Salvadore exhaled. There were long minutes yet before they were to meet the foe steel to steel. "Wrap men in bandages, the weaker fighters first. Not too many, we'll need what can be spared 'ere the day is out, but make it look like they've bled already, and recent." Across the waves he was counting elven heads, eight above deck. Perhaps half again as many below, and his own company not even two score strong. Their faith was strong, their wrath righteous, their steel true. Lady Upon the Walls, let that be enough. "Boarding pikes, pseudo-tercio. Helmut to take three...no, two others and keep them off the rigging." Salvadore caught a whiff of something from memory, the scent of human fear and misery. "Pieter."
"Sir?"
Salvadore's tone was outwardly calm. "No quarter."
The Tilean didn't salute as he walked away, hurriedly disappearing belowdecks. Walking swiftly but without fear he entered his cabin where Alonsico sat near the chess set. "Armor up, you have twenty minutes." He said briskly. "Where is your father?"
The older man rose from a bench recessed into the bulkhead. "I heard." Balthasar said, rubbing sleep from one eye. He was already wearing his gambeson despite the heat, and had returned with his son's gear by the time the boy had his own half on. "How many?"
"At least eight, probably a dozen. No witch-elf I saw, but I'll give them no more room to prove me wrong than I have to." Salvadore shrugged into his own armor, Paco helping with the laces as Salvadore in turn held helmets for his relations. "The two of you stay here. If all seems to be lost, throw this package into the sea." It would be a shame to lose an artifact such as the banner so soon after it had been reclaimed from the sea, but better in the keeping of Manaan than these reavers. To that end, even before leaving port Salvadore had swaddled it in waxed paper and weighted it with stone. "Paco, take a crossbow and join the halfling."
Baltasar nodded, but Alonsco protested. "Cousin, I can fight! Let me come with you, I'll do you proud I swear."
"I don't doubt your courage, cuz, nor your skill. But I'd prefer to keep you here, where two men in armor can keep the bastards from flanking through yonder window and surprising us on our own ship." Alonsco nodded in earnest eagerness, while Baltasar shared a knowing look of gratitude. Honest steel might spare a man from elf blades, but it did little to help keep a soul from drowning. Two more armored men in the fight above might meaningfully contribute to the battle, but it would absolutely draw attempts to decapitate the Foam Dancer's leadership.
"Don't die."
Salvadore gave a wan smile. "Haven't managed to yet."
--
Salvadore was at prayer, as was each of the crew. These moments of calm before the storm, each man dedicated to the gods as they felt best. "Furiosa, guide my blade to strike the wicked. I ask this for those who suffer." He asked. "Filiis hasta, sunder the armor of cruel and splinter their shields. I ask this for those who suffer." Around him other Myrmidians were whispering similar chants, a half dozen dialects united in faith. Even Helmut was silent as he nervously examined and reexamined first his sling, then his pouch of bullets, then his sling once more. "Shallya the Merciful, watch over us and spare those who suffer most." Salvadore felt his stomach churning, his bowls clench, his heart attempt to climb into his throat. "Our mother of battle, she who keeps our blades keen, who keeps our shields ready, our armor strong, grant us the grace so we might know our enemies, honor to stand against them," The elves painfully executing one of their captives to intimidate Foam Dancer's crew, the poor soul's cries clearly heard even over the creak of timber and canvas. "And the strength to defeat them."
The hateful vessel drew abreast of them, its butchers jeering even as they closed and already awash in blood. Their formation was loose, individuals more than a single unit. Still, Salvadore knew better than underestimate them. Not this time. "Pikes starboard! Starbord! No quarter!" His sword was out of its scabbard, used to gesticulate clearly. Most of Foam Dancer's crew were formed up in a tight hedgehog grouping, gripping their boarding pikes. A proper tercio was impractical aboard a ship, with all its irregular surfaces breaking up neat formations, and a common boarding pike was of limited use in the spear wall anyway, but the concept of overlapping pointy bits all kludged together for mutual support and protection was a long and honored tradition so it was made to work.
