The Baker's Boy (9 page)

Dreams were one
thing, the reality of life in the castle was quite another. If the night
stirred his imagination, then the day stifled it. What was he but a baker's
boy? He had no skills to speak of, no future to plan for, no money to call his
own. Castle Harvell was all there was, and to leave it would be to leave
everything. Jack had seen the way beggars were treated at the castle-they were
spat upon and ridiculed. Anyone who didn't belong was considered lower than the
lowest scullery maid. What if he left the kingdoms only to end up scorned and
penniless in a foreign land? At least the castle offered protection from such
failure; whilst in its walls he was guaranteed a warm bed, food to eat, and
friends to laugh with.

As Jack climbed
the stairs to Baralis' chamber, he couldn't help thinking that a warm bed and
food to eat were beginning to sound like a coward's reasons to stay.

Baralis was well
pleased with the events of the last five years. The country was still embroiled
in a disabling war, a war that served only to sap the strength and resources of
both Halcus and the Four Kingdoms. Many bloody battles had been fought and
heavy casualties were incurred on both sides. Just as one party seemed to gain
the advantage, the other party would suddenly receive some unexpected help; news
of enemies' tactics would be whispered in an interested ear, details of supply
routes would fall into improper hands, or sites of possible ambush were
revealed to unfriendly eyes. Needless to say, Baralis had been responsible for
every fatal betrayal.

Stalemate suited
him nicely. With the attention of the country focused to the east, Baralis
could hatch his own plots and follow his own agenda at court.

As he sipped on
mulled holk to soothe the pain in his fingers, he reflected on the state of the
king. Since Lesketh had taken the arrow to the shoulder, he had never been the
same. The wound had healed after a few months, but the king had been badly
weakened and could no longer mount a horse. The king's wits were also, sadly,
not all they had been, not that the king had ever been a great thinker, thought
Baralis spitefully. If anything, he may have gone a little easy on the poison
the day of the hunt: after all, the king could still remember his name!

The king's
affliction was never mentioned aloud at court. If people talked of it at all,
it was in hushed voices in the privacy of their own chambers: it was not a
subject to speak of lightly. The queen was known to view any such talk as
treason. Queen Arinalda had unofficially taken the king's place as ruler, and
Baralis grudgingly admitted that the woman was doing a better job than her
dull, hunt-obsessed husband ever had.

She had performed
a delicate balancing act; due to her efforts the kingdoms were not perceived as
a weak country lacking a leader. She had kept up diplomatic ties with Bren and
Highwall, and had even signed a historic trading agreement with Lanholt. The
Halcus were seething at her success. But she had shown wisdom in her restraint
as well as her strength, and had not given the Halcus too much cause to
worry-else Halcus might be forced to go in search of allies and the war
escalate beyond the control of the two countries.

Today Baralis
would tie up a loose end, one that had been left dangling since the day the
king was shot. Lord Maybor had been a thorn in his side for many years now.

The man had been
party to the events leading up to the shooting, but it had become evident that
Maybor regretted his actions and Baralis feared the man might use the incident
against him. There was potential for blackmail and other unpleasantness, and
Baralis ill liked having reason to be wary of any man.

The portly lord
was up to something else that gave him cause for concern. Maybor was trying to
secure a betrothal between his daughter, Melliandra, and the queen's only son,

Prince Kylock.
Baralis was not about to let that proposal take place: he had his own plans for
the king's heir.

"Crope!"
he called, eager to be relieved of his problem. "Yes, master." His
huge servant loomed close, blocking all light in his path. He always carried a
small painted box and was busy stuffing it out of sight into his tunic.

"Go down to
the kitchens and get me some wine."

"There's wine
here already. I'll fetch it for you." Crope started to reach for the wine
jug.

"No, you
repulsive simpleton, I need another type. Now listen carefully, for I know
you're liable to forget." Baralis spoke slowly, pronouncing each word
distinctly. "I need a flagon of lobanfern red. Have you got that?"

"Yes, master,
but you always say lobanfern red tastes like whore's piss."

