Take the body and give me the rest (3 page)

Seth knew that
the kind of people who could read and write were in such short
supply that the few wandering scribes there were charged a lot for
their skills. You could see them set up in marketplaces, charging a
silver coin to read or write just one message, or charging by the
very word.

‘Make that the
ale and a plate of something with some meat in it and you’ve got a
bargain,’ Seth said, pushing his luck.

The owner
smiled back and, reaching over the counter, crushed his hand in a
firm shake. Feeling the strength in his grip, Seth was even gladder
it had ended in trade and not a fight. ‘My name is Dean Sampson and
this is my place,’ the owner said.

‘Dean, I’ll
speak it true and say it’s good to be on the sunny side of you. I’m
Seth’ He said.

Dean turned to
serve a few other patrons and then disappeared into a backroom.
Seth saw that their exchange had become the centre of tavern
gossip. It was clearly a place that held many local and regular
visitors. There were a few small groups of fishermen who all seemed
to know one another, some musicians, tradesmen and traders from the
lesser markets along with one or two off-duty city guards. Real
people of the city; Seth felt at ease among them. Maybe they were
disappointed he hadn’t gotten his teeth knocked out, but they still
looked expectantly as if the show wasn’t over yet.

Dean returned
to the bar and, reaching across, he gently handed Seth a small
folder letter of thin paper. ‘Here you go, Master Quill, if you
could read it for me. Been holding it for two bloody weeks, but no
scribes at the market,’ he said.

Seth felt
comfortable holding the letter and unfolded it with a practised
ease. His fingers could tell that the cheapest of papers and inks
had been used. He read it easily but was actually appalled at the
spelling, hand and care taken with it; he knew he’d have done a
much better job of it, or the General would have.

He looked up at
Dean. ‘Should I read it loud or just to you? It is good news, I’d
say.’

‘Well, if it’s
good news, let’s share it out to the whole tavern,’ he said.

Seth still faced Dean but raised his voice loud so the quiet
room of two dozen
or
so people could hear him as well. The General had had no fear of
speaking to large groups or indeed telling them what to
do.

‘Father, we
have arrived safely after two months at sea. We’re all hale and
whole. Derrick has started work with his uncle and is doing well.
I’m with child and it’s healthy. A wise woman said it would be a
girl. We’ll name her for mother. Love, your Laurine.’

At the end of
his short reading, people clapped and cheered as if watching a
stage performance of magical skill.

‘Short but well
received,’ said Seth.

‘Most scribes
charge by the letter and my daughter isn’t heavy with coin, but I
know she’s well and that’s all a father needs. Thanks, Master Seth,
and I’ll get you a plate,’ he said.

The music had
started again and the singer gave the crowd a soulful melody about
a failed young romance. A serving girl, who was very tall, with
blond hair but who sadly took after Dean a little too much in
looks, slid a metal plate of food in front of Seth and smiled at
him as she put it down.

The smell of actual real food, the first in days, was like
bliss. It was a simple plate of a few roasted vegetables and a
small cut
of
fatty roasted mutton. He cut into it with the knife and fork the
girl had provided and fed the hot meat into his almost watering
mouth. As he swallowed it and the next Seth started to feel more
and more like a man. Maybe he could forget what had happened with
the General and just go on with life. He’d been given some strange
and wonderful gifts from the creature, but now he would flee the
city and simply live his life. He could be so much more than ever
before, but he didn’t want to become a man like the General,
killing helpless people to gain what they had. He could read, write
and, he knew, how to
fight with a rapier and dagger in the Cravosi style. He would
make his way in the world and just pretend it was a strange
visitation from a passing god.

