The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (8 page)

“I will,” she said.

“Then you will not be bound.”

And so it was.

It was late in the afternoon when the king’s man came to the law house. He came in and placed the bow and quiver on the desk in front of Ulric without a word. He turned to go.

“Stay,” Ulric said. “What does this mean?”

“I am not bound to speak to you,” the soldier said.

“Bound or not you will stay and speak or there will be blood,” Ulric told him.

The man smiled. “From you, fat man?”

Ulric lifted a small crossbow out from under his counter and laid it on the top. “If need be,” he said. The black weapon gleamed with purpose. It was no toy.

“You’d shoot over this?” the soldier asked. He eyed the crossbow.

“In a moment,” Ulric said. “That is Arla’s bow. She would not be easily separated from it. You will tell me what has happened.”

The king’s man shrugged. “I’ll tell you,” he said, and he did. He was one of the four who had been waiting for Arla, so he told the story as what he had heard and seen, and Ulric listened. “So you see,” the man finished, “she is unharmed and held in the citadel at the king’s pleasure.”

Ulric put the crossbow back under the counter. “You may go,” he said. The king’s man went. Ulric stood for a moment looking at the now empty doorway, then he turned and went back through the law house. Sam Hekman would have to be told.

*

The citadel was the most imposing structure in the old town. It boasted thick walls five times the height of a man, a double gate, four towers, and dozens of men on the walls. Sam had never been inside. For all his life it had been derelict, broken gates, shattered towers, a reminder of the power of the Faer Karan. Now it was rebuilt, and a reminder of the king’s weakness.

Weakness, of course, was a relative term. The king had five hundred heavily armed men. Sam had less than a dozen, and they were scattered across the city.

Sam came to the citadel alone. He walked right to the gate and confronted the soldiers who guarded it.

“I am here to see the king,” he announced.

The soldier in charge of the gate looked him up and down. He knew who Sam was and that it would not do to simply refuse him.

“The king is not here,” he replied. “He is in the Great House.”

Sam judged that he was telling the truth. He was undecided for a moment whether to insist on seeing Arla or going directly to the king, but he decided on the king. Arla would not benefit greatly from a visit.

He turned away and walked towards the Great House, the home of the kings of Samara. It was another derelict that had been rebuilt, at least in part. The place had been home to the Tarnell line for centuries before the Faer Karan, and now again.

It was a journey of a few hundred paces, but the nature of the city changed in that short distance. The buildings that crowded the old town allowed the king’s house a respectful distance. They stood back and admired it. It was a wishful admiration for the most part. There were traces here and there of past glories, graceful arches, slender columns, a hint of colour in a broken window, but the newer construction was solid and lacking in art.

Sam walked across an open courtyard decorated with blue flowers to the great door and faced another soldier.

“I am here to see the king,” he said.

“Have you been summoned?” the soldier asked.

“In a way,” Sam replied. “He has had one of my officers arrested.”

“Your business is with the council, lawkeeper,” the soldier said.

“Today it is with the king.”

They looked at each other. Time passed. The soldier turned inside. “Take a message to the king,” he said. “Tell him the chief lawkeeper of Samara seeks audience.”

“Thank you.”

“The king may not be pleased with you, lawkeeper,” the soldier said.

“Indeed?”

“You knew where Fasthand was for days.”

Sam didn’t reply. His business, as he had said, was with the king. Nothing would be served by engaging a soldier in conversation. The soldier seemed to resent his silence, and they waited uncomfortably until the messenger returned. Sam leaned against the stone work of the door and looked out at the city, not really seeing the buildings or the people, or even the sky and the sea. Instead he saw a man driving a spike into the head of a child. He saw it over and over again. Twenty years and more. That is what he ought to be doing, stopping that. But he needed Arla. He sensed in her the sort of mind that saw the same way Sam saw. She grasped things more quickly than others, and she showed courage. More importantly she wasn’t knocked off balance by her outrage. Gilan and the others, most of them, grew angry, lost sight of what was important. It was as though Sam and Arla both had something burned out of them. For both of them horror was an old travelling companion.

“The king will see you.”

