Mousillon began.
V
IT WAS PITCH-BLACK as they approached the inn, yet it could only have been an hour after nightfall.
It was built like a fortress. It had few windows on its lowest level, and these were shuttered and
barred. Fifteen-foot-high walls topped with spikes enclosed it completely. Braziers burned brightly in a
vain attempt to keep the night at bay. A stout gatehouse was the only entrance to the compound, and to
Calard’s trained eye it looked able to withstand all but the most concerted siege.
As they rode into the light, Calard pulled his hood down over his face. They were spotted as they
approached the inn’s fortified gate, and sentries levelled heavy crossbows in their direction. Calard knew
that his armour would provide scant protection at this distance, but if he felt any unease, he did not show
it.
‘Who goes there?’ called out one of the guards.
‘Travellers seeking a room,’ replied Calard.
‘The gates are sealed at nightfall, stranger,’ came the reply. ‘Move along.’
‘What now?’ said Chlod, eyeing the night with haunted eyes. Wolves howled in the distance and he
shivered.
‘I’ll be damned if we’re spending the night out here,’ Calard said under his breath. ‘We have coin,
peasant,’ he called out. ‘We are not paupers.’
‘How much?’ called down the guard.
‘Enough,’ said Calard.
‘Approach,’ ordered the guard.
Calard nudged his warhorse forward, noting the deep scratches and gouges in the front of the gate.
The sign swinging above the arched gateway proclaimed the inn to be called Morr’s Rest. Below the sign
was a carved icon of the god of death in his guise as the reaper. Unlike more formal representations, this
carved wooden statuette clasped a foaming mug of ale in one skeletal hand, while in its other it held its
more traditional sword. Calard frowned, uncomfortable at such disrespect, and he muttered a prayer of
appeasement to the god of the underworld.
A hatch in the gate opened up, just large enough to show the pig-like face of a guard, who squinted
at them through a latticework of bars.
‘Show us the colour of your coin, stranger,’ he said.
Calard edged his steed closer and slid from the saddle. He drew a copper piece from his coin pouch
and held it out.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ said the guard.
‘This is more than you deserve,’ said Calard. ‘Take it and open the gate.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said the porcine guard, grinning smugly. ‘What else you got?’
Calard sighed.
‘Fine,’ he said, pulling a second pouch from beneath his travel worn tabard. This one was made of
fine velvet, and the sentry’s small eyes lit up.
‘Closer,’ Calard said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I’ve only got the one, so it will only do for you, not
the other guards.’
The man leaned in close, licking his lips. Calard’s hand shot out, slipping through the bars to grab the
guard by the throat.
‘You should have taken the copper,’ said Calard in a low voice.
The guard’s eyes were bulging. Calard shifted his grip to the back of the man’s neck and pulled him
violently forwards, slamming his face against the bars. Before the guard could recover, Calard pressed
the blade of a knife to his throat.
‘I have a new proposition. Open the gate and you live to see another dawn.’
The man tried to speak, but Calard pushed the knife more forcefully into the rolls of fat beneath his
chin, drawing blood.
‘Nod your head if you agree,’ he said, eyes cold and dispassionate. ‘Gently.’
The man’s eyes were wide with fear, and he nodded his head slightly.
‘Good,’ said Calard.
‘Open it up,’ said the guard, his voice hoarse, and Calard heard the heavy bar being removed. He
released the guard, his knife disappearing.
The gate swung wide.
‘Try anything before I leave, and I’ll gut you like the pig you are,’ Calard hissed, leaning in close to
the shaken guard as he walked through.
Calard caught a snatch of the conversation behind him as he led his steed into the walled inn’s
courtyard. He heard guards asking how much the gatekeeper had got. Calard glanced over his shoulder
and caught the man’s eye.
‘Enough,’ he heard him say, looking away quickly.
THE COMMON ROOM of Morr’s Rest was crowded and filled with smoke, and even the aroma of
cooking meat, sawdust and ale was unable to fully conceal the stink of humanity and vomit within.
Conversation stopped and heads turned as Calard stepped through the door.
He drew his hood down lower over his face under the scrutiny and took in the layout of the place at
a glance. He noted that the inn had holy sigils and loops of garlic hung above its entrances. The drinkers
themselves were a surly lot, their expressions ranging from suspicion to outright hostility. He glared at
those whose gaze lingered on him too long, and one by one they turned back to their drinks, muttering
darkly, and the hubbub of conversation resumed.
