As Feathers Fall

by Chris Galford

  In a lesser square, its well occupied only by a few vagabonds, a hard-eyed townswoman setting clothes on a line, and a friendly (too friendly) neighborhood cat, they found a few moments reprieve to process. Rowan took his rest seriously, stretching his legs and spreading out along the cobbles. He ignored the townswoman’s frown, but then, even when Rurik assured her they were but pilgrims passing through, she but scoffed and lost herself anew in her work. Vagabonds, the look told them, that was all they were to her, and all they would ever be.

  “Tell me,” Rowan quipped after Rurik’s failure, “we can all see the way the war’s shifted, but what do you think of the chances of storm tonight?”

  Rurik turned, confused and irritated. “What the devil are you on about?”

  “Well, with all your aches and bruises, my boy, I figured you should be unerring in your predictions of rainy weather. Something good must come of them, after all, and it does look as though we’ll be sleeping out of doors again.”

  He stared, dumbfounded at the sudden shift of tone. Then there came a smile. Then beside him, a laugh. He turned at the melodic burst of laughter from Essa, though a hand pressed over the escaping notes. She could not help herself, a condition which soon infected Rurik as well. It had been too long.

  Rowan’s own grin widened and he lay back with ease, staring skyward. Even Chigenda smiled, his show of imperviousness temporarily dropped. Looking over his shoulder, at the woman and her laundry, he commented, “Tough woman. Know truth: blind wife, happy wife.” Age, as it would seem, could be a high price for maturity. The rest of them howled, once they were able to process that the Zuti had made a joke.

  They sat like that for a time, caught in the madness of what they had done, what they were doing, and that of the world around. So little of it matched anything they might have imagined before—it was boggling, and for Rurik at least, a little sad. In some ways, he had to laugh to keep from tears.

  “So,” Rowan said after a time, spoiling the warm silence, “do we still intend to do this thing? The man’s looking a mite more secure than he had last night.”

  “It is foolish,” Essa agreed.

  Occasionally, weary men prattled sense. Rurik had the decency to look abashed. Then he heard the Zuti speak.

  “Why stay? There war, there vict’ry. Frown, smile. Frowning man—he look. Wait. Smiling man, his smile cover eyes.” Chigenda tapped his temple seriously.

  “Daylight?” Rurik asked.

  “As I recall, the night comes with dogs,” Rowan added with a frown. “I’d say that’s sensible.”

  But Rurik looked to Essa, waiting. If he was being a fool, if all of this was just another fool’s errand, and death, marching in fine clothes, she would be the one to tell him. In these months of uncertainty, of hate and self-doubt, he had earned that level of candor. She caught his look and reached a hand out to pat his knee.

  “After all this, Rurik, you look to me? I’m just a simple, foolish country girl.” Her lips pursed, and he saw a flash of something old cross her otherwise practical gaze. “My kind don’t prattle much sense.”

  “I’m not the only one to see that was a head above the gate, right?” Rowan said.

  But the candor had said enough. Rurik settled back on his haunches, savored the delicious rankle of pain that edged through the motion. There was nothing boyish about this now, no false chivalry or bravado. The eyes that met the gathering clouds were clear, ready. Above, the castle loomed.

  “Remind me to relieve myself before I squeeze into that armor,” Rurik said.

  * *

  What did men expect of a woman? In times of inactivity, that might be a pointed question, one to stir anger and self-doubt. Rather, in times of action, it was another tool for the thoughtful to use to their advantage.

  In the forest, wolves made no such distinction. Certainly, they might hound the woman for the chance at children, but saving that, they went for the strong. Being a woman did not inherently make one weak. When her mate died, the alpha female of a pack of wolves might rule by tooth and claw for months before another worthy enough—by her standards, mind—might have the wherewithal and the bravery to approach her position. That male might still be mauled good, if he approached too soon or without the necessary deference. He had to battle other males for the position, but then he had to battle to soothe—not conquer—the female as well.

