Written in Blood

by Span, Ryan A.

  With the armsmaster's permission and one of his blunt arming swords, I joined in, beating the tar out of my pell. Every cut and thrust eased a little more of the frustration out of me. Then we moved to live sparring. I could already imagine the aches and bruises, and I looked forward to it.

  The armsmaster gave out simple leather helms to protect the top and back of the head. For everything else, well, we just had to defend ourselves properly.

  I found myself hard-pressed from the start. The men were excellent fighters, most of them veterans, and my first opponent didn't hold back. I managed to bind his lightning-fast cuts and thrusts well enough, but from there neither of us could seem to find the upper hand.

  A bad step turned my ankle. I stumbled to the side; he grabbed my blade in his left hand and leaped in close to throw me over his hip. By some miracle I found my balance again, just in time. I let go of my sword, leaving it a useless weight in his hand, while I grabbed his by blade and pommel. From there it was almost easy to twist it out of his grasp and turn it around for a thrust to the neck. He looked impressed, and saluted when I returned his sword to him.

  The next round he executed a wonderful upwards cut which symbolically took off my sword arm at elbow.

  Two hours later, I was sweaty and sore and pleased. I gave as good as I got. Against some of the best swords in the Kingdom, that was something to take pride in. It turned out that my first sparring partner led a whole battalion of lancers, and he offered me a job on the spot. I thanked him, but told him that sadly I was still under contract. Disappointed, he shook my hand and left to freshen up.

  Then the little voice of duty and conscience began to nag at me again. I was putting things off. Grumbling, I went back to my room and finished packing my little pile of belongings. Blanket, leathers, tinderbox, whetstone, oil, rope, flask... Somehow it didn't seem like enough. I wanted to get a new spear, but it would be an unusual accessory for a pub crawl in Tunson Down. Better not arouse suspicion.

  I hefted my pack and hiked into the Down, to plan my escape routes in case everything went wrong.

  I marched into the Black Lion moments before dinnertime. Smells of roasted pig and parsnips wafted from the kitchen. It mixed pleasantly with the permanent tang of beer burnt into the woodwork. Many of the locals ‒ those who could afford to eat ‒ were already in, enjoying a pint before the meal. Through the open back-room door I could see the proprietor's daughter stirring a vat of hot applesauce.

  My belly made a demanding rumble. I hadn't been hungry before, but I was now. I made my order and settled in to wait. The price of it was outrageous, ten times what it used to be, but war had that effect. Even in Kingsport.

  Now if only I could relax and enjoy myself. My mind kept dredging up things to brood about, no matter how many times I told it to stop. I ought to only pretend to get pissed, but right now I wanted nothing more than a proper drink.

  The squire appeared moments before the dinner bell rung, looking as sombre as I felt. He glanced around in dread of his devoted admirer. When he noticed she was busy in the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Girl trouble again?”

  “I don't understand her,” he admitted. From the hopeless note in his voice, he meant Yazizi, not the infatuated girl in the other room. “She's a puzzle that's either far simpler than I ever believed, or a thousand times more complex.”

  “I doubt I need to know the details. She doesn't hide what she wants.”

  “No, I... I keep trying to explain about my vow of celibacy. She seems to take it as a challenge.”

  I couldn't help but laugh. He looked hurt, but I was saved from having to apologise by the arrival of our food. Two trenchers of clapbread filled with slices of pork, browned parsnips, carrots, pease, and a small mound of applesauce. A welcome pitcher of wine, too. I let the conversation die, preferring to stuff my face.

  Over time, something about what the squire had said caught at my brain like hook-seed on a wool cloak. “Do you mean to tell me,” I said, pausing my meal, “that you still haven't gone to bed with her?”

  He lowered his eyes. “Not, um... Not willingly.”

  “What happened to 'if we get out of this, I'll try'?”

