The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (41 page)

Time passed excruciatingly slow, but Ian marked it at just over half an hour when the margrave stood again and was escorted back to them.

“The rest is over
, men,” Captain Marsden snapped as he stepped around them, “prepare to move. We only await the margrave’s pleasure.”

And move they did, in short
and brisk order. As they threaded their way through the forest, best as they could manage with the brisa, Ian looked back at the archon’s camp once, wondering at the odd thing they had stumbled on so momentarily.

“When your eyes cease to see

p
leasant things,

j
ewels for your ears and fruit for your lips,

I give you mine.

If ever your heart is not fine alone,

I give you mine.
”

—Transcribed ancient Chax love verse

“But I don’t see why we all couldn’t have talked,” Madeline Wester was saying from atop the second brisa.

“They only had tea, Maddy,” Elizabeth said.

“But why couldn’t we have had tea as well?” Maddy asked. “I’m so tired of the stuff that we have to drink. I can’t imagine it’s anything like the archon’s tea.”

“I can
not imagine either,” Elizabeth said. “Now please be quiet, I am trying to read.”

No answers came, and
Ian looked up, a little surprised. He could only make out the occasional glimpse of red as the top corner of the brisa’s pack swayed.

“Do you think father was terribly upset about th
e leopard?” he heard Maddy ask quietly.

“I can
not imagine how to care,” Elizabeth said offhandedly. “One beast is as good as another.”

There was no answer. When he thought it
was safe enough to look up again, he saw only bits of Maddy’s face as she stared out over the late afternoon fields.

“Our chero said we would be near water again this evening
,” Maddy said, “so I think we can go fishing again.”

Ian waited in the silence.

*
              *              *              *

They did indeed come to another body of water a good hour before their usual stopping time. It was a very nice place to stop, however, which evidently won out against their upper hierarchy’s deepest interests.

“That’s right,” Maddy said
, just after her camp had been pitched. She was already having the Bevish servants get their fishing gear together. “If we have a short dinner, we’ll have at least a few hours of daylight to fish.”

The response, as Ian had predicted, was anythi
ng but encouraging. His company looked unmistakably sullen. After being ordered about earlier by the archon’s men, Ian knew that there was no way they would consent to the possibility of being out-fished by the margrave’s daughter again.

“Perhaps another evening, milady,” Brodie put it quite elegantly.

“Oh, come on,” Maddy cocked her head to one side, and Ian wondered if her exuberant bent would even allow her to see how much everyone else did not want to go. “Don’t tell me you men don’t want to.”

“It’s not that …” Brodie tried.

“It’s already late,” Kieran said, “and we haven’t even eaten supper yet.”

Maddy smiled. “Well
, we can all hurry. What’s the problem, what else is there to do tonight?”

“Sleep?
It’s been a long day,” Kieran said.

“Ha,” Maddy said.

Oh, no,
Ian thought—
don’t mention them not getting the leopard—

“I understand now,” Maddy said, her expression all full of beaming and other things, “all these big
, strong men walked around all day and don’t want to be out-fished again.”

“Not likely,” Kieran sniffed, but Ian could hear the change.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Maddy said, starting toward the fire, “I certainly won’t think anything less of any of you. Not everyone can be good at everything.”

A
slow murmuring ran around them in the wake of her absence, a grudging melting—

“I suppose if I must …” Brodie sighed, voicing the general consensus.

Ian stared at them, then back the way the youngest margrave’s daughter had gone.

How did she do that?

*
              *              *              *

How does she do that?
Ian wrenched his pole back up, pursing his lips as he watched the thin shadow of whatever had just been on his hook merging back with the rest of the deepening shadows in the pond that most definitely was not a part of his hook. He managed not to look for several seconds at the far more tangible specimen Maddy was bringing to shore—but then he couldn’t, and did.

Frustrations were running high all down the line
. The fish weren’t nearly as opulent at this body of water, and they were all suffering accordingly. It was a large degree of difference between the youngest Wester daughter’s suffering and theirs, however.

Their one marginal hope came to rest on
Kieran, distastefully enough, though his fish clearly remained a fraction of Maddy’s. Still, cumulatively, they had her beat as Ian tried to remark to his fellows. Jokes were presently not in vogue, however.

“I think this is it, gentlemen,” Brodie remarked, not really smiling. “I believe I will retire after this.”

“And go into hiding?” Ian asked.

Kieran finished reeling in his line. “Shut up,
Kanters.”

*              *              *              *

“I bet I could feed everyone if we got to fish every day,” Maddy said as she skipped on the way back to camp.

“I presume milady would not allow herself to gamble,”
Brodie told her.

Maddy laughed. “No, but if I did I would. It’s so much fun
here, I wish we could stay forever.”

The rest of the
ir company and two of the Bevish servants followed after, occupied with hauling her gear and catch. Ian trailed behind, watching the ground and listening.

“Wait until father and the others see, I can’t wait!”
Maddy said, it seemed more to herself.

Ian thought about that, cringing a little. The others were talking about their
Allen rifles, but Ian wasn’t paying attention.

“There’s just no end to the living someo
ne could make here,” Maddy said. “You wouldn’t ever need to go back to the city if you knew what to do. There’s so much food here.”

Ian kicked at the ground.

