Luck of the Wheels

by Megan Lindholm

  ‘… not enough time. It was a clear signal to the Duke that Tekum is not as quiet as he has been led to believe. Killing the Brurjans cost us three men and laid up five others. For what? For a half-dead stranger we can’t put any trust in. It was a mistake.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ It was the older man’s voice conceding that, placatingly. ‘But in any case, it’s too late to worry about it. It’s done. We have to go on with whatever tools we have. It’s too late to change the whole plan.’

  ‘It’s never too late for caution. I think we should try a whole different approach. An ambush of the Duke’s party …’

  ‘No.’ The older man again. ‘It’s too late for a sudden change like that. We’ll never get an opportunity like this again. Everything is in place. In two days the Duke will be here for the festival. The plans of Masterhold have fallen to us. When he goes down, our friends move on Masterhold. It falls to the Duchess.’ The man paused. His voice became graver. ‘But only if the Duke falls. We have two days to reestablish contact with our inside friend. Two days to get this man on his feet and convince him of the justice of our cause. Two days to show him there is only one way to redeem his honor.’

  ‘Redeem his honor?’ A youth’s voice, angry and incredulous. ‘He has none. You won’t reach him that way, Lacey, with talk of honor and right. Say rather that we have two days to convince him that he can do what we say and depart with coins, or die.’

  The older voice again. ‘He doesn’t look like a man who greatly fears death. I do not think he will be swayed by threats. I think we must appeal to his sense of justice …’

  ‘It would be a further waste of time to do so, and we have little enough as it is,’ a woman broke in. ‘No, Lacey. I’ve another way, one I’ve already set in motion, one that …’

  ‘Willow,’ Vandien gasped, finally placing the voice.

  He watched the heads turn to him. Willow’s eyes were flat, and she was dressed in a severe robe that was the color of parched grasslands. Hatred burned in her, but did not illuminate her. She cloaked it from all but him, and he felt it strike and burn into him like a pitch arrow. His eyes met Willow’s and he knew he was looking at his death. The coldness of that death washed over him suddenly, and he gave himself up to it.

  ‘Get up.’

  Vandien opened his eyes. ‘Me?’ His voice was thick; his tongue wanted to stick to the roof of his mouth.

  ‘Who else?’ The speaker was a young man with a tangle of blond hair and grey, almost colorless eyes. His sullen frown looked vaguely familiar. Vandien thought perhaps he had been one of the onlookers when he fought Kellich. Kellich. He winced from the memory and started to close his eyes. The youth kicked the edge of his bed, sending a painful jolt from the back of his skull throughout his whole body. ‘Don’t close your eyes when I’m talking to you, damn you! Get up!’

  He got up, moving faster than either he or the startled youth had believed he could. He paid for it in acid pain that exploded from his skull and drenched his body, but it fueled his sudden anger, and he found his hands about the boy’s throat, heard the back of the boy’s head bounce off the rough wall. ‘Please!’ the boy gasped, scrabbling at Vandien’s wrists.

  ‘Please what?’ he asked savagely. He found himself fully awake, totally confused but angry. He channelled the anger into meanness, thudding the boy again against the wall.

  ‘Please … let me … go! Please!’

  Vandien was still deciding when he felt the knife prod his lower back. ‘Let him down,’ a voice suggested pleasantly. An older, mature voice. The leader. The conversation he had dreamed suddenly came back to him. But there were still gaps in his recent memory and they angered him. Other people were entering the room.

  ‘I could break his neck before you killed me,’ he observed.

  ‘Then there would be two of you dead, and nothing achieved by it. Why not let him down and hear what I have to say before you kill anyone?’

  Vandien stared into the boy’s face. Terror stared back at him. The unfocused anger he felt was like a fog around him, driving him to violence. He wanted to hurt someone, to make someone pay for the pain and confusion he was experiencing.

  ‘Come now.’ The warmth of the man’s voice was like a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re overwrought, man. Don’t do a foolish thing on an impulse. You’ve done too many foolish things lately.’ He felt the pressure of the knife ease.

  ‘I want to know what’s going on,’ Vandien said harshly. ‘I want to know how I got here. I want to know …’ He stopped himself before he mentioned Ki and his need to know where and how she was. If they did not know of her, he wouldn’t drag her into his trouble.

