Chapter 7
"Free choice can be a double-edged sword. Whether the concept inspires terror or excitement often tells you everything you need to know about a person."
- Quendon Franklin, 15 Augesti, 1787 AC
When Aidan woke, light streamed through a very narrow opening above the hollow where the trunks met, giving a soft glow to the many carvings, paintings, and Crests that he and his siblings had added to the walls so many years before. Rodrig, Woodsen, and Three-Eyed Laney were all staring at him with a wide-eyed holy terror.
"Sir Aidan?" Rodrig asked, tugging nervously on his scraggly and curly beard. "Are you ... that is ... how do you feel?"
"More to the point," Woodsen looked at him, crossbow armed and in hand but held to the side, "how are you not dead?"
Three-Eyed Laney added, "Some witchcraft or dark magic. Gotta be."
"How long have I been sleeping?" Aidan asked, rising to his elbows, his body no longer shaking with pain, but only a little stiff. Just as it had the first night he'd spent in this hollow only two days before.
"All night." Rodrig said. "Woodsen marked you for a goner."
"You were both thinkin' it!" Woodsen protested, scratching his great brown hawk nose. "I just said it out loud, is all. But look at you now!" He whistled through his teeth, astonished at the fully healed man who lay before him.
"They don't call it magic, but I do," Aidan said, answering their unspoken question, "and I'll call it that until someone can explain it to me in plain language. The doctors in the heavens, they give it to all of the Soldiers."
"What, exactly?" Three-Eyed Laney's tone was suspicious, and Aidan felt a tinge of danger from it. Answer carefully. The only thing the doctors said the Nans couldn't cure was death.
"They enchant the blood with a special healing magic so that the wounded can return to battle as quickly as possible." Their expressions, fear mixed with awe, didn't change at all. "The first time I witnessed a man's wounds close up in a few hours and his bones set themselves straight, I drank myself blind."
"There's an idea I can get behind." Woodsen said, swallowing hard.
"I'm sorry it disturbs you." Aidan attempted a charming smile, hoping to put their superstition at ease. "When you first found me, Rodrig, I was recovering from similar injuries in this same place."
"That certainly explains the shouting," Rodrig answered, smiling a little, "and why you appeared unscathed. It hurts then, this healing magic?"
"You ever bang your elbow so that the pain shoots through your arm?" Rodrig nodded, smiling a bit wider. "Imagine that pain coming from every bone in your body while you're burning alive. This feels worse."
"Salve's worse than the injury," Three-Eyed Laney said, "but I suppose the results are worth it."
"Yes," Aidan agreed, forcing a smile, his heart cold as he suddenly felt lonelier than ever, "I'm sure dying is much worse."
Aidan pulled on his Kevlan Gambeson liner and donned his armor, plate by plate, refusing help from the others. Rodrig stayed, pretending to take inventory, while Laney and Woodsen scouted the trail and spied on the area they had left last night. First was the leg armor, then the boots, then the greaves that protected the outside of his thighs and skirt that guarded his hips. He pulled the breastplate tight to his chest and clasped it firmly to the backplate, swallowing his torso as though they were the jaws of some terrible monster of legend. Next came the round pauldrons covering his shoulders, the gorget that fastened around his neck just snug enough to guard his neck. He felt heavier with each piece despite his suit's relatively light weight.
Laney and Woodsen took a position far ahead of them while Rodrig and Aidan mounted and followed at a slow, cautious pace. Rodrig had asked in passing whether they oughtn't hurry, but Aidan replied that walking suited him better, helped him think. When Rodrig asked what he was thinking about, Aidan shrugged and kept his demons locked firmly within.
What do I have? The question rolled over and over in his head, promising no peace until he answered it. No family, no land, no title, no friends, no life. No chance at the life I've worked toward since birth. He walked Midnight alongside him, filled with icy torment and fiery rage at his haste in throwing away his future. One thing he knew: he didn't feel like talking about it.
"Dinner with the Deumars went badly?"
"Badly?" Aidan growled, hoping Rodrig was wise to the warning. He still could barely believe the betrayal. And why was Wishon so poorly defended? Did Lord Deumar really think he could rely on the likes of House Meadows for actual, practical protection? He'd be lucky if they didn't replace his family the same way Aidan was certain Lord Meadows had replaced his own.
"You feeling hungry?"
"No." Godsdammit, Rodrig. Fuck. Off.
Thinking about his family was a fool's errand, and even though he was certain no good would come from it, he couldn't help but pull at the threads. Katisha. Beautiful, graceful, intelligent Katisha. You'll never wake me up in the deep of night begging for a mountaintop ride to watch the sunrise again. You'll never read poetry for the court in your graceful melancholy intonation, bringing even Father to tears! You'll never-
"Smell like rain to you?" Rodrig held out his palm as if hoping to catch the first drops.
