Authors: Tony Shillitoe
‘T
hey searched the village,’ the guard explained. ‘There were three old women and a shepherd. They said the woman you want hadn’t been back since her mother died.’
‘Thank you,’ Warlord Roughcut muttered and peremptorily dismissed the guard. He scratched the ridge of an old scar on his chin as he surveyed the palace parade ground with his dark-brown eyes. Hordemaster Fist’s information wasn’t accurate and the assassin had vanished, it seemed. He cleared his throat and headed for King Hawkeye Ironfist’s chambers, wondering how he might appease the king’s anger when he was told that his son’s murderer had eluded his guards.
Hawkeye rose expectantly as Roughcut entered, but his shoulders visibly sagged when he saw his Warlord’s expression. ‘Don’t tell me bad news,’ he said testily. ‘What do you plan to do next?’
‘I’ll find out everything about this woman,’ Roughcut replied. ‘Where she goes, who she knows, what she eats, what she’s afraid of. Everything.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I’ll catch her, Your Highness.’
‘Why would a young woman want to kill my sons?’ Hawkeye asked. ‘Who is paying her?’
‘Until I catch her, Your Highness, we probably won’t know.’
Hawkeye straightened a fold in his royal red gown and coughed. ‘Sit down, Roughcut,’ he ordered, after he caught his breath. Roughcut sat on a deep-blue armchair, one of four and the only padded seating in the chamber. ‘Roughcut, humour me,’ Hawkeye said as he sat. ‘Do you want a drink?’ Roughcut politely declined. ‘Suit yourself,’ the king said and snorted. ‘I’m having one, regardless.’ He reached to the side of his chair and picked up a small brass gong, which he struck with his fist. A servant appeared at the entry. ‘Bring me a fresh jug of red wine!’ he ordered, and returned the gong to its resting position. ‘Not much pleases me nowadays,’ he announced to Roughcut, ‘but a good wine is always a good wine.’ Roughcut chuckled with the king and waited for Hawkeye’s real intention to be revealed, but the king was manoeuvring to the main point. ‘How are my soldiers, Roughcut? Are they happy to be serving the king?’
Roughcut raised an eyebrow. ‘Soldiers serve, Your Highness. I would have thought their individual happiness was not your concern.’
‘Don’t be a fool. I need more than servants. I need their hearts. My father treated his men like possessions. I have no intention of being like that. I don’t want my sons dying in brothels and taverns either.’ The servant brought the wine in a plain pottery decanter and two goblets. ‘Pour for both,’ Hawkeye ordered, and coughed again to clear his throat. ‘This cough doesn’t seem to want to let go,’ he complained. He waited until Roughcut met his gaze and said, ‘You know I’m dying, don’t you?’
‘Pardon me for saying so, Your Highness, but there’s always talk,’ Roughcut remarked dryly.
‘Talk!’ Hawkeye snorted. ‘Well, sometimes the talk is right. My surgeon says I have a few months, maybe less. Are you pleased, Roughcut?’
‘Why would I be pleased, Your Highness?’
Hawkeye laughed and started coughing again. When he was composed, he continued. ‘Because, Roughcut, one of my fine boys will be your new king and master.’ He raised his goblet. ‘To the new king!’ Roughcut hesitated before he picked up the second goblet. ‘Oh good Jarudha, man!’ Hawkeye exclaimed. ‘It won’t kill you. The servant would have tasted it before he poured it into the decanter. Does the king have to
order
you to drink to his successor’s health?’
‘To the new king,’ Roughcut responded with subdued passion and sipped from the goblet.
Hawkeye quaffed his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand. ‘I didn’t upset you by asking you to drink to my own death, did I?’
‘It’s not something I do very often, Your Highness,’ Roughcut dryly replied. ‘Men have been flogged for doing it.’
Hawkeye paused and stared at Roughcut. Then he burst into laughter and finished in another coughing fit. ‘Am I—am I that ruthless, Roughcut? That you—you would think I’d—get you to drink to—my death—and then have you flogged?’ he gasped and chuckled as he fought to catch his breath again. ‘Is that what you really expect of me?’
Roughcut shifted uncomfortably. ‘No, Your Highness, I wouldn’t expect that.’
‘But you are saying that’s what others expect, aren’t you?’
‘There’s always talk, Your Highness.’
Hawkeye waved his right hand as if he was warding off the rumours surrounding his leadership. ‘Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk! Why the incessant reliance on what
people are saying, man? People have no idea.’ He paused again, and leaned forward in his chair conspiratorially. ‘Which of my sons will make the best king after I die, Roughcut?’
