The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (25 page)

But they did well. And they of cou
rse kept score. So while, especially with the thickest arguments Ian had with Rory, who strongly resisted any sort of group decision or directions that Ian tried to give him, the other team had a similar contest of wills between Kieran and their Dervish captain—at least that’s what he would have fashioned himself as. All in all then, even though it didn’t feel like it most of the time, the teams were pretty evenly matched.

That made it all the grander when they won. Well—
Ian would have said they had won, since they finished the last play and took the lead. But that was bitterly debated by the other team, since they stopped then due to Rory hurting his wrist. Though Rory said it was fine and would have had them continue, especially to counter the accusations from the other team, Ian conceded to Ellis’ sentiments that it would be best to stop. It wouldn’t do for them to carelessly render their best shot unable to shoot.

Ian had noticed
a couple plays before they stopped that Will was there alone, quietly watching from a distance, though it was close enough to assume that was indeed what he was doing. The other Chax guides hadn’t paid them much mind, and if anything, Ian thought he detected some scorn from them.

Ian
gave one last parting shot toward the other team, which proved to be much more cohesive than the other team’s. Ellis was already trudging back alone, and Rory stayed behind, half-heartedly keeping up their side of the issue while Gressaire remained with Kieran and Brodie to lambast their cause.

Turning, however,
Ian started toward Will, picking up his canteen on the way and taking a long drink. The sun was by now well below the distant mountains to their west, and the air was cooling, the sweetness that hung heavy throughout the hotter hours of the day was much softer, the breeze more gentle.

“Did you see that?” Ian asked Will. “We won.”

“They seem to disagree,” Will said as they started back toward camp.

“They’re just bitter,” Ian laughed as he
wiped at his wet brow with his even wetter sleeves. “That was a good game.”

“Yes?” Will said, watching him wryly. “I will take your word for it. Are you injured?”

“No,” Ian said, a little indignant as he started the attempt of wiping the dust that was clinging to his uniform and arms, but he gave up as he saw his clothes would accept nothing short of a cycle-clean. “Just a little banged up, that’s all. Nothing that doesn’t come with the sport.”

Will nodded. “I sometimes wonder if you Bevish don’t secretly despise yourselves. Perhaps it’s
difficult to be so successful and not self-conscious.”

“What do you mean?” Ian said as he unconsciously started to wipe at the dirt on his arms again, only stopping when he noticed Will trying to keep a polite distance from the activity.

“The Chax of course play many different kinds of games,” Will said, “but none like your rugby. To me it doesn’t seem so much like a game as Baldave punishing itself. I—yes, you laugh, but I have also seen your boxing game. Surely there can be no logical justification for such things.”

“Having fun doesn’t have to make sense,” Ian said.

“But does it have to involve so much brutality?”

“You’re making me feel defensive,” Ian said, rubbing his hand through his hair, trying to loosen it up as it
began to dry. “Those aren’t our only games. What about card games?”

“I don’t think that is the same.”

“Cricket,” Ian said, “what about cricket? No one gets hit in cricket.”

“And you Bevish
still enjoy it?”

Ian laughed, laughed
as they walked.

“And lament our lady Derfi: though her wounds are many and her memories many more bitter, still her heart burns with pride. She’s tasted greatness too many times, and thus, as a proverb, is doomed to fall so many times more.”

—Translated from Lionel Dumull, Dervish poet

While Gressaire gave many causes to be admired, both as envoy and scout, the one glaring omission was his waking schedule. To be fair, Lieutenant Taylor had kept him up late at the fire with a slightly less than perfect opinion on the merits of Dervish food and culture, which of course their guest was honor bound to passionately rebuke.

In
either case, the camp was well-roused and breakfast mostly finished before Gressaire was groggily forced from his den, in many sorts of low spirits.

But by seven o’clock they were underway, their erstwhile guest of jovialities in the lead, where he sparred with their captain over direction and general points of
sophistication.

“Yes, well,” Gressaire was saying loud enough that Ian could hear him near the back
of the caravan, “you sleep on zhe same bright red cloaks zhat you fight in. Zhey do make very good targets, zhough I suppose zhey are good camouflage after a lot of zhe other Bevish men are dead.”

Captain Marsden’s reply was too
low for Ian to catch, though he surmised it must have had something to do with the Haspian Wars, because Gressaire’s answer angrily scaled to an entirely new octave.

“And it is a wonder you Bevish were able to find your way out of
Wilome with such ridiculous clothes. You Bevish scouts blend in good to zhem now zhough, with ‘ow sun burned you all are—”

That carried on for a little while longer, until Lord Wester called an order for quiet. Up until that
point, Ian had mostly only been able to hear Gressaire’s half of the conversation, so he couldn’t accurately gauge who was winning.

