tightly, keeping me upright.
I slowly opened my eyes, fending off the feeling that the entire world was about to spin so fast as to throw me from it, like a child who does not hold on to his spinning platform. I feared being spun so fast as to be cast out of life itself. Everything seemed so twisted, so harsh.
"What is wrong?" I asked slowly, the effort of merely speaking almost more than I could manage.
"Ask Gern!" Another man's voice, equally angry and harsh, called out from behind Erik's imposing form.
"What?" I mumbled.
Erik shook me, and my head knocked against the wall again. I grunted in pain. His voice sliced through my fog like a honed blade.
"Wake up!" he barked, forcing my eyes wide open and my consciousness into focus by sheer force of will.
"Erik?" I asked quietly, "what is happening?"
Erik's face was twisted into a scowl, part anger, part disgust. The three men behind him, all armed, were equally fierce. I saw then that Erik held me with one hand, and in the other was his sword. It was not held casually. He was ready for a fight. Who had he come to fight? Surely I was not being sought to help, not in my condition.
"Gern is dead, Jovan." He muttered the words lowly, just loud enough for me to hear. "He was cut down late last night, as he closed up the tavern."
There was a silence, then. I tried to turn the words around in my head, examine them, understand them. The fog behind my eyes, despite Erik's words cutting through them, still made me slow to respond. Before I could speak, Erik did.
"After you left the tavern, where did you go, Jovan?"
CHAPTER 3
"What do you mean?" I asked, still unsure if I had heard Erik correctly. Gern was dead?
Erik squeezed my shoulder tightly, painfully. It sent a shock wave through me, forcing me to focus. I grunted, but he seemed not to notice, or perhaps he simply did not care. He held me upright, my own strength barely able to manage it on my own in my condition. My head spun, and I wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep.
"Look at him," another voice called out, one of three villagers with Erik. He carried a small wood ax, brandishing it as a weapon as though he expected me to attack. ""Look at his clothing!" he cried.
Erik released my shoulder and took hold of my left arm, raising it to examine its length. My leather coat, soaked from a night spent sleeping in the rain, was still stained red. He turned my hand over, palm up. The creases of my hand were red, and when he turned them back over, the underside of my fingernails were likewise caked in red. I was covered in blood. I held my breath, as horrified by the sight of so much blood as these scared villagers.
Erik looked at me, a piercing stare that seemed to push past my eyes, as though he expected to find his answers carved into me, awaiting his discovery. I held silent, and so did he.
"Erik," one of the others, this one with a pitchfork in hand, began to speak. He pointed an accusing finger at me.
"Quiet!" Erik barked. "Hold still, Arno. All of you, quiet. Let me think."
We all stood there, silent, unmoving. Erik was deciding, calculating. I knew the look. I could hear him breath in deeply through his nose. He could smell the strong drink on my breath. I likely reeked of it, clothing and all. The stench of it mixed with the iron tinge of blood. It filled my nostrils and Erik's as well. I pulled my arm away from him, set it to my side. He took my right hand, then, and held it up.
"What happened?" he asked as he glared at my right hand.
My knuckles were bloody and bruised, with a small piece of glass still stuck in a small cut. He pulled out the shard and examined it. After a moment, he let it drop. The tiny bit of glass made a slight clink on the cobblestone, but in the tense silence about us, it sounded as though the entire Glass Cathedral of the South had come crashing down.
"What happened?" he asked again.
I shook my head. "I do not know, Erik," I replied, trying to remember something, anything about where all of this had come from.
"The glass," Erik said, "it comes from one of Gern's glasses. The other men in Gern's last night, they say you argued with him and he threw an ale glass at you."
I strained, trying to remember. My head hurt, as much from the hang over as from the effort. I had the vaguest recollection of something being thrown at me, and me striking out with my fist as though I were punching at someone. Was that it?
"There is far too much blood on him, Erik," Arno said, tightening his grip on that pitchfork of his. "There is no way it all came from his hand."
"I know that!" Erik snarled, not even looking over his shoulder. "I know. Let me deal with this. This is my job."
"Erik," I started, "I did not kill Gern. I think I argued with him, but I remember him yelling for me to get out as I walked out."
Erik nodded. "And so others have said, as well. He was killed about an hour after you left, just as he was locking up. Where did you go after he threw you out?"
I shook my head again. "I do not remember. Here, maybe?" It was as much a question as a suggestion. Why could I not remember?
I started to say something else, but I felt nauseous, and then sick. I pulled away from Erik, and steadied myself against the wall of the house I had been sleeping against. The putrid smell of the vomit added to the miasma that already swirled about me, all of that strong drink and blood. I must have stood there for several minutes, and I noticed the three villagers backing up a bit, sickened by what they saw. I could only imagine how despicable I looked. Erik, to his credit, did not waver. He had seen far too much in his life to be bothered by a sickly drunk.
After several minutes of retching, and several more of deep breathing, I picked up my head.
"Water, please," I pleaded.
Erik's strength and force caught me off guard. He grabbed me by the back of the neck, and forced me forward. I stumbled, trying to keep upright. He led me along, his hand a steel grip around my neck. The world seemed to move in spurts, as though I were blinking so quickly that everything flashed before me. He led me to the next house over, where an open rain barrel stood. He thrust my head into its open top.
The cold water was a shock, and I gasped. The water rushed down my throat, and I struggled against Erik's insurmountable grip. After a moment, He pulled me backward, out of the water. I gasped for air, and between the gasp, and me vomiting up the water, I heard the three villagers goading Erik on. In I went again, this time thrust deeper into the barrel, until I fear he would upend me and leave me to drown with my head at the bottom, and my arms trapped at my sides. Instead, he simply held me until the water reached my shoulder blades. My arms flailed helplessly, but at least I held my mouth shut this time.
After perhaps half a minute, he pulled me out. The force of his arm threw me backward. I tripped over something and fell, my head smacking into the cobblestone road. I heard the crack, and
