Fiddler Fair (anthology)

“What the hell is that shit supposed to mean, asshole?” Kevin was too angry to mind his tongue, and a blow from one of the mercs behind him threw him onto his face again, made his brains rattle in his head and jarred his teeth to their sockets. His vision swam and he saw double for a long moment.

He pulled himself back into a semi-kneeling posture with aching difficulty.

“Keep a civil tongue in your head in the presence of your King, boy,” Willum told him, with a faint smile. “You’re suspected of conspiring with those false traders—”

“To what? Invade the town? Don’t make me laugh!” Kevin snorted. “Take over with a handful of men when —what the hell do you mean, King?”

“My father has met with an accident,” Howard purred, polishing the blade of the sword he held with a soft cloth. The steel glinted redly in the firelight. “He went mad, it seems. I was forced to defend myself. I have witnesses—”

Willum nodded, and it seemed to Kevin that there was a glint of balefire in the back of the man’s eyes.

“So I am King now—by right of arms. I have declared that those so-called traders were no such thing at all—and I have eliminated their threat.”

Slowly Kevin began to understand what it was he was saying. “You—good God—that camp was mostly women, children—”

“The spawn of vipers will grow to be vipers.”

“You broke trade-peace! You murdered innocent people, babies in their beds!”

“That hardly sounds like the words of a loyal subject—”

“Loyal my ass! They deserved my loyalty—all you should get is the contempt of every honest man in this town! We’re the ones who’re gonna suffer because of what you just did! You broke your sworn word, you bastard!” Bound hands or not, Kevin lunged for the two of them—

His arms were caught and blows rained down on his head and shoulders. Still he fought, screaming ­ obscenities, and only being clubbed half-unconscious kept him from getting to the oathbreakers and ­tearing their throats out with his teeth.

When he stopped fighting, he was thrown back at Howard’s feet. He lay only half-conscious on the cold stone floor, and through a mist of dancing sparks could see that Howard was purple again.

“Take him out and make an example of him,” the patricide howled. “Burn him—hang him—tear his guts out!”

“No—” Willum laid a restraining hand on his ruler’s arm. “Not a good idea—you might make him a martyr for those who would doubt you. No, I have a better idea. Did we get the horse barbarians as well? I seem to remember that you ordered them to be taken.”

The new King regained his normal coloring. “Only the boy,” Howard pouted, calming. “The girl managed to get herself killed. Damn! I wanted that little bitch! I thought about having the boy gelded and sold—”

“Good, do that. We’ll put it out that it was the horse barbarians that killed the traders—and that the smith conspired with them to raid both the traders and the town. We’ll have it that the boy confessed. I’ll have my men start passing the word. Then, by afternoon when the story is spreading, we’ll put this fool and his family out of the gates—banish them. The barbarians aren’t likely to let him live long, and they certainly aren’t likely to give an ear to any tales he might tell.”

Howard nodded, slowly. “Yes—yes, indeed! Willum, you are going to go far in my service.”

Willum smiled, his eyes cast humbly down. From his vantage point on the floor, Kevin saw the balefire he thought he’d glimpsed leap into a blaze before being quenched. “I always intended to, my lord.”

 Chali crept in to the remains of the camp in the gray light before dawn and collected what she could. The wagons were charred ruins; there were no bodies. She supposed, with a dull ache in her soul, that the murderers had dragged the bodies off to be looted and burned. She hoped that the mule would haunt their killers to the end of their days—

There wasn’t much left, a few bits of foodstuff, of clothing, other oddments—certainly not enough to keep her through the winter—but then, she would let the winter take care of itself. She had something more to concern her.

Scrabbling through the burned wood into the secret compartments built into the floor of every vurdon, she came up with less of use than she had hoped. She had prayed for weapons. What she mostly found was coin; useless to her.

 After searching until the top of the sun was a finger’s length above the horizon and dangerously near to betraying her, she gave up the search. She did manage to collect a bow and several quivers’ worth of arrows—which was what she wanted most. Chali had been one of the best shots in the kumpania.Now the Gaje would learn to dread her skill.

She began her one-person reign of terror when the gates opened in late morning.

 She stood hidden in the trees, obscured by the foliage, but well within bowshot of the gates, an arrow nocked, a second loose in her fingers, and two more in her teeth. The stallion stood motionless at her side. She had managed to convince the creatures of the woods about her that she was nothing to fear—so a blackbird sang within an arm’s length of her head, and rabbits and squirrels hopped about in the grass at the verge of the forest, unafraid. Everything looked perfectly normal. The two men opening the gates died with shafts in their throats before anyone realized that there was something distinctly out of the ordinary this morning.

When they did realize that there was something wrong, the stupid Gaje did exactly the wrong thing; instead of ducking into cover, they ran to the ­bodies. Chali dropped two more who trotted out to look.

Then they realized that they were in danger, and scrambled to close the gates again. She managed to get a fifth before the gates closed fully and the bar on the opposite side dropped with a thud that rang across the plain, as they sealed themselves inside.