The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 5b - Painted Vengeance

Harric struggled in the embrace, twisting and kicking, but Rudy knew his moves. It wasn't the first time they'd struggled. A sharp pain at the back of Harric's head sent spots across his vision. Head butt. Rudy's specialty.

"Leave him be ye fat guts!" a reveler called. "Ye'll spoil the party!"

"He shamed His Worship!" Rudy shouted. "Your Worship, see for yourself!"

The carriage halted before it had gone a pace. As Harric refocused his eyes, the lord appeared in the open window. Laughter from his recent triumph still lit his face. "What is this noise?"

"Your Grace, this man's a notorious drunk — " said Harric, but Rudy cut him off with a squeeze that flushed the breath from his lungs.

Another blow to the back of his head Harric's ears ringing. The next thing he knew, a sticky hand clapped over his mouth. "Worship, he's been having you on. You look and see. He gots twenty of them charms under his shirt and they're as cheap as dog teeth in these parts. When you leave he'll bring 'em out and the whole porch will have a laugh.

"That's how he served my master," said one of the saffron grooms. "Cheated at cards and stole away a prime slave."

The lord's smile faltered. His eyes flicked from Harric to the faces on the porch, and whatever he saw among the revelers made him flush with color. He rapped on the door and the driver descended to open it. The lord stepped across the gap to Harric's cart, where he stood eye-to-eye with Harric, smoldering.

The porch fell silent.

"Is this true, bastard?" said the lord.

Rudy squeezed the voice from Harric. "Open his shirt, Your Worship, and you'll see it's true."

The lord tore Harric's shirt to expose a dozen additional charms on strings against his skin.

As if to confirm Rudy's claim, a gust of laughter burst from the revelers.

Harric twisted his face from under Rudy's hand. "These charms are of inferior quality - " he began, but Rudy bear hugged the breath from him and left him mouthing the air like a fish.

The lord lifted the stones from Harric's chest and examined the nuggets. His lips flattened in a tight line. "They are identical to the ones I purchased," he said, very softly. Harric met the lord's eyes, and in them he saw the game was up. The lord snatched back his purse of silvers.

One of the revelers guffawed. To the man beside him he said, "Pay up! It's sunset, and he made twenty."

"No, indeed," said the other. "The fat man buggered it."

"See there, your Worship?" said Rudy. "They all knows it."

Tears stung Harric's eyes even as a ludicrous grin overspread his face. Had he triumphed over a death curse only to be hanged as a common jack by the likes of Rudy?

A stinging slap from the lord failed to wipe the grin away.

"You dare shame me, bastard?" The lord drew near, his voice barely a whisper. "As a full blood of your rank I can mark you. Yet you dare?"

"It isn't you I gamed, Your Grace," said Harric. "It's my mother. It's complicated."

The ginger-haired lady clapped her hands. "Oh, mark him, brother! Do mark him." She rose with a pot of green slave-paint and held it out the window to her brother. "This is turning into such fun," she said. "I hope we meet other bastards we can paint. But don't mark his hair, dear brother. He has such fine hair."

The lord took the pot and plunged the brush deep in the bright green paint it held. "I thought to mark our new peasants with this, bastard, but since the Blood Purity Laws allow me to mark a bastard...."

Harric struggled in the stableman's arms. "The Queen abolished the Purity Laws."

"This is the frontier. There are no laws."

"The Queen's frontier."

The lord smirked. He drew so near that Harric could see every pore in the skin of his high sharp nose, and feel the warmth of citrus-scented breath on his cheek. "The Queen is weak, Bastard. Her reforms weaken. Maybe you haven't heard up here, but she grows old and has no heir. There is many a strong lord ready to lead us back to the Old Ways when she goes. Indeed, in some parts the Old Ways and Purity Laws already rise again."

"Your Grace - " Harric began, but Rudy clapped a hand over his mouth. The lord lifted a great glob with the brush, which he slopped in the hair of Harric's forehead.

The ladies squealed in delight.

"You are marked for judgment," the lord announced, loud enough for the porch to hear. "You will stay here on public display until the mark dries. And this fine man," he nodded to Rudy, "shall be my deputy until a gentleman of greater than green blood arrives to carry out justice for the crime of...." The lord swirled the brush in the hair, leaving an algae-colored cowlick where Harric could see it. "...the crime of lying to a lady."

A pulse of shame struck Harric at the thought Caris might be present. A glance found her easily at the rear of the crowd, head and shoulders above the others. On her face he saw a look of hurt and confusion, as if it were her he'd conned. She turned into the inn too late to hide a grimace of pain that stabbed deep into Harric.

Rudy was stammering, "Won't you give justice yourself, Your Worship?"

"That is for one of higher blood than mine, sirrah. But fear not," he said, raising his voice for the market to hear him. "Before nightfall, I promise you this: a waterwheel shall land with more lords of high color than this cesspit's ever seen. Indeed, you shall find a Phyros-rider among them. One of the Old Ones, I believe?"

A murmur of shock rippled through the market. Several merchants near Harric began packing up their stalls. Emigrants behind the carriage agitated to squeeze past and win clear of the crowded gauntlet, which would be a trap to them if a Phyros should come.

The lord beamed with pleasure. "You will be great sport I'm sure, Sir Bastard. I would stay for it, but an Old One can be...unpredictable. Caution bids me away." He tore most of the additional charms from Harric's neck, and returned to his carriage, where he showered the stones upon the delighted ladies.

The carriage lurched into motion, trailing ladies' laughter behind it.

Rudy released Harric and socked him in the side of the head. White spots dashed across Harric's vision. His knees hit the planking, hard. "I'm keeping you right here, lord-boy," said Rudy. "You heard what His Worship said. An Old One's coming. And I ain't never heard of an Old One that didn't fancy a hanging."

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