Michael A. Stackpole (13 page)

9

_I

returned to sleep, and, when 1 awoke again, the lees of my dreams made waking very difficult. Under normal circumstances, including the necessity of early travel with the caravan, I rose before the sun and felt as alert as a cat whose tail has just been stepped on. This morning, however, the sun had beaten me up by at least an hour, and it would have been easier to claw my way out of quicksand than to escape that bed.

The lingering impressions of my dream proved frustrating. Part of me felt they were right and true, yet I knew I had no proof of anything. All of a sudden I had a disturbing window on Xoayya’s difficulties in dealing with her gift—and she knew it was a gift and had some validity. I had no such assurances.

Conclusions that had seemed irrefutable in the middle of the night began to collapse in the light of day. I had believed my identification of the Chademon as a

Black Shadow sorcerer because of how it wore its mane to be confirmation of its existence. The fact was that I’d known about the difference between
Bfiarasfiadi
warriors and sorcerers since 1 was a child. Because there was a good chance the creature had used magick, endowing it with the proper grooming was nothing less than I would have expected in my dreams.

As with the discussion the night before, we had a handful of maybes. Raising an alarm because of my dream or the bit of Kit’s tale would be sheer folly. While Kit would undoubtedly humor me if 1 told him of my dream, it really had no value. If he were to include it in his report, he’d deserve the criticism that would come from his superiors. Decisions had to be made based on facts, not the wild imaginings of a provincial’s dreams.

1 considered possibly seeking out Xoayya and consulting her about the veracity of my dream, but 1 rejected that course of action. She had trouble enough determining what was true and predictive from what was not. Telling her enough to let her evaluate my dream would betray confidences. Worse yet, if Chademon images invaded her dreams because of me, she might raise an alarm and cause the panic all of us knew we had to avoid.

I dressed quickly in blue woolen pants and a thick, wool tunic with a plaid green-and-black pattern to it. Pulling on my boots, which Nob had succeeded in making look almost straight from the cobbler, I headed out of my suite and down to the warm kitchen.

Rose stood stirring a black pot of thick porridge as it hung over a fire. Nob stood beside her with an empty bowl, and she kept him at bay with stern looks. When she turned to face me and smiled. Nob dipped a finger through the porridge and plopped it into his mouth. He winked at me, and I smiled as Rose greeted me. “Top of the morning to you, Master Lachlan.”

“And to you, Rose. Nob, these boots are perfect. What do I owe you?”

The grizzled old man shook his head. “You owe me naught, Master Lachlan. My pleasure it is to do that for you. If you’re of a mind for a game, later…”

I gave him a big nod. “That I would like, Nob.”

“It’ll be a long day worn short before you’ve time to play, Nob.” Rose brandished her wooden spoon at him. “You’ve yet to finish painting the coach for Bear’s Eve, then you and Carl will be out delivering the Mistress’s gifts for Bear’s Eve.”

She turned back to face me. “Don’t you be letting this old fool tie up all your time. He has more than enough excuses not to work around here. You’re young, and you’re in the capital for the first time. You’ll be wanting to see much of it. Now if you go into the dining room, I’ll bring you your breakfast presently.”

I walked over to a cupboard and pulled a wooden bowl from it. “Please, just give me some porridge and a spoon, and I will be fine.” Rose looked a touch disappointed, but I squeezed her shoulder with my right hand to reassure her. “At my grandfather’s home I usually do the breakfast cooking, so I feel spoiled already. Were 1 to go to a special room to eat, I would be afraid to eat. Wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Seems to me I heard you say that about dancing, Master Lachlan. Even so, you proved quite adept on the dance floor.”

I turned toward Marija and struck a high guard with my spoon. “True enough, but on the dance floor I had an able teacher, and I was not required to use implements like a knife or spoon.”

Rose filled my bowl with porridge, then poured a lit-tie milk from a crock on it. She looked over at Marija. “Would you like your breakfast now, child?”

