Chapter 1245: The great Hunger(1)
Chapter 1245: The great Hunger(1)
The cold stone beneath his feet rang with a hollow, metallic click as the soles of his boots came down upon it. Vilon walked the grand avenue of what had, until a month ago, been the absolute seat of power for the Oizenian royal house.
He had never been in a city this massive. For four weeks, he and the rest of the ragged remnants of the army had been stationed here, and every man among them was more than glad to have a proper roof over his head and a hearth to warm his bones. But this comfort was a fleeting thing. Soon, the order would come to march, the army would disband, and these months of blood and mud that had felt like a century would finally grind to an end.
But a sharper, uglier doubt was whispering in his ear, time was running short, already the cold was settling in.
It was either now or never if he wanted to find him.
Vilon had never set foot in such a big city before , but his father had. He remembered the old man’s drunken boast, the time he had hit it big in the grand tourney here, unhorsing a lord and two high-born knights. He liked to tell that tale much more than he liked to speak of thier present.
That had been twenty years ago. What had been his father’s greatest, most golden joy was now just a ruin being crushed under his son’s muddy boots.
Time was the great eraser.
This plaza had once been a bustling hive, thick with traders setting up shop and foreigners shouting in half a dozen dialects to hawk their exotic wares. Looking around at the immense, echoing space surrounding the palace, Vilon could actually believe it. The first day the legions had marched in, the locals had hurled themselves inside their homes, bolting the doors and daring not so much as to look through the shutters.
Then the Prince, actually, it was King now, had started bringing grain carts inside the walls, rationing it out to the starving populace. At first, the families only sent the man of the house, terrified and shivering, to bring the loaves back to the nest. Three days later, hunger broke the fear, and the locals finally spilled back out onto the cobblestones to resume their lives.People went accepting work from the conquerors who gave them shovel, or nets for various works Vilon did not know much of.
Now, parties of armed men dressed in the stark black and white of Yarzat patrolled the thoroughfares throughout the day. They gave the common folk little actual trouble. For the most part, the conquerors’ reprisal over the seat of their great enemy amounted to nothing more than a dark stare and a bitter spit on the ground.
They actually even kept the peace.
The real question now was where to find the lad. Vilon knew it was half a lost cause. There were more than three thousand soldiers packed into the city, their tents sprawling across every vast, empty patch of dirt the war had left behind. Whatever else the city lacked, be it food, people, or joy, there was no shortage of empty space.
Vilon had discovered there were six different encampments scattered across the districts. He had already visited three of them. He had asked around, of course, but trying to find a common soldier with nothing but a first name and a crude nickname was like hunting a single drop of rain in a squall.
Perhaps there is something I can do, he told himself as he watched two gaunt children run across the street. He let them pass by the side.
If he’s out there, I can find him. Vilon knew he was half-apt with a sword, had he not been, the demons at the Ford would have gutted him like a pig, but he was also as dumb as he was tall. His father had always said that, hadn’t he? A grand frame, with nothing but cobwebs between the ears.
Why do you even want him? the voice inside his mind whispered.
The boy had survived this hellish war. He had managed to pocket a few scraps of silver for his family. Didn’t you hear him talking about it by the campfire? He wanted to buy a cow for his mama. He has lived through the meat-grinder, and now you want to drag him away from his peace?His well-deserved peace?
Vilon tried to shake the thought away, but it clung to him like wet wool. A sudden, vicious gust of wind picked up, biting hard at his bare neck and making him shiver.
What can a knight like you even offer him? Hunger? Cold nights sleeping under a pine tree? You want to force him to suffer the exact same miseries you did?Shame on you Vilon. Shame on you.
I am a knight, Vilon argued back fiercely in his own thoughts. There is honor in it. If he squires for me, I can make a knight out of him after.
A half-witted knight with a quarter-witted squire, the voice mocked, dripping with his father’s old tone. Now wouldn’t that be a grand sight for the road? Liar. You know there is no honor left in the dirt. You know there is no glory. You’re just lonely, aren’t you? You’re a lonely, pathetic bastard without a single friend, so eager to grasp the ankles of the one boy you actually laughed with, even if it means dragging him down into the abyss with you. You are cruel, Vilon. Cruel and Alone.
He didn’t deny it. It was the naked truth, wasn’t it?
Still, the lad liked roasted chestnuts well enough,he would like the new horse too, and besides wasn0t he who had eagerly to follow Vilon when the knight had mentioned, half-joking, that he didn’t have a squire?
The boy had offered. He had volunteered. Vilon wouldn’t be forcing him into anything; he would just be accepting his consent.Was that so wrong?It would be his choice...
He doesn’t know any better, Vilon. You do. Father said you were stupid, but now you know you’re cruel, too. A bastard who is also cruel?You are really proving the priests word aren’t you? If you’re so lonely, why not do what your father did? Find a widow, gods know there are thousands of them here now, some of them by your own hand even, and buy her company with some of that new coin you’re carrying. Make a bastard or two. Bring them on the road with you.Fuck a woman, perhaps one you widowed yourself. Would you like that?A sword is made to be bloodied...
