Miami Days and Truscan (14 page)

The manipulative little brat turned to me and bowed. “I’m very sorry, Tess,” he said solemnly, the mechanical speech having disappeared as though it never was. “But my father doesn’t stop to think sometimes and I have to look out for him. You
could
be a plant for Baka, you know.”

That did it. I cracked up totally. “A
plant?
A
plant?
What sort of James Bond stories does Johnny tell you? When I crashed out of the sky only five days ago?”

“That’s what Johnny calls Baka’s spies. Plants.
Now
what’s so funny?” he asked, his expression truly injured as Dalph and I laughed like hell. I didn’t know whether I was more amused at the twentieth century cloak-and-dagger term, or at the child’s self-appointed mission in life to “look out for” his father, or at the aplomb with which he’d carried out his charade. A worthy heir for the throne of Trusca, for sure.

“That kid’s dangerous, Dalph,” I said. “What brought you here? Not that I wasn’t glad to see you, under the circumstances, but I thought you were meeting with the Captains of the Guards.”

“I am, and I must go back. I merely wanted to make sure Dal was on his best behavior, which he obviously wasn’t. Where’s Falco?”

“Johnny told him to take a break,” interjected Dal.

“And where’s Johnny?”

“Here I am,” he said from the door.

“About time, too,” I said. “Left me on the rack.”

“I was afraid of that. Dal, how bad were you?”

“She’s not a spy, Johnny,” Dal said brightly.

“Oh, hell, I don’t even want to know what you did to make sure of that! Let’s get your tutor back in here and give Tess some breathing room.”

“No, Johnny! I just met her! And you and Abba are busy. Let me be her guide today.”

“What makes you think she wants your company?” asked Dalph with a lifted eyebrow. “And you have your lessons.”

“I’ll catch up tomorrow. And I’ll behave. And I’ll make you a deal, Tess.”

I smiled in spite of myself. What was it that Johnny had said, about Dal and his own two boys? The base of the next Round Table? Contemporary, slangy, colloquial English was obviously the secret language of that Round Table.

“And what might that be?”

“I’ll help you with Truscan if you help me with English. You are trying to learn, aren’t you?”

“Somehow,” I said, “I think you’d be a lot more help with my Truscan than I’ll ever be with your English.”

“I don’t know. I bet Johnny’s out of date. And he and Abba don’t have time to tell me as much as I want to know, like Abba says my grandmother did with him and my uncles. Do
you
know the stories of Camelot? And Charlemagne and his Paladins? And Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise? And James Bond and Goldfinger and Dr. No?”

I laughed at the hodgepodge of fantasies, and Johnny groaned. Johnny’d obviously been busy.

“I bet I’m
much
better on Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise than Johnny is,” I said, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

“Good!” he shouted, and reaching out, he took my hand and tugged. “Let’s go!”

I couldn’t resist. “I thought you didn’t like to walk?”

“What? Oh, that! Just part of the act. C’mon.” He tugged again. “If we hurry up, we can get to the kitchen before Tandor starts baking for lammas tonight. We might get to lick the bowls.”

“Then by all means, let’s go. Johnny, your boys? Aren’t they back, too?” I asked.

“They dropped themselves off at some of their cousins in Krenor,” Johnny said. “Kiera’s people. Dal’s bored stiff. If you can tolerate him, you’d be a godsend.”

And so I followed Randalph of Trusca the Younger out the door, thanking God that I had met him when he was still a child. And to think I’d thought his father was dangerous.

By the end of the day, I knew that I had found my main tutor, as I fought to assimilate the language of Trusca and make it my own. And whatever my feelings might be toward Randalph of Trusca the Elder, I knew I was definitely in love with Randalph of Trusca the Younger. Dal was a remarkable child, an absolute riot, smart, tough, and, I was already sure, a good little soul who would grow to be a genuinely good man. Dalph had done himself proud.

