The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Read online

  Ian felt his jaw clenching. “And from what ivory tower would you know about it?”

  “My family runs several bakeries in Sotho,” Kieran said, “and they have for generations. We work alongside all the rest of Wilome, but we never complain or strike up riots about it. We just had the ambition to make ourselves something.”

  Ian glanced up at Elizabeth, who he found was watching him carefully. Letting out a soft breath, Ian remembered again that he really didn’t care what Kieran thought.

  “It’s hard to pull yourself up with the price of grain and inoculations,” Ian said, striving for an offhand manner.

  “Please,” Kieran said, but Ian was ready to divert the subject.

  “But of the wager,” Ian said, “if you would like, I can offer up to three sovereigns—”

  “Three?” Kieran asked, with incredulity.

  “Five, if you’d like,” Ian said, “in return for something of equal worth.”

  Ian noticed Brodie was sneaking up closer to them again, more carefully this time, though Kieran was preoccupied to notice.

  “That’s rich,” Kieran smirked. “You don’t have five sovereigns. Can you even be worth that much any time soon?”

  “Not right away,” Ian said, “but I would be able to pull that much together to cover it.”

  Kieran laughed. “It’s easy to blow about something you haven’t even ever seen before.”

  “But that’s not the question,” Ian said, “are you willing or not? What do you have that is worth five sovereigns? Anything special? Surely not just money.”

  Kieran hesitated. Ian took the barest moment to glance at Elizabeth, but did it too quickly to tell if she was actually looking at him—it would be too obvious to look at her now, but he hoped that she realized he had just maneuvered Kieran rather neatly. There was no way that Kieran’s pride would be able to offer up regular money when Ian had just scoffed it off. He would have to best Ian’s offer, and Ian was interested to know what sorts of things a person from somewhat wealthier means would be carrying.

  “I have a lighter,” Kieran said, “a very nice one. Guaranteed flame in wind or water, the thing never goes out.”

  “Show it to them,” Brodie said. “It is rather nice. But didn’t your father give you that?”

  “Yes,” Kieran said as he dug it out of his pocket and somewhat grudgingly handed it to Ian. “But I don’t have to worry about that, right?”

  “Of course not,” Ian said, turning the lighter over in his hands. It was in some ways overly exquisite, the casing inlaid with silver that was patterned through the metal casing. Left to his own devices, even assuming money was not an issue, Ian would’ve never bought something so ornate. Though he had heard about these kinds of lighters, and it seemed like it would often be very handy to own one.

  It was a nice, solid weight, which definitely bespoke of its quality. He experimentally flipped it open and observed the flame, played with the adjusters for a moment, then shut it and returned it to Kieran.

  “Seems suitable,” Ian said, thinking to himself that he wouldn’t actually accept such a thing when he won the bet.

  “What will the terms be then?” Elizabeth asked.

  Kieran shrugged. “Whoever shoots the first four horn—with a finishing shot.”

  “It’s a deal,” Ian said, and briefly shook Kieran’s hand.

  “I will feel bad accepting that much money from you,” Kieran said.

  “Now, now,” Brodie laughed, “there’s no need to lie to keep up good Christian principles. You won’t really feel bad.”

  “I will,” Kieran said, looking off in the direction the margrave and the rest had gone. “And it will be especially bad if you lose two wagers in a row.”

  Ian rolled his eyes. “I suppose it would be, though I wouldn’t mind too much if I lost to Williams. He’s an astounding shot.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Kieran grinned complacently.

  “Well, for the sake of the wager,” Brodie said, wiping at his brow, “I hope we live long enough to go on another hunt. I couldn’t have dreamed up a more oppressive kind of heat.”

  “Quite your whining, Brodie,” Kieran said. “It’s not that hot.”

  “It is not cool either,” Elizabeth said, lazily watching him. “I feel so sorry for you men, and all the weight you have to carry in this weather.”

  “Anglas is to be doubly pitied,” Brodie began, but was immediately quelled by a look from his subject.

