“What’s the horse worth?” asked Ben after an hour. “It’s our profit, ain’t it? My grampa told me how the great adventurer Scarnigaro was cheated out of his reward, ’n’ all he got was a single boot. ’N’ in that boot was a gem worth a lot of money. We got the horse.”
“You’re right, Ben,” agreed Vince. “There’s probably not a gem inside the horse, but we can sell him. Not the reward we were promised, but we can get enough for dinner tonight, and supplies to keep us on the road for a long time. Thank you, Ben, for remindin’ us of the small blessings.”
“That’s a good horse,” Betsy estimated. “It should cost maybe two hundred moons, which means we might get half that selling to a horse dealer. We should wait until tomorrow to sell it though. It’s winded now and sweaty. Let it graze on this grass and get some rest. In the morning I’ll take it to a stable and see what I can get. A hundred moons will buy us a lot of supplies.”
“Why won’t the horse dealer give us the whole two hundred moons the horse is worth?” asked Ben. “Is he tryin’ to cheat us?”
“No, Ben. He just wants to make some money when he sells the horse to someone else. If he gives us two hundred moons, and gets two hundred from some buyer, he makes no profit and goes hungry. For goods in reasonable condition, we expect to get about half of the price of something new. Less if it’s not in good shape.”
“Meanwhile, we need something to eat,” mentioned Jenny. “We have almost nothing left of the supplies we got from Ben’s mother. Hush! Betsy, look over there, to your right. See that doe. Some venison would be nice.”
Betsy moved slowly, carefully. She pulled her bow off the pile of her gear, strung it quietly, and slid an arrow from her quiver. She knelt on the ground and nocked the arrow. The doe was sixty yards away, browsing on the leaves of a small bush next to a stream. Water flowing over rocks made just enough background noise. Betsy drew the string back to her ear, breathed ever so slightly, and let the arrow go. It hit the doe just behind the shoulder. The doe jumped, took three steps, and fell to the ground.
Vince was on the carcass in a flash, using his sharp knife to cut the doe’s throat and ensure it was dead. Horace helped Vince slice the deer open and remove the innards. Ben was amazed at how fast the knife sliced through the deer’s hide. The innards were soon spilled out and the edible parts, heart and liver, put into a pot for a stew. Horace and Vince hung the doe up from a tree to let the rest of the blood drain.
Vince used his knife to skin the body and Ben had never seen so easy a skinning. Around the farm this took much longer and he was amazed to see how well the magic knife worked. When the carcass was drained Vince began to butcher it. The legs were quickly trimmed into large roasts, the ribs hung over the fire next to the stew pot.
Ben took the parts they wouldn’t eat, intestines, stomach, head, and other bits and buried them in a hole across the road from their camp. At home, the intestines would’ve been used as casings for sausages, and even the head could be cooked. Out here, this was just stuff which would attract scavengers and predators.
Dinner was good, and they were beginning to feel less dispirited. Vince sat down next to Jenny on one side of the fire. Horace cuddled next to Betsy on other, and Ben sat between the two couples.
“This is adventuring, Ben,” declared Vince. “Lots of danger and no guarantees on how it’s goin’ to work out. We lost a good friend killed, and his lady gone home. We didn’t make any money, except what we can get from that horse. I don’t know how often your hero Scarnigaro had weeks like this, but if he was a real adventurer, it was probably pretty often.”
“Yeah, I guess the storytellers made things nicer than they really was,” Ben remarked. “Wouldn’ta been much of a story if Scarnigaro kept failin’. He was s’posed to be so good he couldn’ta failed, but that must be part of the story. A little lie to make it seem easier for him to succeed. That’s all right. I saw how all of you fought the other night. You did what you set out to do. We all succeeded, ’cause I helped a little too. It’s not your fault you didn’t get paid. Shame on that man. Don’t he like his daughter?”
“No, he doesn’t, not really,” said Polly, coming into the firelight dressed in an elegant riding outfit of brushed wool slacks and a silk and linen blouse, with a green wool cloak. She was carrying a wicker basket with a lid, like a small picnic basket, and a large sack. She threw the sack down at Vince’s feet. It made a nice chinging sound as it hit the ground.
“That’s your reward, Vince, and Jenny, and Horace, and Betsy, and Ben. One thousand moons from the chest under Barnabas’ bed. That’s all there was under there, but he has more. I don’t know why he wouldn’t pay you. I, I actually argued with him about that. I’ve never dared to argue with father, with Barnabas, about anything before. He thought you were scum, riff-raff, useless rogues. Those were his words when I asked why he didn’t pay you. It made me mad. He promised you a reward. The servants said he promised in front of the whole town.
“He always blathers on about how a merchant must stand by his word, or deals can’t be done. And here he is, cheating you at his first chance. I’m ashamed of him. No one else wanted to save me. Our neighbors admitted as much. You lost one of your friends; two, counting Ellie. Isn’t that worth some compensation? Aren’t I worth paying for? Apparently not.
“It’s been like this ever since mother’s been gone. He cares about his wealth and his deals, and very little about me. He only wants me to marry me to some old merchant who’s the grand duke’s buddy. He wants the aristocratic connection and that’s all. ‘You’re sixteen now, and old enough to marry,’ he says. ‘He’s wealthy, what’s not to like.’ I’m just a thing to trade in another deal. So I’m leaving home. I had trouble deciding to do this, but I can’t stay with him any longer. I want to join you and become a rogue too.”
Polly set her basket down on the ground, and a faint “meow” came from it.
“What’s that sound?” asked a suspicious Vince.
