“Ah,” said Ked. “Another one of my daughter’s strays, then. Who was it the last time? A pirate, wasn’t it?”
“A privateer.”
“Indeed. A licensed pirate. But what was her problem? She didn’t own a boat?”
“Ship.”
Ked’s face was grim with dismay, but his eyes were shining with delight.
“As you can see, Pol, my daughter has a habit of collecting people with problems.”
He paused.
“Did you say warlock?”
“Yes, he separated the knight from his arm.”
“I don’t think it was me,” said Pol. “I’ve never done magic before in my life.”
“That is curious,” said Ked. “Most magic adepts begin to show signs around the same time they start growing hair on places other than their heads.”
He paused and stroked at his greying beard, eyeing Pol up and down.
“The reason I ask, Pol, is that you’ve arrived in Tia Vashil at a rather appropriate time, given the circumstances. The Dragon Clans have taken Tia Joi.”
“How did that happen, father? Has the Guild been defeated as well?”
“Well, that brings me to why Pol being a warlock caught my attention. When I asked when we would bring the armies of the Five Nobles and the Guild to join with the knights of Tia Joi, the High Council informed me that all available manpower would go towards locating a male warlock younger than 50 or a female warlock younger than 30. They neglected to explain their reasoning, as they so often do, or under what circumstances they arrived at that conclusion. So far we’ve had no luck, even scouring the countryside. How old are you, Pol?”
“Well, I’m not sure of the exact year, to be honest, but I’m not older than 24.”
“We should take him to the Guild.”
“Can’t that wait a day, father? Pol’s never been to Tia Vashil before. I’d like him to enjoy some real Vashili hospitality before the Guild makes him an acolyte.”
“I really should take him directly. But given that they have not deigned to give their reasoning as to why...” said Ked. He looked Pol over again with a critical eye. “To be quite honest, Kiera, it irks me that they could not—or rather, would not—explain themselves. I am due at the Guild in an hour with Guard Captain Umuldran to outline how we’ve organized the city’s defenses for the High Council, should the Clans attack here next, and I will attempt to learn what purpose Pol would serve. If I do, I will send for him. If they are no more forthcoming than before, I will expect you to take him to the Guild first thing tomorrow morning. ”
“Thank you, father,” said Kiera, kissing him gently on the cheek. Pol smiled at the image of the armored, war-like Kiera performing such an affectionate act.
“A chance to bite my thumb at the Guild without them knowing and please my daughter? I wouldn’t dream of passing up such a chance,” said Ked, laughing. He hugged Kiera tight and then stared into her eyes for a moment. “As we’re talking of arranging meetings, Tau is here. Escorting his sister in her quest to corner Jin into a marriage proposal.”
“Oh,” said Kiera. She glanced briefly at Pol and blushed. “I haven’t seen Tau since before I left.”
“Well, he’s here a lot, waiting for the opportunity to see you again. We’ve always more guests than we need. Lady Elina is here as well, and despite my instructions, I’m afraid Jin has turned the courting of House vai Tischer into a competition between Elina and Vatya.”
He frowned for a moment, then seized Kiera, hugging her close to him.
“At least one of my children listens to my advice on marriage.”
Kiera looked overwhelmed.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and find something more appropriate to wear for supper,” Ked said, smiling. “I’ll take care of Pol and make sure Tau doesn’t hear you’re here until you’re ready.”
“Thank you, father,” said Kiera again, ascending the grand staircase.
Ked beckoned for Pol to come with him, and they followed Kiera until the top of the stair, where Ked turned left when Kiera turned right. They went down a long corridor until Ked appeared to choose a door at random, opening it up into a bedroom with an antechamber.
“A servant will bring you a tub and some water for a bath, and some clothes for dinner. You’re a little taller than Jin and you’re certainly thinner than I am, but we’ll find something, I’m sure.”
“I’ve already bathed today,” said Pol.
“In my experience, Pol,” said Ked, “There are very few times when people do not appreciate a freshly-washed man, even if he has already cleaned himself once in the day. When you’re ready, just keep going down this hall to the dining hall.”