Teams of four and five men moved together, three of them lining the starboard railing to take advantage of the carrack's greater height relative to the elf-ship. Normally two ships trying to board one another would have to contend with their decks swaying dangerously back and forth, making any crewman attempting to cross first face a pair of terrible wooden jaws, but the spines dug deep enough into Foam Dancer to stabilize the two somewhat. Against typical Norscan or Arabian marauders this would have been enough to protect the Foam Dancer, but they did not fight men this day. One of the elves leaped from his own yardarm directly in the center of the Foam Dancer's deck, impossibly twisting in midair to avoid a quarrel shot at it from Paco's crossbow. This meant that rather than landing at the back of the human formation, he landed in the middle of two of the reserve groups who promptly encircled the elf in a ring of iron.
Salvadore told himself that the elf had looked worried at his predicament rather than smug. It's what let him go on the offense, leaping the gap with the aid of a loose line. He angled his landing to where five of the blackguards had yet to begin scaling their grappling lines, ensuring that they would not easily encircle him as their companion was by his own crew. "Carrion filth!" He cried, taking one across the face and taking an eye.
One of the females mistook this for overextention and attempted to stab him in the armpit only for his lightning-quick riposte to draw a line of crimson from her shoulder and pectorals. An eartip fell to the ground with a wet sound, and the crazy thing smiled like he'd given her honey to suckle upon.
Salvadore twisted to the side just in time for four quarrels to glance off his breastplate, with a fifth lodging in his neck just above the collarbone. The half-eared elf cooed something, but Salvadore had already turned the turn into a wild slash that unexpectedly turned into a stabbling lunge to take one of the as-yet unwounded elves in the mouth. Withdrawing his sword from the surprised creature's corpse Salvadore caught a short sword on a dagger he pulled out. Running it up the length of the blade he managed to take two fingers off even as it was knocked from his grip and sent tumbling into the ocean.
The entire exchange happened in heartbeats, but already Salvadore heard screaming on the Foam Dancer. Panicked screams, angry screams. Terrified, hurt screams. Accepting a glancing blow to the forearm of his off hand, he quickly drew a second dagger, gave the half-eared elf a knee between her legs and, as she inhaled in a sickeningly aroused fashion, drove the dagger the bottom of her mouth and into her brain. Using her body as a shield he entrapped two barbed, sinister looking spears before splintering one with his sword and giving another elf a cut across the forehead. Tackling the other spearelf to the ground, Salvadore headbutted the bareheaded youth and, while dazed, began knifing his abdomen a half dozen times.
Then there were two, half-hand and the one with blood in his eye. As Salvadore assumed an even-handed stance, the partially blinded one took a bullet from a sling to his leg. That gave Salvadore opening enough to cut the elf's throat before the other could notice. When the last elf made a thrust with the spear, clumsy from its grip on the slick haft of the wood Salvadore took a length of line slack in the wind, wrapped it around the elf and kicked him out over the deck to sway in the wind. As the body swayed back a single thrust was sufficient to offer his guts to Manaan.
Salvadore's breath was ragged, and his wounds hurt far more than they should. As he considered the merits of pulling the highly inconvenient quarrel from his collarbone, a single figure stepped out of the cabin at the starn. Unlike all the other elves, this one wore armor and bore a black sword that radiated malice like heat from a flame.
The Estalian attempted to take a step forward only to find pain lance up from his foot. Caltrops? How hadn't he noticed? The armored elf was speaking, but between the pain, his narrowing vision and the fact the elf didn't have the decency to speak a comprehensible language Salvadore largely ignored it. Judging by the tone it was some variation of 'I am very scary and you are vulnerable now, mwahaahaaha.' With his lamed foot he wasn't going to go to the...probably the elf captain, probably. So he'd have to make the elf come to him, then.
