The Miscreant (4 page)

Garran removed the key and studied the impressions made in the clay. He carved his wax key where the indentations showed it was striking the lock frame instead of the tumblers. It was a slow and exacting process. He could not put much pressure on his wax key without breaking it. For the fifth time, Garran extracted his makeshift key, whittled it to fit, and checked again.

He studied the impressions left in the veneer of clay and was satisfied all that remained was due to the tumblers. Garran cleaned the residual clay from the wax and pressed it into the box of sand. He then poured the molten metal into the impression, careful not to overfill it. He nearly ruined it when someone pounded on the door with a heavy fist.

“What are you doing in there, boy?” Dwight demanded. “You’re stinking up the whole house!”

“I’m smoking!”

“You best not set fire to my house, or I’ll use your skinny carcass to beat out the flames!”

“I’m not going to set
my mother’s
house on fire…at least not while I’m in it.”

“Watch your sass, boy! Don’t make me come in there.”

“Don’t make me come out there!”

Garran heard Dwight chuckling through the door. “You think you’re clever, but you ain’t that clever. Your time is coming, and it’s coming soon. I’ll be rid of you, and you’ll be someone else’s problem.”

Garran did not like the sound of Dwight’s ominous words. “What do you mean? What are you going to do to me?”

“You’ll see, and it ain’t just me.”

Dwight clomped back down the stairs leaving his threat hanging in the air like a dark cloud. Whatever. Garran had more important things on which to focus. Predominant amongst them was getting out of his room and meeting Claire in the woods. He sat patiently staring out of the window, waiting for Dwight to make his nightly pilgrimage to the bar. The wait was interminable. He ached to meet up with Claire, and not just in the metaphysical manner.

Light shined through the open door just below his window. Garran watched Dwight disappear into the darkness before snatching up his homemade key and moving to the door. Fitting the key into the lock, he jiggled it around as he turned it to work past the minor flaws in his creation. He smiled when the tumblers surrendered and the bolt retracted.

He eased the door open and crept down the stairs, careful to avoid the squeaky steps, which was difficult as more of them creaked than did not. Garran bent low halfway down to get a glimpse of the sitting room. His mother was sitting at her sewing corner mending a pair of Dwight’s trousers. Her back was to the stairs as it usually was when knitting or sewing to catch the lamplight reflected from the only glass window in the house.

Nina hummed as she sewed, too engrossed in her stitching to notice Garran sneaking down the stairs and out of the front door. She would go to bed long before Dwight staggered home from the bar. That gave him plenty of time to complete his cavorting and get back to his room before anyone noticed he had gone.

Garran jogged across their small town and chose the trail leading to his and Claire’s secret rendezvous spot. His mounting ardor propelled him down the darkened path, heedless of the occasional branch slapping him in the face.

Claire gasped and spun toward him when he broke from the trail and burst into the small clearing. “There you are! Matt told me you had gotten into some trouble and might be late.”

“No prison could keep me from you.”

“Look who’s suddenly charming.”

“I’m always charming.”

“You’re a rogue and a scoundrel.”

“The ballads always cast rogues as charming.”

“You are not a rogue from a ballad. You are perhaps a dirty limerick at best.”

Garran wrapped his arm around Claire’s slender waist and pulled her in tightly against his chest. “Dirty is right.”

Claire began to laugh, but Garran stifled her giggles with a kiss. Hands began exploring and fumbling at laces and buttons, and their clothes soon lay in a pile strewn next to their writhing bodies. Claire moaned in rapture. Garran groaned, shuddered, and rolled off to lie next to her. He panted and smiled up at the stars.

Claire propped herself up on her elbows, and her shrill voice cut through the night. “Did you finish?”

“We can call it an intermission if it upsets you so much. I just need a few minutes, less if I can scrounge up some rapture root. I think I saw some around here before.”

“You idiot! What if I get pregnant?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the right thing and marry you. I could do worse.”

She slapped at his face and found flesh. “I can’t!”

“Ow, watch my stitches!”

“I am betrothed to Jarred! His family is well-to-do, and his father is the mayor of Westhill. We are to be married this summer!”

