Saga of Menyoral: The Service (20 page)

“No.” It was probably nothing but the truth. That didn’t mean Vandis could stomach the thought.

Marcus shut his eyes and inhaled, then exhaled, a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, not quite into Vandis’s face. “Are you trying to tell me,” he said in an iron voice, “that you can possibly equal what I, what we, can give him?”

“I can surpass it,” Vandis heard himself say. “I have made him
my
family, and he has the bulwark of my office. I’m his Master. I’m the closest thing to a father he’s ever known, and I will die before I abandon him with people he doesn’t know!”

“He has a father. My son is his—”

“Fuck Angus!” Vandis bit out, not raising his voice, but practically coming off the bench with the force of it. “Fuck him! He’s never even taken the trouble to meet his son! Angus isn’t a father—he’s a giant throbbing dick on legs!”

Marcus’s forearm, resting on the tabletop, lifted until it stood on the elbow. His hand curled into a fist, and he stared at it for what seemed
to be hours. He turned a set face on Vandis. “You do realize,” he said slowly, “that if you were anyone, anything but who and what you are, I’d make it my life’s mission to grind you into powder? If I put my mind to it, you would lose everything. I know what you value most, and you’d lose it all.” His forearm flexed as the fist tightened. “And when you sat in the ruins of your life, I’d come and take what I want.”

Not my family,
Vandis thought.
You won’t touch my family or you’ll regret it.
Aloud, he said, “Don’t threaten me. It’s fucking unseemly.”

“Vandis
… I like you. Gods know why at the moment. I trust your judgment.” Marcus loosened his hand, let his forearm fall back to the table. “I don’t doubt that you have Dingus’s best interests at heart. There’s certainly no doubt in my mind that you love him. If I thought anything else …”

“You’d crush me.”

“Like a roach under my boot.” He swung his legs over the bench and stood. “I need a drink. Would you care for one?”

“I
f you don’t mind.”

Marcus nodded and strode off toward the brew tent. It didn’t escape Vandis that the Duke had made him no promises.
If you think I’m going to leave you alone with Dingus after that, you’ve got another think coming. You’ll meet him, but any time you spend around him will be under my eye.
He couldn’t imagine Dingus would take to the idea of Dreamport, but he’d sooner the boy didn’t have to choose just yet.
Besides, She gave him to me—me to him. If it makes a difference.

Not forever, My own,
She said.

So
You want me to give him up now?

I didn’t say that. I only want you to remember: in the end, he belongs to Me, not to you. He needs you now, but when I need him—yes. You will give him up.

You’re going to kill him.

If that’s necessary. Every father gives up his son. Why, weren’t you just telling the lad yourself that everyone has to—

“You know, Dingus wasn’t my only reason for coming,” Marcus said, startling him.

My Lady? My Lady!
But she didn’t continue. Vandis turned a withering glare on Marcus.

“My apologies. I didn’t intend to, ah
… interrupt your communion.”

“She’s just being Herself,” Vandis grumbled. “What were you saying?”

“I was telling you that I didn’t only come to meet Dingus. I came for you. Vandis, have a care for your own safety.”

“Always.”

“Yes, well,” Marcus said, as if he wasn’t buying that load of manure. “At the moment, it’s of particular importance. I don’t know how much you’re getting from Dreamport these days.”

“This is about Disa and Solveig. How’s the Watch coming on that?”

“They’re pursuing all leads.”

“Yeah, all right.” Vandis rolled his eyes. “What’s Calphen doing about it?”

“His Majesty can’t move—you know that, and in any case, trade hasn’t been interrupted. Apparently, we aren’t so decadent they’ll refuse to take our money.”

“Decadent!” He snorted, thinking of Krakus Bartowsky: not a bad sort, for an Aurelian, but fat-fingered and fat-faced, with an eye to the ladies, oh yeah. “Huh! That Krakus is about as venal as they come.”

