The Grey Bastards: A Novel (The Lot Lands) Read online

  Jackal looked at the child Beryl had called Wily and wondered if he was a thrice. The husky monkey was certainly fearless, mingling easily with the older children. He definitely reminded Jackal of Oats, who would have dominated the orphanage if his mother had not kept firm control of him, as she did with all her charges.

  Four days passed with no word from the Kiln. Beryl kept Jackal busy replacing the broken tiles on her roof, ridding her garden of vipers, and repairing the loose bricks in her chimney. When those tasks did not occupy him, she turned him over to the foundlings and Jackal soon gave more shoulder rides than he could count. At night, he slept outside beneath the portico, his stockbow close at hand.

  Winsome had only been threatened once in its history, when a band of centaurs rode through on one of their rampages. Jackal had been about nine and could still remember huddling in the root cellar with Oats, Fetch, and Beryl and the other children as the horse-cocks screamed madly nearby. They’d killed eight people that night and wounded a score before the Claymaster led the Grey Bastards down from the Kiln and chased them off. Had it been the Betrayer Moon, the hoof might not have been able to stop them.

  True to its name, the Betrayer could wax on any night, enrapturing the centaurs and sending them out to murder. The dread moon would often go years without showing its face, only to appear twice in as many months. It was said that the centaurs summoned it to align with their mad whims, but who could say for certain? None had ever entered one of the horse-cocks’ protected groves and returned with an answer. Whatever the cause, the Betrayer Moon was a lingering fear, a celestial axe that hung, invisible, above the Lots. Its arrival could not be accurately predicted, save by Zirko, and the little priest had not yet sent warning. Jackal kept his thrum loaded just the same.

  On his fifth day in Winsome, he finally succumbed to Cissy’s come-hither stares and snuck off with her, ducking down the narrow dead-end courtyard between Beryl’s and the cooper’s workshop. Cissy was a half-orc Jackal had known in the orphanage when they were younger. She had been about ten when he left and had grown into a sweet, plain-faced girl with a pleasingly sizable backside. Polecat had been shagging her and another of Beryl’s helpers, a frail named Sweeps, but had not yet chosen a favorite.

  “Cat finds out about this, he is going to want my scalp,” Jackal said as Cissy gnawed eagerly at his neck. He was already shirtless from his chores and she ceased her mouth’s attentions long enough to step back and gaze at his torso, her hands running over his arms.

  “Hells, Jackal!” she said. “Next to you, he’s damn weedy.”

  Jackal chuckled. “What do you see in that lazy-eyed letch, anyway?”

  He said it teasingly, making it clear that he bore Polecat no ill will, nor was there any competition between them.

  Cissy’s wide eyes left his chest and sparkled wetly up at him. “He is just the right amount of rough.”

  Jackal raised his eyebrows and nodded, affecting a pondering expression, then he snatched for Cissy without warning, making her gasp and laugh as he seized her around the arms. Spinning her around, he pulled her back against him and slowly put a hand over her mouth to hush her giggling breaths. She was a good deal shorter than him, but raised up on her toes to rub her backside in just the right spot. Parting her lips, Cissy got her mouth around one of his fingers and bit down, just enough to hurt. One of the cooper’s cast-off barrels was just to Jackal’s left. He shoved Cissy over its slightly buckled top, keeping his finger in her mouth. With his free hand, he raised her skirts up over her hips, revealing her sage-colored rump, and hooked a hand behind her knee to raise it up onto the rim of the barrel. Cissy moaned and arched, wordlessly encouraging him as her teeth held his finger fast. Jackal was unlacing his breeches one-handed when the alley of the courtyard darkened.

  Fetching stood there, little more than a silhouette against the bright sun.

  “Jack. We need to talk.”

  Jackal took a step away from Cissy, who rose from the barrel and threw her skirt down with a frustrated expulsion of breath.

  “It couldn’t wait half an hour?” she demanded.

  Fetching stepped to one side of the alley mouth. “Get going, Cissy.”

