I promised to meet the balladeer that evening at the pub and teach him Softly William on the condition that he help me figure out an arrangement of Stedon’s Defeat for my guiert.
I don’t know if she had a deliberate game plan for this little tour, but Kivern and I met every sort of man, woman, and child in the streets and shops of Tyurae. We dropped in on some of her customers and surprised them with uncustomary home delivery. We ate at a tavern where they let me pay by dictating to them my recipe—yes, I do have a recipe, Geoffrey—for bread pudding. The cook promised to bring a batch with him to the pub that evening and assured Kivern that he approved heartily and thought I was just lovely, just lovely until his daughter Wyckham shooed him back into the kitchen so’s that the commoners might have a bite to eat as well, don’t you know, you’d think he was courtin’ her and so on till she disappeared behind the rattan curtain as well.
The Elder joined us as we were finishing. He was served instantly. Didn’t even order, but I suppose there aren’t that many options for a man with his teeth, or lack thereof. Boush was a hoot. As old as he was, and he’d outlived all four of his younger brothers, he was still quite the ladies man. Flirted like a dog with me and Kivern and the woodworker in the corner quietly doing math. He was tall with no more than a slight stoop in his shoulders. A granddaughter had woven a cap for him seasons ago with remnants donated from all the villagers. To keep the sun from melting his brain through his silky fine hair, he said. Although when challenged to present a tuft of this silky fine hair, he protested that it would be an insult to his lovely bond to allow us to ogle his best feature. He laughed and joked with us and watched very closely as the hefty woodworker paid her bill and left, still working figures in her head.
“Goodbye my lovely, it has been a pleasure.”
She turned in the doorway, glancing up briefly from her notes, “Good afternoon, sir. Thank you again for the smile.”
His eyes sparkled and he grinned merrily, winking at her.
He turned to us after she’d gone, “Nice girl.” He leaned over to me, “She’s one of the newcomers. Fresh blood is always good, I say.” He blew into his mug of soup, looking over it at Kivern, “She’s working on Fierell’s place isn’t she?”
“You know she is, Boush.”
He stared at her for a moment, slurping his lunch. Then he turned confidentially to me, “Shame what happened to Forte, isn’t it? One has to wonder, though, why she and hers would travel so far from home and want to live even closer to the source of their tragedy.”
I swallowed and looked at him frankly, “I’m afraid I don’t know what happened to Forte.”
“My dear!” He looked shocked, sort of. “The dragon burnt it down! Killed most of the residents. All of our orphan prince’s paternal relatives at once added to the terrible punishment the dragon has already levied against him.”
I gasped. I had been so caught up in my own horror after our discovery of the crypt, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might know them, might be related to them. And then to see them stacked up in that cellar, suffocated from the smoke as they tried to claw their way out of the chamber, unable to escape through the tunnel or back up into the castle. But. . . but how could a dragon set a fire underground? And the dragon certainly didn’t seal that door against them. And the bedrooms. Even if the fire had spread through the castle to reach the underground passage, why didn’t it spread up to the bedrooms? Heat rises, towards oxygen. It doesn’t burrow underground or drive axes into people’s skulls. And the trees were chopped down, not burnt. A human did that, no dragon. A human massacred those people in the tunnel.
“I had no idea.” I excused myself from the table to go be sick somewhere in private, but the Elder laid a strong hand on my arm.
“We have been unable to send a scouting party to help any who may be left at the castle.”
“Oh?”
“Fierell keeps us busy. You are the first visitors we’ve had from the east. Since you have traveled that way, we thought you may have attempted to visit at Forte.”
I stood, removing his hand as politely as I could, “I am not familiar with this area. You’ll have to ask the healer. Pardon me.”
I stepped outside and leaned against the cafe’s cool stone front, breathing slowly and deeply until the nausea and the images went away. Well, faded. I could see a breeze blowing through the higher leaves of the oak tree shading the front door of the cafe, but it was blocked out of this little square by the low trees and buildings encircling it. The sun was hot that day and had baked the street, muddy from the previous night’s rain, into a hard track perfect for the wide-wheeled little cart that Kivern was using to transport her customers’ laundry.
A young man wearing a light, many pocketed doublet over his padded-knee work pants and bare feet, shuffled slowly along the walkway on the other side of the square, sweeping the now cracking mud off the stones. A couple of diners nodded at me as they left the cafe, sitting for a moment on the bench to the left of the doorway to tie on their dirty boots which they’d left outside as they dined. They grabbed their tools and sauntered off down the middle of the dirt road, resuming some argument I’d caught a bit of over my sandwich.
“Hey there, kiddo,” the cook’s daughter stepped out into the shade carrying a mug and a dishrag. “I’m Wyckham. There’s a breeze out back, if that would help.”
“Thanks, I’m fine.”
The girl—my age, shouldn’t I think of myself as a woman by now—took my arm anyway and we walked around the building to a copse of trees near where we had left Kivern’s cart. “The Elder may love women, but he’s not too sensitive sometimes.”
I began to protest, “He didn’t...” but Wyckham interrupted me, turning to face me very closely and speaking in nearly a whisper. She all but broke my hand squeezing it so firmly.
