by Brian Daley
“Why should he devote so much time to sword practice when he’s belike the best bladesman in the armies?” she responded, though she wasn’t much curious and her thoughts were instead with Gil.
Her tablemate replied, “Mistress, these affairs have a way of coming down to single combat between principals, and the Prince knows this. His younger brother is said to be a robust foe and a better man with steel than he, and he therefore spends diligent hours each day with the very best masters in the allied armies, to polish and hone his skills. I think he is more than willing for such a contest between him and his stepbrother, would welcome it as alternative to the approaching war.”
But she wasn’t listening. She was thinking of Gil and felt she understood him now. He’d told her a bit about himself and she sensed his attraction to her, and his hesitation to speak. He was unsure of himself, shy and ill at ease with her, now that she was back in Court. Here was one who’d spent much time at war and forgotten or never learned the technique of flirtation, of subtle seduction. And naturally, this appealed to her.
She made up her mind to remedy the situation and to this end ensured through her cousins that Gil would be at Court the following evening. She arrived in her finest regalia, making sure to be late, on the arm of an enviable escort, a much-admired officer of lancers who’d been soliciting her company for some time. As Reacher had promised, since he went out of his way to keep his capable cousin happy, Gil was seated uneasily at the dining boards next to the two vacancies reserved for herself and her dashing companion. In full, floor-length skirts, laced and bodiced tightly, her bared shoulders and neck scented and her long hair gathered elegantly at her neck, she swept into the room and seated herself next to the American, barely deigning to notice his presence.
He was dressed from throat to heel in close fitting blue-black silk, relieved only by boots, unadorned belt and a small brooch, a silver saber worn point uppermost over his heart. He didn’t actually fidget, but he wanted to. The feasting began, and occasionally Duskwind would turn to him with some witty aside or gay remark, sharing the illuminations of her presence with him charitably. He found that his sense of humor had gone into hibernation and could think of little to say. He thought himself miserable, but there was no place he’d rather have been.
The musicians struck a lively dancing air and, by Duskwind’s previous arrangement, one of the ladies of the Court inquired if Gil wouldn’t join in. He answered lamely that he couldn’t, since he didn’t know the dances being done there, precisely what Duskwind had been waiting for.
As the courtier left in pretended disappointment, she turned to him with mock severity and said, “Fie, that’s poor manners indeed to be nonparticipant in your host’s entertainments. Can’t dance at all, then?”
He gulped. “Sort of, but nothing like this stuff that you people call dancing.” He thought about explaining American dances of the moment and decided he was better off not getting into it.
“Well, then,” she said, “all you need is a lesson or two.” With that, saying nothing less would serve, she stood up, pardoning herself to her escort, and drew Gil away to a corner of the vast room, behind a huge pillar of stone, to instruct him in the fine points of the dance.
“See what you’ve gotta go through to be a social lion?” he murmured to himself as she corrected his stance and positioned his arms for him. His collar suddenly felt tight and he wished his hands would stay dry.
The officer of lancers, for his part, was no stranger to Court flirtations and understood with a touch of amusement that he’d been used. Ah, well, another time perhaps. With a shrug he began to cast about for another diversion.
Gil learned quickly. He was not graceful but was well coordinated, and was soon leading her through elaborate whirls, her slim waist cradled in his arm as they glided along. At the finish she pirouetted within his arms. They found themselves standing together, faces only inches apart as the music faded and applause and noise of revelry came from the dance floor.
She waited expectantly and so, of course, he collected all of his courage and kissed her, once rather tentatively and then a second time with more conviction. She responded, but found the kiss a bit rough, his embrace too tight.
“My dear,” she gasped, “you must be more delicate or you’ll bruise me sure. But come now, let’s return to the tables; I’m afraid my companion of the evening will be anxious over my absence.”
