“Best bet I ever made,” a cheery faced old man called, lifting his tankard in salute. “Made a packet on you today, brother. Got odds of ten to one when it looked like you’d get the chop…”
“Shut up!” Nortah told the old man flatly. His left arm was cradled in a sling, the forearm heavily bandaged, but his visage held sufficient menace to make the old man blanch and sit down without further comment.
They found a vacant table and Barkus bought the drinks. He was limping from a cut to the calf and spilled a fair amount of the ale on the way back from the bar.
“Clumsy sod,” Dentos grunted. “Let me get them next time.” He was the only one to have got through the test unscathed, although his gaze had a bright, frightened look and he blinked rarely, as if scared of what he would see when he closed his eyes.
Caenis sipped his ale, frowning in puzzlement. “From the way men lust after this so I’d expected it to taste better.” The line of his jaw was marked by a row of eight stitches. The brother from the Fifth Order who tended the cut had assured him he would carry the scar for the rest of his life.
“Well,” Nortah said, lifting his tankard. “We’re all here.”
“Yeh.” Dentos lifted his own mug, clacking it against Nortah’s. “Here’s to… being here I s’pose.”
They drank, Vaelin forcing the ale down, draining his tankard.
“Easy brother,” Barkus warned him.
He felt them exchanging uneasy glances across the table as he stared at the dregs at the bottom of the tankard. There had been an ugly scene with Master Sollis back at the Circle when Vaelin had demanded to know the identity of the tall man and received only a curt response: “A murderer.”
“He was no murderer,” Vaelin insisted, a mounting anger dispelling his normal deference. The tall man’s face as he slipped into death was fresh in his mind. “Master, who was that man? Why was it necessary for me to kill him?”
“Every year the City Guard provides us with a selection of condemned men,” Sollis replied, his patience nearing its end. “We choose the strongest and most skilled. Who they are is not our concern. Neither is it yours, Sorna.”
“It is today!” Vaelin took a step closer to Sollis, his fury mounting.
“Vaelin,” Caenis cautioned him, his hand on his arm.
“I killed an innocent man today,” Vaelin spat at Sollis, shaking off Caenis’s hand, advancing further. “For what? To show you I could kill? You knew that already. You chose him didn’t you? Knowing he was the most skilled. Knowing I’d be the one to face him.”
“A test is not a test if it’s easy, brother.”
“EASY?” A red mist was staining his vision, he found his hand had gone to his sword.
“Vaelin!” Dentos and Nortah stepped between them, Barkus pulling him back and Caenis keeping a firm grip on his sword hand.
“Get him out of here!” Sollis commanded as they hustled him towards the exit, near incoherent with rage. “Take the rest of the evening. Help your brother cool off.”
Vaelin wasn’t sure if ale was the best way to cool off. His anger hadn’t dimmed at all, if anything the way the room seemed to move around of its own volition was extremely aggravating.
“My Uncle Derv could drink more ale in a sitting than any man alive,” Dentos said after his fourth tankard, his head lolling. “They’d ’ave a contest every shummertide fair. Folk from miles around’d come t’challenge ‘im. Not one of ‘em could ever beat ‘im. Grand ale drinking champion five years running. Woulda’ been six iffen he ‘adn’t drunk hisself t’death in the winter.” He paused to issue an extravagant burp. “Silly old sod.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying this?” Caenis asked, both hands gripping the table as if scared he was about to tip over.
“I’m happy enough,” Barkus said, grinning merrily. His shirt was damp with ale and he seemed oblivious to the rivulets that coursed down his chin every time he took a drink.
“Two brothers…” Nortah was saying. He had been rambling about his test for over an hour. From what Vaelin could gather two of the men he had killed were brothers, both apparently condemned outlaws. “Twins… I think. Looked just the same, even made the same sound when they died…”
Vaelin’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch and he realised he was about to vomit. “Going outside,” he mumbled, rising and making for the door on legs that seemed to have lost the ability to walk in a straight line.
The air outside chilled his lungs and made his nausea recede a little, but he was still obliged to spend a few minutes heaving into the gutter. Afterwards he rested his back against the tavern wall and sank slowly onto the cobbles, his breath steaming in the frigid air. My wife, the tall man had said. Maybe he had been calling to her. Or summoning a final memory as he struggled to take the image of her face with him into the beyond.
“A man with so many enemies shouldn’t make himself so vulnerable.”