The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (28 page)

“I took great offense at his treatment of Bastine,” he explained as he set the broom aside.  “Take a look on that press, in that basket, see if you can find a needle and thread,” he ordered, as he examined the reve and his wife.  “Kicking a defenseless child in the face is a cowardly act.  It offended me.  Enough to consider hamsoken.”

Zarra’s eyes went wide.  Hamsoken was a particularly nasty response to an insult.  Among the Narasi folk, a beating for an infraction or as a result of a conflict was an accepted part of life . . . but there were beatings, and then there were real beatings.  Hamsoken was the act of beating a man inside his own home, in front of his ancestral shrine, his family, and his household gods – a humiliating act, purposefully performed to shame him.  Under Narasi custom, even the most common villein’s hut was his castle, and being beaten inside it was seen as a disgraceful loss of power.

Committing hamsoken was usually a peasant’s reprisal against someone who had wronged him, yet could not be brought to justice.  It was rarely used on the nobility, or even among the wealthier peasants.  But among the villeins, whose homes were little more than sticks and mud, housebreaking – literally breaking open part of the flimsy house – and then delivering a beating to the man who owned it was a purposeful humiliation.

“I found a needle!” Zarra said, triumphantly, after a moment’s rummaging.

“Good,” Rondal nodded, pushing the fat figure of Ardone’s wife over to the side, and then flipping the fine cotton sheet over the Yeoman, enveloping his sleeping form.  He pulled the edges of the sheet together, as he would have done if preparing a shroud.  “Sew him within his own sheets.  Securely,” he emphasized.  Zarra obediently bent to the task, her shaking fingers nonetheless stitching the two edges tightly together using the strong cotton thread in the lady of the manor’s basket.  It took nearly twenty minutes to complete the task, and while she bet to her work – and the men outside continued to fight against the mindless bags of dirt – Rondal explored the reve’s chamber.

First he examined the great peg board on one wall that kept track of the estate’s debts, and more importantly the villein’s debts to the manor.  Sir Cei used a similar one to record the transactions in Sevendor, but by the state of the pegs the villeins of Riverside Manor were deeply in debt, some of them to the point where they spent more than four days a week in service to the reve.  That was like to slavery, in Rondal’s mind. 

He took a few satisfying moments to withdraw each and every peg and left them in a pile on the table in front of it.  For good measure, he picked up the account book that kept track of the final disposition of such debts, and the estates other accounts, and one by one he used magic to turn the parchment solid black.  It would be a damned sight harder to prove a man owed a penny to the Riverside estate, now.

Satisfied with his work, and seeing that Zarra was over half way done with her task, he turned his attention to the iron box that sat under the worktable – the very one that the Yeoman’s men had mentioned.  Rondal was not a natural thief – he did not feel entitled to take the money of his own accord – but he did see it as the just payment for the disgraceful act of kicking a child.  The lock on the box was complex, and it was likely he could have found the key, had he searched, but he felt a more impressive demonstration was in order.  Using his stone for power, he clipped the top off of it, bisecting the hinges, and revealed the hoard within.

It was substantial.  At least eighty or ninety ounces of silver, ten ounces of gold, and at least three hundred ounces of copper and iron were stashed in separate bags within.  Rondal took the gold and the silver and the copper – Riverside Manor could keep its iron obols.  He loaded them in the sewing basket, and then found a scrap of parchment and a pen on the worktable.  A moment later he had finished a quick letter, sanded it, and applied the Wizard of Birchroot Bridge’s glowing monogram.

To the Honorable Yeoman Ardone of Jerune, Greetings:

As you have chosen to ignore my warnings and continue to harass my people, I have returned as I promised.  I found your treatment of the little girl to be vile, and have claimed this gild in recompense.  Continue your vendetta against me at your peril – for tonight it was bruises.  Hamsoken is a small price to pay for your crime.  Next time it could be your head.

The Wizard of Birchroot Bridge

“It’s done!” Zarra said, breathlessly, as he placed the note in the box. 

