Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  "The gold?" Pirojil asked.

  "Yes, the gold. The dowry. For the girl." Horolf had given up any reluctance to tell what he knew, but he was a peasant, not a storyteller, and not only wounded, but half frightened to death. Pirojil was willing to settle for that, but it did make getting the story out of him a longer task than he would have liked.

  Somebody had been spreading rumors. It seemed that the word had gone out that three men - a tall, rangy, redheaded fellow; a huge, hulking swordsman; and the ugliest man that anybody had ever seen - together with a handsome, somewhat uppity body servant, were escorting a minor lady of Neranahan to Biemestren so that she could attempt to buy herself a Biemish husband.

  Her prey must have been somebody of very high rank indeed, as the three escorts had been personal bodyguards to the Old Emperor himself, and now were fealty-bound to Barony Cullinane and the former heir.

  Perhaps her future husband was even the former heir himself? If so, her dowry must have been immense, as Jason Cullinane was probably the wealthiest of all the imperial barons, and it would have taken a great deal of gold to interest him, indeed, particularly since the lady was known to be of violent temper and ugly of face.

  (Pirojil grinned at that. Horolf misunderstood the meaning of the smile and voided his bowels. Again. This interrogation was smelly work.)

  The size of the dowry had grown as the tale had spread, and when Wilsh had spotted them from his croft, it hadn't taken long for a dozen or more veterans of the Biemish war to decide that this was their opportunity, their chance to leave their miserable crofts and this two-nation empire.

  Pirojil shook his head. People who hadn't been around wealth both overestimated and underestimated what gold could do. Gold certainly could buy them land and cattle and horses in Kiar or Nyphien or - better - in the lands around and protected by Pandathaway. But it couldn't make them run faster than their pursuers would, and it wouldn't stop men who were better with sword and spear and crossbow from taking their possessions and their lives away from them.

  The life of an outlaw was cheap tender, and the life of an outlaw who somehow managed to have a stack of gold on him was absolutely worthless.

  But that didn't stop fools from trying for their one chance, and Pirojil was familiar enough with a crofter's life to have more than vague sympathy for somebody who wanted to escape the endless days of drudgery that began before dawn and ended with exhaustion after sundown. There was a lot lacking in a soldier's life, but at least you didn't have to grub your living out of the very dirt you shit in. Pirojil rose. "Shit," he said.

  Durine grunted. "Dowry, indeed." He used the toe of his boot to flip Horolf over, then drew his sword. Best to end this now, and be on their way.

  At the sound of steel sliding on leather, Horolf cried out something loud and incoherent, and his body spasmed. He probably would have voided himself again if he hadn't run out by now.

  "Oh, be still," Durine said as he sliced through first the leather thongs that bound Horolf's thumbs together, then the ones that bound his wrists. Even if Horolf hadn't been thoroughly frightened - and you could never quite count on fright to stop somebody from doing what he had to; it had never stopped Durine - he was still hamstrung in one leg, and the nearest crossbow was lying in a field a fair walk away.

  Durine flipped him back over, then tossed him a piece of broken blade. Cheap local steel wasn't worth keeping, anyway; if it was worth a gold mark a tonne, he would be surprised. "If you don't crawl down to the stream and cut your friend loose, I'll be back for you," he said, letting his voice rasp.

  He was lying, but he didn't think Horolf would test him on it.

  It took the peasant a long moment to realize what Durine was saying. "But - "

  The point of Durine's sword whipped through the air and hovered near Horolf's right eye. "Don't even think me a gentle man," he said. "I've hamstrung him, same as the arrow did for you. You can cut yourselves a pair of crutches and hobble on back to your miserable village and your miserable lives." He touched the point of his sword to Horolf's nose, just barely hard enough to draw blood, although he doubted that Horolf noticed. "I may see you again, once; I will not see you again twice," Durine said.

  Pirojil was already walking away; Durine turned and followed him.

  Yes, if it had been necessary, or even desirable, Durine could have cut little screaming pieces out of the other peasant all day long.

