The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Read online

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, he hurried off again with a guilty feeling.

  He had never heard of any kind of wood like that, and he wondered at the value that he walked beside so easily.

  A little further and he came to a short set of stairs that rose perhaps ten feet to a balcony-like bridge that opened up to the open air to the east, proving his suspicions correct. Leaning over the side, he had an aerial view of a pool that stood beneath a pair of soft fountains. Beyond that lay a courtyard separate from the one they’d entered from. At its center, laughing and holding hands in a tight circle, four young Dervish women spun around each other in dresses that suggested some slightly more modest social class. They were crying out and desperately trying to sing some sort of rhyme in Dervish but not overly succeeding. With a final flourish, all four fell to the ground, then tried to spring up again just before sitting back down and crying out one last phrase. The winner sounded to be in dispute, however, and there was far more laughter than any kind of serious contention for the issue.

  Folding his hands, Ian watched as their laughter rose soft over the evening breezes. He had been expecting it, but it took only a few moments before one of them noticed him and let up a cheerful greeting. Upon this, the others quickly took up the chorus, twittering between their evening greetings and whispering to each other words he was too far away to catch.

  “Bon soir,” he called back with a sort of wave.

  Their responding delight over what was evidently his botched phrase came immediately, making him think he had spoken it even worse than he would have thought.

  Someday soon, he promised himself again, he would take a serious effort and learn Dervish. But as he smiled back at the happy girls, his eyes wandering beyond the courtyard, the elegant walls, and just beyond where Orinoco stretched in livid contrast, he wondered what exactly that meant.

  Chapter 11

  “The king in Wilome said the bishop in Glascour said that ours is the penultimate high time, and the sooty urchin at the end of Ninth and Braddock Street informed me of the direct opposite. I could imagine no better reason to drink our day.”

  —Nicholas Wembles, Wilome writer

  Their way ironically led down before it led up, but when it did, it did so in high fashion. The parallel pair of staircases that led down went only two short flights before they reached a richly-adorned entrance to a much wider, leisurely trio of staircases that went up. The carpets were done in deep reds, with the nearby ceremonial guards decorated to match. Ian had the impression these guards were more interior and showy than the ones their company had seen before. These guards stood very straight, full of tassels and folds strategically aesthetic in their placement. They also wore very old-looking swords at their sides, and each held a spear that reached a couple feet above their heads, with which they stately saw to the ushering of guests that were reaching the stairs.

  Captain Marsden, much trimmed and at his most carefully reserved, ordered them to wait there. Their way, though, was apparently well-prepared ahead of them, the guards having sought them at first sight. Not more than a minute of this waiting proved the captain correct in hesitating, however, as a pair of personal guards came, escorting Lord Wester and his daughter from a different direction.

  Ian didn’t feel the margrave’s step up in apparel had all that much of an effect on him. Ian realized the margrave had a certain ambidextrous way that he wore his noble clothes and his more practical clothes. Ian was thankful that the lack of impact ended with the margrave.

  Nothing was wasted in her gown, no bit of it that didn’t catch some bit of light, some stray bit of imagination. The gown was a modest cut of glittering silver that had—well, Ian wasn’t sure what they were called—wrapping cloth lengths that spun around her shoulders and into the gloves on her hands, but it definitely had them. He wondered if their party had been carrying such a dress through all the dust and heat all this time, or if it had been lent to her by Bon Sens. Her hair, so pulled up in an elaborate cascade, was undoubtedly Dervish in design, but the rest was hers.

  A sort of grimace of amazement moved through their company and the guests nearest to them as they noticed the Bevish nobility. There were many exuberant greetings, some in Bevish, but primarily Dervish.

  Elizabeth gave them a low, conspiring smile when she noticed them, her eyes falling for a moment on Ian.

  Lord Wester nodded, even shook hands with an earnest, little man who spoke in fast, broken Bevish. Pressing onwards, however, their company met the margrave, the margrave giving them a distracted nod that produced a kind of feeling of solidarity within Ian as they stood together for a moment, separate and distinct from the passing waves of loud Dervish conversations.

  But then their official from before was guiding them on now that they were all together. The guards at the foot of the staircases made special efforts to momentarily halt the other guests to let them through. They waited for several more moments before allowing the other guests to pass, giving their party something of a berth.

  The margrave and his daughter were guided up the middle staircase, and the captain made quick motions for each flank to take the side staircases. The captain, on the other hand, hurried to catch up to the margrave’s daughter, to whom he offered his hand according to tradition as the highest-ranking officer.

  That left Ian to watch the back corner of her face as she peered up to their destination, where the sound of music and voices rolled down to them. Her composure was careful and not necessarily excited or awed, but Ian saw some definite eagerness in the way her eyes jumped around and over the faces and voices and other sights ahead and above them.

  As they ascended up to the heart of the chateau, Ian caught Corporal Wesshire glancing at Elizabeth, his composure even tighter than hers. There was no emotion in it, but the possibilities of what the corporal actually thought while doing that made their rounds through Ian’s mind.

  But there was much else to distract, this rising of grandeur made up of many littler steps that were no doubt designed to slow down one’s pace and eyes. Their company easily took them two at a time, but that didn’t necessarily neglect the effect.

