Exile's Return (3 page)

Throughout his life Kaspar had developed a strong self-discipline, but not eating undercooked bird was the toughest test he could remember. But he knew the dangers of eating undercooked fowl. One bout of food poisoning as a young man left an indelible memory.

Finally he judged the bird finished, and with disregard for burned lips and tongue he set to with a frenzy. All too quickly he was finished, having eaten every shred of meat and the tiny bit of fat the scrawny thing had possessed. It was the best meal he could recall, but it merely whetted his appetite. He stood up and looked around, as if he might spy another bird waiting to be snatched up and eaten.

Then he saw the boy.

He looked to be no more than seven or eight years of age. He wore homespun and sandals, both caked with dust. He had as handsome a face as Kaspar had ever seen on a child and a serious expression. He was dark blond and he studied Kaspar with wide, pale blue eyes.

Kaspar remained motionless for what seemed minutes, and then the boy turned and fled.

Kaspar took out after him a half-moment later, but he was weak from hunger and deprivation. His only goad was fear that the boy would alert his father or the men of his village and while Kaspar feared no man living, he knew he was too weak to give much account of himself if faced by more than one man.

Kaspar labored to keep the boy in sight, but soon the child had vanished down a gully and between some rocks. Kaspar followed as well as he could, but after only a few minutes of climbing where he had seen the boy disappear, he stopped as dizziness gripped him. His stomach grumbled and he belched as he sat down. He patted his middle and in a moment of giddiness laughed at how he must look. It had only been, what? Six or seven days since he had been captured in his citadel in Olasko, but he could feel his ribs already. Near starvation had taken its toll.

He forced himself to be calm and then stood up and looked around for signs. He was perhaps as gifted a tracker as any man born to nobility in the eastern kingdoms. Kaspar had few vanities, but his skill at tracking and hunting were not among them; he was as good as he thought he was. He saw scuff marks on the rocks and when he climbed up them he saw the pathway.

Like the ancient abandoned road, this was an old path, made ages ago for carts or wagons, but now used by animals and a few humans. He saw the boy’s tracks heading straight away from him and followed.

Kaspar was amused by the thought that the only other nobleman he knew who had skills to match his own as a hunter was Talwin Hawkins, the man who had overthrown him and taken away all Kaspar held dear. Kaspar stopped and caught his breath. Something was wrong: he was lightheaded, his thoughts unfocused. Those scant bits of fruit and one tiny bird were not enough to keep him more than barely alive. His thoughts were wandering and he found that as disturbing as the constant hunger and dirt.

He shook his head to clear it, then resumed walking. He forced his mind to something approaching alertness and considered Talwin Hawkins. Of course he had been justified in his actions, for Kaspar had betrayed him. Kaspar had sensed his sister’s growing attraction to the young noble from the Kingdom of the Isles. Personally, he had found Hawkins likeable, and he admired his skill with a blade and as a hunter. Kaspar paused for a moment. He found himself confused as to why he had chosen to make Hawkins the dupe in his plan to assassinate Duke Rodoski of Roldem. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but now he wondered how he had arrived at that conclusion. Hawkins had been an able servant and as a bonus had employed that wily old assassin, Amafi. They were a redoubtable pair and had proven their worth early and often. Yet he had chosen to put all blame for the attempt on Rodoski’s life on Hawkins.

Kaspar shook his head. Since leaving Olasko, he had several times felt that something had changed within him, something more than just dealing with his dire circumstances. After a while it occurred to him that it had been his friend Leso Varen who had suggested that Tal Hawkins could pose a threat.

Kaspar blinked and realized his mind was drifting. He turned his mind to finding the boy before an alarm could be raised. There were no signs of any habitation nearby, so Kaspar decided the boy might yet be some distance from his home. He focused on the boy’s tracks and followed them, picking up the pace as his sense of urgency rose.

Time passed and the sun moved across the sky, and after what Kaspar judged nearly half an hour, he smelled the smoke. The path had led him down into a defile, but now as it rose up and he followed it around a tall rock formation, he saw a farm. Two goats were confined in a pen and in the distance were a few cattle, an odd breed with long sweeping horns and brown-speckled white hides. They cropped grass in a green meadow. Behind a low mud-and-thatch building a full two or more acres of crops swayed in the breeze: corn, Kaspar thought, though he couldn’t be certain. And in front of the building stood a well!

He hurried to it and pulled up a bucket on a long rope. The water was clear and cool and he drank his fill.

