Guardians of The Flame: To Home And Ehvenor (Guardians of the Flame #06-07)

by Joel Rosenberg

  I jerked my thumb at the pony, trying to keep things casual. "Could use a good smith. Useless, there, threw a shoe this morning."

  Shoeing a horse takes some tools and effort—removing a shoe takes a lot less.

  A look passed between the guards, and one walked to the rear of our group, examining the gray pony's foot closely for a moment, then nodding.

  The fact that I was ready for all of this didn't mean that I liked any of it, although as the guard let the hoof drop, the chill in the air warmed up. I wasn't born yesterday—I had pulled both front shoes the day before, to be sure that the hoof would be properly dirtied, and the sharp edges worn a bit.

  "Smith? Not a farrier?"

  I spread my hands. "That would be fine, too." I shrugged, calmly, casually, but not too casually. A bodyguard with no connections to Mikyn wouldn't be upset at the question, but would think it a bit strange. "I wouldn't have thought Brae large enough to need a full-time farrier."

  That must have passed muster, because he nodded and said, "You'll find Deneral the smith on the Street of the Dry Creek," he said, returning to his tour-guide persona, "at the base of the hill. He does fair shoeing, so they say. Again, welcome to Brae."

  * * *

  We rode past the wattle-and-daub houses of merchants and town-bound tradesmen, toward the center of town.

  "Posts of Punishment?" Jason asked.

  I shrugged. "Common along the coast."

  There's an Other Side variant of it called crucifixion—basically, you tie somebody up on a stick, don't let them have food or water, and let them die of thirst and exposure.

  I frowned. Maybe I haven't seen enough death and suffering, but I really didn't need the local lord ordering me exposed to some more.

  Ahead, the street narrowed; we shifted from riding two-two-one abreast to a single line, with me, as chief bodyguard, first, Ahira last.

  Across the square were six posts, each about the size and shape of a telephone pole, each topped with a vaguely cigar-shaped iron cage barely large enough to contain a person. What amounted to a siege tower stood nearby, rolled just out of reach of the first cage.

  That one, and three others, were occupied by motionless forms, all rags and bones, slumped up against the metal.

  From that distance, I couldn't tell if any of the four were alive, but then I saw an arm move.

  Tennetty grunted. I thought she had a stronger stomach than any of the rest.

  Ahira hissed at her to shut up. So did I. I wasn't too worried; being nauseated by the sight of this wasn't particularly a break in character.

  "Fine," she said, her voice low. "But I know one of them. I recognize her from Home. She's an engineer, name of Kenda. And the one in the far cage. That's Bast."

  Ohmigod. I remembered Bast as a skinny little boy.

  Jason's horse took a prancing step as he walked it up to my side. "What do we do?"

  "Nothing quickly," I said. "Nothing at all, until Ahira and I say so. If we say so. Understood?"

  His face was white, but he nodded.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In Which I Go

  for a Stroll

  There are usually aleph-null ways to do something right, but aleph-one ways to do it wrong.

  —LOU RICCETTI

  Lou always makes things complicated. What he means is that if you choose how to do it at random, you will screw it up. What he's leaving out is that if you're careful about how you do it, you'll probably screw it up. Still, "probably" is better than "will."

  —WALTER SLOVOTSKY

  I've always tried to both keep and avoid a sense of proportion. Ever since the freshman philosophy class that James Michael and Karl and I were in together.

  There's lots of ways to teach ethics. Professor Alperson tried a complicated one.

  "Okay," he said. "Classical ethical problem, with a twist. You're in a specific city on a specific date and time, and you're walking along the railroad tracks. You hear the whistle of an oncoming train.

  "Now, ahead of you, you see two people stuck to the tracks; each is wedged in by the foot. One is an old man, who you know to be a good and saintly type; the other is a young boy, who you know to be the worst brat in all of . . . well, never mind. You only have time to save one. What do you do, and does it matter what you do?"

