Fic: Iteration (4/8) (Berserk)
Title: Iteration
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Part Four
Yottsu, Yomi he no michi-shirube
(Four, signpost for the land of the dead)
The Hawks’ first triumph ensures that they can begin their life as an independent mercenary group. Rather than return to the capital, Griffith keeps them moving around Midland, busy with the proposals pouring in from regional lords and wealthy town councils. They move from victory to victory and begin to gain a reputation. Griffith, a romantic figure on horseback, is soon a staple of gossip in several regions of Midland. An aura of invincibility begins to grow around the ‘White Hawk’ and his inner circle. Gatts learns that he has been nicknamed the ‘Century slayer’ after his exploit in Merran.
He continues getting growing pains during the first year he spends with the Hawks. His clothes get too small too quickly, inches of ankle showing below his breeches before he notices. Actually, it is Judeau who notices, making some laughing comment to Pippin over the fire, and then he looks down and sees that it is true. So he goes to a tailor at the next town, with a couple of tagalongs, because privacy is an unknown thing in the band. And then he suffers through an old woman measuring every part of him with a frayed piece of string, with a chorus of smart-aleck comments in the background. Then he has new pants, a bit too long, because he doesn’t want to go through this again quickly. And a new vest, because his old one is getting too tight in the shoulders and chest.
Judeau wolf-whistles when he sees him back at the camp, so Gatts gives him the finger and scowls, but doesn’t really mean it. Griffith raises pale brows and Casca smirks, and he extends the scowl to include them as well. He gives his old clothes to Rickert. They are too big to be of any use to him for a while, but there is no sense in throwing things with plenty of wear in them away. And anyway, Rickert likes them and wears the vest as a sort of jacket over his other clothes.
It’s nice to wear clothes that aren’t stiff with dirt and blood and faded from infrequent washing. Even the slight roughness of the new cloth against his skin is nice, Gatts thinks as they ride away from the town. It only lasts till the next battle though, because he kills three men and they spray blood all over his new pants. He knew it would happen, has happened with every set of clothes he’s owned, but it still gives him a pang to see the blue cloth stained brown with blood after the battle. His clothes are the only things he owns, apart from his sword and his horse, that are not hand-me-downs. Or stolen.
Gatts goes down to the river once they pitch camp after the battle, eager to wash the caked blood off his skin and clothes. As he nears the bank, he realises Griffith has beaten him to it, floating spread-eagled in the water. Griffith cannot have been there long: the blood dissolving off his skin has stained the water around him. Gatts strips and slips into the water with a splash, scrubbing his skin vigorously with his nails.
‘Martin’s dead,’ Griffith says, not turning to look at Gatts.
‘That little one?’ Gatts says regretfully. The boy had refused to be turned away at the last town at which they had recruited. He had cheerfully endured all manner of humiliations designed to make him leave and they had finally been forced to let him come along.
‘I told his unit to keep him out of it. They said they did everything short of tying him up and he still managed to get into the middle of it.’
‘They should have tied him up!’
‘Do you know, Gatts, I don’t think it would have mattered? This battle, the next one or the one after that - sooner or later, he would have managed it. He isn’t the first boy I’ve seen this happen to. I don’t know why they do it.’
They are silent for a space. ‘I remember the first one who joined the Hawks. He was young enough that he used to carry around a little wooden knight - he hid it when he thought someone was looking, but everyone knew about it. I found him lying on the battlefield, but I couldn’t recognise him at first because his head was lying five feet away. With his doll.’
‘What did you do?’ Gatts asks.
‘I nearly broke down on the battlefield. I don’t know how long I would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for Casca; she took me away from there and fought me till I was tired enough to sleep.’
Griffith rights himself and begins to squeeze the water out of his hair. He says, ‘Each time we fight, I think of that boy, and I think that there must be some better way than the stupid, stupid way things are done now. I have to find it, Gatts, I must.’ Bleakly, he turns to Gatts. ‘How else can I justify these deaths?’
They finish washing in silence and drag themselves up onto the bank to watch the sun sink behind the trees, as flocks of birds wing their way to rest.
>
Gatts doesn’t think of that day often. It doesn’t occur to him that on this precise date he understood why he followed Griffith. He might have registered a certain easing of some tension within him, the quieting of a restless urge to move on alone. Gatts knows he isn’t a leader. Oh, he fakes it well enough, slapping his men on their shoulders, doing his best not to get them killed, but Griffith is something different. Because what differentiates Griffith from him, and really, Gatts thinks, from everyone else he has ever met, is that Griffith moves through life towards a point no one else can see, eyes fixed on that and that alone.
It had made Gatts nervous when he first met him, irritated and agitated him. On that morning all those years ago, he remembers wanting to say why set yourself up for this? And with any of a million fools, he would have been right to give that advice. But not with Griffith. No, not with Griffith, because his strange unexpected friend, simultaneously a cynic and an idealist, is going to do what he set out to do. This, Gatts now believes absolutely and the belief settles in him comfortably, securely, flowing through his thoughts and the fabric of his days, until he cannot remember what it was like not to believe in Griffith.
>
That winter, the Hawks move on to a town in a northern province. They stay in the main inn, because the innkeeper is the mayor and he wants them to get rid of a pack of raiders. It is a smaller job than they normally do, but pickings are slim this season. All of them are aware that it will take many bread-and-butter excursions before they gain enough experience for the King to call them back into his service for the meatier missions that will make their fortune. Meanwhile, they’ll take what they can get.
In this particular case, they get nice rooms and everything, which tells Gatts that the townspeople really want the raiders gone. Everyone has to double up except Casca. He makes a mental note to avoid her room: ever since he has been promoted to Griffith’s second, she has been impossible to live with. The higher he rises in the Band’s esteem, the more Casca’s antipathy to him seems to increase. He puts it down to the same sort of jealousy that Corkus displays, and is secretly disappointed: he had thought better of her. He shares a room, as usual, with Griffith, which he likes because Griffith is warm and doesn’t steal the blankets or snore.
It isn’t hard to find the raiders’ spy in the town. They search the town’s guard wall for hidden exits before coming into town, and set a little surprise outside each of them. Come morning, Rickert’s patrol finds a miserable kid shivering in one of the pits. When they get him out and tie him up, Gatts can see that the boy is maybe older than he is, but he still seems like a kid. The boy nearly pisses himself, too, when Pippin starts in on him, and squeals quickly. The boy cries like a baby while he tells them where the raiders’ hideout in the forest is. Turns out that he’s a bum boy for one of them. Pretty enough for it, with big brown eyes and a soft mouth. The Hawks take him, trussed like a pig, to the village elders, so that he doesn’t run screaming to his friends.
It takes an hour to get the Hawks together and out to the forest, but it doesn’t take them long to clean the raiders up once they get there. Not much of a fight, and they even get the leader - a fat old bastard, with a mean look on his bearded face - alive to give to the townspeople.
They stay another night in the town and get drunk at the mayor’s expense. Late at night, Gatts reels upstairs with a splitting headache to find Griffith sitting on the windowsill of their room’s single window. He’s been in a bad mood ever since they found the boy. If it were anyone else, Gatts would know how to get him out of it, but when Griffith goes into a funk, it’s better just to stay the fuck out of the way. So Gatts gets into bed and tries to sleep. But he can’t, because he can feel Griffith being unhappy at the window. So he says (even though he knows it’s stupid), ‘You okay?’
There is a long silence. He hears footsteps coming closer to the bed, and a rustling of clothes. Griffith slides between the sheets behind him and then Gatts can feel him against his back. Griffith isn’t wearing anything.
‘No.’
Gatts turns to him and Griffith’s mouth comes down on his. Gatts jerks back instinctively. There is enough moonlight that he can see Griffith looking at him, eyes pale and questioning. Then Griffith turns his back to him and goes to sleep. After a while, Gatts gets out of the bed and leaves the room, too restless to fall asleep.
Walking down dark stairs and out of the inn, he shivers in the cold and fills his lungs with the crisp air. He walks to the stables, his feet crunching through the snow. Once inside, he can see a small lamp flickering in one of the stalls. Surprised that someone else is up at this late hour, he peers into the stall, leaning over the edge. Then he wishes he hadn’t, because Casca is in the stall and she’s crying, leaning against the side of her horse. It is too late for him to pretend he hasn’t seen her. He stands there uncomfortably, bathed in her teary glare. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demands, her voice accusing.
‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’ he shoots back, then bites his lip. As always, she is able to get under his skin despite his best intentions and he is far from calm right now.
‘What’s wrong?’ she sneers, ‘don’t you have to go suck up to Griffith? You must’ve been away for a whole quarter candle-mark now!’
The sheer venom in her voice surprises him. There has always been hostility under the surface when she talks to him, but she has never displayed it so openly.
‘Griffith’s golden boy!’ she spits, ‘the man who killed a hundred Chudans! The man with the biggest sword in Midland. What are you compensating for, Gatts?’
‘Nothing,’ he says, angry in his own turn. ‘What are you compensating for, Casca? Why are you such a bitch all the time? Do you think it makes you look tough? Do you think being a woman makes you special?’
‘And what are you, what’s so special about you?’
He stays silent, compressing his lips.
‘All you have going for you is that he met you before he met me!’ she continues, the words seeming to spill out, as if long suppressed. ‘I never had a chance! All you do is take and take and take. You came in here and you took away the only thing that ever mattered to me!’
‘What?’ says Gatts, goaded into responding, ‘What the hell have I ever taken from you?’
