Vol.5, Ch.3, P.8
Sigmund never knew his parents’ faces. He could recall not even their voices, their touch. All that was left to him, all that was real, was a meagre life led in the slums. Under rain and rickety eaves, little Sigmund rubbed shoulders with others of his lot: young orphans forlorn, all of them consigned to their fate in some forgotten corner of Tallien. A fate of pilfering scraps of food, and failing that, of scraping a living off of rocks. A fate of desperately finding some way to the next morrow, and failing that, of wasting away unto death.
But even after climbing out of that hole and growing into his own, Sigmund could but spit and scoff—at personages of worthless wealth; at the lacqueys who licked their boots; at all the world for allowing such arrogance, such ugliness, such vices and venality to pervade. Indeed, the anger from his growing days only seemed to grow ever more.
Taking up with a free company and roving from one battlefield to another, too, had done little to allay that flame. Wheresoever he went, whatsoever he saw, always had Sigmund found something to be incensed about. Why, this very city of Arbel itself was not without blame. Moons before had a man here set sword to child—or rather, through child. That, to Sigmund, had been not a step over the line, but a vaulting leap. ‘…Child or no… that’s a Nafíl…’ so echoed in his head an excuse made at the time, one even now too silly, too sinister to earn a sliver of his understanding.
And so neither could he have cared that the criminal man himself had been the margrave to this former march—a lord soon slashed dead by Sigmund’s own sword in blood as cold as it was boiling. Yet, Sigmund knew it then: that cutting down one lord would solve little. No; senseless though that lord had been, he was hardly alone in his stupidity. Like worms he and his were, wriggling out of every corner, every crevice where Sigmund thought to lay his eyes. Such was his world. Such were his memories. Each and all bleeding with anger.
“…”
Still, Sigmund dared not forget them. More precisely put, he could not. This he had come to understand somewhere along the lanes of life. Ask him the “why” of it, and he would offer a ready answer, sure enough.
“Bloody ’ell if I knows”; “Shut it an’ shog, aye?”
Indeed, Sigmund knew not the “why” of his anger, and nor could he have cared to. But that was poor reason to forget it whole. For he must not. The flame; it must not fade. That much the man understood.
—Pamfh.
So slammed another tankard upon the table. Sigmund wiped his lips. That was his fifteenth. And by now, he seemed fifteen-fold more unapproachable than usual. But, as it happened, he was approached nonetheless.
“’Ey up,” a man called to him with a deep-bellied belch. Middle-aged he was, and bearing a sloshing tankard in hand, was now standing right beside the former mercenary. Altogether he seemed much too sotted to perceive or even trouble about the bitter bends in Sigmund’s brows. In sign of this, when the latter gave but an unwelcoming grunt in answer, the merry man asked outright, “That there face; I knows it, maybe. Ye’s one o’ ’em Zaharte lads, innit?”
This time, Sigmund gave no immediate answer. Not out of suspicion, that is. For sure enough, he and his now-fallen fellows of Zaharte had, in fact, sojourned in Arbel moons ago, during which they had tarried in many a tavern. Thus was it strange not in the least that this ale-addled man should remember the former mercenary.
At length, Sigmund asked back coldly, “…Wot’s it to ya?”
The drunkard chuckled. “Ye lot’s got yer arse ’andled proper, ain’t ye!” he cried, cracking a missing-teethed smile.
Such light did he make of the once-illustrious mercenaries: the Zaharte Cohort, hailed through all the lands. Under the banner of the late margrave’s wishes, they had measured arms against Rolf and the retaliating host from Hensen. To the mercenaries’ misfortune, however, this very city’s confines proved their collective coffin. With their twain leaders the Östberg siblings both slain, the surviving hirelings had all dispersed in misery, leaving the name and fame of Zaharte to remain only in memory.
“Aye, aye, ’em sellswords scatter’d like leaves to th’wind, so goes th’gossip,” the drunkard recounted. “But you—ye be a stone reight steady, ain’t ye? Choosin’ t’park yer arse ’ere in Arbel o’ all places an’ wot. Can blame ye scarce, though; this town be top o’ th’shelf, I’m sure ye’ll ’gree!”
“Peh,” Sigmund puffed, shaking his head and turning back to his empty tankard. “It’s a shite-shire, ’ere or there.”
