Prisoner of Fate (8 page)
Authors: Tony Shillitoe
The interior was dark, heavy with smoke, and tiny. A single wire-lightning bulb glowed above the bar, but the five tables for patrons were in shadow and the hearth was dead. Three men at one table, midway through playing cards, watched her, and another man, immersed in shadow, was slumped against the wall on the floor. ‘Can I help you, lady?’ a gruff voice challenged.
She met the inquisitive gaze of the wiry, balding barkeep who stood at the corner of the bar, a cigarette glowing at the corner of his mouth. ‘Are you Alan Derry?’ she asked.
‘What if I am?’ the barkeep replied.
‘I’m looking for Captain Marlin,’ she said. ‘He said I could find out where he is if I asked here.’ She was conscious of the men at the table chuckling as they returned to their card game. In another room, a man coughed violently and spat.
‘If you’re one of his women, you won’t find him here,’ the barkeep growled.
‘I’m
not
one of his
women
,’ Meg brusquely informed him. ‘Where is he?’
The barkeep seemed to be sizing her up as he considered his answer. Finally he said, ‘He’s in his room,’ and jerked his thumb towards a dark corner over his left
shoulder. Meg glanced at the men at the table and the crumpled figure on the floor as she headed for the corner, but the barkeep grabbed her arm to stop her. ‘If you make any trouble, I’ll forget you’re a lady and throw you out like anyone else,’ he warned, his smoky breath making her wince. She unsuccessfully tried to shake his hold, surprised that the old wiry man had so much strength. ‘You get my meaning?’ he asked, glaring up at her.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. He released her arm.
She reached the door, her skin smarting from his grip, and knocked. For the first time she noticed a faint trace of daylight under the door. ‘He won’t answer that,’ the barkeep called. ‘Go in.’
As Meg turned the handle and opened the creaking door, she was struck by the room’s odour, a mixture of the rank stench of a rarely cleaned man’s room and a sweeter smell, one that teased her memory. A tiny glassless window, like an arrow slit in a castle tower, let a thin stream of daylight run across the centre of the interior. A wooden chair leaned against a squat table, miscellaneous shipping articles hung from the walls in a chaotic display, and reclined on a dishevelled narrow bunk was a white bloated-bellied figure, wearing only faded blue baggy trousers. ‘Who are you?’ he rasped, and coughed.
She hadn’t considered the import of that question until it was asked. ‘Captain Marlin?’ she inquired warily.
‘Can’t be,’ the man replied irritably. ‘That’s my name, woman. I asked yours.’
She hesitated, the words having been silent for a long time. She stepped into the room, closed the door and said, ‘Meg. Meg—’ but the second name was not a simple answer so she avoided it with, ‘You brought me here from Western Shess. Fifteen years ago.’
Captain Marlin eased into a sitting position on the edge of his bed, wheezing, and squinted at her in the dull light. ‘Fifteen years ago, you say?’ he muttered and
scratched the white tufts of hair on his bloated belly. ‘Fifteen years ago I was captain of the
Waverunner.
Proud and fine ship she was.’ He stared at her harder and a knowing expression eased across his face. ‘You had red hair,’ he said.
‘I changed it,’ she said, shifting her feet uncomfortably, conscious of the room’s confined space and the smell.
Marlin coughed and reached for a wine bottle on the table. He swigged a mouthful and held it towards Meg. When she hesitated, he said, ‘Good stuff. Not ordinary wine. Euphoria. Started importing it ten years ago from your old country. Good money in it until the government made it illegal. Still get my supplies though. It makes life a lot easier to take.’ She stared at the bottle, the teasing memory of the sweeter smell clarifying into the evenings she had shared euphoria with Queen Sunset. She’d forgotten so much. ‘Go on,’ Marlin coaxed. ‘I got no ills you can get from the bottle. Just good feelings. Take a drink and then you can tell me what you want with an old has-been after all these years.’
Meg gingerly accepted the bottle and sipped the contents. The alcohol had a biting taste, but it was quickly soothed by the effect of the euphoria. ‘More,’ Marlin ordered. ‘You won’t get anything from a sip, woman.’ Meg felt the light-headedness beginning to spread and remembered how euphoria always eased sorrow. She lifted the bottle and drank again.
