The Dark Glory War (3 page)

“And I,” offered the shorter, blond man, “am Bosleigh Norrington.” Leigh’s blue eyes sparkled as he sketched a quick but ornate bow. He surrendered nearly a hand-width of height to me and nearly twenty pounds. His moonmask likewise had been marked in the warrior temple, but there never was a choice for Leigh. Despite being somewhat small and not all that fast, he was Lord Norrington’s son, and that meant a warrior was all he could ever hope to be. Luckily for Leigh, it was all he had everwanted to be. Though no one thought he’d be the warrior his father was, most figured he’d manage to uphold the Norrington honor nonetheless.

“Pleased to meet both of you. I am Tarrant Hawkins.” I drew myself up to my full height, then frowned slightly. “Why the warrior mark, Rounce? I didn’t think you were inclined toward a warrior’s life.”

Rounce shrugged. “The warrior virtues help those dealing with conflict, Tarrant. Business is conflict, hence my choice. Besides, Leigh pointed out that the trident has three tines, so the three of us should stick together. We’ll be stronger that way.”

“True enough.” I nodded toward Leigh. “So wither are you bound, my lord?”

Leigh struck a noble pose, though his being a step below me and that much shorter made it seem a bit ridiculous. “There is a tailor who is completing my costume for this evening. I’ll give him moongold for it—my family pays him enough each year he can well afford to let this one suit of clothes go by without payment. Then back to the manor forI something to eat before the gala. You’ll come with, of course. Rounce is coming, and some of the others. Do say you’ll come. I won’t take no for an answer.“

I sighed. “I will try, Leigh, but no promises. My sister Noni and her children are coming, and my mother hopes Annas will be there, too.”

“Well, far be it from me to spoil a Hawkins gathering.” Leigh’s eyes brightened. “You should bring them all, even Noni’s brood. Your father is my father’s Peaceward; you’ll all be welcome. You simply must come, all of you.”

“I will try, Leigh.”

Rounce leaned a forearm on Leigh’s shoulder. “That’s what he always says when he knows he won’t join us.”

I grinned. “My father, he is stuck in his ways. It’s the way of his generation, not Lord Norrington’s or ours… . The only way he’ll go to Norrington Manor is if he is on official duty or if Lord Norrington asks him to be there. It would practically take an armed escort to get him to bring the fam-ily.”

“Well, then, Tarrant, when we have taken our father’s places, the rules will be changed, won’t they? Open doors and all that, I think. I won’t have it any other way.” Leigh slipped his shoulder from beneath Rounce’s forearm, then laughed as Rounce stumbled. “Come on, Rounce, we have things to do. We shall see you tonight, then, Tarrant, yes?”

I helped steady Rounce. “I will plead the case to my father, Leigh, but make no promises. If I do not see you there, I will find you at the gala.”

“Good, then.” Leigh threw me a sloppy salute. “Tonight our lives truly begin, and the world will never be the same.”

JT’truth be told, I would have welcomed some sameness to the I world, if only because of the tear in my mother’s eye as she 1 smoothed the breast of my doublet that evening. I knew then that my growing up hurt her in ways I could not imagine and, worse, could do nothing to counter. I’d tried to head things off by talking to my father about Leigh’s invitation, but he was unswayed—as I’d expected. Instead I remained with my family, catching my mother getting misty-eyed despite the joyful fellowship of a family come together once again.

Valsina’s gala was held atSenatePalace. The large and rather ornately decorated building had steps that led up into a rotunda. Portraits and statues of leaders decorated it, but the most striking feature was the gallery of masks that matched those of the Senators serving in Upper and Lower Assemblies. The sixteen members of the Upper Assembly were nobles elected by the Lower Assembly, which was made up of tradesfolk and nobles from cadet branches of the houses. Each had to be able to trace his family back to the time of the Great Revolt, and while many folks in Oriosa could do that, only those who had amassed a certain amount of material wealth ever reached the Senate floor.

On this night the Upper Assembly’s small gallery, which sat above and behind the entryway to the Lower Assembly floor, had been staffed with musicians who played a host of songs which had been sanctified by their antiquity. To enter the gala, I passed through a long corridor that led beneath the orchestra and brought me out at the head of some long steps going down to the rectangular assembly floor. A wide-railed walkway ringed the room to provide space for spectators wanting to study the Assemblies in action but, unlike tonight, chairs were not usually provided.

