Michael A. Stackpole - Dragon Crown Saga 1 - The Dark Glory War
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Book Information:
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Author: Michael A. Stackpole
Name: The Dark Glory War
Series: DragonCrown Saga 1 (Prelude)
======================
CHAPTER
The day they gave me my mask was the first day I felt truly alive. Though I received my
mask over two decades ago, I remember the events surrounding it clearly. The tinge of
win-ter had not quite left the air that year, so even as we were coming to Mid-Summer’s
Eve the days were cooler than nor-mal. Many people were happy with the weather, since
the previous year had been a scorcher, and some went so far as to suggest that the mild
weather might have betokened the death of Chytrine, the scourge of the Northlands. I
didn’t care about the weather or the tyrant of Aurolan because this was my eighteenth
summer, which made it special and me anxious.
The mask I got was, not, of course, the first mask I had ever worn, nor would it be
the last. It was a simple moonmask, as white as the orb for which it was named. If the
gods smiled and I proved worthy, as the moon again became full I would be awarded
my first life mask, and this moonmask would be a memento of my transition from
childhood frivolity to adult responsibility.
It had been my intention, that morning, to wake early and dress myself, as befit my
new station in life. I wanted to be able to greet my father as an adult in all but the mask
he would bring. Unfortunately I awoke much too early, spent time in my bed wondering
if I should get up or go to sleep again, then fell asleep and remained so rather solidly
until, dimly, I heard my father’s heavy tread on the stairs. Before I could rub sleep-sand
from my eyes, the door opened and he entered my room.
My memory of his coming to me that mid-summer morn-ing, bearing the mask, still
endures and is one of my most favorite of him. All over Oriosa other children in their
eigh-teenth summer were also receiving their masks. For many of them the presentation
would be a family affair, but among the Hawkinses, fathers presented masks to sons,
mothers to daughters, making it a more intimate and solemn occasion. I welcomed this
moment of serenity before what I guessed would be a month of controlled insanity.
My father stood there, at the foot of my bed, looking down at me. His life mask,
which he seldom wore in our house, had a fearsome visage. White temeryx feathers,
with their shifting rainbow highlights, splayed out and back at the mask’s tem-ples. The
cut of the mask’s lower edge had been sharpened into a hawk’s beak over his nose. This
had been done both as a play on our name and the fact that Lord Norrington and his
father before him had often used my father to hunt enemies the way another might
loose a hawk on a varmint. Orphan notches had been cut by each eye and the brown
leather had two green ribbons stitched into the portion covering his fore-head. Those
marked awards for bravery, one from Lord Nor-rington and the other from the hand of
the Oriosan queen.
A hank of blond and silver hair hung down over the mask’s forehead and bisected the
ribbons. My father refused to wear a cowl, though entitled to do so, preferring to let
others see his full head of hair. Through the mask’s narrowed eyeslits I could see his
brown eyes, perhaps the hint of a tear glistening in an orphan notch. He never cried
from pain, my father, physical pain, anyway. But other hurts, or life’s joys, could tickle a
tear from his eyes.
Though he did not stand as tall as I, he was still a big man and broader through the
chest and shoulders than I was. Growing up, he’d seemed bigger, and yet even as I grew
into my adult size, I always thought of him as bigger than me. Though he was entering
the twilight of his life, my father still possessed the strength of his youth and served as
Lord Nor-rington’s Peaceward in Valsina.
He raised his hands slowly, bearing between them the sim-ple strip of white leather I
would wear for the next month. “Arise, Tarrant Hawkins. At an end are the carefree days
of your youth. Upon this mask, and many like it, will be written the story of your life as a
man.”
I threw back my blanket, and with only the crackle of the straw mattress and the
groan of old floorboards to break the silence, I stood before my father. I plucked a piece
of straw from the sleeve of my nightshirt, then ran fingers back through my black hair
and snagged another piece. They fell to the floor as my hands returned to my sides.
I’d waited for this day forever, it seemed. The full moon closest to mid-summer
marked the day we’d get our moon-masks. Everyone my age knew the full moon would
fall exactly on mid-summer, which meant we would be blessed and spe-cial. Great things
would be expected from us, and I hoped I would prove worthy of such an auspicious
omen. Ever since I’d learned that the full moon would fall on mid-summer in my year, I
had worked to prepare for this day and the rest of my life beyond it.
