The Swordmaster, page 5
She decided that the following morning she would head for Star, a little town at the foot of Duke Schohtar’s castle to see if she could pick up any more information before making her way to the village of Klamm. The gelding would be useful in this regard – she would forget about having horse-goulash for supper. She left the hut and took care of the animal, rubbing him down before giving him food to eat and water to drink.
The following day, she and her horse made their way through the wilderness at a leisurely trot, avoiding all the popular routes and paths. Dressed in her customary black leather, she rode south. Far to the west, she could make out the first foothills of the Tower Mountains – a collection of peaks that rose as high as three thousand yards and ran along much of the border to Winslorien. Even now during late summer, snow could be seen glittering on the peaks.
In the afternoon, it began to rain. The path meandered greyly towards the horizon where it merged seamlessly with the dreary sky.
The previous evening, she had nourished herself with dried meat, but now she was plagued with hunger. Going hunting in this weather didn’t suit her at all. She would have to procure rations in the next settlement, much as she despised the company of people.
The rain was getting heavier. She cursed and spurred the gelding into a gallop. After a short while, she spotted a small farmhouse with a dilapidated barn and a stable. She dismounted and knocked at the door. An old woman opened it. Two brown eyes in a wrinkled face peered suspiciously out from above tear sacs the size of hens’ eggs. A crinkly mouth with a handful of teeth in the upper jaw asked in a scratchy voice: ‘Yes?’
She considered for a moment whether she might justify the old woman’s suspicion by summarily stabbing her dagger into the old dear’s heart, but then decided on a friendlier approach.
‘Food!’
The woman blinked. ‘Puh! Politeness isn’t your strong point.’
She hadn’t reckoned on that. This old toad had escaped death by the skin of her sparse teeth and now she was being stroppy. Still – there was something admirable about the ancient hag’s courage. She took a deep breath, grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut from the outside. After waiting for a moment before the barred entrance, she knocked, and the door opened again.
The old woman’s face looked even older than before, several additional lines of irritation having applied themselves to the furrowed face. ‘What’s this supposed to mean?’
‘And a very good day to you too, dear grandmother. You’re looking well, today. A little food and some warm shelter from this heavy rain – for a generous fee, of course – are my humble requests. Would you be so good, good woman, as to do me this good service?’
‘Puh! I don’t trust people who talk like that – I preferred the first woman with the murderous eyes.’ Then the old woman asked with an impassive face: ‘Do you want to knock a third time?’
And then something happened that hadn’t happened in a long time. She found herself laughing. Not the artificial, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth Calinka Cornika giggle, not an ironic nor even a sarcastic ‘ha, ha’, but a laugh of genuine amusement – short, but all the more natural for that.
She touched her lower jaw – it hadn’t hurt at all.
‘Come in,’ growled the old bat.
The hut consisted of one room with a hearth, a sleeping area with two straw mats on the floor, a table and three chairs. The rain was pattering onto the thatched roof, which was thankfully halfway waterproof.
‘Who else lives here?’ she asked the old hag.
‘My husband – he’s out in the forest at the moment, checking the traps for food.’
At that moment the door opened, and an old man came in, soaking wet and holding a dead rabbit by its back legs. The animal’s ears were dragging along the floor.
The crone snapped at him: ‘You stupid moron, you’re getting everything wet. Can’t you see that we have a visitor?’
‘Shut your trap, you disgusting witch!’ he snapped. He was wearing a battered old coat, which he took off and hung on a nail beside the door. The rainwater formed into a puddle beneath it. Then the pair approached each other, before hugging one another and kissing.
She stood silently and watched the couple. Both of them looked emaciated.
She couldn’t get the last image of the stonecutter and his wife, embracing in front of the watermill, out of her head. I should at least kill these two quickly, she thought.
The old man gave her a friendly look with his weary eyes: ‘Stay for supper. We were lucky today – the rabbit fell for the bait.’
He raised his arm higher to show her.
‘Puh! Give it to me, you old fool,’ muttered the beldam, yanking the animal out of his hand and proceeding to skin it at the table.
Silently, she sat down on the chair.
The food was on the table by evening time. The old woman divided the rabbit meat into three, pushing the largest portion towards the guest.
She chewed in silence, slaking her thirst with water from a simple clay mug.
‘You’re not very talkative,’ said the old woman, smacking her lips.
‘Old bat, let her not talk if she doesn’t want to talk,’ thundered the old man.
‘What are the two of you doing, living out here?’ she asked.
‘Dying,’ he replied.
‘You can do that anywhere – you don’t have to be living alone in the wilderness.’
‘What my husband means is that we don’t have much time left, one way or another. We are very old already, over sixty, and have been at death’s door a few times already, only to hop away before it was opened. But the hopping is getting evermore laborious with our old bones. Next winter could be our last. We nearly starved last year.’
‘Then stock up on food. You could have salted some of this rabbit to make provisions.’
‘And what would we have put on our guest’s plate this evening?’ asked the old woman. ‘No, no – everything is fine. At our age we live for the moment – who knows if we will wake up tomorrow morning?’
