Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda

by Joel Rosenberg

  Kethol’s face grew impassive. Anybody who had known him less well wouldn’t have known how angry he was.

  Kethol reached into the bag and pulled out the brass flask of healing draughts, viciously twisted the top off, and poured half of it into Dahera’s mouth, then stoppered it and tossed it to Daherrin Brokenose.

  “Split this rest among yourselves, and then tell me everything that happened,” he said. “Everything.”

  ***

  They had been accompanying the wagons from the Ulter mines, both to swear before the tallier as to how much copper had been weighed at the smelter out in the hills, and to accept a portion of their pay in Imperial silver.

  Most of that pay was, of course, still safe at Dereneyl Castle, in the strong room; they hadn’t been foolish enough to carry all that money on their persons when they had gone down to lowertown, picking the least appealing tavern they could find in which to wash the taste of the mines and the roads from their mouths and their minds.

  But then a party of six skinnylegs, all of them dressed far too finely for lowertown, had come into the place, a drunken girl with them, and after getting themselves even more thoroughly drunk, had decided — insisted — that the dwarves should gamble with them, and one of them had pulled a finely carved box containing a set of bones out of his bag. Playing for a half-mark a game seemed to be a cheap price to pay in order to get the skinnylegs to let them leave — as they had promised to do, after one game — so Dahera had sat down, and managed to lose that one game, which quickly became a second, a third, and then a fourth.

  But when it came time to pay, and Dahera produced two copper marks, the skinnylegs had been insulted.

  Copper?

  Copper?

  Did these impudent dwarves think to pay a golden bet in copper — in ordinary copper that had probably been soiled by the touch of a thousand peasant hands — when it was known that dwarves had half the gold in the world and all of the gold in the Eren regions?

  Two of them had started beating on Dahera, and when the other Moderate People moved to intervene, all six of the skinnylegs had drawn swords, and held all of the Moderate People at swordpoint while the two finished with Dahera, and then started on the others, and then the skinnylegs had hacked off their beards as trophies.

  Trophies.

  ***

  “Name,” Kethol said. “Give me a name.”

  “Linter. One of the others called the one who played at bones ‘Linter.’ And another was Felesen, I think?” Daherrin Brokenose spread his hands. “Please, don’t make any more trouble for us. We leave for the Ulter Hills in the morning, and we don’t —”

  “Shhh.” Pirojil looked over at Kethol, and raised a palm. “We just needed the name. We’ll go back to the castle, and have some words with Treseen in the morning.”

  It was irritating, but it wasn’t really that bad. The right thing to do was something safe and political. They could talk to Tarnell in the morning, and work out something reasonable with him, and then present it to the governor. Treseen would probably just fine the boys’ fathers, and issue a stern warning against bothering the dwarves that would likely be obeyed, coming as it did from the governor.

  It should be easy to persuade Treseen. After all, it was one thing for some local commoners not to get along with the dwarves, but the work of the dwarves in the mines had been negotiated at Biemestren, in the name of the Emperor.

  Granted, a few incidents, even incidents provoked by local nobility, were not going to endanger that agreement. It was in everyone’s interest that the dwarves work the copper mines — they could work happily for long hours in tunnels smaller than humans needed, at temperatures that would make humans faint, and their darksight made it possible for them to see by their own body heat, at least far enough to swing a pick or shovel. The Empire needed the copper, and dwarves could certainly mine it much faster than humans; the dwarves were more than greedy not just for payment in silver, but to trade that silver for as much New Pittsburgh wootz as they could get their huge, knobby hands on.

  A few bruises, broken bones, and slashed beards wouldn’t make much of a difference.

  Unless, of course, somebody with sufficient influence said that it would.

  A baron, say, who had discovered that one of the injured dwarves was the cousin of the Endell king — whose name was Daherrin, too, come to think of it, although that was a common enough name in Endell. That would put a scare into Treseen, and Treseen could put a scare into the local lords.

  That was the right thing, the sensible thing, to do, and Pirojil prided himself on being sensible.

