by Jon Kiln
“What do you intend to do with me, father?” Arianne rounded the corner near the collapsing stairs and approached the table in a waddle. Nisero thought she looked to be moving slower. Perhaps the ride had been harder on her than he had realized. He started to feel more guilt on not convincing her to stay home. He understood Berengar’s anger at his failure to do so.
“What situation of mine do you speak of?” she asked pertly.
Berengar snorted as Arianne lowered herself into a chair next to him. He waved his hand over and around her belly as he spoke. “This condition here, with the baby growing inside you while we are out playing bandits. That is the situation of which I speak.”
Arianne filled her plate. “Oh, that situation. I had completely forgotten. Thank you for the reminder.”
“As usual, still more clever than wise.”
“Hmm.” She shrugged. “You don’t think they make armor in my particular size for the battles ahead?”
“Even if they did,” Berengar said, “I wouldn’t be able to get it for you, being outside the army. Plate mail is the privilege of those that fight for the King and the wealthiest lords. Like your husband for instance.”
“Is that what he does? I am learning all sorts of things about my life by being around you, father. We should spend more time together.”
Berengar smiled wryly. “I will be gone shortly. In the mean time I ask that you remain secluded inside. Wait for me to bring you out once I return.”
“I’m getting used to that instruction,” Nisero grumbled.
“Why wait inside?” Arianne complained to her father.
“Well, the lieutenant is a wanted man and people witnessed you with him. I also want to make certain I wasn’t followed before you reveal yourself. Does that work for you, daughter?”
Arianne smiled sweetly at him. “As you wish.”
Berengar looked at her suspiciously, but eventually left the table, mounted his horse and rode southward.
She rose from the table. “You and my father fought for the King. Why did you never get your plate mail armor?”
“We did a different sort of fighting for the King,” Nisero told her.
After she left, he found a pitcher of water and washed the dried blood away from the small cuts on his throat from the night before.
Nisero remained in the back room most of the day. Gorma returned to offer bread and boiled corn for the mid-day meal, but Nisero did not see her husband the rest of the day.
Arianne entered the storage room later in the afternoon.
Nisero sat up. “Is there something you need?”
“No, husband, just bored out of my mind.”
He laid back down on his pallet and closed his eyes. “Why are you still calling me that?”
“We are bandits maintaining a disguise,” she said.
“That did not seem to hold up very well.”
She laughed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. We just executed it poorly.”
“That is the definition of all bad ideas,” Nisero lamented. “What seems like a good idea which is then executed poorly.”
“You and my father have the same sense of humor. You both jest with an air of sadness. Biting and depressing.”
“Your humor does a fine job of biting at him,” Nisero commented.
“You noticed that, did you?” She moved back to the doorway and stretched up holding onto the frame for support. “He needs a little ribbing to keep him honest.”
“Does that come from resentment?”
Arianne turned and leaned inside the doorframe. “Is this about my mother and brother? Is that what you mean?”
“I meant nothing.” Nisero let his eyes slide open and he stared up at the uneven boards of the ceiling. “Your humor seems to have an edge, like his… and mine, I suppose, but yours seems to direct that edge at him.”
“That’s what you see, then?”
He shrugged, lying on his pallet still staring upward. “You had mentioned feeling distant from him in the midst of our escape from bandits all those years ago. I wouldn’t think him isolating himself in the hills to the north would have helped to heal that feeling much.”
“I’ve grown up a little since then,” Arianne said. “I’m about to be a mother for goodness sake. I better be grown up by now. Being married to a soldier has expanded my understanding of what my mother did and sacrificed for that life. I understand my father a little better for it too. Maybe I understand you more as well, for that matter.”
“That’s good, I suppose.” Nisero’s voice sounded tight and drawn in his own ears.
“Dreth is like all other soldiers in many ways,” she continued. “He does not have the same humor or observations of life that you and my father seem to have. He is no warrior-philosopher. He just does his work and returns home.”
“Is that the difference then?” Nisero turned his head toward the wall away from her.
“Maybe it is something different in being a member of the Elite Guard. You boys are warriors first and everything else later… sometimes much later.”
“You thought I would neglect you. That was it?”
He heard her breath catch and then she said, “That’s not what I was saying.”
“I offered to leave that all to be everything else you needed, first and only.”
“That’s not why I brought this up. And I think we both know that the Elite Guard never really leaves a man. We both saw that in my father. You were already becoming more like him then. You are even more so now.”
“So that was it,” Nisero confirmed.
“Now you are just sadness without the humor, Nisero.”
“Dreth offers you happiness and no humor, which is enough to make the soldiering tolerable.”
“And there are the teeth,” Arianne said, amused. “He has nice teeth.”
Nisero leaned back onto the pallet. “Hmph. I was hoping you were going to say you had made a terrible mistake and you will spend all your years pining for me.”
Arianne let out a hearty, high laugh. “I’m not much of a piner. More of a resenter really, and even that is something I grow tired of and hope to outgrow.”
“You seem to be growing quite a bit these days,” Nisero pointed out.