  You did what you had to, after all, and let the rest of it sort itself out. But one quick stab to get one long scream had been enough to prepare the way for Pirojil's talk with Horolf, and while it had been years since Durine had lost count of the number of men he had killed, he had long since come up with an answer for the lot of them when their pale, bloodless faces crowded his dreams, trying to deny him his rest.

  Yes, he would say, I've killed all of you, and more, and yes, I probably could have handled many of you more gently, and yes, you can haunt my nights for that. But while I've killed many a man I had to, and probably nearly as many more as I didn't have to, I've never killed one I knew I didn't have to, he would tell them.

  And while that didn't dispel the ghosts that haunted his dreams, that was enough for Durine.

  Pirojil clapped a hand to his shoulder. "We'd best be moving fast"

  "Yes, but where?"

  Chapter 19

  Division

  It took less time than Pirojil had thought it would to reduce the carriage into sufficiently small pieces. Getting the doors off had been easy, and cutting through the axles only took Durine a few moments with a saw. The hard part had been breaking the walls apart - whoever had built it had built it to last - but after the first corner finally yielded to Durine's ax, it was just a matter of hitching up one of the dray horses to each wall and sending them in opposite directions.

  By noon, the carriage was no more, just pieces of wood scattered in the woods. There was something satisfying in the destruction. The carriage didn't bleed and moan and shit itself; maybe that was it.

  The five of them gathered in the clearing, packing up the horses. The dray horses made fine pack animals, and anybody who had served with the Old Emperor was long since a past master of lashing odd-shaped gear.

  Pirojil ticked off the possibilities as they loaded, while Lady Leria watched quietly. She hadn't said much since last night. Not that Pirojil blamed her.

  "One," he said, raising his voice as he ducked under the belly of the gray gelding to give its harness strap a tightening tug, "we can stick together, try to somehow disguise ourselves, and hope that a party of five heading toward Biemestren won't draw every dissatisfied peasant, out-of-work mercenary, or just plain bored soldier between here and there. We can travel at night - "

  "Which anybody would expect us to do," Erenor said, interrupting. He didn't stop working, though. "It's only sensible."

  Pirojil went on, ignoring the wizard: " - or, two, we can change our destination."

  Kethol nodded. "Barony Adahan, and New Pittsburgh. I like that idea."

  Durine shook his head, but Kethol didn't catch it.

  It was all Pirojil could do not to do the same. It wasn't his fault - Kethol wasn't stupid, not really, but he had blind spots - and Kethol would see that as a good idea. Kethol would count on the peasants and soldiers of Barony Adahan being loyal to their baron, and their knowledge of Bren Adahan's personal friendship with the Cullinanes protecting the lot of them.

  Pirojil shook his head. "Even if we make it there - and I doubt we could do it in less than five days, moving at night - you assume too much."

  Wizards and women all had their own magical ways of warping a man's mind, but gold, or even the idea of gold, had a magic all its own.

  Yes, Pirojil would trust Bren, Baron Adahan, at least in this. But some peasant or soldier or armsman fealty-bound to him?

  Fealty did not move as quickly as a fast horse, and it was not as sharp as the edge of a knife or the point of an arrow.

  Durine shook his head. "Ba
d idea."

  "There is another possibility," Erenor said, slapping his hands together to clear the dust from them. He rose to his full height. He had dropped his role as a body servant, and while Pirojil thought he could detect a trace of uncertainty in Erenor's manner, there had been a definite change.

  Pirojil wasn't sure how he felt about that. Ever since Erenor had provided his seeming-monster distraction, he had been behaving as though he was, well, an equal, not just a lackey pressed into service by blackmail and force.

  Well, maybe he wasn't just a lackey, not anymore.

  Erenor smiled. "While there are those who would say I'm not much of a wizard, when it comes to seemings, I am - " he paused, presumably for dramatic effect, as bis hand fluttered " -demonstrably quite good."

  Kethol grinned. "Good? You're magnificent," he said, his smile picked up and echoed by Lady Leria. The two of them seemed to be doing a lot of smiling lately. Pirojil tried not to wonder why that bothered him so much.

  Durine shook his massive head. "But can you keep up five seemings at the same time?"

