Redoubt (2 page)

Of course, when he was
really
playing a part, his concentration on his speech ensured nothing would slip.

Amily laughed and patted his shoulder. “It was more than worth it if all the oohs
and ahs I heard were any indication. Well, where do we go tonight?” she asked. “The
gardens and the official celebration?”

Mags made a face that she, of course, could not see, since she was behind him. “Thank
you very much, no. I’m not interested in being feted because I can bung a ball through
a goal.”

“Surely not everyone here is a Kirball fanatic,” she teased. “I’m sure one or two
people have heard of you as something other than the neck-or-nothing player. You actually
have
done one or two things besides that.”

“Oh, no,” he replied firmly, as Dallen waited patiently for the path before them to
clear. “I’ve even less interest in talkin’ about what happened when those fiends took
you.”

He felt her shiver, but she said, quite bravely, “Mags, you
were
a hero . . . and there are people who know that.” He could not imagine how she must
have felt—drugged, terrified, in the hands of a couple of known murderers, and fully
aware that even if she managed to throw off the effects of the drugs they had poured
into her, she would never be able to escape from them on her own. Not a day went by
that he didn’t berate himself for not being there when she had been kidnapped. Because
of his Gift, he would have
known
that the carriage sent for her was not the right one. He would never have let her
get into it.

Just as bad was the fact that he had been within inches of catching the carriage,
and he and Dallen had been neatly knocked senseless.

It had been the worst day of his life.

“The fewer people who think I’m some kind of hero when I ain’t, the better,” he said
shortly. “I’m just Mags. Let’s leave it at that. No, the Trainees are havin’ a stable
party. I thought we’d go there.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed happily. “I love stable parties!”

“It’s going to be in the hayloft,” he told her, as people managed to clear away from
the way they wanted to go, and Dallen turned his head and ambled in that direction.
It was almost as bright as day up here, but down at the stable, things were a little
more subdued, at least from this side. It
was
lit up, but it looked no different from any other early evening. “Stablemaster took
the opportunity to clear the place out down to the bare floor, since we were going
to have to feed all the visitors’ mounts anyway. Once they’re gone, he’ll bring in
the first of this year’s cutting.”

He didn’t ask Amily if she could climb to the loft; he knew she would, or die trying.
But he had something else in mind for her.

There were more doors in the stable now—one for every stall, in fact—and all of them
stood wide open. The ground floor was mostly empty except for a few bales of straw
and some Trainees and stable hands taking advantage of the quiet places to sit, for
there were not a lot of those available with so many people on the Palace and Collegia
grounds. Only the two night lamps, one on each wall, were lit. Mags had a notion that
in some of the darker corners people were taking advantage of the quiet places to
do more than just sit, but that wasn’t any of his business. Dallen went around to
the hoist side of the stables, where four or five young ladies in lovely gowns were
waiting with varying degrees of impatience and varying degrees of giddiness.

The hay hoist was made for one man to haul up a pallet of several hay bales at once,
so the weight of one young lady was hardly likely to strain its capacity. A comfortable
canvas sling, stolen from one of the tree swings down by the river, had been fitted
to the hoist. Anyone who wanted to ride up to the loft rather than climb the steep,
ladder-like stair would be able to take this somewhat more exciting route up. The
trick, however, was that the man at the top of the hoist would use a hay hook to snag
the rope and haul the pallet in through the open door at the top. Rather than flailing
about in the dark with the heavy hay hook, the young ladies were being encouraged
to
swing
their way to the door and be caught by their escorts. There were a lot of squeals
and giggles. And every so often, one of the lads appropriated the swing so he could
show off by swinging and jumping in through the door at the apex of his swing.

If the teachers and other elders had known about this, Mags reflected, they would
probably have had a proper fit over it. But they didn’t, and he was pretty sure that
with all the Gifts scattered among the crowd, no one was going to get seriously hurt.

