Redoubt (3 page)

It was rather like having a picnic indoors. All the loft doors were open, and a good
breeze was coming through; all the musicians were clustered around the door at this
end with people disposed on their various seats around them, too busy eating and drinking
to talk.

“Where’s the dancing?” Amily wanted to know.

“Down below,” Mags told her. “There’re too many to fit up here
and
have dancing, so we all agreed the dancers would be outside, and people who just
wanted to get together would be up here. That’s why the musicians are at the door
there. Look! There’re Bear and Lena!” He waved at their friends, who had several more
of their usual circle in tow, and before long there was a cluster of Kirball team
members, a couple more Bardic Trainees besides Lena, and two more shy and very young-looking
Healer Trainees. Mags remembered when Lena was as shy as that, a thin, delicate, dark-haired
thing with sad brown eyes. Now although she was still thin, she gave the impression
of strength along with delicacy, and her eyes were seldom sad. Bear, of course was
Bear, still. Still peering from behind his lenses, still looking like a sleepy, affable
bear full of honey and good nature. Not so round anymore—he’d grown into some good
muscles of late. But it was no surprise that he’d rounded up the Healer Trainees—he
was always one for picking up strays. Rather like Mags.

Bear introduced them, but they seemed very much overawed by the company they were
in, and they just sat there with round eyes, occasionally remembering to eat and drink.
The rest of them, however, were as famished as Mags was, which was not surprising,
really. Every free hand had been needed right up until the beginning of the ceremony,
and what meals had been snatched had often been eaten on the run.

The cooks had clearly rewarded their diligence, however. This was not cast-offs from
the tables meant for the nobles.

When he and Amily had sat down, the musicians had been a tambour drummer, a girl with
a gittern, another with a hautboy, and someone Mags couldn’t quite see with a set
of small-pipes. By the time Bear’s group settled, the hautboy player and the tambour
drummer had been replaced by someone with a set of bones and someone with a shepherd’s
flute. It was clear that the musicians—not all of whom were in Trainee Red—were rotating
in and out as people got tired of playing or were ready to eat. Right now the music
was all lively country dances, things most musicians knew very well. And from the
sound of whooping and laughter outside, the dancing was going on apace. The breeze
outside had strengthened, which was a good thing; it kept the air moving through the
loft.

“Are you planning on playing later?” Amily asked Lena, who nodded.

“We brought up practice instruments and left them here to share,” she explained. “That
way nobody needs to worry about his personal instruments tonight. Accidents do happen
after all. No one wants to have a foot put through his prize gittern.”

One of the other Bardic trainees shuddered and ate a big piece of cake to comfort
himself. “That happened to me over Midwinter,” he explained. “Family gather got rowdy.
I was like to die.”

He ate another piece of cake to comfort himself. “Did all right out of it I s’pose,”
he said, after a while. “Family took up collection, Master Martin, the luthier in
Haven, took pity on me, and I got a nice gittern out of it, I guess . . .”

“But no instrument is like the first
good
one you ever get,” said Lena sympathetically. “That one is special.”

The other lad nodded glumly.

“Write a song about it,” Lena suggested. “It probably won’t make you feel better,
but it’s good to get things like that out in the open. You know what the teachers
say, strong emotions make strong music.”

“Huh. Maybe I will,” the other Trainee said after a moment, then turned his attention
back to his food.

Amily got up and slowly made her way to the open door, smiling a little at the musicians
as they made room for her. She settled down where she could look down at the dancers.
Mags picked up the cushions and brought them to her.

Down below, the crowd was egging on two young men who were particularly good at some
sort of rather acrobatic endeavor that involved a lot of jumping and kicking and tumbling.
It didn’t look like any dance he was familiar with, but, then, he wasn’t familiar
with a lot of dances.

“I’ll dance at Midwinter,” Amily said, softly, out of the blue. “I will.”

Mags felt as if he were going to burst with pride. “Yes,” he said simply, and sat
down beside her. “You will.”