"This wine is
not for me, you feckless imbecile. It's a gift." Baralis stood up,
smoothing his black silk robes. He watched Crope leave the room and then added
in a low voice, "I hear Lord Maybor has a fondness for lobanfern
red."

Crope appeared
some time later with a jug of wine. Baralis snatched it from him. "Go now,
fool." Baralis uncorked the jug and smelled its contents. He grimaced;
only a barbarian could like this sickly brew.

He took the wine
and moved over to a tapestry hanging on the wall, lifted it up, and ran his
finger over a particular stone and entered his private study. No one besides
himself knew of its existence. It was where he did his most secret work, wrote
his most confidential letters, and manufactured his most potent poisons.

Poison was now one
of Baralis' specialities and, since gaining access to the libraries of
Tavalisk-who was himself a poisoner of high repute-Baralis had honed his skills
to a fine art. He now realized that the mixture he had used on the king's arrow
was the crudest of potions.

Baralis could now
make poisons that were infinitely more subtle, less detectable and more varied
in their results. It was a foolish practitioner who thought a poison's only use
was to kill or disable. No, poisons could be used for much more: they could be
made to slowly debilitate a person over years, effectively mimicking the
characteristics of specific diseases; they could corrupt a good mind and turn
it rotten; they could weaken a heart to a point where it stopped of its own
accord; they could paralyze a body but keep the mind sound.

Poison could rob a
man of his virility, his memory, or even his youth. It could stunt the growth
of a child or, in the case of the queen, prevent the conception of one. It was
all a matter of the skill of the poisoner, and Baralis was now in command of
such skill.

He moved toward
his heavy wooden desk where an array of jars and vials were placed. Most
poisons were better made fresh as needed-for poison, like men, lost potency
over time. Baralis smiled inwardly: time to cook up a batch.

Tavalisk entered
the small, damp cell. He held a scented handkerchief to his nose; the smell of
these places was always most unpleasant. He had just eaten a fine meal of
roasted pheasant stuffed with its own eggs, a truly remarkable dish, the
flavors of which still played in his mouth, whetting his plump tongue.
Unfortunately, as well as lingering on his tongue, a small portion of the
tenacious bird seemed to be caught between his teeth. Tavalisk pulled forth a
dainty silver toothpick from his robes and skillfully dislodged the offending
piece of fowl.

He found that
inflicting pain and food complemented each other perfectly: after eating a fine
meal he liked nothing better than to dabble in a spot of torture.

He regarded the
prisoner dispassionately. He was chained up by his hands to the wall, his feet
barely touching the ground. Tavalisk had to admit that the young man did have
an unusually high tolerance for pain. He had been kept in this dungeon for over
a year now. It might have been enough to kill another man. This one, however,
had proven to be most exceptional.

Tavalisk had
personally supervised the program of torture. Torture was, he considered, a
special skill of his. He had designed a specific schedule just for this one
prisoner, but was his prisoner grateful? No. This prisoner didn't even have the
decency to succumb to the torture. Burns to the feet had been useless,
starvation had been useless, the strain on his arms and wrists had been
useless. Even his personal favorite-hot needles in soft flesh-had proved
useless. He had been careful not to cause too much damage, though, and had
practiced great personal restraint, for Tavalisk had far worse punishments in
his repertoire.

He didn't want to
see this young man permanently disabled. He knew that the prisoner was a knight
of Valdis, that much was evident from the mark upon his arm-two circles, one
within the other, meaning the knight had attained the middle circle and was
obviously young to have done so. Unfortunately, the young man had visibly aged
since he had been under his care. No longer did the golden hair shine and the
cheek run smooth.

But that was of
little consequence to Tavalisk. What did matter was what the young man had been
doing when he'd been picked up. The knight had been snooping around asking
questions, wanting to find somebody, a boy he had said. When the spies had
brought him, bound and gagged, to their master, he had refused to speak.

There was one
thing which made Tavalisk suspect the knight was involved in something of
importance: when he had been brought in, he had in his possession a lacus skin.
That skin had Bevlin's mark upon it. Tavalisk was determined to find out what
connection the knight had to the aging wiseman.

