A Fear of Knowing
John of Pell had once attempted to depart a lady’s bedchamber, and the oncoming press of the cuckolded husband and his men, by climbing out a fourth-story window and walking along a crumbling parapet. That had been a mistake.
Not long thereafter, the southlander had managed to impugn an Aradeeti’s honor by simply brushing against the nomad during Midsummer festival. The ensuing knife fight had been decidedly one-sided, and John, for the first time in his career, had blessed the timely arrival of the Merchant Prince’s guardsmen. Knife-fighting an Aradeeti nomad had, also, been a mistake.
And then, perhaps only two summers past, John had accepted a Gordian raider’s challenge to finish a cask. The ale within was heavily mixed with the blood of a snow leopard and the milk of a Gaardian yak. Another mistake.
Regrets. He did not have many, but he did have those three. The Pellman now walked with a slight limp due to the leg he had broken in his four-story fall, bore a white scar along his collarbone from the edge of an Aradeeti kukri that had damned near killed him, and grew queasy whenever he so much as saw milk and ale upon the same banquet table. And today, John thought ruefully, I have added a fourth mistake to the list.
For the Pellman, despite his companions’ warnings, had opted to talk with some of the condemned men during the party’s journey across central Valusia enroute to the Bluehorn.
John had learned, in his travels, that discretion was the better part of romance. Or, at least, the better part of romance with women married to influential husbands. He had learned to step carefully around Aradeeti mercenaries, no pun intended. He had also learned one could measure the difference between a Pellman’s and a Gordian’s digestion with about, oh, three bucketfuls of milky-red vomit.
But John had never - not yet, not ever - learned to keep his mouth shut.
***
Shamans read the entrails of goats. Priests read scripture. Wizards read tomes, and rangers read tracks. John, for his part, read people, and his ability to recognize a falsehood had been honed from years spent lying himself. So it was that, after only two days’ spent escorting their prisoners, John was quite certain the men were guilty of those crimes Poridel had announced prior to their departure.
Three of their prisoners were gruff longshoremen from the quays of Val Hor who had happened upon a rather unfortunate, and rather inebriated, daughter of a paladin of Torm. What followed may have been consensual, but the judges had not bothered with even a single divinatory cantrip. John, too, did not care. Even if the trio were not guilty of rape, they were guilty enough within the bard’s mind. Their deaths would not weigh upon his conscience.
Two others had worked in a tannery outside the town of Shoal, not far from the White City, and still smelled of the tanning vats. The pair emphatically claimed they had killed their master only after ten years of incessant beatings. John could tell they were lying – other motives had been at work. Like the longshoremen, the bard thought both of them deserving of their fate.
But the sixth prisoner – a whey-faced Basilican named Aren Arens – was a different character all together. For one, the boy had a pleasing singing voice. For another, he could capably strum the lyre – an instrument John had, most regrettably, lent him during the third evening out of Ciddry. The Basilican claimed a rival suitor had framed him for theft, then – during a subsequent duel – Aren had killed the man in honorable combat. Yet the victim was an Apian, the son of a tribune within the Arensian Governor’s household, so the judgment had been both swift and final.
John sat far from the firelight and, for once, did not join the subdued conversation of his companions. Across the campsite the wagon – the prison – was draped with the purpled shadows of approaching evening. Upon its roof perched Baden, ever-vigilant during his turn on watch.
The party had made good progress along the Battlemarch road, and the weather had been only too accommodating. Vath had taken to riding upon the wagon’s seat like any drover – the mules’ desire to flee the half-troll’s stench worked better than any stick or carrot. Raylin’s scouting ensured their group avoided most travelers and – more importantly – their inevitable questions, for slavery was not permitted within Valudia. Yet Val Hor was far from here, both in geography and philosophy, and the folk of these lands were as like to heed as piss upon the authoritative documents Poridel had given them.
John glanced southward to where he could still distinguish, despite the dying light, the taller spires of the Lantern Grove. The forest, a rumpled quilt of greens and browns, seemed to be gathering its strength against the oncoming night. If the stories were to believed, gammedrel woodwards and their fey companions held nightly bacchant dances under those trees. How the bard wished he could be participating in such revelry rather than traveling toward…toward what? Success? Victory? Tragedy.
John let his gaze move eastward. There, nestled within the pleasant vales of the nearby Cathen hills, lay the only gnomish village upon the entire Isle. John had never been there, though he had often wanted to visit. Gnomes were famous for their lyrical prowess, if not their musical imagination, and it would have done the Pellman a world of good to learn a few more limericks. But the party had already made it clear they would skirt the thorp, if at all possible, in the interest of time and prudence.
