The Sword Trick

  Lorelei, the wench, told her that this was the third week of Roderick’s bender, that his mother had died less than six months ago, and that he was the town favorite. He could fight while he was stone-cold drunk and ride a horse backward, sing like a lark in church, and was a fair dancer.

  Lorelei talked until Evangeline fell asleep beside her brother. She woke to Roderick’s advances. She screamed as she had never screamed before and leapt from the bed. Roderick’s red eyes opened wide.

  “You’re a man!” he yelled, holding up his fists accusingly.

  Blushing like an apple, Evangeline pulled her coif from her head, letting her hair fall down her back. Roderick’s eyebrows almost leapt off his face, and he moved forward.

  “Wait!” she yelled. “I’m your sister.”

  He hurriedly turned from her to button his shirt and pants.

  “Sister? What? How? What are you doing here?” he cried.

  “I’ve come to save your life,” she said stupidly.

  “Huh?” he stood up and looked around for his sword. He spotted it on the floor where she had put it, still in the sleeping bag. He covered it, strapped on a more worn weapon.

  “Wait,” Evangeline said, getting to her feet. She grabbed his arm. It was rock hard. “Will you just listen to me!”

  “What do you want?” he frowned, wrinkling his nose as if she were a piece of meat that had gone bad.

  “Nothing, I just. . .” she stammered. “Well, you need help.”

  “I need help? I? You need help,” he told her. “You do know you’re dressed like a man? Doth the mousey envy the snake a bit too much?”

  Evangeline glared at him then cold-cocked him, sending him stumbling across the room and against the bed, where he landed.

  “Are ye mad?” he coughed, holding his jaw.

  She stood over him. “Listen, I only dressed this way so I could visit my father’s grave and show him that I could do the stupid rain trick. It’s not like you big burly rams will leave a girl alone when she’s traveling. God’s bones, I should have stayed home and married that stupid cobbler’s son!”

  “Cobbler’s son?” Roderick asked and then broke out laughing, showing white, even teeth.

  “What’s wrong with a cobbler’s son?” Evangeline asked, as if she didn’t know.

  Roderick crossed his eyes, stuck out his tongue and made like he was tapping nails into a shoe.

  “Ha, ha,” Evangeline said, “but at least he wasn’t a whoring, drunken, lay-about, good-for-nothing patricide like you.”

  Roderick stopped laughing and turned white. He got to his feet and pushed past her. He started collecting his things again, slamming them into his bag.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” Evangeline told his back. “I know you didn’t kill our father. I know it was an accident.”

  Roderick kept packing, “Do you?”

  “I know he fell and hit his head.”

  “Did you also know I wished him dead? I wished it one second before he fell.”

  “So what? Everybody wishes their parents dead sometimes.”

  He gave her a horrified look over his shoulder then left the room. She followed him downstairs. Lorelei saw them coming, turned to Evangeline and her long hair and was flummoxed. Roderick walked out of the bar without even a squeak from her.

  “Where are you going?” Evangeline called, catching up to him.

  “What do you care? We aren’t long-lost siblings separated by a cruel tyrant. We’re nothing to each other, have nothing in common except our gullible mothers fell for the same old bum.”

  “Bum?” she repeated. “You mean the same kind of bum you’re turning into.”

  “I’ll never be like him,” Roderick yelled.

  “Look at you, sleeping at inns, drinking yourself stupid, taking whores to your bed.”

  “Who are you, my mother?” he asked.

  “What about her? I’m sure she’d be so proud to see you now. Just like the man who left her.”

  “Don’t talk about my mother!” he yelled, turning on her.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re all she could have ever hoped for. She’s lucky she’s dead!”

  Roderick slapped her face. She slapped him back. He pushed her. She pushed him back. Then she jumped him, knocking him down, and tried to drown him in a mud puddle. He grabbed her hair, and yanked her off his chest, then, straddling her, struggled to subdue her. Evangeline kicked and fought him like the very lithe young woman she was. They stared into each other’s eyes, then quickly let go of each other.

  “We shouldn’t fight,” she panted. “We’re brother and sister. It isn’t right.”

  “No. No. It’s very bad,” he said, looking at everything but her. “I think I’m going to go far, far away from you now.”

  “Yes, that’s...No,” Evangeline said, stomping her foot. “I’m not leaving until I know you’re all right.”

  “Why do you care so much?” he shouted.

  “Because I don’t want to have to mourn for another relative and stranger while standing in the rain and thinking about what my life would have been like if he had been in it.”

  “So, don’t come to my funeral,” He said.

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “Roderick, I don’t really know why I’ve come all this way. I thought it was to avenge my dad, but then I found you. Maybe I’m here to help you get better. Maybe he sent me to you.”

  “He’d never help me,” he told her.

  “Then maybe your mom did.”

  Roderick hung his head. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get better. How to make this go away.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Two heads are always better than one.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  She told him.

  “So what do we do now, Evangeline?” he sighed.

  “Well,” she stalled while she thought. She had really never expected to get this far. “Well...you could come home with me. A change of scenery is good for you. You could meet my mom. She’d love to see you!”

  “Really?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Well, you know how mothers are,” she babbled.

  “Yeah,” he sighed.