The Amoral Hero

by Logan Jacobs

  “All the evidence in this room indicates otherwise,” Janina retorted.

  “Now look here, if your absurd quantities of luggage slow us down, and we never get to our destination, or they exhaust your horses and cause them to collapse in the middle of the desert, or attract a gang of bandits--” I began.

  “I know, I know, it’s entirely our fault and you still get paid,” Katrina said impatiently.

  “With that understood, you are still fully resolved to flout my emphatic advice to bring only a tenth of your currently packed traveling wardrobes, despite the knowledge that your insistence upon being fashionable may jeopardize this entire enterprise?” I asked.

  The twins looked at me, batted their lashes, and nodded in unison.

  “I appreciate your efforts nonetheless, Sir,” called out their manservant as he passed us by yet again, with one suitcase balanced on each shoulder.

  I sighed and stuffed another croissant in my mouth. The Elliott twins sure were lucky that they had the kind of faces it was hard to get angry with. Not just because of their beauty, but because of their youthful sweetness.

  Eventually, when all their belongings had been loaded onto their poor horses outside, we went outside. As we stepped into the sunlight, the girls unfurled parasols in colors that precisely matched their gowns. Which made me suspicious that their luggage must contain an inordinate number of other parasols, in every imaginable hue. I really wasn’t used to traveling with women. I had traveled with Vera at times, yes, but she didn’t have the same kinds of feminine behaviors as creatures like these.

  I realized that the twins’ manservant had saddled not two, but four horses for them. Apparently two of them had been designated purely as luggage bearers. All four were glossy chestnut mares, a matching set that accentuated the girls’ own twinhood. All four had an absurd number of bulky and cumbersome suitcases, satchels, and hat cases strapped to their sides. They looked a little petulant about the situation, but resigned. It surely wasn’t the first time they’d been subjected to this.

  Theo, meanwhile, stood slightly apart from the huddled group of mares, a dark giant beside them, and looked a bit as though he were trying not to laugh at the spectacle. Considering the density of gold and liquid potencium as compared to the density of fabrics, Theo was no doubt carrying substantially more weight than the mares were, but you couldn’t guess it by looking at all the horses. And besides that, he was half again their size. When he saw the three of us emerge, he immediately caught my eye and cocked his head, as if to imply something insulting about the women’s judgment and, by extension, mine in allowing myself to be hired by them.

  “This is my horse Theo,” I informed Katrina and Janina. “And Theo, these are Misses Katrina and Janina Elliott.”

  The twins giggled when I extended the introduction in both directions.

  “I never would have taken you for one of those eccentrics who talks to animals--” Katrina began.

  “How do you do?” Theo interrupted her.

  Both girls gasped and froze in place. Janina was the first to start walking again. She warily approached Theo.

  “Pardon me, I didn’t know,” she said to him. “I thought you were-- well… a horse.”

  “I most certainly am a horse,” Theo said gravely.

  “Well, I suppose so,” she stammered, “but, you know, you’re not exactly like other horses, that’s what I meant.”

  “Of course I am not in the least bit like other horses,” Theo harrumphed. “The very idea!”

  Janina looked at me helplessly.

  “He’s always like this, and you’ll get used to it,” I told her. “Or you won’t.”

  “I’m Katrina,” the slightly more blue-eyed of the twins introduced herself to Theo as she extended her hand to his snout. He snuffled it politely. She giggled and started to stroke his head.

  Janina stared at her sister nervously as if she expected Katrina’s hand to be bitten off for the affront. Then she realized that Theo was actually enjoying it. I didn’t blame her for her confusion. It really was impossible for someone who didn’t already know him well to guess when Theo wanted to be treated like a human, and when he wanted to be treated like a horse. Theo himself was the only one who seemed convinced that his idiosyncratic desires were reasonable and self-evident.

  “Well, we’d better get going, if we want to reach an inn by nightfall,” I reminded all three of them.

