The Knight of Tanner's Square

2

Julius awakes

Edmund slept hard again thanks to the indulgence from the Loreton brew. They will kill us with kindness, he thought. Harwin must have brought him back to his bed, but he couldn’t remember. He was washing his face in a nearby basin, as Pietro walked in to check on them.

“You up. Good, I get food.” He nodded, then left back out the door as carts made their way through the threshold.

He was eating and noticed they’d returned his bow, sitting on a table along the wall. He even noticed his stabbing sword, but he noticed differences between them.

Edmund was nibbling on the sour bread they had fallen in love with while healing — biscuits they called them — while he admired the gifts.

They made him a new scabbard for his sword, wrapped his bow again in supple leather, and made him a new quiver. They even salvaged eight of the arrows that Camille had given him.

A thunk interrupted him as Pietro returned, with lads carrying two chests behind him. Pietro said they were his, and he insisted again when Edmund tried to deny them.

Someone hand-carved the chests, an oiled oak, with a cherry inlay, glossed a rich red. They belonged to someone else, he knew it would have taken months for someone to craft such a luxury.

“Who were the prior owners?” he asked Pietro.

“That one is Etric’s, that one from Gabolt. He elder, too.”

When he opened them, they’d stuffed it with soft wools. Several pairs of tunics, breeches, leggings, cloaks, and a long robe. He noticed boots, belts, jerkins, and supple gloves. A looking glass and a new archer’s bracer with a sheath for his dirk, too.

They must have measured him while he was unconscious, he thought, repaying him the whole time since they came back from the carnage with the dogs.

“They are nice gifts. I am honored.” He bowed to Pietro, who looked like he’d been too deep in the ale this early in the day.

“I leave you,” he said with one more slap on his back as he left.

Edmund finished a rasher, then he sat in a hot bath. They had left him alone this time, no humiliation of being scrubbed upon while he blushed. He was soothing himself in the steam when he heard steps coming from the upper floor stairway.

“No need for alarm, friend Edmund.” The voice unnerved him. It was Mero; he had caught Edmund off guard and fear had seeped into him.

“I have been up there for hours, waiting for a stir. I am glad they have left you alone so we can talk.” Edmund tried to keep calm, his mind thinking only of the worst.

“I know you met with Etric. I have been observing from a distance. I was hoping to speak with you before he sullied me further,” Mero coolly said. “I wanted to fess up to the fibs I have told you. I had hoped to escort you from here, but I made a deal with the old man.”

“The leaf.”

“Yes, the leaf, Edmund,” he smiled. “I am greedy, I admit. I can sell it out east for six times its worth. That is where I am heading from here.”

“I am sorry to see you go.”

“You are a good flatterer, Edmund. I know you are happy to be through with me.” Mero then gave him a sly laugh. “I apologize for being so underhanded, but I am compelled with you for a reason that Etric isn’t aware of.”

“And what is that?” Edmund asked.

“Your bow,” Mero said while looking at it. “May I look at it further?”

“I am in a tub, and you are armed.”

“I wouldn’t harm you, Edmund. You are the last person I’d lay a hand on.” He said it in a way that seemed sincere, but still, it alarmed him. Edmund only nodded while trying to stay calm. A shudder shot through him in the warm water as Mero appeared distracted while he touched the bow.

“You can have it — a gift for saving our lives,” Edmund told him, hoping he’d leave.

“It was a gift. I do not want to dishonor that,” Mero answered him, wearing a look of melancholy. “You need not wrap it, Edmund. It’s a Grimm bow, and its age dates back to before the wall itself.”

“How do you know these things, Mero?” Edmund insisted. “Why don’t you take it? If it’s such a value and you crave it, then take it. I insist you take it with you.”

“This woman who gave it to you, the joke that your dead friend mentioned. What did she look like?” Mero asked, giving him a sad look.

“It is a confusing story to tell. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I beg you to tell me this. If you do, I will be indebted to you.” His sincerity took Edmund by surprise. He had been around good liars — he was a decent one himself if he had to be — but this didn’t appear to be a lie to him.

Edmund told the story of Peregrine and Camille while he dressed, as Mero sat and listened, clinging to every word he spoke. He described the attack from the Yellow Hand in Faust, his blindness, and how it unfolded with their return blocked from the way they came.

He even spilled the tale of their prior ambush when they left Hayston, prompting Mero to ask questions about this Yellow Hand.

