A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter

by Ron Miller

  “Voot de hoyl’s koyn oon dayn tare?”

  His answer comes in the form of an express message delivered by the princess’ Minch-Moappa. The heavy bullet singes a part in his hair and the man leaps back into safety, clutching his furrowed scalp. Bronwyn scrambles up the short ladder and regains the deck. The Fezzooan is in the bow, brandishing a boat hook. A stream of trickling blood bisects his face.

  “Ztoy oovay vroom me!” he says to the figure that stands, bloody and disheveled, framed by the column of black smoke welling from the hatch. A detached part of Bronwyn’s mind realizes how fearsome she must look: streaked with fresh blood, both hers and the dead man’s, clothes half torn from her, her eyes as preternaturally green as that rare flash of emerald emitted by a setting sun, teeth bared in a feral grimace.

  “Drop that hook!” she orders, and when he doesn’t obey she sends a shot in his direction that excavates a six-inch crater in the planking between his feet. He throww the boat hook away as though he has suddenly discovered that it has grown fangs.

  “Koom en, latty,” he pleads. “E dint to neffinks do yoy!”

  “Stop that gibbering and don’t move!”

  Not taking her eyes from him for more than a second, she gives a quick glance toward the shore. The reed-covered bank is only a twenty yards away. Scattered weeds grew almost out to the boat, so she knows the water must be shallow. Turning back to the cowering man, she orders, “Get over the side!”

  “Voot?”

  “I said, get over the side, the starboard side, away from the shore!”

  “E’ll vrooze oon dit fayter!”

  “No, you might freeze, but if you stay here two more seconds you will be dead. Jump, damn it!”

  The man jumps. Immediately, Bronwyn lowers herself over the port side, into the icy water. She gasps with the shock. The cold hits her like an anvil dropped on a cartoon cat. She can’t reach the bottom, so she lays on her back, keeping her rucksack balanced on her chest and out of the water as much as possible, and begins a painfully slow backstroke. From behind her comes a muffled “Hilp! Hilp!” which she ignores.

  Her body is being drained of its energy as though it were a sponge being wrung by the water’s icy grip, or perhaps a colander through which her life’s heat is pouring; her sodden clothing weighs her down as though she were encased in brick. Her abused joints are stiffening like super-cooled taffy. She tries the bottom again. She can just reach it, the water is now only four or five feet deep, but it is composed of a thin, nearly liquid mud that doesn’t support her. She swims again, as best she can with joints becoming rigid and muscles cramping in an attempt to warm her with the energy of their uncontrolled spasms. She is deep within the reeds and tries standing again. This time the water is shallower and the mud a little less viscous. The breeze makes the freezing water seem warm by contrast. She staggers the remaining distance to the shore, shivering so violently that her whole body shudders epileptically. The wind freshens and is lowering her surface temperature dangerously. Snow flurries around her, its hard pellets stinging her raw cheeks like salt. She is gasping for breath between chattering teeth and a thin rime of ice is starting to form on her. Goosebumps cover her as her follicles try desperately to fluff up an insulating fur that her species has lost two hundred thousand years too early to do her any good.. She sees lanterns approaching and hears the sound of voices, though all as a kind of confused abstraction. The voices surrounded her and a bright light flashes in her face.

  “Anyone else out there?”

  “N-no,” she manages to stutter. Let the rotten bastard fend for himself. She is not so frozen that she can’t manage to be vindictive.

  “Get a blanket around her!” another voice says. “Anybody got a blanket?”

  “Here, get this on her!”

  “Get her inside somewhere, quick, she’s freezing to death!”

  There is a hiatus in her perception of time. She must have been operating automatically for some period, for when her brain finally thaws and takes cognizance of reality, she is sitting in a chair, sipping something hot from a mug in the midst of telling a very personalized version of her story. She realizes that she must be in one of the houses she had seen on the shore, because the still-burning Upsy Daisy is visible through a window. Enough time has passed that the boat has burnt nearly to its waterline and the fire is reduced to coils of oily smoke.

  “The dirty bastards!” says someone.

