lit a lantern and slung it from a hooked post sticking up out of the bed of the wagon, then climbed up onto the bench.  Cob was already settled in his seat, wearing a look that said he was anxious to be getting to Whitestone.  

“Hye!” Gabe flapped Nettie’s reins.  The Mule brayed and started forward but the wagon refused to budge.

“Too much weight?” Cob suggested.

“I forgot the bloody chock.” Gabe jumped down to remove the stone and the wagon immediately began to roll, forcing him to chase after it and scramble back up into his seat.

“Ganther’s Grieves!” he swore, breathing heavy.  “Not a pretty start.  Let’s hope it’s not an omen.”  Cob nodded, his expression clouding.

With the wagon laden down as it was they moved fast and loud down the bridge, startling the slumbering tincture hawker from his barrel.  He cursed at them and Gabe laughed.  At the bottom the road split around Ganther’s fountain and they veered North up the Queen’s Road, heading into the heart of town.   

Shops and inns rose three and four stories on both sides of the street, their top floors leaning out over the road like they were trying to meet in the middle for a kiss.  The buildings were fine ones, built of beams and plaster with bay windows displaying murals of colored glass, yet they showed more signs of aging and neglect than the cruder log buildings on the meaner side of town. 

The reason for that Cob knew was Queen Selthena’s war tax.  Since the last battle at Ashfall the Queen of Alteria had raised the war tax three times, but only on Triton’s richest citizens.  As a result the owners of the richest inns and shops of the Downs finished the day with precious little coin leftover for whitewashing their walls, mending stairs, or rebuilding sagging window frames.  For the poor and relatively poor though, Queen Selthena had kept taxes exactly the same.  A clever ploy, Cob conceded.  By leaving the poor and relatively poor alone Selthena had given them little incentive to rebel against Altarian rule, and without the ability to stir the small folk into an uproar, Triton’s rich had been powerless to stop her from slowly draining the country’s wealth from their pockets.  By the time they’d realized what her intentions were it had been too late to halt the process.  From one end of Triton to the other the wealthy were struggling; in Thimble Downs things had gotten bad enough that even the best inn of them all, the mayor’s Grand Cortigan was decaying and badly in need of repairs.  It’s many-gabled roof had shed so many slates it looked to be balding and the slats of its once proud gold shutters were rotting out.  On its third and sixth floors there were ornate iron balconies jutting out over the street with spiraling staircases connecting them, but their paint had flaked away and the metal was going to rust.  

It had been years since those balconies had last been filled by wealthy Carthan merchants sipping chilled wine; a score or so of them still came during the spring festivals but there were fewer with every season and they didn’t return throughout the summer as they used to.  Once the solstice came around, as it had two weeks past, there were rarely more than a handful of visitors left in the Downs that could afford the inn’s lofty prices.  The mayor refused to lower them though, for fear he’d never be able to raise them again, so the balconies were deserted at this hour.  For that matter, so was the rest of the street.  The only souls Cob saw as the wagon crept up the alley were a tailor locking up his shop and a tavern maid walking with her head down, presumably on her way home to sup.  

For about a quarter mile the road and its air of defeat ran along the banks of the river.  Then the chain of inns and shops gave way to the Town Square, a fountain plaza much like the one to the south except there was no statue of Ganther looming at the center of this one; the fountain was a plain circle, forty paces across.  It was meant to be filled with two feet of water but it was dry except for some brown puddles choked with needles and scum.  It had been a tradition before the war for merchants to toss small coins in the fountain in exchange for good fortune in their business dealings, and those coins had paid for the plaza’s upkeep.  After the war though the merchants had gradually abandoned the practice, preferring to save their coin for the Tollhouse.

The famous tavern and brothel stood to the right side of the fountain plaza, its length straddling the river.  From the front it was indistinguishable from a great blue barn bridge.  In the middle of its peaked facade there was a rectangular tunnel-mouth, just wide enough to accommodate a wagon like Gabe’s, and the road flowed straight into it.  To the left of that there was a slender door with a small painted sign above it reading simply, Tollhouse.  That was the entrance to the tavern and brothel, or one of the entrances at any rate.  There were others inside the tunnel.  

Gabe halted Nettie in front of the tunnel mouth and reached out to grab a hanging rope that rang a bell on the far side of the bridge, signaling for anyone coming the other direction to wait.  From time to time wagoners ignored the bells and entered the tunnel at the same time, usually resulting in a fiasco that took an hour or more to clear up. 

“Looks clear,” said Cob, peering down the tunnel.  The gloom was lit at intervals by lanterns hanging from the crossbeams.  Their flames cast dancing shadows onto the timbered roadway, which was lined by horse stalls, each of them roomy enough for two horses.  More than ten stalls lined both sides of the tunnel, and halfway down the rows were interrupted by staircases, mirrors of each other that angled up into the tavern above.  A boy of about twelve sat at the bottom of one of them, dressed in a blue coat and a brown leather hat that was too big for him.  He was there to collect payment for usage of the stalls.  At the top of every hour he’d walk up and down the tunnel, adjusting abacuses mounted on the stall doors to count the hours.  The doors were all chained and locked and he held the key, lest anyone try to slip past him and retrieve their horse without settling their debt.

“Come on, then,” yelled the boy, waving for them to proceed.  Gabe nudged Nettie into action.  The odors of dung and hay gusted up Cob’s nostrils as they entered the tunnel, making him sneeze, while overhead the planks creaked and rained down dust, alive with the vibrations from Nettie’s hooves and the stamping feet of the patrons above.  Someone up there had begun a raucous drinking song; Cob couldn’t make out the words but the lyre part sounded like Selthena’s Locket.   Sethena has a little locket, she keeps it in her pocket, she never ever opens it for anyone but Moppet…

Gabe nudged Cob and pointed.   A few paces beyond where the stable boy was standing, a grey snout was protruding from between the iron bars of one of the stalls, the nostrils twitching.

“That Skreeander?” he asked.  Cob craned his neck, briefly getting a look into the animal’s despondent brown eyes as they passed.  There was another horse in the stall as well, a striking chestnut mare.

“Indeed.”

“Let’s hope the little Breylock bastard is still here when we return then.”  A vision of Wilhem’s wounds flashed in Cob’s mind.  Anger and bile spiked into his throat but he suppressed them both.  Now wasn’t the time to confront the lordling.

“Lorel’s always here.  Or dicing in the logger camp.  He won’t be hard to find.” 

“Dicing?  So he inherited all of Lord Jandegar’s vices?”

“And none of his strengths.”  

Gabe scoffed.  “What strengths?  I grant you, Jandegar’s handy with a mace but a haughtier man was never born in Triton.”  Cob shrugged.

“He’s fair to his people.  And during the war he fought side by side with his men.  Should Hollow Hill go to battle again under Lorel’s rule I doubt the same will be said of him.”

