Not Quite Scaramouche

by Joel Rosenberg

  Niphael and Verahan were next, for no particular reason except that they reminded Walter of Jack Spratt and his wife – Niphael, thin enough to look sickly, his complexion made to look only worse by his choice of the baronial orange and green as colors for his striped tunic, rather than merely decorations; Verahan, who apparently had never met a pig part he didn't like, managed to munch on a huge joint he held in his hand without so much as dropping an ounce of fat on the vast acres of linen that covered his heroically massive belly. Which was just as well – pig fat probably wouldn't go with black and orange piping, and definitely wouldn't go with the snowy white of his tunic.

  There would have been an argument for Walter and Aiea to be at the emperor's table, but nobody had suggested that – at least, not in Walter's presence – and if the alternative was sitting with Bren Adahan and Kirah, while there was some discomfort involved with that, it had to be better than sitting with Beralyn, watching her every move and wondering if she was going to sprinkle some poison in his soup.

  Then there was the other empty table: Cullinane. Every once in a while, somebody would glance over at it, as though to make the point that Jason Cullinane wasn't here, and how that showed at best marginal respect for the emperor.

  Shit. Walter Slovotsky wished that Ellegon were here. It would be nice to slip out and take a quick dragonback ride over to the barony and find out what the hell was going on. Pulling Cullinane heads out of Cullinane asses was something that Slovotsky had been doing for twenty years, and it was a habit he apparently wouldn't be able to give up, not yet.

  Still...

  Parliament hadn't opened yet, so the boy wasn't – at least technically – late.

  But where the hell was Jason Cullinane?

  Soon enough, he thought. The boy will be here soon enough. He'd damned well better.

  Chapter 7

  The Road

  Morning broke all sunny and blue-skied and clear, the threat of storm and rain that had hovered over their campground all night having melted in the light of the early morning sun, along with the thin predawn fog, as well as Pirojil's nightly nightmares.

  It was good to be still in his blankets, warm and cozy until he moved, while somebody else started the fire and got things moving. Off in the distance, the quiet whicker of Pirojil's big bay gelding announced that somebody – probably Kethol – was tending to the horses.

  The baron was, as usual, quick to rise, and – likely over the objections of Kethol, who had had the last watch – he had started the morning cookfire, and had a billy of water already boiling by the time that Pirojil rolled out of his blankets and got to his feet, the rough ground hard and cold beneath his callused feet.

  His boots stood, waiting, at the foot of his ground bed – Pirojil had been a soldier long enough to know that while wearing your boots at night gave you a few extra moments in case of an emergency, it was better as a matter of policy to let your boots air out and the scabs on your feet air-dry at night whenever possible.

  Jason Cullinane's smile was, as usual, natural and easy as he eyed Pirojil over the rim of his cup. "Tea's had enough time to steep this morning," he said, "and it's pretty good." He raised an eyebrow. "Can I pour you a cup?"

  Pirojil grunted, not sure whether he meant yes or no. He didn't like waking up in the morning.

  Oh, in an emergency, he could go from deep sleep to instant, violent wakefulness in just a few heartbeats, but that wasn't his natural tendency. He was no noble, used to dallying in bed while the servants cooked and served him breakfast and brought him a warmed chamberpot, but it would be nice to try that once again – to try that, for once.

  The baron misread his grunt. "Yes, yes, yes, I know: the baron doesn't cook the food and serve the soldiers." His smile broadened. When he smiled, he looked about twelve years old, instead of almost twice that. There was nothing of artifice in that smile, nothing of calculation. "You'd think, by now, that people would be used to the idea that we Cullinanes do things our own way."

  "I noticed that right away, myself." Toryn smiled. Pirojil didn't like that expression on him; it seemed too condescending. And, for that matter, Pirojil didn't like the way that the tall, slim man seemed fully rested and refreshed as he dawdled over his mug of tea, every hair on his head and pointed black beard combed neatly into place. Pirojil didn't like much about the slaver – no, the ex-slaver; it was important to remember that – but, as usual, the world didn't much care what Pirojil did or didn't like.

