by P. J. Fox
“It is understood, as well, that she must be married.”
Arvid might have the moral sensibilities, not to mention the personal hygiene standards, of a deranged brown bear but he was smarter than he looked.
“Now anyone smart enough to become chief knows this, too. About his own daughter, yes.” Arvid tapped the side of his head. “No blind spots, even toward family. That is how Goddard son of Goddard became chief.” For a horrible minute, Hart was sure that Arvid was about to embark on some hours long lecture in clan history. One of his favorite topics. But he didn’t. Instead of learning about Goddard son of Goddard—again—Hart learned something new.
“Still, the chief does not say, my daughter is hideous. And no man would agree if he did. Unless he wished to be force fed his own balls. A man loves his children, even the wretched ones. You know?”
Hart didn’t, but he could imagine.
“So someone with sufficient strength of mind to bear the challenge, it is maybe suggested to him by the chief, or a friend of the chief’s, that he would like to get to know the girl a little better. And maybe, down the road, she can be persuaded to make him the wreath.
“And he does his husbandly duty by her, and wins her many pretty furs, and her father rewards him with several strong new ox. This being the understanding, that he is to have reward other than, you know, her glorious good looks or even her charming personality. Because she is not one from whom he would normally accept the wreath, yah?”
“But men—Morvish men—are rewarded.”
Arvid waved his hand dismissively. “Any chief who suggested that he marry only that girl would not be chief for long. No matter the other prizes.”
Hart sighed.
“So you marry this fat cow, and also marry Lissa. Now maybe ugly wants to be the first wife, that happens. Yah, that is okay. The other wives defer to her, which makes her happy. And it is good to make women happy, even if they are terrible. Makes your life so much easier. She can have the biggest bedroom, the most furs. Give her children first, too. Then she has something no one else has, to make her feel even.”
“Tristan claims that Solene is quite beautiful.”
“And what’s he going to say? That she’s hideous? That every Southron suitor runs from her, weeping, and that’s why she’s still unmarried? That no amount of ox are enough?”
Hart laughed, in spite of himself.
“Money is good. Land is good. But a warm bed is better.”
“I don’t intend to give her up.”
They were entering the city proper now.
“She doesn’t know, though.”
Sometimes, Hart did wish that Arvid was a bit stupider. Not that stupidity was a quality he looked for in a friend. Or certainly a lieutenant. But it would come in handy, now and then. “No,” he agreed finally. “She doesn’t.”
Arvid snorted. “Down this path lies tears.”
“But,” Hart replied, “they’re tears for another day.”
“Yah.” Arvid perked up. “We kill someone now?”
Hart nodded.
“Oh, good.”
Oh, good indeed.
He led the way through Barghast’s clean, neatly laid streets. Arvid rode beside him confidently, asking no questions. He knew that Hart knew where they were going, and that was enough. And he knew, too, that he’d find out more when they arrived. All Hart had told him was that there was a small matter to be taken care of, before they could leave. A small matter of justice.
Arvid had taken the announcement in stride, asking no questions other than would his usual weapons be enough or should he bring extra.
Hart smiled slightly.
Around him, Barghast was alive with activity: people walking to and from their homes, anxious to get under cover before the threatened rain fell. Some were carrying food for dinner, while others walked self-importantly along with servants trailing behind. Scullery maids and merchants, all thronged streets hemmed in on both sides by the buildings rising above. Dressed stone, all variants of the same gray as the sky above. Leaden. Lowering.
Later, there’d be flowers in the window boxes and fruit in the stalls. But for now Barghast’s only color came from the paint on its shutters, and the occasional door and, as they moved into and through one of the larger commercial districts, signs competing with one another to make the goods they represented seem the most appealing.
They were almost at their destination.
It hadn’t taken much. Not to find out where their target spent their free time, or when that time was. Hart had friends in the city watch, some of whom he paid for information. He didn’t tell them why he wanted to know and they didn’t ask. He was the Viper and that was enough.
