The three of them huddled together in the back of the shelter, Maggie in the middle, each wrapped in a sleeping bag.
There was something wonderful about being warm and dry in the middle of a storm.
Dinner had been the last of the hot dogs, toasted at the end of a long stick, then wrapped in flattened Wonder Bread—it still amazed Torrie how many slices of the stuff could be squeezed down into a coffee can—and washed down with Tang and a couple carefully measured belts from the brandy flask. A few squares of waxy-tasting high-temperature Swiss chocolate was dessert.
Not exactly a banquet, but it was filling, and it warmed his insides, and that was enough.
The fire crackled, and the storm roared.
Torrie was never sure why, but he couldn’t remember enjoying a meal more.
Chapter Twelve
Marta
Ian sat back in his chair and considered whether to drain the last inch of drania from his glass. Drania. That was what they called it. What drania was, he wasn’t sure. It tasted good, and sweet, with maybe an overtone of berries? He wouldn’t have wanted to swear what it was made of. Some sort of juice, perhaps? A tea, sweetened with honey?
It wasn’t alcoholic; just the taste of alcohol would have made Ian gag. Ian didn’t drink, ever; if you didn’t drink, ever, you couldn’t ever beat up people you cared about while drunk—but there was something in the spiciness that was relaxing him from temples to toes—particularly around the temples.
The conversation flowed around him, and around the whole room. A Vandescardian dinner was an all-evening affair of endless courses, punctuated with breaks from the dining table by couples or groups intent on an interlude of dancing at the far end of the hall, where a six-piece band kept up a quiet rush of music.
The steps could have been either a square dance or a minuet, for all Ian could have guessed; the dancers were arranged in groups of four, two couples, who joined and broke formation, sometimes all doing the same thing, sometimes breaking into couples, and sometimes just the men facing off and doing something that looked more like a mime trying to escape an invisible prison than dancing.
The instruments looked vaguely familiar—two of the musicians played something that looked sort of like a guitar that had been strung by a sitar player; another bent over a lap-held harp sort of thing, ten silver fingerpicks frantically plucking at strings; another kept time with a drum that looked and sounded just like the doumbek the handlebar-mustached Hungarian across the hall used to take into the dorm stairwells and pound on at all goddamned hours of the day. The bass looked like a banjo with a glandular condition, and was played by a vestri on a precarious-looking stool, but he kept up a steady thrumming rhythm that more drove than followed the drummer.
The music sounded strange; more of a pentatonic scale than the diatonic scale, perhaps?
Ian smiled to himself. Well, if that was right, he’d finally found some use for that goddamned music appreciation course he’d had to take for distribution credit.
Up at the head of the table, framed in the huge fireplace, the margrave was lecturing Aglovain Tyrson, gesturing with an eating prong, whipping it over, around and under, as though demonstrating a coupe-dessous. A bit tricky—it took time to cut-over and then disengage into octave—but it could nail somebody who was expecting something else.
It was worth remembering, if he ever ended up crossing swords with the margrave. A duel really was a competition as to who would make the first mistake, and the classic mistake was to be too fond of a particular maneuver. There was no such thing as a maneuver—disengagement, riposte, parry, remise, redoublement, reprise, anything—that could not be countered, and if your opponent could maneuver you into doing even the right thing at the wrong time, he could go through your defenses like they weren’t there.
Which they wouldn’t be. Sixte exposed your inside, while quarte exposed your outside, and if he was attacking in the low line, it didn’t matter how you defended against a high-line attack.
The woman to the margrave’s right—Ian had been presented to her, but he couldn’t remember her name—watched the interplay with what was probably feigned fascination. Fine points of fencing are of interest only to those who practice it, save for the occasional weirdo who probably would find something interesting in watching paint drying.
Across the broad expanse of table from him, Ivar del Hival was holding forth on Ian’s duel with the Fire Duke. Ian mostly tuned it out; he had lived through it, it had been bad enough but he had survived it, and there was no need to rehash every moment of it.
