The Prodigal Troll (45 page)

A cold drizzle began to fall as they continued on their way and the coal of the sun expired behind the gray clouds. At times the drizzle turned to sleet. Maggot spied houses and farms in the hollows below the trail. Once they spied a bald, old man with stooped shoulders moving through an orchard, wrapping the bases of the trees, but aside from that, nothing stirred across the landscape all day but the two of them.

So Maggot, rapt in his stride across the slick, rock-strewn path, was not prepared when they came to the top of a hill and the city spread out below them through the dismal, gray haze. But then nothing in his experience could have prepared him for the size of it. A great stone bridge arched over a broad and turbulent river. A stone wall enclosed the length of the far shore, and beyond it a massive edifice rose whose top was round and smooth like a gourd, but glossed gold like the back of a giant beetle. Another building bulked behind that, surrounded by a round lake of water as dark as the sky. Jumbled around these two structures were other buildings, stretching as far as Maggot could see, upstream and down, too many to count. They were grouped around narrow paths like islands in a marsh, their browns and reds and tans all dulled by damp.

On this side of the river, partially obscured by the hills, Maggot saw fewer buildings. They were set back on higher ground much farther from the river's unwalled bank. One large building without a roof rose above the others, surrounded by a spider's web of wooden frames that bent and swayed in the wind. The few people that he saw moving were as small as ants in an anthill.

Maggot forgot to breathe until he said very quietly, "I had no idea there were so many people in all the world."

"Only fifteen thousand or so here," Bran said. "Maybe forty thousand in the province. It's grown quickly in the last decade, with the Baron's reputation and the Baroness's prosperity. A disastrous crop this year will set things back."

"Is this the Imperial City?" Maggot asked, recalling Bran's descriptions of the great city.

Bran laughed at him. "Not hardly. I've been there, to take my oath as a knight in the Empress's service. This is to the Imperial City what Damaqua's village is to this."

That village seemed a small and paltry thing to Maggot now, and he'd thought it huge. "A range of mountains, as to a single mountain, as to a hill."

"Yes," said Bran. "There's no one place you can stand to see the whole Imperial City, at least approaching it as I did from the east. The Baron has modeled this city on the Imperial City; m'lady Sebius more so as she builds the new official structures and her personal palace on this near bank."

Maggot squinted into the rain, drops running down his cheeks and dripping from his forehead. Lightning flickered, rippling through the clouds. Thunder clapped and chased it across the sky.

"Come," Bran said. "Let's go see the city at hand's length and find a decent roof."

He took them along a narrow, twisting path that descended quickly through steep walls on either side, making abrupt turns. The sky, dark all day, grew darker by the second, and the wind kicked up again, whistling in the passages around them. Bran picked up his pace until they were nearly jogging forward.

They rounded a sheer-faced hillside into the midst of a copse of trees and found themselves surrounded by a dozen startled soldiers who nevertheless had the wits to raise a hedge of spears around them. Bran reached out his hand, telling Maggot to stay calm.

"Two gods, I don't believe it," one man said.

A tall, lean boy, with soft brown skin and hair as black and thick as Maggot's, strutted outside the circle of spears-the boy that Maggot remembered from the hunt, the one who'd thrown the spear. "See!" he said, grinning. "The peasants do know this way into-wait!" He folded his hands behind his back. "Why this is the estimable Bran, come back from the dead."

Bran bent his head. "It is good to see you again also, Acrysy, m'lord."

"Did I give you permission to speak?"

Bran opened his mouth to answer, then slowly closed it.

"Of course, a traitor never asks permission," Acrysy said, swaggering over to Bran. "And here we have proof of your treason, sneaking back into the city with a peasant warrior."

Maggot's nostrils flared.

Acrysy paused in front of Maggot, his eyes widening. He stepped back, gripped the shaft of a spear, and jerked it toward Maggot's throat. "And this is the murderer who visited our hunting camp! This is the murderer who assaulted m'lady Eleuate, my bride-to-be! So the two of you were working together, even then. Now you reveal yourself truly, Bran, sneaking into the city to do murder again. This is even greater proof. Who did you come to murder this time? My mother? M'lady Sebius? Did you come to kill me this time?"

"I came to kill no-"

His hand shot out and slapped Bran's face. "Quiet! Traitors may not speak!" His breath came very quickly. He slapped Bran again.

Only Bran's lack of reaction prevented Maggot from striking back, despite the ring of spears.

"It is good you cut off your braid," Acrysy said. "It saves me the trouble of having it done. A base-born shepherd's son like you should never have been a knight."

