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A Lord's Duty

Page 20

by J. S. Crews


  “You weren’t there—“ began Brandr, finally finding his voice, but his father was out of patience.

  “Speak up!” Vytaus interrupted, raising his own voice. “I didn’t raise you to speak like a slave! I need to hear this stupidity with some volume to make sure I understand!”

  The boy swallowed hard and took a step toward his father. He stuck his chest out and stood perfectly erect, almost as if he was trying to make himself taller. Clearing his throat, he spoke in a louder tone, “I said that you—neither of you—were there. You didn’t see what I saw or hear those people pleading.”

  “Their pleas mean nothing to me! They are not our people!”

  “But they are people!” interjected the youngster, his vehemence matching that of his sire for just a moment. It passed quickly as he seemed to realize he was trodding dangerous ground. He raised a placating hand to try to backtrack, but little did he know Vytaus was too surprised to retaliate the way the boy feared. He and Belios were both aghast at the passion being exhibited by the normally-reserved Brandr.

  “What I meant to say,” he attempted to clarify in a more respectful tone, “is that we should not turn a blind eye simply because they are not of our clan. They are Wodonni.”

  Vytaus sighed. What was he supposed to say to that? He had taught his sons to be honorable men. He had tried to, at least. They had heard from his own mouth the virtues of helping others in need. The problem was that, when he was teaching those lessons, he was trying to impart to them the duty he believed those with power owed to the less-fortunate. He had been tried to make them understand their duty to take care for their own clan, though, not the whole world. Yet, how could he now fault this boy for doing what he himself had taught?

  “Brandr, my son,” Vytaus began, sounding almost more sad than angry now. “When winter comes, we are lucky to feed our own. Every year, it is a struggle. Every year, some of the weakest die from sicknesses they might have survived if better fed. These people you have brought here are not ours to feed. They are Uslan’s responsibility.”

  “And he is failing them, father,” the boy threw back. He was regaining some of his confidence now, his voice more passionate again. “When we came upon their village, they were boiling cured skins to make soup stock. They were starved. When we shared our trail rations, I watched grown men cry over the taste of a single sliver of jerked venison. Others refused even that tiny morsel, giving theirs to their children instead. I could not turn my back.”

  “Father,” interjected Belios, “this is part of what I meant when I argued he was too young for such responsibility. Yes, I worried for his safety, but I was also concerned something would turn him away from the mission. His heart hasn’t been hardened enough for command.”

  Vytaus nodded reluctantly, ready to accept his eldest son’s assessment, but the younger would not allow it to pass unchallenged. “You speak too soon, Brother. I fulfilled my mission.”

  That was news that left Belios staring with a surprised look on his face and caused Vytaus to sit up straight with interest. Looking hard at his younger son with an annoyed, but very interested, expression, the chieftain said, “You might’ve mentioned that before, seeing as how it was the whole reason you went in the first place.”

  Brandr shrugged in the way only youngster can, looking for a moment even more a boy than his fifteen summers. “Everyone was more interested in the refugees,” he said innocently.

  Looking toward his elder son as if to verify that he had heard what he thought he heard—and receiving a bewildered expression in return—Vytaus guffawed. “Well? Would you mind sharing now?” His tone was something between laughter and shock.

  Taking a deep breath to center himself, the boy reminded his father of the way he had looked when about to recite the lore Drua made all Wodonni memorize as children. That was good, though, since it meant he had considered what he wanted to say during the ride home, instead of simply vomiting up incoherent and disorganized thoughts. He was doing exactly what Vytaus had taught him.

  Clearing his throat, he began, “As far as we could tell, everything the woman told you was true.” He was speaking of Mileka and her stories about her husband Uslan, Chieftain of the People of the Hawk. “Strange things are happening in Uslan’s country, Father,” the boy continued. “The people act as if they fear to speak of it, but if you press them they will tell you even wilder stories than what we’ve heard already. And everyone seems to be talking about a black-robed stranger being at the heart of it all.”

  That was as Vytaus had feared. He had been holding on to the hope that Mileka would be proven a liar, but he knew in his heart that what she had told him was at least mostly true; he trusted his instincts enough to know that. Now, though, his unenviable position was confirmed. One part of him even felt a kind of relief, the doubt as to what he must do removed, but the sensible part felt no such thing.

  Chapter Twelve

  “The Common Man”

  Ansel Wood lie in quiet misery as the first weak rays of daylight began to manifest.

  The gloaming light was sneaking between the warped boards of the barn’s east-facing side. The hazy glow was still too feeble for its warmth to touch his face, if in fact it held any warmth... if anything in the bleak world would ever hold warmth again. Putting aside such black thoughts, he knew it was doubtful there would be any physical warmth until midday. The sun would be directly above the barn then, its rays penetrating the ragged time-worn holes in the roof to reach where they were being kept prisoner.

