“So that is my pitch, Guilder. We go on as we are, hearty and hale, and run our mutual quarry to ground. Either that or else we turn on each other here and now with a lot of fuss and ruckus, and in the end at least one of us is having a far worse day than we are at this moment. So what say you?”
The Captain stared. “I say we should have had this out in the hills, before you’d had a night to ruminate.”
The man gave a smirk. “Like they say on the Beoshore, the eye looking back sees best.”
To Tilda the silence which followed seemed complete, for while the Orstavian grass moved with a constant rustling swish of blade-on-blade, it was a background noise that she no longer heard unless she listened for it.
The dwarf looked at the man for a long time before giving the merest nod of assent.
“Lead on,” he said, but the smiling renegade first came closer with his hands held out at his sides, away from the short sword at his hip.
“One first matter last,” he said, taking even steps toward Block’s pony. “The other thing I know about Miilarkians is that a man had best hold on to his…hat, let us say, whenever he makes a deal with one of them.”
He approached until the Captain’s pony snorted at him, then stopped and raised his left hand, palm up. He extended his right hand to Block, and Tilda noticed that the man wore some sort of plain cord, thick like a boot lace, double looped and tied around his right wrist. It hardly seemed ornamental, and reminded her more than anything of the bits of string her father would sometimes tie around a finger to remind himself of something he must not forget.
“I have also heard, Good Guilder, that if an Islander shall swear by the honor of his House, then it is an oath to which he must and shall adhere.”
Block looked at the man’s rough and not-very-clean hand with a frown.
“Your point?” he asked, and the renegade’s smirk returned.
“I’ll take your word, Cap‘n, that by the honor of the House which you serve, I need fear no trickery. Nor no knife in the night. I ask only for peace between us, at least until we’ve found the man we are both after. Shake on it.”
Block’s heavy features were set, but he pulled the black kid-leather glove off his right hand and rumbled that by the House of Deskata, it was so. The Captain leaned forward and the two shook, sword-callused hand in sword-callused hand. Then to Tilda’s surprise, the renegade stepped around the pony and came at her with his hand still extended.
“You too, girl. You’re as much a Guilder as this one.”
Tilda glanced at her Captain, but he was still facing forward and was busy wiping his hand on his pony’s neck before replacing his glove. She looked down at the man in front of her, his brown eyes lingering on hers for perhaps the first time since the woods last night. In fact, she knew perfectly well that it was. Tilda pulled off her right glove, repeated the oath, and they shook. Her hand had held a hilt often enough, but was not yet hardened by it. His felt like rough wood.
“Lead on,” Block said again, and this time the renegade gave a little salute, shifted the saddlebags on his shoulders, and stepped smartly back to the head of the line.
“One more thing,” Tilda called.
Block shot her an irritable look, but the renegade turned back around with his eyebrows raised.
“What is your name?”
One side of the man’s mouth twitched and there was a flash of his white teeth. Not a bad-looking fellow even apart from the stubble of beard and hair, still so short that they looked faintly gray in the morning light. His muddy eyes only did not suit him.
“Forgiveness, Milady, wherefore ever are my manners? I am called Dugan. Of Correnca, on Gweiyer. Used to be Legionnaire-Sergeant Dugan, but I expect we can dispense with that. And you would be?”
Matilda Lanai of Miilark pushed back her shoulders, though it still hurt a bit, and most likely gave her lips a little purse without really meaning to do so.
“My name,” she said, “is none of your business.”
And so on they went.
*
Part of Tilda wanted to throw her Guild cloak away, particularly when she got a whiff of it upon opening the saddlebag into which it had been unceremoniously crammed. But the garment was still the best she possessed by a league, sign of both her Guild status and with its inner lining of emerald green, of her affiliation with the proud House of Deskata.
She had also had to pay for it herself as she had left Miilark before her official graduation from the Guild. The daughter of two shopkeepers was not about to take a loss of six-and-twenty silvers.
Thus on the morning after the first full day of travel with Dugan the renegade legionnaire, Tilda Lanai held her nose as she peeled the wadded cloak from her baggage, along with a hefty brick of Beoan soap. She took both to the creek beside which the trio had camped after moving south-by-southwest all day.
Tilda was still sore in her back and shoulders though they no longer ached quite so bad, and late in the night she had gingerly checked the purple band of bruising under her tunic, making sure nothing was broken. Her intact ribs began to throb once more as she beat her cloak against a flat rock and then got to scrubbing on her knees, trying not to see the ichor under her hands, nor the red-tinged foam spiraling away on the lazy water. When she was nearly done, a neatly-folded packet of the Captain’s laundry landed on the bank next to her without fanfare. Tilda gave it an ugly look through a strand of hair that had worked loose from her braid, but not one that Block noticed as he settled on another nearby rock, crossing his short legs and mouthing a pipe he never smoked. Dugan appeared, frowning at the water, and fingering the soiled hem of his own dirty tunic.
“Do not even think about it.” Tilda said to the man. He blinked at her for a moment.
“I was not about to suggest you do mine, ” he said. “Just contemplating doing it myself, then wearing it wet the rest of the day. I have decided against such a course.”
“It has been three days and more since the battle,” Block said, paying no mind to the small talk. “We have seen none of the victorious Duke’s warders nor patrols, but they will be returning to their regular rounds at any time.”
The Captain gave the erstwhile legionnaire a long look.
“They will, no doubt, be on the lookout for any renegades not yet in custody.”
Dugan passed a hand over his close-cropped pate.
“I was contemplating that, as well.”
“Your bald head sticks out like a hammer-banged thumb,” Tilda said, scrubbing again at her cloak. “And I doubt the Captain’s extra pantaloons will fit you.”
She immediately regretted adding that last, for she knew Block was aware that she was carrying among her baggage a good bolt of fine blue cloth she had bartered for a while back on a lark. Tilda had a sudden dread that the Captain would order her to stitch the renegade some new pants. Fortunately, Dugan kept talking.
“Another day on this line and we’ll be near some scattered freeholds. Perhaps we could…barter for some clothing. And a hat.”
“Barter?” Block repeated, with a wry note that made Dugan frown.
“These saddlebags I’m lugging are Exlandic leather, stitched with gold, and the buckles are real silver. If you can’t get a set of peasant garb for them you’re not much of a Miilarkian, merchant or no.”
Block snorted. “Of course dealing a nobleman’s baggage won’t attract any attention. Why don’t you just offer your Legion sword for a wheel of cheese?”
The renegade tapped a sandaled foot. “You have a better idea?”
The dwarf tapped the pipe stem against his teeth. “One mitigation of the heavy burdens of command is the ability to delegate the small matters. Matilda.”
Tilda blew a strand of hair out of her face and looked over warily.
“When we next pass a peasant holding, you will handle this.”
