R. Salvatore - The Highwayman

The man stopped and threw aside the remaining piece of tomato, quickly drawing his short sword. "Who said that?" He glanced all around, even hopped in a circle, waving his weapon.

"An admirer," the Highwayman replied.

The soldier stopped and followed the voice to the tree that held the Highwayman.

"Truly," the Highwayman went on. "I do admire one who has found a way to so easily steal that which he desires. It shows cunning and efficiency, I think."

"Steal? Bah, I'm no thief! This is the laird's business and none of my own."

"Laird Prydae bids you to eat your booty?"

The man laughed. "Get yourself gone, and be quick. I've no time to suffer a fool. You interfere with the laird's tax collectors on penalty of death."

"Oh, but I am already so marked," the Highwayman said, and he dropped from the tree, landing a few paces in front of the soldier. The man fell back a step, surprised.

"Do you not know who I am?" the Highwayman asked. He drew out the sword that had recently been hanging in the private quarters of Laird Prydae, the sword that had incited a search of the whole town.

"You!" the soldier cried.

"Curiously said," replied the Highwayman. "Could I not claim the same of you?"

"You're…you're him!"

"Again, my point holds."

"You come with me!" the soldier demanded. "In the name of Laird Prydae, I arrest you!" He dropped the sack and presented his sword in a menacing manner.

The Highwayman suppressed a chuckle and instead backed off a cautious step.

"Come on, then," said the soldier. "I've been fighting in the south for a year now and think nothing of cutting you up."

The Highwayman glanced around as if he meant to run away. The soldier, predictably, rushed ahead, the tip of his sword barely inches from the Highwayman's chest.

"Now!" he said with a growl. "Last chance to surrender before I run you through."

The Highwayman sighed, feigning fright, and presented his sword horizontally before him. When the soldier reached for the offered blade, the Highwayman tossed it up into the air.

The soldier's eyes followed the ascent.

A right cross from the Highwayman staggered him backward, tumbling to his knees.

The Highwayman caught his blade as it fell and leaped forward in a spin, whacking the soldier's feebly presented sword across, then rolling behind the blade and up the man's arm, timing his turn perfectly so that he could drive his left elbow into the side of the man's face. He felt the soldier's sudden halt and reversal, and he dropped as the man cut a fast backhand, the short sword whipping above his head.

And the Highwayman came up fast, inside the soldier's reach, bringing the tip of his sword under the soldier's chin and forcing the man up on his tiptoes.

"I will hear your sword hit the ground, or I will hear the last breath of your life," the Highwayman calmly stated, and he inched his sword up just a bit to accentuate his point.

The short sword fell to the dirt beside them.

Up came the Highwayman's knee into the soldier's groin, as the Highwayman retracted his blade and stepped back. Again he spun, a foot flying to smash the lurching, bending man's jaw, sending him falling to the side and to the ground.

"The first rule of battle is to know your enemy," he explained, though the man was far from hearing him, or anything, at that moment. "The second is to prepare the battlefield. And the third, one you apparently have not read, my sleeping friend, is to make certain that your enemy thinks that you are less formidable than you are."

The man stirred and groaned and pulled himself up to his elbows and shook his head.

"Although I admit, such a tactic would be difficult to present, for one of your lack of skill."

The man growled.

"But you have learned, perhaps. I suppose that if we meet again, you will not be so easily deceived," the Highwayman said to him. "On that occasion, regretfully, I will likely have to kill you." He ended by putting his foot on the soldier's shoulder blades and stamping the man flat to the ground, adding the warning, "Of course, if you stubbornly persist now, we will never meet again in this lifetime."

Sometime later, the naked soldier, his arms twisted and bound behind his back with his own torn clothing, a tight gag tied in place, stumbled to the front gates of Castle Pryd.

Sometime later, the peasant woman found a cache of food inside the one small window of her house, as did several of her equally hungry neighbors.

Sometime after that, a voice awakened Cadayle. When she went to the window to investigate, she saw a bright smile below a black silk mask.

"Here, eat well with your mother this evening," the Highwayman said to her, and he handed in a worn sack of food.

"What are you doing?"

"I met with one of Laird Prydae's thugs," the Highwayman explained. "The laird has enough to eat, I think."

"You stole?"

"Well, it sounds harsh when you speak it in like that. I prefer to think of it as seeing to the laird's flock in the name of Prydae himself, and representing his better and more generous side."

Cadayle rubbed a bit of the sleepiness out of her eyes and took the offered food, then glanced back into the darkness of her small house. "If we are caught with this…" she started to warn.

"Then eat it!" came the easy answer. "Laird Prydae's men cannot see into your belly, now can they?"

"You play a dangerous game."

"That makes it more fun."

He finished with another wide and bright smile, and added only, "Eat well, beautiful Cadayle!" before he spun away from the window and disappeared into the night.

She pressed the food close to her breast, and she could feel the excited flutter of her heart.

The Highwayman danced away through the shadows, spinning his sword and leaping into battle against imaginary foes. He knew not why he had acted as a thief this night, knew not why he had suddenly taken this more dangerous fork in the road. But he couldn't deny the lightness of his step, the rush of blood throughout his body, or the thrill of his mischief.

Yes, he knew, he was the Highwayman, who defended the woman he loved, who took back his mother's stolen sword, and who, it now seemed, would not suffer the unfairness of Prydae's rules.

The image of gratitude on the faces of those he had fed this night was better than wine as he danced his way across Pryd Town and back to the quiet chapel.

Almost Honest "All the town speaks of him," Prydae said, grinding his teeth with every word. He moved to the hearth and roughly threw a log onto the fire, for autumn was in the air, the wind chill and from the north.

More than a month had passed since the theft of his precious sword, which was now being used weekly-at least weekly-by the outlaw Highwayman, usually in stealing from Prydae's tax collectors and even some of his soldiers. The lone bandit was striking haphazardly, without any discernable pattern. Every time, he seemed to simply appear out of the darkness, quickly dispatch of any offered defenses-and thus far in a nonlethal, though usually painful, manner-take what booty he could, and melt away back into the night.

"They exult in the glory and cunning of the Highwayman!" Prydae growled.

"Not openly," said Bannagran, standing across the room and stripping off his cloak and wet boots.

"No, and that is all the more troubling. He is feeding them, you know. He is taking the requisitioned food from lawful collectors and distributing it among the peasants."

"We do not know that, my liege. And if we find any such evidence, rest assured that the offending peasant will be punished."

"You know that he is doing that!" Laird Prydae retorted, turning sharply on his friend.

Bannagran shrugged, not arguing.