Good Company

by Dale Lucas

  The Raven shrugged. “Fine. I’ve said my piece. Done my best. When it all goes sour, I’ll still try to do right by you and keep you out of danger—but I make no promises.”

  “As it should be,” Rem said, and turned to leave. “I wouldn’t trust any promises you made to me in any case.” He walked away then, knowing that if he allowed it, he would stand there verbally sparring with the outlaw all night.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “So let me get this straight,” Elvaris said from her side of the crackling fire. “There are close to fifty thousand souls in your ward, but there’s only a hundred-odd guardsmen to keep them all in line?”

  “We prefer the term watchwarden,” Torval said, “because they’re not all men.”

  “Aye, that,” Rem added. “And there’s more like two-hundredodd—one company on the day shift, one on the night.”

  “But only a hundred on the streets at any given time?” Redriga, the executive officer of the Lady Tzimena’s company, broke in. She was a handsome woman, between forty and fifty, wearing her armor with ease but with a soft, placid face like a schoolmarm or a baker’s wife.

  “That’s right,” Rem said. “As for fifty thousand, that’s probably a fair estimate, because that’d be about one-fifth of the city’s population, but truth be told, it’s probably more. By all accounts, there are more people crammed into the Fifth than any other part of the city.”

  Elvaris raised her cup and toasted the two of them. “Huzzah to you and the dwarf, then. From where I sit, that’s madness.” She drank, not waiting for anyone else to join her toast. She was a good soldier—a good mate—based upon Rem’s little interaction with her—honest and forthright, if a little blunt and graceless. But wouldn’t he like to see her put that Taverando blade of hers to use?

  “Sounds mad,” young Sandiva added, shaking her head in disbelief. “They don’t even put you in armor?”

  “The city guard gets armor,” Torval said, taking a bite of one of his pickled eggs. “Pretty toffs, that lot. And useless.”

  “The city guard,” Captain Tuvera said. “Those were the men in chain mail and surcoats who guarded the gate?”

  Rem and Torval both nodded.

  “And here I thought they were the ones who patrolled the streets,” the captain said, almost to himself.

  “That would require them to get up off their well-heeled arses and move,” Rem responded, hearing the bitterness in his own voice. “Not something they take to without the right motivation.”

  “Well,” began the scout, Galen. She reminded Rem of Emacca, the Tregga horse nomad, back home: a hard, striking face under ropes of tight black braids, her eyebrows permanently knitted into a contracted scowl. “From where I sit,” she continued, a sly smile now spreading across her stony countenance, “these lads are like some Kosterling heroes from the sagas of old—two brave souls against a pitiless world, damn the consequences, never backing down—”

  “You’ll have to forgive Galen,” Redriga said. “She’s a bit of a romantic.”

  “We have a saying,” Torval said, meeting Galen’s gaze over the fire. “Eyes open, fists clenched, back to the wall.”

  Galen’s sly smile widened to a grin. She nodded approvingly. “I like that! I like that very much!”

  “It’s hard work,” Wallenbrand said. “Keeping the peace.”

  “Never took to it, myself,” big Croften said, then belched and smiled crookedly. “Disturbing it is more my speed.”

  Rem laughed at the scout’s pronouncement, but stole a glance at the lord marshal as he did so. As he’d suspected, Harcta Kroenen was glaring at the two men as if the very act of joining in a group conversation or making a jest was tantamount to dereliction of duty.

  An epiphany struck him, wholly unbidden. They’re not his men, Rem thought. There’s no camaraderie, no discipline, no shared history. Wallenbrand, Croften, Wirren . . . He barely knows them. And yet here they are, in his employ . . . Why?

  “Well, you’re certainly a brave pair,” Captain Tuvera broke in. Rem guessed she was about ten years his senior. Old enough to be experienced, but still young for a command role. She was either some important person’s cousin, or she was actually as good as her position suggested. “I, for one, wouldn’t relish wandering the streets of that city of yours. I’m sure she has her charms, but what I saw of it just left me impatient and claustrophobic. So many people crammed behind those walls . . .”

