Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2)

by Courtney Bowen

  “The status quo has been shaken up enough. Smidge, next time you should tell us before you hire someone.” Habala said.

  “That’s fine,” Geda said, waving his hand at Smidge and undermining Habala’s protest. “I hope your daughter feels better soon, Brigga.” He told the newly hired waitress. “Carry on,” He continued, leading Habala towards the private quarters before she could say anything.

  Habala glanced back at Brigga, who continued scrubbing in determination, and hissed, “Something is wrong here, Geda. I can just taste it.” She said as they passed into the back hallway.

  “There is a lot that has gone wrong here,” Geda muttered as he closed the common room door. “But nothing we can do about it now.” He sighed and said, “Don’t worry about Brigga. Besides, Smidge may be right, we need someone else here to keep ourselves occupied and lighten the load. A former friend can help.”

  “I was a bad mother.” Habala admitted out loud. “I thought that I had ignored or overlooked my boys too much, especially with the work that we had to do at the inn, and the clocks…I thought that if I had paid more attention to them, none of this would ever have happened. Especially Basha. If I had been more concerned about him, and what he was doing, I would never have allowed him to associate with Jawen.”

  “Habala, you cannot beat yourself up about this,” Geda said, turning to her. “You are a good mother, the best mother these boys could have had. What Basha did, that was his own fault, you could not have done anything about it.”

  “I could have stopped it from ever starting, I could have stopped all of this.” Habala insisted. “If only…I never should have trusted…” She sighed, stopping herself from saying anymore on the subject. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should not blame myself.” She said, changing to another topic.

  He stared at her. “Are you okay?” He asked.

  “I’m fine,” She lied, nodding her head. “Just fine.” She could not tell him the truth of what she had suspected, of what she had allowed to happen in the past with Brigga, Smidge, and even the Old Man. Perhaps it was her fault that she had not curtailed this situation sooner, and that she had allowed it to go on for so long. She had trusted them too much, and now her sons would have to pay the price.

  Morton entered the inn, glancing around the common room before he headed up to the bar, stepping around Brigga in the process without really noticing. “Have you seen my cousin?” He asked Smidge.

  “She just came back from the barber-surgeon,” Smidge told him, pointing towards the private quarters, “However, I suggest that you don’t disturb her right now. My brother and your cousin, they’re having a bit of a row back there.”

  “Oh. Right,” Morton sighed, and leaned back against the bar. “I should have been there for her when the boys left, but then I was so upset about…” He glanced down and realized that the mother of the woman he once had loved not that long ago was scrubbing the floor at his feet. “Uh, do you need any help with that?” He asked Brigga. He did not feel comfortable talking about Nisa in front of her mother, when the pain was too fresh, and he half wondered if he might eventually reconcile with Nisa, so treating her mother with kindness might be the right step to take in that process.

  “Oh, no, thank you, I’ve got it. Carry on.” Brigga said willfully, attacking the floor now.

  “Right, Brigga,” Morton said, reluctantly turning away from her. “As I was saying, Smidge, I was so upset that I wasn’t even…were you there when the boys said good-bye?”

  “I was there, Morton, of course I was, I said good-bye to them all.” Smidge told him. “Gave them a pat on the back and all that, wished them good luck and told them that I loved them. I am their uncle, after all. I helped raise them, along with my brother and his wife. They are my brother’s sons, and you didn’t even say good-bye to them?”

  “I was upset!” Morton cried.

  “That’s no excuse, Morton, even Hermer was there! Everyone was there, all of their friends and family members, even friends of the family. You should have been there, Morton, it was a sight to see even if you weren’t emotionally involved in it.” Smidge remarked, wiping the bar down. “Just about the only people who didn’t make an appearance there were the mayor, the baron, and Lapo the merchant, but they were on the side of not letting Basha go on his quest, weren’t they? They didn’t want him to get his hands on Jawen, make a claim on her with Tau’s Cup. Ha! He proved them wrong with the Oracle’s consent. He got that consent easily enough, I suppose thanks to the Old Man’s help, and now all he needs is just the Cup.” Smidge muttered. “Then he will show them who he really is.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” Morton asked, staring at Smidge in puzzlement.

