A Company of Heroes Book One: The Stonecutter (29 page)

“Filthy, damned little bitch,” he finally managed to cry. “Ya damned bloody cunt! I’ll kill yer!”

But Bronwyn is already on her feet and scrambling for her gun. The man swings a foot into her ribs before she can rise with the weapon and she is flung rolling to the deck, but still manages to keep hold of the revolver. There is a big glass bottle in front of her face: five gallons of lantern oil. She strikes at it with the gun and the jug bursts, spraying her with the rancid contents. Ignoring the pain as she scrambles through the broken glass, she grasps the neck of the broken bottle and flings it over her shoulder into the sailor’s face. He curses and dances back a pace or two, leery now of anything approaching his face.

Bronwyn jumps to her feet and rips the swinging lantern free from its cord.

“What th’ hell’re ya think yer gonna do?” the man asks sarcastically. Amazingly, he seems to have forgotten about his horribly wounded eye. Bronwyn can see the unattached muscles writhing within the wet, red socket.

“This!” she hisses, throwing the lantern into the mess of oil that has spread across the deck. The glass globe explodes and instantly a blue flame dances across the film of fuel. A second later, tall yellow flames burst free amid thick black smoke, like some phosphorescent genie throwing aside its cloak.

“Damn y’ to hell!” cries the sailor. “What does ya have t’ do that for?”

He steps through the flames as though they are nothing more than a curtain. Bronwyn raises the big revolver and shoots him in the mouth. The effect is devastating. As the heavy body falls backwards into the fire with a crash that shakes the entire boat, the hatch slides back and the second sailor pushes his face into the cabin.

“Voot de hoyl’s koyn oon dayn tare?”

His answer comes in the form of an express message delivered by the princess’ Minch-Moappa. The heavy bullet singes a part in his hair and the man leaps back into safety, clutching his furrowed scalp. Bronwyn scrambles up the short ladder and regains the deck. The Fezzooan is in the bow, brandishing a boat hook. A stream of trickling blood bisects his face.

“Ztoy oovay vroom me!” he says to the figure that stands, bloody and disheveled, framed by the column of black smoke welling from the hatch. A detached part of Bronwyn’s mind realizes how fearsome she must look: streaked with fresh blood, both hers and the dead man’s, clothes half torn from her, her eyes as preternaturally green as that rare flash of emerald emitted by a setting sun, teeth bared in a feral grimace.

“Drop that hook!” she orders, and when he doesn’t obey she sends a shot in his direction that excavates a six-inch crater in the planking between his feet. He throww the boat hook away as though he has suddenly discovered that it has grown fangs.

“Koom en, latty,” he pleads. “E dint to neffinks do yoy!”

“Stop that gibbering and don’t move!”

Not taking her eyes from him for more than a second, she gives a quick glance toward the shore. The reed-covered bank is only a twenty yards away. Scattered weeds grew almost out to the boat, so she knows the water must be shallow. Turning back to the cowering man, she orders, “Get over the side!”

“Voot?”

“I said, get over the side, the starboard side, away from the shore!”

“E’ll vrooze oon dit fayter!”

“No, you
might
freeze, but if you stay here two more seconds you
will
be dead. Jump, damn it!”

The man jumps. Immediately, Bronwyn lowers herself over the port side, into the icy water. She gasps with the shock. The cold hits her like an anvil dropped on a cartoon cat. She can’t reach the bottom, so she lays on her back, keeping her rucksack balanced on her chest and out of the water as much as possible, and begins a painfully slow backstroke. From behind her comes a muffled “Hilp! Hilp!” which she ignores.

Her body is being drained of its energy as though it were a sponge being wrung by the water’s icy grip, or perhaps a colander through which her life’s heat is pouring; her sodden clothing weighs her down as though she were encased in brick. Her abused joints are stiffening like super-cooled taffy. She tries the bottom again. She can just reach it, the water is now only four or five feet deep, but it is composed of a thin, nearly liquid mud that doesn’t support her. She swims again, as best she can with joints becoming rigid and muscles cramping in an attempt to warm her with the energy of their uncontrolled spasms. She is deep within the reeds and tries standing again. This time the water is shallower and the mud a little less viscous. The breeze makes the freezing water seem warm by contrast. She staggers the remaining distance to the shore, shivering so violently that her whole body shudders epileptically. The wind freshens and is lowering her surface temperature dangerously. Snow flurries around her, its hard pellets stinging her raw cheeks like salt. She is gasping for breath between chattering teeth and a thin rime of ice is starting to form on her. Goosebumps cover her as her follicles try desperately to fluff up an insulating fur that her species has lost two hundred thousand years too early to do her any good.. She sees lanterns approaching and hears the sound of voices, though all as a kind of confused abstraction. The voices surrounded her and a bright light flashes in her face.