The problem was, however, that preparing for the un-known was not a simple task. I
knew, in general, what would happen during my Moon Month. While I’d been barred
from the festivities surrounding similar awards to my brothers and sisters, the results of
their Moon Months were not hard to see. Noni, my eldest sister, had emerged betrothed
from her month, while my older brothers had won positions in the Frontier Lancers and
the Oriosan Scouts respectively. It seemed to me to be pretty clear that during their
month they had been the subjects of negotiations or recruitment that set them on a path
for the rest of their lives.
Reaching up, my father pressed the leather mask against my face, then raised my left
hand to hold it in place. I turned in compliance with his pressure on my shoulder and felt
him tighten the mask in place. A bit of my hair caught in the knot
and pulled, but I knew that had not been an accident.
The hair and the mask are
equally now part of me. I am the mask and it is me.
“Turn around, boy. Let me look at you.” I turned back to face him and saw a proud
smile broaden the lower half of his face. “You already wear the mask well, Tarrant.”
“Thank you, Father.”
He waved me back toward my bed. “Sit for a moment, I’ve got something to tell you.”
He lowered his voice and glanced back at the door, then crouched at my knees. “You’re
my last child to get a mask, but none have been so ready for it. In your training you’ve
worked hard. You still make mistakes, you’ve still things to learn, but you don’t quit, and
your loyalty to friends, especially the Norringtons, well, that fires my heart, it does.
“Now your mother, she is fair to bursting with pride in you, but she’s also fit to weep
at losing you. You’ll be remem-bering that, Tarrant, and you’ll put up with her fussing
about. When you’re finally a man, she’ll learn to retreat a bit—and likely you’ll have an
appreciation of her that you’ve not had before. For now, though, know your growing up
is as difficult on her as it will be on you.”
I nodded solemnly and felt the mask’s tails gently slapping my neck. “I’d not do
anything to hurt her
or you.”
“I know, you’re a good lad.” He patted my knee with a calloused hand. Liverspots and
scars were woven together in his flesh. “You’re also going to have to remember that you
wear the mask everywhere, at all times, save here in your home, with your family. Yes, I
know there are those who think shedding the mask amid friends is acceptable, but we’re
an old family. We’ve taken the mask since the days when one had to, and we’re not
surrendering a tradition for which our ancestors shed blood. Promise me, boy, that you’ll
always wear your mask.”
I laid my hand on top of his. “You have my promise.”
“Good.” He glanced down at the floor for a moment, then nodded. “Your brothers,
they’re good men, but not quite as bright as you. When I gave them their masks, I gave
them some advice about what will be going on in the next month. For you I’ve not got
anything to say that you don’t already know. For some people the Moon Month is a
chance to start over. For others it’s a chance to start. For you, though, it is a chance to
continue learning and growing into the man you want to be.“
He straightened, then looked down at me. “You know, Tarrant, I’ve no favorites
among my children. I love you all, but I will say this: if I were out in the forests and lost,
with frostclaws coursing me, there’s one of you I know would find me and help me.
That’s you, lad. The others would try, don’t get me wrong, but you’d manage it. By luck
or pluck, you’d do it. For that reason among many I am very proud of you.”
The pride welling up in my chest robbed me of words. I smiled at my father and he
nodded in return.
“Come on, lad, I’ll be introducing you to your family now.” He opened the door to my
room, then ushered me onto the walkway that provided access to the house’s upper
rooms. My mother and my two brothers had gathered in the entry-way, at the base of
the stairs—just this side of the entryway’s mask-curtain—but I did nothing more than
glance at them. In keeping with custom, they did not even acknowledge my existence.
I preceded my father down the stairs, then let him pass me. He cleared his throat and
my unmasked kin smiled at him. “This being the fifteenth day of the month of Gold, I
would like to present to you a new Hawkins. He is Tarrant.”
I bowed my head to them. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
My oldest brother, Doke, wearing a semiserious expression on his face, offered me his
hand. “Captain Doke Hawkins of the Frontier Lancers, at your service.”