I paused at the head of the stairs as a masked chamberlain in red pounded his staff against the floor twice, then announced me. “I present Master Tarrant Hawkins.” Mild applause, mostly from the spectators, followed the announcement, then I descended the steps.

The room spread out wide on either side of me. A massive castle of ascending high benches split the far wall as the stairs did at this side. The hardwood platforms rose one above the other, front to back, and normally housed the Assembly’s Speaker and his various deputies, but this night were festooned with flowers. A big, round silver mirror, reminiscent of the moon, hung from the Speaker’s seat and provided us with a view that gathered us all together and shrank us down to nothing. Tables laden with food and drink surrounded the Speaker’s platform as if breastworks to hold us at bay.

I quickly spotted Rounce and joined him at a table where a servant pressed a goblet of wine into my hands. The vintage was a red that was both dry and hearty, though it had a touch of sweetness and the faint flavor of berries. It was a wine that had aged, which surprised me, since the moonmasked often got brand-new wines that had yet to mature.

I smiled at Rounce. “Good wine.”

“I know, I picked it out.” He bowed his head to me as applause descended from above in the wake of another entrant being announced. “The Speaker asked my father to supply the wine for this evening, and he intended to use the first pressing from last year, but I prevailed upon him to go deeper in the cellar. He almost balked, but I reminded him that what moongold buys now, real gold will buy later, and having us remember the wine as good instead of symbolic would be best.”

“Good thinking.” I sipped more wine and raised my goblet in a salute to him. “Though thoughts like that are what made me wonder about your tridentine mark.”

He gave me a quick smirk. “Armies need quartermasters, don’t they?”

“My father never reported having good wine in the field.”

“Then I’ll have to change that.” He held his goblet in both hands and looked down into it. “I thought about Graegen, as you suggested, or even Turic …”

“Turk? You’d pledge yourself to Death?”

“The female aspect is more concerned with change than death, but you can’t say that death has not changed my fortunes. Here I started life as the first son of a merchant who had a noble for a cousin, then an illness takes that branch of the family and suddenly we’re elevated. I’m not really different than I was before, but …”

I nodded. I had seen Rounce in Valsina before his family’s elevation when I accompanied my mother on her trips to market. Playfair & Sons Traders were known as honest merchants, but Rounce and I were just kids who eyed each other suspiciously. When his father became a noble, the family firm became Playfair & Sons Trading Company, and Rounce was expected to move into new social circles. He ended up in the same student battalion as Leigh and I. Being bigger than most others since we’d gotten our growth early, we were thrown together in many exercises, thereby becoming friends.

“As my father says, Rounce, ‘It’s not the man in the prettiest uniform before the battle that’s remembered, but the man who’s still standing after it.’ You’re one of those who will still be standing.”

“Only if you’re holding me up.” Rounce slapped me on the arm. “By the way, be prepared. You were missed at dinner and Leigh might be in a bit of a mood.”

“And this would be unusual because … ?”

Rounce laughed, then pointed up at the top of the stairs. “You’ll see. Here’s our little Leigh now.”

The echoes of the staff reverberated through the hall. It took the third staff-strike to kill the murmuring voices, and the fourth buried them in silence. The chamberlain waited a heartbeat or two to guarantee no ghost of conversation lingered, then made his announcement. “I present Lord Bosleigh Norrington.”

Leigh, at the top of the stairs, bowed handsomely as hearty applause washed over him. The night’s dress code had required us to wear something other than our moonmasks that was white—which Rounce and I accomplished with our shirts. Leigh had gone a considerable step further, decked out in a full jacket made of white satin, with lace at the throat and cuffs. His pants likewise were white satin and ran down to his knees, where they met white stockings. His shoes, which were low cut, had been cobbled together from white leather and had big silver buckles.

He descended the stairs at a leisurely pace, smiling and waving at those below, bowing his head at the spectators above. Leigh was in his element, with all eyes on him. It had been that way since his birth, to hear my father tell it, since he was Lord Norrington’s firstborn and a son. The boy had grown into a man used to such attention, who was, in many ways, uncomfortable when he didn’t get it.