“If that is a shot at my weight with this pregnancy,” she warned, “you better start reevaluating your life choices in a hurry.”
Nisero opened his mouth to answer, but a shout from outside cut him off.
“Arianne… Arianne… come on out, please, dear.”
Nisero jumped to his feet and put his hand on the hilt of his sword before he registered that it was Berengar’s voice.
Nisero made eye contact with Arianne.
“Should we both go out?” he wondered aloud.
“He only called me,” she said.
“Why would he do that knowing we both were here? Why not just come in?”
“Maybe he has someone with him,” she proposed, “but does not want to reveal you are here yet.”
Nisero nodded and waved her on. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
She turned and waddled up the corridor. Nisero stepped into the storage room doorway and leaned his head out. He saw the opening of the front door, but did not see any sign of Berengar outside.
“Arianne, come out, please,” Berengar called again.
“I’m coming. Be patient,” Arianne demanded back.
Nisero listened, but did not hear anything else. He stepped out of the storage room. He moved across the hall and put his back to the wall around the corner from the missing front doors. As he listened, he saw the cow near the corn fields though the open wall.
Nisero heard Arianne shout. “What are you doing here? What is this, father?”
Nisero rolled out and stepped around the corner of the wall. He saw Arianne’s back as she stood just outside the doorway. Berengar stood a little farther on with a uniformed soldier. The man had curly, black hair and a close cropped black beard. From his garb, N
isero could tell he was a high ranking officer.
Lieutenant Nisero clutched the hilt of his sword until his knuckles tightened. He glanced over at the cow chewing and the chicken pecking. He looked back at Berengar. Was this a friend or treachery? Why would Berengar have called his daughter out first? To clear her out of the inn before they came in to claim bounty on Nisero himself?
Captain Berengar wouldn’t do that. But he had been angry when Nisero had brought his daughter into his troubles. Berengar had said himself that one never knew what a man was capable of until he was under the right pressures. Did even Captain Berengar have his own pressures? Was that limit his daughter and unborn grandchild? With impossible odds ahead at the prospect of helping Nisero, was it not worth risking what remained of his family in Berengar’s eyes?
Nisero was not sure he was up to fighting his former captain and friend.
“What are you doing here, Dreth?” Arianne stepped towards them.
“Are you not happy to see me, wife?”
“Did you spend the day finding him instead of trying to clear up the other misunderstanding, father?”
Dreth turned his eyes on Berengar beside him.
“You have to go home,” Berengar directed. “I will try to find Nisero and help him find justice, but you need to go with your husband now.”
“He must have told Dreth that I left,” Nisero muttered to himself. “He wants to get her clear of this. That’s good.”
“Find him?” Arianne said. She turned her head to look back into the inn over her shoulder.
Nisero gritted his teeth. “Don’t give it away, woman.” He moved against the corner and peered around.
“I will, Arianne,” Berengar promised. “I will find him. He will get his opportunity to face trial and answer for what he has done.”
Dreth held his hands out in front of him. “What were you thinking going with him in the first place? He is a dangerous man. He is wanted for treason against the King. He is a murderer and an assassin. You could be imprisoned just for having traveled with him.”
“He’s innocent,” Arianne objected. “He was framed for the crimes. They tried to kill him the night they killed the other Elite Guard. He escaped and that’s why he was accused of the crimes by those that really committed them,” she tried to explain.
“Arianne, stop.” Berengar reached for her shoulder but she shrugged him off. “This is pointless. Just go with your husband while you still can.”
“Yes,” Dreth said, “stop it now. Whatever this nonsense is, it most definitely stops this instance.”
“You would participate in helping criminals in killing an innocent man, Dreth? Is that it?”
“Arianne,” Berengar breathed.
“If you were not heavy with my child, I would not let that sort of talk stand,” Dreth said in a low tone.
Nisero stepped out from around the corner and gripped his sword again.
“What sort of talk is that?” Arianne huffed. “The truth?”
“Enough, woman. I am your husband.” Dreth growled and took a step toward her.
Berengar gripped Dreth’s elbow. “Easy now,” he cautioned.
Dreth turned and glared at the older warrior.
Arianne took a step back toward the doorway. “And how exactly would you see that my truth talking would not stand? If you are implying that you would raise a hand to me, you will awake with your throat cut and a few other tid bits too. Doubt that not.”
“I have never raised my hand to you ever, Arianne. Why would you think such a thing?”
“I know no other way that you could possibly silence me.”
“I’m not trying to silence you. I just mean that…” Dreth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Never mind. Arianne, do you have any idea which way this Nisero went? Did he give any indication which way he was trying to go once your father refused to help him?”
She started to glance back again at the inn, then stopped herself. “He didn’t kill those people, Dreth.”
“Stop it,” Dreth hissed and held out his hands. “You have to cease saying that. You will be heard and someone will report you.”
“Who is going to report me? Who will hear?”
“Just take her home, Dreth. She doesn’t need to be out here,” Berengar said.
“What are you doing?” Arianne’s voice became high and frantic.
