(Co-written by Blaze, http://lessthan141.blogspot.com/ )
I finish my song and make eye contact once again with Leo Stormguard, and realizes that he could move in and out of just about anywhere and no one would ever realize he was a hero. Put him in a pig pen, and call him Ham. Someone would ask him the price of bacon.
“Buy you a beer?” I shrug to indicate a back room, behind the bar, where Bards and sometimes gamblers go. Leo Stormguard does know that anything can be a trap. I wonder if he knows that some things are NOT a trap. “It’s a back room for privacy, yours not mine. I mean... You really don’t want everyone in this place buying you a round, or do you?”
I don’t even get a grunt as he makes a small nod. It makes me wonder if I want to be alone in a back room with someone who is already annoyed with me. Nah, no one kills a bard on their first meeting, not even Stormguard, right? I mean right? (Hey, you! You better not be scrolling down to click aggressive, I have my eye on you!)
Several of the bars denizens try to catch my eye, or close with me before the door to the back room is safely shut. They have no idea why I would be going into the back room with Mr. Non-Descript. Not one other person in the place is actually worthy of my second glance, even as an audience, I doubt they have enough thought process intact to appreciate the skills involved in my craft. Most of them are pickled. Few even have crunch.
“Beer?” I ask. There is the pitcher I had waiting, and two mugs. Clean ones.
Now he stirs, enough from whatever deep thoughts keep his tongue still and nods that he will accept a beer. He is so chatty, how will I get a word in edgewise? Perhaps I should be plying him with something distilled... Yet the man speaks! “How did you know?”
I smile.
“How do bards always know?” He puts a stress on the word. I can sense his discomfort. “Not even a day... And it rhymed and everything.”
“That is my job. Like being a hero is your job.” The explanation is actually fairly simple, and essentially true. “We are charged with the accumulation of current events into knowledge. Knowledge into story and song.”
“I fight for money. I’m no hero.” He points out to me. “This... is just what I do. My job. I do my job.” There is a tiny scowl that starts between his eyebrows on the bridge of his many times broken nose, and it creases his eyes. “I don’t pick the fight, I am hired. I don’t pick the cause, the Captain picks the cause.”
To me, all heroism is subjective. Even the most dire villain thinks he is a hero in his own story. “You work for the Captain.” I point out. Because he could work for someone other than the Emerald Dragons, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that anymore than ArchDuke Felix would beat a horse, or Bryan Baker of East Brumsford would put sawdust in his challah. As a Bard, I know these things.
“The Captain does a good job. He picks the right side, he keeps everyone alive, knows how to deal with the employer--”
“Aren’t you the one who made him Captain?” He is, I know that. “If you hadn’t supported his cause, wouldn’t everyone have said he was too young?”
His battle gnarled hands twist like balled roots of the world-tree and he raises them in exasperation crying out, “how do you know that?”
Bards do not explain themselves. We are not the story. We are the story bringers. “Does it matter? It is true.” True is important to me. Not the minutia of truth, which is called honesty. The large truth. The small details can be manipulated to make for a better tale. This is why you leave the details fuzzy... So that they do not get in the way of the story. Who cares what Leo Stormguard actually looks like? Or how old he is? Nobody will care in a hundred years... Everyone wants Leo Stormguard to look like their personal hero. Peter from two streets over, with his golden locks and clear blue eyes, or Ragnar with his dark scowl and quick laugh.
Peter and Ragnar won’t ever be heros they will only look like they could be. Leo Stormguard is the Hero, and he looks like no one in particular. Anyguard, anytown, anyone in armor.
“What matters is that what you do, and how I tell it will make youngsters grow up to be like you should be. Better than you actually are... if it is possible to be better than Leo Stormguard. Is it?”
He is exasperated. He blurts out, “of course it is! Just because I am alive doesn’t mean I am undefeated.”
His words, and more his emotion from that one phrase wash over me, and it is like the opening of a book. The book of Leo. Not since he was little has he tasted loss, when he was a small boy, who saw his town overrun and who to save his own life grabbed a sword from the shelf of a smithy, fleeing through thick smoke and thicker screaming to save his own life.
Heros have their own yardstick reserved for self-measurement. Never used to measure others. Leo Stormguard sees weakness in seeking aid from another, even when it is given gladly, and he sees defeat in a single backward step, even if it’s demanded by his leaders. His weakness in making them call for the fallback, not theirs for ill planning.
This is what makes his battle-hardened spirit lag, to feel that he has not done enough to keep everyone from harm. Even those who desire the press of battle as much as he does.
Interesting.
“So, Leo, in the tale of which hero have you ever heard only of success?” Now I place the platter between us. Good hard cheese and warm soft bread.
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