by Dale Lucas
“That,” Rem said, “was most satisfying.”
“Aye, that,” Torval said, reclining a bit in his seat. “Didn’t even realize how hungry I was.”
They sat for a time, letting their bellies do their work as they looked about the room and studied their traveling companions. The Eraldic guards all shared a single four-seat table, while the lord marshal sat apart, alone, eyes on his plate. Rem had been more than a little infuriated by the man when his son, young Brekkon, had tried to sit with him and the lord marshal had given only a curt, “Soldiers mess together. Officers eat alone,” to chase him off. The boy, predictably, looked both angry and crushed.
The Lady Tzimena, meanwhile, sat at a long trestle table with her chaperone and all the women who accompanied her. They laughed and spoke with ease and seemed to genuinely enjoy one another’s company. Though it was easy enough to hear every word said by her and her companions, it was impossible to actually understand them. Rem spoke three languages and could passably read a couple more—but none of them were Estavari. It bore some resemblance, in syntax and word forms, to Old Horunic, but the speed and lilt of their speech made identifying the similarities and picking out useful root words beyond his ability. Whatever they discussed, though, it was clearly entertaining. They smiled easily, laughed effortlessly, joked and cajoled without embarrassment. In short, though Tzimena was clearly their charge and the warrior women were clearly her servants, there was something undeniably loving about how they interacted with one another, especially here, in this out-of-the-way place, so far from their shared home.
More than once their whole table burst into laughter in answer to someone’s joke or friendly insult. Whenever that happened, Rem noted that the lord marshal, alone at his table, would raise his head the slightest bit and turn—ever so subtly—toward them, as if it was always on the tip of his tongue to scold them like rowdy children.
The lord marshal’s men, meanwhile, talked among themselves and did a little bantering, but generally kept their voices, and their heads, down. Wallenbrand, Croften, and the wain driver, Wirren, seemed familiar with one another. Most of the words exchanged were among the three of them. Poor Brekkon sat at their table, eating in silence, occasionally offering a word, but being frozen out of their conversation by curt answers or awkward silence.
Rem was lost in a reverie, considering the many differences between the two bands, when the innkeeper returned, bearing a full jug of cider.
“More, good sirs?” he asked. He struck Rem as a truly kind man, the sort well suited to his chosen profession because taking care of people—feeding and sheltering people—came naturally to him.
“Most assuredly,” Rem said, trading the empty jug on their table for the full one offered. As the innkeeper gathered up their empty plates, he ventured a question.
“Forgive my asking, if it’s an intrusion,” he began, voice low but still easy, “but just where is it you’re all off to? And how did you two end up with all of them?”
“They’re from Erald,” Rem said, indicating the lord marshal and his men. “They’re from Toriel, in Estavar. And we’re from Yenara. We’re all on our way to Erald. The lady over there is to marry the duke, and my partner and I are guarding a prisoner.”
“A prisoner?” the innkeeper said, eyes wide. “That fellow in the cage?”
“The same,” Torval said. “Ever heard of the Red Raven?”
The innkeeper’s blue eyes grew as big as saucers. “No!”
Rem nodded. “Yes indeed. We caught him in Yenara. Didn’t even know who he was.”
“Well, now, that is something!” the innkeeper said, still standing there with two empty plates teetering on one arm and an empty jug of cider in his other hand. “You’re not going by the forest road?”
Rem and Torval both nodded.
The innkeeper’s expression dropped. “Oh, good sirs . . . honestly, I’d recommend another route—”
“What’s going on here?” the lord marshal snapped. Rem hadn’t even noticed, but he’d suddenly appeared at the innkeeper’s elbow. Though not in uniform or armor, he still gave the impression of being taller than anyone, the straightness of his back and the squareness of his shoulders sufficient to bully and intimidate.
“Just having a conversation,” Rem said. “Officers may eat apart from their men, but watchwardens can fraternize as they wish, last time I checked.”
Torval snorted and lowered his face, stifling a laugh.
