The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [161]
Neil took another swallow of his ale. “No fighting lads,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stir up any trouble. How does the saying go? ‘Wise is the man who guards his lord’s Rune-hoard.’ ”
“Here, that’s what I’m saying,” Jan said.
“Well spoken,” Vithig murmured. “I admit I’m not wise, not when Ansu Woth’s blood is in me.” He raised his tankard. “May we die in warm seas,” he toasted.
“To wisdom,” Neil replied, and took his swallow. “Now, let me tell you about the great wurm we sighted in the Sorrows.”
“You never saw any wurm,” Jan protested.
“Aiw, but I did, and a great monster it was.”
He launched into a story his grandfather used to tell, and by the end of it, Jan had calmed down and Vithig was threatening to sing. Bold as he felt, Neil didn’t reckon to take any more risks by pressing—it would be nice to know what lord owned the ship, but he already knew what he wanted to know, and with only a single day lost.
Much later, they staggered back to the tents, and Jan and Vithig fell straight into ale slumber. Neil considered killing them, but didn’t for several reasons. A fair fight would draw attention, and slitting their throats while they slept would destroy what little honor he had left. He doubted the sailors would make any connection between their comments and his absence the next day, and if they did, they would just reckon they had scared him off.
Anyway, sailors didn’t talk to their officers and lords any more than they had to, and killing them was much more likely to make people wonder where he had got off to. Finally, Jan and Vithig were decent fellows who didn’t deserve a bad end at his hand just because they had said something they shouldn’t have.
So before anyone woke, he gathered his things and left, climbing the ramp up into the city of Paldh. There, with the money Brinna had given him, he found a sword he could afford. The blacksmith balked at selling it to him, so Neil showed him the cut on the back of his hand and small silver rose pendant at his neck—the two things he still had that marked him as a knight.
“Anyone can cut themselves,” the blacksmith pointed out, “and you might have taken the rose from a dead knight.”
“That’s true,” Neil allowed. “But I gave you my word I’m a knight of Eslen.”
“Carrying Hanzish coin,” the blacksmith countered dubiously.
Neil added another gold coin to the five already on the table. “Why did you make this if you don’t want to sell it?” he asked. “What knight commissioned it?”
“The city guard buys from me,” he said. “I’ve license to sell to them.”
“And surely to a knight who has lost his effects,” Neil said. “Besides, I’m leaving Paldh, and not likely to return.”
The blacksmith found a cloth and wrapped the sword up tightly. “Just keep it hidden until you’re out of town, hey?”
“That I’ll do,” Neil said. He took the sword and left. At a stable on the road outside of town, he purchased a horse that seemed to have a bit of intelligence in its eyes, and some tack for it, leaving him only a few schillings for food. Thus mounted he set out south on the Great Vitellian Way.
The sword wasn’t much of a sword—it was more of a steel club with an edge—and the horse wasn’t much of a horse. But then, he wasn’t much of a knight, though at last he felt something like one again. What he would do when he found the uncanny knight and his men he did not know, but he was ready to figure it out.
CHAPTER SIX
THE RETURN
THE COURT THAT GREETED Muriele and the two men of her bodyguard was absolutely still. This was, she reflected, a miracle, something that heretofore she would have thought impossible in a place so plenty with gabbling fools. After her guards took their positions at the door, the only sound was the tap of her heels upon the marble, and that ceased when she sat in the queen mother’s throne.
“Well,” she said, putting on her absolutely false smile, “the prime minister will not be attending court today, so I’ll take the issues in the order they come to hand. Praifec Hespero, does the Church have any business with the throne today?”
Hespero frowned slightly.