By Huma, she was good! I cast a glance over the book and at the bulldog trying desperately to look appealing. Alfric’s attention was no longer upon his knife. He was squirming, all right. I smirked into my pages.
“Well, Jaffa was restoring thatch to our roof—thatch where the mysterious fire touched it only a month gone by.”
It was Alfric’s turn to smirk, to look far too revealingly in my direction. I buried myself behind the cover of the book.
After all, I had never intended for that fire get out of hand.
The old bag continued, blissfully caught up in her unfolding tale of bloodshed.
“And this knight dismounts—oh, we had heard about him, about Sir Raven, as he goes by in the villages, about the demands for cheeses and livestock and the virtue of our daughters. And still we never thought he would come our way! But does a body ever think so until evil is at his doorstep?
“Anyway, the knight asks for cheese, and I want you to know that Jaffa, who was sliding down off of the roof when the gentleman asked, was fixing to give him that cheese and give it gladly, thinking he must be one of your family or friends or somehow connected to this house. But then Sir Raven asks for Ruby, our cow, and Jaffa figures who he is and stands still.”
“Still, but not defying him or mouthing at him in any way,” piped a younger voice out of the crowd gathered behind the old woman. Had they arranged this beforehand?
I was eager to ask about the mysterious knight, to know if he spoke in a voice that was low and soft and dangerous. But I couldn’t do that. Asking about him would reveal that I knew more than I was telling. I lifted my eyes from the book as the bulldog gave up and waddled over to where Alfric was sitting. It seemed that everyone was asking for trouble this morning.
“As the girl says: not defying him, mind you, but standing still until the knight grows itchy, asking for Ruby again, but this time not as much asking as telling, if you understand. Then he asks after Agnes, and only then does Jaffa answer him back with hard words.
“Agnes herself come to tell you that this is the fact,” the old bag said, and brought forth a pasty-faced, frog-eyed blonde about my age and twice my size, the very one who had been piping up behind her like some husky chorus. Jaffa’s wife or daughter? I neither knew nor cared. Whichever, the visitor would have done better to have snatched up Ruby the cow.
This Agnes took up the story where it had been left off, lumbering up to the forefront of the crowd, clutching a bloody shirt in her hands.
I confess, it was a bit too much for me.
“It’s just as the goodwife says, Your Knightship,” the girl whimpered, wringing the stained shirt in her heavy hands. “Jaffa just stands there. Then he drawed his knife and says to Sir Raven, he says, ‘High-born though ye may be, ye’ll not touch a hair of the girl.’ Those was his words entirely, or may the gods blight my family unto five generations.”
All of them seemed eager to put their families at stake. I could sympathize with that ploy.
We heard the rest of the story from the old woman. How Jaffa stood fast, how words progressed to shouting, shouting to blows, and blows to a quickly drawn sword slipped clumsily into the peasant’s chest. After she had finished, there followed the usual weeping in front of the lord of the manor, six versions of the same story (all with the same unhappy ending), and the displaying of the helpless survivors—the old woman herself, the daughter (or wife—whatever). The peasants even offered to bring in Ruby (as the old woman put it, “the cow in question”) if it would soften Father’s heart the more.
Father’s face reddened as he listened to the outrages. Brithelm, too, was beside himself with sympathy. Alfric twitched and kicked the unfortunate bulldog, as Father promised retribution.
“Upon my honor as a Knight,” he claimed, hand on his sword, “I shall not rest until these wrongs have been righted, until the villain stands before me and receives punishment, until all those whose exploits touched upon these foul deeds are punished.”
And sure enough, as the peasants left in a flood of tears and worries and bless you, sirs, as they were leading the bereaved Agnes and the cow in question across the rickety moat bridge that the servants were too cowed to mend or even mind, Father turned upon my eldest brother.
“Set aside that dagger and look at me, boy.”
A quick glance told me that the boy at issue was Alfric, and I settled behind my book again, to listen and to enjoy.
