The Rill Lord: My Favorite Chapter

Cover art: Larry Rostant

Every author has a chapter or character sequence that was just plain fun to write. It happens with every book, every series. A fun chapter with which to play around. Fun to revisit and fun to read.

For me, this is that chapter.

As ever, a warning: If you have not yet read The Rill Lord or the other books of the Triempery Revelations series, this chapter will hold SPOILERS.

Most of the spoilers in this chapter are minor in scope but they still spoil events and character relationships and that sort of thing,

With that point in mind... Enjoy!

6

Consider that we don’t just eat our food: we attack it. The implements we use to pierce and cut can easily become weapons. Good manners are essential for ensuring violence remains on the table.

Tobold Forbasson, A North Country Primer

“Gerd, I tell you this truly.” Dorilian watched Gerd serve up another cup of branroot so heavily sugared and laced with cream it approached the cloying sweetness of syrup. “You are the most excellent cook to ever set a plate before me. I would match your pans against any in the Triempery.”

It was no small compliment. Dorilian had just finished a plate heaped with filets of hare and scallops of potato seasoned with mushrooms and a sauce created from a tablespoon of Gerd’s best red wine and his last handful of shallots. Not an apple or smoked eel to be found. If not the most delicious meal Dorilian had ever eaten, it was definitely the most appreciated.

Gerd’s round face flushed with pleasure. “Well, I don’t do it up like that for everyone, but you appreciate good cooking.”

“Of which I have tasted—and eaten—precious little since leaving Rhodhur.”

“You haven’t been eating as you should, that’s clear enough. Give me a few weeks and I’ll put you back up to weight! They didn’t feed you proper, all those high Staubaun princes you rode with.”

“It’s not their fault, Gerd. In Stauberg even lords are eating shriveled apples like the rest.”

Gerd snorted. “Not all of them. Not the Sordaneon Lord, that’s for certain. I know it’s not apples for him!”

Dorilian barked a laugh, then washed it down with another gulp of branroot. The pungent brew he’d despised on first swallow years ago today warmed his blood. “Don’t be so sure. However, I’m quite certain he’s eating better than dried apples right now.”

Gerd cocked his head. “So it’s true, then! You and Rob, you’ve seen him, haven’t you? The Hierarch himself? Proven he’s a real man and not just a phantom!”

Dorilian reflected on that for a moment. “Yes, I suppose we have.” He rose from the table. “We’ve seen him a lot lately.” The cook’s fire at the shed end of the kitchen roared reassuringly. Dorilian did not really wish to leave it or the cozy camaraderie he’d fallen into with Gerd, short-lived though he knew it must be. But Handurin—and others who would be even more alarmed by Dorilian’s absence—would be looking for him soon. It was best to seek another path of conversation. “Is there anything you wish, Gerd, here in Dazunor? For your kitchen or pantry? It cannot be easy to cook for so many.”

Gerd assessed the homely comforts of his tent. “I don’t cook for as many as you might think. Only for the Kheld and Trongor officers. The Staubauns, now, they all have their own cooks. Why, some of the lords have cooks just for themselves. And so do their officers! Thunes is an army of cooks! But they don’t share meat and bread the way Khelds do to make us one people and grease the wheels of conversation.” Gerd leaned forward magisterially, taking Dorilian into a confidence. “Though they do have one thing I wish I had. Fresh fruit! Sordan’s provisioner gets cartloads of it brought up by Rill, they say, and shipped down the Dazun by special barge under heavy guard. Every time he takes in a shipment, I try to get some, but he will not part with any of it—not one melon!”

“You have melons?” Dorilian tried to remember when he had last eaten one. Visions of juicy sweet slices and chunks would plague him the rest of the day.

“Me? Great Mother no, though not for want of trying. Melons command top coin. I offered their provisioner half a wagonload of hams just yesterday, for two little melons and a crate of greens, but he wouldn’t do it.”

“You get none of the fruit—or vegetables—at all?”

“Only what Hans Thegn can get for me. The quartermaster will turn some over to Hans, if he asks, for his own meals.”

