Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 26: The box that holds the world's magic

Val the Bard

My father's house in the Free State of St. Martia stood far larger than most. We (or they, as I've abandoned family, saint, and kingdom alike) pride ourselves on despising wealth and decadence. Sneering at the ponderous castles of St. Demetia, the dark palaces of Plutarch, the insane mechanical mansions of the Hefestians.

We, I mean they, of Martia live starkly as did the mythical Spartans or the tedious but factual Little Brothers of Poverty. A regimented life we devote to learning how to kill. Children are handed a blade soon as they release their mother's teat.

Martia houses are plain brick boxes, simply furnished. Decorated only with swords, spears and flowers. The nation does not tolerate symbols of wealth. No gold rings, pearl diadems, silk dresses. No fur robes, liveried servants, ornamented carriages. Houses of important people have no marble steps, no grand lawns, sculpted ponds. Such things are for the decadent Plutarchians, the absurd Demetians.

But wealth come in many currencies. In other lands riches may be vaults of silver or deeds to castles, flocks of sheep or a bishop's miter upon the head. Anything can symbolize wealth, so long as it serves as currency for power.

We of the House of War, chief family of the Free State of St. Martia, descendants of Saintly Martia herself, owned the wealth of family name: Kurgus. And so my father's home had plentiful rooms, silent servants, hidden gardens. And even a library.

I came to myself staring up at stars, thinking I'd fallen asleep in my father's garden. No doubt a book lay beside me, pages growing damp with dew.

Only gradually did I recall long ago leaving garden and library, family and land. What followed? Ah yes; bard school; then that glorious day when I'd spied the cup itself outside the window of the instruction room. Floating down the road like a soap bubble on the wind.

I'd tossed instruction aside, stole the horse of the headmistress herself. Then came days of riding the green country roads of St. Demetia. Seeking the cup. No longer daughter, no longer student. I was my own thing, finding my own path. Singing my own songs, if only to my stolen horse.

Thought of Destrier led to recollection of the horse shying at the arrow suddenly projecting from his head. Then came tumbling to the road, the shouting bandits, the idiot embarrassment of being the prisoner of idiots. The mad joy I'd felt slicing the sons of bitches' dead. A joy soured by my own slow dying...

That last memory seemed long years of fevered burning, watched over by a worried miller.

At thought of Barnaby I sat up, astounded to find myself able to sit up, even to breathe. But was this true breathing? Perhaps I'd dies, come to Elysium. Definitely the air tasted of smoke and death-rot, mixing with pleasanter woodland smells.

But no, I was still in the damned robber's glade. And there lay the miller himself, beside the fire. Did he live? Perhaps I'd knifed him in mad fever.

No, he breathed. I sat awhile watching him breathe, as he'd watched me. The boy has a pleasant face. Young and round. The Demetians are paler folk than we of Martia. They have freckles, which I find fascinating. But Barnaby looked older than at our first meeting by Herm's Font. Thinner of face. Dirtier, in truth; and more worn. I wondered what adventures he'd been having besides sitting beside a dying bard.

He twitched. What dream did he have now? At which question, I recalled my own last dream.

In fever, I watched him pull me from a pool of hot blood and cold shadow. Placing me down someplace warm and bright. Whispering 'ssh, ssh' as though I were a horse to be shod and comforted.