The Viscount and the Witch

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “No, we…”—he looked at Hadrian—“we help the new merchant.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m a creative problem solver.”

  “You bust-up Bernie’s store?”

  “No, that would get Andrew killed.”

  “What then?”

  “I hire the same thugs to trash the store of the wealthiest merchant in town—and tell them Bernie supplied the gold. Next day someone starts an ugly rumor that ’ole Bernie is causing trouble for his competition. The story is easily confirmed because of the first incident. The wealthy merchant, we can call him Sebastian, has connections—they always do. The next day a fire burns Bernie’s shop to the ground. Unfortunately for him, Bernie’s caught in the fire having accidently fallen asleep in his shop—tied to his bed.

  “The money we paid the thugs is only half of what Andrew paid us. We pocket the rest. Once I get Hadrian schooled in the art of intimidation, we’ll make more.”

  “They shouldn’t have killed him,” Hadrian said.

  “See what I have to deal with? Problem is, you don’t get too many jobs like that. But what you said about ransom is true. There can be good money in that if you grab the right target. Even he can’t complain too much about that kind of work.”

  “Well, in return for the meal, let me offer you a bit of advice,” Albert said. “We’re just outside the City of Colnora, and if I were you, I wouldn’t pull any kind of job around here, or the Black Diamond will be after you.”

  “Black Diamond?” Hadrian asked. “Is that the city patrol?”

  Albert chuckled, and Royce shook his head, looking at Hadrian as if he had dropped his pants in public.

  “You’re not from around here?” Albert asked.

  “From Hintindar, a tiny manorial village south on the Bernum river.”

  “And you’ve never heard of the Black Diamond?”

  “I haven’t been in the area much. I’ve been away for quite a few years.”

  “Oh,” Albert said. “Well, the Black Diamond is a thieves’ guild. Some would say the thieves’ guild. The most powerful and extensive one in the world. Their headquarters is just down that road in Colnora. And like any thieves’ guild, they don’t like interlopers. If they find out you’re practicing your trade around here, they’ll track you down and slit your throats. And trust me they’ll know. The Black Diamond is not an organization to toy with. Kings have been known to bow to them rather than face their wrath.”

  “Well, I hope they catch up with that woman who stole our horses then,” Hadrian said.

  “They already know about her,” Royce said. “She was Black Diamond.”

  “What do you—” Hadrian shook his head. “You knew? I can’t believe you didn’t say anything. You just let her take our horses and all our gear?”

  “What part of ‘you need to learn a lesson’ didn’t you understand?”

  “You’re insane, do you know that?”

  “Yeah, well you’re not the first to bring it up. But there’s nothing more to be done tonight. I suggest we settle in and get some sleep.”

  Royce scrambled up to the loft and bedded down there. Hadrian continued to stare in shock after him for a minute before giving up and mounding a pile of hay near the fire. “I honestly can’t believe him sometimes.”

  The nights were still chilly and by morning there was a damp fog hanging in the air. Royce was the first one up. He got the fire going again, which surprised Hadrian as they had nothing to cook. He likely built it out of boredom while he waited for Albert and Hadrian to wake. Most people would have done it to stave off the cold, but Hadrian had never seen Royce affected by the temperature, neither cold nor hot.

  “Morning,” Albert said as Hadrian sat up, shivered, and moved to the fire with the rest of them.

  He scrubbed his face with his hands and wiped his eyes clear. The day was cloudy and the valley filled with a thick mist. Hadrian enjoyed mornings like this, quiet and serene, like a drowsy pause a lazy world was taking. He crouched to catch the warmth of the fire while dodging the smoke.

  “So, where were you two headed before misfortune dropped you here with me?” Albert asked. He lay sprawled next to Hadrian, like a dog before a hearth.

  “Up north. A place called Medford,” Hadrian replied and began brushing hay off his shirt. “Royce has someone up there he wants to visit. Ever hear of it?”

