Not Exactly a Secret [Fanfic]
Title: Not Exactly a Secret
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: M
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Clarine, Sue, Fir, Klein, Saul
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort (still not clear what that is as a genre, but it's prolly the closest to accurate I'll get)
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: It's not exactly a secret that Rutger has some aggression to work through. It is a bit of a surprise that Dieck is interested in this. But as the first half year of the War Against Bern rolls on, the status quo they create begins to change.
Title: Not Exactly a Secret - Part 6
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: T
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Wolt
Genre: Romance?, Frienship
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: Maybe it would be worth knowing more about Dieck after all. The fact that he is interested surprises Rutger a little bit.
Previous Part (Araphen City) Next Part (The Mists of Eastern Fibernia)
Not Exactly a Secret: Part 6
It was good to be on the road again. The army seemed to be full of life after the dull and staid routines of Araphen. Lilina and Roy mixed with the troops far too low in station to be allowed to speak to them during the conference. Marcus and Merlinus were often found sharing nips of hard northern cider, and even joking, much to the horror of the young cavaliers.
“You'll get over it,” Treck advised sagely. “Everyone's human at some point.”
They returned to Ostia, keeping an eye on the re-construction of the defensive castle, and then took the mountain pass into Etruria. The journey through the mountains was tiring as ever, but when they made it through the sharp terrain they were greeted by Etruria's rivers.
Rutger had always known in a vague way that Etruria was a center of trade that rivaled Bulgar's mercantile pull in the east. Everyone knew that Etruria's merchants had brought scholars and musicians into the realm, and then spread them out all over again to the rest of Elibe, and they changed the whole culture of the west. For some reason, however, he had not really grasped that the whole kingdom was greatly invested in getting goods and people from one place to another as fast as possible, and the fastest way was through the thousands of rivers that ran to the northern sea.
The barge convoy they joined was a massive thing that shot straight to Aquelia, bringing horses, grain, flour, and fruit for the army in days, when a wagon convoy would have needed weeks to get as far. Rutger quite liked it, rushing along with the current, watching the gently rolling hills turn into flat marshland and then turn back again. Until he saw rising mansions of Etrurian aristocracy, usually hidden around bends of the river or waiting in ambush behind screens of tall trees, he could fool himself into thinking that he was back home, almost.
Homesickness was not the only affliction the crew suffered. Oujay was, for lack of a better word, seasick for most of the voyage. While Rutger practiced moving while on a moving deck, and Wendy just tried to practice moving in general, the younger mercenary practiced keeping down his lunch, usually with Dieck in attendance, and grinning far too openly, but still being kind and rather solicitous in his way. Rutger pretended not to notice, but he couldn't help suggesting, offhandedly, to Lilina that perhaps Oujay could use some friendly Lycian help.
He began challenging Dieck to bouts again, to pass time. Although the whole army had run of the barge convoy, hopping from one barge to the next with the ease of any of the regular crewmen at this point, space was cramped, and semi-private lives became everyone's business, particularly after sundown. They both decided that amusing as everyone's reactions were, the possibility of being interrupted by children was not going to be fun or any sort of turn on. This left Rutger restive and determined to be physically active somehow.
Dieck had tried to point out that he didn't find checking shadows for lurking swordsmen to be any more of a turn on, to which Rutger pointed out that it wasn't supposed to be. They were dancing between life and death, after all. Also, Rutger was sure that Dieck found victory just as thrilling as he did, given the way their fights tended to dissolve into heated kissing as soon as Dieck managed to pin him against a grain crate or the deck.
Rutger was offering up his neck after one particularly drawn out loss. Dick seemed intent on licking up every last drop of sweat, but every now and then he would nip at Rutger's skin. Rutger tried to reward him with deep bites to his lips, or anything that came within reach, but today the mercenary Captain was feeling playful, and constantly distracting him with clever hands.
Rutger felt a reckless grin slip over his face as Dieck nearly crushed him against the side of the barge's cabin. As though he needed any reminder that his controll had been taken away as soon as Dieck had trapped Rutger's hands behind his own back, the mercenary tilted his face up to nibble on his jaw, being sure to manhandle him a little too much. And with a little wriggling on Rutger's part, pressing into that hard body, he was able to free his right hand. Dieck jerked and bit happily as Rutger wove fingers through his thick hair. Sweet pressure and heat took Rutger's mouth by storm, and he tightened his grasp.
“Have you seen-oh! Sorry!” the final word came out in a high pitched squeak as Wolt came barreling around the cabin and stopped short.
