Kaschar's Quarter Page 4

  - Words of the Emperor in Qepperdan, Matthieu Sartonné, as narrated to his page, Jarun Hichame

  Matthieu awoke to voices he could not at first understand. They surrounded him, some directly above him, others shouting from a distance. In an instant, there was a hand on his shoulder. More voices followed. All these things blended together in the delirium of shock and weariness to immobilize him entirely. He felt himself being rolled onto his back, until he stared directly up into a blinding sun. A handful of man-shadows danced before his eyes in the sunlight, speaking to him as if through a blanket around his head.

  Soon enough, he could pick out words.

  “Wot's 'e doin' 'ere in the muck?” said one.

  “Looks right well-to-do, this'un does,” said another. A third man spoke from behind these two as he pushed his way forward.

  “What 'ave we 'ere, a dandy from the city? Wot we doin' with 'im?”

  “I say we bleed 'im right 'ere in the street.”

  “I say you drop that pitchfork, Bernard,” said a fourth man, “or you will have no share in the spoils to come.”

  “But Jan,” the second man protested.

  “No,” replied the fourth man. “He may come in useful. Now pull him up out of that filth.” Bernard did, holding Matthieu under the armpits; he felt as heavy as a bundle of velvet.

  “Greetings, sir,” said the fourth man. “My name is Jan Hassebeck, and I am leader of this company. And who might you be?”

  Bernard released Matthieu so he could greet Jan, but as soon as he stepped forward the strength left his legs entirely and he collapsed again back onto the muddy road.

  When he came to yet again, he found that Hassebeck's men had put him astride a horse when it was clear he could no longer walk. It was a speckled plow mare, not a war horse, and these were no soldiers, though they marched around two-hundred strong. They were farmers, down from the northern mountains where they had presumably hidden from the Mentite horde.

  His head still reeled from the heat when he finally spoke to Hassebeck.

  “What do you want with me?” he pleaded. “Why take me back if everyone is dead?”

  “Are they, now?” the man replied. “Well, that will certainly make this endeavor of ours much easier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The recovery of our prize would be much more difficult if the previous owners were still alive.”

  “Then... You are robbers?”

  “No, not exactly. We are not robbing but returning. Specifically, returning the spoils to those whose sweat purchased them. How many sovereigns in gold did the wheat merchants pile up while those who grew that wheat languished on gruel and dandelions? How many?!” Matthieu was silent. “Too many, I say. And how many textile vendors strolled the avenues in the finest brocades and scarlets while those who raised their sheep shivered and froze in rags? For too long have the masses been eaten alive to sustain a class that knows neither hardship nor labor. Let their soldiers kill each other; I care not for titles or borders, only the longest-held desire of man: equality. We learn from scripture that the proud and the rich shall be made low before the end. I tell you, that time is now upon us!”

  Even if he had been capable of carrying on a conversation with Hassebeck, Matthieu had no desire to do so. A plunderer, nothing more, ready to pick over the bodies of his fellows for the scantest trace of gold or fine cloth. He distrusted him instinctively.

  After several minutes of marching on in silence, Hassebeck and his men had brought Matthieu to the sprawled gates of the city. Once there, groups of men started branching off down the side streets and alleyways, picking their way delicately over corpses and not-yet-congealed pools of blood. Jan Hassebeck remained behind with Matthieu and a handful of particularly burly men who circled the pair just out of earshot.

  “Tell us where else we must look for the treasures we seek,” said Hassebeck, “and you may yet live to see another sunset.” By this time, Matthieu had recovered enough to converse with the man.

  “You should not need me to tell a hovel from a mansion,” Matthieu retorted contemptuously.

  “I know you greedy wretches, always finding more unlikely places to covert your spoils. You must know of something: a cellar, a barn, perhaps an attic where a secret cache lies hidden.”

  “Who are you?” asked Matthieu, changing the subject. “You are no farmer yourself, else you would not speak as one educated.”

  “I do not have to be one of them to sympathize with their plight. After all, we humans all come from the same dust. Far be it from me to distance myself from another man simply because he is closer to that dust than I.”

  “Then you lead these men?”

  “I lead them to their goal, yes. Without cohesion, they would surely squat in their shacks as they have done for all these feudal centuries and never know anything different.”

  “Then what do you hope to gain by doing this?”

  “Why, what other reward could I possibly want than to surround myself with such men as share my vision?”

  “You make of yourself a king.”

  “In the end, my boy, the worms of the flesh feast upon the mean and mighty alike. I say let them feast! Death is the true leveler of man, for even their gilded trinkets won of my fellows’ toil will now return to those who paid in sweat and blood.”

  “Wealth cannot save you in the end. It saved none here and it will not save you.”

  “I say your greed is misplaced. The only reason you still live now lies untended in the mansions of the oppressors, ripe for the taking! It is in your best interest that you do only what I say and nothing more. Wouldn't want to end up like this poor wretch here, now would you?” Jan pointed with his foot at the twisted remains of an apron-clad townsman, sprawled on his back to display to the world a wicked gash across his belly.

