The Old Wanderer's Eye

"How did you know I was an Eitz... ah. Come to think of it."

"Oh... and might this old man ask what you were thinking just now?"

"Who else around here, at this hour, would be strapping on a longsword and lounging about like some idle vagrant?"

Johan's clothes were plain everyday wear, without a single family crest anywhere on them, but that alone had been enough. The old man nodded.

"Just as I thought... might I have your name?"

"Johan. Johan Eitz."

"I'd never have taken you for Sir Gesen's son..."

?

Johan stared at the old man, baffled.

"In any case, what brings you here?"

"Brings me? Nothing brings me... this is where I always come."

"Ah — my apologies. How careless of me..."

"No, it's fine. Stay as long as you like."

Johan waved a hand and made to walk on, but the old man spoke again.

"Might I ask just one more thing?"

"...That's fine, but who are you supposed to be?"

Johan swept his eyes over the old man, head to toe. One eye was a clouded gray — blind, by the look of it. Beyond that, his dress was entirely ordinary.

For his age, though, a remarkably hardened old man.

The old man's back had not begun to bend, and his frame was still solid and lean — Johan took note of that. Men built like that were a rare sight in a village.

"I am called Kaegal — a wanderer making his rounds of the Empire."

"I see. Kaegal. And what business do you have in this village with nothing worth seeing?"

"As I said before, Lord Johan — a wanderer simply wanders. There's no reason to it. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠'nothing worth seeing,' you say? A village as warm and well-kept as this is a rare find even in the Empire."

Kaegal laid the flattery on thick, but to Johan it didn't sound a bit sincere. The Eitz fief had never been anything so grand to begin with.

Johan considered arguing the point, then let it drop. It was nothing important — and the fief being a laughingstock didn't wound him any.

"Fine. What did you want to ask?"

"If you're Sir Gesen's son, then surely you're training as a squire by now?"

"Are you mocking me?"

"Not at all. How could I possibly?"

"If I were training as a squire, I'd be off serving under some other knight."

The usual path was to enter another knight's household as a page in boyhood, rack up experience, rise to squire, and eventually — merit earned — be made a full knight.

Of course, sons of noble knightly houses could swagger about calling themselves knights without bothering with any of that. But for the son of a petty noble with no real skill to try the same, the only reward was becoming a laughingstock.

"That may be, but there are other arrangements, aren't there? Sir Gesen might have summoned a knight to the fief to teach you..."

"Ah, so that's what you mean. John's the one getting that."

Lady Eitz had brought a retired knight into the manor to school her youngest, John. The old man nodded along.

"The youngest, I see... so you yourself have had no training at all?"

"None, I told you. Why do you keep badgering me about it?"

"My apologies. It's only that, however I look at you, your body hardly seems untrained..."

And there it was. For a man who had never trained a day in his life, Johan's exterior was far too convincing.

Then again — doesn't he know a little too much?

Wanderer or not, the man seemed awfully familiar with the lives of knights. He might have picked it up serving in some other knightly house, of course...

"Well then... I'll be on my way. Ah — Lord Johan. Is there anywhere in the village where an old man might sleep for the night?"

"Go down the hill and look for the long, low house with the wide door, off to one side. There's no second floor, but there's a back room where the travelers who pass through now and then bed down."

In a larger town there would have been an inn doing honest trade, but this village had nothing of the sort — only a tavern that doubled as one. Ample enough for wanderers to drink a night away and sleep it off before moving on.

The tavern belonged to the lord of the fief, Sir Gesen himself. Like the water mill and the village's other facilities, it was run by someone licensed by the lord, and the income flowed to him.

Strange, how the man sticks in my mind. If he were some suspicious character... no. No reason to think that.

No spy or schemer in his right mind would bother coming to the Eitz fief. It wasn't worth anyone's while.

And even if one had, Johan had no intention of stepping forward. Anything concerning House Eitz ought to be handled by his high-and-mighty half-brothers, or by Lady Eitz herself — shouldn't it?

Kaegal made fast friends with the villagers. Making friends wasn't difficult — it took only a little knack and a handful of imperial silver.

Let a harmless-looking wanderer praise their village and stand them a round of drinks, and the chronically bored farmers would come flocking with questions about everything under the sun.

Crackle—

A fire pit sat at the center of the packed-earth floor. Over the pit, dug straight into the ground, a stew bubbled away, looking as though it had been simmering for a good long while. No particular dish had been in mind when it went in — odds were the tavern keeper couldn't have said exactly what was in it either. Whatever the day's catch happened to be went into the pot, and it boiled on.