He trotted happily after her, and when they returned to the banqueting boards the officer of lancers had taken a seat vacated by a wealthy usurer who’d passed out and been removed by the servitors. He was relieving the tedium of the moneylender’s voluptuous wife, who was most receptive. Both Duskwind and Gil thought this terribly funny and roared with laughter, which the dashing officer caught and acknowledged with a nod and a sardonic smile.
The outlander and the Lady talked together of his world and hers, of their pasts and futures. He opened up to her about things he rarely mentioned and, to her surprise, she did the same.
This girl was, he knew, a veteran spy and conspirator at age eighteen or so. She’d killed at need and been his friend’s consort. Good sense told him not to become involved; what could come of it but eventual disappointment? But he divined in her a core of honesty and energy, an intelligent mind and a kindred spirit, and told common sense to hang it up.
They drank and tried a dance or two, and if he didn’t exactly dazzle the bleacher section with his footwork, at least he didn’t trip or stumble
The gathering began to break up and he offered to see her back to her suite. He leaned against the door frame and they talked in whispers, though there was no one to hear, but were interrupted by a cry that seemed to come from her rooms.
He pulled the Browning from where he’d prudently carried it in his boot and threw the door open, to find the room unoccupied.
The shout had come from the courtyard below and was being repeated and relayed through the palace. Under the window, portglaves of the household ran back and forth with torches and pointed to the sky. The two leaned out to peer upward, and even then he was aware of her closeness and elated by it.
High in the star-specked blackness hung an object of indeterminate shape, trailing long columns of red fire. It circled slowly while they watched and swung away westward.
“It fits Springbuck’s description of Yardiff Bey’s aircraft,” Gil said when they’d withdrawn from the window. “If he’s started to reconnoiter, he’ll move very soon now. Especially if he’s counted the campfires out there and knows how he’s got us outnumbered.”
He hissed in exasperation. He should have foreseen an aerial recon and planned against it.
“I have to go,” he said. “This changes things. We’ll be awfully busy before long.” His thoughts were already on how they might counteract this disadvantage, make it work for them.
He moved to the door, and she felt a chill breeze that didn’t come of night airs. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder like a timid dove. She didn’t want him to go out just now, to order the affairs of battle and let warm possibilities become cool.
She put her forehead against his chest, and he encircled her with his arms. No word passed between them, but she went to the candelabrum and snuffed out the flickering flames with her fingertips, leaving only the fitful light of the small fireplace. She took both his wrists in her hands and led him to her bed.
Deftly, she unfastened the flowing gown and let it rustle down about her ankles, and gracefully she stepped from its folds, snatching the pins from her long hair and shaking its loosened waves around shoulders and down her back.
Gil slowly opened his tunic at its high collar, slipped it off and threw it aside, catching her up in his arms. Her skin was amazingly warm and the scents of her, the perfume at her throat and the exotic, unnameable aroma of her hair, made blood beat at his temples.
He kissed her harshly even as her fingers found the buckle at his waist. But she pulled her head back.
&nb
sp; “Softly, my friend,” she whispered at his ear. “I’m no rough soldier’s woman. The night stretches ahead; shall we squander it in impatience and haste?”
They went to her long, wide bed, and the curves and complexities of their flesh met in embrace. It was, for him, a passage of enlightenment, of increase. Like many men, he knew something of sex but little of tenderness. In war, women had been a commodity bought and sold; there’d been no time or place for love. There was no gentleness; he’d stayed unschooled in affection, ignorant of regard for a woman.
But the Lady Duskwind subtly controlled the night, encouraging or rebuking and guiding his actions, nurturing their lovemaking secretly. He didn’t see it overtly at the time; all he knew was that in those hours, underlying the passion for her that superactuated him, there was a great calm and sense of serenity.
* * * *
Later, a time having come when they spoke quietly of themselves and each other again, she privily questioned her feelings for this foreigner, so stern and fey in some lights, and so vulnerable and unsure in others.