“There is no answer to this in the duty of father to son, of son to father. Perhaps I have been too soft in dealing with you over the weeks, but the gods forgive me, I thought that nothing truly ill had come of this negligence. That indeed we were guilty of betraying the promises of host to guest, and though in the old days no punishment was severe enough for such betrayals, these are the new days, when the eye is inclined to blink at those misdeeds not … capital.”
He rose to his feet, and somehow in the morning light he seemed to take on a little of that stature and bearing he must have had before we were born, when he was counted among Coastlund’s finest before the declining years caught up with him and retired him to our little out-of-the-way estate.
He must have looked that way years ago, and by the gods, he must have been formidable! Had he asked questions then, I might well have spilled the story—told of my every misdeed with the Scorpion and even some things that happened years ago, simply because it looked as though he could see right through us and would punish us even more fiercely if we lied.
But Father was finished with questions. “That is no longer the case,” he continued. “You have done a terrible thing that becomes more terrible with time. Be it negligence or worse, for deeds such as this, the Measure alone provides the answer, The Measure and the Code.”
Father stared at the floor, stared ever so long before speaking again.
“I have no other choice. Would that it were otherwise, but my options have gone out.” He raised his sword in the formal Solamnic salute.
“Until Sir Bayard Brightblade of Vingaard, Knight of Solamnia, returns the thief, the false wearer of his armor, to our hands for trial and execution, I must confine my eldest son, Alfric Pathwarden, to the dungeon of these premises until we may determine a just and fitting punishment for his disgraceful actions in this matter. Within those forsaken walls, I hope my son will reflect upon his part in the crimes that have blotted the name of our family and of the Solamnic Order.”
I must admit I never thought Father had it in him. I looked at Brithelm, who shrugged and cast his gaze skyward. Alfric, on the other hand, was too astounded to do anything but laugh. And laugh he did at first, shaking his head in disbelief, kicking the bulldog once more, who, having finally caught on, lumbered over to Brithelm for safety and consolation.
Alfric stopped laughing as it finally sunk in that no matter how preposterous the punishment sounded, Father was not joking. Sobering, my brother tried to say something—anything—that would express his own indignity. All that issued forth was some sort of nasal bleating, as though somewhere out near the stables the servants were shearing a sheep.
Father stared unwaveringly at his first-born, his heir. “If you only knew,” he stated flatly, mournfully, “how grave a disappointment your actions have been to me, Alfric, that knowledge would be punishment enough.”
“Whaaaa,” my brother responded. The bulldog watched curiously from beneath Brithelm’s chair.
“But you have no more knowledge of honor, of responsibility, of penance, than … than …” Father’s eyes searched the room angrily, “than that bulldog crouched over there under Brithelm.” He pointed at the bulldog, who cringed.
“Whaaaa,” Alfric bellowed, and I couldn’t help it. I began to snicker. The angry stare turned suddenly, forcefully, in my direction.
I could guess how the men of Neraka had felt when my father was young, guarding passes.
“And seeing as my youngest son, your brother Galen, has not accorded himself in a manner to be entirely above suspici
on, he shall join you in this period of confinement, until the facts are before us and we can see where all the blame might lie.”
“But, Father!” I began to plead. A panic-stricken sidelong glance at Alfric revealed a slow grin erasing his outrage and fear. We would be alone down in the dungeon, alone and out of earshot. And Alfric with yet another offense he could blame on me.
All I could do was stammer.
“But, Father! B-but, Father!”
Speechless for once. No better than Alfric.
The dungeon smelled of mold and oak and soured wine. I huddled in a corner in the dark. Then I moved toward the center of the far wall, still as far away from Alfric as possible without digging my way to freedom—which, of course, would be the first thing on the agenda if I survived the brotherly attentions that were sure to come.
