by Damien Lake
“More idiocy,” Marik grumbled. The group stopped long enough for Marik to tie his sword’s hilt to the sheath.
“No, it is courtesy,” Hilliard challenged. “It is a sign of respect when visiting the house of a gentleman. Would you bare your blade in the house of a friend?”
“It’s asking for trouble,” Marik shot back. People streamed around them in the street. “And a real friend would trust me with a bared blade. Remember what happened the last time we let our guard down!”
He finished the last knot before straightening. Hilliard asserted, “Of course I have not forgotten! That would be a crime worse than that which those murderers committed!”
Hilliard avoided further discussion by resuming the march. Marik grinned slightly at his back. At least that much had come from the tournament so far. Their charge looked to have regained his old self and no longer hesitated around him. Young Garroway had even begun asking him to demonstrate his sword techniques again.
The streets in the Inner Circle were crowded despite the continuing roar from Tourney Town. Though most stalls and contests closed two marks after sunset, the tents would be a lively place until dawn. Of all the merchants profiting from the tournament for the Arm this year, Marik suspected that the ale suppliers would earn enough to retire for life by month’s end.
“Get a move on,” Kerwin called over his shoulder. “We’re already behind schedule.”
“Easy for you to say,” Marik fired in return. “You can actually move in your getup!”
“That’s the benefit to having clothing tailored to your cut instead of purchasing leftovers the tailor had lying around his shop. Keep that in mind for your next visit.”
Dietrik laughed. “But cheer up, mate! We won’t stick out so much tonight like ragweed in a vase of roses!”
“Why bother? Odds are we’ll spend most of the night shoved away in a closet with the other bodyguards. Ten coppers says we look like jesters next to them.”
“I’m game,” Kerwin effused. “Even odds?”
“Shut up.”
The shirt sleeve rode up his left arm with every slight movement. Annoyed to the utmost, Marik flapped his arm sideways, trying to force the fabric to loosen or stretch or, by the gods, move! After a minute of this, an empty carriage pulled to a stop beside them.
“Where you headed, sir?” the driver called down. “Deeper into the Circle?”
“What?”
“I can get you there within the quarter for a right nice bonus.”
“No thanks!” Marik called back. The last time they took a local guide up on his offer, he had come to bitterly regret it.
“See here! I’ve the cheapest fares of all coaches in city!”
“Who cares? Shove off!” Marik quickened his step to put an end to the discussion.
“Why’d you flag me down then? Think I haven’t got better things to do tonight?”
“I didn’t flag you down, and we don’t need a damned coach! Get going!”
The coachman hurled a scathing rejoinder after Marik, punctuating it by lashing out with his whip when he drove past them. It missed Marik only by inches. Surprised by the assault, he jumped aside…into three women minding their own business and jostling their packages from their grips. He fled their screeching outrage, then furiously ignored his friends when they, and Hilliard as well, roared with laughter.
Marik said very little during the remaining trek to Sestion’s mansion. Dietrik and Landon chose to speculate on the residents in the increasingly large homes while Kerwin started a discourse with Hilliard regarding the relationship between Ferdinand and Keegan.
He learned little from either conversation, other than that the Gardinnier family was relatively new to the nobility. Keegan’s grandfather had been elevated from a commoner to a baron nearly fifty years ago for one reason or another.
The conversation only mildly captured Marik’s attention. It passed the time while the street’s illumination shifted increasingly from the sun to the iron lamps protruding from the paving stones. When at last they arrived at the Sestion manner, it was already half past the first evening bell.
It was not as large as other houses Marik had seen during his brief travels around the Inner Circle. He felt, looking at the mansion, that it was not due to lacking funds on the baron’s part. Indeed, he felt certain, without knowing precisely how, that the sole reason this building fell short of the larger edifices was that its owner was only a baron, rather than an earl or a duke.
‘Small’ would never be a word to describe the residence before them, except perhaps by judgmental nobles. The walls were three stories tall with the windows on the first floor numbering twelve across the front face. Rather than corners above the second floor, the walls bulged outward in circular turrets. All the roofing tiles were a deep green to match the Galemar banner fluttering from poles atop the streetward turrets.
