I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow

by Ross, James Daniel

  I accepted it gratefully and set to it, “One set, I would think both. you are back far earlier than any could have hoped.”

  “Captain Roehm had decided it had been too long without word, and started toward Carolaughan with a hundred men. We met him on the road and joined him for the return trip.”

  Another army outside the gates, just what we needed, I thought on one hand, but at the same time a great, crushing weight was lifted from my shoulders. Well, a few weights: Theo and Godwin were safe, and suddenly I wasn’t solely- or at least mostly solely- responsible for the good lady’s safety anymore. I was suddenly very cheery, “Well one thing’s for certain, you’re assured of a promotion after this. Bravery in the field and… and.. and why are you making that face?”

  And it was true: Blessed with the talent for concealment reserved for particularly naive nuns and surpassed in dissembly by toddlers, his face had twisted around his mouth as if he were chewing on bitter herbs, or perhaps bitter words. He sat there for a moment, trying to contain himself until I arched my eyebrow, the tiniest of actions that pushed him over the cliff, “I’m being punished.”

  I nearly gagged on a mouthful of stew, “Punished? For Gods’ sakes why?”

  “Three month’s pay gone.” Godwin’s sulky voice slopped over my shoulder, “For leaving the Grand Lady Aelia in your care. Your care.”

  I don’t know if he meant to repeat that as a way to underscore my part in Theodemar’s newfound poverty, or if he repeated it because he repeats everything, but Godwin stared at me in a distinctly unfriendly manner when he came and joined us. I shook my head, willing my ears to leave me and go get a pair that would do the job properly. I dredged up all my wit and witticism to blurt, “What?”

  Godwin got his own bowl of stew and picked at it as if it were made of horse meat, “He was the ranking man, his responsibility to stay, to stay here with her. Here with her.”

  Another problem. Fine. I mentally ticked off how severe a beating I would hand out for this transgression against Theo, “On who’s authority?”

  “Captain Roehm.” Theo said. “He led the party himself.”

  I smoldered in my seat, and suddenly Theodemar wasn’t quite as hungry, “Have I taught you boys nothing? Question everything. Question everyone. There is nobody looking out for you but you, and everyone, including and especially the nobles, will use you as a cobblestone rather than twist an ankle. You must look more deeply!”

  And both boys stared at me like I had gone insane. Quite possibly I had, speaking so much bold truth to them so blatantly. I slapped Theo on the back and motioned for him to take another serving. “Eat. You too, Godwin. This is my mess and I will address it one way or another.”

  Theo smiled weakly and went back to eating, but Godwin’s smirk had more than a dash of nasty to it. “You will address it, will you? I’m sure. Sure.”

  I had ordered him to ride one of his prize horses to death, and so I suppose it was inevitable that Godwin was to be slightly peeved. I would have to talk to him about it later. That, or slap him until he saw things my way. Still, punishment meant authority, and that meant a new commanding officer in residence. “The Captain: What kind of man is he?”

  “Old and pressed.” Said Godwin. “Old.”

  “Unforgiving.” Said Theo.

  “Fond of his rules.” Said Godwin. “Rules.”

  “Strangely enough, he wasn’t a soldier until after the Grand Duke died.” Said Theo.

  “Was his personal bodyguard since birth.” Godwin spooned a hunk of beef into his mouth and spoke around it, “After he was assassinated Aelia made him commander of the house guard. Commander.”

  And then she left him behind. That’s telling. Telling what, precisely, I cannot say. “I will make him see reason.”

  Theo reached across the table and caught my spoon hand midway to my mouth, “Do not tangle with him, Crow. He has killed more men than the pox.”

  Normally when people say things like ‘He’s killed more men than the pox.’ it is a rhetorical flourish, a play on words, a little game with language to drive home a point. When Theo said it, however, he did it with utter, literal, certainty.

