The Hero Strikes Back

by Moira J. Moore

  But I found it odd how little overt attention Karish received from the other guests. In Erstwhile he had been always surrounded by people, sometimes having to plead exhaustion just to get away from the crowd. In Yellows’ ballroom, however, he was largely ignored. While many came to exchange brutally civil greetings, no one lingered to chat. I wondered what had changed.

  Or maybe it was me, my presence that was keeping them away.

  He didn’t seem disturbed by it, but sometimes it was hard to know what he was thinking. He didn’t seem tense as he spoke with those who wandered by. And as usual he looped his arm over my shoulders without a care as to what others thought. He danced with no one other than me, even staying with me during dances in which I refused to participate. I intercepted some long looks cast his way, but there was a definite distance between Karish and everyone else in that room. And Karish appeared indifferent to it.

  Perhaps I was making too much of it. After all, if I went to a ball held by a member of the merchant class, I would probably be equally isolated. I didn’t really know any of my economic peers, either. I was as much an outsider to my class as Karish was to his.

  But Karish was different.

  And despite the fun Karish managed to derive for me, I was happy to hear it when supper was announced. That meant the greater part of the evening was over. We would eat. As soon as manners allowed it, we would go home.

  That would be the end of any dealings with the Crown Prince. And then Karish’s mother would leave. Life would start sliding back towards normal. I was really looking forward to it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Precedence had to be observed. Both of us being titleless meant Karish and I were at the end of the long procession leaving the ballroom and heading for the dining room.

  “I’ve heard Lord Yellows completely renovated his dining room for the Prince’s visit,” said the man in front of us.

  “Oh, Zaire,” his companion muttered. “My eyes have barely recovered from the ballroom.”

  Good. So it wasn’t just me.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” the man chuckled.

  “Oh, please, the man has no taste whatsoever,” she said.

  “You’re just jealous,” the man accused her with a laugh. “You wish you had the money to renovate your manor.”

  “Well, aye, no kidding. You must have been a Runner in a former life.”

  “Well, you know Yellows. Crazy.”

  “Please, my boy. The word is eccentric.”

  Great. We were dining courtesy of a nut. I glared at Karish, who appeared to be concentrating at something farther up the hall. Had he known what Yellows was like before he invited me to this thing?

  But entering the dining hall itself waylaid a lot of my apprehension. It looked nothing like the rest of the manor, and it was, in a word, gorgeous.

  The floor, the walls, the ceiling were all made of a polished grey stone, with specks of black and grey and white and the odd hint of blue. It had the potential for looking cold, but the roaring fire in the huge fireplace at the other end of the hall sent gold light dancing over the polish and made the whole room feel elegant and magical.

  The multitude of plants huddled near the entrance helped cut the severity of the stone. They smelled nice, too. A deep breath made me feel warm and slightly dizzy, like a swallow of strong wine.

  All the guards had traveled in from the ballroom, lining the walls, and it appeared there were almost as many guards as there were guests. Surely, that many weren’t required?

  Maybe Yellows had heard something. Maybe there was something going on. But he would have canceled the party if he suspected the Prince’s life was in danger.

  “What’s wrong?” Karish asked, noticing my frown.

  I smoothed out my expression. I was being hysterical and felt no need to let him know. “The scent of the plants disturbs me,” I lied.

  “Ah,” he said, looking back at the entrance and wrinkling his nose.

  The tables weren’t the usual straight tables I had been expecting. They were curved, two long arcs, one on each side of the room. And because there were so few guests they were seated on only one side of the tables, with their backs to the walls, facing each other across the room. I wanted to get a look at the grain of the tables, wondering how it was possible to make such long tables with such dramatic curves—trees didn’t grow that way after all—but the tablecloths obscured everything.

  I smirked as I thought how horrified everyone would be if I pulled up the tablecloth to look at the wood. Or crawled down underneath the table.

  I was in a strange mood.

  Karish and I were seated together, at the end of the table near the door with the plants. I was relieved to be seated with Karish. I had heard that married couples weren’t allowed to sit together at such events, and too many people equated the Pair bond with marriage. Lord Yellows, or his housekeeper, apparently didn’t.

  “Why isn’t Lord Yellows married?” I asked Karish as he held out my chair for me.

  “Why would I know?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought all titleholders were married. Like it was practically a law.”

  Karish’s eyes widened as he let himself drop into his own chair, not as graceful as he should have been. “Oh my gods!”

  I tensed. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “That would have been next!” He grabbed my wrist, too tight. “Once she had me all titled up she would have been after me to get married. Oh my gods.”

  Ah. I looked across the room to the Dowager, who was chatting with her neighbour. She was near the middle of her arc, seated directly in front of a large window, the strong light of the full moon silvering her features. I would have thought, as a former holder of the great Westsea title, she would have been closer to the Crown Prince, but perhaps that “former” was very significant.

  I wanted to shiver. The idea of being near the window when the weather was so bad made me feel cold.

  “And then it would have been children! Zaire!”

  I grinned at him. There he was panicking over what might have been. It was cute. “You don’t want children?”

  “Not under orders from my mother! That would have taken all the fun out of it!”