It hadn’t occurred to me before, as I knew Dalph took him out with him on night patrol, but the afternoon spent in his company made me wonder where he’d been on the evening of my “wedding.” This was the heir to Trusca, and his presence was obvious wherever we wandered.

“Why didn’t I see you at the wedding?” I finally asked. He hesitated.

“Well, to tell the truth—”

“Please do.”

“It’s so awful sometimes to be a kid, Tess. I wouldn’t
not
go with Abba for anything, you know, but when we get back, I’m always so tired, I just, well, I crashed.”

I wondered if I would
ever
get used to the slang that fell from this little boy’s lips as I exploded yet again into laughter.

“You don’t think I’m a wuss, do you?” he asked anxiously.

“Lord, no.” I gasped. “It’s just—I didn’t expect—it’s the way you talk. Your father’s good, but you—”

“We practice. Crayton and Cretor and me.”

“You don’t say.”

“Johnny says Abba talks like a bluestocking sometimes but it’s not his fault, ’cause it’s the way my grandmother raised him.”

I toured the Rata as I had never toured it before, as Dal pointed out various nooks and crannies that were useful to a small boy from a “hiding” vantage, which an adult would not consider; I met the cooks in the kitchens and assisted Dal in licking the batter from the bowls from which poured the great dessert cakes that graced the dining tables. When Dalph finally ran us to ground in Dal’s chambers, I was inspecting a perfectly carved chess game that stood in a position of honor on a highly polished table in the corner.

“It was Abba’s. He calls it chess. My grandmother taught him and his brothers and he taught me. Do you play?”

“It’s been years,” I said. “And I’d be scared to play with you.”

“Then you are wise.” Dalph spoke from the door. The man moved like a cat. I
never
heard him coming. “He’s very good, and I’m scared to play with him myself. I’m out of practice. It’s almost time for lammas, we need to change.”

“Oh good!” Dal exclaimed and made as though to scamper out the door.

“No,” said Dalph firmly. “You’ve had her all day. It’s my turn. And you need to change as well, you’re filthy.”

Dal was, in truth, somewhat dusty from our excursions into corners of the Rata which were seldom explored. I felt somewhat bedraggled myself.

“Oh, Abba!”

“You will see her at lammas,” Dalph said, and took my arm. “Go take a bath.”

“Yes, Abba.” He sighed and protested no further as we moved out the door.

“Did you survive?” Dalph asked, with a smile in his voice.

“He’s remarkable.”

“He’s a pain in the butt,” pronounced the king, “but he is remarkable.”

We approached our chambers, and he opened the door and motioned me in. “You should hurry. We’re running late, and you’re almost as dusty as Dal.”

“And you?” As grateful as I was for his obvious intention to remain firm in his declarations that he would not attempt to crowd me, I realized that these were, after all, his quarters.

“It’s a big Rata. Don’t worry about me.”

He leaned over and kissed me lightly and walked swiftly away. I entered the room where my steaming tub waited for me, realizing that these chambers seemed very empty when he wasn’t in them. Surely, in two days, I shouldn’t miss the man’s presence? Get a grip, Tess, I told myself. I hadn’t wanted to be pushed, and now he wasn’t pushing. So I told myself I didn’t miss the sparring, and proceeded to complete my queenly toilette.

Chapter Fourteen

The days settled into a comfortable pattern, made more pleasant by Dalph’s decree that Dal was overdue for a holiday from his formal schooling, and his call for an extended moratorium on the boy’s studies. I didn’t know whether he did it for me or for Dal, though I suspected the vacation benefited us both.

Dal was effusive in his delight and confided that he wished his father had remarried sooner if such benefits could be reaped from the union.

“Though, of course, he couldn’t have married
you
any sooner ’cause you weren’t here, and you’re just as good as the holiday. How long a break you think he’ll give me?”

I laughed. “I have no idea, but I doubt if it’s indefinite. Haven’t you had holidays before?”

