The Icebound Land

4

smoke-filled and none too clean. But it was close to the river where the big ships docked as they brought goods for trade into the capital, and so it usually enjoyed good business.

Right now, though, business had dropped off, and the reason for the decline was sitting at one of the spill-stained bare tables, close to the fireplace. He glared up at the tavern keeper now, his eyes burning under the knotted brows, and banged the empty tankard on the rough pine planks of the table.

"It's empty again," he said angrily. There was just the slightest slurring of his words to remind the tavern keeper that this would be the eighth or ninth time he'd refilled the tankard with the cheap, fiery brandy-spirit that was the stock-in-trade of dockside bars like this. A sale was a sale, he told himself doubtfully, but this customer looked like trouble waiting to happen and the tavern keeper wished fervently that he'd go and let it happen someplace else.

His usual customers, with their uncanny instinct for trouble brewing, had mostly cleared out when the small man had arrived and begun drinking with such unswerving purpose. Only half a dozen had remained. One of them, a hulking stevedore, had looked over the smaller man and decided he was easy pickings. Small and drunken the customer might be, but the gray-green cloak and the double knife scabbard at his left hip marked him as a Ranger. And Rangers, as any sensible person could tell you, were not people to trifle with.

The stevedore learned that the hard way. The fight barely lasted a few seconds, leaving him stretched unconscious on the floor. His companions hastily departed for a friendlier, and safer, atmosphere.

The Ranger watched them go and signaled for a refill. The innkeeper stepped over the stevedore, nervously topped up the Ranger's tankard, then retreated behind the relative safety of the bar.

Then the real trouble started.

"It has come to my attention," the Ranger announced, enunciating his words with the careful precision of a man who knows he has drunk too much, "that our good King Duncan, lord of this realm, is nothing but a poltroon."

If the atmosphere in the bar before this had been anticipatory, it now became positively sizzling with tension. The eyes of the few remaining customers were locked on the small figure at the table. He gazed around, a grim little smile playing on his lips, just visible between the grizzled beard and the mustache.

"A poltroon. A coward. And a fool," he said clearly.

Nobody moved. This was dangerous talk. For a normal citizen to abuse or insult the King in public like this would be a serious crime.

For a Ranger, a sworn member of the kingdom's special forces, it was close to treason. Anxious glances were exchanged. The few remaining customers wished they could leave quietly. But something in the Ranger's calm gaze told them this was no longer an option. They noticed now that the longbow he had leaned against the wall behind him was already strung. And the quiver beside it was full of arrows. They all knew that the first person to try to go through the front door would be followed in rapid time by an arrow. And they all knew that Rangers, even drunk Rangers, rarely missed what they aimed at.

Yet to remain here while the Ranger berated and insulted the King was equally dangerous. Their silence might well be taken as acquiescence should anyone ever find out what was going on.

"I have it on good authority," the Ranger continued, almost jovially now, "that good King Duncan is not the lawful occupant of the throne. I've heard it said that he is, in fact, the son of a drunken privy cleaner. Another rumor has it that he was the result of his father's fascination with a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer. Take your pick. Either way, it is hardly the correct lineage for a king, is it?"

A small sigh of concern passed from someone's lips. This was becoming more and more dangerous by the moment. The tavern keeper shifted nervously behind the bar, saw a movement in the back room and moved to get a clearer view through the doorway. His wife, on her way into the taproom with a plate of pies for the bar, had stopped as she heard the Ranger's last statement. She stood white-faced, her eyes meeting her husband's in an unspoken question.

He glanced quickly at the Ranger, but the other man's attention was now focused on a wagoner who was trying to make himself inconspicuous at the far end of the bar. "Don't you agree, sir:you in the yellow jerkin with most of yesterday's breakfast spilled upon it:that such a person doesn't deserve to be king of this fair land?" he asked. The wagoner mumbled and shifted in his seat, unwilling to make eye contact.

