The Path of the Sword (21 page)

Daved halted as though nails had suddenly sprouted from his feet into the floor and he stood with one hand on the door, expectant.

“I have been a fool, haven't I?” Jurel said but there was no response. “And a coward too. I-I thought that weapons were, well, evil. That fighting was evil. I still do. But then I saw something while you were out. An image of you with that sword drawn standing over a child. Was that real?” He paused, floundering for a conclusion that was as yet just outside his reach. “It doesn't matter. You're my father. You're a good man. Yet you fought and you...killed.”

This time, a slow tentative nod urged Jurel to forge on, and his thoughts raced as he tried to put the pieces together.

“Is it possible that it might be evil to just stand by and watch bad things happen when you know you can help? That by not standing up and stopping it, you allow more bad things to happen?”

Daved's head turned until Jurel could see him in profile, his one visible eye looking to the ground as if he himself were pondering Jurel's words and so quietly that Jurel had to strain to hear, he said, “Keep going.”

“Is it possible that-that an act even as horrible as killing can be...not evil? As long as its for the right reasons?” An image of a fat man in a pristine white apron. Red blooming from around a jutting sword hilt. “Like defending people?”

“If there is no other choice, perhaps,” Daved said and his words were clear though still not much more than a whisper.

“Then I am a coward,” he muttered miserably falling back into his chair. “All these years, Valik has been cruel, has been bullying not just me but Trig and Darren, Wag and the girls. If I had stood up to him, things would have been different.”

Three drunk boys sitting beside a pond,
their
pond. Jurel would not help his friends defend their turf. Another act of cowardice. Even the fugue that his father told him he was in was not justification enough. After all, the fugue had been caused by his utter lack of courage.

Daved turned then, and took a step forward but still he offered no other words.

Jurel stared at the floor as he continued miserably, “But I don't like fighting. My mother...my
father...”

A tear streaked its lonely way down Jurel's cheek.

“No matter how hard we try,” his father said gently, the softness somehow making the words all the more unbearable, “sometimes bad things happen. That does not mean we shouldn't try.”

That cold numbness came over him again as he stared woodenly into his hands. His mind had halted on one thought: he was a coward. A sob escaped, then another. A memory so old that it was more an impression came to him: his mother had laughed like a trilling bird when he had pounced on his dozing father's girth, had laughed harder when father and son fell to the floor in a mock wrestling match. The impression was replaced by his father scolding him when he had managed to get himself up into the chandelier by jumping from the nearby stairs. His face crumpled into a grimace of agony and sorrow so long repressed.

“I miss them father,” he wailed, forlorn, empty. “I miss them!”

He was engulfed in powerful arms, the scent of fresh soil and sweat, scents he had come to associate with home, and his father's soothing voice, “I know lad. I know. We all lost loved ones that day. Your parents,” his voice broke and he cleared his throat. “Your parents were good people. I counted them amongst my closest friends.”

He chuckled, a sound that carried love and sadness. “Your father used to push tankard after tankard at me long after closing time while he regaled me with stories of your latest escapades. Whatever possessed you to poke a strange horse in the rump with that stick, by the way? Damn near hoofed you for it too, Gram said.

“When I tried to pay the tab on those nights, he always told me that listening to a father's stories was payment enough.”

He pushed Jurel out to arms length and looked him in the eye. “They were so proud of you Jurel,” he said with a solemn, unblinking gaze. “They believed that you were meant for greatness, that some day your name would blaze across the stars. I believe that, were they here, they would rather see the man you were meant to become and not the man you currently are.”

Stifling an involuntary surge of resentment, for he knew his father only spoke the truth, he nodded. He knew now that he could not go on living his life as he had been. Not unless he wanted to find one of those secluded temples where priests swore vows of silence and celibacy, who stayed confined behind the walls of their self-imposed prisons. He had to grow up.

He tried to smile but even without seeing it, he knew it was a tremulous, pathetic thing. “I will try father. I will make them—and you—proud of me.”

