Exile's Children (10 page)

That door yielded easy as any other, and Davyd slipped into a bare-boarded room with one window that looked onto the yard behind. He found a lantern and struck a lucifer. The strongbox sat square and bulky in a corner. Too heavy to lift, it was secured with a padlock that would have defied a less skilled thief: Davyd took out his picks and set to work.

It was not long before he sprung the lock and raised the box's lid, grinning triumphantly as he surveyed the contents. The sundry papers interested him not at all, but on them lay three pouches that weighed heavy as he snatched them up. He loosed the drawstrings and his grin spread wider as lamplight shone on gold and silver—there was enough there to last him some months. He spilled the coins into his secret pockets and trimmed the lantern's wick. His coat was heavy now, and he chuckled, quite forgetting the dream.

Then remembered every vivid detail as he heard the sound of a door opening, a commanding voice, and the thud of approaching feet.

For an instant he froze, panic curdling in his belly. Boots beat a threatening tattoo on the floor outside the office, and through the open door he saw the glitter of lamplight on metal and polished leather, heard the same voice bark the order to watch the outer door.

It seemed his mind ran out of gear: thoughts came with a dreadful clarity, but he could not set his feet in motion. Hexes, he thought. There
were
hexes! And then: They'll burn me!

As if touched by the flames, he sprang into action.

Crouching, he moved to the office door. There were two lanterns, held aloft by Militiamen—five of them and a lieutenant, the silver insignia on his cap like a vigilant eye, watchful for thieves. They were in the outer hall, moving purposefully between the desks there. All save the lieutenant held muskets. The stairway was to Davyd's left: he might reach it, were he quick enough.

Still bent over, he eased out from the office and began to shuffle toward the stairs. A gap showed, three yards or so of open floor. He drew a breath and crossed his fingers, then flung himself desperately for the stairway.

Shouts echoed, then were drowned by the roar of musket fire. Davyd felt splinters strike his face and screamed in unalloyed terror, his nostrils filled with the reek of burning power.

“Halt, or you're dead!”

The command sounded loud as the musket's shot. He chanced a backward glance and saw the lieutenant at the stairway's foot, a pistol in his hand. He wished he'd heeded the dream. He raised his hands and took a half-step downward, then reversed his movement and scrambled pell-mell up again. The pistol discharged, and it seemed that all the long,
tall chamber was filled up with the muzzle flash. He felt the ball pluck at his coat; he heard the clatter of coins falling as a pocket tore.

The lieutenant cursed and bellowed an order. The stairs stretched out before Davyd, long and straight, offering no obstacle to the muskets that were now aimed at him. It seemed the bare wood clutched at his feet and he felt his limbs grow heavy.

“Come down. Now, else we fire!”

Five muskets: not all could miss. Davyd swallowed and clenched his eyes against the tears that threatened to spill. He nodded and raised his hands. This time he did not attempt to fool them.

“God, he's but a boy.”

There was a hint of sympathy in the Militiaman's voice, but his aim did not waver.

“Devil's spawn.” The lieutenant's voice was hard, contemptuous. “A sneaking, misbegotten thief, no matter his age. Take him.”

“Please, sir.” It was worth a try. “I'd not have done it but that I'm starving.”

The officer cuffed him, setting his ears to ringing, and whilst his head still spun, his hands were dragged back and bound with cord. He did not attempt to halt the tears now, but they won him no more sympathy.

“Thought you'd defeat hexes, eh?” The lieutenant's voice was calmer now; gloating, it sounded to Davyd. “Well, boy, you did not, and you've earned yourself a place in the dungeons. Starving, you said? Well, they might feed you there. What think you of that?”

What Davyd thought was: only let them not learn I dream.

As they searched his pockets and he stared numbly at the lantern flames, a dreadful fear gripped him, pinching his tongue and his innards so that all he saw, all he knew, was that fiery glow. It seemed, almost, he could feel it on his skin.

