Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor

by Mercedes Lackey

  As he knew very well, the Chronicles could be extremely caustic at times, and no one really wanted to see himself, his presumed or even actual motivations, and his failures, stripped bare and put down in uncompromising writing.

  In his opinion, a young person didn’t have the perspective nor the experience to write what needed to be written. So there, again, Myste was fully qualified. Appointing her as Chronicler Second would solve the problem of what to do with her very neatly indeed.

  Dethor abruptly came back to himself. “I believe that will work,” he said, as if Alberich had been privy to whatever thoughts were going on in his mind. “You’re going out in the city tonight?”

  “No other choice, have I,” Alberich replied with a shrug. “Much result, I do not expect, but sow silver I must, a harvest of villainy to reap.”

  In this, at least, he was able to aid Valdemar with a clear conscience. In disguise, one of half a dozen personae he had concocted and established, he prowled the less-savory quarters of Haven, looking for trouble. “Trouble” came in various guises, but money usually lured it out of hiding. The money wasn’t bribes—Alberich was more subtle than that. Sometimes he posed as someone looking for a particular sort of creature to hire, sometimes as a bully-boy looking for work himself. Sometimes he bought information, and sometimes sold it. In all cases, there was nothing to connect the less-than-honest characters he portrayed in the seedy drinking houses and alleyways with Herald Alberich, the Weaponsmaster’s Second. There was some benefit in having a scarred and scowling countenance that looked the very acme of villainy. If there wasn’t a woman born who’d give him a second look, no one looked askance at him in a low-class bar either.

  And fortunately, there were enough foreigners in Haven that his accent caused only a little comment, and no one recognized it as Karsite. Most accepted his story that he came from Ruvan, Brendan, or Jkatha. All three were so far away he might just as well have told the inquisitive that he was from the moon. Virtually anything he claimed would be believed. The only people who might know better would be true Guild Mercenaries, and so far he’d never seen one of those in Haven. They weren’t needed here; Valdemar fielded its own standing army of full-time soldiers, called the Guard, and always had. Even Guild Mercenaries didn’t bother to go where there was no need of them.

  “Well, you be careful out there tonight,” Dethor said, putting down his empty tankard. Alberich automatically refilled it for him from the pitcher on the table between them and raised an eyebrow. Dethor wasn’t known for having the Gift of ForeSight, but one never knew. “A reason for the warning, you have?” he asked carefully.

  But Dethor only shook his head. “Not really. It’s just that it’s been quiet, and it’s usually quiet just before there’s a lot of trouble.”

  “And trouble then comes in threes,” Alberich agreed gloomily. “And a full moon there is tonight. I shall walk carefully.”

  “Full moon.” Dethor groaned. “You’re going to get into a brawl tonight, aren’t you?”

  Alberich felt his muscles tighten with automatic anticipation. He suppressed his reaction as much as he could. Dethor was very good at reading body language.

  “Probably.” Alberich shrugged with an indifference he didn’t entirely feel. A bar fight would at least give him something on which to take out his frustration. He always slept better after being able to pound some villain’s face into the floor. The wretches that tried to pick on him were at least as bad as he pretended to be. The only reason they were at the tavern instead of jail was that they hadn’t been caught at anything lately, and they well deserved whatever punishment Vkandis decreed they meet at the hands of His transplanted worshiper.

  :Oh, very nice reasoning,: Kantor said, with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  “Try not to give the Healers any more work, will you?” Dethor requested with resignation. “They had a few words for me the last time you needed patching up, and since I couldn’t tell them why you’d gotten cut up, they assumed I’d been working you and Kimel with live steel and you’d gotten the worst of it. So, of course, it was my fault.”

  “That, I can promise,” Alberich replied, gathering up all the supper dishes and placing them in the empty basket. “For that the wretches whose bones I break, seeking a Healer would not be, ever. Too fearful would they be, that in seeking Healing, it would be justice they found.” With a salute to Dethor, he left the rest unsaid, and headed for the door. He couldn’t help it; there were frustrations in him that were crying out for release. He wouldn’t look for a fight, but if one came to him—

  He sensed Kantor’s sigh.