The tavern keeper jerked his head almost imperceptibly toward the back entrance of the building. His wife looked away to it, then back to him, her eyebrows raised in a query. "The Watch," he mouthed carefully, and saw understanding dawn in her eyes. Stepping quietly, and still out of the Ranger's line of sight, she crossed the back room and let herself out the rear door, closing it behind her as silently as she could manage.

For all her care, the latch made a slight click as it fell into place behind her. The Ranger's eyes snapped around to the tavern keeper, suspicious and questioning.

"What was that?" he demanded, and the tavern keeper shrugged, rubbing damp palms on his stained apron. He didn't try to speak. He knew his throat was far too dry to form words.

For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw a flash of satisfaction in the other man's expression, but he dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

As the minutes dragged by, the Ranger's insults and slandering of King Duncan grew more vivid and more outrageous. The landlord swallowed nervously. His wife had been gone ten minutes now. Surely she must have found a detachment of the Watch? Surely they should be arriving here any minute, to remove this dangerous man and stop this treasonous talk?

And, even as he framed the thought, the front door banged back on its hinges and a squad of five men, led by a corporal, forced their way into the dimly lit room. Each of them was armed with a long sword and a short, heavy-headed club hanging at his belt, and each wore a round buckler slung across his back.

The corporal appraised the room as his men fanned out behind him.

His eyes narrowed as they made out the figure hunched at the table.

"What's going on here?" he demanded, and the Ranger smiled. It was a smile that never reached his eyes, the tavern keeper noticed.

"We were talking politics," he said, his words laden with sarcasm.

"Not what I heard," the corporal replied, thin-lipped. "I heard you were talking treason."

The Ranger's mouth formed an incredulous O and his eyebrows arched in mock surprise. "Treason?" he repeated, then looked curiously around the room. "Has someone here been telling tales out of school, then? Is someone here a tell-tale tit, whose tongue should be:split!"

It happened so quickly that the tavern keeper barely had time to throw himself flat behind the bar. As the Ranger spat out the last word, he had somehow scooped up the longbow from behind him and nocked and fired an arrow. It slammed into the wall behind the spot where the tavern keeper had been standing a second before, and buried itself deep into the wood panel, quivering still with the force of its impact.

"That's enough:," the corporal began. He started to move forward, but incredibly, the Ranger had another arrow nocked already. The dully gleaming broadhead was aimed at the corporal's forehead, the bow was drawn and tensed. The corporal stopped, staring death in the face.

"Put it down," he said. But his voice lacked authority and he knew it. It was one thing to keep dockside drunks and rowdies in line, another entirely to face a Ranger, a skilled fighter and a trained killer. Even a knight would think twice about such a confrontation. It was way beyond the capabilities of a simple corporal of the Watch.

Yet the corporal was no coward and he knew he had a duty to perform. He swallowed several times, then slowly, slowly, raised his hand to the Ranger.

"Put:down:the:bow," he repeated. There was no answer. The arrow remained centered on his forehead, at eye level. Hesitantly, he took a pace forward.

"Don't."

The word was flat and unequivocal. The corporal was sure he could hear his own heart beating, rattling like a kettledrum. He wondered if others in the room could hear it too. He took a deep breath. He'd taken an oath of loyalty to the King. He wasn't a noble or a knight, just an ordinary man. But his word meant as much to him as it did to any highborn officer. He'd been happy to wield his authority for years, dealing with drunks and minor criminals. Now the stakes were higher, much higher. Now was the time to return payment for those years of authority and respect.

He took another step.

The twang of the bow releasing was almost deafening in the tension-charged room. Instinctively, violently, the corporal flinched and staggered back a pace, expecting the burning agony of the arrow, then the blackness of certain death.

And realized what had happened: the bowstring had snapped.

The Ranger stared incredulously at the useless weapon in his hands. The tableau remained frozen for a full five seconds. Then the corporal and his men leaped forward, swinging the short, heavy clubs that they carried, swarming over the small gray-and-green-clad figure.

As the Ranger went down under the rain of blows, no one noticed him drop the small blade he had used to sever the bowstring. But the tavern keeper did wonder how a man who had moved so quickly to defeat a stevedore twice his size now seemed to be so slow and vulnerable.