Trusting a Liar

Tecca let the scroll unfurl in front of Brochwel. "As special envoy of Prince Kuzon, to strengthen our countries' friendship and for mutual defense, we have requested our allies send a few experienced men-at-arms from the Flaxen Order to train a capable Kirrglosian chivalric order. I spoke with Lord Garrett yesterday. Behold: his signature. You are hereby sworn to secrecy: tell no one you are leaving and discuss this joint project only after it's official unveiling."

Then Tecca tried to take the scroll back, but Brochwel grabbed the paper with a practiced thumb and forefinger. "Let me read it, please."

"You can read? I thought only the knights ..."

"The Order's tutors restrict reading and penmanship classes to the knights-to-be, true. The rest teach each other."

Brochwel studied the document with care. Tecca couldn't know that the Flaxen Order had violated Kirrglos's borders unless Lord Garrett had admitted it to her: she had been with a slow caravan en route at the time of the trespass. The thought that they had somehow smoothed things over enough to go ahead with this training program soothed the worry in Brochwel's stomach. Maybe this alliance wasn't as tenuous as he had thought. The scroll looked very fine indeed, done by a skilled scribe with a steady hand, a love of big first letters, and four colors of ink at their disposal. Ah.

"Well? Satisfied, Brochwel? If you are, please take me to Sir Ambrose. While we would take you and the few others Lord Garrett gave us, having the former leader of the Flaxen Order and his protege would have recruits flocking to us."

With a nod, he released the paper and let her wind up the scroll. It then disappeared into her satchel. If Kirrglos became strong enough to resist an invasion, if they had permitted or forgiven the Flaxen Order's trespass to fight an enemy that Kirrglos wasn't yet at war with ... that changed the awful math that had been building in Brochwel's head. But only if everything she had said to him was true.

"I'm satisfied ... that I know my commanding officer. He's what we call a 'saddle commander.' The man hates paperwork. Hates paper. I can believe he signed this document, because you needed it. What I can't believe is that he would decide to transfer someone out of his command and not tell them about it at his earliest inconvenience."

"You mean 'his earliest convenience.'"

"No, I mean he would stop whatever he was doing and come interrupt whatever I was doing to inform me of his decision at once, even if the stables were on fire again."

Tecca took a step back. The confidence and warmth that had been in her demeanor till now slipped away, replaced by a look of sour disappointment. A young couple, walking hand-in-hand, chose this moment to cross the threshold into the garden. They took one look at the icy distance between Brochwel and Tecca, then turned and left without a word.

"I suppose you'll report me. Have me executed like your parents were."

"I have to report that someone tried to trick me into defecting, but ..." Brochwel walked to the crab apple tree and snapped off one of the perfectly aligned twigs. "It'll slip my mind for a while first. A few days, a few weeks. By then I'll have forgotten some of the key details about the perpetrator."

A measure of scorn entered her voice, "What will your forgetfulness cost me?"

"Nothing." He plucked another perfect leaf from the tree. "You seemed sincere, no, passionate about protecting Kirrglos. I don't spot every lie, but false fervor I almost always catch ... seen a lot of it here. Kirrglos having the capacity to defend itself is good for Tragaron, else we'll soon find ourselves surrounded by Rhosaire with no friends and nowhere to retreat. You are brave, trying to trick some of the Flaxen Order into defecting right under the High Council's nose. Bravery and determination usually come as a pair, and I cannot doom one so determined to save both our countries. I hope I'm right, trusting you a little. Duty forces my hand on many things, but I still choose who I trust and how much."

When no retort came, Brochwel turned to see Tecca's unreadable smile had returned as if it had never left. She pulled him over to the stone bench, and once she had him seated, leaned against his shoulder.

"You're direct, I'll give you that."

"Direct in conversation, indirect in battle. A personal strategy, the rest of the Order prefers the opposite."

"Then let me try some directness: come with me. I can show you more than just a better garden. I saw the way people looked at you as we walked together. A few of them like you, but the rest saw you walking with someone and thought you needed to be reminded of your place, for what? Something your parents did and paid for decades ago. My country remembers the dozen you spared at Cargelhan."

That all sounded nice, so nice it set Brochwel's internal too-good-to-be-true bell ringing for orderly retreat to a defensible position. He knew himself well enough to know his sense for danger overacted in social situations, but she had lied to him about getting Lord Garrett's approval. At least that, maybe other things.

Brochwel slowly rose from the bench. "I can point you to Sir Ambrose. He was the old man with me when we met. His home is one of the palatial affairs in the southeast quarter. Number 20 on its gate. If you convince him to make training allied knights his project, the High Council will step on Lord Garrett's toes to make it happen. And you may tell Sir Ambrose that if he goes, I'll go with him."

"Thank you. You are the best. Would you—"

"Don't thank me yet. Convincing Sir Ambrose won't be easy, he's loving retirement."

Tecca plunged her hand into her satchel again, fishing deeper this time. It came up clutching a brass pendant: a rectangle of metal hammered and etched to look like a window onto swirling clouds, dangling off a plain chain. She grabbed Brochwel's right hand and hesitated, staring at the palm of his hand and the metal hanging above it as if she had just walked into a firework storeroom carrying a lit torch.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She shoved the pendant into Brochwel's hand and then ran for the garden exit. With a final shout back of, "Don't lose it!" Tecca left.

"What was that about?" Brochwel asked himself, holding up the pendant. "She seemed scared of this but still gave it to me."

It looked like plain, honest brass. An affordable ornament. Good craftsmanship though. Brochwel put the chain around his neck and tucked the whole affair under his doublet.

He returned to the Order's compound and started on his daily chores, hoping that Sir Ambrose would stomp in with his old armor on. Instead Brochwel tripped over a man lying flat on his belly, head under one set of bunks and his feet under another.

"Oh, Brochwel, thank goodness you're here."

"Why are you on the floor, Xavier?"

Dragoon Xavier got up and dusted off his clothes. He was smaller than most of the knights and warriors, though the rumor that he owed his stature to a pixie somewhere up the family tree was probably an impossibility. Xavier looked around conspiratorially.

"Can you keep a secret, Brochwel?"

"Of course. When I die the ferryman's going to have a nervous breakdown over the number of secrets I'll need him to carry to the other side."

"Good man. Now, we've all got something to come home to. Macsen's got his adoring crowd, Sir Humphrey's got his silver collection, you've got ... something, I'm sure. Well I'm afraid I've gone and lost mine and need discreet help finding it."

"We're not talking a ring or bracelet from a special someone, are we?"

"No, something irreplaceable." Xavier looked on the edge of tears as he rifled through the bedding of his cot. "When I went to fetch water, I left Charles right here. Now he's gone."

"Charles is a ..."

"He's a rat. Not just any rat. Huge. Sweet. Polite. He's a Deveinian Pouched Rat. A yard long nose to tail and he's the only one who understands me. You must help me look for him Brochwel, anyone else here would set the cat on him."

Brochwel agreed and spent the rest of the day on hands and knees peering into dark spaces looking for a rat. He wasn't sure whether to kick himself for not accepting Tecca's exciting offer or to be thankful for this peaceful moment helping a friend. He only knew that the path he had chosen would keep him wandering these familiar halls for years to come.

That illusion, and 5 of the Flaxen Order's finest, wouldn't survive the next day.