“True enough,” said Gabe.  “Personally though I mislike the man.  At the Brackwater I watched him slice open the throat of a fourteen year-old squire without a word, so calm you’d think he was carving an apple.  The boy had fled the field with piss in his pants when the fighting started.”

“I’ve heard the tale,” said Cob.  “A harsh punishment but was there another choice?  The law is clear when it comes to deserters.” 

“It wasn’t the act that soured me on Jandegar, Cobbler.  It was those eyes of his.  The man enjoys bloodletting too much.”

“Not so much as Lord Lorel will, I think.”

“Mayhaps.”  

They were approaching the end of the tunnel now, passing under the last lantern.  When they emerged back into the night the trappings of village life quickly fell away behind them, replaced by tall spruce trees and the wide open bowl of the night sky.  A few stars pulsed in the void, their radiance obstructed only here and there by clouds.  By their light and the weak bauble thrown from the wagon’s lantern, Cob could discern just enough of the road ahead to see where it plunged into the forest.  The cobbles gave way to packed dirt at that spot; a relief since it made for smoother going.  Once they entered the woods Cob could see no farther than a few feet past Nettie’s nose, but the mule knew the road by rote and had no trouble following it, even as it switched back and forth to climb up out of the valley.

The journey over the hills was a little more than a league; on the other side the trees broke to reveal a three-quarter moon hovering over an open field.  The monstrous shadow of Thimblemont loomed far to the south, and a thin stream ribboned its way across the field from west to east, gleaming silver.  The road ran alongside the stream, crossing over a snake bend in its middle via a quaint stone bridge.  The village of Hunthaven surrounded the bridge on both sides, though to call it a village was generous by Cob’s estimation.  Hamlet was probably more accurate.  The largest building was a one story lodge, half the size of the Tollhouse.  It sat on the near side of the bridge with a dozen or so cottages clustered around it; all of them simple thatch-roofed dwellings built in a virtually identical fashion with a single round window next to the front door.  At a distance the town was so still it seemed abandoned, but a glow of firelight warmed the windows of the lodge and the smells of woodsmoke and roasting fowl hung in the air.  Gabe’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“I’d trade Nettie and all the copper in my pocket in for one of whatever it is they’re cooking in there,” said the big man.  

“I’ll buy you two on the way back,” said Cob.  “We’re not far now.”

“Two, is it?”  Gabe shook Nettie’s reins.  “You hear that, Nettie?  You’re spared.  Now get moving.”  

The mule went no faster; still it wasn’t long before the lights of Hunthaven winked out behind them.  They passed through the village unobserved except by a couple of mongrels that chased them from the lodge, barking at Nettie and looking for scraps.  Gabe scared them off with his switch.  At the end of the field the landscape shifted to untamed pastures that stayed flat for nearly two miles before swelling up in a natural berm.  On the other side the ground abruptly dropped away, angling downward in a steep, bare meadow.  The pale and matted grasses plunged to an infinite, moon-dappled expanse of ocean.

The smell of salt, the roar of the waves, and the moonlit sight of the roiling black waters hit Cob all at once, the suddenness of it pausing his breath even though he’d come this way many times before.  Where the meadow ended the coast was jagged mess of enormous rocks, scattered into the water as though some titan had smashed a mountain and tossed the pieces straight up into the air, letting them rain back down to the earth at random.  Many of the fragments were so large that they’d become small islands just off the coast, and one of them was so colossal that it formed a decidedly large island, shaped like the crown of a skull.  It was atop this stone that Whitestone Keep had been built.  

The fortress’s crenelated curtain wall ran around the entire perimeter of the island, standing no less than thirty feet high and twenty feet thick at its most vulnerable points.  Inside it a village denser and more populated than Thimble Downs sprawled around the bailey wall, which formed a pentagonal-shaped pupil inside the curtain wall’s cornea.  Four round towers sprang up from the points of the bailey, all jutting up to the sky in a single spurt.  The great keep itself was situated at the fifth point, furthest from the shore; a monstrous, three-tiered drum made of huge blocks of rough grey stone.  

The fortress had been designed to impose rather than impress, but at night, lit up as she was by two hundred torches burning in their sconces and as many cook fires burning throughout the village, she was impressive nevertheless.  In the wind she glittered like a Tanisian courtesan, perfectly at ease in the dark and oblivious to the black desolation of the sea.

“You know why she’s called Whitestone?” said Gabe.  Cob shook his head.  He had wondered from time to time, given that not a single stone in the walls of the keep was white.  Gabe cleared his throat.

“Gull shit.  Before they built the keep the whole damn island was covered in it.”  Cob laughed.    

“Not bad.  It might even be true.”  Gabe grinned.                            

“Anyhow.  That’s an awful lot of torches, isn’t it?” he said.  “You think Lord Jondel intends to set the clouds afire?”  

“It’s for show.  He hosts a member of the Tanisian High Council.” 

“How can you tell?” 

Cob pointed to a row of flags waving from the top of the drum fortress.  “See that yellow banner, with the two conjoined rings?  That’s a High Council sigil.”  

“Ah.  So it is.  He’ll be busy, then.  Have you given any thought to how we’re going to convince the watchmen to seek out an audience for us?”

“I have,” said Cob.

“And?”

“We’ll see, Drobbins.  I expect Lord Jondel will grant us at least a few minutes.”

“I hope so.  It’d be a long way to come for naught.”

The road brought them directly down through the middle of the bowl, winding around a few heaps of stone near the bottom before reaching a line of sheer cliffs along the shore.  From there it continued over a long, chain-lowered drawbridge onto Whitestone.  Nothing but air and raging surf lurked beneath the bridge.  On the far side a massive gateway stood open, albeit with the teeth of its portcullis bared menacingly overhead.  Blazing sconces framed the gateway and a pair of guards stood in the pools of light beneath them, clad in pointed half-helms and polished mail with spears eight feet long.  Others manned the parapets above, giving away their positions with occasional flickers of movement.  

The guards flanking the gateway lowered their spears in an X as the wagon crossed onto the drawbridge, blocking the way into the keep.  Gabe brought Nettie to a stop.

“What’s this?” he called to the guard on the left.  “Do we look like marauders to you?”

“Lord Jondel’s orders.”  The guard’s eyes were hidden beneath the shadow of his helm, his jaw blunt and darkened by whiskers.  “No strange faces to enter between dusk and dawn so long as he hosts the Councilor.  And might be I don’t recognize you two.”

“Might be?” said Gabe.

“Might be,” said the guard.  “Then again, might be I do.  I don’t know.  My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”  

“Ah,” said Gabe.  He nudged Cob.  “What have you got in your pockets?” 

“Enough to buy two chickens, maybe.  Not enough for this.  You?”

“A few nits is all.  Minda keeps our coin.  Are we done here then?”  Cob scowled.