So he laughed, loud and mocking. Salvadore had already had the elf's attention, but this at least interrupted whatever monologue he had planned. "Keeb." Salvadore wasn't really sure what the word meant, but he had payed nearly a month's savings to a dwarf language-keeper for something in Eltharin that would be almost guaranteed to insult an elf enough that they felt they had to respond to it somehow. He'd had the opportunity to learn its meaning as well, but he'd spent his coin on having it embroidered on a signal flag he kept in the Foam Dancer's signal locker instead. Whatever it meant, it got the elf's attention. If he survived this, Salvadore decided, he'd write the prickly old dwarf a thank-you letter or something.
Angry or not, the captain was no dummy and was fresh, while Salvadore was wounded and tired himself on five other elves. Well, four and a half. He'd have to give Helmut partial credit when this was done. There were few gaps in the elf's armor for Salvadore's sword to exploit, and whatever that black sword was Salvadore was very certain he didn't want to touch even at the hilt. So that would have to go. "Begone!" A powerful, seemingly unhesitating strike and easily blocked. "You filthy!" Once more, power over finesse. "Puking sod!" A final mighty blow and two bursts of light occurred nearly concurrently; a dazzling burst of sunlight that bleached the deck of the ship and a nearly equally un-light as the black sword cracked. The captain appeared alarmed, dropping the black blade as though it were a viper and retrieving another weapon hidden in his armor. Salvadore kicked the black thing hissing evilly overboard where the sea itself began to bubble.
Both captains looked at one another in surprise. "The fuck was that, you reckless dickweed?!" Salvadore asked before stabbing the elf in his hand. "That had to be stupidly" A thrown belaying pin was easily ducked by the captain, and the counterstroke caught on Salvadore's last remaining dagger "evil, and" a downward stroke attempting to probe the comparatively thinner camail was caught by an armored gauntlet. The other captain began to leverage his superior height, strength and having two working feet to bring Salvadore's own sword closer to his face. "Reckless!"
The head of a quarrel punched through the elf's faceplate and the elf went slack. Looking up, Salvadore could see Paco lowering his crossbow. Rolling the corpse off him, Salvadore waved his okay to the Foam Dancer. "Good shot, Paco."
"Aye señor, I was aiming for his leg."
--
Ferrand was dead, and his brother Pero was likely to follow sometime tonight. The short Bibalian had only taken a shallow scratch on his chest, but for some reason it bled like stuck pig no matter how many bandages were applied. Martin was struck similarly, but on the calf. Amputation and cauterization would save the boy's life, if not his leg, and Gonçalo finally lost his other eye. Anton the Younger lost an ear and most of his cheek. They'd have little trouble sewing his face back shut if he could stop screaming, though by now he'd begun to cough up blood from a raw throat too. Sancho had been stabbed cleanly through the heart, but Pieter had credited him with slowing the first boarder enough for the rest of the crew to catch him and stick the elf more times than a discount Remean harlot. Anton the Elder had his throat cut but the salty old sailor had survived the wound itself. If everyone didn't already see alarmingly quick signs of infection he'd have been called the luckiest man aboard the Foam Dancer. As it was the boatswain was likely to be the luckiest stiff instead. Jaime's grin was stuck on his face forever now, being sewn up by Helmut and washed with some of their remaining lemon wine.
The Foam Dancer had taken on less than a dozen elves with eighteen sailors, three armored men and a halfling, and had emerged with only a quarter of them dead and six more expected to meet Myrmidia's father before they made port. If Instructor Constança had seen the casualty lists she'd have called it a better than fair trade, and the other instructors would have agreed. Other ships captains would call twice and again that figure fortuitous if the survivors could limp back to port, and give profuse offerings to whatever gods they credited their unearned luck. To Salvadore it felt like he'd killed eleven good men and horribly maimed as many more for dead meat and offal.
