Chapter 19 - I know how to help you.
The western district of the lower city kept its own slower rhythm, the wide cobbled streets giving way to cramped alleys with low awnings over the doorways, the trade signs fading in the summer sun, and far fewer people about than in the centre.
The sign of the Merry Ploughman hung over a squat two-storey building with dark oak shutters, one of them slightly askew with age, while from behind the half-closed door came the muffled hum of voices, the clink of crockery, and the smell of wood, warm bread and fresh ale.
William Grant pushed the door open and went in, stopping a moment at the threshold.
Erik stood behind the counter, bent over the lower shelf with a look of concentrated irritation on his face.
"Damn it, where is it..." he said under his breath, shifting the crockery from one place to another.
The smell of fresh ale made the noise in William's head fall back for a moment, leaving room for warmth in his chest and the memory of a quiet life before the Sacred Hunt.
William came up to the counter and lowered himself onto the end stool, and Erik straightened, setting the crockery aside.
"Pour me a fresh ale," William said.
Erik ran a quick eye over him, gave a short nod, and filled a tankard, setting it on the counter in front of William.
William reached for it, but the tankard slid back along the counter before his fingers could close over it. Raising his eyes, he met Erik's, slightly narrowed and fixed on him.
"The ale isn't free, in case you didn't know," he said.
William breathed out through his nose and dropped his eyes to the countertop, holding them there for a few seconds while he slowly closed and opened his fingers, until the tankard came quietly back to his hand.
William looked up to find Erik already off to one side, unhurriedly wiping a plate and not turning his head.
"Going by your face, you're quite the ploughman," he said, without looking up from the plate. "And in this tavern every ploughman has to be a merry one."
William looked straight ahead for a few seconds, until the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
"Thank you," he said, lifting the tankard and taking the first mouthful.
His body let go, and with it came the memory of morning markets, of taverns after a long watch, of the smell of food and the laughter of brothers in arms at the next table.
The moment William set the tankard down on the counter, a sharp, solid blow came from inside him.
The unease returned, coming down as one massive pressure that clenched one hand round the tankard and drove the other palm to his forehead by reflex.
Indistinct voices overlapping one another began to build, and through all that noise one word kept breaking out, repeating more and more often.
"Aren... aren... aren... aren... AREN... aren... AREN..."
William's head was about to burst, until Erik's voice took all the pressure off in an instant.
"Oh, finally! Well then, Aren, did you manage to find anything out?"
William froze where he sat, not lifting his eyes off the countertop, his fingers still closed on the tankard, while his breathing levelled out one breath at a time.
Footsteps came up beside him, and a moment later someone stopped at the counter on his left.
"No... unfortunately not. You were right, it was a stupid idea. In the end all we heard was a lot of frightening nonsense."
William turned slowly to his left and saw at the counter a dark-haired young man with runic tattoos on his neck that ran down under his collar.
Beside him, fair-haired Elara came to a stop, a thick braid thrown over one shoulder, and with her Leo, the same gold in his hair, looking the room over with lively curiosity.
A little further off, on the other side of the group, stood broad-shouldered Bernard with his short fair beard.
"I hope you didn't wreck the place while we were gone, brat," he said, addressing Erik.
"Oh, believe me…" Erik answered with undisguised displeasure, setting the plate aside. "It took a good deal of work to get this place back into a decent state after you."
Bernard gave a short laugh, coming round the counter.
"Clear off. Let a real man get to work."
"Do you show off like this in front of Dara too?" Erik answered, raising an eyebrow.
The laughter went round the whole group, while William kept his eyes on Aren until the younger man turned to him.
"…you… are you all right?" Aren asked.
The whole group turned to him, studying the stranger in silence.
William did not wait for the pause to settle and raised a hand in a calming gesture, stretching his lips into a slightly strained approximation of a smile.
"Y-yes, forgive me, I didn't mean to seem rude. It's just that you remind me of someone."
"Really? Of who?" Aren asked, his brows going up.
"Er... my... cousin."
Aren turned his whole body to William at once, giving him no room to add a word.
"Really? What's he like? Did he have tattoos as well? And is he dark-haired too? Has he gone missing?"
