by Jeff Wilson
Edryd recovered, collecting Cecht’s blade from off of the ground as he rose back up. Hagan was just now struggling to his feet. Edryd couldn’t quite get his head around the speed and strength his opponents had surprised him with, but with a weapon in his hand, he was comfortable that there was no longer any serious risk. Even attacking together, Edryd was confident they would be no match for him. His sole concern now was determining the best way to stop the attack without inflicting serious injuries to one or both of them.
“Hagan and Cecht,” Edryd said, “a pair of incompetents; each one dumber than the other.”
Edryd’s previous insults, which he had resorted to in a misconceived effort to project an aura of intimidation, had done more to provoke the attackers than deter them. The results this time were even worse. Cecht produced a small throwing knife in each hand from the sleeves of his coat, and Hagan pulled a small wooden cudgel from inside of his jacket. Forget injuring them, Edryd thought to himself, I really might have to kill these two. It was then that he noticed that both of their coats, though different in size, were made from the same cloth, and cut in the same fashion.
“If you leave now, I promise a day’s head start before I begin hunting,” Edryd threatened, hoping that an uncomplicated warning would work where his impulsive insults had not.
Both men (wisely) seemed reluctant to initiate anything, but neither of them showed signs of giving up. Convinced there was no avoiding it, Edryd began to formulate an attack strategy. He would need to take Cecht out first; he had to respect those throwing knives. He wouldn’t risk turning his back to Cecht without knowing whether the man had the skill to use them effectively. Believing that a delay would not work in his favor, Edryd almost started forward, but he realized that he had been forgetting something important: the man in the alley.
Feeling a twinge of panic, Edryd looked past Cecht toward the darkened passage, where he knew a third enemy remained hidden from view. He could not see anyone, but he was no less certain that there was someone there, someone who had been observing everything.
Edryd was looking directly into the alleyway when the shadows began to shift and move, coalescing into a robed figure in a dark grey cloak. As the figure emerged, his black clothing seemed to shed wisps of darkness. The intimidating man kept a hand on the hilt of a long sword, a weapon which was seated in a wooden scabbard, coated with black lacquer and worked with simple metal embellishments. This was a more dangerous enemy than either Hagan or Cecht. Edryd could recognize a skilled swordsman, and traces of dark strength and power could be seen in every one of this man’s deliberate movements. This opponent warranted respect, and Edryd realized that it would be unwise to engage him without a better weapon of his own to even the odds.
“Seoras!” said Hagan, surprise and fear threading through the pitch in his voice as he gave a name to the robed figure.
Hagan was behind him, so Edryd could not see the face that matched the obvious alarm in the big man’s voice. Edryd could, in contrast, see plain dismay in Cecht’s eyes at the mere mention of the name Seoras. Edryd had thought the man would be a third attacker, tipping the balance in favor of his opponents. The reactions Seoras had inspired in both Hagan and Cecht though, gave Edryd a reason to hope that he had gotten this wrong.
The man stepped further into the courtyard, eyes surveying the scene with his hand still on his sword, ready to draw it out. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
The knives in Cecht’s hands disappeared back into the sleeves of his coat. Edryd kept his knife in a ready position, but relaxed his posture. Hagan, still a little staggered by his collision with a stone wall, was slow to remember that he was holding the cudgel, but he dropped it to ground in response to an angry look from the swordsman.
“Miserable idiots,” Seoras said, looking at the damage to the well. “I am of a mind to…” he started to say but did not finish, shaking his head in irritation. “Anyone unwilling to surrender themselves into my custody to answer for this—should leave now.”
Hagan and Cecht did not wait to hear the end of this offer. They fled, disappearing down an alley opposite the one from which Seoras had first appeared. Edryd wanted to feel relieved, only he suspected that he was now in an even worse predicament.
“Are you an authority?” Edryd asked. The man was not dressed like a guard. Apart from the sword, he looked more like a lord or estate holder in fine, if somewhat unusual, clothing. Cecht and Hagan would have done a better job at passing as guardsmen.
