A Taste of Wine (Wine of the Gods Book 7)

by Pam Uphoff

  Halfway through dinner Eddy and Trickster trotted in. The small windows of the dining room overlooked the three yards. All the old dividing fences had been removed to give the wagons more turning space. Eddy's work was irregular enough that they never waited dinner on him. Andrai fixed another plate and had it ready for him when he trotted in.

  "No races tonight?"

  "Nah. There's some fancy parties for the Equinox. And tomorrow they'll probably still be hung over." He shrugged. "It's Princess Nicole, soon to be Baronness Nicole. Now that she's given the Crown Prince a first son for the Spear, the divorce is in the works, and every second and third son of some Lord or Duke sees an opportunity to leap into power by marrying her. Worse than dogs after a bitch in season."

  "Eddy! I'll have none of that at my table! The poor thing, used and discarded!"

  Eddy rolled his eyes. "She's a great huge cow. This is her chance to be the center of attention, the most desirable woman in the Kingdom." He kept a canny eye on the napkin in Andrai's hand. She could snap those things with stinging accuracy.

  "I suspect that just two months after giving birth she's in no shape physically or emotionally to be picking a replacement husband. Humph. Whoever heard of such a system!"

  "Well, Leano beat the system with a late discovered bastard. Quite clever of him." Damien had always thought the Kingdom's double leadership a recipe for disaster, but it seemed to work.

  Eddy tossed his head. "Ha! That bastard Fossi shouldn't even count. Rolo ought to be the spear prince and Mirk the crown prince. Everyone knows Leano and Nez were in love, so Leano made up the story and got the King's Mage to back him up. All they had to do was a search for some boy the right age with some trace of royal blood in him, and they could stay together."

  "Old Gods! Do you really listen to that gossip?"

  "Of course. That's about all they talk about at the race grounds. Well, other than bragging about their horses and talking about what they really want to do with women."

  "Eddy!"

  "Honestly, Aunt Andrai, you're a widow, not some silly virgin. You know that's what men talk about."

  Aunt Andrai was quite red. Inasmuch as her marriage to Mig Garcia had been a fiction for the infiltration, Damien wasn't about to speculate about just how married they had acted in private.

  "Great chicken, Andrai. If I shoehorn in some of that pie, I can be happily miserable half the night."

  Andrai sniffed. "That's why you are going to wait for a bit before you get any. And I've half a mind to send a certain smart mouth off without any at all!"

  That brought on the starving big-eyed-waif act and Eddy was sent off, but with a generous slice.

  Max came by and they slipped down to the basement. With the bolt shot, they hit the concealed switch and the electric lights flicked on, cool and white. Andrai blew out her candle and they cleared the two cabinets. One held the radio. It recorded a wide swath of the spectrum, and picked up the rare communications between the One World groups. The second held a variety of detectors, and the recorder for the passive pickup on the end of the optical cable they'd drilled across the alley and into the Oner's warehouse base.

  Andrai tapped the meter. "Talkative today. I wonder what he's up to?"

  Chapter Two

  Summer 1370, local

  Usse Withione had been the Post Head here in Karista for thirty years. The solitude suited him. As a boy, he'd been taken for the priesthood. His possession of a power gene on his Y chromosome gave the One control of his future. Which promised to be powerful, once the unfortunate effects of testosterone on the final maturation of the brain had been avoided, surgically. Barely finished with his training and education, he'd been in the wrong place and swept up with the truly guilty in a scandalous debacle. His innocence had been proven, but the priesthood had refused to have him back. There were a few other things he couldn't get back either. He hadn't taken it well.

  He'd been a natural for the Directorate. The secular arm of the One's authority. His anger had strengthened and honed his power, the arms training had added mundane havoc to his arsenal, and someone had wisely sent him far, far away from domestic intrigue. The long solitude of this post had shown him that his faith in the One was solid. It was the priesthood that had turned their backs on the innocent, and failed the One.

