CHAPTER 3
Business as Usual
Guntram’s suite—well, a room but a large one—is on the third floor of the palace, at the back where nobody has to go unless they want to. It isn’t on the way to anywhere else; off and on, Guntram puts a greeter at his door. The greeters are always harmless, but they’re likely to scare the daylights out of anybody who isn’t comfortable with Ancient artifacts.
Currently a bird sticks its head through the door panel when anybody pauses outside. It startled me the first time I visited Guntram after he set it up.
I had a cot in a corner of the room. I used it pretty often when Guntram was in Dun Add. We’d get working late on an artifact—partly me helping him, mostly me watching a master and learning; or maybe we’d just be chatting and I wouldn’t feel like going out of the palace and down the street to the house I rented.
With May gone and Guntram gone both, I’d moved into his room full-time. I did that for a couple reasons, but they all boiled down to the same thing: it meant less trouble for me.
I took my meals in the general refectory on the ground floor; the food was pretty good, and anyway it was a lot better than what Mom had cooked for me on Beune. We have a fancy cook in the townhouse, but May wasn’t here to go over the meals with him and I just didn’t care that much. I know when I’m eating good food; but if I’m not, it doesn’t matter.
I didn’t sleep well the night after the banquet. I’d been up nearly an hour looking for any sign of where Guntram had gone when the bird at the door squawked to get my attention. The bird faced around and said, “Master, a woman named Maggie, the wife of your servant Baga, wants to come in.”
The bird was about the size of a night heron, but it was colored a glossy gray like moleskin and its beak had teeth. It stood in midair, its long-clawed feet resting two feet above the stone floor.
“She’s welcome,” I said, wondering what Maggie was on about. With Baga and the boat both gone, I’d left her living in the townhouse along with the cook and the pair of servants—a man and a woman, neither one with a lot to do even when I was in residence. May said we needed to have them, though, and it was all right with me.
The bird stuck its head back through the panel, then vanished as the door opened by itself and Baga’s wife came in with her arms full of clothes. She was about thirty, younger than Baga, and good looking in a homey sort of way. I didn’t pay much attention to Maggie, but what contact we’d had was good—and she was good for Baga.
“I brought you a change of clothes from the house,” she said, laying down, over a free-standing bookcase, a blue suit I didn’t remember seeing. “Do you want some tea or anything to eat?”
“Ah…” I said. I was wearing the singlet I’d taken to sleeping in since I’d gotten a house with servants. “I’ll get a mug of tea in the refectory in a little bit. And a bowl of oatmeal. You needn’t have bothered, Maggie.”
“Somebody had to,” she said, picking up the green and yellow tunic I’d been wearing last night. She looked around for the trousers, then spotted them on the floor at the end of my cot.
“I was just going to wear those back to the house and change to a set of work clothes,” I said. “They’re fine. The green and yellow ones, are.”
“Lady May would be scandalized if she learned I’d let you wear these in public,” Maggie said, glaring at the trousers. “And she’d be right to be!”
A thorn had ripped a little triangle out of the right calf, now that I looked carefully. That didn’t seem to me like much to worry about. The fabric was slick and glossy, but I guess it wasn’t very strong.
“It’d do for plowing back where you come from, I suppose, where there’s nothing but sheep to look at you,” Maggie said tartly. “Here in Dun Add there’s fine ladies, and if you go out looking like a beggar, it reflects on Lady May.”
“We don’t raise sheep on Beune,” I muttered, but I turned my face away. “Look, I’ll put the suit on and go to the house, but I’m going to be on the jousting field all afternoon, so I’ll be wearing work clothes. Loose clothes.”
“I’ll leave then,” Maggie said, turning her glare toward the door. “I must say, Lord Pal, I don’t think much of your door-knocker. That bird has teeth.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” I said. I didn’t bother telling her that it was Guntram’s idea or that I wasn’t by any means sure it was supposed to be a bird.