  Throwing an angry look at Jackal, Cissy hurried out of the courtyard. Fetching leaned away as she passed, as if the other girl’s life would rub off on her, drag her back to the station she narrowly avoided. Jackal leaned against the barrel.

  “That one gives you too much credit,” Fetching said as she approached. “Half an hour?”

  Jackal ignored the bait, waiting for Fetch to broach the subject she came to address. She was dust-stained, fresh off her hog. As she came close, Jackal could smell her, the earthy aroma of hard riding mixed with her familiar scent.

  “Claymaster tell you how long you got to stay here?” she asked.

  “I was hoping you were about to tell me.”

  Fetching wrinkled her nose. “No. The chief doesn’t talk to me even when he isn’t courting some fat conjurer.”

  “Anything come of that? Who is he?”

  Fetching rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Claymaster’s had me on patrol since Batayat.”

  “You came out of it unscathed,” Jackal said. “Not even slop duty.”

  “No,” Fetch agreed. “Claymaster doesn’t want me around the hopefuls, even as punishment. Figures they’ll be too preoccupied with visions of bending me over a barrel.” She kicked at Cissy’s former perch, unbalancing Jackal in the process. He stood to keep from falling, bringing him even closer to Fetching. She was just a hair shorter and eyed him boldly.

  “Why did you do it? Why did you claim to have killed that cavalero?”

  “Because we all had a hand in it. You, me, and Oats. But if the Claymaster knew it was you who pulled the tickler, the punishment would have been worse than slop duty. When it comes to you…”

  Jackal trailed off, knowing he did not need to explain to Fetch what the Claymaster thought of her.

  “No more, Jack. The hoof is never going to treat me as one of them so long as you don’t.”

  Jackal wrinkled his face. “I would have done the same for Oats!”

  “Would you?” Fetching shot back. “That’s pretty big of you, considering he had not one word to say out at Batayat. He could have backed us!”

  “Oats picks his fights carefully, Fetch. Which is more than either of us can boast.”

  Fetching held up a hand, giving him the point. “Then you got to start letting me deal with the shit that comes from the fights I pick. I don’t need your swinging cod getting between me and the Claymaster or any other member of this hoof. Understand?”

  Jackal nodded.

  “Say it!”

  “I understand.”

  Fetching set her jaw and nodded, her eyes softening slightly. Then she slammed a fist up into his balls.

  Jackal grunted and bent over double, the sudden dull pain giving way to a foreboding numbness before the real agony shot upward and lodged in his throat, trailing nausea through his entire body.

  “The fuck, Fetch?” he managed between coughs.

  “That was a favor,” she said, leaning down to put her face level with his.

  “A…favor?”

  “So you’ll be too sore to try and spread Cissy’s cheeks again. That hussy is looking to make the Kiln her permanent home. Soon as you stick that troublemaker in any of her holes she is going to see a clear path to your bunk.”

  Jackal tried to glare at her through teary eyes. “We were both just looking for a break in the drudgery.”

  “That’s what you were doing, halfwit. But she’d throw Polecat over in a heartbeat. Cissy’s not about to stay with that weasel-faced pederast if she can get you. So, unless you’re ready for a bedwarmer, keep out.”

  Fetching straightened and began to leave the courtyard, her stockbow bouncing
slightly against her lower back.

  “And you’re welcome.”

  Jackal hobbled in slow circles for a long time after she was gone.

  Chapter 5

  A slophead came to fetch Jackal back to the kiln after eight days. The young hopeful was out of breath, as if he had run all the way from the compound.

  “What’s the matter, slop?” Jackal dug. “You can’t sprint a mile without getting winded?”

  The slophead tried to steady his breathing, causing his lips to twitch and his face to pale.

  “Hells, Biro, breathe,” Beryl told him from her chair on the portico. “Don’t let this one tug your ear. Jackal swooned like a virgin the first time he was made to run back to Winsome with a message. Took me forever to bring him around.”