They drifted, heavy-lidded, into sleep. But just before dawn, a challenge was given as the watch was changed in the courtyard below, and she blinked sleep from her eyes to see him sitting bolt upright in bed, the cocked Browning in his hand, alarmed and disoriented.
She pulled him back down. As he slipped the pistol back under his pillow she returned to his arms and, soldier and warrior in her own way, bitterly cursed the Doomfaring.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
—Publius Syrus, Maxim 553
A special parley was called the next morning. Only the highest, chieftains and knights-commander, were even permitted to stand ranged around the room to listen. The leaders of the alliance sat at a large circular pinewood table, since Reacher, a fair man in all things by common testimony, wouldn’t sit above or preside over his comrades.
At the table with the Wolf-Brother were his sister, Van Duyn, the deCourteneys, Bonesteel, Su-Suru and his acting war chieftain Ferrian. Springbuck and Gil were to complete the assemblage, and had with them Dunstan the Berserker, whom they’d asked to act as a sort of liaison aide.
Ever since the incident at The Excellent Board, Dunstan had followed Gil steadfastly, perhaps because the American had brought him out of Rage, or perhaps because the outlander was more at ease with him than with his own people. Dunstan didn’t say, and they didn’t ask. As Gil put it, “It’s not as if he’s whacked out or vicious; maybe all he needs is somebody to keep him straight.”
The Prince and his friends waited until the others had been seated for some time before making their way to the meeting room. “I must make an entrance to help make my point,” he said.
Gil and Springbuck came forth side by side, Dunstan behind them, through a door held wide by Kisst-Haa, the reptile-man. Nearing the table in step, helmet and war mask clamped in their left arms, they stopped with the American three paces from the table and the son of Surehand a step closer, next to the chair left vacant for him.
Springbuck thrust aside the seat and threw his high-plumed mask on the table. In the silence that greeted him, he asked, “Is there anyone here who does not know the significance of last night’s visit? Yardiff Bey has paid us a call to tally our bivouac fires and see what he could of movements between here and Coramonde. This can only mean that he’s ready to unleash Novanwyn on Bulf Hightower.”
He watched their faces. He had as yet told them nothing new. He’d taken the floor from Reacher, and while the Wolf-Brother was listening with equanimity his sister was obviously piqued. Gil held his breath for the bomb.
“Therefore,” the Prince continued, “I shall ride to the aid of the Hightower. Its warders have always rallied to my family at need. Do they deserve less from their liege?”
There were instant objections from the Snow Leopardess, Van Duyn and Su-Suru. Bonesteel was in thought, calculating the military factors and thinking, too, of his sister, Rolph’s widow, still at the Hightower.
Gabrielle was contemplating the Prince. War itself drains men, wears them thin, but the relentless exercise of past weeks had built him up, filled him out to something approaching his potential as a man. His friendship with the MacDonald had given him an added self-assurance; even she had had no idea he’d planned this move. Yes, the Pretender had evolved a definite presence, a mind of his own.
Springbuck cut off the confusion of objections by bounding atop the gleaming table and holding up both hands. The voices subsided immediately and most at the table looked at him as if he were under a new, stronger light. Though there were those in the room who thought him mad, Bonesteel was beaming at Springbuck’s demonstration.
“I go, too,” the Prince resumed, “because this is an excellent chance to give Bey pause while my loyalists establish themselves and Freegate braces for prolonged war. We must let Coramonde know that we can lash out over the Keel of Heaven to deter the advances of our enemies.”
“And shall we ride with you, then, to be crushed far from our undefended homes?” shouted Katya angrily, her pale face flushed ever so slightly. The sight rather pleased Gabrielle, who sat across from her.
“You speak of following me,” he replied, “but I cannot force it, nor would I. You conjecture in terms of defeat. I don’t plan on it or fear it.” He caught Bonesteel’s reassuring nod. “I go, and my Legions with me. If you vote to aid me, so be it and my thanks, but I wouldn’t demand it.”
