Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  The trouble was that that left Kethol alone with Leria, who had taken his advice and wrapped herself in a thick blanket, then burrowed her way into a pile of hay.

  It was hard to sleep. It had been too long since he'd had a whore, and that only went so far. Not that he had any right to complain about his present conditions. Kethol wondered what Durine and Pirojil were doing now, and decided that they were unlikely to be sleeping in a nice warm stable, their bellies warmed with fresh stew and their heads slightly abuzz with sour beer.

  They were also unlikely to be headed anywhere warm and safe, like Biemestren.

  It was clear what he would have to do, although how to do it was the problem. Kethol had never been much for talking people into doing things. Not even his brothers in arms. He did what he had to, when he had to, and hoped that they would back him up.

  But how he could persuade the dowager empress of anything? The only reason he could even get that close to the imperial family was because he was ordered to report to her - and would she possibly agree to set up an audience with the emperor? He might as well ask to see the matriarch of the Healing Hand.

  But Lady Doria would listen to him, and she had some influence.

  There was something going on in Neranahan, something that needed investigating, and she would see that. If she could persuade, say, Walter Slovotsky, he could persuade Ellegon, and they could take a squad into the hills north of the baronial estate and find out just what it was that the baroness was hiding there.

  A light touch was called for; that much was clear. Kethol didn't know much about politics, but he knew that you couldn't just ride an army of horsemen onto a baron's estate without some good reason, not without making all the other barons - Holtish and Biemish alike - nervous.

  A light touch wasn't Kethol's specialty, and even asking for one was not. It should have been Piro who would bring Leria to court. Pirojil was probably the ugliest man Kethol had ever known, but his mind was clear and sharp, and he didn't let his tongue or his reflexes overrule his good sense.

  As Kethol had in Riverforks.

  But what should he have done? Let those three toughs rape that girl, and just stand there and listen?

  The Old Emperor wouldn't have. The Old Emperor would have killed the lot of them for daring to lay their hands on an unwilling woman.

  Shit. He could almost hear Pirojil say it: You aren't the Old Emperor.

  Truth to tell, the Old Emperor wasn't the invulnerable, all-powerful Old Emperor of legend - his last heroics got him killed, after all.

  But everybody dies sometime, Pirojil, he thought. It's a question of what you're doing when it happens, more than anything else.

  He heard her move behind him.

  "You should be sleeping," she said, her voice low.

  "I probably should." He didn't turn. She was wearing a loose cotton tunic as a sleeping dress, and he knew he would gawk and stare if he let his eyes fall on her.

  "If you think we need to set a watch," she said, "it's probably my turn."

  He shook his head. "No." He gave a practice thump of his heel on the floor, rewarded by a shuffling of hooves and quiet neighing below. "We've good enough watchers on duty."

  It was hard enough talking to her without looking at her.

  There was something in her eyes, something in her smile, something in the way she held herself that made it hard to breathe. It wasn't that the only women Kethol was ever around were smelly whores, because they weren't; he had spent much time guarding Andrea Cullinane and her daughter, as well as Kirah, wife of Walter Slovotsky, and their daughter, Jane.

  The Cullinane and Slovotsky women were attractive - very attractive - but, well, he was their man. That made them, if not any more untouchable in law - it would already be worth his life to so much as lay an unwanted finger on any noblewoman - more akin to family, maybe.

  Or maybe it made him a trusted pet and them his owner.

  If so, he was comfortable with that.

  Leria made him uncomfortable. Even after days on the road, under the dirt and sweat she somehow felt and smelled - even though he wasn't close enough to touch or smell her - of soap and flowers, of cleanliness and warmth on a cold night, of the friendly green coolness of the woods on a hot day.

  And he could no more reach out and touch that than he could reach out and touch the Faerie lights. She wasn't a girl; she was a lady, and whether he was a woodsman or a soldier, she was far above him, out of reach. If he touched her, would it all burst like a soap bubble? Or, more likely, would she scream and claw at his face?

