Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

If Rol had known then what he did now, he would never have dared to follow Psellos and Quare out of the door that night. But then he might still be a scullion, kept only to be periodically milked of his blood.

He and Rowen both gave their blood to Psellos once a month. Their bed and board, the Master called it. He took it to the apothecary, Grayven, who had his shop here in Eastside, and it was auctioned off in secret. Thus the rich and noble of Ascari prolonged their lives, drinking the blood of those they secretly regarded as monsters. It was an odd world, odder than Rol would ever once have believed, for all his grandfather’s tall tales.

He approached a fight in the street, and studied the combatants with some interest. Three footpads had set upon a scrawny man of middle years whose bald head was already speckled with his own worthless gore. The footpads wore blue rags about their necks which meant that they were licensed, and thus the Watch would leave them be-not that there were any of the Watch down here in Eastside after dark. The footpads were trying to be reasonable with their victim.

“Just give us the bloody purse, and you’ll have nothing worse to show for it than a bump on the skull, mate.”

“You’re only making it worse for yourself,” another said with an aggrieved air.

The little bald man was clutching his purse to his chest as though it were a child. His eyes were tight shut and his widely spaced teeth were clenched.

One of the footpads rose and produced a long knife. “Have it your way, then, you little bastard.”

“Hold on there, lads,” Rol said, prompted by he knew not what. The hilt of the scimitar was vibrating under his palm. He felt he must almost hold it down in the scabbard.

The quartet of struggling figures paused and looked at him. They saw a tall man-no, not much more than a boy, at second glance, but big for his age, and with oddly unsettling eyes. A worn cloak only partially concealed the fact that the rest of his clothes were of good quality. And a plump purse hung from his belt.

The three footpads released the little bald man and he slumped into the mud. A ribbon of blood coursed steadily from his crown, sealing one eye shut, dripping off his unshaven chin.

The one with the drawn knife grinned. “Slumming it tonight, are we, my young cock? Come to see how the lower half live? I’ll wager it’s silver that plumps out that purse of yours. No copper minims for the likes of you. Maybe even a gold ryal-ah, it’s been a long time since Snick has seen the gleam of gold!”

The other two drew their knives also, though knife was an inoffensive term for a length of cruelly sharpened iron a foot long. Rol’s heart began to throb in his throat. He was not afraid-there was a kind of gladness in him. He drew his sword, and it leaped up like a pinion of brightness in the street. The cloak he whipped round his left arm. He realized he had been looking for this, or something like it.

All about them the passersby were stopping to watch, and had begun to crowd against the walls of the nearby houses. It was an ancient form of entertainment, free to those who were not involved. Other folk were leaning out into the street from upstairs windows, crowing and clapping their hands and telling their children to come see.

Snick’s eyes flicked to the blade of the scimitar. A moment of doubt, followed by a kind of lust. He and Rol smiled at each other in perfect understanding. Then the footpads moved.

Two to his front, one circling round to find his rear. Without conscious volition, Rol blocked two leaping thrusts of the knives, clashing them aside with little explosions of sparks. He moved in fast, following up. His left elbow caught the footpad leader below the nose, breaking teeth, snapping cartilage. The arm moved on, swooped over the thrusting blade of the second, caught the man’s wrist. At the same time Rol was aware of the man behind him coming in for the kill, like a cloud sensed behind his shoulder. He spun the scimitar without looking back, felt it cut through something as yielding as clay. Attention back to the second man. He twisted the wrist, broke it with a loud snap, released it with the fellow yelling in his face, and sidestepped another stab from the third at his rear.

He was out of their circle. The leader was holding his face, blood pouring over his fingers. The second was retrieving his knife, one hand hanging useless and limp. The third was gasping, his hands pressed to the red rent where Rol had slashed open his bowels.

A smattering of derisive applause broke out around them. Someone threw half a cabbage head at the leader of the footpads, and there was hooted laughter. The two men who could stand helped each other away whilst the folk in the street bombarded them with catcalls and refuse. The third had collapsed, fists clenched in his lacerated intestines. He drew his legs up like a child going to sleep, and died there in the mud. Rol looked down at the blade of his sword. There was no blood thereon-it had cut too swiftly for that. He thought of the bright tool that Psellos used to draw blood every month.

“I shall call you Fleam, ” he said, and the sword seemed to dip in his hand in answer. He sheathed it, unwrapped his cloak from his left arm-there was a rent in the oilskin-and looked about himself like a man waking from sleep.

The little knots of bystanders were unclotting already, going about their nightly business. Though the street was crowded, they made a space around Rol as though he had an unseen wall about him. He rubbed his hand over his face and bent over the little bald man who lay bloody-faced, still clutching his purse. He was grinning.

“That was as good as a play, my lad. Here, help me up.” On his feet, he shook Rol’s hand like a man pumping water. “Come with me and I’ll buy you a drink-I can do that at least. I have never seen such swordplay. Come now-I have friends waiting for me.”

Rol was about to refuse-the fey mood was gone now, and in its place was sinking the sick cold reaction. But then he thought of the Tower, and what was happening in there tonight, and he nodded. He was content to follow now, his passion spent.

The small man’s name was Woodrin, and he was purser and part owner of an Andelysian brig which was bound for Osmer, far to the southwest of the world, beyond the Seven Isles. They had made landfall in Gascar to off-load half their cargo of walrus ivory and to let the ship’s company cry a little havoc in the famed taverns of Ascari. The purse he had fought so recklessly to retain contained the proceeds of their cargo’s auction, which in turn represented most of the sailors’ pay for the outbound voyage.

“I am not the only one of the company who will be glad to buy you a drink, I am sure.” The little man laughed, wiping the blood out of his eye with a spotted bandanna.

The Merry Leper. Rol had to smile as Woodrin clapped him on the back and ushered him in.

The place was low-beamed, foggy with whitherb smoke, close and hot as a steam room, and fetid with the smell of spilled beer, ill-washed men, and stale food. The roar of noise from the motley throng within struck Rol like a wave as he entered, but it subsided somewhat as he was studied closely by those whose noses were not too deep in their tankards. No veil of shadow here. He stood an ordinary man amongst men, returning their stares warily.

A huge, startling shape rose from beside the fire, where it had been turning a spitted pig. “Woodrin-what’s this with the blood and the shit and all? I told you I should have come with you.”

The speaker was a thing the like of which Rol had never seen before. Some fathom and a half tall, it had to crouch under the beams of the Leper, its knotted knuckles resting on the flags of the floor. In its head burned two green lights which blinked under a frowning crag of bone, and blunt tusks arced out above the lower lip. Its flesh was a mottled olive, lighter on the chest, darker on the forearms and face. It wore loose cowhide breeches with the hair left on, and a hide waistcoat. The creature’s great, splayed feet were bare, each toe as wide as Rol’s wrist.