‘That spot on your horse will be cleaner even than Marlo’s,’ Hakon’s voice said behind him, causing him to jump enough to have to juggle the stiff brush he had been using. The big boy’s booming laugh was filled with delight. ‘Good to see I can still sneak up on the best.’ He laughed again, a guffaw that startled the horses as much as Marlo pacified them. ‘Seriously, though, you really should expand your effort to more than just the one patch you have been brushing since you started.’
Brann smiled. ‘I was lost in thought. I am not trying to rival Marlo, believe me. That is a talent I could never hope to match.’
‘And not his only talent, by the way.’ Hakon looked over at the other boy. ‘Hey Marlo, who taught you to fight?’ Marlo grinned and winked, and Halon turned back to Brann. ‘He took out a guard about to slice Konall from behind, not that Lord High and Mighty would ever admit it. A cut to the side to stop the blow and attract his attention, a deflection, a cut across the sword arm and a stab to the throat. All quick as you like, all shallow to keep them quick, all effective, and all dead in the blink of an eye.’ He winked at Brann. ‘It reminded me very much of someone, but I just can’t think who.’
Brann tried to look innocent. ‘I may have given him a few pointers every evening.’ He grinned back. ‘He grew up among skilled gladiators and under the wing of a genius former-general. He could hardly be anything other than a quick learner.’
‘He does not have a killer’s instinct, however,’ Hakon said.
Brann grew solemn. ‘And may we all help that to be preserved. He has enough killers around to protect him.’
Hakon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You are not wrong there.’ His face became thoughtful. ‘Talking of non-killers, what do you make of our new friend?’
‘Philippe?’
Hakon nodded.
‘He has been through a lot. His sister…’
Marlo had wandered over, and Hakon leant in close to the two of them, even though there was no one else close enough to hear anyway. ‘I mean, can we really trust him? Because he is… you know…’
Brann frowned. ‘Because he likes men like you like women?’
‘Though not in the same quantities,’ Marlo pointed out.
‘No!’ Hakon was dumbfounded. ‘One of my best friends when I grew up was the son of a pig farmer, an esteemed man in a land where bacon is a welcome alternative to incessant fish at the dinner table. From time to time, Olaf would slip down to the pigs and slip in, if you see what I mean. Everyone knew it, and we didn’t feel the urge to copy him, but to us he was just the friend who made us laugh easily.’
Marlo looked askance at him. ‘Are you really comparing Philippe’s inclinations to those of a pig-shagger?’
‘Of course not!’ Hakon said, hurt at the very thought. ‘I mean, Olaf wasn’t Olaf the Pig Shagger to us, he was just Olaf. So in the case of Philippe, who likes humans, just different humans from the ones I like, how could I think ill of him? He is just Philippe.’
‘I think that kind of makes sense,’ Marlo said slowly.
Brann grunted. ‘It is Hakon-sense. You will get used to it eventually.’ He looked up at the big boy. ‘So what was your point about Philippe?’
Hakon looked uncomfortable. ‘The things he had to do. He was forced into a life he would not really have chosen, I am sure. He said one night over a skin of wine, everything he did, he did to try to make life better for his sister. For all his pretence, and he is very good at pretending, I think he would have gladly taken a different way of earning the same coin.’
‘I’m sure he would,’ Brann said.
‘What I mean is, he did all that for her, and then he had to watch a death that was… Well, from what you told us, it wasn’t pleasant.’
Brann stared sightlessly. ‘No. It was not,’ he said flatly.
‘So,’ Hakon pressed on, ‘I worry about him. He needs to live for himself now, but he is still living each day in sorrow for his sister.’ The big earnest eyes turned to the other two. ‘Do you think he would take it badly if I befriend him? If I try to help him? Brann, you were really mad for a while – a complete lunatic, if truth be told – and worse even than Philippe. Did you resent anyone trying to help you?’
Brann smiled softly. ‘No I did not. And nor will he. You are a good man, Hakon.’
