*
‘Let it be, Brasti,’ Kest said, but Brasti shook his head and climbed down from his horse.
‘Right, of course, why bother complaining about it when we’re good and buggered no matter which way we go?’
All the main exits from town were sealed except for caravan traffic.
‘Hide, fight or flee?’ Kest asked me.
I started to think about it for a second, but Brasti didn’t wait. ‘I already told you, we can’t get out of here. They aren’t letting anyone but the Saints-damned caravans through, and we can’t fight them all. We have to hide out until things die down.’
‘Things won’t die down until we do, or until we find the assassin,’ Kest said. He folded his arms and went back to waiting for me to say something intelligent.
Whoever had killed Lord Caravaner Tremondi had worked out their plan perfectly. Everybody knew he was rich and everyone knew his bodyguards were Greatcoats. It wasn’t hard to believe that three Trattari would kill their employer to take his money. If we were caught, no one was likely to believe us, and if we escaped – well, that just proved our guilt, didn’t it? Either way, the murderer was completely free of suspicion. She was probably walking around the city right now, enjoying the rest of her day.
‘There’s no way we’re going to be able to track down the killer,’ I said. ‘We can’t possibly say we were right there in the room with her but can’t describe what she looked like. In a few hours the whole city of Solat is going to be looking for us.’
Brasti threw his hands up in the air. ‘So we run. Again. Like cowards.’
‘We’ve got fairly skilled at it,’ Kest pointed out.
‘You can get good at anything if you practise every day.’
‘We go to the caravan market,’ I said. ‘The constables are still searching for us in the city – they know we’ll try to hide out, so they’ll want to catch us before we go underground. But they won’t have alerted anyone in the caravan market yet.’
‘Brilliant,’ Brasti said, clapping his hands. ‘The caravan market – and I thought I was supposed to be the dumb one.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Kest said evenly, ‘you still are.’
‘I thought you didn’t tell jokes.’
‘I don’t.’
I let the two of them bicker while I considered our situation. Our best chance at getting out of the city and getting hold of some money was to be hired as guards or duellists at the caravan market. A warrior who could fight military-style or solo was a great asset on the roads these days. But other than Lord Tremondi, few caravaners were willing to hire Trattari, so that meant we’d have to take what we could get – and take it quickly – before the constables decided to search the market. I suspected it was the last place they would want to find us, though; word that a Lord Caravaner had been murdered in the city would spread quickly, and that wouldn’t do much for trade. Better for the city constables if they could keep it quiet for a while. Better for us, too.
‘We stick to the plan,’ I said at last. ‘We were heading out with Lord Tremondi because he was taking the southern trade routes and we needed passage to Baern, right? We don’t have any money, and even if we could sneak our way past the civilian gates, we won’t get far without coin. So I say we make for the caravan market, get ourselves hired with another caravan and follow them right out of the Market Gate. The constables don’t control that one anyway, so we’re less likely to get caught.’
‘What about Tremondi’s plan? What about the Greatcoats becoming the wardens of the trade routes?’ Brasti asked.
‘That’s likely as dead as Tremondi himself now,’ Kest replied.
I had to agree. ‘Even if someone does bring it up for a vote, they’ll never take a chance on us now.’
‘Well then, Falcio,’ Brasti said, his voice thick with anger and frustration, ‘let me be the first to thank you for ensuring that the three of us die in pursuit of a fruitless quest for your personal redemption!’
‘We still have a chance, Brasti – even Tremondi had heard rumours of the King’s Jewels in Baern.’
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘just like there were rumours about Cheveran and even bloody Rijou. “Look to the lowest of the noble families.” What in all the hells is that supposed to mean? None of them wants anything to do with us—’
‘If we can find—’
He turned away from me.
I didn’t need to, but I said it anyway: ‘It’s my geas, Brasti. It’s the last thing the King asked me to do.’
