by J. P. Ashman
Correia stepped back and looked to the ceiling, head shaking.
‘It’s how it’s been for centuries,’ Cook said. ‘I can’t change the way it is on the word of a bloody bird!’
‘Fine,’ Correia said, the word little more than an exhalation. ‘Do what you can.’ She looked up into his dark eyes. ‘But be ready, you and yours. Promise me?’
Cook nodded and pulled her into a hug before pushed her away and heading for the kitchen.
‘You’ve done all you can,’ Errolas offered, heading for the external door of the tavern. When Correia didn’t follow him through the door, he turned and looked back at her. She faced him and offered him a tight smile.
Errolas’ shoulders slumped. ‘You wish me to stay here, don’t you?’
Correia nodded.
‘I won’t slow you,’ Errolas said, walking back over to her, his limp almost imperceptible.
‘I know, but I can’t afford anymore complications like we had at the camp. I need to be in and out of Easson with Bratby in tow.’
‘I can’t talk you around, can I?’
‘No, Errolas, you can’t. Besides, I’ll feel better knowing you’re helping guard our potential retreat.’ Errolas was nodding before she finished. ‘Hold the inns. Hold them until we return, but should an enemy march through these forests and reach these bridges and buildings, get out of here. Get back to Altoln proper and warn everyone. We may not know what comes, but if armies are sweeping a nation such as Sirreta, they won’t stop at a border drawn on a map.’
‘I know,’ Errolas said. He surprised Correia with a hug before pushing her to arm’s-length. ‘Find out what we face,’ Errolas said, holding her gaze. ‘Find out and return here, with or without your marcher lord. Do you hear me?’
Correia offered a weak smile. ‘I hear you.’ Pulling away, she turned and left Errolas in the tavern, and sincerely hoped he would be there when she returned.
If we return, she thought, exiting the thatched hall and moving to the courtyard. She heard her pathfinders before she saw them. Iron-shod hooves on stone, whinnying horses and raised voices.
‘Mount up, lads,’ Correia said, reaching her own horse and taking the reins from the stable boy. She climbed into the saddle and threw the boy a coin. A flash of teeth was all she saw before he rushed off, eyes locked on the penny in his fingers.
‘How’d he take your orders?’ Sav asked, horse turning a full circle before walking over to Correia’s.
‘How you would expect.’
Sav nodded at that.
‘I left him a surprise in his saddle bags,’ Starks said, walking his horse over to join the others as the gates began to open.
‘You shit in them?’ Gleave said, grinning.
Correia’s glare did nothing to deter the mirth in Gleave’s eyes.
‘No I did not,’ Starks said. ‘I left him half of my elven crossbow bolts—’
‘The deer detonators?’ Sav asked, grin matching Gleave’s, who laughed at the comment. Starks scowled at the two men.
‘I thought it best he had something, you know, something special should an army march on this place.’
‘Clever,’ Gleave said, watching gaudily dressed men and women of the inn running up stone steps to the ramparts above the gate, crossbows in hands. ‘Shame he doesn’t have a crossbow, you knob.’
‘Like fucking children,’ Correia said, moving ahead of the rest, through the open gate after an ‘all clear’ from above. Fal smiled and followed suit.
‘No, you dick,’ Starks said to Gleave, ‘but the family have.’ He pointed up to those above, as he, Gleave and Sav passed beneath the ancient archway.
Gleave rolled his bottom lip and turned in his saddle, looking back up to the waving men and women who’d served them in the tavern, tended to their horses and sharpened their weapons. He waved back, before turning to Starks, who rode beside him.
‘I’ll give you that one, Starks,’ Gleave said, nodding and looking back one more time. ‘Aye, I’ll give you that one.’
‘You seem to be taking all this well, Gleave?’ Fal said over his shoulder.
‘I wouldn’t say that, but there’s no point in letting it bother me, is there? I’m not one to piss and moan about life.’
Starks snorted and glanced at Gleave’s bandaged leg.
Fal looked back, confused. ‘No point letting it bother you? What, the fact there’s an army, probably multiple armies, marching on Altoln?’
