The Spark

by David Drake

  “And justice?” I said.

  “Justice is the province of God,” Guntram said. “I won’t speculate on that.”

  I drank more beer. It was sharper than the ale I was used to, but I could get used to it.

  “Guntram?” I said. “Do you think I could defeat Baran? I know, you’re not a warrior, but you’ve seen a lot of combats.”

  Guntram poured himself a little more wine. “We’ll work on that,” he said. “I have some ideas.”

  * * *

  After dinner we went down to the practice hall together. Guntram configured a machine to duplicate the techniques of Lord Baran as gathered from every time Baran had used the hall himself.

  The machine whipped me solidly three times running before I called it quits for the night.

  * * *

  I was up early the next morning. I hoped I was done with those dizzy spells, though I couldn’t be sure until I’d died without it happening again.

  Which would be soon enough, if I didn’t do better against Baran in the flesh than I was managing with his image on the machines. I did two more trials first thing after I got up, and I got hammered both times.

  Guntram was taking notes. I didn’t ask what they were about.

  After I showered, I went back to Guntram’s quarters and put on one of my good outfits: the blue one, I decided. It was the one I’d worn when May took me out to the Consort’s garden. I don’t know if that was an accident or not. I was pretty confused when I tried to think about anything except what was right in front of me, so I just focused down on that.

  “Guntram,” I said, “I need to talk to the Consort.”

  “I see,” said Guntram. “Do you want me to come with you? I don’t know where she is at present, but I’m sure I could learn.”

  “I think it’s better just me,” I said. “And I’ll ask May. She’ll know, and she got me into this.”

  I went out and walked down to the Consort’s suite, nodding to servants I met on the way. Some of them met my eyes and muttered, “Lord,” but mostly they just scuttled by with their heads turned away. It wasn’t anything about me, they just didn’t expect to be noticed by Champions.

  I really wanted to get out of Dun Add. Wanted to go back to Beune, I might’ve said, but that wasn’t really true. I’d done a good thing at Castle Ariel and maybe a better one in the other place, when I’d freed the Beast’s ancestor. I couldn’t have done those things if I’d stayed in Beune.

  But I now was in Dun Add, so I’d do my duty here.

  The guards at the cross-corridor watched me coming toward them. I wondered what I’d do if they told me to take myself off, but I said, “I need to see Lady May,” as firmly as I could manage.

  “Of course, milord,” one said. He actually bowed to me.

  They think I’m somebody, I realized. That bothered me just about as much as being sent away because I didn’t belong here would have, but this was better for what I wanted to do.

  I rapped on the door. “It’s Pal,” I called. “Hoping to talk to Lady May.”

  I was wondering how long to wait before I knocked again—and at the back of my mind, wondering what to try next if nobody answered at all—when the door jerked open. “Pal, come in!” May said. She closed the door as soon as I’d slipped through.

  Fabric-covered wooden frames had been unfolded in front of the bay windows, making the large entrance hall much dimmer than I’d expected. My eyes took a moment to adapt; the corridor was much brighter because of the south-facing windows on the top tier.

  Counting May, I saw four women. One held the long-necked banjo that I’d seen before, but she wasn’t playing it. Another lay on the stone floor, snoring. She’d been holding a goblet, but it had fallen from her hand, denting the rim slightly. It was empty. On a round table stood decanters, some of them nearly empty also.

  “Lord Pal, I’m glad to see you,” May said. She glanced around her companions. “We’re all glad to see you. We’ve been, well, dismayed by what’s been going on, but if there’s anything we can do, just ask. Please ask.”

  The other two women were watching us hard, but they didn’t say anything. The one with the banjo leaned it against the chair beside her.

  “Well, what I want…” I said. “What I need, I think. Is to talk to the Consort. I can’t be her Champion unless that’s what she wants.”

  “Yes, of course,” May said, turning at once to a wall-hanging of a dragon—some creature, anyhow—embroidered on maroon plush. She moved it aside and I saw behind it stairs going up instead of a stone wall. Over her shoulder she called, “She’s up in the tower.”