“You there,” he called to the guard.  “Those boots of yours look a bit tired.  As it happens I’ve got an excellent new pair here in the wagon that I’d wager are just your size.  Would you like to see them?”

“Depends,” said the guard.  “How much?”

“Why, gratis, of course,” said Cob.  “It’d be a great boon for my business if I could say a guard of Whitestone prefers my boots.”  The guard nodded. 

“Let’s have a look then.”  He raised his spear and propped it against the wall behind him.  As he approached the other guard coughed.  Cob sighed.

“And I suppose it would be even better for business if two guards of Whitestone were equipped with my wares.”

“Obliged,” the man mumbled, setting his spear aside as well.  Cob climbed off his seat and escorted the two guards to the bed of the wagon, peeling back the canvas of his tent to reveal his pile of boots and shoes.  Before packing the goods away he and Gabe had used clumps of straw to purge the stink of Wilhem’s gorge from them, but a twinge of it still tainted the air. 

“Which ones?” 

“Guess,” said Cob.  The guard ran his hand over a few of them, picking up a sturdy pair of black knee highs with hobnailed soles that Cob had planned to sell for ten coppers.  They weren’t his best but they were close.  

“These ones?”  

“Good eye,” Cob flattered.  “Those were exactly the ones I had in mind.”  He glanced at the other guard, hoping to avoid giving away another good pair.  “And for you I have just the thing as well--”

“Those,” the man said, pointing to a dainty pair of blue slippers.  Incidentally, they were one of the pairs that had been in the way of Wilhem’s vomit.   

“Those?  But those are custom to a woman’s foot.”  The guard blushed under his helm.  He was a fuzzy-cheeked youth Cob realized, no more than seventeen.  “Ah, I see.  A gift is it?  Even better for business.  Now I’ll have every jealous lass in Whitestone chasing me down for her own pair.”  Cob lifted the slippers and handed them to the boy, praying he wouldn’t notice the smell.  Truthfully he was glad to be rid of them.  “They’re yours.”

“Obliged,” the boy repeated  While he was tucking the slippers into his belt, Gabe caught Cob’s eye and thrusted his chin towards the gateway.  Cob nodded. 

“Now, Gentlemen,” Cob dared, “I am supposed to deliver an urgent message to your lord, on behalf of my own lord, Owen of Masbeth.  Lord Masbeth instructed me to reveal nothing of the message’s content to you except to say that it regards an imminent threat to the Hinterlands.  Will you see to it that Lord Jondel learns that I am here and hears my purpose?”  The boy shrugged and looked to the older guard.

“Sergeant?” The sergeant was busy admiring his new boots, turning them over in his hands.  He grunted.

“Owen of Masbeth, was it?  I’ll see it done, but I doubt it will do you any good.”  He pointed inside the gate.  “There’s a stable just inside and to the right.  Bring the wagon over by there and wait.  Don’t go up to the keep and pester any of the Inner Guard or I’ll put one of these new boots up your arse, understood?”

“Aye,” said Cob. 

“Get on, then.” 

Cob rejoined Gabe on the wagon while the younger guard returned to his post.  The sergeant disappeared through a small arched doorway in the curtain wall.  

“Nicely done,” Gabe whispered.  “But who in blazes is Owen of Masbeth?”  Cob ground his jaw and scratched his beard.  Then he took a deep breath, stared up at the stars, and exhaled heavily.  

“A minor lord.  Pledged to Randen Norrell.”  Gabe stared at him askance.  Cob felt sure the man was going to question him further, but after a moment he just said, “Well, I suppose we best be going before they change their minds.”  

Once inside the fortress they pulled into a crescent shaped alcove formed by the two arms of a stable.  The structure was low-walled and roofed in thatch but otherwise open to the elements, and there were only a handful of horses stationed there though there were enough stalls for easily fifty more. 

They sat for a while, watching a stray dog antagonize a stable boy as he attempted to load dung into the back of a hand cart.  After a quarter of an hour the sergeant came back to them, walking tall in his new black boots.  

“Lord Jondel will see you lot,” he told Cob.  “Take the road straight up the keep.  One of the Inner Guard will escort you from there.”

“Many thanks,” said Cob, unsure of how the guard had gotten the message to the keep.  They’d seen no one pass them on the road.  Tunnels beneath the rock, perhaps?  “Are you satisfied with the boots?”

“Aye,” said the Guard.  “They’ll do.”  

  “Excellent.  Good night to you, then.”  He waved but the sergeant was already retreating.  Past the stable the road climbed a half mile of bare rock and patches of grass to an arched opening in the bailey wall.  Like the main gateway this one was also defended by a portcullis, similar to the first but smaller.  On the way up to it a dozen alleys split off the road and spidered their way through the collection of ramshackle buildings and shanties that was Whitestone Village.  Even at this late hour the village was noisy, with music and reveling from the taverns commingling with the distant banging of a blacksmith’s hammer and a newborn’s incessant squealing.    

          At the top of the hill another guard met them at the portcullis, this one wearing neither helm nor mail.  He was grey-haired and long-faced, with brown eyes set deep in craggy nests of flesh.  If not for the longsword strapped to his belt and the blue cape draped from his shoulders, he’d have seemed grandfatherly. 

“You’re Lord Masbeth’s messenger?” The guard held up his hand for them to stop the wagon.  Gabe pointed to Cob.

“He is.”

“Follow me, then.  You can leave the wagon here.  Our man will look after it.”  

Without waiting for a response he spun on his heel and walked into the gateway, his cape billowing about him.  Gabe and Cob climbed down from the cart and hurried to catch up, tailing the man into a vast courtyard paved in stone.  The drum keep loomed on the far side with its two arched front doors standing open at the top of a long flight of steps, gigantic and formidable.  Around the periphery of the courtyard there were a half a dozen outbuildings wedged between the bases of the four surging towers, the largest of them piping the smell of baking bread from one of its three chimneys, the smallest seeming to be on the verge of collapsing from the braying of hounds within.

The guard strode directly across the courtyard, his long legs taking the steps up to the drum keep three at a time.

“What’s the hurry?” Gabe whispered, short of breath.

“I don’t know.  Better not test his patience though.”

Despite his bad knee Cob moved quickly enough up the stairs, clenching his jaw against the pain.  At the top the entrance to the keep was ablaze with light and Cob found he was gazing into a tremendous round chamber with six rows of plain wooden tables stretching from just inside the doors to a raised dais on the far side.  At the back of the dais was a stone hearth wide enough for three men to stand in with their arms stretched out.  It held no fire this night, however.  The blinding light came instead from a dozen massive iron chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling on thick chains.  Each of them held more than hundred candles and the smoke they put off formed a swirling black haze with a pungent, unpleasant scent.  

“Grieves,” muttered Gabe, wiping at his eyes, “you could feast a whole army in here.”

