“Margravine Marta Eriksdottir,” said a fat, bearded guard who looked more like Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme than a soldier. “Surely you don’t intend to go out into the Seat unaccompanied.”
“Ah, Halberdier-Senior Escoben,” Marta said, “I most certainly do not.” She gestured at Ian. “I don’t believe you have met my betrothed, Ian Silver Stone.”
The guard looked Ian up and down. “I’ve had reports, every now and then. I hadn’t been informed of the betrothal.”
“Really.” The temperature of her smile dropped a full ten degrees in an instant. “You think he would turn down my proposal?”
“Not for a moment, Margravine. No man in his right mind would.” He gave a flick of his flipperlike hand towards the Residency, or at least toward the garden that blocked the Residency from view. “I hear he’s been giving sword lessons to the margravine’s brother, the Honored Burs Erikson.”
Marta laughed, a sound like silver bells. “You might say that, Halberdier-Senior, and it would be true. You might also say that he has been beating my brother, an accomplished swordsman, with embarrassing ease. And that would be true, as well.” The smile dropped from her face. “Perhaps you might wish to take a lesson from him at some time; I know that he’s always interested in a new sparring partner.” She looked at Ian. “Tell the Halberdier-Senior that you can protect me, if you please.”
Ian looked the fat guard in the face. “I will see to her safety,” he said.
“I have no doubt you will do your best,” he said, beckoning to another soldier.“ Damn. It wasn’t going to work. The guard didn’t believe him, and looked away. “Heran, be so kind—”
“No,” Ian said, putting some snap into his voice. “You look me in the eye when I talk to you,” he said.
Again, Harbard’s ring pulsed against his thumb. What made it do that? It wasn’t just emotional intensity—it hadn’t done any such thing while he was in bed with Marta, or challenging Burs Erikson—but it was something else. It was damned frustrating to have this thing squeezing his thumb while he was trying to persuade the guard to let him and Marta through the gate.
“I said,” Ian said, trying to keep a sudden rush of anger out of his voice, “that I will protect her, and that she will be safe with me.”
Marta laid a hand on Escoben’s arm. “Surely,” she said, “surely you’re not saying that the streets of the Seat are unsafe these days.”
Escoben’s eyes never left Ian’s. “No, Margravine Marta, no I am not; and yes, I do believe that this young man will keep you safe. Have I your word that you will protect her, with your sword and life, if necessary?”
Ian nodded. “Of course.”
He turned to the soldier he had been speaking with before. “Open the door, if you please.”
“But—”
“But nothing. The margravine wishes to see the city, and she will be safe.” He bowed them through. “I await your return.”
Ian waited until they had gotten past the far pair of barbicans, to where the road into and out of the Seat dumped out on a row of merchants’ stalls. Fine bolts of cloth, leather, and metal worked into shapes familiar and strange, and fresh meat and vegetables crowded the stalls.
Eager voices called out to them.
“If it please you, good sir, please run your fingers through my fine woolen cloth. Virgin wool it is; there’s not a fiber of shoddy in it. A fine coat it will make for you—”
“Please, Honored Lady, sample my balms and lotions, guaranteed to make your already soft skin even softer and smoother—”
“Honored ones! Taste of my relishes, if you please!”
Ian gave a vague smile and walked on. “Everything for the nobility, eh?”
Marta tucked her arm under his. “Oh, not quite everything, but much. Now, where are we going?”
“Not we. Me.” Ian frowned. “I need directions. You need to get back into the Keep. Just tell them I decided to see more of the city, and that you found nothing of interest in the markets—”
“Surely,” she said, the sweep of her arm taking in the marketplace, “surely you aren’t going to abandon me here? After you’ve sworn to protect me? You would leave me in such danger here?”
Here was a market filled with people who appeared to make their living off selling to the nobility of the Seat. Here was a matter of her just walking a couple of hundred yards to the gate and back into the Seat. Here was within a shout of any succor needed, although it wouldn’t be. Marta would be perfectly safe here, and hell, Ian could watch until she was back inside the gate.