The elven bodies were easily disposed of, pushed into the chummed waters for Maanan's children to feast. Salvadore had seen more than a few fins slicing through the waters already, and if one of the elves hadn't completely expired before they'd tossed the killer overboard not a man aboard the Foam Dancer cared to spare him.
The nameless ship's hold had held slaves the elves had gathered from along the Bretonnian coast. The peasants, of which there had to be nearer three score than two, were surprisingly unscathed for residents of elven hospitality. Aside from the stench of squalor, fear and unwashed bodies pressed together, it was just a tiny amount of blood from the barbed manacles about their wrists and ankles that caused their physical discomfort. Once the chains holding them in the hold were struck, it was simplicity itself for the malnourished peasants to be escorted aboard the Foam Dancer in small groups of two and three. Simply standing on deck and seeing the fading sunlight was enough for them to begin crying as Salvadore's few tired but unhurt sailors rigged up a bosun's chair to bring them aboard. It would be crowded even after making room by tossing over several crates of pewter, but Salvadore would be damned if he was going to force any of the survivors to stay aboard their prison.
The recovery efforts were slow, hampered by the fact that the manacles were clearly designed to cripple slaves trying to break free of their bonds by tearing into their joints unless they moved very slowly and with limited range of motion. These couldn't be removed by anyone on-hand without risking their health, so Salvadore ordered every care and precaution taken. It wasn't until the last peasant had their chains struck until Salvadore realized why the elves had been so courtious towards their slaves. They'd captured a knight somehow, and he had endured the cruelty of the raiders in their stead.
He was blinded, eyes gouged out by what appeared to be hot irons. His thumbs and toes were similarly removed, eliminating any expectation that he would ever again hold weapon or walk without aid. Scores of fresh scars adorned his body, and more knives were lodged into his chest, arms and legs than could be survived, yet his chest rose and fell with a patient, enduring rhythm. A grimace only distantly related to a smile revealed conspicuously missing incisors, as well as a number of other signs of dental torture.
Salvadore considered striking the vampire down, but he stayed his hand for now. It was obvious, chained and maimed as he was, the vampire was no threat to the living. Moreover the way the knight's chains were loose enough for him to reach the peasants near him, the way the same peasants nearby showed more concern than fear and how no few of those still nearby sullenly formed a line blocking something that could only be their lord from Salvadore. The knight asked something in a hoarse tone. "Quel était ce bruit?"
The tallest peasant, who looked like he had been powerfully built before his time in the hold moved as quickly as possible to the knight's side. "Mon Seigneur, nous avons été sauvés."
A laugh that seemed to take more from the maimed knight than he had to give. "Salut?" He asked in the same seprechal tone. "Bon."
The peasant began to scratch his forarm with his manacles, self-harm being one of the few things the elves had made easier for the Bretonnians, and tried to hold it over the knight's mouth. The vampire turned away, blood landing on his cheek instead of his mouth. "Non!"
"Mon seigneur, vous devez manger-"
"Non. Il n'y a plus besoin." The knight feebly shoved the bleeding appendage away. "Il reste un dernier monstre à tuer."
Whatever the knight had said didn't make the peasant very happy, but the gaunt man sullenly withdrew a few paces and pretended to mill about with the other freed slaves. Well, it wasn't like most of them weren't watching one or more of Foam Dancer's crew with some combination of grateful, frightened, suspicious or haunted eyes already, so Salvadore paid it little more heed. Now, his cousin had used a formulaic Bretonnian greeting, something like... "Good evening." Yes, that was about right. It certainly caught the vampire's attention.
"Est'lian?" There was more than a note of surprise in his tone, but the dead man was more relieved than anything. "My peh...peh..."
"Safe for now. A bit worse for their time here, obviously, but seven and fifty souls are accounted for. You can rest easy for a time, sir knight."
One thing Salvadore hadn't expected was for the sightless man to begin crying.
