Once A Hero (12 page)

"You would not understand!" Festus looked to Childeric for a confirmatory nod and got one quickly. "You are not a merchant, you cannot understand."

"That may be, but were I a merchant, I know I'd trade in common sense. Here in Aurium it's in sad supply, and there is a sore need for it." I took a step toward Festus, and he pulled back to where his seated son formed a barrier between us. "I do know some things, though, and one of them is this: you're all, the lot of you, trading long in hostility, and that means war, which is my concern."

I shook my head and saw Aarundel give me wide berth. "Now I know, from what you've said, you're not wanting me to start gathering wool from your sheep, as it were. You want me to stay out of your business, and I respect that. I have no doubt you merchants have all sorts of your own rules and laws for dealing with this and that. Well, now, I know there are rules of warfare that I abide by, and I would be offended if anyone came in from the outside and started breaking them."

I sank my face into that touch-brow kind of expression that marks long thought with short success. "And I gather there is another likeness between our professions. Competition is at the heart of it, really. Like the two of your families competing one against the other. That's the soul of it, and if one side wins, the other is driven out of business."

Childeric gave me a patronizing nod. "There, Neal, you have the right of it. We are alike but different. Leave us, and let us settle our differences."

"Differences, true enough," I said, aping as much of his statement as served my purpose. "Of course, the difference between being a soldier and being a merchant is that my competition ends up dead. Makes a right fair mess, too, sometimes." My brow still furrowed, I looked down at the floor. "Pity, I don't think this will drain well."

Festus shook with anger at my antics. "Prithee, what are you prattering on about?"

The Elf answered for me. "Even a lackwit could figure it out, Festus: by introducing killing into your competition here in Aurium, you have become our competition."

"And our competitors end up dead." I smiled as benignly as I could and nodded at the Dreel. "Shijef, none shall pass you."

A low, rumbling growl rolled from his throat as his triangular ears came up to attention and he flexed talon-shot paws. He displayed his fangs for all, and his tail beat a happy tattoo against the door.

I shrugged as I turned to Childeric. "You understand, of course, why we have to do this. I mean, if you set to warring by yourself, without our help, why then everyone could just start slaughtering their neighbors. They wouldn't need us and I'd be obsolete. I would be out of business. My men would go hungry and their families would starve. No, no, we can't have that."

Aarundel brought his war ax up and rested it on his right shoulder. "Was I to terminate the Riveravens or the Fishers?"

"I was thinking that I was to do the young, and you were to start with the old."

"We cannot do that, Neal, for parents might see their children die, and I would spare them that." The Elf looked at the two men still seated on the floor. "Then again, that prospect appears to spawn no dolor here."

Childeric's jaw dropped open. "You cannot do that!"

"Have I a choice?" I smiled benignly at him. "I cannot expect you to understand, for this is the business of mercenaries, not merchants."

Festus proved a mite sharper than his competition. "You are mercenaries, I have money. I will purchase your services. We will work together, we will unite."

I sighed deeply. "Oh, now, disaster! Why did you have to do that?"

Festus, for the first time, looked puzzled and just a touch afraid. "Do what?"

Aarundel looked down at the smaller man and slowly shook his head. "You have violated the Codex Mercenarius." The Elf's voice, kept low and sinking lower, paused long enough to make each of the Elven words clear, crisp, and razor-sharp to the ears.

My nod confirmed the worst fears anyone in the room could have had. "You see, neither one of you controls the government here in Centisia, so—as the Codex Mercenarius makes very clear—you cannot hire mercenaries. By offering us money you reduce us to alley-bashers and footpads who hurt others for the purpose of making money."

Childeric shook his head. "But that is what mercenaries do!" He saw me stiffen and hastily added, "Isn't it?"

"Common misconception, actually. Mercenaries are warriors who fight beneath the banner of a nation, or political subdivision thereof, for the purposes of furthering state policy." I looked at him. "Is a boy who finds wormy apples in an orchard and sells them to someone a merchant?"

"I should say not," both Festus and Childeric snapped indignantly. "We are professionals."

"Then don't be lumping cutpurses and rib-crushers with us professionals." I turned to Aarundel and smiled. "You have studied the Codex more recently than I, Imperator. I do not recall a way out of this."