  "Hardly. But hardly necessary." Erenor snorted. "Mundanes," he said, the word overlaid with condescension. "You see so much, and observe so little of it - there is always more to magic man magic. Lady, if you would?" He gestured her to sit on the trunk that lay on the ground next to the carriage. "Pirojil, I'll need a spare tunic of yours, and Kethol, your sword belt, if you please."

  She wasn't used to being dressed by men, and Erenor was clearly more used to getting women out of their clothes than to helping one into a man's tunic, but it wasn't long before she was wearing Pirojil's tunic over her blouse.

  It hung loosely on her, but with the belt tight around her hips rather than waist, it covered her curves quite handily.

  Still, she looked like a pretty young woman dressed up as a man, and that -

  "Oh, be still, Pirojil," Erenor said. Swift, clever fingers twisted her hair into a sailor's queue, and a quick rubbing of something from Erenor's wizard's bag robbed it of its bright sheen. Some swipes with a damp cloth, then a rubbing of something else from the bag, and she looked like a man who needed a shave, if you didn't look too closely, much as Kethol did.

  "Now, I'd despair of teaching our lady to walk like a man, but put her in a saddle, astride a horse, her feet in boots instead of slippers, and - nobody would give her a second glance." Erenor put a finger to his lips and considered Kethol. "Now, Mast - Kethol will be easy enough. I can darken his hair quickly, and while he's tall, he's not tall enough to be unusual."

  "And you?"

  "Quite easy," he said, pulling clothes from his bag. "I'm a merchant - a buyer of horses, perhaps? - and the four of you are my drovers and bodyguard." He considered Durine and Pirojil. "It's the two of you that are the problem." He shook his head. "Durine is a big man, granted, but he's a big hairy man, and with a razor and some dye for his head, he can become a big bald man. Yes, yes, I know his scalp won't be tanned and weathered," he said, raising a palm to forestall a protest that Pirojil hadn't thought of, "but some stain and a few days of sunburn, and it'll look just fine. A tad uncomfortable, perhaps, but what of that?" He turned to Pirojil. "It's you that I'll need the seeming for, Pirojil. Your looks are - " he hesitated, perhaps trying to see how far he should push his newfound equality " - distinctive, that's what they are, and that creates a problem that is best addressed by the Arts."

  "No." Pirojil shook his head. "It won't happen."

  Erenor made a sound that Pirojil hadn't heard before; it had something of a tsk to it, combined with a fricative of the lips. "Ah. So now you not only know more about when magic is to be used than I do, but how to use it? I would think I've more than a little more experience than you have with seemings, Pirojil."

  "No," Pirojil said. His stomach felt as if he had swallowed something cold and metallic; he resisted the urge to purge himself.

  "But - "

  "Leave it be. We have to figure out another way."

  "We should listen to him," Kethol said, each word a cut to Pirojil's heart.

  After all this time, Kethol, you clumsy, heroic idiot, can't you keep your knifepoint out of my wounds?

  Durine looked over at Kethol and shook his head. "There are some things we don't speak of," he said.

  Kethol's head was tilted to one side. "Yes, of course, but - but this is important. No, that's not what I meant." He must have realized how that sounded. "It's more important this time."

  Lady Leria stood too close to Pirojil. "I don't understand," she said. "We can't travel together, not if you don't let him disguise you." She laid a slim hand on his arm, and left it there for a long, warm moment, and he made the mistake of inhaling. The scent of her was overpowering. Yes, she stank of Kethol's leather, and there were more than hints of her own unwashed sweat, but mainly she smelled of sunshine and warmth and comfort, and it was all Pirojil could do not to kick her away from him and run screaming away from her smooth youth and beauty.

  "No, Lady, I..." He stopped himself. Pirojil opened his mouth, closed it. He could argue the point until night fell, but the only way to shut Erenor up would be to beat him, and there was no way he could argue with Leria.

  He took a step away from Leria and stood with his arms folded across his chest. "Very well," he said to Erenor, each word tasting of salt and steel, "do your best."

  The wizard shrugged. "I don't see what the - well, let's just do it, and be done with it." He licked his lips once, and for a moment his eyes went all vague and distant, as though he was reading something that was simultaneously both in front of him and far away.