“You were at Forte, weren’t you?”
I nodded.
“And it’s not like she says.”
I didn’t quite know what a safe answer would be. “I don’t know what she says.”
“Did the...”
The girl was interrupted by Kivern’s noisy appearance around the far side of the cafe. “There you are, Nanda. I thought we’d left the trundle out front, but here it is. We need to get going before Tuftee sets out to pick his washing up at my home. Wyckham,” She nodded at my companion, “we’ll see you tonight, won’t we?”
“Yes.” She seemed flustered, as if she were being given an order she didn’t want to obey just yet. “I’ll talk to you then. Nice to meet you my... Nanda.” She started back in through the kitchen door, but stopped when she transferred the mug to her left to open the door. “Oh! Almost forgot. This is for you.” She handed me the mug. “It’s warmed milk with herbs. Should settle your stomach and... distract your mind. Return the mug whenever.”
I tasted it nervously as Kivern and I set off again, but it was good. And it did relax the knots in my stomach.
After another hour of deliveries, we finally arrived at what had been my destination; the gaming yard. A large grassy square towards the north of the village surrounded by cured wooden walkways and enclosed by a beautiful arrangement of trees and wooden walls, the gaming yard was a place where villagers could go to play games or practice any of the combative or meditative arts that comprised a Kavegan’s exercise options. The area was also used as a dancing and meeting yard for the frequent village festivals. When we arrived, there were two young boys practicing archery and a woman repairing one of the walkways. Most of the ground was empty. Kivern excused herself to pick up some washing from an old friend of her mother’s and left me, finally, some time alone.
I ran through some rolls and kicks. Then, feeling too unwieldy, tried to satisfy my energy with T’ai Chi. I was moving slowly, trying to reach a compromise with the forces running amok in my body, so I had only gotten to the second crane when a dark woman interrupted me.
I had seen her enter the yard, but thought nothing of her. She was nea
rly six feet tall and looked healthy for her age which I judged to be somewhere around my Mama’s. She wore a long robe over suede leggings which were mostly hidden by a heavy skirt that was slit all the way up the center to her waist. Her hands were gloved and her black hair was tied back with an intricate arrangement of cloth ties. She focused a light smile on me with the sort of unkind eyes that made me want to whisper to someone that her roots were showing.
She stood before me projecting what she imagined was a friendly attitude but which actually made every hair on my arms stand straight up. She waited for me to respond to her invasion of my space. I quietly waited for her to explain herself. During this standoff, the boys stopped their play and left the field. The repair-woman continued working but I saw her subtly edging away from us. My Amazonian visitor bristled as I continued to not begin the conversation. I had nothing to say. She had approached me, interrupted me. She could damn well go first.
“You must be our visitor Nanda who attends the ‘healer’ Geoffrey.”
“Yes.” I suddenly guessed who this woman must be and I swallowed against the nausea that rose up again in my throat.
She coughed gently; some sort of cue I guess that it was my turn to speak. I didn’t.
“I am Fierell, lord of this village.”
Was it Thumper’s mother or Bambi’s who said if you can’t say anything nice, keep your big mouth shut?
She was growing less amused with me by the second and I don’t think she started out all that amused. “I thought you might be impressed by that.”
“That you’ve declared yourself lord of this tiny village when you had all of Forte castle in your sway? Why?”
She laughed, “You are an impertinent little girl.”
I ran my hands down my sides, outlining my curves, “I’m an impertinent woman.”
She spat at me, “To be a bond does not mean you are a queen.”
“I am neither, Fierell.” I scraped some dirt out from under my fingernail before I looked up at her again. “Like you.”
If you’re going to light a fire, it’s safest to drop the match quickly and get away from it.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I stepped up onto the walkway beside her, “I’m gonna go see if the healer needs any assistance.” And I walked away towards the north wall.
I hope it was rage and shock that kept her from speaking until I'd gone a good distance. When she did speak her voice was controlled.
“He is no healer.”
“He is, lady.” I wonder if that subtle insult might be misinterpreted here as good manners? “His only ambition is to heal people.” All the people, as a collective body, as their ruler.
“And your ambitions, little one?” Smooth as honey she was. “Do you think he loves you? He hasn’t bonded with you. He’s using you, my dear. You’re nothing to him.”
If I had guts, I would have turned and screamed at her. I would’ve yelled, and you’re nothing to everybody. But I was scared. I was leaving because I knew what that woman was capable of doing and I didn’t know why she hadn’t done something to me yet. Why not just cut her losses and kill Geoffrey and I on the mere hunch that he was the prince and I, she imagined, the prophesied queen. So I didn’t speak. I walked away, quickly, trying not to shake. Until I heard that voice.
The stiff-tongued lisper with a rough, studied accent. The asshole who tried to kill us at Battlescar and rained apples on us at Forte. The leader of the five. His voice froze me in my tracks.
“My lady Fierell, I bring news.”
Her voice was cold, “Yes?”
“They are no longer in their prison and my sources have them traveling this way.”
She didn’t move. Nor did I.
“Oh?” Her icy tone displayed a displeasure that should have been obvious to him. But he continued on unfazed.
