“I can’t, Eskeriel. I will die if I never share my love with her. I mean it. A man can die of love like he can die of a sword stroke. I need you to help me.” Celdemer reached out a hand like a man drowning and clutched Tuchek’s wrist.
“What is it you think that I can do?” Tuchek replied, puzzled. He resisted the urge to pull his arm away.
“I need a plan.” Celdemer said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I need a way to escape the godsknights so that I might wed, and I need a way to approach her so that I can tell her of my intentions.”
“Light of paradise, Celdemer.” Tuchek said, forgetting for a moment who he was talking to. “You don’t ask for much, do you?” Then he leaned back and put his chin in his hand, thinking. He knew that he had to help his friend, for if he didn’t Celdemer would do or say something foolish where he might be heard. Words would lead to accusations, accusations to insults, and Celdemer would probably wind up killing half a dozen men in various duels, get booted from the godsknights, and get hanged besides. Celdemer stared at him impatiently. But then an idea came to him from something he’d heard today. The godsknight was uncannily perceptive about such things, and he noticed the change in Tuchek’s face.
“What is it?” Celdemer demanded, hope blooming in his eyes. “I see you’ve thought of something. Please, Eskeriel, you must tell me.”
Tuchek shook his head and closed his eyes. “You would really give up being a godsknight over this … this notion?”
Celdemer nodded quickly.
“Then I have a plan, my friend, but you will need to be both patient and discreet. If anyone finds out we planned such a thing we might both wind up dead.”
“The punishment is far too severe.” Angon D’Yast said firmly, a giant staring down at his commander. “It is unprecedented. You should not do this.”
“It is unseemly.” Bodin D’Maitlin agreed, rubbing his freshly shaved cheeks. “I’m not saying the man wasn’t in the wrong, but this is just bad policy.”
“Who commands here?” Celdemer demanded. “Did you not all elect me?”
The two veteran godsknights reluctantly nodded. “We did.” D’Yast finally admitted.
“Please, Lord Captain.” Sir Rioman D’Stellin’s usually pink cheeks were bright red. “I’ll go on bread and water. I’ll pay a fine of ten gold marks. Please, not this.”
“I have decided, and the decision is final. Let us get on with it Sir Rioman.”
Haim came back from Maslit alone, walking in embarrassed silence, wishing that he’d never left the sleeping fort. He shook his head. What a stupid idea.
Like most of Aelfric’s army, Haim had gone into Maslit with a few silver pennies in his pocket, and for the first time in his life he’d walked into a brothel. This was the Half Candle Inn, and had been recommended to him as being the best of such places, suitable for officers and captains, but not cheap. The atmosphere was friendly enough, the girls were not dressed in any kind of improper fashion, and you would have hardly known it was anything other than a proper inn but for the traffic going up and down the stairs.
After two beers he’d been ready. He’d looked around the small room and seen a pretty young girl, maybe not as young as he was, but younger than some of the painted women he saw taking silver from the men.
He’d approached her shyly, and she’d been very polite. Her name was Emmony, she said, and she’d just come to Maslit from her family farm. They had no money, the Ruldins of Redwater, and her brothers were too young for the army, her father too old to be of use. There was no work in Maslit, and they were hungry. Haim had nodded politely, then he’d grown silent, not knowing how to continue.
“I could show you my room.” Emmony volunteered. “It’s two silver marks to come and visit with me.” Haim had nodded, grateful that she had spared him the asking.
She had taken his hand and led him up two flights of stairs to a bright and sunlit room on the third floor of the building. A bed with clean white linens lay in the sunlight, and a silver pitcher full of clean water stood beside a white ceramic basin on a table in the corner.
When he didn’t seem to know what to do, she’d again taken the initiative. “Would you like to watch me bathe?” She had taken off her clothing then, and the sight of her body in the sunlight had taken Haim’s breath, but all he could think of was her starving family and what she’d been reduced to. She was perfectly beautiful, and he knew it, but she was a mite thin, and he saw long days of walking and going hungry behind her, and nothing stirred where he needed it to.