When he finally dropped the bucket down into the water, he saw a woman standing in the doorway of the building, the boy peering out from behind her. She leveled a crossbow at him. Her face was set in a determined expression, brow knit and eyes narrow, her jaw clenched. She said something in the same language used by the nomads and it was obviously a warning.

Kaspar spoke Quegan, hoping she might recognize a few words, or at least infer from his tone his intent. “I will not harm you,” he said slowly as he sheathed his sword. “But I have to see what you have to eat.” He pantomimed eating and then indicated the house.

She barked a reply and motioned with the crossbow for him to be off. Kaspar was enough of a hunter to know that a female protecting her young was worthy of the greatest caution.

He slowly approached and again spoke slowly. “I mean you no harm. I just need to eat.” He held his hands palms outward.

Then the aroma hit him. Something was cooking inside and it almost made Kaspar ache to smell it; hot bread! And a stew or soup!

Calmly he said, “If I don’t eat soon, I’m as good as dead, woman. So if you mean to kill me, do it now and be done with it!”

His reflexes saved him, for she hesitated an instant before tightening her fingers on the release of the crossbow. Kaspar threw himself to the left and the bolt split the air where he had stood a moment earlier. Kaspar rolled, came to his feet and charged.

As soon as the woman saw that her bolt had missed, she raised her crossbow to use it as a club. She brought it crashing down on Kaspar’s shoulder as he forced his way through the doorway. “Damn!” he shouted as he wrapped his arms around her waist, bearing her to the floor.

The boy shouted angrily and started striking Kaspar. He was small but strong and Kaspar could feel the blows. He lay on top of the struggling woman and held tightly to the hand that still held the crossbow. He squeezed until she cried out and released it, then stood up just in time to avoid being brained by the metal skillet the boy swung at his head.

He grabbed the boy’s wrist and twisted, causing the youngster to shout as he let go of the skillet. “Now stop it!” Kaspar yelled.

He drew his sword and pointed it at the woman. The boy froze, his face a mask of terror.

“All right, then,” he said, still speaking Quegan. “One more time: I am not going to hurt you.” He then made a show of putting away his sword. He moved past the woman and picked up the crossbow. He handed it to the boy. “Here, lad, go find the bolt outside and see if you can manage to crank it up. If you must kill me, feel free to try again.”

He pulled the woman to her feet and studied her. She was rawboned, but he could see she had been pretty once, before a hard life had aged her. He couldn’t tell if she was thirty or forty years of age, her face being burned to brown leather by the sun. But her eyes were vivid blue and she held her fear in check. Softly he said, “Fetch me food, woman.” Then he let her go.

The boy stood motionless, holding the crossbow as Kaspar looked around. There was only one room in this hovel, but a curtain had been hung so the woman had a bit of privacy when she slept. Her sleeping pallet and a small chest could be glimpsed from where he sat. Another pallet was rolled up under a single table. There were two stools. A makeshift cupboard sat next to an open hearth upon which there sat a kettle of simmering stew. An oven below it had just produced bread, and Kaspar reached down and grabbed one of the still-warm loaves. He tore off some of the bread and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he sat down on one of the stools. He looked at his unwilling hostess and said, “Sorry to be such a boor, but I prefer ill manners to starvation.”

As the flavor of the bread registered, he smiled. “This is very good.” He motioned to the stew pot and said, “I’ll have some of that.”

The woman hesitated, then moved to the hearth. She ladled some of the stew into a bowl and placed it before Kaspar, then handed him a wooden spoon. He nodded and said, “Thank you.”

She stepped away, gathering the boy to her side. Kaspar ate the stew and before asking for another bowl, he looked at the motionless pair. Quegan didn’t seem to be working, but it was the closest language to what he had heard the nomads speak. He pointed to himself and said, “Kaspar.”

The woman didn’t react. Then he pointed to them and said, “Names?”

The woman might be frightened, he thought, but she wasn’t stupid. She said, “Jojanna.”

“Joyanna,” Kaspar repeated.

She corrected him. “Jojanna,” and he heard the soft sound of an “h” after the “y” sound.

“Joy-hanna,” he said, and she nodded as if that were close enough.

He pointed to the boy.

“Jorgen,” came the reply.

Kaspar nodded and repeated the boy’s name. He started to help himself to more stew and judged he had consumed most of their evening meal. He looked at them and then poured the content of the bowl back into the pot. He contented himself with another hunk of bread, then pointed to them. “Eat.” He motioned for them to come to the table.

“Eat,” she repeated, and Kaspar realized it was the same word, but with a very different accent. He nodded.