"No, damn your feet, now leave me be!" Aidan shouted much louder than he intended, his rage echoing off of every tree for what sounded like half a mile, minimum.
"I know what you're about," Rodrig said, suddenly angry and chiding," and you need to leave it be. Second-guessing won't bring 'em back."
"I know that, damn you, now leave me to my own counsel."
"You think you're the only one who hasn't blamed themselves for something they can't control? Bullshit."
"Rodrig, I warn you," Aidan glared at Rodrig and imagined opening his skull with a well-placed blow from the collapsed mace at his hip, "I need to think this through."
Rodrig held his hands up as if surrendering, and Aidan wanted to cut them off. He wanted to hurt the old man, his old mentor. The last friend he had in this world, and the guilt that rained on him with this internal admission knocked the wind out of him. I could no more hurt Rodrig than I could murder my family with my bare hands. What is wrong with me?
Aidan was sure his expression had softened because Rodrig spoke again, but this time his words did not inspire him to imagined atrocities.
"When you're feeling up to it, we'll sneak you into Barrowdown," Rodrig said, waving a bee out of his face, "that way you can visit their gravetrees. Pay your respects."
Aidan nearly wept at the thought. Sneaking around like a cutthroat, hoping one of the thousands of villagers who knew him on sight wouldn't announce his return. And even if he made it into the Sacred Grove, he'd have to control himself, lest the sight of a hooded stranger wailing at the Franklins' trees draw the attention of Kiefernwald's House Guards.
"Do you really think," Aidan said, an unwanted tear making its way slowly down his left cheek, "that it will help?"
"It can't hurt." Rodrig answered. Aidan simply nodded, suppressing his urge to scream at his old horse master and call him a liar and a jackanapes for presuming upon his condition. I can't visit their graves until they're avenged, until I've restored what was taken. That much I know. So I swear by my family's gods, and by all the gods who watch over Caledonia.
They were received with indifferent shrugs at the camp, which appeared to have just finished breakfast. Bandits sat in circles playing cards, gambling their spoils in hopes of a big win. One circle erupted with excitement when one of them won a hand. Aidan could see the pot around which they played was full of oblong bronze crowns as well as various trinkets. A scope here, an elemental bolt there. Even a shiny brass button, which he assumed came from a dress jacket pinched from some dandy. They gamble whatever they have in their pockets, it seems.
"My brave Knight returns," the Bandit Queen chimed as they approached her own sitting circle, "looking much the same as he left. The Deumars are the cowards I've always taken t
hem for, then?"
"They are in a hard place," Aidan said, unable to muster even a little outrage at Charlene's impertinence, "and I refused to put them in danger."
"We got spoils!" Woodsen shouted, holding up a vambrace from a Guard's forearm. "I got almost a complete suit. I would have gotten the whole thing-"
"Spoils?" Charlene's easy smile was replaced by thin lips and furrowed brows. Her eyes narrowed on the triple-crown Crest that adorned the round breastplate that sat near Woodsen's feet. "There was fighting then? With Royal Guards, no less?"
"We won," Three-Eyed Laney chimed, holding up a helm and smiling her gap-toothed grin, "that's all that matters!"
"Any survivors?" When their expressions all turned sheepish, Charlene shook her head and rose, bringing her crescent-topped staff and pacing around each member of the party as she scolded. "Well, I guess we can expect a posse to come looking for the seditious rebels who murdered a pair of tinmen bearing Royal Crests?"
"Three." Woodsen said, snapping his mouth shut and squinching his eyes tightly.
"What?" Charlene snapped. Aidan had never seen her angry; it was quite a sight. Despite her slight frame, she had an undeniable presence that radiated from her as heat from a fire.
"He said, 'Three,' M'Lady," Rodrig answered, sighing at their predicament. "And if you're going to scold someone, I am the one who let the other two escape."
"Well, this is like a bad comedy," Charlene said, laughing but not amused. "Him," she jabbed an accusing finger at Woodsen, "I expect this from. Not you, Rodrig. You're better than this."
"I don't know what came over me, M'Lady. I'm sorry."
"May I go?" Aidan asked, growing increasingly tired of how petty everything seemed.
"Such manners," Charlene said, smiling as though jesting, then frowning when Aidan didn't return her grin. "Of course, Sir Aidan. You are free to go where you like, within our camp or without."
Aidan turned his horse and walked it away.
"And Sir Aidan?" Charlene called behind him.
"Yes, My Lady?" He scoffed bitterly at himself, falling into chivalry with the Queen of Bandits.
