Riven Earth, page 20
The boy cried into her chest. She held him, and she began to sing. And her voice carried across the crowd in a melody about spring flowers in bloom. Raia glanced at the kingsguards. All were tense, all were clutching their weapons, but more than a few had watery eyes. And they weren’t the only ones. There were tears in the crowd, chants and voices raised in harmony.
There were shouts and curses too, though. Distant, and quashed by the cudgels of the enforcers.
Jaswyn looked at Raia, who turned and nodded towards the cart that had followed them. City guards unloaded it and waddled up to the orphanage with great wooden trunks held between them.
“Do you want to know something exciting?” Jaswyn said.
“Yes!” the children shouted in unison.
“The other day, I was telling King Kaido all about you, and he was so impressed.”
“He was?!”
“Really?!”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, I just told him what great kids you are. And he was so happy that he ordered his best toy makers to make you all new toys.”
“Toys?!” The children burst into cheers.
“Would you like to see them?”
“Yes!”
“Come on then!” Jaswyn stood, still holding the suntouched boy. A girl took her free hand, and the children led her into the orphanage.
Raia made to follow, but someone grabbed her arm. It was Mari, red-faced and panting.
“Your Grace!” she wailed.
“What is it?”
“Bad news…” Mari dragged her behind the lounging byut.
“What?”
“The prisoners, Your Grace. They escaped.”
Raia’s heart skipped a beat. “Maisades and Tyor?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
“Three nights?! Why didn’t you tell me sooner!”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace! The enforcers just told me.”
“Those bastards.” Raia clenched her fist. “How did they escape?”
“The guards were poisoned, Your Grace. The enforcers are very angry.”
“Damnit.” Raia kicked the ground. “Damnit!” She scanned the crowd, at the people waiting for another view of the queen. Were they here? Hidden among the farmers, the metal workers, the bakers? It hardly suited those two, but she wouldn’t put it past their henchmen. She couldn’t be too safe. Not with Jaswyn’s life.
“Rypor!” The kingsguard glanced at her from beside the door. “We’re cutting it short. Leave at the next bell.” He nodded and turned back to his duty.
“The enforcers are searching?” she said to Mari.
“Yes, Your Grace. All over the city.”
“Good. Get me a meeting with Master Umfray. I want to question the guards on gate duty. Three days? Fuck, they could be across the kingdom by now. I want patrols beyond the city, groups on lomerback. Every village, every road.”
Mari nodded, tongue sticking out as she jotted notes. She glanced up to find Raia staring at her.
“Go!”
The girl squeaked and scrambled away.
Raia cursed and put a hand against the wall to steady herself. She grit her teeth, mindful of her pounding heart, of the heat in her cheeks. She would be the rock that didn’t break, the tree that didn’t bend. She took deep breaths, centered herself, and stood straight. She’d caught the scum before. She’d catch them again. This time, she’d be sure to finish the job.
The whole damn city was stuffed into one street, masses of folk squirming about in the mud. Deafening, even with his earplugs in. Horns blaring, drums beating. Streamers and kites tangled above the roofs, sparkling showers of champagne flying off the balconies, cheers bellowing from the windows all around him. Isaiah’s sigil fluttering on a thousand flags.
Otto leaned against the railing and looked out at the orgy of flesh and mud. He scrunched his nose against the smell. Bodies and piss, burned mushrooms, rotten food. Heartsong.
He’d gotten to the street early. Three hours before the queen was to show up. Even then, he’d been crushed trying to find a place on the ground. In the end, he’d shelled out far too many chips for a spot on a balcony next to a bunch of pompous gits. The local homeowners were making bank of the whole fiasco.
The thing was wailing on his back. Easy to ignore in the chaos.
The whole city exploded into cheering. The crowd surged towards the road’s entrance. He saw the queen then, stood atop a forested byut.
