The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Page 28

  “Slow down, old boy,” Lieutenant Taylor said as he walked after them, “the fish aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Well, good luck,” Ian murmured as he peered among the various tackle laid inside all the idiosyncratic compartments and containers.

  Rory was already walking off, frowning as he worked at the bait on his pole.

  Hesitating, Ian narrowed his selection down to the few most likely candidates—or at least what he hoped would seem so to a fish. He looked up at the Bevish servant.

  “Don’t go asking me,” the man said, dismissively as he lay back with the pipe he’d just lit. “I just carry it, I don’t get involved.”

  “It’s probably all right, in either case,” Ian said, by now only the Bevish servant and Will remaining. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to be beat a noble girl at a gentleman’s sport.”

  “Heh,” was all that the reclining servant said, and he said no more.

  Looking up inquisitively, it didn’t appear that Will knew which way to take that either. Shrugging, Ian settled on a small, temperature-controlled container of worms that he didn’t recognize and the pole he already had in hand.

  “Care to join me?” Ian asked Will. “Does your expertise extend to fishing?”

  “A little,” Will said as they started off, “but I’m afraid I cannot join any of you. It is not a terribly undignified thing for a chero to join in, but—”

  “I understand,” Ian waved it off. “Let’s go this way.”

  Will assented, and they went off after where most of the others had gone. Ian nearly reasoned to himself that it would be more strategic to go where there was less competition for the fish, but it didn’t seem like very much fun to go off from everyone else. He was also not excessively keen on going near Elizabeth or Corporal Wesshire.

  He and Will talked on and off as they went, not following fast after the others, who seemed to be busy making more noise than professional effort. Their talk drifted with and from fishing as Ian knelt in the gravel and hooked his first worm. With some amount of caution, he readied his pole and made a tentative cast.

  “Now what?” Ian asked.

  “Haven’t you done this before?”

  “A little,” Ian said. “We used to fish down at the harbors sometimes, when we weren’t working. But we didn’t really have good conditions, so we rarely ever caught anything. We usually would end up sword fighting more with the poles than trying to fish.”

  “You don’t have anything to keep the bait off the floor of the lake,” Will said, trying to make gestures with his hands to demonstrate.

  “That’s true,” Ian said, frowning as he tried to interpret the other’s fingers, but the motions evidently were quicker and more intricate than what he was used to getting from other humans.

  “Keep bringing it back in and casting,” Will advised.

  “All right,” Ian said as he reeled his line back in, “like this? This fast?”

  “Maybe a little slower,” Will said, “and could you describe the Wilome docks? It’s hard for me to imagine so much water.”

  “Well, it’s not too hard to imagine,” Ian said as he carefully brought his hook and line back around his shoulder to recast. “You can’t see most of it because of the docks and the ships coming in, and you can only see for so many miles anyway. But the ocean is just—this stretch of water and then the horizon. But the docks—well, the docks are all different kinds of sizes. Some of the cores are a hundred feet tall, and they run along most of the coastline. Oh—and I guess I should’ve mentioned, but—wait, was that a bite?”

  They waited for a few seconds, the breeze gently blowing Ian’s line against the water.

  “Guess not,” Ian said, “but I forgot to mention that we were never strongly motivated to do well at fishing. Anything we could catch would be full of lanphoid and would be really poisonous.”

  “I see,” Will said. “It seems strange to be able to live in a place so full of disease.”

  Ian shrugged, walking a little bit down the shoreline, thinking the movement might make his bait more charming. “It’s kind of like living here. Just with a different set of dangers. We don’t have to worry about fire ants in Wilome.”

  “Well,” Will said softly, looking off toward the others, “I think things will be different now that the margrave’s other daughter is here.”

  “Yes,” Ian answered carefully. “In any way in particular?”

  “Perhaps a slightly selfish one,” Will said. “Now that the margrave has his servants again, I think they will see to most of the camp preparations.”

