Ravenheart (55 page)

The schoolteacher crossed the small room and placed kindling atop the ashes in the fireplace. Several long sulfur sticks had been placed in a narrow brass cylinder by the fire, and he struck one upon the brickwork. It flared into life, and he touched it to the kindling. After a little while, his fire burning merrily, he added small coals. The north wind rattled the window. It was past dawn, and Alterith padded to the window, gazing out over the town. In the street below ten highland men were standing silently, seemingly impervious to the cold.

Alterith Shaddler had never known popularity. In all his years he had never developed the social skills necessary. When he had left the Holy Court the previous day, crowds had cheered him—and not just highlanders. Black-garbed Varlish had applauded as he passed. The persecution of a good woman was too high a price to pay for such regard. Alterith would swap it in an instant and accept a life of cold loneliness for the chance to turn back the clock and see Maev Ring free.

He had seen the clanswoman the previous night. She had given Banny enough money to see the school run for another five years without further input. “After that I am sure my nephew Kaelin will continue to support you,” she said.

“I am so sorry, madam,” he told her. “I fear you needed a better advocate.”

“You will call me Maev, Alterith Shaddler. And I could have wished for no better man to speak up for me. I meant what I said in that court. I have spent my life hating all Varlish. I saw no good in them. You and Gillam Pearce and Master Shelan have given me peace of heart.”

They had sat quietly then in the small cell. Alterith had not told her of the return of Jaim Grymauch even when she spoke of him. “When he does come back, you will make it clear to him that I do not desire vengeance. He should marry Parsha Willets and put this … this tawdry business behind him.”

“Parsha Willets?”

“She is a friend of Jaim’s,” said Maev. Suddenly she
laughed. “Why am I being coy? Parsha is what we used to call an Earth Maiden. Jaim is fond of her, and she loves him utterly.”

“I have no experience of such matters,” he said, “save what I have read in the great romances. However, in my readings I have come to the conclusion that ‘fond’ is not enough. Is that how you feel toward Jaim? Are you fond of him?”

“My feelings are my own,” she replied testily.

“I am sorry,” he said instantly. “I did not wish to be discourteous.”

Maev reached out and patted his shoulder. “I am too sharp sometimes, my friend. To be truthful, I do not really know what I feel for Jaim. I think of him constantly, and I feel empty when he is gone. If I close my eyes, I can see that big, ugly face with its childlike grin. I sometimes think that living with Jaim is like having a pet bear.” He saw her smile then. “In another time we would probably have wed. A safer time, when I didn’t have to worry constantly about him being taken and hanged. Now there will be no such time.”

Alterith had wanted to tell her about Jaim’s rescue of him, but he could not. In all their conversations her biggest fear had been of Jaim Grymauch being hurt. If she knew he was back, she would spend her last hours fretting and anxious.

“The apothecary Ramus has given me a potion,” he said, dipping his hand into his pocket. “If you take it an hour before the … the allotted time, it will remove all pain. He says you will feel nothing.”

“I want no potions,” she told him. “I want nothing to dull my eyes or my heart or leaden my limbs. I will walk from here as a Rigante should, head high.”

A guard had opened the door then, telling Alterith his time was at an end. Maev had risen from her chair and taken hold of his hands. “You take care, Alterith,” she said. Then she leaned in and kissed his cheek. The last person to kiss him thus had been his mother, twenty years before, and tears fell from his eyes.

Then the guard took his arm and led him from the cell. As the door closed, he saw it was the same guard who had administered his lashing.

“How is the back, sir?” he asked.

“It is healing, thank you.”

“The bishop has not yet ordered the remainder of the sentence to be carried out. That’s good. Gives the scars time to form.”

“Yes,” said Alterith.

“She’s not going to suffer, sir. The lads have doused the lower pyre with black oil. The smoke will—you know—make her pass out before the flames reach her.”

Alterith looked into the guard’s open and honest face. “She is an innocent woman,” he said. “This should not be happening.”

“I know that, sir. We all know that. It’s a terrible thing, no mistake. You did your best, though. A man can do no more. Now you better be going. There’s a dozen highlanders outside waiting to walk you to your lodgings.”