She carefully ushered the boy to the table and Kaspar got up and moved over to the door. He saw an empty bucket so he picked it up and turned it over to use as a makeshift stool. The boy watched him with serious blue eyes and the woman kept glancing at him as she put food on the table for the boy.

When they were both seated, Kaspar said, “Well, Jojanna and Jorgen, my name is Kaspar, and until a few days ago I was one of the most powerful men on the other side of this world. I have fallen to this low estate, but despite my scruffy appearance, I am as I have said.”

They looked at him uncomprehendingly. He chuckled. “Very well. You don’t need to learn Quegan. I need to learn your language.” He hit the bucket he sat on and said, “Bucket.”

The woman and her son were silent. He stood up, pointed to the bucket and said the word again. Then he pointed at them and gestured at the bucket again. “What do you call this?”

Jorgen understood and spoke a word. It was unlike anything Kaspar had heard. He repeated it and Jorgen nodded. “Well, it’s a start,” said the former Duke of Olasko. “Maybe by bedtime we can speak enough for me to convince you not to cut my throat while I sleep.”

Kaspar awoke on the floor
of the small hut.

He had slept in front of the door to prevent Jorgen or his mother from fleeing. Levering himself up on one elbow, he peered around in the early morning gloom. There was only a small window near the chimney to his right, so it was still quite dark in the room.

The boy and woman were both awake, but neither had moved from their respective sleeping pallets. “Good morning,” Kaspar said as he sat up. He had confiscated their crossbow and any sharp utensil he judged capable of inflicting serious injury and had piled them up out of their reach. He trusted his instincts, as a hunter and a warrior, to awaken him should either of his reluctant companions attempt to harm him, so he had slept well.

After rising slowly, Kasper started returning the implements to their proper locations; the woman would have work to do. He had spent the balance of the previous afternoon and evening pointing at objects and asking their names: slowly unraveling this new language. He had learned enough to surmise that their dialect was related to ancient Keshian, spoken in the Bitter Sea region a few centuries before. Kaspar had studied Empire history as much as any noble boy was forced to and vaguely remembered references to a religious war which had sent Keshian refugees fleeing west. Apparently some of them must have landed nearby.

Kaspar always had possessed a flair for languages, though he now wished he had spent a little more time speaking Quegan—an offshoot of the same Keshian dialect these people’s ancestors had spoken. Still, he was getting along well enough if he ever decided to stay and farm around here.

Kaspar looked at the boy and said, “You can get up.”

The boy rose. “I can get out?”

Kaspar realized his inaccuracy and corrected it. “I mean get up, but if you need to go outside, do so.”

Despite his early behavior toward them, Jorgen had expected to be beaten or killed, and Jojanna had expected to be raped. Not that she wasn’t attractive enough in a weather-beaten fashion, Kaspar conceded, but he had never acquired a taste for unwilling women—not even for those who feigned willingness because of his wealth and power.

The woman rose and pulled aside the small privacy-curtain while the boy rolled up his bedding and stowed it under the table. Kaspar sat on one of the two stools. She went to the banked fire in the hearth and stirred the embers, adding wood. “You need wood?” Kaspar asked.

She nodded. “I will cut some more this morning, after milking one of my cows. She lost her calf to a mountain cat last week.”

“Is the cat troubling you?”

She didn’t understand his question so he rephrased it, “Is the cat returning to take more calves?”

“No,” she said.

“I’ll cut the wood,” said Kaspar. “Where is the axe?”

“In the…” He didn’t recognize the word, and asked her to repeat it. Then he realized it was an oddly pronounced variant of the Keshian word for “shed.” He repeated it, then said, “I will work for my food.”

She paused, then nodded and started to prepare the daily meal. “There is no bread,” she said. “I make it the night before.”

He inclined his head, but said nothing. They both knew why she had not baked last night. She had sat fearfully, waiting for him to assault her, while he repeatedly asked odd or pointless questions about the names of things.

Slowly, he said, “I will not harm you or the boy. I am a stranger and need to learn if I am to live. I will work for my food.”

She paused, then looked into his eyes for a moment. As if finally convinced, she nodded. “There are some clothes that belonged to my…” She spoke a word he didn’t understand.

He interrupted. “Your what?”

She repeated the word, and said, “My man. Jorgen’s father.”

