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

by Pam Uphoff

  Damien out-bid the knacker and then somehow found himself also buying the slow buckskin and a liver chestnut he couldn't even remember running from man with a pair of distressed and tearful kids.

  "You know Damien, for a guy who swears he's going to buy nothing but geldings you sure do seem to collect a lot of mares." Eddy was having trouble keeping a straight face.

  "And not the best of them either." And there she was, Princess Nicole, smiling at him. "I came to get a better look at the 'Chaser, and find kindness to slow and injured horses. Have we met?"

  "No, Your Highness. Damien Malder."

  "Interesting accent. What are you going to do with these three?"

  "I guess I was born in Verona, traveled a lot. I've lived here in Karista for, umm, nine years now, so the accent's getting a bit thin." He pulled his eyes away from the princess's crystalline gray eyes and looked ruefully at the mares. "Well, I'm sure I can find a home for them. If nothing else, I've got a farm out of town where Spice can go. The other two, well, they might just end up pulling a small wagon of some sort."

  The princess bestowed a smile on him, and gave Trickster a long thoughtful study before being swept away by a trio of young lords.

  Eddy searched though his gear and produced an extra halter so he could lead Figgy and enough rope for Damien to ride Buckette and lead Spice Island. After her first few painful steps, Damien slapped his forehead and gave her a jot of Havwee Temple water. She pranced happily home, with Eddy extolling the advantages of breeding his new mares to a racehorse. Damien agreed for Spice Island, but kept the less delicate looking Figgy and Buckette as a team and bought a small trap. It would be perfect for delivering miscellaneous small packages all over town.

  Code laughed at his overabundance of horses and took Spice away with the older mares. They were short a stall, but Caramel Sundae was content to sleep in the aisle by her buddies, so there was no problem.

  Vani loved the small two wheeled trap. She especially liked using it for smaller packages so she didn't have to get laughed at by the stronger men when she tottered around under heavy loads. Most of them suggested that she ought to be either decently married or more available to them.

  "They really are better suited for that, than racing." Eddy elevated his nose and grinned when Vani threatened him with mashed potatoes. She put the spoonful down quickly when Andrai frowned.

  "They're much more useful than mere race horses." Andrai sniffed in Eddy's general direction.

  Damien nodded. "Are you still running messages and packages, Eddy? From what I saw of Trickster he's absolutely first class. You might want to save his legs for that, stop beating them up on City streets. He must be at least ten."

  Eddy squirmed. "A bit over, by his teeth. But I just don't feel right, not earning money regularly. And he's got to be exercised every day anyway."

  Damien nodded. "Let me know if you want to start riding along to handle crates. I turn down a lot of jobs because they're too heavy for one man to load and unload. I've usually got Code, but he won't be back until the mares have foaled.

  Eddy nodded. "I'll think about it. Maybe give him some half days off."

  "Keep him from snitching things from my kitchen." Andrai grumbled.

  "I told you I didn't take anything, let alone a whole pie."

  Damien eyed them both and changed the subject. "So, did you get a kiss from the princess?"

  Eddy scowled. "Nah, she just told us how wonderful we were. She was mostly hanging on Lord Rondo Bois's arm by then. He's a Duke's son, but I heard they don't have much money, so everyone figures that it's just perfect."

  Vani sniffed. "I think she ought to marry for love this time. Don't you, Aunt Andrai?"

  "Humph. The insanity of love is the only possible excuse for committing marriage, as far as I can see. Although, I suppose a marriage for business or financial purposes could work, so long as both parties respect each other."

  Eddy looked at her a bit dubiously, but fortunately refrained from asking if by 'respect' she meant no sex. "When she came to see Trickster, she did seem awfully impressed by you, Damien."

  Vani giggled. "That would be a scandal! Baroness Nicole and her commoner husband. Do you suppose she'd pitch in and drive a wagon?"

  Andrai glared at Damien. "Children and horses are bad enough. You will not pick up a stray princess, Damien Malder!"

  "I wouldn't dream of it." Damien polished his plate with the last bite of bread and started collecting dishes. A bit of hot soapy water later, Vani and Eddy were gone and Max walked over.