‘And your tolerance for other inclinations is admirable,’ Marlo said innocently. ‘But not surprising, in retrospect, when we consider your friendship for Mongoose.’
Hakon grinned. ‘My intentions for Mongoose go far beyond friendship.’ His voice tailed off as realisation slowly crept upon him. He stared, his eyes widened and, almost as slowly, his jaw dropped. ‘You mean… Mongoose… Like Philippe… But with women?’
The pair nodded.
‘Women do that too? Just like…?’
‘Well,’ Brann said helpfully, ‘for the avoidance of doubt, not with pigs. But with other women, some of them, yes.’
‘Well I never,’ Hakon said in astonishment.
‘And you never will,’ Marlo said, and Brann could restrain his mirth no longer, his laughter proving contagious and the other two soon doubling over as much as he was.
Cannick’s voice cut though their amusement. ‘When you children have quite finished your play, you might like to get something to eat and to bed. We have an early start tomorrow on the trail of that Lord High Bastard. Our new quarry awaits us.’
Brann was still wiping the tears from his eyes as they returned to the campfire. For a few moments, he had forgotten the dark nature of their quest. He would wake as determined as ever, the step closer to their ultimate quarry that Daric represented lending fresh impetus to his relentless urge to find the instigator of the ills that were afflicting so many people, but tonight, he had needed those moments. He missed his family more than he wanted to consider, and he needed the strength of friends at times like these. The true value of companions extended far beyond the strength of a sword arm.
Chapter 4
The sand laid a gossamer thin cover over the squared top of the balcony balustrade. He traced numbers in it, calculating days, distances, numbers of men.
She entered with a soft knock, followed by the other servants, those who changed his bed sheets, refilled his fruit bowl, rinsed his privy. Her demeanour reverential, she placed the fresh jug of cooled water on the table beside his outdoor chair.
At the clinking of the ice, he realised the extent of his thirst.
She bowed, breathing the word in her sand-dry voice. ‘Excellency.’
He acknowledged the service without turning, a raising of one finger more than most in the palace granted a servant.
She maintained her bow as the door clicked softly shut behind the other servants.
She straightened. ‘Oh, so you are on your feet today, old man. You must be feeling adventurous.’
‘So must you, crone, to speak in such a way and expect to live.’
‘Take a drink, the sun is high, the air is hot, and the words do not seem to leave your throat properly, as that sounded like a threat.’
‘It was. And I will drink when I wish, not at your behest, witch.’
He turned, the pleasantries over.
‘How goes it at the house.’ He didn’t have to say which house. There was only one ever discussed.
‘Much the same. He recovers; she mollycoddles him. He grows restless; she mollycoddles him. He adapts to moving with one foot; she mollycoddles him. Basically, there is much mollycoddling.’
‘Real men do not like mollycoddling.’
‘He is a real man. He responds with respectful grumpiness, and pushes himself to a state of mobility where he can leave the house and roam for longer each day.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Which is why she does it.’
‘Indeed.’
‘You women are indeed mistresses of manipulation!’
‘You men always need direction.’
‘Devious!’
‘Subtle.’
‘Deceitful!’
/>
‘Intelligent.’
‘You are not more clever, nor as much as you think!’ he shouted, and his dry throat responded with a cough. He snatched up a tumbler of water and drained it.
She smiled. ‘You drank. I am glad.’
He glared at the tumbler in fury. The trap had been laid, baited, and sprung to perfection. He clenched his fingers around it, forcing himself not to hurl it towards the desert. He would not give her that satisfaction, at least. He placed it with exaggerated care on the table and turned back to the balustrade.
Gods, he loved their exchanges.
His vigour revived, he lapsed into thought once more. She moved beside him, moving a hand above his tracings in the sand as she looked across them.
‘You estimate.’
‘It is all I can do. Gathering information is key, but it is tormenting when that is all you can do when others are acting.’
