I rubbed at the inside of my left arm, and shook my head. “I’m sure I wouldn’t be good competition for Lord Minch,” I said.
He smiled thinly as he snapped his fingers; in response, a white-clad serving girl brought a bow.
“After such a shot? A shot worthy of a noble?”
“Lord Minch is too kind.”
“I doubt that.” He turned his head back to the servitor. “Leathers for Kami Dan’Shir, please—it seems he neglected that the other day.” He smiled at me. “I’ll leave you at no such disadvantage, Kami Dan’Shir,” he said, turning to the servitors. “And my finest arrows.”
He turned his palm up and beckoned that I should follow him over to where Arefai stood, leaning on his bow.
“This seems interesting,” Arefai said. He nodded to the servitor standing by the target, indicating that she should remove the arrows.
She did, and, one hand holding up the hem of her white robes, trotted over with them, smiling with apparent genuineness as she handed them to Arefai, then turned to walk back by the target box, where she again took up her lantern to illuminate the target.
I wouldn’t have cared to play at shuffled placques with Arefai; it was impossible to tell from his expression that he knew I was an incompetent shot—he didn’t even seem too eager, the bluffer’s most common error.
“First-time fortune,” I said, not quite daring to shrug off the other girl, who was busy tying a shooting leather to my left arm. “The good luck of a novice.”
Minch hefted his bow. “Please.” His mouth twisted into a pout. “I would shoot with such a good archer. I’ll even take the first shot.” He shook his slim head once, to clear the hair from his eyes, and set an arrow to the bowstring.
The arrow still pointed down, toward the ground, Minch drew the string back to its full extension, then brought the bow up and loosed, all in one smooth motion.
The target inside the box was of the standard sort: a disk, barely the size of a dinner plate, that could be fastened to any part of the target box, presumably preventing the shooter from registering the edge of the box as a sight.
The servitor down by the target box didn’t even flinch when the arrow made a loud thwock as it sunk into the target disk that was less than an armslength away from her chest.
“Closer, closer for Kami Dan’Shir,” he said. “He can barely see the target.” The corners of his thin mouth turned up, and he handed me the bow.
“No,” Arefai said, interposing himself between Minch and me.
Minch cocked his head to one side. Lord Toshtai raised a finger.
“No, Father; I don’t mean to interfere.” Arefai shook his head. “I’m not saying that Kami Dan’Shir shouldn’t shoot. But he should shoot with a bow he’s more familiar with—he shot the deer with a bow of mine, and an arrow of mine. Let him use those.”
They were brought up, and there I was again, with a bow in my hands, and one of Arefai’s arrows, with the three golden rings around the shaft that identified it as his.
There’s a reason I hated being around our beloved ruling class: they kept making me do things I had no business doing, things that are properly the province of the ruling class. When I was trying to solve Refle’s murder, I’d had to face off against Dun Lidjun with a sword (and, no, I didn’t change into a kazuh Warrior and win); yesterday, Arefai had made me ride and hunt with him, and now…
And now here I was, having to shoot against Minch. Next thing I knew, they’d strap armor all over my body, plop me on the back of an uncut stallion, stick my feet in the stirrups and a lance in my hand, and send me out lancing.
I let that thought lie. The moment was bad enough as it was. The girl down by the target wore a placid expression, which meant she didn’t understand the situation. I’d be as likely to hit her as the target. More likely, actually: I would be aiming at the target.
I nocked the arrow and brought the bow up, then pulled it back to full extension, mimicking Arefai’s form as I sighted down the arrow and held aim on the box for a long moment, long enough that I could hear Minch and Arefai stirring restlessly. An acrobat has to have strong chest and shoulder muscles, stronger than you need to flog the peasantry; I could hold this stance as long as or longer than any of them.
But I wanted to let go, to shoot; after all, it was just a servitor down there, and I—
No.
I didn’t have the courage or foolishness to refuse to shoot, but I wasn’t going to risk the girl’s life. The head of the arrow felt better as it swung ever so slowly, slightly to the left; I’d miss the target box, and have to hope by less than enough to make it obvious what I was doing.