ART
T
WO
‘It seems that the human spirit is stronger than the human soul, because many times have I seen faith, the essence of the soul, waver in the face of adversity, while the spirit—that which defines us as human—endured suffering that words cannot describe.’
FROM
C
ONFESSIONS OF A
H
ERETIC
, S
EER
S
UNLIGHT
C
rawling along the sewer wasn’t his first choice of a method of entry, but the guards were more vigilant of late and the walls presented far too many challenges to climb in daylight. He was only able to get in and out regularly because stealing from the king’s pantry was so audacious that no one expected anyone would actually try it.
Besides, the palace guards expected assassins, not thieves, so they rarely patrolled the kitchens, and he knew two of the apprentice cooks who turned blind eyes whenever he briefly appeared and disappeared. His sister and her child needed good nourishment. The income from her trade barely paid the rent, and he couldn’t get a job of late, so he figured the king wouldn’t miss an occasional bag of groceries. Of course, he told no one of where he was sourcing his food. Only idiots and novices bragged about their exploits. Only idiots and novices ended up in the Bog Pit.
He’d used the sewers three times previously so he knew where the pipes joined and where they narrowed. Scaling the cliffs from the ocean to enter the pipes was always difficult because the salty spray and sewerage made the rocks treacherous, but the danger meant there
was even less chance anyone would suspect someone would be foolhardy enough to enter the palace that way. Only one section of the pipes was large enough to crawl through—a service line running through the centre from the outlet that came up inside servants’ quarters within the palace. The tricky moment was always climbing the metal ladder to ground level and listening for movement in the quarters. The servants were poor Shessians like himself, but he had learned long before he ever illegally entered the castle that their loyalties belonged to their Kerwyn masters. Palace servants turned in three of his childhood friends to the soldiers for stealing cloth in the markets. It wasn’t even their cloth, but they saw the theft, alerted the city guards and pointed out the boys involved. All three had their hands amputated in the Bog Pit. Only Stumpy Crossroad came out alive.
Crawling blindly on his elbows wore him out, so he was relieved when his fingers touched the rough ridge work in the pipe that told him he was at the point where the vertical shaft led up to the servant’s quarters. He rolled onto his back, the liquid seeping through his shirt making him wince from the cold, took a grip on the first rung of the rusty ladder and began the climb.
King Hawkeye Ironfist rested his elbows on the rough stone of the tower battlement, breathing in the salty air as he surveyed his domain. Seagulls wheeled across the midday harbour, their screeching cries echoing against the cliffs and the old dusty cream castle walls. A dozen ships rocked at anchor on the dark-blue water, vessels from different nations waiting to load produce from the Kerwyn factories and farms, while tiny fishing boats sailed between them. Across the bay, the solid stone silhouette of the Bog Pit, the infamous gaol built by the barbarian Shessian kings, dominated the bluff as a stark
reminder of the fate of men who did not know how to be obedient. Hawkeye had sent hundreds to their deaths in the bowels of the gaol and hundreds more to repent their ways before their release back into society. Being king brought a weight of responsibility with which he had grown very familiar in the years since his father’s death. In the air above the gaol, ever-watchful, a red airbird floated, its rounded, hot air-filled, fabric balloon tethered by its basket to the earth by three long ropes. The airbirds were a useful piece of Seer magic, enabling his soldiers to watch over the city like hunting hawks.
He straightened and glanced at his obedient guards at attention in their red uniforms, long thundermakers resting against their hips, and their attentiveness made him smile wryly. All ten would die for him. Their sworn oath—to protect him with their lives—comforted him and he scratched his sparse grey beard to ease an irritating itch as he gazed south-east. A brown haze hung above the Foundry Quarter, the product of hundreds of factory chimneys belching waste into the air day and night as they manufactured their wares. He hadn’t visited the Quarter for eleven years, not since he led troops there to personally quell a riot that dragged on for days because the factory workers demanded more pay. The rebellious leaders his men didn’t slaughter in the brief and bloody encounter had long since rotted to death in the Bog Pit.
He was twenty-two years of age when his father, King Ironfist the First, swept the last Shessian Royal king from the throne and turned what was Western Shess into the southern province of the Kerwyn kingdom. His father’s troops slaughtered half the barbarian population during the two-year war before peace brought sanity and the realisation that the new land required a substantial population to defend it and
make it prosper economically. The surviving Shessian people were assimilated into the Kerwyn culture, although most became the lower classes—workers in new factories and on farms. Kerwyn was the official language of politics and trade, but the Shessian people clung doggedly to their old language in their daily lives, cementing a clear barrier between the conquerors and the conquered.
