Steelhands
Page 39
It certainly sounded a lot like a dream Toverre’d once had. I could tell he was excited, but he was doing his best to tone it down for my benefit.
I wasn’t made for waiting around while somebody else did all the work. Some people got so caught up in worrying about what consequences their actions might have that they never did anything at all, but that wasn’t how Da’d taught me to be, even if he had wanted to teach those skills to a son, not a daughter. My personality made it so that I had trouble sitting still, especially when someone I cared about was in trouble.
I could tell the others were starting to get worried about my mood from the way they all kept looking at me like I was a kettle about to boil at any second. But nobody said anything, not wanting to set me off.
The problem was, we couldn’t do anything until Royston came back. To me, it seemed like the regular dungeons weren’t good enough for Adamo, and even if he was there, did I really believe it’d be that easy to get to him? We had to get some information first. The cover of night would be good, too; less conspicuous moving around with a big group in the dark, especially if it turned out our companion Balfour was next on the list of wrongfully arrested.
So it was real nice of Adamo’s friend to help us and all, but I was starting to think he was talking to everyone in the city with how long he was taking.
And if anything happened to Adamo because he’d needed to tell every story starting from the date of his birth and what the weather was like that night, I was probably going to hit under the belt, whether he was a Margrave or not.
The clock downstairs shrieked for seven seconds, then cut off.
“I’d say it’s time for dinner,” Luvander suggested, clasping his hands together. “I’ll put something together while we wait—no use going into this on an empty stomach.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Breakfast, maybe; I’d gone to speak with Adamo during lunch, so I hadn’t had time to eat anything then. It seemed frivolous to worry about eating at a time like this, but then again, people were rash and stupid when they got hungry. I’d put food in my mouth, but only if it meant helping Adamo.
“I’m going to have trouble feeding all of you, I can tell,” Luvander added, halfway to the door. “Does anyone here dislike cooked tomato?”
Nobody answered, but that was because I’d heard the sound of a large thud from the room below, and I hushed everyone so fiercely they actually listened.
We were quiet for a few long moments, before Luvander dared to speak up. “Do you suppose that’s the Margrave Royston?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t he ring the bell?” I retorted, which was only what he’d been thinking and wanted someone to confirm his suspicions by saying it.
There wasn’t a single person in the sitting room whose nerves weren’t on edge. Everyone was waiting for something awful to happen—whether it was bad news or soldiers finding out our whereabouts and descending on us without any warning.
I looked around the room for something I could use as a weapon, and my eyes landed on the collection of pokers for the fireplace. There were only three of them, but Toverre probably shouldn’t be given one anyway. He could stay behind and defend the fortress.
“Excellent thinking,” Luvander said, moving quickly and noiselessly to pass them out. “Sorry, young man. It seems you’ve been left out.”
“Too dirty for him anyway,” I muttered.
Toverre delicately wiped his palms on the front of his vest. “I will do what I can to help,” he whispered.
Just then, there was another thud, louder and closer to us. It was coming from the direction of the stairs, I realized, and I drew myself up to my full height, poker in hand.
“I wish I’d thought to lock the sitting-room door,” Luvander said thoughtfully. “How clever that would have been.”
“This reminds me of whenever Rook came back from the ’Fans,” Balfour added; there was a hint of humor in his grimness that I appreciated in a soldier.
“Now, don’t attack all at once, just in case we aren’t under siege,” Luvander suggested. “Then again, what do I know? The targets were all so much easier once.”
“I’ll stand in front,” Balfour offered.
I was about to tell him not to bother when something slammed into the door, throwing it wide-open.
From first glance, I could tell it wasn’t Royston, because whoever it was, he was way too tall. I shouted and Luvander joined me—because he was crazy, I was beginning to suspect—and then I threw myself, with my weapon, at the nearest weak spot. I’d been aiming for the intruder’s head, but because of his height, I must’ve miscalculated, and hit his shoulder instead.
