Errant

by Armas, Florian

  The color of spilled blood defines us…

  I gasp spasmodically, in short sequences; unequal and rasping, the flow in my lungs feels like the whole world is void of air. My eyes flick around, moving fast between my dead brother and Tudor.

  Lying on the ridge, Tudor was breathing heavily, and I took him in my arms, resting his head on my knees.

  “Go west, Codrin. That’s the only chance you have. And always remember that you were the best apprentice I ever had, and a friend to me. Make me proud.” Tudor smiled tiredly, and I still hoped for him. “Farewell. I am sorry that I can’t come with you.” Slowly, his head slipped aside, his gentle smile freezing on his lips.

  With a frightened gesture, I touched his face, trying in vain to keep him alive. “Don’t leave me…” I whispered, but there was no way he could hear me again.

  Mechanically, I covered my ears to escape the weak moaning of the wounded that would be dead soon. There was the right time to accept the facts, and I did not know how long I stayed like a stone, unfeeling, as if I was dead myself. There was no external manifestation of my grief and pain, not even a tear left my eyes. Somewhere in the forest, a wolf howled, heralding the coming of the night. I checked the wound on my belly through the ring-mail: there was not much blood, and the pain subsided. Just a scratch, I realized how lucky I was. On weak legs, I stood up like an old man, taking in the carnage around me until I stared at my dead brother. I would have liked to say that his face was serene and at peace. It was not. Contracted, and cut in two by a stream of blood that was almost dried, there was nothing serene in it. Tightened in a menacing fist, his hand was challenging Fate for the game it had played on him. Why? I asked a question that no one could answer, not even Fate. The forest sent its howling again, two wolves this time, and my blood flowed faster. I have to bury them. The Guards will know that I escaped. I have to bury them. I can’t let them... I can’t...

  When the graves were covered, I left the place without looking back, riding a horse that was not mine. Zor followed us after I cleaned his wound, talking slowly, knowing that my voice would calm him. Sure that our enemies would desecrate the graves, I took their swords with me.

  “An Assassin’s sword is his twin soul,” Tudor had told us the day we left our home that was no longer ours. “If I die, don’t leave my swords to my enemies. Take them with you.”

  Was it a premonition? I never thought that Tudor could die in a battle; he was too strong and skilled. He is now in a grave; I could not stop thinking with the slow movement of my horse. We do not have the same belief in Arenia, but unfamiliar feelings made me take my brother’s sword too. At least they would not parade it as a trophy…

  The falling darkness stopped me sooner than I wanted; I was not far enough to be safe and not tired enough to sleep, yet I was away from that bloody gorge that I now hated, despite its stunning beauty. In a ravine, far from the road, I sat down, leaning against an old tree, and pulled my hood over my head – the silent night around was more alive than I was. My haunted eyes perceived the trees in a strange way, ghostly outgrowth of the darkness, like the noiseless landscape of a dark dream. The flash of a singing bird came back to me. Unaware of the spilled blood, an innocent thrush was singing during the fight, its trills rhyming in a strange way with the clanging swords. I did not remember it until that midnight. Such irony…

  Dawn came too soon. Tired, after a night without sleep, I left in the morning, riding without respite all day, avoiding the road, through the forest and ravines. Filtered by a layer of thin clouds and the foliage overhead, the sunlight was not bright, but it suited my mood. Close to sunset, I fell from my horse. All that I could do was roll and hide behind some hardened roots. And I slept. The rain woke me, surrounded by a cold that went deep into my bones. It was not yet autumn, yet the first signs of the coming winter were already visible on the white, high peaks. Half of the sky was covered, the other blue and clear, illuminating the snow. I must think… For two days, I was just a headless body riding a horse, with no aim. I need a shelter for the winter. During the last one we stayed in a small inn in Silvania, but now I was alone and too young to be safe anywhere. Money… I checked my purse: Sixteen galbeni. Two months of lodging and food … maybe. And then what? Just move through the desert of my life. Absently keeping one galben between my fingers, I remembered that most of our money was with Tudor. Reflected by the polished gold of the coin, sunshine flashed in my eyes, stirring my memories. Tudor… My brother... With all that pain in recalling their names I could not help admonishing myself that I should have been wiser, taken care of my own future and that was enough to refresh my mind, restoring what little semblance of mental coherence I could muster. There were so many riches left to the dead, more than enough to buy a house somewhere. Next time, I will use the Winner’s Right, and take anything of value. I am no longer a King’s son. I am a vagrant. I need to leave the mountains just to survive the winter… Then I will see.

