The Harvest Tide Project (9 page)

Neblisk glanced around the crowded room, squinting through the smoke to ensure no one was listening. ‘I was hoping to find Draegar, to see if he’d made any new coastal charts lately.’

Emos nodded, distracted from his thoughts.

‘I was hoping to bump into him myself. I could do with his help finding the children. This lesson that the Braskhiams are going to learn – is it going to hurt anyone?’

‘All the hardest lessons hurt, Emos. They want a war. They need to be persuaded otherwise.’

‘They say it’s the Karthars who want the war.’

‘And who do you believe?’ Neblisk leaned towards the Myunan.

‘I think if you both keep accusing each other, then soon it won’t matter.’ Emos returned the Karthar’s gaze. ‘And you say the Noranians don’t want it to happen?’

‘Nobody in their right minds wants it to happen,’ Neblisk grunted. ‘Have you ever been to war, Emos?’

‘I was never a soldier, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I was a cabin boy on my father’s ship during the war
against Noran all those years ago. My father was wounded, a small wound in the arm, but it got infected with the rot. We were near the Braskhiam coast, but they wouldn’t let us land as they were allied to Noran. We set out for the Peaks but we were too far from home to get him to a healer in time. I watched the ship’s carpenter saw off my father’s arm to stop the rot reaching his body and killing him. Father had nothing to kill the pain, just a piece of rope to bite on, and some men to hold him still.

‘Only a fool looks for war, Emos, but if the Braskhiams start something, then the Karthars have the will to finish it.’

‘And you’re sure they are starting something?’ Emos urged. ‘It’s not just rumours and back-biting?’

‘My boat was attacked out in the Gulf of Braskhia not long ago. Attacked by a Braskhiam vessel. We escaped with our lives, but not before they put some crossbow bolts through our sails.’

‘It’s fortunate you lived to tell about it,’ the Myunan said, almost to himself.

He was troubled – the Braskhiams had high-powered
harpoons
fired with compressed gas. Braskhiam vessels did not carry crossbows. Nor, for that matter, did Karthar ships.

‘Two children, did you say?’ Neblisk sat up suddenly. ‘Didn’t two Myunan cubs try to break a man out of a
Noranian
convoy last night? I heard they set the skacks on them.’

As it approached the forbidding gates of Hortenz, the convoy of gaol wagons and armoured vehicles slowed,
waiting
as the Whipholder’s lead vehicle drove ahead to show his papers and gain entry. Once the guard had waved them
through, the convoy rolled under the stone arch and into the town.

In the shaking and shifting gaol wagon, Groach
considered
his options. To keep quiet and go unrecognised, which might mean more misery for the other men. Or, to announce who he was in the hope that he would be put back on the project and the men released, which might not happen. He decided to wait and see what the Noranians did next.

The six gaol wagons split off from the other vehicles at the town square and turned into the barracks’ compound, where the gates closed behind them. The barracks was a menacing rectangle of grey plastered stone buildings with towers at two corners. The walls had no windows looking out on the town; they were high and solid, with walkways to allow guards to patrol around the top and see through the triangular battlements that looked like the teeth of a trap. The towers had slits to allow light in on each floor and
crossbows
to be aimed out. Altogether, it was a place that was built to be easy to defend … and hard to escape. Shessil Groach looked about him with a sinking heart.

Guards unlocked the cages, and the men were made jump down and stand in line before a small, slight man in a grey waistcoat and shirt, green trousers and jacket, and a string tie held in place with a silver clasp. He had wispy blond hair that was so thin on his scalp as to be almost invisible, and his skin was like taut tissue paper, barely hiding the blue veins beneath. He regarded the prisoners without emotion. It was obvious that they were a task to be completed and nothing more.

Groach moved to get out of the wagon and was pushed back inside by a guard. He was not a part of these
proceedings. The small man inspected a notebook in one hand and then brought his gaze back to rest on the men.

‘My name is Rulp Mungret. I am the aide of His Most
Political
Wonder, the Prime Ministrate, Rak Ek Namen. I have one question to ask of you men. If I receive a satisfactory answer, you can all return to your homes. If not, you will all remain in the cells beneath this barracks until such time as I receive that answer. The question is this: I am looking for a man named Shessil Groach. Is he here among you?’

There was complete silence. The men scanned each others’ faces for a reaction. Then there was a clamour of
protests
as each man shouted out who they were and where they were from. Groach watched and listened, and decided he must come clean. These men did not belong here.

‘I’m Shessil Groach!’ he yelled.

Some of the men heard him, but Mungret was at the other end of the yard. Groach opened his mouth to call out again, and was quickly silenced by a punch in the face. He fell back, clutching his bloody nose, his eyes watering and
blurring
his sight. A hand pulled him to the bars and a rough voice hissed in his ear:

‘You’ll be staying with me, little maggot. Not another word from you or I’ll kill you and your woman friend right here. You’ll be staying with me.’

Left-Speartrooper Grulk thumped him in the ribs for good measure, knocking the wind out of him, and stood back. The other men were being herded into the barracks.
Mungret
had decided to hold them for a few days, just to be on the safe side. Groach and Hilspeth were taken from their cage and dragged in opposite directions, to different parts of the barracks.

