Fic: The Foal A/B (5/?) PG-13

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Fic: The Foal (5/?)

Author:alex_quine

Pairing: A/B

Rating: PG to NC-17 (this Part, PG-13)

Warning: AU, OFCs

Summary: The net closes in and blood is spilt.

Archive: Rugbytackling, my LJ

Words: 3,564

Disclaimer: These characters belong to their copyright holders. I borrow some of them for entertainment, not profit.

Feedback: Received with thanks.

AN: This story sits within the ‘Cold Pressing’ AU, after ‘Cold Pressing’ and before ‘Entwine.’

 

 

Boromir had been sitting, his back against a tree and the bay’s reins looped over his arm, for a good hour or more before the thud of hooves and the faint jingle of a loose curb chain, announced the return of the scout, cantering through the wash of long grass. The rider passed within an arrow’s length of him, a heavy-set man on a stocky riding horse, with bulging saddlebags and a satisfied smile that set Boromir’s teeth on edge. He stood in the shadow of the trees, his hands on Cedar’s head so that the horse might not call to the other beast, but they itched to wipe the smirk from the man’s face and make him tell all. 

 

Forcing himself to breath slowly, Boromir waited until the rider was some ways away, then he remounted and began to follow him, moving in the lee of the trees wherever possible, preferring to hang back and take the risk of losing him to a hidden trail, rather than have the man see him. He was keeping the map of this part of the country in his mind’s eye and was sure that they were now fairly close to the farm, so that when the scout slowed his beast to a walk and turned in his saddle to look behind him, before turning off the main track towards the holding, Boromir had already checked Cedar and was hidden in a stand of low scrubby willows, lying flat along the horse’s neck to avoid being seen.

 

Once the rider had gone, Boromir dismounted and crept forward to the end of the willow brake. The paddocks surrounding the yard contained some dozen or more beasts, from sturdy ponies to some rangy young-stock with good blood. There was a stiff breeze blowing up from the west, which was starting to make the horses restless. He and Cedar were upwind and the beasts would soon catch their scent, but with luck the strengthening wind, now bending the tops of the surrounding trees, whipping the branches back-and-forth, would be blamed if anyone saw the horses skitter about their enclosures. He could not see pack animals amongst the string, but there was a large range of outbuildings surrounding the farmyard, so like as not the packhorses were stabled elsewhere.

 

He dearly wished that he could go on, creep up to the buildings themselves and try to locate Arin, but one man alone was a liability when they knew so little. If those in the farm thought themselves cornered they might become desperate and the risk to Arin’s life would be too great. Boromir scanned the slopes of the hills surrounding the hamlet. Somewhere Aragorn and his patrol were doubtless watching him. He needed to join up with them, to find out what they knew of the farm and its inhabitants, so Boromir remounted and retraced his way along the track until he could safely strike out uphill and get above the tree-line, to remain unseen by any watching from the farm.

 

The guard who met him and took his horse to tether it alongside the other mounts, handed him a short cloak with a deep hood, mottled in green and brown, which Boromir shrugged on over his clothing. At the treeline, he paused to scan the scrub of gorse and other low bushes that extended down the hill in clumps for some way and eventually located half a dozen figures, motionless, blended into the landscape, some apparently scanning the horizon in different directions, whilst others held their attention firmly to the farm buildings laid out below them. One cloaked figure caught his gaze and Boromir thought he would always be able to pick Aragorn out, simply by the way he held himself, relaxed and yet alert.

Boromir slipped quietly from bush to bush and as he came up on Aragorn, the man turned to him with a nod and a brief smile. The figure beside him, peering out from beneath his hood proved to be the young officer, who glanced at him, touched his brow in salute and turned back to his survey of the scene below. Aragorn sat back onto the sloping ground behind the gorse and motioned for Boromir to join him. In the thick of the gorse brake, they were sheltered from the wind, but even so Aragorn leant in to him to speak low in his ear.

 

“Your man went in to the farmhouse and has not been seen since.”

Boromir rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a gloved finger.

“Do we know how many there are within?”

Aragorn shook his head. “Not for sure. Local gossip says the household varies in number. The old man moved back to his nephew’s holding when the big house fell into ruin. Usually there are grooms employed by the horse dealer, but he sent them away some days ago. There is one servant who lives in, a maid. Strangers have been seen at the farm of late but none could give very accurate accounts of numbers or manner of men. The guards posted overnight saw figures moving about between the paddocks and outbuildings. They were too far away to say whether they were the same men or different.”

