The freshly dubbed Lucius von Solhart, together with myself and our growing collection of tag along conspirators, left Rackvidd aboard the Sea Bird’s Rest, a twin masted galley expected to make good time northward. Accounting for stops to shore and religious exercises, we would arrive in Hearth Bay in two weeks time. I was no stranger to such journeys, having made thousands of them hither and thither over the years. The younger folk were caught between a sense of adventure at the high seas and with a loathsome claustrophobia when they realized just how little room the ship afforded them.
Of the three cabins available, the captain kept one himself, I another, and Lucius relinquished his to the woman aboard, Aisha. When a scoundrel, one step away from a pirate by the name of George, asked him why, Lucius answered, “I spent the last few weeks without even a curtain when I shit. The crew quarters are luxurious.” All present knew the question had truly meant why I had not been deprived of my room, for which I give my thanks to my pupil.
The first day of travel involved a great deal of ship navigation, to maneuver the vessel through the straits and around known reefs and shoals. Safer channels existed, of a more circuitous manner, but Captain Bodin sought to earn his reputation with skill, and so cut the course as a crow would fly. It worked the crew to the bone, taking full advantage of their fresh enthusiasm while he shouted orders at them. They ran about, changing lines, retying knots, and adjusting sails while he worked the wheel and watched the currents and tides. The men with work never had a moment’s rest and the day began to fly by for them. We passengers had little to do but watch the rough cliffs pass by and nibble upon salted meats.
Often, a ship’s crew will sing songs, shanties and bawdy humor, but we were provided no such entertainment. Captain Bodin’s orders were too frequent for such noise, which left us with the wind snapping at sails and the wash of waves to listen to. The crew did not dare bring out dice on the first day, and conversation between the men lagged. Lucius should have been capable of keeping up chatter for all hours of the trip, draining the sea men of their nautical knowledge and stuffing it within his own brain, but something else weighed upon him.
In some few hours, he stepped up alone beside the melancholic bard. She had cast herself upon the aft railing, though the sight of Rackvidd had long since been blocked from view. Indeed, all of Giordana would be gone from her before the sun set that night. Even the wind rustled her red locks with foreign smells, foreign sand and salt, foreign everything.
Still heavy with the weight of fratricide upon her, she stared across the sea with drooping eyes. The tavern bard Lucius had first met was there in body only. She didn’t even have the same frills to her dress, choosing instead a plain and forgettable article that would have blended into any crowd. Alone at the back of the ship, however, it simply understated her appearance.
“What do you want?” she asked, turning to face Lucius. She didn’t return his smile.
“Just catching up on things now that life is slowing down. Finally have time to myself, time to think.”
“It’s not alone time if you’re with me, now is it?”
“Spending time with you is better than alone time,” he said. Only once the words had left his mouth did he realize they sounded strange.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “And here I thought you were good at improvising.”
“I–... never noticed the color of your eyes before.”
She straightened up and folded her arms as she made a show of sizing him up. Without his armor, he had been reduced in size by half, much more apparently the boy that he was. “If that’s meant to be a compliment, you should be able to do better. You’re actually just confessing how unobservant of me you’ve been.”
“I was distracted.”
“By?”
“Your hair, more often than not. I should have realized your eyes are the same color, like hyacinths.”
Her cheeks nearly matched the color of her hair when she realized Lucius was staring into her eyes, full certainty in what he said. There was no squirming, no underlying demands, just an assertion when she had been expecting excuses about the war. She turned back to the sea abruptly. “Most people call it fire-touched.”
Lucius frowned. “You’re not feeling sea sick, are you?” the boy asked, his approach tepid.
She scoffed. “I’ve been on ships before, Actor,” she said, brushing some billowing hair out from her face so that she could cast her freshly somber gaze upon him. “Though, perhaps I should give you some leeway since you’ve only got one eye left to see with.”
