The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Page 29

  “Of course I am,” Rory said, “this spot is just fine. You moving down to the point, too?”

  Ian looked down to where the others were already arriving, in mid-cast. “No, I’ll probably go past that. Someone should probably stay within sight of the margrave’s daughter.”

  “Fine by me,” Rory said, turning back to the lake.

  Leaving it at that, Ian set off again, this time alone as Will had started back the way they’d come, probably to do something for Lieutenant Taylor.

  Feeling a little put out, Ian carried on past where Kieran and Brodie seemed to be having a fair go at it. Ian had caught his first real fish and was beating Rory so far, which was a quiet but very nice sort of victory. But it all seemed rather hollow in light of being soundly thrashed by a girl. He had thought it absurd that she would be able to beat them in any sort of meaningful sense anytime before five minutes ago, but now he was beginning to entertain the sickly thought she might do exactly what she wanted so badly.

  Chapter 14

  “E261.1—One medium lock halver sabre shall be accorded to each active ranger, 38 inches in length, with 742 alters of cutting energy installed in the hilt, in addition to scabbard and blunder. Any enlisted officer shall be accorded one light lock halver sabre, with similar dimensions and 921 alters of cutting energy installed. Any officer at or above the rank of captain may furnish his own sabre. See regulations, KVX.113.”

  —Royal Arsmen Reconnaissance Quartermaster Guide

  Ian found himself keeping up a tuneless whistle that wasn’t really on his mind but kept returning to his lips. Kicking at loose obsidian rocks that lay between the foundational network of tree roots, he angled in something of a hook around the point where his fellows were, skimming closer to the lake after he was well past them, but keeping inside the tree cover. He had gone some ways before he began to wonder just how far the margrave’s daughter had moved, or perhaps if he had somehow passed by her.

  A couple times, he made himself stop to listen and peer through the trees, but he didn’t see any signs of anyone outside of the occasional ruckus Kieran and Brodie would rise in the distance. Thoughts of picking up his pace came to mind when he began to hear the barest edges of the insistent sounds that were already becoming well-known within their camp.

  The sounds grew increasingly clearer the further he went, though he couldn’t discern any other voices answering them. When he politely broke through into the clearing where her voice was coming from, he discovered the answer.

  Madeline was standing with her line cast near a cache of logs and weeds near the edge of the tall awning of trees. They sheltered a cover that was tucked into the trees farther than the rest of the lake, allowing some light on the water nearby, but otherwise shading the area.

  And Elizabeth Wester sat on a rock a little further down, her feet dipped in the water and her reader on her knees. Her eyes remained on it as Madeline went on about someone. There was no sign of Corporal Wesshire.

  “—I can’t believe that she would like it at all. He’s so old, and balder than a monk—” Maddy stopped upon hearing Ian. “Oh, hello, private.”

  “Your pardon, miladies,” he nodded, having some satisfaction in seeing Elizabeth look up at him. “If I am intruding, I can go back a ways.”

  “It’s fine,” Madeline Wester said, tending to her line again. “We’re not talking about anything important. Have you caught anything yet?”

  “Yes,” Ian said noncommittally, glad that Madeline Wester seemed to immediately lose interest in him. As he set about resetting his line, she resumed talking to her sister.

  Ian was able to listen closer once he had cast his line again, though he didn’t really want to. Well—a slim, gossipy slice of him was interested, which existed somewhere on the outermost reaches of the fringes of his sensibilities. But other than that, he thought it was probably best not to dip into his charges’ conversations.

  There wasn’t all that much to Maddy’s flow of topics, because it was wholly and only Madeline talking. They ranged primarily over their trip so far, especially the days she had spent apart and ahead of the rest of their party. Doing a little logical imagining, his mind didn’t paint a very appealing picture of what it must have been like for their servants the last several days. She also strayed into the topic of their mother remaining in Wilome, the state of their housekeeping on their home world, and how she hoped that they were given more prompt accommodations on their return trip.

