I visualized him in the laboratories and workshops of the Sanctuary. I doubted if he would be shocked and confused as I had been when I first saw them. I could imagine him putting questions to Murphy and deeply pondering the replies. There would be no opposition from the dwarfs if the Seers declared the Spirits wanted machines built again. Although lacking the imagination to seek such a thing they would accept it readily enough. But of course what dwarfs thought was unimportant.
Changing the subject, I asked him about his family. He had three sons, two fully grown and skilled metalworkers, though not in armory. The third, much younger than the others, was called Hans and I knew Rudi had hopes that he would follow him—perhaps one day be Master Armorer in his turn.
I spoke of this and Rudi shook his head.
“He does not choose it.”
“I am sorry to hear that. But what would he do instead?”
There was a pause before Rudi said: “He has always been a strange one, and the strangeness has grown. Do you remember once you asked me if I would have wished to be a warrior?”
I remembered it: a cold winter’s morning much like this, with the Contest only a few days off. I said:
“You reminded me that you were Master Armorer. It was a foolish question.”
“Not foolish. Even a dwarf does not smile all day long or every day; and even a dwarf can have vain dreams. But it is true that in the main I am content. If you asked the question of my son, though, there would be a different answer.”
“But he knows such a thing is impossible.”
“True. It does not stop him watching the soldiers with an envious heart. And he will not settle to a trade.”
“He may do so in time.”
“I hope so. He is almost your age.” He hesitated. “Captain, may I ask a favor of you?”
“Any I can grant. I cannot make a warrior of him.”
“I know that. But you will ride out with the army next summer?”
“If the Spirits will.”
“The army takes no polymufs with it even as servants. But once or twice dwarfs have gone, as part of the baggage train. If this could be permitted for Hans . . .”
“You think a campaign might cool the fever in his blood?”
“It is possible. And if not, it would make him happy. Or happier, at least. He is my youngest.”
“I will see to it, Rudi.”
“I am grateful, Captain. I would put my thanks into the making of a sword for you, but it seems you have had the help of greater skills than mine.”
“If this sword breaks I will come to you for my next.”
He watched as I slid the blade back into its sheath.
“If it breaks I doubt if you will need another. But I do not think it will break.”
• • •
I paid my respects to Edmund’s mother, she who had been Lady to Prince Stephen, in her new house. Her elder son, Charles, had won booty from the campaign against Petersfield, and had shared with the other Captains in the ransom money paid by Romsey for its army and its dead Prince’s son. These things had enabled him to take her from the tiny house in Salt Street and put her in a place more fitting to her rank.
It was still not large, smaller than my home before we moved to the palace, but she was not a woman who cared for show. She had no great wit and it was clear she had never had beauty, but her two sons and Jenny, her daughter, loved her dearly. She did not often rebuke them but when she did the rebuke was heeded. She greeted me warmly, embracing me. Jenny said:
“You must show him more respect, Mother, now that he is a Captain.”
Her voice had an edge of mockery which was familiar to me and could still unsettle me. She was a little less thin in the face, I thought, a little more womanly in figure. She was more than a year my senior. I said, trying to match her banter:
“It is not she but you who should show respect.”
She dropped a curtsy to me. “I beg your pardon, sire. And if you could find time to school me in manners, I would promise to pay close attention.”
“Leave him alone, Jenny,” her mother said. “He is not back two seconds before you are provoking him again. And last summer when he was not here we had mopings and gloom and constant wonderings about where Luke was, and was all well with him.”
To my surprise she blushed while making her outraged denials. I was as embarrassed, if not more so, and hastened to find a different topic. I talked of the peddler, as the whole city was doing, and of the supposed wonders of Klan Gothlen in the land of the Wilsh. It was public news now that Peter was sending an embassy there and had hired the peddler to go with them and be their guide and herald.
Edmund’s mother said: “I suppose there is a reason for it, but I cannot see what. Our own land and city are good enough, I would think, without going to look for others. But men are restless creatures.”
Jenny said: “I would go. Gladly!”
“Go where?” her mother asked.
“To the peddler’s city, if I could.”
“It is a day of wonders,” I said. “A dwarf who would be a warrior, and a girl who wants to go hunting for strange cities.”
“And Luke,” she said, “who never changes—being neither dwarf nor girl but a Captain of the army. Being strong and brave and wise and without the tiniest bit of imagination. Lucky Luke.”
• • •
We sat, Peter and I, with Ann in her parlor. This was not the room my mother had used but another. It had much less of ornament and frippery and the pictures on the walls were all to do with her religion. One showed this god of theirs, a thin, melancholy man with a golden saucer behind his head, blessing his followers; while in another his body hung twisted on a wooden cross. They were a gloomy lot altogether, these Christians, and I thought it strange that Ann herself should be so warm a person.
We talked like any family group of family matters. Peter spoke of the child that was to be born. He was full of plans for him—he was certain it would be a boy—and talked almost as though he were already with us. Ann and he wrangled, though gently, about his rearing. To Peter, of course, it was necessary, indeed inevitable, that he should be trained as a warrior. Ann did not quite oppose this—how could she?—but made it plain that she would have her say in all things she thought important: which comprehended much.
I wondered what he would be like, this unborn nephew of mine. Divided between his father’s demands of strictness, the iron rule a Prince must impose upon his son, and his mother’s loving gentleness, would he grow into a weak vacillating man, feeble and indulgent and vicious like James of Romsey? But perhaps—and I thought it more likely—it would be their strengths, united in their love for each other, which would mold him, not their weaknesses: so making him a warrior strong yet noble-hearted, a worthy Prince to succeed a Prince.
Ann looked at the clock on the wall, dangling heavy weights, its massive wooden carapace carved with a representation of a boar hunt in which the boar at bay had tiny gleaming tusks of ivory. She said:
“I must leave you. My bath will be prepared.”
Peter said, teasing her: “I have never known such a one for baths. Every day and sometimes twice a day.”
“It is a weakness,” she said. “I could do without fine clothes, rich food, the trappings of the court, if you were to discard me, but I should miss my baths. I confess my sin of indulgence to the priest, but I cannot break myself of it.”
“Go quickly, then,” Peter said. “Take this bath, that may be your last if I decide in the morning to put you away, and take a new wife who does not make such demands on the palace stoves.”
They smiled and kissed and she left us. He and I talked, as easily but on different matters. There was the question of how the troop would get through the pass across the Burning Lands. The peddler had this cloth which protected against the heat; but there was not enough for one other man and a horse, let alone a score. I had talked about it with Edmund and Martin, and Martin had suggested something. The dwarfs could make boots for the horses, as the peddler had done, and in place of the magic cloth contrive a means of trickling water down over them from a skin fixed on the saddle bow. This would serve to keep them cool.