Sword and the Spell 01: The Grey Robe (13 page)

At the front of the tower only half the kingsguard
troop remained, the other half having left with the king after he had spoken to
his Guardcaptain. The rest were mounted, obviously ready to leave but there was
still no sign of Maladran. Jonderill hesitated, unsure of what was expected of
him and the soldier who had come to fetch him pushed him roughly forward to
where Gartnor sat on a large dun gelding.

“You’re to come with me, boy,” commanded Gartnor
without any attempt to dismount.

“Why?” asked Jonderill curiously.

The Guardcaptain leaned from his saddle, his eyes cold
and a sneering laugh on his narrow lips. “Because you’re my property now,
kingsward.”

For a moment the words meant nothing and then the
terrible truth hit Jonderill like a stunning blow. “Maladran’s sold me?”

“No, boy, not even that he’s given you away. Now give
me your hand unless you want to walk back to Tarmin tied to the rear of my horse.”

Jonderill backed away, unable to believe what was
happening. A sharp lump in his throat prevented him from speaking but nothing
would stop him from finding Maladran and learning the truth from his own lips.
He turned to run but the guard’s strong hands grabbed hold of his shoulders and
arms and in a moment his hands were bound firmly in front of him. He kicked and
struggled but Gartnor leaned from his horse and struck him a stunning blow
around the head before taking hold of his bound hands and dragging him across
the pommel of his saddle.

Now the boy’s tears came freely and whilst the sharp
lump in his throat threatened to choke him he managed one coherent word. “Why?”

Gartnor laughed viciously. “Because you have the
power. Don’t you know, boy, no one threatens Maladran’s position as the
greatest of all magician’s and still lives?”

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Jonderill
rolled up the sleeve of his coarse grey tunic and sullenly looked at the sour
slops in front of him. Of all the tasks assigned to him in his lowly position
as houseboy this was the one he detested most. He pushed his hands into the
cold, congealed mess and his stomach turned in protest. Unable to stop himself
he retched twice, thankful there was nothing inside him to bring up and waited
for his nausea to pass before he began sifting through the scraps of leftover
food from the Great Hall.

This bucketful was worse than most. Not only did it
contain the remains of last night’s banquet; soups, shellfish, vegetables, five
kinds of meat and as many rich sauces but the princess and her guests had been
present. Soft preserves and rich cream, milky puddings and once sweet fondants
now curdled disgustingly amongst the greasy scraps. He retched once more and
began the task of separating meat and bones from the rest of the slops; bones
in the pail for the glue makers, slops to the pigs and meat for the hounds. At
least in this land of plenty the meat was truly for the hounds and not for the
bound servants such as him.

Perhaps it was memories of those days when hunger had
driven him to eat with the hounds that made this task so distasteful. Then he
had never considered where the food came from and if he had known he wouldn’t
have cared, food was life and when you were starving that was all that
mattered. Or at least that was all that mattered then but he had learnt that
even a kingsward could have a life which was worth something if someone cared
for you. Having someone care was what was really important. A hard lump came
into his throat and he blinked to clear his blurred vision. Hunger or
exhaustion or even the cut of the dog whip was nothing compared to the pain of
being given away to be a slave by someone you thought cared for you.

Maladran had given him away without a thought or a
word and all because he had tried to please him. His ribs were still bruised
where Captain Gartnor had ridden back to Tarmin with him held firmly across the
front of his saddle.
 
After that he had
spent two days locked in a dark shed without food or light and had then been
sold to a caravan master heading across the Blue River. It had taken four days
of walking with his hands tied to the back of an ox cart before he arrived in
Vinmore. Then he’d been taken to the servants’ yard of the palace and handed
over to a burly man in house livery in exchange for a small purse of coin.
Jonderill pulled his slimy hands from the bucket and glared at them as if they
were to blame for everything which had happened to him.

“Boy!” said a voice behind him, sharp but not unkind.

Jonderill jumped and made a hasty bow to his new
master, the Housecharge, who managed the royal household and ordered the lives
of its servants, pages, squires and even sometimes the knights and the royal
family as well. He was a large man in stature as well as in voice and few,
except the very brave, challenged his authority. It had been the Housecharge
who had accepted him as a bound servant, making it clear that he didn’t usually
take the children of convicted felons into his household. However he had found
the exhausted boy a bed in the servants’ hall and the following morning had
furnished him with a brown house tunic which fell to his knees, a webbing belt
and a list of duties to be performed daily. Since then the man had ignored him
completely, which was only to expected for a servant who was little more than a
slave.