  “I will! It's just that I always feel like,” he raised his hands and let them drop in a gesture of supreme helplessness, “like somebody's watching. In Grimsfield, on the road, especially here. I‒ I keep thinking boys with sticks will jump out of the walls and punish me for my impure thoughts.”

  Embarrassment flushed in his cheeks. It sounded like a childish fear, even to himself. I guessed it was the subject of at least one recurring nightmare.

  I poured him a good measure of wine and said, “Saints help you, lad.”

  When most of the patrons had finished, a musician took the stage with a lute and a kettledrum. The drum was attached to a flimsy, home-made pedal that would bang the stick down at the press of a foot. Creative, but doomed to break at the worst possible time. When his fingers found the strings, though, the room hushed all at once. A few experimental plucks, a turn on one of the little screws, and he began.

  He was a fair player and a better singer. Most of all, he knew how to work a crowd. The familiar twang of 'My Lovely Horse' got the crowd roaring along about a long-suffering man and his demanding wife. It was a bawdy song at the best of times, played all over the Kingdom, but here they added a few particularly rude refrains I hadn't heard before. Faro cringed as if he wanted to cover his ears.

  I excused myself to get some air. The squire tried to join me, but I gestured him to stay put. I'd rather have a few minutes alone. Crestfallen, he sat back down and forced smiles at the young barmaid whenever she came by.

  Outside, the pickpockets gave me a wide berth, and no one interrupted my thoughts. If you could call them that. I spent most of my time trying to remember the handful of cases in history where someone had breached a blood contract. None of the ones I could think of ended well.

  It wasn't even that I wanted out, I just needed things to start making sense again. It had been a lot easier loving the woman from afar. The closer she came, the more confused I got. On top of that, I'd been on the road for months and still only knew bits and pieces about our mission. What wasn't she telling me? What about Aemedd, for that matter? He'd been studying these things for longer than anyone and never explained much of anything. Pretty soon he might not be capable of explaining.

  I hadn't made any effort to get to know the scholar so far. Perhaps it was time to change that. I still didn't quite like or trust him, but I should stick to him like glue from now on.

  First, though, I had to survive the night.

  “This is a terrible plan,” I found myself saying aloud, “and we're all going to die.”

  A few people gave me funny looks as I went back inside. Noise washed over me like a tidal wave. The enthusiastic sing-along seemed to lose none of its fascination for the Black Lion's customers. The musician could only guide them, trying to ride the tiger. He had to hang on and accept that what happened was beyond any kind of control.

  “It gets lively at nights,” was all Faro could think to say.

  I nodded and ordered a fresh bottle of wine. I'd need it.

  Despite my best efforts, I couldn't help but get a little drunk.

  A small battle line of empty bottles stood in front of me. I hadn't imbibed this much since Farrowhale, and my mood had taken the same downward turn. The squire was shaking his head, worried, and shot dirty looks at the landlord whenever he came too close. Faro had gotten better as I'd gotten worse, and his sense of responsibility was finally developing into courage.

  “Damn you, Byren,” he muttered under his breath. “It's barely past midnight!”

  “I'm fine,” I insisted.

  “Fine? You're legless!”

  I stopped admiring the wood-grain on my table and looked up. “Cheer up. I'll deliver when it matters.”

  “We have a job to do,” he reminded me, “and you're under cont
ract!”

  Bit of a low blow, that. It was true I didn't want to let everyone down, least of all the woman I wanted so much. If we got caught now, it would be the end for us all. It was the kind of pressure that could drive a man to drink.

  I raised my hand to make another order, but Faro caught me by the wrist and slammed it back down.

  “No more, Byren. That's it.”

  I frowned at him, forcing my eyes to focus. “Are you going to stop me?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly, “I am.”

  He expected me to back down. Maybe my grin made him lower his guard. Either way, he was too surprised to react when I swung my fist into his cheek. He bounced off the table and ended up on the floor, to the amusement of everyone around us. A colossal drunken roar went up at the prospect of a good fight. They quietened down a bit when the barman came to throw us out, and we were not to come back until we'd settled our differences.