Near enough, thought Cob.  The tables looked as though they would comfortably seat at least six hundred men; though it appeared only half that many had recently dined.  Three of the six rows of benches were littered with tankards and trenchers, and the rushes beneath them were soiled from one end to the other with bones and scraps.  A dozen servants, all of them young girls in drab grey robes, were scurrying about loading refuse onto trays and disappearing down a stairwell in the center of the floor.  On the dais, eight men were still seated at a table adorned with cloth and silver chalices, laughing uproariously.  The loudest of them was a grotesquely fat, black-bearded man in a yellow robe with enough gold shining on his wrists and fingers to buy The Grand Cortigan twice over.  The High Councilor, Cob deduced.  No one but a member of The High Council could display so much gold without fear of Selthena’s taxmen.  He looked for Lord Jondel amongst the others, but the man wasn’t with them. 

“This way,” snapped their escort, glaring at them from the base of a wooden staircase to their left.  “Be quick.”  He began mounting the steps.  

Cob and Gabe both craned their necks to looked up to the top of the staircase.  The thing was massive, switching back on itself five times before attaining the ceiling.  Three Long blue banners trimmed in gold streamed from the top landing, miraculously unmarred by the candle smoke.  They must have been recently cleaned. 

By the time they reached the top of the stairs they were both red-faced and panting.  The guard waited  impatiently for them in a stone hallway, narrow and unadorned except by greasy-flamed sconces.  To the right it followed the curvature of the drum; to the left it approached another staircase leading higher.  He took them away from the stairs, ushering them past doors set into the interior wall every twenty paces or so.  Each new door was so like the one that preceded it that the only way to tell them apart was to count them.  At the seventh the guard stopped short, the scrape of his boots echoing flatly.          

“Enter,” he told them, pushing the door open.  They stepped inside.

The room was one giant circle, same as the hall below but with a dozen buffed marble columns scattered through it.  Where there had been a dais and a hearth downstairs, here there was a raised, throne-like chair, and where there had been benches and tables, here there was one very long blue carpet, worn almost threadbare at the far end by the knees of countless supplicants.  The reason why none of the doors in the hallway had born any distinguishing marks was because they all led here anyhow.  A fate room, Cob noted.  Of course.

Lord Jondel sat the chair, which had been ornately carved in the form of the Breylock’s sigil, the valecat.  The beast’s snarling mouth gaped open over the lord’s head while its front legs formed armrests beneath his hands.  

Even at a distance Lord Jondel was an easy man to identify, he still wore his side-whiskers in a style that had gone out of fashion at least two decades before, letting them grow down his jawline near to his chin.  Combined with his sagging jowls and wide jaundiced eyes those whiskers gave him the look of a walrus--an aging one, given that the whiskers had gone from grey to white since the last time Cob had set eyes on the High Seat of the Hinterlands.

“Approach,” said the lord, beckoning.  To the right and left of his chair stood more caped guards, a crowd of retainers in blue-and-white robes, and a pox-cheeked cupbearer holding a silver pitcher to his chest with both hands.  Most of the retainers were men with at least a little grey in their beards, but one was a comely brown-haired woman no older than thirty.  She sat rigidly at a small table lined with ink pots and parchment.     

Cob and Gabe walked to the end of the blue carpet and knelt.  Their escort followed behind them, stepping up to take a post next to the cupbearer, leaning his back against one of the marble columns.  For what seemed like a long time, Lord Jondel studied Cob’s face in silence.  While he did so Cob’s own eyes took in the details of a colorful tapestry hanging on the wall behind the lord’s head; the scene depicted a young warrior with fierce black eyes standing at the prow of a ship, pointing to a spot in the distance where a series of islands rose from the churning waters, illuminated by a fork of lightning.  A scene from the founding of Whitestone, Cob assumed.  A handful more were spaced evenly around the room.   

Lord Jodel coughed and reached for a goblet resting on the arm of his chair.  He drank deeply, dribbling wine down his two chins, then wiped his lips with the sleeve of a plain but finely made brown tunic.

“Hair like a bed of coals and the beak of a hawk,” he said, staring intently at Cob.  “A combination not easily forgotten, even when masked by time and clothes of a different cut.  You’re not the messenger of Owen of Masbeth.  You are Owen of Masbeth.  Are you not?”  A murmur went through the retainers.  

“I--” Cob stammered, surprised Lord Jondel had recognized him so quickly.  “I am, My Lord.”  Lord Jondel grunted.

“I thought so.  Stand, Masbeth.  Your companion as well--stand up that we might talk like men.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”  Cob and Gabe got to their feet.

Lord Jondel took another sip of his wine.  “I am curious of course, as to why you would seek an audience with me under false pretenses, dressed like a common woodcutter?”

“I apologize,” said Cob.  “I have come to you under false pretenses.  But I believe it was necessary and I meant no offense.  The truth of the matter is that I gave up all claim to land and title after the war, Lord Jondel.  I work as a simple cobbler now in Thimble Downs, and these clothes are the finest I have.  I assumed that if I claimed to be Lord Owen of Masbeth your guards would take it for a lie and turn me away.”  Lord Jondel’s bushy eyebrows crawled an inch up his brow.

“You renounced all claims to land and title?  What in blazes would compel a man to do that, Masbeth?”  Cob held the man’s gaze.  He’d known he was going to be asked this question as sure as he’d known he didn’t dare answer it.

“Lord Jondel. . .that tale is a complicated one but in the end the story is mundane.  To tell it now would take up more of your time than I feel I have the right to waste.”  

Lord Jondel appraised him in silence again, and Cob did not fail to see the flicker of anger that passed through his dark eyes.  The man had a temper and did not like to be patronized, he remembered that well from what he’d seen of him at Brackwater.

“Owen the Pike, they called you,” he said.  “The man who threw the tip of a broken pike through a Phaeon throat at thirty paces to save the life of Randen Norrell.  Isn’t that right?”

Cob felt Gabe’s eyes on him.  And everyone else’s, for that matter.  “It was more like fifteen paces,” he said modestly, “but yes, that’s right.  I was called Owen the Pike.”  Lord Jondel shifted in his chair, leaning forward.

“I am fond of Randen Norrell, Masbeth.  He has been a close ally and friend to me for nigh on forty years.  Whether it was luck or skill I’m grateful to you for tossing that pike; if you had not my friendship with Norrell would have been cut woefully short.  That is why I chose to grant your messenger, who in fact turned out to be you, the courtesy of an immediate audience, even though I was in the middle of a conviviality with a High Councilor from Tanis.  It is also why I’m willing now to overlook your refusal to be completely forthcoming about your circumstances.  I remember you as a fine soldier, Masbeth, one deserving of a small amount of leeway.  So.  Tell me then why you are here, but please don’t tarnish my impression of you with further attempts at guile.”  Cob bowed his head.