  Each railing was a whirling of smooth twists and designs. By some trick, each appeared to be a single, unbroken length. Mural upon mural were upon each wall, many of nature and impressionistic colors. Their party wasn’t afforded much time to fully appreciate them, but they were arranged in tasteful fits, some of them blending together in such a way that Ian didn’t immediately realize that they were separate works.

  And there was water.

  Ian had surmised that was the theme of Bon Sens, but of all the things he remembered about climbing those steps, underneath the warm light along their way, it was the water that stayed with him. A network of fountains, no matter how sophisticated, really didn’t describe it. It had a general flowing of water down between the staircases in raised displays, but there were also counter flows, of water flowing upwards, of water being propelled higher in a fountain only to be cycled back down to where it began. Patterns of speeds, volumes, and colors were carried off from some displays to mix with others, and to be negated entirely with others. A couple of the steps of the middle stairway were constructed so that water could flow beneath them, and in several places all different sizes of jets of water were sprayed over them. Statue upon statue of animals, plants, and shapes were built into the network. At one point, Ian was following one set beside and beneath him, and stared in surprise for a moment when the sculpture flowed from one of a billowing abstract shape to that of a reclining woman.

  Looking away quick, Ian watched the approaching entrance, trying to imagine what else there could possibly be.

  The margrave and his party reached the top first, the whiter light illuminating them as they briefly stopped to take their bearings and then descended out of sight.

  A few more steps and the rest of their company broke the same ground, finding the dining hall was square, with high vaulted ceilings an
d motion everywhere. The central area was slightly raised for the long tables, especially the head table—which wasn’t so much at the head of the gathering but in the middle, where it sat on a platform slightly higher than all the rest around it.

  Surrounding that area was soft décor—trees, more fountains and statues, and more stone floors. Whereas, the center was all polished white marble. The majority of the people were there now, groups of richly-dressed Dervish people talking to each other, with the occasional Chax or Dervish servant darting in and out on errands. And above the ceiling was lit around by lighter illumination, but most of it, the center especially, displayed the evening sky, which was beginning to be cut through by shafts of orange and pink clouds.

  Ian spared a few moments to take this all in, allowing himself to be suitably impressed, but then wheeling back to the important elements at hand.

  “Thank you, Lord,” he murmured as he stepped close after their charges, the rest of the privates following.

  Their official led them straight up to the edge of the eating area, where a large Dervish man turned and hailed them well before they reached it.

  “Ah, ‘ere I see my good Lord Wester!” the Dervish man boomed with a large smile. “Welcome then, welcome my good Bevish guests! As you see, zhey have come all zhe way from Baldave to see me.”

  A considerable amount of laughter came from all around Lord Beaumont at that. He was a man of average height and large girth. He wore a spotless white uniform of an older, Dervish cut, heavily adorned with multicolored ribbons and medals. He had the hallmarks of a heavily-used smile and a certain hoarse edge underneath his laughter that suggested many years of use. He sported little hair, the white remnants having retreated to his ears, and his eyes were bright, warm.

  The margrave stopped near his host and politely bowed a little.

  “Your hospitality is greatly appreciated,” the margrave said. “Your premises are very impressive.”

  “Do not bother with zhem,” Lord Beaumont said, laughing as he took and vigorously shook Lord Wester’s hand. “I am so ‘appy you ‘ave come! Orinoco is very good place to travel in, but one man misses good food ‘hen he travels, no?” By some charismatic sleight of hand, in the space of a couple sentences, he was enthusiastically dragging the margrave back around toward the rest of their party. “But ‘ere zhere will be no wanting, zhat is my request! Eat, drink, and laugh with us good. Tonight our home is your home, and we will all—‘ave good?”

  “Indulge, your majesty,” their party’s official said with a smile and bow.

  “Yes, yes,” Lord Beaumont boomed. “Indulde, all of you will indulde in the good arts of gastro-nomy tonight.” There was a great chorusing of agreement from the people around them. Lord Beaumont turned to Elizabeth Wester and Captain Marsden. “And I give welcome to our most beautiful, noble lady—welcome, welcome to Bon Sens, whose beauty could only be rivaled by one so gor-geous as you.”

  “My Lord,” the margrave’s daughter bowed her head down and almost curtseyed, but Lord Beaumont had taken her hand and kissed it before she could fully offer that.

  “Oh, you Bevish,” he laughed, “all ways so polite. You make good landlords for us since we all ways know our women are safe. Zhat is true, no?”

  Captain Marsden looked as though his mood would have led him to be disagreeable, but he acquired a sense of awkwardness as Lord Beaumont continued on down the line, eagerly taking and pumping the captain’s hand up and down.

  “And it is a great honor,” the lord was saying, “to ‘ave such esteemed, valor men as our guests! Welcome, welcome all of you. I was glad zhat dear Gressaire was able to find you.”

  Gressaire, whom Ian hadn’t realized was so close behind them in the ring of faces, called out something in Dervish.

  “Aha, yes, yes!” Lord Beaumont said, adding something back in Dervish. “But zhere are better ways to talk. Come, let us eat, zhen we will dance! Music, begin zhe music!”

