Of necessity, Rap’s temporary residence in the garret above the stable became his permanent abode. He moved his scanty possessions in and squandered most of his savings on buying a bed and was miserably content. He ate in the castle commons, but he did not sit at the drivers' table.
His work for Foronod might lack the romance of being a man-at-arms but it was a challenge; it implied that he was trusted. The factor was a hard master—demanding, saturnine, and slow to praise—yet he was fair. Rap respected him, did his best, and strove to be worthy.
The blizzards came more frequently, the days dwindled. Wagons rolled no more, even within the town itself. Yet Krasnegar had been built for its climate and pedestrians could travel by covered alleys and staircases. A man could walk from castle to deserted harbor without more than a half-dozen brief dashes out of doors. Peat fires glowed. The business of life continued safely below the storms, and pleasures continued, also. There was food in plenty and drink and companionship; singing and dancing; talk and fellowship and romance—but not for Rap.
He was not completely without friends. He did have one, a sophisticated man of the Impire, for whom the supernatural held no terrors; a man without visible occupation to fill his hours and yet of apparently unlimited financial resources—well spoken, much traveled, sympathetic, and even proficient in the use of swords.
“Fencing?” he said. “Well, I’m no expert, my friend, and I would not venture to draw at the imperor’s court, where any young squire may turn out to be a swordsman of prowess, but I am probably as competent as any of the wood-chopping rustics I have noted here in the castle guard. So if you want a lesson or two, lad, I shall be most happy to oblige.”
Rap said, “Thank you very much, Andor.”
Krasnegar had never before met anyone like Andor. He was young, yet as poised as a prince. A gentleman and apparently wealthy, he mingled freely with both the lowly and the high. He was as handsome as a young God, yet seemed unaware of the fact. One day he could be found wrapped in filthy furs in the common saloons, trading vulgar ribaldry with sailors; the next he would be seen in satin and silk, holding respectable matrons spellbound at an elegant soiree; or with Kondoral, laughing heartily at the old seneschal’s interminable, threadbare monologues. The very candles seemed to burn more brightly near Andor.
It was rumored that the king disapproved of him, and certainly he was never seen in the king’s company, not even at the weekly feast for the palace staff, over which the king presided. As the days shortened, however, his Majesty stopped appearing at those functions, and then Andor began to attend—sometimes sitting at the high table with Kondoral and Foronod and the other dignitaries, sometimes squashed in with the servants near the squeaking spits of the fireplace, his arm around a wench.
His success with women became an instant legend; it verged on the uncanny. Resentment was inevitable and he was an imp—some jotunn would have to educate the intruder. Very soon after his arrival, while Rap was still on the mainland following Foronod, one tried.
It happened in a bar near the docks, and the details were never very clearly established. The volunteer enforcer was an enormous and ill-reputed fisherman named Kranderbad, who tersely invited the stranger outside. Reportedly Andor first attempted to talk his way out of the challenge, then yielded with reluctance. The imps in the group sighed unhappily, the jotnar grinned and waited eagerly for Kranderbad’s return. But it was Andor who returned, and very soon. It was said that he had no bruises on his knuckles or sweat on his brow, and apparently none of the blood on his boots was his. Kranderbad was not seen in public for many weeks thereafter, and the extent of his injuries impressed even that rough frontier company.
Another attempt occurred a few days later and now the challenger had a friend waiting outside to help. Both joined Kranderbad in the infirmary, and one of them never walked again.
That one had a brother who was a barber, and the same evening he was overheard vowing vengeance. Before morning he was found in an alley without his razor, his tongue, or his eyelids, and thereafter Andor was left in peace to woo whom he pleased.
He established lodgings at the home of a wealthy widow. Her friends censured but were too intrigued to ostracize. They whispered among themselves that she seemed to have shed ten years.
Soon he knew everyone and everyone knew him. With very few exceptions, men found him irresistible and were pleased to call him friend. What women called him was less easily established, but none seemed to bear grudges, as they would have done if they had felt jilted or cheated. He was discreet—no match or marriage failed because of Andor.
He showed Foronod a better system of bookkeeping. He gave Thosolin’s men-at-arms tips on fencing and he advised Chancellor Yaltauri on current politics in the Impire. He could dance superbly and play the lute well by local standards. He had a passable singing voice and a bottomless store of stories, from the literary to the scatological.
Krasnegar fell at his feet.
Yet even Andor could not be in more than one place at a time, and he spread himself thinly. He rejected any efforts by his admirers to become followers, for the young men of the town would have flocked along behind him like baby ducklings had he given them the chance. He roamed Krasnegar from palace to docks, and none of the hundreds who called him friend could claim to know him well or see him often… with one exception.
Why a sophisticated man of the world, a wealthy gentleman, should be interested at all in a solitary, awkward adolescent—a minor flunky lacking grace, family, and education— was a major mystery. But for Rap, it seemed, Andor had unlimited time.
FIVE
Demon lover
Thousand friends
1
In the whole of the Northwest Sector of Julgistro Province, there was no grander social event than the Kinvale Ball. There were many balls at Kinvale during the season, but the Kinvale Ball was the one held each year just two nights before Winterfest. It alone supported half the costume and jewelry trades of the region. Being added to the guest list had been known to induce bankruptcy among the lesser nobility. Being dropped from it was generally regarded as justifiable cause for suicide.
Thousands of candles sparkled amid the crystal droplets of the chandeliers. Hundreds of guests danced in a whirl of opalescent finery—silks and gemstones, satins and lace, color like shredded rainbows. The wine, the food, and the music were unmatched anywhere in the Impire. Amid the dark and cold of midwinter there was gaiety and happiness, laughter and light.
Ekka, the dowager duchess of Kinvale, was long since past indulging in dancing herself. She walked now with a cane and as little as possible, but the Winterfest ball was a Kinvale institution that she guarded and cherished. She had probably attended seventy of them herself—she could not remember how old she had been when she saw her first—and she would let nothing diminish the tradition. She could not improve on the pattern, for as far back as she could remember no expense or ostentation had been spared to make the ball as grand and enjoyable as possible, and she took care that it never dwindled by as much as a fly’s eyelash. Every year she watched the youngsters swirl past in their quadrilles and gavottes, and she was remorseless in her intent that they would enjoy themselves as much as she had done in her faraway youth.