Arduwyn wove through the crowds, glad most people stepped aside for his donkey. With time, Garn’s features had lapsed into grim concentration. Every accidental touch sent him glaring in the direction of the passerby. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, and Arduwyn felt it safest to get Garn inside the city gates where the road traffic would, at least, follow logical patterns. The Pudarian government generally let men settle their differences between themselves. But if Garn flew into one of his wild rages directly in front of the guardsmen, Arduwyn knew courts would be invoked and justice would tend to side against the outsider.
Less than half a dozen paces from the gates, Arduwyn pushed past a pair of albinos in white robes and feathered headbands who shoved an ivory statuette into his face. Leukenyan priests. Arduwyn’s disgust for the idol-worshiping cult caused him to strike aside the offering with more force than necessary. Other religious organizations accosted citizens outside the Pudarian walls, but they, at least, subscribed to established Western gods like Cathan and Kadrak, twin goddess and god of War, Itu, goddess of knowledge and truth, and Ruaidhri, the leader of the pantheon, long-standing and harmless churches that kept their followers within the walls of Pudar. If Colbey was right about the Great War, those rebellious youths seeking causes will find one far better than what this cult can offer.
At the gate, Arduwyn turned to check the progress of his companions. Mitrian came up directly behind him, tense with curiosity. Garn stood to his right, his crouched posture and slitted eyes betraying a discomfort that could quickly turn to violence. Fortunately, the citizens seemed to read the same menacing uneasiness; they were giving Garn a wide berth. Arduwyn located Sterrane some distance behind, his dark head towering over a surrounding circle of four albino and three Western Leukenyans.
Terror ripped through Arduwyn. Without explanation, he jammed the donkey’s lead rope into Mitrian’s hand and sprang to Sterrane’s aid. Momentarily forgetting the slightness of his stature, he elbowed through the press of cultists to Sterrane’s side. He spoke loudly, “Come on, Sterrane. Mom’s waiting.” Taking Sterrane’s arm, Arduwyn started back the way he had come.
But the circle had closed behind him. This time, the priests were not caught so unaware. Seven glares met Arduwyn, four watery blue, two brown, and one gray-green.
“Mom?” Sterrane questioned, apparently oblivious to the growing conflict. “Who Mom?”
Arduwyn glared at the men blocking his path, his forced defiance covering fear. He did not have the skill to fight through seven Leukenyans, especially not with his scimitar strapped to Stubs’ back. Sterrane did not seem to recognize the danger. To involve Mitrian and Garn might mean sparking Garn’s temper, and a mass slaughter so near the city gates would outrage the guards and Pudarian citizens. He spoke mildly, but with an undertone of threat. “Move aside. We need to leave.”
The largest of the albinos used a soft tone that made Arduwyn’s seem inappropriately gruff in comparison. His accent was unlike anything Arduwyn had ever heard. “We were talking with your . . .” He smiled, obviously seeing through Arduwyn’s ploy. The suggestion that this scrawny redhead and his towering, swarthy companion shared a bloodline seemed absurd. “. . . friend. We would like to continue our discussion. Thank you for your concern, but your intrusion was unnecessary.”
Trapped and desperate to end the confrontation without violence, Arduwyn tried again. “We don’t want to make trouble. Just move aside and everything will be all right.”
Sunlight glared from the robes, sheening across each feather. The Leukenyans’ white garb seemed to mock purity. The leader’s modulated voice did not change, dignified and condescending. He spoke as if to a man too dim to recognize the holiness of his presence. “Sterrane is old enough to make his own decisions. He has agreed to join us . . .” He lingered over the phrase. “. . . for dinner tonight.”
Rage tore through Arduwyn, liberally sprinkled with surprise. As a salesman, he had taken advantage of people’s emotions and loyalties, but never their ignorance. To cheat the feeble-minded was simply cruel, and his hatred of the Leukenyan’s cause only strengthened his anger. Sterrane tensed beneath Arduwyn’s grip. The hunter looked beyond the leader to see Mitrian, Garn, and Stubs trotting toward them, and was relieved to see Mitrian had talked Garn into holding the donkey’s lead. At best, it would distract Garn; at worst, it would keep his hands full. “Sterrane is too good and innocent to know what you are. But I’m not, and I’m going to see to it he knows what you stand for before you drag him off to fill his mind with lies. He already has a cause; he doesn’t need your false god.” He gritted his teeth, no longer feigning calm. “Stand aside or you’ll regret it.”