  Kethol was already on his feet, stripping off his soldier’s tunic.

  “Would you just —” Pirojil started, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be allowed to finish the sentence.

  “No,” Kethol said. “I wouldn’t just. I wouldn’t just for a moment — go whistle for the armsmen.”

  “Baron —”

  “Now, Pirojil.”

  ***

  Kethol pounded on the thick door with the hilt of his dagger, ignoring the brass gong that hung on the chain next to it.

  Wham. Wham. Whamwhamwhamwham.

  His pounding set the thiefwire along the top of the door ringing loudly, and even some of the much greater lengths strung along the stone wall seemed to vibrate in a quiet warning, one that would have just been attributed to the wind in other circumstances.

  Wham. Wham. Whamwhamwhamwhamwham.

  “You in the house — open the door.”

  The squad of armsmen stood to one side, as though they wished they could avoid the whole matter, which was more than almost certain.

  There were sounds of movement from inside — booted feet pounding hard on the stones, a few muttered words, and the whisks of at least two swords being pulled from sheaths.

  The cover of the barred viewing window slid back with a loud thunk, but remained dark; no face presented itself in the lantern light. Whoever had opened it was probably sensibly standing to one side, not wanting to risk a sword coming through it and into his eye.

  A harsh voice called out, “Who goes there?”

  Bendamen swallowed heavily, and then brought himself to attention several steps back from the barred window, either to let who was inside see out better, or because he didn’t want a sword or a spear stuck through the hole and through him, either. “I am Bendamen, Wat’s son, senior armsman.” He pulled the brassard off his arm and held it out in front of him as though it was a shield. “Open the door.”

  “We didn’t send for any armsmen, and Lord Sherrol is not going to be happy about any armsman pounding on his door in the middle of the night.”

  Kethol stepped toward Bendamen, who quickly moved aside to let Kethol face the viewing port.

  “Then you’d best tell him that Baron Keranahan is here,” Kethol said. “In case you haven’t heard, I’ve just returned from the border with a collection of bandits’ heads, and I’m telling you that if these doors don’t open by the time I count to three, yours will be joining the set.”

  “But —”

  “Two.”

  The doors opened, without any protest about how he had started with two instead of one.

  One of the guards was just finishing lighting the last of the lanterns that ringed the courtyard as the front door to the two-story stone house opened.

  The house had been built to deter thieves, not as a stronghold in time of war — there were no storehouses visible inside the walls, and although the walls themselves could probably have stood for quite a long time against a battering ram, the top of the wall was utterly naked of any walkway for defenders.

  Still, there were already three guards, armed and armored, that had made their way from the servants’ wing down to the stones of the courtyard, and that probably meant that there were at least again as many who were at the moment standing beside their beds with swords in their hands, stepping into boots before they even considered pulling on their loose breeches, beca
use in a fight you needed to be sure you could protect your feet a lot more than you worried about your balls swinging in the wind.

  “Put your swords up,” Bendamen called out. “It’s the nightwatch, and the baron.”

  Kethol wouldn’t exactly want to count on the armsmen in a fight, but the chances of a noble’s private guard taking on the nightwatch in a fight were low. But not zero.

  He knew that it should have bothered him that it could all break loose at any moment, but it didn’t.

  Sherrol lumbered down the front stairs and into the courtyard, dressed only in a long nightshirt. He walked straight across the garden, not seeming to notice how the sharp stones cut his feet.

  “Baron?” His eyes were wide, and his fingers kept reaching to his waist, as though to cinch up the belt that wasn’t there. “Please — what is this all about?”

  There were faces peeking out of the darkened doorway, but Kethol ignored them.

  “Get your son out here. Now.”

  “My son? But —”

  “You have a son named Linter?”

  “Yes, I do —”

  “Get him out here, now.”

  “But, can’t you at least tell me what this is all about, please don’t —”

  “I’m here, Father.”