He had almost expected to be refused. He followed the messenger through cool stone hallways lit by windows set high above. The floor was stone and their boots set up an echo in the stone so they sounded like a shuffling procession. They passed other soldiers who watched them with sharp eyes.

They arrived at a door, and yet more soldiers. The messenger knocked. A voice called from within, and Sam was ushered into the presence of Simon Tarnell, King of Samara.

He’d seen the king before. Sam had been one of Hagar Del’s advisors at the Mage Lord’s discussions of the future of Samara, but he had no idea if the king recalled his face. They’d not seen each other since those fraught times, and he remembered the king as a bitter man with a peevish voice insisting on his right to rule unfettered. He remembered him humbled by the Mage Lord.

Simon Tarnell had not changed much. His hair was the same peppered grey, his body was still a hard soldier’s body and his clothes were the same warlike garb as Sam remembered: a belted mail shirt, a sword, steel-plated boots. He stood by a cold fire, facing the door and by his side was a table on which rested a full glass of wine.

“Lord King.” Sam bowed.

“Hekman,” the king said. “You find me celebrating.” He took a deliberate sip of his wine. It was an act, though. Celebrating? Alone? The king was attempting to rebuke Sam, to forestall him.

“You have seized one of my officers,” Sam said. “I wish her released.”

The king stared at him for a moment. “You’re talking about Fasthand, Arla Fasthand?”

“Arla Crail is an officer of the law keepers,” Sam said.

“She killed Petron, my son.”

“Are you accusing her of murder, Lord King?” Sam asked.

The king seemed astonished by everything that Sam said. But Sam was deliberately ignoring the king’s words. He was sticking to what he had intended to say, what he had planned. The king put down his wine and took an angry step towards the law keeper.

“I am not
accusing
anyone of anything, Hekman. She killed my son. If one of my officers had not sworn to grant her one more day she would already be dead.”

“If there is a crime, there must be a trial,” Sam said.

“There will be no trial.”

Sam looked hard into the king’s eyes. He saw anger, determination, grief. He saw weakness.

“Lord King, why do I exist?”

The king’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Something to ask your parents, Hekman.”

“Why does the lawkeeper of Samara exist? You know why.”

“The city needs law,” the king said. It was a vague response, and avoided the truth.

“The lawkeepers exist because they have to, because your men are so disliked by the people of Samara that when you set them to patrol the city they were killed, one by one. Arrows from dark alleys, sharp daggers in crowded streets. You could not have held the city because the people do not trust you. You abused them.”

“I am the king,” Tarnell said.

“And yet you must be subject to the law, as all in Samara are subject to the law. There must be one law, or no law at all. Your people know it, Lord King.”

“That is nonsense.”

“Is it? If you do not grant Arla Crail a public trial then I will discharge those I have recruited and close the lawkeepers’ office because there is no law in Samara. The people will see it. They will understand.”

“You would not.”

“You may test that assertion, but I do not advise it.”

“I will appoint another lawkeeper.”

“A king’s man?” Sam shook his head. “Besides, I was appointed by the council.”

“The council answers to me.”

“The council advises you. I suggest that you seek their advice in this.”

The king was truly angry now, and Sam thought that Tarnell might strike him, but the point was well made, and the king understood. The peace of the city would collapse. You cannot rule a city of a hundred thousand with five hundred thugs unless they consent to it, and Sam was certain that they would not. There had been too many years of beatings and murders by the king’s men. Anyone who collaborated with the Ocean’s Gate guard had been targeted, and that collaboration was the only way of surviving for so many Samarans.

“Kitran!” the king’s shout brought the soldiers back into the room. The audience was over, it seemed. Sam was pushed from the room, hurried away from the king’s displeasure. It did not matter. He had said the words, and they were no idle threat. He believed, he knew, that if he disbanded the lawkeepers the city would rise in revolt. They were the thin line that kept the people and the king apart, the fragile mechanism of trust.

Sam was thrown out onto the street, but he picked himself up and dusted his clothes off. He smiled.

He had planted the blade of his argument where it would do most for his cause.

Arla knew that she had a day to live. She had been brought to a cell in the citadel, and she had seen the surprise on the faces of the king’s soldiers there. She was supposed to be dead, and it was only her captor’s oath that had bought her one more night and morning.