His thought was confirmed when he spotted First-Year Trainee Finny standing just inside
the hayloft door, out of the way of the swingers but well in line-of-sight. This was
important, because young Finny’s Gift was a particularly powerful one, a kind of Fetching
that allowed her to lift or catch objects with her mind that could weigh as much as
a Companion. Finny would not allow anyone to fall.

“Well,” he said over his shoulder to Amily, “Care to try? Finny’s up above, so it’s
safe as houses.”

He could just see Amily’s face by craning his neck, and she looked both excited and
a little bit anxious as she watched one of the Bardic Trainees fling herself into
the waiting arms of another.

“If you’re going to catch me, and Finny’s there . . . I think so. But you won’t think
badly of me if I get scared and ask to be put down on the ground again, will you?”
She bit her lip a little.

He wanted to kiss her. “Nay, I’ll just reckon you have more sense than the rest of
us.” He swung his leg over Dallen’s saddle horn and dropped down to the ground, then
lifted Amily down. And, feeling emboldened, he led her into the line while Dallen
ambled off to be divested of his regalia and join the other Companions in the Field.

:Don’t get yourself knocked silly-sideways,:
Dallen said mildly as he vanished into the darkness.

:Eh, this is nothing compared to m’roof-running,:
Mags assured him, as he took his place in the sling and waited to be hauled aloft.
And really, it wasn’t. He’d done
much
more perilous leaps on the nighttime rooftops, and the loft was very well lit. The
absence of hay meant people could bring up as many lanterns as they chose, and they
did. A couple of good pumps of his legs got him the height and momentum he wanted,
and he capped his jump by turning it into a somersaulting tumble through the air,
rolling to his feet, that left him standing again with his arms spread, taking a little,
mocking bow.

“Allo, Finny,” he said, nodding to the short, shy girl who must have changed out of
her Formal Grays into something more comfortable as soon as she got the chance.
I should’ve done that. Oh, well, too late now. These’ll need a wash.
“Glad to see you’re here to keep us from breaking our necks.”

Finny blushed with pleased confusion. “Really . . . I couldn’t . . . I mean . . .”

Mags beamed at her. “Damn shame with a Gift like yours they won’t let you on the Kirball
teams. Did you think about volunteering for the Healers’ squad? Be
really
useful to have someone that could lift a person with a busted bone without moving
anything.”

She flushed even redder. “Do you think . . . would you . . .”

“I’ll talk to the Captains and Bear as soon as all this wedding flummery is over,”
he promised. “Bet they’ll all be falling all over each other to ask you first.”

“Oh!” she said, deep pink with pleasure. He gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze.
Sometimes being “Mags the Kirball champion” and “Mags the hero” was nice. When he
could make someone as shy and anxious as Finny feel wanted and good—that was when
it stopped being annoying.

She was so happy now her eyes just shone behind her glass lenses. He grinned again.
“Thenkee, Finny,” he just said, with all the gratitude he could put in his voice.
“Now, it’ll be Amily coming up next, so let’s make sure she comes in just as soft
as a feather.” He looked over the edge of the loft door. Amily was just getting into
the swing; she glanced up and spotted him, lamplight falling softly on her face, and
she saw Finny’s close-cropped head beside his. She waved, looking relieved.

“All right, boys, it’s Amily, give her a smooth ride!” cried a young Guard Trainee
who was helping the girls into the swing down below. Mags looked over to see a cheerful-faced
young giant of a Guard Trainee on the rope and nodded to him. The youngster nodded
back and began hauling the rope, slowly, carefully, and very smoothly. At one point,
only her friends had known Amily was the King’s Own’s daughter, and most people up
here on the Hill were not aware she existed. But after the first attempted abduction,
everyone
became aware of her, and after the second, successful kidnapping, she suddenly acquired
a veritable army of protectors.

Finny remained poised at the edge of the loft door, practically quivering with concentration.
When Amily came into view, Finny waved at her.

“I can . . . I . . . I can give you a little push . . . if you want,” Finny said hesitantly.
“If that would help . . .”

“Oh, would you?” Amily begged. “It looks a
lot
higher from here than I thought!”

