The hoofbeats from behind had drawn closer; Ian and his companions were pretty securely boxed in. Logic said that that wasn’t a problem—they had been surrounded ever since Tyrson had split his patrol and sent the other half on a sweep to seal off their line of escape—but it wasn’t logic that stood on a dusty road, surrounded by lancers, and it wasn’t logic whose mouth had the metallic taste of fear in it.
It was all Ian could do to keep his hands from trembling, his voice from cracking.
Arnie Selmo’s face was pale and sweat beaded on his forehead, but, strangely, he didn’t look scared. He just stood there, his thumbs hooked in the straps of his rucksack, looking puzzled, giving a glance to Ivar del Hival as if to say, Why aren’t we dead yet?
It was Ivar del Hival, of course, that Arnie was looking to. Ian was just a kid. This stuff about him being in charge, about this all being his responsibility, wasn’t real to Arnie and Ivar del Hival, and there was no good reason it should be.
In frustration, without really thinking about it, Ian banged the butt of the spear against the ground.
Boom.
The ground trembled with a deep basso rumble that set the horses whinnying and shook leaves from the trees. Above, the sky was suddenly filled with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of birds flapping their wings manically as they climbed into the sky.
Shitshitshit. The thing only an idiot would do when surrounded by a score of armed horsemen would be to make a sudden move that could only trigger—
Waitaminute. While most of the horsemen were busying themselves trying to regain control of their panicky mounts, Aglovain Tyrson had dropped his reins and stretched out his arm, his hand palm out, fingers spread, in what certainly looked to be a peaceful gesture. Sure enough, tips of lances were raised skywards, and hands moved away from sword hilts.
Aglovain Tyrson’s mouth stood wide open. He snapped it shut, then quickly dismounted from his horse, the clenched metal fist that held his scabbarded sword held tight against his chest, the hilt just under his chin. It looked awkward as all hell, but it was a position from which he clearly could not draw his sword, and that had to at least imply peaceful intentions.
He stood upright on the dirt road, his head bowed. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, his voice low, but pitched so as to carry far, “for my impertinence. Are … you who I think you are?”
Ian didn’t have a quick answer for that. He was opening his mouth to say something, anything, probably the wrong thing, when Ivar del Hival spoke up.
“And who would you be,” he said, “to think you are one who would question someone he thinks to be the Promised Warrior as though he was a merchant caught pushing his cart down a military road?”
Aglovain Tyrson didn’t like that. “Now—are you saying that this is the Promised Warrior?”
“I say nothing of the sort.” Ivar del Hival shrugged. “Does it matter at all what I say or don’t say?” he asked. “You claim that I’m some sort of spy; why should I swear one way or the other, only to be called a liar?” He extended a hand toward Ian. “What I can say is that this is Ian Silverstein, called Ian the Silver Stone. And that the sword you see at his hip is known as Giantkiller, having drunk the blood of a fire giant, as well that of a köld.”
Well, Ivar del Hival wasn’t known for his understatement, and was perfectly capable of treating the truth as though it were a powerful spice that could easily be overused. But that, apparently, was the way things worked in the Houses of the Middle Dominion; they were nursed at their mothers’ breasts with swordsmanship, milk, and intrigue. The truth, in this case, wasn’t all that far off. While the worst Ian had done to the köld had barely frightened it away, Ian had in fact killed the Fire Giant. But that had largely been a matter of luck.
This didn’t seem like a good time to bring all that up, all things considered.
“I don’t know anything about this Promised Warrior of yours,” Ian said, quietly. “I’m just a man carrying a message. That’s all.”
“Then you won’t mind accompanying us to see the margrave, I suppose.”
Tyrson didn’t wait for an answer; he snapped his fingers, then pointed to first one horseman, then another, and another. The three men quickly dismounted and led their still-nervous mounts over, and steadied them while Ian and the others climbed up into the saddles. Ian didn’t know much about saddles, but wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of post—horn? Was it called the horn?—sticking up out of the middle of it?