Gil exhaled softly. The Prince had the allies over a barrel and they knew it. Without him, there was little hope of delaying the advance of the armies of Coramonde, and the outcome of an unqualified confrontation with the hosts of Strongblade couldn’t be doubted. Lacking Springbuck as figurehead, they’d have a much harder time fomenting revolt across the Keel of Heaven; he was their only touchstone of popular support in that country. Their only hope against the vast resources of their enemies was help from an infrastructure in the populace there.
And though the Prince had mentioned it to no one, even Gil, he felt obliged to go to the Hightower because of the death of Rolph Hightower that last night at Earthfast. To him the expedition represented not only a political and strategic maneuver, but an act of contrition as well.
Reacher cleared his throat. He stood up and they all became quiet. “I suggest,” he said, “that we take our most mobile elements on this foray. Your light dragoons and members of the Horseblooded, and a contingent of men to leave as reinforcements for the Hightower should that prove desirable.”
Katya had slumped her curvy figure back into her chair, legs crossed and heels on the table. She gave her brother a resentful squint and brought her feet to the floor with a clump.
“At least, then, you must let me come along, brother,” she grumbled.
But when the strike force had been assembled, Katya was not included in its order of battle. Neither were Van Duyn, Su-Suru and many others who stubbornly demanded a chance to carry the igniting spark of war to the enemy.
Duskwind was particularly miffed; she’d meant to go on the expedition from the moment she’d heard of it. Dissuading her was a nightmare. Gil reasoned and debated with her for as long as he could before losing his temper and telling her to take it up with Springbuck, refusing to intervene and touching off a terrible row. She began to plot in secret, but they didn’t permit their romance to suffer for long because of their difference of opinion. They still danced and laughed and drank and sang, exploiting as best they could the short time they had to be together.
And for a while they found themselves a subject of interest in the capricious Court. Frequenters there found fascination in the love affair between the noblewoman and the outlander, with his curious songs, obscure jokes and most of all his conversation with its strange-tasting words and casual references to amazing things from his previous life, things he regarded as mundane.
The two also spent evenings roistering with common soldiers and people of the city,
though Gil didn’t consider this slumming, but rather moving through more comfortable social strata. He learned local drinking songs and in return taught them his. He followed his new friends through “The Farm-Wife’s Jollyboy” or “Tinkers’ Caterwaul”; then the musicians would pick up the simple tunes to “Roll Me Over in the Clover” or “The Wild Rover” and they would all bellow away happily.
The interlude didn’t last long. With word of the girding for war, Court life became nonexistent as the nobles and their ladies prepared the great houses for danger and austerity.
Gil finally admitted to himself that in those too-few days he’d been avoiding Springbuck, aware that Duskwind had been the Prince’s lover before she’d become his. That she might see the whole situation differently didn’t occur to him.
One morning he picked up his friend’s trail—few failed to note and recognize the plumed Alebowrenian war mask and Fireheel—and caught up with him in the stables of the palace. The Prince was enthusiastically discussing Bar with curious sentries.
“Even if it weren’t blessed with unfailing keenness,” he said, flexing the weapon through short, glittering arcs, “a fine blade it would be. It’s light enough to cut rings around any bulky broadsword, heavy enough to cleave armor, but will match steps with a darting rapier if the man who holds it has a strong enough wrist.”
He reluctantly yielded Bar for practice strokes by one of the bolder men-at-arms, then noticed Gil leaning against Fireheel’s stall and went over to him.
“We are ready to leave on the morrow,” Springbuck said. “Will you be coming with us?” His expression was hard, but when he saw consternation in the American’s face he smiled and said, “I think I know what troubles you, but it shouldn’t. Duskwind—well, Duskwind I loved once; but she is her own woman and she and I have both grown and changed. You chose commendably, both, and your happiness makes me glad. I don’t blame you for taking time from our mustering.”