One of the men lifted his knife to cut off Maggot's braid, and Maggot spun on him.

Acrysy let go of the spear shaft and jumped back. "Wait! Wait until we display them in public. I warned Sebius that an attack might come from this direction. Now she'll have to listen to me. Bind them!"

Maggot looked at Bran, puzzled. Bran thrust his hands out in front of him. A guard stepped forward and started wrapping them with rope. Overhead, lightning split the sky. The rain, only briefly in abeyance, resumed its slow fall.

"That's a nice knot there, Romy," Bran said. "Who taught you how to tie knots like that?"

"Enough of that," the guard said. He tied off the knot and flicked his eyes nervously toward Maggot. "Tell your friend to stick his hands out too."

"Hurry up," Acrysy said. He had a small, mushroom-shaped tent that he raised above his head to keep off the rain.

"Be careful-he won't like it, Romy," Bran said quietly. He looked over to Maggot. "Just stick out your hands. It'll be fine. Sebius will set things aright."

His half-smile and voice both gave away the lie. Or at least his uncertainty.

Maggot stuck out his hands, knotted into fists. When Romy stepped up to wrap the rope around them, Maggot rammed his fists into Romy's chin. As Romy flipped backward, Maggot ran.

He dodged the first butt-end of a spear, but the second slammed into the side of his head, and the next swept his feet out from under him. After that he lost track, curling up in a ball, with his elbows in front of his face while spear-butts and boots fell upon his ribs and back and head like hailstones. Someone tied his hands together between the kicks, and Maggot did his best to keep his wrists flexed, bent out, against the pressure of the ropes. Someone twisted the rope, so that the fibers bit into his skin, yanking Maggot to his feet. They took his knife and sword. Rain and wind lashed at them. Romy reached out to take the sack strung around Maggot's neck.

"I wouldn't do that," Bran said. "And I did warn you he wouldn't like being tied."

"Why not?" Romy said.

"It holds his father's foreskin. The lining of the bag is made from his grandfather's scrotum."

Romy's hand twitched back. "Gods of war and justice. Does that really do-"

"What did he say?" Acrysy shouted above the storm.

His words were cut off by two ferocious bolts of lightning, striking so close that the thunder sounded at once, shaking the air around them. The clouds ruptured, spilling a deluge so thick it was hard to see through.

"Forget it! Let's go!" Romy shouted.

The soldiers, heads down against the storm, prodded Bran and Maggot with their spears. The sharp tips did not annoy Maggot as much as the restraints, and the cold rain rolling off his skin did nothing to steal away the heat of his temper.

aggot's feet dragged in the mud as the soldiers shoved them down to the building covered by the spider's web of scaffolding.

"Put them in the cells," Acrysy said at the stone arch of the entrance. The rain drummed its fingertips on the toadstool that covered his head.

"We can't," Romy replied. "We still haven't repaired the damage the earthquake did to that wing."

"Earthquake?" Bran asked.

A shaft swung out and struck the side of his head. As he staggered, Maggot growled and lurched toward the guard who'd hit his friend. Several hands grabbed him, fists pounding his stomach and kidneys. The scaffolding began to sway in the wind, its upper frame knocking at the stone wall.

"Use one of the locked storerooms then," Acrysy shouted. He passed under the arch and disappeared into a doorway.

The soldiers grabbed Bran and Maggot roughly by their arms, dragging them through the slop into a small yard with walls on three sides. They entered a stone corridor lit by greasy torchlight. The air smelled of smoke, and people, but underlying it all Maggot tasted the cold and damp. As a group they stumbled down narrow steps, one of the men going ahead to open a heavy oak door. As Bran entered the room, Maggot glimpsed a low roof and bare walls. A hand in the middle of his back shoved him after Bran.

"It's nothing personal, m'lord Bran," Romy said.

The door slammed shut, ensconcing the two men in darkness.

As if he were in any other deep cave, Maggot explored the boundaries of their space, trailing his bound hands along the wall, feeling the joins at the corners, the seams at floor and ceiling. He went slowly, as if there might be hidden crevasses, but he found none. The walls were rough and the ceiling propped up by curving arches.

"What happened?" Maggot asked as he explored. "Why would they treat us this way? They are your people, your band."

"It's more complicated than that."

The voice came from right beside Maggot, down low. Bran sat against the base of the wall. Had Maggot taken another step, he would have tripped over him.

"Baron Culufre has ruled here for"-he paused-"seventeen years now. Yes, I was twelve then. But he comes originally from the Imperial City and so do almost all of his knights and soldiers, at least the core group. Only I ever rose to any position among his men."