The camp was winding down for the evening by the time they returned. A certain sort of bitterness hung over it, Ian suspecting that it had started at the top and worked its way down. But Madeline wasted no time in rushing to her father.

“Father, father
—”

“Q
uiet, Maddy,” Lord Wester said, waving her off. He sat with Captain Marsden and Will, one hand slowly spinning the projection map they were poring over, the other hand cradling his forehead. “If time was not so short, that would be acceptable, captain.”

“Father,” Maddy said, “I’ve caught a lot of fish again
—”

“Not now,” the margrave
said, not looking up from the map.

“If we were to travel more to the east,” Captain Marsden tried, looking as though he wasn’t sure what to do.

“But father, it will only take a moment—” Maddy insisted.

The marg
rave snapped for a moment, half-shouting a curse. “I said not now, Madeline! I am busy and have no time or care to waste on such tripe.”

Maddy stood very straight, didn’t move for several long heartbeats.

Ian looked away, trying to pretend along with everyone else that it wasn’t uncomfortable to breathe. With a grim continuation of the activities that everyone was engaged in, however, it was better a few seconds later. The youngest daughter of the margrave turned and walked the way she had come, which wasn’t near her tent or wyverns. Her face was very composed, her eyes blank.

In accordance with their efforts for normalcy
, no one else marked her passing. Not even Elizabeth looked up from what she was reading. The oldest daughter’s expression was stormy, but for what particular reason, Ian didn’t know.

Ian
did his best to make himself busy with reordering his gear to get ready for bed. The expedient nature of their company worked against that taking very much time though. He knew he could always pretend to occupy himself with something else, but he could see nothing wholesome in that.

Staring down at his sword,
Ian turned it over and over in his hands, thinking and trying not to. Feeling, and trying to think what that meant.

Standing,
Ian started off in a northerly direction, roughly perpendicular to Maddy’s and not toward much of anything else. He passed out of the camp without comment or particular notice. It was some time after he was out of sight that he even determined where he indeed was going.

Picking up a little more speed, his direction shifted more to the west, then southwest as he scanned the deepening shadows and came upon the path they had
previously taken through the grasses. The path would have been easy to miss in the failing light and next to impossible to determine any recent tracks on it that were traveling away from the camp, at least without some lengthy examinations. But he sped over it, looking around the hillsides and down along the path that he passed, making sure there were no obvious deviations off of it.

Nothing came up, and as he came to the top of the small rise before the lake,
Ian spotted Maddy. She was nearly to the lake, her hair and dress moving in the breeze.

And
just what did he intend to do?

That was the excellent question he couldn’t
quite answer as he slowed to a jog. Maddy reached the lake well before him and began to stoop and skip rocks across the water.

There came a point,
as he slowed even further into a walk, that he felt the final turning-back point approaching. He could still get away without her having noticed—anyone from their party who could see him now would think poorly of him. His steps grew increasingly difficult, like there was an unconscious force drawing them back that he was terribly aware of.

But he settled his eyes on the way she slowly moved, on the feeling he couldn’t quite force down.

He let his footsteps get a little clumsier, and she suddenly glanced back, startled.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes roving over him quickly. “It’s you.”

“I beg your pardon, milady,” Ian said, dipping his head down as he stopped a bit away from her and to her right, not quite next to the lake. That sentence hung heavy for a second or two, and feeling compelled, he said, “It’s best if your family keeps an escort—especially with it getting dark.”

“Oh,” Maddy said again, turning and flipping a flat rock over the lake a couple of times.

Placing his hands behind him, Ian rocked on his heels, suddenly realizing the possibility that he could fulfill his duty without any serious breach in his credibility with his company. That was perfectly within—

He saw Maddy glance up at him for a long second, her eyes somewhere between the opposite of brave and apprehensive as she bent to pick up a rock.

Letting the soft breeze push against his back, Ian knew he could, that he could just let it go—

Ian
wet his lips, and he wasn’t going to say—“You really are very good at fishing …” he let out his breath—“—milady.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, not stopping her cycle of throwing and stooping to retrieve another.

“And I’m not just saying that to be polite,” Ian said. “Everyone knows it.”

“Who care
s?” Maddy asked, almost too quietly for him to hear.

“Who cares?” he laughed before he thought better of it. Coughing a little into his hand,
Ian rearranged himself and kicked at the rocks he was standing on. “The whole company is in fits because we haven’t beaten you yet. It’s actually quite humiliating. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

He thought he saw a ghost of a smile run across her lips, but it was hard to tell in the light. “In any case—
” he continued, “even though it has been terrible on me—rather awful actually—I’m glad you are so talented. It’s quite amazing."

“Did someone tell you to come here?” she asked, frowning deeply
at something across the pond.

“No, of course not,”
Ian said, kicking some of the rocks into the water as he walked toward her a few steps. But then he thought that maybe she had been hoping he had been ordered after her—“I mean—I am sure I would have been, but I just thought that someone should stay with you.”

She didn’t say anything.

Abruptly aware of his unpreoccupied nature, Ian bent and picked up the first rock that came to hand. It wasn’t actually very fit for trans-aquatic movement, but he managed to get one misshapen skip out of it.

They did that for a couple minutes, his internal clock growing increasingly anxious as the last
remnants of daylight faded. Fortunately, there were only a few scattered wisps of charcoal-gray clouds, the color schemes that moved across the sky made things much lighter than they otherwise might have been.