Raymond Feist - Rise of a Merchant Prince

Silence greeted him as he paused to consider his next move. He slowed his breathing and looked around. The sun had set less than an hour before and the sky to the west might still hold some glow, but under the thick trees it could have been midnight. Roo listened. A moment later he heard another arrow flight, and he moved.

Circling as quietly as he could through the darkness, he ran swiftly to the place where he thought the bowman might be hiding. At this point he was convinced he was being besieged by a pair of poor bandits, trying to pick off the two guards so they could plunder whatever cargo ventured along the small road far from the King’s justice.

Roo waited. After a few more moments of silence, he heard someone stirring in the brush ahead of him and he acted. As quick as a cat on a mouse, he was through the brush and on top of the other bandit. The struggle was quickly over. The man attempted to drop his bow and pull a knife when he sensed Roo’s approach from behind.

The man died before the knife was out of his belt.

‘It’s over,’ said Roo.

A moment later, Duncan and Tom appeared, wraithlike in the gloom. ‘Just two of them?’ asked Duncan.

‘If there’s another, he’s halfway to Krondor,’ said Tom. He had obviously fallen hard, as he was dirty from boot to the top of his head on his left side, and he had a bruise on his left cheek. He held his right arm across his chest, holding tight to his left biceps, and flexed the fingers of his left hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Roo.

‘Fell damn hard on this arm, I guess,’ answered his father. ‘It’s all tingly and numb.’ He seemed short of breath as he spoke. Blowing out a long note, he added, ‘Some time of it, that was. Not ashamed to admit I was scared for a bit.’

Duncan knelt and rolled over the bandit. ‘This one looks like a ragpicker,’ he said.

‘Few honest traders and only a few more dishonest ones brave this route,’ said Tom. ‘Never been a rich outlaw I heard of, and certainly not around here.’ He shook his hand as if trying to wake up a sleeping limb.

Duncan came away with a purse. ‘He might not have been rich, but he wasn’t coinless, either.’ He opened the purse and found a few copper coins and a single stone. Walking back into the light of the campfire, he knelt to inspect the gem. ‘Nothing fancy, but it’ll fetch a coin or two.’

Roo said, ‘Better see if the other is dead.’

He found the first man he had encountered lying facedown in the mud, and when he rolled him over, discovered a boy’s face on the corpse. Shaking his head in disgust, Roo quickly found the boy without even the rude leather pouch the other bandit had possessed.

He returned to the wagons as Duncan put down the bow he had taken from the first bandit. ‘Pretty poor,’ he said, tossing it aside. ‘Ran out of arrows.’ Roo sat down with an audible sigh.

‘What do you think they’d be doing with all this wine?’ asked Duncan.

‘Probably drink a bit,’ said Tom. ‘But it was the horses and whatever coin we carry, and the swords you have and anything else they could sell.’

Duncan said, ‘We bury them?’

Roo shook his head. ‘They’d not have done the same for us. Besides, we’ve no shovel. And I’m not about to dig their graves with my hands.’ He sighed. ‘If they’d been proper bandits, we’d have been feeding the crows tomorrow instead of them. Better keep alert.’

Duncan said, ‘Well then, I’m turning in.’

Tom and Roo sat before the fire. Because of his age, Roo and Duncan allowed Tom the first watch. The man with the second had it roughest, having to awake for a few hours in the dark, then turn in again. Roo also knew that dawn was the most dangerous time for attack, as guards were the sleepiest and least alert and anyone contemplating a serious assault would wait for just before sunrise. Chances were near-certain if Tom had morning watch, should trouble come he’d be sound asleep when he died.

Tom said, ‘Had a stone like that one Duncan’s got, once.’

Roo said nothing. His father rarely talked to him, a habit that had developed in childhood. Rupert had traveled with his father many times as a boy, learning the teamster’s trade, but on the longest of those journeys, from Ravens-burg to Salador and back, he’d rarely had more than ten words for the boy. When at home, Tom drank to excess, and when working, remained sober but stoic.

‘I got it for your mother,’ said Tom quietly.

Roo was riveted. If Tom was a quiet man when sober, he was always silent about Roo’s mother, sober or drunk. Roo knew what he did about his mother from others in the village, for she had died in childbirth.

‘She was a tiny thing,’ said Tom. Roo knew his diminutive status was a legacy from his mother. Erik’s mother had mentioned that more than once. ‘But strong,’ said Tom.

Roo found that surprising. ‘She had a tough grit to her,’ continued Tom, his eyes shining in the firelight. ‘You look like her, you know.’ He held his right arm across his chest, clutching his left arm, which he massaged absently. He peered into the fire as if seeking something in the dancing flame.

Roo nodded, afraid to speak. Since he had struck his father, knocking him to the ground, the old man had treated him with a deference Roo had never experienced before. Tom sighed. ‘She wanted you, boy. The healing priest told her it would be chancy, with her being so tiny.’ He wiped his right hand over his face, then looked at his own hands, large, oft scarred, and calloused. ‘I was afraid to touch her, you know, with her being so small and me having no gentleness in me. I was afraid I’d break her. But she was tougher than she looked.’

Roo swallowed, suddenly finding it hard to speak. He finally whispered, ‘You never speak of her.’

Tom nodded. ‘I had so little joy in this life, boy. And she was every bit of it. I met her at a festival, and she looked like this shy bird of a thing, standing on the edge of the crowd at the feast of Midsummer. I had just come up from Salador, driving a wagon for my uncle, Duncan’s grandfather. I was half-drunk and full of myself, and then she was right there before me, bold as bright brass, and she says, “Dance with me."’ He sighed. ‘And I did.’

He was silent awhile. He hugged himself, and his breath seemed labored, and he had to swallow hard to speak. ‘She had that same look you do, not fetching with her thin face and uneven teeth, until she smiled – then she lit up and was beautiful. I got her that stone I was speaking of for our wedding. Had it set in a ring for her.’

‘Like a noble,’ said Roo, forcing his voice to a lighter tone.

‘Like the Queen herself,’ Tom answered with a shallow laugh. He swallowed hard. ‘She said I was mad and should sell it for a new wagon, but I insisted she keep it.’

‘You never told me,’ said Roo softly.

Tom shrugged and was silent. He took a deep breath, then said, ‘You’re a man now. Showed me that when I woke to find you standing over me at Gaston’s. Never thought you’d amount to much, but you’re a shrewd one, and if you can beat the King’s own hangman, and learn to handle yourself so I can’t bully you, why, I figure you’ll turn out all right down the road.’ Tom smiled slightly and said, ‘You’re like her that way; you’re tougher than you look.’

Roo sat in silence a minute, not knowing what to say, then after a bit he said, ‘Why don’t you turn in, Father. I have some thinking to do.’

Tom nodded. ‘I think I will. Got a pain in my neck.’ He moved his left shoulder as if to loosen tight muscles. ‘Must have really twisted it hitting the ground when those lads started shooting arrows at us. Hurts from my wrist to my jaw.’ He wiped perspiration from his brow. ‘Broke a bit of sweat, too.’ He sucked in a large breath and blew it out, as if just standing had been exertion. ‘Getting too old for this. When you get rich, you remember your old father, hear me, Roo?’