“Technically speaking? No,” Seoras replied.
“They certainly seemed to treat you as though you were,” Edryd pointed out.
“In a less than official sense, I do occasionally find myself invoking a semblance of order on this forsaken place,” Seoras admitted. “Far too often for my liking,” he added as an afterthought.
“Those men are thieves. I want to report them to whoever might handle such things,” Edryd began to explain.
“Start by telling me your name,” Seoras said.
“My name is Edryd. I can give you their names as well. The larger man went by Hagan and the smaller man was called Cecht. I had never seen either of them before tonight.”
“I am Aed Seoras,” the man said, more relaxed now but with his hand still casually gripping the hilt of his sword. “There is nothing to be done tonight in the dark, but I have a property a short walk from here. If you will put your knife away, we can discuss things on the way there. You can tell me everything from the beginning once we are out of the damp and cold.”
Edryd was uneasy. He wasn’t really sure whether he was being invited as a guest, or whether Seoras intended to hold him for questioning as he had threatened to do earlier. Edryd shouldn’t have needed to describe what had happened. He knew that Aed Seoras had watched the entire encounter. The man’s motives were far from clear, and deliberately so it would appear. Hagan and Cecht, despite receiving serious damage, had not shown much fear in that fight, yet they had been terrified of Seoras. With a knife at the ready, Edryd might have had an advantage if he used it to attack now, but Seoras had given him no reason to act. Reluctantly, Edryd handed the weapon, hilt first, to Seoras. He was putting himself at the mercy of the other man, but he wanted to signal that he had no desire cause any trouble.
Seoras almost looked disappointed. Had he wanted to fight? “You don’t need to hand over the weapon, just put it away,” Seoras clarified.
“This is not mine. I took it from Cecht,” Edryd explained. “I do not carry a weapon.”
Seoras accepted the knife and motioned for Edryd to follow as he began to cross the courtyard heading east. “You will want to reconsider going about unarmed if you intend to spend any time unescorted in the streets of An Innis,” Seoras remarked. “Carrying a sword at your side will deter the sort of people who are willing to do you harm. It might have prevented a situation like the one you found yourself in tonight.”
“Sound advice,” Edryd agreed, “though I don’t know that I will come by a decent weapon so easily.”
“I own several. You are welcome to choose one that suits you,” Seoras offered. With no trace of humility, Seoras then added, “I am accounted by some a blade master. I wouldn’t mind offering some training in the morning if you feel you could benefit from instruction.”
Seoras had a flat expression, but his eyes betrayed eager confidence. Edryd had not been wrong; the man did want to fight. “I might take you up on that,” Edryd replied. We will see who is instructed, he added silently to himself, restraining an impulse to smile as he followed Seoras up the darkened city streets.
***
His vision was improving, and objects were no longer blurring together, but Cecht was still feeling effects from the encounter. It was difficult to concentrate. His thoughts wouldn’t hold together for long before they slipped away, shifting in and out of focus like the damp mists which were swirling through the streets of An Innis. He remembered what had happened, or thought that he did, but there wer
e gaps that he could not account for. Cecht could for example, recall closing in on Edryd while Hagan had held his attention, and he could also remember somehow missing completely when he swung a blow at the base of the man’s scalp, but Cecht had no memory to explain how he had ended up being the one who had acquired a painful bruise on the back of his own head. It had gone so horribly wrong, and would have gotten worse, if Seoras had not intervened unexpectedly.
His partner, Hagan, had been precious little help. The stolid man had come out of the fight remembering even less than Cecht, and had returned to his room at the Broken Oath, nursing an injured left shoulder and complaining of a headache. For Hagan to be complaining, it meant that he had been seriously hurt. At some point they would both be made to account to Aed Seoras for their failure tonight, but this was not Cecht’s current concern. Getting to Esivh Rhol and making a report took precedence. Aed Seoras was his acknowledged master, demanding complete obedience, where Esivh Rhol was only an occasional employer, who provided a supply of money and other compensations. Cecht cared far more for the latter, at least to the extent to which he could get away with it.
