Even exhausted as he was, Andrahar was not a heavy sleeper. Time spent in the alleys of Umbar had taught him to always be aware on some level, lest someone creep up to rob or slay. So the moment before the hand clapped over his mouth, he seized the wrist and sank his teeth into it instead. Someone cried out, the hand was jerked away and there was an immediate hubbub of low, urgent voices.
"He bit me!" "Close the door!" "SIT ON HIM!" He opened his eyes, found his room awash in late morning light and full of off-duty esquires, and tried to roll off the bed, to free himself from the encumbering covers. But a couple of young men hurled themselves onto him, one lying crosswise over his legs, pinning them, the other trying frantically to seize his arms. The arm-grabber was Peloren, and he actually managed to grasp one limb before Andrahar slammed his still-free fist into the side of his head, and he fell back off of the bed. But two others moved instantly to replace him, and Andrahar, hampered by the esquire across his legs, who turned out to be Barador, did not have sufficient freedom of movement to fight as well as he could. Still, noses were being bloodied and eyes blackened--until an esquire's belt slipped over his head from behind and snaked tight about his neck. He made an instinctive grab for it, and two of his classmates took that opportunity to grasp his arms.
Valyon's voice sounded hatefully in his ear as he squirmed and bucked and tried to throw off his assailants. "You dirty Southron! We heard what happened--did you think we would not? You used those actors to lure Imrahil to that whorehouse, and there you gave him your filthy Southron drugs and nearly killed him! You are naught but a street-rat and a pervert, and it is time that you were taught your place, which is certainly not in the Swan Knights! Elethil, take your belt and lash his ankles together! Peloren, take you yours and lash his arms behind his back--Casveyllin, Golasgil, turn him about and put his wrists together."
Andrahar's struggles became even more frantic at that point, but to no avail. Elethil flipped up the coverlet upon the foot of his bed and strapped his ankles together, and once that was done, Barador was free to join the others in pinioning his arms. Once they were secured, Valyon directed his accomplices to haul Andrahar upright, and the moment they had done so, he slammed his fists into the bound esquire's gut in a swift one-two motion, and when Andrahar tried to curl up and protect his more vulnerable regions, Barador hauled his head up and cracked him across the face.
The fists of the two esquires then pummeled him mercilessly, and for a time he tried to resist, to pull his legs up and kick or head-butt his assailants. But he was finally overcome by the repeated blows, the fight went out of him and he hung limp and unresponsive in the arms of Casveyllin and Golasgil. Valyon told them to drop him on the floor, and when they had done so, immediately kicked him in the back .
Through a pain-filled haze, Andrahar heard Peloren's voice raised in protest. "That's enough, Valyon! You said you wanted to give him a lesson, not kill him!"
"Ah, but he's a tough one! It has to be a very strong lesson to make the right impression," came Valyon's answer, a pleased tone to his voice. His foot, shod in the hard leather of a riding boot, stomped down this time, impacting his victim's side. Andrahar felt a rib crack, and cried out despite himself.
"No more, Valyon!" Elethil exclaimed. "I won't be party to anything else!"
"Nor I!" Peloren chimed in. The senior esquire sighed. "Very well then. Get your belts, and let's be off." Elethil and Peloren reclaimed their belts with peculiar gentleness, carefully rolling Andrahar onto his stomach and jumping up swiftly once he was loose. But he made no attempt to attack them, merely rolling onto his good side with a groan.
"Remember, Southron--you are not welcome here!" Valyon hissed, before he and the others filed outside, closing the door behind them.
Andrahar lay upon the floor for a long time after they had gone. He was clad in nothing but his underdrawers, and the cool stone flagging felt good against his abused flesh. By some happy chance, his nose was not broken nor had he lost any teeth, though a couple did feel loose. But his lip was split, both of his eyes were swelling shut, and he could not move without nausea overwhelming him.
