Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (33 page)

“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.”

Eh?

“No; you must not.” The dwarf shook his head. “I was fooled by the beard — you humans have such silly little beards,” he said. “I thought that this was an adult — but I’ve listened: this Linter is barely a child, despite the beard. It is not right to kill a child for what is just a childish tantrum, after all. I have children, myself, in my home warrens, and they often behave foolishly. I’d not wish to see one of them spitted on a sword for that.” “I’m man enough,” Linter said.

“Yes,” Daherrin Brokenose said, “such a man you are, indeed, Lord Linter. Such courage and bravery are truly an honor to your line.”

Linter went for his sword, but Sherrol was even quicker than Kethol was. His thick hand gripped his son’s wrist, and after a moment’s struggle, Linter ceased.

“I’ve a solution,” Pirojil said, stepping forward. “There is a way among the Moderate People to settle such disputes, to restore honor. It might not be as interesting as watching the baron run an arm’s-length of steel through Linter’s guts, but it might be … educational.”

He turned to Daherrin Brokenose. “The Moderate People call it
shach-shtorm
. In Erendra, we call it ‘wrestling.’”

Daherrin Brokenose shook his head. “There’s no honor in
shach-shtorm
with a child. Teaching children, of course, is one thing, and for them to play at
shach-shtorm
with each other is only natural, but for an adult …”

“Adult?” Pirojil smiled. “I mean no disrespect, Daherrin Brokenose, but doesn’t an adult of the Moderate People have a full beard?”

It took a moment for the dwarf to see what Pirojil was getting at, but then, slowly, a smile spread across his broad face.

“Yes, that is true. I am but a child, at that, it would seem,” he said, turning to Linter. “Let us two children contend with each other, shall we?”

***

The combat, such as it was, was remarkably short.

While the top of the dwarf’s head barely came to the middle of Linter’s chest, he weighed more than twice what the boy did, and he was, after all, a dwarf. Dwarves were much stronger than humans were — Kethol had seen Ahira, more than once, start a fire by quickly bending a piece of iron bar back and forth in his massive hands until the center glowed a dull red, then tossing it into a pile of tinder.

Linter tried to kick out at Daherrin Brokenose, but the dwarf simply seized the foot in one hand and unceremoniously dumped Linter to the ground, then waited in a half-crouch while the boy rose to try again. This time, Linter made the mistake of closing with the dwarf, who seized him at the shoulder and waist, and lifted him above his head, ignoring the way that a flailing arm or leg would occasionally make contact.

It would have been trivially easy for Daherrin Brokenose to have brought Linter down over his knee, snapping his back, but the dwarf simply spun him about and lowered him to the ground and gave the human what looked like a gentle push, but which sent Linter sprawling across the stones.

His shirt hung in tatters from his chest, and his trousers had split toward the knee. The dwarf had gone easily on him, but there was a nice bruise growing on the side of his face, and he held one hand pressed against his die.

“Shall we have another fall, young skinnylegs?” Daherrin Brokenose asked.

Kethol had to smile. Daherrin Brokenose was definitely getting in the spirit of this, despite the fact that this wasn’t real
shach-shtorm
, not to him, but just the discipline, and education, of a wayward child.

Linter started to edge toward the bench where he had placed his sword belt, but Pirojil, with Sherrol at his side, was in between him and the bench.

“If you want to play with swords, little boy,” Kethol said, “you play with me.”

Linter shook his head. A few bruises had knocked the bravado right out of him.

Kethol nodded. “Another fall, please.”

***

The next morning, Treseen was not happy with Pirojil. That seemed to be an ongoing problem.

“Again?” He shook his head. “Is it ever possible for you to spend a night in town without getting into a fight,
Captain
Pirojil?” He looked back down at his plate, and toyed with the fish compote, then stabbed at it with his eating prong as though it was Pirojil.

Pirojil kept his face impassive. It wasn’t the first time that a senior officer had had him stand at attention while he chewed on him, and Treseen was out of practice — although Treseen having had Tarnell come to Pirojil’s room and shake him awake while Kethol was still asleep in the next room wasn’t a bad start.

Treseen looked up at him. “Well?” He made a stabbing gesture with his eating prong. “I think that I asked you a question, Captain Pirojil?”

Pirojil kept his eyes studiously fixed on a spot on the opposite wall. “Yes, Governor, it is possible for me to spend the night in town without getting into a fight. In fact, Governor, I didn’t get into a fight at all, and neither did the baron —”

“Don’t you argue with me.” Treseen stabbed at the air with his prong. “You may be wearing captain’s braid, but you and I both know that you’re just a poor excuse for a line soldier, who just hap pens to have some noble connections. You’re an imposter, Pirojil, that’s all.” He tapped at the table. “I’ve got a letter on my desk, addressed to the Imperial proctor, Walter Slovotsky, telling him that I think your usefulness here in Keranahan is done, and asking to have you sent back to wherever it is you belong, which I suspect is digging latrines for field troops, at best. Those other two you were with last time you were here — Durine and that Kethol — now those were a proper pair of soldiers, and even at their worst, looking at them didn’t make a man want to gag on his food.”

Pirojil didn’t like the way the discussion had gotten to the question of an imposter — and it didn’t seem to be wise to pursue it, or to anger Treseen further.

What was he so angry about? Granted, Dereneyl seemed to be a little on the crime-ridden side, but it was not much worse than most, and certainly better than Biemestren or New Pittsburgh, for example.

