At Faith's End

by Chris Galford

  At first, she thought they were headed to town. To her lord, perhaps, and the blistering tongues of his men-at-arms. The thought left her stomach lurching. Rurik was oft nearby, like a lovesick puppy, and unlike him the rest of his family couldn’t stand her.

  But they passed the gates and skirted the majority of the tents, cutting toward the stables that formed the western edge of camp. Pages loitered there, mostly, to tend their lords’ steeds. A few guards lingered.

  As they headed inside, the forester grabbed a pair of brushes from a pot near the door and led Essa toward her own horse, Starlet.

  Roswitte paused before the stall, holding out one of the brushes to her. “Lord Ivon set me to tend his horse and check his accounts this morning,” Roswitte explained. “Yours seemed in need of the company.” She reached out a hand and plucked the lock on the gate.

  They spent nearly the next hour brushing out the tangles in Starlet’s hair, washing her, and checking her for fleas. Every now and then, Roswitte tried to work a question into the routine, asking after the others, after the Gorjes, and most importantly, after herself. She asked about her distance from Rurik, about the fights—mostly the fights, and the tone of it seemed to indicate worry. Again, Essa had the impression she was being spied upon. For whom, exactly, she could not say, but given that she was Ivon’s creature, and Ivon was Rurik’s brother, she had a dark assumption, and that assumption bid only terse answers.

  When she asked the forester, in turn, about her interest, Roswitte only scowled and returned to brushing. “Curiosity,” Roswitte answered, “need not always rise from darkness.”

  Essa put herself into her task, tried to feel comfort in the closeness of her steed, and pointedly ignored the woman.

  “You…fancied him, didn’t you?” Roswitte eventually asked. By then, they were coaxing the last tangles from Starlet’s tail.

  It was a struggle not to scream.

  “I ask only because of what I see, girl. And Alviss, you know, when the old man speaks of you…”

  She thrust her brush into the bucket of growing slop, wetted it in the dirty water, and thrust the bristles hard against a particularly thick knot. Starlet whinnied unappreciatively.

  “Girl. Look at me.” Essa made it a point not to look up. She coiled her fingers in the tuft of hair and tried to unthread it. “You have to know he asks after you. In his sheepish way. And the way he hangs—you’re being overly cruel, aren’t you?”

  Essa felt her hand shake. She had to narrow her breaths. The woman knew nothing, she kept telling herself. Nothing-nothing-nothing. If she did, she wouldn’t have asked that. No one would have asked that.

  “You’re both pups and he’s a fine one to hitch a star to. What could he have possibly done?”

  Another voice saved her from having to answer that. Even as she glared up at the flustered woman, Essa heard her name rise an octave above the bustle of the stables. She followed its contours to the long lane between the stalls and settled on the lanky baker-savior hastening toward them. Roswitte followed her gaze, but said nothing, contemplating.

  She decided then to a play a card from her watcher’s own hand.

  “Essa,” Voren repeated as he neared, a smile stretched from cheek to cheek. “I—”

  Before he could say another world, she launched herself at him. Catching him mid-stride, she threw her arms around him, crying “Voren” and clasping him tight. “Oh, I told you to meet me hours ago. This just won’t do.” Stepping between the boy and her watcher, Essa meant to keep his confused look from giving her away. Then, twisting back to Roswitte, she exclaimed, “Oh we simply must be off. You will lock the stall when you go, yes?”

  The forester’s jaw clenched, but she nodded sternly. Her dark eyes fastened on Voren, as though searching out a weak link.

  “If you wish,” she muttered.

  “Thank you for the morning, all the same,” Essa said. Then, squeezing at her savior’s arm, she bid him flee. Resisting only long enough to part a hailing farewell to Roswitte, Voren trailed her like a limp rag doll, without question.

  “I don’t think she likes me,” Voren murmured as they stepped back into the light.

  With a snort, she replied, “She doesn’t like anyone. Now—what is it?”

  “I—” Voren started, fidgeted, and took her by the hand. She flinched away and he spread his hands in apology, but motioned all the same toward the other side of the stables. Following his lead, she slipped with him into the shadows, bathing them in the chill of the gloom. She shuddered softly, looking away as the baker took a spot against the wall.

