The caravan's column arrived at Bahama.
Bahama was a city on the border of the Forest Range, and until Hainen grew up on the far side of the mountains it had been the kingdom's northernmost stronghold. It had started as a village of a few thousand, grown into a supply base, and developed into a great city of nearly a hundred thousand.
The city was defended by the natural blessing of the river that curved around the range, and by a wall a little over 4m high.
At the gate, people stood in line to be searched by the guards. After the caravan master spoke briefly with the guard captain, the guardsmen went over the goods on the carts in a somewhat perfunctory way.
—Rustle, rustle.
Inspecting twenty carts one by one was no small job either.
"Hey, let's call it good enough."
"Mm? Well, there's one left, we might as well finish it."
"All right, then. I'll go and report to the captain that all's in order."
"Yeah. Do that."
The guardsman poked half-heartedly through the last cart.
—Rustle, rustle.
"Nothing here."
And just as he was about to finish the inspection, something reared up out of the cart.
—Jolt, rustle.
"Hah!"
The man who rose out of the cart had a blank look on his face.
The guardsman inspecting it flinched hard enough to draw eyes from all around, and the guard captain, seeing it, pressed the caravan master.
"What's that one?"
"......."
"Ah, he's......."
Having heard the caravan master's explanation, the guard captain looked at the bandits tied behind the cart, nodded, and waved his man off.
"Let them through."
"Yes, sir. Albert Caravan, twenty-two, plus five mercenaries, passing."
At the guard captain's order the formalities were dispensed with and the caravan's passage went through without a hitch.
And so the man passed through the gate mixed in with the caravan, and the guard captain watched him go with close attention.
A guardsman asked his superior.
"Who is he?"
The guard captain glanced at his subordinate and answered.
"A discharged soldier. A hero home from the war."
"Ah."
The guard captain gave his man an order.
"Cardison."
"Sir."
"Send word to the watch. One discharged soldier has come in."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell them not to provoke him under any circumstances, and to keep an eye on him from a distance."
"Understood."
Watching the man's back recede, the guard captain added.
"The discharged men are going to come pouring in. All of you keep your heads on straight!"
The guardsmen had no knowledge whatsoever of discharged soldiers and no interest in them either, but their superior had given an order, and as professional soldiers they began to tense up all the same.
At the city watch in the center of Bahama it was noisy, people who had been hauled in all insisting they were the victim and jabbing fingers at one another.
—CRASH.
"This is an injustice!"
"What's unjust about it, you swindling bastard?"
"Swindler, is it? Have you quite finished?"
"Quiet, the both of you."
—Clamor, clamor.
—Murmur, murmur.
—Creak.
The caravan master came in through the door with the mercenary captain. Behind them the bandit boss and the underboss were dragged in on a rope. The clerk at the intake desk lifted his monocle and looked at the caravan master.
The caravan master looked around the room, met the eyes of the clerk watching him, and went over.
"Good day to you."
"Welcome. What brings you here?"
"I've brought in wanted men."
"Ah. Those fellows? Let me see......."
The clerk rifled through the wanted notices and picked one out.
"This one's the boss. Styles himself the Guardian of the Forest? Fifty silvers. The one next to him, the underboss? He's not on the list."
The mercenary captain stepped forward as though to object, and the caravan master raised a hand to stop him. The captain shrugged and fell back, grasped the shape of the thing well enough, and let out a low sigh.
"Nothing for it. I'll hand the underboss over as he is. On the name of the Albert Caravan, I'll testify to his acts of banditry."
The clerk brightened.
"Then by custom we'll take him into custody on the caravan's testimony. And this is the bounty."
Watching the suddenly obliging clerk hurry the paperwork through, the caravan master felt his gorge rise, but he forced it down.
"My thanks."
"Hhhk, ptooey."
The mercenary captain spat as he came out of the watch house.
There was no chance the underboss was not on that list. He had not hoped for better, but the world does not always go the way a man thinks. There are those who fasten onto a profit like flies and eat their fill of it.
'Those watch bastards will be throwing themselves a fine dinner.'
—Pat, pat.
"This is the world we live in, isn't it. Nothing new about it."
The caravan master clapped the mercenary captain on the back and headed for the caravan's local branch.
—Chink.
"The bounty. I've added something from the caravan itself."
To the fifty silver coins of bounty the caravan master added twenty of his own, paid forty to the mercenary company as a bonus, and gave thirty to the man.
The man did not refuse. To take no fair payment for the use of his own ability would be a discourtesy to himself and to the other party both. And he was in genuine need of travel money.
The caravan unpacked at the branch on the city's outskirts. The man came along with his easy shamelessness, and the caravan, out of consideration, gave him a room — but that was as far as it went. Having been served a meal, Hans wandered the city at his leisure and then settled himself in a corner of the plaza.
***
Having spent a day at the Bahama branch unloading goods and inspecting the additional stock, the caravan made ready to leave.
"Emily, what has he been doing?"
At the caravan master's question, Emily thought hard before answering.
"All day yesterday he was squatting in the plaza staring at people walking past."
"Are you telling me he slept rough? What about food?"
Emily thought it over carefully and answered.
"For supper he bought garlic bread at a stall, and after that I don't know. But when I went by this morning he was sitting on a bench looking at the sun."
The lines in the caravan master's face deepened.
"He is struggling to find his ordinary life again."
"Sir?"
"Either he will hide away inside a fence of his own making, or he will accept the self that reality has given him and take a step forward."
"......?"
Emily, not understanding, showed her puzzlement, but her uncle only muttered on about things she could not follow.