Burs Erikson had been hitting the spiced beer probably too hard for somebody of his age and mass—his face was greasy and sweaty in the firelight, and he seemed to be slurring his words. Ian tried hard not to despise him—not everybody who ever got a little tipsy went around beating up his kids, and besides,
Burs Erikson was a bachelor, so the margravine had said—but failed.
Ian shook his head. He had no business looking down on Burs Erikson for drinking. Burs Erikson might bend his elbow too much, but he didn’t have the blood of a little boy on his hands.
Logic said that Ian wasn’t responsible for that, either.
So much the worse for logic. He drained the last of the drania, and set the glass down on the table.
While Ian had been working on the drania, Ivar del Hival had probably downed a gallon or so of the spiced beer, and other than his voice getting just a little louder than its normal boom, and his gestures becoming just a trifle broader, there was no change.
Well, each of us has his own skills, Ian thought. Ivar del Hival can outfox a Vandestish noble, and then hold his booze and their attention. I can let little children get killed.
“Ian Silver Stone?” the margravine asked.
“Yes?”
“Is it your custom to dine silently? Or is conversation permitted where you come from?”
Ian had assumed that the margravine would be seated at the other end of the table, opposite from the margrave, but that spot had been taken by Burs Erikson, and Ian had found the margravine as his dinner companion.
Which should have been nice, he supposed, but so far Ian had been a less than brilliant conversationalist.
“It’s not only permitted, it’s welcome, and I have to apologize. I’ve been thinking.”
“You are forgiven, of course.” The margravine leaned closer to him. “You seem… preoccupied, Ian Silver Stone. I hope it isn’t the company that bores you.” Her smile made the last somewhere between a joke and an invitation.
“No,” Ian said, “not at all.”
She was dressed similarly to the other women at the table: a simple silk shell, belted tightly at the waist, slit up past the knee on both sides. The black dress, decorated with gold stitchery in little tadpole designs that Ian would almost have called paisley, hugged her hips, and was belted tightly with a golden cord, emphasizing her slim waist. The high neck would have seemed demure—despite the scooped cutout that exposed a pear-shaped ruby that looked like it had been glued into the hollow of her throat—if the bodice had been cut more generously, instead of emphasizing her firm, high breasts.
Great. Go ahead—get turned on by your host’s wife, Ian thought to himself, remembering Karin. And Freya.
Not a smart move.
“Well?” she asked, eyeing him over the rim of her own glass. “When you’re so quiet, it must be because you have some deep, deep thought to conceal. Reveal it, if you please.”
He didn’t know how to play along with that particular line of banter. So he just answered honestly. “I feel… horrible about that little boy,” he said. “Just a little kid.” He shook his head.
She set her glass down and laid her hand on top of his. Her fingers were longer than his, and warmer. “I guess it’s a matter of how one was raised. I’ve been taught that guilt is a common but useless emotion; much better to simply resolve to do better next time than to flagellate oneself about mistakes, no matter how serious.” Her expression gre
w somber, and her eyes didn’t blink. Ian had never seen eyes of quite such a color before. They were a deep, rich blue, and the combination of blue eyes and black hair would have always seemed exotic, even if the blue had not been so rich and deep, and the black had not been so inky and glossy.
“But I do take your point, though. Little Dafin, Elga’s son, was a delightful little child, with a lovely laugh.” She pointedly looked down the table at a young woman who sat, silently, eating mechanically, her face a granite mask of grief. “But I can tell you that Elga does not blame you for the… accident. And I can assure you that when her man returns from the Seat, he will see to the fellow whose carelessness cost Dafin his life.” She shook her head, sadly, then dismissed it all with a shrug, and seemed to give his hand a parting stroke before removing her own.
No, Ian decided, she wasn’t dismissing it; she was simply acting as though she was. He reached for his glass, stopped himself when he remembered that he had emptied it, and then started when he noticed that it was full again. Vestri servants with a carafe of drania were like Denny’s waitresses with coffee: they could come by and refill you without giving you time to notice.