“We miss the elf’s keen sight,” Boromir grunted. Aragorn clapped him on the shoulder.

“The bait has been laid. Now let us see if the vermin will take it.” Just then, the young officer turned back to them, gesturing eagerly. 

 

Aragorn and Boromir scrambled to join him. Below them, they could see beasts being led from an outbuilding and tied along one of the paddock rails.   In all ten horses were brought out and as they were harnessed the herd resolved itself into a string of two riding horses and eight pack animals.   The maximum number of men working on them together was three and at one point Aragorn nudged Boromir, pointing to a doorway where the figure of a fourth man stood watching the preparations in the yard. 

 

It was whilst the packhorses were being harnessed one behind the other, that a faint curse issued from Boromir’s lips as out from the farmhouse a man stalked, carrying a kicking, struggling small boy whose hands appeared bound. If the boy was yelling, the wind carried his cries away so that they could not hear him, but the man cuffed the child around the head and hoisted him across his saddle bow, before mounting and settling Arin astride before him. With a lead rein for the pack animals in one hand, the man had no spare arm to hold the boy, and the child clutched at the horse’s mane to steady himself. The men chirruped to the packhorses and the string moved off.

 

Aragorn had been still, his whole body taut. As the riders and their captive trotted past them in the valley below, the young captain began to stir, but Aragorn laid a hand on his arm and Boromir shook his head, saying, “Nay lad. Sit tight, whilst we think this one through.”

 

A soldier was signalled to take their place in the watch and the men crawled away to a point where they were out of sight of the farmhouse and could stand and work out cramped muscles. Aragorn stamped his feet on the ground and looked across to Boromir, hugging his arms about his body, stretching out stiff shoulders. 

“He looked well,” Aragorn said.

Boromir looked across to him briefly with a tight smile.

“He’s showing his mettle. That’s enough for now.” 

 

Aragorn could see the young captain was restless, anxious to be moving off and half-smiled to himself thinking that he must have been much like this, once long ago.

“They can only move slowly with the pack animals fully laden, so they have taken the boy as a bargaining tool, in case they meet with us whilst they have the gold,” explained Boromir, who had also seen the tension in the young man’s jaw, “but in order for Arin to be a successful pawn, he must be alive and well, so that we will value his future and stand back. It would be the matter of a moment to kill him,” and his voice became hoarse, “but they would lose their shield. They likely plan to take him at least as far as the border. You saw them tack up: they have no supplies for a journey, so they must needs come back here. Whilst the boy is with them and the gold, he is safe enough, but we will send a couple of scouts after them now to check that they do not meet with misfortune on the way, or have some hidden cache of food to plunder.”

The young man nodded and beckoned a couple of men from a group at the horse line. As they approached he asked, “What of the soldiers you left watching the ransom. Might they be able to rescue the boy?”

“Nay, lad,” replied Boromir. “The place was well chosen. There is no cover for a man within bowshot and the ground is too rough to make a run at them. Our men must wait and watch.”

“In the meantime,” said Aragorn, throwing the hood back from his face, “this is our opportunity to scout closer to the farmstead itself, perhaps even to take it…”

“And when our thieves return,” continued Boromir, “they may not get the homecoming they had imagined.” 

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………..  

 

For a few cold, frightening, moments Arin had thought they meant to roll him into the suffocating sack again and he’d struggled in Doran’s grip, protesting. Then the man had buffeted him across the side of his head so that he bit his lip and as he was gasping for breath, hoisted him across the front of his saddle. There was enough play in the twine around his wrists that he could grasp hold of the horse’s mane, gripping hard with his knees to the warm hide as the party moved off. He could feel the hard length of the precious blade tucked into the top of his breeches, but escape was far from his mind and as Doran urged his beast into a trot, Arin clung on tightly and concentrated on not falling.

 

The morning had been a series of long waits for things to happen. After breakfast the thin man had escorted him to the stinking outhouse with a bad grace and when Arin had gone to wash his hands and face in the trough, he’d thought it a huge jest to plunge the child’s head beneath the water and hold it there, whilst his arms flailed. Arin had been allowed up spluttering, his nose and face aching, filled with water and almost threw up over the man’s feet. 

 

The maid had suddenly appeared loud and shrill at the thin man’s ear, with a rough towel for Arin’s hair. She ushered him back into the kitchen, seating him before the fire to dry. The old man had been sunk in thought, almost as though he did not know that Arin was there. The girl gave Arin a beaker of ale, into which she’d plunged the hot poker to warm it and when the thin man had demanded the same, she’d brandished the poker with enough vehemence to make him take his brew to the other side of the room to drink it. None of them noticed her replacing the poker into the heart of the glowing brazier.