  “That should be nicer for you,” Ian said diplomatically, “do you have any specific plans for—whatever extra time you might get?”

  “It will let me have more opportunity to scout around the area, sometimes with the other pawamous. That will give me a better idea of the nearby game.”

  “Any sign of the lion yet?” Ian asked as he pulled in his bait and started off further down the shoreline.

  “No, but that does not mean much. We have come near to some four horns though, and I think we should provide some for the margrave once we get past the Mombosso.”

  “Will we be crossing it tomorrow?”

  “Ah,” Will laughed a little, carefully, “it actually seemed to have been the plan to have crossed it today. I believe the margrave intends to continue on tomorrow, but we will see.”

  “I suppose so,” Ian said, squinting down the shoreline in the distance, where he could just make out the flash of red almost as well as he could hear the accompanying voice.

  “Speaking of those wyvern things, those are quite the—” Ian changed topics upon another uneventful passing of his line in the water, “—am I doing something wrong? Am I using the wrong bait? I don’t remember it being this hard.”

  “Maybe the fish in Wilome are hungrier?”

  “Well …” Ian frowned. “I guess we can head down and see how the others are getting along.”

  “This is a waiting sport,” Will said as they started off again. “It requires a lot of patience.”

  “It’s a lot easier to be patient when I can see what I’m waiting for.”

  “Any luck?” Brodie called upon seeing them.

  “Not yet,” Ian said.

  Up ahead, still on the more open part of the lake, Lieutenant Taylor was sitting on a rock. One of his hands tended to his fishing line, but it seemed his more tender focus was upon the pipe in his other hand.

  “Uh, Lieutenant Taylor, sir?” Ian asked the older man quietly when he got near. “Would you have any recommendations on the best kind of bait?”

  The lieutenant squinted up at him. “Depends what you want to catch—and where. I doubt you’ll be catching much with a jury like that.”

  What followed was a shortly embarrassing, but necessary, as Ian reasoned, reconfiguring of Ian’s line and bait, which the lieutenant informed him was more for deepwater fishing. If they had a boat, and probably a deeper lake, it would be better. But a minute later and Ian had something more appropriate assembled.

  “Does your expertise cover fishing as well, chero?” Lieutenant Taylor asked Will.

  “I am afraid not, sir,” Will answered.

  “A shame,” the lieutenant grunted, “but I also have a question or two about these insects that keep getting into our boots …”

  Ian continued on, nodding back at Will, who made a motion with his face that succinctly communicated he would be following soon. It was a brief, startling sort of expression that made Ian wish he could communicate that effectively without words.

  “Any luck on your end?” Ian asked Brodie and Kieran, who were a bit further off.

  “No,” Kieran said, not turning his glare off his line.

  “She ended up bagging the first one,” Brodie explained. “It isn’t a complete blow, though. Even she admitted that much since it was really small.”

  “I caught the very first one,” Kieran said, “but we all agreed it was too small
to count.”

  “That’s too bad,” Ian said, carrying on. He wanted to snub them, but far more importantly, he wanted them to know that he was snubbing them. The problem lay in that he wasn’t sure he had the justification at this point. It had only been a couple of days, and Ian knew that he should forgive them—but whether or not he actually had, was he supposed to act like nothing had happened?

  “Yes,” Brodie said, watching Ian as he passed, “so we all agreed that the contest would come down to the biggest catch.”

  “That sounds fair,” Ian said. “Did Rory head down this way?”

  “I don’t know,” Kieran scoffed, “isn’t he your second?”

  “And the margrave’s daughter?” Ian called back. “Maybe we should keep a closer eye on her.”

  “Better you than us,” Kieran answered.

  Ian scoffed a bit himself, picking his way through the increasingly larger rocks underfoot. The air grew cooler the farther he went. Up ahead, the trees began to crowd in around the shoreline, though Ian could still somewhat see Madeline Wester a fair ways off, kneeling down, intently watching her line.

