Good Company

by Dale Lucas

  Elvaris caught him staring. When Rem realized that she might think he was admiring the line of her bent, slender legs—even though they were clad in leather and chain mail—he raised his hands, an instant, silent petition for understanding.

  “That sword,” Rem said. “Is that a Taverando?”

  Elvaris looked to the blade as if just noticing it. She gripped the hilt and drew it forth, just an inch or two. Rem instantly saw the telltale engraving along the fuller, just above the hilt.

  “It is indeed,” she said proudly.

  Rem leapt to his feet and moved nearer. He was sure his mouth hung agape and his eyes were as wide as a child’s at a mummer’s show, but he didn’t care. He’d heard for years of the glory and elegance of Estavar’s Taverando blades. He’d seen one or two in his younger years, usually ceremonial sorts, with little real use in combat. But he guessed this woman’s sword was no ceremonial blade for state feasts or holy days—she didn’t look like the sort to carry anything that was merely ornamental.

  “May I see it?” Rem asked.

  “Oh, that blade of hers,” Sandiva muttered. “Everywhere we go, she’s being asked to bare the thing and show it off. Too pretty for my taste. I like something a little more simple, a little more utilitarian—”

  “Shut up,” Torval said, suddenly at Rem’s elbow. “What’s this all about?”

  Elvaris drew the sword with blinding speed and handed it over. Rem reached out and closed his hand around the grip, then slowly took it from its owner and marveled at it. It was not ornate, precisely—there was nothing showy or ostentatious in its design—but its undeniable grace and delicacy, along with its alluring heft and perfect balance, made it a work of art. Within the fuller groove was the maker’s mark: a long, elegant, stylized rendering of the swordmaker’s oft-whispered name.

  “This, Torval,” Rem said with reverence, “is a blade forged by the master swordmaker Talis Taverando. From Kosterland to the Magrabari blight, these weapons are spoken of with reverence and dreamed of as the apex of the bladesmith’s art.”

  The dwarf stared, studying the blade. “It’s certainly pretty,” he said. “But the blade looks awfully flimsy. It’s barely two fingers-widths and thin as a razor.”

  “That’s what makes them so special,” Rem said. “Talis Taverando is renowned for folding his steel hundreds of times and driving the metal to the very edge of its capabilities. It looks light and elegant—flimsy, as you say—but feel it.” He started to hand the blade to the dwarf, then looked to its owner. “With your kind permission?”

  Elvaris nodded. “I suppose if the dwarf runs off with it, I can catch him at a sprint.”

  Torval shot the warrior woman a dismissive frown, then accepted the blade from Rem. The instant it was in the dwarf’s hands, his eyes widened.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he breathed.

  “Heavy, isn’t it?” Rem asked. “Heavier than it looks, anyway, but perfectly balanced.”

  Torval stepped away from the group, gripped the sword in both hands, and took a few practice swipes. Rem knew that the sword wasn’t Torval’s preferred weapon, but he still had good enough form with it, even when the weapon was so oversize and ill suited to his frame. The awe on the dwarf’s face as he felt the heft of the blade in his hand was, to Rem, infinitely satisfying.

  At last Torval handed the blade back to Elvaris. Rem was a little hurt that the dwarf hadn’t handed it back to him, but before taking it, Elvaris nodded his way. “Go on,” she said, “I know you’re not done with it.”

  Rem smiled and took the blade from Torval. He studied it from every possible angle, and when his close study was done, he stepped apart from the others and moved through a few fencing iterations, letting the blade whistle and buzz and slice the air. It was magnificent.

  “Pay attention,” Elvaris said to Sandiva. “That’s proper form.”

  Rem felt a swell of pride and fought the urge to smile.

  “What’s that on the grip?” Torval said as Rem went through his paces. “Didn’t feel like leather.”

  “Sharkskin,” Elvaris said. “Repels moisture and maintains its friction, even if your hands are sweaty.”

  Rem finally forced himself to hand the weapon back to its owner. “That’s a beautiful blade. You must be proud.”

