“You were right.” Corwin acknowledged after Speranzi returned to the front.

“I was? I mean, I usually am…” She made a crooked smile, “but about what specifically this time?”

“While you were talking to that one. One of my apprentices came over and told me he wanted to quit. He’s not the only one. Half of them are just ‘done’. Between those reavers and the thing at the village, and being surrounded by vicious looking brutes all the time?” He ran an awkward hand through his fading hairline, “They just can’t handle it. At the next city they want to take their pay and settle there. I doubt they’ll ever trust the roads again.” Speranzi looked up at him out of the corner of her eye.

The master and apprentice relationship was a sacred one, whether it be soldier to soldier, smith to smith, or even merchant to merchant, even she knew it was far too close to ‘father to son’ and ‘mother to daughter’ to be lightly set aside. “How long were they with you before this trip?” She asked, keeping her voice as quiet as she could while still letting herself be heard.

“Six years.” Corwin answered. “I took all of them on when they were thirteen. This was their inaugural trip, I was going to let them handle all the haggling, the bargains, and when we got back to the capital we were going to give them the official robes and-” He cut himself off and smacked his fat hand on the seat beside him. He winced at the sudden pain and shook his hand as if to cast off the sudden sting.

“What happens when they remove themselves from their apprenticeship?” Speranzi asked, his heartbreak was palpable, ‘Six years is a long time to know someone.’ She thought, and it was obvious from his drawn, callow face that he was already missing them. All she could think to do was distract him, and even that? ‘Even that, you’re no good at. It's easier to hunt reavers than it is to comfort someone.’ She kept the grousing in her mind, and did her best to listen.

“They’ll take their final pay for this leg of the journey, then be simply let go. They walk out of the guild hall and never come in again. Once you remove yourself, you’re done forever. They’ll have to find some other work, but the guild will never give them a loan, never offer them shelter, never do business with them again. Their only real chance at being more than somebody else’s hired hands is to buy a farm or change their name, move where nobody knows them, and start over.”

“Ouch.” Speranzi answered in a clipped and sharp voice. “Starting over isn’t easy in the best of times.”

“And these are not the best of times. They’re nineteen now, nobody will take on an apprentice that old. I tried to tell them. They won’t listen.”

“And what will you do?” Speranzi asked, “I know you, Corwin. Don’t pretend like you don’t have something up your sleeve. And you’re too gentle hearted not to have thought of something.”

Corwin groaned and leaned back in his cart. “Fine. I held back part of their wages over the years. Apprentices don’t make much, but they thought they were making half what they were. Six years of that is worth something. Enough for some land somewhere, or to leave Qadish and start over somewhere else. I’ll draw on the counting house in the city, and if they lose all they’ve saved after that, then they’ve truly learned nothing… and I could always use new warehouse labor somewhere in my network.”

“Okay, so you’re not the purest hearted. But… you’re nicer than me.” Speranzi remarked, “Now, speaking of the next city, it’s what, two days of road travel?”

“We reach Laylan in three days if we take our time, a day and a half if we force it. And before you ask, at least this part of the journey is as safe as the virtue of a King’s daughter. The only real danger is farther south. But we’re going to pay extra to avoid it.” For a moment he actually smiled, “I’ve always loved the water. If I were born closer to the sea I’d have been a merchant sailor instead of this.”

“Water? What water exactly?” Speranzi asked with a creeping suspicion building in her gut.

“The Long River. The road to Wenmark might as well be damned by the gods, there’s nothing there but isolated farms with shoddy roads, and the reason for that is the Long River itself. It runs right through the Laylan and a barge will take us straight to Wenmark with no stopovers or need to make camp. We just relax with the rocking boats and enjoy drifting all the way to Undercity Lake.”

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“First of all, I really don’t like the idea of riding on a barge.” Speranzi banged her fist on her armor, “I’m a noble… sort of. At least born one, so I’m of one of the Awakened Lines, even if it is very remote, my strength is considerable. But still…” She banged her fist on her armor, “I wouldn’t enjoy swimming in this, and even though my soldiers are a cut above the norm, their lines are even more diluted. I doubt many of them would survive if the barge goes under. Second of all… Undercity Lake? That’s not ominous at all.” Speranzi said and tried to keep her voice carefully neutral, though she failed to keep ‘all’ the sarcasm out, or so she concluded based on his shaking while he tried to keep from laughing at her.