After a time, he thought to try to rise and reach his bed, for though the esquires' mattresses were hardly luxurious, they were softer than the floor. It took a while, and the damaged rib caused some strained and breathless cursing on his part, but he eventually managed to crawl back up onto his bed inch by pained inch and pull the coverlet back over himself. He remembered, as he was sinking into unconsciousness, that he had heard somewhere it was not good to go right to sleep when one had a head injury, but he did not think his skull was cracked, and with Imrahil disabled, there was no one he would have wanted to help him stay awake anyway.
He sleep was deep and dreamless, and had anyone wished to do him harm again, they would have found him an easy mark.
************
Someone was touching Andrahar's shoulder, and when he belatedly realized it, his hand slipped under the pillow for the dagger he habitually kept there. But it was gone, probably spilled to the floor in the earlier scuffle. He tried to move, to throw himself free of the bed even as his eyes snapped open, but the cracked rib and his back flared white-hot pain and he could not.
"Do not touch me!" he snarled in his birth tongue, his lips puffy and jaw sore.
Armsmaster Ornendil, whose hand it was, took a cautious step back.
"Easy, lad! 'Tis only me. Valar, what happened to you?" he added as he got a better look at the esquire. The single window showed the golden glow of sunset.
As he was neither a complainer nor an informer by nature, Andrahar said nothing. Ornendil's eyes narrowed.
"The Prince wished to speak with you and sent a page, but the boy could get no answer when he knocked at the door, and when he peeked in he feared you'd done yourself a mischief, so he came to me." The Armsmaster was clad in his dress livery; obviously, he had been on his way to dinner. There was a stirring near the door, and Andrahar saw a young boy peer in.
"Ah, there you are lad," Ornendil said heartily. "Make haste, and find Master Kendrion. Bring him back with you." The boy bobbed his head and scampered off-Andrahar could hear the soles of his slightly overlarge shoes slapping on the flags in great haste. The Armsmaster then turned his attention back to the esquire.
"Esquire, who did this to you?" Andrahar gave him a stony glower.
"That was not a request, that was an order."
"I may not say," came the slow reply, this time in Westron.
"Why not?"
"'From this day forth, no matter your birth, you are brothers. Brothers-in-arms. You will do no harm to your brothers.'" It was, haltingly delivered, a verbatim quote from Ornendil's address to new esquires, and the Armsmaster flinched when he heard it.
"Oh, lad. The other esquires did this to you?" Andrahar did not reply, but settled himself back upon his pillow and deliberately turned his head away. Ornendil sighed.
"Andrahar, this is a very grave matter. If any of your brother esquires did this to you, we need to know. It is a violation of our code, and we do not wish for such men to become Swan Knights."
"I will not speak further of it," the esquire replied, and carefully pulled his covers higher about him despite the warmth of the evening. The Armsmaster tried hard to suppress his annoyance by reminding himself that the young man was injured and had probably been badly frightened. So he said nothing more, merely pulling Andrahar's chair over near the bed and waiting silently for the arrival of Kendrion, who knocked but a few moments later. He had been in Imrahil's chambers, which were just down the hall.
"What is the matter, Ornendil?" he asked when the Armsmaster let him in, then caught sight of Andrahar's face. Moving to the convenient bedside chair, he seated himself quietly, set his medicine case upon the floor and folded his hands in his lap.
"Andrahar, will you allow me to take a look at you?" The esquire turned his head back to look at the healer as if surprised that refusal was an option. Kendrion smiled. "I will not force you to, but I am concerned about you, and I think that I could do some things that would make you more comfortable." After a moment, there came a grudging, cautious nod. The healer turned to the Armsmaster.
"Ornendil, would you go and tell the Prince what has happened? And if you would be so kind, have the kitchen send up some boiled water and a basin--if it is still hot, so much the better. I also need some of the bandages and cloths from my medical closet--if that young lad is still about, then have him get them. I require some privacy right now, but I will report to you and the Prince when I am finished here." It was dismissal, firm but polite, and Ornendil departed.
When the door had closed behind him, Kendrion turned his attention back to Andrahar. Getting up, he went and washed his hands in the esquire's washbasin, then returned to the chair and seated himself once more. Careful hands touched the battered face, turning it so that all of the damage could be seen.
