Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (22 page)

Another crossbow shot thumped and fizzed, but it seemed directed elsewhere. Yasmyn, Sofy thought fearfully, but there was no time to wait, and she
staggered as best she could down the sloping path, with Willem coming behind. Guardsmen let her pass as she descended, holding shields above her head as they passed close beneath the house walls, then forming a rearguard behind once they were past. No further shots came.

Above, the bell was still clanging, and random, frightened shouts filled the air. One of the guardsmen slung his shield, then deprived Sofy of her burden. “Best you help Master Willem too,” Sofy gasped, letting her aching arms droop as she jogged, for Willem seemed about to drop the half-conscious girl entirely.

A soldier did that, and when they reached the point where the path turned back on itself, they paused. Sofy saw then that one of the guardsmen—a tall Fyden redhead named Daryn—had taken that second-last crossbow bolt not only through his shield, but through the supporting forearm as well.

“Hold still, lad,” Corporal Heyar said gruffly, pulling a knife while another man held the shield still. Heyar began sawing through the bolt beneath the metal head. No doubt it pulled the bolt back and forth within the wound something horrible. Daryn made barely a sound.

Sofy tore her eyes away to shine her lantern back up the path. Yasmyn was crazy, and now Yasmyn was going to drive
her
crazy by making her wait and worry, she just knew it. But it was barely a moment before a dark, cloaked shape came flitting down the path toward them. Sofy gasped with relief.

“Are you being followed?” Tyrel asked Yasmyn when she arrived.

“Maybe,” she said, “but not by crossbow men.” She reached into the pocket of her cloak with a devilish grin. “One crossbow man,” she said and pulled from the pocket a severed ear. Then, “Two crossbow men!” pulling a second ear, triumphantly.

Sofy stared in horror. “Oh, Yasmyn. You didn’t!”

“What?” said Yasmyn defensively. “My father tell me, never kill a man without proof. Or else, you have nothing to boast about.”

Daryn hissed as Corporal Heyar yanked the headless crossbow bolt through shield and arm. “Bloody shields,” someone muttered. “Never liked them anyway.”

They resumed down the path, four guardsmen ahead, four behind, and Sofy, Yasmyn and Willem in the middle. “Arm!” Yasmyn demanded of Daryn, slashing a piece off his tunic with her darak. Daryn gave her his arm, and Yasmyn tied the cloth about the wound, then pressed it hard with both hands as they walked.

“You going to buy me another tunic?” Daryn asked her.

“Army has plenty of tunics,” Yasmyn snorted. “You have only one left arm.” He nearly stumbled, weak-kneed with pain, he tried to hide it.
“Concentrate!” Yasmyn demanded, hauling him upright. “You stay awake, soldier-man. Maybe I visit you tonight. A bloody man is a sexy man, yes?”

Several men chortled. “Bloody Isfayen,” one laughed.

“Say, those aren’t left
and
right ears in your pocket, are they?” another suggested.

“No!” Yasmyn snapped, indignantly. “I kill
two
crossbow men. Not one. And the other one, on the courtyard.”

“Aye, maybe you went back to him when we weren’t there, and took
his
ears off.”

“Stupid fucking fool, shut your fucking mouth or I cut your belly like a goat!” Howls of laughter from the men.

Gods save us, Sofy thought despairingly, we
are
barbarians. She turned her lantern to the child, hanging limp in the arms of the guardsman behind her. Barbarians yes, she amended the thought, but at least we don’t do
that.

Soldiers met them halfway up, alarmed to have heard the tolling bell. Tyrel turned them all around, cursing them for making a jam on the narrow path, as those at the rear kept running up while the princess and party were trying to go down.

Many men were gathered curiously about the bridge across the stream, a spread of dark figures against the smoky glow of the camp. Sofy headed for her tent.

She’d nearly made it when Koenyg intercepted her in a fast stride. “What happened?”

“I went up to the temple,” Sofy said shortly, still walking. “There were four villagers there, strung up and left to die. This girl and child were still alive, I took them down. The villagers protested.”

“And?”

“They attacked us. We killed six.”

