Chapter 14 – Making a Way
"It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting." Epictetus
"Kerenos, pirate, you slipped your knife into that man's back like stabbing a pig." Corporal Spears jibed as the detachment marched back to Redruth. "I better watch behind me when you're around. I could be dead before I know it."
Ragnar stiffened while several troopers laughed at the Corporal's joke.
"That bandit never heard him coming." John Orser said. "Ragnar moved through those bushes like a feather on a breeze." The other troopers voiced their agreement and admiration for Ragnar's skill.
Private Orser meant to praise Ragnar, but the memory of the dead boy's face haunted the young scout; Orser's words stung deeply. Ragnar looked straight ahead, trying to hide his pain. Hal Spears could see the taunt bothered Ragnar, but incorrectly deduced the reason.
"Your people trained up a real sneaky killer, pirate." Spears added.
Ragnar clenched his jaw. He nudged Tosh into a light canter to move to the head of the column. Flash followed obediently.
"You're an ass, Spears." Art Scranton, one of the other scouts, said. Art trotted ahead after Ragnar.
##
Ayawin would not show her face tonight; the dark of the moon was not the best time for casting. Nevertheless, Kadir sat at the south side of the casting circle. Eiger from Lynx Clan and Lyskan from Hawk Clan sat to either side. As the strongest and most sensitive shamans of the Lake Peoples, all three had felt a stirring in the Otherworld two nights before. In fast canoes, the Lynx and Hawk shamans had come to Kadir, insisting that the stones must be cast. The other four shamans had not come: Either they felt nothing or had dismissed the stirrings. Kadir had not needed Eiger and Lyskan's prompting: Even if none of the others had come, Kadir would have visited the Sacred Grove tonight.
The three waited silently for midnight. From long study of the starpaths, they could read the passage of the night in every season. Enough familiar stars peeked out between the clouds for the shamans to know the proper moment. Disturbingly, the star they saw most frequently in the gaps was the Blood Star, rising in the east.
The three shamans closed their eyes in meditation, yielding their will to the Eagle, hoping for guidance. As they prayed, they sensed a coming of the Otherworld. Calmly, they opened their eyes to see the Eagle manifest on the north side. Each of them felt the blue eyes probing their souls.
Kadir cast the stones and the Eagle vanished. Did he imagine it flickered into the form of a horse before it vanished? He glanced at the others. They, too, had seen it.
Kadir lit the wick of the lamp and held it up. All three stared down at the stones. There was death in the stones. Much death. Death that had touched the one they watched and shaken him. He was on a cusp. How he coped could strengthen him or destroy him. Fortunately, the casting showed he now had true friends who had also seen death and would stand with him.
###
A fuming Szymon Lucja drove his wagons through the gate of Redruth Guard Post with Ragnar riding alongside.
"Szymon! You're back soon, you old haggler! What brings you here today?" Corporal Spears greeted the man with a smile.
"This idiot" Szymon gestured at Ragnar "on my way home stopped me." Szymon's anger made his thick Karsite accent worse. "Home tomorrow I would be but for this fool."
Spears looked at Ragnar. "Robbing honest traders now, pirate? Why didn't you just cut his throat?"
"'Honest trader' is stretching it a bit." Private Orser put in.
Ragnar flushed slightly, but refused to rise to Hal Spears' bait. "I caught him on a smuggler's track near Dukla Pass. He claimed to be a merchant."
"Dumbass!" Spears retorted. "Szymon is one of our irregulars. Pays his duties and everything."
"At least as far as we know." Orser smirked.
"What's going on here?" Captain Tewkes-Felthan emerged from the headquarters.
Szymon spoke first. "This fool on my way home stops me. Arrests me. Threatens me with sword. Tells me here I must come."
Urson looked at Ragnar, who dismounted and saluted. Ragnar repeated what he told the corporal. Urson bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Didn't Trav or Kelding tell you about the irregulars?" At Ragnar's bewildered look, Urson said "I see they didn't. I'll explain after I've cleared this up."
Urson turned back to the trader. "Szymon, I'm sorry. Ragnar's new here and nobody told him about you and the other irregulars. You are free to go."
The trader snorted. "Grateful I should be that he did not my throat cut? Terrorize us he did! For this, reduced my taxes should be. Freeze to death we will when the snow in the pass catches us."
Urson laughed. "Szymon, you would sell the Winter King his own snow and bargain him out of his silver beard. Winter is moons away, but if you would like an escort back to Dukla pass, I can give you one. Of course, they would have to collect any duties payable on dealings you might make along the way…."
Szymon Lucja grinned. "Oh, trouble you for that I will not. I will be on my way." He nodded at Ragnar. "Only let this one know the way of things." He turned to go back to his wagons.
Ragnar stepped forward, offering his hand. "I see I was wrong. My apologies, Goodman Lucja."
Szymon hesitated, looking Ragnar up and down. He accepted Ragnar's hand. "Your apology I accept, young man. An honest mistake it was. And a humble heart a mistake to admit it takes. Hold a moment."
