The True Bastards

by Jonathan French

  Across the fire, Marrow worked diligently, cleaning his stockbow.

  “You should sleep,” Fetching said.

  “Thrum will turn to shit, ’less I tend it.”

  “How long have you managed to keep it up? Most free-riders can’t.”

  Marrow paused his chore for a moment, thinking. “This one, near five years.”

  There was a long silence, and Fetch resolved to leave him to his task, when he spoke again.

  “Lost my first. I did good keeping the rust off the prods, the string waxed. Failed to notice the leather on the backstrap was wearing. Was crossing the Guadal-kabir in the spring when the river was flush. Current almost did it for me and my hog. We managed the crossing, but the thrum was gone. Spent the rest of the season holed up in Kalbarca practicing with a cunting bow. Just not the same.”

  “No,” Fetch agreed.

  Marrow’s attention flicked between her and the stockbow for a moment, clearly chewing on whether to say something.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The tongue-waggle among the nomads says you have some hulk of a thrice-blood in the hoof. Acts as your right hand. But I didn’t see such a brute at Smiler’s. Just Hoodwink.”

  Fetch found herself growing wary. “Why ask after the thrice?”

  Marrow shrugged, still focused on the catch of his stockbow. “I stood with a thrice from the Grey Bastards during the Betrayer. Years ago. He was freshly sworn. Just wondered if it were the same mongrel.”

  “Oats,” Fetch offered.

  “That was him. He die? Hard to imagine, really, but I know your hoof got hit hard when the thicks came last spring.”

  “I had to send him away. Due to rationing.”

  Marrow barked a humorless laugh. “Monster ate too much, eh? Well, that’s a thrice to the bone.”

  “Other way around,” Fetch said. “He didn’t eat enough. Or at all, most times. Figured he could endure an empty belly better than the rest of us. But he does fool-ass shit like that.”

  “So you cast him out?”

  Marrow looked more concerned with the give in the thrum’s tickler than in an answer, but Fetch gave it anyway. “No. He still serves the hoof. Just somewhere he won’t starve himself.”

  “Lucky him, then. Away from the privation, the danger.”

  “He’s at the Pit of Homage.”

  Marrow’s head snapped up. He stared intently at Fetching, the stockbow forgotten. When he saw she did not jest, he blew a hard breath from his whiskered cheeks.

  “How long?” he asked.

  Fetch pointed at the sleeping Sluggard with her chin. “Longer than our boy-whore’s been in the Lots.”

  Marrow grunted in renewed wonder and redoubled his efforts on the stockbow. “That’s why no gods can be found in the Lots. They’re all watching over your friend.”

  “Then they know which way to bet.”

  No further words passed between them. Soon, Marrow set the thrum aside and settled down upon his thin bedroll. The fire crackled as half-orcs and hogs snored.

  Fetch made sure both nomads were fully given to their dreams before removing the Bone Smiler’s poison. She considered the vial for a moment before pulling the stopper. Carefully, she tilted it above her open mouth, righting it as soon as she felt a drop land beneath her tongue. It burned the soft flesh, turned it gritty. A foul metallic taste took up residence in her mouth. Fetch ran her tongue around, spat, but the caustic tang had penetrated her teeth and refused to be expelled.

  The clouds never parted. Fetch passed the night sweating and shivering, eyes seeping feverish tears, biting down upon her arm to keep from whimpering, hoping her companions would not awaken.

  FIVE

  “SPIES. FEED. FLIES.” Sluggard recited the words carved into the corpse’s torso with dull criticism. “You’d think they would be more clever.”

  Marrow spit. “Lies got no need to be clever.”

  Fetch said nothing, allowing the buzzing of those feasting on the poor mongrel nailed to the tree to voice her agreement. His naked body had swelled in the heat, the old scars that marked him as a nomad stretched over the remnants of hoof tattoos all but erased by the mottled purple of rot. They’d seen his hog several miles back hosting a half dozen vultures. The cavaleros must have enjoyed the chase to allow him to make it this far on foot.

  “Certain it’s a lie?” Sluggard rubbed the back of his neck. “I heard the orcs almost made it into Hispartha last year. Folks say they couldn’t have pressed so far without help.”