Green plate spaulders scraped as Gleave shrugged. ‘Just another fight, Fal. It’s what we do, isn’t it?’ He followed that with a wink. Fal followed it with a shake of the head and turned back to face front without replying.
‘We’re in Sirreta now,’ Correia called back. ‘Once away from the Troll Bridges, we’re to have scouts ahead again, but not too far until we leave the forest and enter the Woolf Fells.’ Everyone nodded their understanding.
‘Sav, you’re up first, followed by Gleave, then, by my reckoning, it’ll be time to camp. Two days and we’ll be off the woodland road and into the fells beyond. Fal will take point thereafter, range further out, make de Geelan’s chateau and we’ll head into Easson together. Understood?’
Another group acknowledgement.
It was soon after that Gleave cried out. Everyone turned to look at him, hands on weapons. He looked ill, distraught. He looked like the situation had finally struck him.
‘What is it?’ Correia said, reigning in and turning her horse. All eyes were on Gleave, who slumped in his saddle, shaking his head. He turned and looked back the way they’d come, across wood covered water and past weeping willows. He muttered something whilst turning back to the others.
‘What is it?’ Correia demanded, more than a little short tempered.
‘My Pecker.’ Gleave took a deep breath. ‘That girl still has hold of my Pecker.’
Sav roared with laughter.
Chapter 27 – Fells, chambers and the open ocean
Correia groaned from the saddle as Gleave pulled alongside.
‘What?’ Gleave frowned as he looked across at her.
‘Pull your hose up, Gleave.’ Correia indicated the rolls of road-dusted black wool around his ankle-boots, and on to his bare legs above that.
‘Why? It’s bloody hot this far south and my legs were sweating like a man on a rack.’
‘I don’t give two shits, Gleave. I don’t want to see your pale legs of a morning, nor your sweat-stained bandage and braes.’
Gleave grunted a laugh. ‘You wanna see the sweat stains under my padding?’ He grinned.
‘I’d rather see nothing of what’s beneath your padding, or anything else for that matter. Now hoist and tie up your bloody hose.’
Cursing, Gleave did as he was told, leaning one way then the other before fiddling with and tying the top of his hose to his braes, lifting his dark green padded gambeson to do so; his cursing continued and increased in vehemence as he rode along.
Correia smirked.
‘Don’t blame me if I stink tonight, Correia.’
‘Tonight?’ Correia laughed. ‘You stink all the time, worse than our horses. There’ll be no change there, Gleave.’
‘No wonder,’ Gleave called out, ‘if you won’t let me strip off!’ He kicked his mount on to pull alongside Sav, who was leading the group.
‘A wash wouldn’t go amiss, Gleave!’ Correia shook her head in disbelief at the back of the man’s head.
‘Clean folk are easier to track, and stand out a mile in the wilds, Correia,’ was Gleave’s over the shoulder reply. ‘And we’re potentially in enemy territory, so—’
‘So you’ll stink them to death will you? When they come for us; attracted by the noses of their swill-hunting pigs?’
Gleave offered up two fingers to Correia, and nothing more.
Correia smiled.
Sav laughed.
***
‘You didn’t think this possible, did you, my sweet?’
Flavell smiled, nuzzling her he
ad into Croal’s shoulder as they lay clothed on her bed. ‘When my father told me I was to come here to arrange my own marriage, no, I didn’t.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘But now?’ Her smile broadened into a wonderful thing. ‘I can’t imagine anything else.’
‘You are far more beautiful than I could have ever hoped for, do you know that?’
Flavell’s high and wide cheeks flushed red. She buried her head once more into Croal’s shoulder.
‘Why so shy? You know how stunning you are. I see your confidence in my uncle’s court.’
‘Around men I care nothing for,’ she admitted, voice muffled in his silks.
Croal half-rolled and grabbed her waist, pulling her closer. ‘But you care for me, eh? Don’t you, my sweet?’
She giggled, the sound magical to Croal’s ears. To any man’s ears.
‘Yes. You care for me and perhaps… love me?’
She looked up at that, silent, eyes moist, wide; a single nod was her answer as she pulled strands of fair hair from her perfect face. Her emotion was plain for Croal to see, for him to drink in and absorb and love back.
