Chapter Twenty-Five. Trust Issues.
Twenty-Five
Trust Issues.
As I listen to Merc bathing, my sense of direction evaporates even though my inner orientation has always been pretty good: I become totally lost in the familiar woods I’ve been through my whole life, and that doesn’t bode well for the journey that’s awaiting me.
And then something occurs to me.
Relieved to have another focus—any other—rather than mercenary nudity, I shift the pack off my shoulders and kneel down.
My hands shake as I loosen the flap that kept things so tightly sealed, but it’s just the cold, I tell myself.
Yes, in spite of the sun, the air temperature is quite chilly, especially here in the woods—
“So why won’t you tell me what he really wanted?” Merc calls out from his bath.
Shoving my hand inside, I stall. “Who?”
There’s a pause in the water noise. “That dandy with the golden halo and air of superiority.”
My movements get jerkier as I fish around because all I can feel is the box. Where is the compass in its satchel? And I hate that my first thought is whether Merc has taken it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
The washing starts up again, and Merc’s voice takes on that tone of dry amusement I’m coming to know very well. “Why did you apologize to him as we left?”
Glancing in his direction, I nearly fall on my face.
He’s all the way in the center of the river, the water level at his waist, his bare chest and sculpted abdominals glistening, wet and strong, in the sunlight. Unlike so many of the Gauntlet’s clients, he is utterly hairless, nothing obscuring his musculature.
Thus the scars that mark him are obvious.
There are … too many of them. And yet the fact he’s survived that much makes him seem like a god demoted to be among those of mortal make.
“I just want to know why you said you were sorry,” he prompts sardonically as he paddles a palm of water at his pecs.
I shake myself back to attention and continue shoving my hand around inside the pack. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”
Did he go through this while I was passed out in the tunnel? And take the compass? There’s no way, with the pack as sturdy as it is and its ties being so tight, that the instrument could have fallen out.
Over in the river, there’s a big splash, followed by a slapping sound, as if he’s dived under and reemerged with a toss of all that black hair.
Even though I try not to, I imagine his long locks coming out of the water in a fan, flipping over his head with a spray of clean droplets … and landing on his bare back.
Are there scars there as well?
“Everything about you concerns me,” he says brusquely. “Especially if you’ve made yourself an enemy of the court.”
“Julion left us on good accord.”
“For now.” A scenting now, spicy and pleasing. Soap that he keeps with him? “Is he one of your regulars? That why he was so determined to save you?”
“What would a man of his station want with me—what is that smell?”
“Arrow lily. There’s some growing right beside these rocks. It, and all this water, will take care of animals thinking I’m some kind of predator.”
Oh … great. Now all I can picture is him peeling the first layer of the stalk back with his sharp white teeth, and rubbing the red interior meat all over his—
“You must be very good at your job,” he says dryly.
“I’m sorry?”
“For that nobleman to be so concerned with your safety. And I really doubt you have anything to apologize to him for.”
When I don’t respond, silence flares between us, and I think of the lighted torch we had down below ground, a contained flame that could be destructive under different circumstances. Lack of trust is the same, a warning instinct that can consume.
There’s another round of splashing, much quieter, and I have to look again.
Merc is cleansing his black shirting now and he’s using the contours of his abdominals as a washboard for the thing, rubbing the arrow lily in until frothing bubbles drop into the river.
The way the suds flow down and swirl in front of him makes me think about what’s right below the surface at the front of his hips.
I have to turn away, but I continue to listen to him as he works on his leather britches and then his weapons.
That he isn’t bothered by the cold is a sign of his discipline. That I can’t keep my eyes off him is evidence of my lack of self-control.
Finally, he walks out of the river, and there’s a series of rustling and clanking, as he gets re-dressed and re-armed.
“You can turn around once again,” Merc announces as he hangs his pack off one shoulder. “I have all my naughty bits re-covered.”
On the pivot, I mutter through the leaves, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Courting tackle?” He comes toward me, entering the trees with his dripping leather surcoat hanging off his hand. “Sword and pouches? Hammer and stones—should I continue?”
Reclosing my pack, I sling the weight back onto my shoulders and I cover my ears. “That’s more than a sufficiency of terms, thank you.”
He’s laughing easily now, and even through the cup of my palms, I like the way it sounds. So I drop my hands.
When he’s right in front of me, he says, “I need you to stay here—”
“No—”
“—so I can get us a proper horse from the traveling road.”
“I’m coming with you—”
“No, you’re not.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I think of Julion’s warning about him. “Why not.”
“Because you’re not going to approve of how I do this, and I’m not interested in your opinion.