  Though Essa moved on light feet between her armored escorts, it was not as any lesser component of the greater plan. She had a purpose. As did they. All was invested in misdirection, and she had her role, as sure as any. Though her bow had been left behind, her knives remained strapped tight to forearm and to thigh alike; her smile was bright, but her eyes were relentless, noting every detail, every weakness, every possible point of entry and point of contention for the final piece of their pack’s entrance.

  There was an old myth of the lone wolf. It was a foolish thing. The lone wolf was the one cast from the pack. Wolves were a society, they acted in tandem. Individual hearts worked toward the good of the whole.

  This did not mean it was comfortable, but acting for the greater good but scarcely was. Had anyone ever told her coddling a man was for the greater good, of course, she should have called them daft beyond measure. Then theory met practice, and the whole damn thing went to trash. Philosophers, in her opinion, had only one real luxury: being able to divorce themselves from that. It was, in truth, a rather large luxury.

  Reality brought the three of them—Rurik, Rowan and herself—to the gates of the castle, up a distressingly narrow path through which Rowan was glum as a man could be and Rurik couldn’t stop fidgeting against his ill-fitted armor. She nudged him as they came up that final crest, prayed that his restlessness might be regarded as nothing more than that of an eager youth.

  Her heart was in her mouth nonetheless as they approached the four sentries at the gate. A needling part of her could picture men springing from every dark corner of the castle here, seeing through their disguise, coming to skewer them. The sentries were not anxious. They had the ease of victorious men—anxious only because they weren’t getting to share the celebration yet. They wore light armor, but no helmets.

  “Whoa, lads, whoa, it’s one thing to celebrate, but it’s another to come bringing the ladies back,” one of the sentries teased.

  She had the courtesy to blush and look askance, while Rurik played his own part adamantly. He started to object, and Rowan, playing the escort—the older, wiser man—had to gallantly rescue him.

  “Easy, easy. It’s the lad’s first love; you can’t hold that against him, can you?” After the barking notes of their laughter had died, her cousin hooked a thumb at her and said, in a more authoritative voice, “Plucked her from the city guard. Dancer of the finest sort. Thought we might curry some favors, bringing her to the celebration.”

  That was the first time any of them actually looked her up and down. One leered rather openly, leaning past his fellows with a crook of the finger. She summoned her most coquettish smile as he said, “Tell me you’re not taking her to the steward. She’d be lost on that fop. Wouldn’t you rather stay and entertain us, sweetling?” He had a playful swagger about him, not nearly as crude as his bearing entertained.

  “Ah, ah,” Rowan cautioned, “Proper lady, this one. She does right by the steward, well, maybe you’ll get to see her kick up her skirts.”

  They did not suspect them for a moment. The festive air had leached into their bearing, and it did not occur to them, foolish as it was, that men in their armor might be someone other than they presented—or that a woman among them might be dangerous. When one had hundreds of soldiers about them all the time, it left a blindspot for the obvious. Actual safety bred complacency. Useful for their purposes.

  They headed through the gate and entered the yard. Fifteen or twenty people were idling therein, ostensibly on duty but clearly lax in their dedication. Soldiers moved about without armor, servants chatted freely with them and amongst themselves,
with an aimless sort of fancy. Unlike the Matair manor in Verdan, there was no respite to the scenery herein. It was hard beaten dirt and training dummies, a gallows and stables. The only signs of real life to the place came from the smattering of buildings near the walls, and the wells which sustained their residents.

  “Just act like we know where we’re going,” Rurik whispered to them. “That’s the most important part in a place like this.”

  Easier said than done. There were no less than five forsaken towers to the castle’s name, each seemingly bigger than the last.

  “That’s the keep, there,” Rurik said, gesturing to the giant heap of stone at the center of the compound. “That’s where Cullick will be, if he’s about. Once we’re inside, head for the kitchens. Soldiers back from a night on the town will want to eat, and the cooks know everything in a place like this.”

  It was unusual to hear Rurik sound certain of anything. She shot him an appraising look. Ants, these folk seemed to her—useless without orders. Maybe Rurik was talking out of his ass, maybe they were about to be jumped by a few dozen fools with good steel, but unlike sneaking into Verdan on an autumn afternoon so long ago, she happened to think this was a good idea. If there was a person who needed to die on this green earth, it was surely Walthere Cullick.

