An Open Window: Part One

In which Bard and Sigrun are sixteen

Most pamphleteer groups disagreed on the question of the Master's son Hamar. Some believed him sincere in his talk of revolution, bread and equality for all; while others believed him to be a clumsy and indiscreet spy who scuttled home to daddy each day with an interesting list of names.

Sigrun didn't care enough about Hamar to think either. To her, he was simply an idiot who happened to be the Master's son. Tonight, however, she was being forced to care about him, as he would, for the first time, be attending Number Three's weekly meeting, albeit blindfolded.

There had been uproar when Kell had first announced his intention.

'It's official,' Brand had declared, 'you've lost your mind.'

'What if he recognises our voices?' Stig had demanded.

'What if someone follows him?' Ric had put to the floor.

Kell had allowed the tumult to continue for a few moments, before slamming his palm down on the table with a sound that went off like a firecracker.

There was instant silence as Kell glared at them in that penetrating way that made the hairs on the back of most people's necks stand up.

'Hamar knows that I am your leader,' he had growled, 'so if anybody gets arrested, it'll be me. Satisfied?'

'No!' Torwald had shouted, to raucous cheers as Sigrun, bored, had also intervened.

'Let's at least be mature enough to listen to what he has to say!' she had roared across the clamour, 'if we succeed in bringing down the Master, then having a pamphleteer as his successor could do little harm.'

'And if he betrays us?' Torwald had demanded, 'what then?'

'If he betrays us,' Sigrun had replied, 'I'll slit his throat myself.'

Kell, who was used to her opposing everything he said or did, had looked at her with an expression of blank astonishment, before hastily beating down the corners of his mouth as they began to turn upwards into a smile.

Sigrun had rolled her eyes at that. Heaven forbid that the marble man should smile once in a while.

Not that she could talk. She'd been a walking misery for the past year; largely because Bard hadn't spoken to her for its entire duration; and though they lived in a small town, and opposite each other, she hardly saw him at all. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was avoiding her, but that was the sort of thing that the Bard she knew would do. That other person that had come alive in the gaol a year ago: he wasn't the Bard she knew, and as to what he did, or why, she could not say that she knew, or cared. She only wished that he would stop spending every waking moment in the alleyway behind his house; peppering the opposite wall with arrows as though it were his mortal enemy and reminding her, with that constant thudding of wood upon wood, that he was alive, and not her friend.

'– so then he shoves this bunch of weeds in my face,' Ingaborg laughed, her arm linked through Sigrun's as they walked together to pamphleteering, 'and takes hold of my arm and tries to kiss me!'

'Uh…who?' Sigrun asked; blinking.

'Alfrid Lickspittle!' Ingaborg exclaimed; elbowing her in the ribs; 'aren't you listening?'

Sigrun stared at Inga in astonishment; rather disappointed that her introspection had caused her to miss what was evidently an uproarious story.

'Alfrid Lickspittle tried to kiss you?' she repeated, just in case she had heard wrong.

'Yes!' Ingaborg replied; barely able to contain her mirth; 'this afternoon, at the market pool!'

Sigrun pretended to think about it.

'You mean he likes girls now instead of sheep?'

The two of them burst out laughing, and giggling pushed open the meeting room door; earning themselves a few choice glares from some of Number Three's more stick-up-the-arse members, for whom their business was solemn one at which laughter should be forbidden.

'We're the laughing stock of Esgaroth anyway without being the only club to admit women,' Hakon scoffed, turning up his disapproving nose at them.

'Incorrect!' Solweig shouted from her usual place at the door, 'we've only been the laughing stock of Esgaroth since you joined.'

There was laughter and hooting, as there always was at Number Three whenever any kind of dispute was in hand, and as Ingaborg and Sigrun pushed their way into the crown and found seats, Kell entered, with Bard at his side.

Sigrun stared. She couldn't stop herself. She didn't know if the ensuing silence existed in real life, or only in her head.

Because Bard wasn't how she remembered him.

The first thing that she noticed was his height, which was that of a man rather than a boy. From somewhere or other he had acquired a posture, an uprightness, where before he had always slouched mercilessly, as though he were trying to hide from the world.

His face was freshly-shaven, and pale, with not a trace of the drink-induced ruddiness that she had come to associate with him; has he stopped drinking? Sigrun thought, and when she looked immediately at his large grey eyes, they were shining with that beautiful internal glow that they had always had before death had burnt it out.

He looks…

'– magnificent,' Ingaborg obligingly finished for her; sighing wistfully, 'what's he doing here? Has he joined up?'

'I hope not,' Sigrun declared; glaring furiously at her lap and trying to quell the lump that was rising in her throat; for when she closed her eyes she could still see him and hear him.

That means I pick the drink. You can get out now.

Sigrun was brought back to the world by a painful poke to the ribs, and only just had time to realise that Ingaborg was indiscreetly warning her about something before Bard had successfully plonked himself down next to her, as though the last time they had spoken had been ten minutes ago.

A thousand retorts filled Sigrun's mind, and she was about to tell him to take his arrogant attitude off somewhere else, when Bard turned to her very slowly; his eyes not daring to meet hers; his face redder than a sunset.

