They had already forgotten about it, even though it was discussed seconds ago!
"Twenty Science points for Qynnsent," the game master, Mister Gabriel Flint, said. It was a solid number of points, but the victory felt empty.
Until Linden met lord Everad's eyes.
Yet, Everad got his chance for revenge on her soon enough. After Mister Flint's announcement, lord Everad tried to argue that lady Linden's pawns did not possess the correct tools to build her mechanisms. Like before, Mister Flint mentioned "theory" and brushed the lord's concern away.
"Well, then," the lord said, his voice now forcefully calm, "If tools are not important, my soldiers can build something of their own."
"Our soldiers, man!" It was Orlin who was frowning now. "Remember who raised the money for the army now, will you?"
"Of course. Our army." Everad clapped Orlin's shoulder without even looking, for his eyes were set firmly on their board. "Now, Mister Flint, two game turns have passed since my—our—foot soldiers set on their way to lady Linden's city. They would have been there in one more turn but for her rocks. I know that the lady did send a message for help, despite her bad odds, so her help would arrive, via the northwestern road, in three more turns. It would, on the other hand, take our army four turns to go back to the northern road and take the northwestern to the lady's city—so we have no time to do it before her allies have arrived."
Gabriel Flint confirmed.
"Well then, Mister Flint, I could say that my soldiers will now build a mechanism similar to lady Linden's, which will raise each of my soldiers and pass them over the lady's rocks. I won't do that; this particular mechanism was the lady's idea, not mine."
It sounded oh so noble—but Everad did not care to mention that Mister Flint would not give him Science points if he used Linden's mechanism. Or that, even if he wiped her city out, he would have acknowledged her as his better in Science for this game. She could see it in the man's wretched eyes. "We may make a Second Counselor out of you yet," Desmond had told her today, and suddenly Linden knew that he had been right. She saw through people—she sensed them, like mechanisms—she knew how some of them worked.
And she wanted to use this, to make Everad learn that she was better than him, to herself feel what it was to win.
"The roads leading to the lady's city are too narrow and dangerous for carts and carriages, and unfortunately we only sent foot soldiers and not our few Master Riders. We sent the riders to lord Zachary's province, so it is too late to recall them now," Everad was saying. "But, just like these roads are not too narrow for a horse, they will not be too narrow for a horse's Scientific replacement."
Linden's heart was beating fast now, thrusting against her chest. She would not let him—would not let him—get the better of her.
He proceeded to describe what looked like half a chair, half a cart. It had two sets of wheels: two front wheels and two back wheels, connected with axles to a single metal board with a seat on one side and what looked like handles on the other. The contraption was very narrow, and if a person sat on the seat with feet on the ground and hands on the handles, Everad explained, the person could use the feet to accelerate the mechanism; then he or she could raise the feet off the ground. For some time, the mechanism would run by itself and carry the person faster than the person would run—and when it slowed, the person could accelerate it again and then raise the feet to rest again. The handles were for turning the front wheels and thus steering, for they were connected to the front axle, and the front axle could be moved.
Linden did not curse only because there were people around her. This would work; it truly would. It was even simpler than the wheelchair she had described to Rianor and Jenne, but its purpose was different—speed, not a handicapped person's convenience. And Everad had not come up with this just now; suddenly Linden knew that he had been thinking of the mechanism for perhaps a long time. A risky mechanism, Mister Podd would have said, but Linden knew that Everad would not care at this moment. Even if he had not been a lord but, like Mister Podd, a commoner accountable to Mentors, he would not care. At this moment, what mattered to Everad was not to protect himself but to crush Linden.
Wretch him, he would not!
But lord Everad's "walker," as Mister Flint called it, would take a soldier to Linden's city faster than Linden's help would arrive—and many walkers would take many soldiers ...
Everad and Orlin got their own twenty Science points, and by now all others were watching them and Linden, ignoring their own stakes in the game. A show was more interesting.
Linden was starting to sweat—and then she suddenly saw Rianor enter the hall, trailed by the High Lady of Laurent.
Linden was grateful to Everad just then. If it were not for him and her hatred of him, if it were not for the need to seek a way to protect herself and to lash back at him, she would have cried for all to see.
"Now, lord Everad, I can obstruct the northwestern road with rocks just like I obstructed the northeastern one, and you know that." He would also know that in this case his army would become stuck between the rocks and her coming allies—unless his walkers helped his army to escape on time, of course. He would also know that in this case Linden would have relied on her old mechanism or on other people.
Perhaps he would also know that, the game having become what it had, she would never do that.
"This time, however, I will drop rocks into the river," Linden said, quietly, "not on the road."
Rianor stared at her for a moment. He had just exchanged a few words with Dora and Lazar and had walked half the way towards her, and Linden knew that he immediately knew what she had done. The next one to realize it was Mister Gabriel Flint, the game master.
"Lord Everad, lord Orlin," he said in his soft and yet penetrating voice. "The Lady of Qynnsent has just drowned half of your army." He leaned over his own table, scribbling the calculations and rolling the dice for the chance factor as was his responsibility, the room filled with silence.