Unlike Rutger, whose eyes snapped immediately onto the intruder, willing him out of existence as a hot tongue did fantastic things to his pulse, Dieck continued his assault for a few moments more. Maybe, Rutger thought, just shade too smugly, Dieck wouldn't have noticed anything if Rutger had not gone ridged, seeing the archer.
“I, uh, wow. Very sorry. Really. Very, very sorry. I just, uh,” Wolt's babbling, of course, might also have been what pulled Dieck's attention away.
Both mercenaries looked at one another, and then sighed in exaggerated unison. Dieck stepped away, and Rutger pulled his left hand from behind his back as well. For a second he rubbed at the wrist to get circulation back, and then headed for his discarded sword. Since Rutger was occupied, it fell on Dieck to make the situation less awkward.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Wolt replied, looking even less at ease. “Just wanted to know if General Roy was here. Guess not. Um. I mean, he's not here. With you two. I mean around. Around you two. Thanks! Bye!”
“He and Lady Sue were on the Captain's barge,” Rutger volunteered. He had been avoiding Sue just in case she was feeling the same familiarity wrapped homesickness, and had made it a policy to be three boats away from her at any time.
“Oh. Right,” Wolt was still staring at the growing space between the mercenaries, probably picturing the recent encounter. As though he realized that he was acting like a stranded fish and being too obvious, the archer suddenly spun on his heels and fled.
Dieck watched him go. “Huh. Well, that tears things. If he's looking for Roy, half the army will be searching for the little general, as well. No rest for the wicked. I probably have responsibilities I'm supposed to be taking care of.”
Moving to the stern of the barge, Rutger shrugged. “I'm supposed to be at sword practice.”
Neither of them felt very like getting to their respective tasks though. Dieck joined him, watching the spray of the river, and appreciating the taut line between this barge and the next one in the convoy. The setting sun glinted prettily on the water, turning everything a sparkling orange.
Rutger ran his finger over the flat of his sword blade, trying to feel for any unseen weaknesses. It had gotten a lot of use over the months, and was wearing thin. When they stopped in Aquelia he would have to get a new one. Something better than the dross Merlinus handed out to the knights. Lycian broadswords were too unwieldy for his fighting style, and the bastard swords had no real heft behind them. He needed to feel as though he was a furious zephyr, cutting through the breezes in his path.
“It's quite the view isn't it?” Dieck commented to no one in particular.
A pale green field rushed by, turning blue in the coming dusk, and lit overhead by the blazing sky. Rutger gazed longingly at that sky, thinking he might be able to understand how a saint from this land had ascribed the greatest power to the keeper of clouds and stars, forgetting the ways of the Mother Earth and lesser spirits. It was as wide open as the Plains out here.
“Yes. This is home for you then?”
Dieck snorted. “Yeah, I suppose. Home is with my company, now-or maybe it isn't anywhere. But I started out here. Or a place just like it. There are thousands in Etruria.”
“River brat, huh?” That was the name for tribe-less children living on the banks in the few Sacaen river towns, and Rutger suspected it was a fairly universal term. Every town they swept through had been filled with urchins looking meaner and hungrier than Chad, hanging around the jetties, looking for money, or trying to steal fish. He could imagine a young Dieck in among their numbers.
“No. Not quite. Just a boy who didn't want to wait on harvest luck to pay rents and was hoping for a little fame and glory. You like it out here.”
The quick change in topic was expected by now. Rutger's attempts at trying to find out more about Dieck's past were all met by polite guardedness. What he had let slip made it seem not so much as though there was a darkness stalking Dieck's dreams as it looked to be that Dieck's life had changed so drastically that the past was unimportant, and there was no use talking about it.
Rutger was willing to go along with that. If Dieck wasn't concealing anything unpleasant, Rutger could hardly sympathize, and if the change in his life had been a similar nightmare, well, Rutger still might not be the best person to talk to about that. He doubted that he would have told Dieck much of Sacae if Dieck was not basically reliable and level headed. And he doubted Dieck would react well to the full truth, either, so in the end Rutger supposed he didn't trust the other mercenary enough. So there really was no reason for Dieck to talk about his past in return, and Rutger would let him steer the conversation away.
“It's almost like home. Warm, flat, and the sky is huge. Certainly, this is not the Plains, but I like it well enough. How could you tell?”
“You look less like a day blind owl, and more like a sleepy lion, now,” reaching over Dieck gently tucked Rutger's hair back. It was such a familiar gesture now, almost always accompanied by a teasing smile. “Sleeping better?”
That certainly was true. Rutger had never considered that homesickness might be a cause of his restless nights, but even as the notion tantalized him, he remembered that his nightmares had begun after Dieck killed the Paladin, not when he first crossed into Bern's mountains and became truly lost to the Plains. “Being on the move helps. As does knowing that I'll be back to killing Bern's troops by spring. By the way, us having to sleep like fish packed into a barrel here, does it count as repayment for that foolish bet?”
