Vanilla #4 - I can't believe you (don't) know how to...
Author: Wang Xi-feng
Story: Stand and Deliver! (I'll get to making a site for it one of these days, but for now, you can click the author tag if you're interested in what else has gone on or want a refresher.)
Flavor: Vanilla #4 (I can't believe you (don't) know how to...)
Rating: PG (guns go off, children briefly endangered, but nothing too scary or serious)
Word Count: 2,376
Summary: This is where it all begins. A chance meeting, if rather disastrous.
Notes: Wow, it's been...six months?...since I posted. Jeez. I shall try, henceforth, to stay returned (and to keep up with other people's worlds!).
The moon was barely more than a sliver, like your fingernails when your mother finally said they were getting too long and held you down to pare them; they couldn't see much, since their route took them through the old forests on either side of the road. Some of the old people said that there were Things in the forest that walked at night. Years ago, Stojna had asked her grandmother what kind of Things, only to be told, Not nice things.
Tonight was different, though, and Stojna and her brother did not fear Things at all. Tonight, they were hajduki: noble, and fearless.
Every child in the North had grown up with the stories of the hajduki and their exploits, and Stojna ran through them in her head as she and Hristo headed down the narrow path in the woods towards the road. The old stories held little new for her, but the rhythm (and then Vanko and Ana Maric and all their men headed down the side of the mountain at breakneck speed, as the Toltsch King and all his men sped after them) reassured her. Maybe tonight would be like one of the old stories, and in the years to come, some kid would listen to it in the winter, curled up by the fire while the wind raged outside.
"Will you come on," Stojna said, turning to her brother, who shushed her. They weren't out of earshot of civilization yet, after all. "Come on! There's a carriage coming down the road, I can hear it!" She could, in fact, hear no such thing, but she was sure it was coming. Hadn't old Mihal said in the market that someone was coming to Dom Savica to call on Starets Savic? That could only mean one thing.
They met Barto at the crossroads; he had the Larek family's wyvern tied up and leashed, and it took all his energy to keep it from getting away. It hissed, flapped its wings futilely, wheezed; it glared at them balefully. "We have to be quick about it," he told Stojna."Da's going to notice that I'm gone, and then I'll be in for it, and we can't let Cherka get away." He gestured to the wyvern, which lived up to its name; it was as black as the shadows around them.
"It won't be long, if they offer no resistance," Stojna said. She wasn't altogether sure what this phrase meant, but she'd heard it somewhere, and it sounded good.
"Shh," Hristo said. "Listen."
They stopped, and there was only the sound of Barto tussling with the wyvern. In the distance, there was a faint, steady tlot-tlot. Stojna drew her breath in sharply, in wonder and delight. Tonight, they would join the ranks of Veliko Renko, of Stefan Smirtko, of the Maricy.
"Let's go," Hristo said, and they headed towards the road, more purposefully now. Soon enough, their quarry would be visible on the main road.
Old Mihal was right: Augustine Mitganger, Prince Palatine of the Province of Sékor, was indeed coming to pay a visit to Starets Savic. Part of it was to congratulate him on a job well done as far as cleaning up some of the mid-sized hajduk outfits, and part of it was to ask pointedly why the larger nests had not been addressed. Tasko Pantic's gang had been broken up two years ago, and while the Savicy had acquitted themselves well, Stefan Smirtko was still thumbing his nose at the law in broad daylight.
Prefect Lukánsky was not pleased, and the Emperor had communicated his own august displeasure through the emissary who had spent a few months in the spring, and all of this meant that Mitganger was not pleased. If he had to choose, he would have been hard put to say who was the worse: he was, after all, the Emperor's loyal subject and he owed him his livelihood, but he had to see Lukánsky every day.
The night was a particularly dark one; every now and then, the moon peeked through the clouds, and Mitganger wondered glumly what party he was missing, and which of his favorite dishes his wife had had the cook prepare, and what Countess Necker was wearing. The carriage trotted steadily over the packed dirt road - they had left pavement behind a few veracy ago - and as he rocked to and fro, Mitganger felt his eyelids droop.