  “Why is that?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

  Ian took advantage of the momentary distraction to look up at Elizabeth’s profile, softly lit as it was beneath her umbrella. He couldn’t get over just how softly her features flowed into each other. It started with her cheeks, a pleasingly sort of fair—devastatingly full and even slightly supple—that continued down into full lips that were meant to be quirked, as they were now, as Brodie made some sort of excuse about all the extra and expensive items Kieran had to carry.

  “I don’t have anything extra to carry,” Kieran protested. “Nothing more than anyone else.”

  Perfect ears. That’s what they were. Ian never really contemplated anyone’s ears for very long. Ears started to seem silly if they were thought about for too long, and they generally gave no special reason to be especially interesting. But hers were of a very flawless, singular category. The perfect shape, size, the perfect place to pull aside locks of gold, and leading over into—

  Elizabeth turned to look at him again, their eye contact ironically ending what he had hoped to be the crowning examination of her eyes. And though he held them, very gingerly, far too much was going on behind them, and he supposed the conversation as well, to allot the necessary energies for an adequate appraisal.

  “Don’t you think so, Private Kanters?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Oh,” Ian mostly covered his recovery, “excuse me—I suppose I wasn’t listening.”

  “That’s not a very becoming mark of a gentleman,” Elizabeth gently reprimanded him.

  Kieran was frowning at him, even when Ian was looking back.

  “Forgive me, milady,” Ian bowed a bit, “I will not let it happen again, as a gentleman is the highest title that I can ever hope to strive for.”

  “Indeed,” she said, raising her chin a bit, her eyes curiously wandering over his.

  The conversation wandered on, mostly with Kieran at the helm, discussing matters of hunting and all of its many protocols. Ian kept a loose ear on it, chiming in at enough disposable instances to keep his place in the proceedings. He decided it was safer to keep his eyes on their surroundings, or his company mates, or anything besides the margrave’s daughter, but his thoughts were on her, what she was trying at.

  True, it could all just be disinterested conversation for her. But that seemed unlikely, given that was unlikely in any case of young company, himself included. And though she was pleasantly not at all a Dervish woman of ill repute, bent on exploitation and worldly distractions—she was in fact everything that someone like Ian could ever hope to admire, could ever hope to be with, because such little chance existed that such a pairing would ever occur.

  So what was the point then? Elizabeth had asked that same question, Ian remembered. And now, asking it of himself, he could find no good answer. Certainly there was always a possibility, the bravest sliver of a hope, but he couldn’t make himself believe that it was actually present here. What was it she wanted then?

  Her laughter, when it did come, seemed so earned, so judicious in its favors. And it was worth it, like a subtle music, her face aglow with the amusement.

  “Is that so?” she asked Kieran.

  “It is,” Kieran answered, about whatever they were talking about, “just you wait and see.”

  Very well then, Ian thought. He would. He didn’t know what she wanted with him, with any of them, but he was going to find out.

  * * * *

  “It is ghastly,” Elizabeth murmured from where she reclined next to
the pool of water, her feet resting in it.

  “It’s not terrible though,” Kieran said, always piloting the topic’s vicissitudes for his favor. He sat at the water’s edge as well, facing away toward the plains.

  They’d stopped a little after midday at the watering hole Will had marked as favorable for setting camp. It was partially surrounded by a variable shell of trees, some of the first in significant number that Ian had seen up close, though it looked as though they were to be more common in the future terrain.

  The tassi trees were significant as perhaps the single most incredible life form Orinoco hosted. Or perhaps the tassi trees hosted Orinoco. It was through their unique biology that so much of the sun’s violent energy was absorbed as well as repelled back up into the atmosphere, forming the fragile cradle that allowed the planet’s life to exist. Or at least that’s what Ian’s yeoman said. At any rate, this process was also what produced the interference of communication signals as a byproduct that the planet was also infamous for, as well as the striking coolness that the trees radiated as a byproduct of their chemical reactions to contrast all the heat around them.