  Madeline caught him staring at her once.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Uh, your line,” Ian was able to quickly point, which was terribly conveniently in the process of being tugged.

  “Oh, I know,” Maddy said without breaking a beat, putting her eyes back on her line. “There’s this one fish that keeps nibbling—I think this is him again, but I can’t seem to trick him into biting—harder—” she craned her arms first one way, then the other, moving the end of her line ever so slightly in the process. “I—Ha! There, I’ve got him now.”

  She let out a jubilant sound, Ian watching the earnest but careful way she dragged her pole. Evidently setting the hook well, she was able to continue reeling the fish in.

  “Can you signal for Cadbury, Elizabeth?” Maddy asked. “I need another basket.”

  “Can’t,” Elizabeth said, with some exaggerated sorrow, “we’re on Orinoco and—”

  “Ugh, I keep forgetting,” Maddy said. “That’s the only terrible part about this planet.”

  “I can get one, if you’d like,” Ian said, wetting his lips.

  “That’s fine,” Maddy said, frowning, “ugh, this is a tough one. I wish father wouldn’t keep giving us Cadbury in the first place, he’s so complacent. Here we are!”

  She splashed into the water the last bit, triumphantly raising the fish in the air, beaming.

  Ian cringed a little at the sight of the water splashing at the bottom of her dress, the fish nearly dripping onto the rest of it. He looked over and saw Elizabeth looking at her in an unenthused way.

  “Is this one worth all that?” Elizabeth asked. “Any more than the last two?”

  “Look at it!” Maddy said. “It’s the biggest one yet.”

  Elizabeth took the barest moment to scrutinize it. “I am fairly certain your first was larger. But it isn’t as if it would matter in any case.”

  “Of course it matters,” Maddy rejoined angrily as she stowed it in her quickly filling second basket.

  “Of course it does,” Elizabeth agreed, dropping her eyes back down to her book.

  “It does,” Maddy insisted, “there’s more meat on them, and they’re a lot harder to reel in, so it does matter.”

  Elizabeth didn’t answer.

  “Hey,” Maddy said, louder, “you traveled halfway across the galaxy and all you do is read your books—what sense does that make?”

  “Don’t be annoying,” Elizabeth allowed her, making it sound as if it was more effort than it was worth responding to her.

  “Cockanoodle, cockaday,” Maddy sang, putting her hands on her hips, “I will say what I will say.”

  Drawing himself back to himself and being glad that the margrave’s daughter evidently had no interest in drawing him into such matters, Ian was kind of disappointed though that Elizabeth was too absorbed in pretending to be able to read her book to see his expression. It would have at least been a little funny.

  From what he could gather, as Ian tried not to gather anything new outside of the status of his line, Elizabeth was markedly different around her sister. Ian hoped and didn’t really think there was anything deep or malicious about it—in fact, for the most part, it seemed quite the opposite. Detached, impassive—

  “Got you,” Ian muttered to himself as his pole jerked and held.

  “Oh, you’ve caught one?” Maddy was quick to notice.

  “At least one,” he said, smiling grimly.

  “Just don’t lose it, you’re pulling back too much,” she said, not looki
ng at him, as he noticed.

  He decided he was too busy to protest that. Making sure not to alter his efforts according to her advice, he was able to make quick but drastic cuts against his fish’s slack as it had the rather backwards tendency to try to swim away along the shore.

  A couple minutes later and he hauled it out, a marked improvement on his first catch and of a wholly different species. It was much straighter, with an almost gray color and rounder mouth and jaw.

  “Well?” he asked, as he trotted it over to the basket. “What does milady think of this catch?”

  “It isn’t bad,” Maddy said, casting a brief and doleful look over it. “And I imagine you haven’t brought your own things to keep it in.”

  “No, I’m sorry—”

  “I suppose it’s fine if you use mine,” Maddy said, her eyes already back on her line, “I didn’t want my fish getting mixed up with the rest of yours, but I’ll just keep track of the biggest one I catch.”

