3. Varian Waltari - where rumors end

Varian Waltari - where rumors end


  • Account name: Sethan tr’ Rial
    Character Name: Varian Waltari

    A soldiers life. It seemed like a simple enough choice. A way to get off the streets, and into two meals a day and a clean bunk. A way to learn some new skills, maybe make something of myself.

    Old habits betrayed me. I got to be known for taking point on patrols. Blending into the shadows. Moving quietly enough to scare the rest of the squad when I came back to report. That alone might have been enough. Or not.

    Old habits were part of it. Kyril made sure of the rest. He used to be a guardsman down in the docks before he joined up, and he recognized me when both our squads happened to be working the same detail. The bastard actually had the gall to report me to the Captain, expecting to get me kicked out and arrested, just because I was wanted in connection with some missing property.

    I didn’t get kicked out. Not then. Instead, Captain Hendee made me an offer. Do ‘special jobs’ as required, get a corporal’s pay and benefits, or go to jail. Not a hard choice.

    The special jobs were easy. Break in and steal a document. Break in and plant a document. Eavesdrop on a conversation. That was the life. I got to do what I was good at, with official sanction. No risk unless the target caught me – and I was too good for that. All I had to do was follow orders, and I could live the good life.

    Then came the job where it all went wrong. A bit of thuggery this time – break into the estate of Lady Welling, intimidate and rob her, and then leave. Lady Welling was rabble rousing about decreasing the military budget, and the ‘thief’ was to be caught by one of Captain Hendee’s squads, and her goods returned.

    Everything was going perfectly. Lady Welling was tied and gagged, and not even bruised much, and I was making a very satisfying show of going through her things when her door opened without warning, and some fop tried to run me through. I’ll give him this – he was quick. Apparently though, they don’t teach you in fencing school how to parry a chair. A few seconds later, his rapier was mine, and he was bleeding out on the carpet.

    I felt a little sick, and at the same time powerful and alive like I’d never felt before. I’d seen death of course, but I’d never before had occasion to kill a man.

    Lady Welling hadn’t seen my face and had nothing by which to identify me, so I could leave her alive. The orders specified leaving her alive in fact, but there was the temptation to kill her, just so I could feel the same sort of excitement again that I had when the fop died. I left her bound and gagged, and made my way out the same way I’d come in.

    I didn’t realize how badly things had gone wrong until I reported to Captain Hendee. When I explained about the fop, his face lost all expression. He asked to see the rapier. I’d been a fool and kept it – it was a better weapon than any I’d ever owned.

    He looked over the guard and hilts carefully, then showed me a symbol etched in relief on the bell. “Do you know what this is,” he asked calmly. Too calmly, I realize now. I told him I didn’t. “That is the crest of Lord Ashley. You’ve just killed him.” I had no idea who Lord Ashley was. I didn’t move in those circles. “Is he important,” I asked.

    He yelled for the guards, and when I moved suddenly, he was too busy trying to get a weapon out to defend himself to stop me from going out the window. So much for my cushy job. I nearly brained myself bouncing off the awning of the shop below, and there were guards pouring out of the door before I had fully recovered from the drop.

    I headed for the docks. Old home turf. With luck, I might hide there for a couple of days, or try to get a ship out of the city. Made good sense. Hopefully the ones I let see me heading in that direction believed it. I doubled back, and found a spot underneath some netting on a barge headed upriver. By the time they figured out what I’d done – if they figured it out – I’d be long gone.

    I stayed on the barge until they stopped for the night, and made my way off it without being seen. When the crew assembled the following morning, they were one short… and there was an enterprising young fellow who looked nothing like a certain wanted fugitive, wanting to hire on.

    I felt a little sorry for that bargeman. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not his fault. Necessity made the choice for me. I felt less sick this time, but the thrill was no less strong.

    Barge trips, boat trips. Stop every so often to listen to the gossip, and see if there is anything in it about a lord being murdered. Every time there was, I went a little further out. I’m getting rather sick of the water.

    Just as well. By the time I decided I was safe, there wasn’t much further I could have gone.

    Peltarch. What the hells kind of a name is that?

    –-

    A man stands on the docks, swaying slightly, taking in the city and getting his land legs. He’s dressed as a common sailor, but there’s something about him, just for a moment, as he looks at the ship he’s just left, that says he is perhaps something else. The moment passes, and he swings a battered sea bag over his shoulder, and moves into the city – just one more seaman in the crowd.


  • Locked, exp pending

    mnd