Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  "Yes," Pirojil said with a nod. "You think we should do something different?"

  Well, there were advantages to trying the village innkeepers were professional gossips, and it would be nice to see if anybody had an idea as to what Baroness Elanee was up to. And if there had been anybody looking for the three - no, four of them and their charge - they could pick up word of that down there. Definitely better than spending the night out in the open.

  Probably the best thing to do was to keep riding until they were clear of the barony, but they had to sleep sometime, and the border was easily two days' ride away.

  Durine said as much.

  Pirojil's face twisted into a frown. "I don't like it, either way. If we keep riding until we're so tired that we have to stop, none of us will be in any condition to stand watch. And that would be the worst case."

  Durine nodded. "So, the village, you think?"

  "I don't like that either."

  Durine was tempted to say they had to make some sort of choice sometime, but Pirojil already knew that. Ah. Of course. "The local lord, eh?"

  Pirojil smiled. He was particularly ugly when he smiled, what with the way that it revealed his gap-laden, yellowy teeth. He pointed the topmost of his chins at a wisp of smoke rising from behind a hillock ahead. "It took me some time to figure that out, too -I'm out of the habit of traveling with nobility."

  That made sense. While three traveling soldiers would not be expected or welcomed at the local lord's keep, the presence of Lady Leria changed the whole recipe - she, of course, would be welcome, and given how inbred the Holtish ruling class tended to be, she was probably a medium-close relative. And while Durine and the others normally would not be welcome even to sleep in the stables there, their commission would give them the right to sleep across the doorstep of her room. It was a lot warmer and more comfortable on soft blankets over a stone floor than it was in damp hay in a stable.

  Fewer rats, too.

  "I'll tell the lady," Durine said, dropping back. He quickly dismounted from the broad back of his gray gelding, hitched its reins to a bracket at the back of the carriage, then ran alongside until he could get the door open and his foot on the brass mounting peg. He pulled himself up and into the carriage, ducking his head to avoid smashing it on the doorjamb. "Lady, may I?"

  She nodded. "Please," she said, and reached out a hand to help him in. Durine tried to keep his surprise from his face. He had expected perhaps to be permitted in, but he certainly hadn't expected her to reach out her hand to him. It was all Durine could to do keep his balance as he drew himself into the carriage, no more pulling on her hand than he would have pulled himself in by grabbing onto her breast.

  It was a small hand, smoother than his callused one, and warm, like a blanket on a cold night. He released it quickly, and then let the jerking of the coach drop him into the bench opposite her, next to Erenor.

  "You're looking better," Erenor said. His smile was a figure's-width too broad to possibly be sincere. Durine had to remember that. If he didn't watch himself, he could end up liking the wizard, and that wouldn't do at all. Be a shame when he got killed.

  Durine shrugged. Yes, it had been a cold and uncomfortable night, but admitting that didn't, wouldn't, couldn't make it feel any better. "Nothing of any importance," he said. "Nothing that a servant need concern himself with," he went on, giving Erenor a pointed look that he hoped went over Lady Leria's head.

  She pursed her lips together, as though she was going to say something, but subsided instead. An awfully pretty little thing she was, but then again, with her inheritance, she could have a face like Pirojil's and still have the suitors breaking down her door. A face like Pirojil's? She could have a face like Pirojil's backside and still be more than very marriageable.

  Erenor gave him a knowing smile. Durine would have liked little more than to slap that smile halfway down the road, as impractical as that was at the moment. Still, thinking about it warmed his insides almost as much as the brandy had before, even more than Leria's surprising act of kindness.

  "Lady," Durine said, "we think it best to arrange for you to stay the night with the local lord. That would be - "

  "No," she said, "no." Her cheekbones flared crimson. "Lord Moarin and... and I, we ..." She shook her head. "No."

  Erenor leaned forward. "I have been talking with the lady, Master Durine; it would appear that Lord Moarin is - well, has been - one of the lady's suitors.

  An old and wrinkled man, so I'm told, with a most unbecoming potbelly, and, no doubt, breath that reeks of garlic and wine."

