Vol.4, Ch.3, P.1
Frieda: a swift sword, and a freelance not to be forgotten—more so now that a missive by her hand has come into mine. Addressed to “Rolf the rescuer”, and yet reaching “Rolf the rebel”; by her words, she had the Roland inspectors to thank for the hint. Yet the missive’s surprises hardly ended there: Frieda, as it turned out, was in fellowship with the Roland Concern’s guildmaster, Torry, who himself was father to Ina, another soul I’d liberated from the Albeck manor moons ago.
As for the main thrust of this communication, it was a mite too grim for a greeting, to be sure. No; my former superior and sitting lord of Tallien, the Viscount Bartt, had been wringing dry the folk of his fiefdom, oppressing their meagre purses and neglecting their many needs… all the while indulging himself in debauchery and abuse of his Crown-given power. And amongst his victims now were whom else but Ina and Carola.
“I beg you, Rolf. They—we, need your help.”
Wrath rose in me as I read the missive to its very last letter. That the two were yet again visited upon by a tyrant’s evil… Moved, I convened an emergency meeting with the military húskarlar that very same night, to report to them this development and seek their counsel. As one would expect, suspicion was their first response.
“Writ herein be niceties known only to Frieda and myself,” I explained to them. “I don’t doubt her hand is in this letter.”
“Mayhaps,” said one húskarl. “But what of intent? Circumstance? Evil may be her mind—or the Men compelling her quill.”
“Evil she’s not. Frieda’s fought beside me before; I can vouch for her virtue,” I insisted. “But as for compulsion… that I cannot see. There otherwise ought’ve been no need to insert subtleties seeking my eyes so.”
“Nay, all the more reason, I think,” another húskarl debated. “Suppose only a bait bitten can guarantee… hostages left unmolested—if hostages they have, let us say. ‘Virtuous’ is she? Such can be turned a tool against her, Herr Rolf.”
“Frieda is a woman of wit and will,” I countered. “Even with conniving knaves breathing down her neck can she yet scribe some code revealing such peril. Only, I see none here.”
The húskarlar hushed themselves in deep thought, for there was yet another twist to this tale to consider: revealed as well in the missive was a secret route. Wending and winding eastwards through a mountain range betwixt Former Ström and Tallien, it strayed away from the border plains upon which the 3rd’s host was arrayed, and led deep into the viscount’s citadel itself—right to the rear gardens of his manor, in fact. Albeit too narrow to host aught more than two or three men braving it abreast, if real, the route could well-serve a hole to the enemy’s heart. None here dared doubt the value of such intelligence.
“Lost in a mist we are,” said Lise beside me, “with our one lead visible only to your eyes. A ghost sign that is but your measure of this woman Frieda. Rolf, I’m afraid that’s frail comfort to us.” Reasoning most rational. Yet in spite of it, Lise went on with a softened look in her eyes. “Still, though I know not this woman, I do know you, Rolf. Wise against the wiles of war, deciding by method rather than emotion—if you see some hope in that missive for true, some way of sending a secret spear unto the viscount, then that comforts us enough, I think.”
Encouraging words from Lise. Even the other húskarlar could but nod to them, a sight leaving me nigh agape with gratitude.
“Yet, whichever the way of it, we cannot abandon the coming clash upon the plains,” a húskarl soon said. “The knights of the 3rd have but to impose martial law if ever they discover the viscount’s corpse. Indeed, they would withdraw from the plains if we tarry, and thence make a fastness out of the fief-burgh… and along the way, have sent another snake to sit upon the viscount’s seat.”
“A fair point…” agreed Lise. “Then we proceed as planned. With one hand, we defeat the knights upon the field and bring the fief-burgh to its knees. And with the other, we hurl a hatchet at the viscount’s nape.”
“And therein lies the rub,” remarked a húskarl. “Whose hand does the hurling?”