  The twins mounted up on the slightly less burdened of the four mares, and I swung up into Theo’s saddle. Then we started off.

  “Goodbye, Nikolai!” Katrina called out to the manservant who stood by the porch with his hat in hand and watched us go.

  “Safe travels, mademoiselles,” he replied with a bow. “Rest assured that all shall be in order for what I hope will be your prompt return.”

  “Don’t worry about us, Nikolai, we always come out all right,” Janina called back to him over her shoulder. “Just look after yourself!”

  He bowed again to acknowledge her words, and then his lanky, pale gray figure, receded out of sight.

  “So how did you pick me for this job, anyway?” I asked the girls.

  “Well, we were in the market for a sellsword, and when we heard that Halston Hale was in town, we knew it was meant to be, and that we couldn’t pass up our opportunity,” Katrina said.

  “We’ve heard so much about you from previous clients,” Janina agreed, and I wondered which of my previous clients, exactly, they had been conferring with. I contracted for all sorts. Some of them entirely respectable individuals. Many others significantly less than.

  “Heard what exactly?” I persisted. If the twins had any wildly false expectations of me, now was the time to correct them. Besides, my trade depended on cultivating a reputation. So I was pleased that I seemed to be making some progress on that front. I was just curious what kind of reputation, exactly, it was.

  “Oh, reports of your devilish handsomeness, conspicuous gallantry, infinite generosity, impeccable table manners, and so on and so forth,” Janina crooned.

  Both girls burst into giggles.

  Well, one fourth of that was true.

  “The truth is, we heard you were a sadistic brute, a raging asshole, and a borderline alcoholic,” Katrina remarked.

  Well, that description wasn’t entirely fair either, although I could at least understand how some perceptions may have arisen.

  “But,” Janina continued, “we also heard that you always got your man.”

  “And that you never broke your word,” Katrina concluded.

  “Which makes you perfect for the job,” Janina said.

  Well. All in all, it seemed a satisfactory enough reputation for a sellsword to have. I was not displeased.

  “We did hear about your giant black horse too, but we didn’t know he could talk,” Katrina added. That made sense. In many circumstances, although it ran entirely contrary to his natural inclinations, Theo held his tongue so that he could pass for an ordinary, unspeaking horse, which often conferred strategic advantages.

  “We also heard that you might be the long lost prince and true heir to the throne of a faraway country across the sea,” Janina said, as she stared at me speculatively. “But I believe the fellow who said that must have taken us for fools.”

  “I suppose he must have,” I scoffed without meeting her greenish-blue gaze. I didn’t dare betray too much interest in who, exactly, this fellow was, and how he had come by that particular rumor. “Anyhow, I already know all about myself. I’d rather the two of you told me a little about yourselves, now.”

  “Why, there isn’t anything interesting to tell about us,” Katrina replied coyly as she batted her long eyelashes. “We’re just a pair of maidens, barely twenty years of age, orphaned and forlorn in this world.”

  “Orphaned you may be,” I said, “but ‘forlorn’ isn’t exactly how most people would describe your situation, you know. Nor even your attitudes for that matter.” I had my doubts about the �
�maidens” part too, although that seemed impolite to remark on.

  “We may put on a cheerful façade, but we’re really just lost, frightened little girls,” Janina insisted. The twins exchanged a smirking glance.

  “Frightened of what?” I asked. “And if I may ask, how did you come to be alone in the world?”

  “Oh, not alone,” Katrina exclaimed. “We have Nikolai, after all, our father’s valet, who has looked after us for as long as we can remember. And most importantly, of course, we always have each other.”

  Already by this point, we were reaching the edge of Dunville and venturing out into the hazy open expanse of the sunburnt plains.

  “Yes, but your situation is unusual nonetheless for two young women,” I said. They had told me that they were orphaned, or “so to speak.” So what I really wanted to know was how they’d lost their parents. But it seemed indelicate to ask that outright.