The coincidence they had with these brigands. Inquiring about the terror they were spreading. Edmund’s ramblings brought up the story of the massacre in Butcher’s Wail of the Nuhrish man, and his disappearance from the morgue.

“What else do you know of this man?” That story looked to have bothered him and piqued his interest more than anything else.

“That is all I know, Mero. I am surprised you have not heard of it; the story has spread all over the Triad.”

“Tell me about the girl. What did she mean to you?”

Edmund became embarrassed, the thought of that night still burned in his stomach. She was still in his thoughts. “Why does it matter?” Edmund said, trying to hide his feelings.

“I guess it doesn’t, lad,” Mero said in a sorrowful tone, turning from him as he stood. Moments had passed, and Mero stood still as he watched.

He believed he was weeping, but not sure why. “I have to go,” he said, never turning his head back to him. “Please say kind words to your mates for me. Your friend that died … such a misfortune.”

“The bow?” Edmund asked him.

“It is yours. I am not a thief.” He turned to nod to him, watching him leave as he exhaled. The tension that had him in such discomfort eased after a few more deep breaths.

He armed himself in haste with thoughts of running to his Harwin, but he kept the experience to himself, crossing over into the dwelling that his brother and Julius were in. Harwin was in a chair by him, and he could hear his friend’s voice.

He tried his best to smile as Julius was eating, sitting up in the bunk. Harwin held a bowl of boiled oats and honey to him, and Edmund was welling tears again, as the guilt had gripped him into a dark grief.

“I was telling him about these things they have given us, Edmund,” Harwin said to break his sadness. “That Pietro brought them this morning; we have been waiting on you. I will get this lazy bloke on his feet today and walk him around so we can go home.”

“I am glad,” Julius said in a weak voice, struggling for words, “that you are well.”

“You look much better,” Edmund choked out. Julius looked at where his left arm used to be. “Harwin mentioned that Etric has been kind and Osmond will be buried as a hero, an elder in the highest of honors.”

“We can take him home with us. I can have him—”

“No, Edmund. It’s fitting, more fitting than having him burned back in Breeston. We can’t see him here, but I find it unfitting to look at his ashes in a bloody box.”

“It’s beautiful here, a place that the gods walked on I’m told,” Julius remarked, welling up as Harwin followed, the guilt was more than he could bear. “I think the gods could forgive his bold stupidity and keep him in their graces, so we can be with him when we die.”

“Those are my thoughts,” Harwin said while rubbing Julius’s hair. “We need to get you cleaned up, put paraffin back in that mop.” Edmund was a statue. “Are you going to grace that doorway, or sit with us for a while?” Harwin told him.

Edmund did as asked, took the bowl from Harwin, and sat in his chair. His brother was admiring his new scabbard, talking endlessly as Julius swallowed the oats at a slow pace. “I will have to find a woman to pull my beard,” Julius struggled to tell a jape. “I find it hard to listen to your brother’s words.”

“You are not making this easy. I—”

“You are taking this hard, Edmund, me being a gimp for the rest of my life.” His friend found his strength. “I made the choice that killed my brother as we all did, and I will deal with that, so don’t you despair on this. I am from Breeston.”

“They prepare us for the worst, and this is the worst. We are still buying the inn, though you may have more of the load to carry, as I have just one arm.” His words took an eternity to say while he cracked a smile at Edmund.

“I will do it all if I must.”

“Nonsense. When I get my feet under me…” He winced while trying to laugh. “You couldn’t convince anyone to work for us anyway, parading in that soft wool with a gold spoon up your arse. I have to hurry and get myself straight.”

“You tell Etric to bury Osmond when I get on my feet. I want my arse on a wagon and out of here soon. I am sick of flowers and grass. I am in need to smell foul things, wear my blacks to scour the wards as a Breestoner.”

“I will tell him this evening.”

“You remind him what we did. Your brother said he wanted something from you.”

“I’m not sure of what?” Edmund told him as he ate his last bite of oats.

“Osmond’s death is worth over two chests of wares. You think about that before you see him. I also want you to leave your guilty face behind when you return.” his friend said finding a hard courage.

“Harwin will attend to me here; he is more fun than you, right now.” His friend’s words caused him to well up from grief.

“I will try to be more cheerful next time,” he whispered, crying and biting his hand while reminded of his failure.

“What do you think of this, Julius?” Harwin drowned them out, holding up a dark green doublet, white buttons, with a crest of white vines and leaves embroidered around the collar and sleeves.

