Ravenheart (6 page)

F
OR SEVERAL HOURS
Jaim sat unmoving, watching the bull. For part of the time Kaelin dozed. He felt safe there, hidden at the center of a gorse bush, the giant Jaim Grymauch alongside him. Jaim was a ferocious fighter, and even though he had not brought his mighty glave—clansmen were forbidden, under pain of death, to own swords—he was carrying two broad-bladed hunting knives held in horizontal sheaths stitched at the back of his wide belt. Kaelin doubted if even a black bear would have the nerve to face Jaim Grymauch in battle.

The youngster yawned and stretched. He moved alongside Jaim and, looking through the parted gorse branches, saw that the body in the paddock had been removed. Several men were repairing the fence, and Kaelin could just hear the distant sound of hammering.

“They’ll not try to move the bull today,” Jaim said suddenly. “Time to stretch our legs and see the country.”

“Will we go back to the shack?”

“No. We’ll grace the town with a visit. I’ve a hankering to taste smoked fish soup and fire-black bread. Aye, and a pint or two of brandy barrel ale.”

“You’ll get into a fight, Grymauch! Then we’ll be in trouble,” warned Kaelin.

Jaim Grymauch chuckled. “You listen too much to your aunt Maev. Women exaggerate matters. It is in their nature. Anyway, it will be an education for you, Ravenheart. Moon
Lake boasts one of the last of the timber castles. You’ll not see their like again.”

Grymauch eased himself back across the hide and pushed aside the interlaced branches. Staying low, he moved back through the gorse and the heavy undergrowth until he could no longer be seen from the outbuildings. Kaelin followed him, and they were soon walking across the low hills toward the woods above and behind the Moidart’s western estate.

“Why do we steal cattle?” Kaelin asked him as they entered the trees.

“It is an honorable tradition, my boy. A man should always treat with respect the traditions of his elders.”

“If it is that honorable, why do you not steal from clan herds?”

Jaim laughed. “Balance, Kaelin. The Varlish have stolen our lands, our cattle, our homes, even our traditions. My stealing of their cattle—and on occasion horses—brings me a sense of harmony, of balance.”

“Do you hate them, then?”

“Hate them? A man might as well hate the sea for the friends who have drowned in it. No, boy, I don’t hate them. I don’t
know
them all, and it is a principle of mine never to hate a man I do not know. It just so happens that I
have
come to dislike all the Varlish I
do
know. Their arrogance works into my skin like a thorn.”

“I hate Mr. Shaddler,” said Kaelin. “One day I’ll show him!”

“I fear you won’t,” said Jaim. “Teachers are never
shown
, for they are never wrong. If you rise up to be a great man, respected and admired by all who know you, Mr. Shaddler will swell out his bony chest and say: ‘I taught him all he knows.’ If you become a brigand and a terrible killer, he will say: ‘I always knew he was bad. I told him so to his face every day.’ ”

“Perhaps I’ll just kill him,” snapped Kaelin.

“Whoa now!” said Jaim, pausing in his walk and turning to face the black-haired youth. “No, Kaelin,
that
you must never do. The man may be Varlish and misguided in much that he teaches—though I doubt he is in
all
that he teaches—but he
has still chosen a profession of
service
. He is a poor man, this Shaddler. There are rats where he lodges. He owns no house and has no private income. His topcoat is threadbare, and his shoes have soles like paper. He could earn far more chaillings in Eldacre, in commerce or in the law. He teaches because he wants to serve, to pass on knowledge to the young. And he suffers poverty for his dedication. Hate him, by all means, for the stick across your hands or the corrupting of our history but never, ever consider killing him. You understand, boy?”

“Yes, Grymauch,” Kaelin lied, unable to comprehend how killing a worm like Shaddler could be considered wrong.

They walked on, pushing up a long rise until they crested a hill and gazed down on the town of Moon Lake. Along the shores were fat-bellied fishing boats and tall net huts, while the town itself was draped like a necklace around a steep hill upon which stood a circular keep. The hill was deeply terraced, and Kaelin could see a broken line of crumbling ramparts.

“It doesn’t look like timber,” said Kaelin, staring hard at the white-walled keep.

“Looks can be deceiving. The keep was crafted from timber, then covered in plaster and faced with pebble stone. When it was first built, the rampart walls would have extended around the town as protection. Back then the Varlish who constructed it were on hostile soil. Clansmen would attack them at regular intervals. Back around five hundred years ago a Pannone uprising saw every Varlish male within the castle and its baileys put to the sword.”

“Did they build a new castle then?” asked Kaelin.