Through half-closed eyes, Groach saw to his dismay that Grulk was one of the guards gripping his arms. She was a demon, he decided. Come to haunt and perhaps even kill him. He wished he had never broken out of the project; he wished he had never seen those two warped children or
Hilspeth
, or the teapot that had got him into this mess. He was pushed and kicked down a flight of metal steps into a dark, cramped room with a corridor leading off it. A scaly, stumpy creature without armour, but otherwise dressed in the same style of clothing as the soldiers, greeted them. He stood up from behind his battered desk and came around to inspect the prisoner.

‘What’s he in for?’ he asked, ignoring Groach and directing the question at the guards.

‘Attacking a member of the Noranian Armed Forces,’ Grulk answered.

‘What? This thing attacked a soldier? Did he have a weapon?’

‘A teapot.’

The creature let rip an hysterical laugh. Groach could not help but give a little smile.

‘A
teapot
?’ the stunted figure roared. ‘And I suppose he mercilessly struck the trooper down with a buttered scone while the noble warrior lay mortally wounded on the ground! Lying in a pool of their own tea! Ha ha ha!’

‘This is not a joke, Gaoler,’ Grulk snarled.

‘And why did he commit this most terrible of crimes?’

‘You’re trying my patience, Gaoler …’ Grulk could see the other two guards grinning and it was getting her temper up.

‘… No, wait. Don’t tell me. He was defending his secret stash of cucumber sandwiches! Ha ha ha ha! Got to watch
out for those cucumber-sandwich smugglers, they’re a
desperate
lot …
fanatics
you might say … ha ha ha … lethal with a teapot … and you should see the damage they can do with an apple crumble … ha ha ha …’

His laughing stopped abruptly when Grulk, who stood head and shoulders above him, slammed him against the wall hard enough to dent the grey plaster.

‘Lock him up!’ she bellowed. ‘And not another word out of you or I’ll feed you your innards!’

Suppressing a scared giggle, the gaoler took a bunch of keys from a hook on the wall and gestured to them to follow.

‘Give him your worst cell,’ Grulk urged as she shoved Groach ahead of her.

They followed the gaoler, Grulk glaring at the small man as they walked down between the rows of cells. The stunted man’s keys jingled as he walked.

They walked past a number of heavy, iron-banded wooden doors. The gaoler stopped at one and inserted a large key into its lock. It opened with a creak.

‘This is our worst,’ he sighed. ‘The walls are damp, the bench has woodworm and the grate in the ceiling is beneath the outhouse.’

‘It’s perfect,’ said Grulk. ‘We’ll take it.’

Left-Speartrooper Grulk was bunking in the soldiers’
quarters
in the barracks. As the other men and women drank cheap mead and played knucklebones, she lay in her bunk and fumed, tormented by the memory of Shessil Groach’s attack. She also thought about how the gaoler had laughed
at her, and how the others had joined in. She knew that there would be a trial tomorrow of the little man and his woman friend, and that the story would come out at the trial. And she knew that she would be made a laughing stock.

The story must not be told. Her fellow soldiers already knew, but they had seen the attack and had witnessed how she had been dishonoured. They understood. But the trial would be public. Everyone in the town would know
afterwards
. And they would laugh at her behind her back. She couldn’t have that. Life for a woman in the Noranian Armed Forces was gruelling enough, without little snots coming along and attacking you with teapots. So, the trial must not take place. Groach would have to have an accident in his cell. And the girl too; she must not be tried either. But Groach first. Left-Speartrooper Grulk climbed out of her bunk and put on her boots.

The cell smelt. Shessil Groach crouched up on the bench with his knees supporting his chin, his arms wrapped around his legs. There was a draught from the tiny grate in the ceiling over one wall that brought relief from the musky stink, but chilled his tired flesh. His face was still puffy from the soldier’s blow, and his nose was itchy and very sore, which meant that scratching just hurt it more. He had a
headache
right behind his forehead, and was thoroughly
miserable
. He knew he would not sleep. Eventually, he remembered the tonic Hilspeth had given him; she had said it would ease pain.

Taking the blue glass vial from his pocket, he held it up in the dim light from the corridor. He could not remember how
much she had told him to take, but he was in quite a lot of pain. He drew out the cork and, holding his head back, let six or seven drops fall onto his tongue. Moments later, the world went bright orange and turned inside out. He
collapsed
off the bench onto the damp floor.

When his vision cleared, he was gazing along the floor at the bottom of the door to his cell. Something in Groach’s head dragged a memory from a dark corner of his skull.
Two drops under his tongue, three times a day
. No more. It was true that he did not feel any pain in his head any more. He could not feel his head at all – nor any other part of his body for that matter. He was completely unable to move. He became worried that he would wet himself if he stayed here too long. But there was nothing he could do, so he
continued
to watch the bottom of the door. When the door opened with a sound one would expect it to make if it were being dragged through syrup, he was grateful for the change in scenery. A pair of feet stepped into view, and the world swung around him until his face ended up pressed against somebody’s back. He was unable to see who was carrying him, but he knew the sweaty, smoky body odour. It was Left-Speartrooper Grulk, and she was alone. Fear flooded the numbness of his body as he realised she was taking him up out of the gaol.