“You are serious?” Julius asked, wiping tears with his lone hand. He then chuckled and winced.

“It is fine wool. Wear this back in Breeston,” Harwin japed at Edmund’s expense. “I will take back my chair, brother, don’t worry about us here. I need to speak with Julius alone.”

Edmund peered back as the two bantered back and forth before he left. He lost his composure, shedding tears as he went out of the dwelling.

It had the look of rain in the clouds as Edmund went back to get a cloak, standing for a moment to collect himself. He left none of his arms behind, still worried about Mero, and hoped that he had left.

The whole morning had gripped him and he needed to clear his mind, to reflect on leaving and discover what this Etric had waiting for him.

He spent the next few days as Julius healed browsing the crafters. They didn’t trade in coin, but he felt compelled to learn more before they had to leave. His mind made mental notes, looking at leathers, then at pottery as he admired the clay basins they had baked in hot ovens.

They were great painters and their wares would fetch high coin in Hayston, but be worthless in Breeston, along with most of the crafts he had seen. There were too many of them along Old Street, and they would conflict with the tavern he had hoped to build.

Edmund, if allowed, would request bolts of flax, hemp, and wool. Maybe a few kegs of that ale. The real thing that was stumping him was how they were getting out of there. How was Etric getting them passage? They had more to take with them than they could carry by hand.

He found an herb shop near the smith swarming with women as they handed him sacks of goods in trade for little herbs in exchange.

Edmund had figured that if he was trying to be a merchant here, this would be what he’d shoot for, an easy product, and everyone needed it.

The food was great here, but the spice created that taste, and the Guild was stingy over those types of imports. It was a shame he couldn’t get that either, he thought.

Then he noticed they grew tobacco, something that nobles would import, that was something he hadn’t seen in Breeston. He would request that as well.

Leaving, he walked by the stocks as another lad had been bent over into them today. It was hard not to gawk at the unfortunate lad; they made eye contact, so Edmund nodded at him.

“I got myself in a fine mess this time,” he heard the lad in the stocks tell him. He looked young, maybe his age, with a mischievous look in his blue eyes.

“No offense, but what did you do?” Edmund asked.

“Got caught up in Atzel’s barn. I was up there with his daughter, and we were having a good roll when I felt something poking me in the arse,” he replied. “ ’That’s odd,’ I said at Bea, the lass I was frolicking with, and she screamed. I turned around and Atzel had a pitchfork ready to skewer me.”

“You speak good Abingdon, our language, sir.”

“I had hoped to be an envoy; it passed. I tried baking, and it bored me, so I tried brewing, and couldn’t cut it with the elders telling me what to do. That’s when I decided that I was a lazy man, and I find myself in this once a month.”

“I noticed these were full the other day,” Edmund mentioned.

“They usually are. It isn’t everyone’s dream to be married with kids, letting a mule beat the tar out of you in a field. I’m Morst, by the way.”

Morst then suddenly, laughed out loud amusing Edmund. “That old timer is in a pickle. A lot of the youngsters have been bothering him to be let go from here.

The dogs get turned on us, then here you are, more Nuhrish to go with this phantom Mero. The serenity is getting a little tarnished here. I would love to go to Lonoke, drink when I want to, have a woman when I want to.”

“Not that easy. You need to earn coin.”

“I can do everything, surely I can find work for this coin. No more sneaking around in the barns and waiting for the bloody moon to turn. This is the last night of the phase. I will be too tired to drink and be longing for a fortnight to have an ale.”

“Maybe you should have waited another day to visit Atzel’s barn.”

Morst laughed again. “You should know you take your romps when the opportunity arrives.”

Two Billys interrupted their conversation when he ran up to Edmund. “I had heard you were out looking. They sent me to get ya.”

“Afraid he was getting a gander at the place, see it isn’t all smiles and merry,” Morst said as he snickered in his stocks.

“You be quiet,” Two Billys replied. “Will you accompany me, Edmund?”

“I’m offended, Two Billys, you were like me once. Many a story about your wildness around here,” Morst prodded him.

“I’m married, got kids to feed.”

“Of course you do, that is what we men have to look forward to.”

“I’m Edmund. I wish I could speak with you in a more comfortable way.”

“This is Morty,” Morst introduced him to the man attending him. Morty could only look at him, as he didn’t speak his language. “Me and him are mates, so at least I have someone to keep me company till sundown. You ever been in one of these?”

