The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Page 24

  “Are some of these yours?” Rory asked Ian, but quickly looked embarrassed when he saw that their allocations were all the same.

  “Oh dearest, noble lady,” Brodie said across to Elizabeth. Though, when all their attention had turned to him, Brodie abruptly turned to the elderly lady on his left. “Please educate a poor Bevish man on all this trumpery.”

  She looked at him, haughty in a defensive way, saying something in Dervish.

  “Please?” Brodie said, holding up his utensils upside-down imploringly. “I’ll starve.”

  With a huff, the woman turned back to the much less urgent conversation going on at her other side.

  “There’s never any reason to be worried,” Ian said, looking over at Elizabeth, “until all your options have been exhausted.”

  “Indeed,” Elizabeth raised her larger napkin to dab at her lips. “It is all merely a matter of order. Every item has its place and turn. We begin with the lapel, which we unfold and refold like this, and then tuck into the front.”

  They made something of a white-knuckled competition out of it, as they were generally behind the progress of the rest of the surrounding guests, who probably didn’t actually care nearly as much about these matters of etiquette. Ian made sure to keep up with Elizabeth’s instructions, even anticipating the next step in the preparations so that he was safely ahead of Kieran. Brodie made the most fun out of it, and Ian imagined he could feel Rory’s tension beside him.

  Once, Ian wondered if Corporal Wesshire, perhaps isolated from the rest of them, as odds were, was struggling nearly as much as they were. But then he remembered just who Corporal Wesshire was. Though Ian had no idea what social circles the corporal had been raised in, it was plain the kind that he had been born for. Ian also remembered that he knew Dervish, which perhaps made him even less of an outsider by himself than all the rest of their company was together.

  If only I could speak their language, Ian thought. He wondered at what it would be like to be able to speak without words, with all the intents and unhindered meanings people had to communicate to each other. He thought about how much that would make all things better.

  But as he sat, a little quieter than the rest of them while the servers brought their food, their eyes and their laughter bright among the candlelight that moved with the water in the center of their table, Ian was afraid at what he might find. No overly friendly opinions of him were expected in Kieran’s feelings, but were there any in Brodie’s either? And while Rory seemed the most straightforward, it wouldn’t surprise Ian to find bitterness, of more than one kind, toward Ian. He certainly had call to, as their conflicts had fallen almost entirely quiet since the hunt, but no one could say whether they had been forgiven.

  “Is that something you would like as well, Private Kanters?” Elizabeth was asking him.

  And her, there was nothing to her he could really know for sure. As he nodded and said that it was, stared at her for a couple moments longer than he should have, he wasn’t sure that he actually did want to know.

  “There, you’ve done it,” Brodie said.

  “And what exactly is that?” Ian asked, trying to bring himself back to matters. The server who had asked Elizabeth what she had wanted, and consequently Ian and Brodie, was moving on, having already sent orders through his communication pad to the servers that were just reaching the head of the table with food.

  “Eltraités menlon,” Elizabeth Wester said with a flourishing accent. “It is a delicacy in the leeward parts of Derfi, extremely soft and succulent. It has a bitter sort of sweetness. That is probably because it has saffron in it.”

  “Is that a Dervish kind of animal?” Rory asked dolefully, staring down at his plate in some apparent trepidation.

  Ian tried not to laugh at that. “I trust milady’s better judgments.”

  “The same for us,” Kieran told their accompanying servant, doing his best to repeat what Elizabeth had requested when the servant had to prompt him. “Is that all we’re having though?”

  “Don’t you have the same sort of faith in our noble lady?” Brodie asked him.

  “Of course I do,” Kieran said, looking down the table. “It just seems like they’re putting food into the water.”

  They all peered, with as much dignity as possible, to confirm that it did indeed appear to be the case. And as they watched, the deep bowls that the servants set into the beginning of the table’s waters began to slowly spin down its length.

  “Must be the side courses,” Ian said, looking about them, “and those must be how you pull them in.”

  They all looked where Ian was watching a rather hungry-looking older man. The man was peering down the table at the oncoming dishes with what looked like half of a billiard stick. It was some high spectacle as they sat and observed him carefully pick one dish out from the rest, lean forward, and gingerly bring his stick over the silver bowl. It immediately stopped spinning and followed closely underneath the stick to beach just in front of the man, within easy reach.

  “That must be why they can’t win at billiards or wars,” Kieran said, experimentally taking out his stick that he found was set into the table beside him, “they don’t know the proper use for billiard cues.”

  “Private,” Ian calmly said at Kieran, but glaring, “not everyone can be as finely educated in sticks as you.”

  Kieran probably would have had a great deal to counter for that, but a fit of self-awareness seemed to come over him. Ian made sure that the other looked away first. For as generally intelligent as Kieran was, it was amazing how stupid he could be. Never mind that it didn’t look as though anyone around them had noticed, and that their immunity as guests probably allowed for a lot of unwarranted grace, but it wasn’t as though they were the only ones who could understand overly rude Bevish.

  Elizabeth Wester glanced over at Ian, a quiet pair of eyebrows showing her assent.

