by Brian Daley
“Ludicrous oaf,” Crassmor murmured into his drink. Loath to start any trouble, he did no more than that. The carters helped themselves to seats at the lady’s table without so much as the courtesy of a bow. She refrained from comment. A popping hearth log suddenly sounded louder. One of the men edged over the table toward her. She made her rebuff firm but polite. “I shall decline your company, gentles, thanking you to leave me in peace.” The two laughed at that, hitting each other’s arms.
“Oh, churls,” Crassmor muttered, hoping the barkeep would return. Bill was not forthcoming; her pleading look found the knight; it seemed to hold great promise. He felt his blood warm up, only in part the work of the stout. Passion beckoned; Crassmor fell prey.
One carter’s paw had fallen on her shoulder and refused to be dislodged. Crassmor sighed and pushed away his mug, considering various ploys by which he might handle the situation and yet leave Shhing in its scabbard.
He reminded himself as he stopped at the disputed table that he presented a fairly impressive appearance. He’d gained a trifle more weight during his long sojourn in the Beyond and had filled out a bit. The appeal of his mustache and goatee was more the product of diligent grooming and tending than of luxuriance, but it was undeniable. His red hair had thinned a little, and he now wore it at collar length, brushed back meticulously from a high forehead. His pale skin and easy carriage suggested no familiarity with menial labor. His elegantly embroidered pourpoint jacket and silken tights, one leg in green and the other in red, set him apart from the local mountaineers. And there was Shhing poking over his left shoulder.
Left hand resting arrogantly on hip, he cuffed the overly familiar carter’s shoulder confidently but lightly—the question of proper impact being important here. Both newcomers were short, fleshy men, balding, with salt-and-pepper beards. They were rather older, the knight thought, than most men in their trade. It seemed to him a good omen.
The man and his companion looked up angrily. “What would you of me? Away with you!”
Crassmor, eyebrow cocked haughtily, glared down his long, slender nose. “Unless I am mistaken, fellow, this gentle lady would happily forgo your ah, society.” And to her he added, “Am I correct?”
Her face showed obvious gratitude and a certain invitation. “Oh, Sir Knight, yes,” she said in a shy whisper that touched him. Crassmor, basking in her approval, not unaware of what his reward might be, touched up his mustache with a knuckle and stroked his meticulous goatee.
But the carters were not cooperating with his scenario. “Who are you, to order free men about?” the one Crassmor had addressed snarled. The man’s eyes bulged. Both carters pulled their feet up, coming around on their bench and slamming muddy clodhoppers down, making the floorboards shake. Elderly for their trade they might be, but not mellowed by the years.
Crassmor backed off an alarmed step. Damn me for a brainless intervener! He held his blasé sneer, though, a favorite instrument. An elaborately casual glance aside told him that Bill still hadn’t returned.
“Answer me, sirrah!” the carter barked; daggers appeared in the hands of the two. They held them with no great skill, and their postures indicated only modest ability, but it was a given in the knight’s philosophy that any foe was dangerous. It was another that any fight that could be avoided should be.
The two moved promptly, standing. “Defend yourself, O Knight!” the lady implored.
Her petition hadn’t been necessary; years of merciless drill took over. Ungiven to brawling Crassmor might be, but he had used up uncounted weary hours in the training required of a knight.
The leather brace on his wrist was loosely laced for zither playing and didn’t hamper him. His right hand flashed up, its outer edge swiveling his back-scabbarded sword, so that when his fingers clamped on its hilt and executed the combat draw, Shhing sprang forth in a flat arc at neck level, putting its name in the air. His left forearm Crassmor kept close across his chest, safe from the glittering sword sweep.
The carters stopped short. Crassmor made no move to close, holding that a tavern fight was reason neither to behead a man like a nosegay nor take a chance on being gutted. The two stared at him agog, then at each other. The one whom Crassmor had addressed reached up unconsciously to thumb his Adam’s apple, plainly reflecting on what the knight’s unscabbarding stroke could have done to it.
