Firethorn (33 page)

I heard someone ask, “Anything?” and Sire Alcoba said, “Nothing.”

“The gods send us a quiet night,” said the Crux, moving away.

Sire Alcoba didn't answer.

Rain came instead of dawn and pelted the fog away. When it cleared there were still dark clouds in the east, hiding the Sun, but over the sea there were more scraps of blue in the sky than we'd seen for many days. Spiller was the first to come back to the tent, and I hurried to sheathe Galan's sword as he entered.

He grinned when he saw it and asked if I'd slept well.

“About as well as you,” I answered.

Rowney came in and Spiller laughed, saying he looked like a drowned rat. Spiller had no call to talk, with his thatch of hair matted to his forehead and water dripping from the eaves.

Noggin had slept through the disturbances of the night. Spiller rousted him out of bed and sent him off, sniffling and coughing his morning cough, to empty the chamber pot and fetch water. “Lazy sod,” he called after him.

Galan still slept, so I kept my voice low. “Did you really think Ardor would attack our tents last night? Break the king's peace?” In the night it had seemed so likely, but now that it was day and nothing had happened save for dogs barking, I had my doubts.

“Aahh!” Spiller said with disgust. “The Crux is too careful.” He unlaced his heavy leather jerkin, which was stiff with tow padding and sodden from the rain, and hung it from a tent pole. “He caught us leaving camp and put the hobbles on us, made us keep watch instead.

Rowney dried his sword and dagger on a blanket. “Too bad Ardor didn't try us. The Crux planned on it, I think. He had fifteen men on guard besides us, waiting for them. If they'd come, we'd have spilled their blood and caught no blame for it.

Noggin set down the water bucket, saying, “You should have waked me,” and Spiller snorted.

I said, “The Crux has too much sense to want this feud. More sense than you. I wager he expected more trouble from Sire Alcoba than from Ardor last night, and had you standing guard against yourselves.” I laughed at how the Crux had outwitted them, but the jest pricked me too. I hoped I'd never live through another such night.

Yet I would. Wasn't I on my way to war? I wondered if I'd have the strength for it.

Rowney shook his head as if he disagreed with me but couldn't be bothered to argue. Spiller said, “Huh. The Crux spits on Ardor's name. He must be planning something to requite the murder of our armiger.”

I said, “No matter how carefully you measure out the blood spilled on each side, the scales never balance. They tip one way and then another—it's easier to start a feud than end one.”

Spiller scoffed and gave me the old saying: “A coward's wisdom is as easy as a whore's virtue—and just as little to be trusted.” Rowney shook his head silently again and took out his oil and whetstone.

I lit a fire in the brazier and set about making a strong brew of wake-me-up. When I looked up Galan was watching me. I flushed, wondering how long he'd been awake.

His stare slid past me and he said to his men, “Where's Rodela?”

Spiller gaped.

“Well?”

“I don't know, Sire,” Spiller replied. It was plain he had an idea where Sire Rodela was, and wouldn't say.

“Get over here,” Galan said, “and help me to the pisspot.”

Spiller and Rowney jumped up and helped Galan to sit on the edge of the cot. A rank, foxy smell came from the bedclothes. One jack grasped him under the arm to keep him steady, while the other held the chamber pot. When Galan had pissed he shook them off and sat with his shoulders hunched. In a while he said, “Bring me clothes,” and Rowney fetched a linen shirt and eased it over his head. It was not a simple matter to put on hose but Galan insisted on it, though we could tell it pained him. Next he stood and next he walked, Spiller and Rowney on either side, a few paces across the tent and back.

I asked, “Is this wise?” He ignored me, except his lips tightened and I could almost hear his teeth grind together. “I'll fetch Divine Xyster,” I said. Then he looked at me and I stopped halfway to my feet and sat back down on the ground.

He called for his boots and his surcoat. To put on his boots he must sit and stand again, and by that time his face was haggard. He left the tent with one hand on Spiller's shoulder and the other on Rowney' s, and I watched him walk past the tents of Sire Guasca and the priests to the tent of the Crux—not many paces, but every pace costly—and as he walked he straightened his back and seemed to steady.

