The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 15b - A Triumph of Trickery

The knight puffed silently on the ragleaf, the tip of the roll pulsing in the darkness. Sir Willard appeared to study Harric as if calculating what to reveal.

The Kwendi shrugged. "They with us now, for good or ill. Shall I tell it? We owe it."

Willard frowned. He nodded.

"It's simple," said Brolli. "When your people invent blasting resin and blast a road through the Godswall mountains, they see for the first time the big land beyond. They see only wild animals there, so your queen opens them to settlement and calls them Free Lands. Of course, she is wrong about no one lives there." Brolli bowed, ironically. "For we live there."

"Yes, I know that," said Harric, "but what I don't know is why you and Willard are here with these rings, in the middle of nowhere."

Brolli flashed his feral grin. "I am sent to your queen's court as ambassador, to negotiate a peace treaty."

"And he couldn't stand the place." Willard laughed, softly. "Said it was full of liars and deceivers, each worse than the next. Which it is."

"No treaty is coming from that visit," Brolli said. "I am ready to leave and recommend war to my people when Willard comes to court and seem to me the one honest Arkendian. This gives me hope there might be others. Maybe the liars are only in court."

"I was there for the Day of Pardons, as I am every year," said Willard. He shrugged his iron-clad shoulders. "She never pardons me, but I go anyway. To see...old friends."

"And when Willard leaves, un-pardoned, I follow."

Willard chuckled. "Noticed I was followed by a drunk who could barely keep his saddle. Turned out it was Brolli, and he'd never ridden a horse in his life. When he told me who he was, I tried to take him back to court, but he refused. Said if there were any chance of a treaty, it would come of seeing Arkendia outside the court — "

"I tell him to escort me through his land on the way back to mine," Brolli interjected.

Willard raised his eyes and hands as if in surrender. "What could I do? So I pledged my support, and here we are. Would have been an easy ride north, but those West Isle knights went out looking for him and got lucky. Hence the gang of curs at our heels."

Harric stared at the ambassador, his temples pounding in pain as he struggled to put the story together. Something about it didn't ring true to him. The danger Brolli had put himself in by leaving the court was enormous. Even if he were escorted north by Sir Willard, it seemed a less than reasonable risk for one with whom the peace of two nations lay. But Willard clearly embraced it, so perhaps there was more Brolli hadn't shared.

"I am meaning to ask you," Brolli said to Willard. "Your curse is still active tonight?"

Willard cast a hard look at Brolli, then glanced meaningfully at Harric.

"They're with us now," Brolli said, a slight apology to his tone. "They must know. Your last squire...he is dead of it, yes? There is some danger."

"You had a squire?" Harric said.

A look of pain or regret settled in Willard's face. He closed his eyes, and sighed in resignation. "Tam," he said. "A good lad." He sucked the ragleaf again, the red eye glaring. "I am plagued with a...condition, son. A curse, I call it. When I'm threatened, or...possibly, around women...something happens, to people around me. All judgment leaves them. They do things they wouldn't normally do, and afterwards have no memory of it."

"Like I did in Gallows Ferry," Harric said. "Caris too. We thought we were witched."

A scowl wrapped around the ragleaf clamped in Willard's teeth. "Witched is a strong word, boy."