‘If we flee,’ Kane said to him, poking his finger into Maram’s belly, ‘are you willing to be left behind when your horse dies of exhaustion?’
It was too dark to see Maram’s florid face blanch, but I felt the blood drain from it, even so. He looked out toward our enemy’s campfires, and said, ‘Would you really leave me behind?’
‘So, I would,’ Kane growled out. His dark eyes drilled into Maram. ‘At need, I’d sacrifice any and all of us to fulfill this quest.’
Maram took a long pull of brandy as he turned to regard Kane. ‘Ah, a sacrifice is it, then? Well, I won’t have that on your conscience. If a sacrifice truly needs to be made, I’ll turn to cross lances with the Red Knights by myself.’
I looked back and forth between Maram and Kane as they glared at each other. I did not think that either of them was quite telling the truth. I rested my hand on Maram’s shoulder as I caught Kane’s gaze. And I said, ‘No one is going to be left behind. And we will fulfill this quest, as we did the first.’
Just then Master Juwain, sitting with our other friends by the fire, finished writing something in one of his journals and came over to us. He was as small as Maram was large and as ugly as Kane was well-made. His head somewhat resembled a walnut, and a misshapen one at that: all lumpy and bald with a knurled nose and ears that stuck out too far. But I had never known a man whose eyes were so intelligent and clear. Like the rest of us, he wore a gray traveling cloak, though he refused to bind his limbs in steel rings or carry any weapon more deadly than the little knife he used to sharpen his quills.
‘Come,’ he said as he grasped Maram’s wrist. ‘If we’re to hold council, let us all sit together. Liljana is nearly finished making dinner.’
I looked over toward the fire where a plump, matronly woman bent over a pot of bubbling stew. A girl about ten years old sat next to her making cakes on a griddle while a boy slightly older poked the fire with a long, charred stick.
‘Excellent,’ Maram agreed, ‘we’ll eat and then we’ll talk.’
‘You would talk more cogently,’ Master Juwain told him, ‘if you would take your drink after you eat. Or forbear it altogether.’
With fierce determination, Master Juwain suddenly clamped his knotted fingers around Maram’s mug. His small hands were surprisingly strong, from a lifetime of disciplines and hard work, and he managed to pry free the mug from Maram’s thick palm.
Maram eyed the mug as might a child a candy that has been taken from him. He said, ‘I have forborne my brandy these last three days, waiting for the Red Knights to attack us, too bad. As for talk, cogent as it is clever, please don’t forget that I’m now called Five-Horned Maram.’
Once, a lifetime ago it seemed, Maram had been an adept of the Great White Brotherhood under the tutelage of Master Juwain, and everyone had called him ‘Brother Maram.’ But he had long since abjured his vows to forsake wine, women and war. Now he wore steel armor beneath his cloak and bore a sword that was nearly as long and keen as my own. Less than a year before, in the tent of Sajagax, the Sarni’s mightiest chieftain, he had become the only man in memory to down five great horns of the Sarni’s potent beer – and to remain standing to tell everyone of his great feat.
Kane continued glaring at Maram, and again he poked his steely finger into his belly. He said, ‘You’d do well to forbear brandy and bread, at least for a while. Are you trying to kill yourself, as well as your horse?’
In truth, ever since the Battle of Culhadosh Commons and the sack of my father’s castle, Maram had been eating enough for two men and drinking more than enough for five.
‘Forbear, you say?’ he muttered to Kane. ‘I might as well forbear life itself.’
‘But you’re growing as fat as a bear.’
Maram patted his belly and smiled. ‘Well, what if I am? Haven’t you seen a bear eat when winter is coming?’
‘But it’s Ashte – in another month, summer will be upon us!’
‘No, my friend, there you’re wrong,’ Maram told him, with a shake of his head and another belch. ‘Wherever we journey, it will be winter – and deep winter at that, for we’ll be deep into this damn new quest. Do you remember the last time we went tramping all across Ea? I nearly starved to death. And so is it not the soul of prudence that I should fortify myself against the deprivations that are sure to come?’
Kane had no answer against this logic. And so he snapped at Maram: ‘Fortify yourself then, if you will. But at least forbear your brandy until there’s a better time and place to drink it.’
So saying, he took the mug from Master Juwain and moved to empty its contents onto the grass.
‘Hold!’ Maram cried out. ‘It would be a crime to waste such good brandy!’
‘So,’ Kane said, eyeing the dark liquor inside the mug. ‘So.’
He smiled his savage smile, as if the great mystery of life’s unfairness pleased him almost as much as it pained him. Then, with a single, quick motion, he put the mug to his lips and threw down the brandy in three huge gulps.
‘Forbear yourself, damn you!’ Maram called out to him.
‘Damn me? You should thank me, eh?’
‘Thank you why? For saving me from drunkenness?’
‘No – for taking a little pleasure from this fine brandy of yours.’
Kane handed the mug back to Maram, who stood looking into its hollows.
‘Ah, well, I suppose one of us should have savored it,’ he said to Kane. ‘It pleases me that it pleased you so deeply, my friend. Perhaps someday I can return the favor – and save you from becoming a drunk.’
Kane smiled at this as Maram began laughing at the little joke he had made, and so did Master Juwain and I. One mug of brandy had as much effect on the quenchless Kane as a like amount of water would on all the sea of grasses of the Wendrush.
I looked at Kane as I tapped my finger against Maram’s cup. I said, ‘Perhaps we should all forbear brandy for a while.’
‘Ha!’ Kane said. ‘There’s no need that I should.’
‘The need is to encourage Maram to remain sober,’ I said. I couldn’t help smiling as I added, ‘Besides, we all must make sacrifices.’
Kane looked at Maram for an uncomfortably long moment, and then announced, ‘All right then, if Maram will vow to forbear, so shall I.’
‘And so shall I,’ I said.
Maram blinked at the new moisture in his eyes; I couldn’t quite tell if our little sacrifice had moved him or if the prospect of giving up his beloved brandy made him weep. And then he clapped me on the arm as he nodded at Kane and said, ‘You would do that for me?’
‘We would,’ Kane and I said with one breath.
‘Ah, well, that pleases me more than I could ever tell you, even if I had a whole barrel full of brandy to loosen my tongue.’ Maram paused to dip his fat finger down into the mug, moistening it with the last few drops of brandy that clung to its insides. Then he licked his finger and smiled. ‘But I must say that I would wish no such deprivation upon my friends. Just because I suffer doesn’t mean that the rest of the world must, too.’
I glanced at the campfires of our enemies, then I turned back to look at Maram. ‘In these circumstances, we’ll gladly suffer with you.’
‘Very