“I asked you, Torrie, do you think you can beat all comers?”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s possible,” Dad agreed, taking down another practice sword, “but unlikely. You’ve probably fought more practice bouts in the past few years than I have in my life-time, but you’ve only once taken up a sword for real. It’s rather different,” he said.
“I did well enough.”
“Fighting a fool who was out to kill you instead of just draw your blood, yes,” Dad said. “Like fighting foil against an epée player. I doubt he’ll make that mistake again.”
“He’s dead.”
“No, not that idiot coadjutant. Whoever was behind him. His Warmth, probably. Somebody else, perhaps. The politics of the Cities gets so complicated at times it’s best to remember how simple it is, at base.”
He gave the sword a few trial slashes through the air, then took an en garde position; Torrie mirrored him.
“And at base?”
“At base, it’s just a matter of deciding how large a problem you are going to be. It worked for the Old Cities. Make yourself too much of a problem as a House, and the rest of the Houses come and tear you down, like they did with the Nameless House; make yourself too little of a problem, and they eat you, like they did the Trees.” He engaged in high line, tip to tip, and tried a bit of delicate tip play before disengaging and thrusting low line; Torrie parried but didn’t press, more interested in what Dad was saying than in another tentative practice bout.
“I made myself too much of a problem, once,” Dad said. “For good enough reason, I thought, but that matters little—but let me pay for it. I know the coin; you don’t.” He engaged in earnest, now, and for a moment Torrie let his wrist do the thinking for him.
He didn’t fence the way Ian and the others did, the muscles guided by the mind, conscious of whether he was engaging in quarte or sixte, whether the line was high or low, in or out. It was all a single thing to him, a gestalt. A low lunge forced a blade down to meet yours; a disengage forced him to establish contact or live with it lost and gone. It was all one and the same thing; the wrist did the fencing while the mind floated above, more being than thinking.
Dad let his point sag too low, and had to raise it too quickly to try to meet Torrie’s high-line attack, but Torrie simply disengaged and lunged low for a touch to the thigh, then parried on his retreat.
Dad dropped his point, holding up his free hand to forestall Torrie when Torrie attempted to continue the bout. “That is the sort of thing that I mean. All you scored on me was a wound to my thigh—fine in a first-blood match, but I assure you His Warmth would not surrender an inch of land, much less a point of honor, on a simple wound to the thigh of Thorian del Thorian, Elder or Younger.
“If I’d been able to move fast enough, I could have hit you from anywhere above the midpoint of your chest—one quick thrust through the throat, and it would be all over.”
He flipped his practice sword end over end high into the air; it almost touched the high ceiling, then descended until it thwocked into his open palm. “Despite my best efforts, you’ve trained yourself as a fencer, not a swordsman.” His frown was of infinite sadness. “And I’d hoped that would never become important.” He clapped a hand to Torrie’s shoulder, then backed off. “Come now; if you’re going to walk out among cadets, ordinaries, and seniors of the House of Flame, you’d best learn what it really means to take up a sword.
“Have at you.”
The shower was a delight, albeit a cold one. A door near the end of the hallway led down another hallway and to another door, which opened on a small dressing area. It was lit by what looked like long, fist-sized holes out through the righthand wall into the day, but the placement made Torrie’s brow furrow. That wasn’t right—that hole should be parallel to the outside wall, not perpendicular. Two wooden benches stood as the only furniture in the room; Torrie brought one over and stood on it so he could see the hold more closely.
Ah. About a foot in, a mirror was mounted slantwise where the hole took a ninety-degree turn. What appeared to be a straight path was in fact bent once. At least once, Torrie corrected himself. For all he could tell, it could bend back and forth twenty times between there and the outside, as long as each bend had a shiny mirror properly mounted.
He plopped down on the bench and, as the Vestri servant had instructed him, stripped to the skin, leaving his clothes and sword on the bench next to one of the curiously thick, napless towels, taking with him only an ancient long-handled bathing brush and a bar of waxy soap that smelled of grapefruit and honey.
