by Lee Ramsay
“When you’re done lying there bleeding, prep the whitewash and brushes as you were told,” the veteran said, propping his hands on his hips. He turned his glower on the other lingering youths. “Any of you lickspittles have anything to add to this conversation?”
Ryjan’s, Beren’s, and Mikken’s mouths hung open, and they shook their heads. “No, sir,” they said almost in unison.
“Then quit gaping like a ram fucked your bungholes. You have work to do.” Dougan turned his sour gaze on Rhynna as the boys scrambled away. “If you’re going to stand there chewing your cud, take your fat ass in the pasture with the other cows.”
“How dare you speak to me that way? I’ll tell my father!”
“You do that, and tell him we need enough leather to reupholster the parlor’s dining chairs while you’re at it.” He spied Tristan loitering and thrust his finger at the young man. “You. Quit standing there, slack-jawed and silly-looking. You have an apology to make.”
“Yes, sir,” Tristan said, and hurried to find Karilen.
Chapter 12
For ten days Dorishad was upended, summer’s lazy routines disrupted by Dougan rousting people from bed before dawn and letting no one rest until well after it set. No one from the oldest person in the hamlet to the youngest was spared, save for toddlers and infants.
Older men whose bodies could not risk falling were put to work tending the lane leading to the road, clearing it of clumped weeds and smoothing the dirt as best they could. Older boys harvested fresh fruit and nuts from the orchards while the younger children moved livestock into the fields and tended other daily tasks. Younger girls assisted their mothers with rooting vegetables and herbs from the gardens. Older girls and young women set to work in the tailor’s shop, cutting fabric and sewing new clothes for Dorishad’s more prominent residents.
By unspoken agreement, Tristan and Jakkan avoided each other. Dougan made that effort easier by having Tristan mix whitewash vats and filling buckets for the other men to repaint the houses and outbuildings. Jakkan and his father worked with nimbler men to replace broken or loose shingles, cracked windowpanes, damaged shutters, and warped doors.
Anthoun returned seven days into the industrious bustle. Where he came from, Tristan had no idea. Under the pretense of stretching his back he stepped out of the storehouse where he mixed lye and chalk and glanced down the empty lane, where he spied Dougan returning from one of the western fields. A darting sparrow distracted him for a moment; when his eyes turned back, the sage walked stoop-shouldered beside the veteran.
Dougan handed over the scroll case delivered by the courier. The old man unrolled the letter. Despite the distance, Tristan noted the deep furrow forming between Anthoun’s eyebrows as the sage read. He could not hear what the two men said as they were too far away, but a moment later Anthoun strode toward the manor house with the vigor of a young man rather than an old one.
The sage remained unseen save by Dougan and Karilen over the following days, the latter taking food up to Anthoun’s library where the old man worked by candlelight well into the night.
TRISTAN STARTLED AWAKE as the door to his room crashed open. Dougan stood in the doorway, the candle he carried deepening the lines in his face, and waited for a semblance of wakefulness to settle in the exhausted youth’s eyes. “Wake up, boy, and take yourself to the bathhouse. His exalted excellency, Duke Rothan Riand, is expected to be here at some point in the day. We will never hear the end of the insult if we’re not all primped and pretty when the son of a bitch favors us with his presence.”
Sagging back on the bed with a groan, Tristan rubbed his hands across his face and yawned. “Have you slept at all in the past eleven days?”
“I will sleep when my heart stops beating. The women are done with the bathhouse, and the boys are starting with it. By the time you gather the clothes Jayna sewed for you, the water should be fresh,” Dougan said, lighting the candle mounted beside the door with his own. He turned a stern look on the youth. “I’ve already explained to Jakkan that I’ll break his head if he so much bruises you with a hard look. Do I need to do the same with you?”
“You just did,” Tristan said as he rolled out of bed.
He did not have to share the bathhouse with the blacksmith’s son, as it turned out. The door opened before he crossed the commons, and Jakkan hurried toward the house he shared with his father without his shirt and with his hair still wet. Beren, Mikken, and Ryjan ignored him as they finished their bathing. They toweled themselves dry and dressed, then left him alone in the steamy bathhouse.
