A Snoop Without Magic, page 20
Sam turned to Worren. “Won’t that get everyone upset?”
Worren grinned. “That is a very good idea. I hadn’t thought of it yet.”
Stefen entered the room. He had been absent the entire day. “An excellent debut,” Stefen said. “The people are giving you a definite persona. The style switching and the stinky ward have them talking about your prowess with sword and pollen, yet they can see you flaunting your superiority. Having them notice your ability with pollen will keep some from thinking you are you.”
“I didn’t want to lose,” Sam said. “Since I wasn’t disqualified, my irritation paid off.”
“It would have paid off even if they ran you out of the tournament,” Stefen said. “Out of all the contestants, you were the one everyone talked about. I spent all this time in the city’s taverns gauging the matches.”
“Is this what you wanted?” Sam said to Kened.
“Not really. My goal was to give you experience fighting Toraltians. You succeeded with that, but I always thought you were better than the provincial duelists.”
“Where do we go from here?” Worren said.
“Dinner,” Sam said. “I am hungry.”
After washing up and changing clothes, Sam, Kened, Worren, and Stefen, at Sam’s insistence, showed up at the city’s hall. The dinner had already started, but there were seats for three of them. Stefen demurred and found a spot far from them.
Sam sat next to the Norlankian woman who had finished second in the tournament. She mostly ignored him until Sam asked her where she had learned to duel so well, having to speak through Worren.
The woman looked a little flustered, probably fighting with her distaste of Effian Walk. “I had brothers who fought, so I was expected to follow in their footsteps. I could beat them both by the time I was twenty,” she said.
She looked closer at Sam and his beard. “Just how old are you?”
“Not quite twenty,” Sam said. “But I have fought in different countries. I have been to Toraltia, Norlank, Wollia, and of course, all the Polistian countries. I had an exceptional trainer at the University of Tolloy, Pilot Grott. The Vaarekian dictator, Viktar Kreb, conscripted all the good swordsmen into his army. I fought on the same battlefield where Kreb died.”
“We heard about Kreb,” the woman said. “He tried to set up weapon depots in Norlank, but they were discovered. They found most of the weapons were pollen or cheaply-made metal. His supporters would have been cut down.”
“I don’t know about those kinds of things. I wouldn’t be able to understand how someone would think taking advantage of his allies would be a long-term strategy. A fighter must use the best tools.”
“You certainly have one. Your sword is a work of art.”
Sam grinned. “It is, isn’t it? My Vaarekian dueling sword is like an extension of my hand.”
“I can believe it,” Sam’s local opponent said, leaning over from a few seats over. He must have been listening in. “It doesn’t look right for me, but it obviously works for you.”
“I learned with a heavier sword, so this one gives me an advantage over a lighter blade, like a Toraltian design or Norlankian dueling sword. If I wanted to really use a heavy blade, I would use a Norlankian cutlass, something that also comes from your country.”
“You have fought with one?”
Sam nodded. “A variant used on board a ship I once sailed on. We were attacked by pirates who use that kind of cutlass as their primary weapon.”
“You are well-traveled,” the woman said. Her demeanor changed, and she smiled. “Do you like older women?”
“My mother was an older woman,” Sam said. “I’m not so sure I liked her all that well.”
“Oh, you had a sad time growing up?”
Sam smiled. “It had its challenges, but I emerged victorious every time.” That certainly wasn’t the truth, but he thought Effian would say something like that.
“If you wish for some consolation, I am staying at the Keen Edge. It is where a lot of competitors are staying.”
Sam demurred. “I am off to my next event. I don’t even know what it is. My men arrange everything, since I don’t speak much Toraltian. I have Worren, my sparring partner, and a servant translate for me. Luckily, most nobles speak a distorted version of Vaarekian, as do my translators. I speak their mother tongue.”
“I see,” the Norlankian woman said. Her ardor had appeared to have cooled. “Perhaps we will face each other again.”
“I would look forward to it,” Sam said.
He slapped his hands on the table. “I think we need to leave.” After getting up, he nodded to the men who had introduced themselves as tournament organizers and left the hall without another word. Leaving a half-eaten plate at the table was difficult.
He rose the next morning when Kened pounded on the door. “It is time to leave, Effian.”
“So early?” Sam said. The sun was intruding into his room.
“You said yourself we are heading to our next tournament. The next one on the circuit is a tournament in Apple City.”
“I can’t go there,” Sam said. “A few people would recognize me.”
Kened put fists on his hips. “Harrison said there might be a handful of people who might remember you, but he said it was worth the risk. Let’s go.”
Sam rushed to gather all his belongings and took them down to the carriage. After a larger-than-normal breakfast to make up for the hasty retreat from the banquet, they trundled out of Dale City and headed west without saying goodbye to Harrison Dimple or Faddon Bentwick.
~
Sam had never been through the southern part of Toraltia. They rolled through village after village as Sam continued to practice the role of Effian Walk.
They were two days away from Apple City, checking into an inn for the night,when a young man strutted into the room.
“A fencer is here?”
Sam looked at him as Worren quickly identified Sam as Effian Walk.