“Yes, Lord Jondel.  I’ll speak as plainly as I know how then and hope you won’t be displeased by my bluntness.  I’ve come to Whitestone with two purposes, to advise you of a threat to your realm, and to request a favor.  The first purpose being the more urgent, I will start there.”  The courtly manner of speaking came back to Cob’s tongue with an ease that surprised him.  It was something too painstakingly learned to let slip away, he supposed, no matter how much one tried.  He placed his hand on Gabe’s shoulder.  “This man is Gabe Drobbins, also a distinguished soldier, Lord Jondel.  He fought bravely under Guy Thalis’s Iron Horse at the Brackwater, taking an Altarian spear through the midsection.  I’ve brought him with me to stand as witness to all that I am about to tell you.  Will you accept his pledge?”  Lord Jondel sighed.

“I have never been a stickler for formalities, Masbeth.  I will accept the man’s pledge but I see no need for him to swear on the sword and all that nonsense.  Let’s keep it simple, shall we?  Mr. Drobbins, should any of the words you stand witness to today prove to be false, you will be held guilty of treason and have your fucking head cut off.  Understood?”

“Aye, my Lord,” said Gabe, nodding solemnly.

“Proceed then, Masbeth.”   

Cob drew himself up and spoke clearly.  “My son, Wilhem, a man of thirteen just today, was detained by two Altarians in The Gilded Forest this morning.  Or, I should say, he claims to have been detained, but he’s an honest sort, Lord Jondel, not prone to fibs or exaggerations.  According to my son one of the Altarians was a High Captain, the other a Dreanalai witch.  He overheard the witch say that she is in the Hinterlands on Queen Selthena’s orders and has brought an entire legion of Altarian soldiers with her.  They make haste for the village of Thimble Downs on the morrow.”  

There was a collective intake of breath from the retainers as he finished speaking.  “I don’t know exactly what the witch’s plans are but she tested my boy for the Dreanalai mark.  I believe she is hunting someone or someones, Lord Jondel.”  

Lord Jondel toyed with his goblet, the corners of his wide mouth sinking into a frown.  “You attest to this, Drobbins?”

“I do.”

“Very well.  Is that all, Masbeth?”

“Regarding the Altarians,” said Cob, “yes.  Was I wrong in assuming you would want to know of this immediately?”

“You were not wrong.  However the news does not come as a great surprise.  I was forewarned by The High Councilor this morning to expect the arrival of Altarian soldiers on our soils.  Apparently a dozen legions of them have already cropped up from one end of Old Triton to the other.”

“A dozen legions?” Cob blurted.  “To what end?  They’ve already won the bloody war.”  Lord Jondel tapped his empty goblet against the arm of his chair and the cupbearer scurried over to fill it.   

“The witches are not hunting.  They are scavenging.  Looking for more of their kind to swell their ranks for their war across the world.  Tomorrow the youth of Thimble Downs will be tested and any that have been touched by one of Altaria’s foul gods will be taken back across The Rift to be trained as Dreanalai.”  Cob’s mouth fell open, aghast.  

“Triton children?  To be trained as Dreanalai?  I don’t understand, Lord Jondel.  You speak as though Whitestone will offer no resistance.”  Lord Jondel let out a bitter laugh.

“Because it won’t,” he said.  “As you’ve just pointed out, Masbeth, we lost the war.  I sit this chair still only by the grace of Queen Selthena.  Her word is the law; there is nothing to be done about it.”  Cob’s eyes darkened.  The man had changed, he saw that now.  

“My Lord, forgive me but you cannot truly intend to allow our children to be snatched away from us in broad daylight?  The Altarians are rash to attempt such a thing with their armies so spread out.  With the strength of Miravel and Hollow Hill alone added to Whitestone’s numbers you could easily smash this legion to pieces.”    

“I could,” Lord Jondel nodded.  “Certainly.  I could send out two ravens this very minute, bringing Lord Jandegar down on them from the North and Lord Kalender up from his mischief in the South and slaughter every last one of them in their camps like dozing kittens.  Don’t think I haven’t envisioned it a dozen times in the past hours, Masbeth,  But only a fool or a child would even consider giving that order.  If I were to rout this legion tonight Selthena will send six more on their heels and Hinterlanders will die by the thousands.  Before the moon is out this fortress and all of her lands will be a smoldering wasteland crawling with corpse-buggering Dreanalai.  That would be the greater of two evils would it not?”  

His retainers all murmured their assent.  “Whitestone will not defy the queen.  When you return to Thimble Downs, Masbeth, spread the word.  The villagers are to acquiesce to any and all demands made by the Dreanalai witch, or they will answer to me as they would to Selthena herself.” 

Cob scowled.  “Lord Jondel, you know the fighting men will not stand for it.  Your own brother, Lord Jandegar, he will never abide such cowar. . . .”  Cob stopped himself, awkwardly.  “He will insist on bringing battle to the Altarians, with or without your blessing.”

“Cowardice!”  Lord Jondel leapt to his feet, sloshing wine down the front of his tunic.  His whiskers quivered with anger.  “Gavian--remind this man where he stands!”    

With a nod the guard that had escorted Cob and Gabe to the room stepped down from his post.  Before Cob realized what was happening the man grabbed him by the throat and smashed his bare fist into his jaw--not just once, but three times in lightning quick succession.  

“Watch your tongue,” he said, without any emotion.  Then he returned to his former position.  Cob groaned and sagged to one knee, leaking blood from his mouth to the floor.  His face was afire, but he was sure the guard could have hit much harder than he had if he’d wanted to.  

“This is no War Council,” said Lord Jondel, more calmly.  He resumed his seat.  “And you are a Lord no more.  You have no right to speak freely and you will do exactly as I command.  As will my brother Jandegar.  The two of you are equally ill-equipped to distinguish cowardice from prudence so you ought to be thankful that I am here to do it for you.”  

Cob stiffly regained his footing, wiping blood from his mouth.

“Lord Jondel--”

“I’ll hear no more of it, Masbeth.  Ask your favor of me and let this business be concluded so I can return to my guests.”   

Cob lowered his gaze, certain his prospects of getting Skreeander back had been drastically diminished by his inability to keep his mouth shut.  Fool, he cursed himself. 

“Very well, Lord Jondel.” he said.  “On his way home today with news of the Altarians my boy lost control of his horse and accidentally knocked your nephew, Lord Lorel to the ground. . .”

Cob explained the rest of what had transpired exactly as Wilhem had relayed it to him.  When he was finished, Lord Jondel waved his hand dismissively.

“This a trifling matter.  You test my patience.  But fortunately for you I have no love for my nephew and I tire of hearing about his exploits, running around my lands meting out perverted justice as though he carries Queen Selthena’s own scepter.  His father and I had thought that saddling him with my ward, Wyeth Trawn would keep him on his best behavior, but it seems the boy has no shame.  You give me an opportunity to teach him some.  Eluica--” Lord Jondel snapped his fingers at the woman retainer sitting at the writing desk.  “Put these words to parchment.”  