Despite the size of the building, the servants were not long in coming, lugging in a copper bath and hot water, and bringing him a fine satin doublet and a pair of of leather breeches. They even matched his thin-soled boots with a set of fine deer-hide ones.
Cleaned and dressed, Pol ventured out of his room. As he walked down the hall, the sound of a woman’s voice giggling drew him to a room just at the top of the stairs.
Two women and two men were playing billiards. Or, rather, the two women were, and the men were offering their advice. One man was a burly, long-haired blonde man with piercing blue eyes and pale white skin, a little taller than Pol, with a clean shaven chin that looked like it’d started life on a marble statue before being transplanted to his face. The other was clearly another member of the House vai Ullan, with the characteristic black hair, bronze skin, and green eyes, shorter than Kiera though, and while clearly in shape, not the collection of muscles the blonde man was. He was bent over a comely blonde, who save for her diminutive size and delicate form, could’ve been the female equivalent of the blonde man. Sitting off to the side was delightfully curved woman. Her auburn hair was cut into an a-line bob, her skin tan and her backless dress was almost frontless as well, cut down to her navel. She held a cue in one hand and drank wine out of a glass goblet with the other, watching the vai Ullan man and the blonde impassively.
“Hello?” asked Pol.
“My father’s not taking requests from citizens today,” said the vai Ullan man, looking up from where he’d enveloped the blonde woman.
“Oh, no, I’m with Kiera,” said Pol.
“Kiera?” asked the blonde man. “Is Kiera back?”
“Well, we just rode in an hour or so ago,” said Pol.
The blonde man strode over to Pol, seizing his hand and shaking, the grip so strong Pol was afraid his fingers had traded places on his hand.
“Tau vai Keller,” he introduced himself. “That’s Jin vai Ullan, Kiera’s younger brother. The hopeless incompetent he’s teaching to play billiards is my sister, Vatya. And over there is Elina vai Tischer.”
“Pol Burr.”
Jin and Vatya merely nodded, but Elina detached herself from her chair, placed down her wine, and slunk over to Pol, extending a hand.
“A pleasure,” she said.
Once upon a time, Pol had played at lords and ladies with the children in his neighborhood, and he knew that when a lady extended her hand, you took it, bowed low, and kissed it, which he did now.
Elina laughed at him.
“So formal,” she said. “Neither of you lugs ever greet me with such pomp and circumstance.”
“The novelty would soon wear thin, I think,” said Jin. He turned to Vatya. “Now, my dear, if you adjust the cue…”
“Is that the stick?”
“Quite. You can place it around on the ball, and influence its motion.”
“I think I know my way around a stick and balls,” said Vatya. She wiggled her rear against Jin, who said something that remained inaudible to the rest of the room, and put both of them into a fit of lewd laughter.
Elina snorted in disdain, and returned to her seat to fetch her wine goblet.
“Then,” continued Jin with his lesson. “You want to strike the object ball—”
“Which is that?”
“The red one. And you’ll try bounce it off that ball to strike Elina’s cue ball as well, and then you’ll have a point.”
Vatya gave a meager attempt at tapping the cue against the ball, sending it bouncing against the object ball, but sailing away from Elina’s cue ball.
“This is a hard game,” complained Vatya, standing back, nestling against Jin’s chest.
“My turn?” asked Elina, taking her place when Jin assented. She barely glanced at her shot, before banking her cue ball off a rail, where it collided with the object ball, bounced off another rail and struck Vatya’s cue ball.
“One,” announced Elina.
Pol found himself entranced as Elina moved around the table, and he knew both Tau and Jin were too. Her dress was made of a slinky, shiny scaled material that clung to the generous curves of her body, and no matter where she took her position at the table, an observer could not be disappointed, whether they were getting an eyeful of her cleavage, sculpted backside, or the bare skin of her shoulders and deep chasm of her spine as she leaned over the table. A complicated tattoo of morning glories twined down the center of her back. Vatya grew a little impatient when she saw how Jin’s attention had wandered to Elina, but as long as Elina controlled the table, there was nothing the blonde woman could do.
