Brute (5 page)

Opening the chest at the foot of his bed proved tricky: it had latches on each side. He struggled with it for several minutes before he finally swore and gave it a mighty kick. He hurt his bare foot in the process, but at least the old wood caved beneath the pressure. He stuck his remaining hand into the wreckage and retrieved his few belongings: a razor, a short knife, and a scented handkerchief he’d stolen three festivals earlier from a whore in Tellomer who’d smiled at him instead of grimacing. Not much for a lifetime, but most of his salary went to Cecil. After placing the other items on the table beside the letter, Brute used the knife to pry up a loose floorboard near the edge of the bed. In a small cavity underneath was a tin box that contained all the coppers he had saved. He tucked the box under his left arm and twisted off the lid with his right, then tallied the small stash—a pittance, really. He replaced the lid and set the box on the table with his other possessions.

And then he sat on the edge of his terrible bed, looked at the table, and thought. He couldn’t imagine what sort of job the prince would find for him in Tellomer. Brute didn’t know how to do anything but use his strength. If his hips healed, maybe they could hook him up to a cart and use him like a mule, he thought sourly. Maybe he could stand in the corner and help hold up the ceiling.

He didn’t want to be a very large and useless lump, an object of pity acquired by the prince out of a sense of obligation. But he had few other choices, unless he intended to throw himself over the cliff again and hope that this time the rocks finished what they’d begun.

Maybe he should go just to see what the prince had in mind. Brute could simply thank him and walk away if the job proved too demeaning. The river would always be waiting. Besides, this way he’d get to see the inside of the palace. He smiled to himself. He’d be willing to bet that Darius and Cecil and most of the other Geddings had never managed that feat.

B
RUTE
felt no unhappiness as he turned his back on his home village for the last time. In fact, he felt wonderfully free. It had been weighing him down like a stone all these years, and he hadn’t even realized it. He’d paid off his debt to Cecil and bought himself a secondhand cloak that was in decent shape. It had a wide pocket in which he could jam the stump of his left arm. He was still huge and ugly, and people would still stare, but he felt almost whole that way.

The sky was a clear blue, the sun almost bright enough to hurt his eyes, the dusty road soft beneath his feet. He had worried a little about his legs and hips, but he’d allowed himself a few more days to recover before setting out, and even after walking a while, he experienced only a faint ache—not so different from how he would feel after a hard day’s work. It made him smile to know that he wasn’t at work now. No matter his fate, he no longer had to listen to Darius’s abuse, eat Cecil’s terrible food, or endure the villagers’ contemptuous looks. Other travelers and the citizens of Tellomer might think him a monster, but at least none of them would call him the spawn of a thief and a whore.

Cecil hadn’t offered to give him a meal for his journey, and Brute hadn’t asked for one, so around the midway point his stomach began to rumble. He was passing through a hamlet by then, a collection of stone houses and shops smaller than his own village but more prosperous. When he’d come this way before, it had always been festival day and everything had been closed up tight, but today shopkeepers were displaying shining pots and lengths of fabric and brightly painted wooden toys. In a little yard beside the inn, a boy was cooking skewers of meat over a fire. It smelled wonderful. After a brief hesitation, Brute entered the yard.

“How much?” he asked the boy, who was gaping up at him.

“Ten pence each.”

Brute didn’t know how to do more than the most basic sums. He fumbled in his right hand pocket and produced a single copper. “How many will this buy me?”

The boy sneered a little, and in a loud, slow voice, as if Brute were a simpleton, he said, “One copper gets you seven sticks.”

“And if I want ale to drink?”

“Five and a tankard.”

Brute set the coin on the edge of the brick fire pit.

He didn’t bother to sit down on the chairs that looked too spindly to hold him, nor did he remove his small bag of belongings from his shoulder. The ale came in a large tin tankard and was hardly better than the White Dragon’s, but it did quench his thirst. The meat, on the other hand, was the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten: hot and crispy on the outside, still slightly bloody at the center, with none of the gristle he was used to. The boy watched with something akin to admiration as Brute quickly cleared all five skewers. “Bet you could eat the whole lot of these,” he said, gesturing at his remaining sticks of meat.

“Only if I can have them for another copper. That’s all I have.”

The boy had a crooked smile. “My da would skin me alive over it. Sorry.”

“Maybe another time.” Brute walked away with his belly full and his lips tasting pleasantly of grease. He hummed under his breath as he continued on his way.

He wasn’t used to Tellomer being so crowded and bustling. It was a wonder to him that there could be so many people, and all of them with such important business to conduct. Some of them led mules or horses, some had carts loaded with sacks and baskets, some simply wove through the chaos with their arms full of packages. Merchants and street vendors called out their wares. Beggars slumped against buildings, palms held out. Babies cried and children laughed, men and women talked and argued, and the mingled scents of food and animals and emptied chamber pots and unwashed bodies permeated the air as if they were entities in themselves. Brute saw three men with dark skin and long, flowing robes—visitors from far away, he presumed. He saw a lithe woman performing gymnastic feats as passersby stopped, watched for a few moments, and tossed her a few coins. He saw a beautiful black-haired man in an expensive suit walking arm in arm with an equally beautiful and equally well-attired brunet.

Brute’s legs wanted to turn left at the fountain with the spitting fish of carved stone, which would take him underneath a stone archway and down a narrow, crooked alley. At the end of that alley he’d descend a cobblestoned hill lined with soap-scented launderers, and then he’d find himself in a confusing maze of buildings, most of which promised a few minutes of pleasure in exchange for a handful of coppers. But he had only one copper, and anyway, that wasn’t why he was here. He ordered his legs to continue forward past the fountain and down the wide street that rose steeply to the palace.