"Here," Stojna said, pointing at the fallen log. "We should move it into the road."
"What if the Domna are coming through? It's terrible bad luck to stop them." Barto's voice was somewhat strained from the effort of keeping Cherka reined in. The wyvern growled and wheezed, and for one terrifying moment took to its wings, only to find that it was still firmly tethered to its rope.
"We'll move it again," Stojna said, at the same time as her brother said, "They won't come. I heard Starets Savic run them off."
"Fair enough," Barto said. "Hey, Stojna, hold Cherka a bit. You're not strong enough to move the log on your own."
"You're not strong enough to hold him on your own," Stojna said, stomping over to take the rope. "Here. Give it to me. You two can move the log into the road."
The carriage came to an abrupt, jerky halt, and Mitganger's eyes flew open as the stop jerked him forward and tumbled him off his seat onto the floor. "Hey!" He fumbled for his walking stick and banged on the roof.
"M'lord?" the coachman's voice said dimly.
Mitganger righted himself with considerable struggling and grunting - he was not as young as he had once been - and shouted, "Are we at Dom Savica already?" He must have been asleep longer than he thought, then.
"No, m'lord. There's a log in the path. I've had the footmen jump down to move it, but it's quite large."
"Tell them to be quick about it," Mitganger said, smoothing his waistcoat and putting his hat back on.
"They'll come and move the log," Stojna said, "and that's when we'll attack."
"I thought we were going to wreck the carriage," Hristo said, and Stojna pinched his ear, causing him to yelp until she elbowed him again. "Well, that's what Vanko Maric did when the Nastrántsy boyars went after him!"
"Sékortsy hajduki," Stojna said, tossing her head, "do not kill their own countrymen."
"What about Tasko Pantic?" Barto said. "Or Stefan Smirtko, who killed Starets Marjanek?"
"Starets Marjanek was a traitor, everybody knows that. We don't kill our own countrymen unless they're traitors. I can't believe you don't know how to be a hajduk."
"Shhh!" Hristo said. "They're coming!"
Mitganger peered fruitlessly into the darkness, trying to gauge how long it would take the footmen to finish the job and be back at their stations; he could see the movement of black shadows on blacker woods. They said wild men still lived up here, and that occasionally Northerners ran afoul of them; he'd heard all kinds of old wives' tales in the dozen years or more he'd lived in Karlsberg. He could hear the footmen's grunt in the dark, and heard rustling, cracking noises, as if someone were moving in the underbrush.
Surely nobody would attack so close to Dom Savica. He had been at pains to keep his visit discreet.
No, it was just the footmen, kicking up a ruckus in an unfamiliar place. Of course. Mitganger let out his breath - he was barely aware that he was holding it - and almost relaxed.
There was a sudden yelp, and then three dark shapes reared up near the log. Or he thought there were three of them; it was hard to count in the dark.
"STAND AND DELIVER!" one shrieked. It was oddly high-pitched, as if it were a woman, or a child.
"YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!" another shape screamed.
"Put the damn lantern on," Mitganger said to the coachman.
"My lord, we'll have them on us-"
"I'm armed. So are you. We can send to Dom Savica for help. Put the damn light on." Mitganger tried not to sweat or think about how long it had been since he'd last fired a pistol.
The coachman fumbled several times, and then the light, wavery and weak, came on. Mitganger found himself staring down the barrel of what appeared to be a very elderly rifle, perhaps from the turn of the last century, and which was wielded by a girl who couldn't be anywhere near grown. "Your money or your life!" she repeated.
He couldn't help laughing. "Aren't you cute. Do your parents know you're out--Aaaack!" She had pressed the barrel of the rifle into his chest.
"Your money," the girl said, "or your life." She looked murderously determined, and he wasn't sure she wouldn't let him have both barrels.
"I don't think you know what that means, but I'll humor you," Mitganger said, taking a few dukaty from his purse and tossing them on the ground. "There."
The girl looked at the gold coins where they lay glinting. "That's it?" She did, however, withdraw the rifle from his chest, which was only slightly calming.
"That's all you're getting," Mitganger said.
"Well, is that all you have?"
