Exile's Challenge (27 page)

The evening was chill, rime shining bright on moonlit rooftops, the mud of Grostheim's streets crunching frost-hardened under his boots, ice glittering over puddles. The sky swept wide and starlit above the ragged city, the moon a cocked and judgmental eye observing Evander's foothold in the New World. Var buttoned his coat and tugged the wide collar up around his ears. Barely October, he thought, and winter already coming on. What chance of a winter campaign if the months follow this pattern? How soon before the deep snow comes? Shall Talle listen to sense?

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat and trudged on, toward the governor's mansion. A thin-ribbed dog darted from an alley, saw him, and snarled, spinning around to find the shelter of a raised walkway as if afraid he might offer harm. Var smiled bitterly; he had heard of dogs being eaten as food ran shorter. He was not sure: Governor Wyme said that all were fed who deserved to be, but he did not trust Wyme. Inquisitor Talle demanded that the outland farmers bring in their crops and that was done, but still food was not plentiful and Var could not like Talle or agree with his methods. There were—despite Talle's gallows—still hungry beggars inside the city, more lurking beyond the walls, inhabiting a settlement of ragged tents boundaried by the earthworks Var's men had thrown up. Talle had hexed some few, and twice ordered Spelt's redcoats out to clear the camp,
but still the penurious and the homeless crept back like beaten dogs seeking the only refuge they knew. Finally, Talle had given up his efforts to drive them away, settling for the promulgation of new laws that forbade the donation of food to the refugees and forbidding vagrants within the city walls. Neither edict worked very well, save to fuel discontent and resentment of the Inquisitor and his new regime, of which Var was considered a part. There were folk legally inside the walls sympathetic to the beggars, and they contrived to circumvent Talle's measures. Save the Inquisitor risk igniting a civil war, he could not punish all those who succored the hungry.

Grostheim, Var thought as he trudged the frosty streets, was a powder keg ready to blow. And he was no longer sure where his own sympathies lay. As he had told Jaymes, he had his orders, his duty to obey, but when he saw folk stripped of hope, their faces planed stark by hunger, he found it hard to accept Talle's diktats. But still he was committed by duty, by his orders to support the Inquisitor. He was an officer of the God's Militia, dedicated to that service. It was a dilemma he could not resolve as he strode on, unhappy.

He remembered a town of lights and laughter, and glanced around at shuttered windows and silent people. They seemed—the silent, unsmiling folk he passed, the steaming windows, the smoking braziers, the skulking dogs—all hostile, as if he were not come as a savior, but as another threat. It was as if his blue marine's greatcoat marked him as Talle's man, and set his hand on the gallows' spring, and that the forts bounding the wilderness edge meant nothing. It seemed, as he looked toward faces that turned from him, as if the inhabitants of Grostheim had sooner faced the hostiles than welcome the Inquisitor and his lieutenant.

He passed an alley mouth where a dull fire burned, small and shrouded by what scanty shelter the occupants of the rude shack he saw had built there: mostly random planks and timbers charred from the last hostile attack and discarded, and lengths of torn tarpaulin. A man sat there, huddled close beside a woman, a child between them whose sex he could not determine. It happened that the moon struck down there so that he saw their faces clear, cheeked hollow and dark-eyed.
Accusing, he thought, as he hesitated and met their gaze. He fumbled in his pockets for some coin—Talle be damned!—and then saw what he thought was the most amazing and inexplicable thing.

A tavern flanked the alley, and from its back a man came out with a wrapped bundle clutched in his hands. In the moonlight Var saw the
E
branded on his cheek. The man looked warily around and Var pretended to walk on—halted and doubled back, so that he might watch.

He saw the branded man deliver the bundle to the refugees, stripping off the cloth to reveal a loaf of bread and a part-eaten joint of meat. The indentured man glanced around and beckoned at the shadows, and a woman came out—a tavern girl, Var guessed, and that she'd wear a brand on her shoulder—who carried a pitcher and three clay cups. He could not tell what the pitcher contained; only that the refugees drank eagerly as they ate, and he watched in amazement.

He slid back into the wall's shadow, embarrassed and surprised; mightily disturbed.

