Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

“There’s no need. I’ll guide you there,” Stefahohs said. Bili looked at him silently for a long moment, probing for a lie, but Stefanohs allowed him free access to his mind. “I see you have reason to turn against your own.”

“They were never my own. I just didn’t know it until now.”

“I can’t ask you to take up arms against those of your blood.”

“Why not? Zakareeohs did.” His smile was grim.

Giliahna called him to the tent Bili had had vacated for her. It was small, but there was warm bedding to sleep on, and after her recent trials it looked like a palace.

“What do you want, High Lady?”

“Three friends were looking for you.” Three triangular faces appeared out from beneath a camp stool. “They must have followed us here, somehow.”

We came to thank the two-legs for aiding us. Though I would have done fine in just a few minutes. It was the arrogant little male.

Giliahn held out a hand to him, and he padded forward to sniff it, then curl up beside her contentedly. She scratched his chin, and he made a contented sound deep in his throat.

“Can foxes purr?” Giliahna wondered aloud, and then she glanced up from the kit to see Stefanohs watching her with hunger in his eyes. She pushed the kit to his feet and shooed him back to his mother. She patted the pile of blankets on which she was sitting. “Sit down beside me.”

He did as she asked, carefully not making contact with her. She ignored that, and took his hand in both of hers. “You never told me why you saved me. It wasn’t just what your Reverend Father had planned for me, was it?”

He shook his head. “I—I touched your mind. I knew what you were like. I— Everything they taught me was a lie, Giliahna. It was all lies. But you never lied to me, even about escaping.”

His world had been shattered with the realization that everything he had held sacred was so many lies. No truth anywhere. Except in her, the woman of the enemy who had chosen to save his life rather than escape. Gently, he reached out to touch her face, starting to draw back when she moved, only to find that she had leaned down to kiss his palm.

Ties of faith. He had broken all those ties. But she was bound by ties of faith too—promises she had made to Tim. But how did this night, and what she was about to do, touch what she felt for Tim? He had been her first love, her first lover. What did it matter who lay in her arms? She and Tim had centuries of life ahead of them. If Aldora wanted a few months of that time, let her have them. They could spare her so little.

As she reached out to embrace Stefanohs, Giliahna smiled.

The Courage of Friends

by Paul Edwards

Paul Edwards has been an actor, director, and playwright, but now divides his creative energies between professional engagements playing and singing blues and boogie-woogie, and writing fiction. He is also a bard and a Knight of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Mr. Edwards practices medicine in Tucson, Arizona, where he lives with his wife and two children.

The soldiery of Prince Gonzalo were too late to roust the citizens of Peony and Phlox from their beds to witness, at the dawn, the hanging of Suzor Daughter-of-Shrake. They were already at the crude gallows, standing and staring in silence, when the advance guard marched up, their heavy boots, extravagantly shod with iron, crushing the sparse grass into the red mud. The winds of autumn were filled with the creaks of leather armor and saddles, the scrape of mail against plate, heavy footsteps, and the whistle of the swirling air against the swaying noose.

The initiative to show Daughter-of-Shrake such honor demonstrated a totally unacceptable insolence to the Prince, who rode up with the second company, digging his spurs into his recalcitrant mount. Frowning, he peered into the faces of the somber men and women and youths and little children, standing behind the fence of armored men. I can’t impale them all, he thought to himself. / must think of the harvest, and the next spring. The destrier snorted once, and then stood immobile beneath the conqueror.

The darkness to the east was compounded by the heavy black clouds plumping on the horizon, obscuring the very moment of sunrise, when life should commence its departure from the young woman. As the sergeants began deploying the men, the Prince enjoyed a brief reverie on the fateful night he had so anticipated, companying in love with the black-haired beauty from Phlox. She had smiled and breathed and moved just so! How eagerly she had come to his bed, braving the sneers and jeers of every single peasant and freeholder! He remembered her flawless skin, and large, taut bosom. Absently, his hand touched the ribs above his heart where the rip across his chest from her flashing knife had still not completely healed.

The rumble from the stockade was like a roll of distant thunder, so loud it seemed against the voiceless throng: the solid wheels of the cart turning angrily against wooden axles and wooden bearings, and standing straight within in it, unmoving, alone, her guard tramping near, Suzor Daughter-of-Shrake. Her thick, glossy hair now hung in greased, knotted strings; her smooth face and high cheekbones, which had given her such an air of grace, were softened by purple swellings; yet her shoulders were straight and she seemed not to-feel the stout, coarse ropes which bound her wrists too tightly behind.