--
The captives had all filed over to the Foam Dancer, hardly any less crowded than they were before but more comfortable all the same. There was a language barrier between the crew and captives, as none of the peasants spoke anything but Bretonnian and few of Salvadore's crew knew more than a handful of words and phrases in the language. Still, warm food and laughter did much to ease the survivors' tension, and a halfling cook is a boon to the table even if they are a bane to the larder. Salvadore believed that Helmut was making some variation of a fish and hardtack soup, which at least had the virtues of simplicity and working with readily available materials.
Not that he was enjoying any right now. Salvadore was one of the last figures on the elf ship currently being towed by the Foam Dancer. There were few able seamen aboard her to tend to the Dancer's needs, and the crowded conditions there meant even if his crew were as hale and hearty as they had been the day before they would have had difficulty managing the ship. Pieter had effected a crude system of volunteer Bretonnians overseen by a convalescing seaman on the deck at all times which was, Mannan be kind, sufficient to keep from running aground under a gentle breeze but there was little hope for any of them should the clouds darken.
Salvadore sat on a crate aboard the elf ship, Baltasar watching the sole remaining Bretonnian aboard in the lamplight as Paco did his best to tend to Salvadore's injuries. The illustrious captain, for his part, split his time between trying to hold a civilized, if halting, interview with the vampire on the one hand and occasionally blaspheming enough to bleach the planks white as Paco poured lemon-wine on the wounds, sewed him up with the bluntest needle the manservant had found and what felt like tarred rope, and generally reminded Salvadore of all the other, much more pleasant times he had been tended to. Like after he'd been shot by a bear outside a Shallyan mission house. The sisters had barely even made him feel nebulously guilty the next day, it had been comparatively marvelous.
Another grunt of pain as Paco jabbed him once more. "Sorry, senor." The man even tried to sound apologetic, but Salvadore could tell he was just being passive-aggressive about something.
"Maybe next time try to find a smaller belaying pin." Salvadore responded acerbically. "That is what you're using, right?" Rather than answering, Paco daubed a bit more lemon wine onto his arm.
He wasn't the only one getting patched up, though unlike Salvadore their guest was not recieving assistance. The tortured knight had introduced himself as Sir Blanchman d'Périgord, late of Périgord and somewhat less recently late of life. He also was splitting his own concentration between the conversation at hand and recovering from his maiming in a process that looked like it would hurt like the blazes yet the dead man uttered not a mou of discomfort. Which, if Salvadore was to be perfectly honest, was more than a little unsettling to watch.
"The first thing you need to know about Mousillion is that it is...complicated." Spoken like a man to whom Luccini was just a dot on a map. Maiden but did that place have issues. "Vicomte Malagent has been the lord-paramount of Mousillon for nearly seven years, making him the longest-reigning non-vampire seen since Maldred the Betrayer struck doom upon the land. He contends with the ever-present beasts of the forests, the poxes of the swamps, the sundry menaces to be found among cultists, vampires and his own conditionally loyal vassals and, of late, the wolves of the sea." Sir Blanchman did something with his rib after removing one of the knives. "The position of the kingdom at large has been that Mousillon is tainted and cursed, too foul for neither man nor proper beast."
"But darkness grows where light ventures not." Salvadore supplied.
Sir Blanchman nods. "Just so, Sir Chavez. The vampirically inclined are the most notorious of the fallen dukedom's denizens, but in truth one of the less common. There are knaves and scrapegraces enough to vex any land, especially one already beset by such misfortune. With the lack of better men, it is tarnished chivalry the Vicomte calls upon to defend the realm." Which implied that either Duke Malagent spent enough of his time putting out brush fires that he was facing a constant drain on his available manpower, or the lord paramount had sufficient concerns about the loyalty of his sworn vassals that he wanted to keep enough of them tileanized that they could not oust him.
Salvadore looked at the broken knight. "You almost sound like you respect him."
"It should not be impossible to respect one's foe. In a kinder world, I think I would have preferred to serve him with better loyalty than I have." For a minute Sir Blanchman gazed into the middle distance at the slowly lightening eastern horizon.