The branded folk fed freemen? Servants fed those who had once been masters? Their
owners
?

Why?

The starvelings in the alley wore no marks of indenture, so they were surely free settlers who had likely possessed such folk as now gave them sustenance—in defiance of Inquisitor Talle's laws.

Var wondered why, and why—he knew—he would not report it.

He walked on, into the square where the gallows stood before the church.

The gibbet occupied the center of the square. It was built well—the carpenters would not argue with Inquisitor Talle—of solid oak, a platform raised up a full man's height above the ground, the scaffold over that, so that it dominated the center of Grostheim. Var was reminded of his childhood, of gamekeepers who hung ravens and crows and foxes in warning to others: it seemed to him like that as the sorry body dangled limp, the wood beneath its feet stained with its last, sad effluences. Its boots were gone, doubtless taken by the hangman, and that seemed to Var most sad, a last indignity.
He looked at the blank-eyed face as he came closer, wondering what hopes the corpse had brought to Salvation, what wife or children the man might leave behind. Unthinking, he crossed his fingers and spat.

“He'll do you no harm, Major. Not now.”

Var cursed his squeamishness. Four of Spelt's Militiamen stood guard around the scaffold, bored and cold, a corporal grinning at his own sally. There was no need for a guard—Talle's hexes decorated the platform and the gibbet—and the presence of the redcoats was only a further ceremonial reminder of authority. Almost, Var answered sharply, but caught himself—these fellows did no more than he, only obeying orders—and softened his tone. “No, I doubt he will.”

Save, he thought, every body Talle hangs there is like another small spark heating this dismal city, and how many shall it take before the fire burns hot enough to ignite it? He paused, wanting to say something to the soldiers and not knowing quite what.

He settled for, “A cold night, eh?”

“Chilly, sir.” The corporal shrugged. “But you wait until winter. It gets truly cold then.”

Var nodded. “Snow?”

“Usually.” The corporal took a pace toward Var, thought better of such presumption, and halted. “Gets real deep outside the walls, but the branded folk keep our streets clear.”

Var said, “Of course,” and then: “How long does the snow last?”

“In a bad winter,” the corporal shrugged again, “from around the midpart of Novembre right through to Marche, maybe.”

“And in a good winter?” Var asked.

“Decembre to Februire,” the corporal answered. “The roads are hard going for some while after, of course. The mud, you know?”

“I know.” Var thought of winter campaigns, of cold and snow drifts that must be dug through, of roads so thick with mud the guncarts and supply wagons bogged down. “How long have you served here?”

“Nine years, seven months, and nineteen days.” The corporal
grinned, deciding this marine major was not so bad a fellow, even was he the Inquisitor's right hand. “Next year I get my Choice.”

Var smiled. Service in the God's Militia was reckoned in decades, and when the corporal's tenure was up he would have his choice to make. The rankers capitalized the word: The Choice. In this case, it meant that the corporal could reenlist or quit the service. Did he choose the former, then he could look forward to promotion, to a sergeancy; the latter meant another choosing: either to return to Evander or to remain in Salvation. The one would mean taking the Militia pension—which was scarce enough to live on—and believing there was something or someone in Evander worth going back for, whilst the other would entitle the man to a piece of land in Salvation and two indentured exiles for his servants.

“Which shall you take?” Var asked.

The corporal scratched a cheek Var noticed for the first time was pock-marked, hesitating before he replied. “Well, that depends …”

Var made his smile more friendly. “On what, eh?”

“Well, sir.” The corporal grimaced, embarrassed. “On you, I suppose, sir. On you and the Inquisitor.”

“How so?” Var made his voice casual.

“Well.” The corporal fidgeted with his musket, adjusting the strap so that moonlight flickered off the polished steel of the bayonet. “On what you do about the demons.”

“How so?” Var asked again. He saw the corporal's indecision and looked to draw the man out. So far he had echoed Abram Jaymes, but Jaymes was committed to Salvation by choice, whilst this red-coated and suddenly uncomfortable Militiaman was in the New World by order of the Autarchy alone. “This shall go no farther,” he said, “you've my word on that. Listen—I'll not even ask your name.”

“It's Gerry, sir. Corporal Robyn Gerry.”

