Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  Thomen nodded. That explained a lot about tonight, and about his visitors. Trust Walter Slovotsky to do himself a favor while explaining to Thomen that he was doing the emperor and the empire one.

  *They all handled it well enough, but.. .*

  "But it made you nervous." The dragon had a strong affection for the Cullinane family.

  *Next time you're chained in a sewer for a few centuries, you let me know how you feel about the family of the man that freed you.*

  Point taken.

  The dragon stretched his long neck, and sent a gout of flame skyward. *I have some business in Home to deal with, but after that, I think I'll want to spend some time around here for a while. If that's okay.*

  Thomen grinned. "You should probably take that up with Baron Adahan. As I understand it, he's going to be holding my throne down for me while I go hunting." Thomen couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a bow and a quiver and gone in search of rabbit, much less of deer. When he had been an imperial judge, he had made time for hunting and riding, and even when he had been regent he still had managed to get away occasionally.

  The dragon snorted flame. *You'll be a good long while setting that up, Emperor. By Parliament, maybe. If you're lucky.*

  That was true enough. But it would be nice to get away every now and then. Kiar and Nyphien were making threatening noises, and the preference of many of the barons to simply blame them for some of the border incidents and launch at least a punitive attack if not simply to try to conquer the rest of the Middle Lands -

  *You could count on my lack of support for that,* Ellegon said.

  Thomen pounded a fist on the stone wall. "I don't want any wars. I've seen enough of them for one lifetime, and I thought after the Holtun-Bieme war, things would stay quiet."

  *Yes, you did. Because you were a child. There are always fires to be pissed on, and some of them have to be pissed on from the very top.* The dragon lifted its rear leg as though to demonstrate, but desisted at Thomen's grimace. The emperor had been downwind from that once, and it had been just about the worst smell he'd ever had.

  *Ingratitude, thy name is human. After all I've done for you.*

  And the dragon had indeed done a lot, particularly in keeping the Biemish barons in line.

  *Well, the threat that anybody who acted up would have a few tons of fire-breathing dragon landing on top of them tends to make folks think twice.*

  Well, yes, there was that, and it was accident that the imperial seal was that of a dragon rampant, breathing fire -

  *I blush.*

  - but it would be easy to overestimate that. Ellegon had been of inestimable help back during the war, but the war had gone on nonetheless.

  *Yes, it had. And it could happen again,* the dragon said, stretching out its wings as it leaped skyward with a flurry of wings that sent dust flying from the parade ground even up to the emperor's window. *But do your best, O Emperor, and let's hope that best is good enough.*

  Thomen Furnael, emperor of Holtun-Bieme, wiped the dust from his eyes, drank a last mug of water, and returned to his bed.

  This time, his sleep was all warm and dreamless.

  Chapter 21

  Miron

  This newfound equality was one thing, but the thin, mocking smile that never quite left Erenor's lips made Kethol want to grab the front of the wizard's tunic and slap his face into the next barony.

  "Kethol?" Leria caught up with him once more, easily matching her horse's speed to his. Truth to tell, she was a better rider than he was - which was understandable: years of recreational riding probably gave you better control over not only the horse but of your own muscles than the kind of riding you got while soldiering, which consisted more often than not of just sitting on the back of a slowly plodding horse.

  The notion that soldiers were somehow great horsemen was something peasants were more easily persuaded of than anybody else was.

  "Yes, Lady - I mean yes, Lerian." He couldn't quite meet her eyes. He wasn't sure why. Or maybe it was that he was sure why, and didn't dare even explain to himself why an ordinary pair of strangely warm blue eyes could make it difficult for him to think clearly.

  "When we reach Horsten?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you think we can look for one of the baron's men? I mean, Horsten is, I mean it now is, part of Barony Adahan, and we should - "

  "Should." That was a word that always decided it for Kethol. Since when did should have anything to do with anything? No, he would go with what Pirojil and Durine had said, and if that was overly cautious, perhaps Kethol could be overly cautious for once.