“I won’t have you forsworn, Ian,” she said, her lips pressing primly together. “Shall we walk on?”
“Marta—”
“Ian.” There was steel in her silky voice, and her hand tightened on his arm. “A wife obeys her husband, although a wise husband compels obedience only rarely. A daughter obeys her father, when she has to, or her eldest brother, should her father die. But you are neither my father, nor my brother, nor are you yet my husband, and you have promised to take me for a walk through the city, and that you shall.”
Ian shrugged. “Well…”
Her grip loosened, and she ended the moment of tension with a giggle that made her sound about five. “So, where are we going?”
In for a penny, in for a pound … “Where’s the corner of Dung Street and the Concourse?”
She pointed down the cobblestone street with her chin. “That way. May one ask who we’re meeting?”
“A good friend of mine. Probably a few of them.”
“Well and good,” she said. “I’ve always said that you can tell much about how good a husband a man will make by taking the measure of his friends.”
“Oh.” Ian laughed. “I thought you wanted to marry me anyway.”
“Oh, I do,” she said. “But if you turn out to be a good husband, I probably won’t have to poison you or knife you while you sleep.” She kissed him gently on the shoulder. “Shall we go?”
The Concourse turned out to be a long, wide, gently sloping street lined with houses, two cobblestone pathways separated by a grassy median. Stately elms spread their branches high and wide, giving the road a green, leafy canopy that felt cool and minty in the golden light of the setting sun. The houses were large and extended, built of whitewashed stone, with what looked like honest-to-God driveways, which Marta told him in fact were driveways leading to carriage houses in the back.
They walked down the grassy median, drawing an occasional look from a passerby, but no surprises. Marta’s blouse and culottes were perfectly ordinary clothes for the daughter of a rich merchant, and the idea of such going for a stroll with a swordsman escort or companion was hardly unique; Ian counted at least four similar couples before he stopped counting and worrying.
That helped to explain what Marta was up to. At least in part.
“I wish,” she said, “that I could tell what you’re thinking about when you’re so quiet.”
As the street sloped down, the houses began to become less luxurious, bit by bit. Large became less large; bright whitewashing that must have been done that year became older paint, showing stains. Broad driveways narrowed, and neatly trimmed hedges interlaced with rosebushes turned into simple bushy barriers.
It wasn’t a slum, by any means, but it wasn’t what it had been further up the hill.
“There’s a saying in the Seat,” Marta said, “about how hard it is to move uphill and how easy to go down.” She gestured at a smaller house, less fancy than one would have seen at the top of the Concourse, but still well maintained, its hedges square, its walls gleaming. “I have forgotten the name, but they are a family in the barge business. They used to live further uphill, and had their eyes on a large manse near the crest, but then, during a storm, one of their barges smashed into one owned by a competitor. The Table decided that the competitor had the right of way.”
She pursed her lips. “But give them a generation or two, and they’ll be back uphill.”
“Men would be wise to do so.” She patted his hand. “Women must.”
The Concourse terminated in a park a few hundred feet from the riverwall, where a walkway overlooked the water flowing through the open aqueduct below, vanishing into a hole in the riverwall.
Dung Street lay to their right, rising in front of them. The buildings here were wattle and daub—a framework of timbers filled in with a kind of stucco made of clay and interleaved sticks and twigs, sort of like a woven basket covered with mud. It was cheaper to build with—but that was about its only virtue.
Broad gutters on each side of the street carried a vile green sludge down to a couple of what looked like manholes, each of which was supervised by a pair of filthy men in knee-length work tunics that probably had been washed sometime, but not within human memory. The sewer workers wielded long shovels to push sludge down the holes, making sure that the flow didn’t create little dams of some vile offal that might let the sludge overflow.