A few cataphracts were already at the hearth. I guessed that most of them had been up all night; they were boisterous, pestering Cook and his drudges as they went about their work, cawing at every little gibe. They hailed Galan when they saw him. He lifted his hand and smiled and ducked into the Crux's pavilion. Rowney and Spiller stayed outside, squatting on their heels and pitching stones at a puddle. Before long the Crux's men came out of the tent, leaving Galan alone with him.

I was sitting on the ground eating porridge and watching the Crux's doorway when Sire Rodela came back. He sauntered up as if he'd been out for a stroll, wearing the borrowed jack stiffened with iron rings, a sword, and his usual crooked smile. Wherever he'd been, the rain had caught him, for he was wet through. His arms were crossed, which seemed odd until I saw that one arm cradled the other and there was blood between his fingers. He jerked his head to bid me follow him into the tent.

He sat on Galan's cot and started to unlace the jack one-handed. The leather thongs were swollen tight from the rain; he impatiently called me to help. He had a habit of ordering me to do this or that for him, and I of pretending not to hear. Spiller too was often deaf to his commands. The jack and I were allies in this, at least, our private war with the armiger, and though it was risky, we were practiced at reading his moods; his smiles often foretold more trouble than his frowns. This morning Sire Rodela was well pleased with himself, warmed by some secret cheer, though his left hand curled uselessly in his lap and he dripped blood on Galan's bedclothes. I told Noggin to help him and busied myself with the cook pot at the brazier.

The armiger scowled and asked, “Where is Sire Galan?—

“He wondered as much about you, Sire,” I said.

“Well, here I am,” he said sharply. “Where is he? I thought he'd be safe in his bed.”

“He's with the Crux.”

“Oho, so that's how the wind blows.” He didn't seem perturbed. I wondered if he knew why Galan had gone to see the Crux; not that it mattered, as Sire Rodela was ever one to tell me what I didn't wish to know and hide the rest.

He grimaced as Noggin pulled off the jack and the padded red shirt. He bent his left arm at the elbow and inspected it.

Noggin sucked air between his teeth and I took one look and said, “I'll get the carnifex quick.” I'd expected a cut, but this wound laid bare the meat in a slice along the back of Sire Rodela's hairy forearm, from his elbow halfway to his wrist. Blood welled from it.

“No,” said Sire Rodela, looking at me. “No need. You bind it.”

“I won't touch it. Divine Xyster would have my hide. It's bleeding badly.” I wondered he was so willing to risk defilement by letting a woman touch his wound. Did he mean to trap me in a transgression so he could turn the priests on me?

He set his jaw and said, “This is not so bad; I've had worse. Now clean me up and be quick about it—and you'd better keep quiet about it or
I'll
have your hides.”

Noggin stood there slack-jawed until I snapped at him to find some linen—a shirt, anyone's shirt—and hold it over Sire Rodela's wound. “Press hard,” I said, “even if he curses you.” I fetched rainwater from the barrels. It was none too clean, but would do. What else? Spiller had poured wine on a cut once. That was all we had, lacking Divine Xyster's cobwebs and foul-smelling salves. If he were a woman, I'd have put a paste of woundwort on it and maybe even stitched it closed, but I wouldn't risk so much for Sire Rodela. And Noggin was too clumsy; I'd seen his mending on Sire Galan's shirts.

Sire Rodela's eyes met mine over Noggin's shoulder. He didn't even flinch as Noggin pressed. “And the other man?” I asked. “How did you leave him?”

He smiled one of his dangerous smiles. “Shorn,” was all he said.

I asked Noggin to lift the cloth; the bleeding had lessened, but the linen was mostly soaked. I could see something white that looked like bone. I said, “This is deep. If you won't let me get the priest, let me fetch Spiller. He'll keep quiet.”

Sire Rodela said, “He couldn't hold his tongue unless I plucked it out and handed it to him.”