A viper, as a hunter, was among the best.
Only a fool got in its way, as it pursued its target.
Hart stopped before a low wall, which fronted an inn. An interesting fact about the viper was that it struck at its prey and then waited. Often, the prey, merely suffering a small bite, believed that it had escaped. Sometimes hours, or even days passed before it began to feel the effects of the venom. While, all the while, the viper waited.
He entered through the gate, with Arvid following behind. Not broad enough for two men to pass abreast, nor for a carriage. The Emerald Drum, while tidy enough, wasn’t that kind of establishment. Its clientele were mainly working class, journeymen and the like. Which explained why it was deserted now, after the lunch hour.
A boy rushed out. Hart swung down from the saddle and handed over the reins. “Be careful,” he said. “He bites.”
The boy paled.
Arvid, beside him, was more casual. He nuzzled his mare, scratching her between the ears. “Who’s a good girl, Freja? You’re a good girl.”
Hart arched an eyebrow.
Arvid looked up. “What?”
Hart didn’t like leaving his horse. He preferred Cedric to most people, he felt with good cause. But it couldn’t be helped. Cedric would be alright, he told himself. Even with this ham-fisted excuse for a groom. And if he wasn’t…well.
Inside, it was easy to locate his target. The common room was small and Oliver Bonel was the only man present. He sat at a table near the fire, staring morosely into a tankard of ale as though trying to see his fortune.
The common room, although small, was pleasant. Dressed stone walls toward the bar, plaster elsewhere. A flagstone floor. Plain but sturdy squared off beams held aloft a railed gallery, off of which were the inn’s half dozen or so rooms. Behind the bar were stacked barrels. A bored-looking barmaid wiped out tankards with a rag.
Above her head, a row of tankards hung. All pewter, all well made, and all alike. To be used by those who hadn’t brought their own. As many did in the North. Whether from custom or fear of contagion—or spells—depended on the individual. Hart didn’t care. If someone wanted to poison him, or curse him, then let them try.
The barmaid hung up another tankard.
Watch Captain Bonel was a man who’d risen to a certain rank and then risen no further. Joining him at his table, Hart immediately understood why. The sun was still overhead and this man, middle aged and fat, was half in his cups. He’d been promoted, Hart suspected, for reasons other than his talent. Which happened, even in the best administered of places. Children of powerful fathers and over-indulgent mothers often grew to manhood mistaking others’ charity for their own achievement. And, in turn, believing that nothing was ever their fault.
“Haven’t I met your father?” Hart asked.
“If you did,” Bonel replied, and quite rudely in Hart’s opinion, “it was awhile ago. He died.”
“He was the head of….” Hart was guessing. He knew nothing about the man’s father, only that presumably he’d had one. But, much like fortune tellers, torturers relied on their victims’ own stupidity to make it seem like they knew more than they did. A series of well-placed guesses, based on likelihoods, followed by a close monitoring of the varying reactions. A skilled torturer c
ould make himself seem nigh on omniscient, even if he’d never so much as passed his victim in the street before that morning.
“The spicer’s guild.” A powerful merchant’s guild. But Bonel didn’t seem too impressed with his father’s achievement. Rather bored, really. He struck Hart as the type who found life boring. He continued to stare into his ale.
“Ah, yes. A fortunate man.”
Bonel looked up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Death comes to us all, sadly. But he achieved so much, in his time.”
Bonel snorted. And then, “wait, you’re….”
Hart smiled. “I am.”
“Must be nice. Having the freedom to do what you will in the middle of the day.”
“And yet here you sit.”
Bonel didn’t respond.
“Would you like more ale?” Hart’s tone was solicitous.
“Alright.”
Hart raised a finger and the barmaid, who’d been watching them while pretending not to, came over. Reaching into his vest, Hart produced a single guilder and laid it on the table. It glinted in the weak light. The barmaid’s eyes widened fractionally. Hart didn’t imagine that they saw much gold at The Emerald Drum. “Bring us something,” he said casually.