Only one element crossed the barrier—religion. His father’s decisions to embrace the barbarian belief in one god, Jarudha, and to encourage the barbarian priests who called themselves Jarudha’s Seers to extend their mission to all of the common people, provided a bridge between the Kerwyn rulers and the Shessian subjects. The Seers were committed to teaching the people how to live peacefully in cooperation with their conquerors as an essential demonstration of their faith, and in return the Seers were accorded freedoms denied most citizens. The sky-blue Seer robe was recognisably the highest badge of office below the Kerwyn royalty, commanding respect and wielding authority that could only be countermanded by the king and his family.
There was still much for King Hawkeye to do to maintain the kingdom’s future, but his health was failing and he knew he was running out of time. There was the matter of ensuring that his eldest, Prince Inheritor, was ready to take on the responsibility of ruling the kingdom. Hawkeye became king at thirty-three after his father fell from a horse, so at thirty-nine many in the palace believed that Inheritor was primed to be a good king—a just man with personal integrity—but Hawkeye knew his son’s weaknesses. Inheritor’s diplomatic nature could be catastrophic in a time of war when action, not talk, was needed. Across the western ocean, a powerful empire had spread north to engulf the old Vasilo Empire and
was turning its attention to the east. A future Kerwyn king would have to be strong to meet that threat and snuff it out ruthlessly so that it lost its impetus. Inheritor, he suspected, would negotiate with the very enemies he should simply kill, and that made Hawkeye uncertain of the succession.
Shouting in the palace distracted him. He motioned to a guard to check the cause before he turned his gaze north to where the city stretched along the coast and into low foothills, the green roof tiles contrasting sharply with the dry yellow grasses and khaki bush. Two airbirds—one yellow, and a rainbow-coloured one belonging to his second son—drifted along the coastal cliffs. His second son, named Shadow because he was born to follow in the shadow of his elder brother, loved riding in the airbirds. Shadow had better attributes than Inheritor to be a strong king because he was a ruthless conspirator who had strong associations with the Seers. Prince Shadow was so clever at manipulation, and so precise in his following of the Jarudhan faith, that Hawkeye sometimes wondered if he could trust his second son with his own life. He suspected Shadow might even attempt to assassinate Inheritor so that he could ascend to the throne in his older brother’s place.
He smiled at the thought. It had happened in the family’s history. His great-grandfather, Watcher Ironfist, a third-born son, became king because the second-eldest died of illness and he slew the firstborn, Warhammer, in a mock duel. Official oral tradition reported Warhammer’s death as the result of a terrible tragedy when Watcher’s blunted protective sword tip slipped off as the pair sparred for their father’s entertainment. Popular ballads recorded foul play. Hawkeye believed the popular view.
Commotion in the stairwell broke the peace and Hawkeye drew a breath as a ragged figure burst from
the opening onto the tower. The young man caught his right foot on the lip of the stairs and sprawled across the stonework as guards scrambled after him, and before he could rise he was smothered in a crush of hands and knees. A soldier approached Hawkeye and bowed, pressing his clenched fist against his forehead to show servility in the Kerwyn manner. ‘Explain,’ Hawkeye ordered, watching the desperate young man struggle with his restrainers.
‘Begging your most royal pardon for this rude intrusion, Your Majesty,’ the dark-eyed soldier began.
‘Get to the point,’ Hawkeye barked. ‘What is this? Another assassination attempt?’
‘No, Your Majesty,’ the soldier replied.
‘Then what?’
‘He was discovered in the royal kitchen, stealing food.’
Hawkeye raised an eyebrow and scowled. ‘If he was discovered in the kitchen, how did he get all the way up here?’
The soldier hesitated, afraid of becoming the focus of the king’s anger. He’d heard stories of it. A soldier, so it was told to him, had spat to the side, unaware that the king was entering the stable and the spittle landed squarely on the king’s boot. King Hawkeye looked down at his boot, looked at the offender, and ordered the man garrotted on the spot as he walked on to continue his inspection of the palace grounds.