‘But you cannot be there. They can. So they do all that they can do, and you do all that you can do. At this moment, you need them. But there will come a time when they need you, and what you do now ensures your readiness.’
‘I know. But I still hate it. And I will need to be ready sooner than I thought. If they can complete their task sooner than we all thought.’
He drew a long line across the sand. ‘Now is here.’ His fingertip cut a short vertical line through it near the start. He lifted his finger and drew another line down through the long one an arm’s length to the right. ‘This is when we had to get to.’
‘Had to?’
He nodded. The finger cut down through the long line a quarter of its length before the second mark. ‘This is now when we had to get to.’
‘Our time is shortened by as much?’
‘By at least as much.’
‘The one who gave you information is reliable?’
‘The one is the highest one there is. Unreliable in many ways, but he has the greatest access to information in the Empire. After all, he is the Empire.’
Her eyebrows arched. ‘He gave this information knowingly?’
‘Of course not. But he gave it all the same.’
‘And it is?’
‘Disruptions are rife across the free nations to the north of the Empire’s boundary. Trade is dropping. Trade, more than all of the tributes, sustains the Empire; even he is aware of that. So he readies a force to help restore order. Two millens will march.’
‘Two?’ The surprise was unconcealed.
‘The fool recalls one from the South, across the Great Water.’
‘But that leaves decreased numbers in a region where dissent is growing.’
‘Indeed. He is fooled easily and oft, and in this case his foolishness is to believe that low levels of rebellion signify a lack of threat. He should know that low levels of rebellion signify roots taking hold, and from roots come growth and strength.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I need do nothing. He makes his own problems. My efforts are unnecessary.’
‘And for those whose efforts we rely upon?’
‘I can do nothing.’ His hand swept with venom through the sand, the designs and calculations lost to the air. ‘One I have sent to watch over him, where possible, from afar, when once I could have sent half a hundred to guard his every step. One who may not even find him. But essentially, I can do nothing.
‘How I detest doing nothing.’
****
The first village they came to after leaving the edge of the forest was no more than a hamlet, sitting on a crossroads, and formed of the homes of woodcutters, and an inn that served the needs of residents and travellers in equal measure.
Small settlements were good: those passing through were more easily noticed. Their assumption that he would take the road leading north was confirmed, and they wasted little time in following. The road, they were told, led for two days’ riding to the town of Benorthangeat. Sitting, as it did, equally from east and west coasts, with three rivers converging close to it and, most importantly, with several roads leading from the rolling farmlands they had already traversed and towards the more harsh and rising lands they were approaching, it was known as the Gateway to the North.
It was just the place that Daric would head for; given the many routes that spread like rivulets from its northern gate, it was just the place he could disappear from.
They stopped at a wayside inn less than a day short of the town. The horses were still fresh and they had not long broken their fast, but Brann was keen to ask questions.
Breta wasn’t happy. ‘If we had ridden over one more hill last night we could have slept in beds and eaten heartily.’
‘If we could see over hills we could do more than eat and sleep well,’ Brann heard Mongoose say as he gave his reins to Gerens and headed inside with Grakk.
The common room was empty but for a portly man sweeping the floor.
‘Good morning,’ Brann said cheerfully. ‘Do you have a moment that we could ask after a friend of ours who might have passed this way?’
The man’s attentions remained on his broom. ‘I run a business of sustenance and repose, not a repository of scuttlebutt.’
Grakk’s eyebrows raised. ‘A learned man,’ he said appreciatively.
The innkeeper stopped and rested his weight on the broom, regarding them sourly. ‘I have plenty of books for the quiet periods, and plenty of quiet periods of late since travel from the North diminished. I reserve my garrulous cheer for times of custom.’
Grakk beamed. ‘I would be content to converse with this man for the entire day, had we the time.’
Brann grunted. ‘We don’t have the time, and he won’t be conversing unless we give him something to do.’ He walked to the door. ‘Breta, the innkeeper has the need to prepare breakfast for someone. Might you oblige?’