  Erenor dropped back to join them. "I hope you'll notice," he said, punctuating a sniff with a wave of his hand, "the tendency of horses to wander off on their own when not properly attended."

  Actually, Kethol had noticed no such thing. The horses - the dray horses in particular - tended to follow each other, particularly when the big brown gelding that Leria was riding was in the lead. He'd known a drover, years ago, who always believed in riding a stallion, knowing that the mares and geldings would follow. Of course, the drover had died one day when he wasn't paying quite enough attention and his stallion had gotten a sniff of something and suddenly lunged into full gallop. If he had been alert enough to spring out of the saddle, he would have come away with no worse than a few scrapes and maybe a broken bone or two, but he hadn't. And he hadn't been alert enough to cling for dear life, which might have worked. Instead, he had half fallen, dragged along rocky ground by one imprisoned ankle long after he was dead.

  Pirojil had a point about how sometimes it was better to not do something at all than only half do it.

  But that probably wasn't what this was all about anyway, so he didn't say that.

  "Then gather them together," Kethol said, "and bring up the rear."

  When they rounded the bend of the road ahead, Leria was the first to notice the flag fluttering from the pole on the far hilltop. "Look," she said, one slim finger pointing in an elegant way that Kethol wanted to correct but didn't quite know how, "somebody is trying to get our attention."

  Kethol would have noticed the flag in just another moment or two. Off in the distance he could barely see a blocky figure - a man, although he could only tell that by the way sunlight gleamed on his bald head. The flag was not the red of distress or the white of surrender, but blue, and while Kethol couldn't make out the symbol on it, he was sure that when they got closer it would be the imperial dragon, which, technically, made this a call to parley, but which in practice made it a call to trade.

  What else would a farmer want to parley about?

  Erenor rode back up, his horse not quite at the canter, but verging on it. He raised a palm to forestall - what?

  "Ta havath," he said. "Ta havath, Kethol. There's no problem here."

  Well, yes, there was a problem here, and Kethol was talking to it. "What are you talking about?"

  "The flag. Technically, I know, it's a call to parley. But if you were a landowner, and you saw three ... men riding down the road driving what would appear to be trade horses, you'd probably want to make a call to parley, too. If only - "

  "If only to see if there was some advantage to be taken," Kethol said. "After all, somebody who has horses, and is looking to sell them, probably wants money. And if he wants money very badly, it may be that there is to be some horseflesh bought for too little coin."

  Kethol kept the words level and even, or at least tried to. Regardless of how Pirojil and Durine sometimes treated him, he was not a gibbering, capering, drooling idiot, not always looking to find a problem that could only be solved with a blade or a bullet. He had even been known to, from time to time, solve a problem with an insight or two, hard though that was to believe.

  'Too little? Well, we couldn't have that," Erenor said. 'Too little, and he'd wonder why we sold so cheaply, and perhaps if there was a reward on our heads for stolen horses."

  Leria's grin would have irritated him if her eyes
weren't smiling, too. "Perhaps, Erenor, wisest of employers," she said, "hostler among hostlers, it would be sensible of you to simply go and parley with him?"

  Erenor's mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. "No," he said after a moment. 'That makes us seem too eager - that makes me seem too eager." He dismissed Kethol with a flip of his hand. "Go and see what he wants, if you please."

  It made sense. And it made sense not to stand here, wasting daylight, leaving the people up the hill wondering why it was taking so long for these horse traders to begin horse trading, and it made sense not to stand here arguing with his putative employer, but it still felt as if Erenor had, once again, managed to put something over on somebody, and Kethol didn't much like that feeling.

  He tugged on the reins and gave a firm twitch of his heels. Master Sanders - he insisted that he had earned the title during his years as a blacksmith, before he had sold his smithy in a Tyrnaelian village to buy farmland in Neranahan and hire some displaced peasants to work it for him - ran knowing hands up and down the dray horse's withers, then fastened blunt fingers tightly around its lead rope before giving it a solid thwack on the side that would have stunned a strong man but barely caused the horse to twitch.

