Page 114 of The Sun King's Noon

Flint, thankfully, provided a distraction. He dragged Richard through the stalls, seeming at ease in such a gaggle. At a smith’s stall, he suggested a pair of leather wristlets, but it seemed too plain. He then suggested a silver flask, but Kaelen rarely drank. Finally, with a waggle of his eyebrows, Flint gestured at asuggestively shaped wooden object from a vendor whose stall lay half-hidden by a curtain.

Richard regarded Flint flatly. “Truly?”

Flint winked. “It comes with a bottle of oil.”

“Perhaps I should buy it for you since it is clearly all that occupies your perverted mind.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.” Flint’s cackle froze, his gaze fixing on some point in the distance. “Got to go, handsome. Just spotted the owner of the ship soon to be ours.”

“Very well.” Richard frowned at the glint in Flint’s eyes. “Do not hurt anyone. We need only the ship.”

Flint ignored him and slunk through the crowd. Richard watched him go with a sigh. Between his pouch and Kaelen’s, they carried gold enough to buy a ship outright. But on balance, stealing a ship attracted less attention than two strange Ardenian men having the assets to purchase one.

The stall opposite caught Richard’s eye. It was a trinket shop. The wares were of the modest sort—clever things in brass and copper. A row of brooches. A pair of snake-shaped cuff studs.

And, in the centre, a silver chain bearing a sun.

Richard neared it. The pendant was no broader than two of his fingers together. A smooth golden disc with engraved sunburst patterns. Designed to sit at the hollow of a man’s throat.

It suited Kaelen, somehow. Perhaps it was the sun. Kaelen, who smiled, and the room grew warmer for it. Kaelen, who shone when he peered down at Richard with creased eyes and dimples.

“Ah, you’ve a good eye, good sir.” The stallholder was a small woman with an eager smile. “My best work, that one—you won’t find anything like it in the whole Seven Realms. The chain is real silver, sir. And the pendant is gold-plated. I swear it on me son’s bones.”

“It is lovely.” Richard turned it in his palm.

“And here’s the trick of it. Watch.” She leaned across to squeeze the sun three times. With a click, the pendant parted along an invisible seam, and the disc opened into a small compartment.

“For a lock of hair, sir.” The woman winked. “For a flower. For a message. A sweet promise, perhaps.” She produced a quill, an inkpot, and a tiny scrap of paper. “I provide the means, of course. Service on the house. Six gold pieces is all I ask.”

Richard smiled.

“Excellent. I shall take it.”

* * *

The ringing bellssounded half an hour later. Heads lifted at once. Customers paused mid-haggle. A baker wiped his hands on his apron and stepped out from behind his counter. A cluster of young men broke from a wine stall, smirking. Within a count of thirty, the lanes were a river of bodies streaming towards the main square.

Richard patted his inner pocket, where the sun pendant was now stored, and followed the crowd. There was a voice booming through a voice cone, and he knew, with a sickening certainty, that this herald at midday meant only one thing.

By the time he came out beneath the broad archway, Antlershield Square had become a sea. Four hundred paces across, and every pace of it filled. People stood on the fountain, straddled walls, and even climbed the lampposts.

Six soldiers were dragging a man to the post upon the raised dais. He was starved, with a straggly beard and a chest mottled with bruises. He could not properly use his right leg, so the soldiers half-carried him, scraping his feet across the flagstones. They forced him to climb the steps to the dais, and when his legfailed him on the second step, he was hauled up by the hair. The crowd near the front laughed.

Richard’s stomach lurched.

The herald at the foot of the dais unrolled a scroll, and his voice boomed—magically enchanted.

“BY THE WILL OF HIS MAJESTY KING MARIUS OF ESTARA, ANTLERED LORD OF THE EASTERN COAST, FIRSTBORN OF THE LINE OF VEXMAR?—”

Applause.

“—THE PRISONER NAMED PEDRON HOLM, OF THE LOWMARKET QUARTER, HAVING BEEN FOUND GUILTY BY THE KING’S MAGISTRATES OF THE CRIMES OF SEDITION, OF HARBOURING TRAITORS, OF FUNDING THE OUTLAW BAND KNOWN AS THE BROKEN STAG, AND OF CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE CROWN?—”

The laughter had transformed now into a chant. Two syllables again and again, accompanied by the stomp of feet?—

“Burn him. Burn him. Burn him.”

“—SHALL THIS DAY, IN THE SIGHT OF CROWN AND PEOPLE, BE PURIFIED BY THE SACRED FLAME OF IGNATIOUS, THAT HIS TREASON BE BURNED FROM HIM AND HIS SOUL DELIVERED THUS UNTO JUDGEMENT.”