Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (50 page)

    
“I guess that this will have to do,” I said, entering the stall again.  The poor girl’s skin had turned blue and she shivered miserably, bent over to try to conserve her body heat.  I wanted to just pick her up and hold her, but everything had built to this and I didn’t want to ruin it.

    
She eyed the gown and then looked at me.  Her hand reached out, soft and white and delicate, as if afraid that the gown would blow away if she actually touched it.

    
I looked at my naked slave girl, my wife, cold and alone, far from her people, thinking she had failed me; feelings made to surface now.  I waited for her to look up into my eyes and, when she did, I put the gown in her hands.

    
“You didn’t teach me how to survive here, Shela,” I said, as she held the gown to her face, the cold forgotten.  “I already knew how to do that.  And you didn’t give me courage.  I had to be brave to survive.  But you looked inside of me, and found something that I wouldn’t have believed was there.  You taught me how to love a woman, how to really
feel
the love of a woman, not just with sex but also with my heart.  You made me believe in something.”

    
She looked up at me, straightened a little, clutching the gown, with eyes so tender that she still could melt me in the cold air.

    
“I don’t think I have ever seen a thing so fine in all my life,” she whispered.  “Noble ladies in Chatoos ride by the market on liveries in such things.”

    
I don’t imagine that there were many balls held at Kills With a Glance’s camp.

    
“You had this brought here, to give to me?”

    
I nodded.  “I had a picture of you brought ahead of us by messenger.  He gave that to a dressmaker.  He knew the name of the stables, and I had him arrange for the water and some privacy.”

She stayed quiet.  I could tell she wanted to unwrap the dress.  She shook out her still-damp hair.  “Why?”

     “I love you, Shela. I love you as much as my heart can bear.  You found all of the strength in me.  You are what completes me. 

    
“You look at that dress and say you have never seen a thing so fine – I look at the love you taught me, and I say the same thing.  You are my woman, and I am your man, and no one could make me feel this way but you.”

    
She fell into my arms in a rush, holding the dress clear with one hand.  Even through my ice-cold armor I could feel her hot tears.  I held her and I kissed her forehead.  Finally, she stepped away and pulled the cheesecloth from the dress, revealing a work of art in satin, lace and taffeta.

    
“Did you get shoes?” she asked, unlacing the back of it.

    
I was dumbfounded.

    
She looked up at me, straight and blue, naked, the dress in her hand.  The scowl that crossed her face didn’t look as bad as the one she had worn before she killed the two Uman guards in our room, but it came pretty close.

    
“You arranged for all of
this
,” she said, with a wave of her hand, “and you didn’t get
shoes
?”

    
I raised my hands, palms up.  “You have shoes,” I said lamely.

    
“I have
boots
,” she said, stepping into the gown.  She did this and not a piece of straw touched the fabric.  I wouldn’t make it as a woman, not for five minutes.  “I can’t wear
boots
with a
gown
, you big piece of tin.  I would look like a whore to a farmer.”

    
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” I growled at her.  “It isn’t like you can’t wear the boots to go get some shoes, now, is it?”

    
“I will wear the boots to kick your sorry behind,” she told me.  “I have normal sized feet for a woman a little over five feet tall, White Wolf.  Go
get
me some red sandals.”

    
“Isn’t it kind of cold – “ I began.

    
She pulled the dress up over her breasts and she was lacing the back when she looked up at me.  She didn’t say a word.  She didn’t have to.  The straw next to her had started smoldering.  

    
The stable boy knew where to find a cobbler.  That man knew where to find a lady’s cobbler.  She opened when I pressed two gold coins into the door’s drop slot.  Fortunately, she had red sandals.

    
When I returned she stood in the same place in the stables.  She had conserved enough of the water to clean her feet before stepping daintily into the red sandals.  The stable boy smiled repeatedly at her, clearly there had been avid conversation in my absence.

    
“And where would you think to take a lady, metal man?” she asked me, the familiar glimmer back in her eyes.  I recognized my girl when the world felt right for her.

    
I looked down at my armor.  Another thing I hadn’t thought of.  “I suppose back to our room, so I can change,” I said.  “Can’t go out like this – “

    
“Oh, no, m’Lord,” she said, grinning now.  I heard a step behind me to see two more steaming buckets, carried by the stable boy with my leather pants and shirt over one shoulder.  “I would not be a lazy girl, to send my true love out of a stable with horse hair and manure on him.”

    
The boy dropped the buckets out of reach of my sword.  Shela had already started unfastening my armor.  I trusted she had made arrangements for it to be delivered.  Knowing Shela, she had already determined as to where.

    
The sponge bath didn’t feel that bad, but she used hot water.  She couldn’t risk her gown, of course, so she animated the sponge through Power and kept a safe distance away.  Based on what happened later, I know why she made real sure that I didn’t get a cold shower.

