A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  He grunted a sort of greeting.

  “It’s good to be back, sir,” Rap said.

  Another grunt. “Is it? Where are you living now?”

  “I was wondering the same.”

  Neither said the obvious—that Rap was too old for the boys’ dormitory. It might even be full, anyway. But a factor’s assistant would presumably be paid more than a stableboy, and perhaps almost as much as a driver. Rap had not asked.

  “I shall find lodgings in the town, sir.”

  The little man scowled and snatched the wisp from Rap’s hand. “I’ll finish this; you look beat. You know the garret next the drivers’ office?”

  Rap nodded, surprised.

  “It’s been cleaned out. There may even be a bedroll in it. A man could stay there until he found somewhere better.”

  “Thank you, sir. That was kind of you.”

  Honinin just grunted.

  Krasnegar might be battened down for the winter, but the factor still had much to do, and much of that he could delegate to his new apprentice. Rap was partly diverted by his morning lessons in the arts of reading and writing and summing, squeezed unhappily into a desk at the back of a schoolroom filled with children who giggled and found him an amusing giant. He chewed his knuckles, ruffled his hair, and wrestled with the mysteries of knowledge and the vagaries of a quill pen just as stubbornly as he had battled Firedragon.

  The royal appointments of Rap as assistant to Foronod might have been well intentioned, but it greatly widened an already extensive moat. Of necessity, as the accounts were closed on another season, the king’s factor must investigate many matters that had been pushed aside in the summer rush. A wagon crash, unpaid taxes, unexplained injuries, and mysteriously vanished goods—all of these came under review. Every year brought its accountings, to attribute blame or malfeasance, and that year had no more and no less than others.

  Yet where the respected factor could rush in, his juvenile helper must tread with care. Rap found himself asking questions whose answers were not readily at hand, testing memories suddenly at fault. He spent a whole week in quest of a certain valuable keg of imported peach brandy that had vanished between the dock and the palace cellar; and he gained no friends thereby.

  When he finally made his glum and quite negative report, Foronod scowled and asked grumpily, “You can’t just see it?”

  “No, sir. I tried.”

  That was a lie. Rap had tried very hard not to see it in his wearying treks through town and castle. Always he tried very hard not to use his farsight, if that was what he had. Yet he had an inexplicable conviction that the missing—and now empty—keg was located under the staircase by the armory latrines.

  He had already passed beyond the populous domain of childhood, but the well-settled realm of manhood still lay ahead. The borderlands are thinly inhabited and never easy going, being roamed by monsters that prey most readily upon the solitary traveler—and now Rap had no companions.

  When he set about a search for lodgings, he discovered what old Hononin had already guessed—that rooms were in short supply. Rap smelled now of the uncanny. An odor of sorcery hung about him, and while no one was so unkind as to snub him for it openly, his friends would drift in other directions when given the chance. The brand was unobtrusive, but it was there. He was human and he suffered. Women suspected that he could see through their clothes and they shunned him even more than men did. And no one wanted a lodger who could spy through walls.

  Of necessity, Rap’s temporary residence in the garret above the stable became his permanent abode. He moved his scanty possessions in and squandered most of his savings on buying a bed and was miserably content. He ate in the castle commons, but he did not sit at the drivers’ table.

  His work for Foronod might lack the romance of being a man-at-arms but it was a challenge; it implied that he was trusted. The factor was a hard master—demanding, saturnine, and slow to praise—yet he was fair. Rap respected him, did his best, and strove to be worthy.

  The blizzards came more frequently, the days dwindled. Wagons rolled no more, even within the town itself. Yet Krasnegar had been built for its climate and pedestrians could travel by covered alleys and staircases. A man could walk from castle to deserted harbor without more than a half-dozen brief dashes out of doors. Peat fires glowed. The business of life continued safely below the storms, and pleasures continued, also. There was food in plenty and drink and companionship; singing and dancing; talk and fellowship and romance—but not for Rap.