  Elvaris nodded as she resheathed the Taverando. “Most proud, indeed. It was given to me by my father. My elder brother renounced his inheritance when he joined the Aemonic church as an acolyte—he’s a high priest now. When I came of age, my father knew the family lands and title would pass to me, so he gave me this and told me to go out in the world and hew myself a path with it. Someday I’ll pass it on to my own son or daughter.”

  “With a blade like that,” Torval said drily, “I doubt any man eager to breed would come near you.”

  Sandiva burst out laughing. Rem turned to Torval, a look of shocked incredulity on his face. “Torval!” he hissed, thoroughly mortified.

  “It’s all right,” Elvaris said, smiling easily. Very little ruffled her, apparently. “I get that all the time. What I decided, master dwarf, was that the only man who gets to call me wife is the one who can best me in a duel against this blade. If he can draw blood or disarm me, he can have my hand. Providing he wants it, that is.”

  Torval, despite his rude pronouncement, looked thoroughly impressed. “You may be dressed as a soldier, milady,” the dwarf said slowly, “but you strike me as a queen.”

  Elvaris smiled broadly and bowed. “Nothing so grand. Only your most humble servant, master dwarf.” With that she took the reins of her horse and looked to Sandiva. “Come on. We should be getting back.”

  Still laughing, Sandiva agreed. The two women led their horses away, leaving Rem and Torval alone with the mud and willows at the riverbank.

  “Tall and wispy like an elf, that one,” Torval said, “but, by Thendril’s braids, she’s got a dwarven spirit. All fire and stone inside.”

  Rem nodded, still thinking of how good that blade had felt in his hand. “These Estavari women,” he said, “I’ve never met their like.”

  Once the animals had drunk their fill, Rem and Torval led them back up the bank to the camp. There Rem showed Torval how to tie his pony in a good spot for further foraging. Rem then moved on to a crash course in brushing their animals down—currycomb first, followed by the brush. By the time they were done, Torval seemed to have taken a genuine liking to his pony, whispering to it warmly all through its combing and brushing, admonishing it like one of his own children if it whickered or snorted at him in a manner he found less than respectful.

  By the time Rem got to work on their own supper—bacon and hardtack, with some cheese on the side—the other parties were already well into their meals. The lord marshal’s men were bent over what looked like camp rations—simple porridge with some speck and carrots thrown in, accompanied by some foul-smelling smoked kippers—while the meal prepared by the Lady Tzimena and her lady-in-waiting for their own soldiers looked and smelled like something from a well-regarded tavern: spiced sausages, relishes of pickled vegetables, and wine-braised mushrooms along with fire-warmed flatbread and a cask of good wine. Rem wasn’t sure what impressed him more: that the Estavari company was eating so well, or that it was their charge—the noble lady whom they protected—who did all the cooking for them. Clearly, highborn or not, the Lady Tzimena was not one to sit by and let others do everything for her.

  Torval plopped down beside Rem at the fire and lifted the jar of pickled eggs that Osma had given him.

  “These,” Torval said, brandishing the container of eggs in their green-tinged vinegar, adrift with various herbs and spices, “these are a kingly gift indeed. I shall have to bring Osma something back from Erald in answer to this.”

  “You keep those eggs,” Rem said. “I just want a pull of that beer from Aarna.”

  Torval nodded, looking a little insulted on behalf of his eggs, and scurried back to their supplies to dig out the hogshead.

&
nbsp; Rem was no great camp cook, but he could handle himself with a frying pan. He let some of the sailor’s hardtack procured by Ondego soak in water for a bit while he fried up some rashers of bacon over the fire. Once the pork was nice and crisped, he threw the softened hardtack into the grease and let it break down further over the heat. This greasy, lumpy, salty mess filled their bellies and warmed them, tempered on their palates by some nuts and dried fruit as dessert. Torval provided tin cups of Joedoc’s red ale, cut with water from the river. It was thin and weak, but it still reminded Rem of home, back in Yenara. As they ate, Rem recalled how he’d first learned to make bacon and hardtack, from his father’s master-at-arms, Evengor, on his very first long hunting expedition when he was eight years old. It was, in truth, a rather unpleasant meal—but for some reason, it still reminded him of happier times and simpler joys.