The local word for husband, he gathered. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Three…” Again a new word, but he didn’t bother to interrupt; he’d find out later if she meant days, weeks, or months. “…ago he went to market. He never came back.” Her voice remained calm and her face emotionless, but Kaspar could see a sheen in her eyes. “I looked for three…” Again a word he didn’t understand. “Then I came back to care for Jorgen.”

“What is his name?”

“Bandamin.”

“A good man?”

She nodded.

Kaspar said nothing more; he knew she must be wondering what would have happened if Bandamin had been home when he had shown up. Kaspar said, “I’ll chop wood.”

He went outside and found the axe in the shed next to a small pile of logs. He saw Jorgen feeding some chickens and waved the boy over to him. He motioned to the dwindling pile and said, “Need more soon.”

The boy nodded and started speaking quickly, pointing to a stand of woods on the other side of the meadow. Kaspar shook his head and said, “I don’t understand. Speak slower.”

It was clear Jorgen didn’t understand him either, so Kaspar mimicked the boy talking rapidly, then spoke slower.

The boy’s face brightened in understanding and he said, “We will cut down a tree over there.”

Kaspar nodded and said, “Later.”

He was still weakened by his ordeal of the last few days, but he managed to carry enough wood into the hut to keep the fire going for almost a week.

When he put the last armload into the bin next to the hearth, Jojanna said, “Why are you here?”

“Because I need water and food to live.”

“No, not here on the farm,” she said slowly. “I mean here…” she waved a circle around her, as if indicating a larger region. “You are—” a few words he didn’t understand “—from far away, yes?”

“A foreigner.” He nodded. “Yes, from very far away.” He sat down on the stool. “It is hard to tell without…” He paused. “I don’t have the words—” he said at last. “—yet; when I do, I will tell you.”

“Truth?”

He studied her face for a moment, then said, “I will tell you the truth.”

She said nothing as she looked him in the eyes. Then with a single nod, she returned to her work in the kitchen.

He stood up. “I will go and help the boy.”

Kaspar went outside and saw Jorgen heading into the meadow. He stopped briefly, realizing he had no idea what needed to be done. He had owned tenant-farms in Olasko, but the closest he had ever been to one was riding past on horseback. He had a vague idea of what they produced, but little concept of how they did it. He chuckled to himself as he set out after the boy. He couldn’t start learning quickly enough, he decided.

Felling a tree was far more difficult than Kaspar had anticipated, given that he had only seen it done once before, when he was a boy. It had almost landed on top of him to the evil delight of Jorgen, once the initial fear of injury had passed.

He had stripped off all the branches and then cut the bole into manageable sections, which he had lashed up with large leather straps that should have been fastened to a horse’s harness. He had discovered that the family’s only horse had vanished along with Jorgen’s father, so now Kaspar played the part of the horse, dragging the timber to the house across the damp meadow. He strained and heaved forward and the recalcitrant log followed him in jumps and starts.

Pausing to catch his breath, he said to Jorgen, “It seemed like a good idea back there.”

The boy laughed. “I told you we should have cut it up and carried the wood back to the house.”

Kaspar shook his head in disbelief. Being told off by a child; it was a concept so alien to him he found it amusing and irritating at the same time. He was used to people deferring to him automatically, to saying nothing critical in his presence. He leaned into the harness again and said, “If Tal Hawkins and his bunch could see me now, they’d be on the floor laughing.”

He glanced at Jorgen who was obviously amused, and found the boy’s mirth infectious. Kaspar began to chuckle as well. “Very well, you were right. Go back and fetch the axe and we’ll chop this thing up right here.”

Jorgen scampered off. Kaspar didn’t relish the idea of a dozen or more trips across the meadow, but without a horse his idea was just plain folly. He stretched as he turned to watch the boy run to where they had left the axe and the water bucket.

Kaspar had been at the farm for eight days now. What had started off as a fearful experience for the boy and his mother had begun to settle into a relatively calm situation. He still slept by the door, but he no longer gathered up potential weapons. He had chosen that spot to give Jojanna as much privacy as was possible in a one-room hut, and also for security reasons. Anyone attempting to come through the door would have to physically move Kaspar first.

Kaspar was still vague about the geography surrounding the farm, but he had no doubt that they were constantly plagued by dangers. Bandits and marauding bands of mercenaries were not uncommon in the area, but the farm was far enough removed from the old high road—the one Kaspar had stumbled along—that few travelers ever chanced across it.

