“So, what do we do when the kids come back to play?” Jared asked.
“I don’t plan on staying long,” Tolrep replied. “How’s our guest, Elric?”
“Sleeping like a baby.” There was something edging his words that lent awkwardness to the silence leftover. “Who are we getting back for this?”
“A man called Jekai.”
“Jekai?” Tsukasa echoed, and then Ashnoi: “Robert Jekai?”
One man, and to touch that many people. He must be damn important.
“Uh oh. I know that look.”
Here we go. “What, Byron?”
“That look. I know that look.”
“We’ve been together for a month. How can you know me from a look?”
“Because you’re a terrible poker player.”
Tolrep opened his mouth for a reply, then clicked it shut. “What is your point?”
“You’re not going to wake us up for our watch shifts. You’re going to watch him all night.” Tolrep dearly wanted the sailor a little bit closer, just to thump him. And the others who shared the almost-smug smile.
“The last time I fell asleep the bastard almost killed Jelina.” That shut them up. Tolrep smiled...and then blanched at the realization he was taking joy with a brush with death. “There’s no way I’m letting this bastard slip away.”
“I believe you, Cap.”
Tolrep stared at Byron as though he were poleaxed. “Then what is this all about?”
“If you would let me get a word in edgewise, I’d tell you.” From a bag no one else noticed, he’d carried Byron pulled forth a set of ceramic mugs and a small pouch which contained herbs and a dark powder none of them had ever seen before. In the space of seconds Byron ground the herbs into the powder, let the mugs heat under small fires made from sparks and flint, and offered the cups to the companions. “Here.”
“What is this stuff?” Elric asked.
“It’s a drink.”
“Not like any drink I’ve seen,” Tsukasa added.
“Why is it brown?” Ashnoi asked. “I shit that color. Don’t want to be drinking it.”
“You’re a bunch of mother hens, you know that?” Byron countered. “Just humor me and drink the damn stuff.”
Tolrep shrugged, raised the mug in salute, and took a tiny sip. Before he knew it, the liquid was gone and the privateer was begging Byron if there was any of the elixir left, the others just a heartbeat behind. “What is this?”
“Coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“Coffee.”
“Coffee! I like the sound of that.” This from Elric, from which ice water flowed through his veins.
“This will keep you up for hours,” Byron promised. “Just don’t drink too much of it. Too much coffee can give men hallucinations.” Quick as a serpent the red-haired warrior snatched the ceramic mugs in one gesture. “Especially those new to the flavor.” He lowered the mugs’ contents by a considerable amount and packed the rest in a strange canteen, which he then tucked in the crook of his arm before going to sleep.
Tolrep chuckled. He felt the eyes shifting back and forth. They were daring themselves to take the canteen, despite the memory of Byron guarding the food stores a week ago. A man near had every bone in the arm snapped in half. And that was Byron’s doing when he was drunk. No one wanted to see what he could do sober. “We’d best get to sleep. ‘Twill be a busy day.” Thankfully the crew obeyed the silent order. Byron’s eeffoc remained untouched, and no one lost their fingers. A fine day.
“What is the name of this place?” Shayna asked. “This...abbey?”
“Cister.” Mykel corrected.
“Cister is just another name for abbey, Mykel.” Her eyes narrowed at the other’s chuckle. “You disbelieve me?”
“No. It’s just rare that I meet someone else with the same knowledge. Everybody else wouldn’t know an abbey from a chapel.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“No. Thank you.”
The rest of the path was trod in silence. Words meant little in the face of winter, and they had to conserve their energies. The less exposure, the hardier the body’s defense. With a sudden flash of disgust Mykel wondered how many voices would be snuffed out by this damnable war.
The outer appearance of the monastery was the opposite of its inner appearance. The courtyard stretched forward and back to an entire league, and divided in two, to boot. On the western side, a monk was deep in meditation. The knot of followers spread before him were straining to do the same despite a fellow monk, spitting oaths left and right, far too vile from a man of the cloth. How the elder monk kept his focus was beyond belief. Training, Mykel supposed. What better way to improve on peace when the reflection was attacked by relentless sound?
The eastern court was flat and green. Multiple stretches of rubber fences divided the field into quarters. For each field, there was a pair of monks, one on either side of the net. They scrambled all over the field in pursuit of a fuzzy green ball. The oblong paddles each monk hefted was meant to strike the ball back towards the opponent.
“Tennis.” Shayna supplied.
“What?”
“Tennis. The game. Stop gawking. You’re making a scene.” Shayna led Mykel down the path in an embarrassing mirror of mother and child.
“Look here.” Mykel knew he was losing the straight of the exchange and attempted to rectify the position. “I don’t need any advice. I’ve never read of any game called tennis.”
“Perhaps you are reading the wrong books.” Shayna smiled, then stiffened at the leather-shaded blur at the court’s far end. “Don’t slouch. It’s bad for your back. Look at my eyes. You’re not having a conversation with my boots, are you? No? I didn’t think so. Stand up straight. Straighter!”
