Fool’s Quest

“You broke your word to me!” Dwalia tried to put certainty and accusation in her voice. Instead she sounded like a whining child.

He cocked his head to look at her, and I saw on his face that she had become even less powerful in his eyes. So insignificant that he bothered to explain the world to her. “A man has his word. And he can give his word to another man, for both of them know what that means. For a man has honor, and to break his word to another man defiles his honor. The breaking of a man’s word merits death. But all know that a woman cannot give her word to anyone, for women cannot possess honor. Women promise, and later they say, ‘I did not understand, I did not mean it that way, I thought those words meant something else.’ So a woman’s word is without worth. She can break it, and always she does, for she has no honor to defile.” He gave a snort of derision. “It is not even worth killing a woman who breaks her word, for it is what women do.”

Dwalia stared at him, her mouth ajar. I pitied her and feared for the rest of us. Even I, a child, knew that was the Chalcedean way. Every scroll I’d read of them, every time my father mentioned them, they were the ones who always found a way to break their word. They fathered children on their slaves, and then sold their own offspring. How could she not have known the sort of folk she bargained with? Her luriks were gathering behind us, a pale mirror of the soldiers behind Ellik. But his men stood, legs wide and braced, hands on their hips or arms crossed on their chests. Our luriks huddled and leaned against one another, whispering like a wind shivering through aspens. Dwalia seemed drained of words.

“How could I exchange a promise with you? I would give you my man’s word, my word of honor in exchange for what? The thought you held in your silly little head for that moment?” He barked in disdain. “Have you any idea how foolish you sound?” He shook his head. “You bring us all this way, deeper and deeper into danger, and for what? Not treasure or coin or fine goods. A boy, and his serving woman. My men follow me and in return they take a share of all I take. And what could we take from there? A bit of wenching for my soldiers. A few blades of good quality. Some smoked meat and cured fish. A few horses. My men make mock of your raid! That is not good, for they must doubt why they came so far through such dangerous territory, for so little plunder. They must doubt me. And now what must we do when we are so deep in an enemy’s territory? We dawdle and avoid the roads and villages, until a journey that should have been a few days stretches toward a month.

“Now the boy we have stolen dares to mock me. Why? Why has he no respect? Perhaps he thinks me as foolish as you make me seem. But I am not a fool. I have been thinking and thinking. I am not a man to be ruled by a woman. Not a man to be bought with gold, and then commanded like a sell-sword. I am a man who commands, who will undertake a task and do it as seems best to him. Yet, as I look back, time after time, I have bowed to your will. I look back and each time, it makes no sense to me. Always, I give way to your will. Why? I think I have discerned it.”

He pointed an accusing finger at her. “I know your spell, woman. It is that pale boy you keep at your side, the one who speaks as if he were a girl. He does something, doesn’t he? You send him ahead through the town, and we pass through and no one turns to watch us go. It’s a good trick, a very good trick. I admired it. Until I came to see that he has been playing a similar trick upon me. Hasn’t he?”

I would have lied. I would have looked at him in consternation and then demanded that he explain. She gaped like a fish. Then, “This does not happen,” she said faintly.

“Really?” he asked her coldly.

A sound. All heads, even mine, turned toward it. Horses coming. Vindeliar returning with his escorts. Dwalia made her second mistake. Hope lit in her eyes.

Ellik read it as clearly as I did. He smiled the cruelest smile that I had ever seen. “No. That is what does not happen.” He turned to his men. They had packed behind him, their eagerness straining like hounds on a huntsman’s lead. “Go meet them. Stop them. Take Vindeliar. Tell him we know his tricks. Tell him we are amazed and think him wonderful. Pump his vanity like you’d stroke yourself!” Ellik barked a crude laugh the others echoed. “Tell him this woman has bid you command him not to use his tricks on us anymore, for his path now lies with ours. Take him to our tents and keep him there. Give him every good thing we have there. Praise him. Slap him on the shoulder, make him feel he is a man now. But be wary of him. If you feel your resolve weakening at all, kill him.

“Yet try not to. He is very useful, that one. Worth more than any gold this old whore can offer us. He is the true prize we will take home.” He turned his attention back to Dwalia. “He is even more useful than a woman ready to be raped.”