The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (40 page)

A mud-footed soldier, I thought, relaxing. We had nothing to fear from him.
Judging from the slight twitch at the edge of Carle's mouth, he shared my judgment, but all that he said was, "The King himself would envy the way your baron keeps his town in such splendor."
The soldier shrugged as he unsheathed his dagger in order to stab at his bread. "I suppose so. If the King wasn't busy trying to cut Blackwood's throat."
This gave me the opening I needed. "This gentleman" – I waved my remaining crust of bread vaguely in Carle's direction – "was asking me how the feud started. I had to confess I have never heard the tale, not being a soldier."
The soldier straightened his spine. Mud-footed and vain, I thought. The perfect combination.
"Oh, certainly,
we
know all about it in the army," said the soldier. "It started with a dead chicken."
Carle and I exchanged looks. "A . . . dead chicken?" I said.
"Yes, run over by a cart, or something like that," the soldier replied as he munched on a mouthful of beans. Bits of beans were already sticking, in an unappetizing fashion, to his beard. Carle silently handed him a face-cloth, which the soldier took with a word of thanks. Then he used it to wipe off the mud from his boots before handing the filthy cloth back to Carle. Carle made no remark on this; he merely slipped the cloth back into his belt-purse, saying, "A chicken? Nothing more than that?"
"Yes, just an ordinary feud." The soldier was now cramming more cornbread into his mouth. "Didn't look as though it was going to be anything important. Then a priest got killed."
I jumped in my place. Carle, his voice as casual as though we were comparing the quality of daisies in Koretia and Emor, said, "Accidentally, I assume?"
"Oh, accidentally, certainly." The soldier took the flask of water Carle proffered, poured it over his head, and then shook his head, sending water scattering upon both Carle and me. The soldier appeared not to notice. "Ah, it's good to be out of the heat. . . . The baron of the village whose hunter had made the mistake even offered up his own life in compensation. Very generous, he was. But the rival baron, he was of the new stock – wouldn't accept a gift from the gods if he was in the wrong mood. You know the type I mean. He sent his own hunter to avenge the killing. His son, they say. When his son didn't come back, the baron demanded to know whether the young man had been killed. Nobody in the other village had seen the hunter; the village's priest questioned everyone. Finally, placed under oath, the younger brother of the baron – not the rival baron, you understand, but the one in the village that had made the mistake about the priest – he confessed he'd seen the hunter. He said that the hunter had told him that he – the hunter, that is – didn't wish to fight in the feud anymore. So he – I mean the hunter – broke his blood vow and ran off somewhere." The soldier shrugged. "Lots of shouting back and forth after that between the two villages. The baron of the new nobility said that the hunter was no longer his son, was no longer a member of his village, so their village ought to have the chance to send another hunter in his place. The baron of the
other
village – the baron of the old nobility – said that the hunter's breaking of his oath ended the feud. That baron wasn't even demanding final blood, for love of the gods! But the
new
baron, the stubborn one, wanted to continue the feud till he had won victory. So he appealed the matter to the King, and the other baron appealed the matter to Blackwood . . . and you've heard how matters have gone since then, I'm sure."
The cluster of townsfolk was beginning to thin away. Nearby, a stall-keeper removed his remaining goods from the display crates. Another stall-keeper pulled down the flap at the front of his tent. The rest of the townsfolk wandered toward the door leading out of the market.
It was Carle who finally broke the silence. "Blood for blood – yes, we know how these matters go. And the King demanded the blood of Cold Run's baron's brother, someone told me recently. Is Blackwood demanding the blood of Mountside's baron's son?"
The soldier shrugged as he wiped his greasy dagger on his tunic. "I doubt anyone except the original villagers cares about the fate of that hunter any more. There've been too many deaths on both sides since that time."
"And the original villagers?" My voice sounded hollow but calm. "Has Mountside's baron said anything more about his son?"
The soldier shrugged again. The events in that village, understandably, seemed to be of no further interest to him. Carle, smelling the scent on this track begin to fade, switched to a new path. "And amidst this all, the Jackal appears. I have been wondering about that, you know. Why the Jackal should have made his first appearance so close to the villages where the feud began. Do you think it is a coincidence?"