  He was not completely without friends. He did have one, a sophisticated man of the Impire, for whom the supernatural held no terrors; a man without visible occupation to fill his hours and yet of apparently unlimited financial resources—well spoken, much traveled, sympathetic, and even proficient in the use of swords.

  “Fencing?” he said. “Well, I’m no expert, my friend, and I would not venture to draw at the imperor’s court, where any young squire may turn out to be a swordsman of prowess, but I am probably as competent as any of the wood-chopping rustics I have noted here in the castle guard. So if you want a lesson or two, lad, I shall be most happy to oblige.”

  Rap said, “Thank you very much, Andor.”

  Krasnegar had never before met anyone like Andor. He was young, yet as poised as a prince. A gentleman and apparently wealthy, he mingled freely with both the lowly and the high. He was as handsome as a young God, yet seemed unaware of the fact. One day he could be found wrapped in filthy furs in the common saloons, trading vulgar ribaldry with sailors; the next he would be seen in satin and silk, holding respectable matrons spellbound at an elegant soiree; or with Kondoral, laughing heartily at the old seneschal’s interminable, threadbare monologues. The very candles seemed to burn more brightly near Andor.

  It was rumored that the king disapproved of him, and certainly he was never seen in the king’s company, not even at the weekly feast for the palace staff, over which the king presided. As the days shortened, however, his Majesty stopped appearing at those functions, and then Andor began to attend—sometimes sitting at the high table with Kondoral and Foronod and the other dignitaries, sometimes squashed in with the servants near the squeaking spits of the fireplace, his arm around a wench.

  His success with women became an instant legend; it verged on the uncanny. Resentment was inevitable and he was an imp—some jotunn would have to educate the intruder. Very soon after his arrival, while Rap was still on the mainland following Foronod, one tried.

  It happened in a bar near the docks, and the details were never very clearly established. The volunteer enforcer was an enormous and ill-reputed fisherman named Kranderbad, who tersely invited the stranger outside. Reportedly Andor first attempted to talk his way out of the challenge, then yielded with reluctance. The imps in the group sighed unhappily, the jotnar grinned and waited eagerly for Kranderbad’s return. But it was Andor who returned, and very soon. It was said that he had no bruises on his knuckles or sweat on his brow, and apparently none of the blood on his boots was his. Kranderbad was not seen in public for many weeks thereafter, and the extent of his injuries impressed even that rough frontier company.

  Another attempt occurred a few days later and now the challenger had a friend waiting outside to help. Both joined Kranderbad in the infirmary, and one of them never walked again.

  That one had a brother who was a barber, and the same evening he was overheard vowing vengeance. Before morning he was found in an alley without his razor, his tongue, or his eyelids, and thereafter Andor was left in peace to woo whom he pleased.

  He established lodgings at the home of a wealthy widow. Her friends censured but were too intrigued to ostracize. They whispered among themselves that she seemed to have shed ten years.

  Soon he knew everyone and everyone knew him. With very few exceptions, men found him irresistible and were pleased to call him friend. What women called him was less easily established, but none seemed to bear grudges, as they would have done if they had fe
lt jilted or cheated. He was discreet—no match or marriage failed because of Andor.

  He showed Foronod a better system of bookkeeping. He gave Thosolin’s men-at-arms tips on fencing and he advised Chancellor Yaltauri on current politics in the Impire. He could dance superbly and play the lute well by local standards. He had a passable singing voice and a bottomless store of stories, from the literary to the scatological.

  Krasnegar fell at his feet.

  Yet even Andor could not be in more than one place at a time, and he spread himself thinly. He rejected any efforts by his admirers to become followers, for the young men of the town would have flocked along behind him like baby ducklings had he given them the chance. He roamed Krasnegar from palace to docks, and none of the hundreds who called him friend could claim to know him well or see him often … with one exception.