Relieved at the privacy, Tristan scrubbed away whitewash flecks still clinging to his forearms. He was finishing dressing when Dorishad’s older men arrived for their baths. They gave each other curt nods while he fiddled with his clothing.
By law, commoners were allowed two major colors in their clothing for formal occasions – most often saffron for their linens and browns or blacks for their woolens, with their clothes embroidered with a sigil representing their trade or name. However, he was not permitted bold colors as he could not claim a family patronymic of his own. Had Dougan formally adopted him, he would be entitled to Rothmany blue and green. That was not to be, though, as he was Anthoun’s ward son. Tristan had no idea what the old man’s surname was – not that it mattered. Whatever they were, he could not wear the family colors until the sage adopted him.
Tristan was condemned by law to the drabbest shades, reflecting his lack of known kin. His woolen stockings were off-white and held above the knee by a leather cord dyed beige. Fine-cut woolen knee britches dyed a soft tan closed at knee and waist with carved antler buttons. His high-collared shirt was unbleached muslin, fastened at throat and wrist with smaller antler buttons. A long off-white jerkin snugged across his shoulders and fell to mid-thigh, closed by antler togs and tightened around the middle by lacing at the small of the back. The sole color he was allowed was black, in the form of a silver-buckled belt hung and knee-high boots. Dougan had made him polish his boots with bootblack until they gleamed with a mirror shine.
Holding an odd scrap of tan cloth in his hands as he moved to the polished brass mirror mounted on the wall, Tristan frowned at his reflection. While the clothing’s cut and fit were excellent, he loathed what the mirror presented – a gangly young man, his hands and freckled face pallid against his bland clothing. The sun-streaked auburn waves falling to his shoulders gave him a sallowness his green eyes could not counter.
The sun had cleared the horizon by the time he left the bathhouse, setting the humid summer air aglow. Sweat sprang to his skin as he crossed to the manor’s kitchen door, where Jayna met him as she emerged. The young woman gave a relieved sigh when she caught sight of him. “Oh, good. Grandmother sent me to find you.”
In addition to overseeing Anthoun’s house and running the hamlet’s domestic affairs, Karilen was a master weaver; likewise, Jaina’s mother, Sasha, was a skilled seamstress. As a result, the family was well-to-do; with a registered trade and legitimate name, they were entitled to family colors beyond the commoners’ standard fare. The girl’s bleached, low-cut linen shift made her skin shine golden brown in contrast. A tight-laced black leather bodice snugged her torso, paneled with rust-colored brocade. A bronze overskirt had been tucked into the leather belt circling her waist, and her underskirt was a heavy unbleached muslin from beneath which the polished toes of her ankle boots peeked.
Tristan forgot all about his discomfort as she stopped in front of him and tugged his clothing into place. A soft scent like fresh-baked bread rose from her body, and his skin prickled beneath his clothes wherever she touched. He prayed to whatever gods might be listening that she failed to spy the rapid beat of his heart in his throat or the way he had to shift his stance to be more comfortable. “Why?”
“Dougan told her he wants everyone ready before midmorning, as he expects that to be when the duke and his party arrives. Grandmother wants to be sure you dressed right and washed behind your ears.�
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“I’m nearly seventeen, not seven.” He held up a length of beige cloth, which he had found in the stack of clothes. “What is this for?”
“It’s a stock. Here, bend down a bit.” She took the fabric and draped it around his neck, then knotted the cloth at the hollow of his throat. With the trailing ends tucked into his longvest, she took his elbow to lead him back toward the manor’s kitchen. “You’re not the only one Grandmother is inspecting. She made my mother change and braided my hair for me, too. She’ll want to plait yours as well.”
“A plait is above my station.”
“You’ll have one, and that’s the end of it,” Dougan said as he stepped through the kitchen door.
