Cinder's Women: Mouse's Tale Ch. 02

He could have let the bartering go on until he got better trades for his goods from the townsfolk. But he believed it would be better for their morale to let them believe in a bargaining victory over travelling merchants than to accept charity of uncertain origins. The market was obviously an undeclared holiday, with vendors turning out in their very best. Carefully hoarded goods sat displayed by fur-sellers and lace-makers that got dirty looks from the hired soldiers who passed. A toymaker with wood chips on his shirt carved small dogs and birds out of scraps of pine. The quality of glazed clay pots showed in an old woman's voice as she called out to potential customers. A bird seller dominated one corner with cages of songbirds with clipped wings and a friar wandered among the crowd offering blessings and indulgences.

He'd seen the Girl Thief an hour or so prior to the midday bell and had been amazed. Not at her skillful application of her trade, which was abysmal. Or her beauty, which was hidden under a layer or twenty of dirt if it existed at all. It was more that no one else had caught her before now. She passed up obvious, easy prizes worth a few Knights for commons and junk. She didn't even filch lunch from the fried-food vendor or bread from the baker. It was a wonder that she had managed to survive as long as she had. He almost made a move to stop her before she did get caught.

He though about her future while watching her. He knew she could be dead inside a year, crippled both within and without by Duke Victor's tender mercies. He thought of her starving, prematurely aged from harsh living, struggling down a trash filled alley in the driving rain. He thought of her being beaten and dying, destroyed by thugs in a fit of anger, each heartbeat spilling more blood on the street. He imaged her sprawled naked in a dark room, raped to death by a dozen or more men dressed like sailors. Children starving at her empty breasts, killing her with their birth, or destroying her when aborted. He knew dozens of variations, none allowing survival into her thirtieth year. Save one. This pitiful Girl Thief could become one of his Women. She would stand taller, stronger, prouder- clad in tight leather and armed with masterfully crafted weapons. At her throat and wrists would gleam the marks of his ownership.

He made to signal a few of his men to quietly take her, but she froze like a startled deer when their eyes met, fatally hesitating. She stared at the soldier's purse with a hungry look that screamed 'I'm going to steal that' to anyone who bothered to pay any attention. A City Guard spotted and grabbed her the instant she touched the pouch, dragging her kicking and screaming to the cells underneath the keep. He'd give her one thing, she had spirit enough to try and knife one of the men holding her. Too bad the little knife broke on his cuirass, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if she had been able to wound him. He watched them until the group disappeared through the gates of the manor.

"Well, that does it for that'un," the Boar's innkeeper said, wiping his hands on a ragged towel and watching the girl being dragged away. "Pity."

"How so?" Cinder asked, sipping at the mug of bitter beer.

"Well s'ar, far be it from me to pass on gossip," the wiry, balding man replied, lowering his voice to a whisper as guardsmen swaggered past. "But the duke, he'll see that young'un and his mouth'll start water'n worse'n a starving man at a banquet. The chances of her livin' out the month are slim to none, truth be told. He's a bad seed, that Victor."

"Is that so?"

"Aye, there's been many a healthy young lass that's found her way to an early grave by catching the duke's eye. The pretty ones went first, all at the whim of hisself, an' any that protested went to the pits right with'em. Mothers or fathers, husbands or lovers."

"Any idea what happens down there?"

"Not a one," the man replied, making a sign warding off evil. "An' I hope never to know. I see's more'n enough when I has to. Hisself likes to see pain he does. Savors every bit o' it and likes to keeps'em alive for as long as he can. All's I know 'bout them pits 's that the corpses is fairly broken when the gravedigger plants'em. An' them's that lives, they don't live long and no one'll touch'em. Just in case, you know."

Damn the plan, he decided. Guinness dies tomorrow. He signaled for a runner.

-------------------------------------------------

By midnight the Shadows were rapidly undergoing the transformation back from a half-dozen disorganized merchant caravans to a single elite mercenary force. Costumes were set aside and armor and weapons donned. The hidden reserves had been summoned, bringing two hundred new soldiers, half of which were the Shadow heavy armored cavalry astride thick-legged black horses. Weapons were checked, tended, and rechecked, then smeared with a thin oily paste known as weapon-black. Faces and hands were covered with a thin mixture of lampblack and fine charcoal powder. Messages passed to runners, who delivered orders to lieutenants, who assigned individual soldiers specific tasks.