‘Everything!’ she says and her face crumples in misery. ‘I was Griffith’s second before you came. I was his right hand. What right did you have to take that away from me?’ Her voice trails into silence on those last words and Gatts has to strain to hear her.
They are both quiet for some time, unable to speak. Gatts tries not to look at the tears dripping down Casca’s cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ Gatts says, finally, ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t think of it that way.’ He really is sorry, somewhat to his own surprise; he knows what it’s like to feel unwanted.
Casca looks at him searchingly, as if suspecting him of mocking her. There is a long silence, while she appears to be struggling with herself. ‘I…I guess you earned it. I’m not as strong as you are,’ she says at last, unsteadily. ‘I don’t think he needs me anymore.’
‘Don’t say that! He relies on you, just as much as on me.’
She makes a negating gesture with one hand. ‘He doesn’t depend on anyone or anything. He never has.’ And, very low: ‘But I think he might need you.’
They don’t talk any more, but Gatts stays to groom his own horse. The silence is not companionable, but not tense either. Eventually, she leaves for her room and he follows her example soon after. His room is silent when he enters it and he slips into bed as unobtrusively as possible. Griffith doesn’t stir.
>
In the morning Gatts wonders if the previous night was a dream, because Griffith acts the same as always. He is just Griffith again, and the strange boy Gatts saw the night before is gone.
The Hawks get paid right before they leave the town. Riding past the main square, they see the raiders hanging from hastily erected gibbets and the boy they caught the day before along with them. His dead face is turned towards them, bulging eyes staring. He has probably been hung last, because there are shining tear tracks over the bruises on his face and the livid brand on his left cheek. The brand is messy, not a clean job at all. Gatts supposes that the townspeople were more than a little upset when the Hawks had handed him over to them.
>
Gatts feels that things are just the same between him and Griffith after that. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be. After all, there are plenty of people who swing that way, and, well, if they’d rather screw another man than a woman, that’s their business. It’s just not the way he is, he tells himself. It doesn’t count that he thinks about the way Griffith had felt against his back sometimes, because everyone thinks of crazy shit once in a while, especially when they’re always horny. The one good thing about that peculiar night is that Casca has stopped treating him like a plague carrier. He doubts they will ever be friends, but an armed truce is better than nothing.
They ride on through increasingly bad weather in the following weeks. The sky settles to a nondescript grey colour, occasionally darkening to pour freezing rain on them. Gatts decides that he much prefers the Southern provinces, conveniently blurring his memories of the sand flies and the heat.
Griffith decides the Hawks should winter in the next town; heavy snows have set in and there is little work to be had anywhere. Gatts thinks it’s nice at first, waking up in the same bed everyday (for once, a bed without fleas) to see windows white with frost, knowing that he’ll spend the day doing nothing at all. All the Hawks are pretty flush with cash after their recent jobs, and most of them try to spend it as fast as they can, on cards, drink and women. Especially women.
Judeau, Corkus and Gatts get drunk one night. The next thing he knows, he is rolling around on a straw tick in the local brothel with a drunken whore with six hands. He has a pretty good time, and it is as good a way as any to make the days pass, so he comes back often. The whore recognises him the second time and makes a fuss over him, which he pretends not to enjoy. Not that anyone notices - Judeau has his hands full with a curvy little brunette and Corkus and Pippin are chatting up the bored pair of women tending bar.
The whore’s name is Suzara, which tips Gatts off that she’s Chudan. She has brown skin and uneven teeth that show white when she smiles. Looks like Casca, except a lot fatter and older. She and Gatts get into the habit of talking after fucking in the afternoons. Or rather, she talks and Gatts listens. It is warm in her room, and comfortable, even if the blankets smell a bit. Gatts likes to lie with his arm behind her back and her head on his shoulder. It is far cry from the uneasy ecstasy he experienced in Slan’s temple and he prefers it this way.
She tells him that she followed a Midland trader out of Chuda when she was young and he left her pregnant in this town. The child is older than Gatts is, she says, and doing well as a carpenter in a village not too far away. He is a good boy who tries not to show that she embarrasses him. She gets a sad look in her eyes when she says this, so Gatts tickles her until she laughs and her stomach and thighs shake like jelly. This has a different effect on certain parts of his body, so they end up fucking again.
Suzara tells him about Chuda, too. Says it’s warm, so hot that you can cook your food on the rocks in the summer. That people wear long white robes, even the men, and go to temples to pray three times a day. That the city she is from is famous for its silk and saffron, which is sold in sprawling open-air bazaars. You can wander for days in these places, she says, they are so huge. The sellers have a way of snapping the cloth out from its folds so that it floats down slowly; on a busy day, the air is full of cloth in all colours. Gatts often goes back to the inn still thinking of camels and elephants and green-gold banners of cloth waving in the air.
When Gatts comes back late at night, drunk stupid, he is likely to find Griffith reading a book by lamplight in their room. Griffith has struck up a friendship with the local priest, of all people, a quiet grey-haired man who argues passionately about a great many issues and lends Griffith books. Gatts has an uneasy feeling that he becomes maudlin on some of these late nights, but he can never remember the next day and Griffith never tells him anything when he asks, but he always has a little smirk on his face on those days.
On the day that Gatts is bored enough to begin drinking early in the morning, he comes back nauseated in the early afternoon, brushing past Griffith and collapsing onto his bed, his head spinning. Vaguely, he hears Griffith place something - a basin, no doubt - next to his bed and then retreat to his own side of the room. Gatts dreams confusedly, of scenes washed in red that fade to black, leaving him aware only of his own breathing. Slowly, he transitions between sleep and awareness, two voices coiling around each other in his head. He cracks gummy eyes open to see Griffith and the priest sitting at the fire, heads bent over a text.
‘“Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only,”1’ Griffith reads slowly.
‘“Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable,”’ the priest continues, his low, sweet voice making the words hang in the air.
‘“Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.” That I agree with,’ Griffith says.
‘There I must part ways with you, Griffith,’ replies the priest. ‘One cannot rule people whom one despises.’
‘But do you not agree, Father, that most people do not know what is best for them? And if one has only their best interests at heart, then could not a little fear be forgiven?’
‘I think you will find that most people manage their affairs decently and humanely if they are only left in peace. It is when great causes come into their lives that they turn insecure and unruly.’
‘You have a great deal more faith in people than I do,’ Griffith says, sounding rather sad.
The priest rests a bony hand on Griffith’s head, stroking lightly from the crown to the nape. ‘I wish I had had the teaching of you when you were younger, Griffith.’
Griffith laughs. ‘So that I might not sound quite so cynical?’
‘Because I have often wished for a student like you. I will miss you when you leave, you know.’
‘And I you, Father.’
Gatts closes his eyes again and is lulled back to sleep by their low voices.
>
Their enforced rest comes to an end just as Gatts begins to feel he might chew his own arm off with boredom. The other Hawks are restless as well and Casca begins fighting with Corkus three times a day, so it’s clear that things have to start moving soon. One day, as the snow begins melting in the spring rains, a runner comes for Griffith with a message from a baron in the castle town two hundred miles east. The baron needs the Hawks to reinforce his attack on another noble. Ah, bickering lords in the springtime - it brings back old memories for Gatts. Griffith agrees to take the job, telling the runner that they will arrive at the castle in a week’s time.
The Hawks ride the next day. The night before, Gatts says an awkward goodbye to Suzara who takes the news of his departure stoically, although her eyes are suspiciously moist. He doesn’t tell her that he will return and she doesn’t ask him to. He gives her a length of red silk; he picked it up earlier thinking of the cloth bazaars in her homeland. She tells him that she will make a dress out of it and think of him when she wears it.
>
They reach the baron’s castle within the promised week. The noble is a tall blond man with an urbane manner. He talks to Griffith and the other Hawks courteously, though he can never quite rid his manner of the slight hauteur customary to most high-borns. The incursion onto his neighbour’s territory is accomplished quite easily; possibly, a man less used to hedging his bets would not have hired them at all.
The successful attack is celebrated with a ball at the castle. The Hawk officers are invited, though it becomes quickly apparent that they are to function as dangerously exotic novelties for the other guests to gawk at discreetly. Uncomfortable at the attention he is getting, Gatts retreats into a corner with a glass of wine, scowling fiercely to deter anyone from approaching him. Across the ballroom, he can see Rickert and Judeau looking panicked and fending off a bevy of noblewomen. In another corner of the room, Casca’s eyes are narrowing in a way that should be a warning to the drunkard trying to look down the neck of her shirt. He lets his gaze trail slowly across the chamber, stopping at the windows leading out onto the stone terrace, where a group of men standing around Griffith are enjoying a lively conversation.
Unlike the rest of the Hawks, Griffith seems neither out of place nor uncomfortable in this situation. He is speaking now and if the smiles on the faces of the men around him are anything to go by what he is saying is witty, sophisticated and amusing. The baron himself is standing next to Griffith, looking at him with what might be considered almost a proprietary air. As Gatts watches, the nobleman says something that makes the other men move on, leaving Griffith and the baron standing alone beside the windows. Subtly, the attitude of the baron changes, one hand descending on Griffith’s shoulder in a way that might be considered only friendly - if you neglected to study his expression carefully. With his free hand, the man gestures toward the terrace, bending to speak softly into Griffith’s ear. Griffith shakes his head in reply, smoothly disengaging himself from the baron’s grip and giving him a rueful smile. Gatts watches as the noble shrugs resignedly.
