Chapter Text
The first Tarhos hears of the Duke of Portoscuro and his scholarly expedition is an advertisement on an innkeeper’s noticeboard. He reads the parchment, sees the promise of a wealthy sum, and though reluctant to serve beneath another man so soon after having worked a similar unfulfilling job, he immediately accepts what he must do. He owes it to his pack to seek their freedom. For them he can swallow his pride.
He makes haste to Portoscuro, keeping his steed at a hasty pace. She takes his command without complaint even as sweat foams and lathers against her saddle. It is then before the dawn of the following Thursday that he meets the man who he has now pledged his services to. Tarhos recognises the noble instantly, his clothes and his countenance betraying his finer standing. The Lord Toscano is dressed in light travelling leathers and woollen clothes. The make of them is fine and expensive despite their simplicity.
The Lord approaches and as he stands before Tarhos he removes his hood and reveals a head of white curls, gone grey as though an elder. The man’s face shows no signs that would suggest a similar age, his wrinkles apparent but still not yet carved into his skin. It is a confusing contrast. Tarhos has seen those in his line of work grow prematurely grey with the stress of it but he scoffs at the notion that a man such as the Duke of Portoscuro has faced any such hardships.
“Ser Kovács?” Toscano questions, and his Italian tongue grates irritatingly against the syllables of his name. Tarhos does not move to correct him.
Tarhos nods.
The Lord smiles. It’s pleasant enough—polite. “A pleasure.” Toscano holds out a peace of parchment, words scrawled in a miniscule font. “Your contract,” he explains. “With your duties, details of your services, and your expected payment included.”
Tarhos isn’t particularly interested in reading any of it and so he signs the contract the moment it’s offered to him. Though he does it to please Toscano he has never been one to take men’s laws very seriously. He will break that contract the moment it becomes inconvenient to him.
Toscano smiles at him and takes the contract back. “I trust you are prepared for the journey?”
Tarhos nods.
“Then come. We should use as much of the daylight as we can.”
Tarhos bristles at being called to heel like a dog. It is a feeling he is adept at swallowing.
They are packed and travelling before the sun fully rises, the chill of autumn morning waning as the sky brightens. The entourage Toscano has procured for his mission is small, only a few men and horses strong. Tarhos seems to be the only one dressed for combat, though Toscano himself had most likely been trained for knighthood as so many men of nobility are. Though he does wonder why the man is travelling entirely without a sword.
Tarhos was not born into his skillset as he imagines Toscano was but he feels as though he was fated for it. He lives and breathes war. He craves it. Everything he is wants for the feeling he felt as a child as he watched his village burn, the elation that came with the smell of corpses and flies. He is still searching for it, but he feels destined to find it. It is though God has made it his calling.
They stop along the road to rest their horses and cook their meals but the first day passes without incident and Tarhos cannot help but feel disappointed. That night he dreams of a roadside attack, of the crunch of his sword crushed against their skulls. He sleeps peacefully and wakes to the morning sun.
Toscano is already awake. He has his head buried in a dog-eared journal, his brow furrowed. He makes no acknowledgment as Tarhos passes him and Tarhos wonders if that obliviousness is trust or stupidity. It doesn’t matter, he supposes.
Tarhos goes through the motions of donning his armour, securing leather straps and adjusting chainmail. It is a second skin to him. The metal is worn and molded to his body, the leathers having long formed to the shape of his torso. When he is done he waits for Toscano’s command.
With curious eyes he watches the Lord. He had not been a talkative man the day before and with his attention stolen by whatever is in that book that pattern continues. His servants pass him as they ready the gear for travel and he makes no move to greet them either. Does Toscano think himself above them? Tarhos scoffs.
“Ser Kovács?”
Tarhos turns at the voice beside him. One of the servants—a young man with mousey brown hair and a plain, boyish face—looks up at him.
“Is he always like this?” Tarhos asks instead of letting the man speak.
The man tilts his head in confusion. “What? Who?”
Tarhos raises his hand to gesture towards Toscano. The man follows his hand and his eyes widen with recognition.
“Oh. I suppose so.”
“If he keeps his head in the clouds someone is liable to cut it off,” Tarhos says.
The man laughs nervously beside him. “That’s what you’re here for, no?” The man pauses and then adds; “To protect him. To protect all of us.”
Tarhos chuckles at the idea of himself as something so noble. He is not a guard dog, he is a war beast. “What did you want?” He says, changing the subject.
The man nods and he does not miss the relief in his breath. “The horses are ready. We’ll be moving soon. Lord’s orders.”
“That he could not tell me himself?”
The man laughs a little. “You know what he’s like,” he says, then turns to leave.
