CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Jane broke into a skipping run that took her past the soldier, startling him, making him jump and yell, ‘Stop.’ .
He lunged after her, only Jane skipped ahead and turned with her hands out.
‘I need to use your toilet.’
The soldier lunged and went to grab her, but suddenly pulled his hand back, as though grabbing a girl who needed to use a toilet was a boundary that he wouldn’t cross.
He scowled, and spoke gruffly.
‘You are to follow me to the dining hall where I will announce your arrival to the sergeant at arms. It will be up to him what happens next.’
Jane put a hand on her belly and bent over her hand while assuming a pained expression.
‘You don’t want me having an accident do you?’
This made the soldier extremely uncomfortable. A blush crept up his face and drifted across his bald head.
‘I will present you to the sergeant at arms and he will decide what you can and can’t do.’
Jane spoke low, ‘But it is urgent.’
The soldier was caught between stamping his authority on this strawberry haired girl, and a desire to be seen as a nice fellow.
The soldier spoke softly.
‘I am sure the Sergeant at arms will accommodate you.’
Just then Trinket stepped up beside the soldier. She didn’t pass the soldier and Jane saw the slightest crease where Trinket had secreted a weapon under her cloak.
Trinket said, ‘Present us to the Sergeant and then we can use the toilet.’
The soldier grunted with a measure of gratitude.
A slash of lighting lit up the corridor. Thunder roared.
The soldier moved on down the corridor to an iron door. He opened the door and turned back.
‘Wait here. I will speak to the sergeant at arms about accommodating you for the duration of the storm.’
He stepped through the door and turned to the left. Jane could just see past the soldier to a dining room where men were crowded around a table eating their midday meal.
A moment later the soldier came.
They followed the soldier into a great hall beneath a cathedral ceiling. A long dining table held a spread of food: meat and vegetables and grapes and nuts and bread, all in a blowsy litter as though attacked by wild animals.
Around the table were rugged men all trying to talk over each other. The men quietened as Trinket and Jane passed. One of the men held up a bone with meat hanging from it. He pointed the bone at Trinket.
‘‘The princess of Wyld Fell.’
Fifty feet along the table was a huge man sitting between three empire soldiers. Although the man was young, perhaps just out of his teen years, he was already battle scarred. The young man’s head was a boulder that looked like it had been beaten on to the neck using blunt force trauma. The young man’s face was a landscape of scars. One of his cheeks was scarred so badly it looked like a pile of worms. His left eye had been gummed half shut, with a large white scar crossing from his eyebrow to his cheek. A beard grew like a thick brush from his jaw and cheeks.
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The young man opened his mouth and revealed long and crooked teeth. He roared across the room, ‘The princess of Wyld Fell.’
There was emotion in the greeting, partially joy, and partially distress.
‘Hello Gibor,’ said Trinket.
The soldier who had escorted Jane and Trinket from the castle gates called to the sergeant at arms, an Empire soldier.
‘I didn’t know that I was accompanying a princess.’
Seated directly beside Gibor, the sergeant said, ‘The princess withheld that information.’
‘Hello Princess,’ said Gibor as Trinket drew close.
The sergeant at arms put a hand in Gibor’s direction to stop him talking.
It was obvious that the sergeant at arms held the power in the room. He had tiny, cruel eyes that sat deep in a very dull face. He had a splodgy beard that grew with reluctance beneath his chin. He slouched in his chair, one leg sticking out, the other leg folded under.
The seated sergeant and the two soldiers who stood behind him were heavily armed. They wore short swords, hilts protruding from scabbards. They wore daggers sheathed in leather holsters across their chests. They wore iron armour that covered their chests and shoulders. The standing soldiers had quivers and bows slung across their shoulders.
The Empire sergeant spoke to Trinket as though she was lacking intelligence:
‘I was told that two females were looking for shelter from the storm. Now, seeing that one of the females is Trinket, the princess of Wyld Fell, I no longer believe that this is an innocent request. I believe that you have come to see Gibor with deliberation. And that makes me wonder … why?’
Gibor’s men watched, eyes gleaming, violence lurking in their scar riddled faces.
Jane noticed that the men at the table were not armed. Gibor’s men had not even as much as a small dagger. Gibor himself wore no weapons and no armour. They had been enfeebled. The Empire soldiers held the weapons and the power.
Staring directly at the sergeant at arms, Trinket said, ‘I need to speak to Gibor alone.’
The sergeant crossed his arms and leaned further back in the chair, so far that the front legs of the chair came off the ground. He shook his head, and a sound of derision came out as a snort.
Again, Trinket said, ‘As the princess of Wyld Fell, I need to speak to Gibor alone.’
The sergeant leaned forward and the chair's front legs banged against the ground. ‘You will NOT speak to Gibor alone. Acting for the Emperor I will attend all meetings.’
The elation of yellow syrup running through Jane’s muscles had subsided, and she felt like she was slumping. She needed more yellow syrup. One sip. She craved one more sip.
Gibor addressed the sergeant:
‘Accompany me and the Princess to the chancery. Let us see what news she brings.’
The sergeant stood quickly, and nodded at Gibor.
‘Let us go and see what the princess has in her mind.’
Gibor stood, and he was huge. He was seven feet tall and as wide as a table, with a head that would have trouble fitting through a narrow door.
‘Come,’ he said to Trinket.
Because nobody had mentioned Jane in their negotiations, Jane wasn’t sure if she should also attend this meeting in the chancery, but when Gibor and the sergeant moved off, Trinket turned and murmured, ‘follow.’
Lightning crackled and hissed and the thunder that followed sounded like the end of the world.
From the dining room they entered a narrow corridor with walls made of enormous, irregular stones. This corridor led into a wider corridor where the walls were mud packed. A shelf held metal helmets and earthen dishes. Along one wall hung a large map. At the end of the corridor they came to stone stairs that coiled up into the keep of the castle tower.
Halfway up the stairs it happened.
In a flash of blue and green, a short bow appeared in Trinket’s hand.
Gibor, who walked just ahead, sensed the movement and turned and a look of horror came into his face. He was shaking his head to tell Trinket to stop, but he was too late, because she nocked, drew, and released an arrow that flew and embedded itself in between the shoulder blades of the sergeant at arms.
The sergeant bellowed and turned with the stuck arrow following him. Trinket strung and drew and let fly another arrow that found the sergeant's throat. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but no words came. He crashed to the ground.