  He left the basket just outside the door to their quarters for a servant to collect, and went out into the flooding light of the full moon to saddle Kantor. His Companion was waiting for him at the special stable only the Companions used.

  Just inside the door was the tack room, but Kantor’s gear was all stowed on racks near his stall, just as it was for every Companion who resided primarily at the Collegium. On a warm summer night like this one, all the half-doors on the stalls were open to the night air, and with all of the moonlight pouring in, the lanterns weren’t needed at all.

  They were quite alone in the stable, which suited Alberich’s mood perfectly. :You’ve told Taver and Talamir we’re going out tonight?: he asked Kantor, throwing only the plainest and most basic of saddle pads and blankets over Kantor’s back.

  :Of course.: Kantor looked back over his shoulder as Alberich tightened the girth. :We’re going out the private entrance?:

  :Of course.: Alberich swung up into the saddle, and they made their way across the Field. Kantor’s hooves made no sound at all on the soft grass; they moved across the silver expanse like a pair of spirits gliding over the surface of a silent sea.

  There was a little gate at the far end of the wall around Companion’s Field that would have been a dreadful security hole had it not been closed by three doors—the final one of iron cunningly cast to look exactly like the rusty-brown stone that the wall itself was made of. Only Talamir, Sendar, and Dethor had held the keys to those doors, and Dethor had given his to Alberich. Furthermore, the iron one was so heavy that it required a Companion’s strength to haul it open from the outside, and it wasn’t likely that anyone with a horse or a mule was going to be able to get along the outer wall of the Palace without a challenge. And then a would-be intruder would have to get his mount to push instead of pull. Not too likely, that. It was an amazingly clever door, that actually could swing in an entire one-hundred-eighty-degree arc—but there was a springloaded stop on it that worked as a fairly high doorsill to keep it from swinging outward; a stop that could only be dropped down level to the ground from the inside. So Kantor could push it to swing out when they were on the inside, but no one could pull it out from the outside. Locking the door released it again, and as Alberich turned his key in that final lock, he heard it smack up into place on its spring.

  There was no one on the road, but several times he looked up to see one of the Guards keeping watch on the wall, so well hidden in the shadows that only he, who knew every hiding place along it, could have spotted them. He nodded to them, and got a little hand signal in recognition. The Palace Guard, at least, now knew and trusted him.

  Of course, he’d trained a good many of them, and bouted regularly with all of them. You learned a lot about a man, sparring with him. Once Kimel had accepted him, the rest had started coming around.

  He wasn’t in Whites tonight—and that would have made him instantly recognizable to the Guards no matter what. He could have Whites if he wanted them . . . but he didn’t want them. He’d become accustomed to those dark gray leathers; they suited him, suited his nature, suited his wish to be something less conspicuous.

  :As if you could be anything other than conspicuous,: Kantor scoffed.

  :When I’m with you, perhaps not,: he acknowledged. :You are rather conspicuous all by yourself.:

  By alleys and shortcuts that only he knew, he
and Kantor slipped quietly among the mansions of the highborn, through the townhouses of the wealthy, and suddenly came out on a side street in a neighborhood of inns and taverns. They were only paces away from the Companion’s Bell, a respectable inn that was their intermediate goal.

  Alberich felt that tightening of his muscles again, and a quickening of his pulse. It was time to go to work, work that he understood, work that he, and only he, could do.

  The Bell had several distinct advantages for what he was about to do. Firstly, it was a place often frequented by Heralds, so the sight of a Companion in a loose-box would not go remarked, nor would the sight of Alberich entering the stableyard. Second, the Heralds had a private taproom available to them—Heralds could and did mingle with the regular customers, but no one would think twice about Alberich not appearing among them, for plenty of Heralds who came here kept to the private room.

  Ah, but then there was the third reason. . . .