  He was a big man, built like a brick, bis skin permanently burned and reddened from the sun to such an extent that his bald head looked as if it had been scorched clean.

  He had dismissed his eldest son - a younger, not quite as bald version of himself - and two of the farmworkers, sending them off to do some job on the other side of the long wattle-and-daub house. Two men, sweating in the sun, were busying themselves rethatching the roof, but they were well out of earshot; it seemed that Master Sanders liked to do his trading without an audience. Kethol tried to decide whether that was because he was afraid that others would think he'd been taken advantage of or because he was afraid that another's expression would give some advantage away, and decided that it could easily be both, or neither.

  "Not a bad animal, Trader, not a bad animal at all," Master Sanders said, giving the lead rope a quick twist around the hitching pole. He stepped back into the shade of the stable, beckoning Erenor and Kethol to follow. "Seven, eight years old, eh?"

  The stable had originally been a well house, which Sanders had expanded into a smithy and a stable, although Kethol couldn't tell in which order. Not a bad idea - it kept a source of water close to both animals and forge.

  "Five," Erenor said. "Five years old. No more."

  "Naturally," Sanders said. "Five very long years, eh?" His fingers traced their way through the wear marks on its hide. "Spent more time pulling a carriage or a wagon than a plow, but I've never found a horse I couldn't teach to walk a straight line, though a time or two there's been some question as to whether its stubbornness or my hand would break first." He rubbed the back of his hand against his sweaty brow. "If that gray mare and the big brown gelding are the same sort of five-year-olds, I think we can do some business, if you don't want to hold out for the three silver marks you'd get in New Pittsburgh."

  "It would be at least five in New Pittsburgh," Erenor said. "But I'd thought we'd try Adahan itself first, and see if there's any interest there - I've been told the Baron Adahan himself has a fine eye for horses, and I'd thought we'd be able to get a good price from his factor."

  Sanders chuckled. "I heard that the baron has a fine eye for many things, horses and friends' wives among them, but I've never heard that he has a great interest in dray stock or hard-worked gelding plow horses. Of course, if he's found a way to breed geldings, then we'll all be in his debt."

  Master Sanders laughed too loudly at his own joke. He was the sort who would.

  Erenor laughed along, although Kethol didn't.

  Sanders and Erenor got down to some serious haggling, while Kethol looked out over the fields.

  Leria - no, Lerian, he reminded himself - had dismounted, and had the horses grazing on a grassy plot down near the fence, gently switching at the little roan, her alternate mount, who tended to stray if not watched carefully. There was just a touch of sway in her hips as she moved, but Kethol was looking for that.

  Off in the distance, a quartet of shirtless, sun-browned men worked their way down the green rows, stooping with every step to pick weeds. Sanders had the right idea - if you were going to be a farmer, best to own the land and have others work it for you. Smithing, carpentry, butchering, and all the other work involved in running a farm were bad enough, but could there be anything worse than spending your days stooped over in the hot sun, far from the coolness of the green woods?

  Well, yes, there could be many worse things. But not many of them were part of the day-to-day life of a farmer.

  "The day gets no shorter," Sanders said, "and there's no better place to make camp between here and Horsten. I'll put the three of you and your animals up for the night - my guesting room for you; a warm stable to sleep in for your men; hay, oats, and fresh water for the animals; beer and stew for the humans - for the sake of the deal, if you'll not hold out for such a ridiculous price."

  That would have been a good deal for three road-weary drovers, but it was a danger for the three of them. Leria's disguise would hold up from a distance, but close-up would be another matter.

  Erenor apparently agreed; he shook his head. "Well, a ridiculous price it may be; I've been thought ridiculous before," he said. "I think we can get better than five for the mottled mare and the brown, although I'll settle for five for this gelding. We'd best be moving on, then."