Though they were irresolute, the duo still gripped their daggers. Seeing that he’d half-daunted them, Crassmor thought he might end things with one more harmless demonstration. Spying a pewter goblet on a nearby table, he took another step back.
He assumed a two-handed grip, close behind his sword’s cup hilt. Appraising himself of his center of gravity, he surrendered to learned motions. Crassmor half-pivoted and took a long step; his blade became a silver afterimage on their eyes. Shhing hissed through the air and there was shearing impact. The goblet fell away in two tidy pieces, bisected from lip to base.
Crassmor had already recovered, yanking his blade from the wood. He resumed a ready stance with Shhing poised before him. The drovers stood frozen in place. The halves of the cloven goblet rocked gently on the table as rain beat at the roof and gusts of wind made the windows tremble and the lamp flames waver.
“That will suffice.”
The lady’s command cut through the knight’s anxious concentration. When the aged carters gathered their rain capes and departed in a rush, suspicion came to Crassmor belatedly. The woman patted the bench next to her. “Won’t you join me, praiseworthy knight? Sir Crassmor, is it not?”
He reached up and rescabbarded Shhing carefully; it was easy enough to slice a finger or three when one’s hands were shaking. Snatching up his mug, he tossed down a mouthful of stout, an uncharacteristic gesture which nearly made him choke.
She shook her head. The tight curls danced as amusement lit those deceitful eyes. “It does you no good to scowl at me as if I were something unpleasant that’s gotten smeared on your shoe. Come; that one trick did you no lasting harm. I have no other to play, I pledge.”
He sniffed disdainfully to mask his confusion. “And, pray, just what good is your word, madam? You’ve misused womanhood and played falsely upon one who only sought to help. I am wounded in my heart.”
“Pricked in your vanity, more likely,” she countered. “It seems by far the larger target. I was informed that I would find here a knight of the Circle of Onn who is not as incapacitated as he’d have people think.”
He seated himself, but at the extreme end of the bench from her. “That decided you to come here and unleash those aging bullyboys upon me? Shabby sport, madam.”
Her eyes laughed still. “You mean poor old Roode and Dimble? No bullies, nor carters either; only household servants of mine, far more frightened of you than you of them.” She ignored his muttered protest. She went on. “They helped me only to prove that, in fact, your sword wrist is not disabled.”
The knight stared down guiltily and rubbed the joint in question in its brace. This smarty-girl had caught him cold. Worst of all was Crassmor’s conviction that he knew which way this conversation was leading. Before he could rally his wits and forestall her, telling himself, This is all so unfair! she spoke the words he dreaded.
“Sir Crassmor, by your station and the vows of errantry of the Order of the Circle of Onn that you serve, I charge you to hear my plaint. I am wronged and helpless and seek redress.” A note of real desperation had crept into the formalized petition.
Trapped! He hurled his empty mug against the wall, where it shattered into a shower of coarse fragments. Then he crossed one knee over the other, bidding her sweetly, “Pray continue.”
She ignored the display, seeing that it was more theater than anger. “I am Alanna of the farmhold of Meere, a place of some bounty but scant military rigor. As places go in the Beyonds, it is stable, like most of this region. My father holds title through fealty, but his overlord rules a large and rough-handed domain and concerns himself little with us. My fa
ther scarcely stirs himself, being infirm. My two sisters and I have managed things until now—”
“Alanna,” he broke in with syrupy menace, “I’m under some compulsion to aid the oppressed, but none to perish from boredom.”
She frowned and made hurrying motions with her hands to quicken herself. “Three months gone, my younger sister Arananth and my elder, Oorda, set out to pay a family visit on the other side of these mountains. Arananth was taken ill. They were delayed in coming home until the storm season; they contracted to come home by river, a more perilous route, but quicker. On the way they were stopped and taken captive by John of John’s Winch. You know of him?”
Crassmor lowered his head slowly until his high brow met the table with a despondent clunk. “Vaguely; some rural lout who’s set himself up as a petty river pirate. Found himself a cave to live in, is that not so?”
