“We are badly divided already, I don’t want you leaving me till we have a plan and I don’t want to head back down to the Library, unless it is on the way?” She looked to the philosopher, their guide, but he just shook his head. The philosopher took her look to be his cue, and he walked across the terrace to join them.
“We’ll be heading out the West Gate directly,” he said. “The farm is a considerable walk from here, but I think that we can get there by half-sun, if you are ready?”
Brea frowned. She didn’t mind marching on an empty stomach, but she hadn’t in the last few years. Perhaps she was getting soft, but she felt that she needed Waylaid for this problem. The gifts of the Good Father let him know the answer, where she would just have to guess. The Blessed Mother didn’t speak to her now, as she had in her youth, so she had to rely on an instinct for Her will. It wasn’t as sure.
The Blessed Mother’s Answer was good for most problems. Spirits usually fled from the Mother’s blessed iron, but some sorcerers built golems, or constructs, which could put up a fight. Over the last century, Answerer had cleaved a hundred monsters, creations of the Fomor sorcery. Certainly Answerer had solved any problem Brea had ever faced. But Waylaid understood sorcery. If this was a more complicated problem than a monster to kill, she wanted him here, and she wanted him safe.
“Mistress Brea,” said Piju, “while we wait for Keynan, Waylaid, and Oren, we should have a meal, as I suspect you have not eaten yet today, and I have not been home since sunrise.”
Piju did not note the mild dishonesty in those statements, neglecting to mention that he had eaten at the slave quarters. He was sixteen years of age, and his life tended to focus on eating regularly, or possibly a beautiful woman and eating regularly.
“I don’t think my home is any closer, or I would head off myself.” Their philosopher guide looked about unhappily. “I can’t think of anyone to guest us without wasting more than half a day.”
“I don’t particularly want to head back down the hill,” Brea said, “though I suspect that might keep me from a day of fast.”
“Mistress, this is feast day, not a fast day,” interjected Piju. “I know the six-banded Philosopher Guillem has a pig prepared for noon. If we could secure an invitation to his feast…”
“Guillem the Bald?” asked the guide.
“I have heard he had but a strip of hair around…” Piju made a motion circling his head. “I only know him from his slaves, I don’t know how he is called outside of his own house.”
The guide looked discomfited for a moment, then recovered.
“That is him, at any rate, and I should introduce myself. My family was noble, until my father lost his lands for arguing with the king. So, rather than bore you with a long name nobody uses, I am called Caeshy, which is short for curly hair.” He pointed to his generous mop of dark red curls. “Feel free to call me Caesh or Caeshy.
“Boy!” he shouted for one of the numerous white-coated children who ran messages for the palace. “Find Guillem and tell him that Caeshy the Nameless would like invitation with guests to his lunch.” The boy repeated the message and then ran, kicking his feet up to show his bare toes as he ran.
Brea looked about her, hoping that Waylaid would somehow find his way to her.
“I hope he isn’t in trouble,” she said.
Piju didn’t look worried.
“Nobody here could hurt Master Waylaid. Before his shoulder was a…” He fumbled for the Ruad word.
“Dislocated,” Brea provided.
“Yes mistress, dislocated. Waylaid picked up a fully grown Fomor and hurled him over a cliff. Since his left arm has been healed, by the grace of the Blessed Mother, he could probably do that feat again now.”
“I hadn’t heard that story,” said Brea, “and you’ve told your fair share of stories.”
“It isn’t ready, yet. I haven’t heard Waylaid’s part of it.”
Caeshy leaned into their conversation.
“That sounds remarkable. I can’t imagine a man being able to lift a giant, even a man twice as big as I am. Are they lighter than they look?”
“No,” said Piju. “You don’t understand how strong he is. Waylaid knocks down walls,” he paused dramatically, “by mistake.”
Piju thought of a second example. “Once, when we were in the South, he took a Bolg arrow in the shoulder.” Piju mimed an arrow stabbing into his left shoulder, grabbing the invisible arrow in his right fist. “He thought the poison made his arm feel better. It was dislocated at the time.”