  Toryn took another sip. "You've served the Cullinane family for some years; one would think you would have accustomed yourself to their ways." His tone was just this side of an overt insult.

  Yes, Pirojil didn't say, I'm used to it. I was long used to it when doing things his own way got his father, the Old Emperor, blown to bloody little bits on a Melawei beach. And, if I have to, I'll get used to Jason Cullinane's doing things his own way killing him every bit as dead.

  But, Pirojil didn't say, it would be nice if I didn't have to.

  "I... it's good tea, true enough," he said, then took a sip, his first sip.

  Toryn chuckled.

  And it was good tea, strongly flavored with cinnomeile, with a vague but biting touch of pepper to it, smoothed out by sweet honey.

  Ahira, the dwarf, walked out from behind the remnants of an old stone wall, buckling his thick belt around his even thicker waist.

  "Good morning, all," he said, his voice a gravelly basso rumble, curiously smooth and melodic around the edges. "We'd best be up and on our way; there's been a fire burning down the road since before dawn." He rubbed a thick hand against his face, smearing blood from jaw to cheekbone. Ahira had, for some reason or other, taken to shaving lately, and the effect was to leave his huge, massive, improbably wide jaw even more prominent and as ugly, perhaps, as Pirojil's own.

  You got used to having the dwarf around after a while, but then, every now and then, the differences were somehow more shocking for your not having noticed them: the improbably wide body, massive shoulders and torso over stumpy legs; the craggy, ageless face that could have been thirty years old or three hundred; the knobby knuckles, like walnuts under the skin. You could forget easily, too easily, that Ahira wasn't really human, but another, older kind entirely, but only for so long. Then it would hit you like a slap in the face.

  The dwarf sang a quiet little song as he packed up his gear, thick fingers moving with a dexterity that was no less surprising for its familiarity. Pirojil couldn't make out the words – it wasn't in Erendra, and Pirojil knew only a little Dwarvish – but it was a cheerful sort of thing, with a recurring refrain something like, "he ho," or something similarly cheery.

  Pirojil grunted. Again. If there was anything more irritating in the morning than a cheerful baron and a condescending former slaver, it would have to be a cheerful dwarf.

  It was best to keep such opinions to himself.

  He walked over to the cookfire, and warmed his fingers. There were times when his opinion would be listened to, and times when it wouldn't.

  Splitting the party in two was one of the times it hadn't been. The idea was that, if there was a problem at one campsite, there was a rescue party close by. Pirojil would rather – much rather – have had the entire group under protection. Yes, in theory, it wouldn't be his and Kethol's fault if something happened to the Cullinane women, if somehow, somebody got past their five guards.

  But when you went soldiering, you didn't sign up for avoiding blame – you signed up to obey orders, to protect those to whom you owed fealty, to stand between sharp metal and soft flesh ...

  Shit. Well, it wasn't his choice. If what he wanted was a world full of choices, he could take his share of the money the three of them had cached, and go out and make all his own choices.

  Instead, he squatted in front of the fire and warmed his fingers.

  He could tell that it was Erenor who had started the fire; while Erenor wasn't much of a wizard, except, of course, for his illusions, he was a good hand
with a fire. Come to think of it, that probably came with the territory – Andrea Cullinane, whom Pirojil still thought of as the empress, even if, technically, she was one of two dowager empresses, had always been quick with a fire.

  And he wasn't too terribly slow himself, not since he had discovered, quite by accident, that a little bit of gunpowder – a quarter charge was ample – combined with a spark from flint on steel or steel on flint, would let an ordinary soldier such as himself start a fire as readily as even a wizard.

  "Sleep well?" Erenor asked, as though it was something that he cared about, which seemed unlikely on the face of it. Pirojil could swear quite easily and honestly that he hadn't been so solicitous when he had wakened Erenor for his turn on watch. Pirojil had simply toed the wizard awake, waited until Erenor had grunted and gotten to his feet, then staggered over to his own blankets, kicked off his boots, and was asleep before his head actually hit the ground.

