Were he to sound off on the soldiers, though, she had little doubt Rurik would end up flat on his arse, beaten raw. He was decent with a blade, but he was no Rowan. He practiced, but only half-heartedly—preferring to drink and flirt. He was still better than her at the sword, of course, but it was never an area she had really sought after.
Rurik’s one real advantage was his pistol—an advantage he liked to push far more often than warranted. Worse was the cost of the damned thing. Armies had gunpowder. They had bullets and long guns and cannon to fire. The commonfolk were forbidden even to carry swords. One did not find gunpowder just anywhere. That was a thing for the cities, and Alviss had guaranteed they crossed but one in all their travels abroad.
Yet the pistol did work, and she could not complain about results. She contented herself to complain about everything else.
Still, Rurik had more costly tools than his little drakkon. Your tongue’s your bloody weapon. She smiled at the thought, though it was not so entirely pleasant a thing. A lot of other women’s faces were attached to it—and that she did not care for.
The soldiers were not the only ones on the street. A few people scurried about, and the ring of Jeropp’s smithy echoed between the buildings. The clamor of the hammer was matched only by the song swelling to the south. As the agitators dispersed, an old woman emerged from the main road, head tipped back and bellowing.
Her song could not have been more appropriate—“The Virtues of Chivalry,” one of the Songs of Visaj. It was a favorite among the children, and the woman had more than a few happily listening in.
Essa recalled when she had been asked to join the church’s choir. Some crazed notion from old Father Bentham. Every congregation had one, he said. It was good for the children, he said. An absurd idea. She would much rather be playing than singing in some stuffy chapel. Her father never went, anyways. That helped to make it one of the few times her father agreed with her.
He had been less kind than she in telling the priest no, however.
It had not been their only attempt to have her, though. The old Father had started young, asking her father to send her to his care. “The girl’s got bad blood in her,” he had said. “She’s too much for you. Give her to the Maker, and she will have a good life. We will take care of her.”
Sometimes, when she felt particularly bitter, she wondered if they hadn’t been right. Life at the local church certainly could not have been any worse than life at home.
Besides, she could have made a decent priestess, if only she could have clamped down on all those pesky thoughts of hers. The Visaj Church took women as well as men as priests, monks, or whatever other role they might seek to fill. Mothers and Fathers. They could not marry, though, despite the names, nor have children of their own. She did not take so well to that. She also was not terribly fond of the robes, or any of their particular stances on other faiths. Or peoples, for that matter.
The Church was the eminent faith of the Empire, and most of the continent. Or it had been. In recent times, the revolutionary principles of the age had leaked into their previously untouched monopoly and sowed the seeds of discontent. Farrens were what sprouted from those seeds. They had taken root in the west and spread into the Empire from there. They rose from the prominent humanist movement of the Church itself. Reformers. Revolutionaries. Heretics. Whatever one chose to call them, only the Church itself remained convinced they could be stamped out.
Even the Emperor was sympathetic to the Farrens. Some said he had spoken to Reverend Farre himself, and converted. Essa was not sure about that, but the Emperor had declared religious persecution illegal, and after his dear wife had died, his second had been and still remained a Farren woman. It crafted a volatile situation. The Emperor may have supported the Farrens, but much of the nobility, and even the royal family, were still staunchly Visaj.
The woman’s song slowly dwindled out as she veered toward the tavern. Not like to have a happy greeting there. Even so, the woman was near to glowing as she went on her musical way.
Shortly after, another band of soldiers rounded the road at the north end, proceeding toward them. None bore any marking she recognized, but they took care regardless. Rowan stepped in front of her, shielding her from scrutiny, while turning his own back to the crowd.
It was hard to take her eyes off him—the skinny man in his peacock-feathered hat and dyed blue wools. But she did. Unlike the many wandering eyes of places like Verdan, she was used to it. Used to him. His clothes were flamboyant, to match his personality. Others gawked. The entertaining bit was when people mistook him for a noble. He liked that.
She could see a few of the soldiers’ eyes locking on them, but they could not see their faces. Rowan leaned over her, pressing his hand against the wall, giving them the look of a young couple.
“Too much?”
She peered past him, to the soldiers. They stared at them, and there were lewd whispers, but most seemed to be rooting for the “dandy” to move in for the kill. They moved on, probably to harass anything else with tits. She shook her head. “Just right.”
Her cousin glanced over his shoulder to confirm the soldiers had gone before swinging away entirely. “Boars,” he muttered.
“Not talking of me, I hope.” Voren happened around the corner in that moment, a cheesy grin stretched across his gaunt cheeks. A small pouch dangled from between his fingers, which they were busy tying up. It jingled as he walked.
“Oh don’t mind us. There’s a far more boorish lot about than you.”
“All went well, from the sound of things,” Essa said.
Voren’s smile sweetened. “Quite. Most of this, however,” he said while jingling the coin purse, “came from your friends in steel. Regardless, the old woman’s off. Come, shall you have a bit of bread before we are off? Or straight to it then?”
“The food will keep, old friend. I would prefer we see what brews with Matair ‘ere long.”