  We batted that one back and forth for awhile. I, of course, challenged the parameters he had laid down—never take a problem at face value—but he held firm. No, there was no way either was going to free himself, the train was not going to stop, and I knew that for sure, and we'd discuss epistemology some other time.

  James Michael tried to take the long look, but rejected it. "In a hundred years, they'll both be dead, so it doesn't matter? Is that what you're getting at?"

  Alperson shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe I'm not getting at anything."

  Karl took it seriously. "You save one. Either one. You save the old man because he is good and virtuous and because virtue should be respected, or you save the boy because no matter how much of a brat he is, he still deserves to grow up, but you do save one of the two."

  Alperson smiled. "What if I were to tell you that the date is August 6, 1945, and that the city is Hiroshima, and that in two minutes, the bomb the Enola Gay is about to drop will kill all three of you? Would that make any difference?"

  Karl shook his head. "Of course not."

  Alperson's smile grew larger. "Good. I don't know if I agree, but good. You've taken a position. Now support it."

  * * *

  It took us the rest of the day to put it all together, but the locals were still talking about it, and evincing curiosity didn't make us seem, well, curious.

  There had been a murder just outside of the city of Brae, but well within the domain of Lord Daeran.

  There had also been a contract team of engineers from Home here, laying out a glassmaking plant. Canning—well, jarring—of fish in glazed clay pots was one of the ways of putting down a larger-than-usable catch. While overcooked and oversalted lake alewife fillets in a sealed pot of brine was not my idea of a good time, there were folks inland for whom that was a great if expensive treat, and a very good supplement to a diet that consisted largely of bread and onion, with too little protein.

  Real glass canning, though, would have been an improvement—safer, faster, cheaper. Good glassmaking was something that Lou Riccetti wanted, and the Cirric shore was the right place to put such a plant. So he had sent out an engineer team to negotiate and reconnoiter, led by Bast, one of his senior engineers. Bast was a good fellow, who I still, deep within my heart of hearts, thought of as a skinny boy who drew more than his share of guard duty.

  A new idea of Lou's, contracting out labor.

  Not a great one, as it turned out.

  * * *

  Farm slaves were increasingly rare these days, horses and oxen increasingly common. Of the circle of farms surrounding Brae, owing fealty to Lord Daeran, only a handful had even a single slave; most were worked by large families and their horses and oxen.

  Except for one, a small plot worked by an old man named Heneren, his childless wife, and a superannuated slave, name of Wen'red. They had been visited by a traveling farrier, who was traveling through the arc of farms, reshoeing as he went.

  He had swiftly murdered Heneren and his wife, announced to Wen'red that he was now free, and left the old slave alone as he headed off toward the city.

  Wen'red had waited a day before he had started in toward the city, on foot. It took him several days—he hadn't been off the farm in thirty years, and got lost. But he knew his duty to his late owner, and reported the murders to a city armsman . . .

  . . . the day after Bast had been seen helping the farrier book passage away from Brae.

  The afternoon of the morning that Mikyn had sailed way.

  Two days before an armsman returned to town, bringing word of the state of Mikyn's victims.

  It was only natural that Bast and company would offer help and shelter to a Home raid
er, even one in a farrier's disguise that they would have pierced easily.

  It was equally natural for Lord Daeran to try Bast and company for conspiracy in the murder of Brae subjects, and to stake them out in the hot sun and cool night, providing them only water, and only enough to keep them alive until they would die of starvation and exposure.

  Nice folks, eh?

  * * *

  "Just about midnight," Ahira said. "Guard will be changing any time."

  My time. No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always use good intelligence, if you catch my drift.

  We had taken conspicuously rich rooms that were even more conspicuously secure. They were on the third floor of the inn, with but a single door entrance, and two balconies, neither of which would be easily accessible from below, and only barely from above—the overhanging roof would prevent somebody from simply dropping down from roof to balcony.