My fingers loosened. The arrow rushed off into the night, the string slapped the leather over my arm, and there was a loud thwock.
I blinked. Something seemed to be sticking out of the left edge of the target plate.
It was possible that I was a worse shot than even I thought. The arrow should have gone high and to the left of the box, vanishing off into the night so that nobody would see by how far I’d missed.
“Nicely shot,” Arefai said. “Barely on the target, but that’s not bad at all.”
“Very nice,” Minch said.
He looked over at me, daring me to say something. The trouble was, anything I said could likely be taken as either patronizing or derogatory, except, maybe, Please don’t kill me, which would have been sincere. But he might take that as sarcastic, and lop my head off.
I chose silence.
Minch nocked another arrow. “I’ll go first again,” he said, quietly, as though daring me to suggest that there wasn’t going to be another round.
He took his time this time, holding back the bowstring until his arm started trembling. The string thrummed at his release, a deep but quiet bass note. This time the arrow thwocked properly, just above and to the right of the center of the target.
Fine. All I had to do was miss now without being too obvious about it, and Minch would be the clear winner.
Arefai handed me another arrow. “Do your best,” he said.
Keep it simple, I thought.
Notch into bowstring, then fasten two fingers around the string, letting the waxy string rest against the pads. Take up a proper stance, feet perpendicular to the target, about a shoulderswidth apart.
Fine, so far. I took a deep breath and pulled the bowstring all the way back, and held it.
Nice and slow now. Plenty of time to cheat properly.
A little more to the left this time. Think of the night as the target. Surely even I couldn’t miss the night. Surely I could—
Thwock.
“A center” Arefai said. “By the Powers, a beautiful shot! Did you see the way he held the bow until the right aiming point revealed itself, did you see that, Lord Minch?” He clapped me on the shoulder. Hard. “Magnificent, Kami Dan’Shir.”
I saw Narantir tucking a gem into his pocket. And smiling.
That made one of us.
In three days we were in Glen Derenai.
Part Two
Glen Derenai
Chapter 7
Lord Demick, two courtesy calls, nighttime in Glen Derenai, and other milestones.
I hated Lord Demick at first sight. Not that it mattered.
In retrospect, I wish I’d at least caught sight of him when the troupe had played Patrice; it was, after all, part of our regular tour, and I knew that city and its environs well, from Dockwood to Hillford, Bast to Roundtop. I had some friends, in the loose sense, in Patrice, and could easily recollect three good houses for quartering and four pretty girls interested in listening to tales of the road told under a bright moon.
But the Lord of Patrice had no interest in acrobats, and, knowing that, I was already predisposed to dislike him.
Besides, I had heard the stories. Too many of them.
About how he had ordered all white horses in Patrice slaughtered for food because one white horse had thrown his daughter to her death.
Ab
out the killing of a hundred peasant families around a small village because one of the minor nobles of Patrice had disappeared near that village.
About how, back before Thornfield was part of Patrice, back when the family of Solway Dell had ruled Thornfield for as many generations as could be remembered, Evan of Solway Dell had sided with Oled and Shalough in a dispute with Patrice over the Near Islands. While leading the forces of Patrice to victory, Demick had been able to capture Evan of Solway Dell before Evan’s guards could kill him. It’s said that Demick welcomed the bound Evan to Patrice with open arms and a broad friendly smile, and that Evan’s death took ten days.
Arguably, as a subject of Lord Toshtai, I would have disliked Demick as his enemy, but in fairness to me, I don’t think of myself as so devoted to any member of our beloved ruling class as to hate his enemies… or love his friends.
While Den Oroshtai is no dwarf of a domain, it retains some of the tradition of smallness from when the old donjon there was Oroshtai’s summer retreat: the Great Hall of Den Oroshtai is large enough to hold an audience for perhaps two hundred people, and the ceiling is only twice my height.