  “Well then,” Ian said, without losing momentum as he sought to change the tone, “whether our food should be delivered or floated to us first, I’m a little lost about which fork to start with. You said to begin on the outside, work our way in?”

  “Generally,” Elizabeth said in a noncommittal voice, “but I surely advise you gentlemen that these arrangements are quite more splendid than what I am familiar with. None of my advice could be valid at all.”

  “I suppose we simply have to take our chances,” Ian said, looking over at Rory soberly, “but as long as milady finds us still to be gentlemen, then all is not lost.”

  “Here, here,” Brodie said, raising his cup—his flute high.

  “Wait,” Ian frowned, “is that wine? Where did you get wine?”

  They all checked their own wine flutes to find them still empty, and they tried to crane in closer as Brodie tried to answer over a sudden and boisterous peal of laughter just down the table.

  “What?” Rory asked.

  “He said he got it from the fountain,” Kieran supplied sullenly, as the noise fell somewhat.

  “Yeah,” Brodie pointed down the table. “That’s what that chap did. I think we should just watch him for the rest of the night.”

  “I see,” Ian said, looking down the fountain stream directly in front of him.

  Upon closer inspection, he saw that the waters there were of a slightly more amber color than the rest, though there were of course many points throughout the length of the table where different colors were used for effect. But this small portion in front of him was remarkably contained. Ian had noticed the three crystal pieces in front of his setting before, but he had just assumed the squat, chess-like pieces were merely for decoration. Noting that everyone else also had three of these pieces and guessing that they were too small to offer any special aesthetic qualities, he experimentally tried nudging one.

  “Look,” Elizabeth said, “the color changed.”

  Ian glanced up and saw that the swirl in front of him had become somewhat darker. But Ian was watching the name that appeared on the surfa
ce of the table between the three crystal pieces in very stylized, dark red letters.

  “Munion,” Rory said, “that’s a sort of brandy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It is,” Kieran said.

  “Brilliant,” Ian murmured, carefully taking a different crystal piece and moving it much further in relation to the others and watching the accorded effect in the name and color of liquid.

  By this point, they were all trying their own pieces, though the margrave’s daughter merely watched Ian’s. Feeling far more satisfied at his choice of seating than of actually being the first to discover the method of beverage selection, Ian continued with a great deal of said satisfaction—since he was actually also very satisfied he had been the one to figure out the method of beverage selection.

  “Oh, that sounds interesting,” Elizabeth said, from near his shoulder.

  Ian was only perhaps three-fifths aware of the drink he had come to, in dark green letters. The other, far more excited two-fifths were devoted to the rather intoxicating scents spilling off from Elizabeth’s hair, and down her shoulder, as Ian imagined it. He was quite sure he had never quite experienced anything like it—quite sure it had to be some sort of expensive perfume their hosts had lent her, so vividly reminiscent in his mind of cedar and rose petals, mixed together with something else …

  “Let’s try it then,” Ian said, taking his flute and leaning forward to dip it into the little alcove they each had. It wasn’t the simplest of arrangements, but he supposed that wasn’t the point.

  Kieran and Brodie were laughing about something as he took a tentative sip.

  “Well?” Elizabeth asked from over her water glass.

  Ian smiled. “I think our food is nearly here.”

  Events became headier, less structured from there. It wasn’t so much the drinks, for there wasn’t all that much indulgence in that, but the rest pressed in so eagerly.

  Partway through the meal, a string of varied candles were initiated down the fountain stream, well-timed with the general arrival of the main plate that their party had requested. That was the moment Ian instantly knew he would remember most about the meal. Not entirely sure how it happened at that particular moment, it framed their laughter in a warm, passing way. He mostly saw the others, their animated faces from where he sat, but it was in the glance he was able to snatch of Elizabeth, the light soft on the cascades of her hair and her eyes bright that made the moment seem different. And in hindsight, of course, it was a fitting epitome to the meal.

  He had never seen food like this. Neither in variety, quality, or amount. The first dishes that began to trickle by were lighter, seasoned bits of glazed meats, ornate arrangements of exotic-looking fruits. Those were quickly succeeded by finer meats, of differing calibers and dispositions. Food was a topic he never had been overly inclined to follow, so Elizabeth did her best to give a running commentary. There was so much to try, and there was a tangible pressure to try at least most of it at least a little. This was all probably mutually encouraged by the rest of their company and the people all around him.

  Rory was a mild wonder, as Ian had noticed before that he was capable of a lot of eating. But it astounded Ian that Rory wasn’t far worse off than he was given his capacities and his proneness for filling them.

  “What—what is that?” Ian asked, trying to clear his mouth before speaking, but not quite succeeding, belatedly trying to cover it with his hand.

  Elizabeth was laughing as they watched it float by. “I don’t know, but it looks good. You had better—”

  “—grab it,” Ian agreed as he reached for his puller-stick thing. “Wait, wait—”

  She was laughing. Not a lot, and it wasn’t really giggling, or any other sort of distinctly feminine expressions of humor, but it was definitely occurring, and far more freely than Ian had ever heard yet, or maybe had thought to ever hear.

  Barely succeeding in acquiring the latest delicacy, he brought it between them.