  “I thought as much,” he replied to Matthieu's silence. “Now let us find a suitable dwelling place for such esteemed company as this!” Motioning to his farmer guards, the company moved up the central thoroughfare and towards a formerly wealthy area of the burned-out city.

  After more traveling, they came upon the City Hall and its familiar array of corpses, attending banners and flies shifting in a lazy breeze. A regally vast structure of granite and copper, massive and intricately-carved columns flanked the entryway as a small army of winged grotesqueries stood watch along the roofline. Being granite themselves, there was nothing the weathered gargoyles could do about the filthy intruders invading their domain; they only squatted, silent sentinels to the ruin of their city. Tying their horses outside, Jan's little band entered the building through the charred splinters that had been the front doors.

  A vaulted ceiling in a style now two centuries old rose above them like the arc of the firmament itself, and to all but the architecturally trained eye it seemed to be supported just as securely as that heavenly expanse. Just as Saint Maunde's Cathedral had once been before the crusaders' flames had claimed it as well, no columns rose to meet the arches above, which rested upon walls over a hundred feet high. Only a few lonely shafts of light penetrated the darkness inside, as the men customarily employed to open and close the shutters had either perished in the Mentite attack the night before, or had run off like so many others.

  “Precisely!” Jan said as his voice echoed magnificently through the towering hall. “As fitting a place as any to organize ourselves, in the very halls where our oppressors used to sit! A fine congress we shall make here indeed.”

  There were more dead here, though not as many as outside. It was evident by the broken benches and Mentite colors before them that some sort of barricade had risen and fallen here during the night. There were not so many flies in here but the stench was worse.

  Their footsteps boomed across the expansive entryway as Jan led Matthieu and the others to the main council chamber. Dignified portraits up above of mayors and lords past seemed to scowl upon their motley group, but they, like the gargoyles outside, were naught but po
werless facsimiles. The burly farmers who followed Matthieu and Hassebeck into the hall seemed dumbstruck by the building’s grandeur, while Hassebeck himself looked upon it all with disdain.

  “I was once like these,” he said wistfully. “Until I was cast out of heaven, as it were. It was their pride that kept me from the highest heights of earthly power, and it was my humbling that brought me to these people, simpler and less concerned with the material comforts of city life. How could one live in pursuit of riches when they lack even the food wherewith to eat? And so I came among them with promises of recompense, and now here I am, ready to deliver in full. If only you could understand the import of our actions here!”

  “I see only a thief,” Matthieu said, “who cares for his own welfare and none else. With the gold of others, you will buy yourself an army.” Hassebeck laughed heartily.

  “An army?” he asked. “Is that all your mind can conceive of? This is not a conquest that I seek for myself, but for them! Let the word of Heilicon’s fall spread out to encompass all of Corastia. All of the world!” Inside the council chamber, a row of carved chairs sat at the top of a dais. Hassebeck ordered his guards to remove all but the one in the center, gilded with a higher back than the others: the seat of Lord Alfonse Mennish Dolheilicon. Whether he had survived the night’s carnage was yet unknown.

  “Clear these bodies out,” Jan said, pointing to a group of burly men armed with hoes and scythes. “We will need this place fit to receive guests.”

  “Guests?” Matthieu asked. His legs had recovered somewhat by now but he still felt himself limping along after Hassebeck’s longer strides. “Everyone here is dead.”

  “Oh, not everyone,” the other man replied. “I know your type, for they are mine as well. No doubt there are still people secreted throughout the city, waiting only for the quiet of nightfall to emerge again. Every cellar has its rats.”

  Matthieu wished to be one of those cellar rats again. These men would only use him until he had nothing left to give. If there was a way out, though, he had not yet found it. Either time would show this way to him or else bring about his end at their hands.

  “And when we find them,” Jan continued, “they shall be brought here to answer for their crimes. These I have no need to enumerate to you further; only prove yourself useful and you may partake in our new order as well. However, first you must see our efforts come to their fruition.” He turned to the two farmers nearest them, a brute and a wiry older man. “See this young man gets to sleep on something better than mud for a change. There is still much more for him to do.

  A grunt from the larger one summoned Matthieu after them. He struggled to keep up as they made their way down a long corridor. Some of the rooms they opened were empty while others held more dead from the previous night’s battle. Finally they stumbled upon one that held only a few bodies but more importantly for Matthieu, a pile of tapestries. Much softer than mud. Judging by the faded colors and rough forms of the men and beasts that marched across their surfaces, he guessed them to be over a century old.

  “Here’s as good a place as any,” the wiry one said as he pushed open the door and guided Matthieu inside. “Mind you don’t wake the others.” Beside the tapestries lay a pair of men, one in the colors of Lemaste and the other in those of Mennish. A stained blade jutted through the former’s back while the latter bore the marks of a studded club across his broken face.

  Had Matthieu not faced so much revulsion already, he would have turned at the sight before him. Instead, he merely looked away from them as he laid down on the tapestries, drawing out a dull haze of dust.

  Sleep came instantly.

  What felt like a moment later, the door slammed inward.