  "Is there some reason to hurry?" Sanders asked. "Young Baron Adahan is on his deathbed, is he? And he wishes to buy some nonbreeding stock before he closes his eyes for the last time?"

  Erenor smiled. "Of course not."

  "Then why such unseemly haste, when there's food, rest, and a fair price here?"

  "Food and rest, perhaps, but as to the price... We'd be happy to accept your generosity, provided you'll come to a full four marks for the gelding. Five for each of the others. Shall I have Lerian bring them up for your inspection?"

  Sanders rubbed a thick hand against bis chin. "No, no, I'll go the four marks, but I'll not buy these sort of five-year-olds for five. Four for this big one; a bargain it is, then." Sanders held out his hand, and after a moment, Erenor slapped his palm in agreement

  Kethol could easily have been wrong, but he figured that Sanders felt he was short only one horse, and wouldn't have bought the others unless the price was low, but not suspiciously low. Probably some overaged, swaybacked plow horse had finally keeled over and died, and Sanders was eager to replace it, preferably by dealing with somebody who wouldn't know his situation and might set a low price on one horse for the sake of trying to get several sold.

  Erenor and Sanders sealed the bargain with a quick drink from a brown clay bottle that Sanders took down from a shelf over near the forge. Sanders took a second sip, then passed the bottle to Kethol. It was a soured wine, but fruity for all that, and it washed the taste of road dust from Kethol's mouth.

  "Now, bring up this Lerian of yours - a fine name for a simple drover, eh? -and let us drink with him," Sanders said to Kethol. "I've never had a man sleeping under my roof I haven't drunk with, and I'm too old to change and too stubborn to try."

  Kethol opened his mouth to say something - he wasn't sure quite what - when Erenor spoke up.

  "I'll go and get him," he said, handing his reins over to Sanders. "Kethol, unsaddle and water our saddle horses - they've had a long enough day as it is."

  Sanders accepted the reins with a nod, and led the horse into the dark of the stable. Kethol followed. There didn't seem to be anything better to do. Maybe Leria's disguise would hold up, or maybe ...

  No, maybe it Wouldn't need to.

  Erenor returned in a few moments with a big, brawny man astride a little roan, leading the rest of the horses.

  "Good day to you, Master Sanders," the brawny man said in a deep basso rumble that had the pitch of Durine's voice but the rhythm of Leria's s
peech. "My name is Lerian. I'm told you have a bottle of wine waiting for me."

  Erenor smiled genially at Kethol, no trace of a boast on his face. "I should have warned Master Sanders about Lerian's capacity, but, after all, he insisted."

  Kethol grinned back. This just might work.

  The night spread out all inky in front of him, lit only by black gashes in the not-quite-black clouds that let some stars sparkle through, and by the distant pulse of a trio of Faerie lights that, for whatever reason, had taken up a position at the turnoff down the road, as though they had been assigned to light the way of somebody, something.

  There was something about the night that appealed to Kethol. It was like a dark blanket that could cover and warm you, and once you learned its ways, it was a friend.

  Not a particularly good friend, mind, but life was like that. You didn't get many good friends.

  He leaned against the doorframe, easily two manheights above the packed dirt below. There were lots of things he liked about sleeping in a stable's hayloft, and this wasn't the first time in his life he had found this sort of shelter. The wind was refreshing, and the animals below stood guard for you, as long as you had enough presence of mind to tell a warning whicker from an ordinary snort in your sleep, and Kethol figured he could probably do that dead.

  Yes, there was the occasional rat scurrying about - but if you hung your bags from a rafter, a spare blanket folded properly about them, they would usually leave your food alone, and if one or two happened to be careless enough to get near you, a sudden swipe of your sword would leave a body rotting as a warning to the others.

  Not necessarily a warning they would heed, but you couldn't have everything. If your friends didn't listen to your warnings, then how could you expect rats to?

  Erenor had been put up in the house - which was nice; the wizard's arrogance was getting on Kethol's nerves, and his having been right and useful of late somehow made that worse, not better.