“Oh, that’s my cat, Fearless,” explained Polly. She opened the basket and showed them a large black cat, cradling it comfortably in her arms. He looked around at the strange people and meowed again. She put him on the ground and declared, “He’s my friend, my only friend really, if I don’t count the servants who like me. I couldn’t just leave him at home, he’d miss me.”
“Oh, Gods, another rookie!” moaned Horace. “And with a cat. Didn’t you see the fighting the other night when we rescued you? This here is dangerous work. And if you hadn’t showed up tonight, very badly paying work.”
“Dear, Horace is right,” Betsy told her, softly and with kindness in her voice. “Petey wasn’t the first companion we’ve lost in combat. Even good fighters can be badly wounded or killed. And you’re the daughter of a rich merchant. You’ve had a soft life, ours is very hard. And what combat skills could you even have? We don’t want to see you getting hurt or dying. It must have been hard on you having your mother die and having a cold father. But running away with us isn’t the right answer.”
“Oh, my mother isn’t dead,” said Polly. “I said she’s gone. She ran off a couple of years ago with a younger son of some nobleman. She lives in the south now. She sends me a letter once in a while. Barnabas doesn’t approve of my reading them, but the servants sneak them to me.”
“Betsy’s point is still good,” remarked Jenny. “Most men, even townsfolk, are willing to take risks and face danger. Most women aren’t. That’s the way it is. Women protect themselves, their children, and little else. Men protect women, children, each other, towns, anything, as long as there’s a fight. It’s actually about the fight, mostly. Women usually aren’t that way.
“Betsy and I are tough girls. We were raised by tough fathers who wanted us able to take care of ourselves. I’ve been good with a sword since I was ten. Betsy had to learn the sword from us, but she’s been a dead shot with a bow from her girlhood.
“We’ve been in lots of fights, big and little. We’re used to it by now. The sight of blood, even our own, doesn’t scare us. Ben is inexperienced in combat, but you heard us talking yesterday about him being able to do some magic. That means he’s valuable to us. I don’t mind helping train him to use a sword because he’s already giving us something.
“You’re a nice young woman, Polly, but you have nothing to offer us. It takes time to teach someone how to use a sword effectively. While you’re training, you aren’t giving us anything back. I’m sorry to sound so mercenary about this, but we can’t have anyone in the party who doesn’t offer something.”
“What about money?” asked Polly.
“Yes, thank you for bringin’ the thousand moons,” said Vince. “We really appreciate your kindness. And the risk of punishment when Barnabas finds out what you’ve done. But it’s not enough to buy you a spot in our team. I’m truly sorry, Polly. This money will feed us for a long while, but not long enough to train you up to being a good swordsman. Ben has the same problem, but he can do some useful little magics for us. That makes him someone we want in our band. When the money is gone, what can you offer?”
“More money.”
“What more money?”
“I know where Barnabas’ big treasure is hidden. I don’t know how much is in it, but it’s a whole bunch more than this. He kept this sack under his bed. The big treasure is under the floor in the main hall. I think. I can get you into the house at night and show you where I think it is. Let me join you and it’s all yours. There’s gold as well as silver. And gems and jewelry too. I can tell it’s an awful, awful lot, way more than a thousand moons.”
“Have you seen it, Polly?” asked Vince.
“No, but I know where it is, just about. It’s under the floor in the great hall. Maybe in the ceiling of the storeroom on the ground floor. I’m not that sure.”
“Uh, if you haven’t seen it, how do you know where it is?” asked Jenny. “Guessing won’t help us find it. We need to know whether to break open the floor, or the ceiling. Big difference there.”
“Well, I sensed it there today. I never gave Barnabas’ wealth much thought before, but today I was thinking about it because he was so stingy with you. That’s how I found the chest under his bed. Then I was still thinking about valuable things and I sensed them under the floor in the great hall. I didn’t see any hatch to get to the treasure, so I thought it must be in the storeroom, or the cellars below that.
“I went into the storeroom and it seemed to be over my head, in the ceiling. I couldn’t see any hatch there, either. But I did sense it. It is there, somewhere.”
“You sensed it?” asked Horace. “You smelled it? You couldn’ta heard it if it was just sitting there. How’d you sense it?”
“I can sense things, sometimes. If I lose a bracelet, I think about it and I can sense where it is, and so I find it.”
“Well, that’s just thinking where you must have left it,” said Betsy. “We all remember things like that with a little extra effort.”
“No, I can sense things I didn’t lose or anything. It’s hard to explain. Look, see that raccoon over there. He’s looking around for something. He smells something but he can’t find it. I see a deer skin, smell fresh venison, and I think you killed a deer for dinner. You must have buried the waste and inedible parts. That’s just logic. Your hole was deep enough to fool that raccoon, and smoothed over very well. But now that I know you dug a hole for the waste, I know where the hole is.”
She got up, walked over to where Ben had buried the waste, and tapped her foot on the spot.
“Am I right? I didn’t know about the hole before I got here. I didn’t know about it until I saw the raccoon looking for it. I thought about what he must be looking for. Once I figured that out, I sensed where the hole was. Here, take a moon from the sack and hide it somewhere in the woods. I’ll bring it back.”
“While you’re at it, find your cat, too,” demanded Horace. “He wandered off half an hour ago. Ah’d hate to see him killed so soon, but he’s not at home anymore.”
Betsy opened the sack, smiling at the mass of coins, and pulled one out. She scratched the surface with her knife to mark it, went off into the dark woods for five minutes, then returned. Polly stood up again, thought for several seconds, and went into the woods. A minute later she came back with the marked coin in her hand.
“Where’s the cat?” asked Horace brusquely.
