Call Of The Flame (Book 1) (11 page)

Her smile faded away, to be replaced by a look of curiosity. 
She gave him a nod and curtseyed to him.  “Then let us dance.”

She took his arm and he led her inside and to the dance
floor.  She called to the orchestra leader, “Can you play Sparkling Wine?”

Everyone stopped at the abrupt moment of silence.  Aiyan
took the hand of the princess and the orchestra struck the opening chords of
Sparkling Wine.  Aiyan clearly recognized the song, breaking into a wide smile. 
She said something to him, and Kyric imagined her words. 
Do you like this
song too
?  He answered. 
Oh yes, it’s one of my favorites
.  She:  
I’ve
always loved dancing to this song
.

Aerlyn danced effortlessly, with every nuance perfectly
timed, and Aiyan matched her with his natural grace, leading her in a delicate
spinning step, making great circles across the dance floor.  They looked only
at each other, giving them a stillness as they swept past Kyric with another
turn.

Kyric scanned the room for Morae and Vaust, but he saw
neither.  Jela noticed him and broke away from a group of athletes, coming over
with his shoes in her hand.

“Look at them,” she said, nodding toward Aiyan and Aerlyn. 
“They’re wonderful together.”

The music reached an interlude where only the violins
played, and one by one the other couples began to drift to the side, stopping to
watch, until none but Aiyan and Aerlyn were left dancing.  They seemed to barely
touch the floor, carried along by their own secret wind.

Still watching them, Jela said to Kyric, “You may have the
next dance with me, if you would like that.”

Kyric grimaced.  “I don’t know how.”

“You’ve never danced in your whole life?”

“No, I haven’t.”

At last came the finishing crescendo, and the princess and
the knight walked hand in hand from the dance floor to the applause of guests
and servants alike.  They were flushed with excitement and laughing.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve danced like that,” Aerlyn
said.

Aiyan took in a breath.  “I have never danced like that.”

All at once a dozen lords and ladies pressed in on them,
wanting to compliment Princess Aerlyn and interrogate Aiyan.  He excused
himself and made his way to Jela.

“You need to leave here at once,” he said to her.

She frowned.  “Why?  They’re not even here any longer.”

He was instantly exasperated with her.  “I don’t have time
for explanations, Jela, but trust me with this, you need to go right away.  Go
to the other side of the city.  Take the lion wrestler to the dance at New
Market Square.  That way at least you will have not told a complete lie to your
father.”

Without another word she stomped away to find Jazul.

“Why couldn’t she stay and go home with you and me?” Kyric
asked.

Aiyan gave him a grim look.  “Because when we leave here
they will try to kill us.”

It didn’t take long for Jela to talk Jazul into leaving with
her.  Jazul had apparently hired a carriage for the evening, and he seemed
ready to set out for a full night of celebration.  Aiyan peeked out and watched
them go, the stiffness in his shoulders loosening visibly after they had gone
the length of the street and turned the corner.

After seeing him dance with the princess, half the
aristocrats wanted to corral Aiyan and find out who he was and how he knew the
princess.  He had to keep on the move to avoid conversation until at last
Aerlyn sequestered herself at a table behind a barrier of flowers and called
him over to sit with her.

Kyric busied himself with sampling the marvelous chilled
delicacies, and with watching the couples who danced, trying to memorize some
of the steps without going through the clumsy motions.  All this time Aiyan and
Aerlyn spoke in low tones, declining food and drink, often smiling, sometimes
animated, leaning closer.

Kyric continued to watch for the return of Vaust or Morae,
but they never came back.  At length, Senator Lekon bulled his way to Aerlyn’s
table and forced Aiyan to shake hands with him, engaging him for a minute or
two.  Shortly after Lekon walked away he scribbled a note to an aid, who left
at once.  Aiyan excused himself and sought out Kyric.

“I just now thought of something they might try,” he said,
shaking his head as if to clear it.  “My eyes are so full of stardust that I’m
not thinking clearly.”

Kyric tried not to smile.  “So you’re taken with her.  What
of it?  It’s nice.”

Aiyan cleared his throat.  “Anyway, it’s possible that Morae
tipped Lekon as to my identity and he has now sent for the household cavalry to
arrest me as soon as we walk out.”

“What about Morae and Vaust?”

“I think they’re already out there waiting for us, but we
should go now anyway.  I’ve done more here than I dared to dream.”

When Kyric gave him a knowing look Aiyan returned it and
asked him, “Can you ride a horse?”

“If I have to.”

“Good.  We’re going riding with Aerlyn tomorrow.”

Kyric couldn’t contain himself.  “So it’s first names now?”

Mumbling something unintelligible, Aiyan led him to the waiters’
entrance near the orchestra platform and peered out.  “We’ll go quickly,” he
said.  “Past the stores tent to those crates stacked against the fence, then
over and into the crowd.  Keep your head down and keep up with me.”

“Just don’t run like you did before.”

Aiyan shook his head.  “No need for the gait of the wind
this time.”

“Is that another weird that one may learn?”

“Yes,” he said absentmindedly as he carefully scanned the
fenced area.  “It’s not as hard as it looks.”