He had been afraid that watching the dancers would just make her more aware of what
she still couldn’t do, but instead, it seemed to be making her more determined. She’d
never wanted to watch dancing before—

Dallen put in his two coppers’ worth of observation.
:Maybe that was because before, she’d been defined, at least in her own mind, by everything
she wasn’t.:

:You think?:
Mags asked.

:Use that clever magpie mind of yours. How many things did she have that she was?:

Dallen was right, as Dallen usually was. The more he thought about it, the more he
could see all the “nots” that had been in Amily’s life, and fair few positives. She
wasn’t able to walk without help, which automatically made her someone who had to
be aided rather than someone who could aid. All that could have been worked around
if she had qualified for any of the Collegia, but she had no Gifts and obviously no
Companion. She wasn’t a courtier, she didn’t have her father’s ability to seduce information
out of people without them knowing it, she wasn’t—well, so very many things. But Bear
had changed all that. One thing that had been impossible, that she should ever be
like everyone else in the most basic of ways, suddenly became not only possible but
actually
happened.
And if one impossible thing had happened, how many more could? She could dance, she
could learn to ride, herself, and on a horse, not a Companion, she could—

“And I am going to ask the Weaponsmaster to help me,” she went on, as the two young
men finally exhausted each other. She turned to look at him, her chin set stubbornly.
“After all, Lydia and Saski and some of the other girls all know how to fight as well
as any of you Herald Trainees. I want to be able to fight back if I need to. I don’t
want to be the weak point anymore. I don’t want to be the one everyone has to worry
about. And if something happens again, if there’s another attempt . . .” for a moment,
her eyes flashed steel” . . . I want to give anyone who thinks they can hurt Father
through me the surprise of their lives.”

:Well good for her,:
said Dallen.
:I expected something of the sort from her, but not quite so soon.:

“That sounds like a good plan to me,” he agreed. “It can’t help but strengthen you
more, faster. Bet Bear’ll agree. The Weaponsmaster knows all sorts of tricks, all
kinds of—well—dirty-fighting ways. Sounds like something worth doing.”

Her expression softened, as if she had been bracing herself for him to object. “I’m
glad
you think so.”

“I’m glad you’re glad.” He chuckled. “An’ if we’re done bein’ all serious and everything,
I reckon I could use some pocket pies.”

* * *

Amily got tired sooner than everyone else, of course. She was still recovering from
what had been a harrowing piece of Healing, and everything she did was still twice
as difficult for her and took twice as much energy as it did for anyone else. Long
before Mags was even thinking about sleeping, she was ready to rest.

She came down out of the loft the same way she had gone up, and with the same care—but
this time with greater enjoyment. “Would you like me to get Dallen?” he asked, when
she was safely on the ground again.

She shook her head. “I’d rather walk. Besides, being on Dallen would make me a bit
obvious once we get nearer the Palace, and I’d rather not be obvious.”

Mags paused a moment to let his mind drift to what Dallen was up to. “Seems he’s found
some talk he wants to eavesdrop on, so he’ll thank you for that anyway,” he said thoughtfully.
“Wouldn’t you think people could stop with the politicking and all for just one day?”

The breeze lingered around them, stirring her skirts. “Court politics
is
all some people have in their lives,” she replied, then shrugged. “But since Dallen
has so kindly decided to deal with this particular bit of it, we can probably let
ourselves enjoy the evening without worrying about it. Dallen is as good at not being
noticed as you.”

:Wise woman,:
Dallen commented, then went back to eavesdropping.

It wasn’t a quiet walk nor a private one, what with all of the celebrants swirling
about the grounds. Judging from the amount of reeling some of them were doing, not
to mention what Mags could only think of as “drunken shenanigans,” there were going
to be many, many sore heads in the morning. But as he held Amily’s hand, and they
walked slowly toward the Herald’s Wing, he felt oddly as if they were somehow apart
from all of that. It was a feeling he liked, as if the two of them were enclosed in
a magical bubble through which they could watch what was going on if they chose, and
yet were in a world away from it.

