Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  As Graegor rode past, he met the gaze of one of the blue-cloaked horsemen, and the horseman acknowledged him with a brief nod; then his eyes under his steel helm returned to their constant scan of the surroundings. That was what being a lord’s sworn man was about—respect. Why couldn’t his father see that?

  The week had not been pleasant. It was the fourth time he had come with his father on this twice-yearly trip, and the first time that no apprentices had come with them. Joshua needed to mind the workshop, and Pieter was laid up with pneumonia from one too many night swims with fisher girls. It meant that Graegor had had to stick to his father’s side throughout the tiresome business transactions and to run errands that couldn’t be run by Johanns’ servants. Despite this, Graegor had hoped to find an opportunity to talk to Johanns, preferably without his father around, but the right time to start the conversation just hadn’t come up.

  They maneuvered through the wet press of people, and after they turned onto another street, Graegor’s father glanced back at him and frowned again. “Put up your hood,” he said. “Your mother won’t like it if you come home sick.”

  “I’ve never been sick,” Graegor muttered to himself, even as he pulled his grey wool hood over his damp head. But he didn’t mutter quite to himself, because Johanns turned to him in surprise.

  “You’ve never been sick? What do you mean, you’ve never been sick?”

  “Just—I’ve never been sick, sir.”

  “Of course you have,” his father said, with another one of those looks.

  “No, sir. When I was younger, sometimes I’d eat too much and get sick ...”

  “Wait ‘til you drink too much and get sick,” Johanns grinned.

  “Yes, sir. Sometimes I get headaches, too—”

  “And you get those from drinking too much as well!” This time Johanns guffawed at his own joke.

  “... but I’ve never had a ‘flu or anything else contagious.”

  “You must have,” his father insisted, but there was an inward focus to his eyes which meant he was trying to remember. “A few years ago, that fever that almost everyone in town had—even Magus Paul had it.”

  “I didn’t. I helped you finish those rocking chairs because both the apprentices were sick.” His father had to remember. He’d been dissatisfied—quite vocally so—with Graegor’s work on that occasion. It was the day they had both realized that Graegor would never become a woodwright.

  “Curious, very curious,” Johanns mused, while Graegor’s father kept frowning. “And I’ve noticed how easy you are with horses. Both are magi traits, you know.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  Then Johanns’ eyes narrowed even further. “You’re the right age, aren’t you? Weren’t you born the year of the Sorcerers’ Star?”

  “Yes, sir. But Magus Paul says I don’t have magic.”

  “He does, does he?”

  “Yes, sir. When he first came to town, my mother asked him, and he put his hand on my head and looked me in the eye, but then he told her that I had no magic. My sister doesn’t either.”

  “Ah. Too bad.”

  “I think everyone’s mother asked him if their children were magi.”

  “Of course everyone’s mother did!” Johanns grinned. “Such a child has prospects. Many prospects.”

  There it was, prospects, the perfect opening to what he wanted to ask about for next spring. Graegor opened his mouth, but Johanns saw someone he knew in the crowd and called out, edging his horse that way, and the moment was lost.

  Once again forced to quietly exist while his elders talked, Graegor looked idly down the street. Although they weren’t in the central marketplace, there were plenty of shops and taverns here, with striped awnings and tables outside their doors to attract passersby to their wares. As the rain fell harder, more of the shoes and sweaters and mugs were whisked back inside, but just across the narrow street a rack of scarves fluttered in the brisk Cotobrir wind. Among the colors was a shade of blue that reminded him of the tiny teardrop pearl that Jolie wore around her neck.

  He glanced at his father and the others, decided they wouldn’t miss him for a few moments, and slipped off his horse. He reached the shop at the same time as two perfumed women in thick hooded cloaks, who also wanted to look at the scarves. They were interested in a striped one, and Graegor took it down for them to inspect, then put it back and took down several more before they decided it was too cold and went inside.

