"Monstrous awkward for you!" exclaimed Thorolf.
"Awkward indeed!" Yvette shuddered. "I, a slender lass of scarce sixteen, had to roll that great carcass ... Howsomever, that is the reason I am acting Countess."
"How gat you into Duke Gondomar's bad book?"
"A few years after Volk died in vain pursuit of his youth, my sire, upon his deathbed, promised me to Gondomar. But I, misliking the arrogant brute, threw his marriage contract in his face and refused to wed him. After my father's funeral, Gondomar came back with his army, vowing to bed me with or without the Divine Pair's blessing.
"I let it be known that I'd slay any man who sought to futter me against my will, if it meant stabbing him in his sleep. I beat off his first attempt, and for years I lived behind my castle walls, like a captive or cloistered nun. Last month the Duke returned and this time prevailed."
"Strange that a lady of your qualities and demesne did not find a hundred would-be spouses rattling her castle gates!"
"Oh, I've had offers aplenty, but none that suited," Yvette replied disdainfully. "My next husband must be, imprimus, of noble rank; secundus, a shrewd and mettlesome man of affairs, able at running the county; and tertius, a poet who can ensorcel me with romantical fancies. And, it goes without saying, a strong-loined lover and a man who will heed my advice in county matters."
Thorolf whistled. "Even one of our pagan gods were hard-pressed to meet your requirements! Certes I could not, though I used to compose a few versicles. But one cannot live on poetry in Rhaetia, where merchants and bankers rule."
"You a poet? Ha, can your horse play the lute? 'Twere no more credible. Pray give an ensample!"
"Let me think." While he pondered, the chirp of birds dwindled to silence with the fading of light. A cricket struck up its shrill song, while overhead an early flittermouse whirred. At last Thorolf spoke:
-
"My lady, the mistress of Castle Contentious,
Is hunting a husband of standing pretentious;
But I, a plain wight of opinions sententious,
Am loath to embark on a lifetime dissentious!"
-
"Ouch!" he exclaimed as Yvette boxed his right ear. "What's that for?"
"Insolent malapert! You, a commoner, jesting that had I the absurdity to offer you my hand, you'd have the effrontery to reject my proposal! Had you voiced such a thought in my demesne—"
"But we are not in your demesne. And if you seek to treat me as one of your serfs, you may wend afoot for all I care."
Yvette subsided, though Thorolf caught a murmur that resembled the expletives of a fishmonger who found he had taken counterfeit coins for his wares. As they rode on in silence, the soldier began to suspect that despite her notable virtues, the Countess was lacking in humor. He wondered what had happened to the knights in the old romances and the ladies fair who decked them with silken scarves and meekly awaited their return from adventures. Meekness was certainly not the style of Yvette of Grintz.
At last she spoke again, in normal tones: "Pray understand, good my soldier, that I could never entertain a proposal of marriage from one of your class. The fact that you have worked for wages debars you forever from alliance with one of noble blood."
Thorolf raised an eyebrow. "What is so demeaning about earning an honest living?"
"That you do so doth you credit; but a noble must devote all his strength to the welfare of those whom the Divine Pair have placed beneath his rule, leaving no time to toil for gain. He must strain at the practice of arms each day, whilst his lady spends her waking hours in the conduct of their establishment. Knowst the tale of Count Helfram of Trongai?"
"What befell him?"
"As a result of untimely misfortunes, he found himself unable to pay his servants to man the castle. Indeed, he could not even buy sufficient food to feed his family. So he donned a bogus beard, went to town, and persuaded the local taverner to hire him as bartender.
"All went well until one day a drunken customer, seeking a quarrel, remarked on the barkeep's piggy eyes and other features that the fellow deemed obnoxious. Count Helfram, unused to insolence, slapped the man's face, whereupon the drunkard seized the false beard and tore it off.