  She suffered no particular illusions about walking away from the fact, however.

  There was another pair of guards at the keep doors, but they waved them through with little fanfare—they were the sort who supposed, if a person was to be stopped, it was the gate guards that should have done it. Consistency breeds weakness, she observed. Those who thought they knew were the biggest fools of all.

  Inside, it was a small matter to find the kitchens. The whole bottom floor was filled with the scent of roasting meat, and Essa caught her mouth watering. Her stomach lurched and forced her to confront the notion of how long she had gone without a real, honest meal. Shut the hell up, she willed into her stomach, but the damnable thing refused to listen. It conferred with her nose to find the source of the delights, though.

  “Venison stew.” Rowan all but whimpered. “Oh, heavens be good, we are soldiers. It’s not just a game, you know. We can certainly…”

  “Stall?” Rurik snapped as they loped toward the brick outbuilding that was the kitchen.

  “Hunger is not a game,” Rowan added with a surly twinge.

  Essa had fallen behind them both—she was supposed to be the demure guest, after all. Still, she found herself saying, “Do not forget our friend outside.”

  In those words was a sobering enough truth about what they had come here to do. They pressed into the kitchen without much announcement, stood looking around a moment like kids with their thumbs up their butts before anyone really took notice. Then it was a beefy-armed woman with a belly the size of a cow’s and a neck like wrought iron who set upon them.

  “Just cause you won a war don’t mean you get what you want here,” the woman bellowed at them, not angry per se, but definitely stern.

  Rurik put his hands up, but with a bright smile said: “Not looking to raid the larder, but a bit of bread wouldn’t be remiss, would it?”

  The woman said, “In my kitchen it would. Lord’d have me hands, he gets back. You want free bits, you go round town, or you wait in the hall. We’ll feed you with the rest of them.”

  “But the girl…”

  “What, she threaten to bite it off, you don’t get her something proper? Out with you now.”

  Picking up on the train of concern, Rowan let his shoulders slump in distaste even as Rurik looked ready to push his luck. He swung the topic. “The count’s still not back?”

  The cook’s face knitted with suspicion. “What do I look like, a pigeon? No. Which begs the question why you is.”

  There was a particular problem with guessing: you never knew what someone else knew, or what might prove wrong. Commitment was always a difficult prospect, without information, but in this, Essa took the initiative.

  “The lady Charlotte sent for me,” she said sternly, adopting the unsurely haughty air of one but recently up-jumped—a woman uncertain of her place, but knowing she had a favor. “I am to represent my troupe and dance for the feasters tonight. I was told—”

  “And so of course your brains here lead you to the kitchen,” the cook said skeptically. “Lord. Ladies. All that fancy talk, and none of ‘em can give it to you plain. Well, it’s as I said. Lord’s out, the lady’s in her rooms, and your lady’s in her tower. Now: out of mine.”

  No room for argument. Rurik eyed a few pieces of pie as they swung back out the way they had come, but under the watchful eye of the cook, none of them dared take that particular plunge. In the hall, though, as Rowan stared back painfully at the kitchen, Rurik dropped the lackadaisical front and bent in between them conspiratorially.

  “See? The cook always knows the lay of things.”

  She grunted. “Didn’t tell us much.”

  “Told us enough.”

  His grin was irritatingly infectious. She waved him off.

  “If you came for the lord, and he’s not here, what’s it to be?”

  “Because of course the hallway, they said, was the best place to be huddling like children’s notion of conspiracy,” Rowan said with a sigh.

  Rurik glared at him, but he had the right of it. “Just follow me,” he said sullenly.

  They entered the keep’s great hall unaccosted. Twenty or so people were chattering and nibbling around a few small tables. One or two glanced up at their entrance, but nobody took any real notice. It was a clean hall, but freshly complete with a victor’s touches, resplendent coat of arms and new-spun banners and the like, as well as the more obviously feminine touches: washed walls, the scents of herbs and candles. In its way, it was more homely than the Matair manor in Verdan had ever felt.

