Accidental War Mage

In the doorway of the taverna and on the other side of the gathered crowd, Ragnar wore a sour look, a short middle-aged man tugging pleadingly on his arm as he spoke in what was either an unfamiliar Gothic dialect or a very badly-accented version of a familiar one. “No, we really have caught a, how you say, syoyu…”

“Sjöjungfru,” Ragnar said, snarling. “And they don’t exist outside of my cousin’s fairy tales. He makes up a new story about how he lost his leg every six months.”

“What’s the rich Frank saying? Is he going to buy the siren now? She has to be worth a lot of money.” On the other side of the middle-aged man and speaking in fluid Greek was a man with an identical nose, slightly younger, slightly taller, and his shirt still damp with seawater.

“He still doesn’t believe me,” the middle-aged man said. “Look, it’s just our bad luck that the Latin convoy is gone, but maybe the baron will buy the siren in the morning.”

“At the price he picks,” the younger man said. “And in scrip I can’t spend off the island. The Frank has gold coin, the harbormaster’s assistant’s brother said so.” Shouldering the older man aside to grab Ragnar’s arm, he pulled.

The drunken Swede, caught off guard, staggered forward several steps through the crowd of people. Sensing trouble, I broke into a brisk jog. Behind and to my left, a roofing tile slipped to the cobblestones below, shattering just as Ragnar removed his arm from the grip of the fisherman in a quick movement that left the local on the ground checking himself for a broken tailbone.

He took in the three fishermen holding the mermaid, then turned to the fisherman on the ground, slipping from deliberate and easily-understood Gothic into an angry burst of his native tongue. “You think you can con me out of my hard-earned örtugar by tying up some big-titted whore with a severed dolphin tail and calling her a mermaid?”

While exceptionally loud, these words were too fast, too fluid, and too foreign for the middle-aged man to translate directly, although Ragnar’s stance and clenched fists made his mood clear. The crowd began to spread in a half-ring, the universal human reaction of a crowd to an impending fight. The middle-aged man backed up, prudently holding up empty hands in a calming gesture; the fisherman holding the lantern, however, was less sanguine about Ragnar putting one of his comrades on the ground. He put his lantern down on the ground and switched his gaff to his right hand as he walked forward.

The mermaid whimpered through her gag. I jogged faster.

Ragnar slipped his hammer out of his belt in response to the escalation. I could only watch as the fisherman with the gaff swung the pole two-handed at Ragnar’s head; fortunately, Ragnar was an experienced soldier and the fisherman was not accustomed to trying to gaff humans. He parried, and when the hook on the end of the gaff caught against the hammer’s head, yanked hard, sending the pole clattering to the ground.

A second later, a pinging noise announced the impact of the broken metal hook against a cobblestone. “Don’t you dare,” growled Ragnar, swaying visibly on his feet. He took an unsteady step forward, a quick dexterous motion of his right hand bringing the top of the hammer to the ground to catch his balance, muttering a startled oath under his breath.

The first cracking noise was the sound of a cobblestone breaking under the impact of the head of the inverted hammer; after that, there were many smaller cracking noises as the puddled seawater around the wheelbarrow froze solid. Ice ran across the cobblestones and up the net that wrapped the mermaid. The man holding the wheelbarrow jumped back, trying to snatch away his hands as ice ran up the handles. The wheelbarrow tipped over, the frozen net shattering as the mermaid and wheelbarrow more or less switched positions, landing with a loud thud followed by a muffled whimper.

Ragnar was still looking down at the cobblestones, working on finding his balance again. When one of the other fishermen stepped forward holding a knife, a quick motion of his elbows and rapid blur of frosted steel left his hammer upright in a two-handed grip. “Piss off,” Ragnar said, enunciating in his best slowly-spoken Venetian as his eyes focused on the fisherman, a growing layer of frost on his hammer catching the torchlight.

I don’t know how many words of Venetian either Ragnar or the knife-wielding fisherman understood, but that phrase appeared to be one they had in common. A fresh damp stain melted through the frost on the fisherman’s pants before he made a hasty exit from the scene, followed more slowly by the other fishermen. The one rubbing a possibly-cracked tailbone was moving the most slowly, and was bold enough to shout something about saying Ragnar would pay one way or another before jogging out of view behind a row of houses.

“All of you, piss off,” Ragnar said more loudly, swinging one leg around in order to turn to face the half-circle of onlookers. “Back to your drinking.”

Slowly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse. Ragnar looked down at his now-crossed legs, making the unfortunate decision to try to move his other leg to get both of his feet pointed in something resembling the same direction. That was when he lost what was left of his sense of balance; I broke into a run, but wasn’t quite fast enough to catch him as he went down on his hands and knees and then rolled to a sitting position.

