The Knight of Tanner's Square

3

The New Constable (Tosser)

Harwin had a hole inside him on Darsow’s wide-bodied cog, reflecting bitter memories and struggling with Osmond’s funeral.

The Loreto people gave him a burial that most lords would envy. A crypt or statue they didn’t mark him by, but every man, woman, and child from the village attended.

They left their plain, drab tunics and ankle-long dresses behind for embroidered robes reserved for when an elder passed away. They sent Osmond away with autumn flowers and small tokens that were handmade or handed down in affection for what he sacrificed for them, burying him within a carved, adorned, ash-wood coffin.

Voices melded as they sang in a queer language that rose and fell with heavy meaning, and one of the elders gave a eulogy he couldn’t understand, but it made the Loretan people wail as if they had known Osmond their entire lives.

It brought Harwin back to when he was a young lad and watched his mother, Rose Parsons, passing, the sadness a similarity, and he lost his breath in that moment.

He became broken up inside as Julius was leaning amongst him, shedding tears while they looked upon Osmond’s grave. He felt him shaking in his grief, his brother speechless as he grasped Julius and held him tight.

The villagers formed a line to look upon Osmond’s body, embracing them as the long progression left while they mourned alone over their comrade.

And then, to match the mood, the clouds broke, and it rained. The funeral ended, and they were soon on a wagon passing Etric’s cottage, through a small hedge of infernal thorns, and on a road into a thick forest.

They were blindfolded, a request from Etric that reminded him of his arrest in Hayston. A horrible reminder, as he rode in darkness, and when the Loreton elder had taken them off hours later, they were looking down at a valley following a river to a small village ahead that dwelled by a lagoon.

They didn’t linger in this village either, boarding a small rig that may have stretched twenty feet.

The man who owned it went by the name Darsow, and he sailed them near the shore between a cluster of narrow outer islands that provided so many sandbars that even a standard river cog could not maneuver it. The boat’s crew was small, four men that could do multiple tasks.

Darsow could steer the vessel amongst the sandbars’ edge, bragging on his knowledge of the tides as the vessel soon entered the mouth of a river that nested between shallow cliffs. Harwin must have counted eight villages while floating along the narrow, winding river that only few had known of.

The vessel stopped at every one, trading wares for whatever goods these little villages could spare to barter.

Harwin asked Edmund how much of this secret Etric had disclosed to him. Edmund smiled and said all. He indulged him about the arrangement he made with Etric and the hypocritical bargain of gold the elder planned to buy steel with.

He became disgusted with the whole Loreto plight; he wanted to kill that lying Mero, and it didn’t surprise him that the man abandoned them to run off on a boat back to Lonoke.

His brother disclosed the twenty barrels of goods that Etric sent along with him as a tribute for Osmond’s senseless death for Julius.

They had given Osmond’s axes and wares to his brother, who didn’t want them, so he passed them over to him, and what was left of their dear Osmond traveled inside two chests that the elders gave them to justify their cowardice.

“We are on the Bell River, which will take us to the Nyber until we are back home,” Edmund informed him. “Home?” The word rang queerly in his thoughts, his brother calling Breeston home.

It would be a sad homecoming for him without his mate. He looked over to Julius, who sat huddled with a wool blanket over him, looking along the river banks on a wooden crate.

He was pushing himself; his friend needed to be lying in a bed, recovering, but he wanted to leave Loreto behind him.

Harwin could see he was suffering inside. He’d smile if approached and his wit was still sharp, but a piece of Julius lay buried back in Osmond’s grave. A piece of him lay buried there as well.

It took four weeks for Julius to get the strength to travel, and the voyage had added another week to their absence, and when the nights passed, Edmund would try to encourage Julius with how great this tavern would be that they were going to acquire.

He had unfolded this idea that they would be on Old Street, dressed in their best doublets, and have pretty women serving horns to all the decent folks with silver in their hands and not pitiful stories of woe for a free horn and a heel of bread.

Harwin shook his head, and could only hope for such a good thing, for a good thing was owed to them. Julius would smile hearing the tall tale, but Edmund kept embellishing his idea like it already happened until time passed and the Breeston docks lay ahead.

