INVITATION AND A MULE
CART
The wheels of Amberhill’s carriage rumbled over the
cobblestones of the Winding Way. Yap sat across from him on the
verge of dozing off, a contented smile on his face and eyelids
drooping. After a six course meal at the Red Coach, he ought to be
content. Amberhill felt as if his own full belly would burst his
trousers and waistcoat. They’d taken their meal in a private alcove
where Amberhill was able to continue Yap’s instruction in manners
at table. Yap was a quick learner, but sometimes it was all
Amberhill could do to restrain the former pirate from wolfing down
everything in sight in mere seconds.
With Yap freshly
shaved and his hair trimmed, and attired in brand new well-fitted
clothing, he looked not only content, but dapper, like a proper
gentleman, though his specs, now repaired, gave him a somewhat
scholarly demeanor. No one would mistake him for a pirate, at least
by appearances alone.
The two were now
returning home after a shopping trip to acquire supplies useful to
their forthcoming journey. With Yap’s seafaring background to guide
him, Amberhill purchased hardy oilskins and had shoes made that
would be more suitable for being aboard ship than his fancy riding
boots. He purchased woolens and even a brimmed hat to keep the sun
off his face. Yap advised him to expect every type of weather once
they were out to sea.
Other parcels that
filled the carriage contained more new clothing for Yap, including
a pair of shoes. Yap had proven strangely resistant to the idea of
shoes and stockings, but he caved when Amberhill
insisted.
“Sorry, sir,” Yap
had said at the shoemaker’s shop. “Just been without for so long
that barefoot is the most natural thing in the world.”
He showed Amberhill
the bottom of his feet which were textured like hard leather.
Impressive though this might be, without shoes his appearance as a
gentleman was incomplete, and that wasn’t even considering the
state of his toenails.
Amberhill gazed
absently out his window at the traffic in the street, at all the
wagons, riders, and pedestrians going about their daily business of
buying and selling, building and crafting. His driver expertly
guided the carriage around slower going conveyances, but their
progress was still sluggish and Amberhill mourned not having his
Goss to ride through the crowds. It was much easier to maneuver
through the traffic on horseback than in a carriage pulled by a
pair of horses, no matter how fine the pair or expert the driver.
Alas, he’d sent Goss home to the Amberhill estate for breeding and
the stallion would soon be having a jolly time covering mares. His
offspring would, Amberhill hoped, provide some of the finest stock
ever seen in Sacoridia and propel his stable to
prominence.
They passed a
rickety old cart pulled by a swaybacked mule and with a jolt of
surprise, Amberhill recognized the driver: Galen Miller, the old
man he’d saved from the thugs outside the Cock and Hen. Galen
Miller guided his mule up the Winding Way at an agonizing plod, his
hands trembling and twitching as he held the reins. His expression
was grim and intent.
Amberhill wondered
what his business was and if he’d made good use of the silvers he’d
been given. But Amberhill did not call out to Galen Miller. He’d
been of the shadows that night, in a different role, and he
preferred not to be recognized. In his current role as a nobly born
gentleman, it would be unseemly to call out and wave to someone of
such obvious low station.
Galen Miller’s cart
fell behind and Amberhill shrugged. He had little interest in the
old man’s life story, but he couldn’t help being curious about what
had brought him to Sacor City, or being concerned about the
continuing welfare of a man he’d gone out of his way to
assist.
Just as well, he thought. I’ve
enough with which to occupy myself.
With surprising ease
he dismissed Galen Miller from his mind and busied himself by going
over his various business affairs and deciding which required his
personal attention prior to his departure, and which did not.
Truly, there was not much he could come up with, for his
man-of-business was very efficient and capable.
Presently they
entered the noble quarter and the carriage picked up speed down the
less crowded street that fronted many a large and extravagant
manse. Yap’s open-mouthed snore provided counterpoint to the sharp
clip-clop of hooves.
When they arrived at
Amberhill’s more modest house, Brigham—who no longer paled every
time he saw Yap—greeted him at the door.
“There are several
parcels in the carriage that need to be brought in,” Amberhill
informed his manservant. “Mister Yap will assist.”
“Yes, sir. Sir,
while you were out, this letter came for you.” Brigham handed him
an envelope then stepped outside to where Yap had begun to unload
the carriage.
Amberhill curiously
gazed at the envelope, his name scripted in gold. The dual seals
made him raise his eyebrows. When he looked inside, he saw it was
an invitation to the masquerade ball Lady Estora had mentioned to
him, in which she included a personal note: I
realize you must be nearly ready to embark on your journey, but I
hope I may persuade you to delay your departure for a few days yet.
It would make Zachary and me very happy if you could attend our
ball.
Amberhill’s
immediate thought was to send her his regrets, but then he
reconsidered. It had been several years since his last masquerade
ball and he remembered enjoying the mystery of it all, the ability
to hide behind a mask and take on another role. As a man who once
wore a mask regularly and moved in the shadows, a masquerade held
special appeal. Who else might be in attendance? What secret trysts
might occur? What undercurrents and intrigue would transpire that
would not otherwise be present with unmasked guests?