  “I came to tell you they’re cutting rations again. If you’ve got any leftovers, I’d horde them well. And—and they’re putting extra guards on the tents, just in case. I can’t—that is to say, I don’t think I can get us anymore.”

  That he had managed under already staunch scrutiny—and Rurik’s undoubtedly knowing scrutiny, no less—was testament enough to his dedication. Such that she had never asked him to take.

  She flicked her feline gaze on him. “That? That’s all over camp, Voren. Is that all?”

  The baker flinched a bit at the bite in her words. She didn’t mean to be so snappish with him. Roswitte’s words had her on edge.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be—”

  “It’s alright,” he interjected, waving it off as though it were nothing. As he always did. That only made it worse. “And—no. I wanted to say—” Voren leaned close, swallowing hard against the sodden air. “I want you to take extra care. It’s getting—well, they’re getting rowdy. Restless. There’s talk some of the nobles might…” He paused. “Desert.”

  Essa became suddenly very self-conscious. She glanced over her shoulder, feeling the eyes already on her. Several of the stable hands were watching them, all wolfish grins. Rolling her eyes against the implication, she took the baker once more in hand and dragged him toward the outskirts of camp.

  Rain had swamped the trail to the tents of the camp followers. It stood as a muddy river, rolling perpetually downhill and undoubtedly flooding more than a few out of any semblance of a home. Nature always found a way, messy as it was. Standing there, at the edge of the trail, Essa sighed and turned back to Voren. A few guardsmen loitered near the river as well, watching and commenting on the plight. For once, she was glad their own tents were pitched much further afield.

  “What do you mean desert?”

  “I mean just that. I-I’ve been in their tents, I mean, handing out the rations. I heard the talk. It’s—”

  “It’s rumor is what it is, and if things are really as bad as you make them rumor’s like to get you killed.”

  Forcing her voice to a whisper, she asked, “Where? Who said these things?”

  “People,” he blubbered. When her stare lengthened to points, however, he tentatively added, “You’re the one that told me rumor’d get me killed!”

  “You’re learning,” she added without mirth. “But now’s hardly the time. Did you—did you take this to Rurik, at least?”

  Exasperation flashed into lines of anger before the boy’s eyes flicked away. He rolled his jaw, started to say something, then simply shook his head. He had never said anything about that night with Rurik, but Essa had the sneaking suspicion he knew. Some men had perfected poker faces—Voren didn’t. And since then he had been there as only Rowan had before. Sitting by her through the long nights—even if she never said a word. He brought her compresses when she took to fever. Apologized for things he had no hand in, simply because he was a man.

  Alviss, she knew, was not so overly fond of the boy, but she was grateful for him. He helped her through the hate and he never questioned. He let her move at her own pace. Even if it sometimes drew her ire on him. Rowan said Voren loved her. Sometimes she wondered if that weren’t true. Though she questioned the form it took.

  Rurik—she couldn’t even begin. When her eyes met his, she did not see the apology. She saw hurt, certainly, and confusion—mostl
y confusion. Like all men, he could not understand the nature of his crime, but held the wherewithal to blame it on someone else.

  Perhaps that was why she took to Voren so heavily. Try as he might, and age as he would, when he looked on her it was not with a man’s eyes—but a boy’s.

  “Voren…”

  “Es. Listen. Perhaps I would but Ivon—”

  Words trailed to the sloppy clop of horses’ hooves. Of beckoning shouts. Voren strained to hear, to see—Essa strained only to tell where they came from. There were many, she knew. The hooves were like wet thunder. It was more enthusiasm than she had heard in a moon’s turn.

  Craning onto the tips of her toes, she caught a glimmer beyond the tents. As the whores crept to bear, hoping for sight of new fare, she saw the glint of armor coming around the other side, moving in a broad arc to take them nearer to the town in the quickest manner. They bore no banners, but the horses marked them as outriders—scouts. Fear cramped in her stomach at the thought of such fury. It could only mean one thing.

  “Get back to the mess, Voren.”

  He gaped at her, undaunted. “What is it?”

  “I think the war’s found us.”