  Checking his yeoman, Ian could hardly get anything near them to show up on its sensors, thanks to the tassi trees. That would be one problem he would be glad to leave behind on Orinoco.

  Peering around them the best he could, Ian soon saw the distant rustlings of careless footsteps, matched with glimpses of a red uniform. Ian waited until Rory was much nearer before intercepting him.

  “Caught anything yet?” Ian asked.

  “Just a couple of bites,” Rory said.

  “That’s a good bait to be using here—I hear,” Ian said, eyeing Rory’s bait, the kind that Lieutenant Taylor had recommended.

  “Yeah,” Rory said as he looked down at the hook he was knotting, “it’s the best for aiming for fish off the shore.”

  “Right,” Ian agreed. “Have you been spying on the margrave’s daughter for any pointers?”

  “What for?” Rory snorted. “I know how to fish. It’s just a matter of getting them to bite.”

  “Right,” Ian said, looking over his pole and wishing he knew better what to look for.

  “Are you going to be fishing here?” Rory said after casting.

  “I guess that would be a little too much competition,” Ian agreed. “I’ll head further that way.”

  Rory spoke up, his eyes still solemn on his line, “Try just on the other side of this set of logs—the fish like to hide under it.”

  “Thanks.” Ian looked at the small bunch of tassi logs that Rory was indicating. His second’s line ran just along the left of the green and blue congregation of vegetation around the logs.

  Deciding that made a lot of sense, Ian weaved his way through the trees another fifty feet to the rightmost edge of the logs. Setting down his equipment, he had a dispiriting blow in looking over to watch Madeline Wester reeling in, and then pulling up a flashing line of water and fish. She had an exceptionally satisfied air as she carefully grabbed it by the fins from off of her line and stowed it in the wire basket at the edge of the water. There was a flurry of flailing and splashing as the newcomer was introduced to the fish already waiting there.

  Turning back to his own station, Ian reset himself and began casting. Nothing happened the first couple of tries. Deciding that he was probably reeling it in too fast, he slowed the recalling of his line, trying to imagine the slow sinking of the bait beside the weed bed he’d managed to get moderately near to.

  He waited a couple hopeful breathes. Then he had to jerk the reel a couple of times to keep the bait moving. He waited another moment, and was about to reel again when he felt and saw his line tug a tad beneath the surface.

  Readjusting his hands, he waited another moment as there was nothing, hoping that he hadn’t imagined it—but it had been too real and too hard to—it went again. This time with more force, less coyness. And instinctively he jerked his pole back, so hard he almost brought the bait out of the water. It ended up several feet from where it had been, fishless.

  “The hardest part is setting the hook,” Will said, as he walked toward Ian.

  “I have to do it softer?”

  Will hesitated. “I believe so. I know the fish around most of the planet are known for having differently shaped mouths, so—” he was trying to demonstrate it with his hands.

  “I see,” Ian frowned, looking over to where the margrave’s youngest daughter was in the midst of wrangling another catch in. “At least I’ve got them to bite at it. The rest should be fairly easy.”

  The minutes and finicky reactions to his bait, steadily dwindling as the worm was, continued to slip, even after several times when he thought he had it figured out. As much as he liked to philosophize that pressure was something to be dealt with, not struggled with, he found himself minutely aware of the passing the minutes. And every once and awhile the telltale splash and the consistently unladylike sounds of rejoicing from their youngest charge only spurred him on to greater frustrations.

  For his part, Will kept up a steady air of encouragement, but Ian felt him withdrawing as Ian’s temper began to show through the edges. Finally though, Ian got a persistent set of bites and jerked diagonally to the left, finally feeling that elusive catch he had been hunting after.

  “You have him now,” Will said excitedly.

  “Kanters has got one, too,” Kieran’s voice drifted toward them.