  I was barely down the porch steps when Faro slugged me. I dropped like a stone. Turning to face him, my left eye throbbing, I marvelled at his expression. The sheer intensity of hurt, humiliated fury looked strange on his young face. He was waiting for me to get up so he could hit me again.

  I got my legs under me and, from a crouch, launched myself forward. We went down in a tangle of limbs, kicking and hammering at each other as best we could. Then he managed to plant a foot in my stomach and push me off, holding his side as he staggered upright.

  We squared off. Hard, heavy breaths became little clouds of steam in the cool air. Some of the Black Lion's patrons and passersby crowded around to watch us.

  I jeered, “If it was an arse-kicking you wanted, lad, you should have just told me. Happy to oblige.”

  His face flushed even redder. “I wasn't sure whether the pox would slow you down too much!”

  This went over well with our spectators. They laughed, hooted, and cheered us on.

  It was a low, ugly fist-fight. Youth against experience, speed and control versus strength and the drunken inability to feel pain. We pummeled each other with hands and feet and dirt, trading blows one for one, until the anger was gone and we were fighting just because neither of us wanted to admit defeat.

  I tried to throw him. He knocked me back, and lost his balance at the same time. We both sat down and found we didn't have the strength to get up again. I looked at him through the one eye which hadn't swelled up like a melon. He looked back, testing his jaw, and spat out a mouthful of blood.

  “You're a fool,” he said thickly.

  “Thank you for noticing. Maybe now you'll stop asking me questions.”

  “You are a stupid, selfish, beastly man,” he went on, “and you're probably the only friend I have in this world. I won't let you kill yourself. Nor put the rest of us at risk.”

  I glanced around. The little crowd had already dissolved. We had, for lack of a better word, privacy, because no one in earshot gave a damn about anything we could possibly have to say.

  “You don't understand, lad. I wish you could. I wish I could explain it.”

  “Try,” said Faro, in a voice that brooked no argument.

  I sighed and let him help me to my feet. Together we stumbled back into the pub. It was quieter now, fewer bodies at the benches and tables, and the musician had given up on his drum. It was the first time I actually looked around, and saw that many of the patrons were women. Many of them wore work clothes that would've been a flagrant violation of social mores had there not been a war on. A few ‒ probably widows ‒ were getting quite chummy with the soldiers on furlough who made up the other half of the crowd.

  The barman must have caught sight of our faces, because he sent his daughter out with clean cloth, warm water and preserved aloe leaves. She clucked and tutted and told me off for damaging the squire's pretty face. Rubbed onto our bruises and swellings, the leaves soon began to ease them down.

  I told Faro, “You're a boy of fifteen, barely past your first tumble with a woman. You don't have a past that keeps coming back to haunt you.”

  The squire went pale, and his eyes blazed with cold fury. He almost burst, but after counting to ten, he managed to let my ill-considered comment slide. He knew about difficult pasts. It still didn't dent his determination to know.

  I gave up and steeled myself. The story began to flow out of me in fits and starts.

  My first glimpse of Nerell. The sheer, arresting beauty of her. Her arrival at camp, the trophy wife of a sotted old man who happened to have birth, and land, and enough money to buy himself command of a battalion in the Second Army. My attempts to get close to her. The long nights where I'd keep her company while the rat who'd married her was out drinking and whoring. Our brief but intense relationship, until he found out. All the things he did to us. My dismissal from the Guard. The night when I traded my future and my honour, what was left of them, for vengeance.

  Faro remained silent, except for a few noises of chivalrous shock and horror. He was lost for words.

  It was the first time I'd shared the whole story with anyone. Before now, I'd always left out the part about slitting His Lordship from ear to ear. I was relieved when he ordered a pitcher to cure our dry throats, then disappointed when it turned out to be water. I drank it under protest.

