Besides, I didn’t feel inclined to run; Dast’s teeth, why should I? I wanted my horse back too. It was a good beast from Messire’s own stable and I’d been riding it no more than seven or eight leagues a day to husband its strength.

“Sorry, friend. You didn’t say whose authority you had to levy a toll.” I kept my voice neutral.

“This is all the authority I need!” He struck a challenging pose with his notched sword, evidently aiming to impress in his rusty breastplate fringed with inadequate chainmail.

His pack grinned, all bold in remnants of ill-fitting armor.

More fool them; the leather of my thick buff coat covered a layer of metal plates without the vulnerabilities I was assessing in my opponents as they smirked. I don’t wear a hauberk; it attracts notice and my usefulness to my Prince depends on going unremarked. I laid a hand to my own sword. It sparkled silver on the pommel, the polished scabbard bright in a watery gleam of fugitive sunlight now that the rain had stopped.

“What’s your charge?” I asked, face calm, mind anticipating the next moves. I spend long seasons trying to teach the militia raised for the House of D’Olbriot that there’s no virtue in fighting if you can avoid it, but Lescaris learn the opposite in their leading strings, from their warring dukes down, to the endless grief of their torn and bleeding land.

The leader finally registered my unfamiliar accent. “Tormalin man, are you? Fancy words, fancy horse and blade. What you’ve got in your purse, that’ll be the rate for the road!”

Evidently a man with no more sense than Dastennin gave a flatfish. “I’ll give you the price of a meal.” I smiled without humor. “You can thank the Lord of the Sea for that.”

The other three looked tempted by the thought of food they could pay for rather than a fight for their dinner, as I had suspected. The leader scowled, unwilling to back down. “We’ll spare a coin to Talagrin at the next shrine, when we’ve selled your horse and your gear, thank the Hunter for sending us a plump pigeon ripe for the plucking.”

“You want to try for my feathers?” I drew my sword. It slid gleaming from the scabbard with a steely rasp and the rusty weapons facing me wavered. “Why? I’m carrying nothing but letters from my patron.”

I wouldn’t have been bandying words with outcasts before I’d visited Aiten’s family, I reflected. Not when I’d been carrying enough true-minted Tormalin gold to buy up half this sorry fiefdom. I wasn’t the only one looking to defend my honor, the coin reflecting the value Messire D’Olbriot put on Aiten’s oath now his death demanded its redemption. I forced myself to lay aside the burden of my own guilt while I dealt with these vermin.

“Sworn man, are you?” the foremost sneered, letting his sword point dip as he scratched his lice-infested head. “Lick-spittle to some fat-arsed Prince who spends all his days with his head in a jug, playing with himself. That’s how you pass your time, isn’t it, wringing the goose’s neck?”

His fellow footpads snickered at this, but I am long past the days when cheap insults enraged me. A true swordsman knows hot fury kills more men than cold steel. I backed away another pace, drawing him forward beyond the dubious protection of his fellows. Messire’s militia are never so easily gulled, not after I’ve brought them to heel.

“So what have you got to say for yourself, curly? Come on, hand over your coin and that belt-pouch for a start! Well, answer me, curse you, unless you’re too busy shitting yourself.”

My continued silence was unnerving Foul-Mouth’s supporters by now, as I intended.

“All right, lads, let’s have the bastard!” He took a bold step, rusty blade leveled.

I glared at the closest one to Foul-Mouth’s off hand, who took an involuntary pace back. Idiocy was about to kill his mate, that and my sword, but if any of them chose to run I wasn’t about to waste my time hunting them down.

Foul-Mouth lunged at me, off hand flailing. I stepped sideways to smack his blade up with the flat of my sword. He took his chance to swing his dirty blade around for a skull-splitting strike. I moved in and as his arm came up I rolled my wrist to drive the point of my keenly polished sword under and deep into his armpit. He collapsed like a ruptured wineskin, blood frothing from his mouth, drowning his shrieks of panic and pain. The others swore in guttural Lescari and one rushed me, stupidity apparently something they shared along with their lice. Sure of my footing, I brought my sword around at belly level, his instinctive parry sending him staggering back. He swung wildly, I evaded the blow with ease and swept low but he managed to leap sideways in time to save his kneecaps and I found I was facing two of them, his mate having found some semblance of courage.

If they’d had any more training than learning which end of a sword was the handle I might have had some trouble, but a few rapid strokes hacked through his guard and dropped the first to his knees, clutching the bloody ruin of splintered bone that had once been his sword arm. I punched the luckless mongrel with my off hand and he scrambled into the bushes, howling through split lips, while the slowest to join battle took to his heels like a scalded hound, slipping in the mud in his haste to save his boil-scarred skin, not even the wit to try grabbing my horse.

That left me with a lad, tears carving pale streaks down his filthy face, slime running from his crooked nose as he panted in terror through broken teeth. Life had been kicking this lad in the face since before he could walk.

I managed to rein in my anger; it had been a long and none too happy season for me thus far but that was no excuse for losing control. It had certainly felt good to give vent to the slow-burning rage at Aiten’s untimely death that I kept locked in the back of my mind, but I could not afford to indulge such feelings.

I glanced quickly round, saw my horse now browsing on a patch of new grass and considered simply ignoring the boy. No, Dast curse him; he had done nothing to merit such consideration. I feinted to his off side, he swung his trembling weapon in a futile stroke but I had my blade at his throat before he had a hope of recovering. He dropped his stained sword and steam coiled damply around his feet as he pissed himself.

“Mercy, mercy,” he stammered. “Please, your honor, I’ll not do the like again, I swear it, any oath you like, mercy, for pity’s sake, Saedrin save me—”

I leaned the edge of the blade into the soft skin of his neck to silence him. Could he be trusted? I doubted it; what would a lad like this know of honor, in a land where the so-called nobility change allegiance with every passing season, scrambling for advantage with rival dukes who have wasted ten generations in a futile struggle for a worthless throne?

“I swear,” he whimpered, desperately trying to swallow without cutting his own throat.

The issue here wasn’t his honor, though, was it, but my integrity and self-respect. How could I kill some idiot boy who was begging to surrender, frantically offering me his paltry oath?

“Lie down,” I snarled and he dropped into the filth as if he’d been clubbed. Putting my boot heavy on his neck, I hurled his sword deep into a tangled thicket of thorns. I laid my own blade against his face, one red-rimmed, crusted eye blinking at the blood-clotted point as I stroked it slowly up his cheek. “You lie here and you don’t stir until you can’t hear my horse’s hoofbeats. If I see you again this side of the Otherworld, I’ll gut you like a herring, do you hear me?”

He nodded frantically, eyes flickering between me and the crumpled heap of his erstwhile leader, the life drained out of him into the clotted mud. I backed away, ready to finish the lad if he was stupid enough to make a move. No, he had that much wit at least, more motionless than the still-quivering corpse next to him.