Otto couldn’t help but smile. He remembered the little girl he’d chewed out a dozen times for digging up his garden. Aye, she’d grown into a fine lass. Shining now, like Hecata’s light against the grime of the city. All grace and poise, calm and elegance. Folk loved her for it. Loved her more than anyone since Isaiah.
If there was one thing Kaido had done right, it was marrying that girl. The boy himself was nowhere in sight, but Otto wasn’t at all surprised.
Raia was there, tense as a hawk, jumping at every sound with a hand on her sword. Otto chuckled. Never could relax, that one. She’d aged ten years since he’d last seen her. Though it was always hard to tell with her. “My daughter’s older than me,” Galtus used to say, a fond grin on the fool’s face.
If only Tilly had been here. She’d be so proud of those two. So proud.
Jaswyn mingled with the crowd. Folk climbed over one another to reach her, pushing, shoving, begging for her attention. She went to the orphans, and they crowded around her, warming to her as she spoke to them. The whole street was enraptured.
Then she reached for the black kid, and everyone went quiet.
Could’ve cut the tension with a hammer, it was so thick. She started singing. Faint, at that distance, but it reached Otto. A few people started singing with her. He watched Raia, tauter than rope lifting stone. Looked right ready to snap, she did – legs twitching, sword half out of its sheath.
He watched the crowd. Singing, calling support. Also calling insults. Enforcers amidst them, dragging angry people out. “Suncursed!” shouted over and over.
“Long live the queen!” someone yelled. A bit of the noise started returning. More cheering, more folk pushing against the guards.
It wasn’t the same as before though. Not here at the back.
A commotion started beneath him. He craned over to get a look. A bunch of scumbags were throwing a black kid around. A whole circle of them, punching and kicking.
“Fuck’s sake,” Otto muttered. It was the orphan that’d followed him.
“Get out of our city, you little shit!” A fist went into the boy’s face, sent him reeling.
“Fucking suncursed!” A knee in his stomach.
“Fuck’s sake!” Otto nabbed his cane and hobbled off the balcony, swearing as he rushed down the stairs, leg throbbing.
By the time he got out of the house, the boy was on the ground. Whimpering, curled up in the shade, boots kicking and splattering mud around him. The bastards had him pinned. A couple of them were wrestling with folk from the crowd who thought the bullying wasn’t right. Not enough folk like that though. Most just watched, all fascinated like.
“Stop!” Otto yelled, voice cracking. “Fuck’s sake!” His cane snapped across someone’s head. The lad cried out and fell, cursing and clutching his hair. Otto belted another across his ass. Then another on his shoulder.
“Who the fuck are you, old man?” one of them shouted, and the whole gang let go of the boy to turn on him.
“I said stop, you dumb shits!” Otto dropped his cane, drew his sword, and thrust it in the air. The blade blazed to fire, and the whole crowd gasped, staggering backwards.
“A sunstone!” someone yelled.
“Is that?”
“It’s General Otto!”
“It’s the Hero of Summer!”
“The Butcher of the Crag!”
The group of wretches melted away, and kinder folk surged forwards. They called out, reaching for his attention like they had the queen’s. Otto spat blood, and they went still, staring. He swung his sword around, pointing and jabbing at their guilty faces.
“Shame on you lot. Every one of you.” He sheathed the blade, yanked the kid to his feet, grabbed his cane, and limped away.
He didn’t look back. Nothing but whispers and mad muttering behind him.
Took an age to push through, but the crowd thinned the farther they got. The boy winced as Otto dragged him through the narrowest alleys. These were empty enough. Mushroom addicts sprawled on the floor. War widows clutched crying babies by broken doors, begging him for chips. Eyes watched in the darkness. Street urchins mostly. Couple of gangs too, he was sure. All the nasty folk of the city woken up by the wailing creature on his back.
He ignored them. Jilly was stabled near the gate. When they reached her, he sat the boy on a bundle of hay.
“You okay?” Otto ran his fingers over the boy’s ribs, all bruised and splattered with mud. He grabbed a skinny wrist, and the kid cried out.