“Have you considered,” the lord marshal said, “that sharing too much about our prisoner and our destination might prove risky? No matter how friendly the hearer?” He gave the innkeeper a dreadful side-eye, silently suggesting that the man could not be trusted.
“Oh, good sir,” the innkeeper began.
“Lord Marshal,” Kroenen corrected.
“Lord Marshal, Your Highness, good sir,” the innkeeper sputtered, “I meant no disrespect. I was just making conversation. Why, I was just telling these two fine fellows that you should all shun the forest road. The Ethkeraldi’s crawling with brigands.”
“Crawling with brigands?” the lord marshal asked, suggesting that he needed details.
“Why certainly, sir,” the innkeeper said. “There’s the Devils of the Weald, of course, but there’s still more besides. The Wastrels—they’s just a lot of feral children, but quite cunning. Slaymaker and Sons—they’re new, but they’ve hit a caravan or two. And the Bloody Boskers—heavens and hells, that lot won’t just rob you, they’ll cook you and eat you! And still more! Why, there’s even been talk of late that there are orcs roving the woods, in search of no one knows what! And that’s not even accounting for blighted ruins like Hobb’s Folly, where unquiet spirits still linger, or the wood nymphs eager to draw young men off the road, or the bears . . .”
“Bears,” Rem repeated, looking right at Torval.
“I could kill a bear,” Torval said. “Easy.”
The innkeeper turned his worried gaze on Torval. “Oh, good master dwarf, they’re very big bears.”
“Ghost stories and foolish folklore,” the lord marshal said. “The forest holds dangers, surely, but most of what you’re telling me is twaddle. For every truly dangerous brigand band like the Raven’s Devils, there are a dozen others that are starving, inbred, backcountry rubbish on legs. The only people who fall to their blades are those too foolish to outwit them or too weak to outfight them.”
Rem snorted in spite of himself.
“Did I say something amusing, boy?” the lord marshal asked.
“Some bits were more amusing than others, surely,” Torval said, not smiling at all. “Suffice to say, in our line of work, we’ve seen more men undone by overconfidence than almost anything else.”
The lord marshal had no response. He simply gave the two of them one last, lingering look of disdain and condescension, then turned and crossed the common room back to his table. The innkeeper looked to Rem and Torval. He looked genuinely worried.
“Too proud, that one,” the man said under his breath.
“To the point of folly,” Rem said, shaking his head. “But don’t worry, sir—we’ll take your words to heart, even if he won’t. Maybe with a little luck and wide-open eyes, we’ll make it to Erald unscathed.”
“Well, best of luck to you,” the innkeeper said, and offered a most genuine smile. “I shall light candles for you both on the family shrine and say prayers.”
Away he went, leaving Rem and Torval alone once more. For a time they sat in silence. Finally the dwarf spoke.
“I grow tired of this company, lad,” he said. “What say we go take up our appointed duty in the barn?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As barns went, Rem thought their accommodations for the night warm and welcoming. The clapboards were all well fitted, the roof free of leaks, the hay well baled, and the stalls all neatly arranged and well kept. Most of their horses had been brought in, but there was not room for them all, so a few had been crowded under a lean-to outsi
de usually reserved for cord-wood in the winter. The Raven’s cage stood in the very center of the earth-and hay-strewn floor, listing forward because it had only two wheels and its hitch rested on the ground. When Rem and Torval entered, they found the Raven quite at ease in his mobile cell, staring off into the middle distance and chewing on a sprig of straw.
Rain still fell on the barn’s shingled roof, but it had let up somewhat since their arrival and now offered more of a light patter than the stinging roar of the earlier downpour. In the stalls lining either side of the barn, their company’s horses whickered and snorted. One of them raised his tail and farted proudly. Thankfully, he was at the far end of the line. Rem prayed they were upwind.
“Look here,” their prisoner said when they trotted in out of the rain. “My captors, come to keep me company through the night.”