  Not sparing a glance as he fought to hold his ground, Ian’s line attempted to make a break for deeper water. He did his best to pull the line back over his shoulders and then rush it back in front of him so that he could reel in the difference. Throughout this, he could hear his fellows’ voices coming closer, evidently noting that Rory was also working at his own fish.

  “Bring it in, bring it in closer,” Will was chanting.

  Ian strategically hauled his line off to the right, bringing the fish steadily nearer to the rocks at the shore. He felt the fish stumbling through the new obstacles. Ian’s heart was beating, his eyes risking a glance over at the margrave’s daughter, just as the fish finally broke out the water, splashing over a rock. Rushing forward, his own feet splashed in the water between the rocks as he hurriedly reeled in the slack.

  “Let’s see it, Kanters,” Kieran said as they stepped close.

  “Not too shoddy,” Brodie was saying as Ian hauled it up, a wriggling length of green with a yellow crest that ran from its gills to its struggling tail.

  “Not the prettiest chap,” Ian laughed, making sure to grab it quickly by the gills before it could somehow get off of his line and wreck untold reputational havoc. Its fins were webbed and pretty sharp on the ends, Ian’s hand experiencing at least part of that, but it was necessary. His fish also had a strange under-jaw that peaked above the rest of its mouth, no doubt contributing to the difficulty in hooking it.

  “We caught four, about that size and bigger,” Kieran said.

  “Four each?” Ian asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh,” Ian said, looking back at the margrave’s daughter, who wasn’t looking at him. “Are you two moving down further?”

  “We thought we might join in here, actually,” Brodie said, already in the process of casting his line. “It looks like you chaps are making off good around these weeds.”

  “It does seem to work well,” Ian said, keeping his wriggling fish aloft as Rory also brought over his most recent catch. “Measure it up.”

  “Not my best,” Rory said. He was frowning even before he held it up against Ian’s. “No, you beat me.”

  “Well,” Ian said, “I have to be able to beat you at something.”

  “It’s just the first catch,” Rory said. “I’m bound to pull the biggest one at this rate—and I could’ve had two others already, but I let them go. They were too small.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to see,” Ian said, deciding it was better to diffuse the situation—he would rather not get in a fight with anyone else in fr
ont of Kieran and Brodie.

  “Hey, that was a powerful bite,” Brodie exclaimed, Kieran already casting beside him, “you’re right Kanters, this is a great spot.”

  “It was very thoughtful of you to take it,” Ian said, lowly.

  Brodie looked over his shoulder at Ian, looking as if he was going to say something, but didn’t. Kieran ignored him.

  “Here, Williams,” Ian said, bringing his fish over to the wire basket that their company mates had brought, “let’s keep them all together.”

  “Please take care of mine as well,” Madeline Wester said, approaching them with her basket. “I’ve already got six, how many have all of you caught?”

  They all stared as she dropped her basket in front of them, purportedly of the same quantity, but definitely of a superior volume.

  “Molech,” Ian heard Brodie whisper under his breath.

  “Well, how many?” she insisted.

  “Six,” Ian managed, the margrave’s daughter finally turning to look at him.

  “Each?” she asked, taking a moment before their hesitation, and then their silence led her smile to break out in a wide chorus. “You men had better hurry up; it would be a shame if all of you fell behind. You know that fishing is all about waiting, but only at the right times. The rest is matching the right size of bait and hook to the fish you want. Oh, and it’s important to make sure to always give the fish enough time to really take the bait.”

  “We’ll manage,” Kieran said.

  “I’m going to head further down that way,” Madeline said as she turned, picking up the extra basket. “The point was a great place, but I think I caught all of the good fish around it already.”

  She left.

  They stood there for several long moments after, staring down in various states of dismay and outrage at the basket she had left. Ian looked up at the others, and that seemed to break it.

  Both Kieran and Brodie said something about moving down further, already picking up their things and dashing toward the point.

  Ian looked at Rory, then down at the basket again before he sighed and bent to carry it to the water. “Are you going to being stay here for a while?” he asked Rory.