The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (48 page)

He spun around stunned by what Callistares had done and remembered he wasn’t alone. To one side of the courtyard Allowyn knelt on the dusty floor holding Callabris in his arms, his weapons abandoned. Tears stained his face and from where he stood Jonderill could hear his muffled sobs. He placed the box gently on the ground and let the torc on his arm fall around it to keep it safe before hurrying to where Callabris lay.

There was nothing he could do; Callabris was already dead, his milky white eyes staring blindly into nothing and the deeply lined face grey and pallid. Allowyn held his thin, wasted shoulders and one clawed, liver-spotted hand and wept for the master he’d served for so long. In the absence of his magic to sustain him, Callabris had reverted to what he really was, an old man who had lived a long time past that of ordinary men. As Allowyn held him his body turned to dust in his arms and faded away to nothing.

Allowyn wiped the wetness from his face onto the back of his hand, picked up his fallen knife and stood. For a moment Jonderill thought that Allowyn was going to turn the knife on him in revenge for his master’s death but instead he gave a sad smile and moved the knife to his own breast.

“Stop!” shouted Jonderill in alarm.

Allowyn looked up from the tip of the knife which rested against his leather jerkin. “I have failed in my duty to my Goddess and have let my master die. There is only one end for a protector who does such a thing.” His hands shifted on the hilt of the knife.

“No! Wait! It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done to save Callabris.” Allowyn’s grip on the knife tightened and he closed his eyes. “Allowyn, don’t do this. It was the Goddess’s will that Callabris should die. She was the one who created the spell that took his magic and ended his life. There was nothing either of us could do to save him.”

“I’m a protector and he was my reason for living.”

Jonderill swallowed back the hard lump which had come into his throat and was threatening to choke off his words. “Then find another reason as your brother did.” Allowyn opened his eyes but didn’t change his grip. “Your brother protected me after Tallison killed Coberin. He gave his life for me so that I could live. I am offering you the same chance.”

“You have a protector and in any case you are a black robe and have no need of my services.”

“Tissian is dead and in case you haven’t noticed I’m not what I used to be.” He held up his handless arms to demonstrate the point and gave a sad smile. “I need the services of a protector now more than ever.” It was a lie of course. He had no need of steel to keep him from harm, but the companionship that Allowyn could provide was worth more than gold. “I have the Goddess’s work to do and a difficult path yet to walk. Will you walk it at my side and protect my back until death takes one of us from this life?”

For a moment Allowyn hesitated. It was unheard of for a protector to take a new master, except that his brother had, and the person he had taken now stood in front of him. Somehow to carry on where his brother had left off seemed right, and if it wasn’t, then the Goddess would surely punish him. He dropped his knife into its sheath at his side and picked up his sword from where he’d let it fall. “Your will, Lord.”

“Good, then come. I need to journey to find the Pillars of Allkinds, but before that, I have promised to help a friend secure Northshield’s future before Borman returns and tries to retake his throne.”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Conspiracy

The alleyway was dark and stank of piss and vomit and the sweet cloying smell of decaying flesh. High walls rose on either side blank and windowless whilst the accumulated rubbish of a dozen seasons lay sodden and rotting on the crudely paved floor. At the far end where the alleyway ended in another blank wall, a shelter had been built from discarded boxes scrounged from the warehouse district and broken barrels too old to hold wine, but still heavy with the musty smell of sour wine berries. Rags left by the poor and soiled straw from the floors of nearby inns made up a rough bed in the corner of the shelter, and a stolen cloak covered the front, barely keeping out the gusting wind that funnelled down the alleyway.

Dartis, like every city in the six kingdoms, had its poor quarter with tenements and slums, but none who lived there were so low that they would take up residence in that alleyway. The man who curled up in the straw and rags was new to the city. He’d arrived at the last full moon and had spent the seven days since walking the streets of the city and setting up his squalid home.