  The pain wouldn't be important - pain? what was pain? - but the betrayal would be.

  And which betrayal would that be?

  And of whom?

  He more felt than saw her move next to him. "It's a pretty night," she said.

  He swallowed heavily, nodded. "Yes, Lady, that it is."

  Steely fingers gripped his shoulder, and pulled. She didn't have the strength to move him, but it was all he could do to simply let himself turn, to not break her grip with a sweep of one arm while the other sought the hilt of his dagger. "What is it with you?" she asked. "Is it that I'm Euar'den? I'm used to that"

  "Eh?" He turned to face her. If he hadn't known that her eyes were blue, the warm blue of the morning sky, he wouldn't have been able to tell. But even in the dim light of the stars and the Faerie lights, her eyes seemed to bum into his.

  "Is that why you treat me like I'm some ... some thing?" she asked. "Or is it that you so resent being sent out to rescue me, the way the others do?"

  Kethol didn't have the slightest idea what she was getting at, but he sensed that admitting that would only infuriate her more, although why she was angry in the first place he just didn't know. "I... we don't resent you at all. It's not a soldier's job to resent, anyway. We just go where we're told and do what we're told."

  "So it's just another job to you," she said. If her voice had been any more flat and level, it would have sounded inhuman. "And such an unimportant one, at that, rescuing a spoiled noble girl from an unwanted marriage. How very trivial a task for somebody who accompanied the Old Emperor on his Last Ride."

  "Lady," he said, "I - we - don't mind trivial, easy little tasks. Of course, when half the barony is out looking for us, wanting a carriageful of gold that we don't even have, it's not easy."

  For a moment, he didn't know how it would go. But then her hand dropped from his shoulder, and she laughed, quietly, a distant sound of silver bells. "I guess it isn't all that easy, at that," she said. "Is that why the three of you resent me so?"

  Kethol wished Pirojil was here. Piro was good at explaining things. "No," he finally said. "Oh, I think Durine probably gets angry every time you shudder when you look at Piro; you'd think we'd be used to that by now as we are to his face. And Durine has always wanted something big and dramatic to die for, maybe. Me, I'm a simple sort. I go where I'm told, and I do what I'm told to do, and I worry a lot more about how than why." Not that he was all that good at figuring out how. But maybe he was good enough.

  "And that's all you want," she more said than asked. "Just to go where you're told and do what you're told to do? That's all?"

  Now it was his turn to chuckle. But the sound rattled in his throat like dry bones. "I guess it all depends on who's doing the telling. The Old Emperor once told us to ride along with him, and even though the ride was likely to be in only one direction, a lot of us went smiling. The dowager empress told us to go straighten out just a small problem in a small barony, and I don't think any of us is going to be smiling about it."

  "But it's not me," she said. "You don't blame me for all this."

  It hadn't occurred to him to blame her, or that she could possibly care whether or not any of the three of them blamed her. They were just soldiers, after all, and she was a lady. And a lady no more cared for the opinions of soldiers than soldiers cared for the opinions of their horses. Of course, it mattered a great deal whether or not the horse, or the soldie
r, responded to orders, kept a steady pace, or was liable to lie down and die instead of slogging on, but the feelings, the opinions?

  "Of course not." For that matter - and despite the fact that he would have loved to get her wrinkled neck between his hands - he really didn't blame the dowager empress. She owed no loyalty to three Cullinane family retainers, three men who would happily slit open an imperial belly to warm the chilled feet of the least of the Cullinanes.

  Maybe he should have said this all to Leria. But it would be impertinent to explain to her something she knew very well: that he was a different sort of person than she was, and that he didn't really expect her to even acknowledge him as a person, even though her smile warmed him deeper and better than a mug of hot, mulled wine.

  He was just a soldier, after all.

  She took a tentative step closer to him, and he could feel her warm breath against his neck. "And my being Euar'den doesn't mean anything to you?"