A more disreputable crowd of people Calard had rarely encountered, and he wondered wryly if he
would be better off facing the creatures of the night. The patrons of Morr’s Rest scowled, bickered and
spat as they gambled, drank and stuffed their faces with greasy stew and stale bread, laughing loudly at
ribald jokes and groping the beleaguered serving girls as they squeezed from table to table. Calard kept
one hand on the hilt of his sword as he pushed his way towards the bar, scanning for potential threats.
Most of the drinkers had the look of outlaws, brigands and vagabonds, though some of them might
have been desperate merchants fallen on hard times or fleeing debtors. Nor were they all of low birth;
many were knights, though few of them displayed their colours or heraldry. Most of these were outcasts
and dispossessed nobles, Calard judged; knights who had fled to Mousillon in dishonour rather than face
justice. Most were likely murderers, traitors and cowards, and Calard fought to keep the disdain off his
face as he moved amongst them.
He bumped into one of these knights as he shouldered his way to the bar. The nobleman was tall,
gaunt-featured and dressed in dark colours, and he had his hand on the hilt of his sword. He had a
vicious scar across his throat, and his eyes were cold. Calard held the man’s gaze for a moment, before
pushing past him and signalling the squint-eyed innkeeper for service. An ogre stood nearby, easily nine
feet tall, its brutal face a mess of scars. It had a bored expression on its face, and its arms, as thick as
tree trunks, were folded across its massive chest.
‘Keeps the rowdier ones in check,’ said the innkeeper. He wore a heavily stained apron over his
obese gut. ‘What are you wanting?’
‘A room,’ said Calard, ‘and feed for my horse.’ He pushed a pair of coins across the bar and they
disappeared in the blink of an eye.
‘One of the girls will bring you food and drink,’ said the innkeep, handing over a room key before
turning to serve another patron. Calard grabbed the innkeeper by his arm and dragged him back.
‘I’m looking for someone,’ said Calard in low voice. ‘A noble by the name of Merovech.’
The innkeeper pulled his arm away, scowling. ‘You ain't from around here, are you?’ he said.
‘You know him?’ said Calard.
The innkeeper nodded.
‘Them’s his knights back there,’ he said, gesturing through the crowd. ‘Bastards’ll ruin me, drinking
me dry and not paying a copper, but what can I do?’
Nodding his thanks, Calard found a secluded table in a dark corner and sat with his back against the
wall. A bowl of gristly stew was brought to him along with a goblet of cheap wine, and he had some
bread and water sent out to Chlod. He didn’t touch his food, and made only a pretence of drinking his
wine, eyes locked on the knights that the innkeeper had identified.
There were six of them, drinking heavily, and their table was piled high with empty dishes and
goblets. Calard saw that one of their number was the cold-eyed knight he had bumped into at the bar,
though he sat apart from the others, distancing himself from their drunken excesses. These other five were
being loud, obnoxious and aggressive, shouting and pounding their goblets on the table as they watched a
puppet show under way upon the small stage at the back of the inn.
Creepy-looking marionettes were re-enacting various events from history, and Calard’s attention was
drawn to the performance as something caught his eye. He saw a puppet knight dressed in a white
tabard, and his eyes narrowed. The puppet’s heraldry was unmistakable: a black fleur-de-lys on a white
field. The knight’s face was white, as was his hair, and he wore a crown of rulership upon his head.
‘The duke invited all the nobles in Bretonnia to Mousillon, to celebrate his great victory!’ screeched
the voice of the story’s narrator from behind the puppeteers’ screen. ‘The king himself came, and the
Duke of Mousillon was proclaimed saviour of Bretonnia!’
A cheer erupted from the watching crowd as puppets representing the dukes of Bretonnia lifted the
puppet of Duke Merovech high into the air.
‘However, the king was jealous of our beloved duke’s achievements,’ continued the narrator, ‘and
he knew that Duke Merovech would make a far better king than himself. He began plotting our duke’s
downfall.’
The crowd booed as the puppet of the king, carved to look like a drunken buffoon, rubbed its hands
together in an evil, conspiratorial manner. Calard frowned. He knew this tale, but its telling was unlike any
he had heard before: its perspective was skewed, its heroes and villains flipped.