“You think Noggin can? He tells Sire Galan everything,” I said. The bagboy seemed too daft to be sly, but I'd not overlook him again—and if I made trouble for him with Sire Rodela, I didn't mind. “Let me get Spiller.”

Spiller was reluctant to come at Sire Rodela's bidding until I whispered why he was needed. On our way back to the tent, under the eyes of the cataphracts, I asked quietly if he could hear what Sire Galan and the Crux were saying to each other. “For I know you were listening,” I added.

He claimed he hadn't heard a word.

Spiller set about tending Sire Rodela's wound. The jack had a little smirk fixed to his face as he poured wine over the wound, and Sire Rodela yelped and called Spiller's mother a sow and said he'd render his whole family for lard. Then he told Spiller to stop dawdling and tie it up quick and have done with it.

“Who did this, Sire?” Spiller asked, as he tore a strip of linen from Sire Rodela's only bedsheet to wind around his arm.

Sire Rodela said, “See if you can guess.” He loosened the drawstring of the purse at his belt and pulled out a handful of brown hair. He dangled it before us. For a moment I failed to understand; then I saw that the hair sprouted from a bloody piece of scalp about as wide as my palm. I looked from this thing to Sire Rodela, so vain of his prize, and felt the skin tighten on my own scalp. Noggin tittered.

Spiller said, “Where's the rest of him?”

“In the sea.”

“What was he, a jack?”

“Sire Bizco.”

Spiller crowed and I asked, “Who?” I didn't repeat the name, for it would call the dead man's attention to us.

Noggin said, “The armiger to the man who wounded Sire Galan, of course.” As if everyone knew. He was jiggling from foot to foot in his excitement.

I turned to Sire Rodela. “Do you mean to tether this armiger here by his hair? He'll haunt you for it.

“I'll haunt
him.
I mean to see to it that he stays close to the living long enough to savor every one of his regrets. Then I'll burn this and send him on his way.” He tucked the swatch of skin and hair back in his pouch and sneered. “His first regret will be that he thought too well of himself and not well enough of me.”

We had the rest of the tale from Sire Rodela by the time Spiller had finished bandaging his arm, for he was a sufficient braggart that he couldn't keep it quiet. He used the dead man's name freely, as if he delighted to think his shade could overhear. Spiller asked how he'd caught the armiger, and Sire Rodela said he'd come at his call, trotting to him like a hound. Both armigers had reasons to pursue the feud between Ardor and Crux privately, for their masters and on their own accounts too. In the tallies of shame and honor, it is not enough to have an even score; one must better the other. I remembered how Sire Rodela had been harried and overmatched by a man with a scorpion—Sire Bizco, no doubt—in the same tourney that ended with Galan injured and Sire Voltizo disgraced. But Sire Bizco had two other armigers helping him, and he'd thought to prove he could do the same on his own; Sire Rodela had planned to teach him otherwise.

They met before dawn at the foot of the cliff below the end of the south-of-west road, and walked far out on the strand, for the tide was low, and they fought between the tide pools, churning up the sand and pebbles on the beach. High tide would smooth out the marks of their battle, and if two men's footprints went under the waves and only one man's came out, it was unlikely to be noticed. Sire Rodela had taken the wound on his forearm from Sire Bizco, but he'd dealt him a worse one in return and a fatal one soon after. They'd started in the fog and finished in the rain.

Sire Rodela called for Noggin to bring his helmet. He cut off the lamb's tail he'd attached to it after Sire Galan had shorn him. His honor was out of pawn now, he said with a lopsided smile, and he wrapped a lock of Sire Bizco's hair in a leather cord and tied it to the crest of his helmet.

“I don't think you should flaunt it like that,” I said, “unless you want all the world to know.”

“They'll take it for a dame's favor,” he said. He looked at each of us in turn. “Not a word on this to anyone, not even Sire Galan.”

I said, “You can't think to keep it from him, Sire. He's sure to see. What would you have done if he'd been here?”