“Anyone else out there?”

“N-no,” she manages to stutter.
Let the rotten bastard fend for himself
. She is not so frozen that she can’t manage to be vindictive.

“Get a blanket around her!” another voice says. “Anybody got a blanket?”

“Here, get this on her!”

“Get her inside somewhere, quick, she’s freezing to death!”

There is a hiatus in her perception of time. She must have been operating automatically for some period, for when her brain finally thaws and takes cognizance of reality, she is sitting in a chair, sipping something hot from a mug in the midst of telling a very personalized version of her story. She realizes that she must be in one of the houses she had seen on the shore, because the still-burning
Upsy Daisy
is visible through a window. Enough time has passed that the boat has burnt nearly to its waterline and the fire is reduced to coils of oily smoke.

“The dirty bastards!” says someone.

“I’ve had dealings with that Patooter and his rotten gang; good riddance, so far as I’m concerned,” says a second voice.

“I’ll say!” replies a third.

Bronwyn glances around. There are probably a dozen people, male and female, in the small room. All have sturdy, honest-looking peasants’ faces.

“Look,” she says, “I can’t explain why, but I’ve got to get to Blavek as soon as possible. Are there any coaches leaving soon?”

“Well, I don’t know,” answers one man. “I’ve never has any reason to go to the City, but I suppose we can find out for you.”

“Would you, please?”

“I think,” says one of the women, “that it would be best for the young lady to spend the night here.”

“You’re absolutely right; she must get her strength back.”

“I know you’re in a great hurry, my dear, for some reason, but there’s nothing that can be done before morning, anyway.”

She accepts the invitation as gracefully as her impatience allows and spends a comfortable night wrapped in a down comforter in a room cozy with its own stove. In the morning, her hosts, a middle-aged fisherman and his wife, take her into Glibner, which, since it is the capital of Guesclin’s fishing industry, turns out to be a sizable village; all of the riches of the fertile Grand Bank eventually make their way to the town’s markets and canning plants.

The fisherman takes the princess directly to the agency of the coach service where, with apologies, he leaves her. He has his own business to take care of.

Bronwyn enters the office, where she is faced with an unexpected obstacle. The sole occupant of the agency is a rather prissy-looking young man seated behind a high counter. After pointedly ignoring the girl for a full two minutes, he finally sets his pen aside and adjusts his pince-nez so he can more effectively look down his long nose, and says with the greatest amount of doubt, “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes, I need to get to Blavek by the next coach.”

He looks at the girl: her clothes filthy and torn, her face bruised, puffy and scratched, one eye blackened, her only baggage a single rucksack, and asks, not unreasonably, it must be admitted: “Have you the price of a ticket?”

“Pardon me?”

“The fare to Blavek is five crowns. Have you five crowns?”

He leans back in his chair and smirks,
got her on that one!

“Well no; but I...”

“Please! A ticket is five crowns. That’s that. If you haven’t the money, would you please leave me to my work, thank you very much?”

“I can pay when I get to Blavek.”

“Shall I call a policeman?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be back with the money.”

“Hmph.”

Now what? Five crowns isn’t much. Once upon a time if I’d dropped a five-crown coin, I wouldn’t have bothered to pick it up. But how to get one when you haven’t got one?
It had never been a problem before: when she needed money she just asked somebody and there it was. In fact, she can’t recall ever having asked for anything as little as five crowns...though now it seems like a fortune. Would someone give it to her? That smacked of begging, an unthinkable thought. She dare not start telling people who she is, either. She’d have to be a little more circumspect about that, this close to the capital.
Can I earn it?
Now there is a new idea. People do that, she knows, so why can’t she? Thud does it, for Musrum’s sake. All right, then, let’s keep this thought going: to earn money one has to
do
something. What can I do? Well, I don’t know. I have never had to do anything, so I don’t know what I am capable of. Possibly most anything, so far as I know. It actually sounds a little exciting!

