Luck Of The Wheels tkavq-4

by Megan Lindholm

  ‘Stabbed in the ass. How humiliating.’ The herbs in his cheek made him mumble.

  ‘Worse for Blume, I imagine,’ she replied coldly.

  ‘If he’d fought decently, I wouldn’t have had to do it. Nor the other one. They were making a bloody farce of your plot.’

  ‘But you would have, anyway.’ ‘Probably. For Ki.’

  She looked up at him curiously. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I just knew.’

  She refolded the pad, held a fresh spot to the gash on his hip. The bleeding was slowing. ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ she said slowly. ‘I really meant to let her go, alive. But when I went out there with food, she was… gone. One of the others did it, Vandien. I swear. They were the only ones who knew where she was. I’m … I’m sorry. I know what she meant to you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ He stepped clear of her, no longer able to abide her touch. Her lie rang too clearly in his ears. He remembered her curse when Kellich died: ‘May you know loss such as mine.’ He felt the now familiar tingling in his arm, flexed his fingers, rotated the wrist. A wave of euphoria and incredible energy washed through him, and he felt the tempo of his heart pick up. He took a deep breath, felt his head clear even more. He rolled his shoulders, felt no more than the heaviness of having fenced all afternoon. His spirits lifted, and he felt strong, skilled and arrogant. A tiny voice within him suddenly wondered if this were his true feelings, or only an effect of the Thwartspite. He pushed the question aside, and instead asked Willow, ‘How much longer do I have?’

  She got slowly to her feet. She didn’t ask what he meant. ‘I don’t know. It depends on too many things. And you’ve taken so much Thwartspite, it changes everything …’

  ‘What do you guess, then?’

  She looked aside from him. ‘Late tonight. Early tomorrow.’

  ‘Before noon tomorrow, though?’

  She nodded stiffly. ‘I’m sorry. If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t.’

  He shrugged, winced at the pull against his hip. Damn, that was going to hurt. But not for long.

  ‘You’ll still kill the Duke for us?’ He couldn’t tell if she was begging him to do it, or begging to know why he’d do it. He shrugged carefully. ‘Why not? I don’t have anything else planned for the rest of my life. May as well keep busy.’

  He turned away from her before she could say anything more. As she left the threshing floor, he was surprised to notice that the red-sashes were ending all the bouts, were clearing all the contestants from the floor. Had the Duke already reached his decision? He glanced up to find the man watching him. For a few moments they regarded one another in silence. Vandien felt himself being measured, and held himself steady under the Duke’s scrutiny. Then, with the slightest nod of his head, the Duke indicated another man standing quietly at the other end of the threshing floor. As they began the long walk toward one another, Vandien measured him.

  Farrick. Mature. Good reason for wanting this fight, but not filled with anger or ideological passion. A cool man, a conservative man. Beautiful balance. A dangerous man. For a moment, Vandien tried to become his opponent. What did he want? Not to win, not to face the Duke’s sword. Would he fence sloppily in this bout, deliberately lose to Vandien? Not likely, after he had seen Vandien killing and maiming today. No, Farrick must still fight his best if he wished to emerge from this bout unscathed. He’dhave to fight his best, and still not try to win. For a moment Vandien pondered the man’s dilemma, visualized what he would do in Farrick’s place. And what does he think of me? Vandien speculated. Probably judges from what he’s seen so far. I’ve been fighting like a tavern brawler, up against these culls from the hack-and-slash school of fencing. So Farrick would be expecting wild aggression and crude attacks. Vandien permitted himself a small smile. But Farrick did not know Vandien was already a dying man. Farrick would not be expecting Vandien to fight to win. So. Farrick might be in for a small surprise.

  They saluted the Duke and then one another. Silence lowered itself over the throng. No one doubted that this match would decide; for one a purse, for one a medallion of death. They assumed the stance, and a red-sash said softly, ‘Begin.’