  Marrow cast the gritter a hard look for the half-wit remark. “Free-riders don’t scout for thicks, boy. Hearken? Not ever. That’s a truth you can take back north with you.”

  “The orcs would do far worse than this to any half-breed they caught,” Fetch added.

  Sluggard peered at the ghastly carcass. “Worse?”

  “Another truth,” Marrow agreed.

  “Why the falsehood?” Sluggard asked. “Frails never needed a reason to murder mongrels far as I know. So why bother with the hogshit about spies?”

  “Captain of the castile’s gone mad,” Marrow replied. “Lost a leg and got blood fever. Seeing foes everywhere now.”

  Again, Fetch stayed silent. Bermudo had lost a leg, and possibly his mind, but it was only one foe he hunted among the nomads. One mongrel Fetch knew to be far from the Lots.

  Marrow sent another dart of spit into the dirt. “Let’s get him down.”

  “Leave him.”

  Fetch’s words froze the nomad in his saddle. “Like hells I will!”

  “You will if you don’t want more nomads to suffer the same.” Fetch nodded at the tree and its ornament of meat. “That there is the best warning other free-riders have that the cavaleros are in the area. We put it in the ground, we take that warning away.”

  Marrow chewed on her wisdom, displeased but unable to discount good sense.

  “Not far now to the brothel,” he said. “Strong chance the frails that did this are there.”

  Fetch had thought the same. “You looking for a reckoning? Or a reason not to go?”

  Marrow gestured at the churned earth surrounding the tree. “This was a score of horses. Maybe more.”

  Fetch nodded. “I saw.”

  “Seven to one if we find them,” Sluggard said.

  “Whore’s right,” Fetch told Marrow.

  The nomad grunted. “Those odds don’t support much of a reckoning.”

  “And we’d have to get them all. Every last one so that none report to the castile.”

  “Say we do. Nothing to stop Rhecia’s girls from saying who done it. Unless you plan on killing them all in the bargain?”

  “I don’t,” Fetch said.

  “What then?”

  “The hardest task.” Fetch swept both mongrels with a look. “We leave it alone.”

  Marrow liked that less than leaving the murdered mongrel unburied. His jaw bulged.

  “You can’t do that, best ride away now,” Fetch told him. “I got business at Rhecia’s. Can’t have bloodshed getting in the way.”

  Marrow glowered at the body on the tree. “And when they can’t leave it alone? When those frail fucks see two free-riders and a mongrel woman and choose to push it? What then?”

  Fetch could feel Sluggard’s eyes on her, awaiting the answer.

  “It’s a risk,” she said. “One you don’t have to take. Ride on. I sure as shit won’t think less of you for it. Truth is, out there you’re still a nomad, Marrow. You still risk ending your days nailed to a tree or buried up to your chin in the dirt. You may be fortunate and never cross paths with the cavaleros. But if you do, would you rather be alone, like this unfortunate fuck? Or would you rather be with the chief of the True Bastards, a hopeful to the hoof? Bermudo’s men may be killing nomads, but they need
a lie to do it. That means they’re afraid of something. The Crown? Fucking doubtful. More likely it’s us, the mongrel hoofs. Twenty men hunting one speaks to their cowardice. I’m willing to wager that off their horses, with us standing before them, they won’t have the grit to look us squarely.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Sluggard asked, more curious than concerned.

  Fetch shrugged. “We’re dead before the sun sets. No different than any day in the Lots. Least you’ll die in a brothel. Sounds close to what you want anyway, Whore.”

  The young mongrel grinned. “It does, at that. I’m with you. What do you say, Marrow?”

  “I say I’ve got a pair of silver maravedís that no passel of backy frails is going to keep me from spending at Rhecia’s.”

  Fetch snorted. “Quim. The source of all mongrel bravery.”

  “To hells with quim,” Marrow declared. “It’s a hot meal I want. A full belly is worth a ransom more than an empty spend sack.”

  “Here lies Marrow,” Sluggard recited in the same dull tone he used when reading the knife cuts. “He died for stew.”