While still emboldened, she crosses the street to a small public house and enters. She goes to the bar and sits upon one of the stools. It is still early and the place is virtually empty, save for one or two old men who are probably always there, at least they look like fixtures. A few minutes later a big, jolly-looking woman comes from a back room that opens into the rear of the bar. She looks like she has been drawn entirely with a compass, everything about her is round: eyes like robin’s eggs, cheeks like apricots, a cascade of chins like a confection squeezed from a pastry bag, a soft round bosom like a down pillow and sleek, pink arms like fresh sausages. Altogether she looks like a giant marzipan lady who would have made a fine decoration in a candy-shop window. She spots Bronwyn immediately and rolls up to her.

“Well, what can I do for you, honey?” she says, laughing. Even her voice is round. Bronwyn is to eventually learn that everything the woman says, she says while laughing, even when discussing the most distressing subjects. “Though it looks like you’ve been pretty well done for already!” Hee hee.

“I was in a shipwreck last night.”

“Not that boat that burned?” she chuckles.

“Yes.”

“Well, I just heard about that!” Titter, titter. “You’re very lucky!”

“I guess so.”

“You hungry?”

“Well, not really, not yet. I has a nice breakfast with the people who found me.”

“The Rassendylls? Yes, they’re pretty good people. Something to drink, then? On the house?”

“A little ale?”

“Coming right up!”

She sets a small foamy glass of the dark beverage before the girl.

“What’re your plans, now, honey?”

No one has ever called Bronwyn “honey” before.

“I’ve got to get to Blavek. It’s literally a matter of life or death.”

“Truly, now?” she chuckles, but her eyes are serious.

“Oh, yes! Except I’ve no money: I’ve lost everything. But I can’t get a coach ticket without money.”

“How much d’you need? It’s been a long time since I’ve had to go to the big city.”

“Five crowns.”

The round lady whistles. “So much?”

“I was hoping to find a job. Just long enough to earn the fare.”

“What can you do?”

“I don’t know. I’m willing to try almost anything.”

“Ever wash dishes?”

“Well, no.” What a ridiculous idea!

“Where’d you come from that you never washed dishes? Well, are you game to try?”

“Of course!”

“You wash dishes for me, say for three days, and I’ll buy your ticket! Fair enough?”

“Yes! Thank you very much!”

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Bronwyn.”

“Just like our poor, late princess! Oh, dear, that was so sad...," tee hee. "Well, glad to meet you, Bronwyn! You can call me Mimsey!” Hee hee.

Which is how it came to pass that Bronwyn Tedeschiiy, Princess of Tamlaght, found herself up to her elbows in hot water and dirty dishes. She likes Mimsey, who, after the few initial questions never asks another of her. But she doesn’t particularly like her work. She merely racks it up as one more debit, and a not insignificant one, against her brother and Payne Roelt. Mimsey has provided a cot and linen for Bronwyn and allows her to sleep in the kitchen, which is warmed by a big stove whose fire is never allowed to go out. She also kindly provides the girl with three good meals a day, above and beyond the money that is promised. During business hours, Mimsey tends the bar and a big brown man does the cooking. He is from Peigambar, which fascinates Bronwyn, though he is never heard to utter a word in any language she recognizes. Oddly enough, he seems to understand perfectly well the orders that Mimsey shouts to him. Bronwyn wonders what he would think if he were to be told that she had once been a Peigambarese sultan for a few hours.

At the end of the three days, Bronwyn’s bruises have faded to yellow stains, she has lost almost all the swelling and her scratched face has mostly healed. Mimsey has had her clothes cleaned, repairing them herself, her chubby fingers surprisingly nimble with a needle. The princess looks cleaner and healthier than she has for a long time, if still not very aristocratic.

“Here’s your five crowns, dear,” says Mimsey with a chortle. “And a little extra.”

“What’s this for?” Bronwyn asks, fingering the additional coins.