by Lee Ramsay
“It is enough for a nameless orphan to escape the drudgery of life on a farm if he so chooses. You have done your country a service, and I thank you for it. Now, go home and forget all of this. Live your life, since you were deft enough to hold onto it.”
Gwistain strode away without a backward glance. Tristan bounced the coin purse in his palm once the prince vanished from sight, and slanted a look up at Dougan. “I think I’ve been insulted.”
Chapter 75
Spring 1415
As Alder feared, Tristan pushed himself too hard to recover. An infection settled into his lungs, and with it came a wet, brittle crackling every time he took a breath. By the turn of the year, though, applications of camphor oils to his chest and isolation in rooms kept stiflingly hot and dry drove away the rails robbing him of his breath. With spring’s arrival, he was allowed to leave the warmth of the halls; the Anahari physician deemed his lungs healed enough that fresh air and sunlight would do more for him than enforced idleness.
Travel and injury had ruined what clothes he possessed, with only Seamus’ boots salvageable. Dougan brought him warm woolen britches and soft linen shirts in warm tones complemented by wool-lined leather jerkins and several felted flat caps. The veteran commissioned a replacement coat with a similar cut to the looted Dushken’s jacket, with a felted wool shell the brown of fresh-turned soil after a spring rain and lined with snowy fleece. Only when the young man was dressed warmly against the chill did the veteran let him leave his chamber.
The urge to escape the Temple of Maponos had worsened in recent days. Anthoun’s continued absence, combined with Dougan’s hovering, made him dread returning to Dorishad. No doubt they would attempt to cloister him once they returned home. He refused to accept such a state, and he was determined to make it clear that he alone would dictate where he went, and when. Leaving the temple was his way of announcing his intention.
Tristan paused in the chapel proper, paying his respects to the patron deity before exiting the temple. He had been staring through his room’s small window for months; the rippled glass panes distorted the world outside the temple and turned passerby into smears of color. He wanted to see the bustle of life in the town of Wenggen. Once outside the walls and surrounded by people, however, his pulse raced and his fingers grew numb. Wariness learned in Ankara’s labyrinth and on the road caused him to cast a wary eye down each street, avoid larger men, and give passerby suspicious glances. These were faces he did not know. Without Brenna, Groush, and Rathus, he felt exposed and vulnerable.
Calming himself, he returned to the Temple of Maponos and seated himself on the steps with his hands clasped beneath his chin. With the temple's security at his back, he was content to sit and watch the people passing by.
He, Anthoun, and Dougan would leave for Dorishad in two days. Soon enough, there would be less than two hundred people for him to deal with – a readjustment that would be both easy and challenging. As much as he wanted to go home, he dreaded doing so. Much had changed with him, yet he doubted the people back home had changed much at all; he wondered if they would see him as anything more than a spoiled, ungrateful brat.
That Tristan is dead. Will they recognize that I’ve changed?
Not for the first time, he felt his friends’ absence.
Groush had not come to see him – not that he expected him to do so; the bull did not strike him as sentimental. He suspected the Hillffolk had returned to Gwistain’s service after delivering Tristan and the others to Wenggen. He would have liked to have seen the bull one last time so he could thank him; without him, none of them would have survived.
So, too, would he miss Rathus. They had already said their farewells, and he did not blame the bard for not returning. Where was the adventure and excitement in a sick house? Tristan winced at how many times he had ignored the bard’s attempts to lighten their mood with a story, a joke, or a song. Groush had kept a watchful eye over their physical safety, but the nobleman had made the grueling pace and persistent fear tolerable. The bard had an easy nature the young man wished he possessed.
Brenna’s absence stung him most. If not for her, he might still be imprisoned in Ankara’s dungeon – or, more likely, dead. He would have never escaped from Feinthresh Castle if not for her, much less survived the infection in his hand or being impaled by the Horned Knight’s sword. He owed her more gratitude than he had ever shown, and he wished he could see her one last time to rectify the lack.