“Mine,” I declared. “New war-chief that I am, it pains me much to act apart from the frontlines. But of us all, Frieda is familiar with me and me alone.”
“I must agree,” one voice said. “The manor, too, brims with belligerents, no doubt. Infiltrating it needs nerves of steel, and Rolf’s are as tempered as they come, I think.”
“But even a lone blade cares for company,” another reasoned. “Numbers, names—best decide your companions swift, Herr Rolf.”
“None too many,” answered I. “Two others… nay, just another blade is as much as we can spare.”
“Mine I should like to offer, but lacking two war-chiefs leaves too much to chance against the 3rd,” Lise said dispiritedly. “If not I, then…”
∵
“Oi, quit faffin’ ‘round.” A bark, breaking the mountain air. “An’ get ‘em trotters trottin’, will ya!?”
Sig sucked his teeth as he led the climb up the overgrown path. The both of us had managed to cross into Tallien, and were at present following the nigh-forgotten route eastwards through the ravines. All was quiet. Not a soul stirred at these heights, save us two men.
“I’m all for speed, Sig, but a hurried hare’s sooner spotted,” I answered him. “We’re behind enemy lines; a bit of caution’s in order.”
“Then better be quick an’ cautious ‘bout it, aye?” Sig barked back again, his reasoning as reckless as it was strangely rational. “Wot ya fussin’ ‘bout, ‘nyways? Ain’t nothin’ ‘ere but birds, boughs, an’ boulders, innit? Bloody ‘ell, even I weren’t privy to this ‘ere path. An’ I’ll be damn’d if some nose-pickin’ patrol knew the nooks sooner than me.”
A native of Tallien though Sig was, it seemed this path had escaped even his ken of the lengths and lays of his homeland. Not that he’s to be blamed. Hid behind ridge after ridge, it snaked long and narrow over the border and deep into the province, before terminating where but close upon the viscount’s very backdoor. Why, I measured it a miracle that Frieda had known of it at all. Never fails to surprise, that freelance.
If I had to guess, she’d learnt of it through her Rolander connections. Greatest of the realm’s merchant guilds, the Concern was particularly acclaimed for their keeping and collecting of information, be it recorded or rumoured. Indeed, an uncharted trail for flight or urgent transit—if ever there were any minds that could scry such a secret, the Rolanders’ should be firstly named. Our only hope now was that the knowledge was long forgotten amongst House Tallien in the course of their debaucheries.
“Not to worry,” I said to Sig. “At this rate, we’ll be skulking in the manor overmorrow, I reckon.”
“An’ I reckons even sooner—once ya starts walkin’ like you’ve got ‘alf a wit,” Sig retorted.
“I will. Though I’m curious: you very well seem trained in trekking over crags as these, Sig,” I noted. “I’ve a mind to mimick your methods, but it’s proving no picnic.” To be sure, with such nimbleness did the former mercenary wend up these wild slopes. Much of my attention had been turned to his light feet afore me, that I might learn a thing or two from his bushcraft. But try as I might, it was hard-going. “Tell me,” I said, “who taught you?”
“‘Taught’?” he scoffed. “No one but meself. Back in me city-brat years it were. Whenever the coppers came coppin’, why, I’d give ‘em the slip an’ make for the mountainses.”
“A hard lesson…” I remarked. Two childhoods, two worlds apart, his and mine. I could but cast my eyes down quietly at the thought and the weight it bore, but not before noticing the sweat upon Sig’s nape as it glinted under the glaring sun. “…The heat’s getting on,” I observed. “We ought break for a while.”
“Keep movin’,” Sig countered. “We’ll reach water soon ‘nough.”
“How tells you?” I asked.
Sig looked back and grinned triumphantly. “I smells it.”
I cocked my head in doubt. “That’s some snout you’ve got…”
∵
A while further of hard walking, and sure enough, the murmur of water soon met our ears. Taking a bend through the bush, we then emerged into a hollow, in which was nestled a babbling brook. Embowered from the burning sun, the oasis coursed cold and clear.