The young man sauntered up to Sam. “I can beat you in a duel.” He pushed his finger into Sam’s chest, but Sam quickly grabbed the finger and twisted.
“He shouldn’t be touching me like that,” Sam said, playing the role.
The man jerked away, holding onto his injured hand. “You are a coward.”
Worren translated.
“You have no idea what I am,” Sam said. He turned away from him and walked into the inn as the man took a knife from his waist and plunged it into Sam’s back, withdrawing it for another stab.
Sam turned, and in one swift motion, drew his sword and slashed the man’s chest before crumpling to the floor. Sam gasped for breath.
“Get a healer!” Sam heard Kened yell before he passed out.
~
Sam was getting tired of waking up in healers’ beds. He opened his eyes and realized he was on his stomach. He could feel stitches in his back, but they seemed to be losing their grip.
“Hello?” Sam said in Vaarekian. “Is anyone there?”
Kened rushed into the room with a healer behind him. “I heard you cry out. How do you feel?”
“I need a translator,” Sam said.
“How does he feel?” Kened said to someone.
The healer, a woman, talked to Sam in a rough version of court language.
“My back hurts, and I feel weak, but other than that...” He tried to shrug, but that only pulled his stitches and increased his discomfort.
“I need to replace the stitches. They aren’t holding,” she said.
Sam grimaced as the old ones were pulled out and new ones replaced the old.
“What about the man who attacked me?” Sam asked.
“He didn’t make it. You cut him from shoulder to stomach.”
“I didn’t want him to keep plunging a knife into me,” Sam said.
“That might not have been wise,” Kened said after the healer performed the translation. “The constables are waiting for you to recover a bit.”
“They want to arrest me?”
Kened sat in Sam’s line of sight and nodded. “The young man was the local lord’s son. Evidently, he has had temper problems his whole life,” the healer translated. Then she added. “This was bound to happen sometime. I thought he would end up being killed, since he has murdered many in his young life. The father, Lord Hand, is not happy.”
Sam groaned. Just as he was catching on to his role as an arrogant duelist, a crazy person brought him down, he thought. “So what now?”
“Tell the truth to the constables,” Kened said.
“The truth is the boy provoked me by poking me with his finger. He knew I was a dangerous person,” Sam said, as Effian Walk would. “I didn’t draw my blade until after he had sunk his into my back.”
“And the truth is, you should have died,” the healer said. “I wouldn’t have given you a chance to survive when you were brought in, and now your body wants to reject my stitches as you heal.”
“I do have extraordinary recuperative powers,” Sam said. “It is another facet of my superiority over other duelists.”
Sam tried to turn around at a knock on the door, but couldn’t. He’d been through this kind of thing before.
“This is the boy?” a gruff voice said behind him.
“I am here to translate,” Stefen said, taking Kened’s place by his bed. He said, “This is Effian Walk, a duelist from Vaarek. He was attacked by the young man and had to defend himself.”
“I’ll ask the questions, and he will give me the answers,” the man said. “Get off that chair. I want to see his face when he admits he killed the lord’s son.”
Sam appeared to be pre-judged for a crime he didn’t feel he had committed, but he couldn’t protest until Stefen translated. He waited for the questions.
“What happened, in your own words?” the man said. He sat down on the chair. The man wore a fancy constable’s uniform.
Sam told him the short story.
“Why did you twist his finger?”
Sam pressed his lips together while he waited for the translation. “As a warning, I guess. He poked me pretty hard.” Sam struggled to sit up and looked at his chest, finding a fading bruise. “Right here.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” the constable said.
“He still left a mark. He called me a coward, and I turned away from him. I didn’t encourage him other than the twisted finger. That didn’t merit a knife attack.”
“Yet you were able to kill him as you dropped?”
Sam nodded. “My first thought was to prevent him from continuing to stab me. The only way I could do that was to cut him. Everyone else was shocked by the attack.”
“He is right,” Stefen said after the translation. “I stood there shocked that someone would stab another in the back, which the young man did. I could easily see him pull his hand back for another attack. My master saved his own life.”
“At the expense of the lord’s son.”
“So he was to stand there and let the boy kill him? That isn’t Toraltian law.”
The constable grunted. “I’ll say what Toraltian law is in our village.”
“No, you won’t,” Worren said, walking into the room.
“What are you, a lawyer?”
Worren grimaced at the man. “As a matter of fact, I am well-known in Baskin, and my friend Stefen generally serves Lady Keeta Grate, cousin to the king. We are not more than a step away from real influence,” Worren said. “What is your name? I have connections with the Royal Constabulary, as well.”
The constable turned red in the face. “I will still have to take Effian Walk into custody.”
“Make it quick. He has a dueling tournament in Apple City within the week,” Kened said.
Worren seemed to put a little backbone into everyone. Sam was very glad he had friends who stood up for him.
But backbone didn’t work. A few days later, four men arrived with the constable to remove Sam from the clinic and placed him in the local jail. He found a bed shoehorned into his cell.
“Worren and Kened should be back soon with a release order from the Apple City constabulary, which oversees the village,” Stefen said. “I will make sure you are properly taken care of, including the continued services of the healer.”
