“Where are we going, anyway?” Kintere asked with a yawn. Still dressed in his woollens from the previous night, the clansman was perhaps the shabbiest of the crew, even with the elderly tutor draped in his usual brown wool and felt. Rhayd had at least thought to brush out his tunic and don his knife belt, and Mireya had somehow pulled up with some finery in the form of a dress and doublet much better made than what she usually wore when serving in the pub. Edvard Thryche had practically bolted out the door as soon as all three of them were downstairs, and set off up the street like a loosed arrow.
“Court,” the tutor replied curtly, no longer even using his cane, but carrying it swinging in one hand, batting people out of the way of the quartet as they struggled to keep up his feverish pace.
“Court!” Mireya squeaked, the sentiment mirrored by both men silently in a sharp, uneasy glare.
“I’m not certain I understand,” Rhayd managed, self-consciously tugging at the hem of his tunic as if to smooth some imagined wrinkle. “I thought you had something for us to see today, Edvard. What could we possibly see at court that would interest any of us?”
“There is a rarity there today not seen in nearly a decade,” the elderly teacher sang, shooting a bright grin over his shoulder at Kintere. “I am told an ogre has been found in the jungle!”
The shock was so great Kintere almost tripped over his own feet. An ogre! Even when he had been living in the jungle, he had never seen one first hand. They were legends; dark stories told by clan mothers to frighten the children of the crèche so they would behave and go to sleep on time and do the tasks assigned them by the elders. No one had even found a dead one in nearly a hundred years, and the last hunter who had claimed to kill one had been chased out of the fastness fifteen years ago when the body he brought back was found to be a fake made from the bones of jungle cats and the skin of a spine dragon.
“Well,” Rhayd said reassuringly, patting his friend on the shoulder. “A little piece of home after all! And here I thought all you had was your idiot brother.”
Kintere tried to laugh. He would have been glad to see evidence of home, but this was not the case. If what awaited them at the Court of Ckuien Penance was in fact an ogre, he was obliged to do his best to kill it by clan law. Even in exile, there were some laws that needed to be obeyed. He wasn’t even sure how he would achieve this, especially in such a closed environment. Certainly any of the hunting techniques he had learned as a boy would do him no good in a building of stone and quicklime.
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” the elderly tutor called back as if reading Kintere’s mind. “Likely it’s been sedated somehow, or perhaps even killed by now. What the court loves is a curio, I’m not certain they care if it’s been harmed in any way, or even if it’s living. Any means by which they can be entertained is fine by them, usually.”
That was a relief at least. Perhaps he would simply ask to battle the thing, take it to the arena if the court required. Anything to fulfil his obligation. Kintere looked to Mireya, jogging blithely beside him seemingly unaware of his agony. She would have to be kept out, of course. He couldn’t let her see him do battle, especially against such a formidable foe. For all he knew, he might stand no chance against an ogre. Still, as a clansman of the Toralyon line, he must do his best.
About Ian