  “Morton, do you mean to tell me that you don’t even pay attention to what is going on here?” Smidge asked, staring at Morton in astonishment and gasping. “I mean, that is what the whole thing is about, the…what do you know about the boys leaving?”

  “I remember that Basha had to go see the Oracle, and then he had to go on a quest for Tau’s Cup after that,” Morton said, “But I don’t remember much about…I know it had something to do with the Courtship ritual, and the girl Jawen, but I wasn’t paying much attention and then I was a little drunk…”

  “Morton, Morton,” Smidge shook his head, slamming his hand against his face. “You’re embarrassing me.” He said. “You’re an embarrassment to this whole family, do you know that? You and your love-sick ways, with your moping and your crying, all because a girl left you, and you think about her still, don’t you?” Smidge asked with a cruel smile. “You think about Nisa.”

  “I can’t help it,” Morton said, glancing at Brigga, Nisa’s mother. This wasn’t something that they should be talking about, awkward and disgraceful as it was, but Morton wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to protest Smidge’s crude manner.

  Brigga stopped scrubbing for a moment and shuddered, hearing them talk about her daughter like this made her feel angry and disgusted, but she couldn’t talk back against them or else she would lose this job and the opportunity it afforded her. She still could not believe that Nisa had ever dated Morton, even if it was for a little while, and for her own purposes. Morton was almost old enough to be…no, actually, Morton would never be old enough to match the venerable age of the Old Man, Nisa’s true father. But if Nisa’s father had been just an ordinary man, one of a mortal and short-lived lifespan, then Morton would nearly be old enough.

  “I know that feeling well, for I have lived it.” Smidge told Morton, patting him on the shoulder. “I felt the same way when your cousin Habala left me to go with Geda, Morton, and there was a hole left in the side of my heart that was leaking blood, and it is still there after all these years.”

  “Does the hole ever go away? Does it ever get better?” Morton asked, hanging onto Smidge’s words.

  “Yes, it does, Morton, because my heart has hardened since then, and it has grown stronger and tougher than it once was as well.” Smidge said, looking up at Morton with a steely gaze and clasping him by the shoulders. “Soon that hole in my heart will shrink away into nothingness, and then I will forget all about Habala and my feelings for her as well. Morton, your heart will soon grow stronger, too, and then you will forget all about Nisa, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I will,” Morton said, trying not to look down at Brigga when he knew the reaction on her face would either be heartbroken, full of tears at the thought of Nisa being forgotten by the man that she had once loved, or anger that he could just so easily forget about her, and move on to another person. He didn’t really believe that he could move on, though, as Nisa had been the only one for him, but her rejection of him had hurt so much that he couldn’t stand it anymore. He wanted to move on.

  “Excellent.” Smidge said with a smile, letting go of Morton. “Your life will be better and you will feel better, too, Morton my dear boy, once you forget about her. You can sleep easily at night, and wake up feeling refreshed. Daylight won’t h
urt your eyes anymore.”

  “I will,” Morton said, not fully understanding Smidge’s words. “One more thing, Smidge, do you consider me to be a man, the type of man who could be a husband and a father? Nisa was saying that I couldn’t be the type of man she would marry.”

  “Morton, Morton, you’re growing up to be that sort of man already, you’re taking the steps towards it, but you’re not there yet.” Smidge said, patting Morton on the shoulder.

  Morton gasped. “But I’m over forty years old!”

  “And you’re not a man just yet. Did you think age would make a difference about that?” Smidge laughed. “You’ve got to take the steps towards it!” He cried.

  Morton turned around and ran out of the inn before tears threatened to fall out of his eyes, right in front of Smidge; that would be a worse embarrassment than what he faced now. He was a man, after all, no matter what Smidge had to say about it. Even Nisa would have to agree with him, someday.