She looked at me again, her expression softer. “Lord Pal,” she said, “you’re the kindest man I ever met and you’ve brought Baga back from pretty close to the edge with his drinking, where another wouldn’t have bothered.”
“He’s a good boatman,” I said. “He’s stood by me when things got tough.”
“There’s some say…” Maggie continued, her eyes on me. “That it was magic that you beat Lord Baran with, that you’d never have won else. They’re afraid of you, aye, and afraid of Master Guntram too.”
“It wasn’t magic,” I said. “I would’ve used magic if I could’ve though, because Baran was thrashing me like wheat until he made one mistake.”
I’d heard the rumors about me, sure. I had friends in Dun Add, but there were plenty who turned or went down a side street if they saw me coming toward them.
“I watched that fight!” Maggie said fiercely. “There wasn’t any magic, nothing but that big brute hammering on you and you taking it like a man! The whole bloody morning and near to dark. You were the next thing to dead when they carried you off, even though you won! And I tell them that!”
“Thank you, Maggie,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter that people talk nonsense.”
In my heart that wasn’t true, though. I’d generally gotten along with my neighbors on Beune. My being a Maker was just something we didn’t talk about and I guess they managed to forget most of the time. I was a good man with a scythe, and I always showed up to work when I said I would.
Nobody’d much noticed me in Dun Add, even after I’d come through the selection tournament and become a Champion. Then I’d fought Baran. It was a battle that everybody in Dun Add watched, because it was for the Consort’s life.
Baran was half again my size and known to be a very powerful warrior—and I’d beaten him. It was no wonder that people who believe in magic would think that was how I’d done it.
I don’t believe in magic. I believe in hard work, careful study, and luck. I wouldn’t mind folks saying I’d been lucky to beat Baran, because I surely had; only they ought to give me credit for the hours I’d spent on the practice machines, and the way I’d tuned my equipment to meet the way Baran had fought in the past.
“It matters to me,” Maggie said with a sniff. She walked out the door, carrying the suit from last night to clean and repair.
I sighed and changed into the fresh clothes. I’d have to bring a set of work garb up here to use in the future.
<scenebreak>
Wearing the new blue suit, I walked down to the stables, also in the back wing of the palace, and picked up Denison Lad. He was glad to see me but a bit skittish. I’d worked him a little along the Road near Dun Add, but I’d planned to have taken him out on a real mission for the Leader by now.
If Lady May didn’t show up shortly, Lad and I were going to be hiking to Madringor by Road. That might mean I missed May’s return—it would be ten days by the Road and only about two days for the boat—but that would still be better than hanging around Dun Add much longer. And besides, something might have gone wrong on Madringor.
Lad was perfectly polite at my right heel down South Street to the house I’d taken for me and May. Occasionally we met somebody who said hello or at least nodded. I nodded back, but I was feeling even less like chatting with chance acquaintances than usual.
The same was true at the townhouse where I changed into loose linen trousers and tunic. I’d had to search a ways for linen in Dun Add: like I’d told Maggie, we don’t raise sheep on Beune—but there’s a lot of flax on Herries, which is only about a day away.
Dom, Elise, and the cook—Master Fritz—all wanted to talk to me, mostly wondering when Lady May was coming back. I didn’t know—but more important, I didn’t have to talk with them. I knew Baga and Maggie well enough that they weren’t really servants anymore, but I’d had nothing to do with the house staff except wish they’d keep out of my way. I stayed courteous, but if Dom had gone on after he started, “Milord, we must know—” he was out on the street—and Elise with him if she wanted her husband more than she wanted a job.
Wearing work clothes—peasant clothes, as May called them; she thought they were quaint—I took Lad down to the jousting ground. There were ten or a dozen pairs sparring already, and maybe forty or fifty spectators. Some of those watching were servants or girlfriends of those on the field, but at least half were townies who’d come for entertainment.