  A young man stood in the doorway. His hair and short beard should have been mussed from sleep, but he had clearly taken the time to brush them into place, dress himself in a bright yellow blouse and dark linen trousers, and belt his short sword around his waist.

  He was a handsome enough lad, not quite filled out, and more lean than skinny-looking, and he walked with a definitely arrogant swagger as he made his way down the front steps.

  “Linter, what have you been doing?”

  “Nothing discreditable, Father.” Linter shook his head. “I’m not sure why this man —”

  “Mind your mouth. ‘This man,’ as you would have it, is the baron.”

  Linter accepted the correction with a humble nod, and a slight crook of a smile that said that he had already known that. “It’s kind of you to visit our home, Baron Forinel,” he said. “I’d hoped we’d soon have the honor of it, but I would have hoped that you would visit us properly, in the daytime, not at night like —”

  “Watch your mouth, Linter.”

  Linter’s lips tightened. “As you wish, Father.” He turned back to Kethol. “My apologies, Baron; I meant no disrespect.”

  “I suppose you meant no disrespect in lowertown tonight, when you cheated and beat those dwarves?”

  “Dwarves?” Sherrol’s forehead furrowed. “What would my son have to do with some lowertown dwarves?”

  At a signal from Pirojil, Daherrin Brokenose walked into the courtyard, looking for all the world as though he would rather be anywhere else.

  “Is this needledick the one that beat you and your companions?” Kethol asked.

  Daherrin Brokenose didn’t say anything until Pirojil said something in dwarvish, then added, loudly, in Erendra: “I say again, so that all can hear it: that if you speak the truth, the baron swears that no harm will come to you from it.”

  “Yes.” Daherrin Brokenose nodded. “It’s him. He is the one.”

  Linter didn’t quite sneer as he turned to his father. “It’s true enough that some friends and I had some unpleasantness with this filthy dwarf, but —”

  “It’s Felesen, isn’t it?” Sherrol turned to Kethol. “Felesen has a taste for the worst of lowertown, and it’s a miracle that he and my, my idiot son haven’t fallen to some footpads, no matter how good they think they are with their swords.”

  “I think we’d best see just how good Linter actually is with his sword,” Kethol said. “Now would be a very good time.”

  Sherrol shook his head. “Over some problems with a few dwarves? Surely that’s not —”

  “You don’t understand, Lord Sherrol,” Pirojil said, stepping forward. “When Baron Forinel was off in the Katharhd, his life was saved by a dwarf, a distant cousin to Daherrin Brokenose — who himself is cousin to King Daherrin himself. You could ask Lady Leria about it, when she returns — she’s heard the baron talk about it, and how …” Pirojil raised a hand and stopped himself. “It’s a long story, but the point of it was that he swore an oath that he would never suffer to see his friend, or his friend’s kindred, abused.”

  That, of course, wasn’t true. It had nothing to do with the truth, whatever it was.

  “But the baron didn’t see anything,” Linter said, smiling. “I could flay a thousand dwarves to their preposterously heavy bones and his oath would be safe, as long as it wasn’t in his sight.”

  Sherrol turned to his son. “You take such things very lightly, Linter,” he said. “Hear this: I swear — you have my oath — that if you do not apologize to the baron, you’ll depart this house, and not return while I live. We’re not of the most ancient of lineages, you and I, and yes, you’ll hear lords like Moarin talk about us as though we’re but a generation or two up from the common ruck, but if you think that the word of a nobleman of Holtun is something to laugh at, you’ll learn the better of that, one way or another.”

  “Father —”

  “I may even be saving your life if I have to send you away. He’s sworn — don’t you understand that he has to challenge you? Do you think a paltry few little so-called affairs of honor among your friends have prepared you to face a man who went out into the Katharhd with nothing but the clothes on his back and the sword in his hand — and came back a hero?”