“Will you lay off? You’re acting as though the bishop is coming.”
“He is coming!”
“Where?” Mykel followed the slender finger point to the haze. “I can’t see anything. How are you sure it’s the bishop?”
“Maybe I have better eyes.” The librarian felt his temper smolder to life. “Just shut up and trust me. And stand up straight. Straighter!”
“Yes, Mother.”
The blurs really were priests. Brown dots sharpened to baggy sleeves, robes easily confused to be rugs, and the triangles bobbing their way forward resolved into hoods. “Not one word.” Thankfully Shayna kept her silence. Mykel screwed up a smile and tried to stand up straighter.
The monks met them with welcome smiles. “My friends. What can I do for you on this glorious day?” Thinning hair, a twinkle of wisdom in the eye, and apple-red cheeks. He could have been any person’s grandfather. That was dangerous. The betrayal of one’s thoughts was all the sweeter from a favorite elder.
“Are you Ezekiel Nadir?”
It was the acolyte at the priest’s flank that answered. “What right does a monster have to speak?”
Cripples are an abomination before God. At least that was how some of the more zealotic priests claimed. The greenling’s vulpine face sagged under the weight of Mykel’s glare, then colored for doing so in the first place.
“Now now, Daniel. God has a purpose in everyone’s birth. You must have faith.”
Briefly the librarian saw the bishop tumble down with a broken jaw. One man was planned to acquire a sterile destiny just so another would profit from adversity? Again came the flash of the fallen holyman, adding blow after blow until his skull was a bloody mess and his brain was oozing from the ears. Briefly. The unnamed priest was tensing for the attack. Mykel forced himself to smile.
&nb
sp; “We seek passage through your monastery.” Shayna said.
“A service we would happily provide, were it not the current situation.”
The impulse to break the priest’s jaw was getting stronger. “Current situation?”
The bishop didn’t even blink. “This site has been chosen to be a haven between the opposing forces of this war.”
“A haven for what?”
“A place of neutrality, so that our soldier brethren will not succumb to malice. So that the sons of Amden return safely.”
A hostage trade. This Coicro must be damn important. “Thank you for your time.” Mykel hurried Shayna away before Daniel to snarl another insult.
“What do we do now?”
Good question. “Give me a minute. I’m trying to think.” This trade would occur on the church grounds, which would be guarded by twice the manpower. Given that the authorities would take no chances, they would probably divide their elite – hey that’s Matt Tolrep – between the haven and all the entrances...“Wait a minute.” Curiosity tugged the librarian through the abbey’s back alleys, slinking from tree to tree like a skulk. A touch on the shoulder spun Mykel about with a small cry. “Shayna! Don’t do that!”
“What are you doing?”
“That’s Matt Tolrep over there.”
“What is he doing?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“By slinking after them like a thief.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
“That’s not know the game is played.”
“What game? How is this “game” played?”
“It would take too long to explain! Now will you be quiet? You’re making enough noise to wake the dead – Damn it.” Matt and his group were gone. “Great. Now we lost them.”
“You never had us to begin with.”
Mykel cursed himself. First John, then Matt, now this. I really need to learn how to skulk. “Hello Tsukasa. Ashnoi.”
“Mykel LeKym. You’re the last person I’d think of being here.”
“Funny. I was thinking the same thing.”
Ashnoi’s smile reached from ear to ear. “Your lady friend is right. If you wanted to know, you just needed to ask.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He dared not glance at Shayna; his pride had been bruised enough. “What are you doing here?”
“Come. Let us join the others. I do not wish to explain things twice.” Grinning like idiots the shipmen escorted their would-be-spies back to the alleyways they were slinking through. Mykel blinked, taking in the scene. Tolrep’s back was facing them. Not unusual. A group of different-raced people, nodding at his every word. Also not unusual. Matt wasn’t called the Polyglot Crusader for nothing. The man wrapped up like a mummy with chains thicker than a blacksmith’s arm, gagged with a small red ball, certainly fit the profile for “unusual.” Oh, this can’t be good.
“Hey, Cap,” said Tsukasa.
“Hey. Did you find our interlopers?”
“Yep,” Ashnoi answered. “Don’t you want to know who they were?”
“Not really. Did you dispose of them properly?”
“No.”
“Then what did you do with them?”
“We brought them here.”
“You did what? Have you lost –” Tolrep spun about and surprise froze his tongue. “Myke?”
“Hey Matt.”
“Mathias,” Shayna greeted.
“What the...how did you...why are...what the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Mykel said evenly, striving not to smile. The rest of Matt’s men were struggling to contain their laughter, and open conversation would only make the privateer look more the fool than he already was. The same thing must have dawned on Matt’s face, for the privateer bundled up his new guests and dragged them to the safety of a hill of charred wood. “What’s going on, Matt?”