"I am sorry your friends couldn't help you," she said, her eyes softening with compassion. Another expression I hadn't yet seen from her. "Truly, I am."
Aidan nodded and made his way up a slight incline, leading him into the woods away from the main camp, but still within its sentry perimeter. He found something he had noticed when he left the camp the day before - a small spring that bubbled up hot and fresh near the apex, its excess trickling down the hillside. He stripped his armor off, piece by cursed piece, arranging them neatly by a cedar, finally placing his breastplate and backplate over the other pieces, encasing them completely just as he'd been taught.
He sloughed off his doublet, breeches, and underclothes, ripping off a nearly torn-off portion of his doublet's sleeve and using it as a sponge, soaking up the spring water and scrubbing his chest, neck, and shoulders, his body tingling at the contrast of the cool morning air and the hot spring water. He used his doublet to dry his skin and then soaked it in the spring water and slung it over a low-hanging branch to dry, repeating the gesture with his breeches.
"Rodrig said I might find you here." Her head was covered by her fur-lined hood, framing her face eyes-to-mouth but obscuring her ears and neck. "Keeping clean, are we?"
"I didn't invite an audience," Aidan said. "Do you mind, my Lady?"
"Me? I certainly don't mind." She came around the side of him, and laughed as he turned his body away. "Do you think you're the first man I've seen naked? You think me a chaste maiden, Sir Aidan?"
"Did you need something, Charlene?" He decided that since she had gone beyond the limits of chivalry, he may as well cross those limits himself. Her title wasn't even real, anyway.
"I would know your plans."
"My plans?" His raised his voice and was now nearly yelling. "My plan for the moment is to bathe. Beyond that, I honestly don't know."
"Rodrig's setting up a tent for you as we speak."
"Thank you." He hadn't even thought about where he was going to sleep.
"Since you're obviously occupied with your thoughts," she said, after a long silence passed between them, "I'll come out and say it: I want you to join us."
"Become a bandit?"
"Become a Redtail. One of us."
"I have certain ... reservations about banditry."
"We all do, until empty bellies outweigh moral considerations."
"That is my concern exactly," he said, drying himself with his undershirt and then soaking it in the hot spring. "I've always fought for causes, for people I know and trust. I've never robbed to fill my stomach, and just thinking of it fills me with shame."
"That will pass."
"No." He looked her in the eye as he wrapped his cloak around his naked body and sat on a nearby boulder. "It won't. But that doesn't mean I can't join you. It just means I can't ... do certain things."
"Blind raids, you mean?"
"Yes. I only fight enemies, and I took an oath as a Knight to never prey upon the weak."
"An oath you mean to still keep?"
"Always." His eyes moistened as he remembered the day he swore his oath. To uphold Caledonia's law and protect the vulnerable and needy. There were plenty of Knights who said the words with cynical hearts, but Aidan took it seriously. And since returning home, it was the only thing his enemies hadn't taken away.
"I understand."
"I'll help raid whenever you are planning to strike Meadows or his friends."
She pursed her lips, clearly unhappy with this request, but Aidan believed she wouldn't pass up an opportunity to have a real fighting man in her ranks. "We don't always have those sorts of details ahead of time."
"I will join the raids when you do. If not," he paused to consider his words carefully, "I will find ... other ways to be useful."
She nodded and sat by him, gathering her green cloak around herself as though she, too, were trying to conceal her nakedness. He covered his naked body with the borrowed Redtail-Crested green cloak, wrapping himself tight in its rough material. For a long time they sat in silence, watching the Redtail camp below as it bustled with bandits going about, buying and selling, playing cards, and laughing at jokes. If Aidan imagined a wall around them and a straw-topped hut in place of every green denim tent, and a small stone Keep in the place of the broad circular brown tent that stood at the camp's center, it looked almost like Barrowdown itself. But his imagination yielded to reality. However much he wanted it to be, the Redtail camp was not home.
Charlene left without a word, and he waited a few hours for his clothes to dry. He distracted himself with ideas to improve the camp, to improve the Redtails themselves. He served alongside many common people on New Mongolia, and this would be little different. As he dressed himself, he narrowed his concentration on two areas that he believed would be of most value to his new compatriots, his new people.
Then the sentry's horns blasted twice, a signal that Aidan assumed meant "friends approaching" because while the bandits gathered in the direction of the horn's report, none of them took up arms or formed ranks. He counted about seven approaching on horseback - a fellow in simple plate, a few bandits dressed in some kind of hardened hide, a short man with a blue-lined cape holding a harp, and an old woman who hunched over her saddle horn.
Something about the old woman was unsettlingly familiar.