Portals of Infinity: Book One: Champion for Hire

by John Van Stry

  “It’s not like he’s from aroun’ here, Brad. He’s an outlander!”

  I listened to them argue as they rode the cart out of sight.

  I sat there for another twenty minutes trying to decide what to do. I had the bow, but I didn’t know how to use it really. I bought it on a lark thinking it might be fun to play with. After all, it only cost me a dollar. I did know how to fight, I was a brown belt in karate and still taking lessons, also I did have a rather nice knife.

  But I never ever in my life had to fight for my life, especially against two men.

  I decided to continue on; I had at least an hour’s walk to get where I had to go. But going on the road probably wasn’t the best idea.

  That was when another rider came along. He was heading the same way as the cart, but was making a lot better time. He was also wearing what looked like leather armor, had a crossbow hanging off of his saddle and was wearing a sword. In my mind he had ‘cop’ written all over him.

  I decided to get back on the road once he was out of sight and make as much time as possible, while keeping my ears and eyes open. I did that for a little while then realized that when they didn’t catch up with me, they’d turn around and head back. So I got back off the road and sat and waited.

  Patience isn’t my best virtue; I still had a lot of time before I had to get back. But I didn’t want to sit still either. I don’t know how long I waited, it felt like forever but I know it wasn’t. I eventually started to make my way through the trees on the side of the road. The brush there was pretty dense, but I didn’t want to get too far away from the road or I’d miss the mark I’d made.

  I heard them before I saw them. The soldier on the one horse was following the cart and the two on the cart looked very unhappy with the situation. Once they were out of sight, I got on the road again and from that point I was able to make it back without further problems.

  The next week at work progressed rather painfully. Work wasn’t going well, they were downsizing, and my department was getting cut rather heavily. All the senior guys had been let go and I wasn’t sure as the junior most there that I would survive much longer. And I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen and done. I could buy a roll of silver dimes for like twenty or thirty dollars. Each dime was the same size as the silver pieces I’d gotten in Hillshire. For a hundred bucks of money I had here, I could be rich there. Very rich.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know if I could protect what I had, and it was obvious that I just might be forced to do that. I was taking martial arts because I enjoyed the exercise and I was good at it. But I knew nothing about fighting with weapons!

  I read a lot about archery in the next few weeks, and got a few things that I hadn’t even thought about. Like an arm protector and practice arrows. When I showed the bow to a guy at an archery store, when I was trying to buy a new bowstring for it I got quite a shock. He offered me a thousand dollars for it! Well he started out at a couple hundred and kept going higher. At a grand I sold it and used the money to by a nice high quality modern longbow and all sorts of nice gear. I thought about getting a compound bow, but that would have been out of place in Hillshire.

  “I can’t believe he gave me a grand for that!” I told the salesman.

  “You probably could have gotten twelve hundred,” he told me.

  “What? But that’s just a handmade bow!”

  “Exactly, and a damn good one at that. Don’t see much work like that anymore, and Howard is a purist. Get some of those SCA people in here and they’d probably pay twice what he did for quality like that. Where’d you get it?”

  “I know a guy who makes them. I bought it for a lot less that I sold it though.”

  “Care to tell me who?”

  I smiled, “Umm, no.”

  “Well, if you get anymore, call me.” He handed me his card. Turned out he owned the store. “I’ll give you at least eight hundred a bow. Cash.”

  “Yeah, but he gave me a thousand.”

  “True, but I know who wants them, and I do need to make money at this myself.”

  I nodded, “Well, I’ll keep it in mind.” I left that store with quite a few ideas in my head. I also told my sensei at the dojo that I wanted to learn to fight against people with weapons. He didn’t like the idea at first, but I offered to pay more for the extra lessons.

  For the next month, things at work continued to be tense, people were leaving and people were getting let go. I was swamped because there was a lot of other people’s work I had to do now as well as my own. I’d only been out of college a year; I really didn’t have the experience to deal with it, or to go get a job somewhere else.

  Of course I screwed up eventually. Too many extra hours of unpaid overtime, too many Saturday’s of work. And suddenly I was standing outside the building with my few possessions and no job.

  I panicked at first. They didn’t even have the decency to lay me off, they fired me! So I wouldn’t be getting unemployment. My friends thought I should contest the firing; after all, they were making me do a job well out of my pay grade and level. So I filled out the paperwork at unemployment, but they told me it could be months! I had car payments due, rent due, and a balance on my credit card.

  On the other side of the equation, I had nearly a year of savings, my rent was cheap and the car was mostly paid for, and I knew a cheap source for really expensive bows.

  I spent the next two months selling off, or storing at my parent’s house, my meager possessions. I bought eight rolls of silver dimes, some trade goods, and I paid off all my bills. Then I told my landlord I was moving out, and told my parents I was going to Europe. I drove up to my friend’s cabin in the woods and left a note in his mailbox with a set of car keys telling him I’d be back next year.

  Then I dressed in the clothes I’d bought, shouldered my pack, and made for Riverhead.

