Songs of the Earth (10 page)

The wooden chair was upright as a saint and unyielding as the black oak of Traitor’s Gate. Gair shifted as best he could with his arms fastened behind the chair back, but it was no good. His backside had lost all feeling.

Sober and patient as crows on a fence, three questioners watched. Identical in their black robes, their masks of unglazed porcelain, nothing distinguished which one spoke.

‘Are you uncomfortable?’

He nodded. His shoulders burned, neck aching with the effort of keeping his head up.

‘This will all be over shortly, then you can rest.’ The soft, mellifluous tones were more suited to the confessional than the stark whitewashed chamber where the questioners performed their work. ‘Perhaps have a bath, a hot meal. Would you like that?’

Another nod. Hot water. Warm, fluffy towels to wrap him up, like snuggling into summer clouds. Yes.

‘All we want is the truth.’ Different voice this time, harsher, flat as stone. A proper questioner’s voice.

‘I’ve told you the truth.’

One mask turned away. One didn’t move at all. The third, in the middle, tilted inquisitively.

‘Have you? You cannot have done, or you would not be here. The questions are very simple. Why won’t you answer them truthfully?’

‘I’ve told you the truth.’

‘Come now, Gair,’ chided the smooth voice, a schoolmaster disappointed with a favoured pupil. ‘You know that’s not so. We have been patient with you – and it is such a little thing to ask. All we want is the truth. That is our task, to seek out the truth. All you have to do is tell us. It’s really very easy.’

Always the same questions, and he had answered them more times than he could remember. He had given them the truth, over and over. He’d told them what he thought they wanted to hear, but untruth did not satisfy them either. They asked their questions again and were hurt when he had nothing new to say. And he was so tired of it.

‘There’s nothing more I can tell you.’ He jerked at the restraints and the thick leather cuffs cut into his wrists. ‘How many more times do you want to hear it?’

‘Lying is a sin before the Goddess,’ said the harsh voice abruptly. ‘The world is as it is, and to say otherwise is to demean the perfection of Her creation. Answer the questions put to you, or face the penalty for your sin!’

‘I have answered the questions.’ Blood trickled over Gair’s hands.

‘Who is your demon?’

‘I don’t have a demon.’

‘Who is your demon?’

‘I don’t have a demon! I’ve told you a thousand times!’

‘
Who is your demon?
’

He shook his head. It was pointless. Same questions; the same answers, round and round for ever. A hundred years in that damned chair, with his arse numb and his legs twitching with cramps he couldn’t ease because they were chained to the floor. A thousand
years in that dank little chamber breathing the acrid smoke of stale lamp oil and his own stink. Pointless.

‘
WHO IS YOUR DEMON?
’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘Speak, boy, and be saved! Who is your demon?’

‘I don’t have a demon! For the love of the Goddess, aren’t you listening to me?’ His voice cracked. ‘I don’t have a demon!’

‘Blasphemer!’

‘Blasphemy is a sin, Gair. Taking Her name in vain like that …’ Smooth-voice shook his head slowly, sadly.

‘Tell us what we want to know,’ the other questioner snapped. ‘Be truthful!’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’ Gair’s fists clenched and unclenched, fingers sliding greasily in his own blood. ‘I’ve already told you the truth. I don’t have a demon. I don’t have a familiar. There is no coven.’

‘Just answer the questions.’

‘I’ve answered them. What more do you want?’

‘We want the truth.’

Finally, the third questioner spoke. His voice was cultured, silky. Refined, even. ‘You have not yet given us the truth. Therefore, you must be encouraged to be truthful.’ One black glove emerged from a sleeve and made a small gesture.

Unseen hands slipped a bolt behind the chair and Gair’s arms swung forward. At once a hot, prickling tide swept through them as circulation was restored, then they were jerked away from his sides by the ropes that led from the cuffs to iron rings in the walls and thence to the questioners’ silent, soft-footed assistants.

‘Please, no.’

Arms outstretched by the ropes, he was lifted out of the chair. His cramped legs howled. Higher. Returning blood stabbed him with tiny needles. Higher again. Hot-wire pain in every muscle. Sweat stung his bloody wrists.

‘Goddess, please!’

Hemp creaked, taut as mast-shrouds.
O Mother be thou a light and comfort to me now and at the hour of my death
. Toes scrabbled for purchase on the floor.
I am a supplicant before thee
—

‘Please!’ Gair gritted his teeth against the pain
a light and comfort to me
if he could just straighten his legs, get the balls of his feet under him
now and at the hour of my death
— ‘What do you want?’

‘Just answers to our questions, Gair.’ Smooth-voice sounded resigned. ‘Tell us the names.’

‘I don’t know any names,’ Gair gasped. Fresh sweat broke over his skin. Holy Mother his shoulders hurt. ‘There is no one else.’

Behind him, he heard a serpentine slither; leather uncoiling on stone. His mouth dried. When he tried to swallow, his throat made a brittle click. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say!’

Then the tawse sang and licked his naked back with fire.

