“I will lead you in the steps.” He told her. “Try not to stumble.”
“You are drunk, Mortentian. I will not stumble, but you maybe will.”
Levin led her onto the sand and laughed. “I’m not so drunk as you think.” The musician began to play, and Levin sang in Tolrissan, his voice encouraging the harpist to pick up the rhythm.
“Dance with me, dance with me, hold me, she said
Music, sweet music it goes to my head
Turn me and twirl me in my royal red.
So the King’s daughter to handsome Tom said.”
As he sang, he spun the delighted Thimenian girl around, and she pirouetted gracefully as he led her. He sang loudly in a clear tenor, so that everyone in the mead hall could hear, all the time showing her the hopping steps of the saltzarel, as the dance was called. The musician caught the rhythm and accompanied him quietly.
“Honest Tom, loyal Tom held out his hand
Danced the King’s daughter there at her command
Whirled her and spun her in her royal red
Happily, joyfully dancing he led.
“Sing to me, sing to me, thrill me, she said
The sound of your sweet voice, it goes to my head
Sing me a song ere the evening has fled
So the King’s daughter to handsome Tom said.
“Honest Tom, loyal Tom sang her a rhyme
The flute and the dulcimer keeping the time
Sang her sweet music ere evening had fled
Happy and joyful in her royal red.
To his surprise, Levin saw that several of the Vheradorans had taken up the dance, holding hands with the other serving girls, hopping swiftly and surely and leading them around the floor.
“Kiss me, O kiss me, O kiss me she said
Your lips are like honeymead gone to my head
Drunk on her kisses in her royal red
So the king’s daughter to handsome Tom said
“Honest Tom, loyal Tom gave her a kiss
Sweet royal kisses are not to be missed
Kissed her and loved her in her royal bed
Loved her ‘til morning when evening had fled
“Stay with me, stay with me, love me, she said
Bright was the morning for evening had fled
Hold me and love me in my royal bed
So the King’s daughter to handsome Tom said
“Honest Tom, loyal Tom lay by her side
Til the King caught them and handsome Tom died
There in the garden she wept by his head
His body was gone and the earth was red, red.”
When they stopped dancing she put her head against his chest, breathing happily. The room broke out in thunderous applause, and the Vheradorans came one by one to slap him on the back.
Then Yset favored him with a smile again, and laughed. “I don’t want you to think me easy, Levin Ghoulslayer, although I confess you dance well.” Then she turned to the assembled watchers, who were still laughing and clapping. “The Borni wins!” She said, grinning wickedly at Levin and backing away from him. “Now we will see if your boasts are empty, Mortentian!”
The Thimenians roared with laughter, and the Borni Auligs did, too. The Vheradorans looked confused, for plainly Levin had danced the better, and they didn’t get the joke. “I told you a Thimenian woman would get you killed, Levin!” Jarlben reminded him, still laughing.
He-Who-Kills-With-Knives stepped forward. He had not laughed when Levin danced, nor had he laughed at the result. His swarthy face was murderous. “Now you die, Mortentian. The third contest, we fight to the death!”
The men, who had been sitting at the tables and watching the dancing from a distance, surged forward to crowd the benches around the arena. Levin stepped onto the sand and said to the Aulig, “I don’t suppose you will accept an apology? I’m rather drunk.”
“Good!” He-Who-Kills-With-Knives said. “Then this should not take too long.” He drew his sword, a Mortentian piece that looked like it had been a common footman’s weapon, iron and poorly balanced, but honed to a razor’s edge. Levin drew his own longsword and faced him. They both wore chainmail jerkins, Levin’s hung to the middle of his thigh and was tightly belted, while the Aulig’s hung loose to just above the knee.
“Now I will kill you, like I killed so many Mortentians this month!” The Aulig said, holding his weapon in a decent if uninspired guard position. Levin noted that the Aulig’s footwork was a trifle unsure, as if he were used to wielding a spear, rather than a sword. “Up and down your coastline we have burned your cities and taken your women! Now I kill you, womanly man!”