  “You really think so? You have so little faith in yourself?”

  He sniffed, unimpressed with my good humor. Then he shivered. “Damn, it’s cold in here. And Yellows would keep the fire to himself.”

  Lord Yellows and the Crown Prince sat at the far end of the tables, opposite from the entrance. I didn’t know how Lord Yellows could bear to sit immediately before the fire. The Prince looked uncomfortable, his face red and shining. “It’s not that cold.”

  “Normal people—you know, people who aren’t Shields—find it cold. Everyone’s shivering.”

  I did notice some discreet tugging on clothing as people tried to derive some warmth from flimsy summer fashions. “The water fountain isn’t helping.” Set into the wall at our backs, though fortunately down by the middle of the room, water flowed from the ceiling and over the stone wall and disappeared into the floor. It was very pretty, though the constant trickling sound was a little irritating.

  “At least I can feel a little better about the dinner,” said Karish.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Lord Yellows is reputed to be overly concerned with his own health. Apparently it leads to unusual dietary choices.”

  “Oh lovely. Why didn’t you warn me of this before you asked me to come?”

  “Because I’m not an idiot, perhaps? Besides, you have ears. I assumed you heard the same rumors I had.”

  It was almost over, it was almost over, it was almost over.

  I realized there was music playing. I noticed a flutist in the far corner. The music was very faint, and even when I was concentrating on it I couldn’t really pick out a melody. It would do no harm at that volume, though, so I forgot about it.

  A
s there were no people seated across the table from me, my only options for conversation were Karish on my left and the young man seated to my right. I recognized him as the man who had been joking about the decor with his lady while we were entering the dining room. I was aware that as a person of far inferior rank I was not to speak to him unless he spoke to me first, so I was resigned to an awkward meal of pretending the person to my immediate right didn’t exist.

  And again, my resignation was premature.

  “This hall is something special, isn’t it?”

  Those words, spoken in a delightfully round bass, were directed towards me. I hid my surprise and looked at the young man. He had a pleasing appearance. Dark hair free of oil, gorgeous green eyes and pale skin. Not the sort to turn heads in the street but still nice to look at.

  “I’ve never been in an aristocratic manor before. I’m not familiar with aristocratic fashion.”

  “But you spent some time with the Empress in Erstwhile, didn’t you?”

  I hadn’t caught the announcement of his name earlier in the evening. I was always a little uncomfortable when speaking to someone who clearly knew me, when I didn’t know him. “I did, but the palace felt much less like a personal home. Even in the bedchambers, I felt like I was in a government building. And the palace was different from this manor.”

  He glanced beyond me. At Karish, I thought. “Am I—am I allowed to talk to you?”

  What an odd question. “Of course.”

  He appeared embarrassed. “I must admit to knowing little about Pairs,” he said, “and I hadn’t heard that there were any, you know, special rules, but I didn’t notice anyone speaking to you in the ballroom. I thought perhaps we weren’t supposed to.”

  Interesting. “I think some”—I was about to say “regulars” but caught myself in time—“people who are unfamiliar with the Triple S don’t know how to think of us. I think they believe there are all sorts of rules about talking to us. There aren’t.” Unlike the aristocracy.

  “How should I address you?”

  “Shield Mallorough if you want to be formal. Dunleavy if you don’t.”

  “Well, Dunleavy, my name is Doran Laidley. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Yes, quite.” I shook the hand he offered.

  “I swear, I can’t take you anywhere,” Karish muttered into my ear.

  Oh, please, all we’d done was exchange names. Like I’d ever have anything to do with an aristocrat. Even if he was pretty in a non-intimidating way.

  The first course was served with exquisite precision by a virtual horde of young women, all wearing those ridiculous wimples. Poor girls. The dish was a watery fish soup with no seasoning that I could taste. And water. Which was, um, unique.

  “Good lord.” Doran had lifted a spoonful of the liquid and was letting it dribble back into the bowl. “Maybe he should have moderated the renovations a bit and splashed out for a decent chef.”

  “I suppose it’s . . . er . . . healthy,” Karish commented, sipping at the soup with a palpable lack of enthusiasm.

  “So are the bath waters at the Ruins,” I heard from Doran’s other side, his female companion. “Doesn’t mean I’d drink those, either.”

  A glance about the room told me no one was terribly impressed with the offering, though some were concealing their distaste better than others, and everyone was politely eating it. The Crown Prince, I could see, was particularly displeased. Lord Yellows was speaking to him, no doubt extolling the virtues of the soup. The Prince didn’t appear to be listening.

  “I fear for the rest of the meal,” said Karish.

  “No one says we actually have to eat it,” said Doran. “We should just wait it out and go out after.”

  That sounded like a good idea. I put my spoon in my bowl and curled my hands in my lap.

  “I can’t eat so late into the night, Doran,” his companion objected. “It’s bad for the digestive system.”

  Doran snickered. “Is this the same woman who dragged me down to the kitchen at Sevy’s house party after the staff had gone to bed and ate half an apple pie?”