“What? No greeting but your back?”
I was shaking. Trying to breath like Sensei taught me, to control my anger in a situation that could better be handled with diplomacy. The problem with me, Sensei says, is that my fight or flee instincts are mixed up. I’ll run away from easy confrontations and stand for fights that are all kinds of wrong. And this situation definitely fit my fight requirements. I turned.
“I’ll face you.” Not my best line, I admit.
Now Fierell turned to the guy. She stepped aside in fact, “Arinaud, meet Geoffrey’s red-headed companion, lady Nanda.”
Arinaud’s face was better composed than his voice. It was a rough, weathered face. The angularity begun by the sharp corners of his jawbone and cheeks was completed by the unevenly receding hairline which left a long widow’s peak pointing down the center of his face. His nose had been broken and set poorly, but it suited him and the scar across his left eyebrow simply drew your attention to his rather spectacularly blue eyes. His lips, though, were rough and chapped, and his shoulder-length hair was thin and an unremarkably dull straw color.
I barely recognized him from Battlescar. I knew he was one of the two I had racked but there his hair had fallen out of its queue. He’d been dirtier, sweatier, bloodier; plus holding a sharp and shiny sword that was his most intriguing feature in that moment.
But I couldn’t forget that voice, and charming smile or no, the man belonging to that repulsive voice intended to kill Geoffrey.
“Not a lady,” I said and I hit him.
Charged him from ten yards and right-crossed him on that really sharp jaw. Man did it hurt. I’d never punched anyone before. It’s a standard move. You see it all the time in movies and stuff. I’d just never done it. I would need to consider long and hard before I did it again. I don’t like pain that isn’t being experienced by someone else.
The four—they must have found a replacement—who had been standing at the edge of the gaming yard charged forward to protect their leader, but Fierell waved them back, “Surely Arinaud can defend himself from an encumbered woman.”
He turned to respond to her and I drew his sword from its sheath. I would have stuck it right through his gut, but he continued turning and the point slid off his leather armor. His sword was, like Geoffrey’s, a good four inches longer than mine and much weightier in the forte and hilt. It dragged me forward and he was on my back before I could recover. He wrapped his arms around me and grabbed for the sword. I nicked his left hand as I w’ticked the blade back and forth in a bastardized Kali move. I was trying to keep his hands off the hilt as I raised the point to stab him in the face. He sacrificed another slice on his left hand to catch the blade long enough to open the handle to his right hand’s reach. As soon as he got a hand on it, his superior arm strength and his weight on my back helped him keep the hilt high and turn the blade down to my belly, wrenching my wrists.
I saw that point headed towards my stomach and instinct kicked in. I submitted to gravity. His weight helped me fall quickly forward to my right, taking him with me while the blade stabbed into thin air and continued, its momentum plunging it a few inches into the grass beside the walkway. Although I had initiated it, Arinaud was still on top and he recovered from the fall faster than I did. He let go of the stuck sword and punched me full in the groin and if you think that only works on men, become a woman and try it. Or DON’T.
I curled into the fetal position and rolled. I rolled right off the walkway into the grass. My eyes cleared in time to see him aiming a kick at my face and I rolled towards it. As his foot passed me, grazing my temple, I grabbed the ankle and rolled away from him. The move pulled him off balance and I heard the satisfying crack of his head hitting the wood as I continued rolling out to standing. I pressed my advantage then and dove in to straddle him and punch the crap out of his face. I guess I didn’t need to think long and hard before I used that maneuver again. As I pummeled him, he pulled a knife from nowhere and stabbed up at my heart. My heart was saved as I lost my balance while pulling my fist back for a punch. The knife slid up into my left arm as I slammed my knuckles into his throat.
That’s when Toss showed
up.
My world was not so clear at this point. Blood was swimming before my eyes and all I could see was the host of weak-spots and breakables on my enemy’s body. So when an unseen pair of arms tore me from him, wrenching the knife back out of my arm, and flung me away, I just spun around and renewed my attack. Toss’ quick grab and Arinaud’s outstretched knife kept me from closing distance.
“My lady!” Toss yelled at Fierell. Then he took a breath, “My lady lord. As sworn protector of this village any bloodshed must be answered by you. You stand here and watch though it is your duty to go to any length to prevent such enmity within your walls.”
She smiled at him, so sweetly, “There are no walls about this village.”
“There are, my lady lord protector, walls about this gaming yard. And there is blood on the grass and on the board which continues to flow until you answer it. This is the law.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. This was some political arrangement that Geoffrey has not filled me in on. It’s something about the lord of the land or castle or whatever having more responsibility to the people than the people to the lord. All I’ve been able to gather is that it’s like some archaic law requiring the lord to pay in flesh and blood for his or her people’s injuries.
In practice I guess they usually forgo the literal bloodshed thing and the lord pays in other ways. It helps explain why Stedon and Laurienel went alone against the dragon and why Ko tried to prevent them from having to go, Toss says, and why Geoffrey feels he has to go. But Toss was challenging Fierell with the literal and still legally acceptable fee for our fighting.
“Have your men call the elders to measure the spills.”
Geoffrey's Queen: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 16