“You keep saying that.” Levin replied quietly. “But you aren’t doing anything.”
“Sniveling son of a cowardly dog!” The Aulig roared as he charged, swinging the sword over his head for a downward blow. Levin back-stepped, letting the man come on before he even raised his sword, then he flicked the blade up at the last second while sidestepping fast. The Aulig’s swing was hard but predictable, and Levin parried it easily, letting the man’s momentum carry him past as the blades clashed together. When the point of the Aulig’s weapon landed in the sand, Levin’s blade flicked out, cutting the side of an unprotected knee.
The Aulig seemed to ignore the wound, spinning to face Levin, whose sword was still in the low-guard position, inviting attack. “You run from me, coward! Stand and fight me!” He charged Levin again, and Levin again side-stepped and parried, then another flick of his blade traced a line along the man’s cheek. This time the Aulig reversed direction suddenly and attempted a backhand blow to Levin’s head, but Levin’s sword was already in position to block it. He parried lightly, just taking the momentum from his opponent’s swing, while he stepped back so that it missed. His return slash took off a part of the Aulig’s earlobe, and a bloody bone earring dropped to the sand.
“Stand, damn you!” The Aulig screamed, swinging wildly, great sweeping blows that would have battered down Levin’s guard, had he been there to parry, but Levin adroitly stepped back, walking backward along the edge of the circle and letting the man wear himself out while he lightly parried any blows that seemed close.
He-Who-Kills-With-Knives was panting with exertion, and for a moment he dropped his guard to catch his breath. Levin leaped forward before he could get his guard back up and sliced the inside of his right calf. Blood began pouring from the wound and into the Borni man’s boot. He moved to the center of the circle, trying to force Levin to stand or be backed against the wall, but Levin circled him swiftly, side-stepping and parrying two or three ineffectual blows.
“Kill him now!” Jarlben said in a bored voice, but Levin had no such thing in mind. He was fighting him as Kuljin had taught him to fight a Tolrissan, slowly bleeding him. The Borni were screaming encouragement at their man, but the Thimenians were merely watching. They had seen Levin at work before, and the contest was so one-sided that it was no longer interesting.
In desperation the Aulig screamed a battle cry and charged at Levin, and he was fast, but Levin danced out of the way and crouched, finding the angle he wanted. His blade flicked out and he hamstrung the man, cutting the tendon between thigh and knee. He-Who-Kills-With-Knives fell to one knee, then holding his blade, he pressed his hands to his knees and regained his feet. He was slow in turning to face Levin, who was merely waiting. Blood was staining the sand beneath the Aulig, and he was limping severely.
Levin stood and faced the Borni. “Now I stand.” He said, and went into a back- against-the-wall defensive stance, yielding no ground while positioning his blade so as to effectively parry anything the Aulig could do. When the Aulig swept a weak blow from the left, Levin hard-parried it, then thrust the side of his blade into the man’s chainmail shirt, knocking him to his knees. He let the man come halfway to his feet, then pushed him back down with the sole of his boot. He stabbed him in the right forearm, forcing him to drop his sword. Levin kicked it away from him.
The roo
m was silent. Desperately, He-Who-Kills-With-Knives turned himself over and began crawling toward his sword, and Levin walked beside him.
“Finish it.” Jarlben said, but Levin turned to him.
“Did you hear how he said they have been killing Mortentians?” He asked calmly. Then he stepped behind the crawling Aulig and stepped on the small of his back, forcing him to his belly. The Aulig gave a low and pain-filled groan. “I’ll let his own people finish it.”
Then he stepped forward, took the handle of his longsword in two hands, and drove the tip through the Aulig’s spine, just above his hips. Several of the Borni Auligs cried in protest while He-Who-Kills-With-Knives screamed in agony, but his legs no longer obeyed his commands, and his pants filled with urine and shit as he collapsed. Levin wiped his blade on the man’s shirt and turned to the rest of the Borni Auligs.