They entered the Herald’s Wing, and the noise dropped precipitously as soon as they
closed the door. There was no sign of anyone in the long, wood-paneled corridor, and
the sound of their footsteps echoing down the hall was louder than the music and voices
outside.

When they got to the door of the quarters she shared with her father, however, things
got a little . . . awkward. Just to begin with, there was her father. Nikolas was
not only a Herald, and thus would certainly find out if they got up to any shenanigans
of their own, but he was the King’s Own Herald, which meant he would probably find
out about it from multiple sources.

This did put a bit of a damper on romance. It was altogether awkward, in fact, since
both of them were aware of it.

At least the hallway was empty; in fact, it felt to Mags as though most of the wing
was empty. So when they reached the door, he leaned over without warning to steal
a kiss, and Amily wasn’t shy of reciprocating. He put both his arms around her when
she did, pulling her closer, and felt her arms around his waist.

“I don’t think there would be any harm if you came in,” she said huskily.

“It’d probably be better than standin’ about in the hall,” he agreed.

The little sitting room had been laid ready for the evening, though it wasn’t likely
that Nikolas would set foot here before dawn. Two lanterns were lit in the sitting
room, and the windows had been left open to the breeze, although the curtains had
been drawn before them. They both sat down on the couch before the cold fireplace
and listened to the distant sounds of celebration coming in through the open window.

All right, Mags. Do manage to make some kind of talk, won’t you?
He seized on the last thing she’d mentioned in the loft.

“I might be able to help you with weapons’-work and all,” he said, “I’ve got some
weapons I think’d suit you,” then blushed as she giggled. “I don’t think that came
out right.”

“Oh, you probably have a lot of weapons that would suit me, but we should confine
ourselves to the ones my father would approve of,” she flirted, making him blush even
more. But he liked this new side of her; she was so much more
alive.

They flirted a little more and kissed a little more, but eventually the fact that
she was tired and the fact that Nikolas was very much a presence even though he was
occupied elsewhere made him take his leave of her.

He was by no means ready to call an end to the evening, which was still going strong
in the gardens. By the time he got back to the stable loft, however, Bear and Lena
were nowhere to be seen.

:Don’t go looking for them,:
Dallen advised.
:And for Haven’s sake, don’t go knocking on Bear’s door for a nightcap!:

Oh, so
that
was the way the wind blew . . . he’d had his suspicions for quite some time, but
this was the first Dallen had confirmed them. He felt a flash of envy. Lena’s father
was in no position to dictate anything to her, given that he was utterly in disgrace,
and Mags rather doubted that her teachers would disapprove either of Bear as something
more than a friend or of anything that would give her a little distraction from her
studies. If anything, her teachers at Bardic Collegium had difficulty in getting her
to think about anything other than music. Being in love would certainly give her perspective
on love songs. And as for Bear himself, well, his parents were already so furious
about his defiance of their wishes (with the help of Healer’s Collegium) that it was
difficult to imagine how anything he would do short of murder would change their opinion
for the worse. Bear already had the responsibilities of a full Healer in many areas,
and even his teachers tended to regard and treat him as a full adult and peer.

:Well,:
Dallen said, commenting on his thoughts,
:your case is a bit more complicated.:

:It always is,:
he sighed.
:It’s bad enough that Amily has been a cripple for so long and all her friends feel
protective of her. It’s worse her father is a Herald, so the chances of us actually
keeping anything to ourselves is pretty low. But given that Nikolas is the King’s
Own Herald . . . sometimes it feels as if every single person in Whites and half of
the Companions thinks themselves her substitute parents. Awkward don’t begin to describe
it.:

:It could be worse,:
Dallen observed.
:You could be the Prince. No matter what he does, someone is bound to disapprove.:

Mags snorted. But that was entirely too true.

He nibbled a little more, drank a little more, mingled with his fellow Trainees and
some of the younger Guard recruits who had managed to find the party, and finally
decided to try his hand at dancing. If Amily was determined to dance by Midwinter,
he’d better be ready to dance with her. On a night like tonight, the girls would forgive
his mistakes, he reckoned.