“My brother has. He likes to rebel.”

“You mean he likes to have fun? My back will kill me tonight when I try to sleep, but you think this will deter me from heading back to Bea to finish what I started?”

“If you see a larger version of myself today, you yell out to him. I think you and him could get along well,” Edmund said.

“I hope so, the talk around here is all on what happened. How long are you staying?”

“Not long. I am sure your elders want me gone.”

Morst laughed hard at that. Edmund could see him adjust from his discomfort, annoying Two Billys, who was in a haste to grab him by the arm to take him to his wagon.

“An interesting fellow,” Edmund commented.

“He’s a young fool; they will find him a wife,” Two Billys remarked, irritated. “Etric will have to bury a poor girl’s father in ale to waste a good lass on him.”

“Can I ask you something, Two Billys? If you were him and were offered a way out to dwell in a city of the Triad, what would you do?”

“That is none of your business,” he coldly replied.

The silence of Two Billys gave Edmund the answer he needed. The Loreton brooded and stayed mute as the wagon took them back to Etric’s cottage. The elder quickly met him at the doorway.

“Let me take the reins, you stay until we return,” he told Two Billys, who obliged, sitting miffed in an outside chair along the front of the elder’s cottage.

Etric slapped the reins as the buckboard sped. Edmund thought it awkward as the elder drove him through his land, along the back side of his property, he noticed, between a small wall of the thorny hedge that provided secrecy.

“You must be taking me somewhere fascinating,” Edmund remarked. “You are leaving him behind as punishment?” he quipped.

“He need not see what I am showing you. Two Billys is too cozy with Mero. He told me he gives Two Billys wine every time he comes for information,” Etric said in an ornery tone.

“He was always mischievous, and he has been drinking on the forbidden days. I will punish him soon.”

The wagon stopped at a heavy wooden gate, banded in iron, lodged in a manicured arch in the hedge.

He then opened a heavy iron lock and pushed it ajar, climbing back in the wagon and snapping the reigns as they followed a dirt road into the woods while Etric gave him a grin.

The woods belonged to him, he said; the elders decided how to parcel up plots to the youth, arrange the marriages, and enforce the rules.

“I have spoken to one of your rule-breakers today, the man in the stocks,” Edmund remarked.

“You mean Morst? He is a pain in the neck and I have too many of them. I just ordered more stocks to be built.”

“The marriages?”

“It is the mother’s word to reproduce and be productive,” Etric said.

“You have dissenters, though. If they don’t conform, then they brave the hedge and die?”

“Or kill themselves. Why do you ask these things? Who am I to change laws older than a millennium?”

“Where are we going?” Edmund asked.

“I want to show you my brewery; it’s my pride and joy. Will it be an inconvenience?”

“Not at all,” Edmund insisted as they came out of the forest and into a meadow leading up to the mountains.

“There is a small notch and a cave ahead. It has a spring inside and I do my brewing there. The wood for the casks, I cut here.” He pointed out at thickets of dark oaks that spread out in groves manicured for his trade. “I have a nephew who is a cooper, a smith as well, to make the bandings for the kegs.”

It impressed him when the wagon entered the covered notch. Etric introduced him to a small gathering after they climbed down, pointing out that the group was all his men and loyal to him.

They entered the cave, and it began as a crevice, then opened wide as the mouth of the spring was ahead of them. They led him down a path that ran along its edge into another passage that unveiled the heart of the brewery.

Etric’s pride was several large copper vats with a hearth underneath. The cave had carved recesses behind them filled with barley, yeast, hops, and beet sugars, Etric had gloated to him.

He had kegs on top of kegs in another recess, and the elder became very enthused when describing how much he could brew if a need ever presented itself.

“I am surprised and honored to witness this. It brings many questions to mind,” Edmund said.

“A lad bright like you always has a question.”

“You were feeling me out last night, so you must have something more direct in mind today.” Edmund saw fit to pounce on his enthusiasm.

“I want you to come with me. I have small quarters over here, and a man I desire you to meet.” the elder says with a sight chuckle.

He followed him through a door to a crevice chiseled out into a small chamber to keep ledgers and conduct affairs. They introduced Edmund to a man sitting on a stool behind a desk who was a Westerner.

“This is Darsow Perkins,” Etric said as the man rose to shake his hand.

“You are from Breeston?” he asked, feigning ignorance and knowing he wasn’t. The man was struggling to stay composed as he was breathing fast from anticipation.