  Things were different this time. I could ‘feel’ the portal from quite a distance, I guess some sort of sense had awakened or improved from going through it. This time when I went through it was raining, and it was cold. Very cold. I put my cloak on and grabbed my staff. My sensei had spent the last several months teaching me the basics of the quarterstaff, the only weapon he would teach me, though he did teach me how to fight against people with knives at least.

  By the time I got to the road, I was fairly miserable. The cloak was keeping me dry, mostly. But my feet were getting wet and so were the cuffs of my pants. I should have gotten better boots. I turned west.

  It was a long slog to the city, and the rain never stopped the entire two days I walked it. If I’d had a smaller and lighter pack, I might have gotten there in a day. Or if I’d been used to walking for hours and hours at a time.

  Or if my feet had been dry.

  By nightfall, I was truly miserable because my feet were cold and killing me. There was no shelter from the rain of course and I hadn’t thought to bring any sort of a tent. I had expected to be in Riverhead by nightfall; after all, they said it was a day’s journey. I just didn’t realize that he had meant a day by horse or for people who could walk at a good pace.

  Not a soft lazy city dweller.

  Eventually, I found a rock just off the road that was big enough I could get up on it. I put my bedroll down, folded up to make things softer, then took off my shoes, put on some dry socks and curled up in a ball under my cloak.

  When I woke in the morning, I was rather cramped, my socks were damp, but not wet, actually all of me was damp. The bedroll had been wicking up water but wasn’t soaked yet, my shoes hadn’t dried out any, even though I’d arranged them to be under the pack out of the direct rain. So I put on two pairs of dry socks, then the wet shoes and slogged off into the rain.

  It was maybe noon when I finally got there. Several times I’d been passed by people in horse-drawn carts who were under an awning on the cart. Twice riders had ridden by as well; one in each direction. I was even greeted by a few; I just grunted and waved back.

  Riverh
ead turned out to not be a small town. In fact it had a wall and a gate. And at that gate there were several guards. I had my pack, and of course a bundle, I had bought ten of the same kind of bow that I had replaced my handmade one with. They were far better bows, and cost me about eighty dollars each.

  “Greetings,” one said as I trudged up to the gate. “What be yer business?”

  “Trade,” I said, moving to stand under the overhang built at the gate and pulling my hood back.

  “Ye look soaked to the skin,” he observed, him and his fellows looking me over. “Can’t say that I’ve seen ye around here before either. What ye be trading?”

  “Bows, and yes I’ve not been here before. Could ye perhaps recommend a good inn? One a little better than the average?”

  “First, I’d like to examine that bundle,” he said nodding towards my bundled bows.

  “Sure,” I said and took my pack and the bundle off, then squatted down to undo the ties and unroll bundle. I picked one up and handed it to him.

  He blinked and looked it over, tried to flex it, then crooked a leg around it like he was going to string it and gave it a flex.

  “Whoa, quite a pull! But can’t say as I’ve ever seen this material before, what is it?”

  What it was was a fiberglass laminate epoxy. A little more resistant to damage than straight fiberglass, colored a nice flat black with a non-slip texture.

  “It’s about a hundred pound pull, and as for the material,” I shrugged, “Trade secret.”

  He nodded at that and looked it over.

  “What are these markings on the inside here?” He was pointing to the ‘Taiwan’ marked just below the handle.

  “Maker’s mark.” I said.

  He nodded again. “Nice piece. Expensive I presume?”

  I nodded, “Very.”

  “How much?” He looked at it appraisingly.

  “Well, Sir....”

  “Sergeant,” he corrected me.

  “Well, Sergeant, to be honest, I wanted to see what the market would bear here before I set my price. It’s been a rather long and miserable trip and my father always taught me not to do business when you’re feeling poorly.”

  I looked up at him; he didn’t look like the sort who was going to be put off.

  “But,” I sighed and continued. “I was thinking about a gold and a half.”

  “A gold and a half!” He looked rather surprised, “The best bow I’ve ever seen was only a half gold! Why the one I have back at the barracks cost only four silver and I’ve not seen its match!”

  I took it from him and strung it and handed him some of the arrows I’d bought here on my last trip.

  “Give it a try,” I said.

  He took three shots with it. The first missed the mark he was aiming at.

  “Ah, let me correct for that.” He murmured to himself.

  The next two shots he put within a finger’s breath of each other in a tree that was about a hundred yards away, at the edge of the killing ground around the city wall.

  “Nice shooting,” I said surprised.

  “Well, I am the unit champion,” he said smiling at me. “However, this really is a nice bow, I have to admit.”

  “And it won’t warp or rot. You can get it wet all you want, and it’s harder than wood.”

  “Still though, a gold and a half?”

  I scratched my head thinking, “How about one gold then? But you can’t tell anyone what you paid for it, and you have to let people see you using it. Well at least the officers with money who can appreciate a fine bow?”

  He laughed at that, “Oh aye, there be a fair amount of nobles and the like who’d be all over a bow like this. But a gold on a guard’s pay?”

  “Don’t you mean a sergeant’s pay?” I bantered back.

  “Well, still, seven silver would be the best I could do.”