  Fetch gave that the smirk it was due and turned her hog, leaving the tree behind and two nests of maggots staring at her back.

  * * *

  —

  SANCHO’S.

  Easy to refer to the place by a different name when away from its presence, but seeing the compound of low buildings hunkered on the ugly plain, promising a respite from the badlands and a glut of uncomfortable memories, Fetch could not help but think of it as it was.

  Flanked by the free-riders, she rode into the enclosure of the dusty yard. None were about, save a lone figure at the well. A mongrel woman, filling buckets. Fetch led her riders to the stables. Sancho had employed a boy, Olivar, to tend his guests’ mounts, but, like many of the fat pedant’s servants, the lad had run off after his master was killed. It was a crook-backed man of middle years who offered to take their hogs.

  Fetch waved him off as she and Marrow dismounted. Sluggard stayed ahog to keep watch as planned. Leaving Womb and Dead Bride in Marrow’s hands, Fetch strode past the now-anxious stable hand into the pungent confines of the stalls. She made a swift count.

  Marrow’s frown deepened at the look on her face when she came out. “They’re here.”

  “Seven horses,” Fetch confirmed. “All castile cavalry steeds.”

  “Just seven.” Sluggard gave a small grunt. “There’s some luck.”

  Fetch didn’t like the grin growing between Marrow’s whiskers. She shot a look at the stable hand. “Why are they still saddled?”

  The crookback’s tongue dragged along a plump, recently split lower lip. “Cavaleros insisted on it.”

  “Like they insisted our brother nomad wed that tree,” Marrow said.

  “There’s a barbarian too,” Fetch said, aiming to distract him. “A nomad hog.”

  “You know it?” Marrow asked.

  Fetch nodded. “I know it.”

  She swung a leg over her hog and spurred across the yard. The half-orc woman at the well looked up as she passed, revealing a face puckered by a multitude of crisscrossing scars. Small wonder she was dressed as a common laborer, the poor cloth of her tunic and breeches blanched by sun and dust. Revealing silks would be wasted on this one. Hells, in his day Sancho would never have allowed such a face to remain. Rhecia must be a more tolerant whoremonger.

  There were no mounts tethered to the hitching post outside the brothel proper. Hopping from the saddle, Fetch began securing her hog, gesturing for Sluggard and Marrow to tie up at the opposite end, leaving Womb Broom space to be the foul-tempered swine he was. As she put a final, hard tug on the knot, the bucket-laden shadow of the scarred woman stretched across the dirt beneath the post.

  “You’re—”

  “Not tarrying,” Fetch said, and pushed through the door.

  The occupants of the brothel’s pitiful taproom startled at her entrance. A stool scraped, banged on the floor as one man shot to his feet. His companion bumped their table in his hurry to rise, upsetting the cups. Wine dribbled upon the floor as both men squinted against the glare Fetch let in behind her. The brightness dulled as Marrow and Sluggard filled the doorway. Stepping in, they returned the mercy of gloom to the nervy faces.

  Fetch counted three cavaleros. The two who’d leapt up, and another keeping his own company—as well as his seat—at a table deeper into the gloom. They all stared for a moment, hands on the grips of their swords, but none drew steel. The arrival of a woman bearing fresh cups to the table of the duo severed their tension. With a final, hard look, they resettled. The loner remained still and watchful, but his scrutiny was quickly blocked as the woman, weaving back through the tables, came to stand before Fetching.

  “Welcome, hoofmaster,” she said, her Hisparthan accented with the lilt of Anville. She offered the three remaining cups on her serving tray. “I am honored to have you take your ease here.”

  Fetch had only a vague recollection of this milk-skinned trollop with the dark tresses. She’d been sitting on Jackal’s knee, the perfect demure young plaything for him and Delia to share. Fetch recalled waiting for the older whore to grow jealous and run Rhecia off, but it never happened. The new girl knew her trade, enticing Jack without supplanting Delia. A delicate balance. Fetch had been repulsed and impressed. Now, the comely girl with the practiced pout ran the brothel frequented by cavaleros and half-orcs. Fetching hoped to remain impressed by her ability to balance.