"For you, yes. Now run along and play at hajduki somewhere else."
"We're not playing," one of the other dark shapes cried, somewhere in front of them; as it moved closer, Mitganger saw that it was a boy, who was tussling vigorously with one of the footmen. There was something of a resemblance between him and the girl; brother and sister, probably.
"We're the great hajduki Stojna and Hristo Markojvic," the girl said, tossing her head.
"I'm not familiar with your outfit. Sorry. You kids get indoors and I won't tell your parents where you've been. The roads are no place for children." Mitganger was tired, and although he couldn't see his pocket watch, he was reasonably sure that he was not, in fact, anywhere near on time to see Starets Savic. At least he'd have a funny story to tell when he got there.
And then several things happened at once.
"We're not children!" the girl cried, gesticulating wildly with the rifle. Mitganger ducked and heard the report as the gun went off, and then confused shrieks along with a wheezing, hissing noise that he couldn't place. There was the sound of feet, and a thudding noise; the girl's voice rose in dismay. "Hristo! Oh my God, you've killed him!"
Mitganger looked up to see nobody apparently hurt, Hristo on the ground wriggling under one of the footmen (who was being kicked by the girl), the gun tossed to one side, and another boy struggling to hold back what looked like a winged nightmare. He exchanged a glance with the coachman and wished Lukánsky had come up to Dom Savica instead. "All right!" Mitganger shouted with more conviction than he felt. "Gentlemen, tie these miscreants up and throw them on top of the carriage. Or in the back. Or wherever it is you put miscreants. I don't know, that's not my line of work. And then move that log out of the way." Looking at the children, he added, "Uh...I don't know exactly how the formula goes, but by the powers invested in me by the Emperor--Stop that!" They had bared their teeth and hissed at the mention of the Emperor. "Damn it. BYTHEPOWERSINVESTEDINMEBYTHEEMPEROROFTHETOLTSCH YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST."
"We'll bust out of St. Catherine's," the girl said, looking to her brother for reassurance.
"I'll believe that when I see it, princess. Now. Everybody goes quietly or everybody has to walk in shackles alongside the carriage." Did they even have any shackles? Mitganger had no idea.
They went quietly, for the most part, although the girl kept shouting at him that he'd stolen their land and he wouldn't get away with this and God would punish him. The children were packed into the carriage with him, the space on top being deemed insufficient, and after a while, he started to tune her out and imagine the much worse tongue-lashing he was probably going to receive from Lukánsky. And somewhere in the back, tied to the door, there was the wheezy howling of the wyvern as it tried fruitlessly to get away. At one point, it had nearly tipped the carriage over.
"--like the great hajduk Tasko Pantic!" the girl finished. The carriage came to a stop. "Hey. Um, is this St. Catherine's?"
"No. It's Dom Savica."
"If we promise to be good," one of the boys said, "will you let us out and we can walk home from here?"
"You just tried to hold up my carriage," Mitganger pointed out. "That's a crime."
"We-ell..." the dark-haired boy said. "We didn't mean it?" He looked at Mitganger hopefully, as if what they had done wasn't really so bad after all. For a moment, the Prince Palatine was half-inclined to agree with him. Nobody had been hurt, and the whole affair was now more ridiculous than anything else.
"We did too mean it," the girl snapped, giving the boy a shove, and her brother tried to separate them, to no avail.
"Nothing bad happened," Mitganger said, warming to the idea that it was possible to reason with them, or with the dark-haired one at any rate, "but there are always consequences to our actions, and we have to learn to bear them. So now you're coming back to Karlsberg."
"Cingrad," the girl said.
"Whatever," Mitganger said, waving a hand and ignoring her reddening face. "Even though you didn't succeed in robbing me, you still tried, and attempted robbery is still a crime, so you have to face the consequences." He thought, for a moment, that Lukánsky would be proud of him if he were there to hear it. "Now. These gentlemen will keep an eye on you while I go about my business. I'll try not to be long." As he headed away from the carriage and into the great hall of Dom Savica, Mitganger thought he heard shouting and a pounding noise.
"This never happened to Vanko Maric," Stojna mumbled as she slumped in the seat and picked, idly, at the velvet cover.
