by George Hatt
A graying man next to him with a close-trimmed beard leaned in and fairly shouted above the din, “Did someone steal your horse? Why so somber? The dancers will be out here any minute! Pass me a quail, would you?”
Barryn did so and answered, “I know all about the dancers. I was indentured to Lady Tethys for the past year. And I’m not sad about anything. Just shy, I suppose.”
“What is there to be shy about? You’re sitting at the best table in the house. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t deserve to be. Why, I’m the richest warehouse owner in Brynn, and here you are rubbing elbows with me. Attas is my name.”
“Barryn is mine. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Honor? Balls. I own half the city because 20 years ago I bought the three of the best-placed warehouses on the river for a song from their previous owner. He had pissed away every copper crown he earned at the gambling tables. I got rich because he couldn’t handle his damn business. Now if you want to know who you should be honored to meet, see that man and lady at the end of the table? Those are the Count and Countess of Tegarissa. And that man across from us is Warden of the Walls and Defensive Works…”
The dancers came and went, enthralling all with their measured, rhythmic undulations and wild body paint—all but Barryn and Attas. Barryn soaked in the gossip and introductions Attas so freely gave, and Attas seemed to enjoy having someone listening to him.
“I’m learning more about Brynn talking to you than I’ve learned after living here for a year,” Barryn said.
“Where are you from, then?”
“West,” he said. “Deep in the country.”
Before Attas could probe further, the music stopped and drummers banged a signal for all to be silent. Lady Tethys and Lady Sanguina got up from their seats at the head of the great hall, the grand staircase spreading behind them and into the mezzanine.
“Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, honored guests,” Lady Tethys said. “I hope you are enjoying the food, the drink and the entertainment.” She paused and smiled sweetly while the guests clapped, banged on the tables and whistled.
When the clamor died down, Lady Tethys continued. “We are gathered here tonight to congratulate a young woman who will be taking her vows of fealty and loyalty to the Courtesans Guild. Jasmine! Approach.”
Guards opened the double doors at the other end of the hall, and Jasmine processed up the aisle between the rows of tables. She was covered from head to toe in a flowing, hooded robe of embroidered red velvet. The guests stood as she passed by. Barryn thought she looked like a druid in full robes and felt a pang homesickness.
When she neared Tethys and Sanguina, Jasmine knelt on a richly brocaded cushion that had been placed before the mistresses of the house.
“What have you learned during your apprenticeship at the House of Portia?” Lady Tethys asked formally, almost stonily.
“I have learned true power over the strength of man is through his heart, his mind, and his body,” she recited.
“And how will you use that power?” Lady Sanguina asked.
“I will use my power for the delight of those who are in my arms, and to the empowerment of myself and my sisters of the Guild.”
“Then rise, Lady Jasmine, and be a sister to us in the Sublime and Honorable Company of Courtesans!” Lady Tethys said.
Lady Jasmine stood, and Tethys and Sanguina peeled the robe off her and let it spill in a pool of crimson on the floor. Underneath, Jasmine was clad only in a fine net of jewels that glittered and sparkled like frost on a moonlit idol of a goddess. She turned, achingly slowly, and presented herself to the guests. The room erupted in applause and whistles, men and women alike.
“Half of these women wish they could be where Lady Jasmine is right now,” Attas said into Barryn’s ear. “She can become rich someday, but now she’s already free in way these women can never be.”
He barely heard Attas. Barryn was filled with desire and conflict. He yearned to sweetly court her like a knight in the romances. But he also wished he could afford a night to bed her as a customer. The mark of a strong mind is its ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, he remembered Paardrac saying once.
Lady Tethys again waited for the applause to abate. “Lady Jasmine has served the House of Portia well during her apprenticeship, and has fully earned my boon. We give you a team of horses, a wagon, supplies and a fine wardrobe for your travels as a Lady in good standing with this Guild. We give you those gifts, along with our love and esteem. Go forth, beautiful Lady Jasmine, and earn your fortune.”