Dieck grinned. “Nope. But nice try weaseling your way out. The whole point is we get to have some fun first. I don't know about you, but Barth's snoring alone is enough to put me off of fun. Anyway, I've had enough charges of corrupting the innocent leveled at me to last a life time.”
Rutger laughed shortly. He wondered if there had ever been a time when he would have been considered innocent by anyone. Probably, when he was younger. But last year's war seemed to be staining everything about his life, future and past. He could feel the blood rushing in a tide to overwhelm the winding streets of his memory until there was nothing left, and he was trapped helpless in a sea of his own destruction.
“What is a lion, anyway?” he asked, trying to pull himself away from his own thoughts.
“Nabatan animals. They're sort of like a bigger version of the hunting cats you get in the Bern mountains. Tons of fur around their heads,” Dieck's glance was too sly for words. “It makes it hard to kill them by slicing at their necks. Pit masters around here like to set them against the fighters to liven up the night rounds.”
That seemed an expensive proposition, to import something so exotic just for arena matches. But Etruria was a wealthy country, and with wealth came excess, as the Ostians were so fond of saying. Usually with their noses in the air. Still, Rutger had never been a fan of arena posturing in the first place, and this did not seem like any better a system. “Maulings make for good entertainment, do they?”
“Well, I didn't enjoy it much at the time, but it certainly made my name,” Dieck mused.
The air hung still between them for a while. Rutger soaked in the words, letting the splashing of the river cover his thoughts. At the bow of the barge he could hear the crewmen shouting. Probably the regular instructions about finding an anchorage for the night. He could remain constant and unaffected by this news, too. “Which of your scars did the lion make, then?”
Rough hands swinging high above his head, Dieck stretched, his cool eyes concentrated upon the water. “I should have figured that was what you cared about. Have you been getting jealous of an animal getting to cut me up before you could?”
Rutger did not dignify the half chuckle with a response. “Those deep ones on your back, maybe? They're not sword scars but-”
“Yeah. He was also responsible for some of my pretty face, and got bits of my arms, too. Tore the muscles pretty badly, but I was lucky. Lord-a mage healed me, probably less than two blinks after they got the lion off me and I got away. I might feel the rain on windy nights or whatever in my old age, but right now it doesn't even feel as though the muscle is missing.”
“Lucky indeed.”
The barges were slowing, though the current continued along quickly enough. Dieck cocked his head to one side. “Since when did you take a vow of non-nosiness? Some people around here pry, and you push, but then clam up. Not that I'm objecting strongly, but you get that expression like you'd want to know more, and then never ask.”
“Mm?” Rutger drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword. “You don't want to talk about it, it's not my business. If you do, where do I start? Should I be asking why, if you were supposed to be a pit fighter, and supposed to be fighting those lions, people saved you? Or why you seem to have rolled into better healing services than any but the nobility here could afford? Or that lordly name you nearly dropped? Or the whole question of what you were doing in an arena in the first place?”
“You needn't talk about arenas as though it's a dirty word.”
“I find fighting without the serious intent to win and kill the opponent to be useless. Arenas encourage silly people who think that a little showmanship will improve them to the point where they don't need to worry about taking their own lives into their hands when they take to a battlefield. You have a sword. Fine. Use it, or keep it sheathed. As for the audience-I'll pass. It's morbid; wanting to see friends and strangers alike suffer and die for entertainment.”
“Broadly, I guess it is,” Questions welled behind Dieck's measured tone.
An old woman had once told Rutger that every word spoken revealed more about the speaker than it did the person who was being spoken to. Maybe Dieck was also holding back on his curiosity just as tentatively. He could keep what knowledge he had already wrung from Rutger and be grateful for it. Still, Dieck smiled, and stared at the water rushing behind them. “The audience can be like crows circling a slaughter. I'm not so sure you're wholly right on the win or die thing. Though it looks as though I've been luckier than I thought, winning against you-or maybe you've been the lucky one, since I don't play for your stakes. But you're probably spot on, about the audience bit. It's a great feeling, being noticed and adored and so good that no one can kill you, but I guess it is a little fucked up that they loved watching me all cut up and half dead as much as they liked me winning.”
That sounded suspiciously like a jab about what they liked to do together. Rutger frowned a little. However, he did not want to see Dieck half dead. Did that matter? Maybe it wasn't enough of a difference.
