The count wondered how his journey today could have been so much easier. Or even unneeded. Leopold could have done so many things, like tried to marry one of the duchesses to King Sergei, or tried to find an Eracian husband for Sasha, but the monarch was too proud. But then, the Red Caps commander had never married. It was quite strange.
Bart looked at her. She radiated calm confidence and utter control. She was pretty, too.
“You wish to meet my brother, then?” she asked.
He nodded. “I would like to negotiate a treaty with the king, Your Highness.”
Sasha beckoned him closer. “Tell me more about it.”
Bart cleared his throat. There was no point trying to evade answering. “You are well aware that Empress Amalia has taken hundreds of Eracian dignitaries hostage. Our elite are detained against their wishes in Roalas. We are also aware that Parus plans to invade Athesia. It seems inevitable that the Athesian capital would become the focus of fighting. We hope to avoid any unnecessary casualties.”
He probably should not be speaking to her about his plans so openly, not before meeting with the empress first and discussing the rather delicate situation. But he felt mesmerized by her lethal, cold charm.
“So you ask Parusite siege engineers to make their shots well aimed?”
He knew she was underplaying the importance of his message. “In a nutshell, yes.”
Sasha rubbed her chin. “This is definitely something for the king. I don’t have any siege engines.” She turned toward the woman in yellow robes. A priestess, most likely, Bart noted. Yes, definitely. They spoke in low voices.
Bart cracked his knuckles. Yet another token of a huge cultural gap between Eracia and Parus. His people had abandoned any deep involvement in religious matters long ago. The Parusites were quite keen on prayer and rituals. And they made sure the priests approved of their actions. The destruction of the Territories by the Feorans had come as a huge blow to their beliefs. But they had endured. And now, they had come back, stronger than before.
Bart did not know if the attack on Athesia was personal vengeance or a war against infidels. Perhaps both. Or something else entirely. Caytor and Eracia had blundered seriously for never really considering Parus a political partner in their games. They had been too busy warring with one another. Now, their southern neighbors were coming north, armed to the teeth and with godly conviction in their hearts.
“You will be assigned an escort on your journey east. You are now officially a guest of the Parusite king. And his sister.” She lifted an empty parchment from a table and handed it to a scribe.
Escort. He realized they would be there to protect him, but also to monitor his every move and make sure he did not go anywhere they did not want him to go or do anything they did not want him to do. Like disclosing the location of the Red Caps headquarters to a potential ally. Bart mentioned nothing about his intention to parley with Empress Amalia, but Sasha seemed to know his intentions.
“Where will I meet the king, Your Highness?”
She smiled. “Well, if things progress smoothly, it could happen in Roalas. So you’d better hurry then. We don’t want a whole bunch of dead Eracian nobles and Caytorean merchants on our conscience. Who knows how these incidents might escalate. Thank you, Count Bartholomew.”
She dismissed him.
He wanted to linger. He wanted to talk to her some more, learn more about her. He felt fascinated, as a scholar, as a man. But she was no longer looking at him, her eyes bored into the swath of papers on the table below, so he bowed and left.
Her warning was clear. Diplomacy was his second nature. There was no promise the Eracian hostages would be spared the wrath of the oncoming war, especially if they stood in the way of victory. Oh, how he wished to have spent just one summer in Sigurd. Now, the Parusites were total strangers. And they did not really fear the Eracians. Bart would have to think of a smart strategy when he met King Sergei. The Parusites had an agenda of their own and might not appreciate anyone dictating the rules of the game. Trade alliances and marriage offers might be decent gambles, but there was no way of knowing. Bart would learn the truth when he met the Parusite ruler.
A tickle of fear ran up his spine. Despite that, he was excited. This was his expertise. The games of mind and power, wrapped in fancy language.
His troops were unharmed, but they did seem a little harassed. The Parusite soldiers had given them a share of their blunt disrespect, it seemed. They assembled quickly. Once again, Bart chose to ride a horse. Half an hour later, they were ready to go.