After slaking my thirst with handfuls of the fresh flow, I next filled back to its fullest my waterskin, which itself almost seemed glad for it. “Count me impressed, Sig,” I conceded to my travelling companion, who was off shuffling about to the side.
“Aye? You’d better be,” he said, as he then sloshed into the water—wearing naught but stark-bare skin.
“Going for a swim?” I called to him. “Best save your stamina, wouldn’t you say?”
“Just a dip, ya dimwit,” Sig replied above the splashes. “Wadin’ in waters does a wonder for sore feet an’ sinews. Get in yaself, aye? An’ sit your gear in the bright.”
I looked down upon my sweat-sodden self. “What?” I said. “To dry?”
“To tell all ‘em bugs to bugger off, more like,” explained Sig.
A bit of wisdom from the wild man, that was: making a home of mountains as these were critters as myriad as they were too miniscule to see. Our trek had taken us through parts privy to a paltry few; paths left long untaken and untended, over-thick with thickets and threaded over by thin, but well-trodden trails of beasts. Seldom trespassers as we were, we doubtless appeared to the bitty bugs like a pair of boons from heaven above: founts of fresh skin to scour and bags of blood to imbibe. And where better to lie in wait for the meal than the unsunned sweatiness of our gear.
“Even the li’lest can bite worse than the biggest beast. Bloody buggers, ‘em,” Sig assured me with a complaint.
“Is that right,” I swiftly agreed. Things unseen scare not the soldier, be he sproutling or seasoned officer. But Sig was different. His ken was keen against devilry truly deserving of caution. And so taking up his word, I summarily undressed, left my gear in a sunny spot, and waded into the waters.
True to Sig’s word, the very chill of it seemed to wash away all the weariness from the jaunt. “Phew. Not bad, this.”
“Better if ya delves neck-deep,” suggested Sig.
“Right,” I nodded, and there leant back and surrendered myself to the stream. Sig was doing very much the same. A long and lullful while passed without word or worry. The rustling wind, the purling waters, all seemed to straighten out our every strain. Joining us were foliage floating along the flow. One brushed against my body as it sailed silently by; a sensation in itself as soothing as it was salving.
Before long, Sig slapped some water on his face, rose, and returned to the bank. And after wiping himself dry, he climbed up an unshaded outcrop, splayed himself flat upon its summit, and like a fish left to dry, laid full-bare beneath the sun.
“There something to sunbathing, as well?” I asked him from afar.
“Huh?” he grunted. “It feels right good, it does. An’ that’s reason ‘nough for me.”
Men on a march, through where but the belly of the beast, as it were. Yet in spite of it, conspicuously and without care, was Sig on a boulder bathing in the mountain sun. Brazen, indeed, in every sense of the word, but I was hardly surprised. It was very much like Sig.
That’s not to say he was negligent of our mission, nor uncaring for its cause. This I could attest from his very mien, earnest and measured as it was all throughout our journey thus far. Rather, it was that a rested mind begets a rested body, and this, too, his ken knew well. And not by reasoning, either, it would seem, but simple instinct.
I ought learn a thing or three from him. Driven, I quit the waters, wiped myself down, and joined Sig at the top of the outcrop.
“…”
“…”
There we were, flatly aface the fire in the sky.
I knew then what Sig meant. This… truly did revive the vigour.
Indeed, as the sun shone down upon me, I could almost feel my body brewing remedies within itself, for itself. And then, without knowing, I smirked. For asudden did dawn on me the silliness of our situation: two men naking themselves in the nave of enemy territory.
“…”
“…”
Sig himself seemed not bothered in the least about it as he laid beside me. A strange one, he is. Wayward or full of wonders, I couldn’t tell. Not in the whole length of my life have I ever met a man as he. With that thought, I stole a look at him, finding him shut-eyed and fully given to the sun’s gifts.
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