  “We’ve been waiting for ten years for our parents to return,” Janina said, as if she had read my mind, “and while we don’t like to give way to despair… well, the long-awaited prospect of a joyful family reunion has begun to seem distinctly less likely at this point.”

  “Return from where?” I asked. The girls sounded a bit wistful, but not distressed, so I felt that I could safely press them for more details. And I wanted to learn as much about my mysterious new employers as I could. Their lives, mine, and Theo’s could all very well depend upon it.

  “Our mother was kidnapped by a traveling sorcerer when we were still little girls,” Katrina said. “She was very beautiful, the belle of Dunville. Hair like sunlight, eyes like cornflowers, and a smile that would melt the frost off a windowpane.”

  “The sorcerer came into town, and he did magic tricks for all the children, including us,” Janina continued. “He’d do light shows. He’d hypnotize insects into performing choreographed dances. He’d make flowers bloom, and wither, and bloom again, or at least appear to. I suppose some of what he did was mere illusion, but we weren’t old enough then to know that even magic cannot restore what is dead to life. Kat and I were as enthralled as all the other children. We would beg our mother to take us to his performances, every night for the week that he announced he would be in town. And so she did.”

  “She always doted on us,” Katrina recalled. “She rarely denied us anything. And we had servants to do the cooking and the housekeeping, so she spent nearly all of her time playing with us and teaching us.”

  “There were other parents in the crowd at the sorcerer’s performances, parents accompanying their children or older folks who simply wanted to witness his small miracles for themselves, but our mother was the one he took notice of,” Janina said darkly. “And he used us as a pretext to engage with her. He invited us to be volunteers, to be made invisible, or made to levitate, that sort of thing. And he gave us little trinkets created by magic. Glass bunnies. Wooden frogs that would croak out their song every evening. The other children were jealous because they thought we were the sorcerer’s favorites, but that wasn’t really the case. He didn’t care about us.”

  “I don’t remember what his face looked like, not really,” Katrina said. “I think he was tall and dark-haired, and I know that a lot of the matrons of the town called him handsome, and that he wore a fine hat and a cape. I remember that Father saw one show and scoffed that he was a dandified fraud with such weak sorcerous abilities that half of his displays were mere sleight of hand or use of props. And after that he preferred to stay by the fire and read a book while Mother kept taking us herself, all week.”

  “I thought Father just didn’t care for magic, and couldn’t understand how wonderful it was, but now I think maybe he just wanted an excuse to have the house to himself for an hour or so, and a bit of peace and quiet,” Janina mused.

  “Or perhaps he suspected that something was strange, and wrong, about the sorcerer?” Katrina suggested.

  “No,” Janina said. “He didn’t suspect a thing. If he had, he never would have let us go. Any of us, but least of all Mother.”

  The twins fell silent then as they reflected on this memory. I didn’t ask them any questions, we just kept plodding along in silence. Theo listening respectfully just as I was, the mares comfortably oblivious to everything except the body language of us humans. I led the way, the twins followed close behind me, and the pack mares followed behind us. The sun radiated down on us intensely, not hot enough yet to be miserable, but threatening to get to that point, like a skillet that had just been put on the stove.

  After a minute or so, Janina finally picked up the story again.

  “On the last night of the show he used Mother as a volunteer,” she said. “Well, she didn’t volunteer exactly. He pointed at her. He extended his hand to her, and she was shy about it, but the crowd urged her, so she went up on stage with him. And then, he made her disappear.”

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  “Just about like that,” Janina said.

  “There was an uproar, of course,” Katrina said. “Half the men in town had had their hearts broken by Mother and were still more than a little in love with her. At first, the sorcerer pretended it was all part of the act and tried to calm everyone down. He laughed and was charming and told jokes and promised she’d be back soon. But another twenty minutes or so wore on, and she wasn’t back yet, and all of the spectacular things he did to distract everybody had started to grow dull. Then Janie and I started crying, and the crowd really demanded Mother back-- men were pulling swords on him-- and then he caused an explosion in one of the buildings nearby, and there was a fire, and people were screaming and running… ” She trailed off and swallowed hard. I turned to look back at her over my shoulder, and her gaze was misty and distant.

