Kingdom's Fall

Chapter 4, Part 1

“Get me another jug of wine, lad!” Ronan’s voice rang out loud and hearty, coarse over the murmur of conversation that filled the city tavern. It was too close to the Ruins to be popular, yet too close to the fringes of Alyn’s good society to fail outright. It survived on the slightly-desperate come-and-go traffic between the two, those that lived and ate - and drank - on the turn of their fates. Still, the capital was nothing if not a crowded place, even more so at the height of summer, and the tavern the captain had chosen for his men was not as quiet or as private as he had hoped for. Not that Ronan cared, of course.

Cuan struggled his way to the bar and offered up some coins. The innkeeper had learned not to disapprove of a boy being sent to ferry drinks after making the fool effort of actually going over and trying to talk some sense into Ronan. The bruise under the man’s eye was purple-blue and shiny with sweat, and all it took was for Ronan to lift one casual foot off the table and set it firmly on the floor to make the man tremble in fear.

Gray had left Ronan in charge while he went to the palace to see the king. It was one of those things, in Cuan’s opinion, that only made sense to the captain. Ronan was a rangy, confident man, full of swagger and impatience, whose opinion on trust and responsibility was that it was best to abuse them both as quickly and as much as possible. As soon as Gray was gone, Ronan had enforced a general collection from the rest of the men - Cuan included - making them turn out their pockets and taking every scrap of coin they had. Then he had sent them packing, the Gods only knew where, and set himself to work converting all their coin into wine, and all the wine into drunkenness. Sensing that Cuan was too vulnerable to fend for himself or simply desiring a lackey to do all the heavy lifting, Ronan had held off turning him out and instead put him to use as a servant. While no-one had given Ronan any trouble, the rest of the inn seemed to take Cuan’s presence as an insult; his journey from table to bar and back again was a gauntlet of feet thrust out to trip him and unwelcome shoves from a variety of angles. He was reasonably sure no one was going to actually confront him, not after Ronan had laid out the innkeeper already, but to the same degree he knew Ronan’s protection only went so far. No excuse would temper the punishment he’d receive if he dropped the wine jug. With great care and more agility than it should have needed, Cuan threaded his way back through the inn to Ronan’s table.

“Ah, thank you.” Ronan lifted the jug from Cuan’s hands and refreshed his cup. Even though he’d been drinking steadily through the day, his hands were steady. The only noticeable difference was that he had grown quieter, either because he was afraid of slurring his words and betraying how drunk he was, or he’d simply ran out of filthy stories to try and embarrass Cuan with. “Do you want a spot?” He held the cup out to Cuan, before yanking it away and laughing raucously at his own joke. Cuan sat and simmered, and tried to think of what he could have said were he big enough to pose a threat. After a fruitless minute that bore nothing good to gloat over, he changed tack and instead tried to imagine a world without Ronan.

As much as the man irritated him, there was an odd comfort in the attention. Cuan’s life to date had been as an inconvenient presence in the barracks-room of the Southern Guard. He’d been delivered - dumped - at the gate one sunny morning to be found by a work detail just as they were setting out. Born one bastard too many for his mother’s family, his fate had been left in the hands of a garrison of prisoners turned soldier. Amazingly, they’d taken him in. Sometimes, he wondered if it wouldn’t have been better had they just left him out there. Most likely he would have died, from cold, or hunger, or some scavenging animal passing by, but then maybe he would have been found by someone else, a passing family, the sort of people who could have taken him in and given him a normal life. Sadly, neither had been the case. Raised on watered-down milk and the simmering impatience of guardians who had other and better things to do, he had grown up pale and thin and light. By the time he was big enough to drag a bucket behind him, he was given a job fetching and hauling, delivering food and dumping off waste. Once, when he was eight, he had made the mistake of picking up a practice sword and swinging it in imitation of the men that surrounded him. It had been smacked out of his grip before the swing reached the end of its arc, and the following cuff was a firm assertion that a life in arms was beyond him. Instead, he lived as a skivvy. Always underfoot, always ignored, Cuan lived off the scraps that the army saw fit to throw him. That those scraps included the long, meandering journey north to the capital was a welcome and unexpected change. As the only servant the soldiers had, they made full use of Cuan on the road and, as hard as the work was, he had started to feel a strange kind of pride in the rough thanks they offered for a job done quickly and well.