The Elf shrugged and, looking up, studied the marble walls and ceiling. "This will make for an appropriate sepulchre. If everyone could lie down side by side, it would make the work easier." He casually reached down and plucked a hair from the red thatch on Rufus's head, then let it slide in twain down the edge of his ax. "Short of a total cessation of hostilities, our course is set."

I nodded, "Yes, there is that." I smiled at Childeric, then pointed Cleaveheart at the leonine woman and pretty young girl standing behind him. "Your wife and daughter? Good, families should die together."

"Wait, wait." Festus rose from behind his son. "What was this about stopping the fight?"

I looked at him as if he were a moron. "Clearly, if there is no war between you, you are not our competition. You would not try to engage our services, so no violation of the Codex Mercenarius would have occurred."

The slender man nodded curtly. "Then the fight is over. There is no war."

Childeric backed him up. "Indeed, total peace. You are not needed here anymore."

The two of them looked quite smug and self-satisfied with their solution to the problem—not the problem of their fighting, but of our objection to it. I shook my head. "I may be a mercenary, but I am not a fool. The instant I leave, you will return to your fighting. You will unite in the face of a common enemy, but then split apart again. You would play me false."

"No."

"Indeed, you would not." I slid Cleaveheart into its scabbard, then waved Childeric's daughter forward. "Come to me, child, do not be afraid." As I made my voice gentle for her, I took the anger I skimmed out of it and pumped it through my eyes into her father. "'What is your name?"

"Ismere, Lord Custos Sylvanii." Her Elvish fell soft on my ear, and from the hint of a nod I saw Aarundel make, she pleased him as well. She took my hand, her pale flesh like snow on my darker, scarcrossed skin. Wearing a dress made of fabric spun and dyed sky-blue in the islands, the slender slip of a girl had been saved inheriting anything from her father with the exception of her clan affiliation and blue eyes.

I felt her tremble and smiled, "No need to be afraid, Ismere. I would slay all others before I would cause you hurt." With Wasp I cut at the seam of her left sleeve and sliced the stitching all the way up into the armpit. She let her arm hang limply at her side, bringing her right hand across her chest to clutch at her left elbow.

I pointed to Rufus. "Excepting the blood, he's not hard to look at, is he?"

"No, my Lord."

"Fancy him, do you?"

In her eyes I saw an instant recognition of what I was going to do. She hesitated for a heartbeat and started to look back at her father, then just looked at Rufus. She studied him for a moment, then nodded. With the conviction of someone realizing she was guaranteeing the future through her action, she chose her words carefully. "I believe him wise, couth, and pleasing."

I nodded at Rufus. "On your feet, lad." His father made to restrain him, but I shook my head. "Don't you think, Festus, a funeral would make this day very sad?"

Rufus stood, tugged at the hem of his nearly white homespun tunic and approached. "Yes, m'lord?" He was wise enough to know he couldn't pronounce my Elven title as well as Ismere, so he did not even try.

"Could you make Ismere happy?"

"I will."

I slit his right sleeve and knotted their sleeves together. "This is it, then. By the rights granted me in the Codex Mercenarius, I bind these two and their families together. You will work together until this knot is severed by Wasp and Cleaveheart. Anyone who tries to sunder this union will have me to deal with, whether I'm dead or alive. This I vow in the name of Herin."

My invocation of the warrior god's name in a merchant house brought some mild gasps and got everyone's attention. In doing that I'd reinforced the idea of lethal consequences if they fought my solution. "You'll be wanting to have your priests conduct their ceremonies to bless this marriage, but it's Neal Roclawzi, not the gods, who will harvest any who interfere with it."

I smiled as I turned to the two fathers. "And as for you, because old habits die hard, I want to give you a bit of a competition to occupy your efforts until this settlement has anchored in your hearts. This was a wedding. You'll be wanting to put on a feast to celebrate it. And, as I have the Steel Pack on the way here, you'll be wanting it to be a celebration remembered for generations because of the unflinching generosity of the hosts."