“Come to keep you from slipping off, more like,” Torval said. To reinforce the fact that they were on duty, and not simply opting to sleep in the barn, Rem and Torval had brought both their saddlebags and their weapons with them. “I’ll say it now, and not give you another warning: we’re here to keep an eye on you and the only conversation we’ll want is with one another. Talk more than either of us likes and we’ll gag you, if need be.”
The Raven nodded agreeably. “As you wish, master dwarf.”
“Now, then,” Torval spat back, suddenly agitated. “What is all this ‘master dwarf’ cack? Do I look like the master of anything to you?”
“Just being polite,” the Raven said.
“Well, stop it,” Torval said, so irritated that Rem was almost tempted to snicker at him. “Your brand of politeness does little to ease my spirit, you scheming snake.”
The Raven seemed honestly hurt by that, as though he’d said something intended as a kindness that had been taken as an insult. “Very well, then. I apologize.”
“You’ll have to forgive Torval,” Rem said as he hung his saddlebags over a stall divider and leaned his sheathed sword against a nearby support beam. “He’s not a big one for obsequies or chitchat. He puts up with me, but that’s just because I’ve been chained to him for so long now.”
“Save it,” Torval said, taking a seat on an empty hogshead. “The more you talk to this one, the more he’ll talk back.”
“I’m a brigand and an outlaw, it’s true,” the Raven said, shifting in his cage so he faced the two of them. He sat cross-legged, like a street-corner tale swapper ready to launch into a tenpenny epic. “But you gents have my word, so long as you treat fairly with me, I mean you no harm. If I make conversation, it’s just because I’m infernally bored.”
Torval made a low, rumbling sound in his throat but didn’t reply. If Rem was not mistaken, the dwarf looked almost contrite . . . but contrite for Torval was really just “not actively hostile,” so it could be hard to tell. Rem, for his part, leaned on a sawhorse and crossed his arms. Having been mounted in the saddle all day and settled upon the hard chairs of the inn’s common room all through dinner, his rear end was ready for a little standing before he turned in for the night.
“You want to talk, fine,” Rem said. “What were you doing in the Lady Tzimena’s chambers?”
“Are you daft?” Torval asked.
“Not in the least,” Rem answered, confident. “We’ve heard the lord marshal’s story. Let’s give the prisoner a chance to speak. I’m not saying I’ll readily believe him.”
The Raven stared at Rem. His neutral expression slowly widened into a friendly grin. “You’re a bright one, aren’t you?”
Rem jerked his head toward Torval. “Not if you listen to the old stump, I’m not.”
“He has his moments,” Torval said, hands on his knees, sitting straight backed on the hogshead as if it were some rustic throne. Rem was impressed; his dwarven friend actually cut quite a kingly figure, despite his simple attire and humble surroundings.
The Raven’s eyes moved back and forth between them—slowly, deliberately. Rem was sure the man was trying to read them—to measure their openness, their potential for understanding. Finally he lowered his eyes and shrugged. “I thought the lady could speak on my behalf, given her, uh, closeness to the duke. I only wanted to make an appeal, nothing more.”
Rem thought his voice had the sound of honesty in it, but he couldn’t be sure. Even if he was telling the truth, after a fashion, it was clear that he was leaving something out, as well.
“And it had nothing to do with her position?” Torval asked. “Her value?”
The Raven raised his eyes, suddenly troubled. “What does that mean?”
Torval stood and moved toward the cage, fully in interrogation mode, as though they were back at the watchkeep. “It means a noble lady betrothed to a duke is a valuable bargaining chip,” Torval said. “If you went to all that trouble to gain access to her, it’s because you were trying to kidnap her for ransom. But you were surprised and had to make a hasty escape—which is why we found you in your guard costume, running like a madman over the rooftops.”
“Maybe there’s some truth in that,” the Raven said. “But I swear to you both, she was safe with me. I would never hurt her.”
Rem appraised the man. He spoke calmly and freely, without the long pauses and careful syntax of a man inventing a story on the fly. He did not trust the Red Raven overall—it was incontestable that he was an outlaw and a killer, after all—but he still got the impression that there was more to him than simple wickedness. As if he were the sort of man who did terrible things, but for some loftier purpose, if only in his own mind.
