A twitch in Sorial’s cheek muscle betrayed him. Rexall continued, “Okay, so maybe she’s been kissed. But no more. Being a teacher is overrated, Sor. You want someone with experience. Like Annie. Gods, I wish she’d lived. She was good for you.”
“Maybe you’re right, but with Alicia, it ain’t about sex.” At least not entirely…
“With girls, it’s always about sex. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Sex and having babies. And with the duke’s daughter, if the one led to the other, you’d end up decorating a gibbet somewhere on his property.”
The bleak pragmatism of Rexall’s views struck a nerve. Sex was the glue that had bonded him to Annie. There was no denying that, but Annie had been a sexual creature. Was it the promise of sex, however unlikely, that kept Alicia roaming his thoughts? Did he want her as much as he had wanted Annie? There were times when, as he lay abed at night, his thoughts turned to what it would be like to share the sheets with Alicia.
Recognizing that his friend was weary of talking about women, Rexall asked, “So, in one more season, you’re free of Warburm. What’s next? You still plan on leaving Vantok to see the world?”
Sorial nodded. The subject had been in the forefront of his thoughts recently. “I’ll wait till Summer’s over. I don’t want to start a journey in the heat.”
“No more mucking stables.”
“No more,” agreed Sorial. “Warburm’s had my childhood. Now it’s time for something different.”
Of course, leaving Vantok would mean leaving Alicia. How difficult would that be when it was more than a distant possibility? For now, it was still in the future, but it wouldn’t be long before the future migrated into the present.
“If you want company, just ask. Every time I stick my pitchfork into a pile of moldy, shit-caked straw, I feel a surge of wanderlust. And, of course, a desire to see if the women of other cities fuck the same way they do here.”
“Thanks. I don’t really want to go alone.”
Later that afternoon, Warburm asked for a word in private. Sorial assumed it was time for him to return to work. He surreptitiously probed the scar from the wound and determined it wasn’t too tender to deter him.
As they sat across a table from one another in an isolated side room, the innkeeper said, “I had a long talk with Duke Carannan this afternoon and he done made an offer. If you got interest, I’ll release you from the rest of your contract. Ain’t no better worker around, lad, but you and I both know your days in the stable be done. You’d never be able to work there again without seeing danger in the shadows. The boys I done hired to replace you and Visnisk will work out fine once they been properly trained. They won’t never be your equal, but I knew I’d be losing you in another season anyway, so this time had to come.”
“The duke? Does he want me to muck out his stables?” This wasn’t at all what Sorial had been expecting.
“He wants you to join his personal militia. He thinks you got what it takes to be a fine military man. Untrained, you took out two of those ruffians that tried to kill you. Ain’t many stableboys who could make that claim. Nine out of ten boys in those circumstances would be dead and they wouldn’t have taken anyone with ’em. For what it be worth, I agree with him. You ain’t meant to waste away in a stable. Time to groom you for a better life. And I figured there might be another incentive beyond getting away from horses and hay.”
Were they intentionally taunting him? “She’s a duke’s daughter.”
“We already had this conversation, lad. I guess my words didn’t get inside that skull of yours. If you obsess about class differences, you ain’t never gonna get what you want. Prove your worth to the duke. He be a fair minded man, unlike many with titles and land. He knows the world be changing, and things that might have been unthinkable ain’t no longer so. Do whatever it takes. Whatever.”
“She’s betrothed.”
“Betrothed, yes, but she ain’t married, leastaways not yet. And you don’t know the nature of the betrothal. It ain’t a normal kind of attachment. There be some…irregularities in the arrangement.”
“You know?”
Warburm nodded. “Aye, but it ain’t something I be at liberty to discuss. The duke and I share a few confidences. All will be revealed at the lass’ Maturity next Harvest.”
“I know you’re more’n just an innkeeper. There’s something going on here - something that draws people like Duke Carannan, priests, and nobles from other cities. I’ve watched those men go in and out of the inn for years, and Annie said you take pains to make sure the meetings ain’t overheard or interrupted. What’s it all about?”
The innkeeper frowned. One hand stroked his stubbled chin. Sorial could tell he was trying to determine how much, if anything, he should reveal.
“I be part of a society, lad - a group of people committed to a… common goal. You done seen a few of our number, but not all. We cross classes and city boundaries. There ain’t many of us, but enough to ensure we pursue the purpose that’s bound us since our beginning.”
It wasn’t enough for Sorial, but it was something. What could bind such a diverse group of people? Something to do with the current crisis? Something to do with the gods? Something to do with Sorial’s parentage?
“Did you know my father? My real father, not the fraud Lamanar.”
Warburm’s scowl spoke as loudly as his words. “You do Lamanar a disservice. He be a good man who’s sacrificed as much as any of us, and more’n many. I known him for a long time, more’n half my life, and there ain’t no one else I’d done rather have at my back in a tight spot.”
“He sold me to you and forced my mother to be a whore.”
