Ecarlate et Vert, chapter 1

True and False

The two men had ridden back to Theophile's home together an hour or so ago; Gaston, having been lost, had not even known the Ranger's stone cabin was in this part of the woods. It was nowhere near as luxurious as the de Valois family's hunting lodge, but it was warm and dry, with a homey, solid air about it. His black horse had been stabled in the barn for the night.

"More venison?"

Gaston didn't seem to notice Theophile's sarcasm, but helped himself to more of the roast anyway. With his mouth partially full, he spoke his approval.

"Not bad. You have a housekeeper or something?" mumbled the young man.

Theophile didn't answer; just raised an eyebrow in a mixture of consternation and amusement. "No. I've lived on my own for some time. As have you, if I'm not mistaken."

"Well, there's my idiot houseboy. My father left him to me." Gaston wiped the grease from his mouth and belched loudly. "He gets the firewood, fetches water, you know, all those things a man like me is too busy to do."

Across the table from him, the Ranger sighed. Horrible table manners, a grossly inflated opinion of himself, and a haughty disdain for anyone below his station were just a few of the younger man's finer qualities. Theophile swallowed his rising annoyance and gestured with one hand. "Are you finished eating now so that I can talk?"

A second belch. "Fire away."

"So, as I was saying, about this business with my niece," began Theophile.

"Are you going to eat that?" interrupted Gaston, pointing to the half-eaten piece of venison on Theophile's plate. Wordlessly, the Green Man shoved it toward him. "Hate to waste a good piece of meat like that," he explained with a shrug.

Theophile eyed him. At the rate Gaston was growing, he'd be bigger than a draft horse by his eighteenth year. He was already built like a young bullock, powerful in the shoulders and torso, with narrow hips and muscular legs. Certainly not a good build for a Green Man, whose stock in trade was stealth, grace, and the art of deception. But where the two of them were likely headed, the qualities of strength and power might just be what was needed to compliment his own formidable range of skills, he thought to himself.

"I don't know if you've ever met my brother Benedicte," said Theophile, and seeing Gaston shake his head 'no,' continued. "He and his wife live at the southern end of the province, so I didn't suppose so. I'm the elder brother, so naturally I was heir to my family's estate. That didn't sit kindly with Benedicte. You see, we're the descendants of a minor noble house…"

Gaston snorted. "And your name is 'Chevrier?' That's not a noble name. That's a goat-man's name."

Theophile waved the insult aside. "If you'd let me finish? My surname at birth was Grenier. I would expect any de Valois to know that name. It was only after I'd started my Ranger training did I decide to drop the moniker, as it would have attracted too much attention."

The words had their desired effect. Even Gaston picked up on the name-drop, and his blue eyes narrowed. "Grenier? That good-for-nothing land baron who passed all those anti-hunting rules?"

"The same."

Low in his throat, like an animal, Gaston growled. "Then I know him. Why would I want to help scum like that?"

Insults seemed to roll off Theophile's back as easily as water off a duck. The Ranger shrugged. "Although we are estranged, that is my family you speak of, hunter," he said, his light tone belying the anger that rose in him. "In fact, our mission is to rescue his daughter, Petronelle. There is no love lost between me and my brother, but for that little girl, I will do anything."

Gaston studied the man across from him. He seemed sincere as he spoke. In fact, upon mentioning the girl, Theophile's face had seemed less hard for a moment, almost sad. Maybe the Rangers weren't as tough as he'd always heard. He took a pull at the tankard in front of him.

"You still haven't said what's in it for me," Gaston said, his voice unaffected by the strong ale.

"I mentioned that we Greniers are a noble family, however small?"

The young man nodded. He could sense where this was going.

The Ranger paused for effect. "My brother has offered a five-livres reward for his daughter's safe return."

Gaston's broad jaw gaped. Five livres was more than he could make in several years hunting the forests around Ste.-Eulalie. It would mean a long period of comfortable living for him, and plenty of good food and drink, without having to work for it.

Not that he had to work at it anyway, he thought; the villagers always showered him with free provisions at the tavern. But the money would give him influence, prestige…maybe even another hunting lodge. The wheels began to turn in his head as he considered the proposition.

"You'd get the reward. My only wish is to see Petronelle back, unharmed," explained Theophile. "That would be our agreement. Consider it hazard pay," he added with a lopsided, amused smile.