“Up a tree,” answered Polly. “I saw something big beneath it that must have chased him up it. I can’t reach him. Could you please get him down for me, please sir?”
“Hmmpf,” was Horace’s only response as he rose from his seat. “Where is he?”
Polly led him into the woods sixty yards to a tree and pointed up. Horace looked and couldn’t see anything. Then he heard another “meow.” He moved closer, strained his eyes, and finally saw the cat. He reached up and the cat jumped onto his shoulder. He handed it down to Polly.
“Thank you so much, Horace. I really appreciate your help, especially when you don’t seem to like Fearless. This was so kind of you.”
They went back to the camp, and Horace described the rescue.
“It’s a black cat, on a black branch, in the middle of a forest, in the middle of the night. Black on top of black on top of black. Six feet away Ah couldn’t see a thing. Right under the branch, Ah barely saw it. She knowd where it was, just like that. Same way she knowd where the coin was. Ah’m impressed. Ah got a question for you, though, Polly. How’re you going to keep track of that there cat on the trail?”
“I can tie down the lid on the basket,” answered Polly.
“Is what she did magic, too?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know what it is but it’s a skill we need in our band,” declared Vince. “Jenny, you said you had a feelin’ about Ben. I have a feelin’ about Polly. We have to train Ben anyway. One more trainee won’t hurt us. Two more fairly good fighters will definitely help us, and if you can’t train ’em, no one can. We do need to replace Petey and Ellie. If Polly can lead us to her father’s main treasure, we can take a long time off from adventuring.”
“All right, Vince,” agreed Jenny. “I can see what you’re thinking. Being able to find hidden caches of coins and jewels will make our work much more profitable. A few months off to train them, maybe down south where it’ll be warmer, would be a nice rest for us, too. And speaking of rest, we should get to sleep now. It’s been a tiring day, physically and emotionally.”
***
Ben had spread his blanket out away from the two couples. He didn’t want to be distracted by them if they wanted to have some fun. He had decided to continue treating Polly as someone he mustn’t touch. He knew he might be able to talk her into having fun with him, but he also knew the downside of that charm. He hadn’t told the others, but not only did the girl often slap him, she was never fond of him in the morning, even if she went with him willingly. They all ran off as soon as they woke up, and often with expressions of disgust at him. He didn’t want to offend Polly and make her leave the party, so he ignored her and slept by himself.
Polly had brought a cape and a blanket with her when she left home, and she spread her blanket away from all of the others. She had seen the two couples being affectionate, and knew what that might mean. She was a virgin but the servants talked about what men and women did at night, or in the day, even. It’s cold tonight. Should I curl up next to Ben? He was so brave, leading me out of the house and helping me with the horse. He said he wasn’t a trained fighter yet, but he’d protect me. He hadn’t shown the slightest trace of fear. I like that. But he hasn’t asked me to sleep next to him. I wonder if he has another woman somewhere else. Or maybe he’s being polite.
In the morning, Vince awoke first and looked around the camp. He got angry when he saw Ben and Polly curled up on the other side of the firepit. Ben was just tossing off his blanket and heading out into the woods to relieve himself. Vince followed him and spoke to him in a low tone.
“Ben, I really don’t think you should be usin’ your little skill on Polly. I don’t want to scare her away by making her think we’re as bad as the guys who kidnapped her and wanted to attack her. You should treat her with courtesy and respect. Maybe she’ll take a likin’ to you on her own, without the magic.”
“I didn’t do anythin’, Vince. Honest. She was sleeping’ way over there. Sometime in the night she came over to where I was ’n’ said she was cold. She asked if she could cuddle with me. That’s all we did, that’s the truth. I know you don’t want me foolin’ around with her. But she had a light cape ’n’ nothin’ else to keep her warm. Ask her.”
“No. I believe you. I don’t want to scare her off with bad behavior, and I don’t want to drive you off by not trusting you. I’m sorry I was suspicious of you.
“We’ll get her some better sleeping gear today. We’ve got some money now to buy stuff. We need a saddle and tack for the horse, and some rough clothes for her to wear on the road. Let’s see if the others are up yet.”
Horace went into the woods where Vince and Ben came out. Across the clearing Jenny and Betsy were also going into the woods. Polly was near the firepit, one arm deep into the large kettle they used to make their stews. She was peering intently into the kettle, her arm moving vigorously as she scrubbed out the remains of the previous night’s stew. Fearless was beside her, eating the scraps she was pulling from the kettle.
“Good morning,” she called to them as they neared her. “We should’ve cleaned this last night, but it’s not too hard to scrub. Betsy wanted to do it, but I told her I needed to do my share of the chores. Besides, if you’re going to train me to fight, I should build up my strength, right?”
“Where does the daughter of a rich merchant learn about cleaning pots?” asked Vince.
“In the kitchen. Where else? Barnabas was always cool to me. I had no close friends to visit with. I spent a lot of time with our servants. They liked me because I treated them well, so they were friendly with me. I would watch them at work all the time. They wouldn’t let me help them, even when I asked. But I could watch and learn.”
“Why did you name your cat ‘Fearless’?” asked Betsy. “Running up a tree doesn’t seem fearless to me.”
“I had a glimpse of the animal that chased him up the tree, and I think it was that same raccoon that was in camp earlier. He was a lot bigger than Fearless. He’s fearless, but not stupid. He knows he can’t fight something that large. I named him when he was a kitten and took on two mice at the same time. He pounced on one, and grabbed the other with his paw while he bit the first. He’s always been great at catching mice.”
“Where did that other horse come from?” asked Jenny, returning from the woods and pointing to the line of horses tied up along the wood’s edge.