  Albert nodded. “Capital of Melengar, royal seat of King Amrath and Queen Ann. They have two children, boy and girl. What’s their names…begins with A’s—all the Essendon’s names begin with A’s—Alric and Arista. Yes, that’s them. Close friends of the Pickerings. Have you ever seen Belinda Pickering?”

  Both Hadrian and Royce shook their heads.

  “She’s a fine beauty, but her husband has a bit of a temper. He’s very protective of her and good with a sword. But if you ever get a chance to see her, it’s worth chancing a look.”

  “You know a lot about these people,” Royce said.

  Albert shrugged. “I’m noble. We all know each other. There are many parties, balls, and feasts. Not to mention the holidays and weddings. Most of us are actually related.”

  Royce tapped his fingers to his lips. “Nobles have a lot more money than merchants.”

  “Well not all, clearly.” Albert made a wry smile, then the smile dropped and his eyes lit up. “Yes…yes they do. And they also have problems—problems that could use creative solutions. Court is a very interesting place, a bloodless battlefield where rumors can ruin lives and embarrassments can be worse than death. Many would pay great sums to avoid…or cause…such humiliations. The trick is discovering who needs what done and arranging for meetings.”

  Royce nodded. “I suspect nobles won’t speak to the likes of us.”

  “Of course not. They would never stoop so low as to confer with a commoner, much less a dubious one. They prefer to do business with their own kind. You would need a go-between, a representative, but he’d have to be noble.”

  “Too bad we don’t know anyone like that,” Royce said.

  “Well…with a haircut, shave, some new clothes—”

  “And no more rum,” Royce said.

  Albert grimaced. “But—”

  “No buts. You can stay here and die or work for us, and if you work for us, you work sober.”

  Albert rubbed his bristly chin. “That really should be an easy choice, shouldn’t it?”

  Hadrian spoke up. “Exactly how are we going to provide all this? Have you forgotten that we’ve lost everything? At the moment we’re not much better off than he is.”

  Royce smiled and stood up. “Details. Details. Are you two ready to go?”

  “I suppose you’ll want to hunt down that witch of a woman and kill her?” Hadrian inquired with a tone of distaste as they all began to walk up the slope of wildflowers.

  “You know,” Albert said, “for a soldier you don’t seem to care much for killing.”

  “I’ve seen enough of that to last three lifetimes. And I don’t relish the thought of hunting a woman, or like knowing what he’ll do when we find her.”

  “We aren’t going after the witch,” Royce said.

  “Really?” Hadrian asked. “But what about our horses and gear?”

  “Look.” Royce pointed up the remainder of the hill at the house. There, standing tethered to what was left of the porch, were their horses.

  “I don’t understand.” Hadrian trotted the rest of the way and checked their packs and saddles. “Everything’s here.”

  “They’ve been brushed and I expect fed and watered, too,” Royce said. “Oh and look,” he reached down and bent one of the horse’s legs to reveal a bright shoe underneath. “Freshly shod.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would she return them?”

  “I suspect she, or someone she reports to, read the note I left in my pack.”

  “You left a note for the thieves’ guild? What did it say?”

  “Just that they were my animals a
nd that they might want to reconsider taking them.”

  Albert and Hadrian exchanged looks of bewilderment.

  “They know me, and we have an arrangement. They leave me alone…and I leave them alone.”

  “You leave them alone?” Albert said in a mocking tone.

  Royce smiled at him. It was not a friendly smile.

  Royce searched his pack and pulled out a small bit of parchment.

  “What’s it say?” Albert asked.

  “Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience,” Royce recited, then chuckled before finishing. “The bitch didn’t know.”

  Royce held up the parchment and in a loud voice said, “Accepted.”

  Albert nervously looked at the trees around them. “They’re here?”

  “They’re watching to see what I’ll do.”

  “And what will you do?” Hadrian asked.

  Royce looked at Albert. “I think I’ll try fishing in a bigger pond, now that I have better bait. Shall we ride to Medford?”

  The viscount looked back in the direction of the barn and then down at his filth covered nightshirt. He nodded.

