Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  There were times when you could use that to advantage, but those times were rare ...

  Kethol frowned. "Sounds more like my kind of thing, I'd say."

  "Well..." Pirojil rubbed the back of his hand against his misshapen, bulbous nose. "Durine's got the right of it. Kethol, you can probably do better at charming Lady Leria than he can. You just ride beside her and chatter brightly with her when I give the signal. Durine will drop off."

  Erenor had joined them. "And my part in it?"

  "Two things," Pirojil said. "You take the reins of Durine's horse, and then you just ride behind the carriage, so that she can't see you."

  "I can do that. Or I can do better than that," Erenor said brightly.

  "Eh?"

  "If friend Durine will be kind enough to cut off, say, a lock of hair, and wrap it tightly in a rag, then bind it to his saddle, I can put a seeming on it." He looked Durine up and down, his head cocked to one side. "It won't be able to talk, or anything of the sort, but for a few hours, it'll look like him enough to fool a casual observer, certainly." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I will need one of my spell books back, though. The smallest one."

  Durine thought about it. Erenor was probably good enough with illusionary magic to make himself disappear, but in the long run, trying to hang on to him against his will would probably be impossible, and besides, even if Erenor had one of the books, the two others were still safely stored, and that probably anchored Erenor to them.

  And if he wasn't going to let the wizard do magic, then what was the point of keeping him around?

  They didn't need a servant, particularly one they couldn't trust.

  So he nodded. "As soon as we're on our way."

  "And why wait until then?" Erenor shook his head. "You are blind, aren't you?" He jerked his chin toward the house.

  "The baroness has the Talent. I can see her flame from here."

  "Which means that she can see that you're - "

  "Please." Erenor rolled his eyes, as though imploring some magical help that would make it possible for him to deal with the stupidity of such as the three of them. "Would I be standing here casually talking to you if I thought for a moment that she could see that I was, well, what I am, rather than just a servant? I've taken to my heels before, and I can't imagine a better time." His lips made a thin line. "It's a raw flame, as we call it." His mouth worked as he groped for the words. "She's got the Talent, but she's no more trained at the use of it than you are." He looked again toward the Residence. "I'd swear she's getting some use out of it, but..." He shook his head. "It's not focused the way it would be if she had even the rudiments of training, and I'd just be guessing as to what."

  "Guess," Durine said.

  Erenor shrugged. "It could be something sexual, perhaps. Women can do that to men ordinarily, without magic. If she found, when she was a young girl, that she could twist men to her will with a smile and a flash of leg, it could be - and I'm just guessing - that her Talent might have started to express itself that way. It would be like exercising a muscle she didn't know she had, but that wouldn't mean she couldn't make it strong with enough practice."

  "Yes." Pirojil nodded. "That's entirely possible," he said, trying to keep his voice level.

  Durine would have chuckled. Pirojil had practically drooled over the baroness, as though he was sure he had found some sort of bliss in her face or could find some between her thighs. Well, maybe he could, for a few moments. It never lasted longer than that.

  Durine smiled. It was clearly time for Pirojil to find himself a whore when he got back to Dereneyl. Pirojil would bristle at the suggestion - Pirojil broke out in fastidiousness at the strangest times - but Durine could have a quiet word with Kethol, and the two of them could brace him together.

  Shit, if it would make it easier for Pirojil to concentrate on the job ahead, Durine would be glad to pay for it himself, and Kethol would probably go halves on it.

  Pirojil frowned at him. You wouldn't think that face could get any uglier, but somehow Pirojil managed it. "What are you grinning about?"

  "Nothing," Durine said. "Just eager to be going."

  "Then let's get going."

  Durine's departure went smoothly and easily. At the first bend in the road, the moment that their procession was out of sight of the Residence, the big man slung his bags over his shoulder, dropped to the ground quietly enough that he probably couldn't have been overheard even without the clopping of the horses to cover it, dashed quickly and quietly through a gap in the trees, and was gone.

