“All right, I’ll start,” began Betsy. “My father was a great archer, and a great teacher of archery. He trained the archers for our baron, in Reorith, up north. But when the baron died his son, Randulor, decided to replace his archers with mounted men at arms. He kept the archers he already had, of course. They could help defend the baron’s castle, but they weren’t going to be used in the field any longer so there was no need to train more. My father was given a nice comfortable room in the castle along with his meals and clothing. It was a pleasant retirement for him.
“I had hoped to continue his work training archers for the baron, but that was out now. I was seventeen, time to be married, so I married the baron’s head gamekeeper and huntsman, Hank. I helped him bring in game for the baron’s feasts and manage the wildlife in the woods. We had a cottage in the woods and were happy there for a long while.
“One day we were at home and heard a girl screaming. We ran outside and saw Mennanon, the baron’s son, and a couple of his friends trying to rape a young girl from the village. I guess they thought they could hide their deed in the woods. But we saw them and Hank ran up to them and told them to stop.
“Mennanon pushed Hank away and told him, “Mind your own business, peasant, if you know what’s good for you.” Hank came right back and ordered, “Let the girl go, she’s too young for this.” Mennanon got incredibly angry at that and drew his sword. He slashed at Hank and cut him down. Then he laughed.
“I was shocked. A young girl was being raped, and by the baron’s son, and my husband had been killed right in front of my eyes. Shocked and outraged. I went into the cottage and came out with my bow and a quiver full of arrows. I only needed three of them. The first killed Mennanon. The next two killed his friends.
“Then I did something stupid, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I rode to Randulor’s castle to complain about his son’s murder of Hank. Silly me. I didn’t realize that he cared more for his dissolute son than for some peasant huntsman. I got arrested for murdering his son, and Randulor immediately sentenced me to death by hanging.
“My father was distraught. He begged and pleaded with Randulor, to no avail. I must be punished for killing Mennanon. My father tried to at least delay my execution, hoping something, some miracle, would happen to save me if it could be put off for a while.
“He told Randulor that we had noble blood in our veins. The baron was skeptical, but his herald, who knew every noble’s family history, said it was true. Father’s grandfather had been a younger son of some other baron’s family. The privilege of being beheaded instead of hanged only extended through so many generations, and I was the last generation to benefit. Randulor did not have the right to behead criminals, only hang them. So my execution was postponed, but maybe not for long.
“Count Espinian, Randulor’s overlord, was coming for a visit that week. He had the authority to have someone beheaded, even had his own executioner. Randulor gloated when he told me that. I cried through the night.”
“This here’s where Ah come into the story,” Horace announced. “Ah should start, though, with how Ah got there. Ah was just a farm boy when Ah was young, almost as big as Ah am now, and as strong. Like Vince, Ah’d gone on the road with some rogues for a while. Too much fighting with each other, and, worse, too little money. Ah went back home.
“Ah was chopping firewood one day when Baron Wimelper came riding past our farm. He was impressed by my size and apparent strength and asked if Ah wanted to become one of his guards. He was trying to build a personal bodyguard of big tough men. He wanted men with double bitted axes, reckoning they would be imposing and deter attacks on him.
“My family had too many sons for our farm. My folks was a bit sorry to see me leave again, but Ah was gonna make a nice living working for the baron, and the farm could spare me easily. Wimelper gave me an axe and a trainer and some very fine clothes. Ah larned how to use the axe and joined the rest of the bodyguard. There was four of us with the big axes, and six other men at arms with swords and shields.
“Two years later some of the barons of Reorith went into revolt against Count Espinian. Ah don’t know why; nobles don’t bother explaining to their men why they’re going to war. Wimelper joined the rebels and got into trouble right away. He had sent his son out with all of his knights to raid Espinian’s lands, which warn’t far off. But the count warn’t staying at home either. Half of his army showed up in front of Wimelper’s castle and began a siege.
“Wimelper was too eager for a quick victory and led his men out to fight right away. And he did lead us out personally, surrounded by his bodyguards, our axes flashing in the sun. Thrilling! We pushed a way into Espinian’s force, partly by the ferocity of our attack, but mainly, Ah think, because we caught ’em off guard.
“The fight went on for a long while, and we was losing. Then Wimelper saw Espinian with only a few men around him. He rushed right at him, leaving us guards behind. Most of us guards was already dead or badly wounded. There was just Finn and me left, both axe men. We followed Wimelper, but too late. Some peasant with a spear came running up and stuck him in the back. You kin say it warn’t fair, but in a battle you kill your enemy any way you kin.
“Finn and Ah got surrounded by a mob of peasants armed with all sorts of things. Somebody with a giant hammer, musta used it to drive posts into the ground, clobbered me and knocked me out. When Ah came to, the battle was over. Finn was sitting nearby, all tied up. Some guys tied me up when they saw Ah was still alive. Ah could see Wimelper’s body lying nearby, stripped of his nice armor.