The sun rose and carried its heat quick and high behind them as their company, for the first time, headed almost due west
toward the Quacu Mountains. It sounded like Lord Beaumont’s chateau lay on the foothills that preceded them.

Ian wasn’t sure of exactly when the margrave had conceded to the Dervish invitation, and
Ian was left at the back of the company, only twice being near enough to their charge to hear him speak, and only once happening to be near him when he actually spoke.

“It matters not,” the margrave said to a question Will had asked h
im, “they can wait one more day. No rush is required.”

And Ian wasn’t even sure what that pertained to.

Being at the back of the caravan had its particular perks and ills. He was given a lot more room for leisure, for observing everyone else ahead of him without much scrutiny in return. They were in a fairly pitched stage of excitement, with the obvious nationalistic conflicts in full play.

The downside to his position was getting to observe everyone else while not being able to join in very much. He was parallel to Rory of course, but they made
no small talk. And tantamount to the isolation was of having an excellent view of Kieran volunteering for peak duties atop the second brisa, which involved the solemn duty of watching all around them for threats as well as for the margrave’s daughter.

Ian tried to hang back far enough that he couldn’t make out their conversation,
but mostly failed. And while what Kieran offered was never especially good conversation to the margrave’s daughter, that wasn’t enough to offset the fact that Kieran was still getting conversation with the margrave’s daughter.

A few hours into the day Ian noticed that three of the
Chax were hanging back farther and farther. One remained guiding the lead brisa that the margrave rode, but he too frequently cast glances behind them. Ian watched this, checked behind them as well, but couldn’t see anything wrong as the Chax slowly fell back beside and then a little behind him. What assured him that nothing was going on was that Will also noticed this and displayed no adverse reaction to it.

And softly, at first so furtively at the edges of
his hearing that he thought he was imagining it, there were words. Ian only looked back a few times. The first to confirm that the Chax were indeed the source, but the guide that Ian first looked at was the youngest one—or at least Ian assumed he was, as he was a bit smaller and not quite as light as the others. But the Chax immediately noticed Ian looking and stopped moving his lips, his face nearly bashful before he tried to secure it and looked elsewhere.

So Ian wasn’t able to confirm that they were
saying—singing words until the second time when he looked back at the other two. By that point, however, their voices had risen beyond the threshold of unmistakeableness, and Ian was better able to pick them out.

It was made difficult in that they sang the same words, but infrequently. Most of it was crisscrossing patterns that
rose, built, then met in waves of companionship before they again slipped away from each other—separate, distinct, but also part of a shifting whole. Like music, only without the sort of flowing of ideas and phrases that comprised lyrical music.

At first
, it was a somewhat frustrating experience, and Ian wondered at their authorization. While he of course saw nothing wrong with it, the Chax were well behind the bulk of their party, most notably the margrave, and their manner was hesitant, the older two with airs more defiant. Ian was fairly certain that they hadn’t done this on the trip so far, so it was probably only because their party was mostly concerned with travel that they felt they had the liberty.

But as he walked on, nearly half of the way to their destination still re
maining, the heat constant against his head and the clicking of his regulator, his steps uncertain on top of the world that was shifting beneath his feet, the words began to drift under his consciousness. The longer he listened, not to the words, but to the rhythm of the heat, of their stepping, the animals moving and calling above and all around them, the more they made sense. Not in meaning or even pitch, and like new music, it was never completely expected. But he thought the longer, the more relaxed his perception of them became, the more the sounds of the words began to line up, not in a predictive, expected sense, but of fitting, new, sudden, and then past as the next one came, like a length of puzzle that had many possibilities.

This was not an understanding that re
mained focused though. He was scarcely sure it was any sort of correct understanding as it was extremely easy to be pulled into it unawares. But it wasn’t ever long before he would become conscious of this and usually very soon after he would begin analyzing himself out of it again. Looking across to Rory, Ian thought he could observe the same effects, as his second’s face would slacken for periods of time before he would shake it. Rory didn’t look nearly so happy, or at least even interested to hear it as Ian was.

“So many kinds of people,”
Ian thought, mildly marveling, the small delight chasing itself through his stomach that he would never be able to comprehend either the generalities of all people, or even the majority of any one person. But he would see so many in his lifetime, and he gave silent thanks again for this station.

The trio of musicians, or whatever they were to be dubbed, didn’t prove to be a steady
group. Perhaps fifteen minutes after they began, Will called something to them, rubbing his hands together over his head with some other nimble gestures, and one of the older ones immediately ceased and ran up ahead and to the side. His destination was evidently a large boulder perhaps a fifth of a mile distant, where he stood and surveyed the vicinity. Their day was to be chiefly devoted to reaching the chateau though, and Ian thought it would have to be a considerable hunting opportunity to deter them.