“Yes,” Marcus said, puffing on his pipe, “but Lech Valitchka …”

“Yeah, Lech.” Vandis snorted again.

“I wish I knew what opportunity knocked at his door.”

“You and me both. It wasn’t just the Knights they locked down on. It’s just that everyone else got a little warning.”

“Their own people, too. Merchants and missionaries excepted.”

“I know. I have my own Muscodites screaming for me to help get their families out before it’s too late. I could use a little advice.”

“If you want mine, you ought to come to Dreamport for a week or two.”

“Yeah,” Vandis said reluctantly. “Let me get through the Moot. Get the kids settled somewhere safe—Windish should do it.”

“Why not bring the children? Dingus and—Jessamine?”

“Kessa. If it’s not safe for me, it’s definite
ly not safe for them. Think the Aurelians won’t come after the best part of my life?”

Marcus
frowned. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put Dingus on his guard. He misses plenty, but threats aren’t on the list. Then I’ll come. I need an audience with Calphen; can you get me one?”

“I’m certain I can, but doubt you’ll be able to sway him. His Majesty feels the war over the Monmouths is the more pertinent concern at the moment, and I’m not certain I disagree.”

“They won’t settle that in a hurry. His Majesty,” V
andis said sarcastically, “should know, no matter how many envoys he sends, Brightwater’s prepared to fight to the last man, and Lightsbridge just about as much. Muscoda needs a good swift kick. There are … things.” He thought about the white crow perched on the dog’s belly, about one of the drop capitals in the same manuscript, with the dog and the crow watching together over a fish that swam under a bridge.

Marcus raised an eyebrow.

“I think they’re getting ready to take advantage of Lightsbridge, swallow them up while they’re distracted. I need to make sure I’m adding things up correctly.”

“Dangerous ground.”

“Who’s going to walk there if I don’t?”

“True, I suppose.” The duke sighed. “Watch your damned foolish back, Vandis. If there’s anyone in Rothganar they have as much reason to hate as you, I should be very surprised, and now you want to give them more justification?”

“It’s not about whether they like me or not. It’s about stopping them. When I took the Oath, I didn’t swear not to piss people off.”

“Thank heaven for that.”

Vandis grinned. “I’d hate to be forsworn over that bunch of—”

“Hey, Vandis.”

“Oh, hey, Dingus. Just a minute, I’m talking here.”

“Okay.” Amusement colored Dingus’s tone.

“As I was saying, I’d—wait.” Vandis turned, blinking, to see Dingus standing with his right hand in his pocket. His left side oozed blood through the tatters of jerkin and tunic, through the torn breeches over his hip, and his left sleeve flapped. Adeon hovered nearby, dusty and scraped.

“What are you doing here?”
Vandis asked.

“I’m finished,” he said, and took his right hand out of h
is pocket. With a clink, he laid his medals on the table in front of Vandis.

“You only got three!”

“Because I never laid the fourth,” Adeon said, tossing the last medal, the gold, onto the table. He broke into a dazzling smile. “He caught me up before it left the pouch.”

While Vandis’s mouth opened and closed, speechless, Marcus slapped the table and laughed. “Well done, lad!”

“Thanks,” Dingus said, but his eyes didn’t move from Vandis’s face.

“You—I—you—that’s amazing,” he
decided finally. “But what did you do to yourself?” He gestured at the mess Dingus had made of his side.

He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, but what happened?”

He shrugged again, reddening slightly, which only solidified Vandis’s certainty that he’d done something stupid.

Adeon said, “After he caught me up, I couldn’t lose him again. I might have done on the wash, but…” He patted Dingus’s shoulder; Dingus tensed, but didn’t move away. “Well. If you want my opinion,
varach
, sliding two hundred feet down a steep grade to get ahead of me may have been overdoing it slightly.”

“What did you do? Dammit. Medic!” he yelled at the crowd that h
ad gathered. “Was there one single thought in your head?”