  ‘And you will. If you let us tell you. Come. Let the boy go, sit down, have something to eat. We’re willing to answer all your questions. Just give us a chance.’

  An instant longer he held the boy; then he slowly took his hands away, let him slide gasping to the floor. He turned slowly, trying not to jar himself. The pain from his skull had not abated, and the slightest movement sent out waves of agony. But he hid it as he turned to face his captors and assess his prison.

  It was a fairly large place, with walls of mud brick and dirt floors. No windows, and only one door. It was poorly lit and shadows haunted it. Sacks of something were piled in one corner. In addition to the cot he had rested on, there was a worn chair, a plank table, an old saddle frame, and a tangle of leather harness straps dangling from pegs. A storage place of some kind? His attention went quickly to the folk that filled the place. About a dozen of them, he guessed, and all dressed in brown robes. A few had their hoods thrown back, but most gazed at him from deep within shadowy cowls. Willow did, but he spotted her anyway, almost instantly. She returned his gaze with a flat look of dislike unsettling in its intensity. He shifted his eyes away, appraised the others. Farmers and tradesmen, he thought to himself, studying the sturdy muddy boots that peeped out from under the robes, the muscled hands that clutched at the fronts of their garments. None of them had the bearing of soldiers. Nor the discipline, he observed, as one man demanded, ‘Who put you in charge, Lacey?’

  ‘Who said I wasn’t? This is my place, and I’m the one taking all the chances. So we run it my way.’ Lacey looked slowly around the assemblage. Few met his gaze, but Willow did, staring her cold defiance. Vandien noted that Lacey’s eyes moved away from hers, breaking free of that challenge. No one else disputed his authority, so Lacey cleared his throat and said, ‘One of you bring him some food. The rest of you … if you must stay, sit down instead of milling around like sheep.’

  As the others moved slowly to his suggestion, Lacey turned to Vandien. ‘Come, man, sit down. Over here.’ He gestured toward the rickety table and old chair. Vandien followed him slowly, carefully aware of the way the folk parted to let him pass. Lacey indicated he should sit, while he himself leaned up against the wall. Vandien sat, and as he did so he became aware of what an effort it had been to stand. He pressed his feet against the floor to still the shaking of his legs. Damn poor time to be feeling this weak.

  Lacey appeared to be studying him. Vandien stared back. Dark eyes, jutting nose … Lacey suddenly became the man from his dream, and the dream suddenly became an earlier awakening. The realization further disoriented him. He sat, staring silently at the man. Someone clomped a tureen of soup down before him; the greyish gravy slopped over the lip and puddled on the table. A slab of bread and a wooden spoon were tossed down beside it. Vandien made no sign of noticing it or the server.

  ‘Go ahead and eat,’ Lacey said gently. ‘It’s been a day and a half. You must be hungry.’

  The displacement in time made him feel suddenly shaky, or perhaps it was the greasy aroma of the soup. His hunger suddenly superceded all things, and he tore a piece off the slab of bread, sopped it in the soup and filled his mouth. It was not the flavor of the soup, which was greasy and strongly spiced, which swamped his senses, but rather the physical act of eating. The jarring headache that had become a part
of him lessened in intensity, and he suddenly felt more inclined to be rational. He glanced up at Lacey, found him watching him closely. For that matter, every eye in the place seemed to be fixed on him as he ate. He swallowed. ‘So?’ he asked Lacey.

  ‘You killed Kellich.’ A statement, not an accusation.

  Vandien nodded silently. He wouldn’t tell them he hadn’t intended to; to Kellich’s friends it could only sound like an excuse. For an instant their eyes met. Vandien turned his attention back to the food, uncertain of what he’d read in Lacey’s eyes.

  ‘Kellich was our best. Our hopes were pinned on him. You know that Festival starts two days from now, here in Tekum?’ He paused to harvest a brief nod from Vandien.

  ‘And that the Duke will be here, to collect the high-summer shares from the farmers.’

  A shrug from Vandien. He continued eating, trying not to betray his intense curiosity. What was the man leading up to? It was obviously not vengeance for Kellich’s death; he could have killed Vandien at any time in the past day or so, or just left him to the Brurjans to execute. So what was it?