Dieck sighed. “It was long ago, and I was pretty young and stupid. And pit fighting in Etruria isn't quite like arena bouts. You can get good money, if you grow famous enough to attract a wealthy patron to the pit. But it's often battles to the death, and if there aren't enough voluntary fighters they'll use animals like lions, or prisoners hoping to escape their sentences. That was always rough, not knowing if you were facing a child killer or some bread thief, and if it was a bandit they probably had years of experience over you, and no matter what, being bonded to an arena pit is hell, so they're going to do their best to kill you and get enough money to buy themselves free. Approve a little more now?”
“Of arenas? No. Of what you were doing? We all do things when we're young and stupid. You chose getting mauled by lions. I chose getting foolishly mopey over someone from a tribe I could never belong to as a soft city dweller with barely any Plains' blood. We all should be allowed to be young and idiotic.”
The look Dieck gave him was thoughtful. Rutger guessed that he was trying to imagine the life of a mopey young Sacaen. But contemplations that probably involved trying to imagine Rutger a a properly blooded son of the plains gave way to an easy shrug and a joking laugh as Dieck found the task impossible. “Hey, in my defense, I was trying to save a child.”
“Well, there you go. Your young and foolish phase involved doing the right thing. Did you save her?”
“Him, and yeah. Though his father would probably have done just as well, with fewer lion scratches.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He used to have that General Cecilia's job. One fireball, and the lion would have been toast. But he patched me up and took on my bond from my former lord. I served him as loyally as I knew how, and looked after his son. That probably was a bit of a mistake. You know, a pit fighter with a thirst for glory and distressing personal habits looking after the young heir of a powerful family is just the kind of thing the Etrurian aristocracy loves, right? After a while, the best thing I could do was pay Lord Pent back for my bond and go on to be a mercenary.”
Rugter wasn't certain he followed Dieck's words. It sounded as though the aristocracy of Etruria had somehow managed to find an objection the life debt that would have bonded Dieck permanently to this family if they had had lived by the codes of Sacae. The very idea was bizarre. If someone from outside a town, or tribe had thrown themselves into such an act of bravery for someone they had no reason to care about, such good will had to be acknowledged and reciprocated at the very least, no matter who had done such a thing. Even a mongrel like Rutger would have received a permanent free pass in tribe territory, if nothing else, had he be involved in such an incident.
They stood together in silence for some time. The barges rocked gently, and then finally jerked to a stop. Lugh and Chad, with Thany in hot pursuit, leaped over the low stern from the bow of the barge behind them, and raced over the deck, laughing insults.
Rutger broke the silence at last. “So, Etruria isn't home for you then?”
“No. Not really. It was nice to belong to a high noble household for a while, but that's gone now. What, do you have the famous Sacaen homesickness, and get surprised when you meet people less attached to the land than you?”
“A little,” Rutger admitted quietly, staring at the water. “But I'm never surprised by other people any more.”
“Well, maybe Aquelia will surprise you. We're only a day away now,” Dieck slung a familiar arm around Rutger's shoulder. “And it's a gorgeous city, all light and water and stars. Oh, and good food, if we're allowed to stop and sock up before heading to the docks.”
“You would think of food,” Rutger could hear the shouts and calls for supper on the galley barge.
Dieck ruffled his hair good-naturedly as he began to steer Rutger toward the bow. “Here's one you'd like then: sword smiths as far as the eye can see all in one street. They sell everything in Aquelia. Also, some of the best brothels in the world, though I doubt we'll be even seeing the outside of those. But if you ever get the hankering for some slim young natural Etrurian blond, that is where to go.”
“I've got a thick old Etrurian moss head who's suiting me just fine, thanks,” Rutger told Dieck dryly, reaching around to pinch him.
Dieck returned the affection by threatening to push him over the side of the next barge, but he did not deny the assertion. That thought kept Rutger feeling light and almost effervescent through out dinner, despite a rather pointed lecture from Marcus to the army to keep all attempts at weapons practice confined to the barges the crew had designated for weapons practice, and not going off into dark corners for their physical exertions. Several heads hung guiltily at this lecture, though, making Rutger suspect that some of the younger warriors had been nuisances to the crew today. Still, the delicacy of the words made him amused.
There was some discussion of other business, and once it was over, Roy got up to say that they would be docking in Aquelia the next afternoon, and stowing their gear on the Saint's Star immediately, though the ship would depart with the morning tide. Rutger made plans to see about the fabled street of sword smiths. He couldn't get anything commissioned, but there would certainly be finished pieces on display, and he might be lucky and a Sacaen weapons smith had traveled to the stronghold of Elimine.
Even if his hopes proved fruitless, though, they were almost to the sea, and the Western Isles. The faster they finished there, the more swiftly they could return to the real war, and destroying Bern.
