Self-Made Scoundrel (25 page)

“Are we going to play or not?” Jezlen said impatiently. He put a clean bowl on the grass to throw the dice into. “Play, play, play, now.”

“Calm down!” Derk chided, the Forester pulling his attention away from the priestess. They all circled round and played, the dice rattling merrily in the bowl as the sun set over the hills. Asa’s mom was right. He was lucky. They played for points and the simple warrior quickly accumulated twice as many points as all of them combined. Jezlen and Devra didn’t seem to mind. The elf rather seemed to enjoy the thrashing but it was too much for Derk. He left the circle in the second round of Crow Catcher, deciding a walk in the surrounding forest would do him some good.

It was hot but with the evening came a cool breeze and wispy dark blue clouds stretched across the sky beyond the tops of the trees. Derk wiped his nose with the back of his hand and stared up at the sky, a few stars bright enough to shine through the dying sunlight. He knew the stars and the view. Derk hadn’t been here before specifically but the roll of the land, the types of trees and the splay of branches were all familiar. It might have called up nostalgia in another man, but in Derk it conjured something like panic in his belly so he pulled his eyes away, bringing his hands to his face.

“I know why you have been uneasy since the cave and I have something to tell you.” He jumped, surprised to hear Sindra’s low, sweet voice floating over the night air. Something about how she left and the expression on her face when she returned from temple told him something happened. While her approach had surprised him, the fact what was bothering her was about him did not, though he dreaded it. Derk bent down to pick up a few twigs, tossing them end over end at a tree up ahead, not bothering to turn around and face her.

“Do you, now? Well, it’s a day for analysis, and such. I’ll let you have your turn.” Derk felt hostility rise up over him, like armor. He threw his last stick before turning around, Sindra’s shape blending into the trees and ferns around her. He saw her face, her eyes shining in the dark. “Out with it. I don’t want to be up all night.”

“Dershik….” Whatever she said after that was lost. It was as if all the air and sound had been sucked out of the forest suddenly. The name washed over him like an enchantment, a low buzz humming in his ears and spreading up to his brain till his senses were awash with confusion, blending so that he felt sound and heard colors. Then something broke through: anger and fear. It bubbled in his belly, red hot yet icy, slimy black breaking through the fog, snapping his brain back into the forest with the priestess, who was still speaking. Derk turned away sharply, his face twisted with disgust, trying to push what threatened to emerge down into himself.

“Don’t say that name! How dare you speak it to me!” he hissed, fixing his eyes on the ground. His fists were balled and the knuckles white circles surrounded with red. “I don’t know where you heard it or what made you think should address me as such but…don’t.”

“But it is your name, isn’t it?” Derk heard her words as she approached him. It was just a few steps closer but it made him more anxious. She stood beyond his reach as a priestess, not the woman he kissed and loved. “It is your given name, though, isn’t it?” Sindra asked. “The name your father gave you?”

It struck him like a blow to the chest. For a moment Derk thought he might actually strike her. Anger burned in his heart, in his brain and hands. But wrath melted to fear and then betrayal as he took a step back from her. “Who told you these things? Who told you this?”

“The priestess at the temple of Moorland told me,” Sindra said, her voice slightly above a whisper. There was a moment of silence, the forest seeming dead around them. Derk considered what she said and what should be his next statement or question. He looked at the priestess out of the corner of his eye, glancing at her briefly before shamefully looking back to the ground.

“There…there is no temple in Moorland,” he muttered. “Not here. There is only a shrine.”

“A temple was built. And a priestess assigned to it.” Sindra spoke the words as if they were to offer hope and not condemnation. She took a step toward him as Derk tried to think of what could have led to this. “I spoke with her, intending only to vent my own personal issues and you came up. I spoke on you and the priestess…well, she said she…might know you. You sounded familiar to her. I spoke more and she said she did know you. Then she told me about you.” Derk found himself pacing angrily across the small clearing, running his hand over his bald head, agitated with what Sindra just said. “Don’t be alarmed,” she responded, her voice calmer than how he felt “Your secrets are safe with me.”

“I would rather have it safe with the person I left it with,” he spat, stopping short on his path and gesturing violently toward the town. Derk paced a few more times, breathing heavily as he considered what Sindra might have told Cira and what Cira had revealed. “I don’t understand how she could have done this! She is a priestess of the Goddess! Who keeps secrets! How could she speak a word of anything I said to anyone?!”