  Remembering the home I left, Rem thought wistfully, longing for the home I’ve adopted.

  There was little talk, except among the closest companions present, and those words were usually short and exchanged in breathy whispers. Every now and then, Rem caught members of the two parties—Eraldic and Estavari—glancing at one another across the fire, as if trying to build up the courage to start a conversation but never finding it. He thought it quite strange that the traveling companions could not bring themselves to simply talk and get to know one another, but the awkward silence persisted. To make up for it, though, there was the bright beauty of a million stars strewn across the moonless, cloudless sky, and the comforting whisper of May winds rattling the leafy alders and sawing through the bankside willows, not to mention the low, watery susurration of the slow-moving river. It occurred to Rem that he didn’t mind the silence, really. It had been so long since he’d been out in the country at night, under the stars and blessed with none of the sounds he had come to find familiar in a city of Yenara’s size: squalling cats, barking dogs, drunks singing as they reeled home, lovers fighting, babies bawling, stairs creaking under the weight of climbers.

  “Excuse me?” a voice called out of the darkness. It was the Red Raven. “I know I’m a prisoner, but I should hate to think I’d starve before being brought to justice.”

  Rem and Torval looked to one another. Rem felt his own face, hot and flushed with embarrassment.

  “Sundry hells,” he muttered. “I totally forgot about him.”

  “There’s some hardtack and bacon left here,” Torval said, suggesting the frying pan between them.

  “We’ve got some leftovers,” the Lady Tzimena offered.

  “Some dregs of porridge here,” Croften said, peering into the Eraldic cookpot.

  “He’ll have not a crumb from our stores,” the lord marshal snapped.

  “But, Father,” Brekkon said. “We’ve all eaten.”

  “It’s just a mouthful or two,” Wallenbrand said.

  “I said no,” the lord marshal countered. “It’s a waste, and I will not countenance it.”

  “What was that?” Rem asked.

  “I said,” the lord marshal answered, with patronizing slowness, “feeding that man from your own stores is a waste. The rest of you do as you like. But no one from my company will give that man even a crumb of stale bread, is that understood?”

  “Well, now,” Torval broke in, “it’s a good thing he’s our prisoner and not yours. Otherwise the poor sod might starve before he hangs.”

  The lord marshal’s eyes narrowed. “I only thought to advise—”

  “You made each of our tasks abundantly clear before we set out,” Torval snapped. “You’d get us to Erald safely, these good ladies of Estavar would guard the Lady Tzimena, and my partner and I would watch the Red Raven. What say you do your job, lord marshal, and let us do ours?”

  Rem was proud of Torval. He knew the dwarf had no love for their prisoner, but he also knew Torval hated bullies even more than he hated bandits and outlaws.

  The lord marshal stared in stunned silence for a long time. Finally he lowered his eyes. “Do as you will, then. As you say, the man is your problem on the road, not ours.”

  Rem nodded. “See, lord marshal? Each to his own duty. That’s the way we do it in Yenara.” Then off he went into the shadows, to see their prisoner fed.

  When Rem reached the Raven’s cage, he handed the frying pan through awkwardly, having to tilt it almost onto its side to pass it into the man’s waiting hands.

  “Sorry,” Rem said without real contrition, “no implements.”

  “My hands will do nicely,” the Raven said, and sniffed at the pan, since it was too dark to see what he’d been handed. “Pork and biscuit?”

  Rem nodded, unsure whether the Raven could even see him clearly. “I’ll be back for the pan in a bit. Feel free to eat what’s left.”