Four or five warriors were on the sidelines on this side, either having finished sparring or looking for a match. I walked toward the nearest and called loud enough to be heard, “Anybody up for a bout?”
They all looked in my direction. Dressed as I was, I wasn’t very impressive—but Lad was obviously an expensive dog. He’d been sired by the Leader’s own collie, and Lord Clain’s dog came from an earlier litter.
“Yeah, I’ll give you a match,” said a big fellow whose mongrel had enough chow in him to show a black tongue. “My name’s Bard and I just got here yesterday.”
“I’m Pal,” I said, shaking hands with him. We walked onto the grassed field till we reached a spot where we wouldn’t be fouling anybody else.
I said, “Ready?” and switched on. Bard nodded and followed my lead. He paused for a moment, then rushed.
With my shield on, I was on a gray plane under which the ankle-high grass was a shadow. Bard was a shimmer in green behind the shimmer of his shield.
I met Bard’s stroke with my weapon and let him drive my arm down. He was a strong man with a pretty decent weapon; I wondered where he came from.
Sparring’s done with equipment at twenty percent, as low as you could go with most hardware and still hold a setting. What I carried was of exceptional quality, though: the best Guntram and Louis between them could contrive. I kept it at ten percent in pick-up matches like this.
I was here to hone my skills on real opponents, not to knock folks around. Somebody with an ordinary weapon—and Bard’s was better than that—could give me quite a whack if he was good enough. And me—well, if he knocked me down, I’d have learned something for the next time.
A dog’s brain calculates movement—trajectories—many times faster than any human being could. Lad caught every hint of motion and predicted its course while it was barely a twitch to my own eyes. My weapon always caught Bard’s at the beginning of a stroke or thrust and diverted it away, either into empty air or to the ground at Bard’s feet.
I kept backing while Bard attacked. Only when he slowed down did I begin pressing. I circled to the left, so he was always off balance when he struck.
Bard had a sturdy shield, but it wasn’t especially efficient so it had a lot of inertia to move around. He was a strong man, but I could tell from the start that he wasn’t used to being worked the way I worked him when I moved in.
My equipment was much handier than Bard’s. I kept cutting at his lead foot—his right—but getting my weapon up in time to guide away the chops he responded with.
My weapon was a thread of light compared to Bard’s fuzzy wrist-thick beam, but I made sure that all their contacts were at a slant. He might have been able to smash through in a right-angled impact, but he didn’t get a chance to learn.
When I thought he was ready, I closed again—but this time I cut at his head. Bard’s weapon was out of position, and he couldn’t lift his shield fast enough to block me. He went down like a slaughtered ox
I moved away, shutting down my weapon and shield. I was breathing through my open mouth and hunching forward a little to make it easier to pull air in. I dropped the shield into my tunic pocket and stroked Lad’s long fur. He rubbed hard against my leg, whining.
My weapon had enough authority even at ten percent that I might’ve given Bard a concussion. I wondered if he had servants or friends at the sideline. I hadn’t paid any attention before: I’d been studying him as my coming opponent, not worrying about after the bout.
Bard reached up with one hand and touched his head, but he still lay face down in the grass. I didn’t try to help him, because his dog growled every time I moved. I don’t trust chows, no matter how well trained they’re supposed to be.
A fellow in a dull-red tunic jogged to us from the sidelines. He carried a shield and weapon in holsters on both hips. They didn’t look nearly as good as Bard’s equipment, though without getting into them in a trance—or facing them, as I had Bard’s—I couldn’t be sure.
“By the Almighty!” he said. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’ll have a headache,” I said, hoping that was the worst it was. “He’ll be okay in a couple hours.”
“Nobody on Tunbridge ever whipped Bard,” the fellow said, looking carefully at me. “Nobody even came close. Where are you from?”
I pocketed my weapon. It’d cooled enough to do that.
“A place called Beune,” I said. “But we’re on Dun Add now. How I stacked up on Beune doesn’t matter to anybody.”