He sipped more of the drania. “I… I just don’t like it when little kids get hurt.” His knuckles were white where he gripped the stem of the glass; he forced himself to relax his hand and set the glass down.
“Do you know anybody who does?” She tilted her head to one side. “I am the margravine here, and that does give me a certain amount of… influence.” She made as though to rise. “Shall I ask of the company? Shall I inquire as to whether the blame ought to fall on the recklessly careless fool who was to guard the spear? Or perhaps it should be put on dear Aglovain Tyrson, who insisted that you attend the margrave unarmed? Or perhaps on the margrave himself, who issued such orders years ago? Or on you, who carried it here and warned all and sundry that it was dangerous?“
Ian couldn’t help but smile. She might be a trophy wife and all, but maybe that was in part because of her obvious charm. And just maybe it was sincere.
“It’s a horrible thing, Ian Silver Stone,” she said. “But you’re no more to blame for it than I am.” Again, she laid her hand on his, and again, seemed to give it an affectionate stroke before taking it away.
It had been too long since that one-nighter with the waitress in Basseterre—Linda? No, Lindy, that was her name, Lindy—and Ian had to remind himself that the head he had better be thinking with was the one on his shoulders.
“Come,” she said, making as though to rise. “Let me show you the gardens before the next course comes. I’ve had Cook prepare her special terrine, and it is worth working up an appetite for.”
Customs differed from place to place; that was one of the few constants. Here, it was probably reasonable for a visitor to take the host’s wife walking in an inner garden. At least, it must have been, because as she took Ian’s arm and guided him toward the far doors, the margrave caught Ian’s eye, and gave him a nod that sure as hell looked like an approving one.
The lightning and thunder had rolled past, although off to the east, there still was an occasional flash, and maybe a distant rumble that sounded more like a grumble.
But the rain hadn’t stopped, and gave no sign of stopping. Its wet fingers clawed and pounded on the canopy overhead, while the wind above rushed past. The garden was fully enclosed by the walls of the castle, though, and that protected them from all but an occasional light misting spray.
Ian would have liked to have seen the garden in daytime, but even at night, even in the rain, there was something pretty about the way the cobblestone paths wove in and out among the plantings.
Marta pointed at one of the nearest flowerbeds. “That’s the flower we call a Good-Morning Lily on sunny mornings; it opens up all gold and red and orange, like a sunrise.”
There was something strange about the way she had phrased it. “And what do you call it on cloudy mornings?”
“Are you making fun of my country dialect?” Her smile warmed him. “Well, let me tell you that we do have a name for it on such days: we call it a Stay-Abed, because it’s wise enough not to open at all.”
“Ah.”
She again tucked her hand under his arm, and guided him down the covered walk. “Now, right there, is my own flower bed,” she said, pointing to an ordinary-looking patch of greenery. “I don’t have much time for it, but I work it with my own hands,” she said, “like the proud peasant stock I come from. The best flowers grow in the humblest manure, you know, and I work it into the soil here, with my own tools.”
Ian felt like he’d missed something. “Peasant?”
“Of course,” she said. “I will thank you to say the word with some respect. There’s no shame in being lowborn, not if you inhabit your niche with dignity, and certainly not when you rise as high as my father has. I… ah, I see.” She raised a finger. “You’re very clever, Ian Silverstein, getting me to talk about myself rather than permitting me to inquire of you.” Her fingers stroked his, idly. “Since I don’t dare match wits with you, let me ask you straight out: are you the Promised Warrior?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” he said. Other than to tell you that I don’t have the vaguest idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t know that that’d be a smart thing to do. “I’m just a, well, a herald right now. Harbard’s asked me to, to convey a request, and has given me that which could hardly come from anybody else.”
“Just a herald, eh?” she asked. “So you really aren’t the Ian Silver Stone, the killer of kölds and fire giants?”