  If more than four people witnessed the discreet smack she delivered to the back of his head, I would have been surprised to hear it. I looked at her and answered the smile she sent me. I liked her.

  She wasn’t intimidatingly beautiful, either. She was slight, with thick brown hair and lightly dusty skin, brown eyes with wrinkles around them. Not that she looked at all old; I would say she had only a few years on me, but obviously she allowed herself to smile whenever she felt like it. They made a nice looking couple, I thought.

  “Don’t be such a stick, Lydia,” Doran complained. “Lydia, Dunleavy. I’m Doran. We all know Shintaro Karish. We’re all friends now. We’ ll suffer through this awful meal in stoic camaraderie and reward ourselves with the fine cuisine at The Table. What say you?” And he pushed his bowl away.

  I repressed a smirk. Had to admire the take-charge attitude. I looked at Karish and raised an eyebrow.

  Karish rolled his eyes before, like Doran, he pushed his bowl away. Then he leaned back in his chair. “Well, Lady Lydia,” he said to the young lady, who looked back at him with amusement, “if your lord is the incorrigible flirt my Shield is—”

  “You are calling me a flirt?”

  “He’s not my lord, I take no responsibility for him.”

  “—we may find ourselves consoling each other in our misery.”

  “I fear our means of consoling ourselves might be radically different, Source Karish.”

  “Really? I feel there is nothing like a good book and a hot mug of tea for soothing ruffled spirits.”

  Doran hooted derisively. I laughed. Lydia covered her mouth with her hand, but her dark eyes sparkled.

  Karish appeared affronted. “If I didn’t know better,” he said in a voice laced with feigned outrage, “I’d say you were all doubting my word.”

  The three of us were suddenly re-absorbed in the contemplation of the awful soup.

  The next course was a salad. Of sorts. Half a dozen spinach leaves arranged on a plate, with some shredded carrot piled in the center. Dressed with some kind of honey sauce, from the smell of it. Served with more water.

  “I’m not even sure how to eat this,” Lydia confessed, holding her knife and fork as though she were considering trying to slice up the thin drenched leaves and scoop them on to her fork.

  “When in doubt, don’t.” Doran took her plate and stacked it on top of his own. “Ooh, let’s give the servants a heart attack.” He took my plate and added it to the pile. “Please forgive my appalling lack of manners, Dunleavy.” He reached across me to nab Karish’s plate.

  Karish was watching the proceedings with a smirk. He appeared to be entertained, but there was a strange air about him. The word that came to mind was resignation, but that was coming out of nowhere, and it couldn’t be accurate. Something else was no doubt going on in that head of his.

  “I’m hungry, Doran,” Lydia complained.

  “That’s good. Foster that appetite. That way you’ll be in the proper frame of mind when we go to The Table, which, I’ll have you know, serves the best leek-and-potato soup in the city.”

  “Yes, yes, Doran. I have eaten there, you know.”

  I hadn’t. How had I missed that one?

  “One can’t help wondering, though, if Lord Yellows has a death wish,” said Karish. “Serving the Prince a meal like this.”

  I looked up at the Prince again, and I was surprised to find he appeared considerably more relaxed and to be amiably chatting with his host. I guessed he liked the meal after all. And he would be Emperor one day. We were all doomed.

  I looked across the room, wondering how the Dowager Duchess of Westsea was reacting to the insult being delivered to her stomach. And if I was surprised by the Prince, I was stunned by the Dowager. She was, or so it appeared from my angle, leaning against the back of her chair and smiling.

  Obviously, the world was about to e
nd.

  “Is there something wrong with the meal, my lord?” A servant was hovering over Doran. She appeared distraught by the stack of plates before him. “I can bring you all new servings if these are not fresh enough.”

  “Oh no, my dear woman. Everything looks beautiful. But we’re wanting to save ourselves for the main course.”

  I expected her to nod and leave. She didn’t. “His Lordship would be most distressed to learn you didn’t partake of the opening courses, my lord.”

  Were servants supposed to debate with guests like that?

  Doran’s eyebrows dipped together in irritation. “I’d wager my miniscule fortune that Lord Yellows doesn’t even know where his kitchens are,” he said. “And it’s probably physically impossible for him to actually enter them. The mere thought of it is no doubt enough to make him swoon in well-bred disgust. In other words, he’ll never know. So do stop being tiresome and take the plates away. There’s a good girl.”

  She did what she was ordered, with obvious reluctance. Which struck me as odd. I mean, really, who cared?

  “They’re not eating any of it,” I heard her whisper.

  I turned in my chair and saw that she was speaking to the nearest guard. Who would care even less than the host. Realizing she had my attention, the servant hurried away. I watched the guard for a moment longer, but he continued to stare into space.

  Cheese course next. And the cheese platters looked normal enough. With substantial portions. The other guests fell on them with audible—very audible—delight. But for Lydia, Doran, Karish and I, it had become almost a challenge not to eat anything that was served to us. A test of our resolve. Besides, I was looking forward to the leek-and-potato soup that was the best in the city, and I wanted to be good and starving for it.

  This course was served with wine. Karish broke the pact to take a sniff. Then he grimaced.

  “Bad?” I asked him.