  Why a sophisticated man of the world, a wealthy gentleman, should be interested at all in a solitary, awkward adolescent—a minor flunky lacking grace, family, and education— was a major mystery. But for Rap, it seemed, Andor had unlimited time.

  Thousand friends.

  He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,

  And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

  Emerson, Translation from Omar Chiam

  FIVE

  Demon lover

  1

  In the whole of the Northwest Sector of Julgistro Province, there was no grander social event than the Kinvale Ball. There were many balls at Kinvale during the season, but the Kinvale Ball was the one held each year just two nights before Winterfest. It alone supported half the costume and jewelry trades of the region. Being added to the guest list had been known to induce bankruptcy among the lesser nobility. Being dropped from it was generally regarded as justifiable cause for suicide.

  Thousands of candles sparkled amid the crystal droplets of the chandeliers. Hundreds of guests danced in a whirl of opalescent finery—silks and gemstones, satins and lace, color like shredded rainbows. The wine, the food, and the music were unmatched anywhere in the Impire. Amid the dark and cold of midwinter there was gaiety and happiness, laughter and light.

  Ekka, the dowager duchess of Kinvale, was long since past indulging in dancing herself. She walked now with a cane and as little as possible, but the Winterfest ball was a Kinvale institution that she guarded and cherished. She had probably attended seventy of them herself—she could not remember how old she had been when she saw her first—and she would let nothing diminish the tradition. She could not improve on the pattern, for as far back as she could remember no expense or ostentation had been spared to make the ball as grand and enjoyable as possible, and she took care that it never dwindled by as much as a fly’s eyelash. Every year she watched the youngsters swirl past in their quadrilles and gavottes, and she was remorseless in her intent that they would enjoy themselves as much as she had done in her faraway youth.

  Ekka was a tall and bony woman and had never been a beauty, although she had always had presence. She still did. Her nose was too large, her teeth too prominent, and age had increased her resemblance to a horse until she half expected her reflection to neigh at her every time she looked in a mirror. Frail now and unsteady on her cane, white-haired and wrinkled and ugly, she ruled Kinvale tyrannically, knowing that she terrorized everyone and gaining secret amusement from that fact. She had no power except the power to send them away, so what did they fear? That, she supposed, was presence.

  She sat as straight as her crumbling bones permitted in a highback chair on a small dais at one end of the great ballroom. From this vantage she oversaw the splendor with both pleasure and the unwinking stare of a snake. Should she notice any maiden whose decolletage fell below her standards, or any young cockerel dipping too deep in the wine bowl, then would she thump the parquet with her gold-topped cane to summon a messenger from a small army of pages that stood near to hand. The offender would be requested to attend her Grace forthwith.

  From time to time her friends and guests would pause in their progress to wish her merry Winterfest, or thank her for the hospitality, or merely to reminisce. Persons of especial interest she would permit to perch briefly on the chairs beside her to exchange a few fleeting words, but that was an honor sparingly granted.

  Now the band was playing a reel. The ballroom flashed and surged with color as the dancers pranced and leaped through the intricate patterns. Ekka watched the pairings form and reform, all the permutations and combinations flickering together in her mind, for Kinvale was both a finishing school and a marriage bureau. Matchmaking was Ekka’s lifelong skill and recreation. To Kinvale came the eligible young ladies of half the Impire, with mothers or aunts or grandmothers in attendance, and few indeed were those who did not find themselves betrothed to their elders’ satisfaction when they departed. Rank and wealth and looks and breeding—the possibilities and requirements were innumerable. It took a rare touch to blend them all in satisfying coalescence, and a diplomacy and knack bordering on sorcery to see that the young persons involved believed that they had followed nothing but their own wishes when they united in the pairings Ekka had selected.

  Now the couples she had paired in her youth were sending their children or even grandchildren. At times she felt like godmother to the Impire.

