The Hero Strikes Back (38 page)

As soon as we were outside the apartment and the door had closed behind us, I looked up to say something to Karish. I wasn't sure what, exactly, but I had no doubt it would be stupid and useless. So it was just as well that I was preempted by the arrival of a servant. One of the Dowager's, I realized.

“Source Karish,” she said, her voice hard with the unimpressed arrogance of a person who had spent her life waiting on someone truly unworthy. “The Dowager Duchess of Westsea requests your attendance.”

Karish scowled. “Couldn't care less.”

“Now, my lord.”

That startled me. Was she allowed to talk to him that way?

Karish's face flushed. “Go to hell.”

Oh, no, he wasn't at the end of his tether or anything.

The servant was still unimpressed. “I am instructed to follow you until you concede,” she told him. “If that means following you to your home or to the home of someone else and knocking on the door until dawn, then that's what I will do.”

And she didn't appear disturbed by playing such a humiliating role. I wondered what other kinds of weird tasks the Dowager had demanded of her.

“Oh, for gods' sake.” Karish wanted to shove his hands in his hair but it was too tightly bound. “Why can't the woman just leave?”

Yes, why couldn't she? She either thought Karish was safely strapped down as the next duke, or knew it was impossible and too late to do anything about it. Now that her presence was of no more use one way or the other, why couldn't she just leave and resume the disinterest she had had for Karish during almost three decades?

Karish was going to talk to her. I knew he would. “Go on ahead, Lee,” he said.

I'd planned on going with him. Moral support. “But—”

“Her Grace has no desire for the Shield,” the servant informed Karish.

“She doesn't do much for me, either.” But I wanted to go with Karish. I wanted to be there to remind him that there were sane people who knew his worth.

“Lee, please.” He was serious, resolute, all those irritating grown-up things that more often than not just got in the way. “I don't want you to come with me. And I don't want you to linger around here waiting for me. I want you to go home. All right?”

If that was what he truly wanted. It was none of my business, after all, and I'd already seen more of his family life than I'd any right to. It was just . . . “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'll be fine.” He ducked down to kiss my cheek. “I'll see you at the Stall.”

Another watch with him all wound up after breathing the same air as his mother. Joy. “All right.” I patted his chest. He knew best.

She'd just better not do anything to him.

I watched him follow the servant down the hall. I thought about waiting for him anyway, but I dismissed that idea. If he came out of that interview in a foul mood I might be the last person he needed to see. So I would leave him alone.

I went home. And thought about how disastrous the meeting with the Prince had been. Not as bad as it could have been, I supposed. I was still breathing. And not in jail. All good. But he'd been throwing around ominous hints and I didn't have the least idea what was going to happen next. I hated that.

I didn't want to think about it. There was no point in it, not until I knew what was going to happen. Besides, I'd never be able to sleep if I didn't calm down. Karish and I had a watch during the darkside, never my favorite time slot, and I needed to get some sleep before I went to the Stall. I changed into the trousers and shirt my mother hated so much and heated up some stew I'd picked up the day before.

I heard a knock the entrance to the house. I couldn't have been more surprised when I opened the door to Doran.

My shock must have been plastered on my face, for he stepped back diffidently. “Is it not proper to visit a Shield in her home?” he asked.

“Of course not. I mean, yes, it's fine.” Very good, Lee. Excellent impression of a rambling idiot. “Please, come in.” What was he doing there? How had he gotten my address? “How is Lydia?”

“Furious that she didn't make a better show of it at Yellows Plain,” he said with a tired smile. “She always thought if something dangerous happened she'd be able to handle herself.”

“It was a mess. I don't think anyone really handled themselves as well as they would have liked.”

“She'll be fine in time, though.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear it. Please, have a seat.” I scanned the room for articles of clothing or dishes that weren't supposed to be there. All looked clear. “Can I get you a drink? Some wine?”

With the efficiency of movement that was apparently bred—or maybe beaten—into the majority of aristocrats, Doran took his place on the sofa. “Wine would be good.”

“Red or white?” Oh, I wasn't supposed to ask that. I was supposed to know what wine was suitable for the time of day. How horribly classless.

But he didn't smile at me. “Red please.”

I nodded and took off to the kitchen, which gave me a few moments of respite as I poured the wine. I wasn't prepared to be dealing with unfamiliar people right then. My mind had been set to going to bed and avoiding thinking for the next few hours.

And I looked awful.

Like that had anything to do with anything.

I brought the wine to the living room, handing a glass to Doran and sitting down in the chair opposite the sofa.

“I've just sent a letter off to Lydia's fiancé, telling him what happened last night,” said Doran. “She's going to kill me.” But from the way he grinned, he wasn't too worried about it.

Oh. I'd assumed the two of them were some kind of couple. “Why wouldn't she want him to know?”

“He gets all militant and protective of her,” Doran chuckled. “Begins to treat her like glass. He hasn't known her as long as I have. He hasn't seen the bloody noses she's earned, or watched her fall out of trees and whatnot and shake it off. Some part of him thinks she's done nothing more than sit on a sofa and read her whole life. It makes Lydia insane. But he has a right to know.”

“He was brave enough to refuse an invitation to last night's party?” From what I understood of such thing, the refusal of a Prince's invitation meant the end of acceptance in any social circle within the High Landed.

“No, he's not Landed. He's merchant. He didn't get an invitation, lucky beggar. He's out inspecting his property somewhere.” Doran waved a hand back over his shoulder. I wasn't sure whether he was indicating the direction in which the property of Lydia's fiancé lay, or merely suggesting that the man was out of town, or swatting away a fly. “Lydia couldn't convince him to come back to escort her. But he'll come racing back as soon as he gets my letter. He adores her.”

