“Do you have faith, Cranmer?”
“In gods? No.”
“Too bad.” The Thane leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes again. D’Mannberg opened the Annals once more. His voice droned on.
His real parents, lassari, had brought the boy to Hoorka. The Thane had glared down at the thin, wiry child of . . . thirteen? And the boy had glared back, uncowed. The Thane had liked the defiance of the child and took the young Aldhelm as kin. The parents, over-grateful, and perhaps pleased to be rid of the extra mouth, had taken a quick leave. They had never again inquired after their son. He now had kin—parents were unimportant.
“Watch your opponent’s hips,” he’d said to the new apprentice one day, during a training session. “Other parts of the body may feint—the legs, the arms, the head, the eyes. But where the hips go, the body must follow.”
Aldhelm shook his head. His hands toying with the hilt of his vibro, he’d stared at the Thane. “No, that seems wrong. I watch the hands and feet. They do the damage.”
“You don’t have four eyes to watch each.”
“Two are sufficient.”
Something in the boy’s stubbornness and insistence touched a response in the Thane. He’d stripped and joined the youngster on the practice floor. “Defend yourself, then,” he’d said. He circled the apprentice, watching the vibro and the hips. It took much longer than he’d anticipated—the Thane was slick with sweat when they’d finished—but he found the flaws in Aldhelm’s defense, disarmed and pinned the boy to the floor of Underasgard. Still, he was impressed by Aldhelm’s raw, untutored skill.
“You see,” he said, getting to his feet and releasing the boy. “Had you watched me correctly, that would not have happened. In a fight, you’d have been very dead, boy, despite your thoughts on what to watch.”
“I’ll think about it, sirrah.” That was as much admission as Aldhelm would give the Thane.
The dance to Hag Death had begun. Brilliant in scarlet robes and satin ribbons, blue hairplumes bobbing with movement, the dancers circled each other. Steel blades in their hands glinted in the lights. A sackbutt snorted a chorus, joined by a trio of recorders. There were two dancers of each sex, and their bare feet slapped the stones of Underasgard as they went through the ritualistic steps, a choreographed battle representing the strife between Dame Fate and the Hag. Blades flashed and met, clashing with a faint, bell-like ringing.
The bells for evening meals had just rung. Aldhelm had brought the Thane’s dinner to him, dismissing the apprentice that usually performed that task. He sat the tray on the Thane’s table, setting the controls to “warm” so that the meat remained hot. Fragrant vapors filled the room.
“Aldhelm?” the Thane said in some surprise. “Since when do you perform apprentice’s tasks? You’re nearly a full Hoorka.”
“I had a favor to ask, a boon.” His voice, usually so confident, was slow and unsure, halting.
“Ask, then.”
A hesitation. “You’ll sponsor me for my mastership in the Hoorka, be my kin-father?” Aldhelm said the words in a rush, the words falling over each other in their haste to leave his mouth. But his eyes—they held the Thane, and there was open affection there, and an unusual vulnerability that was foreign to Aldhelm.
Knowing what he was going to say, that openness hurt the Thane more than he thought possible.
“I’ve never sponsored any journeyman, Aldhelm.” He said the words slowly, hoping that Aldhelm might reconsider and withdraw the request himself, and knowing that it wouldn’t happen that way.
Aldhelm frowned. He looked down at the floor and then up to the Thane. “I realize that. That’s why I’ve waited so long to ask.” A vague smile touched his lips. “You’ve spoken well of me, and we like each other. I would like your sponsoring. It would mean much to me.”
“I”—a pause—“can’t.”
Aldhelm was stoic. His stance was as erect as before, his body betraying no disappointment. Yet something had changed: his eyes were guarded now, and perhaps too moist.
The Thane hastened to explain. “If there were a journeyman I would take as kin-son, it would be you, Aldhelm. Truly. But I don’t care to have the Hoorka become like other guilds, where the kin-son of the guild ruler inherits his father’s position. The best Hoorka should always rule Hoorka, and all the kin should have some say in who governs them. If I were to name a son or daughter, it would be a statement, an indication of favoritism. It’s easier if I simply avoid that.”