One of the young Western followers sprang forward, apparently enraged by Arduwyn’s challenge. “Fool! Infidel! God damns your evil kind for all eternity. Your soul . . .”
The leader’s face crinkled in annoyance. Curtly, he waved his follower to silence and addressed Sterrane. “I can understand your friend’s concern that you would dine with strangers.” He made a gesture of benign regret and tipped his head as if to suggest that he and Sterrane shared some secret the others could not comprehend. “But I assure you, he’s creating evil where it doesn’t exist. We only want to share a good meal and some friendly conversation. How can there be any harm in that?”
Aware the priest had just cleverly passed the initiative to Sterrane, Arduwyn twisted to face his companion. “No.” He hated to treat his friend like a child, but the comparison fit. He knew that if the white priest talked Sterrane into a meal at Corpa Leukenya, they would sway and sweet talk him to their cause. Sterrane won’t stand a chance, and we’ll never see him again. “We need to talk. These men aren’t going anywhere for a while. If, when we’re finished, you still want to eat with them, I won’t stand in your way.”
Sterrane opened his mouth. Before he could speak, Mitrian interrupted from behind the leading priest. “Sterrane, Arduwyn, are these men bothering you?”
All eyes went suddenly to Mitrian. The leader turned to face her, and Arduwyn followed the albino’s stare by the movements of his head. First, he met Mitrian’s gaze, then his eyes roved to her sword belt and her bulging abdomen before settling on Garn. The ex-gladiator crouched, his free fist tactlessly tight around his hilt.
Arduwyn balanced frustration and anger against the need to keep the peace. For Garn’s sake, he kept his voice composed and his words diplomatic. “No, thank you. Everything’s under control. These men were just about to stand aside and let us leave. Right, men?”
Grudgingly, the leader stepped aside, but his tone made it clear the conflict was unfinished. “Thank you for your time.”
Not wanting to waste a moment, Arduwyn tightened his grip on Sterrane’s arm and steered the larger man toward the gate. Mitrian and Garn followed curiously, leading the donkey. “What happened?” Mitrian asked.
“Nothing much.” The realization of violence narrowly averted made Arduwyn sarcastic. “Sterrane nearly sold his soul to an idol-worshiping cult, that’s all.” Loosing Sterrane, Arduwyn accepted Stubs’ lead rope from Garn. He nudged Sterrane. “Did you really agree to have dinner with those freaks?”
Sterrane’s fur-clad shoulders rose and fell. “They ask. Me hungry.”
Frustrated by his companion’s simple logic, Arduwyn rubbed a hand across his face from forehead to chin, peering at the gate sentries through his fingers. The pair gave the group warning scowls, apparently due to the incident with the Leukenyans, but the leather-clad guards did not speak nor delay the party’s entrance into the city.
“Not nice refuse invite.”
“Who told you that?” Now on the main road, Arduwyn fell into the familiar comfort of the trading city. He chose the route to The Hungry Lion, avoiding the gaudier, rowdier Dun Stag that most outsiders chose because of its decor and famous beer. This close to the entrance, market stands, carts, and shops crowded the walkways along a wide, cobbled street designed for merchants’ and dignitaries’ wagons. Mixed cro
wds of men and women clogged the roadway, purchasing food for the evening meal or luxuries before leaving the city, though the natives knew the prices tended to rise the closer a stand’s location was to the gates. Conversations blended into a buzzing maelstrom, occasionally pierced by a salesman’s promise, “Veg-e-tables! Fre-esh fi-ish!”
“Friend told me.”
Caught up in the familiar bustle and glitter of Pudar, Arduwyn had forgotten the conversation. “What?”
“Friend told me,” Sterrane repeated dutifully. “Not nice refuse invite.”