‘He—well he seemed to know his way around—Your Majesty,’ he stammered.
Hawkeye stared at the young man being held face down by six guards while metal restrainers were locked onto his wrists and ankles. ‘Stand him up,’ the king ordered. As the guards hauled the wiry, mousey-haired prisoner upright, Hawkeye estimated him to be about seventeen.
Sassy and confident, but no different to the
urchins and thieves that breed like rats in the Foundry Quarter
, he assessed. He caught a whiff of the prisoner and wrinkled his nose at the sewerage stench. The prisoner met his assessing gaze with an expression bordering on defiance and yet Hawkeye didn’t find it threatening. ‘What’s your name?’ the king asked in the common Shessian tongue.
The prisoner’s brown eyes blinked. ‘Chase.’
A guard tweaked his ear viciously. ‘It’s Your Majesty to you, filth.’
Chase winced, but didn’t add the respectful title. ‘What were you doing in my kitchen?’ Hawkeye asked.
‘Getting food,’ Chase replied.
‘Your Majesty,’ the guard said again and punched Chase in the ribs. Chase grunted with pain, but again did not add the title.
‘How come you know your way around my palace?’ the king inquired.
Chase shrugged. ‘Lucky guesses.’ He yelped as the guard slapped his face, and said, ‘I know, I know, all right?’ glaring at the guard.
A smile twitched along Hawkeye’s mouth.
I would have been like that if the barbarians had invaded my land
, he mused. He looked the prisoner over, seeing the signs of a hard life and partial starvation in the thin arms, and said, ‘The usual punishment for a thief.’
‘But, Your Majesty?’ protested the guard with the eager desire to punish Chase at every opportunity. ‘He’s broken into the palace. Surely he must be beheaded?’
Hawkeye glared at the guard, who, realising the foolishness of his question, shrank from the prisoner’s side. ‘
If
he survives the loss of his hand, and
if
he survives the requisite imprisonment in the Bog Pit, that should serve to discourage others from doing the same. Take him away.’
The guards handed the hapless prisoner to the soldiers who had pursued him to the tower and Hawkeye watched them drag the youth down the stairs. To a guard Hawkeye said, ‘Find out where he got in and have the palace security improved immediately. I don’t think he was as lucky as he would have us believe.’
He waited for the guard to depart before he gazed across the battlements at the western ocean, letting the briny sea breeze tug at his hair and beard. The deep blue water was different out there than in the harbour, a restless animal breathing in rolling waves—unpredictable, malicious.
He had travelled aboard ships only three times in his earlier life as a Kerwyn prince, and each journey was such a torment of nausea and disorientation that he vowed when he came to the throne that he would never again step aboard an ocean-going vessel. The sailors who plied the trading routes to the west and south were creatures of a very different disposition and, while he respected their courage, he had no desire to be a part of their world. The ocean was at its best viewed from the tower and from the beach, but as far as he was concerned it belonged to the fish.
‘I am honoured Your Majesty has agreed to see me,’ said the grey-haired Seer, bowing respectfully before the king.
‘Would I be consigned to the seven hells if I didn’t see you?’ Hawkeye asked.
Seer Law raised his head and smiled. ‘Possibly.’
The king grinned and put his arm across the Seer’s shoulder. ‘Enough charade,’ he said, guiding the Seer towards a large dark door guarded by two soldiers. ‘We need to talk about the important issues.’ The guards opened the door and stood aside as the king and the Seer entered the king’s private chambers.
Seer Law had been in Hawkeye’s chambers many times, but the worldly opulence of the Kerwyn kings always aggravated his spiritual sensibility. The massive gilded mirrors on every wall, richly brocaded furnishings, red and gold fabrics, commissioned paintings and imported inventions filled the rooms to excess. ‘Porter?’ Hawkeye offered, lifting an emerald-encrusted silver decanter.
‘No alcohol,’ Law answered.
Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you all right?’
The Seer smiled wanly. ‘His Eminence has decreed that we are to enter a phase of abstinence. No alcohol, no sex—none of the worldly pleasures that might distract us from our duty to Jarudha.’ The king started sniggering while he poured himself a measure of porter. ‘What’s so amusing?’ asked Law.
Hawkeye sipped his drink before he answered. ‘After all the bastards your order has sired in the city, His Eminence decides that’s enough? How is he going to stop you from wenching?’