Above the walls rose six massive chimneys visible from the street. Their brickwork was the brilliant red of fresh roses. Many bricks had been rotated ninety degrees before being mortared, the darker protruding ends arranged in patterns that made Marik blink when they twisted his eyes. One pattern was simply diamonds atop each other, like twin lightning bolts twining around to strike a single point. Another sported bricks in illusional patterns that appeared rounded, making the chimney seem to bulge despite its rigidly straight lines. Such an effect made him stare for long moments, amazed that simple brick could be so stunning.
Nearly a hundred feet separated the home from the decorative wrought-iron fencing set into a three-foot miniature brick property wall. Along the side of the property, the walls increased to twelve feet in height. Every iron inch had long ago been painted with a copper paint to turn the dark metal to a sickly green patina. Within the open space grew several trees that shaded the windows. A carved oak table sat next to a white marble fountain shaped like maidens supporting an urn, from which flowed a steady gush. The rest looked to be flower beds of colorful varieties.
“How do they get the water to come up like that?” Marik asked when they all stopped admiring the abode.
“I haven’t a clue,” Dietrik admitted. “Magic, perhaps?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Instead of guards at the gate, which stood open, a man greeted them. His formal dress took severity to unexplored regions, making Seneschal Locke’s attire seem casual. But for his face, not an inch of skin risked exposure to the air. He unclasped his gloved hands which had been folded before him while he stood stiff and straight. The greeting marred not an inch of his solemn expression.
“Good evening, sirs. I believe you are expected?” His eyes flitted quickly through the five men.
“Indeed. I am Hilliard Garroway, heir to the barony of Stonescape, here at Lord Ferdinand Sestion’s invitation.”
“Very good, sir. Please come with me. I will show you into the house.”
The reference to this mansion as a ‘house’ caused Dietrik and Marik to meet each other’s gaze. Fortunately, they stifled their laughter.
Sounds of a gathering became apparent when they neared the entrance. The open foyer beyond the doors loomed, a space larger than what this building should have been able to contain, by surface appearances. Double staircases wound upward to the second floor on either side, framed by stone pillars serving no purpose other than to look impressive. Between the stairs on the ground floor, broad, double oak doors had been propped open leading to a corridor. Their guide led them through and stopped at the first room on the right. Within moments, Ferdinand Sestion appeared.
“Welcome,” he greeted Hilliard warmly. “I am glad you made it! This is becoming quite a gathering!” His face was flushed and his eyes glittered with excitement.
“Thank you for welcoming me into your home,” Hilliard replied in a stilted, formal tone. Marik wondered how often he had attended social functions with his peers before this.
“Have you met everyone yet? Come in and do so. Let’s all get aquatin
ted while we’re in Thoenar together!” He glanced at the mercenaries and waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve had the smaller parlor set aside for escorts. They’ll be comfortable in there. Have you met Durskin Freecot? His barony is in eastern Galemar as well, but further north than Stonescape. That’s him over there.”
Ferdinand placed a friendly hand between Hilliard’s shoulder blades and steered him away. Marik glanced beyond him into the room. In his mind he had been expecting a grand ball, with everyone dressed in hundred-gold clothing and beautiful ladies dancing on a wide floor while musicians played delicately in the corner and a thousand candles shed their soft light across the room. Bunk, he knew, but an image formed from both the stories of his youth and his observing the social leeches in the king’s gardens.
Or perhaps not, he amended. A second glance revealed that this was a gathering composed solely of sixty or so young men, all between sixteen and twenty-five years of age. Some were clustered together in the chatting groups he had observed at the opening ceremony. Others lounged on plush couches, leaning forward as they made their conversational point. To a man, they held crystal glasses filled with wine.
“Ughff,” he grunted when Dietrik suddenly elbowed him in the ribs.
“Come on, mate. Time to go.”