“As am I,” Rondal agreed, with satisfaction.  Zarra looked at him expectantly, as if she expected him to turn into a dragon and lay waste to the manor.

Instead he handed her the broom.  She looked at him questioningly.

“Beat him,” he directed.  “Oh, wait – let me wake him up first.”  He pointed at the snoring yeoman and released the spell that kept him from waking.  “Now beat him,” he said. 

The woman looked afraid.  Rondal understood – but there would be no reprisals against her, he would make sure of that.  “Just remember what Bastine looked like after he kicked her,” he encouraged.

A grim smile came over Zarra’s face, and she hefted the thick-shafted broomstick and began wailing on the sleeping man with vigor.

Yeoman Ardone did not long remain asleep under the assault – but when he awoke, he found himself blind, confined, and unable to defend himself.  Zarra took especial relish in laying about his knees and his head with the broomstick, until his cries filled the room and he was begging the gods for mercy.  Finally, Rondal stopped the woodwife from permanently harming him, and taking the basket of loot – and some bedding he felt the family could use – they calmly walked downstairs and left the house altogether.

The earth elemental was diminished by a third at this point, the rents in the burlap sacks allowing its dirt to spew everywhere with every movement.  But it was relentless in its path.  Three sheds had already been reduced to splinters, and the kennel was in the process of being demolished as they walked by unnoticed.

They were at the broken gate when they heard a new ruckus coming from the manor.  When they turned, the terrified men, fighting the earth elemental now with boar spears and axes and torches, had discovered the shapeless figure of their confined master stumbling outside blindly, still sewn into his own bedsheet.  Rondal heard a cry of
“There’s another one!  After ‘im, lads!”
and snickered.

“Let’s get out of here,” he sighed.  “I think it will be a while before they forget the Wizard of Birchroot Bridge here in Riverside.  And I doubt anyone will be kicking little girls anymore.”

*                            *                            *

Rondal took the next day off, figuring that it wouldn’t be a good idea to linger around the bridge after delivering such a humiliating beating to the yeoman.  Besides, he needed a few items from the smith to finish the bridge, like nails, tar, and rope.  He could do a lot with magic, but it didn’t replace rope.  He rode one of the horses into the nearest large village to procure some.  He also took the time to visit the tavern and have a professionally poured pint. 

He had purchased most of what he needed and was heading for the smithy to buy a dozen nails when the grubby, breathless form of Bastine tumbled into the street in front of him.

“Ronnal!  Ronnal!” the little girl called anxiously, “They’re back!  SO-jers!”

“What happened?” he insisted, as patiently as he could.  He was cursing Joppo in his head – he’d instructed the peasant to be on the look out for reprisals, and to retreat with the highwayman’s family if they were threatened.  He had wanted a day or two to rest before he finished the bridge off.

“Daddy tol’ Mommy to run, an’ Mommy tol’ me to come get Ronnal!” she squealed, tugging on his arm.  “C’mon!” she insisted.

“I’m coming!” he said, abandoning his search for nails.  He picked up the little girl like she was a doll and threw her over the back of his saddle before climbing on.  “Hang on, we’re going to go fast!” he warned.

He felt her hands clamp around his middle.  “What’s fas?” Bastine asked.

She learned a moment later, squealing her lungs out as Rondal took the horse into a gallop.  He wasn’t particularly adept at horsemanship, but the pressing need seemed to give him confidence he would not have otherwise felt.  The thought of the bandit and his woodwife coming to harm because of his actions suddenly made the wizard regret the hamsoken, no matter how richly deserved.

He reined the horse into a walk as they approached the river, and Rondal slipped from the saddle before tying it to a tree.  “Wait here,” he said to the girl, trying to sound confident.  “If anything happens, you start running.  Run and hide.  Understand?”

She nodded gravely, fidgeting her toes into the dirt.

Rondal sighed.  He would have to trust that she knew when to get out of sight.