  “Do you think such things are interesting, Private Kanters?” Elizabeth asked him.

  Ian turned from where he had been running his palm over the rigid, sharp patterns in the bark of the tassi tree he’d been examining. Almost like hard glass. “They almost seem to make the heat worse,” he said. “It’s not so bad when you’re out in it, but right next to them, at least like this, it makes the heat feel more intense when you have to go back out.”

  Elizabeth was smiling at him, leaning back on her arms in a way that reminded Ian of her father.

  “But no,” Ian went on, turning back and idly taking a few steps toward the opening in the trees where the plains lay, “science doesn’t usually interest me. Not this kind anyway. I enjoy practical technology, things that can be put to good use. But it is amazing how efficient they are, what they do for this planet.”

  “Makes for a waste of a planet,” Kieran muttered, still cantankerous, “never be able to do anything with it if the trees can’t come down.”

  Kieran was just angry that Ian wasn’t leaving him and their charge alone. Brodie had taken his hint fairly quickly after they’d arrived, but Ian was ignoring his.

  No, Ian liked it like this. He watched a fast bird darting up and down over a particular place in the grass, noted a flurry of small climbing animals clambering after each other up, down and around a single tree some ways off. There were plenty of other planets to be developed; this one could be spared that.

  “And you are both from Wilome?” Elizabeth asked. “Is most of your company from there?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ian frowned.

  “Corporal Hanley is,” Kieran said, “Brodie and Rory aren’t. I don’t know about Corporal Wesshire or our superiors. I think it gives us a foot up on everyone else.”

  “Is that so?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Everyone else in the civilized worlds is trying to make it to Wilome,” Kieran said, “but we’re smart enough to know that it’s best to be coming from Wilome, not to.”

  “Not one for the bustle and excitement,” Elizabeth decided.

  “Or the smog,” Ian put in, “or the regular epidemics, the congested inoculation lines.”

  “Well, I happen to love Wilome,” Elizabeth laughed at Ian’s downward tirade, “I wish I could visit there more often.”

  “Yes, well,” Kieran said, “milady, I’m sure you get to frequent the nicer parts of the city. Our borough wasn’t all that bad, but you won’t catch me missing it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Elizabeth sounded doubtful, “a company of little boys, so far from home. I’m sure it will set in eventually.”

  “Devil take it,” Kieran scoffed, “not likely.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth agreed, her eyes narrowing some as she stared down into the water. “I suppose it is all perspective. If you had grown up on a place like the Marches, a place like Gower, I imagine your opinions would be quite to contrast. Coming from a place like that to Wilome, it is a relative thrill to be among so much life, so much excitement.”

  Ian carefully rested his chin on his knees as he sat. “Your pardon, milady, but I would not have guessed you for one who enjoys that sort of excitement.”

  “It does tire me,” Elizabeth admitted, swirling her fingers around the tips of the water, “especially when there are social obligations to fulfill. I will be so kind as not to inflict any of those sorts of details on either of you.”

  “I seem to have heard Kanters is rather found of fashionable novels,” Kieran said, grinning.

  “Only the best ones,” Ian countered offhandedly, making sure to note Elizabeth’s generally favorable reaction.

  “No,” Elizabeth went on, drawing herself a little tighter, “it is the lack of silence I think. A person could go out of themselves most places on Gower and no one would know for years. But in Wilome, there is never any silence, so many voices going on about whatever they care about. Although, most of it is the drudgery, and they can’t possibly care for that, can they? I am not sure how most of Wilome lives at all, it is like a perpetual miracle. I imagine the problem on Wilome is not so much the chance of going out of one’s self without notice—it is that it would be so hard to find a place where anyone else would care.”

  They were quiet for a noticeably short fraction of a minute. Ian was more concerned with deducing that Kieran didn’t know how to take that than Ian was about giving his own response.

  But eventually he broke the matter for the general good.

  “Would you tell us what Gower is like?” Ian asked her.