It was not as if Seoras did not know about his double dealings. It was just that his master didn’t seem to care, so long as Cecht remembered his place. Still, he took the precaution of entering Esivh Rhol’s palace through a hidden side entrance where he would not be seen. It was one thing to split one’s services, but it would have been something else entirely to tempt fate by being indiscreet about it.
Cecht, who was well known by the guards providing Esivh Rhol’s security, came and went about freely, having long ago become familiar with the layout of the palace. He could expect that Esivh Rhol, who generally slept late into the day and remained up late into the evenings, would still be awake, but he could not be as certain about other aspects of the man’s unusual schedule. He had learned the hard way that entering the wrong room unannounced risked interrupting things he didn’t need to see. The Ard Ri was a puerile deviant with an assortment of disreputable interests. Tonight though, the Ard Ri was spending a quiet evening poring through a collection of business ledgers.
“Do you know, I haven’t brokered a single placement for a Hetaera in over six months?” Esivh Rhol said to Cecht as he entered the room.
“An unenviable state of affairs,” Cecht said.
“I’m glad you appreciate the seriousness of the situation. I have other sources of income of course, but none of those are nearly so profitable.”
“I would buy one from you,” said Cecht, “only with what you pay me, generous as it is, no matter how many jobs I might take I doubt I would ever be able to afford her.”
Esivh Rhol was pleased with that comment, so he didn’t feel the need to point out that Cecht spent his pay just as fast as he could earn it, all of it typically ending right back up in Esivh Rhol’s coffers. Cecht was right after all. If the man were to save every coin he earned, it would remain beyond his means. “We might be able to work something out, if you could find a way to sort out Seoras,” The Ard Ri said instead.
Cecht shook his head. “You have no idea what he would do to me if he even thought for a second that I discussed such a thing.”
“You will have to content yourself then with lesser women in my employ whose services you do have the means to afford.” The Ard Ri said. He had spoken as if Cecht were to be sincerely pitied for being so close to something he would never experience. Esivh Rhol returned his attentions back to the numbers in the books set out before him, as though Cecht was no longer there.
Cecht let out a long sigh. He would not have actually wanted to own one of Esivh Rhol’s trained consorts, but having something like that placed forever out of reach, made the companions Esivh Rhol sold to those who could afford them, seem infinitely desirable. He recovered his thoughts with a struggle and gave Esivh Rhol the information he had come to report.
“Someone showed up on the island tonight. He told a room full of people at the Broken Oath that he had been stranded ashore a few days ago north of the island. Hagan and I cornered him alone in the courtyard behind the inn, and we were going to deliver him to Seoras, but we couldn’t manage it. He defeated us.” Cecht left the part out where they had intended to deliver him minus two gold Ossian sovereigns that the man had so unwisely shown to the innkeeper.
“Both of you… one after the other?” said Esivh Rhol. He was clearly skeptical.
“Both of us at once,” corrected Cecht. He was annoyed that the Ard Ri would doubt him. He hardly would have openly admitted such a thing if it hadn’t happened.
“And where is he now?”
“Seoras intervened before the fight was finished. Made it seem like he was coming to the rescue. They left together after that. I think we can be certain that Seoras will want to train him.”
Esivh Rhol thought for a moment. There would be ways to use this information to his advantage. “Does this man have a name?” he asked.
“He said it was Edryd.”
“And you think this Edryd could challenge Seoras?”
“No,” said Cecht, who was very sure of that much.
Esivh Rhol hadn’t expected any other response, supposing it would have been too much to have hoped for. He had yet to encounter anyone who could contend with that monster. If he had really taken on both Hagan and Cecht and come out ahead though, this Edryd was going to be worth consideration. Esivh Rhol decided then that he would do well to get his hooks into the man early and sink them in deep.