Kaspar stretched again and relished the strength in his muscles. He knew he had lost weight during the three days without food and water, and now the constant exercise of farm-work was further reducing his bulk. A broad-shouldered man, the former Duke of Olasko had always carried his weight effortlessly, and he had indulged in food and wine of the highest quality. Now Kaspar had to wear the missing Bandamin’s clothing because his own trousers were starting to fit too loosely around the waist. He had let his neatly-trimmed beard grow, lacking a razor, mirror, or scissors. Every morning, before washing his face in the water bucket, he caught a glimpse of his reflection and barely recognized himself—sunburned, his dark beard now filling in, and his face thinner. He had been here less than two weeks—what would he look like after a month? Kaspar didn’t want to think about it; he intended to learn as much as he could from these people and then leave, for his future was not farming, no matter what else fate might hold in store for him. Still, he wondered how Jojanna would fare once he left them.

Jorgen had tried to help Kaspar, but as he was only eight years old, he was often drawn away by boyish interests. His regular chores involved milking the cow who had lost her calf, feeding the chickens, inspecting fences, and other small tasks a small boy was competent enough to perform.

Jojanna had taken up as much of her husband’s work as she was capable of, but a lot of it was just not possible. While she was as hard a worker as Kaspar had ever met, even she couldn’t manage to be in two places at the same time. Still, he marveled at how industrious she was; rising before dawn and retiring hours after the sun set, to ensure that the farm would be maintained just as her husband had left it.

Kaspar had hundreds of tenant-farmers on his estates, and had never once given thought to their toils, always taking their efforts for granted. Now he appreciated their lives to a significant degree. Jojanna and Jorgen lived very well in comparison to most Olaskon farmers, for they owned their land, a small herd, and produced saleable crops; but when Kaspar compared their situation to his old way of life, he realized they lived in near-poverty. How much poorer were the farmers of his own nation?

His nation, he thought bitterly. His birthright had been taken from him and he would have it back or die in the attempt.

Jorgen returned with the axe and Kaspar set to chopping the tree into smaller sections.

After a while the boy said, “Why don’t you split it?”

“What?”

Jorgen grinned. “I’ll show you.” He ran back to the shed and returned with a wedge of metal. He stuck the narrow end of the wedge into a notch and held it. “Hit it with the back of the axe,” he told Kaspar.

Kaspar glanced at the axe and saw that the heel was heavy and flat, almost a hammer. He reversed his hold on the handle and swung down, driving the wedge into the wood. Jorgen pulled his hand away with a laugh and shook his hand. “It always makes my fingers sting!”

Kaspar gave the wedge three powerful blows and then, with a satisfying cracking sound, the bole split down the middle. Muttering, he observed, “You learn something new every day, if you just stop to pay attention.”

The boy looked at him with a confused expression and said, “What?”

Kaspar realized he had spoken his native Olaskon, so he repeated it, as best he could, in the local language and the boy nodded.

Next, Kaspar set to breaking up the rest of the bole and then chopping the remaining split rails into firewood. He found the repetitive effort strangely relaxing.

Lately, he had been troubled by dreams, odd vignettes and strange feelings. Small glimpses of things barely remembered, but disturbing. The oddest aspect of these dreams were the details which had escaped his notice in real life. It was as if he was watching himself, seeing himself for the first time in various settings. The images would jump from a court dinner, with his sister sitting at his side, to a conversation with a prisoner in one of the dungeons under his citadel, and then to a memory of something that happened when he was alone. What was most disturbing was how he felt when he awoke, it felt as if he had just relived those moments, but this time the emotions were not consistent with how he remembered them before the dream.

The third night he had one particularly vivid dream-memory; a conversation with Leso Varen in the magician’s private chambers. The room reeked of blood and human excrement, and of alien odors from things the magician insisted on mixing and burning in his work area. Kaspar remembered the conversation well, for it had been the first time Varen had suggested to him that he should consider removing those who stood between himself and the crown of Roldem. Kaspar also remembered how appealing he had found the idea.

But he had awoken from the dream retching from the memory of the stench in the room; at the time he had visited Varen, he had hardly been aware of it, the smell had not bothered him in the slightest. Yet this morning he had sat bolt-upright before the door of the hut, gasping for breath, and had almost disturbed Jorgen.

Kaspar encouraged Jorgen to speak about whatever was on his mind, as his constant prattle sensitized Kaspar to the local language. He was becoming quite conversant, but was also frustrated. For all their good qualities, Jorgen and Jojanna were simple farm people who knew almost nothing of the world in which they lived beyond their farm and the village a few days’ walk to the northwest. It was there they sold their cattle and grain, and from what Kaspar could discern, Bandamin had been considered well-to-do by local standards.