She inclined her head, still frowning. “The place lies on the boundaries of wilderness lands that are nominally ours, though my father exerts no control there. The overlord says it is too far from his purview. He can spare no men or means to help.”
Crassmor sighed. “You… you’re going to make me try to rescue your sisters, aren’t you?” He asked it so dolefully that she hesitated.
His head came up again. “Aren’t you?” he yelled, for the unfairness of it all, so that she jumped a little from her seat. She met his gaze with jaw set and brows meeting, and nodded. Considering the deep gorge out behind the inn, he mused, Defenestration might be just the solution here.
“Father’s old,” she was continuing, “and we’re not a warrior folk, I was on my way to see what aid I could solicit in Dreambourn when I heard that there was a Knight of Onn here in Toe Hold who was disinclined to errantry but otherwise unoccupied.”
“I am occupied in a good many things,” he riposted, “all of them preferable to being harried or killed.”
She looked pugnacious. “Are you refusing my entreaty?”
He was quick to contradict her. “Perish the thought. My, ah, injury seems to have healed; I’ll undertake to be of what help I can.” The last thing he wanted was for her to swear formal complaint against him before Jaan-Marl. The Grand Master would have no recourse but to revoke his membership in the Order and strip him of his knighthood.
Drummed out of the Order, he’d be forced by Tarrant tradition—and by force of arms, if it came to that—to atone by taking vows of the Klybesians. Celibacy, sobriety, and, no doubt, the cold silence of a praying cell—he began to sweat just thinking about it.
Best to find out a little more about this predicament. Aid and assistance, for example, might improve matters. “Those two servants of yours—I assume they’re part of a larger retinue?” Perhaps he could settle a comfortable siege on this river pirate’s lair until the fellow saw reason.
“No; we’ve few servants. Sharecroppers and free yeomen work for us for the most part, and we’ve little money for help of the mercenary stripe. Threadbare nobility, that’s us.”
“But a small disbursement’s better than risking harm. To your sisters, I meant, of course. Why not run along home like a good girl and talk dear poppa into ransoming them?”
“John’s not after ransom. He’s taken a fancy to Arananth and means to wed her so that he and his heirs will have claim to the land.”
Logical enough, from the pirate’s point of view. The area around his cave was peripheral to the overlord’s domain. A marriage, along with oaths of fealty and some tribute, would all but insure the bandit’s safety from punitive action. Of course, John of John’s Winch might have accomplished this without kidnapping, but again perhaps not. Married to Arananth, the pirate would have every hope that the girl’s father would cede him the stretch of river he now controlled de facto and legitimatize his grip on the area.
Worse and worse, Crassmor reflected as he stroked his goatee. “Now, then, how well set out is this John? How many men? What are his defenses?” It just might be possible to enter the place, tell a lie or two, and be off with the darling daughters. The knight was distracted by this thought as Alanna answered his question. He was considering smuggling disguises into the cave and the women out when it dawned on him what she’d just said. “Eh? He’s got a what?”
“A giant,” Alanna repeated frankly. “John of John’s Winch is very much the social climber. Since a guardian dragon’s beyond his means, he’s come up with a giant. Not a terribly large one, from what I’m told; a wanderer-in, no doubt. John’s seer, Fanarion—did I mention him? Something of a lesser magician—recruited the brute, but I—what’s wrong?”
He’d buried his head in his hands. “I don’t suppose you’d consider leaving your sisters there, would you? Who can say? John might make a good provider and a fine brother-in-law. Arananth might do worse.”
Her lower lip had shot out in a manner not denoting acquiescence. He hastened to add, “Just a thought. But if John’s set on Arananth, why does he hang on to Oorda?”
“Oorda is, well—” She paused; he raised an aristocratic eyebrow. She went on in a rush. “My older sister has what the harpers call a fiery temper. She is absolutely infernal at times. But she’s devoted to Arananth, and Arananth to her. I wager that John had more than enough of Oorda by now, because she can be positively vile when she wishes. Oorda wouldn’t hear of leaving John’s Winch without Arananth, though.”
