Chapter 26: Vincent – Not Sentenced
Another soldier came alone to Fabec. His name was Vincent. He hadn’t been drawn and he hadn’t been sentenced. He came on his own accord, following Captain Neville’s example.
‘I refuse,’ the soldier said.
‘To serve your king?’ asked Neville.
Vincent clamped his mouth shut, but the answer was in his eyes. Vincent was also there on the day Neville and Robert knelt before Henrique. He was the one who laughed at Leonard, the Accident, but later on he was the soldier who best learned and who most evolved during the trainings. Vincent knew that Neville thought him insolent, but he also knew that the captain appreciated his effort, his dilligence with the training, his evolution as a warrior.
‘You follow bushido with your body,’ said the captain once, ‘now you need to apply bushido to your soul.’
In the grey office of Fabec, with the useless grey lamp on the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, (What a strange thing, that dusty glass dome. Vincent had never seen a lamp before. It didn’t seem capable of much.) Neville said:
‘You made an oath.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I? I could have gone to Deran, even to Patire, but I’m here, in the Mouth of War.’ Vincent might have used a milder tone of voice, even better words, but he didn’t. He even raised his chin, defiant. Neville was always ready to question his soldiers. When would he begin questioning the king?
‘Tell me what is going on,’ said Neville.
It had been four years since Manó had come to Fabec. After him, only the drawn came to the Mouth. Vincent stayed in Debur all that time, under the shadow of a revolution about to burst; death lurking in alleys, naked swords licking the air. As of yet, no one else had died after those first thirteen civilians from the day that woman stood on a chair in front of the Emerald.‘That man doesn’t show his face,’ he told Neville. ‘That king. He hides. The Emerald is a shell and Henrique is a turtle. He is so scared that he’s recruiting anyone and everyone.’
Vincent had seen Henrique of Baynard recruiting children. Ten-year-old orphans dragged heavy spears on the Emerald walls.
‘He even recruited Leonard, the Accident,’ said Vincent. ‘Let me serve here with you, Captain, because I can’t stand to watch what is happening to Debur.’
Vincent also said that Leonard was so weak that the people of Debur felt provoked. Children in arms, they found strange, but Leonard! He wasn’t even a person, he was an accident. Just for fun, they surrounded him on the streets and ripped his clothes apart.
‘I was far away,’ said Vincent. ‘I couldn’t get to him, but the people stepped away in fright. Have you seen Leonard, Captain?’
Leonard had a see-through body, like stained glass made of flesh. You could see his bones through his skin. In that frightful moment, Vincent said, a man appeared beside Leonard.
‘He was dressed in rags, but you could still see the print, an eagle eating flesh,’ said Vincent.
Patire’s coat of arms was the image of an eagle eating a living lamb. That man in rags must have been another defector from Patire.
‘He didn’t have an eye,’ said Vincent. ‘He covered the missing eye with a patch of leather sewn directly onto his skin. He didn’t say anything, just killed two people, then the others ran away like rats.’
‘Why did you do that?’ Leonard asked. He was still naked.
‘You either kill or die,’ said the one-eyed man.
‘That’s monstruous.’
‘In the Mouth of War there are no men. Just monsters.’
Jean, the cat, rubbed its back against the one-eyed man’s legs.
‘He must have come from Patire,’ Vincent told Neville. ‘Here in Fabec there are men. Here in Fabec there is you. Let me stay, Captain. Here, at least, I know who is foe and who is friend.’
Even the soldiers chosen by the draw to go to Fabec didn’t care so much anymore. Neville had been there for five years, still alive. Neville let Vincent stay. Before dismissing the soldier, Neville asked about his own friends and family. The Eslarian still had his bakery, and Thaila still worked with her father. Robert still served at the Emerald and Maëlle stayed in her library.
‘And that woman still works there,’ said Vincent.
‘Fulion?’
‘The other day I saw her brushing her horse. She doesn’t use normal horseshoes on it, did you know? She’s made a special horseshoe that doesn’t damage the hooves. I tried to take a closer look, but that mangy horse bit me.
‘His name is Stain,’ said Neville.
‘It doesn’t trust anyone but that bookseller.’
And shetrusted only Stain, Neville thought. Once he asked her why she liked that horse so much.
‘We were born together,’ she said.
Fulion had a horse for a brother.