“What do you mean a
new
castle?” responded Jaim.

“After the Pannone destroyed it.”

“Ah, I see. No, Kaelin, they didn’t. They didn’t have to. The Pannone killed all the men, then went away. They left the castle standing. The Varlish just reoccupied it and then, using it as a base, brought up an army. It was led by the knights of the Sacrifice, and they all but annihilated the clan.”

“They were powerful, then, these knights?”

“Aye, they were. Still are. They become squires when they are your age, almost fifteen. Then they spend five years training with sword and mace, pistol and musket. At least half of them fail the stringent tests conducted every year. I was told that of a hundred men seeking to become knights, only fifteen receive the white cloak. Tough men. A long time ago a hundred knights bested a thousand rebels. There is no give in them. Aye, and no mercy, either.”

“The Pannone should have burned the castle,” said Kaelin.

“Aye, they should. That, however, is the downfall of the Keltoi peoples. We win great battles and lose all wars.”

“Why should that be?” asked the youth.

Jaim shrugged. “We were never besotted with the idea of conquering lands. If an enemy comes, we fight and defeat him. Then we go home. If the enemy keeps coming, then eventually he is going to win. The only way to thoroughly destroy your enemy is to follow the example of the knights. Go to his home and burn it. Kill him, kill his wife, kill his bairns. Those you allow to survive you enslave, and you hold them in thrall with harsh laws. When they transgress, you flog, burn, or hang them. We just never developed a taste for that kind of butchery.”

“But Bane fought against Stone and captured it,” argued Kaelin. “He took his army across the sea and all the way to the heart of the empire.”

“Yes, he did. Then he brought the army home again. He sacked Stone, but he did not destroy it. He was a great warrior king. No doubt about it. Yet within twenty years of his death the armies of Stone had conquered all the southlands. Within fifty they had hill forts at the Rigante borders.”

The two travelers moved on down the hill toward Moon Lake. As they came closer, Kaelin caught the smell of fish in the air. It was thick and acrid. “It stinks,” he said.

“You’ll adjust to it faster when you have some fish inside you,” said Jaim. “There’s a market close to the shoreline,
and within it a food hall. I’ve eaten there a few times. They know me.”

“If they know you, will they still serve you?” Kaelin asked with a grin.

“They’ll serve anyone with a copper coin in his pocket, you cheeky rascal.”

Their good humor faded as they entered the town and saw the four-rope gibbet in the square. A ten-man squad of Beetlebacks was guarding the structure. Four bodies dangled from the gibbet. Kaelin saw that there were two men, a woman, and a youth of around his own age hanging there. The oldest of the men had suffered the agony of having his eyes burned out and his hands cut off.

The crowd moving through the square did not pause by the gibbet but moved on, eyes downcast. Kaelin could not take his eyes from the scene and slowed. A man behind walked into him and cursed loudly. Jaim grabbed Kaelin’s arm and drew him on.

The market beyond the square was thronging with people as Jaim and Kaelin eased their way through. At the far side was an eating area with a series of bench tables set around three fire pits and several long stone-built grills. It was crowded, but Jaim found a couple of seats and he and Kaelin sat, awaiting one of the many serving maids rushing hither and yon, bearing trays laden with food.

A stout, round-shouldered woman with buckteeth approached the table and stood before Jaim. “So, it is you, is it?” she said, her voice cold.

“Good to see you, Meg. You look lovely,” said Jaim.

“You cause any trouble today and I’ll see you dungeoned. I swear I will!”

“I’m just here with my nephew for a little breakfast,” said Jaim, nervous now, for several of the other diners were staring at him. “Kaelin, this is Meg, the finest fish cook this side of Caer Druagh.” Kaelin rose and bowed. “Meg, this is Kaelin, the son of Lanovar.”

The woman’s hard face softened momentarily. “Aye, you
are a handsome lad,” she said. “You have your father’s looks and your mother’s eyes. You are also, it seems, blessed with good manners. You should know, though, that a man is judged by the company he keeps.”

“Only until his deeds are known,” said Kaelin.

“
His
deeds are known,” snapped Meg, returning her attention to the one-eyed clansman. “He is a drunkard and a troublemaker. He should have stayed in the north with the Black Rigante. However, since you, at least, are the son of a hero, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and feed you both. You can have the soup and the bread,” Meg told Jaim. “No ale, though. And it’ll be payment now, if you please.”

“You’re an unforgiving woman,” muttered Jaim, delving into his money pouch and producing two copper coins. Meg took the coins without a word and moved off toward the main building.