Not that there was any benefit to be had in arguing the matter, not here and now.

So Pirojil just stood, arms at his sides, and didn’t say anything.

“Now get your ugly face out of here — and since you and the baron have seen fit to spurn my hospitality, I would very much appreciate it if you would get out of Dereneyl before you start some other incident with the dwarves, or with the nobles, or start a fight with some longshoremen, or do whatever stupid thing you insist on doing. And I do mean you, Pirojil; I don’t blame the baron. He’s been absent for years, and what he should be doing is settling in on his estates, and reacquainting himself with the local nobility — not trying to start duels with every nobleman in the barony.”

“Yes, Governor, and —”

“Don’t you dare talk back to me. Just get out of my sight. Now.”

***

Erenor was waiting for them out in the courtyard. One of Tarnell’s soldiers was busy attaching several muslin bags to his packhorse’s rigging under Erenor’s supervision.

He turned quickly at their approach.

“A pleasant morning to you, my lord the baron, and to you as well, Captain Pirojil.” He folded his withered hands across his waist and bowed so quickly and so low that it flipped the hood of his robes up over his head, and he had to pull it back off when he straightened.

Kethol cocked his head to one side. “What are you doing in town?”

“Well, nobody told me that I had to stay out at the Residence, and there were a few odds and ends that I needed. You know, the usual sort of a wizard’s supplies — the odd eye of frog, tongue of bat, some powdered pig liver, and particularly some Salket tea.”

“Tea?” Pirojil wasn’t terribly familiar with what wizards used in their preparations — when the preparations didn’t simply consist of impressing the symbols from their spell books into their brains, which they mostly did — but he had never heard of tea as an ingredient.

“Well, of course — have you even tasted that vile brew that that lying Elda claims to be tea? My guess is that it’s a mixture of rotted oak leaves and pig shit, and probably boiled in the same loathsome vat where the serving girls boil their crotch straps. But —” He stopped himself. “Never mind; I’ll brew you up a proper pot this evening. After I rejoin you at the Residence.”

“You’re not coming back with us now?”

“No.” Erenor shook his head. “I’ve a little more business to finish in town.”

“Tell me,” Kethol said.

“I’d rather not.”

“He wasn’t asking,” Pirojil said. “Neither am I.”

Erenor shrugged. “Very well, if you insist. I heard about your little … escapade of last night, and it occurred to me that little Lordling Linter got off with nothing more than a few bruises that the Spider will have made to disappear by now, and just a minor loss of dignity, which his young mind will quickly forget. I thought it would be, well, not unpleasant to add something to that, even if that means standing in the hot sun for a while, waiting for him to come out from behind his walls.”

He raised a palm. “Oh, I’m not going to do anything terribly serious, although I do need to sneak into Lord Sherrol’s house and, er, retrieve a few minor items to make it work. Just the smallest of spells, the slightest of glamours, and for the next few tendays young Linter will be unable to, er, exercise his manhood.”

He brightened. “And if there’s poison ivy down by the river — and I’m sure there is — he might well find that he breaks into an itch every time he’s within sight, sound, or smell of a dwarf.”

“And why are you doing this?” Pirojil asked. “I don’t understand.”

“True enough.” Erenor smiled sadly. “You really don’t understand me, Captain. Not even a little.”

14

B
ERALYN

T
HE
DELEGATE
FROM
Nyphien was even more arrogant than Beralyn would have expected. Although perhaps she should have expected as much, or even worse.

Or perhaps not. It wasn’t like all the Nyphs were troublesome. Derinald had reported that the margrave’s escort, a full company of Nyphien cavalry, were behaving themselves with impeccable manners in the city.

Which was all well and good, but why was Derinald still alive? Somebody had erased his name from where she had scrawled it, which meant that whoever Tyrnael’s agent was inside the castle had read it, but what was taking him — or her, or them — so long?

In the meantime, Derinald seemed to be avoiding her, and she couldn’t figure out quite why — she was going out of her way to speak softly and gently to him.

There was no point in berating a walking dead man, after all.

Derinald was accurately reporting that there had been no trouble with the margrave’s soldiers, though; she had heard Garavar say the same thing to Thomen. It might just have been because Biemestren’s lord chief armsman had seconded some of the Emperor’s Own into armsman service, and made it a point to keep both Imperial and baronial troops out of whichever taverns the Nyphs happened to be using at the moment, knowing that, regardless of orders, drunken Nyphs and drunken Biemish troops would fight.

Men.

But this margrave was another matter. He didn’t say anything objectionable, not exactly, but his whole attitude was of a major lord paying a visit on a minor one, when he should have been showing more respect for the Empire as a whole, and for Thomen himself.

Thomen didn’t seem to notice. He just chatted with Margrave Den Hacza as though the two were old friends, while the rest of the nobles gathered in the courtyard were watching the jugglers, while a band of silverhorns played.

She didn’t know where the juggling troupe had come from, but she had seen worse.

Their leader, whose fringe of dull gray hair was braided in a sailor’s queue, kept a shower of knives going, while a barely decently clad young girl and a shirtless boy — they looked like brother and sister, and they had the same sort of folds to their eyes; probably all Salkes — ran and capered and tumbled on a slack rope that was supported only by being tied around the thick waists of two almost impossibly large men. From time to time, it looked as though the boy would fall — not that a fall from waist height to the ground would have been dangerous or anything more than embarrassing. But then the girl would give a clever twitch of her feet, and the swaying of the rope would stop long enough for him to regain his balance.