Paul Kearney - Corvus

The main body of the centon halted short of the farmyard and stood there in rough ranks. Corvus turned to Rictus.

“Call to your family. Tell them there is no need for alarm. I’ve brought good food and wine on the horses – if you will permit me, Rictus, I would like to dine with you this morning.” The sun caught him full in the face; his skin seemed more colourless than ever, and his eyes were as pale as tinted glass.

The house was in disarray, blankets, pots and lamps all askew, things strewn over the floor in the panic of packing. It was dark inside as they entered – the fire had gone out – and Aise, Eunion and the children were in a huddle at the far wall. Eunion had his old boar spear levelled, and Aise was clutching a hatchet.

“Wife,” Rictus said, his voice harsh, “get the fire lit, and clean up this mess. We have guests.” A cup broke under his foot as he strode over to them. He set a hand on Ona’s head and touched Aise’s shoulder. Softly, he said, “This is not what you think.” He wiped a tear from Rian’s cheek, her face white and defiant in the gloom.

“Father, are they here to kill you?”

“They’re here to talk, my honey. And we must be clever about this. Set the table and light the lamps.” To Aise he said nothing, but they gripped each other’s hands bone-tight for a long moment.

“Do as your father says,” Aise said at last, her voice as hoarse as a crow’s. Her gaze did not leave Rictus’s face. “He knows best. We are in his hands.”

Outside again, Rictus spoke to Corvus and his waiting men. “You might want to give them a moment. They’ve had an unsettling morning.”

“My apologies,” Corvus said, grimacing. “Grakos, unload the horses. Druze, the men may stand easy and break out their food. Then you will accompany me inside, as soon as Rictus here is willing to extend an invitation.” He bowed slightly to Rictus.

He had old-fashioned manners, a kind of courtesy that Rictus had not seen for a long time, as though he had stepped out of an earlier age. His accent was strange also. Rictus had heard Machtic spoken by men from every corner of the Harukush, and a few from beyond it, but he could not place this Corvus at all.

“What is this, some kind of game?” Fornyx demanded. “We are your prisoners – what’s all this talk of invitations?”

“I mean everything I say,” Corvus said mildly. “If Rictus does not wish us to enter his house, then we will remain outside. It’ll be colder, mind.”

Fornyx shook his head, torn between anger and sheer bafflement.

“I’m willing to let you in,” Rictus said, with the ghost of a smile. “My wife may have other ideas though.” Despite himself, he was beginning to believe that this strange young man meant what he said.

“We’ve brought good wine, Minerian from the western coast,” Druze said. “Inside or out, it’ll still taste better than anything you can drink within a hundred pasangs.”

“Minerian? You hear that Rictus?” Fornyx said. “If we’re to die, at least our bellies will be thanking us.”

“Let us not talk of death today,” Corvus said, and a coldness came into his pale eyes. For a moment he seemed a much older man.

Aise did well. She had always been good at bringing order out of chaos, and she had never been anything other than level-headed even in the most brutish moments of their life together. When Rictus finally, formally invited Corvus and his companion Druze into the farmhouse, the place was as neat and ordered as if this were any other morning of the year. The fire was a yellow blaze in the hearth, and the good lamps had been hung from the ceiling beams and were burning sweetly. There was food and wine on the table, and the two dogs were being held back in the corner by Eunion. Their low sing-song growling was the only discordant note in the proceedings.

Aise came forward bearing a dish of salt. She had piled her hair up on her head and was wearing the sleeveless scarlet chiton Rictus had bought her one drunken night long ago, when they had both been young and full of fire. Her eyes were made up with kohl and stibium; it recalled something of her old, heart-stopping beauty, and it brought Corvus and Druze up short. Corvus bowed to her as though she were a queen, lifted a pinch of salt to his lips and said, “Antimone’s blessings on you and your house, lady.”

“You are most welcome,” Aise said, and Rictus loved her in that moment for the pride and the courage of what she had done. If they were all to die today, then he was glad he had seen her like this one last time.

“You must be seated – I have -” but Aise trailed off. Corvus had gone straight to the corner and had knelt down in front of the dogs.

“What beauties these are. Release them, friend. They have no quarrel with me.” Startled, Eunion let go his grip on the hounds’ collars and they sprang forward, sniffing, growling, baring their teeth and licking Corvus’s face, alternately. He laughed, sounding like a little boy as he played with their ears and scratched their flanks. Old Mij rolled over like a puppy, tongue lolling.

Rictus caught Druze’s eye and the black-bearded man shrugged with a wry smile. “Dogs, horses, he has a way with them.”

“And men?” Fornyx asked.

“You’ll find out. It’s what we’re here for.”

Corvus rose, the hounds dancing around him as though he was their long-lost master. “Forgive me, Rictus. I have not yet met the rest of your family.”

Ona stared at him silently, sucking her thumb -she had not done that for years. Rian, in her pale, defiant pride, looked every inch a younger version of her mother – a woman, no longer a girl – and Rictus felt a jolt of pure fear as Corvus took her hand and kissed it.

“Your household is filled with beauty,” he said to Rictus, his gaze still fixed on Rian. “You are a fortunate man. Druze, the gifts.”

Druze set a skin of wine on the table, and then a net of oranges and fat lemons from the far eastern coast.

“Let’s eat,” Corvus said briskly.

It was perhaps the strangest meal Rictus had ever shared. They sat about the long pine table and passed the dishes up and down it to one another in perfect amity, as though there were not a hundred soldiers squatting outside, as though Corvus was a family friend who had chanced by.

Rictus and Fornyx sat in their black cuirasses, which lent a certain sombre glory to the proceedings, and Druze poured them all cups of the good Minerian as though he were the master of ceremonies. There was little in the way of talk, until Rian, having ripped her bread to shreds on her plate, said; “Are you really him? The Corvus we hear about, the man from the east?”

“I am he,” Corvus said, sipping his wine.

“How do we know that? You don’t look like him – you could be some bandit who’s trading on his name,” Rian said defiantly.

Corvus looked at her. His red-lipped smile was like a scar across his face. “What does he look like, this Corvus you’ve heard about?”

“He’s – he’s tall, for one thing. And he rides horses, I hear tell, and leads an army of thousands, not some mountain band of brigands.”

Corvus set a hand on Druze’s shoulder. “I would not call my Igranians brigands, lady. At least, not any more.” The two men grinned at one another. Druze leaned across the table, black eyes shining. In a mock whisper he said, “We were once, it’s true – it is in our blood. But things are different now. There’s no money in banditry anymore.” And he laughed as if at some private joke.

“You’re too young to be the man in the stories,” Rian persisted.

Corvus shrugged. “Ask your father about the truthfulness of stories. The farther the truth travels, the less it becomes the truth. That’s the way of the world. I was brought up with tales of the Ten Thousand and Rictus of Isca who brought them home from the land beyond the sea. He was a hero, a giant of myth to me – when I was a boy. But your father is a real person, one solitary man who sits here drinking wine with us. Every legend begins with the ordinary and the everyday, as the acorn begets the oak.”