Morning broke with the colour of a badly polished iron shield. A low mist covered the barley fields north of Campofiorito, clinging to the wooden wheels of the wagons and the shaggy coats of the draught horses. Alistair led the march mounted on Sarcasm, who walked with the slowness of a man condemned to the gallows, while Flea made his usual nervous hops just behind. In the spacious wagons, the cargo of 'morale specialists' was unusually quiet, the girls huddled under cheap woollen blankets to protect themselves from the freezing breath of winter.
The mercenary expected to find a bustling camp – the clatter of hammers against iron, the smoke of great fires, and the apparatus of a vanguard preparing for war. Instead, the meeting point was deserted, the only human presence being a figure stretched out on the damp grass right at the edge of the track.
Lying on the ground, Rian, who used to dress impeccably, now looked like a bundle of old rags tossed by the wayside. His warm-toned doublet was stained with mud and filth, and his bronzed fingers remained slumped over the nozzle of a leather wineskin that lay completely deflated and empty beside him. The smell of sweet and sour wine hung over him like a cloud of flies.
– Wake up, sun-man – Alistair growled after dismounting with the heavy creak of his steel plates, delivering a jab with the toe of his boot into Rian's ribs.
The Solterran merely let out a guttural groan, turning his head the other way without opening his swollen eyelids. Lucius stepped closer and tried to nudge his shoulder with his foot, but Rian seemed to have his soul firmly locked in a wine-induced coma that no song or military duty could break.
– He's deader than the kings of old – Lucius commented, adjusting his cloak.
From one of the wagons, the red-haired woman jumped into the mud with surprising agility, carrying a heavy oak bucket filled to the brim with freezing water from a stream that ran just a few yards away.
– Step back, lads – she said, with a cynical smirk that showed the hardness of her profession. – I know well how to deal with carcasses like this. This method never fails with clients who refuse to get off the mattress when morning comes... even when their 'little soldier' no longer responds to orders and refuses to march.
With a vigorous swing of her arms, she dumped the icy water straight onto Rian's face and chest. The Solterran gave a tremendous spasm, the shock of the ice against his skin making his chest heave instantly, his eyes flying wide open as he coughed and spat out the stream water. Rian sat up in the mud, soaked, shivering from head to toe, and looking around with the confusion of a shipwrecked man just spit out by the sea.
– Where is the barbarian, Rian? – Alistair enquired, arms crossed over his cuirass, his voice hard. – Where is Tito?
Rian brought his trembling hands to his head, trying to push his wet hair away from his face, his eyes scanning the grey, desolate horizon as if expecting to find the answer written in the clouds. He blinked once, twice, and looked at Alistair with an expression of total and utter ignorance. He hadn't the faintest clue where the Isolaran was.
Lucius took a step forward, looking the soaked Solterran up and down. The boy let out a dry puff of laughter and murmured with the cutting pragmatism he was beginning to cultivate:
– We've only just arrived at this miserable place and he's already managed to lose an entire person?
Alistair felt his chest swell beneath his iron shell. He looked at the boy with a paternal pride that almost eclipsed his disappointment with the camp. The lessons of the road and the flicks to the forehead were finally bearing fruit; the lad was masterfully learning the refined and precious art of sarcasm.
Rian wiped the freezing water from his eyes with a trembling palm, his bronzed Solterran face now reduced to a sickly paleness that battered his pride. The Solterran let out a groan that seemed to come from the depths of his bowels, his voice raspy and harsh from the abuse of sweet wine.
– The deal was done – Rian stammered, trying to get up before Alistair's plates decided to crush him into the clay. – Three wagons of grain, two of salted meat, and four barrels of barley ale. The elders of Campofiorito wanted to toast to our silver, and the Isolaran... the damned Isolaran drinks as if his stomach were a bottomless pit. I lost track of him when the lamps went out.
Alistair exchanged a look laden with mockery with Lucius. The boy merely adjusted Flea's bridle, while Sarcasm let out a breath of disdain.
– Let's leave the women with the wagons and Rian – Alistair ordered, the pommel of his sword clinking against his thigh with a crystalline sound. – If the barbarian has caused trouble in the village, Lorenzo Verdegrande will know of our presence before the sun reaches its zenith.
The tavern of Campofiorito, ironically named The Golden Plough, was a monument to alcoholic devastation when Alistair and Lucius crossed the threshold of corroded oak. The air inside was so thick you could almost cut it with a dagger; it smelled of spilled sour wine, piss, fresh vomit, and the rancid smoke of poorly cleaned hearths. The bodies of local peasants lay scattered across the dirt floor like the fallen on a forgotten battlefield; an elderly man slept with his head dunked in a washbasin, while another snored clinging to a broken table leg.
However, it wasn't the silence of the drunks that broke the peace of the place. Coming from the back of the inn, behind the pine kitchen door, echoed a series of muffled sounds – a rhythmic cadence of creaking wood, heavy sighs, and panting that did not belong to the labours of cooking.