Father stood in the doorway with Brithelm and Gileandos. Brithelm held a lamp that framed the party in flickering, dim light—Gileandos barely visible, for understandably, he shied away from flames, having last been ignited a month before in the last brotherly cooperation Alfric and I had enjoyed.
You could barely see the glint of light on his bandages.
“You’ll be fed twice a day,” Father proclaimed. “We intend to be stern, but not inhumane. Each morning you will be allowed a walk through the courtyard, for fresh air.
“There is a lesson in this,” he continued. “A lesson for all of us. Though I shall be confounded if I can figure it.”
He moved back out of the light. I could see only Brithelm now, holding the lamp, gazing at me sorrowfully, sympathetically, no doubt wishing he could take my place.
From the dark at a distance, I could hear Father say, “I trust you are aware of how disappointed I am in the both of you.” Then the door closed, leaving us in total darkness.
And I heard Alfric growling, beginning to crawl my way across the dungeon floor.
CHAPTER 3
Although I always hated poetry, I remember wanting to be a bard. For I had seen their overnight performances in the moat house, and the whole business looked like a good deal. You were fed, then you told a story which nobody dared to call a lie, so you could embroider as much as you liked. Then you were paid for lying. It was a life to which I could become accustomed.
I lost that illusion early. Indeed, eight years ago, on a night I remember clearly, the illusion, you might say, flew over the moat and vanished.
When Quivalen Sath, the most famous of elvish bards, sang before my father in the moat house two weeks after my ninth birthday, it was enough to put me off poetry forever.
The night of the bard was the night that the blackmail began. Supervised by Gileandos, we boys cleaned the great hall of the moat house while Father prepared to receive the honored guest. Anxious that the hall look its best for the great artist, Gileandos was beside himself, even kicking a servant or two when he found the hearth still cluttered with ashes. I crouched, broom in hand, over the ashes, as the dusty boys ran from the room. I turned at the outcry of a stable groom, imported for the important job, who lay doubled up with pain beneath the table, awaiting another kick from Alfric, who stood above him smiling.
“A bit much, Alfric!” Gileandos exclaimed, as the old man swooned away beyond pain, clutching at the tablecloth as he lost consciousness.
“I got carried away,” Alfric growled. Then he crouched, dusted his boot, and grabbed the servant by the hair. Dragging the man from the hall, he laughed and called over his shoulder, “A lover of poetry, that’s me for sure!”
Even eight years ago Alfric would have set a table for a yokel with a cello if it meant a chance to kick the servants.
Quivalen Sath was no yokel, but in fact he looked like any other elf, no richer for his bardic experience, dressed in the green of a huntsman, his long hair slightly silvered. Still, he was solemn and eloquent, and, after all, he was a genuine celebrity, author of the same Song of Huma Gileandos had made me memorize last dreary winter in the same great hall, before my first retaliatory fire had singed his beard and half the face beneath it, cutting short our study of the classics.
Father and the elf exchanged pleasantries over dinner, and the inevitable pack of dogs crept into the room, drawn by the warmth of the fire and the smell of venison.
Alfric sneered at me from the far end of the table. I flashed him an obscene sign I had learned that morning from a stable boy. He bristled and stared at his wine cup, for this was the first banquet we had attended since he turned thirteen, and for the first time he had been allowed strong drink.
The elf stood to address all of us.
“I have chosen Mantis of the Rose for your evening’s entertainment,” murmured Quivalen Sath. There was probably some bardic grapevine to tell him Father’s favorite poem, for the old man smiled, raised his glass, completely unaware he was getting what Gileandos had dismissed as Quivalen Sath’s “earlier, second-rate efforts.”
After the meal, the entertainment began. Bored at once by some abstract theological tale of free will and roses in the sky, I watched Alfric, who had slumped in his chair as low as his armor would let him, wiping the blade of his dagger upon the back of a snoring dog, whose leg twitched blissfully in imagining he was being petted and scratched. And Brithelm, my middle brother, often mistaken for being absent at public occasions, stood rigid in his garb like some inane red scarecrow, having mastered the art of listening without paying attention. He was probably meditating.