"Out of ten thousand soldiers, five thousand twenty-six live. Of those, three thousand-fifteen panic and flee the water. The rest will proceed with the attack upon Qynnsent at the game's next turn."
The Lady of Qynnsent. She was not the only one to have noticed the wording. A simple mistake, perhaps, for the man who had uttered it was not even a lord himself and could have simply meant it as "the Qynnsent player in the game." Yet, he had said it just as Rianor had entered. People stared at her and Rianor both. In the real world, the title could mean that she was Rianor's wife or wife-to-be—or that she had taken or would take his place. Either case would warrant the others' notice. Rianor did not seem to have noticed, himself, but she knew him better than that.
She stepped a little away from the table to meet him, and he took her hand in his, raising it to his lips right there before the crowd with the words, "My lady."
It might have been a normal gesture in other circumstances, but if anyone had doubted what Rianor had or had not heard, doubts should be cleared now. So, he, too, could play those games of saying things with the wrong words or no words at all. But he should not have used her in this.
It hurt. It hurt too much, especially when she glanced away from the tables and saw Marguerite's half-smile.
"My lord." Linden said, loudly, then whispered to him, "Perhaps you can explain the meaning of this show to me later."
"Perhaps I can." His face was stiff, and he gripped her hand tightly in his, so tightly that it hurt, and he said nothing else, only his eyes became narrowed. Not at her. Lord Everad had just stepped towards them, a muscle pulsing on his cheek, even though the voice he used to address them was light and pleasant.
"This was not a nice thing to do to the friends who explained the game to you, my lady." Everad shook his head. "The river—who would have thought."
The river had, of course, overflown when dammed with Linden's rocks, the water flowing down the northwestern road.
"Someone who can think, I woul
d assume. I credit my lady with that rare quality." Rianor, his voice soft and yet not soft at all, and for a very brief moment the two men looked at each other in a way that must have made the gossipers in the room very happy. Linden intervened before they could do or say anything more. "Friends, my lord Everad? I thought you and lord Orlin wanted to destroy my city. When friends do such things, their friends are allowed to defend themselves, don't you think? I did warn you that I was a quick learner."
"So it would seem." The man gave her a measuring look, but it was not the look of an arrogant man measuring a woman any longer. It was the look of a human measuring an enemy.
"My lady, my lords." Mister Gabriel Flint, stepping towards their small group of three. "My ladies and lords, madams and sirs." Raising his voice, looking at everyone now. "The game continues—and we have not finished noting the effects of lady Linden's latest action yet."
The water would flow to the city itself as well, the game master said, not just towards the army. It would drown all the Qynnsent pawns not currently on the second floor of the two-story building—which meant it would drown most of them.
"But the water will not flow up the slope! The city is on higher ground. The water should not reach the city at all!" Anyone who as a child had played in the street after rain would know it—anyone who had ever played with a glass of water poured onto a plate at dinner would know it!
"My lady." Gabriel Flint bowed to her. "I am sorry, but you cannot predict the behavior of water. Only the dice can determine what would happen in this case—it is the chance factor. The only water-controlling Ber Station by your city is the small one by the waterwell where your pawns get their water for drinking. The water in this well is the only water you can somewhat predict. The river is fully wild, and it is the river you tried to play with." There was something in his eyes, but then he blinked and it was gone.
"But, by the rules of Science, if there is a slope, anything that moves will move more easily down than up—"
"Not water, my lady—not water untouched by Magic. Not water untouched by fire."
The man did not believe this himself. He was playing the Bers in the game, and he was right now saying what real Bers would want people to think—but he did not believe in it. Suddenly she knew this as well as she knew that Everad hated her. The game master cast her a momentary glance that seemed to hold challenge in it, and then his eyes glazed, became kind.
At this moment Linden hated the game master no less than she hated Everad—and Rianor was squeezing her hand so tightly that he could have broken it.
"Fine, game master," Rianor said quietly. "We won't rely on water untouched by fire." The noise level rose from the crowd. Only now did Linden notice that the Science Guild and their servants and guards had been whispering for some time, nudging each other.
"So what will you do? Touch water with fire so that it listens to you better?" Everad laughed at Rianor. "How? Will you build a Ber Station? Even you cannot do that."
"Yes, I cannot build a Ber Station." Rianor's voice was soft, but suddenly Everad looked as if all he wanted was to pull back and not endure Rianor's look. Everad was supposed to have mocked Rianor just now, and yet, somehow, it seemed that it was the other way around.
Rianor stared at Orlin as well, and his stare could truly make people uncomfortable. Linden was uncomfortable beside Rianor right now. He had not loosened the grip on her hand at all. The Lady of Qynnsent. She had known what exactly to say to Everad, to a man she did not care for, but she did not know what to do or say now, only that she was torn between grabbing Rianor's arm and squeezing until it bled, and breaking down and crying. What was she doing here amongst these people, in this place? She cared nothing about the game any more, and she cared not that in the eyes of the Guild she might have shown herself precariously close to water. Perhaps she should care, for the latter at least, but like a heroine in one of Calia's books, she seemed to forget everything else and care only for a man!