“And I am Sallitt Hawkins, Lieutenant in the Oriosan Scouts.” Sallitt swept a hank of
red hair out of his eyes and shook my hand. “Tarrant, you say? I once knew a Tarrant
Hawkins. Bit of a bother.”
My mother hissed at him. “Hush now, Sal. Pleased to be meeting you, Tarrant.”
“The pleasure is all mine.” I took my mother’s heart hand in mine and kissed it gently.
She turned away quickly so I couldn’t see her face. Dawn light pouring in through the
front windows caught the long veins of grey running through her brown hair. I’d noticed
them before and had even kidded her about them. But now, seeing them through the
slits in a moonmask, I felt the first cold jolt of mortality. My mother and father had been
part of my life forever—or, rather, until this day I had been part of their lives. Now I had
my own life to live, one that would take me away from them. I was a seed fallen away
from the tree, to sprout and thrive on my own, or to fail to do so on the same terms.
As if my mother could read my thoughts and wanted to counter them, she pointed to
the rough-hewn table over by the kitchen hearth. “We would welcome you into our
home, Tarrant. Please, join us.”
I crossed the open room and sat at the guest end of the table. Placed there was a loaf
of bread, a green apple, a tiny bowl of salt, a small wheel of cheese, and a pitcher of ale.
Cups and plates had been set at four more places, but no food had been laid out at
them. I sat, then the others, each watching me with a mixture of amusement and pride
shining in their eyes.
First I took up the apple and carved a small wedge from it. It being a little early in the
season for apples, the fruit tasted quite tart, but it had been the first solid food I had
eaten after birth, so here I consumed it first after my rebirth. I chewed and swallowed,
then quartered the remaining apple and passed it out among my kin.
Likewise I took the first piece of bread and cheese, then divided the remainder. I also
poured the ale into each cup and added a dash of salt to each. I raised the cup of ale and
offered the traditional moonmask toast. “To the nest become a stronghold, and the
blood ties that bind this family together.”
We all drank and solemnly set our cups down. The crack-ling of the kitchen fire filled
the silence for a second, then my brothers chuckled and Doke reached for the ale pitcher.
“Are you prepared for your Moon Month, little brother? Fretting the adventures you’ll
have?”
“Fretting? No.” I smiled and could feel the flesh of my cheeks press against the mask.
“What do I have to be afraid of?”
My brothers laughed again, and even my father joined in. My mother gave him a stern
glance and laid a hand on his arm, then nodded toward my brothers. My father’s
laughter tumbled into a rumble, then died in a cough. He advanced his cup toward
Sallitt.
“You’ll be wanting to tease Tarrant, but you’re old enough to know better, the both of
you. You could have him thinking all manner of horrible things.” My father drew back
the full cup and sipped the foam off the top. “I think you’ll recall he was quite respectful
of you two during your Moon Months.”
I remembered my father having pulled me aside during Doke’s Moon Month. I was
just a boy, a good ten years younger than Doke, and my father told me I was not to
pester him about anything. “He’s your brother, and that’s just it. You’ll be leaving him
alone and not be asking about this and that. Understand?”
I said I did even though I didn’t, but I also kept to myself all the questions I wanted
to ask. Thinking back on it there at the table, I remember one of Doke’s eyes having
been blacked—badly enough that the bruise reddened his eyeball and extended well
beyond the protection of the mask. And I remembered Sallitt, two years later, limping
for the latter half of his Moon Month, which made him rather sour since he couldn’t
dance worth a lick at the various parties.
Recalling their injuries did make me wonder what I’d be facing. While I did know
what the end result of my brother’s Moon Months were, I really didn’t know what they’d
gone through during them. I mean stories of the parties and feasts were common
knowledge. While, as a kid, I could not attend, everyone my age had seen the
preparations for various events. Still and all, I didn’t recall seeing much of either of my
broth-ers during that month of their lives.