Despite his early misgivings about her, he had grown to like the nervous young woman. Perhaps more than the others, he missed her company and conversation. If what Rathus told him was true, he could not fault her for entering the Cloister of Siranon. What was his year compared to the eight she had suffered?
Hands folded against his lips, the young man blamed the twinge in his chest on his healing lung. “Farewell, my friends.”
TRISTAN SURREPTITIOUSLY examined his ward father as they waited for the coach hired to transport them back to Dorishad. The sage’s thin shoulders were rounded more than he recalled, and his pale face was unshaved. The dove gray coat falling to the old man’s thigh was as wrinkled as the black waistcoat and white linen shirt, as though he had slept in both, and the bagged skin beneath his gray eyes drooped.
If the sage was aware of his ward son’s gaze, he did not let on. Dougan stood silent beside him, a thin line between his bushy eyebrows. Tristan recognized the signs of an argument between the two, having seen similar expressions on their faces before. The fact that the sage did not look at him led him to believe he was at the center of the argument.
Irritated, he looked away from the two men who had raised him since he was a babe. He was more than a year past his majority and had survived torture at the hands of Ankara and Sathra; Dushken had hunted him, and a Meridan warlord had nearly slain him. Yet here the three of them stood, surrounded by their baggage, and the two older men were locked in a contest of wills over decisions being made without consulting him.
The annoyance that had driven him to jump Dorishad’s low wall returned with fresh urgency. He was tempted to sling the simple rucksack with the spare clothes Dougan had bought for him over his shoulder and try to make his way with the money Gwistain had given him – Dorishad be damned.
The young man pushed the thought aside with gritted his teeth; they deserved better from him. Whatever they were arguing about, he understood they had his best interest at heart. He owed them everything, but they also owed him the courtesy of consulting him about his desires.
Counseling himself to patience, he waited for the coach. His jaw sagged open when it arrived.
Drawn by a team of six mares caparisoned in silvered steel, the enclosed conveyance was painted black and trimmed with gold. Silver oil lanterns with beveled glass panes hung beside the driver’s bench. Four coachmen in silver and gold livery bore the crest of the House of Ravvos on engraved cuirasses and gorgets. Each man bore a sword at their hip, with the second man on the bench carrying a vicious-looking crossbow. The carriage door sported a rampant unicorn, the golden spiral of the horn lowered as though in challenge.
Tristan closed his gaping mouth with a click of his teeth. “That’s a royal coach.”
“It is indeed,” Anthoun said wryly. “A favor granted by High King Mathonis for services rendered.”
“What services?”
Anthoun and Dougan exchanged a look. The veteran lifted his eyebrows as the sage pursed his lips and met the young man’s gaze. “We will talk about that soon, I promise you.”
Some of Tristan’s annoyance returned at the deflection. “Are you saying that to keep me quiet, so you can pretend to forget?”
“That is rather cynical.”
“But not unjustified.”
The sage’s face darkened as he heaved an irritated sigh and stared into his ward’s green eyes. The young man met his gaze, unwilling to be cowed. “This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.”
Snorting, the young man sl
ung his rucksack over his shoulder and stepped toward the coach. “It never is.”
TRAVERSING THE ROADS south of Caer Ravvos was loud and uncomfortable despite the springs mounted to the wheels. Unlike Troppenheim’s well-tended roads, those of the Kingdom of Ravvos were narrow and rutted from heavy use and poor maintenance – and only worsened the farther they got from the capital. The plush cushions did little to ease the passengers’ jouncing, and the frosted windows rattled in their casings hard enough that Tristan feared they would shatter.
Dougan was undisturbed by the rough going. The veteran planted his foot against the seat opposite him with no regard for the velvet knap, folded his arms across his chest with his hat pulled low over his eyes, and snored through all but the worst jolts. Anthoun, too, ignored his discomfort as he sat beside Dougan with a book open in his lap. The carriage’s racket blended with the coachmen's calls and the thundering of the horses’ hooves, making conversation all but impossible. Tuning out the world around him, the sage focused on words written in a language Tristan did not recognize.