“And your wish is my command, my lady. Right this way.”
It was not a long trek, but it was a disheartening one. The more they wandered, the more steel they spied, weaving in and around Essa’s memories of home. Log and thatch huts gave way to a veritable city of tents dotting the landscape around the Matairs’ manor. It was a blight of dingy and often ragged canvas and cloth, draped from trees and nailed deep into the virgin soil. The only animals to stir between them were the men and their steeds, as well as the odd scavenging dog they brought with them.
The manor itself sat in the center. It was perhaps not so beautiful as the manors of other, equal lords, but it remained the best Verdan had to offer. It was one of the few buildings fortunate enough to be made with a mix of stone and wood, with a large stable sliding off from its eastern end. At one time, a bed of flowers had ringed every wall, with vines creeping up the sides, and grapes that dangled purple and ripe in the warmer months. The estate had been laid out like a fortress, with thick, low stone walls that separated the home from the men outside. Beyond these walls lay the lord’s orchards and pasturage, made in the fashion of their family’s old estate in Corvaden, or so she was told. In brighter days, she might have glimpsed the lord’s sons riding through these fields, or the working hands picking at apples and grapes for wine and food.
All that appeared to be gone now, and not merely from the cold. The place looked darker, and the steel madness swarmed all around it like locusts. Smoke rose on the wind from a dozen campfires or more. There were hundreds in that wood, if there was a man.
“Bit of a shock, eh? Arrow John says there’s more’n three hundred hereabouts. Not including the local steel, o’course.”
Look at them swarm. Essa drifted from one tree to another, brushing past their guide to take a better look. It nearly made her sick just thinking about them. So many men, so many torches. Today they rested amidst the trees, the next they would be sent to burn them. And anyone within. She wondered at the old stories Rurik had always played at when they were younger—all those
gallant knights, riding off to war. How wrong he was.
A brush of a hand on hers made her jump, but it was only Voren. Drawing in alongside her, he apologized, and gave her hand a pat. “Trouble?”
“No. I merely…had not expected quite so many.”
“Yes. Witold draws men for the Emperor’s ride east. One batch came through last month. Moved on quick enough. Now there’s more. Can’t say how many more yet to come. Folly, that. At such a rate they’ll eat us all out of hearth and home before they ever reach the Emperor, I’d say.”
A few men-at-arms moved not twenty feet from their place amongst the trees, laughing loudly.
“It all seems so different now,” she said, sadly. Even the smell seemed foreign to her.
“Oh come now. It’s not all bad. Not all the change is for the worse.” His hand gave hers a little squeeze, and he followed it with a sly smile. “I for one would like to think this town is aging quite well, and I with it.” With a shrug, he shied away again, glancing back at Rowan, and Verdan. “And how could we be expected to remain as ever, when so many of our very best were off to other corners of the world?”
She remembered when he could hardly look at her without stuttering—or any lady, for that matter. Change indeed. “A day’s ride is hardly another corner of the world.”
“Aye, but I missed you all the same.” He flashed her teeth that time, as white as she remembered. She still wondered if it was the flour that helped him manage that unearthly tone.
“And I have missed a great many things here as well,” she said, turning away from him. “You seem to have survived my departure well enough, though. I never would have thought to see you with an apprentice.”
“A town has certain needs, and it always needs bakers.”
“True enough. More to topic, though—our dear lord, how has he handled things since Rurik’s departure?”
“Ah, that…” Voren trailed off, leaving her with a low hum for a moment as he fumbled with his words. As she turned to him, she found the smile had somewhat faded. “Little different, by and by. He makes less of an appearance, I hear, but he never made many before. I wouldn’t know, to be true—I’ve never the time to see such things, anyhow. His eldest, though—I hear he’s being sent east with the army when it goes.”
“Ivon?”
She could not say she was surprised. Of all Rurik’s siblings, she had found that Ivon was most like their father. He looked like the mother, true, yet he was a quiet man, strong, but calculative. A somber sort. Rurik and Isaak had always played tricks on him when they were younger—though he throttled them for it later.
Usually, the task of war and of a family’s martial honor fell to younger sons, while the heir spent his time safe from harm and hard at work learning and tending to the intricacies of a life both at court and in the running of a family estate. Ivon had never been a cowed man, and Kasimir would not have one for an heir. Essa couldn’t think of anyone better for the military life, though she would worry for him. He was, after all, also the best suited to inherit Verdan when the time came, and he had a wife and child of his own. In war, too much could go wrong, and this war had never gone right from the beginning. Yet such was the lot of soldiers: they went where their lords beckoned.
“Aye. Spends most his time with the men, shouting and riding and all that. Still’s a few days left, I hear, and then he’ll be off with Lord Kasimir. Isaak’s to take charge while they are off. I can’t say I envy him, but he’s better suited to it than I, at least.”
She laughed. “So would a chicken.”
Voren feigned devastation, swooning from the force of the invisible blow. “You wound me.”
“Do not tempt me.”
She turned away again, studying the trees as well as the camp, looking through them and past them in search of some way beyond them. There were trails into these woods, but she knew not whether they still stood. There were paths she knew as a child that might have overgrown or been torn asunder. She did not doubt she could still find her way through, but much had changed. It would be easier if Voren knew some angle she had not thought of.