  And while the music had already begun sometime before, it did switch its ambience to something more insistent. It was mostly soft strings, with the core sound coming from a small group arranged at the far end of the dining area, and complemented by numerous individual musicians who were persistently on the move, their faces and suits well-composed as they worked at continually changing the form of the music. It was like some elaborate game of tones and angles that Ian wasn’t sure was supposed to be competitive or not, and though he had heard plenty of such Tonal pieces in the very classical Drosic form before, he had never seen one performed. Tonal being a very Drosic, very old form of music, but Ian knew that it also been long embraced in Derfi as well. It led him to wonder just how much Lord Beaumont followed the trends of Orlies, the Dervish capital.

  “To the table, then,” Ian said, after their company hesitated in uncertainty, taking a moment for them to interpret that the guests were indeed moving toward the tables, and that they were to do the same.

  “Confounding—” Rory was saying under his breath as they all ran into the unexpected problem of employing the proper method of weaving toward their destination without running into the other guests.

  Ian quickly decided on speed as the most admirable element, though this was primarily in the pursuit of the margrave’s daughter. She was being led near the main table by the captain and their Dervish official, who were in turn being indirectly led by Lord Beaumont, who was vastly absorbed in giving Lord Wester as much to absorb as possible. As Ian angled his way through, wishing he knew more than one Dervish phrase for excusing himself, he could hear their official explaining how much Lord Beaumont admired the Bevish language and was always eager to impress his Bevish company with new words. Such as gastronomy, which he had just learned.

  “Wonder if he’s learned megalomaniac yet,” Kieran said, just loud enough for Ian to catch.

  Surprised that Kieran’s lexicon included such a thing, Ian looked back, checking to see that none of the other guests had caught and understood that.

  “This way, old boy,” Ian called back, mostly to Rory, but was glad when it was heard and heeded by Brodie and Kieran as well.

  Captain Marsden and Elizabeth had sufficiently lagged behind Lord Beaumont and Lord Wester that they had to settle for places a fair ways down from their host at the main table. The spaces immediately around Lord Beaumont had already filled, and neither the captain nor the margrave’s daughter seemed overly inclined to fight for higher seats.

  “Come, my good captain,” Gressaire bobbed in across the table from Captain Marsden and Elizabeth Wester as they made to settle themselves at the table places they had reached. “Your lieutenant is much embattled by much fast talking Dervish officers who assert zhat zhe Bevish rout at ‘Ondesburg was because—um, how should I say, Bevish stupidity?”

  “Stupidity?” Captain Marsden visibly bristled.

  Yes, yes, Ian thought as they reached the table. Go and defend His Majesty’s sabre.

  “That is absurd,” the captain said as he threw down the napkin he had he just picked up, “in addition to grossly insulting.”

  Gressaire looked a little commiserative, but also encouraging, in an impish sort of way. “Zhat is what zhey say, but maybe zhey do not mean zhat bad of a word.”

  “Excuse me, milady,” Captain Marsden said to Elizabeth Wester before stomping off after a jubilant Gressaire. “I don’t care where we are, this won’t be—”

  Ian quickly slid next to the margrave’s daughter. “Would you permit our intrusion, milady?”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes had lit up a little when she had turned to find so many familiar, red uniforms near her, but they quickly became more controlled.

  “This is rich,” Kieran muttered angrily as an elderly, Dervish man was already sitting down on Elizabeth’s other side. Kieran made a quick calculation, then jerked Brodie down the length of the table and toward—

  “I don’t suppose wagers are estimable within your circles, milady,” Ian said.

  “N
o,” Elizabeth said, also watching Kieran’s progress around the end of the table and around to the other side, “but if they were, I would not wager that he will make it.”

  “But—” Ian said, his eyes on the considerable but indecisive competition of guests milling about the opposite side from them, “—if the obstacles prove to be overestimated …”

  “Excuse us,” Kieran said as he pushed his way to the seats directly across from them.

  “Pardonze him,” Brodie said as he took the seat next to Kieran with a little less gusto.

  “You know …” Ian said hesitantly, “I would have moved if you would have asked.”

  Brodie burst out laughing, and even Elizabeth smiled as Kieran irritably pulled in his chair and arranged his napkin.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kieran muttered, then looked at the margrave’s daughter. “The view is far more beautiful from here.”

  “Words,” Elizabeth said, looking off in a purposefully airy way, toying with her own napkin, “they delight only the ears.”

  Kieran laughed back, and Ian wondered if he really thought that she had made that up.

  By this point, the majority of the guests had seated themselves, most of those nearby being more elderly. They were at the foot of the most prominent stretch leading up to their host and his most valued guest.

  As Ian watched, streams of waiters dressed in spotless white overcoats made their way to the tables, carrying platters that held an assortment of bowls.

  With the intention of getting his bearings before they reached their table, Ian turned to the array of dinnerware laid out in front of him.

  There were, as he quickly counted, three plates, two large, one small, as well as one fairly large soup bowl, two silken napkins, three glasses, two small silver instruments to the left that he didn’t recognize, and a bevy of silverware to his right.