She was up to twenty before a bell rang out, apparently summoning them to dinner.
“Well, I guess we know who won that round,” said Jin. Elina smiled at him, but Vatya seized his arm before Elina could speak.
“I need an escort to dinner,” said Vatya.
“It would be my pleasure,” said Jin, following her lead as she dragged him out of the room by his elbow. Tau had already hurried away the moment he heard the bell.
“Well, Pol,” said Elina. “It wouldn’t do for me to arrive unescorted either. Do you have a companion for dinner?”
“Not as such,” he said, proffering his elbow. Elina took it and smiled at him.
“There, now we’re both working together.”
“You play billiards beautifully,” said Pol, as they walked down the hall. Elina seemed to know the way, so he let her lead.
“Do you mean I’m beautiful when I play billiards or the game appears beautiful when I play it?” she asked, and laughed when Pol sputtered to come up with a response that offended neither the quality of her beauty, nor the quality of her play.
“Thank you, Pol,” she said. “Whichever way you meant it, you’re very sweet.”
Pol had never been in a grand dining hall before, and the high ceiling, with an array of golden chandeliers, left him gaping. Only one end of the large banquet table that stretched the length of the room was set, with just enough places for the guests. Ked was holding the hand of a regal looking woman a few years younger than himself, who was introduced to Pol as Lady Trali vai Ullan, Kiera’s and Jin’s mother. Lady Trali gave him a polite smile upon hearing he’d been Kiera’s traveling companion, and her gaze made him shift uncomfortably, like he was standing on a giant set of scales.
“There you are,” said Tau, loud enough that everyone could hear, and the entire party turned to gaze at the staircase.
Pol’s breath caught in his chest. Kiera was no longer arrayed in her armor, but instead wore a purple dress, with the sleeves cut short near the shoulders, the upper body form fitting and the collar hugging half way up her neck where it was bound by a green silk choker with an emerald set in the middle that matched her eyes. The long, shoulder length crest of hair had been cut, so that it was now only half again as long as the rest of her hair, and she had purposefully mussed it all until it looked like a jagged bed of rocks. The dress itself had two deep cuts, one for each leg, and when she moved she revealed a tantalizing glimpse of her thighs and the bottom of the gentle curve of her ass beneath the samite of her dress, like a cat stepping out of shadow.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Tau swept her into his arms and kissed her, tilting her back in his embrace. He seemed to catch her by surprise, and for a moment it seemed as though the hands she flung to his shoulders were attempting to push away from him, rather than steady her balance.
Something in Pol’s face as he watched the burly blonde man kiss his traveling companion must have hinted his feelings to Elina for she jabbed him in the ribs and kept him from staring rudely for too long.
“Are they…” he began.
“Together? They’re as close to engaged as you can get without saying the word,” said Elina.
Pol didn’t know what to feel. He hadn’t imagined Kiera was just a knight errant, wandering the world unattached and unbound by a home and responsibilities. Of course she had a family and a home, and people waiting for her, a lover included, and while he’d felt something and knew she felt the same, they’d never really talked to each other about it. A part of him knew that coming to Tia Vashil had always meant that Kiera would go back to her old life, and Pol would become a Sorcerer, and that would be that. Still, after the inn that morning, it stung to see her wrapped in the arms of another man.
The Exarch coughed slightly but with meaning, and his wife seized his beard and waggled his head for interrupting.
“I’m greatly sorry,” said Ked. “I was only here to see Tau and my daughter reunited, and greet you all as guests. Now, unfortunately, duty summons me to the Guild.. Please be seated, and I am sure Kiera and Pol can regale you with stories from their travels in my absence.”
* * * * *
Pol stood little chance of ever becoming a noble. The servants who served the meal—which Pol was surprised to learn was not solely the stew that was served first, but instead an endless host of courses—would wordlessly switch whatever utensil he’d selected for whichever one he was supposed to have used. Elina and Jin laughed each time they did, while Vatya just frowned.