“Do you think he’ll still want to if you’re fat with my baby?” Garran took a second blow to the head. “Ow, are you aiming for my stitches?”

Both pairs of eyes turned toward shouting voices and saw the flickering of torches and lamps through the trees.

“Claire!” her father called out.

She grabbed at her discarded clothing, pulled her dress on, and turned a hateful glare on Garran. “You are not going to ruin my future, Garran Holt. Daddy!”

Garran waved his hands spastically. “Shhh, what are you doing?”

“I am going to marry Jarred. It might cost my father a bigger dowry since you have sullied me, but it is better than being labeled a harlot.”

“You do not want to do this.”

Claire gave Garran a tight-lipped grin, grabbed the front of her bodice, and tore it. “Daddy, help! I’m over here!”

“Oh, you evil bitch!”

Garran grabbed as many pieces of his clothing as he could see and ran naked into the woods, away from the oncoming torches and the shouts of several angry men. He tried to don his trousers without stopping, fell twice, and finally got them pulled on while maintaining a hopping, shuffling jog. He cast a glance backward and saw that the torches were much closer now, and they did not all stop upon finding Claire.

“Get that sumbitch!” Mayor Alessi shouted.

Having abandoned his shoes, Garran struggled to race ahead of the pursuing men. It seemed to him that someone had gone out of their way to litter the trail with sticks, thorns, and sharp rocks. With any luck, he might be able to circle around town through the woods and make it back to his house where he had a good alibi. He could claim he had been locked up since morning and that Claire was blaming him to protect some other late-night gentleman caller. There were certainly plenty from which to choose.

Garran wished he could say that he knew these trails like no one else, but it was a fantasy. Everyone knew every path and deer trail for miles around. Such was the problem with living in a small town where generation after generation was born and died, and each person possessed a lifetime of similar knowledge. Two chasers tore through the woods to his left in an effort to get ahead of him, knowing that the path curved and would take their quarry right into their waiting clutches.

Garran did likewise and cut through the trees. Branches slapped at his face, and pinecones stabbed at the soft arches of his feet. He barely managed to get ahead of the pair trying to flank him.

“Stop running, boy! You’re just making it worse on yourself!”

Garran doubted there was anything he could do to make it worse, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. A half-fallen tree, perhaps six inches wide at its base, lay across the rabbit trail he was following. Grabbing the slender end, he heaved it back as far as he could. The wood cracked beneath the strain and fought to free itself from his grip. The two men closest to catching him sprinted into view seconds later. Garran released the tree, letting it snap forward like the arm of a massive ballista. The pursuers could not even cry out before the tree caught them both in the stomach and hurled them backward.

Neither man looked to be getting back up with any haste, but Garran wasn’t about to tarry. The other group was closing fast, and he needed to vanish. He ran only a hundred yards before he heard voices calling out in the darkness ahead of him in the direction he needed to go.

The mayor and his posse were spreading out into a circle and closing the noose. Garran looked up at the tall tree next to him and decided it might be best to simply hide and wait for his pursuers to move on. Hopefully, they would think he slipped through their ring, and he could get home when they moved their search farther away.

Garran hugged the tree, ignored the pain of the bark stripping away the topmost layer of skin on his chest and the inside of his arms, and shinnied up until he could reach the lowest branches. He pulled himself up out of the illuminated sphere of light produced by the torches and lanterns and waited. Several men, including the mayor, gathered beneath the very tree in which he was perched.

“He must have slipped past us, probably north and deeper into the woods,” Mayor Alessi said. “Douglas, go wake up Henry and have him bring out his dogs. The rest of us will sweep north and see if we can find the bastard.”

Garran watched Douglas split off and head for town while the others began spreading out in a long cordon to begin their sweep. The fugitive watched the men as they started to move away, silently chortling and thanking God for the stupidity of rural townsfolk. His humor vanished when the limb upon which he sat cracked ominously and dropped him a few inches. He now cursed the very same god for providing him the only rotten tree in the area for him to climb up.

He let out a sharp bark of surprise when the limb gave way. Garran plummeted, his fall only temporarily arrested by the branches below him. He struck the ground with a massive expulsion of air and lay there struggling to maintain consciousness and recover his breath.