  Jon opened the door to the apartment, and the Grand Lady herself entered unannounced. She came into the room, steaming over something, and when the boys shot to their feet I waited only a half a beat before following suit. Aelia shot past in a blur of blue velvet and pink silk, trailed by the worried white form of Gelia, who cast me a pitying glance before disappearing into the Lady’s room. Striding proudly in their perfumed wake was House Captain Roehm, who both needed no introduction and deserved none. After all I was probably going to murder him before I learned how to spell his name.

  He was as if cast in iron; Gray, weathered, and dulled from age. His lines were still clear, his uniform sharp, his long moustache well cared for, but he had the brittle stiffness of a man who has determined he can scream at the universe and make it do what he wants. His back was straight, his gait long and proud. Though painfully thin, I had no doubt of the strength of his limbs. The pommel of his sword was excessively decorated, with inlayed silver roses with virdigrised copper leaves and stems, but the whole pattern was hard to distinguish since it had been touched so often they had nearly worn down to nothing. He had the discipline to become dangerous with a blade, and the further strength of will to continue practicing into his advanced years.

  Pox, indeed.

  As he closed in on me, I wondered if I could really kill him in a fair fight. Thankfully the chance of me engaging him in a fair fight was fleetingly slim. He towered at least a fingerlength above my head as he brought his formidable stare down upon me… where it shattered on my indifference. He growled quietly, making Theo and Godwin jump to a whole new level of attention with his words, “The next time you fail to come to your feet when the Grand Lady enters the room, I will cut them off.”

  A familiar viper raised its head inside my gut, slithering around with the need to bite him in undignified places. I looked downward and then back up to his cold grey eyes, “Strange. I thought I was standing. Betrayed by my feet again. Taking them would be a blessing.”

  Both boys gasped. His eyes became specks of flint beneath brows that would be long and wiry bushes if he hadn’t been intimidating them into behaving since shortly after birth, “Jest all you want, Fool. I will be keeping my eyes on you.”

  But he had exposed the chink in his armor, his unflagging and largely unwarranted pride and dignity, “I am flattered beyond measure, Lieutenant, but I think I can do better than you.”

  He wheeled upon me like a wind borne death, “I am Captain of the

  House Guard to the Grand and Noble House of Conaill and you will-”

  I love it when they tell me what I will do, “Actually, I heard that you were the bodyguard to the late Grand Duke. So, how is he?”

  Godwin and Theo stood agape, literally at attention with their mouths scraping the floor. As for his captainess, blood infused every exposed inch of skin. Veins began to pulse across his neck and forehead. His fingers twitched with the need to feel cold steel. I planned six ways to kill him before the blade left the scabbard. Then I planned on taking that sword. It had class.

  “If you were under my command I would have you flogged.” He whispered

  “Being under your command would be flogging enough.” I responded.

  He wanted to lash out, but instead he stalked toward my room and tried the door handle, obviously shocked to find his entry denied. He kept his voice low as he demanded, “Why is this locked?”

  I decided I had had enough of the game, and I sat down and continued to eat, “So I don’t have to kill any nosy bastards I find inside.”

  Control comes hard for some, easy for others. For all the levers I had just shoved under his skin and pried with all my might, Roehm managed to get himself together while I watched. It took real practice to do that. “I do not care for your tone.”

  And as much as I could use an ally
, I just couldn’t get around a man walking in on a situation I had held together for weeks by force of arms and will, and acting like he was in charge, “Imagine the bereft desert that your hurt renders my soul.”

  He smiled, unkindly, “You are not too old to beat, peasant.”

  I smiled back, a promise of later reconciliation, “And you are just the right age to toss into a pig pen.”

  Roehm lunged forward and planted his fists on the table with a resounding thud, his voice echoing off the walls, “What did you say to me?”

  I picked up the still steaming bowl of stew, planning to throw it in his face before engaging him with steel, because fair fights only exist for bards, “I said there are things even pigs do not eat and you, sir, rank just below offal on their list.”

  Of course that was a lie. Pigs will eat everything, including a corpse, and leave little but hair and teeth behind. I think he knew it, too. There it was, the narrowed eyes, the slight tremble of bloodlust and bile floating just under the surface. This was the edge of his control. “You think you can bleed me, whelp?”