It was an impressive sight. The traffic on the river was stifling as he saw a huge barge making a wide turn, heading northward to Minoa, while other cogs passed alongside them, hauling flour and root crops to the northern Triad towns.

Darsow wove his rig through to the northern outer edge of the docks. His vessel was searched by customs, detaining them for a while as they inspected his guild pin and then bombarded him with questions about where he was from and what he was carrying.

Harwin chuckled, watching the nervous captain.

He could tell the short Darsow had never had a taste of Breeston hospitality. He had the look of a simpleton, barely over five feet with a thinning mop of black curls.

His brother rescued him by sliding a silver oak into the greedy man’s hand, along with a few coppers for his goons while they obliged him in false courtesy.

Edmund made up a lie that they were from Liston, one of the small villages along the river they had come through. Inquiring with the customs agent about renting a small warehouse with the harbormaster, his brother was signing the parchment for ownership when a group of constables came upon them.

Sully Nickles greeted them. His men bore cudgels with orders from Arlo Withers to take them to an audience.

“Can I at least find quarters first?” Edmund protested while rolling up the parchment for storage of the goods on Darsow’s rig.

“We are to take you to him at once,” Sully sternly replied.

“We have to go, Edmund. The captain probably sent word to Bitters when he found out we had left. I would have if I were him,” Harwin suggested.

“They have the man spying on us?” Edmund asked, annoyed.

“Yes, we’re still considered wards, even in exile,” Harwin said. “Why act like such a fool?”

“I will have my men put your holdings away, and I will wait on the boat until you return,” Darsow interrupted as Sully reaffirmed his orders.

“I will get us quarters,” Julius said.

“You are coming, too, gimp,” Sully growls. “The captain wants a word with all three of you. Where are the others that left with you? Someone informed the captain that six of you left.”

“It’s just us three now,” Harwin said while towering over him. The sergeant tried to put up a tough front, but he could see the discomfort on his face as he backed down.

“Follow me then!” Sully barked out, and they were escorted similarly to when he and Edmund first arrived in Breeston, circled by constables who glanced up at him as if he were a criminal. Harwin would catch a glance of one, then return a droll grimace as their eyes darted away. I have to work with this lot? Harwin grumbled to himself as they showed him to the doorway of the constable’s quarters.

Arlo Withers was wearing a nice, black doublet with an embroidered white falcon on his left breast. It brought out the red shade of anger in his face as he pointed for them to sit.

The captain stared at Julius for many moments, who did his best to look pitiful, and he didn’t have to work hard at it. He was still bandaged heavily from the wounds on his left ear and neck, not to mention he lacked an arm.

Edmund tried to be cordial, acting as if Withers was a long-lost friend, but the captain bluntly told him to shut his gob.

“Do you realize, lad, that when you handed me that parchment your uncle wrote, it made me responsible for you?”

“He is the man that rubs elbows with the type here who could take my position away and not give a bollocks about it!” Arlo informed him in a raised voice.

“I am sorry,” Edmund said, to which he received another curt reply of silence.

“Do you know how I found out about your absence?” Arlo asked, seething while unrolling a parchment. “I got this from some bitter sergeant in Faust who goes by Courtney Riggins. He says someone butchered six men, with descriptions of you and confirming further evidence by enclosing your names.”

The captain looked directly at him, blinking with an angry demeanor.

“You want me to say something?” Harwin asked.

“Yes, this is where you explain yourself, and you keep your mouth shut, lad,” the captain said while pointing at Edmund. “In the letter, it also said one of you was blinded. Hmm, can someone care to explain that?”

Harwin looked over at his brother, silent as a child being scolded. Julius was between them, looking at the floor as Harwin tried to figure out how to explain what had happened. “Well, we took a job that paid good gold from a healer down in Butcher’s Wail, who went by Peregrine Haldock.”

“Yes, I know that name. That was the one I tried to retain for Bitters when you graced my threshold and a rabid dog of a woman told me to bugger off.”