  Rem’s pondering was thrust aside. Now Captain Tuvera’s words reminded him of home, and he felt wistful. He still remembered his own first impressions of Yenara: the bustle, the crowds, the interminable fog and the clouds of stinking smoke and the way the bent and meandering streets betrayed no pattern, suggested no inherent sense in their arrangement . . .

  “ ‘A city of smoke and shadow,’ ” he quoted from memory, “ ‘the place from which all the roads of the world unravel and to which all the pilgrims of the world strive. She is Yenara. She is her own mistress, and she will have no master.’ ”

  “Tyr Lyrios,” the Lady Tzimena offered. “A Traveler in the West.” They all raised their eyes. She’d retreated to her pavilion a short while earlier, but had now returned. Almost as one, all those around the fire—Rem, Torval, the Eraldic company, the Estavaris—shot to their feet and stood at attention.

  “Heavens,” Tzimena said. “That’s hardly necessary. Sit down, the lot of you.”

  They did as she bade. Even after they’d resumed their seats, the lady kept standing. Tuvera quickly stood from her place on the log that she and her companions shared and offered her mistress a seat.

  “Milady,” she said, by way of invitation.

  “Sit down, Captain,” the Lady Tzimena responded. “I’ve spent all day in the saddle. I’m perfectly content to stand for a bit.”

  Haltingly, Tuvera obeyed.

  Tzimena’s eyes were back on Rem now, betraying something like amazement and admiration. “You’re well-read, sir. And such a memory . . .”

  “I think that bit’s been swirling through my head since I arrived in Yenara, milady. I never understood it, really, until I saw her for myself.”

  “Nor I,” Tzimena said. “I’m most impressed you had that quotation so ready at hand.”

  “With respect, milady,” Torval said, “you shouldn’t be too impressed. The Bonny Prince here’s always got some pretty bit of dusty old poetry tumbling out of his yapping gob. Not the sense the gods gave a goat, though . . .”

  The soldiers all laughed, instantly recognizing good-natured brotherly ball-breaking when they heard it. Rem smiled, but in truth, he knew he had probably turned beet red. Was that really necessary, Torval? In front of the lady . . . ? In front of them all . . . ?

  “Bonny Prince,” the Lady Tzimena said, as though trying to make sense of the words.

  “A most unfortunate nickname,” Rem quickly interjected. “One this obstreperous little bastard won’t let go of. I assure you, I’m as lowborn as they come—”

  “Well, look at him,” Torval said, suddenly reaching out and pinching Rem’s flushed cheek. “He’s so very pretty!”

  The soldiers, male and female, all burst into laughter again at that. Rem yanked his face out of Torval’s grip. “That’s enough,” he hissed to his partner.

  “Not nearly,” Torval whispered back.

  Rem thought the laughter was warm and welcome, however irritating it might be to be its subject. He wondered why it had taken them all so long to come to an evening like this—easy talk, sharing their own stories, a real sense of oneness and common purpose binding them. Then he realized what was different.

  They were camped in Hobb’s Folly. Benighted. Haunted. Accursed.

  Perhaps that was where all this warmth and fraternity was coming from? For the first time, they felt out of their depth, off the proverbial map . . . endangered.

  It wasn’t that they had grown to love and respect one another. It was that they were reaching out, seeking solace, sharing strength.
/>
  Rem certainly knew it was true of himself. He would simply assume it was true of the others.

  “Well,” the lady said, “I, for one, know just how you felt. I was only in Yenara for a few days, but I thought it a most wondrous place. Frightening at first—overwhelming, really—but so alive. So deeply, dangerously, beautifully alive.”

  “All due respect, milady,” Redriga broke in, “but I’ll take our homeland any day. There’s no place finer or more beautiful.”

  “And what’s in Toriel?” Torval asked. “Grass and goats? A few pretty storybook castles?”

  Redriga looked like she might be mildly insulted. She sat up straight and set her palms on her knees. “No doubt, master dwarf, you’ve a different notion of what beauty might be, but I can assure you, there’s more in Toriel than grass and goats.”

  “It’s a good-sized city, as I recall,” Rem said. “Twenty thousand or so?”