  But I just couldn’t let well enough alone, “Assuming that when I cut you I get more than dust?”

  Fortunes in any gambling hall can change with a single roll of the dice. That’s when the door to Aelia’s room opened up and she entered the room, forcing me to once again come to my feet. She stood in the doorway for a few seconds, trying in vain to find a diplomatic way to say, “Have you two come to any understanding of who is in charge?”

  I hooked my thumb at Roehm as he said “Yes” and interrupted with, “He thinks he is.”

  Aelia affixed me with an icy stare, “And who do you think is in charge, Crow?”

  I reached through the many disguises in the back of my head and chose the perfectly ingratiating, winning smile and slapped it on my face, “Why, you, of course Grand Lady.”

  “Quite.” she said, managing to fit a lifetime of disapproval and disbelief in that one word. “You have caused me quite a bit of trouble.”

  My tone was light, my words were not, “I am sorry, Grand Lady, of course I should have let the assassin take his shot at you from the rooftop. He may even have missed.”

  Roehm hissed, “Speak to her with respect, cur!”

  Fighting men, and whatever his former position Roehm was a warrior through and through, are real sensitive about honor. If you convince someone they have to go off onto a field of battle and die in horrible, painful, long, and drawn out ways, they better have a reason. I figure that someone just like me came up with honor so they would have a reason to do it. Sadly, it does become awkward at times like this. He had placed Aelia above himself in his great view of what is. By failing to kowtow to every whim, living in the same suite, and generally treating her as an equal, I was placing myself on her level, and thus above him.

  “No, Crow. You did not capture the traitorous captain alive.”

  “Those were not O’Riagáin’s orders,” Roehm made a sound like an aborted bark, probably at my use of Horatio’s name without the fifteen titles attached to be properly obsequious, “Milady.”

  “Be that as it may now he will never give up his cohorts. And, by placing the head of Horatio’s Guard Captain in front of him in public…” Aelia threw her hands up and paced the room, agitated as a juggled beehive, “You might as well have accused him of ordering him to sabotage the patrols.”

  “If the head fits, Milady.”

  Her shoulders fell, “Horatio is my cousin, Fox.”

  “Name one noble here that is not at least a cousin to every other.”

  “No, he is a close cousin. We spent summers together. He is my friend.”

  Words, not mine, came bubbling out of the Fog and out of my mouth, “You can only be betrayed by those you trust, Milady.”

  “Stop it, Crow. It is not Horatio. He would not have had my father murdered.” She had grown pale, shaky, her voice drained of strength by the very thought that someone so close to her could have plotted to destroy the person she most loved in the world. “Unlock your room and gather your effects. You will be moving into the boys’ room.” Roehm made to protest but she cut him off, “They may be young, Captain, but they have proved up to the challenge of safeguarding my life. Sending them to the guard camp now would feel ungrateful.”

  While they began to start what was obviously a rehashed argument I went to my door and dug through my pouch for the key. I felt kicking me into the crowded room with four snoring youths slightly ungrateful, especially since Roehm would be much more comfortable in a garden variety coffin. Still Roehm argued that he had men of far greater experience available to come and provide close support. She felt better with people she knew. At least, he argued move me-who nobody really knew- out to where trusted men could watch me. I stifled a retort that would cause sailors to flinch and unlocked the finely crafted dwarven lock.

  The key I had just used caught my attention.

  I locked the door, then unlocked it, then locked it again. I took another key out of my pouch and tried it. Well tended and well oiled, the lock opened and latched without a hitch.

  Roehm frowned at me, “Quit wasting time and move your effects, peasant.”

  I turned to him, eyes not seeing him at all, “Front door.”

  I brushed past him as he developed a really good belly of fire and yanked open the door, causing Jon and three men in Aelia’s colors I did not know to jump. “Key.” I ordered.