This saddle had several brass D-rings, presumably for lashing gear, and mounted to the right stirrup was a short leather cup in which Ian could rest the spear’s butt, but there just wasn’t a lot to hold onto, and while Ian had been on a horse a few times before, he had never gotten used to the way the huge animals shifted as they walked, or even stood. Enough to make him seasick, probably.
Well, at least they would be riding instead of walking for a while.
“Let it never be said that the son of the margravess made even one who might be the Promised Warrior walk while ordinary soldiers rode.” Aglovain Tyrson grinned a not-very-friendly grin. “I think you’ll find these animals comfortable, although I wouldn’t say they’re quite as fast or as fresh as most of the others. You can’t always get what you want.”
“Yeah,” he said, and thought: but if you try sometime you just might find, you just might find, you get what you need.
Aglovain Tyrson remounted his horse, turned it around, and started off. With horsemen in front of them and horsemen behind them, Ian couldn’t see anything better to do than kicking his horse into a slow walk, so he did just that.
Through a break in the trees, the margrave’s castle loomed ahead, splattered in crimson and gold by the setting sun. The elevated road twisted through the sunken rice fields, narrowing at several points to barely wide enough for two horses to ride abreast, which slowed the procession considerably, although it picked up when the road widened again, and Ian found himself almost knee-to-knee with Ivar del Hival on one side and Arnie Selmo on the other.
“Any of this look familiar?” Arnie asked, with a grunt.
“Why, yes,” Ivar del Hival said, “it hasn’t changed much over the years. It would be kind of hard to tell, though: they tend to do a good job plastering over any damage. Not something we have a lot of need for, not in the Cities.”
That made sense. The five Cities of the Dominion had been carved into their mountains ages ago, and the stone was almost impervious to damage; this would hardly necessitate a great deal of expertise in castle building in the Cities.
Ivar gestured toward the southwest corner of the outer wall. “I know for a fact that they had a break there, a few centuries back, but you wouldn’t know it to look at it. A few barrels of plaster, a couple of dozen master plasterers, a couple of hundred years of sun and rain, and it’s as good, well, as good as it’s ever been.”
“So,” Ian said, “you’ve been here before.”
Ivar didn’t answer right away. “Well… back before I got too old to go running all over the face of Tir Na Nog, I did a little trading here and there, hither and thither, around and about, near and far. The Crimson and Ancient Cerulean companies still have a certain amount of status, and that does give a Dominion trader a certain amount of edge in selling swords, among other things.”
“Aglovain Tyrson didn’t say anything about trading; he called you a spy.”
“Spy is such a… technical term.” Ivar’s mouth twitched. “I always preferred to think of myself as a trader who didn’t see the need to avert his eyes whenever something interesting happened to cross his path. And His Warmth—not the one you dealt with; the grandfather of the present Fire Duke—was always interested in anything I had to say when I got back to the Cities.”
“I can see how the Vandestish might misinterpret all that,” Arnie Selmo said, not bothering to try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “You really can’t blame them.”
“Innocence is my only shield.”
&nbs
p; Arnie snorted.
They dismounted outside the main gate, just short of the drawbridge, and while four of the soldiers led the horses down a path that curved out of sight around the walls, the rest accompanied Ian, Arnie Selmo, and Ivar del Hival inside, their boots thumping in time against the solid wood of the drawbridge.
After spending some time with Torrie and Hosea, Ian had often found himself looking for places that a clever man might have put an abditory, or possibly a trap, but it didn’t take any expertise to notice that the gargoyles at the juncture of wall and ceiling were actually spouts, presumably for dumping hot oil on invaders who had fought their way this far.
He mentioned as much to Ivar del Hival, who crooked a finger at him. “You know, young Silver-stone,” he said in English, smiling sweetly, “or whatever you’re going to call yourself, it’s one thing to casually notice an… interesting feature of Vandestish construction. It’s another thing to talk about it, and yet another thing entirely to discuss it in terms of invading armies. That’s something that’s guaranteed to make our fine, fine companions nervous.” He gave an open-handed gesture that was completely at odds with what he was saying.