Forty female auxiliary cavalry shared their side, mounted on sturdy horses ideal for long-range patrolling, armed with short swords and crossbows. They stared at the Eracian party as an exotic exhibit in a museum. A murmur of lewd suggestions rained on his guards, past cultural and religious barriers. His only female soldier tried to make herself invisible. The men looked positively bright, if a little shocked.
Compared to the Eracian female soldiers, the Parusite bunch looked rough and raw and unabashed. Perhaps in a few generations’ time, the cadre would become more refined and grow from within academies and army establishment. Now, the Red Caps behaved like a bunch of brigands, haphazardly collected and united in their desire to kill and loot and pillage. They were a raucous lot, boosted by an age of frustration and repression. The demons of Parusite society rode on their shoulders, letting go of all the evils and wrongdoings that Parusite women had suffered throughout the nation’s written history.
Bart had read the annals on the last big war. He could not help but notice that the Red Caps resembled Emperor Adam’s legions. They were rough, crude, elemental. They were tough and dangerous. They were outcasts and mavericks, survivors, abandoned souls, and butchers. They fiercely worshipped their commander. And they went against everything the rule book read.
He wondered if King Sergei noticed that, too. He would probably not appreciate the irony.
It was midday. There was still plenty of riding time left. Bart took a deep breath, reveled in the stubborn power his military inferiority gave him, and rode on east to make the world a better place. He did not think about his wife or lucrative titles. His thoughts were solely about Princess Sasha.
CHAPTER 19
They traveled at a snail’s pace. Constance was just too weak for the journey, even though she’d probably die before admitting it. She could not ride, but she could not walk either. She needed food and rest too often. Sometimes Ewan carried her in his arms, like a child. They were not going anywhere, it seemed.
But Ewan endured it. What else could he do?
Regardless, Constance was getting better. Sunlight helped heal her wounds, at least on the inside. They usually slept over two hours after dawn, paused three or four times during daylight, and camped for the night well before the sun set. The extra breaks gave her a chance to recuperate. Walking helped heal her broken ribs. Riding was far more difficult, with the bobbing motion a torture for her ruined body, but she stubbornly endured it, with tears down her cheeks and blood on her lips where she bit them through in her silent agony. Yet, she persisted the way only women could. Her arm was still useless; Ewan estimated at least two weeks before he would hazard taking the cast off.
The two of them were heading toward Shurbalen, a coastal town about a week from Eybalen. This would be their first destination. After that, Ewan would think what to do next. Perhaps he would leave his money to Constance; she could have a fresh start there. It was far enough from the capital to put the ghosts of her past far behind. Or so he hoped. He had not really considered his options. Or hers. Constance might decide Shurbalen was not good enough for her. She might want to travel farther. And he did not really know what to do if that happened.
He was glad for the company, though. He’d never really had any friends, except Ayrton. As an orphan, he had been given places and people, never really choosing them. Saving the girl had been his decision. Taking her along had been his decision. And she accepted him.
They camped about half a mile from the West Road, in a little copse far from direct sight. Constance needed her midday rest. Ewan did not worry about bandits too much, but with Constance around, the daily threats were something he had to take into consideration. They could not hurt him, but they might hurt her. Or use her against him. So he preferred to move off the road; the less attention they drew, the better.
Ewan sat with his back to a tree, reading. The world around him looked serene, normal, with birds singing and insects buzzing, hopping from flower to flower. In the distance, the traffic rumbled down the trade artery between Shurbalen and the capital, and farther still, the sea shimmered, wrapped in a heat haze and road dust. He had a good view of anyone trying to approach them.
There was still plenty of daylight left. It was a prayer book, but he did not read it for its religious texts. Ever since the Abyss, his old beliefs were drying like autumn leaves. He no longer believed in the clean purity of the gods and goddesses. He no longer believed in the simple absolute truth of faith. He read the book as any other, trying to decipher the emotions of the people who had written it. He was thinking about their lives, the hard choices that had led them to commit their fear to paper. It wasn’t a pleasant read.
