Here we are once again, my friends, with a fresh new chapter of Silvanus and Empire ready for your perusal!
When last we left our hero Caddoc, he was about to be called on the carpet by his so-called superior, Scribe Oren. A confrontation is in the offing - let's see what happens next!
Silvanus and Empire
Chapter Eight
image from Public Domain Images
“What do you think you were doing?” Oren asked quietly. He crossed his arms again and waited. “Well?”
Caddoc sighed. “Scribe Oren, I fail to see the harm in—"
“What you fail to see, Apprentice Bell, is not the issue here, but indeed seems to be what you fail to hear.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand—“
“No, you don’t, do you?” Oren began to pace. “You have twice now refused to heed my words regarding that Bloodhair witch.”
Caddoc trailed behind the older man. “Scibe Oren, she’s not a witch! If you would but speak to her you would see that beneath the thorns is a hurt, lonely girl.”
Oren stopped and turned to face Caddoc. “Who she is as a person is irrelevant, Apprentice! It is what she is that matters, and she is a living, breathing specimen of a heretical sect of filthy, ragged savages too primitive to even call human, and I will not have you be seen with her!”
Caddoc glared back at Oren. “Why?” He asked. “What is the worst that could happen? The other townsfolk would do nothing. They already live under your thumb, Scribe Oren; I have hearing allegations of overtaxation all day.”
“Overtaxation-!” Oren’s expression contorted. “How dare those ignorant wretches! Look at this place, Apprentice. Just look at it!” He waved his hands around the squalid barn. “Would I be living in abject poverty if I was hoarding His Holiness’ due?”
“Abject poverty? You have a roof over your head, aye, and free bread as well, from what I gather. Are we so poor, Scribe Oren, that we cannot afford to pay the baker for the bread his servant brings us?”
“I have a special arrangement with Master Baker,” he said, and turned away from Caddoc. “In exchange for his goods I reduce his taxes by the comparable amount.”
“Truly, Scribe Oren?” Caddoc hounded Oren’s steps. “For Lyrinn told me a different tale this evening—“
“Lies! What did she tell you?” Oren turned and Caddoc saw a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “That I never pay her, and that I tax her master the full amount? I collect taxes from all the townsfolk, rich or poor!”
“Aye, and from what I hear, year after year the tithes have been steadily rising. Master Smith attests to that personally.”
“The words of the people living in this town are irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant! These hard working people are exactly what keeps this whole corrupt Empire’s coffers filled! How dare you dismiss these poor people as nothing more than a source of income for that… that rotting corpse of an Emperor—"
Caddoc whirled as Oren slapped him. His medallion swung free from his robes in an arc, tethered by its chain.
“Mind your tongue,” the older man hissed, rubbing his hand. “You are but three paces from heresy, Bell.”
Caddoc glared at Oren with unmitigated hate. “I will not be silent.” His hands curled into fists. “And I will not allow you to continue to victimize the members of this community.”
Oren stared him down coldly. “You seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that you are in charge of this situation. You are not, Apprentice, and while we may present a unified front to the townsfolk of Annex—“
“Do you mean the ones you’ve been taxing into subservience, or the ones you’ve been conspiring with?”
“That is enough! I will not stand these allegations. How dare you accuse me, a brother scribe—"
“You are not my brother,” Caddoc said slowly and deliberately. The side of his face was hot where Oren had slapped him. “I share more kinship with that poor Silvani you and Master Baker have been cheating for the past five winters. And you, you wicked, sad little man, could claim kinship with none but Malcolm – if it were not an insult to asses everywhere.”
Oren’s face turned bright red. “You ungrateful little – ach! Get out! Get out and don’t you return until you’ve learnt some respect! Go spend the night with your beloved Bloodhair wench!”
Caddoc yelled back, matching the older man for intensity. “You greedy, sniveling bastard! Just like every other blue-blooded Imperial lapdog! Gouge the poor! The illiterate! The ones who do all the real work around here! Live a week of the life of one of these ‘irrelevant’ people, and you would starve. Have you ever done an honest day’s work in your life? You make me sick, you old goat; you and everything you stand for!” Caddoc stormed out, snatching his dustcloak from a hook by the door as he left, leaving an apoplectic Oren is his wake.
Gods help me, I’ll find the baker and question him, or I’ll have his guts for garters. Caddoc strode through the gathering twilight, shrugging into his dustcloak and trying to calm the itch in his palms; his hands longed to close around Oren’s throat and shake him like a rag doll. A big empty-headed rag doll.
The last of the soft tones of sunset faded from the sky as Caddoc halted in front of the place where he’d met Lyrinn earlier. The bakery was a one-storey building, brick-walled, of middling size. The wooden shingle hanging by the door swung and creaked in the breeze. Three solid chimneys ran horizontally along the ridge of the roof, poking out of well-kept thatching. The windows set in the front were lit from inside.
“Hoy!” Caddoc cried out, knocking loudly on the wooden door. It swung open under his pounding. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone home?”
Poking his head inside, he looked around. The front half of the building was storefront; there was a long, high counter that ran the length of the inside. Beyond the counter was a spacious kitchen. He saw the three chimneys led down to large brick ovens, and he could also see mixing bowls and sacks of what must have been flour arranged neatly against the interior wall. To the right of the line of ovens was an open doorway leading to the back half of the house; there was a dark cloth curtain hanging in the doorway. The room was lit with several candles.