  The rattle at his door brought him down on the run, silent and as always, ready to kill. But his whole demeanor changed as he reached for the bolt, and it was a bent old man, so bland and average he was nearly invisible that pulled the door open. "Yes, how can I help you?" There wasn't even a hint of a hesitation as he saw the Team. "Come in, we can talk over some tea, perhaps?"

  He studied them as they stepped warily in. Well integrated with each other, more cautious than any Action Team he'd ever seen, more Power than needed for Information. He straightened, and softened his privacy shield to the Directorate's version of Formal Business. Just enough that they could tell he was of the One.

  "Post Head Usse, we are the Recovery Team, sent here to find all the scattered One on this World."

  Usse looked him up and down. "It's been five years since Princess Rior disappeared. Do you think to follow her trail now?"

  "The Director had hoped that you had located her, or at least eliminated some possibilities."

  Usse lowered his brows. "I have responsibilities here at my duty post. I sent that worthless Information Team back to help, but from what I've heard the One considered a princess to be a decent trade to get back into the graces of the Amma. Hardly the first person so discarded. However, I forget my manners. I am Usse Withione. How may I help the Recovery Team."

  The leader was a tall man, square chinned and a bit on the pale side. "Usse Withione, I greet you. I am Owco Withione, these are my Team. Ijde Neartuone, Egfi Neartuone, Abce Neartuone, Yslu Withione. We are tasked with recovering One Assets lost in a diplomatic blunder."

  Usse repeated his bare bending of neck. "I greet you, in the One. Without being able to search on the ground itself, I have been forced to listen for every scrap and hint that might have shown me how to rescue the princess. And there are none. You will have to go to the Amma's staff, and ask them where their master sent the princess."

  Owco's lips tightened. "We have. The actions were tightly held, and we were forbidden to harm those of the Amma's staff who were certain to have known. The ones we did use the Compulsions on had only speculation and rumor. The combination of the three events was universally considered to be the expected result of one of the Amma's wives having sex with another man. The wife disappeared – most likely into the harem of a Solti who lived at a distance. The lover—General of the Army Ehra Neartuone—was executed out of hand. The princess having been a political wife, the representative of the gifting polity was punished appropriately by their laws. The Ambassador's testicles and penis were amputated and he was multiply raped. In public."

  Usse glowered. "So which Solti was in Fascia at the time, and left, or sent part of his entourage away, at that time?"

  "The one that died. A bandit attack on his way home. From there, we can only hope to pick up the electronic signals of the princess's implants."

  "In as much as they have a range of only three miles in the open, you should be quite busy."

  The redhead shifted uneasily. "We assumed the princess was resourceful enough to free herself and would seek out one of the peripheral posts."

  "Ah. I see. You thought I might have her here and never told The Priest of the One Ygti?"

  The redhead flushed angrily. The pale skinned coloration of the prophets was much acclaimed, One only knew why. It seemed to be a weakness, as far as Usse'd ever been able to tell.

  "No. But we thought you might have heard rumors." Owco answered.

  Usse inclined his head. "Unfortunately highly attractive blondes are moderately common. I will escort you around the City, show you all of the local government's property, large and small. You should be within range of the power source emanations, given the d
earth of metal in the construction and the lack of local background EM. If the government has her, is holding her, you should be able to find her."

  Chapter Three

  Summer 1370, local

  "Dear God in Heaven. What can we do with this opportunity?"

  Damien grinned at Andrai's hungry tone. "Spread rumors? Oh lord, let's think about what we can do to run them around uselessly. Surely spreading rumors is not going active?"

  Max snickered. "The Crown Prince is shopping for a new wife."

  "A foreign princess with magical powers?" Damien scratched his chin. "And we'd better seriously minimize our EM usage."

  Armed with righteousness, Damien stopped for lunch at the Sooty Duck. There was no need for him to introduce the subject. The upcoming Divorce, and whom each party might marry next was apparently the current sole interest of the whores.

  "I figured he'd marry a foreign princess, for diplomacy." Damien contributed.