  It would be awkward, certainly, but not as awkward as she was making it seem. They were both of the nobility, after all. "I understand," Durine said, "but there are no other - "

  "No," she said. "I simply can't stay under his roof. He ..." She shook her head. "I can't." Her blush deepened.

  Ah. So that was it. Moarin was a lecher and Leria was nervous about sleeping where he could get at her. Durine spread his hands. "Lady, you are in no danger while you're with us."

  He tried to grin reassuringly, but it had no apparent effect. "I'll sleep across your doorstep myself, a knife in hand."

  Her eyes widened at that, and a faint gasp escaped her lips as she shook her head. Durine kept his own irritation from his face. He had not so much as smiled at the girl; she had nothing to fear from him, and she should have been smart enough to work out that the dowager empress would not have sent somebody so ill-trained as to not know his place around noblewomen.

  But there was, of course, no way that he could simply say that. He looked over again at Erenor, wondering what it was that the wizard had been doing that had Lady Leria's nerves so on edge. Not that he spent a long time wondering.

  "Erenor," he said, "I think it would be best if you rode with Master Pirojil for the rest of the day." And, he thought, it would be even better if you were dragged along behind the carriage for the rest of the day. But to do that would require taking notice of his having made advances toward the lady, and that could only embarrass what clearly was an easily embarrassed young woman further. Durine didn't want to do that. He and the others were committed to protecting Leria, and that protection wasn't limited to physical harm.

  Erenor opened his mouth to protest. Durine had had enough from him, but that wasn't why he opened the carriage door with his left hand while he reached out with his free hand, grabbed the smaller man by the front of his tunic, and unceremoniously pitched him out the open door. It wasn't for the cry of surprise and the very pleasant splashing sound Erenor made as he tumbled to the muck. It was to reassure the lady, in a way that words simply couldn't, that he and the other two took their responsibilities seriously, and would brook interference from no one.

  He didn't expect gratitude - that would have been far too much like the Cullinanes - but neither did he expect the expression of anger and even disgust on Leria's face. He would have expected the back of her hand across his face, but she simply sat, glaring, her eyes burning into his.

  "I'm sorry, Lady, for any ... inconvenience my servant has given you. I - "

  "He did nothing." Her lips tightened. "And I still don't want to stay at Lord Moarin's. I won't. I won't"

  Well, that was as direct as direct could be. If it was a matter of life and death, Durine would have overruled her - much easier to explain an angry lady to the dowager empress, if need be, than a dead one - but this wasn't that, and it was definitely better to do as she wanted, if possible.

  Durine bowed bis head momentarily. "As you wish it, of course." Tennetty's Village had had another name before the war, the innkeeper explained, when it had housed a Holtish regiment, but it had been spared being put to the torch during the conquest of Holtun at, so it was said, the request of the Old Emperor's personal bodyguard herself, and had been renamed in her honor.

  'Truly?" It was all Pirojil could do not to snicker. He had known Tennetty all too well, for all too long, and the odds of that skinny, crazy, one-eyed attack bitch requ
esting anybody, anything, anywhere to be spared anything were somewhere between tiny, slim, and none.

  But let the villagers live with their myth; it wouldn't hurt anything.

  Kethol, on the other hand, snickered. 'Tennetty's Village, eh?" He may not have noticed the way his right hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, but Durine did: the big man took Kethol's wrist between his thumb and forefinger and placed it on the table. He pursed bis thick lips and shook his head. Kethol shrugged. "I knew her. Once had to pull her off the - my master's son."

  "You knew her?" The innkeeper nodded too quickly. "Of course, of course."

  Kethol grinned. "I get the feeling you don't believe me." It wasn't a friendly grin.

  "Ta havath," Pirojil said.

  Shut your mouth, he meant. Showing off for the girl wasn't just stupid, it was very stupid. It was also pointless, in fact, what with Lady Leria outside in the carriage and the three of them in here.