“Count Espinian came over to Finn and me. ‘You fought extremely well and Ah kin use men like you. Your baron is dead; you have no work now. Agree to serve me honestly and Ah’ll pardon you. Ah’ll give you jobs as my bodyguards, just as you was for Wimelper. Refuse and Ah’ll exile you.’
“Easy choice. We was just peasants with a good thing going as bodyguards. Knights and nobles might take these things more seriously, but not us. There was two more big battles before the barons was defeated. Ah cut down two men who was about to overwhelm Espinian in the first battle, and that pleased him a lot. Finn got his leg lopped off in the second battle, and was given a cushy job, assistant quartermaster at the count’s castle.
“Then we captured Wimelper’s son, Fallstomus, still roaming about causing trouble with his knights. Espinian wanted to execute him and asked me to do it with my axe. Ah told him Ah didn’t mind killing anyone on the battlefield, that was kill or be killed. But killing a prisoner who couldn’t fight back bothered me. Ah said if Ah could attend his trial and know that he was guilty, Ah’d do it.
“That stunned him. No one gave him conditions for obedience. He expected everyone to just obey his orders. He was fair, and believed in justice, but this was an obvious case, he felt. Still, Ah’d saved his life earlier and he felt he owed me something. So he held a trial for Fallstomus. Ah knew him from the days when Ah guarded his father, and he was a nice enough guy for a baron’s son.
“But he warn’t too bright. Espinian offered to spare him and give him his father’s barony if he just swore fealty to him. And the kid wouldn’t do it. He admitted being a rebel and defied Espinian right to his face. So he was convicted and sentenced to have his head cut off. Officially, he was beheaded for rebellion, but Ah cut his head off for being stupid.”
“Espinian trusted me a lot more after that, knowing Ah had been willing to behead someone Ah knew, someone Ah didn’t have a grudge against. The rebellion was over, but Espinian warn’t sure how many of his barons he could rely on. He made a progress through his lands, visiting all the barons and smoothing over any disputes there might be. That’s how Ah come to be at Baron Randulor’s castle.
“Espinian asked me if Ah’d behead the woman who had killed the baron’s son. Ah gave him the same answer Ah’d given him for Fallstomus. Ah wanted to hear the trial and if Ah reckoned she was guilty, Ah’d behead her. Randulor didn’t want to bother with a trial but Espinian said a trial was required for any death penalty. Randulor made the argument against Betsy, forcefully, vengefully. Betsy relied on simply telling the truth as plainly as she could. The baron’s hand picked jurors found her guilty, of course.
“Ah was shocked that such an obvious case of justified killing was turned against the woman. Espinian asked me if Ah would do my duty as he had asked. Ah told him Ah would do my duty. What Ah did not say was that it would be my duty to justice. Ah had seen Betsy’s father pleading with the count. Ah found him and told him to go to her home and bundle up her clothes and weapons.
“At dawn Ah was in the town square, where they would hold the execution. My horse and all my gear was standing nearby, with another horse for her. There were a lot of people to see the beheading, but no one paid any attention to the horses. Count Espinian sat on a chair to one side, but Baron Randulor stood right by the block, eager to see her head fall. Ah asked one of his men to cut the ropes on her arms. ‘ Ah don’t kill bound men on the battlefield, and Ah cain’t kill a bound woman here, either. What kin she do to you?’ So they cut her loose.
“Ah raised my axe dramatically, then brought it down swiftly. Instead of aiming for her, Ah swung it across and cut off Randulor’s head. It went flying across the market, blood erupted from his neck, and everyone panicked. Ah told the woman to run, and pulled at her arm. At the third step she realized that the miracle her father had wanted had actually happened. We jumped on the horses and rode off as fast as we could.
“We stopped at her cottage to git her belongings. Clothes, two bows, quivers full of arrows, some food for our journey. Two more saddled horses and a mule with all the gear. Her father hugged and kissed her, shook my hand, gave us his blessings and wishes for a quick escape. We went into the woods behind the cottage. We learned later that he had sent the eventual pursuit in the other direction. He was arrested for helping us get away, but Espinian forgave him, and brought him to his own castle for a quieter retirement.”
“We rode all day to get as far as possible from the town,” continued Betsy. “Horace was for just barging straight through everything, breaking branches and leaving a trail that a child could follow. But I knew what a huntsman knows about trails, and so how to avoid being followed. We rode around the edges of open meadows, close enough to the grass not to break branches in the forest, but not riding on the grass. We rode up or down stream when we came to small creeks, coming out where our tracks would not be too noticeable.
