by Nelson, J P
Trust … such a powerful word. I brushed my eyes along her smooth neck, saw the way her raven hair fell upon her lovely shoulders, the way her body filled out her gown, and felt the perfect touch of her hand in mine. Again I gazed into her eyes and remembered Hoscoe telling me, ‘Honor is who you are when you can do whatever you will, and know you can get away with it.’
There were two ways this dance could end, and the one was quite provocative. To feel the leg of a princess wrap around mine in sensual embrace, tipping her head way back with her breasts pronounced upward, one hand intertwined in my hair with amorous invitation. It was an accepted way to end the dance, and common.
The final measure was being played, building into the final notes. All I had to do was touch her back in just the right place as a cue. In her eyes I saw, I could feel she was willing to do so … I could feel my blood quicken with a rush …
The last bar was in sound, I spun her out and made a cross step at just the right moment and saw her smile. As the last note of the saxophone was played we both performed a spinning movement, and then as we joined hands once more I stooped down and she stood on one foot. Bowing low I allowed my lips to ever so barely touch the back of her hand … and we held the pose.
The Great Hall exploded in applause and in the corner of my eye I saw her father, the king, nodding in earnest approval, and over to the side Hoscoe sent me a wink; I had chosen the appropriate ending. The saxophone player was beaming with pleasure. My chums were ecstatic, each in their own way … but my blood was still rushing.
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The rest of the ball went beautifully and without a hitch. There was music, lots of different dances, and food. Mmmnnn – the food. Izner could really dance, and watching Hoscoe with his lady friend … that caught me completely off guard. Not that he was too old or anything, and she looked really good, I just hadn’t thought of him doing anything like that … you know, romantic like.
But you know? I was at Baldwin’s a good bit. It would be easy for him to keep company with a lady and me not know. It did my heart good to see it. He didn’t talk a lot about his wife, but he had really cared for her. How long they had been together, I didn’t know.
At least he was enjoying a lady’s company and she definitely seemed to be enjoying his.
Ander and Merle were having a good time, but the one who really surprised me was Dudley. That cussing, often times obnoxious bruiser, was dancing up a storm. And he was good. Better than Izner, even. In fact, he was probably one of the best ones out there. And his manners were impeccable. There were actually women waiting to dance with him. Goes to show sometimes you just never know.
At one point, the band started playing this song a rather difficult dance could be performed to, and it was Dudley and this other lady who took over the floor. I mean everyone just stepped back and watched. That keg shaped chum of mine was moving like he was born to the dance floor.
I got to dance with a few other ladies and several folks came up to talk. Commander Lahrcus happened by and commented, “Good choice. Well done.” With that he saluted me with a drink in his hand and went on his way. For a moment I was unsure what to say, and then Ander slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Let’s get a drink, Wolf.”
Walking to the serving table we got a couple of drinks and talked casual, fun talk. We imagined balls every night, having drinks served in the barracks, and all sorts of things. We just had a good time.
Then I saw this blonde haired lady standing to herself; I noticed Ander had been giving her the scope more than a few times. Now, my buddy Ander had a way of taking charge and having all kinds of great plans, but deep down, he was a quiet kind of fellow.
Over on the floor I saw Merle holding this lady who stood just to his arm-pit level. He was barely moving his feet, but she was dancing all around him and they both looked to be happy. Izner was making the moves with his lady friend, and Hoscoe … I had to look twice … he and his partner looked as if they had known each other forever.
I know Ander, and he had been having a good time. But he was doing it from afar. What I mean is, he wasn’t actually mingling with the ladies. I noticed he had been looking this one young lady over many times. And if I wasn’t mistaken, she had passed him a lingering glance a time or two, as well.
Some time back I mentioned Izner had brought out a mischievous spark in me, and I was having me a notion right then. Another young lady, a red-head, walked over to the blonde, and, well, I couldn’t help but tuning in my elvin sense of hearing and hear her address the blonde as Lafia. It seemed the two were good friends, and as they were laughing I casually walked that way with Ander chatting away about how his new sword could clean slice a melon in the air, twice, before it fell down.
Under my breath I said to Ander, “Say Lafia,” I elbowed him, “Now!”
Without thinking he blurted out, “Lafia?!”
She suddenly turned and looked at him, somewhat surprised, and then blushed, “Yes?”
I just stepped slightly away and looked at Ander and said with some surprise, “You know each other? That explains it.”
Quiet, ever contained Ander looked as if he were going to have a heart attack. She was instantly intrigued, and the redhead, full of life and personality asked, “Explains what?” as she looked to Lafia, to Ander and then to me with a curious smile.
“Uhg –,” I overacted exasperation, “Sergeant Ander, here, has been watching her all night.” I looked at Ander questioningly and asked, “Is Lafia the butterfly you’ve been waiting to dance with?” I politely reached over and took his glass, downed the rest of my own, and shook my head, “Well you picked the right moment.” I looked toward the band, “Just in time for a fresh song.” With that, I saw Lafia look at Ander with an ever so slight breath of expectancy.
Looking at the redhead, I was feeling full of myself now, and I passed her a slight wink, “Fair lady, would you do me the honor?”
