C.O.W: Chapter 19

A charred smell of something long burnt to the ground lingered in the air, as if an unclean bit of smoke desperately needing to be fanned away. Tris swept his hand through the air to draw in a breath that was not filled with dirty air clogging his lungs up. He had been told this path was one of the only safe ones out of the country, and the only one going to where he wanted – Valiquet. Tris doubted that.
His horse stood quietly to his side, nibbling away happily at the bag of oats given to it by Tris. Tris himself knelt beside one of the bodies; a slim figure that had been dumped on top of the burnt out building. The building still stood tall for well onto its third floor, a manor house maybe? he thought. The area closer to him had fallen on the ground in a mess, the body had been dumped on top of it and it had less burn marks, implying that it had been killed somewhere else and dumped on the burning building.
Stripped naked she was outstretched against a wooden door. Tris had seen bodies before and, in general, they didn't make much difference to him – after you've seen one body you've seen them all he thought. This time however something was wrong, he'd seen this woman somewhere before in his travels. A large tattoo ran down her collar-bone, it's colour lost to those who looked at it. A long red rose without thorns; the stem had been done in black and the flower bloomed just below her throat atop of her bosom. Brown black hair fell down her body. She was no older than twenty summers it looked and her looks were sure to have attracted men.
This is where Tris knew he had seen her before: before the new year, when Darrian was put to the sword and he had escaped with his life he had seeked out refuge in what he thought was originally an inn. It had turned out to be an extravagant brothel which he had left from with a whore named Kahlan as a companion. Herrier, an old army commander he had fought with a decade earlier had tracked him down, maybe to finish what he'd started, and attacked him, Tris only just surviving by knocking the man unconscious. This was a second of the whore's he had seen at the brothel, what's more Kahlan had often spoken well of a friend called Stella who matched this dead body's description.
Kahlan herself was now dead, killed in the first battle of the siege on the Harrillen palace city, now destroyed well behind Tris. Another ghost to haunt his sleep Tris looked up at the flames. Would Herrier have taken her? Of course he would, but to what end? Herrier had been a fan of woman even when Tris had been in the army, but never a murderer. Sure he'd commonly go off the rails, declaring he needed something from them, usually to prove a point. But what point would Herrier go so far as this to prove? Tris cursed; it could be literally anything. He loathed everyone, maybe he just wanted to kill someone? No Tris thought no, if he was just going to kill someone why not do it back at the brothel? Why would he, or any murderer, drag her all the way to the border hundreds of miles away to kill someone? It wasn't like she wouldn't have died anyway with the invasion force.
When I get to Valiquet there's going to be a lot of question's he'll have to answer, and I don't particularly want to get on his bad side asking them.
"What if it's not him, maybe it's someone else" he turned to his horse and mumbled, as if the horse could hear him. Then he turned back, a knowing feeling in his gut "no it's him. I know it and he's going to die for it, I just need some proof".
Picking himself up off the ground he put his hands on the charred wall and stepped backwards a step. Looking up his gaze fell on a large overcoat lying on the floor, it had probably been dropped as its owner desperately tried to escape the blaze. Tris picked it up and, heading backwards to the body of the whore he laid it completely over her body. Also he put his thumb and first finger of his right hand on her eyes and pulled down her lids. When he was happy that the body was entirely covered and wouldn't be disturbed again he moved to check the building for any sign of what happened.
Tris was careful not to step too hard on anything as he expected most of the planks of wood to be badly damaged from the fire and capable of snapping at the least of incidents. Charred bodies practically littered the floor, many of them hidden underneath the wall where it had fallen down in part. Some were scarcely dressed, mostly women, though a few were men. Those men who bore little clothing often held on to a woman after their death all the same. Across the other side of the building Tris found a looked door with its roof still standing, catching a whiff of something rotten beyond the door Tris decided to leave it well enough alone, figuring the husbands of the most likely raped wives to be the victims of a mass murder behind the lock.
He decided to venture further in to ruin. The floorboards creaked under Tris's weight as he pushed an armoured man out of his path. Figuring the man to be a bandit from his harsh looking attire the thought came to Tris's mind what exactly had happened here. The building had surely been large enough to be considered a manor house in its own right. That would mean that the rightful owner would be lying dead around here somewhere weeks if not months before the burning even took place.
After searching the ruin for a good half our Tris found that he had nothing to pin the blame on Herrier or anyone for that matter. Leaving it behind him he moved out of the house, whispering a prayer for Kahlan's dead friend. Leading his mount by its nuzzle bag Tris moved silently, not wanting to ride yet also not wanting to stay still. Before a single hundred metres was up though came another stench of corpses. Up in front of him, with no attempt whatsoever to hide the corpses, lay three men. One of them Tris assumed had been some form of leader as the clothing he wore looked more of a stronger cuirass than the others flimsy shirt, likely made from leather. Dropping to his knees and searching the body for anything Tris's fingers wrapped around a small leather-bound book no bigger than the size of his hand. Upon opening it he knew it instantly as a diary, the dates in the book stopped only a few weeks back. He saw instantly the one name he'd been looking for; Herrier. It didn't matter what he'd done to get noticed, at least Tris knew he had been here, and when he caught him up, there would be hell to pay for sure he thought.