  Rem set off then, trudging onward through the high grass toward the deeper darkness near the hedgerows and the fields. He was eager to find himself a nice, dark tree to piss under. In no time the night engulfed him, and he relished it, reveling in the brilliant starlight, the rasping grass and creaking trees spread so widely around him. He thought he could just see a low, dark mass off in the distance with a small, warm light burning in a tiny window: a farmhouse, perhaps. The air was cool but not cold, the breeze sweet.

  He did his business, then started his walk back to the camp, taking a slow, meandering path because he so enjoyed the darkness and the solitude. As he neared camp, he realized he’d managed to approach the Red Raven’s cage cart once again, even though he’d intended to return by a different path. The cage and its occupant were silhouetted against the red-gold light of the great campfire, and it was clear, even from this vantage point, that the Raven was scraping every last bit of mushy biscuit and bacon grease from the frying pan. Beyond the cage Rem saw the small, half-lit figures of the lord marshal, his men, the Estavari soldiers, and the Lady Tzimena’s maidservant, all gathered round the roaring campfire, the hitching winds tugging greedily at the flames and driving cyclones of sparks and embers before them.

  It was only when Rem saw a willowy female figure detach from the surrounding darkness and approach the outlaw’s cage that he realized the Lady Tzimena was not by the fire with the rest of them. How could she be? She was right there, a stone’s throw from him, a moving shadow on a barely lit world, as obscured and phantom-like as the caged Red Raven himself.

  Rem froze where he stood, afraid another step might give him away.

  As he watched, the Lady Tzimena approached the Red Raven’s cage. She handed him something through the bars: bread, perhaps, maybe a small cup. The Raven took the offered gifts. Though it was very dark and they were nothing more than flat shadows on his night-dulled vision, Rem thought he saw the Raven’s hand and the lady’s own linger together on the same bar of the cage.

  A moment later, she withdrew and bustled back into the dark at the edge of camp.

  Rem waited, not sure what to do. The Raven remained up on his knees, watching the lady go, then finally reclined again and dug into his clandestine supper. Rem decided the best course of action was to slowly, quietly withdraw and return to the camp by the way he’d come. With luck, no one would know that he’d seen what he’d seen.

  What had he witnessed, in fact? A young maiden’s mercy? Kindness from one stranger to another?

  It could be. But Rem thought of that lingering gesture, when both of their hands were clenched together around the same bar.

  Kindness, yes. Mercy, certainly. But that small, simple gesture suggested to Rem that it was very unlikely the Lady Tzimena and the Red Raven were complete strangers.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rem and Torval chose a line of whispering willows as shelter against the increasingly persistent winds that scoured the campsite through the night. Torval took first watch, so Rem got at least a few hours of good, uninterrupted sleep in before being awakened to watch their prisoner through the early-morning hours and past dawn. The whisper of the willows and the gurgling of the river often threatened to send Rem off to s
leep again, but when that feeling overcame him, he’d simply rise and move briskly about, doing his best to keep himself awake without disturbing anyone else. If the fire threatened to subside to ash, he’d stoke it and throw a few more branches on. Time and again, Rem was overcome by the feeling of being watched. He could’ve sworn the source of that feeling was the Red Raven himself, curled up in his cage, feigning sleep but watching—always watching. And yet every time Rem’s paranoia got the best of him, he would approach the cage and stare intently, only to find the outlaw fast asleep, snoring placidly. Or pretending to with great skill.

  Then, suddenly, it was morning. Gray light crept into the world from its far-eastern edges. Birds began their songs from the alders and cottonwoods, and a gentle silver mist slithered up from the riverbank and the nearby hollows, making of the world a dewy, half-obscured landscape out of a child’s fairy story.

  Fasts were broken with uncooked victuals: dried fruit, nuts, bread, and cheese. Torval wolfed down one of his pickled eggs and seemed more than a little vexed by the gathering light. Rem asked him what troubled him as they prepared their mounts for another day’s ride.

  “It’s so bloody bright,” the dwarf said, looking around through squinted eyes. “And so bloody . . . open. Wide open.”

  “Suffering a bit of the dwarf’s distemper?” Rem asked, trying to sound casual and joking so as not to offend his partner.