She gave me a most pleasant smile, a curtsy, and I offered my arm. We walked to the bar where I could deposit my glasses and we began to dance. Very nicely, I might add. As to Ander, if he were upset with me he would have to show it much later. Right then he was only looking at Lafia. And she was looking at him. They began dancing and I turned back to my partner with a smile.
Toward the end of the evening, I was standing somewhat to myself on the balcony. Looking over the rail I envisioned what it must be like to have built something like this. It was beautiful up there, looking down over the festivity, the structures, all of it. A painting of a ship tossed in a storm caught my attention. I was about to walk over and inspect it when someone I had been introduced to earlier in the evening walked over and leaned against the railing beside me. His name was Gohruvae and he was chief of the Brosman Iron Mine, way off in the western edge of the territory.
Gohruvae was of average height, perhaps fifty-five or sixty, well set up and bald. You would think by now, I would have gotten used to seeing humans who were losing, or had already lost, their hair. But I couldn’t help wonder why it happened. A species thing, I guess.
“It’s been a nice gathering,” he remarked as we both looked below.
“Yes sir, it has,” I commented in return.
Easing to one side, and leaning against the rail with his arm, he gave me a careful appraisal. This had happened a couple of times in the evening by others, so I tried not to be conscientious about it. And then he said, “You’re a smooth operator, Sir Wolf.”
I glanced at him suddenly and saw he was wearing a subtle, yet calculating smile. It wasn’t unfriendly, but I was now cautious.
“I don’t understand, sir.”
He sipped his wine, contemplated what he was going to say, and then continued, “Maybe a year ago, one of the boys in East Gate Barracks got wind that his family’s grain crop had been ruined for some reason or another, and they would hunger through the winter. His father was going to have to come to my mine and work.
“Then a sack full
of coin appeared inside his bedding.”
Izner and me had … I had forgotten about that. It was money I didn’t need anyway. Izner was really sneaky and it had been fun to get in at night with no one knowing, or so I thought. We had had fun that night.
Standing there beside Gohruvae, I kept my face still and said not a word.
“One of the South Wall fellows, a lad named Puffer, was bitten twice by a Di’Yamohn Viper while saving a child who had fallen down one of those pits, you know, where the Meidran Temple was. He got the child out, his mate, Vensi, was trying to pull them up when you and that big fellow, Merle, happened by,” He raised an eyebrow, as if wondering why we had been there at the same time, in the first place. Vensi and Puffer were on wall patrol, we weren’t, “and helped with the rope.
“Puffer’s face was white and was talking about the viper, and you wasted no time. You did something to his leg while Vensi and Merle made sure the little girl was alright, and when you were done Puffer was asleep, but alive. Vensi said his pants leg was black with bad blood, but there wasn’t more than two pairs of scratches in the flesh.
“Vensi said you told him, ‘It was just an Ahnagohr Remedy, I don’t think it’s anything serious. You know how he exaggerates things.’”
Gohruvae gave me a shrewd look, “Vensi’s pa was a snake handler. Did you know that? He knew that mark when he saw it.”
I didn’t. I was feeling a bit edgy, and it had been such a great night.
He looked back at the hall, “There’s other things I’ve heard, here and there.” He glanced back my way with a warm smile, “And then there’s the way you have handled yourself tonight.” Gohruvae let that sink in.
‘Who was talking to him,’ I thought. ‘Was I in some kind of trouble?’
“I watched you with your friend, too.”
Gohruvae was a smart man, very observant as well. I was feeling hot and starting to sweat, and he must have sensed that, too. He shifted himself around and caught my eye in full contact, “Cudty was a good friend to my second boy. He and my two oldest boys spent their first years in the army together. Then my oldest went up north and I haven’t seen him since.
“Wandle, my second, took a spear in the chest from a cog, oh, five years ago.”
He took a long breath in remembrance, and then added, “Puffer is my youngest boy. You ever need anything, you let me know.”
From beside a painting on the balcony, I saw my red-haired dancing partner slowly walking my way with a subtle swish of her dark green gown. Gohruvae gave me a courteous nod and backed away saying, “You have a nice evening.”
The redhead’s name was Riana, and we had danced three consecutive dances together. We had talked little, but I found I really liked her. During our last dance, she had hummed with the tune and I found she had a pretty voice. We had hummed the dance together in harmony and laughed when we had finished.
She tilted her head at me and with laughter in her eye she pleasantly said, “They’re about to play the final song tonight …” she said with an open invitation in her voice.
Smiling, I asked as I offered my arm, “Then would you permit me?”
“MmmNNNmmm …” she said with a softly sensual timber in her voice, “I thought you’d never ask.”
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Dancing with Princess Tancine had been very nice, but let’s face it, a big piece of it was for performance sake. I had come to entertain her, and there was nothing wrong with that. What’s more, I had held her spell bound, literally, I think. There was more I wanted to learn and experiment with concerning that, but dancing with Riana was different.
Our meeting was totally unplanned, a thing of chance. And she was bubbly, vivacious, so very much alive. Her laughter was infectious and her smile was disarming. Riana was a very sensual young lady, but very proper at the same time. I was extremely unprepared for her.