His god Lar was a distant memory, an echo of a life long gone. He felt old and worn.
Constance sat near him, nibbling on some dried meat. She ate slowly, meticulously. At first, Ewan had thought her just too weak to gobble food down, but then he had learned it was her manners rather than her injuries. She was someone who’d not hungered in her childhood.
Her past was a complete mystery. Even after almost four weeks together, she was still silent about her life in Eybalen. Ewan never asked anything, never pushed. She would tell him when she was ready.
He felt her hot breath on his shoulder. Normally, the outside world happened to other people, but sometimes, little things made him suddenly and acutely aware of his usually numb senses. He cherished those moments when he could smell the flowers or the rain, when the aroma of food filled him like crystal springwater.
Constance was staring over his shoulder, at the book. Her eyes zigzagged left and right. She was reading.
“You can read?” he asked.
She retreated. A long pause. “Yes.”
Dainty eating, literate, Ewan thought. She was not a poor child from the harbor area. She had probably lived in the upper parts of Eybalen, where rich people resided. Which made her presence in the harbor district that night all the more intriguing.
Ewan felt her panic and retreat back into her shawl. He cursed himself for being so forward. She had survived a horrible beating. She had lost a child. She was fleeing the terror of the city that had nearly killed her. He had no right to ask her anything.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He closed the book.
Constance sat by herself for a few minutes, nibbling on the meat, thinking. “Yes, I can read,” she admitted. “Where did you learn to read?”
Ewan put the prayer book aside. “In a monastery. I used to be a young brother.”
She smiled. “You did? You look kind of tough for a priest.”
It was Ewan’s turn to smile. He skimmed through the past twenty-plus years of his life, eighteen of which had happened in an ethereal world of nightmare. He remembered working in the docks. He remembered killing people with his bare hands. Hardly the life of a priest. He chuckled.
“I guess I am,” he said and felt the tension melt away. Suddenly, he felt buoyant. “Do you want to read the book?”
Constance shook her head. “I don’t believe in the gods.”
Ewan felt this could be a tricky topic, but he persisted. He could not help himself. He yearned for conversation, a real, genuine conversation. “Why?”
She took a loaf of bread, placed it between her legs, and with her healthy arm, tried to tear a chunk off. The bread disobeyed; it was too hard.
Ewan leaned over. “Wait, let me help.” His hands brushed against her thighs. He froze. She did not seem to have noticed.
“I was raised that way,” Constance said. But then, she did not elaborate. Their talk died away. Soon, she was asleep, breathing deeply. Ewan listened to her for a while, trying to catch any irregularities in her breathing that might indicate badly healed ribs. But she sounded well. He was pleased with his own decisions. Hiring that healer had really paid off.
The sun settled behind the low hills to the west. No more reading for tonight, Ewan thought. He was a little bored. And he needed no sleep. A long, restless night awaited him. A night filled with a deep, urgent buzz in his bone marrow. It can wait, he told himself.
They reached Shurbalen three days later. After two weeks on the road, twice as long as it took a spice cart to roll between the cities, they had made it into the town. Compared to the capital, Shurbalen was a stunted dwarf with a big hump. It was a city like any other, big, messy, and filthy, filled with people of all shapes and colors. But then, it lacked the sweaty intensity of Eybalen, the moist boil of avarice and deception.
Shurbalen perched on a low cliff, frowning at the Velvet Sea, spreading its fingers down wide, shallow valleys that converged in a dockyard and a medium-sized trade port. A curtain wall encircled most of the city, climbing the hillocks like a tangle of rope, backtracking and twisting. There was a quarantine for sailors and sea travelers outside the wall, where people were forced to spend time before being allowed into the city proper. Ewan didn’t know if they used it still; the one in Eybalen was a warehouse for masts and sails.