A U-shaped turn led him out and into the shower itself.
It was a niche carved into the outside of the keep, the top open to the sun and view below and to the side by an overgrown concave trellis covered with vines in full flower, the tiny crimson blossoms randomly speckling the expanse of triangular leaves. Water from some distant spring trickled down a carved path from above, splashing into a massive iron pot suspended from the wall on a mount that allowed it to be tilted with a pull on the chain that depended from a ring welded to its side. With the pot full, a constant trickle of water flowed from the V-shaped spout on one side, running down the slanted floor and out a drain down the outside of the shower room.
Torrie quickly lathered himself from toes to head in the thin stream, then pulled on the handle, swiveling the pot on its hinges, dousing himself in the icy water.
His teeth chattered, but he had never felt so clean before.
He had almost finished dressing—he was just fiddling with the hook and eye arrangement that substituted for buttons on his shirt—when Maggie walked in and closed the door behind her. She wore a white, knee-length cotton shift and carried a pile of clothes and about half a dozen towels in her arms. “Bimbur said you would probably be done by now,” she said, her tone just a degree short of frosty.
“Bimbur?” Torrie assumed it was one of the dwarves, but he hadn’t thought to ask any of them their names. It was just too weird being around them.
“The Neander—the Vestri who came into the rooms to clean up. He said you had gone to the shower, and would likely be done.”
Why was Maggie so mad—oh. He had forgotten. Their attempts to appear angry at each other hadn’t paid off yet, and might never, but there was no reason not to keep it up. At the very least, it made Maggie a less likely substitute target for somebody trying to get at Torrie.
And, yes, it made sense to keep it up here. While nobody could see them here—the walls and door were thick and solid—it wasn’t impossible that somebody was overhearing them. A hole between here and the outside could carry sounds as well as light.
“Well, I can leave,” he said, trying to sound angry. “Just give me a moment.”
“Thank you,” she said icily, her tone belied by her smile. She sat down next to him and put her mouth next to his ear. “I think we’ll be allowed to look around, but I don’t want to go by myself,” she whispered, then turned her head so he could whisper in her ear.
“So what do you want me to do? Drag you along?” he whispered back.
She smiled, and mouthed: Sure. Just be gentle.
He had to grin. “And what will you do for me?” he whispered.
Like I said, she mouthed, just be gentle. Her fingers toyed with his belt buckle. The floor is hard.
Her grin was crooked.
“But…”
Amazing what you people keep in your emergency kits. She produced what looked like a golden coin between two fingers, then bent it in half. “I really don’t want to,” she said, her smile giving the lie to her words and tone. “No.”
Torrie grinned. Well, most of the time no means no, he thought.
But not when she brings the subject up with a smirk and a condom, and starts spreading thick towels on the floor.
Wobbling Way wound up and down around the periphery of the city, mostly skirting towers and plazas—sometimes, in fact, running along the retaining wall on the
outside of plazas—occasionally dipping into the city, becoming a narrow alley between one building and another, or cutting slantwise across a plaza, the rough adamantine stone of Wobbling Way in stark contrast to the inset polished rectangles of marble and rectangles that made up the floors of the plazas.
As the sun dipped low in the sky, they followed the path down, toward the gate and the broad plaza hidden behind its screen of trees, following the path through a narrow, twisting passage, passing underneath a half dozen raised gates.
“Why are you frowning?”
Torrie shook his head. “I don’t get it—why have such an elaborate defense inside the City—”
The path took a sudden right-angled turn, dumping them out in the busy marketplace. Just as the wind seemed to have carried smells away from them, some trick of acoustics had kept the clamor from them until just now.