Krai Raus-son stared at her, awed by the beauty which shone through the ugliness, feeling the same guilt they all felt, shamed by her courage. He remembered the one kiss he had had from her, two years ago when she was fifteen. He had just won the most important horse race of the year despite the sneers of the other riders. How she had laughed, and giggled a promise to meet him that night. But of course it was too busy that night, and the next, and the next week, and then the moment was gone, the smile she had for him never fading, but the spark never kindling again. The cart passed by, and Krai could see that she was breathing slowly, her eyes downcast, almost shut, her mouth tightened into a frown more of anger than misery. The dangerous rage he must contain cramped his heart. He willed the tears in his eyes away. How could he be less strong than she?

The gallows rose above a little hillock which had been selected to best afford the crowd a good view. So there was no one who failed to see the soldiers roughly push the young woman beneath the rope to wrench the coarse hemp over her head and snug it against her neck. She never moved.

The Prince coaxed his horse toward her and nodded to his man, who reached for the stained, frayed rag which was all her protection against the cold and ripped it away, exposing her precious body to the sight of all. The dried blood and bruises could leave no doubt as to the treatment she had received from the soldiers. She turned her head a little and clenched her eyes, the most she would allow such a trivial feeling as embarrassment.

Garva, twenty-two and huge, when his father was slain by the Prince’s men, had been restrained from sudden vengeance by the sword at his mother’s throat. He had sometime courted Daugther-of-Shrake. At the sight of her abuse, he stepped forward, but the sound alerted the woman no less than the soldiers. Spearpoints came down to rest against his chest, but it was Daughter-of-Shrake who stopped him. He looked up at ice-blue eyes piercing him, telling him clearly not to throw his life away. She was too strong. He backed off, and the soldiers lifted steel death away from him.

The Prince turned to the crowd.

“It was a stroke of cleverness to send an assassin against me. But useless, as you can see. I grant you that she is beautiful, charming even; but an assassin all the same. This is how Gonzalo deals with treachery!”

At his signal, one of the men thrust his hand between the girl’s legs and lifted her up, as others pulled the rope. Then his hand was gone and the noose slowly tightened on the girl’s neck. The briefest flash of hopelessness flickered across her face, and then it was only the struggle for air, and the choked gasping, and she fought against the indignity of her spasms and twitching, until the veins bulged from her temples and a faint violet hue colored her face and then the rest of her. Darker and darker she became, and finally sightless; the kicks and spasms became impersonal, and then, blue from head to foot, she moved only with the wind, all movement stilled. Her face relaxed into the countenance of anger, and with a final indignity, her bowels and bladder relaxed as well.

Even the Prince would later admit that it was a good death.

“She shall hang until nightfall, then whoever so wishes may take her corpse.” Then Prince Gonzalo applied his heels to the horse’s flanks. The beast did not move. He kicked it again, and then again even harder, and finally the huge animal began to turn as the Prince pulled the reins. He felt the eyes of the villagers on him, hating him, sneering at him, condescending. It was not to be bome. He halted and turned in the saddle to the throng.

“I demand again: Where are the horses?”

No one moved.

“Where have you hidden the horses?” The faces were unflinching, sullen, immobile and defiant.

“So your fabled mounts are that valuable, eh? Sebastian!”

“Yes, your highness?” Capitan Sebastian della Verruca came up to the Prince.

“Select one of these mutinous dogs and bring him to me.”

“Si, your highness.”

The capitan, with a dozen soldiers, walked into the crowd. His eyes flicked here and there, measuring every man.

Garva stood impassive but for his clenched fists. His dark, low brows were an insolent challenge, and although Capitan Sebastian saw him, he figured that the man’s resistance could cause a loss of face. He memorized the big peasant’s features for the future and moved on.

Krai was sweating. He was afraid of pain, afraid of his own lack of nerve. If they took him for torture, there was nothing he could say to appease them, since there were no magic horses despite the Prince’s insistence. He began to quake as fhe capitan drew nearer.

Sebastian saw the terrified boy and smiled to himself. He had flushed out a useful tool from these recalcitrant peones. This was too good to waste on the Prince’s rage. He stared with a grim half-smile, and watched the blood drain from the boy’s face, and then marched straight toward him, smiling at his trembling, seeing the cramp in the boy’s bowels reflected in his staring eyes.

At the last minute, the capitan reached to his side and collared Lui Morgan ’s-son and yanked him into the circle of soldiers. They pinioned his arms and marched him to the Prince.

Gonzalo delicately placed the point of his sword over Lui’s heart. Quietly he asked again: “Where are the horses?”

Lui shook his head. “There are no more. You’ve stolen them all.”