“The yard boys have all been called to the stables to
help with the guest’s horses or to prepare for the royal hunt. You’ll have to
carry the scraps away yourself and make it snappy; with the princess ruling the
roost there won’t be a moment’s peace for any of us today.” Jonderill bowed. “And,
boy, make sure you get a loaf and a wedge of cheese inside you as soon as your
stomach has settled. I’ll not have any of my boys go hungry just because her
highness wants everything done yesterday.”

He gave Jonderill an unexpected wink and moved back
into the kitchen where his commands reverberated from pristine white wall to
pristine white wall. For a moment Jonderill stared after him, strangely touched
that the Housecharge should show any concern for his well being. Then he
shrugged, he supposed it would be an inconvenience to his master if he fainted
from hunger, especially when there was so much to be done.

Despite his dour thoughts and the heaviness of the
buckets which waited to be transported his mood lightened slightly at the
thought of being free from the constraints of the kitchen precincts for a
while. His duties had restricted him to the kitchen, its store rooms and yards and,
of course, the servants’ quarters. The Housecharge had warned him strictly
against entering any area where the royal family might notice a brown-clad
servant. In all honesty he could have left the palace at any time he chose over
the last moon cycle, either to visit the town outside the palace walls or to
leave his captivity and make a bid for freedom but he’d no money and he knew
what it was to be hungry, cold and alone. At least here he had a warm bed, clean
clothes and enough to eat. For a kingsward that should make him more than
content.

“
Hey, houseboy!”

Jonderill looked up to see a tall boy a few summers
older than he was dressed in a leather jerkin and breaches leaning against the
wall and studying him with a contemptuous sneer. He had seen that look before
and guessed what was coming next.

“I see they’ve found you the perfect job, sorting
through the left over slops.” Jonderill said nothing but continued with his
unpleasant task keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the bucket in front of him. “That’s
just the right sort of job for a slave though, isn’t it, rubbish in rubbish out.”

“I’m not a slave,” said Jonderill defensively. “I’m a
bound servant.”

The boy wandered over and kicked the bucket Jonderill
was working through, the look of arrogance still on his face. “Same thing. You
belong to the Housecharge. I heard it said he paid three silver gellstart for
you, about the same as he would pay for a work horse.” He gave a cruel laugh
and prodded Jonderill’s leg with the toe of his boot. “Is that what you are,
slave, the Housecharge’s work horse?”

Jonderill stood slowly, tired of the insults and the
chiding he received every time the Housecharge was out of hearing from the yard
boys and cadets. The mocking boy pulled himself up straighter to stand a good
head taller than he was.

“What’s it like to be a slave boy and sleep under the
table in the kitchen and eat from the slops? It’s not the sort of thing normal
folk do but I suppose you’ve got used to it, having done it since your
worthless father was executed.”

Something in Jonderill snapped and he charged the boy,
head down, catching him in the stomach and knocking him over backwards. He
rolled on top of him and before the boy had a chance to recover Jonderill had
hit him twice with his soiled hands and added blood to the slime on the boy’s
face. Jonderill went to land a third blow but the boy had recovered from his
shock and grabbed his wrists using his extra weight and height to push him to
the side. He rolled over but held onto the boy’s jerkin and together they
rolled around the yard, knocking the bucket of bones over and narrowly missing
the slop bucket for the pigs. The boy landed a blow on Jonderill’s jaw, making
his lip bleed and Jonderill grabbed the boy’s hair and yanked it hard enough to
make him cry out.

“Enough of this!” shouted the stern voice of the
Housecharge. His strong hands grabbed the back of Jonderill’s tunic and hauled
him off his opponent. The tall boy scrambled to his feet and wiped the blood
from his nose on to the back of his hand. “What do the pair of you think you’re
doing? I’ve a palace full of demanding visitors, children and their maids under
everyone’s feet and the princess screaming blue murder and you two are rolling
around the yard! I’ve a good mind to tell the Cadetmaster about you, Barrin and
let him find your idle hands extra work to do. As for you, boy, I don’t agree
with using a heavy hand on those who work for me but perhaps a good thrashing
will teach the likes of you that no one fights in my household.”

He spun Jonderill around pressing him up against the
wall and unclipped the cane which hung from his belt at his side. It was only
meant to be ceremonial; a sign of his position in the royal household but it
would do very well for what he had in mind.

“Don’t hit him, sir,” pleaded Barrin, stepping
forward. “It wasn’t his fault. Me and the others have been goading him on and I
suppose I went a bit too far.”

