"Point taken. Still, hobbies are all very well, Aelmarkin," said the drawler, "But no gentleman and no sane fellow goes off himself to dig up nasty old discards in parts unknown, now, does he? I certainly don't go rambling through briars with nets and bottles! That's what slaves are for! And he went out alone, too! Why, that was simply insane, if you ask me."
Kyrtian gritted his teeth. He knew he was meant to overhear all of this. He knew they were trying to provoke him. And they were only saying in his hearing what they told each other—and what their elders said. If he just kept his temper, he would learn a great deal. If they thought he was too dull to understand—or too cowardly to respond—what possible harm could it do?
Still, it was the hardest thing he had ever done, to sit there and let strangers abuse the memory of his own father, without challenging them.
"Alone!" exclaimed the first speaker. "Why didn't he take slaves, if he wouldn't send them to do his hunting for him? Aelmarkin, admit it, he must have been deranged!"
There was an audible rustle of fabric, marking Aelmarkin's careless shrug. "He was always secretive about these hunts of
his, and never more so than on the last one. He was hunting the site of the Great Gate that brought us from Evelon, and the things that were discarded as useless because they no longer functioned after passing the Gate. Why? I haven't a notion."
"Yes, well, it's obvious he was an obsessive, at the very least," said the drawler, dismissively. "And judging from the disaster of a conversation I had with Kyrtian, yonder, obsession runs in the family blood. All the poor fool can talk about is military matters! History, tactics, battles no one cares about." A sneer crept into the drawl. "As if anyone would ever give the likes of him command over so much as a squad of latrine-diggers."
By now Kyrtian's neck burned, his cheeks were nearly the same temperature, and his jaw and shoulders ached with the strain of tightly-clenched muscles. He gladly would have given half his possessions for the opportunity to come at any of those foppish fools in barehanded combat!
And that's just what they expect from you, he reminded himself, trying mentally to throw a little cold water on his overheated temper. They think you 're an atavistic barbarian, and they may very well be waiting for you to stand up and attack them physically! They would have the right to challenge you or bring you up in front of the Great Council.
And that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was what Aelmarkin wanted him to do, for such an attack would prove to everyone's satisfaction that he, Kyrtian, was just as mad as Aelmarkin claimed in his petition. An Elvenlord and a gentleman did not settle differences hand-to-hand. An Elvenlord and a gentleman issued a proper challenge, and settled it as this feud was being settled.
I have to keep my mouth closed and my eyes open and find out just how these things work! he told himself vehemently. So that if I get a chance, I can arrange for these fools to eat their words without salt!
Beside him, Gel stood at wary attention, as impassive as any statue, and as invisible to these fools as any other bodyguard. Gel had heard every word, too—but you would never know it by looking at him.
Copy Gel, he told himself. Stay quiet, if not calm. Wait, and
watch. He knew only that these feuds were settled in trial-by-combat, using slaves as proxies. If his fighters were better-trained than these—
Then it might be worth dealing with these dolts in a way they 'II understand.
Abruptly, conversation behind him ceased, as some signal he didn't recognize warned the idlers that the combat was about to begin. Abruptly caught up in spite of himself, Kyrtian leaned forward with the rest, as the light in the arena brightened, and the lights above their seats dimmed.
5
|
Two bronze doors, one at each end of the arena and decorated with hammered images of armored fighters, opened onto the sands of the arena. Two lines of heavily-equipped fighters paced through them, moving ponderously into the light. There were fourteen of these humans in all, seven to each side. One set was armored in pale green, with a winged serpent badge in brilliant blue on their breastplates and shields, the other in emerald green with the badge of a rearing alicorn in white.
The armor was impressive; the men inside it were less so. Kyrtian studied each of the fighters minutely, weighing and measuring their general strength, noting the kinds of weapons each man carried. He assumed that Gel was doing the same.
"Ancestors!" came another whisper from behind. "What can be so fascinating about a handful of fighters? Is he so provincial that he's never seen gladiators before?"