Chapter 4

The steward
walked into the ornate room with a serious expression which
suddenly deepened into a frown when he cast his eyes across the
bloody armour and viscera on the floor. Looking at the broken metal
cuffs, it was clear that the slave had escaped and that maybe he’d
done something horrible to the General. The remains of his leather
armour looked like they’d been devoured by a pack of hungry dogs,
even his fine boots had been ripped open and lay torn in half
covered in blood. He started shouting until a man-at-arms ran into
the room. The guard was equally stunned at the bloody wreckage. The
steward spoke to him.

‘Go fetch Lady
Seraphina from her rooms, now!’ he said.

The
man-at-arms, who was turning paper white, turned and fled from the
room.

Shortly, with
the sound of clicking heels on the polished floors, a beautiful
young lady with long, flowing blond hair and very refined features
walked calmly into the room and cast her blue-eyed gaze on the
bloody ruin of her Uncle Stephan’s body. To the glance, she would
have seemed around twenty name days but looking at the seriousness
and depth of her eyes one could see she was really much older.

She spoke to
the young man next to her, who’d also come with her into the
room.

‘I’m sorry this
has happened to your father, Dirst,’ she said in a gentle and
polished voice.

Dirst looked
like a fairly typical general’s son: stiff posture, moustache and
exuding deadly intent. ‘It’s a dangerous trick and we know the
risks. I would like to know what happened though. It was hardly
Father’s first time through the breach,’ he said without much
emotion.

Seraphina
reached with small white hands into the pocket of her elaborate
riding jacket and brought out a fine pair of gold-rimmed reading
glasses. She held them up to her lips and whispered some words of
incantation over them. Then, placing them in front of her eyes, she
took a few steps back and looked around the room.

Dirst, who had
seen her use this trick before to see images from the past, was not
surprised when she started to report what she saw happening before
her eyes.

‘He summoned
the creature but it was a very old and powerful one. The creature
chose the boy over Stephan, freed the boy and killed your father.
The boy has Stephan now and everything he was and knew.’

‘We’ve got to
get the steward to tell us where he bought him and track him.’
Dirst said.

‘Let’s move
fast but we need to be careful. I’ve never even heard of a creature
choosing someone over another before; I don’t like the look of it
at all. It spoke with him and he could understand without any
training, that’s something I’ve never heard of before’ said
Seraphina.

It had taken
her close to four summoning before she could understand their
booming mind talk and even now it sometimes gave her a bloody nose
and a ringing in her head that lasted for hours afterwards.

Dirst turned to
her. ‘What does he look like, the slave?’

‘Like a big
stupid Northerner.’ She said.

Seth woke with
a slight headache and a few muscle aches, slumped in one of the
taverns wooden booths. His mouth tasted faintly of beer and he
remembered that Dean had been good enough to let him sleep the
night in the tavern along with a handful of the regulars who seemed
to make it a nightly occurrence.

He felt the
reassuring clink of coins in his pocket. Retrieving them, he found
one full silver, a half and a few coppers. He’d done a lot of
reading during the rest of the night. It seemed that most people
had a letter they were more than happy to run home and have reread.
One sailor had a letter in his boot from his wife back home in
Pellos. He had it read before by a travelling priest, but the man
had left out all the really good phrases from the man’s lonely and
ribald wife. The tavern was in an uproar of laughter at her saucy
words and his red face.

It was so
strange for Seth to be the centre of attention in that fashion, and
he felt the life of a travelling scribe would be a very good one
indeed.

Seth used some
of his new found wealth to order a quick breakfast of warmed-up
what-they’d-been-serving-for-dinner. Dean’s daughter, who had
served him the night before, and who seemed like she at least had
gotten a good night sleep, slid the tray in front of him.

‘Well, quite a
carry on happening out there this morning,’ she said, nodding
towards the street and watching his face as she did.

‘What’s the
tale?’ he asked, eating as he spoke.

‘Some rich man
on the hill was murdered by a new slave he’d bought. The slave
killed him and then made an escape,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry;
the city watch will grab him up. What does he look like?’

Now she looked
at Seth even closer ‘Big Northerner, short hair. Plus they say he
killed the man and then ate up the body like an animal!’

