David Drake - Mistress of the Catacombs

A cheerfully whistled tune drew Garric’s eyes and those of his companions. The young Lady Merota approached the line of Blood Eagles, flanked on one side by Ilna and the other by Chalcus.

“ So fare you well, my own true love ,” Merota sang, caroling the chorus of the tune Chalcus whistled. “ So fare you well a while…. ”

The sailor wasn’t wearing his own weapons, but he carried a long silk-wrapped bundle; the guards stiffened at the sight of it. A reflex Garric borrowed from his warrior ancestor made him reach for his sword.

The sword was gone, missing since healers from both the bodyguard regiment and Lord Waldron’s staff cut Garric’s armor and equipment away in their haste to get at his wounds. Realizing that, Garric relaxed and started to chuckle. That was very bad for his cuts and strains, but the laughter did wonders for his state of mind.

“I’m goin’ away but I’m comin’ back….”

“Let them pass, Captain Lancar,” Garric said, glad he remembered the name of the officer in command of the guard detachment.

The captain turned. He was an old soldier, promoted from the ranks because of courage distinguished even in the company of this regiment of chosen men.

“Yes, all of them,” Garric said. “And Master Chalcus can bring his package through as well.”

“No, your highness,” Lancar said. “He can’t bring the sword he’s got in that wrapper any closer than where I stand.”

Ilna snapped, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say none of you were older than Merota here. But I suppose being a male and being a child are much the same thing.”

Merota looked between her guardians instead of finishing the chorus, “ If I go ten thousand miles .”

Chalcus laughed and handed the packet to Lancar balanced on two fingers of his left hand. “Here you go, captain.”

“These three can pass,” Lancar said, motioning his men to step aside.

If the captain was concerned about what Garric would do, or about anything other than his duty, his stolid face gave no sign of it. He waited for Merota to lead the adults into the guarded area, then walked around Chalcus and gave the package to Garric.

Chalcus grinned past Lancar’s shoulder, and said, “Let him be, your highness. He’s a good soldier doing his job, and who can have too many of them?”

“Not me,” Garric said, struck grim by the thought. “Not now especially. Attaper’s interviewing volunteers to fill at least fifty places in the Blood Eagles, and it may well be a hundred and fifty depending on how lucky we are with gangrene.”

“How’s Attaper himself?” Sharina asked. “Do the healers think they can save his arm?”

“Yes, they will,” said Ilna, drawing eyes to her. Lancar himself looked over his shoulder in surprise, then locked his gaze to the front again.

Ilna drew the hank of cords from her sleeve just far enough to acknowledge them.

“I don’t often do fortune-telling,” she said. Embarrassment turned her voice unusually cold, even for her. “In this case I thought it might help Attaper if I could truthfully tell him he’d not lose the arm, so I checked.”

“She wove a pattern for the warehouse where all the wounded are, too!” Merota said. “They’re all going to get better!”

Chalcus tousled the girl’s hair. “No, child,” he said, “they’re not all going to get better. But more will, I think, than otherwise. Though it’s not as a healer I speak, but from the other end of the business.”

Garric finished unwrapping his sword and dagger. He’d wondered why Ilna hadn’t joined him and the others now that things had settled down. There could have been other reasons, but with Ilna you were usually safe in guessing that duty had determined whatever she was doing.

He pulled the sword an inch from the sheath, saw what he expected, and drew it clear. When he held the blade at a slant to the light, a serpent seemed to squirm up and down the layered steel of the blade.

“ As fine a job of sharpening as I myself could’ve done ,” Carus noted approvingly. “ And a working edge, too; not something razor thin that’ll turn or break on armor .”

“Thank you, Master Chalcus,” Garric said, grinning. He slid the blade home again. He didn’t notice his pain and stiffness while he handled the sword. “As good a job of sharpening as the finest warrior I know could have done.”

“The least I could do for the man who saved our lives, I thought,” the sailor said. With a slight extra brightness in his expression, he went on, “I was wondering one thing as I watched the fellow dancing across the battle to us—was that you, your highness, or the friend you share quarters with?”

Garric laughed. “The friend, sailor,” he said. “And I was glad to know him that day, for I don’t expect I’d have done as well at the task.”

Chalcus nodded pleasantly. “Aye,” he said. “You’re a brisk lad and very quick for your size; I’d not choose to fight you. But your friend, now—if I couldn’t stab him in the back, I’d lay my sword down and hope for mercy. And I say that knowing the hope would be very slight indeed.”

He and Garric both laughed, and in Garric’s mind, the laughing king said, “ But don’t be fooled, lad—he wouldn’t want to face me, but face me he would. And we’d neither of us be quite sure of the outcome .”

The sailor cleared his throat. He looked around the circle, deliberately meeting the eyes of each of the others before saying, “It may be that you think Lady Merota would not have been offered for sacrifice had I not failed my duty to her—”

“You didn’t fail, Chalcus!” the child said. “You rescued me!”

“—and you would be right,” Chalcus continued. He showed his embarrassment only by the unusual precision of the words; his voice had none of the usual music in it. “I came back from the docks to the room we’d taken at an inn. The child was gone, and everyone there pretended they’d never seen her at all.”

“One of the men who took me was a priest!” Merota said proudly. “I could tell from his robes. I cut him with the knife Chalcus gave me!”

“Aye,” said Chalcus softly, “and later I cut him worse myself and took his robe, when I’d convinced the innkeeper that he was wiser to fear me than to fear the Mistress. But all that took time; and when I got to where they were holding milady, there was very little time left. Still, I thought since I was there I’d give them reason to wish they’d picked a different victim.”

“We can’t control results,” Ilna said without emotion. “We can only control our own actions.”

She looked at Chalcus, and went on, “But if I could have controlled the result, it would have been the same as what occurred.”

“Oh,” murmured Cashel. He gave Sharina an extra squeeze with his arm and rose gracefully to his feet, holding the quarterstaff close to his body. “That’s Tilphosa coming. I’ll go…”

“And Lord Thalemos,” Garric said. “Earl Thalemos now that I’ve confirmed him as ruler of Laut. He’s my old comrade in arms, though he probably doesn’t know that.”

He looked at Cashel. Sharina was standing now also; her expression was one of ladylike chill. Ilna watched Thalemos and the girl with disinterested assessment, while the grin on Chalcus’ face indicated he saw the same thing Garric did but was amused by it.

Well, it wasn’t Chalcus’ sister and closest friend who were in the middle of this tension.

“Ah,” said Garric. “I’ll of course pass them through, Cashel, but if you’d rather talk to them privately, that’s—”

“We’ll talk with them here, I think,” Sharina said. Garric had heard winter gales that sounded warmer.