  “It looks different from this close,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes, it does,” Ian said, “but it’s here—how does that go again?”

  “Comme déchet est à la pitié,” Elizabeth answered. “To waste is to pity.”

  They had been hearing that phrase a lot, all down the table and behind them where a lesser congregation was hard at work.

  “Would you like some of this, Williams?” Ian asked, and obliged his overwhelmed-looking second with a couple of ladles full of the dish before setting it back out to sea. “Any sight of an end yet?”

  “Not yet,” Elizabeth said, peering down. “This is quite good though, have some of this.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ian said, holding his hand to his stomach, “I should start to slow down. But those do look good, what are—”

  “Candied truffles,” Elizabeth said, taking his fork and holding one up to his mouth, “with some sort of watery fruit … in the middle …”

  Ian obliged her, nodding in approval as the chocolate melted on his tongue, running into the lighter liquid at its core. Holding it for a moment, he savored the play of the chocolate slowly oozing off before biting into the fruit, which was surprisingly tart.

  “Very good,” he nodded again, though the surprise was beginning to wear off, as he’d already had far better at least half a dozen times since they’d begun. He wondered at what it would be like to eat like this every day.

  Sinking back into his seat, Ian craned his head back up at the ceiling, which was all aglow with the last bits of twilight and the beginning of the nightscape. He couldn’t quite be sure if the heavens were perhaps a little embellished, but the cool air inside the hall, which he still hadn’t quite gotten used to, made for an excellent atmosphere to muse on such things. The belly full of successful gastronomy only added the edge.

  “Another cake!” he heard Brodie say from the other side of the table.

  Glancing down, Ian saw that the report was true. This one was merely another step higher in size and complexity in the ongoing progression that had floated by them. People were also moving more between the tables now, being more prone to get up and return. Some attempts at orderly dancing were taking place around the tables to the music, but Ian could see that was quickly bound for gradual disorder. Spirits were piqued in general, and more was the only direction to go.

  “Kanters, and Williams, when you’re done with that—” Brodie was calling to him as he slid the cake over their way, “you’ve got to try this one. It explodes—no, it does! It explodes in your mouth. Be a chap, try a little.”

  And he did, had to, of course. It was some sort of imaginative concoction of sugar and cream, but afterwards he had to thoroughly rinse his mouth to drown out its aftertaste.

  And the next item was of course a serious duty to try, and the next, and the next. His innate sense of restraint and his aching stomach seemed silly in such times and company. What did it matter if the sugar began to taste increasingly excessive, the liquids all the same? He would only get one chance to enjoy himself like this, and he was. While he definitely didn’t feel like he was having as much fun as the others were with their palates, he was definitely winning at holding the conversation.

  Kieran had been more reserved since his stick comment, so it wasn’t even as much of a challenge as usual—not that it usually was either.

  “And where do you think all these people are from?” Ian asked Elizabeth.

  “We were told that many of them come from Carciti,” Elizabeth said, “some of them on business, and some of them work for Lord Beaumont. Some of them also work as liaisons for the Bevish governments, but it sounds like many of those spend more time here than in Carciti.”

  Ian nodded. “It’s a lively bunch.”

  “My poor father,” Elizabeth Wester said calmly, looking down the table to where Ian could only get glimpses of the two lords, “he does not enjoy these functions. Especially not like my mother.”

  “Is she staying on Gower?” Ian asked carefully, trying not t
o sound intrusive.

  “Oh, no,” Elizabeth said, “of course not. She stays most of the time when my father is there, but she would always far rather be in Wilome.” She leaned in close to Ian and lowered her voice with a low smile. “And it is best not to say, but she does have an idle fancy for Orlies and its allures, much to my father’s chagrin.”

  Ian only smiled back, noticing that Kieran was watching them intently. Raising his glass, he met it against Elizabeth’s.

  “To Derfi,” Ian said, “and all of its wonders.”

  “To Derfi,” she answered, her eyes smirking.

  The next half hour passed in more of a lull, as more people got up and returned. Ian led their party up as well to stretch their legs. To his surprise, he found that he was much fuller than he had realized, that his stomach hurt whenever he tried to turn. He also wasn’t quite as steady on his feet as he would’ve guessed, the more gradual pace of the evening having quietly taken its effects.

  Moving about with the others, it was also good to get outside of the din of the conversation radiating around the tables. Looking, listening at them now, it was easier to see just how excessive their dispositions were, their consumptions. Feeling a little guilty that he had taken so much, he knew at least that it was only for one night.

  “Milady,” Kieran was saying, “what is that perfume? It’s absolutely wonderful.”

  “Oh, yes?” the margrave’s daughter smiled. “I believe the ladies called it douce dame rose.”

  “Ah,” Kieran said.

  “Oleander,” Elizabeth said, “I believe that is what it would translate to.”

  “O-lie-man-der-man—” Brodie tried, humorously. “I think the Dervish one is easier to remember.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said simply.

  Ian frowned, looking over at her. He had been watching the musicians, wondering if they actually cost more than the meal to employ, but something in her tone caught his attention. No one else seemed to, but then again, none of them were overly attentive either.