  I mounted slowly and went on my way. Touching the horse brought me a sense of warmth and life that I really needed. The small path was rising steeply, and in a few days, the hooves of my horse moved through fallen, blood-red leaves. I forced myself to ignore that cursed color.

  Now that my brother is dead, I am the legitimate King of Arenia. A nervous laugh escaped my mouth. I am nothing. Just nothing…

  Recovering at length from the laziness into which the silent snow had thrown me, I realized that I was leaving the mountains. From the pass, I faced the sunset and the huge plains of Livonia. The second country I will pass through. The view was enchanting, like a carpet observed far from above, forests, rivers and villages, painted in a myriad of colors – I took the highest and least used passage through the mountains, ten thousand feet in altitude. Tudor’s plans were to go into the far west, an area of anarchy after the Frankis Kingdom had been destroyed in a civil war, and in troubled times hard men can go far. He had some links, from his Assassin’s past in the southern city of Nasaud, and he taught us all the Frankis words he remembered. They were not many.

  “Let’s go,” I patted the horse, dismounting; the path down was steep and potholed. Zor was still following us. I stared back at the high, white-peaked mountains without seeing them.

  One day I will return…

  Down in the valley, the snow was gone, and I found a road that was to my taste – for safety, I took only small roads or mostly off-roads. I followed it for two days and half, without meeting anyone until I found an isolated house, larger than I expected in such a wild place. From the front, it was an old inn, its name almost deleted by rain and neglect, but the house was inhabited. Two cows were visible in the stable and a huge, wounded dog was lying on the stairs, its eyes fixed on me. It tried to move, but gave up, still staring at me.

  “Anybody home?” I shouted and moved around the house in the silence that followed me. In the backyard, a fresh grave had been dug next to two old ones.

  Chapter 3 - Jara

  Inside the forest, a thousand paces from its edge, a fork split the road in two, and we hurried toward it. A last glance back revealed the soldiers still at the inn. Stay there… Die there… Both roads went to Severin, and that worked to our advantage: the riders would need to split into two groups.

  “Daniel,” father said to the coach driver. “We separate now. Take the carriage on the left road, run it for a while, at least for three or four turns of the road to hide its presence from here, then conceal it in the forest. The horses are yours,” he added, an incentive that was really high – coming from our stables, the horses were worth a hundred galbeni, four years of the coachman’s wages.

  In haste, Mugur and Horia grabbed two small bags of food from the back of the carriage. Father took Saliné on his horse, Vio came with me. Our ride for life started on the right fork. The carriage slowly disappeared on the left, between the trees, then the fork vanished too. Cold, the wind flushed my face, and sleep left me alone. In front of me, between my arms, little Vio was absorbed by t
he ride, overcoming for the moment all the pain in her mind. I glanced at Saliné: her face had a measured calm. The next hill was higher, and from its top, we saw again the fork and the carriage returning slowly. Daniel betrayed us. Father gestured to me to keep quiet, but Saliné was already aware, she was more mature than her age. Orban’s riders were not yet there, leaving us a small chance.

  “Follow me,” father said, pushing his horse through the small river on the right – the water was just above the horse’s knees. We turned back for a short time, then went on the left, following a small tributary. Two meanders later, the road was no longer in sight and we moved out of the water. Our speed increased again in the forest, yet it was slower than on the road, as we rode hidden, in parallel with the valley. It took a while until the sound of horses’ hoofs reached us. The sound grew slowly, with no rider yet in sight.