After bathing she had knelt nude before him and helped him to remove his clothing, and he’d blushed at what she’d found. He was not aroused, and nothing she could do with hands or mouth would put the life into his fallen and useless instrument. Mortified, he’d turned from her.
“It’s not you.” He’d said. “By the Secret Gods, you look an angel.”
“It’s all right.” She had replied. “This happens sometimes. Perhaps I could rub your back?”
He’d paid two week’s wages for a backrub and a kiss on the cheek, and then, because still nothing was happening, he’d dressed and left without a further word.
He was thinking of her and of how humiliating the experience had been, cursing his impotent and useless cock and wondering why it always seemed to work just fine when he was by himself, when suddenly alarum bells began ringing in his head. Five godsknights stood in front of his tent, and at their center was Sir Rioman, the knight he’d humiliated earlier.
His first thought was that somehow they knew he’d been at a brothel. He wondered if he might escape punishment by explaining that nothing had happened, but he quickly realized that they could not have known where he was if they were in camp. No, more likely they meant to make some kind of example of the freeman who’d dared to lay hands on the gentry.
He was about to call for his men when he realized there was no need. The spearmen from half a dozen fyrdes were standing between the tents, looking on. Reassured, he approached the godsknights. Their leader was there, Sir Celdemer who was Tuchek’s friend, and he had a stern look on his face. “Do I need to get my captain?” Haim asked.
“Your captain is aware of what we do here, Fyrdman Haim.” Celdemer replied, nodding at Captain Tolric, who stood near. “Sir Rioman, have you something to say?”
Rioman looked like he might throw up. He stiffened his jaw, looked up at Haim, and spoke. “I wish to apologize most sincerely for my behavior yesterday evening, Fyrdman Haim. I acted in a manner unbecoming a man of the Light. In proof of my sincerity, I have pledged to assist your fyrde with the construction of the sleeping fort for the next week using the labor of my own hands.” He held them out as if for inspection, but Haim was too stunned to look at them.
“And?” Celdemer insisted pitilessly.
“And I also apologize for having miscalled you a peasant. Again I misspoke and insulted you deliberately, in a manner unbefitting a godsknight. I humbly beg your forgiveness.”
“Thank you, Sir Rioman.” Celdemer turned to Haim. “Have you room for another in your fyrde’s tent, Fyrdman Haim? I beg that you permit Sir Rioman to camp with you, in token of his good will. He will share your tent and eat at your mess.”
Haim nodded, hardly knowing what to make of Sir Rioman’s penance. “Aye, Commander. We can make room for him, but he can’t have a servant here.”
Nearly weeping, Sir Rioman took his kit from the hands of his bodyservant, and Haim’s men opened the flap of the tent for him. “He will learn to do for himself.” Celdemer said. “And do not be gentle with him.”
“Seven Hells.” Tolric quietly said, turning to Haim once the knights had gone. “Did that just happen?”
The Army of the Silver Run Muster left Maslit on the second morning, and many people turned out to line the king’s road and wish them well. Aelfric sent scouts to the east of the road, heavy patrols of lancers on high alert for any Cthochi lying in ambush. The road to Redwater Town would be fraught with danger, dan
ger that was enhanced by the army’s need to reach the town in two marches. Aelfric was surprised when Commander Celdemer volunteered the godsknights to run with the patrols, and even more surprised when he offered to divide his men, sending four or five knights to strengthen each patrol. It was a welcome surprise, but Aelfric couldn’t help but think the godsknight commander would lose a great deal of popularity among his men for it. When he mentioned it to his captains, only Tuchek seemed unsurprised.
“I think he wants to make the godsknights more useful.” Was his only comment.
Their expressions concealed beneath their helmets, the godsknights grimaced and cursed the orders. Many secretly cursed Celdemer as well. Discipline was one thing. Running patrols to protect infantry? It was unheard of.
Still, duty was duty, and orders were orders. The patrols crossed the strangely empty country in long paths, looking for any Cthochi they might find, fearful of ambushes. Throughout the day’s long march they saw nothing, and Maslit faded into memory behind them.