  He dismounted, and Kantor followed him into the stable. There were two other Companions there already, who whickered a welcome to both of them. :Excellent,: Kantor said. :I shall have reinforcements—if you need them.:

  Alberich snorted, and left Kantor to make himself at home in a third loose-box as he approached the far wall, and the third reason for his being here.

  The third reason for his being here and no other place, was that the Bell had a locked room at the back of the stable that contained a trunk, and had a second locked door that let out onto an alley. A very dark alley, and one that, somehow, never had patrols of constables or City Guard at night.

  He unlocked the door. He paused just long enough to light a spill at the lantern beside the door, then locked himself inside. There was a second lantern there, which he lit.

  In that trunk had been Dethor’s disguises; now it held Alberich’s.

  Someone else—Alberich thought it was probably the innkeeper himself—had a key to that room, for any clothing he left atop the trunk was taken away and laundered and placed back inside it. Some disguises, of course, shouldn’t be cleaned—the stains and yes, the odor lent verisimilitude to his persona. Those he put back in the trunk himself, wrapped in a waxed canvas bag to keep from stinking up the rest of his gear.

  Tonight, however, it was about time for Aarak Benshane, a common enough thug with a reputation for not asking too many questions of prospective employers, to put in an appearance at the Blue Boar. Aarak was not too noisome a fellow; Alberich could get away with cleanliness tonight.

  Alberich opened the trunk and selected his disguise with care; leather trews, battered boots and hat, scarred black leather jerkin strong enough to turn most blades, and a shirt of no particular color that was a bit frayed about the cuffs and collar. Over these, he slung a belt holding two knives, but no sword. Aarak did most of his work with his fists.

  :That should suit you, considering the mood you’re in.: Kantor was not being ironic nor sarcastic this time.

  :As a matter of fact,: Alberich replied, :it does.:

  By day, the tavern that was his goal, the Boar, was a quiet enough tavern, serving manual laborers at the nearby warehouses. At night, however, it took on a rougher clientele. Some of the laborers returned to drink away their earnings, and they were joined by others, for whom the warehouses were of less-than-legitimate interest. Aarak fit right in there; he might hire himself out as a day laborer, if he was inclined to do manual labor, or forced into it, but he would far rather serve as the lookout for thugs who planned a little late-night looting.

  Alberich let himself out into the alley. It was dark back there, shadowed on both sides by tall buildings, but he knew his way around Haven even in pitchy black. He kept to the alleys for the most part, only crossing streets when he had to, and at length, found himself in the warehouse area where the Boar stood.

  There was a lot of coming and going around a warehouse, and no one asked what was being stored there very often. And, of course, warehouses were full of things that were already packed for transportation; what could be more attractive and easier for a bold gang of thieves?

  Alberich had been recruited by such gangs, once or twice, though never out of the Blue Boar, and never as Aarak. He had hopes, though, and he nursed his thin, sour beer at a table here several times a moon, waiting to see if his patient fishing would catch him another gang of thieves.

  He opened the door quietly. It wasn’t a good idea to make any kind of an entrance into the Boar. There were always people there who would take that sort of hubris amiss.

  Flash of blue—a tangle of thrashing bodies on the floor—

  He paused, just inside the door, and caught himself.

  Damn. Come on. Don’t show anything, or you’re dead. He shoved on inside the door on strength of will, until his vision cleared and he could pretend that he hadn’t just had a flash of ForeSight.

  The regular servers knew him by now, or at least, they knew Aarak’s distinctive hat. He caught the eye of one, nodded at a vacant table off to one side of the room, and took his seat there. Within a reasonable length of time, the server appeared with a jack of beer.

  Despite Kantor’s needling, he’d had a few hopes that someone might try to recruit him tonight—a full moon now meant moon-dark in a fortnight, and moon-dark meant the possibility of work.

  But the truth was, from the moment he’d crossed the threshold, he knew that Dethor had been right about a tavern brawl in the offing. Even if he hadn’t gotten that brief—very brief—glimpse of a tumble of fighting bodies on the floor of the place from his ForeSight, he’d have known it. There was something in the air tonight, something wild and edgy, something that made Kantor, back in his stall, prick up his ears and ask wordlessly, and in all seriousness this time, if Alberich thought he’d need any help.