Nisero took a step forward in the hallway, but stopped short. He bit down on the insides of his cheeks.
“Your father is right,” Dreth agreed. “We need to go home.”
“You go home,” she retorted. “I have work to finish here.”
“Arianne.” Berengar spoke through the tight line of his lips.
Dreth looked over his shoulder at Berengar and back at Arianne. He dropped his voice, but Nisero could still hear him. “Is he inside? I have men over the hill waiting for my signal to take him.”
“Father, how could you?”
Berengar clenched his fists by his sides. “You were coming here to take my daughter, your wife, home. That was all. You agreed to come alone.”
“They suspected you were a traitor, old man,” Dreth said without looking back, “and you did your best to drag me and my family down with your treacherous friends. But I won’t allow it. You will tell me now woman, is that dog here?”
Arianne turned and ran back inside, holding her stomach. “Nisero, run. Run away now!”
Dreth raised his fist and waved it in the air. Berengar darted to the left and disappeared from Nisero’s sight. Nisero ran forward and wrapped Arianne up in his arms.
She cried into his chest. “What are you doing? Run away.”
Nisero saw the figure charging toward him as a shadow outlined in the light. He turned Arianne aside and pushed her away to arm’s length.
Nisero took the impact of Dreth’s charge in his chest, knocking him backward and off balance. He took three punches to the face with his hands down from trying to keep Arianne clear of the attack. They slammed into the corner hard enough to splinter boards in a puff of dust.
Arianne screamed. “Stop it! Don’t hurt him!”
Dreth reached for the short sword at his side. Nisero locked his hand over Dreth’s wrist. Dreth drove his fist up into Nisero’s throat, knocking his head back against the broken wall. Nisero felt the cuts on his neck open with sharp stings. Nisero gripped Dreth’s wrist harder and Dreth rolled his forearm into Nisero’s throat, cutting off his airway.
Arianne pulled Dreth’s short sword from his sheath. As spots spread in Nisero’s vision, he saw Dreth smile. Part of Nisero’s air starved brain thought Arianne might actually plant the blade between Nisero’s ribs to save her husband, but instead she threw it aside.
She yelled something that echoed in Nisero’s ears, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Dreth reached for her. “What do you think you are doing?”
Nisero pushed off the wall and slammed Dreth through a small table along the wall of the crooked stairs. Dreth’s elbow went through a board in the wall and Nisero sucked in a gasp of air.
Dreth raised a knee into the lieutenant’s gut and pressed back. Nisero turned and flipped Dreth over his hip, slamming the man into the floor. The boards broke through around him from the impact. Dreth clawed to try to arrest his fall as Nisero pressed him down into the dark pit.
Arianne called, “Don’t drop him, Nisero.”
Nisero groaned and grabbed the front of Dreth’s uniform in both fists to keep him from falling through. Dreth swung and connected with the flat of his knuckles over Nisero’s mouth, sending a flash of light through the lieutenant’s vision.
Nisero saw that the floor opened on a shallow cellar about the height of a man instead of a full basement.
Dreth showed his teeth and drew his fist back for another shot as Nisero held the man’s weight aloft. Nisero tasted metallic in his mouth and he spit blood out into Dreth’s eyes. Dreth cried out and used his hands to wipe out his eyes instead of hittin
g Nisero again. Nisero let him go and the man fell through to a low thump on the cold ground under the inn.
Nisero spun on his heels and ran back through the hall.
“Nisero, you dropped him!”
“It wasn’t far. Help him out after I’m gone.”
“I’m going with you,” Arianne asserted.
“That’s insane. Just-”
Nisero stopped and stared out the holes in the walls beyond where they had taken their meals. Soldiers charged through the fields, high stepping as they pushed through the tight rows of the corn stalks. The cow and chicken ran in opposite directions to get out of the way.
Nisero turned and ran up the hallway, past the storage room.
“Nisero, wait!”
“Tell them I had abducted you,” he shouted. “I threatened to cut your belly, if you didn’t obey me.”
He turned hard to the right and slammed through a door jammed out on its hinges. It gave a few degrees of a turn and he scrambled out.
A man rounded the building on a horse. Nisero pulled up short and reached for his sword hilt.
Berengar was pulling a horse behind the one he rode. “Let’s go.”
Nisero mounted up and wheeled the steed around. “Through the trees. They are approaching from the fields.”
“Why did you bring her again?” Berengar asked, incredulous.
Nisero looked back as Arianne grabbed both their legs. “I can’t stay. I think he will turn me in for helping you.”
“Why did you bring him, captain?” Nisero questioned. “He almost killed me.”
“I thought he was good for his word and would take her back to safety. I didn’t know he suspected me of double play. We need to go or we are caught.”
A rough voice from inside screamed. “Arianne! How dare you?!”
Nisero reached down and took her by the arm. He leaned back and pulled her weight up onto the horse. She held on and the men kicked off, riding hard through the trees. Nisero heard shouts behind them, but he did not dare to turn back. He kept his eyes forward as they charged on horseback through the thick terrain.
“I thought you knew how to avoid detection, father.”