It was not the first time Davyd had been imprisoned, thought it was the most serious charge. Once he had spent a month in jail for begging, and once been sentenced to six on charges of picking pockets. He had been somewhat younger then, and supposed that counted in his favor—certainly he had gotten off lightly—nor had there been Inquisitors in either court. This time, however … This time he was older, and the charge more serious. He thought he likely faced some years in the prison barges or the quarries, perhaps even the mines. He did not relish the notion, and the relative comfort of his cell was small consolation in face of such a future.

It had been a surprise to find Julius come with bribe-money for the jailer—enough that the food was decent and the cell lit by a good lantern, clean bedding provided, and even a somewhat rickety chair and table. He had not thought Julius so kind, but the big, bluff fellow had come armed with coin and his knowledge of Bantar's ways, and shrugged off Davyd's startled gratitude as if embarrassed to be found out. His largess, however, did not extend to the hiring of a lawyer, and Davyd must play his own advocate when he came to trial.

At least Julius had managed to find out when that should be, thus rescuing Davyd from the torment of speculation. Tomorrow, it was; and thanks to Julius, he was able to assuage his worry with a bottle of good wine. That had been Julius's farewell gift: he did not anticipate seeing Davyd again, would not—for sake of anonymity—attend the trial. At least he had wished his former lodger well.

Now Davyd drank his wine and prepared to sleep. He did not think the morrow should provide any great surprises, not beyond the judge's choice between the barges, the quarries, or the mines. He supposed he preferred it be the quarries: at least there he should see the sky.

If he had only, he thought as he dimmed his lantern and readied himself for slumber, heeded his dreams, he would not be in this predicament. But he had not, and there was no point to dwelling on that foolishness now. Life had taught him to be pragmatic, and save for learning what lessons experience taught him, he saw no point in conjecture. He would, however, he vowed as he closed his eyes, always heed the dreams in future.

The one that came that night, though, was mightily difficult to interpret.

He floated on a vast expanse of water and could not tell whether he stood alone, somehow suspended above the waves, or on the deck of a ship. It mattered little either way: Davyd was afraid of water, and in this oneiric state it represented a terror as great as that of burning. He looked about and saw no shoreline, no hint of land at all, but only the gray and rolling ocean all around, the waves white-topped under a blue sky absent of any feature other than the unwinking eye of the sun. There were things beneath the waves—he
knew
, for all they remained invisible—that slowly rose to drag him down into the deeps or swallow him like some morsel of flotsam.

He woke sweaty, his heart beating arrhythmic, dread tearing a cry from his gasping mouth. Panting, he flung himself from his bed to find the lantern and extend the wick until the honest yellow flame drove off the afterimage of waves and eternity and lost hope. He reached for the wine bottle and cursed long when he found it empty. He contented
himself with water instead, splashing some against his face that he fully regain his senses. After that he dressed and waited full-clad for dawn. He did not want to return to that dream; he did not understand it, only that it filled him with an awful fear.

It was a lengthy wait, but in time the prison made those sounds that prisons make in announcement of another day. Light came pale past the bars on the window and the nocturnal rustlings, the moans of other inmates, the night cries, gave way to muted conversation, the jangle of keys, the clatter of the breakfast trolley.

Davyd felt no appetite for the porridge, white bread, and aromatic coffee that should be Julius's final purchase on his behalf. His belly felt filled with liquid that rolled and shifted like sea swell, and he only tidied himself and waited to be summoned.

His case was not heard until noon, and when the Militiamen came to fetter him and bring him before the judge, his belly rumbled protestingly. He thought that might perhaps serve him well—that he appear not well fed but as a starveling orphan forced by unkind fate to a life of crime. He hoped the judge would not inquire too deeply of his circumstances and confrères, for he knew he would not live long—no matter where he be sent—did he give up Julius and the others. Most strongly, he hoped the magicks warding the court would not reveal him for a dreamer; he prayed there be no Inquisitors present.

He need not have worried: such inquiries seemed not to have occurred to the judge, whose aim appeared to be the swiftest possible dispensation of the Autarchy's justice. Nor did any Inquisitors attend, only the watchful Militiamen and a tipstaff.

Davyd was asked his name, to which he answered, “Davyd Furth, sir,” doing his best to sound utterly miserable and equally penitent. It was not difficult to manage the misery. His age was established as thirteen and his abode as the street, after which the judge pronounced his sentence.