*
The sun shone high in the sky telling the woman it was almost midday; she dozed on the man's head, half asleep half awake in a state of dull sensation. Herrier had played this one differently; for a start Márriére wasn't a whore, unlike Stella had been. He had given her some clothes at least and had been kind towards her in order to get in bed with her at the first inn they stayed at past the border. This wasn't to say he didn't have the same fate in mind though for the girl. His contacts in the city, he knew, would 'take care' of her from now on. He still hadn't planned to tell her about it, up until the point of necessity it was best to get what he could willingly. Her darker skin tone and golden amber hair stunned him, sure to surprise most of the city aswell he thought. Herrier had often thought about his contacts since he had left the city almost six months earlier. It wasn't strictly true to call them contacts he mused silently, being careful not to jolt Márriére, thus waking her up. He'd been playing an act, a performance, on Márriére since he'd met her. He'd told her he was a merchant's apprentice, travelling Harrillen in a caravan. The caravan master, supposedly, had gone back to Valiquet a month before him and he was now following suit, looking forward to being back home.
He'd been planning for a long time now. Forget Moss, forget the king, they'll have their own problems soon enough dealing with Sorset, until then I can just take their assets nicely; attack them from the inside. First things first though, he had to deal with Murrier.
The cart didn't exactly trundle along, to put it more accurately it shot across the flagstone's making up the road. Trimmed oak trees lined the side's of the road all the way up to the city gates from a good ten miles out. Beyond, workers heaved away in the fields, creating crops for the city. The working class. Herrier sneered at them as they passed by. They worked, at this time of the month, taking in a harvest of grain. In Valiquet it was warmer than other sovereignties so the grain came out sooner after a harsh winter. Many of them heaved large sacks of precious grain to the storehouses, some took it directly to the bakeries in the city. Most of the shops were in the middle districts (central and military), few lay in the slums. As Herrier turned the next corner the road became clear all the way to the city gates.
He nudged Márriére softly with his shoulder and prompted her to take a look at Valiquet city with her own eyes against the sun. Still about a mile out she got a view fitting the entire city in from one side of the wall to the other.
"This is the southern wall" Herrier said "we'll head in through these gates to the slums, I have contacts there I can speak to about getting some beds for the night" he smiled, Márriére was so unaware of the truth it actually made him laugh a little inside.
"It's beautiful, I can't wait to see it in summer" she replied, her voice ever so slightly lower than Stella's had been.
"On your right you can see the river, it flows through all districts of the city at some point in its course. As for the actual city wall, it's one of the most important in the entire kingdoms. What you can see of it from here is pure granite, it runs for about twenty feet back and over eighty tall, making it the most defendable place in the sovereignty. It runs for over twenty miles in perimeter, though only military forces are allowed on it I'm afraid, however much you want to see. Marble line's a lot of it giving it a feel of elegance too, you'll see that as we get closer to it".
"And the landmarks, what we can see, what are they?" Márriére inquired, never having been out of Harrillen before to see anything like this.
"That's the palace and noble district right there" Herrier pointed to the royal building at the east of the city. War heroes from the century war were granted residences there when it finished, though they've been haunted since built I hear" he smiled. "In the centre, right next to it, you can get to any district in the city. The central district has a hospital and more than a few public parks, the gate in from the slums though has been closed for years even before I was here last. If you want to get in I suggest you get yourself into one of the other districts. North of the central district we have the upper middle district, mostly just houses though there are a few museums, I haven't been in there much". Herrier continued with his act.
"When we're settled in with a place I'll go to the lower middle district, east of central district, to see if my caravan leader has got back yet. It's got a lot of shop's and a large marketplace there. The military also make it their home closer to the wall with over one thousand soldiers stationed in a score of barracks".
"What's that destroyed thing right there, in the centre of the city, a tower?".
"Destroyed tower?" Herrier looked shocked and looked forward, it did indeed have a large chunk of it missing, what the hell had happened? "That's the guild, the tower shouldn't be destroyed though, I'd imagine something's wrong if it's like that. Nobody knows much about the guild" he explained "after what they did in the war they've been left much to their own methods.
As they got closer to the gates Herrier noticed Márriére look around increasingly, trying to take it all in. The river glistened with the light of the sun, also bouncing and glinting off the various landmarks past the bustling metropolis. Now the grain fields had been passed and an orchard lay to their side, too cold to produce apples though in the early months of the year. For much of the surrounding land around the city Valiquet grew large amounts of food and farmland was seen regularly, much of it was taken by the merchants and sent off on merchants caravan's for profit. When all of these came back the merchants often got more than they expected from the sales and the tax on them headed to the treasure was a little less than average ensuring a high quality of living for the people. Ironically this prompted civilians to buy more, so thus more money actually went forward to the kingdom's treasury and everyone did better from it. Herrier noticed more guars at the gate than usual, not that it should be a problem, he'd changed his facial features a lot in the year he'd been away, enough so that he wouldn't be recognised, and he'd been ensured by people that his accent had a strong Harrillen sound to it so he couldn't be recognised for who he really was. Normally at a city gate only eight soldiers or so stayed to keep it under control. However Herrier now counted twenty, had something happened recently? Was this to do with why the guild tower looked destroyed.
As they neared the gate the guards realised and moved out to inspect them. Herrier pulled on his reigns to slowly the two horses down. As they reached the gate of the city and could see in to it, the horses were moving at an incredibly slow pace and, eventually stopped just before the guards.
Herrier, not wanting to cause trouble, submitted to the search customary of those entering the slums but he was annoyed when the guard captain confiscated the horses and cart from him. Arguing his fake story to the guards they told him to take it up with the new head of the guards in the slums: a man called Datria. Herrier remembered the name Datria and put a mental image of the captain in his head; a bodyguard of the princess he recalled. They had often come to blows, mostly when he'd been being chauvinistic to the princess. Putting a mental note in his mind to ask his contacts about what had happened with the guards he sighed and moved away from the guardhouse.
"What now?" Márriére asked.
"We find the river, if we follow the river up to the wall against the northern districts we can cross it to the area my friends live in. It's not too big but there's less people there so there's less crime. It's always hard to get to terms here that this is a slum".