“Oh, that’s mine,” explained Polly. “Barnabas gave me that horse two years ago. When I decided to leave, I took it, not knowing how far I might have to go to find you. I left it there with your horses when I arrived last night. I put my saddle and stuff with yours, too. I also know how to tend to horses, so I’m not totally useless.”
“Well, that’s one problem taken care of,” remarked Vince. “I was thinkin’ we’d need a saddle and tack for that spare horse. If she brought her own, that’s better. We still need to get her some proper clothes for roughin’ it, a couple of blankets, water skin. We have the money now to take care of this, and buy ourselves a few things as well.”
“Not here,” said Betsy. “Barnabas will learn soon enough that Polly is gone again. If he also finds out his money is gone, we’ll be blamed for both, and it won’t be safe to go back into town.”
“I kin go,” Ben volunteered. “I warn’t with you when you set out to rescue Polly, ’n’ I warn’t at the front when we brought her back. Mebbe no one noticed me. Plus, I’m sort of goofy lookin’. No, it’s true. I know it, it’s okay to say it. They won’t pay too much attention to a foolish lookin’ fellow wanderin’ the town. Tell me what to get, give me a little money, ’n’ I’ll buy the stuff. I kin get our food, too.”
“Ben, be honest with me,” asked Horace. “Is this here the way you always usta talk with your family and friends? Because you do not talk like an empty headed fool.”
“Yeah, I always talk like this. Well, I usta make it sound like advice from Scarnigaro, the world’s greatest adventurer, better than anyone else on the whole planet of Sarpala, not just Orilon. I guess it is silly to tell you how to be adventurers. They thought I was simple minded because I was always talkin’ about the old stories. That’s all.”
“Well, stand next to Polly,” directed Horace. “All right, you’re almost the same height, though she’s skinnier. As we was leaving town yesterday Ah saw a stall with clothes for sale. Just this side of the town fountain. Git a set of rough clothes that’ll fit you, and a pair of boots or hard shoes. Two, no, three blankets. You need another one too.
“A water skin, a knapsack, nope, two knapsacks. You need one of those, too. Cain’t be using that bag all the time. Then git us some supplies. You saw what we bought from your ma, that’s what we need again. Betsy, give him, hmmm, thirty moons. That should be enough, right? Let’s eat some breakfast and then Ben can go.”
While they were eating around the fire, Vince asked them to sit and get comfortable.
“Last night Polly told us she could show us where Barnabas’ treasure is hidden. Polly, some rogues do all sorts of crimes to make a living. Those brigands are like that. We don’t usually burgle houses, hold up travelers on the road, or steal from people in towns. Usually. This is a special case, I think. You’ve brought us the reward Barnabas should’ve paid us, so we’re fully rewarded now. But you want to punish your father for being stingy with us, and for not carin’ for your return.
“Revenge is a dangerous thing, Polly. Thinkin’ on it for a long time can warp a person’s mind, and lead him to do stupid things. I lost a good friend in a fight once. I wanted revenge and so did his brother, another good friend. The brother got killed too, and I was left for dead. I learned how dangerous revenge can be.
“I normally won’t allow anyone to seek revenge because of that. I will, however, allow you to take this revenge against your father for two reasons. One, it’s immediate. You’ve just been wronged, and revenge now will not twist your mind because you won’t be dwellin’ on it. Two, you’re a member of our band now, and every member has the right to suggest ways for us to make money. And everyone also has the right to say, ‘That’s a bad idea’ and veto it. Anyone have a problem with this?”
“A problem with taking a rich merchant for all his money?” asked Horace. “Ah don’t hardly think so. Ah’d like to hear how we git into and out of town after dark, with the gates closed. And into the house. We don’t know how Amos got in, and I don’t think battering the door in is a good idea.”
“I have a key to the door,” said Polly, holding up a large iron key. “I never had any need for it, but mother insisted I should have it, as a sign that I was one of the owners of the house.”
“Getting into the town is easy, too,” decided Jenny. “Ben can go back into town just before the gates are closed. After dark, he can overpower the watchman and open the gate.”
“That should work,” said Vince. “The only thing we can’t control is how long it’ll take to find the treasure. You can’t be any more exact about the hiding place, Polly?”
“No, but surely Horace can chop a big hole in the floor with his axe.”
“And wake everyone in the house in the process,” Vince rejected the idea. “If it’s in the floor, there must be a trap door to get at it. Maybe you didn’t ‘sense’ it because you didn’t know just what it’s like. We’ll just have to spend some time lookin’ for it.”
“Ben, you should go into town for those supplies now,” suggested Betsy. “We need them before evening.”
“While we’re waiting for Ben to get back I’m going to check up on Amos and his gang,” announced Jenny. “If he’s still hanging around, he might spot our camp here. I want to see if he’s still nearby or if he went back to the hills.”
“Do you want someone to go with you?” asked Vince.
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“You’re five foot, two. But, yes, you certainly can take care of yourself. Don’t be too long.”
***
An hour and a half later Jenny returned and dismounted.
“Amos is gone. I talked to farmers near the north gate who saw the gate closed on him. He and his men rode around a bit, apparently very angry, shouting, cursing, and then went back north. I checked with other farmers farther north, and they all said a big group of tough looking men rode past their farms, heading north.
“I guess Amos realized he had lost. Barnabas would be certain to add more guards to his house, and there wouldn’t be a second chance for Amos to kidnap Polly. That’s the way I read it, anyway. It’s what I would do in his place. And he had a very good plan for breaking in and grabbing Polly, so he’s not stupid. He may think we’re the toast of the town and taking it easy as guests of Barnabas.