 

Then Arin had been locked in again, but whilst he waited for the girl to make good on her promise to speak more to him, he decided that he must risk discovery and dug up the little knife. Fingers shaking, he brushed the earth from the blade. He tried several different places to hide it, but the best one was lying flat against his stomach, rolled in the waistband of his breeches. He was walking around his cell to see if it would stay in place, when a soft whisper through the little window made him scramble for the bed.

“Boy? Boy, are you there?”

Arin stretched up on tiptoe, his hands pressed against the wall to steady him. 

“I’m here.”

The girl’s voice lowered even more, so that he had to strain to hear her.

“After the noon meal they will need to see to the horses. Can you pretend to be ill? Sick to your stomach?”

Arin thought for a moment. “Yes,” he hissed.

“I will say I am too busy to tend to you and suggest they tie you near the latrine. If you can bring the knife you may be able to free yourself. When you are loose, go around the back of the outhouse. There’s a path that runs into the woods. There are no scent dogs here, so you can lie low if you can find a good hiding place. If they ask I will say you went towards the hamlet. Do you understand?”

There was silence. In the yard, the girl looked swiftly around her and then bent down to the little grille, whispering urgently, “Boy! Can you hear me?”

A very small voice answered her.

“Do you think if they get the gold, they will let me go?”

She would not frighten the child further, but dared not lie to him in this.

“No, boy. They will not let you go.” Nor me either, she thought, but did not voice the fear. She had her own plans, but the child must be got away first.

 

In the event, all their scheming had gone awry. Doran had arrived back just before noon, carrying bulging saddlebags. The old man had ordered Arin brought out to see the first of the treasure, given for him. In the firelight, the scattered coins splashed the old wooden table with glittering drops of molten gold. The nephew was testing coins between his teeth when the thin man snarled at him to leave well alone, but Doran, draining a mug and handing it back to the maid, was more conciliatory. They would set off shortly to collect the rest of the ransom and if the nephew would help them with their beasts then, and also when they returned to collect food and their gear before leaving for good, he could have what lay there. Solon’s eyes flicked from the man’s face to the table, as if calculating whether the price was high enough, then he swallowed nervously and pointedly ignored the thin man’s mocking laugh behind him, as he dropped a coin on the floor at the nephew’s feet and watched him scramble for it.

 

Arin stood rigid beside the old man’s chair. He hardly dared to breath, remembering the girl’s words. The old man had a hand on Arin’s shoulder, his thumb stroking the child’s neck below his ear, into which he was pouring a commentary on the proper engagement of servants. “You will always find those who will do your bidding for gold, child, but their loyalty is questionable. In the end, they are weak, setting no value on the honour of the house. You will remember this lesson.” And he nipped the child’s earlobe between his nails, drawing blood, so that Arin gasped in pain. The nephew, scooping coins into a pile, seemed not to hear, but Doran’s steady gaze hardly left Arin’s face, and the child did not know where to look, other than to watch the golden drops coalesce into a wide pool in the middle of the table.

 

Doran had eventually urged the other men outside to start harnessing the horses and Arin had been left with the maid and the old man. The girl brought her apron up to use it as a shield and had pushed the mound of coins to one side. Then she drew a stool to the table, motioned Arin to sit and from an oven at the side of the fire she drew a pie dish. There were savoury smells coming from under the crust and the old man chuckled under his breath as he shuffled his chair forward to sit beside the child. The girl set wooden platters before them and ladled out a stew, topped off with a golden crust onto each plate, before placing spoons and beakers on the table, along with a jug of ale. Arin picked up his spoon. Although he was hungry and the pie smelt good, he was remembering that this was the food he must throw up in a short time and suddenly it became more difficult to force it down. 

 

He had eaten no more than a few spoonfuls of the stew, when Doran came clattering into the kitchen, glanced around and snatched a length of twine from a peg by the door. Without saying a word, he came to Arin, took the spoon from his hand, then caught the two together and began to bind them. The child could not contain his fright and tried to pull away, crying out. Parsolon looked sharply at Doran and his tone was cold.

“Let the child be. He stays here. I will not have you trailing him all over.”

Doran did not shift his gaze, or still his busy hands as they tied the twine.

“The boy comes with us. He’s our bond against the Steward or the King’s men thinking to claim that ransom back.”