‘You are two fools,’ she scolded.
‘And who are you?’ asked the old man.
‘I am a part of death – perhaps one of his messengers.’
‘Have you come to announce him or to bring us to him?’
‘Neither nor.’
The old woman raised a bony finger. ‘I know all about messengers. There are angels from heaven, not to mention bringers of good luck. Then you have messengers of love, soothsayers and there are even harbingers of death.’
‘And?’ she asked monosyllabically.
‘You believe yourself to be the last of the aforementioned – but only because death is your constant companion – or so it seems to me, at any rate.’
Silence.
The old crone shook her head. ‘You are nothing. If I stab you in the heart, have I then killed death? If you kill yourself, is death then dead? Puh – fiddlesticks! You’re gone and basta!’ She took a deep breath before continuing: ‘Make sure that someone will remember you before that time comes.’
This was all she needed. Did she really have to listen to the banalities of a doddery old grandmother? What did the batty babushka know about life? Well – a little, maybe. But nothing about her life and nothing about dying. She thought about herself for a moment. Who was going to remember her anyway – she didn’t even have a name.
It was getting brighter outside. The rain had stopped. The old couple were polishing off the remains of their food. There was nothing more to be gained here apart from vacuous pearls of worldly wisdom. It was hardly worth killing the two of them.
She stood up, and inexplicably, three large gold coins slipped out of the moneybag in her hand and somehow landed on the table. The money would suffice for at least three hard winters.
The old man and the old woman said not a word. She opened the door and left the hut, likewise saying not a word and without a backward glance. She swore silently to herself that she would take better care of her gold in future.
She felt better now – journeying on her gelding with no humans in sight. The rain had stopped completely, the grass smelled of grass and the earth of earth. She took a deep breath. Did she even want to grow as old as those two she’d just encountered? No, not in this world – she wouldn’t be able to bear it. She planned to reach the Karpane by nightfall. Upriver was a fort where she could cross the river. She noticed that the gelding was beginning to limp. His right hindquarters seemed to be hurting with every step. She slowed down to a gentle walk.
After a while, with the horse’s abnormal gait becoming more abnormal, she dismounted and examined his fetlock. The tissue around his ankle was too tender, too hot and swollen. Trotting or galloping were out of the question. She clicked her tongue. This seemed to have solved her food issue. She led the gelding along beside her with the reins. She would let his joint cool in the river and take it from there.
She saw the hunched body from afar. A man was lying under a tree, apparently lifeless. He didn’t move either when she stopped beside him with her horse. The fact that his chest was moving ever so slightly up and down suggested that he was still alive. His right foot was injured. She looked more closely. Below his shin, his ankle was swollen and bloody with identically deep holes all around it. Clearly from metal teeth. The poor fool must have walked straight into a bear trap – which was some achievement in itself, for bears were rarer here than pink unicorns with wings. Finding a bear trap was an even rarer event – unless you happened to walk right into one.
The injuries had caused quite an inflammation – the skin was dark blue. Marked by wound fever, the man gave a faint sign of life. His eyelids flickered open. His red eyes stared past her.
He stuttered: ‘Ki…kill me. Please, kill me.’
That was a new one. Normally, she would hear the exact opposite. But him mumbling this hardly rated as enjoyable.
‘You’re not going to have it so easy, I’m afraid. A little more will to live would be appropriate here.’
The man’s head fell sideways. ‘I can’t bear it any longer. The pain. Kill me quickly.’
He lost consciousness. She wondered if she should do as he had asked her. He probably wouldn’t even notice if she released him. But she resisted that what was being demanded of her. The story of her life.
Men and pain. Like black milk, they didn’t go together. She looked at the scars on her left palm, surrounded by pale skin. Already in the Establishment, she had learned what sensitive plants the members of the supposedly stronger sex really were. Her educators had tried a funny experiment – it must have been seventeen years previously, when she was fourteen. She was sitting at the table – one girl and eleven boys. Each of them had a burning candle in front of them. One of the educators grinned as he announced the game. He said that whoever held their hand over their candle the longest would be the winner. He showed them the distance – about the length of a mug – by placing his own hand above the table. Then he pointed backwards. Three, two, one. The children did as they were told.
To cut a long story short, a short time later, all the boys pulled their hands away simultaneously, and screamed in pain as if there were no tomorrow. Logical.
She, however, kept holding her hand over the candle. Tears of pain rolled down her cheeks, but taking her hand away was the last thing on her mind. She felt a heat inside her that resembled the flame. An unknown force was flowing though her veins. It began to stink of burning flesh, and when the first of the boys threw up, the educator pulled away her hand in horror and cursed: ‘That’s the crazy one. Nuts. Totally nuts!’
It had taken months for the deep wound to heal and for new skin to knit.
So much for men and pain. Her thoughts came back to the here and now. She looked more closely at the man’s ankle. No artery had been damaged – otherwise the fellow would have long since bled to death. The ankle was broken alright – the force of the bear trap had smashed in part of the bone. She reckoned that not even a San-Priest could save his leg.
