The Spark

by David Drake

  “I watched the trial,” Jon said. “You didn’t make a false move. You never let Baran get a stroke home until you traded blows there at the end. And when you did, he went down. Don’t tell me that there was nothing impressive about your performance!”

  I cleared my throat and stared into my soup mug. It was empty. “Thank you, sir,” I said to the mug.

  “Yes, well,” Jon said, mildly again. “Have you thought of what you want to do next, Pal? When you’re recovered, of course.”

  “Well, sir,” I said. “I’d like you to send me where I’d be most help. You know, the usual thing. For a Champion.”

  “So?” said Jon. “There’s a vacancy on my Council, you know. Two of them, Gismonde and now Baran. I’d be pleased to have your observations on the matters that come before me, Lord Pal.”

  I looked hard at the Leader. He was really serious.

  But he shouldn’t be.

  “Sir,” I said. “Leader. I don’t want to stay in Dun Add, I’d hate it, and I don’t know anything about it either one. But mostly I’d hate it. There’d plenty who’d be good at it, but I’m not one. Say, you should ask Master Guntram!”

  “I have asked him,” Jon said with a lopsided smile. “Years since. And got much the same answer, except that Guntram doesn’t mind Dun Add so long as people leave him alone. Which they generally do, unless he takes them under his wing. As he did you…”

  The smile changed but I couldn’t have sworn just how.

  “And before you, Guntram fostered me, you know.”

  I laughed. “I don’t guess Guntram taught you how to build the Commonwealth, sir,” I said. “And he sure hasn’t taught me anything like that.”

  I thought of Jon as a young warrior, and Jon now: his face worn, his eyes sad and tired.

  I remembered Rowley’s Roost, cutting through the warriors of Lord Charles and then taking down Charles himself. The woman at Rowley’s Roost had her shield built the way mine had been when I beat Baran, almost all the power focused on resisting a vertical slash in the center. I’d put her down by taking her foot off, and One-Eye had murdered her.

  It was the right thing to do at the time, even if the thing calling itself Lang hadn’t compelled me. Now, though, I’d like to talk to that warrior about her shield, whether she’d gotten it that way or if she’d had it modified and who had done that for her.

  I couldn’t talk to her because she was dead.

  I met the Leader’s eyes, set in a face twenty years older than its real age. He’d been like me. I’d rather be dead like the woman at Rowley’s Roost than to live the life that the Leader did.

  “Sir,” I said. “Send me out to the Marches, send me the places nobody else wants to go. That’s what I wanted to be a Champion for. I want to make all of Here to be a good place for people.”

  Jon clenched his hands and grimaced as he rubbed the knuckles together in front of himself. He looked up fiercely. “I used to think it was that simple, Pal. It isn’t. Whether or not you believe that, it really isn’t!”

  “I believe you, sir,” I said. “But it can be that simple for me. The Commonwealth has you and Louis and Lord Clain to do the hard things here in Dun Add. Send me out to the edges of Here to bring them into the Commonwealth.”

  Jon stood up. “Yes,” he said. “That seems to be the best choice for now. Ah, Lord Pal? I understand you’ll need a dog?”

  “Yessir,” I said. I looked out the window and swallowed. “I’ll be going out to Beune first off and see if Demetri’s bitch Colleen has littered recently. She was Buck’s sister, and I figured…”

  I let my voice trail off. I hadn’t really “figured” anything. I just wanted things to be back the way they were a year ago, and this seemed like a way to go in that direction.

  “Well, in the interim,” Jon said, “would you accept a collie sired by my own dog? Clain’s dog is from the same sire.”

  “Sir,” I said. I was blushing. “Sir, I’d be honored.”

  “Then I think I’ll get back to my own business,” Jon said. “And leave you to yours.”

  He nodded and opened the door.

  I don’t have any business, I thought.

  Baga stood a moment in the doorway. “Well, come in,” I said. “How’s Buck?”

  Baga stepped aside. Behind him stood Lady May. She wore a white frock today. It was embroidered with golden hummingbirds like the ones on the suit I’d fought in.

  “May I?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. I swallowed.

  “I…” she said. Her face had been as smooth as the velvet ground of the tapestries. It suddenly broke up. “Pal, I thought you were going to be killed. I did!”

  I swallowed again. “I did too,” I said. “But somebody had to stand up for the Consort. That was more important than how it worked out.”

  “No it wasn’t!” May said. “It was me who got you into it and it would’ve been my fault!”

  “Stop,” I said. I closed my eyes. “Just stop. That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  I settled my mind, then opened my eyes again. “Lady May.” I swallowed. “May. The Leader just told me that I know what’s right and what isn’t. And that’s true. I don’t want it not to be true. But you see, that doesn’t always mean that I am right, just because I think I am. Sometimes I’ve been a real prig.”

  I didn’t want May to speak but I thought she might. She didn’t. She stood there with her face still as velvet again.

  “May, I’d like to see more of you,” I said. “A lot more. If you’d like that.”

  “I’d like that very much,” said May. She took a step toward the bed, then turned.

  “Baga?” she said. “You may close the door now. We’ll call you when we need you.”