Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

“Sorry,” the officer said without looking at us. “No one in or out.”

“Then perhaps you’d like to take another look at our wares,” I said.

Orgos gave me a hard look but I ignored him.

“No,” said the officer. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t show you the best silks,” I breezed. “We keep those well out of sight. But maybe someone of your taste would appreciate them. We have damask so soft you can barely feel it against your skin. ”

The officer at our side glanced at the men waiting to go up to close the gates, exhaled with slow boredom and muttered, “It’s time someone built another staircase up there. Go on,” he said, turning to us suddenly. “Go through. Quickly.”

Without further encouragement we began to move. My heart rose to my throat and I stared ahead of me, past the guards and the officer who hastily, mechanically recited the usual Empire regulations.

“If you have heavier weapons and armor you may bring them out once you are a hundred yards from the gate. Remain on the road at all times and be watchful for highwaymen. Have a successful trip, sirs,” he called as we trundled through the twenty-foot-thick arch and the heavy doors. The portcullis was lowering with a heavy metallic squealing as we emerged into the light and soft drizzle. Behind us the great gates themselves began scraping and creaking until, with a deep boom, they shut tight.

For a hundred yards or so we did not speak and then, bringing the wagon to a halt in a stone-flagged space and turning to one of the boxes between us, Orgos said, “Idiot. What were you trying to do back there? Selling clothes to Empire guards! You were asking to be arrested.”

He was smiling. I grinned and said, “I was just fleshing out the role a little. Giving it color.”

“Idiot,” he said again, but this time he laughed outright. I wanted to punch him lightly on the arm or something as a show of fellowship, but something held me back, the thought of his name dragging mine up the wanted list, perhaps. Instead I just said, “Geof — frey? You called me Geoffrey! What the pox kind of name is that?”

He gave a single bellow of laughter and opened the box. Whatever relief I was beginning to feel died as I stared at the contents: armor and weapons of the serious sort. I wasn’t being allowed to forget my comrade’s profession.

Orgos stood up and looked back to the massive yellowish walls of the city.

“I hate that place,” he remarked, fishing a coat of ring mail out of the box and pulling it over his head.

I couldn’t say much to that. I didn’t really know anywhere else, though even I could see it was a bit of a sewer.

“How come they’re saying I’m a rebel?” I asked. I was tiny bit pleased by the idea, even though I knew both that it was dangerous to be impressed by such things and that they were about as wrong as they could be.

“The Empire doesn’t like to be humiliated,” he said. “Better to be outmaneuvered by a seasoned rebel than a child actor.”

The phrase irritated me, but that feeling was squashed by something rather more weighty.

“So if they catch me now. ” I said.

“They’ll charge you with more than being in a few plays they didn’t like.”

He gave me a shrug and a grin as he saw the effect his words had on me. “Cheer up,” he said. “You’re with us now.”

Great.

Orgos replaced the rapier in the back of the wagon and emerged wearing a pair of the long swords he had used before, scabbarded in a harness on his back so that the hilts stood vertically up from his shoulders. I would have needed both hands to wield one of those four-foot blades, but a look at his biceps and forearms told me that he would manage just fine. He reached up to their handles, crossing his arms over his chest to see that they were in the right position, and then bade me get down and come to the back of the wagon. One of the swords, the one he had had back at the inn, had a large and irregular stone set in the pommel, amber and lustrous.

“Choose a weapon,” he said. “What can you use?”

Throwing aside a few top layers of fabric, he opened a chest of armor and another two of weapons. I recalled my encouraging the Empire guards to stay and poke around the wagon a little longer. We would really have had to do some talking to explain that lot away.

I got in the back and touched some of the steel in amazed fascination. As I said earlier, I know little of weapons and I am no fighter, bt just seeing this pile of purposeful and elegant arms held me spellbound. I chose.

Orgos looked at me with his mouth open and then roared with laughter, his head tipped back and his teeth showing.

“Can you even walk in that stuff?” he demanded.

I confess to having gotten a little carried away. He made me put a lot of it back. Most of it was too big for me anyway and I could hardly breathe in that helm. I could barely lift my arms and no, I couldn’t really walk. I tried a corselet of light scale and swapped the two-handed great-ax I had chosen for a short sword and small shield. It was a bit of a comedown, I suppose, but I kept looking at the way the corselet sparkled in the light and it made me feel good. Actually, the sword alone was so heavy that I soon had to put the shield away too. It was a good thing I’d put that bloody ax back. It had taken all my strength to get it out of the wagon.

The rain had just about stopped, so that was one less discomfort. I drew the sword and weighed it in my hand, imagining myself a great fighter and betting Renthrette would be impressed. Next time we had some trouble they’d see a different side to Will Hawthorne. Maybe. After a couple of minutes of me waving the sword about, Orgos told me to put it away before I maimed him. Still, a moment later I saw him smile. For the first time that day I stopped worrying and relaxed enough to enjoy the ride.

The road was good thus far, paved and cambered. But as soon as the gate house was lost to our sight in the elms and sycamores which grew around the city, we veered off to the northeast on a series of farm tracks.

Orgos sat quietly beside me, his eyes on the trail. Maybe it was the elation of escape, the satisfaction of outwitting that moron Rufus, or just the feeling that I had done right not to run crying to the Empire, but I felt slightly better disposed to him. And whatever the dangers, I was still alive, free, and touched with something I had never felt before. It had the feel of adventure and all the anticipation that comes with it. Will the Adventurer. Hawthorne the Rebel. A childish and dangerous thought, perhaps, but there you have it. Even at the time I had a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t last.

By about half past one, with the sun high and the rain gone, we caught sight of the inn set back from the road. I was glad of it, for the air was growing warm and humid despite the early showers and I was ready for the coolness of a shady room and a draught of beer. Or six.

The inn was a large two-storied affair of mottled grey stone with sills and lintels of varnished oak. The sign over the door showed a bunch of full, golden wheat stalks. Its roof was thatched brown and well shaped with two chimneys poking through, one of which released a thin curl of bluish wood smoke. It was all rather picturesque, like one of those cheap engravings that you sneer at in the Cresdon markets. The upstairs probably housed guests sheltering from those very markets.

After drawing the wagon up to the front, we dismounted and scraped the mud from our boots. Then Orgos tried the door and led me in.

Now, I was used to the smoky, stone-flagged, fleapit taprooms of the town from which we’d just escaped. Bars, to me, meant noise, raucous laughter, spilled beer, semifriendly gambling, and the occasional brawl. The Wheatsheaf, by contrast, dripped with class and a slightly embarrassed silence. It was obviously an eatery for merchants before they ventured into the cultural desolation of the Hrof wastelands or, for that matter, those of Cresdon. The floor was tiled with a glazed and patterned ceramic featuring the ears-and-leaves motif we had seen outside. Very fancy. There were windows of leaded glass all around the room, and as a result the entire chamber glowed, pleased with itself. There were tables set for dinner decorated with dainty vases of flowers. No dartboard. No pools of vomit and urine. No whores.