“Eh?” Arnie shook his head. “They speak a lot of English here?”
Ivar del Hival cocked his head to one side. “As far as I know, none. As far as I’m eager to test the matter, they might all speak it as fluently as you speak Bersmal.” He shook his head. “The gift of tongues isn’t something that only Orfindel can bestow.”
The main entrance—a massive gate made up of ancient timbers that had been tied together with wrist-thick rope, and then studded with jagged pieces of metal and glass—stood closed, but a tight passageway led off to the side, and it was down this dark corridor that the soldiers led Ian and the others.
“This feels familiar,” Ivar del Hival said, as he handed his gear to Arnie so that he could squeeze through a particularly tight turn.
“Yeah,” Arnie said. “It’s like being born.”
“That was,” Ivar del Hival said, “an old joke when you were young, but that isn’t what I meant. This entrance, it’s like the ways into any of the Cities. Not as complicated, I suppose, but then I very much doubt that this castle was built by the Doomed Builder.”
“That’s certainly true: It was built by my mother’s mother’s mother’s husband.” Aglovain Tyrson stopped then a few feet short of the door. “Careful, now.”
A score of blackened metal spikes, ranging in length from about one foot long to more than three, were mounted on the door frame. Tyrson used his scabbarded sword to push those on the left to one side, while one of his soldiers did the same thing on the right.
Ian stepped through, and into the golden light of the setting sun.
It wasn’t like he had imagined the inside of a castle to be. The grounds had been carefully landscaped; trees—some of them huge—were planted everywhere except for a narrow strip along the walls. A stream wound its way around the grounds, terminating in a pond that cupped the northwest corner; a dozen swans cruised about, sometimes ducking their heads to come up with a wriggling fish in their beaks. A pack of ten, maybe twelve, children was involved in some sort of running and shouting game near the pond, and as Ian watched, a little girl in a white shift slipped on a greenish patch of what Ian assumed was swan shit. She slid feetfirst into the pond, quickly came up sputtering and laughing.
The residence, a squarish three-story building, stood at the top of a gentle slope. At least, it looked like it originally had been squarish, and the newer-looking east and west wings had been added on later.
Aglovain Tyrson stopped them on the lawn outside the main entrance.
“You’ll have to leave your weapons here,” he said. “The margrave doesn’t permit foreigners to come armed to the margravine’s presence.”
Ian thought about it for a moment. He very much didn’t like the idea of being separated from Giantkiller, and he had a hunch that Odin wouldn’t much care for him leaving the spear here. But there were many of them, and at most three of him, and it didn’t look like an occasion to try to argue the matter.
So he carefully, slowly, set Gungnir’s point against the ground and pushed until the spearhead had vanished into the ground. “See that nobody touches it,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
He unbuckled his swordbelt and set it down on the grass, touching the spear. Ivar del Hival unbuckled his, as well, and started to set it down next to the spear, but stopped himself in time; he handed it to Ian, who set it lying next to his. Their rucksacks followed, and after a quick search—more of a parting-down, really, than anything else—Aglovain Tyrson led them through the arched doorway and down a dark corridor to a thick oaken door.
It swung open silently at their approach.
The margrave’s room was just about the same size as Ian’s high-school gym. The floor was covered with a thick carpet the color of fresh, arterial blood, interrupted by a series of walkways of green marble that appeared to actually be set into the floor, not merely lying on top of the carpet.
The marble web concentrated itself at five nodes: in the northwest corner, a canopy bed stood covered with a fine-knit mesh screen; in the northeast corner, a table and dozen chairs presided; in the southeast, a simple spinning wheel and two very plain wooden chairs stood incongruously; in the remaining corner was a desk, covered with papers and odds and ends; and in what looked like the exact center of the room, an island of low couches and overstuffed chairs clustered. There the margrave and a young woman sat next to each other on what Ian would have probably called a love seat, although he was sure that wasn’t quite the correct name. Another young man, who looked like a slightly younger version of Aglovain, sat in a chair near them.