  “I’ve had dealings with that Patooter and his rotten gang; good riddance, so far as I’m concerned,” says a second voice.

  “I’ll say!” replies a third.

  Bronwyn glances around. There are probably a dozen people, male and female, in the small room. All have sturdy, honest-looking peasants’ faces.

  “Look,” she says, “I can’t explain why, but I’ve got to get to Blavek as soon as possible. Are there any coaches leaving soon?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” answers one man. “I’ve never has any reason to go to the City, but I suppose we can find out for you.”

  “Would you, please?”

  “I think,” says one of the women, “that it would be best for the young lady to spend the night here.”

  “You’re absolutely right; she must get her strength back.”

  “I know you’re in a great hurry, my dear, for some reason, but there’s nothing that can be done before morning, anyway.”

  She accepts the invitation as gracefully as her impatience allows and spends a comfortable night wrapped in a down comforter in a room cozy with its own stove. In the morning, her hosts, a middle-aged fisherman and his wife, take her into Glibner, which, since it is the capital of Guesclin’s fishing industry, turns out to be a sizable village; all of the riches of the fertile Grand Bank eventually make their way to the town’s markets and canning plants.

  The fisherman takes the princess directly to the agency of the coach service where, with apologies, he leaves her. He has his own business to take care of.

  Bronwyn enters the office, where she is faced with an unexpected obstacle. The sole occupant of the agency is a rather prissy-looking young man seated behind a high counter. After pointedly ignoring the girl for a full two minutes, he finally sets his pen aside and adjusts his pince-nez so he can more effectively look down his long nose, and says with the greatest amount of doubt, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Yes, I need to get to Blavek by the next coach.”

  He looks at the girl: her clothes filthy and torn, her face bruised, puffy and scratched, one eye blackened, her only baggage a single rucksack, and asks, not unreasonably, it must be admitted: “Have you the price of a ticket?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The fare to Blavek is five crowns. Have you five crowns?”

  He leans back in his chair and smirks, got her on that one!

  “Well no; but I...”

  “Please! A ticket is five crowns. That’s that. If you haven’t the money, would you please leave me to my work, thank you very much?”

  “I can pay when I get to Blavek.”

  “Shall I call a policeman?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll be back with the money.”

  “Hmph.”

  Now what? Five crowns isn’t much. Once upon a time if I’d dropped a five-crown coin, I wouldn’t have bothered to pick it up. But how to get one when you haven’t got one? It had never been a problem before: when she needed money she just asked somebody and there it was. In fact, she can’t recall ever having asked for anything as little as five crowns...though now it seems like a fortune. Would someone give it to her? That smacked of begging, an unthinkable thought. She dare not start telling people who she is, either. She’d have to be a little more circumspect about that, this close to the capital. Can I earn it? Now there is a new idea. People do that, she knows, so why can’t she? Thud does it, for Musrum’s sake. All right, then, let’s keep this thought going: to earn money one has to do something. What can I do? Well, I don’t know. I
have never had to do anything, so I don’t know what I am capable of. Possibly most anything, so far as I know. It actually sounds a little exciting!

  While still emboldened, she crosses the street to a small public house and enters. She goes to the bar and sits upon one of the stools. It is still early and the place is virtually empty, save for one or two old men who are probably always there, at least they look like fixtures. A few minutes later a big, jolly-looking woman comes from a back room that opens into the rear of the bar. She looks like she has been drawn entirely with a compass, everything about her is round: eyes like robin’s eggs, cheeks like apricots, a cascade of chins like a confection squeezed from a pastry bag, a soft round bosom like a down pillow and sleek, pink arms like fresh sausages. Altogether she looks like a giant marzipan lady who would have made a fine decoration in a candy-shop window. She spots Bronwyn immediately and rolls up to her.

  “Well, what can I do for you, honey?” she says, laughing. Even her voice is round. Bronwyn is to eventually learn that everything the woman says, she says while laughing, even when discussing the most distressing subjects. “Though it looks like you’ve been pretty well done for already!” Hee hee.

