Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (10 page)

“
Quibbling over
money,” Fato muttered to himself.

“
Very expensive it
was, much more expensive than in Coe Baba. But we needed this room,
for Basha,” Oaka said, glancing over at the bird, “and I dreaded to
think how much they might charge at other inns.”

“
How much do we
have?” Basha asked.

“
We have six silver
coins, 45 copper coins, and 38 bronze.” Oaka said. “That is about
108 and an eighth copper coins.”

“
Why is it that
humans are so concerned with
…
”

“
Shut up, Fato. That
may last us awhile.” Basha said. “A drink might cost 1 copper, a
meal or a stay at an inn would cost 5
…
”

“
Telling me to shut
up?” Fato remarked, and then muttered to himself.

“
Actually, here at
The Walking Duck inn, it cost 8 coppers.” Oaka said.

“
Eight copper coins a
night? At this rate
…
that does it, we have to leave
tomorrow,” Basha said.

“
Can’t spend too much
money,” Fato said, rolling his eyes.

“
Good idea, just what
I was thinking.” Oaka said, glancing over at the bird
again.

“
We will have to buy
some things here to make it to Coe Aela, perhaps beyond, and then
hope that they might be generous.” Basha said.

“
What
,
Coe Aela?” Fato gasped, turning towards them.
“We’re going to Coe Aela? We can’t do that, why are we doing
that?”

“
Or bargain a bit on
whatever we might want to purchase from them.” Basha said, glancing
over at Fato as well. He wondered what had freaked out Fato like
this.

“
Why is it
that
…
” The bird started to say.

“
I miss Sir
Nickleby.” Oaka said. “He was quiet, and I swear he had some gold
coins.”

Fato frowned to himself, and shook his
head, turning away from them.

“
Oaka
,
I miss him too,” Basha sighed. “He would not have
walked us straight into that fight. He was smart enough to avoid
such things.”

“
Or he would have
told us to stay outside, and gone in himself to break up that
brawl.” Oaka suggested.

Fato opened his mouth, about to say
something, but then decided to stay quiet. Instead, he flapped his
way over to the shutters, and then waited for Oaka to open them so
that he could fly off through the window. Let them enjoy their
reminiscing, or what not, he had some business to take care of
before it was too late.

Oaka watched him go,
and wished that he could fly as well, back to Coe Baba and Sisila
before returning
.
“Do you suppose that we could ask him to deliver
messages back home for us?” Oaka asked.

“
I don’t think we
could,” Basha said. “He is supposed to be a royal messenger bird,
after all, and that might mean he can only deliver messages for the
king and his court.”

Oaka shook his head. “What good is he
for?” He muttered as Fato disappeared in the distance.

“
Fato has flown off
before, have you noticed?” Basha asked after a few
moments.

Oaka slowly nodded. “Once or twice, in
the forest, but he has flown back within a few minutes.”

“
Do you suppose he
will come back?” Basha asked.

Oaka smiled. “Doubt it.” He said,
closing the shutters firmly. Let him go away, and never return.
They were better off without him.

“
Do you have paper,
pen, or ink?” Basha asked.

Oaka stopped. “Um, I
left that in our father’s desk at home, do you suppose we should go
back and
…
”

“
Stop that, Oaka,”
Basha said, slowly getting out of bed.

“
Are you sure you
should be moving like that, Basha, so soon after you got hit?” Oaka
asked as his brother stood up, and walked around a bit.

“
I could ask you the
same, Oaka,” Basha retorted, and then shook his head. “I need to
move before I get stuck in here all night long, and I need to find
us a paper shop or a vendor who sells writing supplies so that we
can write our letter home.”

“
Not even 200 miles
away,” Oaka muttered, rolling his eyes.

“
We need to send word
back that Sir Nickleby is dead, and that we are
fine
.
I do not think they expected us to make it even this far.”
Basha said.

“
They were almost
right.” Oaka said.

“
I’m going!” Basha
said, turning to the door.

“
Try not to get
lost!” Oaka called.

Basha managed to find
a vendor, with directions from the innkeeper, that sold writing
supplies, and then returned back to the inn. Oaka was downstairs in
the common room waiting for him, and together they ate dinner and
composed the letter. Early the next morning, Basha went out and
found the post office of Coe Anji
,
which surprisingly was not that
much bigger than Coe Baba’s post office.

“
How much does it
cost to deliver a letter to Coe Baba?” Basha asked, as a vendor
down the road called out “Parsley, sage, rosemary,
thyme!”

“
Coe Baba? It
depends.” The postmaster of Coe Anji said.

“
Depends on what?”
Basha asked.

“
Slow or fast.” The
postmaster said. “Slow means we throw your letter into this bag
marked ‘Coe Baba’
,
” The postmaster said, holding up
a near empty bag, “and wait for the bag to fill up with letters and
packages people want to send to Coe Baba before we deliver it.
Could be, on average, somewhere between two to three months.” The
postmaster said.

“
Three months?” Basha
cried, and shook his head. “Fast?” He inquired.

“
We send it straight
to Coe Baba by special courier, who will hand it over to the
postmaster once he or she arrives there. Maybe even into the hands
of the person the letter is meant for.”

“
Price?” Basha
asked.

“
Five coppers for
slow, 40 coppers for fast.”

“
Forty
?
W
hy
?
”

“
We have to pay the
courier, and cover the expenses of their travel
,
room and board, food,
horse
,
extra expenses have to be paid by the receiver of the
message.” The postmaster said with a shrug. “Frankly, it is a loss
of profit for us.”

