The guardsman’s eager young face peered past the fallen forest of black beams, “From the Reunification War, then?”
“No, Theodemar.” I could not stifle a sigh as I picked my way out of the wreckage, “This happened only two years ago, four at most.”
I pointed my boots back toward the pool when Theodemar caught up with me, jingling discordantly, “How can you tell?”
I worked the knots out of my jaw, desperately trying to keep my voice light and easy going, “The plants were growing through the ash. There were a few saplings, less than an inch wide and hip height.”
Theodemar the walking chime came to a complete stop, turned back to look backwards, and then caught up to me as I palmed water out of the pool to my mouth. “Sir, sir? How did you know… I mean, I understand how you know, but how did you see…? What I mean to say is: Why did you notice that?”
I stubbornly brought another clear handful of water to my face, but inside I saw a tadpole trying to find a way out. I dropped the water as my stomach turned. “I don’t know.”
Gelia walked up to the well, a silver decanter held in her wrinkled fists like a weapon. Her face was set in an expression of cold stone, “The mistress commands a word.”
Commands? I swallowed a growl and folded my grimace into a smile, “Of course, good priestess.”
Of course she commands a word; She can theoretically command anything she wants. I comforted myself with the idea that other than the few boys, she was in charge of a nun, two horses and a cat. Any noble could command the wind, but unless they parted their legs and made it themselves it did them little good. Those thoughts sustained my temper as I made my way to the carriage window. My only source of annoyance now was that Theodemar decided to follow at my side like a puppy in chain link armor.
“Sir?” Lady Aelia pushed back the curtains, lips pursed in mid thought, “You know you are going to have to come up with something to call you except for ‘swordsman,’ ‘sir,’ or ‘you, there.’”
I bowed slightly, “I will endeavor to pick out something appropriate Milady.”
“Very good.” Her eyes probed my cherubic features, having caught a whiff of sarcasm and seeking out the source, proving again she was more perceptive than I would have guessed, “I watched you range bravely ahead approaching the ruin. It seems to me a fine idea. You should take one of the guards and keep watch ahead in case of more banditry.”
I smiled sweetly, “Of course, good Lady”
She matched my expression, and I wondered if there was also a mirrored hostility beneath it, “Carry on, then.”
I bowed and backed off from the carriage, feeling my insides twist a bit. I walked out back to the ruts and looked down the curving road, cursing my bad luck. It was one thing to walk while others got to ride, it was another to be forced to walk twice the distance, ranging back and forth to sweep for trouble. Not to mention winding up the first one into the bear trap if there was an ambush. I considered just going off into the woods and leaving them completely. To my north and west were the Ridge Mountains. To the east was Sorrow Woods, a place not named because of the light and airy denizens of the dark hollows and swampy valleys. The only convenient way was southward. In that case, I might as way tag along.
Again, within seconds there was the telltale sound of a thousand cats made of empty cans pouncing on one another. I took a deep breath to steady myself. Theodemar was the nearest thing the Lady Aelia had to a guard captain, or a lieutenant, or a sergeant. Considering their ages, they were barely footmen. He was the first to enter Aelia’s service amongst his peers, and so now leadership fell to him. At least it should have.
“Are we ready to forge ahead, Hero?”
Heat pulsed behind my eyes, and I could not completely remove the wasps from my voice, “First: Never call me that again. Second: We are not ready. Third: We are not going. I am going. You stay with the carriage.”
Theodemar set his face into a picture perfect expression of young (read: Ignorant) determination. “Pardon, Sir, but I am commanded to come with you. The Lady believes that four eyes will see more than two.”
I turned to face the boy, and it struck me that his cheeks were flushed, the rest of his face pale, and it was nowhere near cold enough for his hands to be trembling like that. The kid didn’t want to do this any more than I did, but for different reasons. Despite my best efforts, I softened to him, shaking my head in resignation, “Very well. Go and rid yourself of that chainmail, the shield, and spear. If you have some bows, we should take them.”
He nodded and headed off like a good little soldier. I sighed again. I appreciated his ability to snap to orders without complaint, but it just didn’t seem right. My only qualification for giving out orders to Aelia’s guards was appearing from nowhere and swinging a sword with just enough skill not to die. Which, the Fog mocked, wasn't exactly true since without the potion from the princess I would be dead. He should be questioning me, pushing me, requiring more from me than simply an order. Then again, the kid was a guard. I get the vague certainty at the base of my skull that all nobles have a skeleton or two in the closet. Or in the dungeon. Occasionally one or two in a tower somewhere. And there’s always a legion or three more buried all over the countryside. He was probably discouraged from asking too many questions lest he become one of them.
I busied myself tying the Phantom Angel to my back with a thong, cursing the lack of a proper sheath, but it wasn’t discomfort or inconvenience that was fouling my mood. The man from the spring had been the same lunatic in the mirror in the keep. He was following me, or at least the delusion was.
Theo trotted back without his armor or livery, but I swear inside his gear he looked like a guard, out of it he was an off duty guard. He could not have been on the job for longer than a year, but it had already worked itself into his very bones.
“We were in luck. We brought these,” He said handing over a crossbow and a bundle of quarrels, “for foraging.”