  The virtues of foreign and domestic were dissected and the idea rejected. "The Crown Prince will need the backing of at least a Land Grant Holder, and probably a Duke. No foreigner will be allowed to have that much access to the king."

  "Well, maybe she's magic. Otherwise why this fast divorce? You'd think they wait until the Presentation, like his father did."

  "But the Prince and Princess were in love. These two aren't. This is how it's usually done, with no chance of a second pregnancy allowed." Jasmine protested. The name was new, the whore old. She had gotten into a bit of trouble with the law and seemed to think a new name would help.

  "Well, it seems a bit odd to me, but it does seem to work for you lot."

  "Ha! Look our favorite Veronian admits we've got something right!" Kola snuggled up friendly-like and grinned. "Been too long Big Boy?"

  "Ya, your lot's had that same old shriveled up Emperor forever. How old is he?" Mattie shrugged voluptuously and smiled at him.

  "Umm, couple hundred and going strong? Kinda like Barto, over there. He's going to last forever."

  "And anyway, I think Damien must be at least half Auralian, with this dark hair." Jasmine ran her hand through it, massaging his scalp.

  "This is what happens when you come to lunch on a slow day, Hauler." Barto was a constant fixture of the Sooty Duck, a man so incredibly old no one would have doubted him had he stated his age in millennia. "Sell you some Temple Water so you can keep up with all three of 'em?"

  It turned into a long lunch.

  He was driving Midnight and one of the young mares, Bazaar by name. Midnight was behaving himself, since she was pregnant. Apart from a tendency to lay his ears back at other horses, he wasn't a problem. Maybe Damien didn't need to buy a gelding to team with him. And he was busy all afternoon and into the evening. He really ought to get a third wagon and team, take advantage of all this activity. Vani could drive when Code wasn't in town.

  The Divorce – he could hear the capital letter in peoples voices – was the main topic of discussion everywhere he went, and he casually speculated about the rush being due to an already chosen bride, or possibly something magic going on. No one was the least bit interested and kept on speculating about this or that gentleman being chosen to marry the princess. Oh well.

  Eddy was in already when he drove into the yard.

  "They're going to have a huge meet tomorrow." The boy hustled over and helped with the team. "The princess is going to come and watch. I heard that the winner of each race would get a kiss. You should come!"

  Damien grinned. "Oh sure, Vani can do my rounds while I go watch horse races."

  "Well, I could."

  He raised up on his toes to see over Midnight's back. "Hi Vani. Do you want to? I keep thinking about buying a third wagon."

  "Hey!"

  Ha, Code was here too. "You're down at the farm all the time. I know the kid comes and feeds whenever you're gone, but you know you'll want to be there every time one of the mares foal."

  "Well, yeah, but I'll be here tomorrow."

  "So, Vani can drive and you can load and unload. End of problem. And I get a day off. I like this idea."

  He went along with Max for the first delivery, delivering a pair of crates to a small manufactory on the south side. From there he walked further south. The race course was actually a part of Fort Karista. The Army's first division wintered over here, but spent the rest of the year deployed to various areas. This year they were out in the desert, way south of the part he knew, where a rich gold strike was attracting bandits. What he guessed was the parade ground had been staked out for flat racing, and the cavalry's obstacle course made a great steeplechase, although less visible from the small stands.

  Little knots of people stood about looking at the horses being walked around. Vendors sold drinks and snacks and the ladies split evenly between those who knew horses and those whose hats were guaranteed to spook them. There were three men for every woman and Damien boggled a bit at the size of the bets he was overhearing.

  Like a good little spy, he sorted out the known from the unknown and categorized them. The princess was the tallest woman there, broad shouldered and sleek with muscles; she made Damien's mouth water. The bevy of underfed waifs around her didn't stir him at all. These high society women dressed differently than the low and middle class. No doubt they wouldn't be caught dead wearing a shift and overvest. They looked more Victorian or somesuch to him, with fitted bodices, corseted waists and full skirts. At least they didn't have excessive petticoats or hoops.