  "We've got a possible intruder, you want early or late shift, Max?"

  Andrai frowned. "You believe that little scamp?" She told Max about the missing pie.

  "Yeah. Maybe we'd better do a bit of patrolling tonight, after we check the recordings."

  Chapter Four

  Spring 1371, local

  The Team slunk back empty handed.

  Usse hid a smirk behind an impassive exterior. "I doubt they'd marry their Crown Prince to a sixty-three year old from a place few have ever heard of."

  Owco nodded. "Yes, but we will have to check out every rumor we hear."

  ***

  "They heard my stupid rumor and checked it out." Damien leaned back happily in the shadows and pondered what rumor to spread next. The Cove Islanders had been throwing their weight around, maybe a rumor about their king taking a new concubine? Or . . . was it possible to split the group? The recordings didn't make the Post Head sound very welcoming, so perhaps a wedge could be driven deeper. "Where oh where . . . " he fell utterly silent at movement to his left. Someone leaving the barn. Two someones. Two small someones. Dashing for the privy. He waited until they came back out, ghosted over and grabbed the backs of two shirts and hoisted.

  They yowled and shrieked and squirmed and thrashed as he toted them into the house. Andrai, wrapped in a robe, lit a lantern and examined his catch. "Children. Damien, you are magnet for pathetic waifs. Is there a sign on the back gate I haven't noticed?"

  Damien dropped them onto the couch. "Ah. These are the kids with the guy I bought the horses from. Couldn't leave your pets?"

  The taller scrawnier one shook his head. "Mr. Jenner said he didn't need us any more, and went off without us. We couldn't think what to do, so we followed the horses."

  They weren't too scrawny, both with medium brown hair and brown eyes. "You brothers?"

  Hesitation. "Yeah, he's my brother."

  Damien sighed. "And you're too honest to out-and-out lie. So you're his sister?"

  The taller one froze, then nodded.

  "Do you have family anywhere?"

  Heads shook. "Momma, when she got really sick, she took us to Mr. Jenner and paid him every penny she had. He said she died two days later."

  The shorter, chubbier one finally spoke up. "We can clean stalls and brush horses. Horses like us."

  Andrai's foot started tapping. "Damien . . . "

  "They're old enough – how old are you?"

  "I'm twelve, Brac is eleven."

  "Old enough to help Vani run small parcels."

  Her foot tapped harder. "Then I suppose I'd better feed them, while you find them some blankets."

  They had remodeled the house a bit since the rest of their original group had left. The largest and smallest of the three second floor bedrooms had been combined into a larger room for Andrai. The smaller bedroom was a library. Damien had the whole attic to himself, but now he rearranged the various boxes and chests to form two cubbyholes on the side opposite his own bed, and supplied blankets for them. He'd get them some mattresses and pillows soon enough.

  More kids. He was insane.

  Hmm, an insane magic lady with an orphanage of magically talented children? Where to put it?

  "So, Kola, you're from Havwee, right?" Damien took a bite of his sandwich and chewed while Kola worked out whether she wanted to be from there or not.

  She flipped dark tresses over her shoulder and finally nodded.

&n
bsp; "All those babies the virgins of Ba'al were supposed to have given birth to? Is there really a lady, a witch or something, in Havwee collecting them? Raising and training them to be baby gods?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "Cause she'd be proof that someone is more insane than I am."

  They all laughed about it; they'd heard about the kids that had hidden in his hay loft for three days before he caught them. He munched while they talked all about the infamy of the man who had kicked them out, and their cleverness in picking Damien's Freight as the place to go to.

  Eventually the conversation swung back around to the crazy lady in Havwee. "Momma did say something about a lady over on Bread street that used to be a Ba'alist. I don't know about kids though."

  Jasmine wrinkled her nose. "I don't like the idea of baby gods. Babies are only cute and funny because they can't hurt anything. If they could do magic stuff, like when they threw a temper tantrum, they'd be worse than mad dogs."

  Kola giggled. "Can you imagine an orphanage full of them?"

  Mattie sighed. "They'd rule the place, and the Wardens wouldn't dare do some of the things they do."