The trader went to his wagon and rummaged under the seat for a moment. He pulled a tiny object from a pack and came back to Ragnar. "Tall you are." Szymon said as he looped the cord around Ragnar's neck. "There. May Vkandis protect you." He said the last in Karsite.
"May Vkandis protect you and guide you." Ragnar responded in the same language, using one of the stock phrases he had memorized.
Szymon smiled. "Well said, young man. I think you will go far." He climbed on his wagon and snapped the reins. He and his caravan turned around in the parade square. As he passed under the gate, he smiled and waved at Ragnar.
"Well, you managed to impress Szymon." Urson said. "What did he give you?"
Ragnar raised the tiny gold pendant to look at it. As he held it in the sunlight, he sensed a flicker of power settling into the object.
"It's a Sundisk." Urson recognized the pendant. Seeing Ragnar did not understand, Urson explained how such disks were given to Karsite children.
Ragnar nodded. He saw the good intent. He tucked the pendant under his shirt. As it settled beside the pendant Adrian had given him, the two resonated warmly.
After Ragnar stabled his horses, Urson took him aside. Urson, Sergeant Kelding and Lieutenant Ritter explained how Szymon and the other irregulars operated. Officially, there was no trade between Valdemar and Karse, but people are people. Valdemarans enjoyed Karsite whiskey and spices while Karsites enjoyed luxury goods from Valdemar. So there were smugglers. On the Valdemar side, the Crown did not care and recognized them as 'Irregular Traders', so long as the smugglers paid the duties. On the Karsite side, the Sunpriests themselves craved the luxuries and would look the other way in return for a bribe. Szymon and others like him plied their risky and highly profitable trade to meet the demand.
###
Corporal Spears looked around as Ragnar took a seat in the mess hall. Spears mimed startlement and fear. "Don't sit behind me like that, pirate. Too many knives around here. One of them might appear in my back." The corporal ostentatiously moved to the other side of his table so he faced Ragnar. A few members of his squad chuckled.
Ragnar clenched his jaw. He hated the steady rain of insults from Corporal Spears. At home in the Clans, he would have called Spears out; in Valdemar, such challenges were illegal. "Cutting you open would spill horse-crap all over the floor, Spears. Why should I make work for the orderlies?" Ragnar felt his retort was weak.
Spears smirked back. "Five demerits for improperly addressing a superior, Einarson. Oh, I forgot. You're not a real guardsman, are you?"
Ragnar looked down, his fists shaking, ready to launch himself at the corporal. From either side, Trav Penrose and Art Scranton rested hands on Ragnar's arms. "Don't let him get to you, Ragnar." Trav whispered.
Ragnar glanced at his fellow scouts, who looked at him sympathetically. "You're too good a man to get yourself cashiered over small words." Art said quietly. Ragnar looked to the head of the table. Sergeant Kelding looked at him and nodded. Ragnar applied himself to his meal.
###
A candlemark after dinner, Ragnar reported to Sergeant Kelding's quarters. The sergeant returned his salute and gestured to a chair.
After Ragnar sat, Kelding began "Ragnar, had you ever seen a fork three years ago?" The sergeant asked.
Ragnar blinked. The question bewildered him. "No." Clansmen ate with their fingers and knives or used flatbread to scoop up beans and the like.
"Now you use one like a gentleman born to the blue." Kelding said. "How did that happen?"
Ragnar grinned. "Adrian would have smacked me on the head if I didn't eat properly." Ragnar spoke figuratively. Adrian would never have struck anyone, but, to Ragnar, the sting of Adrian's frowns would have been worse than any blow of his hand.
"So you learned to use a fork." Kelding said. "Had you ever ridden a horse before you came here?"
"Nobody in the clans rides horses." Ragnar said.
"But you've learned to ride a horse. If you can learn to handle a fork or a horse, why can't you learn to handle an insult?" Kelding looked at him pointedly.
"I didn't attack him." Ragnar said defensively.
"No, you didn't. But you were damn close to it. You can't let Spears get to you. At least, you can't let him think he's getting to you." Kelding said.
"He keeps calling me a pirate." Ragnar said resentfully.
"In his eyes, you are a pirate. A lot of people in Valdemar think the same way. Get over it." Kelding said.
Ragnar's head jerked up and he looked angrily at the Sergeant, who looked back at him with a measuring stare. After a short silence, Ragnar looked away. "I suppose they do." He conceded. "But they don't keep harping on it."
"So Spears plucks your string and you vibrate to his tune?" Kelding made the statement a question.
"What do you mean?" Ragnar asked.
"You know what I mean."
Ragnar knew. He banged his fist into his palm. "I get so tired of it. I'd like to stuff his own words down his throat."
"Did you listen to what Art said at the table?" Kelding asked.
Ragnar paused a moment to recall Art Scranton's words. "He said something about getting cashiered."