She opened her rucksack and rummaged for a small wooden box. A long time ago she had learned how to make a pain-relieving hallucinogen out of thorn apples, those prickly capsules containing a multitude of little brown grains.
She shook the man until he was half-awake, put some of the seeds into his open mouth and poured water down his gullet.
It took a while for the man’s eyes to fully open. Now completely awake, he stared up at the sky with a look of indifference.
‘I’ll sit you up on my horse. Help me.’
She grabbed the fellow under his armpits and leaned his back against the trunk of the tree. Then she wrapped a rope around his chest and under his arms, throwing one end over the thick branch immediately above him. Using this simple pulley, she heaved him up onto his good leg. He helped by tensing his body and pushing himself hard up the tree. With their combined strength, they managed to pull him onto the gelding. The man tipped forward, managing to hold onto the mane sufficiently to stop himself from falling to the side and sliding off. She took the rope and secured him to the saddle.
She led the horse by the reins. She couldn’t ride the animal properly anyway, on account of his dodgy fetlock. One cripple sitting atop another.
Night was falling when she saw little lights to the west. She knew the settlement from one of her earlier travels – here, the fellow would find help. She led the horse to a dwelling and hammered her fist on the door. A last glance at the cowering, groaning man, his arms embracing the gelding’s neck, and then she vanished into the shadows. She heard the door opening and the sound of anxious voices. No dilly-dallying. She had had her fill of lame horses and teary-eyed men. Why hadn’t she simply left the simple-minded bear-trap finder lying where he was?
pocket them first, then divvy them out
After a sea voyage of several days, Forand reached the coastal cliff where Fortress Beachperch defied the forces of nature. He thanked the captain of the merchant vessel and handed over the agreed fare.
A short time later, he was sitting on the bobbing landing boat, observing the uninviting dark walls of the castle looming ever closer. A few figures with bows and spears were staring impassively down from the battlements. The tide precluded a direct landing on the pebble beach. With only a heavy rucksack on his back and his old sword strapped to his waist, Forand waded through the final yards of water and onto dry land. He searched the coastline for a way up. The soldiers high above pointed north, so he trudged in that direction. The merchant cog took up the little boat with the two oarsmen again before heading east once more.
Forand found a narrow footpath which led steeply up the rocks despite its winding nature. He was in no hurry. He ascended at a leisurely pace. At noon he reached the lowered drawbridge. The swordmaster turned to the sentries: ‘Greetings. Do you have a little water for me? I have come from the strand far below and the climb has made me thirsty.’
‘Is that all you want?’ said one of the guards.
‘There is much in water, young soldier.’
‘We are waiting for the wine merchant that the tower guards announced. Twenty barrels of the best red wine from the west. There is much in that,’ laughed the soldier. ‘You may stick to your water, though.’ He pressed a container of water into Forand’s hand.
‘I am much obliged, young soldier.’ Forand took several sips, then handed back the waterskin. ‘Can you tell me if I can find my friend To Shyr Ban in this fortress?’
The soldier frowned, then shouted for reinforcements. Suddenly, Forand found himself surrounded by six guards, all pointing their spears at him.
‘Why this?’ he asked calmly.
‘Come with us. I can imagine that our officers want to question you.’
The old warrior simply nodded and entered the fortress, surrounded by the soldiers. At that moment, the aforementioned wine merchant with his cart, pulled by two heavy draught mares, arrived in the bailey. This created its own hustle and bustle as the guard with the waterskin called out: ‘Grand Master Rogat. We have someone acting suspiciously here. His name is Forand, and he wishes to speak to Captain To Shyr Ban.’
The addressee, dressed in a plain uniform that gave no hint of his rank turned towards him. Two alert, bright grey eyes looked Forand up and down. Yes – it was his old friend Rogat gazing at him, for the first time in over thirteen years. The old warrior had recognised him at once. For starters, he knew that he would find Rogat here, and furthermore, Rogat had hardly changed – in contrast to himself. For Rogat, on the other hand, the process of recognition would surely prove a considerably more difficult process – after all, he had turned up completely out of the blue, and his external appearance was quite different to what it had been.
And indeed, the lord of the castle commanded his soldiers impassively: ‘Lead him to my scriptorium.’
But this did not bother Forand. The brightness in the other man’s grey eyes, like a lantern in driving snow, had given the game away. His old friend had recognised him immediately.
‘Should we put him in chains first?’
‘Not worth it. No – bring him into the main building and treat him well. I won’t be long.’
Forand waited in the scriptorium. Left and right, stood two soldiers eyeing him suspiciously. Finally, Rogat arrived and sent the guards on their way. Both men approached each other, grasped their opposite number’s arms and grinned at each other like two schoolboys that had just played the ultimate practical joke on their teacher.
‘A swordmaster in my humble fortress! Good to see you, Forand. I hadn’t heard a word from you in so long that I feared you were dead.’
‘What gave me away, old friend?’
‘You can grow your hair and your beard, you can make yourself browner than any Azari, you can multiply your wrinkles, but your alert green eyes, they will always stay the same.’
