Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  One beefy man in a cotton tunic split down his hairy chest to his ample belly snickered out loud and whispered behind his hand to one of his fellows, and there was a comment whose origin Pirojil couldn't quite place about how ugly men usually weren't cowards.

  It had been many years since he had given up accepting a dare for fear of being called a coward, and as many years since he had given up declining a dare for fear of being thought a coward, because if they knew that you feared something, they owned you.

  You could fear anything as long as you didn't let anybody know. And you could even let others know as long as you were willing to do what you had to, no matter what anybody said, what anybody knew, what anybody feared.

  "Very well." Pirojil gripped Erenor's hand tighter. "Do let's try."

  Erenor took a deep breath, and then a deep swallow of the beer, then slammed the mug down on the table with unexpected vigor, then gripped back at Pirojil's hand. His grasp was stronger than Pirojil had expected, but Pirojil's own hand was strong.

  An old stableman who worked for his fath - an old stableman had taught Pirojil how to do this long ago. It was all in the grip. If you could squeeze your opponent's hand hard enough so that he couldn't grip you back, his strength would fade.

  So Pirojil squeezed back, hard, and pulled, hard, harder. He was a strong man; there were few stronger. Durine, certainly. Kethol, possibly, if you gave him the right leverage. But few, damn few. Strength wasn't just in the arm, or the back, or the leg - it was in the mind, the spirit, the resolve.

  But there was strength in the arm and in the hand, and Pirojil used it, too.

  He squeezed, and he pulled, and while Erenor's own arm trembled with exertion, it didn't move. The wizard's young face was impassive, and his nostrils flared wide, although his mouth didn't open.

  Pirojil pulled harder, his feet flat against the floor, braced for maximum leverage, putting not only his whole arm into the contest, but his body. He concentrated, harder, harder yet, until his whole body shook and quivered.

  And still, Erenor's arm didn't move.

  Pirojil hated himself for having been duped, although he couldn't figure out how he had been duped. But while it galled him, there wasn't anything he could do about it except pull yet harder, until lights danced in front of his eyes and his breath came in little gasps.

  And slowly, bit by bit, Erenor's arm began to push his own down.

  Pirojil's left hand rested on his left thigh, and it would have taken but a moment to snatch up his belt knife and plunge it into the wizard, but as angry as he was, he let his hand rest where it lay ...

  ... until his right hand was pressed back, hard, against the table.

  Erenor released his hand and spat his mouthful of beer out onto the floor in a long stream. "And that, friend Pirojil, may suggest that there's some virtue in a well-crafted seeming, now and then, eh?"

  Erenor was clearly more of a magician than Pirojil had thought, as he had figured out a way to give more body and shape to a seeming than he had thought possible. What was such a powerful user of magic doing in Riverforks?

  "It isn't permanent, of course," the wizard said. "In the morning I'll look as I usually do, and have no more than my usual strength. But the morning is another matter, perhaps, for a man who would wish to, say, bed a beautiful woman and be gone before sunrise?"

  Or who would wish to not be fooled by such. "Perhaps there is some business we can do, after all," Pirojil said, rubbing at his arm. "I assume there's an antidote to such a seeming? And that you might, for a price, be willing to part with a sample of such a countermeasure?"

  Erenor's youthful smile broadened. "Ah. It would appear that you are a wise man, after all." He patted at Pirojil's aching right arm. "In addition to a remarkably strong one, as well. You did very well."

  Kethol caught up with Durine outside of a riverfront tavern.

  Durine had been leaning against a railing overlooking the embankment, mostly doing nothing: just relaxing, listening to the quiet whisper of the river beneath, watching the water dance in the flickering of the overhead stars, and the slow, green and blue pulse of the Faerie lights above.

  The quiet was nice.

  The Faerie lights were in a quiet mood tonight, going through a gentle pavane from a deep red and understated orange through a series of quiet blues and finally to a cool green, and then back again.

  There were times when one or another of them would pick up the pace, as though trying to whip the others into a faster rhythm, only to finally, regretfully subside into the same slow beat of the other Faerie lights, either dragged down to their gentle somnolence or moderated to a reasonable pace, depending on how you looked at it.

  Inside the riverfront tavern, past the mottled glass windows, smiling young men and young women raised their voices in laughter and song, accompanied by the clattering of dishes and the ringing sounds of glasses, their needs served by a bevy of buxom barmaids.

  Durine smiled to himself. There was a reason why ripe young women of peasant stock would often seek work in a city tavern, and it wasn't just to make a few extra coppers now and then from a tumble in the hay. It was a gamble that could pay off much better than that: if the bones fell right, a woman might find herself a young tradesman or perhaps even a merchant to marry, and be free of the farm forever. Spending one's life working a plowed field during the day and herself being plowed at night by a farmer who stank of sweat and pig shit was something that a young girl of attractiveness and ambition might well want to avoid these days.

  Of course, far too many of them ended up back on the farm, accepting what was available, and a few always found that the occasional tumble turned into years on their backs in a lower-town brothel, but there were risks to everything, and Durine had no more desire than ability to rescue endless hopeful young girls from their destinies.

  Hero was, after all, just another word for fool.