In Cinder's tent, the mercenary chief leaned on the table, now containing only the large complete map of the city. His captains gathered around him, each commanding a hundred men, listening to his commands and asking questions. With a dagger he pointed out key positions like the gates and barracks buildings where he wanted men ready. He would take the city in less than an hour, pinning the duke's troops in place like a pin through a butterfly. The enemy had undoubtedly caroused all night, unaware of the threat that prepared for them just outside the walls. The Shadows had already captured the small group that had been ordered to 'guard' the 'merchants'.

Before dawn a squad of Shadows had slipped over those walls and stealthily secured the gate. Another group, dispatched to the south around the town, rode the current past the river towers, then secured them from within. By sunrise the four light companies slipped into town and lay in wait for their Lord's signal to attack. Groups hid along patrol routes, ready to take the key points like the waterfront, other gates, and to seize the barracks with the troops still inside.

A few hours later the chapel bell summoned the townspeople to Guinness Manor. All seemed normal, patrols marched the barren streets, the gate men surly but alert, and the Duke's Guard as cruel as ever. Each time the guardsmen marched around a corner and out of sight, they were met by a force of Cinder's troops and taken prisoner. When the last citizens passed through the great portal into the manor courtyard, the outer gate opened to the heavy cavalry. For months Duke Guinness commanded the presence of every man, woman, and child to witness the judgements handed down on Noble's Day. Only the mercenaries were not required to attend. Those citizens that failed to attend were often tried the next week regardless of the reason. He would keep them there until his whim decided they could go, sometimes hours, sometimes all day. The lack of citizens in the streets worked against him, attendance meant that there was no one around to see the Shadows at work and raise the alarm. What Victor didn't realize was that there were a few more people ready to attend to him that he really didn't want there.

The crowd filled the courtyard, milling about in uncomfortable silence. This crowd seemed unnatural to an outside observer. Children didn't run and laugh and play. Mothers and wives didn't gather and sew and gossip. There were no vendors selling treats and hot meat or beer. The pickpockets were long gone, having escaped or been killed in the past months. The carnival atmosphere had been torn out of the people, tortured to death and left on a pole over the gate to the courtyard. Even the last of the clergy, a lone Unitist priest, stood alone and quiet.

When the Duke appeared, his once handsome face twisted with cruelty and the scars of some untold accident, the assemblage bowed deeply until he sat himself comfortably on his throne. He wore what could only be described as a gaudy imitation of a uniform- bright white velvet decorated with startling crimson lace and satin, tall hard boots impractical for anything but show, with sharp steel spurs on his heels and ridiculous points on the toes. At his side he wore a sword that would have sore pressed to cut butter on a warm day, but looked magnificent. The money to buy this outfit would have fed a family of fourteen for a year. With a foppish wave of his jeweled hand, he signaled that the Guards could bar the gate. Anyone not in attendance by now would be arrested by noon and most likely dead by morning.

Before the bar slid into place, the thick wooden doors sprang back with a resounding boom, flattening two men against the walls. A dozen black-armored men and women carrying a steel capped battering ram led the surprise assault. The ram, an oak log surmounted by a dragon's head cap of steel, crashed to the cobblestones when the bearers dropped it to snatch weapons from belts and backs. Behind them came a full score of other such soldiers, all dressed in blackened chain mail under a blue and black tabard, wielding swords and axes and carrying unadorned shields, also painted black. At their head came Jason Halpeitr, a dark and grim bear with a pole arm clenched in meaty fists. In seconds the dark, sinister tide secured all exits with bare steel and dark looks. Guards that tried to oppose them surrendered to the greater numbers without losing any blood.