  And then the words issued from his mouth. Pirojil tried to distract himself with the thought that he had, perhaps, just a touch of wizard in his ancestry, because he could make them out enough to know they sounded familiar, but only for a moment. Then they were gone, burned from his ears and mind like a drop of fresh blood on a hot skillet, leaving behind nothing more than a sound and a scent.

  Unfamiliar forces pulled at his face, like fingers tugging at his muscles from the inside of his face, like the time that his - like the time that somebody had used two blunt fingers to push the mouth of the boy whose name wasn't then Pirojil from a frown into a smile.

  That smile had lasted, and he could still feel those gentle fingers hours later.

  But these just faded away.

  The Words left no trace of effect on him. It was as though they had never been spoken. Pirojil had expected that. No - it was more than expected, he had known that was how it would be.

  You have to live with your own curses, and when one of those curses is your own ugliness, you have to live with that being exposed to the world every day.

  "There are some men who can be made to seem something that they are not," he said, rubbing thick fingers against his bearded cheeks. "I'm not one of them." He smiled the lie that it didn't bother him, a lie he had smiled many times before. "No magic, no artifice, can help that."

  Leria laid her hand on his arm once more. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to - I didn't want to ..."

  He reached up to - gently, gently - remove her hand. "It's of no consequence, Lady. But you do see that this face of mine makes it impossible for me to travel with you now."

  Durine nodded. "And I, as well. You'll have sufficient trouble keeping the three of you from looking like, well, the three of you - and Pirojil is going to need somebody to accompany him back to deal with the baroness."

  Leria lifted a brow, and Kethol just looked blank, but Pirojil wasn't surprised that Durine had worked that out. There were two noblewomen who had cause - or at least reason -to be sowing caltrops in their path. This smelled more of Baroness Elanee than it did of the dowager empress, although he didn't doubt for a moment that Beralyn was perfectly capable of setting the wolves on them. The life of a minor Holtish noblewoman wasn't of any great importance to a former Biemish baroness, and if the lives of Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine were of any value whatsoever to the dowager empress, the t
hree of them wouldn't be here now, smashing the remnants of a carriage into unidentifiable flinders.

  He hoped it was Elanee who had put the price on their heads. They just might be able to survive that, unlikely though it seemed at the moment. Beralyn was not only beyond their reach, but beyond any reach they could ever develop. Yes, that was unfair and horrible, but the world was unfair and horrible, and eventually you got used to it. Or, at least, you learned to pretend to yourself that you did.

  But Baroness Elanee, perhaps, was not beyond their reach. And it might prove sufficiently politic for the blame for this to be laid upon her grave, even if the dowager empress was the one who had, in effect, put a phantom price on their heads. Life was unfair and horrible and often shorter than it ought to be, and perhaps now was the time to explain that, quite quickly, to the baroness.

  "In any case," Durine said, bis voice the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm, "it sounds better than running around like a pair of rabbits waiting to find their wolves around the next corner."

  Pirojil smiled, and tried to ignore the way it made Leria shudder. "Somehow, I thought you'd see it that way."

  Kethol tried not to think as he checked the bellyband on Leria's brown mare for probably the twentieth time. Thinking, it had been brought home to him, was not one of his strengths. "Reminds me of the Old Emperor's Last Ride," he said, levering himself up and into his saddle. "So be careful, the two of you."

  Durine chuckled, a low bass rumble that sounded, for once, more of amusement than irony. "We," he said, "we survived that just fine, if you'll recall. It was you that needed enough healing draughts to float an ox." His massive hand clasped Kethol's just for a moment. "So watch your own back, hero."

  Pirojil lifted a finger to his massive sunken brow. "Be well," he said. "You watch out for him, Erenor, or you'll answer to me, and I can promise you that you won't like the way I put the questions."

  Kethol beckoned to Leria, then kicked his horse into a canter, letting Erenor drive the unsaddled ones ahead of him. It took her a few minutes to catch up with him, at which point he let his horse drop back into a walk. This was a race, yes, but it wasn't a sprint.