  Jackal snorted. Some of his fellow Bastards would not have taken kindly to being teased in front of a slophead, but he found Beryl’s story amusing, all the more so because it wasn’t true. Jackal trimmed a few more artichoke stems with his knife, dropping the heads into the basket between him and Beryl, before standing. Sheathing his knife, he picked up his brigand and stockbow.

  Beryl looked up at him with a tiny smile. “Good to have you around, Jackal.”

  He leaned down and kissed her once, then stepped off the portico and into the hot sun.

  “Let’s go,” he told Biro.

  Nodding rapidly, the slophead spun on his heel and began jogging up the dusty trail that ran through Winsome. Jackal continued at a walk, squinting at the retreating slop until the youth realized what was happening and turned around.

  “The Claymaster said to bring you back quickly!” Biro called back.

  “Then he should have sent my damn hog,” Jackal replied, not bothering to raise his voice.

  The foundlings, now aware that he was leaving, came scurrying from their play to surround him, following in a laughing, living cloud until Beryl’s commanding voice called them off.

  The road to the Kiln was mostly uphill in this direction. Jackal took his time, donning his brigand as he walked. Biro stayed a few paces ahead. The youth was no more than thirteen, still within his first year as a slophead, and still responding to the sworn members of the hoof with a mix of awe and dread. Fortunately, that also kept him from talking during the walk.

  As they neared the Kiln, Jackal spotted a small encampment squatting near the gate.

  “When did they arrive?” Jackal asked, peering at the half dozen horses and tents.

  “Two days ago,” Biro replied. “They are cavaleros from the castile.”

  Jackal almost mocked the slop for the obvious observation, but bit back on the abuse, choosing to educate the boy instead.

  “They are cavaleros,” he agreed, “but can you tell me if they are commoners or nobles?”

  Biro stared blankly.

  Jackal took him by the shoulder as they drew nearer the camp and pointed at the horses, hobbled and grazing on the sparse plain.

  “Look at the quality of their mounts…not one is purebred.”

  Two men were standing sentry while the other four threw dice near their small cook fire.

  “Noble-born frails rarely gamble with dice,” Jackal continued, “and they wear a crimson sash to denote their privilege. These clods don’t have that and their armor is poorer quality. But, they are usually the better fighters. Remember that.”

  Biro gave his rapid nod and swallowed hard.

  Walking beneath the gate, Jackal entered the wall passage and began making the long circuit through the darkness. He could hear Biro’s hand sliding along the wall behind him, the youth not yet used to traversing the black tunnel without that guidance. Jackal remembered when he had done the same, years ago.

  “Why—?”

  Jackal whirled on Biro before he could utter another word, shushing him harshly.

  “Never talk while inside the wall!” he whispered. “You need to have your ears open for riders in both directions. I don’t want to get trampled because some slophead couldn’t keep his tongue from flapping.”

  To the youth’s credit, he said nothing more, not even to answer.

  Jackal continued to lead them through, quickening his pace. When he was Biro’s age, he feared being inside the wall, constantly worried the Kiln would come under attack and the gates would be closed before he could run the circuit, the ovens heating the passage until he cooked in his own skin. All slopheads needed that fear, it kept them alert and alive.

  But that was not the reason Jackal began to hurry. Commoner cavaleros at the Kiln meant that Ignacio was paying the Grey Bastards a visit, and that, no doubt, was why Jackal had been summoned.

  “Get my hog saddled,” he told Biro as soon as they emerged into the light of the compound. The youth ran for the stables. One way or another, Jackal figured his punishment was over and he meant to ride as soon as possible.

  He entered the meeting hall and made straight for the Claymaster’s solar. As expected, he found Captain Ignacio within, slumped in a chair opposite the chief’s desk. Balding and homely, with pockmarked skin and rheumy eyes, Ignacio was every bit the common soldier. He was probably of an age with Bermudo, but could pass for his noble counterpart’s father, the hard life of a peasant etched into every wrinkle of his swarthy face.