He laughed and scratched at the bandage over his eye. It was more like an eyepatch than a bandage, for the bleeding had long ago stopped, but it would never pass as a stylish fashion accessory. “You know, I’ve spent more time acting these past few weeks than I ever did in the troupe…” He put his back to the sea and said, “I heard you had a meeting with Lord Raymi?”
“I did. Just to pass along an offer while I still could,” she said, sinking down and half burying her face among her arms. “Stella Medini has a bargaining chip, I hope it’s enough to buy her peace.”
“Lord Raymi is a good man.”
Steely eyes turned on him once more. “Lord Raymi bought your lie because it would benefit him.”
“Pragmatic,” Lucius said, earning a pout from the girl. “Politics and ethics are different things. He’s better to work with than a knight who does whatever he’s told.”
Aisha sighed and looked back to the dappling waves and the dipping birds. “I’ve never met a knight. You know? The temples taught me a hundred songs and poems about them, but they’re all foreign things. Crusaders from the north, paladins from the west, the eternally loyal bondsmen of the east who will cut out their own stomachs… nothing I’ve ever met. I always wondered whether a real knight could match the legends.”
“Not all, but some.”
“What would you know, Actor? How many have you met?”
Lucius could have lied, weaved her a tale of grandeur fit to drape about the kingdom she found herself thrust into. That would have given her something to cling to. Instead, he said, “A knight is nothing but a noble who can fight.”
“Really? Well if you’re the expert, why don’t you tell me about them?”
“Aren’t you the bard?”
“Bards have to hear stories to repeat them. Besides, I don’t feel like talking.”
“Well, technically speaking, I’m a knight, so you have quite the story to tell already. I think you’ll get plenty of coin for my exploits…”
She turned flat, half-lidded eyes on him. “Pass.” How nice it would have been if she had been more cooperative from the start, but who can say how history would have changed.
Lucius cleared his throat. “I could tell you about the crusaders, but as of late, they’re more in-name-only than not. As good or bad as any other man.”
“No lady knights?”
He grinned. “Some, but not many I’ve met. Women who can fight, tend to have a stigmata for it, and they get bought up quicker than… than…”
“Tulips on Breaker’s Day(1)?”
Lucius grinned. “Sounds about right. Bodyguards are important, and ones that can double as servants, particularly for ladies and girls? I’ve seen merchants and nobles get in bidding wars after martial tournaments, and for second place no less.”
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“Why don’t you tell me about her, then? Seems like a fine piece of a story.”
The grin faded from my pupil, and his gaze fell to the deck. “That was a long time ago,” he said, words soft and somber. “I don’t think you’d like the story.”
“Why? You can play the part but can’t speak of it?”
“It was before I met Amurabi, before he saved me…”
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The notion that children growing up should be given time to play and to learn is a privilege of the nobility. The common folk have no choice but to put their children to use, be that in the ever-expanding iron mines or something more fitting for a cripple. These two paradigms clashed against one another beneath a dismal gray sky some ten years prior. In a stadium with more heat from the press of cheering bodies than from the sun, Lucius had been dressed up like a young fop and set to stand beside one of the viewing boxes.
“Sir Harold of West Point Cathedral wins by submission,” the young Lucius called out, turning his back to the melee. He didn’t think a single person heard him, for half the people watching were screaming in anguish or cheer with betting chips squeezed in their fists. The crowd beneath the viewing box were miners mostly, people come in from out of the city. They were peasants who struck at the earth, carving away stone and rock to steal metal from below, and with their fires they smelted it down and sold it for gold.
Gold which they promptly handed over to the merchants and bookies, the arena cashiers, all of which worked for the Ashe family.
Generally, the Ashe family interested themselves with the continual smelting of iron ore, but they were not fools. that the grandeur and success of their domain would lead to their own grandeur and success, that the prosperity of the people meant prosperity for themselves. Especially when they convicted a merchant of treason and seized his funds like so many blood-sucking lampreys. What’s more, they understood what leisure and luxury could do to keep up the spirit of the people, to motivate the peasants to work harder. Both things that had been deemed unnecessary for an eight-year-old cripple with nowhere else to go.