“She really dislikes you, Grymauch,” observed Kaelin.

Jaim forced a smile. “How little you understand women. She adores me, boy. I sang her a song once, and her heart is mine. Oh, I’ll admit she struggles against it. ’Tis only show, however.”

Kaelin said no more on the subject. He had seen—and recognized, despite Jaim’s attempt to hide it behind a display of good humor—the embarrassment and shame the big man had felt. The woman had treated Jaim scornfully, and Jaim had accepted it. This surprised Kaelin, for had it been a man who had spoken so slightingly, Jaim would have reacted with sudden and extreme violence. Not that the youngster would expect Jaim to strike a woman—no clansman worthy of the name would ever commit such a heinous act—but for the warrior to meekly accept such treatment without at the very least rebuking the woman was beyond Kaelin’s understanding. It left the youngster feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He felt that one of life’s lessons had been laid out before him, yet he could not quite grasp the significance of it. He shivered as the wind shifted, then pulled up the collar of his coat.

Jaim seemed lost in thought, and Kaelin did not disturb
him. Instead he thought back to the four-rope gibbet and the people hanging there. He wondered what their crimes had been and what the oldest of them had done to deserve having his eyes put out and his hands cut off. He shivered again.

“ ’Tis getting colder,” said Jaim. “Could snow today, I reckon.”

“What was the crime, do you think, Grymauch? You know … for the man on the gibbet. The one who was maimed first.”

Jaim shrugged. “I’m not a great student of the law. I know the punishment for cattle stealing, but I don’t know what a man would need to do to suffer having his hands cut away.”

The buck-toothed woman laid a wooden tray on the bench table. Upon it were two deep bowls of fish soup and a loaf of crusty bread. “Best not to ask about the hanging,” she told them. Dropping her voice, she leaned in close to Jaim, though Kaelin could just make out what she told him. “The trial was in secret, but it is said that a Varlish noblewoman claimed the man climbed into her bedroom and assaulted her.”

“What did the others do?” asked Kaelin.

“The woman was the man’s wife, the other two his sons. Apparently they lied to the Beetlebacks about his whereabouts.”

“They hanged his whole family for that?” said Kaelin, shock making him forget to keep his voice down.

“Hush, stupid boy!” hissed Meg. “You want to hang with them?”

Red-faced and angry, Meg walked away. Kaelin leaned in toward Jaim. “You think she was telling the truth?” he asked.

“Probably, boy. Eat your soup.”

“I have lost my appetite, Grymauch.”

“Eat, anyway, you’ll need your strength later.”

“I think I can hate the Varlish without knowing them all,” Kaelin said suddenly.

“I hope not,” Jaim said sadly.

The moon was bright in a clear sky above Moon Lake, the dark water glistening and still. Jaim Grymauch crept down
the hillside, his young apprentice moving silently behind him. With great care they approached the outbuildings of the Moidart’s estate. Jaim led Kaelin to a log stack, and the two of them crouched down behind it and waited. After a short while two guards came wandering along the shoreline, talking in low voices. They passed the paddock on the western side, skirted the fence, then swung toward where Jaim and Kaelin were hidden.

The black bull stirred, its great head swinging toward the walking men and fixing them with a baleful stare. “Should have killed it,” Kaelin heard one of the guards say. “It near ripped Ganna apart.”

“He’s a fine beast, though,” said the other. “No denying it.”

“I’ll remind you of those words when you’re lying on the ground with your guts in your hand.”

The men were closer now, and Kaelin, peering through a gap in the logs, could see their faces in the moonlight. Both looked powerful. They wore no swords, but one carried a staff while the other had a long knife scabbarded at his hip.

Jaim drew the youngster back as the guards strolled past the log stack. As they moved out of sight, the huge warrior came smoothly to his feet and followed them. Kaelin heard a grunt, then a stifled cry, followed by the sounds of a scuffle. Grabbing a length of wood from the stack, he ran around the corner of the building. Two guards were stretched out on the ground, but two others, who had arrived unseen, were grappling with Jaim. One of them drew a knife. Moonlight glinted on the blade. He lunged. Jaim parried the knife with his left forearm and hammered a swift counterpunch, a straight right that sent the guard hurtling back unconscious. The fourth man also drew a knife just as Kaelin moved in behind him, swinging his makeshift club. The wood thudded against the back of the guard’s head. There was a tremendous crack. The guard’s legs buckled, and he toppled to the ground. Jaim moved to the fallen man. Kaelin saw blood seeping through Jaim’s left shirtsleeve.