“I am from Perenza,” Darsow bragged. “It is a crook behind these mountains, a village that our clan discovered by accident decades ago.”

“I never heard of it,” Edmund replied out of curiosity.

“The spring that flows through this mountain is an underground river. It flows into the sea between a narrow valley on the other side of here, and the cave continues to that other side,” Etric interrupted, informing him.

“I follow you, Etric.” Edmund pondered. “He has ships, I assume.”

“Ships can’t dock in our shallow nook. We have wide-bottom flatboats and we can follow the shore to the Bell River,” Darsow said. “Look at this, Edmund.”

“You have a Guild pin,” Edmund remarked. “This is our way home, isn’t it, Etric?”

“It is, and now to my business with you.”

“Mero is leaving this way, isn’t he?”

“He is. We have completed our terms, he agreed to never set foot in Loreto again. Darsow will have for him a warehouse, and I will keep it filled with what he forages, along with tortoise leaf, and he leaves me a little of the gold on what he makes.”

“I might as well use him since I can’t get rid of him. The gold is for Darsow, who is transporting him back and forth to Lonoke.”

“So, you are breaking your own rules. You want to be a merchant, Etric?” Edmund said, studying Darsow who was so filled with anticipation that he was desperate.

“I know you must have expected something. Mero said you were cunning and ambitious.”

“Your opinion has changed about him?”

“No, Edmund, he is still a vile man,” Etric said with ire. “You got a look at my problems. I need weapons, which means I need gold. I have to convince the others that we need a small militia. Surely you understand why?”

“You need no more of my kind working their way through.”

“No offense, but your presence has created a calamity. We have been nice to you, we have showered you with gifts, because we are frightened of you,” Etric admitted.

“I need you to keep us a secret, keep us a mystery to others and repeat nothing of what you have seen.”

“Are you offering for me to come up with terms for this discretion?” Edmund asked.

“I have told Etric about the Guild. He says you are going into business, and he has a product you can import,” Darsow said.

“The ale and I noticed tobacco being smoked by your people,” Edmund said with a shrug. “How do you propose I hide where it is from when they ask when I apply for a merchant pin?”

“We have fruits and nuts. We have the greatest food in the lands,” Etric shouted out.

“They have rules on these things,” Edmund protested. “Darsow, have you ever been to Breeston?”

“Not in ten years. I trade along the Bell River, but it hooks into the Nyber.

“I can import the ale, but the kegs need the Triad brand,” Edmund mentioned.

“I am a smuggler, so I have these. The pin can get me to the Breeston docks, and we can even smuggle items into the kegs,” Darsow was stuttering, his wants spilling out of his mouth.

He could sense his desire to make coin, and he was stricken with it, too, but he had learned from Argyle how to hold his ambition in check.

“It’d be your problem to explain why the ale is so good,” Etric said with a chuckle. They were trying to gang up on him, making the plan they had schemed appear easy.

“I can give you time to think about it, lad. Your friend is still unwell,” Etric offered, wanting to let his offer simmer in his mind. It was smart business to let a man’s imagination inflate his greed, but Edmund was having none of that.

“My friend will be ready to leave soon after you bury his brother,” Edmund interrupted.

“That is your first term; consider it accepted. What else, lad?”

“Get me a parchment, a quill, and ink. I’ll write my terms. Edmund says as he had prepared for this hours ago. “One thing, Why do you think I can deliver on this hope of yours?”

The question made Etric demand a private audience, while he pushed the eagre Darsow out from his office. He smiled when they were alone, he was excited and was more friendly toward him since they arrived.

“You have no idea what you and your brother’s miracle has done for us, Edmund!” Etric tells him with an expression of pure joy. “You and your brother had more bites and lost more blood than any man I have ever heard or read about, much less seen.”

“Here you stand, your wounds healed, you should be dead like your poor friend Osmond.” Etric said in amazement.

“You even grew back a finger that those dogs took from you as you ran a fever so hot that we packed cold mud to attempt to cool you down. It dried and cracked in mere hours.”

“I’ve healed men all my life, and we prayed in shifts for you and your brother’s survival and we witnessed two true miracles.”

“You have proved to us that Lupretia is still among us, only her blessings would have brought the two of you back completely whole while your friend Julius will be maimed for life.”

Edmund had thought the man had lost his wits, but if he was indeed a gift from the blessed mother, he was going to have to ask for more than he originally desired.

“I will need three days to negotiate our terms.”