Rounce and I looked at each other and laughed as Leigh reached the floor. He continued to make his way toward us, pausing to bow to the girls who giggled at him. His progress through the crowd took long enough for me to nearly finish my wine. Rounce had started on another full goblet by the time Leigh arrived.

Leigh bumped against me, then looked up and smiled. “Oh, Tarrant, there you are—I’d expected you to be off eating something. And you, Rounce.”

I grinned. “Make it sound as if you weren’t looking for us.”

“Well, I was, of course, my dear friends, but I can’t letthem know that.” His eyes rolled up to sweep the spectators’ gallery. “It would not do to let them think I am so fragile that I cannot exist without my friends.”

Rounce rolled his eyes. “Keep talking like that and you won’t have any friends.”

“Don’t be offended. You know I jest.”

“Just a little too often, Leigh.” I stepped out of the way to provide Leigh access to the wine table. “Your pleasure, my lord?”

Leigh sniffed and moved past me. “Well, arriving is such dry work …”

I glanced past him at the spectators’ gallery and did feel a little uneasiness coil in my stomach. All the spectators wore fine clothes, but they were cut from cloth dyed bright red. Their masks covered their faces in full and were without decoration, completely obscuring their identities. While some individuals, like the Assembly Speaker, were corpulent or remarkable enough to be recognizable, most of the observers sank into a red sea of anonymity. They were there not to be seen, but to watch us and decide our fate. What they saw at any point might determine which regiment would offer me a chance to join it, or what merchant house might vie for my services. Leigh’s concern over the spectators mocked their import, since his life was already decided. It dawned on me immediately that I had no such assurances, so I finished my wine and began looking for a woman to guide to the dance floor and show I could be well mannered.

Leigh managed, in that moment, to provide me an opportunity to show off my more martial side. He’d been making his way down the table, bending to sniff the various vintages. Rounce stood with him and Leigh would announce a district and year for each wine offered, with Rounce confirming each judgment. This continued until Leigh bumped into someone on his right and, without even looking at the person, snapped at him in a rather imperious tone.

“Give way, sir, for my mission is most urgent.”

“While most take their wine through the mouth, looks as if you sniff it up, ay?”

Leigh’s head turned slightly in the speaker’s direction, and I knew he caught a glimpse of the man’s black homespun trousers and polished but well-worn boots. Unfortunately, bent over as he was, Leigh wasn’t in a good position to judge just how big this man was. “I said, give way, good fellow.”

“Not ‘sir’ no more?”

ILeigh turned and straightened up, then was forced to crane his neck back to look up past the man’s heavily muscled chest and shoulders to his face. A thick shock of red hair capped the man’s head, and freckles could be seen spreading over his cheeks below the moonmask. Green eyes glittered emeraldlike in the mask, and I spotted a trident below the right eye. The man wore a black linen tunic, with a band of white cloth tied around his left biceps. An evil grin split his face.

“Perhaps,good fellow” Leigh persisted, “I should acquaint you with the manners prized in society.”

The man raised his right hand and curled it into a fist that would have filled a fair-sized mixing bowl. “Perhaps I should acquaint you with my fist.”

“Easy, friend, easy.” I stepped forward and wedged myself between him and Leigh. “You’ve been lucky enough to be chosen to be here tonight. Stretch that luck and avoid a fight.”

“I ain’t your friend.”

“No, but weall are marked by Kedyn. That must count for something.” I grinned up at him and offered him my right hand. “I am Tarrant Hawkins.”

The larger man nodded his head slowly, then opened his right hand and engulfed mine in his grip. “Naysmith Carver, armorer’s apprentice. Have a mind to be using what I made, not be making more.” A smile slowly followed his words and I shook his hand heartily.

Freeing my hand from his, I turned, forcing Leigh and Rounce back a bit. “Bosleigh Norrington you have met. This is Rounce Playfair.”

“Pleased,” Rounce offered.

“As well.” Naysmith glanced down at Leigh. “The wine to the end is the best, if you be continuing down that way.”

Leigh blinked, then nodded. A smile grew on his face as he slipped round me and past Naysmith. “Say, Nay—oh, my, that rhymes—say, Nay, how went your day?” He laughed to himself. “So lyrical, that.”