I connected solidly, at least, but the blow merely glanced off the bone.
“See, Raphael?” a deep voice said. “That’s why I went first.”
“Ghislain?” Luvander asked, still wielding his poker—though I could’ve told him it wouldn’t do any good against a giant like this one. He’d ignored mine like I’d hit him with a stalk of wheat.
“I’ve gotten warmer welcomes from merchant ships,” the man said, looking down at me. “And I rob merchant ships.”
“You could have rung the bell like a normal person,” Luvander huffed, trying to peer around Ghislain’s shoulder. It was a tough job, seeing as how he didn’t quite come up to it.
“Had a surprise for you,” the giant named Ghislain said.
“Did …” Balfour trailed off, and when I glanced over toward him, he was pale as a ghost. Or maybe like he’d seen a ghost. “Did you say Raphael?”
“Thank the bastion,” came another voice from behind Ghislain’s huge body, which was blocking up the door like a live barricade. “I was starting to wonder if you’d all forgotten about me.”
“Get out of the way,” Luvander said, grabbing Ghislain by the arm and pulling him into the room. It looked a lot like a canary trying to move a wolfhound, but to my surprise, Ghislain actually gave way.
Sure enough, there’d been another man standing behind him—like Ghislain needed anyone else for backup, since he was clearly a one-man army. At first glance, the other man reminded me a bit of Toverre, overly thin and pale, with black curly hair that had wiry bits of white in it—the way I’d always imagined Toverre would get someday after a certain amount of time living in the big, dirty world. He cocked his head at me curiously, clearly about to ask who the hell I was, then I couldn’t see him at all because Luvander had thrown himself across my field of vision, nearly knocking the other man down the stairs.
It looked like a surprise attack more than an embrace, and when Balfour rushed in, I assumed it was to pull Luvander off. Did they have some history together, I wondered, some kind of blood feud?
But despite having seemed like a sensible enough young man before, Balfour joined in, instead—though with a measure more trepidation than Luvander had shown.
Feeling out of place, not to mention confused, I took a step back and nearly tripped over Toverre, who’d come up behind me like a shadow.
“Watch it,” I muttered crossly.
“Don’t you know who that is?” Toverre hissed, eyes on the spectacle by the door.
“Big man called him Raphael,” I said, noticing the big man in question standing to one side of the fray. He wasn’t showing any signs of joining the party; I figured that was probably a good sign since he was big enough to crush the three of them with one arm, and wouldn’t that put a damper on the nice mood? “Guess they know him from somewhere.”
“You didn’t even look at those statues once, did you?” Toverre whispered, giving me a look of intense disappointment. “You spent all your time drawing those dragons, but you never once put your mind to the men who flew them! Laure, he’s another airman. But there were only two more left alive! One of them was Ghislain, and the other—if you’ll recall Balfour mentioning his name—was Rook. Arguably the most famous. Which means—”
“Oh,” I said, understanding flooding me all at once.
Raphael had managed to fight his way free in the last few seconds, looking at least less deathly pale than he had before, now that he was flushed with exertion. Luvander was grinning like a maniac, and even Balfour looked pleased, if also pink and embarrassed over going wild like that. I didn’t blame him for letting loose, though. Seemed to me like people spent too much time in the country and in Thremedon on trying to hide what they were really feeling—and so long as it wasn’t a rude feeling, then what did it matter, letting it show?
I’d’ve greeted Toverre the same way, probably. Maybe I’d even do the same with Adamo, if we ever got to see him again.
“Honestly, Ghislain, when you said you were looking for ‘something,’ I never imagined …” Luvander trailed off, seeming confused because, probably for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to say. I only hoped Ghislain had a whole cartful of his old companions to render Luvander speechless more often. “I mean I never thought … Well, would you listen to me? It’s a fine state of affairs indeed when I can’t even form a complete sentence! No, I’ve changed my mind; don’t listen to me. Everyone pay close attention to Balfour instead.”