And straightened, coming to attention, musket upright against his shoulder, hand to stock and muzzle, eyes fixed on the brim of Var's tricorne.

Var recognized the stance. It was not uncommon, if an officer asked you awkward questions, to come to attention and refuse to meet his eyes—but Gerry had initiated the conversation
and seemed quite at ease then, and Var did not think he was so terrifying an officer as to induce this sudden reluctance in the man. Save he
was
considered Talle's right hand. He smiled in friendly fashion and said, “I'd appreciate your opinion, Corporal. And as I said, you've my word it shall go no farther.”

“
Your
word?”

Var nodded solemnly. “My word as an officer and a gentleman; as a fellow soldier.”

Gerry laughed, which surprised Var. Not so much that the chuckling was laden with contempt—hatred even—but that a humble corporal would dare laugh at all into the face of an officer. He stared at the man and found himself looking into eyes that were curiously blank.

“Your word,” Gerry said in a voice that was no longer his own, but suddenly guttural, “means nothing to me. Your word is smoke in the storm wind. I spit on your word.”

Var stared at the corporal, said—knowing it even then for foolishness—“Gerry, are you well?”

“Well?” It seemed that fire burned inside the staring eyes, behind them. And the voice was harsh thunder. “How should I be well when you come to take our land?
Ours!
”

Var said “Gerry?” and stepped back a pace, wishing his greatcoat were not buttoned over his pistol and that he wore his sword. But why wear a blade in a peaceful city? Save suddenly you be attacked by a man who seemed one moment friendly and the next possessed. He looked at Gerry's eyes and saw madness there: he began to unbutton his coat, to reach for the pistol.

And Gerry said, “No,” in the same harsh voice, and slung his musket down, cocking the hammer. “You think to own our land, but you'll not.”

Var reacted entirely on instinct. He flung himself to the side as the musket dropped, rolling away as the muzzle flashed flame and the lead ball gouged a furrow in the frozen mud of the square. Mud and ice plastered his face as he clambered to his feet, still fumbling at the buttons of his coat as Gerry lowered the musket and charged him, intent on thrusting the long bayonet into his belly.

The three other Militiamen guarding the gallows came—at
last, Var thought—to see what transpired. In that instant he condemned them all for idiots, for they stood gaping as Gerry looked to drive the bayonet into his guts as he danced away, shouting, “Shoot him! For God's sake, shoot him!”

Gerry laughed in a voice that was not his own:
“Our land! Never yours!”
And stabbed again at Var's belly.

Var lurched sideways. Damn the long coat! Damn the protocol that denied him wearing a sword inside Grostheim's peaceful walls! And danced another step away from Gerry's probing bayonet.

“Not yours,” Gerry said, thrusting. “Never yours! Ours!”

Var backed away, seeking the opportunity to gain ground enough he might open his coat and draw his pistol. Shoot this madman who looked to stick him as the three other redcoats stared gape-mouthed at the impossible spectacle of a corporal in the God's Militia attempting to drive a bayonet into the belly of a major.

Gerry thrust again, and Var gasped as his greatcoat was pierced, lurched back. He felt his hand scored, like cold fire over the skin, and resisted the impulse to check the wound, springing clear of another darting attack.

Why did those fools not fire?

Then: If they do, they'll shoot me. Aloud, he shouted, “Use your bayonets! Stick the bastard before he kills me!”

The three Militiamen still gaped, numbed by that vision of the impossible.

Var felt cold steel prick his stomach and lurched backward, turning so that he began to circumnavigate the scaffold. The corpse there dangled in dead-eyed witness of the drama, indifferent as the moon.

Gerry thrust again and Var fell back against the wood of the scaffold's platform. The bayonet drove into the timber and stuck an instant. Not long—Robyn Gerry was a strong man, and accustomed to bayonet-work—but enough Var had time to haul clear and open the last buttons of his coat, drag out the pistol.

Not enough to cock the hammer or drop the strikerplate, but at least he held a weapon now. He darted back as Gerry came wild-eyed toward him, the bloodied bayonet a precursor of his advance.

Var stumbled against a soldier, cursing the gaping man as he shouldered him aside and dragged back the pistol's hammer.