Glen Derenai is, as they say along the shore, another net of fish entirely. (I don’t care for the figure of speech myself, but then again, I don’t live along the shore.)
Here, the vast floor was divided into nine rectangles, one for each hour of the day, and even the smallest could have contained the Great Hall of Den Oroshtai. The thrones had been set up on a bright carpet in the northwest rectangle, the one floored in rough gray stone that looked like it ought to be as slimy as the skin of an octopus; I’d had to cross over what felt like pedens of snow-white Ottish granite and endless strips of black mahogany edged in gold.
I couldn’t even hear the echo of my own footsteps.
The ceiling arched high above, high enough that if the troupe had set up the trapeze near the top, we would have had to be very careful about the placement of the safety net.
I swallowed convulsively. The safety net hadn’t done Enki Duzun any good at all. Yet another harm caused by our beloved ruling class.
The three lords were dwarfed by the Great Hall of the keep of Glen Derenai as they sat on three thrones arranged as though at the comers of a square, an empty fourth one to the left of Toshtai. Each had a table at his elbow; servitors came and went, bringing flasks of heated or chilled essence and small plates of dainties.
Each the master of armies, each the ruler of an important domain within D’Shai, each capable of intelligence, cruelty, and subtlety, they sipped and nibbled and chatted amiably, waiting for me.
Perhaps, in another lifetime, Demick would have been the proper complement to Toshtai and Orazhi. The three of them seemed to make up a matched set: fat Toshtai, lean Orazhi, muscular Demick.
I’ll take none of each, but I thank you, good shopkeeper.
Where the lord of Den Oroshtai was fat and round easily to the point of magnificence, Orazhi was lean as a running-hound, and Lord Demick of Patrice was built almost like an acrobat, strong muscles under thin, almost transparent skin.
None of their faces betrayed any serious benevolence, but while Toshtai’s eyes seemed to exude only a cold intelligence and Orazhi’s a neutral beneficence, when he turned his slim head my way Demick’s seemed to radiate an active if quiet animosity, as though he was the sort to idly consider which of my teeth to have pulled out next.
“So this is the… sole practitioner of the new kazuh you’ve discovered, eh, Toshtai?” he asked, his eyes on me, not waiting for an answer before he put in a comment: “Impressive.” His eyes were the color of fine nebbigin steel and his short-cropped black hair was shot with gray, his face clean-shaven and all angles, a sculpture cut from the most stubborn granite.
Orazhi nodded. “I have been given reason to think so,” he said, softly. “By my eyes, as well as my friend’s word.”
Demick’s eyes more nictated than blinked. “I’ve always taken the position that one should be most careful, most sure before announcing such a major discovery.” His smile at Lord Toshtai even seemed genial. “As I’m sure my noble friend is.” His hand flopped on the end of his wrists, but that was just for effect; I’ve seen acrobats with less well developed wrists and hands. “Please—Kami Dan’Shir, is it?—would you be so kind as to show us your abilities?”
“Excuse me?”
His hand flopped again. “Solve for me a puzzle, if you please. Juggle a ball, if that’s what you do. Shoot a deer, love a woman, sail a boat, but do something, man, something to show that you—ah,” he said, looking past my shoulder, “Lord Minch has just entered the hall to join us, with Lady HaLyn, if my eyes don’t betray me.”
“Your eyes, Lord, will never betray you,” Toshtai said. “But perhaps Kami Dan’Shir can demonstrate his abilities at some later time.”
I thought I saw Lord Orazhi muffling a smile.
“We do have a problem with you, Kami Dan’Shir,” Orazhi said, turning to me. I tried to read the expression on his face as I tried not to feel at my neck, failing at the first, succeeding at the second. I know how our beloved ruling class likes to solve problems.
“Who shall you pay a courtesy call on?” he went on, smoothing one hand down the front of his roomy robes.
I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath until it came out in a whoosh, causing Demick to smile. My underarms were clammy with sweat, and with good reason. The answer to too many questions in D’Shai tends to be “kill him,” but that was unlikely to be the answer to this one, regardless of whether the question was real or rhetorical.