With a nod from Aiyan, they crossed to the fence in a quick
trot and over into a dark space behind a row of empty booths.  “We didn’t get
shot coming out,” said Aiyan.  “So far so good.”

A commoner’s procession, a line of men and women dressed in
outrageous imitations of finery, some approaching clownish proportions, was moving
past the booths.  A handful of musicians led the way, and most everyone in the
line sang along with them.

Aiyan took Kyric’s sleeve and led him around the booths and
into the procession.  “We don’t look so out of place in this line,” he said. 
“Let’s see where it goes.”

The line snaked down the avenues of the fair, past fire
dancers, jugglers, and booths with bright awnings serving fried sweet-cakes and
candied apples and all manner of finger food.  Jovial fellows hawked bottled
wine from the backs of donkey carts.  Folks with children gathered along the
path when they saw the procession coming, and the parading ladies threw hard
candy and paper dolls to them, while the imitation lords flung handfuls of
wooden coins into the air.  Even the adults scrambled to catch these, and when
Kyric managed to grab one he found it was merely inscribed with the words ‘good
luck’ on one side.  He tucked it into his sash, hoping that it was so.

The tall torches along the way cast flickering patterns into
the moon shadows.  The line moved along hesitantly, passing a small bonfire
where pairs of sweethearts stood across from each other and the girls tossed
wreaths to their boyfriends through the flames.  Kyric had seen this in the
country villages at midsummer — he who dropped his sweetheart’s wreath faced an
unhappy season.

“I have that feeling on the back of my neck,” Aiyan said, looking
back and all around, peering through gaps in the crowd.  “I don’t see either of
them,” he said, “but I can’t imagine Morae simply letting us go.  Let’s take a
run and see if that draws anyone out.”

They broke from the procession and into the open, dashing
across a darkened green where boys lashed straw men to old wagon wheels,
setting them aflame and rolling them through the night with short poles.  The
straw men crackled and the flames purred as the burning wheels rolled by, and
Aiyan cut towards a large tent where two women were selling straw dolls at a
brisk pace.  With midnight quickly approaching, everyone would soon be tearing
straw men to pieces.  Beyond, in the shadow of a lonely elm, lay some wagons
waiting to be loaded with empty barrels.

Aiyan stopped there, drawing his little pistol and crouching
behind the barrels.  He cocked the weapon.  Kyric drew one of his own, the
metal strangely cool in the warmth of the night.  His hand shook a bit.  A week
ago he had been walking to the Games of Aeva.  How had it come to this?

Aiyan raised his pistol, ready for anyone coming around the
tent, and waited.  And waited.  At length an old man appeared and headed to the
tree to relieve himself.

“If we’re being followed, it’s by someone very good,” Aiyan
said softly.  “Probably Morae himself.  If he wanted to kill me I think he
would have taken his shot when we were in that line.  But it’s hard to know.”

They were near the center of the fairgrounds, and there
seemed to be a slow migration of folk towards a huge bonfire there.  Aiyan and
Kyric drifted that way with a loose-knit group, Aiyan watching behind them,
almost walking backward.  A low platform stood near the great fire, and
hundreds pressed together there to hear a bearded poet in academic robes who
stood in front of a green curtain and shouted his words, gesturing wildly.

Aiyan pushed into the crowd.  Everyone was leaning toward
the stage in anticipation.

“— as darkness bleeds from my heart,” the poet bellowed,
“and my eyes are washed clear, Brother Sun comes ever near.”  On the end of a
slender pole, a large yellow ball rose above the curtain.

“Don’t stand so tall,” Aiyan said to Kyric as they picked
their way to the other side of the audience.

The poet shouted even louder.  “Strong in life is he.  Death
itself will flee.”  Through a slit in the curtain an enormous man of straw was
thrust, dressed all in black.  This brought a sharp cry from the audience.  It
took both hands for the poet to hold it up.  The crowd raised their arms
chanting, “Carry out death!  Carry out death!”

The poet stood there, expecting midnight to come at any
moment.  He temporized.  “Tonight is Solstice Eve, the night we carry out
death.  And when we feed the fire with the body of death we cast out our bad
luck, and Brother Sun smiles upon our fields — “

At that moment a distant bell began to strike the midnight
hour, and audience cried out as the poet cut short his improvisation and threw
the straw man into crowd.  They fell upon it like a pack of jackals, tearing into
it with their bare hands as firecrackers began to pop all around them and
across the fairgrounds.

Everyone rushed forward into a melee of reaching arms and
handfuls of straw, and when a straw arm came flying out of the center there was
another rush and suddenly Kyric and Aiyan stood in an open space.  Fifty paces
away, where the edge of the audience had been, stood Kleon Morae.

Aiyan and Morae saw one another, drew and readied pistols
before Kyric could take one step, Morae dropping to one knee and Aiyan sliding
to the side as they fired at nearly the same instant.  A lock from Morae’s wig
flew away, and Aiyan had a new hole in his collar, but neither man was hurt,
nor were any bystanders hit.  Amid the flurry of straw and firecrackers, no one
seemed to even notice.