  Damien nodded. "She'd have to be magic herself, I suppose."

  He headed back out, but found no more conversational gambits to bring up the subject. Three days later, Andrai, checking the recordings while he had the kids busy helping out with deliveries, told him the Rescue Team had left for Havwee.

  "They're picking up gossip from the Sooty Duck? Crap, should we risk a recorder?" Damien looked over at Andrai.

  "I'll see what we've got, that we'd dare use with them looking for EM. We could deploy it after they get back."

  "And in the mean time, where should we send them next?"

  "This is not a game, Damien."

  "Of course not."

  But he did manage another trip to the racetrack.

  "What is that horse's breeding?"

  Damien looked around and blinked in surprise. Princess Nicole, with an escort of Ladies and Guards.

  "I'm afraid we don't know. Hard though it is to believe, this fellow was run into the ground and abandoned. We posted a claim for feeding him that was never answered, so he's legally Eddie's."

  "Old gods! Whoever abandoned him must have known he was valuable, to have not gelded him."

  "Well, we, umm, treated him with Havwee Temple Water." Damien floundered then, uncertain what subjects weren't discussed in High Society. Openly, with strangers. No doubt in private they were all just as raunchy as the commoners.

  But her eyes twinkled. "Oh, yes. If you have the real thing it can cure anything. I shall have to send a mare to him." She glanced around. "And you haven't bought any lamed horses today."

  "Three was quite enough. The two slow mares are doing nicely pulling a light cart. Very useful."

  The princess wrinkled her nose. "Yes. We mares do need to be useful."

  "And one is always torn with the best of mares. To race or show them, or use them as brood mares." Damien blushed. "And perhaps I'd best leave off the similes before one of your entourage beats me up, to prove he's noticed a fine mare on the market."

  "I think you just ruined that with the word 'market.'"

  "Yes. I'll have to work on that one."

  The entourage, mainly female was looking him over. The men were looking him over professionally. Hard to say which was making him more nervous.

  "I'll leave you to it, then." The princess smiled and led her ladies away.

  Eddie sniggered behind him. "Aunt Andrai would throw a fit. You really like her?"

  "Eddie, look those women over with the eye of a horseman. She's not just the only one that's sound, she's also fit, and damn fine looking. And she likes horses. And I suspect she's pretty smart as well."

  "Don't drool. I see what you mean, but . . ."

  "But she's not fashionable. Fashions come and go. And women get old. Brains go on forever." Damien walked home, detouring by the Sooty Duck to mention a rumor of an assassin in town to do in some high placed Auralian Lady, and who could they be talking about? Had the whores heard anything about an Auralian, who'd perhaps heard more than she ought and was hiding in the city? That garnered lots of speculation about the widespread network of women they knew, and which ones had ever been to Auralia. Damien pictured the Action Team hunting for whores all through the poorer districts of Karista, and headed home whistling cheerfully.

  Solstice was lounging in the corral, and Code waved from the barn. "Three fillies, one colt. All pintos. I figured I'd better bring Solstice back with me, to avoid . . . umm."

  "More foals next year? Yes. Thank you. Appreciate that."

  Solstice gave a disgusted snort from the corral.

  Damien received an invitation to a garden party. At the Palace.

  Captain Andrews read it over three times and glared at him. "I said 'No princesses' quite clearly and distinctly, Sergeant Malder."

  "Yes, Captain. File thirteen?"

  Andrai closed her eyes as if in pain. "That might be even more noticeable. You will go and be obviously out-of-place, and allowed to be forgotten."

  "Yes, Sir, Aunt Andrai."

  Glare.

  He sought out a regular client, a tailor who had enough noble clients to know how Damien should dress, and who advised him to arrive in 'that nice little trap of yours' with a driver. And no pintos. His amused wife and three daughters gave him some quick dancing lessons. Most were close enough to old things he'd learned in his youth. So long as he avoided the fancy group dances, he'd do passably.

  Max drove Figgy and Buckette, figuring he'd gossip with the other drivers, maybe pass on some new rumors, if he could think up any.