  Graegor touched the blue scarf. It wasn’t silk, but it was a smooth, soft linen, surged at the edges, and hard-priced at one nickel ounce. Jolie would like it, he hoped. He liked it, and finding a private moment to give it to her could give him a chance to kiss her—a chance which so far hadn’t come up. Yet. He had to be optimistic. For God’s sake, Ted had already kissed a girl.

  “What do you have there?” his father turned to ask him when he returned. When Graegor peeled back the paper wrap to show him, he said, “That doesn’t suit her.”

  Very surprised—even shocked—that his father had an opinion on the subject, Graegor stared for a moment before defending himself. “It matches her pearl.”

  “Pearl? Your mother doesn’t have any pearls.”

  Oh. “It’s not for Mom, it’s for Jolie.”

  “Jolie?”

  Surprised—but much less so—that his father didn’t even know who Jolie was, Graegor said, “You’ve met her. Her family runs the old dairy now.”

  “Oh, that new milk girl your mother keeps talking about. You’re friends?”

  We spent Solstice dancing together, but did you notice? “Yes.”

  “I hope you didn’t spend too much on that.”

  “I didn’t.” By his own definition, he hadn’t, considering what he hoped to get in return. He wrapped the little package tight and put it in his belt pouch.

  Eventually they started off again, and the rain tapered to sprinkles. Some of the gutters were already overflowing, and Graegor’s horse picked its way with fussy precision through the running water and the mud puddles. He would have to ask Johanns about this horse. It obviously came from racing stock, by its legs and neck and how it handled itself, but Johanns wasn’t the sort of man to let a racer carry around an errand boy. Maybe it had been injured?—although if so, he couldn’t tell where. Maybe it had been a racer but had lost too many times. Johanns wasn’t the sort of man to back a loser, either. Graegor would have to ask. The question might impress Johanns, who had already noted his rapport with horses, and the impression would serve him well when he asked Johanns to help him find a sponsor in the spring, when he turned fifteen and was officially, legally, a grown man.

  He couldn’t turn fifteen soon enough.

  They arrived at another woodwright’s shop. Graegor stood in the background while his father showed one of his handmade tools to the other woodwright and Johanns expounded on the commercial possibilities this opened. It was so boring Graegor could feel his brain trying to crawl out of his head in a desperate search for stimulation, so he entertained himself with thoughts of going to Khenroxa and finding someone willing to take a chance on sponsoring his training.

  This was where Johanns could help him. Johanns knew people all over the world, and they knew other people all over the world. Surely he knew someone with connections to Khenroxa’s elite cavalry corps. He just hoped Johanns wouldn’t laugh at him when he asked.

  It wasn’t a terrible idea. Khenroxa and Telgardia had been allies for centuries, and other Telgards had joined the Khenroxan cavalry in the past, so he wasn’t really turning his back on his own country. In fact, one of his far-reaching daydreams involved returning to Telgardia and establishing a training ground for Telgard horsemen to lift them to Khenroxa’s very high standards.

  Lift them back to Khenroxa’s standards, that is. There had been a time, under the Torchanes kings, when the Telgard cavalry was the most feared in all the world. The usurper, Aidan Rohrdal, had disbanded the cavalry out of fear of its loyalty to Augusti
n, the sole surviving Torchanes prince. Even after Augustin had been killed, even after the Rohrdals themselves had died out and the Carhlaans had risen to the royal house, the Telgard cavalry had not regained its former might. With some help from the Khenroxans, that could change, and maybe Graegor could be part of that.

  They had fantastic horse races up in Khenroxa too. Even if he couldn’t be a cavalryman, maybe he could be a racing trainer. Or even a jockey—though they tended to be smaller fully grown than he was already. Or maybe eventually he could start his own breeding stock ... but whatever road he followed, the best route was north, to Khenroxa, where they knew horses better than anyone.

