The Wicked Day

THE WICKED DAY

Book Three of The Tormay Trilogy

By Christopher Bunn

Copyright 2010

Copyright 2010 by Christopher Bunn.

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Smashwords Edition.

Books by Christopher Bunn

The Tormay Trilogy

The Hawk and His Boy

The Shadow at the Gate

The Wicked Day

The Model Universe and Other Stories

The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories

For Finn and Jesse

THE WICKED DAY

CHAPTER ONE

SIBB ENCOURAGES THIEVERY

“Come in, come in,” said Botrell.

Owain Gawinn entered the room and eyed the regent warily. He could remember only one other time when he had seen him in such a cheerful mood. That had been when Harl Nye of Vo had died from choking on a fishbone. Nye had owned the third best stable of horses in all of Tormay. Nye’s widow had sold the horses to the regent two weeks after her lord’s death.

“Gawinn, my dear fellow. How are you?”

“Tolerable,” said Owain.

“Good, good. Glad to hear it. And how’s your lovely wife and the children? Er, you do have children, don’t you, Gawinn? I don’t know what we’d do without children. Can’t stand the little rotters myself, but that’s the way life is. A man’s big enough to see beyond his personal likes and dislikes. That’s me.”

The regent smiled and gazed into the mirror. He swiveled around and eyed himself over his shoulder.

“How d’you like this cloak, Gawinn?” he said. “Nice, isn’t it, the way it hangs. Splendid silk, just arrived from Harth. Sent courtesy of the prince as thanks for our hospitality.”

“I don't have an opinion on silk, my lord,” said Owain coldly.

“Oh, come now. We all know that boys play at soldiers only for the uniforms.”

“My lord?”

“Haha! Just a joke. You should see your face, Gawinn, you old prune. Ho there! You, boy!” The regent hollered at the page standing in the anteroom. “Where’s my breakfast?”

“Coming, my lord!” And the page scuttled away.

“Care for some breakfast, Gawinn?”

“I’ve already eaten, my lord—”

“Then eat again.”

“—and I must return to the barracks. New recruits. It’s for that reason I must speak with you. My lord, we’re sorely in need of—”

Owain was abruptly shouldered aside by a procession of pages and footmen, led by a fat man with an enormous moustache. A white silk cloth fluttered out onto the table, cutlery appeared as if by magic, a candelabra winked into flame, and three covered platters were whisked forward, each borne aloft by a different footman. The regent sat down and rubbed his hands together.

“No,” he said. “Whatever it is, Gawinn, the answer’s no. There isn’t a problem too great that can’t be answered by a sensible, straightforward, resounding no! Living like that is refreshing. I recommend it. Are you sure you won’t have a bite to eat? Ahh. What have we here, chamberlain? Smells delicious.”

“A quiche of quail eggs, m’lord, baked with a medley of tender wild mushrooms and Vomarone ham and imbued throughout with the fragrance of freshly bruised thyme,” said the chamberlain. He stroked his moustache as he spoke and beamed at everyone in the room.

“You haven’t heard what I was going to say,” said Owain.

“Mmm. Quail eggs. So light and fluffy. You can almost feel the promise of their little feathers tickling the palate. Delightful.”

Owain gritted his teeth. “My lord, it’s high time we increased the ranks of the Guard. My coffers are empty, the armory’s filled with old weapons, and the horses in our stable are even older.”

“Horses, eh? Nothing like an old horse for wisdom.”

“Furthermore, my lord, for the last time, I can’t stress enough the urgent situation our city finds itself in.”

“You’re casting a blight on my breakfast, Gawinn. A pall!” The regent eyed Owain sourly and then turned his attention back to the next dish as the chamberlain whisked off the cover. “What’s this?”

“Wild boar sausage, my lord. Roasted to a delightfully juicy crisp. Flanked by fresh potatoes sliced as thin as parchment and smothered in goat cheese and mountain-grown fennel.”

“Hmmph. Mountain-grown fennel? A likely story. And the last dish?”

The chamberlain almost swooned at this question, but he recovered enough to twitch the cover off the third dish.

“Crepes, m’lord,” he trilled. “Crepes teased into draperies as delicate as lady’s lace, drenched with clover honey, stuffed with the ripest of strawberries, and fried in butter.”

This news seemed to cheer the regent up. The chamberlain backed away, bowing repeatedly. Behind him, the other footmen and pages bowed as well.

“As I was saying, my lord,” continued Owain doggedly. “Hearne’s in a dire situation. Strange murders are taking place in the duchies. Whole villages slaughtered. It falls to Hearne to lead the defense of Tormay when more than one duchy is threatened by a common enemy. It falls to us, my lord.”

The regent laid down his fork and glared at Owain.

“What is it that you want?”

“Gold, my lord.”

“Well, you aren’t getting any,” said the regent. “And that’s final. Now, get out! My crepes are getting cold!”

Owain felt his face turning red. The footmen and the pages were all staring at the floor. The chamberlain smirked at Owain and twirled his moustache. The regent returned his attention to the crepes and attacked them with his knife and fork.