“Eight,” Yasmyn protested. “You forget my crossbow men.”

“You’re an idiot,” Koenyg pronounced.

“Spare me,” Sofy shot back, pushing through her tent flaps. Koenyg followed, and Yasmyn, and the two guards carrying the girl and child. Handmaidens leapt to their feet, tucking aside sewing, books and a game of dice.

“Medicines!” Yasmyn snapped at them. “Lemon water, honey and goats’ milk, and heat some water! Poultice and salves, move quickly!” She clapped to hurry them along, as the guardsmen laid girl and child down on a bearskin rug. At least it was warm in the tent, Sofy thought, kneeling alongside the child. A boy, she decided, girlish only because of long hair, and undernourishment that highlighted the cheekbones. His shirt was in tatters, and his skin deathly cold to touch. It seemed that he barely breathed.

Lemon water arrived, and Therys, an older woman, took charge. She dipped a cloth into the jug and dripped lemon water onto the girl’s lips, as Alyna did likewise with the child. The girl coughed, weakly, and in a tiny voice, asked for more.

Therys gazed at the girl’s drawn face, and felt her throat. “I think she will live,” she concluded. “I’ll see to the child.”

Koenyg took Therys’s place, kneeling on the rug. “Ulynda,” he commanded, and Sofy’s grey-haired Larosan tutor limped to her prince’s shoulder. “How good’s your Algrassian?”

“Fair, Your Highness,” said Ulynda.

“Ask her what crime she committed, to receive this sentence.”

“What does it matter?” Sofy snapped. “Let her rest, Koenyg.”

“Ask her,” Koenyg repeated, ignoring his sister. Sofy fumed.

Ulynda knelt with difficulty, placed a hand on the girl’s frail shoulder, and spoke in Algrassian. The girl’s eyelids fluttered. She took several short breaths, then answered, in a barely audible whisper.

Ulynda frowned. “Witchcraft,” she translated.

“Tosh,” Sofy snorted. “What nonsense.”

“We are guests on Algrassian lands,” Koenyg replied. “We should respect their laws and customs.”

Sofy glared at him. “You’d string her back up?”

“The Hadryn burn a hundred at the stake every year for blasphemy,” Koenyg said impassively. “Women amongst them, and some barely older than the child over there. If the crown tried to stop it, we would have war in Lenayin.”

“We do what we can, brother,” Sofy said frostily. “What we can rather depends on how hard we try.
You
may not feel compelled to try very hard.
I
, on the other hand, feel resolved to make an effort.”

“We are guests in foreign lands on their tolerance, dear sister,” said Koenyg, with the first trace of hard temper. “You may have saved two lives, but you took another eight to do it. You may be an excellent student of arts and language, yet I fear your maths is lacking. Worse, our guest lords will surely hear of this very soon. The people will demand justice for those your men killed. What do you think I should say to them?”

“You know, Koenyg, I really don’t care.” She was suddenly feeling beyond all of this. “You figure it out. Instead of making constant excuses for doing the wrong thing, for once you can think of a good excuse to do something right.”

Damon threw aside the flap to the royal tent. The dining tables had been cleared, replaced now by chairs, small tables and braziers to ward the cold. Lord Elen, their host, stood in animated conversation with Koenyg, while King Torvaal looked on. Willem Hoeshel hovered nearby, anxious and pale, offering possible translation. The conversation, of course, was in Torovan.

Lord Elen’s two minor lords made way as Damon approached with the army’s senior priest Father Syd…with a scuttling bow that made Damon’s skin crawl. He did not like these people, with their furtive, darting glances and fearful manners. Lord Elen was a big man, as much fat as muscle, balding with long, black hair at the back, and thick whiskers down to where beefy neck met receding jaw. He dressed as lordly lowlands nobility would, house colours over armour and sword, all martial to impress the Lenay warriors.

“This man can swear to it,” Elen was insisting, pointing to another. Only then did Damon notice the Algrassian priest, an ageing, scrawny man in a threadbare black robe, leaning on a staff and shivering. “This man, he sees, and he speaks with the authority of the gods!”

