by Danny Macks
Jeb's eyes flew wide and he ran back toward the bar. On his way, he spotted the scroll Leric had dropped for his first dance partner and scooped it up. Far from the music, he was still smiling when he joined Foxfire at his hitching post.
Thesscore had fought the man who had hit him and the man who had stood by and watched. Baron Wulf Thesscore had to be the greatest, most wonderful man in the world.
Chapter Eleven – Blunted Vulnerability
When Jeb untied Foxfire from the hitching post he ignored the flicking tail, but froze when he saw the stallion shake his head with ears back. Something was wrong. Running a calming hand over the base of the charger’s neck, he looked around the empty street searching for the source of the horse’s agitation.
Then Foxfire sniffed at him and sidled sideways, reorienting his butt for a rear kick. Jeb pulled on the halter, shoved a shoulder into the side of the stallion’s hip and received a quick cow-kick for his trouble. The kick missed but those ears were still back.
“Okay, I've been drinking. I get it.” he sighed and walked the horse instead of mounting. “The baron warned me you were fussy. But we know each other; I rode you all day yesterday and just this morning.”
Foxfire’s ears flicked forward when Jeb spoke, but his tail was still whipping around and he didn’t appear in the least bit sympathetic.
Jeb sighed again and led the stallion down the street. “Fine. No drinking and riding. But as soon as I sober up we are going to have a serious discussion about your attitude problem.”
*****
The area around the north gate was nearly deserted when Chad and Ravnos reentered the city.
“Where are the rest of the guards?” Chad asked the sergeant standing alone.
“Abandoned their posts,” Ravnos replied with a chuckle before the embarrassed soldier could speak. “I saw your father do that during a castle siege, strolling right up to the castle gates with a bottle of wine. He asked the people shooting arrows at him to let him in for a drink and they did.”
“I’m not going to say anything,” Ravnos added to the guard, “but I know Lord Erroll will hear about this without my help and I suggest, when he does get around to asking, that you can show you have been training your men to ensure this doesn't happen again.”
“Thank you, sir.” The sergeant replied. “And begging your pardon, sir, would you mind telling me what Lord Erroll looks like? We haven’t met the boy yet.”
“The boy,” Chad replied, crossing his arms and scowling, “is taller than you, about my height, with braided black hair, like mine, and with a broken nose, like mine. The broken nose, by the way, that he just received from the guy you let steal away all my men."
Ravnos gave both men a half-smile. “I told you Lord Erroll would find out.”
*****
After a blubbered apology from the sergeant, Chad and Ravnos headed toward the castle. The few people left in Thesscore’s wake were smiling or kissing, if they were paired up, and their happiness furthered Chad’s sour mood. Then he spotted Foxfire headed the same direction and the boy Chad had punched was leading him. Chad’s hand fell to his dagger.
“Don’t take out your anger on a girl that doesn’t deserve it,” Ravnos said, misreading the situation. “She isn't your father.”
Chad shook his head in a quick no and signed a flanking maneuver which Ravnos obeyed although he was still scowling. As the two approached on either side, well away from the war horse, the skinny peasant boy didn't notice Chad until he was only two arm lengths away. His eyes flew wide in recognition, then he quickly looked down at the pavement.
“Good morning, Lord Erroll.”
Chad ground his teeth. “Even in a dress, you walk like a boy.”
“You must have me mistaken for someone else, m’lord.”
Chad glanced at Ravnos but the older lord just looked confused. Chad looked back to the boy, reluctantly admitting that if this was a disguise, it had to be the best disguise he’d ever seen. She looked like a girl. The right height, the right hair, the right scarecrow thin build, but her green dress was low cut enough that Chad could see her small breasts were real and, in the tailored dress, the rest of her thin shape was feminine. But something about this girl felt uncannily familiar, like the feeling he’d gotten when he first looked at the boy in the library. He glanced at Foxfire then back at the girl.
“There's only one reason a man would walk when he has a horse. I knew you couldn’t ride.”