“And that means he won’t come back looking for us. Not unless he wants revenge. And he won’t know which way we might go when we leave Grangus. If we were ever going to leave Grangus, popular local heroes that he thinks we are. He can’t hang around outside the town for too long, either. So he’s totally gone. Speaking of gone, where’s Ben? Why isn’t he back yet?”
“He’s coming up the road now, leading his horse,” Betsy pointed. “I only gave him thirty moons. Ben, how could you buy all this stuff with only thirty moons? You didn’t steal any of it, did you? We’re already in trouble with Barnabas, we don’t need the whole town angry with us too.”
“No, I just talked to the merchants. Sort of the way I talk to the girls I want to have fun with. I just tried to persuade ’em to do me a favor, mebbe they could give me a better price on this ’n’ that. One man gave me the knapsacks for free because I was buyin’ so much from him. I saved some on the clothes ’n’ boots, but mostly on the food. I told ’em I was from a farm, ’n’ they gave me somethin’ they called ‘discounts’ on everythin’. I guess that’s good, huh?”
“You talked them into giving you huge discounts on all of this?” asked Jenny. “Ben, we’ve been making plans to rob Barnabas tonight. Maybe we should just send you in to ask him for his treasure.”
“I might be able to do it. I don’t know. Gettin’ girls to sleep with me is one thing, but I really don’t think it’s magic. Your knife is always really, really sharp, but you said it was made hundreds of years ago. That’s real magic. The spell is still workin’ after all this time. When I talk to a girl, sometimes she just slaps me. If it’s a spell, it don’t last; the next mornin’ she jumps up ’n’ runs away. Sometimes she says nasty things to me, too. Those merchants in town will probably regret givin’ me discounts. If I were to talk Barnabas into givin’ us his treasure, he’d change his mind in the mornin’, too. ’N’ then we’d really be in trouble.”
“Your sweet-talking spell doesn’t last?” asked Betsy. “Just overnight? What about your rabbit hunting sling stones? Your flaming finger lasted for quite a while.”
“Yeah, I kin have a flame on my finger as long as I think about it. But the thing I do with girls is gone in the mornin’, if it works at all. Sometimes I think it only works if she wants to have fun with someone, anyone. My sling stones only work for two or three days, then I gotta think about hittin’ rabbits again. That’s why I don’t think I’m doin’ magic.”
“Ben, I told you the other day that even your great wizard Rupaldo had to start out weak,” explained Jenny. “He probably couldn’t cast a spell that would last forever when he first started. You have to start believing in your abilities. Practice your skills. Practice every day. Think about how to do this. I don’t know how you do it, so I can’t teach you how to do it better. But thinking about it should help you understand it better.”
“He has a spell to make girls like him?” asked Polly, quietly blushing and with a trace of fright in her voice.
“Well, yeah, Polly. I kin sometimes talk ’em into sleepin’ with me when I feel lonely. But I wouldn’t do that to you. Honest! You might git mad ’n’ leave us. I don’t want to offend you. You, well, you’re a reminder of the first adventure I was ever on. Like a deer’s antlers to hang over the fireplace. Better, because I can talk to you. I won’t ever try to control you that way, Polly. Please believe me!”
“Thanks, Ben,” whispered Polly shyly. “I’m glad you said that because I’m starting to like you. You helped rescue me. You promised you’d defend me from the brigands, even if you hadn’t learned to fight yet. That was so brave of you. I know you others did all the hard work, but Ben led me away. He’s been so kind to me. I’m glad he’s not just trying to bewitch me.”
“Well, that’s settled,” said Horace a bit grumpily. “Here now, Polly, go into the woods and git these clothes on. The outfit you wore here is fine for riding in a park the way rich people do, but it won’t hardly hold up to lots of hard riding and mud.
“God! Ben, you brought us at least two weeks worth of food here! Not that I mind. We’ve been on short rations for a while now. Even your rabbits warn’t enough, though welcome. Two bags of oats? Who told you to git ’em?”
“Horses like oats. Grass is fine, but oats ’n’ grass is better. I lived on a farm, remember. We put our horses in the pasture to graze. But when the town race was comin’ up, we gave one of ’em oats too. We ran our horses perty hard the last few days, so I figured they should get oats to keep strong. I’d have bought more, but I was runnin’ out of space on the horse to put anythin’ else.”
“Cooked chickens?” asked Betsy, surprised.
“Even I git tired of rabbit all the time,” explained Ben. “’N’ we was talkin’ about robbin’ Barnabas tonight. We need to sleep early then, but we need to eat before we go out. Food that’s already cooked is the easy way to do that. I remembered that from one of Scarnigaro’s stories, when he was gonna sneak into his enemy’s mansion.”
“Listen to him!” cried Vince. “The simpleton, tellin’ fabulous stories as if they were true, and knowin’ what we need to do. Thank you, Ben.”
***
The first curfew bell rang at the start of twilight, warning the town’s residents to prepare to douse their household lights, and the town’s visitors that the gates would soon close, trapping them inside. Ben watched the men at the south gate clear some barrels out of the gateway so they could close it. He slipped through while their backs were turned and found a good place to hide nearby.
The second curfew bell rang at dusk. Actually, it rang a little ahead of time because the bell ringer was going to meet his sweetheart and didn’t want to wait. The guards closed the gate, dropping the large bar into place on the iron brackets. Two of the men chatted with the third for a while, said “Good night” and walked away. The third man went up some narrow steps to the top of the gate and stood looking over the countryside. Every so often he walked down the wall one way, then back the other way, and returned to his place at the top of the steps.