“That was Camille,” Harwin added. “Well, it was going well, but it seems we were being observed by these foragers, spies for the Yellow Hand. They were curious, as the healer was dressed lordly, and we were dressed as—”

“Mercenaries,” Arlo interrupted. “You six must have stuck out like a stiffened mule on that boat. Continue.”

“When we got to Faust, the foragers caught up to us in the inn’s tavern. We were split up and it became ugly.”

“So, the Yellow Hand wanted to kill the healer as well. Do you know why?” Arlo asked while running his hands in frustration through his hair.

“No. We incapacitated the foragers. I feared for Edmund since he stayed in our quarters upstairs. They paid him no mind and crashed into the healers’ door.”

“Edmund here shot one, then ran in with his dirk. Some poison that the healer threw at the attackers blinded the poor fellow — either Camille or the healer killed them. I heard he may have had a cudgel.”

“They wanted something in the chest,” Julius murmured aloud. “We believed it was gold.”

“This is the lad that neighbors you, but where is the other?” Arlo asked.

“He is dead, from an accident?” Harwin said, not wanting to mention they were in Loreto.

Harwin knew if he mentioned the wild tale his brother told about the corpse Etric showed him, they would sit in a stockade. Even he had trouble believing the tale.

“This sergeant was sacked for insubordination,” Arlo said. “This Captain Sykes was bribed and never returned to his post. Would you know anything about that?”

“No, we were left in Lonoke,” Harwin replied.

“I’d bet he is dead or on a ship south,” Arlo remarked while rubbing his eyes. “I am assuming this man here left with two arms?” he asked while pointing at Julius.

“We took another job, and it ended in great failure,” Edmund said.

“I don’t want to know anymore, I will rue the day I ever met you before all this is through.” Arlo then smiled a pained smile. “Instead, Harwin, you are to report here tomorrow morning. Your constable training begins in the yards. Your captain demanded it, and I signed off on it.”

“You talked to Bitters?” Harwin asked, alarmed.

“Yes, he is waiting for the both of you at that inn you lived at, the Frookuh. He wants a turn with you, as well, and I hope he treats you twice as badly as he treated me.”

“The man came here personally after I sent him a parchment just to tell me what a useless puckerhole I am.”

Harwin grew pale. Bitters would blame him for the whole thing.

“I want you out of my bloody office,” Arlo said, then opened his door to let them out.

Harwin began worrying about an explanation for Bitters as his temper was building, while Sully escorted them out. Julius meandered ahead, leading them through the Horn as he yelled at his brother.

“Bitters will be three times the bear that Arlo was.” He then slowed, reaching for his brother by the arm. “You better figure out a way around this Loreto business. He will be angry when he sees Julius in his state, and no Osmond coming home with us?”

“How are we going to explain this, brother? If he goes back to tell Uncle, then what?”

“I will tell him the truth, you nod and stay quiet,” Edmund interrupted.

“That is the worst thing you can do!” Harwin replies with a raised voice.

They bickered and pointed wildly at each other, then dread struck them as they saw the Frookuh ahead. A groveling Relling, the innkeeper met them, happy once again that they were back in his graces.

He escorted them to their old room, which Bitters was occupying, greeting them in a chair with the look of a headsman itching to do his job.

Edmund wasted no time. “We took a job and someone ambushed the man that hired us,” he said as his captain had eyes bearing upon him. Bitters was quick to butt in.

“Why did they rob this man, and it never occurred that your names are on their tongues?”

“The healer had a lot of gold,” Harwin said, trying to relieve the burden from his brother. “They threw it around like coppers, and they paid us fifty falcons each.”

Harwin got a vile glare from Bitters and then he glanced at Julius, who looked lost in this inquiry, staring at him with a gaping mouth.

“It wasn’t the gold, brother,” Edmund replied. “Why didn’t I figure it out sooner? The answer was in my hand the whole time. The bow.”

“Quit being foolish, Edmund.” Harwin blurted back as Bitters halted the bickering to let his brother speak.

“What bow?” Bitters asks.