John stared at the lyre in his lap, the weight in his stomach growing. Finally, he stood. The Pellman beckoned for Kellus to join him in the shadows. The bard measured the former Helmite’s mood with a searching look. “Kellus, I think we may have a problem.”
***
“How so?” Kellus’ voice, as always, was as cool and plain as his archaic breastplate.
“The prisoners. Or, rather, one of them. I am not certain he deserves to be…I am not certain he deserves the fate Poridel would have of him.”
“Poridel? Only Poridel?” Kellus arched a brow. “We all agreed what his fate must be. Not just the Tower Sage.”
John sighed. “By the baggy breasts of Beshaba, Kellus - I know that. Hell, I was the one who first agreed. Yet now…now I am not certain anymore.”
“None of us are. We make decisions based upon what we know. We are not infallible.”
“A sermon is not what I need from you, Kellus. Not now, and certainly not one delivering a message about man’s ability to make mistakes.” John chewed upon his lip. “You could help.”
“Why would I help murderers and rapists?”
“Not them,” John sighed. “You could help me.”
Kellus’ look was guarded. “Say what you mean.”
“I would know the truth. One of the prisoners – the young Basilican – claims he killed a man in a fair duel. I believe him.”
“Such is your wont.” Kellus stared hard at John before continuing. “I will not gainsay you, nor will I agree. Believe what you will – all men do.”
“I’m asking you to help me, dammit.” He pitched his voice lower when he caught Raylin and Vath looking in their direction. “We have bled together – upon the Cormick plains, on the ledge of Borbidon’s Rest, at Olgotha Mound. You owe me as I owe you. Ask your…inner power, or whoever or whatever it is you ask, to see if he speaks truthfully.”
“I will not.”
“Why?”
“The decision has been made. If you cannot sleep easily, then I am sorry for you – truly, I am. We are in a world of men, not children. I am not one to sing a lullaby in the hopes you will sleep more easily.”
“Don’t mock me, Kellus.” John fought to retain his composure. “A simple spell. You have said so yourself. Ask a few questions under your Zone.”
“I will not, John.”
“Why?” John nearly grabbed Kellus’ robe.
“We are on the open road, friend.” Kellus’ voice turned uncharacteristically gentle. “I must reserve my strength. The sage believes we are hunted, or soon shall be, by those agents who would welcome Ippizicus’ return. I must save my power should we need it during any confrontation.”
“That reasoning stinks like the plague, Rhelmsman.” John’s eyes narrowed. “Do it. Tonight. I will stand your watch, and – on the morrow – you will be fully rested once again.”
“No, John.”
John threw his hands in the air. He no longer cared if his companions heard him, no longer worried if the prisoners could make out his words. “This is wrong, man. Wrong. I am asking you – nay, I am begging you – just cast a single, simple-”
“No.”
Vath ponderously rose to his feet near the campfire, his dark eyes blacker from the shadows around him. John ignored the half-troll. He gripped Kellus’ forearm. “I will pay you-”
“I said no.” Kellus pulled his arm away.
“Why not?” John stepped closer to Kellus, his eyes inflamed. “Why not, I say! The Basilican may very well be speaking the truth! One. Simple. Favor.”
“No. Because-”
John practically shouted. “Because why?”
“-because I do not want to know!” Kellus – for the first time since John had known him - lost control. The priest’s face was flushed. He stepped forward, his mouth close to John’s ear. “Now - do you understand, Pellman? Do you?”
John, without sympathy, “No. I do not. Say it, Kellus. I think it is time you say what you mean.”
Kellus ground his teeth for but a moment, his eyes locked upon John’s own. “I do not cast such a spell…because I fear what it might reveal.”
Silence fell upon them with the weight of the heavens. John stared at his friend’s face, only inches from his own. His heart thudded within his chest like a banging anvil. Finally, as Raylin made his way toward them to help diffuse the situation, John nodded, eyes downcast. “I understand.”
“I wonder if you do.” Kellus turned on his heel to go, but John grabbed him one last time.
The Pellman and the Rhelmsman looked at one another. John spoke in a voice thick with emotion. “Perhaps you are right, friend. Perhaps you give wise counsel.”
Kellus scoffed, his mouth a sour smile. “If there are gods, John of Pell, then blame them. Not me. They made men into the fools we are.” The Rhelmsman looked at the turf underfoot. “Wisdom has nothing to do with it.”
