Mulgrave had been much occupied during the last few weeks, trying to solve the riddle of the murders of Jek Bindoe and the kilted Varlish boy. Gaise guessed that the soldier had his suspicions as to the identity of the killer, but he would not voice them. Then had come the killing of Boillard Seeton. Like Bindoe he had also been shot before being stabbed. Mulgrave was convinced that the man who shot Boillard had also been responsible for the other murders.
‘It is a highlander for sure,’ he said. The killer did not ride from the old bridge. He walked. I followed the tracks for a while, but then they vanished in a stream. I rode that stream looking for an exit print. I found none. But there were many areas where either the ground was rocky alongside the water, or overhanging branches reached down. The man was canny – as they say in these parts. He was also not heavily built. The prints were not deep. Judging by the ground he covered I would also assume him to be young and strong.’
‘What does it matter, my friend?’ asked Gaise Macon. ‘Bindoe was a rapist and a murderer. He deserved to die. Boillard Seeton was a hunter of men, and a man of poor reputation. Added to which I am glad Chain Shada escaped.’
‘It matters, sir, because a highlander has killed three Varlish. It would not be a good precedent for him to escape justice.’
‘It has not sparked a rebellion, Mulgrave.’
‘No, sir, but it has planted a seed.’
The coach rumbled on. Gaise looked out of the window at the houses flowing by, and at the people walking the narrow streets of Eldacre. Most of the men were wearing white wigs and the high-collared black coats once so popular in the south. A dog ran alongside the coach, barking furiously. A lancer broke formation and clouted the animal with the haft of his lance. The dog yelped and ran away.
Gaise pulled off his own wig and scratched his head. Already he was sweating and the journey had scarcely begun. The coach rattled along, past the Five Fields, empty now. Gaise thought back to the night of the fight. He had been impressed by Jaim Grymauch.
Just for a moment, after he had downed Gorain for the last time, the man had seemed like a giant, his huge frame silhouetted against the mountains.
He recalled an old description of the clansmen. Men with mountains on their shoulders. It was certainly true of Grymauch. And yet we treat them in the same way the lancer treated the dog alongside the coach, he thought. At first sign of independent thought we come down on them with whips and guns and the hangman’s noose. It was no way to govern a people.
But it was the way of the Moidart.
Gaise felt himself tensing as he thought of his father, and the man’s last words as servants carried his trunks down to the coach.
‘Do nothing to make me ashamed,’ he had said.
Gaise wished he had found the courage to say: ‘If only you could do as much.’
The senseless murder of Gorain had saddened the young noble. The fighter had given his best and been beaten. For this he had been dragged away in the dark of the night and hanged from a tree. Then, for a noble gesture that epitomized the greatness of the Varlish, Chain Shada had been hunted like an animal. It was monstrous.
Gaise was glad to be leaving the area. Perhaps in Varingas he would learn to feel pride in his race again. The Academy of Martial Thought was run by some of the finest soldiers ever to lead Varlish armies, and the books in its libraries were written by – or about -the greatest military geniuses of the last thousand years. All twelve of Jasaray’s Campaign Memoirs were there. Gaise had also been told that the six books on cavalry warfare by the legendary Luden Macks were presented to every new student upon arrival.
The road curved sharply to the west for a while, and, glancing through the window, Gaise saw the towers of Eldacre Castle, sharp against the sky. He stared morosely at the grey fortress. Many of the great stories he had read talked of the joys of home. Gaise had never known such joys. Assassins had killed his mother while he was still a babe, and his father had always been a cold and vengeful figure. Eldacre Castle contained no fond memories. He could not recall one incident where his father had ever praised him, or hugged him. In fact he had rarely seen the man smile.