  Smidge turned around, and looked down at Brigga. “How are you doing down there?” He asked her with a smile.

  “Just fine.” Brigga said in a clipped voice, not looking up at him as she continued scrubbing the floor with a brief pause.

  “You’re looking beautiful this morning.” Smidge said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” She asked, looking up at him.

  “Nothing, just commenting.” Smidge said, a little offended at her rudeness to him. “I just think that a nice compliment is something that you deserve, after all, for all of the hard work that you’ve agreed to do while your daughter is sick. I wish I had a mother half as considerate as you. By the way, when will your daughter be back?”

  “A week or so, I don’t know,” Brigga said. “Nisa is very sick, it could take a while for her to recover.”

  “Well, give her my regard,” Smidge said, turning away from her to serve a customer.

  Brigga continued working, but felt a growing sense of unease inside of her, especially as she thought of Smidge watching her. Why did she have to accept Nisa’s commitment to go off and protect those boys Basha and Oaka, working in her stead as well at the inn? She should have spoken out against Nisa’s compulsion, and told her that her father should do his own work, and leave her alone for once.

  Brigga had tried to keep Nisa away from him for the first few years of her life, hoping that Nisa might be able to live a normal life like the rest of the townspeople, but once her daughter had started sneaking off to be with him, Brigga knew that, in a sense, she had lost this battle, and that the Old Man might win over her in the end when it came to their daughter’s affection and attention. The Old Man, she should never have gotten involved with him in the first place, even though Nisa had been born from such a union. She should never have gotten close to the old storyteller, he just made things more complicated, and he ruined everything that he touched in her life.

  To think that for all of these years she had bent over backward, allowing Nisa to go off and do…not evil things with her father, but certainly slightly immoral, watching Basha without his consent at the very least. It was wrong, yet Nisa was protecting him, wasn’t she? What could Brigga have done in the end to stop all of this from happening? She couldn’t keep Nisa away from her father, the Old Man had some right to see his daughter, and Nisa was stubborn, just like her parents, she would have eventually broken loose from Brigga. As for what they were doing, apparently there was a pretty good reason for it, when it came to protecting Basha from evil, but Brigga didn’t know what to think about this whole charade. What sort of evil things could be trying to harm a boy like him? And what sort of things was her daughter doing to protect him? So she just tried to protect her daughter, and covered for her, even though she hated it with all of her heart. She wanted Nisa to be normal.

  “Did you know that there are flocks of other royal messenger birds at the palace besides me?” Fato asked from the pommel of Basha’s saddle, which he took to be his perch when he wasn’t flying. “What do you think of that?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think of that, but it might stun the feathers off of you.” Oaka muttered darkly.

  “I think I may have seen a couple of small birds, sparrows perhaps, fly in and out of the mail office next to city council hall several times in the past. I did not get to see them well enough, or hear them if they were able to speak like humans. Were those royal messenger birds?” Basha asked.

  “Most likely.” Fato nodded. “We don’t deliver too many messages this far north, to Coe Baba especially, but one or two…yes, sparrows probably would be sent to Coe Baba, especially if the messages were insignificant enough.” Fato said, glancing at Oaka. “Not many sparrows last too long in the service, for it is a very dangerous business to a bird.” Fato added, “We don’t fly in flocks, for one thing, because of hunters, hunters shoot at flocks of birds. And a flock is only as good as its weakest member, so flocks are generally slow, with the youngest…”

  “And dumbest.” Oaka said.

  “…and the oldest members amongst them.” Fato said, glaring at Oaka now. “That is why you won’t see me flying around in a flock,” Fato said. “I like to move fast, and I know that my messages are important enough that I have to keep myself safe.”

  “And I bet you that you wouldn’t even be accepted into a flock if you wanted to be in one,” Oaka said.

  “I am a falcon, and a bird like me gets some of the most important messages because I can keep myself safe against almost anything, except for some threats like Black Wolves and humans,” Fato added.

