They say death followed him, this rider on a pale mare.
Such whispers, these words of fear and panic, rode with him on the wind. From town-to-town, villages and cities, when men saw the pale mare, they prayed.
Said mare whinnied beneath him, she liked not carting a man in full plate around, not that she could be blamed. Yet, such armouring was a necessity—it took only one man, some huntsman bored of hunting rabbits, to hunt men. An errant arrow and the peasants would tear the steel from his body and the meat from his horse.
In times like these when men starved and the crops were slow, small villages such as the one he trotted towards reeked of desperation. He could smell it from even beyond the walls, he thought not to risk it.
A trot took him to the gate, two pieces of rotten wood that, if not for corroded cast iron that bound the planks together, might’ve fallen into the mud. He waited some time for the guard to rouse from his tower, spying the thick beam that barred the door from between the cracks—it hadn’t been opened for some time.
When the watcher inevitably took notice of him, perhaps the midday sun gleaming off his steel, it was with wide eyes and a drunken slur. If someone dared to wave a candle between them, he was sure the air would set alight.
“Whaddya’ want?” The guard bellowed from the makeshift battlements, fumbling to nock an arrow in his bow.
“I am the Queen’s Justice,” he announced, a voice like steel on steel. “I have come for the Seer, see her given to me unharmed and there shall be no violence.”
His words had a sobering effect, “We have no Seer, she perished in the last winter,” the guard insisted. “You have no reason to enter our gates, be about your day.”
“I am the Queen’s Justice,” he repeated. “And I carry her will, think your lies through lest the undertaker has a busy day.”
“I say again, there lives no Seer within our wall.”
A gauntleted fist fell to the pommel of his blade, “Agents within the city village have already sworn, before gods and men, that she speaks of things she had no right to. She shall hang and any and all that obstruct such justice are enemies of the Queen.”
“There’s no Queen here.”
“No,” he agreed. “I am.”
“Not enough to besiege a city.”
“Enough for you.”
An arrow loosed, struck his plate and shattered, leaving nothing but a pang of pain to show for it.
And so it was violence.
He should have known they’d keep their Seer close, even if she was little but a charlatan that fed them half-truths and words they wished to hear. They were desperate, sickness and starvation tore through them like the plague and, in times where the world seemed uncertain, the commonfolk craved certainly, craved the idea the world went on.
To them, she had become a goddess. A champion of the poor, the sick, the weary—the lost.
Regrettably, as another arrow struck and shattered, the world would not go on for some.
The mare, a docile beast in times of peace, knew well enough there was peace no longer. It carried him to the edge of the wall where the guard could no longer fire and it was there he waited. They were slow about it but eventually, the old gate creaked open and a flimsy party of guards—three in total, sought to drive him off.
Daring not risk his mount, he swung from the saddle, landing in the mud with the clangorous percussion of his armour jolting and drew his sword from its scabbard, taking stock of the three men.
The first was a boy, perhaps not yet into his second decade, who came with no steel but wood, an oak shaft that towered above them both. Using it like a lance, the boy tried to push him and, when that failed, tried to scare away the mare.
Grabbing hold of the shaft with one hand to pull the boy forward off his feet, the sword flashed and bit flesh. Underfed and undertrained, there hadn’t been much hope for him, less now as red ran from navel to collarbone and all that made a man, a man, leaked from within.
The second, much older but no less worse for wear, swung his sword once. When the parry knocked it from his grasp, he fled and took the last guard with him. They’d seen the death that followed the pale mare.
If the tower guard remained, he didn’t fire again. Wiping the blood off his sword on the tunic of the boy, who he offered a sullen look through his visor. It was a waste of life though he soon decided that all death was a waste of something.
Swinging himself into the saddle, the mare led him into the village proper.
It was a quaint thing, rows of haphazard cobbles paving the way through outcroppings of houses. When horseshoes met stone it was a warning cry, washerwomen fled to their homes, merchants abandoned meagre stalls and children were huddled inside.
Their Queen’s Justice was a terrible thing.
And it was here.
It did not take him long to seek out his destination—she’d made it clear enough. At the end of the broken road sat a cottage, bedecked in all manner of trinkets and niceties. Gifts from the townsfolk to hear her prophecies, to hear how the storms would clear, the pestilence would splutter and the world would flourish. It wouldn’t.