His hair was long and greasy and fell over his eyes, and his beard was ragged and broke up the hard lines of his face. The clothes he wore were torn and filthy, and his boots were held together with rough twine. When he walked it was with a shuffle as if the action pained him. His head was always bowed and his eyes lowered towards the ground. If anyone had looked into his eyes they would have seen pain, hate and anger but no one looked. He was, after all, just another beggar.

The man groaned in his sleep and twitched as the nightmare took him. It was the same nightmare he had each night and as it moved to its climax sweat broke out on his brow and ran down his back, his hands balled into fists and his legs went rigid. When the final moment came and the blade cut into him, he screamed and woke with his heart racing and his breath coming in short, hard gasps. He waited for the worst to pass and then reached into the vermin-ridden straw and drew out a small skin, taking a long swig of the contents. The spirit was rough and fiery and made him choke but it took away the taste of bile from his mouth and would make him sleep.

He replaced the stopper and returned the skin to its hiding place next to the long knife which he kept beside it. No one had ventured down the alleyway to investigate the screams in the night and he thought it unlikely that anyone would. However, if someone did suspect that he was more than he seemed and should find out about the gold coins he kept hidden in the filthy straw then they would come like black buzzers to a honey pot. He was ready for them though; they might come but they wouldn’t leave again. Satisfied that the gold was still there he turned over and drifted back to sleep.

It had taken Rastor almost six cycles of the moon to reach Dartis via Leersland and Vinmore. After they had cut him they had cauterised and bound his wound to stop him from bleeding to death and had then dumped his body in the Stone Hills with just the bloody clothes he lay in and a single water skin. It would have been better if they had killed him outright but, of course, that was not their intention. They had to humiliate him in front of the others and make him suffer.

By doing so they ensured that no one would be tempted to commit the crime for which he had been accused, but had never committed, ever again. But they had underestimated him. He wasn’t the brainless lout Borman had taken him for, far from it. He’d always known that one day Borman would betray him and kick him out onto the streets. For years he’d been preparing for that day and whilst it had come more suddenly and more devastatingly than he had anticipated, it didn’t leave him helpless.

The first cycle of the moon had been the worst when the pain and the fever had almost taken his life from him. If it hadn’t been for the prospector scrounging for small gemstones at the edge of the Stone Hills he would have surely died. The man had lost a foot in a mining accident and was barely finding enough gem fragments to live on. Rastor’s promise of gold had been enough to purchase a rough kind of care along with eager assistance to access his small store of coin held by the innkeeper in Crosslands.

He’d expected the prospector to take the coin and run but he hadn’t. Instead he’d returned with a horse and cart and together they journeyed north into Leersland. It had been a hard journey in the back of the cart unable to ride, but it gave him time to heal and to plan his revenge. In Leersland he collected more of the gold he had stored, took a room at an inn close by the Blue River crossing and only went out at night in case he was recognised. He hired a scribe to write letters to possible allies in Essenland and received answers back from Vinmore.

When he was able to ride again he left the prospector a small bag of copper gellstart, swam his horse across the Blue River and rode south into Alewinder. His allies were waiting for him and after a moon cycle of negotiations they took him across the border into Tarbis and left him in a deserted herder’s hut whilst they rode on into Dartis. It had taken another moon cycle for his hair and beard to grow long and matted and for the clothes he never changed to stink and become full of vermin. When he walked through the gates of Dartis not even the men he had once commanded recognised him.

The sun was high in the sky before the light penetrated the gloom at the end of the alleyway. Rastor opened his eyes and cursed his aching head. The nightmare had come a second time that night and it had taken the rest of the skin of grain spirit to evict it from his mind. Cursing loudly he stumbled out of the door and squatted to relieve himself leaving another foul puddle on the alleyway floor. He didn’t care. Another two days and he would be out of this stinking hole and, if things worked out as he had planned, he would not only have his revenge but would be well rewarded by his allies. The country estate with hills covered in wine berry vines which he had been promised would keep him in luxury for the rest of his life.