The coin disappeared and so did she.
“So it’s true.” This from Bonel. “You are rich.”
Of gold, at least, he sounded admiring.
Food and drink arrived, and Bonel went to work on it. Greedy men, Hart had also noticed, rarely stopped to examine the hand that fed them. And to examine, perhaps, the body to which it was attached.
Leek pasty, salt pork, more ale.
Hart and Arvid exchanged a glance across the table. Nor did Bonel wonder why Hart had sat down across from him but Arvid next to him. Let alone why a man capable of paying for his lunch in gold would choose to eat it—or not—at a place like this.
All of which was just as well.
Hart removed his gloves. Black-dyed leather. Finely tanned. Incredibly soft. A nobleman’s dream. Bonel, noticing this, once again looked up from his plate.
“Do you like them?”
Bonel took the proffered glove. They wouldn’t fit him, of course. Hart’s hands were well-shaped. A nobleman’s hands, long and thin-fingered. Bonel’s were broad and flat, his fingers like overstuffed sausages. “Yes,” he said. “Extraordinary workmanship.”
“They’re human skin.”
Bonel dropped the glove, almost into his food.
“I had them made for me. They once belonged to a man who harmed children.”
“I…oh.”
“But you’d never do that, Oliver, would you.”
Bonel shook his head. “No. Of course not.”
“You don’t like children. You like women.”
“Yes!”
“In fact, I hear you’re quite the ladies’ man.”
Bonel, believing that they’d returned to safer territory, grinned. He hadn’t, apparently, thought too much of Hart’s digression. Everyone knew that the Viper was crazy.
“I suppose,” he allowed, with false modesty.
Arvid was following the conversation with interest.
“And that, even more, you’re whom to speak with if a man wants to find virgins.”
Bonel brightened further.
“Tell me,” Hart invited.
“If you haven’t…you need to.” Bonel chewed, and swallowed, and drank more ale. “That’s all I can really tell you. The power.” He sighed. “Of course, it’s hard to find a real virgin. Too many of these places try all sorts of tricks, to pass a girl off as one. Or to sell her purity more than once. Disgusting.”
Yes, indeed. But unlike lusting for children, lusting for virgins was something their culture accepted; even promoted. The collective imagination filled, as it was, with dreams of princes and princesses and long-awaited weddings. Along with the idea, so popular in the South, that a woman’s value lay between her legs. Did Prince Charming fight the dragon to prove himself worthy of his bride’s heart, or her cunt?
“And after?”
Bonel shrugged. “Who cares.”
“Tell me about some of your exploits.”
Bonel must have thought he’d been transported to the halls of the Gods. More food, more ale, a willing audience for as long as he willed it. Hart felt his stomach turn as he was treated to tale after tale of exploitation and degradation and all of it—if not moral, then not illegal. Bonel was smart. He didn’t prey on girls whose families would cause a fuss. Either because their families didn’t care or because they weren’t around.
Hart knew, better than anyone, that the world was a hard place.
“I hear that there was one girl in particular, a year or two ago…blonde hair? Blue eyes? Thin, quite childlike in appearance?”
“Ah. So that’s what you like.” Bonel finished his ale. He’d had several tankards, but showed no real sign of inebriation. “If I know the one, she’s owned by Marcus. Up at The Hobgoblin. Small breasts, but firm. Nice nipples. No ass. Oh, did I have to save for her.” His eyes came back into focus. “But you must know the place. That’s more your group.”
Hart waited.
“She’s not a maiden anymore, regardless. And it wasn’t two years ago, it was three.”
Hart kept his face a perfect mask. “Oh?”
“Trust me. I still remember every detail. Just what I always thought fucking a nobleman’s daughter would be like. They’re all thin, you know. Thin and pale and afraid of sex. And they all think poking it in means you’re going to marry them.”
He’d evidently forgotten that Hart’s sister was a nobleman’s daughter.
But Hart gave no response to the insult, to his sister and his class.
Bonel was talking.