He looked at the two of them, and their faces showed a mix of disbelief and alarm.
“No disrespect, mistress, you are probably the greatest fighter in Ard, but if Waylaid wanted you dead, well, he could snap you like a twig. I honestly don’t think that there is anyone in Ard that could hurt him.”
The boy came running back. With a couple of skips, he brought himself to a complete stop, taking a deep breath and composing himself before he spoke.
“Master Guillem son of Artian would be honored by the attendance of the esteemed philosopher Caeshy and his equally esteemed Daen charges at his feast day celebration.”
Caeshy nodded at the boy. “Thank you.” He dug in his pocket for a copper ring. “Is his home in the square, somewhere near?”
The boy took the ring gladly.
“He’s right on the South edge of the courtyard, first house from the corner.”
“Tell him we’ll meet him there. It is the hour of noon and we are starving.”
The boy ran ahead of them to the house, yelled in the front door, then raced back past them toward the Hall of Thrones. He was panting heavily, but clearly setting to work with a will.
It wasn’t a walk of fifty paces to his house, but this gave them a short while to observe the homes of those the king kept within the palace gates. The houses on the south side of the courtyard were all large, several stories at least, and solidly made of whitewashed stone. The smell of cloves and cooking boar wafted from the nearest, along with the sounds of a house full of servants.
“Dragon’s Gate, but that pig smells good,” Oren looked unhappy, “but I’ve got to go. I’ll catch up to you once I’ve checked out the Library. I’ll bring Berin, if I can. I’ll also send a messenger to Keynan to make sure he finds the Western Gate by half-sun. And I’ll call out your guard. I’m not sure of what is going on, but I don’t want you endangered.”
“Thank you, Oren.” Brea said. “Perhaps there will be something back at the Library to eat, you never know.”
“I’ll be back here before you eat all the pig.” Oren smiled and handed Answerer to Piju. “Keep it near her right hand, would you? I’d stay, but I expect I am needed at the Library. Somebody has to watch her back, and with Master Keynan and me gone, it has to be you.”
Piju nodded solemnly and took the heavy blade from Oren. Mistress Brea was quietly shocked but made no expression on her face. She realized that if she didn’t trust her people, no one else would.
“It will be just you then?” Caeshy asked, confused.
Mistress Brea looked at him and pretended to ignorance.
“Oren will be in later, so it will be Piju, Oren, and I.”
Caeshy swallowed and attempted a wan smile. “Very good.” He stood before the door to Guillam’s home and clapped loudly twice.
The door was opened by a lovely young woman, clearly a Ruad. She wore a fine yellow linen tunic, much like Brea’s. She wasn’t wearing court robes or any kind of uniform, so Brea thought that she must be a daughter of the master of the house.
“Happy Midsummer’s Day!” she said. “Welcome to Artian House, designated one of the ten Master households of the Philosopher’s guild.”
“We are pleased to accept your invitation,” said Caeshy, and he raised his fingertips to her. She turned the back of her hands to him, and he tapped them gently with his fingertips.
“You are the first to arrive,” she said. “The feast will be in the courtyard, but
would you mind waiting here?”
“Of course not,” said Caeshy and allowed them to be led into the large room directly within the front door. There were several cushioned benches, rich fabrics covered the walls, and delicate music was being played by a trio of servants.
Caeshy smiled at the servants.
“Oh, these are an excellent group.” His finger waved at the triplet rhythm of the hand drum, a bodhran, played by an older fellow, whose hair had gone completely white. The youngest, a girl barely of journeyman age, trilled a small pipe gently up and down a handful of notes, sounding remarkably like a bird song. An older woman, her hair still golden, thrummed a deep bass note on a floor harp.
A servant entered bearing a large brass pitcher of wine. Caeshy turned to the water dish at the end of the room, keeping up conversation, while Brea and Piju smiled uncomfortably.