The woman dipped a quill in a pot of ink and held it at the ready over a scrap of yellow paper.

“When you are ready, Lord Jondel.”  Lord Jondel wet his lips with wine, then dictated a scathing letter to his nephew.  When he was finished he chuckled, pleased with himself.  

“Consider this a gesture of my appreciation for your saving Randen Norrell’s life, Masbeth, but know that my generosity will extend no further.  Should you be part of any attempt to rebel against the Altarians tomorrow or any day thereafter I will grant no mercy.”

“Yes, Lord Jondel,” said Cob.  “Thank you.  I am deeply in your debt.”

When the woman Elucia had finished affixing the lord’s waxen seal to the letter she brought it to Cob.  Their hands touched briefly as she gave it to him and he saw sympathy in her eyes.  

“I wish I could be there to see the look on the little bastard’s face when you hand it to him,” she said quietly.  Cob took the parchment roll and tucked it into his belt.

“Thank you,” he said.  She smiled and retreated back to the desk.  

“You are dismissed, Masbeth,” said Lord Jondel, “Gavian will see you out.”

The lord stood up and left via one of the doors at the back, taking his wine and his retinue with him.  Gabe turned to face Cob, who had been avoiding his eyes through much of the audience.  

“Owen the Pike,” he guffawed, throwing his arm around Cob’s shoulders and exposing his silver tooth in a grin.  “You know how many times I’ve sung that bloody song in my cups?”  Cob looked away, uncomfortable.

“I’ve asked too much of you already today, Drobbins, but one more favor if you will.  Never tell anyone who I am.  There are reasons why I’ve kept it secret for so long.”

“Aye.  I gather there must be.  If I was Owen the Pike I’d have it inked on my forehead.” 

“Come,” interrupted Gavian the guard, sweeping past them.  

He led them back down the stairs and out into the night.  Gabe’s wagon had been brought around the bailey to the bottom of the steps and stood waiting for them.  Cob was climbing up onto the bench when Gavian stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Masbeth,” said the guard, “take this.”  He held out the valecat brooch from his cape.

“What for?” said Cob, puzzled.

“Honor.  For your deeds at Ashfall.  Brothers of mine died that day.” 

“Oh,” said Cob.  It had been a long time since anyone had given him an honor token.  He took the brooch.  The piece was finely wrought, plated with real silver and two rubies set in eye sockets.  The stones were tiny but fine enough to fetch a price that would feed himself and Wilhem for half a year.  “Thank you.”  Gavian nodded curtly.  It struck Cob as a little strange that the man was handing him a gift mere minutes after cuffing him, especially since the stern expression on his face hadn’t changed at all, but Gavian himself didn’t seem in the least self-conscious about it.  Orders were orders; respect was respect.  Being able to keep the two separate without any self-reflection was part of soldiering.  Indeed, thought Cob.  The part he’d never been very good at.      

“Safe travels.” Gavian slapped Nettie’s rump, sending them on their way.  

“I confess that went better than I’d expected it to,” said Gabe as the wagon crawled back down through Whitestone village towards the drawbridge.  “Now we can have our chickens and return to the Tollhouse to serve up a little justice to the Breylock brat.”

“Again, forgive me,” Cob apologized, “but we’ll have to put off the chickens a while longer yet.”

“No chickens?” said Gabe, crestfallen.  “Why not?”

“There’s no time.  The villagers need to be warned that the Altarians are coming so they can hide their children away.  As soon as we get Skreeander back I intend to ride through the whole bloody town spreading the word.”

“Is that wise?  You heard Lord Jondel.  He’ll have your head if he hears about it.”

“My best days have been lived, Drobbins.  My son is nearly a man grown.  I can afford to value the future of Triton’s children more than my own at this point and I will do as I feel I must.  Let Lord Jondel do the same.  Though should I be caught I will be sure to testify you had no part in it.”  Gabe was quiet a while.

“You’d be lying if you did,” he said at last.  “I don’t think we’ll be caught, anyhow.  You are right about Lord Jandegar.  He’s not the type to stand by sitting on his thumbs as the Altarians kidnap Tritons.  Tomorrow will end in blood at Jandegar’s hands, I’d wager a silver on it.  We ought to be forgotten in the chaos.”

“I’d reasoned something similar,” said Cob.

“Then it’s settled,” said Gabe.  “I’ll take my chances with you, Owen the Pike.”

“Drobbins,” said Cob, “Don’t call me that.”  Gabe laughed.

“Right, right.”  He slapped his thigh and without waiting for permission began to whistle a cheerful tune.  As the wagon passed under the portcullis he broke into verse in a booming voice, startling the two new guards that had been posted outside:                           

   

Owen the Pike! Owen the Pike!

kilt him a Phaeon with an iron spike,

toss’t it true from thirty paces,

t’spare ol’Norrell from death’s embraces,

Owen the Pike, oh, Owen the Pike!

Glory for a mistress, duty for a wife!

Cob elbowed the man in the ribs.  “Enough of that now.”  

Gabe frowned and fell silent.  The wagon rumbled off the end of the drawbridge and was instantly swallowed up by the dark.  Their lamp had burned out while they were inside the fortress, leaving it all on Netty to steer them back up to Hunthaven.  Gabe sighed.

“I’ll let you keep me from them chickens, cobbler,” he said, “but I’ll be damned before another man decides when I can sing a tune.”  And then he resumed singing.

Owen the Pike! Owen the Pike!

won’t take no gold for the nobleman’s life. . .

sent them Phaeons on a dogged chase,

threw that spear with Ganther’s grace,

Owen the Pike! Owen the Pike!

Glory for a mistress, duty for a wife!

Cob grudgingly let the man sing, but he shut his eyes and tried to blot out the words.  He disliked the song.  Its silliness captured none of the truth of Ashfall.  The battle had not been a battle at all; it had been a gruesome, incoherent nightmare of blood and fire and heaps of burning bodies.  There had been no glory that day, no honor, there had just been ash and mayhem.  Endless screaming.  And in the end Triton had been lost, yielding its sovereignty to an empire ruled by a power-mad witch queen who wanted to bring the other side of the world to its knees, no matter what the cost to this one.  That was nothing to sing about.

Mercifully Gabe forgot the words halfway through the fourth verse and gave up.  He pulled a pipe from a pocket and had a smoke.  They spoke little the rest of the way back to Thimble Downs, each of them nurturing his own thoughts.    

They reached the Tollhouse with the moon still shy of its zenith; Gabe stopped Nettie twenty feet from the bridge and tied her reins to a hitching post.  There were a few other wagon teams tied to the post as well, belonging to other patrons of the tavern. 

“Now then,” said Gabe.  “Shall we get your horse back?”