The Bretonnian looked like he was about to say something when Paco touched the caltrop at Salvadore's foot and the captain unleashed a sulfurous line of invective denouncing the manservant's linage, mating habits, preferences in wine and was gearing up to start in on how he treated dogs when a fresh bottle made it first to Salvadore's hand and shortly thereafter in his mouth. Paco motioned for the lamp to be drawn closer and began describing how the device was not only barbed, but appeared to be poisoned. Of course it was poisoned, elf raiders poisoned everything, including each other and, for the overly eager and ambitious, themselves.
It only took him a few heartbeats to make the jump from berating his manservant to self-recrimination. That is why the fear clutching his bowels hadn't let up once the fight was over. Shallya preserve, this was going to be acutely unpleasant.
Did he want to lay around and feel sorry for himself? Truthfully speaking, yes. He was probably going to need to lie about for several days in recovery, and it would be very easy to feel sorry for himself. Or better yet, have his minions do that for him. Sadly, Pieter was going to be busy running Salvadore's ship with most of the crew injured or dead, Paco was going to be splitting his time tending to the wounded and the rescued peasants and Raul was terrible at sympathy. Simply dreadful. So, disgusting as it was, Salvadore was going to have to do more than lay around feeling miserable for himself because he was stupid and reckless and got stabbed by a bunch of knife-eared murderers.
Well, what can distract him from physical discomfort like what he's trying rather hard to ignore? Twin Shallyan brunettes with voices like rose and lilac and skin smooth as silk, granted, but given the uncharitable and disappointing lack of that option he still has the fallback of causing problems for other people. "What does Duke Malagent bait his tournament with? A hand in marriage?"
The Bretonnian shakes his head. "No, his only daughter died young of a pox. Three summers old, I think. The winner of the tournament was to receive the bridle of the knight's mare, an enchanted bit of tack that causes the hearts of weaker wills to break and run before a charge."
"And the hastilude?"
A negligent wave of his good hand. "Like as not a stack of coin for the winner of the more noble arts, and the archer takes a sow home or something similar." Sounded about right. Sir Blanchman sighs. "I fear my time runs short, Sir Chavez. I thank you for succeeding where I had failed in my charge, and fear I must ask you once more for favors."
Salvadore suppressed a wince from where wine was applied to his foot. "You have been nothing if not courteous, Sir Blanchman. I trust you do not ask anything dishonorable."
"No, nothing of the sort." He assures the Estalian. "Back home, in Périgord there is a maiden, the fairest in the land, to whom I would have devoted my life to body and soul. Magdalene, of honeyed tresses and fair skin. She wears a ring I gave her in the shape of a crowned serpent. If you were willing, I would ask you to give her my final words as best you are able."
Sir Blanchman blinks in surprise as Salvadore motions for Baltasar to gather writing supplies. Did the Bretonnian expect him to memorize a message? Judging by the knight's awkward silence it seemed the answer was 'yes'. Well that wasn't going to happen; even if he'd been willing Salvadore expected the poisons to do a number on his ability to remember his own mother's face for the next few days, and after that happens...who knows?
When Salvadore indicated that he was ready, Sir Blanchman described his present circumstance to Magdalene, of how he had made at first small concessions to pragmatism and then greater ones long before being lost to night's embrace. Of how a cabal of knights had persuaded him to support their activities, and how when when the raiders came he had taken it as a chance to clear away doubts he'd had. That he loved her, and always would.
Sir Blanchman had been facing away from Salvadore, watching the lightening skyline with rapt intent. "And so, it is time for me to defeat one last monster. One that has escaped justice for too long, and that only now he is cornered can I face him. Sir Chavez, Sir Chavez the Elder. If you would be so kind as to bear my personal effects back, and..." A hitch in his throat. "Do not think ill of me should I unman myself here. I must confess I am more afraid now than I can recall."