The margrave rose at their approach. He was a slim man, tall, with a close-cropped head of black hair that was silvered slightly at the temples and, curiously, at the bangs. As with Aglovain Tyrson, he clutched a scabbarded sword in his metallic left hand, but it looked more like an article of clothing on him than a real weapon.
It was hard to pay much attention to him; the woman sitting next to him on the couch kept interfering with Ian’s breathing.
He wasn’t quite sure what it was. Yes, she was pretty enough—glossy black hair that fell to her shoulders feathered to frame her high cheekbones and exotic blue eyes above a dainty nose and full, red lips.
Her black dress trimmed with silver to match the margrave’s hair was a study in contrast: it came to a high, demure collar that made him itch to unlace it, and was slit up the left side almost to the hip, revealing a smooth expanse of creamy thigh down to an s-curve of open-toed sandal, displaying toenail polish the same blue as her eyes. Her hands, unadorned with jewelry or nail polish, lay folded demurely in her lap, the long, delicate fingers interlocked.
Ian forced his attention back to the margrave. What the hell is wrong with you, asshole? he said to himself. You pay too much attention to the margrave’s pretty young trophy wife, and you’re not going to be making friends and influencing people here, or anywhere.
The room was strangely silent, and then Ivar del Hival cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Ian.
Oops. When in Rome—
“Greetings, Margrave,” Ian said. The Vandestish customs allowed for too many honorifics for the nobility, and Ian preferred to simply be seen as a little coarse in using the title, rather than try for the right title and miss it. “My name is ‘Ian Silverstein,’ ” Ian said in Bersmal, ”although I’m often called Ian Silver Stone.“
“Greetings, Ian Silver Stone,” the margrave said. His voice was, surprisingly, higher than Ian would have guessed; a warm, coppery tenor, not a booming baritone. “I am Erik Tyrson, Margrave of the Hinterlands,” he said, not introducing either his wife or the kid. There was probably some fine point of etiquette in that; Ian resolved to ask Ivar del Hival what it was.
Later.
“And your companions would be… ?” There was no overt trace of menace as he tur
ned toward Arnie and Ivar del Hival, but Ian didn’t have to be tuned into whatever subtleties the margrave was playing out to remember that they were in his castle, unarmed, surrounded at the moment by a dozen armed guards, all of whom had that sort of quiet arrogance that at least promised that they knew which end of their weapon was which, even if the promise might be a lie.
“Ivar del Hival,” Ivar del Hival said, “ordinary of the House of Flame, fealty-bound to the new Duke.”
“I thought I recalled that face,” the margrave said.
“It’s a homely face,” Ivar del Hival said, “but I’ve gotten used to it over the years.”
Ian didn’t know what all the playacting was for; he had no doubt that a swift runner had been dispatched with a full report for the margrave while Ian and his companions were busy disgorging themselves of anything that might in some way resemble a weapon—unless when Aglovain Tyrson had sent half of his troop to loop around Ian and his companions, he had also sent a messenger back.
“Hmm… and you accompany Ian Silver Stone for what reason?” The margrave raised a forestalling palm. “No, no, never mind; take a moment to think up a good story—I mean, to recall the details of the stream of life that brought you here.” He turned toward Arnie. “And you?”
Arnie drew himself up straight, and actually saluted. “Arnold J. Selmo,” he said, “Corporal, Seventh Cavalry, B Troop, retired.” He had said it all in English, probably having trouble deciding which of two Bersmal terms best corresponded to corporal, for which Ian couldn’t blame him. And he couldn’t decide whether Arnie was being deathly serious or unintentionally comical; his salute was like something off a parade ground, with no trace of sarcasm or irony at all, and he held it for an awkwardly long time, until the margrave awkwardly returned it. He didn’t exactly do it right—his fingers were spread and his palm faced out—but it probably wasn’t a good time to mention it.
The Silver Stone Page 12