And he was right. A war grade crossbow could put a quarrel half through a horse or a tree, and could core an unarmored man without slowing down. Even the heaviest of plate armor would become an expensive tomb as the iron head crumpled in the breastplate, slowly suffocating the knight while pinning his lungs to his backbone. What I had in my hands was no toy, but it wouldn’t do if we came up against… Why is he staring at me? I opened my mouth and the truth popped out, “Why are you staring at me?”
Theo jumped, and then smiled self-consciously, “You really look like you know what you are doing.”
I grunted and went back to the bow, testing the strength of the catch on the trigger bar, examining the twist on the string for fraying, and giving the groove an eye for straightness.
“Can you teach me what you are doing?”
I stopped; Staring at him as dozens of replies flicked behind my eyes, each one of varying levels of nasty. I was going through them the way a lover picks rare flowers out of rich soil, the only question was how much scorn I could get away with, and how badly I needed his help in the future. My stomach fell as some part of me took a step back and judged myself the way I was now judging him.
The boy’s brow wrinkled and his smile became frightened and fragile as he retreated a bit. “Is it something I said?”
And that was when I realized that I was still staring at him like he was a roach beneath my falling foot. Seventeen excuses fluttered inside my head, and I settled on the simplest. I faked a gargantuan sneeze, sniffled a bit and blinked my eyes furiously, smiling like a man caught behind a bush with his trousers down, “My apologies. That one was building for a whole day.”
His expression said, Oh!, and he bobbed his head knowingly. I turned toward the road and waved him on, a smile of friendly sincerity hurriedly slapped on my face. I hooked the quiver of bolts onto my belt, sneering inside that it did not have a ring to be tied down to my thigh. If I had to run it would flop all over the place, “I might be able to show you a few things, but since I’m not sure what
I know, it’s going to be a little unwieldy. I suppose you could ask questions and I’ll answer what I can.”
The young guard saw me cock the bow, fit a bolt into the center groove, and set the light steel spring arm that kept the stubby arrow from falling off. He began to do the same, grunting with surprise at how difficult it was, “What’s it like to live without your memory?”
It’s like stumbling through a dark room that is carpeted in broken glass and furnished in razorblades, I chuckled falsely, “I don’t remember normal, Theodemar, and so I couldn’t say.”
“Oh, well…” Theodemar blushed, feeling as stupid as he should. “So what were you looking at the crossbow for?”
I stifled an angry retort, “I’m not sure what you mean. What’s wrong with your crossbow?”
He glanced at the weapon in his hands before looking at me askance, “Nothing.”
“How do you know that if you don’t examine it?” I shrugged and pointed down the road, reminding him to keep his eyes in a useful direction. “List all the things that can go wrong with a crossbow.” I didn’t bother to take the sting out of my voice, “No! Keep your eyes cast outward. We are out here looking out for an ambush, so keep looking for an ambush. While you do that, tell me: What can break on a crossbow?”
Theodemar flushed again, breathing heavily as he swallowed apologies and protests, “The…the…the string could break,” He glanced at me and saw me scanning the forest on either side and made like to do the same, “The limbs could be cracked. The string could be frayed. The stock could be chipped…”
I let him wallow in silence for a minute before continuing for him, “The trigger could be bent, or broken inside, or the stay-clip could be loose. Anything wooden can be warped; The sight could be bent; Anything metal could have rusted; The whole thing could have been made by a drunk. Theodemar, any part of the bow, sword, shield, suit of armor could be broken and cost you your life in the heat of battle.”
He nodded and smiled, saying somewhat dismissively, “They have us maintain the equipment.”
My eyes, armed with daggers, slid across his throat as he was looking the other way. By the time he felt the cold steel of my irises I was back to scanning, “And what if the guy you trust to maintain the shared equipment is hung over? What if he’s lazy? What if he’s been paid off by the other side? Whoever you fight with, or for, you are alone behind your blade. Ultimately, you are responsible for your own survival. Think of anything that can go wrong with every bit of your equipment and check for it.”
“And what do I do if it needs replacing?”
“If it can be replaced, replace it. If it can be repaired, repair it. If you have no other choice…” I shrugged and while my brain was complaining that I should getting paid for teaching children, another shard of honesty snuck between my teeth, “Swap it with the equipment of someone you do not like.”
Theodemar laughed, a little too loudly, but at least honestly. Then his face fell fast and hard like nighttime in the mountains, “You sound like the Captain.”
I doubt that. We walked in silence for another few minutes; Even with a casual pace we outdistanced the carriage. Again my mouth worked without me, “What kind of man was he?”
Theodemar’s face aged, dark emotion fighting a war on his youth, “He was a decent man: A good and loyal soldier.”
I nodded, bringing up a dozen unspoken phrases to lasso the young man and bring him closer to me. Loyalty is a vulnerability, actually emotional investment is vulnerability, but loyalty is a vulnerability that is especially easy to exploit. The first step was to make sure he was loyal to me. It would take subtle abuse to break down his self esteem, flattery to forge his new self image out of materials I would provide, shared knowledge to cement a bond and begin to unveil his secrets. I would dissect his personality and build my golem from its remnants. Soon, when push came to shove, he would back me instead of…
Is this the kind of man I am?