Later Gatts asks Griffith why he didn’t go with the baron. ‘He wasn’t bad-looking,’ he adds teasingly. There is a tense silence and then a sharp ‘Use your head!’
Lying awake that night, Gatts decides that he deserved it. He hasn’t realised till now the special difficulties inherent in Griffith’s position. It is an open secret that half the nobles in Midland keep catamites, but Griffith’s background with Gennon and his low rank make it impossible for him to contemplate an open relationship with another man. It would make him a laughingstock.
There is always the option of the boy prostitutes who haunt certain areas of the towns they pass, their painted faces turned hopefully toward passers by, but Griffith always moves past them as though he doesn’t see them. Gatts secretly suspects that he sees too much of himself as he was, before the Hawks and before Gennon, in these boys to view them with any sort of comfort. Gatts spends the rest of the night sleepless, contemplating the extent of Griffith’s loneliness.
>
Gradually, the Band of the Hawks’ reputation grows. Their record is unblemished by defeat so far and they begin to have the luxury of refusing less lucrative or important missions. Gatts settles into his role as Second Captain, beginning to feel truly responsible for the men under his command. The responsibility tempers him and gives him steadiness; he finds that he is less likely now to lash out in anger. His men depend upon him increasingly, which he takes as a compliment, but which also makes him more deliberate in making his decisions. It is now more important than ever that he make the right decisions: he doesn’t want to see his men’s dead faces in his mind’s eye because he moved wrongly or too fast. Casca approves of the change in him and stops chiding him for being too reckless. Occasionally, they have a whole conversation without arguing.
Griffith, in their third year away from the capital, seems slightly more on edge. He is waiting, he tells Gatts, for the King to recall them to Garima. He refuses mission after mission, and the Hawks remain camped in Siova, kicking their heels. One day, Gatts finds him in his tent, reading a letter and smiling. The indefinable tension has eased from his face. ‘This is it,’ he tells Gatts, waving the letter, ‘our final test.’
‘What impossible thing do we have to do this time?’
Griffith smiles wider. ‘Nothing very hard. Simply capture the Korai.’
‘What!’ Gatts says, aghast. The Black Fortress holds the reputation of being one of the most secure and well-guarded outposts of the Chudan Empire. The citadel is on the edge of the barren plateau overlooking the plain of Midland’s fertile central province. The river flowing parallel to the edge of the plateau only provides a second barrier to attackers. From this vantage point, the Chudans can see any advancing force well in time to erect their defences. No Midland army has ever taken it.
‘There’s no way we can do it, Griffith!’
‘Oh, but there is. There are certain factors about this situation that our dear Prince Yurius, who I am certain is behind this, has neglected to take into account.’ Gatts looks inquiring. ‘The Chudans have become lazy about the Korai; they deploy their least experienced forces there, in the confidence that the location of the fortress will hold off all attackers. Secondly, every other Midland attack on this place has involved at least three army regiments and has been seen coming for miles. We are fewer and much faster. They will get little warning of our advance. Lastly,’ and here Griffith smiles, ‘regarding the general in charge of the fortress, there is reason for me to believe that his thinking may not be completely unclouded when it comes to… the Hawks.’
>
Despite Griffith’s explanation, Gatts remains uncertain. Griffith refuses to expand on his previous association with the general in charge of the Korai. Judeau, Corkus and Pippin appear to share his misgivings, but they complete preparations for the journey in record time and do not let their doubts show to the other Hawks. Gatts reminds his platoon leaders of their past record of success and tells them to trust Griffith. Most of the soldiers are happy to believe him.
They travel to the Argun plateau at breakneck speed. If Chudan spies have penetrated the Midland court, they will give them as little time as possible to get word to the Korai. They avoid the villages en route to the fortress, knowing that these will have links with the stronghold. Shortly, they are camped on the incline leading up to the plateau, a short distance away from the river. Griffith tells the senior officers that the attack will take place the next morning. Even Casca, who customarily carries out Griffith’s orders as if they were her own, is moved to ask for clarification. Surely they will not simply attack the fortress directly?
Well, yes, apparently they will, according to Griffith. Pointing with a stick to the map, he tells them that they will be crossing the river the next day. Then the large majority of the Hawks will draw the garrison’s defenders out, while a small hidden force waits in reserve to the side. Gatts can’t understand it; the most elementary military tactics forbid cutting off your own line of retreat, as Griffith is proposing to do by putting the river at their backs. And why should the Chudans come out at all, when they can stay safely behind their walls? Griffith knows all this; why is he planning to attack in this way?
Gatts begins to object, only to be cut off by Griffith. ‘If you’ve trusted me to lead you this far, then trust me again tomorrow. Have your troops ready for the attack, but don’t tell them what we’re going to do.’ And with that, the meeting is over; only Casca, who will lead the reserve force, is asked to stay. Outside the tent, Judeau shrugs and laughs a little, expressing their collective confusion.
Even so, they do their duty. The next morning, the Hawks cross the river and face the fortress. To Gatts’ amazement, the vast gate guarding the citadel opens and soldiers begin to march out, forming line upon line of a vast human rectangle. When the gate eventually swings shut again, a force fully four times the strength of the Hawks is facing them. Murmurs of disquiet begin within the ranks as Griffith rides to the front to address them. He is distinctive in white and silver and his voice is clear and sure.
‘Today, we are going to take the Korai. You will be fighting an army many times your own size. There is a river behind you and nowhere to run. So, today, you are not fighting for your cut of the profits. You are fighting for your life. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So fight well and fight to live!’
As he speaks, the Hawks straighten on their mounts. Griffith pulls on his horse’s reins, facing forward and securing his helmet. He raises his sword high up in the air and sweeps it down to his right: ‘Attack!’
>
A day later, Gatts thinks of the battle with wonder. The Hawks had attacked with all the fury of cornered beasts and been met by half-trained soldiers and green recruits. Slashing his way through the Chudan ranks, Gatts was incredulous when he realised that the Chudans were trying to capture Griffith alive. Later, he learnt that the Chudan commander had offered a reward to any man who brought him the leader of the Hawks unharmed. The confusion and greed this offer incited in the Chudan ranks badly hampered their ability to push back the Hawks, but as more and more Chudans died, reinforcements were brought out of the fortress, much to the Hawks’ dismay. Their strength flagging, they looked to be overwhelmed by the Chudans’ superior numbers. At that point, Gatts had begun moving at that point towards Griffith, acting instinctively to protect his leader.
The Hawks began looking increasingly desperate, fending off the Chudan soldiers with their remaining strength. The Chudans, sensing their advantage, took the opportunity to tighten their ranks and push back with vigour. Gatts was grimly pushing forward towards Griffith, when a shout brought his head up and toward the fortress. There, in front of his unbelieving eyes, the blue and silver flag of the Hawks was waving gaily in place of the Chudan standard and grinning Hawks lined the ramparts. The stunned Chudans realised they were caught in the jaws of a trap. Throwing down their weapons, they began surrendering voluntarily. Shortly after that, the Battle of the Korai was over.
Riding into the keep, Gatts had found Casca’s men firmly in control of the fortress. It could not have been difficult to subdue the skeleton force that remained inside once the commander made the tactical error of sending the bulk of his army outside the protection of the fortress. Small as the reserve force had been, they were able to take control of the stronghold quite efficiently. Casca herself had sustained a flesh wound in her left arm and was tired, but triumphant. Griffith had hugged her gently, congratulating her on a job well done, and Gatts had turned away, the look in her eyes making him feel he was intruding on a private moment.
The Chudan general remained securely guarded in a storeroom till later that day. He had been brought before Griffith for judgment, a gaunt man shaking with fear and less than impressive in defeat. He had smiled at Griffith, his thin mouth twitching nervously.
‘Gri…Griffith. It’s good to see you, my boy,’ he said, in a tone that tried and failed to be avuncular. ‘It’s been such a long time. Do tell these ruffians to stop manhandling me.’
‘You will be executed at nightfall, along with the other captured officers,’ Griffith said, his voice cold.
‘But, Griffith! You-,’ and he was cut off by Griffith’s hand slicing through the air. His nerve visibly oozed out of him.
‘Take him away.’
The general was dragged away, still trying to choke out his plea for mercy. Griffith’s face had an expression of faint distaste on it and Gatts began to have an inkling of what the connection between the two might have been. If he was right, Griffith had played the man with consummate skill in this entire affair.
Though Gatts doesn’t quite admit it to himself, the memory of Griffith’s face as he looked at the general chills him a little. He doesn’t know why, when he has seen Griffith’s ruthlessness demonstrated in so many other ways and it has never bothered him. But there had been just a hint of satisfaction behind the coldness, as of an item checked off a long list of humiliations and injuries suffered. Griffith rarely speaks of his pre-Hawk days. Sometimes, Gatts is grateful for that.
Someone calls his name, jerking Gatts out of his memories of the day before. ‘We’re going back,’ Corkus says, his normally sour face lit up with a grin. ‘The King has called us back! Griffith is to be knighted!’
>
They ride into streets lined with crowds even thicker and more raucous than those that had greeted Gatts on his first entrance into Garima. The officers ride behind Griffith, half-blinded by the showers of flower petals being thrown at them by cheering men and women. Even in the wealthier quarters leading up to the palace, the normally indifferent noblewomen are out on their balconies, showering them with more expensive rose petals and ribbons. They are led straight in to the throne room this time, and Gatts gapes at the number of people already inside. Griffith walks straight up to the throne, looking neither to the left nor the right, as his officers follow him. The King rises and the flat of his ceremonial sword strikes each of Griffith’s shoulders, as he pronounces him a knight of the realm. Tired as he is, the rest of the ceremony passes in a blur for Gatts.