Now, with the dread day upon him, Alterith had no wish to witness the outcome of the evil. He could not bear the thought of watching Maev Ring burn.

On the tiny table beside the bed were all his notes from the trial. He sat quietly, arranging them, then rolled them into little bundles tied with string. Those he pushed into an old leather shoulder satchel. What will it be worth, he wondered, when they are read in Varingas? The previous night he had gone to the house of his clerics. Both men had been visited by the knights, who had removed their records of the trial and warned them not to appear for the final day. Without those records would anyone be impeached? Would the bishop face censure? And what were the chances of his own notes reaching Varingas, or indeed of his being alive to give evidence should he be so called?

Alterith had always believed that evil should be faced and that good would ultimately triumph if men stood their
ground. Yet in this place the evil had been institutional, pervading all areas. Good men had been coerced into silence or murdered, and the power of the church had been behind the killers. Throughout the centuries fine, brave people had suffered and died to establish a religion based on love and tolerance, to build a society whose laws protected the poorest. Yet within a generation vile men had corrupted the purity of the law and the spirit of the faith. It was enough to make a man doubt the existence of any higher celestial power. What kind of a god would allow such iniquities? Where in all this sea of corruption, greed, and vengeful malice was there a single indication that the cause of good had any strength?

Alterith washed his face, then dressed. Both of his shirts were now bloodstained, and his threadbare coat would not keep out the cold.

With a heavy heart he threw the satchel over his shoulder and walked downstairs.

Just after midmorning Galliott the Borderer was summoned to the offices of the Moidart. As he climbed the stairs, he saw Huntsekker coming down. The big man nodded to him as they passed but did not speak.

Galliott tapped on the Moidart’s door, heard the command to enter, and walked inside.

The Moidart, dressed all in gray, was sitting at his desk. “I see the hills are emptying,” he said. “Clansmen are everywhere.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I want no riot, Galliott. Our forces are stretched thin.”

“I have doubled the guard at the execution, lord. One hundred to control the crowd and twenty musketeers.”

The Moidart rose from his chair and winced as the unhealed burns on his body drew tight. “There was a dispatch last night from Baracum,” he said, pointing to an opened letter on the desk. “Read it.”

Galliott leaned over the table and lifted the document. The writing was small but beautifully crafted. Holding it at arm’s
length, Galliott squinted to read it. When he had finished, he carefully laid it on the desk. “It cannot be,” he said. “It is madness.”

“Madness or not, it is true,” said the Moidart. “The king has fled the capital and is raising an army against Luden Macks and the covenanters. It is civil war, Galliott. Heaven knows where it will end.”

“Surely the king will crush them, my lord.”

“Perhaps, though I doubt it. However, that is not our concern now. Insurrection in the highlands will not—for the foreseeable future—allow us to summon reinforcements from the king. All we have is our own troops. I have sent a rider to Colonel Ranaud, ordering him to withdraw from his attacks on the Black Rigante. Another rider has already been dispatched to order the king’s regiment to return south. These are dangerous days, Galliott.”

“Yes, my lord. Might it not be best if the bishop could be prevailed upon to pardon Maev Ring?”

The Moidart’s face darkened. “That is a course I urged upon him last night. He is worse than an idiot. He lectured me about the majesty of the church. Fresh from the bed of his strumpet and with Jorain Feld’s bribe jangling in his purse, he talks to me of Holy Law. But enough of that. Tell me of your plans for the execution.”

An hour before the execution the crowds were already gathering in force. Galliott stood just in front of the scaffold surrounding the twelve-foot-high pyre. Maev Ring would be brought out through the cathedral doors, walked to the steps of the scaffold and then up to the narrow platform, and tied to the stake. The walk from the cathedral would take less than a minute. Galliott placed twenty men to the right of the cathedral doors some fifty paces from the entrance. “Hold the line there,” he told them.

The stone-flagged cathedral square was in fact rectangular, 300 feet long and 210 feet wide. There were four entrance points: three from the town of Eldacre itself and one across a
bridge leading out to Five Fields. Already there were some six hundred people congregating close to the bridge. Forty of Galliott’s men, their six-foot quarterstaves held across their bodies, were maintaining a line some eighty feet from the scaffold. Twenty-five more Beetlebacks were struggling to control the highland crowds emerging from the entrance on the left. More and more were arriving, creating pressure on those in front, inexorably moving them forward against the officers. There was no ill intent as far as Galliott could see, but the press of the crowd was so great that the Beetlebacks were forced back a step at a time. Galliott issued orders to pull back the line, allowing more room for the newcomers. That eased the pressure for a while.

