Act of Will by A. J. Hartley

soldiers filed down from the walls above, their shields and spears shouldered. The staircase was narrow. While the troops came down, the two men sent to close the gates had to wait at the bottom. I counted slowly to ten in my head and waited for Rufus to see me. The staircase was still jammed with descending soldiers.
    “We were hoping to make Oakhill by nightfall,” I ventured carefully, “and we would really prefer not to stay here with our merchandise if there is likely to be some form of civil unrest.”
    “Sorry,” the officer said without looking at us. “No one in or out.”
    “Then perhaps you’d like to take another look at our wares,” I said.
    Orgos gave me a hard look but I ignored him.
    “No,” said the officer. “Thank you.”
    “I didn’t show you the best silks,” I breezed. “We keep those well out of sight. But maybe someone of your taste would appreciate them. We have damask so soft you can barely feel it against your skin. . . .”
    The officer at our side glanced at the men waiting to go up to close the gates, exhaled with slow boredom and muttered, “It’s time someone built another staircase up there. Go on,” he said, turning to us suddenly. “Go through. Quickly.”
    Without further encouragement we began to move. My heart rose to my throat and I stared ahead of me, past the guards and the officer who hastily, mechanically recited the usual Empire regulations.
    “If you have heavier weapons and armor you may bring them out once you are a hundred yards from the gate. Remain on the road at all times and be watchful for highwaymen. Have a successful trip, sirs,” he called as we trundled through the twenty-foot-thick arch and the heavy doors. The portcullis was lowering with a heavy metallic squealing as we emerged into the light and soft drizzle. Behind us the great gates themselves began scraping and creaking until, with a deep boom, they shut tight.
    For a hundred yards or so we did not speak and then, bringing the wagon to a halt in a stone-flagged space and turning to one of the boxes between us, Orgos said, “Idiot. What were you trying to do back there? Selling clothes to Empire guards! You were asking to be arrested.”
    He was smiling. I grinned and said, “I was just fleshing out the role a little. Giving it color.”
    “Idiot,” he said again, but this time he laughed outright. I wanted to punch him lightly on the arm or something as a show of fellowship, but something held me back, the thought of his name dragging mine up the wanted list, perhaps. Instead I just said, “Geof -frey? You called me Geoffrey! What the pox kind of name is that?”
    He gave a single bellow of laughter and opened the box. Whatever relief I was beginning to feel died as I stared at the contents: armor and weapons of the serious sort. I wasn’t being allowed to forget my comrade’s profession.
    Orgos stood up and looked back to the massive yellowish walls of the city.
    “I hate that place,” he remarked, fishing a coat of ring mail out of the box and pulling it over his head.
    I couldn’t say much to that. I didn’t really know anywhere else, though even I could see it was a bit of a sewer.
    “How come they’re saying I’m a rebel?” I asked. I was tiny bit pleased by the idea, even though I knew both that it was dangerous to be impressed by such things and that they were about as wrong as they could be.
    “The Empire doesn’t like to be humiliated,” he said. “Better to be outmaneuvered by a seasoned rebel than a child actor.”
    The phrase irritated me, but that feeling was squashed by something rather more weighty.
    “So if they catch me now . . .” I said.
    “They’ll charge you with more than being in a few plays they didn’t like.”
    He gave me a shrug and a grin as he saw the effect his words had on me. “Cheer up,” he said. “You’re with us now.”
    Great.
    Orgos replaced the rapier in the back of the wagon and emerged wearing a pair of the long swords