On the other hand, Father was the good host, listening even to the most ridiculous parts of the story.
Only Father, finally, offered the elf the respect his celebrity seemed to call for. It occurred to me afterwards, as the bard thanked my father for a dozen pieces of silver, tied his harp over his shoulder, and walked from the hall just as the red moon dipped into the west and the eastern sky began to redden, that if Quivalen Sath was so all-fired successful, why was he playing the backwater villages of Solamnia?
I was supposed to go straight to bed, but instead crept to the battlements, where I had left my toy soldiers when called to supervise the reception for the elf. The battlements were cold, even for an early morning in late summer. My legions were set in a convenient crenel overlooking the drawbridge and the low, swampy woods about a mile off to the west of the moat house. Some of the soldiers stood headless from extravagant use; others, quite intact, leaned against the battlements.
By this time Quivalen Sath had reached the other side of the moat, from where the well-tossed, iron-forged soldier must have stung considerably when it struck him on the back of his well-combed poetic head, and from where a nine-year-old would-be assassin could make himself virtually invisible, hidden among the clematis and ivy and the much more common weeds, undetected by even the sharpest of elvish eyes.
But by some stroke of ill luck, there were other eyes on the scene. Alfric had followed me to the battlements (remember I was only nine at the time, and not yet used to looking back over my shoulder constantly for suspicious brothers). Standing behind me, hidden by shadow and vines and crenelation, he witnessed the bombardment of Quivalen Sath.
The family heir seized me before the elf had rubbed his head, scanned the horizon, and returned to the path that led from our home toward the next way station in his endless poetic wanderings.
“I seen the whole thing, you little snit,” Alfric hissed.
“You mean you saw the whole thing,” I corrected, always delighted to remind my brother how I stood in greater favor with Gileandos than he ever had. It was not a wise thing to have said at the time, for Alfric was on me like a wild boar. My back to big brother, face pressed uncomfortably into the moss-covered stone of the battlement, head entangled with ivy and weeds like a wreath on the brow of a second-rate bard, I corrected my correction.
“Just what was it that you seen, Brother dear?”
“I seen you throw that soldier at the elf,” he replied.
“But what you never seen, Brother, was what that elf was up to. There was somethi
ng glittering—I saw it—he held up to the light and then slipped into the sleeve of that long bardic robe. Probably our silverware, a crystal goblet from Father’s table.”
“But there wasn’t no crystal or silver at the table. We was entertaining poets, not merchants.” He pushed my face farther into the stonework. I tasted mortar, moss.
“But you didn’t see him mapping—mapping the terrain around the house. No doubt he’s a Nerakan agent or a spy for some anti-Solamnic fanatics who plan to lay siege to Father.”
Alfric’s grip did not slacken, nor did the pressure of granite against my nose diminish. I tried the last tactic.
“Has it occurred to you, Alfric, that you have been made the victim of elvish enchantment? Of hypnotism? That what you have seen only appeared to take place?”
No change in his grip or my posture, for Alfric was balancing upon that edge in which stupidity becomes a kind of insight: he simply did not have the imagination to believe anything beyond what his eyes told him.
So I was forced to confess, to blubber and weep and beg, and to throw myself on his mercy, which, unfortunately, he had none of at the time.
But Alfric developed some imagination, to be sure, as the first faint glimmers of blackmail saw light in the months that followed. Hospitality was, as you already know, a big thing with Father, and my misdeed grew in my own imaginings, dangled constantly above my head by my brother’s cruelty and greed.
It did not help matters that Quivalen Sath wrote one of his long-winded “epistles” to Father, in which he claimed to have been “granted a visionary moment” when a “godly missive” from the battlements of the moat house had struck him in the back of the head.
Weasel's Luck Page 4
