HONOR BOUND

Chapter 9

My head is aching, a dull throb-throb-throb somewhere in the back of the skull. Like the sound of a stone in a stream, too round and heavy for the current to drag along, yet light enough to jitter on the stony riverbed. Every now and then the water curls around it, making it hit against the rocks next to it so that there's a deep, irregular thud.

I listen to it for a long time, oddly fascinated, until other sensations slowly begin to crawl out from underneath the pulsating pain. They don't make me feel any better.

I'm lying down, in a position that's something between being on my side and being face down, and there's something cool under my cheek and temple. What is it? The smell filling my nostrils is dank and musty and so thick it's hard to breathe, but my eyelids are incredibly heavy.

I tell my body to move but it is oddly sluggish to respond. My brain, too, is so very slow to take in the various messages that are trying to pierce through this strange haze that fills me, but eventually I realize that my head isn't the only part of me that's hurting.

This position is very uncomfortable, and now I recognize the smell: the coolness against my face must the moist ground, so close that I'm almost inhaling it. My eyes still don't want to open but I need to pick myself up and stretch my aching arms, I must've taken a fall and hit my head...

Except that I cannot move. My arms are behind my back, and if pain is slicing through my wrists, that's because they have been bound together with something that bites into the flesh when I try to flex my fingers.

Panic seizes me. What has happened to my hands? Can I even feel them any more?

I try to jerk against the invisible tie that twists my arms into this awkward position, and gasp. The pain has been lying in wait, it's been crouching next to me, impatiently waiting for the moment when I'm conscious enough. Now it attacks me with full force, licking me greedily all over. Hands, arms, the shoulder digging into the ground. It hurts to breathe. My hip aches, my legs feel like dead logs, except one foot that sends a volley of sharp, hot arrows up the shin.

All the time this feverish murmur has been grinding in my ears. It's getting louder, and eventually I understand that it's not just in my head after all. Voices. There are people talking around me: men, several men. Now I'm struggling to breathe. The pain threatens to spill over and I know that if I open my eyes, I can't help throwing up.

I must have moaned, or something, because I hear the crunch of steps and someone grabs me by the arms. Hands pull me onto my feet and that's when it gets too much. At least someone keeps me roughly upright while I hurl out everything in my stomach and then some.

I'm still gasping and spitting when there's another voice. For the first time I can actually make out the words.

"Bring him here."

It's a gruff voice, roughened by drink and shouting. Someone shakes me so hard that my head spins, then I'm half carried, half dragged forward. I have no choice but go along, and while trying to will my legs to move, I venture to open my eyes at last.

Everything is swimming around me, floating in some thick, swirling liquid. No matter how many times I blink, the scene remains stubbornly fluid and stretchy at the edges. It's not very bright but I can make out shapes of men, horses, tents. Swords, breastplates, spurs. A fire, some ten steps away. A man is sitting by it, spooning something from a metal bowl into his mouth. I quickly close my eyes because the sight nearly turns my stomach upside down once more.

The man dragging me stops, and I try to focus on the wobbly man in front of me. After several moments I decide that perhaps it's not he after all but myself who's wobbly, for he seems to sit on some kind of a chair that's been placed on what looks like solid ground.

He is dressed like a wealthy man. His clothes also tell that he fancies himself a warrior, though my bleary eyes suggest that even if he may sometimes have excelled in the use of arms, his best days are definitely over. Big, meaty men with considerable girth can still be surprisingly fit and agile, that much I know from own experience, but I'm ready to bet that this man is not one of that breed. He looks to be around fifty years of age, but again I could be mistaken. His ruddy face and podgy features hint that he's not one to turn away from a tankard as long as there's anything to fill it with, and I know how drink sometimes ages a man before his time.

"Where's your master?"

I try to look straight at him. My throat is still burning after throwing up, and it takes several efforts before I get out as much as a croak.

"I – I don't know what you mean, honored sir. I'm a traveling minstrel, on my way –"

The man shakes his head with a sneer.

"Don't feed me that yarn, wretch. You're with that knight from Noragayll!"

This has to be the very man we've been warned about, the man whose reputation has been hovering like an ugly ghost in the back of our minds. Only he's no ghost, he's looking at me with open contempt, and if it wasn't for the steely grip around my upper arms, I'd collapse. My right foot hurts so much that it sends the world around me into a spin if I put any weight on it, and it's hard to keep my thoughts in any kind of order, but I have to try.

"Knight? What knight?"

The man jerks his head at the someone holding me upright, and in the corner of my eye I see a glimpse of a dark-gloved hand just before the back of my head explodes. I drop on my knees, gasping for breath, then a hand grabs my hair and pulls my head up so that I have to face the puffy man once more.