Seth did his
best fake laugh. ‘I’ll keep my eyes open for a half-wolf, half-man
escaped slave on the loose, then.’

Having finished
the meal and feeling decidedly unsafe about this city, he stood to
leave. ‘Say goodbye to your father for me; he’s a good one,’ Seth
said and made his way casually out the door of the tavern.

Seth had to get himself out of this city and quickly. If they
had his description from the steward, how long would it be before
they went down to the slave market and exchange
words
with his former owner? How long before they found out who had sold
him to debt slavery and how long before the man Yend, who was the
owner of that boarding house, had told them everything that he knew
for a price? Seth felt like such a fool now, not only for what had
happened to him and his friends when stumbling into the city like
some wide-eyed savages, but for running his mouth at every chance
about where he was from and every little bloody detail about his
life. He’d always been free with talk, and now that would stop him
from going home, and maybe even have the General’s kin hunting for
the trail of his family.

He had to go
back to that boarding house and do what he should have done last
night instead of drinking and making merry: ending someone’s
life.

Chapter 5

They had come
through the city gates like kings returning victorious from a war.
Seth had been in the fine company of three of his close friends
from the levies, Erik, Griffith and Ulrik. They had been of the
same mind as he, to make a life as fighting men — and where better
than the city of Cravosi? When a young man served his two years in
the levies and watch of the local duke, if he did well he’d be
given his shield. It was something that only a handful of each
group were given, and it was something they trained and fought hard
to win during their two years at Bloodcrest. Of their group of a
few hundred, only around two score had walked away with a small
buckler shield with the Bloodcrest, of two swords crossing a red
background emblazoned on the front.

The shield was
a sign that they were welcome in the army of the Duke, but also
that they were men worthy of their places in a watch or other
levies. Accordingly, these four Northern lads had walked into the
city they had ridden three weeks to reach and swaggered past the
current watch. They had planned to spend a few days relaxing and
enjoying their almost two years of accrued wages, then find out
about joining the city watch or, better yet, the King’s Guard.

Seth remembered
his total amazement at seeing the city for the first time: the
towering walls, the throngs of so many people and absolutely
everything for sale. In the North, slavery was legal, as it was
here, but in Cravoss it seemed that one in every five was a slave.
Slaves came and went through the crowds of people or could be seen
following after someone in expensive clothing. Every job that
didn’t require much training was being done by a slave. Everything
that did require training was tightly controlled by the Guilds,
which was why everything was so expensive.

Seth had come
to this city with a purse containing eight silvers and eight
coppers, a silver and copper paid for every season while under
arms. It wasn’t much in this city, but back home it did well,
especially when you had your sleeping and eating taken care off. He
thought it would last a few months at least.

The boarding house they decided on was called the Fellow
Traveller, they were told, and looked about as mean and rundown as
they could stand. It was made of greyish wooden planks and stood a
few stories in the air with a dirt front yard. There were not many
windows, and it did not inspire the impression of a sturdy,
well-made building, but they reasoned that the meaner and the
cheaper a place was, the longer they could stay in the ale
.
Seth had been given the role of organisation, as it was his big
talk which had brought them to the city.

Back around the
fire at the Bloodcrest line, he had often been spinning tales of
how they would be received in the city. Four strapping Northerners
all blooded, with their shields. They would be given a right
welcome.

The owner of the boarding house was the man by the name Yend.
He was as crookedly built as the boarding house he kept. Regular
height for a Cravosi, lank black hair and watery eyes, he had a
habit of looking around the room as he spoke. That said, he was
still an affable host and made all four of the lads very welcome
indeed
.

‘Look at these
four fine young lads here,’ he said, speaking to an old woman who
sat behind the bar with him. ‘Need a room, boys? How about a beer
first?’ Most of these boarding houses had a small bar as well, to
keep the guests in at night.