“No need,” Sam said. “My wound is on the mend.”
“How…” Stefen looked concerned. “Oh. I remember you heal fast.”
Sam smiled. “I do, but don’t tell the constable. He will take the bed out, and I still need to recuperate. The healer told me my lung was pierced. I don’t know how that will heal,” Sam said. “I honestly don’t know if I’ll be up to a duel any time soon.”
“You will. Even if you lose in the first round, Worren said you must participate to polish your image. Effian Walk goes from healer’s bed to the dueling platform. I will bring you extra food to replace the blood you lost.”
Sam sat up. “That might be the best thing to do, anyway.”
Stefen left, and the constable walked back to Sam, the only one currently staying in the village’s jail. It was a building behind the constable office. The cells walls were made of iron bars with the outside walls made of brick.
“Your friends think they are going to get you out of here?” The constable sneered at Sam. “That isn’t going to happen. Lord Hand will be here later today to judge, sentence, and execute you. It isn’t proper to kill a noble, you know.”
Sam looked blankly at the constable. “Toraltian,” he said, and then pointed to his ear.
“You’ll understand Lord Hand well enough.” The constable turned on his heel and left the jail.
Sam got up from his bed, looking for his clothes, but he couldn’t find them. He couldn’t escape from the prison without shoes or wearing a nightshirt. At least it was made out of real cloth. Making clothes or even shoes for himself wasn’t practical, since his pollen was invisible. He couldn’t make a mask to disguise himself.
Blasting out of jail was the easiest part for him, and what was the easiest for him was the most difficult for others. He paced the cell. When he took a deep breath, he could feel pain at the end. His lung hadn’t fully recovered yet, and that made him feel worse.
If they tried to hang him, he could make a stiff pollen collar to protect his neck, he could make armor to protect him from the first few swords, but arrows shot at close range could punch through a breastplate. Sam wondered if he had it in him to destroy Lord Hand before the lord killed him.
The sun had moved the outline of the window along the floor of his cell when the door to the jail was flung open. Lord Hand walked into the room. Sam wondered if his thin, drawn face was the result of grief or if a foul temperament had caused it.
“You are Effian Walk?” the lord said in court language.
“Ah!” Sam said. “Someone who speaks my language. Do you know how weary it makes me to use a translator everywhere I go?”
“We aren’t here to converse in court language, Walk. You killed my son, pure and simple. For that, you shall die.”
“Why? He stabbed me in the back and was about to have another go, but I stopped him,” Sam said. “I told this to the constable.”
“The constable is my sworn man,” Lord Hand said.
“Constables in Toraltia should be sworn to the king, not the local lord.”
Lord Hand sneered. “I am lord over my given lands.”
“The king gave you this village? Why? What did you do to deserve it?” Sam asked.
“The king didn’t give me permission. The Court of Nobles did. It exists to give domains to the nobles. It was my domain before the Court of Nobles, and it is my domain now.”
“What happens if I go to Apple City? Am I still in your domain?”
“Of course not!”
“And you can’t judge me if I go there?”
Lord Hand turned red. “I won’t give you the opportunity.”
And with that statement, Lord Hand answered Sam’s question, and Sam knew he would have to leave the village and travel to Apple City to save himself, even if he had to flee naked. This kind of madness would lead to Toraltia’s downfall. The domains would begin to bicker, and then they would fight each other, and Toraltia would be just as backward as Duar to the west.
“So there won’t be a trial?”
“I am the chief magistrate of my domain, and I find you guilty of the murder of my son. I sentence you to death at sunrise tomorrow morning.”
“Can I ask how you will execute me?”
“You will hang in the village square for all to see, of course.” Lord Hand pretended to look around. “I see we are done here. Enjoy thinking about that noose around your neck.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
~
L ord Hand left the jail and was replaced by two men dressed in pollen armor. The constable put them in the two adjoining cells, one on either side of him.
“Are you my guards?” Sam asked.
“I’m the only one who speaks the court language. That is why I’m here,” one of the men said, chuckling. “You sure did us all a favor taking care of Lord Hand’s kid. He was crazy. You weren’t his first victim, you know.”
“I can guess that,” Sam said. “Your friend can’t understand what we say?”
“Nope. Lord Hand assigned me to guard you, since I speak the noble language. I run his estate.”
“And now he has you playing prison guard?” Sam said.
The man shook his head. “That is what I must do to survive.”
“It shouldn’t be that way in Toraltia. Even with Viktar Kreb’s mandates, Vaarekian law had to be adhered to,” Sam said. “Do you trust Lord Hand to be fair to you?”
The man shrugged. “He doesn’t have to be fair. Ever since he got that certification, there are no rules anymore. Whoever has the power sets the rules.”
“Do you like it better that way?” Sam asked.
“Nope, but as I said, I have to survive.”
Sam took a deep breath. Now was the time to delicately threaten the man. “What if I said I could kill you where you stand?”
“Do you think you could make a pollen knife that will penetrate this?”
Sam laughed. “I make wards that explode. I can just blow you up.”