He did not wish to
encumber himself with people making tiresome inquiries about his
journey, and he’d already taken leave of Zachary and Lady Estora.
However, since he wished to remain anonymous and avoid
entanglements, he could respond to Estora saying he would be coming
and yet not have his presence announced to the gathering. He would
not have to remove his mask.
His journey, he
decided, could wait a few days. He glanced at his dragon ring and
the quiet glow of the ruby. It did not protest and he
smiled.
At least it was not the broil of summer, Hank Fenn
thought as he leaned on his pike in the Hanging Square. He stood
guard over three corpses just lowered from the gallows and laid out
on the paving stones. He’d drawn old blankets over
them.
Broil of summer.
That’s what his gramma used to call it when the air was dense with
moisture, there was no wind to move it, and the sun seared
everything it shone upon.
Not that it was like
the old days when a criminal might hang for weeks, or was locked up
in a gibbet till he rotted away to bone. Sergeant Corly, who’d been
soldiering forever, said quite a stink used to fill the square back
then.
But it was not yet
summer, not even spring, the air was still crisp, and King Zachary
did not allow criminals to hang indefinitely and so ordered them
cut down after execution.
When Hank asked
Sergeant Corly why, the old soldier shrugged and said, “King says
it ain’t civilized to keep corpses hanging about.” Then he shook
his head, muttering about the good old days and proper punishment
for traitors.
Hank was just glad
he didn’t have to stand guard over stinking corpses, and if the
king didn’t want them hanging about, well it was all right with
him. Of course he had to wait out the day to see if anyone bothered
to claim the bodies. He hoped someone did, so he and Snuff didn’t
have to dig the graves themselves. Snuff was lazy about it and made
the graves shallow. Hank wasn’t inclined to work too hard himself,
especially for criminals, and these men had been bad. Mirwellians
who followed the traitor Immerez. They’d helped abduct Lady
Estora.
A small audience had
come to the hanging, but according to Sergeant Corly, executions
were no longer the events they’d once been before King Zachary’s
time. Nowadays they were held with little fanfare or public notice.
A small crowd of people still came, though, like vultures. They
spat on the condemned, hurled stones and insults at them. Although
Hank saw true rage on their faces, he didn’t think they abused the
prisoners because they had abducted Lady Estora or done some other
specific criminal act. No, he thought they did it because they
could. They could take out all their
anger and frustration at the world for their problems, their
poverty, on the prisoners who were the lowest of the low, who could
be abused but could not fight back. Undoubtedly it made them feel
stronger, more powerful, than their own wretched lives usually
allowed. Hank never saw nobles or wealthy persons attend executions
unless it was for one of their own.
Snuff sauntered over
and nudged him. “Look,” he said, pointing. “We may have one less to
bury.”
An old man entered
the square leading a mule hitched to a ramshackle cart. He walked
slowly, his shoulders hunched. When he halted before them, he drew
himself up and briefly Hank was reminded of the archers up on the
castle walls, for his shoulders were broad and his forearms thick
with muscles. But then he started to tremble. Hank had seen those
shakes before in his gramma. Some had whispered she was possessed
by evil spirits and he scowled at those hateful memories. She’d
just been sick was all.
“I come for my boy,”
the man said.
“Raised you a
traitor, eh?” Snuff asked.
Hank wished Snuff
wouldn’t harass family members this way on the few occasions they
came to collect their dead. It seemed to him they didn’t deserve to
be punished, too.
“This way, sir,”
Hank said more courteously. He brought the man over to the trio of
bodies and lifted the blanket shrouding the first one. Hanging was
not a gentle death and the hanged were not easy to look
upon.
After a difficult
moment the man shook his head. They went on to the next. Again the
shake of the head. When Hank lifted the blanket of the third, the
man shuddered and his eyes filled with tears. Hank’s heart sank for
the hanging of this fellow hadn’t gone well. He’d fought them all
the way to the noose, so it hadn’t been set just right. The
condemned man did not die quickly and they all had to watch for
painful minutes as he struggled and swung at the end of the rope
until finally he ran out of fight and died.
“Is this your boy?”
Hank asked.
“Aye.” The man
nodded, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. “This is
Clay.”
Hank helped the man
load the body of his son into the back of the cart while Snuff
watched with a jaundiced look. Normally, if family came to collect
a body, there was more than one to take it away and Hank and Snuff
left them to it. But Hank remembered his gramma and had pity for
the old man.
“My thanks,” the man
told Hank, brushing a shaking hand through his hair.
Hank
nodded.
“Good riddance to a
traitor,” Snuff said loudly.
The man started, but
then turned his back on them, leading the mule away. The cart with
its shrouded burden clattered over the stone paving.
“Why do you do
that?” Hank asked Snuff. “Why are you mean to the families? They
aren’t the criminals.”
Snuff spat out a wad
of tobacco, just missing the nearest corpse. “Those criminals got
made,” he said. “Someone raised them bad.”
Hank watched the
mule cart as it disappeared down the street. He understood what
Snuff was saying, but he also could tell the look of a man who
loved his son.