Previous Part (Araphen City) Next Part (The Mists of Eastern Fibernia)
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: M
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Clarine, Sue, Fir, Klein, Saul
Genre: Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort (still not clear what that is as a genre, but it's prolly the closest to accurate I'll get)
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: It's not exactly a secret that Rutger has some aggression to work through. It is a bit of a surprise that Dieck is interested in this. But as the first half year of the War Against Bern rolls on, the status quo they create begins to change.
Title: Not Exactly a Secret - Part 6
Author: MorriganFearn
Rating: T
Characters: Rutger, Dieck, Wolt
Genre: Romance?, Frienship
Pairings: Rutger/Dieck
Summary: Maybe it would be worth knowing more about Dieck after all. The fact that he is interested surprises Rutger a little bit.
Previous Part (Araphen City) Next Part (The Mists of Eastern Fibernia)
Not Exactly a Secret: Part 6
It was good to be on the road again. The army seemed to be full of life after the dull and staid routines of Araphen. Lilina and Roy mixed with the troops far too low in station to be allowed to speak to them during the conference. Marcus and Merlinus were often found sharing nips of hard northern cider, and even joking, much to the horror of the young cavaliers.
“You'll get over it,” Treck advised sagely. “Everyone's human at some point.”
They returned to Ostia, keeping an eye on the re-construction of the defensive castle, and then took the mountain pass into Etruria. The journey through the mountains was tiring as ever, but when they made it through the sharp terrain they were greeted by Etruria's rivers.
Rutger had always known in a vague way that Etruria was a center of trade that rivaled Bulgar's mercantile pull in the east. Everyone knew that Etruria's merchants had brought scholars and musicians into the realm, and then spread them out all over again to the rest of Elibe, and they changed the whole culture of the west. For some reason, however, he had not really grasped that the whole kingdom was greatly invested in getting goods and people from one place to another as fast as possible, and the fastest way was through the thousands of rivers that ran to the northern sea.
The barge convoy they joined was a massive thing that shot straight to Aquelia, bringing horses, grain, flour, and fruit for the army in days, when a wagon convoy would have needed weeks to get as far. Rutger quite liked it, rushing along with the current, watching the gently rolling hills turn into flat marshland and then turn back again. Until he saw rising mansions of Etrurian aristocracy, usually hidden around bends of the river or waiting in ambush behind screens of tall trees, he could fool himself into thinking that he was back home, almost.
Homesickness was not the only affliction the crew suffered. Oujay was, for lack of a better word, seasick for most of the voyage. While Rutger practiced moving while on a moving deck, and Wendy just tried to practice moving in general, the younger mercenary practiced keeping down his lunch, usually with Dieck in attendance, and grinning far too openly, but still being kind and rather solicitous in his way. Rutger pretended not to notice, but he couldn't help suggesting, offhandedly, to Lilina that perhaps Oujay could use some friendly Lycian help.
He began challenging Dieck to bouts again, to pass time. Although the whole army had run of the barge convoy, hopping from one barge to the next with the ease of any of the regular crewmen at this point, space was cramped, and semi-private lives became everyone's business, particularly after sundown. They both decided that amusing as everyone's reactions were, the possibility of being interrupted by children was not going to be fun or any sort of turn on. This left Rutger restive and determined to be physically active somehow.
Dieck had tried to point out that he didn't find checking shadows for lurking swordsmen to be any more of a turn on, to which Rutger pointed out that it wasn't supposed to be. They were dancing between life and death, after all. Also, Rutger was sure that Dieck found victory just as thrilling as he did, given the way their fights tended to dissolve into heated kissing as soon as Dieck managed to pin him against a grain crate or the deck.
Rutger was offering up his neck after one particularly drawn out loss. Dick seemed intent on licking up every last drop of sweat, but every now and then he would nip at Rutger's skin. Rutger tried to reward him with deep bites to his lips, or anything that came within reach, but today the mercenary Captain was feeling playful, and constantly distracting him with clever hands.
Rutger felt a reckless grin slip over his face as Dieck nearly crushed him against the side of the barge's cabin. As though he needed any reminder that his controll had been taken away as soon as Dieck had trapped Rutger's hands behind his own back, the mercenary tilted his face up to nibble on his jaw, being sure to manhandle him a little too much. And with a little wriggling on Rutger's part, pressing into that hard body, he was able to free his right hand. Dieck jerked and bit happily as Rutger wove fingers through his thick hair. Sweet pressure and heat took Rutger's mouth by storm, and he tightened his grasp.
“Have you seen-oh! Sorry!” the final word came out in a high pitched squeak as Wolt came barreling around the cabin and stopped short.