  “They are coming,” Vio said, half-scared, for her our run was almost a game.

  “Do you see the road?” I asked, pointing to the sinuous white-gray line five hundred paces below us. “They will follow it, and never find us. We are safe,” I assured her, speaking loud enough for Saliné to hear me too.

  Some minutes later, we arrived at an edge that forced us to take a lower path, and a meadow, running between the edge and the road, replaced the forest. There was only grass for the next thousand paces in front of us, and nowhere to hide. The trotting became louder on the road, and we hid behind some tall bushes. Orban’s riders burst into view some moments later. From our high place, they looked like they were gliding on the road, and the trotting sound moved in an inverse way, getting quieter.

  “Ride!” father shouted when they disappeared from sight, and we pushed the horses, letting them choose the speed; the path was full of potholes.

  When swallowed again by the forest, we stopped nervously, listening for any sound coming from the valley. There was none, and we moved slowly, almost without noise, deeper into the forest, where we stopped to listen again. Nothing came.

  “We move up,” father gestured to a path going around the ridge. It was a better place to hide or to fight and die. Before we could start our ascent, trotting sounds again filled the valley, starting suddenly, almost underneath us, and a minute later, we could see the riders through the meadow behind us. They did not stop, galloping even faster than before. “They will try to figure where we left the road,” father said, a thin smile spread on his lips. “Let’s move down slowly.”

  “There might be some riders behind,” I said, reluctantly, staring back at the disappearing soldiers, unsure if it was real or just an illusion.

  “Maybe,” father said calmly. “But we have no other choice. We need speed, and we can handle the few in front of us.” It was not an ambiguous statement, father had the same understanding that the enemies had split. In haste, he picked a path that went back to the road at a diagonal climbing down leisurely. Their trotting was gradually dissipating behind us, and when almost down and the path easier, we urged our horses to go faster, and by the time we hit the road they were already galloping.

  For a while, nothing happened, and we advanced fast, erasing any worry from my mind. We met them in the middle of a steep curve flanked by large rock-walls. Four of them. Orban’s banners, I observed.

  “Veres, take Saliné,” father said fast, throwing her onto his horse at the same time. Handled like a bag, Saliné did not complain, her hands gripping the saddle the moment she was seated. All the men unsheathed their swords, and I nocked my bow, telling Vio to stay still. “Calm,” father whispered, weighing the sword in his sure hand like weighing our own fate, a move that I knew so well. “I don’t want blood between us and Orban right now.”

  “Riders,” father turned to them. “We mean no harm to you, we just want to pass. Captain Ioan,” he recognized the leader. “Can we make an agreement?”

  “Sir Cernat,” Ioan said reluctantly, his eyes moving fast, probing all of us; things did not look good for him and his men. “We were searching for you. Sir Orban needs you back. I apologize, but it’s my duty.”

  “There was an agreement between us and Orban regarding our leaving, and it was fulfilled. You were there when it was signed. I am sure there is nothing so urgent as to request our presence back there. If you have a message from him, I can answer through you.”

  “I have none.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind, we want to pass.”

  The captain seemed reluctant to agree, and kept his horse in place, trotting slowly. A young man lost his temper and suddenly charged father.

  “Stop!” Ioan shouted.

  A moment later, the young man was writhing in the dust, and looking at him, I recognized a face that resembled Ioan’s.

  “I did not harm him,” father said. “It was my hilt that knocked him down.” That was a masterly move to answer with the hilt against a sword attack, but even at fifty-four, father was still the best swordsman in the northern part of the former Frankis Kingdom, and the young man was inexperienced, almost a boy, maybe three years older than Veres.

  “It looks like your son is young and full of temper,” I said to Ioan, staring at him. Father glanced at me, then at the young man, and smiled briefly.

  “Thank you, Sir Cernat,” Ioan said, with great relief in his voice. “You can pass,” he added hesitantly, and I understood him, it was a hard decision he would have to explain to Orban.