Rastor returned to his hovel, pulled out his long knife and began the daily task of sharpening the already razor-edged blade. The sound of the whetstone scraping against steel calmed him and helped him ignore the irritation of the things that shared his clothes and sucked his blood. It also helped him to think and to go over his plans, looking for things which could go wrong. The biggest problem was that he had to rely on others. It wasn’t a case of him just walking up to Borman and sticking a knife into him, he was too well guarded for that, and in any case, it wasn’t just Borman he was after. Somehow Malingar had set him up and, not satisfied with turning his king against him, he had even suggested his punishment.

He would never forget the look of satisfaction in Malingar’s eyes as he watched his servant wield the knife that ended his life as a man. However badly he wanted Borman dead he wanted Malingar more. Death wasn’t good enough either. He wanted Malingar to suffer, to be burnt alive or quartered or whatever lingering death a court would sentence him to for the murder of his king. To do all that and to hand Borman’s throne to Vorgret he needed others. He continued to sharpen his knife and waited for darkness to come.

*

Sharman sat in the dimly lit inn and stared into his half finished pot of stale ale. The Goddess knows that this wasn’t the usual type of place that he frequented, but the pain in his side had become worse and the physic would no longer give him Shrezbere essence to ease the ache. His apprentice had taken pity on him though and had told him of a potion pedlar who might be able to sell him something for the pain. He was likely right, if he drank anymore of the sour ale the innkeeper served up he was likely to die of gut rot, and then he wouldn’t need any potions for the pain.

If he’d been at home he would have been able to concoct something for himself like that black stuff he had taken when the gout had laid him low. If that didn’t work he could make something similar to the drench he’d given to his old nag when it had that cough and its wind was wheezing like a couple of punctured bellows. That had worked well enough but finding herbs here that had a proper sounding name was as difficult as getting his nag’s head out of its nosebag on a windy day.

He ran his hand over his bald head feeling the unaccustomed looseness of the skin and took stock of the inn’s patrons. A load of toss pots if ever he’d seen them. A mixture of out of luck gamblers, out of work navies and failed mercenaries he wouldn’t give stable space to. If the potion pedlar was here he had to be in disguise. At that thought he grabbed his hat and stuck it on his head with a dissatisfied grunt. He’d been bald as long as he could remember, just like his pa before him, and his head had got used to the wind and the rain and other things which dropped on it. It didn’t like being covered up any more than he liked being in this tumbled down inn, supping undrinkable ale and trying to look like he belonged here.

The physic’s apprentice had warned him that it was a seedy place and that if he didn’t want to scare the potion pedlar off he would have to look like the rest of the drinkers, but he might as well not have bothered. The two well-heeled northerners, who sat at the corner table with the dark hats and long cloaks and their mate who looked like a lordling but was probably some petty official, were enough to make anyone with a dodgy occupation run a candle length.

He’d seen their type hanging around every court from Northshield to Tarbis and the best thing that could happen to them was to be gutted in the night and dropped in a ditch to feed the scavengers. That’s what he’d told Malingar on more than one occasion when their type came around, but now that his master had reached the dizzy heights of Guardcaptain, he didn’t want to be listening to old farts like him anymore. Perhaps once he’d got something from the potion pedlar to kill the pain he’d go back to Leersland, brew some herbs and spend what days were left to him out to grass with his old nag.

Sharman stood to leave but the pain in his side stabbed him in his ribs and took his breath way. Stifling a curse he sat back down, clutched his side and waved at the pot girl to bring him some grain spirit. When it came he stared at it in distaste; it was the wrong colour, the wrong smell and had an oily film floating on top. What the hellden did it matter? It had to be better than some bug-bitten pedlar’s potion.

He chucked it back in one go and gasped as the raw spirit burnt out his throat, his voice box, his stomach and all the bits in between. When he was able to breathe again and had wiped the tears from his eyes, someone new had come into the inn. It could have been the potion pedlar, but if it was there was no way he was going to buy anything from him. The man stank of filth and rot and even from where he sat he could see the vermin that crawled across his skin.