  The frenetic whirling reached its climax in the final chord, then an instant of silence. The men bowed to their partners, the partners curtsied. And all over the hall they each took a deep breath, for the tempo had been fiery. The ballroom seemed to gasp, then the tableau disintegrated in smiles and laughter and conversation, men moving to lead ladies back to their seats. Close by Ekka, Legate Ooniola was escorting Princess Kadolan of Krasnegar through the crowd with the same single-minded dedication he would have applied to maneuvering his legion. Ekka lifted her cane and caught Kade’s eye. The legate obediently right-turned and delivered the princess to Ekka’s dais. He bowed. Kade thanked him. He departed.

  Puffing mightily, she sank down beside the duchess. Fans were in vogue again this year and Kade took advantage of the fact vigorously.

  “Ooof!” she said. “I allow my ambitions to exceed my abilities! I feared I was going to have an apoplexy halfway through that one.”

  “I am sure you would never do anything so gauche, my dear. It is going well, I think?”

  “Marvelous!” Kade sighed contentedly. “Winterfest is a dry crust anywhere but Kinvale. It is wonderful to be back again.” Her eyes were raking the hall.

  “Over by the far buffet,” Ekka said. “With the legionary, the tall one.”

  Kade nodded and relaxed. “A great experience for her. She will never forget Winterfest at Kinvale. No one ever does.”

  “Kind of you to say so.” Ekka frowned at the sight of the Astilo girl talking with the weedy Enninafia youth. His family did not need her money, and it could use an infusion of brains that her bloodlines would not supply. “Your niece does you great credit, ma’am.”

  Kade simpered and they both chuckled. They had been—and indeed must still be—sisters-in-law. Their acquaintanceship dated back for almost half a century. They needed very few words to convey meanings to each other.

  “She benefits more from the current fashion than I do,” Kade said wistfully. Ekka was too kind to smile. Only short weeks before Winterfest the dramatic news had come from Hub—trumpets were out, bustles were back in. Dress plans had been changed at very short notice, but the last thing Kadolan needed was a bustle. She had done the best she could, staying with dark-blue satin and a single strand of pearls, borrowing Ekka’s own pearl tiara, but even in such simplicity she was still dumpy, and the bustle mocked her.

  “At the back she benefits perhaps,” Ekka remarked. “She is a little young yet for the necklines.” She disapproved of the present style in necklines. They took the men’s minds off conversation.

  “Well, in necklines I am qualified.” Kade raised her fan to conceal her mouth. “My niece had the audacity to tell me that my figure was altog
ether two things of a good much.”

  Ekka’s thin dry lips sketched a smile. “Of course you chided her for unladylike thoughts and unseemly vulgarity?”

  The orchestra was striking up a gallopade, and the floor began to swirl again with eager couples.

  “Of course! But Kinvale has been wonderful for her! Six months ago she would have said it in public.”

  “That was what I wanted to ask you, dear. How is our young hussar faring?”

  Kade sighed again. “She suspects that he may have left his helmet out in the sun too long. With his head in it.”

  “It is not unlikely,” Ekka agreed. “I fear that I am running out of candidates, Kade. If you are still intent on leaving in early summer, we are facing a shortage of time. Shall we review the requirements?”

  The gallopade was in full romp, and Inosolan was being passed down a line of men, laughing and smiling. Her dancing had improved beyond all recognition. The ladies continued their conversation while watching the dancers.

  “Character, I fear, comes first,” Kade said sadly.

  “That is a problem. Anything else is easy. And character is not merely rare, it is hard to detect soon enough. Although nothing brings it out like matrimony.”

  “Too late then, of course.” Kade accepted a sparkling goblet from a footman’s tray. “Holindarn insists that she make a free choice, as I told you.” She paused. “Even if her happiness requires her to remain in the Impire, he said.”

  Ekka was startled and said, “Indeed?” noncommittally, while she mulled this interesting complication. She could think of several families that would be gratified to pick up a meaningless royal title, so long as their son did not have to go and dwell in the barren north for it. Her own, for example—and there were other interesting implications.