  They had been thrown into something akin to a ditch, dug long and narrow to a depth of about shoulder height. The new outhouse Ansel had dug last year had been every bit as deep, so he knew he would have had little difficulty pulling himself out had his captors not prepared for such things. The depression within which he and the seventeen other men had spent the night was topped by a web of criss-crossing thorn branches attached to heavy logs with iron nails. That too would have been easily overcome by simply breaking branches to create a breach. Doing so would mangle one’s hands on the thorns, but that would be a small price to pay for freedom. Experience had taught them, however, that the thorns were only meant to slow potential defiance. The true barrier was the guards, two of whom were armed with shortbows that would prove deadly in close quarters, and they had proven quick to ire by attempts to test the apparatus. There had been early rumblings of rebelliousness, but the makeshift nature of the gaol told Ansel it was only meant to hold them temporarily. He had settled in to wait for what would come next.

  The gods only knew what fresh misery that would be.

  Forced deeper into the barn, Ansel had seen how a screen of old burlap and scraped ox skins had been hung to hide what was going on from the front of the building. These had been painted dark—or perhaps just smeared with mud—and the lanterns and torches had been arranged so that the light fell just short of revealing them. None of them had seen the host that was gathered nearby. Concentrating the light near the entrance had kept them night blind, a condition known to soldiers taught to face away from campfires and braziers when on duty. The trap had not been apparent until sprung, and Ansel felt doubly the fool for allowing his soldier’s instincts to deteriorate to the point of seeing only what he was meant to see. Afterwards, he could see that the inner part of the building was a sort of headquarters for their captors. Not only had the makeshift gaol obviously been prepared ahead of time, but the area beyond the screen also proved to be full of bedrolls, cooking utensils, and other personal items that made it clear these men had sheltered here for a time.

  Their captors were mercenaries, sellswords, masterless men who came from everywhere and cared for nothing. Some were probably former soldiers who had developed a taste for the blade and enough skill to keep themselves fed. Not all such men were criminals, but they answered only to themselves, working as hired muscle for anyone with silver. Some others, he knew, had probably been discharged by lords grown weary of their bad behavior, after which th
ey’d marketed their training to those less exacting about the conduct of men in their employ. Some were likely even deserters, who had shirked their sworn duty and faced death if captured. Some would be outlaws for other reasons. What they all had in common, though, was that they were dangerous and unpredictable.

  Most troubling of all was finding them under the employ of a Wodonni clansman. Ansel knew from his time in the north that such arrangements were not entirely uncommon. Masterless renegades prized the plunder and women a Wodi chieftain would allow them to take in the seemingly endless clan warfare that afflicted those sorry lands. What made it surprising was to find them so deeply encroached within kingdom territory.

  The ramifications could be far-reaching, but most worrisome to Ansel was the thriving slave trade north of the kingdom’s borders. Smugglers, often these same sort of mercenary sellswords, were known to cross the border in violation of kingdom law to purchase slaves for resale in the flesh markets of Golysia and the kingdoms of the far southern seas. Some sold slaves they had carried off from the kingdom countryside. Ansel could not help but imagine the profit a bunch of hardworking farmers might bring these bastards at such flesh markets.

  They had not been fed since being taken prisoner and water had been offered only once, some hours earlier and only a few precious gulps for each man. Bucket and ladle were lowered into the gaol with a command to drink quickly and pass it along as bow-wielding guards loomed menacingly. It had been a thirsty and miserable night spent cramped in a ditch, but then again the lack of food and drink might have been a blessing since the only option for any of the men to relieve themselves was a small, more deeply-dug depression in the center of their gaol.

  "What is this, ya think? Why’ve they taken us?" The question had come from Allet, whom Ansel had tried to ignore for the fool’s own good; he really wanted to throttle him unto death with bare hands and dirty feet every time he looked his way. Efforts to shun him had proven short-lived, partially because the man had the insistence of a stray puppy dog and because—even though his machinations had landed him in this mess—Ansel was more angry with himself than he was his brother-by-law. Every person who knew Allet understood he was a fool, but Ansel was disappointed in himself for proving no better.

  "How’m I t’know?" Ansel snapped. Being unable to ignore the man had not improved his disposition toward him, stress and anger manifesting as harsh words in place of fists. For his part, Allet took this poor treatment in stride. He bore the load on his unreliable shoulders, probably with full awareness of his own culpability. Even his anger, though, had not caused Ansel to share his true fear that they were likely bound for slavery. He’d only crumble in on hisself an’ make all o’ this even worse t’bear, he had thought. Better he don’t know ‘til he must.

  Allet said nothing more, simply resting his chin on his chest in a way that, for all the world, resembled the pouting of a chastened boy. The next words came instead from the singer from the Skinny Minstrel on the night Ansel set himself upon this sorry road. "We’ll know when we know, lads."

  The singer’s name was Leffron. "Laughing Leffron," he had explained was the name he used in his travels as an entertainer, because of the booming laugh that accompanied his singing voice. Ansel had no reason to doubt the man’s wind, considering his deep, broad chest settled in what would otherwise be considered a wiry frame. He seemed an amiable enough companion. Ansel could easily imagine him being the jovial sort his name implied, were their situation more suitable to mirth. Alas, there had been few reasons for laughter over the past many hours.