"That lip of yours needs stitching, as does your brow," the healer commented. "We will do that presently. Does your head hurt?" A slow nod answered him, and Kendrion peered carefully into his eyes. "That is not surprising, though it does not seem as if your skull is cracked. I wish you had come to me when you were first injured."
"Couldn't," came the response.
The healer nodded. "I am going to take a look at the rest of you now. Have I your permission to do that?" Another slow nod, and Kendrion slowly pulled the coverlet down. His bedside manner was too good for him to register surprise or dismay, but Andrahar caught a flicker of something in his eyes as he looked at the bruises blossoming upon the young man's body. "I am sorry, Andrahar, but I have to examine you, and it is going to hurt." Yet another small inclination of the head answered him, and he laid his hands upon Andrahar's chest. The esquire sucked in a breath, but held still, his face shuttered and stoic. "I will be as gentle as I can," the healer promised him, then set to his work in earnest.
************
After dinner, the Prince and Ornendil awaited Kendrion in the Prince's study. Kendrion was pleased to find that food awaited him there, thoughtfully provided by Adrahil, for he had missed the evening meal while tending to Andrahar. And the Prince was patient, allowing him to eat for a bit before the questioning began.
"So, Master Kendrion, how did you find your new patient?" he asked at last.
Kendrion dabbed his lips with his napkin. "In worse condition than young Imrahil at this point, my lord. He will be abed for a few days," came the response. "He has a cracked rib, I suspect he has bruised a kidney and I had to stitch a bit on his face. A good patient though-he never flinched a bit."
Adrahil sighed. "Andrahar has lived the sort of life that makes you enduring, if it does not kill you outright. Did he tell you aught of what happened? Did he name names?"
"No, my lord, he named no names. But from what I can gather from the evidence and what little he would tell me, several of the esquires came into his room while he was asleep and subdued him, binding him with their belts. He bears the marks of that upon his wrists and ankles. Once he was safely bound, they beat him. There is one mercy, however--they did no more than beat him."
Ornendil grimaced in distaste. "If you mean what I think you mean, Kendrion, I hardly think that our esquires would indulge in that sort of perversion." The healer gave him a grim look.
"It happens more often than you might think. And since the point of all this was to put him in his place, it would not surprise me had they done so."
Adrahil took a sip of wine from the glass he was turning gently about in his hands, his face troubled. "They wished to put him in his place, you say?"
"Actually, Andrahar said they did it because they believed that he had given Imrahil the hekadi," Kendrion answered. "Though I suspect that was merely a convenient excuse for them to vent their hostility upon him."
"How many were there?" the Prince asked.
"Six, he says. But that is all he says."
"If he will not name names, I do not know how we will find them," Ornendil muttered, his expression glum. Kendrion snorted derisively, and the Prince and the Armsmaster looked at him.
"You have all the means you need, provided you move swiftly. Andrahar did not go down without a fight--his hands are quite battered. I will guarantee he left his mark upon some of them at least."
Adrahil's eyebrows flew up at that. "Golasgil. Casveyllin. Barador, for a start. I noticed at dinner that they looked like they'd been brawling, but thought naught of it--after all, they were out on the town last night."
Ornendil nodded and got to his feet. "I'll have them brought up here now, and we'll have the truth out of them--and the names of their companions." He moved to the door, opened it--and to his surprise found himself confronting two frightened, shamefaced esquires, one with a hand raised as if about to knock.
"Armsmaster Ornendil, my lord prince," said Peloren. "We have something to tell you." The other esquire, Elethil, nodded.
"May we come in?"
************
The pain was bad, for the beating was among the worst he'd ever experienced in a life that had had its brutal moments, but Andrahar had at first tried to refuse the healer's painkillers, for fear of what would happen when he was insensible. Kendrion, however, would have none of that, and had sent a message off to the Prince. Soon a full-fledged Swan Knight had arrived to guard the esquire's door, thus depriving him of his main argument, and right after that a couple of maidservants had arrived with enough pillows to turn his spartan esquire's cot into an almost comfortable nest. The healer had then commanded him to drink the bitter elixir, carefully helped him to settle himself in the most comfortable position he could achieve, and departed after a fatherly admonition to get a good night's rest.