“Her name was Lissa. Is, I suppose. She’s not dead. At least, not that I know of.” He laughed. “You know, like the flower. Claimed she was from the mountains, but I didn’t believe her. They all claim something of the like. But can you believe this? She begged me to take her with me. Told me she wanted to be a good girl.” He laughed again. “How ridiculous. All girls are whores, you just need to show it to them.”
Hart’s tone was pleasant. Almost warm. “I have a story to tell you of her.”
“Oh?” Bonel seemed genuinely interested.
“She remained at that inn. Until, one night, she met a soldier and pleased him.”
Bonel waited. He seemed to have no idea where this tale might be headed. He’d finished his ale and soon would start looking around for more. Or for the garderobes; where was he storing it all?
Hart had, honestly, thought that Bonel would have made the connection far before this. But he had the sinking sensation that he could sit here, stringing the man along, until the Gods returned to earth for the final battle and Bonel would ever be none the wiser. But Hart, unlike Bonel, had places to be. “That soldier is me.”
Finally.
“That girl is now a beautiful woman. Intelligent and articulate. She is also now my mistress, and enjoys my complete and undying devotion. I intend for her to bear my children. She would be my wife,” Hart continued, “except for the regrettable difference in our social classes.” Let Bonel remember that Hart was a nobleman, now. “And it is on her behalf that I sit here, before you, at this table.”
Bonel blanched.
“She, of course, is far too kind and decent to ask that you be held accountable for your crimes against her.” He raised his hand, only slightly. It was enough. “And they were crimes. Stealing a young girl’s innocence is the worst crime. Innocence is precious. I should know.” His lips curved into the barest smile, an expression that didn’t reach his eyes. Eyes, which remained as clear and cold as ice. “I have none.”
Bonel opened his mouth, and then shut it.
“Even though I have the duke’s ear, and Lissa in turn has mine. She hasn’t said a word against you. Indeed, she even speaks well of you. Praising you for not hurting her more.”
He placed just a hint of emphasis on the last word. Hart’s methods were those of restraint. “She blames herself for hoping.”
“I—I never—”
“I can only blame her inexperience with men, that she mistook you for one.”
“But—”
“An inexperience she retains still.” To her everlasting credit. She might not be pure, at least in the sense of how men like Bonel understood the term, but she was still innocent. She’d mistaken Hart for a man, too. She was a flower in a dung heap, creating beauty from the worst of surroundings.
Bonel tried to stand up. Arvid’s hand came down on his shoulder. Bonel seemed to have forgotten that the tribesman was there, and he gasped. Arvid hadn’t spoken in some time; he’d been listening, and learning. Hart trusted that he understood, now, what their errand was about.
Indeed, there was a certain enthusiasm in his expression.
Bonel squeaked.
Hart stood. “Bring him.”
He walked across the common room, still unpopulated, toward the bar. Where, as he suspected, the door to the right of the barrels opened up onto a storage room. Built from the same stone as the rest of the inn. Not a lean-to. Meant to withstand burglars, and with only the one entrance. It would do.
He turned to the barmaid, who’d given up any pretense of not watching. She was staring, now, and looked as frightened as Bonel. “I’m going to borrow the use of your storage room,” he told her politely. “But only for about an hour. Nothing will be disturbed.”
She nodded.
“Do not open this door. Do not allow it to be opened. Unless you wish to join in. Do you understand?”
“I’ll close the inn,” she said, and rushed to shut and bar the main door.
Hart nodded at Arvid.
Arvid maneuvered Bonel inside. He did so easily, despite the other man’s frantic struggles. As though he weighed no more than a child.
“Now.” Hart pretended to consider. “What to do with you.”
“Please! Don’t do anything! Please, just let me go.”
There were hooks in the ceiling, meant to hold slabs of meat. And indeed there were some, lined up along the far wall. Mostly parts of various pigs. But, fortuitously, this being early spring and the inn’s stores depleted, the greater part of the hooks were empty.