“The man killed in the square, the one whose corpse was stolen. It was his remains in the chest, his bones. It wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me, and that was what we guarded that put Camille in such an unbearable state,” Edmund said with a distant look. “

The bow she gave me was his; it was in the chest. She never had it on her. Her bow was different, I recall. I have to tell you something, things I withheld. Forgive me, but it’s necessary so you all will understand why.”

Edmund then described the journey, starting with Breeston, disclosing the tense travel north with Peregrine and Camille, along with the prying foragers and the role they played in Faust. He told in depth about the attack at the Oriole, his blindness and recovery, and how the job ended in arrest, with them taken under duress to Lonoke.

He began on how the bow became his, telling of the night with Camille that had Bitters eyes in a pool of disbelief.

His old captain was soon to lose his temper before Edmund silenced him by raising his voice to let him finish, and it took the old man by surprise in a way that only his uncle could get away with.

He discussed Mero and the bargain to enter Lonoke, which Harwin pleaded to keep quiet about.

His brother shook him off, then discussed the hounds in Loreto, and when he discussed Osmond, it hit Harwin again and he caught himself in tears.

Edmund brought up that Mero had approached him. The thought angered Harwin and his temper nearly flared as he was struggling to keep his mouth shut.

“Mero wanted to see the bow; it filled him with such sadness, he looked riddled with guilt,” his brother explained.

“I believe he knew the man that was butchered, and he didn’t know he was dead until he looked at my bow.”

He went into depth about Mero’s fascination with the bow and how he’d wanted to know about the healer. How he got the bow from Camille.

“I didn’t understand it at the time, as the man had me petrified. I think he pieced together what I pieced right here.”

“How could you withhold something like this?” Harwin was furious, as his brother held up his hands.

“Let it go, Harwin,” Julius pleaded. “This has been an unfortunate horror, please, let it go.”

“I need a bloody ale. Does that bloke downstairs have any in his eatery?” Bitters said in disbelief.

“It’s swill, sir, I think we need to go to Biddy Mulligans,” Julius said while trying to grab his point with his right hand.

The tension was sidetracked when the lads showed up with their stuff from Darsow’s boat awaiting a copper as Bitters paid, insulting them as he reached to look at the bow.

“Do you have an explanation on why you were given this, smarty? It wasn’t because you are a fantastic lover.”

“That, I do not understand,” Edmund said sadly. The woman hadn’t left his brother’s thoughts.

“Let’s go have a few horns, then we shall talk,” Bitters told Harwin with a glare that made him wince.

They sat in silence over a stew of stringy lamb with leeks; the bread was good as the wagons had fresh barley coming into the city.

“I’m sure this bread is free of bugs. It’s a good time to be in the wards.” Julius japed while downing a horn, his friend trying to alter the mood.

Many commoners approached their friend wanting to know what happened while Bitters scowled, grinding his teeth. Julius was struggling to explain the tragedy and had to lie and tell them that Osmond drowned in the river.

He didn’t know what to say, and it saddened Harwin because in all that time they never thought of how to deal with this when they returned. They just wanted to come home and in mere hours it became a huge bollock.

They dined with poor attempts at small talk as the looming Bitters made it difficult to have a normal experience.

The captain brooded, scratched his nose, and thought hard. Then he brooded again up to the point when they were walking back. Harwin had noticed his glare at him like an owl at an unsuspecting rabbit.

“You lads head up; I want to speak with Harwin alone.”

Harwin watched as more patted Julius on the back as they left the table, each one offering well wishes as the scene made them upset, and in moments he was in tears himself.

He waited as Edmund and Julius left. His old captain was unsettled, giving Harwin a worried look, and Edmund’s honesty about their folly as mercenaries didn’t give him any solace.

“It’s been a horrible time. Argyle shouldn’t have exiled him with me. His life has changed, and he has an ambitious streak in him now.” Harwin says to break the icy stare from Bitters.

“I don’t know what to do. Your uncle is unaware of your folly up north. I kept the parchments away from him, but things have gotten so dangerous with this Yellow Hand that Argyle wants the lad home.”

“They revoked his exile, but yours, he could not get support for. You could lie to him for me. I need to get him in the wagon.”