Within a brief period of time, the drug began to take effect, dulling the pain and making it bearable. But the discomfort was still severe enough to war with the drug, not quite allowing him the respite of sleep. He muzzily contemplated the delicate balance between the two for a while, then his mind moved tiredly onto other matters.
Three years ago, in the streets of Umbar, the young Heir to Dol Amroth had saved his life, and Andrahar had in turn sworn blood-oath to him. Imrahil had not realized how impertinent Andrahar's action had been, how any promise made by a houseless bastard was considered worthless by the Haradrim. Imrahil had taken his oath seriously, had taken him seriously, had accepted that Andrahar had a code of honor that he lived by. Despite Imrahil's excesses, for the most part his service to the young Prince had not been unpleasant, and Andrahar had envisaged himself serving Imrahil for several years to come, until they both went off to war and he one day returned the life-debt he owed the Heir, winning either his freedom or his death. He had never imagined that day coming quite so soon, nor under such circumstances.
Not that he truly wished to be free of the young Prince, despite Imrahil's reckless ways. Quite the contrary. Imrahil, generous in nature, beautiful almost beyond measure, and with an easy way with people that Andrahar envied and knew he himself would never possess, had captured his heart from the first moment of their meeting. Andrahar sometimes imagined himself a creature crouching in the cold and dark, holding his hands out to the fire that was the Prince to warm them. Other things he imagined as well, upon waking or before sleep claimed him at night, but he was a realist and knew that his desires were not as those of most other men, and certainly not as Imrahil's, who liked the wenches ever so much.
Despite the pain, he frowned as he remembered the Prince's off-hand remark about his tastes to the now departed Falastir. Imrahil had not used to be so thoughtless or heedless, nor so reckless as he was at present. The Haradrim was not sure of the reasons for this change, but he had his suspicions. Prince Adrahil, usually so wise, had come to grief in his early ventures out into the world and because of that was perhaps overmuch careful of his only son. Imrahil, penned in Dol Amroth, chafing at the restrictions and possibly fearful of the responsibilities of the role he'd been born into, expressed his rebellion through excess. And was now rebelling to such an extent that he was arguably in almost as much danger than if Adrahil had let him risk himself in a more militant fashion.
I may be partially responsible for this as well, Andrahar admitted to himself bleakly. He said it himself just the other night: "…so long as you are with me, I am in no danger." He believes me capable of dealing with almost any threat, which is flattering--though more than a bit exaggerated! So long as I am with him, he will not feel compelled to be careful or to look after himself--because that is my job. It may be that to save him, I will have to let him go.
Then there was the matter of the other esquires to consider. He supposed that it would have been prudent to have given Ornendil the names of his attackers, but he had his pride, and was not one of those mewling folk who brought tales to their superiors about their fellows. To do so would have been an admission that he could not take care of the matter himself, that he had been bested by his peers. That he was afraid.
Which he had been. There was very little Andrahar feared--on his feet and with a blade in his hand. But the worse times of his life had occurred when he had been bound and helpless. Pure panic had flared through him once the esquires had secured his hands and feet, for he had known himself to be totally at their mercy. They could have as easily killed him as beaten him, and he wondered why they had not. He would not then have been able to testify against them, should the crime be discovered. Certainly, he would not have been so foolish as to injure and antagonize an enemy, and then let him live!
Though perhaps they knew the truth of the matter, that they were in no danger at all. He was familiar enough now with the noble houses of Western Gondor to know his assailants' pedigrees, and he came from a land where the value of a man's life was coldly calculated by the purity of his blood. Though Andrahar's own blood was as pure as any in Harad, his mother's house had fallen into disfavor and she had been made a slave. At that moment, her worth and that of her offspring had cheapened considerably.