“Hello?” Caddoc called again. “Master Baker? Lyrinn?” He walked to the doorway and parted the curtain, peering into the small common room beyond. He could see it was furnished as a dining room, with a table and three chairs. Along the left wall were two open doors. This room was lit by candles as well.
A dark, unmoving form was stretched across the rough plank floor between Caddoc and the table. In the guttering candlelight, Caddoc kneeled down and touched the body. His hand came away wet and sticky. Smelling his fingers, his nostrils were flooded with a terrible coppery smell. “Oh, Gods,” he breathed, and reached up to grab a candlestick off the table above him. He brought it close to see.
The remains of what could only have been the baker were spread out before him. The man’s throat had been cut jaggedly; a broken piece of flint lay next to the body. Caddoc picked it up and gripped it for a moment. He stared dumbly, his gaze traveling from the flint to the baker’s cruelly slashed throat. He dropped it as he realized it was still slick with the dead man’s blood. Gasping, Caddoc crawled backwards until his back was flush with the wall. He had left bloody little handprints on the floor.
This can’t be happening, he thought, pulling his dustcloak off and wiping at his hands mechanically. His eyes followed the blood trail he’d left and his stomach lurched.
A scuffling noise from the door nearest him shocked Caddoc into action. “Lyrinn? Mistress Baker?” he called, scrambling to his feet. He dropped the cloak and barreled through the doorway.
It was the master bedroom. Another body lay on a large cot in the center of the room, next to a washbasin and nightstand. Whomever was on the bed was face-down and unmoving. It had long, flowing hair. Caddoc rushed over with an inarticulate cry and pulled back the coverlet.
It wasn’t Lyrinn. In the candlelight he could see clearly that this woman was older, and had dark brown hair. The baker’s wife, he thought dumbly, gingerly turning the body over until the dull glassy eyes of the corpse stared back at him from a pale face. The woman’s throat had been cut as well; there was also a gaping hole in her chest where Caddoc could only assume her heart had previously resided. The bed was spattered with nameless gore. Caddoc barely made it to the washbasin before he retched.
Wiping his mouth wearily, he straightened as he again heard the scuffling sound. Caddoc imagined Lyrinn lying on the floor. In his mind, he pictured her scrabbling weakly at her slit throat, a pool of her own blood spreading slowly under her. He burst from the bedroom, calling her name.
He came up short at the sight before him. Lyrinn stood in the center of the room. She looked disheveled, and her right sleeve had ripped from shoulder to wrist. A tall, powerfully-built figure stood behind her, cloaked and hooded in deerskins. His face was lost in the deep shadows of his hood, and he held a flint dagger to Lyrinn’s throat.
“What—?” Caddoc took a step forward and the cloaked man shook his head imperceptibly. The dagger pressed into the skin of Lyrinn’s neck and she moaned, her eyes wide with fright.
“All right,” Caddoc said soothingly. He raised his hands in front of him and stepped back a pace. “No need, friend. You’ve got the upper hand here. But don’t hurt her. If you’re looking to rob the place, just take what you want and go.”
The man spoke roughly in a language Caddoc didn’t understand. His eyes flicked just past Caddoc’s left shoulder, then back to the young scribe’s face. Again he barked something, and Caddoc shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Just… just take what you want and leave. Please don’t hurt her.”
The man looked over Caddoc’s left shoulder again as he stepped back, dragging Lyrinn with him. As he did so, Caddoc caught a better glimpse of the knife in the highwayman’s hand. It was intact. At the same moment he heard an odd noise behind him.
Oh bugger, he thought, and turned in time to see a slighter figure, similarly cloaked and hooded, bring the hilt of a broken flint dagger down against his temple. He heard Lyrinn scream his name before the world slid into darkness.
Mousestep sheathed her dagger and dragged the skinny little Stoneheart out into the center of the room. “Shall we stake this one out as well?”
“Search him first,” her brother said, tightening his grip on Lost One. He risked a glance through the curtain. “And hurry, we should be away from this place.”
Mouse fiddled with the young man’s things and gasped as she pulled a medallion out from where it had been tucked into his robe. “Take a look at this, little brother.”
“What?” He stepped over, dragging Lost One with him. She whimpered and chattered something in the language of the Stonehearted.
“It’s an abomination to hear that cursed tongue on her lips,” Mouse said, handing up to Sight-of-Eagles what she had found.
The Bloodhair gazed at it impassively. “How in the world did this one come by such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t be his. Shall I cut his black heart free now?” She pulled her chipped dagger out and thumbed the jagged edge. Lost One gasped and began chattering again – this time, in a pleading, hysterical tone.
“No,” Sight-of-Eagles said. “We should bring him to Father. Let him question the boy. And Lost One seems to fancy him. Perhaps we can keep her from mischief if we take this one with us.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan!” Mouse glared at her brother. “We were only to bring back Lost One!”
“That was before we knew of this one, and the thing he wore about his neck.” He gestured to the prone form on the ground. “Tie his wrists and ankles, and take him with us.”
Mouse shook her head. “Nothing good will come of this,” she muttered, and bent to her task.