Her eyes flew up and locked with Chad, and she clenched her jaw, but then she looked back down at the pavement. “Yes, m’lord.”
Chad realized she smelled like alcohol. He glanced at Ravnos, and the older man’s expression had shifted from confusion to suspicion. He had seen that abrupt shift in body language too. Chad was certain the armored lord would follow Chad’s lead, no matter what he decided to do.
Slowly, Chad realized that this girl hadn't lit any fires, hadn't barred the lords from fulfilling their sworn duty, hadn't chopped off the heads of good people. She might have stolen a sword, but the sword was returned and people she knew had died because of it.
“I’m sorry I punched you. You didn't deserve it. I was wrong.”
The girl looked up at Chad again, her expression thoughtful, but still wary. Behind her, Ravnos quietly shifted his poleaxe to hold ready in both hands, realization dawning.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, m’lord,” the girl said, her eyes flicking back and forth across Chad’s face. Chad vainly tried to think of words that would prove he was sincere, that his regret was honest.
Against Ravnos’ advice from less than an hour earlier, Chad sang Mourning and let everything he was feeling out, unfiltered and raw. He sang for Lauren, a good man he would never see again. He sang for the two thousand people who were now homeless. He sang for his lost innocence; he would never look up to Thesscore or call him father again, And he sang for a corpse, black and brittle, in a cave without a burial.
He Sang the full verse, beginning to end, and drew breath for the second verse when a hand touched his chest. Pulling his attention back to the present, he saw Ravnos twenty feet away on his knees, poleaxe on the ground, sobbing. Foxfire was prancing nervously, not affected by the Song itself, but by the behavior of the humans around him. The girl, dry eyed, was the one who had gently laid a hand on his chest.
“Stop,” she said softly. “You’re spooking the horse.”
“The Song of Power doesn’t affect you.” Chad’s wet eyes grew wide.
The girl shook her head. Her eyes were dry, but her hard expression was pained. “It does. It makes my chest hurt, but I heard you. His name was Harker. He was a good man.”
Chad nodded. “He’ll get a decent burial. I’ll see to it personally. Who was the second person? The one wearing the brigandine?”
A confused expression flashed across her face, then a ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Me. I was the one with a sword shoved through my chest."
Chad was fairly certain she was joking. Almost certain. She had to be joking. Right?
The girl looked to Ravnos, who was wiping his eyes and picking up his poleaxe as he rose from the cobblestone, then back at Chad. “So what now?”
Chad patted Foxfire on the shoulder, and the big charger shook, then lowered his head. The girl yanked his head before he kicked, without any signs that the automatic control of the brute required any thought. Her eyes were still on Chad.
“You work for Thesscore?” Chad said. “He put you up to this?”
The girl shook her head. “He saw me ride. During the fire. Offered me a job.”
“He’s not a good man.”
The girl’s eyes searched Chad’s face again. Her free hand reached up as if to scratch her bruised cheek, but stopped before she touched her makeup. ”He’s the one that busted your nose, right? Am I going to be allowed to form my own opinion and find out for myself?”
Chad looked away but nodded. He hoped he was wro
ng.
*****
The armored lord kept sniffling and wiping his eyes at unexpected times during the rest of the walk back to the castle, but stayed close to Jeb’s side, on the opposite side of Lord Erroll. Despite the power of the lordling -- lord’s Song, and the maudlin mood gripping all three of them, Jeb still expected he would be cut down if he bolted. Nobles did a lot of good, but they also struck first and apologized later.
They walked in silence until, much later, they turned a corner and Jeb hesitated when he again saw the drawbridge gatehouse.
“I didn't get your name,” the older lord said.
Jeb shook himself, and considered lying, then realized it was pointless. “Jeb. People call me Jeb.”
“When I’m not being ‘Lord Ravnos’, people used to call me Inius. Jeb sounds like a boy’s name.”
“It is.” Jeb’s locked eyes with the lord, but the lord neither looked away or bucked up, and simply held Jeb’s gaze calmly until it was Jeb that looked away, back toward the gatehouse. In the castle assault dream, people died screaming around him.