Chapter 66: The Wrath, North Sea, Emerald Peninsula
“Now I will teach you how to kill a Mortentian blademaster, Levin.” Kuljin said. The two of them were standing on the poorly planked deck of the Aulig ship, a ship they had renamed simply the Wrath, since none of them but Kuljin knew what a white bear was, and several women sat around them, watching. Limme was at the ship’s tiller, for Levin had showed her how to set a course and maintain it, and she was watching also. Marcella Tanager was the best of the lot, handsome rather than pretty, with sun-browned skin and dark red hair. She was hundred kingdoms strong, with the kind of endurance that came of a thousand generations of wise farm wives.
The other nineteen Mortentian women were younger than Marcella, the oldest of them no more than twenty, and many of them had been ill-used by the Borni. Poor Fyella O’Mangavolle was completely broken, and would neither work nor speak, although she was still pretty in a lost and tragic sort of way. The rest of the women fell somewhere between these two in spirit, some of them refusing to look up and all of them traumatized by their treatment among the Borni. Still, they could be taught, and half of them had spent their first day at sea cleaning and repairing things on the ship and the other half learning to crew it.
The Wrath was southbound, on a simple tack that was the safest maneuver to teach them, for the lateen sails of the Aulig ship made sailing before the wind difficult, the constant adjusting that such a course required beyond their skill. Levin did not mind. Their course needed to be mostly south and east, for he had taken them west in the night, into deep water to avoid the shoals that surrounded Jutland. Despite the heavier waves, the open sea was ideal for them to learn the basics of sailing, but if they were to reach Tarnanvolle or Nevermind they needed to come back the other way, and soon. Levin did not relish the idea of sailing along a coast he did not know.
“The Mortentian blademaster is the best of them, Levin.” Kuljin was explaining. “Comes of living in a land without the Art, I suppose. There are no runes in Mortentia to protect a sloppy swordsman, nor are there healers to give him a second chance when he fails. For that reason Mortentians learn the blade as a matter of life or death, and they learn it better perhaps than any other people.
“Just as Mortentian ships are the best crafted and Mortentian steel is of the best quality, Mortentian swordcraft is unsurpassed in the world. To fight a Mortentian you must remember everything I have taught you about fighting. You need to be as athletic and resourceful as a Vheradoran, as alert to the killing blow as a Tolrissan, as strong as a Thimenian and as instinctive as an Aulig.”
“I’ve faced a blademaster before.” Levin replied. “I ran.”
“That was probably the best thing you could have done, before your training.” Kuljin replied. “There’s no shame in running when you are overmatched. To do otherwise would have been heroic, I suppose, but you’d have wound up dead.”
Levin nodded, pulling his wooden practice sword to the guard position. “All right, halfman.” He said. “Let’s have a go.”
Kuljin was still his better with the long sword, but it was no longer the one-sided competition it had been when he’d first met the blademaster. “There is a new style I would teach you, Levin. It depends on a new kind of weapon, should you ever find yourself in possession of one. These are narrow blades, but very strong, heavy in the tip and about four feet long. You fight with the blade alone, no shield, or perhaps only a dagger or small buckler. You don’t need armor.”
“Fight without armor? How?”
“Watch me.” Kuljin replied, then he leaped from his position, nearly halfway across the deck, and Levin was forced to parry a blow that would have hit him in the neck. The halfman leaped backward, out of range, then his blade was back again, and again Levin was forced to parry at the last instant. “Now, imagine this blade is a foot longer, and all of the killing done by the point or the blade within a foot of it.”
“Lio’s breath.” Levin replied. “That leaves you completely open.”
“No, because the sword is the guard, both shield and weapon. It’s like the Brizaki two-handed style, but instead of chopping down, the attack is all thrust, and it’s one-handed. That leaves your free hand to parry, or if you have a dagger in your off hand, you can strike with it as well.”
“This is fine with practice swords, Kuljin, but a sword that long? It would be snapped in half by a broadsword.”
