QUENTIN’S DIARY
I may have damned myself by lying to a priest – is that a special sin, or is it like regular lying? At the least, it will be awkward when next I seek confession. Not that I think I can do so in this bishopric without causing trouble. I will write more tomorrow.
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As we take ship up the Oen, I find myself once again putting pen to paper. There is much to celebrate – after all, we took a fort without a shot fired, and then settled a succession dispute by winning a duel. And by “we” I mean the colonel himself. For such a momentous event, it was over quickly – they stood a distance apart in the rain, talked to each other, and then for some reason the colonel dismounted.
The warrior-priest on the other side of the duel didn’t either dismount or ride the colonel down, which I found confusing; then there was a flash of multicolored light and the priest’s horse reared, throwing him. The horse slid down the causeway and then the colonel leaped into the air holding his shield, sliding unnaturally up the rain-slicked causeway until the priest blasted him with some kind of spell. The colonel slammed his hammer down, there was another flash of light, the priest flew right over the side of the causeway, and that was that. Less than a minute.
The priest’s daughter Giselle is with us on the boat, which is what brings his death back to mind. Ragnar tried talking with her, but she’s not in any mood to have words with him.
I have a new sword – an enchanted sword, bearing the famous Batavis wolf-mark! If I should find myself out of all eight shots, perhaps I will use it. In related news, my purse has grown thin.
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We have reached Oenipons! The less said about the trip itself, the better, I think. Since the colonel forced me into his service, I have become used to all sorts of rough magics unlike what I saw in the parlors of Paris, but … I will say only that I now regret taking the pistols. They are very lovely and bespelled besides, yet yours truly knows the value of a following wind. Sea power is the lifeblood of France from Cyprus to Loegria, and trade is still mostly carried by sail.
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Today, I have no jealousy of Fyodor left to me, for I have seen a woman who must be the second-most beautiful woman in Oenipons (the incomparable but untouchable Princess Anna being the first). This woman has captured my heart with but a twinkle of her eyes, and Her name is Wilhemina von Gschwendtberg. I have since learned everything I could about Her, and She is above me though not so far that I cannot dream. I am but a pretender to a distant title I may never claim, and She is a landgravine in Her own right … still, if She needs a champion, a hero – perhaps I can be that for Her.
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The von Gschwentberg maids dally often at the Flying Carpet – it is a coffeehouse that serves in the Turkish style. I have made myself a regular there, dropping hints and making friends; the hook is set, and their ears will soon be filled with tales of derring-do by the company bearing the banner of the raven – of mighty trolls, three-headed dragons, men who transform into bears. Once they have heard of my many feats at arms and my idle status as the company rests and rearms, I am sure that She will seek my services as a champion – for the landgraviate faces some matters of dispute most easily settled in a duel between men.
I have made a considerable study of her situation, and her cousin Albrecht, and I am certain I can take him either with pistol or lance. If it must be with sword, though, he has a keen reputation and I am less confident in spite of my wolf-mark blade. I will be practicing my bladework accordingly. I have thinned my purse to the point of beggary paying a membership fee for a local salle d’armes; they teach mainly the children of upwardly-mobile merchants, but such a place is not beneath my dignity when I have barely used my old sword in the last year.
After all, I have been a soldier! The lance and my pistols are my principal weapons, the sword a last resort for when those have failed – and my artistry at war with pistol and lance have been impeccable.
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Today there were three crows perched outside of the door of the salle d’armes. I felt the need to clarify that I did not intend to break my blood-signed contract placing me at the service of the Raven’s Battalion. The colonel allowed some to leave his service in Silesia – perhaps there is hope for me as well. My dreams still lie with Her – but She does not notice me, though Her maids now all know my name.
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January 6th – it is Twelfth Night again. I have kept this diary for two years now, and it is less than half-filled. My sister will be very disappointed in me, I think she expected me to fill it before she saw me next. Though I do not know when that will be.
Fyodor has married the witch, which disappointed me more than I can account for – since I thought my heart already broken and trampled by Wilhemina these last several weeks. She chose the colonel to be her champion and escort her to court, and worse, her maids say she proposed a marriage to him right in front of the emperor! But he said no, so she is too embarrassed to show her face in public again. I do not know if I should feel insulted on her behalf or relieved that the colonel prefers his own woman to her – and yes, it is the same, the fireheaded one-armed sharpshooter who rides like a man, climbs like a monkey, and shoots like a demon. Not remotely a peer of the beautiful landgravine.
I will do but what I can; yet I fear God’s plan for me involves the mountains of Wallachia and an oath to a prince I have never met rather than being Wilhemina’s champion and consort. It was a pleasant dream, one in which I joined the ranks of true nobility without further trial and travail (beyond a few duels, at least). No, it is my fate to be bound to the Raven until I die or meet the son of the Dragon.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
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Today, I am a free man! I am now waiting with a hand-picked squad of men outside the landgravine’s lodgings. Dreams can come true!
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RAGNAR RIMHAMAR, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER
“Ragnar,” the princess said breathily. She involuntarily licked her lips as she leaned dangerously close, mesmerized. “I can see why Giselle sorrows from your absence,” she said. “But I must keep my purity. As a princess, it is my only currency.”