  Pirojil just grunted.

  "One would think," Erenor said, "that you think that I don't care if you passed a pleasant night."

  Pirojil didn't think, he didn't say, that he didn't see why Erenor would have any reason to care if he had passed a kidney stone.

  The wizard raised an eyebrow. "But of course I do," he said, as though he had read Pirojil's thoughts with the same ease that he could read the blurry glyphs on the vellum pages of his spell books. "And not merely because you are far more grouchy when you have not gotten your rest." The long, almost aristocratic fingers of his left hand made a complicated and pretentious gesture.

  "And what would that reason be?" Jason Cullinane asked. "I'm curious."

  "Lord Baron, may not even a simple soldier have a secret or six?"

  Toryn laughed. "It's much easier to keep a secret, Erenor," he said, "if you don't announce that you're doing so."

  Erenor started to say something, but stopped himself and turned back to the baron.

  "Well..." Jason Cullinane's mouth twitched. "Well, I don't see why not."

  Pirojil didn't like the way Ahira looked long and hard at Erenor.

  Yes, yes, he and Kethol were loyal to the Cullinanes, but they weren't mere appendages. They were soldiers, and their loyalty was that of soldiers, not tenant serfs. Erenor's status as a wizard was as much their own property as their swords and their cache of gold, and while circumstances had forced them to share the secret with Walter Slovotsky, circumstances had not forced them to share it with the young baron.

  The young fool, was more like it. Jason Cullinane had been the heir to the silver crown of the Prince of Bieme, and Emperor of Holtun-Bieme, and he had given it over to Thomen Furnael on little more than a whim.

  That had always bothered Pirojil. It was wrong to give up a position without a fight.

  He hadn't, after all. He had lost the fight before it began, of course, the moment that the elf –

  No. He had other things to think about, he thought, his fist clenching, the inward-turned stone on his ring pressed hard against his hand.

  Kethol, his own hands protected by thick leather gloves, slid down the rope from his perch high in the old oak tree. "There is some movement on the road to our south; the others are on their way. When we get moving, we will not be the first to do so this day." He gave the end of the rope a hefty shake: the end tied around the high branch loosened, as if by magic, and the rope fell to the ground all in a neat heap.

  Kethol grinned at him; Pirojil had never quite gotten the hang of that trick, and it gave Kethol innocent pleasure to be able to best Pirojil at something where the only thing at stake was convenience.

  Kethol looked pointedly at where the horses were hobbled, still unsaddled, and then at Erenor, whose job it was to saddle and unsaddle the horses.

  Jason Cullinane chuckled. "Go a bit easy on our friend," he said, handing another steaming mug to Erenor, unselfconsciously, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a baron to wait upon his soldiers, as though they were the nobility and he was the servant. "He reminds me a little of Walter; the Slovotsky family tends to wake up slowly." He smiled smugly over the rim of his mug, as though over a private joke.

  The top limb of the sun was above the far hills by the time camp was broken and they were on their way.

  Too long. Pirojil didn't like it. If it had been up to Pirojil, they wouldn't have been traveling in the daytime in the first place, or heading back toward the capital at all.

  Yes, the night was in some senses a better time for an ambush, but with the dwarf with them, ideally riding point, that danger would have been minimized. Pirojil wasn't sure exactly what Ahira could see in the dark – he couldn't read, for example – but his night vision was a lot better than even Kethol's night vision.

  And if it had been up to Pirojil, they wouldn't have been traveling along the Prince's Road at all. The direct route was fine for most travel, and necessary for trade – but escort duty was a different matter.

  Not that anybody had asked his opinion. Or Kethol's. Or Erenor's. Working for the Cullinane family was better than working for any other nobility that Pirojil had been involved with, but it wasn't all that different.

  "Let's get moving; we're wasting daylight," Jason Cullinane finally said.

  About time.