"The other folk recognized their Count and rose as one to hurl the drunkard into the street. But the tale took wings, until the King of Carinthia, hearing the rumor, ruled that Helfram had forfeited his rank, and the king appointed a new Count from another branch of the family. The last I heard, poor Helfram was still tending bar at the tavern, whither people came from afar to gape at a nobleman toiling like a commoner."
"Then," said Thorolf cheerfully, "I count myself lucky to have no noble rank to lose. We must hasten, for the dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth, as saith the man in Helmanax's play."
He heeled his horse to stir the beast to further effort. After they had ridden in silence for a time, Yvette continued:
"At all events, I would never marry a Rhaetian. You're an unromantic lot, whose only knights are those little tin figurines that pop out of your clocks to mark the hours. None could essay the doughty deeds of romances."
Thorolf laughed. "Suppose a knight engaged in such deeds in this modern world! If he slew a dragon, he'd be arrested by the game warden for hunting out of season, as I believe once truly befell a Locanian knight in Pathenia, not long ago. If he snatched a maiden from an enchanter vile, the mage would hale him to law on charges of abduction. If he even sang a roundelay beneath his true love's casement window, the song's composer would demand a royalty."
"A typical Rhaetian argument," retorted Yvette, "mired in base practicality! A sorry world we live in!" After a pause she asked: "For what goal, pray, do you strive?"
Thorolf frowned thoughtfully. "To settle, once and for all, the authorship of the Tyrrhenian play, Il Bast-mento dai Pazzi, doubtfully attributed to Goldinu."
"You would waste your life in thumbing dusty manuscripts to settle some obscure pedantic dispute?"
Thorolf shrugged. "To me it's more fun than standing daily in the drill yard and bawling at my company: 'About—face! Forward—march! Hartmund, get in step!' "
"Either were better than turning brigand, I ween," she said. "But this merely reinforces my point: that you are a typical stolid, avaricious, unromantic Rhaetian. As a noblewoman's consort, you'd be as out of place as a pig in a horse race."
"Avaricious?" Thorolf gave his most irritating chuckle. "My sire complains that I be not mercenary enough. And whilst we're trading flatteries, as a wife you'd be as useful to a soldier as slippers to a serpent. I fear, my dear Countess, you'll search the wide world over without finding your notion of a suitable spouse."
Yvette sighed. "Whilst I loathe to concede a point, you may be right. Many I've seen with one or another of my qualifications, but never one who met all. Me-thought I'd found my mate in a handsome troubadour who boasted blue blood and showed a promising grasp of county management; but he soon moved on."
"The scurvy lown!" said Thorolf suppressing a grin. He felt he understood the troubadour.
"Pray, treat all I've said as secret. I should not have so confided in a stranger, and a commoner at that; but my sire did ever chide me on my runaway tongue."
"Your secrets are safe with me. And now good news." He pointed ahead. "Yonder lies Vulfilac's smithy, around the bend."
-
The mare picked up her ears, as if sensing the journey's end, and trotted smartly over the remaining distance. She drew up before a pair of doors that led into the forge.
Thorolf dismounted and lifted Yvette off. She stood disheveled, clutching Thorolf's cloak around herself and the coronet.
"Wait here," he said. "I would not startle Vulfilac by your unforewarned appearance."
Thorolf strode into the smithy, where the firelight danced to the beat of hammered metal, while sparks flew out the open portal into the night like fugitive crimson fireflies. Inside the doors, a vestibule led to the smith's small dwelling, huddled against the mu
ch larger workplace.
"Aha, Sergeant Thorolf!" boomed the giant smith. "Glad to see you am I!" He continued to pound a bar of red-hot iron, which he held on the anvil by tongs. Setting hammer and tongs aside, he called to the boy who was pumping the bellows: "Take a rest, son. We have a visitor."
"Two visitors," said Thorolf, embracing his gigantic friend despite the smith's sooty face and forearms. Presently the two men came out and hastened toward Yvette. Thorolf said: "Countess, I present my trusted friend Vulfilac Smith. He has some clothes for you."