The same evening, the Hawk officers, dressed in their best, make their way back to the palace. Their men are busy celebrating their return in taverns all over Garima, their discipline for once thrown to the winds. Gatts, uncomfortable in the expensive getup he has been forced to buy and wear, wishes he was helping Gaston in his avowed intention of drinking at every tavern in the city, instead of going to the ball organised in honour of their victory. At least one person, however, is even more uncomfortable than he is: Casca is wearing a dress!
Any impression of gentle femininity this might give her, however, is destroyed by the ferocious expression on her face. Her fellow officers are wise enough not to comment on the dress, but amusement is plain on their faces, which seems to infuriate her further. Actually, Gatts thinks she looks pretty in it; the roses lining the bodice match the flush in her cheeks, and there is a rose tucked behind her ear as well. Judeau seems to share his opinion, sneaking surreptitious looks at Casca when she isn’t looking.
The ball goes as Gatts expects it to go. Hour after hour crawls by with agonizing slowness and he follows his time-tested survival method, acquiring a large amount of alcohol and retreating into an isolated corner to drink it, first alone and then joined by Judeau, who is trying to get up the nerve to ask Casca to dance. From their refuge, they can see Griffith being introduced to a young woman surrounded by an unusually large number of attendants.
‘Who’s that?’ asks Gatts.
‘Princess Charlotte,’ replies Judeau, tugging at his neat blond ponytail, his mind obviously elsewhere. The object of his thoughts is attempting to hide behind a pillar on the opposite side of the ballroom.
Gatts watches as Griffith bends over the Princess’s hand and then rises to give her a charming smile. The Princess, flustered, blushes and doesn’t seem to know how to respond. Around her, her duennas look charmed as Griffith begins talking again and, slowly, the Princess dares to look up and participate in conversation once again. Gatts is beginning to understand that Griffith’s ambitions may be more far-reaching than anyone imagines.
The evening drags on as candles burn down and are replaced. At one point, the unmarried girls exit the ballroom, deemed too young to stay past a certain hour. Judeau asks Casca for a dance and is refused, but not unkindly. Gatts thinks she may even be flattered under her gruff exterior. Eventually, the King and Queen make their exit, as everyone in the room bows or curtseys low. With the royal couple’s departure a change seems to come over the room. There is a hush, as though the assembled nobles are waiting for something. A woman in red raises her hands for silence, as a gaunt man in black robes opens his mouth to speak.
‘In honour of Sir Griffith’s victory, the followers of Void and Slan would like to invite all of you to a private celebration in the Temple of Void,’ the man says, his voice low and sonorous. It is Dhoval, the High Priest of Void, which must mean that the woman is the High Priestess of Slan, whose litter he had seen long months ago in the city.
An excited buzz rises, as nobles begin to hurry out of the ballroom to hail their carriages. Gatts looks around in confusion, but the other Hawks look equally bewildered. One by one, they decide to return to the barracks or move on to a tavern for a real celebration.
‘Let’s get out of here, Griffith,’ Gatts says.
Griffith grips him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t you realise what this is? They’re finally letting me in. This is it!’
‘This is something that I don’t know if you want to get involved in. I don’t trust that pair, or anything to do with the God Hand,’ Gatts says in a low voice.
Griffith’s cheeks are faintly flushed, his eyes triumphant. ‘Don’t be naïve, Gatts! There is only so high you can go without the God Hand’s favour…’
‘You know what these people are. Can you honestly tell me you want to link yourself to them?’
Griffith’s eyes drop and he is silent for a long moment.
When he speaks again, there is no hesitation in his voice. ‘I have to go, Gatts. You can come with me or not. Your choice.’
Gatts decides to stay with him, uneasy and unable to articulate clearly what he feels. Unbalanced, perhaps, as though the night marks a turning point of some sort, and he has taken the wrong turn without knowing it.
The Black Temple, when they reach it, is no less forbidding at night than it appears in the daytime. As they walk towards it, Gatts has the fanciful impression that he is falling into an abyss, in spite of the illumination provided by torches held by the guards. They are admitted into the temple as soon as the guards can see their faces. Inside, the temple is built on bigger lines than that of Slan, its obsidian walls reaching up to heights that the torches in wall sconces are unable to illuminate. As they follow their guide further into the temple, the ground begins to slope down gently under their feet. Gatts realises that they are moving underground. He loses track of the turns they take until they finally pass through doors leading into a tunnel, which in turn leads into a vast cavern. One part of his mind wonders how it is physically possible; the structure should have collapsed with this under it. Pillars stretch back further than he can see and the ceiling is lost in blackness.
In the flickering light of innumerable candles and lamps, the cream of Garima society is disporting itself with abandon. Gatts, shocked, recognises the faces of several high-ranking nobles. Some are fondling half-nude slave girls, while their stiff-backed wives emulate them with the slaves’ male counterparts. There are pedestals erected among the mattresses and carpets lining the floor, where nubile bodies seem to be performing various sexual acts for the amusement of the spectators. The only area left bare is a sort of pit at the back of the room, behind which is a massive altar of black stone.
Beside him, Griffith appears to be collecting his thoughts, an impassive expression on his face. Gatts is about to suggest that they beat a hasty retreat before someone notices them, when he realises someone already has. The High Priestess is moving towards them, her red robes half undone and trailing on the ground behind her. Gatts tries desperately to ignore the generous expanse of torso she is displaying.
‘I’m so glad you could join us, Sir Griffith,’ she says. ‘May I call you Griffith?’ Griffith nods, and she turns to Gatts, ‘And this, of course, is Gatts, your second. May I say how very much I admire your exploits on the field? You must both call me Iruva.’ In spite of her addressing her last remarks to Gatts, her eyes are already drifting back to Griffith’s face. Another voice rumbles, ‘Sir Griffith, we have been following your career with a tremendous degree of interest these past months.’ The cadaverous face of the High Priest appears over the Priestess’s shoulder, only adding to Gatts’ unease.
‘Thank you,’ Griffith replies. ‘I am flattered.’
‘You really must come and tell us all about this latest battle,’ the Priestess says, linking her arm with Griffith’s. Gatts has no choice but to follow them as they move towards the far end of the room. The High Priest follows silently by his side.
They reach a cushioned mattress on the floor and the woman sinks down on it gracefully, patting the space beside her invitingly. Griffith sits down, while the High Priest leads Gatts to another mattress. Looking back over his shoulder, Gatts sees the Priestess put her hand on Griffith’s knee. There is something about her that makes Gatts uneasy, in spite of her vapid smile and her insipid conversation. Perhaps because she seems to be playing at maintaining this rôle, her imitation of a well-bred Midland noblewoman belied by the expression in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry?’ he says, realising he has missed the better part of what the High Priest is saying to him.
A ghastly-looking smile is aimed at him, as the man repeats what he said earlier: ‘Would you like a girl?’
‘Er..no. No, that’s really all right. I’ll just…sit here and…don’t let me detain you, please,’ Gatts says, his concentration in shreds.
The man nods again and moves away, leaving Gatts free to observe Griffith and the Priestess covertly. Not that it matters, since at this point Griffith and the woman appear to be engaged in a staring contest. Griffith drops his eyes first and nods, agreeing to something. His companion smiles and matters progress rapidly to a point where they would not notice if the whole room were watching them.
As more and more of their pale flesh comes into view, Gatts finally gives up, turns tail and flees. A stone-faced guard leads him out of the temple and he walks to the Drunken Goat, the tavern the Hawks are fond of frequenting. Once inside, he calls for a beer and presses the mug, damp with condensation, against the side of his face. Flashes of the scene he has just escaped from appear randomly in his mind, ensuring a constant blush on his cheeks. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to dislodge the memory of the Priestess’s red mouth moving down Griffith’s chest in a series of sucking kisses.
Someone sits down across from him and he opens his eyes to find Pippin there. ‘Hey,’ he says.
Pippin nods in reply: he rarely speaks if he can help it. He points at Gatts and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
Gatts sighs. ‘Don’t ask.’
Pippin shrugs his okay and they drink in a companionable silence. ‘Did you enjoy yourself tonight?’ Gatts asks. Pippin shrugs again: not really.
‘I wish we were back in the provinces.’ Gatts says, ‘I really don’t like this city.’
Pippin’s mouth quirks in his version of a smile. ‘I think we’ll be here a while,’ he says.
‘I know. Fuck it all to hell,’ Gatts mutters. Then he sighs. ‘Well, I suppose we’ll all be better off for it. I can’t believe it: Griffith, a knight!’
Pippin shrugs again. This time, Gatts can’t make out what he is trying to convey. Outside the tavern the sky is lightening from the blue-black of night to the roseate shades of dawn.
>
Griffith returns late in the day, perfectly groomed and seemingly composed. Gatts looks at him and continues sharpening his sword.
‘Was that a step up from the chanting and swaying?’
No reply.
‘Did you really need to do that?’
‘Did I really need to whore myself out, you mean?’ Griffith snaps.
Gatts meets his eyes steadily. ‘You said it, not me.’
‘We need her, Gatts. Don’t presume to judge me without knowing what I’m about. I’m too close to let anything stop me now.’
‘Be careful, Griffith. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Honestly, Gatts, you’re such a storm crow these days!’ Griffith says, exasperated. ‘Beware…beware…beware,’ he croaks in low, mock-mournful tones, moving behind Gatts and pushing him off the bed.