  “Aye,” Captain Tuvera said, nodding. “You’re not just a reader, you’re a geographer.”

  “She stands on a high hill above a rolling plain,” Redriga carried on. “Golden sandstone walls enclosing close, quiet streets and shady plazas. From her battlements you can see the Red Mountains off to the southwest, and on clear days you’d almost swear you could see the Ironwalls on the northern horizon . . .”

  “That sounds lovely, indeed,” Brekkon broke in. The young soldier wore his enthusiasm and earnestness on his sleeve, the complete opposite of his tight-lipped, implacable father. Rem often felt sorry for the boy. “But surely none of you have seen Erald. She sits on a promontory, where highlands slope down to the fields of the surrounding valley. The Kaarten River flows right through the center of the city, including Reiken Falls. You can sit in a paved plaza, enjoying mead and honey buns, staring at the roaring waters as they tumble down the hillside and carry on, foaming west toward the bay and the sea.”

  “A waterfall in the middle of the city?” Elvaris countered. She shook her head. “If I had to listen to that roar all the time, I’d never stop needing a piss.” She suddenly remembered the Lady Tzimena was still present. “Apologies, milady—”

  The Lady Tzimena, to her credit, only smiled like a rueful babysitter and shook her head. “You’re incorrigible, Elvaris. As you were, everyone.” And with that she turned and drifted away again, once more swallowed by the darkness beyond the firelight.

  “You’re from the north,” Brekkon said to Rem. “Don’t you ever miss it? Your homeland? Certainly, whatever Yenara has to offer, it’s not the place that bore you and bred you? The place you’re from?”

  “We’re not always from the place where we belong,” Rem said, without even thinking. A moment later, the words having left his lips, he thought of Indilen. In that instant—so far from her, around a fire with a bunch of strangers, thinking of how he’d found her, like a treasure just waiting for his discovery—he missed her more than he had in all the days previously combined. He positively ached for her presence.

  Beside Rem, Torval raised his mug, the beer inside sloshing. “True, that,” the dwarf said, and let his blue-eyed gaze fall over all around the fire. “Here’s to home—wherever we may find it.”

  They all raised their cups. “To home!” they said, and drank.

  Only the lord marshal was silent, sitting straight backed on his folding camp stool as if all this warmth and nostalgia were the lowest of indulgences.

  When Rem had emptied his own cup, he realized that he was long overdue for a piss himself. He rose, his legs—cramped from daytime saddle soreness and now from using that same saddle as a too-low stool to sit upon beside the fire—screaming in protest.

  “If you’ll excuse me, everyone,” he said, then stepped over his saddle, making a beeline into the darkness toward the stream, in search of a nice, lonely thicket in which to relieve himself. It wasn’t until he’d put some distance between himself and the campfire, and meandered through a few far-strewn, twisted trees, that he remembered where he was once more.

  Hobb’s Folly, at night, in the dark.

  If there was a moon or stars above, the trees obscured them. With the chatter of the men and Torval now behind him, the only sounds were the scrabble of tiny claws in the underbrush and the sighing of the wind snaking plaintively through the tall pines and glowering redwoods surrounding them. Somewhere a screech owl let out a foul, barking hoot.

  Rem stopped. Looked around. Blinked. He wanted his eyes to adjust. Traipsing off into all that darkness, all that emptiness, left him more than a little uneasy. He found a nearby tree and put his back to it.

  Enjoy this, he thought. The silence. The darkness. Think of Indilen. Think of home. We’ll be through these woods in a few days, home in a few weeks. Soon she’ll be back in your arms.

  The wind subsided and the trees stopped whispering. In the darkness Rem suddenly heard voices.

  “. . . Don’t understand,” someone said. It was a woman, trying to speak low, but still audible. “Why won’t you tell them?” It was the Lady Tzimena.

  “Those watchwardens won’t believe me and your soldiers won’t care. The lord marshal holds all the cards here. He’s the one I’ve got to neutralize and overcome.” That was the Red Raven.

  “I could vouch for you,” the lady said.

  “Then you’d be as good as dead,” the Raven answered. “No. Keep your mouth shut, as you promised. I’ll get us out of this, but you have to trust me.”