Gair flung himself awake, heart leaping in his throat. Merciful saints, he couldn’t get his breath. Fear had his lungs in an iron grip, pounding its drums in his ears. A shadow moved beside him.

‘Are you all right?’ Alderan asked.

Gair nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The night breeze chilled his sweaty neck. Sitting up, he leaned on his knees and waited for his runaway pulse to slow.

Alderan fetched a water bottle from the packs and pushed it into Gair’s hand. ‘Here.’

‘Thanks.’ The water was flat and tasted of leather but it cleaned the stale taste from his mouth.

‘I can give you something to let you sleep.’

Just leave me be
. ‘I’m all right.’

‘You need rest, Gair. I saw your back – they’d striped you like a
qilim
rug.’

I know
. ‘I said I’m all right.’ Gair drank some more water.

‘The offer’s there if you change your mind.’

I won’t
. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

‘No matter. I had to be up anyway.’ Alderan patted his shoulder and walked behind a gorse bush from where there shortly came the sound of a bladder being emptied. When he was done, he returned and rolled himself back in his blanket without another word.

Gair sipped water and stared out across the moor. Three days and a hundred miles between him and the Holy City, halfway to the Belisthan border, and he still couldn’t leave it behind. He rubbed his eyes. No chance he’d get back to sleep now. It was the wrong time of the night. Lumiel, the second moon, had barely dipped towards dawn; the questioners had favoured this time, the small hours between Second and sun-up when the soul’s waters were at their lowest ebb, when resistance was weakest. In this part of the night, dreams felt all too real.

He looked down at his still-swollen hand and tentatively flexed his fingers. The pain seemed a little reduced, but his hand had less strength than uncooked sausage. The ride to escape the Knights had done it no favours. Saints, he was tired – tired and sore and adrift in the dark, still waiting for the dawn.

‘We should be in Belistha by the end of the week,’ Alderan said the next morning, heaving the saddle onto the back of his bay. ‘About three weeks from there to Mesarild, if the weather stays fair.’

Gair made a noncommittal sound, fumbling with his own saddle-girths. He could cinch it one-handed, once he got the strap through the buckle; it was feeding the strap through in the first place that was the problem. An insect tickled across his forehead. He dropped the girth and swatted it away, but the prickling intensified, the insects crawling inside his skin.

He swore. ‘Alderan, I can feel the witchfinder.’ Straightening up, Gair scanned the rumpled moor in the direction of Dremen. Red heather and clumps of gorse, and crusty tors poking through
the thin soil like bones through a rotten blanket. No sign of a pursuit. ‘I can’t see anyone.’

‘We’re a long way from Goran’s jurisdiction here.’ Alderan sounded doubtful.

‘So why’s the witchfinder still looking?’ Gair turned back to his patient horse and struggled with the girth-straps, swearing in frustration.

‘Slow down, lad, slow down. Let me do that.’

‘I can manage,’ Gair growled and snicked the buckle-tongues into the holes on the third attempt.
Finally!
He gathered up the reins and mounted, glancing round their campsite to ensure they’d left as little trace as possible. Fire-stones were scattered, turf replaced. In a day or two the crushed grass would spring back. It was the best they could do.

‘I want to get away from here, Alderan,’ he said. ‘As far away as possible.’

‘All right, I understand,’ the old man soothed, securing the last buckle on his bags. He swung up into the saddle. ‘Can you still sense him?’

Gair nodded. ‘It’s faint, but it’s there.’

‘He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. Goran must have paid him well.’

A wind-scoured border stone at the side of the road four days later was the only indication that they had passed out of Dremenir and into the southernmost reaches of Belistha. The landscape reminded Gair of Leah, up near the foothills of the Laraig Anor. He had travelled league upon league up there, just a boy on a sturdy fell pony, watching the seasons turn from winter to spring, summer to autumn. He clamped down hard on those memories. No good would be had from letting them linger. There was nothing for him in Leah any more.

Now the main roads were choked with caravans, trailing huge dust clouds that coated everything within half a mile in fine grit. Alderan swung off the highway onto narrower roads that wound down through deer country to the greener, gentler lowlands. Three weeks after leaving Dremen, they joined the broad Imperial highway from Fleet in Arennor and turned south towards Mesarild. Two days down the highway, Gair felt the crawling, nettle-sting touch of the witchfinder again.

‘He’s closer,’ he said.

Alderan glanced up from his cookfire where he stirred a pot of stew. He had proved to be a better than fair trail cook, conjuring hearty meals from whatever supplies he had, or could catch with a snare, like this rabbit, seasoned with a handful of herbs from the roadside.

‘Our watery-eyed friend? Can you tell where he is?’

Gair got to his feet and turned slowly in a full circle, staring into the towering trunks of the beechwood surrounding their camp. The sensation intensified a little when he faced east of north. He pointed. ‘That way.’

‘Any idea how far?’

‘No. He’s closer, or trying harder.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘I can’t. I’m guessing.’ He looked round when the old man said nothing and found him studying the stew-pot as if the gravy had just curdled, spoon motionless in his hand. ‘Alderan?’