He’d walked by the palace once before out of curiosity, but hadn’t seen much aside from imposing stone walls. He’d never imagined he might actually go inside, and today those walls looked slightly frightening, like a gray dragon waiting to devour him. He silently chided himself for his stupidity and walked to the gate, which was guarded by a half dozen men in scarlet and cream uniforms. The middle-aged one with the graying beard seemed to be in charge. The look he gave Brute wasn’t so much hostile as deeply skeptical. “What do
you
want?”

“The… Prince Aldfrid told me to come here.”

The guard’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Did he now? And since when is His Highness in the practice of parleying with giants? Giants in rags, no less.”

Brute glanced self-consciously at his clothing. “He… he was in my village a few weeks ago and—”

“And I’m sure he had a delightful visit. Now, go away.”

After a calming breath, Brute removed the letter from an inside pocket. “He gave me this. Said I was to show it and I’d be let inside.”

That made the guard frown and hold out a hand. “Let’s see.”

Brute didn’t want to give up the letter; it was his only hope of a future. But the guard was waiting expectantly, and his colleagues were all watching—as were two men waiting to be let into the palace with their donkey and a cart full of sacks of grain. Brute handed the paper over.

The guard peered carefully at the seal. He held the folded paper up to the light, as if he were trying to see the ink, and then poked at the seal with one finger. “I guess this looks genuine,” he finally said, clearly regretting the admission.

“It is.”

The guard shrugged and turned to one of the others, this one a much younger man with a long, skinny neck and a nose like a beak. “Take him to Lord Maudit.” He returned the letter to Brute.

The younger guard didn’t look very pleased with his orders, but he barked, “Follow me,” and led Brute through the gate.

Brute had assumed that the palace was a single monumental building, but he quickly discovered that it was actually a complex of structures of varying size. Between them were paved passageways and courtyards and small swathes of green, with people and wagons and horses moving to and fro. It was really a small city in itself. There were stables, of course, but he also smelled a bakery and saw steam rising from a laundry. A smith was examining a horse’s hoof, a crew of several dozen men was erecting a new stone building, and a scholar of some sort was intoning a lecture at a group of youths who scribbled notes on papers.

Brute quickly grew disoriented, but his guide was confident enough. They entered an ancient-looking building via a side door, walked up several flights of stairs and down long corridors, and finally entered a wide hallway where people rushed back and forth with only a quick glance Brute’s way. The guard stopped in front of a pair of large doors that were flanked by two men in uniform. “He’s for Lord Maudit,” the bird-faced guard said before turning and marching away.

The man to Brute’s right sighed audibly and opened his door. It was tall enough that Brute didn’t have to duck to enter. He was led to a large room with worn stone floors, lots of wooden chairs arranged against the walls, and several smaller doors leading who knew where. Following like a very large but obedient puppy, Brute was taken to a bored-looking old man who sat at a desk. The man didn’t even bother to gawp at him. He peered at Brute’s paper without opening it, handed it back, and waved vaguely at a stone bench under a large window. “Wait there. Don’t break anything.”

Brute hadn’t intended to break a thing, but didn’t say so. He sat on the bench and took a closer look around. The ceiling was very high and had a complicated painting involving naked men with beards, winged gods, and sailing ships. Also horses, fluffy clouds, and a lot of words he couldn’t read. He’d never seen anything quite like it, and he spent a long time staring, tilting his head this way and that until his neck grew sore. Then he looked at the room’s other occupants instead. They were seated on the wooden chairs or pacing the room. Most of them carried sheaves of paper. They were dressed in very fine clothes, and they stared disapprovingly at Brute’s makeshift clothing and dirty bare feet.

Time passed achingly slowly. Sometimes someone would pop out from one of the little doors and take one or more of the waiting people back in with them, but nobody ever came for Brute. New people came through the large entry doors, did a double take when they saw him, and sat far away. They were eventually escorted through doorways too. His ass grew sore from sitting on the hard bench, his stomach gurgled and growled, and worst of all, his bladder began to complain quite insistently. He knew it was impossible for the giant with the ugly face to have been forgotten, and yet none of the people who worked there even glanced his way. Maybe they thought he was a new and especially unbecoming statue.

Just as he was about to give in to desperation and ask where he might find a place to relieve himself, a round woman with a feathered hat and the widest skirts he’d ever seen appeared from the far left door and sailed in his direction. “This way,” she commanded.

His hips and legs had cramped a little as he sat, and he limped very badly as he followed her.

The far left door led to an office smelling of tea and crammed with books and papers. The woman went away and shut the door behind her, leaving Brute alone with a man who was a few years older than him. The man was dressed in rather plain clothes and was tiny—barely five feet tall and probably one-third Brute’s weight—but he managed to project an aura of such powerful authority that he was almost terrifying. He stood several feet away and looked Brute up and down slowly. “You have a letter?” he finally said.

“Um, yes sir.” Brute produced the paper from the folds of his cloak and held it out, but the man didn’t take it.

“You will address me as Lord Maudit. You may call me milord or Your Excellency as well, for variety’s sake.”

“Yes, Lord Maudit.”

Lord Maudit rolled his eyes and snatched the paper out of Brute’s hand. He tore open the seal without ceremony and scanned the contents. When he was finished, he considered Brute again, this time appraisingly. It reminded Brute of the way Darius would look over a mule he was considering buying. “So you’re a hero?” he said at last.

“I—no. I mean, the prince, he—”

“Needed to be rescued from his own foolishness. Again. And rather dramatically, I understand.”