  “I was in a shipwreck last night.”

  “Not that boat that burned?” she chuckles.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I just heard about that!” Titter, titter. “You’re very lucky!”

  “I guess so.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Well, not really, not yet. I has a nice breakfast with the people who found me.”

  “The Rassendylls? Yes, they’re pretty good people. Something to drink, then? On the house?”

  “A little ale?”

  “Coming right up!”

  She sets a small foamy glass of the dark beverage before the girl.

  “What’re your plans, now, honey?”

  No one has ever called Bronwyn “honey” before.

  “I’ve got to get to Blavek. It’s literally a matter of life or death.”

  “Truly, now?” she chuckles, but her eyes are serious.

  “Oh, yes! Except I’ve no money: I’ve lost everything. But I can’t get a coach ticket without money.”

  “How much d’you need? It’s been a long time since I’ve had to go to the big city.”

  “Five crowns.”

  The round lady whistles. “So much?”

  “I was hoping to find a job. Just long enough to earn the fare.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m willing to try almost anything.”

  “Ever wash dishes?”

  “Well, no.” What a ridiculous idea!

  “Where’d you come from that you never washed dishes? Well, are you game to try?”

  “Of course!”

  “You wash dishes for me, say for three days, and I’ll buy your ticket! Fair enough?”

  “Yes! Thank you very much!”

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Bronwyn.”

  “Just like our poor, late princess! Oh, dear, that was so sad...," tee hee. "Well, glad to meet you, Bronwyn! You can call me Mimsey!” Hee hee.

  Which is how it came to pass that Bronwyn Tedeschiiy, Princess of Tamlaght, found herself up to her elbows in hot water and dirty dishes. She likes Mimsey, who, after the few initial questions never asks another of her. But she doesn’t particularly like her work. She merely racks it up as one more debit, and a not insignificant one, against her brother and Payne Roelt. Mimsey has provided a cot and linen for Bronwyn and allows her to sleep in the kitchen, which is warmed by a big stove whose fire is never allowed to go out. She also kindly provides the girl with three good meals a day, above and beyond the money that is promised. During business hours, Mimsey tends the bar and a big brown man does the cooking. He is from Peigambar, which fascinates Bronwyn, though he is never heard to utter a word in any language she recognizes. Oddly enough, he seems to understand perfectly well the orders that Mimsey shouts to him. Bronwyn wonders what he would think if he were to be told that she had once been a Peigambarese sultan for a few hours.

  At the end of the three days, Bronwyn’s bruises have faded to yellow stains, she has lost almost all the swelling and her scratched face has mostly healed. Mimsey has had her clothes cleaned, repairing them herself, her chubby fingers surprisingly nimble with a needle. The princess looks cleaner and healthier than she has for a long time, if still not very aristocratic.

  “Here’s your five crowns, dear,” says Mimsey with a chortle. “And a little extra.”

  “What’s this for?” Bronwyn asks, fingering the additional coins.

  “Tips!” giggles Mimsey. “Amkobber and I always split the tips, and this time I split them three ways. It is his idea, really.”

  “Thank you!” says the princess, turning to the Peigambarese.

  “Omdurman ib bam Kuh-e-dinar! Efftah,” he replied, ingenuously.

  “Will you write and let me know you’re all right?” asks Mimsey.

  “Of course!” Bronwyn promises, though as it turns out she never does.

  “Well, good luck to you! You’re a good, honest worker. Musrum knows I’ve had enough dishwashers who cost me more in broken dishes or thievery than I paid them. Too many people think it’s a job beneath their dignity.” Tee hee.

  “Uh, well, thanks.”

  “You’d best get along, honey. The coach’ll be leaving soon,” giggles Mimsey, smiling back a tear.

  “You again?” says the prissy man at the coach agency, when he sees the familiar figure enter the office.

  “I want a ticket to Blavek. One way.”

  “Do you have five crowns?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Well, may I see it?”

  “Let me see the ticket.”

  “How do I know you have the money?”

  “How do I know you have the ticket?”

  “There are laws, you know, about loitering and fraud!”