  Rem felt a strange shudder run through him.

  I’ll get us out of this, but you have to trust me.

  Gods, what was he planning?

  “They’re coming for you,” Tzimena said, “aren’t they?”

  A long silence.

  “Just be ready,” the Raven said. His voice was low, earnest, grave. “They’ll free me, and we can be away. I gave them strict orders to hurt no one, so long as they pose no direct threat to our escape.”

  The words echoed in Rem’s mind. Just be ready. They’ll free me, and we can be away.

  Rem felt a chill run through him, starting at the base of his spine and radiating to the tips of his fingers. They. The Devils of the Weald. They were going to free their master.

  “There’s got to be another way,” Tzimena argued.

  “I’m still waiting for a viable suggestion,” the Raven answered. Rem could hear the smile in his voice—the irony. Even here, now, whispering with the young lady in the dark, he was still using his considerable charms to set her at ease. “Hurry back now. They’ll miss you if you’re gone too long.”

  “I trust you, Korin,” the lady said. “Don’t make me sorry that I did.”

  Away she went, her light, fast footsteps barely audible, even in the near silence of the big, black forest.

  What had she called him? Korin? An old Keramian name, that. Probably not too common outside of noble families. And didn’t Rem once hear of a nobleman hereabouts with that name? Where was it? When was it?

  Then it hit him.

  The shudder ran all through him this time.

  No . . . no, that couldn’t be, could it?

  It wasn’t easy drawing Torval away from the others without raising any curiosity among them. Luckily, the night was winding down and everyone was preparing to settle in for a good sleep, so all Rem really had to do was gently steer Torval aside, far from their camp, all the way across the forest road to a small, tumbledown ruin on its southern verge. In the light Rem had marked it for a onetime smithy. In the dark it was just a deeper darkness in which to enfold themselves.

  “We need to talk,” Rem said quietly.

  “Look, I was just having a laugh, was all,” Torval said, sounding contrite. “Don’t take it to heart, lad—”

  “It’s not about that,” Rem said.

  Torval straightened, face turning grim. Clearly he heard the need in Rem’s voice.

  Rem took another look around. Listened for the sound of footsteps or breathing. They appeared to be alone.

  “I overheard the Lady Tzimena
and the Red Raven talking. She snuck off to see him and didn’t realize I was off in the brush.”

  Torval shook his head. “Thendril’s tits . . .”

  “Wait,” Rem said, “it’s worse than just that. He told her that his friends here in the wood—or someone—will try to spring him. He kept telling her to be ready.”

  “We’ve got to tell the lord marshal, then,” Torval said.

  “No,” Rem countered. “I’m still not finished. Torval, Tzimena called the Raven by a name—his name, I suppose. Korin—an old name, Keramian, basically only used sparingly in a few noble families in this region.”

  Torval was staring, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Go on.”

  “It nudged something in my memory—just like his face did, when we first brought him back to the watchkeep. I kept trying to figure out where I’d heard that old name attached to a living person before, because I was sure I had. Then it hit me: five years ago, the newly crowned Duke of Erald died in these woods, murdered by bandits on a hunting expedition. It was terrible news and it made the rounds of all the noble families from the Marches to the Red Mountains. That young man’s brother became the new Duke of Erald—the one we’re about to deliver the Red Raven to. The present Duke of Erald’s name is Verin Lyr, and his brother’s name—”

  “His brother’s name was Korin,” Torval finished.

  “Exactly. Korin Lyr, the Duke of Erald, lost in these woods.”

  Torval nodded thoughtfully. “Aye,” he said. He was staring at Rem now, doubtful.

  “Do you see what I’m suggesting? I don’t know why he disappeared—maybe he was actually threatened, or kidnapped, or held for ransom. But one way or another, he was taken for dead by his family and country, while he lived on here, in these woods, as an outlaw.”

  “Mmm,” Torval grunted. “But didn’t Ondego also say stories of the Raven had been making the rounds for ten or fifteen years? I couldn’t swear on it, but I’m fairly sure I heard tales of him back when I left the Ironwalls.”