Ben watched him casually from his nook. Vince would bring up the rest of the band in an hour, when it was fully dark. There had been no moon almost a week earlier when Polly had been kidnapped. The moon was almost half full tonight, but it would set soon. The other moon wouldn’t be up until almost dawn. The stars would give a little light beyond the walls, and in the broader streets and plazas of the town. But most of the town would be dark, discouraging citizens from straying away from home.
Ben thought about the man on top of the gate. I don’t know who this man is. He was pleasant with the other two guards, so mebbe he’s a nice man. He ain’t young, so he’s probably married. He probably has children. I shouldn’t kill this man. His wife ’n’ children’ll miss him, ’n’ he ain’t hurt me in any way. I just need to remove him as watchman tonight.
Mebbe I kin do that talkin’ thing. Vince says it’s magic. I don’t know. It did help me get good prices from the merchants, though. Mebbe I kin talk this man into lettin’ Vince ’n’ the others into town. Oh, but we still need to get out again. What if the spell wears off, the way it does with girls? I wonder. Jenny told me to keep practicin’, keep tryin’ to do things. Mebbe I kin talk him into goin’ to sleep?
If he’s asleep, he’s safe ’n’ unharmed, ’n’ he kin go home to his wife ’n’ family. ’N’ Vince ’n’ the others kin come into town, ’n’ we kin all leave again without any trouble. That’ll work. Yes! Now, how kin I put him to sleep?
Almost an hour later Ben climbed the stairs to the watch post. The guard approached him with a spear in his hands.
“No one’s supposed to come up here after dark. You shouldn’t even be on the streets after curfew. What do you want?”
“I was havin’ trouble sleepin’,” Ben apologized. “I went for a walk, hopin’ it would tire me out so I could sleep. But I’m still awake ’n’ I want to sleep. I saw you ’n’ thought mebbe I’d come up ’n’ have a talk with you ’n’ that would let me sleep.”
Ben kept saying the word “sleep” over and over. The guard lowered his spear to his side and leaned against it. Ben talked about sleeping, and how nice it would be to fall asleep and dream. The watchman’s eyes started to droop a little. Ben suggested the man sit on the top step and lean against the wall. Ben talked some more about how pleasant a little nap would be. The man’s head dropped to his chest and he began to snore. Ben blinked his eyes in surprise. Wow! I did it!
He could see his new friends riding toward the town, leading his horse and their spare horse, so he ran down the stairs and heaved the large bar up. He stood it on end awkwardly because it was so heavy, but managed to get it leaning out of the way against the inner wall. Ben pulled on a huge iron ring fastened to one side of the gate. Slowly the door moved open. Then it moved faster as Vince and Horace added their strength.
“Where’s the guard?” asked Vince.
“Upstairs, asleep,” said Ben. “I just larned how to put people to sleep.”
“Really? You amaze me, Ben,” declared Vince.
Polly led them through the dark streets until they reached the mansion she used to call home. She pulled the large key from a pouch on her belt and stuck it into the keyhole of the large door. Horace turned the key slowly and it moved. A distinct but subdued “click” told them the key had worked.
The reliable man who used to watch the door had been killed by Amos and Serge. His replacement was willing to be brave, but not when confronted by half a dozen armed people. He was also perplexed when he recognized Polly among them. Before he could raise any alarm, Horace slugged the man with his fist and dragged his unconscious body out of the doorway. The house remained quiet.
“Poor Yosef,” said Polly. “I’m sorry, but, well… Oh, I am sorry.”
“All right, Polly, where’s the treasure?” asked Vince.
“Through here,” she told them, leading them up the stairs and through an archway on the right. The room was dark until Ben lit his finger and some candles. The light revealed a very large hall with several other doorways leading to other rooms, and a very high ceiling. An ornate fireplace was at the other end of the hall, and window seats lined one side of the room.
“This is the spot where the treasure is, I think” said Polly. “I sense it very strongly right here.” She tapped her foot on the wooden floor. The polished planks gleamed in the candlelight, but gave no indication of a trap door. Vince and Betsy knelt on the floor, searching for some clue to the hidden door.
“There’s got to be a crack between these boards where the trap door is,” Betsy guessed. “The trap door has to be square or a rectangle, the edges will show as a crack. Even a real tiny crack. We just have to look harder to find it.”
Polly led Jenny and Ben into the storeroom downstairs and pointed to a spot overhead. “Right up there. That’s the spot.” Again, no sign of an opening. Not even any way to get up to the ceiling if their had been an opening. They went back upstairs frustrated.
Horace took a spare candle, lit it, and wandered off, looking into the other rooms nearby, hoping to find something that might be worth stealing if they couldn’t find the big treasure. He knew his bulky body sprawled on the floor would get in everyone else’s way. The candle didn’t throw much light so it was dark inside, and he bumped into a lot of furniture, but it kept him out of the way of the others.
Vince and Betsy were still crawling over the floor, trying to slip a knife blade between two boards, and failing. Betsy traced the edge of every board, looking for a place where it made a corner with another crack. She couldn’t find it. Ben watched them for a while, then joined them crawling on the floor.
“You’re lookin’ for a crack in the boards. Mebbe you don’t have enough light to see it. Look now.”
As he spoke he lit a larger flame on his finger, throwing much more light on the floor. While the candles had provided overhead light, Ben’s finger gave a sideways light, that made for different shadows.
“There! There it is!” exclaimed Betsy, almost forgetting to avoid yelling. “Here, where I’ve got my knife blade. Stick another blade in, um, here? That doesn’t look right. Oh, it is right! This whole piece is moving up!”
