"Eric's just not normal," said Hoarlegh. I was just off duty but he had been at it all afternoon. "No right minded loon would have that job." He took another swig of ale. "Brought in 'nother this very morning. He hunts too well by rights. Makes me queasy he does."
"Queasier if you knew how well I could hear, you sot."
Eric had materialised behind Hoarlegh's chair. It was unnerving how he could just appear that way, particularly with his great size. We all looked up at him. I still had my tankard raised to my lips, and wondered if I would ever get that sip.
With startling speed he reached down and picked up Hoarlegh chair and all. Hoarlegh was sputtering and still trying to wriggle out of his chair as Eric took three steps and threw him through the door. Fortunately it was unlatched and we caught a glimpse of Hoarlegh and the chair bounce together once before he rolled into the mud of the street. A little old duffer by the door reached out and casually pulled it shut again, looking for all the world like he had just helped through a lady.
I was secretly rather pleased. Not that I disagreed with Hoarlegh, I just didn't like him much. He was older than us younger officers and a loudmouth know-all to boot. My pleasure was short-lived though for Eric was returning to our table looking ominous. Even though there were four of us, fit and highly trained, Eric was clearly unperturbed by thought of taking us on.
Daynor, who always had been a quick thinker, spoke up. "Thanks Eric," he said cheerily. "He was beginning to make me feel queasy. Care to join us for a drink?" I was grateful to Daynor, I had wanted to meet Eric for a long time.
Eric seemed to accept the peace offering. "Thank you, I do believe I will."
He snatched up a new chair and plunked himself down. We were a bit surprised and most uncomfortable. None of us knew him socially. His unusual post and the status that went with it kept him distant from us. I had never even seen him in the tavern before, let alone having a drink.
We were not made any more comfortable by his imposing size or the fact that we had just been talking about him. Worries were soon dispelled however as Eric proved a charming companion. Not drinking much but cheery and light-hearted, displaying an almost silly sense of humour. This did not seem to be the fierce and brooding King's hound we had known and been so wary of in the past.
The others were starting to relax a bit but the unasked question still hung above the table. I knew the others wouldn’t broach it, especially after what happened to Hoarlegh, who had likely slunk back to barracks. I wanted to know though.
"Eric, do you ever find your job difficult?"
Eric was not at all fooled. "Yes being the Royal Huntsman is physically demanding," he said, neatly dodging my question.
There was a prolonged silence before he looked up from his beer. His gaze seemed almost placid. "That isn't what you want to know though, is it? You really wonder what I feel, if those I have killed weigh on my conscience."
He leaned back in his chair. "No … for two reasons.” He counted them on is thick fingers as he spoke. “I always give the hunted a chance and I am merely the tool of the King, his weapon. The dead are more likely to haunt him than me."
Daynor looked confused. "What do you mean you always give them a chance?"
So much for the quick thinker. I already knew, but Eric answered anyway.
"I always wait 'til they are alone and then challenge. If they kill me they go. It is a streak of compassion that I picked up from my predecessor."
Not much of a chance it seemed to me, for most men a fight with Eric was an execution, not a duel. But even if Eric did seem to appreciate bluntness, I wasn’t quite ready to speak up on that. So I went a different direction instead. "Eric, how the seven hells did you get into this business and why are you so bedamned good at it?"
There was much shifting in chairs as the others tried to look anywhere but at Eric, or me for that matter. I kept looking at Eric, and he at me. After an eternity he nodded.
“More beer first,” he said. Which was odd, as he hadn’t had much yet, but then neither had I. The others seemed to be making up for us though. So we quickly ordered up some more along with some bread and a couple of roast chickens.
"I grew up in a little village not too far north of here. It was there that I took the first step on the road to be the Royal Huntsman. I must have been eight summers because that was the year I accidentally burnt down the innkeeper's hay barn and my father was making me work all summer at the inn's stable."
Eric smiled as he reminisced. "I thought the punishment unusually harsh. It had been an old barn anyway and Master Willard seemed to find the affair rather amusing. He still worked me hard though.
"So there I was at the door of Willard's stable when a huge red stallion trotted up the village road. Even today I have rarely seen so fine a horse and you know how young lads are about horses. I was drawn to it like a bee to honey. I barely noticed the rider or the two pack animals trailing behind before they pulled up at the stable.
