‘Yer talked about the laws, and the King and rights. Imagine: rights fer people like us?’
When the men had come for me, I’d given a pretty speech to the people of the town, all about the laws that were meant to protect them, that belonged to them, and that sometimes they themselves would need to fight for themselves. And when I was done, I did as the King had instructed us and asked for twelve men and women of the town to take up the role of juror, to safeguard the verdict after I was gone and ensure no harm came to the boy’s family. No one had come forward to take up the gold coins. Two days later they still sat on the ground in front on the stocks where I was now held.
‘Ma’am, if I might be honest, I’m not clear how this is my fault. I administered the law, I fought to protect the girl and her father, and yet I am the one in the stocks.’
‘Aye, that’s true enough. But there’s no one in this town wants t’trade places with yer.’
‘And what exactly should I have done differently?’ I asked.
She knelt in front of me, her knee almost touching one of the gold coins.
‘Yer should have listened,’ she said. ‘You spoke the words – they were fine words – but when no one jumped up and said, “Aye, sir, take me! I’m yer man!” yer just looked at us like we were dogs or children. And then yer leaped on the Lord’s men all alone like a fool.’
I tried to shrug. ‘I thought if I could get the jump on them I might be able to get out before they caught me.’
‘Next time, just run,’ she said.
Then she pulled something out of her bag, a hammer and some other tool that looked like a narrow chisel. She set it on the edge of the lock holding the stocks and with one powerful blow she broke the lock. She put the tools back in her bag and then reached down and picked up one of the gold coins.
‘Don’t look like all that much,’ she said before rising.
I pulled myself out of the stocks and rubbed life back into my aching shoulders.
‘Yer best head on now. Yer horse is tied up around back the barn there. Get on out and I’ll take it from here.’
‘They’ll come after you,’ I said.
‘I’ll beat me stupid husband into service; he’ll help. And there’s another few around here I can get to back me up if it comes to it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said finally.
‘What’s to understand? Yer spoke the words. I listened.’
I listened, and the wait was as awful as you can imagine. A huge crowd of people, and a dais on the far side with the Duke and his young son, and his men all around him, ready to come for us. And small gold coins were spinning idly on the ground, slowing to their ultimate conclusion.
Then suddenly there was a flash of legs and fur and a dog raced out, a Sharpney, fast as a racehorse, and picked up one of the shiny coins in its mouth as if it were a rat.
An arrow hit the ground where the dog had been.
‘Mixer!’ a boy called out as he ran out from the crowd. It was Venger, the little tyrant I’d met days earlier. The boy ran right into the empty space and grabbed one of the coins. As he left the circle and vanished back into the crowd, making a rude gesture at me, then at the Duke, another pair of arrows fell into the circle, breaking against the hard stone.
‘Any man or woman who picks up one of those filthy coins will take an arrow!’ the Duke roared. ‘Now go back to your homes or I swear I’ll make every one of you pay the red price!’
Then the woman, the big one who had been the first to promise protection for Aline, ran in and took one of the coins and disappeared back into the crowd. Another figure ran in, this one with one arm splinted and bound tight to his chest: Cairn, the poor fool who’d wanted to be one of Lorenzo’s Greatcoats. Then another came forward, and another, each racing inside the circle to grab a coin and then run back into hiding.
But one woman wasn’t so lucky: three arrows pierced her body and she fell to the ground, the coin still clutched in her hand.
People were murmuring. I could see anger on their faces, defiance. More than one looked ready to jump into that circle and pick up one of the coins and swear themselves jurymen, but now the archers were firing in sequence, every few seconds. Thop, thop, went the sounds of arrows breaking against the stone. But they wouldn’t break against flesh.
I heard a shout, and saw a disturbance in the crowd as someone pushed their way through, like a narrow little wave, between the Duke and us.
‘Tommer! Stop, Tommer!’ the Duke was shouting, and when I looked at the dais, I saw his son was no longer there. Suddenly, the boy was right at the edge of the circle. Half a dozen arrows hit the ground in front of him and I marvelled that he hadn’t been hit.
‘Stop, you damned fools – that’s my son,’ the Duke raged.
The boy walked calmly into the centre of the circle and looked carefully at the few coins left before bending down and picking one up. He held it between thumb and forefinger and lifted it before the crowd. ‘No man breaks the Rock,’ he shouted in the shrill, high-pitched voice of an angry youth.
The crowd went wild. They lifted the boy up on their shoulders, cheering like mad. Men and women milled around and through us, and suddenly we were barely noticeable.
The Duke’s son had picked up a Greatcoat’s coin. The Duke’s son had said the words.
Now I could make out eleven men and women who had picked up my coins, and a happily barking Sharpney dog. Cheers of, ‘The Rock! The Rock!’ chorused around the Rock, the sound echoing against the hard stone. Everything else was ignored – the Duke, Shiballe, Aline, myself, the guards … We all ceased to exist in the minds of the crowd.
I was struck dumb by the sight. ‘She was right,’ I muttered to myself.
‘Who was right?’ Aline asked.
‘A woman – a blacksmith. She told me I needed to listen.’
Aline grinned, as if that was the very same advice she’d planned on giving me. ‘You do talk a little too much, Falcio,’ she said.
‘Talk is just about all he ever does, but once in a while it’s enough.’ I turned and saw a shabbily dressed grey-haired old woman with lines on her face and steel in her eyes. The Tailor was holding a heavy travel sack in one hand. ‘But the time for talk has passed and now is the time for the two of you to get out of this thrice-damned place.’
‘Mattea!’ Aline screamed in delight and hugged the Tailor fiercely.
‘Yes, child, seems I’m not done taking care of you yet.’ The old woman looked me in the eye. There was a hint of softness there I hadn’t seen before. ‘You must go now, child,’ she said, looking fondly down at Aline.
‘Why? Why can’t I stay here? I wouldn’t burden you, Mattea—’
The Tailor said gently, ‘That’s not your purpose, child, nor is mine to keep you like my own, though I’d very much love to do that. You’ve done what had to be done: you’ve survived the Blood Week, and now your name and your blood are acknowledged. No man will be able to deny you your name, sweet Aline.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why—?’
Mattea cut me off. ‘Yes, Falcio: you’ve made it quite clear you don’t understand. So instead, you’ll do what I say. Your pretty words were fine and now the people are in an uproar, wanting something better than what they’ve had with that miserable bastard the Duke. But that will die down soon enough and Shiballe will once again set his games in play to master the city. So go now: take the girl and get out of Rijou as fast as you can. Go and find those other great fools before they do something stupid and make a mess of all my plans.’
Then she gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t suppose that giant beast hidden in that burned-out shop back there belongs to you?’ she asked.