  His hands started to reach for her, and then they dropped. "Lady Leria, the wars among the old clans and septs just don't mean much of a muchness to a simple soldier from another country."

  "I'm not some untouchable prize, then?"

  "No. Or yes." But not because of her ancestry. He was just a soldier, and she was a lady, but he was made of flesh and bone, not of steel and stone, and he reached out and took her in his arms.

  Her mouth was warm and soft on his for a long moment, until she pushed back from him, her hands clenched into fists, a quiet "no," issuing from between her lips.

  He raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. "My apologies, Lady," he said. "I..."

  She looked at him, wide-eyed, and fled back into the darkness.

  Kethol didn't know what it was that he was supposed to do. Was he supposed to go after her? Didn't she understand that his kind just didn't do that? He could still feel the warmth of her lips on his, the taste of her tongue in his mouth, the nearness of her body pressed up against his - but she had said no, and she was a lady, and he had no right to so much as lay a finger on the hem of her garment.

  When there was nothing to say, Kethol thought, perhaps it was best to say nothing.

  He lay down, his back to her, and pretended to fall asleep. The golden light of predawn beat down on Kethol's eyelids; he stretched and yawned silently. He had slept, finally; the pretense had turned real.

  It was an old woodsman's trick, to position yourself with a clear horizon to the east. You could sleep better that way, knowing that the morning sun was your ally, that even before sunrise, anybody or anything moving to the east of you might cast a shadow across your face.

  It wasn't perfect, of course. Somebody could still sneak up silently behind you and slit your throat before you ever woke up. But even a woodsman or a soldier had to sleep sometime, and if the night was your friend, the sun could be one, too, if not as loyal and valuable.

  Or maybe it wasn't the sun. A distant clopping of horses' hooves came to his ears on the morning breeze. At least three; maybe as many as five. Given enough time, he could sort it out by hearing; but he crept slowly, carefully, toward the opening, keeping himself in shadow.

  It was Miron and his four men. Somehow they had tracked them down here.

  Running would be hopeless. Even if they could saddle their horses and make their way out the other side of the stable, there was no way the two of them could evade pursuit for long. It was possible, perhaps, that Kethol could draw them away and let Leria and Erenor escape while Miron hunted him down. And he might be able to make that last a good long while, if he could get past them to the woods.

  But, no, that was hopeless. Erenor wasn't here; he was in the main house, guest of Sanders, and the sort of quick coordination that was needed just wasn't possible, not here and now.

  There was another possibility.

  Kethol's hands were already reaching for his bow; he strung it quickly, automatically, then took a handful of arrows and stuck them, point first, into the wood beside the door. Putting an arrow through each of the riders before any of them noticed was beyond any one archer's abilities, but perhaps if he nailed Miron and one or two others, the remaining men would flee and find themselves more afraid of what Baroness Elanee would do to them for having failed than they would be eager to hunt down Leria. After all, if anybody knew better than to believe the story about the large gold dowry being guarded by just three men, it would be Miron, who was probably the source of it.

  He would have to take them all down now, get Leria and Erenor, and make their escape into Barony Adahan before anybody could raise a cry. And a cry would be raised. Rumors about a carriage overladen with a dowry in gold had already drawn some attention, but that attention, while widespread, was private, not official.

  A hostler and a couple of drovers could hardly murder a lord, a baron-to-be, and expect that the local folks would simply bury them in an unmarked grave. Imperial law was firm on matters such as the murder of nobility, and it was enforced by imperial troops when village wardens and armsmen and baronial soldiers weren't up to the task. Pirojil and Durine had the imperial warrant, and its only purpose was to threaten a Keranahan subject; it didn't give Kethol license to go about killing a baron-to-be and his soldiers right and left.

  But he was best off forgetting about all that.

  Concentrate on the here and now, because the here and now was bad enough.

  His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he nocked his first arrow. It wasn't going to work. The Old Emperor might have been able to take on five at once and drop them all, but Kethol doubted that.

