“Do you ever regret it?”
“Picking Gort?”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “No. I love him.”
“It must’ve been a hard life with him being gone so much.”
“If Gort was a blacksmith or a farmer, I would still love him. But he is a soldier. That’s what he knows how to do.”
In Rellas, being a mercenary was a job like any other. Most people didn’t choose it because they loved war. They picked it because they were out of options, and it was a way to make a living. The nobles frequently squabbled with each other and their conflicts sometimes flared into small-scale wars, with the official blessing of the Throne complete with papers and royal seals. The nobles hired mercenaries to get the upper hand, and when they didn’t, the Throne often did, to supplement the King’s Army.
“You’re right, it wasn’t an easy life,” Shana said. “It was tough, and yet we made it through. Hreban stole my husband’s Green Purse from him. But you pay well. We’re going to get our justice, and once this job is over, if we live through it, we’ll get a farm of our own. We’ve earned it.”
That was their dream. They talked about it when the going got tough. One day they would get a farm with fruit trees and a little house. They would have a calm and peaceful life, free of marching through the mud to almost certain death. Will and Lute wouldn’t have to risk their lives to put food on the table.
All Gort and Shana wanted was something a little bit better for themselves and their kids. Just like my parents.
I sipped my tea.
There were hundreds of Gorts and Shanas out there, working to get their own little farms and a little slice of peace. Two weeks from now, eighty of them would die.
I had a hard decision to make.
“Maggie,” Reynald said on my left.
“Yes?”
“We’ve run out of land.”
I stopped.
We faced the harbor. Ahead the stone wharf stretched, and beyond it the ocean shimmered, the water a flawless turquoise darkening to a heartbreaking blue.
To the left lay the fishing docks. About a hundred yards away, a team of fishermen was pulling a huge fish onto a ramp leading from the water. It was trapped in a net, hooked by enormous ropes to a big wheel-and-pulley contraption, and one of the fishermen led a pair of horses connected to the wheel, winching the net ashore. The fish glistened with purple and blue, its spiny fins bristling in the thick net. Its head and chest were as big as one of those oversized Ford Transit vans, and I couldn’t even see its tail. Four stelkas bickered by the pulley, fighting over the fish guts someone had dumped on the stone. None of them had a crescent-shaped white patch on their chest.
Normally I would’ve gaped at the scene, but right now I just wanted to get to our destination. We needed to go north along the coast, away from the fishing dock and toward the commercial wharf.
“Which way?” Reynald asked.
“To the right.”
We made a right and headed down a wide street, parallel to the wharf, with massive warehouses rising on both sides.
Reynald, Gort, and Clover had come back from the market an hour and a half ago, followed by three delivery people pushing carts loaded with their purchases. I told them I needed to go to the docks, and Reynald immediately volunteered to escort me.
I had included “outfit that would make me look like I’m from a minor noble house” in the shopping list, and Clover had come through with flying colors. I wore a green gown the exact shade of lawns from the weed killer commercials, a cloak of slightly darker green, and my hairdo was a work of art secured with a pricey silver ornament shaped like a flower. My shoes were much better, too. I looked like I had just enough money and status to be annoying.
Next to me, Reynald broadcast kickass bodyguard. He wore his outfit from the teahouse, and he’d added a lancer’s coif to it. The coif fit over his face and hid everything except a narrow part around his eyes. Originally the coif had served to protect the faces of Rellasian lancers from their heavy helmets, but now it functioned like a local version of a sheisty. Masons wore it to keep from breathing in stone dust, butchers put it on it to keep the gore from their face, and private guards and mercenaries used it to look more scary.
Together with the hood of his cloak, the coif took Reynald from menacing into downright sinister territory. A good thing, too. The more threatening he looked, the more credibility it would give me.
I’d been turning the problem of the mercenaries in my head over and over, trying to account for all possible consequences, and gotten nowhere. It gnawed at me. I knew what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, it was completely opposite of what I should do, and I had trouble justifying my choice.
There it was, on the left. A warehouse with a painted wooden shield above the door. A copper warhammer on a field of dark cobalt blue striking a gray anvil. The Keepers of Iron. The Yolenta Great Family.
“Do I look like a noble?” I asked under my breath.