  We rode in haste for a while, then used the same stratagem with the river, except that this time we went left and used a passage between two peaks to pass on the other side of the mountain chain, taking the second road to Severin. The night was long and filled with many noises, frightening the girls even when they were sleeping tight against my body; they were not the only nervous ones, yet there were just animal snarls or growls, and the men took watches.

  We took the road in the morning, riding until father pushed us again into the forest running from one hill to another. There were some carriages on the road, this was the main northern way to Severin, but no riders, and in the evening, we camped again in a small, hidden ravine close to the top of a high hill offering a good view back and forth.

  The fourth morning came with the relief that we had left Orban’s lands, and the chance that the riders would follow us further diminished, but we were still checking the road behind from time to time. It was peaceful, and from then on we stayed on the road. The next afternoon, we were already in our old hunting house, and we could wash and sleep in a bed again.

  On the road, my mind was bent on survival, and the first days in our new house kept me in a state of continuous agitation. The fifth day in our new house came with the confirmation that I was not pregnant, and the safety and relatively calm that followed allowed my mind to drift and dream, and all my dreams invariably involved Malin: being with him, touching him, he touching me. So real in dreams. When you wake up, everything is gone. You are alone in the cold bed, drained of life. And you cry. I will be lonely all my life. Malin will never come back. I clutched the pillow with a desperation that refused to leave me alone, and it brought a small level of comfort, but a pillow would never be Malin.

  “Riders!” Mugur shouted, entering the house, and he was the first one to grab a sword, flexing it expertly, his way of encouraging himself. I knew it well, and he was a good swordsman, trained for many years by father. Our weapons hung on hooks close to the door, not in the Weapons Room, ready for anything. In a minute, we were all armed, even the girls, small as they were; Saliné with a dagger and Vio with a long stick, with an arrow point at an end – it looked like a spear toy, yet it was not a toy. In some critical situations, Saliné could help, as she had already received some fighting training, but Vio had her stick just to avoid a delaying outburst. It was the seventh day in our new house.

  You never know, I glanced at Vio moving her ‘spear’ back and forth, piercing an imaginary enemy with surprising speed. Even in the hands of such a young girl, it could do some damage.

  “We wait in
the house,” father said. “It’s easier to defend. Veres, take the girls upstairs. You go with them, Meline,” father pointed to our servant, and she nodded with a scared look. Meline was not a fighter.

  “I want to fight here,” Veres protested.

  “Don’t comment on an order in a battle,” father snapped; father was usually a calm man, but he thought that Veres needed a lesson.

  He needs many lessons, I sighed; with all that tension around, Veres was still too childish for his age.

  “From upstairs, you have a good shooting position for your bow.” This time father spoke calmly, as if his outburst was just an illusion, asking for whatever logical part Veres had to consider the situation.

  I moved behind the window on the left side of the door, and opened it slowly, my bow already nocked, ready to shoot. Horia did the same on the right. We were the best archers. Father and Mugur blocked the door, their long swords unsheathed.

  The riders appeared in a cloud of dust, galloping in a long arc that passed through the entire backyard – the normal assessment of the battlefield. Six, I counted. Not enough for a frontal attack on the house. They stopped suddenly, not far from the entry. “S’Severin’s banners,” I said and in the same moment, I recognized Mohor, the Seigneur of Severin. He dismounted at a safe distance, followed by a huge Knight, towering over everyone, and came straight toward our door. “It’s Mohor, and he has only five soldiers.”

  Father came to my window too. “They are calm and too few. It doesn’t look like an attack. And why would Mohor attack us anyway?”

  “He must be worried that we’ve settled so close to his castle.” Down in the valley, Severin could be seen from my window. “He is afraid of Orban, and wants to clear things up, but you are right, he will not attack us. If Mohor had joined our army…” It’s too late for that, I stopped myself. “The treaty you signed with Orban will calm him,” I said, glancing at father, who nodded in approval.