Published at 29th of December 2023 9:46 am

Chapter 39: Four years earlier

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“She’s gone, yes?” Makin shaded his eyes against the sunrise and squinted back across the marsh. We stood on rolling scrubland now with yellow rock breaking through in sandy patches here and there.

“I hope so,” I said. Part of me wanted Chella to find destruction at my hands, the personal touch, but perhaps she ended there in the marsh amongst the burning dead. I hadn’t felt it. No sense of satisfaction, but my uncle’s death had taught me that revenge is far less sweet than it promises to be. An empty meal, however long you take over it.

We took to horse for the first time in what seemed an age. Rike on Row’s roan since his own plough-horse proved too heavy for its own good in the bogs. Kent and Makin on their horses. Grumlow riding double with me since he and I were the lightest of the Brothers and Brath the strongest of the nags.

The sour stink of the marshes followed us for miles. Black mud caking on our clothes, drying grey and flaking away. More persistent than stink or mud, the image of Chella as the flames rose around her, and the echo of her last words. The Dead King sails.

In three days we came by moorland and scrub, then by forgotten roads, and finally by country tracks, to the free port of Barlona. Rike made ceaseless complaint about his sunburn until I convinced him to smear pig-shit over the worst affected areas. For some reason it seemed to help though I hadn’t intended it to. Suggestion can be a powerful thing.

The ancient walls shimmered in the summer heat as we approached. They must have been impressive a thousand years ago. Now only the base of the walls remained, twenty foot high and just as thick, spilling black stone in great heaps for the peasants to raid to make huts and boundary walls for their fields.

I liked the city from the moment we rode in. The air held exotic scents, spices and cooking smoke that made my stomach growl. The people thronged, loud in voice and clothing, bright silks, garish jewellery made of glass and base metals, flesh of all colours on display in wide swathes. Men and women as light as me, as dark as the Nuban, and all shades in between. None as pale as Sindri and Duke Alaric though. Those, I think the sun would melt.

Music came from almost every corner in as many shades as the people. It seemed that the citizens walked in time to the beat and pulse of a thousand drums, horns, voices. I’d not heard such sounds before, so many strange melodies, some reminding me of the marching beats the Nuban used to slap against his thigh as we walked and which he elaborated on around the campfire. Others held remembrances of the curious atonal humming Tutor Lundist lapsed into in empty moments.

A port is an open ear to the world, a mouth ready for new flavours. Approaching my fifteenth year I felt more than ready to explore the wideness of the world that Barlona offered up.

“You know, Makin, you can take ship from here to almost any place you’ve ever heard of and a thousand that you haven’t,” I said.

“Ships make me hurl.” Makin looked as if he were remembering the taste.

“You don’t like them?”

“It’s the waves. I get seasick. I vomit from one shore to the next. I was nearly sick crossing the Rhyme.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” With Makin you can keep digging and find a new fact year on year. I hadn’t known he’d ever crossed an ocean, or even travelled under sail.

“How is that good to know?” He frowned.

“Well, the only way to get to the Horse Coast is by sea and I’m going alone. Knowing what a bad sailor you are just makes it easier to send you back to the Haunt.”

“We can ride there,” Makin said. “It’s less than a hundred miles.”

“Through the Duchy of Aramas and then the lands of King Philip the nine hundredth,” I said.

“Thirty-second,” Makin corrected.

“Whatever. The point is that those are not places men like us can pass unnoticed, whereas a ship will sail me right to my grandfather’s doorstep in a day or two.”

“So we take a ship and I coat the decks in vomit. What’s the problem?”

“The problem, dear Makin, is that I don’t want Rike there, or Grumlow, or Kent. I don’t even want you there. I want to make my own introductions in my own time. This is family business and I’ll do it my way.”

“That tends to mean everyone dies.” Makin grinned.

“Maybe, but I don’t need you there for that either. Just get them back to the Haunt. We’ve lost too many on this trip. I won’t say we’ve lost good men, but ones that I would rather have kept. Though if you misplace Rike on the way back, that would be fine.”

“This is a bad idea, Jorg.” Makin had that stubborn look of his, lips pressed tight, a vertical line between his brows.

“I need you in Renar,” I said. “I needed you there from the start. If you recall I did my damnedest not to have you come in the first place. Coddin’s a good man but how long can he hold a kingdom together for? Go back, crack any heads that need cracking, and let my people know I’ll be returning.”

“Oi!” Grumlow’s cry. A man running away through the crowd. I saw Grumlow’s arm flick back and throw. The man fell without a sound twenty yards off, shoving his way through the crowd.

I walked with Grumlow to where he lay. People got out of our way, except for the children who ran everywhere as if we were part of a show. Grumlow pulled his saddlebag from the man’s limp hands.

“Cut the bloody strap! That’ll cost!” he said.

“I told you to secure it better,” I said. The few bits and pieces Grumlow had managed to bring through the bogs were tied randomly around Brath’s tack.

Grumlow grunted and bent to retrieve his knife. It had hit the man hilt-first in the back of the head. A pool of blood glistened beneath the man’s face, but it must have come from his nose or mouth hitting the cobbles. We didn’t bother turning him over to find out.

“I love this city,” I said, and we went back to the others.

We stabled the horses and sat at a tavern by the docks. I call it a tavern but we sat outside, around tables in the sun if you please, with wine in bottles shaped like tear drops with baskets woven around them. Makin with his bare feet, traces of dried mud still visible. Rike complained of course, about the sun, about the wine, even about the chairs which seemed unable to support his weight, but I paid more attention to the seagulls’ chatter. I sat and watched the ships moored at the quayside, bigger than I had thought they would be, and more complex, with rigging and spars and deck ropes and a multitude of sails. I felt better than I had in an age. Even my burns hurt less fiercely, as if the hot sun soothed their anger. For the first time in a long time we relaxed, smiled, and spoke of the dead. Of Brother Row, who I would remember, and Brother Sim, who I would miss for his harping and for his promise. We raised our bottles to them both and drank deep.

Only Kent put up any resistance to the idea of returning without me. I let him protest a while until he ran out of things to say and in the end convinced himself that my plan was the best one. Red Kent’s like that. Give him a little space to turn and he’ll come around.

I stood, rolled my neck, and stretched in the sunshine. “Catch you on the road, Brothers.”

“You’re going now?” Makin asked, putting down his bottle-in-a-basket.

“Well, unless you want to drink till we’re all sunburnt and maudlin and then declare undying love for each other and part with drunken hugs?” I said.

Rike spat. He seemed to have inherited the role of spitter from Row.

“In that case, your path lies that way.” I pointed north. “I should note that the first quarter mile of that path is on a street that boasts several fine-looking whorehouses. So take your time. As for me—I’m going to find out about ships.”

I set off at an amble, following my shadow across the bright flagstones.

“Look after Brath for me,” I called back.

They picked up their bottles and drank to me. “Catch you on the road,” they replied. Even Rike.

And if Makin hadn’t been there I think I really could have ditched them that easily.

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