  The princess's soon to be ex-brother-in-law was present, and staying well away from her. Prince Mirk was the Crown Prince's third son, sixteen years of age. He was surrounded by sycophants, young lords for the most part, a few of his more distant cousins. The King's Own were present in modest numbers, at first glance. But the movements of some of the finely dressed gentlemen made it clear that there were probably double the obvious number of royal bodyguards present.

  He spotted Eddy, walking the tall bay Trickster on the far side of the crowd. The horse had a number of admirers watching him. Or not admirers. A bulky man was glaring at Eddy. As the other trio drifted off and left them alone the big man rounded on Eddy. Judging by the gestures he was unhappy. Judging by the expression on Eddy's face he wasn't very pleased either.

  Trying to intimidate a opponent, Fat Boy? Of course, Eddy probably wasn't much disturbed by the idea of fixing a race. Solstice and Trickster were the only horses Damien knew the boy had stolen. He'd been so delighted to get Solstice back, and so amused that the victims were Oners that he hadn't been disturbed by the knowledge that his latest orphan wasn't very honest. Perhaps he should have been, but it was a bit late now.

  He strolled through the crowd, admiring horses. Very much like thoroughbreds, and no doubt descended from some that had been brought through an early trans-dimensional gate by the ancestors of their owners. The assumed genocide of the genetically engineered in the twenty-second century had apparently, instead, been a forced exile to a marginally habitable parallel World. Apparently under circumstances that had allowed them to take livestock and pets with them. Had they gone willingly, gladly taking the risks in order to live without the prejudice of the masses? Damien smiled cynically. He rather doubted the government of the time had mentioned the periodic catastrophic impact of comets. And he really wondered if the Earth was planning on removing the moles before the big one hit . . . six and a half years from now.

  Because, if they did, he would be abandoning Code and Vani. Max would have to leave his wife and kids. And they'd probably never get back to find out what happened. He stared blankly at an elegant grey mare. Leave all his horses to die. All his friends, even the whores down at the Sooty Duck. I can't leave them, even if all I can do is die with them.

  He circled around to Eddy. The Fat Man was gone. "So, you going to beat all these other horses?"

  Eddy grinned. "You better believe it. Well, there's a couple I'll have trouble with. Trickster's in the last race, the three mile chase."
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  "I'll have to bet on you then. If I can fight my way through the pretty boys."

  "Go down there. On the other side of those trees you'll find the regular people and even more betting."

  "Ah. I should have known."

  Damien checked it all out, and then circled back to the horses and started seriously judging them. That pretty chestnut was a smooth mover, that black a bit heavy to have good endurance, but he looked like he could jump . . . a bugle blew and a dozen of the horses separated themselves from the crowd, acquired saddles and riders and the crowd followed them to the track.

  Damien put money on the smooth chestnut, and winced as the mare pulled up lame. The heavy black was in the short chase, and he won his money back betting on him. The elegant grey – with Eddy riding – won the mile on the flat. The second chase was two miles and he bet on a buckskin named Buckette just because of the horrible name. She trailed in dead last. The next two races he bet blindly, uncertain of which horse was which, and lost more money. Then he emptied his pockets to bet on Trickster, who zipped around the course like a greyhound. Two horses managed to stay reasonably close to him, but he won by two lengths, to the approval of the crowd. Looking at Eddy's incandescently happy face, Damien realized his fear of fixed races was absurd.

  Horse and boy were feted, and then Damien found himself walking Trickster cool while the princess spoke to all the winners.

  Trickster was walking easily, breathing easily. "You're in pretty good shape for an old man."

  "He's not old!" Eddy hustled up, frowning.

  Damien shut his mouth on a reply as the conversation behind him registered. The small group around the chestnut looked unhappy, running hands over her lower foreleg.

  "Bowed a tendon. Looks like you've got a nice broodmare, though." Damien frowned at the knacker standing by.

  The owner shrugged. "She's not that well bred, and I haven't the time nor pasture. . . "