Crassmor toyed with his glossy beard again. Of course; this John person couldn’t simply shove his betrothed’s sister into the river. Too unpolitic. Which suggested something.
“I shall do what I may,” he said, his mood brightening a bit. “But bear in mind that violence is always a last resort. It carries the great risk that innocent parties will be hurt.” Specifically, me. She showed her clever smile again. He told himself, She really would look better with a black eye.
“There is another thing,” she added. Before he could thrust fingers into his ears, she said, “One knight of the Singularity has already attempted rescue, only to be captured and held. I think John plans ransom.”
“His name?” Crassmor demanded, wondering which of the Lost Boys had been so foolhardy.
“Sir Bint,” Alanna answered. She was surprised when all reserve and reluctance fell away from him. The bench nearly toppled over as he leaped to his feet.
“I’ll gather my things,” he called to her as he strode off. “We go at once.”
Chapter 10
REUNITED
Dusk was pending as Roode and Dimble paddled the dugout canoe through tall reeds. John’s Winch came into view in the distance, a high cliff undercut by the river.
Alanna turned to Crassmor, who, when not worrying about his cousin Bint, divided his time between unhappiness at going into danger and disgruntlement with his own failure to seduce Alanna. She’d rebuffed his advances with good-humored barbs throughout the journey from Toe Hold. Although Willow still held his heart without qualification, he saw no reason to lead the life of a Klybesian, given a willing companion. In Alanna’s case, however, he decided, I am not so given.
Still, between them they’d crafted a plan that seemed as if it might work. As they drew closer to their destination, Crassmor regretted for the thousandth time that the area lay outside any effective authority except that of a knight-errant. He’d had little time to do more than dispatch word and hope that others of the Lost Boys would hear. Perhaps one or more of them would arrive in time to give aid or rescue Bint if Crassmor failed.
“I see no giant,” he remarked, scanning the cliff in which the cave lair was situated.
“He’s seldom in evidence during the day, I’m told,” she replied, “being so gruesome-looking that his appearance alone has stilled many brave hearts.”
“Bad for business,” Crassmor reasoned. And the giant supposedly operated somewhat like a roving watchdog, patrolling the countryside on both sides of the river against attack or encroachment. “Now, tell me once more about this seer or magician,” Crassmor bade her. She dragged one fai
r hand in the green river, staring thoughtfully at the ripples it set up. She was dressed, as were Roode and Dimple, in old clothing suitably soiled, so as to invite no close inspection from John’s men.
“Fanarion is well along in age, by reports,” she said, “weaker now than in his prime, and no shaker of mountains even then. He is more advisor than mage. Nevertheless, the giant is under his spell.”
They were closer to John’s Winch now, coming into its shadow. The river’s pace slowed as it widened. The cave was a flattened oval opening halfway up the face of the cliff, bracketed by the winch’s two sturdy shear legs, which hung out over the water. The hoisting line was lowered, the trading platform at river level.
Alanna pulled her veil tightly around her face. To be recognized now, even by her sisters, would mean disaster. Crassmor slung his zither over his shoulder, preparing to disembark as the canoe glided toward the trading platform.
“Remember,” Alanna cautioned, “we’ll return upriver every night and await you just out of sight downstream.” John’s pet giant, she’d found out, did not molest anyone encamped on the river unless so instructed.
“And if I don’t appear?” he growled softly, his frustration that he and his cousin might lose their lives over the problems of strangers not having abated. “How long before you go off to ensnare some other ill-starred boob in this madness?”
“It’s not my fault that you’re a knight-errant!” she said, evading his question.
“Nor mine!” he snarled back.
She hushed him emphatically. The dugout’s bow bumped the trading platform. Crassmor grunted and made his way clumsily out of his seat among the bundles and bedrolls. He wore no armor and hoped that his green doublet, scarlet hose, and yellow, silver-buckled shoes would lend themselves to his masquerade. He had a long dirk on his belt, since it would have been unusual for any river traveler to be unarmed, but Shhing lay wrapped beneath the bundles. A white-plumed, blue-peaked cap sat on his head at a jaunty angle. He wore an elegant cape.