"Hazard pay?" Gaston laughed. "Going in and grabbing some girl from a pack of half-drunk brigands? I could do that in my sleep, Ranger."

Knowing he had sufficiently grabbed the young man's limited attention, Theophile reached out his hand. "So we're agreed?"

Gaston pumped the proffered hand vigorously. "Of course. We'll be back in a few days, and maybe I'll even manage to grab another trophy or two along the way."

The older man sat back in his wooden chair now, still smiling in his offhanded way. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. Now, you may want to get some sleep, because at dawn tomorrow, we're riding out at full speed."

A yawn. The rich food and potent ale were finally having an effect on the young hunter, who had been tired to begin with. "Any idea where we're going?"

"Les Grises."

Les Grises had been aptly named. It lay to the north and east of the verdant valley of Ste.-Eulalie, and it was a place summer seemed to have forgotten. Stands of lightning-struck pines forlornly stretched up to the sky, which was the color of gunmetal. There were no wildflowers to break the monotony of the stony ground, and the only birdsong was provided by a solitary crow in one of the lower branches of a tree. It seemed to be a part of the country that hope had bypassed altogether.

He'd never say it out loud, but Gaston was secretly glad Theophile had made him leave Leonidas, his courser, behind at the shack. The high-strung stallion would have shied every few steps in this forsaken place. The horse beneath him now was slightly smaller, more finely boned, and he had a distinct hunch that it could carry a man his size all day without tiring. At first, Gaston had laughed at it.

"What kind of horse is this?" he remembered saying that morning.

"The kind that can outrun wolfpacks and won't let his rider get killed," the Ranger had answered in his straightforward way.

Theophile rode a similar mount, a curiously spotted gelding with long limbs and a lean build to match his owner's. The horses were unbothered by the unnatural silence of Les Grises; their soft steps were just about the only sound to be heard. They'd been in the saddle for several hours now, and Gaston was beginning to fidget slightly.

"What kind of damned place is this?" he muttered not for the first time that day. He had been here a few times, but never stayed long. Game was scarce here, he knew, because of the scant cover afforded by the straggly trees.

Apparently Theophile had heard, because he reined in his paint horse alongside Gaston's dapple grey. "It's rumored to be cursed," he remarked noncommittally. Seeing Gaston's reaction, he offered his lopsided smile. "Of course, we Verts don't really believe in curses, only facts. As to what you country folk believe, I don't know."

Gaston scowled. At every available turn so far, the Green Man had taken the opportunity to gently rib him, his (lack of) abilities, his questionable upbringing, or anything else he saw fit.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked the older man in disgust.

Theophile's grin widened. "Immensely."

So apparently Rangers did have a sense of humor, thought Gaston miserably.

Above them, the low, leaden sky rumbled ominously. There was another storm coming. Barely after they'd managed to lead their horses off the road, the sky cracked open and sheets of rain poured down. In seconds, the dusty road had become a slithering column of mud. Beneath the spreading live oak that was their canopy, the two riders and their horses remained relatively dry.

"Here." Theophile passed Gaston one of the Rangers' twice-baked "traveling biscuits" from his pouch.

As Gaston chewed the hardtack, he realized how hungry he was after only half an uneventful day on horseback. "Got any meat to go with it?"

"You de Valois and your one-track minds," remarked the Ranger as he produced a strip of dried beef. "Don't you ever think of anything else?"

Gaston never really had stopped to consider. Now he did. Outside of eating and drinking, there was hunting, spending time at the tavern, pretty girls…in fact, there were many things to keep his mind occupied.

"Sure," he said without thinking. "Got a lot on my mind, I do." Then he paused. "Like right now, I'm asking myself where exactly we're going. You didn't give too many details beyond Les Grises." Gaston, like most of the village types, didn't like traveling far from home unless he had a specific destination in mind.

Theophile shrugged. "I don't know all the details myself."

"What do you know?" the young man asked impatiently, his voice petulant.

It was a hard question to answer. The Ranger did know that Petronelle had been kidnapped in broad daylight; he'd only learned the fact secondhand from a traveling horse trader, as Benedicte no longer spoke face to face with him. The trader had, after careful interrogation, told him about a rumored string of similar, random abductions of other children in different parts of the province. This led Theophile's quick mind to believe that someone, somewhere, had his reasons for doing so. However, after speaking to the locals and the handful of travelers he knew to be in the valley, he was still at a loss as to who it might be, or any motive for doing so beyond the obvious thought of selling the captives as slaves. All he had to go on was a general direction: northeast, which meant Les Grises and the village of Voeilfons. Beyond that, he'd have to rely on his skills at tracking, deductive reasoning, and intelligence gathering, all of which he'd honed over his nine years as a Ranger.