“Oh, sure, but they don’t usually last much over a few boskas. That means—”

“Dakar, days, boskas, weeks, ras, years,” I said by rote. I tried to converse as much as possible in Truscan, but Dalph and Johnny slipped into English when a conversation got hot and heavy, or when they wanted to be certain I understood an explanation being offered, or when they didn’t want to be overheard. Dal spoke Truscan with me to a large extent as well, but he was actually much
more
bilingual than his father was, hard as that was to believe, and slipped back and forth between the two almost without thinking, sometimes conversing in both languages in alternate sentences, even occasionally in the same sentence. He loved to speak English with me and assimilated my slang into his speech with the ease of a sponge soaking up water.

“That’s very good, Tess!” he applauded.

He was my shadow, appearing at my side almost the minute I stepped out of the door of the royal chambers, and seldom did he leave me during the day. On the day after our first meeting, I accepted his presence without question. He was undoubtedly satisfying his natural curiosity about his father’s new wife. Then I had the thought that perhaps this was his means of further apologizing for the one-man charade he had staged for my benefit at our first meeting. Besides, his mother had died at his birth and women were probably a bit of novelty, other than Kiera who was always so busy her shadow couldn’t keep up with her.

When Dal showed no signs of leaving my side after several days, I felt I ought to reassure him that much as I enjoyed his company, which I honestly did, he was under no obligation to serve as my constant escort and that I more than understood he had his own friends and his own social life.

His face grew very thoughtful, and as I listened, I understood for the first time that the leaders of any world, and the children destined to be the leaders of any world, were the loneliest of all individuals.

“Not really,” he said, with a sigh. “I can only be myself with Crayton and Cretor, and they won’t be home, probably not till the next night patrols are over. And besides, they’re both Warriors now, Cretor started training last month. I don’t see ’em except in the evenings anymore. It’s boring, lessons without him. I wish I was already twelve.”

I was beginning to get some sense of geography, and I knew that Krenor, where Johnny’s sons were visiting Kiera’s family, lay some donas to the east, a dona being roughly the equivalent of a mile. It was the next largest city of Trusca. And I had ascertained that formal schooling was the norm for Truscan children, especially nobility, from the ages of roughly five through twelve, when the boys entered the exalted gates of what was known as the Warrior’s Training Field, where the emphasis shifted toward the physical. From what I could gather, it was extremely reminiscent of West Point and Annapolis.

“But you have other—”

“No. Not really, I don’t. The only nobles that Abba really trusts are the Tornans, and they’re all—”

“The Tornans?” That was a new one for me.

“The night riders. The ones who ride night patrol. Not everyone does. Not everyone can. They’re special.” Oh, yes. Dalph’s elite.

“But surely some of them have children your age, and I don’t really understand why you feel funny around the other nobles’ children.”

“Well, right now Johnny says the Tornans are like a baseball team… Do you know baseball?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I know baseball, sweetie. What about it?”

“He says that when a baseball team loses, the coaches usually say it’s because they’re a young team. He said most teams stay young so long they never grow up. And then as soon as it’s not young anymore, it’s too old.”

“But what does that have to do with the Tornans?”

“All of them are really young right now. Most of them don’t have children at all and if they do, they’re all babies. And the other noble families, you never know what’s going on behind their heads. They could be plotting, scheming, in league with Baka for all I know. And I worry that I’ll—I don’t know much about what Abba and Johnny do, not the specifics, you know, I’m just a kid. But still, I hear things. Or I could get careless. And I could say something I shouldn’t say that I don’t even know I shouldn’t say. So I don’t like to—”

I interrupted him by pulling him into a hug.

“Growing boys shouldn’t have to worry about things like that,” I said, surprised at the fierce rush of emotion I felt at this confession of the degree of alienation that Dal felt from the other children around him. Delayed maternal instinct, I supposed. And there was nothing to be done about it, either. The child was absolutely right. He was wise beyond his years. And so must his father have grown up, I thought suddenly, though at least he had had his brothers.