The cell they held her in was small. It contained a straw pallet on the floor and nothing else, but Arla did not expect to sleep. She kept away from the door and put her back to the wall, sat with her knees pulled up to her chin and waited.

Hekman would do something.

It was a strange thing, but her captor, the officer who had sworn to grant her a day, had come to visit her. It was almost as though they were friends. It was respect, she supposed, on both sides, for promises kept. The bow had been delivered, she was told, and more surprisingly the fat man, Ulric, had threatened the soldier who had delivered it with a crossbow. That alone gave her hope. If Ulric was capable of such a thing, what might Hekman do?

She recognised Hekman as a kindred spirit. He felt everything, but showed nothing. Arla had long ago learned the same lesson, but it did not mean that he would not act. She thought of Hekman as a drawn bow, an arrow on a tight string. Given the right touch he would fly to whatever target he desired.

There was no window in her cell, so she had no idea what time of day it was beyond her estimate of the time she had sat here. Evening, she guessed. The world beyond the cell door had been silent since it closed, so she was alert when the sounds of a commotion reached her through its thick wooden planks. She heard stamping feet, and knew that it was a thing the king’s men did when they saluted, so someone of note was in the outer room.

She heard the bolts drawn, and she stood. The door opened.

Arla had never met the princess Calaine, but like everyone else she had heard stories. She had assumed a degree of exaggeration was involved. Calaine was described as fair, as beautiful, plain dressing, remarkable. There was no exaggeration. The woman who stood in the doorway must be Calaine. It could be no other. Her clothing was a softer echo of the soldier’s garb, her hair, a pale honey blond, was tied back in a simple tail, and eyes like chips from a summer sky looked out of a face that seemed to deserve them. Yet the princess looked familiar, her face tickled the memory. In the moment she could not place it.

Arla bowed. It seemed the right thing, the only thing to do.

“You are Arla Crail?” the princess asked. Even her voice did not embarrass her looks.

“I am, Do Regana.” Arla did not know what to expect. She had killed this woman’s brother. It had been purely in self defence, in defence of her patrol, but that made no difference to the king. Calaine gestured and two wooden chairs were brought in by the turnkey. One was placed for Arla and Calaine sat on the other. Clearly there was to be a conversation.

“For the sake of clarity, I will tell you first that I am sorry to see you here in my father’s cells. I do not hold you responsible for Petron’s death. It was one incident among many in a war that had dragged on centuries longer than it should.”

It was as fair a word as she could have hoped for. She did not know what to say in return. It had been a pointless death. Petron had run at her, sword drawn, over a distance of twenty paces. She could have put three arrows in him in the time it took to cover such a distance. One had been enough. Of course she had not known that it was Petron. He had just been a man, a royalist, and drunk.

“For my part I regret every life that I have taken.”

Calaine nodded. She did not smile and Arla felt no warmth from her.

“Enough of the past,” she said. “Tell me about this killer that stalks our streets.”

Again, Arla was surprised. She had not expected Calaine to be interested in lawkeeper matters, but if it was so then she had no issue with sharing their knowledge. She told the story of the body that Hekman had found, the secrets that the death man had revealed, the burning of the warehouse, Gilan’s discoveries, and finally the abortive attempt to question Tarquin. Calaine listened carefully, asking the occasional question. The tale ended, or as least stopped, there being no more to tell.

“How many does Hekman think have been killed?” Calaine asked.

Arla shrugged. “Dozens, a hundred, perhaps hundreds.”

The princess shook her head. “And I thought Ella knew everything that went on in the city,” she muttered. “How could we not know?”

It wasn’t a question that Arla felt qualified to answer. She didn’t try.

“Do you think it is more than one man?” Calaine asked. It was not a thought that had crossed Arla’s mind, but now that Calaine asked the question it seemed quite possible. It would help to explain the longevity of the killing spree, and perhaps the numbers of victims, especially if magic was involved. She would have to remember to mention it to Hekman.

But of course she might not be able to.

Calaine stood. Arla stood as well.

“I will speak to my father,” Calaine said.  She left and the cell door was closed behind her. Arla sat down. If Calaine was on her side then there was real hope, but somehow she wasn’t quite sure if Calaine
was
on her side.