  Erenor, riding beside Durine's big bay, had already opened his spell book, his reins clamped between his teeth while his fingers danced through the pages until he found what he was looking for. It took him just a few moments to impress the words in his mind, apparently, for he quickly stowed the book and turned to the small bundle bound to the rings at the front of Durine's otherwise empty saddle.

  Pirojil didn't make any effort to overhear the words. The wizard's voice was too low, and he'd been through this too many times. Without the spark of Talent, the words could no more remain in his mind than a wisp of paper could survive in a raging fire.

  The air over the saddle wavered for a moment, like the air in the distance on a road on a hot day, and then Durine was there.

  Well, almost.

  It looked like Durine, and it was dressed as Durine had been, and the figure even swayed appropriately with the movement of the horse, but while the left hand was clenched as though it held the reins, it didn't. And then there was the head and the eyes. Durine wasn't the fidgety type, but he was always looking around, always aware of his surroundings. That was one of the reasons that Pirojil trusted him. It might not be impossible to take Durine by surprise, but it wouldn't be easy.

  And there was something else, something that Pirojil wished he could have put his finger on. He would have known at first glance that that was just an illusion, and not Durine.

  Kethol caught his eye, and smiled. He'd been riding on the other side of the carriage, chattering with the girl while Durine made his exit, but he'd first let himself lag behind, then kicked his horse into a short canter to bring himself with where Pirojil sat on the driver's bench.

  The illusion wasn't great, but it was good enough, good enough to fool anybody who was watching them ride away.

  Good enough would do.

  Chapter 10

  A Night in Town

  In the ruins of what had been the castle of the Keranahan barons, there remained at least one well-appointed suite for visiting notables, and it was a matter of but a few words with Treseen's lackey, Ketterling, to see Lady Leria safely settled into it.

  Despite Kethol's attempts to engage her in conversation, she had been quiet during the ride out, which didn't particularly surprise Pirojil. Making idle conversation with ordinary folks, he said, was not something that nobility had a lot of use for.

  Giving commands was more their style.

  She was settled in for the night, two of the governor's guards at her door with instructions from Ketterling that the governor himself would be personally offended if any harm came to her -unlikely, in Kethol's opinion - or she wasn't there in the morning, which was much more likely. She had been quiet to the point of being almost monosyllabic, and it didn't take great insight into the noble mind to figure out that this whole trip wasn't something she was looking forward to.

  Kethol didn't blame her, but it wasn't about blame. It was about putting this little blond thing in front of the dowager empress and then getting back to the barony, where not every face was a stranger's. Home was where if, say, you found yourself protecting some innocent girl from being raped by a bunch of drunken dastards, it would be the would-be rapists who would find themselves in fear for their lives, not the rescuer who would find himself in a jail.

  That was the trouble with the here and now. Back in the old days, on the Last Ride, the rule was cut - as in slice - and then run, leaving bleeding enemies, bruised feelings, an
d indignant nobles behind.

  Here, now, in these supposedly more peaceful days, you were supposed to get proper permission before slicing into some deserving piece of crud.

  Pfah. It made him wish he'd never gone a-soldiering. There was much to be said for the life of a huntsman.

  Pirojil wanted to go settle in at the barracks, and wasn't only resistant to Kethol's idea of heading down into the town and finding a game, some beer, and a whore - in just that order - but just this side of forbade Kethol from doing the same thing. That irritated Kethol. It wasn't what Pirojil said - the three of them were companions, not officer and followers - it was mainly the knowing look on his ugly face, as though it had been Kethol's fault for the trouble in Riverforks.

  But, shit, it wasn't his fault.

  Things had just turned out badly, but the idea was right.

  So they headed across the dirt ground for the barracks. In the old days, it had clearly been a stable - the loft spoke of that - but the occupation forces needed more stable room than the small contingent of baronial soldiers stationed at the castle had, and the stable was now one of the long wattle-and-daub buildings built up against what remained of the keep's outer wall, while the former stable had been converted into barracks.