'Hello, Sig,' he quietly pronounced.

She wanted to hug him, then hit him, then tell him that her name was Sigrun, and nothing else.

'Hello,' Sigrun guardedly replied; the very essence of distant politeness; and she looked away from him with relief as Hamar was brought in with a cloth binding his eyes.

Bard had intended to sit down next to her and greet her confidently, like other boys did. He had approached without hesitation, and had sat down without hesitation. Then she had turned to look at him, and his confidence had stumbled out of the room and straight into the canal.

Since that night in the gaol, he'd been avoiding her. It had been no mean feat, especially since they lived opposite each other. But he had imagined that it was what she would want, and that when he did eventually think it appropriate to speak to her again, it would be easy, because she would be just the same as she had always been.

Then she had turned to look at him, and everything that he had kept inside him – hidden so it wouldn't change his resolve; concealed until he could prove himself worthy of it – had come crashing over him like a firestorm: her merciless blue eyes that darkened in anger at the sight of him; her sad, expressive face with its firm-set mouth and strange, square jaw that others found masculine and ungracious; the wild, yellow fury of her hair that might not have had a brush put to it in ten years. And as he looked at her, he began to remember things: her smile that was his smile too, her walk that was also his walk, the two of them like cause and consequence; twin winds that blew together or not at all. He felt his absence from her like a wound; like an unnatural state of one-ness that he was not born to be in, and it had taken every inch of resolve he possessed not to embrace her then and there and have her with him, if only for an instant.

You are making yourself ridiculous.

'Hello, Sig,' he had managed to stumble out as her eyes burned him like vengeance.

'Hello,' she had composedly replied; polite, but distant, what do you expect? he thought, and he decided at once to leave Sig alone for the rest of the evening as Hamar was brought in with his eyes bound and plonked unceremoniously down onto a chair facing Number Three's members.

The noise as the Master's son sat down was appalling: there was hooting, and catcalling, and shouting of every kind of insult, from comments on Hamar's manhood to speculations on how well his head was attached to his shoulders. Bard looked to Kell, expecting him to intervene, but Number Three's leader did nothing but watch; his presence glacially cold and almost indifferent, for all the light dancing in his preposterous blond hair.

Hamar was beginning to lose his composure, and consequently, to fiddle with his blindfold.

'What's happening?' he squeaked in barely-concealed terror, 'what is – what – Kell – Kell?'

The half-elf did not look impressed.

'I am here, Hamar,' Kell said.

'Safe conduct!' Hamar exclaimed; his right hand toying with the back of the blindfold, 'you promised me safe conduct!'

'I did,' Kell replied; looking at him with quiet ridicule, 'and I will keep my word.'

'You will?'

'You needn't worry. My men and women would never harm you unless on my command. If you were to make one further move to loosen that blindfold, however, you would die before you hit the ground.'

Hamar dropped his hand with an abruptness that made Number Three burst out laughing all over again.

'Silence!' Kell roared.

The silence was instantaneous.

'Say what you came to say, Hamar,' he continued.

The Master's son straightened up in his chair instantly, as though readying himself to perform a speech that he had prepared beforehand.

'No pamphleteer club has the power or the resources to topple my father single-handedly,' he declared in a booming voice, 'I have tried to start my own club in order to remedy this, but nobody will trust me –'

'That's because only an idiot would trust you!' Bard interrupted, as hooting, catcalling and uproarious laughter began to drown out the rest of Hamar's speech.

Sigrun watched with satisfaction as Kell directed a glare at Bard that could have wilted an entire forest. Bard stared back at the half-elf, apparently unaffected by his signature instrument of intimidation. The same could not be said for the rest of Number Three, however, who promptly slipped back into silence like naughty children caught with both hands in the biscuit tin.

Hamar, whether from opportunism or from whatever stupid training in oratory that rich children received, took the silence as a signal to continue.

'I have spoken to Einar at Sons of Dale and Thorald at Heirs of Girion,' he declared, 'and they say that they would willingly form a coalition with me, and with you, in order to bring this Reign of Terror to an end. That is why I have come to you tonight. To propose that we unite, and do together what we cannot do alone.'

The ensuing uproar was immediately cut off by Kell.

'SILENCE!' he roared, 'raise your hand if you wish to speak!'

Half the hands in the room went up; including Sigrun's.

Kell pointed at Brand.

'He lies!' Brand shouted, 'I see the guilt in his eyes! He's working for his father!'

'If he is, then he's unlikely to feel much guilt about it,' Kell drawled, before pointing at Solweig, 'next.'

'See that this 'agreement' with Einar and Thorald exists before you say yes or no!' Solweig exclaimed, 'if he is lying, then all he needs is a 'yes' to send all of us to prison.'

'Noted,' Kell said; pointing at Sigrun, 'next.'

'If we say no,' Sigrun observed, 'Hamar may still tell his father that we said yes. In that light, our saying yes or no is of little importance.'

'It's true,' Kell remarked, 'the police do not think on the truth of crimes committed, only on the arrests that they are asked to make.'