“Have a care when you use a word like ‘forced.’ We all got roles to play. You as well. You was sold to me not because Lamanar wanted the money but because I were better suited to watch over you than him. It weren’t something your mother wanted, but she knew it were for the best. You’ve wronged her, lad. Everything she’s done has been done out of love for you. She could have followed a different path and had comfortable life in Syre with a husband and a stable family. Instead, she chose poverty in the house of a man she don’t love just to be close to you. Yet you refuse to see her because she don’t tell you things about your past that needs be kept secret until the time’s right. Every night she cries herself to sleep hoping you’ll forgive her. Next time you feel self-pity because of your part in all this, think of what she sacrificed.”
They were remarkably frank words, even if they didn’t add up to a full explanation, and they had their intended effect. Sorial felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t thought about things from Kara’s perspective.
“You know a lot about my mother,” said Sorial.
Warburm nodded. “I can see the wheels turning in your head, lad. You be trying to put it all together. Figger it out. You know some of it, but not all, and the missing be frustrating. My advice: give it up for now. The answers will come in their own time. When you need them, they’ll be there. The biggest danger be that you’ll make a mistake now and miss something, and that’ll get you killed or worse. I’ll be open with you, lad: people have died to put you in the position you be in now, and more people will die before everything be over. Maybe that’ll include you.”
“So the attack…?”
“Can’t say for sure. Could it have been random? Of course. There be a lot of violence in the city now, as there be all across the world.”
“You’re sending me to the duke because you can’t keep me safe here.”
Warburm nodded. “You’ve been attacked twice and survived more by luck than skill. That ain’t a judgment; it be a fact. The first, well, I think that were just a horse thief emboldened by the situation. The second…we may never know. Whether you be a target yet or not, you will be. You got to be able to defend yourself. The duke’s feelings about you be sincere. He be a member of the group, but he don’t know the things about you I know. At least not all of ’em.”
“
And my father?” Sorial was unwilling to let the subject drop, especially now that Warburm was in a talkative mood.
The innkeeper sighed. “I done knew your father. Knew him well, in fact - leastaways I thought I did. Knew your mother in those times as well. He were a proud man, your father. Dark, dangerous, and hard to pin down. Had something of a fall from grace, so to speak. Don’t ask me for his name. I won’t give it to you and it wouldn’t mean anything, anyways. He were born and bred in the North; he had a duty to perform and he did it, as did we all. You could spend your entire life looking for him and you wouldn’t find him unless he wanted it.”
“Is he a member of your society?”
“Were be a better word. He were a member. When his duty were done, he left. The burden were passed to your mother and me and others.”
“Will I ever meet him?”
“I can’t answer that, lad. I don’t know for sure whether he be alive or dead. He lives the kind of life that gets many a man killed and he ain’t getting younger. I don’t know what the future holds. If the gods have turned away, the prophesies be void and the words of the augers empty. Whatever fate or providence remains may plan for your path and his to cross, ’specially if he decides to seek you out for his own purposes.”
“I could leave Vantok. Ain’t much keeping me here.”
“Take the duke’s offer. Learn how to fight. Become a comrade in arms with the other men there. Woo Lady Alicia and prove to her father you be worthy of her. Take pity on your mother. Have patience and know all things will be revealed in their time. I told you things today, lad, because it were time for you to know them.”
Sorial thought long and hard about Warburm’s advice, ignoring only one thing. He couldn’t just forget or be patient. Two days later, he informed Warburm he would be leaving the inn to enter Duke Carannan’s service as a man at arms.
* * *
Life as a guard-in-training in Duke Carannan’s private militia was vastly different from anything Sorial had hitherto experienced. As Warburm’s principal stableboy, he had been accustomed to a degree of autonomy - running the stable as he saw fit, exercising control over his domain. Not so here. Of the five-dozen men employed by the duke, Sorial was the most junior and one of his duties was to fetch and carry for those older and more grizzled. Privacy was also a thing of the past. He had exchanged a solo room in the inn for a barracks chamber that housed nineteen men in addition to himself.
He worked non-stop from an hour before dawn until an hour after dusk. Much of his day was spent doing menial chores like cleaning the barracks, mucking the stable (something he had familiarity with and which was therefore given to him as his chief assignment), and polishing arms and armor. Every morning, he was given two hours of horsemanship and an hour of archery. Every afternoon, he practiced with sword and knife and sparred with others using fisticuffs. There wasn’t a night when Sorial didn’t go to sleep bruised and sore.
Despite his youth and inexperience, Sorial had the respect of his fellows before he arrived. It wasn’t only because of the Duke’s personal sponsorship; the details of the stable fight had been disseminated throughout the city. Despite their prowess with weapons, few of Carannan’s men-at-arms were blooded. Most could disarm Sorial without much effort, but he had done something only a handful of them could claim: he had killed in combat.
He was given one day off per week, and he often spent it in the company of Rexall. On those occasions when his friend was busy, he sought out Brindig and Darrin, who were now more like older brothers than protectors. The watchmen were delighted with Sorial’s choice of career, although they encouraged him to give up the “play posse” of the nobleman and do the honest work of defending the whole city. There was no doubt the Watch was being stretched these days and a persistent rumor indicated the king was going to institute conscription to swell its ranks. As unpopular as that would be, Brindig and Darrin thought of it as a welcome necessity. Rexall, predictably, wasn’t enthusiastic. He had no desire to carry a weapon or patrol Vantok’s streets. Even as Sorial’s determination to leave the city dimmed, Rexall’s waxed. For him, the life of a rootless wanderer was infinitely preferable to that of a militiaman.