Balfour looked startled, then resigned himself to the fact that everyone was staring at him now, and he was still flushed as a schoolboy caught in a snowstorm.
“Just like old times,” Raphael said, looking about the room. “Well, perhaps not exactly. There are more hats downstairs, for instance. And this lovely woman is far too young for you, Luvander. I can see I arrived just in time to prevent a crime from taking place.”
“How do you know she isn’t Balfour’s woman?” Luvander asked. “It seems to me an egregious oversight.”
“Because she’s not Balfour’s type,” Raphael replied simply.
“You want her for yourself,” Luvander huffed. “I’ll have you know that she’s spoken for. Not to mention that if you continue talking about her in this way, I’m quite certain she’ll attack us both with a fire poker.”
“It’s true,” I said, twirling it in my hand to show I hadn’t forgotten. I appreciated Luvander speaking up for me, though, so some people didn’t think I was an object instead of a person.
“New recruits?” Ghislain asked, and Toverre jumped a little, almost like he’d forgotten he was there. Even though Ghislain was three times Luvander’s size, he was three hundred times quieter. “One of them’s scrawny. Jumps a lot. Like a field mouse.”
“We’re here because Adamo’s been arrested,” I said, letting the reminder of what was actually going on sink in for myself as much as everyone else. I didn’t blame them for getting caught up in the moment, but just because there was another airman walking around now didn’t mean we could afford to forget about the other one, who’d been alive all this time but might not be alive for much longer.
“Really? Thought he was teaching,” Ghislain said.
“He was,” I said, while Luvander and Balfour returned their pokers to the fireplace. I held on to mine for a while longer. It was calming me down some to have it in my hand. “That’s how I met him.”
“Oh, I see,” Raphael said, settling himself on Luvander’s couch. He made a big show of it, but I could tell he was tired and grateful not to be on his feet anymore. “Well, it’s a minor infraction at best, and they can’t necessarily prove the two of you did anything untoward unless you testify against him.”
“Beg pardon?” I asked. I was starting to wish Raphael had come in through the door first, so I could’ve clonked him one instead. Might’ve finished him off, though, the way he was looking.
“It’s not exactly like that,” Balfour said, sitting down next to Raphael. He couldn’t keep his eyes off him—like he thought if he blinked, the man was gonna disappear. “We can explain it all later, but the Esar seems to have taken exception to some of Adamo’s actions. He thinks Adamo was plotting against him.”
“Seems like I picked a perfect time to drop anchor,” Ghislain said. “Could’ve sailed all the way up to the Kirils and back first, make myself a nest egg, but Raphael here was feeling homesick.”
“You’d be feeling homesick, too, if you’d spent every day between the end of the war and now in a fisherman’s village,” Raphael pointed out. “I’ll be smelling tuna in my dreams for the rest of my life.”
“Just pretend it’s mermaids,” Ghislain suggested, lowering himself into one of Luvander’s chairs, which creaked ominously under his weight.
“That would ruin all my other dreams,” Raphael replied dryly. “The good ones.”
“Are you going to tell us where you found him?” Luvander asked, setting an enormous pot on the stove and bringing a few fat, shiny eggplants out of a drawer above the counter. How on earth he could be thinking about dinner at a time like this was beyond me, but I guess that was the difference between me and a trained airman. They knew to eat when the eating was good and probably didn’t lose their dinners in the air if the flying got too rough.
Probably. I’d have to ask Adamo about that, too, someday.
“Not to mention how you even …” Balfour began, then trailed off as his voice cracked. “I mean, none of us even knew that you were alive.”