Garran opened his eyes and stared up at half a dozen scowling faces. “I can explain this.” Feet pummeled his legs and sides, and fists rained down on his head. “Ow, not in my stitches!”

The beatings stopped after a minute, and they dragged him back into town. Wooder’s Bend did not have a real jail, but on the occasions that they needed to lock someone up, they had a small building made of raw timbers with a thick door padlocked from the outside. They tossed Garran through a door onto the ground. There was not even a bed in the room, so he stretched out on the dirt floor. He tried to sleep, but it seemed as though the bumps in the floor perfectly coincided with the bruises dotting his body. Since he was more bruise than flesh, Garran figured it was just coincidence.

He dreaded what the morning would bring, but dwelling on it was not going to change the future. He whispered a final prayer that the truth would come out in the end. The past day had been a series of regretful events, but none more so than the destruction of Finney’s still. He could really use a hit of the fiery brew about now. Exhaustion finally trumped pain, and he was able to close his eyes and sleep.

CHAPTER 3

Zoran Babcock spied on the group of men carving large stones from the cliffside where another group of workers used chisels and sledgehammers to pulverize them into gravel. They loaded the crushed rock into stout wagons pulled by oxen to construct the king’s road. It was his job to ensure their attempts were as costly as possible without completely shutting the operation down.

The mercenary captain had no real proof of who hired him and his men to strike at the road crews, but few doubted who was behind it. Only The Guild profited from disrupting Remiel’s plans, but politics was all about deniability, so he never delved into who was paying his contract. Not that he would care one way or another. He was a mercenary, and he fulfilled his obligations without concern for politics or personal opinions.

This was a big crew. Quarrying stone was backbreaking, intensive labor, and the workers needed to rotate out to maintain efficiency. Of the fifty or more men comprising the labor force, half of them were sitting idle or performing less strenuous tasks until it was time to relieve the other shift.

Two dozen soldiers stood watch to ensure none of the workers ran off and to protect them from groups like his. Most of the men below were convicts who received a reduction in their sentences in exchange for labor. A few were paid volunteers, and a greater minority were young men whose parent or legal guardian essentially sold them into servitude until they came of age.

It was this last decree that had some of the population up in arms, and The Guild was doing a fine job of fanning those sparks into flames. Men and women went from town to town decrying that the king’s edict was little more than legal slavery while The Guild vocally demanded fair pay for hard work. Zoran appreciated the irony.

With three dozen men in his unit, numbers favored the work crew. Only a third of them were soldiers, but a pick or sledgehammer to the skull was just as lethal as an arrow or sword thrust, so he could not discount the laborers. Being convicts, many would flee instead of fight. He had seen it on three separate assaults he had led over the past year. But all of them would fight if their life depended on it, and for most of them, it did.

“Georgo, we’ll wait until nightfall to launch our attack,” Zoran informed his subordinate. “This is a bigger group than we’ve hit in the past, and we’ll need surprise to minimize our risks.”

“Where do you want to stage the men until then?”

Zoran studied the terrain. “Move them down through that gully to the east. Once the sun sets, we’ll quietly move to the south and trap them against the cliffs.”

Georgo disappeared back into the trees where the men waited for orders. They led their horses by the reins across the ridgeline and down into the gulch, staying within the trees to avoid being spotted by wary soldiers standing vigil over the workers. As usual, the men were anxious, and the hours before the battle were fraught with anxiety. None doubted their victory, but rarely was it won without loss. Every man gambled his life for the promise of a good wage. Tonight’s tactics left the workers few avenues of escape. That meant they would fight harder, and the odds of dying significantly increased. Each of the mercenaries could only hope it was not their turn this go-round.

The mercenaries spent the few hours before nightfall padding their mounts’ hooves and tack to muffle the sound of their approach. They took stones to blades, more as a distraction than any real need to sharpen the always battle-ready weapons.

The contingent began moving before the sun set fully over the horizon. Dusk and dawn were the best times for an ambush, as visibility was at its lowest. By choosing dusk, half the men would be exhausted from toiling, and all were hungry and distracted by the upcoming dinner meal.