Story: Stand and Deliver! (I'll get to making a site for it one of these days, but for now, you can click the author tag if you're interested in what else has gone on or want a refresher.)
Flavor: Vanilla #4 (I can't believe you (don't) know how to...)
Rating: PG (guns go off, children briefly endangered, but nothing too scary or serious)
Word Count: 2,376
Summary: This is where it all begins. A chance meeting, if rather disastrous.
Notes: Wow, it's been...six months?...since I posted. Jeez. I shall try, henceforth, to stay returned (and to keep up with other people's worlds!).
The moon was barely more than a sliver, like your fingernails when your mother finally said they were getting too long and held you down to pare them; they couldn't see much, since their route took them through the old forests on either side of the road. Some of the old people said that there were Things in the forest that walked at night. Years ago, Stojna had asked her grandmother what kind of Things, only to be told, Not nice things.
Tonight was different, though, and Stojna and her brother did not fear Things at all. Tonight, they were hajduki: noble, and fearless.
Every child in the North had grown up with the stories of the hajduki and their exploits, and Stojna ran through them in her head as she and Hristo headed down the narrow path in the woods towards the road. The old stories held little new for her, but the rhythm (and then Vanko and Ana Maric and all their men headed down the side of the mountain at breakneck speed, as the Toltsch King and all his men sped after them) reassured her. Maybe tonight would be like one of the old stories, and in the years to come, some kid would listen to it in the winter, curled up by the fire while the wind raged outside.
"Will you come on," Stojna said, turning to her brother, who shushed her. They weren't out of earshot of civilization yet, after all. "Come on! There's a carriage coming down the road, I can hear it!" She could, in fact, hear no such thing, but she was sure it was coming. Hadn't old Mihal said in the market that someone was coming to Dom Savica to call on Starets Savic? That could only mean one thing.
They met Barto at the crossroads; he had the Larek family's wyvern tied up and leashed, and it took all his energy to keep it from getting away. It hissed, flapped its wings futilely, wheezed; it glared at them balefully. "We have to be quick about it," he told Stojna."Da's going to notice that I'm gone, and then I'll be in for it, and we can't let Cherka get away." He gestured to the wyvern, which lived up to its name; it was as black as the shadows around them.
"It won't be long, if they offer no resistance," Stojna said. She wasn't altogether sure what this phrase meant, but she'd heard it somewhere, and it sounded good.
"Shh," Hristo said. "Listen."
They stopped, and there was only the sound of Barto tussling with the wyvern. In the distance, there was a faint, steady tlot-tlot. Stojna drew her breath in sharply, in wonder and delight. Tonight, they would join the ranks of Veliko Renko, of Stefan Smirtko, of the Maricy.
"Let's go," Hristo said, and they headed towards the road, more purposefully now. Soon enough, their quarry would be visible on the main road.
Old Mihal was right: Augustine Mitganger, Prince Palatine of the Province of Sékor, was indeed coming to pay a visit to Starets Savic. Part of it was to congratulate him on a job well done as far as cleaning up some of the mid-sized hajduk outfits, and part of it was to ask pointedly why the larger nests had not been addressed. Tasko Pantic's gang had been broken up two years ago, and while the Savicy had acquitted themselves well, Stefan Smirtko was still thumbing his nose at the law in broad daylight.
Prefect Lukánsky was not pleased, and the Emperor had communicated his own august displeasure through the emissary who had spent a few months in the spring, and all of this meant that Mitganger was not pleased. If he had to choose, he would have been hard put to say who was the worse: he was, after all, the Emperor's loyal subject and he owed him his livelihood, but he had to see Lukánsky every day.
The night was a particularly dark one; every now and then, the moon peeked through the clouds, and Mitganger wondered glumly what party he was missing, and which of his favorite dishes his wife had had the cook prepare, and what Countess Necker was wearing. The carriage trotted steadily over the packed dirt road - they had left pavement behind a few veracy ago - and as he rocked to and fro, Mitganger felt his eyelids droop.
"Here," Stojna said, pointing at the fallen log. "We should move it into the road."
