The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX





THE WHARF WAS still busy, despite it being night. Jaumé worked his way through the crush until he was near the front. Here the crowd funneled into a line. He stood, waiting to move forward, the groat clenched in his hand. The ship’s hull loomed above him. The picture on its side—the dolphin riding a wave—was dimly visible,

“You got enough money, boy?” someone asked alongside him.

Jaumé glanced up to his right. He dimly saw a face. The speaker was taller than him, but unbearded. A youth. He nodded.

“It’s a whole silver groat,” another voice said on his left.

Jaumé turned his head. Standing there was another youth, with a faint, straggling beard. “I know.” He clutched the groat more tightly in his fist.

“I don’t think he’s got it, Peray,” the first youth said.

“He shouldn’t be in this line, then. Not if he doesn’t have a groat.”

“I have a groat,” Jaumé said.

The line shuffled forward, towards the armed guards and the gangplank and the flare of torchlight.

The youths kept pace with him. “Show us.”

Jaumé shook his head. He clenched his other hand around his fist and counted the people in front of him. Two families; ten people.

Someone took hold of his elbow.

Jaumé tried to wrench free. “No—” he started to say, but a knee buried itself in his stomach.

He doubled over, unable to breathe. Dimly, he heard a voice above his head. “Our brother’s feeling faint.” And then hands grabbed him and he was hauled out of the line.

The youths dragged him away from the torchlight and dropped him on the ground. Jaumé tried to draw a breath, tried to shout, but only a faint croak came from his lips.

A voice hissed in his ear. “Give us the groat!”

Jaumé clutched the coin with every ounce of his strength. His breath was coming back. He opened his mouth to scream—

A foot caught him in the belly. Pain flooded through him. He lost his breath again.

His fingers were prized open. He heard someone grunt, a sound of satisfaction. He heard someone say, “Got it!” He heard running footsteps.

He heard the miller’s voice in his ears: It’s every man for himself.





JAUMÉ LIMPED DOWN the cobbled street. Ahead, a door swung open, spilling light and noise and the smell of food and ale into the street. He glimpsed a wooden sign above the doorway—a bunch of grapes—before the door swung shut. A tavern.

Jaumé halted, hugging his stomach. The door opened again. A man stumbled out. Lamplight was bright for an instant, the roar of voices loud, and then the door closed. All that was left was the smell of food and the man staggering down the street.

Memory of the miller’s wife filling a bowl with stew came—and memory of her voice raised in a shriek behind him as he ran. Jaumé hugged his stomach more tightly. Tears of despair welled in his eyes.

“Out of the way, boy.” Someone cuffed him aside and entered the tavern, letting out the roar, the lamplight, the smells, again.

Jaumé blinked back his tears and edged closer to the door. When it next opened, he peered inside. He saw people seated on benches at long wooden tables, he saw bowls of food and loaves of bread and tankards of ale.

The door closed. Jaumé leaned against the wall, waiting for it to open again. Slowly he became aware that he wasn’t the only person standing in the darkness. He heard breathing, heard the rustle of fabric as someone shifted their weight.

Jaumé stiffened and slid his hand into his pocket. The knife blade was smooth beneath his fingers, sharp. When the door opened again, he looked to his right. Lamplight fell on a man’s face—sandy beard, dark pits of eyes.

The man wasn’t looking at him; he was staring hungrily into the tavern.

Jaumé released his grip on the knife.

The door closed again, opened again. People went in. People came out. And each opening and closing of the door brought glimpses of food, brought smells that made his stomach cramp.

Next time, Jaumé told himself. Next time someone goes in, so do I. I’ll take the nearest loaf of bread and run.

Footsteps came striding up the street. A man mounted the doorstep, opened the door, entered the tavern. Jaumé followed.

The door swung shut behind him. Jaumé stood for a moment, looking at the tables, at the bowls of stew and loaves of bread, the tankards of ale, the flagons of wine. A loaf of bread lay on the nearest table, cut in half.

He darted across, snatched up the closest half, and turned back to the door as a shout lifted in the air behind him.

The door opened. Two men stood on the threshold. Jaumé barreled past them, clutching the bread.

“Stop!” someone shouted behind him. “Thief!”





HE THOUGHT THERE was someone else running behind him, but perhaps it was the echo of his own bare feet slapping on the cobblestones. He ran, turning corners at random, until his lungs were burning, then he slowed to a trot. Ahead was a glow of firelight.