When he declared that Davyd be indentured and held prisoner until the next transportation ship sailed for Salvation, Davyd broke down. He shrieked his objections, pounding manacled fists against the ledge of the accused's box, quite oblivious of the hexes that burned his skin. He begged that he be sent to the quarries, to the mines—even the barges. Only not condemn him to crossing the ocean. He wailed as the Militiamen dragged him away.

He was sobbing as the door of his cell closed. He
knew
that he must surely suffer a horrid fate upon the Sea of Sorrows and, had he not been left chained and his belt and foulard taken from him, he would likely have become a suicide.

Work as a tavern wench in the Flying Horse was not the employment Flysse Cobal had hoped to find in Bantar, but she bore her disappointment as cheerfully as she could. She had hoped to find a position as a lady's maid, or perhaps a seamstress, but the bustling city had proven unkind to her dreams and she had been forced to settle for serving ale and avoiding the groping hands of amorous patrons. And it was easier here, she told herself, than in 'sieur Shaxbrof's mansion in Cudham. There, it had been quite impossible to escape the master's attentions or, though it was no fault of hers that he pursued her, the animosity of his wife. She had thought it a fine thing to be accepted as a parlormaid, a great honor for a farmgirl whose family could barely support three daughters when the harvest had failed for two years running, and she had gone eagerly to her new post. She had not anticipated that so elevated and aging a man as 'sieur Shaxbrof would prove so lecherous, nor that his wife should blame her rather than him and order her dismissal. That had been a terrible blow for Flysse, and she had elected to seek work in the city before burdening her family again.

At least, she told herself, she had been able to save a few silver crowns, and Bantar was surely a wondrous place, even though working in a tavern was not the life she had envisaged. One day, she promised herself, she would find more congenial employment. But for now, the
Flying Horse was the best she could find, and she would make the best of it.

If only the inn's patrons did not assume she was as available as most serving wenches, forever praising her beauty.… Flysse supposed she
was
pretty, but almost wished she were not. It would make life easier.

She studied her face in the mirror she shared, like the room, with the other seven girls. It seemed to her an ordinary enough face—round and framed with blond curls, the eyes and nose a little too large to her mind, the mouth too wide. But men told her it was a sight to behold, especially Lieutenant Armnory Schweiz of the God's Militia, who seemed quite deaf to her reiterated protestations that she did not—most definitely and unrelentingly not—wish to become his mistress.

Most men, their advances once rejected, accepted they'd not have her and contented themselves with flirtatious comments, laughing at her blushes. But not Armnory Schweiz, who appeared determined to break down her resistance and ignored her honest avowals that she wished only to be left alone. He would be there tonight—he was there every night—and Flysse sighed unhappily at the thought. It seemed to her that the lieutenant's watery blue eyes pierced through her clothing to study the naked flesh beneath with gloating anticipation; and no matter how she tried to avoid his hands, they always found a way to her waist or thigh or backside. She had believed the officers of the Autarchy above such behavior—before she came to Bantar. Now she knew better: since Armnory found her, she knew the men of the God's Militia were not much different from 'sieur Shaxbrof, or any other men—save in the powers they held. Were he not a lieutenant in the Militia, she thought, I'd spill a tankard over his grinning head, or dent it on his skull. But he was, and she'd been warned of the consequences.

With a last long sigh she finished the tidying of her hair and readied herself to go down to the taproom. She was already late, and Master Banlyn's patience was not inexhaustible.

When she entered the long, already smoke-filled room, the first thing she saw was Armnory Schweiz. He looked to be in his cups, but even so his eyes were focused on the door and a lecherous smile stretched his narrow lips as he spotted her. Instantly, he raised his tankard, and Flysse had no choice but to nod and go to his table.

His smile grew broader as she approached, exposing uneven teeth stained brown by tobacco, and he brushed at his moustache like some gallant on the stage of the playhouse. As Flysse came near and reached to take his empty mug, he seized her hand, gazing earnestly at her face. She forced herself to stand, and if she did not smile, at least she did not recoil in disgust.