  “The sheriff and his lawmen gave chase, but he got away,” Janina said. “With our mother. I know she was still alive. The whole town knew it. He didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to kidnap her. He became obsessed with her the instant he laid eyes on her.”

  “When our father heard the news, he stopped speaking to us,” Katrina said. “Well, he stopped speaking to anyone. He shut the door in the sheriff’s face. Then he just packed his things in silence, and it didn’t matter how we asked what he was doing or where he was going or when he’d be back, it didn’t matter that we begged him to promise he’d come back, he just ignored everything we said as if we didn’t exist. I remember the last thing he packed was Mother’s portrait, from the mantle. He wrapped it up in a handkerchief and put it in his pocket. Then he walked to the door while we followed after him. And then he said one more thing to us, just one.”

  “‘Be good girls,’” Janina said dully. “And kissed us on the top of our heads, and left.”

  “We were, at first,” Katrina said.

  “But the years passed, and we realized he was never going to come back,” Janina said.

  “He must have gone after the sorcerer, but I doubt that he ever found him,” Katrina said.

  “I suppose he is still looking,” Janina sighed.

  “Our grandmother,” Katrina answered. “Our father’s mother. I think she was just as sad as we were that he never came back. Before she died, she told us she was sure that he would come back for us, one day. She told us never to leave Dunville, that we had to stay here to wait for him.”

  “She was a kind woman, but a deluded one,” Janina said.

  “Your father must have really loved your mother,” I said.

  “There was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her,” Katrina agreed.

  “His love for her made a tragic fool out of him,” Janina asserted. “I will never devote myself to anyone in that way, for as long as I live.”

  “But he, and the sorcerer, taught us to recognize the signs of love-madness in men’s eyes,” Katrina remarked. “When you see that look, you know they’re easy prey.”

  “Prey?” I repeated with a chuckle. At least the twins wouldn’t find me susceptible in that regard, no matter how much I ap
preciated their beauty. Vera was the only woman Theo had ever accused me of acting the fool for. And even between Vera and me, I was usually the first to walk away. It was just that somehow, even in this wide open country that didn’t ever seem to reach the sea and end, every goodbye I said or left unsaid to her seemed to turn out less final than I had expected.

  “You shouldn’t say such things, Kat, Mr. Hale will think ill of us,” Janina said with amusement.

  “A person must be either a predator, or prey yourself,” I replied. “And I have always identified rather more with the one than the other.”

  “We don’t kill anybody,” Katrina assured me hastily. “Not like you do.”

  “You just take advantage of men’s tenderer feelings to get what you want from them?” I asked wryly.

  “We take advantage of their baser instincts,” Katrina corrected me.

  “Like you,” Janina said slyly. “All we had to do was appeal to your basest desire.”

  “Which is?” I asked with amusement.

  “Gold,” Janina replied.

  “Civilization requires currency,” I pointed out. “The alternative is taking whatever we wanted from each other at swordpoint.”

  “Or charity, or bartering,” Katrina said.

  “Charity?” I snorted. “And how long do you think most people would survive, if they relied upon charity? Admittedly, the two of you might be well enough provided for, but it wouldn’t be so for most. And not many would be likely to open shops, or invest in mills or even farms bigger than what was needed to feed their own families, if they knew they could never be rewarded for their efforts.”

  “I suppose not,” Katrina admitted.

  “And as for bartering, currency follows the same principle, really,” I said. “The principle of trading what one man wants for something else that another wants equally. But instead of having to look about until you find the one man who not only has exactly the object you want, but wants exactly the object you have, you can simply trade an equivalent value with anyone at all.”

  “I never said gold wasn’t useful,” Katrina snorted.