The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (42 page)

“Do you really think
I’m good at fishing?” she asked quietly.

Ian looked at her.
“Yes.” There was an urging, another question in hers that lingered in the air, full of risk, but—

“And,” he said slowly, looking at her eyes to show his sincerity, “I do think your father should
be very proud.” He thought, wanted to add that he believed that her father really was proud of her, because he did believe that. He thought that all fathers must be proud of their children, but he didn’t know if the margrave was for certain.

“Oh,” she said, not sounding altogether affected.

He felt himself floundering between the urge to keep saying something and not having anything to say.

“I’m sure your whole family is,” Ian said.
“Everyone has their own interests, um, and your father’s is of course the same type.” He found himself pressing on as her non-reaction continued. “It seems unusual that very many people, much less noble daughters, are talented about such things. I’m sure he appreciates that you’re so talented—with, um, this.”

Ian paused. “And of course he loves you, so … I think it is something you should be proud of.”

She watched his eyes for a long time, her expression not closed, but not revealing anything either. He stared back. There were all sorts of timid celebrations in his breathing, his heartbeats, because he knew he had said the right thing, the true thing. He had managed to tell her the right thing, and he liked how it made him feel. He actually liked it a lot.

Then Maddy’s
demeanor suddenly changed, withdrawing, but not in an unpleasant way.

“How many planets have you been to, private?” she asked, her scrutiny finished.

He laughed a little, feeling the pleasant tension dissipate, the moment finished. “Only two, including this one.”

“Oh,”
Maddy said. “Perhaps we should head back to camp—what planets do you want to see?”

Ian looked her at her. “Everything
I haven’t seen before.”

Maddy grinned. “
I’ve been to nine planets, and two of them aren’t Bevish or Dervish either.”

“Really?”
Ian obliged, smiling as he followed her back onto the path. The betterment in her mood of course couldn’t all be attributed to him, but it was nice that some of it could.

“Yes,” Maddy said, “I visited
Thesla last winter. We saw the Parthenon and the elder senate seats and everything. It was amazing, and when I was a little girl I traveled with my parents to Masomalore. We got to see the ancient constructs and even got to go into the catacombs. Did you know that they’re the oldest known, intelligently created structures?”

“I’ve heard that,” Ian said, “I’ve hoped to see them someday.”

“Well, you should,” Maddy said looking down at her feet, “I think that everyone should at least once—Would you like to see my grey wyverns sometime as well? They’re really friendly and great to watch.”

Ian looked
at her, but she wasn’t looking up from the ground. “Yes, of course. I would like that.”

“Great,” she said, “they’re already asleep
by now, but tomorrow I’ll show them to you. Have you ever been anywhere special on the two planets you’ve visited, Private Kanters? Oh wait—you were with the others when you visited Lord Beaumont, weren’t you? Can you tell me all about it? Elizabeth told me some things, but she got tired of it and won’t say anything more. What kind of people were there? Did they really have as many fountains as the other men say?”

Ian smiled and then tried his best to describe it, though he knew the subject wasn’t either of their favorites. But
he found that didn’t seem to matter.

And so that was what it was.

*
              *              *              *

“Hey, up now, boy,” Maddy said as she patted at the darker of her two wyverns, “hup hup, Cuppy. Get ready, Private Kanters, Hitchie is much more outgoing.”

Hitchie was indeed already in the process of curiously approaching Ian.

“Hello, girl—” Ian started to say before the wyvern pressed into him with her snout and began nuzzling in between his arm and his side. He laughed, trying to pat at her head. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“She’s always been more social,” Maddy was saying, still pressing at the other wyvern,
which had progressed to half-sitting up on its side. “They’re from the same litter and will be three years old this winter. Aren’t you, boy?”

“They’re much larger up close than I would have
thought,” Ian said. He had fallen into a kind of wrestling match with Hitchie. Not really knowing how hard to respond, he let Hitchie push him down to one knee, where the wyvern rested her head and he rubbed at her craggy top before shifting his focus to the bottom of her head, which he found to be surprisingly soft. Hitchie’s appreciative sounds grew louder.

“Come on,” Maddy said as she succeeded in rousing Cuppie up to stand on his hind legs.

“So how did you decide on their names?” Ian asked as he fell into a steady routine with Hitchie sighing on his knee. “Are they named after something in particular?”

“Oh,” Maddy said stiffly, not looking at him, “no—not really. I just liked the names.”

Ian grinned. Mathematically, he calculated that she probably would have been about thirteen when they had been born. That was plenty young enough to have given them names that were a little embarrassing now.

“Are those the
—” Ian said, trying to rise, but he found his attempt decisively restrained. “Does it really feel that good, Hitchie? I can’t do this all evening.”

Maddy was smiling as she walked over to them. “It’s too late
now, she’s going to love you forever.”

“I hope not,” Ian laughed, “this might tend to interfere with my duties.”

“Come on, girl,” Maddy urged, touching the back of Hitchie’s head in a particular way, “that’s enough for now.”

“Are they very rare?”
Ian asked. “I mean where they’re from?”

“They’re a little rare now
in Ques. That’s where they first came from,” Maddy answered, absently running her hand around the brow that ran above Hitchie’s eyes, causing them to roll and close in contentment. “There aren’t many left in the wild. Most of them are raised on ranches by special handlers. Some people say that grey wyverns that are born in the wild and then are broken are better than the ones raised by people. But I think that’s just a lot of elitistism. These two were bred from some of the best parents, and those were born on ranches, too.”