“The Royal Guards are honour-sworn to protect the princess under all circumstances,” Koenyg replied flatly. “It would not matter if she were attacked by a mob of little girls wielding kitchen knives, they would kill to protect her from so little as a scratch. We’ll not hand them over to your justice, it’s impossible.”

“But, but…” Elen spread his hands. “Your Highness, this is a crime! A crime has been committed, eight of my villagers are dead! Surely there must be justice?” He looked past Koenyg, to King Torvaal. Torvaal stood deathly silent, wrapped in his black robe. Dark eyes within an impassive, lean, bearded face. Damon had barely heard him speak five words on the ride so far. He did not expect that to change now.

“The justice you suggest is impossible,” said Koenyg, folding his arms. Damon recognised that look, that stance. Had seen it too often through his childhood. It had been his torment then, but now, it heartened him. Koenyg would not give this man a hair from a Lenay guardsman’s head. “The soldiers are honour-bound to protect and obey the princess. In truth, the fault is hers. She is young and soft of heart. She acted without understanding the grave insult she would cause to your people. I trust you do not suggest that
she
should be punished?”

Lord Elen seemed to find that amusing, in the manner of a man
confronted by an obvious fact, denied by idiots. Yet he could not say so, and so comported himself with forced dignity, fighting back exasperation.

“Of course not, Prince Koenyg. I have nothing but love and admiration for the princess, our future queen. But…there must be some reparation. What do you suggest?”

“Lenayin is not a kingdom of paupers, Lord Elen,” said Koenyg. “We can pay gold to the villagers for their loss. Name a suitable price.”

Willem Hoeshel winced. Lord Elen looked uncomfortable, and coughed. “Prince Koenyg, it would be beneath us to discuss such unseemly matters so openly.” Lords did not talk about money in the Bacosh, Damon recalled. To do so was…uncivilised. Meanwhile, peasants starved and lords dined on fine fare in opulent castles. But heavens no, gold was not discussed. “Furthermore, I fear that mere gold shall be insufficient. In the Bacosh—as, I am led to believe, in Lenayin—blood is repaid in blood, and…”

“Lord Elen,” Koenyg said shortly, “what do you suggest? That I find some poor sop for you to behead at random? To appease your desire for revenge? In some few weeks, Lenayin’s finest sons shall spill their blood upon your fields to reclaim that which all your armies have been unable to win in two centuries of trying. We have marched a very long way to do so, upon your invitation. That is gift enough, don’t you think? Or would you ask more?”

There was no mistaking the dangerous edge to the prince’s tone. Lord Elen’s faint humour vanished and he inclined his head. “No, my Prince. Forgive me, this is a difficult situation. At least, allow us to reclaim the two criminals that the princess has freed, and restore our justice upon
them
.”

“The boy died,” said Damon. All present turned to look at him, and Father Syd. “His bones were showing, our healer thinks there was an infection too.”

Lord Elen inclined his head once more, as though to acknowledge a good thing. “The other one, then,” he requested.

“He was ten,” Damon continued. Koenyg was staring at him, warningly. Damon did not care. “The girl is his sister. She is sixteen. Villagers accused their mother of laying with a man who had serrin blood. The mother was one of the two already dead. The older man was her father. I can’t see how he is responsible for his daughter’s bed partners. I suppose he was merely
available.
”

“My good Prince,” said Lord Elen, with a condescending, bitter smile, “I do not question your laws or customs. Please do not question that of your hosts.”

“Witchcraft,” Damon snorted. “The serrin are not witches, Lord Elen. Hate them you may, if you choose, but these charges against innocent villagers are nonsense.”

“You show great concern for the welfare of my villagers, Prince Damon,” Elen replied, “for one whose men have just murdered eight of them. What we choose to call the serrin is our business. They are unholy and ungodly, of that our priests assure us. They are a blight on this land, filling the minds of the corrupt with filth and decadence. Why, barely three years ago the forces of good made a great purge of all serrin influence and bloodlines in this region. There were fires, devil’s fruit, nooses and impaling stakes across the hills and valleys, and it was indeed a beautiful sight.”