I stared at Carle, at awe once more at his mind's quickness. In the short interval after the time that the soldier told his startling tale, I could not have possibly made the connection between that and Malise's announcement, many months ago, that the Jackal's first appearance in the borderland had been in a village near Mountside.
The soldier smiled. "A jackal always scents the blood of the dead, I suppose? Your guess is as likely to be true as mine. Though my roommate might know."
"Your roommate?" Carle peered down at his flask, now empty of all water.
"Yes, I room with a soldier who's from Borderknoll, originally. He wasn't there when the Jackal appeared, but of course he has family in the village. He might know whether the Jackal said anything about these other villages."
"Really?" Carle's tone was idle as he continued to stare at his flask. "Is your roommate home now?"
"Him?" The soldier roared with laughter. "Not him. He's as much a night-carouser as those decadent Emorians."
"Indeed?" Carle flashed him a smile. "Out all night, sampling the fleshpots, is he?"
"That's him. A girl in each arm, and a cup of wine in each hand. He'll stumble home sated and drunk some time in the night. How he manages to wake himself each morning . . ." The soldier shook his head as he rose to his feet. "Me, I'm for an early night. But if you want to meet him, I could bring him by here tomorrow. . . ." He was eyeing Carle's flask, obviously hoping for an offer of more than water the next day.
"That is very kind of you," said Carle, not moving his eye from the flask. "But I have come to Blackpass on business, and I fear I will be leaving for home tomorrow. Adrian, would you refill this?"
I took the water flask from him without a word. The soldier, disappointed from hopes of free wine, began to rise, but was forestalled as Carle said, "There is one other thing I have always wondered, and only a soldier such as you can tell me. . . ."
I did not hear the rest of the conversation. I had gone back to the cheese-seller's stall and was beckoning to the merchant there while keeping one eye on Carle and the soldier.
By the time I returned to the market, it was closed for the night. Carle was waiting for me, standing in the shadow of a tree. He was as dark as a breacher on a moonless night.
I joined him in his hideaway. "Well?" he said in a low voice.
"He boards just down the road. I looked through the window while he was readying himself for bed. He lives in a single room with two cots; the second cot was empty."
"That was good hunting." Carle squeezed my shoulder briefly, and I felt the warmth of his approval enter me. He gestured – the old, familiar gesture of a sublieutenant ordering his partner to take the lead – and I began walking with him down the street. The street was nearly empty now, since, as the soldier had put it in his rude manner, most Koretians retire to bed at an earlier hour than Emorians.
"No hope of tracking this roommate down at one of the aforementioned fleshpots, I suppose?" Carle enquired quietly.
"None," I said. "Officially, no brothels exist in Koretia; prostitution is against the gods' law. The unofficial brothels take time to track down . . . or so I've heard."
"Never been to one yourself?" Carle enquired.
"Never." I glanced his way. "And you?"
"No, I received many a lecture from my father on the necessity of reserving one's seed for one's properly wedded wife." Carle pushed aside the bough of a tree that was growing in the middle of the street.
"But your father . . ." I said awkwardly.
"Was an adulterer. I learned more lessons from his ill behavior than from any lecture he gave me. I've no intention of treating any woman in such a filthy manner. I'll wait until I can bed a wife, though I don't plan to marry till I'm retired from army service." He glanced my way.
I was grateful to him for his chatter on light matters; it had given me the time I needed to recover from what the soldier had told us. I said, "I'm sorry."
"Is your confession to me or to the Chara?" As usual, Carle didn't pretend to misunderstand what I meant. "Adrian, you can't take the burdens of the world into your arms. You refused to murder, and other men used that as an excuse to murder further. It's their folly that has created this war, not anything you did."
I swallowed. "If I had allowed Griffith to sight and kill me, the feud would have ended."
"And Griffith would have become a murderer, which would have done his spirit no good." Carle squeezed my shoulder again as we passed under the hearth-light spilling out from someone's upstairs dwelling. "Griffith is Cold Run's baron – am I right in remembering that? Truth to tell, he's the only one besides yourself and Fenton and your intended victim that I respect in this story. At least Griffith made an attempt to end the feud peacefully."