The lord followed Jeb’s gaze. “The thing to remember, Jeb, is that all the defenses point out. In a castle, the safest place to be is inside.”
Jeb nodded and resumed walking, but did not reply.
Approaching the castle, Jeb saw that the drawbridge was up and Thesscore was sitting on a crate, drinking with his helmet off, with a small group gathered around him while the remnants of his celebration dispersed.
Lord Erroll looked to Inius over Jeb's head.
“Just basic caution,” Inius replied to the unasked question. “There’s only a Song’s difference between a celebration and a bloodthirsty mob. I'm certain they will lower the drawbridge after the bulk of the crowd has dispersed.”
As the trio drew close, Jeb saw a black-haired young man, tall like Thesscore and Erroll, but younger, sewing stitches in a cut that ran from the top edge of Thesscore’s eyebrow back to his temple. Everyone not returning to their homes looked to Lord Thesscore with rapt attention.
“So there I am, in a ready position, way outside of striking range, Rage Song wrapping about us both, trying to figure out what his game is. I mean, of course I’m pissed off, who wouldn’t be? I try Singing too, but I’m a little worried Ravnos will lose it and we’ll be facing a three way fight. You know, in a two Songs against one kind of way; but he seems fine. Humming his gloomy little suicide song off by himself.”
Inius smiled as if he’d heard this opinion before and didn’t appear offended. Jeb wondered at the older man’s strong reaction to Lord Erroll’s Song of Mourning, if he could sing the song himself.
The teen sewing stitches finished his work and nodded silently when Thesscore said, “Thanks, son,” but clenched his jaw and turned his back when Lord Erroll whispered, “Hello, Deen.”
Thesscore seemed unaware of the exchange between the two young men. “So then I figure he’s trying to goad me into doing something stupid, since I’m a ‘happy fool’ and he’s just a rager; but then he starts pacing like a raw novice. He wasn’t, of course, but at this point, I’m so sure he’s trying to goad me that it pisses me off enough to decide I’m going to hold my ground till ethereals die of old age.”
The drawbridge lowered and Thesscore’s story paused. As he looked around, he caught Lord Erroll’s eye.
"What was the dual about?" Jeb asked. He couldn't imagine what would goad such a happy person as Thesscore into a deadly duel.
Thesscore pointed to Erroll. "Nobody steals what's mine and gets away with it. Being 'clever' about it gets you just as dead."
Erroll clenched his jaw but said nothing as Thesscore turned away, in obvious dismissal, and resumed his story for Jeb and his other admirers. Erroll entered the castle alone.
“So, I’m standing still as a stone, in a ready position, and I’m still singing, of course, because, ‘why not?’, when suddenly he charges me, blocks my initial shot and keeps coming. I mean, c’mon, I’ve easily got a foot of height and fifty pounds on the guy and he’s a librarian. He isn’t going to win a grapple with me.”
One of the men in red gestured to the stitches Deen sewed in Thesscore’s forehead. “He didn’t do too bad, all things considered. When he jammed that dagger inside your eye-slot, I thought you were done for.”
Thesscore scowled, but nodded. “My helmet moved when the tail struck the sand.” He took another drink, then found his rhythm again. “So here I am, with a dagger inside my helmet unable to see anything because my eyeslot’s up here and my own dagger jabbing around what I hope is an armpit when a wave hits the both of us. I have an idea, drop my own dagger and force his dagger into my helmet so he can’t back it out and find my eye, then I roll over and wait for the next wave.”
“You drowned him?” Leric asked.
Thesscore nodded. “We rolled a few times before I found water deep enough, and I had to knee him a few times in the codpiece before he started choking, but eventually he stopped worrying about that damn dagger in my face and started coughing. I had to pretty much bury his helmet in the sand under the water before he started thrashing, but even when he stopped I wasn’t sure he -- if he was bluffing or not.”
“And all this time you is singing,” one of the observers added.
“Of course I was. Songs make me hate just as bad as the guy I’m singing to, and at that point I want to rub his nose in the fact that I’m the one still breathing.”