“Oh no. That’s not how the game is played. I ask the questions.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. My men captured you. You are my prisoners. Prisoners don’t ask the questions. They answer.”
“Well, I’m not going to answer any questions until you answer mine.”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake.” Shayna pinned them down with a glare. “This idiot detective saw fit to tail you for no good reason instead of facing you straight out.”
“That’s not how the game –” Matt saw the crimson in Shayna’s face and wisely cut himself short. “I mean, I’m here escorting this Coicro prisoner in exchange for Robert Jekai.”
“Robert Jekai?” Mykel echoed. “Robert Jekai has been captured?”
“Apparently. Now come on. I’d like to get the bastard into jail before sundown.”
“Wait. We’re coming with you?”
“Can’t have you bumbling about, now can I? Just hurry up.”
They came upon the threshold on the Solvicar camp, where two farmers that had no right to chase the dark turned to two Solvicar. Then two became four, four became eight, until every shadow disappeared, and the land was covered end to end with golden cloaks. Chief among them was a lantern-jawed man named Willard Hunt who set upon them like a bee on pollen. “Mathias Tolrep?”
“Yes?”
“I heard the bastard got free on your ship.”
Matt paused. “How the hell –”
“Relax, pirate. Knowledge is power, after all. And no, before you ask. There is no mole in your crew. We’re just very good at our jobs.”
“Brother Hunt,” said a lurching man who stumbled at every other step. “He’s fine. No humors in his blood. He’s perfectly healthy.”
The scream a few feet away begged to differ.
“Calic,” Hunt sighed. “Who is that?”
“Who is who?”
“Who’s screaming back there?”
“Oh.” Another pause, another scream. “That would-be Cullen, sir.”
Hunt groaned. “Why is he screaming?”
“The leeches, I think.”
Hunt looked ready to crush the young man’s head with his bare hands. “You said he’s fine.”
“Oh, he is. I just haven’t told him yet. You the one that put the ball in his shoulder?” he asked Tolrep.
“Yep,” the privateer answered...and found his hand pumping Calic’s at a frenzied rate.
“I want to say congratulations, Sir Tolrep. It’s about time that bastard got his due.” Then Calic’s eyes widened as he remembered whose company he shared. “Not that I want him dead, per say. Justice is in the hands of the Lord. I would never sully His purpose with sins. Not that I’ve had sins like this. Not even any prayers.”
“Calic?”
“Yes Brother?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes Brother.”
“Get those leeches off him. Unless you want the Coicro on our heads because they follow his screams straight to us.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course, Brother. I’ll get right on it.” Calic stumbled back to his patient, and the screaming was cut short.
“You’ll have to forgive him,” said Hunt. “He’s a good lad. Just a little green.”
“Do you have any one older, Brother? Someone who wouldn’t think of their own investigation?”
“Robert Jekai is a legend, pirate. They love him too much to risk their baser desires.” A short pause. “We’re about to begin our morning prayer. We would be honor
ed if you would join us.”
“I wish I could,” Tolrep replied. “I have to stay with my men. I don’t want this bastard to roam free because of an oversight on my part.”
“You think well for a pirate. I will just have to pray for the both of us, then. Your spirit will be welcomed into the Lord’s embrace, be assured. If you will excuse me.” Near all the Solvicar was waiting for him; nodding at his whispers and sitting like falling dominoes at his gestures. A low hum emanated about them, like the buzzing of a gnat. Mykel watched uneasily before following the others. The priests were far too pleasant. Blind faith could spell disaster just as well as incompetence.
“I do not like that man.” Something of Shayna hardened, like an animal mounting its defenses against a predator. “His faith is an illusion.”
Mykel grunted in agreement. There was neither the open hostility of Daniel, nor the cheerful nature of Ezekiel. Just a flat calm that brooked no nonsense. Anything in his way would be shoved aside. Mykel hated to think if ever violence ever broke free of that calmness.
“We’ll see for ourselves how he’ll move soon enough,” Matt was saying.
Mykel blinked. “You’re staying for the trade?”
“I started this. It’s only fair that I see its end.” For a moment, the privateer cocked his head as though catching a whisper on the wind. Then the moment passed. “In the meantime, I’m dying for a drink. Let’s have a little fun.”
The inn they chose was tucked away in a corner the priests would not think to look. It was already a trying day, and Mykel didn’t need a sermon with his sleep – look there’s John Stromgald – if there was one more man that gave him a second glance at the arm...“Oh for the love of fuck.” Cursing under his breath the librarian walked to the ranger group. “Hello, John.”
“Mykel? Mykel LeKym? What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Déjà vu? Events have importance because we give them importance. We just think fate guides our lives. “You’re here because of Lord Jekai.”
“Oh, good Myke you found a table. I swear the beer’s bitter, but after a few sips it actually tastes...” Tolrep stopped dead at the table’s residents. “Stromgald? What?”
Chased By War Page 50