All stories that I knew concerning what one did during a Moon Month came from kin
of merchants and tradesfolk. I’d heard of one girl who’d been shut away in a cottage
spinning wool into yarn, or a baker’s-boy who had been tasked with making as much
bread as he could in a day. Those sorts of monumental tasks were really the stuff of fey
stories, though, so I didn’t set much store by them. The not knowing, however . . . that
did start to get my stomach gnawing on itself.
Doke looked over at me and smiled at the trace of concern his question had sparked.
He settled a big hand around the back of my neck and shook me playfully. “Don’t you
worry, Tarrant. Nothing that will happen to you hasn’t happened to many before. They
survived, as will you.”
“Just survive? I would like more than that.”
“So would many others, Tarrant.” My father gave me a big smile. “But, survival comes
first. Remember that and you’ll be starting ahead of your fellows. Be yourself, and they’ll
never have a chance to catch up.”
Valsina, like any other Oriosan city or town, hosted a moon-mask gala on
Mid-Summer’s Eve. The city-sponsored gala was not the only one held that night.
Various guilds or religious sects held their own, but the city affair was by invita-tion only
and involved the children from the finest families, a few of the brightest guild offerings,
and a dozen or so people chosen by lot. Back then I didn’t see that these “lucky ones”
were really allowed to attend as curiosities. It was expected that the one night they spent
in our company would likely be the highest they would rise in their lifetimes. In my
excitement I missed the cruelty entirely.
I spent the day as most others my age did, moving through a prescribed series of
activities meant to reflect the new me. I began with a hot bath and good scrubbing,
using a special cake of soap that had enough lye and grit in it to grind down the hoof of
a horse. It left me red all over and tingling. My brothers helped me get over that feeling
by dousing me with frigid water to rinse off.
I washed my hair, too, and my mother trimmed it up some. I didn’t go as far as some
folks did, shaving their heads completely, but my mother allowed as how that was right
since I’d been born with a full head of hair anyway. There were folks, generally out in
the hinterlands, who actually bashed a tooth out of their moonmasked children, since
few folks are born with teeth, but in the city we didn’t go that far. The rebirth was
symbolic, after all, and we were coming into adult life as adults, not newborn babes.
I got dressed in a new set of clothes, from tunic and trou-sers to stockings, boots,
and belt. The tunic was green, of the same shade as those worn by Lord Norrington’s
retainers, and the trousers brown, though not as dark as the boots or belt. I wasn’t
allowed to wear so much as a knife. Tradition had it that a moonmasker shouldn’t be
saddled with the weapons of war, preserving innocence and all. I suspect there’s a more
practical reason, though, since not a few moonmaskers get puffed up by their status and
are giddy enough to do stupid things like challenge others to duels.
From home, with my mask in place, I made my way to the Godfield area of town.
Valsina itself started in a small valley at the convergence of two rivers, and spread out
over the years to cover the surrounding hills. Beyond it to the south and west are the
Bokagul Mountains—home to one group of urZrethi, though I’d never seen any of them
when I was in the moun-tains. From there the rivers flowed north and east across the
plains. At Valsina the Sut and Car Rivers become the Carst River, which twists on into
Muroso on its way to the Crescent Sea to the northwest.
The city itself is over five hundred years old. The original walls form a triangle in the
middle of the city. Things spread out from there, with the architecture becoming less
massive, less martial, and varying from elegant, like the Norrington Manor on South Hill,
to more rundown and dismal along the river. Godfield lies just north of the Old Fort and
is lined with temples and shrines. Despite being one of the older sections of town, the
buildings are newer and quite impressive, but that’s because most of them have tumbled
down or gone up in flames at one point or another, allowing their congregations to start
over and thus outshine the competition.
The Temple to Kedyn, the warrior god, had been built broad and strong. The grey
and white stones used to build it were both crudely quarried and dragged from the fields
wher-ever they lay. In some cases they were even hauled a long distance from the site of
some memorable battles. The stones were then fitted together, with edges smoothed
and outlines softened, leaving their natural shape mostly intact, but uniting them with
the other stones to form a cohesive whole. Doke had once suggested to me that the
builders intended the struc-ture to suggest that different people, united in a cause, would
be stronger than any individual alone, and that seemed to make sense.
