The less well-off were equally fearful but more stoic in facing their fear and so far there had been no riots. For the most part people went about their normal business, albeit spending as little time on the streets or in the company of neighbours as possible. All submitted to the regular inspections for signs of the sickness with a resigned trepidation. As yet there had been no cases in the city itself, though Sister Gilma seemed certain it was only a matter of time.
“ The Red Hand always started in the port towns,” she said one morning. “Carried by ships from across the sea. No doubt that’s how it came here. Governor Aruan tells me the girl liked to go to the docks and watch the ships coming and going. If you find another case it’ll most likely be a sailor.”
Fearful as the townspeople were, he found himself more worried by his own soldiers. The Wolfrunner’s discipline was holding well but the others were more restive. There had been several ugly brawls between Count Marven’s Nilsaelins and the Cumbraelin archers producing some serious injuries on both sides and forcing him to flog the worst offenders. The only desertions had been from the Realm Guard, five of Lord Al Cordlin’s Blue Jays slipping over the wall with looted provisions in the hope of making it to Untesh. Vaelin had been tempted to let them perish in the desert but knew an example had to be made so sent Barkus after them with the scout troop. Two days later he returned with the bodies, Vaelin having instructed him to administer sentence on the spot to spare the spectacle of a public hanging. He had the corpses burned within sight of the main gate to ensure the guards on the wall got the message and spread it to their comrades: no-one was going anywhere.
In the afternoons he toured the walls and the gates, forcing conversation on the men despite their obvious discomfort. The Realm Guard were rigidly respectful but scared, the Nilsaelins sullen and the Cumbraelins clearly detested the very sight of the Darkblade, but he spent time with all of them, asking questions about their families and their lives before the war. The answers were the standard, clipped responses soldiers always gave to the ritual pleasantries of their commanders but he knew his distance from them was immaterial, they needed to see him and know he was unafraid.
One day he found Bren Antesh near the western gate, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he gazed up at a bird hovering overhead.
“ Vulture?” Vaelin asked.
As was his custom the Cumbraelin leader gave no formal greeting, something Vaelin found irked him not at all. “Hawk,” he replied. “Of a type I haven’t seen before. Looks a little like the swift-wing from home.”
Of all the captains Antesh had reacted with the greatest calm to the crisis, placating his men and assuring them they were in no danger. His word clearly held considerable sway as there had been no attempts at desertion by any of the archers.
“ I wanted to thank you,” Vaelin said. “For the discipline of your men. They must trust you greatly.”
“ They trust you too, brother. Almost as much as they hate you.”
Vaelin saw little reason to argue the point. He moved next to Antesh, resting against a battlement. “I have to say I was surprised the King was able to recruit so many men from your fief.”
“ When Sentes Mustor took the Fief Lord’s chair his first act was to abolish the law requiring daily practice with the longbow, and the monthly stipend that came with it. Most of my men are farmers, the stipend helped supplement their income, without it many couldn’t feed their families. They may hate King Janus with a passion, but hatred doesn’t put food in the mouth of your children.”
“ Do they really believe I’m this Darkblade from your Ten Books?”
“ You slew Black Arrow, and the Trueblade.”
“ Actually, Brother Barkus killed Hentes Mustor. And to this day I still don’t know if the man I killed in the Martishe was really Black Arrow.”
The Cumbraelin captain shrugged. “In any case, the Fourth Book relates how no godly man can kill the Darkblade. I have to say, brother, you do seem to fit the description quite well. As for the use of the Dark… Well, who can say?” Antesh’s face was cautious, as if expecting some sort of rebuke or threat.
Vaelin decided a change of subject was appropriate. “And you, sir. Did you enlist to feed your children?”
“ I have no children. No wife either. Just my bow and the clothes I’m wearing.”
“ What of the King’s gold? Surely, you have that too.”
Antesh seemed agitated, looking away, his eyes searching the sky once again for the hawk. “I… lost it.”
“ As I understand it, every man was paid twenty golds up front. That’s a lot to lose.”
Antesh didn’t turn back. “Do you require something of me, brother?”
The blood-song gave a short murmur of unease, not the shrill warning of impending attack, but a suggestion of deception. He hides something. “I’d like to hear more of Darkblade,” Vaelin said. “If you would care to tell me.”
“ That would mean learning more of the Ten Books. Aren’t you afraid your soul will be sullied by such knowledge? Your faith undone?”
The Cumbraelin’s words summoned Hentes Mustor from his memory, seeing again the guilt and the madness in the Usurper’s eyes. The blood-song’s murmur grew louder. Did he know him? Had he been one of his followers? “I doubt any knowledge could sully a man’s soul. And as I told your Trueblade, my Faith cannot be undone.”
“ The First Book tells us to teach the truth of the World Father’s love to any who wish to hear it. Find me again and I’ll tell you more, if you wish.”
In the evenings he would make his way to Ahm-Lin’s shop where his wife would scowl murderously as she poured tea and the stonemason would coach him in the ways of the song.
“ Amongst my people it’s called the Music of Heaven,” Ahm-Lin explained one night. They were in the workshop, sipping tea from small porcelain bowls next to the statue of the wolf, which appeared more unnervingly real every time Vaelin visited. The mason’s wife wouldn’t allow Vaelin into the house itself where she invariably secluded herself after pouring the tea. He had once made the mistake of suggesting they pour it themselves which had provoked such an outraged glare that he waited until Ahm-Lin took a sip from his own cup for fear she had poisoned the beverage.
“ Your people?” Vaelin asked. He had deduced that the mason hailed from the Far West but new little of the place beyond the tales of sailors, fanciful stories of a vast land of endless fields and great cities where the Merchant Kings held sway.
“ I was born in the province of Chin-Sah under the benevolent rule of the great Merchant King Lol-Than, a man who knew well the value of those with unusual gifts. When mine became known to the village elders I was taken from my family at age ten and brought to the king’s court, to be tutored in the Music of Heaven. I remember I was terribly homesick but never tried to run away. It was the law that the treason of the son extends to the father and I didn’t wish him to suffer for my disobedience, though I longed to return to his shop and work the stone again. He was a mason too, you see.”
“ There is no shame in the Dark in your homeland?”
“ Hardly, it is seen as a blessing, a gift from Heaven. A family with a gifted child gains great honour.” His expression clouded. “Or so it was said.”
“ So you were taught the song? You know how to use it, you know where it comes from.”
Ahm-Lin smiled sadly. “The song cannot be taught, brother, and it doesn’t come from anywhere. It is simply what you are. Your song is not another being living inside you. It is you.”