An acrobat avoids politics, just as any itinerant has to, resisting the blandishments of any local, no matter the locality. It’s a matter of survival: you move from town to town, from domain to domain, and if it becomes even a matter of suspicion that you are partisan of any of the domains, you die. I once saw a head mounted on a spike at the entrance to Wake’s Seat; a zivver soloist had been suspected of spying for Swanse, Gray Khuzud had explained.
(To be fair, I later learned more about it: the lord of Wake’s Seat had had his wizard administer a truth spell to the zivver player, whose denials had been demonstrated false. I am told that sometimes truth spells even work.)
On the other hand, when you’re part of a visiting entourage, some degree of espionage is expected; D’Shai being D’Shai, this practice has been given a name: it’s called “paying a courtesy call on a colleague.”
A visiting warrior will be shown around, say, training fields and armory by another warrior, quite likely after the training grounds have been carefully swept to avoid any hints of new formations and any improved weapons have been hidden away. The hostlers will be given a tour of the stables, perhaps while the fastest stallion has been sent out to the country to breed. The cooks, of course, will be shown around the kitchens, the assistants having been carefully briefed to avoid working on the bread stuffed with goose liver pate or other secret recipes.
Hence the problem: no dan’shir to show me around, carefully leading me away from the local puzzles.
Lord Orazhi was still looking at me. “Do you have a suggestion?”
I smiled. “Of course, Lord. I’d love to pay a courtesy call on your courtesans.”
I had solved that puzzle correctly: instead of calling for the nearest guard to hack off my head for impertinence, Orazhi smiled. Not getting killed is always a good omen.
“The huntsman, I think,” he said, considering. “I’ve heard you’re quite a bowman, perhaps you can teach him some things.”
I bowed. There would be worse things in the world than going out to the hunting preserve, and away from the nobility.
“And the wizard,” he said. “The huntsman this afternoon, the wizard tonight.”
Toshtai nodded his assent. “Enjoy yourself, Kami Dan’Shir. I will likely send for you tomorrow.”
Minch waited patiently a few paces away, a tall slender woman at his side. Her robes’ print repeated a stylized lion on its
hind legs, the bright yellows, warm browns, and dark greens setting off Minch’s crimson and gray. She eyed me openly, then returned my bow with a slight nod.
I was trying to decide whether or not courtesy called for me to say something when Minch dismissed me with a flick of his wrist.
“Good day to you,” Toshtai said, making it clear that my presence was no longer required.
While one white-clad servitor brought up a tray for Minch, another led me away.
As it turned out, I already knew Orazhi’s chief huntsman, although I hadn’t known that I knew him.
No, that’s a bit too complicated. Back when I was with the troupe, when the troupe passed through Glen Derenai, I struck up an acquaintance with JenNa, the daughter of the gamekeeper.
A lovely girl, with straight black hair that hung down to the middle of her back, and eyes that were none the less warm for being blue. I first met her when she was starting to become slender rather than skinny, and we got to know each other somewhat better on my subsequent passes through Glen Derenai.
She wasn’t as special to me as my NaRee had been, of course, but JenNa had an easy smile and a musical laugh that echoed down the country lanes as she ran and hid, and she was warm in the dark, her knotted muscles playing under her soft skin that felt different for being so sunbronzed.
She was also long gone, and had been gone the last time I’d been through Glen Derenai; I had heard that she had taken some passing lord’s fancy, and he had made her one of his concubines. Not a bad deal for a bourgeois girl, by and large; she would be particularly marriageable if the lord were to release her, or taken care of for life if not.
I wished her well.
She was long gone, but her father, Penkil Ner Condigan, still looked at me the way he used to, back when I would come to call on his daughter. Of course, then I had been calling at the gamekeeper’s cottage, not at the door of the chief huntsman’s studio in the bourgeois wing of the main donjon of Glen Derenai.
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