Kyrtian's neck burned again for a moment, but he calmed himself quickly. With something before him to study and analyze, he finally managed to think of his own situation in terms of tactics rather than emotions.
Most of them are taking me for a provincial boor, but those are the ones who are ignoring me. The comments might be coming from those who are suspicious of me—thinking that the "provincial fool" might just be a pose. They would be trying to prod me into either doing something typical of a fool—such as lose my temper and insult them back—or to do or say something that will give them more information about what I'm really here for. If I do neither, I'll confuse them further. It's even possible that Aelmarkin is behind the prodding. The possible number of plots and counterplots going on behind his back made him feel dizzy.
And these strangers seemed even more alien to him. How did they do it? How could anyone live like that, spending most of every day in guarding against treachery, and the rest in planning treachery? It would drive him mad in no time. He could not imagine how they coped with the constant paranoia.
Perhaps that is why they spend so much time in debauching themselves. Only by immersing themselves in pleasure can they relax for a few moments. If that was so—he felt suddenly sorry for them. But not too sorry.
The best weapon he had to use against them was the uncertainty he represented, the very fact that he was unknown. No matter what Aelmarkin had told them, they probably wouldn't really believe it until they had proved for themselves what he was. They would tend to judge him against the standard of their own behavior. What would one of them do in a situation similar to his? Play the fool? Try and find an ally?
Probably look for an ally or a protector; hopefully by doing neither, he had confused them further. He wished he could talk openly to Gel; of all the times he needed advice—
Then again, Gel might not have any better notion of how to handle these effete creatures than he did.
Well, others have mistaken my caution for a lack of imagination in the past—so perhaps that is what is going on now. I can only hope so; it will make them underestimate me further.
All he really knew was how such situations would have been handled in the far past, as recounted in the history books he spent so much time perusing. In the days of long ago, there had
been less time and leisure for long plots and political machination. The Elvenlords of old had dealt with problems with their own kind in ways that "human barbarians" would find perfectly familiar.
If one of the First Lords chose to deal with the insults instead of tamely accepting them, he would have called his enemy out for a duel-by-magic.
That makes a satisfying fantasy these days as well—providing you picture yourself as the winner rather than the loser.
In law, that was still an option, but it was one that very few ever took anymore. More than ninety-nine times out of a hundred, insults were answered and arguments settled by proxy, in the arena, at the hands of human gladiators like the ones below. Hardly fair, since clearly someone whose means were limited couldn't afford to keep and train as many fighters as someone of greater rank and power, but someone of greater rank and power would also be much stronger in magic than a lesser lord—so it wouldn't make a great deal of difference to the outcome, whether it was settled by combat or magic duel.
It's even possible for someone with weak magic to become wealthy enough to afford first-quality fighters, or to gain an ally with access to such fighters, but nothing increases the power of the magic that someone is born with. I suppose combat-by-proxy is marginally more fair than combat-by-magic.
It wouldn't be quite as viscerally satisfying, though.
I wonder how I'd fare if I decided to challenge one of the charmers behind me to a magic duel? Have any of them even bothered to practice and train their power? There was no way of judging how strong they were by the way they were acting, and he really didn't know how strong his magic was in comparison with theirs. Going into such a challenge blind would be the stupidest thing he could do.
He didn't use magic except when there was no way to accomplish something without it. He really didn't have much use for illusions, so he'd never really practiced them, but there was no reason why even an illusion couldn't be used as a weapon. Other Elvenlords seemed to waste a great deal of power on outward appearances—for instance, as Aelmarkin had, turning his
manor into an impossible confection that hardly resembled a dwelling at all. But was that the waste that it seemed to be?
Is it a kind of bluff—or even a way of demonstrating power without the risk entailed by combat?
For a moment, he felt a flicker of concern that he hadn't done likewise; should he have created an opulent illusory costume like theirs? What would these people think if they saw his unadorned home? Did they think him weak, and of little account, because he didn't create and maintain fantastic illusions?
It doesn 't matter, he told himself quickly. No one ever comes to visit who needs to be impressed, and I'm not the only one here wearing ordinary clothing.