  “You can ride with me,” Hadrian said as he swung his leg over the saddle. Then addressing his friend he said, “Well, I hope you learned your lesson.”

  Royce raised an eyebrow. “Me?” He untied his horse and climbed on.

  “You said the world is a cold ruthless place.”

  “It is.”

  “You also said Albert would die from starvation in that barn—that no one would help him.” He smiled broadly and reached out to the viscount. “Care for a hand up, Albert?”

  “I’m only helping him for the profit he can—”

  “Doesn’t matter. You were wrong.”

  “I was not. I—”

  “Even if you’re doing it for selfish reasons, you’re still helping to save his life. It just goes to show that good can come from helping a stranger, and it proves that the world isn’t so bad after all.”

  Royce scowled. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and scowled again. Finally he just raised his hood and kicked his horse.

  “I’ll make a human being out of him yet,” Hadrian said to Albert as they trotted off after him.

  If you enjoyed the Viscount and the Witch

  Here's a little more of Royce and Hadrian

  Presenting...

  CHAPTER ONE OF THEFT OF SWORDS

  Hadrian could see little in the darkness, but he could hear them—the snapping of twigs, the crush of leaves, and the brush of grass. There were more than one, more than three, and they were closing in.

  “Don’t neither of you move,” a harsh voice ordered from the shadows. “We’ve got arrows aimed at your backs, and we’ll drop you in your saddles if you try to run.” The speaker was still in the dark eaves of the forest, just a vague movement among the naked branches. “We’re just gonna lighten your load a bit. No one needs to get hurt. Do as I say and you’ll keep your lives. Don’t—and we’ll take those, too.”

  Hadrian felt his stomach sink, knowing this was his fault. He glanced over at Royce, who sat beside him on his dirty gray mare with his hood up, his face hidden. His friend’s head was bowed and shook slightly. Hadrian did not need to see his expression to know what it looked like.

  “Sorry,” he offered.

  Royce said nothing and just continued to shake his head.

  Before them stood a wall of fresh-cut brush blocking their way. Behind lay the long moonlit corridor of empty road. Mist pooled in the dips and gullies, and somewhere an unseen stream trickled over rocks. They were deep in the forest on the old southern road, engulfed in a long tunnel of oaks and ash whose slender branches reached out over the road, quivering and clacking in the cold autumn wind. Almost a day’s ride from any town, Hadrian could not recall passing so much as a farmhouse in hours. They were on their own, in the middle of nowhere—the kind of place people never found bodies.

  The crush of leaves grew louder until at last the thieves stepped into the narrow band of moonlight. Hadrian counted four men with unshaven faces and drawn swords. They wore rough clothes, leather and wool, stained, worn, and filthy. With them was a girl wielding a bow, an arrow notched and aimed. She was dressed like the rest in pants and boots, her hair a tangled mess. Each was covered in mud, a ground-in grime, as if the whole lot slept in a dirt burrow.

  “They don’t look like they got much money,” a man with a flat nose said. An inch or two taller than Hadrian, he was the largest of the party, a stocky brute with a thick neck and large hands. His lower lip looked to have been split about the same time his nose was broken.

  “But they’ve got bags of gear,” the girl said. Her voice surprised him. She was young, and—despite the dirt—cute, and almost childlike, but her tone was aggressive, even vicious. “Look at all this stuff they’re carrying. What’s with all the rope?”

  Hadrian was uncertain if she was asking him or her fellows. Either way, he was not about to answer. He considered making a joke, but she did not look like the type he could charm with a compliment and a smile. On top of that, she was pointing the arrow at him and it looked like her arm might be growing tired.

  “I claim the big sword that fella has on his back,” flat-nose said. “Looks right about my size.”

  “I’ll take the other two he’s carrying.” This came from one with a scar that divided his face at a slight angle, crossing the bridge of his nose just high enough to save his eye.

  The girl aimed the point of her arrow at Royce. “I want the little one’s cloak. I’d look good in a fine black hood like that.”