And, just in case he found himself in a dicey situation, he thought with wry humor, he had his very own invincible bodyguard.

"Well?" Gaston demanded impatiently, though the silence between them had lasted less than a minute.

Theophile fixed his stare on the hunter. "I've already told you what I know. We're going to have to track them. You do know how to do that, I'm told," he said with just a hint of sarcasm.

Gaston gestured helplessly at the rain, which had begun to slacken. "Not in this, I don't. And if we stay out here, we're never going to find them," he complained.

The art of subtlety was lost on a de Valois brute, thought Theophile. Nevertheless, he could try and pass on some of his knowledge as they made their way to Voeilfons. "Do you hear that?" he prompted.

"Hear what?"

"Exactly," Theophile said with a smile. The rain, as quickly as it had come, had stopped, and the clouds had begun to allow small gaps of sunlight through them. "Time to move along. And if you'll be so kind not to swing up on Metibert's poor back like a sack full of rotten potatoes, dear boy…"

He could feel the young man's dark expression boring into his back as he spurred his own horse back onto the trail.

The afternoon hours in Les Grises were mostly sunny, though it was a strange kind of sunlight to one accustomed to the bright golden rays of Ste.-Eulalie. It was, thought Gaston as he rode along, a lot like the way light looked in a pond or stream. Not quite as bright as it could have been.

There were also a few animals. A family of rabbits, who scattered at their approach, a gamefowl, and a scrawny squirrel. No deer could be seen, though they'd likely be found in the deeper parts of the grey forest. Gaston, without much else to do, was unconsciously fidgeting with the hanging end of his hunting bow. The small creatures made such tempting targets.

"How good are you with that bow?" The question was sudden, direct, and Gaston hadn't been expecting it.

Without so much as blinking, Gaston pulled one of his broadhead arrows from his quiver, nocked it, and fired into the withered stump of a nearby tree, where the shaft buried itself. "Pretty good," he said in the carefully casual way he always did when he was boasting.

He could tell the Green Man was quietly impressed, though his dark eyes were impassive. "How often do you practice?" Theophile asked him.

"I don't need practice," said Gaston with a dismissive shake of his head. "I'm a natural."

"Ah, I see," answered Theophile in mock solemnity. "And how did you learn in the first place? Did someone teach you?"

"My father," Gaston responded with confidence.

It seemed to be a satisfactory answer, but then the Ranger dismounted his horse and moved to where Gaston's shot had made its mark. "I think you could hit it from, say, twice that distance? On foot?"

Gaston knew a challenge when he heard one. "That's easy," he said. He swung down from Metibert, threw his cloak to the ground, and selected another arrow. Putting it to his bowstring, he drew, looking down his sight, and…

"Oh, one thing I forgot to mention," Theophile called to him from across the way. "I want three shots, not just one. One might just be random luck."

Damn if that man wasn't getting on his last nerve after just one day!

The first arrow flew. It pulled, Gaston saw, ever so slightly to the left, but still found its mark. A second followed it, and this one was blown wide by one of the gusts of wind that had begun to increase as the afternoon progressed. The last one was hopelessly high, if nothing else, because of his sheer frustration.

"I can't do it right if you're staring at me like that," he shouted. Even from where he stood, he could tell the Ranger was grinning.

"You expect a highwayman or some rogue man-at-arms to give you that courtesy?" Theophile asked as he walked over to return the arrows. "You're not bad, but you need focus. That comes with practice," he advised the young hunter, placing one hand on his massive shoulder.

"Right," said Gaston behind clenched teeth, replacing the shafts in his quiver. He had decided he didn't like the lean Ranger very much…but he didn't entirely dislike him either. "Focus. What's that mean, exactly?"

"It means to pay attention, to think not just about the action, but the steps behind the action," explained Theophile in his even voice. "For example, I've been focused for the last half hour or so on whoever's been following us."

Before he could stop himself, Gaston wheeled around, his hunting knife drawn. "Following us?" He could barely disguise the surprise he felt.

