“Lemme go, y’bastard,” the boy said, fear and fury colouring his voice in equal measure. He had exhausted himself struggling and dangled in Vaelin’s grasp, face set in a soot stained mask of impotent rage. “I got friends, y’know, people you don’t want to cross…”
“I have friends too,” Vaelin said. “I’m looking for one. Where are the gallows?”
The boy’s face constricted in a puzzled frown. “Wassat?”
“The gallows where they’re going to hang the King’s minister. Where are they?”
The boy’s creased brows formed into an arch of calculation. “Wossit worth?”
Vaelin tightened his grip. “A broken wrist.”
“Miserable Order bastard,” the boy muttered sullenly. “Break me wrist if you want. Break me bloody arm. What odds does it make anyway?”
Vaelin met his eyes, seeing fear and anger but something more, something that made him relax his grip: defiance. The boy had pride enough not to be a victim to his fear. Vaelin saw how truly ragged and threadbare the boys clothes were and the mud covering his bare feet. Maybe pride is all he has.
“I’m going to put you down,” he told the boy. “If you run I’ll catch you.” He pulled the boy closer until they were face to face. “Do you believe me?”
The boy shrank back a little, head bobbing. “Uh huh.”
Vaelin set him down and released his wrist. He saw the boy fight the instinctive impulse to run, rubbing his wrist and edging back a little. “What’s your name?” Vaelin asked him.
“Frentis,” the boy replied cautiously. “What’s yours?”
“Vaelin Al Sorna.” There was a flicker of recognition in the boy’s gaze. Even he, at the bottom of the pile in the city’s hierarchy, had heard of the Battle Lord. “Here,” Vaelin fished a throwing knife from his pocket and tossed it to the boy. “It’s all I have to trade. You get another two when you show me the gallows.”
The boy peered at the knife curiously. “Whassis?”
“A knife, you throw it.”
“Couldja’ kill someone with it?”
“Only after a lot of practice.”
The boy touched the tip of the knife, tutting painfully and licking his bloodied finger when he discovered it was sharper than it looked. “You teach me,” he mumbled around his fingers. “Teach me how to throw it and I’ll show ya the gallows.”
“After,” Vaelin said, seeing the boy’s distrust he added, “my word on it.”
The word of the Order seemed to carry some weight with Frentis and his suspicion receded, but not completely. “This way,” he said, turning and moving into the crowd. “Stay close.”
Vaelin followed the boy through the mass of people, sometimes losing him amidst the crush only to find him a few steps on, standing impatiently and muttering for him to keep up.
“Don’t they teach ya how to follow folk then?” he asked as they struggled through a particularly thick knot of spectators at a dancing bear show.
“They teach us how to fight,” Vaelin replied. “I’m… unused to so many people. I haven’t been to the city for four years.”
“Lucky bastard. I’d give me right nut to never see this dump again.”
“You’ve never been anywhere else?”
Frentis gave him a look that told him he was very stupid. “Oh yeah, got me own river barge I ‘av. Go anywhere I please.”
It seemed to take an age of struggling through the crowd before Frentis halted, pointing at a wooden frame rising above the throng about a hundred yards away. “There y’go. That’s where they’ll stretch the poor sod’s neck. What they killin’ ‘im for anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Vaelin replied honestly. He handed the boy the two knives he had promised. “Come to the Order House on Eltrian evening and I’ll teach you how to use them. Wait by the north gate, I’ll find you.”
Frentis nodded, the knives quickly disappearing into his rags. “You gonna watch it then? The hanging.”
Vaelin moved away from him, eyes scanning the crowd. “I hope not.”
He searched for a good quarter hour, checking every face, watching for any sign of Nortah, finding nothing. He shouldn’t have been surprised; they all knew ways of avoiding searching eyes, subtle ways of making oneself unrecognisable and just another body in the crowd. He paused by a puppet show, feeling a mounting knot of panic building in his gut. Where is he?
“Oh, blessed souls of the Departed,” the puppeteer was saying in a mock tragic tone, his expert hands working the strings, moulding the wooden doll on the stage into a pose of despair. “Ever have I been Faithless, but even a wretch such as I deserves not this fate.”
Kerlis the Faithless. Vaelin knew the story, it was one of his mother’s favourites. Kerlis denied the Faith and was cursed to live forever until the Departed consented to allow him entry to the Beyond. It was said he still wandered the land, seeking his Faith but never finding it.
“You have made your fate, Faithless one,” intoned the puppeteer, bobbing the collection of wooden heads that represented the Departed. “We do not judge you. You judge yourself. Find your Faith and we will welcome you…”
Vaelin, momentarily distracted by the puppeteer’s skill and the craftsmanship evident in the dolls, forced himself to turn back to the crowd. Look, he told himself, Concentrate. He’s here. He has to be.
His survey stopped when a face in the audience caught his attention, a man in his thirties with lean, strong features and a sad gaze. A familiar gaze. Erlin! Vaelin stared in astonishment. He came back here. Is he mad?
Erlin seemed completely rapt by the puppet show, his sad gaze utterly absorbed. Vaelin puzzled over what to do. Speak to him? Ignore him?… Kill him? Dark thoughts flickered through his head, driven by panic. I helped him and the girl. If they catch him… It was the image of the girl’s face and the feel of her scarf around his neck that forced sanity back into his thoughts. Walk away, he decided. Safer if you never saw him…
Erlin looked up then, his eyes meeting his, widening into alarmed recognition. He glanced once back at the puppet show, his expression an unreadable confusion of emotion, then turned and disappeared into the crowd. Vaelin was seized by a compulsion to follow him, find out if Sella was well but as he started forward a shout erupted behind him followed by the sound of clashing blades. It was fifty yards away, near the gallows.
A crowd was knotted around the scene of the disturbance and he had to force his way through, drawing grunts of pain and insults as his desperation made him less than gentle.
“What was he doing?” someone in the crowd was saying.
“Trying to get through the cordon,” another voice said. “Oddest thing. Not what you expect from a brother.”
“Think they’ll hang him too?”
Finally he was through the throng and drew up short at the scene before him. There were five of them, soldiers of the Twenty-Seventh Cavalry judging by the black tail-feathers in their tunics which gave them their informal name: the Blackhawks. Reputedly a favourite with the King because of their service during the wars of unification, the Blackhawks were often given the honour of policing public events or ceremonials. One of them, the largest, had Nortah by the throat, a beefy arm wrapped around his neck as two of his comrades attempted to restrain him. A fourth man stood back a little, his sword raised, poised for a strike. “Hold the bastard still, Faith’s sake!” he shouted. They all bore bruises or cuts showing Nortah had not been easily captured. A fifth man was kneeling nearby, clutching at a bloody wound in his arm, his face grey with pain and tense with fury. “Kill the fucker!” he snarled. “He’s bloody crippled me!”