The Book of Deacon (6 page)

"A trade then. I will tell you all you care
to know about myself and my people, and you return the favor," she
offered.

"A fair proposition," he said, extending his
now-bare hand.

Myranda grasped it and gave it a firm shake.
It was peculiar experience shaking the hirsute appendage, but she
was careful to appear as though she didn't notice.

"Now, where to begin? I was born in a large
town south of here called Kenvard," she said.

"Kenvard . . . was that the old western
capital?" he asked.

"One and the same. My father was Greydon and
my mother was Lucia. She was a teacher.
The
teacher, really. Because of
that she knew every man woman and child in town by name and so did
I. When I was about six years old, though, the front came very near
to our walls. Father was away, serving in the army somewhere else
as he often--no,
usually
was. I was in the garden with mother. The
church bells started ringing, which at that time of day was the
signal to meet in the town center during an emergency.

"We had not even made it halfway there when
the arrows started to fall. Flaming arrows. They fell like rain. In
a heartbeat the whole town was aflame. Panic spread as it became
clear that a force had surrounded the town, and siege was not their
intention. A siege we were prepared for, but they wished to destroy
us. To eliminate the town. My mother gave me to my uncle and sent
us away to find safety. She went off to round up the screaming
children that had been separated from their parents. Somehow, we
found an exit clear of attackers and escaped the town. To this day
I have not seen another familiar face from Kenvard," she recounted,
tears welling in her eyes.

"I had heard about the Kenvard massacre.
Totally pointless. The city of Kenvard had no military value. It
was filled with women and children. Perhaps ages ago, when it was
the capital of the entire kingdom of Kenvard, such an attack would
have made sense, but ever since it was merely made part of the
Northern Alliance, there are dozens of cities that would have
fallen more easily, and done more damage to the war effort.
Needless destruction. Until now I had thought there were no
survivors," Leo said.

"There were at least two. My Uncle Edward and
I spent a dozen years trying to find a place that would have us. It
was not easy. Uncle never forgave the Alliance Army for failing us,
and he could not quell his hatred for the men who had attacked
either. He became a man consumed with hate. He was not shy about
his feelings, either. Before we had been in any community for very
long, something would trigger a rant about the uselessness of the
Alliance Army. It did not matter to the townsfolk that his hatred
for the enemy burned just as brightly--he was a traitor for
speaking ill of the beloved army.

"Then, when I was eighteen, we stayed just a
bit too long. His words had been heard by a neighbor, and before we
could gather our things to escape, an angry mob battered down our
door. I do not even remember which village it had been, all I know
is that for the second and final time a member of my family met
their end due to this wretched war. Not by combat, but by the war
itself. Since then, I have been on my own, going from place to
place. I am a bit more discreet about my feelings for the war, but
I am constantly on the move regardless, either because I misspeak,
or I fear I might, or . . ." She trailed off.

"Or what?" Leo asked.

"No, it is just foolish," she said.

"I would still like to hear it," Leo
said.

"Well . . . I saw the death of my mother and
uncle with my own eyes. My father, he was a soldier, and by this
time he would have been one for nearly thirty years. My head tells
me that he must have been killed by now. Soldiers who make it past
their first few years are few and far between, let alone their
first few decades. My brain tells me he cannot be alive. My heart
pleads me to believe that he still lives. Whenever I find a nice
home, and I have been careful to behave as the other villagers do,
it is the hope that my father might be in the next town that tears
me from my place," she said.

"Sometimes hope is all we have. Tell me,
though, if the Tresson army stripped you of your home and loved
ones, why do you feel sympathy for them?" he asked.

"At first I didn't. I shared my uncle's
blinding hatred for them. Years passed and slowly my eyes began to
open. The men who performed that terrible deed, they were only
soldiers. Our men have laid siege to targets to the south time and
again. It is not through spite or malice that these men kill, but
through tradition. This conflict started more than a century ago.
None of us have ever known any other life. They kill because their
fathers did, as did theirs before them. The war is to blame, and
every man woman or child, regardless of which side, is a victim of
it," she answered.

"You are wise beyond your years," he said,
and began to ask another question but she stopped him.

"Uh, uh, uh. You know the rules. I give, you
give. Time for you to answer one of my questions," she said.

"Right you are, though I must warn you, yours
is a difficult tale to follow. Let us see. I am not sure where I
was born, but it was somewhere in the deep south. I spent the first
ten years of my life in an orphanage for, shall we say, unfortunate
children. It housed children of every race and background that
were, for whatever reason, left behind. Be it due to injury,
illness, deformity, or . . . species, none of us would ever see a
home.

"I would wager to say that there were only
two things that all of the other children shared. A longing to be a
part of a normal family, and a healthy hatred for me. I am frankly
shocked that I was allowed to live as long as I did. One of the
caretakers was a softhearted old man who, for whatever reason, did
not loathe me. I am certain it was only through his intervention
that I was not murdered by the other orphans and caretakers.

"By the way, you would think that if a child
just so happened to be the spitting image of a story's villain,
they would spare the child that tale. Not so. I heard so many
stories of my kind performing unspeakable evils so many times that
I know them all by heart. The others remembered the lessons taught
by those stories as well. Never trust my kind," he said.

"Now, clearly those were not the most ideal
years one could hope for, but after I turned ten, things found a
way to become remarkably worse. The old man who had protected me
for so long died. His body was not even in the ground when the
others proved once and for all that he had indeed been my savior
for all of those years. They showed me what they thought of my kind
in no uncertain terms.