On hearing that, Finny did a lot more than give Amily a “little push.” With her face
set in a grimace of concentration, Finny stared at Amily, and without Amily having
to move her legs at all, she began swinging in a gentle, highly controlled arc, until
she was close enough for Mags to catch. And as he reached for her, he could
feel
Finny helping to steady her, so bringing her into the loft was no more difficult,
and no more dangerous, than lifting her down from Dallen’s back.

She felt it too, and she beamed as she thanked the Trainee. Finny went an even deeper
pink but managed to accept the thanks graciously.

Another girl was already coming up, though, and Finny quickly turned her attention
back to making sure she did so safely. Mags and Amily moved out of the way and scanned
the hayloft.

There were dozens of lanterns hanging from the rafters, and since the loft was meant
to store hay and straw through the winter for a great many Companions, these upper
walls with their black timbers and white-plastered noggin between were a full story
tall, with the roof and rafters above that. Without the hay, it looked like a rustic
hall, and not part of a stable. There was plenty of room for whatever anyone wanted
to do, even though there must have been more than fifty people up here. Mags had been
part of the contingent helping to get food up during the day, so he had a pretty good
idea of what was on the crowded tables down at the north end of the loft. “Are you
hungry?” he asked.

He certainly was. There had been an awful lot of running around today and not a lot
of time to eat.

“Starving,” Amily replied, her eyes warming with her smile.

The south half of the loft was where the gathering of musicians had set up, so it
wasn’t too hard to weave their way through the crowd to get to the food. It was every
bit as good as a Midwinter spread at Master Soren’s. There were pocket pies, both
meat and fruit, and tiny egg pies and fruit tarts. There were cheeses—sharp and yellow,
mild and white, pungent with veins of blue running through them. There was white and
rye and barley bread and even an oat bread that Mags was rather partial to. There
were hard-boiled eggs and everything pickled that could be pickled. There was thin-sliced
hard sausage and sausage in pastry. There were cookies, candied nuts, hard-boiled
sweets, and plenty of fruit, but for once, there was only one sort of cake—the wedding
cake, which Mags expected would be good enough that no one would miss any other sort.
Mags was pleased to see that his favorites and Amily’s were still available. There
weren’t any plates, probably because everything that even
looked
like a plate was in service up at the Palace, but knowing that this was coming, some
enterprising soul had bought up the entire output of Haven’s apprentice basket-weavers
to use instead. The work was terrible and would ordinarily have been burned, but it
was certainly good enough to hold food for the night. Mags secured something that
looked as if it had been intended as a sieve and something else that might have been
a lid, and he filled them with little meat and fruit pies, cheese chunks, bread, grapes,
and slices of the wedding cake, which was a rich, dark creation scented with spice
and honey, bursting with chopped nuts. There was quite a crowd at the food tables
and not so much at the drink tables, so with unspoken accord, Amily had gone to get
drink for both of them.

Although there was a light spiced honey wine available, Amily had gotten them both
cups cleverly made of molded and waxed paper pulp full of spiced cider instead. “Oh,
good choice,” Mags told her, when he managed to make his way to her.

“Well, you’re playing a game tomorrow, and I don’t want you to have to do so with
a mead head,” she laughed.

He rolled his eyes ruefully. “I hope the others remember that,” he replied. The Kirball
match was going to be an exhibition game, the Prince’s team against the King’s, with
the members of each picked by their respective patron. Mags was on the Prince’s team,
which pleased him quite a bit. If nothing else, that would put to rest the last unease
about his loyalty and how Prince Sedric felt about it.

The loft might have been cleared of straw and hay, but there were plenty of other
things to sit on. The bedrolls everyone was supposed to make and keep available at
all times, in case there was a sudden need to put everyone in the Field (or take a
survival test), made perfectly good seating, some people had hauled up benches from
the stable below, and others had brought up the folding cots some preferred over bedrolls,
and which Mags did not trust at all. He had brought up his own bedroll and a couple
of old cushions, and he got them out of the corner and spread out in no time at all.
Amily needed a little help to get down to the floor, but once there, she seemed quite
comfortable.