“Fear not,” I said, nobly resisting temptation. The most beautiful woman in the world had come to me to beg my assistance; I would not be so churlish as to stain her honor simply because (like so many women before her) she had fallen under the spell of my irrestistable masculine charm. “I will keep you at arm’s length.”
The disappointed princess and I swiftly discussed the necessary arrangements. With my cousin being Mikolai’s accountant, I knew what price would warrant the company’s hire, and I knew also which among our officers might be indiscreet upon sighting the princess – Lieutenant Quentin Gavreau. The princess would find a ready excuse for why Mikolai needed to send him away.
Then her bodyguard returned and our conversation had to come to a rude end as the man frog-marched me out of the establishment. Though it pained my dignity and likely harmed my reputation with the owner and regulars, I allowed the princess’s bodyguard to do so rather than serving him a lesson on the foolishness of manhandling a great warrior. I knew when and where outside of the palace I needed to make my midnight stand; as much as the princess might have desired my continued company, our conversation was better kept short lest any suspect.
Unfortunately, someone did suspect! The fiendish Turks either divined her plans by dark and vile magics or had a paid informant in that establishment – for later that night, as I walked through silent streets, I found myself ambushed by six turbaned men, each the size of a walrus, speaking with womanly voices – voices of boys who never had the chance to become men.
The leader drew his scimitar first, a great curved blade as wide as a dinner plate near the tip and as long as a full-grown codfish. “Halt, Ragnar Rimhamar! You shall not assist the princess! She belongs to Sultan Allaedin now! Surrender now, and you shall keep your hands! Take one more step in the direction of the palace and I shall cut them from you, for you are a thief of women and such is the penalty for thieves!”
“Foul fiend!” I said. With one motion I drew my hammer with my right hand and my pistol with me left; before the eunuch had finished raising his sword high, I had placed a neat black hole between his eyes. For a moment, he stood still, eyes crossing to examine one another through the space where his nose had once been; I, however, was still in motion, my hammer swinging low. With a loud crack, my blow shattering the right knee of the second eunuch and left knee of the third.
I knew I had to be swift; with a shot having been fired, the guard would be searching the streets for the affray. Still, I was outnumbered; as the first three eunuchs hit the ground, their massive bodies causing the road itself to shiver like a shy virgin greeting her lover in a snowbank, I jumped back. Three elephantine scimitars, each large enough to behead an ox, rang out like bells as they struck the cobblestones where I had but a moment before been standing.
“I am no thief of women,” I said. “Only of their hearts.”
The enraged eunuchs engaged euphorically, grinning gleefully as I parried a hail of swift-swinging scimitars. They had me back on one foot defending myself; even with three of their number lying on the ground, my opponents outmassed me by nearly ten to one, as each was easily twice my size.
“We are the sultan’s slaves, and so shall be the princess!” cried one of the eunuchs, oddly high-pitched voice sounding like a little boy. “She shall perform lewd and unnatural acts for his decadent delight!”
Frost began to glitter on their blades as I parried again and again, my defense against their greater reach and strength afforded through the mundane magic of superior skill; but my silver hammer grew impatient. My next parry shattered my opponent’s sword, the blade brittle from the cold placed upon it; and as my opponents gasped, I struck at the limp sword of the next, shattering it as well. As my disarmed opponents fled through the night, the last of the six stood alone.
“Oh woe! I cannot defeat such an opponent on my own!” the last eunuch said, tears rolling down his face and onto his troll-sized body. “I have failed the sultan!” He then beheaded himself, death being less dishonorable than disarmament or disability.
I could hear the rapid clanking that announced the approach of the city guard and decided to depart. I raised my hammer high. The sympathy of a certain one of the old gods must have been with me, for a bolt of lightning came down from the heavens. The flash of light briefly blinded the guards, shutting their eyes for long enough that I could escape unseen. Perhaps I could have explained to the guards my mission, and perhaps they would have approved; surely no God-fearing Goth would approve of the sale of the princess into slavery!
However, in that moment I deemed discretion the better part of valor and rushed away in a swirl of snowflakes and soot, a winter storm rushing through a warm spring night. I was none too soon, for by the time I arrived at the back wall of the palace, the princess was already dangling from a knotted bedsheet some ten feet from the earth. Two heavy sacks already lay on the ground directly beneath her, tossed out of the window ahead of her trip; I moved them out of the way and positioned myself to catch her.
“Thank you, Ragnar,” the princess said as she swooned in my arms. “I could not have held but a moment longer, and would have died without you there to catch me.”
Unable to help herself, she stole a kiss from me before I set her on her feet. I carried the heavy sacks to the stables where I had left my horse, and then we rode through the night to the camp, her wearing a hooded cloak to conceal her appearance. As we neared the camp, I warned her that it was better nobody knew of my heroic deeds on her behalf; she should pretend she slipped out on her own, or better yet say nothing at all, and react to me as if I were a stranger. After all, I would not want my cousin or my colonel to think I had exceeded my authority by making arrangements with a soon-to-be-client behind their backs; nor did I wish to attract trouble from imperial authorities if she mistakenly gave me credit in too public of a setting.
“You can never be a stranger to me, Ragnar,” the princess said, wiping a tear from her eye. “But it is for the best that we pretend that we have never met.”