  “Where are the other four?” she asked, taking a cup and keeping her voice low.

  Rhecia kept her smile steady and did not so much as cock an eye in the direction of the cavaleros. “Three are keeping company with women in their rooms. The last is bathing.”

  Fetch brought the wine to her lips, using the cup to block her mouth. “And where is Slivers hiding?”

  “On the roof of the bathhouse,” Rhecia replied evenly.

  Fetch bit back a curse. “We need a room. And don’t dare ask me for any damn coin.”

  Rhecia weathered the rudeness with ease and motioned her to follow.

  They went down the low, dismal corridor off the rear of the taproom. One of the doors opened just as Fetch was passing and a man’s exit stomped short upon seeing the passage blocked. Fetch’s own steps came to a sudden halt, as well, but not because of the flushed cavalero still adjusting his damp shirt. It was the naked mongrel woman on the bed behind him, ludicrously posed to offer a farewell intended to solicit a swift return. Cissy’s eyes widened when they met Fetch’s, surprise and shame quickly hardening into a resentful challenge.

  “It’s this way,” Rhecia urged.

  Fetching moved on.

  At the corridor’s end, Rhecia opened a door like all the rest. Stepping in, Fetch took in the decrepit furnishings, the musty smell, remembering the nights she’d spent in this damn place. Sluggard and Marrow drifted in after, making the already-close space cramped. Rhecia, too, entered and closed the door.

  “You need to get that frail out of the baths,” Fetch told her.

  “He is already being enticed to do so,” the whore mistress said.

  “Have the men asked about the hog?”

  “They have. I told them it arrived here without a rider.”

  “They believe you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Were they part of a larger troop?”

  Rhecia shook her head.

  “Likely broke off from the main body,” Marrow said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “The rest are back at the castile by now, I’d say. These are the lucky few get to sit guard here for a span. Lucky few.”

  “Jumpy bunch,” Sluggard said. “You notice?”

  Marrow huffed. “Murderin’ cowards usually are.”

  Fetch shot him a warning look. “Best not be getting ideas. I said we were le
aving it alone.”

  “That was when it was twenty,” the nomad said.

  “It was when I fucking said it!” Fetch felt a cold tickle building to a cough in her throat. She shuddered, swallowed, forced it down. “My orders don’t change based on numbers. They change when I tell you they change.”

  “Very well. Seems a waste, though.” Marrow fished beneath his brigand. Producing a coin, he handed it up to Rhecia. “Food. Much as that will get. I expect it will be substantial.”

  The woman dipped her chin and looked to Fetching. “And you? Why have you come?”

  “Any of your girls with child? Or got one on the tit? Hoof’s foundlings need a wet nurse.”

  Rhecia’s face was placid.

  “Don’t dare dissemble with me,” Fetch warned. “I’ll ask each of your girls myself if I have to.”

  Rhecia took a long breath through the nose. “Hilde’s time is near. I shall ask her.”

  “I’ll ask her. Send her here.”

  “She is a Guabian and her Hisparthan is poor. Best if I—”

  “I speak Guabic,” Sluggard announced.

  Rhecia’s carefully held countenance cracked with annoyance.

  Fetch smiled at her. “There. I’ll have my Whore talk to yours. Send her.”

  Resettling her composure, Rhecia slipped out.

  Marrow began loading his stockbow, drawing quizzical looks from Fetch and Sluggard. The older nomad lifted his chin at the door.

  “She decides to send those cavaleros in here rather than lose a coin slot, I’d rather greet them with something more than wounded feelings.”

  “Fair point,” Fetch said, and put a bolt in her own thrum.

  Sluggard, glancing about the room and realizing there was no space to draw back a bowstring, pulled his knife and looked perturbed.

  When the door again opened, it wasn’t the cavaleros or a pregnant frail from Guabia. It was Cissy, bearing a tray of bread, half a wheel of cheese, a leg of mutton, and a bowl of something steaming. The aromas turned Fetch’s stomach into an angry dog. Marrow set his stockbow aside, stretched up from the bed, and took the tray with a sigh of deep satisfaction.