The servant waited patiently with no change in his expression, though he exuded an impatient air all the same. They followed him further down the hall to a door on the left side. This door also stood open. If this was supposed to be a smaller parlor room than the first, he could not see where the space went missing. A cynical voice in his head suggested a drunken architect had mislabeled a ballroom on the building plans.
“You may pass the evening here,” the servant stated, gesturing with a graceful movement of his hand. “If you have need of anything, please use the bellpull in the far corner, and a servant will assist you.” His tone made it clear that no one had better need anything.
He departed without further word. The four were left to fend for themselves. Although over a hundred men already packed the parlor, finding room was no great challenge. Most of the furniture had been crammed together, leaving very little floor space. Given the mixture in furniture sets, Marik guessed the servants had moved most of it into this room earlier in the day to accommodate the numbers they were expecting.
They soon found the other guards closeted with them to be friendly souls. Kerwin lost no time at all in producing his dice and challenging whoever felt lucky to a roll of the bones. For the second time that day, chairs were moved, if with a bit more enthusiasm this time.
After claiming a corner away from the massive fireplace, Kerwin soon had a quarter of the men flocked around his game. Marik had seen the gambler at work many times before and elected to stay on a long couch with Dietrik and two other men, talking about whatever topics the conversation drifted to. Both men, they soon learned, had participated in the Nolier war, being among their lord’s owed tribute of fighters. They were soon lost in war stories, with Marik deliberately avoiding any mention of his role in the final battle. The gods damned song was bad enough.
Nearly a candlemark later, servants began wandering in. None were dressed so smartly as the man out by the gate. Each bore a platter laden with an endless variety of mugs or food. The food was cold sandwiches of light or dark bread sporting mixtures of ham, chicken, cheeses, lettuce and tomatoes.
It was all fresh, simple, and very good. Marik swallowed his third while thinking he might wander down the hall to check on Hilliard.
“I keep having this nagging feeling,” said one veteran after Kerwin made his way from the crowd’s center, “that I know your friend.”
“Possibly,” Landon allowed. “Did you ever find your way to the betting table by the catapults?”
“Ah,” the veteran replied, his features narrowing. “That’s right! I lost over a silver in copper to him!”
“Think you can win it back?” Kerwin called over the noise. He wore the broad grin he always sported when gambling and gestured over his shoulder to the game with one thumb.
The veteran accepted the challenge while Kerwin grabbed a sandwich from an unattended platter. Marik murmured to Dietrik. “I’ll wander down the hall for a moment.”
Dietrik glanced at him. “I doubt the chaps down there are eager for our presence amidst their own fun.”
“Don’t worry.”
He had no intention of entering the room where the nobles were gathered, so paused beside the doorway. Inside he finally spotted Hilliard bent low over a circular table. With him were several others watching as Hilliard moved a bevy of glasses and small ornaments around the surface, illustrating whatever he spoke on. At a guess, it was a piece of military strategy learned from his teachers at Duke Tilus’.
Satisfied his charge was in no danger, Marik returned to the second parlor room. With the dicing game consuming one corner, the men uninvolved were free to find their own mischief. During the few moments he’d been gone the men had discovered a throwing board tucked away in a drawer, no doubt hidden by the servants. They had hung it from a wall lamp beside the hearth and commenced a game. At least one man must possess terrible aim since a steel dart protruded from the brow of a mounted stag’s head above the mantel.
“But still and all,” Dietrik explained to a different bodyguard, “Rawlings is a nice enough town. I gather the thieves become a larger problem every year as the port expands. A well-off merchant might provide you with a soft retirement job watching his warehouse. Oh, welcome back, mate. All’s well?”
“Seems to be. I hope someone takes that dart down before the gateman finds it.”
Dietrik glanced in the direction Marik pointed with his chin. “You don’t feel the red and blue feathers add a hint of regal trappings to an otherwise ordinary and bland decoration?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Marik laughed, “as long as I don’t get the blame for it.”