More applause, this time cut short by a stark hand gesture from Lady Sanguina. “Lady Jasmine is not the only one to receive our boon this night. Our former indentured servant, Barryn, is free this night and has served this House well. We grant to him a horse, tack, saddlebags and supplies for a journey.”
The guests looked at him and nodded their approval of his service and rewards. Barryn knew about these gifts. They were, in fact, back pay earned during the course of his indenture.
“These gifts are customary and expected for a servant of such an affluent House,” Lady Sanguina said. “But to truly show our esteem and affection for him, a more suitable gift is necessary. Approach us, Barryn.”
Barryn was taken aback by what Lady Sanguina said. He tripped on his chair but recovered before anyone but Attas could notice and walked toward the three ladies. A woman handed Lady Sanguina a long bundle wrapped in fine cloth.
“The road you will travel is long and dangerous. Carry this by your side.” She quickly unwrapped the cloth, revealing a simple but finely crafted sword in a dark brown scabbard. The quillions and pommel were black, and the hilt was wrapped in dark red leather. “This is ‘Bloodsinger,’ forged in the heart of the Shoraz-Athar by a renowned M’Tarr swordsmith. Use it to slay your foes. And,” Lady Sanguina’s tone softened, “to defend Lady Jasmine as you accompany her to Falgren Keep, where she will serve as the Courtesans Guild representative to the Black Swan Company.”
She balanced the sword on her open palms and leaned in close to hand it to Barryn.
“Close your mouth, Little Pet. You’re catching flies in it,” Lady Sanguina whispered to him with her wicked smile Barryn had come to know so well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Barryn
A little more than a year had passed since Barryn had ridden through the gates of Brynn as an exhausted, frightened passenger in a tinker’s wagon. Now, on another spring day just as clear and crisp, he rode beside another wagon on a horse of his own, sporting a yard of fine M’Tarr steel on his left hip. The robber’s dagger rested on his right.
Jasmine and Barryn rode through the Eagle Gate of Brynn and onto the Imperial road. Their route would take them southeast for several days, then northeast on a side road leading to Falgren Keep.
Barryn watched the sun rise over the horizon in front of him and to his left as they rounded a gentle bend in the stone-paved road. The smell of latrines, smoke, baking bread and the hundred other smells that mixed in the city air had passed, and he breathed in the scent of the dewy earth and smiled. He was free.
And yet he wasn’t. Barryn was responsible for Jasmine’s safety until they reached the Keep, and then he would belong to the Black Swan Company for at least a year or perhaps many more, if that was Ashara’s will. But until then, he had to escort a woman and a wagon safely to the castle. What if we’re attacked by robbers while we’re riding? I don’t know how to fight from horseback. Do I jump off the horse and fight them on the ground? How do you attack a man on horseback with a sword? What if we’re attacked while we sleep? We. Ha! When will I sleep? How do you divide up the watch when there’s only one man on guard?
Barryn relaxed his shoulders, expanded his belly and chest, and depended his breathing. Soon, his mind was calm and the flurry of questions had abated. Only from a calm mind will answers arise unbidden, the familiar druidic knowledge whispered to him.
“Don’t worry, Barryn,” Jas
mine said, lightly brushing her fingers on the dainty hilt of her dagger. “I can take care of myself. I mostly want your company.”
“How do you know that’s what I was thinking about?”
“Silly Barryn, what do you think I spent two years learning how to do at the House of Portia? To lie on my back and spread my legs? Any slut or two-copper whore can do that,” she said with a smile and mischief in her eyes. “Ladies of the Guild know how to read men’s minds just by looking. We read their desires, their fears, their fantasies—their stories are written all over them. And it’s usually a short, boring book to read.”
“Am I as boring as the others?”
“Not at all,” Jasmine said warmly. “But then again, there’s more on your mind than getting me naked.”
“How do you want to split up the watch at night,” Barryn asked, awkwardly changing the subject.