'If that's true,' Hamar protested; fidgeting once more in his chair; 'then why am I here? Why didn't I have the police follow me?'

There was a hush rather than a silence, followed abruptly by a shout.

'Prove it,' Bard declared.

Every head in the room turned unanimously in Bard's direction. Sigrun looked expectantly at Kell, waiting for him to tell Bard to either raise his hand or shut up.

The half-elf did nothing, and waited for Bard to continue.

'Prove your allegiance to us and to others,' Bard was continuing; his voice carrying across the heads of Number Three, 'and perhaps we'll consider entering this "coalition" that you propose.'

There was an immediate hubbub, both of agreement and disagreement, which concealed any external signs of the rage boiling up in Sigrun's chest.

He's only just arrived, and he's already running things? Who does he think he is? And why is Kell is letting him?

She looked in Kell's direction for the relevant signs of aggravation. Number Three's leader, however, was sitting quietly in his corner looking half-attentive, half-amused, and she was about to protest when Hamar spoke again, as though he were taking Bard's words seriously!

'In effect, you are asking me to make a gesture?' Hamar proposed.

'We are,' Kell confirmed.

Hamar smiled in a way that made Sigrun want to punch him.

'Would an open window in the city armoury suffice?'

The promise of weapons shocked the crowd into silence, and Sigrun felt discomfort welling up inside her. People were looking at each other in dread; but with the same sort of dread with which they might look at something dangerous, but irresistible.

It was a tragic testimony to what life had become that one could look on the promise of weaponry, and see it as a temptation: more of a temptation than money, more of a temptation than bread. For with weapons would come revenge, and with weapons could come war. Sigrun felt the possibility stir in her blood; felt the same desire for destruction that she had felt as a girl on the edge of the market pool, a stone clutched in her hand and a scream clutched in her throat.

'We must think on this, Hamar,' Kell declared, 'it will take longer than a few minutes to discuss.'

'Come to me when you have decided,' Hamar replied; bowing his head in acquiescence.

'Convey him with safe conduct.'

Hamar was led out of the room as unceremoniously as he had been led into it, and Number Three spent the next four hours fighting; with poor Kell exhausting himself in his attempts to keep the proceedings as civilised as possible.

Sigrun heard none of it; her mind caught up in remembering what Bard had said to her a year ago when she had tried to convince him to join up; his sombre grey eyes contemplating her with a humanity that had infuriated her at the time.

You are taking the path of insurrection. That isn't the path to take. There are other ways.

She looked at him now; the desire for vengeance as rife on his face as it was on anybody else's, and she could not, would not, believe in him.

A year ago he would hear nothing of insurrection; now he wants to help make it happen? What does he want? What does he get out of it?

She did not believe for a second that he had suddenly become a believer. After that night in gaol, a year ago, she did not believe anything but the worst of him. He must have some other agenda in turning pamphleteer; though she couldn't imagine what. He had never had any talent for deviousness. That particular affinity had always been hers.

So when Kell closed the meeting, she stormed up to where he was arranging his papers and elbowed her way to the front of the line of other people, all wanting to speak to or shout at him.

'Halfelven!' she exclaimed in indignation.

Kell looked up in fury at the use of the hated nickname, then relaxed at once when he saw who was using it.

'What is it, Ma'am Sigrun?' he politely asked.

'Bard is what it is!' Sigrun cried, unable to believe that he could ask her such a stupid question, 'he's never shown the slightest interest in pamphleteering, now all of a sudden you're arriving with him and letting him participate in meetings like he's been here forever? What's your game?'

'What is yours?' Kell enquired, looking quietly exasperated, 'he expressed a desire to join up and lend his voice to our cause, as have dozens of other young men over the past year. On what grounds would you have me deny him what has been granted to so many others?'

'He's been refusing to so much as listen to the idea of joining up for years!' Sigrun exclaimed, 'his deciding to do it now is dubious and suspicious; why can't you see?'

'Because I am not still in love with him, Ma'am Sigrun,' Kell retaliated; a look of immense satisfaction decorating his stupid elf face as Sigrun felt her own turn red with anger.

'I am…I am not still in love with him!' Sigrun shrilly declared, 'that is, I…I never was in love with him in the first place!'

'And the moon is made of green cheese.'

'Kell!'

'Was there anything else?'

'He's a drunk, is that good enough for you? On most nights, he can't even stand up straight!'

'That is news to me. He did a bread run with me the other night and appeared prodigiously capable of standing up straight.'

That was news to Sigrun as well; a bread run being pamphleteer-speak for stealing lembas bread intended for market and leaving it outside people's front doors. It was not something that could be done when drunk, or indeed when one possessed anything apart from nerves of steel.

'I am sorry if this is difficult,' Kell was saying, 'but I am not willing to send him away simply because his presence makes you uncomfortable. I commiserate with you, but there it is.'

Kell picked up his papers, ignored the blind fury on her face, walked to the door, and turned.

'Oh, by the way,' the half-elf said, 'you'll be doing a bread run with him tomorrow night. I advise you to set whatever issues you may have aside by then. Good evening.'