Мерседес Лэки - Passages

— which might be a relief at this point.

But the rest of the punishment for an altercation would be to have her pay docked and paid to Hadrick.

No. Absolutely not.

She wasn’t the only one having second thoughts about staying.

Every time she laid her head down at night, Need would grumble distantly at her, and she knew why. Why are you allowing yourself to be treated this way? And why was she? It made no sense. What would Tarma have done in this situation?

Wiped the floor with him—

Maybe.

It wasn’t as if he had hurt her in any way. No, it was just harassment. Constant harassment. Harassment that wasn’t doing her any actual harm but was definitely rubbing her temper raw.

Not that my temper is all that good, she admitted, and even though the temptation was great to just walk away and find some solo jobs or even another company—well there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t encounter someone else just like Hadrick in the next place, now, was there?

I . . . have no idea. She’d never had much to do with fighters, or fighting, until she’d been forced into riding to the rescue of her brand-new sister-in-law because there was no one in the keep left standing. Had everyone else here been sure they wanted to be warriors all their lives? Or had they just fallen into it—not exactly the way she had, but because parents had been fighters, or because it was the only way for someone born poor to get out of being a farmhand all their life?

Gah, I’m thinking too much. She decided that for once she’d go down to the tavern for a couple of drinks of good strong beer to get the taste of that salted ale out of the back of her throat.

She unlocked her chest, got a few coins, and bundled herself up in her coat. She thought about taking Need, and decided against it. There was always the chance the sword would decide to have another mental wrestling match with her if she put it on, and she definitely was not in the mood.

The tavern was surprisingly full—full enough so that she spotted Hadrick before he spotted her, and she was able to get her beer and maneuver around the place to keep his back to her while she found a seat, a lone stool no one else seemed to want, against the wall and behind the table he was at, half-sheltered behind a support pillar for the roof.

Hadrick was gambling with three men who weren’t Skybolts. They didn’t look like freelance mercs either, which meant they were either travelers or locals. She sipped her beer and watched, for once finding herself in the position of seeing without being seen. Lidreth and two other Skybolts were watching the game, standing behind two of the strangers.

And it wasn’t long before Kero realized he was cheating.

It was a complicated game involving dice and moving pegs on a board. There were two dice, and every time it was his turn to throw, he palmed a die of his own in and out again, restoring the original before passing it on to the next man. The advantage was slight, but it was just enough for him to keep winning.

Her temper, already fraying, came within a hair of snapping. Well, that certainly explained how he was salting her drinks and pulling all those other tricks and getting away with it—he had first-class levels of sleight of hand, and if she hadn’t been looking at him from the angle she was, she’d never have seen it.

And she was just about to rise up and scream out her accusation, giving vent to all her frustration and anger, when with one last supreme effort, she throttled it all back down. First, she’d have to catch him when the loaded die was on the table, because someone as good as he was could make the damned thing disappear, and there’d be no proof. Keep your temper, she told herself. And she kept it throttled down—but it might have been the hardest thing she’d ever done since she’d gone to study with her grandmother and Tarma.

And the next several passes gave her no opportunity. For some reason, he didn’t bring the die out. Maybe because he was far enough ahead he didn’t feel he needed the edge.

But she kept her eyes on the dice so closely that on the third pass she realized something else.

The man next to Hadrick was cheating too.

He wasn’t quite as good as Hadrick, and unlike Hadrick, he always returned what was probably a loaded die into the same pocket. And in the same moment that she realized that, Hadrick slammed the man’s hand down on his crooked die before he could switch it out again.

“Bleeding cheat!” Hadrick roared. “Gotchu!”

And as he jumped to his feet, he dropped his loaded die into his belt-pouch.

His opponent leaped to his feet, but before either of them could do anything more, Kero jumped in between them and pinned both their hands to the table.

“He might be cheating,” she shouted, “but so are you, Hadrick!” She caught Lidreth’s eye. “Check his belt-pouch—he just dropped the loaded die in there that he’s been using all night.”

The two men froze, perhaps because they were surrounded by a room full of people, as Lidreth came around to Kero’s side of the table and fished in Hadrick’s pouch, coming up with the telltale die, which she held up, then rolled. “Six,” she proclaimed, then rolled it twice more, just to verify it would come up six each time.

Two Skybolts pinned Hadrick’s arms behind him; two locals did the same with the stranger. Lidreth scooped the stranger’s die off the table and rolled it to confirm that it, too, was loaded. Then she looked at Kero.

“Well?” she said. “What do we do with ’em? Throw ’em both to the dogs?” And she nodded at the crowd, who looked perfectly prepared to beat both of the cheaters to a pulp.

“Don’t look to us to back you, either,” said one of the Skybolts holding Hadrick’s arms. “You brought this on yourself.”

Hadrick said nothing. And Kero thought about the last fortnight, and all the grief he’d heaped on her, and her anger flared—but then it died.

“Take Hadrick to Twoblades,” she growled. “And turn this one over to the keeper.” And she’d have said something more, but the silence in the tavern was broken by someone clapping, slowly.

The crowd divided to let Lerryn Twoblades himself through, still applauding. Kero gaped at him, as the people holding Hadrick and the stranger dropped the captives’ arms and let them go.

“Well done, recruit,” the leader of the Skybolts said. “Good answer. And good job of keeping your anger under control while Hadrick plagued you. I thought for certain you’d have snapped long before this. Most people do.”

“This—was all a test?” Kero shook her head numbly. “Do you do this to everyone ?”

“Everyone—well, not the little show of cheating. We save that for people who pass the temper test,” Lidreth admitted. “Those, we give a chance for revenge. The whole village was in on this part.”

“But—” she was going to ask why, but then she realized what the answer was. Because Twoblades required that his people be able to work together no matter what was going on off the battlefield. People who couldn’t control their tempers couldn’t do that. Neither could people who plotted revenge over grievances. Hadrick watched her face closely and rubbed the back of his head ruefully.

“I dunno if you’ll—” he began

“Apology accepted,” she said. “Provided you sweep the common room and clean the steam bath the next four times my name comes up on the roster.”

“Hey!” he began to object. “But—”

“You salted my ale, you put bitters in my tea, and you dropped greenwort into my stew, which would have given me enough wind to drive everyone out of the barracks if I’d eaten it,” she said steadily.