“Watch?” Jasmine laughed. “We’ll never be more than a day’s ride from a decent inn this whole trip. If it makes you feel better, you can keep your sword propped up next to our bed.”
“Our bed?”
“It will be cheaper to share a room,” she said matter-of-factly. “And it will be easier for you to defend me if you’re close by. Just in case anything happens, of course.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll try to seduce you?” Barryn asked, and immediately regretted it. Where the hell did that come from?
“Many, many bad things happened to me when I was younger, Barryn. And I’ve done many bad things in turn. Maybe I’ll tell you about some of them. Someday,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…”
“Besides, you’re still too timid to seduce me,” she said, looking ahead at the road in front of them and smiling faintly.
They both fell silent until they reached the inn at which they would spend their first night.
“What the fuck is this, you?” the stocky, mustachioed sergeant yelled at Barryn a week later in the ward of Falgren Keep. He was dressed in black pants and boots and wore a dark gray arming doublet. A blackened cuirass encased his barrel-like torso in a cocoon of steel, and a floppy black beret covered his bald head.
He snatched the freshly signed enlistment papers out of the young man’s hand.
“My papers…”
The document specified the terms of his one-year contract with the Black Swan Company and served as a hand receipt for his sword and his horse, both of which he was required to surrender during the four months of training he would undergo. Consideration for boarding, feeding and watering of his horse would come out of his pay, as would his initial equipment and uniforms.
A younger, clean-shaven sergeant strode across the courtyard of the castle and placed his nose an inch away from Barryn’s cheek. He yelled, “Do your papers tell you how to dig a hole? That’s all you’ll ever do here! You’ll dig holes and stand in line!”
“I…”
“Why the fuck are you talking to him? I’m talking, you!” the mustachioed sergeant yelled.
“Put your hands by your sides when you’re talking to a sergeant!” the second man screamed.
The older sergeant examined the enlistment papers, squinted, and handed them back to Barryn. “You’ll regret ever signing this every single day you’re at Falgren Keep. Every miserable day. But don’t worry, you. Sergeant Otaraz is your good friend. He’ll let you ring the bell in front of the castle, and your contract’s void. You can go home any time you wish.”
Barryn went wall-eyed straining to look at a brightly polished bronze bell in the center of the ward without moving his head. Next to the bell stood a weathered, rugged whipping post.
“You’re about to enter your own private hell. This is just getting started!” Otaraz shouted. “Do it. Ring the bell, and it all stops. Hurry, while Sergeant Drake isn’t looking. I think you can make it across the yard before he tackles you, recruit!”
“He won’t run, Sergeant Otaraz!” Drake said to his compatriot. “He’s turned in a sword and a horse. He must be a fucking knight!”
Otaraz bent even closer to Barryn and regarded him with a look of feigned wonder and revulsion. “What the fuck is this, recruit? Are you too highborn to run?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“Louder when you answer us!” Drake shouted.
“No, Sergeant!”
“Do you even know how to use that sword?” Otaraz shouted.
“No, Sergeant. I want to learn!”
“Bullshit,” Drake yelled. “Which end goes into the enemy?”
“The pointy end, Sergeant!”
“He is a fucking knight, Sergeant Otaraz!” Drake yelled. “A real master-at-arms!”
“Why are you here, Recruit?” Otaraz yelled into Barryn’s cheek. “Why should I let you survive training and march with the Black Swan Company?”
“I want to kill for money!” Barryn shouted. It was the only coherent answer he could muster, and it came unbidden, without time for thought or contemplation.
“Twenty-three hells, Sergeant Otaraz! We’re dealing with officer material!” Drake shouted. “Beat feet for the armory and sign for a shovel and uniform. That will be your primary weapon while you’re here. Formation is at midday, so you had better hurry!”
“Beat feet, Sergeant?” Barryn asked, awkwardly trying to make the shout come out like a question.