  Alberich never actually got a chance to reply. He was just starting on the first swallow of his beer, when the fight erupted over a card cheat, three tables down.

  The cheater had friends, and the friends waded in, and Alberich saw—

  Flash of blue—

  The fight was only a pretext to rob the only person here with any real cash. That was the owner of the Blue Boar himself.

  Three people swarming the bar, as combat seemed to thrust them toward it by accident.

  He came to himself long enough to dodge out of the way of a tumbling body, and shoved his hand into a special belt pouch he always wore as Aarak. It held weighted knuckle guards, his preferred weapon for brawling. He didn’t like using blades in a brawl—he was there to immobilize people, not kill them. No point in killing them, when, if they were what he really wanted, he wanted them alive, to question.

  Another flash of blue, freezing him for a moment.

  The three thieves—he assumed that was what they were—waited for the fight to reach the bar and then threw themselves over it, the surprised tavern owner trying to get out of the way as they all three landed atop him. There were short, heavy clubs in their hands.

  They clubbed the tavernkeeper senseless.

  Alberich shook his head to free it of the vision, as shouts and cries of pain marked the center of the brawl. A drunk, stinking of beer, blundered into him and made a wild swing at him.

  And that was just enough. Alberich sprang into motion, like a mastiff held leashed and suddenly released. A savage grin with nothing of joy in it split his face. He ducked under the other’s swing and gut-punched the drunk with his laden fist, stepping out of the way and shoving him to one side to topple him before he spewed the contents of his stomach all over everything in front of him.

  Flash of blue, and he saw the three thieves vault over the bar and make off with the cash box while a larger fight still engaged the bouncers and everyone else they could draw in.

  That was it; that was all his ForeSight showed him. But it was enough. When his eyes cleared for the third time, he saw the three men beginning to make their way towards the bar.

  Ha. Another drunk approached, got one look at his face, and flinched a
way. Alberich shoved him aside, straight-armed another, shouldered into a third.

  And when the three would-be robbers reached their goal, he was already there, waiting.

  They only saw one more temporary obstacle in their path, and moved to clear it.

  They weren’t very good with their lead-weighted clubs, which was probably why the clubs were weighted in the first place. And they hadn’t practiced fighting as a team either. He managed to get the first two to tangle each other up for a moment, by grabbing the first and shoving him bodily into the arms of the second. They weren’t expecting anyone to reach for them—

  While the first two were shouting and tripping over each other, he stepped in toward the third, came in low, and laid out his target with a brass-laden right to the point of the chin.

  His fist connected solidly, with a satisfying impact that snapped the fellow’s head back and sent him sailing across the floor to land over a table. It didn’t break, of course. The tavernkeeper didn’t want the expense of replacing furniture every moon. The Boar’s tables and chairs would stand up to a charging bull and the bull would come away second best.

  Now he felt it, that heady pleasure—which would be a guilty one, later, when he came to think about it—that rush of energy and unholy glee that only came during a fight. Fighting-drunk; that was what Dethor called it, for it wasn’t

  the berserk rage that wiped out thought and sense. On the contrary, it made him sharper, and he enjoyed it when he was fighting in a way that would make him feel a bit ashamed of himself later. But now, it widened his manic grin and filled his veins with lightning.

  When the first two got clear of each other, he grabbed them both and shoved their heads together with a crack that echoed even over the noise of the brawl. One went down; the other didn’t.

  He was stunned, though—stunned just long enough.

  Alberich grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face forward; pulled back his fist, and delivered a gut-punch that made the fool’s eyes bug out as he toppled to the floor.

  He looked around for the trio’s friends, the ones he’d seen in his vision, but they, seeing that the cash snatchers were down and out and there was no reason to continue the fight any further, began breaking free of their little knots of combat and scuttling away.