“That’s absurd.” Dorilian felt his irritation spiking. Funds for the Kheld army’s rations came out of his personal accounts. Sordan’s thieving quartermaster was about to become Dorilian’s first order of business. “Handurin is a Prince. Princes do not go to quartermasters to obtain favors.”

“Now there you go, talking Staubaunish.” Gerd regarded him with evident indulgence. “All rank and title. It’s clear the Sordan folk don’t give out their fruit except to lords—or princes. I doubt even their own men on the line see so much as an orange. Why, talk is it all gets sent to the Sordaneon Hierarch, who eats fruit and fresh meats four meals a day, not counting breakfast!”

“I can assure you Sordan’s damned Hierarch has not tasted so much as a sliver of fresh fruit or meat in weeks. Nor granted the stuff did not freeze or spoil along the way, could he eat an entire wagon load—even if he might think he could.”

Gerd beamed anew with questions. “See? There again! The Sordaneon Lord, you say you’ve seen him. I’m eaten with curiosity. We hear a lot at our tables, but we don’t know much other than that Stefan called him a hot-mouthed, fish-eyed fiend. Filled up with pretensions of godhood, he said. Even the Staubauns claim he’s colder than snake venom. But I bet that’s not the whole of it. Such talk never is. So what’s he like, really?”

With a sigh, Dorilian reached for the sword he had laid near the hearth along with his cloak and saddlebags. In accordance with Kheldish custom, he had eaten unarmed in the presence of a friend. “Gerd, it’s not for want of knowledge, but that is not a question I can reasonably answer.”

A cold blast of wind carried a voice across the belly of the cook tent.

“Damn you, Thron Estol Bevvan! Answer the man, why don’t you, and be straight for once in your Staubaun-cursed life!” Nalf Rhys stood in the entry, his cap a dome of snow and his beard caked white with frost. He tore off his coat of hide and fur, as well as the belt with his new sword, and flung these in the corner. He eyed the man before him. “Never tell, can you, what fleas vermin’ll bring in on their whiskers? I just found out about that demon spawn Dorilian Sordaneon being welcomed with open arms, just come from Stauberg. And a whole troop of his warmongering guard too. That’s bad enough! But by Lud’s Beard, they didn’t say as you’d showed up with the lot!”

Gerd looked from one man to the other. “The Sordaneon Lord? Highborn Dorilian himself? You mean, he’s here? At Thunes?”

“How in Maven’s Hells should I know?” Nalf Rhys snapped. Water dripped from his beard as the ice melted from it. “I just got in myself, all the way from Gustan. All I know is the talk of him being here’s got the whole damn camp in an uproar. Sorcerer’s swords and blasted walls, and I’m too gods-damned tired of hearing it to care.” Nalf wandered over to the fire to sniff at the pots. Following behind, Gerd ladled some stew into a wooden bowl and handed it to him. Grunting with satisfaction, Nalf settled onto the nearest bench. “I see you’re staying out of it,” he said to Dorilian, who was still standing at hand.

“That fray appears to have enough swords of its own.”

Nalf chuckled and gazed up with narrowed eyes over a spoonful of broth. “Damned if I wouldn’t kill to know which side butters your bread! A little from everyone’s knife maybe, eh?”

“So it might seem, though I have not stopped lately to count the number in my back.”

Nalf guffawed. “Sit down, damn you.” He kicked out the next bench. As he did so, he eyed Dorilian up and down. “You’re dressed like a gods-bedecked Staubaun this time out. Almost manage to look like one too with that big ring and so much gold on your buttons. Gerd! How can two civilized men expect to talk over empty plates? Get the man a porridge or something.”

Dorilian took the offered seat, knowing he might never again get to savor such Kheldish bluntness with impunity. He only now realized he had missed it, this earthy honesty of feeling. He would miss it even more when they learned to know him on sight. Gerd set a bowl of porridge in front of Nalf, then moved around the table to take a seat himself.

Dorilian accepted the bowl of porridge when Nalf Rhys pushed it his way. He was being formally invited to a table truce. “Such clothing is the burden of my occupation,” he confided about his attire. “I’ve worn all manner of garb but my own of late.”