  “Have I not already told you more than you wanted to hear about it?” she answered.

  “No,” Ian said, gently urging her, “please tell us.”

  “There is not much to tell,” she said. “The geography is varied, but is fairly warm and wooded around the capital, where we reside. There aren’t many inhabitants, no native population any longer. The Vels lived there for some years before we drove them out. It forms one of the leeward frontiers for Baldave. There is not much else to say.”

  “What do people do for amusement there?” Ian asked.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Most of the people we govern spend their time trying to subsist. There is a great deal of hunting, both for necessity and sport.”

  “Your father must enjoy that,” Kieran said, “he’s an excellent hunter.”

  “He grows easily bored of the local game,” Elizabeth idly flipped one of her feet out and back into the water, “and of all the things of our world that are so familiar. He spends a good deal of time in Wilome and elsewhere, and our mother especially loves it there. She’s from Wilome as well.”

  Ian’s eyes were no longer so much on trying to imagine a place like Gower, a place like this planet, only with a more Bevish sort of climate. His eyes were instead employed in the far less laborious job of watching Elizabeth’s lower limbs, feet moving up and down, over the surface of the water. Her skin there was even fairer, if possible, and her ankles not quite dainty, but excessively feminine. She suddenly stopped her motions though, and Ian pretended to be looking somewhere else, not sure if she had become aware of the direction of his thoughts.

  It wasn’t so much an issue any longer for him, even a common soldier, to see her ankles. The general tone of their conversation and atmosphere may very well have been a little too informal, but some of that could be accounted by Elizabeth Wester’s fairly unique status. She was well-versed in upper class etiquette and posture, but she was also decidedly born from a wilder kind of environment. The fact that she was here at all, taking Orinoco in stride said much for that. So it wasn’t very surprising to Ian that she wouldn’t be prone to hiding her lower extremities, at least in most cases. Ian knew through his mother’s generation, and many more before that, it had been extremely forbidden. That had relaxed, especially in the younger girls of the past several years. Ian w
as pretty glad that it was changing in that way, as he saw it as an impracticality, and though there were far more enlivening themes to consider, he found it difficult to deny the simple allure in Elizabeth’s thinly elegant, lowest joints.

  Kieran was talking about all the places he was going to see through his career. Elizabeth turned back to Kieran, and Ian wasn’t able to discern any signs that she had caught Ian looking—or at least that she had caught him looking and found anything unpleasant in it.

  “And where exactly do you wish you see, Private Kanters?” she asked.

  “I’ll be content with whatever I’m given,” Ian said, taking the excuse of her attention to rove his examinations over her features again. “I suppose … I suppose I must admit that I do want to see many places, so I’m glad that the Guard will allow me to do that. But I don’t think I have any places in particular.”

  “Yes, you do,” Elizabeth leaned forward. “It’s only a matter of deducing where you don’t want to go.”

  “Maybe,” Ian said.

  “The Fallola Isles?” Elizabeth asked. “The pools of Hesmesbi, the shores along Bullus?”

  “Someday,” Ian said.

  “The Dervish colonies?” Elizabeth pressed. “Tier, Fulmalla, or—”

  “Orinoco,” Ian interjected, smiling.

  “Not anymore,” Kieran corrected, sounding eager to be part of the conversation again.

  “No,” Ian said, thinking, “I suppose not so much the Dervish planets. Perhaps the Masomalore Ridge—yes, I’d like to see that first, if I had the choice.”

  “There, you see?” Elizabeth said. “Everyone has preferences. Especially when they say that they don’t.”

  Ian didn’t say anything.

  “But what of the other ancient empires?” Elizabeth asked. “Sesach? Kees?”

  “I would like the Sesach places as well,” Ian shrugged. “They were an effective culture.”

  “My father said the Kees Empire was the best,” Kieran said, “that everything else was just copying them. He went and saw Thesla as a boy, said there’s no place like it. That’s the first place I’m going to when I get the chance.”