Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

"Dia!" he said, conversationally. "Look at you, then. Flayed alive and like to drown in your own blood! Lucky for you I saw you running by. Who are these?"

I shook my head, looking at my attackers closely now and seeing no yellow tunic among them. "I don't know. I was chasing someone else. I've never seen these three."

He was frowning at me. "Who were you chasing?"

"I don't know, but whoever he was, he knows me. He saw me twice today and obviously didn't want me to see him. The second time I caught his eye he ran, and I followed him."

"Aye, and he led you right to these beauties, Liam's cattle."

"How do you know they're Liam's?"

"By their clothing, and they're carrying no weapons, which means they're visitors like us.'*

"Thank God for that!"

"Thank Derek."

The man whose throat I had chopped began to Recover now and pulled himself up until he was sitting, his hands still at his throat. He hawked painfully and spat, and Donuil walked towards him. Before he could speak to the man, however, another voice intruded.

"Well, what have we here? Bloodshed in Ravenglass?"

We spun to find ourselves surrounded by five men, all of them with drawn swords and wearing metal breastplates. I recognized the one who had spoken as Blundyl, the lieutenant whom Derek had entrusted to find lodgings for us. I was still reeling, and now I sat down, resting my back against the bole of a tree. Donuil had not moved. Blundyl's eyes moved around the clearing, taking note of everything.

"Don't you people know the law in these parts?" There was no acrimony in Blundyl's tone, but neither was there any hint of warmth.

I cleared my throat and answered him. "Aye, Blundyl, we do. Weapons are banned in Ravenglass, among visitors at least, as is bloodshed. Failure to keep the peace earns banishment."

"Instant banishment," he added, frowning at me. "Who are you?"

"We met earlier," I told him. "I was with Derek. But there has been no breaking of the law here. No blood has been shed, and no weapons drawn."

"No blood? Look at yourself, man!"

I looked down at my hands and winced. They were ripped to shreds, torn front and back by the vicious barbs of the bramble briars. I knew my face was in the same condition, for every scratch seemed to burn with its own separate fire and my eyelids were sticky with blood.

"This is blood drawn, not spilt," was all I could think to say. "I am not wounded, only scratched where I fell into the brambles there. My name's Britannicus and we arrived today with Connor Mac Athol. This is Connor's brother, Donuil. Since our arrival I have been with your king, Derek. After I left Derek, I met a man who recognized me and ran away. I ran after him to find out who he was." -

"We know you ran," Blundyl said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "You demolished half the market in passing." He looked at the three downed men. "Which one were you following?"

"None of these. I told you, I don't know them. The man I chased was wearing a yellow tunic of some kind. He ran past here too quickly, I imagine, for these three to stop him, and I came close behind. They stopped me. We had an altercation and Donuil, here, arrived in time to help me end it."

"Hmm." He turned to Donuil. "They're not yours then, these three?" Donuil merely shook his head, his lips pursed. "Then they must belong to the other bunch. Only two lots in port." He moved quickly beyond the sitting man to the nearest of the two bodies, where he knelt and felt beneath the jawline for a pulse. Satisfied that the man was alive, he turned him over on his back and searched him, one-handed, for weapons. That done, he moved to the last of the men and did the same, heaving this one over onto his face. Finally he straightened up and approached me.

"Show me your hands."

I held out my hands and he sheathed his sword before taking hold of my wrists, turning them over and scanning the long scratches on both sides.

"You're going to have fun, bathing those." He squinted at my face. "Not going to be too pretty for a day or two, and you're not going to be seeing too much, either." He reached up and touched my left cheekbone. I winced involuntarily, hissing and pulling my head away. "Aye, that's a beauty."' He turned away and scanned the clearing again, clearly deliberating, and then he turned back to me. "I'll be reporting this to the lord Derek as a marginal incident, barely within the law. A brawl, rather than a fight. But I am stretching a point here, you understand me? You are fortunate that there was no damage done in the marketplace. You have used up your credit. Do you understand what I am saying? No more leeway. Behave yourself in Ravenglass from this time on, or suffer the consequences. Now get out of here."

I glanced at the three others. "But what about—?"

"Leave them to us. They're for a night in custody. On your way!"

I limped away at Donuil's heels. Neither of us spoke until we had crossed the transverse ditch at die top of the rise, just inside the trees, where we could see the marketplace beyond.

Donuil broke the silence. "How do you feel?"

"Chastened, like a schoolboy chidden by his master."

"Aye, but I meant bodily aches and pains."

"I have only one, but it's all over me. I feel as though I've been to war."

He grinned. "You have, and look it. I don't think I've ever seen a worse black eye. Can you see out of it?"

I covered my right eye with one hand and tried to see him with my left, but it was swollen shut and throbbing painfully. I shook my head.

Donuil grunted. "Well, we had better find Lucanus right away. As for the other business, with Blundyl, forget it. He did his duty and did it leniently, for we were in the wrong. Connor has told me about this place, and no fighting means no fighting, just as it does in Camulod. Blundyl did, as he said, stretch a point for us. I was surprised."

We spoke no more of the affair until after we had found Lucanus and my scratches had been washed and salved. Blundyl had quartered all of us in the same building, one of the residential blocks in the Via Decumana at the rear of the central administrative block, and we did not lack for space in spite of the overcrowding Derek had mentioned to me. None of my abrasions was deep enough to warrant stitches, but they all stung abominably, and I spent a most uncomfortable afternoon. My left eye was swollen completely shut and more than simply tender to the touch. It had already turned a deep and glowing black, with red and yellow edges. The four boys gazed at me wide-eyed with wonder, but none of them dared ask me what had happened. Derek himself came by late in the afternoon and, upon being shown to the room in which I sat before a brazier, stood facing me without speaking, his face troubled.

"What was the cause?" he asked eventually. I shook my head and told him of the man in the yellow tunic, reminding him of my question about the alehouse when we had passed it that morning. He listened in silence until I had finished.

"And this entrapment, it was deliberate, you think?"

"No, it couldn't possibly have been. The fellow didn't know he would meet me. How could he? I arrived there at the gateway by chance as he came through. It was only his reaction that caught my eye. After that, everything happened quickly—he had no time to arrange anything. My explanation to Blundyl must have been correct. He flashed by those three, angering them, and I came after him. There is no other explanation that makes sense."

"Unless he already knew they were there and led you right to them, calling for help as he passed."

"Then why didn't he come back and join them afterward, once they had me down?"

Derek shrugged. "I don't know. You said he didn't want you to notice him. Perhaps that hasn't changed. Did you recognize him?"