【Written by Juan Garcia】

“I don’t see the point of envying whores,” she said, almost as if the words had poured out of her mouth like a breaking dam. 

The company surrounding the table grew quiet, an island of mutes while the music of the festivities continued on behind them. The pleasant smell of roasting meat was in the humid summer’s air. Whoever had been playing piano inside kept on flowing through their exercise of melody. They heard children laughing as they chased each other on the far side of the green. The laughter and pulse of chatter at the other tables in the courtyard were like thundering waves in each of their ears. The speaker herself had fear building within her. Laira Hostedd’s eyes flicked around at them like a panicked hog’s, unwilling to accept the position she had put herself in, but just as unwilling to break the silence. 

Roman Clarent gave a half-strangled response. “I believe you’ve made your point clear, Lady Hostedd.” He, the weak-jawed cousin of hers with hair dyed black to hide the grey, was looking at the spilled glass of wine as it darkened its way across the tablecloth. No one had reached to clean it. Laira inhaled and made to raise herself from her seat undoubtedly to flee, but a massive hand clamped down on her shoulder. She whimpered at the force of the hand and looked up into the grim face of Wheeler Sawsmith. He was a big country boy from the western marches; one of those who proved himself worthy of a noble title. First in his line. Now his tanned face looked like death. 

“Sit down,” he growled. “Where I’m from, if you’ve got a problem with somebody, you fucking say it to their face.” He had been instructed not to use foul language at weddings, but in his humble opinion, curses served to enlighten and educate the receiver with a much needed dose of worded daggers. “So go on, keep talking.” Wheeler heard chairs scrape back as soon as he had moved towards her, and knew that more than a few hands were at their scabbards. 

“Don’t you touch her, hillshit,” a voice said close behind him. A hard and regal voice, likely that boy from House Rookhold who had looked at him in the entrance hall like he was a dog dressed in people’s clothes. 

He knew he could draw his own long knife from within his coat and stick at least one of those boys, but was in no hurry to be stuck himself. He raised his hand and Hostedd sank into her seat, her eyes still wild. The woman who took most offence to the comment about whores in question sat across the table with hands gripping her cutlery like she was about to use it to slit Hostedd’s throat. Sarah Locke, sister to the bride who sat several tables away, unaware of deadly situation that had bubbled up just next door. Sarah was staring at her sister’s slanderer with eyes that looked both far away and insidiously intimate. 

“Say it again,” she said. Her voice trembled with rage. 

Laira huffed out a nervous laugh. “I—” She dropped her weak scaffolding of a smile and the entire pot of boiling disgust from within spilled out across her face. “I’ve seen the way your sister treats with men behind poor Ellor’s back. Everyone’s seen. It’s a damn disgrace that the head of a house should be caught rutting like a pig—” Wheeler’s eyes only managed to half-widen as the steak knife flew from Sarah’s hand to its target with deadly accuracy. Laira’s head snapped back as the instrument spilled both blood and screams from her. The woman toppled backwards at the same time as several others at the table jumped forward. A man two chairs away from Sarah had already drawn his dagger and was descending down upon her. She was too fixated by the thrashing form of Laira on the cobblestones below the table to notice her attacker falling several feet short of his target, Wheeler’s knife having taken him in the throat. It seemed that they were both marksmen today. 

Startled shouts rang out along the other tables as the scene erupted. Wheeler dropped into a crouch to avoid the sword passing a hair’s breadth from his scalp and threw himself towards his assailant. He collided with a body. Crashed to the ground. There was screaming all around him. A child began to cry somewhere far away. He and the other man rolled about the stones punching and clawing at one another. Wheeler felt cold sand spill within his skull as his head was slammed into a table leg, but he kept steady his grip around the other man’s neck. 

Wheeler thought he heard the chaos die down and felt several pairs of hands prying him off the bastard under him. He at last relented and felt himself none-too gently be hauled up to stand. He felt the hard edges of metal pressed against his back and realized that soldiers were holding him. Dazed, he looked around to see the courtyard a mess. The table had been turned over and the food strewn in a spoiled ruin across the ground. The man who Wheeler had killed behind Sarah was lying dead where he fell. Guards had scattered across the party securing a near-rioting crowd of guests. Some were horrified, many furious. The children who had been playing by the field were gone. 