You did me no service, Father, he thought with pained irony--and not for the first time, to favor me above my station as you did! For it did nothing save to awake in me a pride unbecoming my true place and envy in the breasts of my half-brothers. To train me in a nobleman's skills and graces, to instill in me a nobleman's desires when such could never be mine, was an exquisite cruelty. Even if you did it out of love…
No, despite Ornendil's protestations, and those of the healer, Andrahar expected no justice from the Prince of Dol Amroth, for there was precious little justice in the world, and that was a lesson the esquire had learned long ago. Adrahil punish six of the scions of his finest noble houses for their actions towards a street rat? Fish would sooner walk on land and sing in the streets!
And though his pride would not permit his becoming an informant, it would also not to force him to remain in an untenable situation, now that he had fulfilled the conditions of his oath. Had he still been oath-sworn to Imrahil, he would have had to stay despite the danger, and he would have done so. But he was not, and thus could leave to save his own life. For he knew that the nature of arms training was such that if his fellows wished him ill, there were more than enough ways that fatal accidents could be arranged. Or that, free of any fear of retaliation from their superiors, they might very well try the same sort of thing again, this time killing him outright rather than just injuring him. As good a fighter as he was, he could not stand against such numbers and he did not wish to die bound and beaten. And his own inferior status did not permit him any sort of retaliation.
No, Valyon had warned him, and it behooved him to take that warning seriously. For if he did not, he had no-one but himself to blame for the consequences. It was time to leave Dol Amroth.
************
The next day in the late afternoon, Andrahar awoke from the sleep he had finally achieved to find his bedside chair occupied by a very pasty-faced Imrahil. The Prince's handsome visage was a bit puffy and his eyes were bloodshot. The uncomfortable thought occurred to Andrahar that what he was seeing was a vision of what Imrahil might look like in a few years, should he not change his ways.
"Andra, what happened to you?" the Prince exclaimed, when he saw his friend was awake.
Andrahar shrugged a little and spoke slowly and carefully. "The others thought that I had given you the hekadi. After I brought you home, I went to bed. They came to my room and bound and beat me."
It would have been difficult for Imrahil to become any whiter than he already was, but his eyes widened in appalled horror.
"You were not even in the room with me when I drank it! Did you not tell them that?"
Andrahar's still-swollen lips, the lower one festooned with black silk stitches that looked like little whiskers growing in entirely the wrong place, moved gradually into a smile that was probably meant to be grim, but unfortunately also had a certain comic quality.
"They were not much interested in…explanations, Imri."
"Well, I must go and tell them! 'The others'? Who exactly did this to you? All of them?"
"I will not say. I do not carry tales. Your father and the Armsmaster may know by now." He paused, tired of talking, and Imrahil, finding a pitcher of water and a cup on the bedside stand, poured him some and offered it to him. The battered esquire lifted his head, and the young Prince slid an arm behind it to support him, and held the cup to his lips. He drank long and deeply, and sighed gratefully as his head sank back onto the pillow. "Thank you. My middle does not bend very well at present." After a moment, he looked over at the Heir curiously. "Are you even supposed to be up?"
Imrahil hunched over, elbows on knees and looked down at the floor. "Kendrion did not say I could not get up, not exactly. I heard him tell Mother that I should not tire myself." He glanced up from under his lashes at Andrahar remorsefully. "I am sorry, Andra--I was a complete and utter fool."
That look of charming contrition had always served to soften Andrahar's anger in the past, but it was unnecessary now, for he had worked his way through his offence at the Prince's behavior the night before and was now quite calm and merely a little sad. He lifted a bandaged hand and gestured that the Prince should lean closer. When Imrahil did so, Andrahar reached up and cupped his cheek, his thumb caressing the smooth softness. The Heir was being slow to get a beard, if indeed he ever managed to grow one at all. The men of his family were known to lack such things--another proof, it was said, of their Elven heritage.