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Elara laid a hand gently on Aren's shoulder, stopping the flood of questions with a small awkward smile.
"Easy, Aren. It could just be a coincidence."
"No, he's a dark one as well, but he hasn't got any tattoos," William answered.
Aren breathed out slowly through his nose and dropped his head with a faint smile on his face.
"I see. Forgive the questions… It's just... it's a strange time right now..."
William straightened on the stool, shifting his eyes from Aren to the others.
"And what's going on with you, if it isn't a secret?" he asked.
The whole group exchanged a silent look, and William gave a wave of his hand before the pause could draw out.
"Forgive my manners. My name is Sir William Grant. Knight of the Green Order... though I don't look much like one at present. But I've got the day off."
Aren's eyes widened slightly, while Leo narrowed his in disbelief.
"Do knights even get days off?" he asked.
"Sometimes. Mostly on medical grounds," William answered with a short laugh, taking a drink of his ale.
"And what happened to you?" Bernard asked from behind the counter.
William let a pause fall and set the tankard on the counter.
"The Sacred Hunt. I'm one of the survivors."
Everyone went still, the clink of crockery behind the counter stopped, Leo's smile went out, and Elara exchanged a look with Aren.
"No way..." Erik said, with a note of disbelief in his voice.
By that time a small crowd had gathered on the street where William had left the injured men.
Two men stood over a third, who sat against the wall with his head tipped back, while a fourth, doubled over, held his broken hand out in front of him, swearing steadily through his teeth.
A carpenter was busy with the doorway, examining the hinges and shaking his head, while the passers-by kept their distance.
Sir Gunard was walking down that street, his eyes searching for Sir William, whom he had been ordered to follow.
Seeing the crowd at the broken door, he slowed, took in the scene, and then went up to a man standing apart from the rest with his arms folded across his chest.
"What happened here?" Gunard asked.
The man glanced round, looked him over briefly, smirked and turned back to the crowd.
Gunard stood a second in mild bewilderment before the man finally answered.
"One of yours, I'd guess," the man began. "Came in here, started asking about the lad with the tattoos. Knocked that door out with Gonwood's body."
He jerked his head towards where one of the injured men sat against the wall, then moved his eyes a little to the right.
"Broke Orvin's hand. Nearly choked Loktis to death."
Gunard's brows drew together as his eyes went first to the man pressing the injured arm to his chest, then to the second, being helped back to his feet, and finally to the carpenter mending the door hinges.
"What was this knight's name?" Gunard asked.
The man shrugged, and the silence stretched out between them.
"I told him he could find the lad at the Merry Ploughman... If you want your knight, that's where he'll be."
Gunard gave a short nod, turned and walked away, leaving the aftermath behind him.
What the hell is going on?... Gunard thought, walking on.
At the same hour the Merry Ploughman was warm and a little close from the day's crowd.
Aren sat at a table by the wall, across from Grant, giving a brief account of himself, while Grant answered every pause with a short nod, putting in no words, asking no questions, only turning the tankard on the table now and then.
Elara listened with the same attentiveness, quietly adding details that Aren skipped.
"It's a difficult situation, of course," Grant said, without lifting his eyes from the tankard. "I'm sure nobody has ever run into anything like it... But I have a feeling it will all come clear in time," he added, looking at Aren with a warm, slightly tired smile.
Gradually the conversation moved on to what had happened in the Great Forest, which Grant recounted with visible restraint. Aren, Leo and Bernard asked more and more questions, but Elara and Erik noticed the strain building in William's face, after which they managed to steer the talk onto a lighter subject in time, until it turned into ordinary tavern conversation that later ran itself out.
Bernard cleared a couple of tankards away behind the counter, Leo yawned into his fist, and Elara quietly reminded them about the early start.
They got up and said their goodbyes to Grant, and Aren had already turned, ready to follow the others, when the knight's voice came from behind him.
"Aren."
Aren turned back and met Grant's eyes, the knight still in his seat and looking at him now with a different expression.
"A word."
The tavern porch gave onto a narrow side street, all but empty of passers-by at that hour.