He turned and scryed the bridgehead, discovering that there were at least six men around it.  His heart in his throat, he cast spells to make him un-noticeable, silent, and stealthy before he drew his mageblade and crept up to the construction site.  From behind a stand of cedars he was amazed at what he saw.

On the opposite bank were half a dozen horsemen, half in armor, including one badly-bruised Yeoman Ardone of Jerune.  They looked angry, and some had drawn swords.  But what interested Rondal more was the figure they faced: hovering in the middle of the river, amidst the reeds still peeking up from the bank through what would eventually be the roadbed of the bridge, was a single warrior swathed in a great black cloak, a sword in his hand.

He was taunting the men.

“Who has the courage to face the dread knight?” he called, brandishing his blade.  “Who will step across the Invisible Bridge to face the guardian?  Only he whose cause is just and whose courage is worthy will the Invisible Bridge consent to bear!”

“What foolishness is this?” demanded Yeoman Ardone, angrily.  “I would have words with your master!”

“My master is away, you must face me yourself!” snarled the dark figure.  “Do you have the courage, the honor to try the Invisible Bridge of Birchroot?”

“Summon your master!” insisted the Yeoman.  “He has abused me terribly!”

“Did he kick a little girl in the face?” asked the cloak-swathed warrior. 

“He committed hamsoken!” snarled the landlord, “he treated me as one would the basest villein!”

“My master treats all in accordance with their honor, not their title,” taunted the mysterious floating warrior.  “Come try the bridge, if yours is intact, and if you can best me at arms then I will summon my master.”

“I will not consent . . . I am a man of . . . you have no right . . .” sputtered the Yeoman, whose face was a magnificent map of bruises.

“If you are a man of honor, then you should have no fear to face me,” the figure said, waving his sword in encouragement.  “Come across, and if your cause be just we shall play awhile, you and I!”

“My cause is just!” snarled the Yeoman.  “And I will trust no sorceries!”

“Those without honor have cause to be untrustful,” the knight agreed.  “Best you turn tail and accept your hamsoken quietly.”

“I will not!  Summon your master!”

“Face me on the Invisible Bridge!” the knight demanded.

“Fine!” shouted the Yeoman in frustration, and as his men looked on he rushed across the Invisible Bridge . . . and fell headfirst down the riverbank.

“The Bridge has spoken!” the knight howled with laughter as he hovered over the sputtering yeoman.  “No honor in your soul means no redress from my master!  Begone . . . and never essay this bridge again until you are more certain of your honor!”

The other men helped their dazed master out of the river, giving the knight fearful glances, and without another word they helped him mount and ride for the manor.

Rondal waited until they neared the next hill before he revealed himself.

“How are you doing that?” he asked Bastidor, who was still floating in mid-air as if on an invisible bridge.  “I checked with magesight, and you aren’t using magic . . .”

“Stilts,” called the former minstrel. “When my voice changed, I learned a few tricks to keep me eating.  Juggling, a bit of fire-eating . . . and how to do both while walking around on stilts.”  To prove his point, the bandit took two steps out into the middle of the river.  The long thin stakes he’d strapped to his legs blended well with the reeds around him, making him appear to float in mid-air.  “I put them together this morning, thinking I could help out more if I had more leverage.  Then those . . . fellows showed up, so I sent Joppo and and I figured I’d give them a little show.” 

“Well done, Baston!” he laughed as the robber waded back across the river and gingerly jumped down from his perch after untying his legs.  “I doubt I could have done better myself!”

“I felt like I had to goad them into doing something stupid . . . and that it wouldn’t take much.  I was correct.”

“I’m guessing that Ardone’s next move will be to complain to his lord.  I suppose we should be ready for that, shouldn’t we?”

Baston looked troubled.  “Yes, I don’t think a pair of stilts and a commanding voice are going to keep the fools away.  What can I do to help?”

*                            *                            *

Two days later, a detachment of men-at-arms from the castle arrived at Birchroot Bridge, ready to give battle.  What they found there was enough to make the best of them reconsider.