Zoran ordered a skirmishing group to range ahead of the mounted soldiers. The advance party crept through the darkness-swathed forest until they were within fifty yards of the outermost sentries. The infiltrators took aim and loosed their bolts in unison. Half their targets dropped to the ground with little more than a yelp. A few missed, and others screamed and writhed in agony as they clutched at the shafts piercing their bodies.

The archers worked to reset their crossbows as the rest of their band thundered to the fore, screaming over their mounts’ pounding hooves and waving swords and short lances over their heads. The work camp soldiers responded quickly, rushing from their scattered locations throughout the quarry to create a cohesive front. They were good soldiers who acted swiftly and with precision, but the battle was lost for the defenders within minutes.

The men afoot stood little chance against cavalry. Several soldiers were able to create a mounted defense, but their numbers were too few to turn the tide of the battle. Half of Zoran’s men swept around the soldiers to attack the workers. The workers fled for the tree line or picked up tools with which to defend themselves. A few riders chased after the runners while the rest hewed into the unfortunate laborers who chose to stand and fight.

The sound of steel ringing on steel echoed through the night. Men’s screams quickly turned into pleadings for mercy and fell silent even faster. It was not the easiest skirmish they had waged during their campaign, but it was over in less than half an hour. Georgo guided his mount next to his commander.

“Several ran into the woods and have evaded our riders thus far. Should they continue the hunt?”

Zoran shook his head. “No, let them flee and spread the word. Fear is as great a tool in dismantling the king’s operation as slaughter.” He turned toward the sound of continued battle on the far side of the camp near the cliff. “What in the world is going on over there?”

The two mercenary officers spurred their mounts and trotted toward the source of the disturbance. A dozen of Zoran’s men surrounded a cleft in the rock face. Two lay near the entrance unmoving. Three others sat cradling busted arms and a split skull. Zoran could just make out the dark silhouette of a man pressed against the rear of the cleft, crouched in a battle stance and wielding a three-pound hammer and what appeared to be a small, round shield.

“What is happening here?” Zoran demanded.

“Sir, we got one trapped in the rock there, but the sonofabitch fights like a badger in his den.”

Georgo said, “I’ll go get a few men with crossbows to get him out.”

“Hold on, Georgo.” Zoran urged his mount closer to the crevice and leaned forward. “Hello in there, badger man. How about you come out now?”

“How about you gutless bastards come in and get me!”

Zoran turned to the man who had spoken. “Who is this man?”

The mercenary shrugged. “I don’t know, the cook maybe. He’s wielding a cauldron lid like a shield, but he swings that hammer like a demonic blacksmith.”

“Are you indentured as a convict?” Zoran asked the man.

The man had the look of a prisoner. His clothes were threadbare, and a thick, black beard cradled his lantern jaw.

“Yeah. They promised to reduce my sentence if I worked the road, but I knew it was crap. Even if they cut my sentence in half, I’d have to live to be two hundred years old if I was ever going to see the light of day. I signed on anyway because I couldn’t stand the damnable boredom of rotting in a cell.”

“You equated yourself well in battle. Were you a soldier?”

“A soldier? Naw, I wasn’t a tin-head.” The man released a gallows laugh. “I was a diplomat!”

Zoran arched his eyebrows, surprised and impressed. A diplomat was the accepted title given some of the most skilled and cunning spies and assassins in the kingdom. A king’s agent who broke his oath rarely lived. Those who did were thrown into a dungeon never to emerge.

“What’s your name, good sir?”

“Dragoslav Zeegers.”

“Dragoslav? You’re from Urqua?”

“Father immigrated to Anatolia before I was born but kept our family name. What’s it to you?”

“I might be interested in employing you.”

“And my other option being…?”

“Walk away; live as a fugitive until someone recognizes you. I imagine you are of a high enough profile that when your body isn’t found with the others they will make a concerted effort to track you down. The crown frowns on oath-breaking agents.”

“You’d let me walk?”

“If you like. Your death serves no purpose for me.”

“But theirs did?”

“Some of them. It’s just business. I expect a man of your former occupation to understand such things.”

Dragoslav stepped from the fissure and looked up at Zoran. “Yeah, I understand it all too well. All right, I’ll sign on if you’ll have me.”