  They moved with the grace of dancers as they tested one another, and Vandien saw Farrick’s eyes widen briefly as he reappraised him. And Vandien, too, was having to do some re-evaluating of his man. Improbably, almost impossibly, this man fought in the classic Harperian style, and somewhere, sometime, he had been instructed by a master. For an instant the room wavered around Vandien, and he was a skinny youth again, this same blade in his hand, and Fol was propelling him backward, his training foil making clean tick, tick, ticks against Vandien’s defending rapier. No screaming of sawing metal, no wild parries, not a degree of motion more than was necessary in wrist or elbow. Vandien found himself smiling and responding to that memory, saw an answering twitch at the corner of Farrick’s mouth.

  So let them see, these stick-swingers and scythe-fencers, how a gentleman did it. Let them see the root from which the other schools of fencing had sprung. The rhythm was set, point control was absolute, and they moved through their opening challenges like two dancers in perfect grace and counterpoint. Vandien felt he was getting the man’s measure; he would rely on finesse and maturity, would wait for Vandien to become over-eager and make some childish error. Fol. How many times had he tried the youthful Vandien that way? Yes, and won that way, too, he reminded himself. He leashed his eagerness.

  The Duke was watching. He could not spare a glance, but did not need to. He could feel the man on the edge of his seat, almost hear him muttering to himself. He had never seen the like of this before, and never will again. The old Harperian masters are dead and their students scattered to the winds. Yet here, in this most unlikely of places, two have come together, and blades move as they were meant to, in rhythm and timing, passing by no more than a whisper, the clean tick, tick, tick of their metal as they touch in conservative parries, the honest thrusts that are swiftly turned and pass their targets by no more than the wingspan of a fly. It is beauty, and his heart sings with it, living only in this now to perpetuate this pattern.

  But it cannot last forever. Vandien’s shoulder is burning, his arm is leaden, his blade has the weight of a pitchfork, and he feels the tiny twitching trembles of muscles forced to work too long. He sets his teeth, firming up his arm, and begins to continually press Farrick. The man is older, he must tire soon. But Farrick smiles a small smile and lies back, accepting everything that Vandien offers, forcing Vandien to initiate all attacks. Just like Fol, damn him, and for a moment he knows the same outraged frustration of his childhood. His hip hurts suddenly, almost blindingly, and he knows he has little time left, that he must force something. He begins to increase the tempo of his attacks, and Farrick’s small smile widens as he reads Vandien. But Vandien can also see the sweat beading on Farrick’s face, the strain that drags at his mouth, and his ripostes are wider of the mark. There is something … it itches in Vandien’s mind. Something Fol showed him once, a long time ago, something he has not tried in ages, has never had to try …

  Vandien lunges full out, continues to fence. The new posture briefly confuses Farrick, but he adapts to it, and the exchanges continue. And every moment Vandien is testing, feeling, waiting - and there it is, a slight weakening of his opponent’s wrist. Vandien lunges to his full extent, and Farrick replies, thinking he has him, but Vandien is no longer there. His free hand drops to the floor and braces him, carrying his body off to the side, and at the same time he lifts his weapon and his blade rises up, the tip to Farrick’s throat, not entering the skin but dimpling it, and there is plenty of thrust left in Vandien’s arm to put it through if he desires. If he wants to kill.

  There is a silence. They are frozen at the center of the universe, in this moment, in this place. Their eyes are locked. Farrick stands still, the tip of Vandien’s rapier pressing his throat, and Vandien is motionless, his body suspended just off the floor, supported by one hand
, one knee bent and the other leg straight as he looks up at him. Then Farrick speaks. ‘Fol’s Thrust. My old master spoke of it, but I’ve never seen it done before.’ A slow smile splits his beard. ‘Damn me, I’m dead!’ He puts his head back and laughs aloud.

  And time began to have meaning once more. The tip of Farrick’s blade slowly drooped to touch the floor. He stamped once, then drew himself erect. He stepped back, and gave Vandien time to stand, to step back. And then he accorded him the salute one gives to the victor, the meticulous lifting of the sword and the grave smile of acknowledgement. Farrick sheathed his blade, turned and began to walk away.