“As ladies of the White Calling, we make each other available to one another in order to help share the burdens of what we know,” she said. Something in her words sounded like annoyance. “The secrets are safe within the Circle, but their weight must be spread evenly, lest one part bear too much and break. And…I am not just anyone. I am your lover and she thought it was important I know something so I could tell you. Derk-”

“What, do I have a child running around somewhere from her? Is that it?”

Sindra turned her face away from him and her face grew dark. She looked as if she had just been slapped. The priestess stood there for a moment, looking at the ground. Sindra pressed her lips together, breathing out forcefully before she spoke, her words quiet and robbed of any sentiment.

“No, Derk, your father…he’s dead.”

Derk managed to find the ground under him, sitting cross legged as he stared forward, dazed by what he had just been told. His father, the great Baron who aspired to unite entire Valley under his Crown, with his Coin. His beard was hardly streaked with grey when Derk left home, his eyes a steely, fiery blue. The sword and strike of Baron Cartaskin had been feared by many a man within a day’s ride. In truth, Dershik had feared him; but Derk was shocked. He couldn’t understand how this could be true. Derk turned his eyes to the priestess, unaware there were tears threatening at the corners of his eyes. “Was it…how did he die?”

“It was an accident,” Sindra said, her voice steady. There was a hint of pity in her voice and it drew Derk’s eyes to her. “He was out riding a horse given to him as a gift for Baron’s Day. It threw him off and he was gravely injured. He suffered for a half a watch before passing on.”

Derk wished he hadn’t shaved his head so he could run his fingers through his hair and pull at it. His father, the great Baron, killed by a feisty horse? It didn’t seem right. His father had been a great horseman as well; the fact one dared to even toss its head in his presence…a thought shot through his mind and he looked up suddenly, hoping Sindra had the answer. “And my brother…how is he doing as the Baron?”

“Not well, actually,” she said as she drew in her breath. Her face was tweaked with discomfort. “Your father didn’t declare him his rightful heir after you di…left, nor did he any of the times he told his men he would. He only passed on the seat to your brother on his death bed and now some of the nobles and magistrates are saying there were not enough witnesses there to attest to the fact he ever did. A faction of them are saying your son is the rightful Baron now and his maternal grandfather should be his regent.”

“Deril is not my son. He’s my brother’s son.”

“I don’t understand how that works exactly since he is your former wife’s son-”

“I didn’t father that child. And she’s not my wife. I’m dead; by law, Ceric can marry Jerila and adopt Deril.” Derk knew that. But something on Sindra’s face pricked his confidence.

“You forget who your father was, don’t you?” Sindra said. There was a cold anger in her words. Now Derk saw it on her face. He saw the resemblance between her and Jezlen. But her anger was worse, keen and quiet. For a moment he thought Sindra knew everything, about how Darix Cartaskin had thought to make himself King of the Valley but he waited, wincing under her gaze.

“Your father was a stubborn man. Hard against the Church. And cruel to those he should have protected,” Sindra said, sounding angry. “Jerila was forbidden to remarry. He turned her into a rather pathetic figure. The widowed young woman, her husband torn away from her by miscreant peasants. He had all the common folk afraid of him and the nobles on his side. Now he is dead.” She paused for a moment. Sindra didn’t sound pleased or saddened by the Baron’s death. “Your brother, who by some grace of the Goddess, was allowed to become a priest is left at the helm, not sure who to endear himself to or how to go about doing so. There are rumors of some of the northern holds pulling away. The other Barons have kept it under their beds to keep people from growing nervous but it may get worse, Derk. Because you wouldn’t bear a title.”

“Because I COULDN’T!” he shouted, springing up from his seat, finally grabbing a hold of Sindra by the shoulders, pulling her forward so violently her forehead knocked into his nose. He felt the force but the pain would not register as he shook her, her hair falling across her face. “I couldn’t! I’m not a Baron, I’m not a lord to be over people! I never believed I was better than the crowds who tilled the land or the hordes in their finery storming our home with fancy words and lavish gifts! You know me! Could you see me doing any of it? The bowing, the ordering, the…if I had taken the seat, it would be worse, I assure you, because I’d be doing another man’s job and not my own. Miserable men do not make good rulers.” Sindra looked up at him as if he were mad and he probably did seem that way. He loosened his grip on her shoulders and drew her close to him, burying his head in her hair as he spoke, the tears threatening all this while
finally falling. “I just…Sindra, you know me best. Am I a lord?”