“He’s displayed these musicians before the King before, though I think he had a different piper.” He lifted a small copper cup from beside the brass bowl and admired it for a moment. The cup was richly engraved and worked. He half-filled the cup with water from a brass bowl and then held it out for a small dollop of wine from the patient servant. Caeshy sipped at the watered wine.
“Excellent. Would you like any, Mistress Brea?”
Brea said no but did sink down on the cushioned bench at the end of the room. The colors were light, and the breeze through the windows was cooler, somewhat refreshing for her pounding head.
“You know,” Caeshy continued. “He is only a rank beneath me, but I don’t expect it will be long until he outranks me. His brother is already being considered for his eighth band. His father held the king’s plate, ninth-banded, but he died unexpectedly…which does happen an awful lot at ninth, you know.”
The young woman escorted in a party of five and made introductions. They all stared wide-eyed at the Bolg but deigned to touch fingertips with Caeshy. He unceremoniously blocked them from greeting Brea in the same way. She realized that court politics would be abuzz with whoever had her ear. Caeshy was clearly attuned to politics. He didn’t seem to mind eating with these lesser philosophers, but he wasn’t stupid enough to give away his prize Daen. Brea smiled at thinking herself a prize Daen.
Some future Ruad court would have discussions about Daen plans or Daen ideas; the man who had interviewed the Judge for several hours would be in a better position to argue. Part of being a successful philosopher was thinking ahead. Brea realized that proper education of the Ruad would be thinking ahead for her as well and might lead to less unfortunate incidents.
What should he know before it causes a problem? She wondered.
A second and third group entered, with a couple of stragglers between. Most wore their banded robes, though a few men who might have belonged to either third or fourth rank chose not to. Caeshy was easily the highest ranking philosopher present. The next highest who was wearing the bands on his sleeves was an older philosopher only of the fourth band. Caeshy spoke with him in low tones while Brea and Piju sat comfortably on the bench, wondering at the richness of the house.
There were three rooms that could be seen from their vantage, all decorated in the same style. They each had stone-tiled floors covered with woven mats. The heavy oak furniture was smooth, well rubbed and oiled to a glistening pale luster. There were many places to sit, with three or four long benches in each room, and a wide table that the groups tended to congregate around. The tapestries were bold geometric things of a metallic cloth Brea recognized as imported from Murias, though she didn’t know what it was called. The predominant shade was red, but there was green and yellow frequently as well.
Even hemmed into a corner, Brea found it a comfortable house. One you could move in without worrying about broken furniture. Walls you could enjoy looking at for a while. Since she was sitting down, the people didn’t seem so small, and the furniture was well-sized for a Daen.
“Come, come, let us eat immediately.” Guillem suddenly entered, throwing back the door curtains and striding into the room. Guillem, even on this unusually hot day, had his full robes present and was displaying six red bands prominently on both inner and outer robes. The effect made him seem to be the impossible twelfth rank, three higher than the king himself, before the optical illusion was resolved.
The king performed much the same feat of garments at the formal meetings, so that the stripes of each robe overlapped into an uncountable jumble. The red-dyed linen was not particularly beautiful, but the Ruad treated each stripe like a ring of silver from fabled Gorias, hand delivered across the Sea of Storms.
Guillem was a big man of noble proportions. He was both tall and heavily built for a Ruad, though still a hand shorter than Brea. He approached Caeshy and greeted him, touching fingertips.
“You do me great honor in bringing our guests here.” He shot a questioning look at Piju and spoke in High Ruad, which used hand gestures and intonations to adjust meanings.
“Is it debate profile antagonist wise to have a wild uneducated Bolg among us? Those lesser creatures are known un-debatable quantity thieves.”
Piju didn’t react. Brea looked over to the young hunter and caught him staring through the doorway as it opened, looking out at the slaves preparing the meal. As Guillem spoke in a stilted Ruad, Piju didn’t seem to understand that he was being spoken of. He simply smiled fixedly in the general direction of their host, his eyes canting to the left into the brightly lit courtyard. He smiled gently and Brea wondered what his eye had seen that hers had missed.