“Neither did I, for about two weeks after the war ended,” Raphael admitted, rubbing at a scar I hadn’t noticed before—it curved down from the corner of his mouth, twisting his mouth into a jester’s grimace when he wasn’t talking. I had to wonder if he’d gotten it during the real fighting, or sometime after, by offending someone in his fishing village. “I got thrown well clear of Natalia in the final battle, which is what might’ve saved me, come to think of it—especially considering what happened to her when she … exploded. I was taken in by a young woman fleeing the capital—returning home to her village by the sea, more accurately, wanting to get out of that mess. And who can really blame her? I believe she took pity on me because I reminded her of her brother, and that’s … about all I managed to gather, really. The Ke-Han language is a terribly difficult one to master. Mostly we signed to get the point across.” To illustrate, Raphael made a lewd gesture in the air that caused Luvander to laugh richly, while Balfour looked away and blushed. “Yeah, she got that one all right. So did her father, unfortunately. Apparently it’s universal, and he was none too pleased. But when I was brought to the village, suddenly all this good luck started happening to its people. The ocean was full of these giant, silver-scaled fish, practically floating to the top of the water. For a simple little town, they were starting to turn a major profit. And they considered me their good-luck charm. Despite my behavior, they tended my wounds, fed me plenty of horrible food, and put me up. And all I had to do was sit there and babble to them in Volstovic—of which they didn’t understand a single word—to secure my position as god of the fishy seas.”
“You’re making all this up,” Luvander accused.
“Only some of it,” Raphael replied.
“I was sailing around Tado when I started hearing rumors about a crazed foreigner living as a fisherman near the Seon border,” Ghislain interjected, clearly sensing that Raphael was becoming sidetracked. At least one of these ex-airmen knew how to get to the point. “Didn’t seem like anything to get excited about. You know how many crazies this country churns out. But I wanted to check it out, just to be sure. Some of the descriptions matched.”
“And some indicated I had a massive penis,” Raphael added cheerfully. “A rumor which my friend the fisherman’s daughter must have spread after bathing my naked body with seawater to break my fever. Oh, dear, I forgot there was a lady present.”
“So you just … found him?” Balfour asked, eyes wide like a kid up way past his bedtime. “He was really there?”
“Must’ve been,” Ghislain pointed out.
“Fearsome pirates landed in our village and terrorized its residents first,” Raphael corrected, crossing his legs and folding his hands atop his knees, “because of all the extra fish they were exporting and money they were importing. Funny how good luck works that way, isn’t it? In any case, I was quite prepared to defend my newfound home—as their foreign benefactor, refusing to abandon them in their time of need—when I realized that I recognized one of the principal threats. Imagine my surprise!”
“Spent the next three days going on and on at those people in sign language, trying to convince them not to burn my boat and hang me,” Ghislain said, rolling his eyes.
“I told them it would be bad luck,” Raphael explained. “Very, very bad.”
Ghislain snorted. “We could’ve taken ’em, though. Little village like that? Would’ve been easy.”
“Yes, well, excuse me for retaining some form of gratitude toward the people who took me in and saved my life,” Raphael said with a sniff.
“Wasted time,” Ghislain said. “Could’ve been here sooner; maybe Adamo wouldn’t’ve been hauled off as easily with somebody actually looking after things.”
I was starting to like this Ghislain fellow, or at least the way he thought. Judging by the look on Toverre’s face, he preferred Raphael—though probably for different reasons.
Life was going to be rough for my husband-to-be.
“At least you returned just in time for our rescue mission,” Luvander said. “Whatever it may be.”
“Some rescue,” Ghislain said, cracking the knuckles on his left hand. “We busting him out with our minds? I sure hope the scrawny one’s a velikaia.”
“We’re using someone else’s mind, actually,” Luvander said, leaning back against his countertop. “That is, we’re waiting for Margrave Royston to return and give us the go-ahead.”
“Ah.” Raphael sighed. “How strange is fate!”
“Not really,” Ghislain grunted. “Just that some things, in some places, never change.”
“Well, they’re going to have to change,” I said, “unless th’Esar’s the type of man who pardons someone after calling him out as a criminal.”