  “Wake up,” a voice called. Matthieu did so and looked to the doorway with bleary eyes. It was the wiry man from before. “Jan’s got something for you to see.” His limbs were stiff but his mind felt clearer. He shuffled after the farmer, who did not speak again until they had reached the council chamber.

  “Watch,” he said, pointing to Hassebeck. The man had seated himself in the gilded chair of the Lords of Heilicon, but what drew Matthieu’s attention first was the proceedings before the dais. A cluster of people in ragged finery stood under guard while a man and woman of their number faced Hassebeck midway between him and the others.

  “You will die like the rest,” the woman said. “There is some foul sickness here. I can only suspect that the Mentites brought it with them.” Some of the farmers started shifting and murmuring to themselves. Hassebeck moved quickly.

  “It is only a trick, my good men,” Hassebeck replied. “These wretches will do anything to keep you tight in their grip. Do not be afraid.”

  “Ask your men if you think us liars,” the man said. “Send them over to Fish Market if they doubt us and let them see the bodies covered in rashes and sores.”

  “I shall do no such thing. For all I know, you have laid some trap for us there. Let your fellows come meet us here on equal terms; a welcome change for this place, I should think.”

  “There is no one left, I tell you,” the woman replied. “Everyone the Mentites did not murder in their beds either died of the fever or fled the city. We are all that remains.”

  “That and your treasure, you mean.”

  “Is that what this is about? Your city is ash, its people slain and scattered, and all you can think of is gold?”

  “No, not all. It is only a means to an end, which you and the rest will provide for us.”

  “We will tell you nothing,” the man said.

  “Not now,” Hassebeck replied, “but soon. Get these two out of my sight.” He gestured at some of the farmers. “Do whatever is needful.” Strong hands dragged the pair protesting from the room. It was quite a while before their screams finally faded.

  “And now we continue,” he said. “Who will tell me what I need to know?” Silence met him; there was defiance in some eyes but most looked on the verge of tears. “No one?” He looked to a hulking man clutching a bloody sword too fine to be his own. “Kill one of them until someone talks.”

  The farmer hesitated. “They’ve done me no harm. I jus’ want my gold, that’s all.”

  “Oh, but they have,” Hassebeck replied. “They feasted on the fruits of your labor while you shivered in the darkness. Is that not sinful enough?”

  “And you are one to condemn us, then?” called a man from the crowd. The proud yellow-and-pink slashes on his doublet told Matthieu this man had been a soldier once, likely decades ago when such a garment had been in fashion. The intervening years had thinned his hair, if not his courage.

  “I remember you,” the man said. “Hassebeck is your name. You once-”

  “Yes, I did. I once sat here on the town council with other such esteemed gentlemen as Lord Alfonse Mennish and Gerhardt Feine. Tell me: where are they now? Did the noble Lord Alfonse leave you all here to die?”

  “He perished with his household guards at the foot of the Victory Tower. A pity I cannot say the same for you.”

  “Would that I could die a martyr’s death with one so good as he, but alas; I am left here to execute at least a little justice in this cruel world of ours.”

  “This is no justice,” cried another man. “Thievery, more like.”

  “You will all scream before the end,” Hassebeck said, rising from his seat with spittle flying from his lips. “And when you do, you will tell me what I need to know! Take them all away.” Only after the defeated nobles had been led away did Hassebeck turn to Matthieu again.

  “Quite the performance, was it not?” he said, removing a kerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth. “The theater rises to its feet in wild applause.” Booming steps brought him before Matthieu, his face twisted in a devil’s smile. “Now that you have seen that I am serious, I ask you once more to cooperate.”

  Matthieu wished he could ask Hassebeck why. Why separate him from the others? Why even keep him alive when he clearly valued the others’ liv
es so much less? It occurred to him that the rest must have had some dealings with the man in the past, before his storied fall. He determined that to voice such concerns could mean his death. Instead, he would attempt the man’s game. A trap it was indeed, but he preferred the trap he knew was there to the one he could not anticipate.

  “I will give you what you want,” he replied. The look of shock on Hassebeck’s face was genuine.

  “Will you now? And what brought about this change? Surely not the threat of punishment similar to these wretches.”

  “I gave much thought to your kindness to me, as well as to their greed,” he lied. “What you said is true: it is not fair that one man should starve while another profits. You are right to share the city’s bounties with those who toiled for them.”

  “Go on.” Hassebeck’s lust for treasure had taken Matthieu’s hook. Now was his chance to escape.

  “I know a place not far from here. He was a competitor of my father’s. I saw his household dead as I passed to the Serpent Gate this morning.”

  “How do we know you are telling the truth? Maybe you will just try and escape.”

  “Nonsense,” he lied. “I can hardly run away. I have no love for this man, much less his gold.”

  “Then go to it. These men will accompany you.” A trio of farmers approached with crude weapons in hand. “I await your return.”

  His beloved’s home lay roughly halfway between the farmers’ court in the City Hall and the Serpent Gate; horseback on the now-empty streets, it would be an easier journey than his first earlier that morning afoot.

  The horses were still tied up outside the City Hall, feeding on bunches of hay evidently scavenged from the ruined market. Matthieu started towards a bony gray mare when a rough hand took him from behind.