“All right, then,” Rem countered, “answer me this: Is what the lord marshal said about his company true? Did you, in fact, ambush and murder a number of his soldiers, then steal their horses and ride for Yenara in their livery?”
The Raven’s eyes sank again, then rose to meet Rem’s when he finally answered. “There was an ambush, and there was a plan. Kroenen’s men fought hard, and many of them died because they would’ve killed us otherwise. But my plan—my intention—was to take them all alive and hold them while we went about our business in the city. Those not killed were captured. None escaped.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Rem said. “Clearly some escaped, or the lord marshal and those men wouldn’t even be here.”
“Wouldn’t they?” the Raven asked. Rem didn’t care for the wry, narrow-eyed smile the man now wore.
“Where are those captured men now?” Torval asked.
The Raven smiled a little—only a little. “If my Devils have held to my orders, they’re still prisoners in the wood. If you want to see how badly the lord marshal wants me dead, broach the subject with him. Tell him I’ve told you both that I’ll see those men released to him, alive and well, if he’ll but release me. I’ll wager good coin he won’t do it. He’d rather let his own men die than let me go now that he has me.”
“And just why is that?” Rem asked. “What makes you so bloody special?”
The Raven’s smile changed. Rem thought he saw some sadness in it. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so I won’t bother. Let’s just say we have a history, the lord marshal and I.”
“Tosh,” Torval spat. “It’s clear enough: you’ve been a burr in the collective boots of the duke and his soldiers for so long, they want to hang your corpse from the city walls and let everyone see the crows picking at your soft bits. That doesn’t make you special, just annoying. A nuisance, like a fox that keeps raiding a farmer’s henhouse.”
Rem knew Torval could be right . . . but he wasn’t entirely convinced. There was something about their prisoner—a quiet assurance, an earnestness—that impressed him as somehow honest and forthright, criminal career notwithstanding.
“See?” the Raven said. “You don’t believe me even when what I tell you isn’t hard to swallow. I won’t force-feed you the rest of it.”
“What is it?” Rem asked. “What’s the rest of it? Maybe we can help.”
Once again the Raven’s expression took o
n a great and terrible sadness. He shook his head slowly. “You seem a good pair. Kind. Honest. Maybe just a little hardheaded. I haven’t lied to you when I’ve warned you not to trust the lord marshal. But I’ll tell you right now, if I told you my story, and he knew it, you wouldn’t just be in danger—I’d be signing your death warrants. I honestly don’t want that. I’ll figure my own way out of this, and I’ll do my best to leave you two out of it.”
“The sundry hells you will,” Torval broke in. “You’re worth a lot of money to us, you ponce, and we’ll not waste all this time and risk our hides on the road just to see you skip away into the hills.”
“Aye, that,” Rem added, trying as hard as he could to make his point without overmaking it. He looked the Raven in the eye when he spoke next. “Mark me, here and now: I don’t care what’s between you and the lord marshal. I don’t care what you are or are not guilty of, and I don’t care whether you’re ultimately punished or not. We’re here to collect a reward that we earned by catching you. We need that money. Our families need that money. If your escape looks like it might cost us that money, I swear by Aemon, Lattis, and the Scrolls of the Thrall that I’ll see you dead before I see you prancing off into those woods.”
The Raven’s expression hardened, but the smile remained. “That sounds like a challenge, boy. Are you sure you want to challenge me, knowing as little as you do?”
Rem offered a smile of his own. “Maybe you should ask yourself the same question.”
A silence fell between them, tense and uneasy, broken only by the rain on the roof and the soft breathing of the stalled horses. That is, until the barn door creaked and a sweet voice surprised them all and drew their eyes toward it.
“Oh, goodness,” the Lady Tzimena said as she drew back her cloak’s rain-soaked cowl, “I didn’t know anyone was out here.”