  Pirojil sniffed, as though he could still smell the reek of horse dung - which he couldn't; it had long since been cleaned out.

  It smelled like a barracks, with the peculiar reek of old sweat that made some people gag. Kethol didn't mind.

  It had been a good move to turn the stable into a barracks: you could fit a lot more soldiers into a given space than you could horses. Quadruple-rack bunks, their mattresses intertwined leather strips, stood in rows, while above, the loft had been divided into small rooms, presumably for the decurions. The officers would be billeted in the former castle, which was better for everybody. You couldn't get a good game of bones going with some captain or his subaltern looking over your shoulder all the time.

  But the bunks were almost empty, except for perhaps a dozen men, one all alone in a corner bed, interrupting himself every few moments with a loud and heroic snore that caused him to shift and then settle back down. Not a pleasant way to sleep.

  A short soldier limped over. Not a big man, not a small man, but there was something about the way his eyes searched theirs before his hand moved away from the hilt of the knife it had seemed to drift near that impressed Kethol.

  "You the ones from Barony Furnael?" he asked. His voice was cracked around the edges, as if he'd strained it by shouting at one too many troopers.

  "Barony Cullinane," Kethol corrected, more feeling than seeing Pirojil's glare out of the corner of his eye.

  "Sure." The other man shrugged. "Barony Cullinane, fine. My name's Tarnell. I've been left in charge of the barracks, not that there's a lot to do." His forehead wrinkled. "They said there was four of you."

  "The other's down in town right now. He'll join us," Pirojil said. "When he's finished ... running an errand or two."

  "Errand, eh?" Tarnell chuckled. "Ah. The girl got to him, eh? Or was it the baroness?" He licked his lips and made a sucking sound between his teeth. He shook his head, as though dismissing the thought, then looked Erenor up and down with an expression of distaste. "You have your own little servant, eh?" he said, although the top of his head was barely level with Erenor's chin. "I guess I should have gone soldiering in a different barony."

  Kethol started to bristle, but Tarnell held up a palm. "No, take no offense at an old soldier's griping," he said. "Things are too quiet around here right now, and complaining is about the only sport around that doesn't cost anything." He jerked his thumb at a quadruple bunk. "You can take one of those racks over there," he said, "and you'll find blankets in the big chest over at the far end, if you don't have enough of your own. If you're the sensitive sort, there's mattress bags in the chest, too, and you can fill them with straw over at the stables. Me, I'm not the sensitive sort, and don't mind the feel of leather under my aging back."

  Pirojil's mouth twisted. "Where is everybody? Seems kind of late for an all-hands patrol to still be out."

  Tarnell shrugged. "Yeah, it does, at that." He started to turn away.

  "Is there some secret?" Kethol asked, letting his irritation show in his voice.

  Tarnell turned back, and stared him flat in the eye for a moment, for long enough for his silence and flat expression to say that he wasn't going to be pushed around by anybody, and that if it was going to be his single knife against two swords, that was the way it was going to be. Amazing that he'd lived so long with that kind of attitude, but stranger things had been known to happen.

  Pirojil cleared his throat. "Kethol's manner sometimes leaves something to be desired. He spent the afternoon riding back from the baroness's residence, trying to get a conversation going with Lady Leria, and she ..."

  Tarnell grinned, and the tension in the air dropped away. "And she didn't have any more use for an ordinary soldier than you'd expect, eh?" He laughed, and shook his head. "I've seen that before. Not met her, although I've heard she's supposed to think kindly toward us lesser types." He laughed again. "Some things never change, eh? Let's get you settled in." He picked up one of Pirojil's bags and guided them over to the bunk he'd indicated before, setting it down on the flat leather straps that served as the mattress. "And there's no secret, not particularly. Somehow or other, the governor got word of some orc trouble on the border, and he sent most of the detachment off to run them down." He shrugged. "There's maybe a dozen of us left here, but this hasn't exactly been overflowing with real soldiering to do for the past few years. We spend more time accompanying the tax collectors to Neranahan than anything else except for this orc-chasing."