Arduwyn led his companions onto a well-traveled side road and, from there, toward the quieter living areas of the locals in the northwest quarter. “Your friend was wrong, Sterrane. At least in regard to Pudar.” Arduwyn continued, walking backward to address all of his companions now. “Cities this big aren’t like other places in the West. Most of the people are good and honest, but it only takes a few bad ones to rob you of everything you are and own. From now on, I suggest you remember three rules.” He bent back his index finger with his other hand. “Number one, everybody wants your money. Don’t give it to them unless they give you something of equal or greater value that you need or want.” He added more gently, “If you’re uncertain, ask me.” He uncurled his middle finger beside the first. “Number two, any stranger who claims to be your friend can’t possibly be your friend.” He spread his ring finger, pinning his little finger with his thumb. “Number three, a stranger who wants to touch you is up to nothing good. Avoid him.”
Arduwyn started to face front, then turned back for one more warning. He met Garn’s gaze directly. “Oh, and, no violence.”
Garn stared back without replying, but he seemed to expect an explanation.
“It’s against the law.” It was an overstatement. Pudar’s response to violence depended upon the cause of the dispute, the status of the participants, and the extent of destruction to lives and property; but it seemed safer and kinder to encourage Garn to consider consequence before action.
Garn continued to watch Arduwyn. “You’re trying to say I shouldn’t do it.”
That being obvious, Arduwyn was caught off-guard. “Right.” Then, realizing Garn might not have experience with laws, Arduwyn explained. “If you break the law, you get punished by the government leaders, in this case King Gasir and his underlings. Beating, imprisonment, mutilation, banishment, death, depending on the offense.” He added with a smile, “The usual stuff.”
Garn said nothing.
Thinking the matter was finished, Arduwyn turned.
Garn caught the hunter’s arm, drawing up beside him to talk. “You mean if someone hits me or insults Mitrian or steals everything we have, I’m not supposed to do anything about it?”
“Not exactly.” Arduwyn grinned again at Garn’s naiveté, for Mitrian’s benefit, but she was too caught up with gawking at the dense architecture and steady wash of traffic. “There’re provisions for things like that, Garn. I’m just saying to try talking before you try hitting.” Suddenly recognizing the potential offense of directing such a statement at one companion, Arduwyn turned his attention fully on Garn’s response.
Garn’s expression revealed more distress than resentment. “How long are we staying here?”
The question drew the attention of all of Garn’s companions. Arduwyn frowned. They had spent the last eight and a half months with Pudar as their goal. The idea of eventually going elsewhere had never occurred to him. “At least until the baby’s born. After that, you’ll have to decide whether you like this city enough to live here.” It occurred to Arduwyn that if they remained in one place too long, Rache would certainly find them. Colbey had expressly stated that the danger he foresaw for Rache would come about only if the two Northmen met, but other, more indirect statements suggested that a confrontation between Rache and Garn might also prove fatal. Relieved of his spying duties, Arduwyn hoped that whatever the problem between Rache and Garn, it would work itself out in time.
Arduwyn watched Garn’s expression, gradually realizing a deeper concern lay beneath the one the ex-gladiator had expressed. When Garn’s features did not knit further, Arduwyn guessed his friend was not facing the same struggle the hunter had so many times in the past: to stay or to yield to the lure of travel and forest. That Garn would dislike a town simply because it curtailed violence seemed ludicrous. He always acted suitably repentant when his temper flared beyond his control and seemed otherwise to loathe harming anyone.
Arduwyn studied Garn’s silently disgruntled form, trying to guess his thoughts from his meager knowledge of the larger man’s past. Once a slave, now a free man with a volatile temper. Combined with the realization that Garn apparently had a limited knowledge of laws, the answer came easily. It’s not violence he’s defending, it’s his right to use his own judgment. He’s so focused on freedom he sees rules as a serious restriction. “I don’t know if this’ll help, Garn, but every town and every culture has laws, even the decadent Easterners. You can’t avoid them. It’s one of the concessions you have to make for the conveniences that come with interacting with other people.”