She was inside in a heartbeat.
The innkeeper dropped his broom. ‘How may I help you, madam?’
She looked at him as if she had never heard a more stupid question. ‘Food. Whatever you’ve got.’
He shrugged. ‘I can manage that.’ He stopped just short of the door behind the bar. ‘How many of your party might be inclined towards hunger?’
Brann was getting irritated. ‘Look, I’ll pay you double the price if you do it fast.’
He saw the man’s eyes narrow at the impatience in his tone, and realised his mistake. The man smiled the smile of a cat with a vole in its grasp. ‘How eager are you for this information? There have been few customers recently, but enough for your friend to perhaps have been one of them, and their paucity means merely that each becomes more memorable.’
Brann sighed. ‘Hakon!’ The Northern boy ducked through the door, and the innkeeper’s eyes widened. ‘He’ll have the same.’
‘I can rustle you up something in an instant, sir!’ He disappeared in a rush and they could hear his shouts despite the shut door. ‘Woman! Girl! Get this kitchen running now.’
They also heard the answers he received. Grakk looked at Brann solemnly. ‘I am guessing that he does not exercise the total and respectful control of his establishment that he would seem to want to demonstrate.’
‘As long as he is quick, I don’t care about his domestic relationships,’ Brann said. ‘Whatever information he has, it had better be good.’
He was quick. In a remarkably short time, Breta and Hakon were served and the innkeeper moved to the bar where Brann and Grakk waited. The others, he had asked to wait outside – he didn’t want the innkeeper to be tempted to ask for even more custom. The fleeting visit he had envisaged was already a thing of past whimsy.
‘So,’ Brann said. ‘What can you tell us?’
The man frowned. ‘Many things. But I am not aware of what you want to know.’
‘Right, here it is. Tall man, red hair hanging to his waist. Heading north. Have you seen him?’
‘Yes.’ The man picked up a tankard and studiously blew dust out of it. ‘Is that it?’
‘Not
for two breakfasts for the price of four, it’s not,’ Brann growled. He took out a pouch of coins and his long knife, and laid both on the counter. ‘One way or another, you are going to be helpful, and quickly so. Enough of these games.’
The man pulled himself upright. ‘I am not intimidated by you.’
Grakk leant in conspiratorially, and winked. ‘You should be. Learn it from me, before you do from him.’
The innkeeper looked from the old soldier to Brann, to the knife and back to Brann. His eyes finally settled on the money. It seemed he decided against pushing his luck. ‘A man such as you describe came in last night. Late on, it was. He declined my offer of a room; seemed excessively hurried. Wanted to know how much further Benorthangeat was and where he might find a bed at that time of night. Anyway, I managed to sell him a flagon of ale, and he watered his horse, which, incidentally, looked fairly lathered and done, though that didn’t stop him pushing it hard as soon as he set off again.’
Brann patted him on the shoulder with an encouraging smile. ‘There, that was much better. Just one thing. Did you recommend somewhere for him to stay?’
The man shrugged. ‘Of course. The Gateway is always a busy place, but these days the traffic is mostly heading southwards. Still, people need a place to stay, no matter the direction they head or the reason for their journey, so competition between the innkeepers for the business is fierce. The busiest establishments are those near the North Gate – those that the travellers fleeing the North find first on entering the town. My brother’s inn has the misfortune of being near the South Gate. If I send custom there, it may be in return that a stone has found its way into the hoof of one of their horses when southbound travellers leave from his inn, and they must stop to see to it at the first wayside inn they encounter.’
‘Which happens to be this establishment,’ Grakk said. ‘Take it that we understand your commercial strategy. Please instead provide the name of this inn of your brother and the location.’
‘After entering at the South Gate, direct yourselves towards the centre of the town. Before long, you will see a lane leading off to the right with a forge at the corner – The Griffin can be found directly across from it. Tell Walwyn that Norvin sent you, and that I said your onward journey should be trouble free.’
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 16