I learned she was a solid seventeen, an age when young ladies were already married or getting married and starting families, was already an accomplished dress maker, loved music and everything to do with it, had an exhilarating sense of humor, and her eyes were as green as emeralds.
When I escorted her to the carriage she and five other ladies were sharing, we paused just before I helped her up. She turned to me and said, “I had a wonderful time,” and her face was lovely.
She bit her lips for a moment before saying, “I work at the Lynmire Dress Boutique …”
Not sure what to say, I took her hand and asked, “May I come see you there?”
Her eyes grew wide and she kind of bounced a little, “Yes, yes!”
For a second there I felt kind of awkward. I had never done anything like this before. Her hand was in mine, so I bent down and kissed her hand like I had the princess’s, but only I touched her hand a bit more. She gave me a little curtsey and settled into her place in the carriage.
As the driver snapped the reins and pulled away, I found Ander standing beside me. Together we watched the carriage go around the corner and then we walked back to the barracks together, me with my guitar slung on my back.
Sleep was a long time coming, but the next day was Ohnday, or was it Ohnday already? It didn’t matter. When I finally reached slumber, I spent the whole night dancing in my dreams.
Chapter 38
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OHNDAY WAS A restful day for me, and for the first time in a long time I awakened well past daylight. As a rule, I was an early riser. But the last three weeks had been the most grueling I had endured thus far. The work was hard, sleep often restless, and the pressure was high.
Take nothing away from physical labor, I’ve done it all of my life, and I don’t mean casual stuff, either. But working hard with your mind is a different kind of work, and it’s every bit as exhausting as the physical, maybe more so.
Up to then, I had never given thought to performing as a real job, but my attitude had changed. From there on out, I knew I would give credit to those folks who work hard to entertain, or any kind of art, for that matter.
Walking around the edges of the Great Hall, I saw paintings and sculptures and such as to make me set back and make wonder. This place was home to elegance. You wouldn’t think it if you were anywhere out of side of the city walls.
Sure enough, Keoghnariu was a young kingdom, but the culture wasn’t really new. A good bit of all of this was brought down with the people who came from Shudoquar, once the culture center of the whole world. Mix in some Vedoic architecture, curtain wall and tower designs from Malone, and native building materials and you had something new, but which looked aged and established.
The old saxophone player, I learned, was Dominick Triple. Originally from a small village in Lh’Gohria, his people had been preserving a class of music called Jazz, Rhythm and Blues that traced back further than anyone could remember. There were those who insisted it was almost as old as elvin music. And Dominick was considered one of the best.
The Dom, as he was usually referred to, had been visiting Kiubejhan by special request of King Chitivias when the cognobins had taken control of the bridge. In effect, he and his group were trapped there. How must it feel, I wondered, to be the best at what you do and be caught like a bird in a cage?
I was eating a piece of fruit that Ohnday afternoon when I got a knock on my door. Walking over I asked who it was, and it was our barracks on-call messenger with a note for me. Stepping out, I took the note and opened it right there in the hall. I had never received a note before.
It was from the Dom himself, asking if I would like to meet in his room at the top of the Jade Emporium to play with his core band. My breath caught and my eyes got wide.
Earlier I had pounded on Hoscoe’s door to see if he had come in, but he hadn’t. I can usually hear pretty good through the door, and hadn’t yet heard any sound of him returning to his quarters. Was he still with his lady friend, I wondered?
Excited, I got myself together and made way for the Emporium. I forg
ot that I was still exhausted.
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The Jade Emporium was a top of the line eating place with rooms to let in the upper levels. These rooms served as apartments and points of business, for now, but when traffic with the north was still open they served as high-class hotel rooms. Someone was waiting for me when I walked into the front o the Emporium, and going up the spiral staircase was nice. Once more I was in the heart of elegance.
Stopping in front of the door of my designated room, I took in a breath and knocked.
“Come on in,” a deep voice said.
There were five members of the band sitting there laughing, wine cups around, and they were smoking something I hadn’t seen before. A window was opened, so as to make for ventilation.
The Dom walked up to me and grabbed my hand from an upright position and gave it a shake, “Heyo, little brother. You want a ceegar?” That must have been the brown, tube-shaped thing with the ash he was holding between his teeth.
He was chuckling good naturedly as he waved around to the others, all sitting and fiddling with their instruments. The smell from his ceegar was appealing to me. I was thinking I just might want to try one.
“This here’s Cougar Jack on the drums, Sweet Dad Tommy on the slide trombone, Handsome Henry on the stand up bass, and Strings Bandy on the git-fiddle.” I had never heard of a guitar being called a git-fiddle before, but I was elated to be in this particular company.
There was nothing stuffy or uptight about this group whatsoever. They were laid back and cool, as the word goes. They were polite to me, but still a bit reserved, like they wanted to check me out. Of course they had heard me play the night before. But I had been rehearsing for weeks. They wanted to see what I could really do, from the heart.
Sweet Dad said in a gravel deep voice, “You can hep yo-self to the wine. We ain’t gonna do it for ya. You make yo-self to home.”