The Lords Of The Crimson River

Chapter 10

Blade could have spent the next few weeks going to one feast after another, being fed and wined and plied with women and praise. Defeating Orric made him for the moment the most popular man in the Duchy of Nainan, except among Orric's allies. These were lying low for the moment, although Duke Cyron, Marshal Alsin, and Blade were all sure they would be heard from again.

Meanwhile, Blade found many ways of spending his time.

There was giving Lord Chenosh fencing lessons.

It was an unusually cool morning for early summer along the Crimson River, and the gray sky promised rain later in the day. Blade and Chenosh rode out to the practice field. Not for the first time, Blade noticed how well the youth handled his horse with only one good hand.

Blade also remembered Chenosh's words the first time he praised the young Lord for his skill in riding.

«It seemed to me that because I could not fight I had to do everything else better than anyone else. I do not know if I could have done this if my father had lived. He always felt that a crippled son and a proud daughter who'd killed her mother in being born were a sign of the Fathers' anger. He showed us the bitterness he could not show toward the Fathers:

«Fortunately, he died when Miera and I were young enough for my grandfather to heal some of the wounds. My grandfather thinks his son's death was bad luck, but I do not. When I come to rule Nainan, I will be very young, but I will be a better Duke than I would have been if I'd endured my father for another twenty years.»

They dismounted where their previous fencing bouts had already worn the grass away and packed the earth hard. They went through their warming-up exercises, then pulled on mail coats and the special fencing helmets with visors. Blade didn't expect these new helmets to become popular for war in a Dimension without archery. All he wanted was to keep himself or Chenosh from accidentally losing an eye.

They spent an hour doing exercises, then rested and talked. After that they fought three free-style matches. As usual Blade won all three, but his margin of victory was shrinking steadily.

«You're going to score your first victory before long,» he told Chenosh when they were wiping off the sweat afterward. «My longer reach already does as much for me as my skill.»

Chenosh frowned. «You mean that?»

«I haven't any reason to flatter you, Chenosh. So don't bristle as if I was one of your grandfather's courtiers. How long do you think I would live if you got yourself killed by believing my false praise? I value my own skin as much as any honorable Lord can do!»

Chenosh laughed. «Blade, I am beginning to believe that you are really as honest as you say you are.» The pleasure left his face. «I wish-I wish my father had been like you, Blade. If he had been, both Miera and I…»

Blade found himself unable to look an eighteen-year-old boy in the face. It struck him that if he'd led a more normal life in Home Dimension, he might by now very well have a son not much younger than Chenosh. He'd fathered children in a good many Dimensions and even knew the fate of one of them-Rikard, who might still be ruling the land called Tharn. None of this was quite the same as being able to raise, teach, and send out into the world a child of his own.

«Well,» he said. «The Fathers send each of us where they will. The only thing we can do is the best we can wherever they send us. You've certainly lived your life that way, and I've tried to do the same. Perhaps that's what draws us together.»

«Perhaps,» said Chenosh. Then, seeing Blade's embarrassment, he changed the subject. If he was going to fight without a shield or with only a small one, what about special armor for his right arm? A piece of heavy plate extending from the elbow down to the wrist would make it harder for an opponent to draw blood. It would also balance the sword in his left hand, and perhaps even let him use his right arm as a weapon. The arm itself was sound enough; it was only the hand which was crippled.

By the time they'd mounted their horses and were riding back to Castle Ranit, Blade was so interested in this new subject that he'd forgotten the embarrassing moment in the field.

Then there were dinners with Miera.

Sometimes Chenosh joined his sister, sometimes there was only the girl herself with her nurse as chaperone.

It was after dinner one evening, and they were nibbling salted nuts and drinking beer. Wine was the more lordly drink, but Miera preferred beer. They talked of the day's news and events.

«What have you heard about the Captain of the Duke's Guard?» asked Miera.

«Only the same thing everyone's heard. He fell from his horse last night and smashed one leg so badly he may never walk right again.»

«Have you heard that he was drunk?»

«Are you telling me or asking me?» replied Blade, with a grin. He enjoyed these verbal games with Miera, even though he knew they were considered highly improper for an unmarried woman. However, Miera didn't care a fig for propriety, and for once her grandfather and Marshal Alsin seemed willing to let her have her own way.

«Asking,» she said. «By all the stories I've heard he was a fine rider, too good to fall unless he was drunk.»

«I haven't heard that he was drunk, either,» said Blade cautiously. He was aware of the nurse at the other end of the table, well within hearing. He was also aware of his desire to go on treating Miera like a human being, instead of the way the Lords of this land were expected to treat even the best-born women. «It was raining a little,» he added. «The road might have been wet, and he was riding fast the way he always did.»

«Yes. It might have been wet.» A man would have to be deaf not to hear the skepticism in Miera's voice. Then she smiled, her familiar mixture of innocence and sensuality. «I will not press you to tell me what you could not even if you knew it. You have already told me more than anyone except my brother would tell a woman.» She reached a hand across the table and rested two fingers lightly on Blade's wrist. Then she jerked the hand back, as they both heard the nurse hissing like an indignant snake.

Finally, there was getting a Feathered One of his own.