He led the girl down the snaking path into the kettle of humanity, watching the harbor. Vessels that looked like bits of gristle on a trembling blue cloth from afar soon became ships, all kinds of them, cogs and narrow-hull skippers and fishing boats. The intense sea color, dappled with coins of silver from the sunlight’s reflection, lost its charm as they approached the gates and passed through. Up close, the waterfront was green and brown and littered with human refuse.
Constance looked ill at ease around so many people, almost panicking, but an hour later, she was merely uncomfortable in the crowded streets. They both walked, Ewan close by and hugging her with one hand, walking the horse with the other. That left him no hands to fend off cutpurses, but no one bothered them. His face radiated honest lethality that thieves understood and respected and kept distance from.
As always, Ewan headed into the poorer districts, his kind of place. He had no idea how rich people behaved. He only knew what they looked like, and he was not one of them. The docks seemed like a second home to him. For a moment, he thought he’d never left Eybalen. The faces seemed too familiar. Most belonged to locals, but there were also some Sirtai and Parusites, and he thought he saw Oth Danesh and one or two Badanese. It was hard to tell. Most ship crews were so mixed he could hardly tell them apart.
They hired a room at an inn called the Wench with Three Brests, right down to the bad spelling. At first, he had though the missing letter had fallen off in a storm, but then he learned it had never really been there.
It was a raucous place, with dead cockroaches swept into corners, and a sooty common room. The guests were all petty merchants waiting for their cargo to be unloaded, drinking cheap wine and palming copper into the greasy hands of local whores. Ewan and Constance ignored them.
Their room was simple and not so clean. Not the best choice, but it would do for the first night. Tomorrow, Ewan intended to scout the city, look for quick and easy money through extremely dangerous employment, buy fresh supplies, and find them more respectable lodging.
Well, at least they had a window. It stared at the pockmarked brick back of another establishment, but the little square let in fresh air. The wind was blowing from the sea. Surprisingly, the smell of brine overpowered the stench of sewage and dead fish.
Ewan had also paid extra for a bath. It wasn’t much, but they could wash the bandages and clean the road dust from their bodies. Otherwise, they would have been forced to wash their armpits and privates with lukewarm water from a rusty bowl left by the door. Whores did that between customers, he knew. Vicky had told him that in another life, so long ago.
“Please go first,” he told her.
Constance eyed the door and shook her head. “I don’t want to leave the room.”
Ewan just nodded. “I’ll wash then,” he said. “Bolt the door, and don’t open it unless it’s me. I’ll knock five times, pause, then knock again three times.”
She nodded.
The bathroom was a little room at the end of the first floor, with a slanted roof, too small to accommodate a bed. It didn’t even have a door, just a brown curtain hanging over the entrance. Ewan found the tub filled for him.
He took his time. He didn’t care about the water temperature. He just needed a medium to soak the filth in, and a perception of hygiene. It worked. Seeping in the square thing they called the tub, which could have been a trough they fed pigs in—and maybe they did, he thought morbidly—he felt tension leak from his painless joints. He watched the oily film of grub float to the surface. He played with it, made little whirlpools, cupped it, and tossed it away.
No one bothered him. No one came by.
Finished, he dried himself with a woolen towel. The landlord had left him a smelly bar of pig bone soap and two towels. The extra half a dozen coppers had paid for that. Ewan dressed up quietly. He was glad for the spare set of clothes. Putting the dirty garb back on would have been a waste. He had barely peeled the socks off his feet. They bobbed now in the tub, hissing as their pungent aroma melted in the murky water.
He tossed all his dirty clothes into the tub, crushed bits of soap off the bar, and dropped them into the water. He stirred the contents, once, twice, lost interest. Damn, he thought. There was no need to scrape. He could be rich. Filthy rich. All he had to do was find a bear pit and bet himself to an easy victory. It could be so easy. The temptation was so great.
The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) Page 21