“I’m afraid it can’t be helped. Neither the ominous name of the lake nor the need to travel by barge. I can’t afford to waste money, traveling overland would not only take another week at least, there’s apparently a band of escaped slaves out there, some of whom killed the guildmaster of Fortress Myen. We can bypass that by taking the river.”

“My hundred arrows and I can handle a few runaways turned brigand.” Speranzi remarked, and was briefly caught by surprise by the hollow look in his eye.

“I don’t doubt you. You’d make short work of them, and you have no idea…” He looked down at her, not really at her face, no really even ‘at’ her, more ‘through’ her, “how utterly sad that is… but no. Not even if they were actual brigands. A fight avoided is better than one you win, and this is one that I couldn’t forgive myself from getting into when we can bypass it. We’re taking the barge and that’s final.” Corwin said, his eyes became harder than Speranzi had ever seen them, and she gave a grim but accepting, close lipped nod.

“If you insist, I must comply. But I register my displeasure about it.” Speranzi said emphatically.

“And I note, but overrule it.” He retorted and slowly the tension melted out of his body.

The silence between the two was tense at first, with Speranzi only watching the terrain roll onward. Her heart felt a little lighter with every step, but it was hard not to rebuke herself. ‘Fool. You should have realized how he would feel even if they are brigands. He pities them for some reason, it’s just work, it can’t be that different. Sure some soulless humans are bad enough that it would be a nightmare, but no decent human city would give such total power to monsters. We’re the chosen ones of the gods themselves, he’s just too gentle for this kind of thing. Only bandits and brigands like the sort Skana had to hide her identity among. Only those who give up their humanity would be like that. Never a place or people of law.’

‘Either way, you should have remembered his thoughts on this.’ She ruefully reflected, and gave him time and quiet to settle his mind, while taking the same for her own.

The terrain was almost disturbing in its beauty, no blasted trees destroyed by magic flames, ice, or the axes of armies needing wood to build or burn. The grasslands were untrampled and there were no ruins atop the hills from towers or improvised forts where some unlucky side made a last stand. ‘It’s like they’ve never even heard of war.’

Between the breeze and the smell of leaves and the noise of swaying trees, it was the closest Speranzi felt to paradise, and even with her self-recriminations over thoughtless words to Corwin, her heart started to lighten.

When she finally broke the ice as Corwin’s body seemed fully relaxed again, and just leaning back against the seat of his wagon, she broke it by saying, “It’s beautiful here. I can’t remember the last time I saw a place like this. Maybe when I was still a little girl on my fa- on the estate of Baron Jadara.” She took a long, slow, deep breath and inhaled the scent of green trees, flowers, and grass.

“The gods must love this country more than they do mine.” She said it with a twisted, bitter expression, the memory of fire and bloody steel dancing before her eyes as if she were there again before she returned to herself. “This must be a truly holy place.”

Corwin snorted. “I don’t know if you give men or gods too much credit.”

“Corwin… you know that’s blasphemous.” Speranzi replied quietly, “I-” she hesitated and looked left and right, then over her shoulder before continuing, “I see you as more than a client. Okay. You’re kind of… kind of a friend. Gods above, you’re my only friend, I think. I won’t report you, but you have to mind your tongue. The gods will punish you even if the law doesn’t. They bring justice to all in time. I’d rather be patient for a justice that rewards, than anxious about one that punishes.”

Corwin watched her while she spoke, she wasn’t looking his way, another thing that differed her from others, most would have made eye contact when stating they cared about someone else. Most would have made eye contact when providing a warning offered out of worry or an expression of friendship. But Speranzi offered none of that.

He inched his way along the bench until he was close to where she sat, leaned down, and closed his thick, chubby fingers on her armored shoulder. “Thank you. If you want the truth, you’re like a niece. An angry… violent niece, but a niece.” She still didn’t look at him when he spoke, but that didn’t stop him from continuing.

“I don’t say that out of some twisted mockery. I say it because that is how I see things after traveling as far away as the villages that border the beastmen in the east, the distant city-states of the north on the border of the Devorian Empire, and even the elves south of the Divine Kingdom. You call it blasphemy, I call it ‘shamelessly observant’.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” Speranzi remarked, but it was without fire or vitriol, and the silence became awkward until they made camp that evening.