Unlike Rutger, whose eyes snapped immediately onto the intruder, willing him out of existence as a hot tongue did fantastic things to his pulse, Dieck continued his assault for a few moments more. Maybe, Rutger thought, just shade too smugly, Dieck wouldn't have noticed anything if Rutger had not gone ridged, seeing the archer.
“I, uh, wow. Very sorry. Really. Very, very sorry. I just, uh,” Wolt's babbling, of course, might also have been what pulled Dieck's attention away.
Both mercenaries looked at one another, and then sighed in exaggerated unison. Dieck stepped away, and Rutger pulled his left hand from behind his back as well. For a second he rubbed at the wrist to get circulation back, and then headed for his discarded sword. Since Rutger was occupied, it fell on Dieck to make the situation less awkward.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Wolt replied, looking even less at ease. “Just wanted to know if General Roy was here. Guess not. Um. I mean, he's not here. With you two. I mean around. Around you two. Thanks! Bye!”
“He and Lady Sue were on the Captain's barge,” Rutger volunteered. He had been avoiding Sue just in case she was feeling the same familiarity wrapped homesickness, and had made it a policy to be three boats away from her at any time.
“Oh. Right,” Wolt was still staring at the growing space between the mercenaries, probably picturing the recent encounter. As though he realized that he was acting like a stranded fish and being too obvious, the archer suddenly spun on his heels and fled.
Dieck watched him go. “Huh. Well, that tears things. If he's looking for Roy, half the army will be searching for the little general, as well. No rest for the wicked. I probably have responsibilities I'm supposed to be taking care of.”
Moving to the stern of the barge, Rutger shrugged. “I'm supposed to be at sword practice.”
Neither of them felt very like getting to their respective tasks though. Dieck joined him, watching the spray of the river, and appreciating the taut line between this barge and the next one in the convoy. The setting sun glinted prettily on the water, turning everything a sparkling orange.
Rutger ran his finger over the flat of his sword blade, trying to feel for any unseen weaknesses. It had gotten a lot of use over the months, and was wearing thin. When they stopped in Aquelia he would have to get a new one. Something better than the dross Merlinus handed out to the knights. Lycian broadswords were too unwieldy for his fighting style, and the bastard swords had no real heft behind them. He needed to feel as though he was a furious zephyr, cutting through the breezes in his path.
“It's quite the view isn't it?” Dieck commented to no one in particular.
A pale green field rushed by, turning blue in the coming dusk, and lit overhead by the blazing sky. Rutger gazed longingly at that sky, thinking he might be able to understand how a saint from this land had ascribed the greatest power to the keeper of clouds and stars, forgetting the ways of the Mother Earth and lesser spirits. It was as wide open as the Plains out here.
“Yes. This is home for you then?”
Dieck snorted. “Yeah, I suppose. Home is with my company, now-or maybe it isn't anywhere. But I started out here. Or a place just like it. There are thousands in Etruria.”
“River brat, huh?” That was the name for tribe-less children living on the banks in the few Sacaen river towns, and Rutger suspected it was a fairly universal term. Every town they swept through had been filled with urchins looking meaner and hungrier than Chad, hanging around the jetties, looking for money, or trying to steal fish. He could imagine a young Dieck in among their numbers.
“No. Not quite. Just a boy who didn't want to wait on harvest luck to pay rents and was hoping for a little fame and glory. You like it out here.”
The quick change in topic was expected by now. Rutger's attempts at trying to find out more about Dieck's past were all met by polite guardedness. What he had let slip made it seem not so much as though there was a darkness stalking Dieck's dreams as it looked to be that Dieck's life had changed so drastically that the past was unimportant, and there was no use talking about it.
Rutger was willing to go along with that. If Dieck wasn't concealing anything unpleasant, Rutger could hardly sympathize, and if the change in his life had been a similar nightmare, well, Rutger still might not be the best person to talk to about that. He doubted that he would have told Dieck much of Sacae if Dieck was not basically reliable and level headed. And he doubted Dieck would react well to the full truth, either, so in the end Rutger supposed he didn't trust the other mercenary enough. So there really was no reason for Dieck to talk about his past in return, and Rutger would let him steer the conversation away.
“It's almost like home. Warm, flat, and the sky is huge. Certainly, this is not the Plains, but I like it well enough. How could you tell?”
“You look less like a day blind owl, and more like a sleepy lion, now,” reaching over Dieck gently tucked Rutger's hair back. It was such a familiar gesture now, almost always accompanied by a teasing smile. “Sleeping better?”
That certainly was true. Rutger had never considered that homesickness might be a cause of his restless nights, but even as the notion tantalized him, he remembered that his nightmares had begun after Dieck killed the Paladin, not when he first crossed into Bern's mountains and became truly lost to the Plains. “Being on the move helps. As does knowing that I'll be back to killing Bern's troops by spring. By the way, us having to sleep like fish packed into a barrel here, does it count as repayment for that foolish bet?”