“Lieutenant Rimehammer,” I said gruffly after I had arrived and caught my breath. “What are you doing here?”

He snored gently in reply, his chin resting on the butt of his hammer, one leg sprawled in either direction, the scent of grappa filling the air.

After a few failed attempts to wake him and deciding I didn’t trust any of the locals looking on, I reached the conclusion that I didn’t want to leave either him or the mermaid here. So, I tossed the wheelbarrow aside, pulled the gag out of the mermaid’s mouth, and slung the mermaid over my right shoulder with her tail as the heavier part to my rear; then picked up Ragnar and slung him over my left shoulder with his legs forward to try to balance the load.

In the absence of any fresh threats, most of the original crowd of onlookers had returned to looking on, along with a shadowy figure perched on the roof of the taverna whose rifle barrel glinted in the moonlight. Trusting that my back was well-guarded, I walked back to the ship, boards creaking dangerously underfoot until I could slip the heavier part of my burden into the water. Along the way, I answered her questions with a series of assurances that Ragnar was fine; he was not injured, but had drunk too much grappa.

After satisfying her apparent desire for more details about Ragnar’s health by discussing the distillation process involved with the production of grappa at a level of detail that would have bored most non-mechanics, I carefully climbed up the rope ladder back into the ship, deposited a snoring Ragnar Rimehammer on the deck with an open question in my mind of whether or not he ought to still be called “Lieutenant,” and then set about waking the elder Rimehammer cousin.

We were midway through a digression about stories Captain Felix Rimehammer had heard told about mermaids when Katya climbed aboard, telling me she thought it advisable that we departed promptly, as the offended fishermen were in the process of demonstrating that they were connected by friendship or familial ties to a large fraction of the population of the town. From what she described, I concluded that the fishermen believed Ragnar and I owed them a substantial sum on account of a combination of mermaid theft, emotional distress, and reputational damage.

With that in mind, we woke Vitold and began to warm up the rowing-engine as we made a quick head count. We were short three former galley slaves, but those three had been from Negroponte and I had not expected them to return. More surprisingly, we still had the liberated nobleman aboard.

“I thought you wanted to be brought to Negroponte,” I said, gesturing at the harbor and taking note of the fact that there seemed to be an increased number of men with lanterns moving about in the streets. “If that’s your destination, here’s where you get off. We’re leaving.”

“No, this is Karystos,” he said. “Negroponte the city, not just anywhere on the island. This is the territory of the southern triarch. I need to get to the city.”

I stood stock still for a moment, trying to picture the relevant charts in my head. “That is on the wrong side of the island from where we want to go. I could give you money to pay your passage on the next boat headed that way.”

He shook his head vigorously. “You promised you would take me to Negroponte, and I promised I would reward you. I can’t do that here. Promises are sacred!” He jutted his chin out defiantly, his arms crossed.

“Couldn’t the baron of Karystos advance that reward on your behalf?” I asked. “Or one of the local merchant factors?”

At the mention of the baron, the noble swallowed, his face paling. “No,” he said. “Just take me to the city of Negroponte. Like you promised.”

I sighed. He was right; I had promised. “Very well. It will not take us that far out of the way, I suppose.” I gave a signal to Banneret Teushpa; he gave a signal to Vitold; and with a lurch, the rowing-engine jerked the ship forward. After the first several strokes, we reached a steady speed, silently sliding out of the harbor.

Felix was at first slightly annoyed at the detour; but then realized that stopping at Negroponte would give us another opportunity to sell off the cargo we had not had the time to sell at Karystos, and perhaps take on profitable cargo, something which had in any event been in short supply at Karystos given the fresh departure of a Venetian convoy.

While we were moving at a good galley clip, it was not so fast that the mermaid was pressed hard to keep up with us. She was very pleased with her rescue – both that it had happened, and that it had been effected by Ragnar, thereby proving that he loved her enough to face down alone five angry fisherman with gaffs and knives and flaming lanterns. Her exuberance showed in the way that she leaped back and forth over the ram at our prow, for brief moments coming entirely out of the water; and while underwater, she sang loudly enough that I could feel the faint vibration coming up through the keel.

Once a school of her sisters arrived, she calmed down, telling them an abridged version of the story of her capture and release. As they talked amongst themselves underwater, she perched on the ram, sliding up the nose of the ship with her chest thrust out, and quietly asked if I might teach her the lovely language Ragnar had spoken when he was angry. She only knew Venetian, Greek, and Dalmatian; but that language, whatever it was, it was Ragnar’s heart’s tongue, and she needed to know it.