Part Three is here.
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Part Four
Yottsu, Yomi he no michi-shirube
(Four, signpost for the land of the dead)
The Hawks’ first triumph ensures that they can begin their life as an independent mercenary group. Rather than return to the capital, Griffith keeps them moving around Midland, busy with the proposals pouring in from regional lords and wealthy town councils. They move from victory to victory and begin to gain a reputation. Griffith, a romantic figure on horseback, is soon a staple of gossip in several regions of Midland. An aura of invincibility begins to grow around the ‘White Hawk’ and his inner circle. Gatts learns that he has been nicknamed the ‘Century slayer’ after his exploit in Merran.
He continues getting growing pains during the first year he spends with the Hawks. His clothes get too small too quickly, inches of ankle showing below his breeches before he notices. Actually, it is Judeau who notices, making some laughing comment to Pippin over the fire, and then he looks down and sees that it is true. So he goes to a tailor at the next town, with a couple of tagalongs, because privacy is an unknown thing in the band. And then he suffers through an old woman measuring every part of him with a frayed piece of string, with a chorus of smart-aleck comments in the background. Then he has new pants, a bit too long, because he doesn’t want to go through this again quickly. And a new vest, because his old one is getting too tight in the shoulders and chest.
Judeau wolf-whistles when he sees him back at the camp, so Gatts gives him the finger and scowls, but doesn’t really mean it. Griffith raises pale brows and Casca smirks, and he extends the scowl to include them as well. He gives his old clothes to Rickert. They are too big to be of any use to him for a while, but there is no sense in throwing things with plenty of wear in them away. And anyway, Rickert likes them and wears the vest as a sort of jacket over his other clothes.
It’s nice to wear clothes that aren’t stiff with dirt and blood and faded from infrequent washing. Even the slight roughness of the new cloth against his skin is nice, Gatts thinks as they ride away from the town. It only lasts till the next battle though, because he kills three men and they spray blood all over his new pants. He knew it would happen, has happened with every set of clothes he’s owned, but it still gives him a pang to see the blue cloth stained brown with blood after the battle. His clothes are the only things he owns, apart from his sword and his horse, that are not hand-me-downs. Or stolen.
Gatts goes down to the river once they pitch camp after the battle, eager to wash the caked blood off his skin and clothes. As he nears the bank, he realises Griffith has beaten him to it, floating spread-eagled in the water. Griffith cannot have been there long: the blood dissolving off his skin has stained the water around him. Gatts strips and slips into the water with a splash, scrubbing his skin vigorously with his nails.
‘Martin’s dead,’ Griffith says, not turning to look at Gatts.
‘That little one?’ Gatts says regretfully. The boy had refused to be turned away at the last town at which they had recruited. He had cheerfully endured all manner of humiliations designed to make him leave and they had finally been forced to let him come along.
‘I told his unit to keep him out of it. They said they did everything short of tying him up and he still managed to get into the middle of it.’
‘They should have tied him up!’
‘Do you know, Gatts, I don’t think it would have mattered? This battle, the next one or the one after that - sooner or later, he would have managed it. He isn’t the first boy I’ve seen this happen to. I don’t know why they do it.’
They are silent for a space. ‘I remember the first one who joined the Hawks. He was young enough that he used to carry around a little wooden knight - he hid it when he thought someone was looking, but everyone knew about it. I found him lying on the battlefield, but I couldn’t recognise him at first because his head was lying five feet away. With his doll.’
‘What did you do?’ Gatts asks.
‘I nearly broke down on the battlefield. I don’t know how long I would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for Casca; she took me away from there and fought me till I was tired enough to sleep.’
Griffith rights himself and begins to squeeze the water out of his hair. He says, ‘Each time we fight, I think of that boy, and I think that there must be some better way than the stupid, stupid way things are done now. I have to find it, Gatts, I must.’ Bleakly, he turns to Gatts. ‘How else can I justify these deaths?’
They finish washing in silence and drag themselves up onto the bank to watch the sun sink behind the trees, as flocks of birds wing their way to rest.
>
Gatts doesn’t think of that day often. It doesn’t occur to him that on this precise date he understood why he followed Griffith. He might have registered a certain easing of some tension within him, the quieting of a restless urge to move on alone. Gatts knows he isn’t a leader. Oh, he fakes it well enough, slapping his men on their shoulders, doing his best not to get them killed, but Griffith is something different. Because what differentiates Griffith from him, and really, Gatts thinks, from everyone else he has ever met, is that Griffith moves through life towards a point no one else can see, eyes fixed on that and that alone.
It had made Gatts nervous when he first met him, irritated and agitated him. On that morning all those years ago, he remembers wanting to say why set yourself up for this? And with any of a million fools, he would have been right to give that advice. But not with Griffith. No, not with Griffith, because his strange unexpected friend, simultaneously a cynic and an idealist, is going to do what he set out to do. This, Gatts now believes absolutely and the belief settles in him comfortably, securely, flowing through his thoughts and the fabric of his days, until he cannot remember what it was like not to believe in Griffith.
>
That winter, the Hawks move on to a town in a northern province. They stay in the main inn, because the innkeeper is the mayor and he wants them to get rid of a pack of raiders. It is a smaller job than they normally do, but pickings are slim this season. All of them are aware that it will take many bread-and-butter excursions before they gain enough experience for the King to call them back into his service for the meatier missions that will make their fortune. Meanwhile, they’ll take what they can get.
In this particular case, they get nice rooms and everything, which tells Gatts that the townspeople really want the raiders gone. Everyone has to double up except Casca. He makes a mental note to avoid her room: ever since he has been promoted to Griffith’s second, she has been impossible to live with. The higher he rises in the Band’s esteem, the more Casca’s antipathy to him seems to increase. He puts it down to the same sort of jealousy that Corkus displays, and is secretly disappointed: he had thought better of her. He shares a room, as usual, with Griffith, which he likes because Griffith is warm and doesn’t steal the blankets or snore.
It isn’t hard to find the raiders’ spy in the town. They search the town’s guard wall for hidden exits before coming into town, and set a little surprise outside each of them. Come morning, Rickert’s patrol finds a miserable kid shivering in one of the pits. When they get him out and tie him up, Gatts can see that the boy is maybe older than he is, but he still seems like a kid. The boy nearly pisses himself, too, when Pippin starts in on him, and squeals quickly. The boy cries like a baby while he tells them where the raiders’ hideout in the forest is. Turns out that he’s a bum boy for one of them. Pretty enough for it, with big brown eyes and a soft mouth. The Hawks take him, trussed like a pig, to the village elders, so that he doesn’t run screaming to his friends.
It takes an hour to get the Hawks together and out to the forest, but it doesn’t take them long to clean the raiders up once they get there. Not much of a fight, and they even get the leader - a fat old bastard, with a mean look on his bearded face - alive to give to the townspeople.
They stay another night in the town and get drunk at the mayor’s expense. Late at night, Gatts reels upstairs with a splitting headache to find Griffith sitting on the windowsill of their room’s single window. He’s been in a bad mood ever since they found the boy. If it were anyone else, Gatts would know how to get him out of it, but when Griffith goes into a funk, it’s better just to stay the fuck out of the way. So Gatts gets into bed and tries to sleep. But he can’t, because he can feel Griffith being unhappy at the window. So he says (even though he knows it’s stupid), ‘You okay?’
There is a long silence. He hears footsteps coming closer to the bed, and a rustling of clothes. Griffith slides between the sheets behind him and then Gatts can feel him against his back. Griffith isn’t wearing anything.
‘No.’
Gatts turns to him and Griffith’s mouth comes down on his. Gatts jerks back instinctively. There is enough moonlight that he can see Griffith looking at him, eyes pale and questioning. Then Griffith turns his back to him and goes to sleep. After a while, Gatts gets out of the bed and leaves the room, too restless to fall asleep.
Walking down dark stairs and out of the inn, he shivers in the cold and fills his lungs with the crisp air. He walks to the stables, his feet crunching through the snow. Once inside, he can see a small lamp flickering in one of the stalls. Surprised that someone else is up at this late hour, he peers into the stall, leaning over the edge. Then he wishes he hadn’t, because Casca is in the stall and she’s crying, leaning against the side of her horse. It is too late for him to pretend he hasn’t seen her. He stands there uncomfortably, bathed in her teary glare. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demands, her voice accusing.
‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’ he shoots back, then bites his lip. As always, she is able to get under his skin despite his best intentions and he is far from calm right now.
‘What’s wrong?’ she sneers, ‘don’t you have to go suck up to Griffith? You must’ve been away for a whole quarter candle-mark now!’
The sheer venom in her voice surprises him. There has always been hostility under the surface when she talks to him, but she has never displayed it so openly.
‘Griffith’s golden boy!’ she spits, ‘the man who killed a hundred Chudans! The man with the biggest sword in Midland. What are you compensating for, Gatts?’
‘Nothing,’ he says, angry in his own turn. ‘What are you compensating for, Casca? Why are you such a bitch all the time? Do you think it makes you look tough? Do you think being a woman makes you special?’
‘And what are you, what’s so special about you?’
He stays silent, compressing his lips.
‘All you have going for you is that he met you before he met me!’ she continues, the words seeming to spill out, as if long suppressed. ‘I never had a chance! All you do is take and take and take. You came in here and you took away the only thing that ever mattered to me!’
‘What?’ says Gatts, goaded into responding, ‘What the hell have I ever taken from you?’