The veteran was clad in House Riand’s livery rather than in Rothmany colors. Crimson velvet knee-britches clung to the man’s muscled thighs, silver buttons bearing an eagle’s head in profile gleaming above the uppers of knee-high boots. A black doublet fastened with silver togs fit snugly over Dougan’s chest, the sleeves opened and tied behind his back to reveal the golden silk shirt beneath. A white sash crossed from right shoulder to left hip, tied in a complex knot around a black leather sword belt sporting a large silver buckle. At his right hip gleamed the polished hilt of a foot-long dirk in a black leather sheath; at his left swung the elaborate basket hilt of a rapier, angled for a smooth draw by the leather straps and buckles of the hanger. Fixed to the metal weave was House Riand’s coat of arms.
The older man slapped an eight-panel cap of black velvet on his balding head and smoothed the drape to one side. “What in all hells are you gawking at?”
“You look...” Tristan said, trailing off.
“Yes, don’t I? I figure if I stroke the bastard’s ego, he’ll be a touch more polite.” Tugging his doublet’s skirting, Dougan stepped from the stone step and ran a critical eye over Tristan’s clothing. “You’ll do, I suppose, once your hair is plaited and under a hat. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense about it being above your station to do so. Anthoun may not have done the work to adopt you formally, but the deed to the land states he can dispense with it as he pleases.”
“It does?”
“It does. Don’t you think he was smart enough to get certain stipulations placed in the title after what he did in the War of Tenegath?”
“I thought these were his family lands,” Jayna said, trading a confused glance with Tristan.
Dougan ignored the implied question as he strode away. “Try to stay clean, and let’s hope the young ones manage to do the same, or we will never hear the end of it.”
MORNING CRAWLED TOWARD afternoon, and the day’s heat rose to the accompaniment of droning insects drifting on the muggy air. The hamlet’s residents did little work, retreating to the shadows of their homes to remain as clean and as cool as possible. Men shed their jerkins and loosened their shirts; some changed out of their finery long enough to tend the animals’ midday feedings. Women dabbed their necks and chests with cool rags to keep from fainting in their heavier clothing.
The children suffered the worst, kept from playing for fear that they would dirty themselves. Toddlers fussed at being confined in stiff and uncomfortable clothing, and were too warm to be put down for naps. Older children grew bored and found ways to annoy their siblings and cousins or irritate their parents. Dorishad’s dogs looked on with panting curiosity as their usually active humans remained idle and irritable.
Luncheon passed, and still there was no sign of the duke and his party. Tristan loitered in the manor’s kitchen after helping Karilen, Sasha, and Jayna clean away the midday meal and did most of the work to keep them from growing overheated. He sipped tepid water from a wooden mug when he finished cleaning and leaned against the doorframe to stare toward the road. Dougan was a distant figure at a mile, discernable by his crimson pants blazing against the forest’s shadowed green.
“I don’t understand why the duke is not here yet,” Sasha complained, dabbing a damp cloth against her forehead. “Too much longer, and we will have to find some way to let the children run off some of their energy. If we don’t, they might do something embarrassing when the duke arrives.”
Jaina joined Tristan at the door, a cup of cider in hand. “Dresden Township is fifty miles away. It takes most of the day to travel here from the midway camp, if they’re traveling in a carriage. I’m surprised Dougan and Anthoun wanted everyone dressed early.”
“Rothan Riand is an ill-mannered prig, which is why he and his party aren’t here,” Karilen said, the irritation in her voice as sharp as the scowl on her face. “If we hadn’t been ready early in the morning, we would have found them arriving while we tended our chores. The cheeky bastard probably woke late and lingered over his breakfast so that we’d be half dead from the heat when he arrived.”
“You sound as though you have met him before,” Tristan said.
The matron gave a gusting sigh. “I have, though he was little more than a child at the time. I never spoke to him, but he was at the Battle of Tretal with his father. There was hardly enough food to go around, and he demanded that some of the men give up what they had so he could have a full meal.”
Jayna froze with her cup halfway to her lips, eyes widening. “You were at a battlefield?”