Outside the castle, a groom was waiting with his horse at the bottom of the steps. Owain grabbed the reins from him and swung up onto the horse.

“Gawinn! Just the man I wanted to see.”

It was Dreccan Gor. He hurried across the cobblestones toward Owain.

“What do you want, Gor?”

“I’ll need young Arodilac released from his duties all next week.”

“Why?”

“The duke of Vomaro’s paying us a visit. The regent would like his nephew to be available for the, uh, social niceties. Conversation, ladies to dance with, formal dinners, all that sort of thing.”

“No.”

“What?” The fat little steward goggled up at Owain.

“You heard me. Arodilac joined the Guard. A soldier he is, and he’ll do his duty, just like any other man. No time for prancing about in silks. Good day, Gor.”

“No, wait!” said Dreccan, dancing to one side as Owain swung his horse around. “Next week shall be important for Hearne’s future. Arodilac has other duties than marching to and fro on the walls. He’s the regent’s nephew, for shadow’s sake.”

“The answer’s no.” And Owain urged his horse away.

There was small comfort in the exchange, but enough to make Owain smile grimly for a moment. Botrell would hear of it soon. But that didn’t matter. A Gawinn had always been the Captain of the Guard, and a Gawinn always would.

Owain idly considered why the duke of Vomaro was visiting Hearne. He had met the man once—a long time ago at one of those dreary dinners the regent was so fond of giving. An immense, fat man with a decidedly bitter wit. The dinner had not been pleasant. He had heard strange things about the court at Vomaro. Strange things that had occurred after the duke’s daughter had been rescued from the ogres who had kidnapped her. Much of it was obviously nonsense. But one never knew for sure.

The sun shone brightly, but it was a cold day. Autumn had arrived in Hearne, and surely winter was following closely behind. Leaves swirled in the horse’s wake, gold and scarlet and brown.

It was true. He had new recruits. But only three, and one of them old and toothless. The Guard was woefully undermanned. He’d be damned if the numbers didn’t increase. And soon.

He could hear Bordeall’s voice long before he reached the barracks. His voice and the clash of sword on sword. Good. The recruits would be sweating. Owain murmured to his horse and soothed it into a walk. The houses here by the city wall were narrow and tall, built jammed up against each other and, more than likely, jammed just as tightly inside with families and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all living together, cheek by jowl. Hearne was bursting at the seams. At least down here on the flat. Perhaps it was time to consider building outside the city? Extending the walls? No regent had ever done that.

“Must ya start yer shouting an’ clashing so early in the morning?”

Owain turned in the saddle, startled.

“What’s that?” he said. “Oh. Good morning, Missus Gorlan.”

An old woman stumped along beside the horse.

“Tain’t a good morning,” she said. “Before the sunup, yer lads out there, shoutin’ an’ bangin’ them swords together. It woke the baby. He’s colicky an’ it ain’t easy gettin’ him to sleep. We ain’t so fond o’ the Captain an’ his precious Guard in our house.”

“Yes, well,” he said.

“Ye keep yer lads quiet when honest folks are tryin’ to sleep, ya hear me?”

“Noted, madam,” said Owain through clenched teeth.

The old woman shouted something else, but he nudged the horse along a bit faster and tried not to listen. Regents and old busybodies. The depressing thing about it was that Missus Gorlan was not the worst of the lot. One fat old cow who lived at the end of the street was forever urging her neighbors to complain to the regent about the barracks. Too much noise at night. Soldiers galloping their horses too quickly down the street. Too much light from the gate torches in the evening. Too much smell from the stables. Too much tax spent on the precious Guard. As if she knew. Complaining was a privilege enjoyed by complacent windbags. They didn’t know what lurked outside the city walls.

Owain turned in through the gate. The two soldiers on either side saluted, but he just frowned. A groom hurried up to lead the horse away.

“Find Bridd,” he said at a nearby soldier.

“Yes, sir!”

Owain stalked over to the edge of the drill ground and stood watching. A high wall ran around the perimeter, but it was not high enough to prevent the neighborhood children from climbing it. Several of the little wretches were perched on top at the moment. Out on the drill ground, Bordeall barked orders and criticism in a voice loud enough to rattle windows. The three recruits battered away with blunted swords at practice posts. Sweat gleamed on their faces, but the oldest man—a short, wrinkled fellow with a head as bald as a scrubbed potato—swung his sword with vigor, while the other two puffed and staggered about.

“Keep your wrist in it!” hollered Bordeall. “What are you? Men or mice?”

The three recruits surged forward at the posts with renewed vigor. Chips of wood flew. The little old man seemed to be hollering something as he swung his sword, but Owain could not make out the words.

“Mice, more like.”

Owain turned. “Keep your tongue in your mouth, Bridd. That’ll be extra night duty for you.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Arodilac.

The lad fidgeted unhappily next to Owain for a while. The children perched on top of the wall jeered and hooted at the three recruits. One of the children threw a well-aimed apple core. It bounced off the head of a recruit, and the man turned, swearing.