The Warded Man

Rojer often thought of returning to Angiers, but was forever coming up with reasons to put it off another season. After all, what did the city have to offer? Narrow streets, choked with people and animals, wooden planks infused with the stench of manure and garbage. Beggars and thieves and the ever-present worry about money. People who ignored each other as an art.

Normal people, Roger thought, and sighed. Villagers were always seeking to know everything about their neighbors, and opened their homes to strangers without a thought. It was commendable, but Rojer was a city boy at heart.

Returning to Angiers would mean dealing with the guild again. An unlicensed Jongleur’s days were numbered, but a guildsman in good standing’s business was assured. His experience in the hamlets should be enough to win him a license, especially if he found a guildsman to speak for him. Arrick had alienated most of those, but Rojer might find one to take pity on him upon hearing of his master’s fate.

He found a tree that gave some shelter from the rain, and after setting up his circle, managed to collect enough dry tinder from beneath its boughs to start a small fire. He fed it carefully, but the wind and wet extinguished it before long.

“Bugger the hamlets,” Rojer said as the darkness enveloped him, broken only by the occasional flare of magic as a demon tested his wards.

“Bugger them all.”

Angiers hadn’t changed much since he’d been gone. It seemed smaller, but Rojer had been living in wide-open places for some time, and had grown a few inches since he had been there last. He was sixteen now, a man by anyone’s standards. He stood outside the city for some time, staring at the gate and wondering if he was making a mistake.

He had a little coin, sifted carefully from his collection hat over the years and hoarded against his return, and some food in his pack. It wasn’t much, but it would keep him out of the shelters for a few nights at least.

If all I want is a full belly and a roof, I can always go back to the hamlets, he thought. He could head south to Farmer’s Stump and Cutter’s Hollow, or north, to where the duke had rebuilt Riverbridge on the Angierian side of the river.

If, he told himself again, mustering his courage and walking through the gate.

He found an inn that was cheap enough, and unpacked his best motley, heading back out as soon as he was changed. The Jongleurs’ Guildhouse was located near the center of town, where its residents could easily make engagements in any part of the city. Any licensed Jongleur could live in the house, provided they took the jobs assigned to them without complaint, and paid half their earnings to the guild.

“Fools,” Arrick called them. “Any Jongleur willing to give half his take for a roof and three communal servings of gruel isn’t worthy of the name.”

It was true enough. Only the oldest and least skilled Jongleurs lived in the house, ready to take the jobs others turned down. Still, it was better than destitution, and safer than public shelters. The wards on the guildhouse were strong, and its residents less apt to rob one another.

Rojer headed for the residences, and a few inquiries soon had him knocking on a particular door.

“Eh?” the old man asked, squinting into the hall as he opened his door. “Who’s that?”

“Rojer Halfgrip, sir,” Rojer said, and seeing no recognition in the rheumy eyes, added, “I was apprentice to Arrick Sweetsong.”

The confused look soured in an instant, and the man moved to close the door.

“Master Jaycob, please,” Rojer said, placing his hand on the door.

The old man sighed, but made no effort to close the door as he moved back into the small chamber and sat down heavily. Rojer entered, closing the door behind them.

“What is it you want?” Jaycob asked. “I’m an old man and don’t have time for games.”

“I need a sponsor to apply for a guild license,” Rojer said.

Jaycob spat on the floor. “Arrick’s become a dead weight?” he asked. “His drinking slowing down your success, so you’re leaving him to rot and striking out on your own?” He grunted. “Fitting. S’what he did to me, twenty-five years ago.”

He looked up at Rojer. “But fitting or no, if you think I’m to help in your betrayal …”

“Master Jaycob,” Rojer said, holding up his hands to forestall the coming tirade, “Arrick is dead. Cored on the road to Woodsend, two years gone.”

“Keep your back straight, boy,” Jaycob said as they walked down the hall. “Remember to look the guildmaster in the eye, and don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”

He had already said these things a dozen times, but Rojer only nodded. He was young to get his own license, but Jaycob said there had been some in the guild’s history who were younger still. It was talent and skill that would win a license, not years.

It wasn’t easy to get an appointment with the guildmaster, even with a sponsor. Jaycob hadn’t had the strength to perform in years, and while the guildsmen were politely respectful of his advanced years, he was more ignored than venerated in the office wing of the guildhouse.

The guildmaster’s secretary left them waiting outside his office for several hours, watching in despair as other appointments came and went. Rojer sat with his back straight, resisting the urge to shift or slump, as the light from the window slowly crossed the room.

“Guildmaster Cholls will see you now,” the clerk said at last, and Rojer snapped back to attention. He stood quickly, lending Jaycob a hand to help the old man to his feet.

The guildmaster’s office was like nothing Rojer had seen since his time in the duke’s palace. Thick warm carpet covered the floors, patterned and bright, and elaborate oil lamps with colored glass hung from the oak walls between paintings of great battles, beautiful women, and still lifes. His desk was dark polished walnut, with small, intricate statuettes for paperweights, mirroring the larger statues on pedestals throughout the room. Behind the desk was the symbol of the Jongleurs’ Guild, three colored balls, in a large seal on the wall.

“I don’t have a lot of time, Master Jaycob,” Guildmaster Cholls said, not even bothering to look up from the sheaf of papers on his desk. He was a heavy man, fifty summers at least, dressed in the embroidered cloth of a merchant or noble, rather than Jongleur’s motley.

“This one is worth your time,” Jaycob said. “The apprentice of Arrick Sweetsong.”

Cholls looked up at last, if only to glance askew at Jaycob. “Didn’t realize you and Arrick were still in touch,” he said, ignoring Rojer entirely. “Heard you broke on bad terms.”

“The years have a way of softening such things,” Jaycob said stiffly, as close to a lie as he was willing to go. “I’ve made my peace with Arrick.”

“It seems you’re the only one,” Cholls said with a chuckle. “Most of the men in this building would as soon throttle the man as look at him.”

“They’d be a little late,” Jaycob said. “Arrick is dead.”

Cholls sobered at that. “I’m saddened to hear that,” he said. “Every one of us is precious. Was it the drink, in the end?”

Jaycob shook his head. “Corelings.”

The guildmaster scowled, and spat into a brass bucket by his desk that seemed there for no other purpose. “When and where?” he asked.