  Essa found herself wrinkling, and she pinched back a touch of distaste. It seemed wrong.

  She expected to stop there, but Rurik kept going. She and Rowan exchanged a glance, but they followed suit, past the tables, past the conversations, past the dogs on the floor and up the steps into the heart of the keep. No one tried to stop them. At least, until they reached the first landing. By then, someone had seemingly realized that, confidence or no, it was probably unwise to let intrusions go unquestioned. A voice called from the foot of the steps, and though Rurik seemed to waffle for a moment between proceeding as though he had heard nothing, and turning back, he inevitably brushed past them both to lean over the rail.

  It was a steward rather than a guardsman who had called, she saw. He had started up the steps as if to seize them, his face red, though likely more from the stuffing of bread than any real exertion. He did not even have a sword, just a belt knife. It was the first thing she noticed about him.

  “Where do you lot think you’re going?” the man shouted.

  Even in the bearing of his words, Essa could see he was a haughty one. The way he moved, the way he spoke. He spoke with authority because he was used to people obeying him, not because he felt deserving. Their kind tended to wilt when things didn’t go their way.

  Rurik made sure it did not.

  “We’re to see the night’s entertainment to Lady Karlene for review. Count’s orders.”

  The man snorted, but looked uncertain. He, like everyone else, saw the armor, not the people beneath. “A little young for that, are you not? I have heard nothing of the sort.”

  “God, man. You think the count’d send a veteran back for this? Tonight? And you would have heard plenty of the sort if you had been standing at the door like you should have, instead of gossiping like some old maid.”

  The red tint to the man’s cheeks blossomed still deeper, and with a blubbered attempt at a dignified dismissal, he scampered back down the steps with his tail between his legs. When Rurik turned back to them, he was grinning again, but Essa saw also the worry that lingered there. He had judged the man as she had—it didn’t mean he had been certain abo
ut any of it.

  From there, it was just a matter of making it up the stairs. It was unfathomable. Catch a man on the cusp of victory and you catch a man at his weakest. In spite of all that she had seen, Essa couldn’t help but let that smile, that sense of ease, weasel its way into her heart. They were so damnably close. It was hard not to get excited.

  They reached the second landing when her visions of guards springing from dark corridors took new life in the form of a single armored man, stolid as the metal he bore, burnished steel that covered much save a face the could have been hammered out on an anvil.

  Rowan, ahead of her, had seen the man first, but it was she that pulled up short, stricken suddenly to the spot by the specter’s arrival. What omen is this? The question thudded with ominous import—and she, who had never been a religious woman, found herself suddenly praying for anything but this. The man advanced, first one pace, then two, with a sword already in his hand and the threat of violence bundled up in the tight cords of his neck. There was nothing formal in the gesture. Nothing subtle. There never had been.

  She knew this specter.

  He held the stairs from above. From the door beside them stood two more men with pistols pointed at their landing, evidently in deference to the man above, which made even less sense than that first unwavering vision. No matter how hard she tried to will it away, it would not go. They might have run—should have run—but below waited only more men, and it would take but a shout to rouse them.

  That specter’s face, though, was turned down in a perpetual frown, as though he expected them to do precisely that.

  “You’ll put your blades to the floor,” the man was saying, “and be coming with us.”

  Through time, it rang—that grim voice—until she wavered at her very roots. Indigestion rallied within her. The belly was evidently gone, lost to some new con, but she knew him all the same. Knew that beneath that armor were a whip’s scars and a lifetime of disappointment. She felt faint.

  Then Rurik was before her, that fool’s sense of chivalry compelling him to it, but she had her hand on his shoulder before he could, and she was the first to throw down her knives. There was no explanation they might have given, nor words that might have assuaged—the man before them might have been a fool and a coward and a drunk, but he was a hard man, and one who had taken many lives in his day. Animals’ and men’s alike—he saw little difference between them. It was bizarre to think he might do it with a sword, however.