Bitters’s words cut him deep. “No, I will not deceive him.”

“It’s beyond you now,” Bitters said. “Your uncle said whatever it takes.”

“I don’t feel it’s my place to trick him. If that is what you are asking, then I can’t comply.”

Bitters insisted they take a walk outside, which meant that he was about to say something bleak and he didn’t want to have this discussion privy to others.

“This place has gotten worse since you left! These brigands have killed four merchants. Seven people have died in the Horn since I have been here. The Breeston square at the docks was littered with parchments.”

Bitters handed one to him, then spat on the street as they walked back toward the Frookuh.

“They are declaring war on the Guild,” Harwin says, shrugging after reading it.

“The squares have yellow handprints painted on them. They come out at night and litter the stones, telling lies, saying the Guild made the “mist” to kill the poor folks here,” Bitters informed him.

“The wards are in a panic, especially Jack Dobbins, which they have removed the constables from. The boss in the Bollox ward is useless, probably one of them, if you ask me.”

“You will meet your end here if you become a tosser. Let me arrange something for you, protect you from your arrogance. What do you think of Dietrich?”

“I appreciate your concern, but I have to decline. I’ll wear my armor, take the laughs from the rubes, and put away as many of these brigands as I can,” Harwin told him.

Bitters had a desperate look. “Don’t be a damn fool. You have a good captain, but he has his hands tied. His constables are corrupt. They may be in this Yellow Hand, whoever they are.

They have money, Harwin; somebody with the coin is funding this charade. It may be a guild member for all I know, looking to take control from the rest.”

“How do you figure that, Bitters?”

“You would be dead if they weren’t,” his captain told him, wearing a dreaded frown. “Whoever runs this is wealthy and isn’t interested in revenge.”

“These brigands are following orders and something tells me they are under conscription — a good wage at that.” Bitters grabbed him by the shoulders.

“You heard your brother, about that healer, they followed. Instead, you played a role in killing more of them. How long do you think it will be before they come for retribution?”

“I’ll kill them,” Harwin said.

“I don’t doubt your grit,” Bitters said. “That man that got butchered in the square had your same confidence, I bet. Look what happened to him, and he took a score with him. The question is, why was he targeted?”

“Why was his body’s snatcher targeted, and why was he so bloody important to that healer?” His captain then paced, wringing his hands before continuing.

“You lads have stumbled in somebody else’s mess,” Bitters told him. “Do your best to not get any deeper. If I got to haul you back dead, I might as well kill myself when the wagon arrives in Hayston. Your uncle will have me hanged, no matter if I am well-liked.”

“I doubt that.”

“You doubt that?” Bitters scoffs perturbed.

“That uncle of yours still goes to your mother’s grave and talks to her as if she were still here! He tells her how proud she’d be of her boys, even though he is lying about you. If he heard this ludicrous tale your brother just dumped on me. The boy shouldn’t have come here.”

“I need no reminder of that,” Harwin told him.

“Let me tell you something, and when I tell you this, you keep it to yourself!” Bitters yelled at him with a curse. “He’s not exiled; he came because he didn’t want you to be alone.”

“I told him to lie to you to make you feel like a miserable lummox! He promised Argyle he’d hole himself in a room. The old man would send him money, and he’d stay put for a while and come home.”

Bitters words were sharp and cold, and he tried to hold back tears, but then rage took over him as he went face to face with his old captain.

“You bastard!” Harwin yelled back. “You go back and tell Argyle to bugger off! This is your mess, and it was Edmund who told the fib to Uncle.”

“He isn’t going back, he has a commitment to Julius, and in no way will he abandon him”

“I have to tell him what has happened here, that is my sworn duty to him.” Bitters informs him. “He will want this sorted.”

“You tell him you straightened it out, you chewed me real good, and Edmund has been true and safe.” Harwin then pushed his old captain hard, so hard he fell on his backside. “Edmund stays here!”

“He will come back — he has guild meetings during the winter and he will be furious!” Bitters pleaded.

“Not my problem! I’m done answering for Hawklin Parsons’ bride before he got a taste. You can tell him I wasn’t the one that broke her in. Bugger him.” Harwin spat on the dirt.