“Aye,” said Cob, running his thumb over the scroll of paper tucked into his belt.  “But what of the wagon?”  Gabe shrugged.

“It’ll keep at this hour I expect.  We won’t be long, will we?”

  “Shouldn’t be,” Cob nodded.

He wanted to be certain that Lorel was still inside the tavern, so he led Gabe into the bridge tunnel rather than the side door that led directly upstairs.  Walking the tunnel on foot, he could peer right down into the cracks between the boards and see the black sweep of the river below.  Gabe was careful to step over the cracks, as though the big man was afraid of slipping through and drowning, but Cob knew it must just be superstition that caused him to choose his footing so carefully.  

Many of the horse stalls were empty now, but Skreeander was still where they‘d seen him last, locked away with three other horses not far from the staircases leading into the tavern.  The stable boy still sat at the bottom of the steps, nodding off with his hat in his eyes and drool spilling from his mouth.  

“Boy,” said Cob, nudging the boy’s shoulder.  His eyelids fluttered.

“What?”

“Wake up.  If Bertra catches you sleeping like this she’ll have you stripped naked and tossed into the river.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” the boy protested, “I was thinking on something.”

“Best do it with your eyes open,” said Cob.  “I’ll be back down in a few minutes for the grey palfrey.  Be sure you’ve got your key ready.”  The boy shook his head. 

“Lord Lorel brought the grey.  None but he will take him home or he’ll have my head.  He told me as much when I took him.”

“We’ll see about that.”  

Upstairs the tavern common room was hot and dim and reeked of ale.  It stretched the entire second floor of the bridge and was filled by a mismatched collection of tables--some round, some square, some malformed, broken shapes that couldn’t be named at all. 

Glass lanterns burned on a few of tables, each with a dented water pail standing next to it in the event of fire.  There were larger buckets hanging from the rafters with ropes dangling down from them, but those ones weren’t used strictly for dousing flames.  More than once Cob had watched old Bertra give one of those ropes a tug to extinguish an argument between customers before it turned deadly.  The tavern sometimes drew rough custom.   

Tonight though, things were calm.  Along one of the long walls there were slender doors, nine of them in all, each leading to a small room where one of the tavern girls lived and worked.  During the day the girls preened in their doorways to drum up business; now the doors were all closed, meaning that the occupants had found willing customers or had given up and gone to bed.  

About a score of patrons were left around the tables, most of them hunched over their tankards with drooping eyes.  A few were playing dice and three farmers were singing incoherently while a fourth butchered the strings of a lute.  None of them paid the newcomers any mind.   

Cob’s eyes strained against the shadows, searching for Lorel.  He recognized a few faces--Marcus Talkirk the fletcher was one of the men playing dice, and two young men seated off by themselves in a corner were the mayor’s errand boys, but there was no sign of the lordling.     

“Do you see him?” 

“Nay,” said Gabe.  “He must be with one of the whores.”

“Strange.  The little one is too young for whoring.  And Lord Jondel’s ward never partakes.  They should be here.”

Gabe pointed to the end of the room, where a thin old woman sat on a stool rinsing tankards in a steaming cauldron.  “There’s Bertra.” 

The old woman glanced up at them as they approached, squinting.  Her eyes were foggy, her nose bulbous and filled with broken veins from years of drink.  Her grandson Kyle sat on a crate behind her, guarding two ale barrels.  He was a gangly lad with a bowl-shaped head of brown hair and an underbite.  He eyed them suspiciously, tightening his grip on the handle of an iron poker.

“Steady, Kyle,” said Cob, stepping close enough for the light of a hanging lantern to touch his face.  The boy relaxed at the sight of him.     

“The cobbler, is it?” Bertra inquired.  “And Drobbins.  The baker’s husband.”  

“Yes,” said Cob.

“Sit where you like.  Jilly will pour for you she’s just in the privy.”  

“We’re not here for drink tonight, Bertra.  I have words for Lord Lorel, the Breylock.  Is he with one of the girls?”  The old woman set down the tankard she was polishing, smiling oddly.

“No, he isn’t with any of my girls tonight, is he Kyle?”  Her grandson grinned, showing an ugly, broken front tooth.

“No.  He ain’t.”  

“But he was here?” said Gabe.

“He was.  He still is.”

“Where?”

Bertra cackled.  “You’ll never guess.”   

“Please, Bertra.” said Cob, unamused.  “I have little time.”  

“Oh, all right.” The old woman jerked her thumb at a door in the wall behind the bar.  “The lordling and his two companions are in the kitchen, washing my dishes and scouring my pots.”  Cob fixed the woman with a scathing look.

“I’m in no mood for sport.”   

“And I ain’t making any,” she shot back.  “See for yourself.”  

“Come now,” said Cob.  “Why in blazes would Lorel Breylock dirty his hands in your kitchen?”   

“Because I told him to,” said a gruff voice.   

Cob spun around.  The words had come from one of two men seated at the closest table.  Both had their backs turned.  Cob had noticed them there when he and Gabe had been crossing the room but hadn’t given them a second glance after determining neither was Lorel.  Now he wished he had.  That iron voice was unmistakable.

“Lord Jandegar?” 

The strangers stood.  They were both tall, imposing men.  Lord Jandegar was the darker and brawnier of the two, his thick arms and shoulders straining the seams of a banded leather jerkin.  He was dressed like a fighting man instead of a lord, sporting no Breylock blue or the lightning-split tree of Hollow Hill.   His companion was younger and leaner, as muscled as man could be with eyes that tapered in an unusual way, like a jungle cat’s.  He dressed the same as his lord and something about the ease with which he carried himself told Cob he was deadly with the longsword strapped to his waist.  That made him the storied Sigmond of Woburn then, Captain of the Inner Guard at Hollow Hill.  The man was rumored to be one of the finest swordsmen North of Tanis.        

Lord Jandegar confronted Cob with eyes that were fierce and dark set in a square, skeletal face.  

“My eldest son has a talent for losing other peoples’ coin at dice,” he said.  His hair was dark as well, with streaks of white sweeping back from his temples.  “I received word tonight that he, along with my youngest son and Lord Jondel’s ward were attempting to leave here without settling their debts, and using my name to silence Bertra’s complaints.”  He frowned.  “Fortunately I happened to be here in Thimble Downs on business of my own when the news reached my ears.  I came at once to inform the little fools that should they leave without paying for their indulgences I would personally send for the magistrate.  They had no coin left, so now they are washing dishes to pay off their debt, and they will continue to do so until there are none left to clean.”  

The lord clapped his hands around Cob’s biceps.  “Tell me though, what words have you for my boy, Friend?  I will see them delivered to him when he is through scrubbing.”