Alistair felt the leather of his gloves grow damp. He brought his right hand to the bone hilt of his mercy dagger, while his left steadied the shield in front of his chest, the lunar metal catching the pale reflections filtering through the closed shutters. With a sharp kick, Alistair's iron boot shoved the kitchen door open, making the hinges groan.
Inside, Tito was in the middle of a sexual act on the bread-kneading table, his rustic leather trousers hitched down to his knees. His pale, scar-covered skin rose and fell with the mechanical precision of a bombard piston. Beneath him, a village woman of generous flesh and dishevelled brown hair clung to the barbarian's broad shoulders, her nails dug into his fur doublet; far from fighting for her life, the woman was letting out groans of pure and genuine delight, showing signs that she was flushing beneath the flour covering her face.
Upon seeing the intrusion made by his Brigade comrades, Tito didn't even flinch. His eyes of ice stared at Alistair with an indifference that bordered on insult. Without quickening his pace or changing his rhythm, the Isolaran delivered his final three thrusts with a frightening coldness, reaching his climax with a short, guttural grunt, before stepping away from the table without a single word of courtesy.
While pulling up his leather trousers and fastening his bronze-buckled belt, Tito reached into his pocket, took out a genuine silver coin – part of the treasure Hector had distributed – and tossed it contemptuously onto the woman's sweaty belly.
The clink of metal on wood broke the peasant woman's trance. The pleasure in her eyes transformed instantly into a scarlet fury. She sat up on the table, her linen tunic torn and tattered, grabbed the coin with her floured fingers, and threw it back so hard that the piece of silver ricocheted off Tito's cuirass before falling into the mud.
– A whore is what your mother probably is on your islands of incestuous bastards, you barbarian dog! – she shrieked, her shrill voice echoing off the rafters, while she wiped the flour from her thighs. – I'm no dockside harlot! Get out of my kitchen before I carve your guts out with the butcher's knife!
Tito didn't bother to look back. He ignored the coin, bypassed Alistair as if the mercenary were merely a wooden pillar in the inn, and stepped out into the wind-battered alley. He gave a brief nod to Lucius – a sharp gesture that seemed to say 'the job is done, we can march' – leaving the two Aurelians behind amidst the woman's shrieks.
On the way back to the camp, the silence of the road was broken only by the Isolaran's incomprehensible grumblings. Tito talked to himself in his native dialect, a torrent of guttural, harsh words that sounded like stones rolling down an icy precipice. Alistair walked beside Sarcasm, trying to decipher the islander's gestures and curses, unsure whether the man was praising the fluffiness of the flour or cursing the temperament of continental women.
– What is he saying, Lucius? – Alistair asked, his brow furrowed.
– No idea – the boy murmured, keeping Flea at a safe distance from the giant. – But I think the word he keeps repeating sounds like 'cow'. Or maybe 'bread'? I'll never be able to understand him...
The answer to the group's doubts wasn't long in coming, and it arrived with the sound of old iron and furious voices. As the wagons of the Fontechiara girls came into view among the oaks, the sound of shouting and insults tore through the morning air.
A group of eight local peasants was blocking the way to the camp. They weren't soldiers; they wore tunics of patched, raw wool and had faces weathered by the sun and the misery of farming, but they were armed with whatever the land gave them: three-pronged pitchforks, sharp scythes for harvesting, wood-chopping axes, and heavy cast-iron hoes.
At the front of the gang stood a middle-aged man with slumping shoulders and hands that looked like tree roots. His face was transfigured by humiliation and peasant rage – the same blind fury that makes serfs burn their lords' castles when hunger bites too hard.
– Where is the monster? – bellowed the leader of the farmers, pointing his pitchfork in Tito's direction the moment the Isolaran emerged from the trees. – Where is the dog who invaded my house?
Alistair stepped forward, his shield gleaming with an intensity that made the peasants take a step back, intimidated by the apparatus of actual war.
– Lower your iron, man of the soil – Alistair ordered in a firm voice. – Who do you think you're threatening? This is the Mad Dog's Brigade.
– I don't give a damn if you're dogs, wolves, or the shit they crap! – the farmer roared, tears of shame mingling with the dirt on his cheeks. – That wild animal there went into the kitchen of The Golden Plough and violated my lawful wife! He has dishonoured my house and my name before the whole village! My wife is weeping over the oak and the blood of my lineage has been defiled by that godless barbarian!
The other peasants shouted in support, raising their scythes and hoes, their eyes fixed on Tito, who watched it all with the same expression of someone watching rain fall on a stone.
– We want justice! – continued the cuckolded husband, taking a step forward despite the fear the Ferralian steel inspired. – And if there are no kings in this land to hang this monster, we demand monetary compensation! Twenty genuine silver coins, or this foreigner's blood will manure Campofiorito's barley before nightfall! We'll wipe out the offence with your pouch or your guts!