  “Jackal,” Ignacio said with a nod.

  “Captain.”

  The Claymaster looked up and his mouth curled. Behind him, a pair of dusty ceramic jars rested upon a laden shelf. They were old sapper pots, an alchemical device used in the Incursion to blow holes in orc defenses. As a slave, the Claymaster had crafted them, shaping the pottery and filling the jars with the volatile substances that made them so damn dangerous. The two relics on the shelf were empty, inert, but Jackal always glanced at them when in the Claymaster’s solar as a reminder of the chief’s sudden turns in temper.

  “I am starting to wish you were drowned at birth, Jack.”

  Jackal said nothing, waiting on the bad news.

  The Claymaster waved a linen-wrapped hand at Ignacio. “Tell him.”

  The captain looked at Jackal, his tired expression rimmed with frustration. “Cavalero Garcia’s horse returned to the castile.”

  Jackal struggled to keep his face placid.

  “I found that interesting, Jackal,” the Claymaster said, his tone dangerously light. “I found that very interesting, considering you told me that horse was going to be given to the Sludge Man along with the cavalero’s body.”

  “I’ll ride out now,” Jackal said. “Talk to Sancho. Find out what happened.”

  “I already did.” Ignacio sighed. “The whoremaster did what you asked. He sent a bird to the Sludge Man and he came the next day, took Garcia and the horse. But that horse turned up outside our gate.”

  “Jack? Care to voice a thought as to why that is?” the Claymaster asked.

  Jackal shrugged. “Ask the Sludge Man.”

  The Claymaster’s eyes darkened beneath his bandages. “You going to pass all your mistakes off to him?”

  “No, chief.”

  “I sent a bird. Soon as Ignacio arrived and told me about this increasing pile of hog shit. Waiting on a reply.” The Claymaster hooked a finger in the air from Ignacio to Jackal. “The rest.”

  The captain issued another weary breath. “That man you killed was the son of some shrew up in…Vallisoletum, I think. A marquesa or the like.” Jackal gave no reaction. The names belonging to Hisparthan towns and titles meant even less to him than they did to Ignacio. Yet the captain’s abiding weariness was chased away as he continued, the worry in his words giving him a rare vitality. “It’s said she has a fortune. Influence at court. What she don’t have is more than one son. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  Jackal refused to let the captain’s anxious tone affect him. “He couldn’t have meant much to her if he was
sent down here.”

  Ignacio huffed. “I don’t know what the man did, but exile to the Lots could be a mother’s love and money at work if the alternative was execution. Mother Marquesa might not be pleased with saving her son from the headman only to have him die during his first fortnight in the Lots.”

  Jackal looked at the Claymaster. “Do we care about this? Rumors and royals have no place in the badlands.”

  “Bermudo cares,” Ignacio said, leaning in his chair to regain Jackal’s attention. “The story you fed his new cavaleros, about Garcia attacking his captain and deserting? The fable fit the man’s character, so none in Hispartha would likely look further. But. Now the horse has returned. From centaur territory. Where you said he fucking ran!”

  “A place even thicks don’t leave alive,” Jackal realized aloud.

  “Much less some fop’s stable-raised prize stallion,” the Claymaster snarled. “Your tale’s come apart, Jack.”

  Ignacio clicked his tongue. “Bermudo’s hounding those newcomers to tell the truth of what happened. For now, they are more frightened of you than him. But how long can that last?”

  How long was right. Ignacio kept referring to Jackal as Garcia’s killer. That meant the young cavaleros really were holding the truth back. If even one of them had let slip it was a female half-orc that put a bolt through Garcia’s brain, Ignacio would have known exactly who they meant and told the chief. The Claymaster would be handling this very differently with that knowledge.

  “The horse disproves nothing on its own, but you mark me, Jackal, if that body is discovered and Bermudo can use it to help himself, he will.”

  “Like paying for passage back to Hispartha by entertaining the marquesa with my hanging?”