  ‘The Duke enjoys many sports, most of them of the bloodier varieties. But his especial favorite is swordplay. He always watches the matches during Festival, and awards a medallion bearing his image to the man he judges the best. We had planned on Kellich winning that medal. We had even taken steps to insure that there would be no competitor even close to his skill level.’

  Vandien scraped the last spoonful of soup from the bowl. The noise seemed loud in the silence of the room. What the hell could be so important to them about winning a medallion for swordplay? He doubted that town pride could be so important in a place where even the merchants looked badgered. He glanced briefly at the assembled folk, saw how they watched him as Lacey spoke. Waiting for his reaction, dangling after a word from him. He cheated them of it, simply staring at Lacey and waiting.

  Lacey sighed. ‘After Kellich had won the medallion, the Duke would be likely to invite him to dine with him, in his private rooms, probably the ones over the Byroad Inn. And after a meal and a few glasses of wine, the Duke would invite him to a friendly match of the blades.’

  Vandien allowed himself to speak. ‘What makes you think so? Every nobleman I’ve ever had to do with was unusually cautious about exposing himself to an enemy’s blade. Or do you think he’d have believed Kellich was his loyal subject?’

  Lacey’s eyes fell to the scarred tabletop. A spasm of pain crossed his face, then vanished. ‘We think he would do so, because he has done so every Festival for the last four years. Always he dines with the winner of the medallion, always he offers to pit his blade against the winner’s.’ Lacey’s voice grew suddenly hoarse. ‘He is a very fine swordsman, our Duke. And knows it. Always he kills the winner of the medallion …’

  Vandien was wiping his bowl out with the rind of the bread. ‘And fools keep on trying to win it?’ he asked scathingly.

  Lacey stared at him. Another man spoke, a hooded man seated on one of the sacks stacked against the wall. ‘It is not like a tournament where there is one final winner. The Duke watches all the matches, but there is no one final match. There is simply a time when he says, “Enough!” Or he may ask two chosen men to fence against one another. Then, to those who have pleased him, he gives gold, a heavy pouchful, enough to take a man and his family through the year. And to the one who has fought the best, in his own private judgement, he gives the medallion.’

  Vandien nodded sourly to himself. Sadistic bastard. He’d wager that times had been bad enough in Loveran that many men were willing to bet their lives against a sack of gold. The challenge probably seemed easy to most of them: fight well enough to win often, but not well enough to be the best. He sighed. ‘Kellich thought he was good enough to win the medallion. And then what? Good enough to fight the Duke and kill him?’

  ‘No,’ Lacey said softly. ‘No one thought Kellich was good enough to win against the Duke. But Kellich’s blade was to carry a slow poison. Kellich was willing to make a sacrificial reach to get past the Duke’s guard and bloody him.’

  ‘No!’ Willow cried suddenly, wildly. ‘That wasn’t what he planned. Not to die! Never to die! He told me he was good enough, that he was sure he could wound the Duke and still win the match. That he would come away from it alive and we would be married, that we would live together many long years …’ Her face had gone very pale beneath the shadowing hood, her eyes two bright coals of witchfire.

  Lacey shook his head slowly. ‘No, Willow. So he told you, to give you courage. But he knew he would have to die, would have to stop caring about his own guard to get in past the Duke’s. We all knew Kellich would have to die to win.’

  ‘No!’ Willow staggered forward from where she had been leaning against the wall. She pushed her hood back, revealing how she had shorn her coppery hair for grief. It stood up in wild licks from her skull, making her look pathetically vulnerable.

  ‘Believe me, child,’ Lacey whispered. ‘None of us wanted it that way. But we knew … and you must have seen that even if Kellich could outfight the Duke, even if he could wound him and somehow win the match, that the Duke would never let him leave those chambers alive. Even if he had been sure of a killing thrust, the Brurjan guards would have killed Kellich within moments. That was the reason for the poison, and finding a Brurjan who could be bribed not to find Kellich’s blade tainted.’ Lacey sighed. ‘But now it has all gone to ruin. Goat stole from you the names of the guards who could be bribed. And Vandien killed Kellich.’