  I followed May’s slippers up the staircase inside the thick walls of the castle. Every ten feet or so there was a slit window that let in plenty of light for us.

  The slippers were pale green, like May’s dress. She had nice little feet and sturdy calves, though they were nice too.

  At the top we came to a little landing and a wooden door. May knocked on the door while I waited two steps below and leaned my head forward so that I could watch.

  “Jolene, open up,” May called through the door. “We need to talk to you.”

  Nothing happened. May made a sour face and took a small brass key from a pocket I hadn’t noticed. Before she could fit it into the lock, the door opened.

  “Come in, dear, come—” Jolene said. Then she saw me and twitched back. “Who’s that!”

  I almost didn’t recognize the Consort. She was wearing the night dress that she must’ve slept in. Her hair was mussed and her face looked puffy. She hadn’t been drinking, though, or at least not so much that I could hear it in her voice.

  “Jolene, this is Lord Pal,” May said. The Consort hadn’t tried to slam the door shut, but May was pushing against it just in case she did. “He’s agreed to stand as your Champion at the trial by combat, but he wants to talk with you first.”

  “Him?” said Jolene, really looking at me instead of just seeing a man on the landing when she expected May alone. “What’s happened to Clain?”

  I wondered if she remembered that we’d met. No real reason she should have, of course.

  “We don’t know what’s happened to Clain,” May said. I was pretty sure I heard exasperation in her voice, but she kept it buried pretty deep. “Lord Pal has generously left his estates to help you, Jolene. Can we please come in so that we can talk?”

  “Oh, it’s just so wrong,” the Consort said as she turned and flounced away from the door. She didn’t invite us in, but May waved me through and followed, closing and locking the door behind us. “I didn’t poison Gismonde! I liked Gismonde!”

  She led us onto what turned out to be a balcony. The view toward the hinterlands north of the castle that made me jerk back when I started through the door after her. I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but there’s no place in Beune you could get as high up as the top of this castle.

  I stepped out after I’d caught my breath. “I guess you could say we’re even now, ma’am,” I said. “You hadn’t expected me, and I—”

  I swept my hand up the valley.

  “—hadn’t been expecting this.”

  Jolene had sat down in a chair where there was a silver goblet on the little table beside it. There were two other chairs on the balcony, but May didn’t take one and I kept my shoulders firmly against the stone wall behind me.

  The landscape of hedged fields and blotches of forest seemed a very long way down. Occasionally I saw people moving. Small people…

  The Consort looked at me blankly. She had no idea what I was talking about; she was completely lost in her own dark misery, and the rest of us were just shadows drifting around the fringes of her awareness.

  “We all hope that Lord Clain will return in time to stand for you, dear,” May said, slipping into the chair nearer to the Consort. “But you know that messengers have returned from all the obvious places and there’s been no sign of him as yet.”

  She put her hand on Jolene’s elbow. “
Dear, I think we have to consider what will happen if Clain doesn’t arrive in time. My friend Lord Pal—”

  Jolene turned with a vicious expression. “Look at him!” she snarled. “He’d have no more chance against Baran than one of the potboys would! Where is Clain? Why doesn’t he come?”

  I kept my mouth shut and I think my face pretty calm. Given the way practice had been going, I’d do better against Baran than a potboy would—but not enough better to save the Consort’s life. Or mine either one, but I was here by choice.

  More fool me, I was thinking; but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Jolene, you’re being impolite!” May said, sharp as a branch cracking. “Clain isn’t here because he doesn’t know about the situation. Lord Pal is here, purely from a sense of justice. He owes you nothing, and the least you owe him is to be polite!”

  Jolene didn’t say anything for a moment, but I saw her tighten up. She sat straight and patted her hair with both hands. “I must look a fright,” she murmured; talking to herself, I suppose.

