Brus (2)

The soldiers’ eyes darted back and forth, tracking my hand as it drifted lower. The sight amused me enough that I decided to stop tormenting the poor guards. My hand slid past the scabbard and settled on my coin purse.

“Here.”

“What exactly are you trying to…”

“Don’t be shy. You too.”

I pressed a silver coin into each of the soldiers’ palms, then hung the purse back at my waist.

“…What’s this?”

“What do you think? My papers.”

The soldiers groaned as though wrestling with some great dilemma, though they had no gift whatsoever for hiding the twitch at the corners of their mouths; a newborn could have told they were pleased.

“Ahem! Right, papers checked. Go on in.”

Nothing smooths over a low-ranking soldier quite as neatly as money, and so, in the end, I strode into Brus without papers and my head held high.

Money really is better the more of it you have.

With Eladin and Lucseon both gone, coins, those mere lumps of cast metal, had been doing a fairly convincing job of standing in for my purpose in life.

Brus was no great city, but neither was it anything you could call a small town. Strange, that the whole mood of a place could shift so completely from crossing a single gate. A market of real size had taken over the town centre, its square paved in clean, well-kept tile, and the laughter of children and the bawling of traders never let up for a moment. Not even the clammy damp and the smell of mud could dull the town’s charm.

“Not bad at all.”

In a word, it was a town thick with the smell of people living their lives in it.

I wandered the square a while, running my eye over the wares the merchants had spread out. It was the liveliest spot in all of Brus, and yet, strangely enough, I was the one person nobody tried to sell anything to. I didn’t have to walk far to find out why.

“Hey. I’d like to see a dagger—”

“Shoo! Get away from here!”

I’d barely gotten the words out before the weapons merchant flapped a hand to wave me off.

“…Is this a place that swats its customers away like flies?”

“Customers? Oh — sorry, sorry. I took you for a beggar.”

For a while I stood rooted where I was, unable to get out a single word. Granted, I hadn’t washed in months, and granted, I’d been drenched in wolf guts a few days back. But I was wearing armor, wasn’t I? To be taken for a beggar even under an iron helm left me more than a little at a loss.

“Do I look that filthy?”

“Hm? Ah, well. Hard to call you clean, is all.”

In the end I scrapped my original plan of buying clothes and then finding an inn, and rebuilt it from the ground up. It would be more of a hassle, but now I’d wash first, then come back out to buy what I needed.

“I’d like to know where I can find a good inn.”

The weapons merchant pressed his forefinger to his thumb in a little circle. Pay up, in other words.

“…How much for this dagger?”

“Three silver coins.”

It struck me as a touch steep, but I handed over the silver without a word. He’d priced the information in, I assumed, and in any case I was in no position to haggle.

Only once the silver was in his hand did the weapons merchant open his mouth.

“First off, don’t go to the Golden Lion further in. It looks good, being right in the middle of town, but the owner there got caught by the soldiers selling fake liquor once.”

He sold me on a good inn, throwing his whole body into it.

“Go a little further in from there and turn right, and you’ll hit the cathedral. Behind it you’ll see a small inn called the Red Wildcat. Normally we don’t tell travelers about that place — I’m letting you in on it special, friend.”

He dropped his voice to a whisper all at once. He had the air of a man about to reveal some tremendous secret, and I found myself growing cautious right along with him.

“The innkeeper’s a real beauty, see. Her husband laid down the law something fierce, in case the woman got it into her head to run off in the night with some traveler.”

It was an exhausting secret. I asked him something else instead.

“A cathedral, you said. Which church?”

“Hm? The Ecclesia church, obviously.”

Ecclesia was the state religion of the empire.¹ I gave the weapons merchant a light nod.

“Thanks. Ah — does the place have a stable, by any chance?”

“Search me. Probably. I only ever went to look at the owner’s face; never once looked at a horse.”

With that, I set off straight for the inn. On the way I let my eyes wander over the other merchants for no particular reason, but the looks they gave back were far from kind, and I soon gave it up.

A small inn behind the cathedral.

The Red Wildcat

“This is it.”

I pushed the wooden door open. The first thing to greet me inside was a packed crowd: every one of them with a cup in hand, every one of them roaring away, and every one of them stealing glances in the same direction, exactly as the weapons merchant had said.

“One room.”

The innkeeper was, well. To eyes as worn down by the passing years as mine, she looked like a woman not much different from any other.

“Five copper coins a night.”

“Cheap. Water to wash with and a change of clothes as well, if you would.”

“Water is two coppers, clothes are two silver.”

A room for five coppers and clothing for two silver: the garment had to be luxurious beyond all telling.

“Take any room on the second floor.”

The innkeeper counted out the coins I’d handed over and nodded me toward the stairs with her eyes. At the time, I took her “any room you like” for a joke.

“…”

But the second floor really was completely empty.

All those people downstairs, and not one of them staying the night.

Was the drink trade going so well that the rooms came cheap by comparison? With the innkeeper’s beauty as the best thing on offer to drink to, the beer would go down easy enough.