“Singular, not plural,” he said. “And I didn’t kill the bergenisse, the köld. I just sort of wounded it.” No need to mention that he had barely nicked it, and that it wouldn’t have had any effect if the sword that Ian had later named Giantkiller hadn’t been one of those that Hosea had tempered in his own blood. Good steel tempered in the blood of an Old One could give a köld an awful sting, and when thrust straight through the chest of a fire giant, had knocked him stone cold dead.
But it hadn’t been skill or heroism, not either time. Just stubbornness.
And luck.
“And the fire giant?” She arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t kill it, either? Perhaps you simply beat it to death with humility.”
He shrugged. “I guess if you’d been there you wouldn’t have thought it was all that heroic.” It would have been easy to play the hero, to puff up the exploit, but there was something obscene about using what had happened to impress a pretty girl, and no matter if she wanted to be impressed by it. You had to decide what your standards were.
In truth, the hard part had been agreeing to face the fire giant, not the doing of it. That was like, like, trying to ski down an avalanche, maybe—there had been no choice, so you just did the best you could.
“But are you the Promised Warrior?” she asked, again. She smiled. “You can tell me.” She held up a finger: “You’re a stranger, from far away. You’ve been proven and scarred in battle. You carry that… that which no mortal can. You serve an Old One. And you handled Burs with embarrassing ease, and I do thank you for not making it a matter of blood, because I know you could have killed my brother as easily as you defeated him.”
Her brother? Wait—“I thought Burs Erikson is the son of the margrave.”
Her brow wrinkled prettily. “Well, of course he is.” She touched a finger to his lips. “Now, now, you’re just trying to distract me. If you’re not the Promised Warrior, why won’t you at least deny it?”
It was hard to look into those eyes and deny anything. But to hell with it. “As you wish: I deny it. I’m no Promised Warrior. I’m just ordinary Ian Silverstein,” he said. “By your standards, a peasant, although I don’t know much about farming. Now, will you answer my question? How can Burs Erikson be your brother?”
“By the usual means, I suppose. My father lay with my mother, and most of a year later, out he popped.” She cocked her head to one side. “So I ca
ll him my brother because he is the son of both my father and my mother—is that called something different where you come from?”
“No, but—” He stopped himself. “The margrave isn’t your husband.”
“I should say not!” She drew herself up straight. “And what a horrible suggestion; it’s very unmannerly.” She started to turn away, then turned back, and laughed. “No, no, no—so that’s why you’ve been so… shy,” she said. “No, I’m not married to my father, Ian Silverstein. I’m the margravine, not the margravess,” she said. “I’ll be the margravess, someday, when my father dies or abdicates in the favor of my husband, who will be the margrave.” She swallowed once, twice, three times. “May I speak bluntly, Ian Silverstein?”
I wish somebody would, he thought. “Please.”
“We have a saying: ‘The best flowers grow in the humblest manure.’ There is no shame in being born of peasant stock, Ian Silverstein. My father was, and is all the more honored among his peers for the length and breadth of his rise of estate.
“It would do my family honor past imagining were we to join with the Promised Warrior, Ian Silverstein, and I think you may well be him, despite your protestations. But even were that not so, were you but Ian Silverstone, slayer of giants, were you merely as brave a man and as accomplished a swordsman as has ever sat at my father’s table, were you but such a trivial thing as that,” she said, her smile warning him, “still, it would do my family great honor if you were to become my husband.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
But I’m a fraud, lady, he thought. But you hardly know me, and I hardly know you, and I have no business being involved in this.
He found himself stammering, and cursing himself silently for his awkwardness.
“Don’t underestimate me,” she said. She gripped his hands tightly. “Don’t think me some fragile inbred flower, Ian Silver Stone, incapable of… vigor.”
“But—”
“Please.” She took a step toward him, and again put her finger to his lips. “Shh. Don’t answer now. I’ll beg my father to let me accompany you to the Seat and Table; he’ll surely agree. Take the time to get to know me; is that too much to ask? Will you not promise to consider me, to fully consider me?”
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