  Oaka rolled his eyes.

  “I suppose I had not gotten close enough.” Basha said again to Fato, trailing off as he rode his horse Talan alongside Oaka on Joko.

  “It’s all right, Basha,” Fato said, looking up at him. “I suppose one day you would have gotten close enough to hear the sparrows speak.”

  Oaka had walked off to bring back the horses from grazing, as Fato and Basha had talked a bit, and he had wondered if Fato was telling the truth. If he really was a royal messenger bird, if he really did have such an important message, if…he never did ask any of these important questions. He thought it was too soon, for one thing, and he did not want to keep arguing with Basha forever, when they did have to get going before night fall, because he did not want to spend any more time near the place where Sir Nickleby was killed. Especially if the Wolves came back, and…ate him at night.

  Oaka shuddered. He had half a mind to go back home at this point, but he was worried; worried about what Sisila, his parents, and the rest of the town might think if he abandoned Basha after Sir Nickleby was killed. Even if he told them about Fato, they probably wouldn’t excuse him, except for Sisila, of course. Plus, he was afraid of leaving Basha alone with this bird if…he didn’t know what Fato was doing. This was an odd situation, and he was determined not to underestimate the royal messenger bird.

  Plus, he did not want to pass by the place where Sir Nickleby was killed, and he did not want to face those Black Wolves by himself again if they were still there.

  The first night without the knight…they weren’t able to make the 55 miles necessary to reach Coe Anji before nightfall. Their route at first from Coe Baba had been lined with small farmsteads, but after awhile, those farmsteads had receded. At night, camping by the side of the road, especially without the knight, smothered the young men with forest darkness. Shadows prowled, triggering them to swathe deep into their blankets as they tried to sleep, and meanwhile Fato snored high up in the tree.

  “For a little bird, he can sure make a lot of noise.” Oaka muttered to himself, on guard duty for the first few hours as they now watched for Black Wolves. Fears, however, were usually forgotten in daylight, and there was no sign of the Wolves.

  When the group got up the next morning, Oaka remarked to Basha, “I had hoped to sleep in a warm bed last night.”

  “Oh, you really are pitiful!” Fato cackled, returning with a rabbit in his talons. “You can’t even stand to s
leep on the ground! Now I see you both need my help!”

  “What makes you expert enough to insult us?” Oaka cried. “You’re just a bird! You probably live in a nest and don’t know anything but this forest!”

  Basha managed to control the tension between them, but at least Fato was a good hunter, that was one point in his favor, Oaka thought to himself as he ate a bit of rabbit. Fato tore at the skull, and the other bits of rabbit that the humans did not want to eat, but the falcon did not seem to mind so much.

  At last, it seemed that they were getting close to Coe Anji, traveling amongst caravans of merchants all huddled close together to protect themselves from petty thieves and bandit gangs, and Basha and Oaka started getting excited. “Coe Anji, the first town we’ve ever been to besides our own,” Basha said, smiling, and then sighed. “Sir Nickleby…”

  “Don’t worry, it will all be okay,” Oaka said, reaching over to pat Basha on the shoulder from horseback. “We’ll get through this,” He muttered. Sir Nickleby had warned that Coe Anji was rougher than Coe Baba, but the scene upon entering the town still surprised Basha and Oaka.

  The core of this hamlet was elbow-to-elbow vendors and stalls. Pedestrians had to get out of the way of a herd of cattle, riders, and wagons.

  The buildings were all made of wood, not just clapboard siding with a smooth finish, but rough-shod as well with the bark still clinging upon and engrained into them. The entire facades of buildings were painted to make the town seem festive, but the paint was peeling off and fading underneath the sunlight. The town seemed to be constructed haphazardly, with random ramshackle huts stacked one on top of another to make the buildings two to three stories tall. Three stories tall! But these were narrow and precarious as well, with some buildings leaning over so much that they had to have joints attached to them outside, beams stuck into the ground and pitched against the walls.