Lord Cinder rode behind them at a more leisurely pace, holding not a weapon but a vellum scroll tied shut with black ribbon- the Writ of Execution. In contrast to the duke, he was dark and final, like a judge with his stern face and carriage, dressed all in black. The slow clop of his dark stallion's hooves sounded just like the beating of a human heart- clop-thump, clop-thump, clop-thump. His eyes locked on Guinness' face and never wavered. Duke Guinness glared back fiercely, white-knuckled gripping the arms of his throne, partly in rage, partly in fear. This man looked the part of Death.

"What is the meaning of this?" he finally exploded, leaping to his feet as two soldiers mounted the dais. Jason replied merely by seizing the front of Guinness' expensive doublet and flinging the hapless noble bodily down the steps and into the space cleared by the townsfolk. Ironically, he fell onto the ground where those he judged often stood. At his feet fell the pieces of a wooden staff, broken in half and stripped of the long white and red ribbons of House Guinness.

"Victor Guinness," Cinder intoned from his horse, his flat voice booming in the shocked silence. "By the Authority of the Royal Council of the Empire, you are hereby stripped of all titles, hereditary and earned. You have been tried in absentium and been found Guilty of Patricide and Abusing Your Power as a member of the Noble Order." As he spoke, he guided his horse with his knees, stalking Duke Victor, who scuttled crab-like to the middle of the square. Victor clawed for his weapon, getting it halfway out before a huge hoof fell on it, destroying the showy but worthless thing. Dismounting before the cowering ex-nobleman, Cinder wrapped a gauntlet hand around the well-worn hilt of his sword.

"You are hereby sentenced to Death, sentence to be carried out at my discretion." His grim smile would have frozen fire solid; it never reached his eyes. "I don't see any need to wait."

There was a blur of bright razor sharp steel and darkness in motion. Guinness' eyes widened with shock and horror as he recognized his own headless body slumping to the floor several feet away. Three terrible heartbeats later the light dimmed from his eyes for the final time. By some last act of cosmic mercy before he spent an eternity in torment, Victor felt no pain as he died. Cinder's horse casually stepped away to avoid the growing red pool of blood.

"She said you'd come," the doomed duke mouthed.

"Send the signal," he commanded. "Secure the town. Keep these people here and out of harms way. Jason, you're in charge here. Send Stanton to find me when he arrives." Within moments, he and a handful of men went about securing the manor and freeing prisoners. He saved one special prisoner for last.

-------------------------------------------------

"Citizens of Glankis, I am Lord Jonas Cinder, Duke of Shadowholm, Marshall of the Northern Scilogthar Mountains, the Punishing Hand of the Empire, and designated regent over Glankis until such time as the newly appointed landholder arrives from Odgred. My stay here will be brief but I have the authority to enforce the Law and Custom as set down in the Plazato Sygma. I shall hear no grievances today, nor do I think you would air them before me. As it stands, I think I've already taken care of your most immediate problem." He pointed vaguely to the ground before him. The dead lord's blood had spread into a pool that stood out in spite of all the blood spilt by his victims on the same stones.

He stood before the assembly with the double doors standing open and nothing blocking the citizenry from leaving except their fear of this unknown man now claiming authority over them. That, and the large dark stain in the center of the courtyard.

"I do intend to set a few things right however," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "Bring out the prisoners."

A dozen ragged figures were herded before him- the freed prisoners from the dungeon and brothel. A total of seven men and five women came forward; two of the former carried on stretchers. They all showed signs of torture and rough abuse- bruises, burns, broken bones and cuts; all covered by crude rag bandages. Shadow surgeons waited to tend them the moment he finished.

He listened to each of their crimes and released those imprisoned for the vaguest offenses. Of the men- three had been arrested for 'treason', one for poaching to feed his family, one for back taxes, and two for banditry. While releasing the rest, the last two he sentenced to hang at dawn next Reaper's Day since they weren't actually townsfolk but outsiders come to take advantage of the situation at Glankis. The women he released wholly- three had been jailed for treason and two for taxes. Two of the freed women were welcomed back into their families warmly, not having spent more than a few weeks in the Duke's keeping. The other three were either turned away or simply didn't try.