The trap door had been almost invisible in the floor because it was irregular. No rectangle making an obvious hatch, several wide planks of different lengths had been nailed to cross pieces underneath. The different lengths kept anyone from seeing the pattern of a door. There was also no hinge to reveal the hole. They lifted the entire section of the floor as one enormous piece, and there was the hiding place. And inside the hiding place was a large chest.
The chest was two feet long, a cubit wide, and a cubit tall. Handles on each end allowed Vince and Horace to lift it out of the floor. It was heavy and that made both men smile widely. They set it on the floor next to the hole and they all looked at it.
“Do we open it here, now?” asked Betsy. “Or should we wait to open it until we’re safely away from town?”
“Polly, is this all the treasure?” asked Vince.
“Yes, I can’t sense any more. I went through the house yesterday to check for more, and this is all I could sense.”
“Then let’s get it onto a horse and get out of town,” said Jenny. “Vince, Horace, tie this chest to our extra horse. We should divide it up into our saddlebags and sacks to make it easier to carry, but that’ll take time. We’ll do that later. Betsy, Ben, help me put this piece of the floor back in place.”
It took some effort and a lot of imagination to lash the unwieldy chest onto the horse, but they finally managed. They had also managed to keep from cursing loudly while doing this. Before they mounted up, Vince went up to Polly.
“Are you satisfied now? Is this sufficient revenge on your father?”
“Uh, I guess so. No! It is enough. I don’t want to do anything more to him now.”
“Good, then do this. Face the house and say this, ‘Father, I have stolen your wealth. You should have rewarded those who rescued me, and I am ashamed that you did not. This is my revenge and punishment for being so heartless. I disown you. I am no longer your daughter. We are now through with each other. I forgive you.’”
“I have to forgive him? Really? Is that necessary?”
“Yes, to clear out the last bit of outrage you feel toward him. If the revenge is complete, you can forgive him. If you can’t forgive him, the revenge is not complete and will eat at you.”
Polly repeated Vince’s words, and they mounted up. The street was still quiet when they walked back to the south gate. Ben went up the stairs and saw the watchman was still snoring away. He came back down, they shut the gates, and rode off into the woods.
“We have five hours until the first light of dawn,” Vince told them. “The horses have been well rested and have enjoyed Ben’s little gift of oats. When Polly’s poor Yosef wakes up, he’ll alert the household. The floor looks normal now, and maybe Barnabas won’t think to check it right away. If he does, he’ll wake up the whole town.
“Even if he doesn’t know we have his treasure, he will be unhappy he was robbed of something. That guy at the door recognized Polly, and Barnabas will assume she’s now with us. So even if he doesn’t know about the money, he’ll have the town up and out looking for us. They’ll find the sleeping watchman and the unlocked gate and know we’re goin’ south. So let’s go as far as we can tonight. There’s a big village half a day’s ride south and they’ll think we’ll go there. But from my wanderin’ days I know of a small village an hour south and quite a ways off to the west of here. We can go there and be safe.”
***
Dawn found them looking down from a hilltop at a village just waking up for work. Milkmaids led cows into sheds, small boys toted pails of water from a creek, an older man sharpened a plowshare while waiting for breakfast to be ready.
“I’ve never been so tired in my life,” sighed Polly. “I didn’t sleep very much back in camp. I was too excited about robbing Barbabas. We haven’t stopped much on the way here. Such a long ride. I’m about ready to fall over.”
“Try to stay on your horse until we can get into those trees to the left,” Betsy told her. “I think they’ll give us enough cover for the daytime. Leftover chicken for breakfast and then sleep.”
Polly had a nibble of a chicken leg and then spread out her new blanket and fell asleep on it. Fearless finished the chicken and curled up next to her. Jenny and Betsy spread out their blankets while Ben put his near Polly. Vince and Horace untied the chest and set it on the ground. They draped an old tunic over it to disguise it. With Ben’s help they unsaddled the horses and groomed them. Then they collapsed into bed too.
Ben woke with the sun high in the sky. Probably two hours past noon. He saw Vince sitting up on his blanket, looking at the chest under the tunic. The others started to awaken as well. They made their separate visits to the woods, and had some water to wash the gritty saliva from their mouths. They discussed the raid, and watched as Fearless visited each in turn, getting used to their scents. They petted him and talked quietly for an hour more until Polly finally woke up.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to oversleep!” she exclaimed. “You should’ve said something. I guess I was more tired than I thought. I’m not used to such long traveling yet.”
“Don’t apologize, dear,” Jenny comforted her. “You were tired and needed to sleep, and no one is chasing us this way. How do you feel about last night? Do you regret robbing your father? Any second thoughts about becoming a rogue? You can quit if you want. We won’t hold it against you.”
“Regrets? Not at all. Barnabas deserves to lose his money. He cares more about it than about me. And what else should I do? If I stayed home, Barnabas would’ve married me off to an old man who had the grand duke’s ear. I didn’t want that. This was fun. It really was. I know, you told me it’s not always enjoyable or safe. But you’ve treated me nicely and I want to stay with you all.”
“Good,” declared Vince, standing up. “Then we can finally open this chest and see how well your first job went. Betsy, can you unlock this thing?”
Betsy knelt in front of the chest and drew something from her pouch that looked to Ben and Polly like thin metal twigs. She spent some time poking one or another into the chest’s keyhole and then sat back with a smile on her face. She pushed the lid back and showed the treasure to the whole party.
The chest was not full, but the jewelry on top of the coins came almost to the lid. Necklaces, headdresses, bracelets, and rings mingled with loose stones. Underneath was a huge mass of coins. Small gold isles peeked out from an ocean of silver. The rogues held their breaths in wonder, afraid to do or say anything that might end this fantastic dream.