A team of lamplighters worked its way down the street in a boxy horse-drawn wagon, the driver expertly stopping the cart at just the right point for his partner, from his post high atop the wagon, to open the cage on top of the lamppost and quickly exchange a fresh lamp for the dead one there. He then lit the fresh lamp with a quick motion of a stick he touched to his firepot, then extinguished the stick with a practiced flick, set the used lamp down on a rack, and clapped his hands together to signal his partner to start the horse towards the next pole.
But there was no sign of Torrie or Maggie or anybody familiar.
Ian shook his head. “No sign of them.”
Marta’s forehead was wrinkled, and her mouth pursed prettily. “It’s certainly sunset.” She thought for a moment. “Shall we walk up the street, then?”
Ian nodded. “At least a short way.” He didn’t like any of this, and he particularly didn’t like having Marta here right now. “If you’ll promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“If there’s trouble, and I tell you to run, you’ll run. Without a hesitation. Without an argument. And particularly without waiting for me. Run, scream, shout, get attention, get help.”
“Yes, Ian,” she said.
“No argument? No discussion?”
“No, Ian,” she said, her eyes fixed on his, her lips slightly parted. “It will be as you say.”
“Let’s go.” He started walking, Marta taking up a position a full two steps behind him.
He didn’t remember unfastening his swordbelt, but he had, and Giantkiller’s scabbard was clutched in his left hand in perhaps open imitation of the way the Tyrsons always carried their weapons. His right hand settled comfortably on the hilt that always felt like it gripped his fingers back, and he pulled an inch or so of blade free. It would take just one quick pull to free the sword.
He walked past the sewermen, and up the street.
It was quiet in the oncoming dark. Windows had been shuttered for the night, and the smell of cooking fires filled the air. Up ahead of him, a face peeked out of a doorway, then ducked back in when it saw him.
That didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Ian walked on, looking carefully into each darkened doorway as he passed.
It was the eighth or ninth doorway—Ian wasn’t keeping count. As he passed it, he felt more than heard a door swing open behind him.
He spun about, tossing his scabbard to one side, bringing Giantkiller up.
Something, somebody moved out of the shadows—
And Torrie Thorsen, his face more tired and weary than Ian remembered seeing it, his clothes ragged and torn, definitely looking somewhat the worse for wear, stepped out into the twilight, his hands empty, held waist-high. A broad grin was spread across his face.
He raised his hands, slowly. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got a lot to be pissed about, Ian, but can we talk about it before you run me through?”
Chapter Nineteen
Decisions
Ian Silverstein the Promised Warrior? No. Torrie shook his head. If there was a Promised Warrior in the room, it was Torrie.
The idea made his stomach feel like he had swallowed a cup of cold steel.
Maggie eyed Ian and his girlfriend over the rim of her cup, a thin smile on her face. “I think I’ll accept Chosen People,” she said. “But I’m not sure about this Promised Warrior thing.”
The lantern light picked up red and gold highlights in her hair, and reflected flickers of flame danced in her eyes.
Maggie had, for some reason Torrie couldn’t fathom, run a comb through her hair and used his shaving mirror to put on some makeup. Hell, until a few minutes ago, he hadn’t even known that she had tucked a makeup kit into her rucksack when they were packing back in Hardwood, and would have tried to talk her out of it if he had known.
He wouldn’t have been able to, more than likely.
There were eight of them sitting in a circle around the fire—Dad, Torrie, Maggie, Ian, Ian’s girlfriend, Durin, and Fred. The rest of the vestri stood around them, some shifting from foot to foot, others pacing.
And of them all, Ian looked the most tired. The weight of all this had been bearing down hard on him.
“Half of me,” Torrie said, conscious that this Marta couldn’t speak English, “says that we should just fold our tents and sneak out of the city, and go back and confront this Harbard.” He patted the hilt of his sword.
