Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I'll begin.
In Honest Men
The fire was strong, its orange tongues hissing
angrily at the rain that landed on its stolen meal. The moon was high
but diluted by banks of black cloud that crowded overhead, the
susurration of the leaves separating this small clearing from the
rest of the world. Two men were seated near the warmth, unable to
sleep for the damp ground, their backs sodden, their chests steaming.
One, no more than a boy, sits under the weight of
a large chain vest placed atop stinking rags, his normal wild sweep
of fringe plastered to his high cheek bones by the rain. A shield,
emblazoned with the painted emblem of an eagle rampant and a ragged
dent in its lower rim, lay in the mud beside him. At the boy's waist
a chipped short sword, too heavy for his meagre frame, glinted in
the crystalline drops that beaded its rusted hilt.
His opposite number loomed in the firelight, his
monstrously twitching shadow cast against the forest at his back. The
leather of his long leather coat shone like steel and his
wide-brimmed hat streamed water.
A long ebony cane was unceremoniously used to
stoke the flames as they spoke in hushed tones, exchanging stories of
times far gone; sometimes laughing, most times lamenting. Buried memories had a habit of struggling to the
surface, splinters of sorrow lodged into the pink flesh of
contentment; snagging you just when you thought yourself happy.
The larger of the two stared into the fire for
some time, the flames warped against wet leather, casting the steam
that rose from his shoulders as smoke.
“I was an honest man.”
He shifted, his coat grating against the iron-like
bark of the log on which he was sat. “Despite
all I've done, I had promised myself that no lies would be spoken. I
clung to it, this one good thing
- and kept it with me through dirt, and steel, and blood.”
A hip flask was
drawn from a pocket and he took a long pull. Proffering it, he waited for the coughs of his young companion to fade
before continuing.
“It was thirty
two years ago-” he looked up into the clouds in silent calculation,
“-to the day, during the siege of Seven Heights that I was caught
up in the final push for the outer gate. The men there, they were
animals: setting flame and violating everything they touched... it
was a siege, I suppose. Funny what looking like everyone else will do
to a man. Still.”
He glanced away,
gathering his thoughts.
“I was caught
in the middle – fighting under no one's banner and more likely than
not just another pile of meat to be hacked through. From the screams
inside the guard houses I was thinking that it would be important to
be on the winning side, so I found myself someone that wasn't all the
way dead and took the cloak and helmet he had. He struggled, but
he was too far gone. He was weak and bloodied, but the uniform was
pretty much pristine.”
The boy peered
across as him, rubbing a nick on his cheek with a grubby finger.
“Then what?”
The leather
creaked in a shrug. “I played the part. I waved a sword around,
charged fearlessly with them and shouted a bit. I was trying to get
out, to find a way out this madness I found myself in, my objective
forgotten. I'd been at the fort for some time waiting for a good
moment to take him: the church's influence was weak in this wild part
of the world, and the writ, I felt, would have been insufficient to
just drag so powerful a man away. So I waited, befriending one of his
servants. A young lady – you'd have liked her – a smile always on
that pretty face and a fringe that would never quite sit right.”
“But not so
today.” The flask was drained and was cast into the darkness. “I
would tell no lies, but what could I do? I had found her hiding in
the larder. She was so young.
I held her as the flames began to lick the thatched roof – I told
her, with this good thing
in my heart, that she would be fine, that we'd get out of here. It
would be okay.” The man's gravelly tones began to crack as he spoke
on, head first in his torment. “Then I heard the door behind us open:
three of the Legion looking for young flesh. What could I have done?
I was in no position to fight them off. But she was going to be fine!
We would get out of there! It would be okay!”
He was angry now, the stark image of her terrified face boiling
across his vision.
The boy leant
back as his companion's words sat between them, red and spiky, over
the flames.
“What did you
do?” His high voice was now a hoarse whisper.
The helmet didn't
fit. The smell of the dying man's breath filled the face-plate and
the stench of smoke and blood suffused his clothes. The jeering of
the Legion soldiers behind him was nearly drowned out by the
crackling of the inferno that was gripping the roof, embers falling
as stars around them. He looked again at those fear-filled eyes, and
felt small fists begin to beat his chest as his fingers closed around
the girl's throat. He pressed in, his mind screaming “it
will be OKAY!” to her as
bruises blossomed under his thumbs. She was trying to scream, and she
still refused to die. Remembering the boiling hatred of that
guttering croak he released a hand and smashed it again and again into her
face, hoping with every fibre of his being that she would fall silent
at last, released from this horror and what might have happened had
he not gotten there first.
The price of his
survival. He couldn't even remember her name.
He stood
suddenly, his answer so quiet it was nearly lost to the rain.
“I lied.”
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