“
I
am
proud of you son. I told you, you're a good lad. You just need to put the past behind you and find your future, find yourself.”

Chuckling, Daved rose up and eyed Jurel with what could only be described as mischief. “Shall I teach you a little something about your sword then?”

“No,” he said, far too quickly, far too vehemently, darkening his father's expression. “Not yet,” he added hurriedly. “Please give me a little time to think on all of it.”

The hawk's eyes glared for a moment before Daved nodded.

“I can live with that. Do yourself a favor though. Try to learn a little before you go off on your own.” He smirked, “If nothing else, I can teach you to keep from tripping over it at every second step.”

Jurel could not help the bark of laughter that escaped him. “Yes sir.”

“Well, time's a-wasting. We should get going soon. I'll give you a little time to compose yourself and you might consider washing your face. You look terrible.”

In truth, Jurel felt terrible, like a wet rag that had been wrung out to within an inch of its life but his father was right: chances were, everyone would be waiting for them to arrive before the feast could begin. The thought of food made him a little queasy but he did not want to be the reason that the party was ruined. So he pushed himself up and hurried to do as his father bade.

Chapter 16

“Well there they are!” Galbin roared jovially from his place at the head of the main table when Daved and Jurel pushed their way through the door. “I was beginning to wonder if you two were going to turn this into a midnight feast!”

Laughter erupted from the crowded tables and Daved looked sheepishly at his best friend. Only Jurel was close enough to see the amusement in his eyes.

“I apologize, dear master, for our tardiness. It seems I've gained some weight and it has slowed me down.” He patted the lean, solid muscle of his belly and more laughs erupted at this obvious dig aimed at his very hefty friend.

“Why you insubordinate wretch,” Galbin growled though with a broad smile and twinkling eyes. “Hurry your fat ass up here and sit down! I'm hungry!”

“Of course you are,” someone in the crowd hooted. “You've only eaten half a turkey tonight!” And Galbin joined in the uproarious laughter, patting his rotundity.

Scanning the room, Jurel was impressed by the extent of the decorations. The two-level cots that usually filled the room were gone. Garlands painted red, orange and black hung from the rafters so the room seemed engulfed in some otherworld mist. Wooden cutouts, vaguely man-shaped and painted all black hung on the walls and seemed to float, shadows in the night, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble across an unseen border and into their waiting grasps.

When he finally laid eyes on his seat, his heart sank, for though it was between Darren and Erin, it was also directly across from Valik.

“Looks like your place is over there, Jurel,” Daved said. And then more quietly, “Don't worry about him. I don't imagine even he would try something stupid with a room full of people.”

Daved strode ahead toward his own place beside Galbin but turned when an afterthought seemed to strike him. “Try not to get too drunk, young man,” he said for the benefit of listening ears and he
winked before he turned away again.

Jurel approached, muttering apologies when he nudged a chair, or jostled an elbow and when he got to his vacant seat he exchanged greetings with Trig, Darren and the girls. He pointedly ignored Valik but a surreptitious glance showed a sour moue of distaste. There was something else in the young man's expression too, but Jurel could not quite put his finger on it. Shrugging inwardly, he sat, pleasantly surprised by the tankard of ale, still foaming, that rested before him.

He had it to his lips ready to taste his first swallow when a snicker from Valik caught his attention. He glanced over the froth to see Valik glaring at him with thinly veiled anticipation.

“Go on coward boy. Drink. Not afraid of a little ale are you?” he growled and his two new best friends, Shenk and Merlit, farm hands that had been the first men Galbin had let him hire on his own, smirked.

He would not let them get to him. He would enjoy his evening. His day had been unpleasant enough; surely he deserved some reprieve. He took a large mouthful and swallowed, frowning at the strangely sour taste. Frowning more deeply when the three men across from him broke out into gales of laughter.

“So what do you think of the ale boy?” Valik crowed.

Jurel began to get a nasty suspicion when Shenk spoke up.