‘And I love you, my sweet,’ he said softly. ‘Though I know not how we both came to be like this, after so short a time.’ She blinked up at him and he gasped. He leaned in and their lips met; his thin, hers full, the passion unbound. Croal’s hand searched Flavell’s body, hunting for an opening to the pale, smooth skin beneath.
Amis cleared his throat from the corner where he’d been standing, eyes locked on the courtyard below Flavell’s window.
Dual sighs, and not of passion, came from the bed.
‘You’re killing our love, de Valmont,’ Flavell said, serene face darkening.
‘And you’re killing me, mademoiselle.’ Amis kept his back to them. ‘Literally, should your father discover the sort of thing you were both leading to had I not cleared my throat.’
‘Pfft.’ Croal rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, hand clutching Flavell’s. ‘He could not know. And what does it matter, de Valmont, when we are to be wed? My uncle has already agreed to the proposal and accepted the dowry, at least verbally.’
‘It matters,’ Amis said flatly. ‘And Messire Guiscard would know, despite the leagues between he and thee.’ He turned to look upon the scowling couple.
‘Come, my love.’ Flavell climbed from the bed and held out her hand for Croal to follow. ‘Let us walk in the garden. This room suffocates me all of a sudden.’
‘Go on, my sweet. I will follow.’
With an angry glance at Amis, Flavell left the room. The door slammed behind her.
Amis de Valmont and Croal de Geelan, Seneschal d’Easson, stared at one another; glared at one another.
‘You take your duty too far, de Valmont.’
‘I take it where it needs to go, messire.’
‘Don’t think that because you are of this distant, unknown Steedon, and not of my Easson—’
‘Your uncle’s Easson.’
Croal’s face flashed murder as he surged from the bed, blue silks ruffled, but back straight. ‘I am a good man, messire,’ Croal said, fighting to stay calm, for Flavell’s sake if nothing else. ‘I do not intend to lead your beloved mademoiselle astray.’ He didn’t feel he had to explain himself to Amis, but he did feel like he wanted to. Wanted anything to do with his Flavell to be done right and done well.
Amis’ eyes widened as the word ‘beloved’ reached him.
‘Oh yes, de Valmont,’ Croal went on, a little harder now his own good intentions were made clear. ‘It’s obvious to me that you lust after my betrothed. So many days on the road, likely watching her—’
Amis stepped swiftly forward, once, twice. As he half-drew his sword from its scabbard, the oval pommel of the weapon stopped a hair’s breadth from Croal’s face, leaving his heart racing and his mouth dry.
‘Ware, Seneschal. This wedding has not yet happened and until it does, Flavell’s honour is mine to protect. And I take that very seriously indeed.’
Breathing heavily, anger and a little fear flushing through him, which increased his anger, Croal batted the cold pommel from his face. He turned without a word, fists clenched at his unarmed sides, and made for the door.
‘Remember the tourney, messire. Remember our joust.’
Croal growled as he slammed the door behind him and made his way to the gardens.
***
‘Where to, Cap’n?’ Hitchmogh focused on his pipe, glad to be feeling up to packing it again, let alone smoking it. His recovery had been arduous. He couldn’t fathom why The Three had let them go, nor how Sessio fled the Tri Isles without any of the Adjunct’s ships pursuing them. Oh, they had a ship following alright, but it wasn’t one of The Three’s, of that both he and Mannino were sure.
With me in the state I was, a Tri Isles ship would’ve caught and harried us, not followed a ways behind. Hitchmogh started, realising as he did that Mannino had answered his question and continued talking, to him. The captain now awaited an answer to a question of his own, that much was clear. Hitchmogh let his unlit pipe hang limp from his bottom lip as he stared at Mannino, Hitchmogh’s expression as vacant as his soul.
‘If you ask a question of me, man, make sure you bloody well listen to the answer and following efforts to enquire as to your health, both physical and mental. Eh?’
Hitchmogh’s pipe bobbed as he nodded.
‘Well?’ Mannino rolled his eyes and reached for a clay pot on his desk. Hitchmogh rushed forward and snatched it from the captain, insisting on pouring the port for him instead.