  "Easy duty, eh?"

  "Enh. Boring, most of the time, unless you like haring after orcs. Or bandits." Tarnell grimaced. "We had to chase down a nest of bandits a few tendays ago, but the hard part of that was tracking them down. After that, it was just a matter of getting a couple of archers in close enough to do their sentries, and then an ordinary slaughter - a dozen lancers could have done it, but the governor's never believed in sending in one man when a hundred will do."

  Kethol smiled. "Neither did the Old Emperor."

  "Naturally." Tarnell snickered. "Of course. Knew him real well, did you?"

  A sharp response was on Kethol's lips when Pirojil cleared his throat.

  "We're going down into the town," Pirojil said, "and see if we can find a game or a drink, or maybe some other entertainment. Feel like coming along?"

  Tarnell raised an eyebrow. "You take your servant drinking and whoring with you?"

  "We - "

  "I'll stay here, if you don't mind, good sirs," Erenor said, tugging at his forelock. "I know you'd like me pouring your beer for you, but I've got your clothes to wash, and your beds to make, and suchlike. I'll be happy to watch over the barracks for you, if you'd like to go along with them, Tarnell."

  "You never did any soldiering, did you?" Tarnell shook his head. "I like swapping lies over beer and bones as much as anybody else does, and more than some, but I'm on duty. Just because there's only a few of us here doesn't mean that the captain doesn't expect us to do our jobs, eh?"

  There was a game of bones going on in the corner of the Tavern of the Three Horses, and Pirojil wasn't surprised to find Kethol quickly working his way into the small group of men watching the play, some making side bets, others, perhaps, waiting for their chance to get in the game.

  Not much of a crowd, but the place mainly catered to the occupation troops, and most of them were off after the orcs.

  Pirojil wished them the best of luck. The beasts were tough and mean, and he would just as soon they die on somebody else's sword rather than his.

  The night was getting cold; Pirojil picked a spot near the large fireplace, and sipped at his beer. It was sweeter than he really liked, but it did wash the grit and the taste of road dust from his mouth and throat, and that was all he really expe
cted beer to do.

  Three burly men walked into the tavern in company. All wore swords, but they were plainly dressed in coarse-woven loose tunics over blousy, equally coarse-woven trousers and boots. Not nobility. If these three tried to rape a local girl, Kethol could carve them into bloody little chunks, for all Pirojil cared.

  They had already been drinking, they were visibly weaving as they made their way to a table over in the corner, and one held up three fingers when he caught the taverner's eye. The fat, bald, sweaty man reached a mug deep into the open hogshead, coming out with it full of beer. He set it on the counter, and then bent over the hogshead with another mug. Why he had the top off the hogshead instead of putting it up on a table and tapping it at the bottom was something Pirojil wondered about idly. Easier to turn a tap than to constantly be reaching over, after all.

  And why, come to think of it, were most taverners fat, bald, sweaty men, anyway? He'd known quite a few - in most villages and towns, there was little to do at night except sit around and drink - and more than half of them were fat, bald, and sweaty. Fat made sense, maybe. They were around food all the time, and it would be easy to make the day a nonstop eating binge. And sweaty? Well, working around cooking fires and all, rarely getting outside except to step out the back door for a breath of fresh air every now and then, that probably explained it. But bald? If you ate too much, did sweating make your hair fall out?

  Or was it that if you sweated a lot, eating too much made your hair fall out?

  Cold wetness splashed down the back of his neck, wetting him across the shoulder. He turned in his chair quickly as the remaining two mugs dropped from the swordsman's hand, drenching his leg as they splashed on the floor.