“Excellent. Welcome aboard. Georgo, what’s our body count?”

“Six dead, nine walking wounded.”

“Mr. Zeegers, pick an ownerless horse and let us be gone from this place. There is a forest-clearing camp in Southlea, and it is a very long ride.”

***

King Remiel Altena sat in attendance with his parliament. At least he was not required to stand before them like a common supplicant. It was about the only dignity they afforded him these days, although they did their best to cover their true feelings with polite smiles and deferential words.

“Your Majesty, the people had significant reservations regarding the great trade road you desired to construct when you made the declaration. Now a year has passed, and the progress is half as great as expected and at nearly three times the estimated cost.”

“The delay and cost of construction is entirely due to The Guild’s treasonous attacks on my work crews!” Remiel declared.

“Sire, this is a body of law, and law requires evidence. Have you any evidence to present that supports such scurrilous claims?”

Remiel’s jaw locked and his face flushed, but he would not squirm in front of these treasonous popinjays. “They are adept at avoiding complicity. Who else would profit from disrupting my—the people’s project?”

“You control the most powerful intelligence-gathering body in the known world yet fail to find a single shred of evidence of The Guild’s complicity in what are obviously bandit attacks. Might it be that you desire to deflect blame for the delays and cost overruns away from yourself and onto The Guild, to whom you have shown such enmity because of your inability to accurately predict such challenges in this grand scheme of yours?”

“I speak what I know and The Guild knows! They know this road will break the stranglehold they have on our economy and the power it buys them, power bought and paid for through this very body!”

Lord Dennell never lost his ingratiating smile. “Now it is parliament who conspires against you. You lay many unfounded claims regarding others thwarting yours and the people’s will, Your Majesty, but it is toward you the people’s displeasure is directed. The cost of your road is extraordinary, and the people see it as a waste of money better suited to easing their suffering.”

“It’s my coin, not theirs. Not one mile of roadway is paid for through their taxes.”

“But your wealth is largely accrued through taxes. So, in essence, it is.”

“I have other backers. The cost of this road does not come from the people.”

“It does, by way of forced servitude by your decree. You have indentured nearly the entire prison population, substituted fines and incarceration with labor, and most recently and upsettingly, allowed the parents of able-bodied minors to sell their children to the work camps. You are enslaving the children of this kingdom for your road. How do you justify that to the people?”

“I give the parents of troubled youths an opportunity to put their children in a program where they can learn a trade and do something productive with their lives. It is not slavery. They are paid a stipend and hopefully learn to be better people in the process.”

“I’m not sure most would agree with you, Your Highness.”

“Every parent who enrolled their children apparently does.”

“Enrolled, such a nicer term than sold into slavery.”

Remiel seethed, barely able to maintain his composure. He did not like the forced servitude any better than the people did, but it had become necessary due to The Guild’s campaign of sabotage. Parliament knew that, most of them anyway. They just wanted to humiliate and publicly condemn him. He would accept theirs and history’s condemnation if it meant freeing his kingdom from The Guild. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

“Are you finished berating me, Lord Dennell? I have important matters to attend to.”

“One last thing, if you will indulge us just a little longer. You spoke of others backing the cost of your road. We feel it is important to know who we are doing business with to assure the people that we are not entering into any dealings that could bring harm to the kingdom.”

“My investors require anonymity for their own protection. I am not about to divulge their identity so you can run to The Guild and force my allies to withdraw their support. The blood my workers shed for this road is on your hands, hands you use to take money from The Guild. I will see this road completed if it takes my dying breath.”

Lord Dennell smiled. “We all pray it does not come to that, Sire.”

Remiel stood. “We are done here.”

The lords of parliament rose from their seats as the king stormed from the hall, leaving them in the wake of his suppressed fury. They openly mocked and criticized him. They made barely veiled threats without impediment. Such was how far the kingdom and his throne had fallen over the decades due to The Guild’s influence. He would tear down The Guild and bring dignity and respect back to the throne. Once the common man was able to ply his wares without The Guild’s extortion and control, his people would prosper like never before. Perhaps it would be enough to redeem him in their eyes, but if it did not, he would sacrifice his legacy for the people.