Sunlight struck the tip of the mast, and as Salvadore translated Baltasar was silent as he drew steel from his scabbard and rested his hands upon it, point down. Salvadore joined him in readiness, if not stance, as Paco withdrew several paces to the far end of the ship. For the Bretonnian's part, he stood with his hands gripping the railing and his eyes affixed to the horizon. "Fear is not the absence of courage, sir." Salvadore told him.
"Perhaps that is so." The knight agreed. "But look at me; I quake in fear to greet the dawn. Something even Estalians manage without issue." A feeble attempt at a joke, but one Salvadore declined to translate for his uncle.
"We do have the advantage of practice, I imagine." Salvadore responded. "As opposed to those Bretonnians starting their day around noon hiding under a horse."
When the sunlight struck Sir Blanchman it found him laughing at a poorly-made joke. When the laughter turned to cries of pain and unhallowed flesh sizzled and burned, the once proud knight of Britonnia stood his ground and accepted his fate as best he could. Salvadore tried to remember that he died laughing rather than the smell it made.
--
When Salvadore woke in a bed blindfolded and with his wrists bound to the bedpost, his first thought was how to escape. Drawing upon previous experiences, the answer seemed simple; flirt with the first thing to come through the door and see if they'd untie him. His good looks and easy charm had saved his life in the past, after all.
It was slightly awkward when rather than a comely wench it was Alonsico and his father that strode into the room. "Do you kiss your father with that mouth?"
"Only when I make port." Salvadore replied glibly. "Good morning uncle, cuz." A yawning affectation only partially impaired by barely being able to move his arms made him aware of just how dry his mouth felt. "Any chance I might escape durance vile?"
"It depends, do your eyes itch so much that you'd scratch them out?" Baltasar asked. "Because the healer we found said that one of the poisons she'd identified in you had that effect on a previous patient."
"Beloved uncle, I am rather attached to my eyes. I enjoy them so much that I yearn to gaze upon the world, and you in it, with them." Saccharine-sweet words dripped out of Salvadore's mouth.
Alonsico probably hadn't meant to let his dear cousin hear him remarking to Baltasar that Salvadore did not seem to be sweating orange any more, but so long as Salvadore was freed from the bed he could ignore it. "So," He asked, pouring some of the fluid in a nearby pitcher into an empty goblet and slaking his thirst. Ugh, water. Probably boiled and uncut by wine, which was either an indication of having actually annoyed Paco with some of the things he'd said...last night? Or some backwards quack trying to remove poison by means other than flushing it out with proper fortified wine. "Status?"
"We made port three days ago and caused something of a stir. A grail priestess has already visited the elf ship twice and is more or less trying to threaten us into signing the ship over." Baltasar's tone suggested a distinct lack of warm feeling for the foreign priestess.
"It burns." Salvadore said flatly. "She can watch, but it burns to the keel."
"Your Tilean said as much. Something about 'standing orders'." Baltasar frowned. "Step outside, boy." He said to his son.
Curious, Alonsico closed the door behind him. Salvadore sat up in the bed where he could look out his window. As he shifted he noticed his clothes stuck to him, covered in sweat and something crusty. Baltasar sat down on the stool next to the bed and his tone shifted to a sort of demanding concern. "Who was she?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Salvadore said unconvincingly.
"My brother said you were stubborn as a mule, didn't say you were as stupid as one. I saw how eager you were to spill their blood. I thought you were making fables when you told my son to watch for an elf flanking behind but you knew one would come didn't you? Aye, I saw you and that Tilean of yours when the prisoners came out on deck too, don't think I didn't. This wasn't your first bit of elf-killing, was it?"
Salvadore felt cold, but he said nothing. Instead he watched as a small parade of men under arms cleared the street as a pair of knights rode, both of them armored in the middle of the day and with their visors on. His uncle continued. "I was under arms long enough to see good men learn how to hate real well. There was one young man who marched with us under the Ram, he'd had his village burned down by greenskins. Started paying his comrades a bounty for any greenskins they'd catch after a battle so he could take a knife to them. Oh yes, I know what a good hate looks like. You didn't wait long before calling for no quarter either, did you nephew?"