  The trouble was that Kethol probably didn't even know he was trying to impress her. Which didn't make it any better; he probably thought that he was just handling the situation well, impressing the innkeeper that he wasn't to be trifled with. Which only made it worse. If Kethol was going to be stupid, as he had been in Riverforks, at least he should know he was being stupid. Deliberate stupidity was always better than the accidental, unconscious type.

  Either could, of course, get you killed.

  Durine looked at Pirojil, and Pirojil looked at Durine. Well, Riverforks had been Durine's turn, at that. "Kethol," Pirojil said, "I need to see you for a moment. Outside."

  "But - "

  "Now, please." He turned to go, Kethol reluctantly at his side. "Durine," he went on, "can negotiate our lodgings just as well without us as with. And Durine, please don't lose your temper this time. It cost the lady most of her purse last time to pay for the damages, and that innkeeper will never quite be able to sit down comfortably again."

  One of Durine's eyes closed in a broad wink. "If you insist, Pirojil."

  There was a reception committee, of sorts, at the carriage: Lord Miron and three other men, in varicolored filigreed tunics and leggings that looked entirely normal on Miron, and ill-fitting and awkward on the other three. One of them held the carriage in place, while another stayed on horseback, holding the rein extensions of the three dismounted men's horses, and the third stood on the ground between Erenor and the carriage. They might as well have been wearing large signs, with a drawing showing soldiers taking off their livery and uncomfortably donning civilian garb suitable for minor nobility.

  Erenor was, as Pirojil could have easily predicted, standing around uselessly, his face studiously blank, his eyes shouting for help. Miron had evicted him from the carriage and taken his place next to the lady.

  "Lady Leria informs me," he said, his hand resting insolently on her smaller one in a way that made Pirojil want to break his fingers one by one, "that you lot have for some reason decided to spurn Lord Moarin's hospitality before it is even offered."

  Pirojil grunted. "I've always thought that the best time," he said. "Safer, too."

  Miron let that go past without comment. "I - we, that is - we are concerned about her well-being. I thought it wise to join you, and ride with you, at least to the border. Bandits, you know."

  Four of them? Pirojil thought about it for a moment. He didn't like it, but there didn't seem to be any way around it, at least not at the moment.

  "We'd be honored, of course," he said. "Durine is making arrangements for our own housing for tonight; I'm sure there will be ample room at the inn for you and your noble company, as well."

  Miron's face was impassive. Which probably meant he was surprised.

  Pirojil stepped up on the mounting peg and offered his hand to Lady Leria. "If you please, Lady," he said, resenting but ignoring the way Miron openly eyed the swell of her bosom as she rose to a crouch to make her way out of the couch.

  "Very well." Miron's lips pursed. "Yes, we shall take rooms here. And you shall join me for dinner in my rooms, Lady, if it pleases you."

  "She'll have the three of us at her side," Kethol said, too quickly.

  "I think it would be crowded in your rooms," Pirojil said.

  "Perhaps the main room of the tavern would be better."

  "Much better." Kethol nodded.

  Miron opened his mouth. "Are you suggesting that she wouldn't be safe in my company, my man?" His voice oozed an oily threat.

  "I'm - "

  "No," Pirojil said, "he isn't suggesting that." And he isn't your man, either. "He is, though, suggesting that whether the lady dines in your rooms or in public, she'll have us at her side. And he is suggesting that the lady has been put in our safekeeping at the orders of the dowager empress, and that in our safekeeping she will remain until she reaches the dowager empress." He offered her the crook of his arm. "Lady? If I may see you to your rooms?"

  Miron was an expansive host, once he got a skinful of wine into him. "Well, now, and what did the Old Emperor do then?"

  The sitting room was heated by a huge fireplace, easily as wide as Pirojil was tall.

  Pirojil sat back in the too-comfortable chair. Miron wasn't the only one who had been drinking too much. Leria's face was flushed, and Durine was holding himself with an unusual stiffness. The wine was deceptively strong - there was a taste of some piney resin that masked the spirits' strength.

  Only Kethol had settled for a single glass of wine, diluted that with half again as much water, and sweetened it with honey, Salket style. Not that Kethol was a Salke, of course, but...