Sergeant Packard approached him. “They just keep coming, sir,” he said. “Reckon there’ll be a damn sight more than two thousand.”

Hundreds more people began to arrive from the Varlish areas. Originally Galliott had planned to keep the crowd at least a hundred feet from the pyre. He had revised it to sixty, and now he revised again. Once the fire was lit, the heat would drive people back, but until then Galliott was forced to allow the crowd to move closer. Even then his men were struggling to hold the lines, and there was no sign of the twenty musketeers. Their presence would certainly help maintain order.

Galliott climbed the scaffold steps, gazing out over the crowd, seeking a sign of Jaim Grymauch.

Suddenly booing and hissing began. Galliott glanced toward the cathedral and saw the four knights of the Sacrifice walking out into the sunshine. They were wearing their ceremonial armor of silver plate and handsome white plumed helms. White cloaks hung from their shoulders, the emblem of the tree embroidered in silver upon them. By their sides hung old-fashioned broadswords with flaring quillons. Galliott stared at them. In bygone days the knights of the Sacrifice had been heroes, men of courage and compassion whose
deeds were legendary. Now the beautiful silver armor was worn by men like Gayan Kay: malevolent, spiteful, bigoted, and merciless. Their presence had enraged the crowd, but Galliott had no power to order the knights to withdraw.

They walked to the foot of the scaffold. Galliott descended to meet them.

Gayan Kay lifted the ornate face guard of his helm. “No sign of this Grymauch?” he asked.

“Not yet, sir knight. Is your presence here necessary? It is difficult enough to control the crowd.”

“Controlling crowds is your job, Captain. We are here to witness justice being done.”

Galliott bit back his anger and moved away from them.

As the time for the execution drew close, more than two thousand people were crammed into the square. The booing at the knights had faded, and most people were staring at the great arched doors of the cathedral. Galliott was sweating. The musketeers were still missing, as were around ten of the men charged with patrolling the entrances.

Galliott strolled around the inner perimeter, watching the crowd and gauging its mood. He sensed that they were becoming more passive now. There was no immediate threat to his men.

Ten more soldiers eased their way through the front ranks of the crowd and made their way to where Galliott was standing. The first of them saluted. “Travelers are thinning now, sir,” he said.

“Any sign of the musketeers?”

“No, sir.”

Suddenly the crowd went very still, and silence fell on the great square. Galliott turned to see two priests bringing out Maev Ring. The sunlight glinted on her silver-streaked red hair, and she walked with great dignity toward the scaffold. Two red-garbed cathedral guards had positioned themselves below the pyre, lighted torches in their hands.

Galliott strode to the foot of the scaffold. Maev Ring paused before him.

“I am sorry, Maev,” he said.

She did not reply and moved past him, lifting her heavy skirt and climbing the steps. The priests followed her. On the narrow platform above they tied her hands to the stake, then withdrew. Galliott glanced toward the cathedral. There was no sign of the bishop. Galliott climbed the first five steps of the scaffold and gazed out once more over the crowd.

There was movement in the center, the highland crowd parting to create a pathway. Walking slowly along it was a huge figure in a hooded black cloak. He was carrying a quarterstaff.

Galliott ran to where the ten new arrivals were still standing. “Stop that man,” he told them.

Jaim Grymauch emerged from the crowd and began to walk toward the scaffold.

From high on the scaffold Maev Ring saw him coming, and her heart was close to breaking. “No, Jaim,” she whispered.

The ten soldiers ran at him, forming a half circle. Jaim kept moving. Two of the Beetlebacks darted in. Jaim’s quarterstaff, tipped with lead, flashed out, striking the first on the temple and catapaulting him from his feet. Jaim blocked the second soldier’s staff, cracking his own against the man’s leg. The soldier stumbled. Jaim’s staff rapped against his skull, and he fell face first to the flagstones.