The smith bowed as Yvette smiled, saying: "Your health, goodman! Where are these garments?"
"In my poor house, your Highness. Will ye step thither?"
In the smithy, they passed a great rack of tools: tongs, files, and hammers with heads of various shapes, round, pointed, and wedged. Unlatching a small door, the smith led his guests into the common room of his dwelling. He unlocked an ancient armoire, mumbling:
"I've kept my goodwife's things for sentiment; but ye are welcome to any or all, my lady."
Smiling, Yvette approached the wardrobe and, still clutching her coronet beneath the cloak, began to rummage. Studying a bodice, she said:
"Methinks your late wife was fuller of breast than I."
"Aye, and taller, too, the gods preserve her soul."
"Amen," said Yvette. "Had she hosen and shoon?"
"Aye." The smith opened drawers beneath the cupboards.
"Splendid!" said Yvette, rummaging anew. "Goodman, your generosity shall be well repaid when I obtain the wherewithal. Meanwhile my thanks must suffice."
The smith gazed at the little countess with the awe of one who beheld Rianna, the goddess of love. "If— if your Highness mind not our simple rustic fare ..."
"You offer to dine us? Mind? I embrace your offer; hungry as I am, your simplest repast were a banquet. Now I beg your leave, good people, to dress."
The men withdrew, the smith to the cookhouse, Thorolf to stable and feed his horse.
--
When Thorolf returned, Vulfilac was ladling stew into bowls while his son carved a loaf of black bread into slices. Yvette waited, clad as the complete goodwife, with a flounced petticoat showing below her skirt. Below the petticoat were red wool stockings and stout leather sollerets. On her head was a barillet, a miniature turban held in place by a wimple beneath her chin. Handing Thorolf his cloak and shirt, she spoke:
"Friends, the stars do shine and I do starve. Let the feast begin!"
-
The repast was nearly done when Yvette held up the coronet. "Goodman Vulfilac, canst find me an old cloth wherein to wrap this thing? It were folly to flaunt it in town."
"Aye," said the smith. "Son, attend to the matter." Waving his spoon, he continued the talk of his trade: "As I was saying, it takes a sharp judgment to tell the heat of iron by its color. Ye start hammering when it glows a buttercup yellow and keep on till it cools to dark red. If ye smite it thereafter, 'tis labor wasted. But if ye heat it up to white, so that it shoots out sparkles, then ye've overheated the piece and spoilt it. It were good for nought but scrap, to be melted up again ..." The smith turned toward the door. "What's that?"
Outside, horsemen were dismounting. "Gondomar's men!" Yvette exclaimed. "What shall I do?"
"Out the scullery door, quick!" snapped Thorolf. "Hide in the woods. Hold the forge door with me, Vulfilac."
"Show her the way, lad!" said Vulfilac. The boy gathered up the bundle he had made of the coronet. He and the Countess fled hand in hand. The shouts and hammering grew more insistent as Thorolf picked up his sword and followed Vulfilac into the smithy, where the smith chose four heavy hammers off the wall.
They reached the open door to be confronted by five men; behind them a sixth held their horses. Four of the five grasped swords, while the fifth cradled a cocked crossbow. The leader was a heavy-set man wearing a white surcoat over his leather, metal-studded cuirass. On the chest of this garment was broidered an emblem, but the man wore his surcoat inside out so that the patch was hidden.
"Where is the Countess Yvette?" barked this man.
"We know nought of that lady," said Thorolf.
"Liar! We tracked her to the pool on the Rissel whereat ye fished, and anon a peasant saw her riding pillion behind you. Say where she be and we'll not harm you twain."
"I cannot tell you what I do not know," retorted Thorolf. "So be off with you!"
Vulfilac added: " 'Tis an unseemly time to be pounding an honest workman's door—"
"Take them!" said the leader, pointing with his sword.