  ‘No.’ Willow spoke the word in a sullen child’s voice, as if she had been instructed to fetch water or go to bed early. ‘No. Kellich wouldn’t have gone along with that. He loved me.’

  ‘Willow.’ Lacey’s voice stopped hers. ‘It was Kellich’s plan. He brought it to us, and we refused it. Until he made us see it was our only chance.’

  ‘No! You’re making that up, you’re lying to me!’

  No one was contradicting her. No one had to. Eyes gazed at the floor, at the ceiling, at Vandien’s chair, at anything but Willow. No one moved to comfort her. Vandien suddenly had the perception of her being alone in the room, set apart from all the others. She had been a tool for their politics, her love for Kellich turned to the good of the rebellion. And now she was a tool that had failed, had lost its edge and usefulness. She had not needed to know the true plan, had been more useful in her ignorance. Their letting her perceive the whole thing now could have only one meaning: that she was no longer of any use to them at all. Vandien felt a chill in his belly as he wondered how thorough they were about tidying up loose ends. Willow stood where she was, hugging herself. She was not weeping; it sounded as if all her strength was consumed by breathing. Her shoulders rose and fell with every rasping breath she took.

  ‘It was a stupid plan from the start,’ he observed, breaking the silence. ‘Full of holes. Any plan where you don’t expect to survive is inherently bad. To think that because a Brurjan took your bribe he would actually do what you paid him for is ignorance. Rather he’d turn around and betray you for the extra his master would pay him for it. And slow poison … where’s the sense in that? So the Duke would have plenty of time to torment Kellich and make him betray the rest of you?’

  ‘Kellich wouldn’t betray anyone!’ Lacey declared firmly. ‘Our cause was sacred to him, his highest purpose in life. And the slow poison did have a reason; it was to give us time to negotiate with the Duke. Once he sickened, we’d let him believe we had a cure for it. A cure he could buy only by a gradual surrender of power. Our first demand would be that he disband his Brurjans. Next we would ask that the Duchess assume control while he recovered. Then we would …’

  ‘Idiocy.’ Vandien spoke softly, then glanced around the room, shaking his head. Farmers and tradesmen, artisans and tavernkeepers. It was all wrong. Where was the authority behind the rebellion, the shrewd political players guiding it? Lacey couldn’t even assume he had authority here. It was wrong, all wrong. ‘
Look,’ he said gently. ‘Everything I’ve seen about your Duke and his reign makes your plan laughable. If he thinks he’s dying, he’s not going to negotiate. He’s going to start a bloodbath in hopes of taking you with him. What would he have to lose? He’d figure he could capture one of you and wring the antidote out of him. And the Brurjans? They have a saying: “Only a vulture is friends with the dying.” There’d be no restraints on what they’d do, disbanded or not. You’d plunge all of Loveran into a nightmare. It would gain you nothing. The Duke might die, but the Brurjans would pick your bones clean.’

  His eyes darted from face to face, hoping for some sign of understanding, one gleam of enlightenment. There were none. The rebels stared back at him, their eyes flat and disbelieving.

  ‘It’s too late for us to back out now,’ Lacey said softly.

  Vandien leaned back, crossed his arms on his chest. ‘That’s too bad,’ he said in an equally soft voice. ‘Because I believe it’s never too late to avoid stupidity. Even if I believed in your cause, even if I could go along with something as low as a poisoned blade, I couldn’t go along with the sheer foolishness of this plan. Find yourself another sword.’

  ‘We’re prepared to offer you …’

  ‘Offer me the moon, I still won’t go along with this. By your own admission, win or lose, I die.’

  ‘You won against Kellich. There’s always the chance you could defeat the Duke and …’

  ‘Face his Brurjans. No thanks.’

  ‘But if some of our men were willing to break in afterwards, help you with the Brurjans so you …’ Lacey broke off suddenly, making a motion for silence. It wasn’t necessary. Everyone had already frozen. From outside came the sound of hoofbeats. All heard the horse reined in outside the door. ‘Be still,’ Lacey breathed. He’d gone pale. Strain showed on every face. Except Willow’s. There was something akin to a smile on her mouth as she rose, defying Lacey’s command, and walked to the door. She eased it open a crack, then glanced back over her shoulder at them.