Kiera and Tau had been seated opposite each other, closest to Lady Trali at the head of the table. Their siblings sat next to them, and Pol was placed next to Vatya, while Elina had scored a minor coup of being placed next to Jin, opposite Pol.
At the head of the table, Kiera and Tau were debating the merits of the Canians, with Kiera feeling they had been misrepresented and Tau suggesting they were little more than bandits. Kiera neglected to tell her nearly-betrothed the particulars of her and Pol’s friendship with the wild men, and without this information, Tau posited that the whole of the race was inscrutable. Still, he allowed that they might be redeemable.
At Pol’s end of the table, Elina barely touched her food, one hand clearly in Jin’s lap, her shoulder moving back and forth, all the while interrogating Pol on his background. Jin smiled quietly to himself, attempting to work his food around the attentions of his neighbor’s hand.
Vatya fumed next to Pol. Her fork went clattering to the floor, and when a servant knelt to retrieve it, she kicked it under the table and put up a hand to stop the man from following it.
“I’ll get it,” she said, disappearing beneath the tablecloth.
A few seconds later, Elina gasped and withdrew her hand. She sucked on her finger, then took it out to examine it closely.
“The bitch stabbed me,” she whispered, when Pol’s quizzical look caught her attention.
Jin looked vaguely disappointed, and Vatya returned to her seat in a moment, the fork evidently retrieved.
“Was this Lona girl very pretty?” asked Elina. She glanced at Pol to make clear who she was talking to, then stared daggers at Vatya.
“I think so, yes. The prettiest in Lowvale, if that means anything.”
“It doesn’t, but I suppose she must have been, if you were willing to rob a knight to lay with her,” said Vatya.
“I’m embarrassed to have told that story in this company,” said Pol.
“I think it’s romantic,” said Elina. “Like that song.”
“Oh yes, the one about the thief and the maid,” said Jin. “Kiera hates that song, don’t you?”
“What song?” asked Kiera, her attention wandering f
rom Tau and her mother to the other end of the table.
“The one where the thief steals all that money so he can pay the bride price of the maiden instead of giving her his feet. What’s it called?”
Kiera shot Pol a look and he shook his head, trying to deflect blame.
“I don’t hate it,” said Kiera. “I just don’t think it’s realistic.”
Jin laughed. “Oh, come on, Kiera. It’s a song. It’s a short story with a weak plot set to music. It’s not supposed to be realistic.”
“Nonetheless.”
Jin turned back to Pol and Elina, taking another bite of food before continuing talking. “She doesn’t like any music that’s not about a knight killing something or someone. Been that way since she was a little…”
He paused in the middle of his speech, choking little as he stared at Vatya. When Pol glanced at her, the blonde woman was rearranging the neck of her dress, and Pol could only guess what misfortune had befallen her. It appeared to have quite put Jin out, because he reached for his wine goblet, sputtering into it as he tried to clear his throat. Both Kiera and Elina seemed concerned, pounding him on the back to help clear whatever was causing him distress, though Pol noted that Elina put very little effort into her blows.
“Thank you, that was a near thing,” managed Jin. “Um, mother, I think something about the food has disagreed with me. I think I might take a walk in the air of the garden to help me digest.”
Trali smiled at her son. “You would have complained bitterly if I’d suggested a walk after dinner just three years ago. Yes, of course you may go. I am delighted to see you maturing.”
“I’ll keep you company,” said Vatya.
“I would be delighted,” said Jin. The two of them rose and left the hall arm in arm. Elina rested her chin on one hand, frowning after them. She drank deeply from her wine goblet.
Pol looked to his left where Tau was telling some mildly bawdy story in an animated fashion, his arms waving about the place. Kiera was smiling at him from across the table, laughing whenever the story allowed. With Elina lost in her own thoughts, it seemed everyone had forgotten about Pol; usually that was for the best in places this rich, but now it stung. He was lost and alone here. When the servants came to clear away the used dishes, he gently rose and left with the man who took away his plate. No one seemed to notice.
Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior Page 13