The four swordsmen advanced in a semicircle; but as they closed in to pass beneath the lintel, they crowded one another. Vulfilac hurled one of his hammers. With a crunch, it struck the nearest raider in the face and threw him prone and still, his face a mask of blood.
Swords clanged and grated. Thorolf found himself hotly engaged with two of the swordsmen, one of them the leader, while the remaining swordsman danced about just beyond reach of the smith's hammers. Vulfilac made another throw, but the swordsman ducked.
"Get away and give me a clear shot!" cried the crossbowman in the rear.
Another thrown hammer caught Vulfilac's opponent in the belly and sent him reeling, doubled over and retching. One of Thorolf's two looked around for his comrade. Thorolf, till then compelled to remain on the defensive, took advantage of the pause to skewer him of the surcoat with a coupe; his blade punched through the leather corselet into the flesh beneath. The man folded up with a groan. The other swordsman found both the sergeant and the smith advancing upon him.
He ran back, while the crossbowman leveled his weapon. Without armor, Thorolf felt naked. At that range, the bolt would tear through his guts like a skewer through butter. Beside him, Vulfilac wound up to throw his last hammer.
The crossbowman backed away, swinging his weapon so that it bore first upon one antagonist and then the other. At that moment a small figure appeared in the dusk behind the arbalester. The newcomer picked up one of the thrown hammers, lofted it high, and smote the crossbowman's head from behind. The arbalester collapsed.
The raider who had been struck in the belly scuttled painfully to the horses. The unwounded swordsman and the groom who had held the animals boosted him into the saddle. Leading three riderless animals, the survivors cantered off. Holding the hammer she had wielded, Yvette came forward into the light from the smithy with the smith's son.
"Countess!" chided Thorolf. "I told you to hide in the woods!"
"One of my blood," she replied with dignity, "skulks not in hiding whilst her defenders risk their lives for her."
"A good thing she disobeyed you, Thorolf," growled the smith as he collected his hammers. "Without her aid, one or t'other of us would have gat a bolt in's brisket."
Thorolf was kneeling to examine the bodies. He rose, saying, "This one, too, seems safely dead. Let's pile the carrion out back and cover them. The constables will take them in charge after I report to them on the morrow. That was a mighty blow for one so delicate, Countess."
"The strength of desperation, I ween," said Yvette. Pointing to the corpse in the surcoat, she added: "I know that knave: a captain of Gondomar's guard. If you turn back his coat, you will see the red boar of Landai. His survivors will flee back to the Duke, who will set another party on my trail. Ere they return, you must discover me a wizard who can change my appearance, so I cannot be readily tracked. Couldst lead me to the one in Zurshnitt, whereof you told me, this very night?"
"Nay, my lady," said the soldier. "It's above an hour hence to town. All doors are already latched and barred. We must tarry here till dawn on a patch of floor with, perchance, a mattress and a coverlet from our friend."
"Better yet," said Vulfilac. "Your Ladyship shall have my bed!"
"A generous offer," she said, patting a yawn. "I am fordone. May I see this bed?"
"Up this ladder, madam."
Yvette, carrying her coronet, and Thorolf climbed into the loft, the
smith following with a candle. Yvette said: "A vasty bed, Goodman Vulfilac."
"My wife's and mine. Now I sleep with the lad; but he shall make do elsewhere, as shall I."
"So huge a bed with but one small occupant were wasteful and ridiculous. One of you shall take the other half."
Thorolf and Vulfilac exchanged glances. Thorolf said: "It would grieve me to oust a friend from's bed. I'll take the floor."
"Nay!" boomed the smith. "As host I have the final say, and I assign myself to the floor."
They argued until Yvette said: "A pox upon your courtesies! I've camped in the field with my soldiers, so bed sharing is nought new to me. My judgment is that you shall flip a coin."
The Pixilated Peeress Page 2