Jaumé looked behind him. The dark street seemed empty. But...wasn’t that the sound of someone else’s footfalls?

He hurried again and came out into what must be Cornas’s market square. It was milling with people, lit by dozens of fires.

Jaumé hugged the bread to his chest and skirted the square. This was like the encampment outside the walls; there were horses, wagons, people eating and sleeping. He felt again the tension in the air, smelled sweat and fear.

He walked three sides of the square before he found a place that felt safe. Here, in the corner, a band of men had set up camp. Like everyone else, they had horses, a fire, piles of equipment—but something marked them as different. Jaumé studied them for a moment, seeing the shapes of sleeping figures rolled in blankets and two men sitting watch, firelight reflecting in their eyes. There was a stillness in those seated figures, a watchfulness—but no fear, no desperation. These men weren’t afraid. They seemed untouched by the tension surrounding them.

He wasn’t the only one to notice there was something different about the men; a gap ringed them, as if no one wanted to get too close.

The men’s strangeness didn’t frighten him; it made him feel safer. Jaumé hunkered down on the ground and tore into the bread with his teeth.

A shadow fell over him. “Give me the bread, boy.”

Jaumé looked up, his mouth full of bread. A man towered over him, firelight illuminating one side of his face. He had a sandy beard, dark pits of eyes. The man who’d stood outside the tavern.

“No,” Jaumé said thickly, around the mouthful of bread. He clutched the half-loaf to his chest.

“It’s not yours. I saw you steal it.” The man made a snatch for the bread. “Give it to me.”

Jaumé scuttled backwards on the cobblestones. His back came up against a wall.

The man followed him. “Give it to me.”

Jaumé swallowed the bread in his mouth, almost choking. He looked to the band of men for help. The two on watch had turned their heads towards him. He saw firelight glitter in their eyes. They sat still, unmoving. They weren’t going to aid him.

Jaumé hugged the bread tightly with one arm. He fumbled in his pocket for the knife.

“Give it to me!” The man lunged forward, grabbing Jaumé’s shoulder, reaching for the bread.

Something inside him seemed to burst open. Rage and despair spewed out. Jaumé ripped the knife from his pocket. “No!” he yelled, dropping the bread, stabbing at the man.

The man grunted and tried to fend him off.

Fury possessed Jaumé. He slashed and stabbed in a frenzy. It wasn’t just the bread, it was the youths at the wharf, the man who’d stolen the gray gelding, the man who’d taken the half-leg of ham. It was Mam and Da and Rosa.

The man uttered a high yelp of pain. He turned and ran, stumbling in his haste to get away.

Jaumé lowered the knife. He was panting, shaking. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He turned back to the bread. Several of the men rolled in blankets had woken. He saw firelight in their eyes as they looked at him. One of the men on watch rose to his feet and began to stroll towards him.

Jaumé tightened his grip on the knife and held it out towards the man. “It’s my bread.”

The man stopped. His hands were loose at his side, relaxed. “I don’t want your bread. I have plenty of my own.” His voice was calm and almost friendly. The vowels had a strange twist to them that marked him as not of Vaere. “Where’s your family, lad? Dead?”

Jaumé nodded warily.

The man looked back at his companions. “What do you think, Nolt?”

One of the men shrugged off his blanket and stood. He was lean, with a neatly-trimmed beard. He walked across to the first man and stood, studying Jaumé. “How old are you, boy?”

“Eight,” Jaumé said, clutching the knife tightly. The men’s stillness, the intensity of their attention on him, was frightening.

Nolt looked him up and down and then nodded. “He has potential.”

The first man winked at Jaumé. He had curling hair and a young-looking face. “Grab your bread, lad. You can sleep with us tonight. You’ll be safe.”

Jaumé looked at the band of silent, watching men, at the dark eyes reflecting the firelight. He looked at the half-loaf of bread lying on the dirty cobblestones. He looked at the blood dripping from his knife blade.

He thrust the knife into his pocket, snatched up the bread, and followed Nolt and the curly-haired man back to their fire. Men shuffled sideways in their blankets to make room for him.

Jaumé sat warily on the cobblestones.

The man with curly hair tossed him a blanket. “Here.”

Jaumé caught the blanket. He slung it around his shoulders and huddled into it.

“Want some cheese to go with that bread?”

Jaumé nodded.