Griffin's Daughter (29 page)

It’s dinner time, you idiot,
Magnes chided himself.
Father won’t be here in the keep.

Duke Teodorus always insisted that the family gather together this one time during the day to eat and discuss family business. Magnes pulled the keep door closed and headed for the great hall.

The sound of multiple voices alerted him to the presence of guests in the great hall this night. Magnes halted just outside the door to gather his wits. He had no wish to face his father in front of an audience, but this particular confrontation could not wait. The door stood slightly ajar. He put an eye to the crack and surveyed the room.

Duke Teodorus occupied his rightful place at the head of the main table. Thessalina sat to his left, dressed in her usual brown and black leathers. To her left sat Father Nath, Amsara’s resident priest. To the duke’s right, in the chair usually reserved for Magnes, slouched the corpulent Lord Taceo, a minor noble and one of Duke Teodorus’s vassals. Taceo’s equally rotund wife had wedged herself into the chair on her husband’s right.

Father Nath had just made a comment about the divisions in the Soldaran Imperial Council over the empress’s plans for war, when Magnes pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

All conversation ceased. Everything, including the very air itself, seemed frozen, as if time had stopped. The sound of his own heartbeat roared thunderously in Magnes’s ears.

“
Gods…Magnes, you’re back!” Thessalina exclaimed, shattering the spell.

“
Hello, Father,” Magnes said. His feet had mysteriously grown roots that now anchored him to the rush-strewn floor. He could not move.

Duke Teodorus slowly lowered his wine goblet and wiped his mouth on a cloth. His face was still, as inscrutable as that of a stone sphinx guarding a desert temple. His icy blue stare fastened onto his son with chilling intensity.

The tension in the room hung as thick as congealed blood. Nobody dared move or speak, not even Thessalina, whose quick eyes darted from her father’s face to her brother’s, then back again.

At last, when Magnes thought he could bear it no longer, the duke spoke.

“
Tell me, Daughter,” he drawled. “What should be done with a son who steals another man’s property, runs out on a legal marriage contract, and brings disgrace to himself and his family?”

“
Father, I…I,” Thessalina stammered, for once at a loss for words.

The roots loosened their hold, and Magnes took a step forward. “Father, please just listen to…”

“
Shut your mouth!”
roared the duke, launching himself from his chair with such violence that it flipped over backward. Lady Taceo screamed in panic and plopped to the floor as her husband, letting out a startled yelp, threw himself sideways to avoid Duke Teodorus’s flying wine goblet.

The duke rounded the table and advanced on Magnes like an enraged bear. Magnes stood his ground, and braced himself.  Radiating white-hot fury, the duke halted before Magnes and raised his fist. Unflinchingly, Magnes held his breath and waited for the blow that would surely knock him senseless. He prayed that, when he awoke, his father would be calm enough to listen.

He was vaguely aware of panicky voices raised in alarm, but they did not matter. His entire focus had centered, with the crystal clarity that comes with extreme danger, upon one point. He saw—really
saw—
for the first time, the sheer size of his father’s hand—the back of it crisscrossed by an intricate roping of veins, the whitened knuckles dusted with coarse, black hair. The heavy gold signet ring the duke wore on his middle finger would surely leave an interesting mark.

The blow never came.

Slowly, Duke Teodorus lowered his hand. Thessalina stood behind him, gripping his shoulder.

Magnes started breathing again.

A muscle in the duke’s jaw twitched, like a little worm jumping under the skin. “We will speak tomorrow. You will tell me
everything
. Now go!” he growled. Magnes looked beyond his father to Thessalina, whose eyes implored him to obey.

He turned and fled through the door out into the night, feeling like a coward. He should have somehow made his father listen. Instead, he had tucked his tail in and had slunk away like a whipped dog.

Slowly, he walked back to the keep. The vacant hearth caused his gut to clench as he crossed the ground floor chamber and made his way upstairs to his apartments. Pain rapidly filled the hollow space that had opened up in his heart.