"What do you think is going to happen if an auxiliary scout" – the sergeant pointed at Ragnar – "throws a punch at a corporal?"
"Um. I'd be punished?" Ragnar said.
"You'd be thrown off the post." The sergeant said bluntly. "You're a damn good scout, but you're here only as long as Colonel Chase condones your presence. You cause a disturbance and she'll get rid of you."
"But Spears is the one trying to start something." Ragnar protested.
The sergeant snorted. "He's regular guard. He's also a corporal. And, whether you like him or not, he's actually good at his job. Have you seen the scar on his belly?"
Ragnar shook his head.
"Next time you run into him in the baths, take a look. He got his gut cut open fighting the Tedrels. Saved an officer's life and kept fighting until he collapsed. Would have died if the healers hadn't been handy."
Ragnar looked surprised and Kelding continued. "As a corporal, he does his job. His squad is better than average and his men are on report less often than most. Does it without pissing them off, either."
Ragnar nodded in understanding. He was at a disadvantage with the corporal. "So, how can I get him to stop baiting me?"
Kelding sighed. "I don't know if you can. He doesn't like foreigners, your clansmen in particular. He can have his opinion. Words don't count, so long as he doesn't tell lies."
"So, what can I do?" Ragnar asked.
"Ignore it. You can try to pay him back in kind, but that's risky. He might get punished if he took a swing at you, but the Colonel might decide you were a disruptive influence anyways." Kelding pointed at Ragnar. "But the worst thing you can do is let on that it bothers you. He wants to get you on the prod and, if he succeeds, he'll keep doing it."
Ragnar slumped in the chair, admitting the truth of Sergeant Kelding's words. "I'll try, sir."
"Ragnar. Just do it. I know you can."
###
Ragnar smiled at the villagers in Foxboro as he passed through the square. The Sovran bonfire was already stacked, waiting for sunset. A few villagers smiled back uncertainly at the rough-clad young man, not fully reassured by the Windrider sigil on his saddlebags. At their communal feast tonight, they would give thanks for the guardsmen who had protected them a moon and a half ago. If they had known that Ragnar was the one who had detected the bandits before they could attack, the villagers would have insisted he feast with them. Instead, they watched him nervously, a little afraid of his slightly foreign look and the conspicuous scar on his forehead. The villagers gave a slight sigh of relief as the stranger left by the south gate and continued towards the border. "Probably a scout for the guard." Headman Brody said, trying to convince himself as much as the villagers.
Ragnar made his camp at the oxbow where the guard had wiped out the bandits. The shadow of the nearby hills already covered the site when he arrived and the last glow disappeared from the top of the valley by the time he made his camp. Nip and Tosh looked up expectantly as he approached. Well trained, neither horse made a sound as he poured a measure of grain into their canvas 'buckets.' With an affectionate scratch on their shoulders, Ragnar continued into the brush.
A hundred yards further on, he reached the mound where the dead bandits were buried. In the deepening twilight, he pulled a loaf of bread, a flask of beer and a tiny packet of salt from his pack. Placing the loaf on the mound, he tore open the packet of salt and scattered it over the grave. Next, he unstoppered the flask and poured it on the mound as well.
As he did so, he sensed an otherworldly sigh and the gathering of several presences. Folding his legs, he sat beside the grave until Ayawin rose in the southeast, her light filtering down through the trees to touch the earth.
"Go with the Lady." Ragnar said. One by one, he saw the presences rise on the light. One remained for a moment. The spirit resembled his brother. It looked at Ragnar, then touched its hand to its chest and raised it to its eye. The spirit vanished in the moonlight, leaving Ragnar at peace.
Ragnar rested a while longer before rising to his feet. He returned to his camp and made his supper.
###
As Ayawin neared the south, Ragnar took his lantern and crossed the creek to the spot Amos and Belelme had showed him.
He drew a casting circle on the place of power and sat facing the Eye of the Eagle. He opened the pouch and poured the stones into his hand. He had no questions or need for guidance. But the Valdemarans held that this was a time when the Spirit World was closest to the physical world – and hadn't he just seen that a few candlemarks before? It was a good time to open his heart to the Eagle.
Clouds slid across the sky, hiding Ayawin's face for several sunwidths at a time. Just before midnight, the clouds passed off, filling the circle with moonlight. Ragnar closed his eyes and prayed. He sensed the great Presence and cast the stones.
Opening his eyes, he saw the Eagle and, on the east of the circle, another Spirit, this one in the shape of a horse. The Eagle spread its wings wide and soared upward. The Horse Spirit lingered a moment longer. It laughed in his mind with a feminine voice before rising after the Eagle.
Ragnar looked down at the stones. The same omens remained – the menacing black stone, the warnings of danger and betrayal and the approaching white stone. There was a new, minor message as well: Almost a joke, as though the Spirits had a sense of humor. Ragnar had the sense of a longboat riding broadside to the waves. He snorted. Any fool knew that you either ran before the waves or rowed into them.