Then a crashing cold wave collided with the Fog inside my head and shattered it into a billion crystal knives. They coalesced into a barbed dagger buried between my shoulder blades. The crossbow flew from my hands and went off harmlessly as it slapped into the dirt, approximately half a second before I joined it.
Theodemar was there, I barely heard him over the roaring of my own blood, “Sir? Sir? Sir?”
It took several minutes before I could breathe, and longer before I could answer. “I don’t know. Hurts. Maybe an old wound.” I rolled onto my back as the searing, stabbing agony pulsed into weaker and weaker echoes, “Help me up.”
Theo did it, but I must have looked like a maggot ridden piece of meat because he screwed up enough courage to ask, “Are you certain?”
“We have a job to do.” I said but those last, handful of seconds had turned bravery into bravado. As I straightened the last of the pain evaporated into just a horrible memory. Nothing was more important than refusing to look vulnerable, “Besides, I’m feeling better.” I picked up the crossbow and scanned the forest, “How long have we been here?”
“About a quarter of an hour.”
I would have loved to try to understand what was going on inside my own body, but the only person who could probably tell me was a cleric who would like nothing more than to excommunicate me off the edge of a cliff if she could do it without sin, guilt, or whatever it is religious people fear living with. In any case, sitting here in the middle of the road was helping nothing. “Then we had better go.”
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with creeping ahead, finding a likely ambush site, circling each and every damn one and making sure nobody was planning a party there later, and then rushing back out to get ahead of the caravan again. It was boring, because nothing happened. It was stressful, since at any time something could happen. It was strenuous, because if we weren’t sneaking, we were climbing, searching, or running. It was just short of hell. I was dripping in sweat by the time we made it to the crossroads and the typical sign, but Theodemar was completely wrecked.
I hooked a thumb up at the sign, its arms pointing down different roads, “River’s Bend or Cornhall?”
“River’s Bend is a more direct way to Carolaughan.” He nodded at the sign, “You can read?”
I glanced back at the crudely carved out letters, filled with aged and chipped paint. To me it was as plain as day, but until tapped to become an officer nobody was likely to bother to invest in a footman’s education. No point in lying now, “Looks like it.”
“I knew you were an officer.” Theo said, smiling wryly.
I faked tired indignation, “Let’s hope not. Officers are a pain in the ass.”
And for just a few moments it was just Theo and I, and while Theo was always Theo, I was feeling like I was being me. My knees felt a little weak. My heart was beating fast. I was forgetting to manipulate him. My hands were moist and shook as I put the bolt back into the slot on cocked bow. I knew I wasn’t in love, but the feeling of being exposed and defenseless remained. Can’t say I liked it much.
But I did like it a little.
5
Blood Merchant
Things had become a lot easier the closer we got to River’s Bend as the natural progression of human settlements has a tendency to demolish handy ambush sites. Constant foraging for building materials and fuel for fires clears out the underbrush and flattens hills. The roads become better maintained and more often traveled. Even this close to Sorrow Wood, the atmosphere was changing from the oppressive throne of the wild to the yoked domestication of arable lands. What sealed the deal was the appearance of rank upon rank of winter rye marched right up to the edge of the trees. They waved like a sea toward the clumps of buildings that made up the village of River’s Bend.
People who grow up in cities believe that all poor families live in squat, thatched roof structures walled in wattle, what everyone else calls woven sticks, and daub, what everyone else calls excrement. It will collapse under the brutal force of an old woman wa
ving a cane and it bursts into flame whenever anyone coughs, but at least it’s cheap. The reason people can live in something like this within a few days ride of a city is simple: In case of trouble, they run behind the big, stone walls their liege-lord provides. Stone walls are cane-proof and cough-resistant, but they are grossly expensive.
Out in the country, especially in that lovely area between the Northern Ridge Mountains and Sorrow Wood, people are responsible for their own survival. The farmers out here build clan houses, tall, rambling structures that grow bit by bit as children marry and have children of their own. Each clan works wide swaths of land taxed by the lord but defended by the family. The walls are heavy wooden logs, meaning they can still burn, but while they are easier to knock down than stone, they do provide cover from axes, blades, and arrows.
Only one thing could drive men to risk his family so far from civilization like this: The law says that the family that etches the farm out of the forest owns it. Landowners, just like nobles. They can pass it on to their children, hire workers, and while they are taxed for the privilege, they are relatively free of royal excesses and city blight…at least until a rival family, bandit group, barbarian tribe, or marauding soldiers come along and wipe them out. Then, in exchange for all those years of taxes, the lord moves a family of serfs into the cleared and freshly turned arable land. If the new tenants are lucky, the houses are still standing when they begin slaving away for the far off lord. It’s a pretty awful deal all around. Welcome to being a peasant.
From this distance, River’s Bend looked like one of the few success stories. Several families had built six three story farmhouses, equal parts home, barn, and wood stockade. The country folk build their homes like their women: Big and blocky. Generations worth of one family name might occupy one of these ugly, square-
I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow Page 5