Dark curls covered her shoulders as she shook her head. “Not yet. 1 will have it after I return and take Mistress Evadne’s tray up to her.” Though already dressed for the cold in a woolen tunic and a long plaid woolen jumper, she reach for a thick black cloak hanging from a peg across from the hearth.

I hastily swallowed the first steaming spoonful of porridge and wiped a droplet of milk from my lower lip. “You are going out?”

“Aye, Master Lachlan. 1 am bound for the apothecary to get more of your grandmother’s tonic. As she wants to attend several of the celebrations leading up to the Emperor’s Ball, we will be using a bit more of it than usual.”

“1 see.”

Rose looked up at her husband. “Nob will walk with you, Miss Marija. Do his bones good to get them moving.”

Nob frowned, and I rescued him. “Actually, if you don’t mind, Nob, I would be happy to walk with Marija. It would give me a chance to see the capital. That is, if you don’t mind, Marija.”

“Why, Master Lachlan, I would be delighted to show you Herakopolis.”

“Good.” I looked for a place to set my bowl down but, seeing my distress, Nob plucked it from my hand.

“Be glad to help you with that, I would, m’lord.”

Rose did not look overly happy. “Nob, you’re a worthless old goat. At least fetch Master Lachlan a cloak.”

“Don’t get up, Nob. 1 forgot something up in my rooms anyway. I will go.” I darted from the kitchen and took the steps two at a time. Inside my suite I passed to the interior room. In the closet 1 saw a number of cloaks and selected one of dark evergreen with a hood. I fastened it about my throat with the silver clasp, then started back toward the kitchen.

I am not quite certain what made me think of it, but it struck me, as I passed through the middle of my sitting room, that to go unarmed into the capital was just the sort of mistake a joskin from the country would make. I pulled off the belt with my dagger and took stock of the swords racked beside the door.

Being a Garikman, and one raised by a Bladesmaster, I recognized the various different types of blades there and thought I saw a pattern to how they had been stored. All the way on the left, the furthest from the door, were the heavy, curved blades of sabres and scimitars. Those blades were well suited to crushing and slashing attacks, best if used from horseback in thick-melee battling. While I had not been trained with them formally, being only an Apprentice, I had listened well as Audin had instructed my brothers.

In the middle came the heavier but straight-bladed weapons. Broadswords, longsword and greatswords, their grips varying from short for the smaller blades up to thick and long enough to wrap two hands around them for the heaviest. Although best suited to crushing blows, especially against foes in heavy armor, their thrusting points did make them appropriate for limited amounts of dueling.

Nearest the door, however, I found the swords most suited to me and to the city. With slender blades of well-tempered steel, the rapiers varied in length from three to five feet. I knew, being as small as 1 was, that the shorter blade would make me overly vulnerable to anyone with a longer reach. While the tallest of the blades might more than make up for that advantage in a foe, I knew the long blade would be too clumsy for me to best a skilled enemy.

I reached for a swept-hilted sword of medium length and slid it from its scabbard. The sword felt perfect in my hand and hissed through the air as 1 flipped it around in a couple of experimental cuts. The balance put sufficient weight in my hand to let me control the blade with ease, yet left enough heft in the blade itself so a slash could carry through a light leather jerkin.

This was the weapon for me. As I slid the leather scabbard back onto it, watching the blade fill it like bones filling an empty snakeskin, a shiver ran down my spine. The sword I had chosen was the one 1 had used the night before. It was the one nearest the door, and I realized it had been placed there deliberately to come to hand easily.

Apparently my father truly did possess the foresight all the tales had credited to him.

1 slid my belt through the loops on the scabbard’s harness and refastened it around my waist. The blade hung perfectly at my left hip, and I practiced a quick flip of the cloak back from my left shoulder so I could draw the sword with my right hand. My hand fell to the hilt as easily as breathing, and I smiled. No country bumpkin was I to be accosted by city ruffians.