  He hadn’t told anyone about this yet—and that was probably why it was so hard to find a way to talk to Johanns about it. He didn’t want to tell anyone at home until he knew whether or not it was realistic. It was no use worrying his mother for no reason. And she would worry, of course, if she thought he was leaving. She wanted him to stay in town and find a craft. He suspected that was why she encouraged him to spend time with Jolie.

  Jolie. He sighed, then smoothed his expression back to polite nothingness just before his father turned to glance at him to make sure he was paying attention. He shouldn’t have bought her the scarf. Any gift could be seen as a promise, and right now he couldn’t promise her anything.

  But he really liked her.

  It was a problem.

  Wool to the spinner, yarn to the weaver, cloth to the tailor,

  Know your craft.

  Trees to the lumberjack, logs to the miller, boards to the woodwright,

  Know your craft ...

  And so on. He’d heard the song all his life, but had only recently begun to find it annoying. More and more it seemed that the things he was good at didn’t fit into the little artisan town by Long Lake. He was good with horses—he knew that. He was also good at standing very still when he was insanely bored, which was useful at times like this. The two together suggested a military career, but the one time he’d dropped the hint that he wanted to be a soldier, his father had flatly refused to consider it, for reasons he hadn’t explained.

  But Graegor still thought about it quite a bit. He could picture himself in a cavalryman’s black cloak and red-piped green jacket, barred ribbons on the lapels and gold links on the cuffs. He would ride into the village on a blooded mare sixteen hands tall, sweep Jolie off her feet ...

  Again he was able to refocus his eyes just as his father was turning and saying something to him. Fortunately some noise from the street drowned half his words and Graegor could with all innocence ask him to repeat himself. His father asked if it was still raining, so Graegor went outside and returned to report that it had let up for the moment. This seemed to please everyone, and his father and Johanns took their leave of the other woodwright. They rode down the street, but instead of turning north at the corner, they continued west, and Graegor asked why.

  His father gave him a look that seemed to say I knew you weren’t listening. “Padric has some things to show me.”

  Great. Padric was the master woodwright who had taken Hagan as journeyman after he’d finished his apprenticeship. It had been six months since Graegor had seen Hagan, but he would rather avoid him altogether this time. The man was a pig, but Graegor seemed to be the only one who could see through the charm. It didn’t help that Hagan still found his obvious dislike amusing rather than threatening.

  Only a few months after that Solstice night, Graegor’s father had declared Graegor old enough to go to Farre with him and Hagan for their twice-yearly trip. But Graegor had refused, saying it was bad enough he had to live under the same roof as Hagan and he wasn’t going to travel with him. Thanks to that bit of self-righteousness it had been two years before Graegor had started coming along.

  Fortunately, he had a way out. “Will you need me there? I have to get some spices for Mom.” His mother used some unusual combinations to scent her candles, and some of her ingredients could only be bought in Farre. And Audrey had asked him to get her some of her favorite candy, which was also difficult to find outside Farre, but Graegor knew better than to mention that.

  “I thought you did that yesterday.”

  “I got the oils yesterday, but another shop has the spices.”

  “All right, go ahead. Don’t get lost.”

  “I won’t.” He turned the horse to take him back the way they had come. He knew Farre even better than his father did, and he never got lost anywhere.

  He reached a street they had crossed previously and turned north. On horseback it was easy to move through the lines of people on foot, passing row houses and the garment district. Maybe it was the rain, but the city seemed particularly grey today. He had heard that Chrenste, the capital city, was beautiful—”a twinkling net of emeralds and sapphires”, as the lyrics went—but that didn’t exactly describe Farre. He saw overgrown or dying trees, dark brown leaves in the fountains, piles of garbage higher than he’d ever seen. The storm last night was to blame for some of the mess, but a lot of it had turned to muck some time ago. He thought it odd, considering how everyone complained about Duke Richard’s taxes ... everyone but Graegor’s father, of course, who thought that everyone should just sit down and be quiet about it since taxes were inevitable and he’d seen much worse in Naben and at least Duke Richard kept a food bank for the poor, and so on and so on.