Dieck grinned. “Nope. But nice try weaseling your way out. The whole point is we get to have some fun first. I don't know about you, but Barth's snoring alone is enough to put me off of fun. Anyway, I've had enough charges of corrupting the innocent leveled at me to last a life time.”
Rutger laughed shortly. He wondered if there had ever been a time when he would have been considered innocent by anyone. Probably, when he was younger. But last year's war seemed to be staining everything about his life, future and past. He could feel the blood rushing in a tide to overwhelm the winding streets of his memory until there was nothing left, and he was trapped helpless in a sea of his own destruction.
“What is a lion, anyway?” he asked, trying to pull himself away from his own thoughts.
“Nabatan animals. They're sort of like a bigger version of the hunting cats you get in the Bern mountains. Tons of fur around their heads,” Dieck's glance was too sly for words. “It makes it hard to kill them by slicing at their necks. Pit masters around here like to set them against the fighters to liven up the night rounds.”
That seemed an expensive proposition, to import something so exotic just for arena matches. But Etruria was a wealthy country, and with wealth came excess, as the Ostians were so fond of saying. Usually with their noses in the air. Still, Rutger had never been a fan of arena posturing in the first place, and this did not seem like any better a system. “Maulings make for good entertainment, do they?”
“Well, I didn't enjoy it much at the time, but it certainly made my name,” Dieck mused.
The air hung still between them for a while. Rutger soaked in the words, letting the splashing of the river cover his thoughts. At the bow of the barge he could hear the crewmen shouting. Probably the regular instructions about finding an anchorage for the night. He could remain constant and unaffected by this news, too. “Which of your scars did the lion make, then?”
Rough hands swinging high above his head, Dieck stretched, his cool eyes concentrated upon the water. “I should have figured that was what you cared about. Have you been getting jealous of an animal getting to cut me up before you could?”
Rutger did not dignify the half chuckle with a response. “Those deep ones on your back, maybe? They're not sword scars but-”
“Yeah. He was also responsible for some of my pretty face, and got bits of my arms, too. Tore the muscles pretty badly, but I was lucky. Lord-a mage healed me, probably less than two blinks after they got the lion off me and I got away. I might feel the rain on windy nights or whatever in my old age, but right now it doesn't even feel as though the muscle is missing.”
“Lucky indeed.”
The barges were slowing, though the current continued along quickly enough. Dieck cocked his head to one side. “Since when did you take a vow of non-nosiness? Some people around here pry, and you push, but then clam up. Not that I'm objecting strongly, but you get that expression like you'd want to know more, and then never ask.”
“Mm?” Rutger drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword. “You don't want to talk about it, it's not my business. If you do, where do I start? Should I be asking why, if you were supposed to be a pit fighter, and supposed to be fighting those lions, people saved you? Or why you seem to have rolled into better healing services than any but the nobility here could afford? Or that lordly name you nearly dropped? Or the whole question of what you were doing in an arena in the first place?”
“You needn't talk about arenas as though it's a dirty word.”
“I find fighting without the serious intent to win and kill the opponent to be useless. Arenas encourage silly people who think that a little showmanship will improve them to the point where they don't need to worry about taking their own lives into their hands when they take to a battlefield. You have a sword. Fine. Use it, or keep it sheathed. As for the audience-I'll pass. It's morbid; wanting to see friends and strangers alike suffer and die for entertainment.”
“Broadly, I guess it is,” Questions welled behind Dieck's measured tone.
An old woman had once told Rutger that every word spoken revealed more about the speaker than it did the person who was being spoken to. Maybe Dieck was also holding back on his curiosity just as tentatively. He could keep what knowledge he had already wrung from Rutger and be grateful for it. Still, Dieck smiled, and stared at the water rushing behind them. “The audience can be like crows circling a slaughter. I'm not so sure you're wholly right on the win or die thing. Though it looks as though I've been luckier than I thought, winning against you-or maybe you've been the lucky one, since I don't play for your stakes. But you're probably spot on, about the audience bit. It's a great feeling, being noticed and adored and so good that no one can kill you, but I guess it is a little fucked up that they loved watching me all cut up and half dead as much as they liked me winning.”
That sounded suspiciously like a jab about what they liked to do together. Rutger frowned a little. However, he did not want to see Dieck half dead. Did that matter? Maybe it wasn't enough of a difference.