"I have need for servants to see to the current needs of my troops. If you wish to join us, I swear that you will not be forced into anything unpleasant. Maybe you'll be placed as surgeons' aides or some other part of the trains, at least until we make the journey back to Shadowholm where something more suitable can be assigned to you. Do you accept?" All three gave him reluctant, nervous nods, accepting his offer. He turned to the scribe seated behind a table just in front of Jacob, a clerk wearing the armor and symbols of a Shadow but now wielding a quill from a copper case he carried on his belt rather than a sword. "Set their Value at twenty Barons. Normally I'd set it higher, but your freedom has been compromised for far too long already. Record it as forty, with twenty paid."

An excited murmur ran through the crowd. Forty Barons was a good deal of money, even in a rich trade town. A man and wife with no children could scrimp, save, and watch every Common and still take two years to save that much. The former prisoners were led off to the medical care of the surgeons or back to the cells, depending on their fates.

"Now bring in the other prisoners."

A group of twenty men in irons shuffled toward the dais, led by a like number of his soldiers in chain mail. They were a pathetic group when seen together- bullies taken down several notches and left alive. Some cowered, others postured and glared haughtily, and some were in shock staring blankly at the ground under their feet. These were Guinness' commanders and corporals, captured in the sudden and brutal battle following Duke Victor's execution. It would be they who would suffer for the crimes of their men unless specific complaints were lodged. For a grim, uncomfortable minute Cinder did nothing but watch them and think. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and menacing.

"You men are barely worth this little bit of my time. I understand that you are mercenaries and not bound by the oath of the Imperial Guard. However, you are all officers in what amounts to the City Watch by the duties that you undertook while here. As the officers of that Watch, you are responsible for the actions of your soldiers, the welfare of those you watch over, and answerable to your Lord. The first two are the most important, and for the most part you've preformed them abominably. As for the third, your lord's example should have shown you everything not to do. It was your responsibility to enforce the Law and Custom, to protect these people from all enemies inside the walls as well as those without. Instead you became the enemy, led by a monster. That is intolerable. I'm tempted just to hang the lot of you and be done with it. However, I've been around far too long not to believe in the power of redemption. Is there anyone here who will speak kindly of any of these men?"

There was a disturbing silence, finally broken when one of the newly freed women raised a timid hand. He beckoned, trying his best to remember how to smile warmly, something that he was terribly out of practice at. His face could go through the motions, but the feelings never seemed to reach his eyes. A Shadow offered her his arm and led her to the base of the dais. Cinder came down to her, trying to be less threatening by disassociating himself from the throne and the heights of judgement. She started to kneel but the man at her side quietly kept her from doing so. Acknowledging his lord with a simple salute, fist pressed to his chest, the warrior slipped aside. The woman looked nervously at Cinder, trying to look everywhere but into his eyes. But then again, he was used to that.

"Your name?" he asked, touching her shoulder gently. She flinched, with a look in her eye that said she wasn't happy to be near a member of the nobility. Any member of the nobility. Or to be touched by any male. Understandable considering what had been done to her.

"Jenna, my lord." Her voice sounded dry and cracked and he wondered when she'd last had anything to drink.

"That's ancient Bilannic for 'wave' or 'fair seas'," he told her after a moment of thought. "Did you know that?"

"No, m'lord." She calmed a bit and smiled with halfhearted warmth. Names meant a lot to him; what they meant was supposed to say much about the person. Many powerful mages guarded their true names fiercely because of this. He felt that he was badly named since 'Jonas' meant 'dove' in the old Zinnic tongue. It amused him that he, the most feared warrior in the Empire, was named after the bird that symbolized peace. He'd studied names on and off for most of his life, a hobby that he found eased contact with nervous people such as this young lady. He thought to offer her a drink, but decided that she'd rather speak her mind and get away from him.

"Who do you speak for?" He waved a hand at the prisoners. Some stared hopefully, a few fell to their knees to beg, and a few more simply cast their eyes down without hope.

"That one," she said, pointing to a dejected prisoner standing at the rear of the group. The prisoners shuffled, clearing a path to the indicated man.

"Why?"

"He was kinder to me than most, milord, gentler. He didn't hurt me." She blushed, as if embarrassed in some way by the admission that someone had treated her kindly while she'd been imprisoned.