Of course, anyone growing up in Oriosa and destined to take the mask read a lot of
symbolism into almost anything. We tended to look for added meaning in things, trying
to find intent when nothing more serious than an accident had hap-pened. I’d heard my
father often say that men of other nations hated that trait in us, and suggested we
looked too hard for meanings. But he also said the ones who complained the loud-est
were those who didn’t want their hidden plans discovered.
I mounted the steps to the temple and bowed my head as I entered. Heavy pillars
supported a tall ceiling and each ended in a cap shaped like the blade of a broad-ax.
Stairs in the corners led up to a broad balcony, known as the priest’s-walk, which
provided access to upper chambers. The priests main-tained their personal quarters up
there, as well as offices and storage space for seasonal decorations.
The dome over the far end of the temple had been shaped to resemble the underside
of a shield. A statue of Kedyn lurked beneath it. All massive and terrible, the statue’s
base rested in a depression that had been sunk below street level and had steps leading
down to it. Sand covered the stone disk that formed the base, and in it were scores of
glowing coals sending thick ribbons of musky incense drifting up over Kedyn’s form.
Scars crisscrossed his body where the cloak of dragon flesh did not cover it, and the
helmet crested with dragon’s claws hid his face in deep shadows. Kedyn wore no mask
here in Oriosa, but his body bore the signs with which we would have deco-rated a
mask. He was matched to us and us to him.
Murals depicting well-known battles or the exploits of fa-mous heroes decorated the
interior walls. Scattered through-
out the main floor were statues of heroes and, in a few places, stone slabs marking
the graves of Oriosan heroes from Valsina and the surrounding county who were
deemed great and brave enough to be buried in the temple itself. No Hawkins had yet
earned that honor, but my father said it was because we had the misfortune of surviving
the sort of heroic acts that usually killed others and earned them a place in the temple.
My mother, in raising us all, encouraged us to continue in that tradition.
Off to the right was a small shrine to Gesric, the godling of retribution, and one of
Kedyn’s children. Back and to the left was another smaller shrine to the crone Fesyin,
Gesric’s half-sister. She’d been born of a union between Kedyn and the female aspect of
death. She governed pain, and many were the ill and maimed who made offerings to her
to relieve their suffering. Her shrine stunk of
metholanth incense, which did not mix well
with the muskier stuff offered to Kedyn.
I crossed to where one of the acolytes sold little charcoal biscuits shaped like a shield
and thimblefuls of the incense powder favored by Kedyn. I offered him a fresh-minted
Moon coin—a gold coin that I was honor bound to offer only once to any purveyor of
goods in the city. The acolyte refused pay-ment and gave me the charcoal and incense
with a quick bless-ing. It was understood that in the future I would compensate, by
action or through money, the kindness of everyone who refused to take my Moon
coin—and by the next full moon it would be accepted as payment without a second
thought by any merchant I offered it to.
I took the charcoal shield down the steps to the base and held the shield in the flame
of an igniter. I waited until the edge had caught, then blew on it gently. Sparks jumped
from the slowly expanding crescent until the coal burned bright red. I placed it down in
the sand, elevating the unburned edge ever so slightly, then knelt and bowed my head.
It is said that the first prayer offered to a god by one of the moonmasked is the
prayer most likely to be granted. Most folks say this with the assumption that the gods,
who remain largely unseen and unheard from, favor the innocence with which such
prayers are offered. Others, who have known some of the more self-confident of the
moonmasked, assume the gods perversely grant that first prayer since most people
dis-cover it is not truly what they wanted or needed. And still others assume that the
gods, like most moonmasked, are just silly and enjoy granting prayers that the faithful
have no way of handling.
I had given long and considerable thought to the prayer I would offer. The warrior
god was the god to which the Haw-kins men paid their respects, and he had done well
by us. The prayer I offered then would be the same as a prayer I might offer in the field,
but here it was meant to cover my entire life instead of provide support in an immediate
situation. I had my choice of the prayers for any of the six Martial Virtues, and sorting
through them had not been a simple task.