‘That’s not for me to decide,’ Roughcut circumspectly replied.
‘I asked you to humour me.’
Roughcut saw the king’s steely gaze focus on him. ‘The right of succession belongs to Prince Inheritor as your firstborn.’
‘And you would as willingly and happily serve Inheritor as any of my sons, Roughcut?’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
‘Even if he’s a weak-stomached man without the courage to fight his country’s enemies?’ Roughcut stayed silent and Hawkeye grinned. ‘You’re too prudent for your own good. Inheritor will make a poor and ineffectual king, Roughcut. I know that much. He’ll choose to share the rule of the city with his brothers because he knows what he is. He doesn’t have the balls to be a ruler. Stop playing faithful servant. Who would you prefer to see as king?’
‘I don’t know, Your Highness.’
Infuriated by the Warlord’s reticence, Hawkeye threw his goblet across the room to clatter against the stone floor pavers, pushed out of his chair, swore, and glared at the Warlord. ‘Look at my sons, Roughcut, and choose who you’ll serve! But you can’t choose Shortear because he’s dead, murdered in a cheap whore’s arms in a derelict tavern in the Foundry Quarter. Inheritor is a weakling, a compromiser, but perhaps you might like that. You could advise him, have power through the king.’ He strode several paces across the room and whirled to face Roughcut. ‘You might like Thirdson, but Thirdson gets too much pleasure out of killing Shessian peasants. Thirdson would ruin our Kerwyn
land within a year because he likes to fight, but he doesn’t know enough about warfare yet. Then there’s Lastchild, who’s too afraid to make any decisions in case he upsets anyone, so he stays in the palace and paints all day. I have rooms full of Lastchild’s paintings, Roughcut, and none of them are any good. And Gift. He’s the youngest, a boy, just fifteen years old. Poor little disenfranchised Gift. Talk has it he’s not even my son, and talk might be true, but no one can prove anything and my dear sweet queen wouldn’t dare admit that she slept with her favourite guard to give Hawkeye another son. But we can’t have a fifteen-year-old boy with suspect legitimacy come to the throne, can we? So that leaves only Shadow and River. Shadow reads like a scholar, fights like a soldier and prays to Jarudha like a Seer. Now there’s everything we would want in a king, eh, Roughcut? What do you think of Shadow?’
‘Prince Shadow would make a fine king, Your Highness,’ Roughcut replied.
Hawkeye broke into laughter, paced across the floor and slumped back into his chair. ‘Roughcut, you are incorrigible.’ He slapped his leg and laughed again, and then coughed. ‘Shadow as king. King Shadow. You would follow him because he is a scholar, a Seer and a soldier. He is more of a man than any of the great kings of the past, more educated than any of his brothers. Thirty-seven years of age and wiser than many Seers. Oh yes, Shadow would make a fine king indeed. But there would be no heirs. The line would stop with Shadow. My second son, the young man who could conceivably lift these barbarian people out of their barbarian ways, doesn’t have an appetite for women, does he?’
The Warlord watched the king’s expression and saw the old man’s grey eyes waiting for an answer. ‘I don’t believe the talk, Your Highness.’
‘It’s not just talk. Shadow is a man’s man. He’s a clever lover, discreet—not like his younger brothers who display their wanton ways all over the city with anything warm and captured by them—but he has nothing to do with women. He slavishly follows the religion of the Seers and their vows of chastity. He will never produce an heir.’ Hawkeye leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘Of course that leaves River, who hates everything and everyone. He’d wage war until the entire kingdom burned with his anger. So who should I choose to succeed me, Roughcut? If you were me, who would you choose?’
‘I am not the king,’ Roughcut answered calmly. ‘I don’t have the wisdom to even pretend to choose who would make the best king out of your sons, Your Highness. Only you have that wisdom.’
Hawkeye held Roughcut’s gaze after he’d answered, and finally said, ‘I want to know who is trying to kill my princes and I want to know why. I want the killing to stop at one. I’m making you personally responsible.’
‘Give me permission, father, and I’ll find out who the murdering bastard is, and I’ll drag him before you and cut out his tongue and feed his guts to the crows!’
King Hawkeye met his son’s intense brown-eyed gaze. ‘River. Poor, angry River. Would you do that for me?’
River squared his shoulders, flicking back his wavy brown locks. ‘I would, father. Gladly. When can I start?’
Hawkeye chuckled and shook his head. ‘I’ve made arrangements. Warlord Roughcut and Hordemaster Fist have the search underway.’
‘But I can help them!’ River protested.
