The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron (23 page)

Four took a step closer to Cimozjen. “I do not understand,” he said. “During the War he was trying to kill you, and now he acts as your friend.”

Cimozjen chewed his lip. “It’s rather hard to describe, Four, unless you’ve served as a soldier.”

“I have fought. Many times.”

“Your style of fighting was different. It was an arranged duel—more of a brawl, really—where you and the other person were trying to kill each other. In war, one tries to defeat the other side, and there is no personal animosity between the actual soldiers. You can respect your foe, even admire him, and still fight to defeat him. That’s a part of what is called chivalry. You fight with honor and courage, but the fight is about the battle, not the other person.”

“Chivalry?” said Minrah. “I never saw any.”

“It is true, there were undisciplined troops, levees and the like, and more of them took the field as the War dragged on. I dare say the only way their officers could get them to fight was to make them hate the other side, rather than fighting out of a sense of duty or honor. And that’s where the shameful things started to happen, like massacring villages and killing the wounded. That is purely and simply wrong—it is evil, in fact—but the more it happened, the more it progressed from the levees to the soldiers to the leaders.” He snorted. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s why the kings and queens finally agreed to the peace. They feared that if captured, they’d no longer get the respect that nobles are due.”

“Your answer does not make me understand any better,” said Four.

Cimozjen took a deep breath as he considered this. “Your
style of fighting, what you did, was to win that fight against that person. You had to kill or be killed. If you won, you lived, and if you lost, you died. War is different. For one side, say those of us in Karrnath, for us to win, we had no need to eliminate every other living thing on the continent. Likewise, as soldiers our goal was for our side to win, and not necessarily for us as individuals to survive. Sometimes, by sacrificing his own life, a soldier helps his side to win. And that, Four, is a part of what honor is, to sacrifice one’s selfish needs to serve the needs of others.”

“Sounds like stupidity to me,” said Minrah. “If you’re dead, how can you help them later?”

“Sometimes one can accomplish more in one’s death than one could in the rest of one’s life,” said Cimozjen.

Minrah snorted, but said no more as the one-handed clerk returned to the desk carrying several scrolls tucked under his crippled arm.

“These should have what you’re looking for,” he said.

Together he and Cimozjen looked over the parchments, locating the quartermaster’s master list of manifests of the campaign in question. Then the clerk unrolled a second scroll, and they poured over the lists on it. “Here you are,” he said at last, pointing triumphantly. “List of those captured.”

“We’re looking for Torval Ellinger, of Irontown.”

“Here he is,” said the clerk, stabbing the parchment. “Ellinger, T., head, F.”

“Head?” asked Minrah. “F?”

“Heads wounds, you see a lot of them among prisoners,” said the clerk. “Someone gets himself whacked hard and either knocked out cold or driven too confused to fight, then they get rounded up after the battle is won. The other common wound you see is when they take a debilitating wound that doesn’t cause them to bleed to death. Maybe an arrow in the joint of their shoulder, say, or …” he gestured vaguely with his ruined arm. “The F means he was rated as fit. H means they needed a healer, C means crippled and, well, on down the line.”

“I’m surprised they even bothered to list them by name,” said Minrah. “I’d have expected something like, ‘Twenty-seven accursed usurpers, slain where they stood.’ ”

The clerk and Cimozjen both gave the young elf withering looks. “Fair and equitable treatment of prisoners of civil strife, regardless of station, is required by the Code of Galifar,” said the clerk.

“Allow me to apologize on her behalf, friend,” said Cimozjen. “She knows not of what she speaks.”

“Cimmer—” she huffed.

“Silence!” snapped Cimozjen.

“No apology is necessary,” the clerk said to Cimozjen. “I long since learned to ignore the darts and arrows of those who never fought.” He unrolled the scroll further. “Aha. A detail was assigned to march the able-bodied prisoners to the Daskaran command.”

He returned to the back room for a moment and came out with a large ledger. He flipped through pages and pages of entries before finding the right date.

“Good. Here it says that he was given over to the stewardship of the Custodians at Areksul. Looks like they put him on a timbering gang. That’s good work, you know. Beats being sent to the mines or digging graves.”

“So at the end of the War,” asked Cimozjen, “what happened to those in his timbering gang?”

“I don’t know, my friend. You’d have to ask the Custodians.”

“And they are …?”

“The Custodians of the Fire and Forge. They’re an order of Monks of who revere Onatar. Early on in the war they agreed to handle guarding prisoners and putting them to useful work. It actually worked out for the best for probably everyone. The monks refused to fight, and soldiers hate to stand guard, so the order got to avoid combat, and our boys got to do what they were trained to do. And the prisoners, well, I’d rather be guarded by the friars than a group of bored recruits keen for notching their blades.”

“Very well,” said Cimozjen. “I thank you for your time.”

The clerk smiled, a jagged affair that forced its way across his weather-beaten face. “It was an honor. Dol Dorn bless on your search.”

“Too late for that,” muttered Minrah as they left the office.

From the Military Bureau, the group traveled to the main plaza of the University of Wyrnarn, where Minrah intended to catch herself up on the contents of the
Korranberg Chronicle
that had been published over the last week.

