Cadayle was certain that she was blushing fiercely, and she lowered her gaze.
"The laird must be seeking you."
"With all of his men," the Highwayman answered.
Cadayle looked up at him with concern. "If he catches you, he will kill you horribly."
The Highwayman shrugged. "I have killed no man who did not deserve it, nor have I taken anything that did not rightfully belong to the people."
Cadayle's hand went back to the necklace.
"Well, the lairds should not so hoard the wealth, then," said the Highwayman. "They live in splendor, while all else suffer in squalor."
"They are the chosen of God."
The Highwayman snorted and Cadayle took a reflexive step back, not quite understanding what it was about her last statement that had irked him. Was it the concept relating to the lairds, or the concept of God? At that moment, Cadayle began to understand just how shallow her growing feelings for this man truly might be.
"Are you of the Church of Blessed Abelle?" she asked.
He seemed surprised. "Well, no…" The answer was less than definitive in tone.
"A Samhaist?"
"Never that!"
Cadayle looked at him curiously, hiding her great relief. She certainly had no love for Bernivvigar and his horrible followers. Her mother had never told her anything good at all about the Samhaists, and though neither had she overtly attacked Bernivvigar in her remarks to Cadayle, her voice when speaking of the man or his religion had always been tight, as if holding back visceral hatred. Cadayle had gotten that impression, at least.
"Do not think me a godless man," the Highwayman stated, drawing her from her contemplations. "I see good in much of what the brothers of Abelle attempt to accomplish, and many of their actions are wrought of generosity. But there is more to the world than they know, I am certain, and so I do not limit myself to the beliefs they present."
"You know better than the Church?"
The Highwayman shrugged in that confident way of his.
Cadayle let it go at that.
They talked some more, about nothing in particular, and nothing of any real importance, and Cadayle soon began to understand that the Highwayman was just stalling, stretching out the conversation in the hope of…
He was nervous.
So was she.
Her mother began to call for her, and she glanced back at her house, then turned to her masked suitor. "I must be going," she said suddenly, and she came forward and offered him another kiss, thinking to make it just a quick peck.
But he caught her and he held her, held them pressed together, and for a long and wonderful moment, Cadayle didn't try to wriggle away.
She skipped all the way home, like a little girl dancing in the sunshine after a spring thundershower. Thoughts of Cadayle followed Bransen as he made his way across Pryd Town. Once again this night, many of Laird Prydae's soldiers were about, as well as tax collectors moving from house to house and pestering the peasants. Bransen was in no mood for violence that night, no mood for catching one of those money-grubbers in a dark corner and striping him of his ill-gotten coin and foodstuffs.
He did veer from his course at one point, however, when he noted firelight far to the east. He headed toward the campfire out of the main town, moving through a copse of trees and then across a small field to a second copse.
Several men sat around the fire, over which a pig was roasting. They were vagabonds, Bransen knew, dispossessed by the many battles and the weight of their disappointment. All had wild beards and all were incredibly dirty. These were the outcasts of Pryd Holding, the forgotten men wandering the shadows at the edges of the civilized town. Bransen had seen many such men, perhaps some of these very ones, at Chapel Pryd, coming in to beg for food or magical gemstone relief from their maladies.
Bransen crouched just outside the radius of the firelight and listened, his smile widening as he came to understand that they were talking about him and the inconvenience he was causing Laird Prydae.
"Bah, good enough for Laird Prydae, I say," one roughly grumbled, and he tore a piece of meat from the bone and popped it into his mouth.
"Tired I am of fighting," said another. "Watched three of me friends fall to the swords of Ethelbert. Three's enough."
"Three's too many," another agreed.
"Well, I'm not seeing how this Highwayman's to help us from having that number go up," the first came back. "Nor am I seeing how he's to stop meself from going back to the south at Laird Prydae's bidding."
"But ye're not for crying over Prydae's money losses, now are ye?" said the second, and they all laughed.
"Laird Prydae can afford the losses," Bransen heard himself saying; and without even thinking of it, the Highwayman rose and stepped into the firelight. How the men scrambled! One even drew out a small knife and waved it ominously in Bransen's direction.
"Hold, I pray you," the Highwayman said. "I come not as any foe but simply as another traveler this night."
"Ye're him!" one of the men cried.
Bransen shrugged.
"Ye're the one stealing everything," the first said.
"Not everything and not for myself, of course," Bransen replied. "Laird Prydae has more than enough food and coin, I know, and so I am merely helping him to distribute his goods to those in need."
The men all looked at each other, and the one with the knife lowered it and put it away.
"Sit down, then," said the first of the group. "Take some food with us and tell us yer tale."
Bransen did take a seat on one of the fallen logs that formed the seats in their camp, and he did take a chunk of the offered meat. He didn't tell them any tales, however, and he just answered their barrage of questions with grunts and shrugs. To him, it was enough to simply enjoy the company, and he couldn't deny that he didn't mind at all the expressions of admiration, even awe, that were aimed his way. Again, the Book of Jhest's warnings about the failings of pride came to him, but he easily pushed them away.
For it all seemed like an innocent encounter of little importance, and so what matter if he indulged himself a bit by basking in their admiration? But then one of the men asked, in all seriousness, "Are ye looking for hire ons, then, Mister Highwayman? Are ye needing some strong men to help ye with yer work?"
The others all grunted and nodded and began whispering excitedly among themselves, but Bransen was too taken with the question to even begin to listen to those side conversations. This was a possibility he hadn't foreseen, and one that he found hard to dismiss. Could he form a band and lead it? Could he take these ragtag men, and so many others just like them who loitered about Pryd Town, and turn them into a formidable force?
He didn't know, and before he could explore it more seriously with some questions of his hosts, he noted something else, something that one of the men was holding: a skinning knife with a dull white bone handle.
"May I see your knife?" Bransen asked, holding out a hand.
"What?" the man replied, and he followed Bransen's gaze to the implement, then brought it up. "What, this?" He handed it over. "An old one and not much to see, but holding a fine edge, don't ye doubt!"
Bransen took the blade, thinking how much it resembled the one Garibond had always used back at the lake. That thought amused him, until he rolled the knife over and noted a stain on its handle, just below the blade, and a nick in the blade itself. Bransen froze, his eyes going wide. There could not be a second knife like this one, with such a similar stain and nick.
Bransen stared at it, remembering the many times he had seen this very blade, this exact knife, in Garibond's hand. He could picture his father putting it to use to cut the tasty flesh from a bass or trout; he could see it as clearly as if he were watching it then and there.
"Where did you get this?" the Highwayman asked, his tone changing dramatically.