No one prayed for Patience, though my father said that particular invocation was
useful in the field when more wait-ing was being done than fighting. Many folks prayed
for Mien—that collection of physical attributes such as strength, speed, and endurance
that were crucial in combat. Courage and Spirit were also popular, as was Battlesight, or
the ability to see and plan clearly for the campaigns to come. Each of them had their
attraction for me, but I rejected them in the end. Physically I was well suited to being a
warrior. I under-stood war and how it was waged, and realized that if I lived I’d learn
more all the time. Courage and Spirit were things I thought I possessed, but at eighteen
summers of age, there was no way to know for certain. Still, the arrogance of youth
al-lowed me to imagine myself as not lacking in those areas.
What I asked for was Control. As I faced life and war, I wanted no illusions, no fog of
war to confuse me, no momen-tary madness to leave me wondering where I was, why I
was there, and what I should be doing. I wanted the clarity of mind that eludes many
and without which all the other gifts would be useless. I knew that if my prayer were
granted, I would find no escape from the madness that was war, that I would have to
live with memories both exquisite and horri-ble, but better to live with them than not to
live at all.
Over the years I have been given to wonder if my choice was based in innocence,
arrogance, or some sort of delicious insanity that compelled me to want to know just
how com-pletely mad I should be.
I curled my left hand into a fist and clutched it to my breastbone, as if I were holding
a shield covering my chest. My right hand poured the thimble of incense on the charcoal,
then I extended my right arm down and away from my body, as if I were pointing a
drawn sword at the ground. The incense began to smolder, pulsing a guttering ribbon of
white smoke into the air.
“Most divine Kedyn, hear my prayer.” I kept my voice low, so as not to disturb the
warriors to either side of me. “You are the wellspring from which all heroism flows. Your
mind pos-sesses the razored edge that parts fiction from fact, rumor from truth, fears
from reality. I beseech you to hone my mind that I may see clearly, think clearly, and
know in my heart and head what I must do, when I must do it, and how it will be best
done. With your aid I will never shrink from battle, shirk my duty, or abandon those who
most depend upon me. This I pledge on my honor, now and for all time.”
I glanced up at the statue. Smoke gathered around it like a thunderhead and I waited
for a quick lightning strike. I got none, and realized I would have no sign of my prayer
being heard or granted. Then I smiled as I wondered if that realiza-tion itself confirmed
that Kedyn had granted me Control.
Or it could just be self-deception, which would be
evidence of the op-posite?
Rising from my place, I ascended the steps again and pre-sented myself to the
acolyte. He took out a small carved stamp, inked it, and pressed it to my moonmask,
below my right eye. It left there the tridentine sigil that marked my affili-ation with
Kedyn. I bowed to him, then wandered out of the temple.
As I emerged from the temple, two moonmasked youths sitting at the base of the
temple steps rose and started up toward me. Both wore clothes with a similar color
scheme to mine, but their garments had been fashioned of silk that flashed in the
sunlight. Each wore a big grin and had temple marks on their moonmasks.
I recognized them instantly, but had to play through the charade of our being
moonmasked. “Good day, my men. Who under the moon are you?”
“I am Rounce Playfair.” Rounce stood almost as tall as me, wasn’t nearly as big as I
am, but almost made up in quickness what he lacked in strength. His brown hair had
been trimmed short, in a style I knew his father favored, but his brown eyes sparked
with enough mischief that I knew he’d not taken his shearing badly. His moonmask bore
the mark of Kedyn, which surprised me, since I thought he’d have tended more toward
Erlinsax, the goddess of wisdom, or Graegen, the male aspect of justice.
“And I,” offered the shorter, blond man, “am Bosleigh Norrington.” Leigh’s blue eyes
sparkled as he sketched a quick but ornate bow. He surrendered nearly a hand-width of
height to me and nearly twenty pounds. His moonmask likewise had been marked in the
warrior temple, but there never was a choice for Leigh. Despite being somewhat small
and not all that fast, he was Lord Norrington’s son, and that meant a warrior was all he
could ever hope to be. Luckily for Leigh, it was all he had ever
wanted to be. Though no
one thought he’d be the warrior his father was, most figured he’d manage to uphold the
Norrington honor nonetheless.
“Pleased to meet both of you. I am Tarrant Hawkins.” I drew myself up to my full
height, then frowned slightly. “Why the warrior mark, Rounce? I didn’t think you were
inclined toward a warrior’s life.”