I nodded as I stared down at the dirt of the street. "He has always been honorable; that's why my cousin Emlyn chose him as his blood brother. But now that the feud has spread beyond the original villages . . ."
"This land," Carle said carefully, "has been dry tinder, waiting for a spark that would create a conflagration. The spark could have been anything. You're not to blame yourself for this, Adrian."
His voice had turned stern. I forced myself to move my attention back to my duties. The streets had turned very quiet; nobody would be about now except soldiers . . . and the criminals whom the soldiers sought to apprehend. Seeing a flicker of movement down the street, I took hold of Carle's sleeve, and he and I melted into the recess of a doorway.
"There," I whispered, pointing. "That house on the corner. You can see the door from here?"
Carle shaded his eyes against the moonlight. "Is that the only door?"
"Yes. If the roommate comes home tonight, he'll have to enter there. Do you think he's likely to have any useful information?"
Carle shrugged. "Who's to say? But we already know much more than we knew at the beginning of the night. And if we could send information to the Chara about any connection that the Jackal might have to this feud . . ."
I knew what he was thinking. Not only would we be providing service to the Chara, but I would be able to make partial recompense to the Chara for the trouble that I had started at his border. Silently, I handed Carle the flask.
He took a swig from it and nearly choked in surprise. "Adrian, this is wall-vine wine. Where did you get it?"
"From the cheese-merchant," I replied. "I told him that you needed a bit of wine to see you through your sentry-duty tonight because you were born in the south, and like all southern Koretians, you were very frail, unable to cope with the chill night air of the north—" I jerked away, laughing, as Carle made a mock punch at me.
"'Very frail.'" He grinned as he handed me back the flask. "Next time we do sword-practice, I'll show you how 'very frail' I am. Don't you think it's dangerous to make a remark like that to me in Koretia? Aren't you afraid I'll duel you?"
"No." I smiled at him as I sipped from the flask.
"No," Carle agreed, and taking the flask from me, he settled back in the recess of the doorway, his eye on the house where we awaited the hunted. I took my journal out of my back-sling and began to write.
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The twenty-ninth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.
We finally gave up our watch when the moon set, about three hours before dawn.
"If we don't get back now, the lieutenant will notice that we're gone, and then he'll have us up for a reprimand for being absent without his leave," said Carle with a lazy grin. "I haven't even figured out yet how we're going to break the news to him about how we spent our night."
That turned out to be the least of our worries. We were delayed reaching the border because we kept meeting clusters of soldiers on the streets, and we had to find ways to bypass them because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves at such a late hour. Then we had to figure out a way to get past the locked town gates. Then we had to stumble our way down a moonless forest path. By the time we finally made it to the border, it was an hour before dawn. As we peered cautiously around the rock shielding us from view, the first man we sighted was Quentin, talking to the Koretian subcaptain.
Carle swore a few phrases I had best not record, then followed it up with the more conventional curse: "May the high doom fall upon us. We'll never get past Quentin, and he must know that we're gone anyway."
"What do we do?" I asked. "Wait until he returns to the hut?"
"No, he's probably worried since we've been gone all night. He may even have told the Koretians of our prank. We had better brazen this out."
I could hear Quentin's voice from where we crouched. The words were unclear, but his voice was raised above its normal level. The voice stopped with the abruptness of a horse rearing to a halt as we emerged from behind the rock. The other border guards, who had been talking amidst themselves, fell silent as well as we walked forward. Finally we reached the ridge marking the border between Koretia and the no-man's-land of the mountains. Carle said, with forced jocularity, "Good day to you, lieutenant! We have come to surrender to you for our crime of being pranksters."
His joke plopped like a dull stone into the pool of silence around us. Quentin gazed upon us expressionlessly. After a moment, though, a grin appeared on the face of the subcaptain, who said in an easy voice, "There you are, lieutenant. I told you they would return home in the end."
"So you did." Quentin's voice was even softer than usual. "Will you allow my men over the border, sir?"
"Certainly." The subcaptain looked over at his own men, whose smiles now matched his own. "