"What if the Domna are coming through? It's terrible bad luck to stop them." Barto's voice was somewhat strained from the effort of keeping Cherka reined in. The wyvern growled and wheezed, and for one terrifying moment took to its wings, only to find that it was still firmly tethered to its rope.
"We'll move it again," Stojna said, at the same time as her brother said, "They won't come. I heard Starets Savic run them off."
"Fair enough," Barto said. "Hey, Stojna, hold Cherka a bit. You're not strong enough to move the log on your own."
"You're not strong enough to hold him on your own," Stojna said, stomping over to take the rope. "Here. Give it to me. You two can move the log into the road."
The carriage came to an abrupt, jerky halt, and Mitganger's eyes flew open as the stop jerked him forward and tumbled him off his seat onto the floor. "Hey!" He fumbled for his walking stick and banged on the roof.
"M'lord?" the coachman's voice said dimly.
Mitganger righted himself with considerable struggling and grunting - he was not as young as he had once been - and shouted, "Are we at Dom Savica already?" He must have been asleep longer than he thought, then.
"No, m'lord. There's a log in the path. I've had the footmen jump down to move it, but it's quite large."
"Tell them to be quick about it," Mitganger said, smoothing his waistcoat and putting his hat back on.
"They'll come and move the log," Stojna said, "and that's when we'll attack."
"I thought we were going to wreck the carriage," Hristo said, and Stojna pinched his ear, causing him to yelp until she elbowed him again. "Well, that's what Vanko Maric did when the Nastrántsy boyars went after him!"
"Sékortsy hajduki," Stojna said, tossing her head, "do not kill their own countrymen."
"What about Tasko Pantic?" Barto said. "Or Stefan Smirtko, who killed Starets Marjanek?"
"Starets Marjanek was a traitor, everybody knows that. We don't kill our own countrymen unless they're traitors. I can't believe you don't know how to be a hajduk."
"Shhh!" Hristo said. "They're coming!"
Mitganger peered fruitlessly into the darkness, trying to gauge how long it would take the footmen to finish the job and be back at their stations; he could see the movement of black shadows on blacker woods. They said wild men still lived up here, and that occasionally Northerners ran afoul of them; he'd heard all kinds of old wives' tales in the dozen years or more he'd lived in Karlsberg. He could hear the footmen's grunt in the dark, and heard rustling, cracking noises, as if someone were moving in the underbrush.
Surely nobody would attack so close to Dom Savica. He had been at pains to keep his visit discreet.
No, it was just the footmen, kicking up a ruckus in an unfamiliar place. Of course. Mitganger let out his breath - he was barely aware that he was holding it - and almost relaxed.
There was a sudden yelp, and then three dark shapes reared up near the log. Or he thought there were three of them; it was hard to count in the dark.
"STAND AND DELIVER!" one shrieked. It was oddly high-pitched, as if it were a woman, or a child.
"YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!" another shape screamed.
"Put the damn lantern on," Mitganger said to the coachman.
"My lord, we'll have them on us-"
"I'm armed. So are you. We can send to Dom Savica for help. Put the damn light on." Mitganger tried not to sweat or think about how long it had been since he'd last fired a pistol.
The coachman fumbled several times, and then the light, wavery and weak, came on. Mitganger found himself staring down the barrel of what appeared to be a very elderly rifle, perhaps from the turn of the last century, and which was wielded by a girl who couldn't be anywhere near grown. "Your money or your life!" she repeated.
He couldn't help laughing. "Aren't you cute. Do your parents know you're out--Aaaack!" She had pressed the barrel of the rifle into his chest.
"Your money," the girl said, "or your life." She looked murderously determined, and he wasn't sure she wouldn't let him have both barrels.
"I don't think you know what that means, but I'll humor you," Mitganger said, taking a few dukaty from his purse and tossing them on the ground. "There."
The girl looked at the gold coins where they lay glinting. "That's it?" She did, however, withdraw the rifle from his chest, which was only slightly calming.
"That's all you're getting," Mitganger said.
"Well, is that all you have?"
"For you, yes. Now run along and play at hajduki somewhere else."