“You’re not a lord of any land,” she said quietly, gently pulling away from him, a sad smile playing on her lips as she gazed up at him. “You’re not. I’m…I’m going to bed.” She sighed and bowed her head before she turned and made her way back to the camp, leaving him there in there in the midst of the trees.

He stood there for a while. Clouds had rolled in and kept the starlight and moonlight from penetrating the canopy. Derk found himself in the dark rubbing his arms, feeling chilly and alone and turned heel to get back to the camp, walking more quickly than he realized. He popped out from the ring of trees, Jezlen looking up from the fire. The Forester’s face actually colored a bit with surprise. Derk blew on his hands, sitting in front of the fire and staring into it, hoping the elf would start the conversation. He wasn’t sure if he could come up with anything to talk about.

“Good time or bad time with Sindra?” Jezlen finally asked, raising a dark eyebrow at the man. He sipped something out of a flask. His hair was slightly less neat than before, a few stray wisps falling into his face. They do look alike, Sindra and him, Derk thought to himself. He probably stared at the elf too long because Jezlen took another drink from his flask and turned his gaze into the fire.

“Y’know, it’s rude to talk about your…aunt like that,” Derk retorted, still rubbing his arms. His chest was warm enough now, but his back feeling the chill of the night air. Jezlen laughed, short and harsh, still looking into the flames

“Do not make me laugh, Valleyman. Like I care.” Derk laughed out loud, almost giggling as the words registered. He looked over Jezlen again, trying to ascertain if he actually was younger than the woman who usually laid her bedroll next to his. Jezlen took another gulp from his flask before he abruptly offered it to Derk. “You look like you need this. Your eyes look as if you were just crying.”

“I….” Derk held the flask in his hands, the thing too warm to have just been opened. He sighed, his breath whistling in the neck of the flask as he brought it to his lips. “I just found out my father died.” He took the sip, the liquor hot in his mouth and rough on his throat, warming as it made its way into his gut.

“Ah,” Jezlen said, taking the flask back from him, draining it in one gulp, turning it upside down to speed the task. The elf wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, tightening the lid and tossing it at his pack, missing completely and almost hitting Asa in the head. He turned woozily back to Derk. “Was he a great man or a man not worth mentioning?”

“He was a great man, to be sure,” Derk offered, momentarily worrying Jezlen would pitch into the fire. He waited till the elf leaned away before continuing. “Great. An idealist, like me, as you suppose. Only his ideals…he wanted to press on other people. He thought things should be a…a certain way. But he’s dead now.” He nodded, wishing Jezlen hadn’t finished off whatever was in the flask. The fact of his father’s death was sinking further into his brain. He could use a drink.

“And do you feel the bite of your own mortality, Valleyman?” Jezlen stood up somehow, teetering forward. He had to lean on Derk to stand up, his shadow long and quavering as Jezlen swayed by the fire. Derk stared up at him, hugging his knees to his chest. He considered what the Forester said.

“No, actually. I don’t,” Derk said, turning his head back into the fire. He wondered why this was when Jezlen leaned down again, resting his hand a bit too heavily on his shoulder, almost knocking him down.

“Well, you should. At least your father had children to keep himself going. You have no one to leave your legacy so if you die, you are done.” Jezlen leaned over and kissed Derk sloppily on the forehead, patting him on his bald head before stumbling over to his pack.

“Jezlen, you’re drunk! You said you’d take the watch!” he hissed at the elf, the young man already sprawled out on his bed roll. The drunk elf lifted an arm in the air, not bothering to roll over as he replied.

“I am too drunk to watch and you will not sleep…you watch.” Derk hissed a few more words of protest but as far as he could tell, the elf was out cold. Derk cursed under his breath, grabbing a blanket to draw over his shoulders as he sat watch. A slow chuckle bubbled up as he looked over the drunk elf snoring a few paces away.