“I had no idea Barnabas was so rich,” exclaimed Polly at last. “Why couldn’t he have just paid you? He’d never have missed a mere thousand moons.”
She held up a necklace supporting a large triangle made of small stones linked by small chains. Fearless came over and pawed at the dangling stones.
“We have to count this now,” ordered Betsy. “Ben, did you ever learn to count? I know you’re not stupid, but did your parents think you should know how to count?”
“Oh, yes, I had to count the sheep I took to the fields, ’n’ bringin’ ’em back. They never told me about money, but I had to count the sheep.”
“Good, you kin help us count what we got here,” said Horace.
“Spread these blankets out and smooth them down,” directed Betsy. “This many coins is going to take a lot of counting, and we don’t want to have to get lost and start over. Count out ten coins, then set them aside until you have ten stacks of ten. Push that hundred into a corner of the blanket. Keep the piles of hundreds separate. At the end we can count all the piles of a hundred coins. And keep the gold and silver separate too.”
The early spring evening was getting dim when they finished. They were tired and hungry, but the thrill of counting out hundreds of coins kept them going. Everyone counted the big piles. Everyone came up with the same astounding total.
“Twenty thousand moons and another two hundred fifty suns,” Jenny said with awe. “Twenty-five thousand moons total in cash. Not counting the jewelry, some of which is quite nice looking. Maybe another ten thousand, I don’t know. Polly, do you know what your father paid for any of these pieces?”
“No, but he sometimes taught me how to evaluate jewels. One of the few things we did together. And he sometimes let me buy my own jewelry. I can help you put a value on it.”
“Wow! Twenty-five thousand moons!” exclaimed Vince. “Plus the thousand Polly brought us earlier. And the jewels. That’s over four thousand each. If anyone of you wants to take your share and retire, I’ll understand. A sensible person could live a long time on that much money. Buy a farm and stock it with animals. Open a shop or an inn.”
“Is that what you’re gonna do?” asked Horace.
“And give up my freedom? Are you kidding? I’d die of boredom within three months of bein’ a farmer. No offense, Ben. I enjoy the rovin’ life. I’ll enjoy it even better now that it’s finally paid off.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear you say that, darling,” said Jenny. “Because I like the life too. Betsy, Horace, you two new kids. What about you? Want to retire young?”
“Did Scarnigaro retire when he found the Golden Statue?” asked Ben. “Oh, wait, he did, didn’t he? Oh, well, he’d been doin’ this stuff for a long time ’n’ needed a good rest. I’m just startin’ out. He was famous when he retired, ’n’ no one knows me yet.”
“I reckon we all want to stay together as a band,” agreed Horace. “We got two new recruits who kin do wonderful things for us. We’re still learning just what they can do. We got enough money to do something we been talking about for the last year, Vince. We need new gear. Everything. Even the horses. They’re all wore out except for Polly’s. We got the money now to replace all of our wore out armor, shields, weapons, horses, clothes, packs.”
“He’s right, Vince,” added Jenny. “Everything we have is thread-bare, tattered, full of holes. My shield is about ready to break in two. Betsy’s sword has a big sliver missing from the cutting edge. Five decent horses alone will cost at least a thousand. More, because we need new saddles and tack. We should get a couple of pack animals too.
“Let’s not be cheap now. We have the money to get fully fitted out again like brand new. We may not get a chance like this for a long while. Ben and Polly need armor. Well, we all need new armor. Polly has some clothes now, but we could all use some extra clothes. She needs a weapon of some sort, too.
“We’re going to go through a lot of money doing this, but it’s going to make us better able to handle any challenges we run into. No more worrying about that old shield cracking from just one more blow. No more sleeping cold and wet. No more overworked horses dying on us. Hell, we can afford to have some backup horses.”
“I agree entirely, Jenny,” Betsy stated. “But where are we going to get all these things? The village down there doesn’t look big enough to sell us everything we want. What’s your plan Vince? I know you have one, I recognize the look in your eye.”
“We have food enough for a while, so we bypass this town. We climb up a little into the hills southwest of here and turn east until we find the Dogleg River. We stay on the right bank and follow it down to Barnsley. We can get everything we need there. It’s far enough from Grangus that we won’t have to worry about the law. It’ll take about a week, maybe a little more, of easy travelin’ to get there. We can start trainin’ Ben and Polly on the way. Once we reach Barnsley we settle into a good inn and begin some serious trainin’.
“The big tournament at Ongar will be held in four months. By then, I think we’ll be well equipped and trained enough to show ourselves in public. The tournament’s for the nobles and their men at arms and knights to show off, Ben. And we rogues have our own competitions too. There are always people lookin’ for adventurers to pull their bacon out of the fire, rescue fair damsels, beat up bandits. Betsy, I want you to enter the archery contest again. You almost won last time we were there.”
They made supper and ate, enjoying the freedom of being wealthy and not hunted. Betsy sang a song, and Ben told an old grandfather story about trolls. Finally, they packed their treasure into all the sacks, packs, and bags they had.
“Ben, and Polly, these are your shares of the money,” Jenny instructed them. “You’re members of the gang and every member gets an equal share of any loot. This is yours. Not just to carry it on your horse, but to keep and use as you want. We’re going to be spending a lot of money on new horses, armor, weapons, clothing, lots of things. You’ll pay for your equipment from your share. If we need something truly expensive, we’ll all chip in some money to pay for it. Otherwise, this money is all yours.
“There are contests for us adventurers at Ongar. If you win a contest, the prize is all yours. You win, you get to keep it. If we all work to make some money, we all share. Got it?”