Even so, the Eitz village never ran short of salt or spices, so the taste was respectable. The village sat beside the old highway of the Ancient Empire, and merchants were forever passing through with their goods.

Kaegal, for his part, was reasonably satisfied. He'd eaten far worse in his day. For a wanderer, this much was a banquet.

"So... about Sir Gesen's son..."

"Which son?"

"The tall one. Built like a fortress."

"Ah, Lord Johan."

"I only met him the once, and the sheer presence of the man was no joke at all. Is he the heir?"

"What? No. No. The heir is Lord Philip."

"Still, I can see how a man might be forgiven for the mistake. One look and anyone can tell Lord Johan was born looking far more the part of a knight."

"Now come off it. Since when does a man become heir by his looks? Don't go saying dangerous ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠things."

Amusing.

Kaegal eavesdropped on the farmers' chatter with relish. He poured the weak ale, asked a single question, and they were off, chattering away on their own. With so few chances in life to laze about, none of them could stop talking.

So he really has never been trained? He certainly seemed to be drilling himself, but...

In Kaegal's eyes, Johan was a young man born with a body gifted by God. Springy, powerful muscles and lightning-quick reflexes — the very flesh a warrior needed, nothing more and nothing less.

What was astonishing was that the boy had already conditioned himself to the point where he could fight, here and now.

Could a young man who had never been taught a thing manage that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kind of training alone?

Kaegal's interest sharpened. He hadn't believed the prophecy the Asman witch had given him — but watching Johan now, he was beginning to put his faith in it.

A single imperial gold coin was enough to idle away months even in the priciest of cities. Plenty of serfs went their whole lives without ever laying eyes on one. Even so, he hadn't dreamed of pinching it.

Only a fool broke a bargain made with a witch.

Kaegal believed in no god — but he was an old assassin who believed firmly in superstition.

And this was no common hedge-witch, either. She had come from the Asman Empire, far to the east of the Holy Empire — the witches of Asman were rumored to be summoned even by the Sultan himself, to read what the future held.

Neither Kaegal nor the witch had any standing worth boasting of. The witch was a heathen who worshipped a god other than the church of the Holy Empire, and Kaegal was an assassin.

The unlicensed sword guild of the Holy Empire — Nessos' Deadly Poison!

Kaegal was one of the Masters of that guild.

Just as the Empire had its official sword guilds, where men honed the blade in earnest devotion and swore loyalty to their city's lord, so too did it have illegal guilds — lurking in the shadows of those same cities, taking contracts that would never see daylight.

Guilds where thugs, thieves, and murderers gathered.

Not every man who learned the sword was a righteous one. The underground sword guilds flourished every bit as lushly as their lawful counterparts — and Nessos' Deadly Poison stood among the most flourishing of them all.

Kaegal had lived his entire life without a single regret, but as his dying days drew near, one regret had taken root.

That his arts would vanish from the world exactly as they were.

Unlike the licensed guilds, the unlicensed ones wanted nothing to do with masters and disciples, with the careful transmission of sword arts. You learned on your own, or you stole the techniques on your own. Fail at that, and you died.

Kaegal prided himself — with good reason — on having mastered the secret techniques handed down through Nessos' Deadly Poison. Into them he had melted everything a lifetime of killing had taught him, forging a sword art entirely his own.

And yet...

There was no one to teach it to.

The young newcomers to Nessos' Deadly Poison were — true to form for the sort who joined Nessos' Deadly Poison — trash. He might have just barely stomached their cur-like, vulgar natures and temperaments, but their skill and talent displeased him every bit as much.

Was he meant to take as disciples these half-baked little villains, who might well turn the very arts he taught them straight back onto his own throat?

Kaegal wanted no part of it. It came home to him, all over again, why the licensed guilds were strong. Systematic instruction, proper transmission — of course they'd be strong.

So in the end, the one Kaegal had sought out was the witch. Clutching at straws, he'd decided he might as well hear a prophecy.

And now.

Kaegal rejoiced that the prophecy had, against all expectation, not been wrong.

Another day of disgustingly hard work.

"May God's protection go with you."

"And with you, Father."

Johan bowed his head before Balberga, the priest who kept the fief's church. He had spent the afternoon in the man's company, helping with the church's work.

Most of Sir Gesen's sons lived at a great distance from anything resembling piety. So when Johan took to visiting the church of his own accord, faith on open display, Balberga could hardly contain his delight.

"Lord Johan. God will be watching your devotion."