Chapter 2
A blond man in his fifties road into town on a horse. He was a man of great strength but also great indulgences. Whispers spread like wildfire as his presence was remarked upon. It was the first stranger they'd had in quite a long time and never one of such great... pomp. Though most who looked at him looked away when his eyes caught them looking, their eyes sliding back greedily as they weighed how much that horse must have cost. Then their eyes moved to the shiny tack and wondered if it was just the sun or if it really was gold and silver. Then he would be out of their sight.
Men and women both sized up the merit and cost of a man who would come on his own. A man who was obviously well off but was it foolishness in his thinking that he could handle any thief, any less the honorable folk? If it were, then his size was only such an advantage, his age and weight were surely to slow him down and he could and would not be as good as the younger among these wastrels. The only ones who had stayed when things had gotten bad and had grown to rule the small community.
There was no other option to his thinking, if he had wanted to get through unnoticed, he wouldn't have come through in such a noticeable way and boasting his riches to those who had nothing but what they stole. Nobody gave this poor lot a handout. To do so would surely be the downfall of anyone even passing through.
The man was not foolish enough to try. He could read that and knew he'd made a mistake as soon as he was a few strides in. But he did not compound that mistake by giving away his unease. He sat confidently on his saddle and refused to show he was intimidated but refrained from confronting anyone unnecessarily. He didn't want anyone to become offended by the wrong look or no look at all. He looked forward, allowing his gaze to connect with only a few but moving his attention away as soon as he passed. Not a single expression marred his stoic face. His lips were straight and kept a slow procession into town.
So much had changed since he'd last been here. So much was worse and he couldn't even be sure if it was the same place. He had not been in charge of their goings and comings and one place was the same to him as another until now, until it really mattered. He thought this was where he was supposed to go, where he was convening once more. A recognizance with whoever was sent to meet with him. Only a dozen could be trusted, from that dozen only a handful could carry it off and of that handful he would only recognize a few. There were even less that would be unrecognizable to their opposition. He still refused to call them his enemy, at one point many of those with that label had been his brothers in arms, his friends.
He firmed his jaw, refusing to think of it. She had been the one to blame, she had been the siren that lead them all down a darkened path. He did not know how he was freed from her chains, how he had been the only one who wasn't snared in her noose. He couldn't be. He refused to believe it. He had to believe that there were others out there that had refused what she had offered. And she offered it to many but not everyone. He didn't want someone who hadn't been offered, he wanted someone who told her 'no'. An impossible word for someone like her, but he had managed to do the impossible.
He did the impossible every day. He just had to make it a bit more common and happen more often. It wouldn't hurt to stretch it either.
He found a restaurant and was thankful that he'd left the more important items, the more crucial ones to his success outside, hung up in a tree that retained all of its branches and most of its leaves, making it too full to see much in it to any casual passing eye.
He dismounted and tied up his horse, well aware that many were watching him. He gave the horse a pat on the side and whispered words of comfort before turning into the shamble looking restaurant. The building had an upper level and as he walked in he knew with a heavy heart that this isn't a place he'd be staying in for long.
The only youth it seemed was that of the female persuasion. The youngest men were only a decade younger that his own appearance. They also seemed to be the only men in the establishment. Those of the old and weary were outside on their rickety bones and having to scrape by. These were the people who were in charge.
The blond sat down at the bar knowing that if he sat at a table he'd have to pay for the privilege. Here there was a double benefit, he could save his money and hope not to be bothered by the other men who had stopped what they were doing and looked at him. The women tried to gain their attentions back, but all the eyes were on him. Maybe it would have even been a hat trick had he not appeared so well off and while not in the market, could be persuaded to such an outcome. If they didn't relieve him of his money first by other means. They would not find much and their disappointment might lead to other kinds of confrontations or extractions of payments they might deem important.
The man at the bar, the only man who was older than he, came and lifted a brow, silently asking what he wanted.
"A lager and whatever is on the pipe."
The man chuckled as he turned away and a dirty glass appeared in front of him filled with a pale brown liquid and a layer of froth popping its bubbles at the top. At least he could have what he asked for, he half a mind thinking he'd get whatever the man behind the bar decided he could have, if he had any sort of stock.
A few minutes later and a plate appeared in front of him as well. It too was brown and it was soupy. He picked up the spoon and most of it drained away before it could even reach his lips, and he wasn't sure which was worse, to eat this or to go hungry for a night. He'd have less energy if he didn't, but this might kill him before he could even pay his tab.
However it would be his third night of going without food and his horse was starting to look tasty. That knowledge had been what sent him towards a town he thought he recalled in his boyhood. A town when he and his father would go around visiting the locals. It wasn't until a long time later that he learned that while they were making nice, members of their hire would be fleecing the people, making sure they paid all their taxes and then some if they could get away with it.
His father had been no better then the men he saw here, the only difference was his father liked to drape himself in finery. A trait he had inherited but now only used as a weapon.