“We kept going uphill and finally went through a pass into the neighboring duchy of Bosno. That was a few days after we had started out, and it was the first time we dared to relax. The climb up through the pass started low and easy, but by the time we reached the top of the pass it was night, and cold. We had plenty of blankets, but it was still cold, so I asked if we could snuggle, just for warmth. I was twenty, I’d been married, I knew men wanted more than a snuggle. But I asked for only that and he agreed.”
“Ah hesitated,” said Horace. “Ah was twenty-one, and usta being with women. This was a bit different, though. Ah told her ‘Yes, just for warmth. Ah think you’re attractive but Ah know you just lost your husband. Ah’d enjoy more than cuddling, but Ah won’t expect it unless you ask me. If you never do, well, that’s life.’ She looked a little surprised, and embarrassed, and grateful, all wrapped up together. We only cuddled on really cold nights on the road, sleeping apart otherwise.
“At the trial Ah reckoned she was just a woman getting bullied by the evil baron. But as Ah thought about her account of avenging her husband, Ah realized she was no one to bully. She didn’t hardly hesitate to shoot the baron’s son and his friends. She had defended herself in court boldly, too. Ah liked that. My mother and aunts was all strong-willed women. They didn’t push their husbands around, but they didn’t take any guff from ’em either.
“And she’s attractive. It was nice to travel with a woman who was pleasant to look at, and capable of taking care of herself. She hunted for us, Ah dressed the carcasses. After two months we reached a town and realized we was broke. Time to look for work, but what kind of work for a count’s bodyguard and a hunter?
“A merchant in the town was arranging a caravan with a lot of valuable trading goods. He needed some guards to protect him on the road. He was glad to take me and my axe. Betsy didn’t impress him, but Ah said it was a package deal, so he allowed her to come along. The third day on the road we got attacked by some bandits and she shot two before they got within fifty feet of us. After that he agreed to pay her same as the rest of us guards.”
“We stayed with him for more than a year,” added Betsy. “The pay wasn’t all that much, but he covered our traveling expenses, paid for inns and meals, and let us sleep with the servants when he was home. Then we came home from a long trip, dusty, tired, and thirsty. Really thirsty. The merchant paid us when we got to his house, and we went out for a drink, not even bothering to change from our road clothes.
“Vince and Jenny were in the tavern we chose, saw us entering all covered in dust, and assumed we were rogues like them. We resented being considered rogues just because we lived on the road a lot.
But Vince gave us his talk about married couples as rogues, fighting bandits and brigands, and we were a little interested. Then Vince told us how much we could make taking out these thieves. That opened our eyes.”
“Then I asked the question I should’ve asked first,” Vince admitted. “Seeing ’em together, I had assumed they were married, but I had to ask, and they said ‘No, hadn’t even thought about it, just friends.’ I was disappointed, especially after hearing Horace talk about usin’ a big axe, and how good Betsy was with a bow.”
“We were impressed with what Vince had said,”Betsy declared. “I had gotten over my grief for the loss of Hank. Horace had been kind and polite to me all the time we spent together on the road. He never tried to take advantage of me or molest me, even if we huddled together for warmth on a cold night. He told me once early on that he’d leave me alone, but if I wanted attention I should let him know. So now I turned to him and asked ‘Want to get married?’ He was like Vince, shocked for a moment, then he grabbed my hand and ran me to the Temple.”
“Betsy was, as she still is, a great archer,” explained Jenny, “but she had never used a sword. So I began to train her. She practiced against me, and then Vince, and got worn out between the two of us. But in three months she was a decent fighter. In six months she could handle most other fighters pretty well. We started to look for bigger targets.”
“Then we met up with Petey and Ellie,” continued Vince. “Petey was a ladies man; he loved women and they all loved him. He had a goatee, which most guys don’t care for, and a mustache he kept pointed with pomade. He was so elegant, and he knew it. Ten women would be hanging around him, but he’d only pay attention to one of ’em, all night. The next night, the same ten women might be around him, but he’d choose some other woman. They never cared, each only hoped her turn would come.
“He could’ve been a death sentence for a group like ours, bewitching our wives from us. But he had met Ellie and fallen for her the way other women fell for him. I don’t know how, but he loved her desperately, and she loved him the same. He married her on sight, and never looked at another woman again, or so he said.”
“Yeah, Petey was dangerous to us,” Jenny said. “It was hard to look at him and not think about wandering. But he never tried to get Betsy or me into his bed. Ellie became another trainee for me. She also had no experience with weapons, but she learned well. She wanted to do whatever Petey did. If he wanted to be a rogue and go around fighting, then so did she. They were good members of our band, and I miss them both a lot.
“I miss Magda and Franz, too. They joined us after Petey and Ellie. That gave us eight fighters, four loving couples, fierce as anything in combat. Magda’s parents were brigands and she had learned fighting and stealing as she grew up. She fell off her horse while her gang was raiding some town, and she got captured. The townsfolk were tough enough to fight back, and they also caught two of the men. They hanged the men, but gave Magda a break because she was quite young and a woman. They tried to teach her honesty, and it worked, mostly.