Over by a stall built up against the outside walls, peasants hawked their produce. A bubble-cheeked apple seller paused in his singsong praise of his own works to pick up a fist-sized, ruby-red fruit and polish it on his surprisingly clean canvas apron; next to him, a chicken seller had just finished stringing up a freshly plucked bird and was eyeing the stock in his wooden cages; beyond him, a miller carefully scooped a measure of sorrel flour into a small sack, then tied off the mouth of the sack with a quick twisting of string.
Vestri and humans, most in variants of House of Flame livery, mixed as they moved among the rows of stalls.
Across the plaza, away from the cacophony and motion of the market, a row of stone tables had been set up next to where the stone path led, and a quartet of young women sat on stone stools around one, toying with the contents of several plates that were in the process of being replenished by a procession of Vestri servants who came and went through another passage beyond them.
Torrie nodded a greeting.
“Good afternoon to you,” one said in Bersmal, her voice lower and melodic. Red highlights in her brown hair were echoed and accented by coppery threads in the short dress that left her long legs bare to her sandaled feet. Torrie would have guessed her, like the other three, to be in her late teens, but he wouldn’t have wanted to bet a lot.
Torrie clasped his hands at the waist and bent slightly, the way Uncle Hosea tended to do when he didn’t stop himself. “A good afternoon to you, as well,” he said. “I am—”
“Thorian del Thorian,” another said, interrupting. Her hair was so light blond as to be almost white, but her skin was sun-darkened almost nut brown.
“The Younger,” said a third.
“Son of the very famous Thorian del Thorian,” said the second, “the—”
“Beliana! Your manners!”
“—the Elder, I was going to say,” the blonde said, her face studiously sober. “What is your complaint, Geryn?”
Geryn frowned. She, too, was blonde, but the coloring of both her hair and skin was more moderate than Beliana’s. “Well.” She touched a well-manicured fingernail to her forehead. “I would guess my complaint is with myself, for having let you lure me into a pointless accusation.” She picked up a tiny crystal-stemmed glass, and sipped delicately at a thick honey-colored liquid.
The corner of Beliana’s lips lifted only slightly. “I don’t know what you could possibly be talking about.” She held Geryn’s gaze for a moment, until the other frowned and dropped her eyes. She turned to Torrie. “You and your party are all the talk of the City, Thorian del Thorian. This would be, I take it, Maggie, called the Exquisite? We are Emberly, Geryn, Dortaya, and Beliana,” she said, indicating each with a fingernail that finally came to rest on her own chin. “All ordinaries of the House of Flame, or we would not be so hard at work on such a fine day.”
Torrie repressed a smile. “I am pleased to meet you,” he said.
“As well you should be,” Emberly put in. “Although without our beaus present, you will be pleased to meet us and then on your way,” she said, with a sniff. “Unless, of course, you intend to abandon the Exquisite Maggie and pay court to one of us?”
Geryn’s nose twitched. “I doubt Deverin del Ordein would take that well, dear Emberly.”
“I am always thoroughly interested, of course, in your doubts about Deverin, beloved Geryn,” Emberly said. “Please do tell me more.”
Would you all like something to drink? Torrie asked silently. How about some nice saucers of milk?
Dortaya cleared her throat as she stood. “It has been very nice meeting you, Thorian del Thorian,” she said. “Maggie will join us here, and we’ll see that she’s returned to the Green Rooms at an appropriate time.”
Maggie looked questioningly at Torrie, who shrugged. It didn’t look dangerous, unless you could get cut with a sharp comment. “That would be fine with me.”
Emberly sniffed. “Your opinion, Thorian del Thorian, has not been asked. On your way, if you please; this is becoming unseemly. Unless, dear Maggie, you plan to spurn our company this fine day?”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” Maggie took a step forward. “I’d be very … happy to join you.”
“Sit-sit-sit,” Geryn said, raising her hand and gesturing with her fingers at a distant Vestri servant. “How do you take your jasmine tea?”
Torrie frowned. “I’m not entirely sure—”
“I am entirely sure she shall be quite safe with us.” Emberly sniffed, rising to take Maggie’s arm.
Beliana flicked her fingers. “We shall see you tomorrow night, at Lord Sensever’s reception, no doubt.” But her attention was all on Maggie as she led Maggie to the chair that she, Beliana, had just vacated. “If you please. The servants will be along momentarily with another chair, and it would honor me if you would replace me here.”
There were four pointed stares at Torrie, followed by a fifth one from Maggie.
He turned, shrugged, and walked away.
Karin Thorsen leaned against the railing as she looked down on the marketplace below, watching her son walk off. “They seem to be playing their parts well,” she said.
If anybody had asked her, the dramatics of Torrie and Maggie not getting along were being played to an inattentive audience, but nobody was asking her. That was okay. Karin trusted Thorian.
“It’s good practice, if nothing else,” Thorian said, thoughtfully, touching her lightly first at the elbow, then resting his hand on her hip. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right that nobody’s noticing,” he said, responding to what she had thought, not said. “Or if you’re wrong and somebody is.”
What was it that made them able to almost read each other’s minds, she wondered idly. Was there something in her body language that had told him what she was thinking? Or in her voice? And how had she known that his touch on her arm near the elbow meant for her to be careful and that the touch at her hip was intended to be reassuring?
You live with a man long enough, her mother had once said, and sometimes you won’t know where he starts and you end. If you’re lucky.
Maybe that was it.
He let his hand drop. “But we are faced by failure no matter which way I turn,” he said. “We can’t stay and let ourselves be used to bait Hosea—”
“Orfindel,” she said. “I’ve heard the name.”
“—and I can’t try to escape by myself, not with you and Thorian as hostages. He is held in place by their grip on you and Maggie, and perhaps on me, as well.”
“I’m not exactly helpless, you know,” she said.
“But you’re not capable of making your way across Tir Na Nog by yourself, either. I might be able to find my way home; you could not,” he said, with the sort of finality that Karin had no desire to dispute.
“You make it sound hopeless,” she said, letting her smile give the lie to her words.
“There are always possibilities.” His fingers entwined in hers. “There are always possibilities, min alskling,” he said, bringing their fingers to his lips. “If I have the skill and we have the patience.”
“Ski
ll? Patience?”
He raised a palm. “Just… just let me handle it. It’s a man’s affair. Strategy, politics, honor are—”
She bristled at that. “I’m not one of these local women, good for nothing except clothes and”—she waved her hands—“whatever else they do.”
He smiled. “That’s always true,” he said. “But neither are these local women useless. Talented as they are at clothes and ‘whatever.’ ”
She tilted her head to one side.
He pursed his lips for a moment. “You see young Maggie there, sitting and taking tea with those flitterbrained young women? Silly, flighty little things who simply sit out in the fresh air, sipping flavored teas, while real work goes on about them?”
She nodded.
“Well, they are perhaps not as flighty as they look. My guess would be that they are all wardens’ daughters; most wardens like to keep a daughter in residence in the City, and not just so she can compete for the best husband, either. Notice where they sit: from that spot they can watch the trades at most of the stalls in the market, and when one of them gets up to look around, she seems to cover the rest of the ground.” He grinned. “And it’ll happen, from time to time, that some freefarmer seeks to deprive the Dominion of its portion. The taxes are complicated, and records are difficult to keep.”
“And they stop him?”
His lips pursed. “Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that those farmers who do well in the market but claim difficulty at tax time are those who the local warden—usually an ordinary of the house, but sometimes a cadet—pays a visit on.” He shrugged. “I don’t believe in coincidence, myself, particularly since it works the same way in the town and village markets as it does here. Oh, I’m sure that neighboring farmers often work out private trades late at night that are never registered, never taxed. But I am also sure that little escapes the attention of these supposedly inattentive girls.”
Below, one of the young women had taken out a small, inlaid wooden box, and opened it. Inside was an assortment of small things that Karin couldn’t quite make out.
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