Well, no. No. A silly girl in a romance might forfeit the game and the Science Guild because of a heartache, but she would not.
"We need to find a way to deal with two thousand and eleven soldiers, coming at our nineteen pawns," she told Rianor in the calmest voice she could manage. "Our game 'House' might hold against them for one or two turns—but not for more."
"I know that. We will deal with them, do not worry," he whispered in her ear. "Our game master and your friend just gave me an idea."
"He is no friend of mine." She locked eyes with him. "I damaged his game and his pride." She smiled slightly. "I seem to have challenged his and Orlin's ideas of what a woman should be or do."
"I know." The soft voice that was not soft, again. "Dora told me, and so did lord Kevin." There was still no one at lord Kevin's table, but when she glanced towards those who watched the game, there he was, an older man she had never met but recognized from the Science Guild Records book and Noble Houses books as Rianor's old Fredelbert Science Master. She had not seen him come, and the thought made her uneasy. Well, did she have to follow the comings and goings of everyone?
"Orlin and Everad are fools, my lady, for trying to cat-play with an opponent they thought vulnerable, before destroying her." His eyes, so close to hers now, looked like gray, stormy clouds. "With a beautiful opponent, of course. But one should not play. One should strike once and strike thoroughly, so that there is nothing left to strike back."
She shivered. She had seen him angry, but never like this. For a moment he looked like destruction itself. He looked as if there were nothing else in him right now—as if he himself were not a person but a force.
Suddenly she was angry no longer. Oh, the anger was there. She could feel it as a lump inside her chest, composed of many things: this place, Marguerite of Laurent, Everad and Orlin, and, of course, her lord. But her jealousies and indignations were all trifling matters. She could be hurt and jealous, even stay away from Rianor, at some later time, when it would be all right.
Not now.
Softly, she ran the fingers of her free hand along his cheek, not caring about the crowd or the still running game where others took their turns—not caring about anything. Anything but him.
"Rianor." An Edge. There was one behind the clouds of his eyes, or there was an Edge somewhere else, where he could walk and was now walking. She understood no more, only that if she pushed him, he could fall—and that maybe she should not have such power over him, but she did. So she clung to him tightly instead, supporting him, not letting go—she was sure she did, even though her physical touch was small and soft. "Rianor, don't go there. Please."
He was silent and still for a long moment. Then he sighed, his hand enclosing hers on his cheek. She closed her eyes, suddenly very, very weary.
When she opened them again she saw something on his wrist—a scratch from a woman's nails, perhaps. Or, a knife cut. His sleeve had covered it before, and she had not seen it. He quickly covered it again, but then leaned to whisper in her ear again. "I met a certain man I had to ... talk to, which is why I was so late in coming back to you."
She wavered then and might have fallen, had he not held her. "Rianor, your wound. Let me see."
"Just a scratch. I already washed it with antiseptic; there is nothing else to be done."
"The Waltraud heir?" She barely found the voice to ask. A man, not a woman, then, and an encounter very different from what she had imagined. A dangerous man, for few could wound Rianor with a knife. She trembled, tears gathering in her eyes. She was a wretched fool. She had made assumptions and had not even asked him what had happened. But he could have told her, too, instead of staring at Everad. He might as well be as big of a fool as she was.
"Was that—Was he the reason why a minute ago you were so—"
"No only, my lady." The tone of his whisper had changed subtly, and it raised goosebumps on her skin. "Those two on the other table also—Anyway, this man was not Donald. It was someone both of us have met before, but we do not talk
about him now."
"Why did you send Lazar away?" This was why she had made the assumptions, because Lazar had come and Lazar had talked. Lazar had believed Rianor with a woman and had really, really not wanted to tell Linden, so Linden had believed in this, too. Besides, whatever his reasons, Rianor had dismissed the guard exactly when he had needed him—
Because he had sent him to protect her.
"Linde, in this place even walls have ears, and besides, we are in the middle of a damn crowd. Stop asking questions."
"All right. I am sorry." She closed her eyes again, fighting tears. He was right, and she was being careless. Whispers could, of course, be heard. Thoughts could be heard. She was forgetting that so often after she had become a lady. But now she was so shaken that she could not think properly at all. She had surrendered herself, in a way, to quell Rianor's anger and destruction. If she had not gone to him and opened herself to him—if she had succumbed to her own anger instead of keeping it tightly enclosed and controlled despite what it did to her—something terrible would have happened. To him. And she would not allow that, ever, no matter what; she would always stand in the path of all that tried to harm him. Even himself.
She should feel weak now. After the danger had passed, her anger and disregarded feelings seemed to melt, flow, freeze, make her mind and body numb—and she could not stop crying because someone had managed to hurt him, even in a small way.
"Don't cry, Linde." He wrapped his arms tightly around her. "Please, don't, my love."
No, she was not weak. She felt strong—stronger than ever before in her life.
"Throwing stones at our gates! That is so pre-Master and barbaric!" The voice startled her and made Rianor's head jerk towards it, too. It was Miriam of Kadisha, from the Women in Science table, shouting at the game master and at the House Kimei lady and her House Ironqette apprentice at the table to her right.
The Makers of Light Page 23