  She stood gracefully and turned to face me. Her face didn’t look puffy anymore, though I’d swear she was thirty years older than she’d been the first time I saw her up close.

  “Lord Pal…” she said. Her voice was as smooth as an organ note. “Our friend May is quite correct. My situation has caused me to be ungracious to a man to whom I owe a great debt. I trust that May will pay that in the fashion I cannot.”

  “Ma’am!” I said, and I stopped because there was no place I wanted to go with the subject. No place at all.

  “Jolene, Lord Pal is here because he’s a brave gentleman and he believes you’re innocent!” May said. She’d risen when her mistress did; now she slid sideways to put herself between Jolene and me. “He’s always behaved as a courteous friend to me and nothing more. He’s a decent man, dearest—as hard as it is for people like you and me to believe that sort of man exists.”

  “Of course, dear,” Jolene said calmly. She urged May aside gently with her arm, then curtseyed to me. “Lord Pal,” she said, “this really hasn’t been my day, has it? I’m deeply grateful for the kindness you’re showing to a woman whom you scarcely know. And who”—she gave a rueful smile—“has been behaving in a fashion to convince you that she’s unworthy of the consideration, I fear. Forgive me, please. I am honored by your kind offer, and I humbly accept it.”

  She smiled again. It was as sad an expression as I’ve ever seen on the face of a person who wasn’t crying. “Believe me,” she added, “I’ve learned a great deal about humility in these past few weeks.”

  I bowed. I wasn’t very good at it. “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I just needed to be sure I was doing what you wanted.”

  I sidled to the door off the balcony. “And ma’am?” I said. “Believe me, I want Lord Clain to show up even more than you do.”

  May was through the door right after me. The Consort didn’t leave the balcony while we were still in the tower room. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I didn’t open them again until May shut the door behind us.

  “Pal…” she said. She spoke softly, but the door was thick—and so was the one at the bottom end of the staircase. “I’m so sorry that happened. Jolene is trying very hard, but she hasn’t been herself since all this started. And it’s getting worse.”

  “She’s in a hard place,” I said. “She’s doing the best she can, I guess. We all do, pretty much.”

  “Pal, we’re not all as strong as you are,” May said, even quieter than before. She was looking toward one of the slit windows. It was high in the wall, so all she’d be able to see through it was clouds and sky. “But knowing you makes us, some of us, try to be as good as we can.”

  “I’m not strong,” I said, starting down the stairs. “I’m a kid from Beune, about as deep in the sticks as you can get, and I’m scared. But I said I was going to do this, and I am.”

  “Yes,” said May as I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. “Of course.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Various Maneuvering

  I’d got what I wanted from the Consort, so I suppose I ought to have felt good. I didn’t, not even close. I thought about going down to the practice room to work out what I was feeling, or maybe just go somewhere private to mope.

  I wasn’t really sure what I was feeling. Nothing that was going on was clear or good. Everything was like swirls in muddy water.

  Finally I decided that for me to crawl into a hole wasn’t going to help the problems that made me want to do that. Instead I’d do something else that I didn’t want to do. I couldn’t get more miserable than I felt right now.

  I walked out of the castle and through the town down to the landingplace. Baga and Maggie were living aboard my boat and taking care of Buck. I came out every day and went up the Road, searching for artifacts.

  There was more than you’d think close in to Dun Add like this, though everything I’d found so far was diddly stuff, so worn that I doubted it’d be any more use even to Guntram than pebbles from a stream bed. Mostly I was keeping my eye in, but there was always a chance of something more interesting; and besides, I’d seen Guntram do things with scraps that were as impossible as weaving cobwebs to me.

  “Baga, the master’s here!” Maggie called. She was hanging out wash—some of it mine—on a line strung between the boat’s stern and a post I’d set for her. Baga had been willing, but he didn’t have the experience in ordinary farm chores that I did, and he had blessed little talent for them either.