“No.” Ian shook his head. “That would leave me forsworn,” he said in Bersmal. “And then,” he added, in English, “we’d have to figure out some unlikely way of getting Arnie and Ivar del Hival out of the Seat, as well. Surely they’d be in trouble.”
Dad grunted. “They would, perhaps, but that was not what Thorian was saying. You and he don’t have to both either steal away into the night, or face the Table together. One could go one way, while the other goes the other.”
No. That was where Dad was wrong. If there was a test to be taken, a challenge to be met, it would be Torrie who would have to meet it. It was what Dad and Uncle Hosea and Mom had been training him for for his whole life.
Besides, it was the only thing that made sense. Harbard had tried to prevent Torrie from even coming here. He wouldn’t have done that unless he knew that it was Torrie who was the key to it all. He wanted Ian to make them end the war, to carry his word. Torrie had no trouble at all believing that Harbard would stop or start a war to bring Freya back to his house and his bed, and if he could at the same time endanger or rid himself of the one who had given the Brisingamen ruby to her, why that would be all the better. Harbard, or Odin, was no gentle Old One like Uncle Hosea. Maggie was right about that. He was a cruel and manipulative old trickster, who would never do something honestly if there was a dishonest way to do it, one who would kill an otter just because it had caught a fish he wanted, or taunt Thor from the safety of his ferry, or walk through a battlefield, relishing the sights and sounds and smells as he picked his favorites from the dead warriors.
Dad was looking at him. It was hard to read Dad’s face sometimes, impossible at others. Did he know what Torrie was thinking?
And if he did, what would he do? Dad had been raised with and in the Byzantine politics of the Cities of the Dominions, where endless posturing and preparatory positioning might suddenly resolve itself with a formal duel or a less formal clash of blades.
Dad would try to stop him, of course.
But it was Torrie’s call, not Dad’s, and not Ian’s.
If it was simple, if it was safe, if it was just a matter of explaining things, then Odin would not have tried so hard to stop Torrie from coming here. That wasn’t what Torrie had been studying the sword for almost since he could toddle.
No. Whatever was going to happen would be brutal, and it would be something Ian couldn’t handle.
Whatever it is, it will be up to me, he thought. So be it, by God. He was Thorian Thorsen, son of Thorian del Thorian and Karin Roelke Thorsen, and wh
ile he could—and did—fault Mother for her methods, he couldn’t blame her for doing her duty as she saw it.
And he couldn’t help but do the same.
He looked Dad straight in the eye, opened his mouth, then shut it. How could he put it? What could he say?
He didn’t have to. Dad just nodded, as he leaned toward Torrie. “Do what you must, Thorian,” he said, quietly. “As will I.”
“Torrie?” Maggie was leaning over toward him. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But think it out—why are we here? Why are all of us here? What, and how, can we stop things?” Torrie held up a hand. The vestri stopped talking, but Ian was still muttering something to this Marta of his.
Ian would understand, but he might not agree.
But there was another reason to lay in front of all of them.
“We all go,” Torrie said, rising. “Dad will—I mean, Dad and I will need Ian at our sides if we’re going to face Harbard. Two swords tempered in Uncle Hosea’s blood was enough to give him pause and make him try to trick us; three swords, plus Gungnir in Ian’s hand, will be enough if anything will.”
He tried to put the worst possibility out of his mind. What if Harbard had killed Uncle Hosea? Yes, yes, they would kill Harbard, but that wouldn’t bring Uncle Hosea back. Then again, he thought to himself, neither would anything else.
Best to concentrate on what could be done.
“So we all go to face this Table,” Torrie finished. Maggie’s hand was warm in his. She gave it a squeeze and gave him a puzzled look. Her mouth worked, whispering without sound: What is it?
Later, he mouthed back. It’s not important. If there was a later for them, it wouldn’t be important. If he passed whatever test this was, it would be easy to explain. And if he failed, well, then, he wouldn’t have to.
She gave his hand a final squeeze before releasing it.
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