Eyes peered out behind boarded windows, watching his advance wearily. When he reached the door he didn’t bother securing the horse, merely hopped from the saddle and inspected the door of wood finer than it had any right to. It infuriated him, so much so that rather than push the door open, it was done with an armoured shoulder, splintering it.
The Seer was not what he expected, middle-aged maybe and perhaps once beautiful if not for the pox, which left its craters and kisses across her cheeks. She regarded him with some contempt as she spun a worn spoon in an equally worn wooden cup, leaves swirling within.
“I was foretold of your arrival,” she said, not even deeming to look at him. “I read it in leaves, in the stars and the winds—”
“You saw nothing,” he retorted. “I am not some common man-at-arms to be bartered with whimsy.”
“And yet you’re here, at the behest of your Queen, to take my head for nought but praise. Tell me, does that not sound like whimsy?”
Knuckles closed around the hilt of his blade, “Careful, do not turn a quick affair into a bloody one.”
She scoffed at him, “Might I at least know the reason you seek to take my head?”
“You give false hope to the poor,” he said. “Incite rebellion with lies and extort the people.”
“Extort them? I steal a piece of gold for a spin of my cups, food for reading their palms. You murder them as you did the boy who dared to stand against you or countless others in the bloody swath you’ve cut across the country in the name of your crusade. Of the two, aren’t I the lesser evil?”
“I deal not in morality, I deal in men and steel.”
Arms held wide, the Seer gestured around her, “Yet you say you’re here to kill the false prophet of the people, restore the Queen’s order. Is that not a moral act?”
“We shall not trade barbs over matters that concern you not,” he said. “For your crimes, you’ll hang.”
“I imagine I will, from a rope, purple and blue, swinging in the wind. You’ll have killed me, given the people the illusion that your Queen watches. Then, you’ll return to her and think she’ll take you back, think your service might rekindle the flame. You’ll return empty-handed save for the bloodstains.”
That had been enough, with a sharp motion he drew his blade, glittering in the candlelight. Castle-forged and made with singular purpose. Levelling it at her, making sure the tip brushed her throat, some far part of him revelled in her fear.
“Careful, whore,” he spat. “Speak no ills of her.” (edited)
It seemed to amuse her more than terrify, “I see for all that armour, expensive steel and pretty cloaks, all it takes are words to find flesh. It’s no secret, we tell the tale to children, pass gossip like fishwives. Of the knight who loved a taken princess, one who failed to keep his charge safe and, when she returned to him, this secret lover she’d taken from the King’s eyes, she never took to his bed again.”
The sword seemed too quick for his liking, instead, an armoured fist seized her by the throat.”
“Another word—” He tried to warn her.
“Perhaps it’s best she was taken, I can see it in you. That dangerous lust of men, wondering if the ivory of her face stretched to her breasts and beyond, unblemished and demure. It is that way no longer, she bears the scars of bondage now or perhaps that’s to your liking? A beaten dog, one you can take by the throat and show off just how far you’ve fallen.”
He squeezed harder than he wanted to and watched her eyes widen but no sooner did she stop, “But no matter how many you kill, maim or butcher, no how many wrongs you put right. You’re a tool and one no sooner falls in love with the hammer when they’ve got silks. You’re a tool and when she looks at you, I wager in my heart that she sees you, she sees the men that captured her. You’ve become no different.”
“You lie,” he drawled, the words barely able to come out.
“As sure as there’s magic in the east and raiders to the west, I speak only the harsh truth. Ride on, on that pale mare, deliver death to the deserving and find yourself or find yourself lacking, either way, you’ll never find yourself with her again.”
Tears stung at him, he must have been barely a man the last time he’d felt the sensation proper. For a moment he debated releasing his grip, letting her speak these words she’d weaved in the hopes it might lead somewhere, anywhere.
But she was a liar, a perfected craft in which she told any, anything. Gave people the words to benefit herself.
He believed her not and, with his sword hand, drove it forward with one massive shove. Watching as eyes, these deep green that he’d barely even taken notice of, widened further, heard as she gasped for her final breath and nails clawed and broke on steel plate. Then he dropped her, the justice done.
Leaving her where she was, knowing the commoners would come to reclaim what was theirs, he assumed they’d bury her too. For now, he had more towns to restore order too, more boons to gift his Queen in the hopes that, after all this time, he might find her smile again.
And so the pale mare rode on.
For better or worse.
For his Queen.