  She could see her sentiments echoed in the faces of more than a few. Without any word from those riders, anxious men pawed at wet steel or grabbed for their long guns—guns that would be useless in such swamp. Essa remained, even as Voren tugged at her. She stared out beyond the camp, scanning the hills for any sign.

  It was not a big thing—and that’s what caught her. A train less than a dozen strong strung itself out along one of the low rises, plunged on, and disappeared again beneath the canvas walls. She cursed, for such a fleeting glimpse. But she had seen all she needed to see. Banners. Banners and men to hold them, but not enough to issue a battle cry. Less than a dozen against all the might of Idasia. In that moment, the knots in her stomach twisted into something else entirely.

  It wasn’t war, she realized. It was a parley.

  * *

  Nothing made old wounds throb like the thunder and the rain. Be they man or men.

  Rurik flexed his shoulder, wincing against the throb it produced. It was like he had simply slept wrong, tensed the muscles—but it was an ache that would not abate. When the doctor had proposed it was time to remove his sling, he had looked on incredulously. Berric—one of Tessel’s appointed guards—had distracted him with a smile and a pilfer of his blade. Even as he turned to grab at it, he realized his mistake. It was Berric’s eyes—they were the giveaway.

  Rather than simply remove the sling, the doctor gave his arm a straightening yank. There was a little pop and a large flare—but it was gone, mercifully gone, even before his yelp had subsided. The bones were nearly settled, the man informed him. The remainder just needed a little stretch. A pat on his back and a grunt of thanks, and the doctor sent him on his way. But it still throbbed with the storm. He suspected it would throb long after.

  Berric was in the midst of trying to make it up to him—alcohol mercifully involved—when word of the riders came in. Ten in all, bearing the colors of Effise’s bandit-prince himself—Leszek. The white horse’s head, stretched above the bloodied red of his people’s sea seemed an ominous marker to Rurik, as did the thunder marking their approach, but he had hastened all the same to meet them on behalf of his lord.

  Several of the nobles had intercepted them, however, and stood poised to make terms without their commander. The Effisians had been herded into the town’s tavern, the occupying soldiers ejected for the time being. What men remained were the lords’ own men-at-arms, Rurik noted with a grimace, and they tried their best to bar his way. There was something to be said for a boy’s stubbornness, however, and he raised offense loud enough to draw some of Berric’s fellows.

  Yet even as the men-at-arms were circled, they hemmed and hawed before him, brandishing pikes and swords and obstinately refusing to move. It was only the timely arrival of his brother Ivon that at last broke the stalemate. With all the air of a high nobleman, the handsome knight ordered the men aside—and they did it, whether they wished to or not. Rurik pressed in after him, nearly clutching at his heel, though Ivon only grudgingly acknowledged it.

  Inside, the hearth had been lit to compensate for the gloom outdoors. Windows had been shuttered and the Effisian party had filed into the back of the room, with a host of tables, chairs, and bitter Idasian noblemen between them and the door.

  Rurik might have expected Ser Huwcyn Ibin. A bull of a man, his orange-red hair made him shine among the rest of his grungy fellows, even more so than his girth. His father’s title made him one of the greatest of the assembly in camp, and what was worse was that he knew it.

  It was the presence of another, more stubbly figure that set him immediately on edge, however. Ser Falk of Torruck. The man was neither high nobility nor a diplomat, and his cleft chin was lasting memory of the battle at Leitzen, where the army had lost its emperor and he had lost both of his sons. For the moment, the knight stood scowling and ringed by men of hopefully better sense, but for how long Rurik could not say. And in a room of nearly two dozen members of the Imperial nobility, he doubted Falk was the only one with an axe to grind.

  Who he did not see—and more’s the pity for it—was Lord Marshall Othmann. Surely with so many nobles cloistered around like baying hens, even that high fool could not have missed the Effisians’ approach. What’s worse: he suspected it was, like so many of the man’s petty ploys, somehow meant to be a dig at Tessel. If anything happened to these men, after all, it would be on Tessel’s head, as acting commander.