“I stepped forward, eyes only for the horse, I guess I thought I would take the bridle or something and the rider just said stop. It was that simple. Then I noticed him.
“There was nothing special looking about him, dressed in brown, bits of armour showing through. But the voice, and the eyes …” Eric shook his head, he seemed at a loss as to what to say.
“Leave the red he had said or it would have my hand off. It would have too, bloody great brute. But he handed me the other two while he looked after the red. He was so plain looking, with his brown clothes, and his brown bag of things, and his, to my untutored eye, plain old weapons. A brace of daggers, with a matching sword. All had a small brass cross on the guard … just above the blade.
“It was Steele of course, my predecessor. I helped carry his bag to the door because he fascinated me. Those eyes were what did it. They were filled with such pain, such anguish. We had a dog once that died of a wasting sickness and he had that same look in this eyes. That was his weakness I guess. Too much compassion. Forgot what his job was.”
It was odd to hear Eric talk of anguish and compassion in a voice that never seemed to change. Gone was cheery joking companion of earlier. Now we sat with a man who seemed bereft of any emotion whatsoever.
“Anyway, Master Willard met us at the door. I think he knew who Steele was. The way he licked his lips and threw me a funny look I figure he even knew why he was there.
“He was very polite to Steele as they went inside, offering a room. Willard tried to take the bag from me but I wouldn’t give it up. I was just too fascinated by this lean man with the plain weapons and the plain clothes. And even as an eight year old I could tell that this man somehow frightened Willard and I liked that. Willard had been an old bastard to me anyway.
“Steele then said he was looking for someone in town, and started to give a description … big, black hair, thick ropey arms. Willard froze, looking at me, not saying a word. ‘That’s my Dad’ I said, ‘biggest man in the district.’
“Steele looked at me then, if I thought there was pain in his eyes before, he looked like the world had ended now. He asked me my name and how old I was and where I lived. He bade me to stay with Willard. Then taking only his weapons, he rode away on his big red horse.
“I never saw my Dad again. See, my Dad was one of the Three Generals.”
This created stir among my friends. Daynor even gasped aloud. We all knew about the Three Generals, me more than the others I guess. Early in the King’s reign a cabal of three generals, unhappy with a young King forcing a war with three neighbours at once tried to stage a coup. It failed when they were betrayed by one of their own, a fourth General, who had been rewarded with a Dukedom in Aynsford.
The three had fled along with their officers and the position of Royal Huntsman had been created to track them all down. Steele had been the first.
Eric, still unemotional, helped himself to another chicken leg and took a bite before continuing.
“My dad was the first one he caught. Not the first rebel of course, he had been tracking down officers for six years. He was the first of the Generals though. I don’t know what happened out at the farm but Steele stopped and picked me up on the way back. All he told me was that my father was dead and that he had promised to look after me. Willard just watched us leave without saying a word.
“I don’t know how he persuaded the King I deserved to live. These days the King and I know better. Nits make lice. We are still tracking down the children of those rebels. I guess Steele was reluctant to go after them, not realising they were the spawn of trouble.”
Eric tossed the bone on the table and ever so carefully wiped his hands on a cloth as he continued to speak.
“Anyway he raised me from then on. Taught me how to hunt. He didn’t just wander around looking for tracks. He stayed here for the most part and ran a vast network of spies and informers. He also taught me weaponcraft. There was no better teacher, no better fighter. Those plain seeming weapons with the brass cross were some of the finest ever made. Perfectly balanced, with them he could defeat any three of the Kings’ Guard.
“He continued to hunt the rebels down. Killing them off one by one. It took ten more years for him to find the last one. By then he barely seemed to sleep. He let the job get to him. He thought about the dead too much. He took the weight on his own shoulders instead of leaving it at the King’s feet where it belonged.
“Then he disappeared. And I took over the position. By then I was nearly twenty. The King was used to having me around I guess, and I could best all but Steele in combat.”
Daynor interrupted then. He had both his elbows on the table and a full pint mug had been sitting in front of him since the second round had arrived. He seemed less entranced by Eric than the others.
“What really happened to Steele?” he asked. “I mean we all know that the first hound disappeared mysteriously, but that was almost twenty years ago. You of all people should have been able to find him.”
Eric leaned back in his chair and it creaked ominously. He looked around at us. He seemed to be gauging us, studying us anew. He rocked slightly in his chair, eyes passing from one of us to another.