‘Everything!’ she says and her face crumples in misery. ‘I was Griffith’s second before you came. I was his right hand. What right did you have to take that away from me?’ Her voice trails into silence on those last words and Gatts has to strain to hear her.
They are both quiet for some time, unable to speak. Gatts tries not to look at the tears dripping down Casca’s cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ Gatts says, finally, ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t think of it that way.’ He really is sorry, somewhat to his own surprise; he knows what it’s like to feel unwanted.
Casca looks at him searchingly, as if suspecting him of mocking her. There is a long silence, while she appears to be struggling with herself. ‘I…I guess you earned it. I’m not as strong as you are,’ she says at last, unsteadily. ‘I don’t think he needs me anymore.’
‘Don’t say that! He relies on you, just as much as on me.’
She makes a negating gesture with one hand. ‘He doesn’t depend on anyone or anything. He never has.’ And, very low: ‘But I think he might need you.’
They don’t talk any more, but Gatts stays to groom his own horse. The silence is not companionable, but not tense either. Eventually, she leaves for her room and he follows her example soon after. His room is silent when he enters it and he slips into bed as unobtrusively as possible. Griffith doesn’t stir.
>
In the morning Gatts wonders if the previous night was a dream, because Griffith acts the same as always. He is just Griffith again, and the strange boy Gatts saw the night before is gone.
The Hawks get paid right before they leave the town. Riding past the main square, they see the raiders hanging from hastily erected gibbets and the boy they caught the day before along with them. His dead face is turned towards them, bulging eyes staring. He has probably been hung last, because there are shining tear tracks over the bruises on his face and the livid brand on his left cheek. The brand is messy, not a clean job at all. Gatts supposes that the townspeople were more than a little upset when the Hawks had handed him over to them.
>
Gatts feels that things are just the same between him and Griffith after that. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be. After all, there are plenty of people who swing that way, and, well, if they’d rather screw another man than a woman, that’s their business. It’s just not the way he is, he tells himself. It doesn’t count that he thinks about the way Griffith had felt against his back sometimes, because everyone thinks of crazy shit once in a while, especially when they’re always horny. The one good thing about that peculiar night is that Casca has stopped treating him like a plague carrier. He doubts they will ever be friends, but an armed truce is better than nothing.
They ride on through increasingly bad weather in the following weeks. The sky settles to a nondescript grey colour, occasionally darkening to pour freezing rain on them. Gatts decides that he much prefers the Southern provinces, conveniently blurring his memories of the sand flies and the heat.
Griffith decides the Hawks should winter in the next town; heavy snows have set in and there is little work to be had anywhere. Gatts thinks it’s nice at first, waking up in the same bed everyday (for once, a bed without fleas) to see windows white with frost, knowing that he’ll spend the day doing nothing at all. All the Hawks are pretty flush with cash after their recent jobs, and most of them try to spend it as fast as they can, on cards, drink and women. Especially women.
Judeau, Corkus and Gatts get drunk one night. The next thing he knows, he is rolling around on a straw tick in the local brothel with a drunken whore with six hands. He has a pretty good time, and it is as good a way as any to make the days pass, so he comes back often. The whore recognises him the second time and makes a fuss over him, which he pretends not to enjoy. Not that anyone notices - Judeau has his hands full with a curvy little brunette and Corkus and Pippin are chatting up the bored pair of women tending bar.
The whore’s name is Suzara, which tips Gatts off that she’s Chudan. She has brown skin and uneven teeth that show white when she smiles. Looks like Casca, except a lot fatter and older. She and Gatts get into the habit of talking after fucking in the afternoons. Or rather, she talks and Gatts listens. It is warm in her room, and comfortable, even if the blankets smell a bit. Gatts likes to lie with his arm behind her back and her head on his shoulder. It is far cry from the uneasy ecstasy he experienced in Slan’s temple and he prefers it this way.
She tells him that she followed a Midland trader out of Chuda when she was young and he left her pregnant in this town. The child is older than Gatts is, she says, and doing well as a carpenter in a village not too far away. He is a good boy who tries not to show that she embarrasses him. She gets a sad look in her eyes when she says this, so Gatts tickles her until she laughs and her stomach and thighs shake like jelly. This has a different effect on certain parts of his body, so they end up fucking again.
Suzara tells him about Chuda, too. Says it’s warm, so hot that you can cook your food on the rocks in the summer. That people wear long white robes, even the men, and go to temples to pray three times a day. That the city she is from is famous for its silk and saffron, which is sold in sprawling open-air bazaars. You can wander for days in these places, she says, they are so huge. The sellers have a way of snapping the cloth out from its folds so that it floats down slowly; on a busy day, the air is full of cloth in all colours. Gatts often goes back to the inn still thinking of camels and elephants and green-gold banners of cloth waving in the air.
When Gatts comes back late at night, drunk stupid, he is likely to find Griffith reading a book by lamplight in their room. Griffith has struck up a friendship with the local priest, of all people, a quiet grey-haired man who argues passionately about a great many issues and lends Griffith books. Gatts has an uneasy feeling that he becomes maudlin on some of these late nights, but he can never remember the next day and Griffith never tells him anything when he asks, but he always has a little smirk on his face on those days.
On the day that Gatts is bored enough to begin drinking early in the morning, he comes back nauseated in the early afternoon, brushing past Griffith and collapsing onto his bed, his head spinning. Vaguely, he hears Griffith place something - a basin, no doubt - next to his bed and then retreat to his own side of the room. Gatts dreams confusedly, of scenes washed in red that fade to black, leaving him aware only of his own breathing. Slowly, he transitions between sleep and awareness, two voices coiling around each other in his head. He cracks gummy eyes open to see Griffith and the priest sitting at the fire, heads bent over a text.
‘“Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only,”1’ Griffith reads slowly.
‘“Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable,”’ the priest continues, his low, sweet voice making the words hang in the air.
‘“Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.” That I agree with,’ Griffith says.
‘There I must part ways with you, Griffith,’ replies the priest. ‘One cannot rule people whom one despises.’
‘But do you not agree, Father, that most people do not know what is best for them? And if one has only their best interests at heart, then could not a little fear be forgiven?’
‘I think you will find that most people manage their affairs decently and humanely if they are only left in peace. It is when great causes come into their lives that they turn insecure and unruly.’
‘You have a great deal more faith in people than I do,’ Griffith says, sounding rather sad.
The priest rests a bony hand on Griffith’s head, stroking lightly from the crown to the nape. ‘I wish I had had the teaching of you when you were younger, Griffith.’
Griffith laughs. ‘So that I might not sound quite so cynical?’
‘Because I have often wished for a student like you. I will miss you when you leave, you know.’
‘And I you, Father.’
Gatts closes his eyes again and is lulled back to sleep by their low voices.
>
Their enforced rest comes to an end just as Gatts begins to feel he might chew his own arm off with boredom. The other Hawks are restless as well and Casca begins fighting with Corkus three times a day, so it’s clear that things have to start moving soon. One day, as the snow begins melting in the spring rains, a runner comes for Griffith with a message from a baron in the castle town two hundred miles east. The baron needs the Hawks to reinforce his attack on another noble. Ah, bickering lords in the springtime - it brings back old memories for Gatts. Griffith agrees to take the job, telling the runner that they will arrive at the castle in a week’s time.
The Hawks ride the next day. The night before, Gatts says an awkward goodbye to Suzara who takes the news of his departure stoically, although her eyes are suspiciously moist. He doesn’t tell her that he will return and she doesn’t ask him to. He gives her a length of red silk; he picked it up earlier thinking of the cloth bazaars in her homeland. She tells him that she will make a dress out of it and think of him when she wears it.
>
They reach the baron’s castle within the promised week. The noble is a tall blond man with an urbane manner. He talks to Griffith and the other Hawks courteously, though he can never quite rid his manner of the slight hauteur customary to most high-borns. The incursion onto his neighbour’s territory is accomplished quite easily; possibly, a man less used to hedging his bets would not have hired them at all.
The successful attack is celebrated with a ball at the castle. The Hawk officers are invited, though it becomes quickly apparent that they are to function as dangerously exotic novelties for the other guests to gawk at discreetly. Uncomfortable at the attention he is getting, Gatts retreats into a corner with a glass of wine, scowling fiercely to deter anyone from approaching him. Across the ballroom, he can see Rickert and Judeau looking panicked and fending off a bevy of noblewomen. In another corner of the room, Casca’s eyes are narrowing in a way that should be a warning to the drunkard trying to look down the neck of her shirt. He lets his gaze trail slowly across the chamber, stopping at the windows leading out onto the stone terrace, where a group of men standing around Griffith are enjoying a lively conversation.
Unlike the rest of the Hawks, Griffith seems neither out of place nor uncomfortable in this situation. He is speaking now and if the smiles on the faces of the men around him are anything to go by what he is saying is witty, sophisticated and amusing. The baron himself is standing next to Griffith, looking at him with what might be considered almost a proprietary air. As Gatts watches, the nobleman says something that makes the other men move on, leaving Griffith and the baron standing alone beside the windows. Subtly, the attitude of the baron changes, one hand descending on Griffith’s shoulder in a way that might be considered only friendly - if you neglected to study his expression carefully. With his free hand, the man gestures toward the terrace, bending to speak softly into Griffith’s ear. Griffith shakes his head in reply, smoothly disengaging himself from the baron’s grip and giving him a rueful smile. Gatts watches as the noble shrugs resignedly.
Later Gatts asks Griffith why he didn’t go with the baron. ‘He wasn’t bad-looking,’ he adds teasingly. There is a tense silence and then a sharp ‘Use your head!’