Since arriving on the duke’s property, Sorial had seen little of the family. He had passed a few friendly words with Carannan and gotten a wave from Vagrum, but that was it. In two weeks, he hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of Alicia. He couldn’t seek her out, either. There was a strict code regarding how the militia could interact with the family. Guards could be approached but not do the approaching. If Sorial and Alicia were to meet, it would be at her initiative. Thus far…nothing. Sorial wondered if she knew he was working for her father.
Since leaving The Wayfarer’s Comfort, Sorial hadn’t gone back. Although his intuition told him that Warburm’s role in his life was far from over, he had no desire to prolong their relationship at this time. His mother and the innkeeper had both held out the promise that on some undefined future day all would be made clear. Sorial wondered if that day would be when he lay on his deathbed withering away of old age.
He was sitting on his bunk polishing his boots when he heard the voice he had been awaiting. “Have you settled in?”
Sorial did as instructed by Sergeant Rotgut, rising and executing a perfunctory bow. “Aye, M’lady.”
Alicia stifled a giggle. “Such formality, stableboy. You’ll never be a courtier. Perhaps I should give you lessons on how to greet nobility properly.”
Sorial frowned, annoyed by her teasing. This was more the Alicia he remembered from various random encounters than the girl who had tended him when he was recovering.
“I’m told you figured out one end of a sword from the other. That man… what’s his name?... Oh yes, Rotgut. Well, Rotgut claims that, given time, you might become proficient. I have my doubts but I’ll keep an open mind. That’s why I gave you the pig-sticker in the first place. And at least I know where to turn should my room be invaded by a mouse.”
“Is that what you came here to say, M’lady?”
“In part,” she said. “Will you walk with me a little ways or am I taking you away from your duties?”
Sorial was tempted to remark that polishing his boots offered greater pleasure but he bit back his words. He was a guard and she was the duke’s daughter; he couldn’t treat her as he had before. More than class separated them now.
“As you wish.” He fell into step with her as she exited the barracks. He got a few odd looks from those of his fellows who were present. None of them had been invited by the Lady Alicia to go for a stroll but, considering her notoriously sharp tongue, most believed that her beauty was better viewed from a distance. They didn’t know whether to envy Sorial or feel sympathy.
As they wandered in silence across the practice yard and into the heat-withered gardens surrounding the main house, Sorial noted Vagrum shadowing them at a discreet distance. Even within the confines of the duke’s lands, he was never far away. Sorial nodded in his direction and got a wave in return.
Alicia noticed the object of his attention. “Don’t mind him. He’s like a trained dog. Always there if I need to whistle. The only time I have privacy is when I lock myself in my chamber at night. Lying in bed, that’s when I think of you.”
The admission was so unexpected that it caught him off guard. She laughed at his expression.
“Why so surprised, stableboy? Can you deny you think about me that way?”
Sorial didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what was safe to say. The rules between them were different. Her body language told him that.
“Maybe you don’t,” she conceded, chewing on her lower lip. “After all, you had Annie. You know what it’s like to rumple the sheets in the dark. I haven’t had anyone. It’s all a mystery to me, but I can use my imagination.”
They had stopped mid-way between the barracks and the house. Although there were plenty of Sorial’s fellows about, none was paying the couple any attention. The only one watching
them was Vagrum, and his attention was lazy. He was surveying two boys dueling with wooden swords while only occasionally glancing in his charge’s direction.
“I’ve been here for two weeks and ain’t seen you. I thought…”
“I wanted to give you time to get used to your new surroundings before I complicated your life. Besides, you could have sought me out.”
“We ain’t allowed to. It’s against regulations.”
“No,” said Alicia. “They’re not allowed to.” She swept her hand, her gesture encompassing the barracks and the practice yard. “You, on the other hand, are my stableboy and that affords you special privileges. You should take advantage of them.”
“I don’t want to be an outsider. I want to be one of them. And the rules say we can’t approach one of your family unless you approach us first.”
“Rules are meant to be broken and I know from your excursions to the river that you’re a rule breaker. Think how much more fun it will be meeting if we’re not supposed to! Shall I wait in my room for you to sneak in?”
“It ain’t that easy.”
“No,” conceded Alicia. “It isn’t. In fact, it’s impossible, which is a shame because we could have a lot of fun if you could. But Vagrum and those two guards who are always posted outside wouldn’t let you pass. Of course, eventually you’ll be one of those guards.”
“Me?”
“Yes.” She seemed annoyed by his apparent obtuseness. “Why else do you think Father brought you here? To watch over the withering crops or keep vagrants and loiterers like your friend Rexall from using the river? You were requisitioned from the inn to be in my personal guard. In due time, of course. Once you’ve learned to use a sword without cutting yourself and once you can hit a target with an arrow or a bullet. Then you’ll be mine to order as I see fit. And I can think of some very good orders to give.”
The Last Whisper of the Gods Page 18