“The girl is mine, unless any of you would like to try your hand?” He-Who-Kills-With-Knives began to weep like a hurt child. The Borni’s faces were furious, but the one holding the leash on the king’s eye brought her forward, his face set in hard, stony lines. Levin handed the leash to Kuljin, who was looking at him with raised eyebrows, then he went and leaned next to the dying Aulig.
“It will take you a long time to die like that, Aulig.” His tone was conversational. “When you get to the afterlife, tell your ancestors you were killed by Levin D’root the Mortentian woman. And give my regards to the Black Duke.”
He walked over to the little blonde thrall, who was staring, pale and wide-eyed. She looked thirteen at the most, and likely to throw up. Some of the Borni had gone to stand beside He-Who-Kills-With-Knives and perhaps put him out of his misery, but the rest of the patrons, including the Thimenians, had simply returned to their drinking and conversation. The entertainment was over. “Who are you, girl?” He asked her.
“Limme D’Cadmouth.” She replied in a small and frightened voice, trying to tuck her small body inside of her flying jacket.
“D’Cadmouth.” He replied, surprised. The D’Cadmouths were the first family of Mortentia. He nodded toward the Borni. “And they didn’t know?”
“I didn’t tell them. I thought they would force my father to pay ransom.”
“And you didn’t want that? Loyal girl. But I guess D’Cadmouths are known for that. Which branch of the family are you from?”
“Elderest.” Levin’s heart skipped a beat, and he looked at her more closely.
“And your father?”
“Maldiver D’Cadmouth, Duke of Elderest.” Levin smiled like trees cracking in midwinter. “If you return me to my home, you will be rewarded.” Levin nodded, then he turned to look at Jarlben.
“Tonight she shares furs with me.” Jarlben merely shrugged and turned back to his conversation, but Kuljin turned and stared.
“Why do you this, Ghoulslayer?”
“She is mine now.” Levin replied. “She will share my bed every night until I can get her back to her father.”
“She is too young. You dishonor yourself and her as well.”
Limme was looking at the two of them in horror. “But you are Mortentian.” She said, her hopes of a rescue fading with the light in her eyes. He was no longer her savior, but her captor.
“I’m a D’root.” He replied, and his eyes on her were hard. “I’m the cursed offspring of the Black Duke, and your father killed my father.” Then he dragged her to his room upstairs and tied one end of her leash to a bedpost. “Every man here knows that you are my thrall.” He told her. “You try to escape and they will only drag you back to me, you understand?”
“Please.” She begged. “The Auligs did not touch me. They wanted me to be untouched for their chieftain. If you don’t …”
“If I don’t rape you your father will reward me?” Levin interrupted. “I doubt that. He’s been trying to kill me for months. Understand this, girl. I own you. That’s what being a thrall means. If I decide to send your head back to your father instead of the rest of you, there is nothing the men downstairs will do about it. So sit quiet and don’t anger me.”
He left her to her tears, but somehow this did not feel as good as burning the Wanderer in Torth Harbor. Revenge is a two-edged knife, his father had said, and he was beginning again to feel its bite.
“I am surprised, Levin.” Kuljin said, when he had returned to their table in the mead hall.
“Why?”
“To sleep with the girl. Doesn’t seem like you.”
“Thimenians sleep with their thralls all the time.” Levin replied.
“You aren’t Thimenian, Levin. Not even if you want to be.”
“Disappointed?”
“Just surprised.” Then the halfman stopped and his mouth twisted. “No, not just surprised. I am indeed disappointed.”
“She’s pretty and young.” Levin replied. “Who wouldn’t want her? Besides, I’m not going to take her maidenhead. She wouldn’t be worth much ransom money if I did. She’s related to the king of Mortentia, after all. If I used her like that, my life wouldn’t be worth a copper ha’penny.”
“So why terrorize the girl?”
“I’ll set her right, soon enough.” Levin replied. “But when she gets back to Mortentia, she can tell her bastard father that his little girl slept every night in my bed. Let him chew on that and worry about what I’ll do to him next.
“Now, where has that Yset gone off to?”
