A troop of soldiers already waited for them by the dock.
At least, they lined up like a troop. They looked more like a crowd: no two of them sported the same livery. If Ian hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have thought they were in uniform, but had just chosen a variety of colored tunics and accouterments; colors ranged from the now-familiar green-and-gold of the Hinterlands to flashy crimson and glossy black, to muddy black and brown.
One fellow wore a blousy white shirt and tight leather trousers, with no insignia or decoration, except for his left hand.
The only badge of rank among them all that Ian could detect was that hand, which was a silvery version of the Tyrsons’ enameled mechanical hands. It clutched a scabbard, in the tradition of the Tyrson—shit, they probably slept with their swords.
The silver-handed man placed his right hand on the railing and lithely vaulted over it and down onto the barge, his boots thunking against the wood with a clunk that was louder than Ian had expected.
With a quick glance more through than at Aglovain Tyrson and Burs Erikson, he walked up to where Ian stood holding Gungnir, stopping with his face perhaps only two, two-and-a-half feet away.
He came to a stiff brace, slamming his right boot down next to his left.
Ian hadn’t been expecting it, but he didn’t let it startle him. It was an old fencer’s trick, a quick stamp of the foot to draw attention. It had probably been old hat around the time bronze swords were replaced by steel. It might have worked once or twice since, but Ian had never fallen for it. You had to learn to concentrate.
The face and shoulders of the man staring into Ian’s eyes were large, and square, and his jaw clenched tightly. Perhaps he had rushed himself, preparing himself for this: there was a small cut on his cheek, right near the jawline, that spoke of a hurried shave.
“Greetings,” Ian said, quietly.
“I am,” the other said, his clear, deep voice one decibel short of a shout, “the Argenten Horcel Tyrson. You are Ian Silver Stone, who claims to be one sent with a message for the Table, are you not?” He made it sound like an accusation.
“I am,” Ian said, pitching his voice at the same volume. “And I ask to be taken to your Table.”
“What proof have you that you are to be taken seriously?” the argenten asked. “What proof have you to offer that you are, as I hear you have claimed, the Promised Warrior of myth and legend?”
After all this time holding Gungnir carefully, it was almost a relief for Ian to lift its butt a scant quarter-inch from where it rested on the deck of the barge.
He brought it down firmly—not as firmly as he could have, not as firmly has he had back in the Hinterlands.
Wham.
The barge rocked, once, hard, and thrummed with a deep, rich note that filled the air and sent the bargemen leaping for a rail or a line, while the soldiers clapped hands to the hilts of their swords.
“You don’t want to see full proof of who and what I am,” Ian said, letting some of his pent-up anger and frustration reach his voice. He didn’t want to be here, and he didn’t want to be facing this asshole and trying to talk him into or out of anything. Fuck them all.
No; that was wrong. He had to persuade Horcel Tyrson, and he couldn’t let his anger rule him. It was important that he be believed.
Once again, Harbard’s ring pulsed against Ian’s thumb, this time so hard it hurt.
“My name,” he went on, “is Ian Silverstein. I have been sent by one who calls himself Harbard the ferryman. I make no outrageous claims, but I am exactly who I say that I am.” He met the argenten’s gaze un-blinkingly. “And I expect to be believed that I am who I say I am,” he said, knowing that the argenten would not be able to look him in the eye and deny it.
Their eyes locked for a long moment, and then the other nodded.
“I do not say that I doubt you, Ian Silver Stone,” he said, quietly, leaning forward close enough that Ian could feel warmth of the argenten’s breath. “I am not at all sure who or what you are,” he said. “I do know that we’ve received word of assassins trailing you, trying to prevent you from reaching the Table. But I’m no child, new to intrigues around the Seat.” He brought up his silver hand until the scabbard that it clutched came between the two of them. “I am well aware that such rumors might have been started by anyone, in an attempt to lend credibility to your claim.” He stepped back and raised his voice. “The Table will meet tomorrow night, to see you and hear you, and perhaps more. In the Hour of the Long Candles, in the Hall of the Wolf.”