The Housecharge released Jonderill and looked sternly
at them both before pointing and wagging his finger at Jonderill. “I’ll not
have fighting here again, do you understand? Next time I see you raise a hand
to anyone or find you have been fighting I’ll have you publicly beaten and sold
to a slaver from Essenland. Now get the yard cleared up and Barrin, you helped
to make this mess so you give him a hand. I want him back in the kitchen to
turn the spits as soon as he’s finished out here.”

With an angry grunt the Housecharge marched off,
leaving the two boys to face each other in an awkward silence. Jonderill
started collecting the scattered contents of the bucket and Barrin helped him
until the yard looked reasonably tidy.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened, I didn’t mean to
get you into trouble with the Housecharge. I suppose I shouldn’t have picked on
you like that but I didn’t think you would have the courage to react as you did.
I’ll not do it again, I promise.”

“Thanks,” said Jonderill doubtfully. “Why did you stop
him from thrashing me, I thought that’s what you and your friends wanted?”

“No, we just wanted a bit of fun. See, we’ve never had
a slave, er, I mean a bound servant here before so we had a bet you wouldn’t
have the guts to fight back, even if I pushed you too far.” He looked ashamed
and shuffled his feet. “I never thought the Housecharge would get so angry. He’s
never struck anyone before, I don’t think he’s even allowed to, so I sort of
saved him as well.” He rubbed the side of his cheek where a bruise was starting
to blossom and gave Jonderill a broad grin. “You really pack a hard punch.
Perhaps when you’re finished for the day you’ll come and have an ale with me
and show me how a little squirt like you can hit so hard.”

Jonderill smiled and looked away. “I’d like to do that
but they don’t pay bound servants like me.”

“That don’t seem right but no worry, my father owns
the Soldier’s Rest just beyond the palace gates. Just come on in and ask for
Barrin, I’ll be there all night.”

He clapped Jonderill on the back and gave him an
encouraging grin before taking hold of the larger pail and heading in the
direction of the pig pens. Barrin disappeared through the yard gate, whistling
brightly, before Jonderill had chance to say a word of thanks. He smiled to
himself and finished washing the grease from his arms at the trough by the
door. Later he would have to clean the great cooking pans in there when the
cooks had finished with them, another job he hated, but for now at least, he
had his first opportunity to escape his tedious life and the possibility of
making a new friend.

Jonderill let the sleeves of his course brown tunic
cover his wet arms and picked up the bucket of meat scraps, disturbing a
cluster of black buzzers which had come for an early lunch. The bucket was
lighter than it should have been and he prayed this was because the half eaten
joints had been salvaged from the banqueting table last night and not due to
his negligence with the swill bucket. If they had been rescued there would be
cold meat for lunch and perhaps pickles to go with the usual hot flour-roots
and steamed vegetables. His stomach rumbled in anticipation and he found himself
humming Barrin’s happy tune as he hefted the bucket of scraps and headed for
the kennels.

The stables, with their adjoining kennels, lay one
step lower than the palace with its elegant towers and its tall spires inlaid
with gold but still within the high stone wall which held back the moat and
separated the palace from the city below. Built on the peak of a craggy rock
protruding through naturally rising upland, the palace and capital city of
Alewinder stood at the head of a lush valley.

The home of Vinmore’s royal family could be seen from
every part of the kingdom and stood like a banner proclaiming the peace and
prosperity which King Steppen and his predecessors had given to the land. On a
day when the sun shone from a faultless blue sky and lit up the stone walls,
the colour of wild honey, nobody could doubt how good it was to be alive and
living in Vinmore.

Walking along a back path beneath overhanging white
and cream blooms of honeyvine, listening to skysoarers sharing their pairing
call and assailed by the climbing vines heavy perfume, even Jonderill could
forget the emptiness of being alone, the nameless property of another man. He
knew it was a tradition of the servants’ hall that the newest amongst them was
called nothing but ‘boy’. “It keeps you in your place until you learn to
respect your betters,” the Housecharge had told him that first day but that
didn’t mean he had to like it.

Jonderill was his name, a warrior’s name, given to him
by Maladran. It was the only thing which Maladran had given him which he still
possessed and nobody was going to take that from him. With renewed
determination to overcome his present loneliness and with a real hope he could
make Barrin his friend he lengthened his stride and turned left off the
pathway, one opening too soon. Jonderill realised his mistake the moment he
ducked underneath the low stone archway and into the brilliant sunshine of the
stable yard. The kennels, which were his destination, stood to his right behind
a low wall and tall metal railings with gold painted points. He could hear the
hounds calling but only just over the noise and confusion in the yard in front
of him.