The old man brought his fist down on the table with a crash and leant forward with glittering eyes, hissing, “The boy stays here.”

Doran shrugged and hauled Arin to his feet. “He goes where I say, old man.”

With a roar Parsolon surged to his feet and threw the contents of his mug in Doran’s face, who turned back to him and shoved him backwards, with the flat of his hand on the old man’s chest. Parsolon gasped, surprised, and collapsed into his chair. 

 

Arin, dragged almost off his feet by the collar of his shirt grasped tight in Doran’s other hand, did not see the wicked little knife protruding from Doran’s sleeve and when Doran turned to look smiling at the maid, Arin, choking and crying, did not see her snatch the hot poker from the brazier and face the man, so that Doran spread his fingers in submission, and the thin blade slide back out of view. Doran simply turned back to him, tucked the struggling child under his arm and left the kitchen.

 

The girl had slumped to the floor momentarily, shaking, before she slowly laid the poker aside and crawled over to where Parsolon was gasping shallow breaths, sweat standing on his brow. She dragged herself up his chair and tentatively touched the breast of his gown, which was wet with blood. A few drops had spattered across the table, stained the golden crust on the pie.    At the door, Solon was kicking his boots against the jamb to knock off mud from the yard. He saw the girl leaning over his uncle’s chair and exclaimed, “You amaze me, uncle. I had thought you would keep the boy here, for all Doran’s fussing.” He came around to the other side of the chair and the girl saw him blench, start back, mouth agape, as he saw the blood on her hands and the old man’s rolling eyes and slack jaw, dribbling blood-flecked foam, that tried to speak to him.

 

“I must get him to his bed,” the girl said, and when he had not stirred, “will you help me, sir? Your uncle needs care!” Solon swallowed hard, then wiped his palms on his breeches and tentatively laid hands on his uncle to lift him from his chair. The horse dealer seemed surprised at how light the old man was and carried him quickly from the kitchen to his own bed in the adjoining room, where he laid him down and then backed away. Parsolon was still trying to talk to him, his mouth moving slowly, but Solon turned and left, almost colliding with the maid, carrying a bowl of hot water and linen into the room.

 

She had no more than a common skill in healing, but even she knew that the old man was finished, his life ebbing away. Regardless, she cleaned the little wound, packed it with clean linen and bound strips tight around his thin chest. As she came back out into the kitchen to throw the bloodied water away, Solon was finishing packing the last of the gold coins into a saddlebag. A bedroll lay on the table by the cooling pie.

“Will you go, sir, and fetch the King’s men?” she asked, pleading. “The child is in danger.”

“The ‘child’, girl, will get us all hanged. Do you think you will be safe? Do not set your life against a child’s word…and if that thug, Doran, should harm him…” he pulled the last buckle tight. “I have stayed too long already. Lost too much for that mad old man soaking my best bed with his blood. This,” and he hefted the saddlebag over his shoulder, “will allow me to begin again, perhaps in Khand. They know horses in Khand. Get out now. Take one of the ponies. I gift it to you.” And he was gone, running across the yard, his bags and bundles bumping against his legs, and into the stableblock.

 

tbc

Comments

[brigantine.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh! Now it's just Arin and Doran, and Doran ain't at all nice. The poor maid must be frantic! I'm imagining how she'll feel when suddenly Aragorn and Boromir show up. Oh dear.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Hang in there! It's all coming to the boil now...and I'll try to be prompt with the next/last part.

[mooms.livejournal.com]

This story is so gripping ! I will probably have gnawed my fingernails down to the knuckle by the next chapter ! Your writing is so consistently good !

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for reading and feeding back. I'm glad it's working for you and I'll try to get the next part to you before the knawing gets out of hand.

[halszka.livejournal.com]

Great chapter! The events are unexpected. I can't wait for next installment. Your story become more and more interesting and I thank you for that.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

And many thanks to you for reading and feeding back so kindly. I'm glad that the story has some unexpected twists and turns for you.

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

The plot thickens again - and now there's in-fighting among the 'bad guys' as well!

This was a lovely moment -

"Aragorn could see the young captain was restless, anxious to be moving off and half-smiled to himself thinking that he must have been much like this, once long ago."

Thankfully, though, both he and Boromir now have the wisdom of age to help Arin's predicament.

[alex-quine.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for sticking with it and feeding back. I imagine Estel/Aragorn might have been, for all his elven upbringing, an eager soul who learnt patience the hard way...and there is no honour amongst thieves.