“She got older and better mannered and eventually married Franz. He was just a farmer, but he had served sometimes with the baron’s militia. One year a merchant said someone had stolen money from him and blamed Magda, because of her parents. Things got ugly very fast and Franz and Magda fled. We met up with them shortly after that. They had some fighting skills, so we added them to the band.”
“They were a nice addition, but I made a big mistake,” confessed Vince. “We were chasin’ a dozen bandits and followed ’em into their hideout. It was in a partly wooded area, and we didn’t scout the place out the way we should have. Twelve bandits were goin’ to be easy targets for eight of us. But it wasn’t a dozen bandits, it was four or five dozen. Maybe more. We didn’t have time to count; we were too busy fightin’ to get away.
“Lots of bandits seemed to use the same woods to hide in, and they were all there when we came in. Magda and Franz were in the lead as we went in, and they got surrounded very quickly by twenty or thirty men. We closed around ’em to protect ’em, but they were badly wounded in that first attack. We managed to pull out, but Magda had a deep cut in her leg that bled very badly. Franz had taken a sword point through his stomach, and his innards were hanging out. They died that night. That’s my fault, I was in a hurry. We should’ve checked the woods out better. We do now, too late for Magda and Franz.”
“You told us the difference between bandits and brigands,” said Polly, calming Fearless who was unhappy about the constant rain. “But you mentioned Wanderers, too. I’ve heard the word, but don’t know what it means.”
“The term rogue, or adventurer, covers a wide range of people,” explained Vince. “Guys simply goin’ around looking for buried loot. Bandits. Brigands. People like us who hunt bandits and brigands. All of us are people who don’t want a regular job. Wanderers are to rogues what ponies are to horses, really low end of the roving, adventuring class. They’re called Wanderers because they travel all the time, in wagons with tents or small huts covering ’em. They have only simple weapons, like clubs or knives, because they don’t really want to fight. They steal anything they can, but not if they have to fight for it. ‘Chicken thieves’ is what a lot of people call ’em.
“Their biggest source of money is horse trading. One of their favorite tricks is to offer a fine looking, obviously valuable horse at a very good price. If an ordinary horse was worth 200 moons and a nobleman’s horse was worth 500, this horse would look like one fit for a noble, but was offered for a mere 200 moons. The buyer would agree to the deal and go home for his money. He would be told to meet the seller at the crossroads outside town after dark. In the dark he would pay for a horse covered with a blanket because of the cool night air, and take it home. In the mornin’ he would find an old beat up wreck of a horse instead of what he thought he had bought. The Wanderer would have fled as soon as the buyer was out of sight.”
“That’s why we always sell our captured horses in town, to proper horse dealers,” added Betsy. “Both sides are sure it’s an honest deal.”
“So, that’s all our sordid, nasty history,” finished Vince. “Are you still sure you want to ride with us?”
“You’ve told us how you’ve done awful things,” Polly answered. “All of you have killed people, almost casually. But I can’t fault Jenny killing those vicious women who wanted to murder a small boy. Or Horace cutting off the head of the baron to save Betsy. If I were there, and knew how to fight, I’d have done the same.
“And even you, Vince, you’re not a cruel monster, not anymore at least. You’ve changed. You admit that you’re trying to be better. I don’t have to deal with the old, nasty Vince. The only Vince I know is the one who warned me not to hold onto a desire for revenge. I only see you as you are now, trying to protect me. And you’re all like that. You like me, you take care of me. No one’s done that since mother left. Can I go back to a father who doesn’t care about me? You’re my family now.”
“Grampa’s stories were full of adventurers killin’ their enemies,” Ben said. “The stories never went into so much detail as you’ve all just given. Seein’ a little of the fightin’ as we rescued Polly was seein’ what adventure really was. Danger all around, not knowin’ if we’re gonna survive. But there was a thrill there for me. I was really doin’ what the old heroes did in the stories, ’n’ it wasn’t a story.
“You said rogues had no use for law or morality. But you do. You wanted to rescue Polly to get the big reward Barnabas offered. But you also wanted to do it because of that other girl. Even when you lost Petey ’n’ Ellie, you wanted to rescue Polly. It was gonna be harder, but you wanted to do it because it was the right thing to do. The heroes grampa told me about were like that. That’s why I want to stay with you guys.”
“Ben, I’ve told you there ain’t no such thing as magic anymore. You’ve proved me wrong about that. But I do know this: there ain’t no such thing as heroes anymore. There’s people who fight for bad reasons who are never heroes, and people who fight for good reasons. Even the ones who fight for good reasons don’t often put their lives on the line. Death is a great discouragement to heroism.”
“We been talking all day,” Horace noted, “and the rain is finally stopping. We should make some supper and git some sleep so we can hit the road early tomorrow.