I settled into the room nearest the stairs. I thought I might unpack while I waited, only to remember I had nothing to unpack in the first place. So I sat down on the floor instead, and a little later a knock came at the door.

With the water the innkeeper had left me, I scrubbed myself clean in every last corner, then peeled off the leather armor and folded it away neatly.

The new clothes were, as expected, the plain cotton you can find anywhere. On top of that, they smelled of cheese. Either way, it beat the reek of wolf guts, so I changed into them without complaint.

By the time I went back down to the first floor, a good many of the customers had drained away like an outgoing tide.

“…Er, sir knight?”

“What is it?”

I could feel the innkeeper watching me from the side. And once even that was caught out, she gave up the pretense and stared at me openly, head-on.

“Are you going to go around like that?”

The innkeeper pointed to her own head as she asked. Only then did I realize she’d been looking at my helm.

“Everyday clothes and a rusted helm — that’s… a distinctive taste you have.”

I’d changed into the clothes she brought me, true, but the helm was still sitting on my head.

“…I have my reasons.”

Mercifully, she didn’t press any further. I changed the subject fast, before the opening could close.

“Do you have a stable here?”

“You have a horse as well? It’s round the back. It’s a bit small.”

That was the best news I’d heard all day.

I slipped out of the inn and headed into town. Keep up a wandering life long enough and you naturally start to hunger for something to carry you from town to town; I too had made a steady habit of buying horses and riding them.

Though the last one got chewed into mince by a ghoul.

My last horse had died in a ghoul attack while we were crossing a canyon. That was a good five years ago now, so it was about time I gave transport some thought again. This time I meant to dote on the animal, treat it like royalty, and get at least twenty years out of it.

The horse trader had set up further in than the other merchants. He needed a wide space to keep his animals, so it was hardly unreasonable.

“Hey.”

“Yes, welcome, welcome.”

The horse trader hurried over and led me out in front of the horses.

“What sort are you after?”

“…Sturdy, for a start.”

At that, the horse trader broke into a brisk trot. His comical bustling was more than I could keep up with, and I followed a beat behind.

“This one’s the sturdiest. Biggest of the lot, too.”

The horse he showed me was a splendid animal, one that fully earned the word magnificent. The glossy black coat, above all, was a thing of beauty.

“And the price?”

“Twenty-five gold coins.”

The price, by comparison, was not appealing in the slightest.

After a short deliberation I let that horse go and pointed instead to the scrawny one beside it.

“That one?”

“Yes — five gold coins.”

Even flattery couldn’t have called it sturdy, but a horse is a living animal, isn’t it? Feed it well and it would shoot right up.

“I’ll take that one.”

The horse trader led out the animal with the dry, brittle mane. I stroked its flank.

“Your name is Plibentorinus II from now on.”

There is no particular meaning to the II. The horse that ended up as a ghoul’s lunch simply happened to be Plibentorinus I.

I handed the horse trader his gold, and I was looking Plibentorinus II over when it happened. All at once the space around me turned noisy, and I turned my head.

“Make way! Clear the road!”

The instant someone shouted, the whole mood of the street changed.

The sound of many feet, all in the same step, all in the same direction.

And the clink of chain links between pauldron and breastplate.

The crowd parted, and a dozen or so soldiers flooded into the space they’d left.

Once the squad of soldiers was in place, a single horse came slowly into view behind them.

“…”

Its bearing was the exact opposite of Plibentorinus II’s, and for a moment I forgot how to speak.

A single man sat astride it. His whole manner was such that anyone at all would have taken him for the lord.

A breastplate so heavily over-plated with iron it would be useless in a real fight, and a banner with the family crest embroidered in gold thread.

It would be stranger, really, if he weren’t a noble.

“Oi. You there.”

The street fell quiet. Partly because the lord had spoken, but more, it seemed, because the one he’d singled out was none other than me.

Instead of answering, I looked steadily back at him.

“Remove your helm.”

Was it because I still hadn’t opened my mouth? Whether he took me for insubordinate or thought I was ignoring him outright, the lord looked to be in a thoroughly foul mood.

“Did you not hear? I said remove your helm.”

I’d picked the wrong man to cross, it seemed. His attention was fixed wholly on me now, and short of granting the lord’s demand, there seemed to be no way to pass by quietly.

“Do you not know what a gross discourtesy it is to keep a helmet on in front of the lord?”

One of the guardsmen stepped forward, glaring at me. He walked like a third-rate actor in a cheap play.

I watched the performance a moment, then drew the sword at my hip.

“Whoa—!”

Silence fell in an instant, and the street, quiet already, turned to thin ice.

The guardsman coming toward me froze on the spot, still mid-stride. His face said it had honestly never once occurred to him that I might level a blade at them.

The first thing to break the silence was the lord grinding his teeth in irritation.

“You have truly gone out of your mind wanting to die.”

The lord’s face twisted horribly. For some reason it struck me that he looked like the wolf that had bitten into my waist.

“Raising a weapon? In front of me? You’re begging to be killed.”

I looked at the guardsmen hurriedly leveling their spears at me, and neither confirmed nor denied it.