“You tell him the underhanded arrangement still stands, and he can keep sending that money, and if you lose your captain’s job then you can come up here, and work with me as a tosser.”

“You think this is funny?” Bitters spits in a vile voice.

“I don’t have a laugh to spare!” Harwin replies curtly. “I’ll see you out tomorrow when you leave. Alone!” he adds in a huff while Bitters looked at him stunned as he strode off quickly, and in moments he was storming through the parlor of the Frookuh.

Harwin was fuming. Normally he would have barged in and confronted Edmund about his lie, but his brother did it out of love for him.

He instead kept Julius company, making Edmund share a room with his old captain as Harwin declined to discuss anymore about the subject as Edmund gazed upon them concerned.

The drab room was far from what they had been privy to since they left, but Julius was glad to be back in Breeston.

Harwin helped him organize his wares, and he boasted that he had more belongings than he ever had, keeping his thoughts from lingering back to Loreto.

“Can I ask you a question, Harwin?” Julius asked him. “Your brother, what was he like in Hayston?” The question made him laugh.

“I have to be honest, I had neglected him for years, Julius,” Harwin replied. “I spent most of my day with my men — I had a score under me.”

“We did our rounds, I reported to Bitters daily, then we drank and chased women into the late hours until passing out in our barracks.”

“What did he do? He tells me about all these places in Hayston, but he never mentions friends or women. He only talks about his uncle, father, or mother if you goad him into it.”

“His life was where our father or uncle told him it was. He’d read anything he could get his hands on, be home for dinner every night, what a bore.” Harwin laughed.

“I’d hear from a girl that asked about him, try to arrange a meeting so I could get an easy laugh at his awkwardness.”

“He was a lord’s son, no matter if he was an orphan, and it meant respect. His station would be a prize for a minor lord’s daughters.”

“They still consider us noble, and his life should have been in Argyle’s counting houses, making more money than either of us would ever see.”

“He has been scribbling notes, obsessed with this inn, and I feel guilty about this.”

“I was hard on him while you were suffering. He is carrying blame on his thoughts, so he will take over your dream, Julius, as a penance.” Harwin added, “I used to tease him that he’d write notes on what doublet he would wear that day.”

The thought got a laugh from Julius.

“He never had a true friend. Fascinating someone on their first meeting with his brilliance, then turning them away the next day with his arrogance. I should have been a better brother to him.”

“I can’t shake what Edmund said.” Julius then welled up in tears. “I talked us into working for a corpse thief? I was so enchanted by that man, and I lost my brother for it.”

“We all played a role in that bollocks, and it has changed us, my friend. I told off the man I love as a father, telling myself that my life may never include him anymore.” Harwin looked at Julius, watching him wipe away his tears.

“You two have a direction. I am still searching for mine in a job that may get me killed. Someone told me tonight that I wasn’t the reason Edmund was here. He came on his own. It was a lie to make me feel guilty, and it worked.”

“It was cruel,” Julius replied to stall his ramblings.

“How can I complain? My brother chose me after all the teasing, after all the times I ignored him, even when I mocked him in front of my men.”

“He has endured being attached to me while I became known as the Parson imbecile.” Harwin was tearing up. “I’m a failure as a brother. He will succeed here and I will be nothing but a brute.”

“I had a moment of heroism once. Did my brother tell you how I got my Kirschner?”

“He never said. I thought you bought it.”

“I had access to money, but not that much.” Harwin then stood, walked over to his sword, and unsheathed it. “There were only a couple hundred of these swords ever made. It was my uncle’s sword.”

“A few lowlives kidnapped a lord’s daughter, demanding a ransom. Her father was a miser like most lords and refused to pay, begging Argyle to send the militia after them.” Harwin smiled, looking back.

“I was Edmund’s age, and Bitters had taken over the pursuit and had the men holed up in a crofter’s cottage.”

“They had the lord’s daughter, the crofter, and his family, demanding coin or he’d kill them all. Argyle thought it was better to give them the ransom, then hunt them down afterward.”