  Kethol certainly couldn't. But that wouldn't excuse him from trying.

  Miron gestured to the stocky man who rode beside him, who immediately dismounted and headed up the path toward the house.

  If it was going to be done at all, now was the time, before they were any further spread out.

  Kethol took a half-step back as he nocked the first arrow and drew the string back to his cheek. Miron first, then -

  "A good morning to you," a deep voice boomed out, "Lord and minion alike."

  Kethol let his point drop, and relaxed his arm. Six, now, with Sanders joining them? And what about the others? That ruined even the slim possibility of fighting his way out.

  Too many witnesses ...

  Well, he had known this day would come, sooner or later. It was time to do his best to take them off Leria's trail while they ran him to ground.

  He walked back into the hayloft, toward where Leria lay, wrapped in light white blankets like a shroud on a corpse. One hand fastened over her mouth, while the other clutched her shoulder to shake her awake.

  Her eyes snapped open, but surprisingly she didn't try to scream around his hand. He let it drop.

  "Miron and his companions are here," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "They're talking to Sanders right now. They're going to be asking about travelers, and Sanders isn't going to want to make any trouble for them. The question is what you want to do."

  Her hair was all mussed and laden with straw, and there was an entirely unladylike trickle of drool at the side of her full mouth. "What do you mean?"

  It was ridiculous that a soldier should be lecturing a lady about politics. "If Miron rescues you from me and brings you home safely, he's a hero, and I'm a dead man. And he's a clever one; he might go for it. Erenor and I have been holding you captive, planning to ransom you, perhaps, which is where all this story about gold came from. He kills the two of us, and returns home triumphantly, to your gratitude." She would have to marry Miron, probably; but he was a handsome enough, clever enough man, and hopefully he would treat her gently.

  And with worms eating his flesh, Kethol wouldn't miss her warm mouth on his, wouldn't find the nearness of her body both -

  No.

  Hopefully Durine and Pirojil would hear about it in time to abandon their plans, whatever they were - Kethol hadn't wanted to know any more than he had to know.

  "No," she said. "I'll turn myself over to
him. And tell him that you're gone, the lot of you."

  Miron would never believe that. Kethol didn't have to say that; his expression said it for him.

  "No, but he'll pretend to," she said urgently. "Miron's clever. He'll understand what the ... arrangement is," she said. She stood and turned away from him, and as she reached up to the rafters where she had hung her mannish tunic and leggings, she dropped the shift she'd slept in to her ankles.

  Kethol had never seen a woman naked in the daylight, not ever. It wasn't the same as with a whore in a dimly lit room, urging him to finish so that she could get on to the next one. It wasn't even the same as a peasant's daughter or two that he had managed to have over the years.

  It was all he could do to turn away, blushing, as he heard her dress quickly, knowing that she had distracted him from what was his duty, his responsibility, and that she'd done it neatly, in a way he couldn't defend himself from.

  There wasn't time for arguing or discussion. And perhaps that was the best chance she had. Miron and his men could do a better job of protecting her than Kethol could, and if the price of that was Leria herself, well, it was up to her, not him.

  There was another possibility. He could let them take her, and then follow them. One against five was horrible odds, yes, but perhaps he could take them by surprise.

  And perhaps he could piss on a forest fire and put it out.

  No. When they came up the ladder to the hayloft, he would kill as many as he could before they killed him. He had been told by the Cullinane regent to bring her to Biemestren safely, and since he could not do that, he would die trying.

  With, at least, the remembrance of the warmth of her mouth ... A long iron pole ran through loose brackets on the overhead beams. It was a common enough arrangement for a hayloft - a rope would be threaded through the loop at the end of the pole, tied to bales of hay below, and used to pull the bales up to the loft. It didn't protect it from the rats. Rats could find their way through anything. They could tunnel up through walls, climb columns, and probably walk upside-down on the ceilings, or even climb up spiderwebs, for all Kethol knew.