“Actually, no,” Brandark said. “Whatever it is, it’s their business, and we’re a pair of hradani a long, long way from home.”
“And you the lad who said you wanted adventure!”
“I spoke from the enthusiasm of ignorance-and you shouldn’t rub my nose in it.”
“Ah, but it’s after being such a long, lovely nose,” Bahzell chuckled. “Still and all, you may have the right of it. We’ve no cause to be mixing in other folk’s affairs, and-”
He broke off, ears pricking, as a sudden, loud wailing rose from the village. His eyes narrowed, and he peered intently at the horsemen at the gate. One of them, much more richly dressed than the others, sat his saddle with an air of supreme arrogance, one fist on his hip, holding a riding crop, while the other hand held his reins, and two drably dressed villagers had gone to their knees before him. They were too distant for Bahzell to make out words, but he recognized pleading when he saw it, and his ears went flat to his skull as the richly dressed horseman leaned from the saddle and his long crop flashed. The lash on its end exploded across the cheek of one of the kneeling men, knocking him over, and Bahzell snarled.
“Now that, I’m thinking, changes things a mite,” he grated as a louder keen of despair went up. A woman dashed from the village and crouched over the fallen man. She screamed something at the man with the crop, and it flashed again. She got her arm up just in time to block it short of her own face, and Bahzell snarled again and started forward.
“Ah, Bahzell?” Brandark’s voice stopped him, and he turned to glower at his friend.
“What?” he said flatly.
“I just wanted to mention that we are strangers hereabouts. A certain, um, caution might be indicated.”
“Caution, is it? And what about that whoreson with the whip?”
“Goodness, and there’s not even blood on your knuckles!” Brandark murmured. An unwilling grin twitched Bahzell’s lips, but there was no give in his expression, and the Bloody Sword sighed. “All right. All right! I suppose it’s all that new champion nobility rushing to your head. But if it’s all the same to you, can we at least try talking to them?”
“And what were you thinking I meant to do? Just walk up and have two or three heads off their shoulders?”
“Well, you can be a bit direct at times,” Brandark pointed out, but he was grinning as he said it, and he swung back up onto his horse. “All right,” he repeated. “If we’re going to poke our noses in, let’s get to it.”
He touched a heel to his horse and trotted forward at Bahzell’s side as the Horse Stealer stalked over to the group by the gate. Two more women had emerged from it, and though he still couldn’t make out the words, he heard their imploring tones. The richly dressed man shook his head and nodded to one of the men with him, and the setting sun flashed on a drawn sword as the retainer walked his horse forward.
The villagers backed away in terror, and Bahzell’s lips tightened. He picked up his pace a bit, and the rearmost horseman suddenly looked over his shoulder. He stiffened and leaned forward, poking one of his companions and gesturing, and the richly dressed man’s head snapped around. The man with the sword stopped and turned his head in turn, and then all the horsemen were shifting position, drawing their mounts around to face the newcomers while their hands rested near their sword hilts.
Bahzell crossed the last few feet of muddy ground and paused, arms folded and hands well away from his own weapons, to survey them. The villagers peered at him from frightened eyes set in faces of despair, but his attention was on the richly dressed man-a half-elf, from his features and coloring-and the armed and mailed horsemen at his side.
“What d’you want?” the half-elf demanded in Spearman, and not even his atrocious accent could hide his imperious disdain as he gazed at the travel-worn hradani.
“As to that, we’re but passing through,” Bahzell replied in a voice which was far calmer than he felt.
“Then keep right on passing,” the Purple Lord sniffed. “There’s no place here for such as you.”
“Such as us, is it?” Bahzell cocked his ears and tilted his head to study the other with cold eyes. “And could you be telling me just who you are to be saying that?”
“I own this village,” the Purple Lord shot back, “and you’re trespassing. Just like these scum.” He jabbed his crop contemptuously at the peasants and spat on the ground.
“Now that’s a strange thing,” Bahzell replied, “for I’m thinking they’ve the look of the folk who built this village in the first place.”
“And what’s that to you?” the half-elf demanded, with the arrogance Purple Lords were famous for. “I own the land under it, and I own the trees they’ve cut.”
“And they did it all without your even knowing, did they?” Bahzell marveled.
“Of course not, you fool!”
“Friend,” Bahzell said gently, “I’d not use words like ‘fool’ so free if I were you.”
The Purple Lord started to spit something back, then paused and gave the towering hradani a measuring look. He frowned, then shrugged.
“I don’t really care what you ’d do. This is none of your affair. These lazy bastards owe me the next quarter’s rent, but they can’t pay, and I’ve no use for idlers!”
Bahzell glanced at the villagers, and his eyes lingered on work-worn clothing and calloused hands, then moved slowly back to the Purple Lord’s soft palms and manicured nails. The half-elf flushed angrily under the contempt in those eyes, but Bahzell only looked back at the villagers.
“Is that the right of it?” he asked, and fearful expressions looked back at him. Eyes shifted uneasily to the Purple Lord and his armed men, and Bahzell sighed. “Don’t you be minding old Windy Guts,” he said gently. “It’s a champion of Tomanāk I am,” he felt ridiculous as he claimed the title for the first time, “so just tell me true.”
The man whose face bore the crop’s bleeding welt stared at him, eyes wide at the unexpected announcement, and the Purple Lord cracked a scornful laugh.
“You? A champion of Tomanāk?! You’re a poor liar, hradani!”
“Don’t be making me prove you wrong,” Bahzell advised him, “for you’ll not like the way I do it.”
His deep voice was level, but the Purple Lord blanched at something in it and edged his horse back a stride. Bahzell held his eyes for a moment, then looked back at the villager, and the man swallowed.
“Are . . . are ye truly what ye say, sir?” he asked timidly.
“I am that, though I’ll not blame you for wondering.” Bahzell glanced down at his tattered, stained self and grinned wryly. “Still and all, it’s not clothes make the man, or Puff Guts yonder would be a king!”
Someone guffawed nervously, and the Purple Lord flushed.
“So tell me the truth of what’s happening here,” Bahzell urged.
“Well, sir.” The villager darted an anxious look at the Purple Lord, then drew a deep breath. “The truth is, it’s been a mortal hard year,” he said in a rush. “The price of timber, well, it’s been less’n half what it us’ly is, an’ after Milord took his tithe of it, there’s nigh nothin’ left. We . . . we paid half our rent, sir, ’deed we did, an’ if Milord’d only wait till spring, we’d pay it all, no question. But-”
He shrugged helplessly, and Bahzell swiveled his eyes back to the landlord. The Purple Lord flushed even darker, but his lip curled.
“They’ve always got some excuse, but there are plenty of others who’ll jump at the chance to take their places-yes, and pay their rent on time, too!”
“So you’re after turning them out in the teeth of winter, is it? And them with half their rent for the next quarter already paid?”