“Then Chad jumps in,” another observer in red adds.
“Who?” Jeb asks.
“Lord Erroll,” another answers
“We won’t talk about Chad,” Thesscore ordered, scowling again. “He learned his lesson and that’s all we will say about that. Agreed?”
The men all looked away, but chorused “Yes, sir.”
From their expressions, Jeb felt it judicious to change the subject. “So with his visor down, how did you know the guild lord wasn’t bluffing?”
Grins returned to the faces of the men around Thesscore and one piped up, “He chopped his head off.”
Thesscore nodded. “After I got his helmet and gorget off, of course. Although I could have just stuck a poleaxe spike or something in the eye-slot if I was really that worried about it. After I hopped up and dealt with ‘Lord Erroll’, when Libros was still underwater I was pretty sure he wasn’t bluffing.”
Thesscore sighed, noticed Foxfire and petted the stallion on the side of the muzzle. “He was the only guy close to my equal in the whole kingdom.”
The bonding with his horse quickly became an inspection and he checked the charger carefully from eyes to tail to the underside of his hooves. Jeb smiled, knowing he wouldn’t find fault.
“Something happened to his ear,” Thesscore said with a scowl when the inspection was done.
Jeb nodded, but wasn't intimidated. “Somebody grabbed his ear during the fire, when he was running loose. It's been treated with medicine and is healing fine.”
The baron nodded and half-smiled when Jeb calmly met his eyes. “Ready for a hard ride? I want to be back in Thesscore in five days.”
Jeb gaped. “That’s over fifty miles a day. My horses can’t travel that hard.”
Thesscore laughed. “Don’t tell me what a horse can and can’t do, lass. With a change of mounts, you won’t enjoy it, but you’ll live and we’ll have plenty of time to recover after.”
“No. I have a weaning colt and his nursing dam. They can’t be ridden that hard.”
“Kill the colt,” Leric suggested. “The mother will dry up soon enough.”
Jeb whirled on Leric, “No! You promised me safe travel. For both of them!”
Leric looked to Thesscore and shrugged innocently. “I remember she mentioned horses, but nothing about guarantees.”
Jeb pulled off his backpack, dug through it for the parchment he had found abandoned in the street and handed it to Thesscore, who in turn handed the thin animal skin to Leric, but Lord Ravnos stepped in.
“Giv
en the circumstances, I think I should read it for you, Wulf.”
Lord Ravnos unrolled the parchment and muttered as he read. “Housing, food, durable clothing,” He smirked. “With a provision to replace them if the trews aren’t durable enough.”
“Trews?”
Jeb shrugged. “Barring a fire, I don’t ride horses in a dress.”
Ravnos was still reading. “Pay is very reasonable, downright cheap, but the guarantees - including safe travel for him and all his belongings -- both to Thesscore and when you are done -- are in here. Your liegeman did promise on your behalf, Wulf.”
“I won’t stay in this wretched town long enough to wean a colt,” Thesscore growled, then glanced at the men around him and added to Jeb, “These men have missed their ladies long enough.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Ravnos said as he rolled the parchment up. “We’ll take a barge up the Cauda River. Get my men home, Wulf, and I’ll get this package safe to Thesscore on my own way home.”
“That meet with your approval?” Thesscore asked Jeb.
Jeb slowly nodded, still eying Lord Ravnos. The others had missed it, but the lord had looked at Jeb, in a dress with makeup painted on his face, and called Jeb him.
Chapter Twelve – A Strong Work Ethic
When Chad stepped into the castle, he found Prince Pious and a squad of archers waiting for him.
“I asked King Oberon if I could have Lord Thesscore filled with arrows and he said it was up to you. So,” Pious said with an eager grin, “are you ready for us to teach them a lesson?”
Chad’s smile was thin. It was tempting to vent his anger and justify it later, as he had with the boy -- with the girl in the library, but that wasn't the kind of lord he wanted to be. That wasn't the kind of man Lauren wanted him to be.
“Thank you for the loyalty, but no. The duel was legal and I can't find fault with it.”