They moved easily through the streets until Cimozjen caught an aroma wafting on the cool autumn breeze. “Ohh,” he murmured, “sweet cremfels. Oh, how I’ve missed that!” His nose led them to a side street, where a cook leaned out a small window with heavy shutters and watched the street traffic going by.

Cimozjen placed a copper piece on the windowsill. “Cremfels still a crown?” he asked.

“Indeed they are,” said the matronly cook with a smile. “Will you be having cinnamon or preserves on that?”

“Just butter, please.” He watched as the woman pocketed the coin, then ladled batter into a cast-iron fry pan. A new burst of the sweetbread scent washed over him. “It’s been two years, Four. Two years since I’ve had the pleasure of these.” He swallowed hungrily.

“What of your wife?” asked Four. “Do you not miss her as you miss your sweet cremfel?”

“I do indeed. I have searched across Karrnath for her since the War ended, and spent not a lick of time thinking of this. Yet the cremfel is here, and she is not, so I can at least allow myself this small indulgence.”

“I’m here,” said Minrah, “but I don’t see a lot of indulging coming my way.”

Cimozjen shook his head. “I swore a vow, that for good and for ill, we would remain together.”

“And yet you are not together,” said Four. “Have you not broken your vow?”

“In truth, we are together, Four, because I treasure her memory in my heart and behave in all ways as if she were right here with me.” He glanced pointedly at Minrah. “She swore the same, and wherever she is, she is doing the same. Thus her memory holds my hand, and mine hers.”

Minrah snorted. “You must not want to hold her all that much, if you haven’t found her in two whole years.”

Cimozjen gave her another meaningful look. “Before the end of the Last War, I had not set foot on Karrnathi soil for twenty years. During a war, a lot can change in twenty years. Just look at Cyre. I searched our homestead. I searched the neighboring villages. I’ve—” His voice broke and he took a moment to recover. “That’s why I was in Korth, you know. Do you know how long it takes to search a city of eighty-odd thousand for a single woman?”

“So you don’t even know if she’s still alive, and you still won’t bunk me?” asked Minrah with a touch of a whine.

“Host, I pray she is alive. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Until I know otherwise, my vows remain unchanged.” He licked the last of the melted butter from his fingers, then placed another crown on the sill. “One more, please,” he said. “I’ll indulge myself a bit more as we walk to the University.”

“Did you find anything interesting?” asked Cimozjen as Minrah exited the University’s chronicle repository.

“Yes, I did,” she said with a smile. “No one has yet claimed the gnomes’ reward.”

“Why would someone want gnomes as a reward?” asked Four.

“No, silly, the gnomes are
giving
a reward. A few months ago, they spread the word that they wanted information on some sort of Aundairian monastic secret society or something. And I intend to
collect it. Oh,” she added, handing Cimozjen a folded broadsheet, “I grabbed this for you. Some Brelish hero saved his dwarf servant and a bunch of orphans from a nasty beast in the Cogs of Sharn. Thought you might like to read it. Like you, he looks to be one of those dashing save-the-children hero types that chroniclers love. Kind of an old story, but if you’ve been spending all your time chasing your wife, you might have missed it. Thought it might keep your spirits up as we go about our business.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to track down the Custodians of the Fire and Forge, only to find out that their monastery was hundreds of miles to the southwest, between Passage and Arcanix. For the five-score years of struggle that had been the Last War, the order had produced simple but utilitarian weapons for battle, and to meet their needs, they’d had groups of monks deployed across the country gathering materials. During this time, they had all but lost their ability to produce the masterful goods that reflected their spiritual growth. With the advent of peace, many of the monks had returned to their monastery, and were only too happy to begin restoring the art in their handicraft to its antebellum quality.

The information was rather dispiriting. “We’ll have to shelve a trip to the monastery,” said Cimozjen. He scratched the back of his head. “For now, in any event. It’s probably a good day’s ride by rail to Passage, another day to visit the order, and another back, and I’ll not waste three days when I feel like we might be close to our goal right here in Fairhaven.”

“Agreed,” said Four. “This is the place. The air is right.”

Cimozjen turned his head. “Do you mean it smells right?”

“I do not understand.”

“No,” said Cimozjen, “I guess you’d not, after all. Well, it’s getting dark. Shall we head back to the Flagons?”

Minrah grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

They arrived at the Dragon’s Flagons earlier than most. Four stood, holding his battle-axe at the ready if not quite—thanks to Minrah’s supplications—in a position of being ready to strike. In
consideration of this, Cimozjen and Minrah took seats at the end of the long bar, where Four could have his back to the wall and be as far removed from the public view as was possible.

They supped on boiled meat with an onion-wine sauce and baked potatoes with coarsely diced chives and butter, but unlike the previous night, the tavern was largely empty until shortly after ten bells, when a group of four rough and rowdy customers burst through the door.

“Wham! Whack! That was great!” said the first. “But that shield … can you believe that shield? I’ve never seen anything that black. On my sword, I don’t think anything could touch him!”

“Serves me right for betting against him,” said the second. “You’re buying tonight. Again. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.”

“Now that sounds interesting,” said Minrah. She watched the group as one of them bought a round of drinks and ordered some food, then followed them as they made their way to a table.

Their talk silenced as she drew close and pulled up a chair. “Hoy there,” she said with her most winning smile. “Do you big strong men mind if I just take this one little chair?”