Rounce shrugged. “The warrior virtues help those dealing with conflict, Tarrant.
Business is conflict, hence my choice. Besides, Leigh pointed out that the trident has
three tines, so the three of us should stick together. We’ll be stronger that way.”
“True enough.” I nodded toward Leigh. “So wither are you bound, my lord?”
Leigh struck a noble pose, though his being a step below me and that much shorter
made it seem a bit ridiculous. “There is a tailor who is completing my costume for this
eve-ning. I’ll give him moongold for it—my family pays him enough each year he can
well afford to let this one suit of clothes go by without payment. Then back to the manor
for I something to eat before the gala. You’ll come with, of course. Rounce is coming,
and some of the others. Do say you’ll come. I won’t take no for an answer.“
I sighed. “I will try, Leigh, but no promises. My sister Noni and her children are
coming, and my mother hopes Annas will be there, too.”
“Well, far be it from me to spoil a Hawkins gathering.” Leigh’s eyes brightened. “You
should bring them all, even Noni’s brood. Your father is my father’s Peaceward; you’ll all
be welcome. You simply must come, all of you.”
“I will try, Leigh.”
Rounce leaned a forearm on Leigh’s shoulder. “That’s what he always says when he
knows he won’t join us.”
I grinned. “My father, he is stuck in his ways. It’s the way of his generation, not Lord
Norrington’s or ours. . . . The only way he’ll go to Norrington Manor is if he is on official
duty or if Lord Norrington asks him to be there. It would practically take an armed escort
to get him to bring the fam-ily.”
“Well, then, Tarrant, when we have taken our father’s places, the rules will be
changed, won’t they? Open doors and all that, I think. I won’t have it any other way.”
Leigh slipped his shoulder from beneath Rounce’s forearm, then laughed as Rounce
stumbled. “Come on, Rounce, we have things to do. We shall see you tonight, then,
Tarrant, yes?”
I helped steady Rounce. “I will plead the case to my father, Leigh, but make no
promises. If I do not see you there, I will find you at the gala.”
“Good, then.” Leigh threw me a sloppy salute. “Tonight our lives truly begin, and the
world will never be the same.”
JT’t ruth be told, I would have welcomed some sameness to the I world, if only
because of the tear in my mother’s eye as she 1 smoothed the breast of my doublet that
evening. I knew then that my growing up hurt her in ways I could not imagine and,
worse, could do nothing to counter. I’d tried to head things off by talking to my father
about Leigh’s invitation, but he was unswayed—as I’d expected. Instead I remained with
my family, catching my mother getting misty-eyed despite the joyful fellowship of a
family come together once again.
Valsina’s gala was held at Senate Palace. The large and rather ornately decorated
building had steps that led up into a rotunda. Portraits and statues of leaders decorated
it, but the most striking feature was the gallery of masks that matched those of the
Senators serving in Upper and Lower Assemblies. The sixteen members of the Upper
Assembly were nobles elected by the Lower Assembly, which was made up of trades-folk
and nobles from cadet branches of the houses. Each had to be able to trace his family
back to the time of the Great Revolt, and while many folks in Oriosa could do that, only
those who had amassed a certain amount of material wealth ever reached the Senate
floor.
On this night the Upper Assembly’s small gallery, which sat above and behind the
entryway to the Lower Assembly floor, had been staffed with musicians who played a
host of songs which had been sanctified by their antiquity. To enter the gala, I passed
through a long corridor that led beneath the orchestra and brought me out at the head
of some long steps going down to the rectangular assembly floor. A wide-railed walkway
ringed the room to provide space for spectators wanting to study the Assemblies in
action but, unlike tonight, chairs were not usually provided.
I paused at the head of the stairs as a masked chamberlain in red pounded his staff
against the floor twice, then announced me. “I present Master Tarrant Hawkins.” Mild
applause, mostly from the spectators, followed the announcement, then I de-scended the
steps.