"We're not playing," one of the other dark shapes cried, somewhere in front of them; as it moved closer, Mitganger saw that it was a boy, who was tussling vigorously with one of the footmen. There was something of a resemblance between him and the girl; brother and sister, probably.
"We're the great hajduki Stojna and Hristo Markojvic," the girl said, tossing her head.
"I'm not familiar with your outfit. Sorry. You kids get indoors and I won't tell your parents where you've been. The roads are no place for children." Mitganger was tired, and although he couldn't see his pocket watch, he was reasonably sure that he was not, in fact, anywhere near on time to see Starets Savic. At least he'd have a funny story to tell when he got there.
And then several things happened at once.
"We're not children!" the girl cried, gesticulating wildly with the rifle. Mitganger ducked and heard the report as the gun went off, and then confused shrieks along with a wheezing, hissing noise that he couldn't place. There was the sound of feet, and a thudding noise; the girl's voice rose in dismay. "Hristo! Oh my God, you've killed him!"
Mitganger looked up to see nobody apparently hurt, Hristo on the ground wriggling under one of the footmen (who was being kicked by the girl), the gun tossed to one side, and another boy struggling to hold back what looked like a winged nightmare. He exchanged a glance with the coachman and wished Lukánsky had come up to Dom Savica instead. "All right!" Mitganger shouted with more conviction than he felt. "Gentlemen, tie these miscreants up and throw them on top of the carriage. Or in the back. Or wherever it is you put miscreants. I don't know, that's not my line of work. And then move that log out of the way." Looking at the children, he added, "Uh...I don't know exactly how the formula goes, but by the powers invested in me by the Emperor--Stop that!" They had bared their teeth and hissed at the mention of the Emperor. "Damn it. BYTHEPOWERSINVESTEDINMEBYTHEEMPEROROFTHETOLTSCH YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST."
"We'll bust out of St. Catherine's," the girl said, looking to her brother for reassurance.
"I'll believe that when I see it, princess. Now. Everybody goes quietly or everybody has to walk in shackles alongside the carriage." Did they even have any shackles? Mitganger had no idea.
They went quietly, for the most part, although the girl kept shouting at him that he'd stolen their land and he wouldn't get away with this and God would punish him. The children were packed into the carriage with him, the space on top being deemed insufficient, and after a while, he started to tune her out and imagine the much worse tongue-lashing he was probably going to receive from Lukánsky. And somewhere in the back, tied to the door, there was the wheezy howling of the wyvern as it tried fruitlessly to get away. At one point, it had nearly tipped the carriage over.
"--like the great hajduk Tasko Pantic!" the girl finished. The carriage came to a stop. "Hey. Um, is this St. Catherine's?"
"No. It's Dom Savica."
"If we promise to be good," one of the boys said, "will you let us out and we can walk home from here?"
"You just tried to hold up my carriage," Mitganger pointed out. "That's a crime."
"We-ell..." the dark-haired boy said. "We didn't mean it?" He looked at Mitganger hopefully, as if what they had done wasn't really so bad after all. For a moment, the Prince Palatine was half-inclined to agree with him. Nobody had been hurt, and the whole affair was now more ridiculous than anything else.
"We did too mean it," the girl snapped, giving the boy a shove, and her brother tried to separate them, to no avail.
"Nothing bad happened," Mitganger said, warming to the idea that it was possible to reason with them, or with the dark-haired one at any rate, "but there are always consequences to our actions, and we have to learn to bear them. So now you're coming back to Karlsberg."
"Cingrad," the girl said.
"Whatever," Mitganger said, waving a hand and ignoring her reddening face. "Even though you didn't succeed in robbing me, you still tried, and attempted robbery is still a crime, so you have to face the consequences." He thought, for a moment, that Lukánsky would be proud of him if he were there to hear it. "Now. These gentlemen will keep an eye on you while I go about my business. I'll try not to be long." As he headed away from the carriage and into the great hall of Dom Savica, Mitganger thought he heard shouting and a pounding noise.
"This never happened to Vanko Maric," Stojna mumbled as she slumped in the seat and picked, idly, at the velvet cover.