  The chapels he passed all seemed tidy, though, even the ones for foreigners, their small domes scrubbed clean and brightly painted and their little lawns and graveyards carefully tended, evidence that Duke Richard also gave a fair amount to the basilica. Graegor dropped some small coins into the slightly rusty iron box near the gate of one chapel that had been partly burned by a fire and was undergoing repairs. A priest clad in black who was taking inventory of the stacked lumber on the lawn smiled at him and gave him the sign of the Godcircle. A gust of wind blew under the tarpaulin and ripped it up just as rain splattered on Graegor’s head again, and he dismounted to help the priest secure the tarp around the wooden boards. Another smile, another blessing, a comment about the bad weather. Graegor agreed and put up his hood again before remounting and turning east to continue toward the marketplace.

  The Lakeland Marketplace was only a few streets south of the ducal palace. It was open every day but Godsday from dawn to dusk, rain or shine. At the western edge of the market, Graegor found the spice shop his mother preferred, owned by a bald merchant from Adelard who also had the candy Audrey liked. His mother had told him to buy himself something with the change from the money she’d given him, but he only spent a copper penny on a sugared dough-ring from a vendor up the street ... the vendor whose cart happened to be close to the row of blacksmiths’ stalls.

  Graegor slowly led his horse down the line of displays of tools and weapons, nursing the dough-ring to make sure he appreciated the smell and taste of each bite. He meant to saunter past the sabers, but he just couldn’t. One in particular was exactly what he wanted, plain steel with a basket hilt and leather scabbard, hanging with quiet dignity among larger and more ornate pieces. He stopped. The shopkeeper started to talk to him but was distracted by someone in the back of his stall and for the moment let Graegor alone.

  His father would be absolutely livid if he bought a sword. No question about it. And there wasn’t anyone at home who could teach him to use any sword, let alone a cavalry saber. He didn’t need it. He shouldn’t get it. He shouldn’t even look at it. Never mind that it was like looking at a whole new life.

  He fixed his attention on the next stall and its display of quarterstaves. One of them was a strange purple color. Graegor looped his horse’s reins around the front support beam and looked more closely. It wasn’t painted, or, that he could see, stained; the wood was actually purple.

  “Go ahead and pick it up,” the shopkeeper told him. “You’ll find it’s very well balanced and plumb-straight.”

  Graegor inspected the shaft with increased interest. The wood was unusually
warm against his hand. He closed both fists over it, stepped back and swung left, then right. The ends whipped the air.

  “You’re the right height for it,” the shopkeeper observed.

  “I like it,” Graegor murmured. He twirled it, tossed it from one hand to the other. It wasn’t a cavalryman’s weapon. It was in fact a very common weapon—foot soldiers carried quarterstaves or pikes. But he felt sure that his father couldn’t object to his owning one, or learning how to use it, just for self-defense. And it made an excellent walking stick, in case he ended up hiking all the way to Khenroxa.

  He couldn’t help looking back at the saber. He thought about the silver coins at his belt. He probably would not be able to drive a hard enough bargain to get the sword for what he had. The idea of returning Jolie’s scarf crossed his mind, but only fleetingly. The extra coins wouldn’t make the difference, he didn’t know if the scarf merchant would take it back, and he really wanted to give it to her.

  And he decided, for some reason, that he really wanted this staff. He wished he knew why he felt so strongly about it, so suddenly. He planted it in the ground and leaned on it. It took his weight easily, but he could feel the springy flexibility toward its center, strong enough to bend and not break.

  “Where was the wood harvested?” he asked.

  “The Tolandish rainforest. It’s the only place where purpleheart grows naturally.”

  Purpleheart. He’d never heard of that, and he was pretty sure he had heard of most kinds of trees—on the western continent, at least, and even on the northern. If this was an import from the southern continent, it was probably even more expensive than the saber. Graegor sighed and started to extend the staff back to the shopkeeper, but the man didn’t reach for it. “What’s the problem?”