“Ran you out of Bellan Toregh with but the clothes on your back, did we?” Nalf Rhys chuckled with no small satisfaction as he fished for the meat in his stew. “Our Aubrey took your measure back there at the Toregh better than any of us. Nailed you to the wall that night, didn’t she, the night you got away? Now what did that slip of a girl find out that scared you off? You don’t strike me as the kind of man that scares easy.”

“I love my life, and at that point it hung on a thread. The less anyone knew, the better my chances of survival. And she knew too much.”

“Too much, eh?” Nalf shot Dorilian a sidelong look, intrigued. “And you didn’t trust our Hans to keep you alive?”

“I never trust any man to keep me alive.”

“Aye. I can see that.” Nalf Rhys marked the sword braced against the next table, set aside as custom demanded, but within reach. “Got yourself a damn fancy new sword, I see. And new friends to go with it?”

“I should say my affairs turned out well enough.”

“Aye, and not least because it got you the hell out of our affairs. I can’t say I was sorry to see you gone—or that I won’t be just as glad to see you gone again. Now, Gerd, you stand down”—Nalf held up a hand when the innkeeper made as if to speak—“you can take a shine to spies if you see fit, but I have a hard time about it, and this one in particular. Especially as my Aubrey was giving him eyes—and don’t say you didn’t notice it. So you hold back. This needs saying.”

Dorilian also needed to say something. “And I will remind you that times have changed and I am counted among your allies.”

“Ally, is it? Well, what do you want, eh? Banners draping Stauberg town?” Nalf scowled. “Listen to me, Thron Estol or whoever you are. Everyone knows by now that you’re nose deep to the Staubauns, and probably the Sordani themselves. We never did need our Aubrey to tell us that. Nobody even had to say it after the way you left Bellan Toregh in the dead of night before the Rill came. It comes, you go—don’t take a wizard to figure it out, or that you had to have worked things glove over hand with the Sordaneon. And maybe that’s still the way of it. The bastard’s got a talent for putting good men before him, I’ve learned that much. But what good does it do you, tell me that? You’re still banging about Essera like some damn bad copper that can’t find a pocket, and what for?”

“He seems to be doing all right.” Gerd leaned forward, speaking up in his guest’s defense.

“Better than all right, now that I have eaten.” A full belly improved any man’s contentment with the world.

Gerd laughed out loud and slapped his hand on the table. “There you have it. Offer him three good meals a day, Nalf, and maybe we can get him to come over to our side!”

Nalf snorted and reached for a hunk of coarse brown bread. “Laugh if you want to, but it ain’t all that funny. That sword, now. I’d bet my horse that cost more than three meals. Here I’m saying he’s in Sordan’s pocket and you’re talking about buying him out. Well, we sure as hells can’t afford him!”

A rattle of carts passed by, followed by the clatter of fully equipped troops on their way from the nearby paddock. Nalf chewed his bread as if he intended to make it last the whole meal and glared at Dorilian, who by now was nearing the bottom of his bowl of porridge.

“All right, Thron, I’ll lay it out flat,” Nalf growled. “Men like you are either too damn useful to kill or too damn dangerous to keep around. And you’re probably both. So I’ll warn you and let it stand: there’s those who say you’re a high-blooded Sordani spy with too gods-damned much influence. Now that you’re back, they’ll be saying it louder. So don’t think you can just walk in here and take up with us again. I tried to have my ears in Essera find you, but you turned into a phantom. You left Rob in Merath, some say, and others say you stayed and took up new work, and I have a good mind as to whose. Talk put you in Lacenedon for a while. Maybe even Stauberg. Up to good or no good, it doesn’t matter to me—you’re following the devil around, so maybe you move in high places too. Like Askyllon, eh?”

Dorilian saw no advantage to either confirming or denying Nalf’s suspicions about Aubrey. He’d eaten enough porridge to be polite, so he pushed aside his bowl. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Yes, and go far!” Nalf snapped. “Far from me and far from Aubrey. Because she deserves better than the likes of a man with no land, no coin, and a fancy sword for sale to the highest bidder!”

“I think you’ve embarrassed yourself enough for one day.”