  "He drew himself up straight," Kethol went on, pausing to take another minuscule sip from his glass, "and announced himself in a voice so loud that it shook walls. 'I am Karl Cullinane, prince of Bieme and emperor of Holtun-Bieme,' he said, 'and if I do not see that miserable excuse of a baron of yours standing before me in ten heartbeats, I'll see him dancing on the end of a spear before the dawn finishes breaking.' "

  "And Baron Arondael tolerated that?"

  Durine gave out a rumbling chuckle, and Kethol laughed. "Yes, he did more than tolerate it. He came ascurrying and bowing and scraping, and begged the emperor to accept the hospitality of his castle."

  "All because of one swordsman and a handful of soldiers? Amazing."

  Pirojil kept quiet. Could it be that Miron was as stupid as he was pretending to be? Or was he just trying to draw them out?

  Kethol, of course, took the bait. "No, it wasn't just any handful of soldiers, and the emperor wasn't just a swordsman. He was ... well, he was something. I swear he could have torn down that castle by himself, stone by stone."

  Durine grunted. "He wasn't by himself, either. I think Tennetty - the woman they named this village after - had already silenced a half-dozen guards." He drew a blunt thumb across his throat and made a wet sucking sound with his lips. "Tennetty always did like silencing guards."

  Kethol nodded. "She did, at that," he said, warming to the subject. "She had this way with a knife, where she'd snake an arm around from behind and do this stab-and-twist thing, and all you'd hear was a low gurgle and - "

  "And then," Durine put in, "there was an army marching on Arondael - under Neranahan and Garavar, by the way - and the dragon Ellegon flew overhead."

  "Yes," Kethol said, "his leathery wings a-flapping, fire issuing from his roar, the sulfuric stench of all filling the air until all you could do was choke. The baron was more than happy to see things our way, under the circumstances. He was something, the Old Emperor."

  Durine smiled thinly. "I can still hear him shouting. 'Baron!' he shouted, his voice loud enough to shatter walls, 'when the emperor comes a-calling, it had best not be because you have refused his hospitality.' "

  Miron spread his hands. "But, still... one man? Or even a dozen?"

  Durine nodded wisely. "You have a point, and it is well taken. One moment." With a loud scraping, he pushed himself back from his chair and rose, then half-staggered toward the arched doorway that
led to the hall, returning in a few moments with two items, one in each hand: a large onion, still with top and trailing roots, dripping water as though it had just been rinsed moments before, and a small bright knife, wooden-handled.

  He set both down on the table in front of Kethol. "The stew is a bit bland for my tastes," he said, his voice only slightly slurred. "Could you help?"

  "Of course." Kethol had already produced his own knife, as Pirojil had known he would, and quickly trimmed off the roots and the nubbin left behind, then decapitated the onion with one quick motion. Two quick longitudinal slices, and the brown outer skin was gone, leaving behind only the pale green flesh of the onion.

  Kethol set it down on the rough-hewn surface of the table and quickly sliced it in half, then took one half, set it flat on the table, and made six quick parallel cuts, then another six perpendicular to the first. A half-dozen quick chops, and the onion half had been cut into tiny diced pieces, which Kethol quickly scooped up in one hand and sprinkled over the top of Durine's stew.

  The big man's breath would smell painfully bad in the morning, but Miron was nodding.

  "One cut at a time, eh?" His fingers toyed with the remaining half of the onion. "I see your point," he said, taking at first a delicate nibble, and then a full bite, smiling through the entirely emotion-free tears that ran freely down his cheeks and into his beard.

  He took big bites, and enjoyed raw flavors. Pirojil couldn't help but like that in him.

  Of course, should the situation arise where killing Miron seemed to be the right thing to do, that wouldn't stay his hand for a heartbeat.

  He smiled back.

  Chapter 14

  Biemestren

  Clouds concealed the night stars, but not the Faerie lights. The east wind blew cold and damp, the sort of wind her husband used to call the Wind of Foreboding. It chilled her to the very bone, but Beralyn Furnael, dowager empress of Holtun-Bieme, persisted in her walk, neither quickening nor slowing her pace.