“It was four of us that snuck around back while the bickering played out with Bitters and the lowlives. I had a secret and was seeking glory, and I knew this cabin.”

“The crofter’s daughter was a frequent folly of mine and I wanted to save her. I couldn’t have cared less about that lord’s daughter, it was the glory I sought.”

“The cabin had loose boards in her room; the crofter did that in case of a fire, as her room had no windows.”

“We crawled through those boards as I did before, caught them unaware as they still argued over terms through the front windows, and me and my boys cut them down from behind before they knew what hit them.”

“A show of courage,” Julius said, fascinated.

“I got lit up by Bitters, the typical old man, thinking of how my boldness could have killed them all. He may have been right, but it worked, and I received all of the credit.”

“My men got gold, but my uncle used it to brag on his brave militia, never missing a chance to help himself.”

“He held a ceremony, and they paraded me around like a lord. My uncle was proud, and even my father was boasting to the others about my heroism. I wished my mother would have been alive. It was the best day of my life.”

“My reward was this sword and being chosen as Bitters’s replacement when he found me fit to take over. Argyle promoted me to his second, and it made me arrogant.”

“It’s a wonderful story.”

“It is, and it was my downfall. I went from being the giant lummox to getting attention from others like I never had. The men from the militia revered me, the ladies blushed in my presence, and I became an impolite arse immediately.”

“The Loretons gave us this wine, Harwin. Let us drink to new beginnings. I think we have sat here moping long enough,” Julius said to break his mood.

“We should do this to honor good Osmond, just me and you from now on. He loved you and told me when we first met you, you and he would be fast mates. He told me I was stuck with the skinny twat.” Julius laughed out loud.

“I was in a fog lying in that bed in Loreto, hating myself for goading this whole departure.”

“He’d be in my dreams telling me to quit crying about him. You killed me, he said, so what? Are you going to piss and moan, scratch your arse with your lone arm, and drink yourself to death? I hear it in my mind as if I am in that dream now.”

Julius had Harwin fill two cups, clinking the cups as a tribute to Osmond. The wine was fruity, tasting like pears, but it was potent, and by the third cup, they were laughing amongst themselves, thinking back to when they met.

Bitters and Edmund poked their heads in because they were making so much noise.

“I do not invite you two,” Harwin shouted in a drunken slur. “Now bollocks off!”

Bitters shook his head and left as Edmund asked for one drink, denied at once and sent away by Julius as he slammed the door. “Begone, rabble!” he laughed out.

He didn’t know when they finished the bottle, but they did and he slept hard, awakened at first light in a fright. “I got to go to work,” he muttered.

Julius was sleeping hard as he got a lad to bring him water, and after dressing for training, he knocked on the door where Bitters was staying. The old man was up, tidying up his things to head back.

“Edmund is off to the docks, looking over something he has down there,” the old captain told him. “I will be on my way. I have a few errands, but that will not take long.”

“Safe travels, old man.” He was struggling to find words.

“I’ll tell Argyle that everything is well like you requested. He won’t care for it, but you are in the right, lad,” Bitters humbly told him. “Maybe I’ll see you when your uncle comes. Unless he sacks me when I return empty-handed.”

“Be expecting a fight when we return, he will not be happy.”

“Letting you down, that dishonor I will live with forever,” Harwin mentioned, embracing his old captain. “I’ll send you letters through Arlo and try not to embarrass you any further. I’ll do my best for Edmund.”

Bitters nodded, as he never was a man of fond words. “Here is a note of promise. I had Argyle write it for you when I left. It’s two hundred silver oaks to keep you going since the money here is sparse. I can still twist the man’s arm when need be.”

“Like a true father. If you weren’t so ugly, you could have married and had your own son,” Harwin told him.

“You swore me off that when your father handed you over,” Bitters muttered. “Things could change, lad. I still hold hope for your return home.”

“I know, old man,” Harwin added, welling up.

And as he left from the door of the Frookuh, wiping away tears. Once a man without a care for anything but a frolic, thinking glorious thoughts years ago, he now glanced over at a man urinating in the street and saw it fitting as he began his new life as a bloody tosser.