***
The caravan master came to where the man was sunning himself. He approached carefully, alongside Hans, so as not to block the light.
"The caravan hands have taken a liking to you. Won't you come with us?"
"I'm worn out. I mean to rest here awhile."
"A pity. Body and mind both took a beating, I suppose."
—Nod, nod.
The man nodded, and the caravan master hesitated before asking.
"Might I ask where your home is?"
"Gale Village, in the Viscounty of Bern."
The caravan master nodded and went on.
"My name is Albert. Albert Dorman."
"Hans Zimmer."
Hans answered the caravan master's question awkwardly. And before he knew it people had come up to say their goodbyes.
"I'm Emily."
The freckled young woman poked her head out and said it sweetly.
"We're the Steel Shield Company. It was a pleasure traveling with you."
The caravan master nodded, and the mercenary captain, still grinning ear to ear over his bonus, went off with him. Then the boy came over with his parents.
"I don't know if this repays the debt, but please take them."
"......."
The boy's parents — shoemakers — presented him with a pair of leather shoes, had the little one make a proper bow, and followed the caravan out.
"Bye, mister."
Held in his father's arms, the boy yawned sleepily and waved. Hans smiled and waved back.
***
Out on the Cronos Plain, the clearing of the battlefield was still in full swing.
The gaps left by the soldiers who had gone to the capital to receive honors for their merits, or been discharged on the spot and turned toward their home villages, were large. But those who had caught the margrave's eye and been folded into the domain's army, and those who had nowhere in particular to go, remained, and they were kept busy burying bodies and recovering spoils.
"Your Excellency, the first sweep is complete."
"Mm, good. No trouble?"
"None. We've recovered all the equipment within about 5km in every direction."
"And the quantity?"
"I'm sorry that I can't report an exact figure yet, but it comes to roughly six hundred cartloads of scrap iron, and, ah...... that is all."
The adjutant, conscious of the nobles sitting in on the meeting, let the rest of it trail off.
—Nod, nod.
The man seated in front of him gave a nod so slight it was barely there.
It did the commander himself no good to have anyone counting up the exact number of knights' plate mail. A few hundred cartloads of scrap iron, a few thousand sacks of grain — there was nothing painful about handing such things down to the lords under him. And with them he could pass off the prisoners of war, who did nothing but eat.
'Was it not I, the commander, who led this war to victory?'
Between the plate mail, the jewels, the famed blades, and a handful of high-noble prisoners he would keep for himself, his own take would be three or four times everything else put together.
"Well done."
"Sir. Then I'll take my leave."
The adjutant saluted and turned, and was called back from behind.
"Ah, and one more thing."
"Sir."
"Disband the remaining troops as soon as may be."
"A-ah, understood."
Coming out of the tent into the darkened hour, the adjutant's face twisted.
'A week's rations and fifty silver coins. One gold coin extra for a ten-commander.'
That was the compensation for the soldiers the king had scraped together from every corner of the realm and sent up here. Compensation, nothing — they would be lucky if it covered the road home. And for the dead there was not even that.
Even the soldier who had made the decisive contribution in the last battle had been packed off to the capital with a single letter of recommendation for a barony in his hand.
'We won the war, and there is no share in it for the soldier.'
The ideals of a young elite officer stained over into nihilism.
At the hour the sunset burned out, the land went pitch black, so dark a man could not see an inch in front of him.
The adjutant thought it looked like the kingdom's future.
***
Hans squatted in his corner of the plaza and watched the people go by. The October sunlight lay thick over the square, which was swollen with the victory and with the anticipation of Thanksgiving.
Beneath the statue of the hero of the north, Duke Bahama von Bieri, a clown was advertising a show and children were watching him. The noblewomen walking gracefully past under their parasols were beautiful.
The merchants who laid out their stalls and sold their wares, and the shills who pretended to haggle over them, each had their own day unfolding.
It was a hard life, and there was no telling what went on in the back alleys, but it was a happy and peaceful afternoon all the same.
Somebody's shadow cut off the sunlight. Hans frowned and looked up at the men standing over him. A little earlier some vagrants had tried to pick a fight and then run off when they saw the look in his eyes. This time it seemed to be a back-alley crew.
"Come quietly, or take a few and get dragged."
Hans gathered himself up and trudged after them. It had the look of a child who knew nothing of the world going along with suspicious men. The stallholders nearby clicked their tongues.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. There goes another sound man about to be made a cripple."
"Why do those bastards have to torment people for no reason? Can't they just collect their protection money and be done with it?"
"Ah, but that one didn't look ordinary either."
"Mm? What do you mean?"
"He acts mild enough, but that...... that air about him was no joke."
"And what of it? Look how many of those bastards there are. What's one man going to do?"
—Nod, nod.
"Well, that's true enough."
The stallholders were commiserating over Hans when, a little while later, some man came running up, out of breath, and asked.
"Hey. Did you see a man who was sitting over here?"
"Didn't see any...... ah, sir! You've come."
The minion's instinct to stay out of anything pointless vanished the instant he made out the man's face.
"You didn't see him?"
"Ah, if it's that one, Walter's crew took him off somewhere."
The stallholders were more afraid of this man than they were of Walter's crew. To his questions they all answered readily, one after another.
"Damn it all, I look away for one moment...... Which way did they go?"
"Well, what I saw was the alley beside the tavern over there......."
Before the words were even out, the middle-aged man vanished with a movement like wind, nothing like what his heavy-looking build suggested.
"What's all this about......."
It was not how he usually behaved, and the stallholder tilted his head at it.