  Buck came bounding through the hatch and was rubbing hard against my legs when Baga followed. He looked a bit muzzy. “Sorry, boss,” he said. “You’re earlier today than I expected.”

  He’d been drinking the night before—been drunk, pretty clearly. Sitting at landingplace must be pretty boring, and I didn’t give Baga much to do. More muddy ripples.

  “Baga, do you know where Lord Baran lives?” I said. “I’ve heard he’s got a bungalow in Dun Add, but I don’t know where.”

  “Yessir, it’s out on the west road,” Baga said. “I asked around when we got here since it seemed you might want to know. You want me to take a message to him?”

  “I’d like you to guide me, actually,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”

  “You bet!” said Baga, brightening obviously.

  “Lord Pal?” said Maggie. “Can you wait just a moment while my husband changes into clean clothes? For seeing another noble, you see.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I want to get this over, Baga.”

  He popped back into the boat. I didn’t care what he wore—I doubted Baran would even see my servant, let alone bother about what he looked like. But Maggie cared, and there were stains from last night—or past nights—on the tunic Baga’d come out wearing.

  “Thank you, your lordship,” Maggie whispered.

  I nodded to her. There were lots of little things that made people happy. I wished I’d been better about doing them all my life, but I was sure trying now.

  Baga was out quick. He’d taken time to splash his face with water as well as change clothes. He waved back at Maggie as we and Buck set off up the slope.

  We didn’t talk much till we’d reached the castle and turned left. Close in, the buildings were pretty shabby—shops and lodging for castle servants, I figured—but before we’d gotten a half mile out from the castle, there were some really nice places.

  I was trying to go over what I’d say to Baran, but I didn’t know the big Champion well enough to imagine how he’d respond. Well, I could only hope.

  “Boss?” said Baga. “Did you know that a lot of folks are saying that you’re Guntram’s son?”

  I’d thought I’d been pretty well numbed when the Consort blithely assumed that May was my mistress, but I stutter-stepped at this new thing. I was really pretty lucky that I hadn’t fallen on my face.

  “Whyever would they think that?” I said. “I’m from Beune, you know that!”

  “Sure, I tell t
hem,” said Baga. He didn’t sound concerned. “But you’re staying with him in the castle, and most folks in Dun Add are, you know, scared about him.”

  “I haven’t met a nicer man in Dun Add than Guntram is,” I said. “And I don’t know anything about Guntram’s family, except that it has nothing to do with me. We’re just friends, and I count myself lucky for that.”

  “So he’s not your father, then?” Baga said.

  I decided to laugh instead of getting mad. “No, Master Guntram is not my father,” I said.

  A few years ago I didn’t have any doubts about my parentage. Since I met Marina and Lord Palin I’d had a lot of doubts, because I didn’t trust either one of them. It didn’t really matter; I was who I was, not who my parents were. I was better off not thinking about it, though.

  “This next one on the right is Lord Baran’s, boss,” Baga said. He gestured.

  I was glad of the change of subject, but the “bungalow” was what I’d call a palace. There was a round turret on the left corner facing the street and on the right a turret with eight sides and windows on three levels. One of the two panels of the high front door was open. I could see people in the hallway beyond.

  I patted Buck. “Stay out here with Baga,” I said. I squared my shoulders and walked up the front path between chestnut trees that hadn’t had more than started to grow. They must’ve been planted when the house was built.

  “Yes…?” said the servant who got up from a chair in the entranceway. The sleeves of his tunic were slashed green and white.

  “I’m Pal of Beune,” I said. “I need to speak with Lord Baran, if you please.”

  “Do you indeed?” the servant said. Several more servants were peering toward us, men and women both. They all wore the same sleeve colors.

  “He’s Lord Pal, the Champion of Beune, you bonehead!” Baga roared from right behind me. He hadn’t stayed in the street as I’d intended.

  The servant’s face didn’t change, but his tone softened noticeably as he said, “One moment, Lord Pal. I’ll inform my master. Ah—are you expected?”