By the time I returned to the kitchen Nob had finished my bowl of porridge, but Rose had just started in on him for wanting “his” bowl as well. Marija and I quickly headed out of doors to avoid the domestic tiff, though I gathered it was more a game than a true fight, and mentioned that to Marija.

“Ah, you noticed. Yes, they love each other, but seem to get a great deal of enjoyment out of battling like that. Rose rules with an iron fist in the house, but she defers to Nob for anything outside those four walls.”

“Not unlike your little matches with Kit.”

Marija’s eyes flashed as her head jerked around. “Master Christoforos and I are not in love, Master Lachlan.”

“Locke, please, or 1 start calling you Missy Marija.” Steaming breath trailed from my mouth as we left my grandmother’s courtyard and stepped into the street. “Were your antics with Kit measured against the yardstick of Rose and Nob, I’d have to judge you a couple bound by long years.”

“It might seem that, but our fighting is more the teasing of brothers and sisters, I think. I do not know that for certain, however. Do you not engage in verbal sparring with your brothers?”

I smiled, remembering them, then shook my head. “Not that often. Dalt is not a man of many words, and Geoff is quick enough that I would be the loser in any battle of wits with him. I take it, though, from what you said, you have known Kit for a long time, and you have no siblings. How long have you known Kit?”

She turned her face from me and looked farther up the road. “Since before I can remember, actually. I have lived in your grandmother’s house for just shy twenty years. I was even there when you first came to the house.”

“But you would have been …”

“A wee babe. That is true; I was.” She smiled slightly. “My father, Seoirse, was a lieutenant to your father. He had served in the Valiant Lancers and proved himself intelligent and resourceful. Cardew, Driscoll, and my father got on famously. In fact, your father and uncle all but adopted my father as the younger brother they never had. And when I came along, well, my mother often told me of the wonderful celebration thrown by your father for my naming.”

I smiled at the laughter in her voice. “The party last night doubtless paled in comparison.”

“As my mother told it, even the Emperor’s Ball would seem but a drink hoisted between friends compared to this feast. At one point your father looked at me and said 1 was the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen. He added that if his wife chanced to die before he did, he’d seek me out and make me his new bride.” She glanced down at the ground. “My mother, may the gods safekeep her soul, was very proud of that.”

“I learned earlier this morning my father possessed foresight, but now 1 must think of him as being as clairvoyant as Xoayya.”

Marija nodded as we passed onto Butcher’s Row. She kept toward the center of the street to avoid the iced-over puddles. I followed closely to catch her if she slipped, but she negotiated the iciest part without trouble, then crossed to a wooden boardwalk on the east side of the street.

The majority of the buildings in this particular section of the city had been built of wood. Given the differences in architectural style between these buildings and my grandmother’s house, I decided they were much newer than my grandmother’s. 1 assumed these double-story boxes had been put up to replace buildings destroyed by some calamity or other. The buildings felt alien to me, as if they did not really belong here.

As 1 walked at Marija’s side, a feeling of dread cored a hole through my stomach. “Seoirse accompanied my father and uncle on their last expedition into Chaos, did he not?”

She nodded mutely. “My mother was crushed when the Valiant Lancers did not return. We were left in utter poverty. Your grandmother tried to take us in, but my mother refused to accept charity. Your grandmother countered by hiring her to be a live-in nurse for Christoforos, as his mother had died of childbed fever when bearing him three years earlier.”

“So you were raised together?” 1 had to shout my question as a dray wagon clattered past us, and stray curs barked at the horses.

“Fought like cats and dogs. We refined our battling into the civilized form you have seen because my mother thought it disrespectful for me to fight with Kit.” Marija smiled as an embarrassed blush added yet more color to her rosy cheeks. “1 think she hoped Kit and I would fall in love and marry someday.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“What, and ruin a perfectly workable friendship? Despite what you have seen, Kit and I are able to confide in each other, and woe be to anyone who chooses to attack one of us because he will find us side by side in any fight.” I started laughing, and her hot-eyed stare spitted me like a rabbit on a spear. “What is it?”