It was in their city-building that young Lucius found a shred of charity, that is to say work, for there was precious little else a cripple could do but be seen and pitied. The year prior, a mining tunnel had collapsed, and his arm crushed beneath a timber. The boorish barber surgeon hacked it off of him while he screamed and cried, for there was no hope of digging it out. They had the audacity to say he should be grateful to his stigmata that he survived at all.
With parents unable to support him, Lucius was sold into virtual slavery to work for a troupe of performers. They cleaned him up and made a clear show of his missing arm, and had him learn to be an usher, an announcer, anything that required but his voice and paid very little. When this troupe was contracted by the Ashe family, the actors, bards, and musicians transformed themselves at once to stage management and logistics for the desired swordsmanship tournament. The economy of food and drink, let alone the fighters, demanded a small army to manage as people flooded to the city to place wagers.
And so, Lucius made himself useful by virtue of literacy. Nearly a hundred warriors from across Jarnmark, and some from across the sea, had gathered and submitted their names. These were phonetically transcribed and given to boys like him all around the stadium, such that they could call out the rounds. “Next, the semi-finals. Miss Claire Riverfall versus… Patrick-o-lees of House Ashe.”
“It’s pronounced Patrocles. Why did they put a worthless fool in our booth?” the blond haired youth of the Ashe family demanded. Edvin Ashe was older than Lucius, enough that he should have been taught better manners, but his mothers had been negligent.
Normally, Lucius was the picture of meekness, because normally he had to talk to adults, like Edvin’s brainless mother. To children, he could barely bring himself to smile. “My apologies, m’lord. I meant no insult. Honest mistake.”
“The mistake was your employers, to put you here,” Edvin said, turning up his nose and slumping to the opposite side of his chair. He had a little cadre of sycophants with him, boys from town, the sons of guards and the like. The group laughed and messily picked at bowls of fruit they shared between them till their fingers ran red and purple.
Lucius’ stomach growled empty, but the noise couldn’t be heard over the cheering crowd. Some hundreds of people packed shoulder to shoulder beneath the spectating booth, betting tickets clutched in their hands as the two contenders emerged across the sand. The tournament had progressed to the semi-finals, and Lucius was well aware that the fighting wouldn’t be particularly good. Both Patrocles and Claire had been bludgeoned senseless in the earlier rounds, though Claire had the better of it. Everything was for honor and prestige, so no edges were permitted upon their blades. It made the affair quite brutish and ugly to any trained eye.
Lucius was as trained as a boy of eight years could be. That is to say, had seen a dozen such tournaments while talking with a trained swordsman. The man was past his prime, but a wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately, Lucius’ aloofness only drew more ire from the older boy. Every blow that Claire rained down on Patrocles struck directly against Edvin’s pride. He sank deeper into his chair and grinded his teeth and brooded, for Patrocles was his sword tutor.
The master of the show, Lucius’ employer, was not blind to the flagging affair before everyone, and what that would mean to betting revenue. While the two knights clashed, he conferred with the Ashe family and gained agreement to extend the affair another day. Wonderful news for the troupe’s wages, but Lucius cared no further than getting down from his shouting pedestal and extracting his feet from the leather cludgeons he had been dressed in.
The older boys grabbed him when the crowds dispersed. Claire had won, had bested Patrocles and would move on to the finals. That had put a chip on Edvin’s shoulder and Lucius still had a target on him.
City guard was thin through the port city of Podrest on a good day, amid a crowd they were vanishingly sparse and useless. No one raised an alarm as the poor boy was dragged across the street and tossed among some rubbish between a brewery and a bakery. The stench alone would have driven people away, and unfortunately for him, the back end of the alley had been clogged and blocked by stacked barrels waiting fresh ale. An able bodied boy might have been able to scramble up and to freedom, but he had only the one hand.