Ian watched as she talked and touched at her wyvern’s head. Her topic went on for some great lengths
and time and found boundless longevity in the way it seamlessly merged into new subjects. Ian tried to be annoyed by this, or at least tired, or at least to be hopefully smug in his prediction of the inevitability of such things. It was some surprise when he found he wasn’t any of those things, and found contentment—at least a little, he determined as he analyzed it—in listening to her range over words and ideas. Surely it wasn’t nearly as much fun as the sort of contentment Hitchie was experiencing beneath the gentle touches of her hand, but in it, Ian felt, it was of a similar order.

And that was it. Or rather that was one more thing that Maddy had that Elizabeth didn’t.
A glow, a warm vigor for … things? Ideas? Interaction—life.

Well,
that was at least in the select circles and circumstances Ian had seen them both in, which he admitted weren’t all that large. But he was sure that some significant difference did exist between them in this, and as Ian thought about it more, watching her lips move from one thought to another, seeing her eyes concentrating, but not really looking at anything other than what she was turning over in her mind, he discovered there was strength in that.

It was quite surprising
, as these moments were. It made people listen to her—that, coupled with that insistent tone she employed. It made people listen and form opinions. Most of them, as he had heard, were negative, but they didn’t necessarily have to be.

There was some strength in that, Ian thought again and again, almost excitedly as he watched her hair softly cradling her. It really was a beautiful scarlet, Ian thought. He had known some girls with red hair, and it didn’t always work to the most efficient sense. Most of the
others he’d seen ended up as not entirely interesting hues. But hers was; he thought to give her that. It wasn’t as classically elegant as Elizabeth’s, and not managed as well, but it was more interesting.

“Hey, are you listening?” Maddy cut in.

“Of course I am,” Ian protested, trying to snap his peripheral short-term memory around to grasp at the last subject she had just left.

“You don’t talk very much,” Maddy said, frowning.

“I don’t interrupt very much,” Ian said. “And I talk plenty enough when I have more interesting things to say than the other person.”

Maddy’s expression changed for the much better. “You’re not as funny a
s Private Brodie, but you are very funny.”

“Um,” Ian said, thinking fairly hotly that he was just as funny, or even funnier than
Brodie—he just didn’t waste most of his life in devotion to it, “… thank you.”

Maddy closed her mouth and didn’t say anything.
Ian thought that strange and wondered how much she was acting differently now because of him.

”Anyway,” Ian said, nodding over at the assortment of supplies
lying in a pile on the ground, “I was going to ask whether those are the saddles that you ride them with.”

“Yes, you should see them,” Maddy skipped over to one of the saddles, “they’re a special gift from my father. Normal wyvern saddles aren’t that expensive, but these were handcrafted in
Ques. They make the best handling and riding gear since that’s where the grey wyverns were from first. You see?” She knelt beside one of the rosy-leathered saddles and pulled at the seat, which smoothly pivoted on what looked like a complex mechanism. “This is a really advanced set since it allows you to stand almost all the way up, even when you’re flying straight up into the air.”

Ian looked at her. “Does that happen a lot?”

“All the time,” Maddy said, standing up. “It’s sort of scary when you’re first learning, but good fliers get used to it really fast. It only took me a couple of weeks to get good at it, though I had one of the best trainers to teach me. Would you want to learn how to, Private Kanters?”

Ian
glanced back toward the rest of camp where he could detect no visible sign that they had noticed his absence. “If we were going to be with your family longer I would like to,” he said. “But I doubt there would be enough time.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Maddy said. “It took me at least a week to learn all of the basics, so I suppose it would be
a couple for you, and probably longer than three if you could only practice in the evenings—”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t take that long,” Ian spoke up, feeling, holding, and then trying to suppress all the defensive impressions that quickly rose to the surface. She had plenty
of game, and gall, and whatever else. Bluntly implying that he wouldn’t be able to learn as fast as—

It doesn’t matter—
“But it doesn’t matter. Watching you would be … fine.”

“—Milady,” he quickly remembered to add.

“Really?” Maddy grinned.

“But not tonight?”
Ian asked, judging that by her tone.

“No,” Maddy said, checking the sun, “I’ll need to have some more time to get ready. Even with two servants it takes so long to get everything
done. Ugh, that’s the only bad thing about flying. And we would have to save enough time for taking it off, it’s so terrible to take it off in the dark.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”
Ian asked.

“Yes,” Maddy said, but her smile was checked a little as she thought. “Well—no, I
better say maybe. Father said he wants my wyverns to be kept on the ground if anything happens with the hunting. So hopefully you men don’t find anything tomorrow.”

“I’ll be sure not to tell him you said
that, milady.”

She looked at him. Then smiled, then thought to think better of it, but still sort of smiled, as though she wasn’t sure how to take him. But she didn’t say anything.

“Well,” Ian cleared his throat, “I very much appreciate you allowing me to—to see—” he said that as Hitchie was in the midst of nudging her head up into his face, “to see your wyverns. They’re really remarkable.”

“I don’t think I’d want anything else,” Maddy said. “If I could only choose one thing that I could take with me somewhere, I’d
take them.”

“I’m not sure I would entirely agree,
milady,” Ian said, thinking about what Maddy might be like if she was apart from people for a long time. “I think you’d get lonely, even with them.”

“Eventually,” Maddy conceded, “but sometimes it’s nice to be alone for a while. Don’t you think so?”

Ian didn’t immediately answer, looking off over the plains and scattered villages of trees. “Yes. Especially in a place like this. It’s wonderful here.”