Rise of the Storm

13 Braeden

Braeden and his small group of hussars passed through the town's gate, now wide open. They followed Zluba along a narrow cobbled street to a large half-timbered building on the other side of the market square. She led them through a spacious front room containing rows of benches, past a smoky kitchen and entered a long room at the back of the house packed with people, most of them young. There were a few small children and one wizened old woman seated in a large chair at one of end of the table.

Zluba waved her hand. "My children, grandchildren and mother-in-law."

Several stopped and stared at the hussars but most were occupied in running back and forth from the kitchen with bowls and wooden trenchers. It was stuffy, but the smell of pork, garlic and fresh-baked bread wafted everywhere. Braeden was glad it was noisy enough that no one heard his stomach rumble.

Everyone found places on benches at a long table, and Zluba took her place at the head with Braden at her right and the two glowering sons on her left. Braeden kept Franca at his own right in case he needed help with the language. It had been a few years since he'd spoken Moraltan with any regularity.

While they waited for food, several young people walked among the tables setting out clay pitchers of beer. Zluba poured a large mug and slid it to Braeden. "So Terris, can we hope that the trouble with the rebellion is over once you've gone?"

"I don't know." Braeden sipped the beer, which was uncommonly good. "I hope the Moraltan princes have learned their lesson."

"Pfft." Zluba took an astonishingly long drink from her mug and wiped the foam from her lip. "Those fools never learn. Every time a new bottom sits the imperial throne, they think they can do as they please, and it always ends the same way."

"Seems to," Braeden agreed. "But I suppose if you want to change things you've got to keep trying."

"Do you?" Zluba turned toward him. "What if you never gain anything but lose everything you have while trying? Tell me, Terris, what happened to the leaders of this last rebellion?"

"They were stripped of land and titles and are being taken to Atlona where they'll be executed, most like."

"It seems severe enough, but not enough to stop them. Idiots. And what of the people on their lands, and in the cities?"

"Depends on how long their leaders resisted. If the local count surrendered, we might take some food off the population but leave them alone otherwise. If he tried to fight, we'd start by burning everything around his castle. If that didn't work, we'd destroy any nearby towns and villages. And several hundred died on the battlefield outside Kaleva."

Braeden's eyes widened as someone placed a trencher piled high with steaming pork and cabbage in front of him.

"It's plain food, but no one here eats anything else, I'm afraid."

"I'm used to much worse most of the time, and almost never any better." Braden dug in after reaching for a piece of brown crusty bread from a basket that had also materialized in front of him.

"I wonder," Zluba said. "I can't make out your exact place. You're of high military rank, but you don't seem like an aristocratic sort, begging your pardon if you are."

"Oh, I'm very much not." Braeden washed down a mouthful with some beer. "I'm common as dirt, but have a friend in a high place."

"Those can be helpful."

"More than helpful. He's why I'm alive to begin with and the only reason I made something of myself."

"A real friend, then."

Braeden nodded and kept eating.

Zluba poured him more beer. "You're not much for talking, are you? Though you speak our tongue well enough."

"I spent a bit of time with a Moraltan girl long ago." He wondered what had become of her.

"And a romantic past, which I'll bet you won't talk about either."

"Not much to talk about." Calling it romantic at all struck him as funny.

The main meal done, a young girl put a large dish of strawberries in front of them. When Braeden smiled at her, she started, blushed, and ran off. "Didn't mean to frighten your daughter."

"Granddaughter. Don't worry. She's just discovered boys and now when she sees a man, she doesn't know what to do with herself. Although I could see how you might frighten people. Have you always had that wild hair?"

Braeden nodded while biting into a strawberry. He had seen none along the roads yet. They must grow them here in a protected garden. "I tried keeping it short for a while, but it just grows out in all directions. Easier to let it be."

"Well, in your line of work, I'm sure it helps to look frightening."

"It does."

"It was clever to send the girl with the flag." Zluba smiled at Franca, whose mouth was full of strawberries.

"The flag was her idea," Braeden said. "She's a smart one."

Franca blushed, turning redder than her hair and the berries in front of her.