Several of the men at arms stayed outside, not so much guarding the building they were in as preparing to defend it against a charge by a rioting mob. Downstairs Salvadore could hear the tone of conversation come to a rather abrupt halt, shortly followed by the scraping of chairs on a wooden floor. "Now, I've seen that kind of mad before too. Only thing that gets you that is a dead brother or a girl. All my other nephews still being living last either of us had heard...."
"I think we're about to have visitors." Salvadore said as a pointedly artless change of subject. His uncle gave him a glower that signified that this conversation was anything but concluded. As the older man opened the door to let Alonsico back in the room they found the young man trying to stare down two armored knights. To call them large was misleading. They were proportioned most fairly, and while Salvadore was certain that their armor added bulk, it was readily apparent that doing so was simply gilding an already thews-generous lily. Either was at least a head and a half taller than poor Alonsico, who manfully was attempting to explain in his partial grasp of the local tongue that they were not to enter.
Their great size aside, the two figures were a study of contrasts. The more somber of the pair was in darkened armor, black seeming more from the forge than a painted affectation and kept his helm's visor down as though expecting combat at any moment. His tabbard showed a badger quartered with a very familiar tower, both in the same yellow and black. He must be the local, then.
The other knight was predominantly in blues and whites, fish scales and a lion couchant. He was both in good spirits and, unless Salvadore missed his mark entirely, uncommonly sober for a Bordelen. The jovial man tried spouting some clearly rehearsed, and painfully grammatically challenged, Estalian. Salvadore and Alonsico managed to keep diplomatically neutral expressions, but Baltasar visibly winced at the well-intentioned massacre of a perfectly good language. To his credit the Bordelen seemed to notice his audience's lack of response but it didn't really dampen his mood. Judging by how Salvadore had caught 'praise be salty goddess', 'many gifting' and 'fat warriors' it wasn't impossible to infer the man's good mood. He too was interested in the elf ship.
In what he estimated to be fairly thickly accented Bretonnian, Salvadore responded "You are interested in the ship, yes?"
The Bordelen gesticulated about half as much as your average Tilean, which was far too much for an already crowded room. "Yes, yes! Sir Gaston will give a great sum for-"
"No." The tone was flat, and Salvadore felt he could probably have been more diplomatic, but after his guts trying to kill him the last few days, his uncle being nosy and at least two parties and possibly more wanting to keep the ship he wasn't feeling particularly charitable at the moment. Still, in the absence of good reflexes better manners will have to suffice for now. In a more moderate tone Salvadore added "If you wished to board it, examine it, learn from it, by all means sir knight." For a moment Salvadore wondered if the Bordelen was sober enough to take the hint for his name. "But I mean to oversee its burning in two days hence."
"Burn it?" The knight looked puzzled. "You mean, with fire? I do not think you understand how much money the admiral offers-"
"If I cared about the money, I wouldn't be burning it. That thing is evil, and it is as a courtesy to fair Bretonnia that it was spared this long." As far as rebukes went, he'd been more subtle in the past. Salvadore didn't feel like being subtle right now. "Perhaps it will find redemption in cleansing flame, though I doubt it. If you find a more compelling reason to stay my hand I will hear them. If you bear word from Remas from the First Eagle herself that I should stay my hand, I will consider it." Another swallow of the boiled water. "But for every ecu in Bretonnia I will not stay my hand."
The Bordelen's face runes a gamut of emotions, most of them in the confusion to outrage spectrum, before he spun on his heel and stalked out the door. For a long moment Salvadore expected the other knight to follow, but instead the faceless knight gave a small but polite bow. "If it pleases you, the Vicomte d'Mousillon invites you to break bread with him upon the morrow. At daybreak, if it pleases you."