Grey eyes widened in surprise at Andrahar's touch, but Imrahil neither flinched nor moved away. Oh, my lovely one, would that I could ease whatever ache it is within you that drives you to do such things! the Haradrim thought sadly. Aloud, he said
"Yes. Yes, you were, Imrahil. And I will not be liege-sworn to a fool." The young Prince looked at him, puzzled.
"What do you mean, Andra?"
Andrahar let his arm fall to the coverlet. "The blood oath no longer binds me. I saved your life the other night, and that dispatches my debt to you. When I am well enough to travel, I will ask your father to release me from his service." Imrahil stared at him in astonishment.
"To release you from his service? Why?"
"Because, among other things, I have outstayed my welcome here."
"Because of what they did to you? Andra, give my father the names and
whoever did this will be punished!" The Haradrim's look of polite skepticism chilled Imrahil's blood.
"You don't believe that," he whispered, dismayed. "Do you honestly think Father will let this go? After three years, do you know so little of him still?"
"I try to have as few expectations as possible, Imri. I find that it spares me much disappointment. And I have other reasons."
"What sort of reasons?"
"This wild behavior of yours--it grows worse by the year. Your father cannot stop you from doing these things. Your mother cannot stop you. I certainly cannot stop you. And I care too much for you to watch you die as Falastir did."
"Falastir is dead?" came Imrahil's shaken exclamation. "But how? He told me the hekadi was not harmful. It wasn't supposed to kill anyone! He said he used it often."
Andrahar sighed wearily. "Have your father or Master Ornendil told you nothing?"
"No! And I do not remember anything after Falastir offered me the drug. As soon as I took my first drink, things got very fuzzy and strange. I had visions, such visions as you can hardly imagine." Imrahil shuddered. "I think I remember the girl calling out to me, but that is all. And later, I could hear you talking to me."
"The hekadi was tainted, Imri. The people who sell such drugs sometimes put other things in them…to make the effect stronger, or stretch it further. They make more profit that way." He paused to take a moment's rest, then gave the Prince a very pointed look. "It killed the player, and very nearly killed you. That is always the chance you take when you use such a drug. No Haradrim boy of noble caste who had reached the age of seven years would be so foolish as to drink from the cup of a man he had known but a few hours. Much less from a cup that he knew contained hekadi."
The Heir's brows drew down. "Is that why you wish to leave? Because you think I am a child?"
"You act like one!" Andrahar growled, then winced in pain. Imrahil reached a hand out to him, uncertain of what to do, but Andrahar shook his head very carefully, refusing his Prince's help. "At sixteen," he continued, "I was of an age to be considered a man full-grown in Harad when I first came here to Gondor. I could have married, or entered into binding contracts. You know this. It was explained to me then that the Gondorrim took longer to come to man's estate. But you…I fear you will never grow up! And I am a warrior, not a nursemaid."
Imrahil stared at him, more stunned than offended. "But Andra, what would you do if you left? Where would you go?" The questions were almost plaintive.
Andrahar shrugged cautiously, his manner indifferent. "Pelargir perhaps, or back to Umbar, though that might be dangerous if my half-brothers learned I still lived. Perhaps to the East, or Dunland. It matters little. I am good with a blade, and there is always a market for such men."
"You would serve Gondor's enemies? Where is the honor in that?"
Anger kindled in the Haradrim's dark eyes then. "Men of other nations possess honor as well, Imrahil, even if it is not honor as you understand it! Have you learned nothing these last three years? Besides, everyone knows that bastards have no honor worth mentioning." The bitterness in his words surprised even him, and he turned his head away from the Prince, fixing his eyes upon the wall beside his bed. "I am weary and wish to rest now. Please leave me." There was a rustling noise, then slow footsteps as the Prince made his way to the door. He paused.
"Andra, please stay," came his quiet voice. "I swear to you that I will mend my ways."
"It is too late for that. And as I told you, that is not the only reason."
"Andra…" The plea was just one whispered word, but the pain in it could be easily heard. Andrahar squeezed his eyes shut.
"I have decided, Imri. Please respect that."
There was another moment's silence, then the sound of the door opening, then closing again.