  Distant church bells rang the hour. Three long, mournful clangs just audible through the walls. Only a little longer until first light. Tiredness tugged at the corners of my eyes. Nerves and excitement had kept me awake so far, but it was getting more difficult.

  “For the first time,” said Faro, looking directly at me, “I feel like I'm actually beginning to know you, Karl Byren.”

  “Oh, I've got a hundred sob stories. That one just happens to be among the worst.”

  “Life is pain,” he quoted with mock sympathy. It made me freeze in place. From the insufferable glint in his eyes, he knew he'd scored a point.

  I harrumphed. “You're too clever for your own good.”

  “I shall remember you said that.”

  Grinning, he raised his cup. Water was a lousy beverage for a toast, but I drank anyway. Missing a good toast was a most grievous sin.

  I quickly put my flagon down before my shaking arm could drop it. The squire had done a proper number on me during our disagreement, and it was starting to hurt. He'd learned a lot from battling larger boys with sticks. My only consolation was that he looked as bad as I felt.

  Glancing around the taproom, I realised that we were the only conscious people left in the Black Lion. The taps had closed. The doors were locked, the landlord gone, retired to his bed. Only a handful of figures remained sprawled across benches or tables and they didn't look like they'd be waking up any time before noon.

  “Are you ready for this?” I asked.

  “I can play my part if you can play yours. The good news is, we already look like we've been brawling with a herd of bulls.”

  “Then fetch me up some more of the good stuff. It'll be better if I'm good and wankered before we start.”

  Faro laughed a little and went behind the bar to find us another beverage.

  Pre-dawn light trickled in through the cracks in the shutters, and a bar stool crashed over the head of an over-zealous soldier who had come to roust me out of the Black Lion's taproom. I was just getting into the swing of things. I picked the fellow up by his belt and his curly hair and ejected him from the pub, onto the dirt outside.

  “Now look here, my man,” the constable said to me from a safe distance. He was marked by a long tassel on his shoulder, and smoked his clay pipe in an unhurried fashion. “This is not helping your case when it comes to trial.”

  I threw back a stream of language so strong it nearly blew his hat off. I made it clear I wasn't going anywhere until she came to see me.

  “I don't believe you understand what you're in for. A number of big chaps with sharp objects will come to change your mind soon. They're not the gentlest hands in the world!”

  When I didn't respond, he heaved a shrug and settled
into the routine of warning everybody who looked like they wanted to try their luck.

  I glanced at the barman behind me, polishing one of his bottles with a rag. There was a silver falcon sitting on the counter in front of him, and I slapped another one down next to it. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  He observed the coins with studied indifference. “Any money is good money.” Two falcons was probably more than he made in a week, but I didn't feel like arguing the point. He bent forward at the waist, observed the state of my cup, and used his freshly-buffed bottle to top it up. “I just hope you know what you're doing. You won't get far in a hay-cart.”

  “Let me worry about that. Just keep your back door unbolted.”

  Shrugging, he went into his back room and shouldered some kegs aside to make a clear path. I heard a loud scrape of wood against wood, followed by a heavy thump as he set the deadbolt aside. He said a few words to his daughter and made her wait in the alley. I could just see her there, holding one end of a rope. The other end was looped around the neck of a huge, motionless draught horse.

  The relative quiet had begun to draw attention from outside. I made the appropriate roars and smashed a few bottles. Then, suddenly inspired, I took a chair and sent it sailing out among the spectators. The constable frowned and took one step to the side so it didn't land on him. He resumed puffing his pipe.

  The sky slowly turned gold, then orange, then grey as heavy clouds moved in to blot out the sun. Two more men tried to bring me to justice. One was a guard from Winter Court with a big halberd, which turned into a large stick when I chopped its head off. The bronze sword glittered like fire in my hands. He stared at it for a long, frozen moment, then turned tail.

  The other man was a Household Ranger. I recognised him from Descard's troop, though I didn't know his name. He had the face of a seasoned campaigner with a short blonde beard and eyes as hard as flint. He was more trouble than all the others combined.