The true tale was from a dark period in the history of Bretonnia, hundreds of years earlier, and it told
the story of the last Duke of Mousillon, who was, by all reports, a butcher and murderer, a drinker of
blood and an eater of children. However, in the puppet show being performed here, the sadistic duke
was portrayed as a living saint, while the king and his loyal dukes were little more than jealous inbreds,
conspiring against him.
The crowd cheered as the Duke of Mousillon uncovered the conspiracy against him, and thumped
their tables as the puppets of their duke and the king drew swords against one another. The marionettes
duelled, the skilled puppeteers making them fight with surprising believability, and the inn resounded to
the sound of swords clashing.
Cheers and laughter erupted as the king’s head was lopped from its shoulders, and those in the front
row were sprayed with pig’s blood pumped up through the puppet’s severed neck. The marionette of the
Duke of Mousillon lifted up a tiny goblet to catch the rain of blood, which it then drank down in one gulp,
which was met with further cheers.
The curtain fell, and the narrator continued.
‘The traitor king was dead, but the jealous dukes turned against Mousillon.’
The curtain lifted again, showing the Duke of Mousillon and his knights battling against the other
dukes.
‘Led by the treacherous Duke of Lyonesse,’ said the narrator, eliciting derisive hisses from the
crowd, ‘they besieged Mousillon. Yet even heavily outnumbered, our lord could not be bested, not with
his five trusted lieutenants beside him. Finally, the Duke of Lyonesse resorted to treachery.’
Boos and hisses greeted the appearance of a cloaked and hooded marionette that reared up behind
the Duke of Mousillon and stabbed him to death. The deed done, the puppet threw off its disguise,
revealing its identity as none other than the Duke of Lyonesse. The lights dimmed and the curtain fell.
The crowd booed loudly, but they hushed as the curtain rose one more time. The stage was unlit and
bare but for a puppet reclined in death, wrapped in a shroud.
‘But before he died, our beloved duke swore an oath. He swore that he would return from beyond
the grave and seek vengeance! He swore that Mousillon would be returned to its former glory, and that
the rest of Bretonnia would pay for its betrayal!’
The death shroud was suddenly whisked away from the puppet-corpse and the figure of the Duke of
Mousillon leapt up, a sword held in each hand.
‘Long live Duke Merovech!’ screeched the narrator, and the curtain fell for the last time.
Calard shook his head as the crowd cheered and banged their tables. His gaze settled on the knight
that he had bumped into at the bar.
Perhaps sensing someone watching him, the knight looked up, but by the time he did, Calard had
already gone.
VI
AN HOUR LATER, the knight made his way up the narrow staircase to his room. He unlocked the door,
which opened with a drawn-out creak. It was dark within, and he cursed. He had left a lamp burning low
on the table within, but a draught must have blown it out. Leaving the door ajar so that he could see by
the light in the hallway, he moved towards the table.
The door clicked shut abruptly, and darkness swallowed him. He spun around on his heel, reaching
for his blade. It was half-drawn when the tip of a sword touched his throat, and he froze.
‘Sheathe it,’ said a voice from the darkness. The gaunt-featured knight scowled but did as he was
bid. The shutters of a lamp were opened, and the knight squinted against the glare.
‘Sit,’ said Calard. He forced the knight back with the point of his sword, making him sink into a
moth-eaten chair. To his credit, the dishonoured knight showed no fear. ‘Put your hands behind your
head,’ Calard said. The knight gave Calard a long look.
‘You are making a mistake,’ the knight said, placing his hands casually behind his head. His voice
was coarse, little more than a growl. Calard lifted the man’s chin with the point of his blade, exposing a
jagged scar that reached across his throat from ear to ear.
‘Nice scar,’ said Calard.
‘I’m alive,’ growled the knight. ‘The same cannot be said for the whoreson who gave it to me.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Raben,’ said the knight. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘You are going to answer a few questions for me, Raben.’
‘You’re the one with the sword.’
‘You are one of Merovech’s knights?’
‘You already know the answer to that.’
‘Where is he, then?’
‘You honestly don’t know?’ said Raben.
‘If I did, I wouldn’t need you, outcast,’ said Calard.
‘Outcast, is it? Oh that hurts,’ said Raben.
‘Where?’ said Calard. A trickle of blood ran from Raben’s throat.
‘The ducal palace of Mousillon city,’ he said in his gravelly voice. ‘He does proclaim himself to be
the long lost ruler of this realm, after all.’
‘The mad duke was killed centuries years ago,’ hissed Calard.
