Peter Brett - The Warded Man

After a frantic chase around the room, the shepherd’s wife had jumped upon her husband’s back, restraining him long enough for Rojer to snatch up his bags and dart out the door. Rojer’s bags were always packed. Arrick had taught him that.

“Night,” he muttered, as his boot sucked into a thick mud puddle. The cold and wet seeped right in through the soft leather, but he dared not stop and try to build a fire just yet.

He drew his motley cloak tighter, wondering why he always seemed to be running from something. Over the last two years, he had moved on almost every season, living in Cricket Run, Woodsend, and Shepherd’s Dale three times each, at least, but he still felt like an outsider. Most villagers went their whole lives without ever leaving their town, and were forever attempting to persuade Rojer to do the same.

Marry me. Marry my daughter. Stay at my inn and we’ll paint your name over the door to attract custom. Keep me warm while my husband’s afield. Help us harvest and stay the winter.

They said it a hundred ways, but they all meant, “Give up the road and plant roots here.”

Every time it was said, Rojer found himself on the road. It was nice to be wanted, but as what? A husband? A father? A farmhand? Rojer was a Jongleur, and he could not imagine being anything else. The first time he lifted a finger at harvest or helped chase down a lost sheep he knew he would be starting down a road that would quickly make him otherwise.

He touched the golden-haired talisman in its secret pocket, feeling Arrick’s spirit watching over him. He knew he would feel his master’s disappointment keenly if he ever put his motley aside. Arrick had died a Jongleur, and Rojer would, too.

True to Arrick’s words, the hamlets had sharpened Rojer’s skills. Two years of constant performing had made him into more than just a fiddler and tumbler. Without Arrick to lead, Rojer had been forced to broaden and grow, coming up with innovative ways to entertain alone. He was constantly perfecting some new magic trick or bit of music, but as much as his tricks and fiddling, he had become known for his storytelling.

Everyone in the hamlets loved a good story, especially one that told of faraway places. Rojer obliged, telling of places he’d seen and places he hadn’t, towns that sat over the next hill and ones that existed only in his imagination. The stories grew bigger with every telling, his characters coming alive in people’s minds as they went on their adventures. Jak Scaletongue, who could speak to corelings, and was forever tricking the stupid beasts with false promises. Marko Rover, who crossed the Milnese mountains and found a rich land on the other side where corelings were worshipped like gods. And of course, the Warded Man.

The duke’s Jongleurs passed through the hamlets to make decrees every spring, and the latest had told tales of a feral man who wandered the wilderness, killing demons and feasting on their flesh. He claimed it was honest word from a tattooist who had put wards on the man’s back, and that others had confirmed the tale. The audience’s attention had been rapt, and when folk had asked Rojer to retell the story another night, he had obliged, adding embellishments all his own.

Listeners loved to ask questions and attempt to catch him in contradiction, but Rojer delighted in the dance of words, keeping the bumpkins convinced of his outlandish tales.

Ironically, the most difficult boast to sell was that he could make the corelings dance with his fiddle. He could have proved it at any time, of course, but as Arrick used to say, “The moment you get up to prove one thing, you’ll be expected to prove them all.”

Rojer looked up at the sky. I’ll be playing for the corelings soon enough, he thought. It had been overcast all day, and was getting steadily darker. In the cities, where high walls made it so that most people never saw an actual coreling, it was believed to be a tampweed tale that they could rise under dark clouds, but living outside the walls in the hamlets for two years had taught Rojer better. Most would wait until full sunset to rise, but if the clouds grew thick enough, a few bold demons would test the false night.

Cold and wet and in no mood to take the risk, he cast about for a suitable campsite. He’d be lucky to make Woodsend the next day. More likely, he would be two nights on the road. The thought made his stomach churn.

And Woodsend would be no better than the Dale. Or Cricket Run, for that matter. Sooner or later, he would get some woman with child, or worse, fall in love, and before he knew it, he would only be taking his fiddle from its case on festival days. Until he needed to barter it to fix the plow or buy seed, that was. Then he would be just like everyone else.

Or you could go home.

Rojer often thought of returning to Angiers, but was forever coming up with reasons to put it off another season. After all, what did the city have to offer? Narrow streets, choked with people and animals, wooden planks infused with the stench of manure and garbage. Beggars and thieves and the ever-present worry about money. People who ignored each other as an art.

Normal people, Roger thought, and sighed. Villagers were always seeking to know everything about their neighbors, and opened their homes to strangers without a thought. It was commendable, but Rojer was a city boy at heart.

Returning to Angiers would mean dealing with the guild again. An unlicensed Jongleur’s days were numbered, but a guildsman in good standing’s business was assured. His experience in the hamlets should be enough to win him a license, especially if he found a guildsman to speak for him. Arrick had alienated most of those, but Rojer might find one to take pity on him upon hearing of his master’s fate.

He found a tree that gave some shelter from the rain, and after setting up his circle, managed to collect enough dry tinder from beneath its boughs to start a small fire. He fed it carefully, but the wind and wet extinguished it before long.

“Bugger the hamlets,” Rojer said as the darkness enveloped him, broken only by the occasional flare of magic as a demon tested his wards.

“Bugger them all.”

Angiers hadn’t changed much since he’d been gone. It seemed smaller, but Rojer had been living in wide-open places for some time, and had grown a few inches since he had been there last. He was sixteen now, a man by anyone’s standards. He stood outside the city for some time, staring at the gate and wondering if he was making a mistake.

He had a little coin, sifted carefully from his collection hat over the years and hoarded against his return, and some food in his pack. It wasn’t much, but it would keep him out of the shelters for a few nights at least.

If all I want is a full belly and a roof, I can always go back to the hamlets , he thought. He could head south to Farmer’s Stump and Cutter’s Hollow, or north, to where the duke had rebuilt Riverbridge on the Angierian side of the river.

If, he told himself again, mustering his courage and walking through the gate.

He found an inn that was cheap enough, and unpacked his best motley, heading back out as soon as he was changed. The Jongleurs’ Guildhouse was located near the center of town, where its residents could easily make engagements in any part of the city. Any licensed Jongleur could live in the house, provided they took the jobs assigned to them without complaint, and paid half their earnings to the guild.

“Fools,” Arrick called them. “Any Jongleur willing to give half his take for a roof and three communal servings of gruel isn’t worthy of the name.”

It was true enough. Only the oldest and least skilled Jongleurs lived in the house, ready to take the jobs others turned down. Still, it was better than destitution, and safer than public shelters. The wards on the guildhouse were strong, and its residents less apt to rob one another.