Cob was beginning to understand what Gabe had meant about misliking Lord Jandegar.  He’d never stood this close to the man before.  At a distance he was noble-looking and hale and seemed the perfect sort of lord to lead an army, but up close his eyes were queerly detached from the world, just like his son’s.  His breath reeked of wine.  

“I--” Cob hesitated, unsure how Lord Jandegar would react to the tale of Lorel and Skreeander.  He doubted the man had the patience to hear the whole of it.  “The words are written here, My Lord.”  He handed over the scroll from his belt. 

Lord Jandegar raised an eyebrow.  “My brother’s own seal.  Curious.”  He split the wax with a thumbnail and began to read.  When he was through he laughed, coldly.

“Bertra,” he said, “I’ve changed my mind.  Fetch my sons and the other one at once.”

“As you say, My Lord.”  Bertra waved at her grandson and the awkward boy went into the kitchen.  He returned a moment later with the three lordlings.  Despite having their sleeves rolled up all of them were soaked.  Wyeth Trawn had soap in his golden curls and soot smeared on his cheeks, little Shan was trembling with cold, and Lorel’s sullen black eyes were puffy and bloodshot.  

“Lorel,” said Lord Jandegar.  “Come.  Stand up here.”  He patted the bar.

“Why?” The boy sneered, trying to mask his fear with insolence. 

“Do it or suffer the consequences.”  Lorel hesitated, looking as though he might refuse, but after a moment he brushed past Cob and climbed up on the bar.  Lord Jandegar then grabbed two empty tankards and crashed them together, making a noise that stopped every conversation in the tavern.  The dicing men and the bearded farmers and everyone else fell silent and turned their eyes to the Lord of Hollow Hill.  

“Villagers of Thimble Downs,” Lord Jandegar shouted, “Listen here!  My son has a received a decree from Whitestone he would like to share with you all.”

Lord Jandegar handed Cob’s letter up to his son.  “Read.  Loud enough for everyone to hear you.”  All color drained from Lorel’s face as his eyes took in the seal on the parchment.  

“Father--” he protested.

“Read!”  

Lorel winced and unfurled the note.  “Dearest Nephew Lorel. . .” he began reading.

“Louder,” interrupted Lord Jandegar.  Lorel continued, shouting.

“. . .I am told you took this man’s horse today as recompense for a ruined shirt.”  Lorel’s gaze jumped in surprise to Cob and lingered there, burning.  “As I do not recall ever granting you the authority to dispense justice to the villagers of Thimble Downs on my behalf, I hereby order you to return the animal this very night or stand trial for horse theft in the morning.  While your face may be nearly as pretty as Queen Selthena’s. . .” The lordling faltered as a door banged open.  All the ruckus had roused several of the whores from their beds; they were appearing in their doorways now, blinking and mostly naked.

“Continue!” 

  Lorel swallowed, blood rising in his cheeks and ears.  “. . .While your face may be nearly as pretty as Queen Selthena’s, your heart possesses not a tenth of her mettle and your mind is so lacking in discretion that you are unfit to rule a pig sty.”  

The room erupted in laughter.  “Let this be a warning to you, should you continue to abuse the name of Breylock on my lands I will see to it that your father confines you within the walls of Hollow Hill until your eighteenth Name Day.  Fondly,  Lord Jondel Breylock of Whitestone, High Seat of the Hinterlands and Custodian of the Queen’s Peace.”

The room jeered and whistled.  Lord Jandegar waved for quiet.

“Please,” he called out, “when you leave here tell everyone you know about what you’ve seen tonight.  My son is in desperate need of a lesson in humility.” 

Lorel was visibly shaking with the power of his hatred.  He tore the letter in two and let the pieces drop to the floor.

“You will regret shaming me like this one day, Father,” he said quietly.  

Lord Jandel’s reaction was swift.  With one hand he took his son by the arm and yanked him down off the bar, throwing him to the floor.  Then he dropped to one knee and pulled the sword Lorel wore from its scabbard. 

“You threaten me?” He calmly laid the blade of the sword against his son’s neck.  “I have never made a fool of you.  You have managed that all by yourself.  My brother is right to mock you.  You are unfit to rule.  I did not spend a lifetime building my reputation just to have it undone by a pathetic sniveling whelp like you, too delicate to even carry a proper sword.”  Lord Jandegar eyed the blade in his hand in disgust and turned his wrist, drawing a drop of blood from Lorel’s throat.  “Tomorrow you will return to Hollow Hill to begin work as a log hand in the mills.  Hopefully it will teach you something of being a man.  If you refuse, I will see to it that upon my death my lands and seat return to Whitestone to be ruled from the drum keep as they were in centuries past.  You will inherit nothing and live out the rest of your days as a commoner.”  

Lord Jandegar’s knuckles had gone white; the sword was biting deeper into Lorel’s skin. The boy began to sob, his eyes wild with fear.  “Now tell me, Son. . .do you regret making a fool out of me yet?”

Lord Jandegar dropped the sword and stood.  “Get up.”  

Gasping and spluttering, Lorel scrambled to his feet.  Blood rained down the front of his neck and onto his shirt.

“Pick up your toy.  We’re leaving.”  Lord Jandegar pointed to Cob.  “See that this man gets his horse back and meet Sigmond and I by the fountain.”      

Wordlessly Lorel returned the sword to his waist.  Sigmond of Woburn tossed him a rag from the bar.

“For your throat.”  Lorel threw the cloth to the ground.  Sigmond shrugged.  “Suit yourself.” 

Lord Jandegar and Sigmond headed for the stairs, with the entire tavern watching them in silence so complete the rushing of the river far below could be heard. 

“What are you looking at?” Lorel snapped at Wyeth Trawn and Little Shan, who were both pale and stone-faced.  

“Nothing,” Shan squeaked.  Lorel sneered at him and turned to follow his father.  

Gabe leaned close to Cob and whispered, “What of the Altarians, should we tell Lord Jandegar?”  Cob shook his head.

“No need.  He’ll find out on his own soon enough.  Come.  We haven’t much time to spread our warning.”  

Cob pursued Lorel down the stairs, followed closely by Gabe, Wyeth, and Shan.  

While the stable boy put the key in the lock of Skreeander’s stall with trembling hands, Lorel stood glaring at Cob.

“You and your boy,” he hissed.  “Will pay for this.  Ganther as my witness I swear it.” 

Cob gazed at the doll-faced wretch of a boy, pityingly.  “Ganther will have naught to do with the likes of you, Lorel.  Best to become a different man or find yourself another god.”

The lordling growled, reaching for his sword.  As his hand touched the hilt however, there came a shout of alarm and a crash of steel from the end of the bridge tunnel.  Gabe looked to Cob.

“What in hell?”

“That was Lord Jandegar’s shout.” said Cob.  A second shout and a screech of steel cut the air.  Cob’s blue eyes suddenly shot wide.

“Altarians!”   

Shoving past Lorel, Cob moved as fast as he could down the tunnel.