Snagging a small lamp out of its niche in the wall beside the door to his rooms, he entered and made his way over to the fireplace, where he lit two larger lamps. Slowly, his eyes wandered over the familiar space.

A fine layer of dust coated the mantle. The chamber had a forlorn, abandoned quality to it, as if its occupant had had to vacate in haste, leaving almost everything behind, which, in fact, was what had happened. He sat down at his writing table and trailed a finger through the dust on its surface.

The gurgling pangs in his stomach reminded him that he had eaten nothing since morning. He thought about going down to the kitchen, then decided against it. He could not face anyone else tonight, not even the servants.

Weariness descended on him with the swiftness of a dark winter fog. His arms and legs felt weighted down with rocks as he struggled toward the bedchamber. Somehow, he managed to dredge up enough energy to pull off his boots before he collapsed across the bed, fully clothed. He plunged into sleep before his head hit the coverlet.

~~~

Magnes awoke to the sounds of someone moving about in the outer chamber. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, yawning. He looked down at his rumpled clothing, then cautiously sniffed at his armpits and wrinkled his nose in distaste. He wondered, with wry amusement, what the fastidious and ever impeccably groomed Ashinji would make of him. No doubt his elven friend’s perfectly shaped nose would be offended, but he would be too polite to say so directly.

Magnes rolled off the bed and stumped out into the front room, startling the servant who had just finished laying out a meal.

“
Ai, gods! Ye nearly scared me out o’ me skin, m’lord,” the man exclaimed. The delightful aroma of fried bacon and fresh baked bread filled the room. Magnes’s stomach rumbled fiercely. “Lady Thessalina told me t’ bring ye up sommat to eat,” the servant explained. “I hope yer hungry.”

“
I am ravenous! Thank you, Conrad,” Magnes replied. He sat down and began to eat, stopping only briefly to allow the servant to pour him a mug of hot cider.

“
Welcome home, sir,” Conrad said with affection. “We all missed ye.”

“
It’s good to be back,” Magnes answered around a mouthful of bread and apple butter.
I think. 

The servant departed with a promise to send a maid up later to clean and air out Magnes’s rooms. Taking a hunk of butter-slathered bread and his mug of cider with him, Magnes moved to sit in one of the sunny, eastward facing window enclosures. He pushed open the pane and drew in a deep breath. The smells of home were wonderfully intoxicating.

From his vantage point, he could look out over a part of the kitchen yard and observe the servants going about their chores. A familiar, stout figure sallied forth from the kitchen, wisps of gray hair straggling down around her ears from underneath her white cap—Claudia, on her way to the laundry. Magnes almost called out to her but then decided against it. He would wait to speak to her in private. She, of all people, deserved to know how Jelena fared.

Magnes licked the last crumbs of bread from his fingers and tossed off the rest of the cider in a single gulp. He ran his hand across the three day old stubble on his chin and grimaced. Now that he was back home, he would be able to shave with a proper razor. Elf males grew no beards, and so, back at Kerala, when he had requested a shaving kit, he had been met with blank stares. Ashinji had finally provided him with a small knife with which to do the job, but it just hadn’t been the same.

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the maid. Magnes opened the door to reveal a young woman in an apron, rags and broom in hand.

“
Mornin’, sir. Come to clean yer chambers, sir,” the maid said with a quick curtsy.

“
Um, yes. Well, there’s something I need before you can start, and that is a bath,” Magnes replied.

The maid looked puzzled. “A bath, sir?” she repeated. Magnes nodded.

“
But, it’s not ev’n a holiday, sir, leastways, not any I know of. Beggin’ yer pardon, sir.”

“
Yes, right you are, but nevertheless, I want and need a bath. As a matter of fact, from now on, I plan to bathe every day. What d’you think of that?” The maid shook her head, jaw hanging open in complete bewilderment. Magnes burst out laughing at the expression on the young woman’s face, convinced that she now believed that he had gone mad while away. “Go and tell Conrad that I need a tub, some hot water, and soap.” The maid gulped and nodded, then scurried off.