"I told you not to lie to me," he growls, leaning forward in his chair. "You're with the knight that cockerel Jhorell sent to Tmer! What are you doing here?"

Tears are flowing down my face as the nausea rises from deep within me. The whistling in my ears is getting louder and louder, it drowns all other sounds like a thick blanket, and somewhere far away I hear the man bark at the soldier.

"How bloody hard did you hit him, morons?"

That's when merciful darkness swallows me.

When I wake up once more and venture to open an eye, everything remains dark at first. I blink, scared, before realizing that it's not because I couldn't see; no, it's simply because it's night and I'm probably inside some kind of a tent. Through a slit on my right I can see the faint glow of embers from a large fire, some eight or ten steps away. Its light dim and dull enough not to hurt my eyes, so I try to look around without moving.

Yes, this is a tent, and there's a blanket pulled over me. Now that's a surprise. Even though the heavy cloth is smelly and slightly tepid, still it's evidence of some concern for my well-being, and that is unexpected.

My head is aching, but not nearly as badly as earlier, so I try to move and get another jolt of surprise when I realize that my arms are free. They are no more bound behind my back, no, they are actually folded in front of me, and gingerly I rub my wrists biting my lip to stay quiet. They hurt abominably but at least all fingers work, and after a while the pain eases enough to let me feel another cloth under my fingertips. It's rough and dense and smelly; another blanket, then.

Two blankets to keep me at least a little warmer, and my hands are unbound! Where am I? What has happened? Lying on my side has made the arm go numb, so I roll around to lie on my back and then just pant for a while. This was a stupid thing to do, my head tells, me, and when the starburst before my eyes begins to clear I very carefully turn my head to one side to ease the pain. That must be one hell of a bruise I have just above the nape.

After some careful stretching I decide that my arms and hands feel relatively undamaged, nor is there any sharp pain in my chest or stomach or back, either. That should mean that I haven't broken anything vitally important, and that thought gives me courage. I'm still in one piece, everything works after all – until I get to my legs.

It takes a while before I can breathe once more. Did I scream? Apparently not, everything around me is still quiet, though how I managed to keep silent I've no idea. Pain is lancing up all the way to my hip, and only after much effort I succeed in locating its source. There are plenty of other aches here and there but they are mostly just bruises, the real pain comes from my right ankle. It must be badly swollen, the leather straps of the shoe feel so tight. Have I taken a fall? Whatever; what matters is that there is definitely something badly wrong with it.

I move the other leg, the pain explodes again, but somehow I bite back a howl that tears my throat. While trying to scrape my wits together I realize that my legs have probably been tied together. My spirits sink once more, for that can mean only one thing: someone doesn't want me to go wandering, and since the someone hasn't done anything about the ankle, I'm still in less than friendly hands.

Breathe, I tell myself. Steady and deep, in and out, breathe and think. What happened? What did you see and hear and feel and smell, and what can you tell of this now?

Sifting through the flashes I've managed to take in earlier, I decide that I'm still in the camp I saw earlier. I dare not guess how many men there might be, my memories are far too vague for that, but I do remember the man I've been made to face. I rack my reluctant mind for anything useful and finally manage to dredge up the name I've heard so many times: Lord Berdar. Who else could it be, camping here in the woods with his army of mercenaries, who but the vengeful brother of Lady Inella's late husband? Nobody else has any reason, nor have we heard half a word about any others.

Lord Berdar's men have captured me, then. I seem to remember walking through the woods, resolutely headed towards what my senses told to be east. I also remember hearing men around me, no doubt combing through the mountainside in search of our little group, and then the noises getting closer and closer until – yes, probably until someone apprehended me and hit me on the head, even though I cannot remember anything of it.

I try to will the away the headache that's making it so damnably difficult to keep my thoughts in any kind of order, but its claws have sunk deep and with a shudder I curl up more tightly under the blanket. So I'm a prisoner. Why?

Why was Lord Berdar angry? Why would he worry about his men maybe hitting me too hard? I've only got one short, blurred glimpse of the man but that was enough; I cannot imagine for a moment that mere kindness would induce him to show any concern for me. No, there must be a reason why he should want me alive and at least fairly lucid.

Could it be that Rogher and his charge have managed to give him the slip? It's a meager ray of hope but I cling to it nevertheless, simply because I cannot imagine any other reason. I'm the only one they've managed to catch and now Lord Berdar wants me to tell him which way they are headed! That's the one thing I must not tell him, and it won't be difficult, either – because I don't know it myself.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to pull the thin blanket more tightly around my shoulders. It's dark, I'm stone tired and achy all over and my brain tells me it has done enough thinking for one lousy day. The persistent humming sound in the back of my mind has never gone far, now it's getting louder once more, and with a sigh I let it creep over me.