“Broke your arm.” Otto felt around a bit. The kid started screaming, but he didn’t let go, just worked the broken bones between his fingers and rolled them back into place. “Hold it still. Oi, I said don’t move.”
He put out his hand. Jilly’s vines brought his pack to him, held it open by his side. He dug out the dressings, found a couple of solid sticks on the ground. He had to snap one against his knee, bit of a twinge up his back at that.
It was a pain to set the bones – the kid had such little meat to his arms. Otto managed it well enough. No point taking a suntouched to a surgeon. No treatment for their sort.
The kid was trying not to cry, tongue bitten almost bloody, wet lines on his black face. “You did good,” Otto said. “Thought for sure you’d be throwing sunblades.”
“Too many people."
“Aye, you did good.”
Bunch of scumbags beating a suntouched kid. Always a dangerous situation. Otto had seen it often enough. Never ended well. Almost always with sunblades in the air and a noose on the kid. Wasn’t right, law or not. Most black kids grew up on streets. Alone. No one around to tell them what not to do.
“Anything else hurting?” Otto said.
The kid shook his head.
Lying, no doubt. But brave. “Why’d you come out? Whole crowd was about.”
“Wanted to see the queen.”
“Was it worth the beating you got?”
The lad didn’t say anything to that.
Otto stood with a wince. He had to stretch his legs, spit out a bit of blood pooling beneath his tongue. He could still hear the crowd. Distant thrumming, voices all melded together.
Fuck if he didn’t hate Heartsong.
He was so close though. Just had to walk to the keep. They’d let him in without question. He’d find Raia or Jaswyn, maybe even Kaido. Give them the damn baby, and it was done. He’d be free. Free to head home and live out the rest of his days in peace with Tilly. Wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
And it’d be good to see the kids again. Catch up a bit. Maybe settle the bad blood with Kaido. Say goodbye to Galtus too, give his last respects to Isaiah.
The thing wasn’t crying anymore. Little black arms reaching towards him. Gurgling away, golden eyes gone big. Hair just like Tilly’s.
“Fuck’s sake.”
The same scenes repeated over and over in his head. Raia pale as milk when Jaswyn held the black kid. The silence in the crowd. The tension. Folk beating his orphan.
Lots of sour memories were coming back now. Bodies of suntouched babies washed up in the canal. Black orphans beaten to death, left to rot behind taverns. Isaiah’s eyes twitching, holding back tears as he swung his sword onto a little boy’s neck.
None of them had liked the laws when they were written, Isaiah least of all. Day in and day out, he’d argued with Galtus about it. Otto could hardly blame him, what with his history and all. But Galtus won in the end. Same as always.
“If we’re going to build a society where the suntouched are accepted as citizens with equal rights,” he’d said, “then the use of sun magic has to be punished by death. Regardless of any and all circumstances. We must make it so their magic doesn’t exist. Elsewise, the common folk will never accept them.”
He’d waxed poetic about it. They’d foster the children. Train them, guide them, treat them well. And as long as they didn’t use their magic, people would accept them.
Truth was, nothing goes to plan. A thousand dreams they’d shared setting up the kingdom. Most were already in the gutters. And the suntouched kids? Just one of the casualties.
Strange. When had Otto picked up the thing? It was cooing away in his arms now.
“Otto, love, take care of my little girl.”
“Fuck’s sake, Tilly.” A tear made its way down his cheek, cold and lonely. “Fuck’s sake.”
The thing looked so much like Tilly it hurt. All blabbering away. He found himself holding it tighter, imagining it washed up dead in the canal. What would Tilly have said to that?
Jaswyn would take the baby. She’d be delighted. The child would be raised as the king’s daughter. Grow up with loving parents and a better life than any of her kind.
But she’d never belong. Not in Heartsong. Always a burden on the throne. Never an heir. All sorts of complications on that front. Kaido would lose the east, where they already hated him. The child would be an outsider all its life.
Truth was, the suntouched would never be accepted this side of the kingdom. That was a fact, and it wasn’t changing anytime soon.