His lips tightened. “And then all, perhaps, shall see exactly who and what you might be.”
Chapter Eighteen
Introductions
Durin was the last of the nine to return to the dingy room at the end of Dung Street. Valin had staggered in, looking more like he was dying than just tired, but a few minutes before; the vestri had been trickling in for hours.
Torrie had taken to whittling—it gave him something to do with his hands—while Dad slept. They had probably each had about four, five hours of sleep before gathering themselves together by lantern light, to make their way down the twisting road. They had entered the Seat through what the locals called the Dung Gate—it was the only gate that would admit civilian horses and horsedrawn carts.
It had taken maybe another hour for Valin to find a place to stable the animals, and a nearby room to rent—it probably could have been done more quickly, if Durin hadn’t cautioned him against being too quick to flash gold and silver—and, as well as Torrie could remember, about thirty seconds to unroll his blankets, unbelt his sword, stretch out, and fall asleep. Waking as morning sunlight oozed in through the greased-paper windows, Torrie had been itching to get going, to do something.
But the two vestri who remained with them—either on guard or baby-sitting, depending on how you looked at it—had prevailed upon him to wait until the rest came back with some information. Maggie had given him a skeptical glare, and he’d done just that.
Meanwhile, Dad slept. He had woken twice, each time coming awake instantly to ask quickly if there was anything he was needed for, then stumbling off to the privy for an amazingly lengthy piss into the thundermug, followed by a huge draught from a water bottle. And then, both times, he had staggered back to where his blankets lay up next to the wall, lain down, and instantly fallen back asleep.
It was amazing how much Dad could sleep when he was behind, just as it was amazing how long he could go without sleep when necessary. It was like with food and water—and Torrie didn’t want to think about how it was with sex; there were some things a guy just Didn’t Want To Know about his mom and dad.
Maggie just chatted, mainly with Valin, Vindur, and a broken-nosed vestri with a name that contained a glottal click, whom Maggie had decided to call Fred.
So Torrie had taken out his drop-pointed hunting knife, given it a few quick sharpening strokes with the stone from his kit, and spent the rest of his time trying to turn their firewood into sawdust.
It helped to have something to do.
“He and his friends are here,” Valin said. “Their barge docked yesterday; they are appearing in front of the Table late this evening.”
“But where are they?” Torrie demanded. “I’ve got to get to them.”
“I do not see how that is possible.” Valin shook his head. “They don’t use vestri servants in the Seat itself, so we can’t call on the Folk. There’s a large number of guards on duty at all times. Almost all of the nobles keep their own guards around them, rather than trusting to a soldier fealty-bound to somebody else to keep him safe. We’ll not get within the gates of the Keep, not without a pass, and there will be no pass simply for the asking.”
Durin’s bloodshot eyes stared out of dark sunken hollows. His face had an unhealthy grayish tinge to it. “I contemplated bribery. I think you would have to bribe at least a dozen or so in order to get into the Seat, but…” He spread his hands and shook his head.
Maggi
e shook her hand in a syncopation that, despite everything, made Torrie chuckle. She silenced him with a glare and a short chopping motion. “But,” she said, “if just one of them won’t be bought, or won’t stay bought, we find ourselves surrounded by a bunch of drawn swords and nocked arrows.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “Is there any way we could get a note smuggled in to them?”
Vurden, a vestri who had the nauseating habit of constantly picking his many-times-broken nose, grunted. “Of course you could, if you would risk it being intercepted.”
Durin’s mouth twitched. “And if it were intercepted, if it were seized, then they would not be in communication with their friend. Which is as it is now.”
Torrie shook his head. “No, we’d be worse off. If it’s intercepted and read, that is. I mean, I’d have to specify a meeting place or something.”
“You are wearing out,” Maggie said, her facing lighting up with a smile. “I think we can figure out a way around that.”
The dwarves looked puzzled.
So did Torrie until he realized that she had been speaking in English, and not Bersmal.