Blade wasn't sure he needed or wanted one, but he seemed to be the only person who thought that. Everyone else assumed that a Lord of his qualities would want his own Feathered One. Even Miera joined her voice to the chorus, one of the few times he'd heard her agree with her grandfather and Alsin in public.

So finally Blade rode off to the ancient castle where the Duchy's Feathered Ones were bred and trained. The castle was the original seat of the Dukes of Nainan, turned over to the Masters of the Feathers when Castle Ranit was finished a century ago.

Since the Duke hadn't appointed a new Master to replace Orric, the place was in charge of Romiss, the Breeder. Romiss was not a Lord by rank, but unlike other non-Lords Blade had met in Nainan, he paid a Lord no unnecessary deference or servility. He knew he was a master of a skilled and demanding craft, and in the matter of choosing Feathered Ones he considered himself the equal of any Lord or even the Duke himself.

«This place is not what it was,» said Romiss at once. «I'll say nothing against you for killing Orric. That was Lords' business. But the Duke's going to have to put someone in his place. I'll thank you to say as much the next time you have his ear.»

«Orric knew his job, I understand.» Blade wanted to draw Romiss into talking about his late master. He wasn't the sort to talk freely, and so far the Duke saw no reason to have him imprisoned and tortured. But if he accidentally dropped a hint here and there…

Romiss did most of the talking as the two men toured the castle. Each Feathered One had a little open wooden cage hung on the wall of a room in the castle. Each room had food, water, and sanitary facilities for its twenty or thirty Feathered Ones. There was also a hospital with a trained veterinarian for sick or pregnant monkeys, a nursery for the young ones, and even a cemetery out in the courtyard for those who died in the castle. Feathered Ones who died in the service of Lords were usually granted elaborately decorated little tombs.

With all the lecturing Romiss did, Blade didn't learn much about his late Master Orric, and nothing about the legend of the Feathered Ones and the meteorite. More immediately important, he didn't learn a thing about how to choose his own Feathered One. Should he go «eeeny-meeny-miny-mo,» look at pedigree, take one home on a trial basis, or simply wait until that mysterious «telepathic link» established itself-if it ever did.

They were climbing the stairs from the hospital when they heard a sudden yip-yip-yip from the head of the stairs. The door flew open and a bucket, several brooms, and four Feathered Ones came crashing, rattling, and squeaking down the stairs. Romiss let out an oath and Blade got ready to fend the little beasts off with the flat of his sword. Sometimes they got out of their rooms and into the wine, then they could be hard to handle.

One of the Feathered Ones was noticeably larger than the other three, but had the most ragged feathers Blade had ever seen. As the monkeys reached the foot of the stairs, the other three turned on the large one. He promptly kicked one opponent in the face, pulled a handful of feathers out of a second one's head, then dashed back up the stairs. His opponents followed. With a tremendous leap the big monkey hurled himself into the air and landed on the highest spot in sight: Richard Blade's shoulder.

Romiss swore again. «That's Raggedy, the little-! He's never found a master, and for some reason he doesn't get along with his mates. They'd have killed him a long time ago if it wasn't for his being so good at escaping. Usually he gets out alone, but this time the other three must have been expecting something like that. So they followed him.»

Romiss seemed to be casually assuming a rather high degree of intelligence in the Feathered Ones. Blade decided to play along with him. «Do you think the word about Raggedy is getting around?»

Romiss scratched his shaggy gray head. «Hope not,» he said after a moment. «Then he won't last long. Kinder to take him out and kill him now.»

At those words Raggedy's feathers bristled as much as they could, his eyes narrowed to slits, and his mouth opened to display all his yellow teeth. It looked to Blade very much as if he'd understood the words!

«Does he have any other vices besides escaping?» he asked.

Romiss shook his head. «Not that I know of, although it'll be awhile before he makes any sort of a show, with his feathers-You aren't going to take him, are you?»

«Why not?»

«The Duke wouldn't like you being given a Feathered One who couldn't-«

«Why don't we let the Duke speak for himself, my friend? He told me only to come and find a Feathered One who suited me. I think this one will suit me.» Unspoken was Blade's thought: He's lived alone, too. We should understand each other.

Romiss swallowed, looked at Blade, then at Raggedy, then shrugged. «He's yours, then. You'll be paying, of course, and the papers-«

«The Duke will be taking care of all that,» said Blade, absentmindedly scratching the Feathered One's head. The monkey resented the liberty, and showed it by nipping Blade's left ear.

«Ouch! Cheeky little bugger, aren't you? In fact I think that's going to be your new name. From now on you're Cheeky.»

«That's not a lordly name, Lord Blade. I hate to remind you of something like this, but-«

«Then don't remind me of it, Romiss. 'Cheeky' is the name he's been given by a Lord. Therefore it's a lordly name.»

Romiss swallowed harder, realizing he'd gone further than even a Lord as tolerant as Blade would probably allow. «My apologies, Lord Blade.»

«Accepted,» said Blade, and it seemed to him that even if Romiss was somewhat withdrawn, he was at least a decent man, unlikely to have anything to do with any of Orric's treachery. Blade sheathed his sword and strode up the stairs, with Cheeky clinging to his hair. As they reached the top of the stairs, Cheeky squealed in delight, then turned his rump to his late comrades and waved his tale in derisive farewell.