At about two hours into the Chax
songs there was a lull, with only one Chax continuing, almost to himself as the rider on the lead brisa was replaced by one of those behind Ian. But soon they began again with their fresh compatriot, making Ian wonder at how long they could go for.

He s
pied an opportunity when Will dropped to the ground and walked back to meet the left of the second brisa, where Will climbed a few feet up the travel packs to retrieve something. Ian sped up until he was close enough to hail him.

“Are we nearly there?” Ian asked.

“Nearly,” Will said as he leaned further, already shoulder deep into the saddle he was reaching, “you should be able to see it within the hour.”

“Great,” Ian said as he got a little closer and lowered his voice once Will dropped back to the ground. “I was just wondering about the
Chax behind us—”

“Yes?” Will
asked, somewhat warily.

“Is that—music?”

Will grinned a little as he blew air through his teeth, his eyes wandering the sky. “It depends on who asks. The Bevish call them word songs, but the Chax do not like that title at all. They associate it with Ellosian music, and really do not think of it like that. So many do not think of it as music, or even art. It is just something they do, like hunting or talking.”

“But do you think it’s an appropriate title?” Ian asked him carefully.

Will shrugged some, not quite uncomfortably. “I do not think like many Chax do. I think it is a useful title—that it would help to describe it to someone who has never heard them before.”

A
crescendo occurred in earnest behind them, making Ian turn and listen for a moment. “What are they saying now?”

“Nothing.
Nonsense. I forget, you can’t understand. The purpose of word song is not to use any specific words or meanings. Or even to make musical tones with them. It’s to take it in the environment. Chay, as it is in most Orinoco languages. To spontaneously react to what one is experiencing and give a word that feels and sounds like it.”

“I think I understand,” Ian said, wondering if that was actually true. “I can feel it when I don’t try.
”

“You must understand that what they are doing now is very restrained, not really true word song. They are only using their own language and some made up words—not usually though. In other places
, they would also use Dervish and Bevish words a lot, as the foreign feel of them is appealing. They won’t risk it with Ellosians around. And the words are only half of it, or even more than—less than half. Chax language is primarily physical, and spontaneous dancing and motions customarily go along with word songs.”

“It isn’t planned at all?”

“No,” Will said.

Ian tried to conceive that, of a group of natives making up words and dancing without any set pattern for as long as they had been singing already.

“They would never dance in front of Ellosians,” Will said, “because Orinoco Ellosians do much to suppress it. They only associate it with the Hallmers, because their rebellion gatherings would often have word song and dances.”

“I see,” Ian said. “I think. But why do they only use real words in different languages if it’s not supposed to mean anything? Why not just create new sounds?”

Will thought for a moment, then laughed. “I do not know.”

“Oh,” Ian said, feigning disappointment.

“I do not really know all that much about them. Music either, I am not very gifted.” He looked up ahead to Lord Wester. “But please excuse me, I am overdue. Lord Wester asked for something he might give as a gift to Lord Beaumont. Do you agree with his decision?”

And Will held up his hand as he quickened his pace ahea
d, giving Ian a brief view of the end of a document supplementer device sticking out from a silken cloth—one that was particularly slender and shiny, a tastefully subdued circle of precious stones around the end. This was all done in a moment’s breath, before Will turned back toward the brisa and hurried to catch it again.

Feeling as though he had been imparted to two secrets that he
should not necessarily have been, Ian prayed, maybe more to himself than God, that it wasn’t for such things that he liked Will.

*              *              *              *

They stopped for a short lunch not long after. This of course mostly consisted of long buffalo meat, with some fruit for the nobles and their Dervish guest. It was a very short stop, however, and soon they were off again, their Bevish discipline eroding at its seams the closer they drew to the mountains that loomed golden in the near distance.

At first sight of the chateau
, Gressaire gave up an eager whoop, which was joined by a general chorus through the lower ranks of their company. Ian refrained, but sympathized with the sentiments, holding his yeoman’s binoculars up to see the chateau grow from a distinctive, smooth smudge to a creamy mass of buildings escorting a large, flowing central residence.

“Two
‘ours,” Gressaire called back to them, “at least at zhe rate of a Bevish man.”

It passed quickly, and while Ian thought that Gressaire’s estimate was accurate, it also seemed like they moved a little bit faster
toward their destination. Not long after their first sighting, they began a gradual descent into the valley that lay before the hills the chateau resided on. Even with the naked eye, activity could be seen throughout the well-cultivated valley. They began to pass through feral fields that nonetheless were a different sort of grass, for grazing, as Ian thought. The brisa made lowing sounds as they passed, Gressaire quickly leading them to a rough dirt path that ran into increasingly sophisticated pastures. The farther they went, the more prevalent Chax workers became, some threshing, some carrying bundles and materials, most of them bent over. Ian also caught sight of large, mechanized vehicles in the sprawling distance.