  “But will you keep track of mine if it’s the biggest?” Ian asked, only briefly weighing the potential consequences and deciding there wasn’t—

  “Ugh, don’t be silly,” Maddy glared over her shoulder, “there’s no way that will happen.”

  Ian saw Elizabeth looking at him knowingly, if only with a little less interest than usual.

  “I can’t say what will happen,” Ian began, “but—”

  “Quiet!” Maddy said, snapping her attention back to her line. “I’ve got another—I’ve got a really big bite—”

  “Careful,” Elizabeth said from her reader, “your contractions become unreasonable whenever you get so excited.”

  But even Elizabeth looked up at the furious splashing as the fish briefly broke the surface before plummeting back down, nearly taking the margrave’s daughter with it.

  “Man alive,” Ian muttered, half-taking a couple of half steps in that direction.

  Maddy was able to regain her balance, her eyes set and her mouth making strange, little motions as she fought at it. Taking a moment to reevaluate her slender arms, and what he could see of her legs, Ian did some fast and rather pessimistic calculations, and none of them ended up on Madeline’s side.

  “Milady,” he said, only half-rushing forward again, tripping over the rocks as he was too busy watching her line—

  “No!” Maddy protested, still staring. “I’ve got it—”

  “But surely—” he protested, but had already gone back to passively observing the struggle, edging a little closer at every upswing in favor of the fish, ready to jump in to assist, if not take over the situation entirely.

  But as he watched the battle, his dour estimates not really changing, it was the face of the margrave’s daughter that held him back, bright and gleeful as it was. And it held him back all the way up to when she pulled the fish up onto the rocks, and then up the best she could for everyone to see.

  By this point, some of the others had caught up to them and were able to witness the catch. They gave a congratulatory air, but Ian could well feel and empathize with the glumness and irritation that didn’t really bother to lurk out of sight.

  “Now you can all see how it’s done,” Maddy said, grinning from ear to ear, her eyes quick over them and often closed as she went on, “it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, fishing all comes down to talent. Some are born with it and some aren’t, that’s all.”

  “How unfortunate for us,” Brodie muttered as he struggled on his knees to grab a hold of the fish at Madeline Wester’s request, struggling as it hadn’t quite given up on freedom.

  “Well,” Maddy said, “what fun would it be if everyone was as good as everyone else? There always has to be someone better, that’s all.”

  Pursing his lips, Ian tried to force down all the wonderfully non-chivalrous responses that sprang to his mind and decided it was safest to stay purely clinical. Kneeling down next to Brodie, he helped to keep the fish down as Brodie opened the basket, which was becoming an ever more difficult chore the more occupants it accepted. Brodie gave a quick tightening of his mouth at Ian, a brief bit of gratitude.

  “This fish is different from the others,” Ian said, frowning and turning it over, both voluntarily and non-voluntarily as it struggled in his hands. It was longer, more eel-like than the kind he had caught, more sleek and rubbery than pointed. “It has a tail, but look at these—” He pointed at the pairs of holes on either end of its body that were futilely opening and closing. “It must push water out of those to propel itself.”

  “He was a really hard catch,” Maddy said, “but he’s not really all that big. On Gower we have much bigger fish, lots of pike and sturgeon. I bet these will taste really good though. One time, at our northern quarters, I caught a cold sturgeon that took nearly an hour to reel in, it was so big that—”

  Kieran walked next to Ian and Brodie, Ian doing his best to wash away the slime off his hands, Madeline going on.

  “Lucky us,” Kieran said in a low voice to them. “How many more weeks of this? She’s not even that good looking; it would have been the least we could get.”

  “Hey, are you listening?” Maddy looked over at them.

  “Of course, milady,” Kieran answered, mustering up a civil-looking smile.

  Ian sighed. The issue of their charge had definitely become more complicated, and it was doubtful that it would abate much for the rest of the expedition. It wasn’t such a big deal since he would probably be able to avoid her and the ensuing issues, but he also foresaw a need for his company to keep an eye on her. And looking around at her captive, but unwilling audience, he couldn’t really see anyone else stepping up to volunteer for that.

