The Cat's Eye
Book I, Part I
The sun warmed his face. Millet stood to the shoulder all round, the terraces a green-and-gold stair to the valley’s heart; chirping cicadas reminded Amprezzo that some would be lost before autumn, but it mattered little with such a harvest. Sweat had soaked through his undershirt, soon to stain his brown linen robe, but he had no intention of hiding from the fullness of summer when robes could be washed and his tutors would hold him captive through the winter.
A strange thing, he thought, to own so much land, yet spend so much time indoors, being berated by old men left to him by his father. Penmanship, oration, logic, history, classical languages, swordsmanship, every day for two more years, and for what? Already he was a leader, nearly all the other boys of means following him into town of a long night. Already he excelled them in wisdom, daring and charm. A wife of good standing was a certainty, and as long as he did not take to drink or foolish trades, he would never want. So what did he need with ceaseless study?
He imagined the hard face of Rucario tu Imfalo with wrinkles as etchings in a stone, his thin, dark lips forming words like ‘flanking’, ‘supply chain’, ‘levy’ and ‘siege.’ The harshest of the lot, he was never satisfied with Amprezzo’s studies or swordsmanship, and seemed genuinely convinced those things mattered. The most useless of all the old men, he thought, and decided to let Rucario dry out in the stale air of the study while he rounded up his boys and some horses and rode out somewhere.
As he started to walk valleyward through the millet, the warmth of the sun lessened. He stepped on something large and firm, and immediately withdrew his foot in surprise. The millet turned to dust, blowing away into the air; the valley flattened out before him, the light faded from the sky. As the world changed shape before his eyes, he could see what had been beneath his foot: the body of a woman, shot through with many arrows, the thin wool of her dress dark red around the wounds, her expression not terrified, but uncomprehending.
“Hey, Priest, hurry up and give me a hand, yeah?” a rough voice called to him. Amprezzo blinked, still saw the body, then sighed; reality once again. He turned and saw a dirty-faced man in leather armor peeling the same off another man’s corpse and tossing it into a cart. As the vest came up over limp arms and unrecognizable head, it revealed a bronze chain with a single square laying on his chest. “Oho, looks like this one was some lord’s son. What would you wager this is worth?” the grimy man asked, immediately snatching the necklace.
“Whatever Kion says it’s worth,” Amprezzo muttered reflexively. “Put it in the cart with the rest, Kigir.” Reality was deep in autumn, a chill wind up and cutting at his face, clouds threatening rain, hastening the dark. Millet was grass, the chirping of cicadas replaced by dry rustling and the sounds that follow battle; the barks of scavenging victors and the cries of the surviving vanquished.
Not far off stood the wooden walls of the small town. He--they--had broken it easily, and when the defenders failed, they’d chased the fleeing remnant out onto the plain and put them down not an hour ago; only the townsfolk worth selling to slavers were left. Amprezzo saw a lean, grey-haired man standing atop a salient, speaking to two plate-armored soldiers with languorous ease.
“What do you think the boss is talking to them about?” Kigir asked, following Amprezzo’s gaze.
“Does it really matter? Whenever he opens his mouth, he gets what he wants,” Amprezzo said, watching the two soldiers frown, glance at each other, then hastily disappear behind the walls. Kigir sniggered.
“Hah, yeah, works out great for us, doesn’t it?”
“Of course.” Amprezzo bent down and pried a pike from the grip of a young man--trim, not poorly dressed, waves of brown hair crowning his head. No doubt he’d been a favorite of the local girls, had his share of hangers-on; that had ended the instant someone had introduced his face to the sharp end of an axe. He was no use to anyone now.
“Hey, those aren’t half-bad,” Kigir said, kneeling down by the body and slipping the boots from its feet. He pretended not to notice Amprezzo’s dead stare, lifting his foot up to compare. “Right size, too.” He placed them in the cart, but right at the back, meaning they would likely ‘fall off’ later and somehow reappear on his person.
Amprezzo turned his hands to looting as well. He didn’t share Kigir’s enthusiasm, but it was something to keep his blood moving and take his mind off the cold. He worked with practiced efficiency, sure what was of value in a single glance, and intimately familiar with quickest ways to remove all of it. As Amprezzo walked from body to cart to body, he saw knots of soldiers talking low, glaring at his fellow looters, glaring at him, though they had all fought side-by-side to take the town. He wished he still had it in him to be hurt, but simply returned to his work.
Other men and women dropped armfuls of plunder in the cart as they wandered by, some stopping to chat with Kigir, but they knew better than to try the same with ‘The Priest.’ The passing of time was measured out in bodies stripped; for Amprezzo, eleven bodies meant nearly an hour had passed when he noticed the cart was full, and the grey-haired man was walking towards him.
“Field’s picked clean for the most part, you can take the cart back down to the road we came by and group up with the others,” he said, casually stepping over a corpse.
“Sure thing, boss.” Kigir grunted as he lifted the cart’s handles and pulled it behind him. Amprezzo could see other looters and other carts, a hard-looking rabble forming itself loosely behind neat ranks of soldiers--a rabble he was just as much a part of as Kigir. The thought made his head hurt.
“So, Priest, you managed not to die? I didn’t think you’d made it through.”
“The cliff-side was barely defended, and it was an easy climb. Nobody saw us until we’d tied off the ropes.”
The grey-haired man smirked at Amprezzo, pointing out to the west, where the hill crested and curved back towards the road.
“They had light cavalry sitting back there, after all. Sneaky, that. But while you and yours were fooling around climbing rocks, the rest of us were sorting them out. Incidentally, we’ve freshened our stock of horse meat.”
“Of course. Another legendary victory for the great Tshio Kion,” Amprezzo said, turning from the older man’s gaze.
“Legends are fine, but I’m more interested in the Duke’s gold. Speaking of which, the Duke’s captains asked me to just send someone round to pick up the payment instead of all us filthy mercenaries coming back together.”
“That’s what you were discussing earlier?”
“Oh? Someone can’t keep his eyes off me,” Kion chuckled. “But, yes. Obviously, I told them, I would never insult the Duke by not appearing personally. You and the other Named will be there with me.”
“I’d just as soon not. When winter comes--”
“Gods, relax, Priest. It will just be a week. Can’t you picture it? A man in his prime in one of the six great cities, handsome and with a fresh supply of money, who has dined with the Duke himself. I’m sure you see where this is going.”
“Priests are celibate,” Amprezzo snapped.
“They don’t kill or loot, either, but, well . . . ” Kion nudged a nearby body with his foot. “All I’m saying is, you can worry about winter when it’s here. We’ve had a busy autumn and a big haul, the men are tired. You may as well enjoy yourself, too.” With that, he turned and started walking down the hill to join his men.
“Kion, you know what I want,” Amprezzo said. Kion paused, looking over his shoulder.
“It is almost that time of year again, isn’t it? I’ll think about it.”
A moment later found Amprezzo alone, soldiers and mercenaries alike gathered at the bottom of the shallow grade and moving south along the road. He closed his eyes and tried to revive the feeling of that distant summer.
The bodies were starting to stink.