Some time later, after considerable effort on the part of Conrad and several other servants, Magnes sat in a laundry basin half full of tepid water, scrubbing three days worth of dirt from his body. He sincerely missed the bath house at Kerala, with its deep soaking tub full of hot, herb-scented water. The harsh laundry soap he had to make do with stung and reddened his skin, and even after he had dumped two pitchers of clean water over his head, he still felt a little grimy.

After finishing his less than satisfactory wash, he dressed in clean clothes and left his chambers to the servants. He could delay no longer.

The time had come to face his father.

The Price Of Love

Magnes found the duke in the exercise paddock behind the stables, hacking around the circular enclosure on a magnificent gray stallion. He leaned on the wooden railing and watched with silent admiration the skill and artistry of his father’s horsemanship.

“
Lord Magnes! Yer back!” a familiar, high-pitched voice shouted.

Dari, the young ginger-haired groom skidded to a stop a few paces from Magnes, freckled face alight with excitement. Magnes blinked, doubting the accuracy of his eyes. It seemed to him as if Dari had grown several inches over the last two months.

“
How’d you get so big so fast, Dari? I haven’t been gone that long, have I?”

“
Aye, long enough, sir. Dunno how it happens. I just wake up ev’ry mornin’ an’ I’m bigger.” 

Magnes smiled, touched by the boy’s simple cheerfulness. “The stallion my father is riding…I’ve never seen him before.”

“
Oh, that’s his Grace’s new warhorse. Arrived just last week, all the way from Kalu…Kalun…”

“
Kalundwe?” Magnes prompted.

“
Aye, that’s it! He’s a beauty, he is, sir. I’m not allowed near ‘im, though. None of us lads are, only Master Nolus and Lian. They look after ‘im.”

Magnes turned his attention back to the arena where horse and rider were executing a series of flying lead changes. Dari leaned on the railing beside him, totally spellbound. The stallion moved with effortless grace, powerful muscles sliding beneath shimmering hide like ripples on water. A pair of blackbirds, who just moments before had been squabbling atop a pile of dung, took flight and blew past the stallion’s nose, but the horse ignored them, so attuned was he to his rider. As the duke cantered past their position on the fence, the beast snorted, spattering Magnes and Dari with a spray of fine moisture.

Duke Teodorus cantered the stallion in ever tightening circles until he had the horse spinning on his haunches. He then brought the stallion to a complete stop, fully collected and ready to take off in any direction at the touch of a heel. The duke held him thus for several heartbeats, then released him. The horse visibly relaxed and stretched out his neck for a vigorous shake. His ears, which only a moment ago had stood erect with alertness, now flopped lazily.

The duke dismounted and led the horse toward the gate. Magnes slowly walked over to meet him. He lifted the latch and held the gate open as his father and the stallion passed through, then followed behind as Duke Teodorus led his new mount back into the stables.

Lian, the head groom under Master Nolus, waited at the stable entrance to take the stallion from the duke, who handed over the reins with a word of thanks. Dari scurried past with a quick wave to Magnes and disappeared into the dim interior of the barn.

“
How was he today, your Grace?” Lian asked as he slipped a halter over the stallion’s head. The big horse whickered softly.

“
He’s settled down nicely,” the duke replied. “He’s a little stiff on the left hand, but that’ll soon sort itself out. The important thing is that he’s got a cool head. He listens well, unlike a lot of stallions. That’s vital in the heat of battle. He’ll not panic and bolt. I think I’ll start him on some sparring exercises next week.”

“
He’s magnificent, Father. He must have cost a small fortune,” Magnes said, taking care to keep his voice neutral.  The duke stared coldly at his son for a heartbeat, then began walking briskly back towards the keep.

Magnes took a deep breath and fell in beside him. “Father, I…” he began, but Teodorus cut him off.

“
Be quiet, boy.” Magnes gulped and shut his mouth. Father and son walked on in chilly silence. Magnes shot a quick glance at the duke’s face but saw only stony impassivity. They crossed the yard quickly and entered the keep. As Magnes followed his father up the stairs to the second floor, he felt like an errant child about to receive a whipping for an especially heinous act of disobedience, which, in a way, was accurate.