“Not these swords, Levin. I’ve seen the latest ones coming out of the smithies in Arker. They fold the steel maybe fifty times or more, and what they get is better steel than anyone else. Nobody makes swords like these, not even the Brizaki, and they have the finest weapons outside of Mortentia.”
All of the women on board were either manning the lines or cleaning out the stinking hold of the Wrath. Most of them were sneaking looks at the two men as well, for they were stripped to the waist and both quite handsome. They could only clean the hold in shifts, for the sun beating down aggravated the smells of rot and offal below, but bit by bit they had removed the waste and filth that had accumulated. The hold would never be a comfortable place in which to sleep, but it was a tolerable place to shelter in during the occasional brief cloudburst.
During their breaks the women did what women did, which was to clean laundry, organize food, tidy things up, gossip and speak sharply to each other. It was not until their third day at sea that Levin found out they had used all the fresh water for cleaning.
“I am sorry, captain Levin.” Marcella was saying. “But you never told us that we could not use the barrel to wash, and everyone was desperate to get clean.”
Levin shook his head and looked forward. By his estimation they were at least ten day’s sailing from any friendly port. It was like a woman to make a mistake and find a way to make it his fault. Kuljin was standing beside him, and they were both at the tiller, watching the waves for any large swells or, more importantly, any sails on the horizon.
If they encountered Mortentian vessels, there was every likelihood they would be fired on right away with flaming arrows or ballista bolts, and the Wrath was a highly flammable vessel, soaked in whale oil and pitch to make the poor construction watertight. If they encountered Aulig ships they would in all likelihood be captured, and the girls taken for thrall again. Needless to say in such a situation Levin and Kuljin would be killed out of hand, so any ship or sail was to be avoided.
“Use seawater to wash from now on.” Levin said simply, having no desire to become embroiled in recriminations with these women. He had learned a long time ago that you could not beat a woman in an argument. If you won, you were a bully; if you lost, you were a fool. Additionally, women argued differently than men, and you would find yourself listening to a host of accusations that had nothing to do with the matter at hand.
He didn’t know if the Aulig way was better, to just beat the women into submission, or perhaps the Thimenian way, which was to do whatever they said. He did know that to avoid the matter altogether
seemed his safest course. Kuljin wisely said nothing until the women had left them alone at the tiller.
“Well, the nearest fresh water is on the Emerald Peninsula.” The halfman said after a while.
“And bloody dangerous to get to it.” Levin replied. “If all is as Limme said, the Auligs are all over the coast with their war canoes.”
Kuljin nodded. “Yes. But we’re in an Aulig ship. Likely they wouldn’t intercept us unless we land right on them.”
“And probably the Mortentian navy has finally shown up.” Levin replied. “We’ll probably be sunk just trying to reach shore.” Then he shook his head. “Still, I guess we’d better chance it. I just wish we had a faster ship. This breeze will help us, but it will help any pursuing us just as much.” The wind was blowing stronger than it had in days, a steady driving breeze that blew whitecaps across the tops of waves and caused spray to splash up on deck whenever they hit a good sized wave.
“There’s a storm behind it would be my guess.” Kuljin replied, looking to the western horizon. The sky was clear, but hazy, and the line between sea and sky had all but disappeared. “I’d hate to be in this tub if there’s a tempest.”
“You and me both.” Levin looked at the ship darkly. It was rocking from side to side and it pitched and yawed as it crested waves and then fell into their troughs. Every wave seemed to rock it excessively, and it had neither the steadiness of course of the Sally’s High Touch nor the stability of Jarlben’s longboat. “I don’t suppose you know how to get to the Emerald Peninsula?”
Kuljin pointed dead ahead. “It’s that way. We keep on as we are and you can’t miss it.”
Limme blamed herself for the lack of fresh water, but she wasn’t about to tell Levin that. Ever since they had rescued the Mortentian women from the Borni, the other women had looked to Limme for instruction, and she’d done all that she could to ensure that they did whatever Levin and Kuljin said needed to be done on board. It had been Limme who ordered the others to wash and clean themselves and the laundry, and she hadn’t thought twice about using the barrel with the fresh water that they’d found in the hold.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 87