  Durine heard the footsteps behind him, and for a moment grew hopeful at the thought of a footpad, but then he recognized the footsteps.

  "A good evening to you, Kethol," he said.

  Well, he could hardly be surprised. A man as large as Durine would be an unlikely target to choose when there were so many others, from the nobility crowding this tavern to the drunken sailors from the ore barge making its way downriver toward Barony Adahan and New Pittsburgh. "Fortune, or intent?" be asked Kethol.

  Durine would have shaken his head if he thought it politic. Kethol was the handsome one of the three of them, good-looking in an earnest and rugged sort of way. And in a fight he was just as rock-steady trustworthy as Pirojil always would be and as Durine prided himself as being, with a keen eye and a wrist like a striking snake. He could find his way down a trail as well as a true woodsman; he had a better eye for horseflesh than most horse traders; and his abilities at a game of bones would have been legendary if Kethol hadn't been too smart to be so indiscreet.

  But when it came to following a simple question, sometimes he was dumb as dirt.

  "I meant," Durine explained slowly, "have you found me by accident, or are you seeking me out?"

  "Some of both."

  "Oh?"

  "Well..."

  Kethol would get to the point in bis own time. Durine leaned back against the railing. Below, the river rushed and whispered. Maybe someday somebody would tell Durine what it kept whispering about

  "Not a good evening?"

  Kethol thought about it for a moment "Well, truth to tell, I was looking for another game, but I didn't think much of my chances of getting into the Golden Eye here, much less persuading the young nobles of Neranahan to risk their hard-taxed coin on a fall of the bones with the likes of me."

  "Well, now." Durine laughed at the mental picture of a bunch of overdressed dandies bent over a gaming table with Kethol. "I think you've found the right of that"

  "On the other hand," Kethol said, "I've heard word that some of the sailors off the Metta Dee are squaring off to toss some bones against som
e overpaid dwarf copper miners just come to town, and it occurred to me that I might be able to finger a stack or two and turn some profit before turning in for the night, and it would be nice to be able to concentrate on the game for once with somebody else to watch my back and help me make my way out if it comes time to do that. When it comes time to do that."

  There would be worse ways to pass an idle hour. Not much more boring, but worse. Durine nodded. "It could be worthwhile, at that. As long as it doesn't go too late; I don't watch backs well when I'm yawning and nodding off, and I do it even less well when I've fallen asleep wrapped in my cloak. You know, I would suppose, where this game is happening?"

  "A warehouse, down on the Old Docks," Kethol said. "Probably the fastest way to get there would be along the boardwalk next to the piers."

  Well, that made sense; nobody ever said that Kethol couldn't think tactically. Much better to scoot along the boardwalk than to plod along muddy streets.

  Kethol led the way down a set of steps that led down the embankment, under the stilt-pillars that supported the back ends of the riverfront taverns and other buildings, giving a wide berth to the overflowing dung heap beneath the tavern's garderobe - which was just as well, as a stream of ordure plopped down just as they passed, and would have splattered them. You didn't make it as a soldier by being overly fastidious, not when it mattered, but that still didn't mean you liked being covered with shit.

  The street above slanted down as it curved inwards toward the warehouse district, and the cutaway of the river-bank did likewise. They passed few people at this late hour, and those few hurried along.

  Durine was used to that, when he wasn't huddled inside his cloak to minimize his size, deliberately weaving to use himself as bait. He was a big man, in a soldier's cloak and sword, and few tradesmen would want to trust that his motives were benign, not late at night when there was nobody to bear witness and deter misbehavior. The military outpost was out of town, and while the town nightwatch patrolled the streets, true, they were mainly there to keep the street lanterns lit and watch and smell for fire more than crime.

  They were about to cross the mouth of a road that cut down the now-lower riverbank, leading onto the docks, when Kethol froze in midstep.

  "I hear something," he hissed, his voice barely a whisper. "Up ahead."

  Their cloaks were a dull brown by design; they wrapped them about themselves as they faded back into the dark shadows under a riverfront building, Durine stepping aside to avoid a piling. The road was now close enough to the riverbank that the bottom of the building was suspended on pilings not quite a manheight tall: Durine had to bend his head as he stepped back and flattened himself against the wall between two large barrels, although Kethol simply squatted down, pulling his cloak around him, turning himself into a shapeless dark mass.

  Kethol's hearing was even better than Durine's; it took another few moments before Durine could make out the muffled sound of somebody trying to shout or scream or at least make some sort of sound over a gag, and it was a few moments later that a trio of young men dragged a struggling woman down the street and onto the docks, moving quickly out of the splash of light from the streetpole lantern and into the dark.

  They were nobly dressed, although perhaps not expensively. Shirts that white, even stained by dirt and wine, were not clothes for the common folks, and while nobles were hardly the only ones to carry swords, such short basket-hilted rapiers were weapons for duels, not for war.

  They were also drunk - at least the three men were, as they dragged their captive off the street and onto the boardwalk, unceremoniously shoving her along. She had apparently given them more resistance than they had cared for: her right eye was already swollen shut, and she had been gagged with a wadding of cloth tied in place, her wrists bound behind her with leather straps.