As the man leaves Tarhos’s eyes are drawn back to Toscano. He has closed his book and is packing it away in a cloth satchel. Toscano looks up and catches his eye. A bright smile crosses the Lord’s face. Tarhos does not return it.
Their journey is as dull as the day before. A more poetic man may have found beauty in the soft afternoon sunlight and the many fields of flowers but Tarhos is no such thing, and does not care. What he cares about is the itch of boredom raking across his skin, turning his sweat into a mindnumbing irritation.
Tarhos is thankful enough that when they make camp that night the air has taken a chill enough for there to be the conversation of a fire, and of wood to make it—wood that Tarhos eagerly volunteers to both procure and ready. An axe against a log is nothing like the feeling of his claymore against bone but it does take some of that woeful itchiness away as his hands are freed from idle anxiety. He takes his work and drops the wood in the middle of the camp, near where Toscano has his nose in that book once more.
At the sound of wood chunks clattering against each other and the soil, Toscano looks up. “Ah, thank you.”
Toscano puts his book to one side and arranges the logs into an appropriate formation for a campfire, and then sets about lighting it. Tarhos watches with some fascination. He had expected such a menial task to be pawned off onto one of the servants, but they are nowhere to be seen. Tarhos stares, and Toscano doesn’t even look up.
Soon there’s a budding campfire beneath Toscano’s hands. The Lord sits back, wiping his hands on his tunic front. He looks up at Tarhos.
“Would you join me?”
Tarhos frowns. He pauses. There is no harm in doing so and there is the potential that refusing would cause the Lord to become displeased with him. Tarhos is no stranger to being disliked, but the man whose fortune he is relying on he would ideally like to look upon him with good graces.
Tarhos settles by the fire, wiping sweat from his brow. He’s glad he stripped himself of his armour as the cool breeze cuts through his linen shirt, drying his damp back.
Toscano is looking at him with curious eyes.
“What?” Tarhos grumbles.
“Tell me of yourself.”
Tarhos blinks in surprise. What a strange request. “I am a knight. What else is there to know?”
What more could Toscano want? All he is to this man is a sword to be pointed at his enemies.
“I want to know what you care for. I want to know what makes you tick. I want to know your heart, not your profession.”
Why? Tarhos thinks. There is no reason for this closeness.
Toscano smiles, rakish and mischievous. “What is your favourite colour?”
A foolish question! Tarhos is a grown man, not a child still painting with his fingers.
“Red,” he answers anyway.
“A good choice,” Toscano nods approvingly, warmly, having got what he wanted. “Passionate. The colour of love.”
So Toscano is unenviably optimistic.
“And of blood.”
“That can be a loving thing,” Toscano replies. “We are born in blood.”
Tarhos thinks of his mother, of choking down poison and waking with a metallic taste on his tongue, and grunts in agreement.
“What other questions do you have?” Tarhos offers, though he’s hoping to be asked no more. He has no interest in divulging such frivolities to a man who is a means to an end.
“Oh, plenty,” Toscano says, and Tarhos scowls to himself. “But you seem reluctant to answer them. Do you fear what I’ll ask?”
Tarhos feels his temper flare and before he can tamp down the feeling he hears himself spit, “I am utterly disinterested in what you’ll ask.”
Toscano’s eyes widen a fraction. It seems he is not accustomed to his subjects barking back at him. He does not, however, seem angered by it. “I apologise. I appear to have offended you.”
“I take no offense,” Tarhos retorts.
“Your brow says otherwise.”
Tarhos huffs, a bite in the breath. “Why do you care?”
“Why do I care…?” Toscano repeats quietly. “You are a man with a history, a heart, an expansive mind. I wonder what I could learn from you. Does it not compel you to know your fellow man?”
“It does not.”
“Never?” Toscano presses. “Truly? You must have friends, companions. Do you not know of them?”
Tarhos thinks of Durkos, fast and quiet. He feels the phantom sting of the man’s dagger as it cuts across his cheek, their spar having drawn blood. He thinks of Alejandro, wild and determined. He hears the man’s laughter, the sizzle of his branding iron as it melts into skin. He thinks of Sander, strong as iron. He feels his bones creak as his sword breaks against his unmovable countenance.
“I know them.”
Toscano nods. “Perhaps one day you’ll tell me of them.” Toscano then pushes himself to his feet and dusts off his hands.
“Where are you going?”
Toscano looks down at him, and there is something indecipherable about the look in his eye. Tarhos feels like a butterfly pinned; uncomfortably studied—seen.
“To find more talkative company,” Toscano says, and Tarhos hears the flick of displeasure in his voice. “Have a pleasant night, Ser Kovács.”
Tarhos is left sitting by the fire, wondering why he feels even itchier than he did before.