Lying awake that night, Gatts decides that he deserved it. He hasn’t realised till now the special difficulties inherent in Griffith’s position. It is an open secret that half the nobles in Midland keep catamites, but Griffith’s background with Gennon and his low rank make it impossible for him to contemplate an open relationship with another man. It would make him a laughingstock.
There is always the option of the boy prostitutes who haunt certain areas of the towns they pass, their painted faces turned hopefully toward passers by, but Griffith always moves past them as though he doesn’t see them. Gatts secretly suspects that he sees too much of himself as he was, before the Hawks and before Gennon, in these boys to view them with any sort of comfort. Gatts spends the rest of the night sleepless, contemplating the extent of Griffith’s loneliness.
>
Gradually, the Band of the Hawks’ reputation grows. Their record is unblemished by defeat so far and they begin to have the luxury of refusing less lucrative or important missions. Gatts settles into his role as Second Captain, beginning to feel truly responsible for the men under his command. The responsibility tempers him and gives him steadiness; he finds that he is less likely now to lash out in anger. His men depend upon him increasingly, which he takes as a compliment, but which also makes him more deliberate in making his decisions. It is now more important than ever that he make the right decisions: he doesn’t want to see his men’s dead faces in his mind’s eye because he moved wrongly or too fast. Casca approves of the change in him and stops chiding him for being too reckless. Occasionally, they have a whole conversation without arguing.
Griffith, in their third year away from the capital, seems slightly more on edge. He is waiting, he tells Gatts, for the King to recall them to Garima. He refuses mission after mission, and the Hawks remain camped in Siova, kicking their heels. One day, Gatts finds him in his tent, reading a letter and smiling. The indefinable tension has eased from his face. ‘This is it,’ he tells Gatts, waving the letter, ‘our final test.’
‘What impossible thing do we have to do this time?’
Griffith smiles wider. ‘Nothing very hard. Simply capture the Korai.’
‘What!’ Gatts says, aghast. The Black Fortress holds the reputation of being one of the most secure and well-guarded outposts of the Chudan Empire. The citadel is on the edge of the barren plateau overlooking the plain of Midland’s fertile central province. The river flowing parallel to the edge of the plateau only provides a second barrier to attackers. From this vantage point, the Chudans can see any advancing force well in time to erect their defences. No Midland army has ever taken it.
‘There’s no way we can do it, Griffith!’
‘Oh, but there is. There are certain factors about this situation that our dear Prince Yurius, who I am certain is behind this, has neglected to take into account.’ Gatts looks inquiring. ‘The Chudans have become lazy about the Korai; they deploy their least experienced forces there, in the confidence that the location of the fortress will hold off all attackers. Secondly, every other Midland attack on this place has involved at least three army regiments and has been seen coming for miles. We are fewer and much faster. They will get little warning of our advance. Lastly,’ and here Griffith smiles, ‘regarding the general in charge of the fortress, there is reason for me to believe that his thinking may not be completely unclouded when it comes to… the Hawks.’
>
Despite Griffith’s explanation, Gatts remains uncertain. Griffith refuses to expand on his previous association with the general in charge of the Korai. Judeau, Corkus and Pippin appear to share his misgivings, but they complete preparations for the journey in record time and do not let their doubts show to the other Hawks. Gatts reminds his platoon leaders of their past record of success and tells them to trust Griffith. Most of the soldiers are happy to believe him.
They travel to the Argun plateau at breakneck speed. If Chudan spies have penetrated the Midland court, they will give them as little time as possible to get word to the Korai. They avoid the villages en route to the fortress, knowing that these will have links with the stronghold. Shortly, they are camped on the incline leading up to the plateau, a short distance away from the river. Griffith tells the senior officers that the attack will take place the next morning. Even Casca, who customarily carries out Griffith’s orders as if they were her own, is moved to ask for clarification. Surely they will not simply attack the fortress directly?
Well, yes, apparently they will, according to Griffith. Pointing with a stick to the map, he tells them that they will be crossing the river the next day. Then the large majority of the Hawks will draw the garrison’s defenders out, while a small hidden force waits in reserve to the side. Gatts can’t understand it; the most elementary military tactics forbid cutting off your own line of retreat, as Griffith is proposing to do by putting the river at their backs. And why should the Chudans come out at all, when they can stay safely behind their walls? Griffith knows all this; why is he planning to attack in this way?
Gatts begins to object, only to be cut off by Griffith. ‘If you’ve trusted me to lead you this far, then trust me again tomorrow. Have your troops ready for the attack, but don’t tell them what we’re going to do.’ And with that, the meeting is over; only Casca, who will lead the reserve force, is asked to stay. Outside the tent, Judeau shrugs and laughs a little, expressing their collective confusion.
Even so, they do their duty. The next morning, the Hawks cross the river and face the fortress. To Gatts’ amazement, the vast gate guarding the citadel opens and soldiers begin to march out, forming line upon line of a vast human rectangle. When the gate eventually swings shut again, a force fully four times the strength of the Hawks is facing them. Murmurs of disquiet begin within the ranks as Griffith rides to the front to address them. He is distinctive in white and silver and his voice is clear and sure.
‘Today, we are going to take the Korai. You will be fighting an army many times your own size. There is a river behind you and nowhere to run. So, today, you are not fighting for your cut of the profits. You are fighting for your life. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So fight well and fight to live!’
As he speaks, the Hawks straighten on their mounts. Griffith pulls on his horse’s reins, facing forward and securing his helmet. He raises his sword high up in the air and sweeps it down to his right: ‘Attack!’
>
A day later, Gatts thinks of the battle with wonder. The Hawks had attacked with all the fury of cornered beasts and been met by half-trained soldiers and green recruits. Slashing his way through the Chudan ranks, Gatts was incredulous when he realised that the Chudans were trying to capture Griffith alive. Later, he learnt that the Chudan commander had offered a reward to any man who brought him the leader of the Hawks unharmed. The confusion and greed this offer incited in the Chudan ranks badly hampered their ability to push back the Hawks, but as more and more Chudans died, reinforcements were brought out of the fortress, much to the Hawks’ dismay. Their strength flagging, they looked to be overwhelmed by the Chudans’ superior numbers. At that point, Gatts had begun moving at that point towards Griffith, acting instinctively to protect his leader.
The Hawks began looking increasingly desperate, fending off the Chudan soldiers with their remaining strength. The Chudans, sensing their advantage, took the opportunity to tighten their ranks and push back with vigour. Gatts was grimly pushing forward towards Griffith, when a shout brought his head up and toward the fortress. There, in front of his unbelieving eyes, the blue and silver flag of the Hawks was waving gaily in place of the Chudan standard and grinning Hawks lined the ramparts. The stunned Chudans realised they were caught in the jaws of a trap. Throwing down their weapons, they began surrendering voluntarily. Shortly after that, the Battle of the Korai was over.
Riding into the keep, Gatts had found Casca’s men firmly in control of the fortress. It could not have been difficult to subdue the skeleton force that remained inside once the commander made the tactical error of sending the bulk of his army outside the protection of the fortress. Small as the reserve force had been, they were able to take control of the stronghold quite efficiently. Casca herself had sustained a flesh wound in her left arm and was tired, but triumphant. Griffith had hugged her gently, congratulating her on a job well done, and Gatts had turned away, the look in her eyes making him feel he was intruding on a private moment.
The Chudan general remained securely guarded in a storeroom till later that day. He had been brought before Griffith for judgment, a gaunt man shaking with fear and less than impressive in defeat. He had smiled at Griffith, his thin mouth twitching nervously.
‘Gri…Griffith. It’s good to see you, my boy,’ he said, in a tone that tried and failed to be avuncular. ‘It’s been such a long time. Do tell these ruffians to stop manhandling me.’
‘You will be executed at nightfall, along with the other captured officers,’ Griffith said, his voice cold.
‘But, Griffith! You-,’ and he was cut off by Griffith’s hand slicing through the air. His nerve visibly oozed out of him.
‘Take him away.’
The general was dragged away, still trying to choke out his plea for mercy. Griffith’s face had an expression of faint distaste on it and Gatts began to have an inkling of what the connection between the two might have been. If he was right, Griffith had played the man with consummate skill in this entire affair.
Though Gatts doesn’t quite admit it to himself, the memory of Griffith’s face as he looked at the general chills him a little. He doesn’t know why, when he has seen Griffith’s ruthlessness demonstrated in so many other ways and it has never bothered him. But there had been just a hint of satisfaction behind the coldness, as of an item checked off a long list of humiliations and injuries suffered. Griffith rarely speaks of his pre-Hawk days. Sometimes, Gatts is grateful for that.
Someone calls his name, jerking Gatts out of his memories of the day before. ‘We’re going back,’ Corkus says, his normally sour face lit up with a grin. ‘The King has called us back! Griffith is to be knighted!’
>
They ride into streets lined with crowds even thicker and more raucous than those that had greeted Gatts on his first entrance into Garima. The officers ride behind Griffith, half-blinded by the showers of flower petals being thrown at them by cheering men and women. Even in the wealthier quarters leading up to the palace, the normally indifferent noblewomen are out on their balconies, showering them with more expensive rose petals and ribbons. They are led straight in to the throne room this time, and Gatts gapes at the number of people already inside. Griffith walks straight up to the throne, looking neither to the left nor the right, as his officers follow him. The King rises and the flat of his ceremonial sword strikes each of Griffith’s shoulders, as he pronounces him a knight of the realm. Tired as he is, the rest of the ceremony passes in a blur for Gatts.