Chapter 52: Village of Olden, Eleven Leagues North of Walcox, Northcraven Duchy
“T’was only a pie, milord.” The bound man offered his plea while he stood at the dock, his broad shoulders slumped and his expression pained. “I didn’t get but a couple of bites.”
“It was not just a pie, sir, it was theft.” The bound man could see a noose hanging from a gibbet through the open slats of the shutters behind the Lord Mayor’s chair, here in the Water Maiden, the only tavern in the tiny village of Olden. The Lord Mayor, looking fat and grim, was pronouncing judgment from the same chair he sat in when the tavern was open.
“We are poor folk in Olden, sir. Poor folk who must work from sunrise ‘til sunset all six days of every week, just to put food in our mouths. For all that we are poor, nonetheless we maintain a hostel and a poor man’s kitchen, and we have work to offer in the mill.
“You come to our town on the road we pay to maintain, and you claim poverty to excuse theft. But it was not poverty that has led you to this present pass. It was pride. You were too proud to sup at the poor man’s kitchen. Too proud to beg lodging at the hostel. Too proud to work in the mill. Mayhap the bread is not the best in the poor man’s kitchen, but it is sufficient to maintain the body. The hostel is not warm, nor the beds free of vermin, but they are sufficient to keep the cold at bay. The work in the mill is hard, and the pay but a pittance, but it is honest work, and food provided besides. You refused them in your pride.
“Instead you chose to steal, and the now the court must deal with you. You have no money in your purse, nor do you have any people here.
“I could put you in the gaol, but then I must pay a man to guard you and I must pay to feed you until the wagon comes to take you to the Blackhill, and this could be many months. Who would pay your board meantimes?
“I could put you in stocks for a week and then release you, but again I must feed you, and when done you would be back on the king’s road. The good people of Brinnvolle will not appreciate my judgment if I send a thief down the road to prey on them.
“I could order you serve a year in the mill, but you have already declined such work, and the mastermiller likewise would have no liking for a thief in his midst.”
The bound man hung his head.
“What remains is the gallows, sir. The rope can be used again and so costs the court nothing, and by the time the ravens have done their work, little enough will remain for the Order of the Spade to bury, and at a cost to the court that can be borne by the sale of your clothing. Have you anything to say in mitigation?”
“I
would speak, your honor.” The bound man said. The judge nodded. “When I left my town of Greencrook, sir, it was with no mind to steal. In fact I had five silver pennies and a fine horse, and I had all intention of joining the infantry, sir, for the Nevermind muster had but recently left. But my horse was lamed by a stone in the road, and it cost me two silver pennies to have the apothecary in Umbrin Hall come to my horse, and then he demanded five silver in payment for his curing of it. When I pleaded lack of coin, he took the horse for payment, and left me to follow after the muster on foot. I still was not dissatisfied, sir, for I had three silver pennies yet, and the road did not seem so terribly long when I looked upon a map.
“But the map was in error, sir. I soon found myself walking down small country cart paths that petered out into nothing or left me standing by fences near farms that no man claims. In the evenings I slept amid the hedgerows, but I was content to eat bark and to drink rainwater, for I was hot in my heart to do battle with the Auligs and to serve my king and duke.
“I found my way back to the road and chanced upon an inn called the Red Dragon’s Bones. It was not a place to my liking, but it was food, and I changed one of my silver pennies for a handful of copper at a very unfavorable rate, and I ate. That was the last time, and that was three days gone. Upon the road from that place I was set upon by robbers, deserters from the army I believed them to be, and when they were done with me I had no silver, and no copper either, and only the clothing I stand in.
“But I was still content, for I now was on the king’s road, and I felt I might come upon the muster at any moment to take up arms.
“And then came this fine town of Olden. And I know that you say you are poor, but I deem you rich in the things that matter, the things of the spirit and the heart. I saw that you have a poor man’s kitchen, and I saw that you have a hostel. I would have supped at the poor man’s kitchen, for I am not proud, but I would not have slept in any hostel, for I am driven to follow the army just as soon as I can, and I would not waste an evening in leisure. It was on the way to the poor man’s kitchen that seven devils tempted me with the smell of apple pie.”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 59