  There was nothing that would prevent me from rappelling down the side of the building into the edge of the square below, except the possibility of some passersby seeing what was going on.

  But local light-discipline was lax, and two of the lamps on the street were out, the residents not yet braced by armsmen demanding they be lit.

  More than enough shadow for the likes of me.

  Walk out the front door? Sure, I could have done that—but it's always better to have the option of being officially somewhere else when there's skulduggery going on.

  That's me, Walter Slovotsky: skuldugger.

  I sat tailor-fashion on the floor, Andrea behind me, fingers kneading at my shoulders hard, just this side of bruising. I might turn down a massage from a pretty woman, but only rarely from somebody who is good at it, and never from a pretty woman who is good at it.

  Jason scowled. I had a blindfold over my eyes, but I could hear him scowl.

  "I should go too," he said.

  Tennetty snorted. "Like you could get him out of trouble?"

  His voice was too quiet. "Yes," he said. "Like I could get him out of trouble."

  He was right—he had saved my life last time out—but it was irrelevant. We weren't configured for violence or flight, and I didn't see any way to change that, not tonight. If we had been more cold-blooded, we would have left the engineers in the hot sun for another day before I went reconnoitering—giving the rest of the group time to get beyond town, ready to run if things went sour.

  But no. They had been up there for days and days, slowly burning to death and starving in the hot sun, and while I didn't see any possible way I could get them out tonight, the sooner we knew what we were up against, the sooner we could get them out.

  If we could get them out.

  Look—truth is that the importance of something doesn't have a lot of effect on whether or not it's doable. I've had too many lessons on that already; I hoped this wasn't going to be another one.

  Time for a quick sneak around, to find out whether rescue for the engineers consisted of a breakout, or a merciful death.

  Or nothing at all. If you can't do it, you can't do it.

  "Time," I said, rising to my feet. I opened my eyes, and could see through the blindfold that the lamps were still on in the room. "Lights out."

  I heard several puffs of air, and then: "Lights are out."

  The best way to see in darkness is to be born a dwarf—not only do they see better with less light, they can see three colors down into the infrared, and can find their way at a dead run through territory and conditions where you and I wouldn't have a prayer.

  The best way wasn't open to me. The second best way to see well in darkness is, first, to have the heredity that gives you decent night vision; second, to eat your carrots, whether you like them or not—I don't; and third, to give your eyes enough time in darkness before you venture out into it.

  Black is one of my favorite colors, particularly at night. The trouble is, it's the classic color of a thief. Similarly, it would have been nice to rub some black greasepaint over my face and hands, but that would have labeled me as someone skulking about.

  Ahira gripped my shoulder for a moment. "Don't get too close, and don't get into trouble." He was always trying to keep me out of trouble, and it was only through the obvious necessity of it that he had agreed to my night walk.

  "Trouble? Me?" I smiled. "How could anybody who looks this good get into trouble?"

  He didn't chuckle, although his grim frown lightened a shade or two. "True enough. Don't try to get too close—you're much too high class to be concerned about the fine details of the Posts of Punishments. Just make a quick survey of the situation, then get back here."

  "Sure."

  What the well-dressed thief was wearing this year: black cotton breeches of a nice thick weave, neatly bloused in plain leather boots that were somewhat better made than they looked; a dark tan shirt, jauntily slashed to the waist, all that covered by a brown cloak whose collar would work as a hood, if need be. A particularly short shortsword, suspended from the swordbelt with cloth linkages, instead of metal—no clanking when I walk, thank you. A fine leather sap tucked into the belt—a footpad's weapon, but something a bodyguard might carry. Two braces of throwing knives hidden here and there, and a largish pouch slung pertly over the right shoulder, containing some money, a couple of flasks of healing draughts, and a few oddments. Gloves of the softest pigskin, which gripped the short woven leather rope quite nicely as I tied it into a rappelling rig, then passed one end of the long climbing rope through.