Tito took a step forward, his massive hand resting on the pommel of his battleaxe with the indifference of a butcher examining a piece of meat. He let out a torrent of harsh words, gesturing rudely with open fingers toward his pocket and then mimicking the jingle of coins in the air.
Rian, who was still wiping the remains of the freezing water from his neck, blinked once or twice while processing the Isolaran's guttural sounds. Suddenly, the stiff, soaked Solterran doubled over, and an uncontrollable, shrill laugh tore from his throat, echoing through the camp so violently that the cuckolded man almost fell into the mud.
– He... he says he didn't break any law or insult anyone! – Rian managed to shout between gusts of laughter that brought tears to his eyes. – The idiot says he paid! Or rather, that he tried to pay! On his islands, if you throw a silver coin at a woman after the act, that makes it a legitimate commercial contract! He thought he was being a generous lord!
The revelation of that monumental cultural mix-up didn't bring peace, but rather fire. The peasants, feeling mocked by the foreigner's laughter, roared with fury. The cuckolded husband raised his three-pronged pitchfork, the veins in his neck bulging like earthworms beneath his sun-baked skin.
– Laugh in the face of your executioner, you dogs! – bellowed the farmer. – We'll give you iron for gold!
The gang took a step forward, scythes and hoes raised, their knuckles white with tension. Lucius moved a hand back to his belt, reaching for the hilt of his dagger, while Flea gave a nervous hop, sensing the scent of blood in the air.
Alistair, however, did not draw his bastard sword. Instead, he stood still, observing the furious husband and the peculiar way the other farmers exchanged sideways glances – less full of fury and more full of... boredom. It was a flash of pure intuition, the kind of nose one develops after years of running from cheating innkeepers.
– Hold on – Alistair shouted, his commanding voice overriding the clamour. He pointed to the peasant holding a scythe further back, a man with a broken front tooth. – You there, tell me something... is this the first time the woman from The Golden Plough has been 'dishonoured' by a traveller this harvest?
The tension that threatened to break into spilled guts froze in the air. The young farmer blinked, looked at his leader's pitchfork, then at the cold, almost divine glint of Alistair's Ferralian shield, and let out a puff of honest laughter, lowering the scythe to his shoulder.
– Actually, no, my lord – the lad admitted, ignoring the murderous look his leader shot him. – Barnaby always puts on this charade whenever a soldier or a merchant with coins in his pocket walks through the kitchen door. His very loyal wife lies down quite willingly, and then this fat bastard comes onto the road with his cousins demanding twenty silver coins to 'wipe out the offence'. It's the best business in Campofiorito since the last cattle fair.
– Shut your fucking mouth, Tomás! – bellowed the cuckolded husband, his face turning from red to a purple shade of pure humiliation. He lowered his pitchfork, his shoulders slumping under the weight of the ruined farce. – It was going so well until you opened your teeth. We almost had the silver in the pouch!
Alistair felt a wave of satisfaction wash over his chest. It was the moment he'd been waiting for: the opportunity to win a battle without having to clean blood off his new plates. The mercenary drew himself up in Sarcasm's saddle, squared his broad shoulders, and let the morning sun hit the Ferralian steel full on, temporarily blinding fat Barnaby.
– Return to your lands and your ploughs, men of the mud – Alistair ordered, his voice echoing with the solemnity of a legendary hero. – And thank the gods that I am in a good mood. You wouldn't want to face Sir Alistair, the 'Silver Sword', and his band of cutthroats. My iron thirsts for nobler hearts than yours. Begone, before I decide your Tomás needs to lose the rest of his teeth.
The peasants didn't need to hear the warning twice. Intimidated by the apparatus of robust plates, Tito's murderous indifference, and above all, the supernatural light of that shield which looked as if it were made of pure moon, they decided these targets were far too prickly for the profit they promised. They turned their backs, muttering curses, with fat Barnaby delivering a slap to the back of Tomás' neck as they retreated through the barley fields.
Behind them, in the wagons, the girls erupted into cheers and laughter, clapping for the 'noble knight' who had defended them from a horde of farmers.
Rian, still trying to catch his breath and clutching his stomach from his fit of laughter, wiped a tear from his eye and looked at the mercenary from the corner of his eye.
– 'Sir Alistair, the Silver Sword'? – the Solterran enquired with a mocking smirk. – Since when did you earn that title, Alistair? What bard's song did you steal it from?
Alistair smiled – a smug sneer that lit up his dust-caked face. With a theatrical and unnecessarily drawn-out flourish, he drew his bastard sword from its scabbard for a brief moment, letting the clear metal catch the daylight before sheathing it with a sharp click.
– It sounded like a nickname that would put the fear into the peasants, Rian – Alistair replied, adjusting his gloves. – And besides... have you taken a proper look at my blade? It really does look like it's made of pure silver. If the world wants to be fooled by a pretty shine, who am I to deny it the show?