He spotted Sarah speaking with her sister surrounded by a dozen armored men. She had managed to get her hands on another knife and was pointing with it towards where Laira Hostedd was being tended to by several guards. Laira was weeping with a hand over the reddened bandages where her right eye had been. 

Wheeler was brought to himself by the shock of a slap across his face. His eyes refocused to see the noble brat he had wrestled to the ground standing before him unguarded. It was that Rookhold boy. Wheeler grinned through a stinging cheek. “You were itching to spill my hillshit guts weren’t you?” he said. He lunged forward, causing Rookhold to flinch back even as the guards held Wheeler tight by the arms. 

“Oh, I still might have the chance,” he snarled, now even further incensed. “I’ll see you on the salted cliffs.” 

Wheeler’s smile felt plastered. 

Ten days later, Wheeler sat atop a mound of grass overlooking the cresting waves of an ocean far below. The air was cooler here, a foreign feeling to his own suffocating forests back home. The land was a bright and shocking green that rolled away from the sloping rise without a tree in sight. Those responsible for the incident at the table had been brought there to met out their grudges and determine what kind of peace would remain. 

Wheeler stood to face those gathered some paces away. The duel between Laira Hostedd and Sarah Locke appeared to have ended. From where he sat cross-legged on the rise he saw the form of Sarah—sabre in hand—stalk away from a body crumpled on the turf. They had blunted her sword on account of Lady Hostedd’s freshly missing eye, but that had shown to be too little of a challenge too late. Wheeler had not been among this nobility for long but he had learned their bloody ways quick enough. With some rough translation he could equate it to the same form of backwoods justice men often sought after back home. 

Now it was his turn. 

Paul Rookhold—he had been told of the man’s name—was waiting for him in the dueling circle when he descended from the hill. Wheeler had dressed himself down from his wedding attire into a simple white shirt, good pants, and solid boots that had proven reliable before. The small gathering of nobles and guardsmen parted before him like a curtain to reveal his opponent. Paul had a sabre loose in his hand and was poised like a hawk before a kill. He smiled as Wheeler took his knife back from a guardsman. Wheeler inspected it, taking his time. It seemed they had cleaned it well. The man he had killed with it at the dinner table had been one of Rookhold’s house, and so that grudge would be settled in this fight as well. 

“You ready boy?” the noble called across the field. 

“Mm,” Wheeler grunted. 

The circle, drawn in white paint, spanned about twenty yards end to end. Paul stood at its center and now drew his blade up into a guard, prepared to cut Wheeler down. 

Wheeler looked down at his own weapon again. Knife against sword. Not a good match. He was sure that many who watched now believed him for certain dead. They would have been correct if Paul had not shown his hand at the wedding. Wheeler walked to meet the man with his eyes half closed to feel the ocean breeze against his face. The gathering of people had been silent from the start. It was poor manners to interrupt an affair being settled. 

Paul was not a young man, but his body seemed well tailored to fight. To fight and win, specifically. Wheeler knew he was untrained in the art of circle-fighting. A sabre or any other sword would have felt clumsy and unfamiliar in his grip. So he had his knife. 

“Let’s start,” he said, spinning the heavy short blade. 

Paul gave a smug nod and relaxed into his stance. He was like a coiled snake. He was like water. 

“Fuck it,” Wheeler said. He lunged forward, stopping at the last second to jump back. A fake. Paul had taken the bait just as he did at the wedding when Wheeler had jumped at him then. His steel swung in a perfect loop to greet only air. Wheeler saw the man’s eyes widen just before tackling him with a familiar impact. They fell to the turf, scrapping, the sabre trying and failing to find a mark at such close distance. To find a mark like a knife would. 

Wheeler Sawsmith walked away from the corpse he left on the circle to return to another wedding. He expected more comments to be made. More blood to be drawn. And he was tired.