Vilon swallowed hard, his throat tight. He didn’t want a bastard.
And yet, looking out over the sprawling, cold stone of the conquered city, he realized he didn’t want to be alone either.It was double the cold and double the sad.
He wasn’t looking where he was going and he realised he wasn’t alone only when something light and frail bumped against his chest. It wasn’t heavy enough to stagger a man of his size, but it was enough to break the spell of his thoughts.
His hand clenched against the hilt of his sword, and just as quick it was unclenched.
It was just a woman, peering up at him was a pair of hollow eyes framed by matted, lank black hair.
She was gaunt, dressed in tattered brown cloth that hung off her frame like a shroud.
Vilon was no scholar, but he knew what happened when one starved; if that dress were stripped away, it would show nothing but sharp, prominent ribs. He might have been a dumb bastard, but he knew for a fact that starvation had laid its nest in this city long before the banners of Yarzat ever breached the gates. The late Prince of Oizen had been so eager to feed his glittering army that he had grown stingy with his own people.
Now, that wasn’t a sovereign I’d ever want to bleed for, Vilon thought bitterly. You could always see the true mettle of a prince in the bellies of his smallfolk. By that measure, the crownless one had been a very poor prince indeed .
He stood there, a towering wall of iron, and waited. He only realized what she truly wanted when she subtly shifted her stance, angling her hip and slightly pulling down the frayed sleeve at her neck to expose a collarbone that looked thin enough to snap.With one hand, at that.
Deep there the contourns of breasts rose up. Some flap of flesh in what was all skin.
"Three bronzii..." she murmured. Even her voice sounded hungry, dry as rust.
"No, I—" He began to refuse, the word catching in his throat. He stopped. She was starving, and she was the one asking for it.
Somewhere, the biting winter wind drifted between the stone columns.
A bastard or two... no, a son or two. They wouldn’t be bastards if you kept them. She is the one offering, Vilon. You have the coin, don’t you? Wouldn’t it be a kindness to give her what she asks for?
But just as the darkness whispered, a memory of light cut through the gloom.
"I promise you, Ser Vilon, no matter how dark the night, morning shall wait on the other side. Now ride, and I bid you to be a good knight!"
Such meaningful, heavy words to come from such a small young man.
A sudden, hot flush of shame crept up Vilon’s neck. The dark was in every man, he knew that, but a man’s worth had to be measured by the strength of the light he kept alive inside himself.
He wanted to be a good knight. He remembered that hunger now, a clean hunger that had nothing to do with food. A good knight wasn’t just a man who knew how to kill; a common butcher knew how to kill. What was the difference between the two if it wasn’t the soul beneath the steel? Vilon refused to believe it was just the armor.
With a heavy exhale that plumed in the freezing air, he reached down, unclasped his leather saccus, and pulled out a single, gleaming silverii. It was a substantial coin, far too much for what she had asked. He thrust it into the woman’s small, dirt-caked hands, wondering if his father was right on the account of his stupidity.
Her eyes widened at the coin, shining for a bit. Instinctively, she brought the silver to her mouth, biting down on the edge to ensure the metal was true. Finding it hard and genuine, she looked up at him, her gaze hesitant now.
"There is an empty house close to here..." she spoke, her vowels dragging long on the ees, a distinct mark of the dialect spoken by the folk this far south.
"No need for that, you may keep..." Vilon paused, the pragmatic side of his thick brain suddenly clicking into gear.
Did common folk in a ruined city even have change for a silverii? More like a merchant would see her with it, assume she stole it from a dead soldier, and call the guards and hang her for the trouble. Or worse, take it as a lump sum for a single loaf of stale bread.
Vilon didn’t have many silvers left himself and he had bled for them, but the young lord’s voice rode high in his mind again, a stubborn captain refusing to yield.
Ride and be a good knight.
With a dull pang in his chest, he reached back into the pouch, retrieved three bronzii and thrust those into her palms as well.
"You got children?" he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.
The woman nodded, a quick, jerky motion of her chin.
Vilon felt a sudden, strange lightness in his ribs, as if a layer of the city’s oppressive dust had been washed away. "Go," he told her, nodding toward the market squares where the grain carts were stationed. "Go and buy them something to eat then.They must be hungry"
He was always hungry when he was a child. His father always berated him for that.He ate like two grown men...
She stared at him as if he were a ghost, or perhaps an idiot. For a second, she didn’t move, her fingers tightening around the bronzes and the silver. Then, as if fearing the giant in grey plate would suddenly change his mind and demand them back, she pocketed them with frantic speed, tucking them deep into the folds of her rags.
"Thank you..." she whispered, the words barely carrying over the wind as she realized the coins were in fact a gift, given with no strings attached.
It was a small kindness.
But from the desolate looks of the grand avenue, Vlion realised kindness was a commodity that hadn’t been in stock in this part of the world for a very long time.
War after all only had one war , pain, and pain beget only other pain and death.