Well, good for her, good for him. But why was he telling me?

He sipped the wine and appeared to be surprised. “This is very good!” he exclaimed.

My, how polite. I'll be sure to pass your compliments on to Karish.

“It just so happens I'm going to be out an assistant for the Hallin Festival. Unless I can find some sympathetic young woman willing to take Lydia's place.”

“Ah.” Damn it. The perfect opportunity to get through the festival with minimal humiliation and I had to let it pass. “Karish has threatened me with punishments most gruesome should I desert him in this trial.”

“How ungenerous of him. I would have thought Shintaro would have been able to find any number of willing victims.”

“I have no doubt, but he probably doesn't want any of them watching him go through the embarrassing steps of learning a new skill.”

He grinned back. “Then I shall forgive him for dominating you for such a purpose.”

“That's right kind of you.” And now what? I was so bad with small talk.

Doran sobered quickly. “About you and Shintaro—”

Ah. Here it came.

“—what were you doing last night?”

Not quite what I was expecting. “I'm sorry. I don't understand.”

“That wind in Yellows dining room, you two did that.”

How completely unbelievable. Now the average regular was starting to suspect something. “We can't manipulate the wind, Doran.”

He frowned. “But you can control things like cyclones, can't you? That's wind.”

I was irrationally irritated at the man for his making me lie, but I kept it out of my voice. “That's different,” I said. “It feels different.” It used different forces. But I wasn't sure either of us were up to a long lecture about the skills of Sources. “Just trust me on this.” Yes, Doran, trust me while I'm lying through my teeth.

I felt awful.

“All right, then. If you say so.”

“I do.”

“But you have to admit, that was a pretty wild night.”

“That is one word for it.”

“From what I hear, a lot of wild things happen around you.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And what, precisely, does that mean?”

He was undaunted by my cool tone. “Just that interesting things seem to happen wherever you are.”

Who had he been talking to? And what had they been saying? “I think there has been some gross exaggeration going on.”

“If you say so,” he said, but his eyes were shining. “So, do you ever watch the races?”

“Not without getting really drunk first.”

He laughed.

He stayed almost an hour. It took only a fraction of that time for me to realize we had nothing at all in common. But we had fun denigrating each other's preferences, and I found myself enjoying his company.

And, frighteningly enough, he wasn't caught by my list of restrictions. I never crossed off poor aristocrats. Hm.

I went to bed as soon as he left. I couldn't sleep, though. I was thinking about the Prince. And Lord Yellows. And Karish.

So I was awake when, several hours later, there was another knock on the door. And this time it was Karish. He leaned against the door and he smelled of smoke and liquor.

“I'm sorry,” he said as soon as I opened the door. His words weren't slurred, but he sounded tired.

“For what?” I took his hand and pulled him inside, closing the door behind him.

“I shouldn't be here.” But even as he spoke he was slipping his arms around me and hugging me tightly.

Very tightly. I put my hand on the back of his head. “What happened?”

“She knows.” I felt him pull in a deep breath. “She's leaving.”

Hooray for that. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

I stroked his hair. She was leaving. This was a good thing. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes,” he said. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come.” But he didn't move.

“You're always welcome here, Taro.”

A sound that might have been a chuckle under other circumstances. “Always?”

“Well,” I smiled, “I might not always appreciate your timing, but you'll always be welcome.” With no dazzling show necessary.

I pulled on the front of his shirt. “Come on. Let's sit down.”

He resisted for a moment—what, he thought I was going to let him go back out there alone?—but then he followed me to the sofa. I sat down first and he sprawled the length of the sofa, his feet hanging off the end, putting his head in my lap. I ran my fingers through his hair, savouring the immediate calming affects of his proximity, and we waited until it was time to go to the Stall.

Epilogue

I stepped down off the stage, pretending to need to watch my feet so I wouldn't trip, but actually doing my best to avoid the eyes of anyone in the stunned, politely applauding audience. After the most humiliating experience of my life I wanted to slither away as quickly as possible and not see any of these people for at least a month, if then. But a part of me was angry, that I'd had to do something so unsuited to my temperament, and that these people had expected so much of Karish and me simply because it was Karish and me.

The crowd had been at least four times as large as that of most other amateur performers. Because everyone who had heard of Karish, and didn't have friends and family to support on other stages in the same time slot, were curious to know what the Stallion of the Triple S would do on stage. Damn Karish. Damn my being bonded to him. I didn't deserve such notoriety.

And he'd chosen the damn poem, too. Some nonsensical rambling thing that neither of us understood and the audience didn't appreciate, despite a flawless delivery. I wanted to know what ancient tome my Source had dug that poem out of, so I could burn it. I wanted to know whose good idea it was to teach that man to read in the first place. Really, why wasn't it enough for him to channel and look pretty? That was more than most people had.

But at least no one was throwing anything at us.

A month earlier, we might not have been so spared, and things were still a little tense. I still overheard the odd uncomplimentary comment. But things were better. Normal summer weather had finally descended upon High Scape, with comfortably hot days and fine, misted evenings.

Events had finally started occurring again. Not that the events were inherently good, of course, but to be useful again was a relief. The first time I had to shield Karish through an actual event, it had been a divine release. And after, it had felt like things were finally getting back to normal. Whatever normal meant.

La Monte and Wilberforce had been unbearable, each in their unique idiosyncratic ways. Not only had the Triple S finally responded to La Monte's inquiry with the assurance that we should claim to be working on the weather problem while we—and they—actually did nothing, but the problem had apparently fixed itself. Just as La Monte had predicted it would. I didn't know which was worse, La Monte's smug aura of superiority or Wilberforce's constant promises that when we were as experienced as La Monte we would know what we were doing, too.