  Sherrol reached out and fingered the scar on Linter’s cheek. “Yes, it’s one thing to play at swords with the other boys — and boys you are, even if a stiff dick fools you into thinking yourselves men — and to be sure to have your little affairs of honor in the daytime, out behind the Hand temple, knowing that if you get a wound that hurts too much, or that endangers your life, or that won’t leave an attractive scar, help is but a shout away. It’s another to face a real man with a sword, one who knows how to use it, and whose honor won’t be satisfied with a few drops of blood on the point.”

  Nobles were big on oaths, although a common soldier had to be more practical.

  Kethol himself was more practical, most of the time.

  But maybe he had spent too much time around the Old Emperor, and Pirojil and Durine, too, for that matter. Or maybe he had simply been too long a soldier, and had seen and done too much. It had been one thing to fight in a war, to push back the Holtish invaders and then finish with them before they could regroup to attack Bieme. It was another to fight in order to eat, and when he had killed in self-defense, the only thing he had ever regretted was the smell of the dead.

  But sport?

  For fun?

  An idle evening out cheating and beating on some dwarves while others held them at swordpoint so that they couldn’t even defend themselves? But he was sure that this wouldn’t stand. He might be a false baron, a phony noble, but there was a limit to how false and phony he would be, and letting this young braggart pound away on those who were prevented, at swordpoint, from defending themselves …

  Not in my barony, he thought.

  “Get your sword out, Linter,” Forinel said, quietly.

  Kethol wouldn’t have said anything. He would just have launched himself at Linter, beaten him until he lay broken and bloody on the stones. Hands, knives, sword — it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter what the results were, just as it hadn’t in Riverforks, back when Durine was alive and at his back.

  Yes, he knew that Pirojil thought he was an idiot about such things, and perhaps he was, but …

  Linter drew himself up straight. “If the baron is offended, I offer my apologies for having offended him, and no matter that it was just an innocent little evening.”

  “Well, then.” Sherrol visibly relaxed, and turned back to Kethol. “I’ll have words, with him Baron, I promise — he’s probably too old to strap, but he’s not too old to see how much joy he can have persuading a seam
stress to sew him a fashionable new tunic when word gets out that I’ll not be settling any accounts for him until after the harvest.”

  “Father.”

  “Better — until spring. Would you care to try for next harvest?” Sherrol turned back to Linter. “I don’t care much one way or another about dwarves, and I don’t mind throwing a few coppers, now and then, to some commoner girl who claims that the squalling, smelly baby that she carries on her hip is your bastard, but I’ll not have anybody in this household offending the baron.”

  He turned to Daherrin Brokenose. “I offer you my apologies, as well, good Daherrin,” he said, adding just a fraction of a bow.

  “Father!”

  No. Words were not enough. Words, promises, apologies, oaths — they might matter to Forinel, but Kethol paid and collected in steel and gold and blood, not in words.

  “I think mine is the better idea,” Kethol said, stepping forward, his hand on his sword. “You and I will settle this matter, Linter, now. Here.”

  “Please, Baron, don’t —”

  Even in the flickering torchlight, Linter was pale. Perhaps he had thought that the worst that the baron would do would be to idly challenge him, and what was another little nick? A noble family would surely have a flask of healing draughts handy, after all.

  But it was as clear to him as it was to Sherrol that a little nick wouldn’t satisfy this baron, and the fact that Linter didn’t know that the baron was an utter fraud only made it worse, not better.

  Linter was a braggart and a bully, yes, but Kethol had to give him credit: he swallowed once, heavily, and nodded, and stepped back, reaching for the hilt of his own sword.

  “I am at your service, of course, Baron Keranahan, now and at any time.”

  “No.” Sherrol stepped between then.

  “Your son claims to be a man, and carries a man’s weapon,” Kethol said, as gently as he could. “Let’s see how he handles it, and himself.”

  He could more feel than see Pirojil throwing up his hands. Well, Pirojil could disagree with him, and they could discuss it later, after Kethol had cleaned the blood from this sword.

  “Wait. Please.” Daherrin Brokenose stepped forward, reaching for Kethol’s arm, then stopping himself. “This is not right.”