They moved a little away from the door, where Grant stopped with his back to Aren, looking at the roadway in front of him, and was silent for a long time.
"Sir William?" Aren said at last.
Grant let another pause run, then answered, his eyes on the cobbles.
"I know how to help you."
Aren stood without changing his position, not entirely sure he had heard it right.
"Forgive me... what do you mean?"
Grant began to answer, turning round at the same time, his face lowered.
"I'm saying that I know how to help you...find out who you are."
Aren's brows pulled together at the bridge of his nose, and no answer came to him as he watched William raise his eyes.
"But... how?" Aren asked.
Grant ran his eyes down the street and stopped them in the distance.
"When I was in the Great Forest... when the slaughter happened... five other fighters and I managed to get deeper in, towards the mountain ridge. We survived there several days, trying not to run into the dangerous predators, but for some reason they had all gathered round our shelter in the cave and cut off the way out. At a certain point we decided to break through..."
He fell silent for a few seconds and went on more quietly.
"I don't know for certain how it ended for the others. All I know is that something then dragged me to the Great Tree."
"The Great Tree?" Aren repeated, straightening up. "That giant tree that's even bigger than the ordinary giants of the Great Forest?"
Grant nodded, still without turning round.
"Then I saw something... it was enormous... colossal... the forest around me disappeared, it went dark, and I saw this silhouette... like a stag... huge... damned huge antlers... a long, monstrous tail... and..."
"Three eyes," Aren said.
Grant broke off and stood motionless for a few seconds, then slowly turned his head towards Aren.
"So you... you saw it too?.. You were in the forest?.." he asked, looking at Aren with his eyes wide.
"Only in a dream... and also... I dreamed of the Great Forest... and the men in it."
Grant closed his fingers into a fist, dropping his eyes.
"Aren... you understand, don't you…" he began.
Aren's lips pressed together, and his eyes did not leave Grant.
"It was you..."
"Yes..."
Aren said nothing, looking down, and Grant spoke again after a pause.
"In any case, Aren... It said your name to me."
"It said... me?"
"It ordered me... and it still orders me, somewhere inside my head… it's as though it… is searching for you and waiting." Grant nodded, touching his temple.
Aren looked at him, unable to find a single word that would mean anything here.
"So, Aren… if you want to find answers and learn who you are... you have to come with me. Into the forest."
Aren drew a long, ragged breath, without taking his eyes off Grant.
At that very moment Gunard was leaning out past the corner of a house a couple of buildings along from the tavern, watching Grant's conversation with Aren.
Making out the words at that distance was impossible, but the fact of the conversation itself gave more than enough grounds for questions.
"What are you doing?" a voice came from behind him without warning, and Gunard spun round, barely holding back the urge to swear out loud.
Larn stood behind him, in armour, his helm under one arm and one eyebrow raised.
"Damn it, Larn, you can't creep up like that!"
"I knew it was you, Gunard," he said, with a slight shake of his head.
"How did you even know it was me? There isn't even a crest on my cloak," Gunard answered with irritation.
Larn smirked, shifting from one foot to the other.
"The dent in your helm that you still haven't got fixed."
Gunard sighed and turned back to the corner, while Larn leaned out beside him, studying the street.
"Well? Are you going to tell me what you're up to?"
"The survivor from the Sacred Hunt. Sir Alistair ordered me to keep an eye on him," Gunard answered.
Larn narrowed his eyes, moving them to the figure beside Grant.
"Oh, that's the lad," he said.
"Aye, that's him… only I can't work out... what he wants with the lad…" Gunard said, still watching from behind the corner.
"Why not ask him?" Larn suggested.
"When I said 'keep an eye on him', I meant shadow him," Gunard answered with a sigh. "Sir Alistair made it very clear that Grant is not to know I'm here."
Larn shook his head in sympathy.
"So knights play the spy for us now? Such an honour."
"And what the hell are you doing here? Haven't you got business of your own?" Gunard threw back.
"All right, all right, I'm going," Larn said, taking a step back. "You're starting to act like Hart."
"God... and I think I'm starting to understand him," Gunard answered grimly, without turning round.