“I’d rather not work for the prince,” Marcus said. “And as long as I have a legitimate contract, the issue won’t arise.”
“The issue?”
“Refusing a press gang ends you up on the field or in a grave. And I’m not going in the field for Vanai.”
Master Kit frowned, great brows curving in like caterpillars.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Captain. Did you just tell me this is a matter of life and death for you?”
“Yes.”
“You seem very calm about that.”
“It’s not the first time.”
The actor leaned back in his chair, fingers laced over his flat belly. He looked thoughtful and sober, but also interested. Marcus took a swig of the beer. It tasted of yeast and molasses.
“I don’t think I can hide both of you,” Master Kit said. “You, perhaps. We have ways of making a man not seem himself, but a Tralgu this far west? If the prince knows to look for you, I’m afraid keeping with your friend is like hanging a flag on you. We’d be caught.”
“I don’t want to join your troupe,” Marcus said.
“No?” Master Kit said. “Then what are we talking about?”
At the other table, the long-haired woman stood on her chair, struck a noble pose, and began declaiming the Rite of St. Ancian in a comic lisp. The others all laughed, except Yardem, who smiled amusedly and flicked his ears. Cary. Her name was Cary.
“I want your troupe to join me. There’s a caravan to Carse.”
“We call ourselves a traveling company,” Master Kit said. “I think Carse is a good venue, and we haven’t been there in years. But I don’t see how putting us in your ’van helps you.”
“The prince took my men. I need you to replace them. I want you to act as guards.”
“You’re serious.”
“I am.”
Master Kit laughed and shook his head.
“We aren’t fighters,” he said. “All that onstage is dance and show. Faced with a real soldier, I doubt we would acquit ourselves very well.”
“I don’t need you to be guards,” Marcus said. “I need you to act as them. Raiders aren’t stupid. They calculate their chances just the way anyone would. Caravans fall because they don’t have enough bodies in armor or they’re carrying something that makes it worth the risk. If we put your people in leather and bows, no one is going know whether they can use them. And the cargo we’re hauling isn’t worth a fight.”
“No?”
“Tin and iron. Undyed wool. Some leatherwork,” Marcus said. “A man in the Old Quarter called Master Will put together an association of merchants to send out their goods as near the battle as they can and hope the fighting’s over before payment comes. It’s small and low-risk. If I were a raider, I wouldn’t look at it twice.”
“And the pay is good?”
“Very good,” Marcus said.
Master Kit crossed his arms, frowning.
“Well, it’s decent,” Marcus said. “For what it is. And it will get your people out of harm’s way. Even soft little gentlemen’s wars like this spill some blood, and you have women in your troupe.”
“I think Cary and Opal can look after themselves,” Master Kit said.
“Not if the city’s sacked. Princes and empires don’t care if a few actors get raped and killed. People like you are beneath their notice, and the foot soldiers know that.”
The actor looked at the larger table. Several conversations seemed to be going on simultaneously, some of the actors taking part in all of them. The older man’s gaze softened.
“I believe you, Captain.”
They sat in silence for a moment, only the roar of the fire in the grate, other voices raised in conversation, and the chill evening wind rattling the doors and windows. The chimney draw was poor, and it belched occasional puffs of smoke into the rooms. The actor shook his head.
“May I ask you something?” Master Kit said.
“Go ahead.”
“I know your reputation. And I have the sense that you are a man with experience. Well bruised by the world. Guarding small caravans in the Free Cities seems to me an odd place to find you.”
“That’s not a question,” Marcus said.
“Why are you doing this?”
Marcus shrugged.
“Too stubborn to die,” he said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
Master Kit’s smile would have been pitying if it hadn’t carried some hidden suffering of its own.
“I believe that too, Captain. Well. You need nine soldiers to protect the last caravan from free Vanai?”
“Eight,” Marcus said. “Eight soldiers and a cunning man.”
Master Kit looked up at the soot-darkened ceiling.
“I have always wanted to play a cunning man,” he said.
Sir Geder Palliako Heir of the Viscount of Rivenhalm
If Geder Palliako hadn’t been thinking about his translation, he would have saved himself. The book in question was a speculative essay on the Drowned by a semi-discredited philosopher from Princip C’Annalde. Geder had found it in a scriptorum in Camnipol, and, preparing for the long march south to the Free Cities, he had left out a spare pair of boots to make room for it. The dialect was ancient and obscure. The leather binding wasn’t original. Its pages were almost brown with age, and the ink was faint.
He loved it.
The waxed cloth of his tent was cheaper than good field leathers, but it kept the worst of the cold at bay. His legs and back ached from riding. His inner thighs were chafed, and he had untied his vest to give his belly some room. His father had the same build. The family curse, he called it. Geder had an hour, perhaps, before he had to sleep, and he was spending it on a folding stool, hunched close over his book, piecing out each word and phrase.
Unlike the animals of the field, humanity need not resort to an abstract, mythological God to discover its reason for being. With the exception of the unmodified, bestial Firstblood, each race of humanity is the artifact of some purpose. The eastern races-Yemmu, Tralgu, Jasuru-were clearly fashioned as beasts of war; the Raushadam as objects of amusement and entertainment, the Timzinae-youngest of the races-as a race of beekeepers or some such light use, the Cinnae, myself included, as the conscious lens of wisdom and philosophy, and so on.
But what of the Drowned? Alone of the races of humanity, the Drowned show design without purpose. Common opinion places these, our lesser siblings, as akin to plants or the slow-moving beasts of the western continents. Their occasional gatherings in tidepools indicate more about the ocean’s currents than anything of human will. Some romantics suggest that the Drowned are themselves working on some deep, dragon-inspired plan that continues to unfold even after the death of its planners. A romantic thought, and one which must be forgiven.
Instead, I think it is clear, the Drowned are the clearest example of humanity as artistic expression, and as such-
Or would aesthetic intention be more accurate than artistic expression? Geder rubbed his eyes. It was late. Too late. Tomorrow was another long ride to the south with another day of the same following it. If God was kind, they’d reach the border in a week, spend a day or at worst two choosing the field of battle, a day to crush the local forces, and he could be in a real bed, eating real food, and drinking wine that didn’t taste of the skin it had been carried in. If he could only make it that far.
Geder put the book aside. He combed his hair, pleased by the absence of lice. He washed his face and hands, then laced up his vest for the short trek to the latrines as a last stop before bed. Outside his tent, his squire-