After an hour, the young man understood Dougan’s comment months earlier about not being ready to travel. Despite being mostly healed from his surgery, the bouncing made his insides feel more bruised than they already did.
They stopped to rest near midday. After listening to jangling springs and rattling glass and wood, the silence was deafening. Flinging the door open as soon as the carriage rolled to a stop, the young man jumped down and strode away with exaggerated stretches of kinked muscles. He had hoped to start the conversation he knew needed to happen once their journey began, but between the clatter of travel and Anthoun’s pointed perusal of his book, settling their differences would have to wait.
Prowling through the woodland to stretch his legs and spine, Tristan wondered if the old man had any intention of settling what lay between them. A bitter twist came to his lips as he decided to outwait the sage. I’ve waited eighteen years for him to say something worthwhile. I’ll probably be in my thirties before he realizes I haven’t spoken to him.
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Tristan found riding atop the coach preferable to sitting in the cramped interior with nothing to look at but frosted windows, Dougan’s sleeping face, and Anthoun’s head bent over his book. A slight rearrangement of the baggage gave him a passable seat – though there were ruts and rough places enough that his teeth often rattled in his skull.
The further south and west they traveled, the wilder the countryside became. The Kingdom of Ravvos was much like Troppenheim – vast stretches of farmland sectioned off by roads, with small towns or villages at the significant crossroads – but became more forested as they approached the borderlands with the Kingdom of Kothos. Here, fields and orchards gave way to broken, oak forested hills; the road switched back and forth as it wound through a rugged landscape.
They stayed beneath the gabled roofs of roadside inns, often leaving near dawn and arriving at the next as evening thunderstorms showered the land. Kothos was less populated than Ravvos, which translated into longer stretches of road between one village and the next. Each evening, Tristan was stiff and sore as he climbed down from the carriage.
By the seventh night, he was tired enough for his irritation to wane and leave him ready to speak with his ward father. Anthoun, however, did not share the sentiment. He said nothing during their simple meal and retreated to the room he shared with Dougan as soon as he ate his fill.
“Give him time,” the veteran said, slouched in his seat with a tankard of ale in front of him. “Do you have any idea how worried he was when we learned you taken it in your head to run off – much less that you’d taken an injury and lay near death?”
“He has an odd way of showing it.”
“I’ll grant you that.” Dougan swallowed a mouthful and set his mug down with a thump. “He has spent your whole life nurturing you the best he could. It was a shock for you to turn on him.”
Tristan swallowed the last of his ale as he pushed himself to his feet. The base of his mug struck the table as he turned for the inn’s door. “Yes, well, I’m a person, not a stray fox kit.”
He stepped into the drizzling rain to escape the inn’s confines and pulled his cap low on his head. Cool mist brushed his cheeks and soothed away some of his irritation. Nodding to the coachman left to guard the royal carriage – each of which was a trained soldier in the high king’s guardsmen – he climbed up on a wheel and dug through baggage covered by a canvas tarp.
Finding the bearded axe taken from the ambushed Dushken, which Groush had left for him, he slung the shaft over his shoulder and jumped down. His boots splashed in the muddy puddles as he stepped away from the pools of lantern light near the inn and stared into the night-shrouded forest. A persistent unease had haunted him since he woke in the Temple of Maponos and had grown since moving into the more rural countryside. He recognized his residual fear as a lingering consequence of imprisonment and the flight across Anahar, Caledorn, and Troppenheim.
At the temple, he had been safely surrounded by Wenggen’s Troppenheim and Ravvosi residents. Had he wanted to, Urzgeth could have snuck through the town and infiltrated the hospital to kill him, but the aged huntsman was too cagey to place himself in such a disadvantageous position. If he still hunted Tristan, he would attack when least expected – though he thought such an attack unlikely. One huntsman against four royal soldiers would require surprise to give the alpha an advantage. The odds would be even more skewed in the Dushken’s disfavor if Dougan had a weapon to hand.