Bevlin was
considered an old fool by most people, but Tavalisk preferred to give him the
benefit of the doubt. Eighteen years ago there had been a momentous sight in
the night sky. Tavalisk himself had even heard of it. Most people said it was a
sign that the next five years would bring good harvest. And indeed Rorn hadn't
had a bad year since-though gold not gain was harvested in this fair city. But
that aside, Tavalisk had the uncanny feeling that the sign had meant more, and
that Bevlin had somehow discovered what it was. The wiseman had ranted on about
doom and its usual accompaniment, destruction. All but Tavalisk had ignored
him: it never hurt to keep an eye on the doings of wisemen-like birds they
always knew when a storm was coming. If this prisoner before him was sent on a
mission by Bevlin, then Tavalisk was determined to find out the reason behind
it.

Of late, he had
grown frustrated by the prisoner's silence and had decided upon another way to
discover who the knight was looking for and why. That was what brought him here
today. He was going to let the knight go free. All he would have to do is watch
and wait; the knight would lead him to the answers he sought.

"Guards,"
he called, moving the silken handkerchief from his face. "Free this man
and see he gets some water." The guards hammered the metal stakes from the
wrist irons and the prisoner fell heavily to the floor.

"He's out
cold, Your Eminence."

"I can see
that. Take his body and dump him somewhere in the city."

"Any special
part of the city, Your Eminence?" Tavalisk thought for a moment, a
mischievous smile spreading across his full lips. "The whoring quarter
will do nicely."

The city of Rorn
boasted the largest whoring quarter in the known world. It was whispered that
there was not a pleasure imaginable, no matter how illegal or bizarre, that
could not be bought for the right price.

The quarter was a
refuge for the miserable and the wretched: young girls barely eleven summers
old walked the streets, beggars racked with disease could be found on every
corner. Pickpockets and cutthroats waited in the shadows for a chance to
relieve an unsuspecting passerby of his purse or his life. Weapons and poison
and information could be purchased from the countless inns and taverns that
jostled for business on the filth-ridden streets.

The streets
themselves were so thick with human waste and rotting vegetation, it was said
one could tell an outsider by the cloth he held to his nose. It was not a good
idea to look like an outsider in the whoring quarter. Outsiders were an easy
mark for con men and thieves; they were asking to be robbed or tricked out of
their money. But still they came, drawn by the promise of illicit diversions
and the thrill of danger. Young noblemen and honest tradesmen alike stole into
the quarter as the day grew dim, looking for a game of chance, or a woman for
the night ... or both.

The sharp smell of
excrement was the first thing he became aware of. The next was pain. It was
unbearable, pulling every muscle into its knotted snarl. He tried to move through
it, to come out where there was now light, but he was too weak. He spiraled
downward to meet oblivion and found that it too was crafted from pain.

The dream
tormented him once more. He was in a small room. There were children around the
fire; two young girls, golden haired and rosy cheeked, smiled up at him, and
there was a baby in his arms. The door opened and something glittered brightly
on the threshold. Light from the vision eclipsed the glow of the fire, but not
its warmth. As he reached toward the brightness, the baby fell from his arms.
Stepping through the portal, the door closed behind him. The vision fled,
receding to a pinpoint on the horizon, and he turned back to the door. Only the
door wouldn't open. Try as he might, he couldn't get back to the room and the
children around the fire. In desperation he flung himself against the door. His
body met with stone.

He awoke with a
start, sweat dripping into the corners of his mouth. Something had changed and
unfamiliar air filled his lungs. It made him afraid. He was accustomed to his
cell, and now even the comfort of familiarity was denied him.

When had he been
released? He could barely recall when he'd last felt the cool brush of water
upon his lips. One thing was fixed in his mind, though, and that was his name:
he was Tawl. Tawl-but there had been more than that. Surely he had been Tawl of
somewhere or something. The vaguest of stirrings rose in his breast; his mind
tried to focus, but it was gone. He could not remember. He was just Tawl. He
had been imprisoned and was now free.