  ‘Wait!’ The Duke’s voice rang out over the assemblage, breaking the silence that had held so many so long. He was on his feet, standing at the edge of the dais. His face was flushed, his eyes wide in his face. His mouth was slightly ajar still. He looked, Vandien thought, for all the world like a child who had been delighted by the seemingly impossible antics of a hedge-wizard.

  Farrick halted, turned to the Duke. ‘I concede the match.’

  ‘As is right.’ The Duke looked down at a red-sashed man who waited before the dais. ‘To that one, the purse.’ He lifted his eyes then, and they pierced Vandien with their anticipation and dread. ‘To the other, the medallion. And bring him to my chambers this evening. We dine together.’

  Vandien lifted his rapier in a slow salute that marked the second phase of their bout.

  SEVENTEEN

  They put Goat on Dellin’s mule. Even after the boy awoke he seemed dazed, and sat blinking stupidly as a half-wit at anything that was said to him. His eyes didn’t open all the way. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he stared at Ki’s moving lips when she spoke to him, asking him if he felt all right.

  ‘I … think so. I am not sure.’

  Even his words came slowly. Ki turned to Dellin. ‘Did I hurt him that badly?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No. What you see is not the result of what you did, but the result of what his parents did to him. He isn’t accustomed to having to listen to words and sort out their meanings. He’s grown up listening to feelings and responding to what people felt toward him rather than what they said. Now, he has to learn. And more than that, he has to learn to feel his own feelings about things, without leeching the feelings of those around him.’ The mule clopped steadily along between them, with Goat making no response to Dellin’scomments about him. ‘Blinding him would have been a gentler thing for me to do to him,’ Dellin commented sourly.

  Silence spun out between them as Ki tried to comprehend the emptiness that must surround Goat now. The boy was alone inside his skull for the first time in his life. She glanced up at him; his eyes were fixed on the far horizon, and they were as empty and placid as an infant’s. She found herself going back in her mind, trying to remember not what she had said, but all that she had felt toward Goat in the time they had been together. She winced. And how had it been for him those days in the wagon when she had despised him and Vandien had wanted to kill him? The sudden shame she felt weighted her lungs.

  ‘Useless to regret it,’ Dellin observed. ‘Better to forget it. I will never understand the penchant Humans have for dwelling on past unpleasantness, and letting it shape the course of their future lives.’

  ‘Do you always listen in on what people are feeling?’ Ki asked, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice. Not that it would keep him from knowing she felt it.

  ‘Only on those I regard as my patients,’ Dellin replied calmly.

  ‘I don’t regard myself as needing healing, of Jore or any other kind,’ Ki observed, and this time she let her voice carry her irritation. ‘The only thing I need from you is your help in finding Vandien.’

  ‘You don’t wish to resolve this mixture of feelings you have for him, before you rejoin him? Don’t you think you should examine why you feel so much anger with someone you care about so deeply? And what about the self-anger and denial you are constantly dealing with? Why does it distress you so much that you depend upon him, and why do you constantly battle to conceal from him and yourself the depths of your feelings for him?’

  ‘No.’ Ki’s voice was flat.

  ‘No to what?’ Dellin asked, and she was pleased to notice a note of surprise in his voice.

  ‘No to all of it. I don’t need to understand what I feel for him; I’ve lived with it for years, and it seems to work well for both of us. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, my father used to tell me. No, Dellin, the most I want from you is to know where he is, so I can catch up with him. And then I have to find my horses and wagon. And find a way to put my life back on a paying basis.’

  ‘Do you realize how you hide from yourself behind these prosaic worries? Listen to how you say you must find him before he gets into trouble. Aren’t you really feeling that you must find him before you get into trouble you can’t face without him?’

  The damn mule was too slow. At the rate they were moving, it would be nightfall before they even got to the outskirts of Tekum. Then, even if Dellin could take her straight to Vandien, there she’d be, in a hostile town full of Brurjans without even enough coins for a meal, let alone a room for the night. And how the hell was she ever going to track down her team and wagon? She turned to Dellin to ask him if he had any ideas, only to find he was already looking at her, his dark eyes full of pity.