"I was forced to run away and go into hiding.
As much as my
differences
had seemed a curse before, they began to
show their blessing side when I was faced with life in the forest
for months at a time. This nose may not win me any friends, but it
can sniff out a rabbit half a forest away, that is for sure. It was
years before I set foot in a town again--at least, during the day.
I had managed to sneak into farmhouses and such to steal an easy
meal on occasion, but I never let anyone see me.

"To this day I wonder what made me decide to
return to the world that had chased me away. I suppose the human in
me has as much say in what I do as the fox, because one day I
wandered into a small town. What was it named? . . . Bero. Well, I
looked about as you would expect after years in the woods. I was
wearing barely a shred of clothes, absolutely filthy. My hair was
about so long," he remarked, indicating shoulder-length with his
hand. "and a knotty, matted mess. As a matter of fact, I have yet
to cut it since that day, so somewhere among these tresses are the
very same locks I wore on that day."

"At any rate, my return to civilization was
not warmly greeted. I received what still stands as the worst
beating of my life, and was thrown into a shed until the townsfolk
could claim a live bounty. In those days you could turn in a live
malthrope for one hundred-fifty silver pieces or the tail off of a
dead one for seventy-five. Fortunately those fellows got neither,
as I was able to escape that shed in time.

"Had I a decent head on my shoulders, I would
have learned my lesson, and returned to the forest until some
hunter or woodsman killed me in typical fairytale fashion. Then at
least my memory would have been passed on from generation to
generation to scare children. Instead I let the vengeful instincts
of youth guide my actions. I decided that if humans did not want me
among them, then among them I would remain. Before long I found
that during the winter I could bundle up enough to go unnoticed.
The next clear step was to go to the place where such gear was
commonplace in all seasons. And so I came to be a denizen of the
Nameless Empire," he said.

"Please, not that I mind, but we prefer to
call it the Northern Alliance," she said, realizing how evil the
alternative sounded.

"I know," Leo said, drawing his vulpine
visage into his peculiar little smirk. "I wanted to see how you
would react. Besides, now it is my turn to ask you a question."

"Go right ahead," Myranda said.

"If you are so often on the move, how is it
you manage to earn money enough to survive?" he asked.

"Well, the money I had intended to buy dinner
with was in a satchel I had found on the body of a dead man in the
middle of a field north of here," she said smoothly. Now that the
second glass of powerful wine was nearly empty, it did not even
occur to her how strange and awful that must have sounded.

"I see . . . so do you roam the wastes in
search of expired aristocrats, or have you got a more conventional
means of support?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, I do whatever I can. Help in a field,
clean a house, that sort of thing. Anything anyone with money needs
done. If the odd jobs in a town dry up, I move on. Yet another
reason I never sit still," she said. "What about you? What do you
do?"

"That is a shade more difficult to explain.
As you pointed out, the Perpetual War tends to get under the skin
of the good people, north and south. It seeps into everything that
they do. As such, battle is as much a matter of sport and pleasure
as it is a matter of combating the enemy. Here and there,
particularly in the north, arenas can be found. People gather there
to watch various fighters clash in the name of entertainment," he
said.

"I have heard of those places," Myranda said
with a sneer.

"Well, it is in those places that I earn a
living," he said.

"You earn a wage by beating others to death?"
Myranda said, shocked.

"No, no. Not to death. We would run short of
fresh talent rather quickly if that was the case, what with the
army offering the same opportunities for far greater prestige. No,
our matches last until the other fighter, or fighters, either
submit or are unable to continue. When I fight, I wear a helmet
with a face mask that completely conceals my face. Needless to say,
a faceplate with a snout draws a bit of attention, but I have led
the crowd to believe I am a man
pretending
to be a beast to gain a
psychological edge over my opponents," Leo explained.

"Clever," she said.

"I hate the mask, though. The thing is
practically a muzzle. I will wear it every day, though, so long as
the prize money continues to flow. I just won a three-week-long
tournament a few days ago. Placed a hefty bet on myself. All told,
I took away more than two hundred silver pieces. That ought to last
for some time. After all, I get most of my food, drink, and even
shelter from the forest. Aside from medical and clothing, I have no
expenses," he said.

"I wish I could say the same. There are a few
rather expensive purchases I need to make, but before I do, I will
have to find a wealthier town," she said.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Well, this town has a rather sparse market.
I will need to find a town that has a store that buys and sells
weapons or jewels," she said.

"Jewels? Interested in buying jewelry?" he
asked, raising the eyebrow again. "You do not strike me as the
jewelry type."

"Oh, no, that sort of thing does not appeal
to me. I need to buy a tent and a horse," she said.

Leo furrowed his brow and scratched his head.
"You
are
aware that those are items not typically found at a gem dealer or a
weapon smith," he said.

Myranda laughed, covering her mouth and
shaking her head. "I am sorry about that. I did not quite make
myself clear, did I? You see, I have got something that I want to
sell so that I can afford those things."

"Ah, now I see. What did you have in mind? I
thought I heard something clang right before I helped you out," he
said.

"Well, um, right you are," she said. She
still had enough sense about her to know that she should not show
off the sword to someone she barely knew, but he had seen it fall.
It would be terribly rude and distrustful to hide it from him now.
She would show it and hope for the best.

She stood and quickly stumbled back down. The
room was spinning.

"Careful now, I think that the wine had a bit
more of a kick than you had realized," Leo said, standing to help
her.

"It certainly did," she said. A tinge of fear
raced through her as she worried that there might have been more
than just wine in that glass. The dizziness and fear faded together
after a few moments. "I must have stood too quickly."

Myranda carefully pulled the sword from its
hasty hiding place and placed it on the table, pulling the blanket
off. Leo's eyes widened.

"That is a fine weapon," he said.