  He seemed a stalwart soul. Despite what had happened, he voiced no overwhelming fear, nor had he crumbled into a sad thing; he seemed instead to be stoically awaiting whatever would come in much the same way as Ansel. This only supported Ansel’s initial impression. Here was one better able to take care of himself than it seemed at a glance. His outward calm bespoke a man not untouched by past troubles, just as continuing to breathe attested to his ability to emerge safely on the far side.

  Leffron, they’d learned in the first terrifying hours when sleep was impossible, was a southron. From where exactly he hailed was a detail quickly forgotten by men who knew little, if anything, of the lands beyond the Greatwater River that split the Kingdom of Galennor into the separate administrative regions knows as the Northern and Southern Realms. What mattered was he was from somewhere that, from many of their perspectives, might as well have been on the other side of the world.

  Looking around at the other dispirited faces, Ansel felt confident he was likely the most well-traveled among them as a result of his time as a soldier. That service, though, had taken him to the far north. Even he had never traveled to the Southern Realm, despite that border being much closer. Simple folk rarely had reason to journey more than a few miles from their homes, nor could they afford to take time off from earning their family’s daily bread and ale.

  It was not surprising to find that Leffron was an outlander, since his profession more or less required one to be a wanderer. Bards, mummers, and the like were often looked upon with a downcast eye, seen as unwilling to make their living by more normal work. Such attitudes rarely translated into open hostility, however, because their services were prized by lord and peasant alike. Performers broke up the monotony of life and were always welcomed for that reason, but it was a lifestyle that required near constant touring from one town and tavern to the next on a seemingly endless circuit.

  The country men were fascinated over his tales of places unknown, and he answered inane questions about the places he had visited with a commendable lack of irritability. Ansel imagined he was probably accustomed to such, and the stories helped keep minds distracted from despair. In the meantime, the steady rhythm of whispering had lulled Ansel into relaxing and focusing his thoughts on Kaeti and little Anders.

  Days passed.

  During this interim, nothing changed. It grew so that Ansel was only able to gauge the passage of time by the daylight visible through the warped boards and the regular intervals at which their captors lowered the water bucket between the thorn-branch bars. He had been watching closely and absorbing details, both because he had little else to occupy his mind as well as hoping to discern a weakness that could be exploited. The latter, he had come to understand, would be nigh impossible. The individual bringing the water changed all the time, but what remained stubbornly constant was that they were always guarded by grim-faced men nocking arrows that promised death to those acting rashly.

  As more time went on, however, Ansel found his perception of its passage seeming to become vague and addled. He would wake suddenly in a panic, not having meant to sleep and unsure if it were the same day or the next. Most disconcerting was that they still had not been fed. Their water ration came like clockwork, meager though it was, yet none of them had been offered the slightest morsel of food since their capture. This was contributing to both a general physical weakening as well as a simmering dread. The hunger pains were experienced in terrible waves that came and went, but the fear never subsided.

  “D’they mean t’starve us?” Allet asked, his voice quivering.

  No one answered. The query just hung in the air, pregnant with foreboding. Ansel found himself wondering if he had been mistaken about their future, for there was little chance malnourished slaves would bring much profit. Yet, at the same time, he also could not understand why else they would have been taken if not as slaver’s chattel. Sellswords would simply do as instructed for pay, whether those instructions made sense or not; it was unclear if the Wodonni warrior he’d once thought of as the Bear was running things or simply an involved party, but that mattered little—the barbarians of the north could be brutal, but even they were not known for random cruelty. He could see Wodi perhaps starving an enemy for revenge, but not a bunch of arbitrarily-chosen farmers for no apparent purpose.

  These mercenaries were being paid—Hunald certainly had been just for playacting as a go-between—so why expend resourc
es, if not in anticipation of greater profit later? It was logical, yet that reasoning was inconsistent with their treatment. He realized then that his assuming these men were slavers was simply because nothing else made sense. Why else take a group of unknown men captive? And, truthfully, being able to focus on something definitive, even a fate as terrible as being enslaved, had been preferable to dark ruminations over a future of sorrows impossible to anticipate.

  It was a mystery, and their uncertain destiny was affecting all of them differently. Some became sullen and listless, others openly wept and pleaded until they were intimidated into silence by their more taciturn fellows, while still others raged against their captors. One man, in particular, had instigated such a ruckus that he’d eventually been beaten with the butts of spears thrust viciously through the gaps between the improvised bars. Ansel had thought perhaps they’d killed him, but he roused sputtering and moaning when the water bucket meant to bring their drink was upended over where he lay. The bucket was not refilled, doubling the span of time between their scant rations, and none of them knew if this was punishment or simply an indication of carelessness on the part of captors who cared not whether they lived or died.

  Worse than the privations being visited upon his flesh was the emerging certainty that he would never again see his wife and young son. He had forced himself to accept that harsh truth when settling on a future of slavery in some far-off place, but apparently coming to terms with such an idea within the darkness of one’s own mind was a very different thing from stating it as fact. He could not even say for sure how long he had been away. He found himself cycling through a range of emotions, sometimes raging and wishing for the slightest chance to draw blood, and then becoming despondent in the quieter moments as he imagined his beloved Kaeti wondering where her husband and brother had gone.

 

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