what he took to be woodsmen from their collection of axes, all singing a raucous doggerell about the impending event:
“ His name was Artis Sendahl
He was a greedy old goat
King Janus came to count his purse
And stretched his greedy throat.”
“ Don’t run so fast, order boy!” one of the woodsmen called to him as he passed, swaying as he raised a stoneware bottle. “They can’t choke the bastard ‘til we get there. Some bugger has to cut the wood for the fire.” The rest of the woodsmen roared with laughter as Vaelin ran on, resisting the urge to see how well a drunkard could cut wood with his fingers broken.
He heard it before he saw it, a dull roar beyond the next hill, the sound of thousands of voices speaking at once. As a child he had thought it a monster, snuggling into his mother’s embrace in fear. “Hush now,” she said, stroking his hair, turning his head gently as they crested the rise. “Look Vaelin. Look at all the people.”
To his boy’s eyes it had seemed every subject in the Realm had come to the expansive plain before the walls of Varinshold to share in the blessings of summer, a vast throng covering several acres. Now he found he was amazed to see the crowd was even larger than he remembered, stretching the whole length of the city’s western wall, a haze of mingled exhalation and wood-smoke hanging over the mass, tents and brightly coloured marquees rising from the carpet of bodies. For a youth who had spent much of the last four years in the cramped fortress of the Order House it was almost overwhelming.
How can I track him in this? he wondered. Behind him came the song of the drunken woodsmen again as their cart caught up, still rejoicing in the death of the King’s minister. Don’t look for him, he realised. Look for the gallows. He’ll be there.
Entering the crowd was an odd experience, mingling exhilaration with trepidation, the throng enveloping him in a mass of moving bodies and unfamiliar odour. Hawkers were everywhere, their shouts barely audible above the noise, selling everything from sweet meats to earthenware. Here and there a knot of spectators had gathered around players and performers, jugglers, acrobats and magicians drawing either cheers and applause or jeers of derision. Vaelin tried not to be distracted but found himself stopping at the more spectacular sights. There was a hugely muscled man who could breath fire and a dark skinned man in silk robes who pulled trinkets from the ears of people in the crowd. Vaelin would linger for a few seconds before remembering his mission and shamedfacedly moving on. It was as he stopped, amazed at the sight of a half naked female tumbler that he felt a hand inside his cloak. It was deft, almost unnoticeable, searching. He caught the intruder’s wrist with his left hand and dragged the owner forward, tripping him over his left ankle. The pickpocket went down heavily, grunting painfully with the impact. It was a boy, small, skinny, dressed in rags. He looked up at Vaelin and snarled, lashing out with his free hand and desperately trying to pull away.
“ Ha, thief!” a man in the crowd laughed nastily. “Should know better than to try it on with the Order.”
At the mention of the Order the boy’s efforts to free himself redoubled, scratching and biting at Vaelin’s hand.
“ Kill him, brother,” another passerby suggested. “One less thief in the city’s always a good thing.”
Vaelin ignored the voice and lifted the pickpocket off his feet, it wasn’t difficult, the boy was little more than skin and bone. “You need practice,” he told him.
“ Fuck you,” the boy spat, squirming frantically. “You’re not a real brother. You’re one of them boy brothers. You’re no better’n me.”
“ Needs a beatin’ this one,” a man said, emerging from the crowd to aim a cuff at the boy’s head.
“ Go away,” Vaelin instructed. The man, a plump fellow with a large ale soaked beard and eyes showing the unfocused gaze of the newly drunk, gave Vaelin a brief appraisal and quickly moved away. At fourteen Vaelin was already taller than most men, the Order’s regime making him both broad and lean. He stared in turn at the several other spectators who had paused to watch the small drama. They all moved on rapidly. It’s not just me, Vaelin surmised. They fear the Order.
“ 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