"You speak like you are trying to be one of us." A man who was obviously a regular if his drink showing up without needing to ask was anything to go by, and probably pretty high up too in their ranking here, said. He sat next to the blond at the bar and nursed his drink, thinking. "But you're clothing belittles your attempts at blending in. Not a very wise move was it?"
The blond slid his brown eyes towards the man in question. He didn't respond and went back to his meal, not sure if it was a very large animal that made such small chunks and he didn't let his thoughts go any further. Already he had to squash a few of the bugs under foot with his heel. He'd probably be charged for them too, either a clean up bill or depriving the owner of a further meal he could serve.
"Not a noble then?" The man tilted his head away from the blond, trying to get a read on him. "But something that keeps you in the better things in life. A merchant then?" When the blond didn't respond or even look at him again, the next words out of his mouth were a bit more testy. "I'm just trying to make conversation." Even though he was in his forties, he looked much older between the missing and yellowed teeth, the scabs festering and breaking open again to sloppily heal once more. Parts of his face was broken and stitched together once more but not in the location it had once been. "You know we don't take too well to rift-raft crowding into our territory. Any ill-gotten gains you have received while on our land will have to be foisted over and we won't even charge you for infringement."
"Those are awfully big words you know." The blond counted the amount of words on one hand that the man had said that he shouldn't of known. Not being from a place like this at any rate.
He was festering for a fight, was he? The man was getting agitated and he'd just found his new punching bag. "I was going to let it slide because you saved us the hassle of doing it ourselves, but if this is the way you want to be, then I shall take my pound of flesh happily." A knife gleamed for a brief second in the poor lighting cast down by candles. They dripped off their hangers and onto the bar, but the blond was unimpressed by such a small tool and his attitude was duly noted as he took another swig of his drink. Perhaps he wouldn't have to pay tonight after all.
The man turned absolutely furious by this stranger's behavior. "And here I was, thinking of letting you in on a little secret. There's something special to be got in these parts, if you can find it, it's worth a lot more than a meager shilling or two you can snatch off a dead man. Since you were new and all to here we thought we'd let you go and search for it. Our gift to you."
"I bet its somewhere you can't find it and this promise of riches beyond my imagine would have me looking until my last breath while you robbed me blind from behind." He finally spoke and it was in derision. "I've heard such stories before. How I managed to raise myself up from this pitiful life you lead is by not following them to the ends of the earth but moving on to something else, something far more worth my attention. So you shall excuse me if I don't chat with the scum of the earth." He turned back to his drink and as the man lunged for him, he swallowed it all down.
Before the man could even reach him he was out of his chair and sidestepping the foolish man and turning deftly to avoid any major harm. The man went flying and crashed into a table where a man sat with a woman on his lap and her skirt hiked up to her hips, not that it had far to go from the way it was stitched.
It angered the man who dumped the woman without a care for her own feelings or physical well-being and clocked the man who had flown, barely disrupted their table after-all. A full blown brawl was soon following that and the blond managed to escape relatively unscathed with only a few tears to his outfit to show for it. He tumbled through the door and landed on the porch in front of it to look up very long, very bare legs. The woman grinned down at him. "See something you'd like honey?" She was impervious to the commotion behind her and he wondered if this wasn't something she'd seen nightly. "While the men tumble, why don't we tumble too upstairs?"
"Tell me?" He asked getting to his feet and brushing off his backside that had landed on the dirt strewn porch, looking back at the fight and then at her even as he moved away with a boyish yet suave charm and she nodded for him to go on. "Any significant news you've heard today?"
The woman's lips pursed as she remembered back to conversations she had with people who shared her time. Then she grinned her eyes like cats as she returned her eyes to him. "That depends."
He flicked her a silver coin. "And that's only for information."
She bit it and then stuffed it into her bodice though that wouldn't stop many of the male hands that would go searching for it. In fact that was an easy place for them to find it. A bone-weary shoulder lifted and then dropped again. "Just some jumble about a failed assassination attempt and consequently failed mob lynching in a few towns over. The Queen is making her wrath known."
The look in this woman's eyes, a woman who should be all out of hate and despair since that's all her life was anymore managed to gleam a loathing that was so fierce that he almost offered her a position in his confidences. Any woman who could hate the Queen as much as she did belonged in his entourage but the split second hesitation was all that was needed before the brawl made its way out onto the street and they had banded together with one clear victim in sight.
He knew as he ran that he'd never find her again and wouldn't be able to give her a network to use and be used by. He also knew before he even touched his horse that it had been severely compromised but thankfully not to the animal itself. They were slowly stripping the saddle and bridle of its painfully obvious features and allures. He didn't mind as he released the ropes from the hitch and hopped on, he didn't need the saddle right now and once he did again, he would have fixed it. Besides, give these crooks a glimmer of hope, they were thieves and worse and as soon as they looked again they would find that gold and silver seriously lacking in any real precious metal commodity.
He kicked the horse into a gallop before leaving town and heard the shouts and commotion behind him as they gathered whatever horses they had around and followed him. He had the better beast and would lose them soon enough. He wasn't looking forward to doubling back and grabbing his gear but he couldn't go without it for too long but first he needed to lose his tail.