  Durine wouldn't have wanted to bet that she was overly pretty under the best of circumstances, and this wasn't the best of circumstances. Her hair was long but tied back, and her shift and coarse-woven skirt militated against any middle-class origin. Large unbound breasts flopped under her blouse, and her unswollen eye was wild over the gag.

  One of the men unfastened his cloak and spread it on the boards, while the other two held her. He made a sarcastically extravagant gesture and bow, as though cordially inviting her to take her place on it - and then he dumped her to the ground with a quick cuff and leg sweep when she didn't immediately comply.

  Durine frowned. He shouldn't be here. It was no concern of his if three local bravos wanted to take their turns riding a local girl. Yes, Durine would have quickly and economically dispatched anybody who tried any such thing on somebody he was bound to protect, but some random Riverforks tradesman's daughter or barmaid or whatever she was wasn't under his protection. The girl would be a little sore in the morning, no doubt, but she'd likely heal, and getting involved in others' squabbles was a bad habit that Durine had never had to struggle to give up because he had never considered taking it up in the first place.

  Durine searched about for a convenient exit, and suppressed a sigh. There was no way out that didn't involve leaving himself and Kethol open to observation by the three bravos, and that could be awkward. They were armed, of course, and might take offense at an interruption in their fun. Durine didn't think much of their fun, but he didn't believe in looking for a fight when there was no profit in it. He was big, and he was strong, and he was fast, but a blade in the hands of a better or luckier swordsman could cleave through his flesh just as easily as it could a smaller, weaker, slower man's. That had happened to him before, and while he would surely have to demonstrate that again eventually, he had no desire to do so to no good purpose at the moment.

  The girl's hands were retied to a support post, and two of the bravos each grasped an ankle and pulled them apart while the third dropped to his knees between her legs, unbuckling his sword belt and setting it aside before he untied her skirt and pushed up her blouse, then unbuttoned his trousers.

  He was already erect; the exercise had apparently stimulated him.

  Well, Durine decided, the best thing to do would be to just wait until they finished with her. There was always danger of the nightwatch coming by, and while that risk clearly hadn't dissuaded these three - something that also spoke of noble birth and connections - it would encourage them to be quick with" her. Durine had spent enough time in line at various cheap brothels or at whores' tents at the outskirts of encampments to know how quickly men could finish with a woman when they were in a hurry, himself included.

  With a bit of luck, Kethol would still be able to try his hand at a game of bones with the sailors and dwarves. Durine leaned back against the wall and settled in for the wait.

  It was all reasonable, and to do anything else would have been either risky or downright stupid, so it only came as a vague surprise to Durine when Kethol rose up from where he crouched and launched himself toward the three, barely showing the discretion to muffle the shout that came to his lips.

  Durine would have sworn at Kethol, and he gladly would have grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to shake some sense into him, but neither would have done any good, so he just straightened and rose from his hiding place, and followed his companion out onto the dock.

  Kethol grabbed the leader's hair - at least, Durine assumed it was the leader; surely the leader would have chosen to go first - and yanked him, hard, off the girl, then booted him smartly in the butt.

  As the would-be rapist tumbled across the wood, Kethol drew his sword and, with a quick back-andforth motion, cut the leather straps binding the girl's wrists to the post. Durine had to admire Kethol's technique and control, if not his good sense - slashing at the straps that way with the tip of a sword was the sort of thing that was likely to get fingers severed, but there was not even a muffled groan from the girl, and the straps fell away, while the leader of the group struggled back to his feet, yanking his trousers up as best he could.

  The now wild-eyed youngster
had unbuckled his sword belt and set it to one side so it would not get in his way.

  Durine figured it couldn't do any harm to put his own foot on the scabbard. There was still ample opportunity to turn this into merely an example of Kethol's stupid heroics and not a full-scale fight, and Durine would try to take advantage of that opportunity if he could. If they let him. If they could let him.

  The other two had released the girl's ankles and leaped to their feet; they stepped back, hands on the hilts of their swords.

  "Ta havath," Durine said, letting his voice rumble. "Stand easy, the lot of you." His own hand was on the hilt of his sword, but he hadn't drawn. It would have been good to have his sword in his hand, but things were balanced on a knifepoint here, and drawing now would surely start a fight that would profit nobody.

  The girl didn't wait to see how it would all turn out: she snatched up her skirt as she dashed off in the direction that Durine and Kethol had come from, her free hand working at her gag. She quickly vanished around the bend, naked legs flashing.

  The last Durine saw of her was the bouncing of a surprisingly nicely rounded rump. He didn't blame her for not waiting around to see how it would end. For all she knew, Durine and Kethol would have taken up where the noble bravos had left off.

  Kethol had taken a step forward, well within range where a quick bounce and lunge could bring his sword tip through either or both of them before they could draw their own swords. Kethol was, no question, acting like a fool, but at least he was acting like a sensible fool, not inviting them to draw their swords. Nobles had more time to spend practicing with the sword, and most of the time they could count on being able to beat lessers, particularly ordinary soldiers who had to spend their training time mastering bows and pikes - and, in the case of imperial troops, guns as well.