“I always heard warm beer tastes like piss,” he laughed and the other two roared in response. “But cold beer too?”

“Aye, Valik's own special reserve,” Merlit said between guffaws.

Horrified, Jurel looked at his half-f tankard then up to Valik, realization dawning on him.

Trig and Darren shot up from their seats, glowering at Valik, but it was Erin who spoke first.

“You are a pig, Valik,” she hissed contemptuously. “A dirty pig, do you know that?”

“That goes too far,” Trig said.

Still chuckling, well impressed with his own cleverness, Valik waved them off.

“It was just a prank. No harm done,” he said then shot a threatening look at Jurel. “Right coward boy?”

When the urge struck to leap over the table and beat Valik to a bloody mess while screaming nasty names into that oily swine's face, Jurel could not have been more surprised. Perhaps the discussion with his father earlier had some effect, but he did not relish the idea of ruining everyone's evening. Not for
that
little pissant. He contented himself with a stare filled with malice and daggers at his life-long foe.

“No. No harm done,” he replied acidly, tightly. Taking each of his friends in, he smiled, tried to smother the burning inferno in his chest. “Let's forget this foolishness and enjoy the evening.”

He was bewildered when Trig shook his head and sat, when no one at the table would look at him, until Wag leaned over and whispered something to Darren with a sly smirk aimed at him. Darren punched him in the arm, angrily ordering him to mind his own business. Jurel would do what Jurel would do.

Then the bewilderment parted like a stage curtain to show him the truth: He did not defend himself. Valik had humiliated him. Again. And he sat there and did nothing about it. Again. They pitied him. Or perhaps they scorned him. Probably some of both, he realized, and he had to look away so they would not see him flush with shame.

“I will not ruin your night, or any one else's Darren. Can't you see that?”

Darren did not even bother to look at him. Or could not. “Of course, Jurel. Of course.”

Dinner arrived shortly after and despite everything that Jurel had been through that day, when he saw the servers arrive with platters piled high, he found his appetite had not deserted him after all. He ate three plates—silently and as alone as anyone could be surrounded by dozens of boisterous farmers and their families. He drank too, and after the third tankard of ale (each of which he checked before drinking, just in case) he pretty much decided to throw his father's cautionary words to the wind.

Drink made him brave, drove away those fears that would have plagued him while sober, and he forced his way into the conversation more and more as the evening wore on. Annoyed at first, his friends began to welcome his intrusions when it became apparent that, aside from making him bolder, drink made him much more amusing.

“By God, Erin. You're beautiful, you know that? Those eyes, that hair, your wonderful, wonderful lips. And that body!”

Trig and Darren snickered as Erin blushed prettily. “Oh stop,” she said but somehow, drunk or no, Jurel got the feeling that she wanted anything but for him to stop. Perhaps it was the hand she laid on his arm, or the way she rested her chin in her other hand and leaned a little closer, gazing at him.

“No no. Really,” Jurel said. “I bet you don't know that I watch you when you're busy. You're just so...beautiful. Like a dove. I can't help myself. And you're graceful as a swan. I don't know. I'm not good at saying what I mean. I'm just a farmer after all.”

“I think she understands you Jurel,” Darren said, clapping him on the shoulder. “How about another tankard?”

“I don't think anything could be as intoxicating as staring into those eyes,” Jurel sighed and Erin giggled.

As the night continued, and the ale flowed, the young men started trading bawdy jests, laughing uproariously while Erin tittered, blushing furiously. Frieza, still too young to understand much of what was said was constantly begging Erin to explain one joke or another while the older girl shooed her away.

“
You are far too young to be
hearing
this let alone having any of it
explained
to you,” the young lady said, and her face was red as a beet.

“...and there he was, with his pants around his ankles, still plowing the field while his wife, naked as the day she was born, stood at the edge of the field.” Darren ended his joke and the others hooted in delight.

“Aye, and I bet that's not the field he wanted to plow with his pants around his ankles,” Jurel snickered with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.