Otto closed his eyes, felt the chill of the breeze against his skin. Six weeks. Enough time to get to Sun’s Fall and back.
He found himself smiling. Felt good to be on the road. Nothing at home but an empty house and an empty bed and a load of empty memories. Tilly would wait. She’d want this from him. And he’d be back for her in the end. He’d promised. Her ashes and his, at their marriage tree.
He had time.
“You got a name, boy?” he said.
The orphan squinted up at him. “Don’t got no name.”
Otto looked him up and down. “I’ll call you Soot.”
“Soot?”
“Aye.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t worry ’bout it.”
The boy puffed his cheeks and put his chin between his knees.
“Guess you’re not gonna leave me alone anytime soon,” Otto said. The lad stared at the bundle in Otto’s arms.
“Weird fucking kid.” Otto coughed. He leaned over, hacking, cramps running through his stomach. Left him breathing hard and ragged.
“Let’s go,” he limped to Jilly, threw his pack and the baby on her back. Gave her a rub and a kiss on the neck. He had to close his eyes against another twinge in his stomach.
“Where you goin’?” Soot said.
“Heard of a woman looks like you, lives out west. Heard she’s setting up a village for black brats.”
Soot frowned beneath locks of dirty hair. “Never seen no grown-up looks like me.”
“I have.” Jilly’s vines helped him up, and they walked out. “Come on then. Faster I’m rid of you the better.”
They made a slow passage through the Western Quarter. The boy stuck close, a hand on Jilly’s bad leg. Crowds were dispersing now, floating away from the orphanage, thinning the farther they got from it. All back to business in the market. Eyes turned to stare as they passed. First at Soot, then at Otto, then at Soot again.
Otto dozed off for a bit. He woke as they came to the gate and tutted at the state of the wall. Vines all over it, overgrown and splintering the wood. He tutted again at the guards. Didn’t even notice him pass, dozing off as they were. No discipline. No training. All on Tyor, the fat scum. Men followed the example of their leaders. Here was the evidence in the flesh.
He had to squint when they left the gate. Always strange heading west from the city. You got used to the darkness inside the walls, forgot how much sun there was outside them.
Market was almost as busy outside as it was inside. The whole city was surrounded by a clearing. Galtus had saved the space. “Future expansion,” he’d said with a grin. Now, folk had their stalls setup here, feeding or hawking at the workers from the fields. A throng of people and carts trudged in a great circle around the city walls. They’d made a road of it. Made sense, better than the crowded streets inside.
It felt good to be out. Fresh air. Fields stretching out to the sun, golden and rolling. He closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of it.
Soot tugged on his boot.
“What?” Otto frowned down at the kid. He was pointing at an abandoned stall, on its side a way off the main market. One of the wheels lay nearby. The sign had collapsed, wood smashed where scavengers had punched through the cabinets. No one was paying it any mind. Except Soot.
“What?” Otto said again.
Then he saw them. Two pairs of golden eyes staring at him from behind the splintered wood. They ducked out of view. Came back out, ducked again.
“The fuck?”
Soot ran to the stall, disappeared behind it. He came out a moment later with a girl’s hand in his. Same age as him, starved and dirty, messy hair stuck up all sorts. Another hand in hers. Another girl. Younger, maybe five. Both were black as coal, both with those golden eyes staring big and longing at the basket behind Otto.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered as Soot brought the two orphans to him.
Chapter twelve
We made peace, but only because we were strong enough to make war.
Reflections by King Isaiah
Autumn had come to the east. Leaves crackled under Ruby’s hooves, fluttering and falling with the brisk breeze. The canopy was awash with red and gold. There was little sun, but the eastern forest was lit by the luminescence of its fauna and flora. Birds flitted about, feathers pulsing orange or blue while insects buzzed in brilliant swarms of yellow and green. From Ruby’s back, Kaido could see fall flowers blooming light into the nooks of trees and clumps of mushrooms illuminating the floor at their base.