Genevera bowed her head politely as Count Berengar Fisher ushered her into her suite. As he had suggested earlier, the suite itself barely deserved the name. Wider than it was deep, an archway that held up the roof nominally functioned to split the bedroom from the area nearest the door. Heavy curtains gathered at each side of the broad arch and, when drawn, would sever one half of the room from the other effectively, but would also shield the bed from the fireplace in the north wall.

Beyond the arch, in the sleeping area, Gena had two small arched lead-glass windows that looked out into one of the manor's gardens. Spring had not yet brought blossoms to the flowers, but the shrubs and plants had all begun to produce new growth, blending new green with older green in a display that pleased her. Since the windows faced east, she knew she would get the dawning sun, and it made her happy that she would start the day with the sun's warm caress.

Back in the northeast corner she saw a narrow door, which Count Berengar opened immediately. Durriken appeared through it and winked at her, then nodded. "Late Imperial furnishings. I am impressed, my lord, for such things are very expensive now."

The larger man scratched at the diagonal scar beneath his left eye. "I would accept your praises, Master Durriken, but we have these antiques because my penurious ancestors never even dreamed of buying anything new unless something old had fallen to pieces." His massive left hand stroked the carefully carved scrollwork on the corner of a chest of drawers. "These pieces have served well and would long since have fallen apart were they not housed in these seldomly used rooms."

Gena sensed weariness in the way Berengar spoke of his elders, as if he were well and truly sick of convincing them of one thing or another. She felt it somewhat odd that she could look at the wooden furnishings in the room and view them as serviceable yet less than appealing pieces, while the two Men recognized some value in them for their antiquity. She could not be certain, but she felt confident that she was actually older than most of the pieces in the room—and she hoped this was, in fact, the case with the straw in the canopy bed's mattress.

"My lord, your statement earlier suggests to me that these pieces might see no more service if we cannot help you." Gena moved away from the bed and back into the forward part of her room, then seated herself in a rough-hewn chair. "Can you tell us more of what you want of us?"

Berengar nodded easily and pulled a chair around so he could face her. He started to speak, then hesitated and pointed at the sideboard. "Would you like some wine? Something to eat, perhaps?"

"Wine, yes, thank you."

"I'll play the server." Durriken waved them back into their chairs. "I can listen while my hands work—makes my tasks go easier."

"I am in your debt." Berengar raked his red hair back into place with his fingers, then hunched forward with elbows on knees. "The union Neal forced on the Fishers and Riverens worked well for a generation or two. From the start, in memory of his friend, the Red Tiger made the Knott family the representatives for trade within the province of Centisia. They shared with their cousins and brought all of us the prosperity that built much of the inner city.

"The next couple of generations from the Knotts married back into the Fishers and Riverens, then the line died out when no more male heirs appeared. That's when one of the Riverens made the first attempt at severing the alliance. He set out to poison one of the Fishers, but ended up a felos-de-se, as I believe you put it in the Sylvanii."

Gena nodded, then looked up as Durriken frowned over at the sideboard. "Felos-de-se is a person who dies as a result of some nefarious enterprise of his own execution."

Rik nodded and handed Gena a silver goblet filled with a ruby vintage. "Stuck himself with his own fouled needle, did he?"

Berengar gratefully accepted a goblet from Rik, then shook his head. "Not exactly, Master Durriken, and that's where the tale begins to bear on why I asked you here. Apparently he had been drinking heavily to get his courage up and somehow managed to drink the poison he had prepared. Justice, no doubt, but when they found him, they also found the word 'Neal' traced in wine on the table."

Gena felt a shiver run down her spine. She sipped the wine, letting the hearty, dry liquid wash the road dust from her throat. "This was not an isolated incident?"

Berengar ruefully shook his head. "My ancestors immediately assumed the union had been broken by this attempt to kill them, so they plotted against the Riverens themselves. A Fisher out to assassinate one of the Riverens tripped and died when he fell down a broad staircase in the Riveren manor. A servant attracted by the noise thought he saw a shadowed figure moving at the head of the stairs, but when he rushed up there, all he found was a tapestry commemorating the union—complete with Neal's portrait—fallen from the hooks that held it up. It's believed the falling tapestry knocked the assassin down the stairs."