  An old tune his father used to whistle ran through Kethol's head as he rode, although he didn't let it come to his lips. That was the thing about riding point. Even though you were out of the immediate hearing of the others – you would have to yell, or at least raise your voice, in order to be heard – part of the job was to keep your ears clear, as well as your eyes open. There wasn't any particular reason to be expecting trouble – except that was a big part of what their job was: to expect trouble, and then to handle it.

  Kethol missed Durine's reassuring bulk, but he could more feel than sense Pirojil's presence half a kalikan behind, riding just behind the baron, and Erenor was riding drag – the perfect spot for him, as Erenor seemed to have been born to be looking and listening over his shoulder, waiting for some trouble he had no doubt earned to catch up with him.

  Kethol liked taking the lead – yes, there was a bit more risk to it, supposedly. But any bones player wasn't averse to risk, and any soldier who was, was either crazy or a fool, and Kethol was neither. Yes, he went along with Pirojil's idea of stashing some money for the three of them to buy a farm, or tavern, or brothel, or something else to support them in their old age, but now there were only two of them, unless they decided to cut Erenor in – which wasn't impossible, but wasn't particularly likely – and in some way that he couldn't quite explain, not even to himself, Durine's death had taken all the pleasure from thinking of it. He had pictured the three of them sitting on a porch somewhere, drinking wine – out of glasses, perhaps, and not just mugs – being waited on by women in low-cut, short shifts, who had to be careful when they bent over, lest their breasts come tumbling out... ... and that used to be a fine daydream.

  Shit.

  It probably wouldn't be a problem, anyway. It wasn't like they were likely to reach old age, after all. It could happen, particularly if by some magic the peace persisted, but there was trouble on the Kiarian border, and increasing ore problems in the north, and Kethol had no particular faith that the emperor's plan to return control of the Holtish baronies to the Holts wouldn't end up triggering a war of secession, or rebellion of the Biemish barons, for that matter.

  He smiled to himself. Maybe he was crazy or a fool, or both: he found that reassuring. Perhaps he wouldn't have if Leria had been back in Keranahan, but she wasn't. She was safe, in Biemestren, and well-guarded, and even if streams of war were to overflow the banks and run red all across the land, it was unlikely that they would so much as touch the hem of her dress.

  He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he suddenly realized that it was too quiet. Yes, he could hear – and count, if he had a mind to – the clopping of the hooves of the horses behind him, and the rattle and whisper of the breeze through the brush and the
leaves of the trees, but... where were the birds? Where was the high-pitched chittering of the brown squirrels and the lower tones – almost grunts – of the black?

  Kethol had been raised in the woods – not, granted, these woods, but an older, darker forest – and he knew the smells, the sights, and the sounds. Particularly the sounds.

  He cursed himself for an idiot and a fool, but cut off the thought with a savageness that was just this side of physical. There would be time enough for blaming himself later on.

  He pulled his horse to a stop, then dismounted, pretending to check its left rear hoof. Pirojil kicked his dull brown gelding into a quick canter and was quickly at his side.

  "Your horse wasn't limping," he said, dropping heavily to the dirt of the road.

  "Listen," Kethol said. Sometimes Pirojil could be as thick-witted as Kethol himself.

  Pirojil cocked his head to one side, thick lips pursed together in thought. "I don't hear anything."

  "Me, neither. Nothing. The birds aren't singing, or chirping, or anything." Kethol drew his belt dagger and pretended to pry at a stone lodged in the hoof. "Which means," he said, "that either the animals and birds around here aren't used to men and horse traveling along the Prince's Road – "

  "Which I beg to doubt."

  “– or something else has them frightened into silence."

  Pirojil's mouth twitched. "An ore, or two?"

  "Maybe." But this far south? Granted, they had recently run to ground an ore farther north in Barony Cullinane – vicious creature, almost as vicious as the three of them were, although not quite – and it was certainly a possibility.

  Maybe Kethol was wrong, but he felt sure that he could smell an ore far off, and with the way the wind was blowing, it should have brought that acrid scent to him. After a few years in either the woods or the kind of soldiering that the three of them had been doing, you developed a sense of when you were and weren't being watched.