The Thane stared at Aldhelm, but the young man simply gazed back at him, his eyes unreadable and untouchable. “Do you understand? Aldhelm, I don’t wish to hurt you—as I said, were I to sponsor anyone . . .”
“I understand, Thane.” Aldhelm shrugged and began to leave the room.
“Aldhelm . . .”
“Yah?” The Hoorka turned and faced the Thane.
“What of Bronton? He admires your skill as much as I, and he is well-liked among the kin. He would sponsor you, and it would be to your credit.”
“Thank you for your concern, Thane.” Again, the shrugging of shoulders. A smile came and vanished, tentative. “I’ll ask him.” And with that, Aldhelm turned and left.
The Thane stared at the tray of food on his table for long minutes before beginning to eat.
The dancers, in a flourish of weapons, left the dais. A journeywoman attired in saffron robes intoned the benediction. An audible sigh crossed the Chamber, and with a rustling of cloth, the Hoorka-kin rose and began to leave. The Thane stretched and rose as Cranmer and Valdisa stood beside him.
“He slept well, didn’t he, Valdisa?” Cranmer placed his hands below his head in imitation of a pillow and closed his eyes.
“Our Thane?” Valdisa smiled. “He has an excuse, having taken the contract last night.”
“Both of you are mistaken. I simply concentrate better with my eyes closed. Prayer, after all, is a mental effort. Neh, scholar?” The Thane yawned, involuntarily, then joined in with the laughter of the other two.
Chapter 6
A
LARGE GATHERING HAD CROWDED
en masse
before the Assembly Hall after marching noisily from Tri-Unity Square. A few flat-signs proclaimed various guilds’ support of one obscure issue or another, but the guards ranked on the steps to the Hall didn’t bother to read them, being all too used to such displays. Protests of one variety or another were commonplace enough on Neweden since the advent of the All-Guild Assembly created by Li-Gallant Perrin, the current Li-Gallant’s kin-father. The week before, it had been a group of ore farmers from Nean that had staged a minor riot in the capital city of that continent during the Li-Gallant’s visit. Several demonstrators had been incarcerated, and more were injured in the fighting that came when the security people attempted to disperse them. It was not, however, an unusual occurrence except in the number of injuries.
Where guilds and pride were concerned, tempers flared easily but carefully—the offended person might be a better fighter than you. Most demonstrations were noisy but well-behaved. After their time of shouting and preening for the news services, the crowds faded and died, the people melting back into the streets.
So the guards watched with a bored and uninterested demeanor as the vanguard of the protestors edged to the base of the steps. A chant was shouted in ragged unison, though no words could be easily discerned. Two beats—a strong accent followed by a weaker one, then a pause—a waltz protest. The signs moved with the chant, upraised to the sunstar in the phosphorus zenith.
One guard fidgeted in his pockets, pulling forth a packet of mildly intoxicating candies from the south coast. He offered one to the nearest companion.
The chant of the crowd waxed and ebbed, a tide-swell that moved in its own rhythm, a thousand-throated beast wailing distress to the silent facade of the Hall. Few details stood out in the Brownian motion of the protesters: a flash of iridescent cloth; a person near the front, taller by a head than his neighbors and further individualized by a spiked plant-pet growing like a living collar around his neck; the uneven summits of the signs pooling thin shadows on those below. The far edge of the crowd was not sharply defined, but faded into a perimeter consisting equally of interested but unmotivated spectators and those using the demonstration as an excuse for play—youngsters running happily through the legs of adults; streetkids, jussar.
Had it been like the hundred protests before it, this would have been a short-lived commingling that would have died quickly from the lack of response from the Hall and the failure of the Neweden news services to arrive (the holo networks had been prudently notified by the march’s organizers, but knowing Vingi’s present mood, had declined the offer).
But the former demonstrations didn’t have the Nean “riot” and the furor of the Assembly meeting the day before. These gnawed at Vingi’s thin tolerance for opposition. The guards had been sternly instructed to disperse and scatter any large gatherings before the Hall. Following those directions, they began walking slowly down the steps with their crowd-prods loose in their holders, but with a good-natured casualness designed to dispel any ill-feelings among the people.
