Interludes: Three Years in Sparrowclyffe

               Padriac snored fitfully but loudly, from time to time he would twitch and mutter, struggling with phantoms on the floor.
        The Inkeeper looked up from the lord on his floor to the figures at the doorway, a look of consternation and fear on his face. “I do apologize for bothering you at this hour, good Master Raedmon, but no one else is willing to touch him,” the pudgy little man spoke, wringing his hands over and over in a nervous fasion. “I tried to enlist some of the others earlier, while he was still somewhat awake, but he fell into such an awful rage that we feared for our lives.” He paused to gesture at the broken chairs and table, “as you can see, he gets rather adamant when in his cups.”
        Raedmon shook his head as he entered, Periebanu following in his shadow. Cuchulainn padded silently past the three standing, to where Padraic lay, and started forcefully licking his face. Padraic woke slightly then, and began ineffectually swinging, but Cuchulainn just pinned him to the ground with his paws, like he would any animal caught in a hunt, and continued to drag his large ragged sloppy tongue across the man’s face. From somewhere below the massive hound, a murmur of Gaelic oaths sputtered upwards. Raedmon turned to the Inkeeper, passing him a number of coin. “I appreciate your – discretion – in coming to me in regards to this.  I shall see him home.”
        Periebanu looked on, quiet and dispassionate. ‘He reeks’ she stated plainly in Raedmon’s mind, ‘the wines stench is all over him. Again. This is getting to be a habit.’
        Raedmon ignored her testing jabs, keeping the chatter of his mind still. It was the only way to gain peace with her some days. Not to give her a footing. He leaned down and gingerly picked up Padraic with as much force as he would a child, pausing only long enough to give the dog a forceful shove to clear him off his friend. With one arm around the fallen Irishman to keep him steady, they walked stumblingly back out into the night.
        The door shut loudly behind them, leaving them adrift in shadow. It was late enough in the burh that was Sparrowclyffe Downs, that only a few candles still burned in windows. Their light guttered fitfully behind shuttered windows, and Raedmon tried –with little success – to cultivate the heightened awareness of sight and sound to make his way.  Periebanu made it look so easy; she might as well have been a ghost walking besides him.
        “He is dealing with his burdens as best he may, my Lady”, Raedmon grumbled.
        “He is giving up – he is filling himself with a little more death each day,” Periebanu replied. “If it isn’t the wine, it’s how he incessantly throws himself into battle. Children die. It is the way of things,” Periebanu shook her head slightly, “he is lucky Ulfhide didn’t die this time. Wermer’s wife was not so lucky…”
        Raedmon glared at her. “Wermer’s wife gave birth to six strong, vigorous children, before her last left with her!” he growled, “how many can you claim?”
        A dry chuckle rattled out of Periebanu’s lips, and for a moment she appeared far more the ghost and far lest the maid that Raedmon knew.
        “Not so many,” she sighed, “not so many that breathed and squalled as they should. They are all dust now, as is their father. It has been at least a dozen generations as the Bible keeps time since I even made an attempt to track their descendants though.” She turned slightly to wink at Raedmon, “the children of Abel breed like flees on a hound. I am sorry you have been spared the pain and pleasure of such… attachments.”
        Raedmon could not hold her stare, and instead chose to focus on the road ahead.  The Gild-house was not to far away. They could drop off Padriac there, and let the servants deal with him.
        “Disregarding for a moment what has brought him down this sorry road, I do not think we should blame your sword-brother too much…” Periebanu sighed in a valiant attempt to change the somber mood that had fallen upon them, “as I think his taste for a particular branch of the grape has more to blame than his personal demons.”
        “What speak you then?” Raedmon looked askance at her, an eyebrow cocked questioningly. “You say something more, yet I puzzle your meaning.”
        “Could you not smell it?” she teased.
        “The wine,” he said, annoyed. “How could I not?”
        “BENEATH the wine, silly childe,” she continued with all the coyness of a cat, “was another scent, far sweeter on our nose. A trace of the blood of Cain I’ll warrant.”
        Raedmon stopped, nearly dropping his burden unceremoniously in the road’s middle.
        “Oh don’t look so shocked,” Periebanu laughed quietly, her voice like silver bells echoed lightly off the houses about them. “The stories of your sire should be enough to warn you to the truth of what I say.  Food, and drink, only require trace amounts for the subtle tracing of the Blood Oath on its subjects.”
        “But…” Raedmon stammered stupidly, “but that would mean…”
        “Yes, silly childe” she said simply, the mirth having slipped from her voice for the cold shadow of reason, “it means someone is playing at subverting one of yours. The trace is light, but who knows? They may have already turned him to their ends.”
        Raedmon dropped him in the ditch then and there, laying a hand on his sword before Periebanu stepped to check him.                 “Don’t be a fool,” she said with a small amount of consternation and contempt.  “Kill him, and not only do we warn our unknown adversary we’re on to them, but you throw your own ranks into much needless confusion. No…” she shook her head quietly, “we MUST let this play out, if we are to ever find the source of this new threat – and be ready for them.”
        Raedmon gingerly lifted his burden again and the three continued onward in silence.