  Damien decided his stiff grey suit was no worse than a dress uniform, and tried to look at ease as he was formally announced. The Palace gardens were spectacular, a riot of colors as they came into summer. Prince Rolo, Princess Nicole's soon to be ex-husband, was the official host. He looked impatient, and there was more space between the separating pair than was necessary. The baby was on display, a bit to his surprise.

  Damien bowed respectfully to the Prince, and receiving a smile and hand from the princess, dared to touch lips to her knuckles.

  She blushed. "I had just about given up on you."

  "Well, I thought I'd slip quietly in, nice and late. That way I don't have to work too hard on the small talk."

  "Nonsense. Most of the people here are the racing crowd. Just talk horses. How are your charity cases coming?" Her eyes twinkled. "It's only fair that I warn you the King's Own report says that you wound up adopting those two children as well."

  King's Own investigating me? Andrai will kill me. "Both horses and children are working well. The kids are frightfully eager to help. The horses are doing fine." Damien cocked his head at the baby. "I see that Prince Staven is learning how to party at a young age."

  Her eyes twinkled. "We seem to have run out of arriving guests, let me introduce you." She picked up the baby prince with three month's experience. "I need to remind my suitors that they have a duty. Let me show you around the gardens." She steered him away from her husband, and placed a hand on his offered elbow, despite the number of suitors scurrying to attend her. "King Rebo says he does his best thinking out here."

  One of the followers snickered. "Or napping."

  Nicole raised her voice a bit. "You can see why. They're beautiful."

  Damien nodded. "The lay out is an interesting combination of formal and relaxed. Whatever you need to quiet the mind on any occasion." He leaned over to sniff. "It's unfair of roses to be both beautiful and fragrant. Fortunately the bushes as a whole are awkward enough to keep them humble."

  Someone behind snorted. " . . . peasant upstart." It was just soft enough to claim to be discrete, and loud enough to be heard.

  Damien caught Nicole's eyes and suppressed his laughter. She looked relieved at his attitude, and relaxed enough to see the humor. "It's the mold. Even the King's Mage can barely keep the
mold at bay."

  "I dare say he has more important things to do." Damien let her guide him through something close to a Japanese tea garden, and back to the patio as the background music shifted to the prelude of a dance number. She handed the baby to a maid, and Damien handed her off to the Prince (who looked as if the opening dance was going to be a chore). He faded back a bit to watch.

  "What? The Peasant Upstart can't dance?"

  Damien's mind sorted out the face and facts. Lord Gode Denacil, the heir to the Land Grant of section four of the Desert Valley Province. Damien nodded politely. "Lord Gode." He turned back to watch what he would have called a waltz.

  "May be he knows better than to ask a Lady to dance?" Lord Shy Mason, heir to section three, Three Rivers Province. "You do realize that they all book their dances in advance, don't you?"

  Damien decided to ignore him. He was probably cozy with the lord of section five, the location of the Bleaker Knob farm. Could have adverse tax consequences. Of course, all the lords probably stuck together. It was a pity the Charter under which the Kingdom of the West was formed had brought in titles. Creeping nobility, and class rigidity. Always a bad idea.

  The other two lords were Merk Hastin, section five, Ice Valley Province, a bachelor in his mid-thirties, and Firth Nutter, a non-inheriting grandson of the Hester Mountain Duke, who none-the-less clung to his title. His third wife had divorced him three years ago, and he was out hunting again.

  The first dance ended, and a dozen young (and not so young) nobles mobbed the princess. Two of the nobles were grey haired; one was positively doddering. The noble who'd booked the princess for the next round claimed her and led her away.

  "So, are you a part of the competition?" The dodderer parked himself belligerently in front of Damien.

  Damien shook his head. "I think I'm being used to keep all you lords on your toes. Begging your pardon, but I don't recognize you. I'm Damien Malder."

  "Hmm. Realistic, intelligent and amusing. You probably are a threat. I'm Duke Jek Succuro of South Coast. I've got, Old Gods spare me, eight daughters. No sons. My sons-in-law are all complete rotters. If I marry again, and have a son, he's going to need some serious backing. A half-brother who's the Spear heir tertiary would do nicely. What's your reason?"