The week before the Ducal Army took the castle, the King met with each of his one hundred and forty-four Greatcoats individually, and he gave every single one of us a mission. He called it a geas – something he’d read in one of his old books, no doubt. Some of us he swore to secrecy, others he did not. My mission was to find the King’s Charoites. I’d never heard of any such thing before, but it wasn’t the first time the King had commanded me to do something without bothering to fill me in on the details.
Brasti threw his hands up in the air. ‘He gave all of us geasa, you idiot – you, me, Kest, and all the others too. But the King is dead, Falcio. They killed him, and we stood by and let the Dukes take the castle. And when they were done with him, they stuck his head on a pole in the courtyard, and we stood by while they did it. At your orders.’
‘You shouldn’t start this again,’ Kest warned, but Brasti was on a roll now.
‘And you, you bloody great ass – what was the fastest sword in the world doing while they took the King? Resting in its damned sheath, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t see any arrows flying, either,’ Kest replied calmly.
‘No, you didn’t, because I was a good little Magister, just like you were. But where does that leave us? We gave up our lives for a stupid dream, and now it’s dead, and we’re the only Gods-damned fools who haven’t figured it out yet.’
‘If it’s all such a joke, then why is it you’ve never told us what your geas is, Brasti?’ I asked. ‘It’s because he told you to keep it a secret, isn’t it?’
Brasti turned away, but I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back around. ‘If everything he cared about died with him, then why do you still keep his secret? I’ll tell you why, Brasti, it’s because you know the dream doesn’t have to be dead if we keep believing in it.’ But even as I said the words, I realised I had made a mistake.
‘Damned Saints, Falcio, you’re the worst,’ Brasti shouted, and I couldn’t stop myself flinching. ‘You bought into all those ideas about justice and freedom just as much as Paelis did.’ He swung his arms wide. ‘Look around you, Falcio. People hate us – no, they despise us. They curse our very names. When a man does something so heinous that they can’t find a word bad enough for it, they call him “Trattari”. That’s not how I wanted to spend my life.’
‘You think life is easier on peasants? Or for that matter on anyone else living under the Dukes, the self-styled Princes? These men who rule their Duchies like Gods were only ever kept in check by the King and by us.’
‘Don’t start “The Song of the Peasants” with me, Falcio. I was born just as poor as you were and I saddled up and rode out there as much as you did. I risked my life plenty of times, and I was willing to die a hero’s death, too. But I won’t die a traitor’s death. It’s not right, it’s not—’
‘Fair?’ Kest asked.
Brasti stopped for moment, and I could see the pain inked across his face. When I first met him, he was one of the most contented people you could imagine. He wore the world like a gold cloak on his shoulders, and he walked about in the utter certainty that all was well with Brasti and all was well with the world. And in five minutes’ time, he’d put that mask on again and you’d never know the difference.
But that’s all it was now: a mask. Underneath he was so bitter, betrayed by everything and everyone, and probably me most of all. I wondered how long it would be before he stopped listening to me when I told him not to steal. I wondered how many of us had already turned to thievery or banditry just to survive. We had been heroes for a little while and now we were just traitors with useless pardons, no allies and no purpose. Maybe we really were tatter-cloaks now.
Kest said something else to Brasti and he answered back, but I didn’t really hear it. For five years I had been following the only clue the King had given me: I’d sought out his allies amongst the lesser noble families. Many were dead now, of course, slaughtered by the Dukes’ Knights on a variety of trumped-up charges, and the few who remained refused to deal with any Greatcoats. The one exception came in the form of a hastily scrawled note, handed to me by the servant of Lady Laffariste, once a confidante of the King’s; it said, simply, ‘Not now. They need more time.’ It was faint hope, and not nearly enough for Brasti, no matter how loyal he was underneath it all. The argument over the King’s last command was an old one between us, and one neither of us would win. Either the King’s Charoites were out there somewhere and we would find them, or we would end our days at the end of a noose.
I got back up on my horse and started down the cobbled streets towards the market. I assumed Kest and Brasti would follow eventually, but at that precise moment, I didn’t really care either way.