Beyond the footprints of the ghost town is the second wall, the townwall, designed in a similar fashion to the keepyard wall but thicker. It once had four gates but three had been blocked long ago to make the wall easier to defend and large parts of the townwall had collapsed through disuse. On one side of the remaining gate are the stables where Xus would be and on the other side stood the kennels, from which the discordant yapping of dogs floated through the air.
Small towns spring up around many castles but King Doran ap Mennix long ago razed the shanties that had accreted like barnacles against his walls. Mennix has always been a warrior, and those whose commerce he had a use for were moved within the keep; those who he had no use for were thrown out to join the thankful. It is in the dead ground between the townyard wall and the keepyard wall that Festival will come—a slow, many-wheeled and mounted city, its arrival is as inevitable as the changes of season it follows.
Beyond the wall are many small fortified farms, villages and waycastles. Each is dependent on Maniyadoc for its protection from bandits and outlaws, and in times of need each is as likely to become a predator on their neighbours as the next. The King’s Riders patrol the land constantly in a smaller and more martial version of Festival’s circular route. The superstitious would tell you hedgings watch them pass from their haunts in the fields, woods and pools.
The yearsage sunlight barely warmed my skin as I walked through the keepyard, but it was welcome nonetheless. Outside the townwall the fruit trees, which grew thick around the castle in ordered rows, would be ripening and the brewers would be getting ready for harvest and to produce the sweet alcohol Maniyadoc was famous for.
“Girton ap Gwynr?” The voice coming from behind me had the growl and tempering of old age and it took a moment before I realised it addressed me—I was still new to the skin of Girton ap Gwynr. I turned to find an old man dressed in full armour, his shoulder guards stained and scratched in memories of bright green. Once he must have been a Landsman, hunting down the sorcerers who’d sucked away the life of the land and created the sourlands. The Landsmen were cruel, but it was a necessary cruelty as the destruction wrought on our lands by sorcerers was far worse than the pain any man could bring. People feared the Landsmen appearing in their villages, but not as much as they feared a new sorcerer rising and destroying what little fertility was left in the land.
The old man held a flared helmet in one gloved hand, both helmet and gloves in the same scratched green as his armour. His white hair and beard had been shaved close to his skin.
“Yes,” I said. “I am Girton ap Gwynr.”
Behind him I saw that a number of corpses in various states of decay and clothed in the uniform of Maniyadoc’s guards hung by their necks from the battlements. Placards reading TEMPTED BY DARK UNGAR had been tied to each one. From its size I was sure one of the corpses was the man Joam, who I had fought at the entrance to the nightsoil drain. The old man turned when he saw me staring.
“Traitors,” he said.
“I thought criminals were sent to join the desolate, to bleed into the land?”
“The priests say the land will reject the blood of a traitor, so we hang them or set them on a fool’s throne to burn. It is a waste really.”
“They burn them?”
He shrugged.
“Aye, some of them, but a first meeting should not be clouded by sad tidings.” He moved nearer so his body blocked my view of the corpses. “I was sent to guide you to the squireyard, Girton ap Gwynr. I am Heamus. I use no family name.”
“I can find my own way,” I said. I was holding my rusty swords awkwardly and one slid out of my hands and on to the ground with a clang.
“Well, maybe I can carry your swords then?” He smiled. He had watery blue eyes that flashed merrily as he bent and picked up the longsword I had dropped. As he straightened up he sniffed the air. A look of confusion passed over his face and then he stared at me strangely. It was as if he no longer saw me and his gaze was transported to some faraway place. He smiled again, shook his head and put out a hand for the stabsword. “Good choice you made in these,” he said, letting light dance down the steel between the stipplings of rust on the blade.
“The armourer did not think so,” I said, wondering why he had sniffed the air and if I needed to bathe again.
“The armourer is a fool.” He shook his head and sighed. “There are plenty of fools in this castle, sometimes I wonder if I am among them.” He grunted a little and placed the hand holding the stabsword on the small of his back, leaning into it to stretch his muscles. “I hope you will not add to our fools, Girton ap Gwynr.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“Good. Then follow me, boy. You will not need your blades today.”
He led me across the parched ground of the keepyard and around behind the castle where a wall, head high to me, separated off an area. The old Rider unlocked a door and then turned, holding up the key.
“For you. Lose it, and the king will have the cost of replacing it taken out of your hide.”
“Yes, Heamus.”
He pushed open the door. “After you, squire,” he said. As I passed him he grabbed my arm. “When you introduce yourself, Girton, use your first name only. All the squires who attend training at the keep are of rich or powerful families. We do not use surnames or titles. In memory of the Queen of Balance all are to be treated equally.”
“So there is no favouritism?”
“Well—” he smirked “—that is the idea, and you should at least pretend it is the case.”
“Yes, Blessed,” I said. Something crossed his face then, something between regret and amusement.
“I am no blessed, Girton. Call me Heamus only, that will do.” He opened the door. “And, boy, do not be too disheartened by your first day of training. It can be hard.” He ushered me through into the training ground, where the squires waited.
There are rules to soldiery and squiredom in the Tired Lands. Any man or woman, as long as they are not of the thankful, may take up arms and pledge to spill their enemies,’ and often their own, blood upon the ground for their blessed. However, if you wish to have the great honour of dying on the back of a warmount then you must be a man and you must be blessed. My master says it was not always so and in some places women still wear armour and still fight on mountback, but it is rare now. One of the King’s Riders, looming over me from his mount, once told me it is because women lack the strength to control a mount, but my master rides Xus, who is always wilful, and she has no trouble handling him at all.