“Not really,” Dingus admitted. “I wanted to win. Anyways
, it’s not that bad, just ugly.”

“It’s not a win-lose thing! It’s a can-you-do-it thing!”

Blankly, he shook his head at Vandis. Vandis threw up his hands. The crowd murmured, and someone ventured to ask Adeon what had happened.

“Did I pass, Vandis?”

Reed pushed through. Most people got out of his way. Nobody really wanted to get between Reed and anything, let alone a person who needed doctoring.

Vandis’s face felt
as if it’d split. “You know you did.”

His Squire returned the grin. “Swear me in.”

“Let Sir Reed look at you.”

“Sit,” Reed said. “Take off the tunic. No arguments.”

Dingus shook his head. “I’m not sitting down a Squire.”

Reed’s nostrils flared. “That sounds awfully like an argument to me.”

“I’m not arguing. I’m saying.”

He fired a blaz
ing look at Vandis: rein him in. But Vandis shook his head. He wasn’t about to rein in enthusiasm for the Oath of Service. “Let the man swear,” he said, and turned to Dingus. “Do you need a prompt?”

“No, Vandis.”

“Didn’t think so.” Vandis cleared his throat and projected: “Knights!”  A hunting horn called in answer, and as the Assembly came to its feet, a hush fell around the mouth of the valley. “I hereby declare that Dingus Parsifal Xavier has passed all the Trials set before him, and must therefore be admitted to the Order of the Knights of the Air and to the Assembly, with all rights, privileges, and responsibilities pertaining to the rank of Junior. What say you?”

“Let him swear the Oath of Service for all of us to hear!” came the answer in more than six hundred voices. Vandis turned to Dingus, who raised his left hand and laid the right over his heart.

“What say you?”

Dingus drew a long breath and in
a deep, ringing voice utterly divorced from his usual muted tones, said:

“I, Dingus Parsifal Xavier, do solemnly swear to uphold my Lady’s cause wherever I may, namely:

To defend the basic rights of every thinking being;

To stand for the weak against the strong;

To succor the poor to the best of my ability;

To encourage the free and unexpurgated dissemination of information;

And to combat injustice, even to the cost of my life.

I will walk the path of the righteous.

I will be good of heart and deed.

I will oppose to my last breath those who would prey upon the innocent.

I will use every means and device at my disposal to free the minds and bodies of this world from those who would unjustly control them.

On my honor and in Akeere’s name, I so swear.”

Vandis’s eyes stung. “Then our Lady accepts you as Her own true Knight.”

And She laughed gladly in his mind,
Oh, I do, I do, and well done, My own Vandis!

Dingus hadn’t missed a word. He hadn’t even stumbled over “unexpurgated”
the way he had so often before. Vandis had never heard the Oath of Service sound so sweet, except maybe when he’d taken it himself. Under the acclamation that went up from the Assembly, he said, “Sit the fuck down now, Sir Dingus.”

D
ingus beamed and sat on Vandis’s end of the bench. Vandis, before Reed could block him, embraced his only-beloved, not-begotten son. Dingus’s thin arms came up and went tentatively around him, then squeezed with more strength. Vandis let the boy go and stepped back, but kept one hand on Dingus’s shoulder for a moment. Dingus blushed so hard that his neck went hot red, down into his collar.

“All right,” Reed said, moving toward them, but Kessa muscled out of the crowd and almost knocked him flat.

She squeezed Dingus so tightly he gasped. Then she planted a smacking kiss on his cheek and said, “I knew you’d do it. I’ll run and get your other clothes from camp.”

“Thanks, Kessa,” he said, smiling at her.

Behind Vandis, Marcus cleared his throat. He hadn’t moved from his seat, but gazed fixedly at Dingus, his eyes unreadable, while the boy winced out of his torn jerkin and tunic. He watched Dingus control himself while Reed cleaned his side, watched him blush and nod at the Knights who came to congratulate him; and Vandis watched Marcus’s watching, and felt a chill.