The same evening, the Hawk officers, dressed in their best, make their way back to the palace. Their men are busy celebrating their return in taverns all over Garima, their discipline for once thrown to the winds. Gatts, uncomfortable in the expensive getup he has been forced to buy and wear, wishes he was helping Gaston in his avowed intention of drinking at every tavern in the city, instead of going to the ball organised in honour of their victory. At least one person, however, is even more uncomfortable than he is: Casca is wearing a dress!
Any impression of gentle femininity this might give her, however, is destroyed by the ferocious expression on her face. Her fellow officers are wise enough not to comment on the dress, but amusement is plain on their faces, which seems to infuriate her further. Actually, Gatts thinks she looks pretty in it; the roses lining the bodice match the flush in her cheeks, and there is a rose tucked behind her ear as well. Judeau seems to share his opinion, sneaking surreptitious looks at Casca when she isn’t looking.
The ball goes as Gatts expects it to go. Hour after hour crawls by with agonizing slowness and he follows his time-tested survival method, acquiring a large amount of alcohol and retreating into an isolated corner to drink it, first alone and then joined by Judeau, who is trying to get up the nerve to ask Casca to dance. From their refuge, they can see Griffith being introduced to a young woman surrounded by an unusually large number of attendants.
‘Who’s that?’ asks Gatts.
‘Princess Charlotte,’ replies Judeau, tugging at his neat blond ponytail, his mind obviously elsewhere. The object of his thoughts is attempting to hide behind a pillar on the opposite side of the ballroom.
Gatts watches as Griffith bends over the Princess’s hand and then rises to give her a charming smile. The Princess, flustered, blushes and doesn’t seem to know how to respond. Around her, her duennas look charmed as Griffith begins talking again and, slowly, the Princess dares to look up and participate in conversation once again. Gatts is beginning to understand that Griffith’s ambitions may be more far-reaching than anyone imagines.
The evening drags on as candles burn down and are replaced. At one point, the unmarried girls exit the ballroom, deemed too young to stay past a certain hour. Judeau asks Casca for a dance and is refused, but not unkindly. Gatts thinks she may even be flattered under her gruff exterior. Eventually, the King and Queen make their exit, as everyone in the room bows or curtseys low. With the royal couple’s departure a change seems to come over the room. There is a hush, as though the assembled nobles are waiting for something. A woman in red raises her hands for silence, as a gaunt man in black robes opens his mouth to speak.
‘In honour of Sir Griffith’s victory, the followers of Void and Slan would like to invite all of you to a private celebration in the Temple of Void,’ the man says, his voice low and sonorous. It is Dhoval, the High Priest of Void, which must mean that the woman is the High Priestess of Slan, whose litter he had seen long months ago in the city.
An excited buzz rises, as nobles begin to hurry out of the ballroom to hail their carriages. Gatts looks around in confusion, but the other Hawks look equally bewildered. One by one, they decide to return to the barracks or move on to a tavern for a real celebration.
‘Let’s get out of here, Griffith,’ Gatts says.
Griffith grips him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t you realise what this is? They’re finally letting me in. This is it!’
‘This is something that I don’t know if you want to get involved in. I don’t trust that pair, or anything to do with the God Hand,’ Gatts says in a low voice.
Griffith’s cheeks are faintly flushed, his eyes triumphant. ‘Don’t be naïve, Gatts! There is only so high you can go without the God Hand’s favour…’
‘You know what these people are. Can you honestly tell me you want to link yourself to them?’
Griffith’s eyes drop and he is silent for a long moment.
When he speaks again, there is no hesitation in his voice. ‘I have to go, Gatts. You can come with me or not. Your choice.’
Gatts decides to stay with him, uneasy and unable to articulate clearly what he feels. Unbalanced, perhaps, as though the night marks a turning point of some sort, and he has taken the wrong turn without knowing it.
The Black Temple, when they reach it, is no less forbidding at night than it appears in the daytime. As they walk towards it, Gatts has the fanciful impression that he is falling into an abyss, in spite of the illumination provided by torches held by the guards. They are admitted into the temple as soon as the guards can see their faces. Inside, the temple is built on bigger lines than that of Slan, its obsidian walls reaching up to heights that the torches in wall sconces are unable to illuminate. As they follow their guide further into the temple, the ground begins to slope down gently under their feet. Gatts realises that they are moving underground. He loses track of the turns they take until they finally pass through doors leading into a tunnel, which in turn leads into a vast cavern. One part of his mind wonders how it is physically possible; the structure should have collapsed with this under it. Pillars stretch back further than he can see and the ceiling is lost in blackness.
In the flickering light of innumerable candles and lamps, the cream of Garima society is disporting itself with abandon. Gatts, shocked, recognises the faces of several high-ranking nobles. Some are fondling half-nude slave girls, while their stiff-backed wives emulate them with the slaves’ male counterparts. There are pedestals erected among the mattresses and carpets lining the floor, where nubile bodies seem to be performing various sexual acts for the amusement of the spectators. The only area left bare is a sort of pit at the back of the room, behind which is a massive altar of black stone.
Beside him, Griffith appears to be collecting his thoughts, an impassive expression on his face. Gatts is about to suggest that they beat a hasty retreat before someone notices them, when he realises someone already has. The High Priestess is moving towards them, her red robes half undone and trailing on the ground behind her. Gatts tries desperately to ignore the generous expanse of torso she is displaying.
‘I’m so glad you could join us, Sir Griffith,’ she says. ‘May I call you Griffith?’ Griffith nods, and she turns to Gatts, ‘And this, of course, is Gatts, your second. May I say how very much I admire your exploits on the field? You must both call me Iruva.’ In spite of her addressing her last remarks to Gatts, her eyes are already drifting back to Griffith’s face. Another voice rumbles, ‘Sir Griffith, we have been following your career with a tremendous degree of interest these past months.’ The cadaverous face of the High Priest appears over the Priestess’s shoulder, only adding to Gatts’ unease.
‘Thank you,’ Griffith replies. ‘I am flattered.’
‘You really must come and tell us all about this latest battle,’ the Priestess says, linking her arm with Griffith’s. Gatts has no choice but to follow them as they move towards the far end of the room. The High Priest follows silently by his side.
They reach a cushioned mattress on the floor and the woman sinks down on it gracefully, patting the space beside her invitingly. Griffith sits down, while the High Priest leads Gatts to another mattress. Looking back over his shoulder, Gatts sees the Priestess put her hand on Griffith’s knee. There is something about her that makes Gatts uneasy, in spite of her vapid smile and her insipid conversation. Perhaps because she seems to be playing at maintaining this rôle, her imitation of a well-bred Midland noblewoman belied by the expression in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry?’ he says, realising he has missed the better part of what the High Priest is saying to him.
A ghastly-looking smile is aimed at him, as the man repeats what he said earlier: ‘Would you like a girl?’
‘Er..no. No, that’s really all right. I’ll just…sit here and…don’t let me detain you, please,’ Gatts says, his concentration in shreds.
The man nods again and moves away, leaving Gatts free to observe Griffith and the Priestess covertly. Not that it matters, since at this point Griffith and the woman appear to be engaged in a staring contest. Griffith drops his eyes first and nods, agreeing to something. His companion smiles and matters progress rapidly to a point where they would not notice if the whole room were watching them.
As more and more of their pale flesh comes into view, Gatts finally gives up, turns tail and flees. A stone-faced guard leads him out of the temple and he walks to the Drunken Goat, the tavern the Hawks are fond of frequenting. Once inside, he calls for a beer and presses the mug, damp with condensation, against the side of his face. Flashes of the scene he has just escaped from appear randomly in his mind, ensuring a constant blush on his cheeks. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to dislodge the memory of the Priestess’s red mouth moving down Griffith’s chest in a series of sucking kisses.
Someone sits down across from him and he opens his eyes to find Pippin there. ‘Hey,’ he says.
Pippin nods in reply: he rarely speaks if he can help it. He points at Gatts and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
Gatts sighs. ‘Don’t ask.’
Pippin shrugs his okay and they drink in a companionable silence. ‘Did you enjoy yourself tonight?’ Gatts asks. Pippin shrugs again: not really.
‘I wish we were back in the provinces.’ Gatts says, ‘I really don’t like this city.’
Pippin’s mouth quirks in his version of a smile. ‘I think we’ll be here a while,’ he says.
‘I know. Fuck it all to hell,’ Gatts mutters. Then he sighs. ‘Well, I suppose we’ll all be better off for it. I can’t believe it: Griffith, a knight!’
Pippin shrugs again. This time, Gatts can’t make out what he is trying to convey. Outside the tavern the sky is lightening from the blue-black of night to the roseate shades of dawn.
>
Griffith returns late in the day, perfectly groomed and seemingly composed. Gatts looks at him and continues sharpening his sword.
‘Was that a step up from the chanting and swaying?’
No reply.
‘Did you really need to do that?’
‘Did I really need to whore myself out, you mean?’ Griffith snaps.
Gatts meets his eyes steadily. ‘You said it, not me.’
‘We need her, Gatts. Don’t presume to judge me without knowing what I’m about. I’m too close to let anything stop me now.’
‘Be careful, Griffith. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Honestly, Gatts, you’re such a storm crow these days!’ Griffith says, exasperated. ‘Beware…beware…beware,’ he croaks in low, mock-mournful tones, moving behind Gatts and pushing him off the bed.
Part Three is here.