The crowds thinned to couples and small groups as Arduwyn and his friends drew deeper into the inhabited portions of Pudar.
Encouraged by Garn’s change of expression from annoyed to pensive, Arduwyn continued. “The rules are all logical, the kinds of things anyone with principles would obey anyway. Crowd control mostly. If everyone in the city just started going after what he wanted, a few young, strong men would own everything. This way, the government has a recourse against the tiny handful of people without basic morality. So long as you consider the consequences your actions might have on other people before you do anything violent or extreme, you shouldn’t get into any trouble with the law.”
Laws seemed such a fundamental idea, Arduwyn felt strange defending them. But he also knew that laws and witnessed vows were a relatively recent development in human history. His grandfather used to tell stories, heard from his own grandfather, about a time when any man’s word was as strong as the laws of nature.
The Hungry Lion’s familiar sign came into view, its words a chipped yellow beneath a comical figure of the king of beasts clutching his stomach, a pained expression on his whiskered face. Pulled from his thoughts, Arduwyn pointed. “You still hungry, Sterrane?”
Sterrane nodded briskly, drawing his hands to his belly until he held nearly the same pose as the caricature on the sign.
The others laughed.
Arduwyn looped his donkey’s lead rope across a horizontal post before the tavern. Tugging his scimitar free of his gear, he belted it around his waist. He removed the packs from the animals’ back and passed them around for his companions to carry, giving Mitrian’s things to Garn. Though most contained only clothing and the last of their rations, Arduwyn saw no reason to tempt thieves. Once all the packs were shouldered, Arduwyn headed for the door, gripped the handle, and pulled.
The heavy oak and iron door opened to reveal beer-stained tables in three rows of two. A chest high bar concealed shelves of crockery and the cooking pit. Several patrons gathered for drinks or the evening meal, in singles, groups, and families including children. Smoke from the fire twined over the heads of those nearest the bar, rich with the aroma of bread and vegetables in a heavy meat sauce that Arduwyn had grown to love during his previous stays in Pudar. “We picked a good night.” Arduwyn held the door wide for his friends to enter. “The proprietor makes an excellent stew.”
Sterrane, Garn, and Mitrian filed inside. Arduwyn closed the door behind them. Turning to follow, he nearly collided with Sterrane who was still standing just inside the doorway. Amused by his companions’ ignorance of protocol that Arduwyn had deemed normal from childhood, he pointed to an empty table. “Let’s sit, hmmm?”
Most accustomed to social customs, Mitrian obeyed first, and the two men followed her example. Except for a few surreptitious glances, the other patrons seemed to take no notice of the newcomers.
The locals had long ago become used to people of a variety of sizes and races; even the conspicuous weaponry did not seem to bother them, though no one else in The Hungry Lion carried so much as a copper sword.
Arduwyn waited until the others were seated before accepting a chair across from Sterrane that left his back to the strangers but gave him a good view of the door and a sideways look at the bar. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a serving girl with a pitcher heading in their direction.
The cook fire smoke filled the room with a mist that, combined with the dizzyingly strong aroma of alcohol and the not-quite decipherable conversations, gave the tavern a homey, peaceful quality. Arduwyn slouched in his chair and closed his eyes. He loved the forests when spring brought them to life or when the air was sharp with the bite of winter, and the way the horizon always teased him over the next hill. But even chasing adventure could, in its own way, become tiresome. Security, permanence, and the warmth of friends and fire had an allure of their own, different but nonetheless special.
The clink of mugs caused Arduwyn to open his eyes. The serving girl leaned over Sterrane, clutching the pitcher in one hand as she groped through the pockets of her apron with the other. For an instant, their gazes met. Arduwyn recognized Bel at once. Her soulful dark eyes had hollowed more deeply into their sockets, and she was leaner than he liked or remembered. Yet still, her round cheeks and full lips attracted him every bit as much as before he had abandoned her and Kantar. Without saying good-bye. Arduwyn winced at the memory. For the first time in years, he sat, speechless. His mind and mouth would not work, so he had no choice but to trust his heart. And it told him he still loved this woman who was his best friend’s wife.
The Last of the Renshai Page 43