Norchester studied his old friend for a long while. “Taming this county will be difficult work,” he said finally, “and will take its toll. Bells, winning it has already taken its toll.”
[Home]
Getting By
"Can you do it?"
"It's not a matter of can I do it. Of course I can do it." The smaller man didn't bother to look up at the larger man. "The question is if I can be arsed to do it." The two of them stood beneath the shade, an autumn meadow stretched out below them, and beyond that a wide blue-grey stretch of water. A rocky bank, low hills, and sun-bleached meadows sat on the other side. Lazy tendrils of smoke on the horizon marked the village of Guilford, just out of sight.
The second man, broad across the shoulders, raised his own eyes to squint out over the river. "No one's conquered the Fosse since the Imperials."
"No one's been arsed to," the short man retorted, waving down at the rushing water, "since the bleeding Imperials."
"You make it sound like any builder can do it," the big man smiled slightly, teasing. "Does this mean we can escape your fee, Milton?"
The smaller man snorted. "Any builder can try, but this is a year's construction at the least." He waved his hands at the panorama before them, as if tracing lines of stonework and masonry. "It's not the building itself, although that's a chore and a half. It's recruiting the workers, getting the materials, keeping everything going. Making sure the fuckers don't drink themselves stupid. I can count on one hand the men who can pull that off."
"And the castle?"
Milton waved a dismissive hand. "The castle's an afterthought. I've built and destroyed more castles than you'll see in a lifetime." Here he finally looked up, sidelong, at the other man. "Well, perhaps not in your lifetime, Sedgwin. I forget I'm not boasting to sessile nobility."
"You're doing a fine job nonetheless," the big man responded with a wan smile. "I can't tell how much of this has been bluster and how much honest appraisal."
"Bluster, Sedgwin, after what we've been through together?" the builder put on a face as if to look affronted. It didn't last, and he laughed. "Well, a little, maybe. Part of the gig." Sedgwin merely maintained his small smile, although it gradually shifted from slightly pained to slightly amused. "In all honesty, friend," Milton continued, "it is a big project, and it's certainly not journeyman work. It's a year at the least, during which your Baroness would put me up and keep me fed, and at the end of it I'd take away more bragging rights than wealth."
"If it's a matter of payment, milady Bramwood is determined to—"
"No no no," the smaller man interrupted, impatiently waving his hands. "You misunderstand. You can only carry so much coin, and there's a point at which a project gets bigger than what you can carry away for building it. It sounds crazy, but it's true." Milton laughed, although there wasn't much amusement in it. "At the end of the day, the Baroness would pay me more in meat over the winter than in coin at the project's end. That's the way it works, y'see. The sacks of gold are nice and all, but we architects are just working for our supper, same as anybody else."
The guard's head spun through the air, silhouetted against the starry sky for one long moment, before landing next to its collapsing body. Blood spurted across the cobblestones, seeping along the grooves between them. Sedgwin heaved his body to the right, putting his shoulder into the second man's solar plexus. The descending axe slipped from its threatening arc to dangle from numb fingers. Sedgwin shifted his weight back again, and his swords flashed across his opponent's stomach. The man did not get up, and never would.
Sedgwin turned to survey the ruined street behind him. What was left of the city of Roxley sat motionless, empty, broken. Some spare light was afforded by a few thatch roofs, quietly burning, halfway down the street. But aside from the crackle of the fire, the street was quiet — quieter, Sedgwin suspected, than it had been in a very long time. He sheathed his swords and grabbed the two dead men by their tabards, dragging them inside.
The interior was dark, the spare firelight barely lighting the jumbled mess of furniture thrown into the center of the room: leather, fabric, wooden stands, and long plumes of feathers. Sedgwin dumped the two guards into the pile and picked up something else, holding it up into the light. A hat; a gentleman's hat. He was in the haberdashery.
"And who the fuck are you?" spat a wheezing voice from the shadows. Sedgwin's hands fell to the pommels of his swords, and whoever it was clucked his tongue. "I've got a crossbow cocked and ready, sunshine, that would be a bad idea. Identify yourself."
"Sir Sedgwin," he admitted, shifting his weight back towards the door, "fighting under the banner of milord Baron Bramwood, in the host of the Archduke."