Basha sighed. “Slow it is, then,” He
said, handing over the letter and counting out the five coppers. It
probably did not matter if the letter arrived in Coe Baba two or
three months from now, perhaps it was even for the best, because he
suspected that he and Oaka were going to have a tough time from
here on out, especially if the Black Wolves returned to chase them.
Perhaps their parents, receiving some word that he and Oaka were
all right a few months ago, might forget their fears and anxieties
for just a little while, and remember that once they were very
happy together. Any sort of news was better than none, after all,
and time softened the blow of loss.

“
Come one, come all, come
see the fight of the year, Cegiloni and Puyeti!” The town crier
cried, standing by the tent with the sounds of the fight warming up
inside, and the crowd roaring even louder.

Basha and Oaka had been wandering around the
market town for most of the afternoon, having purchased supplies in
the morning. They debated whether or not to stay another night.
Fato had not returned at all, and while Oaka was glad of this,
Basha was worried that perhaps they had been too harsh on the
falcon.

“
Too harsh? That falcon…”
Oaka shook his head, and then glared at the town crier. “Cegiloni
and Puyeti…pugilist fight?” He yelled back.

“
That’s right, come step
right up, only two coppers per admission!” The town crier declared,
pulling the curtain aside.

“
Two coppers? That’s not
too bad,” Oaka said, starting forward with his sheathed sword
swaying at his side.

“
Come on, Oaka,” Basha
said, trying to stop him with his own sheathed sword swaying as
well. “After what happened with the brawl yesterday and Sir
Nickleby the day before, do you really want to…”

“
Basha, we might have to,”
Oaka said, turning towards him. “I’ve never been afraid of anything
before in my whole life, but these last few days…Basha, I’m afraid
that I might not be able to make it through all of this.” He said.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about home.” He said.

Basha sighed. “I
don’t know what to say. I suppose I have been thinking a lot about
home, too, and Jawen, but
I don’t want you
to go. I’m still thinking about going on. I don’t know what’s going
to happen next, but
…
”

“
Then let me handle
this, Basha,” Oaka said, turning towards the tent. “Let me face my
fears, and decide for myself if it is worth the risk,” He said,
paying the admission fee and going in.

Basha hesitated, and
then followed suit. They had seen sparring matches at home before
on festival days, just a couple of fellows hitting each other about
before one of them fell over and the other one was declared the
victor
,
nothing to get upset about.

One, two, slam! punches to the face, with
the third knocking the other man’s head back; blood spurted forth
from the man’s mouth as a tooth fell out. Basha choked on some
vomit threatening to issue forth from his own mouth as he heard the
townspeople and visitors gathered around him shout, “Make him pay!”
“Finish him!” or just cheered at the sight of blood.

Basha looked about,
hoping to see any other sign of sanity
,
someone else who was as
disgusted and horrified as he was with this display. But the only
other person here who seemed to be suffering just like he was Oaka,
who gagged a little bit as well. Perhaps they were the only ones
here who had ever seen such kind of violence and bloodshed in the
death of Sir Nickleby, of someone they knew, or at least a hint of
what sort of death it was when the Wolves were howling, and the
horses were galloping so fast to get away from the
scene.

He hoped that was the case. He hoped
that no one else here was immune to the effects of that sort of
violence.

Basha knew that they had to get out of
here. Even though they had come in here to face their fears, and
maybe even get to see what all of the fuss was about, he worried
that the people screaming and yelling, stirred up into such frenzy,
would turn on themselves.

He tapped Oaka on the shoulder, pointed
to the nearest tent wall once he had Oaka’s attention, and told
him, “Go! Go! Go!”

Even though he couldn’t hear himself
think straight over the crowd noise, Oaka seemed to get the
message. Soon they both were leaving, trying to push and shove
their way out of the crowd without offending anybody. They would
not get caught up in something terrible again.

Basha felt embarrassed about leaving like
this, as if he wasn’t man enough to face the crowd and this fight,
but he knew that it was for the best. Once they were outside in the
alleyway between the tent and a one-story building, having pushed
aside a tent flap that hadn’t been tied down properly, then they
both started throwing up.

He had run away before, Basha realized, from
the mud-ball turnip fight, from Jawen when her father came, from
Sir Nickleby when the Black Wolves devoured him…had he ever stood
up for anything? Maybe when he had made his oath to Jawen, but
otherwise…

“
Basha, what was that in
there?” Oaka asked, wiping off vomit from his mouth. The crowd on
the other side of the tent was only slightly muffled by the amount
of canvas covering them. The rest of their surroundings, the
warehouse district of this town’s port, was oddly quiet as Basha
and Oaka were the only two people to be seen outside these squat,
unassuming buildings that seemed to be lined up, row after row, for
a mile around. Where was that town crier that had lured them inside
the tent? Basha thought, he couldn’t hear him. He felt bad about
everything, about everything he had ever run away from.

“
That was something I hope
never to see again,” Basha said, staring down at the bricks he had
just splattered with vomit before he shuddered all over. He hated
himself for getting so sick, but it was a natural reaction, was it
not? Why was no one else as sick as him and Oaka? He hated himself
for reasoning like this, just like he had tried to reason with
himself after leaving Jawen’s house, excuses for cowardly
behavior.

It didn’t make any sense to
him that they had to be the ones to sneak out, and throw up like a
bunch of girls.
HeH
He shook his head, and said, “I don’t know, I suppose that is
what you would call a ‘bloodbath’.” Basha hesitated.

Oaka sighed. “Basha…”

“
Hey! Boys!” They heard a
loud whisper that they recognized, as who could not, once you got
to know it so well, that screeching voice was not something you
would forget. They looked up to see Fato perched on the ledge of a
high window into the building that they stood beside. Basha was
surprised to see him up there, so close to where they were before.
He wondered if Fato had tracked them down, if falcons like him had
a sense of smell like a dog.