“Is this how a noble brat behaves?” Lucius shouted, wiping the dirt from his chin as Edvin stepped forward. “Hiding in shadows and ganging up on a cripple?”
The kid had a stick. A light, but firm shaft of wood fit to teach a child the basics of swordplay. “It’s the duty of nobility to protect our honor. Our honor is the honor of the city. That’s why brats like you have to be disciplined.”
“All I did was–” The stick cracked across his jaw. It rocked his head and made him bite through his cheek, but he didn’t whimper in pain. Lucius stumbled back until he bumped against the wall of barrels.
“You work for me! Your failure is in effect, a failure of the Ashe family. Don’t you realize? Obviously not, because if you understood how important your mistake was, you wouldn’t have made it. Clearly, simple methods need to be used to teach you.”
Lucius ducked the next blow. The third, he dove away from. Then he was in a corner, on the ground, with nowhere to go. Edvin berated him, caned him and bloodied him, and for every blow that failed to earn a cry of pain the noble spawn redoubled his rage.
“Young master, what are you doing? Did you catch a pickpocket or something?” Patrocles asked, his armored frame blotting out the sun. He crossed his arms and surveyed the group of kids.
Lucius tried to push himself up, to speak on his defense, but could only cough. And in that gap, the other boys all said yes, that Lucius had stolen from Edvin. Whether Patrocles believed them, history will never truly know, but it is true he did nothing to protect Lucius, and the young boy felt that betrayal.
Worse even than the hired sword trainer of the Ashe family doing nothing for him, even Claire Riverfall made an appearance, as the Ashe family had scouted her by Patrocles’ recommendation. She had a grin on her face despite the tournament bruising, for she had won something better than first prize; a stable job. For her, the blonde berserker, her first task proved to be the hardest to refuse. Insubordination too soon. To refuse was to risk the rest of her knightly career so recently won. Patrocles told her to take Lucius and be rid of him, and left it to her what that entailed.
Patrocles led the older boys away like a mother goose, and Claire had to see to the victim. She crouched down, wrapping her arms around her knees, and asked, “Why would you steal from a blueblood?”
At last, his stigmata had closed the cuts in his mouth, and he spat out some blood to say, “I didn’t. He lied.”
Claire stared back at him without challenging his claim. She took her time thinking it over, perhaps examining his wounds. She was covered in them as well, but she had glory and he had nothing but wounded pride. She asked, “Where do you live?”
He nearly answered with the town his parents lived in, but caught himself. He answered, “With Master Wilhelm.”
Claire frowned. “You mean the organizer?”
Lucius nodded.
“I suppose that explains the clothes… Come on then, before you’re taken as a beggar and tossed out.” She offered a hand and pulled young Lucius back to his feet. For that one moment, awe filled the boy’s heart.
It lasted as long as it took for her to walk him back to the clump of tents thrown next to the arena, the staging quarters of Master Wilhelm’s troupe. The two of them were recognized at once, and the man dropped his duties for the moment to run over. “Get rid of this kid. The little princeling has it out for him and it’s just going to cause problems.”
Master Wilhelm blinked and turned his startled gaze upon Lucius. “What in oblivion did you do?”
“I pronounced it Patrick-o-lees instead of Patrocles,” the boy said.
The absurdity of children went over his head. All he understood was how frustrated it made the adults. Master Wilhelm had no comfort for the boy, no smile or compassion. “Stay away from the Arena tomorrow. There’s no work for you there.”
Claire Riverfall shook her head, but offered no hand to him. She didn’t speak up for him or shed a tear. She left Lucius there and happily took employment from the Ashe family.
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1. Breaker’s Day was a Giordanan holiday popular in her hometown Tavina. Originally for the mass freeing of slaves, it became more about reuniting with family, which became a reason for young adults to propose to one another. Colloquially, the term has come to be thought of as “Heartbreaker’s Day”.