Mistress Brea stared at Master Guillem, thinking this moment through thoroughly. She suddenly saw the deeper practice of her esteemed clerk Oren. It was a terribly cynical move, but it presented her with a perfect reply.
“Do you see debate profile respondent what he is holding evidence submitted, Master?”
Her High Ruad, only learned and practiced in the last year, was as accurate as most philosophers’. Of course, the Ruad had learned their hand signs from the Fomor, and Brea had no lack of practice with her Fomor priest.
Guillem frowned. He seemed concerned that an outsider, though perhaps not a lesser race, would understand the finer points of philosophical debate. Brea looked to Caeshy, and he seemed equally disturbed. Seeing his potential rival for future ranks hesitate, he simply smiled and with a pass of his hand, waived his opportunity to join in.
“Of course, I recognize evidence accepted the sword of our esteemed guest Mistress Brea, called ‘Answerer.’” He garbled the translation, calling it ‘Dannan Debate Profile Respondent’ but the meaning was clear enough with his gesture.
“Simply spoken summarizing argument, there is no other weapon like that in all of Pywer, or perhaps anywhere. That sword has un-debatable quantity value, greater than the city of Ard.”
Brea smiled, letting the moment build.
“I let him carry it.” She did not invite his response.
“Shall we eat?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Guillem smiled at his guest and accepted her statement as a loss for him. He dropped his speech into common Ruad, so that he could take the arm of the seven-banded philosopher.
“Let me escort you to our highest table.” They stepped into the courtyard, and the linen awning cracked in a sudden breeze. Dust and the smell of the city forced its way into the inner courtyard. Even with the walls of the house between them and the noise and the push of people, Ard found its way inside.
But unlike the bright walls outside, the inner walls were dark, and the roof tiles were plain bronze. In the awning’s shade, the courtyard was cooler than the house, and in the heat of the noon hour, the cool breeze was welcome. The smell of pork and spices overwhelmed even Ard’s best efforts and formed a small island of serenity in the heart of the city.
The guests were moving to a dozen spaces at three tables. A fourth table was unoccupied; it held five place settings. Each setting was a plate and cup of brilliant yellow brass, equal in luster to any gold. The knife and spoon were set
next to each plate, as well as a fine linen napkin. In the center of each table was a bowl of water boiled with mint for drinking.
There were four Bolg slaves, guiding each man to his seat. They were all women, but they ranged in age from a young girl of barely twelve to an older woman who could easily be past thirty. They seemed focused on their work, but as the owner entered, each stopped and bowed deeply to him. Guillem grinned broadly at each lovely woman.
The philosophers at the lower tables each came to their seats, standing politely behind the benches. Guillem, Brea, Caeshy, and Piju each found a seat at the high table.
“I assume your other compatriot will be here soon?” Guillem asked.
“Absolutely,” said Mistress Brea, “but please don’t wait on our account.”
“Excellent” he said, and clapped once, loudly. The guests sat down, and the slaves scurried across the courtyard into the kitchen, returning with four large sections of a pig on wooden platters. The pig had been slow roasted into a delicacy that the guests would find could be pulled apart with their fingers.
On a second trip, the slaves provided half-loaves of bread to each plate, a light airy loaf solely made of wheat with no barley or lesser grains. Servants were carrying pitchers of wine to top off each cup as they passed. Piju had only half-filled his cup with water, but no wine was poured within. Brea hadn’t expected it, but was subtly aggravated in any case. It wasn’t like a servant would serve a Bolg, no matter how high ranking.
Piju made certain that Answerer’s quillions were secured by the thumb tab to the sheath. Beneath his vest, Piju was still wearing the traditional leather baldrics which hung from each shoulder and crossed in the center of his chest. The end of Answerer’s sheath had a fishtail of brasswork, which formed two hooks facing left and right. He slid the sword behind his back and pushed the tip of the sheath up under his vest till it hit the cross-baldrics. Working with both hands behind his back, he slid the tip of the sheath under the leather belts just below his shoulder. Pulling it back down, it snagged against the belt, holding the sword securely with the hilt banging against the side of the chair.
The Broken Man Page 15