A straw leg was flung backward from the throng and the crowd
surged back, coming between Aiyan and Morae.  Kyric managed to get both pistols
out.  Aiyan drew his sword, and holding it low began to circle the crowd, but
everyone quickly got their handful of straw and ran to the fire with it.

Morae was still there, a sabre in his hand, and far beyond
in the shadow of a tent, stood Stefin Vaust drawing a bow.

“Aiyan!” Kyric called.  “Next to the tent.”

“I see him.”  Aiyan said, coming to a halt and raising his
sword as if to strike.

It seemed a very long shot for a pocket pistol, but Kyric
took careful aim at Vaust.  Morae started forward.  Two figures were passing
behind Vaust, and Kyric couldn’t risk hitting them.  He held his fire.  Vaust
loosed his arrow.  Aiyan cut sharply and the two halves of the arrow spun
lazily in the air as they fell somewhere behind him.  Kyric pointed his pistols
at Morae and he stopped short.

A few late-arriving girls, running to join in on the grab
for straw, nearly ran into Morae, one of them screaming at the sight of his
bared sword.  A head turned, then another.  Morae backed away, sheathing his sabre. 
Vaust nocked another arrow but didn’t draw back.

Aiyan backed away as well.  “Get behind me,” he said to
Kyric.  The crowd began to disperse as they moved away.

“Morae’s role as gentleman financier is working against him
— he can’t afford to be recognized sword fighting in the middle of the night. 
But if he didn’t have Vaust backing him, I wouldn’t give him a choice.”

More people drifted into their wake.  As soon as they lost
sight of Morae and Vaust, Aiyan sheathed his sword and turned saying, “Now we
run again.”

They ran between bonfires and past dancing couples all the
way to the far corner of the fairgrounds.  A few cabriolets sat waiting across
the street, and Aiyan ran to the nearest one calling, “Are you free, cabbie?” 
When the man nodded Aiyan tossed him a half-ducat as they climbed in and said,
“To the river if you please, and hurry.  We are pursued by a woman scorned.”

The cabbie’s face brightened when he saw the size of the
coin, and he urged his horse to a fast walk.  “’Fraid this is quick as it goes
on Solstice Eve,” he said.

They weaved down to the avenue toward the river, the cabbie
dodging foot traffic and cursing at those who got in the way, Aiyan looking
behind the whole time.  Kyric said to Aiyan, “How do you have so much coin all
of a sudden?  You even paid the bill at dinner last night.”

“I wagered on you at the games.”  He continued looking behind
them.

“You took money from honest men, knowing we were cheating?”

Aiyan glanced at him.  “I don’t know if those men were
honest, but I would have made triple off them if you had won.”

He smiled broadly and Kyric laughed, and suddenly it was the
funniest jest he had ever heard.  He laughed harder, the way Pitbull had
laughed at the games, and this thought made him laugh even harder.  “Aiyan,” he
gasped, clawing at the upholstery, “I can’t stop laughing.”  His eyes began to
water.  “It’s not even funny anymore . . . and I still can’t stop.”

Aiyan placed his hand on Kyric’s shoulder.  “It’s alright,”
he said.  “It’s just nerves.”

By the time they came to the river Kyric managed to regain
himself, and Aiyan told the driver to turn south.  About half a mile along they
stopped and got out, letting the cabriolet go.  “I don’t think we’re still
being followed,” Aiyan said, leading them down to the riverside jetties, “but
this is a pretty good way of making sure.”

They hadn’t gone ten paces along the jetty when a boatman
called, “Ferry you across for a penny apiece, gents.”

Out on the river, in the dark, they floated quietly between
two shores of fire and tumult.  The bump of the boatman’s oars echoed on the
water.  Aiyan watched behind them the whole way across, but no other boat
followed.  They landed at a tiny riverside quay and climbed the steps to the
street, quickly hailing another cab.

“New Market Square isn’t far from here,” he said, “Would you
like to see if Jela and the lion wrestler made it there, or do you think she’s
seen enough of us for one night?”

Kyric smiled wistfully.  “I don’t think I’ve seen enough of
her for one night.”

They were in the new city now, with its wide, straight
boulevards, and they went all the way to New Market Square at the trot.

The square was big and loud, with dancing and an orchestra
on one side, and a bonfire with straw and shredded cloth scattered all around
on the other side.  Across the enclosing streets, hordes of laughing, talking,
drinking, smoking people spilled out of cafes onto the sidewalks.

Kyric stood on a bench and looked over the square.  “We’ll
never find her in all this.”

“It will be hard to miss Jazul,” Aiyan said.  “So go and
find her and have some fun.  I’ll be lurking about, keeping an eye on
everything.”  He waved Kyric away.  “Go.  Enjoy yourself.”

Kyric started across the square.  Well past midnight, he
thought, and the night still seemed young, endless rather.  He swept up some
loose straw with his hand and fed it to the bonfire with no small sense of irony. 
There.  I’ve cast out my bad luck for the rest of summer
.

He easily found Jazul, dancing with a girl Kyric didn’t
know, and from there found Jela and all her friends at a sidewalk table.  Jela
had quite gotten over her pouting about the royal reception.  In fact she was
still enjoying a bit of celebrity with her friends at having been there.