“You beat your fucking feet on the ground!” Otaraz shouted hysterically. “I’ll show you. Run! Run! If you beat the ground hard enough, you’ll get where your’e going! Move out! Go go go!”
Barryn ran toward the armory with Sergeant Otaraz running next to him shouting a string obscenities sprinkled liberally with instructions and orders. He wondered what he would do with his life if he rang the bell, but the shouting and the running tamped down any possibility of complex rumination on the prospect. The universe became a cone that had nothing but a shovel at the point and the weight of existence pushing him toward it in a blur of brown turf below him and gray stone and blue sky around him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Mithrandrates
It had been a particularly tense Council this year culminating in two votes against the General Peace: Relfast and Brynn.
Of course, Emperor Mithrandrates thought as he stood alone in his study. Our two haughtiest, most strong-willed siblings will fight it out to see who will lead the Great Uprising against Mergova, then lead the Dominions into a new golden age free of the Imperial yoke.
He stared intently at a map of the Empire that covered most of the great table in the middle of the room. Referring only to his memory of this morning’s briefings from Garon, he placed small wooden tokens representing military forces in all the provinces on the map as if setting a game board. He smiled at the comparison. The game of rulership.
White pieces represented bands of Templars who had joined the growing incursion into the Heathen Realms adjacent to Brynn. A majority of the pieces had gold dots, signifying heavy influence—or direct leadership—by the quasi-heretical Sons of Mahurin. What had started as a straightforward play by Duke Grantham of Brynn to raise revenue at the expense of the Caeldrynn had morphed into a crusade against the pagans of the wilderness that was drawing Templars from across the Empire.
The chaos the holy warriors stirred up at Brynn’s hinterlands gave Governor Drucilla cover to fortify and to put nobility throughout the province on a war footing that Relfast’s provocations did not by themselves quite justify. Mithrandrates stroked his beard and noted the even distribution of Brynn’s forces. Duke Grantham was playing at a defense in depth, the Emperor concluded, probably against Drucilla’s wishes. He’ll let Relfast play the aggressor, draw them in, and cut them up from his mutually supporting strongholds, the Emperor thought. Very good, Grantham. Then counter-attack into Relfast. And calmly talk Drucilla out of surging helter-skelter across the border. At least until you’ve marshaled the forces necessary to invade. You’re the only one who can talk sense into her.
The oth
er provinces looked to be sitting this one out, at least militarily. Mithrandrates placed other pieces representing agricultural and industrial production and their lines of trade, markers representing grains, textiles, metals, timber, livestock. And thus a complete picture of the situation formed. Lines of supply stretched between Relfast and Balgroth, while Brynn appeared to be sustaining itself on its own resources and cash infusions from the plundered Caeldrynn.
And then there were the mercenaries to consider. The Black Swan Company was sure to renew its contract with Brynn. Duke Grantham and Alcuin Darkwood seemed to get along very well, by all accounts. Meanwhile, Relfast had been quietly hiring, and in some cases coercing into service, the non-guild free companies to augment its ranks.
Finally, the Emperor placed red, castle-shaped pieces to represent the Imperial fortresses securing the growing road networks within the provinces. New fortresses and roads had been built under Mithrandrates’ reign, and he wondered how long it would be until the governors realized the roads that were enriching them with tax revenue from the increased trade they facilitated were at the same time undermining their feudal rule.
He ran his index finger over the Shoraz-Athar Rift, the mountainous, water-filled scar that cleaved his empire quite literally in half. Mithrandrates’ finger stopped in the middle of the enormous barrier where a pass and a bridge were marked. Shivar’s Bridge had been abandoned for nearly 1,000 years, ever since the uneasy truce between the M’Tarr and the Old Mergovan Empire was shattered during the Seventh Chaos Moon and the Wars of the Cleansing. The Old Empire had managed to wipe out the elfin L’Neesh and chase the dwarfish Haughrav deep underground, but the recalcitrant M’Tarr had held fast and eventually claimed the entire Rift.