Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

We talked about Smada, of course, and what we really thought of him. Which wasn’t what we really thought of him at all. It was what we really wanted to think of him.

He had been a chickenshit with that young punk, no matter what he said.

“Right?”

“Right!”

And there really wasn’t anything stupid about us wanting to come here to this world, it was just our being so adventurous and all.

“Right?”

“Right!”

And his amazement at our wanting to be here just showed even more what a weasel he was.

“Right?”

“Right!”

If he’d really been a real swordsman he’d never want to live in wimpy twentieth-century America.

“Right?”

“Right!”

But even if he was a sniveler, we weren’t. We were damned glad to be here where men were men.

“Right?”

“Right!”

And if anybody else doubted it or just wanted to make something of it, we’d kick their ass.

“Right?”

“Right!”

In fact, we were just hoping somebody’d mess with us.

“Right?”

“Goddam right!”

You see how bad we could get?

The last thought 1 had before passing out on that bench waiting for the whores was of Smada’s face earlier that night when we’d been explaining why we were glad to be there. He had held up a hand for quiet. And once he had it he fiddled pensively with his goatee a second. Then he spoke, all the time looking back and forth between Lanny and me.

“Lads, I wish to have this clear in my old head. You have traveled here from a land of plenty where most men live threescore and twenty winters, may transport themselves one hundred leagues in a day, may expect to live a long and honorable life without once having need of violent resort and where the most compelling issue of the kingdom is the debt incurred from overpaying the poor?”

“That’s it,” I replied brightly.

“M’Lord Smada,” Lanny rushed to say—which surprised me—“we wish you could understand just exactly why we undertook this journey of—’ ’

“I do, lad. 1 do.”

“Do you really, sir?” asked Lanny, seeming terribly relieved for some reason. “I do. You are, both of you, idiotic fools.”

We woke up a little before dawn with the son of the innkeeper and a servant helping us stagger down the narrow hallway to our rooms. Room, rather, since the sight of the other bed in Lanny’s room was too sweet a sight for me to move another step. I shouldered in past the innkeeper’s son and slammed down upon it.

Lanny had been mumbling something the whole time we’d been stumbling along, mumbling it over and over again under his breath. Just before 1 went under again 1 recognized it.

“Alka-Seltzer . . . Alka-Seltzer . . . Alka-Seltzer ...”

1 knew just how he felt.

This time, we were just too smart for Smada.

He came into the room in a rush, looking . . . well, gorgeous. His hair was neatly trimmed, his goatee meticulous and . . . you get the idea; those damn whores had spent all night long preening him instead of servicing us, dammit! But this didn’t do too much more than add to the anger we

already felt for him. And when he tried to con us again . . .

It seems there was a feller named Lord Grey-something. Greydon, I think. Anyway, he was coming in from the west. He was the lord who had been pursuing Smada. He was also the one now shy a couple of outriders, thanks to Lanny and me. He would arrive at the inn by early afternoon or thereabouts.

He was not in a good mood.

The east road, according to Smada, was the way out of “our little difficulty.”

Lanny and I looked at each other. “Our little difficulty?” Lanny retorted sarcastically. “Whaddya mean, ‘our’? You’re the one he’s after.”

“Yeah,” I offered indignantly. “Besides, his men died in self-defense.”

Smada raised an eyebrow quizzically. “And?”

Lanny and I looked at each other again. “They attacked us first!” I pointed out.

Smada just did it again. “And?”

“Would you stop saying that?” I snarled.

Smada half smiled. “What would you have me say, lad?” “C’mon, Smada. You know damn well he isn’t after us. He’ll understand once we tell him what really happened.” “Will he?”

“Sure he will!”

Smada stared a few seconds. “I see. Lads, if ever I had uncertain thoughts as to your tale of transport in the past, I do hereby now lay them low. I doubt not at all that you spoke truly of your native land.”

“You believe us?” Lanny asked.

“I do.”

“How come?” I wanted to know.

He smiled. But it was a grim one. “Because in no way could you have lived so long in this land.”

And then he walked out.

Lanny and I sat up on the edges of our beds and talked about this awhile. The gist of it was this: That fat old smoothie was surely trying to con us again. Into doing his fighting for him again, most likely. And the smart thing for us to do was just stay away from him. If he wanted to run away—and that seemed to us to be the only thing he ever did anyway—then let him go. We weren’t scared of this Greydon dude. Oh, maybe a little. But we were sure we could work things out with the guy.

At least that’s what we said.

We liked Smada. We really did. But he was a con artist and a chickenshit and . . . facts were facts. Best to go back to sleep. God knew we needed it.

Facts were facts. Facts are facts.

And fools are fools. We slept.

It wasn’t until some hours later, when the innkeeper burst in to demand payment, that we realized our money was gone.

“Ah hah!” smirked the innkeeper. “Just as Lord Smada suspected.”

“Smada!” Lanny and I shouted in unison. “He’s the one who took it!” Lanny added.

It was obvious, Lanny explained to him, that Smada had done the whole bit. Lanny was smooth and persuasive and reasonable. He was as good as I’ve ever heard him.

And the innkeeper bought it. It seems he had suspected Smada all along. And when it had been Smada who suggested that the two young sirs asleep upstairs had no coins . . .

But we could still catch him. He had only just left down the east road. If we hurried . . .

“We’re way ahead of you,” said Lanny as we gathered ourselves together to ride.

We were gone a full mile’s gallop when it hit us.

“Wait a minute!” yelled Lanny, pulling up his mount sharply. “Wait just one goddam minute!”

I pulled up alongside. “What’sa matter?”

“He did it to us again!”

“Who?” I asked, looking around like an idiot. “Smada?”

“Hell yes, Smada. And that bloody innkeeper. Look, here we are going down the damned east road just like he wanted. Right?”

“Uh, right.”

“And that innkeeper—who doesn’t know us from Adams, by the way—is suddenly trusting us to leave owing him money, catch up to the thief that stole from us, retrieve it, and return and pay him back? Doesn’t that sound just a little fishy to you?”

“Uh . . . yeah.”

“Well, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back to the inn, stupid. For whatever reason, Smada wants to get us away from that place.”

“He says it’s because of that Greydon guy.”

“ ‘He says! He says!’ Dammit, Felix. I’m gonna go back to that innkeeper and kick his butt through the roof of his mouth until he tells me the truth. Are you coming?”

“Yeah!”

“Right?”

“Right!”

You have to understand, this made perfect sense in the stage we were in. That is: hungover and stupid.

So we went back. Despite everyone’s attempts to save us, Smada’s, the innkeeper’s. Despite everything, we went galloping straight back into the nightmare to come.