Page 2 of Crucible of Chaos

Voluminous, he thought bitterly, pressing even harder against the wound, but failing to ease the sting. Six days and a hundred miles since he’d cleaned and sewn up the cut, but the pain hadn’t abated one jot. Worse, it now felt hot to the touch, suggesting infection.Perhaps if I survive the fever I’ll name the scar ‘Voluminous’ as a reminder to have a thicker skin in future.

‘And now what shall we do, Imperious?’ he asked the mule. ‘We’re under no obligation to heed the abbot’s request for judicial arbitration between his unruly monks. As Venia so reliably reminded us in his letter, Isola Sombra does not consider itself subject to the King’s Laws. Why should we tarry here when we could already be on our way home?’

Despite his optimistic words, Estevar had no illusions about the welcome awaiting him at Aramor once the First Cantor learned that one of her magistrates had lost a judicial appeal he’d been under no obligation to grant in the first place, only to then take a grievous injury due entirely to his inexcusable pride rather than any skill of his opponent. He would be lucky if she didn’t immediately demand he relinquish his coat of office.

Imperious swivelled his sorrel head once again, this time in an attempt to bite his rider’s hand as punishment for bringing him to this hellish place. Evidently, it wasn’t only the First Cantor to whom Estevar owed profuse apologies.

‘Let us away home then,’ he declared, tugging gently on the reins to circle his mount back towards the mainland road. ‘We’ll leave the monks to their quarrels.’

He was about to give the mule’s flanks an encouraging nudge when a voice shouted out from the mists, ‘Hold where you are!’

Man and mule both turned. The grey haze between the mainland and the causeway had thickened, distorting the voice and making it difficult to locate its source. A less experienced traveller might have heard the command of an angry ghost come to exact revenge for some long-forgotten crime. Estevar, however, had investigated many supposed supernatural apparitions during his tenure as a Greatcoat, and quickly decided this one sounded more man than spectre. He patted Imperious’ neck to calm him, but the mule lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, as if determined to leap into battle against their unknown assailant.

‘Who approaches the cursed Abbey of Isola Sombra?’ the hidden figure demanded.

Estevar closed his eyes a moment, allowing the eerie echoes to surround him. The voice was deep, confident, but that gravitas was trained rather than natural. The accent– most notably the rising inflection on the last vowel of the abbey’s name, almost as if he were saying ‘Som–brae’–suggested a commoner raised in this duchy, not highborn himself, but accustomed to being in the presence of nobles.

He reached back for the oilcloth bag strapped behind the cantle. He’d wanted to protect his rapier from the rain and hadn’t anticipated having to fight his way into an abbey famed almost as much for its hospitality as its wealth. With his fingers chilled to the bone, the knots were proving perniciously difficult to untie. His mind, however, was moving more nimbly, envisioning the unfolding scene from the perspective of the fellow who now sought to block his passage.

He sees only a fat man in a leather greatcoat slouched wearily upon a mule, Estevar thought,someone too slow to present a genuine threat. Someone he can bully as he pleases.

This was, regrettably, a common enough conclusion on meeting Estevar Borros. A magistrate’s first duty being to the truth, he decided it was incumbent upon him to cure this new acquaintance of a potentially fatal ignorance. He coughed briefly before allowing his own deep baritone to rumble across the sandy shore.

‘To you, stranger, is the privilege of greeting Estevar Valejan Duerisi Borros, often called the King’s Crucible. As one of His Majesty’s Travelling Magistrates, the duty of hearing appeals to the King’s Justice throughout the Seventh Circuit of Tristia falls to me. Any fool who stands in the way of that endeavour will soon find himself flat on his back, gazing up at the sky and asking the gods why they cursed him with such poor judgement as to challenge me.’

Not bad, Estevar mused, all thoughts of abandoning the monks to their own devices banished as he drew his rapier.The cadence was a little off, but melodious eloquence is surely too much to ask of a fellow in my feverish state.

At last, a tall figure emerged from the mists. First came the glint of steel, the position and angle suggesting a longsword held in a high guard. Next came the shimmer of a chainmail surcoat partly covered by a hooded cloak of pure white trimmed in silver and emblazoned with three azure eyes across the front.

A Knight of the March of Someil, Estevar reasoned, which explained both the accent and commanding tone.

The chainmail was going to be a problem. Estevar’s rapier was a duelling weapon meant for courtroom trials and back-alley ambushes, not squaring off on the battlefield against armoured knights. Tristian steel came in varying qualities, however, and a Greatcoat’s rapier was as fine a weapon as was ever forged in this benighted little country. Wielded with force and precision, the point could shatter the links of a mail surcoat to find the fragile flesh beneath. That was, of course, assuming its wielder was not already wounded and exhausted.

The wise move would be to fight from atop the mule. The added height afforded a superior position, and Imperious was no shy pony to cower in the face of danger. Should the need arise to flee, being already in the saddle would increase the odds of escape.

But my opponent is a man of war, Estevar reminded himself,trained to slash the throat of his enemy’s mount first to counter his advantage.

He dismounted, hiding his unsteadiness beneath a show of nonchalance. He patted his mule’s reddish-brown mane and whispered into one long, twitching ear, ‘No heroics, my friend. When the first blow is struck, turn tail and run. Find yourself a mare and– well, as I don’t suppose mules can reproduce, just enjoy yourself and think fondly of your old friend Estevar.’

Imperious ignored him, instead issuing a braying warning to the approaching knight. Running away clearly wasn’t the beast’s style.

‘Damned good mule,’ Estevar murmured, bringing his rapier up to a centreline guard suitable for initiating a deceptive flick at the eyes followed by a more powerful–and desperate–thrust to the narrow gap between helm and gorget, which would be his best hope of evading the mail surcoat.

‘Borros?’ the knight called out, coming into full view at last. A handsome devil, you had to give him that. The very portrait of a young chevalier: broad in the shoulder, narrow in the hips, square-jawed and golden-haired beneath a steel half-helm. Even the broken nose lent his otherwise smooth features a determined dignity. No doubt many a lad and lass had swooned over this one. At his side dangled a curved ivory horn. Estevar had known the blare of such instruments to carry for miles across flat terrain. ‘You are truly Estevar Borros, the King’s Crucible?’ the knight asked.

‘The storm is not so deafening that you failed to hear me the first time,’ he replied, widening his stance and raising the blade of his rapier. ‘Now, stop where you are. Inclement weather and poor soil make for arduous grave-digging, and I have more pressing business at the abbey.’

Without warning, the knight rushed Estevar. The fool might well have impaled himself, had not the combination of a magistrate’s quick judgement and a duellist’s quick instincts enabled Estevar to tilt his rapier blade off-line in time to stop the point sliding over the steel gorget and into the knight’s exposed throat.

‘My name is Sir Daven Colraig,’ the young knight declared, hugging Estevar with frantic relief. ‘I am Sheriff Outrider to His Lordship, Margrave Someil. It was he who commanded me to await you here these past seven days.’

‘Seven days?’ Estevar had to suppress a groan when the young man’s exuberant squeezing aggravated his wound. He shoved the fellow away, not quite as gently as he’d intended. ‘You expect me to believe you’ve been out in this storm for an entire week?’

Sir Daven nodded, water dripping from his helm onto the golden locks plastered to his forehead. ‘Indeed, Eminence. The margrave had hoped you would arrive sooner.’

‘My pace was perhaps more leisurely than anticipated,’ Estevar admitted.

Yet why would the Margrave of Someil be keeping abreast of a magistrate’s travels? And why would he make one of his knights camp out in the cold and wet until my arrival?

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