“I suppose enough time has passed. The story can be told.” He leaned forward again and stared at a point on the wall above my head, as if the tale was written there.
“The duties were too much for Steele. He broke when the King sent him after the Black Bitch, the King’s cousin, Alanna. She had been married to Garsh, the last General Steele tracked down. She was the mastermind of course; the generals needed her for their claim.
“He eventually found her and instead of killing her, he took her and her child, and fled. That was when the King came to me. I pledged my service to him in my own blood. Hunting down the nits and whelps of the rebels was the lesser part of my job. For the King my primary task was to find the traitor Steele, the Black Bitch and her son and kill them.
“It took me twelve years to find Steele. He heard I was in town and met me in the street. Gave me this, he did.” Eric drew a finger along a scar on the side of his face. “He was old by then though and was missing those brass cross weapons of his. I may have killed him but he succeeded in the end. The Black Bitch and her nit escaped.
“I eventually found her but by then she had died a natural death.” He paused a moment. “Still looking for the kid though.”
Daynor was now looking very uncomfortable. He had pushed the pint away untouched and was eyeing Eric nervously. Eric seemed not to notice, and was still staring at the wall above my head.
That was when I asked the question, the one I had wanted to ask for such a long time.
“Eric, why keep doing it? If Steele, with all his dedication, couldn’t stomach it after the original rebels were done for, then why keep on? Is there an honour in hunting down the frightened few, just to please the King, or cow anyone else who might bear him ill will? Is there really a ‘threat’ or is this all in the King’s head?”
It was a strange question for one of the King’s guard, and Eric knew it. He was looking at me carefully now, ignoring the others, he nodded before he began to speak.
“There are always enemies within our borders, not just the nits and whelps of those bygone rebels. They are everywhere masquerading as common farmers, or shopkeepers … or even soldiers. They think they are safe in their secrecy, but I know what they do. I know what they think. So does the King and when he decides it is time for them to see the error of their ways, then I act. We can not be strong in face of enemies from without, unless we crush those enemies within. I do it because I keep this Kingdom strong.”
Eric was leaning forward in his chair now. His voice hadn’t changed but his fists were clenched on the arms of the chair, as if trying to strangle it into submission. It was the first emotion he had shown. The entire tale of woe, his father’s death, killing the man who raised him, the murders of hundreds, and the only emotion he showed was anger at imaginary threats. I stole a glance at the others. Their impassive faces said it all. They at last knew what we were dealing with.
“But those few rebels are still about. Proof is in recent deeds,” he went on. “Duke Aynsford’s death last week was not natural. He was murdered. The one member of nobility the King trusted, the one who saved him from the Three Generals.”
He paused now, leaning back in his chair again. He seemed to have calmed himself.
“Only a member of the King’s Guard could have done that deed … when and where it happened. And whoever did it was forced to leave a weapon behind, wedged into the body. A dagger, with a brass cross on the handle, right above the blade, Steele’s old dagger. Only one person could have had that, the Black Bitch’s son.”
He had dropped his gaze from the wall and we were looking at each other, eye to eye. The others had to have caught on, but I didn’t dare look at them. They hung motionless on the edge of my vision, like portraits in a hallway.
“I have just one question little nit,” he said. “Why the Duke first? If you stuck the mate of that dagger in your belt into the King first then this would be over. You’ve been in the Guard for nigh on six months. There must have been an opportunity.”
He was watching me very carefully now, one big hand wrapped around the handle of the dagger at his belt. I let him stew for a moment, then slowly drew my dagger, the one with the small brass cross on the guard. He tensed briefly as I jammed into the table.
“The King is old. He is going to die soon anyway. Besides, do you think I left my dagger in the Duke by accident? Oh no, I wanted it to be found. I wanted to be found. I wanted to be found by you.”
I stood up and glanced quickly around at my friends. Their stunned faces mirrored the uncertainty on Eric’s face.
“I didn’t come here for the King, Eric. I came here for the murderer who hides behind his throne. I will wait for him outside.”
With that I turned and walked for the door, drawing my sword … Steele’s sword … as I went. I could hear Eric’s chair scrape as he got to his feet to follow me. I didn’t look back. Eric was about to find out just how good a teacher Steele really was.
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento