He nodded, slowly, carefully, gently, as though afraid a sudden movement would hurt. “Easily. Hosea was kept in a cell in the base of this tower. It was that cell that he showed me the way out of; a rock that must be pressed a certain way for a certain time.”
Torrie frowned. “Then why couldn’t he escape himself?”
“He was bound. His … bonds were special, intended for someone else, but capable of binding a god, or at least one of his … ancestry.” Dad shook his head. “Better no more is said. The threat looms—”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Dad said, his voice low and flat, almost without passion, as though he were reporting something he didn’t care about or couldn’t let himself care about, “that if I had taken a move toward escape, Branden del Branden and Herolf would have bound me with the guts of my own son, something I could no more free myself from than Uncle Fox could, long ago.”
Maggie tilted her head to one side. “Are you saying that Hosea is Loki? The villain of the whole Norse saga? Really?”
Dad shook his head. “Hardly.” His lips pursed for a moment. “He is older than Aesir, or the Vanir, and enough proof that the Tuatha and Tuarin were both older than them and ancestors to them. Loki… I used to think that the Fire Duke was Loki, somehow having captured or killed Anegir del Denegir, and taken his place, but no.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Very,” Dad said. “When we made our escape, we did it via a secret entrance to His Warmth’s office, and bound him with … that which had long bound Hosea, hiding him in a secret abditory.” He smiled. “A large abditory. One of the Aesir or Vanir couldn’t have escaped, so bound.
But he moves well for one of his fat; he escaped quickly enough to raise the alarm that had us fleeing down Ways Orfindel only half remembered.“ He took his wife’s hand in his larger one, and brought it to his lips for a moment. “Not that I regret that, you understand.”
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing, for the time being. We can’t all try to escape, as His Warmth has put his own guards and telltales in the passages he knows, and they would be searched quickly were we to be shown missing. And I can’t go and leave you behind,” he said. “So we wait. For the time being.”
“But—”
Torrie was interrupted by a loud knocking on the outer door of their suite.
“That will be Branden del Branden and Ivar del Hival, to escort us to the reception,” Dad said, adjusting his sword belt.
Ash Plaza: a circular piazza half the size of a football field, floored in ancient marble, reddened in the light of the setting sun, rimmed on the mountain side with tall ashes, their leaves rustling dryly in the wind in counterpoint to the scratchings of the quartet of musicians sitting on the lip of the curiously silent fountain in the center of the court. The drummer, his instrument an elongated copper tube topped with a well-darkened membrane, kept up a complex beat over the droning of a remarkably mellow bagpipe, the tune alternately taken up by what looked like a fat-bellied lute and some sort of flute with a lipped mouthpiece that sounded more like a particularly mellow trumpet than anything else.
The marble had been polished to a high, even gloss: upside-down, fiery reflections of well-dressed lords and ladies turned in time at the entrance of Torrie’s party; and then, as though practicing the steps of a dance, most turned back.
One pair didn’t: a tall, slim man, his blue and silver tunic topped by a curiously plain gray silk cape, offered his arm to a plumpish woman, and walked deliberately up to where Dad had halted, Ivar del Hival at one side, Mom at another, Torrie and Maggie behind them.
Branden del Branden bowed at their arrival. “Lord Sensever del Sensever,” he said. “Emissary of the House of Wind to the court of His Warmth, and the Fascinating Lady Cirsta. I have the privilege to introduce the Exquisite Maggie and the Extraordinary Karin. You know Thorian del Thorian the Elder; may I have the honor of introducing Thorian del Thorian the Younger, an… accomplished duelist in his own right?” His smile was wolfish.
“Thorian,” Lord Sensever said, ignoring Branden del Branden and the rest, “it’s been a long time.” His voice was perhaps half an octave higher than Torrie had expected, and his vowels had curious flatness. He patted at the hilt of his sword. “I see you are back at your old post, eh?” His face was long and bony, pleasant in a homely sort of way, particularly when he smiled. Torrie found himself warming instantly to the tall lord while at the same time disliking the fat dowager on his arm.
Dad nodded. “His Warmth has been kind enough to allow me to work off my debt.”
Lady Cirsta’s lips pursed. “A great favor, I’m sure.”
Sensever patted her on the arm. “Lady, I—”
“It is not your hereditary fief that is being challenged, milord, but my brother’s.”
Sensever nodded. “That is true, but be that as it may …”
“… and there’s not a lick of justice in that claim, milord …”
“Rather beside the point, milady.” Sensever’s voice was studiously calm. “But yes, yes, that would appear to be the case.”
Dad’s face was a mask. “That is something that remains to be seen.”
“Quite possibly it shall,” Sensever said, quietly.
“Enough of this nonsense.” Ivar del Hival scowled. “Challenge has neither been given nor accepted; it’s unseemly to—”
“Anticipate that it shall?” Lady Cirsta’s nostrils flared. “Simply because His Warmth has only intimated that should His Force not surrender Kerniat, challenge will be issued, with Thorian del Thorian issuing challenge to all who dispute His Warmth’s ownership? With each bout to the death?”
“Enough.” Sensever laid a hand on her arm, seemingly gently, but Torrie didn’t fail to notice that when she tried to pull away, neither the hand nor the arm moved. “Lady wife, Thorian del Thorian is the champion, not the one who issues the challenge.”
“If it is issued,” Ivar del Hival said quietly. “That hasn’t happened yet.”
“And it may not,” Sensever said. “And should it be, it would be understood, at least in the House of Wind, where offense is given, and how offense is taken.” He shook his head for a moment as though to clear it, then: “And for now, please be welcome. As I recall, you’ve been known to be fond of a properly prepared terrine, and I’ve had four different ones set out.”
Dad smiled. “Thank you, Lord Sensever.”
Sensever was turning away when Ivar del Hival cleared his throat. “Now, wait a moment. You sound like you know who has been selected to stand for the House of Wind—is there any reason we shouldn’t know?”
“None that I know of,” Sensever said, quietly. “It will, of course, be me.” He turned and left, his wife in tow.
Dad’s lips were white. “We shall perhaps see about that.” He offered his arm to Mom. “If you please?” and walked off with her toward the tables and the crowd.
Branden del Branden bowed—“I shall certainly see you later,” he said—and followed them.
“What was all that about?” Maggie asked before Torrie could.
“Ah, it was foolishness. Leave it be, leave it be.” Ivar del Hival hitched angrily at his swordbelt, and led them toward the nearest serving table. On a white linen background, seven round plates were arranged in a staggered line, each holding small pieces of bread with something on it. Torrie was fairly sure that the first was cheeses, and the third was some sort of pâté, but the rest escaped him.
Oh, well, it was unlikely to be poisoned, and the meal a trio of Vestri servants had delivered to his room was too many hours in the past for him to be picky. He picked up a slice of bread with something dark and oily on it, bit into it tentatively at first, then wolfed it down. It was smoky and rich, like good jerky, but tender as fish, with a slightly oily taste that would have been unpleasant if it had been any stronger, but as it was made the taste richer and meatier.
Maggie took a bite, nodded. “You can p
ick out my food all the time.”
Others were giving Torrie and her glances out of the corners of their eyes, but nobody approached.
“You were going to explain this foolishness?” Maggie asked Ivar del Hival.
“Only if you insist,” he said, tearing off a hunk of bread. He looked at her expression and his glare softened to a smile. “Which I see that you do.”
“She always has before,” Torrie said, stepping back to avoid Maggie’s elbow in his ribs.
“Very well. His Warmth,” Ivar del Hival said, his voice lowered from its usual bellow, but not by much, “is playing games. He’s … suggested he’s going to issue a challenge to the House of Wind for a fief that’s not only clearly properly of Wind but has no connection to the House of Fire.”
He shrugged. “He would ordinarily have enough trouble finding a champion even for a contest to the first blood—except, perhaps, among the House of Steel, but then the prices would be prohibitive, and the chances of going beyond the first blood nil—but Thorian’s agreed to serve him unconditionally, and His Warmth has suggested the battle will be to the death.” He shook his massive head. “Not a wise move, perhaps, but His Warmth hasn’t asked my opinion.”
Torrie frowned. He had the feeling he could trust Ivar del Hival, as long as it didn’t involve telling him anything that might compromise his loyalties to the House of Flame. “So what does all that mean?”
“It means that your father will have to fight any challengers to the death, and either die defending a spurious claim—assuming he steeps himself in the herbs and rituals, which he won’t—or win an affair while definitely in the wrong, shaming himself. And not likely for the last time.” His broad smile seemed forced. “Not quite like being a lawyer in your world, is it?”
Torrie started. “How would you know about that?”
Ivar del Hival’s lips were a thin line in his bushy beard. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”
“You were explaining why this isn’t a wise move for the duke,” Maggie said.
Ivar del Hival snorted as he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “By Baldur’s balls, Maggie, you are a find: a woman who doesn’t think she understands politics, or at least pretends she doesn’t think so. Will you marry an old widower? No, no, don’t answer me now; merely say you’ll think about it, and I’ll be satisfied.”
His voice was light, but Torrie caught the undercurrent. Despite her spending time with the local tea-and-taxes set, he probably had a better idea than Maggie what her status was here: problematic. Mom was the wife of Thorian del Thorian, and that probably would keep her reasonably safe; Maggie’s relationship to Torrie wasn’t as well established. Torrie didn’t have his father’s reputation or status, and the one man who had issued him a challenge, thereby acknowledging him as an acceptable recipient, was dead. That might mean that Torrie’s lady was somebody not to be trifled with; it also might mean that she would soon be available, were Torrie to make a habit of death duels. But with Ivar del Hival proposing to her, even if partly in jest, she was clearly under his protection, as well.
He caught Ivar del Hival’s smile, and gave a slight nod, rewarded by an ever-so-slight pursing of the lips and as small a nod as Torrie had ever seen.
Maggie’s brow wrinkled in a puzzlement that Torrie pegged as just this side of confused. She had figured out some of what was going on, but not all of it. Torrie would have to tell her the story of Ingmark and the Three Virgins sometime, or better yet, have Uncle Hosea tell it.
If he ever saw Uncle Hosea again.
“You still haven’t explained it to me,” Maggie said, stubborn.
Ivar del Hival frowned. “Very well, if I must—”
“Please,” Maggie said. “It would be a kindness, if you would.”
Why don’t you just bat your eyelashes and be done with it? Torrie didn’t say.
“If,” Ivar del Hival said, “you’ll promise to consider my proposal? And if you, my dear young Thorian del Thorian, promise to take no offense at my impertinence in proposing to your lady?”
Torrie nodded. Officially, of course, to make a move on Maggie was something he could take offense at, but he knew—and Ivar del Hival knew that he knew—that this proposal was a friendly act. “None taken, Ivar del Hival,” Torrie said.
“And yes, Ivar,” Maggie said, “I promise to consider it. If—”
“If I explain, I know.” His smile evaporated. “Well. Try it this way: it is one thing for my old friend Thorian to cut hired champions to little pieces—that’s his profession, and theirs, and they are paid in gold and respect for what they do, and for the risks they take. While they try to be on a side they believe to be right—their rituals make it more likely that their wrists will fail them if they fight for something they believe to be wrong—they are often willing to, well, push the border of fairness a touch, in favor of those who hire them.
“But it’s another to cross swords with a respected nobleman like Lord Sensever del Sensever, a man of high regard and ancient lineage, in a fight where one like Thorian knows he is wrong. It’s … humiliating, perhaps. Marginally dishonorable, possibly. Distinctly uncomfortable, for certain, and generally not done.” He sighed and shook his head. “And for His Warmth to have a champion who not only is willing to do that but is as good with a sword as Thorian del Thorian, well, that’s dangerous to everybody, and no good can come of it. It gives His Warmth the means to challenge for, well, anything, and shows him willing to use that means. The only merciful thing about it is that His Warmth is issuing this challenge over a small matter, suggesting—just perhaps—that he will use this … indiscriminate champion only with restraint. Perhaps.” He shook himself for a moment, and then his broad smile was back in place, threatening to split his ugly face in two. “Now, now,” he said, his voice back at a comfortable bellow, “you have agreed to consider my proposal, have you not?—oh, yes, yes, please join us,” he said, beckoning. One bravo, leather cap set jauntily atop a head that seemed slightly too small for his body—or maybe it was just that the cap was too large—strode up and introduced himself as Verniem del Eleric, then beckoned his companion to join him.
Behind him, Torrie recognized Beliana from the day before, accompanied by another young man perhaps in his middle twenties, tall, lean, and weighted down with far too heavy and large a cape for his skinny body. Beliana nodded a meaningless smile toward Maggie, and then caught two of her other friends’ eyes and beckoned them and their young men over with a quick twitch of her head. Torrie had trouble remembering their names: Geryn, and Emberly, perhaps?
“Ivar,” Verniem del Eleric said, his mouth wreathed in mustache, his voice too smooth, “you are betrothed once again, perhaps?”
“I might well be.” Ivar del Hival nodded slowly.
“Ah. I’d not have thought it of you,” he said. “The old goat still may have a butt left, perhaps, eh?”
Ivar del Hival rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “The old blade may still have a slice or two, yes. If you’d care to try it, that could be arranged?”
“No, no,” Verniem del Eleric said, raising his hands in mock surrender, “I mean no offense, nor am I likely to take any from either of you.” He turned to Torrie. “There are those—foolish, foolish ones, I say—who would say old Ivar del Hival is too antiquated to keep his sword tip steady, but I’m not one of them. I say that he simply misleads many with his meandering manner, that’s what I say, and loudly.”
“Loudly, indeed,” Torrie said. “And with an excess of alliteration, perhaps.” There was a mocking tone in the other’s voice that he didn’t like.
“Loudly is the way I like it.” Ivar del Hival grunted. “I want it shouted from the rooftops, from every stair and plaza in the City, that I still am dangerous, even at my advanced age. It saves the wear and tear on my clothing, not to mention my tender body.”
Verniem del Eleric was looking at Torrie strangely. “And what of you, Thorian del Thorian the Younger? What wou
ld you say?”
Torrie thought about it for a moment. “I say that accidents happen, that’s what I say.”
“How so?”
“Well, it might be that Ivar del Hival has caught the Lovely Maggie in a weak moment, and will find himself married before the sun rises; or it might be that somebody could misinterpret his friendliness as weakness, and find himself bleeding from his arm, with his sword down around his ankles; or it might be that somebody would interpret an agreement as a challenge, when one would neither look for nor run away from any such.” He looked Verniem del Eleric in the eye. “So I say that accidents happen, and I for one would like to avoid one, like I had with Danar del Reginal.” The story—Branden del Branden’s version of the story—had already spread through the City, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of it. “Which was unfortunate for him more than me, but unfortunate for the both of us, nevertheless.”
Torrie closed his eyes, remembering that awful moment when his sword had gone through Danar del Reginal’s misplaced defenses and into his body, feeling the life drain out through the other as he collapsed, leaving behind no trace of dignity, nothing but a bad smell that was quickly shattered in the breeze and a pile of flesh and bone for the Vestri to bury.
His eyes stung as he opened them. Yes, Danar del Reginal had been trying to kill him, and he should be glad the idiot was dead, but he wasn’t.
Verniem del Eleric pushed the silence away with a clearing of his throat, and clasped Torrie’s arm in a friendly way. “Yes, accidents happen,” he said, swagger and bravado replaced by a quiet sincerity, “and such ought to be avoided, particularly on a lovely night like tonight.”
That broke the ice; dozens of young nobles and then ladies crowded around, waiting for introductions. Torrie tried to file away all the names, but he knew that he would forget some, or many.
Until a familiar face almost shoved itself in front of his. Older, yes, but—
“Reginal del Reginal,” he said, with an elaborate bow, as though to take any precaution to avoid offense, that was in itself an offense. “Ordinary of the House of Flame, older brother to Danar del Reginal, who I believe you met, once, briefly.” His face was flushed, and his voice slightly slurred. Not staggering drunk, but drunk enough. There were companions tugging at his arms, but Torrie’s universe had narrowed to that ruddy, sweaty face out of a nightmare, a tick in its neck.
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