Black Arrow Lord Ch. 01

Valdemar nodded, getting it and Cor grinned, "That one can often walk right in and while the others are all trying to think of what this might mean, the wolf gets the bitch or the scrap of food.

You can suit yourself, obviously, but my point is that you might get farther this way. Trade fairly and well, and do not seek to cheat anyone and once the few who find that they need not fear you see that, you will find more opportunities than the traders who act like rats. No one respects a rat, but everyone respects -- even grudgingly -- a wolf.

Of course, like anything else, one shouldn't try to take things too far. If it comes to a stand-off, it only requires one or two of the mutts to find a little courage and then all the rest will join in to tear the wolf apart.

And so, if I might offer a bit of advice, take only the first-rank guns .You won't be known so you need to impress. Jans will go with you to teach you the first time and he will have his own guns to sell them. If you come back in one piece and you find that you think there is more business there to be had, then the route will be yours, Valdemar. Jans has lost interest in it and wishes to sell farther south and I find that he seems to be losing his nerve for dealing with the northern bunch."

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Over the time, Valdemar was given a little instruction in very basic Japanese and Cor took him to a place where there were many weapons stored. "I thought that you might like to choose your own sword," he said, "You might find the blades which are carried here to be a little, ... light for a man of your size. I am assuming of course that you intend to carry it as a sign that you are a little more than a trader. And if you are going to have to carry something such as that for all of that time, it might do to have one that is at least a little usable and does not look small in your hand."

It took some time, but Valdemar found one blade in all of what was there, from among the ceremonial swords which an officer would carry to even some Japanese ones. His choice caused Cor to laugh a little. "That is not supposed to be a sword so much as it might look like one," he smiled, "What you have there in your hand is an executioner's blade from around here."

Cor's eyes opened a little as Valdemar hefted the weapon and then began to swing it with a fair amount of ease and even little flourishes.

"Oh, I don't care, Cor," Valdemar smiled as the blade flashed in a stroke to end in a blocking position, "It's big and more importantly, it's heavy enough for me. What would I do with a thin thing such as the ones I've seen on the guards here? This will do nicely, though it's a little front-heavy. But I think that I can see why that is now."

They walked toward the door together and Valdemar saw -- a little to his disbelief -- boxes of bows and crates of arrows. He was interested, but only out of curiosity. Cor indicated that he considered most of it to be junk waiting to be thrown out. Valdemar's eye landed on some differently shaped ones and he lifted one and turned with an inquiring glance.

"Those came with me when I first came here," the Dutchman smiled, "I have some fond memories of that trip. I sold a lot of guns to a Khalid and he liked the weapons so much that he insisted that I take some of his men's bows as a gift since they would no longer be needing them as much.

You see the thick one there? That was his own bow, given to him by his father. There was a fair difference in size between father and son and the Khalid was happy to have it out of his sight, since he could never even draw it. He'd waited almost thirty years for his father to pass and it happened not long before I came. You may have it if you like, and whatever arrows you might find to fit it for length. The rest is trash to burn one day. Be a little careful not to trust it the first time. It is old and I wouldn't be surprised to find that it breaks then."

Valdemar took it and two slightly lighter ones which looked to be just as well-crafted and one of them was very ornate. The trouble as he saw it was to find some arrows of sufficient length, since most of what lay there in storage was to fit the smaller stature of the people in the area. Cor helped him, pointing him to a crate full of long arrows, though they were thicker than most by far and they were finished in black lacquer. Cor smiled then, "These are to go with that Khalid's father's famous bow. Take all that you want."

Valdemar grabbed a wheeled handtruck then, since his choices were piling up a little by that point. They strode off then, but when they rounded a corner, Valdemar stopped and stared once again, looking at old leather and the armor of several nations.

"Heirlooms", Cor laughed, "More shit to burn one day. Take what you want and might find which will fit you. There is a large gap between you and the locals, Valdemar, but have fun if you wish."

Well it wasn't a lot of fun, but with patience and a little time, he found a leather cuirass -- God knew how many ages old, but it looked to be large enough. It also looked to be bone dry, as though it might crack if it were flexed. But Valdemar took it along and with a many evenings and a lot of saddle soap, rags and elbow grease, he had something.

It was a fairly good fit, once he'd gotten enough courage up to try the thing on. He didn't know where it had come from or when, or even who'd had it made for them, but he decided that whoever it might have been, he was near the same size as a misplaced Dane, and he must have been rich. It had to have cost the moon to have made, and it was thick and heavy.

He wore it around a lot in the course of his doings, a little determined to wear down the musty smell or die trying. Neither one happened completely, though they seemed to have reached an understanding, as it were, and the old leather began to smell like old leather once more. There wasn't much patterning to it, but what there was looked a little nice, just some dull golden trim to match the hard bronze studs. There were heavy spaulders which went along with the cuirass and he bought a heavy hooded cloak in a dark and dull brown to go over top of the rest.

He couldn't imagine anywhere that he might need all of it, but he had the thought that in a cold and unfriendly place, he might not mind having something like that along.

He thought that he'd made out alright until he saw the bearded axe head.