I stood up, breathing normally again. “Can you handle him?” I said to Bard’s friend. He nodded in reply, and I walked back to the palace with Lad.
I’d planned to get in several live bouts, but the way Bard had dropped was bothering me. He was a complete newbie. He had good equipment, but he’d never faced first-class talent. He should’ve been fighting fellow Aspirants for a while and worked into what it took to become a Champion of Mankind.
It had been a fair match: with my hardware turned so low, he probably outclassed me there. But I was used to fighting Champions, while he’d been facing hicks in Tunbridge. I’d faced Lord Clain—and Clain had rung my bell, just as thoroughly as I had Bard’s a moment ago.
I felt a little better then, but I still went to the practice hall to use the machines instead of picking up another human to spar with.
Lad and I walked through the south wing of the palace, nodding to the guard in the passage when he bowed to me; through the courtyard, dodging the families relaxing there, children playing with each other and occasional adults. Palace servants didn’t mix much with townies, though there weren’t any rules against it. Those who recognized me bowed, but most didn’t, not dressed like a farmer.
I entered the north wing and the practice hall. What had originally been a large room of the palace had been twice extended by wooden additions on the back wall into what had been brush and meadow beyond. Jon continued adding practice machines as frequently as they turned up and Louis could repair them with his stable of lesser Makers, most of whom were better than me. By now there were over fifty machines, and more than half were in use.
Lad and I walked to the farthest aisle and then along it to an empty machine. I switched it on to cycle among opponents from Level Nine to the top at Level Twelve
Practice machines were nothing much to look at: a bundle of rods, usually crystalline, in a flat base, usually black. They varied in size and finish, but even the biggest were no more awkward to handle than a folded beach umbrella. The best were light enough that Guntram, an old man, had carried one to Beune for me to train on.
A warrior in orange appeared before me with an Alsatian. Most simulacra attacked in a rush, but this one was programmed to play a waiting game. It blocked my initial thrusts but never counterstruck enthusiastically enough to get out of position. Its equipment was very good—enough so that I was sure that I was starting out at Level Twelve. This was like fighting a member of Jon’s Council, somebody as good as Lord Baran had been.
Well, I’d wanted exercise—and I’d wanted something to wash away the memory of how that newbie had gone down. I still felt like I’d clubbed a puppy to death, but after an hour of battering at the image I was too tired to really care.
When the trumpet sounded for the end of a round, I switched the machine off rather than continuing the bout—or bringing up a different, almost certainly easier, opponent. The machines were handy and were capable of no end of variation, but I really preferred to practice with human beings.
You could never tell what a real person would do. I’ve fought with warriors who made a really dumb move that nobody would’ve predicted—and got lucky. Once I was beaten by a guy who wasn’t good enough to make the cut for the Aspirants’ Tournament.
When I turned away from the practice machine, I saw Baga watching me with a big grin. “Hey, boss,” he said. “I figured I’d just wait till you got done. He was a tough one, wasn’t he?”
“Say, when’d you get back?” I said. “Is May at the house? I was ready to head out anyway.”
Baga fell in beside me and Lad as we started down the aisle. I’d planned to go up to Guntram’s suite after I’d stabled Lad, but I was done practicing anyway. It was good to see Baga, and it’d be really good to see May.
“Oh, not long ago,” Baga said. “I went out to the field first because Maggie said that’s where you’d gone, but when I didn’t find you I figured you’d be here.”
As we passed through the north wing into the courtyard, he added, “Say—want me to put Lad away? May wants to see you, and she brought back somebody for you to meet.”
“I want to see her too,” I said, though the mention of “somebody to meet” wasn’t something I’d hoped to hear. “Yeah, take Lad and then take the rest of the day off.”
I slipped a silver piece into Baga’s hand, and we went off in our different directions. I’d really been hoping to be alone with May as soon as she got back, but I’d learned long since that what I wanted and what the Almighty decided for me were likely to be different things.