‘Physically I’m as plundered as ever. I feel like a troll has had its way with me. Mentally? I’m not sure I’m ever right with respects to that.’
Mannino took a sip of the port and swirled the remainder around in the glass. ‘You know what I mean, man. How are your… abilities?’
Hitchmogh nodded, knowingly. ‘I know what you meant and I don’t like,’ he lit his pipe, ‘to admit it, but—’
‘What?’
‘We don’t want no trouble, Cap’n.’
‘I never want trouble, but it seems you get us into it.’
‘Me?’ The lit pipe slipped and hung from Hitchmogh’s mouth.
Mannino sat back in his chair, glass held up, elbow on the armrest. ‘You practically blew up a Hillside block of hovels.’
‘Because you ran off, all hero-like!’
Mannino grinned. ‘You think so?’
Hitchmogh barked a laugh. ‘Stop fishing for such things. It was what it was and we did what we did. Question is—’
‘Why did they let us go?’
‘Aye.’
‘Master Quinnell asked the very same of me.’
‘And you said?’ Hitchmogh raised his eyebrows, pipe now in hand.
‘That they play games, The Three. Is there any other reason? Is there any other reason they do anything other than games and whims and sudden urges?’
Shrugging, Hitchmogh popped the pipe back in his mouth, puffed on it several times and walked through the resulting smoke to stand besides Mannino.
‘They said something about the mainland. About something big being on the move, or something like that anyway. I wasn’t exactly with it after out jaunt through Hillside.’
‘No, you weren’t. Fat lot of good you would have been if they’d intended us harm. What!’
‘Oh, they intended us harm alright, Cap’n. Just seems they were too preoccupied, or too lazy, to do anything about it on that occasion. Anyhow, even if I’d have been my usual unfit self, rather than my wrecked unfit self, if The Three had made a move on us, I’d be about as useful as a eunuch in a brothel, or Squall in a desert. Or—’
‘Alright man, alright. But with your soul—’
‘They’re The bloody Three, Cap’n! ’Morl’s balls, but they’re about as powerful as you can get without being a deity. In fact,’ Hitchmogh turned to face Mannino, his fear plain to see, ‘I’m not sure Squall herself, with the goblin Blood God and
Sir Samorl riding Crackador like a bitch could take them down, not when they’re together and not when they’re treating something like it should be tret and not like one of their damned and blasted games.’
‘Alright,’ Mannino said, lifting a hand to calm the increasingly agitated Hitchmogh. ‘Let’s leave that one there for now, shall we? We were lucky, no? Let’s put it down to that and put it to bed.’
Hitchmogh nodded and turned back to stare at the sea charts that were pinned to the wall.
After a pause filled with nought but pipe puffing and port sipping, Hitchmogh asked about the ship that continued to follow them.
‘I have my suspicions, and such as they are, I’m not worried.’
‘Fair enough, Cap’n. Fair enough. On to, or rather back to, my original question.’ Hitchmogh looked at his captain once more.
Mannino pursed his lips and placed his glass back on the desk. Steepling his fingers, he tilted his head from side to side for a moment before speaking.
‘Options aren’t presenting themselves as readily as they used to, Master Hitchmogh. Neither is work. We’ve burnt bridges at the Tri Isles, but that happened a long time ago, we’ve set them alight again is all.’ Hitchmogh grunted a laugh at that and nodded. ‘We’re best staying clear of Wesson for a while after running—’
‘Oh shit, that reminds me.’
Mannino raised his brow and turned to face his first mate. ‘Go on.’
‘Master Spendley told me he saw a big bastard ship enter port, at night. Whilst we were playing chase to save our stupid trio.’
‘And?’
‘And he swears it was the very big bastard ship that nearly had us when we ran the blockade, escaping Wesson and her plague.’
Mannino took a deep breath and released it slowly, but said nothing.
‘Strange it making port at the Tri Isles?’ Hitchmogh moved back to the front of the desk. ‘And stranger still…’
‘Yes?’ Mannino’s eyes snapped to Hitchmogh’s.