He had no idea how old it might be or where it came from, just an old wrought iron and steel axe head in a long-ago style. There was no haft to it. But he found a heavy stave of oak and a little time and effort yielded him an approximation of a Daneaxe with a handle of about three and a half feet long. If nothing else, grasping the thing under the beard the right way, and you had the best thing to make shavings to start a fire with and grasping the haft in a businesslike manner gave you a bit of a wild look with which to alarm the neighbors, he grinned to himself.

True to his roots, he named the sword and the axe after a pair of she-trolls from out of Nordic legend.

Whenever he had a chance and for some time after that, Valdemar practised to learn the bow that he'd chosen and also to try to regain a little of his long unused ability. He'd spent many afternoons with a past employer of his, an old noble who taught him and also told him of his family's long ago bit of glory in a better time. Of course, Valdemar had mentioned that his mother was a poor relation and that he himself was a bastard.

The old man grinned and said at the time that in his experience, some of the best men were.

"Your little corner of the family -- while it was remembered, came in for more than their share of glory, though that is all in the past now and no one but me and a few others know much of anything about it. Your people were horsemen, lad; fine and strong fighters who never turned away from the call to battle -- which is why there is likely no more than the two of you left, you and your mother.

Your uncle, while he lived, was a worse drunkard than his father and he threw his sister out into the world penniless and with nothing but the dress that she had on at the time. Come," he smiled, "I cannot return your family's fortunes, but I can begin to make you into the horseman that you should have been by now."

With that, the old man led Valdemar outside and began his teachings on how to ride a horse, shoot a bow and fight with a sword. Valdemar hadn't known that this was coming, but he wasn't terribly surprised and he took to it easily and quickly. It took him almost two years.

He'd had no choice but to become proficient at riding in a hurry. He'd been a boy, but there was only one type of horse which the old man kept, and all of them were huge.

It had been the best job that he'd ever had until the old man died.

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Vlademar found that he had plenty of time to study what he thought that he'd need as well as to get himself reacquainted the sword and the bow. The hardest thing to manage was to learn the at-first almost incomprehensible language of Nihongo -- as it was known to the Japanese -- the language which he was being taught. Cor had gotten him a tutor -- a pretty young woman who was so shy that their first lessons were spent with him feeling rather uncomfortable -- and doing everything that he could think of to make her feel less so in his presence.

The location was another thing. Veldemar found that he couldn't fault Cor for being able to string something like this together, but the fact was that when it was time for his lesson, he had to go to a section of the city which was well-known for its brothels. In fact, his teacher was one of the women who worked there, plying the oldest profession. He didn't mind much at all, but to journey to that place and be seen doing it rather often gave him a bit of a reputation and for the wrong thing.

Sometimes, someone would offer their profuse apologies that his tutor was not ready, still being engaged with a client. He guessed that he must have looked rather annoyed without meaning to at least once; for he found that he was being offered the services of a whore while he waited -- and for nothing.

It caused him to wonder about Cor's importance around that place.

He'd had no intention of availing himself of the offer until he'd seen the girls which he was to make his choice from. He selected one and spent a very enjoyable afternoon with her.

But it happened one day that he noticed something. His tutor had a patron -- a woman who appeared to be a little older than his teacher was, and from what he saw, she didn't like men at all for the way that she glowered at him while the two shared a few kisses as she was leaving while Valdemar waited.

The other thing which he noticed was that if this wasn't love that he was looking at between them, then his teacher was one hell of an actress.

As their lesson got underway, Valdemar remarked on it and the girl admitted to him that he'd been correct. It got him to thinking and so he said, "I have always known that this sort of love between women existed, but I have never seen it for myself."

The girl nodded, "Oh yes. To say the truth, I enjoy this kind of love most of all."

So they began their lesson of the day, but as he was getting ready to leave, he asked the young woman to see about arranging for a way that he might be able to watch for a while.

She nodded, smiling shyly that many men liked to watch two women making love together, but he shook his head.

"I think that I can understand that, but that is not why I ask."

He carefully asked about oral love and he explained that he had a thought that a woman might go about it in perhaps a different way than a man would.

The next time that he went there, he watched from a seat as two women made love together for him. Afterwards, his tutor asked him if he had learned what he'd sought to know, and he nodded, "Almost."

The next week, he was there for something other than his language lesson, though it was a lesson to him all the same as his tutor guided and taught him what he sought to learn with a young woman who had just come there from the countryside.

"She is here to learn to take my place, Valdemar," the woman said a little sadly. "We will have one more lesson next week than then I am leaving. The woman who I am in love with has bought me for her own and I will go to her home to live with her there."

That was how it happened, and though it caused a little fuss in how Valdemar was shown to the new girl's room the few times that he came back -- since ostensibly, she was there to service the very lucrative female client sector and never to know the touch of a man. He had to endure being taken to her room by some back hallways and though it cost him a little, he found that he liked doing that and the girl was pleased to see him every time as he got better at it. She used her mouth to take care of his needs, since she was not allowed to offer vaginal sex to him.

Veldemar stopped coming after a few times. He'd gotten what he'd wanted in terms of his lessons and by then, he was busy preparing to leave for Japan.