Easily, Theophile made him lower the weapon. "Yes. I don't think they mean us harm, but in Les Grises, it's best to err on the side of caution."

Gaston, at a loss again, frowned. Why couldn't the man just say what he meant? "You mean we have to stay ready?" he guessed.

Theophile's nod confirmed that his guess was correct. "I'd like you to keep your bow strung, if you would. Keep a lookout, but don't be obvious about it." He smiled and re-mounted his horse. "In fact, I know we're being followed closely, because the man following us is even less subtle than you."

It was the second time that afternoon Theophile had aroused his temper. It was not to be the last.

Dusk came quickly to this lonely part of the country, though it was high summer. The grey forest cast long, skeletal shadows all around the two riders, whose progress had been slowed somewhat by the mud. In truth, Theophile had not tested a tenth of his Ranger horses' speed and endurance, but had wanted to spend the day mostly at a walk or trot, getting to know more about his traveling companion.

His impressions were certainly correct: the young man was a firebrand, impetuous, brash, somewhat naïve, and entirely full of himself. Plenty of young men were at his age. But this one was a de Valois, and his ego had been inflated over the years by his doting parents as well as a town full of simple peasant folk who thought of all de Valois as almost godlike figures.

Theophile knew Gaston did not trust him. He would have been surprised if he had. Part of it was his status as a Green Man, he knew, but there was something more. For the first time in his life, the young man had met someone who was not only his equal in most rights, but in fact his superior in many. And that, to any de Valois, was anathema.

The Ranger was glad that, for the moment, the young hunter was silent, brooding in his saddle and peering ahead into the gloom. Probably meant he was still angry. That was the problem with the de Valois: in a battle of wits, they had always been helplessly outmanned, thought Theophile.

Both men reined in their horses at the small crossroads before them. Voeilfons, according to the weathered sign nailed to a tree, was only a short distance to the north.

"Thank God," sighed Gaston. "I could go for a drink and some meat."

Beside him, Theophile smiled. "Just when I thought your horizons were expanding."

He knew his quick wit and learned vocabulary would confuse the younger man. They did, and Gaston's eyebrows knitted together in what was rapidly becoming a familiar expression.

"We're still being followed. They're quite good, I will say." The Ranger didn't turn to look, but he felt the undeniable presence of someone, or something, in the very near vicinity.

"Couldn't we just shoot them?" Gaston suggested.

That was another thing about the de Valois, Theophile knew. The simpler, more direct the solution, the better for them. Like bulls charging straight ahead.

"We don't know if they're friend or foe," he said. "Could be just a lost merchant, or another woodsman." Though they'd be crazy to be out in Les Grises at this hour unless they knew where they were going, he thought but did not say aloud.

Gaston was indifferent. "I really don't care. I do care that my backside hurts like the devil, and I'm hungry," he protested as he wheeled his horse toward the northbound path.

Theophile stopped. He strained his ears to hear. Something wasn't right.

"Get back!" he hissed, dismounting and leading his paint gelding into the trees. He threw his forest-green cloak over himself and the horse, and Gaston could see why the color was so effective. The man, and his horse, were effectively invisible.

In suit, Gaston clumsily led Metibert into the sparse cover. Because of his bright red jerkin, he could only stay still and hope. Beside him, Theophile held a hand to his lips, the universal signal for silence.

Two men on horseback had entered the clearing. Both mounts were leggy and lean, dark-grey, and looked equally as menacing as their riders. The men spoke in low, garbled voices to one another. Not much of their features could be seen, but they were both tall, powerfully built, and armored. Each carried an array of dully gleaming knives at his belt along with a wicked-looking spear.

"What are they sa…" Before Gaston could continue, Theophile clapped a hand over his lips. A brief, terrible moment passed. One rider turned his head to where Theophile and Gaston lay hidden in the foliage. Then, deciding there was nothing of interest, he wheeled his horse in the direction he had come. His companion galloped down the other path leading to points east.

And then, the Ranger and the hunter were alone once more.

It had been a very long time since Gaston's heart had been racing like it was now. With a trembling hand, he pointed where the second rider had gone moments before.

"What were they?" Gaston asked, his voice softer, and shakier, than he remembered it to be.

Theophile shrugged, pulling the cloak from his horse and back around his shoulders.

"They're les Condamnes," said the Ranger without a trace of emotion, "and they're the reason I want you to keep that bow of yours strung at all times."

To Be Continued