Chapter 3
The Art of a Blade Master
Sunlight flowed in from the window and crept across Edryd’s bed coverings, warming areas that were shaped in light by the outlines of the framing in the wooden shutters, which had been left open to admit the morning air. Despite the excitement of the previous night and the unfamiliar surroundings, he had enjoyed pleasant uninterrupted sleep and had awoken with a feeling of deep contentment. That changed when Edryd remembered where he was.
He had spent the late evening hours drinking with Seoras, during which time he had repeated the same story that he had told in the inn, or at least he was pretty sure that he had gotten many of the details nearly the same. Vaguely, Edryd recalled something about a sparring session and tensed with regret, remembering a foolish boast that he would enjoy measuring Seoras’s claim of expertise with a sword. It would be a bad idea to demonstrate too much mastery or skill. That would lead to awkward questions, attract far too much notice, and give clues to the truth about who he really was.
Shifting into a seated position on the edge of the bed, Edryd looked for the clothing that he had left draped over a chair the night before. The chair remained where it had been, next to a table positioned near the window, but his clothes were gone. His leather boots were at the side of the bed, not far from where he had removed them, and his belt lay on the table, but his pants, shirt, and cloak were all missing. Bending down, he took in a deep breath as he picked up his left shoe, and exhaled despairingly when he discovered that his coin purse was no longer tucked in the toe of the boot where he had left it. Mud had been cleaned off and someone had treated the leather with oil, but that someone had rewarded themselves exceptionally well for those efforts. “An expensive bit of service that,” Edryd muttered in disgust. The knowledge that he had been asleep and vulnerable while someone had gone through the room was more troubling than the missing money.
Edryd threw his bedding aside and stalked barefoot across the stone floor towards a small dresser in the corner. Searching through it quickly, he discovered that all of the drawers were empty, though a folded pile of fresh clothing had been placed on top of the chest. Carefully, he unfolded a pair of woolen trousers and a plain white linen tunic, and examined each in turn. The cloth was of good quality, and if not quite new, neither item showed significant signs of wear. Both had been recently washed and they effused a muted but persistent herbal scent of orris root and fresh lavender. There was something very specific and familiar about the sme
ll, but Edryd could not place it.
Lacking a reasonable alternative, Edryd dressed himself in the provided attire and was surprised at how near a fit the clothing was. They were a bit baggy and loose on his compact frame, but the lengths were nearly perfect and the shirt fit his shoulders well. He was forced to admit that it was a decided improvement over what he had been wearing yesterday. He ran his belt through loops on the pants and cinched it tightly around his waist. Pausing briefly to give the room one last good look, Edryd headed for the door and exited the room, stepping out onto the grounds of the estate, where a thin mist was clinging low to the ground.
He found himself looking out at a fountained courtyard, enclosed on three sides by long single-story buildings with simple living quarters that resembled the one he had slept in. On the open side to the east lay a large square, which was surfaced with reddish-brown crushed stones, and had the appearance of a formal military practice yard. The square was bordered on the north by a single row of marble benches, which were positioned in front of a short boxwood hedge that marked the transition between the practice yard and a beautiful but overgrown and neglected garden. A broken row of trees partially hid the sloping grass-covered field that led up to the manor house further to the east. Stables, filled with crates and supplies instead of horses, lay to the south beside the entrance to the estate. Bracketed by a couple of small towers, and protected by an empty gatehouse, a set of wood and iron gates lay open on their hinges. Low walls, constructed from cemented fieldstones, surrounded the entire property.
He had not appreciated the size of the place when arriving in the dark the night before, but Edryd marveled now at the finely spaced buildings, built using quarried bedrock and topped with flat grey and brown tiled roofing. The manor used less space than the barracks buildings, which included the room Edryd has slept in, but positioned up the slope and standing three stories high, with two separate wings that were decorated with dozens of sculpted stone reliefs, it loomed over everything.