  “Tell you what, you trade me your old bow, and those seven silvers and I’ll sell you this one.”

  “Done!” He nodded and we shook hands.

  “Now, if you could tell me a nice inn? Something a little better than average, but that won’t take advantage of my purse?”

  “I know just the place,” he grabbed one of his men, “take this man here to the White Swann. Then return back once he’s signed in.”

  The man nodded.

  “I’m William,” I said to the sergeant, “Or Will.”

  “I be Sergeant Chaucer, I’ll be by tomorrow then?”

  “That would be fine, Sergeant.”

  We parted ways then and his man led me through the streets to the inn. Even in the rain I got a good look at the town, it was a very large town and it would take me days to explore it I was sure. The area the inn was in was definitely a nicer part of town, cleaner with wider streets and an obvious presence of the guard.

  I entered the place with the guard at my elbow and pulling back my hood I walked up to the man behind the bar who looked me over. The room wasn’t full, but there were a couple of people there having lunch apparently.

  “How may I be of service to ye, sir?” He asked me.

  “I need a room, for at least a month.” I said

  “With or without food included?”

  “With,” I said, “And something nice too please.”

  “Two silvers,” he said.

  I did a little bit of mental calculation and raised an eyebrow. I was about to speak up when the guard with me leaned forward.

  “This one’s okay, Harold. The sergeant likes him.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” He smiled, “Normally we charge outlanders a bit more. One silver, twenty copper.”

  I nodded and dug out the money to pay him. Most of my money was hidden on me, but I had a few silver and copper in my ‘purse’.

  The guard nodded and left then.

  “So it’s two copper a day here?” I asked

  “Well, normally it’s four. Though if you stay here longer and pay up front we charge less.

  I nodded and looked my new landlord over. He was an older man, obviously so, with gray hair and balding. I’d put him at sixty if this was home. Here I had no idea how people aged, or how fast.

  I looked around the bar itself then. First off, I noticed that the floor was wood, we’d actually come up a couple of steps to the entrance. The bar was well made with shelves behind it, as well as a picture of a white swan in the middle of it. There were a few wooden kegs, all of which were tapped, and to the left of the bar was an opening that appeared to lead to the kitchens. The main room was large, easily twenty by twenty feet with a large fireplace in the corner, and trestle type tables in the center with booths lining the walls. Two young women were working the room, which was maybe one fifth full, and they were dressed in rather revealing outfits.

  “Wow, nice barmaids,” I said turning back to the bartender as he stepped around the bar.

  “Let me show ye to the room,” he said noticing my looking over the barmaids.

  “They come with the room?” I asked.

  “You’d have to negotiate that with then,” he said and then winked, “but I can assure you, they’re willin’.”

  I filed that little piece of info away and started to consider ways to enjoy my evening.

  He led me up the stairs; there were a dozen doors, six to either side, with a window at the end of the hallway. He took me to the end where the space between the doors was a little farther apart.

  He unlocked the door with a large key and handed it to me. “Here ya’ go.” He said and pushed the door open.

  I looked inside; there was a nice bed, with a chest at the foot of it. Night tables to either side, a large wardrobe to the left of the door and a small mirror on the wall next to it. But the best part was the windows. There were two, one onto the area behind the inn, and another looking out at the wall of the building next door, as this was the last room on the hall. There was also a table under the larger window that looked out back, with a chair, and a second smaller table in the corne
r with a second chair.

  I walked in and put my things on the floor to the right of the doorway, then looked out the back window. I could see the inn had a small stable behind it, as well as a small second wing that I guessed were the kitchen and the owner’s quarters.

  “Now, when ye go out give the key to me or my wife, and you can collect it from us when ye return. The garderobe is out behind the building, the entrance is beneath the stairs, and down the other end of the hallway.”

  I nodded.

  “Should I send someone up with a basin and some water?”

  I nodded again, “That would be quite nice. When is dinner?”

  “I’ll have someone come and knock on your door when it’s time.”

  “Thank you,” I said and closed the door as he left the room. I then wasted no time in stripping out of all of my clothes and putting on some dry pants.

  A knock came at the door and I opened it. One of the barmaids was there with a pitcher and a basin and a few towels. She blushed a little looking at me, but she did take a good look.

  For my part I took a nice look myself as I stepped out of her way and let her place it on the table. She had a nice figure; the clothing didn’t hide much of it. The skirt was long, but the material wasn’t heavy and it was slit well up the side showing off rather nice legs. The blouse was a bit ruffled, but the neckline didn’t hide much and she bent over to gather up my wet things letting me have a rather nice view of her butt.

  “Shall I see to getting these cleaned sir?” She asked and turned to smile at me.

  “That would be wonderful,” I sighed smiling back. She was very pretty. Better looking than my previous girlfriend, that was for sure.

  She nodded and left the room and I closed the door behind her. Locking it I used the hot water in the pitcher and the towels to clean up. Then I stretched out on the bed and took a nap. Things might be a bit more primitive here, but the women were definitely worth looking at!

  Two

  I awoke to a knocking on my door.