Oh. That made sense, but—“No.” There were people in Tir Na Nog who spoke English. He opened his mouth to remind her of that, but Maggie was one step ahead of him.
“Omeboyhay,” she said, “ouyay eckonray atthay a antsfulpay ofway emthay ouldcay uzzlepay ough-thray a ombocay of igpay atinlay andway angslay?” She had been opening her rucksack as she spoke, and dug through it, pulling out a notebook and a pen. “We need a place and a time to meet.”
While a pair of soldiers at each end of the balustrade kept watch, Ian made yet another touch on Burs Erikson’s left arm, while over by the railing, his audience of Ivar del Hival and Marta watched carefully, Ivar del Hival barely concealing a knowing smile, Marta clapping vigorously at her brother’s latest embarrassment.
Well, at least that part of the audience was nice. But it was getting a little irritating being watched all the time they were out of their rooms. Shit, for all he knew, they were watched in their rooms.
Ian understood—he wouldn’t have wanted to let three foreigners run around unaccompanied if he was running the castle—but he didn’t have to like it.
Of course, it cut both ways. There were these rumors about a team of assassins out to kill the Promised Warrior, and the argenten had assured him that he was safe here in the Seat.
Yeah, sure.
Well, it was just as well Ian wasn’t this Promised Warrior person, and the sooner he could meet with this Table and tell them that, the sooner this was done.
Still, the surroundings were pleasant, even if you didn’t include Marta.
The Vandestish went in for simple names here, which Ian found pleasant, if sometimes confusing. The city itself was the Seat; the triangular section of the city that sat between the two rivers was the Seat; the keep itself was the Seat; and the large residence that sat high on the northeastern corner of the inner ward was also the Seat—when somebody talked about the Seat, you had to infer from the context which one was meant.
Even with the Seat within the Seat within the Seat—the Keep—the names were simple. There was the Seat, of course, and the Hall, where the Table met. Or was. Or met and was. The Hall, diagonally across the lawn, was a long, square building whose only walls appeared to be the close-packed columns that would have reminded him more of pictures of the Parthenon if these columns had been less slender and hadn’t been covered with an interlace of stone vines and lush greenery.
The Residency was the other big building in the Keep; it was where Ian and company had been put up, along with some other visiting nobles who didn’t have the rank to claim a seat at the Table.
Unsurprisingly, the rulers of Vandescard did well by themselves.
The inner ward of the Seat had been landscaped and planted over the years, until it was more sculpted garden than lawn. Ancient hedges, dense clumps of green, had been carved to allow flowers to grow in their centers, as though the hedges themselves were huge vases. A single stream from one fountain arced high into the air, constantly splashing into another fountain, while the spray kept the leaves beneath glistening and sparkling in the golden late afternoon sunlight.
All in all, the long veranda that ran across the width of the Residency wasn’t a bad place to spend a sunny afternoon, in the shade of the veranda’s roof, a nice breeze cooling him, doing something Ian was starting to enjoy again: fencing.
There were times when this sparring was just too easy.
It was the converse of one of the basics of sword-fighting that Ivar del Hival and Thorian Thorsen had taught Ian, a variation on an old truism epée, that the wrist of the sword arm was the fulcrum around which a duel could easily spin.
Years of perfectly good training for dueling and war had also taught Burs Erikson that the key was the wrist of the sword hand. With real weapons, a touch to the hip or thigh or to the shoulder of the free hand would slow you down, but it would take deep penetration to even threaten to end things right away. A wound to either leg—particularly the kneecap, but anywhere from toe to thigh could do very nicely—would slow you down.
But any injury to the wrist would end things right away, and an injury to anywhere else on the sword arm would leave the wrist vulnerable.
The wrist wasn’t just the most important target, it was the most exposed. Any lunge, any thrust, by its very nature, brought your wrist forward, making it the closest possible target to your opponent’s blade.
That made space important. Control the distance between you and your opponent, and any time that you could get him to extend himself, that exposed his sword arm, at least to some extent.