Dieck sighed. “It was long ago, and I was pretty young and stupid. And pit fighting in Etruria isn't quite like arena bouts. You can get good money, if you grow famous enough to attract a wealthy patron to the pit. But it's often battles to the death, and if there aren't enough voluntary fighters they'll use animals like lions, or prisoners hoping to escape their sentences. That was always rough, not knowing if you were facing a child killer or some bread thief, and if it was a bandit they probably had years of experience over you, and no matter what, being bonded to an arena pit is hell, so they're going to do their best to kill you and get enough money to buy themselves free. Approve a little more now?”
“Of arenas? No. Of what you were doing? We all do things when we're young and stupid. You chose getting mauled by lions. I chose getting foolishly mopey over someone from a tribe I could never belong to as a soft city dweller with barely any Plains' blood. We all should be allowed to be young and idiotic.”
The look Dieck gave him was thoughtful. Rutger guessed that he was trying to imagine the life of a mopey young Sacaen. But contemplations that probably involved trying to imagine Rutger a a properly blooded son of the plains gave way to an easy shrug and a joking laugh as Dieck found the task impossible. “Hey, in my defense, I was trying to save a child.”
“Well, there you go. Your young and foolish phase involved doing the right thing. Did you save her?”
“Him, and yeah. Though his father would probably have done just as well, with fewer lion scratches.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He used to have that General Cecilia's job. One fireball, and the lion would have been toast. But he patched me up and took on my bond from my former lord. I served him as loyally as I knew how, and looked after his son. That probably was a bit of a mistake. You know, a pit fighter with a thirst for glory and distressing personal habits looking after the young heir of a powerful family is just the kind of thing the Etrurian aristocracy loves, right? After a while, the best thing I could do was pay Lord Pent back for my bond and go on to be a mercenary.”
Rugter wasn't certain he followed Dieck's words. It sounded as though the aristocracy of Etruria had somehow managed to find an objection the life debt that would have bonded Dieck permanently to this family if they had had lived by the codes of Sacae. The very idea was bizarre. If someone from outside a town, or tribe had thrown themselves into such an act of bravery for someone they had no reason to care about, such good will had to be acknowledged and reciprocated at the very least, no matter who had done such a thing. Even a mongrel like Rutger would have received a permanent free pass in tribe territory, if nothing else, had he be involved in such an incident.
They stood together in silence for some time. The barges rocked gently, and then finally jerked to a stop. Lugh and Chad, with Thany in hot pursuit, leaped over the low stern from the bow of the barge behind them, and raced over the deck, laughing insults.
Rutger broke the silence at last. “So, Etruria isn't home for you then?”
“No. Not really. It was nice to belong to a high noble household for a while, but that's gone now. What, do you have the famous Sacaen homesickness, and get surprised when you meet people less attached to the land than you?”
“A little,” Rutger admitted quietly, staring at the water. “But I'm never surprised by other people any more.”
“Well, maybe Aquelia will surprise you. We're only a day away now,” Dieck slung a familiar arm around Rutger's shoulder. “And it's a gorgeous city, all light and water and stars. Oh, and good food, if we're allowed to stop and sock up before heading to the docks.”
“You would think of food,” Rutger could hear the shouts and calls for supper on the galley barge.
Dieck ruffled his hair good-naturedly as he began to steer Rutger toward the bow. “Here's one you'd like then: sword smiths as far as the eye can see all in one street. They sell everything in Aquelia. Also, some of the best brothels in the world, though I doubt we'll be even seeing the outside of those. But if you ever get the hankering for some slim young natural Etrurian blond, that is where to go.”
“I've got a thick old Etrurian moss head who's suiting me just fine, thanks,” Rutger told Dieck dryly, reaching around to pinch him.
Dieck returned the affection by threatening to push him over the side of the next barge, but he did not deny the assertion. That thought kept Rutger feeling light and almost effervescent through out dinner, despite a rather pointed lecture from Marcus to the army to keep all attempts at weapons practice confined to the barges the crew had designated for weapons practice, and not going off into dark corners for their physical exertions. Several heads hung guiltily at this lecture, though, making Rutger suspect that some of the younger warriors had been nuisances to the crew today. Still, the delicacy of the words made him amused.
There was some discussion of other business, and once it was over, Roy got up to say that they would be docking in Aquelia the next afternoon, and stowing their gear on the Saint's Star immediately, though the ship would depart with the morning tide. Rutger made plans to see about the fabled street of sword smiths. He couldn't get anything commissioned, but there would certainly be finished pieces on display, and he might be lucky and a Sacaen weapons smith had traveled to the stronghold of Elimine.
Even if his hopes proved fruitless, though, they were almost to the sea, and the Western Isles. The faster they finished there, the more swiftly they could return to the real war, and destroying Bern.
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