By the look on the man’s face, however, Sigmund knew that he meant no ill, and so chalked his sauciness up to the mere influences of the firewater. Hence why Sigmund’s hands stayed where they were: leashed to his tankard, rather than ripping loose all the man’s few remaining teeth. Albeit such a scene would have erupted already, had he been in any grimmer a mood.
“Oy man, don’t trouble ’bout it, ’ey?” said the drunkard with a hearty pat on Sigmund’s back. “Ye was outmatch’d—lambs ’gainst lions, if ye gets me!”
Sigmund half-scowled. “Ah? Flappin’ that tongue like ya knows summat?”
“Come on, doesn’t take a soldier’s eye t’scry th’signs!” answered the man. “First, Ström; second, Tallien; an’ next—Isfält! Hah! Lions, indeed, ’ey! Lions, indeed! Best be glad ye gots out o’ that feedin’ frenzy in one piece!” To that, Sigmund was silent. “Bloomin’ ’ell, I says, bloomin’ ’ell,” the drunkard mused on, wagging his head. “This rate, they’ll be bangin’ on Redelberne’s doors in a fortnight, I reckons.”
Rather curious did this sound to Sigmund. Though this man was, indeed, a Man, he almost seemed to be praising his Nafílim conquerors. Thus on a whim, Sigmund asked him, “Ya rootin’ for the Nafílses or summat, mate?”
“Rootin’? Hah!” the man squawked with a slap of his belly. “Reight grinds me gears they’ve got this far, it does!” With that admission, he brought tankard to mouth and guzzled the last of his drink, after which he let out a great, grating breath of refreshment. “But, thass th’way th’world wheels, methinks,” he then reflected, redder now at the cheeks. “Lambs an’ lions, lambs an’ lions.”
“So, ya does know summat, then? ’Bout ’em ‘lambs an’ lions’ o’ yours?” pressed Sigmund.
“Nope! Like ’ell I does!” Out of the man’s lungs then leapt a laugh like rolling thunder, hicking and honking all the while. Indeed, were there any doubt as to his inebriation before, there was none now. Managing to contain himself but not his mirth, the man next said, “But they be lions, ye’ll ’gree? After all, they reight bit yer bums full-sore, innit!”
“Aye? Lions ’nough to win Isfält, then, ya reckons?” Sigmund then thought to humour him.
“Ahh, mmm!” the man groaned as he exerted his waning wit. But at the last, he shrugged and brightly slurred out, “Maybe—maybe not!” More a waste of words than an answer, that. But seeing the man now sotted out of all good sense, Sigmund dared humour him or the matter no more. Himself seeing Sigmund disinterested in turn, the man again burst out in laughter and said, “Well, ain’t bugger all worth troublin’ ’bout! Long as the ale keeps a-flowin’, things be grand!”
“Ain’t a care in the world, eh mate?” Sigmund quipped, before grumbling beneath his breath: “Shite-shire, indeed. Blimey.”
“Come on, man!” cried the drunkard, having caught the complaint. “It’s shite now, sure ’nough, but not piss-puke-an’-shite like ’fore, heheh! Th’margrave—bless ’is blasted soul—’e were a trifle wise in war, I’ll give ’im that, but I’ll be damn’d if ’e weren’t a gudgeon when it came t’governin’!”
“Glad I gash’d ’im open, then, that margrave o’ yours.”
An admission as hazardous as it was out of hand. But being the quintessential tavern, none there who heard it cared to heed it—not least the drunkard himself, who, taking it for some jest, merely gave a hearty guffaw and slapped Sigmund again on the back.
“’Ey, man! Thass th’spirit!” he laughed. Sigmund, however, remained unbrightened. “Oy, lighten up!” the man then said. “Ain’t no shame, losin’ to a lion!”
“Like ’ell I’m ashamed,” mumbled Sigmund. Rising asudden, he then slammed some coin upon the table and began his way out. And though much brew was now lapping about in his belly, and his veins withal were steeped in their vapours, his gait betrayed not the slightest drunken toddle.
“Come ’gain, brother! Next ale’s on me!” the man waved to him. But answering with silence, Sigmund shoved the door open and quitted the tavern.
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