‘River, I want you to take a company of fifty soldiers and root out the leader of the Shessian insurrection last
week at the toolmaking factory. I want the fool brought in for punishment. The Shess need reminding of their place.’
River’s eyes brightened and he smiled. ‘Yes, father!’ He turned and began to stride out of the palace.
‘River.’
River turned to find his father staring at him. ‘Yes, father?’
‘
I’m
the king,’ said Hawkeye with deliberate pacing to emphasise the point. ‘Respect that.’
River’s mouth opened in astonishment, but he bowed his head abruptly, saying, ‘Yes, Your Highness. I apologise for expressing inappropriate familiarity in my enthusiasm.’ When he raised his eyes to discover that his father was already leaving the chamber he muttered, ‘Arrogant bastard,’ turned, and strode out.
Beyond the throne room, Hawkeye dismissed his royal guards and headed to a chamber reserved for very private meetings. None of his sons knew its true function and only Warlord Roughcut was entrusted with its secrets, so he checked that he wasn’t being observed before entering. The room was musty and dark and cold stone. He fumbled blindly for a switch by the door and the white wire-lightning light unveiled a compact chamber with a round table and two plain dark wooden chairs. A small door was positioned in the centre of the adjacent wall and thick and very dusty pastoral tapestries covered the rest of the stone walls. He sat on one chair.
He didn’t have long to wait. At a soft tap on the small door, he rose and opened it. A blindfolded dark-haired youth was thrust out of a dark tunnel where a familiar guard’s face, lit by torchlight, briefly acknowledged the king. Hawkeye closed the door. He took the youth’s hand and led him to a chair. ‘Sit,’ he ordered, and the youth, feeling the chair by his legs, sat
tentatively. ‘Do you recognise my voice?’ the king asked. The youth shook his head. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No, mister,’ the youth replied. ‘I mean, yes, I’m sure I don’t know your voice.’
‘Listen carefully to my instructions then. When I finish I want you to repeat what I’ve said back to me. Understand?’
‘Yes, mister.’
Hawkeye studied the Shessian youth’s full lips and soft cheeks, guessing him to be no more than fourteen. He was not the boy to whom he’d spoken last time. He wondered how Roughcut found them and what was done with them after they carried their royal instructions to the recipient and returned for payment.
It is a ruthless world
, he reminded himself, and coughed. ‘Good,’ he said, and sat opposite the youth. ‘Listen carefully. There is a Shessian woman you are to find for me.’
Prince Shadow nodded to His Eminence. ‘Thank you for listening to my prayers.’
‘Always a pleasure to be of service to a soul committed to Jarudha’s purpose,’ Seer Scripture replied. ‘I will pass the word through the acolyte ranks and they will ask among the people for information that will help you to find this woman who murdered your brother.’ He made the holy sign of the circle as a blessing to Shadow, after which the prince smiled and exited the temple, accompanied by his five personal bodyguards, and in the early evening headed towards the palace along the brittle white wire-lightning-lit pathway.
Alone, Seer Scripture returned to his desk and sat, leaning back in his chair to contemplate the day’s work. A knock broke his brief reverie. ‘Enter,’ he instructed.
The door opened and Seer Word’s head appeared around the door. ‘May I?’ Scripture invited Word to sit
on the opposite side of the desk. ‘How was your meeting with the prince?’ Word inquired after he sat.
‘I thought you’d come,’ Scripture observed with a knowing smile. ‘The prince is concerned for his brothers’ safety.’
‘Does he suspect anything?’
Scripture glanced at the door before saying, ‘No.’
Word nodded. ‘What advice did you offer?’
Scripture shook his head. ‘What can I advise? I told him the fates of all people are in Jarudha’s hands. I said that we must all offer up prayers to ask for the quick arrest of whoever is behind the unfortunate death of Prince Shortear.’
‘And his father?’
‘The king is infuriated that someone would dare to attack his sons.’
‘This is a dangerous game,’ Word warned. ‘What if the king suspects?’
Scripture smiled and quoted, ‘“The way to Jarudha’s Paradise is not for the weak. To love Jarudha is to take the risky pathway.” We are doing His work by ensuring that the Kerwyn throne passes into the lawful hands of the one who best serves Him.’
‘What next?’
‘Another prince.’
‘Inheritor?’
Scripture shook his head. ‘Not yet. Too soon and too obvious. The king and Shadow both must think that someone is plotting to destroy the royal family, not disinherit the eldest son.’ He scratched his forehead. ‘I have organised what will unfold. Watch and appreciate.’