“Embarrassed myself? For laying out the truth?”

Dorilian leaned forward and locked gazes with the infuriated Kheld. “Truth? You want to know who I am and where I’ve been? Do you really? Then reckon this: Askyllon is but a pebble in my boot, Stauberg a pile of rocks beside my road. I have been places no Kheld has ever seen, Nalf Thegn, and maybe no Kheld ever will. Places so high they take the breath away. Places you would set foot upon and die, set hand into and turn to stone, set eye on and go blind. Places where blood builds mighty edifices in an instant and corpses hold the key to the city.” The time had truly come for Dorilian to go. He stood from the table. “And now, I regret that I must take my leave.”

“Is that so! Is that so?” Nalf Rhys thundered at the condescension. “So high I would choke on it, you say? Any Kheld would choke on your dust? Well, if you’re that gods-damned high, then why the hell are you here?”

“A common enemy. A premonition. Stauberg was cold. How many reasons are enough?”

Again, the interior was blasted by an icy wind as the tent front flew open and easily a dozen Khelds ran in, all with swords drawn. At their head strode the disheveled and clearly distraught figure of Fran Gorseddson.

“Blast it, Fran, would you close that thing?” Nalf swore, glaring. “And bared swords, yet! In a cook tent! What’s this about?”

Fran came only halfway to their table and stopped, staring in mingled rage and recognition and—now that he faced the subject of it—fear. He was breathing hard, and not just from running. His hand tightened on his sword, which he extended before him, directing it at the man standing with Nalf and Gerd.

“Dorilian Sordaneon!” Fran’s quavering, uneven voice was thick with accusation. The hated name hung in the air, a summons colder than the winds the men had ushered in with them.

Gerd’s mouth dropped open, and he looked to each side of the mostly empty tent. “Where?”

“Here.” Dorilian picked up his sword as casually as if he had just finished breaking the fast with his own captains. Nalf Rhys, stunned, could only watch as that long shining blade glided neatly before his eyes. Only now did any of them see it for what it was, just as all now knew what great ring glinted with such brilliant emerald fire on Dorilian’s left hand. Gerd spilled his cup, hot branroot steaming on the table.

Glancing coldly at the Khelds who had just invaded the tent, Dorilian sheathed his blade and forbade them even the thought of action. He was long acquainted with fragile situations, including very dangerous ones. He sensed the dissonance in this one. Who was he, after all? Thron Estol Bevvan? Those who knew him as such could not banish that identity. Those who did not see Thron saw another man, more arrogant and distant, perhaps, and yet nothing they had expected. The name they so hated had no human form. Dorilian Sordaneon to them was myth and monster: ageless; faceless; indistinct. What they confronted now was recognizable, solid, and very much a man. He had only to draw out the moment of confusion.

After he picked up his things, Dorilian turned to Gerd. “Thank you for your hospitality, Master Ralfson. I regret that I brought discord to your table.” To Nalf Rhys, who stared straight ahead, too stunned to look at him, he said, “Now you understand.”

No one, not even the Khelds standing in his path, moved to stop Dorilian from leaving. The armed men stood there, their drawn swords lowering until the weapons hung useless at their sides, their helpless faces watching in blank amazement. Even Fran Gorseddson did not stir more than a finger as Dorilian’s cloak brushed his sword.

As Dorilian departed the tent he heard Nalf Rhys splutter into his soup, spraying it across the tent, cursing and bellowing for Fran to rally his troops. “Stand down! Be done with it! He’s safe with his Staubauns now. Get me my horse!”

*******

What I found fun about this chapter was (and will always be) Dorilian being Dorilian while interacting with Khelds outside of Amallar. In Amallar he was in disguise and holding back a bit of his usually overbearing personality. In this scene he's been "himself" again for several weeks. Hierarch and godborn. People defer to him always. Except Khelds don't, and especially as they don't know who he is. Nalf not yet knowing to whom he's ranting is good for laughs.

There are certain characters that are just plain fun to write. Dorilian, Endelarin, Nalf, Chyralane and Fahme are always a hoot. Put two of them together and it's an author's playground.