Marik found the evening more enjoyable than he’d anticipated, as Kerwin attempted to empty every purse in the room but his own and others strove to perforate the baron’s parlor wall until it looked like a cheese grater. He jumped at one point, startled when an abrupt commotion erupted in the hallway. That turned out to be Keegan Gardinnier arriving in as flashy a manner as he could pull off.
Landon alternated with Marik, checking on Hilliard every half-mark or so. The noise from the assembled future barons rose in proportion to the number of wine-bearing trays entering their vicinity. Their domain expanded to a larger dining room further down the hallway.
Stretches of badly sung lyrics floated to the mercenaries at times, usually followed by raucous laughter. This vastly amused Marik and Dietrik.
“They don’t seem too ‘noble’ for the nonce, do they mate?”
“Not hardly! Reminds me of Chatham on Ale House Row after about nine tankards of ale!”
“Perhaps the kingdom is in good hands after all. I worry about that, once in a while.”
“I’ll go check on Hilliard.”
“I think I’ll tag along as well.”
Together, they headed left out their doorway, following the main hall deeper into the house. If this mansion contained fewer than fifty rooms, Marik would eat his boots without sauce. Several doors branched off the corridor. Most rooms were designed for no other reason than to showcase the owner’s possessions and wealth. One overflowed with nothing but hunting trophies ranging from stuffed ducks to a rearing, full sized bear.
“The baron must be quite a hunter,” Marik mentioned when they passed that doorway. “He might be able to give Edwin a run for his coin.”
“I would be greatly surprised, mate, if he actually won all of those personally. Especially since he is a citybound noble.”
At the long hallway’s end, they reached the house’s rear. It opened into a room as large as the entrance foyer. Curving staircases to match the front pair wound up the outside walls. Between the staircases was an impressive window-wall looking onto a sprawling back
yard garden. Dozens of smaller panes comprised the massive window, held in place with lead framework.
In the room’s center, that’s the biggest damn dining room I’ve ever seen, except for ours, and that feeds the entire squad!, was a table long enough to feed fifty. Most of the young barons had congregated around one end, all holding small glasses capable of containing only a mouthful or two at best. Atop the table, a bottle forest in dozens of colors sprouted. Six bottles lay on their sides, having already been drained.
Hilliard sat close by in a chair beside the table’s head. Several other nobles were gathered in a loose group, sitting on the table’s edge or standing nearby. Marik ignored them. He studied his charge, who tipped in his seat, his coordination suffering. Every time he focused on the men around him he squinted and bobbed his head.
“At a guess, I’d say Hilliard’s smashed,” he whispered.
“We may want to leave soon, otherwise we’ll be carrying him all the way back. If we can pry him away, that is.”
Marik cast his gaze around in search of Ferdinand. How would they make a case for dragging Hilliard away like he was a recalcitrant child? Whatever they concocted, they would surely need to speak to the younger Sestion.
A wet hiss sounded beside him, the sound of Dietrik sucking in a sudden lung-full of air through his teeth. About to ask what was wrong, Marik abruptly took note of the voices around them, and of one in particular.
“…course, that’s why I always trust my own men first! You pay those cutthroats honest coin and you can’t trust them to piss in a bucket! King Raymond should throw every filthy mercenary out of the kingdom and have done with them. Let Perrisan have them all! All they ever do is kill each other over their worthless sand. No doubt they’d welcome a fresh wave of ruffians! No, you can’t trust any of them at all!”
Balfourth Dornory held private court, having gained the attention of a handful among Ferdinand’s guests. From where he stood, Marik could see that while many young nobles did not entirely agree with Balfourth, several others nodded in appreciation at his wisdom.
Of all the people he might run into in Thoenar, this…this person had never crossed Marik’s mind. Most of Marik’s close friends had survived the war yet many others he’d known casually had not. Their deaths could primarily be laid at this man’s feet. Marik had always assumed the true reason behind that was obvious. Balfourth was a glorified idiot with no mental aptitude for anything more complicated than sleeping late. Now he suddenly wondered if the man had been more cruelly deliberate in his actions.