“Several,” Karilen said. She did not elaborate as she leaned back in her chair. “The second time I met him wasn’t much of an improvement. His father had died by then, and the brat had succeeded to the title. He was a bastard to whomever he thought he could be, without his father keeping him in check.”
“Had he tried it with Father, he’d have been picking his pride up off the floor,” Sasha said with certainty.
“He would have been pilloried for assaulting his better and had his balls stuffed in his mouth with his lips sewn shut around them.” Karilen rapped her knuckles on the table and divided a frown between Jayna and Tristan. “Let me be clear. This is not a pleasant sit-down over a cup of tea. Duke Rothan Riand has no use for commoners; he refers to us as peasantry or freedmen, despite royal decree abolishing those classes before I was born. Keep your tongues behind your teeth, and do what you are told without argument.”
When she was satisfied her words had the desired impact, she levered herself to her feet and crossed to the stone washbasin in the corner. The handle rattled as she worked the lever, and cool water gushed from the spigot to fill her cup. “Riand has no use for Anthoun, either. I don’t know why he is here, but I can assure you, it won’t be good for any of us.”
Tristan met Jayna’s eyes, recognizing her surprise because it reflected his own. He shrugged and opened his mouth to say something, but a glitter in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Far down the road, sunlight glinted off the bare steel as Dougan used his sword to draw attention. He set his mug on the table. “I don’t think we will have to wait long to find out why he has come. I will tell Anthoun our guests are about to arrive.”
“No need. Jayna, Sasha, would you ensure everyone is ready for our guests’ arrival?” the sage asked from the doorway leading deeper into the house, his voice preceding his arrival by mere steps.
The two women did as asked and brushed past Tristan as he stared at Anthoun. As impressive as Dougan’s livery was, the change in the sage’s appearance was startling. The old man’s cheeks were clean-shaven, and the sag of his jowls blurred the lines of his jaw. His long silvery hair fell across the shoulders of a creamy velvet robe; the garment bore steely embroidery to match the silken lining. A thigh-length midnight blue satin tunic over a high-collared shirt of inky silk lay beneath the robe’s open front. The strangest belt Tristan had ever seen circled the man’s thin waist. Five thick cords of different colors – blood red, steel gray, midnight blue, deep amethyst, and silvery-white – had been braided and tied at the right hip, the trailing edges falling to the knee of wide-legged dove gray pants. Soft slippers completed the strange outfit.
Anthoun padded across the tiles to stand beside his ward son. “There will be time f
or answers to your questions later. I see them burning in your eyes and dancing on your tongue. In time, I will tell you what is needful.”
“Who are you?” Tristan asked, ignoring what the sage had just said. He waved aside that question with a frown, the skin between his eyebrows wrinkling. “Who are you to dress in such a manner? Why does nobility ride to the middle of an empty forest to speak with you?”
The sage took the plain beige cap Karilen handed him and set it on Tristan’s auburn head. “I am what I have always professed to be – a sage, and quite a good one. That the duke is coming to speak with me himself should be enough – for now – to tell you how significant the matter is.”
“I want some answers.”
Anthoun nodded and laid his hand on the youth’s shoulder to steer him toward the door. “You will have them – but not now.”
Something in the old man’s voice warned Tristan to let the matter be, and he grudgingly stepped into the commons at his ward father’s side. Dorishad’s people filed into the square as well, struggling to ignore their discomfort while wrangling unhappy youngsters.
Jakkan glared at him from his father’s side; both men wore doublets of iron-gray and black in an alternating chevron; delicate chains of steel links draped their chests, held in place by steel brooch pins shaped like anvils. At his side, Rhynna wore a dress of saffron and cream, a russet leather bodice framing her ample bosom as it rose to a stiff collar; she, too, glowered in Tristan’s direction.
Tristan adjusted his longvest’s drape but fell still when Anthoun slanted his eyes at him, and struggled against the urge to fidget as the column approached. He gritted his teeth and ignored the stares coming at him from his peers. If Jakkan and Rhynna wanted to be where he stood, he would happily let them. Karilen’s words about the duke’s nature had confirmed his suspicions that the nobleman would have no use for a nameless orphan.