  ‘Sooner or later, you will have to deal with your feelings.’

  ‘Then it will have to be later. Dellin, once we get into Tekum, is there any way you can trace my horses and …’ But he was already shaking his head before her sentence was half begun. ‘I can’t go into Tekum with you,’ he said gently.

  ‘Then how am I going to find …’

  ‘You’ll find him. If you just trust yourself, you’ll probably go straight to him. But in any case, I can’t take Goat into Tekum. It’s Festival there, and the streets are full of noise and emotion, too much for me to handle, let alone an inexperienced and sensitive child like Gotheris.’

  ‘Then why are you bothering going this direction at all, if you aren’t going to help me find him?’ Ki demanded bitterly.

  He shrugged. ‘Duty, perhaps. I hate to see a person as confused as you are go floundering off into a dangerous place alone. Gratitude that you managed to bring Gotheris to me, even if you still owe us the rest of the trip. But most probably, curiosity. I would meet this Vandien, to whom you bond so tightly and who has left such a deep impression upon Gotheris. When we get to the outskirts of Tekum, I will find a safe place for us and let you go on alone.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Ki said sourly. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Gotheris interrupted.

  ‘You mean her words do not match her face?’ Dellin suggested.

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Now you are beginning to learn,’ Dellin said, and smiled at him. And the smile that Gotheris returned him was finally the boy’s own.

  Dusk was falling when they reached the outskirts of Tekum. The scattered farms were beginning to be smaller and closer to one another. Darkness was gathering around them, but in the town ahead yellow torches lit the streets and the dim sounds of merrymaking reached Ki’s ears. Ki could make out the tree-lined streets that she and Vandien had passed down what seemed like ages ago. Their branches seemed to sparkle. She rubbed her eyes. Dellin stopped and the mule halted beside them. He peered about in the darkness, then pointed and spoke.

  ‘There is a shed over there. The boy and I will spend the night there. It doesn’t feel as if anyone is at home in the house. You will come back to meet us here, in the morning?’

  Ki shrugged, feeling tired, frustrated and angry. ‘I don’t know. I suppose. Can’t you give me any idea of where to look for Vandien?’

  ‘I know no more than you know yourself, if you would only listen to yourself. He’s here, somewhere. The link between you is not a thread that can be followed, but is more like the echo of your voice bouncing back to you. Go feeling for him; you’ll fin
d him.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Ki tried to keep the scepticism out of her voice. She must be crazy to even believe this man at all. Maybe she was only going looking for Vandien because she so desperately wanted to believe he was alive. To keep the darkness at bay.

  Dellin led the mule away, across the pasture. She listened to the animal’s splayed hooves crunchingthrough the dry grasses until their silhouettes merged with the darkness. Then she moved on. The night seemed blacker now that she walked alone, but she found herself keeping to the side of the road and listening for other footsteps. Yet when she did encounter other folk, they paid little mind to her. She had reached the tree-lined street by then, and could make out the shards of glass and tiny bells that caught the yellow light of the torches and shimmered with it. The people who moved through the streets behaved as if it were full daylight, and a market day at that. A suppressed excitement seemed to shiver through the night air. Folk spoke to one another in rushed whispers, interspersed with much laughter. Ki wondered what the energy flowing through the night portended, then pushed the thought from her mind. As long as it kept other folk busy, it was all to her good. She moved like a ghost through the streets, untouched by the hilarity of Festival, keeping to the shadows, seeking only a man with dark hair and dark eyes and a narrow, crooked smile that kept her heart alive.

  She passed cooking stalls, smelled the tantalizing odors of dough cooking in hot fat, of spiced meat and simmering gravy. Her stomach snapped at her throat angrily. Well, no help for it. She should have asked Dellin if he had any coins. She certainly didn’t, not on her, and the wagon would certainly have been looted. She tried to worry about her destitute status, couldn’t. Find the damn man first; after that, the other would fall into place. Or it wouldn’t.