  “There are laws concerning your public obligations, too. Shall I go to your guild hall?”

  The man sniffs, looking down his long, thin nose at the girl as though he were aiming some weapon at her, expecting her, evidently, to cringe before its deadly threat. Bronwyn merely stares back up at what she thinks is an officious minor clerk who looks like a skinny bird. Perhaps it is because the girl’s mien is something quite different from the impression her dress initially created, but the clerk holds up a ticket where she can see it, albeit making pointedly sure it is out of her reach.

  “Five crowns?” she asks.

  “Yes!” he snaps.

  She hands over the coins and watches while he deliberately counts them, one, two, three, four, five, before turning the pasteboards over to her.

  “Thank you very much,” she says sweetly, turning to leave.

  “The coaches leave from the rear!”

  He smirks at having been able to catch her at even a minor error and thereby get in the last word, however petty it might be. She leaves through a double door at the back of the lobby where a coach waits, already half-full of passengers. The driver is taking tickets and says, as he tears the receipt from hers he says, “Leaving in two or three minutes, Miss. Take any seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  She finds the one remaining window seat, which she had hoped to find because she looks forward to leaning against the wall and dozing. She stows her rucksack in the overhead netting and makes herself comfortable. The trip to Blavek is about two hundred miles, a slightly more than two-day journey including stops for meals and changes of horses. The coach had no provision for sleeping and except for the brief stops just mentioned, otherwise ran nonstop day and night until it reached the city.

  There are no towns of any consequence between Glibner and Blavek, just gently undulating and uninteresting farmland now grey and umber, piebald with drifting snow-patches, all under the leaden lid of a dull grey sky. Bronwyn’s fellow travelers are a nondescript assortment of small busi
nessmen, farmers and fishermen, going to the city for whatever reasons such people might have. They are all sullen, quiet, absorbed in their private thoughts and concerns, which suits the princess very well.

  The bland countryside is hypnotic, soporific, and she spends most of the journey in a kind of reverie, half asleep, half awake. The few thoughts she has concern themselves with the problem of just exactly what she intends to do once she got back to Blavek. Up to now, she had been simply determined to get back, in order to wreak some sort of abstract, unspecified revenge on her two enemies. But now that she has to consider this revenge in concrete, specific terms, she isn’t too certain how it ought to be implemented. The only thing she can imagine doing is to try and locate one of the barons who has a residence in Blavek; there are three or four who maintain permanent homes in the City. She would have to pick one practically at random and hope he would be able to help. At the moment she cannot imagine what form that help would take.

  Mimsey, Bronwyn discovers to her pleasure, had slipped food for the journey into the rucksack: some paper-wrapped sandwiches, two or three little cakes, some fruit and two bottles of ale. The sandwiches are enclosed in sheets of old newspaper, which she spreads across her lap in the interest of neatness. She has taken only two or three bites before she becomes aware of the printed words. The two that first catch her attention are PIERS MONZON. She stops eating and reads the column of type with a sense of foreboding, the forgotten sandwich dangling from her fingers. The news is more dreadful than she possibly can have imagined. Piers is dead. The baron had been taken back to the capital as a prisoner in chains. He had been labeled a traitor for the crime of raising arms against the prince-cum-king and had been imprisoned in the Iron Tower for over a month before his trial...such as it was. Meanwhile, his army was broken up, with those even implicated in opposing the prince summarily executed at the border camp. There had been no question of courts martial. The baron’s personal army no longer existed. Piers’s trial had taken place barely two weeks ago. His execution had been carried out the following day. Payne hadn’t stopped with that, however; he is not that easily satisfied. He is determined to wipe out the remotest possibility of future opposition, however slight. That was when the great horror begin. Bronwyn read the account with her face glistening with beads of cold sweat, with clammy, shaking hands rustling the paper so much that she attracted the annoys attention of her fellow passengers, some of whom wonder if the pale, perspiring, quaking girl might be somehow ill. If she is, most of them decide, it’s to be hopeds she’ll have the decency to wait until the next rest stop before she does anything awful.