    
I awoke the next morning, Shela in my arms and my head buzzing.  I hadn’t drunk that much wine, but what we had drunk was good.  The lovemaking afterwards was better.  The bed felt wonderfully soft and warm with a goose-down mattress, and the brazier in the center of the room warmed it nicely.  The sun streamed through white lace curtains onto a bearskin rug now; we had slept until almost noon.

    
An hour or so later we ate a late breakfast in our room when we heard a knock at the door.  As usual we had no room servants (Shela wouldn’t tolerate them), so my slave girl donned her loose fox-fur robe and answered the door.  I took a long pull of breakfast tea (not much the same as Earth coffee, but caffeinated, thank the gods) and waited.  I heard some hushed conversation, then she re-entered the room with another man.

    
He was of the race of Men, thin, in white robes.  A long white beard hung down to his chest, his scalp shining through and spotted.  I saw no deference in his eyes, although he entered and greeted me politely.

“I am one of the four Eldadorian Oligarchs,” he said, nodding to me.  I nodded back.  I didn’t introduce myself because I figured he knew whom he’d come to see.

     “You are required to come before King Glennen of Eldador at the Royal Palace on the day after tomorrow,” he continued without preamble.  This came as a complete surprise – I hadn’t come here to see him and it didn’t fit into my plans.

    
“I am honored,” I said.  I also didn’t come here to get thrown into whatever passed as a jail.

    
He nodded.  “Court is from two hours before the noon and for three hours after,” he added.  “Be prompt – Glennen does not enjoy a long court.”

    
He left without waiting for my answer.  I looked at Shela, and she at me.

    
“Guess we know what we are doing on the day after tomorrow,” I said.

    
We spent the holiday sleeping in late and wandering the city.  It reminded me of pictures I had seen of old London, bustling and affluent with men and horses fighting for right of way in the city streets.  Cobblestones paved the roadways and were kept well tended.  Glennen must either be generous or taxed mightily.

    
Our usual plan of attack would be to buy a big load of food and then act as missionaries of Earth, bringing gifts to the condemned.  The double entendre always made me smile, and this way we would get to meet the locally incarcerated in a favorable light and decide whom we did and didn’t want to recruit, and who was available.  Then we would make our pitch to the city Mayor or Duke or equivalent and (without exception) increase the membership of the Free Legion army.

    
We still bought the food and we still visited the jails, but if we weren’t required to see Glennen then we would have been out of here the next day.  First of all, Glennen had a system of workfare in his capital city, which helped to explain why his city stayed so clean.  He actively used his prison system to boost his economy with cheap labor for the State.  This kept his taxes lower than I had previously thought.

    
Secondly, what couldn’t be trusted to work in the street also wasn’t fit to be recruited by us.  Bloodthirsty killers, child molesters and worse – I had no use for them.

    
Shela had no idea why Glennen would want to see us and neither did I.  We went to bed early and then arose to make the beginning of the early court.  I doubted he would see us immediately, but I hoped that I could pick up something on the local court etiquette.  Shela had my armor shining once again, and used the excuse to wear her new red gown once more.  She bound her hair down one side and wove baby’s breath into it – I thought her a stunning beauty.

    
Glennen’s court seemed more spectacular than the ones I had seen before in Eldador.  A longer hall with marble tiers along its sides showed the same Cheyak influence, but the columns holding up the ceilings had bases carved in the images of Dwarves straining to hold them against the weight of the ceiling.  It reminded me of the craftsmanship of the Simple People, and for a moment I missed Kvitch.  Did he have a ready laugh?  Was he still alive, even?  I hoped so.

    
Glennen proved to be a muscled warrior similar to the Duke of Steel, without having gone so far to fat.  Like Rennin, his best years were behind him, his jowl starting to sag and his long, black hair shot with gray.  He had ready eyes, brown and firm, with his eyebrows a single line across them.  His had a hawk-like nose and his hands gripped the arms of his granite throne.  A six-foot-long sword had been mounted horizontally on the wall behind him as if to remind everyone here of how he had won his nation, and how he meant to hold it.

    
I watched Uman men and women come forward in their best clothes and ask for justice or permission to start some enterprise, with the help of the State.  Glennen obviously didn’t like to be asked for money and turned all petitioners away.  None seemed overly surprised.  Four old men stood to one side of the throne on their own dais, one of them I recognized from the day before.  He didn’t consult them on any decision.  From here I turned my attention to the muscled guards who ringed the throne and stood at attention at the doorway.  Twenty in all, it made me wonder if all supplicants were turned away so easily, or if this might be a special precaution for me.

    
“Lord Rancor Mordetur, and his Lady, Shela of the Andoran Plains,” one of the Oligarchs said in a bored tone of voice.  I recognized him from as the one who had come for me.  The name they used for me sort of surprised me; obviously they had more on me than I would have thought possible.  I stepped down dutifully and walked with long strides to the throne, Shela to my left, two steps behind me, as she had been summoned too.

Glennen watched me with cold eyes, emo
tionless, giving nothing away.  The Oligarchs drew nearer to him, and the court stayed quiet.