It didn’t work.
The guards pushed into the front ranks, shouting in voices almost inaudible to the bulk of the crowd to move on, that all gatherings had been forbidden for the immediate future, and to lodge their complaints via the more officially correct channels. The guards weren’t gentle, nor were they particularly cruel—they were simply doing what they had been assigned to do. They pressed forward, and the amoebic crowd bent with the pressure, the people gathered at the contact point stepping backward into those behind them. The perimeter was moved back from the steps and then—forced by the wall of bodies behind them and the normal reaction of people hemmed into too small a space—stopped and pushed back against the guards. It became quickly and painfully obvious to those dutiful people that Vingi had overestimated the amount of co-operation they would receive, and that they should have called for disperser screens. It occurred to them that the aura of authority given them by their uniforms and guild-affiliation was a fragile thing and had deceived them into thinking themselves impervious to harm.
And then, quite suddenly, they had no time for thinking.
A guard went down (stumbled or pushed? It was a question that would remain unanswered when the incident was reviewed by the Li-Gallant) and the tone of the crowd-creature’s voice changed. The timbre became deeper, more threatening. The tall man with the plant-covered neck strode through the tumult around the downed guard. He bent down, struggled against some unseen adversary, and emerged with a hand grasping a crowd-prod. He waved the instrument high, and cheers greeted his gesture of victory. Those nearest the guards, encouraged, began actively resisting. The guards pulled prods from their holders, using them liberally. Screams of genuine pain lanced the general din. The situation degenerated.
The focus of the disturbance wandered and swelled as members of various guilds found reason to fight with others. There was no single source—it was no longer even guards against the crowd, but an amalgamation of several small altercations with no definite boundaries. Combatants changed at whim.
When the edges of the riot had spread to the shield-barrier skirting Port property, the Alliance Diplos were sent out from the Center. M’Dame d’Embry had watched the fighting after being pulled from a staff meeting by a harried aide. She quickly ordered her people to stop any possible destruction of Alliance property. If the locals wanted to fight, excellent, but no Alliance holding would be harmed. The Diplo security forces used tanglefeet bombs and gas to stop the fighting and began dragging the participants away from the central melee. By the time reinforcements arrived for Vingi’s harassed guards, the Diplos had settled the disturbance considerably. The Diplos withdrew back to the Center, leaving the job of caring for the wounded and arresting the appropriate number of guild-members to Vingi’s more interested hands.
In time, the last remnants of the crowd had departed—walking or carted—and the area before the Hall was left to the wind, which idly toyed with scraps of paper. Bored guards, the new shift, lounged against the pillars of the Hall, staring with unfocused eyes at the birds foraging for crumbs on the steps. A few representatives, officious and hurried, nodded to the guards as they entered the doors.
All in all, just another day.
• • •
The practice room of Underasgard was a long, meandering room of the caverns, wandering crookedly and lit primarily by two parallel strips of light-emitting fungi that receded—like a badly designed painting—in a shaky v of deep perspective. The muzzy, warm light from the fungi was heavily greenish. A few hoverlamps, filtered to compensate to some degree, were distributed around the room to offset the odd coloration. A moving person walked through varying shades and tints. Racks of practice weapons lined the walls, and if the choice of weaponry seemed antiquated, it was because the Thane felt that the art of epee, foil, and saber kept the Hoorka in better physical condition, and because the proliferation of shields against most projectile and beam weapons made the blades of the romantic eras once again useful. The floor of the cavern was softer and more resilient than the hard-packed seal of the living quarters. Sound dampeners dotted the ceiling at intervals. These were the most recent addition to the room, added because the din of mock fighting echoed terrifically through the caverns and disturbed the rest of any sleeping Hoorka.
A good number of the kin could generally be found here, either practicing, watching, or gathered in the rest area at one end of the room. This day was no exception.
The Thane, Valdisa, and Cranmer were standing near the central practice strip in a group of Hoorka that included Ric d’Mannberg. D’Mannberg had signed to use that strip for a long-vibro exercise. Aldhelm, who was to work with him, hadn’t yet arrived.