Not unless we can throw a saddle on your censure and ride it out of here.
” He drops his pack and his surcoat and points at them.
“You stay here with these—they’re too wet for me to move well with them on.
The daylight is properly arrived, and if we don’t get you out of here, you’ll be where we were last night. ”
I know he’s right. We’ve already wasted a lot of time, and even though most of the villagers will probably stay within the wall, there’ll be those who must venture out—and they’ll have weapons on them, I’ll bet. Or at the very least, voices to call for people who are armed.
“Don’t hurt anyone.”
“Of course not,” he mutters as he starts to walk off. “Whyever would I do that.”
I stand there with his soggy things, watching him disappear anew into the trees, and then I’m left alone with my suspicions and my fear.
After I look around for a moment, I drop down to my knees by what he’s left behind.
Flattening out his leather surcoat, I double-check he’s still gone …
then shove my hand in one of the big front pockets—
There’s a subtle chiming, and something that crackles? The weapons are … too many to count. A length of brass chain. Folding knives (two)—
“Ow,” I hiss as I’m stung by something.
Snatching back my hand, a row of pinpricks on my fingertips bloom blood, and I brush them off on my hip before proceeding with greater caution.
What spools out is another length of chain, except this one has barbs.
Like everything else—and my own knife now—it’s clean and very well tended, and it’s not hard to picture what it could do around someone’s throat.
I glance up again. Look behind myself.
Then I carefully put the thorned steel back, and go through the rest of the surcoat. Every square nic. All I find are folds of damp leather that smell like him, arrow lily, and more weapons that can do dreadful things to people.
Absolutely no compass.
Then again, would he have left the instrument here with me if he stole it? Perhaps it’s stashed on him somewhere—
A rustling of undergrowth rips my head up, and I flap the surcoat around, trying to remember what it looked like when he dropped the heavy weight. Then I wait, with just my pounding heart to keep me company.
Nothing comes of it, and I eye his pack. Even though he probably did the same to my things, the idea of going through all his possessions makes me distinctly uncomfortable. I go to my own strapped bag again, and this time, instead of just rummaging through it, I pour the contents out—
The satchel is the last thing to fall free, and it hits the ground with a dull thud.
“Thank the crescent moon,” I exhale.
Falling back into a sit, I go to work on the plain brown satchel’s tie. As my sloppy fingers make messy work, I find myself murmuring, “I was orphaned on the birthing bed and left in the village square where…”
As my words dry up, I wonder why I’ve never noticed that that’s as far as I ever get, but then the compass pours out into my hand and everything stops for me.
The weight of the palm-sized instrument registers first, and after that, all I can think about is how ancient it appears to be—yet it’s so very well preserved.
With covers on both sides, and a release mechanism on the top, the yellow metal of the casing is untarnished, and I wonder if it’s made of gold …
or perhaps just a brass that was polished to perfection before it was stored with care away from the air.
What appears to be the front cover is etched with a fine attention to detail, the directions of North, South, East, and West spelled out in beautiful cursive.
In the center, there is a knobby outline that I know in my gut is Anathos itself.
Squinting, I focus on the area where my little village is located, on the lowest edge of the Kingdom of Prosperitus’s territory.
Merc said it was a day’s ride to the Badlands, and I extrapolate how much farther south I’ll have to travel if I’m to make it to the Outpost, which I’ve heard is the last settlement in that area.
I can’t help but notice that the Kingdom of the South is, comparatively, not that far away.
And according to what I’ve overheard in the pub, there is a warrior queen on that throne who has an appetite for war and will see no one.
Travelers regularly came through our little village and tarried at the Gauntlet for their rest and refreshment, and they’ve always brought with them news and history from all around Anathos.
That queen’s reputation proceeds her, to the point where few ever wanted to go all the way south, for she defends what is hers with a fierce army of a thousand mounted soldiers.
I’ve even heard she feeds her victims to her men.
My thumb hovers over the release button on the compass’s top, and as I hesitate, I tell myself if I can survive the tunnel and the moat, surely the effort required to flick the tiny latch is nothing. But I cannot do it. For some reason, I’m frightened of what’s inside—
I shove the compass back into the satchel, and go for the box.
It’s made of wood, and at first I think the grain is stained with an onyx bark solution, but that’s not it.
Great age has darkened the container, and the little latch that holds the top and bottom together is corroded.
I score my fingernail as I try to get the hook free, and just as I’m about to give up, it slips out of its dock.
I have to claw into the seam that runs around the sides of the container, and when I finally pry the box open, the hinges creak—
“What am I looking at…” I whisper with awe.