So, Burs Erikson, like most duelists most of the time, set most of his strategy around the wrist, both his and Ian’s. His favorite deception was to bring his blade just a trifle out of line, thereby almost offering his wrist, trying to draw an expected attack for his riposte. Once he had committed to that, there were any of a number of ways for Ian to score his touch, the simplest of which was simply to counter-riposte.
But if Burs Erikson was ready for that… well, that would give Ian a chance to use some of the options he was considering.
So Ian varied his game, first with a carefully timed stop-thrust that caught Burs Erikson on the attack, moving to an engagement and cut-over, and finishing with an ugly-looking boar’s-head squat-and-lunge that would certainly have got him kicked in the face and then skewered like a marshmallow in a real fight, but this time allowed him to get the touch on Burs Erikson.
Burs Erikson was ready for another point—and the smile on his face said that he was at least learning to take defeat with good grace—but Ian held up a hand.
“Enough, please,” he said. “Be so good as to have some pity on an older man.”
He flopped down on the stone bench next to the railing, and gratefully accepted the tall mug of cold water that Marta handed him without being asked. It was amazing how quickly fencing could leave you winded. It wasn’t just the physical—although the bouncing back and forth got tiring, very quickly—it was the need to be focused, concentrating at every moment. One break in concentration, one instant of wandering attention, and it was all over.
Accompanied by two guards, Arnie Selmo walked out of the Hall, through the darkened archway, blinking in the sun. The two guards dropped out of step and took up positions on either side of the arch.
“Just spent a couple of your silver marks,” he said, his voice low.
“Buy anything interesting?”
Arnie nodded, as he dipped two fingers into his shirt pocket and brought out a folded square of paper. “I think so,” he said.
Ian’s hand shook as he accepted it. This wasn’t local paper. Paper hereabouts didn’t have that distinctive ripped-loop edge that you got only by tearing it out of a spiral-bound notebook.
Printed in bold letters, the outside read:
For Ian Silverstein, omfray ishay oomieray
Ishay? Pig
Latin. Ian grinned. Looked like Torrie had come after him, after all.
Eetmay atway ethay ornercay ungday and oncoursecay undownsay, it said.
Ivar del Hival was at his elbow, trying to see what he had.
He passed it over to him, and watched the big man’s forehead wrinkle.
Well, for once he didn’t know everything.
“You think there’s any chance I can get out into the city?”
Ivar del Hival pursed his lips. “I don’t know for sure what orders the guards at the front gate have about letting you out of the keep, but…” He shook his head. “You probably ought to check with the argenten—”
“Or I can assume that it’s easier to get forgiven than to get permission.” Ian stripped off the sweat-stained shirt and mopped at his chest and underarms. A fresh white tunic lay folded on the chair next to Giantkiller in its scabbard. He slipped it over his head, shrugged into it, and belted Giantkiller around his waist. “Let’s see.”
He beckoned to Marta, who rose and walked to him.
“Let’s take a walk in the gardens,” he said, taking her arm, and waving at the others to stay put. Arnie picked up the cue quickly, and engaged Ian’s guards in a discussion, while Ivar del Hival did the same with Burs Erikson. That would keep them distracted for a while at least; their job was more to prevent Ian from getting into the Residency, really, than to shadow his every step.
Ian and Marta walked down a twisting, narrow path, dampened slightly by the spray from the fountain. “Marta,” he said. “I need some directions. And I need to get out into the city. Will you help me?”
Marta stopped for a moment, then let out a quick hiss of surprise. “Well, that is awfully direct, isn’t it?” A thin smile crept across her face. “Yes, my Ian, I will help you in this. Just nod and agree with everything I say. And then, when I tell you to say something, you will make them believe you.”
The gate that led out of the keep was covered with a lowered portcullis. It had a door in it, which seemed strange to Ian until he noticed that another portcullis hung high above in the arch over the entranceway. That made sense; it let the guards control who got in or out easily, but allowed them to lock up the keep by dropping the outer portcullis instantly, should the need arise.
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