Since entering Kothos, though, he had been unable to shake the sensation of being stalked. The woods here were wild, and though the air’s feel and flavor were different, he could not ignore the similarities to Anahar’s forests. During the day, he could dismiss the sensation; he doubted Urzgeth would have been able to keep pace with the carriage. It was when they stopped for the night that he grew unsettled.
When he stared into the darkness, the darkness always seemed to stare back.
Not for the first time, he wished his friends were with him. He did not doubt that the coachmen were capable warriors, and Dougan as well – but he did not know the liveried men, and his trust in Dougan had been cast in almost as unfavorable a light as he viewed Anthoun.
“Tristan.”
Aware of the sage’s presence almost since he jumped down from the carriage, the young man did not startle. The silence between them drew taut before he faced the sage, and his eyebrows lifted as his fingers drummed the axe’s grip. “I was wondering when you were going to speak to me.”
“I was hoping to do so when you were ready to listen without glaring.”
“You might be waiting a while.”
“So I gathered. Miserable as the ride has been, it has at least left us both too tired to tear each other apart. Or so I hope.” Squaring his slender shoulders, Anthoun drew a deep breath. “Dougan told me much of what you told him. I know that, in some ways, I have erred. Speak your mind.”
Tristan stared at his ward father for a long moment. Allowing the anger which had been poisoning him to bleed into his voice, he shrugged. “I would know why you made the decisions you have.”
“That is rather vague. I have lived a long life and made many decisions,” Anthoun said with a tired smile. When the feeble attempt at a joke fell flat, he sighed. “I’m sure you have a more specific question.”
“Why all the lies and omissions? You lied about the Hillffolk being bands of people living in the wilds. You lied about the existence of magic. You never told me of the existence of Dushken.”
“You ran off before I had the chance.”
“You had years to tell me.” The young man shifted his axe to a more comfortable seat on his shoulder. “Instead, you taught me old history, geography, and economics. You filled my head with theory rather than the things I needed to know.”
Anthoun gave the axe an annoyed look and sucked his teeth as he considered his words. “You’re an orphan.”
&n
bsp; “I’m aware of that.”
“If you want answers, don’t interrupt.” Mud sucked at the sage’s bootheels as he took a few steps away. “What would you have had me do? I remember what it was like to be a boy, though those years are far behind me. You lack a family name, a people of your own, and a surety of place in a world that values all three. I could see the hunger in your eyes after reading one of those deplorable adventure books Dougan loves. With nothing to lay claim to, you – like so many foolish boys, orphan or no – would have sought adventure to make a name for yourself.
“If I told you about the Hillffolk, you would have been mad with the desire to find them. Dushken? You’d have hounded Dougan to teach you the ways of war so you could hunt monsters.” The old man shook his head, and the moisture beading his gray hair glittered with reflected light from the tavern. “As for magic – that is a bit trickier to explain. Why do you suppose I kept such knowledge from you?”
Tristan was grateful the darkness hid the embarrassed flush heating his face. Anthoun’s words stung with their accuracy. “Because I would want it.”
“Precisely. The gift does not run in your blood. Try to see things from where I stood. You were already struggling with being different from the others in Dorishad. Giving you knowledge of magic, only to inform you it was yet another thing you were denied, struck me as needlessly cruel.” Anthoun’s fingers ran back through his hair, the gesture slicking dampness through the gray strands. “You are the closest I will ever come to having a son. I sought to protect you.”
“Then why have you not adopted me, if that were true?”
“A complex question. Suffice to say that, adopted or no, you would have grown up with people questioning your rights to my land.” The sage’s lips twisted in a bitter smirk. “It may seem cruel, but allowing you to grow to manhood without surety of place was intended to teach you who you were, and what your gifts and talents are, before I burdened you with an inheritance.”