“Tell me,” she said, “how do you propose we might see ourselves past all these men? They are like to take notice of a group such as ours.”
Voren looked startled at the suggestion. “A way through? I-I would have to think on that. I am here for the showing, not particularly for the thinking. You ask beyond your baker.” He held up his hands, as though to proclaim innocence. “Best ask your Kuree.”
Essa rounded on him at that. The word was filthy—an insult by the Marindi for the Kuric northmen. The word changed, country to country, but the meaning was ever the same. She was about to light into him when another voice shouted at them from the tent city.
“Ey, what you lot doin’ up there?” A pair of guardsmen had noticed them and were walking toward them from the perimeter of the tents. “You have a minute t’start walking, or you’re going to be doing a lot of talking. And my fists do most my talking.”
Deciding to save her chastisement for another time, Essa took Voren by the wrist and started back toward town. “Come on, you.”
* *
Wispy tendrils of flame coiled up from the floor, belching coarse grey smoke into the bright blue beyond. Rurik stretched out his hands to savor the warmth, letting it roll up his fingers and into his body. The night had brought an unbearable chill that lingered well into the daylight hours. Yet he had deigned toward a lighter garb, hoping the inn would hold its warmth better than it did. Now he was thoroughly convinced it was warmer outside than in.
At least there he could feel the sunlight.
“…do you agree?”
It took him a moment to realize he was supposed to reply. Nodding quickly, he hoped the old voice would press on and leave him to his thoughts. No such luck. Alviss did not mince words. He spoke only when needed, and when he was, he spoke to the point and made sure he was heard. Prattle was not a part of his vocabulary. The downside of this was that Rurik could never evade the old man’s questions.
He assured Alviss that he did in fact agree, like a good little boy. If he thought it would help, he might have even added a smile, but he couldn’t take the edge from his words anyway, so it would be a useless gesture. Alviss snorted derisively. Now the lecture would begin in earnest.
Since the others left them, Rurik had tried his best to ignore the old man, but Alviss had a patience like a cow set to graze. Though he constantly busied himself, such that he could not devote his full attentions to the man, Alviss was more than content to wait him out, always hounding him with those blue, blue eyes. Eventually, Rurik ran out of tasks to fake, so he reluctantly headed to the hearth, that he might at least keep warm through his latest lecture. Alviss waited for him to get comfortable before he began.
It was lined with all the quips he had expected. The need for secrecy. The foolishness of their approach at all. Rurik had heard that one for months on end—since a blade had come perilously close to gutting him in the supposed safety of his own room. He could still see the bit of cloth the assassin had clutched, that one image that set him apart from all the others.
The soaring owl, horned and white as snow, beautiful against the invisible winds of fate, its eyes aglow with terrible condemnation. Not the count’s mark, that one. Something much more unsettling.
He rubbed his fingers together, as though he might still feel the cloth ground between them. He made a note to fetch his gloves when all was said and done. The inn really was a drafty old place. Not that Jez would ever know. The old woman had probably lived through the chill moons, he pondered, and the thought warmed him a bit. She probably drove off the Kurics with eyes alone. He glanced over his shoulder, self-consciously, but the old woman was nowhere to be found.
“Rurik.” The softness to the Kuric’s voice startled him. Alviss stared at him, face a mystery, as always. “What do you intend?”
Once there was a baker. He loved a pretty lass. Dipped a finge
r in her flour, and licked it off her…“I don’t catch your meaning.”
“You were not listening, of course.” The northman sighed, like a heaving mountain, settling back into his chair. “Your father. What do you intend here?”
What indeed. It was a question Rurik had asked many times himself. In truth, he was no closer to an answer now than he had been at the first day of their march. Some days he saw steel—blood. Other days…
“To speak with him. Whatever it may entail.”
In retrospect, he was probably putting a lot less thought into it than he should have. Other things distracted. For the moment, a certain twiggy little baker among them. Can’t trust a baker that doesn’t look the part. If they won’t touch their food—who would?
“How?”
Rurik groaned. “Preferably by window, in the night. By steel, I suppose, if things come to it.”
“And if he will not?”
“I refer you back to the steel.”
He thought he caught a flicker of discontent on the northerner's face. Alviss’s malformed nostrils flared sometimes, when he was of a mood. Ugly thing, even without the flaring—the result of old, repeated breakings, only poorly addressed. The man always said he had taken a mace too many. Rurik did not doubt it. It was not the only injury, merely the most noticeable. The wonder was in the fact that Alviss never showed it, any of it, even though those old wounds must have caused him agony, at times.
“You do not think.”
Rurik shrugged. It hardly changed things if he didn’t.
“You know this wrong,” Alviss added.
“I know only what my eyes see, my ears hear, and my mind chooses to learn. I saw an owl. I heard the whistling of a blade. My mind made the necessary leaps from there. May the Lord strike me down if I do wrong.” He paused, for dramatic effect. “Oh look, I’m still breathing.”
The Hollow March Page 5