  Ian sighed again.

  * * * *

  They made an afternoon of the fishing. Then they were led by the victorious Maddy back to camp with their supper. The rest of the time before supper was devoted to cleaning all the fish they’d caught, yet another thing that Ian had never actually done, but Lieutenant Taylor was gracious with his time and instruction.

  Ian had always liked to eat fish, but he’d never had anything quite so wonderful. Wilome was of course the causeways for many famed varieties of fish, some of which he’d been able to have from time to time. But they paled in comparison to the lean, steady sort of spice that this meal made. As he reclined afterwards, he wondered at how much of the feeling was because he’d helped to catch it.

  And while he thought that the rest of the day and the fishing had done the company a great deal of good, a sort of unwinding after all that they’d indulged in at Bon Sens, the upper echelons of their party were definitely not the better for it.

  Captain Marsden was in an especially planning kind of mood, and his talk never ceased from it, no matter what other topics rose to sidetrack it.

  “And you wouldn’t believe,” the youngest of the margrave’s daughters was saying, “how long it took to bring in the biggest one, father. At least ten minutes, he had so much fight in him.”

  “I can only imagine,” the margrave said, his hands on his tea and his eyes on the fire.

  “Yes, I do think so,” Captain Marsden said, quite unshaken from the conversation he seemed to be having with himself, “we will fly the trails extra quick first chance we get. Keep it expedient.”

  “Quite right,” Lieutenant Taylor said.

  “And so,” the captain went on, his eyes restless, “first chance we get—and I think we’ll run the sabres tonight. Haven’t gotten to that yet.”

  Ian perked up out of his thoughts and saw several of the others do the same. It was a perfect evening for it, he reflected. A steady breeze had taken off the heat’s edge earlier than usual. Looking around, he tried to measure out how good everyone would be with their sabres, something he hadn’t really done since they’d first set out, so focused on hunting and shooting as they’d been. Settling on Rory, Ian saw that his second looked as eager as the others. But Ian thought, knew that Rory couldn’t be nearly as good at close quarters fighting as h
e was at shooting. And that was a pleasant thought.

  “We’ll run them straight through tonight,” the captain said, still musing. “That will do well. Quite right.”

  * * * *

  Their company took up two lines facing each other not long after supper, discarding their overcoats and regulators and bringing out their sabres. Captain Marsden went on about the long and splendid history that the front arm had played in combat a little longer than Ian thought was necessary. He and the other enlisted men fiddled with the hilts of their sabres, eyeing each other and trying to look like they weren’t anything but excited, blusterous, and maybe a little scared.

  Setting his eyes back on Rory, who was listening a bit closer to their captain and keeping a firm hand on the end of his sword, Ian measured out the paces in his mind, maybe fifteen between them. He tried to chart what might be the quickest route through the grass, then what might be the safest if he were to try for a less direct and more strategic approach.

  “—And we’ll just have to see what sort of quality you’re made of,” Captain Marsden said, pacing along the end of their rows. “So let’s see it now. Sabres up.”

  Ian flipped his thumb along the trigger on his sword’s hilt, releasing it from its sheath. He took care to raise and then turn it up in one motion, holding the hilt just below eye level. The shaft of the blade pierced upwards as he looked straight across at Rory, who finished doing roughly the same thing.

  “Hold,” Captain Marsden said, and they all brought their swords back against their chests, the blades just in front of their noses. “Up—down, left. Left, right—that’s good.”

  Ian followed through the fairly basic commands easily, listening to the sound of his blade cutting through the air and focusing on focusing, keeping his motions contained and concise, imagining what it would be like if he were attacking an opponent who—

  “Very well,” Captain Marsden said, “I am glad to see they can still teach commands at the academy. While many of you are straight from there, rest assured that the rest of your company is well-seasoned, and has actually had to swing at something that wasn’t interested in teaching them. But, as it is, would have rather killed them.”