  The street was quiet. With Ahira holding one end, I threw the other end over the edge, and stepped out into the night.

  * * *

  There's basically two ways around a city—you can stick to the main roads, or try to keep in alleys and back streets. I passed down several alleys before I found what I was looking for: a tavern across the street, its open door belching sailing songs into the night, and on this side of the street a raised walkway.

  I pulled some dirt out, then stripped off my shoes, socks, gloves, cloak, belt, sword, and shirt, wrapped everything else tightly in the cloak, and stuffed the bundle under the walkway, patting dirt back into place over it.

  Ahira was right. Somebody who looked the way I had wouldn't have any business skulking about the center of town, past the Posts of Punishment, alone or in company.

  Shirtless, I straightened and slung the bag over my shoulder and strutted across the street toward the tavern.

  First, a bit of beer. No, first, a lot of beer.

  The street was cold under my feet as I walked across the street, and through the broad door, into noise and light and singing.

  "Hey," I said. "Is there nobody who will drink with a sailor?"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In Which an

  Old Acquaintance

  Is Briefly Renewed

  He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  It's always seemed to me that sailors spend most of their time making up funny names for things.

  —WALTER SLOVOTSKY

  The first time I went sailing, I don't think it went terribly well. Some people have no sense of humor . . .

  I had a summer job at a Y camp in Michigan—just driving a truck, actually, although that was more fun than it sounded. What I got to do was haul campers out on expeditions—canoeing down a river in Canada, hiking through the forest in the Upper Peninsula, survival camping in a national reserve, like that—and haul them back. All in the back of slightly modified trucks. Grossly illegal—all the laws specified school buses—but as long as there weren't any accidents, nobody was going to bother the Y.

  There were two neat things about the job. One was the scenery; that part of the world is pretty. The other one appealed to my laziness: when there weren't campers to be driven around, I didn't have anything that I had to do.

  So I hung around the camp. Ran five miles a day to keep my wind up
; rebuilt a few forest paths and such, but mainly just goofed off around and read—Stash and Emma would send me a CARE package each week with five packs of M&Ms, ten new paperbacks, a couple pairs of socks, and a totally useless dozen condoms. (I didn't find any need for condoms in an all-boys' camp.)

  One day, one of the campers—a sixth grader, I think—asked if I was willing to come out and skipper an E-scow for him and a few of his friends. It was a single-masted racing shell with twin daggerboards, fast and lovely as it skimmed across the lake, but if you didn't handle it just right, it could capsize in a breath of wind. Seems that while all five of them were very experienced sailors, the camp rules required an adult in charge, and I was considered one, being all of nineteen at the time.

  It was strange. Mickey, the kid who was really in charge, would address me very formally—"Skipper, I think we should stand by to come about," and then I'd say, "Stand by to come about," and they'd framish the glimrod and farble the kezenpfaufer, or whatever needed to be done, and wait for me to respond to Mickey's nod with a "come about."

  The only part they didn't like was when I told them stuff like, "All right, let's hoist up the landlubbers and batten down the hatches."

  No sense of humor.

  Particularly when I said, "Stand by to capsize."

  * * *

  "The thing is," my new friend said, his thick arm thrown across my shoulder, "is that the Watersprite may look like the slowest scow on the face of the Cirric . . ." actually, he said "Shirrick," but you get the idea " . . . and it may smell like the least-bailed excuse for a floating cesspool ever to dishonor the sewer-water in which it floats, and it may be captained by the stupidest man ever to risk falling overboard and poisoning the fish below, but, once you get used to her and her ways, she's even worse. Havanudda beer."

  He was a broad, thick man, with a rippling sailor's beard that spilled down both cheeks, across his neck and down his chest. Beneath the beard, his face was sweaty and dirty in the light of the sputtering candles that dripped wax onto the filthy surface of the rough-hewn table. Absently, he crushed a beetle with his thumb, then drained some more beer, one hand on my knee.