The room spread out wide on either side of me. A massive castle of ascending high
benches split the far wall as the stairs did at this side. The hardwood platforms rose one
above the other, front to back, and normally housed the Assembly’s Speaker and his
various deputies, but this night were fes-tooned with flowers. A big, round silver mirror,
reminiscent of the moon, hung from the Speaker’s seat and provided us with a view that
gathered us all together and shrank us down to nothing. Tables laden with food and
drink surrounded the Speaker’s platform as if breastworks to hold us at bay.
I quickly spotted Rounce and joined him at a table where a servant pressed a goblet
of wine into my hands. The vintage was a red that was both dry and hearty, though it
had a touch of sweetness and the faint flavor of berries. It was a wine that had aged,
which surprised me, since the moonmasked often got brand-new wines that had yet to
mature.
I smiled at Rounce. “Good wine.”
“I know, I picked it out.” He bowed his head to me as applause descended from
above in the wake of another entrant being announced. “The Speaker asked my father to
supply the wine for this evening, and he intended to use the first pressing from last year,
but I prevailed upon him to go deeper in the cellar. He almost balked, but I reminded
him that what moon-gold buys now, real gold will buy later, and having us remem-ber
the wine as good instead of symbolic would be best.”
“Good thinking.” I sipped more wine and raised my goblet in a salute to him.
“Though thoughts like that are what made me wonder about your tridentine mark.”
He gave me a quick smirk. “Armies need quartermasters, don’t they?”
“My father never reported having good wine in the field.”
“Then I’ll have to change that.” He held his goblet in both hands and looked down
into it. “I thought about Graegen, as you suggested, or even Turic . . .”
“Turk? You’d pledge yourself to Death?”
“The female aspect is more concerned with change than death, but you can’t say that
death has not changed my for-tunes. Here I started life as the first son of a merchant
who had a noble for a cousin, then an illness takes that branch of the family and
suddenly we’re elevated. I’m not really different than I was before, but . . .”
I nodded. I had seen Rounce in Valsina before his family’s elevation when I
accompanied my mother on her trips to market. Playfair & Sons Traders were known as
honest mer-chants, but Rounce and I were just kids who eyed each other suspiciously.
When his father became a noble, the family firm became Playfair & Sons Trading
Company, and Rounce was expected to move into new social circles. He ended up in the
same student battalion as Leigh and I. Being bigger than most others since we’d gotten
our growth early, we were thrown together in many exercises, thereby becoming friends.
“As my father says, Rounce, ‘It’s not the man in the pretti-est uniform before the
battle that’s remembered, but the man who’s still standing after it.’ You’re one of those
who will still be standing.”
“Only if you’re holding me up.” Rounce slapped me on the arm. “By the way, be
prepared. You were missed at dinner and Leigh might be in a bit of a mood.”
“And this would be unusual because . . . ?”
Rounce laughed, then pointed up at the top of the stairs. “You’ll see. Here’s our little
Leigh now.”
The echoes of the staff reverberated through the hall. It took the third staff-strike to
kill the murmuring voices, and the fourth buried them in silence. The chamberlain waited
a heartbeat or two to guarantee no ghost of conversation lingered, then made his
announcement. “I present Lord Bos-leigh Norrington.”
Leigh, at the top of the stairs, bowed handsomely as hearty applause washed over
him. The night’s dress code had re-quired us to wear something other than our
moonmasks that was white—which Rounce and I accomplished with our shirts. Leigh
had gone a considerable step further, decked out in a full jacket made of white satin,
with lace at the throat and cuffs. His pants likewise were white satin and ran down to his
knees, where they met white stockings. His shoes, which were low cut, had been cobbled
together from white leather and had big silver buckles.
He descended the stairs at a leisurely pace, smiling and waving at those below,
bowing his head at the spectators above. Leigh was in his element, with all eyes on him.
It had been that way since his birth, to hear my father tell it, since he was Lord
Norrington’s firstborn and a son. The boy had grown into a man used to such attention,
who was, in many ways, uncomfortable when he didn’t get it.
Rounce and I looked at each other and laughed as Leigh reached the floor. He
continued to make his way toward us, pausing to bow to the girls who giggled at him.
His progress through the crowd took long enough for me to nearly finish my wine.
Rounce had started on another full goblet by the time Leigh arrived.
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