S. Turney - Interregnum

The young man cleared his throat nervously and Athas realised another difficult question was looming over him.

“What now?”

Quintillian sat up straighter in the chair and turned to face the older man.

“Your flask” he said, “has some engraving on it, yes?”

“Mmm. So?”

“A wolf’s head and some writing?” pushed the boy.

Athas narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at lad?”

The boy shuffled uncomfortably.

“I saw the same markings on the captain’s flask. The wolf and the lettering. Does it have meaning for the Grey Company? The flask you issued me doesn’t have it on.”

Athas let out a long sigh.

“You’ve got to stop asking questions” he implored. “They make everyone feel uncomfortable. We’re a mercenary unit and that means that there isn’t a single man here that doesn’t have something to hide; usually something he’s ashamed of in his past.”

Quintillian smiled.

“Just one more, then.”

“What?” replied the sergeant.

“Was the captain ever married?” the boy asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

Athas growled and turned to face him.

“All right,” he answered, “but this is the last time you ever mention that subject, and I’m only telling you so you don’t make a mistake and ask him. Yes, he was. She died just after the collapse. It’s not a very nice or happy story and it’s one I never want to hear you ask the captain. Understood?”

Quintillian nodded and shuffled back to face the countryside over the balcony. The sun was glorious, lighting the green and gold fields as far as the eye could see.

“I’m just interested in what makes him what he is” the boy continued. “I’ve never met anyone who seems so bitter and yet I can’t get over the feeling that that’s not really him. D’you know what I mean?”

“Story closed. Ok?”

The two sat in silence for a long moment and finally the sergeant sighed.

“Tell me something for a change” he said, rounding on Quintillian. “You studied in that community. I find it hard to picture a scholarly community getting by these days. It was ok in the old days before the Emperor went m… Before the collapse. But now? There’s precious little room in the world for quiet thought and study. What kind of people are they?”

The lad smiled.

“So now you’ll interrogate me , yes?”

Athas merely raised an eyebrow and made a beckoning motion.

“Ok” the boy began. “Well, I suppose the most important person to me on the island is my best friend Darius. I suspect you’d like him. He’s about the same age as me, but a little more active. He doesn’t study as much as I do. Well he does, but only really history, war, geography and politics. He is good at sports; and at fighting. We used to be trained in all sorts of fighting, even unarmed, and the only thing I ever regularly beat him at was archery. I can usually trick him into things though.”

“So why wasn’t he sent out instead of you?” the sergeant queried, his eyebrows raised in genuine interest. “Sounds more like someone you want charging round the countryside with money, no offence intended.”

“None taken” the boy replied. “The honest answer is that I don’t actually know. He would be better in truth. And he would fit in much better with the Grey Company. Still, I’m here on the orders of the elders and he’s not.”

A shout from below drew their attention to the grassland before the farm. A figure was jogging down the hill at some pace. Athas had the bow at the ready but, after a moment he laughed, dropped the weapon and leaned over the balcony.

“Scauvus is back already” he grinned. “He looks happy and he’s waving something.”

He turned and smiled at Quintillian as he began to make for the stairs.

“Conversation’s now for another time. Gotta go. Coming?”

The lad returned the smile.

“I’ll follow on in just a moment” he replied.

Quintillian had always thought of himself as a lateral thinker; a planner. He hated having to lie to people, but he knew when he had to and he was good at it. He’d always been one step ahead of the game, his entire life. And yet no matter how much he tried to think it through he couldn’t figure out why they’d left. They’d put the rest of the community in danger and fled in the middle of the night to gather money for heaven knows what purpose. No matter what reasons the elders had given him, he was well aware of the island’s status and the complete isolation from the world in which they were kept. Darius would have been much better on that dangerous night-time boat trip; much better at the hiding and travelling by night they’d have to put up with before they’d reached a safe enough distance from the island. Why was he here then, and not Darius? Why did they need money when they’d never have the opportunity to buy something? With Tomas and Enarion dead, there was little hope of finding anything out until he made it back to Isera. The elders were too clever by far and their reasons escaped him. As he turned and followed down the stairs to see his gold returned, he couldn’t help but wonder what the whole point was.

Quintillian sighed and rounded his shoulders before reaching down and removing his boots with a great deal of relief. It had been a long and arduous march since leaving the farmhouse and he’d watched with growing frustration as they’d passed four villages that the captain had considered too risky to enter. After twenty miles or so Tregaron had begun to relax a little, since they were out of Lord Bergama’s lands and considerably safer. A further ten miles had brought them to the small town of Acasio and its warm, welcoming tavern. In fairness, he’d been allowed to spend a great deal of the journey in the cart with the equipment; a cart that he was fairly sure the captain had stolen from a nearby farm. Of the thirty-some miles they’d travelled, the lad had probably walked between ten and fifteen, but then he wasn’t used to such long distance hiking, and especially not with weapons and kit.

The moment they’d arrived in the town, the Company had set eyes on the small market and had dispersed to purchase various goods leaving the captain, the sergeant and the boy standing in the street. Tregaron had raised an eyebrow and nodded his head in the direction of a tavern called ‘The Rapture’. Athas had shaken his and gestured at the boy.

“Need to get him some armour” he’d explained. “We’ll get along to the nearest smith and meet you in there afterwards.”

So saying they’d turned and walked on, leaving the captain to enter the tavern alone. Athas had consulted Quintillian only very briefly on the subject of armour, more a confirmation of his own ideas than a real enquiry, and had then turned his attention to the smith and struck up a conversation about the folding of steel. It seemed that the big sergeant had both the knowledge and the skills of a smith. Quintillian had stood and listened for a few minutes until he was thoroughly bored and had then made his way from the smithy out into the street, browsing the few shops with interest. He’d spent his entire life in seclusion on the island and even such remote parts of the outside world still held interest for him in almost every corner. A minute or two of browsing and he’d made a surprising discovery: a scribe and bookseller. That was unusual to say the least in such a small provincial town. He’d perused the reasonably meagre though good quality range for around a quarter of an hour before his eyes lit upon a treasure: Carso’s treatise on the collapse of the Empire. He’d read sections of it in the library on the island, but it was considered too valuable to leave in the hands of youngsters, so he’d never had a chance to read through from cover to cover. He’d been forking over the change for the purchase and complimenting the scribe who owned the place when an angry looking Athas had flung open the door and drawn him painfully outside by the ear.