Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

Rummaging somewhat awkwardly in an inner pocket Cutter John drew out a pair of iron pincers. “Remember?” he asked.

I hadn’t forgotten, though Lord knows I’d wanted to. The damn things had featured regularly in my nightmares for the past six months.

“I’ll be waiting,” he said, and moving behind me he caught the tip of one of my fingers in the pincers, squeezing hard. I roared behind the gag and threw myself about in the Slavs’ grip and somehow my finger came free though with so much pain I couldn’t tell if he’d snipped off the fingertip or not. The whole hand pulsed with agony and I hauled air in and out through my nose, slobber escaping the gag.

Alber Marks rode closer and leaned in. “John and I will be leaving now. It wouldn’t be sensible to risk getting caught with you in our possession. We’ll arrange a discreet entrance into the city for you and if I don’t meet you again. . well, I’m sure that John will.” He straightened up. “Safe journey, Prince Jalan.” And with that they both rode off at a trot, Cutter John bouncing along like a man unused to the saddle.

I sat struggling to draw breath past the mask, eyes swimming with tears, and with my finger ablaze with agony as if it had been dipped into hot acid. Even so my heart hammered slightly less frantically with each yard that opened up between us. It might seem small comfort but however dire my circumstances were the fact that Cutter John was riding away just made everything that bit better.

The relief proved short-lived. With a grunt one of the three Slavs tugged Nor’s reins and we started back toward the Appan Way. I blinked a few times to clear my eyes and glanced around at the guards as we rode. They shared the same coarse features, their faces each comprising a set of broad planes: heavy brow above a small nose, prominent cheekbones from which sallow skin stretched down to a square jaw. I judged them to be brothers, possibly even triplets, for there was little to tell them apart. Without the mask and the language barrier I might stand a chance of talking my way out of it, but something about their eyes-that flat and unimaginative look they all had-told me they would be hard to turn from their course even then.

The first three times we passed people on the road I immediately started struggling and trying to call out. It earned me looks of disgust and jeers of derision from the travellers as they passed by, and cuffs around the head from the Slavs once they were out of sight. The fourth time I tried the carter’s mate threw a rock at me and the largest of the Slavs punched me in the kidneys hard enough that I’d be pissing blood come morning. I gave up after that. The liar’s mask made me near impossible to recognize even if our household servants were to walk on past. Moreover it marked me as an enemy of Red March whose untruths were poison. Most would assume I was being taken to trial and would probably lose my tongue once found guilty, or perhaps if the judge were lenient merely have it split to the root.

• • •

We made camp at the side of the road, far enough back into a field of maize to hide us from view. The relief I’d felt at being separated from Cutter John once more had quickly eroded as we reduced the gap again, making steady progress toward Vermillion. I hadn’t any ideas about how to escape and being ridden through my own kingdom past dozens of loyal subjects, unrecognized and unable to ask for help was maddening.

Squatted in a flattened circle of maize and hemmed in on all sides by the tall green legion of undamaged crop, we were well hidden. Even the horses wouldn’t be seen, heads bowed and crunching away on the nearly ripe cobs. One of the Slav brothers hammered a wooden stake into the ground and attached the back of my mask to it with a length of chain already bolted to the stake. This done, the brothers broke out cold rations and settled to eat-black bread, a tub of greyish butter, and a length of dark red sausage mottled with white lumps of fat and gristle. They devoured it in silence save for the constant chewing and occasional unintelligible word as they exchanged foodstuffs. None of them paid me the slightest attention. I tried to think of an escape plan whilst trying not to think how much I needed to piss. Neither attempt proved successful and it began to seem like the only way to alert the bastards to my toileting needs would be to wet myself.

It turns out that wetting yourself is quite difficult, going against a number of key instincts as it does. Even so, with enough time you’ll get there. I was on the point of soiling myself when one of the Slavs got up and took a peculiar metal hook from his pocket. Without warning he grabbed the back of my head with one arm and forced the hook past the gag, snagging me by the corner of the mouth like a fish. Then, preventing my struggles simply by holding the hook, he took out a funnel and jammed its point into the end of the hook-which turned out to be a hollow tube.

"Water."

He reached for a water skin and started to fill the funnel. From that point, until he stopped, the business of not choking to death kept me fully occupied. The incident made two things clear-firstly that they didn’t have the key to the mask, and secondly if I were ever going to be fed again it would be after we reached Vermillion.

The “watering” solved the other problem I’d been having, my bladder losing all its shyness as I choked. The effect was at first a not-unpleasant warmth, fading fairly quickly to the less pleasant sensation of cold wet trousers.

The sun set and though I imagined Aslaug whispering amongst the dry voices of the corn I couldn’t make out the words and she offered no help. In fact, it sounded almost like laughter.

Two brothers settled down to sleeping, leaving the third to watch me, and eventually I lay down on the bed of flattened maize stalks to try to sleep. My finger, or what I imagined might be left of it, pulsed with hurt, and without being able to bring my arms forward I could find no position in which they didn’t ache, the mask was a misery and bugs emerged in the darkness to explore every inch of me. Even so, at some point in the night I passed out, and ten seconds later, or so it seemed, my captors were shaking me awake with the sky hinting grey above us.

I watched them break their fast, choked down more water, and was hoisted onto Nor’s back once more. We resumed our journey toward Vermillion, clattering along at a gentle pace past the day-to-day traffic of wagons, messengers, carriages bound for distant destinations, and peasants making shorter visits on laden carts or leading over-burdened mules along behind them. The road rose among some stony ridge of hills that I didn’t recall from my outward journey, and farmland gave over to a dry forest of cork oaks, beech, and loose-limbed conifers. The morning haze burned away and the sun beat down again, seemingly harder than before, raising a stink from the manure piles punctuating the Appan cobbles and making me yearn unexpectedly for the cool clean winds of a Norseheim spring. I lolled in the saddle, sweating, thirsty, and wretched, wondering how many flies were clustered around the aching ruin of my finger and laying their eggs in the glistening wound.

“That’s him!” A man’s voice, strident and triumphant. “Or at least it’s his horse. Certain of that. Look at the flash.”

I unglued my eyes and tried to focus. Four men on horseback had moved to block our way.

“It can’t be him.” A different man, dismissive. “A prince of Red March wouldn’t-”

“Check him, Bonarti.” This from the man on the largest horse, a real monster.

The last of them urged his steed toward me. The Slav brothers tensed but made no move to prevent his advance.

“Definitely his horse.” The first man, daring anyone to disagree with him.