  Noting who stood armed and who, sensibly, did not, Rurik hastily pressed from his brother’s side. Swallowing, he found it difficult to wet his throat, but resolved to speak his piece in spite of the many eyes leveling on him. Here, in this camp, he kept trying to tell himself they were as equals. It didn’t stop his hands from shaking.

  Peaceably as could be, he announced himself, all the while inching nearer to the embassy. “Lords, good men of Effise, it is a pleasure. On behalf of Lord Kyler Tessel, I welcome you to our camp. I trust our reception has been—” He hesitated as Huwcyn’s great bulk shifted first into, then from his path. Inclining his head to the man, he finished, “graciously delivered.”

  One of the soldiers—Rurik quickly identified this as the captain for the way the other men looked to him—leaned over to a squirrely, robed man, whispering something in their own take on the Marindi tongue. The fidgeting ambassador, curiously devoid of any of the gold or other fineries that typified his station, cocked his head slightly to the side, nodding and watching. His eyes roamed Rurik, unabashedly appraising him. He whispered something back to the guardsman and, straightening, stepped forward from the protection of steel.

  The man was tall. Rurik was not the tallest of people, but he was a man grown, and yet the Effisian ambassador stood a head—if not more—above his own, nearly of a height with Alviss, though with none of the bulk behind it. He looked down his long nose at Rurik—deliberately, as it turned out.

  “Does his lordship send a page to do his diplomacy?” he asked in Idasia’s own grizzled tongue. A mad flush seized Rurik. To his dismay, he heard the question answered by a few snickers from the crowd of noblemen. The Effisians, however, stood still as stone.

  Before Rurik could answer, Huwcyn of all people stepped to his defense, further undermining him.

  “This is Rurik Matair. And on the word of Huwcyn of Thorinde, I do attest he is the attendant of the marshall. You can be certain he speaks with his tongue. We all speak for the Empire, grace. And we all listen to Effise.”

  Huwcyn’s frog-like eyes flickered down on him, and back to the diplomat, glittering with amusement. Well, I walked into that, Rurik brooded bitterly. Behind those eyes, though, there was no sign of any support forthcoming. While he spied Berric fingering the hilt of his blade, no one else seemed terribly appalled. Rurik thought he saw his brother move a step closer, but it might as easily have
been his imagination.

  The diplomat nodded his assent, and bowed low in accordance with jurti. “A pleasure, Your Grace.” Straightening, he beamed a yellow-toothed smile as he continued. “Serene Effise and His Highness, the High Prince Leszek, send their blessings to you, noble warriors. I, Franciszek Bazylski do bear them to you. Much blood have you spilt, and seen spilt in turn. You have come deep into Effise and her soil has welcomed many of your children to her womb. Yet His Highness has seen your mercy to his cities, and in honor of the great Emperor Matthias Durvalle, He Who Rides wishes to discuss terms.”

  It was like the air was sucked clean from the lips of every man of the room. It went dead. Then murmurs seeded, a little tide rolling back from the brink. Rurik blinked, looked first to his brother—cold, rigid, unmoved—then to Huwcyn, and back. The lanky diplomat was smiling.

  “This best, perhaps, conducted in private. I am sure—”

  “Terms?” a voice blurted from the back of the room. “I’ll show them their goddamned terms!”

  Damn that man. Ser Falk was already moving.

  One of his fellow noblemen stretched out an arm to hold the bereaved father, but Falk struck him with a mailed fist and barreled through two other idle men in his path. In him, Rurik had a vision of a bull with head and horns lowered.

  A shape slid in front of him, shielding him, hand going to steel, and Rurik hesitated for a fleeting second on this brother’s gesture. Too long, he cursed. Falk closed fast. “Berric,” Rurik cried, while lamenting his own lack of blade.

  Berric, too, was already on the move. Sword sweeping, the soldier shoved through other nobles to thrust himself squarely in Falk’s path. Falk didn’t hesitate. His saber clattered against Berric’s guard, but the soldier held his ground. The calm soldier’s blade danced circles around the furious swipes of its opponent, bringing Berric close enough to smash Falk’s face with the hilt. The grayed veteran staggered, bloodied, but still he might have gone on, had not two of his fellows seized him. They bore him to the ground, shouting curses, and tore the blade from his grip.