  With deep-set eyes and sunbaked skin, the man closest to Hadrian appeared to be the oldest. He took a step closer and grabbed hold of Hadrian’s horse by the bit. “Be real careful now. We’ve killed plenty of folks along this road. Stupid folks who didn’t listen. You don’t want to be stupid, do you?”

  Hadrian shook his head.

  “Good. Now drop them weapons,” the thief said. “And then climb down.”

  “What do you say, Royce?” Hadrian asked. “We give them a bit of coin so nobody gets hurt.”

  Royce looked over. Two eyes peered out from the hood with a withering glare.

  “I’m just saying, we don’t want any trouble, am I right?”

  “You don’t want my opinion,” Royce said.

  “So you’re going to be stubborn.”

  Silence.

  Hadrian shook his head and sighed. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult? They’re probably not bad people—just poor. You know, taking what they need to buy a loaf of bread to feed their family. Can you begrudge them that? Winter is coming and times are hard.” He nodded his head in the direction of the thieves. “Right?”

  “I ain’t got no family,” flat-nose replied. “I spend most of my coin on drink.”

  “You’re not helping,” Hadrian said.

  “I’m not trying to. Either you two do as you’re told, or we’ll gut you right here.” He emphasized this by pulling a long dagger from his belt and scraping it loudly against the blade of his sword.

  A cold wind howled through the trees, bobbing the branches and stripping away more foliage. Red and gold leaves flew, swirling in circles, buffeted by the gusts along the narrow road. Somewhere in the dark an owl hooted.

  “Look, how about we give you half our money? My half. That way this won’t be a total loss for you.”

  “We ain’t asking for half,” the man holding his mount said. “We want it all, right down to these here horses.”

  “Now wait a second. Our horses? Taking a little coin is fine but horse thieving? If you get caught, you’ll hang. And you know we’ll report this at the first town we come to.”

  “You’re from up north, ain’t you?”

  “Yeah, left Medford yesterday.”

  The man holding his horse nodded and Hadrian noticed a small red tattoo on his neck. “See, that’s your problem.” His face softened to a sympathetic exp
ression that appeared more threatening by its intimacy. “You’re probably on your way to Colnora—nice city. Lots of shops. Lots of fancy rich folk. Lots of trading going on down there, and we get lots of people along this road carrying all kinds of stuff to sell to them fancy folk. But I’m guessing you ain’t been south before, have you? Up in Melengar, King Amrath goes to the trouble of having soldiers patrol the roads. But here in Warric, things are done a bit differently.”

  Flat-nose came closer, licking his split lip as he studied the spadone sword on his back.

  “Are you saying theft is legal?”

  “Naw, but King Ethelred lives in Aquesta and that’s awfully far from here.”

  “And the Earl of Chadwick? Doesn’t he administer these lands on the king’s behalf?”

  “Archie Ballentyne?” The mention of his name brought chuckles from the other thieves. “Archie don’t give a rat’s ass what goes on with the common folk. He’s too busy picking out what to wear.” The man grinned, showing yellowed teeth that grew at odd angles. “So now drop them swords and climb down. Afterward, you can walk on up to Ballentyne Castle, knock on old Archie’s door, and see what he does.” Another round of laughter. “Now unless you think this is the perfect place to die—you’re gonna do as I say.”

  “You were right, Royce,” Hadrian said in resignation. He unclasped his cloak and laid it across the rear of his saddle. “We should have left the road, but honestly—I mean, we are in the middle of nowhere. What were the odds?”

  “Judging from the fact that we’re being robbed—pretty good, I think.”

  “Kinda ironic—Riyria being robbed. Almost funny even.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Did you say Riyria?” the man holding Hadrian’s horse asked.

  Hadrian nodded and pulled his gloves off, tucking them into his belt.

  The man let go of his horse and took a step away.

  “What’s going on, Will?” the girl asked. “What’s Riyria?”

  “There’s a pair of fellas in Melengar that call themselves that.” He looked toward the others and lowered his voice a bit. “I got connections up that way, remember? They say two guys calling themselves Riyria work out of Medford and I was told to keep my distance if I was ever to run across them.”