  Dutifully Jon handed it over, and receiving a tongue lashing from Roehm for his trouble. It didn’t last long, just enough for me to test three keys on the front door. Two of three opened it without fail. I raced back to my door, where again two of three worked the latch. I remember the hot water, and the door I thought I had secured.

  “Roehm?” perhaps it was my boldness in questioning him mid rant that had him stumble to a stop, “Did you request water be brought for this room?”

  He nodded, and I turned to Aelia, hand out. “Your key.”

  This caught Roehm’s attention, and he came at me like a bad tempered terrier. I insulted him still further by ignoring him, going to Aelia’s room and trying all four keys. Only two worked. Only one worked them all, without fail.

  It was the key I had taken from the assassin.

  Roehm remembered he needed to punish me for something and came at me, but I stopped him with a pointed finger, “Roehm, you hate me.”

  The old warrior stopped, glanced at Aelia for permission, then smiled, “More than any other man, living or dead, has hated anyone. More than drunks decry the dawn, more than soldiers despise the chiurgeon, more than prostitutes hate the pox-”

  “-Yes, yes, I have heard you are far more deadly than any prostitute, but it is your hate that makes you the perfect man to come with me.”

  “And why should I do that?”

  “Because I have known the Grand Lady for several weeks, she knows when I get like this I am always right, and if I ask her she will order you to. This way you get to save some face and look like the better man.” Or would have, had you not made me point it out.

  But, moustache trembling, he came along without being ordered. We spent a half an hour checking the handful of keys in dozens of locks all across the castle/inn. Only one worked, but that one never failed. I handed it to Roehm.

  He examined it closely, then slipped it into his pocket, “What now?”

  I wanted to bristle as he took what was clearly mine, but instead I pointed down the hallway, “We have to beg an audience.”

  “What?”

  Two minutes later we were in front of Horatio O’Riagáin’s door. That isn’t true: We were in front of six guards; In front of four servants; In front of one haughty nose wipe; In front of his door. I had no hat to hold in my hand, and the mental costume I was wearing really required one, but still I was already here longer than I needed. It was important to disguise the reason for the visit, though. Thankfully, I was about to be dismissed by the chamberlain, or seneschal, or whate
ver they called haughty functionary in this castle, “I was sent by the Grand Lady Conaill, Grand Duchess of Conaill to apologize for the audacity with which I brought the traitor’s head to the festivities.”

  The functionary sniffed twice, as if I stunk, “I am sure a letter will do-”

  Then the door was flung open, and a disheveled, red faced Horatio stared out into the hall, focusing on nothing but my characteristically contrite form as everyone went down on one knee.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  I swear, that’s just what he said. As everyone else looked at their mental maps to make sure they were currently located nowhere near the place at fault for the Duke’s displeasure, I took him at started in a shaky voice, “Your Grand Lordship: I am to confer the most sincere apologies of your favored cousin, Aelia Conaill, Grand Duchess of Conaill and I am to beg for forgiveness. I, lowly creature that I am, sought to remedy the harm caused your house by taking the traitor to your table, unknowingly implying-”

  “SILENCE!” He shrieked, but after a pregnant pause, seemed to regain some of his composure, “Please tell my sweet cuz that her,” special emphasis, “apology is not needed. I just hope you are going to be flogged for your impertinence.”

  I bobbed my head toward Roehm, “The Captain is taking me so, now, Your Grand Lordship.”

  Horatio looked pleased, but he was a moon to Roehm’s shining sun. “Very well, carry on.“

  And he retreated inside, shutting the door firmly.

  Roehm and I rose and we left in haste, but as my mind finally got the last few pieces into position, Roehm was busy being amazed at the wrong thing, “To take a flogging to protect the reputation of the Grand Duchess. I never thought you had it in you.”

  “Forget that, you dolt. Did you see the lock?”

  “The lock?”

  Why, why, why must everyone around me be so dim? Before I kill the next assassin I am going to have to have a lengthy conversation with him or her so I might at least have a chance of finding an equal! “The lock. The lock. The lock on O’Riagáin’s door!”